Chapter 117 - Lightning Engine
Jack stared at the empty space in front of him, panting heavily. One second, he had Gideon on his backfoot, finally within his grasp, ready to rip the worthless dragon apart. The next, he was gone.
“Where did he go?” Jack screamed, looking around in a manic haze of rage and adrenaline. Silence was the only response. The U.F.E. soldiers that remained looked at him with a mixture of fear and confusion, unable to make sense of what had happened.
“Where is he?” Jack roared again. His heart was pounding in his head, his breathing was heavy. He couldn’t think straight.
He kept moving in a frenzied daze until he stepped in a pile of something. Ashes. Overwhelmed by grief, he dropped his daggers and fell to his knees.
One part of his brain was screaming at him that this wasn’t real, that he had gone crazy again. The other part was telling him it was his fault.
He was the one who let things escalate this far. He was the one who hadn’t taken a single thing seriously. He could have killed Gideon, Rodeo, and everyone else a long time ago.
What the fuck have I been doing this whole time? Jack thought as he clenched his teeth in frustration.
He scooped up a fistful full of ashes. His brain refused to believe this was what was left of Sarah. He felt hot tears run down his face as his mind raced for a solution. A way out. If ever there was a time for stupid magic Tower bullshit, this was it.
“Can’t say I saw any of that coming,” came a rough voice tinged with a chuckle.
Rodeo’s voice grated on Jack's ears, and he felt something snap deep inside of him. He felt every limit he possessed being stretched to its limits, but at the sound of Rodeo’s hateful glee, something deep inside simply broke.
The reality of the situation came crashing back to him in an instant. The ashes in his hand. Sarah’s surprised expression. Gideon’s betrayal. Hannah, battered and bruised cradling an unresponsive Sam, angry tears running down her face as she refused help from several healers insisting they help Sam instead.
Then there was Rodeo. He still stood towering over Hannah and Sam, an amused look in his eyes as he stared at Jack.
Jack couldn’t bear to meet his gaze, his eyes falling back to the ash.
What do you want, Jack? He could hear her voice perfectly.
“I don’t know,” Jack mumbled to himself.
That wasn’t true though. He knew what he wanted. Whatever small rational part of his brain still existed knew what needed to be done.
What do you want, Jack? Sarah’s voice was louder in his head this time.
“I want to kill Rodeo.”
“And…?” Sarah’s voice urged.
“I want to hunt down Gideon. I want to make him pay for what he’s done. I want to destroy everything he cares about.” Jack growled, gritting his teeth in fury as thoughts of the dragon came back to him.
Even that answer rang hollow in his ears. Gideon would die, of that he was sure, but it wouldn’t bring him closure. It wouldn’t fill the hole in his soul.
Jack trembled with fury, and he struggled to control his breathing as it became heavy and erratic. He gripped his fists so tightly that his nails cut into his hands and blood began to trickle down from his palms, his teeth cracked through his clenched jaw. Sadness and rage rampaged free from his shattered heart.
“What do you want, Jack?” Sarah kneeled before him, a knowing smile on her face.
Jack slowly looked up to meet her gaze. He knew his mind had broken all over again. He knew she wasn’t real. He felt his mouth curve into a dangerous smile as the madness of what he wanted creeped into his mind. What he really wanted.
Sarah stared back at him, an expectant look on her face. Jack looked upwards again, towards whoever the hell might be watching him and gave his answer.
“I want to destroy the Tower,” the words cut through reality like a knife, and Jack felt a sudden calm wash over him, as if he was standing underneath Sarah’s gentle rainfall. He looked back down to find the strength he knew would be in her eyes, the love, but she was gone.
Several of the soldiers were standing around Jack awkwardly. The erratic tempo of the battle that had raged furiously around them at lightning speed had come to a startling pause, and none of them seemed sure of what to do.
Jack, on the other hand, for the first time since coming to the Tower, knew exactly what he needed to do. He felt an odd serenity as he thought about what he wanted. It didn’t bring him any solace, but it did give him clarity. Something to focus on. A goal. A mission.
I want to destroy the Tower, he thought to himself, repeating it like a mantra in his head. It was a life raft in a sea of despair that he could cling to.
He glanced over at Rodeo, who still watched him expectantly.
“Why did you stop?” Jack asked. The words were simple, but his tone radiated a mixture of purpose and hatred. Rodeo looked confused, almost taken aback by the question.
“You want me to continue? You’re not going to throw one of your little tantrums to try and save the day? I’m honestly a little disappointed, Jackie-boy.” Rodeo started to chuckle to himself.
“No…” Jack felt listless as he stared back at the ceiling, searching for the Tower, or maybe the gods who controlled it. He didn’t know who he was looking at exactly, but he felt he had locked eyes with someone up there.
“I want you as strong as possible, Rodeo,” Jack finally stated as he continued to stare down his faceless audience.
“And why would you want that?” Rodeo asked, his voice filled with humor.
“Because I want the Tower to watch as I kill you at your strongest. I want the Tower to watch as I climb one floor after another, and destroy everything. I want it to watch as I leave nothing but a hopeless trail of destruction in my wake. And when I finally reach the heavens, I’ll destroy the gods themselves. But not before I make them dismantle the Tower brick by fucking brick.”
Jack took in a deep breath and leveled his gaze at Rodeo.
“I need you at your strongest Rodeo because I want the Tower to understand that nothing it can do, nothing it puts in my path, will be able to stop me. I’m going to bring a storm on this Tower unlike anything it has ever seen.”
A long silence hung in the air, broken only by something between a sob and a giggle. Jack looked down at Hannah who was gently stroking Sam’s head.
“You’re so fucked, Rodeo,” she quietly laughed, slowly pulling herself up off the ground, while the healers continued to furiously cast spells over Sam.
“Well,” Rodeo finally said, “if that’s what you want.” He shrugged and turned around, clearly unimpressed. “You heard the man, next up,” Rodeo commanded, pointing a finger at one of the U.F.E. soldiers.
Hannah walked over to Jack, her eyes a little puffy.
“How’s Sam?”
“We need to wrap this up, and fast. He’s hanging on by a thread. If we’re going to help him, we won’t be able to do it from here.”
They stood there awkwardly for a moment, watching someone else break their soul oath and Rodeo powering up again.
“How are you?” Hannah finally asked.
“Ask me again when we get the hell out of here,” Jack gave her a reassuring smirk.
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“You really weren’t talking out of your ass just now? I gotta admit, that was pretty dramatic. I didn’t know you knew so many big words,” she said with a small smile of her own.
Jack closed his eyes and tried to refocus his thoughts. He was glad Hannah was still here with him. She had been with him through thick and thin, and this was as thick it got… or is it thin right now? A broken part of Jack’s mind wondered. He honestly wasn’t sure. He did know she would help him through anything, no matter what the thickness levels were.
Jack took a deep breath and focused on the mission. His one singular goal. Destroy the Tower. To do that he needed to get the hell out of this dungeon and off the first floor. To do that he needed to kill Rodeo. He had threatened the Tower, and he always delivered on his threats.
Jack pushed aside every thought of Sarah. He clamped down on the rage that he felt towards Gideon. He pushed them somewhere deep and dark.
I want to destroy the Tower, he repeated to himself again.
Jack needed to be sharp. He needed to be focused. He needed to be disciplined. He didn’t have time to deal with anything else right now.
He glanced at his mana core and three drops of mana holding steady inside. It was nothing short of miraculous that he hadn’t used a single one yet. They would be his key to winning. He began to pull hard on the mana around him, and moments later the fourth mana drop he kept on the precipice of forming joined the other three.
He immediately felt the drops of mana strain his will as he struggled to bring them all under his control. He had barely mastered holding three and hadn’t practiced much, if at all, trying to hold four. He grit his teeth as his concentration deepened. This was supposed to be the easiest part, and if he couldn’t handle this much, he was royally fucked.
When he felt the four drops of mana begin to stabilize in his core only then did he breathe, sweat already pouring off his head.
“What’s the plan, Jack?” Hannah was looking at him expectantly.
“Don’t let Rodeo attack me. Buy me some time.”
“Because that went so well for us last time,” he heard Hannah mumble under her breath as she stalked away towards Rodeo.
Jack honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to give her a high five or bury a knife in her back at that comment. He was supposed to be the snarky one, not her.
Jack let out several deep breaths as he bore down on the four drops of mana and activated his technique [Static Overdrive – Lightning Variant].
He had only ever used this ability with two drops of mana in his core and it had been substantially difficult to maintain even then. He held the drops of mana in pairs and attempted to manipulate them, spinning them clockwise against each other so they were grinding together. His first attempt left him with a splitting headache and four drops of mana rampaging in his core.
He had a harder time bringing them back under his control this time.
“Not off to a great start,” Jack complained to himself.
He closed his eyes again and this time tried to drown out everything. He stared deep into his core until it was the only thing that existed to him. He brought the 4 drops of rioting mana back under his control and began to spin them together in pairs.
He took it slower this time, first spinning them clockwise in an established path before inching them closer together to their partner. Once he finally got the drops spinning around each other so fast he could hardly tell them apart, only then did he push them together, grinding them into each other
The difficulty immediately doubled again, and Jack fell to one knee as his headache turned into what he could imagine a brain seizure might feel like. The drops of mana weren’t happy with him and fought back with a fury of their own. Still, he refused to lose control of the drops of mana, and he pressed them harder into each other while still gradually increasing the speed.
Only after an interminably intense moment of mental pain wrestling with the mana drops, did he finally see results. As each of the drops of mana grinded into the pair they began to produce a static energy that flooded his core and filled his body.
The intensity this time around was exponential. His mind felt clear and refreshed. Empty almost. He looked down at his body because he wasn’t sure it was even there anymore. The energy put off a static feeling, as if he were constantly being electrocuted, but in a pleasant sort of way, if that was even possible. He felt light, weightless.
“Hannah,” Jack called out.
“You ready?” she asked..
“Not yet. Get with Devin, have him get ready to get everyone the hell out of here. Things are about to get pretty rowdy.”
“What’s the signal?”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Jack grinned.
“You’re about to do something stupid, aren’t you?” Hannah squinted at him.
Jack gave a tired smile and knowing wink before turning his attention back to his core. The results were pretty good. He had effectively doubled the intensity of his Static Overdrive technique. He was honestly pretty confident that he could give Rodeo a halfway decent challenge with this alone. He wasn’t leaving it to chance, though. He had to push the technique further.
Nothing in the Tower is truly immortal. If you can erase his existence completely, you can kill him. Gideon’s words came to his mind, and Jack almost blacked out as a deep rage flared up inside of him. He took several deep breaths and tried to push the emotions back into their dark cage. If it weren’t for the mental clarity that static overdrive was giving him at the moment, he would have lost control of the mana drops completely.
Jack frowned at that. The idea that his emotions could get the better of him like that was something he was wholly unused to. It was also a problem that he didn’t think he would be able to fix until he ripped Gideon’s head from his body.
That’s all future Jack's problem, he told himself as he glanced over at Rodeo.
His former mentor had turned into a full-blown monster at this point. He stood over nine feet tall now. The scales that covered his armor had morphed into more of a blackened armor carapace. He had four wings now instead of two and a smaller crown of horns surrounded his skull. The two primary horns jutting out of his forehead had grown in size, new ones emerged, and each seemed to be sharpened like blades. Black spikes were jutting out of his body from hideous angles waiting to pierce anyone who dared to get to close.
Yep, not nearly strong enough to deal with that yet.
Jack looked into his core at the two pairs of mana drops spinning wildly and grinding into each other producing the static overdrive effect. Now it was time for the hard part.
He first started by spinning the drops of mana even faster. That had been relatively easy, and he pushed them so fast that it looked like each of the two drops had formed one larger, singular ball. It reminded him of baoding balls, those Chinese meditation balls that had little bells in them that you could spin around in the palm of your hands. That was the image he decided to lock onto.
Jack then slowly began to move each of the newly formed ‘balls’ in slow circles around one another. Blood seeped from his nose at his extreme concentration, but Jack managed to retain focus. If he opened his eyes he was almost positive he would see someone hammering a railroad spike into his skull.
He wasn’t sure how far he had broken his mind at this point. He needed to dedicate a portion of his brain to each drop of mana, and then he needed to take it a step further and dedicate two more pieces of his mind to the newly formed orbs. The mental tax of it all was taking its toll. The worst part was, Jack wasn’t even sure what he was going to attempt would even work.
The two balls of mana picked up speed as Jack bore down on them with his mind. He began to slowly inch them together until they were barely touching. When they made contact, everything went black as Jack lost consciousness for a brief moment.
His eyes shot open a split second later and he instantly bore down on the power in his core. His mind had them so thoroughly clamped down that not even losing consciousness was enough for him to completely lose control.
He tried again. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. The static mana that was flooding his body quickly betrayed him. Instead of numbing him, it turned violent. It shocked him, stabbed him, lit every cell in his body on fire.
To Jack, this didn’t mean that what he was doing wasn’t working. Pain was sometimes a good indicator. Right now, it’s what Jack was counting on. He hoped this mind destroying pain meant that the static energy had become so powerful that his body could barely handle it.
Mastery upgrade: Static Overdrive Lightning Variant
Novice–Low 🡪 Apprentice–High
A self-satisfied grin split Jack’s face at the notification, the pain only motivating him to push things further. He was headed in the right direction.
He pressed the two spheres of mana into each other, making sure to increase the speed all the more. He quickly gave up on any sort of gradual increase in pressure and speed and instead opted to give it everything he had, barely able to control the rapidly spinning balls of mana.
He wasn’t sure what was going to happen. He had done some experimenting trying to combine or pull mana from his drops of lightning mana that hadn’t found success, but something inside him said it was possible. Some unseen force seemed to be guiding him to answers he didn’t quite understand. And he didn’t have time for questions.
What he was aiming for here was fusion of his four drops of mana. He needed a power that defied logic and reason. He wanted a power that was greater than the sum of its parts. From four he created two, and from two he would create one singular source of power that would obliterate anything that stood before him.
Jack let loose a scream that drowned out the world around him as he felt something crack as he pushed his mana harder. A quick glance inward at his mana core showed that was starting to give way to the power that radiated off his spinning drops of mana.
Just a little more, he screamed at himself, refusing to stop. If this didn’t work, he was dead anyway.
As he pushed the speed of the power pulsating inside him spun faster and harder as it began to change color, losing their bright blue light and turning a deep violet.
As the color changed, so did the resistance he was feeling. The mental strain lessened. Jack quickly realized why as he stared at the deep, pulsating ball of violet inside his core.
He wasn’t maintaining four drops of mana anymore. It was one.
One singular source of power inside of his core.
He had done it.
Mastery upgrade: Static Overdrive Lightning Variant
Apprentice – High 🡪 Journeyman – Low
[Upgrading ability…]
[Upgrading ability…]
[Upgrading ability…]
[Static Overdrive: Lightning Variant has been upgraded to Lightning Engine]
Jack stared at the new source of power glowing inside his core and grinned wickedly.