The Machine God

Chapter 274

Nightmares

The debris from the house rained down on the grounds below, causing the Tier 1s to scatter in every direction.

He didn’t bother grabbing it again.

Alexander had fought enough wizards now to realize they had a massive weakness.

The fact was that they were far too used to fighting other wizards. They all had the same basic abilities, and even when it came to their automated casting, they favored the same set of spells.

It made sense. If he were forced to face people who could teleport, he’d want to be able to teleport himself. Unfortunately, the only teleportation he had access to would probably try to kill him.

By sending him into the gateway or something.

But wizards were predictable. Maybe because they only fought other wizards who were also predictable. Maybe because the Empire enforced their spell selections.

It didn’t matter.

He was no wizard. And he’d figured out which one was the Marquess. Probably. Hopefully. Which meant the other one could go first.

Alexander abruptly changed directions, rocketing toward the younger of the wizard pair.

She shifted her staff, moving the transparent, amorphous blob of dark energy into his path.

Alexander put on speed, snapping into sharp turns as he maneuvered around the blob. The younger wizard adjusted, trying to keep the dark energy between them, but Alexander wasn’t heading straight for her. He was circling, keeping her between himself and the older wizard, who was flying hard to close the distance from behind.

The younger wizard tracked his movement.

Alexander raised his cybernetic hand. Electrokinesis built in the plating, charge cycling through the arm, building and building until the air around his fist crackled.

She jammed her wand into the holster at her hip, then drew a second one. A curved barrier shimmered into existence, translucent and rippling with layered enchantments.

Alexander unleashed Electrokinesis.

“Soul Circuit.”

The lightning didn’t come from him.

Droney, positioned behind the young wizard, erupted. A bolt of electricity tore from the little drone and crashed into the woman’s back. Her spine arched. She screamed. The energy-draining spell in front of her flickered, the magic bleeding away as her concentration shattered.

Alexander pulsed Metallokinesis and threw himself at her.

He hit the barrier knee-first. The shield cracked on impact, shards of translucent energy scattering around him as the collision rattled up through his leg. He winced, but he was already through.

The woman tried to bring her staff between them.

Too slow. He was inside her guard. His cybernetic fist connected with her face.

Cartilage and bone crumpled under the impact with a crack that echoed across the estate grounds. He didn’t pull the punch. His fist continued through, dragging her head along with it, her body going limp a fraction of a second behind.

Then it caught up.

She shot toward the ground. Hit the grass with a crunch, bounced, smashed through what remained of the estate wall, and carried on into a building on the other side. Stone and timber exploded inward around her.

Alexander came to a stop in the air, watching her carve a path of destruction.

One down.

Wizards were also really bad at taking hits. They needed to get into fist fights more often if they ever hoped to reach Tier 3.

“Kash’tel mor!”

Alexander turned. He recognized the incantation. Erasmus had used it against Augustus.

The Marquess was flying through the air toward him, the head of her staff pointed in his direction.

Lightning erupted from the tip.

Alexander laughed and caught the bolt with the gauntlet on his right hand. It burned a little on the way into his body, but his Will quickly overwrote the spell and absorbed the energy.

The Marquess didn’t look amused. She raised her staff, pointing it at the sky.

“Kol’veth aran!”

Alexander’s eyes narrowed. He recognized that one too.

Several bolts of lightning shot from the clouds above, targeting him.

He seized control the instant they passed into range of his Domain. The bolts twisted, circling around him like tame lightning snakes, then gathered above his upturned cybernetic palm.

Alexander shook his head. “You wizards need to learn to specialize.” His cybernetic fingers curled into a fist, crushing the lightning, and absorbing it into the arm’s capacitors.

The Marquess leveled her staff again.

“Don’t,” Alexander said, Droney translating. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He paused. “Okay, that’s a lie. I do, but I won’t if you cooperate.”

The Marquess hesitated. “Kash’tel gre!” Fire erupted from the tip of her staff.

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One of Alexander’s mental threads contemplated pulling out the shield drone. The other decided it wasn’t worth it.

Alexander unleashed lightning again. This time he shaped it into the sphere he’d practiced, pouring more power into it than was strictly required.

It was a necessary test. He roughly understood what should happen, but that was before Will and superpowers and magic interfered with the physics.

The cone of flame crashed against the sphere, then distorted, the fire bending around it harmlessly before dissipating.

Alexander reached into the ring with a thought, and pulled out a couple of heavy metal chains. Then he launched at the Marquess, who was already waving her staff around, mouth opening to shout the next spell.

She vanished.

But he’d expected that. He was already rotating, shooting toward where she’d appeared, her bioelectrical signature intense to his senses when backdropped by nothing but sky.

The range of her automatic teleport was greater than Keda’s had been. Only by about seven meters. But there was an implication there. Something for later.

She vanished again as he closed the distance.

Alexander didn’t slow, immediately jerking to a stop, then pursuing her at the new location.

This time, though, the chains spread out in three directions, while Droney repositioned toward its own guess.

“Veli Veli’kai!”

The Marquess vanished.

Alexander didn’t slow. He released his control over the chains, throwing the extra power into accelerating harder.

There was a panicked shout from just ahead, the Marquess realizing too late that her invisibility was meaningless against him.

His right hand closed around her throat, the metal of the gauntlet digging into flesh. His left wrapped around the staff. Lightning erupted all throughout his Domain. The Marquess shrieked, and he wrenched the staff from her weakened grip.

She struggled.

He shocked her again.

“Drop the spell.”

Droney translated.

The Marquess complied. Her neck reappeared between his fingers, and the rest of her slowly rippled back into view.

Metallokinesis pulsed, and they dropped fast toward the ground. Alexander didn’t take his eyes off the Marquess, whose breath hitched. She grabbed at his wrist with both hands, a choked scream passing her lips as they fell.

The Tier 1 guards were spread all across the estate grounds, staring up at him. None of them made any movement toward the remains of the mansion as Alexander carried the Marquess down the stairs into the basement.

Alexander came to a stop halfway across the room, and tossed the woman onto the ground in front of the prismatic barrier. He transferred the staff to his right hand, gauntleted fingers wrapping tight around it. It couldn’t be sent into his ring just yet.

Then he narrowed his eyes at the gateway.

The creature on the other side had changed. It looked like a little girl, maybe five or six years old, in a bloodsoaked dress. She was sucking on her thumb, and looking up at him with wide eyes.

Then she pulled her thumb free of her mouth and grinned up at him, revealing the same disturbing, unnatural mouthful of teeth.

Alexander landed, then strode past the Marquess where she’d collapsed. He stopped right in front of the barrier and studied the thing on the other side of it.

It reached out, its hand passing through the gateway, and pressed its palm against the barrier.

Color flashed. Light focused where the hand met magic. Flesh burned, and black smoke rose.

But the thing continued to stare up into Alexander’s eyes, its horrific grin unchanging.

Alexander sensed the Marquess climbing to her feet behind him. He turned. “What do you see?”

Droney translated.

The Marquess’s eyes shifted, looking past him, and landing on the monster. She coughed into her fist.

“A great hound with oozing pustules. It’s grinning.” She paused. “It’s always grinning.”

It didn’t make sense. There was no rhyme or reason for what he was seeing. The eyeball and the grin had been unsettling. Creepy. The girl was the same, just in a different way. Perhaps it was a trick, meant to entice him into trying to save her. Except the grin gave it away. So did the hand pressed against the barrier, smoking as flesh burned, without the slightest sign of pain.

“Tell me what it is,” Alexander demanded, closing the distance and coming to a stop before the Marquess.

She shook her head. “He Who Whispers already told you. My master spoke no lies. You are a fool to refuse the Empress’s generosity.”

“Tell me how to kill it, then.”

The Marquess laughed. “That is no secret. Everything hurts them. You hit them with everything you have until they vanish.”

Alexander frowned. That told him nothing. It was how you beat anything. By beating it.

She leaned against a pod. “What makes them dangerous is that they feel nothing.” She sighed. “But they are cunning. And they just keep coming until whatever dark magic holding them together fails, and their elemental form dissipates into nothing.”

“What does that mean? ‘Elemental form’?”

The Marquess looked up at him. “They are pure elemental energy. What you see is merely whatever horrific thing it’s dredged from your mind.” She shrugged. “Or maybe it’s just how our minds interpret their dark magic. It doesn’t matter. The only thing we can do is keep them sealed.”

Alexander glared down at her. “By kidnapping people and stuffing them into pods until you burn them out?”

He could sense the bioelectrical signatures in the pods. Most of them were far weaker than he would have expected for their ages, though none were in any immediate danger.

“You judge us, but your people sent us this trial. We will do whatever we must to survive it.”

Alexander shook his head. “We didn’t send anything. And you could ask for volunteers. Or power it yourself.” He glanced at the gateway. The girl watched him, her head cocked. “Or just kill the fucking thing.”

She laughed. “The last Marquis tried. He even succeeded, though it took him with it. And as you can see, another took its place. His effort was pointless.” Her eyes lowered to the floor, and her voice dropped lower. “Dolyn always thought himself a great man. It hurt him to sacrifice even those beneath him.”

“Sacrifice?”

The Marquess looked up at him.

Alexander gestured at the pods. “There is no sacrifice here. Just enslavement and death delivered by those who think themselves superior.”

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

Then Alexander sighed. “How do I release them safely? And how long will the barrier last when I do?”

“You want to save them?”

“Of course I do.”

“What about the people of the city?”

Alexander’s eyes narrowed. “What about them?”

The Marquess smiled. “Do you know why we call them Nightmares? Because your System sends them to destroy our Dream. The Dream of Magic. We of the Empire of Stars are beloved by magic. These people who wallow amongst the dirt are nothing.” Her smile widened. “It doesn’t matter how many of them die, so long as our Dream survives.”

She pushed off from the pod with a whistle, then clicked her tongue.

Light flashed from the head of the staff, still held tight in his grip.

The nearest pod hissed as the crystal canopy opened an inch. The energy pulsing from the pod into the wall stopped abruptly, and the glowing, shifting symbols on the wall began to fade, beginning from where the tubes connected to it.

All across the room, pods started to hiss.

Alexander’s gaze turned back to the Marquess.

She raised her hands and shrugged. “Oops. Now you—”

Alexander’s cybernetic hand snapped out. Metal fingers seized the woman’s throat. Then he twisted, and snapped her neck.

As the body slumped to the ground, Alexander sent the staff into his ring and strode toward the prismatic barrier. The magical script running across the walls faded faster, and already the edges of the shield were beginning to crack.

The girl in the bloodsoaked dress stuffed her thumb back into her mouth, all the while grinning around it.