Executor Rising: A GameLit/LitRPG Adventure (Magnus Book 2)

by Vowron Prime

  “There is no time, we need to hurry!” Nova got under his shoulder and helped him limp to the dense forest that surrounded the pillar’s base.

  “We need to hide! Can you relocate some of the greenery around us and activate your energy dampener?”

  MC nodded, hollowing out a hole in the soft soil deep enough to bear them. He then teleported them inside, relocating several tree trunks and other flora above to hide the opening.

  The majority of the forest was doused in the crimson glow emanating from the massive pillar of flesh, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot. Luckily, even without Midar, he didn’t need much light—the fact that they’d spent days underground meant their eyes were well-adapted to the dimly-lit surroundings.

  So when blindingly white spotlights passed by overhead, it felt like someone had just kickstarted the fusion reaction of a sun. The afterimages only receded a good thirty seconds later.

  The shrieking wail of whatever the Harvesters used to power their hovercraft completely drowned out the ambient noise, prompting the birds and animals alike to take flight in a desperate bid to flee the alien contraption.

  Nova locked eyes with MC, bringing a finger up to her lips. An unnecessary gesture; he had absolutely no intention of going toe-to-toe against any alien craft without first understanding its abilities.

  The matte-black, highly angular craft apparently finished its search, flicking off its floodlights and whirring away. Though smaller than a chariot, its mobility was far superior to anything the Dyn had ever thrown at them, as was its design. It looked vaguely like human tech, but advanced several hundred years in the future.

  “An Apoadeid Hunter-Killer,” Nova whispered. “We are lucky to be alive.”

  The two exhaled in unison, but their relief was short-lived. The wildlife that had scampered off before promptly flooded back. Shrieks and yelps erupted all around them. Blind without his Midar, MC decided the situation didn’t exactly fill him with confidence.

  But first things first. He teleported them outside the hidey-hole he’d made, wrapping them with his energy dampener’s stealth field all the while, and he couldn’t help but feel that his various abilities were finally beginning to synergize. Stealthed teleportation would be an incredibly useful tactical asset.

  He moved them to the edge of the forest, where he relocated some of the water by the shore, dumping it onto his broken leg. The cold water seeped through his armor and immediately began repairing the damage, soothing his body all the while. He sighed in relief as the nanites did their magic, damn the consequences. For something that was supposedly killing him, it felt so damned good.

  A couple more splashes and he was as good as new.

  “I don’t know whether to be relieved or horrified that there’s so much of this stuff down here.”

  “Horrified. Definitely horrified. Look over there.” Nova pointed to another island off in the distance—far smaller than the giant one atop which they stood. That island had no giant pillar, just one of the white mutagenic trees he’d seen on the surface. Hundreds of other similar islands floated in the distance.

  The ocean, while massive, did not appear to be especially deep. He could clearly see the brightly glowing rings embedded directly below each floating island. Rings that looked all too familiar—the white tree in the Forest of Death, the one in the Vederyn oasis, and the Divide all had these.

  “Nova? I saw those rings on the surface. Except there the water was being pumped into those mutagenic ponds. I think they may all be connected in some kind of network. We may have just found the source.”

  Nova spun around, eyes wide. “No. That’s impossible! If that is true…”

  “It means that your people are slowly poisoning the water across the motherfucking planet. This shit’s getting carried by the rivers into towns and cities, and I don’t suppose the Zevan filter their water.”

  “Perhaps… but it would be an extremely diluted dose… What do my people hope to achieve with such a feat?”

  Then the horror dawned upon her.

  “The mutated Zevan! You don’t think? No, it could not be!”

  Goosebumps rippled through MC’s skin. He’d been through some serious shit in his life, but this had to be a new low.

  The Harvesters are building an unwitting army.

  How long had they been at this? And how much longer would it be before the entire world’s Zevan became zombified machines of destruction?

  “Magnus, I need to understand what my people are attempting to accomplish here.”

  “And just how do you propose we do that?”

  She pointed at the giant pillar that rose at the center of their island. He followed her gaze and noticed a detail he’d missed when they’d been on Eiga, much farther away. The structure was hollow, like a skyscraper. Holes were cut out on each floor. White light flooded out, clearly indicating that the thing was a technological structure of some kind.

  “Hell no. No way. You want us to infiltrate that!? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

  But before she could answer, they found themselves surrounded by an uncountable number of mutated beasts. Though the energy dampener would’ve killed the sound from their conversation, they weren’t exactly invisible.

  Surrounded on the beach with their back to the water was not a situation MC wanted to be in. But just as he was preparing to teleport them through the ring of enemies, the swarm parted to reveal an especially hideous monster.

  A hideous lizard-like being with six graspers, it kept its four hindlimbs planted on the ground while its torso stood upright. At over seven feet in height, it opened its elongated maw, uttering a shrill cry that seemed to rally the animals around it. It grasped sticks and stones, like rudimentary weapons.

  MC flew into action, instantly fusing swaths of enemies into the soft soil below.

  “Magnus, do not kill too many. Their absence will be noticed!”

  “Shit! Underground it is, then.”

  Relocating a tunnel beneath them, he teleported them into it, continuing to expand the opening in a direction he hoped was away from the hostiles. But to their horror, several worm-like monsters—with circular saws attached to their bodies—burrowed through. Resembling massive worms with maw lined with innumerable rows of teeth, they apparently had no issue chomping through bedrock.

  While he could relocate most of them, it would only take one of those biomechanical hybrids to bite off a limb or two. A nasty way to die.

  “Plan’s changed, we’re going topside after all.”

  Sending a weak ground-penetrating Midar ping, he selected a suitable location above them, preemptively relocating hostiles in the immediate area before initiating the teleport. Somewhat predictably, they found themselves once again in the midst of the horde, which promptly rallied in an attempt to devour them.

  MC relocated them as surgically as possible to try to cut a path through while still refraining from killing them all, but the task proved to be extremely difficult.

  Even with the energy dampener covering them both, he didn’t like how many hits they were getting in against the barrier. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to disable the field, and then all they’d have to look forward to would be a painful, horrific end.

  Right as he was considering summoning Eiga, Nova pointed off into the distance. “Take us to the pillar! They likely have supersonic emitters to keep the animals at bay. We can use that to our advantage.”

  “Oh yeah, let’s just run from the frying pan straight into the fucking incinerator, shall we?” Trading werebeasts for a Dyn mad scientist’s laboratory didn’t sound like an especially sane plan to him.

  “Magnus!”

  Then again, they didn’t have a ton of options. Not if they wanted answers.

  “This is gonna be such a bad day.”

  Seven

  “As far as bad ideas go, this one has some serious Hall of Fame potential,” MC groaned, shaking his head as they gazed upon the massive pillar t
hat towered in the distance.

  Several hundred yards of jungle had been cleared in a circle around the base, and a two-story-tall opening about fifty yards wide had been cut into the base of the tree. Nova was convinced that was the primary entrance into the superstructure.

  “Magnus, I can only ask that you trust me. I know the inner workings of Dyn technology as well as anyone, even Qephyx flesh tech, and we need not go far into the pillar.”

  “Flesh tech?”

  “As I mentioned, every Dyn race is unique and distinct, and each has their own unique technology. These living pillars of flesh are the hallmark of the Qephyx, whose appearance resembles a writhing mass of flesh. They hail from a carbon monoxide-rich world which would be fatal to us, so they surround themselves within their hoversphere armor. They are also the ones who pioneered the parasite inside you.”

  “That sounds horrific. Sorry I asked.”

  Nova ignored his remark. “It is not as if we will ascend the pillar. There is bound to be a terminal just inside the entrance—the one responsible for the security of the entrance. If I can infect it, I am positive I can deaden the senses of the pillar’s lower floors, just enough to allow us to get as far as we need to.”

  MC scanned their surroundings as they talked, picking off errant werebeasts that got too close for comfort. The sonic emitters were partially effective even at this distance; it was perhaps the only reason they hadn’t either been discovered or killed by the beasts’ sheer numbers.

  Their current location may very well have been the only safe haven on the entire island. Safe being a relative concept—without the relocator, they wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes.

  “You expect me to believe that anyone can just waltz right in there? Your people have got to have better security than that.”

  “It is true. Sonic emitters are generally used to keep the animals at bay, but they will not affect us. They will likely send out defense drones before I manage to infect the pillar, but once I succeed, all of those defenses should shut down. They are all the minions of a central brain that resides deep within the tower.”

  “So it works like an anesthesia? Deadening its... appendages?”

  “Precisely.”

  MC took a long, hard look at her. “Why? Why take this risk? We know your people are up to some serious shit. What could you possibly gain by going in there?”

  Frowning, Nova replied, “Magnus, are you content going on as we have? Simply running, barely surviving? And how are we supposed to make a difference if we are unaware of the threats we face? I swear to you, it will be worth our while.”

  He still wasn’t convinced.

  “If my suspicion is correct,” she continued, “this is a research facility similar to the ones all around the planet. There should be valuable technology in there—Dyn technology that can help us. We may even find a substitute for the mutagenic water, or perhaps something to help fight the parasite’s effects. This is a Qephyx operation, after all.”

  MC knew that look in her eyes well by now. She was dead set on going, and he couldn’t blame her. After enduring torture, being excommunicated by her kind, and hunted for the past week, she’d been living in constant fear of what came next. She covered her insecurities well, but she had to be feeling incredibly vulnerable right now. A goal might just be exactly what she needed. And he had to admit, even a sliver of a chance of finding a way to delay the parasite was too valuable an opportunity to pass up.

  He threw his hands up. “Fine. But we are going to minimize the risks in every way that we can. We need a plan.”

  They spent the next several hours in hushed discussion within another underground chamber MC had crafted, the energy dampener active around them the entire time. In all that time, not one hovercraft bothered them, and the occasional burrowing worm that tried to make its way through was quickly dispatched.

  It seemed like they’d be more or less safe here, so long as he refrained from sending out Midar pings. Their proximity to the pillar’s sonic emitters meant that the majority of the mutated animals were nowhere to be seen.

  The plan itself was simple, and that gave MC some confidence that it might actually work. Risky, but simple. MC would teleport them right into the entrance of the pillar where Nova would find the nearest terminal and somehow reprogram the security systems of the pillar’s lowest floor before the base’s defenses descended upon them.

  MC convinced Nova to let him make the final Go/No-Go decision at that point. If he felt things were getting dicey, they’d abort the mission and teleport back to the edge of the dark forest, where he’d summon Eiga to make their escape—stealth be damned.

  If things looked good, they’d head for the pillar’s bottommost level. Nova initially wanted to use the elevators inside to get them up to one of the levels where she’d be able to “hack” into more of their systems. The way she described it, though, sounded so bizarre, MC decided that their ideas of what hacking meant were completely different. He shut that plan down. What they were doing was reckless, but what she had proposed sounded like suicide.

  In the end, they compromised. They’d stay at the lowest floor and either look to gain access to a terminal or find a Dyn researcher with the intel she needed.

  There was no day or night in this dark abyss, so after another hour of staking out the place and finding zero activity anywhere near the pillar, MC gave the operation a green light. He’d gone back to the beach to fill up his water containers and skins with the ambrosia water. Even Nova agreed that it would be wise to have as much as possible on hand, should any emergencies arise. Not that he’d have listened if she’d said otherwise.

  “Ready?”

  Nova nodded, a look of grim determination etched onto her face. MC drew close and held her waist, then they were gone.

  The two reappeared in strange surroundings. What had been an indistinct burgundy form in the distance was actually semi-solid walls, floors, and ceilings that all looked organic. Not quite fleshy, but maybe what it’d look like if someone took a living organism and hardened it with some kind of muscle stiffener. The ground was tough enough to walk on, but the indistinct pulsating and undulations—and the heat? Unexpected, to say the least. Of course, then there was the stench—thick with copper.

  “Is everything here alive?”

  Nova just smirked at him. “It depends on how you define alive, but yes, it is likely what you are thinking.”

  She pointed to the distance, and they teleported once again to arrive at a corner wall covered in thin black tubes that ran from the fleshy wall to an armored box.

  “Magnus, please relocate off a piece of this thing’s cover.”

  She gestured exactly where to make the cuts, which he followed, opening a hole large enough to stick a couple of hands through. The glossy black object that lay inside the box made for a truly horrific sight.

  If he were forced to describe the abomination, he’d say it resembled a misshapen, enlarged brain that someone had taken a butane torch to. Charred, black, disgusting.

  “Please be vigilant. This may take me a minute. Also, may I have your knife and a few drops of your blood?” Nova asked, reaching her hand out as if it was the most natural thing to do.

  “Say again?”

  “Please?”

  MC narrowed his eyes but said nothing. Unholstering his nanomachine-enhanced knife, he cut into his palm, leaving the knife stained in his blood.

  “Thank you,” she said as she gingerly took it from him, making a slight incision into the brain, allowing MC’s blood to drip into it. Then she handed the knife back to him. Gripping the brain with her hands, she closed her eyes in apparent concentration.

  That was about all he had time to witness—sounds in the distance demanded his attention.

  Shuffling. Coming nearer and nearer.

  It sounded like what you’d expect from dozens of tiny hunter-killer drones, scuffing their mechanical legs as they advanced. But then came the buzzing, and from unseen holes fle
w dozens of biomechanical organisms that looked a lot like oversized yellowjackets plated in metal armor.

  “Uh, Nova? You better hurry up because we’ve got company!”

  Receiving no response, he cursed and braced for what was about to ensue. He didn’t want to risk them getting too close without understanding their capabilities. Using pieces of their surroundings as ammunition, he relocated them as fast as he could inside the swarm. Yet while somewhat effective, not every fusion killed a wasp instantly, and there were far too many of them for this tactic to work. More assertive measures were required.

  As if sensing what he was about to do, Nova spoke up. “Magnus, please try not to destroy this area. It will only trigger more pain receptors in the pillar’s brain, making it harder to bypass their security.”

  “That’s just fucking great.”

  The biomech wasps flew on unimpeded, breaching his relocation pickup threshold of fifty yards. MC and Nova were on a sort of elevated walkway that abutted the fleshy walls, off in a corner of the wide entrance area. Retreating wasn’t an option, especially with Nova locked up with the brain.

  A vicious swarm of wasps buzzed nearer.

  The instant they were in range, he went to town, bisecting as many of them as possible with a single wide-area activation. Forty of their number fell. He did it again, taking out another thirty, but the remaining ones had almost flown into melee range.

  Just as he was contemplating grabbing Nova and getting the hell out of Dodge, she finally spoke, and her words were sweeter than the sound of 20mm Vulcan fire.

  “The defenses have been infected!”

  The wasps continued swarming forward.

  “Uh, you sure? The wasps are still heading straight for us.”

  “Just watch,” she replied, her eyes still shut.

  MC’d had enough. He’d given her a chance, and he was making the No-Go call. Mission aborted. He turned around and walked over to her, but she raised a bloodied hand, telling him to stop.