12 Miles Below Book 4. Chapter 47: A weapon like no other

Contact. Southwest tower. One of the Winterscar knights called out from their sniping nest.

Tallest tower they could find, best sight across the entire skyscraper bridge ruin. Had a full view over , while I waited at the center.

It took Avalis just about a quarter hour to reach . He made his return to the battlefield a spectacle this ti. I heard rumbling in the distance as the prelude, and like the snipers had called, they showed up.

Crawling all across the outsides, claws finding easy purchase on cracks, vines and rough concrete. Screars, enough to cover the walls as they moved. At the base of the bridge, walking my way with steady cold fury, was Avalis.

Figured youd get here faster. I said, standing up from my lotus position. Did picking up the kids really take you that long?

The Feather stopped in his tracks, turning an eye behind him at the mass of machines crawling off the walls and onto the bridge. I suppose the number I ca with was too much to hide. And here I was thinking I was being subtle.

Oh, I've got a master eye. Couldnt sneak an airspeeder around .

Avalis brushed off bits of dirt and leaves stuck in the groves of his armor. Ive noticed.

Glass was fracturing all across the bridge, as more of his army erged in full from the ground. White claws ripping apart the vines and tal in the way, scorch marks across the white ceramic armor as theyd crawled through the sections still filled with dying out fire.

The other side of the bridge wasnt spared either, Screars flooding over the black containnt cube, crawling out of the broken concrete.

Comms pinged from the two Winterscar knights on overwatch. M'lord, you need to evacuate at once! This is far too many to handle, we wont be able to eliminate them all.

Stay on target. I said. Theyre after , not you. Right, Avalis?

This discussion is pointless. I have a traitor to destroy. He answered, a small haze of heat beginning to form above his head, right by that halo Feathers all had. His other hand drew out the longsword. I dont know what youre planning, but if you think Ill let you escape, youre far off the mark. When I fight her, Ill make sure shes alone.

Guess that ans hes sending so of his army to fight you two. I reported to the knights. Can you hold them off?

Were more worried for you, the ones coming are hardly anything compared to the swarm on the bridge.

I stretched my legs, cracking my neck to the side. I can always jump off. I said, patting the hook and rope at my side. Wrath would probably never let live it down though.

Journeys shields were at a hundred and I felt about as refreshed as I could get. A break had done good. I unhooked the undersider rifle from the holster, clicked the safety off and gave an experintal aim, making sure I could use the weapon properly in the armguard hand.

Relic armor made it easy to hold, Journeys HUD showing a targeting reticle where it calculated my aim would land. The white sword flared to life in my main hand, and I took a stance.

Avalis didnt take chances, clearly aware I must have sothing up my sleeves. Staring down an entire army and deciding Id fight it? Not sothing a sane human should be doing. He slashed his hand to the side, giving an unworded command to his forces. The Screars howled, and then charged forward from both sides, leaping out with claws extended.

He remained behind, watching. Calculating where Id try to escape. Chain ready to cut through any lifeline Id toss out. Staying safe behind his army.

Well, if he wasnt coming to , Id need to get to him. So I started a dead sprint. Directly at the wall of screars baying for my blood.

His eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed with suspicion. Even knowing sothing was wrong with a suicidal human charging into a full army of machines backed by a Feather, he couldnt figure out what was coming next.

In my armguard, held tightly in my fist, was a small mite-made cube of tal. And inside was a fractal like no other.

I asked for a weapon that could kill a god. The mites gave a weapon that could turn into one.

Within the small digital computer inside the cube, a four dinsional fractal was calculated and generated. The millisecond it was rendered, it began moving. Constantly shifting, following an invisible curve, a hidden set of chaotic logic.

And then, even in the digital world of numbers, the fractal began to glow as a soul tendril sank into it. Occult pulsed around , whipping the air, the cube glowing blue, light leaking through my fingers. Sparks of lighting crawled around my armor, striking out and licking the ground under as I raced forward, as if the universe itself was holding its breath, waiting.

I tapped into the fractal of Urs.

I could see it burning bright in the soul sight, almost a gravity point, drawing power into a vortex with my closed fist as the centerpoint. The concept it held. One that was familiar to .

The world fragnted in my mind. Dissolved into an infinite amount of parallel versions. Each with a Keith of its own, and each Keith had just triggered so variation of that fractal. The sa exact fractal, existing simultaneously within that small infinity of linked worlds.

I hadnt exactly known what the tiny computer could do. But the mites hadn't given so kind of nebulous weapon that could only theoretically kill a god if used right. They had to factor into that equation. If I could use the weapon, it wasn't a weapon that fit the description. The little bastards hadn't given any kind of instruction manual on it.

But I had a strong guess already based on the na.

>Single use, cross-dintional four-dinsional inscription.(Modification by user: URS.)

Single-use, the mites had listed. Within the first mont my awareness expanded into infinity, I understood why. The fractal connecting all of us was unstable, constantly moving. The mites had calculated a self-correcting formula that would keep the fractal a match with what the true pattern should look like. But soon enough, the formula would deviate, the mites unable to create a computer perfect enough to replicate a true one-to-one version of this fractal indefinitly. I had until the mathematics crunching through the cube made the first mistake.

Then Id be stuck with a useless cube rendering the wrong fractal.

I dont know how Urs factored in all this, and the forge wasnt in the business of answering questions. I either had a request for it to make, and the correct paynt, or it wanted nothing to do with .

Fussy thing. And the demands were ridiculous. Wrath and Father got an easy exchange. But ? No, the mont I want to start killing gods, it suddenly turns into a demon offering power in exchange for everything I own. Even Cathida thought it was a little much.

But it was that, or die.

And from the mont I tapped into the fractal, for however long it could last , I was immortal. Power coursed through the cube, causing it to rattle in my hand as dinsions wove and spun through the gate. Occult radiated off in a wave, strong enough even the machines ahead stumbled in their charge, the force manifesting as a physical pulse by sheer side effect.

The infinite variations of blinked. Got reacquainted with the feeling. Then we got to work.

A small part of the greater whole imdiately gave their life up. In their dinsion, that Keith leaped into the wall of machines, hacking and slashing away alone. Rifle opening fire until it clicked empty, discarded. Knightbreaker round brought out and fired, ripping apart multiple Screars that had the unfortunate fate to stay in the way.

They fought, armguard and blade working in tandem. Each one eventually was pulled off their feet, held down and stabbed through by dozens of claws racking across Journey. Others survived long enough to be caught by Avalis himself, the chain scything through his own forces, striking and wrapping around until it cut through Journeys shield and then that Keith vanished from the greater whole.

And in each one of those dood dead-end dinsions, the fractal of mirrors remained lit bright, deep inside the armor until the very last breath. One image was sent out - but not within that dinsion.

For every one hundred Keiths, we picked one dinsion as the true path forward. Like before, it felt as if I had trimd nails or peeled off dead skin. The whole survived, even while a hundred fold versions of didn't.

But the result couldn't be argued with. The mont I tapped into the fractal of Urs, a hundred wraiths stepped out of my armor, and leaped forward against the wall of Screars.

Each had a single dedicated Keith commanding it, for however long that Keith stayed alive before his dinsions Avalis cut his life short, or Screars ripped him apart. Making each mirror image fighting at my side right now functionally free of cognitive load.

Avalis didnt even try to fight back against odds like that. He went intangible, leaping back as tide of wraiths chased after, swinging swords, fire and armguards all at once. The rest of the screars before didnt have the sa options. The only choice his army had, was to grind against my own, and hope their might was stronger.

They were ripped apart instead.

I dove headfirst into the lee myself, charging forward, images of fighting everything around, clearing a path forward with perfect teamwork. Occult flooded the bridge, shining bright enough to be seen for miles, washing forward from the cube in my hand.

Among the infinite, ever changing future, a massive amount of Keiths instantly winked out of sight. I realized why a mont later, when the parts of that lived were the lucky ones that happened to evade a drake laser, leaving lted glass pooling down a perfectly cut hole. So, running in a straight line wasn't a good move.

Above, rifle shots ca out, as the Winterscars began opening fire, catching the exposed drakes.

Avalis snarled just ahead of , watching as his army was utterly overwheld against the wave of wraiths. This isnt happening. He hissed. This is an illusion. A viral attack against my perceptions. Youve compromised my head sohow.

Then stop running and fight . I shouted back, getting closer and closer. "I'm not real right?"

More of died away, caught by the drakes. A smaller infinity survived and beca the new true route forward. I dodged and evaded every shot the drakes fired out, tilines pruned away as new roots beca the true path again and again. Long enough for the Winterscar knights to spot and kill the last drake from where it hid.

Just in ti, Journeys HUD showed their combat feeds. Screars burst through the doorways leading to their rooftop nest. The two knights promptly let go of rifles, and drew black Winterscar blades, stalking forward to handle the incoming force.

I didnt have much ti. On two fronts. Any mont, the quantum cube could hit an error and lose the correct pattern, forever split off. The sheer amount of power flooding through it had to be lting parts of it, section by section. Concepts of heat and destruction were starting to appear in my sight.

But this cube wasnt made by fickle mites. This was sothing they made while serious. It was every bit of their combined techniques, as perfected as they could have made it. Redundancies clicked through, again and again as more of the cube weathered the strain and remained intact.

The second front was the machine army. They were adapting. The infinite versions of stuck in a dead-end dinsion fought them off, but we were losing faster and faster across the dinsions.

The Screars realized sumbling against each other wasnt working, and began to tighten up formation. A few managed to dodge my strikes, and followup attacks would knock off my footing. From there, it was over for that Keith. Others charged at with improvised weapons, ripped from the ground. It worked for a few. With an entire army of machines surrounding , all it took was one mistake and that Keith would die.

I made it work. There was an infinite amount of , all working together, all unified as one mind. I was adapting as well, each second I died a few thousand tis and rembered every death. That kind of parallel training was turning into a battlefield veteran, new tricks learned by blind luck, anything that let survive just a little bit longer. It was a bloodbath for a massive part of the greater .

But in the few true tilines where I poured everything into in those the machines were being utterly eradicated.

The army of ghosts ebbed and flowed, dozens of images winking out each second as their controlling Keith was dogpiled and killed in his own dinsion. More images surged from my chest as new branches of erged from the current one.

It never ended. I could not be stopped.

I lunged out at him, white blade seeking his throat with a traditional opener.

There was genuine fear in his eyes as he fought against a knight radiating occult, a few dozen images appearing from him each second. He still rose up, convinced this had to be so kind of illusion, and struck out with his chain, the mace going directly for my heart.

By all accounts, none of us could have possibly blocked a quick strike like that. But so of us had, by sheer chance. And from that root, we continued.

The battle between us pitted omnipresence against sheer unyielding physical power. Occult sparks from our blades and chains striking one another flashed out in the air, looking more like streaks of bright light, as they were sucked forward for the few milliseconds of existence. Sucked directly to the cube in my hand, curving through ti and space.

He killed a few thousand tis. But in the true tiline, I always managed a lucky dodge or struck back at just the worst angle for him to hold off. There was an infinity of , all working together to make slightly different moves. One Keith would inevitably do the best and beco the next main root.

I fought the machine Feather, blade to blade.

His gaze changed from one of doubt and fury to outright fear. The fight was breaking through every prediction he could make, the occult around strong enough even his own fractals felt the strain of its gravity. He hadn't made a single mistake. In all the infinite tilines, no Keith had been able to land a hit on him.

It was only a matter of ti until he finally flinched. And he knew it.

Next Chapter - Return