Chapter 293. The Hunt (Patreon)

Red and I travel through the dry grasslands until we reach the first signs of civilization. We slow our approach, Red scouting ahead with his Regret affinity and relaying the memories to me with Remorse.

When we ripped through the air, the wind of our passage offset the heat. While moving at the equivalent of a mortal jog, the dry heat sucks the moisture from my body. I can reduce the physiological toll with decemancy, but the environment isn’t conducive to spending time outdoors.

The city we find is a self-contained complex; urban sprawl is absent. Eight massive walls box the city into a perfect octagon. It’s generically modern, with tall glass spires and a matrix of bridges stretching between them like yarn stretched between a child’s fingers for a cat's cradle. I sense the vitality of the inhabitants within. There are souls, but they aren’t realistic, just floating, translucent balls that fill the sky.

Streams of small vehicles enter the city on black roads, sliding frictionlessly behind each other on skates that pivot in a desired direction. There isn’t an obvious civilian entrance aside from lifts at each of the city’s eight vertices. The one closest to us only has a few people using it; they appear to be runners and hikers leaving the city for exercise.

The city’s walls are covered in End arrays, Maria comments.

What about the lifts?

Nothing, she replies. They’re powered using other means.

Does the city have obvious defenses? I ask.

The walls are seeded with artillery launchers and focusing lenses to amplify fire elementalism and Light affinity attacks. I can see the End arrows of what should be soldiers and technicians manning the walls.

What is your assessment city?

She considers for a moment. For how big this city is, the defenses are minimal. However, from the way fate flows between the soldiers, I can tell that half of those in the wall aren’t from here and report to a different chain of command. They may have been brought in because of the ascension nearby.

Red picks the information from my mind as we tread the dusty trail leading to the lift. We stick out in our clothes, but the civilians ignore us as we take the platform up to the top. On either side of the lift’s exit, a thick wall-cum-street stretches further than we can see. Open windows carved into the wall’s white, plaster-like surface reveal the plains and the city depending on which side of the street you stand on. Restaurants and shops dominate our surroundings, unsurprisingly taking advantage of the superlative view.

“We need to figure out who the half-step ascendant is,” Red says, frowning. “You can’t read anything, right?”

“It’s all gibberish to me.”

Red sighs and leans against the wall in an alleyway between two restaurants, peering over the edge at the city below. “The only way to get information is by interrogating people verbally, listening to them read the news out loud, or by scooping information straight from their heads.” He chuckles. “How fortunate that I can read minds.”

He frowns for a moment, then clears his throat and closes his eyes. “It’s been so long since I’ve done a mass read like this,” he remarks. “It’s pointless among ascendants with their defenses, and there’s hardly ever a reason to do it around Eternity’s mortals.”

“Is it something I could learn?” I ask. I can’t access my Remorse affinity in this place, otherwise I would try to emulate him. In some ways, it feels alien not to have my new affinities, but part of me feels like I’ve only just woken up from a strange, torturous dream where I became an ancient. Like I’ve returned to my actual self, a pure Death practitioner.

“Not unless you have a higher affinity. You’ll get there eventually and can practice on mortal cities.”

Taking his word for it, I focus on the vitality of the city’s denizens. The simulation we’re in has excellent fidelity, but the people within buildings and restaurants aren’t actually holding conversations or working jobs. Those we’ve interacted with directly–such as the people who took the lift with us–acted human-like, but after our departure, they returned to being placeholders.

I could create constructs and send them out over the city to gather information, but waiting for Red to finish his probing seems like the better call. With Regret scenarios, he’s probably ingesting massive amounts of information every second.

After fifteen seconds, Red exhales sharply and lets his head hang, his arms taut as they push against the wall. “I know who our mark is.”

“Great,” I reply. “Please share.”

“Kyla Bresnir is an infamous Dark practitioner on this world. She’s the leader of an illicit organization that conducts experiments on humans, beasts, and Beginning tech, creating powerful chimeras with practitioner capabilities. After it was discovered that she became a half-step ascendant, the world has been split on how to deal with the news, some set on assassinating her beforehand, and others content to do nothing.”

“Why bother with assassinating her?”

“Nobody knew where she had commenced her ascension.”

“Ah.”

“But they know now that I’ve already arrived, and elites are scrambling, unsure if Kyla is already dead and if I’m still on this world.”

They probably think she’s dead, Maria mentally remarks. Otherwise, they would be evacuating this city now given its proximity to Red’s supposed descent, unless they’re grossly incompetent. If this were my city, I’d have massive bunkers prepared underground. Based on some of the End arrays I see when looking down, the city has multiple emergency lifts for such a situation.

“What do you suggest I do?” Red asks, addressing both me and Maria. “Also, you should have picked Beginning, Ancient Black.”

“This is your trial, not mine. I’m just an observer.” I understand his perspective, but I’m not convinced Beginning is the right call. Maybe a Beginning practitioner as powerful as Holiday would be able to use the affinity to find Bresnir quickly, but in a huge city with too much information to parse, that affinity is less useful than my ability to see vitality.

Red, Maria thinks, other ascendants taking this trial with purely offensive affinities are likely taking a more aggressive path. For instance, revealing themselves and demanding that Bresnir be delivered to them under threat of consequences. There’s nothing to stop us from going that route, especially when we have a master Death practitioner, even if he can’t use ascendant energy.

“That might be the way we’re supposed to do it,” he replies, “but if we go that route, we’ll probably be attacked, either by practitioners defending their city or by Bresnir’s organization. I’m not exactly sure how this world handles ascensions since it’s so different from my home world.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I ask.

“If they get lucky and I die, then we’ll have to restart the round,” he replies bitterly. “I’d prefer to avoid that, if only because it’s tedious.”

“Could they actually kill you?” I wonder. “Me, perhaps; I only have my Death affinity and no ascendant energy to bolster my defenses. I also don’t have any items.” Aside from Maria and the dagger, the exception to the rules.

“They could absolutely kill me,” Red replies. “There’s a reason people like me rarely join the Hall of Ascension. Holiday is one of the only ones without a combat-centered affinity.”

I hum. “This challenge is hard, and it’s only round one.”

Red groans. “Of course it’s hard. It’s the brain-child of a Beginning practitioner.”

We’re probably supposed to think outside the box, Maria says. Remember what Holiday said before–he’s frustrated that the Hall of Ascension is dominated by ascendants with powerful combat-oriented affinities. The violent way seems like the wrong way.

I rub my jaw. I was thinking something similar, but didn’t want to point it out. We’re not supposed to do well. Failure isn’t an option since we’ll be forced to keep trying until we complete the challenge, but that implies that the metrics for success are likely speed and methodology. If we complete the challenge slowly and violently, without much thought for strategy, I bet we’ll get a low score and Red will be eliminated. Then we’ll be done with the competition, and I’ll have him back at my side to thwart the information-gathering efforts of other Regret practitioners.

I’m also reluctant to say as much using Remorse. Our abilities are part of the simulation; it’s likely that anything Red picks up with Remorse is also captured by the system.

Unfortunately, even though Red must know we’re here to lose, his competitive nature is rearing its head.

“Do you think you have a chance to win this round?” I ask him.

“Absolutely not,” he replies.

“I disagree. Red ascendant energy trumps blue, but in this place, all ascendants are overpowered. This challenge is well-suited for someone with your skillset.” I look at him pointedly, trying to get him to realize that he might want to do intentionally worse.

“You flatter me,” he replies dismissively, his mind occupied with strategizing. Euryphel gets the same look when he’s running Regret loops to solve a challenging problem.

He doesn’t get it.

You might be overestimating him, Maria says over our bond. Just let it go… for now.

Freaking try-hard ascendants.

—

I follow Red down a corridor in the wall facing the impact site where Red and I initially spawned. Red manipulates the memories of every soldier or engineer we pass, erasing all traces of our passage. Practitioners operating at a distance, like an End practitioner viewing fate arrows, would still notice our passage, but only if they were paying attention.

Using Regret and Remorse, Red is the ultimate infiltrator, leading us to the center of command under the walls in one of the bunkers Maria guessed would be present.

He only asks for my help once, when we open the doors to the officer’s war room, where several men and women in uniform argue over a holo projection.

All but two people in the room collapse at my behest. They’re powerful practitioners, but didn’t see us coming. Red manipulated their minds as we approached. Ultimately, their forced sleep was for theatrics.

I freeze the bodies of those still awake in place as Red approaches. He still has a bookish, inquisitive demeanor about him as he approaches the incapacitated officers. It’s probably more intimidating than if he looked serious or angry, if the officers’ elevating heart rates are any sign.

“Hello, I am Ascendant Red,” he says out loud. “I seek Kyla Bresnir. You do not know where she is, but you know someone who does. Someone that shares fate with her.”

Their eyes widen in terror. I selectively loosen their muscles and bones so they can speak.

“We do not, A-ascendant,” one croaks. He believes his words.

“According to the locals, there is a prisoner in the city who is her son,” Red states.

The other officer, a woman with dark hair in a pixie cut, coughs, then utters, “There is a prisoner in the city who claims to be one of her children, though there is no proof. He’s in a top security prison, the UnderMax. He’s part of an ongoing trial, though I do not know the details. I’m not a cop. I only know because it’s common knowledge at this point.”

“Bring the prisoner to me using any means necessary, and I will spare this city,” Red says casually. “You have twenty minutes. I will wait here for his arrival. If I sense anything suggestive of an attack against me, I will respond disproportionately. I am here for only one thing–the trial of Kyla Bresnir. I am not the enemy; do not make me one.”

—

To my surprise, nobody attacks us, and the prisoner is delivered within twenty minutes. He’s a lanky, tattooed, shivering man in his twenties. No affinity, which explains why his mother hasn’t bothered to help him break out of confinement.

“You gonna kill me?” he squeaks.

Red smiles. “No, Mika. We’re going to kill your mother.”

Rather than send officers to escort us, everywhere in the surrounding section of the bunker and wall, soldiers have cleared out. Red only said that he would spare the city, not that he wouldn’t kill anyone. Such caution is smart–ascendants shouldn’t be trusted.

“Incapacitate him,” Red instructs me. “We’re leaving this city. Now, to find the fate thread of his mother.”

I already have, Maria says. The arrow between them is wrapped in tens of oaths. Some of them seem quite pernicious, but there are a few that I recognize because they’re bindings I put on my own son when he was young. For instance, there’s an oath that will alert the other party if Mika is severely injured.

“That must be it then,” Red remarks. “He doesn’t have anyone in his life that would care enough to hire an End practitioner to make multiple oaths. His associates aren’t practitioners.” He shakes his head. “He’s had a hard life, not that his memories are real.”

—

No one interferes as we depart the city on one of the corner lifts. We move rapidly across the plain, following Maria’s directions.

Eventually we arrive at an unmarked piece of earth. I don’t sense anything, and neither does Red, but Maria is adamant that this is the place.

After instructing us to back away, Red summons ascendant energy to his feet, then jumps. The earth explodes, revealing a crater five feet deep, with Red at the bottom.

“I can sense a mind now,” he says. “I must have disrupted an array that hid her presence.”

“So it’s her?” I ask, still unable to sense a vital signature under all the remaining feet of dirt and rock.

Red’s laughter rings out just as Holiday’s voice sounds in my ear. “Round complete. Ascendant Red killed the half-step ascendant Kyla Brisner by compelling her to disintegrate her own head with her Dark affinity. Returning to the lobby now.”

My vision goes dark and the world fades away. Red’s laughter distorts, stretching out perversely, like the malevolent laughter of a monster from a televised action flick back home.

It cuts off just as I snap back into my real body in the classroom.