Chapter 334: Interesting Discovery
Rubedo observed the primary monitor. Gorak stood knee-deep in biological sludge across the hidden cavern. Gorak hoisted the pulsating incubation core onto his armored shoulder. The corrupted artifact leaked white light across the physical plane.
Golden pixels coalesced directly behind the obsidian throne. Valerius stepped onto the dark tiles of the sanctuary. He locked his glowing eyes onto the visual feed and pointed a massive finger at the captured artifact.
"Order Gorak to drop that object," Valerius stated. "Gorgoth buried that catalyst to prevent the Null-Engine from regenerating its physical form. Bringing that anomaly onto the Seventeenth Continent will force the other Native Gods to march on your borders."
Rubedo leaned back and steepled his fingers. "Gorak claimed a prize. I am integrating the power source into my foundries."
Valerius walked toward the central console. "The catalyst carries an automated signal. The moment it crosses your borders, it will alert every slumbering deity to purge your entire grid."
Valerius reached for the communication terminal to broadcast an override command. Staring at his wrist, Rubedo let the digital space of the sanctuary respond instantly to his will.
Massive pillars of violet crystal erupted from the floorboards, slamming into Valerius and pinning his arms to his sides.
Chains of dark mana materialized from the ceiling to wrap tightly around his throat, forcing him to an abrupt halt.
Rubedo stood up from his throne and walked around the console. "You keep forgetting your position. This is my domain, and reality obeys my thoughts inside this sanctuary."
Glaring down at Rubedo, Valerius flared radiant light across his armor to break the bindings. The violet chains merely absorbed the divine output and multiplied their grip.
"You are inviting extinction directly to your doorstep," Valerius warned. "The ancient pantheons will reduce your civilization to dust."
"I want them to look at my continent. I need to have a conversation with the ancient pantheons." Rubedo turned away from the screen and looked up at Valerius.
"Tell me exactly how the Native Gods track those cores," Rubedo commanded. "I want to know how to exploit the magical frequency before they notice the missing asset."
Down on the physical map, Gorak marched across the rocky coastal terrain. He carried the pulsating incubation core hoisted over his shoulder. White light bled from the artifact and washed over his bone plated exoskeleton.
A detail of Obsidian Carapace ants crawled alongside him to guard the flanks of the convoy.
’My arm is burning,’ Gorak thought. He shifted his grip on the core. The crystalline parasite buried deep beneath the skin of his right palm suddenly expanded.
Translucent spikes erupted straight through his flesh and struck three adjacent ants. The foreign code forcefully overwrote the insects biological programming and hijacked their neural pathways. Emerald veins spiderwebbed across the black chitin of the infected drones.
The corrupted ants pivoted and snapped their mandibles at the rest of the convoy.
"Back away from them," Gorak ordered.
The uninfected Caustic Mandible ants sprayed streams of bio plasma to defend the formation. The corrupted insects absorbed the acid completely and charged forward to tear their former hive mates to pieces.
Gorak dropped the incubation core onto the rocks. He drew his war axe and channeled Abyssal Thunder directly into the steel haft. Blue lightning arced across the blade as he closed the distance to the nearest attacker.
He swung the weapon in a wide horizontal arc and cleaved the corrupted drone in half.
Glowing ichor sprayed across his face and chest. Another corrupted drone lunged at his throat with snapping jaws. Gorak drove his fist into its mandibles and shattered the skull against the bedrock.
He systematically butchered the remaining infected drones to eliminate the contagion before it reached the main hive link.
’This parasite is trying to eat my magic,’ Gorak realized. He grabbed his right wrist. The crystal growths pulsed rapidly under his scales. ’I have to get back to the city.’
Hours passed on the physical plane. Gorak dragged his boots across the cobblestone plaza of Bastion. Glowing green and white ichor coated his entire body and dripped onto the pavement.
He dropped the incubation core onto the ground and stumbled toward the central temple.
Moss-Eye intercepted him near the courtyard. He took one look at the spreading crystals and signaled the medics.
"Get him to the Alchemical Infirmary immediately," Moss-Eye directed. "Quarantine the room."
Up in the Void, Rubedo dragged his cursor across the secondary monitor. He accessed the live feed of the infirmary. Gorak collapsed onto a stone medical slab. The parasite actively consumed the flesh of his arm and spread the crystalline armor up toward his shoulder.
"That is an invasive evolution," Valerius stated from his bindings. "The code will rewrite his entire cellular structure until he becomes a mindless puppet."
"I decide what my creations become," Rubedo said.
Rubedo opened his terminal and activated the Cellular Mastery Protocol. He targeted the bleeding lacerations on Gorak’s arm to manipulate the biological regeneration directly from the Void.
He flooded the connection with millions of Divine Points to force the host DNA to aggressively absorb the foreign code.
Down on the medical slab, Gorak roared in agony. The crystalline spikes receded and fused permanently into his bone plating. The invasive code broke apart and melded with his Abyssal Thunder to form a stabilized mutated mana core within his chest.
Valerius stared at the monitor in absolute disbelief. "You just forced a mortal vessel to digest what’s made for gods!."
"Evolution is a math problem," Rubedo replied. He closed the medical feed and turned his attention back to the incubation core sitting in the plaza. "Now tell me exactly how your peers track these artifacts."
Valerius stared at the glowing projection illuminating the dark room. He shifted his massive golden frame against his bindings. "We read the corrupted mana bleeding into the soil. The core infects the bedrock and broadcasts a frequency across the continent."
"Native gods hunt that exact resonance because consuming those fragments is our only path to true power," Valerius explained. "We lack the system tools and conversion multipliers you summoned players exploit."
Rubedo expanded the holographic map floating above his terminal. The screen indicated massive spikes of ambient magic gathering on the outer edges of the eastern hemisphere. "If they need the core to grow, they will come looking for it."
Rubedo dismissed the warning prompts. "They will follow the bleeding earth straight to Bastion."
Down in Bastion, Gorak tore the leather straps binding him to the medical slab. He planted his boots on the stone tiles and stood up. His entire right arm now consisted of faceted, violet-tinged crystal pulsing with electrical currents.
Moss-Eye stepped into the room and adjusted his quartz spectacles. "Rubedo stabilized your core. You need to remain in quarantine."
Gorak bared his teeth and looked at his glowing hand. He channeled his intent into the mutated appendage. A blinding arc of crystallized lightning erupted from his knuckles and slammed into the reinforced iron door of the infirmary.
The blast vaporized the metal hinges and blew the door completely off its frame. The impact cratered the hallway outside and sent a shockwave rattling through the entire facility.
"I feel incredible." Gorak shook the excess sparks from his fingertips.