Published at 23rd of December 2025 8:10 am

Chapter 310: Stormclouds

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Back in the Duel Arena he squeezed through the crowd, shoving and pressing as much as the Restriction would allow. He found a desk manned by a member of House Morvain, and felt Legal rise with excited eagerness through him; hed told it he had a job for itwrangling the reward hed earned from these treacherous People.

That reward was a low-tier Killbot call-in Permit. An emergency ace in the hole he wanted for exactly the kind of situation he currently found himself in. Hed been angered when he saw the message on the wall and that had been before he realised he needed the reward right now.

I need to see whoever decided to withhold my reward from the Tournament.

Do you? said the Person, somehow looking down his nose even though he was sitting.

Nicolais bionic hand whirled down, passed inches from the Persons nose, and smashed a crater into the desk with a tremendous cracking noise, sending chips and chunks of wood flying. A ring of silence spread through the lobby around him.

Are you fucking deaf? he roared into the Persons stunned face, voice booming from speakers. Snarling, he came a step closer, bionic fingers spreading as though moments from lunging for the Persons throat.

If you cause me trouble now, child, Nicolai hissed, looming further forward with each word, I will make it my mission to destroy you. I will take you apart, piece by slow piece, until you are nothing but torn flesh, split bones, and endless agony. There are ways around this Citys Restriction and I will fix my hands around those ways and then around your neck. His finger stabbed out and jabbed the Person in the throat.

The Person had retreated from that advancing hand and was now sat as far back in his chair as he could go. He swallowed, face white, wide eyes flicking from Nicolais grasping hand to the split wood of his desk. Ah, uh, y-yes, let me see he stuttered and rose, stumbled off through a doorway.

Nicolai waited impatient minutes, suffering the stares of curious people, Shenran and Earther both, smirking and muttering in his direction.

He told himself he wasnt gripped by the Dark, wasnt even angry. He just didnt have time for the disdain and waffling of the People.

His mind kept filling with the view of a blast from a 20-kilo C4 explosive ripping through the lobby, transforming everyone in it into an ocean of blood and gore. His imagination drew it all out with astonishing clarity, 8k HD slow-motion. He saw them turning with glacial slowness, mouths opening in soundless screams, then the blast punched through them, one by one. Now it was coming for him, a torrent of blood

Lord Koona is involved in pressing business, spoke a voice, and his gaze snapped to the right, settled on the returned Person. But he will be free in an hour, the man added piteously, wringing his hands and wriggling his tentacle-beard nervously.

Nicolai leapt over the desk, shoved past the Person and to the door. But when he tried to push through a barrier of red blocked his way.

UNAUTHORISED ACCESS

He was about to draw the Blade but Cyberwarfare stopped him. Told him the barrier was created by Heaven and trying to break it could draw a terrible response.

Legal had numerous suggestions. Nicolai spat them at the Person, promising dire consequences. The Person scuttled off again. Nicolai opened his portal, dove through to check on things.

The Infiltrator, guided by Aiming, was riding on the Assembler and commanding the bots. The Module reached out over Local, told him they needed to rethink the guess of four-plus hours until the bugs broke through again, that the vibrations suggested the bugs were tunnelling here even quicker than expected. Perhaps two hours.

Nicolais face twisted. He needed to take action. He had to go see what he was dealing with outside. Maybe he could manage some kind of distraction, draw these invaders away. But there was another problem.

The Assembler, Aiming told him, was out of crucial materials. It still had plenty of iron ore and other base things, but they needed powders, organics, and more, if the damaged bots were to be repaired and ammo production to resume.

Back in the lobby Nicolai saw the Person still wasnt back. He turned and move, back into the crowd. Wound through the city quick as he could, reached the Trade Link after ten minutes then spent hundreds of thousands on heavy packs of material, spun up his portal and tossed them through with the Spectral Claw, dumping them beside the Assembler and its waiting bots.

Another ten minutes of running. While going he managed to reach Wu over Local, told her he had to bail on their plans. She started snippily inquiring what the problem was and he cut the connection. Forty minutes, the Person at the desk promised him once he was back in the lobby.

Tell them they had better hurry, and that if they dont, intoned Legal through his mouth, they will look back on this moment with significant regret. We are going to extract severe compensation for each minute of delay.

The stuttering Person wringed his hands and said forty minutes.

Nicolai glared the man, though strangely Legal was quite pleased. It seemed very sure that the longer they took, the more it would be able to demand.

Forty minutes, then. Hed return, go have a look outside, see if there was anything he could do. Do whatever he could in the time he had. Then hed be back for that Permit.

One low-tier killbot, under his control for a temporary period of time, probably wouldnt be enough for him to kill all those bugs and salvage this disaster. But itd certainly be very useful while moving the Assembler through the jungle.

His portal spun open and he stepped back through, into the warzone that had been a very nice, clean base. There he once more shuffled the Modules to leave Legal in the bot and have Aiming with him, then moved towards the exit. He would go and see for himself. Legal could manage things here, it had already proven capable enough at that.

The Assembler was churning away, already loaded with fresh materials. Working on ammo in one half of its main bay, the other half set to repairing bots. The surviving ones shuffled around the huge machine under Legals direction, tending to it.

###

The external door slid open. The outside world crept into viewthe typically vibrant jungle was washed out, dulled by flat lighting. Peering up he saw a sky blotted out by a thick layer of clouds, low and grey.

He wrapped himself in his shimmer poncho, Shelled his soul, activated the Lurker and a Pegasi ring. He floated soundlessly up into the air, moving over the hillside. Nearing the top he landed.

Looking into the jungle around him he saw nothing odd, but he could hear the noises now, clearly, coming over from the far side of the hill, and with them an endless, confusing pile of ripples.

He crept up the hillside, slow and cautious, sending out scans as he went until he reached the top. The other side of the hill came into view, and he realised there was little need for caution as the sound and ripples swept over him more fully.

There was an army of bugs down there, the same grey ones as had attacked his base. A great mass milling around a gaping wound in the earth, a big dark hole which they were pressing into, like a lake draining into a sinkhole, more of them visible creeping out from below the trees. Digging into the rocky base of the hill. His hill. From up here it was like watching an anthill. He could feel Threat Analysis and Simulations automatically calculating the number. They were done in seconds: Approx 18,500.

Theyd arrived hours ago, most likely. Looking down at them, he could see digging into his hill would be a lengthy process. There were a whole lot of them out there. This swarm had decided to make his hill their new home, and theearly attackers were now revealed as just a fraction.

A lot of them were the smaller types, but there were many larger ones. And from the ripples washing over him, he could tell that there were Tier 2s and even 3s down there. Some were absolutely giant, like great pill bugs, crawling slowly along, surrounded by their chittering brethren.

A slow sigh through his nose as he forced himself to calm. Reached for the Angelic energies of the Blade, used them to knead the Dark. It was active and pulsing through him, had been for some time.

But it wouldnt help him here. He needed to think.

He had become more capable, yes; the Blade was a powerful weapon, his M99 could take down a lot of bugs, not to mention the heavily armed bots repairing and rearming around the Assembler. But he couldnt take on this many. Maybe if hed had more than a week, time to set up more defences, more ammo, more bots, he might have had some kind of chance. But as it was, no. Maybe if he had all that, and the Killbot Permit those Morvain fuckers were refusing to

Cool and calm. He pulled harder on the energies of the Blade. Conferred with the Modules and the Mask, who consoled him. He told himself, with numb depression, that these things happen.

He attempted to cheer himself. This wasnt the end of his road, far from it. Hed salvage what he could. The Assembler could be broken into four parts for transportation. It was possible, maybe, in the time he had, that he could build some kind of setup using the Assembler and the remaining bots to start carrying those parts through the jungle.

It would be difficult. The Assembler would likely be targeted by anything out there. Hed have to go to ground quickly. He wouldnt be able to look for a perfect spot, as he had found with this one. Just somewhere away from these bugs, because inevitably, they would destroy it if he tried to stay.

He wouldnt have the same rich veins of Oma to mine, which was a great pity. Thinking on it, he realised that must be why the bugs were here. They, in their own way, must have sensed that this place was rich in Oma. Hed seen those other bugs continuing the undeads mining back in the castle. Bugs sought out Oma.

In spite of that, hed never considered that settling into a place rich in it could cause him trouble, that thered be a pressing need to defend it, though that now seemed blindingly obvious. Even if he had known that on this day this would happen, he wasnt sure what he could have done. Theyd come so quickly he hadnt had time to make the army of bots, nor the ringing of automated defences, hed planned. Simulations told him hed just gotten unlucky. After all, if it was a given that Oma=bugs, then theyd have already been here. Unless, Threat Analysis suggested, him mining the Oma had released signs the bugs had tracked.

A distant flash drew his eye. Glancing to the right he saw thick black clouds, clustering on the horizon like a of sullen young men clustering at the mouth of an alleyway. A nasty looking storm, and it looked to him like it was heading his way. Simulations agreed. He could see a curtain of rain sweeping over the landscape, swallowing distant hills one by one. The rumble of distant thunder filtered through his suit, only five seconds after the flash.

He rose and started back, already planning the relocation. There was little time and much to do.

Theres something around here, said Threat Analysis. It was concerned by some kind of minor oddities in the ripples.

And this seemed to be the catalyst for what happened next, as he felt the Dark stir, and through it, through the connection it gave him to demons in the interior, he heard their voices.

Enemies there, right over there. And there. And there.

Gathering. Closer, closer, closer.

The voices paused while Nicolai peered in all directions, gripping his assault rifle.

THEYRE ALL AROUND YOU.

He moved randomly to the side, teeth locked in a snarl, the echo of that voiceless cry ringing through his ears, rifle aiming at nothing. He spun through his suits vision modes one after the otherthermal, light amplification, electromagnetic. Nothing.

Above, above, above, the voices chanted.

He could feel it. The heat of terrible danger, like he was standing only feet away from a roaring bonfire. Something that made his bodys animal instincts cry out even as it caused the Dark and the Thrill to stir and twist, ever hungry.

He rerouted power to his suits sonar emitter, sent out a deluge of high-frequency pings in all directions while backing up the way hed come.

The pings reflected off solid objects, and his helmets HUD drew figures in the air. A lot of figures, hovering over him.

They were all around him.

###

His assault rifle snapped into place and screamed full auto, a spray of hot gasses and lead all locked onto the unlucky hovering figure whod been in his fastest firing line. While that ones shield started to crack he was throwing himself sideways, and the Spectral Claw was bursting into life.

There came a sudden explosive barrage of Aura ripples and he saw them appearing from nowhere as they cancelled whatever Symbiotes had given them invisibility, and almost entirely hidden their ripple leakage. Now revealed he saw them clearly, felt a shock of recognition.

Hornets.

Bipedal, shaped like humans, but unmistakably hornets. Just as theyd looked in that statue hed seen. Bodies bulked out by black chitin armour, heads uncovered to bare nightmarish insectile faces, all staring down at him. With their emergence there came a vast humming noise from all their wings buzzing as one, as well as an oddly matching, equally droning buzz of ripples. All their wings seemed larger when viewed spiritually, accompanied by wing-like projections.

Their Soul Senses poured down; a great writhing mass of long tendrils which coiled and looped around one another in unison, descending in perfect coordination.

But one of them was already falling. Hed punched through its Burst Shield and it had no Skin Shield ready to go behind it. The odds were bad, but werent they always?

Those tendrils came down like a whole den of snakes all lunging at once and the Spectral Claw flashed before him, tore through them.

Tore through a bare few of them, and the rest kept on coming.

The Dark pulsed and Nicolai saw the future. He saw how all those tendrils would strike as one, a sudden crushing together from every angle, and each one with a stinger on the end. Theyd be on him in less than a second, no time to draw the Blade, and the Spectral Claw had done all it could with that first strike. He had no way to defend against them.

But what if they didnt hit the right target?

There were hundreds, thousands of factors going into this. Twenty-six Hornets up above him, each with their own unique view of the world. They were picked out against the iron-grey skies, the Modules or maybe just his imagination limning them in a red glow. He could feel them, their Soul Senses, their positions. He felt sure he could hear the whisper of their thoughts.

Every since hed broke the cage, let the Dark remain free, hed felt something was changing in him, and now he knew he was right. His mind clicked together in a new configuration, a new side of the Zero-Twelve state.

He forged Intent and delusion and Soul and body all together, all to give one specific impression. That he would step to the right, just as those Soul Senses coiled to strike. To the right, his Soul and his body said. Stinger sped toward him from all angles. To the right, he thought, and in his mind he saw himself move, saw himself step right.

The tendrils struck and Nicolai stepped to the left. With a flick of his arm he used Soul strikes to deflect the tendrils still on-targetflicking them aside with his handwhile the rest of them all crashed together in a mess of stinging spiritual barbs on his right./p>

The moment ended, time lurched forward and the Blade tore free of its sheath. It came alive in an instant, the presence within it reacting to the Dark, pulling on the store of Tier 3 energy within it, suddenly weightless in his hand, a part of him. He spun it a blurring circle of black metal and cut them all in one perfect move, left them a double dozen wriggling worms, collapsing into spiritual mist as beheaded Soul Sense tendrils flinched back.

He was meant to be struck down, but he wasnt. The Blade released a piercing spiritual shriek, a bloodthirsty wave that roared through the Aura, crashed into the Hornets. For an instant they were confused, fearful, indecisive. That allowed him to steal another moment, time to act.

He slid backwards and the Big Mouth opened impossibly wide. A wave of gun-drones were spat humming from between its lips. Right behind them came a squad of HK drones, veering through the air, rotors screaming. And behind them burst four metal boxes, which even as they were launched through the air unfolded. By the time they hit the ground theyd transformed into droids armed with small assault rifles, and they landed with a clattering of metal legs and rubber feet.

As the combat aids linked up to him and the Modules via Local, Nicolai was struck by a deep sense of deja-vu. Releasing the droids and drones had felt not dissimilar from when he and the others had released and directed Zero-Twelves support drones.

The gun drones and droids took up the role of delivering firepower and distraction both, all of them moving as rapidly as possible while shooting, and, controlled by the Modules, their lines of fire shifted quickly and efficiently.

A dispersed wave of gunfire to break Burst Shields, then the unmanned weapons focused fire on the Tier 1 Hornets one a time, looking to break the standard Skin Shield that was revealed beneath. He wasnt sure whether the first one had just been too surprised to activate the secondary Shield, or if there was another explanation, but these other ones all did.

Already, the careful order and coordination the Hornets had attacked him with was falling apart. The world lit up with detonations and ripples as they used Symbiote, sending down all kinds of attacks, blasts and whips and lances of energy.

Nicolai pulled and tossed a series of flashbangs in that moment, and as they rattled onto the ragged stone of the hilltop he darted away. He ran low to the ground, wolflike, the Blade gripped in his bionic and trailing behind him, ready to be raised in defence. It wanted him to turn and attack, but within him was a sense of warning, danger. This was not a fight he should take. The pure white of the flashbangs lit up the world, printing his shadow in a long line before him. He briefly lost hearing as his helmet muted the over-loud sound.

The light faded, sound returned and he and the Modules saw something disquieting through cameras and Soul Sense. Each of the Hornets wore black-chitin armour, but no helmet. However, a faint shimmer had appeared around all of their heads with the eruption of the flashbangs. Some kind of Imbued effect on the armour, he was guessing, which served as a helmet and had protected them from the flash.

One of the Tier 2s waved a hand, and he saw the Hornets Soul Sense settle into a strange shape.

Before him he felt ripples, and for just a moment had the impression there was a Soul Sense before him, appearing in prickles of warped space.

From those prickles bulged white shapes, coalescing into spherical crystals, hovering in the air. His head turned, looking for the way around them and kept on turning. He was walled off, dozens, hundreds of the things forming a curtain before him, sweeping around left and right, rising at least fifty metres into the air.

His shimmer poncho hung from him like a cape, having been cast to one side and ended up bunched in a mass following his rapid movements. Theyd spotted him in spite of it and it would only get in the way now, so he stripped it one-handed and tossed it into the Big Mouth.

As he turned to face the enemies whod trapped him, a great flash of lightning then a cracking boom of thunder announced the storms arrival. A seething curtain of rain came rolling across the hill toward him. It punched into the Hornets first, shifting them slightly, but their spirit-enhanced wings just beat a little stronger, spraying rainwater. The rain crashed into him next in a full-body, wet slap. He made a slight adjustment to his footing, considering how the wet ground would effect his grip on it, how the rain would slightly limit visibility, whether the wind might interfere much with their flight.

The four Tier 2s approached him, spreading out.

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