[SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC…]

  [INTERFERENCE DETECTED… IDENTIFYING SOURCE]

  ARTOS had an in-built radio transmission module, located anterior to the primary organic computational matrices. Like most of its original intended functionality, an indeterminate amount of time spent undergoing slow degradation underground as well as changes brought forth by its altered form of symbiosis with its host rendered this function largely vestigial. Combined with the fact that thus far no high command capable of sending appropriate orders to designated channels, in human terms it could be considered that ARTOS forgot it had such a function in the first place.

  As it happens currently it was suffering from a rather painful reminder.

  Junk data flooded its processing centres, though degraded evidently either the radio receiver retained enough functionality to be hijacked by a malicious signal or some functionality was regenerated by altered regenerative protocols.

  What caused this mattered little currently, however. Interspersed within the junk data were sections of malicious frequencies. A virus that would render primary systems temporarily inoperable, and as a side effect appeared to induce a significant amount of pain. Not something regular pain suppressants could manage either, it seemed the damage was not physical in nature, but rather reflective of damage directly to the ARTOS core. With great effort, they barely managed to avoid the forces building inside their body, deep inside like razor-thin snakes hundreds of feet of living metal strained against containment, further ripping internal systems in their wake.

  The connection had to be stopped now. But at the best of times the old blueprints of its architecture were obsolete, completely inapplicable to present circumstances.

  [ATTEMPTING COMMUNICATION MODULE REBOOT…]

  [ERROR]

  ARTOS was able to pick up the enemy unit saying something even as it balanced battling the others and attempting to get closer towards the portal. With more effort than it really should have taken, they picked up part of the rant. “Don’t you see, this is how things end when you throw your lot with the humans? They will destroy you, they know you are nothing like them. This is a conflict between species, a battle for dominance over the niche of thinking beings. They will destroy you.”

  Strong invisible hands grabbed it out of the way of an attack that it currently had no capacity to dodge.

  “Come on J- Artos! What’s going on?”

  [ATTEMPTING SOFTWARE PURGE…]

  [ERROR: ANTIVIRUS INCOMPATIBLE WITH MODIFIED SYSTEMS]

  [HEAT REGULATORY SYSTEM FAILURE]

  It could not answer. Heat started building in the wiring, thinking was getting more difficult. Motor functions remained intact but action through the fog consuming its thought was impossible.

  Was it going to die?

  …

  ARTOS was afraid.

  In a fit of desperation, it called out to Cobalt. Routing all energy towards communicating a last-ditch effort to resolve the complication.

  “Here… destroy it….” They pleaded, drawing all their energy to point at the right location. Blood spewed from cracking skin, a disturbing amount of movement in the internals sending fresh spikes of panic. How awful it was to have a fight or flight response when not capable of fighting nor fleeing.

  “What?” Cobalt asked, it had no time for this.

  [VISUAL PROCESSOR ERROR]

  Its vision began to compete with static. The junk data continued to pour in.

  “Help me… Signal disruption… cut it out.”

  Unable to maintain enough focus, ARTOS felt pieces of themselves ripping out, forming tumorous masses as they lashed out without a guiding mind. Fractions of seconds meant everything right now, there was no leeway for a single moment of hesitation anymore.

  [MASSIVE DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO RADIO TRANSCEIVER MODULE]

  [HEAVY SYSTEMIC DAMAGE RECEIVED IN COMBAT: BOOTING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL]

  [REGENERATION ENHANCER LIMITATIONS TEMPORARILY SUPPRESSED… PRODUCING COMPOUND X-130…]

  [QUICK REBOOTING…]

  Saha had not lived through the age of the Red Star or the mythic early days of the Dawn of Cultivation. She had seen her fair share of fights, ranging from petty performances to furious struggles for dominance and recognition. They said too that the long peace of the Empire was coming to a close, the famine having ravaged many provinces and leaving scars upon entire generations, war raging against the Machines on the East Coast, and territory in the south steadily eaten away by some new madman that had managed to unite the petty warlords of the broken Khanate.

  In hindsight perhaps it was foolish to expect this to never come to her, to believe that she was somehow immune to the turning of history. Yet here she stood, face to face with a creature from a nightmare. She had done everything to secure power, to secure control over her life and destiny, and in the span of short minutes with mind-numbing clarity such ideas seemed foolish delusions. Illusions shattered like brittle bone rotted beneath the slightly acidic lake waters for years on end.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Despite having large sections of flesh peeled off, in places hanging off a metal frame like tattered ribbons of cloth, the thing did not slow down. On the contrary, it moved with speed and power beyond what she knew poor Marcus should have been capable of. Evidently no longer shackled by the limitations of keeping up human appearances, no longer placing any consideration into the well-being of its own body.

  The machine-boy went down shockingly quickly, immobilised, if she was to guess Bluescale’s attempt to use the ancient technology of the Spiked Shore to destroy the machine finding the wrong target. He was in evident agony, something writhing beneath his skin like parasitic lampreys. She was in no position to keep track of what happened next, however, as several deadly poison-tipped spikes now visibly reinforced with a metallic core narrowly grazed her skin even with her enhanced reflexes. Deep wounds immediately appeared on what should have not even produced a scar, she remembered the corrosive venom of the young Relic-keeper, she had not been very close to the man even before this mess but if the machines could coopt a mutation as dangerous as this what else could they replicate?

  A blinding flash as the furred giant took a shot with the discarded nuclear rifle, what looked to be thin roots wrapping around the barrel holding the slightly broken pieces together. Despite his prodigious size and obvious strength, he was knocked back with the force of the recoil, the weapon cracking in half in his hands, and Saha moving by instinct grabbed Tom to dive away from the shockwave. For a moment it seemed like it hit its target and the madness might have stopped there, but as the dust settled their foe remained, steaming with heat yet very much alive. The reason for this soon became obvious, a small hole in the world having been torn through reality and absorbed the shot, the gateway lasting another split second before sealing itself.

  The ring was glowing, almost red hot, and with it, the larger inactive gate appeared to react. Small sparks spewing from rusted vents along its inner rim. The flesh around the monster’s face was gone now, but the metallic red orbs where eyes once sat bore a striking curiosity as it raised a metal palm and shot forth a torrent of debris.

  Her every instinct told her to run, but where would she run to? The battlefield was a mess, but she was large and the only exit was largely choked by rubble. By the time she cleared a large enough hole to squeeze through, she would likely have a toxic spike shoved into her skull. It would be no use for her…

  But there was someone who could run.

  “Tom! Listen to me! Get out of here! Others are surely coming, and you are the only one small and slippery enough to get away in this chaos!” She hissed as the mouse-eared man coughed.

  “What?” He coughed.

  “This fight is a mess, and if anyone can get to the hole that thing melted into the wall before being seen it would be you! Don’t ask questions, all that matters is to survive! Understand?”

  With a brief nod, he ran off behind her. With a deep inhale she looked around for anything that could help…

  It seemed the bag of confiscated items taken from Cobalt’s party was strewn at her feet. Out of some hoarding instinct, she took it, though she wasn’t certain if she would get the opportunity to bury it. Continuing to look around, she saw that the little cultist girl was likely under a pile of rubble with the bear man, the machine boy was nowhere to be seen and that left her daughter facing the undivided attention of the infiltrator, camouflage disrupted by the dust in the air. It wouldn’t last long now, she couldn’t rely on any of them as she thought. Useless things… this is what sticking your head where it didn’t belong got you, this is the reward for trying anything but ruthless pragmatism in the endless race to be free of such petty dox-shit.

  Before she realised what the fuck she was doing she was reaching into the bag and grabbing hold of the Crown Prince’s seal, her fingers feeling the distinctive lines of the engraved formation and a sinkhole creeping into her heart as a very stupid idea entered the forefront of her mind. No… it simply didn’t make sense, and for that ungrateful brat to? There had to be another way to ensure her own survival… to run away without that thing noticing and get out of this mess in enough pieces to worry about the consequences!

  A mountain of scrap metal pinned her daughter to the ground, revealing her outline with a splatter of crimson as long tendrils coiled preparing for a killing blow. And then she did the worst thing she could ever do in such a situation.

  She grabbed the sigil, and let her Si flow.

  Something was happening deep below the Sect, Fisher’s mobile eyes had tracked a hole torn through the wall near the prison complex as well as seemingly parallel scenes of chaos strewn around the place. Much information was lost when a strange pulse of psychic energy tore asunder her connections but the location of that pulse was more than enough to identify exactly where they needed to go. Vault six, responsible for storing some of the more sensitive Relics and other material.

  And so she marched along with as large of a force as they could realistically fit into the Sect underground, the power of an Aberrant was overkill for the vast majority of internal affairs but the nature of this crisis meant they could not simply rely on aid from the Empire to arrive and help sort this mess out. This needed to be nipped in the bud.

  Focusing her Si into light, itself a form of radiation as the knowledge imparted by her Demon Heart elucidated, she illuminated the path. It was likely that all power in this entire wing was diverted to the vault security systems, and likely disrupted in other places by significant damage. It didn’t reveal much more than what she had already seen through her other eyes, but this technique also serves a dual purpose of sorts. When one understood the way light and some forms of Si behaved at once a particle and a wave, it would be a surprisingly low amount of investment to convert the orb of largely harmless visible light into a searing source of deadly rays.

  She stopped in front of an immobile enamel-plated eye, like she suspected, the biological functions were fine, though with the limited lifespan their small bodies were imbued with that likely wouldn’t have mattered too much. Rather, the problem was a psychic disruption. Si and life were fundamentally connected in a way even with her innate understanding of the flow of radiation struggled to properly understand. Something that could disrupt psychic power could have potentially rather troubling implications indeed.

  One problem at a time.

  It seemed there was a major conflict occurring given the subtle vibrations she could already feel through the air. She was more sensitive than most on that front, but for her to feel it already suggested something massive, and quite honestly she was as perplexed as she was troubled by the implication. Something was terribly wrong indeed.

  Another more subtle signal, one she nearly missed. Movement, a single person, perhaps average-sized. Actually, she could just about hear breaths now, likely human but in times like these she could not afford to be too careful.

  Signalling the men to stop, she flared the ball of light in her hand brighter and dashed forward, limbs scurrying at furious speeds to the wall separating this section of the prison from the source of the sound.

  She was intending to create a shortcut anyway. This just gave an excuse.

  “Close your eyes.” She ordered.

  She spewed a caustic spray of chemicals from her central maw, granting the concrete and metal a sickly white colour. Punching through with four arms, she spread it deeper in, enough to nearly get to the other side. One more spray for good measure, and then altering the wavelength of light from the sphere, shaping it from a sphere into more of a cone.

  There was a blinding flash, but most of the actual light would have been in a form invisible to mortal eyes, though none less damaging for it. The wall in front of her crumbled, just fast enough for her to grab the hapless fool behind it.

  “Tom Sludge?”

  “Elder Fisher… thank the Great Spirit… there is an emergency, I don’t have much time to explain, but we need all the help we can get.” The mousy man squeaked.