Chapter 287: Life and Static
Sebastian moved with a heavy, deliberate limp. He used the massive brass halberd as a walking stick, keeping his fractured left arm pressed tightly against his ribs to minimize the agonizing jostling. Valerie walked right behind him, gripping her rusted iron pipe with white-knuckled intensity.
"Stay in my blind spot," Sebastian whispered over his shoulder, his voice barely audible over the roaring machinery. "If we run into more Sentinels, I’ll take the aggro. You aim for the joints."
"I know how to swing a pipe, Seattle," Valerie shot back quietly.
They navigated the twisting, labyrinthine catwalks, moving deeper into the core of the facility. The sterile, pulsing white light of the Prime Architects’ throne room guided them like a beacon, but the path was far from straight.
They reached the end of a long, grated hallway and stopped.
Blocking their path to the inner sanctum was a massive, circular brass chamber.
Sebastian crouched behind a thick steam pipe, peering into the room. The air in there was suffocatingly humid, smelling strongly of raw diesel and oxidized blood. The floor of the chamber was completely flooded with waist-deep, pitch-black water that swirled with thick slicks of viscous motor oil.
And standing directly in the center of the flooded chamber was the roadblock.
"System," Sebastian muttered instinctively, hoping the UI would at least give him a name.
*BZZZT.*
A heavily corrupted, flickering gray prompt barely rendered in his vision.
`[Hardware Override: The First Pillar.]`
`[Processing Load: War and Conflict.]`
It wasn’t a mechanical Sentinel, and it wasn’t a glowing hard-light angel.
The Pillar of War was a towering, ten-foot-tall physical giant. He looked entirely human, but grotesquely magnified. He was completely hairless, his pale skin covered in a terrifying roadmap of thick, jagged scar tissue. His muscles were grotesquely hypertrophied, bulging unnaturally beneath his flesh.
But the most horrifying aspect was his spine. Heavy, spinning brass gears and thick hydraulic cables were bolted directly into the giant’s raw, bleeding vertebrae, actively pumping dark oil directly into his nervous system. He didn’t hold a weapon. His sheer physical mass *was* the weapon.
"He’s a living processor," Valerie breathed, her eyes wide as she crouched next to Sebastian. "The Architects use biological giants to process the concept of war for the Ethereal Plane."
"Well, I’m about to file a peace treaty," Sebastian growled.
He didn’t have time to sneak around. There were no other doors.
Sebastian stepped out from behind the steam pipe and walked into the flooded chamber.
*SPLASH.*
His heavy boots hit the black, oily water, the sound echoing sharply off the brass walls.
The Pillar of War slowly turned its massive, hairless head. Its eyes were completely black, leaking thin streams of oil down its pale cheeks. It didn’t speak. It didn’t monologue. It just let out a wet, guttural roar that sprayed saliva across the water, and charged.
"Keep your head down, Valerie!" Sebastian yelled, planting his feet in the waist-deep muck.
He hoisted the heavy brass halberd with his good right hand. He didn’t have his 10,000x multiplier. He just had his braided biological steel muscles and pure, unfiltered rage.
As the giant closed the distance, Sebastian swung the halberd in a brutal, horizontal arc, aiming directly for the brute’s knees.
*CLANG!*
The jagged brass blade struck the giant’s leg, but it didn’t cut. The impact jarred Sebastian’s arm so violently he almost dropped the weapon. The giant’s bone density was insane. It was like hitting a solid block of concrete with a baseball bat.
The Pillar of War didn’t even flinch. The massive brute raised a fist the size of a cinderblock and brought it down in a devastating hammer strike aimed at Sebastian’s skull.
Sebastian threw himself to the side, splashing violently into the oily water.
*KRA-DOOM!*
The giant’s fist hit the flooded brass floor, kicking up a massive geyser of black water and denting the metal plating beneath them.
Sebastian scrambled up, coughing up a mouthful of foul-tasting oil. His stitched leg screamed in protest, but he couldn’t stop.
The giant lunged again, massive hands reaching out to crush Sebastian’s ribs.
Sebastian didn’t retreat. He stepped inside the giant’s guard, bringing the heavy shaft of the halberd up to block.
*SNAP!*
The thick brass pole completely shattered under the giant’s crushing grip. The brute tossed the broken pieces aside and wrapped its massive, pale hands directly around Sebastian’s throat.
"GUK!" Sebastian choked, his boots completely lifting off the floor as the ten-foot giant hoisted him into the air.
The grip was absolute. Sebastian kicked his legs, his steel-toed boots slamming uselessly against the giant’s scarred chest. His vision began to swim with black spots as his windpipe was slowly, methodically crushed.
"Hey, ugly!" a voice shrieked.
*WHAM!*
Valerie leaped off a submerged brass pipe, swinging her rusted iron pipe like a baseball bat. She struck the giant squarely in the side of the head.
The blow didn’t do much damage, but the sheer surprise of the attack made the Pillar of War blink. The giant turned its head, dropping Sebastian back into the water to swat at the annoying human woman.
*SPLASH!*
Sebastian hit the water, gasping desperately for air.
The giant swung a massive backhand, clipping Valerie’s shoulder. She cried out, flying backward and crashing into the water ten feet away.
"Valerie!" Sebastian roared, a terrifying, primal fury overriding every single ounce of pain in his broken body.
He didn’t grab a weapon. He didn’t try to punch the impenetrable muscle.
Sebastian launched himself out of the water like a rabid animal. He tackled the giant around the waist, using the absolute peak of his thirty-percent physical synchronization to drive his shoulder into the brute’s gut.
The momentum carried them both backward.
*CRASH!*
They hit the flooded floor, completely submerged in the thick, black, oily water.
It was an ugly, desperate, thrashing struggle in the dark. The giant wrapped its massive hands around Sebastian’s head, trying to drown him, forcing him deep into the foul-smelling muck. Sebastian’s lungs burned. He couldn’t see. The oil stung his open wounds.
But Sebastian’s right arm was free.
He grabbed the thick, hydraulic brass cables bolted into the back of the giant’s neck. He pulled with every ounce of strength he had, violently ripping the cables out of the vertebrae.
*SQUELCH!*
The giant roared under the water, a flurry of bubbles erupting as its mechanical nervous system was severed. Its grip on Sebastian’s head loosened just a fraction.
Sebastian surged upward, breaking the surface of the water, gasping for air.
The giant thrashed, trying to sit up, its pale hands reaching for Sebastian’s throat again.
Sebastian didn’t punch. He didn’t kick. He was entirely out of options, and he was running purely on the brutal, ugly instincts of survival.
He lunged forward, wrapping his right arm tightly around the back of the giant’s thick neck to anchor himself. He opened his mouth, baring his teeth, and buried his face directly into the soft, exposed flesh of the giant’s jugular.
He bit down with the force of a biological steel trap.
And he violently, brutally tore his head backward.
*SHHHK! SQUELCH!*
A horrific, massive geyser of bright red blood erupted from the giant’s throat. Sebastian literally ripped a massive chunk of flesh and artery clean out of the brute’s neck.
The Pillar of War froze. The giant’s black eyes widened in absolute shock. It reached a trembling hand up to its ruined throat, trying desperately to stem the torrential flood of blood.
It couldn’t.
The massive brute swayed, let out a wet, gurgling wheeze, and collapsed backward into the water.
*SPLASH.*
The waist-deep water in the chamber rapidly turned a dark, sickening shade of crimson, mixing with the black oil.
Sebastian stood over the floating corpse. He spit the chunk of flesh into the water, coughing violently. He was covered head-to-toe in black grease and hot blood. His chest heaved, his lungs burning with every agonizing breath.
*BZZZT.*
A flickering, broken gray system prompt briefly rendered in his vision before dying.
`[Pillar 1 Offline. Processing Load Shifted.]`
"Sebastian!"
Valerie waded through the bloody water, clutching her bruised shoulder. She looked at the dead, ten-foot giant, and then looked at Sebastian. The sheer savagery of the kill left her completely speechless.
Sebastian wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his tactical glove. He looked at her, his silver-tinged eyes burning with a cold, relentless fire.
"One down," Sebastian panted, his voice a hoarse, ragged growl. "Three to go. Let’s keep moving."
—
The bloody, oil-stained water of the brass chamber sloshed heavily against Sebastian’s boots as he waded toward the exit. He spit another mouthful of dark, metallic-tasting blood into the muck.
*SPLASH. DRAG. SPLASH.*
"You bit his throat out, Seattle," Valerie muttered, wading right behind him. She was clutching her bruised shoulder, her charred overalls soaked with the dead giant’s blood. "Remind me to never, ever share a sandwich with you. That was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen."