175 (III)
Escape
A tug on Adam's shoulder made him draw his Awareness back into himself, and he found that the Biomancer was leading him toward the new chamber at the opposite end of the hallway. Approximately five meters away was another teleportation anchor, but rather than a great many spells lining its cylindrical form, there were lockers built in the side. A sign hung above its doorway, which he read as Decontamination Zone. As they crossed through, the Raven immediately began stripping out of her medical attire, and she briefly looked over her shoulder at Adam.
"Take your helmet off last," she said. She reached over and ripped a locker open. Inside, he saw two sets of clothing. One was specifically his size as well. She pulled it out and handed it to him. Adam regarded the black-gray uniform with a faint look of unease.
"Out of the armor?" he asked. “I’m not sure if that’s wise.”
"You're not going to be able to keep it anyway," she said. "It was only meant to get you through security, and you don't want them to use it to track you mentally. Now, hurry. Or do you need help?"
He shook his head. "No, I'll manage."
He was familiar enough with the Republic's armor patterns that he managed to disassemble the plates in short order. His hands were still shaking, and he didn't nearly have as much dexterity as he would when healthy. But a faint strength was returning to him. He might not be capable of fighting now, but soon, very soon, he'd be more like himself again. As both he and the Raven put on a change of uniforms, she tapped the helmet on his head, and suddenly it shifted.
It went from being a frog helm of some kind to a cylindrical, dome-shaped object, and parts of it flowed down his neck across his arms until they clasped his hands in a similar material. Adam realized she was disguising him as an automaton now. Most humans wouldn't be able to tell unless they had the proper Skill Evolutions, and with everything happening, most of the automata here were likely distracted too.
She closed her locker and triggered the decontamination process with a wave of her hand. The spells hanging above them came alight with mana, and just then, a blaring siren sounded.
"Attention! All Pathbearers within the current cube! Pathbearers Bethany and Venison are to be detained and held! Repeat, detain and hold! Do not let them leave! If you have spotted Pathbearers Bethany and Venison, intercept! Their last known location is the decontamination chamber in the port side quadrant!"
As the Psychomantic broadcast ended, Adam just shook his head. “It all had to go wrong at some point.”
"Not a moment too soon," the Raven declared. As the spells began to spiral above, Adam gave her a worried look. A banging sounded from the outside, but she didn't seem nervous at all. "Just give it a moment," she said. "I've made sure that—"
Suddenly, the spell above them changed. A few patterns broke out of place and slid into other sections. The glowing magic that pulsated with Biomancy, Pyromancy, Psychomancy, and more turned into something of Dimensionality. A wave of black static fell from above, consuming both Adam and the Raven. Suddenly, another pressure gripped him, and he found himself being flung across a vast tunnel of space.
"I've prepared for this for a long while," the Raven elaborated. "I've been here for years. My cell and I have compromised a good amount of the cubes over the time period, and we've kept up with our subversion in the meantime as well. You will be arriving within a safe house there. We will see you stored."
There came a ripple of instability. The Dimensionality mana surrounding them shivered, and for the first time, the Raven seemed disquieted. She looked down to her left, and Adam did as well. A hole had been opened in the mana tunnel they were traveling through, and Adam realized what was happening.
A figure burst in. They were humanoid in size, but Adam caught sight of a glinting weapon in their hands. He reacted.
"That—" was all the Raven managed to say before Adam threw himself against her, flaring his vector-wings into existence.
Vectors of the Eternal Ascent 139 > 140
A projectile snapped free from the invading Pathbearer and tore past Adam’s shoulder, barely missing him. That attack was infused with Dimensionality mana as well—Adam could feel its sheer magical potency as it tore past him. It punched another hole through the tunnel surrounding them, and suddenly, the pressure dragging him across space itself collapsed. Adam found himself being flung free, and the Raven cried aloud, any semblance of control lost. He wasn't so cool and unflappable anymore, and the Gate Lord knew their escape plan had finally gone off the rails.
"Never going to let me have a smooth journey, are you, System?" Adam growled.
The world came into shape around him once more. He barked out a cry of pain as his body slammed against the cold, hard ground. Instead of being in some kind of safe house, Adam found himself lying in a valley. His head was pressed against a wall, but just then a loud, resounding impact made him jolt.
Something barely missed him, bouncing off the wall just a few centimeters away from his face. As he turned, he found himself in the middle of an active war zone. Pathbearers were tearing into each other. Prismatic armored wardens were fighting in groups, trying to contain several barely dressed prisoners. It took little time for Adam to put the pieces together and realize he was in one of the compromised cubes, trapped in a prison riot.
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One was an elven woman with framed snake-like tattoos that curled around her body. There was something insectoid about her features as well, especially with the antenna jutting out from her forehead. She used that antenna to whip at the air, and Adam realized she wasn't striking blindly.
Several wardens fell apart in pieces thereafter, and the elven woman let out a chilling laugh as she threw herself into the fray once more. Not far away, an automaton composed mainly of spinning blades was being held against the Orichalcum walls by a group of heavily armored Vanguards. Though the wardens fought with all their might, the automaton seemed to be content with where it was, slowly sawing through their tower shields and chipping at their armor. It even hummed the jaunty tune while it was at it.
There came a scream of noise from above, and something glided fast overhead. By the time Adam looked up, he saw what appeared to be a chain of glowing orbs descending, and the Gate Lord's eyes widened. He didn't know what they were, but when something was glowing and falling, the human brain didn't need to make too many leaps before they got to the conclusion of a bomb.
A groan sounded beside Adam, and he realized that the Raven was lying flat on the ground. Her face was covered in blood, and he realized it wasn't hers, as not far away, the severed remains of a warden lay. And it was those severed remains that Adam leaped out to grab.
"Help me," Adam cried out. He pulled the warden back, but the Raven was too disoriented to respond. Instead, he pressed his body against hers and held the warden's armored form high.
Just then, the falling bomblets impacted the ground, and a wave of magical force swept through the narrow valley they found themselves in. The world turned bright. Adam hissed in agony at the heat. Patches of his skin were burned, but it would have been far worse if he hadn't had something with Magical Resistance to shield him. The Raven screamed as well, twitching and shuddering behind him.
There came a violent snap as Adam felt the dead warden's armor break apart. Its Magical Resistance had shattered, and soon he would feel the full sting of the Pyromancy eating through the valley. Just then, however, a blast of coldness swept through the space, severing the heat at its root.
Adam dropped the dead Pathbearer he was using as a shield and winced as he tried to ignore how raw and painful his skin felt. He patted at the few patches where his uniform was burning, and he put the Raven out as well. Her flesh was raw-red, and her eyes were bloodshot, but aside from that, she was mostly fine.
By this point, her training had taken over, and she was casting spells. She used her magic to mend herself, and then mend Adam as well, but the Gate Lord's attention wasn't on her; instead was on a towering creature, a kind that Adam had never seen before. It had a large reptilian head and a mostly human torso, though it was devoid of any nipples. Its arms, however, were several serpents, and they clamped down on a few downed and groaning wardens, swallowing them whole. The strange creature's legs were also like a jungle of vines, sprawling across the ground and allowing it to glide fast along the walls and floor. As Adam noticed it, it noticed Adam as well, and it narrowed its eyes.
"Oh shit," Adam growled. He held out a hand and pulled moisture from the air. A bow manifested, long and sturdy. He shaped a Veilpiercer and fought through the weakness still pulling at his body. "Raven!" he growled. "Stay with me. We're moving."
"What?"
The strange snake-human hybrid blasted forward, moving so fast that Adam barely reacted in time. But he did. He fired an arrow right between him and the serpent, and then fired two more in quick succession. Both arrows impacted the serpent, but Adam wasn't expecting it to do any harm. He was weak right now, and far too close. His arrows needed distance to build up velocity and kinetic energy.
But that wasn't the main thing he was trying to do.
Instead, three dimensional pathways opened up before him, and the serpent's attacks were prevented from arriving directly. Through this encounter, Adam also gauged the Raven's Reflexes Skill. She was probably an Adept. She reacted far too slowly, but she still followed things in the aftermath. And so, it was with a cry of surprise that she found herself being dragged along down another dimensional pathway.
The moment after Adam fired three arrows, he fired a fourth with a new pair of hydrokinetic arms—a fourth that led them down along the narrow corridor of this strange place. She kicked her legs and looked up as Adam flared his wings. They went from being still to moving impossibly fast in an instant. As soon as they came free from the other side, the serpent was close behind them. The damn creature was fast, ridiculously fast. It passed through Adam's dimensional pathways in an instant, and it was closing on him. But he had an advantage.
Adam suddenly went downward, changing his vector without suffering any inertial consequence. The same couldn't be said for the snake-like entity. It tumbled along the walls, its many fiber-like legs lashing and spearing out, trying to seize him before he folded behind it, trying to find a surface for purchase to arrest its momentum. It failed. It crashed along the leftmost walls and tumbled down to the ground. It slammed down next to another group of wardens who were currently trying to hold a Pathbearer made from literal flames down, and he lost sight of it thereafter.
Adam fired another dimensional arrow and kept going. "Raven!" he called out. "I need you to figure out where we are, and I also need to know if you've subverted any kind of teleportation anchor here. I think someone intercepted our escape plan."
The Raven fought to control her breathing, but gave him a certain nod thereafter. As soon as they emerged from the dimensional pathway, Adam cried out as something slammed hard into his side. A series of cracks rattled through his body, and he felt multiple of his ribs break. His vision darkened momentarily, and it stayed dark as something tightened around his neck. A hissing sound followed, and Adam expected to see the snake-human hybrid.
Instead, the insectoid elven woman he saw earlier was here.
She stood across from him, the tattoos lining her body glowing, snakes undulating free from beneath her tattered clothes, seeping out from her bare skin as hardened ropes of water-mana. Adam tried to turn her magic aside, but she was strong. This was the strongest Hydromancy mana he'd ever felt.
The Gate Lord gagged. Beside him, the Raven choked as well. She tried to cast a Biomancy spell at the elf that held them, but the magic she channeled was simply split apart as it crashed into the elf's body. Worse yet, the moment the Biomancy mana impacted the elf, her tattoos flared even brighter, and a cruel smile grew across her face. The elf was bald, and her head was brutally scarred.
But it wasn't a messy scarring; it was ritualistic, and from it came a whispering noise, a hissed chanting, and it compelled Adam to project his Awareness into the tissue. As his Seer of Horizons rested against the woman's skull, he realized there was something there—something dwelling just under her skin, chittering and chattering inside her skull. For the first time, he began to suspect that this might not be an elf at all, but something wearing an elf's body.
"Oh, you think I missed the two of you?" the elf said. She let out a slow growl. "If you think I'm going to let you escape, that I'm going to let a single guard here go, then you are wrong, you are wrong. I will kill you, I will kill your families, I will drink the moisture from your bodies, and then you will be a part of me for good. I will finish the ritual, and the Feathered One will finally claim this wretched land as per their will in the name of the Bloodied Sun."