Chương 82: Book 10 - Chapter 11 - A ghost of the past

"Come now Talen, perhaps instead of seeing it all as a burden, would it not be better to think of it as an adventure?"

"An... adventure?"

"Yes. It is how I have felt of my life thus far, and I find great comfort in it. I have traveled the world. I have met the strangest and most interesting of people. I have walked within the darkest oceans, and through the harshest flames. I have built great things, and silly things. I have lived many lives. And I have met you in the end. A friend to travel with for the next adventure ahead. Perhaps we will succeed, and humanity will flourish again in the world unafraid. Or perhaps not.

But regardless, has it not been an adventure? The greatest one there is."

"I'm… not sure. I wish it could be." The video screen the Icon was populating showed complete chaos all around the enemy lines, as hundreds of his machines made their attempt on Talen. The man barely noticed. He simply shambled forward, back hunched slightly, eyes staring either at the road right ahead of his feet, or at something attacking from a distance that very quickly was put to rest. He didn't run, but neither did he ever stop. As if walking was all he knew how to do.

Everything that tried to attack him was cut into pieces, blown away by the wind soon after. Every now and then, his eyes would brush past the citadel, and for a moment it seemed like a flicker of recognition passed through. Each time, it was wiped away soon after. A few Feathers got too big for their heads, and tried to rush him with occult shields lit up bright. Probably thinking their personal set of powers would be enough to get them through. They were crushed before they made it within ten feet.

Got to admit, after watching him break through everything by pure occult power, I think that sword hiding under his rags hadn't actually been used in years now. The biome here equally didn't hold him off. Occult strings whipped around in the wind, slicing the majority of Avalis's overextended forces, but all of it hit the old emperor's domed shield, sliding off.

"He does not allow it to connect with his defenses." Urs said, already predicting what I was thinking of.

"Occult edges are a surface area problem. He once explained to me his methods. To me they were largely too difficult to keep in focus at all times. I believe at this point they are largely reflex to him. Your knightbreakers will not work against him." And neither would shooting bullets. He'd simply stop the bullets at range to start with. Wave based attacks, physical attacks, even long range occult attacks would fail over his different defenses. Each time he'd died, he'd learned and built a defense against it.

And Relinquished had tried a lot of stunts over the years to kill him. Or rather, A57, before A01 finally caught him. The real danger was that Talen was capable of manifesting the fractal of division with his mind, and moving the concept of it within his surroundings. Like a hidden blade that swept downwards through something. Nobody could see it, it would simply appear and slice through. At best, there might be a faint visible trail of occult. Urs could do the same, and had shown it in the fight with Conviction.

There were two weakpoints to it. First, it would take a half second to fully manifest. Which meant anything standing still or moving too slowly would be cut from the inside out. So first rule of engagement when fighting Talen was to always be moving while in range of his invisible blades. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Secondly, those were still occult concepts.

If I or anyone with the skills, was close enough to reach a soul tendril out to those concepts before they materialized completely, we could dispel it following Hexis's teachings about messing with occult concepts. Problem was that unlike Urs, he could pull off several hundred fractal concepts all around him at the same moment. How he could do that was something even Urs didn't know or understand. The old god on my back was an engineer and problem solver first.

He tinkered with occult fractals and merged them together. Talen wielded them like a blade. And empowered them with the fractal of Resolve, which would magnify their ability and potency by several hundred fold. With Urs's quantum fractal, I had some hope the sheer amount of Keiths all dedicated to one reality might be enough to outnumber his defenses. Basically, if he could summon one hundred blades, I just needed one hundred and one Keiths. In theory at least.

"All right, everyone ready?" I called out over comms. At this point, the imperial army here would serve only as distractions, and I really didn't want to rely on them for that. The Icon was steadily sending them away, topside. They were excellent soldiers who could potentially change the field of battle everywhere else in the world. They couldn't die here, thrown like mooks into the meat grinder.

The Citadel was rapidly left with only the old Deathless, still channeling the shield over the walls, and the skeleton crew keeping weapons on those walls firing out at anything getting too close. Talen would be in range soon enough. But for the Icon, Urs, and I? That soon enough was right now. Urs flared the fractal of Resolve, and empowered his quantum fractal further, tapping into an even larger infinite set. And among that infinite set, far smaller set was selected.

In every other reality, the Keith of that timeline simply told the Icon to wait. But among one in a thousand, the Keith of that timeline told the Icon one word: "Go." Ninety portals opened up all around me, and every Keith connected focused on a single one. Around Talen, right beyond the range of his division fractals, ninety portals opened up, surrounding him on all sides. And an entire army of occult ghosts flew through, swarming straight for him. Some part of him seemed to wake at that.

As if sensing a real threat. He lifted his left hand out. The concept of basic heat appeared just above. And flared out. A single flash of light and every bit of my army was wiped out, leaving only melting rock and machine metal around him. My second wave of attack Keiths were already on their way to repeat the doomed charge. The old emperor glanced up, watching me through an open portal. Old eyes locking sight across the tiny window in space and time, spotting us on the other end.

"Urs." Talen spoke. Urs disconnected from his quantum fractal, cutting me out of the greater reality. Seven occult domes flashed into existence in the vault, layered one over the other, between us and Talen as Urs focused purely on defense above all other considerations. An invisible occult force raced from Talen's glare, straight through that portal, and slammed into the defenses, ripping them apart one after another.

It finally rammed directly into us, throwing us several dozen feet upwards, just after the Icon closed the portal completely, flatlining every portal as well to cut Talen's attack vectors off. We were still squashed into the side of the vault, the wall groaning outwards around us, leftover occult crackling over Urs's final line of defense. We both fell straight back down into the thawing ice under, cracking through with a splash, Journey taking the impact easily enough.

"All right, we might have a problem." I said, getting back on my feet, checking that Urs remained secure.

"Are you doing okay?"

"I have been better." Urs spoke. He'd been squashed between a relic armor and a wall, but he'd clearly handled the damage. For a limbless husk, he was certainly taking all the events like a champ.

"Although I understand the madness within him may be more difficult to undo."

"You learned something from seeing him up close?"

"I know his behavior patterns. He recognized me as an enemy. I need to study his soul more closely to see how A57 has broken his mind, and administer the correct patch." The Icon's video footage of the old emperor continued on my HUD. The remaining occult ghosts send his way through the portals vanished, broken apart by his will. Slices of fading occult cutting through each with ease. He remained staring upward to his right the entire time. At the same place the closest occult portal had been spawned.

Where he had been looking at us both through. Then slowly turned his gaze to the citadel beyond. And with the same steady motions, he lifted his right hand up, the rags moving out of the way. Held in his hand, was a simple occult longsword.

"Evacuate the citadel walls." Urs simply said.

"Now."