Descend- Bursting Out: A litrpg adventure

by David Burke

  Chapter 38- Altar of Sacrifice

  A telepathic cry from Amelia ripped through all three of them, “Help, they’ve gone crazy.”

  Jay was on his feet in an instant. Meikiyo and Trina were just a second behind him. Exhaustion faded from them as the fear in her message pushed them to action. With their tremendous speed even Meikiyo could have made it to the basement laboratory in half a dozen seconds but that was too slow for Jay.

  His subconscious mind formed a faster way. PSI surged in him and he wove together his PSI construct and then edged it with thin lines of Sofia’s molecular separation power and through it all he ran Maddy’s mass reduction so that the matter sliced and diced by the deadly tendrils of his PSI construct simply floated away.

  It took tens of thousands of PSI, all used up in an instant but he didn’t care. His women were being threatened. Nothing would stand in his way and Char’s accuracy made sure that he hit only exactly wanted to.

  In two seconds the floor was literally ripped apart and he cut straight down three hundred feet bypassing all the warren of tunnels. Then in a flash he teleported to the area that had opened up before him. So intent was he on getting down there that he left the other two behind.

  What greeted him was not at all what he had expected. Gone were all the pretenses of this being some medieval chamber of horrors. The lab tables and torture devices had all been shattered, ripped asunder. And beneath it all was a cold metallic room in the shape of an octagon.

  At the center of the room was what appeared to be a stone altar, but his senses told him it was so much more. It was a piece of A’snkarnt technology, a very complex lock if he didn’t miss his guess, although part of that knowledge was coming to him through the fusion with Ava.

  He opened himself up to all the input from the many fused girls around him and realized what the problem was. Floating in the air above the top of the altar was a hologram of an A’snkarnt. Not D’varn, but then again they all looked the same to him.

  The image was apparently interactive because it turned to him the moment he entered the chamber. He already knew the macabre message it was going to deliver but still he felt the pulse of energy push out from the altar to enforce the message. It buffeted him but didn’t move him so much as an inch. His fused girls all held their ground but the others were pushed back.

  Most infuriating were the two men who were blasted back against one of the walls with Veronica in their hands. She was terrified, Jay didn’t need a bond to know that, it was written across her face.

  But everyone paused as the recorded message played again, “Congratulations, hoomans, for reaching this stage. This is the final floor of the dungeon. To reach this point you have grown strong. You have suffered. And likely you have created a new life with offspring and a hope for the future.

  “Know that as cruel as this experiment seemed there was a purpose to it. There exists in our universe a scourge such as no other. It is known as the Forlorn for they are without hope or joy or anything but a terrible need to consume, a desire to create stark order in all things. They brook no interference and all who have stood against them have fallen.

  “Only the A’snkarnt remain of the great races and we simply are not warriors. For this reason we developed a means for you hoomans to reach your potential. It is our fondest hope that you will now possess the strength to resist the Forlorn. You are to me a sword to cleave them and it is under our wise guidance that such a thing may be achieved.

  “There stands before you but one last obstacle. You must pass this altar, which is a lock to reach the command deck of the vessel that has been your home for the past years. This lock has but one key. A hooman life must be extinguished upon the altar and then you will gain your prize.

  “If this seems harsh, know that we live in a harsh universe and we A’snkarnt have had to make many harsh decisions throughout the past millennia. Sacrifice is the only way to victory and we must know that you don’t place your own race above the future of the universe.

  “Any attempt to bypass the lock will result in the destruction of this ship. We cannot allow it to fall into the hands of any but those willing to give everything to win this war against the Forlorn. Whichever cluster makes it through this lock first shall meet with the A’snkarnt council and become the leaders of hoomanity moving forward.

  “It will be you who determine the course of this war, with our guidance. It will be you who reap the rewards of defeat, but equally if you are unable to make this hard decision you will be the reason that hoomanity ends as another failed experiment, unworthy of their place in the universe.

  One last warning, lest you think that you can bypass this, all potential hooman evolutions and powers have been extrapolated by the AI which supports our society. Coreframe is a sentient entity which has guided the development of not only the A’snkarnt for hundreds of thousands of years.

  “It is Coreframe that saw some glimmer of potential in your race. It was Coreframe that instructed us in how to guide your evolution from primitives to what you are now. And it is Coreframe who has laid the defense here so that you have no chance to bypass it. It is an intellect beyond even A’snkarnt minds, which have been the greatest in the universe since your ancestors were little more than monkeys in the trees.

  “Now choose.”

  Getting it through the fusion and seeing it for himself were two different things. He understood that the other clusters had fought. There were injured humans lying around amidst the ruined veneer of what this room had been meant to look like. Up around the altar, Amelia and the others were trying to keep anyone from reaching it, but they also were trying to not kill any of the other humans.

  Madison had distorted the area around them so that anyone who came running at them would suddenly feel like their body weighed a hundred times as much. Daphne was powering her up. Next to them Charlotte had drawn a bead on the ones holding Veronica. Her arrows were less about the arrows and now just a way for her to focus the different types of destructive energy that she could now manifest.

  Nalani had a look somewhere between Doc Ock and Medusa as metal tendrils of all different sizes extended from her ready to slash out as any who came running at them. Behind her Ava and Sofia were still studying the altar. Shadows danced along Amelia’s fingers and a deadly glint which Jay recognized filled her eyes. On the far side of the altar Bong-Cha was in a fighting stance with flames dancing along her hands and feet.

  At some point when Jay had been upstairs fighting to keep all of these ingrates safe two of the men from one of the clusters had apparently captured Veronica in the confusion. Ironically she was likely the only one of his team who was weak enough to be taken like that.

  Jay narrowed his focus to just those two and Veronica. He read their surface thoughts. The big burly man who was holding Veronica in his arms was over seven feet tall and had arms the size of Jay’s legs. Whatever his evolution was it had been clearly physical. Strangely though there was very little mental activity inside his brain. It was almost as though he was only an automaton.

  Next to him though was a slender man of Chinese descent. He had a fighting stance with some type of rapidly vibrating blade in his hands. His mind also had a lock on it. Jay might be able to power past it but he wasn’t able to read the man’s mind.

  “Bitches, I told you to stop trying to hit my mind or I will turn you into drooling playthings for Thomas here. He doesn’t have much of a mind left either so it will be perfect. Now clear a way. I want to claim my right of rule,” the man yelled at his wives and fuses.

  Jay instantly knew who the problem was here. That was good. If it was just one instigator maybe this could be handled without loss of life. “That wasn’t them. That was me probing your mind. And I will thank you to kindly stop looking at my women and definitely don’t call them bitches. You will be dealing with me.”

  “There is no dealing, I will cut your woman’s head off with a flick of my wrist. My vibro blade will pass through her without r
esistance. No matter what healing powers you may think you possess my attack breaks things down at an atomic level. There will be nothing left of her,” he said.

  Taking a guess Jay said, “You must be Li Wei from cluster two.”

  “Good, and I’m guessing you are Jay from cluster one. I don’t know how you stayed ahead of me all this time, but our captors recognized my worth and opened up a gate for me and mine to come here directly. Be a good boy and I will let you keep your women, or at least most of them,” Li Wei replied.

  “That isn’t going to happen. I would rather that we worked together to overcome this test, but no matter what, I can’t let you threaten any of my cluster,” Jay said and took a deliberate step towards the man.

  “Stop right there. I saw how fast you were at getting down here. You have skills, I will acknowledge that, but you can’t possibly be faster than a flick of my wrist. And that is all it will take,” Li Wei said. Then screamed, “Now open a path to the altar and step back. This nightmare can be over.”

  Jay telepathically spoke to Ava, “Is there any way to bypass this trap?”

  “I’m sorry, Master, I can’t find one. Maybe if I had a few months to study it,” Ava replied.

  “Nothing for you to be sorry about, pet. You are amazing. This is the fault of those A’snkarnt bastards.” Then telepathically communicated to the rest of his team, “Trust me. Step back and get away from the altar. I will handle this.”

  After a moment of hesitation they started moving. Amelia, Meikiyo and Trina all offered to kill the man for him, but Jay wouldn’t place that on any of them. If he was to lead he had to make the hard decisions. He had failed with Jasmine and they were still paying the price for it. Never again.

  Out loud he said, “The path is clear and I have instructed all of my people to not interfere with you. But make sure that you really want to do this. Sacrificing a human being is a path of darkness. We are stronger together and given enough time we can get around this.”

  Li Wei scoffed. “Typical American thinking that this is so simple and that everyone wants to be your friend. You know nothing of a hard life or making sacrifices. I, alone, shall make this sacrifice. I will take my proper place.”

  Under his breath Jay said, “You can sure try.”

  Then quicker than thought, Jay time skipped over to Li Wei. A blast of power delivered between the frozen seconds disintegrated his arm that was holding the blade against Veronica. For good measure Jay slashed out with his PSI blade and removed the man’s other arm.

  Time caught up to him and Li Wei screamed as the agony washed over him. But it was cut short as Jay grabbed him like so much refuse and time skipped over to the altar. Once there he slammed the slender man’s armless body down on top of the altar and too fast to be followed, removed his head with another PSI blade slice.

  Li Wei’s PSI and blood gushed into the altar and the trap was undone. The floor under the altar shifted open but Jay held himself midair with his kinetic powers. The entire room shifted and gravity tilted so that what had been the floor became a doorway into a large command deck like something out of a sci-fi movie.

  Jay rushed around and pulled all of his team into the room and then activated tempus fugit.

  “I’m sorry that you all had to see that. I set the field for one hour but outside only a fraction of a second will pass. Now, we need to see if we can figure out how to interface with this. The Forlorn are here and have started their attack on the leviathan. Oh, and I’m sorry that you had to see me do that,” Jay said.

  Several of the girls thanked him while Trina said, “God no, it was hot to see you in action. You are something amazing. And what you did with us earlier.” She shuddered as she spoke.

  Amelia raised an eyebrow, but Meikiyo said, “We’ll tell you later, now we need to start powering up all the systems here.”

  Ava really was a genius. By the time the hour was over she had deciphered the instructions left by the A’snkarnt. Apparently the plan had called for there to be a large contingent of the aliens here to run the ship and take the hooman warriors wherever they were needed. Since none of the aliens were here though she was able to figure out how to separate the massive ship.

  A smaller ship about a quarter of the size of the moon could be disengaged from the rest and would serve as a home and car in one for the remnant of humanity. Jay told her to start the process and they all began working. He set Amelia in charge of bringing in the other clusters. Once power was restored to the ship, they set about getting everyone’s belongings while Meikiyo and Faith went back to their own cluster to organize their loading onto this ship.

  There was no time to waste and he didn’t plan on letting this opportunity slip away.

  Interlude 7- Too Close for Comfort

  The Forlorn armada was broken. Their Overmind and most of their forces were sucked into the singularity. The only remaining ships were those fighters that had been sent through first in a vain attempt to trigger any of the enemy’s traps. Alas the enemy had been too smart and these fighters were allowed through.

  Commander Ruyik was the only Forlorn above soldier left. He had over six hundred fighters under his command and they were all headed straight for the leviathan. The only thing that had saved them from the energy wave of the newly forming singularity was the fact that they had shut down all their systems to await the rest of the armada.

  Now they were powered up and less than two hundred million miles from the leviathan. They simply had to clear the rest of the asteroid belt and it would be clear sailing. Even better, their readings suggested that the leviathan might have been knocked out of commission by the wave from the singularity.

  Then all hell broke loose as cannons hidden within the asteroid belt came to life. Forlorn fighters were swift and good at avoiding technology which would allow auto cannons to lock onto them, but no technology was perfect. The first unexpected volley took out ten percent of his fighters.

  This wouldn’t work. Even if its shields were down the leviathan was massive. If the fighters were going to destroy it he would need as many of them as possible. The battle was then truly engaged as Forlorn fighters tried to evade A’snkarnt pulse cannons and in turn blow those same cannons out of space.

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  Alarms went off on the leviathan again. D’varn knew these meant that the Forlorn had hit the final defenses. The leviathan was still only running on emergency power. Its primary drives were not back on line.

  Still he had a mission to complete. It was time. Somehow he would find a way onto one of the small cruisers in the leviathan and would make good his escape with the prize he had been tasked with obtaining.

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  Huong was scrambling around. Ava had been able to figure out what these new alarms meant. The Forlorn attack force was almost upon them. It was now or never. They had theories, but so far that was all it was. There was no way to know for sure if Ava’s plan would work.

  Mia’s crystals were a more reliable plan, but it would still take many more years to have enough. There were just too many subsystems on this massive ship. The best news was that with the upgraded access and tools that they had, a huge amount of progress had been made. They were now effectively thousands of years ahead of where Earth had been in their understanding of science and technology.

  The newcomers that D’varn had brought had also helped. Oh and Jay with manipulating time to give them the ability to work days in an instant but she couldn’t let on too much to him or his head would get big. After all a part of a wife’s job was keeping her husband humble. Even for the head that she did like to see get bigger, it was still more fun making it shrink.

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  A scream of rage filled the area that had become her workshop. This was where she repaired the warriors and drones. This was where she created all of her new variants. It was also where she was working on her crowning achievement. This weapo
n would give her everything she wanted.

  Jay might not understand yet that they belonged together, but she had the next best thing till he came around. The skin cells that her juggernaut had taken from Jay during the last incursion were enough for her to create a clone. It wasn’t the real Jay, that was abundantly obvious, but it worshipped her and when combined with one of the sluts she had captured when she destroyed the third cluster, it was going to be enough.

  Jasmine laughed even though there was no one around her to understand. Her test subjects were immobilized. She found their pleading to be tiresome and that often led to her draining their life force out. It was wasteful though as they made the best creations. Admittedly there was one prisoner that she liked to hear plead. S’vanth thought he was immune to her power. His entire race thought they were immune to emotions, but they had just suppressed them. Once she broke down his barriers it had been a pleasure to see him plead; he was such a coward but again his gray matter would make a meaningful contribution to her new monster. Now though thanks to her visions from the future she knew what she really needed.