Corvis Eralith
The cavernous hangar, usually echoing with the clang of tools and the hum of mana crystals—meant to recharge the Barbarossa faster than just absorbing atmospheric mana—felt strangely intimate with Chul's unrestrained awe filling the space.
He circled the Barbarossa like a child discovering a mythical beast, his fiery eyes wide, reflecting the polished crimson armour.
"This thing is amazing!" His voice boomed, ricocheting off the steel rafters. "What even is this? A mana beast made of metal!?"
He stopped abruptly, pivoting on his heel, his gaze snapping to me with an intensity that was both exhilarating and slightly terrifying.
"Those are definitely weapons! Can I fight it?"
Before I could formulate a response, the familiar, cool presence manifested beside one of the Barbarossa's colossal, piston-driven legs caressing its exoskeleton. Romulos.
He leaned against the polished red armour with an unnerving casualness, a ghost made flesh within the confines of my own perception.
He felt subtly different than usually, but I couldn't tell why or what.
"It seems the halfbreed likes our creation, Corvis," he commented, his mental voice a silken thread woven with amusement and… something else. A proprietary pride that set my teeth on edge.
Our creation. Was it? The schematics were etched in my mind, the sleepless nights fueled by my obsession, the solutions wrestled from theoretical chaos by my intellect.
Yet, Romulos had been the silent observer, the phantom co-pilot through countless iterations. We named it together after all, he was my reviewer, my critic and my colleague at the same time.
The line between 'mine' and 'ours' felt perilously thin.
"It's an exoform, or at least it was originally... now it got out of hand." I stated, deliberately keeping the explanation clinical, a shield against Chul's infectious enthusiasm and Romulos's unsettling proximity.
Delving into the arcane artificing, the fusion of runic matrices and hydraulic musculature, the delicate balance of mana conduits, mana beasts' derivatives and hardened steel… it felt like exposing a raw nerve.
"But yes, it can fight. Not autonomously. It requires a pilot. Consider it… a very, very large suit of armour."
My armour. My hard work made manifest in thousands of kilogrammes of alloy, carapace and condensed will.
The Devil of Dicathen like the Alacryans called it.
"Huge indeed!" Chul's grin was blinding. Before I could utter a warning, his fist, wreathed in flickering orange flame, slammed into the Barbarossa's flank with a resonant GONG that vibrated through the hangar floor. Instantly, the intricate spellforms etched beneath the armour flared with brilliant blue light.
Kinetic redistribution, one of the first and most important characteristics of the Barbarossa. The stored energy lashed back, a visible shockwave of force rippling the air. Chul grunted, surprised, his boots digging deep furrows into the reinforced concrete as he skidded backwards several meters, his fiery wing flaring for balance. He shook his fist, more impressed than pained.
"Ha! It bites back!"
Maybe bringing him here wasn't the best idea. The thought surfaced with weary familiarity. First Nico, simmering with resentment in his the cell I tried to make feel as comfortable as possible.
Now Chul, a force of nature barely contained, fascinated by the biggest, shiniest toy in the room.
Grampa's amused observation echoed in my mind: "Turning the Castle into a refuge for strays, are we, Corvis?" He wasn't entirely wrong.
The justification for Chul's presence—a 'clanless Asura halfbreed', vetted with Mordain's careful, knowing assistance—held a kernel of truth, making the lie breathe easier. It placated the Council, a shield woven from half-facts.
"Even if Epheotus discovers Chul," Romulos murmured, his spectral form shimmering slightly as he 'walked' around the exoform's front, peering up at the imposing Dark Visor cockpit, "Grandfather won't stir the hornet's nest over a mere halfbreed. Especially one fostered by Mordain."
His tone was reasonable, logical. Yet, a sliver of ice traced my spine. Mere halfbreed. The casual dismissal, the effortless categorization… it was pure Romulos.
And Meta-awareness, that ever-present, enigmatic and unfathomable force within my psyche, thrummed like a plucked wire for some unknown reason. A silent, discordance beneath the surface noise.
Danger. Wrongness. But the source? The direction? It remained frustratingly opaque, a warning without words. Romulos… I trusted him. He was the specter who pulled me back from the precipice of dissolution, the brother-shade who shared the echoing chambers of my mind. I knew he saw me as kin.
But this sudden and overbearing… friendliness? This almost jovial commentary? It felt… performative. Like a mask settling into place. What was happening? What was he plotting?
"Now I want to fight it even more!" Chul declared, his momentary setback forgotten, replaced by blazing determination. He pointed a fiery finger at the twin, humming propulsion rockets meant to make it fly nestled between the Barbarossa's massive shoulder blades.
"Those strange furnaces… they make this thing fly, right? Let's give it a try! What do you say, Corvis? Up there!" He gestured wildly towards the open hangar doors and the vast, cloud-dappled sky below.
"Am I hearing correctly?" Grampa Virion's voice, old as aged parchment, cut through the charged atmosphere. He stood framed in the hangar entrance, arms crossed, one silver eyebrow arched impossibly high.
"You don't want to take a fight with an Asura right in front of the Castle, do you, Corvis?" His gaze, sharp and assessing, flickered between Chul, the Barbarossa, and me as a smirk formed on his face.
"Lord Virion!" Chul boomed, instantly snapping to a posture of exaggerated respect, fist thumping his chest in a salute that looked both sincere and slightly ridiculous.
He treated Grampa, Mom, and Dad with a deference bordering on reverence, a trait I found utterly baffling.
"You don't have to call me like that, Chul," Grampa sighed, the weariness of a thousand diplomatic headaches evident in his voice.
"Nonsense!" Chul insisted, chin jutting out with stubborn pride. "You are Corvis' grandfather! It's the least I can do!" The implication—that his respect was a direct extension of his regard for me—was both touching and mildly embarrassing.
Grampa rubbed his temples. "If you absolutely must indulge in… whatever this is," he waved a dismissive hand encompassing Chul's fervor and the looming war machine, "do it away from the Castle kid. I have enough obnoxious paperwork waiting without adding a potential 'explained structural damage' to the list."
He fixed me with a look that held layers: concern, exasperation, and a flicker of undying trust that I wouldn't let things spiral too far out of control. "Try not to break anything, especially yourself ." With that, he turned and vanished back into the Castle's depths.
Chul's fiery eyes locked onto mine, brimming with hopeful intensity. "Does that mean you agree, Corvis?"
The weight of refusal warred with scientific curiosity. Testing the Barbarossa against a true Asuran-level power, even diluted by Chul's hybrid nature, was an unprecedented opportunity. Data points I could only dream of. And beneath that… a spark of challenge.
Could my creation stand against the owners of Epheotus? Against the power that had shaped the world for millennia? Against the shadow that haunted my entire existence?
I felt Romulos's spectral presence shift, a silent pressure, an unspoken yes. It tipped the scales. "Fine," I conceded, the word tasting like both surrender and anticipation.
Chul's triumphant yes shook dust from the rafters.
———
Twenty meters above the rolling, forested foothills west of the Castle, suspended within the Barbarossa's embrace, the world narrowed to a symphony of data.
The Dark Visor dome surrounding the cockpit pulsed with complex overlays: topographical scans, mana density gradients, structural integrity readouts. And dominating the center, blazing like a miniature sun on the crystalline display, was Chul's mana signature.
It wasn't just strong; it was volcanic, a torrent of raw, barely contained power that made the Barbarossa's analytical runes stutter and flicker, struggling to categorize the sheer, overwhelming intensity.
The exoform's frame hummed around me, a giant's heartbeat translating the ambient mana turbulence into a physical vibration I felt in my bones.
"Our little mecha might need a total overhaul," Romulos's voice materialized, cool and analytical, as he appeared translucent in the copilot seat behind me. He leaned forward, studying the same chaotic signature display.
"Its core sensory and defensive matrices are still calibrated for Retainer-level threats and even Nico—" his lip curled with familiar contempt "— but he barely qualified as a Scythe. This…"
He gestured towards the fiery figure hovering outside, Suncrasher held loosely but ready, "…is orders of magnitude beyond."
His words weren't criticism; they were clinical assessment. Yet, the ease with which he occupied this space, the casual 'our', grated.
Why this sudden, almost… companionable engagement?
My hands, encased in the haptic feedback gauntlets, moved with practiced precision. Thumb switches flicked, runic sequences activated. The Barbarossa's right arm lifted smoothly, the massive articulated hand opening palm-out towards Chul—the universal signal for readiness.
The Mana Wreath, sheathed along its waist, thrummed with potential energy fueled by the pure mana purified only with a dragon's mana core.
"I hope he doesn't break the exoform…" The murmured worry escaped before I could censor it.
"The Barbarossa's real strength is its resilience, is it not?" Romulos countered, his tone almost… reassuring? It was deeply unsettling.
"We built it for that, together in your workshop in the Grand Mountains, me, you and Berna against this continent of lessers. We wanted a walking tank, Corvis. A bulwark. Let it be the bulwark."
We. Again. And the memory surfaced—my own desperate ambition whispered to him during the design phase: 'Not just a weapon, Romulos. A shield. An unbreakable wall.' He remembered. He understood.
The realization sent a confusing warmth through me, battling the persistent chill of Meta-awareness's silent alarm. Why did his understanding feel like a trap? But why did my heart melt a this brotherly affection.
Was he nearing the completion of his agenda?
Chul needed no further invitation. A battle cry ripped from his throat, more exultant than fierce, and he became a streaking comet of fire and kinetic fury.
Suncrasher, trailing a wake of incandescent energy, arced down towards the Barbarossa's raised palm. Instinct and training took over. I slammed the haptic controls, channeling raw power from Sylvia's vast, cool mana core—a bottomless well I still approached with reverence and profound thankfulness for Grey's gift—into the matrix of spellforms.
The impact wasn't just sound; it was a rupture of air and noise. The entire exoform shuddered violently, groaning like a living being in protest. My teeth rattled in my skull despite the cockpit's inertial dampeners. The control gauntlets bucked in my grip.
White runes flared desperately across the forearm and palm, drinking down the colossal energy transfer, redirecting it, bleeding it off as harmless light and heat, but the drain was staggering. A significant chunk of Sylvia's core's reserve vanished in that single parry.
"This thing is tough like anything I have ever seen!" Chul roared, exhilarated, ricocheting off the repulsor field. His eyes blazed brighter. He didn't pause, didn't reassess. Pure battle-joy propelled him into another blindingly fast attack run.
Too fast. The Barbarossa was a juggernaut, not a duelist. Frantically, I manipulated the thruster controls. The downward-pointing mini-boosters along the back and legs roared, then pivoted with hydraulic precision, blasting raw propulsion forward instead of up.
The exoform surged backward, its massive feet gouging trenches in the hillside below, but Chul closed the distance effortlessly, a hawk diving on lumbering prey.
Fear, cold and sharp, pricked at my focus. Not fear of injury, but fear of failure. Of my creation being proven inadequate.
Time slowed. The Mana Wreath's activation sequence flowed through my mind—a complex dance of runic ignition and mana shaping.
Both hands gripped the primary control yokes. I shoved them forward. With a sound like a star being born, the Mana Wreath ignited.
A blade of pure, searing white mana, three meters of condensed annihilation, erupted from the waist housing. The exoskeletal reinforcement hydraulics along the Barbarossa's arms screamed in protest as I commanded a colossal, full-body swing.
It wasn't finesse; it was raw, hydraulic-powered annihilation channeled through a blade of pure energy, aimed to bisect the fiery streak hurtling towards me.
Suncrasher met Mana Wreath. Not a direct clash, but a glancing deflection. Chul, displaying reflexes that defied physics, twisted mid-air, using his wing for a brutal adjustment. The flaming mace skittered along the mana blade's edge, sending cascades of sparks and shrieking energy feedback through the Barbarossa's systems.
Warning glyphs flared crimson across the Dark Visor—localized overload in the Barbarossa's hand, minor mana conduit feedback. But the blade held. It held against an Asuran artifact!
"That would have hurt! I am sure of it!" Chul yelled, genuine respect mixed with adrenaline in his voice. He hovered for a split second, staring directly at the Dark Visor, seeing me inside. The moment hung, charged with mutual recognition of power. Then his expression shifted, hardening into something truly formidable.
"I underestimated you, Corvis." The playful exuberance vanished, replaced by the focused intensity of a born warrior. "Now… let's hit hard!"
Fire didn't just wreathe him; it consumed him whole. He became a living meteor, an avatar of solar might, accelerating towards the Barbarossa with terrifying, world-bending speed. This wasn't a test anymore. This was annihilation velocity. Every alarm in the cockpit screamed.
Structural integrity projections plummeted. Romulos's spectral form leaned forward, his expression unreadable, but his presence felt… expectant. I braced, muscles locking, channeling every ounce of mana Sylvia's core could spare into the forward kinetic redistribution spellforms, reinforcing the chest armour, sheathing the entire exoform in a desperate white shield.
The Mana Wreath sputtered out, its power diverted to defense. This was it. The ultimate stress test. Would the bulwark hold? Or would Chul reduce ten thousand hours of work to molten slag?
The impact never came.
One second, the fiery comet filled the entire Dark Visor display. The next, the light winked out. The overwhelming pressure vanished. Chul's blazing form simply… stalled. Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, he plummeted.
"The guy forgets about his own limitations," Romulos observed, his voice dripping with a mixture of amusement and disdain. He materialized standing beside the copilot seat, arms crossed, watching Chul's uncontrolled descent through the crystalline dome.
"He doesn't have enough mana to fight more than a minute at full bore. Pathetic, really." The coldness in that last word was a slap. "He's not like us."
Chul! The mental shout was pure instinct, overriding shock. Panic flared, hot and immediate, obliterating the analytical detachment. Calculations vanished. Training protocols dissolved. Raw reflex took over.
The haptic gauntlets moved before conscious thought, fingers flying over controls. The Barbarossa's right arm shot out, massive hydraulic claws snapping open.
I angled the thrusters, diving with Chul's fall, compensating for momentum, trajectory, wind shear. The Dark Visor's targeting reticules screamed conflicting data. Milliseconds stretched into agonizing eternities.
Then… crunch. Not the sickening impact of body on rock, but the shuddering, metallic groan of the Barbarossa's clawed hand closing, carefully, around Chul's torso, arresting his fall just meters above the churned earth.
Inside the cockpit, I was breathing hard, sweat beading on my forehead despite the climate control. The Barbarossa settled onto the hillside with a ground-shaking thud, its hand cradling the unconscious reckless phoenix hybrid.
Chul groaned, stirring slightly, blinking up at the crimson and black hand encircling him. Embarrassment warred with residual exhilaration on his soot-streaked face.
"Heh," he managed, a weak grin tugging at his lips. "I forgot to tell you… bit of a problem with my mana reserves. Perks of being a hybrid I guess." He patted the massive fingers holding him. "But… terrific! We must do it again another time!"
Relief flooded me, cold and profound, washing away the adrenaline. He was alive. Unbroken, just a little tired... I worried too much. I gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod through the cockpit, hoping the gesture translated.
As I retracted the arm, setting Chul gently on his feet, Romulos's spectral form shimmered beside me. He didn't speak, but his presence felt heavier now, a silent observer radiating a complex mix of satisfaction and… impatience?
The flight back to the Castle was subdued. The propulsions hummed steadily, but my mind churned. The reserves within Sylvia's core, vast as an ocean, felt noticeably diminished.
The Barbarossa had consumed power at an alarming, unprecedented rate. And beneath the fatigue, beneath the relief, Romulos's words echoed: "Pathetic, really."
The cold dismissal of Chul's very real limitation, the clinical assessment that ignored the near-disaster… and his sudden, almost eager presence throughout the fight. That unsettling friendliness. The warmth I'd felt at his understanding warred violently with the icy dread Meta-awareness couldn't articulate. It wasn't just the Barbarossa that had been stress-tested.
Something fundamental within the fragile bond I shared with the ghost in my mind had trembled, revealing hairline fractures I could no longer ignore.