II-94 Assassination (II)

Anyone who considers themselves a true warrior should enjoy a ride on the back of a missile—all the way to its inevitable conclusion.

This is not an invitation of suicide—indeed, if you are pitiful enough to experience death from such a pleasurable event, you should not consider yourself a warrior in any way regardless. The point of this experience is to reveal to you the heart of man, the triumph of the weak through creation and genius over the depraved hierarchies of the strong.

For too many, they imagine themselves a mountain, an island, a ruler. But what point is there in reigning over the weak and foolish? And what a delusion it is to imagine personal strength the only strength there is.

Part of my enlightenment came through the appreciation of weapons. The use of weapons beyond even the requirements of a master, the birth of autonomous weapons, of bombs, and missiles, and drones.

All these are statements of the human spirit. To break through their restraints and limitations. Not a warrior? Then craft. Not good at crafting? Then sell. Then facilitate. Create.

When you ride the missile to the end, when it explodes beneath you, feel that power, feel that weight. Feel every bit of it. Because that was everything given by the so-called weak, by the crafters and geniuses. And let it inspire you. 

Do not imagine you stand alone. Do not imagine your power is the only power. I would not be half the warrior I am if I succumbed to ignorance, if I did not let the industry of arms flourish and feed my understanding of war.

-Wei An Wei, the Realmbreaker

II-94

Assassination (II)

“Wei, are you being serious right now?” William muttered, staring flatly at his son.

“I just want to ride on the missile with him. Is there such an extreme issue with that?”

“It’s pointless and risky. He’s already carrying your Anchor. He can go across and resurrect after landing. You might just die.”

Wei scoffed with disgust and derision. “Only if I am feeble and incompetent. I would parry the blastwaves.”

“There are more than just thermal and kinetic vectors to deal with,” Kalrus said, though there was an appreciative expression on the orc’s face. “Sound, spiritual damage, and a great many other variables need to be considered, but seeing your appreciation for my missile pleases me.”

“I’m sorry, but what the fuck is wrong with all of you,” Vendrian muttered, staring at the group. He pointed at Kalrus first. “You made something that can kill hundreds of people from… how far?”

“Beyond the horizon, to make things simple,” Kalrus smiled.

Vendrian shook his head and pointed at Wei. “And you want to ride this thing?”

“Yes! Did you hear how fast he said it can go? How large the explosion might be?”

“Yeah,” Vendrian growled. “And it makes me want to stay far the fuck away from it.”

“Why are you so fearful? You can’t die!”

“My skin can still burn. It’s still going to hurt, and if I fall off—”

Wei snorted. “Just hold on harder.” William started pinching the bridge of his nose. “What? What is the point of being a giant with rippling muscles if you cannot even cling to a large rod. Unless you’re actually weak and your build is but for show.”

That made Vendrian’s face twitch. “Hey, you know what, Wei? I might have a large rod for you to hold with your ass—”

Slowly, William turned and leveled a stone-cold glare at the Scion. “Never, ever say that shit again.”

“Why? Are you going to make me?” Vendrian barred his teeth and gums—the scene breaking down into ape-like posturing.

“No. But imagine someone staying that to your little boy.”

“I—” A look of disgust passed over Vendrian’s face. “Ugh.”

“Yeah, dumbshit. Think about what leaves your mouth.”

General MacArthur let out a barely audible laugh at that. “Never thought I’d live to ever hear you say that to someone else, Captain. So. Are we done wasting time? Dr. Kalrus?”

“The rocket has been launch ready for the past week,” Kalrus said. “The only delay lies among our operator.”

Vendrian let out an exhausted sigh. “Couldn’t you have made a seat or something? Something on the inside.”

“Perhaps. But that would take away from the effectiveness of my missile, and your comfort is secondary to specs. So, Scion. If you would please.”

“Fine. Fine.” Vendrian clenched his teeth. “Wei. Make sure these cockroaches take care of my boy. And Aerea.” He paused. “Fuck. We haven’t even named him. Shit. Gods dammit.” By this point, it was clear that Vendrian was delaying. “I need to—”

“If this moment of opportunity is lost, your freedom becomes a dubious prospect,” Kalrus continued.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

“Why are you so miserable,” Wei said, pouting. “You’re getting to ride on the rocket. I want to ride the rocket.”

“Trust me, kid, I would trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

“No,” Kalrus said. “Once again. You are immune to death, and risking the young master in any way is unwise. I fear that we all must make sacrifices to see this mission’s success.”

“What the fuck are you sacrificing?” Vendrian said, glaring at the orc.

“My time and limited energy trying to work through this trying conversation, so again, Scion, if you please.”

A long string of muttered curses and half-finished complaints poured from Vendrian’s mouth as he stomped toward the edge of the platform. With a flex of his fingers, a burst of greenish nature Essence washed over his right hand. At once, Mourning was hovering by his side. “Brother… what—”

“We’re going on a ride. I’m going to need your help to hold on to this… missile.”

“Missile?”

“Don’t ask. I don’t want to explain. We’re going to go murder the Collectress.”

“I—this—it’s all so sudden—”

“Wei asked for it. We’re going to do it.”

“Oh,” the sword turned to face the young master. “I see.” And that was as far as her complaining went. “Well. I… I confess I have been looking forward to this.”

“Do not worry,” Wei said, swallowing his own frustration at being denied a ride on the missile. “I will be with the two of you when the time comes.”

As Vendrian formed a hovering platform of ice and drifted over the missile, he and his sister began muttering to each other about everything that they experienced, Aerea, his son, and what they need to do soon. Wei watched as a dense cocoon of frost formed around the outside of the missile, becoming a sort of “holder” for Vendrian to sit upon. Meanwhile, vines sprouted out from Mourning’s hilt and bound both Scion and sword tight around the missile.

“Is this going to fuck up the missile’s targeting?” William asked, speaking to Kalrus.

“No. I have accounted for far more fluctuations than just excess loads. There are costs and benefits to building a missile using magic as its foundation rather than technology.”

“Yeah. Easier all around, but you need to strap a daisy chain of miserable Essence batteries.” William shook his head. “Slaves make this place go around.”

“They would have been spent regardless. Better this than someone using them for lesser reasons.”

“Heard that shit before.”

After a bit more time flipping some switches, summoning demons to “make some final checks,” and summoning an Essence barrier around the platform, Kalrus turned and declared the ICBM launch ready. “General. I think it is time for to sound the charge on Lust’s lines.”

“Did that while this gaggle of clowns was arguing with each other,” MacArthur said, sneering slightly. “The artillery is already going. Our forces will be blowing the whistle and going over the top soon. Time to see how your new guns and armor will perform.”

“Good, good,” Kalrus said, a look of thrill making its way on his face. “Today is a good day. Beginning final preparation for launch.”

“Wei!” Vendrian called out, looking more like a small doll strapped to the outside of the missile rather than a towering warrior. There was also something comical about his expression. “I… I have a few names.”

“For your son?” Wei asked.

Yeah!”

“You’re asking me?”

“Yeah!”

The young master blinked. “Why?”

“Because he’s trying not to piss himself,” William said under his breath.

“Because I’m trying not to shit myself,” Vendrian said through gritted teeth. “I don’t like this thing, and I need—”

Kalrus made a gesture, and a surge of Essence pulsed down through the missile. Vendrian went still. Mourning tightened her vines and shivered. The Essence circuitry lining the surface of the missile came aglow with activity.

“I was thinking Spear!” Vendrian cried out.

“Spear?” Wei said, utterly baffled. “You want to call your child Spear?”

“Yeah. You—you use a spear, right?”

Wei was flattered. Truly. Genuinely. But something about the man’s reasoning was lacking to say the least. “I… maybe something more poetic.”

“Poetic? I’m not good at poetic. You got anything?” The ICBM began to vibrate and groan. Vendrian’s eyes widened and he swallowed. “How—how about Fist?”

“Fist?” Wei said, starting to doubt the Scion’s naming ability. “Is this because I punch people sometimes?”

“I… yeah?”

The young master struggled to turn the man down. He just looked so terrified and desperate right now, and with the earnestness made mocking him feel cruel rather than funny. “I am flattered, but maybe… maybe you should ask your love. Or your sister.”

“Please don’t!” Mourning cried out.

“She’s worse than I am!” Vendrian cried, trying to shout over the missile.

“Beginning countdown,” Kalrus said. “Ten… nine…”

Just then, inspiration suddenly struck Wei. “What about something philosophical? A concept that matters? Like Freedom?”

“Freedom?” Vendrian said.

“Triumph?” Wei said again.

“Ehhh,” Vendrian winced.

“...four… three…”

“Liberty?” Wei said, on the verge of blowing this entire thing off.

“Huh? Liberty sounds… Sounds nice.”

“It is nice. One of the finest things in the world.” MacArthur said, nodding. “I like it.” The General’s approval caught Wei by surprise.

Vendrian developed a faint grin. “Well, I’m going to have to ask Aerea but—”

“...one: Launching,” Kalrus finished.

For a second, all was silence. Vendrian blinked. Wei’s chest clenched with anticipation, then disappointment. “Why isn’t it—”

The world beyond Kalrus’s Essence barrier erupted in deafening sound, in blinding light. A wave of force smashed against the shield and folded around it immediately. Wei caught Vendrian’s face twisting into something akin to pure terror via his Omniscience, and a second thereafter, the rocket blasted straight up at crushing speed. A series of mystical rings lit up high above, each projecting a threshold that amplified the rocket’s velocity.

In seconds, the rocket was far beyond Wei’s sphere of perception, and he gawked upward at Essence trail painting a trail over the crimson-streaked skies, curving toward a destination unseen.

“Heavens,” Wei breathed. “I… That was…” He closed his mouth. “Kalrus. I have a request.”

“Do not worry. I will see about making another version of this missile. Perhaps you will get the ride upon the next one.”

The young master let out a temporarily sated breath. “You are rapidly becoming favored in my eyes.”

The orc scientist laughed. “Yes. I am deeply in touch with my inner child.”

***

“AGGHHHHH!” Vendrian said.

“AGGHHHHH!” his sister agreed.

The world was nothing but chaos and motion. The sheer torque pried roughly at Vendrian’s body, spiking force grinding against him. A lesser Classed would have turned to little more than red paste at these speeds, and even with his sister boosting him, holding on was proving to be a substantial struggle.

“WHAT HAVE YOU AGREED TOO?” Mourning screamed at him.

Vendrian didn’t reply. He was too busy trying to stop from biting his own tongue, to hold back from emptying the contents of his stomach all over the missile. Everything was twisting inside him. He just wanted this to be over. He just wanted to land. It wasn’t even the speed of the rocket that bothered him, but the lack of control.

Everything was turning, and according to that psychotic orc, this thing was going to impact the ground and then detonate in a massive blast instead of landing. Vendrian was no stranger to deaths by fire or heavy kinetic impacts, but all those things at once? That seemed like a special kind of torture.

Suddenly, the missile began to jolt left and right, pulling hard against his person as Skills and hostile Essence signatures darted across his perception in midair. His stomach gurgled, and Vendrian found himself sympathetic toward his little boy. The world was a sickening place indeed.

As the missile turned, Vendrian caught sight of the artillery scarred land, of the barbed wire mesh crusted with wailing bodies, of waves of soldiers following close behind a descending wall of fire, advancing on a distant trenchline. A concentration of blasts impacted the Essence shielding protecting an entire swath of the horizon, and cracks spread along its surface. If Vendrian had to guess, that was where he was heading soon—through the broken shield, into the middle of that mess.

Quietly, silently, the Scion of Death began to do something he didn’t often do: He prayed. To his father. To any gods that would still listen. For he knew this was going to be a painful death. A miserable landing. But more than fearing agony, he simply prayed for this horrible ride to be over soon.

***

“Push! Fucking push!” Delgado Reyes fired his new rifle and enjoyed the kick. Each shot drained Essence from him and the rest of his squad, but the power it unleashed also exceeded the sum of their levels.

Hastily launched Skills skipped and broke against his Obsidian battlearmor, and he continued his charge alongside the others, an implacable wall where most Knight-Tier Classed would have been reduced to nothing but crimson mist.

The demon trapped inside his helmet cried out as it interfaced with his Perception. Several Essence signatures were highlighted through the smoke and ash. Crunching down on the wailing Sinners trapped in the muck, Reyes marked some targets as priority and squeezed his trigger. Hyperaccelerated rounds tore strips out of the falling dirt and muck. His squad fired after him, following in his example—as did the squad beside his, and the squads following close behind.

One after another, distant signatures winked out—killed by projectiles they couldn’t see coming, from a distance that was altogether absurd for most in these Claimed Hells. Magic was a hell of a thing. It made gods of people—could allow you to burn entire kingdoms or slaughter armies on your own. But it also crippled these people, made them immature in the ways of war.

Most of the Fictionals here knew about guns, but they never got much further into sophistication. Because what was the point when you could summon a meteor that could sear a city from existence. With the existence of mages, artillery was also a thing for the individual to master rather than the math-engineering art form it was back on Earth.

And then there were the soldiers. The demons were vicious. The demons were brutal. But the demons were predictable. There were plenty of warriors down in the Claimed Hells, but most lacked true disciple and understanding of focused warfare.

Which was why simple tactics like a creeping barrage worked so well against them. Reyes smiled as a literal tide of Essence shells screamed down overhead, hammering against the shielding protecting the outer trenches of Lust. Again, Reye’s demonic Perception Enhancer painted zones of impact ahead of time, and traced likely paths of shrapnel. He had a lot more than just raw power keeping him alive—he had an entire logistics and intelligence suite in his armor.

“Dome’s cracking!” One of the other squad leads cried out over the messaging. True to her words, the massive spherical shield guarding the trenches ahead fractured and then burst apart into prismatic fragments.

Then, the rocket shot ahead. It snapped overhead so fast that Reyes barely noticed. But even if he had missed it, the aftershock of force the low-flying ICBM carried with it nearly tore him off his feet. 

A series of cheers went up among the forces of Wrath as the missile plunged clean through the opening made by the artillery rounds—and promptly slammed into the middle of enemy lines.

A blinding blast of voluminous hues blossomed out from inside the breaking dome, and a second thereafter, the shielding came entirely asunder.

DANGER CLOSE! The demon inside Reyes’s helmet screamed.

He threw out an expendable Essence barrier of his own and immediately dove behind it, slamming his back against its surface just as a tide of scythe force carved its way around No Demon’s Land, peeling kilometers of barbed wire caught in thousands of mangled bodies high into the air.

“Sergeant Reyes to command! I have eyes on the missile. Impact confirmed. Repeat: Impact confirmed. The strike was a success. Tell Dr. Kalrus to bring out the cold champagne. The ICBM worked.” He let out a laugh.

War.

War always changes.