12 Miles Below-Chapter 43Book 8 - - What was left behind in Pandora’s Box

The darkness within the mite containment cube was exactly as oppressive as Father mentioned.

Our group of Winterscar knights, led by Captain Sagrius and Father kept clear spacing, taking turns clearing away the miasma.

Every headlight was turned on, and it felt like we were stuck in some tunnel. Shockwaves would pulse out, shoving the darkness away, but it wasn’t going to last forever.

Already the path behind us was slowly filling back in, the light from outside the cube being strangled away.

We didn’t run or move in a panic rush, anything could be lurking inside this giant black box. Rushing ahead without sight would be a one-way ticket to getting separated and killed off by something.

The soul sight equally didn’t let me peer deep into the gloom. Or rather, I didn’t want to do that. The time I had, I’d felt like the darkness had stared back, eating my willpower. Filling me with dread and despair.

“This feels intentional.”

Father said when I’d reported my findings. “That this gloom can sink its teeth inside you for simply observing it.”

“For what reason?” I asked.

“For one, it would prevent you from doing what you’ve attempted just now. To study it.”

Obfuscating itself from the occult sight. And simultaneously attempting to attack back. Up until Sagrius walked forward, pulsed with the occult, and then threw an orb high up where it imploded. Sucking away the ambient occult.

Drakonis’s skills.

That affected the darkness immediately, not just pushing it away but eating it completely. Revealing behind more parts within the cube that the mist had been obfuscating.

A massive mechanical foot, connected to a leg. But that was all the headlights could reveal.

The knights all took formation, rifles snapping to attention.

Sagrius once more charged the occult and tossed an implosion ahead, in the direction of the leg. The blue pulse flew into the mist, and vanished. Before a flash of pale blue light came from there, detonating and consuming another section of mist. Revealing more of our target.

A massive behemoth of a titan lay slumped down, back to the wall. Broken down, parts of the chassis completely exposed and sliced open or blasted through. I recognized the machine as one Relinquished used.

“Is that thing sending the distress signal?” I asked. Maybe an old turncoat?

“It is not.” Captain Sagrius said, then held a hand and finger out, pointing deeper into the gloom, past the giant. “The signal comes from there.”

We advanced inwards, slowly. Relying on the occult implosions Drakonis’s Deathless had taught us. Slowly opening up the terrain.

It was a mix of dirt and plating under our feet. Into what I realized was a few pathways. Like this had once been a garden of some kind, empty rectangular boxes of soil left with nothing alive in there. Not even ash. Most of these were also shattered away at some point, dirt sliding down the incline that the cube had been. Not too far, or impossible to scale, but enough to reveal an effect.

Within this sealed cube, we uncovered the evidence of a fight. Dead machines just about everywhere from different sizes. But still the signal led deeper into the cube. We advanced.

By this point, we passed through what should have been the majority of the cube. This would be the other wallside.

Sagrius once more threw the occult orb far up into the mist, and this time it imploded far earlier. Clearing our view again.

The back ankles of another behemoth, body frozen in a final pose. Knelt down as it looked like, one knee supporting the weight while a leg to the other side stabilized it. As another set of occult orbs cleared the sight, we saw it was slumped over something.

A spear. Though given the size, it looked closer to one of the pillars I stood on outside.

Sagrius launched another orb off to where the base of the spear should be, and that was equally revealed in one occult explosion, eating away the miasma.

The spear base was embedded deep within the dirt ground, propped up to remain in place. Impaling something further up the wallside. We couldn’t see the tip of the spear yet.

Journey’s HUD instantly ran numbers, lighting up all over with trigonometry and zooming in a section of the screen. The signal was coming from higher up, by the speartip.

Sagrius powered another orb and launched it right at the final part. It landed against the wallside of the cube, exploding in a half-sphere. Finally revealing the blade and endpoint. Along with what was skewered against it.

A dead mechanical body. Human sized. But missing just about everything save for the head and ribs. One arm had been clearly ripped off the hinge, parts of the metal there looking bent. The other arm had been cut clean off, far above the elbow. More like a small stump.

No legs at all, just a spine dangling down, ending right where the stomach would have been. The skull remained lulled backwards against the wall, staring up nowhere. No jaw at all either, likely fallen off at some point. The husk looked comically small compared to the spear. Like a fly stabbed through by a full sized kitchen knife. Although at least the tip hadn’t gone far. For all the power this weapon had, it couldn’t dent the mite metal on the other end. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

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It looked completely lifeless, despite a distress signal somehow coming out of it.

Worse yet, we realized where the source of the miasma was. Not the dead creepy body like I’d expected: It was from the spear. Black mist was sweating out in puffs all across the metal, running down the edge, falling off like a small waterfall out. Even after we’d cleared the area of that miasma.

As for the body, there’s only one kind of being that had both a mechanical body, could send out a distress signal like that long after death, and was dangerous enough to leave sealed up in a mite cube as a limbless corpse impaled on a massive spear.

A protofeather.

And one tough bastard to spook Relinquished that much. Maybe she expected it to come back to life even after all this? Or she wasn’t able to kill this protofeather permanently.

The question was why Tsuya had gone this far to recover this specific one? They were all powerful, I knew that. But the only one that seemed worth going this far to recover or imprison like this was A01. And we’d already seen him in the…

In the digital sea.

Not in person.

I felt a chill go down my spine as Journey zoomed in on the dead body. “We need to cut it down.” I said.

“I will do that, stay behind boy.” Father said, crouching down before leaping straight up, landing on the shaft of the spear before following the path up until he reached the very tip, slowing down to a walk.

He drew his occult blades, then jumped and struck down into the spear, sliding through the entire tip downwards.

Something in the occult around here broke all at once, like a dampening effect. That subtle oppressive pull that seemed to hold my very soul in an odd grip. Even clearing it out of the way hadn’t completely removed that feeling of dread.

But breaking the spear here had.

Father swung around then delivered a massive kick to the side of the spear, launching himself off as he did so. The tip flew off, disconnected, and chaos instantly happened.

The giant titan groaned and advanced forward, shoulder landing into the wallside, while the broken spear once more collided against the unbreakable mite wallside, and remained stuck there.

But not before the dead body slid down out of the way.

The dislodged speartip made a massive ringing metallic slam on contact with the floor. Exactly what I’d expect from what was probably a few thousand pounds of dense metal hitting from this high up.

The corpse that landed nearby made a lot less noise, faceplanting into a patch of dirt.

Now that it was closer, I could examine it in more detail. Despite it being a chassis, there were traces of skin, though it looked completely pale and withered, almost like dried up flesh hanging off of it. A few stands of hair were still on the skull’s head.

I started walking forward when Father jumped off from the top, and landed right in front of my path.

He stood right back up and held a hand out, barring the way, before turning himself to eye the dead body. “We don’t know what this is. I am the best suited to handling it if there is danger.”

As in I was a squishy human being while Father was basically indestructible killing machine and could continue piloting his body even if every system was forcefully shut down.

“Fair enough.” I said. It was a good point. If a normal protofeather body had just about almost killed Avalis, there’s no telling what this one could do given how far Relinquished had gone to seal it in.

Father approached the dead body carefully, kneeling down slowly to pick it up. One hand grabbed the top of the skull and lifted until Father stood up fully, watching the withered husk.

I followed behind, keeping off to the right side, headlights landing right on target so that I’d get a better look at it.

“There’s power inside.” I said, frowning as I examined the body further using the occult sight this time.

It felt… alive. In the same way as a human would be. Not what I was used to with a Feather. It felt more like Wrath’s Chosen. Grafted with metal, but still human?

Not just that, the overall concept of a human was here too which surprised me. A protofeather that merged with a human maybe?

There were the impaled ruins of a soul fractal like I’d expect from a Feather, but instead of being near the throat, it was further to the center of the ribcage, right where the spear tip had cut through before hitting the wallside.

That would kill any protofeather. They were powerful, but they were still machines. And artificial souls didn’t have the resistance humans did. Protofeather, Goddess, or Lesser. All the same in the end.

It should be completely dead soul-wise. Maybe a few subroutines might still have power, including the distress signal. But instead, it really felt like there was a soul still in there somehow. Alive.

Despite everything looking completely dead.

“The corpse is sleeping.” Father said, coming to the same conclusion I had. “I will wake it. Captain Sagrius. Keep an eye on my status. Should I stop broadcasting an all clear signal, cut me down.”

The Captain gave a simple nod, drawing out his occult blade, taking a stance.

If Father of all people was feeling spooked about this to the point of bringing Sagrius as backup, that was not a great sign.

Father returned the nod, then turned back to face the dead body eye to eye. His began to flash blue for a moment, sending a signal deep down.

And then the dead husk’s eyes equally began to flicker blue in response.

“Scrap raining from above, it really is alive.” I muttered, watching as the data package was sent between both Father and the dead body.

And then the dead husk spoke. “Ah. Someone’s here.”

A male’s voice, distorted by static. A speaker of some kind within crackling to life. The irises began to glow fully blue, and remained glowing.

Then they moved. Scanning around the room, taking in the crowd around it. It looked incredibly eerie. “The last time I powered down for sleep, I thought I would never wake again.” The husk said.

“Are you… A01?” I asked “Is this where you’ve been trapped all this time?”

The eyes turned to stare at me. There was no recognition. “A01? Trapped here? Why? This cube is his creation. He personally sealed me here, in a manner that would not require him to remain as my jailor. Relinquished would have needed him to eradicate the rest of humanity afterwards. Given you are here, I see A01 has failed in his task and humanity has survived against all odds.”

“...You’ve been here for a long time.” Father said, looking over the body held in his hand. "A very long time."

“Internal clocks suggest I have remained here for almost seven hundred years. Every decade I used to wake and reassess if there was any chance of escape. That has not worked in my favor. My last wake cycle was three hundred years prior.” The eyes roved around again, looking at the Winterscar knights assembled. “She must be truly furious that all these centuries later, there are still those who oppose her, with my own tools even. I am pleasantly relieved.”

Own tools. "What tools?" I asked.

His eyes flickered for a moment, then he looked me up and down, finally focusing on my blade. "My armor schematics. And the blade you wield. Although this particular model is not among those I have designed."

“...Who exactly are you?”

The blue mechanical eyes turned up and focused on me again.

“I am known as Urs.”