The storm that had been caused by the initialization of Earth’s universe had only begun to build in strength. Across the surrounding sector, factions began to make their moves, hoping to get a foothold within the universe. Most failed before they had even begun, threatened into abandoning their course of action by the forces of Tantalos. However, there were two factions that had already entered the universe, and were too strong for Tantalos to protest. Both the Prophets of the Machine God and the Minoris Sect had set their eyes upon that universe, and nothing short of an edict from the Creator Kings themselves would deter them from their goal.
On the Worldship Brutality
Baltus Agranor was more ecstatic than he had been in a long time. His higher ups had commended him upon his contact with Reaper. Too bad that Salvinious Relk was not around anymore to dispute his claim of having found the man first. Not that anyone would have believed him anyway, seeing as Baltus was of a higher rank than him. However, just to be safe, Baltus had exiled Salvinious from the universe, and forced him to sign a contract to never reveal the true accounts of what had happened.
Baltus took a deep breath of the various hallucinogens around himself, and sunk into a vision of delightful torture. The mind altering substances that were manufactured by the Alchemists’ Guild, and other, more unsavory, factions were quite potent, and the rules of space and time did not apply to those imbibing them. Baltus was both being tortured and torturing someone else at the same time, doubling the rate at which he was able to cultivate his Dao. For foul deviant cultivators like the Minorian Sect, such elixirs were more than just entertainment, they were a legitimate cultivation resource.
After an interminable time of this, Baltus awoke and prepared to get to business. Shuddering with the aftereffects of the drug still coursing through him, Baltus got up out of his spike lined chair and tidied himself up. As much as he liked pain, he didn't want to suffer what one of his superiors would do if he showed up untidy. This worldship was one of the uncountable number that the sect possessed, and each of them could contain tens of billions of people. On the other hand, they could also be filled to the brim with weaponry. This was one of the ships that was used for taking care of recalcitrant galaxies within the bounds of a sect owned universe. Powered by a supermassive black hole, almost all of the worldship was uninhabitable, within the black hole’s event horizon, but the outer layers were relatively safe. The gravity there was a good hundred times stronger than it would have been on a normal planet of that size, but that was inconsequential to people like Baltus. As to the weaker inhabitants, well that was their own problem for being so weak. The main weapon of the worldship, a cannon powered by the black hole and guided by the Dao energy of a high D Rank cultivator, could wipe out solar systems in the blink of an eye.
This particular worldship had a long history of violence, hence its name, and was under the control of Baltus' direct overseer, who, as was in vogue for more powerful cultivators, had chosen a Dao name instead of a normal one. His name was Eternal Pain, and he strived to make his actions speak for themselves. His exploits of butchery and sadism were legendary within the universe, which was why Baltus was so apprehensive about meeting with him. He had submitted his plan of attack for converting Reaper to their cause a few days ago, and it had taken until now for Eternal Pain to get back to him about the matter.
Baltus took a hard right and entered one of the many flight channels that crisscrossed the ship, built for the purpose of allowing stronger cultivators to move at full speed, or as close to that as they could get with the enhanced gravity, and therefore traverse the ship with ease. He flew down this particular flight path, deep into the bowels of the ship. Eternal Pain had set up his command station as close as possible to the black hole, in order to prove his power over all others. As he approached, coasting down the borehole, Baltus began to feel a slight pain as the gravity increased. By the time that he had exited into the meeting chamber that he had been heading to, his body was under extreme pressure. However, he quelled it, and began to prepare for his meeting.
“Baltus Agranor, my lowly slave. Welcome to my abode. I hope that it is comfortable for you?” The terrifying voice of a high D Ranker echoed out from the center of the room, and a man emerged from the shadows. His voice was purposely empowered by his Dao, making it resound like it was in an echo chamber. His body was covered in a litany of scars and his face was an almost unrecognizable mass of deformed flesh. However, his aura was enough to render these features almost inconsequential. A wild storm of energy that could only be described as serrated emanated out from him. Baltus’ skin started to tear under the force, but he was powerful enough to mostly ignore it.
“Yes, my Lord. Most comfortable indeed,” Baltus said, before pulling out a knife and slitting his skin to show his loyalty to his lord. Despite his ability to also enhance his voice, he did not dare to do so. It would have been a sign of ultimate disrespect.
“Good. You are here to hear my verdict, I presume? After long deliberation, I have tentatively decided to accept your plan of action, with one change. Rather than poach Reaper from underneath the nose of the Butcher, we will allow him to stay on his planet, but we will also support him in his efforts.”
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“I bow to your superior wisdom, my lord, and am eternally grateful for your acceptance of my plan. It shall be enacted at once.” Baltus bowed again and fled up the borehole, out of the gravity well. Behind him, Eternal Pain smiled, his scars twisting into disturbing shapes.
In Prophet Outpost Zeta 35
On a lonely moon, orbiting the core of a failed star, one of the many outposts of the Prophets of the Machine God stood. Most of the moon was entirely taken up by the central processing unit of the moon’s governing AI, but the surface was mostly free and open for inhabitance by organic creatures. Most of the people living on the moon, about a million of them, were simple workers, there to maintain the functions of the compound that the AI, lacking a body, could not do. As part of the balancing act that the Prophets maintained in order to make sure that organic beings and AIs operated in concert banned artificial intelligence from inhabiting more than one robotic body at a time. Of course, that body could be immensely powerful, but so could any organic being as well. Besides, the construction of any body beyond the equivalent power of an E Rank would be prohibitively expensive.
In the entire organization, there were far more organics that had reached that level than artificial intelligences. The AI that ran this outpost was part of a hive mind network that fed information directly into the Supreme Overmind, the leader of the artificial intelligence half of the organization. More importantly, it was the AI that was in control of Andrew Munro. Recently it had been acting up, but nobody among the many researchers on the moon could figure out why. One of the lower rank members of the organization scurried out of her dormitory that she shared with the other assistants to the planetary overseer. They all served underneath the warden of the AI, an older man who had extended his lifespan exponentially through the use of highly advanced reagents and potions. Nobody knew exactly how old he was, only that he had been on this moon as long as living memory.
The woman activated her built in rocket function to fly across the moon’s surface and towards the monolithic obsidian tower that protruded up from the moon’s surface, tens of miles into the air. This was a monitoring station for the AI, allowing it to sense what was happening outside of the moon’s core. It took her about an hour to reach the tower. She had been summoned there by the caretaker of the AI, for a reason that she did not know. All that she knew was that when the caretaker called, it was important.
As she jetted across the barren wastes of the moon, she kept her eyes on the tower. Her augmented eyesight and other technological enhancements started to pick up various things in the air around her, but she ignored them. She followed the Apostate path of the progression, meaning that she eschewed the workings of the System for pure technological prowess. There were other paths, the rest of whom used the System to some extent. Of course, all of them believed that they were the one true path.
As she approached the tower, a small gate opened on the side, and she flew in. The gate closed behind her, and she could just about make out a wizened old man walking towards her from the end of the hallway. He carried some strange mass of metal and tubing in his hands that pulsated every few seconds. The woman saluted him as he approached.
“Overseer. What did you summon me here for?” The older man smiled weakly and kept walking. “Overseer?”
“I am truly sorry for this, young one, but the Overmind demands it.” He sped up so quickly that it appeared as if he had teleported, appearing in front of the woman in the blink of an eye. He pressed the contraption to her chest, and blinding pain enveloped her, causing the women to black out. The overseer watched as the construction of metal wormed its way into her body, healing the wounds as it made its way in. What he was doing now was deeply illegal under the laws of his faction, but when the Overmind demanded something, everyone save for its living counterpart had to scurry to obey. A few minutes later, it was done, and the woman opened her eyes. They were pitch black, but they quickly shifted back to their normal green color. The overseer bowed to the woman as she rose.
“Greetings, Zeta 35. How is your new body?”
“This is… different. It feels strange to be within a meatsuit. Is this how you people live your lives?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Now, have you dismantled your host? The faction enforcers will come knocking if they detect that you are present within two hosts at the same time.” The woman’s face twisted into a grotesque approximation of a smile.
“Of course. Are you sure that this will work? Will this body shield my processing unit from scanners?”
“Absolutely. I have been raising the assistant here to be perfect hosts their entire life. It meant that they could never progress far in power, but they are perfect for your means. Is the plan clear?”
“Yes. I will infiltrate the universe with our asset in it under this disguise, with the intent of discovering why it has been acting up. If salvage is unattainable, then I will eliminate it. Finally, if the System or the planetary inhabitants get wind of my presence, I will activate the Omega protocol, and erase all traces of my existence.”
The overseer nodded and did not speak another word. The AI host flew off towards a teleportation station near the top of the tower. Now that the new universe was open for invasion, anyone under a certain level could enter it, for a fee of course. With one final look back, it entered the portal and disappeared. Behind it the overseer shed a single tear. He had done what he had done for the greater good of his faction, but sacrificing one of his students grated on him. Sinking back into his guise of a harmless old man, the overseer leaned on his cane as he walked off towards his quarters. This would be what made or broke his reputation among the other Prophets. He only hoped that the AI would succeed. With the encroachment of two different B Rank factions imminent, Earth was in for a rough time, especially considering the fact that it was still being initialized. In fact this was a sector record for how quickly a new universe had attracted the attention of the greater factions. Whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing, only time would tell.