Mask of Humanity

After slipping quickly from rock to rock, Nicolai was in position behind the Cultivator's fortification. He was using a method he'd come up with himself to observe.

By pushing his Soul Sense through the rock between him and them, and having just the tiniest dot of it emerge from the far side, he was able to make use of its vision. He'd learned this from watching how the Gorothune had peeked at things, noted it had only exposed a tiny piece of its Soul Sense. If he hadn't already guessed where it was and been watching for it, plus Threat Analysis' help, it was unlikely he would have noticed.

The top of the fort was a curving shell of orange stone. He could feel the constant pinging of ripples against his Soul Sense, as the Cultivators within made casual use of their Symbiotes. He also saw Soul Senses rising out from the top of the shell in a few places. They weren't unaware of the risks, then. He was distant enough that there was no risk of those Senses physically reaching him or finding an angle to peek around his cover.

There was a risk that there might be someone there with a Symbiote designed to spot people hiding, but the fact Xuejing had gone ahead of him and was already in position, with no outcry, reassured him.

He heard a faint whizz, the shriek of tiny motors. Metal shapes moved in his peripheral.

The drones slammed into the shell in three places. Geysers of dust and fire boomed out in beautiful waves as they smashed great holes in the stone. Those holes only existed for a moment before the whole roof collapsed. An unexpected bonus. He made out the confused forms of Cultivators stumbling about within, felt a single unified ripple as dozens of shielding Symbiotes protected them from the falling stone.

There were a lot of them. Thirty-two was just a number, but in their fleshy forms they packed the space. For the moment they were stunned by the explosion. That explosion was the signal for Jex to fire.

His expectant ears noted a distinct lack. He was not hearing any gunfire.

###

Jex heaved frantically at the grenade tightly tied to her ankle. She'd gotten half of them off, with thirty seconds left, when the charges blew the Cultivators' bunker's roof off.

'Shit, shit, shit!' she panted.

Jex didn't trust that annoyingly calm, smug, lecturing prick one bit. She'd felt sure he was going to double-cross her, but she'd been too busy being pissed off to realise how.

So what if he disarmed the grenades once he had Local, after destroying the jammer? They were his grenades, and then he'd have Local! As soon as she'd done her part, and the game was about to end, he'd blow her up.

She had to get this shit off. But now she only had twenty-five seconds. There wasn't enough time. If she didn't shoot, there was no chance he'd disable the explosives. 'Bastard, bastard, bastard,' she ground out, aiming her smartgun and squeezing the trigger. The smartgun into which she'd had no choice but to tag his targeting profile as ally.

###

Twenty-two… twenty-one… He counted down patiently, unmoving. Twenty—ah. Gunfire erupted, off to the side. Jex had thought through her options and realised she had none.

He pulled a pair of flashbangs and tossed them. They landed, clattering amidst the yelling Cultivators, who were having themselves a big confused panic, yelling and pointing in the direction of the shooting as shields cracked and splintered, some of them still stumbling around, coughing dust from the explosion.

He knew well how they felt, because he'd been in that unfortunate position of having a bomb go off right beside him before. Ears ringing, sense of balance out of whack, everything a confusing mess of dust and people yelling, struggling to work out where the enemy was. You just wanted a little time and space to gather yourself, a chance to work out what was going on. A bit of peace and quiet.

The cracks of the flashbangs sounded like the end of the world. Short and sharp, designed to focus an overwhelming burst of sound into a brief moment. Alongside the sound came claps of light that turned the whole area white, come and gone in a blinding flash.

Some of the Cultivators screamed out in pain and confusion, others seemed entirely unbothered. Either way, time to move. Off to the side he saw Xuejing had emerged and was sprinting over the ragged top of the cliff. He leapt over his rock, activating Symbiotes.

A grin formed over his features as Nicolai tumbled over the ledge and just like that, he was amongst them. The Spectral Claw spun into life. The Cultivators, so busy yelling at one another, barely even noticed him. Only one or two who happened to be looking in his direction saw as he landed. The Spectral Claw unfurled to rise above him like a banner.

That was when some of the bullets suddenly started coming straight at him. In fact, most of them did.

He knew Jex only had five seconds left. He slid sideways, getting to an angle where even her homing rounds couldn't curve enough to get at him. They tried nevertheless, smashing at the ground near his feet. All he needed to do was wait, and she'd be gone. But he could use her support, knew that it might be the edge that'd keep the Cultivators on the defensive, confused and struggling to properly team up.

He gestured with the Spectral Claw. It lanced down and tore into the jammer, which was only a few feet from him. The moment it shattered he sent the order to deactivate the grenades, as well as messaging Jex: 'Shift your targeting or I'll blow you up.'

The bullets veered away from him, re-targeting the Cultivators.

They'd been turning to face him but the sudden rain of bullets half-broke their focus, and then a new distraction arrived to smashed it the rest of the way. Yelling erupted as Xuejing burst into view, slicing with both swords, lightning wreathing her body. She took a few smooth steps, almost seeming to skate. One of her Blades darted out, caught a Cultivator through the chest and he was gone. Spun and struck another in the neck. Gone. Lunged and caught a third as he tried to dodge. Gone. As she tore into one side of the group, projectiles and Soul Senses spun towards her, but her defences dealt with them effortlessly.

Not to be outdone, Nicolai raised his bionic arm and activated its laser. He cut his arm to one side, a sweeping horizontal motion calculated by Aiming.

The burning red line of its laser moved with it, a tight beam of heat that swept over everyone in the path of his motion. He caught fully half of the Cultivators right in their eyes and faces.

Eyes which burst into superheated jelly, faces and hair that caught fire. One man, flailing and screaming with his head aflame, staggered out from the shadow of the wall where he'd lurked and was annihilated as the random stream of self-targeting bullets locked onto him, crushed his shield and turned him into blue light.

Those still with fight in them were pivoting, half to face him and half turning to Xuejing, their Soul Senses rising, faces creasing into furious sneers, Symbiotes rippling.

A nearby Cultivator's Soul Sense lunged his way, a bolt of angry lightning burning through it. But all it took was a brush of his Claw and he tore the Soul Sense apart, sent the lightning veering randomly where it crashed into another of them and set him shaking. A lazy flick of his wrist and the Claw returned in a howling sweep, caught the lightning-thrower as he stumbled back, crushed his Soul Sense and then crushed him into a wall. Blue light.

'Focus!' screamed one of the Cultivators. 'We have two enemies! Move where the bullets can't hit you—kill him, kill her! Coordinate Soul Senses!'

The man kept yelling, surrounded by Cultivators who seemed stronger, more focused, more determined. Nicolai raised his arm to fire the laser at the leader, but an older man had waved his arms and now a burst of water poured from above, wrapped the group of them in a protective bubble. The red line tore a gout of steam from the water, hissing into the air. He'd yet to buy a blue diode to slot into the arm—they weren't sold in the Trade Link.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Their Soul Senses came for him, looping and twisting. Nicolai saw them and lunged into motion. He slid across the area until a group of Cultivators still stunned by the flashbang were between him and the more organised ones, and the incoming Soul Senses got mired in their confused tendrils. Someone from within that bubble threw a spike of earth, but it just shattered on a shield as a Cultivator stumbled in the way.

A sudden warning prickled through him—something in the aura, some tiny ripple spotted by Threat Analysis. The Module understood what the signs meant in an instant. A Cultivator, invisible, right behind him, ready to stab.

Nicolai simply stepped aside and the blade missed him. He struck with an elbow, but the man's Skin Shield absorbed the blow. The assassin came on in a series of rapid stabs, wielding an Artifact Blade that jabbed holes in his shield, and at the same time a man whose hands were wreathed in red lightning stepped forward, taking aim.

An instant of awareness as the Dark and the Thrill lunged through him, and Nicolai knew the need to move. He ducked down low, slippery as an eel, just as the bolt of red crackled over him. It passed cleanly through the tip of his skinshield and caught an unlucky guy behind him. The man vanished with a flare of blue light.

The knife-man pressed, capitalising on the moment while Nicolai was low and unready. Stab, stab, stab. But Nicolai wasn't unready. He scuttled like a crab, hands and feet, body twisting out the way, then with a sudden explosion of muscle he launched himself back and up.

His bionic arm lanced out. Metres away he could feel the red lightning charging, knew the other one was taking aim. But he caught the wrist of the knife hand coming for him with the back of his own, knocked it aside, and flowed into a Soul Strike. His bionic fist slammed into the knife wielder's shield and blew cracks in it, then his fingers spread wide as he triggered the handcannon.

The .50 cal round in his arm smashed the Cultivator's shield into splinters. The snarling figure tried to bring his knife back for another thrust but he was far too slow. The Cultivator's eyes had time to widen and then Nicolai was there, flowing forward like water breaking a dam. He caught him round the hip and spun him like a lover, seized the knife hand with his bionic and broke it.

As the man howled he wrenched the Artifact knife free and it spun between his fingers while their bodies continued to revolve like dancers. Nicolai found the moment and his arm snapped out, sending the knife sailing through empty space.

It passed just to the side of the bolt of evil red lightning blasting through the air, erupting from between the other one's hands.

The lightning arrived just as Nicolai's spin completed and put the knife man between him and it, slammed into the man's back.

With a flare of blue the Cultivator he held was gone. Another burst of blue erupted simultaneously as the knife caught the lightning thrower in the head. They vanished together.

'More!' he cried, laughing and laughing with pure delight as the Dark and the Thrill pulsed in his blood.

The world bent to his desires and spat out another enemy. A big man, and his whole body was encased in spiked rock, some kind of Symbiote-forged armour. Nicolai poked him with the laser but it did nothing, and the man formed spikes of rock in his hands, hurled them in reply.

He stepped around one and slapped aside another, snapped his arm out and the Spectral Claw snapped with it. The man braced his Soul Sense and stood, looking firm as a mountain. And yet, he couldn't help a grunt of pain when the Claw struck him like a comet. A solid defence and a solid Soul but the Claw was made to break men like this, and with just that hit his Soul Sense was half-shattered. It rose, hungry as Nicolai's grin.

A wall of water poured between him and the earth Cultivator, and that same old man came to stand beside the man, both glaring at Nicolai, their Soul Senses now rising in tandem. Then came another, a gaunt, pale individual. A glance to the side showed Xuejing spinning between the rest of the strong-looking ones.

Nicolai's H-gram grinned murderously at his three new friends, already seeing how to win this new game. If the water was gone, the unarmoured pair had no defence against his laser. He struck now from the side, the Claw tearing through the water and the Soul Sense guiding it. He struck again and again, chasing the water Cultivator's Soul Sense and the water he directed, but the other two threw out their own tendrils to take the blows.

One then the other was broken, sent creeping shamefully back to their Soul, and the water was open again. But the growling earth Cultivator slammed a fist to the ground, and the pale man made a motion as though blowing a kiss, their beheaded Soul Sense re-emerging, smaller but still active.

Merged with the Modules and all the rest, Nicolai knew the future. They read it from the Aura and the ripples. He hopped easily aside as spikes erupted from the ground, but they chased. Laughing, he leapt and spun, going around them and over them even as he struck out once more at the water.

A sudden black cloud howled to life around him, filling his vision. The ripples told them it was poisonous. But he wore a skinsuit, and gas had no spiritual component. He switched to breathing compressed oxygen, and used drones and Soul Sense to guide his vision. Another dart of earth came his way and he slapped it aside. The water Cultivator sent his Soul Sense out in a lunge, and with it came a compressed stream of water, a cutting jet. He realised they were trying to capitalise on his "blindness," thus the aggression.

A mistake. He was neither blind nor poisoned. The black cloud merely gave him a new way of seeing the world. The Claw tore through the water lance and continued on, because they'd left themselves open. He grasped the Cultivator's Soul Sense, ripped a hole, and in that hole the water fell away.

The laser speared through the gap. The old man and the pale man let out the same screams as everyone else, heads bursting into flame. He couldn't blame them. Even he had struggled to maintain control when a laser lanced his eye, back when he'd been weaker. The mist and the water collapsed.

The earth Cultivator braced, defensive, as he stepped in front of the other two.

'Come on then!' the man roared, slamming his fists together.

Nicolai's H-gram flashed a nightmare grin as he skittered toward them, Claw lancing out. The Cultivator braced, Soul Sense strong.

Nicolai ignored him. The Claw simply looped around the man and slashed into his companions. A quick bit of work and one then the other was gone, and the earth Cultivator was just turning, shocked. Before he could think of how to help, he was alone.

The Claw crushed him.

No more enemies presented themselves. Nicolai rose from the perfect flow of the fight. Felt like he was coming up after dunking his head in the bath and lying there, eyes closed and body calm. He took a deep breath and stared around, felt the disappointment curdling in his gut as he saw that the Tournament was about to end.

More than half the Cultivators were gone. Xuejing was still cutting down the weaker ones. The leader and his survivors had got away from her, formed a new hideaway with walls of water and earth.

He wove aside, the motion absent and thoughtless. A bolt of energy passed by. The Tournament was about to end.

Jex had stopped shooting, so he triggered a command over Local. There came a deafening explosion from her direction.

###

Jex looked over her shoulder as all the explosives she'd pulled off detonated at once. Fortunately, she'd always been good at escaping things like that. Her artificial skin—easy to sacrifice to a sticky bomb—and detachable limbs had made removal possible. The real difficult part had been firing her smartgun with her feet, because she'd known if the bullets stopped coming he'd blow the bombs. Good thing I invested in the double-jointed, prehensile toes. Pal had told her they looked ridiculous. One high point about this disaster, she supposed. She'd be able to tell him they were what'd saved her.

A notification appeared. Blue light surrounded her.

Round over. Thirty-two competitors left.

###

Surrounded by her bubble of blue, Xuejing stood panting and sweaty, though otherwise unmarred. The Silver Net kept even blood from touching her.

A smile kept breaking out over her features at the knowledge that she'd done it. She'd gotten through the first round in spite of Zixiao's plotting. She hadn't let herself and her clan down.

But that smile kept on being swallowed by the other thoughts running around her head, as her eyes found that figure in his own blue bubble.

She wondered if he'd kept track of their eliminations. She had. Just a little game. But it was one she'd expected to win. With the distractions and support of the others, she'd walked through these Cultivators with barely a ruffling of her robes, striking them down with impunity. Few practised martial skills to the point necessary to defeat a properly shielded Nara, and without proper cooperation her defences had never even been close to breaking.

Recognising this, most had seen her coming then turned and ran. The stronger ones, especially had apparently decided to target Nicolai, the easier target. Only, he hadn't been easy.

He'd moved like no one she'd seen before, and she'd felt the raw, vicious joy emanating out of him, punctuated by spurts of laughter as he tore through everyone who stood against him, horrifying in its delight.

Like an Angel of War, descended to enact Heavenly judgement. She remembered moving through the earth with his arm wrapped around her, where she'd felt an endless current of Killing Intent moving through him. Hardly seemed possible that one man could hold so much.

Part of her thought of fact that she was very likely going to have to fight him before the end of this, and wanted to just throw her Blades away and give up because how could she beat him?

But another part wondered what it must feel like, to fight that well. What it would be like to be so good, so perfectly enmeshed in the flow of the fight that even a confusing, chaotic battleground became something you took joy in?

Strangely, as that laughter had echoed through the hollow of broken stone, she'd found herself smiling, her feet speeding up, her Blades slicing faster and with more vicious intent.

She wanted to fight like that. She wanted to be like that.

Her hands closed tighter around the handles of her Blades. She wanted to be unstoppable.

###

Nicolai rose into the air, glancing around. The others were being lifted too. He spotted Jex and raised his eyebrows. She'd gotten free. That was somewhat impressive. She made a crude gesture at him.

The Cultivators near him and Xuejing split their hateful gazes evenly between him and her. Some had Cherubic Surgeons appear at their sides; others looked shell-shocked. One man with a froglike face wore an especially sour expression, like he'd just bought a very expensive new car only to find someone had pissed all over the seats.

Xuejing was staring at him with a strange look on her face. An odd girl, many might think, but he liked her. The Mask raised his hand, made him wave, grinned when she waved back. She had something few others did, something he sensed from her eyes, from the way she moved, from the way she was holding those Blades so very tight.

Potential.

As they rose, the arena shifted. The stands came into view. Cheering and roaring swelled from all sides. The audience, at least, had enjoyed it.