September 18th, 629

“It’s been getting worse.”

Umara muttered from beside me as we rolled. I nodded and continued staring off into the distance, my exosuit over my body, Totenstahl in my lap.

Tar rain had continued to fall ever since it started some days ago, giving us little respite. The entire ground was covered in the stuff, and for once, we were actually thankful for the biomat. It seemed to recycle the sludgy byproduct of burnt spore nests, growing even further. I only cared that it provided proper grip for our vehicles. For every other purpose though, it was a negative.

Everything that the Scourge touched was poisoned by miasmic Magika. The same toxic magic that was present in Black Crystals harvested from monster corpses was present in everything else, including those spore nests. Unfortunately, it didn’t disappear after being burned. Quite the opposite, we spread it almost as well as the spore nests did normally by sending it into the atmosphere.

The air was dangerous to breath now, and at this point, not even the enchanted armors of my troops could completely block out the poisonous mana. We could keep up shields, but as soon as engagements started, they had to be redirected. Not all the rain could be kept out every second of the day, so inevitably, vehicles and troops were coated in the tar.

Some of those with weaker constitutions had already gotten sick, even though they always wore their armor. According to Umara, the mere presence of the miasma devastated the immune system by acting like a parasite. And although there weren’t any viruses or bacteria present in the tar, the body still reacted as if there were. Weakness, vomiting, sometimes blistering and even infections. The body was plagued and besides expelling the poisonous magic, there was little the healers could do.

Umara was one of the few capable of completely healing the sick. She told me that not only was her special magic particularly suited to it, but apparently, her treatments often involved the priests sent from the Church. Blessings and purifications worked wonders, even though I struggled to see it. Where she saw parasitic disease and demonic afflictions, I heard a disharmonious song and cries of resistance.

Still, their treatments brought those annoying drums and electronic squeals back into tempo and tune, so I had no complaints.

Thankfully most of the sick and wounded had been sent out, because we’d need all hands on deck for what was coming.

Artillery had already been deployed at our rear, and while they had been shelling the oversized Nexus for a day now, effects were minimal with the Sovereign stationed there. We needed Ironheart to begin his attack to deliver any meaningful damage and occupy the Sovereign while we sent everything we had their way.

The Nexus needed to be destroyed, and all its occupants needed to be killed. That meant a direct engagement was inevitable, even though I knew what we’d be facing.

I sat on top of the Command Tank, the ride smooth as we made our approach. That oversized Nexus stood tall in the distance, and even from miles away I could feel the nasty presence of those Sovereigns, especially that intelligence.

From here I could see it as if it had always been there. A dense network of Psykic power that flowed from the Nexus in bright branches that tickled my Auric senses. They resonated with the atmosphere above and the biomat below.

I looked down, and that’s when I finally managed to sense it. I could feel that intelligence staring at me from the biomat roots underneath the tanks, could hear its stare and taste its malicious intent.

With a smile I realized another truth of the biomat. It was there as a sensory organ on top of every other function. It was a well kept secret that not even I had seen through.

And yet it didn’t matter, because in my rightful paranoia, I had moved my troops as if their every movement and intention were fully known by the enemy. Turns out it hadn’t taken a Sovereign to read and predict the movement of my army by the song of the universe. It had merely been the nerves covering every square mile of terrain within Scourge territory.

But as faint as they were, even these senses had limits. That must’ve been what each Nexus was for. More than a hub for strategic musterings and nesting, each Nexus had its own intelligent organ to manage the biomat sensory network. I had no doubt in my mind that was precisely why they were there. The one I had spoken to was proof enough that I was correct.

A single entity couldn’t handle being connected to a nervous system spanning the northern region of the entire continent. That wasn’t mentioning the falloff for the connection. Those roots couldn’t accommodate enough power to send and receive signals from so far.

I chuckled, and the tanks eventually came to a stop. Troops jumped out of nearby vehicles and started setting up mobile defensive structures between each Superheavy Tank.

I stood from my spot and stepped around the Flickers that had been lying about the armor, jumping off and walking out in front of the formation.

We had nearly every Brigade in attendance. Artillery was still shelling the Nexus. I could see those shells flying through the air just before they slammed into the shields above the structures. Bombers hadn’t bothered wasting the ordnance, but there were still hundreds of them in the skies flying in formations, waiting.

The Nexus was around 5 miles from us, its principal structure stretching at least two thousand feet into the sky. From its peak stretched the streams of Psykic connections, some of them reaching behind us. I had no illusions that we had cleared everything out, but I still didn’t enjoy seeing so many connections still functional.

“Commander, we’re ready.”

General Gaffney approached me, as well as Marshal Boulund. Ironheart also appeared. There was little that hiding him would do. I could already feel the Scourge Sovereign’s attention and I knew the two were just itching to begin the fight.

“So, do we just start shooting?”

Ironheart asked as Umara took her place by my side. I unfortunately couldn’t smoke a cigar with my helmet on, so I had to opt for a proper response.

“No. They want to talk.”

“What discussion could possibly be held with them?”

“The one where they make their threats. I don’t know what they think it’ll do, but I have my guesses and I plan to hear what they have to say, even if for no reason than to see if I can glean any intel. Let’s wait a second. See how they plan to approach this fight.”

My eyes remained on the Nexus in the distance. Surrounded by a massive wall, it was impossible to see within it from my point of view. It was a good thing several recon planes were in the air giving me other aerial views.

Soon I didn’t need it though. The main gate on the wall opened up, and out flooded the Scourge. However, this time we weren’t faced with mere monsters.

Sure, there were tens of thousands of those, but all of them had riders on them. Massive grizzly beasts propped up armored riders, both Royals and Corrupted alike. There were even some King Bloods. I could feel the Auras of Unholy Light and Anarchy. Those King Bloods were a head above the rest, an obvious hierarchy between them and the other Royals even in a military formation.

Indeed, the army we would be facing would not merely be mindless monsters that had nothing more than numbers. For the first time in my life, I saw Royals amass how they were supposed to. Skilled warriors, and in great numbers. The Scourge always had enough to do so. I had even heard stories from Aki about the kinds of armies they faced in the last days of the Pillars of Creation. There were many millions of Royals just as there were millions of Corrupted.

It was only now that they deigned to form up and face me properly. Only after I swept through half of their territory did they finally muster the effort to create this army.

They got arranged in their own formation outside the Nexus, and just as I thought, moved no further from there. I could hear General Gaffney shouting at our channels to hold fire. We had never given our enemy a second to stand before us without firing upon them. This was a first, and it took vast self control from our troops.

There was a standoff for several minutes, both sides merely watching the other. Then, I felt a wave of Psykic power shoot toward my army.

I released my own, everything I could muster in a fraction of a second to create a massive barrier. It manifested physically when it collided with the enemy’s, lightning up with my dense arrays of encrypted programmed magic, propagating in repeating fractal patterns across our entire formation.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Despite having far lesser power, my programmed magic remained undefeated. Thus, only I heard the message that was sent as the attack and defense nullified each other.

SEND THE ONE FROM EARTH

I smirked, a slight tinge of anticipation filling me.

Then I looked at Umara.

“I’m gonna need you to hang back.”

“The fuck I will. Give me a damn good reason to let you meet an enemy alone.”

“They’re from Earth, and I’m going to have a nice conversation with them.”

Umara went quiet, surprised, but not convinced.

“They’ll try and kill you.”

“I’m betting on it.”

“Even underneath that armor, you’re still fragile.”

“Keeps me sharp.”

She scowled, glancing at the army in the distance.

From them came a single figure, a tall humanoid on what closely resembled a warhorse. They trotted out, heading to the halfway point.

Seeing that it really was just one of them, Umara looked back at me.

“You better keep that escape trinket on a fine fucking trigger, John. Don’t get hurt before this battle even starts.”

“That’s a promise.”

I held out my pinky finger, letting Umara wrap her own around it.

Then I brought out a Vipercraft from my spatial pocket, boarding the hoverbike and heading to the halfway point.

My vehicle was only slightly faster than that warhorse, and so we both hit the area around the same time. We slowed to a stop a hundred or so yards away from each other. He jumped off his horse, and I sent the Vipercraft away.

We walked the rest of the distance, stopping ten yards away from each other. I remained in my exosuit with Totenstahl resting in my grip, the tar rain still falling atop me, the other man protected by a barrier.

I watched him, and he stared at me, both of us making our evaluations. The man before me was definitely from Earth. I could see it in the way he carried himself and the way he looked at me with a tinge of familiarity.

He was dressed in silk black robes, taller than I was even in my exosuit, beyond eight feet. His face looked wholly human, but perfect in such a way that made him seem moreso. There was no hint of mutation or ugliness, his skin unblemished, his symmetry giving him a nearly feminine handsomeness.

He had taken great care of his vanity, that was for certain. Around his multiple layers of lavish robes were colored ties. On his waist was a skinny blade with a red tassel, his hands cupped together under his wide sleeves. The garb looked asian, but this man definitely wasn’t.

My indication was on his head. Uncovered by his long flowing black hair was a symbol on his forehead, carved in his skin as if by a hot iron, still slightly glowing red. I recognized it, a distant memory surfacing from a darker time of study.

The seal of Saturn.

Slowly he smiled at me, glancing over my shoulder at my army, speaking in perfect English.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, John Cooper. Every since I saw images of your guns I knew this day would come. I knew other ‘Versals,’ as they call us, were here, even knew of a few. But after they were killed I thought I was just one of a few within the Scourge. Certainly, I didn’t expect an American to suddenly be sent here.”

“We tend to get shit done, unlike others. The angels probably knew that.”

“Ah yes, there’s that familiar naive arrogance. I almost missed it. Seeing it used to be a source of joy for me, knowing that you all were so hilariously ignorant to the truth of the world.”

“Yes, used to be. Until you realized that it didn’t matter how deep in the darkness you worked or how much of the truth you hid. We still resisted, and to great effect.”

“And yet never enough to truly stop us. You all would fall inevitably.”

“On the lands below, yes, we would. But we both know you will never truly succeed. And right now, that’s what gives me a little joy. For as much as you’ve tormented me over the past half year, I still know a basic truth as this. And against you, it seems particularly effective.”

I saw his derisive smile grow in response, glancing once more at the seal on his forehead. I motioned my chin at it.

“From the Key of Solomon, right? I guess those things really do work better here.”

“To far greater effect than on Earth. Perhaps it was a matter of course. Communing with those gods in the outer layers was always difficult, and so those on Earth studied the mysticism far more. The people here are so disgustingly inept by comparison. If the avenues on Earth were mere pinholes, then on this world, they’re wide open doors. It makes me a master among blithering idiots. On a similar note, my god told me that you had been spoken to by another. What did you think?”

“Quite the uncomfortable experience, one I won’t be repeating.”

“How unfortunate. But you must know too, unless you’ve been willfully ignoring it. It’s not like the only beings you can commune with are spirits and demons. You can invoke hierarchical angels, too. The knowledge and power available to you is vast, hidden merely behind communication. You of all people should know this, given who your teacher is.”

My eyes narrowed, and it was as if he could see the reaction through my helmet, his smile widening.

“Has he not told you? The only Paladin and Sovereign to be branded a heretic, and he hasn’t told his pupil about what he did? Those evocations could be considered his most valuable work. I was hoping he had passed them on to you. We might actually have something interesting to talk about if he did.”

“Well, it’s clear I’ve got some questions to ask then.”

“Indeed you do. But before you leave here, I have warnings to give. I had to argue with a Sovereign to get this talk with you, but I’m still required to deliver their words.”

His smile dropped into a frown, as if displeased to be saying any words other than his own.

“You cannot fathom the depths of our reach. Like on Earth, the truth of this world is beyond you. You may think you’ve glimpsed some of it after creating your army and extending your network of intelligence, but you’ve only tossed yourself into ocean-deep waters, still yet to see through the darkness of the deep. You don’t even realize who rules this world, otherwise you’d see how futile your struggle is. Today’s battle is inevitable, but when you leave here today, assuming you manage to, your warning is thus: stop while you can, and you’ll be spared torment that what you’ve already experienced can’t compare to. Remove your gaze from places they don’t belong, remove your ears from walls you shouldn’t know exist, speak nothing of what you can’t know. Take your delicious wife and live the rest of your days on this world away from its affairs, and you two will be granted your slice of peace for as long as humanity manages to survive. Otherwise, we will feed her to you and drown you in her blood. Every person you’ve come to befriend will be flayed and we will wear their faces as they scream for mercy, kept alive by magic for no other purpose than unending agony until they mutate into something worse than even a monster.”

I stared at him blandly, his frowning face blooming back into a psychotic smile, a chuckle escaping.

“Being honest, you should do us both a favor and continue resisting like you have. It’ll give me an excuse to taste that wife of yours. I know your fancy magical planes and tanks give you confidence. You should lean into that.”

“...I’m curious, what’s your specialty? What role do you hold in the grand scheme of Scourge things?”

He went back to frowning at me, eyes narrowing.

“What kind of stupid question is that?”

“I just wanted to know how much I’m going to cripple the Scourge by killing you.”

“You’re far less intelligent than I thought you were if you really believe you could possibly do that. Which means now, I’m disinterested in further talk.”

He said that with a flash of his hand. His blade was removed from its sheath faster than the eye could track.

Then I watched as it smoothly glided through my helmet at the neck, with such speed and precision that blood didn’t even spray.

The sword came out the other side, my head separated from my body.

Then, my finger depressed my trigger.

The weapon at my shoulder cracked with power. The XSR-3 was an extreme ballistic pressure sniper rifle built for long range precision shooting with a .80 caliber and a 5 foot long barrel. Using liquid explosive compounds and caseless ammunition instead of gunpowder and cartridges, the rifle could pack far more of a punch while accommodating a higher projectile mass.

For good measure, I brought out an APFSDS round with all the bells and whistles of futuristic ballistics, packing it with about as much Psyka as possible as well as illusions, enchantment disruptors, and extra spicy neural scorchers. If not for my programmed magic concealing it, the radiating Psyka would be a beacon for the entire battlefield to see.

I saw the round make impact a fraction of a second after firing, covering 1.74 miles in 0.351 seconds, give or take a few thousandths of a second.

The sabot made contact with my target at the side of his head, depleted uranium providing armor penetrating power backed by speeds in excess of 30 thousand feet per second.

His forehead flashed, a barrier appearing around his skull right as the penetrator started working. And then with barely concealed exasperation, I watched the sabot get redirected, his head jerking with the momentum.

I still watched half his face get blown off, including a large chunk of his skull and brain with it. There was so much power behind that round that if it exerted any of its kinetic energy, there would be incredible consequences. It seemed a tiny portion of it slipped through those automatic defenses.

Only half his head was vaporized though. The other half remained, and soon after the impact, his body vanished with a snap of spatial magic, avoiding my follow up shot.

I sighed behind my rifle. He had prepared for me to aim for the head and concentrated all of his defenses there, but anything less than that would be non-lethal. Bodies as strong as theirs wouldn’t die even with their entire torso gone. I was sure they had plenty of life saving measures far more advanced and capable than our healing magic.

A clean headshot was my only chance to kill him in one go. Seems like with all my power, I couldn’t quite get it.

He was definitely at least Authority 10. With the talent of a Versal, there was no way I could reach across that power scale at Authority 8.

If I had advanced, based on the results, it would’ve worked. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite fast enough.

How unfortunate.

Well, I knew he’d be having fun with those neural scorchers, wherever he is. By this point, they were worse than what Blackblood had experienced so long ago, being grazed by my SEER Knife.

I let out a long breath while standing up, pinging General Gaffney.

Then, the line of tanks unleashed fire, shells slamming into the formation of Royals and blowing apart their defenses.