Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Two: 'As an archdemon digs...'

Man, those tattoos were a tough nut to crack. Just flaying the skin off of the little Lion of the Desert's bones was not enough to nullify their effects. Physically, they were destroyed, but their soul-signature remained, bonded directly to the lad's soul.

Frustrating though it was, it did make for an interesting puzzle. How many years had it been since he'd found a lock that he couldn't break? It was a fun exercise in its own way.

Qorvass sure wasn't cooperative, though. As was to be expected, he supposed. Several times, Morgunov had broken Asad's body down to little more than little fleshy piles, and Qorvass kept trying to refuse regenerating him.

'I won't help you torture him,' the reaper told him.

No doubt, he was worried that Morgunov was just trying to drive the kid mad, and no amount of explaining could change that stubborn little mind, it seemed.

How did Qorvass not understand he was doing them a favor? They'd be able to contact their precious Rasalased once this was over. Surely, that was more valuable than any momentary discomfort.

And okay, yeah, maybe an entire month was a pretty long moment, but hey, time was relative. In fact, depending on who you talked to, time might not even be a real thing.

Qorvass didn't want to see reason, however, so Morgunov resorted to ol' reliable. The tactic that never failed.

Threatening to kill the other hostages if he didn't cooperate.

To the reaper's credit, he tried to remain strong even then, tried to play it off like the loss of all these Vanguardian generals and their reapers would be no big deal to him.

But Morgunov knew better, of course. Qorvass might've had the appearance of a broken clock, but he was no machine. Not even close. The reaper was a big softy when it came down to it. That was one of his more endearing traits, actually.

And sure enough, Qorvass caved not long after that. It helped that his boys had brought some more Sandlord hostages in, but only in terms of speeding things along. No way ol' Qorvy would've let the Vannies bite the big one so easily.

Morgunov was glad. He didn't have the heart to tell the reaper that it wouldn't have mattered, either way. If the emperor really wanted to, he could've just compelled Qorvass to do what he wanted through sheer force of will alone.

That would've been way less fun, though. He greatly enjoyed making others wrestle with moral decisions. He always felt like he was observing a primitive alien's thought process when he did that.

It was adorable the way they never seemed to understand how meaningless their ethical struggles were. And not just because he had the power to overturn any choice they made, either.

Morgunov was trying to be more careful with Asad's body now, though--like he had been at the beginning, before one of the Roberts had brought Qorvass to him. After having thought the reaper had escaped, that little present had been quite the pleasant surprise. Especially because Parsey Boy was still under the impression that Qorvass had gotten away.

He liked being able to keep another secret from him. That cunning monkey was fun to play with, but dangerous. But fun. But dangerous. But the danger was also what made him so fun. The longer Morgunov let him live, the more threatening Parson Miles would become. But the more fun, too.

Eheheh. It was a real pickle of a situation with that guy.

He could probably put it off for a few more years, at least. Or maybe just let him see how far he could go. Maybe he'd usurp ol' Sermy, one day. Wouldn't that be neat?

Morgunov wondered how Parson would've handled Qorvass' little dilemma. The lad had a callous streak, that was for sure. Learned from Overra and Iceheart, no doubt. Which was yet another of Morgunov's playthings, at the moment.

He hadn't had this many new toys in ages. He sometimes found it difficult to choose between them.

Lamont the Iceheart was undoubtedly the most deadly among his current captives, and so it was no surprise that Jercash had been messaging him constantly about it, telling him to at least kill Iceheart, if no one else.

But ol' Jerky didn't understand. Not everything was about military strategy. Sure, it would've been the wisest move as far as this continental war was concerned, but there was a bigger picture to think about. Test subjects like this weren't so easy to come by.

Lamont would be invaluable for limit testing the next upgrades for the Roberts. Morgunov planned to start with the Robert that had retrieved Qorvass. That was a deserving boy if ever there was one, eheh. Recovering a lost reaper was no minor feat. And for as long as Qorvass had been missing, that chase must've lasted for hours upon hours through solid rock. It wouldn't surprise him if the Robert had ended up tunneling all the way through to the Undercrust while following him.

The gap did leave a bit of a mystery, though. Theoretically, Qorvass could have contacted someone during that time. Not for long, obviously, if he was being chased, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

Which meant that someone might have followed Qorvass and the Robert back here.

It was unlikely, of course. He'd personally canvassed the area a half-dozen times by now and found no such evidence, but still. He hated little, nagging possibilities like that.

Even he couldn't be entirely free of an emperor's paranoia, it seemed.

Agh. So irritating. He didn't want to share that quality with the others. He was different from them. He was the Mad Demon. He didn't let things like that bother him.

He should just relax. If a surprise arrived and tried to kill him, then that would just make things more interesting.

Rgh.

Only if he was fully prepared for surprises. Was he? That was the big question. He hated being unprepared. If he lost a fight, then sure, yeah, that'd be a big ol' pain. But if he lost it because he had overlooked something?

Now that was frustrating beyond measure.

He had to hold himself to a higher standard. The young ones were looking up to him, after all. Even the Vannie ones, he suspected. Just a teeny bit. They'd probably never admit to it, though.

He could tell that this war was going to be a big transitional period for both Abolish and the Vanguard. With so many Vannies currently at his mercy, the counterstroke would need to arrive soon. In fact, he was a little surprised that it hadn't happened already. Were they trying to lure him into a false sense of security, perhaps? Make him think that they no longer had the strength to reply after their loss at Uego?

Hmph. Nonsense.

Sermung. What were you up to?

Supposedly, Jercash had "something" that could keep the Crystal Titan busy, but to be quite blunt, Morgunov didn't believe the lad. Maybe in more peaceful times, whatever trick Jerky had up his sleeve would work, but now? With all these Vannies' lives at stake? With the Vanguard pressed as it was?

No. And Jercash had to know better than that.

Maybe this Project Blacksong of theirs would be their answer. But did they even know what they were doing with it, anymore? By all accounts, it had grown far beyond its initial premise and into a confused and tangled beast. Certainly, they couldn't expect to have kept it a secret from Abolish after all this time. He hoped it wasn't just another disappointing smokescreen, just another facade in the eternal war of disinformation between them.

Briefly, he'd thought that perhaps the Vannies had finally made their big move when he got word that Crowe had been killed. That had certainly come as a surprise. Crowe and Bloodeye had been pushing Abbas Saqqaf for days, if not weeks at that point, so Morgunov had thought them wise enough to not get caught off guard by him. He'd even been in a weakened state, thanks to an earlier tussle with the Roberts.

But no. The wily, little Sunboy led them right into a group of reinforcements.

Non-Vanguard reinforcements, apparently. And they made enough of a difference that Crowe and his reaper had been unable to escape.

Bloodeye was the only one present for the battle, and his report was spotty, at best. Not that Morgunov necessarily blamed him for that. Battles were chaotic. Even with a reaper's help, it was often tough to keep track of everything that was going on.

But Bloodeye and his reaper, Arzil, both seemed fairly certain that it was not the Sunsmith who struck the killing blow. They said it was some new young buck named Darksteel.

So Morgunov decided to read the kid's file. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't much there.

But there wasn't nothing.

This little Darksteel fella, Hector Something-or-other, had interfered with Abolish operations twice before, making this the lucky third.

The first instance had been a thwarted coup in the kid's apparent homeland, which was one of those tiny spits of land on the other side of Lorent that barely anyone ever bothered thinking about. All in all, a nuisance of an operation that probably hadn't mattered that much, either way.

But the second instance? That had been when Abbas Saqqaf managed to capture Ivan. And now this Darksteel had been present for the slaying of Crowe, too?

Morgunov disliked coincidences.

He knew from experience how dangerous new players on the board could be. Without a clear track record or reputation from which to judge, they could be hiding all manner of surprises.

The big fear, usually, was that it might be a so-called "secret emperor's" coming out party--that was, one of those folks who thought they could cower in the shadows for a few centuries and then just step out onto the world stage as one of his equals.

Nevermind the fact that true strength required so much more than just age. They never seemed to grasp that part, probably because their delusional reapers were too busy filling their heads with nonsense.

A coward could never be an emperor.

And Saqqaf was indeed a coward. Time would soon tell if this Darksteel was, too.

Bloodeye was out for revenge. He wanted Morgunov's blessing to go hunt Saqqaf and Darksteel down. Which was odd, because he and Crowe had hated each other's guts, as far as Morgunov recalled. Maybe they had built up a secret camaraderie over the years while he hadn't been looking, but Morgunov doubted it. More likely, Bloodeye just felt humiliated by their loss and wanted to save face.

Plus, if Bloodeye made it sound like he was doing it for Crowe's sake, then Crowe's men might be more receptive to the idea of following him as their new commander.

Eheh. If Bloodeye played his cards right, he might soon be able to stand alongside the likes of Vanderberk and Ivan.

Probably not Jercash or Gohvis, though. Those two seemed to be reaching new heights of their own now.

At last, the hierarchy of power between the strongest was slowly becoming clear again. Morgunov appreciated that. It had been ages since the last proper shakeup. It was important to keep everyone on their toes.

Even just a few years ago, there'd been no obvious winners among the top boys. Jercash, Gohvis, Gunther, Dunhouser, Ivan, Vanderberk. They certainly had their own opinions about who was stronger than whom, but as far as Morgunov was concerned, none of them had truly been tested for the last century.

The Battle at Lac'Vayce, for example, might've gotten plenty of attention around the world and been seen as a rip-roaring success for Abolish, resulting in over a million casualties, but what actual shift had taken place?

None. Lamont and Jackson versus Jercash, Ivan, and Gunther. And yet they'd all walked away unscathed in the end. Sermung had come in at the last minute and rendered the whole dialogue moot, as he was wont to do.

Which was why Morgunov had not been particularly impressed by their little achievement.

He never liked to play the role of party pooper, but still. It had become only too clear that, for some of his boys, this whole contest was nothing more than a numbers game. As long as they killed enough non-combatants, they felt like they'd won.

It was embarrassing, quite frankly.

To see them so happy like that, so content with their own mediocrity.

But that was the past. Gunther was now dead, and Ivan, still captured.

And Jercash was at last beginning to achieve his true potential.

The warfront in Hoss was all down to him, and he was handling it well so far. He had to deal with three marshals simultaneously. Kane, Grant, and Carson.

And he'd already slain Carson.

Finally, some news to be proud of. Morgunov had begun feeling like the only one in Abolish who could actually do anything. It was nice to see that wasn't so.

Now if only Dozer would get off his wrinkly ass and start making headlines again.

Morgunov knew the Old Man was up to something. He'd sent a sizable chunk of his men to Ardora for some reason, which wasn't exactly a normal decision during a war that was exclusive to Eloa. Morgunov was greatly tempted to pop over to Ardora real quick, just to spite Dozer and crash whatever little party he had going.

It would probably turn into a huge mess and almost certainly jeopardize the war effort in the process--but it would also be lots of fun, he was pretty sure.

Eh, maybe later.

First, he was determined to solve this Asad problem.

If the tattoos were baked into the lad's soul, then the only way to remove them was via direct manipulation of the soul. Which, they were actively preventing. It was like a safe with the keys locked inside it.

A pretty damn good binding mechanism, all things considered. By any conventional standard, no one could undo it.

Except...

Asad was a servant. And every servant's soul had one key weakness.

Ironically, if he were a normal human, then the soul-binding would actually be more secure. It would probably even protect him from things like Domination, unless the aberration using it had evolved. And that was still debatable.

But no. These tattoos were a perfect lock, apart from one fatal flaw.

Qorvass. The reaper.

The problem with trying to prevent direct manipulation of the soul was that reapers were doing it all the time. It was kind of their whole thing, in fact. Even if the tattoos protected the soul from all other forms of manipulation, they had to allow Qorvass access, else none of Asad's undead powers would function.

But using Qorvass would be a real pain, Morgunov knew. And kinda dangerous. Messing with reaper souls was sketchy work. They were durable in many ways, and yet so flimsy in others. One slip up, and he'd kill Qorvass, rendering all the time and effort that he'd put into this whole thing wasted.

Moreover, in order to get to Asad's soul through Qorvass, he would need some specialized equipment. He wasn't even sure that anything he currently possessed would do the trick. He might just have to make something brand-spanking new. And doing that meant making a trip all the way back to his biggest, most secure workshop, where he kept the Clown Pit.

Ho-hum, ho-hum. Might be worth the bother, though. He hadn't created anything truly new with the Clown Pit ever since pausing development on the Roberts. All the items that he'd tried to make after that had failed tragically, thanks to those dang feldeaths and their unbelievable stubbornness.

He'd get his revenge on them, one day. Buncha jerks. Maybe he'd tame Exoltha, too, just to really show 'em who's boss. Break the Eternal Storm. Make the whole continent habitable again.

Eheh. He wondered what the world would think if he did that. Right now, they were terrified of him. Would something like that make them change their mind? Shower him with love and affection?

How hilarious would that be? And how much would it piss off Sermung?

That thought alone might make it worth doing.

People were so silly, sometimes. So flip-floppy. Worried about the funniest things. Good or evil. Right or wrong. Cats or dogs. Soup or salad. And then when something actually important happens, they forget all that philosophizing they just did and make entirely emotional decisions or just react without even thinking. Yesterday's villain could become today's savior at the drop of a hat.

Human beings. Hard to believe he was one of them.

Eheheh. More than once, he'd wondered about that little idea. Maybe he actually wasn't human, hmm? Wouldn't that be a neat discovery? He'd always felt so different, after all. It didn't seem so illogical that he could've been something else. Perhaps his memories of childhood were false! Perhaps he was an alien! Or a machine! Or an alien machine!

Or maybe he was created by a future intelligence and sent back in time! In order to help bring that same intelligence to life! A future god that brings about its own creation!

Because what better definition of a god would there be than something that creates itself? A paradox, sure, but what was a paradox to a god?

That was his funnest theory, anyway. If it somehow turned out to be true, he'd be absolutely ecstatic. It wasn't impossible. But how many more centuries would he need in order to create a true god with his machines, he wondered?

Eheh. Maybe not even one, if this whole god-hunting business panned out the way he hoped.

But that was unlikely, he knew. Big things like that rarely ever went according to hopes or plans. That was no reason to get demoralized, though. No matter what happened, Morgunov was certain that he would be having a grand ol' time in the process.

Which was another thing that nobody seemed to understand.

It was about the journey, not the destination. Until you got to the destination. Then it was very much about the destination, at which point disappointment was practically inevitable. But that just made the journey even more important!

But yeah, these tattoos were a real toughie. He'd been trying various other strategies like aura and willpower to compel the soul into a more malleable state, but the tattoos were simply too strong.

He really would have to invent something new for this, Morgunov realized. Something that required the Clown Pit.

Meh. He supposed it was for the best. This makeshift workshop that he'd taken from the Sandlords was charming in its own way, but it wasn't the most conducive to his needs. And he was having to keep Qorvass at a separate location, since he might've been compromised during the time that Morgunov had lost track of him.

Yes, the wisest course of action was to move. Even if it was a pain. Taking all these captives across the continent would be quite the hassle. Sure, the Roberts would make it much easier than doing it himself, but still. Perhaps it would be best to just... thin the crowd a little, first.

It wasn't like he needed all of these Vannie generals, right? And they'd just become a thorn in his side the longer he left them alive, anyway.

Bah. It just seemed like such a waste of valuable resources. He'd planned to hold onto them all for years, if need be. He would've gotten around to experimenting on them, eventually. But making such a long trip with all of them would be strategically disadvantageous.

In fact, that might've been what the other Vannies were waiting for. He'd be much easier to attack while in transit and carrying so many prisoners. There was a fair chance that some of them might escape.

But surely, there had to be a way to quickly get some scientific use out of them. Something that he could take care of in a single afternoon, perhaps? He could have them fight the Roberts again, but he was pretty sure that would just end in another trouncing. Not much new data to be gathered there, if any.

And it might just give them hope of escape, too. Which'd be needlessly cruel.

Ah. But wait a minute. Of course.

There was that feature still to test, wasn't there? Yeah. The Robert Mk. VI's most recent addition.

Mk. I through V were all stable. Every piece of technology in their arsenals was now quite well-tested and reliable.

The Mk. VI, though, had a feature that he'd dubbed the Omnivore Drive. In theory, it could be his crowning achievement, greater perhaps than anything else he'd ever created.

He hadn't yet gotten it to function as it was intended, though.

Yep. That was the ticket, he decided.

He made his way over to the room that he'd been using for everyone. He hadn't wanted to just leave them all sitting there in the hangar with all that military ordnance and hardware lying around. He wasn't too worried about them using any of it to escape. He just wanted the option to play with that stuff himself.

Which he had, by the way.

He'd very much wanted to make it so that the Roberts were capable of transforming themselves into one of those fighter jets out there--or a close approximation of one of them, at least--but that was quite the tricky endeavor. It wasn't impossible, he thought, but it would require more time than he was willing to spare, right now.

Maybe he'd take a few of those jets with him when he left. He doubted the Sandlords of Calthos would mind. They weren't nearly as stingy as the Sandlords of Sair. Unlike the Hahls of the Golden Council, the Calthosi Sandlords knew their place and could surrender gracefully instead of scattering like cockroaches when things didn't go their way.

Though, admittedly, Morgunov did admire that Sairi grit. Just a bit. That Sunsmith would make for a fun addition to his servant collection, if he ever found the time to go after him. And the space to keep him.

These ones were more than sufficient for now, though.

He asked their reapers to begin regrowing their bodies from scratch. The chamber was relatively small, but also entirely mechanical. The only one who might stand a chance of breaking out of it was Iceheart, but Morgunov had a special container for him, elsewhere in the facility. Iceheart was still too valuable to waste on an experiment like this.

The reason the reapers needed to regrow their servants was two-fold. One, Morgunov hadn't wanted to bother feeding and caring for so many hostages. That was always the trouble with prisons and the like. And two, he'd already played with them a bit over the last month, and none of them had survived it particularly well. Or at all, really.

Apparently, a simple obstacle course was too much for them. Sure, he'd built it out of machines that could analyze their movement patterns, adjust positioning on the fly, and also shred their fleshy bodies into tiny pieces with thousands of soul-strengthened blades and lasers--but c'mon. What sense of accomplishment would they have gotten if he'd gone easy on them?

Plus, it had given him a pretty good measure of their comparative threat levels.

Parsey Boy had done quite well for himself, surviving for six whole minutes. The one who performed the best, however, was Redmond Jules. Which was a bit surprising, because despite carrying the rank of captain general just like Parson, Morgunov had never been particularly impressed by his exploits. Perhaps the lad just had never gotten the opportunity to really shine.

Some folk were like that, after all. Even at this level of strength. Slow and steady climbers. Not given to making big, flashy displays of power. And there was certainly logic in that, too. They would be better poised to take their opponents by surprise at a critical moment, which was no small advantage. It could save their dang life.

But it was just so boring. Strength was meant to be used. To be witnessed. Without grand spectacle, the world would be so much poorer.

Counter-intuitively, though, it made Morgunov want to keep Jules alive. To see what the boy was really made of. And to test out some other stuff on him. Mainly the latter, actually.

He might've needed to thin the herd a bit, but once he was back at his favorite workshop and able to use the Clown Pit again, he wanted to have plenty of test subjects at his disposal.

When was the last time he'd tried throwing a living person into the Pit? Decades, at least. Eheheh. Hadn't ended so well before, but practice made perfect, after all.

For here and now, though, the generals who'd performed the worst in his obstacle course would make for the best candidates. If they died--which, honestly, there wasn't really much "if" about it--then it would be no great loss.

And to his mind, those individuals were Captain Generals Melinda and Meris. While they technically hadn't had the worst times out of everyone, Morgunov also had to weigh their scores against their ranks. Lieutenant Generals Wes and Kehl, for example, had done the best within their tier, so even though they didn't outperform Melinda and Meris, it seemed a bit unfair to punish them for it.

And Morgunov was all about fairness. When he felt like it, anyway.

He told the corresponding reapers to begin regrowing their servants. He'd learned their names, but he couldn't be bothered to actually summon them into his mind. They were just reapers. Interchangeable, for the most part.

He did feel a teeny-weeny bit bad about having to kill them, though. While it was largely true that reapers had stopped piquing his interest a few centuries ago, he could still appreciate their rarity and utility.

At the end of the day, there were only a few hundred thousand reapers left in the world. And that number was dwindling all the time. Such as right now.

At this pace, how many of the little buggers would be left in another hundred years? Or two hundred?

The subject of reaper extinction had been yet another area of interest for him at various points in his life. And he'd had his doubts about it, too. Reapers had a way of exaggerating their problems, of trying to elicit sympathy. Sometimes it helped them to acquire influence and power. Other times, it was just in hopes of receiving mercy.

Tricky devils, the lot of them.

Even now, their tricks were still somewhat effective on him, of all people. Just a bit. He was ever so slightly reluctant to actually take their lives. Reapers were a precious resource. So how much more convincing would their rhetoric be to those who weren't as enlightened as he?

A lot, was the answer.

The truth was, the world was almost certainly better off without more reapers in it. Sure, there was the ever present threat of feldeaths and the concerns over departed souls decaying endlessly into pure misery. But there were already quite a lot of feldeaths in the world. In fact, those stubborn jerks might actually be the ultimate end state of all life.

The supreme beings.

With regard to the geologic timescale, that was. It was hard to know for certain, of course, but feldeaths could very well be the destination that they were all headed toward, eventually. There wasn't even any real evidence that the "ferrying" of souls actually prevented new feldeaths from being born. It seemed to, but without knowing where all those souls were actually being ferried to, there was no way of knowing if the feldeaths weren't just yanking departed souls straight back into reality.

Morgunov didn't necessarily subscribe to that theory, himself, but he didn't entirely discount it, either. He was reasonably certain that departed souls were ferried into the Void.

But where did they go after that? Did they just stay there in the Void forever?

He doubted it.

More likely, they were eventually cycled back into the planet in the form of ardor through some as yet unknown process. And then, of course, that ardor would in turn give rise to new souls.

So in a sense, he believed in a kind of reincarnation. Or rather, he thought it was the most logical explanation for the way the world functioned.

Academically, not many agreed with him, though. There was currently no evidence to support the hypothesis that souls returned to Eleg in any form whatsoever or that ardor could transform into a soul. Both of those processes were still so mysterious that most of the credible "scholars" out there regarded them as hardly even worth thinking about.

Which was stupid, quite frankly. But alas, the scientific community had always been that away. Unable to make known their bolder theories. Afraid of destroying their reputations.

And not many of them wanted to be associated with any ideas that the Mad Demon agreed with. Eheheh. Idiots.

So many of them still seemed to believe that he cared even one iota about his own reputation, that they could do anything to seriously impact it. So what if he'd become the poster boy for fringe science and kooks over the last couple centuries? That was where all the fun was. And if anything, that was also the kind of company that he preferred to keep.

Many of his apprentices over the years had gone on to do remarkable work in their own right.

Well.

The ones that survived the apprenticeship, at least. Admittedly, he may have been a bit too hard on some of them.

But hey. Impressionable young minds needed to be met with resistance somehow. He couldn't very well allow them to go on thinking that the world was their oyster, just because they were kinda smart. That wasn't how things worked.

Also, some of them were jerks.

Ah, maybe he'd check up on some of the survivors, soon.

Heck, maybe he'd check up on some of those who didn't survive, too.

It never hurt to be extra sure of something like that. Historically speaking, servants and reapers had a pretty good track record when it came to faking their own deaths. Even to people like him.

Lozaro, for example, definitely should've been gone forever after being tossed through the Red Rift mere moments before its destruction. And yet somehow Morgunov had seen the guy, alive and well, a little under a century ago.

What a surprise that had been.

Unfortunately, Lozaro hadn't been in the mood to catch up at that time--and indeed, the slippery fellow had been running away from him ever since. Which was totally unnecessary, by the way. Morgunov had no intention of removing him from this plane of existence a second time. He just wanted to chat. Ask him what it was like on the other side. And how he found his way back. And maybe a few other things.

And there was also Yaki, one of the very few female apprentices he'd ever taken. His contemporaries at the time had told him that it was a mistake to allow a woman to study under him, but he'd always been quite pleased with her progress. Until, that was, she started trying to sell secrets to those Vanguardian vultures in the so-called "Grand Scientific Initiative."

Talk about a dagger to the heart.

So he'd vaporized her and her reaper--or rather, he thought he had, until he found her some six decades later, working out of an underground laboratory in Qenghis. Surprisingly, they'd been able to make peace and part on more amicable terms that time. Which was nice.

He'd asked her how she'd managed to survive the vaporization, and apparently, she'd rigged up an illusory double for her reaper, having anticipated that Morgunov might discover what they were up to and kill them.

Neat trick, for the time. Had to give her credit, but it wouldn't work on him these days.

And then, of course, there was ol' Hamish. Now there was a guy who'd pulled off a surprising escape. One of his brightest students ever, in retrospect. For the longest time, the lad's only real problem was his ego, but Morgunov had been sure to beat that out of him. True, it took a while, but Hamish eventually got the message.

And the kid's work in theoretical physics was truly something special. His ideas formed the foundation of the Red Rift that Lozaro got thrown into.

So it was a real bummer when he told Morgunov that he wanted to leave and go make a name for himself independently. And yeah, perhaps Morgunov had overreacted a bit, yelling at him like that. And threatening him. And all his loved ones.

But still, the lad hadn't been ready to strike out on his own yet. Just a few more decades wouldn't have been too much to ask. Plus, there'd been a big, messy war going on, and it just wasn't the right time.

Which was, presumably, why Hamish and his reaper decided to gamble everything on a battle with a feldeath.

In the ensuing chaos, Morgunov was sure that he saw them both get obliterated by an energy beam that was as wide as a building.

But apparently, the reaper just barely survived. And the feldeath that they'd antagonized was so bloody powerful that Morgunov hadn't been able to stick around and make sure that no traces of them remained.

All of that was merely to say that Morgunov, in the back of his mind, always had reason to believe that perhaps some of his "dead" students might one day reappear before him.

In an attempt to kill him, for example.

And in that regard, the most prominent candidate in his mind was one Damian Lofar.

That little trio had been in his thoughts quite a bit, recently. And it began with Damian--or more accurately, with that whole mess that went down at Bellvine. Damian was the entire reason that he'd even been there, after all. That was the memory that had reminded him of his interest in acquiring a pet "god," which in turn was what had motivated him to set off this whole continental war.

And then, coincidentally enough, who crossed his path next? Parsey Boy. And before any of the other Vannies got there, too.

That had to have been Germal's doing. Morgunov was convinced.

And if those two were back in action, then it somehow didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that Damian might show up again, too.

Maybe that was just wishful thinking, though. Morgunov rarely ever regretted killing anyone, but little ol' Damian had been one of the few exceptions.

When Morgunov had first learned about Damian's power, about his control over a totally unknown force, he'd been ecstatic by the mystery it presented. It was exciting just thinking about what discoveries might be made by studying it. And as Damian had grown more powerful, that excitement had slowly but steadily increased along with him.

The boy could manipulate space, waves, and matter in ways that Morgunov had never quite seen before--certainly not all at once.

And gradually, Morgunov became convinced that Damian was the key to understanding the relationship between the three on a deeper level than ever before.

So it was a shame that the boy had lost his damn mind and forced Morgunov to put him down. Out of mercy, really. He'd been a danger to himself and everyone around him. In fact, it was like he'd wanted Morgunov to do it. Like he was just barely sane enough to realize what was wrong with him but not enough to do anything about it himself.

Tragic.

And even the lad's reaper had become irrational about it. Refused to release his soul. Didn't seem to believe that Damian was truly beyond saving at that point. Which was pretty nuts, since even Parsey Boy had agreed that he was too far gone.

But then, Parson had become a pretty cold and callous little bastard by that point, hadn't he?

Almost made Morgunov proud. He might not have ever technically been Morgunov's apprentice, but there was something akin to that kind of relationship between them.

A rare and unspoken understanding.

If only the kiddo could see the error of the Vanguard's ways. Morgunov was sure that they could've had a beautiful friendship, if not for that one sticking point.

As for Germal...

Well.

That thing had considerable protection. Dozer, Gohvis, the Beast of Ardora. If Morgunov wanted to mess around with it, he couldn't do so lightly.

All in due time, though. He couldn't very well let Germal get away with sending Parson to interrupt his plans. Sure, it had ended up being more fun as a result, but it was the principle of the thing.

Morgunov was the one who played games with people's lives, not the other way around.

Case in point.

These Vannie generals weren't doing so hot against the Mk. VI. Even working together, it was like watching a group of schoolkids taking on a heavyweight boxer.

He felt kinda bad, actually. He almost wanted to help 'em out. Revive some more helpers for 'em. Or maybe even jump in there and give 'em a hand, himself. That'd be funny, if only to see the looks on their faces.

And on any other occasion, he might've indulged such whims. But not today. Time was a factor, thanks to the question of whether or not Qorvass had managed to contact anyone.

Sadly, this was a no fun zone, at the moment.

So he had the Mk. VI get on with it.

The hulking metal body split apart down the middle, creating one massive pair of jaws. And out came a whirlwind of extra tentacles. The ones that were attached to the outside of its body became visually lost in the shuffle as the room filled with squirming machine parts.

Six Vanguardian generals at once were caught and bound, as were each of their reapers. They struggled vainly against the snaking metal, and some of them even managed to break through a few of the tentacles.

But it didn't matter, of course. Where one tentacle was severed, ten more were there to replace it. And even the broken ones were quickly wriggling their way back toward reattachment.

And then, the tentacles all retracted, and the Mk. VI devoured them.

In an instant, all the noise--the whirring and scraping, the muffled cries and scream--came to an abrupt an end.

Except the grinding. Deep in the bowels of the Mk. VI's bulbous body, those people were being diced up, crunched down, and digested.

Still, even that was surprisingly quiet. Morgunov would've expected that the mangling and mashing of six whole people would be a lot louder than this. Hmm. Perhaps the sheer density of the Mk. VI's overall design had caused it to become an unexpectedly effective sound dampener.

Neat!

He waited.

The Omnivore Drive should kick in soon. Its function was to break down any material given to it, analyze its molecular structure, and then attempt to integrate any power-producing components that it detects into its own design.

A kind of self-upgrading mechanism. Similar in concept to the way that certain worms could absorb the abilities of those that they ate. That was where he'd gotten the idea from, at least.

He kept watching, crossing his fingers as the Mk. VI kept churning and grinding. It was thinking. Processing. C'mon...!

The noises all stopped. The machine settled. The pulpy, liquefied remains of its victims began oozing out from its bottom, forming a big red puddle.

Hmm. Nothing, huh? Just another mess.

Dang it.

He couldn't be too disappointed, though. This was what he'd expected to happen. He would've been surprised if the Mk. VI had actually come up with anything. The problem, most likely, was that the system was still not able to figure out what a "power-producing component" actually was.

As he'd feared, the Mk. VI would require more than just molecular analysis in order to achieve that goal. First, he would have to figure out how to make a machine that was capable of analyzing soul power and ardor.

A tricky problem, that one. He'd been trying it for ages with no success.

Maybe he needed go all the way back to the drawing board with this one.

Oh well. Nothing to get discouraged about. Failure was just one more step on the stairway to success.

In the meantime, he had plenty of other things to occupy his attention.

Thinning the crowd by only six probably wasn't enough, though. He decided to let the Mk. VI grab a few more. It was a bit of a waste, knowing nothing would come of it, but oh well.

The trip to his favorite workshop would be a long one. It was all the way over in Ardora.

Jercash wouldn't be happy about him leaving Eloa, but eh. The sly boy didn't need his help. In fact, Morgunov might just have to start thinking of him as the sly man from now on.

Hmm.

Nope, that was too weird.

Still, he supposed he could at least send some extra assistance Jercash's way. It would be a pretty big downer if Jerky got overwhelmed by an uncharacteristically competent group of Vannies all of a sudden. A bit of insurance for his best boy wouldn't hurt.

Ooh, and maybe he could pay Dozer's forces a visit while he was in Ardora. It would be a little tough to make time for them, but his curiosity was sufficiently piqued to warrant the extra effort.

Now if only he could find the time to pay a visit to Exoltha, too. He wouldn't have minded going over there and giving Gohvis a swift kick in the butt for not helping out with the war effort. Germal might also be hiding out there, but Morgunov doubted it. That punk was probably runnin' around out there, gettin' up to all sorts of mischief.

Which Morgunov could respect, at least a little.

Didn't change the fact that he intended to do everything within his power to ruin that creepy little thing's day the next time they saw each other.