[MA] 358. The Collective (Patreon)

Previous Chapter — Table of Contents — Next Chapter

[A/N: Sorry I'm late. I thought I was done with moving. I was wrong. Still putting stuff in place to this day.

So, another chapter to the late list. Still planning on releasing late chapters in February.

Chapters this week: 1/2

Late chapters: 2

Next chapter: Saturday]

‎ ‎

"It took you two seconds to locate a security breach and investigate, General," said the B-rank in beautifully crafted green and golden armor.

Luttus Vailus was wearing a high elven shell, but they were actually a levisnic, or light parasite, a being of pure light that invaded others. The species was allowed in the Alliance because its members could only possess dead bodies until B-rank, and swapping bodies made them lose a rank. It was also easy to tell someone had been replaced, as their souls and Paths were their own, and they didn't steal memories. Even then, most races were cautious of them, if not outright aggressive.

Their most unpleasant trait wasn't their existence but their closest allies, the deathwalkers. No one liked deathwalkers; they would have gone extinct if they weren't so good at providing certain services. Or so Long Hei had been told by a complaining dragon a year ago.

The abyssal dragon had come to the A-tier vault as soon as he received the warning of it malfunctioning. It was supposed to send regular signals to the system's attached information center but had remained silent for one second. Long Hei had been away from the Node, and for security reasons, not even a Node Commander could instantly teleport to a mobile fortress if they were out of the Node itself, even if in a subordinate Subnode. The gains of such a policy justified the risks, but as with anything, it could be exploited.

The SpecOps Senior Officer before Long Hei would know how and when to do that.

"A barely acceptable response time, General," Luttus continued. "Within regulations, certainly. But the three-second regulation is too lax for such trying times."

The unannounced existence of a high-level SpecOps operative in Long Hei's Node angered even him, and he was a wanderer. His Title, Hopeless Wanderer, borrowed from the definition used among dragons, not the other way around. Unlike his peers, he didn't hold dominion over a territory and became highly jealous and protective of it. Still, some instincts were so essential to some races that even A-ranks who rejected them were still affected depending on the circumstances. Luttus's nonchalance at trespassing, plus daring to critique Long Hei, ruffed his scales all the wrong ways.

His Realization passively turned his surroundings into a dark place devoid of all hope. The B-rank pretended not to care. Long Hei still took satisfaction in feeling the levisnic panic under the façade of calm they displayed.

He could respect someone who was so terrified and still kept composure. That was life as a dragon in a pack. However, he disliked how Luttus presented their following words as if they were a concession instead of a tribute to appease the A-rank.

"Come, General," they said. "I'll let you see why the boy must die."

Long Hei's displeasure increased. The only "boy" he could think of that he would care about in Samir was Shen. He quickly checked the boy's position in the system, and he had last been seen in the vault before it lost contact with the authorization directory. He would still be there unless he could bypass a peak A-rank barrier—well, as A-rank as something could be without a Realization. Shen couldn't.

One thing his quick check didn't reveal, however, was what that vault was used for. The system had only known it had a bunch of imprisoned C and D-ranks, most of them fugitives. The safe wasn't labeled as anything other than "A-tier Hazard," but considering SpecOps's presence, it either belonged to them or someone they had been investigating.

Long Hei hated how dangerous it would certainly be for Shen, but he didn't act. Why would he? Shen's situation had been hopeless from the beginning. Plotting with Darla was already a long shot.

He had checked the rules of the Void Tide. SpecOps still couldn't claim Shen unless there was an emergency near the boy, and even then, he had to be indirectly led to them. Long Hei suspected there would be many such occurrences coincidentally happening around him now that a B-rank from SpecOps was micromanaging things.

The dragon felt more tired than anything.

He sighed and looked at the screen that appeared midair before Luttus. A place labeled A-tier Hazard was off-limits to most, if not all, of the system's functions to prevent contamination. Still, there were ways around it with the right authority. Long Hei had no clearance to get a visual feed from inside that vault. It was another reason not to kill the B-rank. He wanted to know what was happening.

The feed's screen had multiple semitransparent layers on top of each other, revealing different data the system collected. That allowed the viewer to know everything happening on every level, from energy to Law to the meta-battlefield.

"What are those things?" Long Hei asked at once. "I take it they were the Guardians supposedly inside?"

"Yes, General. Those are Void Agents. See the Void Miasma?" The dragon guessed Luttus meant the white mist that could only be seen with visual feed. No other system function could analyze it. "It'll invade their mind on contact, but instead of suicide thoughts, as the Void usually does, it'll offer them a way out. They only need to accept, and they'll keep their bodies until they willingly give up on it to survive. Controlling them is done through good old blackmail, not anything on their minds. If they give up on their bodies, they turn into those things. Not that these Guardians had any choice. The fugitives would be executed by any Guardian who captured them, and the others wouldn't take any chances."

Long Hei frowned. "They betrayed Reality for a chance to live a little longer?"

"Some would claim it's for the off-chance of living forever, General. When Void Agents enter this liberated state, becoming fog creatures, they are momentarily weak but quickly gain power and sapience. After they grow enough, the Guardians' old minds are mixed with the creature's new one. There's a clash for supremacy. We have yet to see any living mind not be absorbed, but most of us would trust our future to withstand the process if we see no alternative but to submit. Or, at least, we would use that as an excuse to betray Reality. Not to mention, the fugitives were never paragons of virtue, to begin with."

"And there are Void Agents out there? Mingling with Guardians? Are there any in Samir? Outside the vault, I mean."

"Yes, General. We've allowed them to get into some key positions to see what they are after. They'll be destroyed at the right time."

The dragon's frown deepened. There were invisible traitors among his subordinates? And even A-ranks couldn't locate them? "How can you detect them?"

"More often than not, good old investigation, General: changes of habits, sudden bouts of ambition, signs of escaping something or agreeing to blackmail. Void Agents can only go unnoticed by B-tier subsystems and anyone without a Realization. Even A-ranks need to either invade people's souls or know what to look for with their passive Realization senses. That said, most of the system's A-tier scans can detect the Void Ovum inside a sleeping Agent, as we call their undercover state.

"SpecOps has been closely monitoring the situation and has thirteen fail-safes in place in case we mess up. The first is that at the first sign of anyone other than us finding out about Void Agents in an unforeseen situation, we'll teach every A-rank in the Alliance what to look for, and you'll instantly locate and kill every Agent within your Realization range. It's not complicated. In fact, if you felt them in this liberated state, you'd be able to feel the wrongness in their sleeping state, too."

"I cannot accept that," Long Hei replied at once. "I want the method." He was a wanderer and didn't recognize Samir as an actual dominion of his, but even he would never accept being kept in the dark on this.

"I'll deliver it after—"

"Now," he demanded.

The mobile fortress trembled under the power of his command, and the chain around his soul came into view. The cthulhu holding the other end also appeared. Long Hei was on probation and would not survive actually destroying the fortress.

Still, he would not be killed for demanding the truth from Luttus, even if he employed unsavory methods to pry it from the creature's mind. The Alliance was on high alert because of a Void Tide. A Node Commandeer would be forgiven for forcibly acquiring intel to deal with the Void in their Node, no matter from whom. The danger would be SpecOps retaliation, not any legal trouble.

Luttus swallowed, took a small info cube from their Inventory, and offered it to Long Hei. The thing only had the feeling of the fog creature and how it would feel in a sleeping state. The Void used a place that didn't exist in Reality to hide, but they could create it because yes. That's how the Void operated sometimes. Now that he knew where to look, doing so would be as simple as the levisnic had claimed.

There was a brief uncomfortable silence—at least for Luttus—after that, but Long Hei soon broke it. "They grow faster than the average Void Spawn. It might be an issue." He didn't like what he was seeing.

"Their power only grows quickly until they reach the original host's rank limits, General. In this case, peak C-rank with mastered Laws. Then, they develop sapience."

"How is the caldron related to everything else?"

The item hadn't been in the system report Long Hei got. Evidently, he didn't have enough clearance to know about it. He'd be damned if he allowed this levisnic to leave without revealing the truth to him, though. Especially if this scheme costs Shen's life and the cauldron remained.

Luttus didn't immediately reply but eventually correctly assessed it was treading on thin ice. "The cauldron is the result of an experiment gone wrong, General, though its developers tried to use it for a different purpose after researching its potential. Long ago, the Collective attempted to find a way to trick the system into labeling their infiltrators as weak Void Spawn entering the Alliance from its physical boundaries instead of a Breach—"

"Why would they want that?" Long Hei interrupted.

"Void Spawn aren't as dangerous when alone at the fringes of our territory and far from a Tear, General. The system categorizes it as a lesser threat and doesn't employ drastic measures to deal with it, as it does when a Void Spawn is found in an inhabited place or close to one. That would give the Collective extra time to prod the system for weaknesses and maybe fool it using other means only viable after they are in."

"So the Collective is a non-Void enemy of the Alliance," the dragon inferred.

The Eternal Empire had existed out of the Alliance and made contact with other civilizations, including the dragons, but the multiverse was literally infinite. He knew the Alliance had enemies, but not who all of them were. From the way Luttus mentioned the Collective, it should be a powerful foe that almost anyone who mattered knew about.

"Yes, General. The Anti-Imperialist Collective. I can't reveal more than that without getting punished. You lack the clearance."

The levisnic had the sense to sound pledging at that. They were saying they feared whatever minor punishment they would get for breaching clearance protocols more than they feared Long Hei's reaction to being kept from information.

Luckily for them, Long Hei had long learned to operate on a need-to-know basis back when he trusted his former sworn brother. He didn't mind not knowing about things unrelated to him. Why did he even care about this Collective unless they came for him? If they did come, he would just kill them all. And maybe visit SpecOps to demand information.

"Continue," the dragon commanded.

Luttus nodded in thanks. "General, the Collective's experiment failed when their people were turned, just like ours. It was shut down and forgotten until a few hundred years ago. Their recently ascended Admiral wanted something to make herself look good and checked their backlog of failed experiments for an idea. He found out about the Void Agents and decided to give up on a few infiltrators to see what would happen if our Guardians were corrupted. The cauldron is a portable dissemination device they developed to move the Void Miasma around."

On the screen, Shen had just killed a creature when another tried to control a Law and exploded. Seeing Void Spawn trying to use Laws was wrong.

"What is that?" Long Hei asked.

"General, I told you they'll reach peak C-rank with mastered Laws," the levisnic replied. "I didn't mean it as relative levels of power. Sapience also means a mind partially disconnected from the Void Overmind. Or, in this case, the Void— You have no clearance for that, and I would die if I revealed it to you." He paused, and when Long Hei kept silent, he continued, "Their Sapience will also allow them to form a Path, and then, a domain."

"A Path?"

That shocked Long Hei. Void Spawn wielding Laws was impossible. Forming Paths was unimaginable. Having a domain made the least sense of all.

"Things aren't as dire as they might seem, General," Luttus replied. "Not every liberated Agent survives contact with a Law. The survival rate is around seven percent." Even as he said that, most of the creatures died, and only nine survived. They all had a Law. "Those who do survive will invariably develop sentience, then a Path, and so on. Domains might appear randomly, but it'll take them a few hours to learn to use their Path instead of swinging their Laws around like idiots—"

The levisnic stopped talking when they noticed Reality had just ravaged their mind. The dragon himself resisted it, but the Space-wielding Void Agent had just been erased from existence. Long Hei should be the only one to recall it. Maybe Shen; Reality was a bit fickle in that area.

Long Hei recalled the screen showing Shen's mind touching the creature's through his Aural Realm. Whatever happened then, Reality hadn't liked it. Long Hei would have to research what could cause that.

The biggest issue here was that, suddenly, Samir Node was weaker. The way the powers-that-be tamed universes made any direct intervention from Reality cost dearly. Even now, he felt a few healthy Subnodes giving in to the Void's influence as Tears appeared in them.

The dragon could tell Luttus had no idea what had happened. Their domain barely allowed them to acknowledge the knowledge gap in their mind after data was removed, but not the cause. They had not expected whatever had happened in there.

At least, not precisely that.

"It happened sooner than I expected," they said after a moment. "The boy did it again, General. Something theoretically possible, yet a statistical improbability, happened around him: Reality intervened on something. He's an unstable variable. Does the Faux Title 'Chaosbringer' mean anything to you?"

"No."

"You've lived out of the Alliance before we reached your planet, and I estimate you were part of the Dragon Den before. So, General, you understand how Reality can be without a powerful existence acting as a safety net. And yet, Reality doesn't like being controlled. It gives birth to Chaosbringers now and then. There have been two of them in the Third Sector's history, always naturally born first-class talents— Oh, I got a notification. You also have no clearance to know about different types of talents. I'll pay the price if you command because I know this is important to you, but my bosses won't be happy."

"Spea—" Long Hei started replying, but the screen sensors went haywire.

A red sentence appeared on a few of them: "Exclusive Infernal Ability Detected: Absolute Horizon."

"That, too," Luttus said, visibly relieved. He had been waiting for that before Shen did whatever he did with his Aural Realm. "The boy will die one way or another, General. Chaosbringers are killed as soon as they reach B-rank because they can't be allowed to live. Even the one who stopped anything after he changed some low-tier rules was like a pebble thrown on a pond. It caused ripples that affected the entire Alliance and its form of continued existence. Every Chaosbringer is a threat, even if they are often well-intended. Their talent is... involved in that. It makes them survive threats they shouldn't, and it affects everything. Regardless, Shen reaching B-rank was never a possibility. We knew he would die as soon as he showed an embryonic form of the Absolute Horizon in elite combat training. We made a deal with the Infernals. We'll use his talent to solve a few issues until his talent fails him. This is the first such issue."

Long Hei knew nothing about that infernal ability and queried the system. As expected, the answer was vague. It was a unique domain-like ability the infernals claimed to be too dangerous outside their hands. As a mythical race, they had the right to impose such a veto.

Considering what Long Hei had seen and heard, especially a moment later, when Shen killed the Time-wielding domain-holder Void Agent with sheer willpower, the Absolute Horizon was a lesser domain that used willpower instead of energy. Inside it, one's will would be absolute. In his opinion, it was a bit too aggrandizing a name, but most mythical races believed anything linked to them should be like that.

And honestly, he could imagine the danger of such an ability being widespread—at least for the Alliance. The Alliance needed bodies to perpetuate its existence, populate Sectors, fight Void Spawn, and so on. It had a set rate of growth to maintain that. The Three-Concept Path Directive was meant to accomplish it, even though it often made many people possess lower willpower than they might have if they had pursued their maximum potential with more Laws in their Path.

If everyone knew willpower could be that useful, that auras could be so important, and that domains could be used without energy consumption, how many people would invest their time honing their willpower instead of advancing through the ranks? Long Hei suspected the thing Shen had become—he recalled Darla mentioning a True Self, supposedly lost to time—and its secrecy was also related to the infernal's ability. If everyone tried to shore off their foundations too much at the earlier stages, the Alliance would sooner or later lack high-rank Guardians.

There was even an argument to be made about Shen's embryonic Absolute Horizon—his Aural Realm—forcing Reality to act a moment ago when it touched the Void Agent's mind. The ability did have the potential of causing great harm to the Alliance as a whole. Already, a Node had suffered for it. Arguably.

Still, it was obviously also a form of control. Every mythical race had the means to ensure an A-rank would appear among them even if all else went wrong. In the dragons' case, it was related to their genes—and being told the secret was what made Long Hei become a wanderer. Not everything the mythical races controlled was related to such secrets, but maybe the Absolute Horizon was related to the infernals' methods.

Long Hei smiled, and everything touched by his Realization stilled as if existence was holding its breath. Neither dragon gene nor any other mythical race secret was enough to, by themselves, allow anyone to reach A-rank. There were processes behind using those advantages appropriately.

But what about two of them?

How would they interact with each other?

And what could an A-rank with both things do?

An alien feeling that Long Hei had long buried threatened to spark in the depths of the abyss of his existence. The very Demi-Primordial Chains holding his soul shook under the pressure of the possibility. The Hopeless Wanderer had chosen to give up on his future when he lost his hope, but what if the feeling was born anew inside him?

The feeling was still not enough for him to decide to save Shen if he died in the vault. He knew Luttus was hiding things from him, misdirecting here and there. His very presence here, for once, suggested Shen hadn't indirectly entered the vault. Other subtle signs showed he was directly involved with this vault; he might even be a traitor. Shen might be dying for nothing.

That was just the way of things; why should Long Hei care?

Still, he was... engaged. It had been a long time since he dared to cheer for an outcome as impossible as it was. Even getting involved in Darla's schemes was just an effortless attempt—and it merely assisted an escape instead of solving anything. He only really cared about protecting the Alliance nowadays.

Long Hei wouldn't allow hope to be born anew until he saw more. But at long last, he was willing to entertain the possibility of reclaiming his future.

And if not Shen...

"Tell me about Chaosbringers," he commanded the levisnic. "I'll discuss compensation with SpecOps later."

These Chaosbringers sounded very much like something he would like to see appear in this forsaken corner of the multiverse—and to something else he had heard about so long ago. Something the Immortal Emperor knew Shen to be.

Previous Chapter — Table of Contents — Next Chapter

‎ ‎