Inside the Arcane Legion's laboratory, a chaotic mountain of docunts lay
strewn across the main workbench.
The soulfire in Skele-Avarice's eye sockets pulsed with a rhythmic, agitated
thrum. He was currently squinting at the research notes Skele-Lust had left
behind—a collection of scribbles that looked more like arcane graffiti than
scientific data. In Lust's shorthand, a smiling face indicated a successful
experint, and a weeping face ant a failure. Avarice could parse those well
enough.
But he had been staring at a sketch of a face sticking its tongue out in a
mocking "bleh" for the last thirty minutes.
"Is the Mana injection exceeding the threshold? Or did she miscalculate the
space-ti folding coefficient?"
Avarice tapped a bony finger against his cranium, feeling his very soul ache.
General Lust's neural pathways were clearly wired differently from any sane
biological or undead entity. He decided to abandon that particular page of
madness and flip to the next entry.
Suddenly, the laboratory doors were flung open with a violent bang.
"Deputy Commander!"
A Skeleton Archmage ca charging in, brandishing a brass object with soulfire
flickering at a high frequency of excitent. "I've done it! I've engineered a
paradigm-shifting tool!"
Avarice didn't even lift his head from the notes. "What useless trinket is it
this ti?"
"It is most certainly not useless!" The Archmage leaned over the desk like a
proud parent, waving a brass magnifying glass in Avarice's face. "Observe! By
pointing this at an individual's stomach, we can discern exactly what they
consud for their previous al! Is it not magnificent?"
Avarice's movents ceased. He looked up, staring at the crude magnifying glass
in dead silence for three full seconds.
"And... its tactical application is?"
The Archmage blinked, clearly caught off guard by the question. "Err... a
definitive purpose has yet to be categorized. But! The technical complexity
required to bypass gastric shielding is imnse!"
"Complexity my foot!"
Avarice slamd his hand onto the table. The wood groaned, and the docunts
leaped into the air. "You are the Arcane Legion! The Empire's supre scientific
authority! Not the prop departnt for a roadside circus!"
The Archmage recoiled, tucking his invention behind his back.
Avarice stood, his finger pointing toward the hallway. "Who was it last week
that developed the alchemical agent that turned soulfire pink? A Punishnt
Legion Centurion had to patrol with a neon-pink head for seven days! He was the
laughingstock of the Iron Fortress!"
"And the week before that! Who made the modular bone-puppets that sing via
ventriloquism? And the enchantnt that makes boots emit a 'clucking' sound with
every step? Do you think this is a ga?!"
A rustling sound ca from the doorway. Several Skeleton Mages who had been
eavesdropping imdiately looked down. One pretended to be deeply engrossed in a
report, while another stared at the periodic table of elents on the wall as if
it contained a direct oracle from the Sovereign.
Avarice marched to the door, his soulfire flaring dangerously. "If you lot don't
start channeling your Mana into legitimate research, I will pack you all up and
ship you to the Jade Territory's 'Re-education Demonstration Base' to live
amongst the potato farrs!"
The skeletons scattered instantly, scurrying back to their stations. The
laboratory was suddenly filled with the professional hum of Mana-turbines.
As Avarice turned back to his desk, a Lich Centurion approached with urgent
strides, clutching a stack of parchnt covered in jagged wave-graphs.
"Deputy Commander, we have a breach. The teleportation arrays are failing."
Avarice snatched the papers, scanning them with clinical speed. "Clarify."
"Minutes ago, several units undergoing routine deploynt failed to reach their
target coordinates," the Centurion explained, pointing to the data. "They were
scattered randomly across the Empire."
"A logistics squad bound for Leaffall City manifested three hundred ters
underwater off the coast of Freeport. We just received a soul-transmission; they
are currently being gnawed on by a school of aggressive fish."
"Another patrol ant for the Jade Territory rotation appeared inside the
central fountain of the Iron Fortress Plaza. It caused a minor riot and they
managed to crush the commorative statue during arrival."
Avarice's soulfire accelerated. This was anomalous. Imperial arrays were stable
by design, unless... He flipped to the next page, studying the Mana fluctuation
curves.
"This signature..."
The curves were eerily similar to the disturbances Lust had recorded before her
departure. Back then, it was just minor interference. This was a structural
failure.
"Mobilize the Legion. Every available caster," Avarice commanded, dropping the
papers and heading for the inner sanctum.
The Centurion paused. "My Lord, the objective?"
"Identify the fluctuation point! We are stabilizing the barrier!"
Avarice's voice echoed through the stone halls. An alarm blared across the
Arcane Legion headquarters. The "slacking" mages were gone; they dropped their
toys and surged toward the Great Array Hall with practiced precision. The
Archmage who had invented the magnifying glass was now at a massive compass, his
fingers dancing across runes to calibrate paraters.
Liches began siphoning data streams. Archmages ignited the stabilization
circles. The air in the hall grew heavy with the scent of ozone and concentrated
Od.
Avarice stood in the center of the hall. "Locate the ripple!"
Thousands of casters joined their Od together, forming a vast, invisible net
that cast itself into the deep currents of space-ti. Very quickly, a
coordinate flared red on the display.
"Deputy Commander! We have a lock!" a Lich shouted.
Avarice stared at the flickering point. "Stabilize the wall! Everyone—pour your
Mana into that coordinate! Crush the rift!"
Inside the space-ti tunnel, Unit One—Alya—felt a sudden, crushing pressure.
The passage, which had been relatively stable, began to contract violently. The
void around her seed to be squeezed by an invisible titan, pressing in from
all sides.
What is happening? she thought, gritting her teeth and forcing her legs to move
faster through the grey mist.
The tunnel grew narrower. Her own Od began to leak from her body, striking the
walls of the passage with an audible hiss of neutralizing energy.
Damn it...
Alya could feel her physical form being ravaged by the friction. Her skin
cracked; blood seeped from a dozen minor lacerations. The spatial pouch at her
waist was the first to give way. The fabric groaned under the gravitational
shear before exploding.
Her spare clothes, her notebook, and her short sword were instantly claid by
the chaotic currents, vanishing into the nothingness.
Worse yet, the grey Teleportation Crystal was ripped from her hand.
Alya lunged for it, her fingertips brushing the cold edge of the stone. But the
crystal tumbled away, caught in a temporal eddy, shrinking into a tiny speck of
light before vanishing into the depths of the tunnel.
She didn't waste a second glance on the lost anchor. She looked forward,
focusing everything on the closing exit. A shard of space-ti sliced across her
cheek, leaving a thin trail of crimson.
She ignored the pain. The exit was a pinprick of light ahead. She had to be
faster.
Alya ignited the last of her Mana reserves, burning her very life-force for a
final burst of speed. Her body transford into a streak of violet light, a
cot racing against the collapsing walls.
A second before the tunnel sealed shut, she burst through.
BOOM!
She was ejected into the sky, plumting toward the earth. Her body tumbled
through the air before slamming into the forest floor, rolling through the grass
until she struck a massive boulder with a sickening crunch.
Bones snapped. Blood pooled. Her vision was a shattered mosaic of green leaves
and a piercingly blue sky. It was so vibrant, so full of life—nothing like the
Necrotic Realm.
Then, the light faded, and Alya surrendered to the dark.
☆☆☆
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