NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 35
Angar braced himself as the two Enforcers' searing clubs surged toward him, swinging in perfect sync, parallel to the ground, their glowing masses poised to crush him between them.
Trajectories snapped into focus in his mind, clear as etched lines in the chaos.
He imbued his hammer with an Energy Point, its dark steel head shimmering with gravitic distortions as the Graviton Pulse Amplifier hummed to life.
The left Enforcer's club shrieked in, but Angar met it with a pinpoint maul swing, precision born of his new mastery. He struck the club's lower shaft at a calculated angle, the graviton micro-well erupting on impact, shattering the base in a spray of arcing electricity and molten fragments.
The broken half hurtled upward, slamming into the top club with a deafening clang, knocking it off its deadly course.
Simultaneously, Angar pivoted on his organic leg, extending his cybernetic leg upward, its Digiti Terebrantes drill-toes spinning with a high-pitched whine.
As the right Enforcer's club descended, he planted the drills against its flat surface, the friction anchoring him momentarily.
With a surge of his exceptional strength, he pushed off, redirecting the club's momentum downward. The force dislodged the second club from the right Enforcer's grip, sending it spiraling away as the first club's redirected mass cracked the deck beneath with a thunderous impact.
The push vaulted Angar skyward, his body twisting with graceful precision amid flying debris. He channeled another Energy Point into his weapon, its runes intensifying as he soared past the uninjured Enforcer.
The hammer slammed under its biomechanical-armored chin, the graviton pulse shattering the lower helm into jagged chunks that scattered through the air. The force knocked the beast upward, its massive frame crashing onto its back with a deck-shaking thud.
As Angar descended, he infused Energy into his cybernetic leg, the drill-toes whirring to life with a vicious screech.
He landed hard, plunging the spinning drill-toes into its gaping mouth, where they bored through the roof, shredding flesh and skewering the brain. The Reptiloid convulsed once, then stilled, dead.
Angar launched into a backflip, twisting through the air as plasma whips sizzled past, their heat only grazing his damaged armor.
The surviving Enforcer's fusion cannons began warping the air, charging with a menacing hum. Angar rolled forward, imbuing his maul with another Energy Point, the head warping with distortions as runes flared.
His hammer arced toward the Enforcer's knee in a devastating strike, the graviton pulse shattering the joint inward. The beast roared and collapsed as its scream echoed through the chamber.
The two cannons swiveled after him, their blue-violet glow intensifying with an ominous buzz.
Angar rolled past them, vaulting over the Enforcer's crumpled form, his newly imbued hammer slamming into its head, shattering the visor and surrounding armor in a burst of sparks, bio-metal, and thick, dark ichor.
Ground Current ticked off cooldown as his next blow caved in the exposed head, sending alien goop splattering across the deck in a grisly spray.
The biomechanical armor of both dissolved into the deck, oozing like toxic sludge into the seams.
Angar stood amidst the wreckage, the chamber reeking of molten alloys and scorched flesh, the maul loose in his gauntlets, battered but unbroken. Victorious.
Or closer to victory.
As the second Enforcer crumpled, a metallic clank echoed, a System item dropping to the ground amid the debris.
A deep thrum rippled through the ship, the unmistakable surge of the Warp Siphon Drive, the Old Guard's equivalent to the Holy Empire's Lux Aeterna Drive, activating as an Alcubierre bubble propelled the vessel into the Lumenstream.
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A violent screech and tremble tore through the hull, the deck lurching beneath him. He wondered if the crashed shipper was being ripped away, but there was no way to know.
Five Warforms remained, arrayed in a staggered formation across the chamber. Simo and the Hierarch darted near the far door, diving and weaving to evade a barrage of missiles and railgun fire.
Angar scanned for the swordsman but found no trace of him. Or his corpse. But his view was obscured by the hulking mechsuits of the Warforms.
Time was slipping away, and he couldn't spare more searching.
Ground Current surged, particles cloaking Angar as he streaked toward the heart of the Warform formation. Bolts of electricity arced down, and his graviton-charged hammer slammed into the nearest Warform's mechsuit, crumpling its chassis, sending the beast stumbling forward in a shower of sparks.
As the Worker-caste Reptiloid berserker reached four meters, triggering Ground Current's no-cost second use, Angar's eyes caught the swordsman behind the Warform to his left.
The man's fiery energy sword blazed in a two-handed grip, stun-locked, his body battered by forking lightning. Angar prayed he hadn't killed his ally.
His plan shifted in an instant. Leaping upward, Angar infused another Energy point into his maul, before smashing the mechsuit-helm of the Reptiloid the swordsman was behind, collapsing its skull.
Simo's lancer blazed with precision shots, and the Hierarch's auto-blaster spat searing plasma as the stun faded and the remaining Warforms pivoted toward Angar.
The swordsman, mercifully alive, surged into the fray, his energy sword carving through one of the three remaining biomechanical mechsuits.
The Hierarch and Simo got the last as Angar smashed his hammer into the head of another and the swordsman cut off its leg.
Tempest and Ground Current ticked off cooldown, but Angar never built up enough charges to use Glory Thunders.
He couldn't believe the battle only lasted a little over thirty seconds.
After quickly dispatching the ones not yet fully dead, fourteen hulking mechsuits littering the deck.
His Vitalulum harness hummed warmly, pulsing to knit his gravest wounds as System alerts etched into his eyes.
For killing or assisting in killing one Guardrone and one and ten Warforms, he received a 4 Glory Points, and a longer message for the two Enforcers, granting 9 Glory Points, 5 for one, and 4 points for sharing the kill of the other.
Ignoring Angar's near-fatal blunder, the swordsman dashed to the nearest fallen Enforcer without a word. His energy sword sizzled through its neck, severing the head in a spray of dark ichor.
Clutching the head, he bolted toward the far door, shouting, "Let's go!"
Angar, Simo, and the Hierarch followed, jumping over corpses to keep up. As they neared the door, the swordsman vanished, cloaked in invisibility. The door peeled open, likely triggered by the Enforcer's head he carried, a grim key to their advance.
Angar charged into the vast chamber beyond, a multi-level cavern of dark, gleaming metal, walls throbbing with red conduits like veins in a biomechanical beast.
Tiered platforms ringed the room, their edges lined with glowing runes that cast an eerie crimson light. Catwalks crisscrossed above, connecting the levels, their railings scarred from prior battles.
At the chamber's heart, a wide, glowing platform hovered, its surface shimmering with an unnatural, prismatic sheen, empty as the three visible companions entered.
Above the platform, some strange and huge mechanical device of progressively larger rings surrounding a rod dangling down through their center.
The air thrummed with the roar of machinery, the ship's engines in the machimotarium, with the drive core in the propulsorium just beyond this chamber, reverberating through the deck.
Suddenly, the Enforcer's head soared from the shadows, hurled by the invisible swordsman toward the glowing platform.
It froze mid-air, suspended in a ripple of distorted space. A figure materialized hovering a half meter above the platform, a towering and monstrous Reptiloid, its serpentine form cloaked in a shimmering, quicksilver-like substance, flowing like liquid metal, reflecting the chamber's crimson glow.
The Neuronaut's metal eyes burned with an unholy serenity, as if unbothered by the intrusion.
As Angar went to activate Ground Current, his body seized, locked in place by an invisible force. He recognized it instantly as Pin, the Neuronaut's telekinetic grip, far too potent to break through sheer strength.
The Hierarch, Simo, and the newly reappeared swordsman, were similarly immobilized, their bodies rigid, weapons frozen mid-motion.
All Neuronauts were Psychics, a prerequisite for controlling a Neural Dominion.
Angar had anticipated something like this, but the Pin holding him was powerful. This wasn't a major pack. It had only five heavy-ships and only one capital-class ship.
And if this creature commanded Pin to such an extent, it likely had the last evolution of the Telekinetic Restraint line, Crush, as that power could compress flesh and bone into a ball with a thought.
A grating chitter invaded his mind, as loud as swarming insects burrowing through his skull. It grew louder, warping into a disorienting warble that made his vision warp, the chamber's crimson glow twisting like a fever dream.
The tempo surged, his head trembling as he fought to resist, and a crushing pressure bore down on his skull.
His head reeled under the psychic assault, the chittering noise swelling into a deafening cacophony that ripped at his mind.
His vision blurred, the chamber's crimson glow warping as if seen through rippling water. The pressure on his skull intensified, a telekinetic vise.
Crush, he realized, the Neuronaut's power seeking to pulp his skull. His knees trembled, threatening to buckle again.