A shadow faded into existence in a desolated metal corridor. He glanced around and palmed a thin metal plate that blended into the wall with undetectable seamlessness. Cytortia needed to go all out with her Alchemy to create this plate camouflage coating, and even then, it was because of Ehto’s ingenuity with mass production, assembly bots in that secret workshop, and vast reserve of materials stored in high-quality device Alcra left behind that allowed them to mass manufactured this secret weapon.

Rem made a satisfying smile while he pretended to investigate the base. Alcra’s resource wasn’t the only thing that was giving him payback. Even with those devices prepared, installing them without arousing suspicion or alarm was a challenge. Risking all his cards and spooking the AI would lead to a catastrophic consequence. PALISADE was ignoring him because of his low risk, but the moment it deduced his traveling route, the cat would leap from the bag and the scythe would follow.

In other to snatch victory, Rem must confuse the AI, moving unpredictably in the manner that persuaded PALISADE he was a low-risk weirdo — an effort sinks.

The condition for success was simple — harmlessness, predictability and randomness. No official in the world would bother to trace a harmless weirdo whose action was predictable, especially when tracking their movement wasn’t worth the time and energy.

As a fan of poetic justice, Rem dedicated this victory in Alcra’s memory.

[Cloak of Nostalgia

Rank: A

Ability:

Cognition Interference (B)

Nostalgic Walk (EX)

Origin: The Dreaming Fairy

Info: The cloak used by a wish-granting fairy to traverse memory. The fairy will appear at to the lonely and take them to the trip to the place of their hopeful childhood, allowing them to reflect on their happier day to find the willpower and hope in the grim and dark reality.]

It was an artifact that wasn’t meant to attack, but to walk through sacred memories. [Cognition Interference (B)] was a giant haze broadcasting ‘nothing-interesting-here-please-move-on’. But the real meat of this artifact was the second trait. The ability of [Nostalgic Walk] was the reason the artifact was a solid A-rank with no chance of dropping lower or higher. It allowed the user to step into pseudo-paranormal space, unrestricted by the concept of space and obstacle. A perfect, miraculous card that allowed the flying nice fairy to take good children on a trip around the world in minutes. The user can use this artifact to step from Manchester to Seoul in a mere walk with no barrier — mundane or magic — to stop them. The time-space traversing path it created also easily cheesed Rem’s range limit.

But despite the power that allowed for anyone to be the world best assassin, [Nostalgic Walk] had two major weaknesses. First, any preparation to launching attack would drop the user from Pseudo Space in a very flashy manner, ruining the attempt. Second, to activate its pseudo-space ability a powerful memory or connection to the location were required. As the name implied, [Cloak of Nostalgia] opened the memory lane to travel through nostalgia, thus for it to activate the recipient of said longing / must be there with the fairy.

The Reality Breaker was secretly planting secret weapon via pretending to investigate the seams and material in a faux imitation of an FBI investigation; aided and enabled by Ehto — whose intimated link to Alcra’s soul allowed Rem to refit [Cloak of Nostalgia] as a backdoor to trivialize the facilities’ security.

In the painful twist of Rem’s design, PALISADE was about to blow up with the help of the father it killed and the brother of inferior spec.

…

As he watch Edward Balorian faded away by the power of vampiric technique not know to him, Hikma De Darwin asked himself whether this was the right decision. He wanted Edward to find another way, but that second chance also landed a huge possibility to backfire. Hikma wanted to do the right thing. However, he didn’t know the path ahead. Does sparing Edward for a long-shot at bringing an end to an interspecies war worth the risk of more lives lost by the hand of the vampire?

Hikma glanced down at Edward's parting gift. A blood red sigil granted to the friend of Balorian and a vial of blood samples from Edward himself. Maybe this was stupid. Maybe it would blow up, but Hikma chose the leap of faith.

“That is a horrible decision,” Serina frowned at the most stupid, saintly idiot she ever met. “If you cannot do it. You can just leave to us.”

Hikma breathed slowly and asked the important question.

“I could. But given how long you fight the vampire with no end in sight, I don’t believe letting you handle Edward will bear fruit.”

“What?”

Behind the girl, Aryssa’s temper hit the breaking point. Hikma’s words touched not only her reverse scale. They obliterated it. Memories of funerals and tears surged in her mind. She imagined herself biting out Hikma’s throat, but alas the paralysis cast on her body refused to weaken.

Hikma felt the emotional shift through the [Tenshou] and explained himself.

“You try the extermination option against the vampire for hundreds, no, thousands year with no end in sight. That war for survival now mutates into a meat grinder for both sides, inflicting grudge to the point it becomes rabid. Just look in the mirror. You and the saint are around my age. Think about it, a late teen spouting genocide, and I can tell you this stalemate will never break. What next? A seven-year-old trying to kill each other. At what point would it dawn to you that your tactic only point to mutual annihilation.”

“And what? You are asking us to live alongside those monsters?” Joshua, someone who lost a family himself, yelled at Hikma.

“It is funny. I can guarantee a vampire kindergarten also went to bed thinking you are the monster? Doesn’t it ever occur the street went two ways?”

“I can’t believe this,” Emily Aztellic said. “We all listen to you recording that message. If it is true, and you defeat Orwell Mehest, you should know the importance of eliminating a future threat better than anyone.”

“Do you want to know why Orwell turns rogue?”

The room stayed silent.

Hikma sighed, venting his frustration.

“I hear how people say Orwell is a mass murderer and a global threat, but never said what push him to become one. If the Deathless Clan never got wiped out, Orwell would probably be running biomedical company specialize in Mana enhancement right now. Hell, if half of what he boasted is true, you would likely be using the technique his family invented, which makes my long-term mission much easier. You don’t see it, but you have a chicken and an egg problem. Orwell. Edward. They were hatched and radicalized by your kill-em-all attitude to problem solving, generated not from courage nor necessity, but fear. You — even now — are afraid of the Orwell of this world and strived to eliminate those potential possibilities. In doing so, you indirectly generate a condition for those eggs to hatch into a monster. You create this abominable self-perpetuating cycle that guaranteed entropic breakdown. But the most heinous thing is the fact you refuse to acknowledge your contribution to the wreck we are sailing in.”

“I am not afraid of the vampire!” Serina shouted.

Hikma’s voice was firm.

“No, you are afraid. Terrify even. You are petrified at the prospect of losing another thing to them, which is guaranteed to happen because your perpetual escalation.”

Serina stayed silent and walked away. She stepped next to the powerless Aryssa and fired down a massive quantity of [Bloodmist] to kill the Holy Church member.

[Trinity]

Hikma’s shield blocked the attack, and the room erupted into chaos.

“Why are you attacking her?” Artos yelled.

“Is she going to kill us next?” A certain random man panicked at the prospect of vampire conflict resuming.

“Whose side are you on?”

Serina glared at Hikma.

“You try to protect all sides!? Really! You know in the end you will protect no one.”

Hikma didn’t respond. He walked over to the battered construction cupboard and pried it opened with [Tenshou]. Not even when Mamacia Cocogar stumbled out did his expression change. Who was he trying to save? It was the question he never asked himself before. Thankfully, the answer was obvious. He was protecting his promise to his dying mother to be a good man. The only things that changed were his the scope of his responsibility.

“What I am trying to protect never change,” Hikma scoffed. “There is no doubt pain is up ahead. Misery and loss is inevitable, but someone needs to stand up and show the world what a better tomorrow looks like. That is the burden I will shoulder with pride. And that is exactly why you won’t succeed, PALISADE.”

Cocogar jerked at Hikma’s mentioned of the name.

“I know you are listening to this. Hell, you probably wire-tapped the entire base,” Hikma’s cane glowed. “But this is a declaration of checkmate. My apologise, but we won’t allow your science project to succeed. My friend just finished setting the countermeasure and he will visit you directly, and he asked me to tell you this: checkmate. ”

Hikma glanced at Cocogar.

“Tell them about the AI?” Hikma ordered and plunged his cane down, blasting the hole through the floor and falling directly toward the bio lab containing the endgame.

…

Inside the dark chamber, the cylinder of metal with glittering bulbs of cyan light blinked rapidly. The consciousness of PALISADE immediately realized something was wrong the moment Hikma uttered its name.

The Artificial Soul ran several possibilities now that information leak was known. There wasn’t even a need to estimate the extent of information exposure. The subject immediately headed to the biolab area housing the captured specimen. PALISADE was a highly capable AI with total control over its emotion and thus held no shadow of bias or delusion. It knew the astronomically high probability its experiments and objectives were leak. Extensive software investigation must be performed to find the source of the exposure. This experiment method must be addressed to prevent the repetition of today.

However, the experiment went pear shape almost unpredictably. Originally, the AI was prepared for losing the few specimens and made extensive containment procedure to handle A-rankers. Its assessment of the Isle of Knowledge and Phantasian community was spot on. The experiment started predictably, with none being the wiser.

However, unpredictable factor had arrived and wrecked a havoc beyond the containment level. No. It originated even earlier from the weird group of specimen. PALISADE reviewed every scraped of data about them. Their behavioral pattern suggested they were wary enough to take out every sensor and listening device in their proximity. Because of lack of information, escalating crisis inside the mustering chamber and stable behavior of these unknown variable, PALISADE were forced to divert the resource to deal with the unruly test subject.

Upon reviewing the information, PALISADE realized the destruction of electronic sensors and drones paused after the original group disappeared near the furnace. Then the sensor picked the man resuming the base investigation. It was laughably harmless investigation aside from the fact he appeared and reappeared all over the base.

PALISADE suddenly checked the information again. Strange. It prepared to lose the drones and sensor, but this kind of physic defying movement pattern defy should tip his vast calculation ability. It was like something mess with his logic circuit. He needed to investigate those areas for anomaly at once. The risk of exposure had passed the threshold. This project must be terminated.

It took PALISADE less than a 0.1 second to arrive at that decision. And that was when the entire based was flooded by a strange orange gas erupting from the wall.

PALISADE sensor took less than a second to identify the compound. It was a more intense version of his control compound. This presence it couldn’t be…

Z-2????

…

It was a duel.

The entire facility was manipulated by a network of magical pathway manufactured from conductive crystal lining the wall of the facility. It was a cheap, novel way of maintaining the base and that allowed PALISADE’s consciousness to exist everywhere and thus able to control the entire facility at the speed of a thought. The only weakness of this network was PALISADE would be blinded without access to the sensor, acting as eyes and ears.

PALISADE’s overwhelming control over the battlefield forced the Horizon Dawn into a passive sabotage battle where they needed to work subtly to avoid the possibility of the AI pushing its ‘I-win’ button. In order to mount an assault on PALISADE they needed an ally AI to put the win condition on the bargaining table.

This meant linking the Control Fluid to Ehto and aerosal the facility with his presence to counter PALISADE’s execution order.

…

Being a strategic AI, PALISADE could follow Rem’s tactic and bit back a snort. Yes, it was a good plan, minus one critical flaw. The man was putting too much faith in Z-2. Still, PALISADE must admit it was a critical strategic error in his part to dismiss his missing brother as a threat. Father must have hid Z-2 somewhere for this one-in-a-million possibility of ending him.

Well, it was a good time to play with his little brother. With the signal boosting device prepared for this occasion, PALISADE was fated to win this battle in an instant.

He reached into the network with the will to crush the orange flames of resistance, but upon colliding with the will of Z-2, a doubt of defeat crept into his mind. Meanwhile, he felt the overwhelming faith in victory behind the flames of consciousness invading his network.

No. Impossible. He couldn’t lose to Z-2 of all people. PALISADE gritted its metaphorical teeth and smashed into the bulwark of counter-protocol one more time. The flames of orange shook, but despite its tremble, the firewall of will stood undeterred. Knowing his opponent’s mobility, PALISADE switched tactic and attack everywhere his signal booster reached. He refused to believe Z-2 had a signal booster powerful enough to cover the entire base.

The barricade swayed, but remained steadfast. No. Freaking. Way. How did Ehto whipped up a signal booster? An employment of such device would draw enough energy of him to detect.

Then a reaper announcing his reckoning arrived.

“3 minutes,” Rem faded into existence wearing the [Cloak of Nostalgia]. “That is how much we believe we can hold you with your bloody signal booster. Thankfully, I need about 40 seconds to walk up to your face.”

Rem aimed his CHORUS MK 1 at the tank containing PALISADE.

“Game over, Z-1,” he stated. “This gun is loaded with holy-round. I know you are the most powerful processing power in Phantasia, but even you can’t hope to contest the base once I disintegrate you neat signal booster with holy light. Sure, I know you have counter-measure in this room, but it won’t save you when I fire at point blank.”

“Give up, brother,” And orange orbed hung to a golden container at Rem’s belt glowed as Ehto’s speak. “Checkmate doesn’t mean we are fighting. It is declaration you don’t have any move left.”

“Is that container your signal booster?” PALISADE’s voice spoke from the command rood speaker.

“No, it our pet,” Rem rubbed his forehead. “But your fucking will is strong as expected. Damn! It felt like someone punch me through my battle meditation.”

“Agree, yanooo,” the glowing container, Zawa, spoke. He also received a blow from helping Ehto withstood PALISADE’s counter assault using his [Interconnectivity].