Chapter 287: Galactic Anarchy (1/2)

-Althea-

I tapped my forehead, sweat forming over my brow. This was going to be a complete botch of a mission if I didn't pull something together. Turns out I was wrong. Isa turned towards Lester as she pulled acid bombs from her dimensional storage,

”Burn the evidence. We can't let anyone know we were here.”

I facepalmed at myself for going blank for a minute. Isa tossed everybody a few acid bombs, and we got to work. I made a claw on my finger before drawing a hole into the glass vial. With a few quick slings, I dispersed most of the acid over a few walls nearby. The others threw their bottles at patches of untouched runes, and as the border guards closed in, we managed to get rid of the evidence in time.

Now we needed to hide. Running out into one of the vast ravines of steel, we looked around for cubbies to crawl under. After the fight with the beetlecrab king, there were none. I ran forward towards a wall, cutting open a bit of steel paneling,

”Come on, everybody.”

I curved a finger to slice out a cylinder of solid stone, my ability to slice any matter coming in handy. Jerking the stone out, I dislocated a finger before kicking the clean, artificial-looking rock. It exploded, which was much better than leaving a perfectly made cylinder of stone out in the open. My foot didn't thank me as stone pelted out into the distance, along with a popping echo.

We all squeezed into the new space, and I pulled the sliced paneling over us. Another quick cut later, and we all had a tiny slit to see from. We leaned forward, Lester having crammed Alexander into the enclosure with us. The teenager pressed against me while unconscious and Lester huffed,

”If only the boy was awake. He'd be having a better time than any dream he's dreaming. I'll tell you that much.”

I glared at him, ”Just be glad he's not.”

Isa laughed before Other Hod hissed, ”Be silent, fools.”

We listened to him, and soon, the border patrol arrived. As they did, several remnants walked up in pseudo-Sentinal armor. They inspected the scene and bits of corpse remaining, one detective saying to another,

”I swear, who'd have guessed a beetlecrab would get this close to the wall.”

”I wouldn't have, let me tell you. Usually, they stay out in the wastes where there's more food in the open. The wall tends to scare them off. This one must've been attracted by something. Poachers, maybe?”

One of the armored remnants walked over towards the stone cylinder I cut out earlier. He squatted beside it, only a few feet away from us,

”You know what, I don't think it was poachers at all. This isn't a natural stone, see? It matches the other cuts we've seen lately. You know, the ones near old gateways.”

A sheen of cold sweat formed over my forehead as the others gave me stares. I shrugged, giving my best, 'whoopsy' kind of face. It didn't work.

One of the detectives looked up, staring at the steel panel I placed back onto the wall. He narrowed his eyes, walking up to it. Umbral energy pooled into our pit as Other Hod brandished his claws in silence.

Before he lunged out, a colossal echo radiated across the landscape from above. This shockwave stripped steel on the surface, and it nearly lifted these detectives off the ground. As that booming stopped, the remnants turned to each other,

”It looks like we're being attacked again. Come on, we have to head out.”

The perceptive detective gave one last look at our steel panel before they both left the crime scene. After a minute, I pushed the steel panel off, and we all took a deep breath of relief. That was close. Too close.

Turning to everyone, I waved my hands in nervousness, ”Look, guys, I wasn't trying to get us caught. I promise.”

They ignored me, everyone staring up. I waved my hands in front of Isa's face, and she ignored me still. As a looming shadow passed over me, I looked up to the sky with them. My knees went weak. My breath seized in my chest. I gasped for air as my skin crawled at the entity brooding over us.

A Spatial Fortress loomed over the entire sky like a herald of the apocalypse.

I remembered seeing one from far away in the Nebula Drifter. It didn't seem all that intimidating, and I thought Schema showed a meh effort against the rebels. Those thoughts up and died when faced with a Spatial Fortress in person. The moon-sized monster spanned from one horizon to the other, swallowing most of the sun. Its shadow created an ocean of darkness, this entire planet at its utter mercy.

It moved at paces I could never hope to match. The writhing of its many eyes and mouths seemed slow from far away. Up close, their behemothic size and gravitational pull left me unable to even move. Those eyes, they shifted across its form faster than tidal waves across planets. The mouths clamped shut with such force, wind bursts erupted over Gypsum's surface. The weather of this planet warped under its might.

The atmospheric pressure dropped, and my ears popped several times as the air thinned. It pulled the air to it, and the fortress's eyes stared at this planet with a hunger unending and infinite. It would rush across the surface of this world without an ounce of mercy. We would all become consumed by an endless wall of flesh, being crushed under its sheer mass.

Isa and Lester flopped down, each of them unable to stand. Hod and my knees wobbled as this abomination eyed all below it. Surrounding the figure, many of Schema's ships arrived, covered in graphene plated armor. They commanded this force of nature, and they decided all of our lives. My stomach sank as the eldritch horror neared us.

We were all going to die. As our hope plummeted into an abyss, a ray of hope arrived. A blot of gold formed over the megastructure around us, and from it, halcyon claws tore the fabric of dimensions apart. The strongest gialgathen, a being told of in legends, walked onto this plane. As he arrived and roared out, a wave of relief poured over me.

I couldn't believe I was thinking this, but thank Baldowah that Lehesion had arrived.

The golden beast unleashed havoc on the Spatial Fortress, the writhing planet squealing in terror. I covered my ears as those howls radiated across the ground, passing over us. The others protected their ears, but they were still left ringing. The sound alone was enough to make my arms and legs turn to jelly. Turning to the others, I started a choppy system chat that communicated via thought.

Althea Tolstoy(lvl 12,000 | Class: Breaker) - We need to head out. We can use one of the warps in the ensuing chaos.

I hit my legs a few times till they weren't numb anymore. Everyone followed me as we ran towards the turbulent ring at the center of the planet. Isa and Lester swung on hooks, Hod warped via shadows, and I sprinted while carrying the unconscious Alexander. His arcane magic saved us, but that kind of casting came at a cost. Seeing other mages always reminded me of what an average one was like.

Despite his lacking mana reserves, Alexander did what we needed him to do. Tugging him along, we passed a war-torn portion of Gypsum. The fight in space was close enough that their impacts required going for cover often. The shockwaves stripped steel from the ground, more than strong enough to kill ordinary people.

The existing superstructure held out, but the old remains didn't. Other Hod pulled the group into a shadow dimension for a second or two each time a compressive wave passed over us. This stopped us from getting liquified. It would eventually tire Other Hod out, so we passed through to Gypsum's core conflict - the ring. Above us, Lehesion and the Spatial Fortress demolished one another. They melted, burned, scorched, singed, radiated, crushed, smashed, and shattered each other.

As we passed into the current living space on Gypsum, the fight's crashing booms became echoes. They sent chills up my spine as they dwarfed us from above. Coming into the continuous, long room via a sliced passage, we found complete and utter anarchy. Hybrids fought Schema's forces on the ground, many remnants, espens, and other species duking it out. The current citizens hid where they could, but many of them raided the exposed stores and homes. These opportunists took full advantage of the situation, and it left me agitated. A deep disappointment in these people passed over me. Surrounded by all this, I turned to the others,

”I can't believe they're doing this. Can any of you-”

Isa and Lester shattered a warping shop's window, going in and raiding many of the maps and supplies in the store. Like starving vultures, they stuffed the valuables into their storages, satchels, and packs until they were stuffed to the brim. I facepalmed, more disappointed in myself than them. I don't know what I was expecting, but I still grumbled,

”Guys, please. Show some dignity.”

Their hands full of trinkets and charts, they jogged over. Isa snapped,

”Dignity is for the poor. I'd rather be shameless and rich.”

Lester grinned, ”Now that's something we can agree on.”

Other Hod appeared from a shadow nearby, slicing a Hybrid into three parts. He walked over to me, sliding past two fighting Sentinels,

”The warp is this way. Come.”

We ran with them, passing an absolute hellscape. Schema and Elysium brawled in this giant ring, and they left blood splatters, torn corpses, and valuable weapons everywhere. I took a classer's set of daggers as I passed by, figuring we already sold our souls to evil. What could a little bit more wrongdoing hurt?

We killed groups of Hybrids as we passed, prying our way to the warp station. Hordes of citizens stood between us, and they clustered too densely for us to escape. I couldn't bring myself to hurt regular people, so I left my cannon down. As I bit my lip, our chances for escape seemed slim.

Isa and Lester agreed with me, but our eldritch allies did not. Other Hod extended his claws, and Amara leaped into the group. They devoured people, Amara's mouth opening wide and snapping like a shark's maw. Her hair wrapped around people's necks and strangled them, their eyes bulging out of their heads. She dragged the corpses to herself, indulging in a bloodbath that drenched the ground in sanguine red.

Other Hod stayed classier, only slicing people apart. I turned away, unable to watch anymore. As I gazed elsewhere, I found a group of mages warping in from other places. These remnants were guarded by Version 2.0's and the armored guards that acted as border patrols. Even Blighted ones skulked around them, their defense of these mages airtight.

I slipped through the veil, walking up towards them. The sorcerers performed a ritual, one of the Hybrids carving a predetermined, runic inscription on the ground. It was in that weird language Daniel preferred using, and they all spoke in a tongue that Amara's language decoder couldn't understand.

Unreal amounts of mana flooded through this ceremony, the members glowing bright and bombarding their surroundings with radiation. Their blood boiled before they began a dance. Above them, Lehesion's actions augmented. The glowing gialgathen sped up, becoming a superior version of his old self. He cast magic faster, moved quicker, and let out more power with each blow.

Unlike in their previous encounter, Lehesion swarmed the Spatial Fortress with all his might. He gashed and gnawed at the far more massive monster, pushing it away from us using a flood of blows. The gialgathen moved at a pace both unbelievable and unseen. He blurred in my vision, his body radiating with violent, palpable energies.

I raised my rifle, aiming at a mage's head in front of me. Killing them would likely leave Lehesion at a disadvantage, and the fortress may kill our greatest enemy. Before firing, I lowered the barrel. I didn't want to die here, along with everyone else on this planet. Even if they raided stores, not everyone here was an awful person. Most were just trying to get by, and that beast above would rush over the surface of Gypsum until nothing was left.

The metabolic processes in the Spatial Fortress's gut would be so fast and torrid, it would create violent heat flows. Any sand and stone would be melted as its enormous body disintegrated the crust on this planet. It would flow deep under the surface, its everchanging form stripping this world bare of organic material. When it was finished, the world would be dead.

And only glassed desserts and igneous stone would remain.

I gawked at the cataclysmic display of scale and power above before a message ripped me out of my trance.

Isa Antoun(2,342) - Where are you? Amara and Other Hod handled their...business.

I sprinted back to the warping area, almost slipping on the gore as I did. Despite the absolutely menacing scenery, people still fought their way onto the warp with us. A group of mercenaries already took control of the station earlier and had punched in some coordinates. As they began warping, Isa, Lester, and Other Hod fought their way onto the platform.

Amara fiddled with a red status screen as I passed her. Nearing one of the mercenaries, I reached my hand through his chest. A few more punches later, and I left him littered with holes in his torso, his armor soft as styrofoam to me. Securing the platform, we looked outside, finding many Hybrids mopping the floor of the bloodied remains.

They cleaned the area until it shined, and more civilians ran in, unaware of what was about to happen to them. Before our eldritch friends killed them, Lester raised a hand,

”Wait a minute. I got an idea. Let them come up. We'll use them as cover when we warp.”

I didn't argue with him, not because I agreed with his idea but because I didn't want any more people to die. They rushed onto the teleporter as it charged, having overheated from too many successive warps before. It cooled as ordinary people squeezed against us. Adding to the disarray, another earth-shattering seismic wave passed over us.

This shockwave dwarfed the others, a ripple passing over the planet. It destroyed the glass covering us, and the wind howled in from above. As it did, a colossal eye passed over us; the iris alone was large enough to swallow a mountain. From the eyelid, flows of flesh peeled down, flooding the area. The Spatial Fortress engulfed all in its path, everything consumed down to the atom.

It neared us, but Isa and Lester lobbed their napalm bombs, venom coils, and acid vials with abandon. Dozens of explosions passed onto the wall of meat coming our way, and somehow it stopped the incoming mass. I fired with my cannon in all directions, desperation overcoming me. Other Hod frothed from the mouth as he sliced with abandon. Amara typed as fast as she could, trying anything to get us out of here.

Nothing worked. The fortress was unstoppable.

The writhing mass of muscle filled the room, consuming the civilians here. Their screams echoed from beneath the surface of the fortress's body. They wailed out in agony, and it was just as haunting as the Hybridization pits. I screamed as a tentacle scraped some of my skin off, the pain worse than acid and fire and death. It decayed everything it touched and replaced it with anguish.

We were pushed into the top of the warp, fighting off the mass. Right as it got within inches of us, another earthquake passed over the area. The Spatial Fortress retreated, and as it did, I thanked everything for Lehesion's intervention. Flying up to inspect where they were fighting, I reached over the shattered windows.

It wasn't Lehesion. It was the ring.

The superstructure awakened, and from it, hordes of nanomachines roared. The liquid metal poured over the spatial fortress, both beasts fighting each other in a slugfest beyond my understanding. They consumed the horizon, like a gray and red ocean fighting over dominion of the sky. Lehesion stayed above, launching plasmic lasers onto the fortress's back.

Minutes passed, and eventually, the Spatial Fortress shrank in size. It retreated from the superstructure's hordes of metal wasps, and Lehesion attacked Schema's fleet as it retreated back where they came from. The warp came back online below me, many of the civilians around us left unconscious from shock and awe.

As Schema left, Lehesion flew over the superstructure and connected with all of our minds. In a noble but somewhat metallic voice, he echoed with triumph,

”And so, we once again tear down Schema's Hordes. Long live Elysium.”

The civilians around us raised their hands in triumph, and I landed beside Amara. The large warp activated, and we teleported back to Earth. As the ionized spray of mist poured from Earth's Elysium warp, Hod pulled our team into the darkness. Everyone but me, of course.