(IC) Chapter 324 - A Hidden Tide

Vectors spun into being, one after another. Arcs and lines etched across space, sketches of present and future overlapping.

And within that lattice, he moved.

A boot cracked stone, dust spitting upward as he twisted past a rotating shard that ripped the air apart. It smashed into the corridor wall behind him, a thunderclap of rock and dirt blasting outward.

He slashed low, his blade whispering toward a Warden’s thigh. The creature stepped back, falling for the feint.

A spear lunged at his chest. Alonso had placed the opening there himself. His toes shifted to a dent in the ground, magnetized blades aligning with his step. He let the tip stop a millimetre from his sternum before sliding back.

His right sword snapped sideways, deflecting three projectiles in a single sweep. Sparks flared. At the same time, a wave pulsed outward, dragging a Warden half a step off balance—just enough to duck beneath a shard that screamed overhead and detonated against the ceiling. Fragments rained down, carving a hole to the sky above.

Alonso’s mind ran fast. Vectors calculated. Intentions read. Each shard had purpose, each projectile a shepherding line. Where did they want him to move? Where was bait, where was truth?

Even their bodies betrayed nothing. The Wardens did not shield, did not guard one another. They welcomed wounds if it meant one strike could break him.

Which meant—

His eyes narrowed. Lines converged. Bullets cracked the ground where he’d been a heartbeat before, their shockwave following the supersonic shriek.

And in that storm of chitin, bullets, shards, and spear-limbs, he danced.

Every thrust tested him. Every slash forced him back. His calculations never stopped. Each path bent into another, his feet zigzagging across the battlefield. He twisted, pivoted, rolled, boots scraping stone and kicking up clouds of dust. Sparks rained as metal clashed.

The air was filled with thunder. The ground shook with impacts.

But every chance at a killing blow demanded a price. Every opening came tethered to a trap. To strike meant to bleed, and bleeding was death.

Dual Overdrive seared through him. EM capacitor boost stacked on top, nerves ablaze, muscles screaming in revolt. Each fibre frayed, each joint ground down. Pain was constant—bones groaning, tendons tearing—but his mind cut through it.

Cold, calculating, ruthless.

Yet beneath the numbers, his chest burned. Each breath rasped with dust. Each drop of sweat blurred his eyes. The smell of blood—his own—mixed with scorched stone and the acrid tang of ruptured chitin.

He needed to find a way… fast.

He pivoted right, dodging clean. Momentum carried him across one Warden’s body, which he used as a screen to cover against another’s strike. Stone and dust kicked up around him; he pushed a surge of EM through the air, masking his outline for a heartbeat. Sniper shots tore down through the opening above, ripping through the haze.

The hole was a problem. A constant line of fire. The Wardens knew it, and they would not let him slip free.

He kicked off the ground, tucking tight. His body spun mid-air, compressing as two shards tore past—faster than sound, their shockwaves vibrating his ribs. One slammed into the ceiling, expanding the hole into a ragged wound of stone. The other shredded a wall, chunks collapsing outward, widening the underground space.

He hit the ground hard, magnetizing his blades mid-descent to accelerate the drop and lock his stance on impact.

The next instant—CLANG!

He crossed both blades, sparks screeching as an axe-bladed limb crashed down with the force of a falling boulder.

For a moment he almost rode the strike, letting it drain the impact into motion—but he stopped himself. It was a trap.

Instead, he redirected, sliding his weight off-line. Even so, two more limbs slammed against him. His blades caught one, his shoulder armor partially absorbed the other. Pain tore down his arm.

A calculated hit. The only path out of the trap.

No direct strikes yet. But each deflection stacked the toll. His muscles frayed, nerves screamed beneath Dual Overdrive. If he kept trading force for force, they would grind him down until nothing remained.

Alonso narrowed his eyes.

He traced another lattice of vectors, tighter, sharper. Predictive arcs overlaid flesh and stone. Every tail twitch marked. Every claw feint mapped. Each ricochet angle carved against the broken walls and widened gaps.

He moved.

His blades blurred, sparks shrieking as they carved against chitin. He ducked beneath a spear, dust flaring around him to mask the slip. A rotating shard tore overhead, exactly where he had mapped it would. He twisted, rolled, and cut upward—metal biting through the seam of a Warden’s limb. The creature shrieked, dark ichor spraying hot across the stone.

Alonso’s face twisted, sweat and blood stinging his eyes. He surged forward before the net could reset. His left blade intercepted a tail projectile, deflecting it into another Warden’s guard. The ricochet staggered it—an instant, no more. Enough.

He stepped inside, right blade driving home. He accelerated with everything he had, No-Strike igniting at full force. Afterimages flared across the tunnel—slashes, thrusts, phantom cuts from three angles at once. The true strike was hidden among them, a thrust straight through the heart.

Heat burst into the air as the body convulsed.

Alonso did not linger—he sidestepped just as a bullet carved a deep, straight hole through the stone where he had stood.

No-Strike had given him cover and a kill, but the strain was brutal.

At most… two more uses. Beyond that, his body would burn out.

He needed another way. A gamble.

Hundreds of thoughts raced in parallel as he fought. He leaned aside, a blade passing millimetres from his neck. The wind of it cut his skin, leaving a shallow line of blood.

He thrust toward another Warden—this one did not fall for the feint. But he had predicted that. Alonso pivoted on the rejection, using the momentum of his thrust and an EM burst to slip into the flank of one Warden while using its body to block the engagement of another.

The vectors of the last sniper shots stayed fresh in his mind—angles, timing, trajectories. He estimated their count, the shifting locations, the tiny position variations. Yet he knew: there was always one they wouldn’t show. One held back, waiting for the right time.

He couldn’t just act on what was shown. He had to account for what could be.

His boot snapped out low, kicking a Warden off balance. At the same time, he drove a pommel strike into another’s spine. His grip shifted—anchoring a blade against the stone, creating torque as he twisted free past a flanking strike.

But his expression was grim.

No matter what… every plan he calculated ended the same way. Failure.

There wasn’t a single outcome with the variables at hand that could lead to his survival. Well…

There was one. Just…

He discarded it, shook his head, and kept fighting. Blades clashed, his movements threading through the tightening gaps.

Shards erupted around him, blasting earth and stone. Shallow cuts multiplied across his skin as the margin for evasion shrank, the Wardens’ coordination sharpening with every passing breath.

And in that moment—when he could no longer map alternatives—he knew he had no choice.

“Houston.”

A single word echoed in his mind as he blocked a strike that hurled him back against the rock. To dodge would have left him open to a thrust… and behind that thrust, a sniper’s bullet waiting.

He absorbed the hit, gritting through the pain as he waited for the answer. It came, heavy.

“Prepare for transition… and… nothing. Good luck.”

Alonso could almost hear the sigh in the voice. He knew why. The risk of failure was too high—over 83%. More than four out of five attempts would end with him self-imploding. And even if it worked, the consequences were unmapped, full of uncertainty. However, it was the only option left.

There was a brief pause in that instant as emotions and memories flared. His whole life, her face—everything laid bare.

He tightened his grip as resolve took form. There was no turning back.

He drew a deep breath and kept moving, dodging another projectile when he felt it.

It began.

A surge, violent and raw, tearing outward from deep inside. His internal capacitors overloaded, the channels unbound. A wave of EM resonance exploded through him, flaring in every direction.

The air shattered.

Dust and stone ripped outward in a thunderous blast. Sparks crackled against the tunnel walls as the Wardens staggered back, their net torn apart by the sheer pulse. Projectiles meant for his heart and head bent off course, clattering harmlessly into stone. Claws and shards were shoved wide, limbs jerking under the disruption.

And Alonso’s body convulsed.

Blood sprayed from his lips. His muscles tore and stitched in the same instant, nerves shrieking as the overload surged through every fibre. His consciousness flickered—here, gone, here again.

He drowned in white. Blinded. Deafened. Weightless.

All disappeared. Only white.

He—

He die—

…

No.

Within the emptiness, pain returned first—and his eyes snapped open.

With no time to process, no time to question. He moved.

And as he did… the world moved with him.

The air bent, rippling like water disturbed by a sudden tide. Each step left a trail—lines of magnetized current flowing in his wake. Projectiles swerved, dragged from their trajectories, bending aside as though caught in undertow.

Metal answered the call. Warden blades, spinning shards, sniper rounds, and Alonso’s own swords—all were swept into the shifting currents.

His body blurred—no longer bound by muscle and bone, but driven by a dual force: flesh and Pillar working in synergy, each motion amplified by resonance.

He ducked beneath a rotating shard, the air shivering with its passage, and struck. His blade cut for a Warden’s chest, but when the creature twisted to feint, he twisted faster. EM currents propelled him where no human motion could reach. He appeared behind it in a blur.

The Warden’s limbs lashed, but the magnetic tide betrayed it—its weapons tugged off balance, pulled into the trail Alonso had left behind.

His thrust slid clean into its heart.

Another round of bullets screamed through the tunnel, but Alonso swept his sword in a wide arc. Metal rang against two, while five more veered suddenly off-line, dragged into the pull of his wave. They clanged against the wall in a scatter of sparks and shrapnel.

He did not wait.

Already in motion, weaving through currents of his own making. Each action clarified what his new state could do. His mind remained cold—not awe, not wonder. Only calculation. Only the next dozen moves. Only the next kill.

Bullets shredded the haze. His blades moved, not to block but to divert. Trails of magnetized air warped their paths, pulling them wide into stone.

A Warden lunged from behind, limbs flashing with sparks. It stumbled mid-strike, caught in a current that twisted its balance. Its bladed arms dragged against each other, tangled by invisible pull.

Alonso was already gone.

A sniper shot ripped through where he had been—air shrieking—but Alonso blurred into another path. He slashed.

The Warden leaned its head back, narrowly evading. But the magnetic undercurrent betrayed it—its own blade twitched toward Alonso, dragged by his wake.

The strike connected beneath its jaw, tearing through. Blood burst outward in a wave of heat and iron, scattering across the tunnel grounds.

And still, the currents spread.

The battlefield shifted with him now. Blades, shards, bullets—all dragged into the invisible tide. Trails of magnetism painted the air like waves in a storm-tossed sea, each movement a surge, each slash a rippling current that bent the fight itself around him.

Four Wardens remained.

Alonso locked eyes with them as he refined his approach to the new skill further and further.

His body strained, pain flaring through every nerve. Yet this state drained him far less than expected. It felt almost… balanced.

He had won the gamble.

Alonso stepped forward—and for the first time, the Wardens stepped back.