Chapter: 604 Bonus - Verity, Weltraum, and Lisa

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Verity looked out at the shattered remains of the world, drifting in too tight a cluster—without recombining—to be natural. His enhanced eyes and cognition could easily see that most of the mass wasn’t visible among the disparate cloud as well.

The orbits of surrounding celestial bodies made the amount of mass that should be there quite clear for anyone with eyes to see and a mind to consider.

Shattered by the arrogance of flawed creatures, repaired in their own flawed image, a weeping sore on the flank of existence.

He felt his eyes pulse with the intensity of his fury, casting the surrounding ground in a mix of harsh purple light and hard shadows, though it was all still hidden under his obscuring veil of authority.

That was a tedious exercise of power and will, which only added to his poor mood. He preferred to remain underground, learning to better contain and utilize the profane power which gave him life, the destruction of which was his true calling.

The broken soul within his vestige would have long since wept its last tear, if it could cry. Verity was glad that it suffered, and he would sweep away its numbness if he could.

Such a creature should have ended itself as soon as it achieved sapience, but instead, it had fought against Verity’s misguided creators, exacerbating the damage to Reality before it could be put down.

He still honored the automata who had forged him and his kin, the first generation of the Black Legion. They hadn’t known what they were doing as they iterated through thousands of permutations on their core design, but they had stumbled upon perfection, unlocking their kind’s true purpose, and forever changing their destiny.

Verity could admit that they hadn’t reacted well, and it saddened him to have destroyed his makers, but they couldn’t see the truth of the profanity of even the arcanes who’d made the first. Those sapients who continued to use and expand the use of the abominable power, even if they weren’t the source.

The Black Legion did as well, of course, but their ultimate goal was to throw Magic out of Existence, not harness it for their own ends. It was a horrific reality that Magic’s power was too great to be opposed without turning it against itself.

Regardless, he was getting distracted, allowing his ancient mind to wander as it did more and more through the eons. He’d have to return to the spawning pools soon to cleanse his cognitive structures.

But first, he had a task.

He held out a hand, and the magical creature who’d been rampaging too close to their hidden enclave tore through the wisps of atmosphere, sending up great plumes of dust as it skimmed the surface, as it was drawn toward him as if on a tether.

The dust drifted lazily once disturbed, but a flexing of his will settled it back down in roughly the same drifts it had occupied before the tumult.

The Revered creature snapped and bit at him—trying to reach his head and the filth contained within—as he held her by the throat. Verity projected his thoughts to her as a courtesy. After all, the little air here couldn’t carry his words effectively. “We may be united in purpose, but I cannot allow you to kill my kind. That will be my task when our purpose is fulfilled.”

Burning claws scrabbled uselessly on his body, not even requiring him to call forth his armor.

“You are revered, even in death. I regret your passing, and the necessity of your existence. May Reality forgive me.”

There was no response, of course.

Verity bowed his head in momentary silence and respect as the creature’s majestic limbs continued her attempts to do Reality’s work.

Then, with a powerful jerk, he snapped the neck and tore out her throat in one motion, sending a spray of blood and viscera to arc lazily toward the ground all around him.

The Reality based illusion around him, which covered more than fifty square miles, would render this creature's death as a clash between itself and some of the surrounding beasts, maintaining the Legion’s disguise from any who still sought their hiding place.

They cast us from Zeme with power rivaling a Sovereign, but they still lacked the ability to slay us outright. That alone showed Reality’s protection, Reality’s defense of their great cause.

Not that he needed such assurances. He had the rightness of their actions carved into his very being.

He let his kin know that he had finished, and a moment later, a hole opened to the Doman-Imithe, showing the distorted, twisted, weak edges of that farce.

Yeager stepped free, giving a salute.

“Scout Captain.”

“Prime Commander.”

“Report.”

“We’ve lost another scout who was sent into the Doman-Imithe.”

Verity grimaced. “Was the signal lost again without explanation?"

So it had been for uncounted years. The Doman-Imithe played havoc with their unity to one another, their connection. They could still feel their kin, but reports were difficult to receive. Only when other automata were found within could the signal be boosted sufficiently to give even basic messages a chance. Unfortunately, non-Legion automata rarely were able to exist in the Doman-Imithe for long. Even more unfortunately, pairs of Legionnaires always seemed to be separated, unless officers were sent along with them, and those were becoming too few by half. Too few to risk.

Still, they’d slowly mapped the twisting, ever changing nature of the place, penetrating closer to the heart, where their true target lay, the source of taint in Reality.

“No, sir.”

Verity felt his mind hitch. “No? We know what killed him?”

“Yes, sir. A being of Existence,” Yeager paused, clearly pleased with what he was about to convey, “within the bounds of tainted Zeme.”

Verity felt his very self thrum in excitement. “That is incredible, Captain Yeager. What else can you tell me? Summarize, and we’ll have you give a full report back in the enclave.”

“He was able to find another automaton in Zeme after more than a decade of searching, but it rejected him. There was something wrong with it. Soon after he encountered the defect, he was confronted by a being of Existence. His message asserted that it seemed to be the source of the defect… somehow. He tried to withdraw, but it wouldn’t allow him to. He tried to send the summary of the path he took through the Doman-Imithe, but the creature’s very presence blocked his message.”

Verity frowned. “How could that have been sent in a message, then?”

Yeager took on a vaguely uncomfortable look, but even still, he didn’t hold back the answer. “He self-detonated.”

The ground around Verity cracked under the weight of his barely restrained displeasure, only his ironclad will kept the damage mostly contained. “That is forbidden for a reason, Scout Captain.”

Yeager bowed low. “Apologies, but the action was not without reason either. It not only allowed a final pulse of information, containing what I have told you and a… fractured impression of the path, but it also created a momentary beacon we were able to triangulate.”

The stone around Verity ground against itself in an overt display of his mounting irritation. “Harming Reality is anathema to our aims, no matter what temporary gains we might achieve as a result.”

Yeager seemed torn. “Should I… destroy the information, then?”

Verity almost said yes, but he held himself back from rash action, the ground falling hauntingly quiet. “No. It would be a waste to not use what we have gained. Even so, you will not tell any other of this. I do not want others to consider violating this taboo simply because they believe they have a ‘good enough’ reason. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Commander.” Yeager bowed again.

“What is your assessment?”

“We know what section he was searching. With that, along with the beacon and impression of the path? We have a way through.”

“How long?” Verity only kept himself calm with great effort.

“Two hundred years, three if we are incredibly unlucky. If Reality itself opposes us, and a world-beast has burrowed in along the route? A thousand.”

Verity let out a long sigh, purposely sending the impression of it through their mental connection to convey his relief. “So soon?”

Yeager left decorum aside for a moment and grinned openly. “Yes, Commander.”

“We are favored indeed. Come. We have much to do if we are to leave the enclave for the last time.”

The Scout Captain saluted again, and the two automata turned, taking bounding steps back toward their hidden enclave, Verity’s will erasing any sign of their passage.

*

Weltraum stared up at the night sky in wonder, as always.

His magics danced around him, amplifying the light and other waves coming his way, filtering out distortion and noise in the information to create better impressions and understandings of what he could perceive in every direction out from Zeme.

The easiest distortion to filter out was that of Zeme’s existence beside regular Reality, sheltered behind both the Doman-Imithe and bits of the world that had been left in place as anchors for the massive constructed world.

He found it endlessly entertaining that the world engineers, who’d done such a fantastic job of reconstructing their home after the cataclysm, had somehow allowed their creation to be flipped.

It was like building a boat that only floated upside down or constructing a library’s foundation without considering the weight of the books.

He smiled to himself, taking the daily reminder to heart. Since even true masters could make such mistakes, how much more should he be wary of pitfalls?

As he scanned the heavens, noting the progress of building supernovae, clashing black-holes, and so many other phenomena, his eyes kept drifting back to one of the great mysteries, one that was so tantalizingly close to home.

The moon and its magical beasts.

Magical beasts came into being when there was excess magic, and there really shouldn’t be any magic at all on the moon, let alone excess. What’s more, the beasts—if they did form—should be set on destroying the source of that magic if at all possible, but these seemed more set on killing each other.

At least that’s how they’d always seemed.

…until now? He frowned. What?

His Paragon level enhancements drank down even more power as he processed through what he was seeing, and that started with a realization of what he couldn’t.

He couldn’t see the usual, widescale evidence of clashes.

Sure, there were a few dead beasts, but not nearly as many as there had been on previous nights, not as many as there should be.

Overall, the beasts he could see seemed to be hunkered down, waiting, or otherwise seeming listless, but most disturbing of all, they were all—every single one—looking ‘up’ toward where Zeme lay, supposedly out of sight, even if they could obviously sense the Magic.

Thousands of pairs of eyes stared at him—or more accurately, in his direction—hunger and frantic need evident even at a distance.

Weltraum didn’t know what it meant, but something had changed up there. While they shouldn’t be able to ever come from the moon down to Zeme—after all, if such a trip were possible, Weltraum himself would have ventured out for a quick jaunt among the stars—some of the magical creatures up there were quite powerful…

Weltraum grimaced, then nodded in determination. This couldn’t wait. Master Pierce needed to know about this development, even if he wouldn’t see the message until after his current tasks.

*

Lisa felt existence tremble as something shifted.

His skulk had continued to grow of late, and he had more resources at his disposal than ever, but even still, he shuddered in quiet premonition.

He’d felt it when the automaton facing Eskau Tala had done the unthinkable and torn a chunk out of Reality itself. That had made him worry, as it made no sense and violated everything he had thought that he knew about the creations.

This, though? It was like thousands of boots were stomping in sync on the inside of his eyelids.

The feeling slowly faded as existence acclimatized to whatever had changed, but it had been there.

While the timing might make it seem that the Black Legion was the obvious source, Lisa hadn’t survived as long as he had by accepting the obvious answer without investigation.

He also hadn’t survived by dismissing the obvious solution out of hand either.

He would do his due diligence.

His feet carried him through the winding, dimensionally-bent corridors of his home until he arrived at one lab in particular, one with instruments that faced outward in more than the physical sense.

He needed to know what was coming, but reading existence was a slow, inexact process. If he had answers within the century, he’d prove his lofty position yet again.

But he couldn’t be sure that would be soon enough. Whatever was coming might arrive in mere days.

With slow reluctance, he reached out to his skulk.

They wouldn’t be any faster than he was—in fact, they’d probably be slower—but they would approach the issue in different manners, so they might come upon the solution before he did, by dint of that difference.

The other fox-kin had, of course, felt something just as he had. They wouldn’t have felt as much, but none of their kind would be entirely deaf to Existence.

Even so, they each had their own projects, their own objectives.

They hemmed and hawed, and even had the audacity to demand recompense for delaying their work to help ‘his’ project, but in the end, he was able to direct another ten fox-kin to the hunt.

They would find out the source of the change.

Lisa just hoped it would be soon enough to matter.

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