The Blood Solution (Approaching Infinity Book 3)

by Chris Eisenlauer

  • • •

  “I don’t know if you can understand me,” the steel-clad Entitled said, “but we of the Three Words are civilized. I am Kan Fosso. If possible, I would have the name of my opponent.”

  Dolma Set stared in disbelief through his Dark yellow eyes. “Dolma Set,” he said simply.

  The two circled each other appraisingly for four synchronized heartbeats before Kan Fosso dashed forward, leading with all the fingers of his right hand held together to form a point. This was the crane fist. The pecking motion, though perhaps somewhat weak in appearance, whistled through the air and would have struck Set just below his left ear, but Set was moving, rolling his head out of harm’s way, delivering a palm strike to Fosso’s midsection. Fosso didn’t flinch, and for the first time in his career, Set felt the placoid scales betray him in a way. Frictionless or not, when Set struck using the Liquid Palm and his strikes landed, they always transmitted their force throughout or through and out of his opponents’ bodies. Now, though, his hand slipped across and off of Fosso’s gleaming trunk.

  Fosso struck again and again, moving with mechanical precision and efficiency. Set was impressed. He operated defensively until he recovered from his initial shock at the inefficacy of his blow, then went on the offensive. The Slow Push would be useless given Fosso’s mass and density. The Ripple would be better, the Infinite Ripple better still. Set wove between Fosso’s attacks with seeming ease, then while in close he delivered a volley of Ripple palm strikes which stopped Fosso’s advance. He finished with a dual palm delivery of the Infinite Ripple which pushed Fosso back a step, but something was wrong. Set had the sense that Fosso was in fact simply pushed back, not that he was at all staggered by the force of the blow. Set was beginning to feel that there was no blood housed within the steel shell, that Kan Fosso was, like the Gun Golems, solid steel. If that were the case, none of his techniques would work. It couldn’t be so. These Entitled were many things, as he could see all around him, but they were, at base, human. Could it be that they had additional power sources akin to Artifacts? Or could it be that they had developed their own mental powers to effect such an incredible transformation? Set refused to believe it.

  He increased his pace, checking Fosso’s strikes, making his blocks into strikes of his own each time. Now he was gaining ground, driving Fosso back by degrees, and his confidence swelled back to full. He could hear Fosso’s body vibrating now, like the tine of a tuning fork, the frequency increasing with each successfully delivered blow, each blow coming faster and faster. After a particularly intense flurry of blows, Fosso reeled under the relentless pressure. Set kicked off the ground, rising high to bring down the finishing blow. Set’s palm descended like a two-ton weight and struck the flat forehead of Fosso’s steel faceplate, Set crying out, “Transference!”

  Thunder reverberated off of Fosso’s head. A visible circle of force spread out from around Set’s hand and brought thick silence, uncanny and surreal after the cacophony of the instant before. But under his palm, Set felt the vibrations no more, and the blank steely faceplate seemed to stare with meaning. Microseconds passed, allowing just enough time for sick foreboding to fester in Set’s stomach and save his life.

  In slow motion, he saw the Halo about Fosso’s head come into being, intensify to white-gold brilliance, and flash outward, threatening to carve him to pieces. Set contorted reflexively, leaping once again like a fish, twisting his body, and arcing through the air to relative safety. Fosso’s Golden Crown shaved across his chest and along the line of his upturned jaw. Set landed on all fours, very much unlike the sea creature after which he was modeled, his entire front smoldering and sizzling audibly.

  Through his Artifact, Set called out not for Stafros Lowe but for Jav Holson. It was a desperate cry, but not without thought. Like Liquid Palm, the Lead Cloud Steps were formidable, were in fact more devastating in some less subtle ways, but Kan Fosso, whatever he was, required more. He required the Eighteen Heavenly Claws and power that approached infinity.

  “Jav!” Set called.

  • • •

  Jav started at the voice in his mind. He was busy fighting, but only partially engaged mentally, having encountered no fighters or powers of note as yet. He scanned the battlefield, located Set in seconds and responded, “I’m coming.”

  Employing a simple Approaching Infinity technique, Jav was by Set’s side almost instantly, helping him to his feet.

  Kan Fosso stood by, allowing Set to recover his feet, confident that nothing would alter the course of the fight, whether it would continue to be with Set or with his proxy.

  “I concede, Kan Fosso,” Set said, “but I’m not ready to die just yet.” Set nodded to Jav, no further communication between them necessary, and darted off for other opponents.

  “He is remarkably skilled,” Fosso said, his arms folded across his chest. “But I know all the hidden truths of the Sixth Secret. I am Kan Fosso. Because I grow weary of the death and destruction you bring here, I will not allow my contest with you to go unfinished as I did the contest with him. I will be your opponent until one of us falls. But I would have your name.”

  Jav nodded, impressed with Fosso and his sentiment. “I’m Jav Holson. There will always be predators and prey, but please don’t think that all of the Viscain are without conscience. I believe in skill and determination. If my Eighteen Heavenly Claws cannot bring you down, and more, if the Viscain Empire is defeated here today, then that is what must be.” When he was finished, Jav marveled a little at himself. He’d been honest, but he didn’t understand his own need to voice his honesty. Perhaps it was because that so far among the natives they’d fought—Jav couldn’t quite bring himself to think of them as enemies—Fosso was so much like those he counted as friends.

  Fosso regarded him for a time, appraising him with featureless steel. “Skill and determination then.”

  Jav nodded.

  After seconds more of silent mutual acknowledgement, the two rushed forward, crossing fists and trading blows. Jav’s style differed markedly from Set’s, incorporating more aggressive blocks that were, as often as not, strikes to the limbs. Fosso had difficulty landing his crane fist as Jav was faster. Jav was also more frenetic than Set, delivering series after series of complicated strikes, that perhaps did not penetrate through Fosso’s steel, but upset his pace and drove him back much more so than Set had.

  Fosso wasn’t worried, not really worried, not yet anyway, but the seed had taken root. Doubt had crept in.

  Jav’s claw hands struck and raked, raising ringing gong sounds as they set Fosso’s steel to vibrating. Fosso blocked and stepped up his offense, landing a strike upon Jav’s skull helmet with his crane fist, jarring Jav’s head upon his shoulders. Jav staggered backwards, but smiled behind his helmet. The next strike he delivered was unlike anything Fosso had ever experienced. The deafeningly resonant peal his body gave off was almost incongruously swallowed by a dull pop, the signature of an Approaching Infinity impact.

  Now Fosso staggered back several steps, clutching at the impact point, heaving as if out of breath.

  “Is it you then? Are you the King of Spades?” Fosso said through heavy breaths.

  “What?”

  “Your garish costume is appropriate, but I would have thought you the leader if you were in fact the King of Spades?”

  Jav shook his head, uncomprehending.

  Fosso swallowed hard, caught his breath, nodded his acquiescence to the inevitable, and resumed his fighting stance. But rather than advance, the Halo about his head sprang to life, flashing out with its deadly edge. He thought he saw Jav cut apart before him, disintegrated and reduced to smoke which scattered with the passage of the Golden Crown, but unimaginable pressure struck his head from behind, making him stumble forward and sprawl to the ground. Again there had been that dull popping sound.

  Fosso quickly gained his feet, turned, found Jav behind where he’d been. He shook his head and muttered to himself, “How?” not expect
ing anyone, least of all Jav to answer.

  Jav proceeded to land heavier and heavier blows in unending succession, Fosso’s defense all but abandoned for the methodical relentlessness of Jav’s assault.

  Though Jav’s strikes were harder and heavier than anything Fosso had ever encountered, and Fosso’s confidence had visibly waned, Jav could not seem to breach his steel. He’d apparently given up fighting back physically, but Fosso was indomitable. He merely had to catch his wind, take an instant to prepare and set his Golden Crown upon whatever was in front of him.

  This time, Jav was taken somewhat by surprise. Fosso had been fighting for a while, and had expended a great deal of energy, but it had been a mistake to think him exhausted. Jav turned sideways to allow the Golden Crown to pass, but it was close, catching his left arm and raking all the way down its length, tugging at it to follow. Smoke rose from Jav’s arm, but another Golden Crown flashed out. This time, Jav stared, as if down the barrel of a gun, and invoked the Ghost Kaiser once again, leaving a smoke double in his place which, as before, was dashed apart by the cutting attack.

  Jav had been right to respect Fosso. This time, when Jav appeared behind him, before he could strike, he himself was struck by Fosso’s backwards upswinging right leg. Fosso’s heel caught him directly under the chin, lifted him high and sent him sprawling. The blow jarred him far more than the direct crane fist had.

  Jav recovered his wits and rose quickly. Before Fosso could send another Golden Crown, he performed the multiple calculations for the Kaiser Kick: AI to propel his forward momentum, and AI to dramatically increase his impact. He did this with the efficiency of rage. His foot met the line of Fosso’s jaw squarely and sent him like a projectile through the clashing armies. Fosso tore a discernible path through bodies, both human and gene soldier, which broke and splashed lifeblood in profusion.

  Fosso skidded to a halt upon his back on the ground, his steel painted with red gore. He rose up on his elbows only to find Jav standing over him.

  “What are you?” Jav said in a low voice, awed by Fosso’s resilience.

  “I could ask you the same, but I think I know.”

  “Yield,” Jav said.

  “I think you know that I cannot. I have to try.”

  The Golden Crown flashed, but Jav jumped clear. His hands were like a unit now, clawed fingers reaching for each other, his palms facing each other, twenty-five centimeters apart. He came at Fosso again, his hands still together, dipping down to his left, as he delivered a savage roundhouse kick to Fosso’s head. This did not send Fosso flying bodily, but strained his steely neck. Jav backed away slightly, allowing Fosso to get his bearings, something beginning to take shape between his hands.

  Then, as it often did in moments of stress upon the battlefield, time seemed to stop, or at least slow dramatically for Jav. Fosso righted himself and stared at Jav, directly ahead of him. Jav raised his hands for the Kaiser Claw, which was somehow already beginning to affect space. The Golden Crown took shape and passed once again through a smoke facsimile of Jav, but this Fosso did not see. Jav had reappeared directly before him, had timed his displacement technique so that he jumped forward, through the Golden Crown in a sense, and had his hands clamped firmly upon Fosso’s crown and chin. Everything between Jav’s hands quavered surreally.

  “I’m sorry,” Jav whispered. With a grunt of supreme effort, Jav enacted the final calculations, torquing his hands from left over right to right over left. A sickening high-pitched crack rang out across the plain, stopping everyone for an instant. Jav held Kan Fosso’s head in his hands, crumbling bits of shattered steel raining down from its stalk and from where it had been removed. Though it did not appear to be reduced as most things subjected to the Kaiser Claw did, it was somehow dark, burnt out, devoid life. This last was obvious of course, but was somehow more profound than death alone. It was as if the divine had indeed suffused Kan Fosso’s form and it was gone now, snuffed out.

  Jav felt a sharp pain lance through the small of his back and nearly rip out through is stomach. He threw his head back in sudden agony and tried to look over his shoulder to identify the lingering pressure.

  What he could not see was the lithe, sunset-red figure fixed to him, one hand wrist-deep into his back, legs bent and ready to flex so that its overall appearance was that of a giant candied butterfly perched upon the trunk of a tree. The legs worked, pushing with great force to yank the hand free and drive Jav stutter-stepping forward, beyond Kan Fosso’s dropped head and fallen corpse, where he fell clumsily, his chin pushing through the dirt.

  He rose, clutching the small of his back with his right hand, staring at his assailant as awareness stole in.

  The sunset-red figure was petite, and looked much like Fosso had after being made slick with blood. It was clearly a woman. Jav looked down to what she stared at and saw the head of Kan Fosso, now returned to normal and somehow beautiful. She reached down and took up Fosso’s head, cradling it with reverence. She stood straight and fixed Jav with an eyeless gaze—her faceplate was identical to Fosso’s save for color.

  “Down Lissa,” a commanding voice cried.

  Jav turned to look behind him and saw a black figure now, this one with the head of a great serpent, driving its hand towards him, fingers outstretched, held together like a spear hand. Black smoke gathered, took on the semblance of mass, and coalesced into the head of a greater serpent, fangs bared and reaching. This launched forward with speed and force enough to sheer Jav from the ground, taking him up, and sending him hundreds of meters away.

  The smoke serpent bit into Jav’s torso, its fangs somehow finding the wound at his back and digging in deeper. Jav felt a million needles rain through his guts, every one of them cold, sharp of course, and numbing, demanding blackness, an end to everything. This went on interminably, or seemed to, until he felt opposite pressure stop him suddenly, shocking him so substantially that he felt as if his whole body had fit into and been struck by Dolma Set’s palm, his blood and brains threatening to rip out his front. Though he was dazed and racked with fantastic pain, he did not black out. He looked up. The smoke serpent was gone, but he’d been driven far from the conflict, back into the base of the Root Palace, which rose up endlessly into the sky above.

  19. THE BLOOD FRAME

  10,691.151

  (Year of the Church 1084)

  Olka Stusson hurried through the corridor with Garlin Braams close behind him. Red lights flashed in time with a bleating klaxon. Everything shook. The metal walls rippled with stress, but the standing tanks remained in place, pristine and secure, each tended to by a pair of white-clad technicians. The pipes running along the walls danced, bent, came loose from their mounting brackets, but did not rupture.

  Braams thought he could hear the rush of the fluid being pumped through those pipes, had the sense that he and Stusson were in fact racing that fluid to its destination. He was not wrong.

  They emerged from the corridor to the hub room Braams had first seen five years ago. The vast white basin was already exposed, the clear plastic floor had been retracted, and blood pumped furiously from holes set all around and down its sides, down to the base where the Blood Frame sat, raised a half meter upon a pedestal.

  Stusson stopped at the edge of the basin and turned to face Braams, shouting an answer over the klaxon to a question Braams had asked en route.

  “It had to be this far away in order to avoid the destruction precipitated by impact.” Stusson looked up as the ceiling rattled under the force of another quake. “You see, even here, we are not totally safe. We must hurry.”

  Braams was still confused and a little annoyed. The invaders had arrived, were half the planet away, and still the Blood Frame sat idle, and yet now Stusson was telling him they had to hurry?

  “There are two things that must be done to activate the Blood Frame. I wanted to be absolutely sure,” Stusson said.

  Braams nodded, but Stusson eyed him penetratingly.

  “Yours is the seco
nd. You must go down to the bottom and don the Blood Frame,” Stusson said. He continued to stare at Braams in that peculiar manner.

  Braams shook his head. “What? What is it?” he demanded, shouting to be heard, but louder than intended because of his frustration.

  Stusson swallowed hard. “You must give up your humanity. Once you are clothed in the Blood Frame, you must convert your own personal mass to fuel for the reaction.”

  Braams’s eyes, locked upon Stusson’s, quivered. He pursed his lips, thinking about what this meant, about the hint of paradox he’d never been able to completely identify. Finally, he nodded. “For the Three Worlds.”

  Stusson’s face broke. It came apart, resolving into a sad smile. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. “You are a great man, Sar Braams. Our salvation is in your hands. You know what you must do.”

  “Wait,” Braams cried. “You said there were two things.”