by Matthew Peed
“Selected, this is no place for idle eyes.”
“No. I’m here to help.”
“Help? Damn thing has been taunting us all morning. I don’t care what you do at this point, just get it out of my ocean!” the captain yelled, not hiding his agitation as he gestured angrily at the ocean next to us.
I spun Helios and nodded, then jumped into the water. Thankfully, the water was clear as glass, and I could easily locate the creature. I didn’t know much about aquatic animals, but I thought a whale was the closest that came to it. There were spikes and massive fins that moved it through the water. For such a large creature, it was making good time.
I shot toward it, Helios leading, but didn’t get very far before the creature became aware of me. It turned sharply toward me and started to gain even more speed. I spun Helios and angled it so that the point was leading.
A moment before it reached me, I twisted and brought Helios around. The blade at the bottom dug into the side of the creature, and blue blood leaked out as I gave it a three-meter-long gash. The creature twisted in a way that I thought shouldn’t be possible for something its size, and the tail shifted rapidly. I collided with it face-first and ended up jarring my senses as the creature finished its pass.
Some blood floated in the water around me, and I rubbed my nose. “Motherfucker,” I groaned after creating a bubble of air by forming a barrier around me. I shook my head to clear the ringing.
I glanced at Helios. It needed to be longer to deal with this creature. I didn’t have much time before the creature made another pass, so I channeled my mana until nearly half my pool was gone. The blade at the end stretched, adding just short of two more meters to it.
“Time for round two!”
Chapter 20
Yo’ei Meng
“Over here!”
“Shit! They’ve been really persistent the last few days!”
I ran over to where the two cliff guards stood and pointed at something down the cliff. Over the edge I saw a monster with massive claws trying to climb up the cliff wall. Farther down there were nearly half a dozen more following along behind the leader.
Larick held his hand out and formed a fireball. In only a few seconds, it grew to the size of an adult human. He sent the fireball flying, and just before it reached the monster, it expanded to twice its size. It collided with the cliff wall directly above the monster with a small explosion, and the cliff face collapsed, taking the topmost monster as well as half of the other monsters down with it.
“Larick Xian! That was amazing! When did you master such powerful magic?” I asked him. While I was an air user, studying the ways of the other aspects never hurt.
“No . . . I didn’t intend for that to happen. The mana . . . the mana is acting strange.”
As if to give his words credit, a swirl appeared in the clouds several kilometers away from the cliffs over the monster lands. From the center of the swirl, streaks of yellow lightning struck out and collided with the ground.
“Get down!” shouted one of the cliff guards.
I reacted almost on instinct as chunks of debris rained down around us. Zaris, another cliff guard with terra mana, formed a dome around us. I couldn’t help covering my head, even with the dome covering us.
“The village!” Larick shouted as the shrouding finally stopped. Zaris dismissed the dome. The bamboo forest around us had been reduced to tinder from blackened chunks of rock. “Ming! Stay here and watch the cliffs. We don’t know what the monsters will do after that.”
“I understand! Please check on my family!”
Larick nodded, then they took off toward the village. I watched until they were out of view, then turned back to the cliff edge. A smoldering glow that could easily be seen even from this distance now graced the horizon. I actually couldn’t see the entire crater, it was so massive.
The mana in the area was still acting up, but even I could tell it was expended for the moment. I had never felt a lack of ambient mana before. That being the case, I had still seen plenty of storms get a second wind. Depending on what this was, there could be more where the first explosion came from. I carefully checked over the cliff to make sure there were no monsters coming.
I had to jerk my head back quickly. A wave of heat was rolling up the cliff. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t feel anything from my place on the cliff, but my skin had turned red just from the brief moment I’d looked over the edge. Any longer and I was sure I would have had burns.
I watched the cliff for nearly an hour, worrying over my family but knowing that my duty watching the cliff was just as important. If even one monster got up there, hundreds could die. That was how powerful they were. I heard footsteps behind and quickly spun around with both hope and dread.
“The village is alright. Most of the debris struck the edges of the plateau. Your family is safe as well.”
“Thank you, Larick. No monsters attempted the cliffs. Though, I’m not sure any monsters are left down there. I nearly burned my face when I attempted to look farther down the cliff,” I reported, feeling much better. I wasn’t sure what I’d have done if I’d lost my family. They were all I had in the world.
“Good wor—what the hell is that?!” Larick Xian shouted, looking at something over my shoulder. I spun around and looked with wide eyes as whatever was happening in the distance changed.
A large structure was emerging from the blustering swirl that was forcing the clouds to change. Or at least that was the best description I could give it. It was massive with lots of straight lines and possessed a silver-gray color that reflected what little light reached it. Objects were streaming around it that were roughly the same shape but much smaller.
Twenty seconds passed quickly as I counted, and the object was still coming out of the tear in the sky. Large jets of flame blasted from places on the object, slowing it down, but I could see that it was still going too fast. Sure enough, the mountain-sized object slammed into the ground, carving a canyon into the already decimated land.
The object came to a rest soon after that. I thought that was it, but I was wrong. Another object that I reckoned was at least the same size if not larger started to emerge. This one had a completely different feel to the last. Its color was brownish-red, and it had what looked like spikes coming off it. It would have collided with the first object had it come out of the tear from the same direction, but it managed to turn to the side just enough to avoid the impact.
“Get the elders!” Larick yelled at me as the second object came to a rest. I stared at him for a second before I took off running, channeling mana into helping me run as fast as I could. I must have made it to the village in record time.
I made for the village center, as that was usually where the elders gathered when there was an emergency. Thankfully, they were all there. I quickly crossed the rest of the distance. “Elders! We need you at the cliffs! Something is happening!” I shouted, feeling bad about cutting the person in front of me off midsentence.
“What is it, young one?” one of the elders asked.
I had no idea and could only cry urgently, “We don’t know!”
Just as the last word left my mouth, the large rectangular object rose above the top of the bamboo forest surrounding the village. Even though it was still several dozen kilometers away, we could see it with ease. Soil and debris were falling off the underside. Seeing the whole thing at once made its massive size clearer. As if on cue, the other object rose into the air as well.
Looking it over, I could tell that the impact had damaged it. How extensive that damage was, only the occupants could know—if there were occupants. Maybe we were watching two gods descend to the realm of men. Large sections were missing, and there were cracks in dozens of places visible from this distance. The scary thing was that it was healing as we watched.
“Gods have mercy on our souls!” whispered an elder as she bowed her head in prayer.
Smaller objects flew around the bigger one like a swarm of
bees. All of a sudden, the second large object unleashed a streak of light at the rectangular one. I thought it was going to be cut through, but a barrier like the one some of the higher-level mages used formed at the spot the light was going to hit.
The rectangular object didn’t hesitate, and several dozen of its own streaks of light shot back. A similar barrier formed around the brown object that managed to resist most of them. They rebounded off into the already ruined landscape around the objects. Two managed to pierce the barrier and carved a large gash in the side of the second object. Spikes fell from the object as they were blasted off.
We watched as the two objects traded fire like that for thirty seconds when the realization that we weren’t safe struck us violently. One of the streaks of light rebounded off the rectangular object and cut a furrow just outside the village. A few hundred meters closer and we would have been dead.
“Everyone! We need to flee to the other side of the plateau! Cliff guards! Help the women, children, and elderly first. This place isn’t safe!” Elder Dencin yelled with amazing strength for someone so old.
We evacuated in minutes, leaving all our possessions behind. During the ten minutes it took for us to flee the village, the two objects never ceased their firing.
Just as the last person made it out of the village, one of the streaks of light sliced clean through the village center, and even through the Alrain Tree that had stood for centuries, maybe longer. The village exploded into flames, and the Alrain Tree turned to ash in seconds. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt something deep inside me shudder. I knew it was for a reason much deeper than the fact that my home was a smoking hole in the ground.
“Come! This is still not safe!” the guards shouted to the crowd.
I felt a wetness on my cheek and found that I was crying. With a glance around, I saw everyone else silently mourning the loss of our home as well. I looked to the two objects that had yet to yield to each other and saw a golden light coming from the rectangular object.
I knew there shouldn’t be any possible way, but I was able to make out the source of the light. A man, or at least I thought it was a man, floated with a massive staff that reminded me of a sunburst. Mana so strong it was palpable swirled around him. As I crested the hill and the sight was cut off, I only had one thought.
That was no mortal.
Chapter 21
Regan
“Well the equations work out, I just don’t know when and where it will actually put us,” I commented mostly to myself. It took nearly four days for me to work the information into my core on the ship. I had greater control of the core than the ship itself, which was a separate entity in my aura. Plus, my natural dungeon core abilities allowed me to process the information far faster than the computer that was designed to have limits.
“Responding. It should be within a month of the entrance point. Though there is always room for variance,” Aires said.
“I agree that I saw that as part of the equation, but I believe that time isn’t so easily manipulated.”
“Then let us hope you are wrong,” Aires said, and I could have sworn I saw her stone eye twitch.
“Let us hope.”
My ship moved to the front near what could have been considered the edge or boundary of the temporal dimension we’d found ourselves in. With the rest of the fleet arranged around us and the constructs’ ship directly behind us, we made ready to leave this place.
The ship’s reactor and my core worked to generate as much mana as I could afford to and channeled it toward an array I’d constructed at the front of the ship with the equations and information the constructs gave me. For a solid two hours the mana built to a peak. I nodded to Aires, then to the rest of the bridge crew, then hit the big red button I’d created for just this purpose.
With a shudder, a large beam of energy fired from the front of my ship. It slammed into a point in space that appeared empty and large cracks formed, which soon grew larger. Roughly five minutes passed before we were able to see through the opening. I quickly saw that the opening had formed right above the surface of a planet—which I hoped was Murgin.
“Forward full! Get through before the portal closes!”
With a second shudder, the Grand Titan started to move toward the opening. We had barely minutes before it could lose even a semblance of stability, thus it was a race against time. The front end of Grand Titan started through, and I felt the strangest thing I’d felt since coming to Murgin.
There was a sense that I existed in thousands of places at once, all of which I was acutely aware of. I saw myself back on Earth still locked in my tower waiting for someone who would manage to kill me. In another version, I was working as a cashier at a convenience store. In yet another version, I was laughing manically as my machines conquered the world.
Finally, everything that possessed my aura around it was through the tear in space, and the sensation passed. I would have breathed with relief—except the next moment, thousands of what I’d come to consider information feeds slammed into my head as I reconnected with the real space-time.
“Impact in ten seconds!” First yelled, but I wasn’t able to do anything about it. The ship was already in full reverse. Everyone on the bridge who wasn’t strapped down was thrown about. I managed to keep my spot by melding my feet to the floor.
The Grand Titan ploughed a furrow that would likely become a landmark for whoever lived in the area. I momentarily worried I’d just crushed a town or the like, but I hadn’t had a chance to check the exit point. We finally came to a stop, and the crew got back to their spots.
I finally began to process all the information flooding into my head and checked the surroundings. The constructs’ ship was embedded in the ground near us. Thankfully, they’d managed to adjust their trajectory enough not to crash into us.
In the distance was a plateau, but whatever was here before was gone. It had been reduced to a smoldering ash field. The basic systems of the ship returned, and we started to lift into the air. I turned my attention back to the constructs’ ship to see if they needed any help.
“Incoming!” First shouted.
“Deploy barrier!” I ordered.
A stream of energy slammed into Grand Titan’s barrier, pushing the ship back a few meters. Unlike in the temporal zone, I had much better access to mana. I quickly reinforced the barrier, then returned the favor with a volley of my own weapons.
“Lock down Aires!” I shouted but found I was already too late. The screen that showed her room was turning white from the light she was putting off. The last thing I saw was a sad smile. Grand Titan shuddered from the shock and cracks forming over the hull.
I redirected some of the mana I was getting into repairing the damage, but she’d taken a good ten to fifteen percent of the center section of the ship out with her self-destruction. If my vessel had been any smaller, we would have been in two pieces right now.
“Incoming message from construct ship! Audio only.”
“Relay it.”
“Thank you for freeing us from the dimension. As our agreement only lasted to that point, we’ll finish what we started.”
“What point is there in fighting?” I sent back. I just couldn’t find any logic behind their decision.
“We were created in the image of precursors. We are the inheritors of the planet!”
It was the first time I’d heard such strong emotion from the constructs since I’d started working with them to escape the other dimension. I could tell they truly believed that. This could be a problem. I remembered plenty of wars were fought for basically the same reason back on Earth. One race seeing themselves as better than all the others usually led to some very dangerous people.
“Then is there to be no peace?”
The reply came back almost instantly. “We refuse to be ruled again.”
I attempted a few more times to talk with them, but each time was met with weapons fire. If that was the way they wanted it, I would return the
favor tenfold. I had worked to maintain relatively peaceful relations with the people of this planet so far. I supposed that there had to be one supremist race among the bunch.
They were able to generate mana again, but it was no match for a dungeon core! For every one of their attacks, I sent five in return. The already decimated landscape gained even more scars. Some of the weapons’ fire managed to make it to the plateau nearby. The constructs’ ship was severely damaged by this point, and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop.
One of their energy beams rebounded off our barrier and struck the plateau. I didn’t think anything about it until I felt a wave of what could only be called evil erupt from somewhere on the plateau. The constructs’ attacks also stopped in that instant.
“What did we just unleash?” I mumbled.
The evil sensation I was feeling passed quickly as if it were suppressed by something. I would need to expand my influence more. Whatever had caused that feeling of dread was not weak. It gave me the end-of-days vibe.
The constructs had come to a complete standstill. I took advantage of the lull to move above them and expand my aura to cover their entire base. They were the ones that started this, and as my enemies found, I don’t let people get away with hitting me in the face after helping them. I flew in front of the ship in case they tried to attack Grand Titan while it was sealing them.
My core nearly fractured with how much mana I was pouring through it. After two minutes, my aura covered the three square kilometers around the constructs’ vessel. I bound the Grand Titan to the spot so they would have to leave their ship to be able to exit the area. I knew they likely could do that, but a race like theirs needed a steady supply of mana to operate.
Almost as soon as my aura was established, a communication link formed. “RELEASE US!”
“A little slow on the uptake?” I asked, not holding back a snicker.
“How dare you! Using that moment to trap us like this!” Kurnezal shouted at the screen.
