by Vowron Prime
“MAGNUS!”
The mutated Zevan crashed to the ground, dead. The winged angel stood behind it, clutching a blood-soaked knife, stabbing the dead creature over and over again.
“Uh, Nova? Thanks for the assist, but you can stop now, you know. It’s dead.”
She looked up at him with glazed-over eyes, her face covered in the abomination’s blood. Comprehension dawned. She dropped the knife, backing away several steps.
“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t, I don’t know what came over me. I can’t believe I just... and I couldn’t kill just now...” Nova stuttered.
MC sat down, leaning against the rocky walls for support.
“Actually, that was pretty damn impressive,” he said. “All this time, I didn’t think you could hurt a fly if your life depended on it. You just saved my life.”
MC’s strategy worked, prompting a halting “thank you” out of the shocked alien. She of all people knew that he was in no real danger, but he was happy to see her initiative. Getting blood on an angel’s hands—literally or figuratively—was not something he especially wanted to see, but Nova’s survivability would soar if she could protect herself from mortal threats.
“What the hell are these things, anyway?” MC asked, primarily to distract Nova from the fact that she’d just killed a living being, lest she have a full-blown panic attack. It didn’t help that Eiga was happily chomping on the dead bodies.
“Zevan. Mutated Zevan.”
The dim light cast by the magic orb brought the corpse’s hideous features into gory detail. He didn’t know what to make of the fact that they looked far more human to him than a normal Zevan. Gone were most of the gelatinous bits, replaced with tanned purplish skin. Blue veins crisscrossed their bodies in random patterns at densities far greater than his own.
“You don’t think they’ve been drinking the same stuff I have, do you?”
Nova shook her head in confusion. “Its symptoms do bear a striking resemblance to the effects of the mutagen, though I find it hard to believe they would do such a thing. The Dyn expressly forbid the Zevan from even approaching those ponds, and the Zevan worship us as gods. Only the Trilnyth have disobeyed that rule to date.”
“Well, whatever they are, at least they didn’t have those damned magic shields. That makes them a lot easier to kill.”
But then, who knew how many more of them lurked down here, deep within the depths of the labyrinthine cavern?
Five
“Magnus, are you awake?”
MC opened his eyes to see Nova anxiously gazing down at him. “I am now. What’s up?”
If he could have seen better in the darkness, he’d have noticed that she was blushing from ear to ear.
“May I have the cleaning orb, please?”
He’d somehow fallen asleep with it in his hand. The moment Nova caught his toss, the blood flakes on her face and wings disappeared, returning the feathery appendages to their pristine white luster. If only the orb’s effect were a bit stronger, it’d actually be useful as a curative agent, but it was fortunate that they even had that.
Eiga and Nova worked together to haul more large rocks over, forming a semicircular barrier ring around the door.
To ensure safety, MC fused the door closed, leaving only tiny slats for ventilation leading to the outside. Any travel in or out would have to be aided by his teleportation abilities, though with Eiga keeping watch outside, even he had to admit it was probably overkill.
“So I’ve been meaning to ask, why do your chariots always have Zevan mages inside? I find it hard to believe that you guys don’t have shield tech of your own.”
“Zevan magic is truly mysterious. The Dyn seeded this world by experimenting with and genetically altering humans from Earth, yet we had no idea that we would give rise to a phenomenon as intriguing as magic. It took us entirely by surprise.”
“I’m just amazed you haven’t reverse engineered it yet.”
“It is a relatively recent discovery on their part, having only manifested in the past hundred years or so. Though in that short time, magic has already improved their quality of life much like any technological revolution would. This planet is a coveted research station for that very reason. Dyn researchers from all sectors of the galaxy gather here to unravel its many mysteries.”
“Still, it’s just hard to believe that your people really haven't unraveled the secrets of Zevan magic. Aren’t the Dyn crazy-advanced?”
Nova shrugged. “We are only about a thousand years ahead of humanity. When a world populated by sentient organisms reaches a certain level of technological maturity, we… occupy their world to ensure they do not become a threat. This unfortunately impedes our progress. Furthermore, we are not a unified species. The Forum of Primes is a turbulent place, with each Prime plotting to subvert the other.”
MC laughed. “Occupy. Right. You mean invade and slaughter—and I’m guessing more than a few end up becoming Ultimators?”
“It is as you say. My people are sometimes referred to as ‘Harvesters’ by the indigenous populations.”
“Harvesters, huh? Sounds fitting.”
She went on to explain that the Dyn demand an annual tribute of live Zevan mages, who are never heard from again. The locals believed they were being given the chance to ascend to godhood, but in reality, the Dyn just stuck an Ultimator parasite inside them, then pressed the hapless mages into service for their powers. Most of them, at least. The less fortunate ones were used for experimentation to help the Dyn unlock the mysteries of magic.
It seemed that the Dyn weren’t even responsible for inventing much of their technology. They would assimilate tech from their enslaved races, iterating and improving on what they learned.
Given the vast distances involved with traveling the galaxy, they were spread pretty thin, and with the continuous infighting between the Primes, reaping the fruits of another race’s technological advancement was a juicy way to simultaneously boost their numbers and advance their technological state in one go.
There were only a small handful of such civilizations in the entire galaxy, so such opportunities didn’t come all that often. But when they did, it often represented a sizable power boost for whatever Prime happened to oversee that region.
“And you’re saying that Earth is in a sector run by Ubiquity Prime?”
“It is, yes. The time for your planet’s Harvesting has not yet come. However, my people have been abducting humans for centuries to experiment on. More recently, we have begun to use humans as Ultimators.”
“I’ve run into my fair share of those. Why do human Ultimators have human-looking tech, anyway? Don’t the Dyn have stuff that’s far superior?”
“It comes down to a matter of resources. It is more cost-effective to build off of existing human designs already engineered for the human body, rather than engineering new equipment from scratch. Hence, we perform modular enhancements that can be easily applied to all Ultimators.”
“Like turning their bodies into liquid metal?”
“Among other abilities, yes.”
“I don’t get it. Reaping, enslaving, genocide. You’re telling me no one ever questions the morality of these actions?”
“We are raised from birth to think of all non-Dyn races as inferior. As the most technologically advanced society in the galaxy, our code teaches that we are entitled to rights above and beyond any others. It is similar to how you as a human view animals such as apes. Perhaps you would not go out of your way to kill them, but neither would you consider them your equal. As humans raise cattle as livestock, so too do the Dyn ‘raise’ lesser species for reaping.”
Indoctrination and extremism had always managed to blind entire masses of humans, so MC could see how her people might pull this off. That didn’t make it any less disturbing.
“But if there’s a Resistance, there have to be dissidents, right? People who don’t buy into that bullshit?”
“Yes, but the Dyn Consilium squashes such re
bels ruthlessly, for obvious reasons. They have never been able to mount much of a resistance; the Hegemony of Primes is simply too powerful an entity to combat.”
“Speaking of power, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. When I’d fought one of your Ultimators before, he shot me with some kind of magic-inhibiting bullet. I could still use my abilities, but just barely. What exactly was that?”
“Most Ultimator weaponry on Kelruhn contains Zevan anti-magic venom. Through experimentation, we have been able to develop a neurotoxin that impedes magic casting. Given the similarity of your own powers to Zevan magic, I am not surprised that you were similarly affected. Still, just one of those should have completely negated your abilities. It is surprising that you remained functional in any capacity.”
“That would’ve been the end of me, but I luckily had some of that mutagenic water on hand. You wouldn’t happen to have an antivenom that can fight the neurotoxin, would you?”
She shook her head. “I do not. While such an antidote does exist somewhere, I would have no idea where we could acquire it.”
Together, they shivered in the cold.
“We need to get moving soon. To be honest, I’m surprised your people haven’t already found us,” MC said, nodding toward the cavern. “My relocation job wouldn’t hold up to human sensors, let alone anything made by the Harvesters.”
Nova couldn’t help but smirk at MC’s jab.
“I imagine it is because the Legatus’s hands are tied. While his assets are not insignificant, he cannot simply divert operations from all over the planet to find us. And I imagine he wishes to keep the matter a secret from the Consilium—my escape must have been a black mark on his pristine record. Still, I agree that we should move on as soon as you are able. How are you feeling?”
“A lot better, actually. It’s going to be months before I can stand on my left leg again, but I should be able to fuse together a crutch that ought to let me put weight on it.”
It occurred to MC that, ever since he’d arrived in this world, he’d never had the opportunity to rest like this. It had done wonders for his condition. He was now stable enough to limp around with the crutch. While he wouldn’t be winning any martial arts tournaments anytime soon, getting deeper into the cavern network was a higher priority.
MC took the opportunity to bring up his HUD, something he hadn’t looked at in a good long while. Interestingly, his recent deflector shield upgrade hadn’t manifested as a progression of either the relocator’s ability bubble, or the energy dampener’s, for that matter.
Instead, a healthy umbilical cord now connected both the relocator and dampener’s bubbles and a much smaller ability sphere had popped up on the cord itself, showing MC standing in a field of driven snow, redirecting the directed energy radiation back at the vessel, crippling it. It was the same exact scene from his earlier fight, and it too was a quarter-filled with blood, indicating that the ability’s deflection capabilities could likely be upgraded.
As expected, the new bubble came with its own gibberish instructions:
LiNKiNg jOININg eAtInG dEStRoYiNG! thEIr wEaPoNS UseD AGAINSt ThEM.
not BAd nOt GOOd. morE FEEd, kIll! FeED KIlL eVEn morE!
Unfortunately, the relocator’s progress toward its next level had ground to a screeching halt. As always, an increase in the pickup distance would be appreciated, but that never seemed to be in the cards. Midar was completely stuck, pegged at zero percent progress.
Nova had theorized that the parasite might be approaching some kind of natural limit, given his brain’s physiological limits. It wasn’t all bad news, though. The dampener had improved by leaps and bounds during their great escape, allowing him to significantly increase the coverage volume and active duration, to the point where he could wrap the entire dragon in a dampening field, providing both protection and stealth capabilities. Though the former benefit was reduced to almost nothing when spread over an area that large.
Their week on the run had also taught him how to modulate the barrier to selectively filter various frequencies and energy bands, allowing him to block out sound and wind. Sadly, he’d yet to achieve anything like optical camouflage, which would require him to perfectly mimic his surroundings to project an image across the shielded bubble.
Given the absurd difficulty of that task, he wasn’t holding out for that particular upgrade anytime soon, if ever. His X42 powered suit had camo, but it was currently on another planet.
Minimizing the vidspheres, he ruminated on the collection of pulsating spheres that occupied the periphery of his vision. The fact that the parasite was just sitting there, watching his every move, growing into his mind with every passing day—it freaked the living daylights out of him.
“Magnus… is this our future?” Nova asked, interrupting his reverie. “Perpetually on the run, ever fearful? Always wondering whether this day will be the last?” The Zevan magic orb illuminated just enough of her face to show her total exhaustion.
MC avoided her gaze. What could he possibly tell her? That they were all alone against an enemy with vastly superior technology and resources? That their chances were shit? She already knew that, and it was abundantly clear that neither of them had long to live if things continued this way. But they didn’t have a hell of a lot of options either, did they?
Maybe they could find whatever elements of this resistance existed on this planet… but what then? What did a fallen goddess and an Ultimator-to-be have to offer the rebels? If anything, they’d be more of a liability than an asset, with the Legatus’s bull’s-eye painted on their backs.
Still, something had to be done, and sitting around contemplating dark thoughts never served anyone.
“It’s time. Let’s go.”
Six
A dragon, a human, and an alien flew through the darkness, illuminated not by light, but by the radiation of energy outside the normal visible spectrum. Yet this posed no issue to the three, as each utilized various mechanisms for seeing in the dark. Nova, with her ability to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, MC with Midar, and Eiga who had preternaturally sharp senses.
The farther they penetrated the great cavern’s depths, the more they found mutated creatures and mindless Zevan.
There were none on the highest level of the labyrinthine network, yet as they entered a hole some several hundred feet in diameter and over a half-mile in depth, they descended into another world entirely.
The frozen climate began to warm. Iridescent moss covered the great tunnels from rocky floor to sloped ceiling, giving birth to a dazzling display of life in this barren place.
By keeping MC’s energy dampener active and only using Midar for issuing course changes, the trio managed to pass over the abominations below in silence. Yet as they pushed deeper, the density grew until the ground was absolutely teeming with them.
“Magnus, we should turn back. This was a bad idea,” she whispered, careful not to alert the creatures milling around below them.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. Even if we’d be well-hidden here, this is just ridiculous. I’ll have Eiga turn—”
But his next words caught in his throat as the tunnel’s floor fell away and they flew into a gigantic underground expanse—no, the word completely failed to describe the sight.
It was an abyss.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Incredible…”
Dozens of iridescent pillars of pulsating flesh soared over a thousand feet to the ceiling of a massive cavern, one so large that they could not see its walls. It felt like they’d stumbled into an entirely new world, one nestled far, far below the planet’s surface.
But instead of a rocky floor, there was an ocean of black water.
MC had Eiga descend to fly a lazy turn around one of the enormous pillars. Each vaguely resembled what would happen if a stalagmite and a stalactite joined into a column, except multiplied several hundred times in size. The dozens of fleshy structures plunged directly into the ocean below, yet sur
rounding their base were small pieces of land, illuminated by the pillars’ eerie crimson glow. Covered by forests, the distant islands bore a striking resemblance to the ones at the Forest of Death.
As if that wasn’t enough, faint shrieks and cries emanated from somewhere within the vast space. Tiny black-winged silhouettes flitted about, circling the massive pillars. Some swooped and attacked each other in the dark sky—dorbo-sykens wrestling in battles for dominance.
They’d stumbled upon another world, one not meant to be found.
Nova blanched. “This is a mutagenic ocean!”
“What?”
“Those massive pillars there are the same as the smaller white trees you encountered on the planet’s surface. Those white trees aren’t actually trees at all. Inside, they are flesh-and-blood organisms, and they look almost identical to these, albeit on a much smaller scale.”
“Well, that’s exactly what my day needed. A bit of Harvester horror with a side of fucked-up.”
“Magnus, you have to land. NOW!” Nova shrieked.
“Yes, sir.”
“No, wait! Don’t land. Teleport us off Eiga and keep him in the air. He’ll blend in up here.”
MC fought through the parasite’s compulsion that willed him to blindly obey her command. He forced himself to look over his shoulder and lock eyes with her. Her fear was evident, but so too was her grim determination.
He’d long ago learned when to question orders and when to obey, and one look at her told him this was the latter case. He immediately threw on his rucksack and grabbed the girl.
Concentrating on the island that sat at the base of the pillar nearest to them, he initiated a teleport… only to reappear in some surprising surroundings.
Turned out that those tiny islands weren’t so tiny after all—they were just far, and those damned pillars were so large that they messed with his sense of scale. The longer-range teleport brought back his old friend—the headache—though the bigger issue was his broken leg. He gnashed his teeth in pain the instant they landed, collapsing onto the sandy shore.