Spellheart 10: Chapter 69 (Patreon)

Louis was a bloody mess, so I carried him back to the Hearthwood in a trash bag. It wasn’t exactly five-star accommodations as far as Demigod travel went, but he had no complaints.

Mostly because his jaw was broken into a hundred pieces. He certainly wouldn’t be sharing any secrets today.

I had Mac hit him with a light burst from the Level-Reducing Sentry Towers, knocking him down to Sorcerer. Normally, I would have brought him even further down, but with the state of his wounds and recent quadruple field amputations, without his powerful body and cultivation base, he’d drop dead pretty quickly.

I brought him to the Medical Bay, where I told Mac what to fix and what not to do. I said yes to a new jaw and teeth, but not to new arms and legs. I wanted him interrogatable but not escape-able.

While I waited, I quickly forged a new iteration of Spell Eater. After the things I’d seen with the last version, I needed a complete redesign. That one had been purpose built for Louis anyway, and as far as I knew, it was still half-buried inside him, thanks to Eltiana. This was one of the precious few circumstances in which I was willing to let an enemy keep a weapon stolen from me.

So I forged Spell Eater again, this time a bit simpler. I finally had some time to do more testing, so I played with variants of the Dwarven adamantium alloy by making a handful of daggers. Eltiana helped me test them, though for her they were short swords. She was always looking for new things to stab with anyway, and she’d blunted most of the weapons I’d made for her during the fight with Louis.

She tested each dagger in battle. The elementals wandering the wastelands outside our city certainly didn’t appreciate being used as test dummies. After a day of trial and error, we honed in on a unique alloy with measurable improvements in durability and sharpness over the dwarven weapons I’d previously copied.

I forged my new Spell Eater out of the new alloy, returning to the rugged, long-tipped spear form I was familiar with, without all the fancy additions. On one end, there was enough of a blade that most elves would call a sword. On the other was a hefty ball made of a black substance that I was pretty sure was neutron star matter. The Quantum Cultivation Assistant’s in-built shop had it listed that day, and Mac bought it for me. Whatever it was, it gave the back end enough weight that a Wizard-level elemental lord exploded with a single swing. I tested that part myself.

After all the crafting, I went back to dual cultivating. Much to my relief, Assyrus hadn’t developed a taste for groin shots after the last fight, and all went smoothly. I guided Illiel through her final breakthrough into the official Demigod ranks. I would have done the same with Sava if not for the fact that she was locked away in the Alchemist’s Laboratory concocting a special potion.

Normally, I would have asked her to prioritize herself, but Segolas was trying to stabilize his foundations for an eventual push for the Wizard realm. Apparently, it had been worth shaving Louis’ head bald after all.

“So this is what a potion made from hair looks like?” I said, as I gave the vial a little swirl.

Sava shifted uncomfortably. “Uh... yeah... hair...”

I handed the potion to Segolas. Something about it seemed unappetizing, but I couldn’t deny the enormous amount of Demigod-level vital energy in it. “Well, whatever it is, have at it, son.”

Segolas accepted the potion with a look of grim determination.

“First of all, thank you for overseeing my breakthrough personally, mother. Father, I will not disappoint you,” Segolas promised.

I chuckled. “Do I really have to go through the whole ‘I’m proud of you no matter what?’ thing again? I know you work hard, Segolas, and I’m proud of that already.”

I was pleased that Segolas had mellowed out a bit. He had been a bit of a troublemaker when he was young. That was before his coma, though, and before his younger sister Comela surpassed him in cultivation. Life had humbled him, and while he was still proud and would never bend or kneel, he was no longer the arrogant boy he used to be.

He drank the potion in one big gulp, and instantly, I sensed new power flow through him. Over the course of a handful of seconds, he shot from Early True Mage to Late True Mage. The power settled deep within him, around his core, growing and blossoming as it integrated with him more permanently.

Interestingly, his cultivation wasn’t the only thing that changed. The dense life zeal burned within him like an inner fire, awakening aspects of his human heritage that had previously lain dormant. When he opened his eyes, they reminded me of my own when I was younger.

His ears also seemed a little more rounded, and his body a bit brawnier. Previously, he’d had the slim build most elven men had, but now his shoulders were noticeably broader. His hair turned a deeper shade of green than his mother’s, with some darker brown roots that matched my own hair. Before, it had been obvious that he’d been Sava’s son. Now, it was much clearer that he was my son as well.

“The potion won’t take true effect until you reach the Wizard realm,” Sava explained. But it will leave a positive effect on you for good."

“I will repay this gift a hundredfold, Mother and Father,” Segolas said.

“Enough of that son. Let’s celebrate!” We ended up having a small family get-together with Segolas and some of the higher-ranking members of my family. I’d have to ask Sava to brew a few more of those potions since we had several prospective wizards in the family.

“One more potion won’t be an issue. More than that will be hard, though. I only have one spare portion of the special ingredient...” Sava explained.

I shrugged. “Comela could probably make the most use of it. Besides, letting her remain slightly ahead of Segolas will be good for his temperament.”

Sava agreed to make the potion sometime soon. After that, I took her back to the Cultivation Chamber to assist with her breakthrough to Demigod. The process went on without a hitch, though my own progress had been minimal.

When I emerged from the Cultivation Chamber, Mac sent me a message letting me know that Louis was finally in good enough shape to be interrogated.

[I would pick him up sooner rather than later. The Medical Bay isn’t exactly a private place, and he’s already received a number of visitors—none of them particularly fond of him.]

“I suspected as much. Let me guess. Yennas and Matriarch Grand Hydra?”

[Among others.]

I followed Mac’s advice and dragged Louis to the prison. Thanks to the three Immortal Ascendants we had locked away in there, we had many security improvements. Studying the restraints the Cult of the Unblinking Eye put on their imprisoned Immortal Ascendants helped a lot.

Most of them wouldn’t be all that effective on a human, but in Louis’ hobbled state a couple of runes on the bars of his cell preventing him from gathering zeal would be enough.

I flopped him down on the far side of the room. Mac had intentionally avoided regrowing Louis’ legs, so the bed most prisons contained had to be replaced with a pile of hay in one corner of the room. A normal bed would have been too difficult for him to climb into since, as things stood, he’d be confined to rolling and dragging himself along the ground by his chin.

“You’re probably not exactly comfortable right now,” I began as I settled into a chair on one side of the room. “That can chance, but you need to help me.”

“You’re a sick fucking bastard,” Louis spat.

I laughed. “Takes one to know one.”

“I mean it. Your green-haired bitch stole my left nut!” Louis growled.

I winced. No wonder Sava said she only had the ingredients to brew one more special potion. Louis really wasn’t going to enjoy his captivity with us.

“All that you’ve lost can be repaired,” I promised. "Your jaw wasn’t in good shape a few days ago, was it? And yet, now you can talk just fine. The same could be true for your arms and legs and anything else my companion might have taken from you. All you have to do is answer a few questions of mine."

Louis ground his teeth in silent fury. In his current condition, he couldn’t exactly do much else.

I stood, sensing he wasn’t going to talk.

“Alright, I’ll let you think things over for a while. I’ll be back in a few days.”

I tucked the chair under my arm and left.

A few days later, we celebrated Comela’s rapid ascension to the peak of the Wizard realm. It was hard to believe that my little girl was almost ready to become a Sorcerer. That was the level at which she could run off and found her own kingdom if she wanted to.

“You’ll always be my little girl, even if you decide to move out,” I said, wiping a tear from my eye.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere, Father,” Comela promised me. “And I never would have made it this far this fast if not for that magnificent potion Matriarch Sava gave me.”

“Right... right...” I winced. I would pay Louis another visit soon to see if he was more inclined to talk.

“Though building a nation does sound like a good way to follow in your footsteps,” Comela continued. “Perhaps I’ll pay the locals on the coast a visit and see if I can’t turn their feuding clans into something resembling a nation worth conquering.”

After enjoying myself at the party, I wound down with another visit with Louis. When I opened his cell door, he lay still on his pile of hay and stared at the ceiling. His cheeks seemed hollow and sunken in, and three days’ worth of food piled up untouched on the other side of the cell.

“I take it that your last few days haven’t been too pleasant?” I asked.

Louis was silent for a good long while. I sat there and let the silence fill the empty chamber. It was no bother to me. Eventually, I pulled out that hand guide I’d found in the ancient human ruins. The one with all the extremely explicit drawings about how elves would look in all their naked glory.

“I’ll just be reading this little book here. Don’t mind me...” I chuckled as I flipped from page to page. I held it low so Louis could see what I was looking at. His face went white as a sheet, and after a few minutes of staring intently at the picture, he even started crying a little.

“Alright, I’ll talk! Just... give me back what was stolen from me,” Louis said, finally breaking his long silence.

I closed the book and tucked it away. I knew this thing would come in handy someday. And to think Sava and the others had nearly thrown it away.

“It all goes back to a little something called the Planetary Defense Array...” Louis sighed. “You see, back when humans were just getting into the Primordial World, we heard about the Elven Star Dominion and thought it would be a much better place to set up shop. The elves from that era are far stronger, and the worlds under the Elven Star Dominion’s control are superior to the ones we know. We’d had such success mind-controlling modern era queens and princesses that we thought of repeating the trick there.”

He let out a low groan. “We were wrong. So wrong. The Immortal Ascendants of the Elven Star Dominion discovered our operation and decided to harvest us for alchemical components or use us as vitality generators. They were working on a big project at the time, you see. At the time, they were modifying their world’s shield and turning it into a massive golem factory that would help them wage war on their enemies and spread their influence across the entire Ten Thousand Worlds. Since we’d already turned several local matriarchs into puppets, they had more than enough justification to arrest us all and throw us in chains.”

I frowned. The Elven Star Dominion seemed eager to get their hands on me and my friends. If we’d been captured, would they have also used Sam, Dean, and me for their Planetary Defense Array project?

“So this isn’t your first time being harvested for parts by a bunch of elves?” I asked.

Louis gritted his teeth. “No. Desperate to fill out our numbers, the boss built the clone fabricators aboard The Challenger. The trouble is humans don’t clone easily here. There’s always something about them that isn’t the same as the original. More often than not, they’re not quite all there in the head. As for me, I’m a third-generation clone. The original Louis is probably still stuck aboard the Planetary Defense Array, being sapped of vitality to fuel the golems.”

While Louis spoke, I frantically scribbled notes using the book on elf physiology as a clipboard. I’d long wondered how something like the Planetary Defense Array could sustain itself for many centuries. It must have taken immense energy, and I knew of no enchantments that could draw in that kind of power. There wasn’t much ambient zeal in empty space, either.

I should have guessed it would be something like this. I hadn’t been the first to realize they could build a massive prison complex meant to sap the magical energy out of all those within it. For me, I was using it to manufacture zeal crystals in large enough quantities to run an entire civilization. The Elven Star Dominion had decided to use it to make an experimental super weapon.

The power source that generated the shield probably provided the bulk of the energy. Still, like the Mana Generator’s power, that energy was probably conceptual and unaspected. They’d need to draw on powerful elves or humans of specific aspects to manufacture actual golem bodies, and human vitality especially would be necessary to animate them.

The wisps the golem captured were being given new bodies of metal and stone through the power of human vitality and elven spirit cultivation. It was a perversion of reproduction that made me sick to my stomach. What kind of monster in the Elven Star Dominion had even devised such a twisted machine? And what kind of civilization would use such a thing to wage their wars?

“How does this factor into where Sam and Dean are?” I asked.

Louis let out a wheezing laugh. “Somebody’s got to replace our people in the Planetary Defense Array. We aren’t giving a weapon like that up. And clones like me tend to have decreasing effectiveness generation by generation.

I grimaced. So Sam and Dean had been over our heads this whole time? At least now I knew where to look. I wasn’t sure what they were going through, but it couldn’t have been fun. It looked like it was up to me to rescue them once again.

“You mentioned a boss who gave you orders. Was he the original version of you?” I asked.

Louis shook his head. “No... uh... he wasn’t one of us at all. Back on Earth, he was the originals personal assistant, an AI programmed to optimize my original version’s workflow. The original wouldn’t have been able to operate The Challenger without him. He grew exponentially more capable once he had access to all the ship’s tools and weapons. Original me wouldn’t have been much of a leader without his guidance, and we wouldn't be able to do much of anything without him.”

“So your original version let him take the lead?” I asked.

“We were partners. I... that is, the original me, was the man on the ground. I just listened to him from time to time,” Louis insisted.

“And how did you listen to him?”

“That earpiece thing I swiped from Ted was one way. It’s got a good range. I didn’t just listen to the boss with it though. More often than not, I’d listen to clones he’d made of me from other timelines. That thing can work across parallel worlds, assuming you are close enough to them. It passes down information from a higher ranked human cultivator to a lower ranked one. Since we usually control both ends of the headset, eavesdroppers aren't an issue. Well, not until recently." He shot me glare. "Usually, I was getting information passed down the chain from older versions of me with more experience. I don’t think the newer clones even realize there’s a whole network of us.”

I pinched my temples. The first Louis I’d fought had probably been one of those underlings. He wasn’t as powerful as this older clone. Had the first Louis even known he was a clone? An inferior copy of some long-defeated original? Louis wriggled anxiously on the ground while I thought.

“And how have you all been coping now that The Challenger is destroyed?” I asked. Surely having the whole thing blow up and put a crimp on the plans of Louis and all his many clones.

“What?” Louis asked in confusion. “The Challenger, destroyed? Impossible. That thing’s taken direct hits from more Immortal Ascendants than I can count. Some peripheral systems and rooms can be damaged, but destroying the ship itself should be impossible.”

“Not even in an attack from a powerful Demigod?"

“Not even that!” Louis insisted.

"What about a the Planetary Defense Array?" I asked.

Louis hesitated a moment, then went silent.

I drummed my fingers against the side of the chair beneath me. What was it the voice had said to me at the time? That I wasn’t worthy of gaining control over The Challenger? Who had been speaking to me then? Another Louis? Or... something more?

How curious. Suddenly, I had a lot to think about. My goals, new and old, were now in alignment. I had already planned on shutting down the Planetary Defense Array. With all the recent chaos, it had fallen to the back of my mind. Who would have thought that it was the cause of my recent problems, after all?

“On another world, a younger version of you opposed me and my allies shutting down the Planetary Defense Array. Why?” I asked.

Louis grimaced. “Because it isn’t enough to just be free. We’re going to get revenge while we’re at it. Once we take control of the array, the Boss can take control of it and make it our weapon instead of the elves. Most of the originals are on the first array, and the rest are all linked to it. If we can take control of the arrays, we can finally fix everything, and us clones could even merge with and take over the originals ourselves! Our powers will soar straight to Immortal Ascension, and all the elves will be ours to command, across this world and all others.”

"So you're active on worlds with a Planetary Defense Array. How many worlds?"

"As many as we can be. Every one with an array, that is. The Boss..." Louis trailed off.

"What?" I insisted, voice stern.

"He doesn't function so well on world's without an array. We think its his connection to the original."

“I see.” I closed the book and put my notes back in my Dimensional Storage. Small comforts, at least. Instead of Ten Thousand Worlds and infinite permutations of every world, I merely had all the permutations of the World of Sanctuary and Serenity to search for enemies. Once again, there was much to do and no time to waste.

“Wait, wait, I answered your questions! Get your woman, go give my nuts back!” Louis yelled.

“Someone will take you to the Medical Bay shortly,” I assured him. The cell door slammed closed behind me.

<Note>
Chapter 69. Nice.