12 Miles Below-Chapter 59book 8 - - The Knight

“So this plan could work?”

She hadn’t said it wouldn’t work, just that it required modification.

She straightened her blue cap, then met my eyes. “I believe with my modified viral payload from Abdication, along with my own processing power amplifying it, I will be able to break through the encryptions and firewalls Relinquished will have brought out.”

“So, what’s the but?”

“... but there is an unknown factor: The Acasual. Or, as you know it - the occult. There are many programs out there that lack the processing power I have, and yet have been able to run circles around me and even defeat my own systems by abusing acasual means.”

Ah. She meant A22.

And I could tell the Icon knew I’d already come up with that answer, given her nod. “Yes. Exactly who I was thinking of. Despite all her skill and ability in the acasual sphere of influence, she was defeated by Relinquished.”

“We can’t be certain of that,” I said. Although deep inside my gut, I also knew the chances of A22 having survived against Relinquished were low. Abraxas and she had gone out on their own terms.

The Icon gave me a sad smile, which told me she could take a probability guess, but the numbers were less than favorable. “What Miss Aztu taught me was the power of the Occult and how it can be wielded to fend off larger programs and escape. And her disappearance against Relinquished teaches me one last lesson,” she turned her gaze to the window showing the ocean beyond. “To survive out there, one cannot only rely on the occult. Nor only rely on hardware. I require both.”

“And you only have the hardware right now. Scrap.”

I got what she was saying. She could break the encryption and firewalls, but we had no idea if that was all that Relinquished was using to guard the territory. Given how important Tsuya’s old network was, Relinquished wouldn’t just call it a day with standard digital protection. She’d be using occult defenses among it too, which the Icon wasn’t equipped to fight off.

“You have golden era hardware running on your physical body. Can you accelerate your learning of the occult and power?”

She shook her head. “No. Training with the occult and developing the abilities require true experience, by the very nature of the occult itself. It cannot be a simple software patch or physical upgrade. At best, it seems I may be able to borrow someone else’s power.”

Her eyes went to Conviction’s blade in my hand.

If I had more time, I’d be diving into this ancient relic and studying every fractal that was inside. I could tell they were interconnected with one another, building on each other, like gears all perfectly polished, spinning in harmony.

I held it up in the room, watching the concepts within hum with power. I could add onto it, imbue it with the lessons I’d learned from Aztu, add in knowledge of my occult and memories of my training with Hexis within the blade, so that anyone who held it could tap into that too.

But it wouldn’t be any different than reading a book - someone else’s words left behind. Understanding the memories and writing was up to the individual.

She’d have asked me for the blade directly if this had been a solution. I realized that for all the charge and might within this relic, even for the short amount of time I’d held onto it, the blade itself was slowly fading in power. The will and strength within this blade weren’t the blade’s; they were Conviction’s.

That’s why it wasn’t going to be a solution to all this. It would certainly up the Icon’s chances, and the might she could wield with a blade like this in her hands was likely high. But she wasn’t a fighter herself. “I see,” I said, putting the blade back down slowly. “You’re not a warrior.”

“Correct. I do not have the experience fighting off the kinds of enemies you face regularly, Mr. Winterscar.”

“And failure in this case means having Relinquished discover you exist.” I started to pace in her office, back and forth, thinking it through. “She’d probably drop absolutely everything in the world to come snuff you out as fast as she could.”

And if the Icon is killed, that’s one less heavy piece on humanity’s side, if not the actual king piece we had to use. The gods-damned chess game Relinquished played against me kept coming back up in my mind over and over. We had a small army on our end.

Wrath. Father. Sagrius. Urs.

Queen. Rook. Bishop. And king.

The pawns on her end were the entire machine empire, while ours happened to be scattered churches and clans.

The Icon was functionally our hidden extra queen. A pawn piece that would slowly sneak to the other end of the board, hiding in plain sight, and turn into the most dangerous piece if she wasn’t spotted deep behind the enemy lines.

She could only reveal herself as a player once she was already in position on the other side of the board, and prepared in the same manner that Tsuya was.

She just needed a knight piece to be at her side and escort her there.

“All right. Options,” I said, brainstorming what we could do, well aware that any plan we came up with here had to work the first time. There wouldn’t be a second time. “You said it would take seven years before you have the occult training to fight off Relinquished?”

“If her processing power and ability shut down or freeze in some manner, it would take me six years instead. As I grow in power, I have to assume she will continue her own power scaling that follows her prior pattern. If I assume she is asleep and unable to notice larger movement patterns in the digital sea, it would only take me three years to catch up.”

“Well, don’t think that’s a good direction to go down,” I said. “The only reason she’d fall asleep is if all of humanity everywhere were eradicated for good, with no chance of being restored that she knows of. So we’d all be scrapped already. Let’s put that down as a good plan B. If you aren’t able to learn the occult in time to fight her off, then we need someone who already has that training or ability.”

She raised a finger. “The only entity that I know of which could fight against Relinquished and hold her off would be the mite faction. However…”

“Yeah, they don’t function that way. They’re a balancing force; if they stick their nose in against Relinquished, they’re almost obligated by their weird nature to put the same amount of effort the other direction, which would probably squash us. Or demand an equal payment, which would be above anything we could pay.” I stopped pacing, realizing something. “Maybe we’re on the right track, though. If we can’t get a singular entity to help shore up your defense against the occult, maybe we could get an entire faction? Is there something like that in the digital sea out there? There are millions of programs and regions I remember.”

I had an encounter with one such program myself, a massive titan that had an entire ecosystem of its own floating around it; that’s how massive the thing was. But for all that program’s power, it remained afraid of Relinquished. Maybe it had friends?

“No,” the Icon shook her head. “There are no factions with enough unity to fight against Relinquished.”

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“Really? After all these centuries, there isn’t a single other group of programs that banded together?”

“No. It is worse: there aren't even enough factions so that all of them bound together could pose a threat. You have logs among your video footage of training with an occultist named Hexis, yes? I see a history of the occult teachings here, which included the fate of all institutions that gathered too much centralized power. In the same way, Relinquished has done this to the digital sea, and with far greater ease given this is her direct domain.”

I remembered Relinquished had entire bot networks scouting the oceans everywhere, to the point they were just a natural part of the ocean out here. Just getting a single one to show up on my bait had been absurdly easy, come to think of it.

She had eyes everywhere in the sea for a reason.

And the Icon explained it in more detail herself: “I have noticed there are no larger factions that exist out in the digital sea. Most programs of power are singular in nature and do not belong to a larger territory. This is a repeating pattern everywhere, and these larger programs avoid one another. Likely because too many of them in one location will draw her attention. I do believe there might be stronger programs out there like myself; however, they will be in hiding as I am. Contacting them will be impossible by default.”

She’d been busy on this side kicking down any snow forts that were even two inches tall, just in case they ever grew into something larger. All programs on this side already knew her pieces were off the menu; they were beyond the natural order and to be avoided.

“Not unless we pull a To’Sefit,” I said, realizing that this also meant there were more directions. Relinquished had closed off the easy ways, but there were options. “If larger programs exist and are in hiding, then we’d need to pull off a massive beacon of some kind and call for their aid. To’Sefit did that to draw A01 directly into the fight. And she did so not knowing what was out there, only that they must have already planned for something.”

The Icon gave a slow nod, but I could tell there was a flaw in my logic. “If that were the case, they would have appeared and attacked her in that same battle. Even I heard To’Sefit’s call for aid, and I decided I was not prepared enough. The others may have thought the same.”

“All right, fair,” I said, realizing something more. “But there’s another direction too. If there aren’t any larger factions out there because she stomps them out early, and the larger movers are in hiding, then that means there’s a power limit to everything. We get a big enough sledgehammer for you, and you could crush just about everything out there short of her. What she’s done is make that power level a lot more in our reach.”

The most powerful entities out in the digital sea were unknown. But within her own empire? They were well known because of one rule - Relinquished did not tolerate any of her subordinates being anywhere near a threat to herself.

What’s the most dangerous enemy in the digital sea among her empire? Feathers.

I went down deep on my insane theory: “If we assume getting spotted by Relinquished herself is just a flat-out game over, then we should set our sights one peg down - being able to crush anything else in her empire. And for that, we don’t need to get anyone stronger than a few Feathers all put together that could be hanging out defending her side.”

So the occult wielder we needed on our side was just someone or something strong enough to squash Feathers before they could warn Relinquished, but beyond that power scale, there wouldn’t be a need for stronger. Functionally speaking. “And we don’t need a single individual either; we just need a squad of them put together.”

“Too many will draw her attention, even in this turmoil,” the Icon said. “She will see patterns within the sea and has scout programs out in force. The only true force that could gather in numbers is the mites.”

“What about a derivative of them?” I asked. “They have programs of their own that they spawned for more specific reasons. And those remained out of her reach.”

Like Judge. The program that basically flicked us right out of the digital sea with almost a glancing thought. That thing was likely powerful enough to at least hold off Relinquished for a few minutes, and if it was paired with the Icon, they could crush just about anything else.

“If you are able to convince one of these programs, it might work.” The Icon gave me a slight head incline, accepting the idea had merit. “However, their purpose and personal interests may be alien to us, or may not even exist.”

“Right, let’s put that as a maybe if we get a shiny enough ration bar to bribe them with. Can’t hurt to try.”

I went back to pacing, thinking of other options.

Would the Winterscar knights be enough? No, they’re physical real-world fighters. Their main skills were wielding my weapons and being basically unbeatable in the real world, even against Feathers.

Father and Wrath also fit in the same role. They were the front-line fighters for our team here. We’d be hard-pressed to leave them behind here to help the Icon in the digital sea while Urs and the rest of us went after Talen.

But we did have a backliner.

“Superior.” I snapped my fingers. “If he’s now hit the point where he can fight off Feathers in the digital sea, we’ve got the heaters needed for this whole harebrained plan.”

“Your duplicate is powerful from the few instances I could see in your logs. He would certainly be a welcome addition. Would that be enough?”

The Icon had a point there. “Probably not yet. Scrap, if only we had a few extra months of training, Superior would absolutely have scaled up in power. Maybe we send Father with him?”

Father out of the physical world would probably heavily lower our chances against Talen, but then again at the scales of power we were fighting, blade to blade was rapidly losing relevance. We’d need warlocks and occult masters now to survive against Talen.

“Tenisent Winterscar is singularly powerful within battles of willpower,” the Icon started, looking over the logs and compiling a stat sheet of Father’s abilities and known skills onto her desk. “Paired with your duplicate’s skills in wielding the occult, that may be enough. The three of us would have a far higher chance of breaching her defenses compared to only myself, at the very least.”

“It’s a shame we can’t get Urs out there.”

“Talen and Urs both decided never to step foot within the digital sea again due to the risks involved,” the Icon said. “If they decided this at their strongest, there was reason, and it was not flawed by emotional responses either. Tsuya had strong processing power; she would have been able to double-check their ideas with far more logic behind it. I believe asking Urs to step into the field here would be exposing too much. He took a massive risk and gamble when approaching Conviction as he did.”

And he’d only taken that gamble because he saw Wrath and me work together and heard the history of A01. That, and the situation was basically do-or-die at that point. We’d cut off the terminal, and yet Conviction had still been able to break through that quarantine and throw me out into the sea, which meant we’d gotten extremely lucky he had been from the start looking for something other than to remain loyal to Relinquished.

“Real shame that,” I sighed. “If we could have Urs go with them, that would make it a locked-in win.” That fractal was something even I couldn’t get my head around despite having Urs right there to teach me. And I was the occult specialist in our duo; he was the firepower that converted that knowledge into action. It was the issue that the Icon had said: the occult couldn’t be just downloaded and learned, even soul to soul. An aspect of it would always be personal.

“This part of the video logs is not quite direct,” the Icon said. “I can see you and Urs discussing combat applications; however, I can only see the result of the combat. It seems as if more was happening on the backend of the occult? That part cannot be recorded. Explain it in more detail. How would Urs and your duplicate function in the digital sea compared to the real-world applications you have done yourself?”

As in why was Superior and Urs put together a better combo in the digital sea compared to Urs and me?

“It’s that spear,” I said. “I know the technical aspects of it, but I don’t have the practice to even make a single one. Superior’s far more in tune with wielding the occult in that sense; he’s already at the level of summoning a single one without a problem. Urs would let Superior split himself an infinite amount of times, and then each Superior just needs to focus on making one or two spears to toss. We’d basically have our own discount A0… Oh. That might work.”

“You have an idea?”

I looked down at the borrowed blade I had in my hand.

This thing was a work of art. Like A01’s spears had been.

While his blade was powerful in my hands, and probably even stronger if Superior or the Icon herself could learn to use it, there’s only one person who could wield this blade to its actual full potential: the person who forged it.

The answer to the Icon’s lack of a true knight at her side to protect her from danger was so blindingly obvious that I didn’t understand how I hadn’t seen it already.

“I know who to get to help you hold off anything on the occult side out here,” I said, looking up to meet her eyes. There was such a person. One who had been waiting in the dark for a moment like this. A shadow of a person waiting to find someone worthy of following again. “This isn’t something we can do remotely. You’re going to need to come back with me and convince him yourself.”

“I am… not quite well-versed in convincing entities?” the Icon said, her head tilting. “Please remember, I am a customer service AI at my core. I am excellent at being pleasant company and answering questions to maximize customer satisfaction. Combat and leadership expertise are elements I am only now attempting to learn, and under extreme duress since failure in any shape could be world-ending.”

Which meant this complete rookie of a new digital goddess was going to need to convince an ancient entity left locked up for centuries to become her first true knight retainer.

And take on the, quite literally speaking, single most dangerous mission in the entire world.