NOVEL NEXT B3 - Lesson 30: "... And Destruction."
A terrible, primal scream tore through the plaza, raw enough to slice through the din and seize every ear. For a single heartbeat, the entire battlefield froze — brawling thugs and battered defenders alike stiffened, a collective shudder rippling across the chaos.
At the top of the temple steps, Jonah's body convulsed in agony. His spine arched, limbs thrashing against the flagstones as a wet, sickening crack rang out — sharp enough to send a chill through everyone within earshot. Ann, caught mid-charge as a bear, faltered and jerked her head toward Jonah, her animal eyes wide with confusion and fear. Bartholomew, chest heaving from exertion, used the momentary stillness to break away from his opponent, gaze flicking from Jonah's writhing form to the tightening ranks of enemies hemming them in.
Jonah's scream seemed endless, raw enough to scrape the air clean, before shattering into a final, desperate gasp. Then his body crumpled, collapsing onto the stone — utterly still. A hush fell over the square, so deep that even the battered city itself seemed to hold its breath.
For a moment, the world balanced on a knife's edge. The only sounds were ragged breathing, the drip of blood, and the wind winding around the temple spires. Then, as if a cord had snapped, Sister Audrea snapped back to herself. She hurled the last thug away from her with a surge of earth magic, stones and soil buckling beneath her feet as she sprinted up the steps.
She knelt at Jonah's side, hands hovering uselessly, terror clear on her face. "Jonah—? Jonah, please—" Her voice broke, half-choked. She pressed her palm to his brow, feeling the unnatural cold radiating from his skin.
Ann skidded to a halt at the foot of the steps, massive bear-form melting into something halfway between girl and beast — too many teeth in her mouth, arms corded with ursine muscle, eyes wild. She tried to speak, but only a whimper escaped.
Bartholomew, battered and bruised, dropped into a low crouch, his gaze darting between the enemy ranks and the crumpled figure at the top of the steps. Maggy stumbled to Ann's side, staff trembling in her grip, her knuckles bloodless as she stared up at Jonah. "No. No, please…"
The battered thugs, recovering from the shock, pressed in as well — circling the temple steps, cutting off any hope of an easy escape. Both sides found themselves locked in a wary standoff, neither willing to break the silence first.
Thomas shoved his way to the front, a cocky smirk curling his lips — but exhaustion and unease hollowed his face, draining all color. He cast a sideways glance at his handler, the shadowy figure half-concealed by the ruined bakery's doorway, waiting with infuriating calm. This was supposed to be his test — his chance to prove himself — but now everything was spiraling out of his control.
He forced bravado into his voice. "We'll give you one last chance to surrender and turn over the girl," Thomas called, tone steady but just a hair too loud, too rehearsed. "This doesn't have to get any uglier than it already has."
Ann took a step forward, fur bristling and claws flexed. Her fangs gleamed in the lantern light, and her voice rumbled with challenge. "Coward! You hide behind your pack of rats and call yourself a leader? Fight me properly, Thomas. I'll be glad to hand you your ass just like old times!"
A ripple of nervous laughter ran through the enemy ranks, quickly silenced by the glares of the handler's loyal bruisers. Thomas flushed, jaw clenched, but before he could retort, Maggy stepped past Ann, lifting her chin defiantly.
"What did you do to Jonah?" she demanded, voice sharp as broken glass and just as dangerous. "What happened!? Answer me, or—"
Before Thomas could reply, Sister Audrea gasped — a strangled, breathless sound that rang through the stilled square. All eyes snapped to the top of the steps.
Jonah stirred.
His hand twitched first, then curled slowly into a fist. As if wading up through deep water, he rolled to his side, then pushed himself upright, trembling. Every movement was jerky, puppet-like, each joint protesting with strange, mechanical clicks. His head hung low, a tangled curtain of hair hiding his face. Shadow and smoke seemed to coil around his limbs, drifting in faint threads across the stone.
A ripple of unease passed through the enemy ranks. One or two of the streetwise thugs bolted for the alleys, some animal part of them screaming for flight. But most could only stare, transfixed.
Audrea swallowed, her voice shaking. "J-Jonah, what's—what's happened—?"
Jonah raised his head.
Lamplight caught his eyes — no longer the soft green they'd once been, but swirling, molten silver, luminous and inhuman. Metallic lines, thin and perfectly straight, ran across his cheeks and down his neck, branching at uncanny right angles, faintly glowing under robes stained with blood and filth leaking from his pores. For an instant, the silver in his eyes seemed to churn, then stilled, resolving into two flawless discs of bright silver, their pupils a pinpoint blue that cut through the dark like arcane lanterns.
He opened his mouth. No sound came at first — only a low, static hum, like a wire stretched too tight. Then, as if a switch had flipped, Jonah inhaled. The intake of breath was sharp, electric, and his words emerged strange and distorted, overlaid by a metallic echo.
"…System booted. D.U.C.K. operational."
The words, at once Jonah's and not, sent another ripple through the crowd. Bartholomew surged up the steps, hand outstretched, but a crackle of energy lanced across the air — a warning, blue and white, that sent him stumbling back.
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Jonah straightened, his posture uncannily precise. He flexed his fingers. The metallic lines on his skin pulsed, light chasing itself down his veins.
"Jonah—" Maggy started, voice cracking.
He turned, his gaze fixing on her. For a heartbeat, something flickered in the depths of his eyes — recognition, fear, hope — then vanished beneath the shining silver.
A dozen thugs, emboldened by the eerie silence and lack of immediate retaliation, edged forward. "It's just some trick!" one of them jeered, forcing bravado into his voice. "Get him!"
They surged past Thomas, ignoring his panicked warning. "Wait! Stop, you fools!" he shouted, but his words dissolved into the chaos.
Jonah's head snapped up, the metallic gleam in his eyes intensifying. The air seemed to pulse with static as he focused on the oncoming wave.
The first thug bounded up the steps, sword cocked. Jonah moved — no longer hesitant or unsure, but impossibly swift. In a single fluid motion, he seized the man's arm, twisted, and hurled him down the steps with a crack that made several onlookers flinch. Bones snapped audibly as the man tumbled away.
Another attacker swung a heavy club at Jonah's head. Jonah ducked low, snatched the weapon from the man's grasp, and squeezed. The wood shrieked and then exploded in his hand, shards spinning out with a sharp, mechanical whine that left the thug reeling backward in shock.
A third assailant lunged with a knife, aiming for Jonah's exposed side.
Clang!
The blade skittered harmlessly off a hexagonal shimmer of blue light that flickered into existence, wrapping Jonah in a brief, angular shield.
Jonah turned his gaze on the would-be attacker, meeting the man's eyes with an inhuman, unblinking stare. The thug faltered, panic rising in his face.
In the next instant, Jonah's body became a blur. He twisted on his heel and delivered a roundhouse kick that caught the man squarely in the chest, launching him off the steps and into the stunned crowd below.
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Alpha Prime jabbed a clawed limb at the chalkboard, where a lopsided rendition of the Vitruvian Man sprawled across the center, lines labeled with spidery script.
"Let's start with the basics!" Prime announced, his synthetic voice crackling with energy. "The D.U.C.K. system builds on the standard Federation Soldier nano-augmentations — enhanced strength, accelerated reflexes, reinforced durability, and full-spectrum comms and telemetry. Each operative becomes a walking one-man squad. But honestly, who wants to settle for standard issue?"
He tapped the chalkboard again, the tip sending a screech through the air. "What really sets the D.U.C.K. system apart is its military-grade medical nanites. These let the user push way past the usual safety restrictions on augmentations. Muscle tears? Compound fractures? Irrelevant! Damage can be repaired or replaced in seconds, and the system's adaptive learning algorithm means every recovery makes you tougher than before."
Prime's eyes glittered with pride. "But the true pièce de résistance is the shield generator. Normally, Federation soldiers — squishy as they are — have to lug around battery packs to power their shields, like we've seen with the goblin armor. They're effective, but their size limits capacity, so shields can only be used in the direst moments. That's where Research and Development have outdone themselves…"
He gestured to the two Sub-AIs. Development stepped forward, and a translucent schematic blossomed in the air above the table.
"We've managed to shrink the battery packs by eighty percent," Development announced, pride warming their artificial tone, "using a blend of ant alloy and material salvaged from the Kigendoro. Rather than relying on external power sources, we've integrated the entire array directly into the user's body — woven into the nano-system itself."
Research, unable to hide their enthusiasm, jabbed at a glowing point on the diagram — right where a cultivator's dantian would reside. "Because the D.U.C.K. system completely replaces the user's peripheral nervous system, we've managed to turn the host's body into a sort of living array. In essence, the user is the battery."
They gave a small, apologetic shrug. "Conversion isn't flawless, but so far, it works."
Prime rubbed his T.A.W.P. legs together in an approximation of evil glee. "This breakthrough in biological energy generation has allowed for my favorite upgrade yet! With the recent addition of short-range blink beacons and micro-translight propulsion drives, I'm thrilled to announce a true milestone: the first-ever infantry-rated atmospheric flight system!"
Analytical narrowed their sensors, suspicion crackling in their tone. "How recent?"
R&D grinned as one, their voices overlapping in manic delight. "Yesterday!"
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The other two men skidded to a halt, spears shaking in their white-knuckled grips. Their eyes locked on Jonah, wide with terror as the blue-silver light danced across his skin. One of them began to tremble so violently that the spear rattled against the cobblestones. Slowly, with a smoothness at odds with his earlier, puppet-like motions, Jonah's gaze found the trembling man. Those inhuman silver eyes bore into him, and the man broke. He screamed — a raw, panicked sound — and instead of advancing, hurled his spear away and bolted, a flicker of spiritual energy sparking beneath his feet as he fled with a desperate movement technique.
Jonah tracked the man's retreat, those unnatural eyes never blinking. Then, for the first time since he'd risen, he spoke — his voice overlaid with a mechanical undertone, hollow and implacable.
"Target locked. Integration at 84%... Activating Darkwing protocol."
The latticework of silver lines that veined Jonah's skin blazed with blue-white light. From his back, a pair of luminous wings burst forth, formed from the same shifting, smoky substance as his shield. The wings unfurled with a deliberate, ghostly beat, scattering wisps of light into the night. Then, in the space between one breath and the next, Jonah vanished — not simply fast, but smeared from reality, leaving only a shimmering afterimage behind.
Sister Audrea's sharp gaze barely caught the movement as Jonah reappeared beside the fleeing thug, hand snapping out to clamp around the man's throat. In another blink, both vanished skyward, high above the city, until they hung suspended dozens of stories up, silhouetted against the moon.
The man's limbs flailed wildly, panic and wind tearing the scream from his lips. But Jonah showed no hesitation; he released his grip. The thug plummeted, the fall a blur of limbs and terror. At the last instant, the man's earring flared with emerald light, wrapping him in a thin, green shell — a cultivator's talisman, just strong enough to splinter on impact. The bubble cracked, and the man slammed into the ground below. The wet snap of breaking bones echoed through the square, sharp even over the man's howls.
A dreadful silence fell. Every gaze in the plaza tilted upward, drawn inexorably to the hovering figure shrouded in shadow, wings aglow, outlined in harsh moonlight. For some, it was the image of that spectral silhouette — those burning lines, floating above the battlefield — that would haunt their dreams for years to come. For others, it was the hush, broken only by the soft beat of those luminous wings.
But for Sister Audrea, what would etch itself deepest in memory were Jonah's eyes. Not the gentle green she'd known, but something cold, blue, and utterly other. Eyes that, in that moment, belonged to a stranger.