“Follow and keep up. It’s a maze in here.” Rodrick and Green are slightly startled at the sudden shift in demeanour. Vox has the same game-face on he had when Teach forced them through the dungeons. The two bone cultivators make their leg bones glow as they sprint after Vox.
What follows is a rapid dash through narrow corridors as they smash through hidden doors, secret tunnels and fly through wide hallways. Rodrick barely manages to admire the intricate wooden floor of a ballroom as Green stuffs her own ring full of pieces of art and ornamental gold.
Just when Rodrick and Green start reaching the limit of their bone-enhanced physical fitness they smash into Vox who has suddenly halted. The redhead is staring at a cowering couple, a thick steel door lays to the side, its hinges smoking as a liquid dissolves the metal at a visible pace. Vox puts a stopper back in a flask with utmost care and puts it back in his ring. He then takes a deep breath and pulls Rodrick and Green to his sides.
“Mom, dad, I understand why you abandoned me in the first place. I think you’re dicks and that you’re horrible people, but I understand why. Anyway, I’m bisexual and these are my boy- and girlfriends. We are going to run away and become happy together. Ares is doing fine but she’s just as big a wimp as ever. Also, my teacher is a world travelling maniac who is chaos personified but has the power to fight the Flight and even has fucked a dragon. The king is also a student of his. That should be all, I guess? Not much you can do with the information, but I’d thought you should know.”
Vox then smiles the smile of an angel.
The man continues pissing himself as the woman keels over in a dead faint.
chapter twenty-four
Fragmentation
“Drew, come look at this!”
Rhea’s voice wakes me from my half slumber. The lull of splashing water caused by the ship’s bow cutting through the waves nearly caused me to fall asleep. Thankful for her wakeup call, I walk towards the front of the ship.
“What’s up?”
“Look.” Rhea is watching the television, having tuned the channel to the drone circling over the mana dungeon. The video feed is wavering, as if a haze of heat is distorting the picture, but I can just make out what’s going on.
I see fins the size of houses poking out of the water over the large silhouettes that circle around the black stone sphere. Small specks run around the buildings and docks at the water's edge. Bright flashes of concentrated mana shoot from multiple mana cannon placements, targeting tentacles and other sea monster bits poking out of the water.
“Is the mana dungeon making qi?” Rhea asks.
“I don't think so. The Tower is still producing qi and that hasn't attracted any retaliatory mutant attacks. Those sea beasts are pretty big though.”
“I didn't know there were aquatic enforcer mutants.”
“Makes sense, I guess. Look at the dungeon entrance; something is happening there. Let me zoom in a bit.” I send some commands to the drone and the picture zooms in on the dungeon entrance. Mages are clustered around the tunnel, continuously sending spells and mana canon shots into the darkness.
“Can dungeons do like… a dungeon break? Maybe the dungeon core is trying to take over the world?”
Rhea taps her lips with a finger as she thinks. “Not that I know of. It sure seems like the mages are trying to keep something inside.”
“Or maybe it’s an internal struggle. They could be trying to prevent mages from leaving. How do dungeons ventilate?”
“I have no idea.” Rhea shrugs.
“Hmm, me neither...” I reply. We look at the spectacle for a few silent minutes. I zoom the feedback out and watch as a stumpy shark tries to bite at the mages by jumping out of the water. A few mana canon shots and a few spells punch it full of holes.
“You went into the Tower dungeon. Does it have an end?”
“The last level is just empty space. It threw a massive horde of dungeon mobs at me. Then I found the core, a large black brick. It tried to stop me from existing.”
“It tried…and now I’m curious.”
“Don’t try it. I nearly died, and I was at the solid core stage with both cores. Tree saved my ass.” We fall silent once again while staring at the screen. A fifty-meter long tentacle is frozen by a concert of ice mages before being shattered by a large clump of rock.
“The attacks are getting stronger,” Rhea observes.
“Yep. More and more sea creatures are circling the dungeon. Are you sure that nothing like this has happened before?” I catch Lola, who was about to pounce on Rhea, and start petting her. “Let’s keep an eye on the situation. We might need to intervene.”
“Why? You robbed them blind without any guilt. The dirt island collapsed, the fire island exploded, the water island is nearly completely submerged, the wind is-”
I sputter a bit but put a finger to her lips. “Robbing them is different from letting them be annihilated. I needed those skulls. The previous owners didn’t need them anymore, and I might be responsible… maybe. Do you see any black robed mages?”
Rhea looks at me weirdly before turning back to the screen. “No.”
“Alright, Rhea. Wanna do another management mission?”
“Why? The first one went terribly. Controlling every aspect of a task is like playing with puppets. Making this boat myself might have been more efficient...”
“Delegate. Find people who can handle a task - or part of a task - and trust them to accomplish it.”
“I tried that, but-”
“You tried it one way, and you changed management strategies halfway through the preparations.” I look at the screen again and double-check my own assumptions against any information Database has available. “I think the mages will hold out for a week without catastrophic losses. In two weeks, they’ll need to output so much firepower that they can't sleep. Let’s aim for somewhere in between?”
“You want to go help them?”
“We could swoop in like heroes and have a negotiation position that’s way above theirs after saving their asses. Can I entrust preparing the students for aquatic warfare to you?” I immediately see that I’ve got her. Instead of something vague like “go steal that information,” this mission is clear and concise. Rhea starts grinning and I sense that she starts communicating with Database.
I stand up and walk towards the wheel. I pull a pipe from my ring and stuff it with some fake tobacco. Lola kindly lights it for me, and I pat her some more.
⁂
Rhea and I are standing in the ship’s cockpit, looking at the cluster of islands off the starboard bow. “They are not completing the recruitment missions at all. This week’s quota of students is still unfulfilled. The development of weapons and techniques is going alright, but the missions outside of Tree are just not being done.”
I turn to the white-furred woman at my side. “So, you want to go kidnapping people now? I really do infect everyone around me with my bad habits.”
“And I want to do some exercise. These leg muscles are made for kicking.”
“Okay, but promise you’ll change back after we're done.”
Rhea raises a sultry eyebrow. “You didn’t seem to mind this form earlier?”
I point at the seat cushions inside the cabin. White fur is left behind on some places, easily visible on the darker seat coverings. “I can deduce where you have sat with a single glance. Can’t you imitate a beastkin without imitating their follicle structure? I’m still picking hair from between my teeth. At least brush your coat!”
I can see her face turning red beneath her fuzz. Her usual aloof and majestic dragon aura is cracking again. She reacts to my comments by stirring the air around her in a frenzy, ordering it to carry her away. I make my way over to the front of the sailboat and throw the anchor overboard. Then I hop over the wrought iron railing, running across the water as I follow her.
I pull another short hair from my mouth while looking towards the islands. These so-called slave islands are the maj
or trading hub for sapient livestock for many leagues around. A steady flow of captives from the beastkin and wild human areas is processed here, the largest portion going north towards the mage islands.
The islands ahead are made up of two large stretches of land surrounded by a smattering of smaller islands. The largest one is surrounded by a four-meter-high wall. Its uniform yellow structure is a dead giveaway that a lot of mages cast many apathetic spells in order to manipulate enough earth mana to make the wall. The seabed around the fort is lower, a clear indication that the walls are made from the missing sand. Not even the human capital has this much mana-wrought stonework.
All that led me to conclude that this slave trading hub is under the mage’s protection, if not entirely run by the mana users.
I was watching my television earlier and noticed a very large amount of mage and pirate boats docked at the mana dungeon, with more on the way. The rumours of some form of mage gathering must be true. This means that those fancy walls are not guarded by mages, which should make this a cake-walk.
This thought is proven wrong the moment I finish it. None of my alarm processes start battle mode, so the hazard levels must be super low. Instead, I observe with interest as my heartcore takes up part of the auto-combat duty by dodging a high-powered blast of multicoloured mana.
I resume running after landing and watch as Rhea cuts another beam in two using a guided pressure-front produced by a single wave of her arm. I look forward and see a row of beastkin and coloured humans connected by chains. The first few fall over as the entire row is forced forward with whips.
So that’s how they are firing these things. I query Database for all the information it has on the place and receive a tidy packet of information.
“Rhea, you can use qi all you want. Feel free to go wild, attracting large mana mutants to this place will relieve this world of a huge amount of negative karma.” I am thankful for Database’s strict guidelines of information cleansing. Every single observable fact about these islands is horrible, and I am going to try and forget I ever read that information. The amount of rape, torture, and murder going on here alone could account for this planet’s negative mana imbalance.
I change the blank core in my head into a formula. Velocity is distance over time. Then I assign the constants and variables to concepts that concern my body, making sure to not account for planetary, solar, galactic. and supercluster rotation. Done.
I divide the qi in my braincore in half, swirling one part through my brain and feeding the remainder into the formula carved into my braincore. Then I use that power to force the variables up and down, modifying distance and time respectively.
I feel the world groan around me as I enforce my will in a manner that the universe just doesn’t really like. The qi in my braincore drains at an alarming rate as the power is transformed into a real-world effect. Using the imaginary to accomplish the real is a stupidly inefficient way of doing things, but I’m feeling agitated. Also, combat-mode is engaged.
The world slows down, and I reduce my mind to a mere possibility-field made up of numbers influenced by cause and effect.
Send qi-sense surging forward. Identify potential students through aura-reading. Observe large amounts of horrible people, also among slaves. Identify and mark. Plan optimal route for extraction of assets.
Done.
Lola is still on my shoulder. Is a change of plans in order? I adjust plans to allow for an additional combatant. Then I realize an opportunity to test the fire-and-ice bond further.
Adjust.
Done.
Execute.
⁂
Rhea is just wondering what Drew meant with karma when she is overtaken by a pressure front coming from below. Her air sensitivity allows her to counteract the sudden increase in pressure while keeping her balance and course. The wave of warm wind following the shockwave is nice and gentle in comparison.
It’s enough for Re-Haan to start her own version of combat mode. The liquid qi surrounding her own solid braincore evaporates into a thick mist while sending the gusts through her skull. The world slows down, and she relaxes, feeling an indescribable peace now that she doesn't really need to do anything anymore.
The feeling of having accomplished a task, knowing that a long and restful sleep awaits, is Rhea’s at the moment. Sitting inside her own skull, as the world around her freezes, is one of the most cathartic feelings the millennial dragon has ever experienced. Her dragon side is extremely content with sleeping, and the time stretching and warping, is similar to sleeping while being conscious and satisfying that instinct. She rarely indulges, afraid that she will be lost for aeons were she to lose herself.
But when the situation allows it, she happily obliges. Except things are different this time. The world should have frozen solid, the fastest objects overtaken as her mind speeds up a couple of compounded factors.
Instead of that still wonderland that will expect nothing for many years to come, she sees a man moving around. Not fast, mind you, but still moving. At such speeds that she can see the air being compressed in front of him as his every move generates a visible refracting shockwave.
She watches with interest as Drew reaches the solid stone wall and grabs his sword. Flames shoot from one side of the blade, propelling it from Drew’s back, while the cloth wrapping burns to ash. His other hand throws Lola over the wall, a spike of ice forming on her forehead. The sword hits the wall and cleaves through it without slowing down. The yellow stone splinters as a shockwave of heat and force turns it into sand, sending molten splatters everywhere.
Re-Haan does a double take as she observes the clash. Each globule of lava hits a guard in a vital spot while the enslaved forms remain unscathed. Teach bursts through the wall as Lola blocks another mana cannon shot with a thick slab of freshly formed ice.
Re-Haan slows the qi churning through her brain, speeding up the world around her. She tries expelling some qi and finds that the formation on her ring responsible for keeping the stuff contained doesn’t activate. Spreading the power around her in a large dome, she senses figures disappearing at a rapid pace. The wall used to contain a large number of shackled beastkin - now suspiciously absent.
She keeps track of Drew’s rapidly moving form and realizes what he is doing. His trajectory takes him near large slave clusters, leaving many cages empty as he passes. The few slaves left behind exude auras so foul that she can sense them even from a hundred meters away. Refusing to be left behind, the dragoness in beastkin form starts forming a large number of air blades, small packets of qi that generate a cutting wind at their tip.
Ten minutes later, half the fort is burning, and the other half is covered in chopped up corpses and dripping blood. Drew stands on the tallest watchtower, a solid structure towering from the central fort. Re-Haan gently lands beside him, the wind supporting her every move.
To be totally honest, she was pretty disturbed by the callous way that the man massacred hundreds of people without changing his expression. Every single person killed by his hand or his rabbit’s paws felt dirty and broken, she admits to herself, but it still shook her way more than she expected.
Re-Haan has seen her fair share of death, but to be confronted with it in such an open and multitudinous multitudinous way… sshe doesn’t really understand. She was just starting to appreciate and value the lives of mortals. Going back to distantly and coolly looking at their lives and deaths is turning out to be difficult.
She reaffirms her own decision of fighting at a distance. Looking at a small figure being split into two by a remote-controlled qi-air construct is a whole different ball game than having to dodge the exploding innards of the poor sap you just chopped in halfhalf.
“What was that about?”
“HHey,, Rhea,”Teach begins, out of breath. ““They were killing beastkin and those colourful humans to shoot at us.. DDidn't you see? They need mana in order to shoot those cannons. Those slaves on the walls all contained a bit of mana,, and
the mages the mages were forcing them to empty their entire reserves, killing them in the process.”
Re-Haan keeps looking at the panting man while keeping a single eyebrow raised.
“I searched the entirety of Tower City and only found a couple dozen humans with mana affinities. Their skills when they got access to qi are astounding. I didn't want to waste such interesting specimens. I mean, Tess can travel through shadows for fuck's sake! That’s not supposed to be possible until she builds her foundation. Bord’s gravity manipulation is equally baffling. He doesn’t understand the slightest bit of what he’s doing but does it anyway. Each of those mana batteries has a similar affinity. Letting them die would be such a waste...”
Understanding why he suddenly exerted all that effort, Re-Haan nods. She is not sure she agrees, but she understands. “I was wondering why you suddenly exerted so much effort. The foundation realm is seriously impressive...” Re-Haan licks her lips as she looks at the panting man. Dragons are engineered to follow the strongest being and Rhea’s instincts are running at full tilt, making her emotions a rather odd mess of horniness, respect, dread,, and doubt.
“Why are you looking at me like that? That’s a whole different kind of scary…” Teach sidles away from the panting woman and looks at the other islands.
Re-Haan takes a deep breath, trying to regain control of herself. “Okay, so what’s the plan? Cutting loose like this is fine and all, but isn’t this indiscriminate slaughter a bit much?”
Teach shrugs in response. “I kidnapped everyone who isn't a murderer or rapist. This fort only contains soldiers and slaves. All the edge--cases,, like non-slave kids and servants,, are on the other islands.”
“Oh, Drew, do you mind if I take that?” Re-Haan points downwards, grinning at Teach’s conflicted expression. Deep thoughts can be thought later, opportunity does not wait.
“Fine, it should be enough. Is it still growing?”
Re-Haan shakes her head. “My solid core hasn't grown at all over the last few days. I tried doing that crunch thing you talked about, but I couldn't even get it to crack. It just gave me a headache. Your soul is cheat--level strong.”
The Dao of Magic: Book 3: A Western Cultivation Series Page 21