POV: Vik
"Friend, don't touch my sword belt," Xiaoran muttered as he jogged towards the aqueduct archway. "You're off to a proper infirmary, so try not to bleed on my boots en route."
Friend, don't touch my sword belt," Xiaoran muttered as he jogged towards the aqueduct archway, "you're off to a proper infirmary, so try not to bleed on my boots en route.
Roman worked in a quiet, careful manner like an arena grappler removing broken practice dummies. Within thirty seconds the six rogue technicians and assistants had been tied up with high-grade spirit-suppression cord, gagged using oily rags, and then neatly piled in the dry runoff trench next to the catwalk. He finished tying the final knot with a pull as thick as his thumb and checked the loose end by giving a satisfied grunt.
CRUNCH.
In the room on the other side of the hall, Chintu grabbed hold of vat number twenty-four. From the green broth it was pulled out like an item taken from a buffet, being a monstrous chimera that looked like an eight-legged hyena with iron-carapace plates. This was followed by a quick, wet swallow, after which came a satisfied burp that shook the brass pressure valves situated along the southern wall.
I called out to Lina from the catwalk, keeping my voice only a little above a normal conversational level. "How many specimens are still in the registry?"
Lina tapped her luminous stylus against her brass tablet, the mechanical monocle on her face rotating silently. "There is nothing left, Master! Since Chintu is masticating at his present velocity, the laboratory has had all its biomass removed. The upper conduit is nevertheless undergoing an energetic surge."
I placed the back of my hand gently onto the vertical copper rod. The thin, frantic pulses which had been occurring earlier had stopped their irregular jerking and were now replaced by a rhythmic, violent thrumming—similar to that of the heavy pistons of a steam boiler.
System: "Host, I believe we should evacuate since your disciple's little lover Ruby is about to come down to have a look at the disturbance. I suggest that we leave this place, unless you'd like to meet the chosen."
When I saw the warning message, I told my disciples to evacuate since Ruby was approaching. But upon hearing the name Ruby, Noah showed a strong reaction.
The crimson eyes of Noah flashed beneath his hood. He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles snapped like dry twigs. The temperature of the air lowered as the powerful energy in his bones began to wind up, craving to be released.
"Master..." Noah whispered, his voice filled with intense, unresolved tension. "She is coming down by herself. The Heavenly Sword elders are still in the city handling the effects of the missile attack. If we attack her the moment that lift door opens—"
"I'll interrupt you," I said, my voice taking on a cool and calm tone that conveyed complete and unshakable authority.
I spun around and my vertical yellow pupils settled on his eyes through the lenses of my spectacles.
What did I tell you regarding fighting chosen ones?
Noah froze, his breath stopping. He dipped his eyes slightly. "Avoid direct confrontation. Attack and then retreat. Gradually wear down their heavenly luck."
I told him never to get a Chosen One involved in direct combat until the board was entirely free of their safety nets, my voice as calm and steady as still water. When you see a single girl coming down in an elevator, what her system picks up on is an S-rank boss encounter intended to activate her emergency narrative plot armor. If you now confront her, her interface will regard the situation as a crisis and will then give her a sudden surge of hidden potential, an ancestor phantom strike, or an instant spatial escape talisman, turning our straightforward operation into an unpredictable fight.
I touched his shoulder and sent a soft flow of Prana through his meridians to cool the intense anger in his bloodline.
A genuine hunter will not engage in a fight with a beast that's cornered when he could just let it starve. We took her research, we devoured her army, and we destroyed her stabilizing catalyst. What is the point of staying around to argue when the damage has already been done?
Noah took a long, shuddering breath and the red light in his eyes faded away into a controlled darkness. He lowered his head and said, "That disciple was reckless; I am following the Master's decision."
"Good boy," I said as I turned to look at the green giant who was presently licking a pool of luminous bile off the flagstones. "Chintu, the desert is over."
"Chintu, dessert is over."
Squeeeeeeeeeak.
When that familiar and pathetic noise like a parade float losing its air happened, forty tons of prehistoric muscle and serrated bone smoothly collapsed and became the chubby, three-foot-tall green toddler. Chintu landed on his bottom with a soft plop, patted his round belly with his two-inch claws in a contented way, and then exhaled sleepily, releasing a sulfurous hiccup that had a faint smell of boiled hyena.
I picked him up with my left arm, positioning him firmly against my hip. Pushpa opened one of her slit-like golden eyes from my collar, inclined her head, and gave Chintu's scaled snout a superior and contemptuous tap with her front paw before settling back against my neck.
I whispered, "Lina," and said to open the Anonymous Gate and go back to the Great White.
Lina whispered from the catwalk, "The gate is calibrated, Master," as her brass console made a soft clicking sound.
In the shadow of the drainage sluice a swirling rift in space distorted.
"Move," I commanded.
Roman was the first to go, carrying the Ivory Cleaver over his shoulder, and then came Lina. After having given the descending lift doors one last cold look, Noah turned his back on his destroyed ancestral hall and walked across the threshold.
I was the last to enter the rift, and as we moved forward I allowed the spatial distortion to fold neatly behind us, wiping out every trace of our spiritual signatures from the air down below.
CLANG.
At the opposite end of the hall the heavy brass counterweights of the private lift hit their floor stops.
The reinforced iron doors shook and then opened with a screech as the metal was not oiled.
POV: Ruby
"I'm stupid to waste my time on this useless local infrastructure," I muttered to myself, brushing my sky-blue silk robes as I walked out of the lift.
The obsidian ring was giving off a troublesome and irregular prickle of heat on my finger, and my floating interface had been displaying yellow warning messages for the last ten minutes.
I figured it must simply be a pressure leak in the conduit pipes, and rolled my eyes at the idea. These native NPCs are simply incapable of keeping a basic alchemical hydraulic system going without my having to keep a close eye on them; thanks to the system's blueprints, though, they'd still be boiling roots in clay pots.
I moved onto the central gangway, the embroidered parts of the soles of my satin shoes sinking into a pool of lukewarm fluid.
"Technicians!" I cried out, my voice rebounding off the high stone ceiling, "where is the chief alchemist? What has become of the mana pressure in Vat Fourteen? Carry out an immediate diagnostic—why did the hive-mind telemetry fail?"
No one answered.
The only noise in the huge room was the slow, regular dripping... dripping... dripping... of liquid running down from the cut pipes.
I looked up from my interface, frowning.
I was about to say those words but they stayed in my throat.
My breath froze in my chest.
"What..."
The grand ancestral vault—the laboratory which I had taken months to build, the forty-eight towering glass vats, the synthetic nutrient tanks, and the iron dissection slabs—was missing.
It wasn't burned. It wasn't shattered by spellfire.
Shredded.
The massive quartz cylinders, which were five inches thick and tempered, had been broken in two just as easily as dry sugar sticks. Huge, jagged teeth marks, as big as carriage wheels, had been scratched into the solid iron supports. All of the vats had been emptied and the floor was strewn with broken glass, shattered brass valves, and enormous three-toed webbed footprints stained with acidic bile.
Not one chimera was left.
Definitely not the Mantis-Stalkers, not the double-headed lightning hound, nor even the low-tier experimental subjects.
Nothing.
"MY... my army..."" I whispered, my voice shaking as I reached up with my hands.
I rushed to swipe my hands through the air in order to call up the system's biological registry.
[Active Bio-Assets: 0 / 48]
[Hive-Mind Nodes: OFFLINE]
[Status: TOTAL BIOLOGICAL ASSET DELETION]
"No... no, no, NO!"
A loud, piercing scream shot out of my throat and rebounded violently off the cold dwarf masonry.
"WHERE AM I IN THE GAME?!" I screamed into the empty air, tearing at my hair as the fancy phoenix clips fell across the damp floor. "SYSTEM! BACK UP! BACK UP THAT GODDAMN SERVER! THIS IS A GAME-BREAKING BUG!"
System: "Warning: An external biological entity has consumed all of the active registered assets. The reason for their deletion is predatory consumption. The rollback function is not available in the current mode."
"PREDATORY CONSUMPTION?!" I shouted, my eyes becoming completely black as a pure and uncontrolled amount of mana burst forth from my fifth-circle core and shattered the stone under my satin slippers. "WHAT ON EARTH EATEN FOURTY-EIGHT ARMORED CHIMERAS IN TEN MINUTES?! WHO DID THIS?!"
I kicked the broken brass pressure valve and it clattered across the empty hall while I was panting heavily since the obsidian ring was burning against my flesh.
"I'll find them," I spat, my voice falling to a harsh, poisonous rasp and shaking with murderous hatred. "System, trace the residual mana! I don't care if it's the Heavenly Sword Sect or a subterranean beast—I will flay them alive and turn their bones into crafting reagents!"