Mage Tank-Chapter 253: Durgons and… (9)

The body of Nuralie’s new Mecha was formed from a set of Zng armor. The dark color naturally lent itself to stealth work in dim environments, and Nuralie had augmented it with a variety of deep forest hues. She could make the coloring adaptive once she got her hands on the appropriate essence.

For the internal components, she used a combination of hardware to scrape together a chassis, finding sufficient materials between the Zng parts, her trapping supplies, and the other odds and ends she’d collected to replicate the style of joints used in Vaulty’s construction. She could already think of ways to improve its range of motion, but she couldn’t be picky while working out in the wild.

The musculature was the trickiest bit of work, but here the Grimoire had come in helpful. The witch was fond of using a type of parasitic fungus that would naturally convert infected organisms into Undead upon expiry, slowly consuming and replacing internal tissue with a type of resilient mycelium. While Nuralie didn’t have access to that specific breed of fungus, its cultivation was primarily magical and the process was laid out in great detail.

Its use for controlling Spiritual entities also did not necessitate the production of Undead, it was simply easier to begin with an existing biological structure that could be co-opted. The witch also used the existing soul of her victim to power the process of conversion. Nuralie could easily bypass both of these ‘conveniences’ and apply the substance to her own work, with some healthy modification of the underlying techniques.

The samples of fungus that Nuralie had gathered from within the forest were several times more spiritually dense than what the witch had used, and Nuralie was able to speed along the fungus’ development via her various Alchemy skills and crafting speed bonuses. Her inner mycologist was ashamed at how she’d brute-forced the solution without taking time to grow modified strains across multiple generations, but her inner engineer knew that if something worked, it worked. No need to get fancy if something fancy wasn’t needed.

She added the new strain to her greenhouse anyway, to see if she could improve it further via more natural mechanisms. That was a longer-term project. The fungus wasn’t aggressive on its own, so the frogs would be safe.

Nuralie created a nutrient paste through a combination of Alchemy, transmutation, and deep dives into her rations. She spread it throughout the nascent Mecha’s internal structure and encouraged the fungus to spread its mycelium across the desired sections. The absence of a soul to devour made the process more mana-intensive, but distinct from the creation of Undead. Nuralie’s nutrient paste also consisted of no actual meat. The latter was done out of an abundance of caution. She wanted her work to resemble something agricultural as much as possible, as opposed to necromantic.

Once the mycelium was grown and in place, all it needed was a mana supply to contract, as well as to sustain and even repair itself. Nuralie was able to tap into the Zng armor’s mana reservoir and expand its connections, enabling it to power the mycelium and other internal components. Given that the Zng armor could also repair itself, the construct would be easy to maintain.

Nuralie then created a series of hybrid mana weaves utilizing principles from both Grotto and Throne’s animating and mental modeling processes. What she was creating fell somewhere between their two disciplines, necessitating a more complex mind than Grotto’s golems but without using a bound soul like Throne’s Undead. Nuralie created an empty vessel, then poured herself into it to create a mental imprint that would grant the entity what it needed for basic autonomy. This was aided significantly by her recent evolution. She selected Stealth, Archery, and Reconnaissance for the new Mecha’s three intrinsics.

The final product was built in the general shape of a Geulon, complete with a tail like any properly developed organism. Its dark-matte exterior obscured the artificial components within, and the full helm stared at her without any hint of whatever face might lay behind it. From all outward appearances, it could have been a well-armored person, rather than something constructed from ancient technologies, spare machine parts, and magically bioengineered fungus.

One might question the nature of the entity once they noticed that it was about three feet tall, but maybe they’d think it was a very well-equipped child? Or a Yeti in a Geulon costume. Perhaps just a little person like Grotto’s humanoid disguise.

Nuralie had made the Mecha small for two reasons. First, it lent itself to stealth. Smaller things were harder to notice. Second, she didn’t have enough supplies to make it any bigger.

Still, Nuralie narrowed her eyes while she looked it over. She felt that the next version should definitely be bigger. She might even see how big she could make it. Her only limitations were time and materials, and Nuralie was already running through ways to build a Mecha that towered over the battlefield.

Nuralie discarded that flight of fancy and identified her creation.

Unnamed: Construct, Grade 18

Nuralie drank an entire canteen of water while she puzzled over the System’s text, then pulled out some snacks, the first she’d had of either since beginning her work. Was she supposed to name the Mecha? She tried mentally assigning it a title, and the System filled in the blank.

V1 Infiltration Unit: Construct, Grade 18

Impersonal, but good enough for now. Nuralie pulled on her connection to the construct, finding that her perception could flow between the Mecha and her own body with ease. A slight amount of concentration allowed her to observe both sets of inputs, which was a curious experience. She watched herself watching herself for a brief time, then ran the Mecha through a series of tests.

Everything was functional, with no unexpected behaviors. The Mecha was animate and could follow her mental instructions, but did not possess its own soul. When Nuralie enhanced her connection to it, it created a subtle soul tether. Hopefully, proximity to the Domininth wouldn’t cause the tether to degrade.

There was one very good way to find out how robust the connection was, and that meant Nuralie was ready to get back to her favorite part of crafting.

Field testing.

*****

Nuralie was back in a tree, this time upwind of the Domininth. In the time she’d been hidden in her cave, the forest around the Domininth had begun to die. Not only were there piles of sacrificed wildlife scattered around the creature of silver and bone, but the trees, bushes, and other plant life had begun to wither. While they lacked an obvious soul, such things still possessed a spiritual self. They’d been drained like everything else.

The Domininth was nearing 300,000 health, which was pushing the limits of what Nuralie could theoretically handle with her current plan. It was still within the range of what she’d prepared for and delaying would only push things further into the Domininth’s favor. She went ahead and ordered her Mecha to advance.

Nuralie focused on the connection and found herself viewing the world from a foot off the ground as the construct moved on all fours towards the Domininth. It possessed all the talent that Nuralie had with Stealth but lacked some of the loson’s other advantages for staying hidden. Even so, it would take an extraordinary observer to notice the nearly invisible shape moving through the decaying brush.

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As it approached the Domininth, Nuralie felt a tug on the Spiritual connection, but the link between Nuralie and the construct was metaphysical in nature. It wasn’t as though a literal thread stretched out between them through the forest. While her spirit moved with the golem in some ways, her spiritual self never drew any closer to the Domininth. The soul divergence aura placed pressure on the binding, but Nuralie’s soul was safely anchored to her body. Between her distance from the Domininth and the protections her potion gave, it wasn’t enough to disrupt her tether to the Mecha.

Satisfied that her work had borne fruit, Nuralie guided the Mecha forward, past the tree line and out into the clearing around the Domininth. The Asimanth prowled this area, but none were engaged in a proper patrol. They moved toward the Domininth to bring it prey, waited their turn to feed it, dumped the bodies, and then returned to their hunt. Their paths were predictable and easily avoided.

The Mecha used piles of dead brush and mounds of dirt tilled up near the mass graves to stay out of sight. It was unclear whether the Domininth or Asimanth could see in a traditional sense–neither had eyes–but Nuralie was sure to guide the construct so that there was never a clear sightline from either groups.

She needed the Mecha to be within 46 feet of the Domininth to use Mad Experiment through her Spiritual Lensing passive, but there was no reason to get that close quite yet. Nuralie had a skill to charge, and it would take several minutes to do so.

The Mecha paused its advance amidst a scattering of large rocks, dislodged during whatever event had caused the path of destruction behind the Domininth. The construct slowly lowered itself until fully prone. There was a narrow space through which the Mecha could still see Nuralie’s target: The Domininth’s brain–exposed through a small strip of bone that had yet to fully regrow.

Nuralie drank a stamina potion. She’d moved beyond the limitations most Delvers had for potion consumption and could benefit from multiple without risking mana toxicity. Her stamina regen jumped from 22 to 407, enough to earn her one more attack from Hunger Shot during the four minutes she’d charge it. Nuralie also activated Night Strike, converting her arrow into a Spiritual weapon and making it both invisible and incorporeal until it struck its target. She spent the mana to convert her next attack to Holy, then drew back on the Bow of Yearning, taking aim at the Domininth from two perspectives–her own and the Mecha’s.

The seconds ticked by at an agonizing creep. Both she and her construct were absolutely still, the former because of the absolute control Nuralie had over her body, the latter because of its inanimate nature. Nuralie’s stamina bar slowly drained, and the burn in her muscles slowly rose. Even so, her arms never shook, her hands never wavered, never once did she even blink.

Finally, her attack had consumed everything she could give it. Nuralie focused on Spiritual Lensing and–for a moment–her soul melded with the Mecha on a level even deeper than their evolution-enhanced connection. Physical reality around the Mecha became interlinked with the Spiritual realm around Nuralie, and when she loosed her spectral arrow, it launched from just in front of the golem.

Hunger Shot duplicated the attack and copied every aspect of the initial shot. Thirty-nine arrows sailed forth, each one invisible to the eye, unimpeded by any physical obstacle, laced with a potent soul poison, and blessed by the Eschenden to carry out their holy purpose.

They struck without a sound, and in a single moment, more than three dozen arrows appeared in the folds of the Domininth’s brain.

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Every single Asmimanth turned as one. They had no voices with which to cry out, but their distress was clear. They rushed toward their master, abandoning their sacrifices and searching for the cause of the Domininth’s harm.

The Mecha was already charging, bounding forward with all the speed it had been built with. It couldn’t move with the same haste as Nuralie, but it still blurred across the field so quickly it could have been an arrow itself. In less than a second it was in range, and Nuralie once again bent the distance between two realms to activate Mad Experiment from the golem’s location.

Little effect could be seen on the Domininth as its Toxicity doubled, but the Asimanth began to writhe and fall. One by one, their limbs folded across their bodies and they collapsed, spasming in silent agony.

Nuralie ordered the Mecha to escape, but those Asimanth still standing gave chase. They cornered Nuralie’s construct, and though it was an impressive piece of technology, a dozen Grade 20 Undead were too much for it. Nuralie did her best to guide her creation, lending it more skills through their connection, but her intrinsics favored avoidance, not escape.

The Mecha was swarmed and destroyed, which was a pity, but Nuralie had learned enough to easily make another.

She went ahead and cast Venomous Escalation, giving the spell attack a shot at doubling the Domininth’s Toxicity again. As she expected, the spell failed to penetrate the Dominth’s defenses. Nuralie figured it had been worth the attempt, especially since the skill had no visible tells.

That was a mistake. The Domininth still saw her.

The air above the Domininth warped, and an unexpected wave of Dimensional energy overwhelmed Nuralie’s magic sense. She immediately used Shadow Walk to abandon her position and tore through the forest on an irregular path away from the Domininth.

A split second after Nuralie had begun her escape, a sharp whine howled through the forest. Wind erupted in all directions, shattering branches and toppling entire trees. Nuralie danced between the debris, moving at a speed that made the shrapnel seem to fall like lazy snowflakes, but the devastation around her was not the attack. It was the preamble.

Nuralie’s golem had been torn apart, but for a few moments after she could still see through its artificial eyes. A fracture appeared in space, moving like lightning from above the Domininth to the tree where Nuralie had been hiding. Everything for a hundred feet in all directions around the fracture–the tree, the ground, the fallen Asimanth, the sky–became a spiraling mass of disintegrating matter.

The last thing she saw through her Mecha as its body turned to powder was the beam beginning to sweep across the forest.

Nuralie used that information, swapping from her zig-zag pattern to a direct line away from the Domininth. Everywhere the beam passed, the forest was obliterated. She wouldn’t be able to dodge, her only option was to be outside of the attack’s range.

Nuralie drew a stimulant potion and shattered the vial between her teeth, then swallowed. Gravity would have been too slow to pull the contents into her throat. She swapped her passive buff from mental protection to a movement speed boost and abandoned any attempt at remaining undetected.

Her pace was quick enough to leave her own wake of devastation behind, a shockwave preceding the Domininth’s annihilation. She bypassed obstacles with Shadow Walk, and then abandoned the strategy in favor of burning the use of her highest-tier Speed evolution.

Nuralie’s body vibrated until it stepped outside of the physical realm and began to pass through solid objects. Her body remained in phase where needed, allowing her to take her next step, but only the briefest flickers of corporeality were necessary to maintain her movement. Unburdened by obstructions or wind resistance, Nuralie moved even faster.

The Domininth’s attack had left Nuralie with two seconds to react. She made it a mile, and it was barely enough.

Everything within 7,500 feet of the Domininth was shredded. A 120-degree cone of absolute destruction had taken a geometrically perfect slice out of the forest, reduced it to dust, and scattered it across many more miles of forest. Only Nuralie’s initial distance from the Domininth had saved her.

She lay on the ground, gasping for air and choking as her lungs filled with atomized nature. She pulled a particulate mask from inventory and pressed it against her face, but still gagged and sputtered. She haphazardly donned goggles to protect her sight, then spent several minutes retching and dry heaving, both from exhaustion and the brief moment she’d been breathing the deadly air.

Throughout that time, she waited for the Asimanth to come, waited for another attack from the Domininth, but no enemies appeared. The forest was still and silent. Eventually, she found her feet, double-checked her protective equipment, and began making her way back to the clearing.

She kept to the edges of the disaster, doing her best to stay hidden amidst the still-standing trees. It was difficult as she continued to choke on occasion, but the dust made seeing any further than a few feet impossible. She relied on her sense abilities to guide her and ran into her first Asimanth corpse a thousand feet from the Domininth.

As she drew closer, the corpses became more frequent. She found dozens of the Asimanth, all dead. A few seemed to have died from shrapnel, but most had no visible wounds. She took her time while closing on the Domininth, spending an hour making the journey that had taken her only seconds to cross during her flight.

When she eventually made out the dark shape of the Domininth through the haze, she sensed no life from it. As she drew closer, she realized there was nothing else to sense either. It was no longer living, undead, or whatever it had been before. It was as inert as the scattered rocks around it.

Nuralie stood and stared for a few moments, absorbing the idea of her victory. She allowed herself a moment of satisfaction and another moment of grief for the destruction its death had caused. Still, the forest was much larger than what the Domininth had destroyed, and it would no longer be burdened by the creature’s existence.

Nuralie looked up at the Domininth for a little while longer, then nodded to herself and pulled out a pair of thick gloves.

She had a very interesting dissection to perform.