Chapter 160 - Swift Storm (Patreon)

Ceres was left alone in the testing chamber, the sliced-opened warhammer left behind.

Was he wrong? Ceres didn’t think it was right to subject that mind to any more torture. However, he also agreed that the rebellion truly lacked information on the Keepers.

Even with the help of Halyon and the captured Keeper, if the rebellion was able to access the memories of the brain as he did, they would be able to gain a significant information advantage, or at least level the playing field.

However, he couldn’t stop thinking about how that brain could have been like Mr Qiu.

“God damn it!” Ceres slammed the table, causing the empty black case to shake slightly. Ardan had very clearly drawn a line in matters like this twice now – they were no longer true friends, but rather a leader and subordinate. A true leader could never be a friend to those who followed him.

Ceres did not think of himself as a righteous hero - he had already killed humans with his bare hand, a part of him even enjoying it. But as far as morals go, he tried to retain them to the best of his abilities. If he didn’t, he might as well be a monster for all he knows rather than still a human.

The brain was now out of his hands, and there was nothing he could do about it short of starting a fight with Ardan. He could not ignore the benefits of what Ardan aimed to do, which is why he hated himself even more.

The world was slowly turning them into monsters.

Ceres stood in silence for a good ten minutes, before snapping back to reality. He couldn’t afford to mop forever and wallow in self-anger and pity. If anything, he should be angry at the Keepers and Doctor Wu who seemed to be doing all of this.

“First the worm plague, then Mr Qiu, now this, what in the fucking hell are they even trying to accomplish?” Ceres couldn’t grasp what the end goal of the Keepers was. Are they not supposed to protect the people of Athen? It seemed like they were being used more like guinea pigs for no apparent reason.

He resolved to get some answers from the doctor himself if he ever got the chance. Starting a fight with Ardan who did not know much more and was only forced by the circumstances would be counter-productive. “I have to stop this evil at the source!”

Ceres looked down at the warhammer, which had been cleanly sliced through by the plasma cutter. While the weapon was tough, it was a bit impractical to expect it to be immune to consistent grinding over five minutes.

Despite the obvious gruesome nature of the warhammer, Ceres began to glean some insights into how to utilize the black goo. “First was the black goo interfacing through the Keeper’s spine, next was half a brain embedded in a warhammer…”

He recalled a few of the broken drones when he fought the Keepers. They were fully robotic and had no organic parts inside. He did not see any emotion within them at all, so he suspected they did not have brains within.

“This means the doctor found a way to integrate the black goo into the drones effectively without the need for an organic part. This warhammer was merely a prototype.” Ceres concluded. This also meant it was reasonable for him to use the black goo to strengthen the weapon in some form or another.

However, the closest he ever got to creating an inorganic interface with the black goo was when he created his e-radar, which effectively had sensors measuring the reaction of the black goo.

The warhammer did not seem to receive any significant material boost from the inclusion of the brain. It seemed to be placed within with no apparent reason other than just horrendous mutilation.

Ceres picked up the shaft of the broken warhammer, hefting it and rolling it in his palms. The weapon truly suited his upcoming duel with the Azure Tiger. It had the blunt force capability to smash the additional armour of the swordsman exosuit and had a decent range available as well.

“Guess I’ll make a warhammer for myself, though without the gore.” Ceres didn’t have a direct solution on how to integrate the black goo into the weapon, but he decided on using it either way.

He picked up the pieces of the warhammer and placed them in the empty black case, bringing the case back to Felicia back in the exosuit factory. She was just about done organizing the cutting tools she had brought to the test chamber.

“Finally got over it?”

“Not really. If anything, my anger has only shifted to the Keepers.”

Felicia nodded. “Many of the atrocities committed today aren’t because we want to. The enemy has forced our hand in most of these kinds of cases. Riker himself was a product of the transcendence research the University has been attempting. I believe the White Fang must have told you already, ‘Dumpling’.”

They were back in the exosuit factory, so naturally, Felicia kept her cool, not exposing Ceres just yet. Ceres nodded in agreement. He recalled the group of young kids who were sparring when he first entered the rebellion.

“Can you help me reforge the warhammer? I want to make use of the same material again if possible.”

Felica agreed, helping Ceres operate a miniature electric arc furnace to melt the warhammer. While the furnace was in operation, Ceres quickly drafted up the corresponding mould, hoping the shaft and head could remain crafted as one piece.

The warhammer’s design remained the same, but Ceres increased the flat surface area of the striking zone and sharpened the tail. He also made the shaft a lot more thicker, which shortened the entire warhammer to a maximum dimension of 1.5 meters rather than its original 1.8 meters.

The metal was of unknown composition, but Felicia could identify that it was a high-entropy alloy, a combination of more than thirteen different elements. Sturore was one of them, but the rest were a mystery to the two of them. “We’ll need a vacuum chamber and a strong metal press to get the alloy to reintegrate into a solid lattice, otherwise we’ll lose its original rigidity.” Felicia pointed out.

The molten alloy was poured into a hastily made graphite mould of the new design, before being quickly carted off to a vacuum chamber, allowing the alloy to expand slightly due to the difference in internal pressure.

However, when the casted warhammer was pressed into shape, cracks began to form in the alloy.

A few more iterations in re-melting the alloy and alternating the pressure and temperature cycle of the alloy subsequently allowed it the alloy form perfectly just as before, albeit in a new design.

It took more than five hours of iteration, and the exosuit factory was beginning to empty out. The rebels still adhered to the day-night cycle of Athen despite being underground, though there were still night shift duties.

Felicia yawned while Ceres inspected the completed warhammer. “Are you not tired?” She stared at the energetic Ceres curiously.

“I’m fine, you can go ahead and take a rest first.” Ceres shook his head. “Thanks for all the help you have given so far.”

“Anything for our hardworking Martyr.” Felicia giggled like a young girl before waving goodbye. She internally was already gloating over finding out before Sierra. “Oh, seeing her reaction will be glorious! I should probably place all my money betting on Ceres as well for the upcoming duel.”

Ceres wasn’t completely left alone in the exosuit factory. A few repairers on the night shift were still working hard to clear the backlog of damaged exosuits as well as preparing and packing equipment for the upcoming offensive.

The last five hours of crafting the warhammer had already taken his mind off what happened to the brain. He still harboured a fair amount of anger but channelled it towards his work instead.

He grabbed the sleek shiny warhammer, which glistened with a sliver tinge under the artificial underground lighting. Twirling it a few times in his right hand, he measured the centre of gravity, finding it to be pretty close to the head as expected. “All good so far… let’s start on the exosuit.”

He already had a Victorious Revolt mounted on a circular platform, similar to the workshop in the Rockhold Arena. He inspected and ensured the dimensions of the exosuit were right, marking out a few manufacturing inconsistencies.

Ceres had decided to fit the exosuit to his body first. The fit was the most important thing about the exosuit design, which he had slightly ignored in his first heavy exosuit design due to the lack of technology and support there.

He already had a scan of his current body, uploading it into design software. In a split second, the new shape and dimensions of the exosuit were calculated, along with a list of parts that needed to be modified.

He began to disassemble the base frame of the exosuit, separating the thousands of mechanical parts that he needed to modify. “Okay, positive X rib E-2, negative Y rib A-16, negative X dissipation plate 3…”

Following the list to modify, he picked up the pace, his hand moving swiftly without error as he clamped each part and ground, flattened, shaved, and bent them in one flowing motion. On other occasions, he uploaded the modified part design to a metal 3D printer, letting it fabricate it for him and doubling his working speed.

Ceres felt like something was thoroughly missing as he inspected the completed parts. “I feel like something’s wrong…” A sudden realization hit him – his usual repair companions were missing! “My dragonflies! My floating spheres!”

Before he lunged into action, he caught himself in place, thinking carefully. “Maybe I need to stop relying on them too much. I’ll make them later, but let’s try boosting my own speed first before using them as a crutch. More likely than not I won’t have them during the mission.”

Ceres was reliant on the drones for the majority of his childhood – every riot repair he had done was with their help of them. It had been such an integral part of his work that he could not function fully without it, which was a bad sign of reliance.

He did not have them when he was designing the heavy exosuit back in the subterranean town, and it truly pushed his boundaries on what he could do and how fast he could do it. Cracking his knuckles, Ceres had a small smile under his black mask. “Alright, let’s get to it!”

The next hour flew by in an instant, and the newly remodelled minimal base frame of the Victorious Revolt was completed. Ceres stepped onto the circular platform, donning the exosuit from the front. Pressing an electrical button, the frames clasped around his body, but there was no nerval spine to connect his nerval interface to.

Ceres was strong enough to handle the additional weight offered by the exosuit, lifting up and feeling the tolerances and any potential parts that might pinch his skin or cramp his muscles. He threw a few punches at full force, with the frame slightly reverberating at the sudden shock.

The sounds of air punching attracted a few glances from the night-shift exosuit repairers, which became intrigued stares.

“Holy shit, is that guy moving the Victorious Revolt without interfacing? What the hell?”

“No motor support? How is that possible?”

“Maybe he is connected, but through a nerval plug at the anus. I recently found a buried report on the possibility of the nerval plug being down there…”

Ceres couldn’t hear the whispers, fully focused on improving the frame. He threw another full-force punch with his right arm, causing the hydraulic system to burst from the sudden pressure.

The blue-orange suspension liquid splattered the platform and a workbench nearby, while the remnants dripped down his frame and clothes. “Well shit.”

At this point the night shift exosuit repairer was completely agape, having witnessed a human overwhelm the suspension system with his own bare strength.

“Lads, he’s agent ‘Dumpling’! The guy who fought and captured the Keeper alive! He’s duelling Azure Tiger tomorrow!”

“Oh boy, Riker’s finally about to meet his match.”

Ceres grunted as he disengaged the frame, sighing. “Looks like I have to improve the random vibration resistance and tolerances.” He checked one of the sensors that had been attached to the frame, measuring the acceleration of his punch to be close to 2.5 times that of an average fighter exosuit punch! If he added the exosuit impulse motors ontop of that, the acceleration might rip the arm frame apart!

It wasn’t surprising that the Victorious Revolt broke apart like this, seeing as it was designed with cost-effectiveness in mind. Not many humans in Athen could throw a punch like Ceres could now, with his various augmentations! Ceres could only think of Cardenia and maybe a few Keeper drones who could match such a punch.

Ceres began to implement solutions, increasing the diameter of the hydraulic, strengthening the delivery system of the suspension fluid, oiling the surfaces to reduce friction and so on. Eventually, he reached a state of the base frame with which he was happy with. “Alright, now time to add all the electrical components.”

An automatic wire stripping machine began churning coaxial cables one after the other, Ceres bundling them up into tight bunches before sliding them into the pre-cut slots in the frame, hiding the critical wires in the metal beams.

He added two batteries, one main and one backup. The backup battery was placed on his hip, where it would only be connected following a power failure of the main battery. No diesel-based engine or power generator was built into the exosuit – Ceres needed it as lightweight as possible, so everything was effectively flat thin batteries of glorious reactive metal folded a thousand times over.

The batteries added significant weight to the exosuit, especially with the add-on of the backup battery. He installed a routing printed circuit board that had regulators preventing EMP surges from disabling his entire exosuit. For good measure, for every main circuit, he added an additional redundant channel that had a completely different physical location, reducing the interference possible.

This was something he didn’t do in the heavy knight exosuit, seeing as he had plenty of space and had compartmentalized everything. This time, his modified Victorious Revolt was turning out to be a lightweight exosuit, bordering on minimal.

With the wiring and electrical connections to the motors completed, it was time to integrate the spine. Ceres didn’t have any particular design requirement for the spine, as long as it was sturdy and well-protected. He selected the lightest spine he could find, before embedding it into the designated slot in the exosuit frame.

The spine’s interface was a standardized protocol as far as Ceres knew, so Ceres simply had to put it in and let it do its work. With a monitor connected to the spine’s debug port, Ceres checked off each of the electrical connections, running a few stress tests on current surges or under voltage. He also implemented a mode into the suit that allowed him to supersede every functionality limit such as voltage or spin speeds for the motors.

Ceres didn’t think the exosuit would kill him if he went overboard, in fact, his own modified body might have destroyed the exosuit. Overriding safety features and running the exosuit at its limit was his speciality, toeing the line between maximum performance and complete system failure.

The modified exosuit now looked like a barely covered android, filled with bunched-up wires snaking through the frame, along with exposed suspensions on the legs. Ceres decided there was no use in putting armour plates.

If he got hit by a sword, the plate could only dampen the force by so much. If he was fighting a rifleman exosuit, then maybe a few armour plates would work. But in a straight-up melee fight, it’s either all in on offence or all in on defence from Ceres’s point of view.

He had already experienced fighting in the heavy knight exosuit, and as much as he liked the design of the thick mawsie metal armour and the ability to shrug off all ranged weapons, it wasn’t agile enough to beat the Azure Tiger.

“The final piece: thrusters.” Ceres grinned as he slapped a few single-use thrusters each to all his joints. Each of his joints now had three mini-thrusters, allowing him to boost his thrusts and kicks. No sane human would be willing to use this many, as if they were hit in combat, they would instantly blow a hole in wherever they were mounted.

It was basically solid-fuel fireworks. Ceres had absolute faith in himself, however.

He recalled the boy Niko being unable to handle the thrusting force, resolving to do differently this time. “Should do a few practice runs, but maybe I need to name this exosuit first.”

He’s been contesting against a few named Exosuits who were their own custom designs – the Mirage Gunner worn by Saater, the Violet Dusk worn by Cardenia and now the Azure Tiger worn by Riker.

Sure, he previously had the Solar Glint designed for Niko, but it wasn’t his to wear. The heavy exosuit he made out of mawsie metal did not have a name either, as he felt it was a pretty basic design.

To choose the name, he had to determine the fighting style first. It was meant to be a lightweight high agility exosuit, while he utilized his key strength to bash people with the warhammer.

If any other normal person used it, they would not be able to achieve the same effect without first having the same strength as Ceres, so it was a bit ignorant to say that the exosuit delivered strength.

“Maybe… the Patient Agile Boy?” Ceres spoke out loud, sparking a wave of groans behind him, causing him to turn around in shock. He had been too absorbed in his design.

Before he had known, the night-shift exosuit repairers had basically given up on their work temporarily, watching him work. “Don’t be an idiot, that’s a stupid name! It should be something like the Victorious Immortal Best Fighter Mark 3!” One of the repairers tried to persuade Ceres out of nowhere.

The stunned Ceres simply blinked his eyes. “Don’t be daft,” another repairer shook his head. “It’s obvious the name is Minimalist Beast. Look at it! It’s basically a barebone exosuit but it’ll rip the fangs right out of the Azure Tiger!”

“NO! It’s the Tyrant’s Dominance! The strength it’ll display will be tremendous!”

Ceres listened to a flurry of heated arguments before he suddenly caught a name he really liked. “The Swift Storm…. A hail of hammer strikes… That’s the one!”