Chaos side

In the end, everything on the ship died without any of them trying to escape. It seems it was really only occupied by mindless slaves and incubating devils. Maybe I should have eaten more before wasting all that biomass, but what's done is done.

To my right, the sun is coming up from the horizon, rising on the last day of this planet - if Tokomaha should fail. Looking up, I find the moon looming close above us, brightly illuminated by the sunlight. The number on its surface has been replaced with a giant grinning grimace painted in red. It's Chaos-Juzual's idea of a joke, and I don't find it funny.

"How is the battle in Arkaim?" I ask Senka in my mind as I ready myself to head back at maximum speed.

"Since the ship above disappeared, the numbers of the devils have been dwindling fast." The doll girl replies. Then she continues in a slightly worried tone. "Tokomaha and Aurelia should have arrived in the Prichet district by now, but they haven't contacted me yet."

"I'll be back in a second." I glance down at the burning wreckage of the city-sized ship once more, then cover myself in shields so that I can withstand the air friction of moving at multiple times the speed of sound.

"Rolan and the others went after them." Senka suddenly adds, and I blink in surprise.

"Understood." It's not like he could do anything against the Old Humans. With that thought, I shoot across the sky, leaving behind a massive sonic shockwave.

Others side

"I made it..." Rolan stands in front of the de-powered Aurelia with the glowing sword Roshanee in his right hand. His left is raised and outstretched, holding an oval barrier that seems to emerge from the back of his hand.

He lost his left arm to one of Kamii's companions, but here he stands with a new one that appears to be made from metal. That must be what Chaos told him to find Kleihn for, and it came just at the right time. The shield deployed from his mechanical hand has blocked the laser shot from Alverost's shoulder weapon and made the Old Human's eyes nearly pop out of their sockets.

"Not this time." The former leader lowers his arm and glares at Alverost.

"You?!" He shouts, then looks at the device on his armband with an incredulous expression. "How?!"

"It seems you did something about this... Imagination Engine in the area." Rolan glances at the surroundings once before returning his gaze to Alverost. "I don't feel Roshanee's empowerment here."

With a flourish of his sword, he steps toward the Old Human while raising his left hand balled into a fist. Since it's mechanical in nature, its abilities aren't inhibited inside the area of effect from Alverost's watch. And even with Roshanee rendered a regular sword that glows from the inside, it's still a blade that can cut through a human's flesh. Judging by the fact that the Old Human used a mechanical weapon himself, the inhibition affects him as well.

"This is for the better." With these words, Rolan charges forward.

"Stay away!" Alverost cries, upon which his backpack opens up on all sides, revealing a multitude of arms carrying guns and blades of light. The mindless drones operating the drill drop their work, upon which the machine comes to a halt, and pick up the laser rifles of the dead elite soldiers in black.

The former leader turns his left wrist, upon which the oval shield grows in size. It covers his whole body from the laser fire shot by the Old Human and the drones alike. Charging forward, he swiftly gets into the range of the latter and lets his natural sword skills do their work.

That's when Tokomaha and her clones charge forward. The way she understood it, there's an area around Alverost where her ability to create copies of herself is rendered useless. But it should prove a useful distraction for her real body to join the fray.

The moment they approach the Old Human within thirty steps, the clones disappear into the dirt that they were created with. But due to their sheer amount and the wind blowing across the city, the dust is scattered across the plaza. It flies in the direction of the drones and Alverost alike, who are stunned for a moment. It's enough for Rolan to cut his way through the enemies and get right up to the Old Human.

But he brings all his mechanical arms to bear, turning into a whirlwind of laser shots and glowing blades that causes the former leader to fall back in surprise. His shield can block the storm of hits, but one heavy strike from an arm sends him flying backward into the midst of the drones. Tumbling to the ground while taking several with him, he disappears out of sight.

Tokomaha jumps back when a stray laser shot hits the ground in front of her. Chaos already warned her that these weapons could seriously hurt or kill her. But she realizes that without the Imagination Engine, she's only a regular human. Until it happened to Aurelia before her eyes, she wouldn't have believed it. She spent centuries as a goddess, and it's hard to think like a human now. But her instincts honed in the wild are now holding her back.

She's afraid to die, and her legs won't move as she wills them to.

That's when several people run past her. She notices the bald head of the tallest one and realizes that they're the humans that were almost always around Rolan. They are Gram, Svanhild, and Halthor, each wearing their armors. But the unique pieces of equipment they carry all look similar to their leader's new arm.

At the sight of the newcomers, the drones begin to shoot at them. Gram takes the front and slams his shield down, upon which a huge barrier of light expands from it. It blocks the laser shots coming for him and those behind him.

When the barrage ends, Halthor jumps through the shield and extends his gauntlet toward the enemies. Lightning arcs between his fingers and one of the drones before jumping over to the others in the vicinity. The mechanical parts sticking out of their bodies explode, causing them to drop to the ground, sizzling and unmoving.

With the line of enemies out of the way, Svanhild charges forward with the lance in her hand. It's smaller than the one she used to wield on the back of the dragonkin she rode, but it's segmented into three parts. The center opens like an umbrella and turns into a shield. Then the cover over her arm lights up with two flames that shoot backward. If she didn't wear her crimson dragon armor, she would be burned by those jets.

With wheels under her greaves, she shoots forward as if hovering an inch above the ground. The lance is trained on Alverost, who stares at the approaching point like a mouse under the gaze of a snake.

Then he raises his hands in front of his face in panic. As if that was a signal, a translucent shield of blue emerges from an attachment on the shoulder straps of his backpack. It stops the lance dead in its tracks, causing Svanhild to almost lose her grip on the weapon.

But instead of trying a different angle, she stays in place with the jet still active, aiming to punch through with brute force. Then, the tip of her lance breaks, and the entire first section snaps into four pieces. In reality, it was only a cover that opened to reveal a drill head, which begins to spin with such intensity that the air around it seems to get pulled in.

The noise is overwhelming, as sparks fly and the barrier shatters alongside the drill. Shooting forward, Svanhild very nearly impales Alverost, whose mechanical arms swing forward to deflect the broken lance coming for his chest. In doing so, they break under the impact, but turns aside the former Dragon Knight and send her tumbling into the giant machine behind the Old Human.

Gram takes the opening to rush forward with the intent to slam into Alverost. One of the latter's two remaining mechanical arms stab forward with a glowing blade and penetrate the physical part of his shield. But the big man already expected this and lets go of his only weapon to grab the other arm and direct its laser fire up into the sky.

Halthor appears from behind Gram, gets behind the Old Human, and plunges his gauntleted fist into the open backpack before discharging his electric attack. The shoulder straps snap open on their own and launch the backpack away to spare the wearer from the explosion that sends the former Lightning Knight flying backward.

Alverost, disarmed and alone, moves to deactivate the Imagination Engine inhibitor. Anything is better than dying here while rendered powerless by his own invention. He would let the world die and return after as a creator of new life; this time, he would make sure to program any kind of rebellious tendencies out of everything.

But before he can finish inputting the command, a glowing blade cuts through his forearm and severs his wrist. Rolan, having bid his time until now, has rushed in at the right moment and swung Roshanee without a hint of hesitation.

With an ear-splitting scream, Alverost falls backward onto his bottom and holds the cauterized stump of his left arm. The former leader raises his sword to deliver the finishing blow, but a sudden burst of air followed by a massive sonic boom stops him. When he looks up, he finds a figure floating down from above, enter the area of the inhibition field, and fall flat on her face.

It's Chaos.