Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 695
🕑 Added 2024-08-20 22:57:20 +0000 UTCWe split up as we left the apartment. There were a ton of people here, not just executives, but staff, families, subordinates, and any number of other innocents we could and should rescue on our way out. Rajak was MUCH too big for the remaining two hundred enemy Ascendants to really crack down on after we left, but the Unity building was a prime target for focus.
That was why I’d drawn off so many of them with my clones. As the main target here, I was too good of a find to pass up, and they would have pulled as many as necessary to track me down. The thing was…I still had a bad feeling. Something was going on here. Travis had to have a plan in place for when we showed up.
My own plan had massively evened the playing field, but it didn’t mean we were in the clear. Which was why we’d split up to make the best use of our time.
There were a LOT of hallways and floors to cover, and seventy E-rankers was barely enough to sweep them all in time. We’d gone with groups of three, Benny and Jessie were accompanying me, and we were heading for the top floor, where we would find Paul, Annie, and Eric.
If there was a trap, it would be up there. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would put a guard on Callie’s family. Close or not, it was the common sense move.
I growled as I ducked under a spontaneous laser grid, then hopped over a pit that opened in the floor full of some kind of acid. My hand lashed out, plucking five darts from the air, my gloves preventing the poison on them from being absorbed into my skin.
Between my Eye of Revelation, Callie’s trap senses, and the overlay, we were getting through the place at a steady pace, but steady wasn’t fast. Stella had gone with her friend, using the pass through the defenses to get to the nearby executives, hopefully using THEIR defensive access to expand that perimeter as they went, but we were heading for the top directly so we had to go the slow way.
The stairwells were trapped to hell, but they were the only way up (lockdown had shut down the elevator) and we’d run into several Wendigos already, but we were finally up at the last floor. I was just about to open the door, when I felt my Danger Sense flare. Hard.
“Wait.” I said, holding up a hand. “There’s someone in here. Someone bad.” This was the trap, the hook that had been set in Rajak to scoop me up. “Just like we planned. The two of you hit the next floor down. The vice guild master and her family are down there, have her help clear the rest of the floor and bring everyone you can up to help.”
I’d made several contingencies for this, and rollover backup was the easiest to pull off. Midknight and Shadowthorn were inside, but Shadowthorn was F-rank last I heard, and Midknight…he wasn’t on our level.
My friends didn’t look happy, but they already had their orders. Mostly I was just worried about whatever trap was in here hurting them. I was versatile as hell, had my staff, and had plenty of escape measures. Benny and Jessie were far less mobile. Me being the one to check things out was the smart play.
Of course, I wasn’t going to go in personally. I wasn’t stupid. I conjured a clone through the bond, letting it step through the door for me while I waited outside. I triggered Mephistopheles and Belial, charging up that horrifyingly corrosive cosmic collapse.
Meanwhile, the clone stepped through the door carefully, a parallel controlling it directly so I could see everything it saw. I expected a trap, or an attack, or some kind of scene of carnage. Maybe some hostages or something. But to my surprise, the inside of the tap floor was mostly quiet, empty, and clean.
The sole concession to the situation was a man, sitting in a large chair, pleasantly waiting for me. His skin was dark metal, with rivets along the joints. He wasn’t a golem like Yvette, I could just tell, he was an Ascendant. An E-ranker, but a damned powerful one.
“A Domain.” I said as I peered more closely at the walls. “And a really strong one. Are you like Tartarus, gifted a Domain by a god?”
He smiled, exposing teeth of shining white metal. “You’re well informed. Not quite. Tartarus was favored by his goddess above all others. I’m simply a lower initiate of the faith. It should be more than enough to deal with you, however. Welcome to my Cruel Construction. My Domain is built in the image of Stralthrem, god of Dread Fabrication. Maker of mechanical monsters.”
The place didn’t look like a lab or anything, just an upscale manor. But looking closer, I could see dozens of placements for possible weapons or traps.
This would have been a very bad situation for me if I’d come in directly. Domains grew in power based on the strength of the being whose story you were utilizing, as well as the number of people using that particular legend. At least the ones that you didn’t create yourself, but I had no frame of reference for how a Domain founded on a real Saga worked.
Point was, this Domain came from the legend of a GOD. Sure, chances were good that given his mention of being a lower initiate this guy wasn’t even close to the sole inheritor of this Domain, but still. I needed my big punch to count for something, so I needed to stall. Luckily, I had a lot of questions, so that worked out fine.
“Where is Callie’s family? Did you already move them?” I glanced past him, through the domain and down the hall to a reinforced steel door.
He smiled warmly. “Not at all. Does one remove the bait from the hook before casting the line? They were smart enough to stay locked up behind their defenses. I didn’t come here for them, so I left them to their own devices.”
“Why are you here? And who are you?” I asked after a moment. “You seem strong, why would someone like you follow Travis?”
“My name is Nemal. Travis is one of Hatescream’s direct disciples.” He said with a shrug. “Those of us under the tutelage of a god try to stick together. This was a complicated plan, they sent me for cleanup in case it went wrong.” He stood, waving his hand, and the ground opened up. From below, mechanical arms rose, holding bulky armored pieces. “If you have more questions ask them quickly. I don’t have all day. I hope you don’t mind if I put on my party clothes before the big event?”
He didn’t seem to care for my answer, because as I watched, the arms affixed the bulky pieces to his body, bolting them in place. Shoulder plates, gauntlets, greaves. One piece at a time, his body was enlarged and reinforced.
The pieces were all E-rank, but I felt a sense of supreme danger from them. These were part of his Domain, something like physical techniques, and I could tell they would make his already staggering power even stronger. I’d never seen anything like this before, except…maybe I had. This was somewhat similar to Beelzebub. Solid techniques that could act independently.
Despite all that, I wasn’t worried. I didn’t flinch, or back down. I just waited. Behind me, power gathered. Dark armor penetrating flames mixed with corrosive poison magma, stewing together into a terrible substance that would eat through nearly any armor I could imagine. Afterburner was flowing through the attack already, as was Mercy Kill. Through the clone, I triggered Marked for Death on the armored juggernaut.
Finally, his transformation completed. Before me stood a colossal man covered head to to in high tech full body reinforcement. The only part remaining the same was his face, seemingly undersized against that giant metallic body. “You see my power. Surrender. I’ll leave the others and take you to Wintervale. You can still save them.”
“Yes.” I said with a smile. “I can.” And I triggered Double Trouble through the eyes of the clone.
Behind the monstrous mechanical giant, my main body appeared, staff raised as it smashed forward into the ball of black and green destruction. At the strike, a cone of ultra dense corrosion spewed out, coating the armored form, especially around the head and upper back.
Nemal screamed. His Domain was powerful, but everything about that attack was designed to boost one very specific trait. Armor destruction. His Domain was the worst possible matchup for my attack. I’d perfectly designed that technique to destroy him, and there was no way I could have more perfectly used that strike. Which was the only thing that saved me.
My Danger Sense went haywire , and I triggered Double Trouble again, this time targeting my own clone. As I reappeared behind it, I saw Nemal spin unnaturally fast, arms smashing down with so much force the building shook even through the domain as his fists cratered the floor where I’d been standing.
From that vantage, I could see the back of his head and shoulders, and I winced. The corrosion had eaten through huge chunks of armor, as well as the metallic back beneath it. Marked for Death had mostly bypassed the defenses, though the Domain partly countered the effect. It was enough to let the hyper corrosive charged attack get under the armor and start to erode the body of the champion.
He roared with pain and rage, then spun again. This time, when he charged, he was far enough out for me to see the thrusters hidden on his body push him forward. I triggered Mephisto’s Waltz, blasting to the side as he blurred forward. My staff licked out, a blast of black flame striking his wrist at an angle to both boost my movement and divert his attack.
Bellowing with rage, he spun, glaring. The floor opened up again, and the arms emerged, holding tools and pieces of metal. He grunted in pain as the mechanical limbs began welding the metal to his body, cutting things free as they did their best to repair him. I raised my staff again, charging another Cosmic Collapse.
“This didn’t need to be violent.” He rumbled menacingly. “You could have been reasonable. Now I’m going to make it hurt. I won’t just defeat you. I’ll brutalize you. Beat you until no part of you is left unbroken, then drag your barely functional carcass out of this building by the ankle. I’ll leave a trail of your blood streaked along the ground from here to Wintervale, a red road of carnage to mark the passage of the fool who dared to harm the scion of a god.”
I shook my head. “Wow. I thought your Domain was mechanical in nature. But now I see I was wrong. Your power is something much more insidious. You’re clearly a follower of the god of not shutting the fuck up. Already I can feel my willpower flagging as you slowly talk me to death.”
He bared his teeth again, but this time the expression was far from a smile. “Little fool. Enjoy your false confidence while it lasts. It’ll make it all the sweeter to watch the light of hope die in your eyes.”
“I’m wearing a mask, dipshit.” I responded kindly. “You can’t see my eyes at all.”
That seemed to be one insult too many. Shrugging his shoulders, he tore free of the working limbs, then charged forward at me like some giant metal battering ram. As I blasted aside, I triggered Moonlit Night, filling the Domain with fog to obscure my passage. I just needed to wait for another opening, and then the real fight could begin.
