Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 42 - Behind the Curtain (Patreon)

Mystics can die just like anyone else. You just have to know how to get to them.

Alistaris Kargat

I tossed a handful of grenades, one after the other, into the amassed army of Adjudicators and other combatants. A second later, they exploded, sending huge clumps of the enemy flying into the air. Few died, but that wasn’t the point. My intention was to disrupt, and in that arena, the grenades were very effective.

As the explosions erupted all around, Alistaris once again disappeared, though now that I knew what to look for, I could just barely sense his presence. But with the two mystics dead, no one else on the field could. So, he was free to wreak as much havoc as he wanted to. That took the form of Adjudicators simply exploding from the same attack he’d used on the goblinoid mystic.

Vaguely, I could tell that the ability functioned off of an injection of Mist, but beyond that, it was a mystery. However, it did support one thought – I was extremely glad he was on my side. I wasn’t sure if I could have survived such an attack – after all, I was far more durable than a typical mystic, from what I’d seen – but I didn’t want to find out. At best, I’d walk away injured, and at worst, I would explode like everyone else did.

As I sprinted sideways, bathing the army in gunfire, I reached out with Mist Authority, latching onto anyone who wasn’t protected by Adjudicator armor. Because of [Multi-Mind], I could take out three or four at a time, but there were enough that that was only good as a supplementary attack. Moreover, even the non-armored soldiers were a step above any I’d seen on Earth, so they were more than capable of injuring me.

Because of that, I couldn’t stand still for more than a second. Still, I managed to down quite a few of them during that opening salvo.

The real star was Gala, though. Now that she was armed and armored appropriately, she was a terror who cleaved our enemies with frightening ease. I’d always known she was powerful. Jeremiah had suggested enough on more than one occasion, and finding out that she was an Erdikar Dreadnought had seemed to support that notion. I only had secondhand information as to what any of that meant, but now that I was getting an up-close-and-personal look, I understood precisely why everyone spoke of that group with such fear and reverence.

Finally, Patrick held up his end of the fight as well. He didn’t leap into battle like Gala. Instead, he favored a more conservative and measured approach. Yet, he was nearly as effective in his chosen style, and the alien threat fell before him. I did recognize that his armor didn’t hold up quite like Gala’s, though; however, he used his shield to great effect, blocking the worst of the damage before it even got to him.

At the same time, he attacked with the rebuilt scattergun or his sword, depending on the situation. For the former, the result was an web of arcing lightning that tore through the mundane soldiers with ease. The Adjudicators were less affected due to their norcite armor, but for them, he had his sword. I was proud to see that he held his own.

I had my own issues to worry about, though.

So, as seemed to be my response to most of my problems, I chose to solve by pulling out a bigger gun. In this case, I exchanged the Stinger for the HIRC and let loose. Gala and Patrick had killed a few of the enemy, but I mowed them down with ruthless efficiency. Even the Adjudicators couldn’t stand up to such a barrage, and though they survived, the sheer momentum of the HIRC’s issue was enough to send them sprawling to the ground. That, in turn, gave my allies the openings they needed to finish them off.

I was just busy patting myself on the back when I felt something stir in the Mist around me. On instinct, I used Teleport, disappearing and reappearing thirty feet away just as a trio of black-clad Adjudicators flashed into sight and attacked the spot I’d just vacated. Clearly, they hadn’t expected me to suddenly disappear, so they were caught briefly off guard. I answered that by swinging the HIRC around and burying them under a bombardment of powerful gunfire.

Yet, when the weapon ran dry of ammunition, they were still alive. In fact, I could see that the powerful weapon hadn’t even scuffed their armor. Sure, it had sent them to the ground, but that was it.

I needed more power.

So, I pulled the Emperor from my arsenal implant and was about to bring it to bear when all three disappeared once again. Only a second later, I felt another shift in the ambient Mist, which allowed me to dodge just in time. However, another attack came only a second later, slicing into my back. It was only a flesh wound, but I was more concerned about what it represented.

These newcomers could attack with almost no warning, which meant that if I wanted to beat them, I needed to sink deeper into my {Mist Warden} senses. Those were capable of detecting the assassins, if only barely. So, without any other options, I did just that, even going so far as to close my eyes.

As I did so, I dismissed the Emperor, exchanging it for the Interdiction Blade. Then, when I felt a stirring of the Mist, I reacted. The clang of metal against metal echoed above the other sounds of battle, but I didn’t hear it. Instead, I was already moving to intercept the next attack. Then, another after that.

I moved faster than I ever had before, the blade becoming an extension of my body. I shut off Observation so I could focus entirely on the shifting of the Mist. And when I did, I felt everything so clearly. The subtle currents of nanites in the air. The swirl before my enemies used an ability. The surge when they activated it.

And the whispers.

This time, itt wasn’t just a wind. Instead, the words were crisp and clear, though I still couldn’t understand them. It was another language, but it was also much more than that. It was like the whispers were on an entirely different wavelength that I had yet to truly perceive. It was maddening, and I wanted nothing more than to delve even deeper than ever before. Yet, I couldn’t spare the time nor effort to do so. Because even as I struggled to interpret those whispers, my blade was moving at previously unattainable speeds, intercepting the assassins’ attacks almost as soon as they manifested.

And then, I went on the attack.

A block became a Riposte, and a head flew free from a neck. Then, another. And another after that.

But I wasn’t content with killing the assassins. I wanted more. I needed to sink deeper into that odd, nearly-meditative state. So, I flickered forward, using Teleport without even trying, and when I reappeared, I was already attacking. I didn’t stop there, either. Every second brought another Teleport, and each instance of the ability came with another severed head.

I felt more in tune with the Mist than I ever had before, but it still wasn’t enough. I craved more. I needed to hear the whispers more clearly. So, with my eyes still shut, I continued as I had. In any other situation, I would have run out of energy after the third or fourth usage of Teleport. However, I had sunk so deeply into the Mist that I freely took from the atmosphere what I needed, and I never even had to touch my own reserves.

Or perhaps there was no difference between one and the other. With every passing second, the delineation between me and the Mist became blurrier. And with that, I became stronger, funneling that Mist into various abilities and into my attributes so I grew exponentially faster and stronger. For the briefest of instance, I felt like I could understand the whispers. They weren’t words. More like feelings. But it went deeper than that, too. It was as if those whispers represented the ideals that reality only barely glimpsed.

I didn’t stop until they were all dead, and even then, it took Patrick shouting my name through Secure Connection to pull me out of that miasma of Mist. When it finally happened, I stumbled to the floor and skidded across the ground until I hit a pile of dead and dismembered bodies.

I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t support me. I felt drunk and exhausted, elated and like I’d lost something incredibly precious, all at the same time, and for the first time in a long while, I was entirely incapable of making sense of the various feelings flitting through my mind. I said something, though it came out in a slurred, incomprehensible mess.

That was nothing compared to what was going on in my head. I felt grounded, yet ephemeral, but neither of those descriptors were adequate. More than anything, though, it was like I was being ripped in two different directions. One side was anchored to how I perceived reality, but the other was desperate to explore something else. Something I was not equipped to understand or describe.

Or survive.

I knew it. But that knowledge did nothing to dissuade me. Instead, I yearned for the release it represented. The only reason I didn’t go was because I literally couldn’t. Otherwise, I would have thrown everything away.

Slowly, the feeling faded until, at last, my eyes fluttered open. When they did, I saw nothing but a plastisteel ceiling flowing past. For a moment, I was confused until I recognized that I was bouncing up and down on someone’s massive shoulder. That was when I realized that Gala was carrying me as she sprinted down the corridor. My head flopped to the side, and I saw Patrick running beside her in his armor.

Alistaris was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t surprising, considering that I couldn’t even move. He was probably just on the other side. Or perhaps he’d run ahead. Whatever the case, I didn’t think he’d been left behind.

Gradually, feeling came back. As it did, I thought to check my condition on my HUD, but to my shock, no menu presented itself.

“What?” I croaked.

“Shh. Be still,” Gala huffed. “We’re almost there.”

I barely heard her because of the panic rushing through my mind. I tried to access my interface, but I found no response. That, coupled with a rapidly intensifying pain at the base of my skull suggested the worst. But I could still feel my abilities. The same with my skills. Aside from my terrible condition, I didn’t feel any weaker. And I knew I would recognize it if I did, because I routinely used suppression manacles and collars during training. Those took me down to human baseline, and even with half my body still limp, I knew I was a long way from that.

In fact, I almost felt stronger, and with every passing second, my {Mist Warden} senses grew sharper. I couldn’t just see the Mist. I could feel it, right down to the tiniest nanite. And with a flick of my mind, I felt that I could control it, too.

I didn’t get a chance to further investigate before Gala thundered to a stop, and I saw the Leviathan looming over us. Patrick shouted, “Were we followed?”

“There was no one left to follow,” Alistaris said. I’d regained enough motor function that I could turn my head, and I saw him suddenly appear behind us. “She killed them all. Even the ones who were trying to surrender.”

“I didn’t…”

The words didn’t come out any more intelligibly than my last attempt to talk, which was far more frustrating than I would have expected. In any case, I think I got my point across with a vicious glare aimed in the Dingyt’s direction. Or that was how I imagined it; in reality, I might’ve blinked a couple of times.

Regardless, we quickly boarded the Leviathan, and Gala laid me down on my bed. “What happened?” I finally managed to say. My words were still slurred, but they were clear enough that Gala could understand.

“Something I never thought I would see with my own two yes,” she said as I felt the ship lift off. “What was it like? How did it feel?”

“I don’t…explain…”

“Right. Frontier. You reached the peak, Mira.”

“What…mean?”

“It means that you can now control the Mist directly, like a mystic,” she said. “I’ve only met two other people who’ve done what you just did, and they didn’t manage it until they were centuries old.”

“I can’t feel…interface.”

“Of course not. You don’t have a Nexus Implant anymore.”

My heart beat a lot faster after that. “W-what?”

“You absorbed it. It’s a pseudo core, now. Look – you’ve seen what passes for an interface with mystics, right? It’s a collection of Mist just below their chest.”

I nodded.

“Good. That’s called a core. It takes them years to form one, but when they do, it functions a lot like a Nexus Implant,” she said. “You won’t have an interface, so no statuses flashing before your eyes anymore. But you will get a sense of things. You’re also stronger, now.”

“H-how?”

“The nanites,” she said. “Not the ones you use for your skills. Those get cycled fairly regularly. The ones in your body are different. They stay with you, growing more efficient. That’s part of how the training works. Potential refers to the number of nanites in your body. I don’t remember the formula, but it boils down to the higher your number, the more you have. Training teaches them how to work more efficiently. That’s why you get stronger.”

“But…how…stronger?”

“They’re no longer constrained by the Nexus Implant,” Gala explained. “They can function at maximum capacity. But even more importantly, that core of yours is bound to be special. I’d be surprised if you’re not the strongest person in this entire sector, now.”

“Don’t feel so strong…”

“You will. In the meantime, just rest. We’ll talk more later.”

With that, she turned to leave. By that point, the ship was already in the air and, presumably, descending into the atmosphere. Which meant it was the perfect time to enact my plan.

“Gala. How far away from the Bazaar are we?”

“We’re a few hundred miles, now. Patrick is circling so we use less fuel on the descent. Why?”

I didn’t answer the question, instead asking another one of my own. “Do you have any friends left in the station?”

“No. Almost everyone left when the Gamori’s showed up. It’s best to assume that anybody left in that system station is an enemy. Or enemy adjacent, at least,” she answered. Then, her eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking these questions?”

“So, there’s nobody onboard that station that you want to live?”

“Mira…”

I pushed myself upright. It was far more difficult than I expected. Then, I forced my way into my arsenal implant. Without the interface, it was like groping around in the dark. However, I’d done it often enough that I easily managed it. Then, I found the device I’d left inside and pulled it out.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s a detonator, then yes. Yes, it is. So, I’m not going to get in trouble for this, am I? Like, no weird penalties from the system, right?”

She shook her head. “No. This close to the Integration, the rules get a little fuzzy,” she said. Indeed, we were only a few days away from quarantine being lifted, which meant that we were on the verge of joining the rest of the universe without restrictions or protections. “Are you sure you want to do this? There are a lot of people onboard.”

“Enemies.”

“Enemy adjacent.”

“Same difference,” I said. Then, without further discussion, I pressed the button. I felt the Mist agitate, then watched a tiny thread race across the bedroom and through the wall. That was the signal I’d sent to the hundreds of bombs I’d left throughout the station. Unless something went incredibly wrong, that meant that it should be exploding in…

“Mira!” Patrick shouted.

“Guess it worked, huh?” I asked. “Tell Patrick it was all part of the plan, will you? He needs to focus on landing the ship. And I need my rest, right?”

“Right,” Gala answered, shaking her great, bovine head. “You really don’t hold back, do you?”

“Not much point in that anymore. It’s kill or be killed, isn’t it? I intend to do the former.”

“You would have made a passable Dreadnought,” she stated.

“I have no context for what that means, but thanks,” I said. “Assuming it’s a compliment.”

“Coming from me? Yes. From others, probably not. Anyway, rest. The real test is coming.”