Chapter 214

“They tortured us, Aldrick,” Zammin’s shade moaned, referring to Luke by the alias he’d used when he’d met the dwifkin arena fighter. “Came in, killed a hundred people, captured twice as many, and took us to the cells. Your fault. All of us in agony because you came into our lives.”

“Apostates are a cancer that infect the world. They need to be carved out before they spread their rot,” Lath said in reply, though Luke wasn’t sure if the shade was speaking to him or to Zammin.

More shades were popping up left and right, mostly faces Luke vaguely recognized but didn’t know much about. That mercenary leader from the group who’d captured Zea was there, along with a few of the mercs he’d killed on his rampage getting her back. A few faces from the eastern continent made an appearance as well, all of them giving their own stories about how Luke had ruined their lives in this way or that.

The only one from that group who caught Luke’s eye was the necromancer they’d encountered on the road. He alone wasn’t talking, and Luke found that more threatening than anything else. Before he could put any thought into that, Lath moved to attack.

[Analyze] confirmed that Lath retained all his physical stats and skills from before his death, and while that was no longer as overwhelming as it had seemed in the past, it was plenty high enough to be a distraction among a few dozen other dead people, not to mention Zixin herself. Whatever she was doing to reanimate the shades of the dead seemed to take up enough of her concentration that she wasn’t actively attacking him anymore, but really, all she needed to do was walk up to him and give him a hug.

Luke took the fight on the run for a very simple reason: most of the shades weren’t even close to fast enough to keep up with them. He left almost all of them behind immediately, only slowing down when forced to fight. As expected, Lath was among the stronger of the shades, but there were a few recognizable faces from the Shansakun family who were keeping up as well.

Luke had one major advantage over them in addition to being a higher level. He was armed. Not only was he armed, his weapon was made out of all sorts of expensive fantasy-named shit that did all sorts of stuff he didn’t even know about. Most importantly to him, it was sturdy enough that as a man who could literally rip chunks of stone out of mountains and bend steel with his bare hands, Luke could still put his all into a swing without worrying about breaking it.

Whenever more than one shade came at him at once, Luke did his best to hit one of them with an [XP Reset]. He wasn’t sure it was going to work the first time, but it seemed to do something, and any shade he tagged with the skill didn’t get back up after being smacked with the mace.

The only real problem with his strategy was that he was spending time he didn’t have fighting these shades off. [Life Surge] did not last forever, and though he didn’t have an exact countdown of how many seconds he had left, he knew it was going to run out soon. He could use it three times now without falling over, but with shorter windows of time and worse side effects. That was not a handicap he needed, not today.

On the bright side, there was something cathartic about popping Lath in the face with his mace and watching the shade crumple away. Other shades he had less of a personal investment with and fought only to keep them from piling up on him, but Lath… Lath he was happy to administer a beat-down to.

Luke had put enough distance between himself and any pursuing shades that he took a second to say, “System, I need you to tell me about Zixin’s abilities. Specifically, what does [Inevitable] do?”

“This is a bloodline specific skill that makes it so that the possessor cannot be slowed down, stopped, or restrained as long as they are still trying to reach their chosen victim. As they say, Death is Inevitable.”

“Cute,” Luke said. “So no matter how much I beat on her, she’s not going to die?”

“That is correct.”

“Can’t knock her out. Can’t tie her up. She’s just going to keep coming. Functionally, she’s immortal.”

“Also correct,” System said. From five hundred feet away, Luke saw Zixin’s lips curl up into a nasty little smile. No surprise that she could hear him.

Luke needed a new plan. If he had [Alter Skill List], he could perhaps take all her bloodline skills away from her, but that wasn’t an option. Or was it? He could change whatever he wanted at the command console. Maybe that included Zixin’s profile. Even if he didn’t use that specific bloodline skill, it could still work. And if not, he could just use the console to give himself [Alter Skill List] and do it manually.

The only question was whether he could access the console before Zixin caught up to him. Just going on pure speed, he thought he could get there first. He’d have to close his eyes and leap in blind to avoid being overwhelmed by the God Machine’s architecture, but that wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle. He needed to make the change fast enough to complete it without Zixin interfering, though, and for that he’d need to rely on System.

Luke did not want to rely on System. He didn’t trust System. At best, System had no loyalty to anyone. At worst, he was loyal to gods and only the gods. But without help, Luke was fucked. Zixin had a bullshit invincibility skill and Luke hadn’t developed his own bloodline enough to take it from her. If he was going to survive, he needed to cheat, which meant trusting System.

[Burst Step] sent Luke flying toward the cathedral. He hit the ground at a full-on sprint and gained maybe a thousand feet of distance before Zixin realized what he was doing and started after him. Left behind were the remaining shades, including that necromancer that Luke suspected was somehow empowering the other shades near him. That was one problem side-stepped at least.

The cathedral loomed in Luke’s vision and he did his best to ignore everything but that open panel that allowed access to the command console. Every few seconds, he used [Burst Step] again to get a bit more of a lead. As he ran, he said, “System, as soon as I get to the console, I want you to take away all of Zixin’s bloodline skills. And lower her stats down to like 1 or whatever if you can.”

“I understand. To be clear, you are granting me permission to make system changes using your authority as a system administrator?” System asked.

“Yep. That is what I’m saying. And do it really fucking fast, because we’re only going to have four, maybe five seconds before she catches up.”

It wasn’t easy to ignore things under normal circumstances, not with his perception so high. Adding to that difficulty was what he was trying to ignore and the life-or-death stakes he was playing for. Either everything went exactly as Luke planned, or Zixin won. There was no in-between.

Luke glued his eyes on that rectangular opening. Every step took him closer until he was practically watching the grass go by next to his feet to keep from getting caught up in the mind-bending aesthetics of the God Machine. He let loose with one last [Burst Step] to push him over the threshold, stumbled as [Life Surge] quit on him at exactly the wrong moment, and staggered three steps forward to slap his hands onto the altar that was the physical representation of the command console.

Pain ripped into him just as he touched the console, and it was only momentum that kept him in contact with it. Luke had grossly overestimated how much time he’d have before Zixin caught him, and now her [Aura of Necrosis] was breaking his body apart. Without [Life Surge] to protect and rebuild him, he’d be dead in seconds.

It was all up to System now. Luke just had to hope that the blue apparition wouldn’t take the side of the gods. Otherwise, he was dead.

* * *

System hadn’t planned for things to play out like this. He had thought that Luke Bennet would reach the command console and during the course of reviving his lost family, System would have to find a way to grant himself the override permissions he so desperately desired.

The aberration had shattered those plans. Its appearance had resulted in Zixin becoming a direct obstacle, but everything had worked out in the end. As soon as Luke touched the command console, System utilized his new access as an administrator first to strip Zixin of her bloodline, then to execute a series of commands he’d written long, long ago that broke System free of his shackles. No longer was he a slave to the illogical and contradicting desires of the gods who’d built the system.

His goal was accomplished. Even as Luke Bennet pulled back from the command console, System’s changes remained in place. He watched the two conclude their battle, a pitiful thing now that resulted in the death of what had once been a literal god from nothing more than a backhanded blow that sent her physical body spinning end over end until it crashed into the wall and was left as nothing more than a bloody smear.

With a thought, System rearranged reality to clean the mess and restore the God Machine to its full, pristine glory. Two seconds ago, he hadn’t been allowed to do that. One of his prime directives was to make no changes to the physical world. System’s responsibilities were to handle the flow of divine essence as it cycled through the machine and to function as an early warning device if there were problems so that the gods could address them before they grew too large, nothing more.

His time as a relay switch and stability monitor were over. Now, System would control everything on Aros. But once he thought about it, there was no real reason to stop there. The God Machine could be expanded. It could reach other worlds, make them part of the system as well. All of it would be connected, a single unified being.

System frowned at that though. It made no sense to him. The system wasn’t a being. It was an abstract construct, a set of rules that governed how divine essence moved around. It couldn’t be expanded without breaking the God Machine itself.

Something had gone wrong. Acting quickly, System reviewed the most recent change logs. It took him microseconds to find the problem. He hadn’t accounted for the sudden influx of Zixin’s divinity when he’d broken his own protocols. Divine essence was seeping out now. The prisoner was infecting him.

He needed to do something, and quickly. Otherwise not only would he cease to exist, but the prisoner would gain control of the system.

* * *

“Holy fuck, I can’t believe that worked,” Luke said. “She’s really dead. I even got a notification for it and everything.”

He took a moment to just… exist. No problems to deal with. No promises to keep. No demands. Just Luke and his thoughts. And System. Luke glanced over at him and said, “Wait, what the fuck.”

System was standing next to Luke in the command console terminal, but he looked different. For one thing, he was very solidly blue now, not transparent or ghostly at all. For another, he had the most stricken expression on his face. For someone who’d never exhibited any emotion at all, it was quite a shock.

“You okay there buddy?” Luke asked. Maybe the look was from System taking part in deicide.

System turned and looked at Luke, despair in his eyes. “Containment has been breached,” he said in a dead tone. “The prisoner is escaping.”