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Chapter 159 - Infinite Evolution
🕑 Added 2022-01-12 16:56:01 +0000 UTCKorenga is the first to move. She turns into Black God mode with a battle roar and charges forward at the closest Walker of the Wild. The towering android slowly swings the Ame-no-Murakumo copy he wields with both hands and generates an immense pressure that slams into Korenga. But to his surprise, the attack breaks on her like a wave against a jutting cliff. The others behind her are shielded from the effect by her shadow.
Then she crushes through and tackles the Oinos clone head-on. The other androids watch curiously but keep the group of intruders in the corners of their eyes. Because they are mass-produced models of Oinos, they must share his mentality and sense of honor, so they won't interfere in the duel.
Rolan looks past the lineup of godlike enemies before them and peers at the far end of the massive hall. Bound to a gigantic metal cross is Runa, unconscious like when they found her in Alverost's battle station. He realizes that he feels calm despite the dire situation and glances at his comrades without saying a word. Gram and Sigurd return his gaze but don't betray their thoughts.
"There is one for each of us." Aurelia comments in a grim tone as she watches the two combatants clash with earth-shattering intensity. As it stands, they might not even be able to beat a single one with all of their strength combined. Having each of them duel an Oinos clone is impossible.
"Leave this to us." Uten and Saten walk forward and raise their fists. The twins are among the shortest in their party and tiny compared to the enemies before them. But they know that these two are the children of Chaos and harbor unfathomable powers in their slender, androgynous forms.
"Two more then?" One Oinos clone walks forward with his giant sword over his shoulder. The fact that he feels confident to face the twins alone shows he doesn't know about their potential.
"What are you doing? End them all right now!" Shelnir's impatient voice echoes through the massive hall, causing the would-be combatants to stop in their steps. She clearly doesn't appreciate the honorable attitude of the Walkers of the Wild.
"You woke us up to fight for you, so let us do our thing." One of the Oinos clones looks up and responds in an almost annoyed-sounding tone. They're Alverost's creations, but that doesn't mean they answer equally to all the Old Humans. Perhaps he even programmed them so that they only listen to his orders without question. With their creator gone, they could be free if they wanted to.
"Remember that I hold the trigger for all of your lives in my hand." The Guide of Tomorrow remarks in a shaky and slightly deranged tone. It would seem that she's struggling to keep her composure after all the setbacks she experienced recently.
"As I see it, only we stand between these intruders and your life." Another Oinos replies with a grin, causing a round of laughter to run through his peers. "Might be better if you don't run your mouth, little lady."
Aurelia narrows her eyes when Shelnir doesn't retort. It would seem that these Oinos clones are not the Guide of Tomorrow's mindless slaves and have opinions of their own. Maybe she could even reason with them.
"Could I ask you to stand aside? We do not need to fight." The Golden Queen steps forward and addresses the last Walker of the Wild that responded to Shelnir.
"No can do. You lot killed our father." To Aurelia's surprise, the casual attitude of the Oinos clone replying to her is replaced by cold fury. The Guide of Tomorrow seems to have informed them that Alverost is dead. Otherwise, she may not have been able to motivate them to fight for her in the first place.
"So be it." Lowering her gaze, the Golden Queen raises a foot and stomps the ground. From where her heel connects to the gray metal floor, a circle of gold spreads out. It continues to travel in all directions, and she raises her palms. Golden weapons rise from the solid surface of the floor as if emerging from a pond.
Everybody gets ready for battle, anxious about the weaker members among them. But not one hesitates to heed Aurelia's command as she points forward and lets her weapons fly. An all-out battle is inevitable.
The first to move is Rolan, who disappears with only a streak of light showing his trajectory. One of the Oinos clones drops his Ame-no-Murakumo and matches his blinding speed. He knows that he doesn't need the divine blade to fight the human.
But to his surprise, Rolan passes him by and heads straight for Runa. The android chases after him and extends a hand to crush the Chosen One's skull from behind. But as if he saw it, Rolan dodges in time and spins around himself to cut through the Oinos clone's wrist with Roshanee.
He appears out of the slowed-down world that his speed lets him see and looks at his wrist stump. Golden blood is pooling around it to mend the damage, but there's no hint of his black bones being damaged. In that split second, even faster than he could react, Rolan cut through the gap between his bones, cleanly separating the softer tissue holding them together.
Stopped before him is the human in question, his sword held in both hands. His left arm is mechanical but looks far less sophisticated than anything Alverost has created recently. A lesser being was able to outpace an Oinos clone, even if it was with the help of the Imagination Engine.
"Impressive." All he can feel is genuine admiration. Although he was programmed to be perfectly loyal to Alverost, he never appreciated his father's single-minded pursuit of perfection in the Rangatira and the Walker of the Wild series. Even he understood that it was a fool's errand to create something permanent meant to be perfect. Perfection is an ever-shifting goalpost.
Rolan knows that the time for talking is over, so he keeps his eyes on his opponent with perfect focus. He knows that cutting off this godlike being's hand won't be enough to stop him from continuing to fight. It's likely that he won't be able to do it again.
Behind the Oinos clone, Aurelia summons a storm of golden blades. Hestia rises on her jet wings and unleashes a barrage of plasma beams. The overwhelmingly flashy display is to hide their weaker companions from view, but the Walkers of the Wild don't care about these tactics and charge straight through the rain of deadly projectiles.
Suddenly, Uten and Saten spread out countless tentacles and grab onto several enemies at once. They know they can't stop the mechanical gods' movements, but their aim is another. Much like how their mother pushed through solid steel as if it were a snowdrift, annihilating the matter in passing, they attempt to do the same with the Oinos clones' limbs in their grasps.
But they aren't at their mother's level yet and can't begin to fathom how she did it. The enemies unleash light from the tattoos across their bodies and cut through the tentacles with little resistance before continuing onward.
Gram runs forward and creates a massive barrier with his shield. The first Oinos clone reaching it pulls back a hand and punches the force field, but it doesn't give way. For a moment, hope sparks in the big man's heart, but he sees another enemy raising his giant sword. He heard from Chaos that this weapon goes through barriers as if they were made of paper.
At that moment, a blur crashes into the Walker of the Wild ready to swing the Ame-no-Murakumo. It turns out to be Rewera, having burst through her spacesuit and revealing a pair of curved horns sprouting from her forehead and bat-like wings growing from her back. She grabs the blade's hilt and holds the Oinos clone back from swinging it with all the muscles on her body bulging under the strain. It takes her all to lock his wrists in place, but it causes him to raise an eyebrow at her in mild surprise.
"One from the Rangatira series." He remarks before pulling back and delivering a devastating kick into Rewera's flank. The sound of breaking bones can be heard, but the maid leader doesn't let go of the Walker of the Wild's wrists and slams her horns into the latter's chin from below. The impact causes his feet to leave the ground for a moment, and she pushes forward with all her strength to topple him.
However, as she's busy with her opponent, another raises his divine blade to tear down Gram's barrier. The Golden Queen's weapons slashing at him draw sparks, but he ignores the scratches on his skin to hold his swords with both hands. It's the move that erased half of Chaos's mass in a single swing.
Kamii slips through Gram's one-way barrier and runs at the Oinos clone swinging down his Ame-no-Murakumo. He doesn't let the little dark elf's desperate charge throw him off and continues the surprisingly slow attack. But Kamii swings up her cursed arm and meets the giant weapon halfway.
A massive shockwave explodes outward from their contact point and washes across the room. But to everybody's surprise, the Ame-no-Murakumo is repelled with so much force that it's ripped out of the Oinos clone's hands. It flies up and embeds itself into the ceiling almost down to its hilt.
Kamii doesn't stop to regard her handiwork and lunges forward to hit her opponent with the immense power built up in her cursed arm. However, without the Ame-no-Murakumo, the Oinos clone can show his blinding speed. He steps in for a devastating punch at the little dark elf's chest.
Lightning flashes and runs through the android. Although his circuits are clearly insulated, the light itself throws him off slightly and allows Kamii to barely dodge the punch by twisting her whole body sideways. Still, the sheer pressure from the attack rips through the clothes on her left shoulder and chafes her skin.
Behind the Oinos clone appears Tahiri in her thundercloud form, power crackling all across her body. Another android raises his sword to bring it down on her, but she unleashes a powerful discharge at his chest that staggers him. The surface of his body glows as if heated up by the electric plasma, but that's the extent of damage her full power can cause to the Walker of the Wild.
Halthor faces an Oinos clone in a duel with his bare fists. His body is charged with lightning, but unlike the God of Storms, he can't turn into it himself. Still, he fought Korenga nearly to a standstill before, so he can somewhat stand his ground against this overwhelming opponent. But it's only a matter of time before he will tire and fall, much like he did in his fight against the Black God.
On the other hand, Svanhild is aware that she can't so much as scratch an Oinos clone's skin with her drill lance. She remains with Sigurd and the others behind Gram, catching herself praying for Chaos to save them.
Suddenly, Korenga is sent flying through the room and crashes into the wall, which withstands her heavy impact without a dent. It doesn't slow her at all, and she lunges back toward her opponent with a roar. Still, it shows that even the physically strongest member among them has her hands full against a single Walker of the Wild.
Hestia dodges a swing from an Ame-no-Murakumo directed at her by activating the boosters on her wings. The air pressure surrounding the main attack still catches her and sends her tumbling through the air, but Dregana catches her with a wind cushion.
Behind her, the attack that disintegrated even Chaos's dragon armor and parts of Kairaki dissipates against the wall. It's either made of an indestructible material, or it contains inhibition technology, and the blade's pressure is part of the Imagination Engine. If it's the latter, perhaps there is a way to negate it entirely, but Hestia wouldn't know where to begin.
Several androids sink into the circle of gold that Aurelia transmuted part of the room's floor into. Golden tendrils latch onto their limbs and pull them under, but they begin to rise again as if unbothered by their fetters. Despite the Golden Queen's powerful imagination, her power is no match for the overwhelming existence that the Walkers of the Wild represent.
Rolan's high-speed battle beyond the lineup of Oinos clones sees him becoming overwhelmed by his opponent. Although they're about the same speed, the human has to be careful not to get nicked in the slightest while the Walker of the Wild can fight with reckless abandon. After he lost his right hand, all the other wounds he sustained since then are easily mended by his regenerative abilities.
Suddenly, Rolan slips on something and falls into his opponent's attack trajectory. Even then, he barely manages to twist his body out of the way of the massive fist that promises death. Still, it nicks his prosthetic left arm, which is ripped to pieces and scattered across the room.
The impact and his high-speed slip cause him to tumble across the ground, but he quickly gets back to his feet against the protests of his aching body. Only now does he see that he slipped on the Oinos clone's severed hand and smiles wryly.
Uten and Saten gather their scattered parts and attempt to use their mother's matter-eating ability once more but are faced with two androids raising their Ame-no-Murakumo copies to attack them. The giant blades radiate an aura of doom despite looking absolutely ordinary. The twins are rooted in place, like deer staring into oncoming headlights.
"You did well in holding out until now." A familiar voice echoes through the room, and the party members' hearts beat higher. Those who can afford to turn around do so to see Chaos floating above them. She opened a her-shaped hole into the elevator doors, through which Asoko and Kerry peek into the room curiously.
With an almost casual gesture of one hand, Chaos pulls the Oinos clones together in the center of the room as if a black hole only affecting them has appeared in their midst. They activate the newly-installed inhibition field generators in their chest cavities, but the effect of her attack doesn't cease. Their sensors don't pick up anything abnormal even as their bodies creak under the pressure; it's not a force humanity has ever encountered before. They can't move a single finger and stare at her in utter confusion.
Then she closes her palm, and the Walkers of the Wild are crushed inward. Black bones, supposed to be indestructible, break under the unknown force acting on their bodies. Golden blood gushes from ripped skin but is immediately drawn into the sphere by the unnatural pull.
In their last moments, some of the androids realize that they're witnessing what their creator pursued all along: An infinitely-evolving being that will adapt and overcome anything over time. According to the prototype Oinos's memory that they received, she was almost defeated by him. But within the short few days since then, she has grown to the point where even a dozen equally powerful mass-production models don't even present a bump on her road.
Finally, the androids lose their shapes entirely and are compressed into an ever-shrinking sphere until even that disappears from sight.
Everybody stares at Chaos, who lands in their midst, with awe and a hint of fear. She has moved so far ahead of them that it feels like she could leave them behind and turn into something unfathomable. Even if she's a Crawling Chaos, a being not of this world, she always seemed grounded in their reality. But after her display just now, it's clear that she has ascended to a different realm.
"What is it?" I look around with an eyebrow raised when everybody only stares at me silently. I take note of the humans among them, whose expressions show clear hints of fear. My display of overwhelming power must have been terrifying for those barely scratching the surface of the Imagination Engine's potential.
Albeit in my case, it wasn't the Imagination Engine but my own abilities. I have stepped into the realm of affecting reality with my mind alone. The Imagination Engine holds no sway over me anymore.
Before anybody can answer, I peer through the room and see Rolan at the other end of the hall. His mechanical left arm is shattered, but he looks unharmed otherwise. Instead, he stands at the bottom of the massive metal cross on which Luna has been strapped and appears to be contemplating how to free her. It's reminiscent of the rack in Alverost's battle station, but there's no control panel in sight.
I extend my Chaos senses across the room and check on her, finding that she's indeed the real Luna - and that she's alive. As before, I assume that Shelnir put some gimmick on her restraints so that when I try to free her, she will be killed. As I walk toward the cross, I think about the possibilities and countermeasures.
"It's a trap, isn't it?" Rolan comments when he notices me approaching behind him.
"Of course it is." I glance around, searching for camera lenses in the vicinity in vain. "But this is nothing for me now."
With these words, I float up to Luna and glance across her body. She's unconscious, most likely drugged, and wears a simple white dress reminiscent of a hospital gown. Her limbs are held in place by metal clasps, with a particularly large one around her neck. Something tells me that rather than shocking her like the one in Alverost's battle station, this one might try to decapitate her when I mess with it.
I raise my hands and gesture at the metal cross and all of its components. They distort around Luna's form and let go of her, causing all the hidden mechanisms to go off simultaneously. However, I bend the material so that nothing even touches the half-elf's skin, let alone draws blood.
Moments later, Luna floats freely in the air, and the cross has been turned into a metal cube small enough to fit in my palm. It's surprisingly fun to mess around with matter like this while ignoring the limits of compressibility.
Lowering the half-elf with me as I descend, I gently place her in Rolan's arm. Then I look through the room, waiting to hear Shelnir's mental breakdown now that I have broken her so-called prophecy once again. The silence I'm greeted with could mean that she's smart enough not to transmit it through the speaker system for all to hear.
I extend my Chaos senses to where I found Shelnir in her secure little room earlier only to discover that she has left it. Spreading it out further, I sense an entire city filled with humans just before the entrance to the cube-shaped section of the Rhodos station. Beyond it are no more life signs aside from two individuals, meaning that the entire forward section, including the cube and sunscreen, is automated. Those two life signs must belong to Shelnir and Elaine.
Then I sense a human-shaped void the likes of which I have never seen before beyond them. A shudder overcomes me, and I blink my eyes, causing Rolan to look at me in worry.
"Mataku is here." I explain simply and turn to my comrades. Everybody here knows about the Primordial Terror, the being that caused the apocalypse that nearly wiped out all of old humanity. They understand that beyond Shelnir and Elaine, this overwhelming opponent awaits.
"Will we continue or wait for the others?" Aurelia asks me with a shrug. She's referring to those who stayed behind on the Queen Pelomyx and are still on their way here.
"I don't know what Mataku intends to do here, but he seems to have business with the Imagination Engine." I respond with a thoughtful tilt of my head. Could it be that he's trying to deactivate it? What would he have to gain from doing that now?
"Shelnir and Elaine will not be going anywhere. This is their final retreat." Sigurd comments and sighs. Then he gestures at everybody else in the room. "It would be good to take a breather after that battle."
Some are bruised and bleeding, but it's quite surprising that they came out of this with so little damage. It's not that the Oinos clones were weak, but that my comrades grew stronger. At least strong enough to hold out for the few minutes it took me to reach them after Shelnir's elevator games earlier.
"Given that the Rhodos station may still be firing at the Queen Pelomyx, I'll head for the weapons control room. You stay here and wait for my return." I look around the room and suggest while healing everybody with a thought. Surely, those I erased were all the Oinos clones in existence, so they should be safe here. "I will be back momentarily."
I shoot Asoko and the twins a meaningful glance. It would seem that the latter tried their best to stall the godlike enemies until I arrived, so I'll trust them to keep everybody safe until my return. They nod in response to my silent request, and I extend my Chaos senses across the Rhodos station once more.
When I find a concentration of people sitting in a configuration reminiscent of a command center, I decide to try going there. Without another word, I rise to the ceiling and slip right through the material without even making a hole in it. If I can erase matter and reshape it with my will, I can make it intangible to me as well.
The fact that I don't find my rapid growth over the past few days alarming shows that my mind has already left behind its humanity. At least, I still feel it necessary to take action and save my people. It's entirely possible that I will reach a point where I no longer care for anything but myself.
Shaking my head of these grim thoughts, I move through solid matter as if it doesn't exist and quickly make my way to the command center. I rise from the floor and emerge in a large room filled with rows of screens behind which humans in uniforms type away on consoles. Behind me is a giant three-dimensional hologram displaying a graph with numbers and dots that seem to symbolize the Rhodos station and the approaching Queen Pelomyx. The first to notice me screams in surprise, causing the others to look up from their work.
"I assume you saw what I did to the Oinos clones." I speak calmly as the guards at the doors draw their weapons. "If you didn't, here's a taste."
With these words, I wave my hand and pull the guns out of their grasp. They fly into the center of the room before being compressed into a pyramid. I'm having quite some fun with the shapes I can make, so that means I'm still human, right?
"Now, stop your attack on that approaching vessel and cease any hostilities. Nobody here has to die." I announce while dropping the pyramid into my hand and twirling it around with my fingers to look at its smooth surface. Then I glance at a guard reaching for something in his pocket and smile wryly. "Don't waste your life here for those false gods."
The woman shivers all over and drops to her knees with terror distorting her features. Maybe I let my façade slip a little, but I'm not even aware of that anymore. I need to keep my mind together.
"You should go back and live on Earth. Being cooped up in a space station can't be good for you." I look across everybody in the room and attempt a gentle smile. Instead, it causes panic to break out; the operators jump up from their seats and scramble toward the exits.
As the room empties out in a few moments, I'm left wondering what I did wrong. Looking back at the hologram, I see the Queen Pelomyx rapidly approaching in a straight line now that the attacks on it seem to have ceased. I guess I achieved what I came here for, so it should be alright like this.
I wonder where they will dock, but I'll leave that for Senka and Exla to figure out. I hope she has dealt with the virus invading the systems by now, or it could get troublesome when they can't stop the ship from crashing into the Rhodos station.
Extending my Chaos senses outward again, I see if the operators of the command center are waiting outside in hopes of returning after I leave. While they seem to be still running for their lives down the corridors, I seal the doors to the room by connecting their matter to the walls. By the time they return and cut their way through, the Queen Pelomyx should already have arrived.
With this, I slip back through the floor and head for the hall where my comrades are waiting.
