The Machine God

Chapter 294

Cursed Reunion

Alexander flew slowly through the forest, Droney close behind him.

The mountain rose ahead of him, the fortress somewhere on the other side. He could see a few of the warships in the air above the peak, slowly rotating in formation.

Droney beeped. Two minutes.

Before he could respond, something brushed against his mind.

A whisper. Soft, and intimate. Like someone was standing just behind him, speaking directly into his ear.

“Alexander Rooke. The Machine God. Leader of the guild called Grimnir.” Artensah paused. Even via magical telepathy, the Exalted seemed smug. “The Empire of Stars welcomes you back.”

Alexander’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t given Artensah his real name. Hadn’t shared his guild or his alias with anyone in the Empire. He could think of only a few methods through which the Whispering Wart had learned his real identity.

The System. Mind reading. And spies.

Because the only people in this reality who knew those things were the clans. And it made sense. They’d subjugated the nomadic populations and the cities all across Europe and Asia, as far as he could tell.

But there was nothing he could do about it now. The clans had been given what aid he could offer, and they’d survived for longer than he’d been alive.

Alexander let his presence slip. His Domain erupted around him, invisible, yet bringing everything within its range into his awareness. Then his powered senses ranged further, revealing metal deposits throughout the mountain, before finally reaching the alloyed walls of the fortress on the other side.

Electrokinesis revealed hundreds of wizards, both within the fortress and stationed around it.

He grinned. It was time to begin Operation: Knock Knock.

“Hey, Arty, my old pal. It’s been a minute since we caught up. Sorry I missed our last appointment. You know, with the chains and imprisonment and an eternity of creative punishment at the hands of your Mistress Empress.” He paused. “Or is it Empress Mistress? I’m terrible with titles.”

The whisper came back immediately. “You would do well to—”

“Hold that thought, Arty. I’ve got company.”

Within a second of responding to He Who Whispers, the warships in the sky had begun deviating from their holding pattern. Some slowed, others accelerated. All of them altered their trajectories as they came about, angling their noses in his direction.

But it was the appearance of portals at the end of his taunting speech that drew his attention. Five of them. They were spinning up all around him, and they looked far too similar to Augustus’s own portals to be a coincidence.

Alexander targeted the portal directly ahead. Metallokinesis pulsed through his armor and boots, driving him forward faster as the inky black surface snapped into existence.

The first wizard stepped through.

Alexander was already there. He spun mid-flight, metal boots aimed at the wizard’s chest.

A shimmering forcefield caught him an inch from contact. The impact jolted through his legs and into his knees, which he bent to absorb the force.

The wizard was a woman, but unlike most of those he’d encountered in the past month, she didn’t wear the usual blue robes. Instead, hers were the same as Keda’s had been. Black with gold trim and stars. A holster filled with wands sat on both sides of her hips, along with a variety of small pouches and vials around her belt.

Pinned to her chest was yet another golden star, though this one was made of metal, and bore the etchings of a spellbook with a staff running down the middle.

All the metal about her person was protected by a sliver of the woman’s Will.

He blinked. “Oh. You guys are learning.”

She held one arm up, a secondary barrier of translucent magic wrapped around her forearm like a buckler. In her other hand, a wand rested across the barrier arm. She fired a bolt of fire directly into his face.

Metallokinesis pulsed. Alexander twisted off the woman’s shield, the fire bolt searing past his cheek close enough to feel the heat. He launched himself backward, spinning through the air, and landed on a thick branch twenty meters away.

Droney settled into position above his shoulder and waited.

The other four portals finished forming. Wizards poured through them in pairs, already shielded, wielding wands and staves and spellbooks. Ten of them in total, fanning out between the trees, their barriers overlapping to form connected walls of magic.

Alexander narrowed his eyes. These wizards were different. It was immediately obvious they had real combat experience. They moved with coordination, and each one carried their own combination of equipment. Different numbers of wands in their holsters. Some with staves and spellbooks, others only wands and shields.

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Only two things were the same among them. The colors of their robes and the symbols pinned to their breasts.

They held their positions, staring up at him with calm focus. Wands and staves trained on his position, but without immediately attacking.

Artensah appeared before him, the illusory image hovering in the air. He looked smug, too.

“Did you believe you had faced the true elite of the Empire during your stay in our world, Alexander Rooke?”

Alexander shrugged. “Honestly? Not really. It just seemed weird, you know? Keda wasn’t half bad, but the blue robes? Weak.”

Artensah tilted his head to the side, studying him. “You have mostly fought the lowborn and our administrators. But in your time here, you have revealed to us all of your secrets.” He sighed. “You superhumans are so strange. Each one we have faced is so different from the last. Nothing ties your powers together coherently.”

Alexander’s grin widened. “Oh, yeah. We’re all such special snowflakes, believe me. Just wait until you meet my friends.” He started counting on his fingers. “One of them is an angry metal blender. Another is a magic plagiarist, though I didn’t know that before coming here. I’ll speak to him about it when I get back. Then there’s the know-it-all with a perfect memory—”

Droney pulsed a message across the bond. One minute.

The warships were still heading in his direction, but they were spreading out, clearly intending to form a net rather than try to run him down directly.

Alexander continued. “My own girlfriend is ice cold and capable of folding me like a pretzel if she gets mad.” He paused. “Do you know what pretzels are?” He shook his head. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m also friends with this guy who has an actual dragon. Well, it’s more like half a dozen of them.”

“Is there a point to your meaningless babble, Alexander Rooke?”

Alexander made a face. “Ah! My apologies. I didn’t mean to waste your time.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s get serious, Artensah Driscol of the Fifth Circle. He Who Whispers.”

He leaned forward and stared directly into the illusion’s eyes.

“Knock, knock,” Alexander said.

Artensah frowned. “What?”

Alexander leaned back in surprise. “Seriously? You’re meant to say, ‘who’s there?’”

The illusion of the Exalted stared at him, unblinking.

Droney sent a final confirmation.

A sound like a gunshot echoed across the mountain range.

Artensah’s head turned to the side, as though he was looking at something else.

Alexander sighed. “You ruined the punchline. I was going to say ‘my friends’ right as the countdown hit zero.”

He flexed his knees and launched off the branch, tearing through Artensah’s illusion. Metallokinesis pulsed and he rocketed toward one of the black-robed wizards. At the same time, his second mental thread reached into the ring and released a dozen metal plates. The same plates he’d been carrying since he left Harborhill, taken from the Marquess’s estate.

They spun around him rapidly, almost chaotic, but carefully angled to intercept the elemental blasts of energy from the wands.

Alexander juked to the side as the wizard in front of him tilted his staff forward, and fired a red beam of energy, slicing through the space he’d just vacated. Electrokinesis exploded down his cybernetic arm, and he jabbed forward, fingers straight.

They connected with the wizard’s shield, and for a fraction of a second the barrier held. Then it cracked under the combined pressure of his forward momentum and the lightning dancing across the metal of his arm.

Metal fingers speared into the wizard’s chest.

The dying man gasped, but Alexander didn’t slow. He spun, carrying the body around with him, and hurled it at the nearest wizard.

A gap in his sphere of rotating metal opened, and the corpse sailed through. But just before it would have collided with its target, the body jerked to the side as though shoved by an invisible pair of hands.

Alexander’s eyes narrowed. Some sort of telekinesis. His right hand flicked forward, fingers splayed, while his cybernetic hand, still covered in blood, reached to the side.

Multiple sparks snapped into existence around the wizard, while at the same time metal plates shifted to reinforce his defenses where most of the other wizards were firing.

Bolts of lightning crashed against the wizard’s shield. The man threw out both hands and reinforced the failing barrier.

Something crashed into the side of Alexander’s head, hard enough to send him hurtling through the air.

Metallokinesis pulsed, and he accelerated in the same direction. Technopathy pulled the replay directly from Droney’s recorded feed, while he twisted to avoid a thick tree trunk, using the cover to buy himself a moment.

Droney itself raced up into the canopy overhead, using it to disappear from sight.

Streaks of light shot after him as he circled through the trees. The wizards had finally taken flight.

And they were faster than even Lirum had been.

Alexander frowned. The feed showed nothing. Just his head recoiling from an invisible impact. He zoomed it in and squinted, though he wasn’t really using his eyes to see it. There was maybe the faintest distortion in the air where his cheek had buckled under the assault of the invisible attack.

Alexander grinned again. Artensah had delivered on his promise. These wizards were nothing like those he’d fought so far.

A System call pinged against his awareness, startling him for a moment. It had been a while.

He answered without checking who it was. “Hello, Wizard Heisting Service, how may I direct your call?”

The voice on the other end wasn’t happy, and it was clear from the sounds of combat that they were using it verbally, not mentally.

“Where are you? I’m going to kick your—”

Alexander laughed, the sound tearing from his throat uncontrollably, while he rolled to evade a black beam that lanced through the trees around him. Wood rotted where the energy touched. He’d heard the invocation from the wizard just in time. Recognized it as the same attack Keda had used.

Metallokinesis pulsed again, and he raced upward, leaving the wizards behind. As he tore through the canopy, he grabbed Droney. When he hit the open air, he put on a burst of speed, angling for the mountain and the fortress beyond.

“Annie! You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice.” A surge of emotion almost choked off his words. He pushed through it. “I have so many stories to tell you. I met a bunch of nomad wizards, cosplayed as a wizard Divine, borrowed so much stuff, and—”

A sentence composed entirely of curse words and shouted at what sounded like the top of Annie’s lungs cut him off.

Alexander laughed louder, hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. Or maybe it was the wind tearing at his face.

Behind him, wizards burst from the trees one after another, giving chase. Ahead, most of the warships had turned back, returning to the fortress.

Two of them continued toward him.

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