Chương 112: Soul Circuit

The tendrils writhed upward from the rubble, black and smoking. More than before. Thicker. Each one moved with deliberate purpose as they cleared debris, some carving through with others hurling chunks of concrete aside. The woman pulled herself free. Alexander floated above and to the side of Annie's Spinosaurus form, watching the cultist leader emerge. One arm still dangled uselessly. Blood ran down her face from a head wound. Her robes were torn, burned in places where his lightning had struck.

She looked ragged. Exhausted. But she was still standing even after a building had partially collapsed on top of her. Alexander's mind drifted to Flashpoint. The superhero had been a Tier 2, ascended already when they'd fought him. Annie's bladed fingers had barely pierced his skin. Talia's katana had slipped off him like he was made of stone. Even driving a hovercar through the ceiling onto him hadn't been enough to put him down.

The man had taken an explosion to the face from his own redirected attack and gotten back up with burns that should have killed him. His Constitution had been absurdly high. High enough that it took everything they had just to survive. Annie had bitten this woman. Hard enough to draw blood. Hard enough to cause real damage before the entropy rotted away her flesh. They were far stronger now.

"How tough did she feel compared to Flashpoint?" Alexander asked, still watching the woman float slowly upward from the rubble.

"More or less?" Annie looked up at him and growled. A deep, rumbling sound that echoed from her chest. Alexander looked down at her.

"I don't speak dino. Or spino. Just nod your head for yes, shake for no." Annie glared at him with one massive eye. Then she did a weird shoulder roll that rippled down her spine all the way to her tail. Her whole body wiggled. Alexander watched the strange display.

"What are you doing? I said nod or shake, not twerk." Annie growled again. Louder this time. Alexander sighed.

"Are you trying to say she's about the same?" Annie nodded, the massive head dipping once. Alexander looked back at the woman. She'd pulled herself fully onto the rubble now, floating a meter above the broken concrete. Chanting in that strange cultist language. The tentacles gathered around her shoulders, coiling and uncoiling. They merged until only three remained. He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out ten tungsten rods. Each one was about two inches long, sharpened to needle points.

Small barbed hooks near the base. He'd prepared these for Flashpoint. Tungsten specifically because of the man's heat powers. The metal had a melting point over three thousand degrees Celsius. Fire wouldn't deform them. Heat wouldn't soften them. They weren't as conductive as copper or silver, but that wasn't the point. The point was getting through the skin. Flesh was actually the most resistant part of the human body to electrical current. Dry skin could resist up to a hundred thousand ohms.

Even wet skin maintained resistance around a thousand. But the insides were different. Muscle tissue, blood, and organs all conducted electricity far more readily. Around three hundred ohms on average. Flashpoint's eye had shown a bloody truth. Even at Tier 2, some things just weren't superhuman yet. The woman had decent Willpower. Her Constitution was clearly higher than his own. She'd taken that first lightning blast to the chest and shaken it off.

And her entropic barrier could break down his attacks before they reached her. But now she was waving those tentacles around instead of maintaining the shield. Alexander turned to Annie again.

"Can you take a hit or two from those tentacles?" Annie did the wiggle thing again. Then winked at him with one reptilian eye. He sighed again.

"I'm taking that as a yes." Alexander released the tungsten rods, holding them in the air near where he hovered. With a mental command through Technopathy, he directed Droney to hold position there as well. Annie stalked left. Alexander drifted right. The woman's head tracked between them, tentacles spreading wider. Annie charged. A tentacle whipped out and backhanded her across the snout. The impact sent her sprawling across the blood-slick stone, claws scrabbling for purchase.

Alexander shot forward, closing the distance. His gauntlets hummed as he activated them. Lightning erupted from both hands. The woman thrust her good hand forward. A barrier snapped into place between them. His lightning slipped through the shield and dissipated, crackling loudly before fading to nothing. He continued circling. She rotated with him, keeping the barrier positioned between them. Annie had gotten back up. She charged again, building speed despite her bulk.

The tentacle lashed out, slamming into her side. It left deep gouges where it struck, black energy eating into her flesh. But the metallic scales across her body resisted most of the damage. Annie kept coming. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The second and third tentacles struck simultaneously. One caught her across the chest. The other swept low, carving through her front left leg at the knee.

Annie crashed to the ground with a roar that shook the plaza. The woman kept her barrier raised toward Alexander while her tentacles continued their assault on Annie. The barrier shrunk suddenly, condensing into a focused point. A blast of entropy shot through the opening. Then the barrier expanded again, sealing off his angle of attack. Alexander twisted in the air, dodging the blast by centimeters. The woman fired again. And again. Each time the barrier contracted, released an attack, then reformed.

She was baiting him. Trying to get him to commit to an attack when she dropped the shield. He danced through the air. Banking left. Diving. Climbing. The entropy blasts cut through the space where he'd been moments before. She continued rotating, tracking his movement. Annie was pulling herself upright. The severed leg was already reforming, liquid metal flowing from the stump to recreate the missing limb. She got her feet under her and shook herself. The woman's back turned toward where Droney still hovered.

Alexander reached out with Metallokinesis. The ten tungsten rods straightened in the air, points aimed down. He threw everything he had into the launch. The rods shot forward like bullets. Seven found their marks. They slammed into the woman's back and she screamed. Alexander gripped them with his power, trying to drive them deeper. But they stuck partway in. His Will crashed against hers. Her Constitution was too high.

The tips broke through and the barbs caught in her flesh, but the full lengths couldn't penetrate all the way in. She reached back with her good arm, fingers scrabbling at the rods. She managed to rip three free, hurling them aside with a snarl. Alexander didn't mind. Four was more than enough. He thrust both gauntleted hands toward her. Annie was backing away from the whipping tentacles, wounds crisscrossing her body in a pattern of rot and regenerating metal.

The woman strengthened her barrier with a smirk, the smoky shield thickening between them. Alexander ignored her. His gaze shifted to Droney, still waiting behind her. The UV emitters on Droney's chassis activated. Microscopic lasers created an ionized pathway through the air, a conductive channel invisible to the naked eye. The same technology he'd built into his gauntlets. The same principle that let him throw lightning across distance instead of watching it dissipate uselessly.

He'd been thinking about this since that day on the beach. When Annie had interrupted him. The possibility of transmitting not just Technopathy through Animachina, but all of his powers. He'd upgraded Droney specifically for this. Added the emitters. Reinforced the power systems. Made sure the soul-bonded drone could handle what he was about to do. The desire to prove the concept had been difficult to resist. But there were other ideas of how he might push his powers, too.

That's why he'd held back, saving the technique slot for when he truly needed it. This counted. Alexander reached through their connection with Animachina. Found the pathways where his essence touched the drone's fragment of his own soul—"Soul Circuit." —and instead of channeling Electrokinesis from his palms and into his gauntlets, he transmitted it across the bond. Lightning erupted from Droney's front emitter. The bolt struck the woman in the back, connecting with one of the embedded tungsten rods.

She screamed as electricity bypassed her skin's resistance entirely, the current flowing through the conductive path straight into her body. Her insides lit up, muscles convulsing as the charge tore through tissue that had no defense against it. Alexander pushed more power into the attack. His reserves drained rapidly. The effort of transmitting Electrokinesis through Animachina while maintaining his flight pushed him to his limits. But he held on. Kept going. The woman's barrier flickered. Vanished.

The writhing tentacles disappeared next. Annie charged with a roar that echoed across the plaza. Alexander's Electrokinesis cut out. His reserves were empty. He stayed in the air almost through sheer Will alone, exhausted but aware enough to watch. Annie's jaws closed around the woman's head. There was a brief, wet crunch. Then silence. Annie released the body. It dropped to the ground and lay still. Then she gagged and spat out the head. Alexander floated there, breathing hard.

His mind felt stretched thin from the combined effort. But it had worked exactly how he thought it would, and his thoughts raced despite the exhaustion at the possibilities. A small smile crossed his face. He pulled up his notifications. — [QUEST COMPLETE] Multiversal Invasion - Defensive Congratulations, Alexander Rooke. You have successfully defended your Dream. Reward: Continue the Dream achievement upgraded (+1% → +3%) Arena Closing: 15 minutes.

— [STATUS] Alexander Rooke | Alias: Machine God | Organization: Grimnir (Leader) | Alliances: The Royals | Designation: Supervillain | Bounty: 950, 000 → 1, 115, 000 credits | Evaluation: Tier 2 (2%) — Class A ASCENSION POTENTIAL INDEX (API) Physical Attributes | Strength — 75% | Endurance — 90% | Constitution — 86% → 90% | Dexterity — 90% | Agility — 78% → 80% Cognitive Attributes | Intelligence ✧ 124 → 131 | Processing Speed ✧ 117 → 121 | Perception ✧ 119 → 121 | Focus ✧ 105 → 106 | Willpower (Ambition) ✧ 128 → 138 (+4) Power Manifestation Machine God (Technopathy) | Class S, Tier 1 | Efficiency — 99% → 100% | Control — 98% → 100% | Output — 60% → 67% | Adaptation — 90% → 91% Electrokinesis | Class C, Tier 1 | Efficiency — 55% → 66% | Control — 51% → 67% | Output — 60% → 68% | Adaptation — 33% → 46% Metallokinesis | Class B, Tier 1 | Efficiency — 62% → 65% | Control — 45% → 52% | Output — 42% → 43% | Adaptation — 36% → 37% Animachina | Class S, Tier 2 | Mastery ✧ 31% → 54% Cultivator's Core | Class B, Tier 1 | Refinement ✧ 27% → 36% Techniques | Blackout | Ensoulment | Soul Circuit Skills | Hyperawareness Achievements | Origin 0 Soul | Continue the Dream II —