I may have said it was typical villain shit, but in truth, it was anything but that. To be honest, from what I had seen so far, this all looked like something directly from my playbook: the multiple diversions, the mass spread of panic and chaos; it was as if I was the one planning it all, and that both annoyed me and made me wanna give Draven props for a job well done.
’Sigh, if only the dude weren’t a fucking loonie-toon, I would consider bringing him into the fold as one of my lackies, but alas, he just has to be an extremist. People like that are damn near impossible to get through to without causing severe damage to their brain and practically lobotomizing them.’
Getting rid of a third and fourth ambush, I reached a dead end in the hallway and was forced to turn around, but before that, I came to a complete stop and tapped my chin while thinking.
’Mass particle resource allocation mining is out, that leaves buying up a metric fuckton of particle-rich items and objects; from there, he would have to create an absolutely colossal runic inscription spanning the entire state, which is 103,610 square miles, it is after all the 8th largest stare in the United States.’
’If that is the case, it could LITERALLY be anything: black magic, voodoo, some other unknown system. There are far too many possibilities, and I hardly know a fraction of them.’
’Even then, what is the purpose? To create a particle-rich environment, the first of its kind before the descent, making it a haven for Returners and members of the Myriad Races…in theory, it’s possible. Still, when it comes to execution, it would be borderline impossible.’
’The resources and manpower it would require should take decades to pull it off even in the Origin Timeline, and even then, that’s with the presence of particles already saturating Earth.’
’Without them, starting from scratch would be a massive undertaking; the only exception is if there is some other item or something he got as a reward to enable such a thing.’
(Nexus.)
(Nexus, come in! What do we do?)
(Nex.)
(Ne…)
I could still faintly hear the voices of my father and brother, but at some point, a loud ringing took over my hearing, and my vision began tunneling as my brain fired on all cylinders to come up with some logical plan on how…how…
"How would I do it, no…How would Xipher execute this plan." I whispered to myself as I felt a trickle of something running down from my nose.
New novel chapters are published on freewёbn૦νeɭ.com.
At that very moment, I was cycling through EVERY SINGLE Memory I had ever obtained from my research, all the notes I read, the videos I’d watched, and every lecture I’d listened to. It was a ridiculous amount of information, so much so that even computers from the Origin Timeline would fry out in seconds, and yet here I was, cycling through it at the speed of electrons firing in my brain.
And with each passing second that I was processing this information, more liquid would drip from my nose.
"Every method, from Transmutation to spells, curses, and programs, all large-scale inscriptions require three things. A script, a catalyst, and power."
Ignoring the metallic taste in my mouth, I scanned my surroundings with both my blurry vision and perception.
"The Script is something I wouldn’t be able to figure out without a bird’s eye view of the entire state; even then, it will be practically invisible until the empowerment stage."
"The Catalyst…everything points toward sacrifices, blood, lives, it has gotta be one of the two, and between the bomb downtown and the large-scale terrorist attacks, it’s too late to stop the Catalyst stage."
"That only leaves the third and final stage of Inscription … Empowerment, which no doubt will require an astronomical amount of Particles."
"Still, that leaves one massive question: what is the purpose of the inscription? If it is merely to create a particle-rich environment, then it seems like a waste of time; I can’t see the point of it, considering all Draven would be doing is making a finite resource that can be taken advantage of by the strongest returner."
"It wouldn’t be long before all the particles dispersed, and then Colorado would return to its original state. If it were me, I would take things one step further; given I had the correct inscription and catalyst, I would summon or transform all of the state into an Insta…" I didn’t even finish the conjecture; with eyes shot wide open and blood gushing out of my nose, I finally understood the scope of what was about to transpire.
Shutting down the source information overclocking my brain, I activated my Augmentation skill, which boosted my legs to the maximum output. I kicked off the ground so hard that I shattered the tile and concrete underfoot, leaving a large crater, and exploded into motion toward the Gym.
Twisting hallways didn’t stop me, as I would just punch holes in the wall; I needed to get to Brenden ASAP.
(JAX, EVACUATE NOW! GET ANY HEROES OR FUCK, EVEN VILLAINS, YOU CAN AND MOVE; WE NEED TO GET OUT OF COLORADO, BURN EVERYTHING YOU HAVE, FULL SPEED!)
(NORTH, GO NORTH; IT’S 100 MILES TO THE BORDER; TARGET MEETUP LOCATION IS ATHOL, WHYOMING!)
Kicking my way through one final wall, I burst into the Gym, scaring the shit out of all the normies and even a few heroes I noticed.
Skidding to a halt, I locked eyes with Brenden and knew exactly what he was about to say, and since I had no idea how long it would be until the Catalyst stage was completed and Empowerment began, let alone how long that would take, I made a split-second decision.
Enhancing my voice with particles, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"ALL HEROES, VILLAINS, OR WHOEVER THE FUCK ELSE IS HERE! WE NEED TO EVACUATE TO THE BORDER NOW!"
"COLORADO IS ABOUT TO BECOME A DEAD ZONE; THE EXTREMISTS OF PARTAEVIAN ARE GOING TO DROP AN INSTANCE ON THE ENTIRETY OF THE STATE!"