I studied her closely but couldn’t see anything that could set my alarm bells off. She didn’t seem to have suffered any spontaneous transformations despite all the Azure she must have absorbed during the Storm. If anything, she appeared full of life and energy like a freshly-charged battery.
Two of the missions had been updated: the Hunt and the Reference Book. I had three Helheim monsters to my name, excellent. Plus, each of the hounds had fetched me between 5000 and 6000 Azure, which allowed me to build another neurosphere and still have enough energy to spare. Good hunt indeed. Alice refused her share of Azure point blank, afraid it might awaken the monster in her.
She did enjoy taking the hounds apart though, expertly cracking their armor open and collecting the “spare parts”. As far as I’d gathered, their teeth and claws were in especially high demand. No matter how revolting such cold-blooded flailing might have looked, I felt obliged to join in. In each of the three hounds, I discovered a greenish rock which looked very similar to the Devourer’s heart embedded in the hilt of my Claw of Helheim. A welcome find, because Alice had already spent more than half of its charges on killing the Voids and the hounds. Also, the hounds’ so-called “black bone” was apparently a valuable resource.
In the end, I couldn’t take much: my micro cryptor wasn’t bottomless, after all. I’d also found Genome of Bloodhound whose Necro nature made it just as useless as that of Devourer’s, or at least so I thought, especially seeing as all of my DNA slots were already taken. I decided to study it at a later date, especially because Alice was getting impatient, urging me to leave the pyramid of concrete debris which was too exposed for comfort.
Where were we, exactly? The frontier where the walking houses had turned dead again, frozen like crumbling stalagmites, lay across the low hills studded with ancient ruins. It appeared deserted – most likely, due to the Transmutation Storms constantly raging here – but I could make out a thin strip of green vegetation on the horizon.
So that’s where we headed.
This anomalous A-zone was the biggest to the south of Fort Angelo. In the absence of regular updates, Miko’s map was too old and inaccurate. A bunch of laconic comments reported the numerous outbreaks, the Alerts, the instances of employing Absolute weapons, the partial restructuration of reality and the great many Azuric monsters spawning non-stop. Apparently, Incarnator teams used to contain the threat from the Monoliths all over Asia, regularly mopping up the escaping monsters – but after the War on the Possessed everything had fallen into disrepair.
Getting out of this place proved to be not so easy. The zone’s center produced regular Transmutation Storms which rolled out to its borders, so crossing the zone in a straight line would put us right in their path. At least that’s what Miko had said – and the constant red flashing along the horizon was proof enough.
Alice too seemed to know a thing or two about this area. According to her, no one had ever strayed off here on their own accord, and the few rare expeditions returned decimated, their survivors usually completely insane.
“Bad place. Everything is bad,” she said curtly. “Azure. Outbreaks. Death. Daat. Her Exhalations. Storms.”
“Daat?” I asked, puzzled. In the Stellar system, that was the glyph assigned to the A-morphs of the highest class. These were purely existential beings whose very presence defied the laws of our universe. Judging by the scarce explanations, they were extremely dangerous – but according to the same explanations, the Daat’s very nature prevented them from taking an interest in human beings whom they viewed just as insignificant as a new breed of insects. Their behavior, their purpose and even the very point of their existence remained a mystery. There were rumors that Transmutation Storms were simply the Exhalations of some incredibly powerful Daat creature located deep within the A-zone.
So in the end, our route was simple: we had to make it to the zone’s edge avoiding the onslaught of Storms in our way. Because of that, our path resembled a curved line which bent slightly inward: just over a hundred miles to the north west, across the unexplored hostile lands colored the pale red of mortal danger on our maps.
Soon we realized that our coming across the three Helheim scavengers hadn’t been a coincidence. This whole area seemed to be the Necros’ stomping ground. Whether it had something to do with ancient burials or whether the place had once become a scene of mass demise, it was absolutely swarming with walking dead. At some point, the abundance of A-energy must have raised tens of thousands of corpses from their graves, so now their ancient blackened skeletons stood silent guard over the ruins overgrown with heather and sage.
Most of them were regular mortuses, the lowest form of A-Necros devoid of either mind or purpose. Still, the surviving basements harbored monsters which had evolved dangerously high, like Bloodhounds, Devourers and even Ruptures. Luckily for us, most of them only ventured out to hunt deep at night which meant we had to cross the area of the dead before dark.
The realm of death. This must have been a city once, built up with thousands of identical low-rise houses which now lay in ruins, covered with earth and enshrouded in prickly vines. Gloom and desolation. The walking dead were mainly the withered, long-mummified skeletons which had lost command of almost all of their senses. You could walk past within a dozen feet from them without disturbing them.
Still, Alice insisted I kill them and collect all the Azure from all the mortuses we came across. They were easy prey provided you didn’t allow them too close. She showed me how to knock them off their feet and break their skulls in a single sharp blow, after which a mortus would disintegrate, becoming a heap of crumbling bones. That fetched me 100 to 200 Azure each – not much but they were plentiful here. All this filled up my counter quite nicely, so by midday I’d already had a third available neurosphere and was halfway to making another one.
So things weren’t actually so bad until we bumped into Him.
Chapter 17
I BREATHED A LOUD SIGH. Alice laid her hand on my shoulder, stopping me.
As we’d reached the top of yet another hummock, it offered the view of a shallow crater sitting in a narrow valley formed by the slopes of several volcanic hills. Inside, we could make out the outline of a giant skeleton half-buried in the ground. He seemed to be lying with his arms spread wide, leaning his back against one of the hills.
At first I got the impression that those were the remains of some human-like giant, but my Binocular Vision promptly corrected my error.
He'd never been alive to begin with. His smashed skull, his fangs, his serrated claws as big as a grown man each, the bony spikes covering his joints… a monstrous concoction, a bone golem thrown together as a travesty of humankind.
He was pinned to the ground — not by a spear but by what looked like the smashed remains of a cigar-shaped airspace vehicle which must have become the monster’s undoing many years ago.
My interface promptly highlighted and ID’d the machine:
???
Combat vehicle (replica)
Provenance: Utopia
Type: Assault interceptor
Modification: Claw of the Hawk
Irreparably damaged
Irreparably damaged? — you could say that! There wasn’t really much left of it at all. What a shame. According to the ID, this was what used to be one of Utopia’s best airspace vehicles capable of carrying up to six people while losing none of its fabled speed and maneuverability. A rotary gun, two hypersonic missile launchers… wonder if anything on board was still worth salvaging?
Alice and I simultaneously began walking down toward the crash site. Bones crunched underfoot, filling up a great multitude of smaller craters in our way. It was as if thousands of the walking dead had at one point been drawn to the slain giant, judging by the heaped-up skeletons half-covered with earth. This place must have once become the pinnacle of a serious battle which had become the end of an entire army.
“Stellar,” Alice said, pointing at the surviving part of the craft.
Indeed, its tailfin sported Stellar’s three-pointed star. And below it, barely visible under the thick layer of soot, I made out several masterfully painted snowflakes.
“I’ve got an ID on it, Incarnator. The snowflakes were the symbol of Blizzard which was the name of Gerda’s combat group.”
Gerda… I tried to focus. The neocortex upgrade had had a very beneficial effect on my memory, so the answer came naturally to me. That was the name Tara had mentioned when I’d asked her whether she’d ever met any Incarnators. Apparently, her father had come across Gerda’s team once.
“They’re in the Archives. Blizzard was one of the combat groups which operated independently from the City. The last mention is from fifty years ago or so. So that’s where they perished, then... I’m issuing you a mission.”
New mission available: The Fate of Blizzard
Task: To find out what happened to Blizzard combat group and its leader Gerda and collect as much evidence as possible, then report to Stellar Archives.
Reward: unknown
Reward type: Commendation
To claim your reward, please visit the nearest Stellar terminal.
Not again!
Miko shrugged and flashed me an innocent smile.
“That’s just the way I’m programmed, Incarnator. On the other hand, this mission is real easy. We might find all the answers straight away.”
Still, we shouldn’t have held our breath. The vehicle was burned to a crisp inside. The impact must have triggered a powerful explosion which must have killed the bone giant. The crew can’t have survived it, either. Having said that, if they indeed were Incarnators...
“Grey? I’ve given the area a quick scan and located the signal from the crash beacon about three miles away.”
“What kind of signal?”
“It’s a coded message played in automatic mode. The code is an old cipher from Stellar’s times. Would you like me to unscramble it?”
What kind of question was that?
She much have read my thoughts because she replied with a wide grin,
“All done. It’s an audio message. I’ll play it to you now.”
A female voice echoed in my ears, snappy and sort of cold. It was repeatedly drowned out by some noise which sounded like the wailing of wind, preventing me from making out some of the words.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! To everyone who can hear me. This is Gerda. We need help! We’re located at—... You can land safely. We’ve eliminated Hades. The alert has been lifted. The Necros won’t—... ...Transmutation Storm coming, with a high probability of a new outbreak. Kai has lost his host. We’ll try to take cover in—.... We’re located at—.....”
After that, the message kept going in circles.
A mayday which had taken decades to reach us. Could any of them be still alive? True, Incarnators didn’t need their bodies in order to get out – but no one had heard from Gerda or her team ever since...
“The probability of their survival is extremely slim, Incarnator. Still, we need to find out what happened to them and send the information to the Archive. The coordinates she’s giving are the same as those of the beacon. Look, here it is...”
She opened the map for me. The source of the signal was indeed very close, within a cluster of round and triangular shapes – apparently, some ruins marked at the map as “unidentified underground industrial facilities”.
I gave Alice a quick rundown of the situation. When I mentioned the missing Incarnator group, her eyes glinted. Then she fell deep in thought.
“Mission,” she finally said. “Commendation. That’s important. Incarnators have weapons. And armor. We need to find it. Need to take it. For us. You decide. Very dangerous. Very. This is A-zone.”
I’d already made up my mind. The place was real close, and the chances to get a commendation and find something usable seemed to outweigh the risks. Having said that, whatever had managed to eliminate a well-knit Incarnator team would make quick work of us two. Provided it was still around, whatever that was. It had been a long time. Many a Transmutation Storm had raged here since. Many a monster had come and gone. If luck had it, we just might get out of this unscathed – hopefully, we wouldn’t have to fight at all.
We walked toward the source of the signal along the mangled remains of a highway lined with the arching supports of an elevated monorail. We didn’t have a problem picking our way: we just kept walking along the upended supports killing occasional mortuses on our way. I had almost enough to make the fourth neurosphere, so it was about time I started thinking about my host’s future development.
I held a brief silent counsel with Miko. As it was, we didn’t have any available DNA slots left, so we couldn’t implant any new genomes. The next three slots would only open after the first Evolution. And in order to activate it, I still needed three more central nervous system upgrades and three more of neocortex, plus a neuronucleus. Nine neurospheres in total, but this number didn’t sound so impossible anymore.
But then again, the price of reincarnation would rise dramatically after my first Evolution. It would be 5,000 Azure against my current 500 which made any deaths ten times more costly. And I had this habit of dying often... So how should we go about it?
Miko kept insisting I undergo all the basic physical upgrades first before embarking on an Evolution., maxing out those of them which weren’t covered by my already-installed genomes all the way up to 5. Because once I underwent Evolution, I’d be expending much more Azure, therefore I’d never have enough to spare. Especially considering my chosen path as an Enchanter which required constant use of active Azuric abilities.
I was really at a loss, so I turned to Alice for advice. After all, she was an experienced Incarnator herself. She must have had a few development tips for me.
Unfortunately, her advice didn’t differ much from Miko’s.
“You’re slow. Weak. That’s bad. You die too often,” she announced mercilessly. “First, your speed. Your strength. Your mind. Evolution after.”
Having listened to her, I decided to meet the two of them halfway. I invested the three neurospheres I already had into central nervous system, maxing it out. This was the absolute limit for a human being. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t improve any further.
The changes had affected my biological “ping” and the synaptic transmission speed in nerve fibers. They’d also ensured the best performance of my entire neuromuscular system. Which meant better coordination and reflexes. shorter reaction times, and better accuracy and swiftness of every motion.
My perception of the world had changed too. The air felt too thick and rubbery, hindering my rapid movements. The mortuses had transformed into sluggish dummies whose attacks weren’t so hard to dodge at all. I dreaded to think how cumbersome I must have looked to Alice who’d long undergone all these changes.
Now you could hurl something at me at point blank and I’d just catch it with my teeth. I could juggle a dozen knives, drive a superfast airmobile or loose off five slugs per second from my Crusher.
Having noticed the change in me, Alice gave a nod of approval. Still, it was Miko who was the happiest. No wonder: now I could finally follow her dodge instructions which she’d been issuing religiously during every combat, trying to save our shared life.
It didn’t take us long to get to our destination. We walked past the crumbling remains of industrial buildings, steel structures and ginormous pipelines. Finally, the road had taken us to a tunnel peeking out of a precipitous cliffside. The colossal hatch which used to seal it shut was now lying next to it like a crumpled concertina. If this was indeed the place where Gerda’s team had decided to sit out the storm, their decision made perfect sense. The thick layer of earth and rock offered quite adequate protection against outbreaks of Azure.
Normally, I wouldn’t dream of venturing into its dark tunnel which breathed cold in my face. Unfortunately, that’s where the beacon signal was coming from, so Alice and I entered its
blackened mouth barely illuminated by a new Speck of Ra. Both of us had our weapons at the ready.
We didn’t need them though. There were no monsters inside: neither mortuses nor any other creatures of Azure. There was something much worse though.
I sensed the presence of clammy, cold minds, each of which was filled with an insane echoing void. They must have felt us too because they started toward us.
More Voids. Or some such — very similar, anyway. Once again an agonizing pain dug its sticky fingers into my temples. An unpleasant ache tugged at my heart, grinding it almost to a halt.
Without waiting for whatever might come next, I focused, visualizing a Flash of Light, then attacked their icy-cold minds with the image. When they recoiled, I transformed my psi-field into a fiery flare. The Storm-tested trick worked here just as well. The phantom monsters scattered, reluctant to approach us again.
Alice and I exchanged glances. We didn’t need words. The fact that the place was now infested with creatures of Azure meant there were no survivors. Still, my eyes couldn’t have failed me: I could clearly see a weak pale-blue glow at the end of the corridor which looked suspiciously like—
The Enchanter (Project Stellar Book 2): LitRPG Series Page 22