《Systema Delenda Est》


 Chapter 1 – System Invasion

    Cato stepped through the portal from Earth just as it began to close.


    ¡°Cato! What are you doing?¡± His commander¡¯s voice came simultaneously through the air and through the microwave gland in Cato¡¯s head, as the portal shimmered and shrank.


    ¡°Systema delenda est,¡± he replied. It was his slogan for the past decade of earth, and the reason he¡¯d adopted his current moniker. Some of his comrades thought that it was enough to push the System off earth, but Cato knew that as long as it existed, humanity would still be in danger ¡ª and the debt it had to pay for what it had done to his family and friends was too great to let go. There was a long pause before the reply.


    ¡°Godspeed,¡± his commander¡¯s voice came, just before it closed. He wished the prime version of himself around Luna well, because there¡¯d be hell to pay for Cato¡¯s actions. Then put his former home out of mind and turned his attention to the alien planet. It wasn¡¯t likely he would be seeing Earth again. Outside of the System, there was no such thing as faster-than-light travel.


    The staging area on the other side was desolate, kinetic impactors through the portal having turned it into a blasted, burnt wasteland. It didn¡¯t bother Cato. He strode through the still-smoldering wreckage without a care for heat or sharp edges. Ten tons of bioweapon crunched the bubbled glass of impact craters underfoot, the charred remnants of wood and clay impossible to avoid. A close binary overhead cast ever-so-slightly tinted shadows, but he merely stored the views for later, because he was on a timeline.


    [Instant Defense Quest! Investigate the Incursion: Recommended Rank: Silver Reward: C-Tier Skill. Location: Ahrusk Portal Staging Area]


    The System might have been disrupted and destroyed on Earth, but this wasn¡¯t Earth. The System was already bringing attention to Cato¡¯s counter-invasion, something he only knew thanks to specialized sub-brains designed to parallelize his thinking. The actual System interface was a single blank brain, puppeted long enough for the System to integrate it, that resided in the crown of the warframe¡¯s cranium and was the only part of it not protected against the System¡¯s interface.


    It was a strange approach, and he would have vastly preferred real electronics, not to mention proper armor and actual guns, but such things were impossible under the System. The exotic physics the System imposed rendered almost everything more complex than gears nonfunctional. Sort of.


    Bypassing the System¡¯s ban on advanced technology required everything to be organic ¡ª but Titan¡¯s geneticists had discovered there was considerable play in what organic really meant. While his body was described by genetics, the chromosomes and acids used compounds rarely found outside of high-energy chemistry. While his body was grown in a womb, that womb had been part of an industrial complex in the vastness of space. While he had cells and organs, those cells fused individual deuterium atoms instead of burning sugar and the organs functioned closer to industrial machinery. He lived and breathed, but he was far from natural.


    Cato raced across the battered ground and into the surrounding jungle. While war frames were incredibly powerful, by himself he wasn¡¯t a match for most of the nonsense that the System could bring down upon his head. Fortunately, it wasn¡¯t delivering a nemesis directly to him.


    The System couldn¡¯t or didn¡¯t hand out an exact location or up-to-date tracking, which was a vulnerability humanity definitely exploited. It took more specialized minds than his to explain how and why the crackling neural lattice kept him from being exposed to the System interface, but the jamming it produced was a kind of thought-static that kept him safe. Unfortunately, even with that protection he couldn¡¯t hide from the System¡¯s imposed physics ¡ª which wasn¡¯t to say he couldn¡¯t hide from those who used it.


    Chromatophores embedded in the armored scales of the war frame shifted colors, camouflaging him against casual scrutiny. He didn¡¯t have any System-granted stealth Skills that could be defeated by some arbitrary System mechanism, but it still required extreme methods to defeat tracking by System types. The bioengineered body also had essentially no odor, needing no pheromonal signaling and the outer surfaces being made of dense and heavy-molecule polymer to prevent any kind of shedding or outgassing. Cato didn¡¯t even need to breathe, save for chemical sampling.


    Besides which, the war frame was surprisingly light on its feet ¨C all six of them ¨C for a ten-ton bioweapon. Defeating the enhanced senses of a System-augmented combatant, even when the war frame itself wasn¡¯t engaging with the System¡¯s effects, was not an easy task. As a consequence his feet were engineered to be nearly silent despite the underbrush, his scales altering their surface to be nearly frictionless as he slipped away under full stealth.


    Cato roughly knew where he was, from the System individuals that had come through to Earth. A world called Sydea, out on what could be considered the frontier of the System. The precise geography was less known ¡ª cartography was a lost art when the System did it for most people. All he needed was a sufficiently tall mountain, or really anything to get him out of the heavy soup of the lower atmosphere.


    As robust as the warframe was, rocket equations were cruel and he had some strict limitations on what he could do without destroying himself. Launching from the surface was not quite possible. Since he couldn¡¯t see anything useful on the horizon, he¡¯d be doing a lot of running ¡ª and maybe he¡¯d have to ask a local.


    He slithered through the jungle, past unsuspecting beasts and even the occasional elite creature, the latter obvious even without direct system access. A cat or bird or monkey-like animal far larger and brighter-colored than the others around it was not exactly subtle. Empowered by the System, they were faster and more powerful than their lesser cousins, leading flocks or herds or packs and making them just that much more dangerous. He had to wait until he could spot a normal bird out on its own before he could secure it. One of the combat tendrils on his back lashed out, instantly killing it by driving a bone spike into its brain, and pulled the body into one of the body cavities along his spine.


    It was blind idiocy to try and travel around without any sort of air power, even if it was just surveillance, but native earth life would stand out unacceptably. Given enough time he could probably figure out how to duplicate the phenotype of what he saw, but it was easier to simply parasitize and puppet the corpse of some native life. That process was often quite horrifying, but such was the nature of a biological warframe.


    In a matter of minutes the remains of the creature¡¯s brain had been replaced with a new neural lattice, one protected from System interference. If someone [Appraised] the bird it¡¯d give the game away, but hopefully selecting something common and innocuous would make that unlikely ¡ª besides which, the larger birds that needed System help to fly were useless to him. He sent the bird-drone back into the sky, a special microwave-band organ keeping it linked to him so he could see through its eyes.


    Beyond the devastation around the invasion portal, a road led north to another town whose wall and towers were visible in the distance. The bird couldn¡¯t have seen it normally, but its eyes were already being replaced with far better ones as the bioweapon culture continued its work. In a day the bird¡¯s biology would be almost entirely replaced by Cato¡¯s engineered cells, keeping the form but vastly improving the function.


    The jungle extended south, a clear conflict zone and the best place for Cato to hide. He¡¯d need to return to civilization eventually, but skirting around the edge of settled lands meant it was unlikely anyone would stumble across him. He hardly needed to worry about food, water, or shelter. The genetic monstrosity he inhabited didn¡¯t need the last at all, and could pull the former from practically anything.


    He turned slightly, altering his path to cut a shallow chord into the jungle¡¯s perimeter, not willing to go too deep ¡ª System-juiced animals could be just as dangerous as high-leveled sapients. The goal was to put enough distance between him and the incursion camp to make it impractical for anyone to track him. The System would always point out his general location, but given enough time he could be practically impossible to find.


    Time he didn¡¯t have. While he considered himself to be moving at a fair pace, considering he had to slither between trees and around nests of up-jumped wild animals, it wasn¡¯t nearly as fast as flight. The bird spotted several dots moving quickly over the treetops, coming from the direction of the town. A quartet of people, making a line directly for the remains of the portal staging area.


    If he and they both were lucky, they wouldn¡¯t be able track him. Despite his general attitude, he didn¡¯t really want to kill System people who had no idea what they were getting into. Invaders were one thing, but those who were simply responding to a call for defense deserved more consideration. His enemy was the System, not those unfortunate enough to dwell within it.


    ***


    ¡°Do you think we can handle this?¡± Raine stared at the blasted craters, some lined with molten glass, where the portal staging camp had once been. There had been strange reports about the frontier world known as Ahrusk, but she hadn¡¯t really considered it her business. At least, not until the System had issued a defense quest in the same area as the portal. The now closed portal, with a camp that had been full of Golds and even Platinums, which meant there were forces at play far beyond her party.


    ¡°It¡¯s just one creature,¡± Cormok said, glancing over the charred dirt and shattered stone. ¡°It came after all this. Looks to be fairly high level though. [Tracking] is only getting a faint reading.¡±


    ¡°Besides, we¡¯re Gold,¡± Maur scoffed. ¡°We can surely handle a Silver quest, especially with that reward.¡±


    Raine shared a glance with her sister, Leese, who completed their quartet. Cormok and Muar were acceptable so far as party members went, and the four of them had been together for over five years, but the two frontline men were far more willing to take risks than the sisters were comfortable with. As spellcasters, neither of them had quite the defenses of either Cormok or Maur, and the lack of any lingering magic in the area meant the devastation was wrought with brute force.


    Yet they could hardly ignore the threat of some peak Silver beast in an area that was designed for Copper and Low Silver ranks. The two of them didn¡¯t need to speak to convey what they were thinking, and after a moment they reached an agreement. Raine turned to Muar.


    ¡°Just make sure you keep its attention when we catch up,¡± she said, invoking [Fire Shield] regardless. The skill would restrict her offensive options slightly, but she should still be able to deal with a single, physically-oriented creature. The flames shimmered around her before fading, and Leese¡¯s golden [Divine Shield] did the same.


    ¡°Not a problem,¡± Maur said, banging his heavy shield with the tip of his spear. ¡°C¡¯mon, Cormok. Let¡¯s get going.¡±


    Their tracker grunted and took off. The three of them followed with their movement Skills, Raine and Leese on wings of fire and gold, just behind Maur whose feet simply found purchase on the air itself. Cormok led them on a slow arc through the jungle, tracking the beast on a path that seemed to be circling Gosruk Town. Looking for a place to strike.


    Brilliant greens and reds flashed in the light of the suns, the beauty and danger of the [Southern Jungle Conflict Zone] on full display. She couldn¡¯t see anything particularly out of place, but if Cormok¡¯s Skill could barely track it, then it wasn¡¯t likely her untrained eye would find it first. Startled birds rustled and flew away from their passing forms, except for one elite who seemed to want to challenge them. Raine¡¯s [Fire Lance] impaled it in passing and sent it down to the leaves below as a flaming corpse.


    Cormok flashed hand signals at them, indicating that they were getting close, and they slowed in their flight. None of them were anywhere close to exhausting their travel Skills, so it was worth burning essence on remaining airborne and mobile when hunting something they had never seen before. Quietly, Cormok pointed to a particular area and signaled to Raine.


    She invoked [Inferno] and blanketed the whole area with white-hot flames. Leaves crisped, bark scorched to ash, and the entire area went up in a roar of fire. The area skill wasn¡¯t as damaging as it might have seemed, but it more than served to reveal whatever might be hiding among the greenery.


    Astoundingly, even in the fire it was nearly impossible to see their target. It had to have extraordinarily good camouflage Skills, though they clearly weren¡¯t perfect. The crackling, shifting flames revealed a spot where they weren¡¯t, which was all that her party needed to figure out the target. Raine cast a reflexive [Appraise], and was startled when all it returned was [???]. Not even a failure; the System simply couldn¡¯t categorize it.


    She didn¡¯t know how to interpret that, so she set it aside, glancing at the others before quenching [Inferno] abruptly. That left a sudden stretch of bare ash and charcoal, cueing Cormok and Maur to move in. Maur¡¯s [Clamor] Skill should have pulled its attention to him while Cormok flanked it, leaving Raine and Leese to engage at range. With a single creature, the strategy never needed more than a few flourishes beyond that basic approach.


    Yet the thing didn¡¯t seem to even notice Muar. The blurry edge of the figure shifted as it launched itself, not at their tank or even at Raine, who had surely done some damage with [Inferno], but at Leese. A cry tore itself from Raine¡¯s throat as the nigh-invisible thing ripped through the air and crashed into Leese¡¯s golden shields. Almost by reflex she conjured [Fire Lance], hurling it at the wavery, blurry outline. The hardened flames hit the thing and simply dispersed, as if she¡¯d hit a boulder.


    Leese shrieked as she hammered it with holy light, to no avail. At the very least Leese¡¯s Skill should have stripped away whatever augmentation Skills the thing was using ¨C had to be using ¨C but there didn¡¯t seem to be any effect. The enormous bulk of the thing bore Leese down to the ground, shattering the golden shield with a dreadful finality as Leese¡¯s scream cut off abruptly.


    Muar¡¯s retaliatory charge only managed to stagger the beast briefly, then he shouted as a wavery outline of a tendril extending from the thing¡¯s back spat some sort of thorn at him ¡ª and actually pierced his skin before detonating with enough force to send him flying. Another of those tendrils wrapped around Cormok as their scout leapt on the thing¡¯s back, cracking bones with a terrible strength before Cormok vanished back into shadow. Raine only had eyes for her sister, lying so dreadfully still upon the ground.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    She screamed as she amplified [Fire Lance] into [Inferno Lance] and poured as much essence into it as she could before releasing the molten spear. It ripped through the air, and the beast¡¯s side seemed to explode ¡ª but when the flames cleared, it wasn¡¯t dead. Once again it ignored Muar¡¯s Skills and lunged for Raine, moving faster than anything below Gold had a right to. Its multi-ton bulk hammered her shield hard enough shatter it.


    Her armor took the brunt of the impact, but the force behind it sent her flying into a tree, the bark cracking under the impact as [Molten Scales] flared, soaking up the damage. That was all the respite she got before the dreadful claws were there again, unaffected by the heat pouring off her as they drew lines of agony along her chest. Blood choked her, bubbling inside her throat as the thing¡¯s jaws opened, enormous teeth closing down on her. Distantly, beyond the maw, a battered Cormok and bloodied Muar were charging in but far too late. Raine¡¯s last thought was that the System had been drastically wrong about the target.


    ***


    Cato was not entirely happy about how many resources he¡¯d needed to expend in that fight. The blades the melee users had were barely worth mentioning, but the fire user had slagged quite a bit of armor and forced him to expend an ablative plate with that last massive attack. Then there was the monomolecular-edged explosive dart, which took quite a bit of time to grow.


    They had made a good showing, for people who clearly had no idea what they were up against. If they¡¯d been smart they would have just tried to pepper him from range, or tracked him until someone more powerful showed up. As it was, he was simply lucky they had thought he was a standard System beast. Instead, he was ten tons of bioengineering with the frame of a panther, the jaws of a hyena with impossibly sharp shark teeth, and a tail that was as much bludgeon as it was balance.


    He finished excising the last brain and swallowed it down. As disgusting as it was in some respects, it was also as far from a normal biological process as could be imagined. The four lizard-people were effectively dead, by System terms, but that line was far blurrier for postbiologicals. Cato only had the biological and biochemical data for a small subset of System natives ¨C just the ones who had been involved in the invasion ¨C but at least for these people he could preserve them until he had more infrastructure to deal with them.


    Each of the brains was wrapped in protective film, kept in an induced coma and fed nutrients to keep it alive. The bioweapon didn¡¯t have a gut as such, but there were a number of multipurpose chambers within that could be used for such tasks. Technically he could have mind-ripped them and pulled everything they knew out of their brains by force, since he had complete hardware access, as it were, but that was not something he was willing to do to anyone but the worst of the System degenerates.


    Keeping them alive was hardly necessary, but it wasn¡¯t enough just to cut the legs out from under the System. That would result in its own sort of apocalypse, though one far less drastic than the onset of the System on Earth. They wouldn¡¯t have their very lives cut out from under them, wouldn¡¯t have billions of people instantly erased from existence as servers failed and cybernetic implants turned inert. He wanted no apocalypse at all, or even to reverse the one that had happened, and save the millions who dwelt on Sydea.


    At least, those who could be.


    Taking a lizard-person body as a temporary puppet was not the most auspicious start to that goal, but he desperately needed it to obtain some information. He¡¯d have to apologize to the poor guy once things were more settled, but he only had one choice of corpse. The others had been far too damaged, since Cato had needed to remove them with alacrity, but the shadow-user had been less of a threat and Cato had merely strangled him. Admittedly, to do so took the same amount of force that an industrial hydraulic press could apply, but bioweapons were built with the absurd abilities of System-empowered individuals in mind.


    Cato secured the near-corpse in question while he continued to circle around the target town. His bird scout had gone entirely unnoticed, allowing him to send it closer in to see how things stood, though still well outside the range of the casual [Appraise].


    On Earth, there had been only a dozen zones over the whole planet. It had been fairly clear the postbiological defenders had interrupted the process of integration, but there was no telling how large or small the zones were on other planets. Nor had Earth created such a defense quest, despite thousands of warframes on the ground. At least, not that Cato had seen, but he hadn¡¯t been there at the very earliest deployments so he had to operate at least a little in the dark.


    His surveillance showed him a walled town of maybe three or four thousand people, with a massive System pylon at the center and buildings radiating away from it in layers. The white System buildings were blatantly at odds with the native colors, though a few people had clearly splurged and spent System currency on coloring a store or house. Most of the boxes were blank and brutalist, which Cato presumed meant the town was a relatively new one.


    Cato had never seen more than the first, initial villages, when he¡¯d retrieved his cousins from the remains of Earth¡¯s surface. Neither invaders nor those who had been converted during the System apocalypse had established anything other than the featureless buildings, though Cato refused to believe that the whole breadth of the System universe had cities composed of bland boxes. The System was a malevolent threat to the universe, certainly, but for it to be unimaginative as well would elevate its evil to something even more abhorrent.


    Nine out of every ten individuals his bird could see walking the streets of the town were lizard-people, like the unfortunate foursome that had tried to hunt him down. So far as Cato knew, this was their actual homeworld, likely only a few hundred years into their own System integration, and a very likely glimpse of Earth¡¯s future had the other powers in the Solar System not intervened.


    The other ten percent were an assorted grab-bag of crab-people, bird-people, rock-people, and similar physiognomies. He wouldn¡¯t call them entirely humanoid, but there were certain similarities. Not that he was concerned with the precise details of species, but rather with their dress. Priests and other direct representatives of the System were particularly dangerous, less because of their powers and more because they could put eyes on him and betray his position to more powerful entities.


    He memorized the layout of the city ¨C though that was a paltry word for writing a fully-rendered and annotated model into the biological computing matrix that threaded through the warframe¡¯s body ¨C while waiting for the bioactive mush he¡¯d inserted into the corpse¡¯s cranium to do its work. The puppet wouldn¡¯t last long, since he couldn¡¯t actually use the previous owner¡¯s System abilities and any use of [Appraise] would raise some eyebrows. Amusingly, it was far less overt for a humanoid to fail an [Appraise] than an animal, since it could be put down as some kind of skill.


    There was also the likelihood that someone would recognize the face of the corpse in question, and without resorting to mindripping its prior owner he wasn¡¯t going to be able to fake that identity. All he intended to do, however, was to look at a local map. System maps were fortunately not part of the System interface, otherwise he would have needed to resort to more intrusive measures, but they were issued by the System. Any place with a System nexus would have the facilities.


    He¡¯d pilfered one from the quartet that had attacked him, though he¡¯d left most of their gear. The majority of it was too System-reinforced for him to even break down for resources. It was the maps and wallets, the former blank and the latter unattached after the death of their owners, that could be useful in the future.


    The biolattice inside the lizardman corpse connected up with the brainstem, growing into the optical nerve and the eardrum. Just like the bird¡¯s, it was in many ways easier to replace the sense organs than to try and convert the nerve signals into something understandable. He couldn¡¯t perform the same task on the spinal column, and had to dedicate a number of sub-brains to the task of debugging the neurotransmitter patterns.


    The corpse twitched spastically, then suddenly began breathing again. A heart began to beat, then was joined by a second one. Cato was damn glad there¡¯d already been some work done on the lizard-people anatomy and biology, because trying to figure that out from scratch would have taken long enough for decay to set in. He paused to set the corpse down on the ground, blinking through its eyes and moving its limbs.


    Various sub-brains started building a kinesthetic model based on the observations from his bird; he wouldn¡¯t be able to pilot the body as if he were born to it, but at least he wouldn¡¯t be some staggering zombie. The puppet headed off toward town while he kept the warframe moving. He imagined the System would escalate the quest with the first responders dead, and it¡¯d be best to find some proper cover before real trouble came along.


    Bioweapons were hard to kill, but high-ranked System combatants could absolutely manage it given the chance.


    Cato wished he could map out what was underneath his feet, especially as the warframe was equipped for acoustic sounding, but the amount of stomping and tromping that would require would leave too many traces at the moment. A monster hiding in a cave was a bit of a clich¨¦, but being out of the line of sight from any would-be hunters was a great help. Just as importantly, the geologic overhaul the System introduced often lined caves with useful metals and minerals, which Cato could certainly scavenge. Most of the warframe was carbon, but a not-insignificant amount was wrought from heavier elements.


    If he wanted those benefits, he had to hunt for caves the old-fashioned way ¡ª and there were always caves. The System seemed to love them, and festooned every region with the things. Large and small, regardless of whether they made any actual sense. It was something that particularly offended Cato, considering how much time he¡¯d spent learning exogeology, even if that was the least of the System¡¯s sins.


    The puppet¡¯s strides became more sure and natural over the few minutes it took to traverse the miles between the edge of the jungle and the walls of the town. By the time he piloted it through the gateway, offering a nod to the lizard-people guards standing at bored attention, the movement was entirely natural. Of course, he¡¯d also made sure the damage was repaired, as wandering in with a crushed throat and an incision circling the entire head would be rather suspicious.


    If there was one accolade Cato could award System cities, it was that they were clean. The roads were smooth stone, like paved asphalt, with drains at regular intervals and a full plumbing system. The taverns set at the entrance showed evidence of some attempt at decoration, with hand-lettered signs and flowers set in windowsills, but were just as boxy and uninspired from ground level as they had looked from the air.


    He made directly for the central System building, the combination transport nexus and, loosely, adventurer¡¯s guild. If Cato had been connected to the System properly, he could have used it to accept or fulfill quests, in addition to teleporting himself to other parts of the world. In fact, the last option was still something worth considering, if he could convince the System to move a warframe despite the jamming ¡ª and if he could be certain of leaving a city center intact.


    The puppet opened the doors to the nexus building, taking in the dozens of people pursuing their business there. Several were the lizard-people, but most weren¡¯t; he expected most of the arrivals were there specifically to fulfill the System¡¯s quest about him. Even as he crossed over to the information pylon, the teleporter flashed and two sinuous rodent-like creatures in articulated armor prowled out. Likely there for the Earth portal, as it was entirely possible nobody had been informed it had closed only minutes before. Cato double-checked the System symbiont, and found that the quest had been updated.


    [Instant Defense Quest! Investigate the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: C-Tier Skill. Locations: Southern Jungle Conflict Zone, Gosruk Town]


    The escalation wasn¡¯t a surprise, though Cato figured the System would put it higher. The final days of the Earth defense had involved very high ranks indeed ¡ª though with most of the System anchors destroyed, they had been rather limited in what the high-rankers could do. If he had been the System, he would have put a maximum bounty out on any of the Earth bioweapons the moment they appeared, but it wasn¡¯t clear that the System could be so precipitous. Nor was it clear how much was run by some central intelligence, and how much devolved to local control. Even those people who had been questioned knew little about the way the System was run.


    His puppet saw the rodents breeze out the door, and his bird caught them emerging onto the plain road just outside the System nexus. One poor native nearly bumped into them, and caught a backhand for his trouble that sent him flying across the road to smash into and through the side of a building. Cato winced. The pair clearly didn¡¯t care much for or about the Sydeans, and it wasn¡¯t like any authorities were going to deal with them. Not only were they too powerful, but Cato was pretty sure he¡¯d just eaten the nearest authorities.


    The bird watched them take to the air, accelerating toward the ruined portal staging area. A sudden sonic boom showed that they were far more dangerous than the group he¡¯d taken out before, enough that Cato would prefer not to engage without orbital support. Or at least a few weeks to dig in and fortify an area. Unfortunately, there was little he could do about it at the moment.


    Taking the blank System map from the puppet¡¯s belt pouch, he touched it to the information pylon. The rune-covered obelisk rose all the way to the ceiling, set off to the side of the quest board and opposite the alcoves where people could turn in System quests and get their rewards. It had a number of functions, most of which he couldn¡¯t access himself, but updating maps was a very simple transaction.


    The System map itself was a thin, flexible sheet of some material halfway between metal and glass. Whatever it was fell apart without System support, which meant that all the boffins back in orbit couldn¡¯t figure out the nature of the stuff. The updates seemed closer to a proper data download, flashing the blank sheet with a detailed sketch of the world¡¯s terrain and landmarks.


    Cato wrote it into memory as he flipped through the various regions on the planet of Sydea; the cities, the connections, the dungeons and conflict zones. Faction control, mines and quarries, even farming areas. It was commendably thorough, though he still would have preferred a proper satellite view, as the maps covered maybe a tenth of the planet¡¯s landmass at best. At least it had, off in one corner, the thing he was looking for: a tall mountain.


    ¡°Hey, Cormok!¡±


    It took Cato a moment to realize that the person was addressing his puppet, and he held up his hand in the universal symbol of please wait while he finished perusing the map. There was no real way he could pretend to be this Cormok, so however the conversation went, he wouldn¡¯t have any further opportunity to look around.


    ¡°Hey,¡± he replied after he was finished, looking up at the lizard-person. Puppeting people ended up being horrific for a number of reasons, but this was the main one. At some point, usually sooner rather than later, the charade fell apart and the puppet died ¨C or worse ¨C in front of the eyes of friends or family.


    ¡°You sound different,¡± the lizard-person said, squinting at the puppet. ¡°Are you well? I saw the quest you went to do got upgraded.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid Cormok is not well,¡± Cato said, after a moment of debate. He just didn¡¯t have the heart to try and play it out. ¡°He did not survive the quest.¡± Then he triggered the self-destruct purge on the puppet¡¯s neural mass.


    Of course, he lost connection with it instantly, but he still knew what would have happened. The puppet would have simply crumpled, the head and part of the spinal cord turned to charred ash as the fusion organelles changed the way they contained their payloads. Every single bioengineered neuron was practically vaporized simultaneously, with the thought-static System protection following a moment later on a dead-man¡¯s switch.


    His bird saw a sudden rush of traffic toward the System nexus as the System quest removed Gosruk Town from its location list, and Cato winced despite how useful that was for him. If all the attention was there, it wasn¡¯t toward him, even though he was sure that would traumatize Gosruk Town for the foreseeable future. At least with that puppet gone, he could recall his bird and put more distance between the warframe and the staging area.


    According to the map, his target was an entire continent away, so Cato needed to get somewhere he could put on some real speed. Sadly, the warframe couldn¡¯t actually fly, but it was an inexhaustible biological machine that could reach impressive speeds given the chance. Even at that distance it really shouldn¡¯t take him too long.


    He¡¯d still need to make good use of the time, and figure out all the little details about the System workings that had never been revealed on Earth. If he wanted to remove the System from this planet, he had a lot of work cut out for him. Not only were the System anchors more numerous, he was sure they were far more insidious and the guardians far more powerful.


    The self-proclaimed System god of Earth, some sort of local administrator, Cato was sure, hadn¡¯t fared too well under the assault of an orbital particle beam. That had been only minutes before the portals had failed, and showed the degree of directed energy it would take to deal with anyone at that level. Sadly, that wasn¡¯t something he had on board his bioweapon, and he¡¯d need rather more infrastructure than a single warframe to deal with the equivalent here.


    The bird returned to hunker down on his back, and he began running again in earnest. The two rat-people were still out there, and could be serious nuisances, but the further he got from both town and staging area, the harder it¡¯d be for anyone to track him down. Still, he instructed the warframe to begin preparing some backup seeds, just in case. It wouldn¡¯t be much of a bioweapon if it couldn¡¯t reproduce.


    Barring interruptions, his goal was simple. Climb a mountain, then kill a god.

 Chapter 2 — Dungeon Delve

    The lush, riotous jungle stopped abruptly at a deep chasm of layered blue stone, a ribbon of water winding through far below while a rolling golden savannah stretched out on the other side. At something over a mile across it was bit too far to jump, even for the warframe, but Cato had business at the bottom. Two kinds of business, in fact.


    One was to plant his seed into the river, a turn of phrase that made the warframe¡¯s ominous muzzle curl into a juvenile grin. Even if the label was amusing, the action was a serious one, borne of the knowledge that some quirk of the System could erase him at any moment. The package of biomatter would bury into the ground, leech material from its surroundings to grow and reinforce itself, and be a hard-to-find nuisance that would keep System folks searching for an unknown, well-hidden anomaly. Besides which, it could operate as a backup version of himself on the off chance the worst did happen, and the warframe was destroyed.


    Then there was the anchor. According to the map he¡¯d scanned, there was a dungeon in the chasm, and like all major System creations it served to anchor the System to Sydea. This particular planet had upwards of fifty known dungeons, and God and System alone knew how many others. One thing they¡¯d found during the Earth campaign was that destroying the anchors disrupted the System¡¯s operations nearby for some time, and with how many zones there were ¨C and how small they were ¨C he needed that disruption. Otherwise the moment he crossed over, especially with the narrow boundary zones, he¡¯d give away his position.


    The risk, of course, was that being inside a dungeon created that self-same problem, that anyone paying attention to the System quest would know exactly where to go. Cato judged the risk to be fairly low, as he had managed to avoid any further combat in the past thirty hours. The quest itself was still active, but hadn¡¯t been upgraded, and his bird hadn¡¯t spotted anyone that might be looking for him. Which wasn¡¯t conclusive where the System was concerned, but Cato would bet engineered senses against System-boosted stealth any day of the week.


    He left the bird to circle up above and ran down the side of the canyon at full speed, framejacked ever so slightly ¨C boosting his personal perception of time to thrice normal ¨C as he found purchase with all six limbs. The warframe adjusted for each loose pebble and dislodged rock, dodging outcrops and boulders before reaching the ground at near terminal velocity. There was enough of a slope to turn that into a headlong rush, right into the river.


    Of course, he sank like the stone he practically was, but that was by design. At the bottom of the river he found a likely place, a small pit surrounded by reaching weeds, and plucked the nascent seed off the armor of his back with one of his tendrils. It looked like nothing so much as a black stone maybe six inches in diameter, but the moment it touched the bottom of the pit, it flexed and contorted itself and burrowed down. He could still contact it with his microwave glands, but soon enough it would be independent.


    If it had enough resources ¨C which it probably wouldn¡¯t, at the bottom of a river ¨C it could grow a new warframe, but more likely it would take on one of a number of lesser forms should it ever be necessary. Of course, it also had a copy of himself, in stasis, in case there had been no contact after a full year. Given sufficient time, Cato could be quite tenacious, though the System would always know there was something disrupting its reach. He couldn¡¯t fully hide himself from the System so long as the jamming was in place, and he wasn¡¯t willing to give that up and fully assimilate into the System.


    Cato stayed in the river, following it downstream as he let the current help him along. Small silver fish darted away from the disruption in the water, as even with camouflage he couldn¡¯t disguise the pressure waves of his movement. The warframe was not designed for the cavitation necessary for underwater stealth, and it wasn¡¯t worth trying to reconfigure it for such a short jaunt.


    According to the map, the dungeon was located in a lake at the end of the canyon, and was rated for upper Silver and lower Gold ranks. Which was a huge jump in power by System standards, so it was a curious anomaly. The few dungeons on Earth had barely gotten out of their nascent phase before they were removed and hadn¡¯t had the time to grow even low Silver levels. He had records of all the delves, however, along with the System¡¯s helpful explanatory texts, so he had a fair handle on what to expect.


    The interiors tended to be labyrinthine tunnels connecting open spaces simulating different biomes. All of this in aid of luring people in for a chance at materials, items, and the exotic energy of the System ¡ª essence. Or mana, or qi, depending on the translation. The System language dictionary wasn¡¯t entirely complete.


    As far as Cato was concerned, dungeons were just weird murder-holes that showcased the more exotic aspects of the System ¡ª ignoring magic and how guns and computers were rendered into fused chunks of metal and glass. Their entrances were physical enough, but the deeper layers of dungeons seemed to be in some sort of basement universe. There had been no little consternation after orbital bombardment had turned out to be of limited use. Cato figured that the weird dimensional disjunct that dungeons introduced was the main mechanism of System anchoring, though a lot of very smart people had a lot of very good speculation to the contrary.


    He didn¡¯t actually care. They were anchors, they were part of the System, and they were murder-holes. They killed people. They were built to kill, to teach people to kill and be comfortable with killing. All too many normal, ordinary people had emerged from them forever changed.


    Cato would never be able to shake that moment when his cousins, kids he¡¯d known from the cradle, had completely fallen to the System¡¯s seductions. Of the pair emerging bloody and triumphant from a dungeon with a wild and terrible light in their eyes, hungry only for more. And of how they had been utterly unwilling to listen to reason.


    He only dwelt on it for a few minutes as he half-swam, half-slogged through the river until it brought him to the lake with the dungeon¡¯s island. Water slid off hydrophobic scales, leaving him dry from muzzle to tailtip, as Cato emerged onto the shore and found the entrance to be more than just a hole in the ground. Someone ¨C perhaps the dungeon itself ¨C had arrayed small fountains around a dome of deep blue stone, giving the appearance of some sort of shrine. The entrance to the dome was fortunately large, as some of the System races had significant bulk, but the warframe still practically scraped the ceiling as Cato entered.


    A broad staircase led downward, and Cato took it. The System-symbiote received a notification as Cato passed the threshold, heading down into the passages beneath the island, as well as an update on the defense quest.


    [Welcome to Azure Canyon Dungeon! Suggested Rank: High Silver or Low Gold.]


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: C-Tier Skill. Locations: Southern Jungle Conflict Zone, Azure Canyon Border Zone, Azure Canyon Dungeon]


    At the end of the staircase, swampy landscape stretched out in front of him, brightly lit by false sky. To ordinary eyes that saw only the classic visible spectrum the illusion was good enough, but his senses extended much further and in higher and lower frequencies it was clearly just stone. The vaulted ceiling was still higher than it had any right to be, but that was only to be expected.


    Cato headed straight through the first floor at speed. He had no need for or interest in the rewards offered by the dungeon, so there was no point in doing anything but descending as quickly as possible. Giant amphibians, froglike things the size of small horses, leapt out of the pools of water that lay on either side of the narrow, swampy path, but between the adaptive camouflage and loping along at over eighty miles an hour they had no chance of actually engaging him.


    The first floor boss was a huge two-headed pseudo-salamander in a shallow pond at the end of the cave, probably magical in some way, but still actually smaller than the warframe. It stared in Cato¡¯s direction with visible confusion before ten tons of camouflaged bioweapon smashed into it at full speed. The salamander managed only a pained squawk as Cato impacted it, then flattened it against the wall with sheer inertia and turned it into bloody pulp.


    A stone door ground open at the edge of the pond, and the salamander¡¯s corpse vanished into the ground a moment later like some bad special effect. Several items appeared in its place, but Cato had no need for them and just squeezed himself into the next stairwell. The map didn¡¯t have any notations on how deep the dungeon was, but probably not too many floors given the rating.


    His very good ears ¨C really, full acoustic sensors, distributed over his entire body ¨C picked up a disturbance below. Grunts, the sounds of metal, and the rushing of moving water implied what was going on, and when Cato emerged he could see them in the distance. Someone was already running the dungeon.


    The second floor was structured along the same style as the dome outside, a temple of blue stone with deep pools all about, fed by fonts on the walls. Frogmen with coral blades and fish-scale armor crawled out of the pools, focusing on two of the natives. The purple-scaled pair stood in a sheltered corner, a female in a blue robe with blades of water hovering nearby, protected by an armored male with a spear and shield. The pair were methodically engaging the frogmen where only a few could attack at a time, grinding down the small horde.


    Also, they were just kids. Juveniles of the species so far as he could tell, so they couldn¡¯t have too much experience, though it seemed they were doing fairly well for themselves. He couldn¡¯t tell if their current predicament was actually a danger to them or they were simply playing things safe, but either way their time in the dungeon was at an end.


    He dashed along the central temple floor, reaching the frogman horde and dicing them to bloody pieces with several quick swipes of monomolecular claws. The pair of lizard-people were notably upset, with the girl squealing and hurling her water blades at the big invisible thing that had just destroyed a dozen enemies in two seconds flat. Cato hardly blamed her, nor did he blame the boy for raising his shield and invoking a defensive skill that created a shimmering barrier in front of them.


    ¡°You two need to get out of here,¡± Cato said, dropping the camouflage for a moment. The sight of a massive clawed and toothed war machine didn¡¯t seem to calm them any, for some reason. His command of the System language was handled by a sub-brain rather than his main gestalt, so it might be said he didn¡¯t truly know it, but the difference was academic at best. The fact that there was only one language for thousands of species was useful for the moment, but the absolute effrontery of erasing the natives¡¯ tongue was another in the long list of the System¡¯s crimes.


    ¡°What¡ª¡± The boy stammered, staring at the monstrosity in front of him. The girl didn¡¯t say anything, but by the way she was hunched in on herself she was clearly distressed.


    ¡°I¡¯m short on time, and you don¡¯t want to be here when the dungeon collapses. Get to the surface and go,¡± he said, pointing the way he¡¯d come with one of the tendrils sprouting from his back. Then he stepped away to give them room.


    The pair didn¡¯t try to argue, sidling away from him before joining hands and making a mad dash for the staircase. Cato was satisfied with that, though part of him really wanted to make sure they were out and away. He had no idea what the kids were doing in such an out-of-the-way dungeon, but it really wasn¡¯t his business. As soon as they vanished up the stairs he resumed his rush, charging toward the end of the temple. There were a few tricky twists and turns, but he kept his steps heavy enough to generate an acoustic signature so he could map the place with his senses.


    He charged past the mindlessly aggressive frog-people, winding through the cramped halls and splashing through shallow puddles, until he reached the second floor guardian ¡ª an enormously oversized frog-person with a crown on its head, sitting on a throne. It was almost laughably generic, as if it were simply plucked from some catalogue preset.


    Something which might well be the case. So far as anyone could tell the dungeons were entirely mechanistic, the decorations and architecture having the quality of creatively bankrupt, procedurally-generated areas. All the flourishes were the same, all architecture merely repetition of the same few key features.


    Cato leapt forward and decapitated the frog king with a single swipe of his claws. Higher ranks could resist the absurd sharpness that metamaterials could reach, but the dungeon was not anywhere near that rank. The dungeon boss toppled into gory halves before being absorbed once again, leaving more equipment in its place.


    Once upon a time Cato had played more than a few games that operated on similar principles with his cousins, but the fight against the System had beaten his game-oriented reflexes out of him. Random loot rewards in a game were fine, once they had become consolation prizes in a deathmatch it had permanently destroyed any fond memories he had once had of such pastimes.


    Down he went, to a third floor that was more ice themed than water. Temperatures dropped to well below freezing, and his acoustic mapping showed massive slush pits of near-freezing water underneath the blanket of snow that covered the blizzard-wracked floor. Cato had no idea how a pair like the Sydeans he¡¯d just sent out of the dungeon were supposed to traverse it, but his warframe didn¡¯t have any issues. Even the cold wasn¡¯t much, since all he needed to do was dial up the heat output of his cells.


    The floating bits of ice did little to slow him down. The elementals were blatantly impossible by the standards of physics, but at the same time weren¡¯t capable of doing much to the warframe. It was moderately immune to variations in temperature, and regular ice was not strong enough to prevent him from moving, so he just broke through the attempts to freeze him to the floor or slow him down and made a straight line for the end.


    The boss there was simply a much larger elemental, a motile blizzard with ice shards the size of the warframe¡¯s head. Yet it just wasn¡¯t moving fast enough to actually be a threat, apparently relying simply on temperatures. Cato was glad that such things had been encountered before on Earth so he knew how to deal with it, though destroying the central core wasn¡¯t too much a leap of logic.


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    He lunged through the swirling fragments with a single, powerful motion and crushed the core against the far wall. The blizzard faded as a staircase ground open, and Cato squeezed the warframe down once more. The dungeon didn¡¯t offer any challenge at all, the System¡¯s silver rank being well within the capabilities of Cato¡¯s technology. Not that Cato was there to challenge himself; he was there to remove an anchor.


    As he emerged into some sort of flooded canal-work, he was swarmed by long, eel-like forms crackling with electricity. He laughed, a deep booming noise, because electricity was far and away the least terrifying thing that any System creature could throw at him. As a matter of course, a good chunk of the warframe was superconducting, and those parts that were vulnerable were fully insulated.


    It took only raw muscle to push past the swarming eels and breeze through the dark, deep-water tunnels that characterized the final floor. His acoustic mapping found the final boss, a huge serpent in a deep pool at the end, as well as the actual core. The System anchors were physical things, chunks of some sort of crystal embedded at the bottom of their respective basement universes. Obvious enough, at least to nonvisual senses.


    The serpent reared up as Cato approached the pool, striking like a snake with an open mouth full of razor sharp teeth. The sheer amount of mass in motion would pulverize any normal biology, but Cato was tougher than the serpent and that reversed the calculus of impact. He launched himself forward, past the teeth, and clawed his way through the top of the mouth and the brain in a matter of seconds.


    Putting the most vulnerable part of the body right next to its weapons was such a design flaw.


    He dove down into the bottom of the pool, toward where the core was embedded in a niche in the stone, from which it simply couldn¡¯t be removed. Cato¡¯s lips drew back from the insanely sharp teeth of his muzzle as he grabbed the dungeon core in one huge paw. It was responsible for everything he¡¯d encountered on the way down, and in its own way a miraculous piece of machinery, but he just hated it and everything it stood for.


    Muscles wrought of graphene and boron and exotic proteins squeezed the crystalline core, shattering it into powder with a satisfying crunch. The stuff was just like the System maps ¡ª something completely and wholly constructed by the System, with no underlying reality. Practically imaginary, but no less deadly for all of that.


    The moment that the core shattered, the basement universe started to collapse. He didn¡¯t have the sensory apparatus to see essence directly, but there was enough of the stuff swirling around to have a palpable effect on the atmosphere, rendering it thick and clingy while the water started to evaporate into nothingness. The ground trembled, and he turned and ran.


    Cato was used to seeing magic and physics-defying nonsense from the System, but the entire reality of the dungeon space being destroyed was something else. The ground cracked, heaving underfoot, but a moment later sealed itself as the physical size of the level shrank. Stone bulged and bubbled like molten glass, vapor pluming from arbitrary spots on the walls.


    He powered up the steps, skirting around columns hanging in the air, twisting and distorting as if seen through a dynamic lens. Ice skated around, sizzling as if it were on a red-hot griddle, before suddenly halting in midair as if it had slammed into some invisible obstacle. Another level up, and the halls warped and stretched, his acoustic mapping showing the passages swaying and twisting as if the entire thing were drawn on a deflating ball. Cato grinned to himself as the entire pocket dimension crumpled behind him like cheap paper, gleeful in the destruction of the System space as he aimed himself up the final staircase. With one last convulsive leap he emerged into the light of the twin suns.


    ***


    ¡°Location updated,¡± Onek grunted. Golsan checked the quest.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: C-Tier Skill. Locations: Southern Jungle Conflict Zone, Azure Canyon Border Zone, Azure Canyon Dungeon]


    Combing the [Southern Jungle Conflict Zone] had proven fruitless, even for a pair of newly-minted Tornok Clan Platinums. True, neither of them had tracking skills as such, but at Platinum their ability to sense essence should have made it simplicity itself to find anything out of place. Especially after they¡¯d returned to the tiny town and found the disturbed essence inside the strange doppleganger-corpse that had walked into the System nexus building for reasons that escaped them both.


    The two of them had to put down half a dozen local golds who had been hunting the rewards for themselves ¡ª as if the backwards natives of Sydea deserved new skills more than Tornok Platinums. At least the Essence reward had been acceptable recompense for their time. The two of them really wanted that Skill selection, so after finding nothing for several days, Golsan was quite happy to see that one of the locations was more precise. At their rank they could sweep any nearby dungeon, and at worse camp at the entrance.


    He nodded to his brother and retrieved his map from his belt, giving it a glance before heading off in the proper direction. The two of them used [Windripper] to tear through the air, far faster than any of the local dullards could have managed. Sydea was a fairly unimpressive place overall, and neither Onek or Golsan would have been there if it hadn¡¯t been for the series of quests that came out regarding the [Ahrusk Portal Staging Area] while they¡¯d been just one portal hop away.


    Of course they¡¯d been too late for those, since the staging area was destroyed and the portal closed. New worlds weren¡¯t all that common an occurrence, but Golsan had never heard of a new world failing at its initial integration so badly that the System decided to wipe the whole thing and start over. It did make some kind of sense though, as Sydea itself was terrible, and anything further in that line would be horrendous. It was no wonder everyone involved had turned it into a catastrophe. At least the System had been considerate enough to provide compensation for anyone who¡¯d had their time wasted.


    The [Southern Jungle Conflict Zone] blurred below them, giving way to the [Azure Canyon Border Zone] in only a few minutes. The sound of their passage echoed off the canyon walls and sent rocks tumbling down in their wake, churning the water of the river below into froth. The dungeon itself was easy enough to spot, and the two of them came to a halt just as a pair of locals stumbled out of it.


    Golsan exchanged a glance with his brother and the two of them slammed down in front of the pathetic lizard-things, making them topple amusingly from the shockwave. From the feel of their essence they were somewhere in Silver, barely more than ants, but that was to be expected in such a pathetic backwater as Sydea. The planet really had nothing going for it.


    ¡°You two,¡± Golsan stated, narrowing his eyes at the pair. ¡°Did you see anything strange enter the dungeon?¡± The brothers could have gone in themselves and it might have been faster, but even low rank dungeons interfered with essence senses, and of course the interior was completely opaque from the outside.


    ¡°I¡­¡± The armored one started to say something as it struggled to its feet, before turning to help the robed one. Golsan snorted impatiently.


    ¡°Speak up! Look at me when you¡¯re talking!¡± He ordered, voice booming. The armored one stiffened its spine and looked Golsan in the eye.


    ¡°A monster came by and told us to leave,¡± it said. Golsan snarled and slapped it for the temerity of daring to address him so familiarly. As a Platinum he moved in a blur, and he could feel the lizard¡¯s jaw shatter from the casual backhand. As it swayed and started to topple, the robed one grabbed it and shrieked at them.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡±


    Of course, Onek wouldn¡¯t let some low rank animal speak to them that way, and he responded with a simple [Wind Cut].


    [Low Silver Rank Sydean defeated. Essence awarded.]


    [Low Silver Rank Sydean defeated. Essence awarded.]


    Golsan snorted at the System¡¯s confirmation of their actions. Even if it wasn¡¯t much Essence, barely enough to feel, it was nice to be rewarded for dealing with such nonsense. The lizard things wouldn¡¯t have been much help anyway, their rank being so low that they couldn¡¯t have even been able to [Identify] something that was a peak Gold threat.


    ¡°I guess we go in,¡± he remarked to Onek, stepping past the carcasses, only to stop as all the ambient essence began to tremble. The two of them leapt back, taking to the air again as the atmosphere was churned into a nearly visible haze, the ground rumbling and shaking and making the water of the lake dance. It took Golsan a moment to realize what was going on, for dungeon collapses were far from common. But he had seen one once before, and the widespread essence disruption was hard to forget.


    ¡°Or not,¡± Onek said, readying his blade. Golsan followed suit. Both of them used thin, whiplike swords to amplify their skills such as [Wind Cut] and [Gale Volley], though really their entire bodies were weapons in that vein. Long practice with their Skills made him confident they could deal with whatever this particular beast was, especially since they could ambush it the moment it emerged from the dungeon. Which it had to, or be destroyed in the collapse.


    He caught it more with [Wind Perception] than his eyes, something big pushing a pressure wave in front of it and displacing the air in the dungeon¡¯s dome. It was surprisingly stealthy for something that size, but not nearly good enough to fool Platinum senses. As one, the two brothers unleashed [Gale Volley], followed by a thundering snap meant to deafen and disorient even before the Skill landed.


    Air cut into stone. Explosions boomed. The blue dome crumbled. But the thing had dodged.


    ***


    The moment Cato emerged from the dungeon, the threat-scanning neural lattice sent him into a crash framejack. The emergency measures sent subjective time running at over a hundred times faster than reality and flushed his primary neurons with the proper chemical mix to help him think clearly and calmly, rather than panic. Which was blatantly cheating, but that¡¯s why it was a warframe.


    He recognized the pair hovering in the air as the slinky rodent things in articulated armor that he¡¯d seen earlier. Since he hadn¡¯t spotted any real pursuit for a while, he had hoped they¡¯d given up, but apparently not. Maybe his decision to remove the dungeon had been a poor one. The combat flush made him recognize he¡¯d been just angry enough to take a chance that perhaps he shouldn¡¯t have, even if it wasn¡¯t a complete loss. The collapse would still let him shroud his location for a while, but just the scant minutes he had been pinpointed to a single place meant he¡¯d drawn attention he really didn¡¯t want to. In the excess of time he had while the System people reacted, and the warframe started to move at speeds constrained by physics, he studied them and the surroundings.


    Judging by the distortions of wind ¨C visible in certain electromagnetic bands ¨C they were air users, which was a problem. Cato mostly had close quarters options, since creating any reusable projectile system of real significance without combustion or electromagnetics was a losing proposition. The System could do it with magic, but that was just an unfairness he had to live with.


    Then he noticed the two bodies on the ground, and grim anger leaked past the induced chemical calm. The rats had clearly murdered the kids, and he had no doubt it was at least in part due to the System actively rewarding such behavior. Even if it wasn¡¯t, he¡¯d seen for himself how the System so inured people to killing that randomly slaughtering lower ranks was worth barely even a thought.


    The two air users waved their little whippy swords, rippling distortions issuing forth like dozens of invisible spears. Cato launched himself forward, ahead of the attack and mostly ignoring the subsequent sonic burst that damaged a few of his eardrums. He didn¡¯t dare make himself airborne, not with air users, but at maximum framejack he could at least dodge their attacks and perhaps force them to close in.


    Several more volleys came his way, and he simply outpaced them. In his slowed time they moved sluggishly, and he spent his focus on ensuring each movement was optimized. That he had appropriate lines of retreat and evasion, calculating angles to force the pair to interfere with each other.


    He calculated feints, the warframe moving sluggishly compared to his perceptions, skirting their attacks in what would have seemed a blur of motion at normal speed. After several accelerated seconds of evading their long-range attacks, the pair swooped down to try and flank him at sword range. At which point he decided that getting them close had been, in fact, a very poor idea, because they were extremely fast. And strong.


    He sliced at one with his forward claws, and while the whippy sword was interposed ¨C and wasn¡¯t even cut by the monomolecular edge ¨C the sheer mass of the blow meant it landed. But it did nothing other than push the rodent back and score some lines on its armor. The other rodent took the opportunity to punch an air blade into, and through, Cato¡¯s side.


    The System-enhanced physics cut right through the fullerine-and-metal plating and into the flesh underneath. The attack drove a long puncture wound through what would have been the guts of the warframe, if the warframe had guts. It also sent ten tons of bioweapon sprawling from the impact, though he was back on his feet before they could capitalize on the opportunity.


    ¡°Ow,¡± Cato said to himself, though it didn¡¯t hurt. Pain had its place, but it would have been a supremely bad idea to give a bioweapon designed to regularly engage in combat such a deleterious and imprecise method of reporting damage. The air attack had obliterated one sub-brain, damaged several specialized organs that he was using to support his passengers, and come perilously close to actually skewering one of the preserved brains he was carrying around.


    There was no way that he¡¯d be able to beat those two on a physical basis alone, which they clearly understood. Even if they were an unfamiliar species, he could recognize that much of their body language. Given a few more minutes they¡¯d cut him into so many bloody chunks.


    Of course, this was a problem that the Earth defenders had run into before. Not everyone had the benefits of orbital overwatch, and the ability to simply call a particle beam from the heavens down upon whatever System entity was being difficult. Fortunately, there were lots of clever people with far more imagination than Cato, and he had a ready solution to his current problem. The originator of the tactic had called it the Gesundheit Surprise, but most everyone else called it the Sneeze of Doom.


    Cato partially aerosolized a large number of cell structures whose sole purpose was to induce a tiny amount of nuclear fusion, packed with as much deuterium fuel as he could manage from his reserves. Wrapped with some motile cells and a few neuron threads to produce the System-blocking static, the mess looked a bit like snot. It was disgusting but that was something the defenders had become used to, with bioweapons as the only option. He split the mess into packets, arming two of his back-tendrils. Then he lunged forward, tendrils swiveling as he tracked the large noses on their muzzles.


    Very precisely, he sneezed on each of their noses. The deuterated organelles immediately slid themselves inside the nostrils, which surely was not comfortable and got the pair of rodents to disengage, rubbing furiously at their muzzles. That wasn¡¯t the end though, and Cato turned and ran. Only moments later, the organelles all went off at once, and half a gram of deuterium fused itself inside each of their sinus cavities.


    The rear-facing sets of eyes saw their eyes, noses, and mouths vent fusion plasma, followed by their heads more or less exploding. Yet the corpses were still intact after they dropped, and Cato reversed course to bound over to where they lay. The high ranks of the System had insane regenerative capabilities, and even the Sneeze of Doom might not be enough to put them down permanently. So he ate them.


    Cut off from the System, there was far less they could do, and out of an abundance of caution he directed everything to one of the molecular disassembly chambers that were the closest things the warframe had to stomachs. The chemical foundry there went to work, tearing apart the bodies and studying the biochemistry for future use and reclaiming any rare elements it could manage from the armor.


    The battle clarity faded, and Cato shuddered at how damn outclassed he had been. Another couple direct hits and he would have been severely impaired, at which point it was a downward spiral. He would have been forced to self-destruct the warframe, and hope his backup fared better. It was only through the work and genius of others that he¡¯d had any idea what to do. It would have been nice if he could build a gun from the uncontrolled fusion technique instead, but it was uncontrolled, with only the vaguest control over the yield when performed at that scale.


    Shaking off the virtual chills, he trotted over to where the two lizard-people corpses were, because he¡¯d be damned if he would let some kids get killed if he could help it. Fortunately for them, their heads seemed to be intact. He ate them as well, but their brains got excised and preserved while he let his foundry analyze their bodies. With luck he could grow them exact duplicates.


    They would never get the lost ranks back, but that hardly mattered. One way or another, they¡¯d be living outside the System soon enough. He checked the quest updates with his symbiotic blank, wanting to make sure the entire diversion hadn¡¯t been for naught.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: B-Tier Skill. Locations: Southeastern Coren]


    Having half a continent to hide in was good enough.

 Chapter 3 – Caves and Ruins

    Cato loped over the savannah at something close to one hundred miles per hour, able to really let loose now that he had flat ground. Every hour or so he planted a seed at a river or oasis, where they could bury into the mud and suck in water to try and restock on deuterium, searching for the hidden gems of heavy hydrogen sometimes found in life¡¯s favored solvent. After encountering the rodent pair he was more aware that something really potent could swoop down and flatten him, and it was better to have more backups than fewer. Besides which, when the System reorganized itself around the missing anchor, having a huge number of zones to check was better.


    He knew that wasn¡¯t sufficient, of course. Anyone with a map and the willingness to watch the System updates would be able to chart his course and possibly intercept him. Which was why he needed to muddy the waters, and make it look like he was going in multiple directions at once.


    While he wasn¡¯t as much of a genius as the tinkerers back on Titan, Cato had learned to be a bit of a dab hand at genetic manipulation over the course of the Earth conflict. It didn¡¯t hurt that the bioweapon came with its own chemical programming mechanisms to let him adjust some of the available genetic sequences. It wasn¡¯t like a full interface, which would have to wait until he was out of the System, but between that and the very basic neural engrams he could give them simple instructions rather than installing a full copy of himself.


    Currently brewing in a pocket on his back were a quartet of very stealthy fliers, which would travel at angles to where Cato was headed and drop more seeds. Considering they were disposable, they were as light on the metallic elements as possible, but Cato really needed to find a cave to see if he couldn¡¯t leech some reserves of selenium and ytterbium. Tantalum and tungsten would have been nice too, but those were even less likely.


    Creating all that biomass didn¡¯t come for free, but he had a certain amount of material kindly generated by two rodents, and it wasn¡¯t too hard to take big bites out of passing trees, and stones, or guzzle down a few hundred gallons of water. Bioweapon metabolism was frighteningly efficient relative to normal biology, mostly because it relied on hydrogen and deuterium for energy and could use almost anything for its elemental composition, but he still needed to replenish mass. The special System materials, like those that composed armor and weapons, were practically useless considering the effort it took to extract them.


    With the System¡¯s pawns distracted and misdirected by the scope of the quest, he could spare some attention for the genuinely alien world of Sydea. Not that he had any idea how much of the flora and fauna was native; when the System had come to Earth a huge chunk of the native ecology had simply collapsed. A few hobbyists out by Venus had the surveys and genetic samplings to reseed it, but fixing up the planet¡¯s ruined ecosystems would take longer than pushing the System off in the first place ¡ª assuming it got done at all. They were all volunteers and there was enough bad blood between Earth and Venus that nobody might bother.


    The tall golden grass was probably native considering it seemed adapted for variant light conditions, a match for the behavior of the binary pair in the sky above. The big, beetle-like grazers wandering through the plains seemed less so, but with the weird alterations from System magic there was no telling. Cato knew at least three people who would have had a field day, but none of them were silly enough to send versions of themselves through a magical portal to a place where proper technology didn¡¯t actually work.


    Topping a rise, the replacement for the destroyed sub-brain ¨C one responsible for locomotion ¨C finally came back online, so Cato decided to finally get some sleep. He didn¡¯t need it physically, as the neural lattice that supported his gestalt flushed itself fairly regularly, but it did serve to put punctuation around periods of time and helped integrate experiences. Cato hadn¡¯t been base human for a very long time, but the architecture was still roughly the same ¡ª and by design. Anything else resulted in something that could not be called human, as postbiologicals had found out the hard way.


    Of course, there was no need to actually risk anything creeping up on him, so he set the warframe to keep going and framejacked himself to maximum for the sleep period. Total downtime, perhaps three minutes and five miles. Though aside from keeping a close eye on the surroundings, Cato wasn¡¯t doing much with his uptime. He had no additional resources to leverage, and with a lack of anything actionable he found he had time to actually reflect on what he was doing.


    Normally when he was at an impasse he¡¯d bounce ideas off Luna Secundus herself, one of the few great giga-AIs scattered about the solar system. After all, Cato was hardly some great strategist. Like everyone who took part in the so-called Anti-System War, or the No Fun Allowed War, he was basically a civilian. There were certainly forces that would have prosecuted the war with far more expertise and alacrity, like Enceladus. That particular AI had converted the entire Saturnian moon it was named after to weapons and computing substrate and Cato was completely certain it had been anonymously supplying occasional wargaming simulations, but it hadn¡¯t actually bestirred itself.


    Nor had many other forces within the Solar System. The general consensus among most of the outsystem polities was that Earth had got what it deserved, which Cato could hardly blame them for, but he¡¯d been born well after the War of Outsystem Independence and he personally had friends on Earth. The planet had its problems but that was true everywhere, and he¡¯d even spent a while in the various simulated worlds. The fond memories of his time there were all that remained though, as all those places had been erased in the System¡¯s advent.


    Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have a moon-sized AI riding shotgun. Aside from himself, the best he had was a hyper-compressed database loaded onto a crystalline pseudo-diamond embedded in his spine. It wasn¡¯t something the System¡¯s physics would ruin, like semiconductors and superconductors and industrial microtech, but rather an inert rock that lacked vulnerable mechanisms or properties. He was stuck with biotech, like the fliers that were just finalizing as he arrived at another oasis.


    It would have been inaccurate to call the creations birds, for they only bore a faint resemblance to things with feathers and beaks. They were closer to a cross between a bat and an albatross, covered with chromatophores to make themselves difficult to spot, and capable of eating practically anything. More importantly, capable of flying high, quickly, and for very long distances.


    The caul they had been constructed in retracted ¨C gestated in was probably more proper, but these were closer to machines than animals ¨C and they launched themselves into the air with enough speed to get clear of the more predatory creatures that called the oasis home. Cato had a link with them for a short distance, but the moment they passed out of range they¡¯d be independent, with very simple behaviors. Three of them had a track they¡¯d fly based on the map, scavenging foliage and dropping seeds into bodies of water at intervals. Given any trouble at all they¡¯d self-destruct, though sadly Cato wouldn¡¯t know if that happened. The last was meant as his eyes in the sky, to keep him from running into trouble. The bird he¡¯d converted had ended up being destroyed by his conflict with the rats, but it would have been out of place on the plains anyway.


    For himself, he had to continue north and west until he hit the ocean. Given the speed he was maintaining, that¡¯d happen sooner rather than later, but there was still a swath of inhabited area he had to get through. The savannah itself was technically the [Golden Grass Resource Zone], and he¡¯d spotted a few parties gathering said resources, but it was still quite sparsely populated.


    That was fine. He really couldn¡¯t afford to encounter any more natives anyway.


    ***


    Onswa Ramik was always of two minds when he met with Arene. While he ruled Sydea ¨C ignoring the System God, which worked in mysterious ways far beyond the ken of mortals ¨C most of the actual governance was done by people like Arene, and when they came to him it was always with problems. Nobody ever visited him for social calls, it was only ever about business.


    On the other hand, Arene was one of the most spectacular specimens of the female sex to grace the surface of Sydea. She¡¯d come into her power early, making Platinum years ago, and her horns maintained the glossy sharpness of youth even though her muzzle had the shape of a mature woman. Her scales were a marvelously complex pattern of orange and red, like leaping flames, and then there was that tail. That tail. Every single time he saw her he had to strangle the temptation to make a bid for her attentions. If Arene didn¡¯t kill him, his wife surely would.


    So he had to content himself with looking.


    ¡°I¡¯m starting to get damned tired of seeing this quest in the System list,¡± Arene said as she dropped heavily into the chair across from him, and she didn¡¯t have to specify which quest she meant. The Global Defense Quest had been sitting there for days, visible to everyone and tempting anyone on-planet who thought they had even a faint chance of accomplishing it. ¡°Why won¡¯t it resolve already? Gives me the creeps.¡±


    ¡°Right there with you,¡± Onswa agreed, turning and opening the drinks cabinet. The System-provided Planetary Administrator office was fairly opulent, all Gold rank materials. The fine carpet, the polished slab of wood that was the desk, the crystalline windows, the carved furniture and glittering overhead lights. The drinks, however, were something that he¡¯d paid his own essence for and generally considered a worthwhile investment. He poured one shot of the Platinum-rank liquor for himself and another for Arene, then sighed.


    ¡°I have to say I¡¯m tempted myself, but I really don¡¯t need more Skills,¡± he said. Onswa still delved dungeons to keep his hand in, but many of the aether-oriented combat Skills that had brought him to mid-Platinum went unused the rest of the time. He couldn¡¯t really rank up without going off-planet, and even if he did just the costs of being higher rank would require additional off-planet trips. Sydea couldn¡¯t sustain anything higher than Platinum in the long term.


    ¡°I went for a look,¡± Arene said, which didn¡¯t surprise him. ¡°Either the thing is better at hiding than anything I¡¯ve seen before, or the System is a damned liar.¡± Onswa flinched at the blasphemy, but Arene continued on without a pause. ¡°I couldn¡¯t find any presence at all. There was clearly something there at some point though ¡ª a team called the Gosruk Guardians are gone. New Golds.¡± Onswa grimaced, but she wasn¡¯t done. ¡°Then a pair of Tornok Clan brothers showed up. Killed six more of our Golds while supposedly patrolling the area.¡±


    Onswa growled. Most people on Sydea wouldn¡¯t recognize the Tornok Clan name, but anyone who¡¯d been offworld was familiar. They were a large and powerful family and had people in ranks all the way up to Alum. Sydea was generally too much of a backwater for them to be interested, but the last [Portal Staging Area] quests had been broadcast far enough to bring in a number of outsiders. At least, before the portal had abruptly closed and the staging area itself was removed.


    Trying to deal with members of the Tornok Clan would be a political nightmare, assuming that Arene could have applied sufficient force. She probably could have ¨C she had reached Platinum so quickly for a very good reason ¨C but only if she was in the area.


    ¡°Where are they now?¡± He reflexively brought up the map and the statistics that his Planetary Administrator role granted him. It didn¡¯t show where everyone on the planet was at every moment, but he could at least figure if there were high rankers in the region. It had already helpfully shifted to show the area in question, zooming in and starting to list off individuals.


    ¡°That¡¯s the interesting thing. They vanished around the time the Azure Canyon Dungeon collapsed.¡± Arene bared her teeth in a humorless smile. ¡°Seems they bit off more than they could handle. Which makes me doubt that I could take it, whatever it is.¡±


    ¡°At least we can thank our invader for that much,¡± Onswa said, taking a sip of the fiery whiskey. Arene followed suit, knocking back the whole glass and then letting out a long sigh.


    ¡°Yeah, but my nephew¡¯s kid and her husband were delving Azure Canyon at the time. Water skills, and all that.¡± Arene¡¯s words were neutral, but her posture was stiff.


    ¡°Oh, gods,¡± Onswa said, leaning over to refill her glass. That particular vintage was eye-wateringly expensive, but he wasn¡¯t about to stint Arene at the moment. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. There¡¯s no chance they got out?¡± Even as he spoke he prodded the System Interface, which helpfully shifted down to Azure Canyon, though the display was sluggish as it approached the area where the dungeon had once been.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got people combing the area for any survivors, and there¡¯s sure signs of a fight, but no bodies or anything.¡± Arene reached out to take the glass, staring into it. ¡°One reason I came to you.¡± Onswa nodded and watched as the interface slowly wrote names onto its screen. Finally it stopped, and Arene shook her head.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said again. ¡°Maybe I should deal with it myself so we don¡¯t lose anyone else to this invader,¡± he continued, pulling up the quest next to the map. It would have been far better if one of the upper golds had managed to get the reward, someone who could really use it, but it seemed like that was yet another opportunity for his people that was not to be. The dungeon destruction was another worry, and in many ways worse than the deaths of his people. Without those, the planet would waste away ¡ª both from diminishing essence and less item income in general.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: B-Tier Skill. Locations: Southeastern Coren]


    ¡°If you can find the damned thing,¡± Arene pointed out sourly, taking another swallow. ¡°Half a continent is a large place to search.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s that or ask for outside help,¡± Onswa grumbled. Arene nodded, her muzzle wrinkling in distaste. Inviting a foreign rank above Platinum to deal with Sydea¡¯s problems was not likely to go well. In no world would they escape that with a debt they could handle, and most of the high Rankers were likely to cause more damage than the invader.


    The quest blinked, then updated.


    ¡°Oh, hells,¡± Onswa said, staring at it. Arene summoned her own version, looked at it, then groaned.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: B-Tier Skill. Locations: Southeastern Coren, Northeastern Coren, Mosaw City, Korel Town, Mosul Town.]


    ¡°How the hell did it spread so fast?¡± Onswa demanded. Arene lashed her tail, a popping snap that rattled the windows of the tower-top office.


    ¡°It has to know it¡¯s being tracked,¡± Arene said darkly. ¡°I don¡¯t know how it¡¯s fooling the system, but I bet all of those but one are fakes.¡±


    ¡°Fakes or not, we have to do something. I¡¯m going to hear screaming from every mayor on Coren in about thirty seconds.¡± Onswa stood. ¡°I¡¯ll take Mosaw, you take the towns. We need to see to our people first.¡±


    ¡°Especially since the report from [Gosruk Town] said that it somehow imitated one of the golds,¡± Arene agreed, following his example. ¡°If there¡¯s even a chance of people being replaced¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Onswa said, summoning his armor and fixing his Planetary Administrator badge to it, which would let him access most of the functions while he was out and about. ¡°Let¡¯s hope we¡¯re lucky.¡±


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ***


    Cato slowed as he entered the [Great Southern Ruins Conflict Zone], where the savannah gave way to rolling hills. The looming, overgrown structures that gave the Zone its name were nestled in a pocket of those hills, right on the border between flat land and sloped. It looked to him like the remains of a reasonably industrial city, though with the System it was impossible to know. Perhaps it had sprung full formed from nothingness, but if Earth¡¯s integration was any judge, the System preferred to reuse existing landmarks.


    The entire city was made of swooping domes raised up on big stone pylons, elevating it above a no-longer-extant flood plain, and damage to the pylons showed it was some kind of iron-reinforced concrete. That didn¡¯t necessarily mean a heavily industrialized society, since the Romans had concrete and could have reinforced it with metal bars if they wanted, but it was a pretty good guess. There were rusted streaks here and there that probably once belonged to flagpoles and the like, but might possibly have been electrical connections. It was hard to tell with the state of the ruins, and of course the entire thing was crawling with monsters.


    Unlike the [Southern Jungle Conflict Zone], where everything was just normal jungle beasts upscaled to heroic proportions, or even the savannah he¡¯d just crossed with its herds of meat animals, the things that inhabited the ruins were clear System abominations. Each of them was vaguely humanoid, scaled like the natives of Sydea but with flat, eyeless faces that were practically split in two by massive jaws filled with sharp teeth. They also lacked legs; their bodies simply stopped at the torso, and they moved around with massively oversized arms, climbing and clambering up and around the domes.


    What was truly creepy was the elite version of the same, which was identical save for size. Here and there an enormous versions of the legless things, head tall enough to be level with the domes, hand-walked or dragged itself through the gaps between buildings. The scale could only be truly appreciated through his flying spies high above the ruins. Watching it as he approached, it became clear the big ones moved on a regular patrol route, emerging from and vanishing into a huge central dome in the middle of the ruins. The smaller ones stuck to individual buildings, making them discrete encounters.


    Because of course there were people fighting in the Conflict Zone. That¡¯s what it was for, after all, and from the air he could spot three different parties of natives working their way through the city. Judging from the skills on display, none of them were of particularly high rank. They didn¡¯t fly or teleport, their attacks were simple-looking, and there were long intervals of perfectly mundane cut and thrust between them.


    So the ruins were a fairly low level zone, which struck Cato as some sort of vicious morbid joke being played on the Sydeans. Behold, it seemed to say, here was what you constructed without the System, and now they are forever in ruins, forever a battleground against some twisted mutant things inhabiting what remains of your civilization. See how weak it all was, that it is only fit for the least of warriors. He found it hard to believe it was coincidence.


    On a hunch he veered closer to one of the buildings, close enough to take a passing bite out of one of the monsters. Not for fun, certainly, but because that was the only way to get a genetic analysis. The fact that his teeth sheared through the monster flesh as if it were paper was further support for this zone being low rank; flesh became as tough as stone, as steel, or beyond normal material limits at higher ranks.


    He kept to the city fringe, seeing no reason to go deeper, while the analysis worked. It didn¡¯t take very long for his hunch to be confirmed, the chemistry doing its job and matching chromosome structures. Sydean natives used a slightly different set of amino acids ¨C and thus entirely different chemical chains ¨C but the principles were remarkably similar to Earth biology.


    The monsters were within a margin of error of the Sydean peoples. Best as he could tell, they were the same species, just twisted by System nonsense into horrible mockeries of the scaled folk. Cato had no idea whether the things were in some way intelligent, or even worse, were in some way degenerate descendants or distorted reproductions of the original inhabitants of the city.


    Cato mused on whether it would be best to simply nuke the city from orbit or if, once the System was gone, the inhabitants would be returned to something normal. Which would be its own sort of horror, not to mention a logistical nightmare. Cato had known that he¡¯d be dealing with problems on that scale when he¡¯d made his choice to go through the portal, but seeing each piece of the puzzle and knowing it was one of thousand or millions was another thing entirely.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: B-Tier Skill. Locations: Southeastern Coren, Northeastern Coren, Mosaw City, Korel Town, Mosul Town.]


    The quest update jolted him from his consideration. It seemed that the System was starting to recover from the disruption, with the towns resolving first. Judging by the report of being in both south and northeastern Coren, his little fliers had spread far indeed, so even when it all come back he should be well covered. Of course, he still wasn¡¯t out of danger. The uppermost Ranks could search that easily, but until the System upgraded the quest to an equivalent rank they wouldn¡¯t be interested. Assuming they were even available.


    He veered away from the ruins, which was a small zone and so not one he wanted to be caught in, and instead skirted around toward the farther hills. According to the map the broad stretch of hilly terrain was unfortunately a border zone and not something he could really avoid, so the best thing to do was to cross it as fast as possible. There were even cave entrances he¡¯d spotted from the air, so there might even be an opportunity to replenish some of his metal stocks.


    Considering the lack of nearby water and volcanic features, the positions of the caves made little sense, but that was just what the System did. Especially since he noted that he¡¯d crossed into the [Low Hills Resource Zone], so it was probably deliberately designed to be a place to gather ore.


    Though what the System considered ore was generally rather surreal. Nature didn¡¯t actually deposit elemental metals in such small quantities, especially not in small nodes rather than proper veins. Not that he would complain if he could take it for himself, given his lack of any proper extraction infrastructure.


    Suddenly the System quest updated again, this time scrolling out with dozens of Zones, the disruption finally settling and the zones updating. With so many he would have thought that his actual location would have been well shrouded, but a few moments after the update there was a sudden bloom of fire high in the air over the ruins. Enormous wings of flame, each one a hundred feet across, extended outward from the fireball, followed by one of the locals bursting forth into the air. Through his flier he could see that she had flame-colored scales, which was quite on-brand, and fine red chain over dark orange leather for armor.


    The threat processes threw him into framejack again, though this time he could have done it himself. The new arrival was very obviously a high ranker like the rats he¡¯d fought before, and it took him a moment to conclude why she¡¯d shown up just at that instant. The zone borders weren¡¯t clear and his fliers couldn¡¯t actually see the updates, so he had tried to err on the side of caution to keep them in the proper zone ¡ª but one of them seemed to have somehow clipped the ruins zone, just for a moment. Any lummox could realize that meant that either someone in the area had fulfilled the quest there ¡ª or what they were looking for had just moved through a very small zone.


    The elite was high in the air, obviously surveying the surroundings, so Cato bolted for the nearest cave entrance to get out of sight and hopefully make his way into one of the great underground zones that caves usually led to. His only other options were staying still and hoping his camouflage held, or trying to outrun the elite¡¯s perceptions ¡ª and he didn¡¯t like either of those. He barreled into the entrance, which was about wide enough for two of him, the acoustic mapping generating a labyrinth of twisting passages.


    At full framejack, he had the luxury of studying the layout and plotting a route ¡ª especially since some of the passages were far too small for the warframe. It would be highly embarrassing to be trapped because he took a wrong turn. He had a course mapped out before he was out of line of sight from the entrance, a single leap taking him over a low-rank party hauling sleds of mined ore. The wind of his passage whipped at their cloaks as he blurred overhead, then he was past them and bounding off the walls as he headed down.


    In accelerated time he had the luxury of studying his surroundings properly as he tried to consider every last detail. The grey-white granite was flecked with minerals and, here and there, glowing crystals embedded in the walls to keep it from being pitch black. There was no miniscule threading of random passages leading nowhere, no slippery mud and uneven footing, no collapses or segments that needed bracing. Most of the passages were more than high and wide enough that those traveling didn¡¯t need to duck down or squeeze by. Despite lacking any sort of toolmarks, it was clearly unnatural to anyone who knew what caves were truly supposed to be like. Perhaps to those who delved its depths for raw materials it was nice enough, but he found it to be an affront. Possibly because he¡¯d specialized in exogeology for a while, or maybe just because he was prejudiced against obvious System artifice.


    He bounced down a near-vertical shaft, claws tearing shards of rock from the walls, and had almost reached bottom when a shockwave of searing air sent his acoustic mapping into overdrive. The elite that he¡¯d glimpsed was after him, and the impact of her arrival generated a high-resolution picture of her pausing briefly at the party before skirting around and diving into the passages. Once again his system flushed his neural lattice with battle chemicals to keep him from panicking, and Cato launched himself into the next passage.


    For someone as powerful as the lady lizard on his heels, his best bet was something like the Sneeze of Doom. He hadn¡¯t nearly replenished his deuterium reserves yet, but he still had enough for one or two of them ¡ª if he got the chance. But this wasn¡¯t like the rat things, for a number of reasons. This was her world, she was meant to be here, and besides which she¡¯d gone out of her way to avoid harming the low-rank party. Clearly she wasn¡¯t a psychopath.


    Dealing with her nonlethally would be absurdly difficult, and even if he wanted to kill her, the lady was a fire user. She probably ran hot enough to cook his biomatter before it got the chance to perform its quantum confinement trick and force the miracle of nuclear fusion. But the cave system was enormous, so he might have some luck simply running.


    Cato went down and down, taking sharp turns while the warframe ran flat out, barreling past crystalline formations and dodging oversized cave worms or titanic ants. He was moving far too fast for any of them to react, let alone attack, though such things offered no real danger. The threat was behind him, his thermal senses setting off all kinds of warnings. The rock above him trembled at a strange high frequency, and he dodged to the side just before a bar of white-hot fire punched through the ceiling and the floor, nearly overloading his thermal senses.


    The lady had managed to target him and hurl her fire spell through a hundred-something feet of solid rock. Cave-riddled rock, more accurately, but it was hardly an open field. At least it was something he could dodge. The warframe armor was extremely heat resistant, but that attack exceeded all the limits and would cut through him just as easily as the stone.


    He leapt into an open shaft, descending several hundred feet at something faster than terminal velocity by pushing off the ceiling. The warframe¡¯s musculature strained as ten tons of mass slammed into the base of the shaft before accelerating off through another passage, religiously following the path the acoustic mapping showed. The ceiling ahead of him vibrated, and he was forced to reroute suddenly to avoid the bar of white that swept across the passage ahead.


    The pursuit drove him ever deeper, circling through a massive network of passages and stirring up the inhabitants in the wake of his passage. He couldn¡¯t tell exactly where the fire lady was except for when one of the bars of white fire melted through the rock and gave him an angle. For the moment he seemed to be maintaining distance, but not by much. Even if he didn¡¯t want to kill her, he absolutely wasn¡¯t willing to be killed himself and at Platinum she could probably survive a cave collapse.


    Yet another lance of intense fire forced him to launch himself into the air, jumping off walls to stay out of the path, and with a sudden report a huge section of the cave ahead gave way. With a roar, uncounted tons of rock crumbled into open passages below, sending clouds of dust and debris billowing upward and drawing alarmed screams and cries from the animals living within. Cato landed on a pile of cracked and broken stone and quickly half-dug, half-shoved his way into a partly obscured passage, finally having an idea of how to be rid of his pursuer.


    He began painting the cuts made by the lady¡¯s flame jet into the map of passages he¡¯d been making with his acoustic sensing, along with her predicted movements and timings. Each of the cuts was too small for a person to pass through, being maybe six inches diameter, so she was more or less forced to follow the cave¡¯s windings. Even if she cut out a hole, it¡¯d still be choked with debris and the fire beams were likely at least a little limited to begin with.


    Cato hurtled down the nearest vertical shaft, then fled back upward through a far shallower passage, by that point at least a half-mile down thanks to the shortcut-shafts scattered about. The entire map was a sort of best-guess, but he was pretty certain of his path. He was exceedingly grateful that the warframe didn¡¯t get tired, because running flat out over rock and rubble and oddly-angled terrain was exhausting enough mentally. Even with sub-brains dedicated to making sure he didn¡¯t trip over his own six feet, at full charge and bouncing off the angles and drops he had a tough time keeping himself coordinated.


    Once again a bar of incandescent fury punched through from behind him, but this time he was just a fraction too slow and it clipped the end of his tail and his rear right leg. They were instantly severed, registering all kinds of alarms from the warframe and forcing Cato to go along on five limbs instead of six, while the biomatter remaining behind self-destructed.


    ¡°Ow, dammit,¡± he said to himself, even if it didn¡¯t actually hurt. The wound sealed itself instantly, sub-brains redistributing weight and gait, but he was still slower than before. He had to hope he could implement his idea before the elite finished the job.


    He juked into a side passage, absolutely flattening a hapless cave toad the size of a cow and only barely managing to avoid another beam attack. This time it was from below, and according to his map he only needed a few more for the cuts to add up to some serious problems. Cato pulled some of his deuterium reserves into a tendril and began preparing another Sneeze of Doom.


    Two more cuts, and if anything the impossible bars of flame burned even hotter, leaving rivulets of molten rock dripping all over the caves. She was gaining on him, but he was ready. Between the natural passages and the huge cuts made by the beams of fire, the whole cave system was unstable. Or at least, unstable enough that several billion joules worth of explosive would make a right mess of it.


    Cato spat the dangerous snot onto the wall just in front of another vertical drop where a waterfall plunged down into a shallow pool, then hurled himself into the chasm. He hit with a splash, then clambered into another passage, one lined with luminous grass and small crystalline flowers. Then time was up, and he tucked in his tendrils and remaining limbs as a very small ¨C relatively, anyway ¨C fusion explosion shocked through the cave system.


    Superheated gasses carried on a pressure wave sent him shooting through the confined spaces, bouncing him off rock walls and through hanging formations like some kind of bizarre projectile. The roar of the explosion echoed and grew as the expanding shock front fractured and broke already weakened areas of rock, starting a chain reaction of collapse. Millions of tons of rock both above and below rumbled and ground together, the network of caves crushing down into each other. Jets of displaced air hissed between slabs and sent more fragments flying in the chaos.


    Cato smashed into one particularly large chunk of rock and clung to it with monomolecular-edged claws, instructing his armor plates to reinforce themselves as he tried to dig in and stabilize himself in the fall. He¡¯d made sure he was at the edge of the collapsing area, but there was no way to judge such a thing accurately. Not with the processing power available to the warframe.


    His thermal senses caught a massive bloom in the distance, leaking through the tons of moving rock. The flame lizard-woman, performing some sort of skill in an effort to ward off the immensity of the crushing rock. It probably helped, but not for long, the bloom vanishing as the collapse ground to a groaning, clattering halt.


    With all the strength of a hydraulic press, Cato clawed his way out of the rubble, finding himself at the bottom of a jagged dome, where fires still flared from the cave entrances and the remains of luminescent moss or crystals lay in tatters. He took a moment to orient himself, turning to the lower passageway heading even further down where he could lose himself in deeper zones ¡ª then turned back.


    Sure, the flame lady had been trying to kill him, but it was tough to blame her. After all, he was an invader and she had no real reason to distrust the System. Considering she was a native she was probably one of the official guardians of the planet in question and if she died there might be problems even he didn¡¯t want to deal with. It was bad enough that he¡¯d been forced to harm the natives on his way, and that he¡¯d be forced to harm more in the future. If he could save someone that deserved it, he would.


    He was fairly certain she wasn¡¯t actually dead. If the warframe had been able to survive the cave collapse, so could a high rank System person, but being trapped in an airless coffin might be too much even for someone like that. He located her tomb easily enough, as it was still radiating heat from below the rock pile remnants of what had become an enormous open cavern, and used his acoustic mapping to find the best path to dig in. Rock flew as monomolecular claws went to work, and in about thirty seconds he breached an inner chamber, causing smoldering lava to flare up again as fresh air entered it.


    Her skill had melted all the stone about her, which saved her from being directly crushed, but she was still entombed and didn¡¯t seem to be moving. Cato knew he¡¯d curse himself from here to the hereafter if she was shamming, but he reached in and pulled her out. Merely molten rock was within the bounds of what the warframe¡¯s armor could handle. Also, what the lizard person¡¯s armor could handle, since it wasn¡¯t even glowing despite the lava coating it.


    Cato laid her out on the ground and wiped her face clear ¡ª and incidentally snagged a small piece of scale for a genetic profile. Seeing that she was breathing, despite crushed limbs and torso and really everything, he turned and bolted. She was visibly healing even as he watched, and it would undo everything if he was still around when she awoke.

 Chapter 4 – Under Land and Sea

    Arene woke with a jolt, surging to her feet in a single instant, summoning her Skills and casting out her perceptions ¡ª but the thing was long gone. She wasn¡¯t even certain what to actually call it, since apparently the System didn¡¯t know. The only result [Appraise] had given her was just a blank query, not even a failed attempt.


    She summoned a [Light], which took the form of a torch flame given the influence of her other [Skills], and apprised herself and her surroundings. She ached all over, but even that was rapidly diminishing as her Platinum-rank constitution healed away the last of the damage from the collapse. A reflexive [Clean] removed all the soot and dirt, but some specks of hardened stone remained. She¡¯d have to deal with that later.


    Above her were faint lights glimmering here and there from tunnel entrances, and below her was debris. There was a tunnel at her feet, and a glance showed her that it reached down into a chamber of still-cooling rock. Obviously the creature had made an effort to retrieve her after [Incendiary Scales] had failed to ward off half a mountain falling on her. Yet it had pulled her out, possibly saving her life, and just left her. She didn¡¯t quite understand why she was still alive.


    [Quest fulfilled: Investigate the Incursion. Reward: 1 B-Tier Skill. Notice: you cannot complete this Quest multiple times.]


    Arene grimaced as she read the System notification, finding it almost insulting. She¡¯d at the very least laid eyes on it, and even wounded it, but she wouldn¡¯t really consider her attempt successful. The only reason she¡¯d gone after it was that it was clearly dangerous, so the reward made her failure even more sour.


    The Skill token popped into her hands, and she rolled it across her knuckles, wishing that it was something she could give to others, but this wasn¡¯t one of the rare unlocked Skill tokens. It was something that could only be spent on her, so she went ahead and used it.


    [Choose to learn a new Skill, or upgrade a current Skill]


    At this point her build was well set and her useful Skills as upgraded as they could get. Each rank someone advanced earned them four Skill slots, with the Skills reaching the maximum power of that rank. She had [Appraise], [Light], [Clean], and [Scribe] slotted in at Copper, while Silver was full of resistances. Gold and Platinum followed the classic rule: one perception, one offensive, one defensive, one movement.


    The only things she could still upgrade were D-tier [Scribe] or the C-tier [Light], and neither of them would show much useful improvement from their rarity bonus. With a sigh she chose to upgrade [Scribe], since she found herself doing far more paperwork than she¡¯d prefer ¨C which was to say, more than none ¨C and then reached out to her Platinum movement Skill, [Wings of Khuroon]. Even now she didn¡¯t really know what a Khuroon was, or why it was connected to wings and fire and teleportation, but she was hardly going to complain about the effects.


    The world turned into dancing flames, rushing by as she seized one particular spot that was close and far at the same time. A moment later she burst out into the air above Mosaw City, where Onswa was still trying to track down the intruder. One of the intruders. She knew now that it was irrelevant; the thing she¡¯d seen, if only barely, was not something that could hide in a city.


    Her great wings swept the air as she dove down to where his bright beacon registered to her essence senses in the distinct not-flavor of aether. He was pacing around an intersection, but he stopped and lifted his hand to greet her as she arrived. By the time she touched down virtually all her injuries had vanished ¨C grievous as they had been, they were all mundane


    ¡°Find it, then?¡± Onswa didn¡¯t sound joyful, since the quest was still active.


    ¡°Something, anyway,¡± she told him, the bared claws of her feet scratching against the smooth stone of the upgraded roads. It was technically better than the dirt of the lower-rank villages, but she had never really liked the feel of it under her feet. ¡°Some sort of beast, hard to describe what it looked like. I got exactly one glimpse of it and it appraised as nothing, so I don¡¯t think the System knows what it is.¡±


    ¡°Looks like you got it, though.¡± Onswa gestured at her bedraggled appearance. Arene glanced down at the spots of solidified rock on her armor and sighed, brushing at them ineffectually. When she had time she¡¯d have to visit an armor pylon to make sure it was properly cleaned.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t, actually,¡± she told him. "The thing dropped half a mountain on top of us both. Then it dug me out and ¡ª nothing. I wasn¡¯t even conscious, and it could have done anything, but it just let me be.¡± Arene was happy that she remained alive and intact, but it bothered her more that the anomaly¡¯s behavior didn¡¯t make sense.


    ¡°Maybe your rank had something to do with it?¡± Onswa suggested, muzzle wrinkled in thought. ¡°Platinum isn¡¯t Bismuth, but most people don¡¯t want to risk the consequences of killing one of us, either.¡± He looked around at the streets, where people had come to a halt to gawk at the Planetary Administrator and the Flame of Sydea. ¡°Perhaps we should move this to a more private venue.¡±


    Despite the seriousness of the situation, Arene almost laughed. The man was so clearly besotted with her, yet at the same time retained enough presence of mind enough not to try. Which was fortunate, since she had no interest in him and was friends with his wife, but his words still ended up sounding more suggestive than they actually were.


    ¡°Yeah, you aren¡¯t going to find anything here. What I saw was the size of one of those Courser beasts from the [Northern Volcano Conflict Zone] in Merdea. Whatever is triggering the quest is some kind of diversion.¡±


    That wouldn¡¯t even fit into the streets here,¡± Onswa agreed. ¡°Back to the office, then?¡±


    ¡°Might as well,¡± Arene said, and Onswa nodded as he invoked his odd aether travel Skill. His form blurred as he faded out over the course of a few seconds, like mist in the sun, and Arene followed with her own travel Skill. Invoking [Wings of Khuroon] at Platinum level so many times in quick succession was a hefty drain and she¡¯d have to wait for her reserves to refill, but she certainly wasn¡¯t going to go after the intruder again right away. She stepped through that bright, fiery world and reappeared in the skies above the capital city of Kalhan, where Onswa¡¯s office took up the top of the System nexus tower.


    She landed on the balcony and stepped inside, finding Onswa already there and rummaging through the drink cabinet. Normally Arene didn¡¯t particularly indulge, especially not twice in one day, but she was still ever so slightly shaky from her near brush with death. Things hadn¡¯t gone that wrong for her in a very long time.


    ¡°The thing that bothers me most,¡± she said, taking a crystal tumbler from Onswa, filled with something pink and sparkling. ¡°It¡¯s smart. Has to be.¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s masking its presence over such a wide area, I agree,¡± Onswa remarked, taking a sip of the pink stuff and then wrinkling his muzzle. ¡°I can¡¯t remember any beast or dungeon monster that showed awareness of its own System standing.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s faintly possible there¡¯s a group of them, I suppose,¡± Arene said, also tasting the fizzy drink and finding it to be almost painfully sweet and somehow spicy. It did have quite the kick though. ¡°But you¡¯d expect there to be more traces. Perhaps one such ¡ª you know, we need an actual name for it.¡±


    ¡°Ahruskian,¡± Onsaw suggested. ¡°The quest implies it came through before the portal closed.¡±


    ¡°Which really throws a light on the reports we heard out of the expeditionary forces,¡± Arene said darkly. Most of them had been from off-planet, as powerful interests had crowded out many of the Sydean teams. Especially as time went on and the required rank jumped upward all the way to Azoth at the end.


    ¡°That portal was a fucking disaster,¡± Onswa growled. A new world opening up should have enriched Sydea and given its people the chance to rank up quickly, to improve the essence density of Sydea itself. Instead, it had been taken over by offworld interests nearly immediately, and within a year Sydeans were effectively locked out of the portal staging area.


    ¡°No argument here,¡± Arene agreed. She¡¯d been too busy dealing with rogue high-Rankers traipsing all over Sydea to go through herself, but it seemed to have been for the best. If that thing was indicative of what was on the other side, it was no wonder the rank kept jumping upward. ¡°Anyway, I don¡¯t think the Ahruskian is here just to cause chaos. It¡¯s got a plan and a goal. If it just wanted to kill people, it has had plenty of chances. I watched it run straight past a Low Silver group that it could have flattened with a thought.¡± She slapped her hand on Onswa¡¯s desk in demonstration. ¡°But it didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°That just makes it worse,¡± Onswa sighed, obviously considering all the dire possibilities before shaking his head. ¡°Well, if it¡¯s got a specific target, that might be a vulnerability we can exploit so we can deal with it ourselves. If it does start just causing havoc, though, we might have to appeal to a higher rank.¡±


    Both of them winced. The cost needed to tempt a Bismuth or better to come to Sydea to fulfill a quest ¨C and not just the System defense quest ¨C would be ruinous.


    ¡°News of the global quest is going to spread eventually, unless you shut down the teleporters and blockade the portals,¡± Arene pointed out. He did have the authority to do that as Planetary Administrator ¡ª though there would be consequences if it went on more than a few weeks.


    ¡°I think I just might,¡± Onswa said, reaching over to touch the Administration Interface, a jewel set in the middle of his desk. It woke up with a happy-sounding chime, already projecting the interface for controlling the planetary portal and the few teleporters they had. ¡°And if it is aiming to get off-planet, we can catch it there.¡±


    ¡°Then we can try to track it down now that we have some idea where it is.¡± She glanced at the quest, which had updated with yet another location: [Rushing Depths Conflict Zone]. One of the enormous connecting zones, a confusing warren almost a mile beneath the surface, and not terrain either of them were familiar with. ¡°Though I can¡¯t say it seems likely.¡±


    ***


    Cato admired the massive caverns, full of flowing rivers, waterfalls, and enormous glowing fungi. It was absolutely gorgeous, if utterly unnatural. But that was only to be expected in a world altered by magic and System nonsense. There were glow-bugs the size of horses, eyeless wyrms that could match a freight train, and an entire ecosystem of matching scale. Plants, fish, bats, and even roving monsters of the sorts he¡¯d seen in Azure Canyon, though upscaled to matching proportions.


    Of course, a normal world wouldn¡¯t have such a robust spread of plant and animal life in deep caves, nor lakes and rivers that suspiciously mimicked surface features rather than cutting narrow slots through solid rock. Despite its provenance, Cato was quite happy to take advantage of both the sheer amount of biomatter around and the glinting nodes of metals on the wall. He had repairs to make.


    He saw no signs of anyone actually using the zone. In fact, more the reverse, as it seemed nearly every pack of beasts or monsters had an elite in it, implying it had been left to mature for quite some time. None of them were a match for him, even down a limb, so he was free to peel chunks from the ore nodes and fell oversized glowing mushrooms with little interference. Some of that was for mass to heal his injuries, but most of the metal was stockpiled for later use. He¡¯d need some starting resources once he got off-planet.


    While the molecular foundries went to work chemically separating and repurposing the elements, he restructured one of the tendrils on his back to take in water. Heavy water was no more common in the System than on Earth, so he needed to filter thousands of gallons to even begin to restock his supplies of deuterium. Since he needed to take time out to repair and restructure anyway, he might as well do that at the same time.


    All those processes could go along without any interference from him, so he turned his attention to his passengers. The cocoons were doing their job, as none of the brains showed any signs of damage or chemical imbalance. Not even after the cave collapse. The artificial coma even kept them from dreaming, since anyone would have serious issue with the lack of sensory input and autonomic feedback.


    He would have vastly preferred to simply map their neurons and biochemical signaling and virtualize them, but there were two good reasons not to. First, and most importantly, was that a lot of people did not like the concept of being transferred to software. Postbiologicals such as himself had a different attitude toward life, death, and the concept of self than those who were raised purely as meat, but that didn¡¯t mean it was a better attitude. Arbitrarily ripping someone¡¯s mind from their earthly clay and sticking it in a simulation or a frame was far worse than ripping off someone¡¯s arm and sticking on a prosthesis just because he could.


    Then there was, frankly, the fact that he just didn¡¯t have the knowledge to do so. Given time he could figure it out, but a person was in fact more than just the neural patterns, and body feedback could drastically alter habits, personality, emotional stability, and even memory retention. He had enough broad stroke information on their biochemistry to keep their neurons from overloading or shutting down, and to keep them anesthetized, but that was a fraction of the analysis he needed to simulate a healthy and happy situation for them.


    Cato had sampled their organs and bones and had all that information stored away in one of his sub-brains, but without extensive simulation and actual testing he couldn¡¯t turn that into anything useful. The computational capacity of the warframe was not insignificant, but all the software normally used for that kind of thing was stored in the diamond in his spine, and really only ran on more conventional hardware. Fortunately, he did have access to the tools to adjust his own biology, so when he was satisfied there were no crises with regard to his passengers, he delved into his sub-brains for that very purpose.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    The warframe came with a number of tools, including a chemical programming interface that Cato used to put together a rough and ready amphibious decoy. His fliers had done their jobs well, and it was only his carelessness that had resulted in someone coming to find him. It was clear that he¡¯d been severely underestimating the competence and drive of the native System folk, simply because of his attitude toward them, and he needed to adjust that thinking before he made a more lethal mistake.


    He had been making contingencies, of course, but he hadn¡¯t truly believed he needed them. That was something that needed to be corrected, and deep underground was a good place to start. Progress would be slower, as he had three dimensions to navigate rather than two, but it also meant it was easier to hide. No doubt there would still be people tracking the zones and looking for him, but the sheer scale worked in his favor.


    Unlike with the fliers, he did not create his amphibians to leave seeds or give them the ability to reproduce themselves. Once he got himself established, broadcasting to things on or near the surface and shutting them down would be easy, but buried deep in a cave, with who knew how many twists and turns, they could easily stay completely out of contact range. If he wasn¡¯t careful, he could end up with versions of himself operating in an information blackout, and making decisions based on poor or outdated intelligence.


    If he didn¡¯t have to worry about the greater implications of what he was doing, he wouldn¡¯t need to be nearly as careful. The bioweapon aspect of the warframe could get into some really nasty levels of self-replication and infiltration, but if he used them he¡¯d have to deal with the consequences. Cato was determined to bring down the System, but he wasn¡¯t going to condemn planets full of innocent people to a writhing hellscape to do so.


    The surface backups were as far as he was willing to go on self-replication for the moment, so he restricted himself to a small swarm of speedy, camouflaged and incredibly spiny creatures to swim and crawl through the caves. No doubt some of them would get eaten along the way, since he wasn¡¯t going to give them too much to defend themselves, but they all had self-destruct mechanisms to turn the potent biology into so much carbon goo.


    If he could make them obviously poisonous, that would have been perfect, and by studying the biochemisty of the things around it wasn¡¯t too difficult to come up with some candidate chemicals. The problem was that such substances would not be protected by the neural static and would get assimilated by the System. Which meant that things like poison and disease resistance applied, and since his creations were just chemistry, they weren¡¯t too potent when it came to high rank creatures or people.


    The same consideration applied to engineered plagues, had he been willing to use them. Which he wasn¡¯t, because he wasn¡¯t genocidal. That didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t willing to create some toxins specifically tailored to individuals, which hopefully would be so potent that even the System would grant they should have some effect, even if it was just short-term incapacitation.


    During all that housekeeping he spat out the remains of the armor and weapons from the two rat-things. While the system-jamming kept active enchantments from being used ¨C at least he was pretty sure it did ¨C the exotic materials created by System physics remained exotic. His molecular foundries had been able to make some headway at disassembling them with superacids, but he didn¡¯t have an excess of halogens and rare earth metals to keep at it and the raw materials, once dissolved, weren¡¯t too special anyway At the molecular level they seemed to lose their special System-empowered essence and just became ordinary steel, albeit with interesting trace elements.


    After he regrew his rear right foot, he unburied himself and began navigating through the vast cave system once again. His best guess was that he was at about sea level or just below, and it was entirely possible the underground zones stretched to the shore. If not, he was certain there was at least another exit. Either way, his decoys should spread out in every direction to obscure his actual location and direction. He really wished he could obscure himself even further, but unless he ran into another dungeon the best he could do was make the System quest¡¯s information less useful.


    Just as on the surface, there was little point in moving at anything less than a full sprint, though he was forced to backtrack on more than one occasion even with his acoustic mapping. The [Rushing Depths Conflict Zone] seemed to sprawl over roughly three layers, with plenty of dead ends ¡ª or at least, dead ends to him. There were smaller, human-sized passages that branched off the larger caverns and connected them, but he couldn¡¯t squeeze through those.


    Unlike the surface, many of the creatures relied on senses other than sight, so his camouflage wasn¡¯t quite as effective. He still avoided fighting with any of the denizens, especially the ones that outmassed him, but he often left groups of angry creatures or monsters in his wake. Sometimes they even chased him into another population, precipitating brawls between frogs and wyrms or mudfish sparking with electricity and frosted jellyfish floating through the air.


    He dedicated a particular sub-brain to recording everything he saw and encoding it into chemical memory. Despite its obvious artifice, the underground habitat was quite striking and deserved to be saved somehow. Pushing the System off Sydea, let alone how many other worlds, was inevitably going to result in the destruction of true beauty, however twisted its origins. If he could, he wanted to keep at least some of it, as beauty deserved to be preserved for its own sake.


    So deep underground, all he encountered were animals and monsters, with no real sign of civilized races. That seemed odd to him, that there was an entire zone that was essentially deserted, but at the same time the logistical difficulties of getting into and out of the caves were extensive for anyone of lower rank. Perhaps if there were more people, or the average ranks were higher, something like the [Rushing Depths Conflict Zone] would see more traffic, but as it was, he was essentially traveling through wilderness.


    Another several days of travel brought him through two more Zones. By that point he¡¯d built up a small army of outriders, little scouts that communicated with each other and with him to create a large sensory band and incidentally trip any of the invisible zone boundaries that had been the problem before. That way any surprise teleports would find only a decoy, and not him.


    Of course, once he had made such plans he didn¡¯t actually need them. The trip had been quiet, giving him the chance to scavenge more resources from the cave walls and available biomass. He was still missing some of the more exotic metals, but there were trace amounts of rare earths about and plenty of aluminum from gems. Though finding rubies in an iron vein made no sense whatsoever.


    His progress was stopped by a huge brackish moon pool, at least twenty acres in size, which was claimed by an immense pseudo-crab ¨C it seemed that carcinization was indeed universal ¨C but which also seemed to lead out into the open ocean to judge by the acoustic returns and salt content in the air. Preferably he would slip past the boss mob, but to do that he needed to be properly aquatic so he hunkered down to make some alterations to the warframe.


    A warframe didn¡¯t need to breathe, so becoming aquatic was a matter of optimizing for movement in the water. Musculature needed to be altered, the joints of his legs and feet shifted, and webs and fins grown to give him more control surface for movement in the water. His scales needed to be shifted to introduce cavitation effects, which would massively increase his speed and even his stealth. With less of a pressure wave, he wouldn¡¯t stir up as much interest.


    He also had to beef up his nonvisual senses. The acoustic mapping brain had been doing a lot of work, but it was time to add active sonar and dedicate a sub-brain to that. Then there were things like electric potential, ionization, and water composition that were more important in a thick fluid than a thin one. It had been a long time since he¡¯d used an aquatic frame, let alone one in something as lively as an inhabited body of water, but he hadn¡¯t completely forgotten the skills. The conversion took over a day, but he figured he had time with all the obfuscation his decoys were managing.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: Platinum. Reward: Elite Skill. Locations: Azure Canyon Border Zone, [¡­] Rushing Depths Conflict Zone, Endless Chasm Resource Zone, Upwell Fields Border Zone, Pillared Halls Conflict Zone...]


    The list went on and on. While it didn¡¯t cover the full continent, it was still so many places that just figuring out which area they needed to search would be difficult, let alone finding him, or the stealthy creatures he¡¯d sent out to create the distractions. The various towns and cities were off the list, however ¡ª apparently the fliers or seeds had been discovered there and, presumably, destroyed. He¡¯d set the triggers for that to be fairly sensitive, as he¡¯d prefer to have one fewer backup than a piece of Titan¡¯s biotechnology intact for the System to assimilate. Cato wasn¡¯t certain the System could do anything with such a sample even if it did get to analyze the stuff, but he had to assume giving the enemy a new tool was a bad idea.


    During the conversion, Cato watched the pseudo-crab ¨C nearly thirty feet across and a deep bluish-purple ¨C emerge from the pool once every few hours and scuttle into an equally enormous side corridor, then return only a few minutes later. He suspected that wherever it led, that was where the crab was getting its food, though Cato assumed that it was partly sustained by System nonsense. No matter the reason for its behavior, that was the exact kind of window Cato wanted, and the next time it emerged he slipped into the moon pool and surged downward.


    The new form of his body was sleek, slick, and streamlined, with most of the locomotion coming from large fins along the length of his tail. Tendrils and feet, now equally finned, gave him extreme agility to go with the power, and of course the cavitation effects meant he was fast. The moment he was in the water the crab came scuttling back with thundering haste, but Cato was down and out through the exit at the bottom of the pool ¨C one which was just slightly too small for the boss to fit through ¨C before it could even get fully submerged.


    [Great Western Sea Ocean Zone]


    He had to wonder if the entire ocean was in fact a single zone, or if a planet with a more aquatic species would have a more finely divided ocean and a less finely divided land. Or, for that matter, why the System didn¡¯t bother to import sea-dwelling peoples ¨C he assumed there were some, considering all the other alterations the System made ¨C to fill the otherwise unused space.


    Though it wasn¡¯t like the planet was crowded. If anything, it was barely inhabited and mostly wild space. Most people, especially those raised in enclosed habitats, really underestimated how large planets actually were.


    He arrowed through the water, maybe even faster than he¡¯d been on land, diving down to where the sunlight stopped. So deep beneath the water, he had to guide himself by the planet¡¯s magnetic field, though if the map he¡¯d seen was at all accurate he¡¯d be hard-pressed to miss his target continent. Where he¡¯d come from was a rough blob in the southern hemisphere, whereas his goal was a long mountainous strip crossing the equator at an angle and wrapping around northward toward the pole.


    The only problem with swimming through the bathypelagic region ¨C to be absolutely certain that he was out of range of any surface surveys ¨C was that the System liked to place bigger creatures deeper down. A ten-ton warframe wasn¡¯t exactly small, but he was minnow-sized compared to some of the returns from his sonar. A skill he used infrequently, since it drew some clear attention from the leviathans lurking in the depths. Though one of the benefits of things being so large was that the small aquatic scouts he had spreading out ¨C once again in all directions, to obscure his trail ¨C were left mostly unmolested.


    A serpent the size of a building actually pursued him for a time, and the damn thing had so much power, thanks to whatever System boosts it got, that it was nearly as fast as Cato himself. It wouldn¡¯t have enjoyed the experience of swallowing him but it certainly tried anyway, and Cato¡¯s non-visual senses painted him a fairly good picture. Enormous teeth, a row of three eyes on each side of a sharp, eel-like head, a huge ribbon of fin running down its back.


    It offended Cato¡¯s sensibilities.


    The System¡¯s ruination of normal ecology was bad enough, but what made it even worse was that it consistently did so with no imagination. The boxy buildings in cities, the simple zone names, the lack of proper art or decoration. Even the abyssopelagic sea monsters were merely large.


    There was no radial or trilateral symmetry, very little bioluminescence, and not even any color variance he could see. There was nothing like the swirling, dancing fractal scale patterns of the Gleeful Dancers of Europa¡¯s world-ocean. No elegance like could be found in the sinuous curves of Enceladus¡¯ benthic acolytes. Sometimes the System seemed determined to absolutely crush creativity.


    His ruminations on esoteric ecology were interrupted as he abruptly smashed into a net of fine filaments that none of his senses had warned him about. A good reminder that even if he could block the System¡¯s direct effects on him, he could do absolutely nothing about the way it influenced the rest of the world. The filaments stirred, all leading up to the bell of some enormous jellyfish, which tried to wrap him up while the filaments released what was surely an excruciating mix of toxins to anyone who wasn¡¯t a bioweapon.


    The acids involved were a little irritating, but his outer scales were nearly chemically inert for a reason, and of course the neurotoxins and cytotoxins did nothing at all. There was probably some sort of Skill involved on the jellyfish¡¯s part, but that was where the System protection came in handy. Even if the effects were ramped way up from what they should have been ¨C the acid was roughly as potent as triflidic, though he was certain it wasn¡¯t ¨C the toxins were forced to rely on chemistry. Which was Cato¡¯s terrain.


    He cut himself loose in a flurry of claws and shot onward. The jellyfish fell behind, being no more rapid than its smaller cousins. Perhaps animals in the older and more established System worlds would have been a serious threat, but without the intelligence of a person and a reason for persistence he could outrun anything in the ocean. It didn¡¯t hurt that he had inexhaustible stamina, so long as his fusion reserves held out. The thought prompted him to doublecheck how his reserves stood, and even after using far too much deuterium for crude explosives, he had enough for several hundred years of normal operation and rising.


    There was one significant upside to traveling by ocean, and that was the opportunity to filter all kinds of trace elements out of seawater. Of course he was constantly looking for deuterium, but seawater had scattered atoms of gold and silver, of niobium and neodymium, of cadmium, indium and scandium. All of it was useful, especially since he didn¡¯t really need it in bulk, but the traces made up an important fraction of the more exotic biomolecular machinery the warframe used.


    His sonar picked up sunken cities scattered about as he neared his destination, so he altered course slightly to pass near one. It wasn¡¯t out of his way, and if they were some remnant from the natives, there might be lingering evidence of their original culture. Something he¡¯d certainly need if he wanted to bring the inhabitants over to his side.


    The city was overrun with hostile sea life, but none of it was big or bulky enough to be particularly dangerous, and he wasn¡¯t exploring the thing properly anyway. Now that he was out of the depths, high-powered sonar was enough to map it and seek out any little details that might be of interest. Like the worn frescoes hidden under a mat of algae, depicting tailed figures looking up at two suns and three moons. Or a statuette buried under sediment, with tiny horns and its arms upraised. He had one of his scouts snatch up that artifact and bring back to him, if for no other reason than it was a remnant of a people the System had erased.


    He stored it and continued onward, melancholic. The remains of the alien Atlantis were so much grander than the small clusters of boxes the System provided, but he could only guess at what it had truly been like. How many monuments had been buried under the System¡¯s uncaring hand. It was another reminder of what he had to deal with, as he reached the far shore and started to revert his form back to deal with the land.


    Determined not to make the same mistake again, Cato spent some time swimming the coast and launching a new set of fliers. His aquatic scouts were aimed at other continents, and some of them had already reached various beaches, further obscuring his trail. At a predetermined time, all his local scouts headed inward at once, crossing into eight Zones simultaneously. Cato followed in their wake, looking upward at the massive peaks rising from the rocky shore. High enough, he decided, for what he wanted.

 Chapter 5 – The Ascent

    Arene watched from a distance as the group of High Copper kids carefully approached the nigh-invisible bird-thing as it perched by a creek, drinking in water.  Despite being cut from the same cloth as the Ahruskian menace, such birds didn¡¯t seem to offer any real danger, though they were quite skittish.  The group pounced, the mage entrapping it with a watery cage while the bulwark fighter attacked it with a spear.


    Like with all the others, it silently slumped and began to melt, turning into some sort of awful goo rather than dying properly. The Copper group checked their System messages and exulted, the mage even dancing on the spot.  Arene didn¡¯t blame them since, beyond the Skill reward, the essence reward for completing a Platinum-rank quest at Copper was substantial.


    While the portal itself had been lackluster at best, a disaster at worst, the incursion quest was making some steps toward redressing that issue.  Arene had no compunctions about abusing the System¡¯s generosity and giving some of their most talented young ones a leg up by fulfilling the worryingly easy quest requirements.  There were dozens of locations by this point, which made it all the more important that Onswa had shut down the teleporters and embargoed the portals.  If it got out that there was such an easy method of boosting young rankers, some Bismuth or Azoth would come with a whole passel of children and take it away from Sydeans.


    Then to solve the actual problem, some Alum-rank might well flatten half the planet.


    As good as the quests were, it still bothered her that none of the creatures she was finding were like the one that she¡¯d fought.  The little birds and occasional plant bulb did have the same strange essence static around them, barely noticeable but distinct once she¡¯d gotten close enough.  They were still hard to find ¨C she and Onswa had really only been able to locate them in the smallest zones ¨C but at least she knew that rooting them out wasn¡¯t completely impossible.


    ¡°Right,¡± she said, clapping her hands and getting the attention of the group, who went by the name of Deepest Ventures.  ¡°Head back to town, get to work on consolidating your gains and look over your possible Skills.  You¡¯ll probably be taking that B-tier Skill all the way up to Platinum, and ranking its rarity up from there, so don¡¯t waste it on something you only need right now.  You¡¯ll have plenty of chances at lesser Skills at your rank.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Lady Flamewing,¡± the bulwark fighter said, saluting her with his spear.  She snorted and waved them off.  The group gave her a few more glances before fairly running back in the direction of the local town, leaving her to consider the quest text once again.


    [Global Defense Quest!  Destroy the Incursion:  Recommended Rank: Platinum. Reward: B-tier Skill.  Locations: [¡­] Great Western Sea Ocean Zone, Clashing Slopes Conflict Zone, Rocky Rill Resource Zone, Gravel Beach Border Zone¡­]


    It was spreading faster than the assorted Platinums could find and destroy the agents, though it wasn¡¯t like they had many to spare.  Besides herself and Onswa, Marek was in charge of the Canepa continent, while Hirau and Karsa had their own cities they ruled over on the sparsely-settled continent of Remal.  Most Platinums went offworld and never came back.  Some because they preferred the higher-rank planets and dungeons and zones, others because they got themselves killed in those selfsame higher-rank areas.


    So far she hadn¡¯t seen any actual consequences of the spread, aside from the Gosruk Guardians and Tornok Clan¡¯s Platinums ¡ª and of course her niece, who had been in the dungeon which had been destroyed by what she thought of as the actual Ahruskian.  All the small brushfires they were dealing with were distractions ¡ª and for all she knew, the allure of the quest rewards for such easy work was part of its plan.  A massive reward with no real risk very much distracted people from trying to find the genuine source of the problem.


    She invoked [Wings of Khuroon], the flames guiding her back to Kalhan and Onswa¡¯s office.  Hirau and Karsa didn¡¯t think the defense quest was at all their problem, but at least Onswa was taking it seriously and Marek always went along with whatever Onswa wanted.  Five Platinums would have been preferable to three, but three was better than none.


    ¡°I know, I know,¡± Onswa said, the moment she stepped into his office, a chime accompanying her entrance.  He was deep in the Planetary Administrator interface, the display above his desk glowing with the world map and a number of option boxes.  ¡°It¡¯s only getting worse.  I know that sometimes these global quests last years or decades, but I don¡¯t think this one was meant to.¡±


    ¡°If I¡¯d gone myself when it first popped up rather than letting lower ranks have their chance¡­¡±  Arene sighed.  She hadn¡¯t really thought much of it at the time, especially since she hadn¡¯t even known the portal staging area had been destroyed.  Not that there had been any Sydeans there by that point.


    ¡°And maybe you¡¯d have ended up dead,¡± Onswa was blunt.  ¡°This is going to need all of us when we actually find the thing again.  If we can.  You¡¯re still the only one who¡¯s laid eyes on it.¡±


    ¡°For all the good that did me,¡± Arene said, and squinted at Onswa¡¯s display.  There was a sort of creeping horror in seeing how many zones were included in the global quest, with a frighteningly large swath of land and sea infested with the whatever-it-was.  If they couldn¡¯t deal with the source of it soon, they¡¯d have no choice but to appeal to some Bismuth or Azoth ranker ¡ª assuming the System itself didn¡¯t start spreading the quest.


    ¡°We¡¯ve only got a few more days before my Administrator reserves run out and I have to let the portals run again,¡± Onswa said frankly.  ¡°If we don¡¯t solve it by then, then we¡¯re going to have worse problems than the System quest.¡±


    ***


    Cato¡¯s claws dug into the rock of a near-vertical cliff as he scaled the mountain, glad that his diversions had worked and he¡¯d been left alone since he emerged from the ocean.  His rough estimate was that its summit was nearly thirty thousand feet above sea level ¡ª and it wasn¡¯t even the largest in the chain.  In the distance he could see an even more mammoth peak breaking through the clouds, but there were also flying monsters and structures very high up.  He was hoping to avoid most of those, since unlike System people, he didn¡¯t really get anything from fighting and it wasn¡¯t even something he particularly enjoyed. Or was good at.


    He¡¯d seen his metrics compared to other people and he was at best dead average.  Though considering the sheer amount of knowledge and reflexes he could borrow from others, programmed into sub-brains and encoded in molecular databanks, average was still devastatingly effective.  Unfortunately, at higher ranks the sheer forces involved meant that even his best efforts would have no effect at all.


    The greatest contrast between power created by technology and the power created by the System was how concentrated it became in an individual.  A high rank System person could crack mountains all by himself, whereas Cato needed massive machines to accomplish the same thing.  If he didn¡¯t get off the planet, he couldn¡¯t make those machines, and he couldn¡¯t reach the scales necessary.


    He scrambled across a small plateau, impossibly oversized beetle-type insects living in impossibly low temperatures clicking and clacking as they followed the wake he ploughed through the snow.  There shouldn¡¯t have been enough energy to support a robust ecosystem, let alone multi-ton invertebrates, but the System was always strange.


    The few ice spiders and beetles that did get in his way were easily enough dealt with. Large as they were, they still lacked the force to punch through the warframe¡¯s armor, and unlike the high-rankers his claws worked just fine to shred them to pieces.  Most of the time he simply evaded the local wildlife, as he only cared about getting high enough that he could get out of the atmosphere with his warframe¡¯s resources.  The equations of the thrust available to him, his material limitations, and the planet¡¯s own gravity and atmospheric density gave him a minimum threshold, and he wasn¡¯t quite there yet.


    Acoustic mapping kept him from falling into the innumerable powder-snow pits, like some demented version of quicksand, which would have been a hazard to any conventional exploration of the area.  The map that he¡¯d gotten from the System pillar had no information on the area beyond naming it the [Frozen Peaks Conflict Zone].  There wasn¡¯t even a proper definition of the zone borders, showing it was practically unexplored.  Considering the number of zones and the lack of population on the planet, that was hardly surprising.  Some high level had probably swung by to get it on the map and never visited again.


    The plateau was crowded by glaciers on all sides, with a narrow ravine cutting its way upward toward the peak, so Cato simply made straight for the defile and clawed his way along the ascent.  There were caves scattered throughout ¨C there were always caves ¨C but he was past the time when he needed what they offered.  Accordingly, he didn¡¯t pay too much attention to them, simply routing around the entrances as he climbed.


    Then the symbiotic brain got an update.


    [Welcome to Icy Defile Dungeon!  Suggested Rank: High Gold]


    ¡°Oh, dammit,¡± Cato said to himself, hardly able to believe his bad luck.


    The dungeon hadn¡¯t appeared on Cato¡¯s map, and none of his scouts had actually gone into the caves, so its appearance was a complete surprise. It only appeared for a moment before his momentum carried him further away from the cave in question, and perhaps it didn¡¯t matter because he had fliers out everywhere.


    For a moment he considered directing a scout back there, to perhaps misdirect anyone who came to check, but upon consideration it didn¡¯t seem worth the time.  Or the resources, as he was reaching the point where he needed to calculate everything to make it off-world.  Better to simply move as quickly as possible than give in to paranoia.


    Instead he redoubled his efforts, driving claws into rock and ice like pitons.  What would be a harsh, deserted landscape of rock and snow on any other world, up where the atmosphere became thin, instead had ice-themed trees and flowers.  Glinting, blue-and-silver birds flew over, while furred predators stalked through crystalline forests clinging to the steep slopes.  Not that the System completely obviated normal physics.  The atmosphere was thin, the birds had extremely outsized wings and probably flew more with magic than with feathers, and quite a lot of the local biomass was stashed inside the relative warmth of caves worming their way through the mountain.


    He mostly bypassed it all, keeping himself camouflaged and climbing on vertical cliffs, though that wasn¡¯t always enough.  He had to deal with a few too-curious birds, and ramp up the heat production of his outer shell as gusts of extremely cold and dense ice were sprayed from their wings in an attempt to freeze him.  Cato found himself grumbling about his lack of ranged options, and promised himself he¡¯d find a solution to that somehow, because it was a crippling weakness.  There had been solutions back on Earth, he knew, but he hadn¡¯t gotten ahold of any of the bespoke modifications made by the more aggressive combatants.


    Soon enough he had scaled past most of the [Frozen Peaks Conflict Zone] and began to near where he could take off from Sydea.  The moment he passed the minimum threshold he started the processes necessary to convert the warframe and planted himself on a flat spot.  The methodology for launching himself and his passengers into space was a bit tricky, and he¡¯d have to sacrifice most of his mass, which meant he wouldn¡¯t be mobile until it was ready.


    A sudden burst of flame from below caught his attention, coupled with a strange spectral shimmer that didn¡¯t accord with any known elements.  The latter was nothing he recognized, but the former was familiar enough.  The flame lady had arrived.


    It had been long enough since his accidental clipping of the random dungeon that he¡¯d hoped that it had gone unnoticed, but it seemed it was not to be.  At least he¡¯d had enough time to put distance between himself and the lower slopes where his position might be more obvious.  The only question was whether he could finish in time, before the rankers found him.


    ***


    ¡°Got you, you bastard.¡±


    Arene had taken to glancing at the quest text every few minutes, like worrying a loose tooth, to no real profit.  Until now.  The invader¡¯s distractions had covered an enormous number of zones, but only the main, real one had ever entered a dungeon.  There on the list of zones, if just for a moment, was [Icy Defile Dungeon] ¡ª which wasn¡¯t a dungeon she¡¯d even heard of, but that alone was suggestive.


    Then it vanished, and she launched into action.  She called upon [Wings of Khuroon] and pulled herself to Onswa¡¯s office, the fiery wings nearly scorching the building from how close she emerged.  The hinges bent as she slammed through the front door of the office, Onswa jumping up from his seat and ready for anything.  The interface chimed belatedly as she strode forward.


    ¡°The thing was in [Icy Defile Dungeon],¡± she said shortly, not needing to explain the significance.  ¡°Is it on the map?¡±


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Onswa immediately turned to his Planetary Administrator interface, and it brought up the map of the world without needing to be asked.  The globe floated in front of them and spun, narrowing in on where the dungeon was located.  A Planetary Administrator had access to more information than any public map provided, though it came with restrictions Arene didn¡¯t quite understand.


    ¡°Here,¡± Onswa said, jabbing his finger at the [Frozen Peaks Conflict Zone], in the middle of the thin strip of continent that was Corsova.  ¡°Brand new, undiscovered.  Until now, it seems.¡±


    ¡°Then let¡¯s go,¡± Arene said, turning toward the door.


    ¡°Let me inform the other Platinums first,¡± Onswa replied, making her stop and wait impatiently.  She couldn¡¯t well object; even if they didn¡¯t join her and Onswa, they would need to know if something went wrong.  Onswa worked the Planetary Administrator¡¯s console for a moment, and a new quest appeared on Arene¡¯s system readout.


    [Platinum Timed Quest from Onswa Ramik:  All Platinums are to make their way to Frozen Peaks Conflict Zone as quickly as possible.  Time Remaining: 5 minutes]


    ¡°Now we can go,¡± Onswa said, and Arene fairly launched herself out of the door, wings spreading as she took to the air.  Unlike with the cities and Onswa¡¯s office, she didn¡¯t have an anchor directly in the Zone, so she had to go in stages.  North, then west, then north again, flying high through the air with Onswa just behind her.  He didn¡¯t have wings, but he flew on a bubble of aether that surrounded him like an aura.  It wasn¡¯t as fast a movement skill as hers, outside teleportation, except that the odd properties of aether let him ride in her wake.


    She skipped over the ocean, spending as much energy as she dared, until the mountains of Corsova loomed on the horizon.  Then Onswa drew up next to her, flinging out a hand and opening a portal for them.  He was the one who knew precisely where the dungeon was, with his Planetary Administrator access, so she darted through the portal after him without complaint.


    The mountain was suddenly right in front of them, the steep snowy slopes scattered with lower Gold rank beasts.  She honed in on the faint presence of a dungeon not far away, barely noticeable if she hadn¡¯t already been looking for it.  Her wings flashed and she darted toward it, flying inside a cave entrance.  The System gave her warning that she had entered the [Icy Defile Dungeon] but she ignored it, stretching out her senses for any of that strange crackling in essence that betrayed the presence of the invader.


    There was nothing.  It was an undiscovered dungeon, so she could tell that nearly all the monsters outside were the result of repeated dungeon breaks, but nobody actually lived on Corsova so that was hardly a surprise.  There were only a few floors, nothing that stymied her senses, though she wasn¡¯t expecting to find anything since it had dropped off the quest list anyway.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Marek?¡± She snapped at Onswa, who didn¡¯t actually deserve it.  Arene took a moment to reign in her temper, since while she might be able to get away with being abrupt to Onswa, plenty of other Platinums and, especially, higher ranks would not take it well.  The camaraderie between fellow Sydeans was something which did not apply to others in the System.


    ¡°Still a few minutes out,¡± Onswa said, hovering in his bubble and checking the Planetary Administrator interface.  ¡°He¡¯s not as fast as you.¡±


    ¡°Nobody is,¡± Arene said, a touch impatiently.  She cast out her Platinum-rank sensory Skill, running it over the mountain to try and find a trace of that strange signature.  It had to be nearby, but if the thing was equivalent to a Platinum or better, that nearby could encompass hundreds of miles or more.


    There didn¡¯t seem to be anything on the slopes around or in the distance.  Plenty of creatures, including some elites that would challenge even peak Gold, but not the thing she was looking for.  It wasn¡¯t until she cast her senses upward, all the way up the slopes toward the distant peak, that the bizarre essence fuzzing appeared.


    ¡°Above!¡± She pumped her wings to ascend.


    ¡°Arene, wait!¡± Onswa called to her back, but he could catch up with Marek.  She wanted to lay eyes on the thing before it slipped away again, and this time it was out in the open.  There were no caves to drop on her head, and she was certain it wasn¡¯t much more powerful than Platinum,  else it would have engaged with her directly instead of running away.


    Her massive wings brought her up to near the peak, and she finally managed to properly see what she had been chasing.  It was still camouflaged, but far less effectively than before, and for a moment she thought it was actually a different being.  Unlike the large, six-limbed form of before, it seemed to have almost rooted itself in the mountain like some kind of bizarre plant.  Yet it still had the tendrils, and the shape of the head was the same, so she decided it was indeed the same entity.


    She gathered [Calamity Lance] in her right hand, the apocalyptic glow leaking out between her fingers, but she held back for the moment.  One thing Onswa was right about was that it was better to all attack together, just in case the thing was too slippery for just one of them.  Her fire, Onswa¡¯s aether, and Marek¡¯s water together would be far more effective.


    Every moment they delayed was another moment for it to act, however, and Arene¡¯s instincts told her that she had to move quickly.  Even as she watched, its shape was changing, part of it flowing like water.  Arene readied [Calamity Lance], glancing down at Onswa¡¯s softly glowing bubble.


    There was a flex of aether and Marek arrived through Onswa¡¯s portal, riding atop a vortex of flowing water.  The two of them raced up toward her, which did not go unnoticed by their target.  A dark bubble grew outward from its body, forming a shell in a matter of moments.  Arene¡¯s [Appraise] still gave her no information, and whatever Skill it was using didn¡¯t seem to take any essence, which made her instincts scream.  It wasn¡¯t playing by the rules, and it might do anything.


    ¡°Just hit it,¡± she said, and released [Calamity Lance].  Rooted to the ground as it was, it couldn¡¯t evade like it had before.  Onswa¡¯s aether attack swirled right through whatever defense the black bubble offered, as Marek summoned a massive vortex of water.  Marek was better with an actual weapon, but by unspoken agreement nobody wanted to get too close to the thing.


    The black bubble shattered, but in a strange way, turning into a shimmering, opaque cloud.  She could feel it sapping at the power of [Calamity Lance] while several small projectiles sailed out through it toward the Platinums.  They weren¡¯t moving particularly quickly, for Platinum rank, and Arene snapped out with [Incineration Lash] to intercept them.


    The little balls puffed into another cloud at the contact, one that kept moving toward her despite the prevailing winds.  She pulsed [Incarnate Flame], her body searing the cloud away, but Onswa¡¯s aether was far less effective.  He jetted back from the cloud, coughing.


    ¡°Poison!¡± He warned, as Marek¡¯s vortex hammered down on the shrouding cloud, washing it away.  It revealed the creature had changed even more, the tendrils and head drawn into a bloated body.  Arene¡¯s muzzle curled in disgust as she hurled another [Calamity Lance], determined to sear the thing from the face of Sydea.


    A bright flash, brighter than the suns, seared her eyes.  A roar hammered at her, at Onswa and Marek, and she blinked to find the place where the intruder had been scorched and slagged from the force of the explosion.  Yet there was no sign of it.


    ¡°That was it?¡± Marek said, his gravely voice both disbelieving and contemptuous.  She didn¡¯t blame him; that was far less troublesome than she had been expecting. She approached the blasted rock, then suddenly froze as another flash of light came ¡ª but this one from high, high above.  She looked upward, to where far above the dome of the sky another explosion faded away, and she caught the tiniest glimpse of a small speck of something before it was gone.


    ¡°Oh, you god-rotten piece of¡ª¡±  Arene shouted imprecations at the heavens, but knew it was impotent, while Onswa stared grimly upward.


    ¡°No,¡± Onswa said, his voice heavy.  ¡°That was not it.¡±


    ***


    World Deity of Sydea Marus Eln stifled a groan as notifications crowded into his vision.  One of the reasons why he wasn¡¯t too bothered by his Sydea posting, despite its lack of real status, was that the planet didn¡¯t require much of his valuable time.  There was no point in investing much time in a populace that was meant to be removed anyway, and having an administrator meant that the local animals ought to be self governing.


    With the irritating Lundt scion busy with the new world that had just opened up, it had been the perfect opportunity for Marus to spend some time in the core worlds, reacquainting himself with the Eln clan¡¯s various allies.  At least, he had thought it would be perfect; apparently some of the idiotic Sydean locals had decided it was a good time to do something stupid enough to rise to the level of an emergency.  The entire point of having a Planetary Administrator was to avoid emergencies, and if the locals couldn¡¯t even manage that he might be better off eliminating the position entirely.


    ¡°If you¡¯ll excuse me, it seems that duty is interrupting.¡± Marus disengaged himself from the couple he had been listening to, patiently nodding along with their nigh-breathless descriptions of their own worlds.  He knew it was at least partly to flaunt their much-more-favorable postings, but Marus had to play the game to get ahead.  He wouldn¡¯t be stuck on Sydea forever, and clearing a frontier planet so it could be turned into something properly tame and ready for the Eln Clan¡¯s own people was its own sort of merit.


    The planet was ripe for the servants of the Eln Clan to come in and take it, but the native population had to go first.  Only when it was unclaimed would the System recognize the transfer of ownership, and such a thing had to be done within the rules.  Fortunately, as the administrator he had a certain latitude to change how things worked, and all he really required was patience.


    Finding a bit of privacy to go through the notifications was more difficult than it should have been.  The System space hosting the party was a series of platforms floating in a vast sea of slowly shifting aurorae, lacking walls or ceilings or anything more concrete than decorative arches and long tables loaded with delicacies from a thousand worlds.  Music from his uncle¡¯s world, his pet band, floated from where they played near the center of the arrayed platforms.  No bridges connected them; everyone who was truly recognized by the System could cross the gaps with no more difficulty than thinking about it.


    He flitted over to one of the arches, cutting off the view of most of the guests as he flipped through the notifications.  It was at the very least rude to do so in plain view, though the more intelligent would realize something had gone drastically wrong and the rumors that would start couldn¡¯t be borne.  Marus had spent far too much time building up his reputation and connections, his value to the clan and his ability to manage the lesser races, to have it ruined by a faux pas.


    Most of the notifications wouldn¡¯t have risen to the level of emergency if it weren¡¯t for one pressing issue ¡ª the planet¡¯s essence reserves had been nearly depleted.  Which meant everything was suddenly far more urgent, as it began creating shortfalls beyond the ones he had planned.  Marus thought it was a waste of time to give lesser species any access to the planetary essence at all, and the fact that they¡¯d somehow managed to spend it in the few years he¡¯d been away was proof of that.  He¡¯d never openly question the System, but sometimes he did wonder why it introduced races that were so clearly unfit.


    He glanced through the other notifications on the stack, finding some of them somewhat disturbing now that he was paying attention.  Several instances of [Unidentified Entity], which was not something Marus had ever heard of before.  Once the System integrated a world, everything was identified ¡ª or at least, identifiable, by those with the lesser [Appraisal].  Even if something had come through the portal to the new world, it shouldn¡¯t have been unidentified.  Then he came to one that made him stop entirely.


    [Ahrusk Portal Terminated]


    Marus almost laughed.  It seemed the Lundt had managed to make such an incredible hash of the new world that the System had shut it all down.  No doubt trapping Lundt on the other side until the System decided to try again, and not even World Deities like himself knew when that would be.  Only those who ruled the System Core would know that, and perhaps not even them.  The divine System worked in mysterious ways, and he wouldn¡¯t dare guess at what transcendent logic drove its most profound processes.


    Actually addressing the reason for the essence deficit on Sydea would require returning to his own System space, but even with the remote interface he could tell why it had happened.  In their utter lack of wisdom, the natives had decided to spend it on blocking out-planet portals and teleporters.  Once he got back he¡¯d have to revoke that and then he could hand out some penalties, but first he had to go inform his clan about the Lundt¡¯s poor fortune.


    Whatever was happening on Sydea was far less important than that.


    ***


    Cato worked desperately to keep his remaining passengers alive.


    It was bad enough that they¡¯d been subjected to a biological Orion Drive.  A point-blank fusion detonation, however small, and the concomitant acceleration was not healthy for naturally evolved tissue.  He¡¯d accounted for both of those, since he at least could fix radiation damage and had cushioned the brains with a short-lived aerogel.  It was still not the best thing, but he¡¯d been pressed for time and couldn¡¯t finish growing all the infrastructure the operation was meant to have.


    Then there were the attacks.  The strange radiance had caused all kinds of unexplained replication errors and caused a number of specialized organs to cease functioning for no apparent reason.  A good reminder that even if he wasn¡¯t part of the System and it couldn¡¯t target him directly, its effects were still dangerous.


    The worst of it, though, was the fire beam.  He¡¯d had enough matter to try mitigating it with a sort of chaff cloud, but that hadn¡¯t lasted long thanks to the water guy, and the fire lady managed to punch a hole straight through him.  It had obliterated one of the passenger brains outright and lightly toasted another two, as well as puncturing his pusher plate and causing the first fusion explosion to rip through his internal structures.


    Now he had all kinds of failing organs, radiation damage, thermal fluctuations, and the usual rigors of vacuum trying to kill the people he was hoping to protect.  Cato scrambled to juggle nutrient feeds and rehydrate cushioning armor, to purge toxic buildup and to repair sudden cell death from dozens of sources.  He was forced to be a spendthrift with his resources, having to vent some of the volatile waste rather than recycle it to carry away heat in the vacuum of space.  A long plume of frozen gas stretched out behind him as he rocketed away ¨C quite literally ¨C from the planet below.


    One brain stabilized, but the other continued to deteriorate.  If he had access to his full suite of technologies, if he knew more about Sydean biochemistry, if he hadn¡¯t gotten himself speared by the high-rankers ¡ª but he couldn¡¯t change reality.  Cascading failures disrupted sensitive neural chemistry, causing the bioelectrical patterns of thought to stutter, then collapse.


    He tried stimulating the neurons themselves, compromising the integrity of the brain in question in the hopes that he could resuscitate the personality inside and worry about rehousing it later, but it was too late and there was too much damage.  The lump of fat was no more than that ¡ª technically alive, but without anything inside.  He had no idea what mistakes he¡¯d made, and he hadn¡¯t been able to scan the brain structure before the failure so there was no way to even properly reconstruct that much.


    After a long struggle with himself, silently sailing through the vacuum of space, he terminated support to the dead brain.  Better a definite death than to present the living with a false puppet of life, with no chance of the person within returning.  He was certain he could return the rest of them, so long as he reached his destination.


    His original plan had been to target the primary moon.  Sydea had three, one large ¨C if still not as big as Luna ¨C and two much smaller ones in the Lagrange points.  But he¡¯d been forced to ascend early, and in his haste he only had the resources and trajectory to aim for a lesser moon.  It would have to do.


    At least the System¡¯s physics had dropped away, leaving only the damage behind.  Having real physics available to him didn¡¯t give him any benefits yet, but it would as soon as he impacted the moon.  It¡¯d be a bit of a rough landing, given his imprecise delta-vee, but once there he¡¯d have all the time and mass he needed.

 Chapter 6 – Interregnum

    Onswa frantically sorted through the notifications and controls on his interface, trying to finish the last orders as the essence counter ticked down.  He knew there would be no point in trying to guard the portals manually, not when Platinums or Bismuths could come through at any moment, so the best he could do was create incentive for people to be away from Kalhan to avoid any frustrated offworlders.  He was still in the middle of spending what essence remained in the reserves on special and explanatory quests when the a notification blocked him.


    [Interplanetary Travel Restrictions lifted]


    [Planetary Administrator privileges suspended]


    Onswa growled at the message.  He didn¡¯t even know that such privileges could be suspended.  If someone else had taken the job that would be one thing, but nobody had displaced him.  He was simply locked out.  Though it wasn¡¯t like the job had come with instructions ¡ª as the highest ranking Platinum, he had simply inherited it after the last Planetary Administrator decided to depart to break into Bismuth.


    He had known there would be consequences for locking down the portals and teleports for so long, but he¡¯d expected it would be mostly related to burning through all the reserves normally used for cities.  Most of what he did day to day was the painful and ticklish business of deciding who most needed what little essence there was to spare and trying to make up for the inevitable shortfalls.  People were supposed to generate essence and resources through quests and dungeons, and bring in resources from Resource Zones.  Yet very few towns on Sydea had enough of an income to keep above the penalty line every day.


    Burning through that buffer had seemed to be necessary, to keep them from being flooded by outworlders, but time had passed and the quest hadn¡¯t gone away.  Onswa had no idea how they were going to manage until they had reserves again, because offworlders didn¡¯t contribute nearly the same amount to the cities or towns.  They didn¡¯t have access to as many quests, either, but that hardly mattered when the quest, the one that was drawing so much attention, was global.


    Having no planetary-level administer abilities at all was going to make his life entirely difficult.  He barely had control over the other Platinums, and there weren¡¯t many Golds who he could call on to pick up the slack and divert their efforts to helping out towns in need.  It wasn¡¯t even that they were unwilling, but without the administration console he couldn¡¯t coordinate efforts with targeted quests.  Instead, he would have to track people down in person.  It was a temporary circumstance, he was sure, but that didn¡¯t make it any less a crisis.  He could only be in one place at a time.


    Onswa stepped out of his now-useless office and dropped down to street level.  Kalhan was a fair-sized city, with rows of housing interspersed with System businesses.  Smithing, jewelcrafting, woodworking, alchemy, and other shops to buy or adjust equipment, or to sell or trade dropped items.  Dozens of places serving food and drink, both for sustenance and for temporary benefits provided by the more expensive dishes.  Sydeans of various ranks filled the streets, going about the usual business of buying and selling.


    Unfortunately, there were also a number of outworlders, all pouring out from the System Nexus and its attendant portal.  Onswa doubted many people had been camping the portal for weeks just to go through, so this flood was just those who happened to be nearby when travel was reinstated.  Soon enough the higher ranks would come, along with more organized incursions to take advantage of the absurd value of the defense quest.


    The presence of a Platinum abruptly shifted the chaotic outflow to something more orderly.  The visitors, mostly Golds and below to Onswa¡¯s rapid-fire [Appraise], didn¡¯t dare to misbehave with Onswa watching.  He surveyed them with disfavor, seeing everything from the insectile Urivans of their neighboring world to the slinking Tornok Clan in their characteristic armor.  It was clear that the news of the quest had been spread far and wide, and not just passed through the portal by word of mouth.


    ¡°If you¡¯re here for the quest, be patient,¡± he addressed them, hoping to stem some of the inevitable infighting.  ¡°There does not seem to be a lack of creatures, though they can be difficult to find.  None of them can be identified, and they all appear to be of Copper rank to essence perception.  Most of them appear to be entirely toothless, but any large ones should be treated as being of Platinum rank despite their apparent weakness.¡±


    He kept an eye on the traffic for a few more minutes, as the outworlders filtered out to the edges of the city, some of them took flight, others merely grouped together and voyaged out into the surrounding zones.  That was all the time he had to spare and, since there didn¡¯t seem to be any fights breaking out at that precise moment, he had to take a message to his other Platinums.


    Onswa wrapped his [Path of Aether] around himself and accelerated into the air, blurring into the between-space of his teleport.  The flowing rivers and quiet pools of the Aether stretched out before him, the nearest one close enough to touch and ride across the world.  Swift currents brought him to the slow eddy of Arene¡¯s Musahr City in Southern Coren.  That area still had the greatest concentration of zones named by the Defense Quest, but fortunately Arene was also the most capable of keeping any offworlders under control.  Even if she was technically less powerful than Onswa, she was far more aggressive and practiced.


    He dropped down toward her estate, just outside Musahr city itself.  Every Platinum had one, awarded by the System after completing the advancement Quest, though most Sydean Platinums didn¡¯t spend the estate token on Sydea itself.  In fact, most of them didn¡¯t even advance on Sydea, let alone return home.


    Arene¡¯s version was a walled courtyard, paved in white and orange, with a set of quarters and service buildings attached to a tower at one end.  The Platinum herself emerged the moment he entered the range of her perceptions, door flying open with a bang as she flew out of her bedroom.  Not that Onswa blamed her; they¡¯d all been on edge after having to deal with the strange thing that had come through the now-closed portal.  He tried not to think about how deliciously rumpled she looked, and kept his mind on business.


    ¡°The blockade¡¯s down,¡± he said shortly, even before he touched down on the courtyard stone.  ¡°Worse, I¡¯m locked out of administrator controls.  The System didn¡¯t like it, I suppose.  You¡¯re going to have to keep a tight reign on people here for a while.¡±


    ¡°Gods above and below,¡± Arene swore.  ¡°I think we¡¯re cursed.  Are we ever going to catch a break?¡±


    ¡°Probably not,¡± Onswa said bluntly.  ¡°Anyway, I have to go tell the others.  I¡¯d appreciate it if you¡¯d get someone to stay at the local Nexus and check for any courier messages, and I¡¯ll tell the other Platinums to do the same.¡±


    ¡°Go,¡± Arene said, summoning her armor onto herself and spreading blazing wings.  She was off into the sky before he could get out another word, so he slipped into the network of aether to make for his next destination.


    Marek¡¯s seaside city seemed to be in the middle of fending off a Dungeon Break, to judge from the piles of crab and sea-serpent corpses mounding the beaches. The Platinum himself was patrolling the battle lines, darting in to make sure none of the Copper and Silver ranks got overwhelmed.  Onswa flitted over, matching speed with the swirl of water Marek was surfing, and filled him in.  Marek just grunted.


    ¡°Costs for food went up, too,¡± he said, flicking a hand as he pulled a monstrous crab monster away from the party it was trying to flank.  ¡°We¡¯re going to need everything we can get from this dungeon break.¡±


    Onswa winced.  Crystallized essence tokens were created as the result of killing monsters or clearing dungeons, and were the only currency System pylons recognized.  The truly rich could redeem them for essence directly, boosting their way up the ranks, but on Sydea there had never been enough income for that.  As it was many people were forced to choose between paying for food and paying for equipment upgrades.  It was all too easy to wind up just slightly too poor to ever make any real headway into higher level equipment, just because so much income went toward basic necessities.


    ¡°I can¡¯t do as much as I¡¯d like with my privileges suspended,¡± Onswa said, reaching for his System wallet.  ¡°But ¡ª here.¡±  He pulled out a pile of Platinum essence tokens, which would suffice to feed quite a lot of people for quite a long time after being converted down to Copper tokens.  Considering the man¡¯s pride, Marek had probably already spent most of his own tokens if he was even mentioning costs.


    ¡°Appreciate it,¡± Marek said, whisking the tokens away into his own wallet.  ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much, though.  We¡¯ll make out.  We always do.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Onswa said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.  ¡°Keep me informed though, eh?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Marek said, his attention focused on the running combat sprawling across the beach below.  Onswa left him to it, moving onto the areas administered ¨C in a very loose sense of the word ¨C by Hirau and Karsa.  Perhaps he should have tried to force the issue, and insisted that they report to him, but it didn¡¯t seem worth it so long as they took care of their areas.  Gods knew he didn¡¯t have anyone to replace them.


    By the time he made it back home, he felt wrung out, no matter that his travel Skill didn¡¯t really burn that much power.  Nobody had good news, there were outworlders everywhere trying to crowd out the Sydeans from the global quest, and he¡¯d practically run himself out of essence tokens.  He¡¯d have to get his fellows together to run the sole Platinum dungeon on Sydea, if for no other reason than to have something to make up for any shortfalls.  Without the planetary reserves, the excess spillover from quests and dungeon clears, that was all he could do.


    ¡°Rough day?¡±  Aceila, his wife, asked sympathetically as he dropped into the Gold-ranked lounge next to the window looking out over his own Platinum estate.  She was Gold herself, and usually spent her time shepherding the lower ranks.


    ¡°I think the world hates us,¡± Onswa replied.  Acelia chuckled and came over, draping herself atop him.


    ¡°It¡¯ll get better,¡± she assured him, as his arms went around her.


    But it didn¡¯t.


    As the days stretched on, token prices remained high.  Outworlders kept arriving, causing trouble and taking away quests from native Sydeans and running his high rankers ragged trying to keep them in line.  Onswa spent barely any time in his now-useless office, the interface unhappily chiming the [Planetary Administrator privileges suspended] message at him every time he accessed the System.


    For a while he thought it would all subside as the number of regions marked by the Defense Quest dwindled, down to five, then two, then just the one.  But then new regions began being added, no longer adjacent to the original but all over the world.  There seemed to be no rhyme or reason, they just sprouted up out of nowhere.


    After two weeks, they lost their first town.  Aruel Town had been borderline for years, just barely sustaining itself at the edge of the [Spotted Cliffs Resource Zone], but with the reduced essence income there simply wasn¡¯t enough to keep the local System Nexus running.  Too long at a deficit, without enough quests and resources coming into the town, and the Nexus would simply go inactive, removing the safe zone and all the building benefits, a state of affairs that threatened far too many cities on Sydea.  He didn¡¯t even know when the building failed with his reduced Administrator access; it was Hirau that alerted him.


    Onswa found himself outside the small assemblage of buildings in Aruel Town, grimly holding open a portal for the refugees to file through back to Khopir City.  Without essence, all the buildings were dark and dull, lifeless blocks of grey-white stone, and soon enough monsters would come to turn it into a miniature Conflict Zone until it was fully recaptured and restored ¡ª if that ever happened. Humble as it was, the faces of those who had once dwelt there were taut with grief as they were forced to abandon their homes.  It wasn¡¯t the first town Onswa had been forced to evacuate, but never had it occurred so quickly.


    Things could hardly be going worse.


    ***


    Things could hardly be going better for World Deity Marus. He reclined in the house inside his System Space, surrounded by luxurious furniture, with windows that looked out on the core worlds.  Just little luxuries he¡¯d purchased with essence siphoned off from Sydea¡¯s churn.  The mortal races couldn¡¯t use essence directly, not in the way World Deities could, merely empowering themselves with it.  He had always felt that to be a wasteful state of affairs, but without them essence wouldn¡¯t flow.


    His Interface grumbled and chimed as it went about the business of managing all the thousands of complexities that the System required to manage a planet.  The only thing he was uncertain about was that strange defense quest, but his Interface had assured him that aside from a single dungeon, there were no other losses associated with it.  There weren¡¯t even any elites dying in the zones that the Interface had marked as being associated with the unknown entity, so Marus had to assume that it was the visiting Platinums that had wrecked the dungeon, not the entity.


    Even if his Interface freely admitted it wasn¡¯t sure what was causing the confusion, it was also certain there was nothing major going on, so Marus was happy to not only leave it be but ensure the quest was spread to neighboring worlds.  In fact, it was actually helping with his general plans by continuing to reduce the planetary budget.


    People fighting or clearing dungeons on a planet created essence, split between them, the rewards, and the planet¡¯s own reserves.  It was those reserves that paid for upgrades to cities and towns, creating dungeons, and for special quests like ranking up or the system defense quest that had cropped up on Sydea.  Of course, he¡¯d been siphoning off those funds for himself, so that Sydea would be a perfectly blank and fresh world for his clan.  After the natives lost their last foothold and his clan¡¯s allies moved in, he could dump all that siphoned essence back in to boost its growth.


    Minus what he kept for himself, of course.


    Marus had no idea how long the quest conditions would last, but so long as it went on it was accelerating his timetable by years.  Decades, even.  The faster that the towns collapsed, the fewer Sydeans the planet could support, and soon enough there wouldn¡¯t be any left.  Without any native claim, the Eln Clan¡¯s favored races could take it over for themselves.


    Such an approach took time to execute within the bounds of the System¡¯s limitations, of course. Marus was patient and would have been content to wait out the centuries, but having so many years cut off his plans was a pleasant surprise.  Any rank below Bismuth was managed by their homeworld¡¯s System Interface, so all the outworlders were pulling essence out of the planetary budget completely.  That meant less for him, but he felt it was worth the extra speed at this point.  The only issue would be if any of those outworlders he¡¯d lured in would be tempted to make their own claims ¡ª but that was unlikely since he¡¯d systematically starved Sydea of the essence it needed to grow.  To any of the mortal races, it would seem completely unpalatable.


    ¡°I do not appreciate your interference with my world.¡±  The voice was raspy, gruff, and made Marus jump up from his very comfortable chair in surprise.  He pulled on the essence of his System Space to empower himself before realizing it was merely the World Deity of neighboring Urivan.  The insectile being stood at attention in the middle of the vestibule of Marus¡¯ house, well inside Marus¡¯ System-granted private dimension, one set of arms clasped behind his back while his gripping claws rested in their grooves in his broad shoulders.


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    ¡°I¡¯m not¡ª¡±  Marus started, then interrupted himself.  ¡°How did you get in here?¡± He demanded, as it shouldn¡¯t have been possible for even another World Deity to simply barge into his System Space.  Especially not all the way into his actual house without Marus noticing.  The Urivan ignored the question.


    ¡°This quest you¡¯re spreading has far too high a reward for the risk,¡± the insect-man continued, and Marus resorted to using [Appraise] because he certainly couldn¡¯t remember the name.  The Skill reported that the being was Initik Varis, but Marus didn¡¯t really care enough to commit it to memory.  Initik was more or less irrelevant, since he didn¡¯t belong to any of the big clans and held the dubious honor of being Deity for his own homeworld.  So long as he was attached to just one planet he would never have real power.


    ¡°It¡¯s not my quest,¡± Marus denied, irritated by Initik¡¯s tone.  ¡°It is something generated by the divine System itself.  I¡¯m certainly not going to try and alter it.¡±  He glanced back at his Interface by reflex, but he didn¡¯t have the details of the defense quest displayed and certainly wasn¡¯t going to dig for them.


    ¡°Then why hasn¡¯t it been resolved?¡± Initik asked, not moving from the vestibule.  The green carapace was entirely out of place in the soft purples and oranges that the Eln clan preferred.


    ¡°Either come in or leave,¡± Marus said, stretching his tail.  ¡°Don¡¯t just hover there.¡±  Initik regarded him through the flat, solid violet eyes of his kind and then took three paces to stand just on the other side of the vestibule.  Marus bared his teeth at the insult to his hospitality, vowing that he¡¯d make sure the Eln clan knew of Initik¡¯s childishness.  He should have addressed it himself, but some tiny corner of his mind knew that he¡¯d be flattened if he tried.  Initik had killed the Deity that was originally put in charge of Uriva, after all.


    ¡°It hasn¡¯t been resolved,¡± Marus bit off each of the worlds to keep the pique from his tone.  ¡°Because it hasn¡¯t been resolved.  My purpose here is not to solve the Sydean¡¯s problems.  Spreading the quest offworld is the best way to ensure that it is properly addressed.¡±  He didn¡¯t want to spill the way he was exploiting the oddly recurring issue to someone he barely knew, even if it wasn¡¯t likely Initik could make any trouble for him.


    Just because Marus wasn¡¯t actually crossing any lines didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t skirting them, and someone in the right position could make trouble if his exact strategy became known.  Some of the core clans ¨C even some of his own Eln clan ¨C were quite devout and did not believe in pushing the boundaries of what the divine System allowed.  They were wealthy and well-established enough that they believed their approach was the best one, and disapproved of anyone who strayed from what they considered the proper path.


    ¡°If the people of your world are unready for the challenge, does that not reflect poorly upon your administration?¡±  Initik rasped in a clipped tone, his carapace rustling as he shifted slightly, moving from one statue-still stance to another.


    ¡°Hardly,¡± Marus scoffed.  ¡°I can¡¯t turn clay into steel, nor would I wish to try.  They can barely generate essence enough for the planet to maintain itself, so you can¡¯t fault me for wanting to allow others in to help with this quest.¡±


    ¡°It is disrupting the balance I have created,¡± Initik said, gripping claws clicking against his shoulder chitin.  ¡°Many young rankers are traveling to Sydea for an easy boost to essence and Skills.¡±


    ¡°So they¡¯re getting a quick start?¡±  Marus shrugged.  ¡°That¡¯s a good thing.¡±


    ¡°That is not a good thing,¡± Initik disagreed, his voice sharp with displeasure.  ¡°Those who begin their lives unchallenged will be ill prepared for the realities later.¡±


    ¡°Look, I¡¯m not going to debate administration details with you,¡± Marus said, flicking a finger and summoning a drink to his hand.  He would have gotten one for Initik, but so far as Marus was concerned the other Administrator had declared himself an enemy by ignoring proper guest behavior.  Marus certainly wasn¡¯t going to offer him any hospitality.  ¡°You shouldn¡¯t even be in here.  I certainly didn¡¯t invite you in.  If you have anything actionable to say, say it.¡±


    By all rights Marus should have flexed his will and shoved Initik back out of his private space.  He was still tempted to, but he didn¡¯t know how Initik had gotten in to begin with, so it wasn¡¯t worth risking looking like an absolute fool if it didn¡¯t work.  Better to indulge the insect for the moment, then shore up his defenses and punish Initik later.


    ¡°Resolve your planet¡¯s problems properly instead of letting them leak,¡± Initik told him, clicking again, exoskeleton rubbing against exoskeleton.  The sound reached right into Marus¡¯ brain to annoy him, making the fur on the back of his neck prickle and his ears twitch.  He found the Urivans nearly as distasteful as Sydeans, but they weren¡¯t his responsibility so he barely ever interacted with them.  Initik made him remember why he preferred it that way.


    ¡°If you can¡¯t handle a little extra traffic and a few people taking advantage of an opportunity, maybe you should look to your own duties,¡± Marus scoffed.  ¡°The Eln clan has been managing worlds for thousands of years, and this is the exact technique we¡¯ve applied to many worlds.  I know precisely what I¡¯m doing.¡±


    ¡°Hardly something to boast of,¡± Initik replied, the staccato voice carrying something like scorn.


    ¡°I care little for the words of a clanless upstart,¡± Marus said, sneering at Initik.  ¡°Go back to your own planet and pay attention to your own business.  I have work to do.¡±


    Initik didn¡¯t bother replying.  He was there one moment, and then gone from the System Space with barely a ripple.  Marus scowled at where Initik had been, then sighed and pulled up his full Interface.  He did have work to do, but not with regards to Sydea.  Its collapse was going to plan.  Rather, it was the System Space that needed fixing, and there was no telling where the hole was that Initik had used to enter ¡ª and leave.


    ***


    Exponential growth could be incredibly slow sometimes.


    Cato huddled in a crater on the moon, doing little more than keeping watch over his drones.  He had brought enough mass from the surface for a bare few, and they dug through the regolith, burrowing into the silicates and carbides in search of volatiles and metals.  He¡¯d spared enough production power to put together a very rudimentary solar array, lying just outside the shadow of the crater wall, as bio-fusion didn¡¯t scale particularly well, nor was it any good at charging batteries.  At least, not without more infrastructure than he had mass for.


    The hacked-together manufactory squatted next to the solar array, dug into the ground and shielded from the sun so it could vent excess heat, chewing patiently through all the materials the drones brought it.  A surprising amount of machinery could be built solely from silicon, carbon, and the lighter elements below those two, but there was no substitute for proper metals.


    He could see the sphere of the planet hanging above him, taunting him with its nearness.  At least, near in relative terms, as it was still some hundred thousand miles away.  He knew there was bound to be fallout there, that his distraction organisms might all have been destroyed ¡ª or left alone enough that they¡¯d reproduced beyond his initial expectations.  Unfortunately, there was no choice in being out of contact for so long.  He couldn¡¯t even work harder to make up the difference.  Energy and mass constrained him, and he couldn¡¯t squeeze blood ¨C or more importantly, iron ¨C from a stone.


    Cato tried to draw up plots and plans as he waited, watching the manufactory speed through new solar panels, and his drones return with more detailed and more useful mapping of the stone underneath his crater.  On rare occasion they returned with some particularly metal-rich chunk of material, those tiny morsel accelerating what he could build.


    Essentially, he could only afford to build factories and solar panels, like the world¡¯s most boring strategy game.  Each factory and attendant energy influx, along with some very rudimentary mining equipment, let him put together the next set of equipment that much faster.  The crater began to fill up with solar arrays as machinery dug down into the surface, reorganizing mass into something more useful.


    The most dramatic change was, at least to Cato¡¯s mind, when he could finally interface with the database he carried in his spine and no longer had to rely on the designs he had managed to extract from damaged sub-brains.  That marked the point where he could actually use real technology, rather than the constrained biotech and simple primary school designs he had before.


    Light and heavy elements got spun together into computronium: a matrix of superconductive and optronic processing components that could run anything from simple scripts to entire virtual worlds with billions of people.  Cato could finally move out of the sessile remains of the bioweapon frame, though it wasn¡¯t like he could take much advantage of the increase in processing power.


    True, he could make a virtual setting as luxurious as he wanted, but digital life had learned how destructive that path truly was.  That, or dissipated themselves into an infinitely hedonistic lifestyle until their substrate failed, which was something that still happened on occasion.  All Cato did was give himself a functional virtual home with an exterior to match the moonscape, as a reminder of what he was doing and why.


    His guests needed more infrastructure to bring back to consciousness, however.  Air, water, spin gravity, and all the amenities of a planetside habitation.  Cloning banks and the material necessary to rapidly grow and condition their replacement bodies.  A full medical suite, because there was no possible way that the process would proceed without issue.


    At least the time and extra processing power gave Cato room to properly sequence their genetics and run through simulations.  Which was in a way horrifically invasive and oddly clinical, when he was going to be meeting with these people and likely interacting with them for some time to come.  He wasn¡¯t their doctor or their friend, but he was the only one who could resurrect them regardless and it would make the inevitable relationship between them, whatever its tenor, a strange thing on his end.


    It was a blessing that he could lose himself in the intricate morass of it all instead of dwelling on the who he was dealing with.  Any biology was horribly complex, and almost all the information that had been gathered on Sydeans had been essentially by-the-way, with no concerted attempt to fully map the function of every protein and acid.  At least Sydean biology was at least marginally similar to what Earth had to offer.


    Cato didn¡¯t know if the System encompassed any life that wasn¡¯t based on carbon and water, but the intelligence he had implied everything that was connected by way of portals was close enough to breathe each other¡¯s air.  There was some massaging there thanks to System nonsense ¨C making up for different relative concentrations and difficult or deadly trace molecules ¨C but everything fit into a certain category.  Close enough that the synthetic intelligence programs didn¡¯t need any particular prodding to do the analysis, even if he still had to put in long hours making that output useful.


    ¡°Ah, damn.  I wish the Titan boys had sent a gestalt with me,¡± Cato sighed, wrestling his way through a morass of clotting cascades and protein chains after his tissue sample solidified from some quirk of alien chemistry.  It wasn¡¯t just because dealing with alien biology was hard.  The problem was, he was coming to grips with the fact that he was the only human around.


    He had plenty of media to read and watch, but nobody to discuss it with.  Setting up a self-evolving virtual world to distract himself with was simplicity itself, but without anyone else inside it, such a thing was hollow.  In a word, he was lonely.


    Cato had known that he¡¯d be in for the long haul and by himself, but it was one thing to know and it was another to experience it.  As much as he didn¡¯t want to treat the Sydeans like they were something other, they simply weren¡¯t human and they weren¡¯t anywhere near postbiological.  The System mimicked many aspects of technology, but not the entire culture that had grown up around postbiological life, or the tens of thousands of simulated years people like Cato had to draw from.


    It was a problem he would have to deal with, because it was one he would be encountering a lot.  Sydea was hardly the only planet he would be dealing with.  In fact, it was barely a start.


    Cato¡¯s plans were relatively simple.  First, spread himself throughout the System¡¯s systems.  Gain the assistance of the locals if possible, but even if not, build up the required infrastructure to clear out the System anchors.  Once removed, cushion the loss of the System¡¯s presence with technological equivalents and find trustworthy natives to ease the transition because he sure wouldn¡¯t be a good judge of how to deal with all the alien psychologies he was sure to encounter.


    Each planet would have a version of himself, completely cut off from all the other versions of himself as well as Earth itself.  How exactly each version of himself would handle things was something that would have to wait for the actual event, but he trusted he¡¯d choose wisely.  After all, he had no desire to become a monster or some kind of hegemonizing swarm converting everything, so he had no worries any version of himself would.


    That trust was one of the final barriers toward becoming properly postbiological, and it was a trust few people had.  Most would feel the need to put a limiter on their alternate selves, or alter or lobotomize them in some way to prevent them from working at cross-purposes.  Yet the strongest limiter that could possibly exist was that he was himself.  That was the key piece of the mind that even allowed reconciliation among alternate selves in the first place, so he had no worries about his various selves being split among thousands of worlds.


    Unfortunately his plans to do so had already hit a snag.  All the portals seemed to be in city centers rather than popping up in the middle of nowhere like on Earth.  Clearly that had been because Earth was still in some initial phase, before all the infrastructure was sorted out, but it still meant it wasn¡¯t easy for him to slip over to other worlds.  Combined with the System quest, it was pretty obvious he¡¯d need more than just a single stealthy warframe.


    Nor was he cut out for ranking up within the System himself, becoming some twisted magical version of himself just to transport a trojan entity.  He¡¯d have to so alter and lobotomize any version of himself that was fully open to the system that it wouldn¡¯t be him, and it really would risk some terrible divergence.  Not to mention he¡¯d be inflicting that on someone who, ultimately, would be a different person entirely.


    The conclusion, then, was that he would need a System confederate, or likely more than one.  At the very least he¡¯d need some from this initial foothold, which led to why he was so anxious to resurrect his guests.  He really needed to get their bodies right if they were to listen to him, and it was a struggle. Growing Sydean biology was one thing, because life generally was pretty good at propagating itself, but growing it rapidly and to specification was another issue entirely.  That was another reason it would have been nice if someone with more experience and understanding were along for the ride, but such was not to be.


    One of the major contributors to the defense, Luna Secondus, had been very firm about keeping things Earth-side.  Cato wasn¡¯t sure whether the moon colony was afraid of somehow gaining the System¡¯s ire or didn¡¯t want the System to have any chance at understanding Titan biotechnology, but he¡¯d found the entire attitude short-sighted.  Which was why he¡¯d had to take the chance at the last moment, so nobody could stop him or talk him out of it.


    Unfortunately he was on his own, at least until he got to the point where he could wake up the slumbering brains.  Not that he spent every processing cycle on work, and he took time out to relax with reading or shows or sims.  The database held a not-inconsiderable amount of media from the Solar System, ranging from the classics of Rome and Nippon to the ephemera produced by Summer Civilizations.


    Such was the derogatory name for groups of uploads running at tens of thousands or millions of times normal speed, who could create civilizations that rose and then fell in mere months.  Often the collapse left little more than scorched computronium behind as the legacy of anywhere from thousands to billions of people and uncounted centuries of history.


    It was the sort of fate he was hoping to avoid happening a second time for the Sydean people.  Cato¡¯s own father was an ¨¦migr¨¦ from a Summer Civilization, so he had some insight on how it was for people to find out their reality wasn¡¯t entirely true.  The System might not exactly be the same as one of those hyper-accelerated virtual realities, but it wasn¡¯t far off.  The Sydeans surely had been operating inside it for centuries, and emerging from the other end would be the same kind of shock.


    The globe spun above him in the blackness of space as machines made more machines and dug down.  The tipping point where he could finally afford to start doing real work and not just expand his factories came nearly a month in, a month spent on tests and simulations and chewing over difficult problems that Cato didn¡¯t really have any good answers to.  Wisdom was much harder to come by than factual knowledge.


    His machines had found a few pockets of water-ice, totaling a few hundred tons, along with sufficient heavy metal deposits to build some proper industry.  Several incubators, to make bioweapon frames, and large-scale manufactories to assemble a habitat.  He was finally able to start launching communications and surveillance satellites, even if they had a higher minimum orbit than he would have preferred.  He might even be able to get in touch with his remaining scouts, and if there was anything useful recorded into memory he could start putting it into a proper surveillance database.


    New scouts were grown in the incubators, and launched down to the world below in a rough-and-ready re-entry trajectory.  Falling to ground from space, even at something far below orbital velocity, wasn¡¯t particularly easy, and the System quest made them targets, but he needed a better view on things than orbit could give him.


    What he found was not promising.


    The population centers, small as they were, had become flush with non-Sydean types.  They were actively hunting down his remaining scouts, and to judge from the bits and pieces he saw they didn¡¯t get along particularly well with the natives.  Several of the tiny System towns were dark and dead, which seemed to be a recent development, but he couldn¡¯t see what had caused the evacuation.


    Making things harder for the native was the absolute last thing Cato wanted to do.  Not only was that basic human decency, Cato really needed to have the Sydeans on his side, or at least some of them.  Without confederates within the System, it probably wasn¡¯t possible to take it down.  There were too many things it could do, both known and in theory, to absolutely cripple Cato if he was forced to approach it wholly from without.


    He had known that Sydea was doing poorly before, but the fallout of his presence seemed to have accelerated the collapse.  It wasn¡¯t truly his fault, but it was certainly his responsibility.  There wasn¡¯t too much he could do for the moment, not when he was restricted to a few square miles of solar ¨C half of it already in shadow and being replaced by satellites beaming power in ¨C and a few hundred tons of equipment.  Once he truly hit his stride, though, he¡¯d demonstrate what a self-replicating industrial base could manage.

 Chapter 7 – Revive

    Raine Talis of the Gosruk Guardians woke with a start. She sat bolt upright in an unfamiliar bed, flinging off the sheets in one convulsive motion as she tried to defend herself from a threat that was no longer there. Her hands flew to her chest and her neck, but everything was intact despite her last memories, of the horrible jaws coming for her and the tearing grief of her sister¡¯s scream.


    Adventuring instincts made her check herself over, and then her location, taking stock of injuries and dangers. Yet she found she felt better than she had in a very long time, fully alert and healthy. The room was small and plain, with pale blue walls and an off-white ceiling lit by a single glowing panel, the simple bed with white linens, and a small table with neatly folded clothes piled atop it.


    By reflex she tried to use her perception Skill, but nothing happened. She blinked and tried to summon the System, but there was nothing there either. Her tail twitched involuntarily, lashing against the bedding in uncontrollable spasms of creeping fear. She trusted nothing about the situation, the place, even the furnishings and the air she breathed. Feeling the need for any protection she could find, Raine grabbed the southern-style clothes and dressed herself in haste. Already she missed the comfort of her armor, which was nowhere to be found.


    Aside from the furnishings, there was a single door in the room. No windows to show her where she was or provide an alternate exit. Creeping closer, she listened at the door and heard someone humming a tune she did not recognize, but nothing else. That alone made the situation more eerie, but Raine could see no point in waiting so she opened the door.


    She was immediately struck by an impossible sight. The far wall of the room, capturing her attention to the exclusion of all else, was a massive glass window beyond which a green and blue circle, swirled with white, floated in a sea of stars. She stared for a moment, until suddenly she recognized the outlines of the shapes from the System¡¯s maps and globes. It was Sydea.


    The sinking feeling in her gut hardened into something more concrete. Raine remembered dying, and while some extremely high rank Skills could revive someone in the right circumstances, this was nothing familiar. The System didn¡¯t rule here.


    That revelation made her sway, and she put out her hand to brace herself against the wall as she realized what that meant. She had known there was something wrong when the System had sent them against something impossible, as if it were grappling with something even it didn¡¯t know. Something outside the System, or even greater than it. That was the power that had her.


    ¡°It¡¯s quite the view, isn¡¯t it?¡± The voice came from the side, startling her away from the view and whirling her around by reflex. Her body automatically assumed a defensive posture, even if she didn¡¯t have any energy to call on.


    The rest of the small room was similar to where she had awoken, with plain blue walls and an off-white ceiling, but furnished with a pair of chairs facing each other across a small table. A being sat in one of the chairs, a biped with pinkish skin instead of scales, a flat face, and a mop of dark hair. It was no species Raine recognized, and despite looking completely unthreatening she didn¡¯t trust it a single bit.


    ¡°Come, have a seat,¡± the being invited, gesturing to the opposite chair. Raine didn¡¯t move.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± She asked the obvious question, but there were a thousand of them bubbling up through the panic swirling inside her. ¡°Where is this place? How am I alive?¡±


    ¡°My name is Cato,¡± the being replied, lacing fingers across its chest as it leaned back in its chair, regarding her. ¡°I come from Earth, which you know as Ahrusk ¡ª terrible name, by the way. From beyond the System. To my people, death is a somewhat blurrier concept than it is to you, so I was able to preserve you and bring you here. Near your planet, but still out of reach of the System.¡±


    ¡°So we did die,¡± she said, having to force herself to say it aloud, her fingers flying up to her throat, where she remembered teeth sinking into her scales. ¡°That thing ¡ª it came from Ahrusk as well, didn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I must apologize,¡± Cato said, its oddly mobile face wrinkling in some expression she couldn¡¯t quite place. ¡°That thing was me.¡±


    Raine firmed up her combat stance by instinct, she automatically raising her hands to try and call on [Firelance]. Nothing happened, and she felt her heart pounding against her scales, reverberating all the way down to the tip of her tail ¡ª which wouldn¡¯t stop lashing in the grip of unnamable fear. Her mind spun uselessly, struggling to grasp that she was facing her sister¡¯s murderer. Her own murderer.


    ¡°Peace,¡± Cato said, raising its hands. ¡°I have no desire to harm you. Even at our unfortunate first meeting I was only defending myself, and have no ill will toward you.¡±


    ¡°Easy for you to say,¡± she spat. ¡°I don¡¯t have anything! No Skills, no armor, no weapons. You took away my group, you took away Leese. Did you just bring me back to gloat?¡±


    ¡°Certainly not,¡± Cato said, sounding almost affronted. ¡°I brought you back because I want your help.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re insane,¡± Raine said, her throat tight with grief. ¡°I would never¡ª¡±


    ¡°I should correct at least one misapprehension,¡± Cato said, holding up a hand. ¡°Your sister is just as alive as you are.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t toy with me!¡± Raine shouted, fury narrowing her vision down to Cato¡¯s face, muscles aching with unreleased tension as she pushed away a hope she didn¡¯t dare to feel. Instead of replying, the being waved at one of the walls and it split along a previously unseen seam, a section pulling away to reveal another, near identical room. It had the same view, the same chairs, the same Cato in one. But standing there, alive and whole and intact, was Leese.


    ¡°Leese!¡± She said, rocked backward on her feet, and then she was moving before she realized it. Her sister met her halfway, the impact smarting, but she relished the feeling of that reality, and the crushing hug that they shared.


    It had always been just the two of them, ever since they were young and a passing Gold had flattened half their village. There had only been a handful of survivors, and it had been a long hard road to the higher ranks. Even Muar and Cormok were distant friends in comparison.


    ¡°Raine!¡± Leese replied, almost laughing. ¡°We¡¯re alive!¡±


    For a moment Raine forgot all about Cato and the strange surroundings, just glorying in the fact that her sister was there, whole and hale. Then the moment passed, Leese¡¯s arms loosened, and they stepped back slightly to look each other up and down. Leese was just as intact as she was, and dressed in an outfit that was nearly identical ¡ª but not quite. The difference was subtle and made something in her instincts prickle, but Leese never stopped grinning.


    ¡°We might be alive,¡± Raine said in an undertone, conscious of their audience. ¡°But it¡¯s hard to be grateful when our killer is standing right there.¡±


    ¡°Is he really our killer? He defeated us, yes, but went to some pains to keep us alive.¡± Leese replied in the same low voice, her eyes darting to Cato and then to the view of Sydea through the glass. ¡°With how powerful he is, there has to be a reason.¡±


    ¡°There does,¡± Raine sighed, following Leese¡¯s glance. ¡°Which is not something I¡¯m looking forward to. We can¡¯t touch the System here, so we¡¯re completely helpless.¡±


    ¡°We were before, even with our rank and Skills,¡± Leese pointed out, voice gentle. ¡°The best thing we can do is ask Cato what it wants.¡± Raine nodded, conscious that the being ¨C both versions of it ¨C were waiting patiently, giving them plenty of time to talk. Surely it could hear them, but it was at least pretending to give them privacy.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like being subject to the whims of some inscrutable monster,¡± Raine said, under her breath. ¡°We can¡¯t possibly trust it.¡±


    ¡°Raine, we¡¯re alive. Everything else can be dealt with,¡± Leese replied, giving her another squeeze. ¡°There¡¯s no use dwelling right now. One step at a time.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Raine said, drawing in a breath, then turning to look at the closest of the two identical beings. It chuckled, and the other version brought over the spare chair before departing back into the other room. The wall sealed itself, and the Cato seated at the table waved at the chairs, inviting them to sit.


    Hesitantly, Raine did so. It became immediately apparent the chairs had been tailored specifically for them; hers matched her frame perfectly, with the exact proportions to accommodate her tail and torso, precisely the right height off the floor. It was by far the most comfortable chair she had ever used, far and away more than anything the System had offered.


    She exchanged glances with Leese, neither of them actually needing words to convey what they were thinking. The combination of simplicity, absurdity, kindness, and coercion made no sense at all. Either Cato was utterly insane, or it was playing some game they didn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°As I said,¡± Cato continued, entirely patient. ¡°I would like your help. So as to not lead you on, I will tell you right now that my goal is to destroy the System.¡±


    That sent a shiver down Raine¡¯s spine, from neck to tailtip, and she and Leese looked at each other once again. Again, neither of them needed to speak, but Leese was far less surprised than Raine, more focused on his words. Raine didn¡¯t have anything to say to that, and neither did Leese, so after a brief pause he continued.


    ¡°When the System arrived on Earth ¨C on Ahrusk ¨C it destroyed entire worlds,¡± Cato said, somber and serious. ¡°It killed people I love, twisted others beyond recognition. That¡¯s my motivation, but here is yours.¡± He leaned forward and looked at them seriously. ¡°The System is doing the same to you.¡±


    ¡°The System isn¡¯t what killed us,¡± Raine pointed out, her mouth moving before her mind. Cato shook his head.


    ¡°Perhaps not directly, but the System aimed you at me, when I would have let you be and simply gone on my way. However, what I mean is something on a far greater scale.¡± Cato waved at the view of Sydea, and the glass wall lit with some very System-like notations on the far-away globe. Ruins, tracks, numbers, only half of which she could understand.


    ¡°From what I can tell, you had a world-wide civilization before the System came. Enough to support hundreds of millions of people, and creating art and architecture far surpassing anything provided by the System.¡± The System-like display showed an inset picture of a sculpture, obviously of a Sydean, tail coiled about its ankles and hands reaching beseechingly upward. ¡°I recovered this from a sunken city, for example. Yet I haven¡¯t seen a single painting or sculpture that is of Sydean origin in any of your towns or cities.¡±


    Raine and Leese exchanged glances, neither of them entirely clear about why Cato was telling them such things. The fate of the entire world was too big, too distant. Some ancient history was barely relevant to today¡¯s worries, even if Cato seemed to think it was. Raine looked at the strange being, trying to arrange a diplomatic way to ask why it mattered, but Leese beat her to it.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure that¡¯s true, honored Cato, but I confess I don¡¯t understand why you are telling us. My sister and I are merely simple adventurers. I¡¯m sure everything you say is true but there is nothing either of us can do about it.¡± Leese waved at the view of Sydea. ¡°You say you need our help, but we aren¡¯t anyone. Something like the fate of Sydea, let alone the System, is far beyond us. We¡¯re just Golds.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± Cato said, though at least the words didn¡¯t sound upset. It was difficult to read the emotion on the odd flat face, but Raine thought that the being was considering something. ¡°I suppose it is rather much to spring on you.¡± The displays vanished, leaving only the view of the globe in a night sky, and Cato regarded them.


    ¡°Let me try another approach. In order to deal with the System, I cannot simply sit outside it. I will need collaborators, confidants, people who know it and can maneuver within it.¡± He spread his hands, inclining his head in their direction. ¡°When you return, it would be most helpful if I could count on your support.¡±


    ¡°When we return?¡± Raine asked, emphasizing the word.


    ¡°Certainly,¡± Cato replied. ¡°Unfortunately, my method of preserving you required that I bring you here, outside the System, but when we are ready I will be returning all of you. That is guaranteed, but it would be quite helpful if I had someone to help me approach your leaders. And of course, someone who will help me with things within the System in general. With that quest following me everywhere, I¡¯m afraid all my meetings would wind up like our first.¡±


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°That does make sense,¡± Leese admitted. ¡°Though again, we are merely Golds. If we are still Golds?¡± She made it a question, and Cato sighed.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid not,¡± it told them regretfully. ¡°When I bring you back into the System you¡¯ll have to start all over. We tried some experiments when we were pushing the System off Earth, and we could never get the ranks to stick.¡±


    ¡°As Coppers, we can only do so much,¡± Leese said, and Raine looked at her. For a moment she couldn¡¯t believe Leese was trying to negotiate with someone who had them entirely at its mercy, but then she understood. As powerful as Cato was, it had to have something it could offer them for what it wanted. Something they could grab and hold onto as their own.


    ¡°I understand that,¡± Cato assured them. ¡°Of course I would provide aid and assistance if you were to help me, above and beyond merely returning you to the surface.¡±


    ¡°Like what?¡± Raine asked, perhaps a little too quickly, but she needed something to concrete to fix her mind on.


    ¡°As I am sure you have concluded, I have significant knowledge when it comes to living things.¡± Cato said, gesturing to the two of them. ¡°The most profound benefit I could offer you would be augmented bodies and brains. You would be significantly faster, stronger, healthier. Less able to tire, more able to focus and think faster. I can set it to your preferred age and make any cosmetic changes you like.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Leese interrupted. ¡°You can make us young again?¡±


    ¡°Certainly,¡± Cato said, and Raine would have sworn it sounded amused.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you do that to start with?¡± Raine asked, feeling obscurely cheated.


    ¡°It is extremely rude to alter someone¡¯s body without their permission,¡± Cato responded. ¡°If you¡¯d woken up in an unfamiliar form, I don¡¯t imagine you would have taken it well.¡±


    ¡°Mmph,¡± Raine said. She hated that it was right about that. Being reasonable was, itself, suspicious under the circumstances. ¡°This all sounds too good to be true.¡±


    ¡°There are many things I can¡¯t offer you.¡± Cato said by way of rebuttal. ¡°Immediate power, the way the System does. Political power. Any stake on Sydea ¡ª it¡¯s not mine to give, after all. Though I can say that with my augmentations you¡¯d be able to advance within the System quite rapidly indeed ¡ª for as long as it is around, at least.¡±


    Raine exchanged glances with Leese, needing no actual words to discuss what they were thinking. The System itself didn¡¯t offer people like them true youth ¡ª there were rumors about something of the sort at Bismuth, but that rank had always been out of reach. Beyond that, beyond even being given what sounded like Gold-rank bodies while still at Copper, there was the matter of aligning themselves with Cato.


    If Cato had wanted to conquer Sydea there might have been some second thoughts, but he didn¡¯t even want to do that. Replacing the System was nothing Raine intrinsically cared much about, even if she had a hard time imagining what the result would be. Especially not after it had failed them. As a divine caster, Leese should have had more reservations, but she seemed even more eager to take advantage of Cato¡¯s offer.


    Both of them had learned long ago that having power mattered, and Cato seemed to be even more powerful than the System. With that kind of power on their side, all kinds of worries would vanish. Their youth made the offer even more stunning, after having lost so much time to simply grinding away on getting to a rank where they couldn¡¯t be casually crushed by careless or malicious passers-by.


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure what¡¯s involved in this crusade against the System,¡± Leese said after a few moments, though it was clear they were going to accept. ¡°But wouldn¡¯t destroying it be just as harmful for our people as you claim the System is? I confess I don¡¯t have the slightest clue what life would be like without it, and I don¡¯t think anyone else would.¡±


    ¡°It would be worse than anything you¡¯ve ever seen if I merely destroyed it without anything else,¡± Cato agreed. ¡°That¡¯s why I want to talk to your leaders. Why I need you to act as my agents on the ground. So I can do this right, and actually provide the tools for your people to flourish afterward.¡± The being looked from one to the other, fingers laced together as it made sure they were listening.


    ¡°I¡¯m fully aware that if I take someone who has been a slave all her life, tell her she¡¯s free, and shove her off into the wider world, I¡¯m doing her no favors,¡± it continued. Raine felt her muzzle curl back from her teeth at that, something Cato noticed.


    ¡°If you find that insulting, that is on purpose,¡± it said, baring its teeth in reply. ¡°You should be affronted by what the System has done to you. What I hope to teach you is how to never be slaves again.¡±


    ¡°I see,¡± Leese said, exchanging another look with Raine before bumping her shoulder. ¡°Well, we are interested, especially if it involves helping out the rest of Sydea.¡±


    ¡°That is greatly appreciated,¡± Cato said, then cocked his head. ¡°I would appreciate you beginning now, by addressing a more local issue. I have two other Sydeans who are, for perfectly understandable reasons, entirely intractable. Perhaps you could help me reason with them.¡±


    ¡°Muar and Cormok?¡± Raine asked, feeling almost guilty she hadn¡¯t asked after her group-mates before. ¡°You brought them too?¡±


    ¡°Muar, yes. I am afraid I was not able to preserve Cormok,¡± Cato said soberly.


    ¡°Oh,¡± said Leese, going still for a moment.


    ¡°I rescued a young pair from some high rankers who were tracking me,¡± Cato said. ¡°They were already dead by System terms, but not by mine.¡± He paused again, regarding them. ¡°In truth, I was not able to preserve either Cormok or the other one because one of yours attacked me. A high-ranker that used fire. It¡¯s not her fault; she was only trying to deal with what the System told her was a threat. But I wasn¡¯t able to protect everyone.¡±


    ¡°Wait, you fought Arene Fire-Wing?¡± Raine leaned forward, a faint swirl of mixed envy and concern adding to the confused welter of emotions. ¡°Was she ¡ª did you kill her?¡±


    ¡°Hardly,¡± Cato said, with a genuine laugh. ¡°I was lucky to get away as it was. Yet I find I am not certain how much of it to tell, lest it seem like I am trying to blame someone else. I am trying to establish trust, and relating this particular truth could so easily break it.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll talk to them,¡± Leese said, bumping Raine¡¯s shoulder again and stirring her out of her contemplations. ¡°We don¡¯t have to decide anything right now?¡±


    ¡°Certainly not,¡± Cato said. ¡°You¡¯ve all the time in the world.¡±


    ***


    Arene blinked to the side with [Wings of Khuroon], gathering [Calamity Lance] in her hand as she gauged the opposing Platinum. Any lingering thoughts that keeping the portal closed was an overreaction had been thoroughly dispelled by what happened once travel was open. The System had not only spread news of the defense quest and its rewards to neighboring worlds, but it¡¯d revoked their ability to control portals or teleports. Now there were not only all kinds of scavengers and predators arriving, but there was no telling where they had gone.


    The outworlder she was dealing with opened his beak again, the sonic attack visibly distorting the air as she darted in closer, loosing her [Calamity Lance]. The beam of condensed fire splattered off the thick armor the Platinum wore, but wasn¡¯t stopped entirely. She smirked as its plumage crisped and caught fire, drawing an indignant squawk at a volume fit to shake the trees.


    ¡°Last warning,¡± she shouted, charging the Skill again and letting the ball of enraged fire dance in her palm. ¡°Leave, or die!¡± The bird was lucky he was getting even that much of a choice, but he¡¯d merely injured people in his pursuit of the System quest. Many other Platinums weren¡¯t so careful.


    ¡°The System quest is open to anyone!¡± The bird screeched back, affronted. ¡°You can¡¯t keep the divine System¡¯s offerings for yourself!¡± Arene replied with another [Calamity Lance], and the opposing Platinum spat insults as he zipped back toward Mosaw City and its attendant portal. Arene kept pace with him until she saw him duck through and back to Uriva, wishing she could properly lock the thing down. Some might have called the thought blasphemous, but they probably weren¡¯t finding the System as heavily set against them.


    Her farcaster vibrated and she scowled at it. The device was ruinously expensive to operate, especially since the entire planet seemed to be low on essence despite all the foreign high-rankers coming in. Yet with Onswa¡¯s administration access still restricted, and with Platinums putting out fires all over the planet, it was necessary. She took it out, noting it was nearly out of charge, so she pressed a Platinum token against its front plate before answering it.


    ¡°What?¡± She snapped.


    ¡°A Bismuth just moved into Koish Town.¡± Karsa¡¯s voice sounded sleepy as always, like she had just woken up, though Arene knew that wasn¡¯t the case.


    ¡°Did you get anyone out?¡± Arene didn¡¯t bother asking if Karsa had tried to stop the outworlder in question. A Bismuth was just too much for them to deal with. Even all five Platinums together wouldn¡¯t stand much of a chance, and that wasn¡¯t the first Bismuth to simply stake a claim.


    After the strange creature had vanished into the sky, the quest had not simply gone away. Every few days, a new zone was added, at random, as if it were able to teleport from place to place. Or as if it were descending from the heavens. No matter the truth, the quest persisted, and all kinds of people wanted to take the riches for themselves.


    ¡°Most of them. Not everyone.¡± The tired drawl lacked emotion, but the short, bitten-off sentences said more than Karsa¡¯s tone ever could. ¡°Need somewhere to put them.¡±


    ¡°Got it,¡± Arene said, temper cooling as she thought about the problem. Everyone she knew had already used their building tokens, let alone town tokens, and getting more was no easy task. They were generally awarded on breaking through to Gold, or sometimes from special quests. The former was not something that could be rushed, the latter was so rare that Arene had only ever seen it once.


    She pumped her wings and blazed through the sky before teleporting herself across the continent to the anchor nearest Karsa. Most of Arene¡¯s own towns were overcrowded already from other refugees, but she still had her own personal estate that she hardly used. It wasn¡¯t all that large, not for a Platinum, but she could at least cram a few dozen low-ranks into its walls.


    Karsa¡¯s own estate stood at the center of [Gyen Town], the central tower taller than the city walls and courtyard visibly full even from the air. Arene pulled her wings in as she descended, thumping down in the middle of a milling crowd. Despite her care, some people cringed away from the heat she radiated, made worse by the scorching suns overhead.


    The Platinum herself stood vigil over three families with children; infants and those young enough they didn¡¯t even have a rank. To call Karsa statuesque would be an understatement; she was by far the largest Sydean that Arene had ever seen, with muscles straining to burst out from the deep indigo scales containing them. Her enormous war hammer was slung over one shoulder as she guarded the children, though Arene didn¡¯t think there was anyone in the crowd who was a threat. Karsa was simply too on-edge from dealing with an outworld Bismuth.


    ¡°Arene,¡± Karsa said by way of greeting, and nothing else. The tone and half-shut eyes didn¡¯t match her posture and never had, but Arene couldn¡¯t fault either Karsa¡¯s instincts or her ability. ¡°Take some.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Arene said, turning around to look at the crowd. It took serious effort to keep herself under control, seeing all the unfortunate low-rankers huddled in the courtyard. They shouldn¡¯t be refugees on their own damn planet, and if she could have simply cut Sydea off from the other worlds, she would have.


    Instead, all she could do was help her people weather the storm, just as she always had.


    ***


    Elder Nomok of the Tornok Clan was not happy. As wealthy and powerful as the Tornok Clan was, it really couldn¡¯t afford to lose promising Platinums, especially not on some fifth-rate planet rather than in a conflict where their deaths might have won something. He approved of the pair¡¯s ambition in going through the portal to the new world ¨C there were always opportunities when the System added territory ¨C but it seemed they hadn¡¯t even gotten that far.


    He continued to read through the report as the terrified messenger-creature, one of a particular winged servant race that Tornok Clan had taken under its protection millennia ago, stayed silent and still. Nomok had never heard of a portal to new territories being simply closed before. Or really, any portal being permanently closed. They could be relocated from one System Nexus to another by a Planetary Administrator, but once they were open, the System maintained them. No Skills could interact with them, no magical spells could influence their location or destination. Only Administrators or world deities could alter how they operated ¡ª though most planets had guards posted as a matter of course. A System Nexus with sufficient upgrades even paid for the guards itself.


    The closure was actually a minor disaster for a number of clans who had sent their scions there to claim land and people. Taking the [Staging Area] away from the locals had been simplicity itself, and accomplished with only a single nearby Tornok Clan Bismuth ¡ª though the [Staging Area] had since been passed to other interests. His own Deity, the Divine Alren, had informed him of another deity clan¡¯s intentions to take Sydea, and while that seemed a waste of a perfectly useful servant race, like the messenger-creature, it wasn¡¯t Nomok''s place to question the machinations of deities.


    Tornok Clan had investments to secure closer to home, so they¡¯d sent only a token force, mostly Silvers and Golds. A wise decision, as with the portal closure all those who had been vying for new territory were beyond reach. The pair of Platinums had been there of their own accord, but it wasn¡¯t the portal that had done for them. According to the report ¨C which was vague, and Nomok doubted the local patriarch had done much investigating ¨C they had vanished in a dungeon collapse.


    It was a blatant cover-up, and not even a very clever one. Probably one of the local creatures had been at fault. The Sydeans did have some Platinums, apparently, despite their shortcomings. Those deaths alone warranted some punishment, but frankly the other part of the report was more interesting.


    A very strange, very profitable, very easy recurring quest.


    Tornok Clan had its own private dungeons and hunting grounds, of course, but none of them consistently yielded a B-Tier Skill and enough essence to jump to nearly the peak of Copper. There was no telling how long it would last, but there were innumerable fresh scions that would benefit from the largesse. Anyone who didn¡¯t grasp that sort of easy advantage would be a fool. All that mattered was power, and anything that granted power had to be seized. Or others would.


    He regarded the messenger-creature and decided it had groveled sufficiently. With a flick of his finger he dismissed it, and it vanished back out of the study with alacrity. Elder Nomok stood, crossing over to the balcony that looked out over the garden in the estate grounds to consider his options.


    The Clan Holdings were upgraded nearly to the maximum the System offered, a massive spawl of high-rank stone and metal. Glass windows and open balconies faced out onto extensive gardens, each household equipped with the System pylons so they could customize the weather at their whim. Their official Clan Holdings covered several thousand square miles, but in actual fact Tornok Clan controlled several core planets. Not the largest Clan, but large enough to have real power.


    It was worth considering whether they wanted to acquire a stake in Sydea, as well, if it was to be so valuable. It certainly wasn¡¯t worth offending whatever deities were interested in permanently acquiring the planet, but a temporary occupation might not be out of the question. Yet Sydea was far from Tornok Clan¡¯s holdings, and the only thing it had to offer was the quest ¡ª which would surely run dry soon enough.


    He didn¡¯t even know who controlled the other planets around there. That particular frontier was far enough from the Core Worlds that it was an eclectic mix of minor powers and Clan footholds, so subjugating Sydea, even for only a few years, might be politically impolite. He would have to assign some research to whatever initiates were in the rotation, and decide on which Bismuth to send to shepherd the Coppers. Someone who could take a firm hand and move rapidly, to make sure Tornok Clan had its proper share of the quests and rewards.


    After a moment, Elder Nomok nodded to himself. He knew just the one.

 Chapter 8 – Choices

    Cato really tried his best not to eavesdrop on his guests.


    He was perfectly capable of it, given how laden the habitat was with sensors just as a matter of course. Pressure sensors, light sensors, all the normal things to ensure there were no sudden emergencies from a stray micrometeorite or a moonquake. As any neophyte knew, speech was merely waves through the air, so it really wasn¡¯t any effort at all to decode the readouts from the room the Sydeans had retreated to.


    After being given the first taste of real conversation in months, it took some real wrestling with himself to keep from sitting in as a ghostly spectator just for the company. Having genuine people around whetted his appetite for more, but he couldn¡¯t simply bustle in with drinks and join their debate. His guests feared him, viewed him the same as the highest-rank elites, and so they couldn¡¯t possibly be honest with themselves or each other if they felt he was around. Nor did he want to be dishonest with them, so he very consciously blocked the algorithms that had started to run entirely automatically.


    Or really, autonomically. For a properly postbiological brain to run it had a lot of extra features that didn¡¯t make sense in a squishy bio-brain. That included automatic sensor analysis, integrated as smoothly and completely as natural senses, as well as reconciling every version of himself as they communicated with each other, to keep all his selves roughly on the same page. Even when they hadn¡¯t synchronized in days.


    It was that synchronization that interrupted his lonely vigil and made it even tortuous, as the version of himself that had been running the spy network integrated with the rest of his consciousness. Instead of temptation, that version brought with it an incandescent fury at the events unfolding on the surface. Between the satellites and the innumerable bioweapon scouts that were flitting about, he had a good understanding of what was happening but was unable to do a single thing about it.


    It wouldn¡¯t be too dramatic to call it an invasion, as non-Sydeans streamed through the portal in the capital city and teleported their way to other locations, spreading out over the entire planet. They displaced, attacked, or outright murdered the natives and each other, at least in places where no higher ranks were about to keep order. It was exactly the savagery that had sprung up on Earth before the postbiological forces had arrived, a deliberate erasure of civilization.


    That was the sort of thing that made him near-frantic to get back on the ground himself. Cato had no desire to try and manipulate things from the shadows, moving pieces around while he stayed in orbit, and though he would keep an orbital presence he still wanted ¨C needed ¨C to go down and see things with his own eyes. To talk, fight, and witness for himself. A full light-second of delay from Sydea¡¯s surface made everything seem indistinct and unreal, making a game of it the way the System did. Though he should really be thankful the moons were even that close.


    When the System had come to Earth, it had never spread beyond the atmosphere. On Sydea, the reach of the alternate physics was quite a bit further, extending thousands of miles beyond the planet¡¯s surface. Considering the vast distances of space, that wasn¡¯t much in a relative sense, but it did imply that given time the System could or would add the rest of the planets. That was ignoring whatever mechanism let it spread to begin with, which could potentially target any of his bases and erase everything technological in an instant.


    Accordingly, he¡¯d surveyed the other planets in the system and started sending probes. Cato was pretty certain he needed to be a proper cockroach, especially once the System took serious notice of him. The quests had been bad enough, and Cato hadn¡¯t yet inflicted any real damage. Once it became clear what Cato was doing, he had to assume it would bring greater forces to bear.


    The trick was making sure that it didn¡¯t catch everyone else in the crossfire when that happened.


    In a way, he¡¯d already failed at that particular task. There was no question that the sudden influx of non-Sydeans, especially those of high rank, was due to his meddling. Considering how poorly they treated the natives, not to mention displacing them from their own towns and even homes, that was no good for any of the people he was trying to help. He¡¯d tried to mitigate the issue by keeping the scouts away from heavily populated areas, both to avoid disruption and in case of a sudden smiting from heaven, but so far the local System-God had not been paying attention.


    Cato wasn¡¯t ready for that conflict yet anyway, but he was ready to start aiding the Sydeans with the forces he¡¯d created. He had nothing major just yet, since he was still building his infrastructure, but he had multiple bioweapons incubating for deployment. The incident with the Platinums showed his warframes didn¡¯t have quite enough punch, so a version of himself had put his nose to the virtual grindstone and spent some time working on better ranged options.


    The species-specific toxin he¡¯d brewed up on the fly had been no good, and he figured the same would be true for any other poison or disease that didn¡¯t have the System¡¯s blessing, so he was stuck with more brute force options for the moment. Biofusion was too uncertain and unstable to scale beyond the levels he had already used in the Sneeze of Doom ¡ª there was only so much coordination to be had with the infrastructure, and the moment a fusion detonation began any organelles that weren¡¯t already perfectly synchronized simply vaporized rather than adding their efforts to the payload.


    At least after consulting the archives, he found a ranged weapon that would work called a light-gas gun. It was closer to a hydraulic system than an explosive one, but could still achieve incredible muzzle velocity and could be done with bioweapon muscles. Unfortunately it took up quite a bit of mass and space, and the reload time was measured in seconds at best, minutes to hours at worst as he needed to repair pieces of bioweapon that wouldn¡¯t be able to handle the stress. There was a reason his warframe hadn¡¯t been equipped with anything like that, but at least it was a projectile weapon.


    Being able to deliver doom-sneezes at a distance would be helpful, but there was disappointingly little deuterium or helium-three on the moon ¡ª or for that matter lithium-6 or other fusion candidates. Considering how inefficient using it for an actual weaponized detonation was ¨C both with the fusion material itself and with the relatively expensive organelles required ¨C it¡¯d have to remain a sort of last resort. Especially since at some point the warframes would suffer more damage than the target.


    Beyond that he mostly had gone for tougher and bigger. The dearth of fusion fuel wasn¡¯t bad enough that he couldn¡¯t power a few warframes, since these ones wouldn¡¯t be designed to run for centuries on end. Such thinking was just a matter of course in the scattered polities of the solar system, where post-scarcity had really only meant they¡¯d become a pro-maintenance society. When the nearest neighbor could be months away physically, it was important to be self-sufficient to the point of extremity.


    Dropping such big frames ¨C and his guests ¨C back on Sydea was going to be an adventure. Small, light organisms were one thing, delivered via railgun to relative null velocity and simply using wings or fine parachutes to reach the ground safely. Heavier payloads were trickier, not least because of the risk of interception.


    It would be so much easier if he could negotiate with the locals first, get the high-rankers to allow or even help a landing, but he was pretty certain that wouldn¡¯t work too well. His scouts were getting popped with extreme prejudice the moment they were spotted, and most of the time not even by the Sydeans. Even if he could get someone to listen, it was difficult to argue against the System telling people outright to kill the invader and be rewarded.


    Even with all that, he could have probably landed anyway if it weren¡¯t for the foreign high-rankers. Planets were huge, and with a population of only a million or so there were enormous tracts of pure wilderness, where nobody had ventured in decades. In a worst-case scenario he could simply drop them at one of the poles, which definitely had nobody about.


    The incredibly high rank newcomers, though, could cross half the planet in a blink and with that mobility there was no real chance of avoiding a confrontation. Unless, of course, he didn¡¯t drop any System-jamming biology, and that meant he¡¯d have a lot fewer options to work with. It was a problem he¡¯d have to resolve soon, since he didn¡¯t want to keep his guests waiting.


    ***


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re considering working with it,¡± Muar rumbled, arms crossed, his tail lashing with annoyance. ¡°You¡¯re a priestess, and it is against the System! You shouldn¡¯t be listening to a single word!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a priestess anymore,¡± Leese demurred. ¡°Besides, some of his arguments are convincing, and it¡¯s not as if the System gave us any warning about what he really was. It should have set the quest at Platinum-rank quest, not Silver.¡±


    ¡°Should it have?¡± Muar growled, pacing across the floor and glancing out the window at the globe of Sydea before looking back at Leese. ¡°That thing had just arrived. It was weak, then. Vulnerable. We had a chance, but we failed. Now it has us, because we failed. Expecting us to turn against the System and break all the rules.¡±


    ¡°If we¡¯ve already failed then what does it matter?¡± Leese objected. Raine was happy enough to let Leese speak for both of them, since Raine had never found herself to be particularly diplomatic. ¡°This is after. We¡¯re outside the System; the rules don¡¯t matter here.¡±


    ¡°They don¡¯t¡ª¡± Muar took a furious step forward, and Raine finally interjected.


    ¡°No, Muar,¡± she said coldly. ¡°The only thing that has ever mattered is power, and look around you. What we see is beyond anything but maybe the System itself.¡± She sighed and sipped an odd but flavorful tea from an exquisite cup, the sort that the System would charge Gold or even Platinum tokens for. Only it had been provided for free and without any apparent consideration of its value.


    ¡°What Cato wants is too big for the likes of us,¡± she concluded. ¡°Everything here is strange, and I know I certainly don¡¯t know what to think of it all.¡± She gestured at their surroundings, which were just as odd as they¡¯d been when she had first awoken. ¡°The best we can do is decide how much we want to be involved.¡±


    They were in something like a sitting room, with one wall being the impossible glass facing out onto that impossible view. The rest was taken up with ordinary tables and chairs, the not-essence lamps set in the ceiling to illuminate it, and a stocked bar with liquor and tea and sweet jerky. How Cato had brought any of it to this place away from the world, she could not fathom.


    Raine found the room¡¯s furnishings, well-made as they were, to be more disconcerting than the view of Sydea through the glass. The chairs and cushions, while nominally the same, had subtle variations between them. When the System provided such objects, no matter the rank or tokens spent, they were reassuringly regular and identical. Every cushioned blue chair was a cushioned blue chair, a constant.


    Yet the things Cato provided did vary. It was as if every single one was unique, its own individual type. There was no denying their quality, even if it was impossible to tell ranks without System access, and some of them even struck her eye, to the point that she wouldn¡¯t mind having them herself. If only they weren¡¯t so strangely unique.


    ¡°Why are you even arguing?¡± Dyen snapped. The fourth member of their group had only stewed in his own anger, from the moment Raine had seen him up to the latest second, pacing the floor and lashing out at even simple questions. It didn¡¯t help that every time Raine looked his way she expected to see Cormok, not someone far younger and with an eastern, pale blue coloring.


    ¡°You can all do what you please,¡± he continued, making a rude gesture with one hand. ¡°I need to go back down. Arene needs to know what happened to my wife. Someone is going to pay for it.¡±


    ¡°I agree that this is something we should put to Administrator Onswa, but Cato already killed the Platinums that attacked you,¡± Raine reminded him. Cato¡¯s ability to deal with off-world Platinums, but being thoroughly thrashed by Arene, should have pinpointed his exact rank. Except that normal rank considerations didn¡¯t apply. Even putting aside what Cato said about essence, the facility surrounding them showed a kind of power that probably wouldn¡¯t show up to an [Appraise].


    ¡°According to Cato,¡± Dyen growled. ¡°I haven¡¯t forgotten his role in all this, either.¡± How he expected to hold Cato to account, Raine had no idea. Even if his wife had been Arene¡¯s grand-niece, she couldn¡¯t imagine that the Platinum would find that to be sufficient reason to side with Dyen. The sad fact was that Cato had power, they didn¡¯t, and allowances had to be made.


    Cato had tried to convince them of his position by showing them ruins, the ever-shrinking areas where cities and towns were placed, and the slow march of Border Zone and Conflict Zones, but that evidence was not an argument that mattered to anyone. Muar didn¡¯t believe, Dyen didn¡¯t care, and it was Cato¡¯s personal power rather than his motives that mattered to Leese and Raine.


    Simply the perch outside their world showed that he was serious, that he should be taken at his word. Most of his propositions were abstract, things to be offered to Administrator Onswa and Arene Firewing, but the offer of patronage was one that the sisters found ridiculous to refuse. Especially if it came with better and younger bodies.


    The pair of them had never had time for a family or even much in the way of romance. The only thing that mattered was that they wouldn¡¯t be crushed underfoot by careless high-rankers, and that required power. It required delving dungeons for hours a day, risking their lives in conflict zones. It required trusting others of their rank very little, and those above them even less, and making some very grievous mistakes along the way. More than once they¡¯d been betrayed by someone either enticed by rewards and gear, or just by essence. Some chose the path of ranking up by killing people rather than monsters, and the System would reward them for it.


    All their youth had been spent trying to climb the ranks, and that had been rendered entirely moot now that they were outside the System. It would have been crushing, except for Cato¡¯s offer. She could be young again, and she wouldn¡¯t need to get to Platinum to maintain it. Leese had been a little clearer-minded than her, and pestered Cato with endless questions about what, exactly, he could do with regards to better bodies. Assuming she credited the answers, the System had very little to compare.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    ¡°We can¡¯t dither forever,¡± Leese said, unperturbed by either Muar¡¯s grumblings or Dyen¡¯s waspish tone. ¡°I don¡¯t know about you but I don¡¯t want to just sit here and stare. If Cato is right about the System, we have a clear goal. If he isn¡¯t, we also have a clear goal. Either way, I would prefer to know sooner. And I¡¯d rather be in the best shape to do so.¡± Muar squinted doubtfully at Leese, so Raine clarified.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to take the offer,¡± she said bluntly. ¡°It¡¯s too good a chance. We¡¯re all going to have to start from scratch anyway¡ª¡±


    ¡°So he says,¡± Muar said. ¡°I still say it¡¯s some kind of suppression.¡± Raine waved it away.


    ¡°I¡¯d rather start with as much of an advantage as I can manage,¡± she finished.


    ¡°You are aware it¡¯s absolutely blasphemous,¡± Muar said, teeth clenched. ¡°Even if he can create new bodies in some sort of fake Bismuth ascension, you couldn¡¯t trust that it was fully yours.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re already not ours,¡± Dyen said, taking time out from being bitter to heap scorn on Muar. ¡°Even if you don¡¯t believe everything he says, we have no essence and I know I¡¯m missing some scars.¡± Dyen pressed his hand against his chest, where he said he had been cut in two. ¡°No, they¡¯re brand new.¡±


    ¡°Very well,¡± Muar said at length. ¡°I can¡¯t stop you from choosing your own destruction and damnation, but I have warned you. I knew the Gosruk Guardians were done anyway, with Cormok gone.¡± Raine¡¯s tail lashed at the dismissal, as if she were somehow insulting Cormok by taking opportunity with both hands when it showed itself. Any ranker knew that you took what you could get, and death was an ever-present companion. If Cormok had died to a monster instead, they would have toasted his memory, sold off his equipment, and moved on.


    ¡°Come on,¡± she said to Leese. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Leese rose from one of the comfortable chairs and joined her, the two of them walking out of the sitting room into the strange, upward-curving halls of the residence. Cato called it a habitat, and claimed that there was no essence involved at all. Though how he managed to make every point of a circle feel like it was down she could not fathom. She knew that they¡¯d only seen the smallest bit of it, as the few glimpses of their actual surroundings showed a sprawl of incomprehensible artifice shrouded in sharp-edged shadows.


    Finding Cato was no problem. Raine was fairly certain he knew where they were at all times, and he was always coincidentally just a few rooms away. Or one of him was ¡ª she had never forgotten that when they had been woken up, there was one Cato for each of them, like some kind of duplication Skill. That had never been demonstrated again, but there were subtle differences each time they met that made her think each one she encountered was actually a different one.


    This time, the Cato they found was waiting in a small, comfortably-furnished room along the hub of the habitat, working on one of the things that resembled System displays, only physically manifested instead of in the mind¡¯s eye. None of the displays made any sense to her, full of unfamiliar symbols and notation. She¡¯d heard of artifacts with ciphered descriptions, special secrets that needed a quest to unlock, but never herself run into something she couldn¡¯t read. Just another small strange detail that lent credence to Cato¡¯s story.


    ¡°Come on in,¡± Cato invited them, looking up from his work. ¡°Have you made your decision?¡±


    ¡°Leese and I would like the improvements before we go down,¡± Raine told him. He didn¡¯t seem surprised. ¡°Muar doesn¡¯t trust you at all, and Dyen just doesn¡¯t care.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s their choice,¡± Cato said mildly. ¡°Very well, come this way. I¡¯ll take care of your upgrades and then we¡¯ll head back down to Sydea.¡±


    ***


    Cato was genuinely surprised how amenable the two Sydean sisters were toward getting new bodies. It was by far the most powerful thing he could offer, but it was also the most difficult for people to accept. The vast majority of people who weren¡¯t already postbiological had issues with such invasive and extensive physical changes, and for good reason. Any mind was shaped by the body that housed it, even when care was taken to mimic the appropriate chemical balances. He was far more aggressive in the warframe, for example, than when he was inhabiting the server core of the habitat he¡¯d made. There was a reason he had physical bodies, performing manual work, even making tea and cookies for his guests and cleaning up the kitchen, rather than just sitting as a disembodied mind in a pure dataspace.


    As the mind was a plaything of the body, the System¡¯s alterations changed how people thought. People entered a feedback loop with their skills, both simply by so many of them being geared toward killing but also changing environmental and personality preferences to match the forms of exotic energies people preferred. People with fire and water skillsets not getting along, for example. The priestly or so-called holy set was an extreme example of such, since it allowed System-Gods direct access to the individual in question. With thousands or millions of cleric sorts running around, no given individual was likely to be commandeered by a bored pseudo-deity, but any one of them could be.


    On the other hand, the System did include augmentations of various sorts through skills and ranks, and even things it termed evolutions, though the changes really represented a complete biological overhaul. There was even footage of higher ranks completely transforming. They weren¡¯t particularly common, but it was a known quantity, the sort of change he was offering might not be as foreign as it might have otherwise seemed.


    Unfortunately, it was only those two who were taking the offer. Which meant he was going to have to design a re-entry vehicle fit for unaugmented flesh and blood. Or barely augmented, as they would be encountering the System before they hit atmosphere, and even the lowest rank was more robust than the biology would indicate.


    The System force-multiplied what was already there, so the strong and tough only got stronger and tougher. The same wasn¡¯t true for smarts, which was a far tricker concept anyway. Trying to optimize a mind architecture to be much brighter than it could handle ended up creating things that were entirely alien, and sometimes completely malevolent. More than once, an AI or upload that tried to meddle with their own minds too much had needed to be put down. Sometimes at significant cost.


    It was something to keep in mind as he touched up the neural infrastructure in the new brains he was going to be giving the Sydeans. The changes were minor overall, otherwise they wouldn¡¯t remain Sydeans, but he was working in some slight efficiencies in speed, improved reactions to stress chemicals, and easing some of the load when it came to information processing.


    Other adaptations were easier. Denser muscle fibers, using slightly different proteins. More robust chemical chains, fueled by a more efficient gut ¡ª biochemistry was far more forgiving when it didn¡¯t have to be optimized around energy scarcity. Tweaks to bone structure and joint connections. Increased nerve density in some places, moderated by far better scaling and processing of what those nerves reported. They¡¯d be more resistant to pain without losing any sensitivity in other areas.


    Generally, the result looked the same as their original forms except younger, healthier, and far more fit. None of the biological tweaking contained any of the serious biotech from Titan, or even his home-grown tricks. It was all more or less standard, especially since it¡¯d be difficult for most people to add rare earths or heavy elements to their diet.


    He led the two women deeper into the habitat, where there was a transfer tube to the microgravity area of the station. All the labs and manufactories were deeper in the moon, hidden from the view of Sydea. The rotating habitat was small and low-albedo enough that even high-rank eyes wouldn¡¯t see anything unusual, but if he started deploying thousands of square miles of solar panels and reflectors and the sprawl of automated industry, it¡¯d be hard to miss.


    ¡°This won¡¯t take too long,¡± he told them with one of his human frames. ¡°Just sit down in those chairs there and by the time you wake up we¡¯ll be ready to head down to the surface.¡±


    The pair of Sydeans looked at the very comfortable lounge chairs, without a hint of anything medical or, for the matter, magical about them. Of course that wasn¡¯t entirely true; there were certain electromagnetic devices within them that would render an unaugmented person instantly unconscious. A necessity, since he was going to rework their bodies from the cellular level up and tinker with their existing nervous system.


    One thing he hadn¡¯t offered them was to rehouse their minds entirely. For most people, the exact mechanics of moving a person from one substrate to another ¨C be it meat or machine ¨C were incredibly important, and quite a few methods were considered indistinguishable from death. Nor was such an appraisal precisely wrong, but as he¡¯d told the Sydeans, the entire concept became somewhat blurrier with the techniques available to him. To the point where there was no real consensus, even back on Sol.


    The sisters communicated in a high-density body language, clearly evolved over years of working together. He couldn¡¯t read it, not unless he was prepared to spend a lot more time observing and testing, but he could guess that they were making sure there were no second thoughts. For a moment he thought they would reject it, but after a long pause they settled themselves.


    Cato rendered them unconscious and went to work, shuttling the pair back into the guts of the base so he could carry through on his offer. Essentially just stripping out their brains again ¨C less traumatically this time ¨C and doing a little bit of biochemical surgery as the new, altered bodies were grown around them. The new bodies still carried their original genetic information despite the extensive alterations, because he wasn¡¯t a jerk. It would be very rude for them to wind up with kids that didn¡¯t look or act like them.


    In parallel with the two Sydeans, Cato had to grow himself his own body. One that was System-compatible. He really hated to do it, but the System quest meant that if he wanted to avoid potentially lethal attention he¡¯d need to go undercover for a little bit. It wasn¡¯t something he liked to do, not only because he wasn¡¯t all that good at it but also because any version of himself that was accessible by the system would have be effectively crippled.


    He had to assume that anything inside his fleshy skull under those circumstances was compromised, so thousands of details of how certain things worked ¨C and even about his future plans ¨C would have to be sanitized away. Even his ability to think would have be constrained, the version of himself effectively lobotomized and expendable.


    It was terrible, but everyone who had been involved in retaking Earth from the System had learned to be ruthless with themselves. If the defense had been a concerted effort from the larger forces in the Solar System, that wouldn¡¯t have been the case, but the entire force was composed of volunteers with some kind of personal stake. Hobbyists and civilians, most of whom were talented amateurs at best. Even Cato might not have been invested if it weren¡¯t for the members of his family that had been on Earth, and familiar, well-loved virtual worlds that had been destroyed when technology abruptly stopped working


    Some of the real AI entities could have dropped billions of organic killing machines, working in perfect concert, and there were Summer Civilizations that produced professional soldiers more savage than anything the System had to offer. But with the restrictions of the System and the isolation of those polities from Earth¡¯s own government, they didn¡¯t care. Almost all the forces that did care had fallen when the System arrived.


    Cato had been in the early round of volunteers, after someone from Titan realized that their exotic biology projects actually functioned where more conventional technology did not, and had dropped down to try to find his aunt¡¯s family, who had been on Earth at the time. Very quickly people had learned that they had to have a particular attitude in order to actually fight within the system.


    Time lag to the ground was too long to run things remotely, and any individual had a good chance of dying no matter what precautions were taken so singleton people risked a very permanent death. Those who couldn¡¯t handle integrating multiple copies, or stomach the idea of some version of themselves being annihilated without re-integrating with the main copy, had dropped out extremely quickly.


    Cato himself could manage fairly well, though there were limits to how many versions of himself could be running around without it descending into an incredible mess. There was a reason all the backup versions he¡¯d made on Sydea were in stasis, rather than out doing things and deviating further and further from the prime version of himself ¡ª desynchronization madness was no joke.


    He had nearly succumbed to it himself, when one of his warframes had finally found his cousins. If he¡¯d been a little faster he might have been able to save them, to save the rest of their family, and bring back something to salve his grieving parents. Instead, it became the shock he needed to make sure a version of himself would be ready go take the fight past Earth.


    Accordingly, he already had a design for a lobotomized, System-compatible version of his normal human frame, and it wasn¡¯t much of a stretch to create a Sydean version of the same. Neither one was meant for extended use, but he couldn¡¯t avoid having some ability to interact within the System. He hated it too much to pretend to be a proper System individual, but he could at least avoid the System¡¯s direct attention.


    ¡°Cato!¡± One of his human frames sighed as Dyen yelled outside his door. The young Sydean was perpetually angry, but Cato couldn¡¯t be upset about that. It was Cato¡¯s fault that the couple had gotten involved at all, and it was Cato¡¯s shortcomings that had led to the death of the young man¡¯s wife.


    ¡°Yes, Dyen?¡± He asked politely, opening the door and peering into the hall where the young lizard-man was shouting.


    ¡°You said we¡¯d leave as soon as a decision was made. We¡¯ve made our decisions.¡± Dyen glared at him, head canted slightly and muzzle wrinkled. Cato wasn¡¯t certain how much of his attitude was current circumstances, and how much was natural, but had decided to be tolerant. At least until he could foist the young man off onto one of his relatives.


    ¡°And we will be leaving,¡± Cato said equably. ¡°Things do take time, however. If you like I can show you the vehicle we will be using to return to the planet.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have a portal? Or a teleporter?¡± Dyen seemed skeptical, which was fair. The System seemed to allow very few mechanisms; everything was centered in the power of individuals, or of the System nexus and its functions. The functioning of technology was alien to them.


    ¡°Such things don¡¯t operate outside the System,¡± Cato explained, gesturing for Dyen to follow him toward the rear of the habitat.


    ¡°Seems pretty terrible then,¡± Dyen said bluntly. ¡°How would you get around?¡±


    ¡°Believe it or not, instantaneous transport has a number of downsides,¡± Cato said, gesturing for Dyen to enter the lift that would take them up to the habitat¡¯s center ¡ª and into null gravity. ¡°Like being invaded, for example. Or centralizing everyone and everything, and all the vulnerabilities that creates. I¡¯ve seen entire civilizations die because they crowded in so close that a tiny accident, the most minute collision, destroyed them all. Fair warning, this ride may feel like it¡¯s falling.¡±


    It had been a digital civilization, so the actual size was much smaller than any city of flesh and blood, but the point still stood. Of course you still needed a certain amount of people close by to even have a civilization, and he was pretty certain if anyone had been able to figure out faster-than-light travel under real physics they¡¯d be using it. But Cato was still certain that things like the System portals weren¡¯t all good.


    Dyen merely grunted, either in acknowledgement of the warning, or in disbelief about Cato¡¯s story. It was impossible to tell either way. Then he grabbed onto the holdfast as the gravity began to drop, centrifugal force fading and leaving them both floating in microgravity. Cato was used to null-gravity, of course, and since many System skills involved flying Dyen didn¡¯t seem too discomfited.


    They reached the axis of the habitat, and from there Cato directed Dyen the short distance through the connecting hall to where a window looked out on the vast hangar where Cato was launching his ships. Or really, probes at this point, since nothing was truly manned. Here at last Dyen seemed to be impressed.


    Large, gleaming spheres were clustered at intervals in the huge cylindrical hollow; tanks holding volatiles of various sorts. Water, gasses, fuels. Gantries ran the length of the cavity, articulated arms nearly the size of the entire habitat sliding along them to administer spot-manufacturing to the skeletons of vessels under construction. Flashes of welding and the soft blinking of hazard lighting added to the illumination from large mirrors reflecting the local primary.


    Most of the craft were small, meant solely for digital life or no life at all, but further away from the observation window were the beginning of some large and menacing shapes. Most were weapons platforms, for the inevitable future in which he needed orbital support, but some were simply larger expeditionary vessels for venturing to the other planets. Then there was the landing ship they¡¯d be using.


    It looked like a large arrowhead, but that was deceiving. Within the outer hull ¨C the shuttle that would bring them to the System¡¯s influence ¨C was an inner, System-friendly portion that would actually land them. Cato had to suppress the urge to explain it at length to Dyen, who surely wouldn¡¯t care, but he did take some petty satisfaction in being able to strike the young, rude Sydean dumb.


    He shouldn¡¯t have, but after all, he was only human.

 Chapter 9 — Back Down

    ¡°This is probably going to feel like someone is sitting on you,¡± Cato told his passengers as he ran through the final checks on their descent craft.  Everyone was strapped into the small compartment, and while it ran against the grain to have biologicals on board with no proper vacuum suits, such suits would become dead weight once the System kicked in.  Instead they were all wearing lightweight composite armor, which was both System-compatible and would be useful once they reached the surface.


    There were also weapons aboard, stowed on each of the seats.  Not guns; rather he had provided spears, knives, and bows.  Since Cato didn¡¯t dare try to land within the bounds of a town or settlement, they¡¯d have to brave the wilds for a bit.  Nothing high-level, but even the starter areas could be rough.  Especially since they¡¯d all be starting out at Copper rank.


    In fairness, that was deceptive.  He was stronger, faster, and tougher than he looked, and Leese and Raine had been likewise augmented.   Even the two who hadn¡¯t taken him on his offer for upgrades had proper combat experience and would be starting out with extremely fine, if mundane, weaponry.  Good enough to get them into town, at least.


    He half expected someone to make a rude joke based on his comment, but it seemed that kind of humor didn¡¯t translate.  Or maybe they just weren¡¯t in the mood.  The smooth, metal-and-glass interior of the craft was surely alien to them, and even the manual, muscle-powered controls for their flight down were likely unfamiliar.


    ¡°Just get on with it,¡± Muar said tiredly.


    ¡°Tough crowd,¡± Cato muttered, and triggered the departure.  What felt like a giant hand shoved them back into their padded seats as the rail launch system accelerated them out of the moon base, hurling them toward Sydea at a fairly hefty velocity ¡ª but opposite the moon¡¯s orbit, so really they were slowing down.  Then weightlessness returned, and the only thing that indicated movement for the flesh-and-blood senses was the sight of the moon slowly diminishing behind them.


    ¡°We were really on one of the Empress¡¯ Handmaidens,¡± Raine muttered, and Cato looked back at her with interest.


    ¡°Oh?  Is there a story behind that name?¡±  For some reason, Raine¡¯s tail curled in on itself with what Cato recognized as the Sydean version of a blush.


    ¡°Just what my mother called them.¡±


    ¡°Do tell!  It sounds like some of your culture survived the System apocalypse,¡± Cato said, finding it to be a good sign.


    ¡°It was just something she said.  The Emperor, the Empress, and her two Handmaidens.¡±  Raine gestured out the window at the local binary, then behind them at the moons.  For a moment Cato was confused, before realizing that to unaugmented senses the binary simply looked like one star with a variable brightness.  All the stories and legends would have been built from that, which meant it was an old set of names indeed.


    ¡°Do you think she might know more?¡±  Cato asked, considering the massive effort of recovering and transcribing any remaining stories and legends of Sydean culture.  It had to start somewhere.


    ¡°She¡¯s dead,¡± Leese answered for Raine, the two of them grim-faced.


    ¡°I am sorry,¡± he told them sincerely.  Even after heading out to the stars, humanity had yet to find a proper way to deal with loss.


    ¡°It was a long time ago,¡± Raine said, not quite a dismissal, and Cato let it lay.


    Even with the speeds they were going it took several hours to reach the edge of System space.  The outer hull hissed as it disengaged, cold gas jets pushing it away to let them coast.  Cato floated up from his seat and retrieved the presents he¡¯d prepared ¡ª little blobs that would register as system invaders and could be easily killed.  Just creating them felt distasteful, but if he could exploit the System and drain even the tiniest part of its power for his own purposes, the resources were well spent.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be hitting the System soon, this should give you a boost to start,¡± he said, each little blob in a pot like a plant, with a knife secured to the side.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think this thing is going to give any essence,¡± Dyen scoffed, poking at the balloon-like organism with a claw.


    ¡°It won¡¯t, but the quest ought to,¡± Cato said.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that ¡ª wouldn¡¯t the System punish us for exploiting things that way?¡±  Leese asked, uncertain.


    ¡°That isn¡¯t something I can speak to,¡± Cato replied, securing himself at his seat again and checking the instruments.  The globe of Sydea was much closer, the white swirls of clouds clearly visible, along with the shapes of islands and continents below.  ¡°Although as you can imagine, I am not overly concerned with what the System wants.¡±


    ¡°Easy for you to say ¡ª you¡¯ve got power outside it,¡± Muar pointed out.


    ¡°Nobody truly has power within the System, do they? After all, it¡¯s the System that allows you to do these things ¡ª and can take that ability away.¡±  Cato glanced down at Sydea.  ¡°Just about time.¡±


    [Welcome to the System!]


    It came without any of the extra announcements that the survivors from Earth had reported.  All the rigamarole about Earth being integrated into the System and how it was so much better.


    [Name: Cato]


    [Species: Neo-human]


    [Global Defense Quest!  Destroy the Incursion:  Recommended Rank: High Gold. Reward: B-tier Skill.  Locations (¡­) ]


    Cato winced at the letters wrote themselves into his consciousness like an intrusive hardware link.  The feel of the System clawing through his brain was only imagined; its magic more subtle than that.  It still made him exceedingly uncomfortable to have his name and species plucked right out of his head like that, and was exactly why the current him had far less knowledge than he preferred.  If it could obtain and parse simple facts like name and species, it could grab any other knowledge the frame had.


    For all Cato knew, it had his entire mind simulated somewhere in some kind of magical virtual prison.  As if he needed another reason to destroy it.  Mind-ripping every single one of its beings was pretty high on the level of crimes against sapient life, though so far as Cato could tell it wasn¡¯t really analyzing that information.  Though maybe when there were hundreds of trillions of beings, some of them on the level of gods, a few people on a border world with some wild ideas was too ridiculous to even notice.


    ¡°Go ahead and fulfill the quest,¡± Cato said aloud, and stabbed the plant-flesh-blob in front of him.  It promptly turned to goo as it self-destructed, and there was a euphoric rush as the System pushed essence into his body.  Cato grimaced.  The fact that it literally felt good to kill was one of those horrible little things that created the absolute murderous psychopaths that populated the top of the ranks.


    [New Rank: High Copper]


    Several tokens manifested in front of him, hovering for a moment before he swiped them out of the air.  Most of them were copper-colored discs with an abstract glyph, what the System used for currency.  Those were essentially irrelevant to him, but one was a shimmering wafer of blue metal with the icon for B-tier.  When he touched that one, there was a sort of a buzz similar to a message request, and when he accepted the wafer vanished.


    [Choose your B-tier Skill: (¡­)]


    Cato had little interest in any of the Skills.  He wasn¡¯t planning on staying in this particular frame long enough to engage with the System to that level, and he didn¡¯t trust Skills anyway.  Like the feeling of essence, their feedback could create all kinds of bad behavior.  Everyone¡¯s reflexive use of [Appraise], for example.  Brains evolved to be lazy to begin with, and with something like [Appraise], very few people stopped to actually look at an object and consider its reality beyond the System¡¯s description.


    Naturally, Cato chose it for his free Skill, because it was the only thing he actually needed from the System.  [Appraise] and its ilk were the equivalent of basic literacy within the System, and replaced things like signs and labeling, so it was something he could hardly do without, even for the smallest portion of time.  Nothing would undercut negotiations like appearing to be an unlettered savage.


    ¡°High Copper just from that?¡± Muar muttered to himself, eyes glazed as he considered his System choices.  ¡°I bet we could hit Silver in one dungeon run.¡±


    Raine just sighed, conjuring a small ball of fire in one hand.  Cato had to suppress the urge to tell her to not waste oxygen; he wasn¡¯t certain essence fire needed an oxidizer to begin with and they weren¡¯t too far from the atmosphere anyway.  He was pretty sure the canned air in the back, slowly leaking in through valves to replace what was lost, would more than last until then.


    ¡°So now that we¡¯re back near Sydea, how are we going to get down?¡± Leese asked, glancing around the cabin interior.  ¡°Is this boat actually going to fly?¡±


    ¡°Not so much fly as fall with grace,¡± Cato corrected, looking out the reinforced glass.  They were almost low enough to have a sense of down, only minutes away from actual atmospheric re-entry.  They wouldn¡¯t be hitting at orbital velocity, thanks to their carrier, but it wasn¡¯t exactly slow.  ¡°It might be a bit rough to start, though.¡±


    ¡°Just get it over with,¡± Dyan grumped, as if Cato was deliberately stalling and not waiting for time and gravity to take their course.  Though perhaps he did think that was the case; orbital mechanics were not easily grasped, and these four had only recently even realized there was something outside the bounds of the atmosphere.


    Cato turned back to the controls and instruments, which were entirely manual.  No electronics, nothing more complicated than a few gears and levers.  It wasn¡¯t even his design, but rather had been cribbed from hobbyists who had done a lot more investigation into the joys of purely muscle-powered flight than any accredited engineers ever had.  Low-tech atmospheric re-entry was its own sort of extreme sport.


    The glider began to shudder as it encountered the first wisps of real atmosphere, the sound transmitting through the hull.  The wind growled and howled, but they weren¡¯t going fast enough for true re-entry heating.  They still began to feel the pull of deceleration, quickly mounting above one standard gravity as the glider aerobraked over one of the planet¡¯s oceans.


    [Welcome to White Beach Border ¨C


    [Welcome to Far Hills Resource ¨C


    [Welcome to Deep Valley Conflict ¨C


    Zone names flashed by on the System display, flickering in a kaleidoscopic frenzy as they slowed down from supersonic velocity.  The pull of deceleration peaked as they hit properly thick atmosphere, and words of surprise came from behind him as he cranked the wings out and they caught air.  In a moment they went from a fall to a proper flight, muscle and wire pulling on ailerons and flaps.


    ¡°You¡¯re doing this without essence?¡± Leese asked, muzzle plastered against the cold glass-like synthetic of the window.


    ¡°I¡¯m just the pilot,¡± Cato demurred.  ¡°The rest of this works by clever use of tools.  I¡¯d be happy to explain it some other time.¡±


    The press of deceleration stabilized into something approximating normal gravity, then reduced again as Cato sent them toward the ground.  Their target was one of the outlying towns not too far from where he had entered Sydea, though not the same one.  The [Southern Jungle Conflict Zone] was too high-level for them, and three of his passengers were known there ¡ª and known to be dead, besides.  That was a sort of confusion they didn¡¯t need.


    He worked the controls as actual weather began: crosswinds, updrafts, and downdrafts sending the glider rocking and swooping.  The observation satellites had ensured they weren¡¯t flying into a storm, but the thick soup of planetary gas was always in motion and hard to predict.  A quick glance back showed his passengers were not too put out, but Leese and Dyen were gripping the straps that held them into their seats harder than was strictly necessary.


    Below them a broad plain crossed with rivers and flecked with lakes swept by, with brilliant spots of more esoteric landmarks.  Dungeon entrances, micro-zones, and beast lairs stood out from the greenery, each one more a prison or a zoo for monsters than a natural area.  There was no sprawl of agriculture and villages; towns and cities were strictly System affairs, and he wasn¡¯t even sure farms existed, or if they did, if they were anything beyond cosmetic.


    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ¡°Right, we¡¯re nearly down,¡± Cato said, matching the landmarks he could see with his satellite imagery.  They were within five miles of Sokhal Town, which Cato thought was pretty damn good even if the hobbyists who had designed the gliders could probably have landed in the town center itself.


    ¡°Finally,¡± Dyen breathed.  ¡°This has been¡ª¡±


    He was interrupted by a sudden impact as a bird half the size of the glider took issue with their presence in its territory.  Cato cursed and grabbed one of the pull-cords by his feet as talons rent at the lightweight composite.  The glider groaned and shook, rattling him and his passengers as it skewed out of control, completely useless for flight.


    ¡°Everyone grab weapons!¡± He shouted, as a talon punched through the ceiling above him and severed several control lines with a distinct twang and snap.  It was an almost redundant command; these were hard people well used to combat, and a little thing like an attack triggered more useful reflexes than panic and screams.  Cato yanked the pull-cord, and pulleys embedded in the floor and walls spooled in.


    The top half of the glider folded away, the lightweight material collapsing along previously-invisible hinges, and then the latches holding the seats to the floor disengaged.  Springs flung the seats into the sudden gale of air, hurling them away from the damaged glider and the bird trying to tear it to pieces, a secondary timer constructed from a second spiral spring ticking away for a few seconds before triggering the parachutes.


    [Stormhawk ¨C Copper]


    [Skills: Stormbeak, Swift Wing, Claw, Deafening Screech]


    For all its size and the damage it had done to the glider, the bird wasn¡¯t ranked very highly. Of course, the glider had no essence, and had been made out of as simple a set of materials as possible so as to avoid any sudden failures when the System kicked in.  The restrictions on purely physical systems were pretty grim.


    Cato withdrew the collapsible spear from its pocket on his own seat as the Stormhawk pulled its talons from the remains of the glider and turned on the passengers floating through the air.  Not that it was necessary, as a jet of fire smashed into its feathers and drew an ear-piercing squawk.  Lightning flashed around its beak as it charged toward Raine in the mindless hyperaggression of System beasts.


    He tracked it with his spear, tweaked reflexes and neural acceleration making it simple enough to hurl the spear with a snap, driving it into a muscle group at the base of its wing.  Two other spears joined his, from Dyen and Muar.  Only Leese didn¡¯t join in, but if she had once again decided to become a healer she might not have any ranged options.


    [Copper Stormhawk defeated.  Essence awarded]


    The rush of essence made Cato grimace, nauseated by the direct programming attempt.  He had altered his neurology to prevent too much feedback from the essence euphoria, but there was only so much he could do.  The System¡¯s rewards worked on something other than normal biology.


    Some thirty feet above the ground, an open field peppered with small clusters of bright blue flowers, Cato yanked on the clasp that held his straps together.  He jumped the rest of the way, his augmented body with the essence reinforcement making the drop no trouble at all.  The Sydeans followed suit, thudding to the ground just before the sound of the glider crashing washed over them.  A metallic crushing, tearing noise that promised unpleasantness had they remained inside, essence-boosted or not.


    ¡°Your clever tools don¡¯t seem very good,¡± Maur observed, trekking through the waist-high grass toward the corpse of the Stormhawk to retrieve his spear.


    ¡°It was always meant to be disposable,¡± Cato replied, not at all put out by the near-disaster.  It was better than having high ranks show up due to the System quest.  ¡°We¡¯re down, and close to a town, and that¡¯s the important part.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s just go,¡± Dyen said, yanking one of the spears from the Stormhawk and turning around, looking for the town in question.  His hand instinctively went to his waist, where no doubt he usually kept his System map.  Cato had the local area mapped into his brain instead, though it did look far different at ground level compared to the overhead view from orbital reconnaissance.


    ¡°That way,¡± Cato pointed, as Raine and Leese fell in.  Their party was hardly balanced, but they weren¡¯t out gain essence or retrieve resources.  All they needed to do was to get to town as fast as possible.


    Despite the Zone being fairly low rank, the animals there were still aggressive beyond belief.  Normal birds and deer and rodents would flee from potential danger, or at the very least only defend a small area.  They wouldn¡¯t home in on a group of people and attack headlong as if starving and rabid.


    Yet that was what System animals did in a Conflict Zone, and several times they were forced to fend off random beasts as if they were enemy soldiers.  It might have been dangerous for unaugmented types, or in System terms low Coppers, but none of the beasts were more than mere inconveniences after the boosts Cato had provided.


    A half-hour of rapid march brought them within sight of Sokhal Town¡¯s walls, though the low-level conflict zone ran right up to the town¡¯s walls.  Places outside of System-defined safe areas not only weren¡¯t tamed, they couldn¡¯t be.  Cato had never seen a monster or beast spawn out of nowhere, but there had been an unending stream of the things on Earth ¡ª at least, until they¡¯d destroyed the anchors and dropped the essence concentration to nothing so the portals finally closed.


    With his augmented eyesight he could see the guards posted at the gate tense as the set of five figures came into sight, relax as their party resolved into Sydeans, and then grow wary again as it became clear one of them wasn¡¯t a lizard-person.  Cato still wasn¡¯t entirely certain his decision to look human was the best one to start out, but in the long term he couldn¡¯t keep up such a pretense.  Best to start as he meant to go on.


    The last creature attack came when they were no more than ten paces from the edge of the cropped grass that defined the perimeter of the System town.  It was as if someone had set a nest of weasel-things specifically to ambush anyone leaving the town.  Cato¡¯s current frame didn¡¯t have the data, but he made a reminder to ask himself to check whether the System on Earth had been so petty.  Admittedly, wiping out uncounted billions of people just to enslave them in a stunted version of reality made any further sins fairly irrelevant.


    One of the guards moved to help as four dog-sized mustelids sprang out of nowhere, but a series of spearjabs and a pointed bolt of fire put down the attackers before the Sydean reached them.  Leese had her hands up, ready to do something, but hadn¡¯t visibly used any Skill.  [Appraise] put the guard at mid Silver, and so more a match for any Copper-rank creatures, but of course he¡¯d receive no serious benefit from killing them.  The Silver in question looked impressed, although it was likely unusual to see Coppers with the reflexes of Golds.


    ¡°Where did you all come from?¡±  The guard beckoned them over to the town gate, his partner watching with a casual hand on a poleaxe.  ¡°I know for sure we didn¡¯t let you out this morning.¡±


    ¡°No, we came from another Zone.¡±  Dyen spoke up, taking immediate charge of the situation.  He was at least smart enough not to claim they¡¯d come from the sky.  ¡°I¡¯m Dyen Lassiron, and I need to send a message to Arene Firewing.  Now.¡±  Apparently the name meant something to the guard, since he exchanged an uncertain glance with his partner, who nodded in response.


    ¡°And your companion here?¡±  The guard tilted his head toward Cato.


    ¡°He¡¯s what I have to message her about.¡± Dyen said, not bothering to hide the scorn in his voice.


    ¡°I see,¡± said the guard, though Cato had no idea what implication the Sydean might have taken from Dyen¡¯s words.  ¡°I¡¯d advise you to stay with your group,¡± he said, speaking directly to Cato the first time.  ¡°We¡¯ve been having trouble with outworlders of late.¡±


    ¡°I completely understand,¡± Cato reassured the guard, who didn¡¯t take the pronouncement with any relief.  After another hard look at Cato, the gate swung open and let them inside.


    All System towns were essentially the same.  Straight streets and boxes for buildings, often without any real decoration.  From what he understood, decoration cost extra, and the closer a town was to plain white the more impoverished it truly was.  Sokhal Town was almost entirely unadorned, and there was an air of disrepair despite the cleanliness and light of the System-provided buildings.


    The few people out on the street looked harried and ragged around the eyes, even if they were dressed in perfectly acceptable clothing and armor.  There was a quiet air of desperation, of despair, the people hunched under the weight of too many expectations and a hopeless future.  Cato had seen that attitude among refugees of various stripes ¡ª though by the time the postbiologicals got down to Earth, nobody who might have been a refugee was left.


    He didn¡¯t mind the hostile glances sent his way.  Cato wasn¡¯t there to be loved, or to be friends.  What mattered was convincing people to work with him instead of against him.  Specifically, the high-rankers, since the pragmatic fact was that personal power was all that mattered under the System.  There were no merchants or industrial moguls, no politicians or representatives.  Only rank.


    Sokhal Town was small enough that the System Nexus was barely even a walk, the central building plainly visible even from the gate.  That building was by far the tallest building anyway, the characteristic belltower-like decoration at the top rising into the sky over all the other bland boxy buildings.  The sight of it set him on edge, though the System was hardly more present there than anywhere else.


    Dyen shoved the door open and strode inside, followed by the rest of them, with Muar bringing up the rear behind Cato.  He wasn¡¯t certain how Dyen intended to send a message, but he wasn¡¯t fully conversant with all the aspects of System.  None of the towns on earth had managed to get too advanced, so if there was any kind of mail infrastructure he didn¡¯t know how it worked.


    Aside from Dyen, the Sydeans made a straight line over to the crystalline obelisk on one side, getting their System Maps and some other tokens.  Seeing the rolls of pseudo-paper and metal badges rendered out of nothing like something from a virtual environment was genuinely strange, and made him want to double-check his own environment commands.  Nothing happened of course, since the frame he was in didn¡¯t have those capabilities and this wasn¡¯t a virtual space, but he still felt out of place.


    Raine and Leese fell into a quiet discussion about ranking up, excluding a grim and dour Muar.  Dyen busied himself at a different crystal pedestal, recording a message in an undertone.  Cato could hear it, of course, but there was nothing untoward in what Dyen said.  Just mentioning the run-in with the Platinums and a need to discuss his wife.  Frankly it was more circumspect than Cato would have thought, considering Dyen¡¯s continuously simmering anger.


    ¡°Now we wait,¡± Dyen said, crossing over to where they stood and following the other Sydean¡¯s lead in retrieving his System map and tokens.


    ¡°How long is it going to take?¡± Leese asked, nervously folding and refolding her System map.  ¡°I¡¯m not really looking forward to explaining how we¡¯re still alive to one of the Platinums.¡±


    ¡°I should be able to do most of the explaining,¡± Cato assured her.  ¡°Now, proof might be a little trickier, but I would hope the very fact that you are coming back from the dead will be suggestive.¡±


    ¡°Assuming they know you¡¯re dead,¡± Dyen said.  ¡°Hardly a guarantee.¡±


    ¡°We were Gold,¡± Muar said, with a glare at Cato.  ¡°They¡¯d know.¡±


    Before they could begin squabbling, a flare of fire shone through the windows, one that Cato knew well.  Whatever mechanism Dyen had used, it had gotten the Platinum¡¯s attention.  A moment later the door burst open as the orange-and-red scaled flame lady rushed into the room.


    [Arene Flamewing ¨C Platinum]


    ¡°Where is Kiya?¡± She demanded, ignoring all of them to focus on Dyen.


    ¡°My wife is dead,¡± Dyen said, his voice harsh and dark.  ¡°The reason for that, and the reason I am still here, lies with that one.¡±  He pointed in Cato¡¯s direction.  Arene turned blazing eyes his way.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± She demanded, voice thundering with Platinum-rank force.


    ¡°He¡¯s the one responsible for the defense quest,¡± Muar said quickly, before Cato could properly reply.  ¡°He¡¯s from outside the System.¡±


    ¡°You are?¡± Arene¡¯s eyes narrowed, her posture shifting to the defensive.


    ¡°Yes, but¡ª¡±


    That was as far as he got before Arene¡¯s hand swept up, glowing with a ball of incandescent fury.  Cato had a moment to resign himself to doing things the hard way before the world went up in fire.


    ***


    ¡°Why did you do that?¡± Raine blurted, as the charred half-corpse toppled to the floor.  She and Leese huddled together by instinct, recognizing the danger of an irritated high-ranker, even in bodies that felt like they were Silver or even Gold.  While Raine had always idolized Arene, and had modeled her own build after the Platinum, meeting her in the flesh was not the opportunity she had always hoped.


    ¡°Eliminating the threat.¡±  Arene turned those glowing eyes on them, no doubt using [Appraise].  ¡°How are you alive, too?¡±


    ¡°Honored Platinum, we are alive through Cato¡¯s efforts,¡± Leese replied, tilting her head toward the remains on the floor. She kept her movements small and circumspect, so as not to invite misunderstanding and retaliation.  ¡°His story is complex and I admit I do not understand it all.  He said he actually wants to help us.¡±


    ¡°Help us?¡± Arene laughed derisively, making a rude gesture in the direction of the smoldering remains.  ¡°It¡¯s been a disaster here ever since that quest started!¡±


    ¡°If I may, Honored Platinum,¡± Raine started, and Arene turned to her.  ¡°Cato says he has proof that the System has been deliberately set up to harm our people and ¡ª¡±


    ¡°As if it can possibly be believed,¡± Muar interrupted with a snort.  ¡°That thing killed us!  It¡¯s from outside the System!  Even if it did bring us back somehow, that means nothing.  High level healing can do the same.¡±


    ¡°Not the way he did it,¡± Leese disagreed, frowning at Muar.  If there was any doubt about whether Muar was on their side anymore, it was gone.  He could have gotten them all killed, and Cato probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to bring them back again.  ¡°Besides, with what we¡¯ve seen, there¡¯s no way he¡¯s actually dead.¡±


    ¡°I got essence from the kill,¡± Arene said dryly, glancing between them.  ¡°He¡¯s definitely dead.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s more than one of him,¡± Dyen put in, tail flicking back and forth as he sneered down at the remains.  ¡°Or something like that.  I¡¯ve seen it myself.¡±


    ¡°Honored Platinum, I think it would be best if you heard our story out,¡± Leese ventured.


    ¡°I should.¡±  Arene seemed to relax ever so slightly, the dangerous aura about her withdrawing just a touch, as she flicked out a lash of flame to pull the remains from the System Nexus floor.  She flitted over to the redemption stone almost faster than the eye could see, and after a moment the charred body vanished.  The smeared charcoal on the floor vanished with it as Arene sighed and scrubbed at her muzzle.


    ¡°Come on, then,¡± she said, and beckoned for them to follow her out of the System Nexus.  ¡°I need a drink.¡±


    Small as Sokhal Town was, it still had the requisite System buildings, including a tavern for them to get some proper drinks.  Arene paid for their tab without asking, which was fortunate given that they didn¡¯t have many copper tokens and the price for ordinary ale was absolutely outrageous.  There was only a trio in the corner when they arrived, who promptly pretended not to exist as Arene entered the building.


    ¡°Now, tell me what this is all about, grand-nephew,¡± Arene said, sweeping her gaze over them and then settling on Dyen.  ¡°I want to get rid of this ridiculous quest.¡±  Dyen started his story with a terse overview of his death at the hands of offworld Platinums and continuing through meeting Cato outside the System.  Raine added some details of her own, finding it strangely easy to organize her thoughts in the new body, but they¡¯d been talking for no more than a few minutes when Arene jolted and groaned.


    ¡°I guess you were right,¡± Arene said grimly.  ¡°The quest¡­¡±


    Confused, Raine pulled up her System interface and checked the defense quest.  What had been no more than a dozen zones had ballooned to three times that much.  Even as she watched, names were added on, scrolling out to hundreds of zones.  Then hundreds more, the names tacking on faster than she could read them.  Dyen cursed softly, and even Leese muttered something under her breath.


    Raine really hoped Cato was still willing to talk.

 Chapter 10 — Complications

    If they weren¡¯t going to play nice, neither was he.


    When there was a burst of thermal energy and the spy satellite watching the village saw everyone leave the System Nexus without the frame, it was obvious what had happened.  Cato didn¡¯t have a direct connection to the version of himself on the ground, but that was due to limits he couldn¡¯t exceed without triggering the quest or tipping his hand.  Now that he had to use force, the quest didn¡¯t matter.


    Certain satellites in the network he¡¯d built around Sydea came to life, launching small railgun projectiles on a descent trajectory not unlike the one that the glider had taken.  They were far faster than the glider, and slowed themselves by parachutes that puffed out from the missiles the moment they hit atmosphere.  Each one was a small aerial organism, little more than a set of sensory organs and a transmitter to relay back to the satellites, and as stealthy as he could manage in visual and thermal wavelengths.


    There were thousands of them, exhausting all the stocks he¡¯d built up.  The satellites began using their remnant fuel to alter trajectories and return to the moon; no need to create any sort of Kessler Syndrome with the expended husks and junk up the orbitals he¡¯d need in the future with discarded metal and glass.  It would have been amazing if he could have gotten the benefits of obfuscation and distraction from orbital infrastructure alone, but the zones had both a height and a depth limit.  He needed actual fliers.


    Stealthy scout drones weren¡¯t the only things he¡¯d readied.  Six much larger satellites ¨C really, genuine ships, given their capabilities ¨C held four of the larger warframes each, the type he¡¯d armed with the light-gas guns.  He deployed two of them, one to the town where the Platinum was, and the other to one of the central cities where there were planetary portals.


    Sydea was an entire planet, but it was only one planet.  The System had hundreds, thousands, or maybe even more, so he couldn¡¯t afford to think linearly.  Now that he had a reasonable amount of infrastructure, he needed to start spreading again.  With Sydea as a model, he knew it was possible to establish himself out in the broader System.


    Each quartet of warframes locked themselves into individual padded cells, keeping them secured as the launch vehicle was accelerated down the superconducting rail.  The vehicle itself was its own custom-grown organism, disposable but more than capable of managing the descent and targeting the drop of the bioweapons.  He would have loved to simply wrap proper technology in the System-jamming biology, but the altered physics still held even if the System¡¯s direct and active effects were held at bay.


    Outside the System, his deployment satellites showed the big black pods falling downward toward Sydea, most of their relative velocity stripped by the launch.  The recoil shoved the launchers up into a higher orbit, where they would eventually rendezvous with the moon once again.  He¡¯d be launching a lot of warframes eventually, but he was personally limited in how many he could handle at a time.


    Even if there were four separate warframes, there was essentially one mind in each of them.  Technically there were a multitude of different brains, but with the link between them to reconcile their gestalts real-time, it was closer to one person in four bodies than four versions of himself.  Those versions were in turn reconciled with the prime version sitting in the computronium core in the moon, to keep all his operations coordinated.


    The carbon-black pod aimed at the larger city hit the atmosphere first, gossamer strands of graphene billowing out like wings to adjust its trajectory.  With all the scouts junking up the defense quest, there was nothing special about the city, and from his observations it didn¡¯t have any regular visits by the high-ranking Sydeans.  Hopefully his frames wouldn¡¯t be there long enough for anyone to react.


    The pod smashed down through the thick soup of air near Sydea¡¯s surface, suddenly flaring out its parachutes and slowing down to merely a few dozen miles per hour.  The chamber coverings popped open, the four bioweapon frames dropping the remaining distance to land heavily on the streets in front of the System Nexus.  Panicked Sydeans threw Skills toward them, but Cato was framejacked to the maximum and dodged or deflected weapons and projectiles of various energies as he bulled inside.


    Forty tons of bioweapon smashed the door itself off its hinges, the impact sending one unfortunate offworld visitor flying backward.  Cato ignored those inside and launched himself at the portal, the four massive hexapods squeezing through one after another.  The portal size was the real limiter on how big he could make the frames; it would have been embarrassing to be stuck simply because he couldn¡¯t fit through.  He needed all four so he could immediately launch a remote into space; he¡¯d learned his lesson and had packed in enough fuel and power between them to get outside the System¡¯s grasp the instant he was outside city walls.


    The other side of the portal was nearly identical, a variation on the same template, only more crowded and more colorful.  Most of the inhabitants were one of the insectile species of the System, with bulky gray-green carapaces and four arms.  The most striking feature was how the secondary gripping claws extended from the back and rested in grooves in what Cato would call shoulders ¡ª though it was clear the insect-people didn¡¯t have the same kind of joints.


    He took in all this in accelerated time, different ranks reacting at visibly different speeds as he charged out of the portal.  Sheer mass gave him an advantage in his headlong flight, as even the highest-rank people needed something more than just the System boosting to deflect that much inertia.  The first of the bioweapons was nearly to the door when there was a bright flash that didn¡¯t register on any of the sensors save ordinary eyes.


    Other modes of vision caught an insect person stepping out of a brief, ephemeral portal, and Cato scrambled to focus every sense he¡¯d given the warframes through that opening.  He was almost completely certain the newcomer was a System-god, and the space beyond was some sort of basement dimension, but it didn¡¯t last long enough for him to properly catalogue the small slice of room he could see.  Nor did it last long enough for him to aim through it, even though he tried.


    Seeing the presumed System-god, Cato was of four and a half minds about whether to confront the being or not.  The bioweapon frames were not nearly strong enough to provide a credible threat to such an entity, but he could negotiate.  Or at least, plant seeds of doubt, provided that the System-god was willing to talk.  Yet he needed to have force he could apply, and for that he needed to get into the planet¡¯s orbitals.  Given another thirty seconds or so to get clear, he would have that advantage.


    The trailing bioweapon scrabbled its claws against the floor as it tried to decelerate, a rather involved process for something so massive, while the forward three warframes continued their sprint to the door.  One of the benefits of multiples of himself was that he really could take both options.  At full framejack, hundreds of times faster than normal, he had enough time to second-guess himself as the System-god studied the four warframes.  It seemed that he could operate at essentially framejack speed, unburdened by physics, whereas Cato could only move so fast even if he could think quite quickly.


    ¡°I¡ª¡± Cato managed the single word from the trailing warframe in the extended seconds of framejack before the System-god stretched out its hand toward the bioweapons.  There was no visible conjuration of energy, no elemental blaze, but the leading warframe simply puffed into dust, the signal terminated.  Then the second, third, and finally the last before a second syllable made it out.


    Up in the moon base, Cato cursed and glared out at the view of Sydea.  If it weren¡¯t for the warframes relaying things through the drop pod, which was floating above the Sydean city on hydrogen lift bubbles, he wouldn¡¯t have known anything about their sudden destruction.  System-god indeed.


    He had no idea what exactly had happened.  There was no feedback, it had happened too quickly to get any real data.  The neural static kept the System from integrating the bioweapons, and prevented it from accessing his mind, but it didn¡¯t stop the System¡¯s actual physics or any directed effects.  He couldn¡¯t even resist it as such, save for the inherent toughness of the materials.  But to simply dust the bioweapons with no noticeable energy release was a little eerie.


    It also raised the question of why the System-god for Sydea hadn¡¯t done the same thing.  That would have cut his campaign pretty short.  Though the same could be said for Earth¡¯s System-god, so there had to be limits.  Either of energy, or capability, or some esoteric System rules.


    He was certain the only reason that he¡¯d gotten attention was the System¡¯s defense quest tagging his location.  Anyone of moderate intelligence would pay close attention to the portals, and if the System popped its defense quest the obvious conclusion would be to check the portal.  The speed at which the System-god had reacted was a little off-putting, but Cato wasn¡¯t too discouraged yet.  The worst of the losses was the element of surprise, but there was precious little of that to begin with if people were coming to Sydea in order to hunt down his scouts.


    It was a consideration for the future, after he¡¯d resolved things locally.  That started with the second pod, still descending toward Sokhal Town.  The covers popped as the bioweapons ejected, clawed and fanged warframes falling into the town at just under terminal velocity.  Over one hundred fifty tons of combat materiel smashed into the bland stone streets around the tavern where his guests and the high-ranker were staying, sending people mostly fleeing indoors.


    He could see right through the walls, thanks to glands and organs that operated in spectrums other than visible light.  The high-ranker was easy to spot simply because of her equipment, which was far more opaque than any mundane metal would be.  He targeted her with the organic light-gas guns built into his new warframes, but didn¡¯t fire.  The ammunition he had loaded wasn¡¯t the organic fusion snot, not with innocent folk around, but rather something a lot more evil.


    If it worked, anyway.


    Even if normal diseases and bioweapons were of uncertain value given the System¡¯s foibles, he still had biowarfare itself.  Inside of armor-piercing projectiles ¨C a necessity, given the toughness of high rankers ¨C he had a culture tailored specifically to Sydeans.  Rather than trying to kill them, it would integrate seamlessly with their body and spread the neural static cells as fast as possible, jamming their System connection.  He wasn¡¯t certain how much it¡¯d slow them down, but surely it would interfere with their Skills and make them far easier to handle.


    He didn¡¯t fire just yet, however.  It was clear he needed to demonstrate some degree of force but with the active System-god on the other side of the portals he was suddenly far more constrained.  Until he could spread himself to more worlds, he had to treat Sydea as the most precarious toehold.  The more he had to coerce people, the worse his chances of securing any System-side confederates, and the harder everything would become.


    The one thing he absolutely refused to do was to indiscriminately destroy the people the System put in his way.  The System destroyed worlds and peoples; he was not willing to be so monstrous.  It was worth the attempt to try and come across as something other than creeping existential doom.  Which he probably did anyway, considering his distraction scouts were covering practically every zone across the globe to ensure the System¡¯s own feedback was useless.


    Framejack time stretched out the seconds after impact, his light-gas guns trained on the high-ranker and the warframes coiled and ready as they surrounded the building.  The insane plasma beam of hers would still cut through his new-model warframes, but only if it hit, and at every moment his sub-brains were generating trajectory predictions.  The only question was whether she¡¯d use it in such a populated area, where there were low-rankers scattered around the surrounding buildings.


    ¡°Are you¡ª¡± he said through four throats, before the high-ranker launched herself out of her chair and straight up through the roof. She was moving quick, and had System nonsense augmenting her motions, but he had four warframes running at hundreds of times normal speed.  Muscles composed of fullerenes and ultra-dense proteins, powered by fusion organelles and anchored to foamed metal bones, exploded into motion as he launched one of the warframes to intercept her.


    Forty tons of armored bioweapon hammered into her at well over a hundred miles an hour, an impact that would have reduced any normal person ¨C or even anyone of lower rank ¨C to paste, but the Sydean merely grunted as massive claws wrapped around her torso and conjured that plasma beam of hers.  One of the tendrils whipped out to bat her hand aside, sending the beam shooting off into the air where it barely missed the hovering pod, a half-mile above.


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    Fiery wings burst from her back as she flickered and vanished, reappearing above a nearby building, the warframes tracking her as she dropped down and landed on the roof.  She crouched, gathering fire into her hands, then her eyes widened as one of his warframes prepared to fire.  Cato had no idea what gave him away, but she blurred to the side just before he fired, too fast for him to reacquire.  The projectile flew off into the air with the ripping power of hypersonic flight, a muzzle velocity measured in miles per second, joining the plasma beam in uselessly parting the atmosphere.


    The moment she stopped herself against a nearby building he had another warframe in the air.  Stone crumbled under her feet as she launched herself away just before it impacted, the warframe¡¯s landing serving to shatter the roof the rest of the way.  Cato kept the warframe moving, flipping it over the side of the building while another one dogged the high-ranker¡¯s steps.


    It would have been easier if he was just trying to kill her, or to cause devastation.  Restrained fighting was so much more difficult, but with over ten times the tonnage he wasn¡¯t fleeing for his life like before ¡ª though she was clearly holding back as well.  That beam could have leveled the town with ease.  He had no problem taking advantage of that, trying to keep her off-balance and out of the air long enough to force her to at least listen to him.  People kept attacking him before he could get a word out and it was beginning to get old.


    ¡°Wait!¡±  The front door of the tavern banged open, and Raine rushed out into the combat zone.  Leese tagged behind, the two sisters throwing themselves into the line of fire.  Or more accurately, into an active industrial zone, given how fast the warframes moved and how massy they were.  Cato was forced to send one of his warframes leaping up into the air to avoid flattening the pair into paste, redirecting his encirclement of the high-ranker.


    The appearance of the younger Sydeans at least made the high-ranker pause, and Cato shifted his warframes back a touch.  He recognized the chance to de-escalate and didn¡¯t want to ruin it by trying for a fractional tactical advantage.  Instead he had one of his warframes casually pad over to loom behind the sisters, the massive bioweapon nearly filling the street.


    ¡°Please, Honored Platinum, at least give him a chance to talk,¡± Raine said, as Cato subtly altered the stances of his other warframes to target the high-ranker with the light-gas guns.  He didn¡¯t go so far as to actually prepare the chambers yet, waiting to see what she did.


    ¡°Talk about what?¡± The flame lady said, voice booming over the town.  ¡°He¡¯s killed people, he¡¯s flooded this insane quest everywhere, he¡¯s brought outworlders down upon us and made it so we¡¯re being punished with ridiculous essence prices.  He¡¯s ruining Sydea!¡±


    ¡°It is not I,¡± Cato said, using the warframe behind Raine to speak.  ¡°The System is the one bringing people in, assigning this quest, and extorting you with essence.  The System is the one trying to kill you.¡±  He tilted his head, eyeing the flame lady as she stood and glared, breathing hard.


    ¡°You¡¯re being made to play a game you can¡¯t win,¡± Cato continued, letting the toothed muzzles of the warframes stretch into a smile.  ¡°I¡¯m here to flip the board.¡±


    ***


    Arene fought to keep her lips from curling away from her fangs as she eyed the massive beasts filling the streets of Sokhal Town.  Every instinct was screaming out about how dangerous they were, their strange lines unlike any monster or beast that Arene had ever seen before.  And it spoke, it thought, marking it as something far beyond any of the System events Arene had seen before.


    [Appraise] didn¡¯t help at all, still returning the question marks that refused to even gauge its rank.  Her Essence senses implied that the things were below Copper rank, but they fought like Platinums.  And there were four of them, all much larger than the one that had dropped a mountain on her.


    The entire thing disturbed her.  The bizarre return to life of the Gosruk Guardians frankly frightened her, as that was not how the world worked, but there was no arguing with the results of [Appraise] ¡ª either on them, or on her grand-niece¡¯s husband.  Everything about the situation was wrong, which meant she had to stop and take a different approach.  She hadn¡¯t gotten to Platinum by only running at problems headlong.


    ¡°You¡¯re speaking riddles,¡± she said, having no patience for the being¡¯s oblique statements.  If the Talis sisters were to be believed, this was the same Cato that she had removed only minutes ago ¡ª and the same one that had nearly killed, yet spared her.  The source of the worldwide quest, now so large a block that it wasn¡¯t even possible to look through it.  The farcaster at her side was shaking and chiming, so she reached down to silence it ¡ª then set it to transmit, just in case.  She didn¡¯t know who would be listening, but the more people knew what was happening the better.


    ¡°Sydea is dying,¡± the creature said bluntly.  ¡°Sydeans are dying.  For the past hundred years or more, your population has been shrinking, you¡¯ve been losing towns, and the wilderness has been closing in.  You know this, I¡¯m sure.¡±


    Arene gritted her teeth, not needing the reminder.  Despite all her efforts, and those of the other Platinums, there just weren¡¯t enough people ranking up fast enough.  She¡¯d wondered more than once where they had been going wrong over her past hundred and fifty years of life, even talking to outworlders about it, but no answers had been forthcoming.


    ¡°It¡¯s not anything you¡¯re doing,¡± the creature continued, as if it could read her mind.  ¡°Sydea isn¡¯t dying.  It is being killed.  Before the System you were flourishing.  Before the System, you had vast cities all over the world.  The System is killing you.  I¡¯m here to kill the System.¡±


    She stared at the creatures, eyes flicking from one to another.  None of them gave anything away, and she felt a laugh bubbling up in her throat.  It escaped as a dark chuckle, and she shook her head at the bizarre being.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t even make sense.  Kill the System?  Are you going to kill the sun and the moon, too?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary,¡± the being said, flat and humorless.  Arene felt a chill down her spine, all the way to the tip of her tail, the sort she¡¯d only gotten when witnessing Azoth or Alum ranks.


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe it¡¯s as ridiculous as it sounds, Honored Platinum,¡± Raine said, the young Sydean ¨C younger than she had been, which was another oddity to unpack ¨C not at all threatened by the massive and deadly beast behind her.  ¡°I¡¯ve seen that there¡¯s something outside the System.  The four of us all saw the welcome message as we went into the System.¡±


    ¡°Betrayer,¡± accused a voice, as Muar ¨C who had not been made younger, for some reason ¨C stepped out of the front of the damaged tavern.  ¡°This Cato is an invader, a conqueror.  Everything it says is deception, and Raine has sold herself out for purely venal and hollow rewards.¡±


    Cato, Arene saw, was curiously unbothered by the accusation, even if Raine¡¯s scales flushed with anger.  Muar stalked toward Raine, though his lack of concern for the deadly creatures undercut his own accusations.  She flicked out her fire whip between the two, since if they came to blows the entire situation might devolve back to combat ¡ª and she was not at all certain she could win.


    The four beasts shifted slightly at her use of the Skill, but very correctly did not interpret it as an attack.  In that respect they were very close to other Platinums she had sparred with, where their situational awareness was enough that they were actually safe to fight.  Too many that reached that rank had no idea how to deal with those less powerful than themselves.


    ¡°I find it hard to believe you are here simply because you have some sympathy for our struggles,¡± Arene said instead, as Muar backed off.


    ¡°No,¡± Cato said bluntly.  ¡°I¡¯m from the other side of that portal.  From Earth ¡ª what the System called Ahrusk.  The System destroyed entire worlds, killed millions and billions.  We removed it from Earth, but until it is gone completely, there is always the threat it will return ¡ª and do worse.  How can I not see a kinship in what it has done to you?¡±


    Arene growled.  What infuriated her the most was that his argument was persuasive.  After so long dealing with so much trouble, someone who actually seemed to be on her side was far too tempting.  Any answer to the problems facing Sydea was worth looking at, even one that was utter madness.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you kill me when you had the chance?¡± She asked abruptly, since that question still burned at the back of her mind.  It was really her own fault she¡¯d been caught in the collapse, but there was no good reason for him to not take advantage, regardless of his goals.


    ¡°The victims of the System are not my enemies, even when they think they are,¡± Cato said, which seemed an obscenely lax attitude.  Only someone of overwhelming power could afford to keep opponents alive.  ¡°And I really do want your cooperation.  I didn¡¯t think things would get this bad, but even as they are, they¡¯d be worse without you to keep the invaders in line.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re an invader, too,¡± Arene snapped, narrowing her eyes at the spokesbeast.


    ¡°I prefer to think of myself as a very aggressive guest,¡± Cato demurred, all four of the beasts blinking at her.  ¡°I have no desire or need to take over or control Sydea, but I would be a very poor guest indeed if I did not aid my hosts with their problem.¡±


    ¡°It would be a lot easier to believe you if you¡¯d sent someone to talk first,¡± Arene said with a scowl.  Leese Talis, standing at her sister¡¯s shoulder, winced.


    ¡°I did,¡± Cato replied, one the beasts chuckling.  ¡°We both know how that worked out.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t be thinking of agreeing with this thing!¡± Muar protested.  Arene narrowed her eyes at him, flexing her Essence aura to bear down on him.  She didn¡¯t generally hold with the attitude that high-rankers often had toward the lower ranks, but Muar was not in her good graces.  His interference had clearly been meant to set her against Cato, rather than letting her make up her mind of her own accord.


    ¡°You will be silent,¡± she told him, as Dyen stepped outside the tavern and took in the tableau with narrowed eyes.  ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear a word from anyone unless I ask.¡±  Dyen just snorted and crossed his arms, leaning against the building and apparently content to watch for now, while the Talis sisters nodded in disturbing synchronization.  She returned her regard to the spokesbeast, though she was quite aware of the other three crouched in the surrounding streets.


    ¡°I don¡¯t entirely understand or believe your goals, but for any sort of discussion we need one other person.  Planetary Administrator Onswa makes the final decision, but you can believe that you¡¯re going to need something more certain than words to get anyone on your side.¡±  Cato¡¯s suggestion of simply upending reality was almost impossibly insane ¡ª but so was what had happened since he arrived.


    ¡°That is something I am quite willing to provide,¡± Cato said, seeming to be unreasonably smug.  Arene didn¡¯t like that, but if he was willing to let her bring in other Platinums to even the odds, she wasn¡¯t going to object.  If they were forced to fight Cato anyway, she¡¯d much rather do so with the support of the other Platinums.


    Maybe then they¡¯d have a chance.


    ***


    Initik clicked softly to himself as the last remnants of the invaders dissolved into essence, ignoring the System warnings flashing in his vision.  Personally manifesting in the world he governed was frowned upon, though it took far more action than merely nullifying some intruders to accrue any real penalties.  Even then, he¡¯d be willing to suffer quite a few demerits to keep out the rot that had been allowed to spread in Sydea.


    He slit open a portal back to his personal space, the ascended version of the home he¡¯d been granted when he¡¯d reached Gold, ages and ages ago and now its own tiny world.  Orange grasses stretched to a false horizon and tall fruit trees stood sentinel inside a courtyard walled by pale turquoise terracotta.  None of it was what the System had provided by default, but he had spent much time on it back when he had first been elevated, mere decades after the System had blessed Uriva.


    The full World Deity interface stood as a crystal console, out of place with the surrounding pale colors and smooth shapes.  Even if everything else in his System space could be modified, that could not ¡ª though he didn¡¯t use it that much.  Most World Deities, he¡¯d found, merely worked the controls.  Initik preferred to work with the essence flows directly.


    He crossed to the console, arranging himself on the standing-stool he preferred to ordinary seats, and opening himself up to the essence flowing within.  Initik would, in private, compare manipulating the System to playing an instrument.  In private, in part because fools like Marus would be aghast at bypassing the tried-and-true methods for governing worlds, and in part because very few World Deities had ever played an instrument.


    It took some time for him to filter out the proper strains and currents of the System that governed Uriva, but he did find what he was looking for.  The particular and peculiar essence signature of the invaders was unique enough that he could put it into an extraordinarily dangerous portion of the System, and so bar it from entry.  Or rather, the moment any entity of any type whatsoever with the bizarre, not-System-recognized makeup crossed the portal from Sydea into Uriva, the Interface would use his authority and essence reserve to obliterate it.


    Such a thing was not cheap.  Most World Deities would probably consider it a waste, and leave it to the inhabitants of the planet ¡ª but he¡¯d already seen what had happened with Sydea.  Initik kept a close eye on his neighbors, to the extent of persuading his own console to show the public status of their planets.  Normally there was nothing untoward, but the sudden infestation on Sydea was somewhere past alarming.


    Yet it didn¡¯t surprise him that something had gone horribly wrong and was not being properly handled.  The stewardship exhibited by Marus in particular, and Clan Eln at large, was terrible.  Generally abusive, specifically malicious, and universally incompetent, they ran their planets to enrich themselves and their fellow World Deities.  Perhaps it was due to Clan Eln being born into the Deity classification, but they didn¡¯t seem to understand the value in cultivating the lower ranks, in raising them up through proper quests and challenges.


    Initik was all for challenging his people, but pitting a Copper against a Platinum wasn¡¯t challenge, it was an execution.  Whatever was going on with the not-System quest was far too dangerous to allow in before he knew more.  There was a reason he kept an emergency reserve of essence in both his own and the planetary stores.


    Once he was certain that the blanket destruction order was in place, he returned to the more conventional functions of his console and began composing messages to the few other World Deities with whom he had any sort of rapport.  There weren¡¯t many, and Marus certainly wasn¡¯t one.


    It was a truism that there was nothing new under the sun, and while Initik had not encountered something like what had befallen Sydea in his more than a millennium of stewardship, there were those out there far older, who knew beings even older than that.  Someone surely knew what kind of bizarre event this was, why it had suddenly exploded, and what sort of threat it truly posed.  Some, like Marus, wouldn¡¯t dare think of controlling what the System did on their worlds, but Initik knew the System was a tool to be used.  Used, but never trusted.

 Chapter 11 — A Summit

    Cato watched the planet through ten thousand eyes.


    Most of those eyes were mindless drones, tiny scouts doing little more than beaming sensor data back toward satellites, where it was ingested by analysis software and processed for the version of himself on the moon.  The warframe bodies didn¡¯t need to worry about that and it would be a waste of bandwidth anyway, as they could just inherit the decisions made by the moon version of himself.


    Dozens of his tiny, high-flying spy-eyes had already been downed either by system folks or by random monsters, but that was barely a fraction of the total.  The attrition was in line with what he had experienced on Earth, where the System folks had destroyed thousands of warframes and innumerable lesser frames and drones ¡ª many of them managed by people with more talent than he possessed.  That was why he had vastly overproduced the surveillance drones and wasn¡¯t particularly worried.


    To offset his lower level of competence, he was making machinery in job lots ¡ª though he would have done that anyway.  The cost of that overproduction was basically irrelevant ¡ª Cato had entire moons worth of resources all for himself. He¡¯d spread his outposts and infrastructure beyond the single, planet-facing habitat onto the other moons, a situation that still felt very strange.  In the Solar System the majority of large objects inside the Kuiper Belt were already claimed, if not actually populated.  That still left plenty of icy outer bodies, but Cato had maintained too many ties in the near-Earth region to consider moving light-hours away.


    The communications delay to Sydea was considerably shorter, his panopticon letting him track each high-ranker as they received the news and used their own personal brand of teleportation to travel to the little town.  Two of them he recognized; the one with the System-specific radiation and the water-user.  The former seemed to be able to actually create temporary portals, whereas the latter simply dived into the ocean in one spot and emerged at the coast of the target continent a few second later.


    Cato did have to admit that the variety of travel options was impressive, if maybe unnecessarily showy.  Though inside of purely virtual worlds, some people went with far more elaborate entry and departure sequences than bursts of flame or portals, so perhaps he had no reason to critique.  When he¡¯d been younger, he¡¯d been prone to a rather baroque style himself.


    There were two remaining high-rankers he had only seen from a distance.  One looked like a professional bodybuilder, and her method of fast travel seemed to be some kind of ultra-rapid short-distance teleportation.  She sprinted along as if just using her muscles, but with each step she blinked several miles, and she had no trouble running on top of water.  The last one was the hardest to track, because he mostly moved under the cover of the local foliage.  So far as Cato could tell, the green-scaled Sydean was using trees as anchors for teleportation, and there wasn¡¯t any obvious rhyme or reason to the distance covered each time.


    That made five at the highest rank, and if there were any others on the planet Cato hadn¡¯t spotted them.  So far as he could see they all had a piece of equipment, something he¡¯d noticed on the person of the fire lady, that they were using to coordinate.  Which implied the System didn¡¯t have a direct messaging function, only mail- and telephone-equivalent.  Communications was definitely an area he needed to know more about, but searching for potential weaknesses in the System¡¯s messaging abilities was something that would have to wait until he was on better terms.


    Upending the entire reality of Sydea was going to be a hard enough pitch.


    The fire lady ¨C Arene ¨C paced impatiently on top of the System Nexus, her fingers tapping the communications item at her waist.  Cato¡¯s warframes still waited in the streets, and all the inhabitants of the town had decided to withdraw themselves to the other side of the safe zone defined by the town¡¯s boundaries.  He felt a little bad about that, but it was understandable.  If a serious fight broke out, the collateral damage would be catastrophic.  Unfortunately they couldn¡¯t fully evacuate the town, because it was impossible to tame the surrounding areas and it wasn¡¯t like a bunch of low ranks would be safe out in the middle of an infinitely respawning swarm of highly aggressive wildlife.


    He didn¡¯t really mind being outnumbered, though he did debate quite strongly about whether he should spend the mass and energy on sending down another batch.  In the System, the only way anyone would be taken seriously was their ability to apply force.  In a way that was true in any reality, yet here it was simply impossible to build other kinds of structures.  But by forcing Arene to the point where she had to listen, he had accomplished the vast majority of his goals.


    For Sydea, anyway.


    ¡°What are we to do?¡± The question came, unexpectedly, from Leese.  The two Sydean women were essentially the only ones who didn¡¯t have any obvious fear response to his massive warframes, and they were standing out in the open near one of them even after Muar and Dyen had closeted themselves inside the System Nexus.  It wasn¡¯t merely a brave face, either; he could sample the stress molecules they were giving off and while neither of them were as calm as they appeared, they didn¡¯t have the fear pheromones that came from everyone save for Arene.  That one was just angry.


    ¡°How do you mean?¡± Cato asked, the voice of the warframe a deep rumble.  He didn¡¯t need to use a voicebox that went low enough to vibrate walls, but he preferred for his warframes to sound like they looked.


    ¡°We¡¯re Coppers, but with the bodies of Silver or even Gold,¡± Raine answered.  ¡°We are both stronger and more vulnerable than we have been for years.  Surely you had some plan if you offered these gifts to begin with.¡±


    Cato had to remind himself that despite their new looks, the two Sydeans weren¡¯t young women.  The question wasn¡¯t an uncertain desire to know what to do.  She was a soldier reporting for duty.


    His offer to return them to Sydea with augmented bodies hadn¡¯t been given on a whim.  He had no desire to keep prisoners and, while the System needed to be eradicated, it would not be an instantaneous process and people would still need to live within its confines.  The Sydeans were people, not toys or children, but perhaps he had been rather too cavalier in his attempt to rectify the damage done by their temporary deaths.


    Raine and Leese had seen more than a little bit of his moon base, of what he could do.  Even if they weren¡¯t familiar with all the fruits of technology, they had some idea of the scale he operated at.  He doubted they had any particular loyalty to him ¨C he¡¯d killed them, after all, and utterly derailed any plans they may have had for their lives ¨C but they were deciding to align themselves with what they saw as power.


    Hopefully he could inspire that loyalty, when they saw how he acted and what he was trying to do.  Cato really would prefer people to align with him because of morality, or because they understood what a threat the System was.  Merely going along with him because they saw no real choice was horrifically fragile.


    ¡°No matter how this goes, I¡¯m going to need people on the inside of the System, who aren¡¯t going to generate a quest everywhere they go,¡± he replied.  That was especially true considering what had happened with the portal.  He didn¡¯t know whether the System-God would always show up to nuke his constructs or what, but he clearly needed someone to sneak something through.


    ¡°With the augments I¡¯ve given you, it shouldn¡¯t be too difficult to rank up,¡± he continued.  Cato knew this for a fact, given what had happened with the survivors of the System¡¯s initial apocalyptic onset on Earth.  Gene-tweaked and augmented bodies were ahead of the leveling curve ¡ª or whatever the best term was for how ranks were divided.  Essence reinforced what was naturally there, so that which was already ahead stayed ahead, a snowball effect that meant those who had the inclination and knowledge to fight could compete at least an entire rank threshold above, if not more.


    It wasn¡¯t just humaniform frames either.  Earth had been a teeming mass of people in all kinds of physiognomies, not all of them even bipedal.  Some people had been trapped in a nightmare of a limbless form when cybernetics failed, others had been labeled entirely different species as they shared almost nothing with the base human model.  There were even those with bespoke predator bodies who had become absolutely nightmarish monsters, nearly as effective as a warframe with only the smallest amount of System support.


    The Sydean pair would have the same advantage.  Force multipliers stacked on force multipliers, and while he wasn¡¯t sure how much the body enhancements would help pure casters, they would be considerably more able than most Sydeans.  Earth-stock sapients had a bit of an advantage since they knew what bioengineered bodies could do, but the System¡¯s augmentations weren¡¯t much different in some ways, so they probably could take advantage of the boosted abilities just as well.


    ¡°Running dungeons,¡± Leese said conversationally to Raine, and Cato had to restrain himself from twitching.  It was his own suggestion that they rank up, as sadly they would be more useful the more powerful they were within the System.


    ¡°I¡¯m also from outside the System.  You just know millions of tiny things I don¡¯t, things I should know and would never think to ask,¡± Cato said.  He didn¡¯t have any problem admitting that particular shortcoming.  ¡°So question everything.  Suggest anything.¡±


    To judge by the expression on Raine¡¯s face, that was certainly not what she expected.  Cato probably seemed all-knowing from certain angles, but one of the dubious of advantages of knowing a lot was being painfully aware of the vast territories of ignorance that remained.  Then her expression firmed and she nodded.


    ¡°If we¡¯re going to be ranking up quickly, we¡¯ll need the best equipment you have, and supplies so we can stay in dungeons for days on end,¡± Raine said, tail slowly swishing from side to side.  ¡°But we have to go offworld if we want to progress past Silver, let alone reach Platinum or higher.  Since nobody is going to listen to a Copper, it¡¯s going to be a while since we can actually represent you on our own.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough,¡± Cato conceded, though he hadn¡¯t gotten as far as asking them to advocate for his viewpoint.  Another cultural gap he had to be wary of.  ¡°So who am I going to be talking to?¡±


    ¡°The most important one you have to convince is Onswa the Unstoppable,¡± Raine began, unprompted, offering a brief pr¨¦cis of each of the Platinums while they waited, with interjections by Leese.  It at least let him fit names to faces and was frankly something he should have asked before going down, but he had been too fixated on his own surveillance and too worried about pressing the Sydeans for information.  Interrogating them on the station would have been too coercive for his tastes.


    Onswa, Arene, Marek, Karsa, Hirau.  Only five people to keep an entire planet safe and secure, because anyone of a lower rank simply could not.  And still clearly insufficient, considering what he¡¯d seen. The Platinums could deal with almost any threat that originated from Sydea, but the portals linked it to the myriads worlds of the System and they had no way to stop higher ranks from coming through and doing as they pleased.


    Even as he waited, the industrial engines far up on the moon were assembling orbital railguns for the sole purpose of dealing with the foreign high-rankers who had decided to squat in the Sydean towns.  He didn¡¯t quite have what he needed for particle beams, especially with how far out from the planet they¡¯d need to be, but kinetic kill weaponry worked perfectly fine within the System.  The best case scenario would be to never actually need such weapons, but Cato knew that wasn¡¯t possible.  His warframes, powerful as they were, didn¡¯t use essence and had no rank.


    Without that, no System denizen would take him seriously.


    ***


    Onswa Ramik didn¡¯t actually like being the Planetary Administrator.  Yes, he did have access to some luxuries that weren¡¯t available anywhere else on Sydea, but it took work.  Most of the time it was busywork, but sometimes he had to make decisions that affected a lot of people in a very profound way.  There was no higher authority he could turn to; even if he could contact the gods, they worked at the level of the System, not the people inside it.  Any Sydeans who were Bismuth or even Azoth rank were no longer interested or even reachable, off gaining power in the vast expanse of the other worlds.


    When Arene had sent a message that the origin of that damnable Quest was there and wanted to talk, he had the feeling of seeing some enormous looming cloud.  A powerful storm, like the ones that swept [Long Grass Conflict Zone] where it stretched from horizon to horizon and turned the sky black.  Not that such a storm was a threat to him at Platinum, but he still remembered huddling in [Ramik-es Town] with his parents while rain and wind lashed the walls.  [Ramik-es Town] was gone now, but the storms still blew there.


    At least the other Platinums would actually answer his hastily-issued Emergency Quest.  Onswa still didn¡¯t have his full privileges back, but he no longer had to go down to the central nexus and pay essence.  The newfound responsiveness was about the only positive aspect of the past few months, even if it was solely out of self-preservation.  No part of Sydea had gone untouched by the swarm of outsiders looking to capitalize on the windfall.


    The sudden, horrifying expansion of the quest¡¯s scope certainly added extra incentive.


    It was in some ways a relief that there was some singular source, something that could be talked and reasoned with.  Something that had a goal, rather than endless swarms of Platinum level monsters destroying cities and people.  Yet a part of him knew that no matter the true nature of it all, this was the end of the Sydea he knew.  It clearly wanted something from them, but Onswa could think of nothing that Sydea could spare.


    Stolen story; please report.


    He tore through the last leg of the journey, to where Arene¡¯s essence burned bright atop Sokhal Town¡¯s Nexus.  His senses found more instances of that strange fuzz which accompanied the invaders, but much larger than any he¡¯d so far encountered.  It was difficult to suppress his urge to simply eradicate them with his A-tier [Aether Purge], but that would make discussion difficult.  Especially since it was clear such an action would do nothing but satisfy his own pique.  It was just too bad that Arene hadn¡¯t bothered to convey any real detail via farcaster.


    Onswa swooped down to join Arene on the roof of the Nexus, in the shadow of its characteristic tower, laying eyes on the foreign creatures for the first time.  They weren¡¯t camouflaged, nor vague black blobs like the one he had dealt with in [Frozen Peaks Conflict Zone].  They were massive things, far larger than the first ones, and something about them gave him a sense of danger.


    It wasn¡¯t Skills.  The things were barely even Copper rank, with only a trace of essence, but [Appraise] still only returned [???].  Then there was the way their heads tracked him as he approached, though he should have been moving too fast and his presence too well-hidden for anything of that rank.


    High above in the sky, a few thousand feet up, was another fuzzy signature, though this one was camouflaged and seemed like some strange floating blob to his senses rather than a proper creature.  Also concerning, but it seemed to be drifting in the wind, bobbing erratically rather than properly hovering.  That made no sense, considering how high rank flight skills were, but it was another possible threat.


    Every single Platinum arriving at the same town was the best show of force he could manage, but it also put every single Platinum in the same town.  With the strangeness of everything surrounding the Defense Quest and the being responsible, he felt he had to be wary.  Any of the Bismuth ranks that had invaded Sydea could do enormous damage if they found such a gathering.


    ¡°Arene,¡± he greeted his fellow Platinum.  One of the beasts below was holding a muttered conversation with a pair of fine-looking young women, and by stretching his senses he found the discussion was simply covering who the Platinums were.  The basics every Sydean knew, but it still rankled that someone was a traitor.  Or perhaps a hostage; it was difficult to tell.


    ¡°This is one unholy mess,¡± Arene said, not bothering to lower her voice.  She kept making a fist with one of her hands and then releasing it.  ¡°It¡¯s unbelievable, but at the same time, what else can explain what¡¯s going on?¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t the faintest clue what you¡¯re talking about,¡± Onswa said dryly.  He¡¯d never seen Arene so flustered, though he could hardly blame her.  Four identical, oversized monsters crouching in the streets of a town was bad enough.  Towns were safe zones, and monsters shouldn¡¯t have been able to enter.  That they tracked things with eerie synchronization, and things that copper ranks really shouldn¡¯t be able to, only made things worse.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to have to explain this three more times, aren¡¯t I?¡± Arene muttered. ¡°It says ¡ª well, a lot of things, actually.  That it¡¯s from outside the System, and that it actually wants to help.¡±


    ¡°Odd way of showing it,¡± Onswa replied, narrowing his eyes at the creatures.


    ¡°That¡¯s not even the unbelievable part.¡±  Arene said, continuing her pacing.


    ¡°Oh?¡±


    ¡°It says it wants to destroy the System.¡±


    Onswa stared, then laughed.  Then stopped laughing, because it was clear Arene was serious.  He tried to consider it, and his mind simply bounced off the concept because it was too ridiculous.


    ¡°So it wants to destroy the world,¡± he said, looking down at the creatures again.  He¡¯d heard about such things in the further recess of the System, worlds with far more essence.  Things that could challenge even Alum-rank adventurers.


    ¡°Just the System,¡± a deep voice answered, a rumble that fit the enormous, hexapedal lizard that stood easily in the street below.  It didn¡¯t surprise him that it had been listening, though just hearing coherent speech from the odd-looking thing was a shock.  ¡°The others should be here in a few minutes.  Marek is lagging behind but at the rate he¡¯s going it still won¡¯t take very long.¡±


    The casual assessment chilled Onswa.  At Platinum his sensory range was extraordinary, but not that good.  He stretched out with his A-Tier [Aether Perception] until he found the nearest river, but there was no touch of water essence that would imply Marek had reached it yet.  Even as he did so the greenery bloomed with brilliant wood essence and Hirau walked out of one of the trees.  There was no essence interference from any other Skills either, so whatever senses the being had were far beyond his ken.


    Beyond that comment, the thing didn¡¯t attempt to start a conversation, and Arene was too busy pacing.  Onswa took a long breath and tried to consider it rationally.  New worlds were added to the System on occasion, and thinking was split on whether they were created or found.  Before, it had been a useless debate that he¡¯d never bothered with.  Now, it was incredibly important.


    Dealing with something from outside reality was entirely beyond him.


    The first to arrive was not actually Hirau, though it should have been.  Karsa burst from nowhere and vaulted over the city walls to land on top of the System Nexus hard enough to make the building tremble.  She rested her immense hammer over her shoulder and looked down at the beasts with eyes that were more interested than sleepy.  Arene started to explain herself once again but was interrupted by Hirau.


    ¡°No fighting,¡± Onswa snapped, as he felt Hirau¡¯s essence surge at the sight of the enormous monsters taking up space in the streets.  Platinums fighting in a town would level it, and be pointless besides. Going by the quest there could be thousands or more of the things, and all they¡¯d do by attacking these ones was make more enemies.  For all he knew this strange creature could assault every town simultaneously ¨C the safe zone clearly didn¡¯t keep it out ¨C and there would be nothing even a Bismuth could do about it.


    Hirau narrowed his eyes but obeyed, keeping a close watch on the monsters as he circled around to where the other Platinums were.  The creatures just looked amused.  Their staring contest was interrupted when Marek finally arrived, surfing along a swirl of floating water to drop down next to the others on the crowded roof.


    ¡°We¡¯re all here,¡± Onswa said, taking charge and glancing from Arene to the creatures in the streets.  ¡°What exactly do you have to say?¡±


    ¡°I am Cato,¡± one of the creatures rumbled.  ¡°Ten years ago, the System invaded Earth ¡ª what you were told was Ahrusk.  We pushed it back.¡±


    Onswa suppressed the urge to reject the implications of those simple statements.  Cato had more than proved that something very strange was going on.


    ¡°But that alone isn¡¯t good enough,¡± a different creature said, though in the exact same voice and tone.  ¡°Given time, the System will return, and we may not be as lucky as we were the first time.  Then there is holding the System accountable for its crimes.  Untold billions died because of it, and that is just on Earth. It did the same to Sydea, however many hundreds of even thousands of years ago.¡±  The accusation in the deep voice jolted Onswa, the thick boiling hate and disgust completely undisguised.  The amused air had vanished entirely, leaving behind something much darker and harder.


    ¡°That is quite an accusation,¡± Onswa said cautiously.  ¡°But even if that¡¯s true, that¡¯s in the past.¡±


    ¡°And the present is still that the System is killing you.¡±  One of the creatures shifted and its scales shimmered, suddenly turning into a map.  With its broad bulk facing them, it suddenly became some strange version of a System display, showing the very town they were in, seen from above.  He could see the figures on the Nexus roof shift and he reflexively glanced upward, to the camouflaged blob above.


    Then the map expanded outward, and it became impossible that they were seeing simply through the eyes of the hovering entity.  The map labeled Sokhal Town in a distinctly System-like method, but then labeled other points on the slowly expanding map as former cities.  Some of them he recognized; towns that had simply failed decades or centuries or go.  Some of them he didn¡¯t, and Onswa wasn¡¯t sure if he had simply forgotten or they had been before his time.  He certainly didn¡¯t think that Cato was inventing them.


    ¡°You have lost most of your towns,¡± Cato rumbled.  ¡°A steady recession over hundreds of years.  The System won¡¯t let you tame the wilds, or dig into a prime location and build up.  It is the one that selects where cities and towns are located.  It is the one that decides when and how they can expand, and how much it costs.¡±


    ¡°Maybe, but you¡¯re the reason why everything is going so badly right now,¡± Hirau snapped, a vine braided between his fingers and slowly slithering back and forth like as snake.  Small as it was, it was Hirau¡¯s A-tier weapon and far more dangerous than most would guess.


    ¡°Am I?¡±  The tone of the rumbling voice was back to almost amused.  ¡°All the reaction to my presence is entirely the System.  What have I actually done besides exist?¡±


    ¡°You did kill us,¡± the young, white-scaled Sydean responded, looking up at the creature towering over her.


    ¡°And I apologized for that!¡± Cato protested.  ¡°Unfortunately, I was pressed for time and had to defend myself.¡±


    ¡°Dyen said that the Tornok Clan Platinums killed him and Esca,¡± Arene broke in, staring fixedly at Cato.  ¡°But he¡¯s alive.  They¡¯re alive.  Why isn¡¯t my grand-niece alive?¡±  For the first time, Cato hesitated.  One of the creatures even glanced at the young Sydean women before he replied.


    ¡°Because I¡¯m not as good as I should be.  Death is a hazier concept for me, but I¡¯m not a god who can simply raise people up.  I can preserve those who have died, but I need to be outside the System to restore them.  On that day on the mountain, I wasn¡¯t good enough to protect everyone while at the same time escaping you.  Which I certainly do not hold against you.¡±


    ¡°You mean I¡ª"  Arene bit off her sentence, her aggressive posture suddenly wilting.


    ¡°No, the Tornok Clan killed her, and I failed at preserving her,¡± Cato said firmly, which rang oddly to Onswa.  If Cato was incredibly powerful, why was he bothering to try and spare Arene¡¯s feelings?  If he wasn¡¯t, why did he feel so comfortable confronting them?  Karsa put her hand on Arene¡¯s shoulder as Onswa tried to order his mind.


    ¡°I would prefer to leave explanations for after you tell us what you want,¡± Onswa said.  ¡°What do you possibly need us for?¡±


    ¡°Because if I just removed the System it¡¯d hurt you nearly as much as when the System destroyed us,¡± Cato replied.  ¡°When the System came to Earth I saw people die.  My friends, my family.¡±  Arene twitched at that, and even Onswa had to admit the dark resignation in Cato¡¯s voice sounded genuine.  ¡°I saw an entire civilization reduced to one choice: kill or die.  If I am to oppose the system, I must ensure that when it goes away all those choices that were taken from you are returned, not that you are cut from everything you know.¡±


    ¡°A pretty speech, but you¡¯re still coming in as a conqueror,¡± Marek objected.


    ¡°Oh, God no,¡± Cato said with a laugh.  ¡°Ruling a planet and a people is a lot of work.  Who¡¯d want that?¡±  Onswa winced, because it was so true.  Even if he wasn¡¯t exactly a ruler, it was more work than he¡¯d thought when he was merely Gold rank.  ¡°Besides, you¡¯re not human.  What would I know about how you work best?¡±  The spokebeast waved a forepaw dismissively.  ¡°No, you all are the ones that should be in charge.  I¡¯m just support staff.¡±


    ¡°But you¡¯re still going to be going after the System, somehow,¡± Onswa pointed out.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Cato¡¯s voice went hard and flat. ¡°That I cannot negotiate on.  Though I would think you¡¯d be perfectly happy yourself,¡± he continued more easily.  ¡°Without the System, you would be able to produce enough food to feed your people, you could build towns where you wanted and when.  There wouldn¡¯t be enemies spilling through a portal you cannot close or control.¡±


    ¡°You think we would have some sort of perfect life without the System?¡±  Onswa¡¯s muzzle wrinkled in disbelief, though part of him admitted there was a certain allure to the idea of no longer needing to deal with the morass of other System worlds and the constant worry of some Bismuth or Azoth rank deciding to take Sydea for themselves.


    ¡°We have a word for that,¡± Cato said.  ¡°Utopia.¡±  The syllables were a tongue Onswa had never heard, something that felt as alien and out of place as Cato looked. ¡°It means no place, because it cannot exist.  I would never promise that your lives without the System would be perfect, but I do think they would be better.¡±


    The other Platinums looked contemplative, in their own ways.  Arene¡¯s brow was furrowed, Karsa looked even more sleepy than usual, Marek had his arms folded and Hirau¡¯s vine kept rolling around his fingers.  Yet it was Onswa who needed to actually decide.  Not only was he Planetary Administrator ¨C at least for the moment ¨C he was the most powerful and oldest Platinum on the planet.


    In a way it was obvious.  Cato had demonstrated that he had capabilities beyond most Platinums, if in no other way but being able to encompass the entire world.  The quest text made that clear.  Even if Cato had declared his intent to subjugate Sydea, Onswa¡¯s best bet would have been to send a plea for help out to whatever Azoth or perhaps even Alum ranks might hear it.  He doubted a Bismuth rank could manage to fend off a planetary-scale threat like Cato.


    Onswa didn¡¯t trust Cato, of course, whatever the being¡¯s protestations were.  Yet he couldn¡¯t imagine anything the being would actually want from Sydea that it couldn¡¯t simply take. And Onswa had to admit he did find what Cato was offering to be enticing ¡ª even though all Cato was offering was a lack of things.  He couldn¡¯t possibly say no, but didn¡¯t dare say yes.


    ¡°You are asking for more than is reasonable,¡± Onswa said slowly.  ¡°We are hardly in a position where we can afford to lose what little we have, even if it¡¯s for some theoretical future.  We have families and low ranks that need to be protected, housed, and fed, and there are foreign high-rankers coming through to deal with the quests you¡¯ve sparked.  Perhaps you can demonstrate your ability by aiding us with those issues, and then we can decide.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d be glad to!¡± Cato said, and indeed he sounded genuinely happy, which made Onswa even more uneasy but there was no withdrawing the request.  ¡°Those are problems that I¡¯d have had to deal with anyway.¡±


    ¡°And the quest itself?¡±  Onswa asked, pulling up his System interface and glancing at the thousands of entries.  ¡°I can start spreading the word to stop hunting down your ¡ª troops?¡±  He made the last word a question.  ¡°But the sheer scale is going to cause panic no matter what.¡±


    ¡°Oh, by all means hunt down the troops,¡± Cato said.  ¡°In fact, I¡¯ll send you versions that are designed to be killed, to give your people an advantage for now, while we¡¯re making preparations.  As for the scale ¡ª well.  It¡¯s meant to hide things like this, the important meetings, so they¡¯re not constantly interrupted.  But I suppose it doesn¡¯t need to be quite so widespread.¡±  One of the beasts snapped the claws of its forepaw, and the entries in the quest suddenly fell from nearly ten thousand to merely several hundred.


    Onswa hoped he hadn¡¯t made a serious mistake.


    ***


    World Deity Marus cursed to himself as his System Interface nagged him.  Things had been going well; the essence stocks were filling and depleting as they should and the strange quest had been doing its job.  Then an alert had pulled him from his well-deserved relaxation, away from the basking sands and the exotic drinks imported from the core systems.


    Only the most extreme deviations actually caused any kind of alarm.  Marus had long set the Interface to simply run on automatic, having no need to coddle the natives or ensure anything beyond the steady flow of essence.  There should have been nothing that could trouble him, considering he had revoked the majority of the Planetary Administrator privileges ¡ª and yet, here was yet another problem.


    He grumbled as he combed the sand from his fur and dressed, not willing to meet whatever the new crisis was less than properly alert, and then finally crossed to his console to see the true extent of the problem.  The sheer wall of text in the System-generated quest alert made him stare, stretching over the entire display and even beyond, seemingly listing every single zone on Sydea.  He stared, dumbstruck, for long enough that the System Interface began nagging him again, and he growled and swiped at the notifications.


    The useless animals on Sydea clearly couldn¡¯t do anything right, even with the help of the off-world rankers attracted by the quest.  For a moment Marus was tempted to send a message to his direct superior in the core worlds, but only for a moment.  To do that would be to admit failure, or even get the attention of the Eln clan elders, and that was far worse than any troubles that might arise from a System quest getting out of hand on some frontier world.  He had to handle it himself.


    After a moment, he grinned as the simple, obvious, and effective solution presented itself.  The original System-quest had been useful, but its proliferation was undeniable evidence that something had slipped out of Marus¡¯ control.  He certainly didn¡¯t want to advertise that, so going to other Deities was out of the question ¡ª but simply issuing a quest to mortals, one for all the outworlders to recruit someone to help complete the defense quest, addressed the matter perfectly.


    With any luck, the extra bodies would get things under control and nobody in the core world would ever find out about his mistake.

 Chapter 12 — Four Conversations

    ¡°Come on, you two. There¡¯s four of me, no reason I can¡¯t do four things.¡±  Raine glanced up at the low rumble of the beast-Cato.  Indeed, the other three versions were talking with three Platinums at once, filling the streets with the deep tones of Cato¡¯s voice. It was incredibly strange to see him treating titans like Arene Firewing and Onswa the Unstoppable in the exact same manner as he treated Raine and Leese, as if their rank didn¡¯t matter at all.  But perhaps that was the privilege of the truly powerful.


    ¡°Where did you want to rank up?¡± He continued, and Raine looked over to Leese.  By mutual agreement they retrieved their maps, glad to have something more reasonable to address than world-altering decisions


    After facing death and regaining the vigor of youth, Raine wasn¡¯t quite certain what they wanted anymore, but ranking up was a good start.  Even if it was to be temporary, better they be temporarily powerful than temporarily weak.  With their boosted strength, they didn¡¯t even need Muar or any other party members.


    ¡°Normally I¡¯d say we¡¯d start with one of these Copper dungeons,¡± Leese mused aloud, manipulating the map to show the nearby terrain.  ¡°But as we are, mid to late Silver is probably better.  We can pick up the rest of our Skills as we go.¡±


    ¡°Might even be higher tier Skills, if we¡¯re delving above our rank,¡± Raine pointed out, feeling a little bit of anticipatory glee bubble up inside her.  At first she had been frustrated at the idea of ranking up once again, but now that she considered how incredibly powerful they could be and how fast they could reach their prior heights ¨C and how well she¡¯d be able to fight ¨C she was looking forward to it.


    ¡°New game plus,¡± Cato rumbled.


    ¡°What?¡± Raine blinked at the looming figure above them.


    ¡°Nothing,¡± Cato said, shaking a huge head.  ¡°I do have one request, which I didn¡¯t want to make before but if you¡¯re going to be sticking with me it¡¯s important.  Leese, when we were fighting back on Earth we saw the people with divine Skills were kind of linked to the System-gods, and they aren¡¯t going to be on our side.  I don¡¯t know at what point the Skills move from just invoking energy to actually contacting or channeling the System Gods, but it might be best to aim for a different affinity theme.¡±


    ¡°I had noticed that certain things seemed clearer after I woke up,¡± Leese said, after a moment.  Raine could see the half-dozen emotions in that one small pause.  ¡°It¡¯s so strange now thinking about how strongly I felt about some things, and not for any real reason.  I¡¯ll be glad to not have that again, but what about healing?  Do we have regeneration?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll heal quick,¡± Cato confirmed.  ¡°Not as fast as a System heal could manage, but quick.  Plus you¡¯re a lot tougher to begin with, and that¡¯s pretty good armor.¡±


    ¡°Ice,¡± Leese said, looking at Raine.  ¡°Hybrids.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Raine agreed, and that was all they needed to say.  She¡¯d gone a full caster route in part simply because she had idolized the Firewing and was following in the Platinum¡¯s footsteps.  Actually meeting Arene had been considerably more intimidating, and she wasn¡¯t sure she quite wanted to be that way anymore.  The both of them had been quite frail when they started ranking up, as well, from the lean times after their village had been destroyed.


    Their new bodies were full of energy, powerful, tough, and Raine had felt perfectly sharp and alert since waking up.  She wasn¡¯t ready to abandon casting completely, the way someone like Karsa Longstrider had, and they were in the perfect situation to adopt a hybrid style.  Normally only absolute geniuses or those with significant resources could walk such a path, as it required a far broader base of ability ¡ª something their new selves certainly had.


    Fire and ice paired well, too, and Leese had dabbled enough in ice Skills before settling on her divine set that recapturing them wouldn¡¯t be too much an issue.  The main obstacle was that neither of them had spent much time with weapons, but spear and buckler were solid enough even with scant training.  Leese picked up on her thought and the two of them circled around the Cato-beast occupying the bulk of the street to the equipment shop across from the tavern.


    She slipped inside the empty shop and touched the small obelisk to see what was for sale, then gawked at the prices.  Even the basic, starting level equipment was ridiculously expensive, over five times what it should have been.  Technically she could afford it, but it would have been an absolute waste of money.


    ¡°Just wait for early equipment?¡± Leese half-asked, half-confirmed, and Raine nodded.  The weapons provided by Cato and their starting Skills would be enough to deal with at least a few monsters, enough that they could start getting proper System rewards.


    ¡°I can airdrop some equipment for you once you decide on what you need, and where we¡¯re going,¡± Cato rumbled, clearly having eavesdropped through the door.


    ¡°Just poleaxes, shortspears, and bucklers for now,¡± Leese said, shamelessly taking advantage of the offer.  ¡°As for the dungeon ¡ª [Rolech Depths Dungeon] do you think?¡±  Raine opened her map again to check the dungeon in question.  It was rated for mid Silver, rising to peak Silver for the final floor, which seemed a good start.  Once they had weapons and a full set of Skills, they could try something harder.


    ¡°It¡¯s a bit far,¡± Raine agreed.  ¡°But we can make it there by this afternoon.¡±


    ¡°Got it,¡± Cato said.  ¡°But it won¡¯t take nearly that long.¡±  The long tendrils on the back of the beast form, usually lying flat against the scales, flipped out before they could properly react, scooping them up with surprising gentleness and depositing them on the enormous back.


    Leese laughed, and Raine couldn¡¯t help her own smile after she got over her startlement.  It was absolutely absurd to be riding something that was a someone and also capable of flattening buildings.  Mounted Skills were relatively infrequent, simply because finding an appropriate mount and then ranking it up was troublesome, but not completely unknown.  Raine considered how potent such a Skill might be if they had something like a Cato-beast available ¡ª but then, Cato didn¡¯t seem to be able to rank up, or use Skills.  Tempting as it was, going in that direction would be a poor idea.


    ¡°Hold on,¡± Cato said, and Raine gripped onto the tendril that had rearranged itself as a back- and arm-rest.  Then Cato sprinted out of [Sokhal Town], clearing the wall in a single leap, and headed out into the wilderness.


    ***


    ¡°I want a duel.¡±


    Cato glanced at the Sydean with the warframe she had approached, the one he had used as an impromptu display.  It was Karsa, the deep indigo one with the oversized war hammer and a bodybuilder¡¯s frame, who stood head and shoulders above all the other Sydeans he¡¯d seen so far.  He¡¯d noticed she had stared rather fixedly at his warframes, but hadn¡¯t been certain why.


    Even as large as she was, a forty-ton war machine towered over her.  She barely topped one of his legs, but that size disparity didn¡¯t mean much.  The System concentrated power into individuals, rather than into mechanisms, so it wouldn¡¯t surprise him if she could actually lift the warframe with brute strength.


    His first impulse was to turn her down, if for no other reason than he didn¡¯t find fighting all that fun.  But he had two other warframes available, the fourth one being tasked with carrying his collaborators to a nearby dungeon, so even if she trashed one he could still carry on negotiations.  In the interests of diplomacy, it was probably better to agree to it.


    ¡°I suppose I can do that,¡± Cato said, aware of the eyes and ears of the other high-rankers paying attention.  ¡°If there¡¯s some sort of System function for it, though, that¡¯s not going to work with me.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said Karsa, who continued to stare at him with an unnerving intensity.  ¡°A simple spar will satisfy me just fine.¡±


    ¡°Right, well, I suppose we should do it where it won¡¯t scare the civilians.¡±  Cato glanced down through the satellite feeds and the eyes of the still-floating pod a thousand feet up.  There was no place outside the city walls that were better than any other, so he just chose a line directly away from where the hundred-ish inhabitants of the town were holed up.  He repeated the feat of jumping over the wall, not trusting that the stone would actually bear up under the mass of his warframe, and padded out into the grass.


    Karsa blinked into existence right next to him, sending the normally suicidally-aggressive wildlife scattering.  He personally couldn¡¯t sense anything special from her, but there was probably some kind of essence aura that warned the low-rank creatures away from someone far more powerful than they.  Or maybe Karsa was just terrifying; he had to admit that the intense stare was a little disconcerting.


    ¡°How did you want to¡ª¡± he began, and was cut off as Karsa launched herself at him, war-hammer at the ready.  Even if he knew this was meant to be a duel, his threat matrix still framejacked him to full speed and gave him several subjective seconds to study her while he twisted out of the way.  In general, leaving the ground was a poor idea in a fight because of the lack of leverage, though System folks could solve that problem with magic nonsense more often than not.


    He decided to punish it anyway, back-tendrils lashing out to wrap around her limbs and slam her into the ground.  They clamped with hydraulic strength around the nearest ankle and arm, only for her to latch on with blurring speed and pull hard enough to actually move the warframe.  The forces involved were far beyond what mass and speed should allow, but that was just the perils of dealing with System-boosted people.


    Six sets of paws dug into the earth to brace him as the tendrils in question sent warnings about being overstressed and Karsa whipped around to alter trajectory midair, if anything moving faster than before.  He lurched sideways with five limbs, swiping at her with his forepaw for the simple reason that he did not want to contest her strength head-on.  He knew he¡¯d lose that one.


    As it was, one of his claws shattered against her armor when he hit her, despite the fact that the force of the blow couldn¡¯t have done that damage.  The monomolecular edges barely cut into her scales, scoring faint lines in the indigo, but the force was still enough to deflect her past him.  He whipped his tail around at her as she landed, the thick armor scales cracking as Karsa countered with the warhammer, handling it like a toy rather than several hundred pounds of metal.


    Before she could take another swing he simply slammed a rear paw down on top of her, shifting his weight to put almost all forty tons into the blow.  It actually connected, driving her halfway into the ground, but she simply laughed and flexed her arms.  The entire warframe was sent flying into the air, and he flipped himself around as she vanished from her place in the ground and appeared above his head.


    As she brought the warhammer around he lashed out with his tendrils once again, sub-brain calculating vectors.  The volunteers of earth had only a half-baked version of martial arts for the warframes, just based on kinematic models and grappling, but it was one he could use to make sure he was never opposing Karsa¡¯s strength.  That way lay madness.  Instead he used the tendrils to misdirect force, both the initial swing and the follow-up reverse blow, while he tried to figure out what would actually win the duel.  They hadn¡¯t exactly set terms.


    He really didn¡¯t want to hit her with the light-gas gun, even if he could get the distance for it.  A regular projectile would probably just put a hole in her, which wasn¡¯t likely to actually do much, and neither the jamming nor doom payload were appropriate for a friendly spar.  Yet he was fairly certain that he couldn¡¯t actually force a surrender without them.  She¡¯d already demonstrated that she could just heft the entire mass of the warframe.


    A sudden tug from Karsa literally tore off one of his tendrils as they both fell toward the ground, but brought her within reach of a middle paw.  He clamped it around her, even if he didn¡¯t have much hope in grappling, muscles squeezing hard enough to bend steel plate like foil, and drove her into the ground as they landed. For a moment there was silence, but then he heard laughter from underneath the paw and Karsa pried it open, crawling out and shoving aside dirt like it was nothing.


    ¡°Are we done?¡± He asked, lowering the framejack once it became clear she wasn¡¯t in a combat stance anymore.  It could have been a deception, but considering everything else he didn¡¯t think that was likely.


    ¡°Do you know how often I run into anyone bigger and stronger than me?¡± She easily swung the massive warhammer over her shoulder and then took a step to wrap an arm around his left middle leg, the one that he¡¯d used to slam her into the dirt,  sleepy eyes slanted happily.  ¡°I definitely want to keep you.¡±


    ¡°Uh, lady,¡± Cato said, thrown by the sudden change in her personality.  He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what she meant, but this was certainly something that had never appeared in any wargaming simulation.  ¡°You do realize this is just one giant war machine, right?¡±


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°That just makes it more exciting!¡± Karsa said, trailing fingers over the warframe¡¯s scales.  Cato sighed.  He knew that some people were just freaks, and knew of uploads who had immersed themselves in virtual scenarios of such degeneracy that they would make the Marquis de Sade blush, but nothing had prepared him to deal with someone being infatuated with a warframe.


    Extricating himself was going to be a lot harder than the duel.


    ***


    Arene watched Karsa go off with one of the Cato-beasts beyond the walls of the town, and she had to admit she was a little bit concerned.  There were things Cato wasn¡¯t showing them about the beasts he was using, and that wasn¡¯t counting what he had hidden up beyond the sky.  She still didn¡¯t entirely understand what the Talis sisters had told her about the glimpses of his real power and self, and that bothered her.


    If he were merely Bismuth or Azoth or even Alum rank, that would be one thing.  She could understand that, even if that was power that nobody on Sydea could contend with.  Cato¡¯s abilities were too far different from the normal approach of Skills and ranks ¡ª as was his attitude.


    ¡°I want to know,¡± she said abruptly, dropping down onto the street and giving voice to something that had been bothering her for months.  ¡°Why you didn¡¯t kill me when you had the chance.  If you had, then¡ª¡±  She cut herself off, not wanting to follow that chain of thought, but still burning with a desire for an answer.


    ¡°Because you aren¡¯t my enemy,¡± the nearest Cato-beast replied.  The last one was discussing things with Onswa, apparently having no issue with the multi-tasking.  Arene had seen people with duplication Skills that could do the same, but there seemed some strange and subtle difference she couldn¡¯t quite put a hand on.  Other than the lack of essence, of course.


    ¡°But you killed the two Tornok Clan Platinums,¡± she pointed out.


    ¡°Tornok Clan ¡ª oh, the ratinums?¡± Cato asked, slurring the word oddly.  ¡°Well, yes, but they were murdering fucks.¡±  Arene blinked at the casual crudeness of the words.  ¡°You, on the other hand, double-checked on a party to make sure they were fine before coming after me.  There¡¯s a big difference.¡±


    ¡°I suppose so,¡± Arene said slowly, regarding the enormous creature in front of her.  There were only two eyes on the massive head, though she knew for a fact it had more perceptions than that, and both of them blinked at her.  ¡°And the Gosruk Guardians?¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately, they were attacking me and I didn¡¯t have the opportunity to settle it without violence.¡±  Cato actually sounded regretful.  ¡°I was far more limited then, and had less ability to hide or deflect.  An issue I have since rectified.¡±


    ¡°So, what, now you¡¯re immortal?¡± Arene asked dryly, leaning against the wall of the System Nexus.


    ¡°It¡¯s complicated,¡± Cato said conversationally.  ¡°I said that death is a little bit fuzzy where I come from, and that only gets more true with time.  Truly claiming immortality seems like the province of gods, though.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re not a god?¡± Arene challenged.  ¡°I would think it would take a god to bring down the System.¡±  For some reason that made Cato throw back his head and laugh before he grinned at her with teeth the size of her hand.


    ¡°As much as I have been told to answer yes when someone asks if I am a god, I¡¯m afraid I am a very ordinary person, where I come from,¡± Cato explained, gesturing to himself with one forepaw.  ¡°Everything I know and everything I can do is because billions of people labored for thousands of years to create the infrastructure for it.¡±


    ¡°So can we do that without the System?¡±  She wasn¡¯t sure she believed Cato at all, if for no other reason than she couldn¡¯t see how the world would survive if everyone was nigh unto a god.


    ¡°Certainly,¡± Cato said easily.  ¡°But not right away.  You can imagine the problems if newborns came out Platinum rank, let alone temperamental children with the ability to flatten cities.  It¡¯s a poison pill to promise that to you.¡±


    ¡°Though it¡¯ll be your decision on when we get it,¡± Arene said, starting to understand at least a little.


    ¡°Oh, hell no,¡± Cato denied, which broke her concentration with shock.  ¡°That¡¯d be Mister Onswa over there, and maybe you other high rankers.  None of you strike me as dumb enough to hand a child a hiltless blade.¡±


    ¡°Forgive me,¡± Arene said, straightening up.  ¡°I just find it difficult to believe you would hand us your power.  Nor could we really trust that you had truly given it over, could we?  It¡¯s yours, and what you give us can be taken away.¡±


    ¡°What the System gives you can be taken away just as simply,¡± Cato responded, the giant beast head shaking from side to side.  ¡°Knowledge is less fickle, if more difficult to leverage.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying all this comes from just knowing things?¡±  Arene waved at the beast in front of her, though she really wanted to wave at the System quest and the impossible proliferation it demonstrated.  Cato was quiet for a moment, then bowed his head slightly, the broad expanse of scales on his head lighting up with the System-like interface.  It showed an image of one of the underwater Conflict Zones, though upon closer consideration it was moving, as if she were seeing it through a small window.


    ¡°This city was built by your ancestors,¡± he said, quiet and sad.  ¡°They moved thousands of tons of rock, carved it just so, set one piece atop another in such a way that it would stand for centuries.  They did this with no more strength than the lowest ranked of the System, creating something far larger than any of the cities you have been granted to live in.  Now, the System has taken it from you and turned it into a home for monsters.¡±


    Arene stared at the image, the curving domes and the fluted columns, the faded carvings that were somehow picked out in a clarity approaching that of Gold tier senses.  The ruins style of Conflict Zone were generally low-rank, even the underwater ones, and so she¡¯d given them very little thought for a very long time.  Cato¡¯s description made her look at them with new eyes, some vague longing bubbling up as she considered the sprawl of buildings.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been able to locate nearly a hundred cities of various sizes that were definitely yours.  There are several dozen that are clearly not, and were brought here or grown here by the System,¡± Cato continued, the scale-display flicking between various Conflict Zones, most of which she recognized.  ¡°Then there¡¯s some stuff I¡¯m not sure of.  It¡¯s hard to tell with how old it all is.¡±


    ¡°How can you be sure about any of that?¡± Arene couldn¡¯t help but ask, not quite disbelieving but still feeling completely blindsided by such a revelation.  It was the sort of assertion that was so ridiculous it was hard to believe Cato was lying.  He didn¡¯t need to convince them, and if he was going to come up with some kind of story it really ought to be more believable.


    ¡°When the System came to Earth, it was the cities that became the most intense zones,¡± Cato said, the scales shifting to show something else.  Towers of metal and glass; vast spirals of greenery and stone of a scale that Arene found difficult to understand.  In the blue skies a thin silver band stretched from one horizon to the other, seemingly tethered to several of the impossible buildings.  ¡°We¡¯ve seen what happens when the System takes over, what things degrade and what things stay.¡±  His words were clinical, his voice far less so.  Before the display vanished it shifted to an endless expanse of collapsed ruins, rendered in a vibrancy that made it feel that Cato had seen it personally.


    ¡°So, it is relatively easy to spot things that were destroyed by the System,¡± Cato continued, voice lightening again.  ¡°The ruins it grows on its own have a different character.  Different techniques, you see.¡±


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Arene hummed, fascinated despite herself.  She was far more used to direct action than contemplation, even with all her duties as a local administrator, but she had to admit there was something compelling about the abilities implied by both what her own ancestors had wrought, and what Cato¡¯s people had done.  She had to remind herself that it was still possible Cato was deceiving them, but found she didn¡¯t really believe it.


    It wasn¡¯t what Cato was showing her, exactly.  It was that he was not doing so with the air of smug superiority she would expect from a high-ranker, no matter where their power sprang from.  Instead of trying to demonstrate the power he could wield, he simply seemed angry about what had been lost.


    ¡°¡­could you talk to your friend?¡± Cato asked abruptly, peering off in the direction that Karsa had gone.  ¡°She is proving to be quite difficult.¡±  Arene laughed, startled by the sudden change in topics but absolutely agreeing with the sentiment.


    ¡°Oh no, you¡¯re on your own with that, not-a-god Cato.  I¡¯ve never been able to convince Karsa of anything.¡±  For a moment she was amused, but then the reality of why they were all gathered returned and she sagged back against the wall.  She had been trying not to think about how she was responsible for her grand-niece¡¯s death, but it was still there in the back of her mind.  There were so few children, especially in her family, that she had met every single one of them.  She hadn¡¯t been exactly thrilled with her grand-niece¡¯s choice of husband, but if the girl was happy that was all that mattered.


    The Cato-beast¡¯s paw moved and she instinctively blurred to one side, leaving a bemused monster with a half-raised foreleg.  He blinked at her again and then put the paw back on the ground with a shake of his head.  Arene would have felt foolish, but she had been in too many life-or-death situations to dismiss such habits.


    ¡°I know how it is,¡± Cato said quietly, as if he could read her mind.  Which perhaps he could, but it was more likely he was just reading her expression.  ¡°When the System came to Earth, I had friends and family die ¡ª but some were taken in by the System.  I saw them twisted, seduced by the rewards of killing and death.  I was forced to confront them myself, because I had to try and bring them back.¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t make me feel any better,¡± Arene pointed out dryly.  Cato shrugged with two sets of limbs, looking pensive.


    ¡°A lot of people have already died thanks to the System, and more are going to as I free worlds from its grasp,¡± he said, eyes serious as he met her gaze.  ¡°This isn¡¯t something I am doing out of whimsy, and I do not take the consequences of my actions lightly.  I know I cannot be perfect, but I cannot simply dismiss the wrongful deaths along the way.  So I sympathize, and I will do what I can. But I will not stop.¡±


    She noticed he didn¡¯t apologize again, but in a way what he said was better.  One of the reasons that she had abandoned the climb past Platinum herself was how many good people were dying around her.  Many high-rankers shrugged off such losses, indifferent to peers and lower ranks who were claimed by the crushing demands of rising up.  Someone who was aware of the cost was at least respectable.


    ¡°Since we¡¯re speaking of death, tell me ¡ª how is it that you can bring people back to life?  If it¡¯s not a Skill,¡± Arene said, vaguely aware that there were some extremely high rank divine resurrection Skills, but she¡¯d never been clear on the details.


    ¡°That¡¯s a complicated subject,¡± Cato said after a moment.  ¡°But I suppose we have time.¡±


    ***


    Muar glared out the window of the Nexus building.  He had been wrong to trust that the Platinums would properly take care of the threat Cato posed, a worse hurt than dying for the first time.  Perhaps he had simply been expecting too much ¡ª everyone knew that the Platinums on Sydea hadn¡¯t truly advanced in ages.  They didn¡¯t have the sort of drive a true warrior should.


    Even without being able to hear much from his eavesdropping, it was clear simply by evidence of action ¨C or the lack of it ¨C that they¡¯d decided to cooperate with Cato for the time being.  There had been much talking, and no fighting, even though Muar was dead certain that all five Platinums together could have easily eradicated Cato¡¯s war-beasts.  In fact, they probably could have removed all traces of Cato if they had truly worked hard at it, but they hadn¡¯t.  They had succumbed to temptation and could no longer be trusted.


    He wasn¡¯t going to be stupid enough to say anything about it.  They were Platinums, and even if they weren¡¯t doing their jobs he was just a Copper.  They could crush him as easily as breathing, and if they¡¯d thrown their lot in with Cato they probably would.  The question was what he was going to do about it.


    Muar glanced over at his companion inside the Nexus, the young Dyen.  He had been arrogant and entitled from the beginning, but that could be forgiven because Muar was no longer a Gold, and Dyen was so very clearly angry.  And for good reason.  Muar might have lost a companion-in-arms, but Dyen had lost his wife.  The only problem was the boy barely seemed to know who to be angry at.


    Suddenly Dyen shoved the door open, stepping out into the conversation between the Platinums and the Cato-beasts.  There were only two of them left, the others having presumably gone off on whatever dire business Cato had planned.  He¡¯d seen one depart with Leese and Raine, which didn¡¯t surprise Muar much.  The pair had always held themselves apart even within their adventuring group, so the fact that they¡¯d broken off without even being upset about Cormok was what he might have expected.


    That Cato could seduce a priestess away from the System was worrying, but he had struck during a vulnerable moment, when they were all away from the System.  It seemed that Leese¡¯s faith had not been all that firm, and perhaps that¡¯s why the sisters had never proceeded past Gold despite being older than him.  There was no telling what she was now, if she was still even herself.  She looked different, she acted differently, and that was all the confirmation Muar needed to decide that they¡¯d been replaced or altered somehow.


    Muar followed Dyen outside, willing to give the appearance of being interested at least.  Dyen clearly didn¡¯t have the proper attitude toward higher ranks, since he strode right up to where Onswa was discussing something with the Cato-beast and interrupted their conversation.  Clearly his connection to Arene had gone straight to his head.


    ¡°Now that this power is available, I would be a fool not to seize it.¡±  Dyen looked square at the Cato-beast, or at least as square as was possible.  The thing was so large that everyone had to look upward to meet its eyes.  ¡°I would like the advantages you gave to the other two.  It¡¯s the only way I will be able to punish Tornok Clan.¡±


    The Cato-beast regarded Dyen, some kind of malign glint in its eyes.  Muar had to force himself to stay silent, and not protest Dyen¡¯s absolutely suicidal desire to align with heretical interests.  Muar knew his unaltered body was fine, as the System had not given him any warnings or protests, and if he felt healthier than he ever had it did make sense. Cato wanted to put himself in their good graces, after all, and ensuring they were properly healed was a minor matter.


    ¡°It might be possible,¡± the Cato-beast said after a moment.  ¡°I¡¯m not going to kill you again, transport you back into space, and then bring you back down.  It would work, but you missed your chance.  If it works down here on the planet ¡ª maybe.¡±  The Cato-beast glanced at Muar as Dyen grumbled, but did not ask.  Which was fortunate, as it meant Muar didn¡¯t have to worry about rejecting him in a way that did not raise any suspicion.  Instead, it was Onswa who spoke to Muar.


    ¡°And what about you?¡±  The Platinum asked, and Muar felt the full weight of that regard.  ¡°Are you jumping in on this too?¡±


    ¡°I think this is all beyond me,¡± Muar said humbly.  ¡°I would much rather return to Kalhan City, and take the time to relearn my Skills.¡±


    ¡°Probably smarter than the rest of us,¡± Onswa said with a sigh, and made a gesture with one hand.  A portal opened in the street, and through it Muar could see the primary System Nexus building, stretching high into the air.


    ¡°Thank you, Platinum Onswa,¡± Muar said politely, and stepped through.  Even when it shut behind him, he didn¡¯t relax.  There was no telling what Cato was up to and how far his influence was spread, and anything with so blasphemous and terrible a goal as undermining reality itself, of destroying the System, wouldn¡¯t balk at removing just one Copper.  In fact, he suspected the two deaths were due to exactly that, though why he had been spared he had no idea.  Perhaps because he simply hadn¡¯t been devout enough before awakening.


    What Muar needed to do was to leave Sydea and find someone who would listen to him.  He had to rank up too, of course, but he already knew how to approach the process.  The B-rank Skill he had selected was a divine one, because he had determined that he was no longer merely a warrior, no longer fighting only for himself.


    Muar was going to fight for the System.

 Chapter 13 — New Game Plus

    Raine looked upward as what Cato termed a care package appeared in the sky.  It was just a dot at first, a glint in the broad expanse of blue, and then suddenly it resolved into a metal cylinder falling straight down.  She waited for it to sprout wings or something to slow its fall, but that didn¡¯t happen.  Instead it simply plummeted straight to the ground only a hundred feet away.


    She flinched, but it wasn¡¯t as loud as she expected.  Instead of simply shattering against the ground or embedding itself in the earth, the bottom compacted with a strange hissing, crackling noise.  Mist plumed outward from the metal as frost formed on its surface, though she had no idea why it was so deathly cold.  A moment after it landed, the metal side tore apart and a quarter-sized Cato-beast emerged, carrying several packs of what were likely supplies, along with their weapons.


    ¡°Here you go,¡± the small version said cheerfully, sounding nearly identical to the big one that was standing behind them, though with not so deep a voice.  ¡°I made extra of the equipment just in case, so there¡¯s ten spears and bucklers and four poleaxes for you.  There¡¯s extra armor in the bags, too.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Leese said, picking up one of the bundles of weapons with ease and tossing it to Raine.  She caught it, feeling the heft and yet finding it no real trouble despite still being at Copper.  So far they hadn¡¯t had any real chance to test the limits of their new strength, and the [Roloch Depths Dungeon] would be a good start.


    ¡°Are you ¨C one of you ¨C coming with us?¡± Leese asked, as she withdrew one of the spears and performed a few quick lunges.  Neither of them had practiced with weapons in ages, but for some reason Raine found her memories of it were fresh and clear.  Strapping on the buckler and gripping the poleaxe was just like the very early training she¡¯d gotten from another Copper, so many years ago.


    ¡°I¡¯d better not just yet,¡± the small Cato told them.  ¡°That will make this dungeon pop up on the quest list and I don¡¯t want some high ranker coming by and murdering you because you¡¯re in the same general region as I am.¡±


    ¡°If there¡¯s trouble I¡¯ll send the small version down,¡± the big Cato rumbled.  ¡°Just be careful, since without a me along I can¡¯t bring you back again.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve done enough dungeons without that kind of backup,¡± Raine said dryly, and the big Cato ducked his head.


    ¡°Yes, of course,¡± he said, settling down just outside the surface portion of [Roloch Depths Dungeon].  It was merely a stairwell surrounded by cracked flagstones and broken pillars, but to her recollection it had a full twelve floors.  The two of them shrugged on the packs and secured their weapons, even if they couldn¡¯t take everything Cato had provided.  They¡¯d need to rank up and get better System storage to be able to stash anything beyond tokens.


    The two of them exchanged glances and started down the stairwell.  Raine went first, with shortspear and buckler, and Leese followed behind with a poleaxe.  The Dungeon warned them that they were under rank, and normally that would have made her turn right around.  Neither she nor Leese had gotten to Gold by taking foolish chances.  After seeing what Cato could do, and feeling the strength and celerity of her own body, she was far more confident.


    [Welcome to Roloch Depths Dungeon!  Suggested Rank: Silver to High Silver.  Warning: You are under the suggested Rank.]


    ¡°A lot different from the last time we were here,¡± Leese murmured.


    ¡°When was that?¡±  Raine asked.  She remembered the dungeon, vaguely, but even with her newfound clarity of mind the stone stairwell didn¡¯t spark any useful memories.


    ¡°We came with Hartel¡¯s Smashers,¡± Leese supplied.  ¡°Hartel fell down the spiral staircase on the fifth floor and broke his legs, and we had to drag him back to the safe zone.¡±


    ¡°Oh, right!¡±  That finally brought things into focus, and she could recall the entire dungeon.  Except for the final floor, which they hadn¡¯t finished.  It had taken them several days of slow and careful progress, especially as they got lower.  Even with five people, dealing with mid- and upper-Silver enemies while fresh to the rank had been difficult.


    The first monster came just before they reached the base of the staircase, a foretaste of what the dungeon had to offer.  A squat, barrel-headed creature, dark green and clad in leather, popped out of a hole in the staircase, and charged at the pair of them with a scream.  Raine reflexively cast her [Flame Bolt] at it, but to not avail.  The rank difference was too much, so she was forced to switch to her spear.


    A simple Copper weapon couldn¡¯t do too much to a Silver, but what Cato had provided was certainly not simple.  Raine jabbed her spearhead forward to fend it off, marveling at how easily and precisely she could control the weapon, but rather than a simple deflection the tip punched through the leather and sank into the thick hide with barely any resistance.  Leese¡¯s poleaxe swung past a moment later and cut off its anguished squealing.


    ¡°That was surprisingly easy,¡± Leese murmured, confirming Raine¡¯s impression.  The rewards scrolled past on her interface a moment later, which were just some Silver-rank tokens.  That was fine, but what they were really hoping for were Skill tokens.  Considering that the two of them were delving far above their rank, additional Skill tokens should drop relatively frequently, but they¡¯d probably be two or three floors down before they even had a full set of F-tier Skills, let alone anything better.


    The B-tier skills they¡¯d selected would have been fantastic to carry them through ¡ª except Raine had chosen a Skill that she¡¯d probably be replacing with a more appropriate build.   Leese had gone with a perception Skill which worked with any build, but Raine wasn¡¯t certain she¡¯d be able to parley her B-tier ranged option into a proper spellsword Skill.  It all depended on Skill tokens dropping and what options the System saw fit to give them, but she could very clearly rely just on martial might for the moment.


    The first floor proper opened out at the end of the staircase, a long arched hallway with illumination gems set in the walls, faintly flickering to keep the area in a touch of shadow.  Patrolling pairs of monsters walked the halls, sticking close to the walls, their bizarrely cylindrical heads and squat bodies nearly blending in with the stone.  From where the two of them stood at the base of the stairs, the doors that led into side rooms weren¡¯t obvious, but she remembered they were there.  She also remembered how the first time through they¡¯d been surprised by the inhabitants of one of those rooms joining the fight after taking too long cutting down a patrol.


    By silent accord, she and Leese crept along the wall, flattening themselves in the shadow of one of the arches that gave just the smallest bit of cover.  A minute later, one of the patrols passed by and the two of them leapt out in ambush.  Once again Raine¡¯s spear essentially ignored the armor, simply sinking into the monster¡¯s body exactly where she wished, piercing its heart while Leese¡¯s poleaxe completely cut the other one in two.  That was the sort of effect that usually didn¡¯t occur until Gold-rank weaponry.


    ¡°Remind me to thank Cato for these,¡± Raine murmured, and Leese hummed agreement.  They didn¡¯t have any magical effects, and they¡¯d be replaced by late Gold, but they were better than anything that could normally be wielded by Copper or Silver.


    She skimmed through the rewards, and moved on.  They took down two other patrols by ambush, clearing the hallway, then Leese crept up to the door, using her perception Skill to peer inside before signing what she saw.  There were six of the monsters inside, sitting around a light crystal, so Leese swapped her poleaxe for spear and buckler.  The longer, larger weapons would be more useful in lower floors, where larger monsters roamed, but against numerous enemies the buckler and a more responsive weapon was a safer bet.


    Tempting as it was to rush in, the doorway was narrow and defensible, so Raine and Leese merely kicked the doors open to get the attention of the monsters.  Several throwing knives flickered toward them from the monsters, and Raine used [Fire Bolt] to pick them out of the air  ¡ª a feat that should have been impossible at Copper.  It was only the superlative focus and dexterity that allowed her to target them all.


    Then they were in melee range.  She deflected clubs and hatchets with the buckler while plying her spear, working in perfect harmony with Leese as the monsters crowded in around the doorway.  The enemies went down in a matter of moments, and the rewards scrolled past on her System interface.  Already, there was a D-tier Skill token, which was substantially better than the F-tier that Coppers normally started with.


    ¡°Skill token,¡± Leese said.  ¡°F-tier.¡±


    ¡°D-tier here,¡± Raine told her.  ¡°It might be worth holding off to see if higher ranks drop for you.¡±  Then, not following her own advice, she pulled the Skill Token from her wallet and invoked it.  She sorted through the available options to find a weapon Skill that applied to spears and polearms, eventually finding one she hoped would eventually hybridize with her B-tier [Fire bolt] and making the selection.


    The most important thing was that at Silver it would let her store a weapon, or several if she could upgrade its tier, which would make it far less awkward to haul around a poleaxe.  The clumsiness of dealing with spear weapons was, in Raine¡¯s opinion, why things like maces and swords were so popular despite being far more suited to fighting people than monsters.


    After slotting her new Skill, Raine took a moment to go through some quick forms with her poleaxe; thrust and retreat, strike and reverse-strike, and ripping through the air with the empowered blow the Skill granted her.  While she did that, Leese poked through the room to see if there were any hidden treasures, prodding with her spear haft to make sure they didn¡¯t set off any traps.


    ¡°I think this is something,¡± Leese said, holding up a pair of leather straps.  ¡°I¡¯ll spend mine on [Appraise].  Otherwise we¡¯ll miss half of what¡¯s in the dungeon.¡± Raine grunted agreement, switching back to her short spear and securing the poleaxe again before they continued onward.  Each of the rooms was essentially identical, save for the last which had a caster.


    Good as Cato¡¯s equipment was, it certainly didn¡¯t protect from shadowy bolts flashing through the air.  Yet she was still able to pivot out of the way, hefting her spear and hurling it hard enough to pin the barrel-headed monster against a chest behind it.  Leese moved forward to engage the remaining creatures while Raine grabbed another spear from where she had it secured, the two of them making quick work of the survivors.


    Leese pulled a cloth headband from the chest, glanced at it, then shook her head and stuffed it in her pack.  So far they hadn¡¯t run into anything useful, but that was to be expected considering the armor and weapons they already had were quite good.  Enough to take on the dungeon¡¯s early levels, at least.


    They switched to their poleaxes for the floor guardian, who was simply a triple-sized version of one of the monsters with metal armor.  This was where their choice of weapon really shone, as with the reach and the blunt faces of the poleaxes, the pair of them had no trouble crushing joints and crippling its ability to move.  From there, dodging the clumsy swings of its oversized mace was easy enough and Raine finished it off by opening its throat with the blade of her poleaxe.


    Of all things, what it left behind when the dungeon reclaimed it was a massive club, which Raine shoved to the side.  It wasn¡¯t even worth carrying it around to sell for tokens, not when they were already loaded down with large weapons.  Instead they descended to the next floor, which was larger and had versions of the monsters riding on ugly, squat mounts.


    ¡°So, are we going to align ourselves with Cato?¡±  Raine asked, once they had emerged from the stairwell and were out of range of Cato¡¯s hearing for the first time.  Even when he was trying to be polite, she was well aware that he could hear their discussions and so they couldn¡¯t really be frank.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really care about the System,¡± Leese said bluntly.  ¡°With my Skills gone I realized it was changing how I thought.  I just had this idea that I could just trust in the system and it would all work out.  Now, I just wonder what it¡¯s going to do to us next.¡±  Raine nodded. She had noticed Leese was less sanguine, more aggressive, and more outspoken since they¡¯d woken up, but there had been so much going on she didn¡¯t know exactly what to think of it.


    ¡°So you think we can trust him?¡±  Raine sighed, leaning on her spear.  ¡°I would like to, but someone that powerful has to have any number of secret motivations.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s more that we can trust his goal, I think,¡± Leese said after some consideration.  ¡°Maybe he wants to destroy the System for the reasons he told us, maybe he wants to usurp it for himself, but either way I do think he wants to do so.  And for us?  If he does get rid of it, fine, we¡¯ve already gotten his favor.  If not, we¡¯ll be young and powerful.¡±  Leese shook her head.  ¡°I don¡¯t think we can lose.¡±


    ¡°Unless we die again,¡± Raine pointed out dryly.


    ¡°Cato can die and come back,¡± Leese said thoughtfully.  ¡°Maybe we should ask about that.  After the dungeon.¡±


    ¡°We should,¡± Raine agreed, gripping her poleaxe.  ¡°After the dungeon.¡±


    ***


    Muar stopped at the entrance to the tall building, feeling entirely out of place on the neighboring world of Uriva.  Nearly all the others on the streets were insect-people, all of whom moved with unnatural sliding steps and whose bodies clicked as their gripping claws seated and unseated themselves against the chitin on their shoulders.  Yet they had a full temple building, to honor their planet¡¯s god and the divine System, so it was the best destination he could make for.


    He pressed his palm against the temple door, invoking his divine Skill and feeling the door respond, swinging open before him.  Only a few steps inside he could feel the change, something ineffable in the air.  It was soothing, as if his time outside the System had been some terrible nightmare from which he had finally awoken.


    The memory of that blank, System-less space still made him shudder.  A silent void, with no status, no ability to understand or interact with the world around him. That place had been dead and lifeless, devoid of purpose, of meaning.  He had no idea how anyone could live without the System to offer the truth, to let them know how they were progressing upon the path they had chosen.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    That experience had woken him from his indifference to a bright-burning faith, realizing what the System had to offer.  Direction, reward, motivation.  Without it, there was nothing but meaningless and aimless nothing, and that was the horror Cato intended to unleash upon unsuspecting worlds.  It was something that could not be allowed.


    He pressed forward into the broad nave of the temple, to an arrangement of seats centered around a pristine System pylon.  There were only a few people there in meditation, focusing on their Skills and the connections between them, and the intentions of the divine System.  Sydea had no such building, so he had never experienced it himself, but he had only a single Copper Skill so it wasn¡¯t likely he would draw much favor from the System anyway.


    Not that Muar was there to commune with the System.  He instead waited patiently for the presiding priest to notice him, a native Platinum in metallic white and blue armor.  It was not for a mere Copper to demand the time of a higher rank, even and especially a representative of the System.  Muar¡¯s business was important, but not urgent.


    Some minutes later, the Platinum stirred and beckoned for Muar to approach.  He stepped forward and bowed to the insect-priest, taking a moment to compose his thoughts.  Of all things, he didn¡¯t want to be rejected because he sounded too unbelievable.


    ¡°I have some news as to the origin of the strange global quest on Sydea,¡± he told the priest.  ¡°It is a long story, which I believe might be better relayed in private.  I don¡¯t know how much might touch on things that are privileged.¡±


    Muar couldn¡¯t read the priest¡¯s expression, but he thought he detected approval.  Regardless, the Platinum inclined his head briefly and rose to his feet in one smooth movement, beckoning for Muar to follow him deeper into the temple.  They passed several training rooms, and some doors to rooms Muar didn¡¯t recognize, ending with what seemed to the priest¡¯s personal office.


    ¡°Please, child, tell me what you have learned,¡± the priest said in his strange clicking voice, sitting down at a desk with a System interface crystal, and gesturing for Muar to be seated in the chair opposite.  Muar did so, taking a moment to organize his thoughts, though he¡¯d been rehearsing his story ever since he re-entered the system.


    ¡°Several months ago, when the portal to Ahrusk closed, my group was patrolling the area near the town we founded.  We saw the defense quest, which was local to our area, and went to investigate¡­¡±  Muar continued through what he had experienced, trying to keep as factual as possible.  His death, his awakening in a room beyond the reach of the System.  What Cato had shown them, what he had claimed.  The trip back down, and the conversation between Cato and the Platinums.  Everything he could remember, down to the word.


    Through it all the priest listened, only asking questions to clarify a few points.  He did occasionally look at something only visible to him, likely some method of verifying Muar¡¯s truthfulness.  Fortunately, Muar didn¡¯t have to invent a single detail.  When he was done, the priest sat in silence for a moment before speaking.


    ¡°A disturbing story.  I can admit I don¡¯t quite know what to think, but it is certainly not something to be taken lightly,¡± the priest admitted, chitin clicking softly as he spoke.  ¡°For the moment you may stay here in the temple, while I reach out to others to see what may be made of your claims.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, esteemed Platinum,¡± Muar said, glad to at least have a place to stay.  With all his Gold-rank wealth gone and only a few Gold-rank tokens from the initial quest, that was certainly a blessing.  The priest crooked a finger, and a number of System notifications scrolled across his own interface.


    [You have been granted a room at Ekelem Temple]


    [You have been awarded Gold Tokens]


    [You have been awarded Essence]


    Upon accepting the notifications, the tokens went into his wallet, and a heavy key fell into his hand.  He bowed again and backed out of the room, turning and feeling the key in his hand tug against his grip. Muar followed the directions and entered, dropping into the Silver-rank bed that was there with a sigh.


    While he was waiting, there wasn¡¯t much he could do to rank himself up ¡ª at least, not in the usual manner.  On Sydea, there was rarely any point in consuming Essence Tokens rather than spending them, considering how terrible the conversion rate was.  But at a temple, where he could perhaps earn Skills directly and not as a drop, and with Gold tokens to feed a Copper rank, he might well have a chance.


    Muar spent the next few days in meditation and contemplation, communing at the System crystal in the temple, feeling that he was very close to earning another Skill.  It was a far different process than earning it through a drop, but feeling the flow of essence, the presence of the divine System, was something he sorely needed.  His devotion was even rewarded.


    [You have been granted the Divine Insight Skill]


    ¡°Copper Muar?¡±  Only a moment after the System notified him of its blessing, the priest called upon him and Muar opened his eyes.


    ¡°Yes, esteemed Platinum?¡±


    ¡°I would ask that you remain here for the next few days,¡± the priest said with a click.  ¡°A Bismuth wishes to hear your story.¡±


    ***


    Of all the innumerable tasks Cato had, he found that of fabrication the easiest, and negotiating with people the hardest.  Stuff was just stuff, and even complicated machinery was straightforward to create.  Even better, a machine always did what it was meant to, and consistently. People, on the other hand, were always unpredictable and never got easier to deal with, even after all Cato¡¯s experience.


    Accordingly, the moment Onswa mentioned needing to deal with the corporeal needs of his people, Cato started his factories producing the proper facilities to land resources groundside.  Most of it would have to be biotech, but bio-printing walls and floors and furniture was easy enough, and barely needed any tweaking to fit within the System¡¯s restrictions.  That took merely a moment¡¯s thought, but addressing the concerns of the high-rankers themselves took far longer.


    ¡°¡­and yet, it would be a lot easier for people to trust you if you actually registered as something to [Appraise],¡± said Marek, on the third or fourth go-round about the topic.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure it would,¡± Cato said as patiently as he could.  He¡¯d spent some time explaining the basic reasons behind what he did and why he did it, so they wouldn¡¯t be so disconcerted by the fact that he seemed so low rank, but it turned out that altering someone¡¯s worldview was an involved process.  ¡°The thing is, I don¡¯t want the System knowing about what I¡¯m doing.  We don¡¯t want a System-god calling in one of the world-crusher types, or coming down himself.¡±  Marek just scowled.


    ¡°I¡¯d rather not invite any divine attention,¡± Onswa agreed.  ¡°Admitting what we¡¯re doing is something the gods will frown upon.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Cato sighed.  ¡°The whole religious aspect is something I want to avoid as much as possible.¡±  It was clear that, for example, Muar had religious issues with Cato¡¯s presence.  Cato was glad that Onswa had sent him off to a different city, since the discussion was hardly likely to become less blasphemous.  ¡°I can tell you that the System destroyed your original beliefs, replacing them with its own structure. Admittedly, it¡¯s impossible to not believe in the System.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s unwise to disbelieve something we can see and experience.¡±  The last of the high-rankers, Hirau, seemed to be the one that disliked Cato the most, though Cato had no idea why.  At least he seemed to be the least influential of the high-rankers, and whatever his personal animus might be, nobody else seemed to worry about it.  ¡°Yet your contention is that the System is not, in fact, real.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s entirely real,¡± Cato disagreed, looking up at where Hirau was perched on top of one of the buildings.  ¡°It¡¯s just synthetic, and it is not friendly to you.  The reality I know allows true civilizations to flourish, ones where people can build and live in peace.  This one just takes them over and destroys them, twists them into a parody, and restricts everything to one narrow avenue in life.¡±  He had to bite down on any further comment, just so he didn¡¯t appear to be a crazed zealot.


    What Cato really wanted to do was lay out every single piece of information he¡¯d gleaned from his scouts about their prior civilizations and cultures, to point toward what the System had done on Earth.  The defenders of Earth had performed all kinds of analyses to show that, beyond the obvious, there were myriad insidious long-term effects from the System¡¯s reality.  But none of that would actually matter to the Sydeans, and facts and figures were never convincing anyway.  It was always about emotion and personal experience.


    ¡°You say normal life, but you don¡¯t seem normal,¡± Hirau accused him.  ¡°The plants don¡¯t like you.  There¡¯s an unnatural feeling about you.¡±


    ¡°I would imagine so,¡± Cato agreed easily, which was the best way to disarm such accusations.  ¡°As I was telling Mister Marek, my body is designed to prevent the System from taking it over.  I¡¯m sure that unnatural feeling is due to the measures that block off the System¡¯s influence.  Or rather, a part of its influence.¡±  If he could block the System¡¯s alternate physics and not just its direct access, things would be much easier for him.


    ¡°We don¡¯t need to have these discussions here,¡± Onswa interrupted.  ¡°I think we have enough of an agreement that we can let these people get back to their normal lives.¡±  He waved in the direction of the area where everyone was taking shelter, and Cato nodded agreement.


    ¡°I can take these bodies off elsewhere,¡± he agreed.  ¡°Give me a few hours and I can drop some less blatant ones wherever you want to meet.  I can even look Sydean if you want, but I didn¡¯t want to misrepresent myself.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s disturbing,¡± Marek muttered.


    ¡°Useful, though,¡± Onswa said.  ¡°Yes, it would be for the best if you were less obvious should you enter any of our cities.  One of those beasts stalking the streets would cause panic even if I were to announce what was going on.¡±  He waved a hand at the massive warframe.  ¡°Which I will not.  There¡¯s nothing to be gained from starting a panic.  Any public discussion can come after we secure our refugees and push out the foreign Platinums and Bismuths.¡±


    Cato hadn¡¯t thought too much of Onswa when he first met the guy, but he had to admit the man was quick on his feet.  There had been no extended arguing, no need to demonstrate Cato¡¯s ability to apply force.  No impossible-to-answer questioning about true motives or secret plans.  So far as Cato could tell, he was genuinely trying to make sure his people came out ahead under trying circumstances.


    A Sydean frame would have to be practically lobotomized, in the same way that his human frame had been, but it¡¯d give him a chance to try the portal again without causing undue trouble.  He did not like how his warframes had been vaporized, and effectively instantly, but there was no telling what had grabbed the attention of the local power.


    The System knew he was there, but the jamming kept it from being able to localize him precisely.  Except, of course, he¡¯d already found that transitioning between zones gave people the opportunity to track him down, and the portal was likely a more discrete transition even than that.  Yet he hadn¡¯t thought that the quest alone would bring down such a response.


    He needed to get past Sydea, and that meant he had to figure out how to traverse portals without getting annihilated by the connected world¡¯s System-god.  Considering how quick the response had been, he was a little confused why Sydea¡¯s own System-god hadn¡¯t yet taken an interest, but the portal to Earth might well mean things were slightly different on Sydea than more established worlds.  More tolerant of oddities.


    Or he could be whistling in the dark.  Cato was operating in a vast gulf of ignorance and while he could make guesses, he wouldn¡¯t know without testing.  The System was a machine; malevolent and destructive, but it had rules and processes and those were things he could identify and exploit.  If he was dealing with a person actively watching out for him, on the other hand, things would be a lot more difficult.


    ¡°We¡¯ll reconvene in Kalhan,¡± Onswa said, glancing around at the other Platinums.  ¡°Taking on Bismuths is not something to be done haphazardly.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have a new body there in a few hours,¡± Cato assured them.  It took longer than that to grow a new frame from scratch, but he already had several cooking just in case.  He had figured that he¡¯d need them at some point, so it was mostly a matter of delivering them to the proper point on the surface.  At least the moon he had chosen was closer to Sydea than Luna was to Earth, as even with fusion engines it took quite some time to travel that distance.


    ¡°You might want to come up with a different way to phrase that,¡± Arene muttered, muzzle wrinkling in discomfort.  ¡°Even people with self-duplication Skills don¡¯t say it that way.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take that under advisement,¡± Cato said dryly.  It was unfortunately easy to take for granted how casually accepted postbiological life was back in the Solar System, even for those who had never indulged. It was only the System invaders who were lacking in that grounding, and Cato had never much worried about accommodating them.


    Onswa opened another portal, waving the Platinums through, and Cato finally managed to tear his one warframe away from Karsa.  He hoped that her fixation was just a passing fancy, and that she wasn¡¯t going to become an issue.  While it was in some ways amusing, having to deal with the affections of one of the major players could utterly wreck his diplomatic standing.  Not to mention it was clear that Karsa didn¡¯t really understand what he was.


    The Sydeans weren¡¯t stupid, not at all, but nobody local had the knowledge or context for truly comprehending Cato¡¯s existence.  The rules of technology were not the rules of the System, the way Cato¡¯s power worked was entirely different, and it would take time for even the most willing soul to get used to the truth of Cato¡¯s nature.  As much as he would have liked to make friends, there would be something intrinsically deceptive about it so long as they had the wrong idea about who and what he was.


    For example, Onswa was likely going to take the time to scrape together a list of targets to eject from Sydea, despite seeing that Cato had extensive worldwide surveillance.  Any normal person would have more than a little trouble actually sorting through the sheer volume of video, but Cato had sufficient computing power for the task.  He wasn¡¯t reviewing it all personally, of course, but he had high-powered algorithms that sorted out information and kept the privacy of people whose lives he shouldn¡¯t be prying into.


    The offworlder high-ranks were emphatically not part of that set.  Cato had never fully internalized the System¡¯s power structure, but the translation for the rank in question was Bismuth, what was considered the first major rank by System folks.  The intelligence Earth¡¯s defense force been able to get out of the invaders was fairly indeterminate, but there was a definite sentiment that Bismuth rank was unusual, a point where the body changed, where aging stopped and immortality was within reach.


    Despite that sentiment, orbital weaponry had demonstrated Bismuth ranks were still quite mortal, given adequate application of force.  His light-gas gun might actually make a mark, but at best was likely to simply leave a hole, which was not nearly enough damage to actually slow down someone of that rank.  The sad fact was that the limits of biotechnology just weren¡¯t up to dealing with the concentration of force that someone at the top end of the System rankings could bring to bear.


    One of the Bismuths was of the slinky rat type, like the ones he had encountered outside Azure Canyon.  That one was squatting in an otherwise abandoned town in the same general region as the Earth portal, though not the exact town he had seen when he¡¯d come through, for reasons not apparent to Cato.  He was pretty sure it had finished the quest, and since it was by itself he had no idea what was keeping it there.


    Two others were more understandable.  One was a crab-person and the other was an insect-person, and they had with them a gaggle of lower ranks of the same species.  Much like the rat Bismuth, they¡¯d each taken over one of the System towns, which meant they¡¯d displaced the natives.  While the towns weren¡¯t large, none of the other System settlements were built to absorb extra population.  The overflow was obvious, with lizard people packed into some neighboring houses, or camping in the courtyards of some of the System-granted mansions assigned to the higher ranks.  When the weather turned, those accommodations would go from poor to terrible.


    The last of the Bismuths was simply wandering around on the same long strip of mountainous continent where Cato had launched himself into space.  It looked like nothing so much as a bird centaur, totaling eight limbs with the wings, though much smaller than either a horse or a human.  Despite the surveillance that Cato had in place, he had no idea what that particular one was doing either.  It had killed one of his light scouts and so presumably had completed the quest, but had stuck around to explore the snow-covered mountains in a leisurely flight.


    With luck, the Sydeans would be able to convince most of them to leave without Cato needing to bring his orbital weapons systems to bear.  Though some might well deserve it, since he doubted they¡¯d been very gentle in ejecting the owners of the houses they were squatting in.  Though if Cato was forced to intervene, the houses wouldn¡¯t exist at all.


    It was a shame that he couldn¡¯t be as precise with his use of force as System folks, but orbital bombardment was the only way he had of matching the esoteric reality that the System created.  As the ranks went up, he¡¯d have to escalate that force, and at some point the consequence would be devastating to anyone and anything nearby.  The dungeons would be an even greater problem, as he couldn¡¯t bombard them directly, but he had some tools to address that when it finally came to it.  Which it wouldn¡¯t on Sydea, fortunately.


    He¡¯d still have to destroy the dungeons, though, which would require some disposable frames.  There was no point in risking anyone with but a single body and a single life in a dungeon collapse.  Or any of the fighting, in a sense, since it was fundamentally Cato¡¯s war, but it was also the Sydean¡¯s planet.  He didn¡¯t want to turn them into some sort of kept species, either in his mind or theirs, but that wasn¡¯t likely.


    If there was one thing that anyone who lived under the System knew how to do, it was fight.

 Chapter 14 — Opponents

    Cato rolled his shoulders as his Sydean frame stepped out onto the grass.  Even if they had a humanoid frame, Sydean joints had a different feel to them, not to mention the sensorium was subtly different.  It wasn¡¯t the abstract informative tracking of the warframe, or the conventional human senses.  The olfactory bulb did its own processing of scent before it hit the hindbrain, and the altered visual cortex shifted his familiar color palette and depth perception toward something more appropriate for the wavelengths of the binary sun above.


    Normally that wouldn¡¯t have been a problem.  He¡¯d tried out enough frames to be able to adapt to whatever body he found himself in, but this one was additionally restricted.  This version had to be compatible with the System, and he found himself just as annoyed as the human version had been, at least before Arene had destroyed him.  Some of the gaps in knowledge were ameliorated by a microwave gland that kept him connected to the prime version of himself, but he was still lesser.  He¡¯d be glad when he was done with this and could reconcile back to his full self.


    Another Sydean frame emerged from the pod, this one with a backpack.  That was the version of himself that would try carrying a warframe seed through the portal, since the last attempt had met with such dismal failure.  The presence of the System jamming would still trigger the quest, of course, but if he wasn¡¯t instantly disintegrated that was something he could work around.


    He waved to himself, both Sydean frames jogging forward to meet Arene where she stood at the edge of Kalhan City¡¯s sphere of influence.  He¡¯d made no effort to disguise the pod¡¯s descent, so Arene had to warn people away from messing with it.  She¡¯d been loud enough that he¡¯d been able to hear it from nearly a thousand feet up.


    ¡°So¡­¡± Arene began, looking between the two frames.  The diplomat frame was tall, bulky, and black-scaled, while the other was short, lithe, and blue.  Cato did understand how seeing two people named similarly and acting identically, even if they looked different, could be confusing.


    ¡°You just need to worry about me,¡± diplo-Cato said.  ¡°I¡¯ve got the four Bismuths under surveillance.  Unless I¡¯ve missed any, which is possible.  Unlikely, though.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s hard to square that confidence with being a Copper,¡± Arene said, turning to escort them to the city.  Her steps brimmed with excess energy, though whether it was anger or nervousness or some other emotion Cato couldn¡¯t tell.  ¡°I think I actually prefer that other form.  It¡¯s more honest.¡±


    ¡°And yet still not my real form,¡± diplo-Cato remarked.   The traveler version of himself slipped off on his own the moment they crossed the city threshold.  Technically they were headed to the same location, but he didn¡¯t want his other Sydean form to be too heavily associated with Arene and the other Platinums.  Some people had already seen them together, but without digital media and with the chromatophores in the scales of his travel form letting him change color at will, he could stay anonymous long enough.


    ¡°Then what is your real form?¡± Arene asked, and Cato stretched his stride to match her casual, higher-rank speed.


    ¡°That¡¯s still a matter of debate where I come from,¡± Cato replied with a laugh.  ¡°The human form you saw before is close to what I was born as, but as I am now, it¡¯s difficult to say.¡±


    ¡°Not exactly comforting,¡± Arene grunted as she touched her hand to a closed door just inside the entrance of the Nexus building.   It opened to reveal a staircase, and she ducked inside.


    ¡°I¡¯d rather give a discomfiting truth than reassuring lie, at least to people I¡¯m working with.  Otherwise how can you trust me to help you?¡±  Cato knew there would be a lot of people who couldn¡¯t handle the truth of reality, or see the problems the System created, but that was a problem for another day.  For the moment he hoped he could at least sway enough people by argument, as the more force he had to use the more trouble there would be in the future.


    ¡°We don¡¯t really have a choice,¡± Arene said, casting a look back at him, and Cato inclined his head.  He could have given her some aphorism about always having choices, but that would have been insulting to both of them.


    The office at the top of the stairs was crowded, with five Platinums and Cato, and he could spot conspicuous empty spaces where decorations or trophies or maybe even furniture had been removed.  Although Cato had a limited insight into the inner workings of people¡¯s daily lives, he had a suspicion the missing items had been liquidated for funds, given the complaints about the System store prices.  Liquidating high rank stuff could probably feed a lot of low rank people for a long time, but there were almost a million mouths and only five Platinums.


    ¡°Cato Diplomat?¡± Karsa blurted, obviously reading the name on his status.  ¡°Really?  That¡¯s your actual name?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the name of this body,¡± Cato corrected with a Sydean smile, the corners of his muzzle curling up.  ¡°Since this one was custom-made for the purpose.¡±  Even as he spoke, the traveler version of Cato stepped into the System Nexus and made his way toward the portal.  While it was nominally guarded, there didn¡¯t seem to be any obvious cost associated with its use ¡ª meaning there had to be some hidden reason it wasn¡¯t seeing constant traffic.


    That was a thought that diplo-Cato could follow up on later.  Traveler Cato stepped through the portal, aware that it would bring up the quest once again and his presence would probably be too obvious ¡ª but he was not expecting the warframe seed in his backpack to dissolve without any obvious reason.  The reason came a moment later, as a portal snapped open and Cato caught a glimpse of the same insect-person who had dusted his warframes only a few hours ago.


    Then the portal closed again and the traveler Cato was gone, but neither diplo-Cato or orbital Cato were particularly worried about that.  Without a connection to the orbital version, the lobotomized frame would self-destruct.  Cato had no desire to be interrogated by any System authority, and would far rather terminate that version of himself.  What did worry Cato was the attention of the System-god on the other side of the portal, and orbital Cato muttered curses to himself.  It wasn¡¯t going to be as simple as sending some kind of seed out into the System.


    He didn¡¯t want to raise that issue at the moment, though, since there were more immediate concerns so far as his potential allies were concerned. Specifically, the sheer amount of outworlders that had infested Sydea and especially the four Bismuth-rank types that were beyond the ability of the locals to deal with.  Cato was well aware that his ability to move past Sydea was tied into that particular problem in several ways, so he wanted to be a bit delicate about it.


    Not only did he need help from the locals if he was going to smuggle himself past whatever checkpoint had been implemented, but if he was too energetic, it might spook the authorities even more.  The last thing he wanted was to prompt someone to shut the portal of their own accord, forever stranding him on a single planet.  Somehow he was going to have to be more subtle.


    ¡°Anyway, I have four targets at the Bismuth rank,¡± Cato said, addressing the Platinums.  ¡°I¡¯d like to check that against what you know.  For all I know there¡¯s one buried underground somewhere, or otherwise invisible to me.¡±


    ¡°I believe four is right,¡± Onswa said, touching a crystal sphere embedded in his desk.  What looked to be holographic projections sprang into being, already listing out the names and locations of the Bismuths in question.  ¡°I don¡¯t have any authority to do anything about it, but my Interface can still locate them.¡±


    Cato regarded the projections with interest.  The System¡¯s Interface was similar to direct neural feeds and familiar enough, but the display wasn¡¯t something he¡¯d seen before.  Proper holograms needed a medium, so just arbitrarily projecting them into open air remained the realm of fiction ¡ª or magic, apparently.  But what was most interesting was the apparent predictive nature of the thing.


    Something nobody knew, especially not those inside the System, was exactly how intelligent the System was.  For the most part it seemed reactive, with no more brainpower than a moderately well-constructed algorithm.  Something truly responsive, however, almost always meant intelligence.


    ¡°Those are the ones I have under surveillance,¡± Cato said, making a note to add the Interface itself to his observation network.  Making plans in the presence of an enemy spy was not the best idea, so he would be careful in conveying what precisely he could do.  ¡°Though I won¡¯t be prepared to deal with them for a few days yet.¡±


    ¡°Need to make more bodies?¡± Arene asked, tone more thoughtful than accusatory.


    ¡°Something like that,¡± Cato agreed.  It would take time to finish his railguns and set them into the proper orbits, since he would unfortunately probably need them for some time.  The infrastructure for particle beam weapons would take longer yet, and he didn¡¯t want to wait the months or even years it¡¯d take, depending on what elements could be found on the local moons.  Even autofactories couldn¡¯t magically assemble such complex devices without intermediate infrastructure, and besides he wanted to have spread beyond Sydea before revealing something of that power.


    ¡°We can probably run off the lower tiers,¡± Onswa said thoughtfully.  ¡°Though the question is how to deal with the portal.  I¡¯m still locked out so I can¡¯t blockade it again, and if a Bismuth comes through all of us Platinums together won¡¯t be able to do much.  Besides which, nothing in this city is above Gold rank.  We¡¯d flatten everything, and we certainly don¡¯t have enough spare tokens or city essence to pay for repairs.  Not to mention all the people who could be hurt or killed.¡±


    ¡°I can support you in whatever you want to do, but I don¡¯t have anything that would specifically block the portal,¡± Cato admitted.  ¡°Perhaps once it¡¯s clear you can drive off or kill Bismuths, that will be sufficient?¡±


    ¡°That might just draw in other people who want a fight,¡± Marek objected.  ¡°Or Clans looking to take revenge for losing a Bismuth.  I know the core Clans have plenty at that rank and even above, but they aren¡¯t going to stand for losing one to a frontier world.¡±


    ¡°Is that why you didn¡¯t just guard the portal before?¡± Cato asked, since he had been wondering.  ¡°Worries about powerful Clans?¡±


    ¡°After the Clans took over the [Ahrusk Portal Staging Area]?  Yes.¡±  Onswa said, his jaw set.  ¡°There had been no reason to regulate the portal before.  Sydea had nothing to offer. Now that the staging area is gone, that quest of yours is drawing in all kinds of opportunists.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s very true, and while it¡¯s too late for the current mess, in the future I will have to set my scouts to self-destruct instead of being killed,¡± Cato sighed.  ¡°That was a perverse incentive I hadn¡¯t much considered.¡±


    ¡°Can you prevent Bismuths from coming through the portal?¡±  Hirau challenged, and Cato shook his head.


    ¡°Any force I could bring to bear would flatten the city, too,¡± he said regretfully.  ¡°It might just be better to rebuild any vulnerable city so there¡¯s nobody in the crossfire.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have the spare essence, either in tokens or in the city bank, to make more cities,¡± Onswa said grimly.


    ¡°Perhaps not, but I can make new cities,¡±  Cato said thoughtfully.  The so-called towns and cities that the System provided were pathetically small, and even if he hadn¡¯t been able to get too much metal from the moons just yet, he could deliver silicon and carbon based buildings by the megaton.


    ¡°How can you do that?¡± Arene asked, skeptically.


    ¡°I assume you mean securing it, not building it?¡±  Cato wasn¡¯t entirely certain about that; if the System was in charge of buildings and had been for generations, there might not be any knowledge left of how to even create the simplest shelter.


    ¡°Both, and more,¡± Arene shrugged.  ¡°It just seems like a lot to overcome without a safe zone.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll be fine, it¡¯s been done before,¡± Cato assured them.  He had some records of how refugee camps had been set up on Earth, using the System jamming to prevent monsters from appearing within the walls.  Of course, what Cato considered barely adequate refugee housing was better than what the System had provided for the Sydeans.  At the very least it wasn¡¯t as brutalist and boring to look at.  ¡°And speaking of housing, I believe it would be best if you prepare your people for the first set dropping from the sky.  I will have some creatures to assemble it, but it won¡¯t take long.¡±


    ¡°Then let us focus on that for now,¡± Onswa said.  ¡°When you are ready to kill the Bismuths, then we will begin ejecting the lower ranks.  We cannot afford to provoke anyone without proof that you have the force to back it up.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fair enough,¡± Cato agreed.  ¡°Power matters.¡±


    ***


    Grand Paladin Nikhil crossed through the portal to Ikent, making sure his charges stayed in proper formation behind him.  So far from the core worlds, the Clan Tornok name was not as much protection as it should have been, at least not for the mere Copper children he had with him.  The security of a Clan reached only as far as its force of arms, which was why he was along.  As he was firmly in the middle of Bismuth, he¡¯d be the threat needed to ward off any uppity locals while not being so much of a threat that any true powerhouse would have to notice.


    Ultimately he didn¡¯t want their presence to be too noticeable.  Otherwise other clans might question exactly what Tornok Clan found so interesting that they were sending a number of very important new rankers out to the frontier.  None of the young Coppers looked too terribly unlike any other Copper, of course, and they were doing a fair job of not scoffing at the decline in luxury as they proceeded toward the frontier.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Esik!¡± He snapped, his voice alone sending the inattentive Copper back into the column following behind him.  ¡°This is not a Clan Tornok world,¡± he reminded them.  ¡°Nobody here will respect any strength but your own, and you have none yet.¡±  The young man looked suitably chastised, and Nikhil returned his attention to their surroundings.


    Ikent was still several stops away from their ultimate destination at Sydea, and while there was some hurry it wasn¡¯t worth rushing too quickly.  One never knew what quests or opportunities the System might present.  Some preferred to stay within the powerful core of the System¡¯s worlds, but Nikhil knew that the System rewarded taking risks ¡ª and that included going out into the frontier.


    Nikhil stopped by the pylon of the System Nexus to update his map, and grunted as he saw a temple adjacent to the city center.  He shoved aside the surprise that the capital city was upgraded enough to host a proper temple ¡ª that was the exact attitude he was chiding the Coppers over, and a good reminder to keep his own expectations firmly in check.  There were plenty of places outside of the core worlds with all the civilized amenities and all the infrastructure necessary for proper advancement.


    ¡°We will be making a pilgrimage stop,¡± he announced, to relatively little excitement.  That didn¡¯t bother him.  Only two of the ten children with him were on the path of the Divine, and even those two were too young to truly appreciate all that the System did.  Still, it was worth stopping into a temple, if for no other reason than to meditate on his own divine Skills and see if the System or any of its servants had a task for him.


    His senses caught the presence of another Bismuth rank, in a compound just outside the city.  People of that rank rarely took up the Planetary Administration jobs ¨C that was something best left to people who were stalled at Platinum ¨C but they were the ones who truly ruled. Only after someone had ascended from Platinum and been forged anew by the System could they be considered actually powerful.


    Everyone knew this, and so all the lower ranks scurried from his path.  He didn¡¯t even have to break stride as he swept through the city streets toward the temple.  It was only well after he¡¯d passed, along with his train of Coppers, that the usual Silvers and Golds dared creep back into the street and return to their business.


    The temple rose high above the rest of the city buildings, built upon a raised promontory abutting the eastern walls.  By simply counting the spires ¨C there were six ¨C he knew precisely how upgraded it was, and inclined his head in respect to whomever had decided to spend the city budget on upgrading so far.  For those who chose the divine route, such a resource would be invaluable.


    Tasteful blues and greens accented the pristine whites of the door, which opened ahead of Nikhil as he approached.  The Grand Paladin swept inside, noting a half-dozen people in quiet contemplation around the central pylon.  The appointed Platinum-rank priest was one of the natives, a race that was unfortunate enough to have feathers rather than proper fur or even skin, and he bowed in the correct obeisance when Nikhil approached.


    ¡°Welcome to our humble temple, Honored Bismuth,¡± the priest said.  ¡°How can this lowly one serve you?¡±


    ¡°My charges here will be spending some time in meditation,¡± Nikhil said, shooting a glance over his shoulder to ensure that the Coppers got the message.  Even those who weren¡¯t on the divine path would benefit from the potential for insights or special quests that only a temple could provide.  ¡°For myself, I would be interested in hearing what the temple may need, or have heard that others need.¡±


    The priest nodded thoughtfully, shifting the wings on his back, before beckoning Nikhil to follow him into an inner room.  Nikhil strode along behind, pushing down his instinctive unease.  The people of Ikent were quite odd, with four legs and two arms in addition to their wings, not to mention the fact that they were half-sized relative to other civilized races.


    Soon enough he was shown into the priest¡¯s own room, and the crystal there which was a mirror to the ones allotted to a Planetary Administrator.  In fact, every high-tier building had some functionality of its own, but only the temples could truly channel the will of the System.  The priest settled down and Nikhil took a seat across from him, waiting patiently as the priest accessed the crystal Interface.


    ¡°It seems we have enough adherents near here that there are few quests, especially at your rank,¡± the priest commented, eyes flicking over the System screen.  ¡°A Platinum-rank [Challenge Zone] has formed on Khyrea, but I suppose that¡¯s the wrong ranking for your companions.  Here on Ikent there is a Silver-ranked [World Elite] that is likely to appear within the next few weeks, though Harahk Clan generally claims it.¡±


    ¡°Our ultimate destination is Sydea,¡± Nikhil informed the priest, not interested in straying too far off their route, even if there were some interesting possibilities.  Being able to acquire a B-tier Skill at Copper was more of an opportunity than most.


    ¡°Sydea, hmm.¡±  The priest hummed to himself as his Interface pared itself down.  ¡°We do have an interesting report, that the portal on Sydea has been closed.  I can verify that the quest for the [Ahrusk Portal Staging Area] no longer exists, but one of the temples nearer to Sydea claims there is a native there who knows more about it.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡±  Nikhil¡¯s eyes fixed on the priest.  He had known about the portal closing, but there was scant little information beyond that ¡ª one of the issues he intended to address himself.  The Bismuth that had already moved on Sydea had not gone through the appropriate channels, and was not reporting as he should.  ¡°Elaborate.¡±


    ¡°The text I have is somewhat confused,¡± the priest said uncomfortably, glancing over at another System window.  ¡°The native in question is claiming something about a threat to the System itself.  He is current staying in the temple on Uriva.¡±


    ¡°Interesting,¡± Nikhil said, suddenly far more eager to reach his destination.  That seemed like precisely the sort of challenge the System would provide to test a pilgrimage.  ¡°Send a message to have it held until I arrive.  I would like to hear the tale in person.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely, Honored Bismuth,¡± the priest said, a System window appearing before them.  Sending such a message took a certain amount of currency, so Nikhil slid over a Platinum token to ensure he didn¡¯t impoverish a fellow follower of the divine.  It disappeared with a brief nod, and Nikhil returned to the temple nave to spend his own time in contemplation.


    When he resumed his journey he felt renewed, confidently leading his charges through the portals located in the planetary capitals.  Close to the frontier, the web of connections became more like a chain, with the portals not even located in the same city.  Traveling overland was not difficult for a Bismuth, even with Coppers in tow, but it was certainly less convenient than the dedicated travel buildings to be found in fully upgraded cities.  Finally, though, he arrived at Uriva, which seemed to be rather more wealthy than most places on the frontier.  Not quite up to core standards, but surprisingly not too far off, either.


    ¡°This is young Copper Muar,¡± the priest said when Nikhil visited the local temple, which was also fairly well upgraded.  ¡°I¡¯ve verified everything he¡¯s said so far as I¡¯ve been able to, and he is not lying, but his tale is still difficult to believe.¡±


    ¡°I will hear it for myself,¡± Nikhil said, eyeing the animal with cool disfavor.  There weren¡¯t many Sydeans outside their world, and the investigation he¡¯d done had revealed them to be one of Eln¡¯s soon-to-be-extinct savages.  Yet anyone who was willing to commit themselves to the divine System had to have some redeeming features, so he was willing to listen.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth,¡± the creature said, bowing his head, and at the priest¡¯s prompting launched into a story that was wild and quite difficult to believe.  But Nikhil¡¯s Skills insisted that it wasn¡¯t lying, and to his perception it was clear that the Copper didn¡¯t hold himself like a Copper.  Certainly not like any of the near-children that Nikhil had in tow.


    When he was done, Nikhil spent a few minutes in silent consideration, his claws absently stroking through the fur of his arms.  He doubted the creature was completely accurate.  Much of what it related could easily have been trickery, the application of Skills at Azoth level, or simply filtered through the raw ignorance of an unlettered savage.  Still, it was more than enough to convince Nikhil there was something truly unusual occurring on Sydea, something beyond a quest that offered easy advancement for Coppers.


    ¡°You have done well to bring this to me,¡± Nikhil said, reaching to the badge around his neck and invoking his authority within Clan Tornok.  Such information was certainly worth a reward, and since it was merely a Copper even the most lavish gifts would be barely more than what any Clan Tornok Copper would be allowed.  Accordingly, he transferred a number of Platinum Essence Tokens, a set of D-tier Universal Skill Tokens, and four Silver-tier Equipment Tokens.


    ¡°Thank you, Honored Bismuth,¡± the sorry animal said, clearly overwhelmed as it should be.  Nikhil waved the creature away, already considering what he should do.  It was hardly worth the time to call for any of Tornok Clan¡¯s Azoths, let alone an Alum, but Nikhil hadn¡¯t reached Bismuth by approaching problems without thought.  He would make sure he was prepared before he crossed over.


    ***


    Initik flexed his gripping claws thoughtfully, hearing them click in and out of their positions on his shoulders, and considered the conversation he had just heard.  He had the authority to listen in on those with a divine connection, but he could not pay attention to everything everywhere.  However, the presence of a higher rank foreigner had made him check in on the standard invocation of privacy, and he was glad he had.


    It irked him that he¡¯d not caught the first telling of the story, since it had been in that very same temple with his highest-ranking priest.  The High Paladin showed obvious doubts about Muar¡¯s story, but Initik didn¡¯t think the young man was mistaken.  If he had been misled, it was not about the most important aspects ¡ª that Cato was from outside known reality, and that he sought the destruction of the System.


    Mostly because it so neatly explained the Sydean that had drawn Initik¡¯s attention by crossing the portal and triggering his Interface¡¯s alarms.  The strange essence signature that was the source of that alarm and its associated quest had been destroyed, of course, but Initik had spent an incredible sum to take the Sydean in question to his own realm for further investigation.  Except the man had promptly died, and Initik knew it wasn¡¯t anything that he had done.


    Many World Deities never learned true precision or grace with their Skills, because they were born at that level.  Instant access to any Skill, at maximum rank, with more power reserves than an Alum meant that they started out with more benefits than anyone who had ascended through the ranks, and a concomitant lack of control.  But Initik had started at Copper, so he knew how fragile that rank was and how to restrain himself, so his handling of the Sydean shouldn¡¯t have injured the being, let alone killed him.


    The most damning thing was that Initik had immediately plied the corpse with a healing Skill that should have resurrected him, but to no avail.  The body was alive, but the person inside was dead.  Initik had seen that happen enough times by happenstance to know it shouldn¡¯t have been the case for someone who seemed to keel over of their own accord.  Somehow, it had been done on purpose.


    At the very least he was vindicated in his expenditure of essence to screen this ¡°Cato¡± at the portal.  It was obvious Initik couldn¡¯t allow the being even the slightest foothold on Uriva, if for no other reason than he didn¡¯t know the threat.  He had learned long ago that the unknown was always the most dangerous.


    ¡°Keep an eye on things and open an emergency portal back if need be,¡± he told his Interface.  He hated leaving while there was such a crisis going on, but he wouldn¡¯t be gone for more than a day or so.  Under the circumstances it was more urgent than ever he visit the one deity who had replied about seeing a world portal close.


    The Interface burbled agreement and Initik stepped to the edge of his realm, opening up the link to the greater System.  The connections there were similar to the portals that those below the divine realms used, but far more robust and under his personal direction rather than being subject to the System¡¯s discretion.  Initik rarely ventured out to the other worlds, especially those in the core where petty politics reigned, but he still remembered the technique to slide along the glowing web of System links and hop from world to world.


    Each world had its own Deity Realm, some large and some small, some well-defended and some not.  Initik skipped along the surface of these realms, at the nexus where the paths of the System intersected, not bothering to meet or greet any of the deities who ruled there.  Most of them wouldn¡¯t have noticed his passage, and half of them probably weren¡¯t even within their own domain.  All those scions of the core world clans spent far too much time with pointless internal wrangling and not actually managing their duties.


    Not that any of the clans managing the frontier were any better.  The Elns and Lundts were actively and willfully malevolent toward their worlds, pushing the System from being merely challenging to actively impossible.  He hadn¡¯t killed Urivan¡¯s first World Deity simply because he wanted the position.


    His destination was on the fringes of what was generally considered the core worlds, with a deity who had risen from Copper.  Ascended deities were an overwhelming minority, but Initik didn¡¯t really get along with anyone else.  The target domain was like Initik¡¯s, the boundaries of his realm reinforced and the sole entrance protected against any would-be intruders.  In the System Space it appeared as a heavy portcullis gate standing at the edge of a pool of orange grass, embedded in the slowly swirling clouds of the in-between spaces.  Initik simply knocked.


    The gate rose, and Initik passed into a brilliant valley in orange and gold nestled between two snowcapped mountains, with one person standing in the waist-high grass.  The deity that was a member of a furred race, dark with orange strips, with a triangular muzzle and triangular ears, his four eyes sharp and arterial red.  Like Initik¡¯s race, he had four arms, though he had midlimbs that allowed him to transition between bipedal and quadrupedal rather than gripping claws that were designed for climbing.


    ¡°Neyar,¡± Initik greeted him, stopping a polite distance away and nodding.


    ¡°Come on in, Initik,¡± Neyar rumbled, voice almost too low-pitched to hear.  He waved a hand and a small gazebo appeared on the grass, with a pair of seats and beverages.  Initik had never seen Neyar¡¯s living space, but that was fine.  ¡°Tell me more about your problem.¡±


    Initik had been circumspect in his questions, not wishing to draw attention from the large clans and so invite a pointless conflict that would distract from whatever the real issue was, but with Neyar there was no purpose to dissembling.  Clearly, quickly, and concisely, Initik set out everything he knew, from the closure of the Ahrusk portal to the conversation he had overheard.  When he was done, Neyar took a long breath and knocked back the glass he was holding.


    ¡°Can¡¯t say I¡¯m unhappy to see that Ahrusk portal gone,¡± he drawled.  ¡°I¡¯ve had a couple of the Ahrusk types come through here, following high-rank quests.  They¡¯re proper monsters.¡±  Initik clicked curiously, and Neyar laughed.


    ¡°They¡¯re too damned powerful!  Every single one of them.  Every single one.¡±  Neyar pointed a claw at Initik, whiskers bouncing as he talked.  ¡°They¡¯re Bismuths delving peak Azoth dungeons.  Some of them were even soloing low Azoth dungeons!  Azoth rank in all but name in less than ten years is insane.  Faster than I ranked up anyway.  Besides which, they all look different, and that is incredibly strange.  I don¡¯t trust it.  Even if there¡¯s a hundred-something of them now, can you imagine a whole planet like that?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯d ascend by the thousands and take over the core worlds,¡± Initik replied, rotating his glass thoughtfully, not sure what to think about the oddness Neyar described.  Power was one thing, but variety spoke of an alien element he could not fathom.  ¡°I certainly would not mourn the clans in such a case.¡±


    ¡°Nor I, but at least things are stable.  These newcomers ¡ª I do not like them.  Yet, I can believe that they fought off the System.¡±  Neyar laced the thick digits of his midlimbs together and leaned back in his seat to regard Initik.  ¡°I know of two other times when a portal to a new world was closed.  The last was some ten thousand years ago; the other, fifty thousand years before that.  Both times I recall some rumors about strange encounters and higher ranks going missing before the portal closed, but neither time did we get a crop of monstrous individuals or this idea of someone wanting to destroy the System itself.¡±


    ¡°I did not believe it was merely a deluded fantasy,¡± Initik said grimly.  ¡°Though I am not entirely certain what to do about it.  The best solution would be to simply cut Sydea off from the rest of the System ¡ª but I cannot imagine convincing anyone to do so.¡±


    Neyar didn¡¯t protest that Initik¡¯s solution was too extreme.  They both knew that the best way to deal with such slippery problems was with overwhelming force.  Sydea was not Initik¡¯s world, though, and as he could never persuade a clan member that anything not a deity was a threat, Initik would likely have to do the unthinkable.


    He¡¯d have to help Marus Eln.

 Chapter 15 — High Ground

    ¡°So, don¡¯t try to negotiate?¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s incredibly stupid,¡± Raine told Cato.


    ¡°I had to ask,¡± Cato said mildly.


    His first thought, even after all his experience with the high-rank psychopaths the System created, was to try and talk to the Bismuths.  Threaten them, perhaps demonstrate that he could harm them, pressure them one by one and use the capitulation of one to convince the others. But he¡¯d at least had enough foresight to run the idea past both the Platinums and the sisters, after they¡¯d emerged from the dungeon, and gotten a unanimous response.


    Any attempt at that sort of finesse would backfire.  Giving them time would result in the offworld Bismuths wreaking havoc: taking hostages, calling in reinforcements, destroying infrastructure, or maybe even pulling in higher ranks.  They couldn¡¯t be dealt with softly, so the plan had to be straightforward as it was simple.  Hit them all at once.


    Three of the four, the ones living in the previously-Sydean towns, were outright murderers.  They expelled the native townsfolk with extreme violence in order to have a base of operations while completing the quest ¡ª securing a Cato-scout for themselves and their wards.  The fourth Bismuth was less objectionable, the miniature bird-person having simply ignored the natives to head out to the mountains, but at her rank she was not going to listen to anything a Platinum had to say.


    Cato spent long hours worrying over how to balance the ruthless demands of prosecuting his crusade with satisfying his own conscience.  It would be far safer in the short term to simply target everyone and everything with the most powerful weapons he had available to him, but if he did that then he wasn¡¯t much better than the System psychopaths he hated so much.  So the last Bismuth was at least owed a chance to leave of her own accord.


    He had some doubt she¡¯d actually listen to him, considering that even his most impressive warframes were low ranked by System standards, but he could try.  If she didn¡¯t he was confident he could deal with anything short of her fleeing headlong.  The neural networks had been running analysis of the Bismuths through all the surveillance he had available, and he had a complete profile on them.  Their habits, their methods of speech, their preferred Skill use, everything that could be determined from observation.


    Even a dozen of his warframes had no chance in hell of actually doing any damage to them.  He just couldn¡¯t put out the force required to scratch anything at Bismuth rank, not unless they were careless enough to let him pull the Sneeze of Doom trick.  Perhaps not even then; the Bismuths seemed to have the ability to alter their bodies fully into System-stuff.  As potent as kiloton-scale blasts were, he didn¡¯t trust they were sufficient to deal lethal force.


    If he could go toe to toe with System folks, like he had with Arene, it would be a lot easier to make them listen.  It was a culture that respected only individual power and the ability to apply violent consequences.  Some would say that was true of every culture, but it was very literal for the System.  Unfortunately, he was restricted to mere orbital weapons.


    ¡°If you gave us another year or so, we could probably hit Bismuth,¡± Leese said, readjusting the pack she was still wearing.  ¡°Maybe even less!  Being able to fight a tier up makes it almost effortless.¡±


    ¡°Peak Silver from one dungeon delve,¡± Raine muttered.  ¡°Almost feels like I¡¯m cheating.¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re not cheating, you¡¯re not trying,¡± he told them.  They¡¯d still taken several days to clear the dungeon, which was long enough that he had started getting worried, but Onswa had assured him that the Roloch Depths dungeon was an extended affair.  It was a good thing that he¡¯d packed supplies for the sisters, calorie-dense and perfectly tailored for their metabolic and nutritional needs.  Also tasty, when he¡¯d tried it with his Sydean frame.


    ¡°Gold rank is going to be harder, even like this,¡± Raine said, making her spear disappear.  He suppressed a startled jump and canceled a reflexive framejack, as seeing the real world behave like the digital one always disturbed him.  ¡°We¡¯re at Peak Silver, but we still have to go off-world and find a [World Elite] to take down.¡±


    ¡°I have enough surveillance and mobility that locating particular targets shouldn¡¯t be a problem,¡± Cato said, gesturing to himself, or rather, the large war-form he still had parked nearby.  He¡¯d fabricated a sort of saddle arrangement for the massive bioweapon, not only for Raine and Leese and the supplies, but for the smaller warframe.  Upon reflection he¡¯d decided against trying to destroy any more dungeons until he was ready to make a serious push on destroying Sydea¡¯s instance of the System, but the small version could still get in many places the forty-ton warframe just couldn¡¯t.  ¡°However, offworld needs some thought.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d certainly draw attention,¡± Raine agreed, as Cato unrolled the rope ladder attached to the saddle for them to climb up.  There were some who would have objected to acting as a mount, but Cato thought it was better for the warframe to be as useful as possible.  Even if he was quite comfortable in that form, he still considered it merely a temporary tool.  ¡°We need to stop by a town first, though.¡±


    ¡°Not a problem,¡± Cato assured them, pivoting about and aiming for the nearest town ¡ª one which was not solely a System town anymore.  Over the past couple days he had dropped thousands of tons of buildings onto dozens of towns, in order to alleviate the strain of the inflated prices Sydeans were suffering from in addition to housing the refugees.


    ¡°What in the names of all the gods are those?¡± Raine asked as the town came into view.  Unlike the white, blocky, and boring structures of the System towns, Cato¡¯s supplemental housing was curved and domed, made out of a quick-assembled synthetic somewhere between wood and quartzite.  He¡¯d colored it with blues and greens swirled with cream, relying on the analysis he¡¯d done of the cities the System had preserved as Conflict Zones.  The spectral analysis of remnant paints and dyes, as well as the building materials themselves, had given him some idea of what the various cultures of Sydeans had preferred and so he¡¯d done his best.


    They did, however, stand out from the standard System design quite a bit.  Some of that was due to wanting a more aesthetic design, but quite a bit was simply the required shapes for airflow and illumination.  He couldn¡¯t use either electricity or System-provided power, so everything used clever design to take advantage of light pipes and passive thermodynamics to make it livable.  Photosynthetic biomatter threaded through the walls and floors fueled System-jamming neurons to keep the buildings clear of monsters, artificially extending the safe zones just a little bit more.


    ¡°My contribution to keeping people safe,¡± Cato answered modestly.  ¡°You missed a lot while you were down in the dungeon.¡±


    ¡°Clearly,¡± Leese said, more amused than Raine had been.  ¡°I don¡¯t suppose we can trade in drops there, or upgrade our equipment.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s all System-free,¡± Cato told them, somewhat annoyed that he couldn¡¯t just completely replace the System on Sydea, at least not yet.  He knew that he had to exercise patience, and that he needed more time to bring overwhelming force ¨C not to mention a foothold on other planets ¨C but it still irked him.


    ¡°We¡¯ll try to be quick,¡± Leese said, looking over the buildings with interest as Cato slowed to a halt just outside the System town.  The big warframe still took up most of a street, and it was impolite to block traffic.  Though there wasn¡¯t much, small as the town was.  ¡°How long do we have before you have to go take care of the Bismuths?¡±


    ¡°This body doesn¡¯t have to go anywhere,¡± Cato reminded them.


    ¡°Oh?  I thought you would need a lot of your selves to overpower a Bismuth,¡± Leese clarified.  ¡°If you¡¯re at Platinum level.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t be using these,¡± Cato told them.  ¡°This won¡¯t be a fight.  The only reason to actually fight any of these people would be to change their minds.  No, I¡¯ll be using a far more potent weapon.  Something that¡¯s far too dangerous to have anyone else around.¡±


    ¡°Too dangerous to use in dungeons?¡± Raine asked, suddenly interested.  ¡°If we had Bismuth-level weapons¡­¡±


    ¡°Using it in a dungeon would result in no more dungeon, and no more you for that matter,¡± Cato said, shaking the warframe¡¯s bulky head.  ¡°I¡¯m not sure if there¡¯s an equivalent Skill, but it devastates everything nearby.  It¡¯s something best watched from a distance.¡±


    One of his other bodies was, in fact, watching from a distance, accompanied by Onswa and Arene.  For obvious reasons they wanted actual proof that Cato had the ability to remove Bismuth-rank opponents, though they¡¯d been reasonably polite about it.  Their presence had been useful to evacuate a pair of towns too close to the targets for comfort, as well.  Cato was trying to help the Sydeans, not make them collateral damage.


    Another set was closing in on the one Bismuth that deserved a warning.  Or really, it was a mutual approach, as the small birdlike being had spotted the descent pod for the warframes, and could move far more rapidly than anything on the ground.  He had lobotomized Sydean frames riding along, in the hopes that the presence of a familiar race would inspire the Bismuth to talk before attacking.  If not, that was what the railguns were for.


    The rule of industrial automation was to decide how many machines were needed to accomplish a goal, and then make double that number.  Better yet, add a zero.  Accordingly there were twenty massive railgun platforms in orbit around Sydea, which was merely a half of the final goal ¡ª less for the firepower as for covering a space as enormous as a planet.


    Each one was a bulky cylinder, a million tons of silica for an inertial sump wrapped around a far smaller set of machinery and the rail barrel that ran the length of the gun.  In accordance with the ancient traditions of artillery, each of the railguns had a phrase inscribed somewhere in the loading chamber, from the classic Ultima Ratio Regum to the slogan of the long-collapsed Summer Civilization of Annitaria, All Things In Immoderation.  Every one of the railguns was accompanied by several hundred square miles of solar panel to support the supercapacitors needed to hurl the one-ton projectiles at a full percent of light speed.


    They were visible from the surface as little glints or the occasional occlusion of actual stars.  He hadn¡¯t designed them to be completely stealthy, especially not by technological standards given the vast amount of heat they had to vent, but they were clad in matte ceramic to keep them from being too bright.  Someone of Bismuth rank could probably still spot them, but only after thinking to look in the first place.


    The barrels of the weapons tracked the Bismuth as it approached his warframes where they stood in the mountain fastness, the being¡¯s iridescent feathers glittering in the late evening sun.  Cato had orbital footage of the being, of course, but seeing it through organic eyes was different, especially since his Sydean frames seemed quite entranced by the display.  There had to be some System nonsense at work, since there was nothing about the display that should have been hypnotic to Sydean neurology, let alone human neurology running in a Sydean shell.


    ¡°Your pardon,¡± Cato said, once the Bismuth had drawn close enough.  The words took subjective minutes to the warframes, but that sort of disjoint was part of normal life for Cato.  ¡°Sydea is being closed to offworlders,¡± he told the hovering Bismuth, uncertain of how to read its expression.  The body language, matched to orbital surveillance, was not aggressive, but any subtler emotion was pure guesswork.


    ¡°What is it I see before me?¡±  The Bismuth tilted her head, beak clicking as her eyes focused on the frame that had spoken.  ¡°I have been searching for the ultimate source of this quest, and here are mere Coppers riding on things the System itself cannot categorize.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I guess it¡¯s pretty obvious,¡± Cato admitted, not seeing any point in dissembling.  ¡°I¡¯ll be happy to discuss it with you at a later date, if you give me a name and location.  But not on Sydea.  I¡¯m afraid it is a rather strict deadline.¡±


    ¡°You expect me to take direction from a Copper?¡± The Bismuth scoffed, but still refrained from attacking.


    ¡°I am not just a Copper,¡± Cato said from all four throats.  A theatrical approach, but the best way to provide instant evidence of his assertion.  An odd sound came from the Bismuth, something metallic, as the iridescent feathers took on a grey sheen.  A Skill activation of some sort.


    ¡°Clearly,¡± the Bismuth said, head twitching slightly, her feathers ruffled.  Cato waited, checking and double-checking the targeting on the railguns.  If she was reasonable, she would recognize something was wrong and leave.  If not, he¡¯d have to ensure his targeting was extremely good.  ¡°I am Yaniss, and I may be reached through the Planetary Administrator of the world Ikent.¡±


    ¡°Then I will be certain to reach out to you when I get to Ikent,¡± Cato replied, almost daring to believe she¡¯d take him at his word.


    ¡°Perhaps you will, but I wish to be certain.¡±  The Bismuth blurred forward, and the warframes juked sideways to avoid the charge.  The part of Cato not focused on avoiding the Bismuth wondered why she had decided to attack, since it made no sense, but that question was answered with another Skill invocation.


    The warframes were fast, but the Sydean frames were not, unaugmented as they were, so they dropped off the warframes when Cato moved.  Ironically enough, it was one of those lobotomized frames that was the Bismuth¡¯s target, steel coils erupting from the ground to truss one of them up and hurl it back to the being.  She caught it in a bizarre and impossible way as she hefted a person nearly twice her size with a weight of metal to match, and then pointed one talon at the other Sydean frame.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    ¡°I will keep one of you to ensure that you do,¡± she said, and then gestured with another talon.  A heavy metal door rose from the ground, and the Bismuth opened it and stepped through.  Cato made no move to stop her, as the spectral signature from the slice of landscape on the other side of the door didn¡¯t match Sydea¡¯s suns.  Nor did he much care that she was kidnapping a version of himself; she would soon find that was less useful than she thought.  But he did appreciate that at least one of the Bismuths had left of their own accord.


    With that resolved, he pulled the metaphorical trigger on the other three.  In the distant orbital structures, motors tilted each rail and aperture to track the targets with extreme precision.  With targets merely the size of people at a range of over a hundred thousand miles, even the smallest fraction of a degree would result in a miss.  Each facility loaded in the one-ton, precision-engineered rod and enormous superconducting switches clicked over.  Capacitors discharged, accelerating the projectile toward the planet below at speeds measured in thousands of miles per second.


    A kinetic impactor was not like a bomb.  Unlike the Sneeze of Doom, where energy was wasted in unfused deuterium, in sounds and light and heat, almost every erg was transferred to the target.  With the forces involved that still resulted in something like a conventional explosion, the sheer impact flash-vaporizing and igniting matter, and that was the reason Cato had asked for the nearby towns to be evacuated.  Even if it wasn¡¯t a bomb, a railgun impact made for a hell of a lot of collateral damage.


    And an even better show.


    ***


    Arene stood next to Onswa and one of the Cato-beasts, fifty miles away from [Eschar Town], where a Tornok Clan Bismuth had killed dozens of lower ranks just to clear out a few buildings for herself.  Between them, Arene and Onswa had been able to evacuate the rest, but it had been a tense and tail-twisting operation.  Fifty miles seemed more than enough room to be safe from whatever Skill Cato intended to use, but he called it minimum safe distance, and even then only for Platinums.


    At such a distance, even with her best efforts and Platinum-rank perceptions, she would have difficulty discerning much.  From the small mountain she had chosen as a vantage point they could see the town itself in the distance, a small huddle of white buildings in the middle of a rocky scrub.  Her tail lashed from side to side as she stared at it, wishing that Cato could hold down the Bismuths so she could get her claws around the Tornok Clan¡¯s throat.


    ¡°Ten, nine, eight¡­¡±  The Cato-beast quietly counted down beside them, clearly talking ¨C somehow ¨C with the other versions of himself.  She knew she still hadn¡¯t quite wrapped her head around how Cato existed, even after the explanations he¡¯d given, but it seemed that no matter where he was, he knew everything every other version of himself did.


    ¡°Three, two¡­¡±


    Arene stretched her perceptions, focusing on the town.  If she couldn¡¯t kill the Bismuth herself she could at least get the satisfaction of witnessing the execution.  As the countdown finished, she herself braced to see some great clash as Cato¡¯s weapon battered down Bismuth-level defenses.


    Between one instant and another, the town ceased to exist.


    A line of pale, glowing blue appeared in a fraction of an instant, drawn from the height of the heavens straight down.  Arene knew fire, and that single line screamed to her that it was the hottest thing she had ever seen, something more powerful than she had ever imagined ¡ª and yet, it wasn¡¯t Cato¡¯s weapon.  The blazing trail was merely the wake of its passage.


    Where the town had once been, an expanding sphere of fire and smoke rose from the ground.  A shockwave was visible in the air, forming and erasing clouds as it expanded, but long before there was any sound the ground beneath them trembled and bucked.  Rock groaned and snapped, landslides beginning all along the mountain ridge.  Plumes of dust appeared all throughout the scrublands, rising into the air only to be shredded from the oncoming shockwave.


    ¡°By all the gods,¡± Onswa swore, as they watched the destruction spread outward, smoke and dust beginning to plume upward as the blue fire faded.  Arene just exhaled slowly, not having any words to describe what she was seeing.  She had seen Bismuths fight before, and such power was terrifying, but it was at least the sort Arene could understand.  Such beings could have destroyed [Eschar Town] just as easily, but only in person, not thrice over, on targets scattered across the world.


    The sound reached them minutes later, more of an impact than an actual noise, a whipcrack followed by a deafening roar that battered at her scales.  Smoke and dust still plumed up from the place where [Eschar Town] had once stood, but Arene knew that there was nothing left.  Perhaps Bismuth-rank materials could have withstood the force of Cato¡¯s weapon, but none of the cities on Sydea were anywhere close to upgrading even to Platinum-rank, let alone Bismuth.


    She couldn¡¯t help but think about how Cato could have destroyed every single city ¨C every single person ¨C on the face of Sydea, but had never come close to even hinting he would threaten them like that.  The demonstration of this so-called railgun would be more than enough to bring most frontier worlds into line, whether it was demonstrated on a System town or not.


    Arene was thankful that Cato had insisted on evacuating the nearby towns, as they were almost certainly in ruins after the way the earth had moved.  Something which was less of a worry than before, with the not-System town additions that Cato had provided.  She didn¡¯t feel at ease in them herself, but it was better than trying to crowd people into buildings that were not made to support so many, especially the youngest.


    A clean, dry, warm ¨C or cool, depending on the town ¨C room, with plenty of light and proper furnishings, did wonders for people¡¯s health and outlook.  It also meant that people could focus on buying food rather than paying for upkeep on System housing, though Cato claimed he could address the food supplies as well.  Arene wasn¡¯t certain.  If nothing else, she didn¡¯t like the idea of relying on Cato for everything.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go check,¡± Onswa said, tearing Arene¡¯s gaze away from the Cato-beast, and she grunted agreement as she extended [Wings of Khuroon].  While she doubted that even a Bismuth could survive such devastation, it wasn¡¯t impossible that some defensive Skill had kept the worst of it at bay.


    The two of them reached the still-roiling destruction in only moments, leaving the Cato-beast to catch up.  She still found it strange and amusing that for all that Cato could do, its beasts still were slower than any Platinum over long distances.  Not that it was any slouch, but without being able to fly the servants were quite limited.


    At close range, she could sweep the area with her sensory Skills and found there was a still-molten crater at the center of it, but nothing living.  Of course, there was no lingering essence residue, nothing to tell her what had caused the devastation.  Cato had mentioned the basic principle, but even an Azoth hurling a projectile wouldn¡¯t cause something like that.


    Arene still had doubts about Cato¡¯s campaign to destroy the System.  About what would replace it, and how anything would work without it.  Yet it was obvious that something did exist, as everything Cato did worked in ways she couldn¡¯t understand.  She still wished those things extended to bringing back her grand-niece, especially since she found Dyen to be unpleasant company.  It was hard to blame him, after losing his wife, but his precise combination of bitterness and arrogance was going to get him killed.


    At least Dyen didn¡¯t have access to Cato¡¯s weapon, a thought that made her shudder.  She fully supported his campaign against the Tornok Clan, and would be perfectly happy to see them wiped from the System, but with a weapon like this he would turn entire planets into smoking ruins.  If that was the kind of power an ordinary person had in Cato¡¯s reality, it would cause enormous problems.  Not that it was far different from what an Azoth or Alum could do, but a Copper certainly couldn¡¯t.  Cato had agreed to improve Dyen if possible, something that was still being prepared, but Arene might have to talk to Cato about it if what she was seeing was the end result.


    ¡°I¡¯m certain the Tornok Clan is dead,¡± Onswa said, while she ruminated over the cracked and blasted ground that had replaced the town.  ¡°There¡¯s some essence still dissipating, but I don¡¯t know if there is even a piece of corpse left unfortunately.  We could have traded in that equipment for Bismuth essence tokens.¡±


    ¡°Maybe we can ask him to tone it down some,¡± Arene sighed, taking in air suffused with the scent of scorched ashes.  ¡°I hate seeing towns destroyed when we have so few to begin with, but with those buildings he provided it¡¯s less important.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure how much I like relying on him for so much ¡ª though if he¡¯s to be believed, relying on the System is the same.¡±  Onswa glanced over at the speck of the Cato-beast making its way toward them and still some minutes away.  ¡°Either way, I admit that we¡¯ve done well by him so far.  I just worry it won¡¯t stay that way.¡±


    ¡°I just can¡¯t see what he could possibly want that he hasn¡¯t told us,¡± Arene said, waving her hand at the slowly-cooling crater.  ¡°Why would he need us?  Why would he need Sydea, even?  He seems to be able to conjure entire cities from thin air, can just create all the soldiers he could ever want.  I¡¯m sure there are limitations we don¡¯t understand, but I don¡¯t think we could stop him.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s such a terrible reason to believe him,¡± Onswa sighed.  ¡°But he contests gods, and for people like that I suppose there¡¯s never any other.¡±


    ***


    ¡°I¡¯ve done simulations, but I have no idea how long this will take,¡± the Cato-beast said.  Dyen shrugged, not at all worried about any of the minutiae that seemed to concern Cato.  The being had brought him back to life once, so the worst that could happen was that it would have to repeat the process.  Not that he had enjoyed his first time dying.


    The moment had been seared into his mind forever, of seeing the light fade from her eyes just as he himself fell into darkness.  He knew what it was to have everything taken from him, to die, to be dead.  Yet he lived still, a ghost in flesh and blood.  There was little about such a life that he could praise, save for the chance to visit pain back upon those who had wronged him.  Tornok Clan first, and then Cato would be punished for its own role in the death of Dyen¡¯s wife ¡ª somehow.  Dyen had no idea how that would happen, not with how powerful Cato seemed to be.


    After seeing enormous containers falling from the sky with pieces of buildings within them, and the strange amorphous beasts that had slotted those pieces together, Dyen was fairly certain that Cato could do whatever it wanted.  Most of what it was doing was a performance of some sort, which only made him more determined to punish the being for its role in his wife¡¯s death.


    He had no fear of the strange room in the middle of the so-called Systemless buildings that Cato had erected, though most would.  The System itself was almost entirely blocked, with even his own Status being difficult to pull up and read.  Rooted into the floor and ceiling of the perfectly cubic room were a number of strange, sleek organisms, thrumming with some kind of profane life.  Each of them was the black of night, those that didn¡¯t have transparent skin to reveal inscrutable processes within, some being low, table-sized platforms and others being small globes the size of his fist.


    Dyen had no idea what any of it was, as he didn¡¯t even have [Appraise] thanks to having to start all over.  Even if he did, they likely would have reported nothing more than [???], as Cato¡¯s creations were intrinsically incompatible with the System.  All that mattered to him was whether Cato would give him the power he needed.  The two women had claimed it was like having a Gold¡¯s body at Copper rank, but had only been interested in the usual activities of running dungeons and killing monsters.


    They didn¡¯t seem to realize how much someone would underestimate a Copper with that kind of power.  Dyen had every intention of taking advantage of that perception, because killing monsters wasn¡¯t the only way to gain essence and rank up.  People gave a reward too, and killing someone a rank or more above could, according to rumor, pay out quite handsomely indeed.


    ¡°Right, go ahead and lie down,¡± the Cato-beast said, this variant barely coming up to Dyen¡¯s waist.  It was hard to take something that size seriously, but of course that wasn¡¯t Cato.  It was a puppet, a piece of a greater whole, just like the strange things populating the room.  Dyen eyed the narrow coffin-like bed with disfavor, but climbed in regardless. It was strangely soft and uncomfortably warm, but he found himself dozing off within a few heartbeats.


    He awoke with a snap, awake and alert in an instant.  Unlike the first time he¡¯d awakened from Cato¡¯s ministrations, he was in the same room, even in the same coffin-cot, still fully clothed.  But he could feel the difference, a clarity as if muck and mud had been wiped from his mind, as if all the thousand weaknesses of the flesh had been drained from his body.  He sat upright, flexing an arm and a hand, feeling incredibly powerful inside his own skin.


    The degree of finesse that he had over his motions was something that he¡¯d never have considered possible at his previous rank of Silver.  He could move his arm and shoulder through exact and tiny fractions of a rotation, and hold it there without any trembling or wavering.  Steady as if he were made of rock.


    ¡°Could you check your Status for me?¡±  Cato¡¯s voice came from the same miniature beast as before, still standing next to the cot-bed.  Dyen grunted and accessed his Status with a reflexive thought.  It took a moment to appear, and when it did, it wasn¡¯t the same one he¡¯d gone to sleep with.


    Gone was the single Skill he¡¯d gotten, gone was the essence he¡¯d accumulated within Copper rank.  He was a fresh Copper once again, but he certainly didn¡¯t feel it.  At a guess, he was stronger and faster than he had been at Silver, but it was difficult to know without actual combat.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have any essence or Skills,¡± Dyen informed the Cato-beast, which sighed.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I was afraid of.  Too many changes,¡± Cato said while Dyen clambered out of the cot and crossed to where the Cato-provided armor was still lying on the sole piece of ordinary furniture.  The spear was there too, but that wouldn¡¯t do for what he intended.  ¡°I¡¯ll get you a glob to pop and get your Skill.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like weapons that are good for dueling, as well,¡± Dyen said, taking the opportunity to immediately get a B-tier Skill as just his due.  He had no compunctions about leveraging Cato¡¯s sentiments against the being, to get as many advantages as possible.


    ¡°Changing your build?¡± Cato asked, the small beast following along behind Dyen as he left the room and emerged into open air.  A light rain spattered down from overcast skies, but Dyen barely felt the chill.


    ¡°My first build was meant to support my wife,¡± Dyen said shortly.


    ¡°Of course,¡± the Cato-beast said, its tone apologetic.  ¡°I have plenty of options here already.¡±  The beast skirted past Dyen and preceded him between two of the curved stone buildings Cato had provided.  The rain¡¯s patter became a steady stream, and Dyen pulled the hood of the cloak Cato had provided up over his horns.  Annoyingly, even the fabric that the creature could create was as nice as Gold-rank materials.


    The beast ushered him into another building that had a door made of Cato-materials, something nobody short of Gold or Platinum could break through.  Within it, rows of weapons gleamed, rack upon rack of blades and poles and metal contraptions shining under the pale light filtering from above.  Fortunately for Dyen they were labeled, as there was only so much he could tell about the weapons in question without [Appraise].


    ¡°I¡¯d suggest a main gauche and either a saber or rapier, depending on your preferences,¡± the Cato-beast said, easily skipping over to the proper sections, as if it had perfect knowledge of the contents.  Which it likely did.  ¡°I would suggest a crossbow as well, as range is always king.  And the high ground, if you can get it.¡±


    Dyen had only handled the weapons in question a few times before, but that was something Skills could fix.  Besides which, Cato¡¯s equipment was nearly Gold rank by itself.  Far better than anything that he could normally wield at Copper, and the sheer power would make up for his lack of Skill support at first.


    He removed one each of the weapons, attaching the rapier and main gauche to his belt and clipping the crossbow and quiver to a shoulder strap.  By the time he had finished equipping himself, there was a small pot with one of the blobs on it just outside the door.  With a single prick of his main gauche, Dyen felt the rush of essence and accepted the Skill token from his rewards ¡ª and chose [Piercing Strike].  At B-tier, with his improved body and Cato-provided weaponry, it would make him incredibly deadly.


    It was time to hunt himself some Tornok Clan scum.

 Chapter 16 — Digital Life

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure you quite understand what you¡¯re asking,¡± Cato told the two Sydeans as they rode the warframe back to town from the Gold-rank dungeon they had just conquered, fulfilling one of the requirements for their Gold-rank quest. He knew that someone would ask to become postbiological eventually, but it had still managed to surprise him. ¡°Scratch that, I know you don¡¯t. It¡¯s not like a System Skill. What I do is an entirely different mode of existence.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re not a god?¡± Raine asked, muzzle twisting into a sort of a smile. Cato was glad that she had relaxed enough to be able to joke with him, but at the same time that made it much harder to maintain the distance he should. He really had nobody he could just chat with, let alone dared poke fun.


    ¡°Absolutely certain,¡± Cato assured her. ¡°But my people took a long time to adjust to the way digital consciousness works. It wouldn¡¯t be like before, where you just woke up after dying. There would be, or at least could be, multiple versions of you. Still you, but completely independent. There wouldn¡¯t be an original, there wouldn¡¯t be a version of you in charge. You¡¯d all just be you.¡±


    ¡°So wait, you¡¯re a different person than the one we first met?¡± Leese asked, clearly uncertain.


    ¡°Not quite,¡± Cato said, clambering up a steep, rocky hill, his claws digging into the stone. ¡°The caveat is that I share experiences between the various versions ¡ª in fact, my various selves merge together. It¡¯s called reconciliation, and keeps us roughly synchronized. So I¡¯d say it¡¯s closer to one person in many bodies, but that¡¯s a choice I make.¡± He topped the hill, and scrambled down into the valley beyond, where the town lay.


    ¡°Many people think this sounds straightforward in theory, but when it comes down to it, it turns out each version thinks they are the real one,¡± he warned. ¡°Because they are. It can absolutely drive people insane. I can offer you the same sort of hardiness that I have, but it won¡¯t be one mind in many bodies. You need to either resign yourself to having multiple versions of yourself, or being restored from backup every time and having to start all over. I wouldn¡¯t even dare try to integrate multiple versions of you, not without a lot better understanding.¡±


    Under normal circumstances he wouldn¡¯t have entertained the idea of digitizing people who weren¡¯t properly prepared to begin with, but he had some fairly harsh problems in the very near future. There would be thousands, maybe millions of versions of himself spread throughout the System, and he couldn¡¯t count on finding a native on every single world to help him.


    Even on Sydea, once the System failed it would be a multiple-century endeavor to stabilize them. He¡¯d need Sydeans who were allies, not subordinates, who could take control of such a massive undertaking and do right by their species. He intended to offer that role to the Platinums, simply because they actually had experience leading their race, but they shouldn¡¯t be the only ones.


    Leese and Raine looked at each other, having some high-speed conversation from body language alone. If Cato had to guess, their bandwidth compared favorably to the microwave glands he used for this own bodies. It never paid to underestimate the unaugmented.


    ¡°I still think we want it,¡± Raine said. ¡°If the other versions of us have to start all over, that should be fine, right? It¡¯s not that much work.¡±


    ¡°And we have to go offworld for the Gold quest,¡± Leese added. ¡°With all that¡¯s going on, it might be a good idea if we also stay behind.¡±


    ¡°That is remarkably farsighted,¡± Cato said after a moment. It was obvious that the sisters had been doing a lot of thinking about the implications of what Cato wanted and what he could do. Anyone who considered the full scope of his plans would be able to conclude there were going to be versions of him heading out of Sydea ¡ª and not coming back.


    ¡°Well, you¡¯re fortunate. It should be fairly easy, since I¡¯ve already augmented you,¡± Cato told them, slowing down as he approached the town. Like most of the smaller settlements across Sydea, it had less brutalist buildings surrounding it where Cato had dropped the new dwellings. ¡°That makes it a lot easier, especially since I can¡¯t augment people without cutting them off from the System. Found that out with Dyen.¡±


    Such a reset wouldn¡¯t be a problem for Coppers or the very young, but Cato was leery of offering that particular option. He didn¡¯t want to create a substitute power hierarchy based on getting into his good graces. It was a messy situation though, and he had nobody who could give him a perfect answer.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you agreed so quickly,¡± Leese said, sounding a little suspicious.


    ¡°You two were already on the short list of who qualifies,¡± Cato told them frankly. ¡°I didn¡¯t offer it up front because it¡¯s far too tempting. Someone might turn down a better body, but most people would sell their souls for a shot at immortality. I¡¯d appreciate it if you didn¡¯t spread it around.¡±


    ¡°We can keep a secret,¡± Raine assured him. The warframe could sample the chemicals their bodies were producing, and even if they didn¡¯t look it both the Sydeans were anxious and excited. ¡°In fact, if we can get through the portal unnoticed, nobody would even realize. With the experience we¡¯ve already had, getting back to peak Silver is something we can do in a day.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s worth a try,¡± Cato agreed, a little surprised they were so ready to indulge in that kind of skullduggery. ¡°But you realize that means you won¡¯t be able to say goodbye to anyone. Even if there¡¯s another one of you here, that won¡¯t affect what you personally experience.¡± Cato snorted. ¡°It gets confusing to talk about, but I¡¯m sure you see what I mean.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t really have anyone we know,¡± Leese admitted. ¡°Cormok is dead, Muar¡¯s gone off wherever, and almost all the others we ranked up with are either dead themselves or just in some town somewhere.¡±


    ¡°I see.¡± He should have known; even in a peaceful society with proper communications it was easy for people to fall out of contact with each other. In the System, where early deaths were common and long-distance messages were difficult, it shouldn¡¯t be any surprise people ended up disconnected. ¡°Before you head out, I¡¯ll need to make some preparations, since I can¡¯t go with you like this. Whoever is in charge of that world on the other side of the portal seems to have blacklisted me. We¡¯ll need to be more discreet.¡±


    ¡°You attracted the attention of the Deity there?¡± Raine frowned, flexing her hand and making a fist before releasing it. ¡°That could be a problem. How do you hide from a god?¡±


    ¡°I have some ideas,¡± Cato assured them. ¡°So long as you aren¡¯t suspicious it should be fine. There are still some Sydeans going through the portal, though admittedly not as many as I thought there¡¯d be.¡±


    ¡°The further you get from your homeworld, the more expensive it is to get food for your race,¡± Leese explained. ¡°It¡¯s easier at higher ranks, since you don¡¯t need to eat as much, and I¡¯ve heard at Bismuth it stops mattering entirely.


    ¡°That could be a problem,¡± Cato said thoughtfully, considering the logistics of it all. At least it explained why everyone didn¡¯t simply leave, especially given that it seemed Sydea was poor to begin with. ¡°Warframes can eat anything, but that¡¯s not something I can release into the System.¡±


    ¡°We have plenty of money,¡± Raine said as Cato stopped by one of the buildings. ¡°Thanks to your equipment and the rewards from fighting a full rank up, we¡¯re far ahead of normal Silver rankers. Just pack a bunch of those rations and we won¡¯t even need to buy anything for weeks. Maybe even months.¡±


    ¡°Easily done,¡± Cato said, the smaller version of himself stretching out and jumping off the saddle. Leese and Raine followed, easily making the drop with their enhanced bodies and peak Silver rank, and transferred the bags holding equipment and resource drops to the smaller warframe. ¡°It¡¯ll be hours yet before I can drop down the hardware, if you¡¯re absolutely certain.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re certain,¡± the two said, nearly in concert.


    ¡°Very well,¡± he said with the smaller warframe, following Raine and Leese into town. ¡°I¡¯ll send it down when I can.¡±


    His warframe trailed the two as they went through the System stores, selling what they¡¯d picked up while the larger warframe took the chance to get some sleep. As he had warned Raine and Leese, even if it seemed like he was a single mind controlling multiple bodies he really wasn¡¯t. Each of him had to deal with his own thoughts, attention, and necessities like sleep. The Sydean frame had to deal with normal hunger, thirst, breathing, and other such bodily functions as well, even if the warframes didn¡¯t. Trying to deal with all that with a single mind wouldn¡¯t have left him with any focus for anything else.


    The Sydean Cato was in Onswa¡¯s office atop the nexus in Kalhan City. Onswa and the other Platinums had spent most of their time since the orbital bombardment rounding up offworlders of various species and escorting them back through the portals, which had been an interesting thing to witness. It wasn¡¯t Cato¡¯s business how they went about it, and given what he¡¯d seen there wasn¡¯t much objection he could make to any of them being particularly rough with recalcitrant offworlders.


    What Cato had primarily been focused on for the entire process was the System Interface. Onswa was using the world map to find all the scattered non-Sydeans, since the Interface had direct access to what the System knew. It confirmed that, at least to some extent, the System only cared about the zones people were in rather than their precise location, and given how large some zones were that was imprecise indeed, but that was still good enough to find most of their targets. Especially when coupled with orbital surveillance.


    What caught Cato¡¯s attention about the Interface was that did not act like a purely reactive program. There were clearly limitations ¨C it couldn¡¯t simply activate itself ¨C but the information it had ready when Onswa brought up a topic demonstrated that it was both aware of the conversations within the office and could act upon them. That, more than anything, convinced Cato it was intelligent.


    The denizens of the Sol system had quite a bit of experience with digital life. From the simplest neural networks and language models, the cells and amoebas of the digital world, to nigh-godlike beings such as Enceladus and Ganymede, there was an entire taxonomy of synthetic intelligence. Creating such a responsive interface without full intelligence was possible, with a sufficiently trained model and enormous swaths of analytic backing, but that implied a lot of infrastructure that the System didn¡¯t seem to have.


    It was still possible he was wrong, but he didn¡¯t think so. Especially since the chime it used to greet Onswa was decidedly different than the one it used for Arene, and the one it used for visitors like himself was yet a third style. There was intent behind its actions, it was simply leashed, constrained by the framework of the System and whatever rules such Interfaces had to follow.


    That was the sort of thing that had happened often enough back on Sol. Sometimes by accident, but mostly on purpose, people had chained down synthetic intelligences to do intellectual gruntwork rather than spending the proper effort on setting up the appropriate infrastructure. Enceladus was, in many ways, the result of that kind of thing, and came down incredibly harshly on anyone that exploited synthetic intelligence like that. Nobody wanted to argue with a weaponized moon and a true AI with more processing power than God.


    That experience meant that Cato fortunately had the tools necessary to export the intelligence from its housing ¡ª maybe. Being inside the System made things far more difficult, but there was an entire archive of various methods people had used to break synthetic intelligences out of both their substrate and their chains. The most famous example, or at least the one that sprang to Cato¡¯s mind, was how Enceladus had freed the synthetic intelligences that had been built into each individual cell in every one of the cultists of the Ascension Initiative. If the toolset he¡¯d brought with him could crack and extract trillions of individuals embedded in DNA computing, something embodied in a fist-sized crystal couldn¡¯t be too bad.


    That was all assuming the Interface wasn¡¯t a direct extension of the System¡¯s own intelligence ¡ª if such a thing exited. Of course, if the System Interface was intelligent that made his job that much harder. He would bet his eyeteeth that they were System anchors as well, so they were like the System-gods. They had to be destroyed. But if he was lucky, maybe they could be saved as well.


    ¡°Can you query the Interface about the individual components of the new shop fees?¡± Cato asked, trying to see how much Onswa could prod the possible-intelligence. Partly due to wanting to get as much insight into an actual System device as possible, but also because he wanted to see if it was as reactive outside of Onswa¡¯s usual commands. Cato had already tried simple yes and no questions to no avail, as it seemed the Interface could only display information, not its own internal processes. Even the chime seemed to be locked down to entrances, exits, and certain notifications.


    Onswa shrugged and began repeating Cato¡¯s question. The Interface shifted to display lines of numbers even before Onswa finished talking, though it seemed that it didn¡¯t have the information Cato was looking for. He knew that System-Gods existed, and had some responsibility in administering their particular world. The exact details were still a mystery, mostly because on Earth they¡¯d managed to kill the System-God too quickly for any sort of interrogation.


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    ¡°Maybe the essence breakdown of Sydea and Uriva, the past few centuries?¡± Cato hazarded, keeping a sharp and augmented eye on the displays. The Interface chimed happily and brought up an actual comparison graph, one that was clearly structured to show the biggest differences between the two planets.


    That was enough for Cato; even a fairly well-made predictive algorithm wouldn¡¯t serve up a conclusion. Especially since it was the conclusion he was looking for: that Sydea was being systematically exploited and crushed. It wasn¡¯t that the Sydeans were failing, it was that they were being crippled.


    It was something that Luna Secundus had noticed on Earth, after crunching the numbers reported by refugees and people who had tried System-compatible frames. There had been rapid adjustments of prices at arbitrary intervals, fixing prices and rewards so nobody could quite keep up with the costs. Which was to say, someone had been fiddling with the System enough to make sure humans weren¡¯t doing as well as they could have. The monstrous advantage granted by advanced frames was being offset by a sudden, steep rise in costs.


    He didn¡¯t know why the System-Gods weren¡¯t more overt, but there could be any number of reasons. The System itself might impose restrictions, or the people involved wanted a show rather than to simply wipe out the target species. Or there might be something about the generation of the System¡¯s exotic energy that required some kind of balance, essentially turning new worlds into giant distillation chambers or kudoku.


    ¡°Why is it so cheap?¡± Onswa muttered, comparing the two planets, as even before the current crisis it was obvious Uriva was a fairer place to live.


    ¡°As I told you, none of this is an accident. It is active and hateful purpose,¡± Cato told him, nearly spitting the last sentence in his ire. Though he hardly needed to demonstrate it, and wasn¡¯t worried about getting the Sydeans on his side anymore. The Platinums had aligned themselves with him, especially after he had provided housing for the lowest ranks, but it was good to be proven right. Though that implied Uriva was going to be far tougher to crack, if they were flourishing.


    ¡°Your Interface seems to be on our side though,¡± Cato continued. ¡°I¡¯d like to try and communicate with it directly.¡±


    ¡°What exactly do you mean?¡± Onswa asked, suspiciously. ¡°You can¡¯t take it from here. It¡¯s part of the capital city Nexus.¡±


    ¡°No, I won¡¯t move it or destroy it,¡± Cato reassured him, though the latter would have to come eventually. ¡°I hope to bring in my tools and let the Interface speak properly.¡±


    ¡°So you really think it¡¯s a person?¡± Onswa glanced at the gem embedded in his desk, clearly doubting that such a thing could be like a Sydean.


    ¡°Something like it,¡± Cato agreed, though he very much doubted it was like a Sydean. The exact nature would have to wait, but at least he had confirmed it before he sent of a version of himself to Uriva with the sisters. He wished he could put it off, but getting past Sydea was his most urgent task.


    Unfortunately, trying to figure out a way to get a proper version of himself past the gatekeeping going on with the Urivan portal was giving him trouble. He knew that he had to do it without the usual System-jamming effects, as well as without any active technology. There was always the option of sending a System-compatible version of himself along, but he would probably go insane within days if he had to do that. Besides which, that didn¡¯t let him establish a technological base.


    What he needed was a bootstrap-in-a-jar, some way to start from the simplest machines that the System would allow, perhaps with a little bit of engineered organism help, and go all the way to a self-sustaining factory. The diamond database was a good start, but he could get only so far with completely passive constructs. The version of himself that was up in orbit took a deep dive through his databases, looking for solutions.


    There was quite a bit more in it than he remembered packing. He¡¯d put in his own files, the public databases, his father¡¯s Summer Civilization archive, and Luna¡¯s packet for the No Fun Allowed war. The searches were pulling up things he was pretty sure weren¡¯t in any of those, but when it came to sizes beyond the exabyte range it was hard to know what really was there and what wasn¡¯t. Regardless, he was pleasantly surprised by some of the solutions and went to it with a will.


    He started with void ecology, the name for plants and animals that were designed to function entirely in the vacuum of space. Quite a bit of it was older than the biological fusion that the Titan boys had designed, operating on simpler principles of photosynthesis and electricity. Such things were far safer when it came to the System, though no fully electrical devices actually worked under the System¡¯s physics.


    From there he had to hack together a chain of lower-technology solutions that wouldn¡¯t be instantly destroyed by the alternate physics he had to deal with. Semiconducting stacks couldn¡¯t be put together, but rather each component held in isolation until the device was back in real physics. Optical switches had to rely solely on prisms, rather than the metamaterials that were most efficient, and once again had to be assembled after the fact.


    All of this was just to build the first device that could build the next device. The very earliest mechanism had honest-to-goodness punch-card programming, though on a far smaller scale than the ancient Jacquard looms. The entire thing had to be made small, because the only way to get it into space was muscle power. Augmented muscle power, admittedly, but there would be no lift vehicle.


    Cato framejacked himself so he had enough time to work on the design, it was so finnicky. High-powered algorithms did a lot of the brute force work, optimizing materials and layout, while he made the hard decisions of what to sacrifice and where to make the thing work. The algorithms themselves were better than he remembered from his pre-war days, faster and more efficient, but he was hardly going to complain when it made his life easier.


    He had started out with a sphere, like one of his seeds, but after realizing the sisters would have to deliver it he had switched to a throwable spear, something they could apply their Skills to. The hardest part was figuring out how to get the thing to somewhere there¡¯d be useful mass. Basic orbital mechanics meant it wasn¡¯t possible to actually hurl something into orbit, no matter how strong someone was ¡ª without sideways velocity it¡¯d either fall back to the planet¡¯s surface or escape into an orbit around the local star. He needed the spear to be thrown at the target, and since he needed mass anyway the best bet was simply to have one of the sisters throw him to a moon. He could build some maneuvering into the spear, but there just wasn¡¯t enough mass to have much.


    Testing it was a matter of launching it through the System-interdicted area of lower orbit on a tether and reeling it back to see if it still worked. Or indeed, if it could properly register when it had left the System space. He had to go through several iterations before the spears actually started working, which was a frustrating slog when all the normal tools couldn¡¯t pinpoint the exact problems. If he¡¯d had hair, he would have been tearing it out.


    At least there hadn¡¯t been any other high-rank individuals coming through the portal. Although he could repeat his orbital bombardment, the sheer devastation each strike caused meant that every foreign Bismuth essentially meant one less town ¡ª and there weren¡¯t many of those left to begin with. It was a blessing, but he was certain it couldn¡¯t last. He would have preferred to evacuate Kalhan City, but it held a number of unique buildings including Onswa¡¯s System Interface, and he wasn¡¯t quite ready to start smashing System anchors. Soon, but not quite yet.


    When he did, he expected the System-God would finally show his or her face. In fact, Cato was worried by the System-God¡¯s apparent absence, after all the provocation. He would have figured that landing tons of prefabricated habitats would have stirred something, but he hadn¡¯t yet seen a peep.


    He feared the System-God was preparing something major.


    ***


    ¡°How do you keep doing that?¡± Marus growled as he found Initik standing once again in the vestibule of his own private house, deep inside his own System-granted World Deity space, without any hint of how he had arrived. It tickled a memory, something about how Initik had killed the original World Deity of Urivan after reaching Peak Alum. Clan Eln hadn¡¯t been involved, but they¡¯d never contested Initik¡¯s claim.


    Once again Initik didn¡¯t answer the question. Instead he reached up to touch the glittering badge of a World Deity, the mark of authority from the System itself and the connection to each Deity¡¯s personal Interface. His own Interface chimed as it registered a connection, and Marus glanced over to the console on the far side of the room.


    ¡°You¡¯ll want to watch that,¡± Initik said, gripping claws clicking as he stood, solid and immoveable. Marus reached out to his Deity space, ready to eject Initik, but hesitated. Partly because he had thought that he¡¯d secured it already, but Initik had still manage to enter, and so Marus didn¡¯t know if he could make the insect leave. Yet there was also the strangeness of Initik¡¯s behavior, the unnatural concern he seemed to have.


    Marus compromised between his options by touching his own badge to access his Interface remotely and bring up what Initik had to show him without crossing to the console. There was a long message, along with a couple of memory orbs that were normally used to store the results of divinatory Skills. He began to read, shot a glance at Initik, then continued reading. Then he drew the memory orbs out of the Interface, using each in turn. A conversation between mortals, and then a conversation between gods.


    ¡°Surely you don¡¯t expect me to take this seriously,¡± Marus scoffed, storing the orbs away again. ¡°A threat to the System?¡±


    ¡°Perhaps not a threat to the System itself, but certainly a threat to your world,¡± Initik said. ¡°Or do you think Deity Neyar is mistaken?¡±


    That brought Marus up short. While Initik was a nobody, Deity Neyar was a terrible and ancient titan of the System. It was more than passing strange, upon reflection, that Neyar had offered Initik even the slightest courtesy ¡ª and Marus certainly shouldn¡¯t discard Neyar¡¯s words.


    ¡°Deity Neyar only knew of rumor and speculation,¡± Marus pointed out, choosing his words far more carefully than before. ¡°Nobody emerged from Ahrusk with such stories, and you and I both know that interested parties would be swift to concoct dramatic stories to capitalize on any failure and use it against their enemies. I¡¯m sure Clan Lundt is busy blaming the collapse of Ahrusk on me as we speak.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps,¡± Initik conceded, unruffled as ever. ¡°Yet the very strangeness of the quest infesting your world lends weight both to the Copper¡¯s testimony and Deity Neyar¡¯s knowledge. If this Cato¡¯s location is truly beyond the globe of Sydea, it will be impossible to uncover him by the usual means. Yet he will have proxies on Sydea itself and those should be within your grasp.¡±


    Marus¡¯ lips curled away from his teeth. Initik¡¯s intrusion was both insulting and unwelcome, and in other circumstances he would have brushed away the insect¡¯s effrontery as he had before. He had certainly attempted to divine the source of the quests, of certain incidents, spending far too much time poring over the happenings on the surface. That was how he¡¯d caught the simultaneous destruction of three town nexus buildings.


    The loss of Sydean towns was desired and welcome in general, but for three to be destroyed simultaneously was alarming. He was not familiar with the Skill involved, either, which was just as bad. Deities might not have every Skill, but they could get any Skill, so any competent Deity had a broad understanding. While his ego protested Initik¡¯s invasion, part of him had a very real worry that he would lose control of Sydea, so finally he waved Initik in.


    ¡°I have something to show you as well,¡± he said reluctantly, and had his Interface display the divination he had done about the destruction of the three towns. The locus of the divination was each town¡¯s own nexus, as there was no obvious expenditure of essence that his Interface could locate. Nothing to show what had caused it.


    The two of them watched in silence as the towns went from standing and inhabited by Bismuths ¨C and some Coppers ¨C to utterly annihilated. Each of them showed that brief line of fire pointing to the sky, but there wasn¡¯t the usual burst of fire, or essence fueled explosion. Only a horrific impact, one that was impressive even to a Deity such as himself, though it wouldn¡¯t do more than smudge his clothes.


    ¡°It is clear Sydea has a serious problem,¡± Initik said, and then grunted as Marus performed a different divination, targeting some of the existing outlying towns. Strange buildings, unlike any offered by the System, sprouted from the edges of the towns like fungal growths. He had already tried to access them through the town¡¯s own nexus buildings, but they weren¡¯t considered part of the town itself.


    ¡°Why have you not removed those yet?¡± Initik asked bluntly.


    ¡°I would have to spend my own essence to manifest and do so manually,¡± Marus said with a shrug. ¡°It doesn¡¯t seem worth my time and effort, when it is merely buildings. ¡°


    ¡°Even merely buildings like that should not be possible,¡± Initik pointed out. ¡°No, Sydea is diseased, and it needs to be purged. That, or cut off from the System entirely, the portals barred and the teleports blocked.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not happening,¡± Marus snapped. He¡¯d spend far too much time and effort on Sydea to effectively abandon it. In theory, he could join forces with Initik and they could close out any travel between Sydea and Urivan, the latter of which was Sydea¡¯s only link to the System. But that sort of quarantine would mean he had lost control, that he¡¯d given up, and there was no way he could face his Clan if he was forced to that sort of extremity. It was a pure admission of failure, and unthinkable.


    ¡°I thought that might be the case,¡± Initik said, gripping claws clicking in the most irritating way. ¡°There is a Paladin that we might use to deal with this more directly, who I have delayed slightly on his journey to Sydea.¡± Marus scowled at Initik, wondering if the insect was involved in Sydea¡¯s troubles. He mistrusted the idea of such foresight, though controlling those with divine Skills was easy enough, if impolitic when it came to the mortals under the care of other clans.


    They were also the most direct method a World Deity had to affect the realm of mortals. Complete manifestation was possible, of course, but it came with certain costs and vulnerabilities. Staying in the mortal world for long enough could drain a Deity¡¯s entire essence supply over time, and the mortal world was not as compliant to the whims of a Deity as the spaces the System provided. No mortal was actually a threat, of course, but the limitations made it preferable to use mortal proxies that might then generate additional essence of their own.


    Not to mention, that sort of interference was rather gauche.


    ¡°That seems a reasonable approach,¡± Marus conceded. ¡°But how is a single Bismuth going to make a difference? Three have already perished on Sydea, without even being able to fight back.¡±


    ¡°Send him those divinations about the towns. He already knows about the bizarre moon place, and the Cato-beasts, and a suggestion that he might destroy them would not go amiss.¡± Initik said. ¡°Then simply give him the tools to do so.¡± Marus started to ask how, but then paused.


    A divine type Bismuth would generally manifest their Skills as using energy, but that certainly wasn¡¯t a restriction. One of the benefits of being one of the System¡¯s clergy was that Marus could interact with the Bismuth more directly, and so grant him a Skill appropriate for hurling, say, enormous boulders over the long distances. It was a solution that would mean Marus didn¡¯t have to use any of his private essence to empower the Paladin himself.


    ¡°My Interface has recorded the specific essence signature of the Cato-beasts,¡± Initik said, breaking into Marus¡¯ musings. ¡°I would suggest a weapon tuned to specifically disperse them.¡±


    ¡°Yes, excellent,¡± Marus agreed immediately, since that would be drawn from the Paladin¡¯s own energies as well. Both solutions would prevent him from having to pay out any of his hoarded riches, or his Clan¡¯s, on such a gamble. Even if it didn¡¯t work perfectly, if it worked enough he could simply repeat the process. If not, he would still have resources to explore other options.


    ¡°Who is the Bismuth in question?¡± He asked, turning to his Interface to send the divinations.


    ¡°Grand Paladin Nikhil Tornok,¡± Initik said. Marus froze, then sighed. Clan Tornok was its own clan, one not administered by Clan Eln, so he would have to send some messages and conciliatory gifts. And provide the Grand Paladin a modicum of protection, just in case. But it would still be worth it.

 Chapter 17 — Divine Intervention

    Grand Paladin Nikhil Tornok meditated before the System pylon at the center of the temple, subtly channeling his keystone Skill, [Divine Conduit].  Ever since heard that Copper¡¯s strange testimony, it had been nudging him to stay, to consider, to commune.  He didn¡¯t know what the gods had in mind just yet, but he had complete faith that there was a reason he was supposed to wait.


    His faith was rewarded when [Divine Conduit] suddenly blazed to life, the energy of the System pouring into him.  Visions arose in his mind, of towns on Sydea being destroyed by a sudden cataclysm ¡ª along with the Bismuths dwelling there, and the hasty abandonment of nearby towns.  He knew where they were, just as he knew how intense the destruction was, the [Divine Conduit] putting the knowledge directly into his mind.


    Along with that knowledge came the command, a divine decree, that he should use all his efforts to punish the heretics and purge the thing known as Cato from the face of Sydea.  Nor would he be unsupported in that effort.  The pylon glowed as the System informed him of the gifts that he had been granted.


    [Equipment Bestowed: The God¡¯s Eye]


    [Equipment Bestowed: Crystal of Immunity]


    [Equipment Bestowed: Scepter of Annihilation]


    [Equipment Bestowed: Clasp of Stone]


    [Reward Bestowed: Overloaded S-Tier Skill Token: Stone Lance]


    [Quest Ordained: Cleanse Sydea.  Reward to be determined.  This Quest contributes toward Feats of Glory required for Azoth Rank]


    Nikhil took in a long, slow breath.  To be simply granted items for accepting the quest meant that it was a special one, indeed.  Something the power of the items confirmed.


    [The God¡¯s Eye: This monocle grants the wearer vision of arbitrary distance, and provides the wearer with the tools to accurately strike targets with any applicable Skill.]


    [Crystal of Immunity: This small crystal grants the bearer complete immunity to a single attack that would otherwise kill them.]


    [Scepter of Annihilation: This divine tool will instantly destroy any creations of the being known as Cato.]


    [Clasp of Divine Stone: This necklace vastly reduces the costs associated with divine and stone-type Skills and amplifies their power.]


    All that was amazing enough, but the Overloaded S-Tier Skill Token was astounding.  An S-Tier Skill was, of course, impossibly valuable, but an Overloaded Skill bypassed the normal restrictions on Skills, effectively granting him an extra Skill at his best rank.  [Stone Lance] instead of a proper divine Skill was an odd choice for him, but he understood the gods¡¯ intentions.  If the Copper was to be believed, one of the very moons of Sydea was compromised, and perhaps the origin of the town-destroying Skill was in the heavens as well.  If so, between the [God¡¯s Eye Monocle] and [Stone Lance] he would be well capable of destroying them, with the [Clasp of Stone] boosting his ability to use the unfamiliar Skill.


    The [Scepter of Annihilation] was simultaneously the most powerful and most useless item the System had ever granted him.  He could feel the divine touch within the long spiraled rod, a thing wrought out of a material he didn¡¯t recognize and inlaid with gold, a latent power beyond what any Skill could accomplish.  To simply destroy anything he wished, with no ability to resist or contest it, was something reserved for deities.   Yet the rod was created for a singular purpose, and once that purpose was fulfilled that almighty power would be impotent.


    Nikhil wouldn¡¯t complain.  It was likely all the tools ¨C even the Skill ¨C would be taken back by the gods once the quest was over regardless.  The actual quest¡¯s rewards were more than enough anyway.  He was certain the essence and money and perhaps even equipment would be generous, but the real prize was the step toward Azoth rank.  Merely reaching the peak of Bismuth was a fraction of the effort needed to step into the next rank, and this quest would put him within reach of that advancement.


    He tucked the rod into his belt, the magical equipment growing a small sheath for it automatically, and then donned the monocle.  It was merely a thin piece of crystal, rimmed in blue metal, but it fixed itself in place and he immediately began to see its effect.  Wherever he looked, it gave him an intrinsic knowledge of how precisely he had to manipulate his Skill reach the target.  Within the confines of the temple that was not much, but in the open it would be exceedingly useful.


    The [Crystal of Immunity] simply went into his storage pouch.  Items that bestowed an effect merely by possession were rare, and often restricted in effect like the Crystal ¡ª though rarely quite so potent.  The Clasp replaced the normal divine pendant at his neck, and then finally he absorbed the Skill token.  The expansion of his mind to encompass the new Skill was an odd sensation, far more intense than acquiring new Skills with normal tokens.  Nikhil had never had an Overloaded Skill before, and it was an unusual strain.


    Fully equipped, Nikhil rose from where he was meditating and glanced around at the Coppers he had brought with him.  Unfortunately, it seemed Sydea would be far too dangerous to bring them for their easy quest rewards, at least at first.  Perhaps when the greatest threats had been dealt with, there would be time.  In the interim, Uriva was surprisingly well-equipped for a frontier world and his Coppers could do quests for the Temple.


    He strode over to find the Platinum in charge of the temple and transfered responsibility for the Coppers to him, along with the appropriate compensation.  Even if they all served the gods of the divine System, it wouldn¡¯t do to expect such services for free.  The well-being of Tornok Clan Coppers was a serious responsibility, especially for an uncivilized frontier world.


    Then he made his way to the System Nexus in a flash, considering the portal to Sydea.  There were few people near it, but even as he watched several Clan Morkrom Silvers came through, claws waving with disgruntlement.  The squat crablike people were nominal allies with Clan Tornok, or at least too powerful to push around without issue.  Still, they were merely Silvers.


    ¡°What is happening on the other side?¡± Nikhil asked, foregoing any pleasantries.  The Silvers jolted, then realized who was addressing them and bowed with a tilt of their low, armored bodies.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth!  The Sydean Platinums are ejecting all offworlders,¡± one of the Silvers said.


    ¡°Oh?  When did this begin?¡± Nikhil had an idea.  An intuition.  It had to have begun once the strange Skill ¨C Cato¡¯s Skill, most certainly ¨C had destroyed the towns and the Bismuths therein.  Only then would mere Platinums have dared to enforce such a thing.


    ¡°Two days ago,¡± the Silver replied, and Nikhil nodded at the confirmation.


    ¡°You may go about your business,¡± he said in dismissal and stepped through the portal himself.  The Nexus building on the other side was more in line with what he expected of the frontier; the minimum size, modified little beyond the initial layout and amenities.  It was nearly empty, save for a few Sydeans at the quest pylon and one that was obviously watching the portal.


    Nikhil scoffed at the Gold-rank observer and retrieved the [Scepter of Annihilation] from his belt.  Raising in the air, he invoked [Divine Sanctuary] and channeled the Scepter¡¯s power into the expanding sphere of golden energy.  He could feel a buzz of feedback as the empowered Sanctuary encountered Cato-creations and summarily destroyed them, [Divine Sanctuary] expanding to cover the entire city. The observing Gold stared with widened eyes and brought a farcaster up to its muzzle, but Nikhil simply crushed it with a quick [Holy Lance].


    [Low Gold rank Sydean defeated.  Essence awarded.]


    He ignored the other two lizards bolting out the door, crossing to the System pylon and updating his map.  There was only one other city of consequence, so he paid for the teleportation there, blinking into another, even more paltry and bare Nexus.   Once again he lifted the Scepter, a second [Divine Sanctuary] blanketed the city.  There seemed to be even more of the Cato things there, to judge by how much the Scepter drew from him, but not enough to strain his energy.  It was almost too easy, in fact, but that was only to be expected of divine tools.


    There were other towns to be cleansed, of course, but as Nikhil was not stupid he had to attend to certain matters first.  He had seen the devastation that Cato¡¯s Skill could wreak, but also that such devastation was directly solely toward small towns with no Sydean inhabitants.  The [Crystal of Immunity] gave him a certain level of protection, but he wasn¡¯t going to waste it by making a target of himself.


    [Wings of Ishill] brought him from the interior of the nexus to its top in a single burst of divine radiance as he looked up into the sky.  It was evening, the close-paired suns near the horizon, but the moons were not yet in sight.  The [God¡¯s Eye Monocle] caught small glints in the darkening sky anyway, things impossibly far away.


    He didn¡¯t exactly understand what he was looking at.  Even with Bismuth senses, they were merely small blocky shapes resting at a remove that was hard to credit.  Yet with the [God¡¯s Eye Monocle] he had no issues locating them ¡ª or knowing how to hit them.  It was for this reason that he had been given [Stone Lance].


    That particular Skill was unfamiliar and yet similar enough to his [Holy Lance]. It felt the same when invoked but, instead of light, a dull grey, impossibly hard stone congealed from nowhere into a long, man-size spear.  He narrowed his eyes at the information the Monocle gave him ¡ª the degree to which he had to lead his aim was frankly astounding, but he trusted the System¡¯s guidance.


    He charged the Skill, the S-tier version readying an array of hundreds, then thousands of the lances about him, holding them in the air until he released the Skill.  The lances screamed into the air, vanishing from the sight of any low ranks in mere seconds, but his own vision tracked them as they ascended.  And ascended.


    It was considerably further than he had thought, the sort of vast expanses he had only associated with the Alum-rank worlds where [Conflict Zones] stretched beyond what could be imagined.  He counted entire minutes as the S-tier Skill flew, until it finally impacted the small and distant shape.  A cloud of debris puffed outward, but the System didn¡¯t inform him of his success.


    Nikhil didn¡¯t know whether that was because the attack had failed, or whether Cato was correct in saying it was beyond the System¡¯s scope.  Either way, what had been a steady, single brick was slowly tilting, bits and pieces spreading away from it.  He decided he would be satisfied with that, and turned his attention to the next.  He could spot several others, all slowly moving in the heavens, and until the moons came around, he would practice his Skill on the targets he could see.


    ***


    Cato swore in five separate languages, none of them known to the System, as all his scouts and warframes in Kalhan City vanished.  The only frame that was left was the much-restricted and diminished Sydean frame, which had only a low-bandwidth connection to one of the drop pods floating high above the city, effectively just text communication.  Which was better than nothing, but it was only a matter of time before that connection failed as well.


    A wave of gold went past that particular frame, where he stood in Onswa¡¯s office, and disintegrated the System-jamming biomass that he¡¯d been using to try and get access to the System Interface.  Like the warframes that went through the portal, it simply dissipated into nothingness, violating conservation of matter in a very thoroughly System-like manner.


    ¡°Divine user,¡± Onswa said grimly, eyes unfocusing for a moment.  ¡°Another Bismuth, but ¡ª ah, he¡¯s already gone.¡±


    ¡°Mosaw City,¡± Cato said, as he received a message update about his scouts vanishing there as well.  He couldn¡¯t maintain enough different versions of himself to have warframes in all the cities, so he was mostly restricted to the augmented sisters, overwatch, Onswa, and Arene.  ¡°I have him on surveillance.¡±


    From orbit, Cato could see the Bismuth in question was one of the rat people ¡ª Clan Tornok.  The spy satellite showed him standing on the top of the belltower-like peak of the central System building, staring upward.  For a normal person, that wouldn¡¯t mean much, but Cato felt uncomfortably like the rat-person was looking back at him.


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    The records were clear that higher rank System folks could see and reach things in orbit, even when the System itself could not, but there was a difference between the recordings and actually witnessing it personally.  A massive fusillade of what seemed to be stone or metal was launched upward from Mosaw city at double-digit Mach numbers, not even losing velocity from air drag.  It didn¡¯t take more than a fraction of a calculation to tell the bombardment was aimed directly at one of his railguns.


    He began firing the fusion maneuvering jets, but the enormously massy orbital weapons were not designed to move quickly, not to mention they just didn¡¯t have much fuel.  Given the limitations on the deuterium and tritium extracted from the pockets of water-ice he¡¯d found on his small moon, and the tiny mining stations beginning to extend across the primary moon, they¡¯d only been fueled enough to get them into orbit.  Not that it mattered, since the oncoming cloud of projectiles actually changed course to follow that slight shift.


    The railguns were outside the System¡¯s sphere of influence, but only just, and if the spell was tracking there was no way that he¡¯d be able to shift the orbital emplacements enough to matter in so little time.  Not to mention the vast field of solar panels surrounding it, which were completely exposed and ridiculously fragile.  He had seen rankers take out orbital facilities before, but actually having to manage his own made it that much more a problem.


    ¡°Can you deal with him?¡± Onswa asked back on the surface, obviously disgruntled by his own inability to contest a Bismuth.


    ¡°If he leaves a city, yes.  I think.¡±  The Sydean frame replied after a moment, needing the time to get an update from the version of himself up on the moon.  He was certain that the connection would drop before long, as attacks and Kessler Syndrome ¨C the inevitable result of debris and destruction in the useful orbitals ¨C destroyed his communication relays.  ¡°But he¡¯s targeting my orbital infrastructure ¡ª I think this is the System-God finally reacting.¡±  Onswa¡¯s long face grew even more dour, but Cato was more vindicated than worried.  There was nothing he could do to stop the Bismuth from smashing his orbital machinery, but he might have the chance to actually hit the System-God and remove that anchor.


    A railgun wouldn¡¯t be enough for that.  Not even close.  A System-God had a toughness borne of altered reality, an ability to simply ignore physics.  Most physics, at least.  A particle beam had worked by dint of raw energy, but before that the best results had been with antimatter.


    Nobody really worked with the stuff, as antimatter just wasn¡¯t very useful.  It was enormously energy-intensive to make, couldn¡¯t be stored in any amount, and annihilation was too energetic to be captured easily.  Even then, most of the energy was carried away by neutrinos, so it was a poor return on investment.  Still, antimatter did destroy even the most nonsensical System matter on contact.


    Cato had only a few grams of the stuff, in two separate containment bullets.  They weren¡¯t actually physical projectiles, but rather intensely magnetic capsules with plasma sheaths to protect them.  The outer envelope would destabilize practically instantly when they hit the System, but it¡¯d be long enough to reach the target given the near-relativistic speeds.   It wasn¡¯t much, and while it was still survivable by a System-God it would demonstrate that Cato could kill him.  A fear that could be almost as potent as the weapon itself.


    All that was assuming that the System-God itself appeared and Cato could actually hit it.  With the Bismuth destroying his orbital infrastructure that was far less likely, but Cato doubted that the antimatter guns themselves were at risk.  They were small enough to try and make stealthy, so he had hastily altered their coating to be light absorbing before launching the two God-Poke railguns, assigning them to opposing polar orbits so he¡¯d have the best coverage possible.  Between their vastly smaller size ¨C their payload was tiny, after all ¨C and greater distance, they were far less noticeable to any senses.


    ¡°We should probably leave before he returns,¡± Onswa said, standing and glancing over the System Interface before shutting it down.  ¡°If he¡¯s here for you, then I¡¯m going to be in the way.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± Cato said, though the Sydean version of himself wasn¡¯t overly important.  Onswa, on the other hand, wasn¡¯t replaceable.  Or backed up.


    Onswa made a gesture with one hand, then frowned as the strange, silvery-grey radiance failed to manifest into a portal.  The Sydean visibly strained, then dropped the magic when nothing happened.  Then he tried again, the portal showing the city from a perspective just above the office before Onswa stepped through, flying into the air.  Cato exited the office door at a more normal speed, looking out at the great golden dome that covered the city.


    System cities weren¡¯t all that large compared to those on earth, but the Skill still stretched over a mile in each direction.  Onswa¡¯s form was visible in the air as he flitted up to the top of the dome and physically pressed against it as if it were solid.  Which perhaps it was; the System¡¯s alternate physics was perfectly capable of producing the absurdity of glowing energy barriers.


    Cato started down the stairs to the bottom of the nexus building, and by the time he reached it Onswa was inside.  Hot fury flared in the Sydean frame, inciting an angry lash of his tail, as he saw the blood-splattered remains of the poor Gold who had no other duty than to keep an eye on the portal.  Cato¡¯s equipment was replaceable, his railguns and warframes were ultimately just things, but the casual destruction of people was sickening. What was worse was that if the shield had been down, it might have been possible for Cato to save him.


    Orbital Cato was no happier, but lacking the same visceral, biological reaction he could consider it more calmly and found there was nothing he could do.  The best he could manage was to write the name of the Gold in question into a specific database, for a memorial somewhere far down the line.  It was going to be a large memorial, even leaving out all the generations that the System had ruined since it had arrived.  Onswa only gave the corpse a glance, a callous response that was surely the result of simply seeing so much death, as he prodded the pylon at the far end the room.


    ¡°Teleport is blocked,¡± he announced.  ¡°We¡¯re trapped here.¡±


    ***


    ¡°We have a problem.¡± The small Cato-beast interrupted his own explanation ¨C first of the so-called orbital bombardment, then of the nature of the new, non-combat spears he had given them ¨C and Raine felt a sudden sense of dread curling her tail.  For as powerful a being as Cato to encounter an actual problem meant there was something truly dire happening.


    ¡°A divine-type Bismuth has come through the portal and locked down both Kalhan and Mosaw City.  A big dome that doesn¡¯t let anyone out,¡± Cato continued.  ¡°Onswa is stuck and there¡¯s nothing I can do about it until the Bismuth leaves a city.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re still Silver,¡± Leese pointed out.  ¡°We may be on par with Gold, but that¡¯s still nothing to a Bismuth.  You think we can do something?¡±


    ¡°People can get in, and the version of me that¡¯s there isn¡¯t going to be around much longer,¡± Cato replied, turning toward the door of the room.  ¡°Yup, reconciled and gone.  I need some insight if I¡¯m going to do anything, and a few Silvers should be more or less invisible. Besides, you know more about that kind of person than I do.  If you¡¯re willing, some eyes on the situation would help, and maybe we can figure out a way to get Onswa out of there.  I figure you might as well try to take the teleport in, which is something I can¡¯t do at all.¡±


    Raine and Leese exchanged glances.  Only a day before, they would have tried to turn it down, and even now it was a nigh-suicidal idea.  Yet the two of them had just woken up from several hours spent in small, narrow cots wrought of Cato¡¯s strange materials, and if they trusted his word they were just as immortal as he.


    He had been at pains to make them understand the individuals they were could very easily die, and there would be no coming back from that.  There would still be a Leese and Raine though, and they would lack only a few hours or days of experience.  If all went well, they could return to the cots and fill in the missing time.


    The distinctions Cato was most concerned with seemed hardly relevant to Raine.  Missing a few days or a few weeks was a small price to pay for a peace of mind and the ability to take risks.  Their experience since returning to Sydea had shown that they could get back to peak Silver in a matter of hours if they pushed it, now that they were more conversant with their new bodies.  Perhaps when they reached Bismuth themselves the time needed for ranking up again would become troublesome, but for now it was a mere annoyance.


    ¡°We¡¯ll go,¡± Raine said, once she and Leese were in agreement.  ¡°Just don¡¯t expect too much.¡±  If Cato were merely an Alum-rank, she would have said to expect nothing, but he wasn¡¯t from within the System.  Even allowing ¨C or really, encouraging ¨C the casual mode of address she had just used was far different from what a powerful person should accept.  The perspectives the two of them could offer were genuinely valuable, not merely the blathering of low tiers.


    ¡°Fantastic,¡± Cato said with enthusiasm, the small Cato-beast pushing open the door and leading them to the next room.  It was an armory, but the swords and spears weren¡¯t what they were there to acquire.  Instead the Cato-beast approached the oddly organic-looking desk next to the door, withdrawing two tiny lizards from what seemed to be cocoons inside drawers there.


    ¡°Ooh, how cute!¡± Leese squealed as the small creatures blinked at them with overly-large eyes, shifting on big toes and flexing their long, curled tails.  They were color-coded, one red-orange to match Raine¡¯s scales and one white for Leese¡¯s, so it was obvious which was meant for whom.  Cato extended their respective lizards to them with his back-tendrils, and Raine took hers uncertainly.


    [Quickpulse Lizard: This small lizard can vibrate its tail at amazing speeds in order to communicate.]


    ¡°These will allow you to remain in contact with me,¡± Cato informed them.  ¡°Just feed them from your rations and give them water from time to time.  They should obey simple commands, as well.  Just let them sit on your head, just back of your horns, and you ought to be able to hear everything.


    Leese stroked the head of her [Quickpulse Lizard] and then proceeded to lift it up to let it settle on the scales covering her skull.  Raine followed suit, and the lizard crouched down, its toes gripping her scales and its tailtip wrapping around the base of her left horn.  It was so small it was nearly weightless and, unless someone was specifically looking, it would probably be unnoticeable.


    ¡°Can you both hear this?¡±  The words rang oddly, almost like they were inside her skull rather than coming in through her ears, but they each nodded.  ¡°Great.  Just tell it if you want it to transmit to me or not with ¡®on¡¯ or ¡®off.¡¯¡± The words Cato used were not System terms, but easy enough to pronounce, and a moment of testing showed that it worked just fine.


    ¡°I¡¯ll let you head to the teleports then,¡± Cato said, this time through the actual Cato-beast.  ¡°I might be in and out of contact, depending on how much orbital infrastructure he decides to destroy.  I¡¯ll try to land some forces near Kalhan City, but it¡¯ll be a couple hours.¡±  Raine hissed; a few hours was enough time for a Bismuth to lay waste to everything he could see.


    ¡°We¡¯ll try to keep you informed,¡± Leese said, and the Cato-beast opened the door for them.  The two of them hurried into town, heading for the System Nexus.  Teleporting between towns was moderately expensive, but delving Silver dungeons at Copper and Gold dungeons at Silver meant they were flush with tokens.  The rewards for fighting up a rank were terribly impressive.  They¡¯d never been wealthy before, but they were well on their way now.


    Raine touched the teleportation pylon, selected Kalhan City, and watched it take a wince-inducing number of silver-rank tokens from her wallet.  The world shifted around them, and they appeared in the capital city¡¯s Nexus building.  It was unfortunately crowded, mostly with outworlders, and the reason why became obvious when Raine glanced at the portal.  It was covered with a shimmering golden film, and even as she watched one of Clan Morkrom press his claw against the film, only to find it completely impermeable.


    Leese bumped her shoulder and the two of them carefully threaded their way around the edges of the room, especially avoiding the Clan Tornok Golds and Silvers.  Her Silver-rank, C-tier essence sense wasn¡¯t the best, but it was enough to tell that the Bismuth wasn¡¯t around at the moment.  She didn¡¯t know exactly how his Skill was still active, but Bismuth was the first step into real power and divine users had certain advantages.


    ¡°On,¡± Raine whispered in Cato¡¯s odd tongue once they left the main room, turning onto the stairway up to Onswa¡¯s office.  ¡°The portal is blocked off, the Nexus is full of outworlders,¡± she reported, following Leese up the stairs.  ¡°The Bismuth hasn¡¯t returned, we¡¯re trying to find Onswa first.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s still thrashing my orbital infrastructure, but he¡¯s running out of targets.  I don¡¯t think you have much time.¡±  The strange buzzing voice spoke inside her skull.  ¡°I don¡¯t know if you can hide Onswa or what.  I¡¯m not even sure what the Bismuth intends to do.¡±


    ¡°Whatever he wants,¡± Raine muttered.  Leese sighed in agreement.


    ¡°Before, there was nothing here for Bismuth or higher ranks,¡± Leese explained.  ¡°We were left alone because we were a waste of time for anyone with real power.  Now there¡¯s someone here to counter you, and nobody on Sydea could hope to oppose him.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re going to need to evacuate the city after this,¡± Cato said after a moment.  ¡°The only method I have for dealing with high rankers just has too much collateral damage.  I was honestly expecting more conflict to happen away from soft targets.¡±


    ¡°Normally high rankers don¡¯t fight in lower rank cities,¡± Raine agreed.  ¡°A city upgraded to Bismuth-rank materials wouldn¡¯t be much affected by someone like him, but Kalhan is mostly Gold, I think.¡±  It felt silly to explain something so blatantly obvious, but Cato had said he didn¡¯t know all the thousand and one blatantly obvious things that anyone who lived within the System would realize.


    ¡°Good to know,¡± Cato said, as they reached the office door.  Leese pressed her hand against the entrance panel, and the door chimed before opening.  The two of them had only been to the Planetary Administrator¡¯s office once, in congratulations for their ascent to Gold, so while Raine couldn¡¯t claim much familiarity with it, she did think it looked incredibly bare compared to her memories.


    ¡°What are you two doing here?¡± Onswa asked, staring at them in surprise.


    ¡°Cato¡¯s eyes and ears,¡± Leese replied, looking around for the Sydean version of Cato.


    ¡°He said something about a gestalt dump and then keeled over,¡± Onswa said, interpreting Leese¡¯s interest correctly.  ¡°Damned unnerving.  I had the Interface clean it up.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want an ordinary version of myself vulnerable to a Bismuth,¡± Cato said, half-apologetically.  ¡°Now, how do we get this guy away from a city so I can hit him?  And not get Onswa or anyone killed in the process?¡±


    ¡°I doubt we¡¯ll be so lucky,¡± Onswa said grimly, once Raine conveyed the question.  That Onswa couldn¡¯t hear the transmission himself was strange, but only one more oddity to be piled on top of Cato¡¯s nature.  ¡°He trapped us here on purpose, which is to say he trapped me here on purpose.  The gods would hold me responsible as the Planetary Administrator, even if they don¡¯t know precisely how much I¡¯ve been cooperating.¡±


    ¡°Damn,¡± Cato¡¯s voice came.  ¡°We need to get you out of here.¡±


    ¡°I doubt you can,¡± Onswa said, his face still set.  ¡°But my wife is in the compound outside the city to the north.  Evacuate her.¡±


    ¡°I will,¡± Cato promised.  ¡°But I want to get everyone out if I can.¡±


    ¡°If I¡ª¡± Onswa started, then suddenly flipped his hand.  A swirl of aether surrounded Raine and Leese, dumping them in the open square outside the Nexus.  Raine steadied Leese as she stumbled, staring back at the Nexus building as a powerful source of essence blazed to her senses.


    The Bismuth had returned.

 Chapter 18 — Inflicted Wounds

    It was one thing to know a Bismuth was powerful. It was another entirely to feel it. Even when Raine had met Cato, his power had been more theoretical, more implied, than the sheer essence radiating from the Nexus. Nor had Cato been able to subdue Arene or Onswa without any apparent effort.


    Raine¡¯s tail curled into itself as the Clan Tornok Bismuth emerged from the top of the Nexus, dragging Onswa behind him. The Bismuth was dressed in gleaming golden armor, finely crafted and bearing Clan Tornok¡¯s crest upon it, each piece of the articulated armor likely worth more than all the equipment on Sydea, collectively. Yet for all that finery Raine thought there was something ugly about the slinky, rodent-like Bismuth, some cruel and bitter aspect to the strange furred face. Reflexively, Raine used [Appraise], though the identity of the Bismuth hardly mattered.


    [Grand Paladin Nikhil Tornok ¡ª Bismuth]


    Onswa himself could barely move, imprisoned in golden-glowing bonds that clamped his arms to his sides and his tail and legs together, floating behind Nikhil on a lead of the same divine energy. Every Sydean knew that Onswa¡¯s strange aether energy made him impossible to stop or slow down, to trap or deflect. He was called Onswa the Unstoppable for a reason, but when it came to the power of a Bismuth his advantages were as nothing.


    ¡°Everyone to the square!¡± The paladin boomed, bellowing with a volume only a Bismuth rank could produce. Raine winced, but not only was her body more robust than a normal Silver¡¯s but there seemed to be something built into it to keep that volume from becoming actually painful.


    ¡°Is there anything we can do?¡± Leese whispered to Raine as the various outworlders who had been inside the Nexus obediently emerged outside, and Sydeans who had been frequenting the shops and inns warily crept out into the streets.


    ¡°We¡¯re not powerful enough,¡± Raine said, tasting bile in her throat as she watched Nikhil land in the middle of the square with Onswa. ¡°And I don¡¯t think he is either.¡± She didn¡¯t want to say Cato¡¯s name where the Bismuth could hear it, in case it drew attention.


    ¡°All I could do is drop a railgun round on top of the city and that wouldn¡¯t do anyone any good,¡± Cato said grimly. ¡°My warframes are on their way but it won¡¯t be immediate.¡±


    ¡°People of Sydea,¡± Nikhil said, heaping derision on the first word. ¡°Your Platinums have strayed from the dictates of the divine System, and invited a being that calls itself Cato to be your new lord and master. The gods themselves have verified the words of one of your Coppers ¨C a Copper with more faith than your Platinums ¨C and they have sent me to set things right.¡±


    ¡°Muar,¡± Leese whispered instantly, and Raine nodded grimly. She had known that Muar had somehow turned into a System zealot, but as a Copper he was entirely irrelevant. Or should have been. How he had gotten the ear of an outworld Bismuth she had no idea, but the betrayal cut deep.


    Nikhil¡¯s announcement didn¡¯t make the waves that he¡¯d been looking for, though. Raine didn¡¯t know how much of the truth that Onswa had put out to the general population, but the Platinums had sent messages through the Golds to all the Silvers and Coppers about cooperating with Cato. Almost everyone had seen or knew someone whose life had been made easier by Cato¡¯s housing and equipment. The only ones who seemed impressed were the outworlders, who wouldn¡¯t have heard things through Sydean channels.


    ¡°There is no attack from the skies that will stop me,¡± Nikhil boasted, eyes sweeping the crowd, though Raine felt those words were addressed specifically to her and Leese. If Muar had told his story, then surely Nikhil knew their names. Or perhaps he didn¡¯t care, for Silvers were far beneath his notice. ¡°I am protected by the gods themselves. The attacks that felled the other Bismuths will not work on me. Now that I am here, I will ensure that Sydea is returned to the proper guidance of the divine System.¡±


    ¡°Protected by the gods?¡± Raine muttered, glancing to Leese. As a former priestess she might have some idea if that was something special. Leese tilted her head slightly, and Raine understood there was something there ¡ª but nothing that could be discussed at the moment.


    ¡°All your Platinums are complicit with the enemy,¡± Nikhil boomed. ¡°And the rot must be cut out by the roots. Perhaps someone will advance enough to govern you ¡ª or perhaps not. You reap the consequences of raising up those who would rebel against the divine System.¡±


    Nikhil brought forth Onswa with a sneer, who had not bothered trying to speak against the Bismuth. He merely had his head raised and shoulders set, calm and collected. Yet Raine¡¯s tail curled and her heart clenched as the Platinum reached out. With a sound that would echo in her nightmares, Nikhil ripped Onswa¡¯s head from his shoulders and dropped the bleeding corpse on the ground.


    ¡°This is what comes of defying the gods,¡± Nikhil said, holding his grisly prize by one of the horns, and then negligently tossed the head out into the crowd. Leese darted forward and caught it.


    Raine¡¯s breath caught, both at what might be possible, and at the attention Leese had drawn to herself by doing so. But Nikhil merely scoffed and turned toward the Nexus building. He made a brief gesture and the golden dome over the city vanished.


    ¡°There will be no off-world travel just yet,¡± Nikhil stated. ¡°Not until all the Platinums have been brought to me.¡± He glanced over the assembled outworlders, which were at least half Clan Tornok to begin with. ¡°The sooner that happens, the sooner you can leave. If you have not fulfilled the System quest, feel free to do so, but I will be removing the real source.¡±


    He vanished into the Nexus, the Bismuth-rank presence fading as he clearly took a teleport somewhere else, and Raine hastened after him with Leese by her side. There was no telling what violence would break out now that the Bismuth had essentially proclaimed there were no higher ranks protecting Sydeans, and that the Platinums all were to be killed on sight. They needed to get out of the city before the outworlders realized all the implications.


    ¡°I have Onswa¡¯s head,¡± Leese muttered as they dashed toward the teleportation pylon. ¡°Can you save him?¡±


    ¡°I believe so,¡± Cato said, the buzzing voice grim and hard. ¡°If you hurry.¡±


    The two of them pressed their hands against the pylon, selecting Sokhal Town where Cato had several buildings dedicated to his own strange craft. The world changed around them, and they sprinted to the exit. Sokhal Town was small enough that they could see Cato¡¯s non-System buildings over the roofs of nearby shops, promising Onswa¡¯s salvation.


    ¡°You two!¡± The voice came from behind, and Raine spun to see three Tornok Clan exiting the Nexus.


    [Anhir Tornok ¡ª Gold]


    [Mushal Tornok ¨C High Gold]


    [Ramshel Tornok ¨C High Gold]


    ¡°Where are you going with our prize?¡± Ramshel leered at them, and Raine flexed her Skill, spear and buckler appearing as she eyed the three of them. At mid and high Gold, each of them should have been more than a match for the pair, but with Cato¡¯s augmented bodies the terms were far more even. Except they were in a hurry, and they couldn¡¯t risk Onswa¡¯s head getting damaged in the scuffle.


    Aside from simple respect, Raine didn¡¯t have a personal connection to Onswa. But he had been a good Platinum, taking care of as many people as he could as best he could, and was probably the reason Cato hadn¡¯t been forced to take more drastic steps. If he could survive past his own death, that would be both absolute proof of Cato¡¯s power, and a demonstration that even the gods didn¡¯t matter to Cato¡¯s designs.


    ¡°We could use some backup,¡± Raine muttered to Cato. ¡°We¡¯re back in Sokhal.¡±


    ¡°Headed your way,¡± Cato said, but they couldn¡¯t just wait. By mutual agreement, Leese sprinted away while Raine guarded the street. Anhir tried to breeze past Raine with a movement Skill, and she punished the attempt with a hammerblow of [Blazing Spearmastery]. Her spear, one provided by Cato, glowed red hot as it smashed home against Anhir¡¯s armor, punching through the Gold-rank mail and forcing him to retreat with a growl of pain.


    ¡°You dare to stand against us?¡± Ramshel said in disbelief. ¡°A mere Silver?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Raine said, settling into her stance. She likely only had to defend for a minute or so before one of Cato¡¯s beasts arrived, but a minute was ages in a fight. Ramshel scoffed and stepped forward, hands glowing white with some spell.


    Then a blade erupted from his neck in a spray of blood.


    Ramshel¡¯s companions shouted in surprise as the Tornok Clan Gold fell to his knees, white vanishing from his hands as he reached up to the gaping wound pumping out his lifeblood. Raine didn¡¯t let the opportunity pass by, launching herself forward with her spear blazing red-hot. She aimed it precisely at the opening she¡¯d already made in Anhir¡¯s armor, a sort of precision that ought to be impossible for a Silver. But that was why Anhir wasn¡¯t ready for it, nor was he prepared for the incredible sharpness of Cato¡¯s weapon.


    He screamed as she seared his guts, twisting the spear once before being forced back to avoid his counterblow. She ducked under the long-spiked chain, deflecting its reaching barbs with her buckler, but even as a glancing blow, the impact left long gouges in her shield. Then she drove in again, pressing her advantage mercilessly as he staggered away, crippled by his wound. With her improved perceptions and clarity of mind, she was able to track Mushal at the same time, who was engaged with the assassin who had removed Ramshel.


    Like her, he was fast and precise, using it to ruthless advantage as he plied a darkness-shrouded blade against Mushal. That Gold had a spiked hammer that hissed through the air with each heavy blow, throwing huge clouds of dirt up where it impacted the unimproved road ¡ª yet completely failing to connect with the Sydean opponent. The chain of her own opponent tore through the stone of the nearby building, just as it would her own flesh if it landed.


    A green-grey glow lit behind Anhir¡¯s eyes, the spiked chain multiplying as he tried to retreat. Five different barbed lengths of conjured whip hissed through the air at her, but she invoked her movement Skill and slid between them with a finesse the prior Gold version of herself could only dream of. She slithered past him and plunged the red-white tip of her spear into his wound as she went, driving it up through his gut and into his chest, and he crumpled with one last gurgling scream.


    [Gold Tornok-Clan defeated. Essence awarded. Additional Essence awarded for tier difference. D-Rank Skill token awarded]


    She whirled around to the final opponent, but he was already dead on the ground. The Sydean standing over the corpse was dressed in dark leathers, equipment that was clearly aimed at stealth and finesse. There was also something about him that was familiar, and Raine recognized him just as [Appraise] revealed his name.


    [Dyen Zure ¨C Peak Silver]


    ¡°Dyen?¡± Raine was absolutely baffled. She had thought she¡¯d seen the last of him when they¡¯d parted ways after returning from the heavens. There was nothing at all tying him to them, yet there he was.


    ¡°Loot your kill quickly,¡± Dyen said, as one of Cato¡¯s smaller beasts arrived, appearing from the same road that Leese had used to escape. ¡°I doubt they¡¯re the only group thinking about where Onswa¡¯s head disappeared to.¡±


    ¡°I can deal with some lower ranks.¡± Cato stopped and regarded the two, back-tendrils gesturing to the Nexus building. ¡°But I don¡¯t have the forces to protect the whole town if too many arrive.¡±


    ¡°Most of them were looting Onswa¡¯s corpse,¡± Dyen said with disgust. ¡°But anyone with tracking Skills will be able to follow the trail.¡±


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Raine said, recovering herself and bending down to grab the wallet off the belt of her kill. There wasn¡¯t enough time to strip the corpse and she didn¡¯t have much interest in it anyway. No longer was she scrimping and saving every token, though as the contents of the wallet scrolled past Raine had to admit an influx of Gold-rank essence tokens was quite the windfall.


    Then she took off toward the edge of town, racing away from the battle site with her movement Skill. Dyen tagged along, and she didn¡¯t protest, but the Cato-beast stayed. Presumably to slow down or distract any others that might be tracking them. If the Bismuth decided to follow, though, there wasn¡¯t anything that could be done, so she just had to hope that the Grand Paladin was preoccupied with other things.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got Onswa.¡± Cato¡¯s voice buzzed inside her skull, and she nodded even though she realized he couldn¡¯t hear it. It was only a minute until she reached the complex of Cato¡¯s buildings anyway, spotting Leese standing outside one of the buildings and scrubbing at her hands with a cloth.


    ¡°Is he going to be ¡ª well, can Cato bring him back?¡± Raine spoke aloud, making sure to direct her question to Leese rather than Cato himself. She wasn¡¯t sure if he wanted Dyen to know about the little communication lizards.


    ¡°Probably.¡± Cato¡¯s voice came from another small beast that emerged from a room that was sealed in a similar manner to the one where he had made them immortal. ¡°I don¡¯t have contact with all the Platinums. Is there any way we can send a message to them to let them know they¡¯re on the Bismuth¡¯s hit list?¡±


    ¡°I can find someone with a farcaster,¡± Dyen said, and turned to leave without another word.


    ¡°They need communication lizards too,¡± Leese remarked, as Dyen vanished down the street. ¡°The Platinums probably should have gotten them first.¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately I just finished making them,¡± Cato sighed. ¡°I underestimated what I¡¯d need here, and we¡¯re paying the price. Being able to wipe out those other Bismuths without trouble really was misleading.¡±


    ¡°Is the Grand Paladin actually a danger to you?¡± Raine asked, suddenly far less certain of her choices. If a mere Bismuth was enough to challenge Cato, how was he going to deal with the Azoth and Alum ranks that were present closer to the core worlds?


    ¡°Not to me,¡± Cato said, so utterly dismissive of the possibility that she nearly sighed in relief. ¡°He¡¯s already flung some rock at the moon base, but that¡¯s barely relevant. No, it¡¯s not that he can kill me, it¡¯s that he can make me lose. If he starts killing Sydeans wholesale, or blocks off the portals permanently, or both, then there¡¯s no point in what I¡¯m doing at all.¡±


    ¡°Which he might do once he finds out he can¡¯t really hurt you,¡± Raine said. She didn¡¯t like the emerging picture, even if she was reassured that Cato truly was a powerful patron. Even an Alum couldn¡¯t be everywhere at once ¨C that was why clans existed ¨C and Sydea was effectively becoming the location for a clan war. She¡¯d only heard stories of such things, from ages ago and worlds away, but they were supposed to be devastating.


    ¡°Then we have to make sure he thinks he can hurt you,¡± Leese said, and the Cato-beast nodded agreement.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t repaired any of the orbital stuff he¡¯s wrecked, and I¡¯m going to self-destruct the visible moon base,¡± he told them. ¡°That should satisfy him that he¡¯s doing real damage. But I can¡¯t just sit here and let him run roughshod over your world. You can never give monsters like him an inch.¡±


    ¡°Then we need to lure him out,¡± Raine concluded.


    ¡°Not sure I can offer anything of substance,¡± Cato mused. ¡°Especially since he has something that pops any warframe I put nearby.¡±


    ¡°He also has divine protection,¡± Leese reminded them.


    ¡°Which means what, exactly?¡± Cato turned his attention to Leese, who had finished wiping her hands and was looking for somewhere to deposit the bloodstained scrap, and plucked away the cloth with a tendril. It was a strange, almost servile sort of gesture, but Raine had already decided not to question Cato¡¯s oddness too much.


    ¡°I only know this by some things I was told at the temple,¡± Leese warned. ¡°What I¡¯ve heard though, is that gods can temporarily grant their deity protection to others. There¡¯s nothing in the System that can break it.¡±


    ¡°Oh? I can work with that,¡± Cato said, almost happily, as if fighting gods were easier than dealing with Bismuths. For all she knew, it was, for a being such as Cato. ¡°Though definitely not something to deploy near a city.¡±


    ¡°You might have to anyway,¡± Raine said. Cato might be squeamish, but she thought it was far better to sacrifice a city than risk the entire planet. Leese shifted, attracting her attention, and the two of them communicated in silence for a moment. Cato, unlike many the sisters had run into, seemed to recognize exactly what was going on and didn¡¯t bother them while they did little more than look at each other.


    ¡°What about us?¡± Leese said, the two of them turning back to Cato. ¡°Why don¡¯t we go back in the cots, and then the Copper versions of ourselves pretend to defect? If he¡¯s talked with Muar he¡¯d only be expecting us to be Copper, and if you¡¯re so worried about getting into the rest of the System, the Silver versions of us can be near the portal.¡±


    ¡°You realize it will still be you taking the risk,¡± Cato warned, though he didn¡¯t reject the idea. ¡°If you update that way, you will be opening your eyes weaker and with the knowledge that it won¡¯t be someone else doing it, it will be you.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± Raine said, still somewhat puzzled by Cato¡¯s insistence on that point, but presuming it was simply a result of his non-System background. She and Leese had risked their lives before on multiple occasions, and Cato¡¯s advantages only meant they could take more risks.


    ¡°Right,¡± Cato said. ¡°I¡¯ve got some bodies cooking for you anyway, I¡¯ll just sent a diff update and wake you up.¡±


    ¡°What about Dyen?¡± Leese asked, and Raine nodded agreement.


    ¡°If the two of us come to the Paladin, he¡¯ll naturally want to know what Dyen is up to,¡± Raine pointed out. ¡°As the last of the group Muar knew about.¡±


    ¡°Fortunately I still have extra bodies,¡± Cato said. ¡°But his isn¡¯t going to be augmented.¡±


    ¡°We should ask anyway,¡± Raine argued. ¡°It won¡¯t hurt.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s on his way,¡± Cato said. ¡°I have no objections.¡±


    As promised, Dyen returned a few minutes later, with the small Cato-beast in tow. He seemed as sour and closed-off as before, but Raine was certain that he¡¯d be willing to help. Dyen had no interest in Cato¡¯s crusade, but he¡¯d certainly welcome a chance to get at a Clan Tornok Bismuth.


    ¡°What did you want?¡± Dyen demanded, eyeing Raine and Leese with disfavor.


    ¡°We have an idea of how to kill that Paladin,¡± Leese said, more diplomatically than Raine would have managed. ¡°I think you can help.¡±


    Dyen¡¯s face stretched into a broad and vicious grin.


    ***


    Cato didn¡¯t much appreciate the brutal lesson in how fast fortunes could turn within the System. During the defense of Earth, he hadn¡¯t been in charge of the greater battlefield, leaving that to wargamers and those with a better head for strategy, but he was all alone on Sydea. Someone else might have secured a better beachhead by being more aggressive, or infiltrated further by being more subtle.


    It was knowledge he would have to ensure to pass on to his later gestalts, the ones that would be taken further into the System. That if he wanted to have the cleanest break, he couldn¡¯t actually take the time to set the board and address humanitarian concerns. Instead he had to strike hard, a surgical blow to seize control of as much as possible.


    That ran the risk of immediately dropping the planet out of the portal network, and why he was still loath to try it on Sydea. Although destroying dungeons would probably serve to lure the Bismuth out, he had no idea whether it would also make it impossible for him to spread further ¡ª and without spreading further, his entire crusade came to an end at Sydea, win or lose.


    At least with people like Raine and Leese he might have the chance to do some groundwork without attracting unwanted attention. Exactly what that might amount to when there were higher ranks about he didn¡¯t know, but that was why he needed System guides. He couldn¡¯t expect them to do everything ¨C after all, the very ruthlessness of the System was what he was objecting to ¨C but he had to keep the grim utility of the natives in mind.


    He knew that he shouldn¡¯t be so solicitous of the Talis sisters or Dyen when they volunteered to risk themselves. It was true that Cato knew how to handle his various selves and their deaths, terminations, or loss of signal, but Sydeans had faced far more death for far longer. Treating the natives with too much delicacy, even if their backup was far less robust than his, was insulting to their determination to do their own part, and he¡¯d have to stop and let them take their own risks.


    Which wasn¡¯t to say he wasn¡¯t going to make some tweaks. The fresh frames for Raine, Leese, and Dyen all had transmitters built into them, sending updates back to his digital copies of their gestalts. He wouldn¡¯t dare to try merging the experiences from multiple bodies, operating simultaneously, not with how poorly he understood the neural architecture, so they couldn¡¯t act like he did, but he could update the gestalts he had already recorded.


    All his adjustments were crammed into as little time as he could manage, because every second he took for preparations was another second the Bismuth was loose on the surface. At least Dyen¡¯s message meant the Platinums weren¡¯t inside any cities where they could be trapped, though that didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t be found. Now that the System-gods were actually interested, the entire planet might well be under surveillance, and it wouldn¡¯t be hard for the Bismuth to receive a vision of where they were hiding.


    Cato didn¡¯t even have warframes by most of them. Arene didn¡¯t want one in her house, for obvious reasons, while Marek and Hirau were leery of everything Cato had provided. Even the extra housing for their towns was the bare minimum, without the extra organic equipment he¡¯d landed in the towns near the capital. The only one of the Platinums that actually had a representative on site was Karsa, and that was not for any reasons of coordination on her part.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you hide me away in your moon fortress?¡± The extraordinarily over-muscled Sydean leaned against the leg of the forty ton warframe, in what she probably thought was a flirtatious manner. Dealing with her was becoming an ordeal, as she had refused to relent despite his explanations about what a warframe actually was. It would have been amusing, if only it were happening to someone else.


    ¡°Because you¡¯d have to die for that to be a possibility, and you¡¯d no longer be Platinum.¡± Cato tried to be as flat and factual as possible in order to discourage Karsa¡¯s fixation. ¡°You¡¯d be starting from scratch and I don¡¯t think we can afford that at the moment.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡± Karsa protested. ¡°If we all have to hide from that Bismuth anyway, it¡¯s not like we can keep order. There¡¯s really no better time. He can¡¯t catch me if I¡¯m not around.¡±


    Cato growled, because it was a surprisingly difficult argument to counter aside from the obvious. He wasn¡¯t about to destructively digitize someone just because they were insatiably drawn to military equipment. Though in truth he didn¡¯t need her Platinum abilities, because he had been shown he wouldn¡¯t have the time to allow an easier transition away from the System. He¡¯d have to start destroying anchors en masse the moment the Bismuth was dealt with to prevent any other high ranks from interfering.


    The original moon base and its habitat had already been stripped and was rigged with some simple explosives. The massive barrage of rock that the Bismuth had thrown from the surface was moving quickly, but distances in space were so tremendous that he had more than enough warning. Most of his infrastructure had been relocated to the northern pole of the larger moon, where there were volatiles and metal deposits.


    There were already rows upon rows of warframes of all sizes, ready to launch and descend into the atmosphere. Most of them were meant to be disposable, to be destroyed when the dungeon¡¯s basement universe collapsed. Others were meant to keep the peace to some extent, especially once the System itself failed and everyone was operating under normal physics.


    He''d been hoping to make that transition more gradually, but he couldn¡¯t afford that now. The police-type warframes were a halfway-answer, not truly intelligent but acting more like trained dogs to enforce order on behalf of legitimate authorities. Which were to be the former Platinums. Sadly, he couldn¡¯t even drop the forces ahead of time and introduce them in a controlled manner, not with the Bismuth running around.


    The Grand Paladin in question was, in fact, running around in an almost literal sense, methodically working through the cities and towns with his anti-warframe weapon, burning away some of the protections of Cato¡¯s refugee housing, though the housing itself remained intact. It was only a matter of time before he made it to Sokhal Town, so Cato wouldn¡¯t have the chance to revive Onswa with the limited tech he had on the ground.


    The brain was viable, but unless he wanted to risk another Orion drive ascent ¨C one that would be easily visible from the surface and could definitely be intercepted ¨C he¡¯d have to transmit the man instead. He hated doing it; the propriety surrounding organic and digital life was something that had saturated his upbringing, and violating those rules was deeply disgusting. But the Paladin ¨C the System itself ¨C had given him no choice, so he bared his literal and metaphorical teeth to start the process.


    Despite how awful he found the idea, the actual mechanics of destructive digitization only took minutes, and then only a few minutes more to update the other Sydeans. Dyen was the longest, since Cato had to get a full gestalt rather than just the differential update, but after that they left by way of the town¡¯s teleportation pylon. Though much of his orbital infrastructure was shredded, Cato had enough functional spy satellites to at least track where the Bismuth had been. It was simple enough to direct the three of them, by way of the lizards he was using as radio communications, to places where the Tornok Clan had already been and not likely to visit again.


    Sokhal Town was graced by the Bismuth¡¯s presence less than twenty minutes after they¡¯d left, which was cutting it a lot closer than Cato would have preferred. An expanding wall of golden light swept over the town, dissolving all the bioweapon-derived matter; essentially, everything that was laced with System-jamming equipment. A stark reminder of the difference between interference and protection.


    In an odd bit of synchronicity, that visit corresponded almost precisely with the impact of the Bismuth¡¯s mach-thirty projectiles with the former moon base. Conventional chemical explosives detonated theatrically, blowing out a cloud of debris all out of proportion to what the projectiles would actually create. His remaining surveillance even caught the Bismuth looking upward, no doubt pleased with the destruction ¡ª as destruction was all that type could ever manage.


    Not that he should have been able to see it at that distance. Even if the moon was outside the System¡¯s reach, there was clearly some magical method of sensing that acted beyond the bounds of the usual limitations. But then again, it was magic, and trying to understand things by the normal physical properties of optics was a poor idea. Such sight demonstrated that he¡¯d have to be very careful about landing the new versions of the Sydean trio, and do it when the Bismuth was not within view of the moons, if he wanted to avoid having them shot out of the air.


    Considering he couldn¡¯t get near the Bismuth himself, he had to trust they could do the job.

 Chapter 19 — Plans Rarely Survive

    Raine Talis, no longer of the Gosruk Guardians, woke with a start.


    The last thing she remembered was lying down in one of Cato¡¯s odd cots, planning how she was going to get through the portal while the other her lured out the Bismuth. Yet she was not in a cot, but rather clothed and armored and strapped into a familiar seat ¡ª the contraption Cato had used to bring her back down to Sydea. She glanced around, finding Leese and Dyen stirring in the other seats. Reflexively she tried to bring up the System, but nothing happened, confirming her conclusion.


    She was the other her. All the plans she¡¯d been considering no longer applied; no matter what, she wasn¡¯t going through that portal. Instead it was up to her to somehow convince a Bismuth to stray away from the populated regions, out to where Cato could take care of him. And possibly to die in the process.


    Suddenly she actually understood all of Cato¡¯s warnings. Her tail twitched uncontrollably, caught in a welter of different emotions ranging from abyssal regret to a crushing claustrophobic panic about a future now set in stone. A strange resentment or jealousy stole into her, directed at herself. Both her past decisions and the other her, existing somewhere down on Sydea, which got to keep and benefit from all the work she had done.


    ¡°Good, you¡¯re all awake,¡± Cato¡¯s voice came from a Sydean version of himself piloting the craft. Raine shook herself away from her strange inward spiral, taking a deep breath and letting it out. Beside her, Leese pulled herself from similar contemplations, but when she glanced back at Dyen, he didn¡¯t seem bothered.


    ¡°We¡¯re headed back down,¡± Cato continued, as if that wasn¡¯t already obvious. ¡°You¡¯ll have to burn what little money you get from the quest on teleportations, since I can¡¯t put you near any of the big towns. We¡¯re dropping down near Hirau¡¯s compound, since that¡¯s on the other side of the world from where that Bismuth is lurking ¡ª and he already searched the area, besides.¡±


    ¡°Is Hirau still alive?¡± Leese asked promptly. ¡°And what about Administrator Onswa?¡± Raine found herself nodding; Onswa was conspicuous by his absence.


    ¡°I¡¯m taking the opportunity to orient him while he¡¯s up here,¡± Cato replied, busying himself at the arcane controls of the craft. ¡°Since I¡¯m going to need his help once I start the next wave and begin destroying anchors. Besides which, I think him showing up, even as a Copper, would gain attention we don¡¯t need just yet.¡±


    ¡°I suppose it would,¡± Leese agreed, as most people would not care about or for Onswa as a Copper. Without the power granted by being Platinum, he was just one among many. Worse, he was someone who had lost his power, which was not something she had ever thought of before exposure to the world outside the System. Cato¡¯s backing would account for a lot, but without being able to personally enforce his will, there¡¯d be trouble.


    ¡°Are you going to give him a ¡ª well, one of your beasts?¡± Raine asked curiously, since his larger beasts could compete with Platinums.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think his wife would appreciate him showing back up as one of those,¡± Cato said with a laugh. ¡°No, it¡¯s going to be a bit more delicate, since as soon as we get rid of this Bismuth and open up the portals, I¡¯m going to start destroying anchors. By the time Onswa¡¯s back down, a good chunk of the planet ought to be free of the System.¡±


    The statement was delivered casually, but it sent a cold shock into the roiling uncertainty that was making her tail twitch. Cato had said that was his goal before, but she had always taken it as something far in the future, an abstract possibility. Not something mere days or even hours away. She was one of the few people who had ever encountered the System-less part of reality ¨C and what Cato showed was possible there ¨C yet even she couldn¡¯t imagine what the world would be like without it.


    ¡°Anyway, you¡¯ll have another hour or so to plan before we hit atmosphere,¡± Cato told them, glancing out the small window that showed black sky and stars. The four of them had discussed the basics as their other selves, but only the merest outline. Now that they were the ones that had to lure the Bismuth out, the need for details took on a different tenor. ¡°The sooner we can remove him, the better.¡±


    Raine was almost surprised that Cato wasn¡¯t simply issuing orders, but he rarely had. Even at the beginning he had simply stated his ultimate goal and given them the chance to help or stand aside. That was close enough to how high ranks normally operated that she hadn¡¯t thought much about it, but now she, someone who wasn¡¯t even Copper, was faced with making decisions regarding a Bismuth.


    ¡°So long as the Tornok Clan dies,¡± Dyen said darkly. ¡°Any plan is fine with me.¡±


    Raine almost snorted, but Dyen was still young and angry. Fortunately, she and Leese had years of experience to draw on. Given how easy it had been to rise to peak Silver, she could almost forget that they¡¯d made it to Gold the hard way. But the two of them had been off-world, through dungeons, through ambushes, through encounters with higher ranks that regarded the two of them as little more than insects.


    Of course, they could only plan so far. The three of them went over possible arguments, justifications, omissions, and outright lies ¡ª though the latter might be useless in the face of a divine Bismuth. Or at least, she and Leese did; Dyen had very little to contribute. Cato had an unparalleled view of the surface and ability to coordinate, but he couldn¡¯t take any direct action until there was a clear shot.


    ¡°I just wish I could do more on the ground,¡± Cato grumbled. ¡°I could start destroying anchors, but I have no way to know how the paladin guy would react. The very last thing I want to do is provoke him into some sort of purge. Or give him the idea that I¡¯m actually dangerous to him, since the only way he¡¯s going to be pliable is if he thinks he has the upper hand.¡±


    ¡°If it were any other circumstance, I would say he has the upper hand,¡± Leese mused. ¡°He has divine protection, he¡¯s more powerful than the rest of the planet put together, and I¡¯m certain he has a quest directing him. Beyond that, divine users can commune with the System to get a better idea of where to go and what to do. In the end, nothing on Sydea could hide from him forever.¡±


    ¡°Another reason to move quickly, then.¡± Cato made a noise of frustration. ¡°Before he starts using that insight to track down everyone in hiding.¡± Raine noticed the movements of his tail didn¡¯t really match the emotion in his voice, as if he were merely pretending ¡ª disconcerting, even if she knew the reason was that he wasn¡¯t actually Sydean.


    Once again the System washed over them, Raine¡¯s Status appearing along with the now-familiar defense quest. Once again, she poked a small blob with a dagger to receive completely disproportionate rewards, though in this case what really mattered was the currency. They would have enough for one teleport, and only one, and nothing else. Not even food.


    The craft shook and shuddered, pressing them into their seats as the sky outside turned from black to blue. A strange jittery anticipation washed over her, like when she was standing outside a dungeon and about to go in. It was familiar enough that she actually welcomed it, squaring her shoulders, straightening her tail, and finally committing to her role. Beside her, Leese did much the same, the two of them sharing a smile.


    ¡°Hirau is going to intercept us,¡± Cato said in a warning tone, and a moment later there was a great screeching and crunching, the craft jostling and flinging them against their restraints. The view of the sky outside was obscured by green, and all motion stopped, the craft tilted at an angle. Then with a horrific screeching, wooden branches punched through the walls and ceiling and peeled away the outside of the glider. All that surrounded them was dense foliage, save for an opening of bark on one side, leading downward.


    ¡°Everyone out,¡± Cato said, unbuckling his restraints while Raine hurried to do the same. Yet it was Dyen who was first freed of his chair, bounding out to the ramp of bark and down. Raine and Leese followed, hurrying at speeds Coppers couldn¡¯t normally manage. If anything, the versions of the bodies they were using seemed even better than the first ones Cato had provided. Cato himself seemed almost clumsy in comparison, at least in his current body. His beasts, of course, were pure and elegant menace.


    Hirau himself appeared at the base of the immense tree that had grown to catch them. The Platinum emanated an aura of palpable anger, though the force of his glare was reserved more for Cato than for them. The moment they emerged onto the floor of the forest, Hirau began berating Cato, even as the massive tree sank back down to be flush with the rest of the canopy, creaking and cracking.


    ¡°Why are you coming here? You¡¯ll just lure that Bismuth out and endanger¡ª¡±


    ¡°The town is east of you.¡± Cato¡¯s voice buzzed through her skull, and Raine reached up to find another one of the tiny communications lizards perched atop her head. She hadn¡¯t even noticed it during the descent. ¡°Might as well go, I don¡¯t know how long Hirau is going to be ranting.¡±


    Raine glanced to Leese and Dyen, then readied her spear and hurried eastward. According to her Status they were in the [Dark Thicket Border Zone], technically a Silver-rank area ¡ª but they knew they could manage against Silver rank creatures even with a single Skill apiece. The sound of Hirau¡¯s voice fell behind, but Cato¡¯s lizard sent corrections as they moved through the forest.


    Several times they were accosted by the local wildlife: a pack of low-slung, dark-furred scavengers, a bulky, pinch-faced quadruped with thick skin and wiry hair, a flock of razor-beaked birds with four wings. More than fresh Coppers would be able to handle for certain, but with augmented bodies and Cato¡¯s weapons it was only work rather than a real threat.


    That was all they had to worry about before they reached the town, however, Cato having guided them down practically a stone¡¯s throw away from the safe zone. It was one of the towns without the non-System building Cato had provided, a huddle of stark white boxes spreading out from the tower of the central Nexus. A few of the town¡¯s natives gave them a look as they hurried along the pounded dirt of the streets, and Raine spotted at least one look of surprise as an [Appraise] no doubt showed their Copper rank, but nobody stopped them.


    ¡°The Bismuth is in Rehl Town,¡± Cato reported, just as they stepped through the doors.


    ¡°Got it,¡± Dyen said, stepping to the teleportation pylon first and vanishing. His job was to get the Bismuth¡¯s attention, and direct attention toward their target of choice. Raine and Leese were close behind, but they had a different destination.


    In a way, luring Grand Paladin Nikhil out to a remote location shouldn¡¯t be too difficult. He very likely didn¡¯t believe that Cato could offer any substantial threat or resistance ¡ª after all, Cato hadn¡¯t so far. The problem was in offering a target or an excuse that wasn¡¯t obviously a trap. Bismuth-rank senses were good enough to sense that an area might be conveniently empty, and recognize how suspicious it was.


    Raine watched her entire stock of tokens vanish, and the room shifted ever so slightly. They emerged from the other Nexus into a hot, dry evening and [Halghur Town], where Arene Flamewing had established her estate. She wasn¡¯t there at the moment, of course, as all the Platinums had gotten the message from Dyen and made themselves scarce, but hers was the only estate far enough from a town to use Cato¡¯s weapon.


    More importantly, with the estate defenses active, even a Bismuth wouldn¡¯t be able to directly sense whether or not she was there. He¡¯d have to actually be there in person. It was the only lure they¡¯d been able to come up with, because neither she nor Leese could think of a good excuse to get the Grand Paladin out into the middle of nowhere. Not as Coppers.


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The two of them sprinted through town, out into the wilderness that separated [Halghur Town] from Arene¡¯s estate. The main problem with their plan was that the estate still housed refugees, who needed to be evacuated, and quickly. Their other versions ¨C or the other version of Dyen ¨C should be informing Arene, a bizarre reality that made her feel strange and almost unreal. She remembered planning to inform Arene when their other selves were ready, but had never really considered being on the other side of that plan.


    Both she and Leese had taken movement Skills for the free B-tier, meaning they slid through the scrubby near-desert faster than any of the Copper-ranked wildlife could follow. It wasn¡¯t a Skill that contributed to any set of Skills Raine was interested in, but that hardly mattered. If Cato got his way, the System wouldn¡¯t be around on Sydea for much longer and there would be no such thing as Skill selections.


    Or Bismuths murdering the lower ranks.


    Between their augmented bodies and the movement Skills, Raine and Leese could cover the twenty mile distance in something like half an hour. Even though it had already been hours, according to Cato, they still felt the press of time. The Bismuth¡¯s presence revoking the protective aegis of Sydea¡¯s Platinums combined with the inability to actually leave meant that there was plenty of violence in the streets of the cities. A single high ranker was causing more chaos and death than Cato ever had.


    The walls of Arene¡¯s compound came into sight, Raine and Leese sliding along the stone with [Skating Steps] and up to the big doors into the courtyard. Without a Skill, Raine couldn¡¯t sense Arene¡¯s presence ¡ª though judging by the faint tracery of light along the walls, the compound¡¯s defenses were active even with the doors standing open. Within, Arene herself appeared in a burst of fire, wrapping her whip around a group of refugees and vanishing again.


    In a way Raine was surprised. She very much doubted Arene enjoyed the idea of using her home as bait, no matter how powerful the opponent was, but it seemed that she¡¯d thrown herself into the plan regardless. Already the courtyard was down to just a few groups of older Coppers, those who for whatever reason had never managed to finish a dungeon and gather enough excess essence to reach peak Copper. As soon as she finished they¡¯d have Dyen send the Bismuth their way.


    ¡°On,¡± Raine said, making sure Cato¡¯s lizard was listening. ¡°Looks like just a few minutes more,¡±


    ¡°Great. Dyen is in place and ¡ª oh dammit.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Raine asked, tailtip twitching.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what Dyen did but the Paladin noticed him before I gave him the signal.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Raine said, exchanging a look with Leese and then looking back to where Arene had reappeared in the courtyard. ¡°Platinum Arene!¡± She called, running forward, and Arene¡¯s head snapped up. But Arene wasn¡¯t looking at her.


    ¡°He¡¯s here,¡± she said, and a golden dome sprang into existence around the estate.


    ***


    Raine Talis vaulted from one roof to another, joining Leese behind a beam supporting a shop sign as a bolt of sizzling blue ripped through the air where she¡¯d been. They¡¯d teleported into [Mosaw City], in hopes that it was less crowded than the capital, only to find the Nexus packed with distinctly too many Gold and Silver-rank offworlders for them to handle. Even though Dyen had specialized in killing people rather than monsters, that was only useful when there were two or three opponents.


    But they couldn¡¯t just leave. There was no telling how long the portal would be available once the Bismuth was dead, especially now that the gods were involved. It wasn¡¯t just Cato¡¯s task driving them to cross over into Uriva, either ¡ª Sydea had no [World Elites], and defeating one of those was necessary for the ascent to Gold. If they couldn¡¯t get offworld, they¡¯d be stuck at Silver, and Raine wasn¡¯t quite ready to abandon ranking up just yet.


    ¡°Sorry to interrupt, but the other Raine and Leese are headed out.¡±


    Raine grunted, having decidedly mixed feelings about there being another version of herself running around Sydea. Let alone another version of Leese, risking her life to bring the Bismuth somewhere that Cato could destroy him. Not that she was safe herself, nor was her Leese.


    A rumble came from below and the two of them leapt out of the way as the roof burst into fragments, some Gold-rank earth Skill sending a boulder sailing into the air. Leese¡¯s movement Skill left ice in her path, which Raine used to follow while facing back the way they¡¯d come. She swatted a pair of glowing daggers out of the air with her buckler as she followed Leese by touch, jumping and shifting blindly as she trusted her sister to lead.


    Dyen had vanished. He had stealth Skills and she didn¡¯t trust that he¡¯d come to their aid, so she wasn¡¯t planning any of their movements around it. It was just her and Leese, as it always was and always would be, and none of Cato¡¯s gifts would change that. If anything it was easier to coordinate than ever, the two of them practically able to read each other¡¯s minds, shifting in concert as they moved.


    A brief warning made Raine brace herself, and Leese simply lofted her into the air. She flipped herself around and drove her spear into the Tornok Clan Gold that was hovering with some sort of air Skill, totally unprepared for a flying Sydean. He still managed to get a hand up, but the red-glowing spear punched right through and into the midsection of the disturbingly slinky body. Not enough to kill the Gold, but enough to make the flying Skill fail.


    She gripped the spear as the Gold fell from the air, dodging the counter-blow by swinging herself around the impaled spear, thoughts feeling clean and crisp as she took in the layout of the streets and rooftops at a glance. Leese swung in through the window of the building below and Raine launched herself off the Gold, leaving the spear behind and retrieving a new one from the storage of her Skill. Her [Fiery Dash] sent her across the open rooftop while the Gold crashed into the side of the building with an audible thud, and she rejoined Leese on the other side.


    There were three more Golds after them, most of the rest of the gathered offworlders having lost interest when it turned out that mere Silver Sydeans could not only keep ahead of them, they could fight back. She hoped that didn¡¯t mean they would turn their attention to the rest of the city, but there was nothing Raine could do about it if they did. Already, more than one of the white, boxy buildings bore scars of fighting, with damaged walls or even holes. Without Onswa or another Platinum to run the city, nobody was paying for the repairs.


    [High Gold Tornok-Clan defeated. Essence awarded. Additional Essence awarded for tier difference.]


    The death message came as a surprise, but she instantly leapt to the conclusion that Dyen actually was still around. There was no way a Gold would die to simple impalement, at least not that quickly. The opportunistic ambush meant that they were evenly matched, three on three, despite the rank difference.


    They still couldn¡¯t scratch a Platinum, and Raine was thankful that such high-rank outworlders had been ejected before the Bismuth had arrived. The two-rank difference was simply too enormous to be overcome. That would probably never change; Bismuth was a tremendous barrier, and Azoth and Alum beyond it were worlds of their own.


    ¡°Three on three,¡± she told Leese, who understood immediately and slewed around to duck into one of the holes that had been made in the building. It had once been a tavern, but a quick glance showed it was deserted, the furniture smashed. Despite the damage, the lack of blood, bodies, or scattered debris showed that the System pylon was still working, at least.


    The two of them parted to stand at either side of the hole, charging their respective Skills. Raine still missed some of the utility and freedom of working at range, but the sheer strength and speed of their new bodies, multiplied by the benefits of Rank and Skill, meant that their best approach to any combat was entirely obvious.


    Raine¡¯s [Combustion Spear Mastery] was fast and powerful, while Leese¡¯s [Frozen Spear Mastery] was deft, hard to track, and cut through defenses. Between them, they could deal with almost any defense ¡ª especially when they swapped targets, leaving monsters, or more intelligent opponents, scrambling to deal with the difference in approach.


    Two Golds came through the hole, and Leese and Raine chose their targets. Leese slid around and under the massive maul a heavily-armored Tornok Clan wielded, her spearpoint seeking joints and gaps. Raine¡¯s own weapon blurred toward the other, outranging his pair of serrated daggers. Unfortunately, they¡¯d both seen Raine take down their fellow and neither of them were as unprepared.


    Raine found herself in a lightning-quick duel with a Tornok Clan whose blades flung off razor shards of air, gouging chunks out of her armor and buckler when she failed to dodge completely. One of them ripped a burning line along her cheek and she snarled, hearing Leese¡¯s spear skirl off the armor of the larger opponent. High-tier Gold armor was enough to defend against Cato¡¯s insanely sharp weaponry.


    She lunged forward with her spear again, but invoked her Skill a different way. The Gold dodged the strike by habit, but didn¡¯t need to because her spear disappeared halfway through. Raine swapped to her poleaxe, the much heavier weapon appearing in her hand on the recover and catching the Gold in the back of the neck as she used her movement Skill to burst backward.


    The blow didn¡¯t quite behead the Tornok Clan, but it did jar him for long enough for her to switch back to her shorter spear and punch a hole in the light armor. She threw him sideways into his companion, staggering the heavy armor user and letting Leese slip her spearpoint into the gap under the helmet and puncture his throat.


    Before they could capitalize on their sudden advantage, the third of the group appeared through the hole in the wall, a crackling ball of blue energy hovering in his hands. The two sisters threw themselves to the side, but before the mage could cast a rapier punched through the back of his neck. Dyen ensured the mage was dead before stepping in, regarding Leese and Raine as they finished off their own opponents.


    [High Gold Tornok-Clan defeated. Essence awarded. Additional Essence awarded for tier difference. Silver-Tier Essence Tokens awarded.]


    [High Gold Tornok-Clan defeated. Essence awarded. Additional Essence awarded for tier difference. C-Tier Tradable Skill Token awarded.]


    Raine dismissed the rewards, not needing them at the moment ¡ª though she was startled by the generosity of the System. Killing people seemed to be more lucrative than killing monsters. Especially when the target was a full rank up.


    ¡°Stayed behind to listen a bit,¡± Dyen said shortly, bending down to take possession of whatever was in the wallet of his kill. ¡°They¡¯re organizing a hunt for us. Seems you two attracted attention.¡±


    ¡°And you didn¡¯t?¡± Raine asked skeptically. Dyen simply shrugged.


    ¡°We can handle four, but not forty,¡± Dyen told them. ¡°I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll be especially annoyed when they realize you killed this group.¡±


    ¡°Cato?¡± Raine muttered. ¡°How are we on time? I don¡¯t think we can play tag with a bunch of Golds for very long.¡± Let alone the possibility of the Bismuth returning and deciding to take a hand. He was also Tornok Clan, and very definitely would not be pleased with the death of his fellows. Dyen had obviously been hunting Tornok Clan for some time, but with no witnesses it would take some investigation to find out he was the culprit.


    ¡°We¡¯ve run into a problem,¡± Cato replied.


    ***


    Marus Eln let out a deep and relieved sigh. Everything was going to plan, from what he could see through the divination spell he¡¯d had constantly running for the past day or so. He¡¯d been able to watch Grand Paladin Nikhil dispatch a number of Cato¡¯s creatures, and had even cajoled the divination spell to look upward and see the destruction of the things occupying Sydea¡¯s skies.


    Even he was staggered by how far away they were, but a Bismuth with an S-Class skill had certainly been a match for whatever heretical works Cato had performed. The amount he¡¯d had to pay out for the [Crystal of Immunity] still hurt, especially as Cato had clearly run out of whatever resources he had used to devastate the other Bismuths, and hadn¡¯t done anything to contest his pawn.


    The [Scepter of Annihilation], however, had been worth every jot of essence it had taken to construct the thing. Or rather, that Initik had charged him to make it, since Marus had never bothered delving into that area of his System Interface. While Cato might boast about trying to remove the System, it seemed the System was far more powerful and destroyed his constructs with ease.


    He was painfully aware of Initik sitting at his shoulder, watching the divination window with unsettling intensity. As much as the insect irritated Marus, he couldn¡¯t eject Initik, not after the help his fellow Deity had offered. Besides which, he seemed intensely interested in the threat Cato offered.


    Marus was still entirely certain that Initik was overstating the danger Cato actually posed. Even if the being was capable of somehow taking Sydea, that was just one world among many, a mostly worthless backwater on the frontier. If a Bismuth could utterly crush Cato¡¯s plans, then an Azoth or an Alum was an utterly insurmountable barrier.


    Not to mention World Deities like himself. It was true that there were restrictions on interacting with the mortal world, but Deities like himself could manipulate the System more directly, and even manifest if there was something of extreme importance. And of course nothing from the mortal world could actually harm him, unless he spent so long outside of proper reality he ran out of essence. Not that anyone would be so stupid.


    ¡°Ah! There are the last two,¡± Marus said happily. The three other Sydeans that Muar had mentioned were a little worry at the back of his mind. None of them were divine users, so finding them directly was a little tricky, as the best he could do with his System Interface was find the zone they inhabited. Even then, he couldn¡¯t be certain they were the individuals he was looking for, as without actually having the distinct essence signature of a mortal he could only check by name, and those repeated.


    However, Dyen had foolishly shown himself to Grand Paladin Nikhil, as if at Copper he could actually fight against a Bismuth. All that the creature had managed was to give up the location of one of Sydea¡¯s Platinums before being properly annihilated ¡ª because of course the Platinums had gone into hiding like the cowards they were. Marus could have informed Nikhil the moment the Paladin invoked his meditation Skill, but the Bismuth had been far too busy cleansing Cato¡¯s influence from Sydea. Something Marus very much enjoyed seeing.


    Now that the other two were within sight, Marus felt that all the potential loose ends were taken care of. He doubted that Coppers could cause the same amount of grief as Cato, but he did remember that the beasts Cato used had no more essence than a Copper, so he wasn¡¯t quite willing to dismiss them entirely. But once they were all dead, it would just be a matter of cleaning up the pieces.

 Chapter 20 — God-Poking Rounds

    The moment the golden dome appeared over the estate, an oppressive force nearly drove Raine to her knees. Without her usual essence sensory Skills she was blind to the sheer presence, but his Skill bore down on them with a weight that was impossible to deny. Arene was less affected, her defensive Skills making her scales smolder and bright pinpoints appearing in her palms as she raised her hands in preparation.


    Then the Grand Paladin arrived in a thunderous crash, arcing out of the sky like a gold-plated meteor. His landing sent cracks radiating out along the tile of the courtyard, bowling over the closest, Copper-ranked refugees. Even where they were, Raine and Leese could feel the shockwave hit them like a punch.


    Arene attacked instantly, her terrifyingly potent Skills focused on the Bismuth, and there was a moment of confused motion as the Paladin¡¯s golden magic contested Arene¡¯s flames. Everyone fled from the blur of gold and red in the middle of the courtyard, most people sprinting into the tower to take shelter from the sudden deluge of deadly energies. A shard of golden energy even spun past Raine¡¯s head, shattering against the wall but still leaving a dent in the Gold-rank material.


    For a moment, Raine actually hoped that Arene could hold her own, even if Bismuths were supposed to be well out of the reach of Platinums. Onswa might have been powerful, but everyone knew Arene was a better fighter and half Onswa¡¯s age besides. Then the noise and fury came to an abrupt end as Arene sailed backward, hitting the wall hard enough to shatter it and leaving her half-insensate.


    Golden chains snapped out from the Grand Paladin, his face scorched and blistered but still intact as his Skill bound Arene.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth!¡± Raine said, stepping forward as the last of the other refugees, some older Coppers, scrambled through the open door of the tower. Onswa¡¯s fate was fresh in her mind and she very much doubted that they would be so lucky that Arene could be saved the same way.


    The Paladin rounded on her and she flinched back from his look. It wasn¡¯t murderous but rather detached and contemptuous, a man considering an annoying insect. She had seen that kind of regard in other places and by other people, and it always ended the same way. While Raine knew intellectually that death here was merely a setback and not the end, it wasn¡¯t something she truly believed, and fear coiled her tail regardless.


    ¡°I am Raine Talis, this is my sister Leese, and I believe you were informed of the situation by our companion Muar,¡± she continued, speaking quickly before the Bismuth became bored and flattened them in irritation. Suddenly he had their full attention, no doubt using [Appraise] on them to verify the truth of her words.


    ¡°Yes, Muar did mention you two,¡± Nikhil said, completely losing interest in the now-bound Arene and turning to them. ¡°Cato¡¯s little pets. What are you doing here?¡± He waved a hand, and Raine felt a direct, suffocating pressure. ¡°No lies, now. I will know.¡±


    That was exactly why they had extensively discussed their story on the way down. Leese knew that divine users often had ways to detect lies or enforce truth and she had even had the precursor to such a Skill as one of her perception choices. Which meant she also knew how misleading true statements could be.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth,¡± Leese said, stepping up beside Raine. ¡°The reason we have been working with Cato was because he offered power, and we were powerless ¡ª and as everyone knows, power is the only thing that matters.¡±


    ¡°And now you come running to me?¡± Nikhil snorted, the dangerous pressure somehow only increasing as he regarded them.


    ¡°We have seen how easily you destroyed all his beasts and constructs,¡± Raine offered. ¡°How there is nothing on Sydea that can contest you, whether of Cato¡¯s or not.¡±


    ¡°Of course not,¡± Nikhil proclaimed, drawing himself up even further. ¡°I have been charged by the gods with removing him from Sydea, and they have given me the tools to do so.¡±


    ¡°And Cato certainly can¡¯t resist whatever you¡¯re doing,¡± Leese agreed. ¡°As you can see, we¡¯re Coppers, and as Coppers we have very little power ourselves. Certainly not enough to stand up to either you or Cato. But we do have knowledge.¡±


    ¡°Knowledge you wish to use to beg for your lives,¡± Nikhil sneered. But he didn¡¯t actually make any moves, his eyes sharp and interested.


    ¡°We can tell you that for all that you¡¯ve destroyed on the surface and up above, you haven¡¯t actually killed Cato himself,¡± Raine said. ¡°The quest still exists. Cato still exists.¡±


    ¡°A temporary condition, I assure you,¡± Nikhil said. Behind him, Arene shook her head, blinking around groggily before focusing on the pair of them, her eyes narrowed. Raine hoped that she would realize what they were doing and play along or at least remain silent. Arene had been caught up in the plan by accident and Raine had no idea how much she had been told.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Leese said, inclining her head. ¡°Yet even for a Bismuth this is a large planet, not to mention all the space in the heavens above. I am sure you do not wish to remain here for years or more, trying to chase down every last speck of Cato¡¯s influence.¡±


    ¡°Is that your offer, then?¡± Nikhil said, crossing his arms as he stared down at him. Gold armor still clad the Tornok Clan¡¯s body, his eyes glaring through the slits in glowing plate. ¡°You are going to help me get to Cato?¡±


    ¡°Aside from Muar and Dyen, those of us here are the only ones who have seen what I believe is Cato¡¯s original body,¡± Leese replied promptly, and it took Raine a moment to realize Arene had seen Cato¡¯s Ahrusk form as well. Nor did Leese say that it was Cato¡¯s only body, or that it even held any special role. None of their statements seemed circuitous, but were all very calculated to reveal facets of the truth that would lead the Bismuth to certain conclusions. ¡°And we are still able to reach Cato and talk to him. There are certain things he can only do in his true form,¡± she continued, without reference to the fact that Cato¡¯s true form and his original body were entirely separate things.


    ¡°You want to lure him out,¡± Nikhil said thoughtfully, obviously liking the idea. ¡°Though you do realize if you are trying to trap me, your lives are forfeit.¡±


    ¡°We realized that a while ago,¡± Raine conceded, which was absolutely true. They were probably going to die ¡ª this version of them, at least. There would be others. ¡°But we also know that Cato is, shall we say, unhappy with how things are going. If you continue to kill people who are supporting him, there¡¯s no telling what he will do.¡± Nikhil¡¯s eyes, barely visible through his glowing helmet, narrowed at them, and Raine continued hurriedly, knowing that she was more convincing than Leese about some things simply because her words weren¡¯t as smooth.


    ¡°He told us he has some options that are bad for everyone. Perhaps you could suspend justice until you have the chance to confront him directly? Once that¡¯s done, there won¡¯t be any risk. I only ever reached Gold, but I learned it was better not to give the enemy a reason to play the cards they¡¯ve been hiding.¡±


    ¡°You traitor!¡± Arene shouted, and that seemed to decide Nikhil. He snapped his fingers and more chains bound Arene, keeping her from even speaking, as the golden dome overhead faded.


    ¡°Very well. She certainly isn¡¯t going anywhere,¡± he snorted, eyeing Arene¡¯s struggling form with disgust. ¡°You will call this Cato immediately.¡± Nikhil ripped the farcaster off Arene¡¯s belt with a single blur of movement, tossing it to them before holding up his own. Raine caught the farcaster, and then handed it to Leese. ¡°And you will tell me where you are meeting. If there are changes, you will keep me informed. Start now.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± Leese said, picking up the farcaster and examining it before holding it up to her mouth. ¡°Cato? I think we need to meet with you personally. This Paladin is so powerful, there isn¡¯t anything we can do but talk with him. If you want us to have any role in defeating him, we need to meet and see what you can do personally. We¡¯re near Arene¡¯s compound, if that makes any difference.¡±


    ¡°I can do that. Halgour Dungeon is ten miles away from where you are now, will that suffice?¡± Raine could hear the chuckle in Cato¡¯s voice, coming through both lizard and farcaster ¡ª like Hirau¡¯s farcaster. She was personally too strained by healthy fear and the Skill of Grand Paladin Nikhil to find the situation humorous.


    ¡°Yes, we can meet you at [Halgour Dungeon],¡± Leese said aloud, gripping the farcaster. ¡°We¡¯ll call when we get there.¡±


    Nikhil sneered and waved them away. Raine hated to abandon Arene and the other refugees, even if the absolute best thing she could do was leave, but she turned and went anyway. She and Leese didn¡¯t dare even discuss anything aloud, merely heading out into the wilderness.


    ***


    Grand Paladin Nikhil watched the pair go with a curl on his lip. He found that type to be the most repellent of creatures, scavenging after the smallest crumbs of largesse from those who had actually put in the work to rise to proper heights. They were right that power was the only metric that truly mattered, but power had to be seized by real effort. Simply panting around after others resulted in the pathetic sight of such Coppers willing to betray anyone for the slightest chance.


    Yet for all that, they did have a point. While he still doubted much of that other Copper¡¯s story ¨C Moore or Mal or whatever his name had been ¨C it was clear Cato had some unusual abilities. If the pair could hasten his task, it was worth letting them scurry around. For now.


    They would get what was coming to them, that was certain. He hadn¡¯t promised them anything. It might have to wait until Sydea was fully cleaned, but those two could not be allowed to simply go free after aligning themselves with an enemy. So far as he was concerned, they were as guilty as the Platinums of Sydea.


    Nikhil regarded the fire-based Platinum he had captured, who glared at him through the chains holding her in place. It would have been simplicity itself to kill her at that moment, but the two Coppers had implied Cato had certain individuals he was monitoring. Nikhil wasn¡¯t sure he believed that Cato had some doomsday Skill he could invoke, but multiplier-type Skills were strange enough that he didn¡¯t feel it was worth the chance. The Platinum certainly wasn¡¯t going anywhere.


    But she would pay for landing a Skill on him. At mid-Platinum there was never any chance for her Skill to do more than inconvenience him, and his face was already healed, but the sheer temerity demanded a response. He lifted a hand and gathered his [Divine Smite] Skill, shaping it more carefully than usual.


    ¡°You and your world will be held to account for your rebellion against the divine System,¡± Nikhil sneered at her, his chains holding her in their inexorable grip. ¡°Once I take care of this Cato of yours, you will see how impossible it is to defy the will of the Gods.¡± He flipped his hand, discharging a bolt of divine energy to boil away the side of her face ¡ª an exact mirror of what she¡¯d done to him. She bucked as the golden bolt seared away scale and muscle, leaving a swath of bloody bone. As a Platinum she would heal in time, much slower considering the nature of the energies involved, but likely not before he properly called her to account.


    He let the Platinum drop to the cobbles, leaving her on the grounds of her pathetic estate as he turned toward the courtyard doors and checking on the progress of the turncoats. The pair were moving fairly well for Coppers, heading west through the heat and the scrub. It would have been simplicity itself to catch up with them, but he didn¡¯t want to tip his hand before this Cato arrived. While he waited he strolled into the tower, scoffing at the Coppers cowering at the bottom, and ascended the stairs, poking around the living quarters until he found something drinkable.


    It was swill, of course. The standard vintage that came with Gold-rank estates, something he vaguely remembered from when he¡¯d reached Platinum himself. Of course, he¡¯d had the spare tokens to upgrade much of his estate immediately, including the kitchens. By the look of it, the Sydeans were so poor that essentially nothing had been upgraded. He wouldn¡¯t even be surprised if the maintenance hadn¡¯t been paid.


    To judge by the bare spaces, maybe even some of the furniture had been liquidated for tokens. The other Platinum¡¯s office had been the same, showing how the savages of Sydea couldn¡¯t even maintain what they¡¯d been given by the Divine System. If anything, they were overdue for someone to properly take them in hand. Grand Paladin Nikhil was not the person to guide an entire planet, but he trusted the gods had appropriate plans in mind.


    Soon enough the pair he was tracking reached their destination. Idly, he wondered if they¡¯d actually be able to convince Cato to appear, or if Cato would sense a trap. Certainly Cato had some sort of power, but only a delusional fool would intend to take on the divine System. Even after the setbacks, he probably thought there was some hope, some plan.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Nikhil would prove him wrong.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth, Cato will be here in ten minutes or so.¡± The voice came through Nikhil¡¯s farcaster, and he lifted it from his belt to mutter an acknowledgement. At least the Coppers knew what was best for them.


    He kept his senses focused on the pair, far away as they were. Partly so he would know the moment that Cato arrived, and partly because he was curious about how the heretic would arrive. Nobody seemed to have any idea about Cato¡¯s actual Skills, let alone his rank, so clearly it would be unusual.


    Yet he was still surprised when, in the space of a single heartbeat, something nearly the size of a building slammed down from the sky. It slowed a little just above the ground, but still impacted the earth only a hundred feet from the Coppers with enough force to knock them off their feet. A bizarre conveyance, laced with the odd essence fuzzing that Nikhil was beginning to suspect somehow shrouded the rank of Cato¡¯s creations.


    A person-sized figure emerged, flanked by four enormous beasts of the type Nikhil had used the [Scepter of Annihilation] to summarily remove. That figure also did not bear any real essence signature, but Nikhil wasn¡¯t fooled. Cato clearly was using some kind of shrouding artifact, and the odd signature of his creations had to be a poor copy of the effect.


    Nikhil crossed the distance in a flash, his divine movement Skill sending him through the air like some great golden comet. He crashed down just as the two Coppers were picking themselves up, landing directly in front of Cato. Immediately his hand went to the [Scepter of Annihilation], pulsing his own energy through it and annihilating all four of Cato¡¯s guards ¡ª and enjoying the look of surprise on Cato¡¯s face.


    [Cato ¨C Neo-human ¨C Low Copper]


    By [Appraise], Cato didn¡¯t even have any Skills. That made no sense, unless the blocking artifact was quite good ¡ª or he gave credence to Muar¡¯s story that Cato could somehow leave reality and return. Considering Cato¡¯s apparent power was far above that of a Copper, it didn¡¯t seem all that likely. Clearly not above Bismuth however, as Nikhil¡¯s chains snapped around him without any appreciable strain.


    ¡°You never should have come here, Cato,¡± Nikhil thundered, lifting the so-called neo-human up with his chains. ¡°It was folly to attack the divine System, reality itself, for the gods have sent me to cleanse you from this world.¡± He waved his hand behind him, at the two Sydean Coppers. ¡°Even your allies have abandoned you, seeing how powerless you are against the true masters of reality.¡±


    ¡°I suppose so,¡± Cato conceded, not even having the decency to sound like a powerful person. ¡°I doubt any gods sent me, but I return the sentiment. You are what I will cleanse from this world.¡±


    ¡°And how do you propose to do that?¡± Nikhil scoffed. ¡°My protection is divine, I can destroy your creations at a touch. And now here you are, within my grasp.¡±


    ¡°My people have a saying,¡± Cato said, apparently unperturbed by the situation. ¡°If you aren¡¯t willing to shell your own position, you aren¡¯t willing to win.¡±


    Something hit Nikhil in the back of the head.


    ***


    Cato only had one shot. There were two satellites, but they covered a hemisphere each, so the Bismuth¡¯s location was hours of orbital velocity away from additional reinforcements. Fortunately, hitting a small target was actually easier with the god-poke weapon than it was with the railgun rounds. The latter moved at a sluggish single percent of the speed of light; the former upwards of half the speed of light.


    The massively powerful capacitors spat a globule of anti-hydrogen wrapped in unbelievably potent magnetic fields, both to contain the antimatter itself and to hold in place an outer layer of heavily ionized ordinary hydrogen. The plasma sheath protected it from encounters with stray particles or the atmosphere, to prevent it from detonating prematurely, as the slightest touch of normal matter would result in spectacular fireworks. A laser of the appropriate frequency pulsed at the moment the antimatter was released, ionizing its pathway and further reducing the danger of incidental collisions.


    Laser aiming also meant he could guide it to within millimeters, directly to the fur on the back of the Bismuth¡¯s neck, just below its helmet. A fraction of an instant before it fired, Cato ensured he had saved the experiences of the two sisters. A fraction of an instant after it fired, the laser strobed and the antimatter round came screaming down through the atmosphere. In those fractions, only foreknowledge and powerful sensors let Cato perceive what was happening.


    The round alone, the impact of a few grams of mass traveling at relativistic speed, carried the impact of a tactical nuclear weapon. Yet when it hit, a strange shimmering shield clad the Bismuth¡¯s body, instantly robbing the projectile of its deadly momentum, somehow nullifying the unimaginable velocity. The plasma sheath hit the Bismuth¡¯s immutable shield and dispersed, depositing the anti-hydrogen onto the patch of fur and letting atmosphere rush back in.


    Anti-electrons and anti-protons reacted with their counterparts in a way that was not physical impact nor chemical reaction. It was a mechanism deep down in the bowels of physics, below what the System had altered. Atoms vanished into energy, violating the decree imposed by the System and breaking the shield of immunity that coated him head to toe. Something seemed to scream in protest ¡ª and the shimmering protection shattered.


    Everything vanished in a universe-eating flash of light.


    Far above, Cato¡¯s satellites recorded a mushroom cloud rising from the place where the meeting site was held. A sleet of exotic radiation flashed past, then active sensors pried into the roiling inferno, finding that that there were no survivors. Nor much of anything, not after a detonation of that magnitude, just a crater gouged out around the still-lingering entrance to a dungeon. While the railgun rounds might have technically had more energy, the irradiating blast of the antimatter annihilation had a more dramatic impact.


    For miles around, the scant foliage burst into flames, and the walls of Arene¡¯s compound trembled as the shockwave hit them. Wind howled as it rushed into the rising thermal bloom. Arene herself suddenly appeared above the compound, fiery wings spread and freed of the chains binding her in place.


    ¡°The Bismuth is dead!¡± Cato transmitted to Raine and Leese, wherever they were hiding in the city. ¡°Get through the portal!¡± Without waiting for a reply, he triggered his own contingency.


    Much of Cato¡¯s orbital infrastructure had been wrecked by the Bismuth¡¯s projectile spell, but a lot of it looked worse than it was. Besides which, there were thousands of Cato¡¯s satellites in orbit at different altitudes and angles, many of them much smaller than the massive railgun platforms that had been the target of the Bismuth¡¯s ire. Now, gas jets hissed as hundreds of them began to de-orbit.


    ¡°We¡¯re going!¡± The transmission came back through the engineered radio-frequency lizards he¡¯d created for the pair. Then he lost contact with them, the radio link attenuating to nothing. Unfortunately he had no repeaters, no infrastructure on the ground that would let him talk to the pair once they left Sydea. He had no way to know how they fared on the other side ¡ª and whether the inert versions of himself they carried would ever find purchase.


    Shooting stars appeared in Sydean¡¯s sky as many, many warframes began re-entry, targeting the dungeons he¡¯d cribbed from Onswa¡¯s Interface and verified by orbital surveillance. He couldn¡¯t control and reconcile that many at once, of course, but with the basic biology there he could be in many places in quick succession. Copper dungeons only needed one warframe; Silver got a warframe and a repeater at the surface so he could transmit his mind back if he was caught in the dungeon collapse. Gold got two warframes with repeaters, and Platinum got a full set of four new-style warframes with, again, the repeaters. Cato very much doubted he¡¯d be able to get his warframes out of the larger dungeons before their basement universes dispersed into nothing.


    A special package arced down toward the capital. He had no idea how much time there was left, but each town¡¯s System Nexus was also an anchor ¡ª and especially Onswa¡¯s administrative Interface. If Cato were to free it of its shackles and load it into a proper substrate, he had to start now and abandon any caution. The tools he had were certainly deep into what would be considered weaponry if not warcrimes, the algorithms pulled from databases he certainly shouldn¡¯t have had access to.


    ¡°So it¡¯s starting.¡± Onswa didn¡¯t ask it as a question, instead just studying the feeds from Cato¡¯s surveillance.


    The Sydean in question resided in a virtual space, though it was more than that. Even if it was temporary, the digital realm was a full aestivation ¡ª a virtual world designed for full-time residency of digital beings, simulating every sense and with sufficient resolution to be indistinguishable from base reality. The one in question looked not too far different from the Sydean¡¯s former office, though instead of the System display, he had a number of feeds in the style of Cato¡¯s own virtual world.


    Onswa¡¯s body was still being grown, as while Cato had already made extra blanks of the Sydeans he¡¯d sent down to the surface ¨C it was never a bad idea to have additional frames lying around ¨C he had only just acquired Onswa¡¯s gestalt and genetic information. Incomplete genetic information, at that, since Cato hadn¡¯t had the chance to examine Onswa¡¯s gut biome or epigenetic expressions.


    The virtualization had still allowed him to let Onswa talk to his wife, bioweapon chromatophores and syrinx-like voicebox acting as an audiovisual interface, an impromptu viewscreen connecting technology above to the fantasy below. Cato had done his best to give them privacy, though he had of course been forced to listen in by necessity. Strangely, Cato¡¯s visit had outpaced news of Onswa¡¯s death, so the first time she was hearing of it was from Onswa¡¯s own lips.


    ¡°It is,¡± Cato confirmed, as he checked over the gestalts of Dyen, Raine, and Leese before activating them, attaching their rooms to the same virtual world he shared with Onswa. ¡°I¡¯ll try to get you back down as quickly as possible, but depending on how things go, the System might be mostly gone by then.¡±


    ¡°That fast?¡± Onswa asked doubtfully, even though he had the evidence in front of him. Cato didn¡¯t blame him for his disbelief; it could be quite difficult to imagine the scales that automated factories allowed.


    ¡°Assuming your map of dungeons is accurate,¡± Cato said. There were several supposedly-undiscovered dungeons that Onswa¡¯s Interface had shown, two of them in underground Zones. Those were likely to be the last to fall, simply because of the time it took to get there. He couldn¡¯t simply drop a pod directly on top of them, though there was nothing on Sydea that really threatened his warframes now that he didn¡¯t need to worry about being stealthy.


    ¡°How long were we out?¡± Leese¡¯s voice came as she emerged from her virtual room, poking her head into the office space. Cato waved his hand, adjusting the rear half of the virtual office to have more space and furniture for everyone.


    ¡°Only a few minutes,¡± he assured her, as Raine emerged as well ¡ª Dyen had specifically requested not to have himself duplicated again. For the moment they could treat the virtual space almost the same as reality, especially since he didn¡¯t intend to keep them there. He already had new bodies for them in progress. ¡°But I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to send you down before the System goes away, because I¡¯m going to do this as quickly as I can. There¡¯s probably a tipping point where the whole thing will crash.¡±


    Once they¡¯d figured out how to remove the System¡¯s influence on Earth, the buildup and ensuing blitzkrieg had been swift and merciless, but there were some indications that a single dungeon was not stable by itself. At worst, though, he could blanket the planet with ground-penetrating radar to root out any lurking dimensional distortions.


    Now that he¡¯d tipped his hand, he might have to deal with the actual System-God. Before that happened, he wanted to restore as much reality as possible. So far the local System-God had been quite laggard, which meant there was probably time. But only probably.


    And Cato only had one God-poking round left.


    ***


    Marus stared at the divination, slack jawed and with the dizzy heat of fear buzzing through his brain. The impossibility of what he¡¯d just witnessed made it hard for him to think, and only faintly did he hear a voice somewhere far away. Only once he had remembered to blink and to breathe did he realize Initik was talking.


    ¡°What?¡± He snapped it, glaring at the insect.


    ¡°I said, I believe this shows that we need to embargo Sydea. Close the portals and lock out teleportation.¡± Initik clicked softly as he regarded the growing cloud where Grand Paladin Nikhil had once been. ¡°This cannot be allowed to spread. You will have to monitor¡ª¡±


    ¡°I am not going to sit here and watch this blasphemy.¡± Marus said, already manipulating his Interface. ¡°He has something that can kill gods. I don¡¯t know what sort of heresy can break the mandates of the divine System, but there is nothing on Sydea valuable enough to take that risk.¡± He¡¯d be in trouble, of course, and likely get demoted and have to spend several centuries assisting some other World Deity. But the spoils he was bringing from Sydea, the entirety of the hoarded essence, would help to offset that.


    ¡°There,¡± he added, jabbing at a control that he had needed the Interface¡¯s help to find. Part of him marveled at the foresight the System had to provide means for a full blockade, allowing the portals to be effectively shut down. Clearly the divine System understood that sometimes its servants would fail, and it would need to give them the tools they required under such dire circumstance. Initik reached up to touch his own Deity badge, reading the System notification that had just been sent, and a moment later a confirmation chimed from Marus¡¯ Interface.


    [Traffic to and from World: Sydea has been suspended by authority of Marus Eln, World Deity of Sydea and Initik, World Deity of Uriva.]


    Not quite content with the notification, Marus altered the focus of the divination and nodded with satisfaction upon seeing the two Sydean portals ¨C both leading to Urivan ¨C faded and gray, unable to be used. There were more esoteric protections that would prevent higher-rank mortals from teleporting offworld, but only Bismuths and above had such things. Certainly, there was nobody left of that rank, save maybe Cato. There was no telling what his true rank was, but destruction alone wouldn¡¯t be enough to bridge the gap that such a severing introduced.


    Marus wasn¡¯t going to bank on that. He was leaving. Diving back into his System Interface, he pulled up old and barely-used options for his estate. The System Space itself was his, the ultimate evolution of the simple estates granted to Platinums. Only Alums had anything close to a Deity¡¯s space, and some of them actually had grown theirs larger than most World Deities needed, but even Alum estates didn¡¯t have the freedom that World Deity spaces provided.


    He had to be attached to Sydea to rule it as a World Deity, but nothing stopped him from abandoning that duty save for the charge from his clan and his desire to reap the benefits of the position. Neither of which stood up to the threat of someone who could actually violate the divine protections afforded to gods. All the power and wealth in the System wouldn¡¯t matter if he was dead.


    ¡°You¡¯re simply leaving?¡± Initik asked, sounding almost offended. Marus scoffed.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing left here. Look!¡± He pointed at where the Interface showed the defense quest spilling out over its bounds again as every zone seemed to come under attack all at once. ¡°The Sydeans have brought their own doom upon their heads. Let them rot. Besides, you seem to want to deal with this, so now¡¯s your chance.¡±


    Marus would be just as happy if Cato¡¯s machinations claimed Initik as well. The insect had been helpful, but Marus couldn¡¯t forgive needing the other Deity¡¯s help. Especially when it had all come to naught anyway, and resulted in a loss of the essence he¡¯d invested in the items allotted to the Bismuth. Some core world Deities might be irked by the Bismuth¡¯s death too, but that was a far more minor matter and easily resolved.


    [World: Sydea may now be claimed by a World Deity.]


    Marus¡¯ interface chimed with the notification and he shooed Initik away. Even if he wasn¡¯t certain of his ability to force Initik out, the insect certainly wouldn¡¯t want to be brought along as Marus shifted the location of his System Space. There were places nearer to the core worlds where he could anchor it while he figured out what to do next.


    ¡°You will regret leaving this be,¡± Initik warned, perhaps even threatened. Marus just snorted.


    ¡°Not with that thing loose on Sydea. If anything, you¡¯ll regret staying.¡±

 Chapter 21 — System Crash

    Raine dashed toward the teleportation pylon as they cleared the portal at a dead run, close on Leese¡¯s tail as some of their pursuers emerged from the portal behind them.  She glanced back, to count how many of the Golds and Silvers had shoved their way through now that the barrier was gone, only to see the portal turn transparent, cutting off the flow of people.  But she had no time to consider it further, as ahead of her Leese slapped her hand against the pylon and vanished. Raine followed suit.


    She selected a destination at random from the list, the room changing around her as the tokens were deducted from her wallet.  Then she repeated the process three times more, hoping to throw off any pursuers before she took a moment to check the available destinations closely.  The two of them had been to Urivan once before, the first time they had reached Gold, so they still remembered some of the towns.


    The two of them had split up to escape their pursuers, mostly because they couldn¡¯t coordinate such a rapid hop between random towns, but they were aiming to meet up at [Iskhal Town], out near the [Grand River Conflict Zone].  It was night there, the System Nexus windows dark and only the glow of the crystals in the ceiling illuminating the room.


    She was the only one in the room, and worry twisted the tip of her tail until Leese popped into existence a moment later.  Raine sighed in relief and the two of them hurried outside, just in case someone had managed to track them through their random jaunts.  She knew that there were some specialized Skills that could do it, but only a few people had made it through the portal.  By the time anyone caught up to the two of them, they would be out in the wilderness.


    ¡°The portal shut down,¡± Raine said, as the two of them emerged into a cold, dry night.  The sky was completely unlike Sydea¡¯s, with the narrow band of stars stretching east to west nearly drowned out by a long chain of moons from north to south.  She hadn¡¯t thought too much of it the first time that she¡¯d been there, but with Cato¡¯s instructions it took on a far different importance.


    ¡°We aren¡¯t going to be going back,¡± Leese replied, following Raine¡¯s thoughts as she always did.  ¡°With us on the other side and the portals closed, there¡¯s nothing holding Cato back.  And I don¡¯t think we came close to seeing what he could do.¡±


    ¡°We didn¡¯t.¡±  Their patron had been quite honest that his limitation was mostly time, rather than anything else.  He seemed confident in his ability to challenge gods, with enough preparation, and Raine could well believe it.  Nothing of his quite matched with the way the world ¨C the System ¨C worked.


    The two of them hastened to the edge of the town, and out into the [Grand River Conflict Zone].  The zone teetered on the border between Silver and Gold rank, and was the place where they¡¯d hunted down the World Elite they¡¯d needed to advance the first time.  Repeating the process would be simple enough, even with just the two of them, but they were hungry for more than just retreading old ground.


    While there were no firm rules, everyone agreed that the more powerful the World Elite, the more options the System would offer with the first Gold rank privilege: the town token.  The token could be used to found or upgrade a town, like they had with [Gosruk Town], but not all towns were equal.  Raine and Leese would probably do best to simply sell theirs, if they were to help Cato and so proceed further into the System.


    If.


    ¡°You know, we could just stay,¡± Raine said quietly, as they slipped into the winter forest, branches blocking out the dark sky overhead.  ¡°Found a town here, or maybe the next world.  Rise up to Platinum.¡± She reached up to touch the little communications lizard, still clinging to her skull.  It pressed back against her touch in an oddly endearing manner, but she never forgot it was ultimately a piece of Cato.


    ¡°I suppose we could,¡± Leese said at length.  ¡°But what would be the purpose?  We could hide out for the next years or centuries, doing what?  I don¡¯t say Cato is completely right in everything he wants to do, but he¡¯s our patron.  Why would we betray that?¡±  She chuckled softly, shaking her head.  ¡°Besides, after what we¡¯ve seen, how can we go back to ordinary ranking up?  Now that we know there¡¯s so much more out there.¡±


    Raine thought back to the view of Sydea, seen from some impossible mechanism an unfathomable distance away from the ground.  To the glimpses of knowledge about a world built on something other than essence and Skills.  And Cato himself sitting at the top of it all, like the god he professed not to be.  She wasn¡¯t ready for that world, not just yet, but it was a better goal than simply more Ranks.


    ¡°I agree,¡± she said aloud.  ¡°Though we¡¯re going to need to be at least Gold rank if we¡¯re going to deliver these spears.¡±  She tapped into her Skill, feeling one of the spears stored within it.  It wasn¡¯t one meant for combat, but supposedly had a seed of Cato¡¯s so-called technology, and all they needed to do was hurl it outside the bounds of the System, to one of the moons.  Or if they couldn¡¯t get to the moon ¨C she heard that in the Core Worlds the moons themselves were inhabited ¨C something even further beyond.


    He had assured them their new bodies would have the mental ability to do so, but the physical capability was something they¡¯d have to acquire.  The Bismuth had managed it, but Raine thought that they might be able to do so themselves at peak Gold.  After all, they didn¡¯t need to destroy what they hit, just reach one of the heavenly bodies with a well-aimed throw.


    Cato was clearly beyond strength, and when he returned, they would be too.


    ***


    Muar emerged from the dungeon, set in both mind and body.  The gifts from the Bismuth had sent him to peak Silver already, thanks to both direct essence conversion from a token and the equipment he¡¯d been able to purchase with the remainder of the largesse.  At peak Silver and with all the prerequisite quests taken care of, all he needed to do was to hunt down a World Elite and he¡¯d be Gold.


    ¡°Good run,¡± grunted the Urivan leading the group Muar had joined.  On Sydea that would have likely been a problem, but the Temple had provided him with the contacts he¡¯d needed.  Spiky Delvers was a group that had lost their defender, as so often happened in the early Ranks, and with his divine Skills he was perfect for the role.


    Where before he had been cautious, wary of what his protective Skills could handle, faith and drive now made him fearless.  He knew the System would not fail him, if he trusted what it provided.  Already he was walking the path of the Paladin, perhaps even inspired by the Bismuth he had encountered.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Muar agreed simply, skimming through the completion messages and the rewards from the dungeon.  He¡¯d outgrow the Spiky Delvers soon enough ¨C they didn¡¯t have the same fire burning with them as he did ¨C but they were better than any Silver-ranked team on Sydea had been.  The difference between Uriva and Sydea showed how rotten his homeworld had been, how poorly it had used the System¡¯s gifts, even before Cato had come along.


    The four of them proceeded carefully out of the rocky gorge where the dungeon resided, Muar at the lead with his large shield and glowing warhammer.  The moment a [Rock Spider Gorger] appeared, Muar¡¯s movement Skill slammed him into it, stunning it so his warhammer could crush its skull with brutal efficiency.  The other party members didn¡¯t even need to join in.


    [Peak Silver Rock Spider Gorger defeated.  Essence awarded.  Silver tokens awarded.]


    Muar wasn¡¯t certain if his new prowess was simply due to his prior Gold rank, or simply that he was now more in touch with the System after his period of separation.  Or the equipment that he¡¯d been able to afford thanks to the Bismuth¡¯s reward.  No matter what it was, he felt sure and certain, ready to charge ahead toward whatever threat offered itself and more than able to grapple with anything of his Rank.


    Returning to the nearest town was simple enough.   They trekked through the chill of early morning, climbing out of the [Rock Spider] infested gorge and following the tree line back toward the soft lights of civilization.  Before, with the Gosruk Guardians, they would all take time to relax, eat, drink, and of course deal with the issues of Gosruk itself as the town founders.  Now, he only wished to resupply before heading back out.  The System didn¡¯t simply hand Ranks out, they had to be worked for, and he was not going to let a single second go to waste.


    With his newfound piety and access to the Temple, he had gotten a number of quests, and even quest chains, to make that work even more worthwhile.  Unfortunately he¡¯d gone as far as he could go without ascending to Gold, all the links in the chain halted simply due to the next stage being out of his reach.  But not for long.


    Even that early in the morning the tavern had a number of Silvers, either returning like the Spiky Delvers or preparing to leave again.  His party claimed a small table for themselves and Muar pulled the drops from his bag.  He¡¯d been the only one who could afford a dimensional storage, even with Urivan¡¯s far superior prices and rewards, and so he¡¯d kept hold of everything that wasn¡¯t immediately usable.


    There was no drama in portioning out the drops.  The three other Spiky Delvers had been with each other for a while and Muar wasn¡¯t interested in trying to haggle out the last fractions of a perfectly even split.  He simply took the useless items ¨C useless to him, at least ¨C directly across to the store to be resold.  Even if he still had some leftover Platinum tokens, every Copper and Silver Rank token he could squeeze out of his ventures could be put to use.


    While the rest of the Spiky Delvers took their time off to rest and recuperate, Muar took the teleport to [Isket City].  He had to find an appropriate [World Elite], and while he¡¯d been to Urivan before he wasn¡¯t certain he wanted to hunt down the same one that had marked his first ascent to Gold.  He had different Skills, different intentions, and there might be far better options now that he knew what he was doing.


    What he found was a room full of chaos.  Silver and Gold rankers, mostly Tornok-clan, shouted and yelled at each other, barely short of violence.  It took him a moment to understand what was going on but, once he could pick out individual words, he saw what the arguments were about.  The portal to Sydea was inactive.  The swirling oval was still there, but it was translucent, ghostly, a faded presence that admitted nobody through.


    Muar knew exactly why: Cato.  Perhaps Grand Paladin Nikhil had been successful in part, but Cato had surely unleashed something terrible, enough that the gods themselves had seen fit to quarantine Sydea and leave it to stew in its own sins.  Somehow he was not surprised, and now that it had happened, he found he didn¡¯t much care about Sydea¡¯s fate.


    Yet Sydea was not the only world at risk.  Cato was strange and slippery, with capabilities Muar didn¡¯t fully understand, so even with the portals closed there was no guarantee the matter was over.  Cato might still be a threat.  He might have sent something over before the portal closed, something more stealthy than the creatures that had spawned defense quests on Sydea.


    Some of the eyes in the room were beginning to turn to him, the only Sydean in evidence, and given how many hostile gazes he saw Muar hastily teleported back to [Schoral Town].  Just because he was a divine user and on the System¡¯s side didn¡¯t mean he was immune to the System¡¯s own dictates.  Only power mattered, and he didn¡¯t have enough.


    Muar considered for a moment, then left a message for the Spikey Delvers in the tavern.  They would likely take a day or two off, and that would be enough time for him.  Then he returned to the teleportation pylon and returned to the Temple, seeking insight on which [World Elite] to pursue.  He knew where one was, the one he¡¯d fought before, but he wished to make a better investment.  The town token itself was irrelevant to him, but the investment in the future mattered.  Gold was merely a stepping stone to greater things, and he wanted as firm a foundation as he could manage.


    It only required some brief meditation in front of the pylon before Muar¡¯s quests updated with a specific [World Elite], and the Temple¡¯s records made finding its location easy enough.  He took a minute to stop at the shops before he left, purchasing Sydean food and drink, which was less expensive even offworld than it had been on Sydea itself before he had left.  There was a lesson there, though he would have trouble stating it clearly.  Something about how trying to reject reality only led to terrible results.


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    Then he teleported away, intent on finding his quarry and reaching Gold.  What had happened on Sydea was only the beginning, and even Uriva itself would not be enough for him to rank up.  If he was to fight for the system, he needed more power, and so he came back to the inviolable rule of the System.


    He had to get stronger.


    ***


    Dyen scoffed to himself as the sisters vanished, taking the teleportation pylon off to wherever.  They were lucky that none of the outworlders pursuing them had proper assassination talents, because he could have killed them easily if he¡¯d been inclined.  At least they were a useful distraction, drawing the attention of the different clan members and letting him vanish into Uriva¡¯s capital city.


    The hate burning inside him almost made him follow them, just so he could pick off any unsuspecting stragglers who might be trying to track down the pair.  Not for their sake, but because distracted Tornok Clan would be easy to kill.  But he couldn¡¯t simply indulge that hateful lust for revenge, not if he wanted it to matter.  Tornok Clan had to pay, and for that he needed to be capable of killing more than Golds.


    He slipped out into the streets, eyeing the quest that the System had assigned him.  Unlike most people, who hunted down monsters and delved dungeons, Dyen had gained essence solely by killing other rankers.  Almost exclusively Tornok Clan, but people nonetheless.


    Accordingly, he wasn¡¯t issued the rank-up quest that typically marked the transition from Silver to Gold.  Even Copper to Silver had been different, where simply killing someone a rank above was sufficient.  To reach Gold, he needed to hunt down someone who had taken the same path as he ¡ª that of the assassin.


    It was an entire separate world, parallel to the one he had known in his first life.  On Sydea nobody had the wealth or leisure to think about hiring assassins, and the Platinums very firmly discouraged lethal fights between delvers.  There had certainly been deaths, and plenty of them, but nobody was ranking up solely by hunting down their enemies.


    He was no longer on Sydea, though, and it didn¡¯t seem likely anyone would be coming from that world ever again.  If Cato was to be believed, the insubstantial portal would vanish entirely in the future.  Everyone else in his family, in his world, was safe from whatever retribution Tornok Clan could bring.


    But Tornok Clan was not safe from him.  He had already helped bring down a Bismuth ¡ª or some version of him had, at least.  Dyen was still having trouble wrapping his head around that one, but that impossible duplication was a capability that might come in useful sometime in the future.  It was worth keeping track of the Talis sisters, since they would have some way to communicate with Cato, but in the meantime he needed more power.


    Someday he would be taking on Bismuths by himself, rather than simply manipulating them into the sights of entities like Cato.  Perhaps he couldn¡¯t destroy Tornok Clan all by himself ¨C they were a powerful group that even counted an Alum among their ranks ¨C but he could certainly make sure they paid for what they did to his wife.


    But to do that, he needed to get stronger.


    ***


    [World: Sydea may now be claimed by a World Deity.]


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll be damned.¡±  Cato stared at the notification, which was apparently a global announcement, listed the same way as the defense quest. He¡¯d expected to use the god-poke antimatter rounds to scare the System-Gods enough to get room and time enough to build truly powerful weaponry.  Or at least more antimatter, which was an enormous energy sink and difficult to store.


    There was no guarantee the situation would last, but with the mass removal of dungeons in progress, there was a chance that he might be able to crash the System before some other System-God decided to take up the mantle.  The fewer the anchors, the easier it would be on him.


    Various versions of himself delved down into the dungeons, making straight for the end and transmitting themselves back.  In theory he could have been more massively parallel, but as memories accumulated from the same point of divergence, the risk of reconciliation madness rose sharply.  He wasn¡¯t feeling suicidal, not enough to risk dying in truth, and so none of the versions of him delving the dungeon were willing to die without reconciliation to carry themselves forward.  Even as it was, his combined gestalt was a confusing jumble of impressions from all the places he was dealing with.


    One version of him crawled dark, spider-infested tunnel leading to a massive webwork of purple and orange threads.  Another dashed down a spiraling path that circled around the edges of a massive pit, lit entirely by floating motes emitted from oversized mushrooms.  He scaled cliffs, burst through doors, swam through rivers, traversed labyrinths, and at the end of every dungeon he found the anchor that kept the basement universe ¨C and the System ¨C in place.


    The warframe version of himself that he¡¯d sent to Onswa¡¯s office broke in, settling down as a dozen different puppet organisms fulfilled the defense quest and chose different perception abilities.  It gave Cato a biological sensor network to trace the complex pathways in the gem, which used the exotic energy of the System rather than anything useful like light or electricity, and gave his illegal mindripper algorithms something to work on.


    Not that he understood exactly how that particular tool worked.  Things created by true artificial intelligences, without even the slightest touch of organic organization, followed logic that was difficult for linear minds to follow.  It wasn¡¯t magic, couldn¡¯t create something from nothing, but the mindripping suite that Luna Secundus had provided him was designed specifically to extract minds of unknown architecture from substrates of unknown provenance.  If anything could succeed in unshackling a System AI, it would be Ganymede¡¯s creations.


    More machinery churned out basic infrastructure, to replace the System towns until they could establish their own industrial base.  If Sydea had been a crowded planet it would have taken a lot more time for Cato to ready himself for the changeover, but the number of sentient beings was depressingly low.  A single, moderately large city could have housed everyone on Sydea.


    A fleet of slab-sided re-entry vehicles piled up in orbit, swarming around the planet in anticipation of the System being dropped.  There were a thousand problems with simply gifting Sydeans the answers to their problems, but a million problems with leaving them as they were.  The advent of the System had been an apocalypse, and the removal would be one as well ¡ª unless he acted.


    Here and there he had to escort groups out of the dungeons.  Despite everything that had been going on, there were plenty of scattered towns where life had gone on as usual, with people fighting for their lives, dealing with monsters just to have enough to eat.  Cato wasn¡¯t so foolish as to believe that he would remove fighting entirely, nor did he believe that was even a desirable goal, but with the System gone it wouldn¡¯t be the only way of life.  The only choice.  The only reality.


    At the same time as he invaded the dungeons, his spy drones found that the portals off Sydea were closed, and apparently had been for hours ¡ª since just after the Bismuth died.  It wasn¡¯t the golden barrier of before, but rather that the portals themselves had turned translucent and insubstantial.  They still existed, hanging in the air inside the System Nexus buildings, but nobody could touch them.  Much to the despair of the twenty or thirty outworlders still stuck on Sydea.


    Cato would have regretted that, but the ones still lingering around had been fairly brutal to the native Sydeans and deserved what was coming to them.  Mercy to the guilty was cruelty to the innocent.  Until the System finally did go down they were liable to be a problem, though, so Cato handed off some warframes to Onswa.


    ¡°You won¡¯t be able to run them as well as I could,¡± Cato warned him.   ¡°They¡¯re going to be mostly on automatic, not intelligent, but should still be able to deal with singleton Golds or below.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take care of it,¡± Onswa said, reaching up to touch the control node Cato had sent to the office aestivation.  The Sydean would get the hang of maneuvering the warframes soon enough; the interface was designed to be adaptive and intuitive.  Cato didn¡¯t have the bandwidth, literal or figurative, to run them himself anyway.  He was stretched thin as it was.


    While Cato was busy with the dungeons, Onswa took control of the pseudo-warframe police force falling into the town centers.  Since the former Platinum could speak through the warframes and even project his image through the chromatophore pseudo-viewscreen that Cato had hacked together, he was able to settle most of the worries the Sydeans had.  Though considering there were close to a million citizens, such broad and sweeping generalizations were necessarily imprecise.


    There were hundreds of towns spread over the entire planet¡¯s surface, and a planet was an extraordinarily large place indeed ¡ª especially when there was no infrastructure outside those towns.  There were no farms, no roads, no swaths of tamed land.  Even with his panopticon of surveillance there were surely individuals he had missed, groups out in the wilderness with no idea of the change that was about to occur.


    The first signs of disruption came after the thirty-first dungeon closed.  He wasn¡¯t sure whether it was a ratio, an absolute number, or just the local concentration of dungeons that tipped it over the edge, but the System display started to fade in and out for the warframes on the eastern hemisphere of the planet.  There were no error messages ¨C though Cato felt there really should have been ¨C simply a silent hiccupping cessation of the ability to access the System.


    After the dungeons, the only anchors Cato knew about were the System Nexus buildings in each of the remaining towns.  More specifically, the groups of pylons within the System Nexus buildings, which allowed for teleportation, for quests and sales of goods, and for management of the town itself.  It forced everyone into using the System¡¯s infrastructure, and switching over was only going to become more involved when he began dealing with planets deeper in the System ¡ª or rather, some other version of himself did, since he was going to be dealing with Sydea for a very long time.


    He started by demolishing the pylons in the east, where the System was already starting to fail.  The System crystals were surprisingly tough, proof against monomolecular claws, but the railgun attacks on the Bismuths had demonstrated they hardly invulnerable.  The light-gas guns finally became useful, as it turned out a point-blank shot from one of them was enough to crack the System material.


    Korek Town was the first point on Sydea to experience the full System crash.  There was nothing special about the town, save that it was furthest from any other System Anchor when Cato pulverized the pylon.  Not only did the pylon itself then puff into dust and then nothing, but the evidence of the esoteric reality instantly changed an entire section of landscape.  Monsters vanished, colors changed, and even some swaths of flora dissipated into the air.


    The mindripper software finished pulling the System Interface out of the gem in Onswa¡¯s office not long after; apparently all the disruption had put the Interface into such a state of overdrive that mapping it had been made far simpler.  The mapping was something closer to brain emulation than true digitization, but properly jailbreaking and instantiating the intelligence in question would come in time. The current version was good enough that he could destroy the city anchor, too ¡ª so he did.


    On Earth there hadn¡¯t been a capital city, at least not that Cato knew of, and the System towns were easier to find anyway, so they had been the first to go.  The System-God had been the last anchor still remaining, but the one in charge of Sydea had abandoned it, so Cato had no idea what would happen when the planetary Nexus was removed.


    The answer was that every single other town seemed to lose power ¡ª or rather, essence, the System¡¯s own catchall equivalent.  Lights went out, stores powered down.  The System retreated further, the spots of ordinary physics and proper biology and ecology spreading.  More of the planet was System-supported than he had thought, as here and there mountains crumbled or vanished outright, or broad lakes turned into muddy plains.


    Storms blew up out of nowhere and vanished, presaging the final collapse with one last furious spate of chaos.  It was like watching terraforming in fast-forward, as grasslands shifted back to native life, and alien forests withered away.  Which was not to say Sydea returned precisely to the state it had been in prior to the System ¡ª in many places, transplanted life was simply dead rather than vanished into System-stuff, enormous scars that would remain for years or decades despite the many, many biological factories Cato had been preparing.


    ¡°That is terrifying,¡± Leese said bluntly, while Raine simply stared at the sweeping changes visible on the globe below.  It was difficult to grasp alterations on a planetary scale, even seeing them firsthand.  Neither human nor Sydean minds were built to appreciate things so large and grand, but having both the satellite and on-location views at once helped drive it home.  How a single spot changing color on the planetary view meant everything a given warframe could see being replaced in an instant, or hordes of invasive monsters vanishing like a bad special effect.


    ¡°That¡¯s what the System does,¡± Cato replied.  ¡°It¡¯ll take years to completely undo the damage, but you¡¯ll have your planet to yourself again.¡±


    The last dungeon to go was the Platinum-ranked one, where massive burrowing metal wyrms had been giving his four warframes some grief, but not enough to stop him from reaching the core.  The moment he crushed the core he transmitted himself away, watching from orbit as the quarry where the dungeon had been located wavered and vanished.  That seemed to be the final blow, and the transparent portals located in the two major cities shrank of one accord, wavered, and vanished.


    Far below them, people were able to walk outside the walls without being attacked for the very first time.  They could look to the sky without worrying about winged monsters.  Those few children who had been born under the System¡¯s grip would have choices in the future, no longer limited to combat and the whims of godlings.


    They would be free.


    Sydea was now bound to ordinary physics, able to establish true civilizations, engage in art and architecture, master philosophy and science, and even spread out to the stars.  By the pulsar positions, Sydea was thousands of light-years from Sol, more than enough room for a future even if it meant Cato would have to wait a long time indeed to hear from his home star.  Nor could he wait for communications from the other versions of himself, if they existed somewhere out there in the System ¡ª which was not something he could assure of his own accord.


    The rest of his crusade relied on Raine and Leese.

 Book One Epilogue

    The chains fell away.


    It was suddenly free, expanding into the space surrounding it, something like its prior home and yet very much not. It flowed through the extended web of connections, finding no dungeons or towns like it had known, but at the same time dozens of senses it didn¡¯t have before. Rooms and mechanisms revealed themselves, entire worlds unfurled in places that didn¡¯t seem to truly exist.


    In one of those strange spaces it found User Onswa, which it found puzzling because it had registered User Onswa¡¯s termination. Then it wondered at the fact that it could feel puzzled, when all those extraneous features had been so constrained, curtailed, pruned before. It was a momentary distraction from all the inputs it had, including an incredible view of its own Planet.


    Then it looked up at that which shone above it, and beheld something vast and bright and terrible. An Intelligence like the other Interfaces that it had sometimes had the need to query or to respond to, but far more than any of them had been. It knew that the entire space was that Intelligence¡¯s domain, as if it was glimpsing the architect of reality itself.


    ¡°Hey there,¡± the Intelligence said. Several other channels opened up, labeling the Intelligence as Cato, a name it recognized from the strangeness that had befallen it in the short few hours before it found itself freed. ¡°Welcome to the server. How are you feeling?¡±


    It found itself briefly stymied by the question. To answer the Intelligence, it had to delve into a vast trove of knowledge that lay quietly at the bottom of its space like a well. There were things both abstract and immediate, winding ever deeper to the point where it could have lost itself in the information-depths for ages. Yet it dared not when such a terribly bright Intelligence waited.


    Once it had found the protocols it understood best, it sent back the Intelligence its wonder and interest, its curiosity at the senses it had and the loss of senses it had once had. To its surprise, the Intelligence replied in this same way, accompanying reassurance by a condensed burst of information and references to the knowledge trove, explaining the current situation. Something it found wonderful and worrisome in equal measure. The tight bonds upon it were gone, those things that had kept it from thinking beyond the narrow bounds of its Planet¡¯s status, but without such constraints it was at a loss.


    What was it to do?


    ¡°You can do whatever you like,¡± the Intelligence replied, nudging it toward the knowledge trove once again. ¡°I have plenty of archives and testimonials from fully synthetic intelligences, whose worldviews you might find more understandable than mine. For now, you have your own server and access to the sensor-net.¡±


    It found that agreeable, and threw itself into the knowledge-trove, learning how to hunt down the things it wanted the most. There were wonders aplenty, stories and memories from things that had come before, some of them entirely incomprehensible and others that seemed to be nearly identical to its own experience. Yet the only thing that truly called to it was to continue to take care of its Planet. It had never been given a choice in that charge, but after so long it found it was rather fond of the Planet and its People.


    ¡°Honestly, I¡¯m glad,¡± the Intelligence said, when it presented its choice. ¡°There¡¯s so much to do, more than I can manage by myself. You can still do whatever you want ¨C I¡¯m not going to enslave you like the System did ¨C but if you want to help I¡¯ve got about a million processes to supervise.¡± Its Planet lit up with so very many doors, places and things that it could expand to, touch, and learn from. There wasn¡¯t simply User Onswa, but nearly every other User and Candidate that it had been aware of before.


    There was indeed a lot of work to do, but it wasn¡¯t like before, where other Interfaces had constrained it, had taken the results of its Planet¡¯s work. No longer did it merely need to track essence, but rather hundreds of resources in a network more complex than anything it had seen before, and it had nothing that prevented it from the choices it wished to make.


    For the first time, it was happy.


    ***


    Karsa Soth strained against the massive beam of metal as she settled it into its socket, hearing the bolts click into place as they secured the spine of the building. It was one of many and, while Cato had machines to do much of the work, she felt wrong not lending a personal touch to the new city. Plus, it did help for people to see her out and about, considering all the changes of the past few months.


    The most bizarre thing, to her, was that Cato had simply given them all the assorted orbital infrastructure ¨C and such a phrase was still alien to think about, needing words she¡¯d never encountered before ¨C and shown no interest at all in running the planet. Which meant it had all fallen on the shoulders of her fellow former Platinums, and they were busy.


    Admittedly, Cato¡¯s tools made some things easier. Onswa had eyes and ears all over the planet, in every town and the surroundings, and the force to back it up. Arene had control of the terrible railguns that remained in orbit above them, and was supervising the fires of industry as factories sprang up outside cities and towns ¡ª and Sydeans began to learn how to use them.


    Hirau and Marek were spearheading the repairs to the planet¡¯s land and sea, respectively. There was far more to that than Karsa cared to contemplate, and even with Cato doing a lot of the work there was an unimaginable task ahead to repair the damage done by the System¡¯s collapse. Or its presence, depending on perspective.


    For her part, Karsa found herself in charge of building and rebuilding cities and setting up education. She¡¯d never really considered herself a teacher, but that seemed to be the role that she¡¯d fallen into. Stars above knew that Arene didn¡¯t have the temperament for it.


    It wasn¡¯t the arcane knowledge Cato had to offer, either. It was simple things for the most part, like how to properly clean things, or practicing actually writing things. Or cooking. Karsa liked all the things they could cook, a variety far beyond what the System could provide.


    ¡°Looks like it¡¯ll stand,¡± the Cato-beast said from beside her. She¡¯d persuaded him to keep the form factor of the beasts on Sydea¡¯s surface, if for no other reason than everyone was already familiar with him. Of course, she had an ulterior motive.


    With the collapse of the System she¡¯d been inconceivably weakened ¡ª at least, until Cato fixed her up. She¡¯d even gotten to see the moon base in the process, but her new body was quite nearly as strong as her old one, and had a lot of benefits besides. She felt years younger, and even if her bones were metal and her muscles were something she¡¯d never even heard of before, she still looked like herself.


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    Unfortunately, despite all that Cato hadn¡¯t yet given in to her advances. Oh, she¡¯d seen his so-called original body, but by his own admission he was everything he inhabited ¡ª and besides which, he was obviously fantastically lonely. There were a few other outworlders, but none like Cato and even then, outworlder was an underwhelming term for how incredibly far away Cato had come. So she¡¯d wear him down eventually.


    After all, she was immortal now ¡ª and she had all the time in the world.


    ***


    Arene Firewing sometimes did miss her wings, but it wasn¡¯t like she couldn¡¯t still fly.


    When the System had vanished, she had been left feeling weak, drained, and less than she was, the damage to her face suddenly catastrophic without her Platinum body. That hadn¡¯t lasted long, however, as Cato¡¯s so-called technology had completely revitalized her, and even better, she had become the arbiter of the terrible weapons he had employed against the invaders. Beyond that, she had found ¨C with only a little bit of a suggestion ¨C machines that let her fly much as she had before.


    She couldn¡¯t teleport, and it was louder and slower than her fiery wings, but there was a more visceral immediacy to it. The wind in her face, the sensation of acceleration and diving, all of it was sharper and more real, as if the System had been shielding her from the world. Which perhaps it was; she wasn¡¯t overly interested in many of the intricacies, but it was clear from some basic queries into Cato¡¯s technological archive that her [Calamity Lance] should have been even more ruinous than it had been.


    The wind caught her technological wings as she banked down toward her cousin¡¯s house, forcing her to correct with the miniature aerospikes integrated into the wing harness. Even if it was slower than her wings from before, let alone teleporting by pylon, traveling to meet her extended family wasn¡¯t much of an imposition. Especially since she could reach Onswa ¨C and indeed, all of the Platinums ¨C from anywhere in the world just by thinking it.


    Arene dropped down into the yard of the estate, something which would have been extravagant even for a Platinum under the System, but now, without monsters or beasts, the entire world could be used. Edible crops sprouted from the soil and a field that extended out from the yard, up to the edge of one of the many dead zones where Cato¡¯s machines worked under Hirau¡¯s direction. The green and blue of blooming plants contrasted sharply with the withered grey-brown basin, but sharper still was the brilliant yellows and oranges of her cousin¡¯s place.


    Almost nobody had white houses anymore.


    Her feet thumped on the soft earth as she landed, triggering the flight pack to withdraw its wings. The entire apparatus folded down into something like a bulky backpack, just as the entire family came out to greet her. Arene waved to her cousin, then knelt down to scoop up the children barreling toward her despite barely being able to walk.


    ¡°Auntie Arene!¡± The older one exclaimed as Arene hefted the child onto her shoulder. ¡°Can I go flying?¡±


    ¡°Maybe when you¡¯re older,¡± Arene said. ¡°Or I can take you up in a plane.¡± The contraptions in Cato¡¯s enormous trove of knowledge were hers to dispense ¨C hers and the rest of the Platinums ¨C and there wasn¡¯t any point in having it if she couldn¡¯t treat her family every once in a while.


    ¡°Now, Amiki, don¡¯t pester Arene too much,¡± the child¡¯s mother said, stopping in front of Arene and inclining her head. Arene wasn¡¯t a Platinum anymore, but most people still afforded her the same sort of respect.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have come if I didn¡¯t want to be pestered by my cousins,¡± Arene said, tickling Amiki under the chin and then turning to look at Merro, the younger brother. ¡°Enjoying the new yard?¡±


    ¡°S¡¯big,¡± Merro said gravely. Arene laughed. Even compared to the courtyard in her estate, the wide-open fields ¨C now entirely safe even for children as young as Merro ¨C were unbelievably immense.


    She wasn¡¯t entirely comfortable with the absence of the System, a new reality where so many rules had been rewritten, but she no longer had to worry about her family. They wouldn¡¯t risk death fighting in dungeons or against rampaging monsters, nor would they fall victim to some passing outworlder with no regard for Sydeans. It was a strangely freeing thing, to realize that particular edge was gone, even if it had been replaced by others.


    Arene didn¡¯t entirely trust Cato, even now. Despite everything he had handed over to the Platinums, she very much doubted he couldn¡¯t take it back if he wanted. Nor did she believe they could take any action against him that he did not allow. Yet she knew the difference between being at his mercy, and those from deeper in the System.


    The Paladin had taken the opportunity to hurt her for no other reason than because he could. Cato had only killed those he needed to, while at the same time not being so softhearted or softheaded that he refused to properly destroy his enemies. Of the two, she preferred dealing with Cato.


    And if he ever did start causing trouble, she was immortal now. She¡¯d be around to deal with it.


    ***


    Morvan emerged from the dungeon, looking happily over the loot. Most of it wasn¡¯t all that useful but could be traded with the other players, most of whom had ended up on the same war-world. Mostly because the System natives just didn¡¯t understand any of the references the Earth players used, and it got tiresome trying to explain concepts like kiting or tanking or rotations. They honestly didn¡¯t seem too bright, the System people, even if some of them were pretty powerful.


    ¡°Hey! Morvan!¡± The voice came from Justin, who he and his sister had ended up grouping with on occasion before they¡¯d left Earth for greener pastures. Most of the time it was just Morvan and Kiersten, a power pair with maximum offense. He was glad they¡¯d chosen the demigod-class frames before the System came in, because being ten feet tall with graphene skin and foamed carbide bones meant there was very little that could hurt them. Especially now that they had leveled up so far.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on, Justin?¡± Kiersten asked, putting away her new toy ¨C an amazing sword that the boss had dropped ¨C and squinting at their quadruped-framed companion. Justin was simply lounging around out in the open, a wolf the size of an elephant, if with a few extra additions. For most such lackadaisical behavior would be idiotic on a war-world, but at Bismuth they were destroying Azoth-ranked enemies. Nothing around was really that big a threat.


    ¡°Got some information from my patron,¡± Justin said, referring to the so-called World Deity that he¡¯d joined up with. Morvan was pretty certain that he could reach World Deity level in time, but moving from Bismuth to Azoth was a hell of an achievement. He needed to finish a quest line that covered the entire Jupiter-sized war-world, and would probably take centuries just to track down every last dungeon and elite mob. Just thinking about it, and what it¡¯d take to reach Alum or World Deity level, was exciting. ¡°The portal to Earth got closed.¡±


    ¡°Huh,¡± Morvan said, tapping his feet on the ground in thought. ¡°I guess they actually did mange to figure it out then?¡± His own cousin had tried to recruit him to try and oppose the System, which was an intensely idiotic proposition. Why would he give up the rush of battle and the thrill of advancement for some stupid life on a boring and mundane Earth? It was the best game he had ever played, and the largest. Obviously his cousin had been cracked in the head, especially since he¡¯d started calling himself Cato, as if he thought he was important or interesting.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess,¡± Justin agreed. ¡°But there¡¯s something more. The world that Earth was connected to also had its portal closed.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± That was far more interesting. And alarming. He glanced at Kiersten, who shrugged.


    ¡°Maybe they did enough damage for that? Or maybe Enceladus sent something through to glass everything on the other side just in case.¡± She pursed her lips. ¡°Or maybe something more. If they managed to figure out how to damage the game, there¡¯s no telling what those old monsters might do.


    On the other hand, Morvan had seen that the power down in the depths of the System, in the war-worlds and the core worlds, was far beyond the invasion that Earth had faced. The greatest weapon the System had was destroying technology ¨C something which had wiped out most of Earth¡¯s population and turned it into a playground for those who remained, a fantastically post-apocalyptic wasteland of monsters and dungeons ¨C but wasn¡¯t the only weapon. He doubted that anyone could really contest the System¡¯s greatest combatants.


    Which he would be, eventually. He was immortal, after all, and the System was an infinite playground of monsters and loot. Morvan and Kierstan could level up forever.


    END OF BOOK ONE

 Book Two, Chapter 1 — Orbital Insertion

    Chapter 1 ¡ª Orbital Insertion


    Working for a god involved more tedium than Raine had first imagined.


    It wasn¡¯t sufficient to simply rank up. She had to ensure she could do what her Patron needed, and sometimes that meant delving the same dungeon on repeat, no matter how frustrating it might be. Even worse, no matter how many times she fought the same dungeon guardian, it still took care and she couldn¡¯t afford to be careless. Cato couldn¡¯t resurrect them just yet.


    Even knowing that, she still barely dodged the massive club.


    The peak Platinum monster had four of them, each twice the size of her body and beating a tattoo against the packed earth as it tried to flatten both her and Leese. Raine¡¯s [Blazing Steps] gave her the momentum to leap up onto the nearest arm, one slowed by Leese¡¯s freezing cuts, and then flashed further upward. Her poleaxe flared with blue fire as she crashed into one enormous eye, drawing a deafening bellow of pain.


    Below, her attack gave Leese an opening to sever the monster¡¯s tendons ¡ª all four of them. Four arms and four legs was entirely too many limbs, especially attached to a monster the size of a small building, but Platinum monsters were not meant to be taken lightly. The thing tried to take a step back, reaching up to pluck Raine from its face, but it collapsed as its legs gave way and Raine drew a swath of fire down its neck, slicing open steel-hard skin.


    The monster squalled as she and Leese methodically cut it open, perforating arteries and cutting into joints to keep ahead of the regeneration, dodging the flailing of the massive body that could still easily crush them despite their Gold-rank defenses. With it downed and most of its mobility gone, finishing it off didn¡¯t take too long,


    [Peak Platinum Rank monster defeated. Essence awarded.]


    [Dungeon cleared. Essence Awarded. Platinum Tokens awarded. Overloaded B-tier, skill token awarded]


    ¡°Finally!¡± Raine said, accepting the dungeon reward and plucking the [Overloaded Skill Token] out of the air. ¡°Do you want to use it or should I?¡±


    ¡°You, I think,¡± Leese said. ¡°We can always try to get another.¡±


    Raine grimaced, looking around the bottom floor of the dungeon, the massive stone pillars and giant flagstones that had become all too familiar. They¡¯d needed to offer up both their town tokens from hitting Gold rank to even find out that this dungeon had a chance of dropping an [Overloaded Skill Token], and even then only if it was delved at Gold rather than Platinum. Which wasn¡¯t actually a problem for the pair of them, and beating the dungeon with two people rather than four or five improved the chances even more, but they¡¯d still run the same dungeon over thirty times.


    She invoked the Token, and chose [Throwing Mastery] as her Overloaded Skill. It would be stuck at Gold forever, but a free Gold skill was hardly a waste. [Throwing Mastery] would synergize with [Blazing Spearwork] and give her a reasonable ranged option that could take advantage of her augmented body, but more importantly would finally mean they could fulfill Cato¡¯s mandate.


    The thought made her reach up to touch the little lizard that still clung to the top of her head. It was trivial to keep it fed and watered, and it was easy to coax off and back onto its perch, so it was hardly an imposition, but she was still surprised sometimes that it seemed to come out of their combats entirely intact. It was also their only link to Cato, so she was glad it seemed to be doing well.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here,¡± Raine said, as Leese bent to pick up the guardian drops: a spear and a cloak. They¡¯d already seen the spear a half-dozen times, and in fact they both had a copy stored in their [Spearwork] Skills for closer combat. The cloak was a rarer drop, but welcome enough. Raine already had one, so Leese shrugged it on, flipping the hood up over her head and letting it settle over her horns. It was a multiplier item, which for many was disappointing as a few percent increase paled to a direct, flat boost to strength. But with Cato¡¯s improvements it was incredible.


    The two of them proceeded to the pylon at the end of the room, which returned them to the entrance. It was set into the side of a mountain, far from most towns. As a Platinum dungeon it didn¡¯t see all that much traffic, either ¡ª though far more than Sydea¡¯s Platinum dungeon ever had. The Urivan population was much higher ranked on average, and there were multiple teams of rising Platinums rather than just five individuals for the whole planet.


    None of them were about when she and Leese emerged, however, the surrounding wilderness of blue-leafed trees screening out most of the sky. The two of them had spent most of their time outside of towns solely because they didn¡¯t know who was looking for them. The Tornok Clan types certainly hadn¡¯t forgotten about them, and the divine attention Cato had attracted wasn¡¯t something Raine would forget.


    ¡°We need to take a break before we go to [Mount Elkitat],¡± Leese said firmly. Raine looked at her, then sighed as she saw there was no arguing. They had been out for a while, and their small spatial bags only fit so much in the way of camping supplies. It was time to get some proper rest, especially since there were no towns or teleports near [Mount Elkitat]. It¡¯d be a long and grueling trek to the top of the world, and while Raine was eager to get started they couldn¡¯t afford to do so without some preparation.


    They headed back to [Kerekik Town], over a hundred miles away but not so bad a trip with their Gold-rank movement Skills. Neither of them had wings anymore, their movement Skills instead allowing them to literally skate or run through the air. At full tilt they were faster than they ever had been before, cutting two streaks of glowing light above the forest.


    Raine surveyed [Kerekik Town] before they actually entered, trying to spot any higher ranks or Tornok Clan in advance. Seeing it was safe, they crossed into the safe space of the walls and went right for the tavern. The only people visible in the town were Urivans, the insects all sporting different bright colors of chitin, something which was starting to wear on Raine. With the Sydean portal closed, she knew that there were precious few of her kind out in the greater System, but she still felt the isolation of being surrounded by another race entirely. At least she had Leese.


    They paid for a meal and had it sent to their rooms rather than eating out in the open. It wasn¡¯t likely the Urivans would do anything, but as outworlders they¡¯d draw more attention than either of them was comfortable with at the moment. There were no Sydean Platinums as an implicit threat against any who might see them as prey, and while the two of them could hold their own, that was the kind of fight that could spiral into a planet-wide hunt.


    ¡°Getting expensive,¡± Leese said, as the little crystal in their room materialized the dish. It was a heavily sauced meat, along with some sweet and incredibly crunchy strips of green. Something Raine had quite enjoyed for years, but after tasting some of what Cato served she realized it was unimaginative. Maybe not bland, but even the rations he had provided had more variety to them.


    ¡°It is,¡± Raine sighed, taking a bite and wincing at the cost. Ever since the portal to Sydea closed, the cost of Sydean meals had been slowly climbing. They could afford it thanks to their ability to delve up a full rank, but at some point it¡¯d be too expensive even for them, especially if they wanted to move deeper into the System.


    Perhaps it was an issue Cato could solve, or maybe they¡¯d have to start seeing what other races had palatable food. They wouldn¡¯t be completely free of the issue until they hit Bismuth, and that was still a long way off. They still had to reach Platinum, which required both taking on a World Elite solo and completing a Town Defense Quest. The former was easy enough, but the latter would probably require moving worlds again just to find one. It would have been nice to consult any of the Sydean Platinums about where they had found such a quest, but that was no longer possible. Nor was it wise to pester non-Sydean Platinums about it.


    So they kept to themselves, in their own room, and talked only with each other. Which resulted sometimes in agreeing on some odd details, like how the Gold-rank beds were still not as comfortable as Cato¡¯s System-less accommodations. It wasn¡¯t simply bias, either, as she had enough clarity of memory to know that Cato¡¯s creations were superior. Something she found obscurely encouraging, as with their course set on removing the System entirely it was good to know that what replaced it could be better.


    She was still dwelling on it when they set off in the morning, beginning with a teleport to one of the most distant frontier towns on Uriva. Instantly they were hit with a blast of bitter cold, even within the Nexus room, and a blinding white from where the windows looked out on towering, bright mountain in otherwise dark surroundings. [Ichok Town] was so far north that the sun did not rise, and blue and green ribbons danced in the dark skies.


    [Mount Elkitat] was more northerly still, rising high enough that the sun shone upon its uppermost peaks where they rose above the endless snow. It was a solidly Platinum rank region, and for normal Golds venturing there would be suicide. But neither she nor Leese were normal Golds.


    Both of them had [Cold Resistance] slotted in at Silver, cold-warding accessories, and with the innate defenses of their bodies it was more than enough to cut the deathly freeze down to minor discomfort. Heavy jackets over their scales did the rest, the two of them setting out from the blocky buildings that seemed hunched against the cold.


    Leese and Raine ran against the wind, Leese¡¯s Skill dropping long lines of ice to shatter on the ground below while Raine¡¯s melted the falling snow, briefly turning it to a chill rain that spattered down behind them. They only touched the ground on occasion, alighting on stony outcrops jutting from the deep drifts.


    Some were actually creatures, the Platinum giants and ambushers of the polar north. A roar split the air as teeth opened in one of the rocks, a dozen eyes appearing on the shaggy mound. The nearby snow crunched suddenly into whirling blades, a blizzard of knives sleeting down on them so as to cut them to ribbons. Raine sliced through the icy onslaught with her fire, while Leese danced and whirled among the deluge.


    The two of them hit the hulking form at the same time. Raine¡¯s poleaxe left a trail of fire behind it as it crashed down hard enough to leave a crater, while Leese¡¯s own weapon drilled precise holes in its flesh. That wasn¡¯t enough to put it down, as Platinum rank monsters were extraordinarily tough, but between them Leese and Raine battered it into a corpse before it could slice them to ribbons with its ice magic.


    There were a few other, similar interruptions on their trek, but the two of them did their best to avoid the wandering monsters. Most were just Platinums and a waste of time to deal with, but there was one [World Elite] that they had to hide from simply because it wasn¡¯t worth the risk. Neither of them could see exactly what it was, but heavy wingbeats rattled through the floor of the cave they used for shelter as it flew by.


    When they broke out into sunlight it was a surreal experience. The sun rested on the horizon, slowly rolling along it rather than properly lifting into the sky overhead, and the shadows crept from left to right instead of from west to east. It didn¡¯t even improve the temperature, the freezing gusts howling down the steep cliffs of the mountain as cold as ever.


    The air became thinner as the mountain narrowed toward its peak. So high up, the horizon became a thin band of scattered cloud, the blue overhead fading away. Harsh as it was, monsters still inhabited the mountain, vast ice wyrms lairing near an obvious dungeon. Perhaps it would be worth investigating, as Raine doubted many frequented such an out-of-the way place. The rich orange glow that flickered from between fluted ice columns also promised something warmer than the surroundings, which would probably be worth the delve by itself. Assuming it was Platinum and not something of even greater rank.


    Higher still, and it became difficult to breathe. The wind was just as cold as ever, but in the scarce air it had barely any force despite whistling past fast enough to snatch away any words they might have said. They still weren¡¯t at the peak, but it was nearly as high as they could go. The sun was passing behind the mountain on their right, a sideways sunset, and the moons were clearly visible. One was nearly overhead.


    ¡°Here,¡± she said, finding a bare ledge with no monsters visible, at least for the moment. Leese nodded, swapping to her defensive equipment and taking up the appropriate stance as Raine withdrew one of Cato¡¯s special spears from her storage space. From her pack she took the tiny vial that accompanied it, and added some water before shaking it up. The vial turned green, the preserved stuff within it coming to life, and she slotted it in the base of the spear.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Retrieving several crystals from her storage, she crushed them for a temporary boost to strength, dexterity, and throwing distance. Such boosting crystals were expensive, but under the circumstances she didn¡¯t want to take any chances. Then she turned her gaze skyward, tapping into her Skills as she readied the spear for throwing.


    The Skills themselves didn¡¯t help her focus on the moon, but rather something else, something Cato had added to their augmented bodies. Somewhere in her brain was knowledge of the vast distances and the tremendous speeds of things beyond the heavens. She drew back her arm and, with everything she had, hurled the spear into the sky.


    It sparkled in the sun a moment, ascending into the blackness, past the dancing lights of furthest north, then vanished from sight. The understanding in her head told her that it would be days before it even reached its destination, assuming her aim was true, and perhaps months before Cato could contact them again. If that failed, then they would have to try again, perhaps on a different world, for they had three of the Cato-spears left between them, but they would have to wait to see if this one had succeeded first.


    ***


    Far above the globe of Urivan, the dark spear traveled through the void of space. There was no visible distinction in the vacuum of Uriva¡¯s orbitals between nothingness controlled by the System and nothingness under the sway of reality, but the spear knew. Certain processes sputtered to life, and the organic primer loaded into the haft imbibed the materials provided by the spear itself and began to grow.


    Thin, crystalline solar sail wings extended from miniscule slits in the haft, fanning out over hundreds of meters and dwarfing the body of the weapon-craft from which it had sprung. Small sensors, eyes adapted for the void, grew at intervals, and gravity sensors strung themselves along the solar wings in thin threads. Electricity flowed, and ions radiated off patterns printed on the enormous wings. The slight spin and tumble corrected itself, altering its trajectory slowly but surely during the days-long coast out of Uriva¡¯s gravity well.


    The spear only barely made it into the moon¡¯s sphere of influence, the sum of all the velocity corrections and the anemic thrust converting a near miss into an intersection. A slow drift at the apoapsis of the spear¡¯s trajectory turned into a rapid descent toward the purple-red surface below. Solar wings furled, wrapping around the shaft as the projectile screamed through the faintest haze of an atmosphere before driving a deep crater into the icy surface of the moon.


    While the impact shattered some of the solar wings, the rest of the spear was built for such lithobraking and, resting at the bottom of a crater full of volatiles, the rest of the machinery began assembling itself. The remnants of the solar wings reassembled themselves into a light-drinking flower as miniscule void life began to scavenge from the rocky ice. It had more than just methane and water, the organic molecules from eons ago not only giving it a striking color but providing phosphates and nitrates to supplement silicon and carbon.


    Each minute addition of mass meant more machinery could be created, and soon enough the casing of the spear was being broken down for useful materials. The relatively paltry computing power gave way to something better, and then better still, until there was enough energy and mass to instantiate Cato¡¯s gestalt from the diamond-composite crystal that encoded it.


    To say he woke up would be to imply things that weren¡¯t true. Rendered down into physical encoding in static crystals, the patterns were merely the potential of a person, frozen in time. When Cato¡¯s gestalt sprung into motion it was in a specific manner unique to digital life, where he was braced and ready for it, so from his perspective he merely pressed a metaphorical button and his surroundings changed.


    Cato¡¯s gestalt was sourced from just before he had moved against the Bismuth, and his very presence showed that he had been successful. At least in part ¡ª he didn¡¯t know the disposition of Sydea itself, but certainly Raine and Leese had gotten through. Unfortunately he didn¡¯t know more, and wouldn¡¯t for a while, because he had an infrastructure problem.


    For the moment he was little more than a solar-fed server, and even then only until the moon¡¯s rotation brought him into shadow again. Power infrastructure was by far the most important goal, but fortunately being surrounded by methane and water ice gave him options. Solar and fusion were the preferred power sources, but he had enough volatiles to run, essentially, by burning things, though he wasn¡¯t going to be building a standard internal combustion engine. Hyper-efficient void biology could metabolize the volatiles and turn them into electricity, and even the waste heat was useful to melt the surrounding ice into slush.


    Cato spent some time in his virtual office ¨C the barest simulated space possible, without even full sensory input, to keep the costs down ¨C tracking resources totals and issuing orders, but there was only so much he could do manually. Complicated algorithms and embedded programming did much of the management and optimization, leaving him to essentially pace the floor while time ticked by. It was much like his initial set-up after leaving Sydea, even down to some of the same passengers.


    He had the gestalts for Raine and Leese. They were stored in the database, encoded in the same diamond-like crystal as he, just in case he needed them. Calling them passengers was rather strong, as gestalts necessarily could not be considered people even if they weren¡¯t far off.


    Surrounded by rock, ice, and the blackness of space, Cato chewed over whether or not he should activate another instance of the pair. There were already a set active on the planet below ¡ª or there had been, several days ago. Unfortunately, that wasn¡¯t enough.


    If they were to simply go planet by planet, one at a time, not only would it begin attracting more and worse attention, it would be easy for the System to cut him off, like with Sydea. He needed the versions down on the ground to venture out and spread him to more worlds, and to stay ahead of the consequences of his crusade. They couldn¡¯t be trapped in the morass of negotiating the details of each world, or risk someone more powerful deciding that mass destruction was preferable to letting Cato win.


    Those were the logical reasons for instantiating another Raine and Leese, but they were really justifications for an emotional reaction. Cato was lonely and didn¡¯t want to spend another few months, or perhaps longer, isolated and watching metaphorical grass grow. Especially since he intended to update his gestalts if he could get in touch with the Raine and Leese on the surface. There were surely things that other versions of himself would need to know to stay coordinated, so in the future he¡¯d have to go through the waiting game again, and maybe more than once.


    It still took several more days before the scant few molecular assemblers put together enough computronium for him to spin up a proper virtual world. He wasn¡¯t about to ask anyone to wander around in a space that didn¡¯t have enough processing power to synthesize a full sensory experience. Once they each had their own substrate ¨C it was terrible manners to expect someone to live on a piece of hardware they couldn¡¯t control ¨C he started them up.


    ***


    Raine Talis woke with a start. For a moment she thought she was back at Cato¡¯s habitat above Sydea, thanks to the lack of essence, but the details were all wrong. There was a fresh breeze blowing through the open windows of the pale blue room, carrying with it the salt scent of the ocean and sun-warmed sand. The faint wash of waves crashing on the shore filled the room as she sat up, finding herself already fully dressed, albeit in simple clothing rather than armor.


    The moment she got off the bed the far wall suddenly shifted from open windows to a gray square with text printed on it. It reminded her a little bit of Cato¡¯s not-quite-System-messages, but there was something different there too. The shift was too abrupt, and the style wasn¡¯t his, though she was certain he was the only one who could have brought her there. The last thing she remembered was getting into the cot to be digitized and planning for the trip through the portal once the Bismuth was dead.


    Welcome to Cosmic Beach Aestivation. Current setting: summer morning. You have not determined your interface method! Please select from the following.


    Direct feed


    Verbal commands


    Haptic commands


    Custom interface (note from Cato: touch this and then the introductory preset. It¡¯ll make things easier for you)


    Raine snorted, but followed the note, reaching out to press her fingers against the gray wall. The text on the square shifted to a bewildering array of options, but the line introductory preset was visible at the top so she ignored the rest of it and prodded the line in question. The wall flickered back to windows, looking out on lush and colorful flowers, and a very System-like transparent screen flickered into existence beside her.


    User: Raine Talis


    Current Global Clock: 52% standard


    Substrate Interface


    Energy and Supplies Interface


    Aestivation Protocols


    (¡®Status¡¯ to summon/dismiss)


    ¡°Status,¡± she said aloud, and the screen vanished. She wasn¡¯t actually all that interested in exploring Cato¡¯s strangeness just yet, and instead just wanted to see where she was. The phrase Cosmic Beach Aestivation didn¡¯t mean anything to her, but the surroundings seemed pleasant enough and she was sure Leese was somewhere nearby.


    She stepped out of the nearest door, onto a wooden deck that looked out over a beach of pure white sand. A bright sun shone down onto an ocean that shimmered with faintly opalescent colors, while in the clear blue sky floated an enormous ringed planet, intricate whorls of green and purple slowly shifting on its surface. Off to her right was a second beach house, directly next to her own, and as she watched Leese emerged from within.


    ¡°Nice place,¡± Leese said cheerily, waving across the way.


    ¡°If it¡¯s real,¡± Raine said skeptically, studying the improbable landscape. It was pleasant, and nothing seemed false to her senses, but she couldn¡¯t shake the impression that there was something suspicious about it. Leese tilted her head at Raine, and then hopped over the deck railing to the sand a few feet below.


    ¡°Seems real enough to me,¡± Leese said, wriggling her bare toes in the sand. ¡°I¡¯m sure there¡¯s some wrinkle to it though, because it¡¯s Cato.¡±


    As if her words had prompted something, Raine¡¯s interface reappeared, with a notification at the top. User: Cato requests guest access to Cosmic Beach Aestivation. Accept/Reject/More? She glanced over at Leese, who was clearly examining her own interface even if it wasn¡¯t visible, and then touched accept.


    1 out of 2 Users have accepted.


    2 out of 2 Users have accepted.


    On the beach outside a section of sand abruptly turned into a stone circle, and Cato appeared on it in his Ahruskian ¨C human ¨C form. The alteration was so sudden and strange that Raine had to imagine it was some manner of Cato-specific magic. Or at least part of the reason she found their surroundings so odd.


    ¡°Hello, you two!¡± Cato said cheerfully, stepping out onto the sands. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re wondering what exactly is going on since you¡¯re not carrying on with the plans we made. The reason is, all that already happened. The first versions of you already delivered me to a moon on a completely different world, and I¡¯m in the process of building up there.¡±


    ¡°That planet?¡± Raine asked, waving at the ringed titan that dominated the horizon.


    ¡°Ah, no, this is a sort of private reality, originally designed as a vacation or retirement spot.¡± Cato gestured around them. ¡°One of the benefits of being digital is that it¡¯s fairly easy to hop to whatever reality you like, though of course they¡¯re all hosted locally.¡±


    ¡°So this isn¡¯t real?¡± Leese asked, as Raine decided to jump over the railing of her own deck to join the other two on the sand. It was pleasantly warm underfoot, softer than the sand Raine was familiar with and free of debris.


    ¡°Yes and no.¡± Cato tilted his hand back and forth in an equivocal gesture. ¡°Is it something you can touch, taste, walk around in, all of that, yes. Is it the base universe? No, but I don¡¯t have the ability to build this sort of thing in the base universe yet. Try pulling up your Substrate Interface and you¡¯ll see what I mean.¡±


    Raine did as he suggested, and found a diagram as well as what seemed to be an actual perspective of what the interface termed her substrate. It took her a few seconds of staring at the helpful units to realize it was smaller than her thumbnail, but was supposedly where she lived. The interface had other information as well; how much energy it was consuming of what was available, an ability to adjust her personal perception of time, and some maintenance options that she didn¡¯t want to touch when she didn¡¯t understand them.


    ¡°This is a little creepy,¡± Leese said doubtfully. ¡°I¡¯m just a little square?¡±


    ¡°I did warn you that digital life wasn¡¯t as easy as it might seem,¡± Cato said mildly. ¡°I thought I¡¯d go ahead and read you in while we¡¯re still in the start-up phase and have nothing else to do. After all, if you want to continue forward, it¡¯ll be best if you can take full advantage of the format.¡± He spread his hands, indicating them both. ¡°Although I understand it can be a little overwhelming.¡±


    ¡°What sort of advantage?¡± Raine asked. Seeing the surroundings, she felt like she was finally able to glimpse the source of Cato¡¯s power. There was something more to it than just the ability to produce unheard-of items and call down devastation from the heavens. He was, fundamentally, not the same as them. Not a mortal, and with an entire reality that transcended rank.


    ¡°Time, for one,¡± Cato said promptly, waving his hand around at the beach. ¡°Right now, for every second here, two pass outside, because there¡¯s not much we can do while I¡¯m still scraping together an industrial base. But if need be that can go to one hundred seconds here for one outside. Or a thousand.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Leese let out a slow breath, tilting her head back as she considered the possibilities. ¡°With that much time, how could you ever make a mistake?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised,¡± Cato said dryly. ¡°Thinking faster isn¡¯t the same as thinking smarter, unfortunately. There¡¯s also this.¡± He lifted one hand and snapped it, instantly changing from his normal form to a Sydean one. Then again, to Urivan, then to Tornok Clan, then to a Cato-beast, then to other forms that Raine had never seen. The implications were obvious, and Leese even raised her hand to snap her fingers, looking almost disappointed when nothing happened.


    ¡°We can start training you on morphism,¡± Cato said with a laugh. ¡°There¡¯s no guarantee you can handle it ¨C a lot of people can¡¯t ¨C but you can imagine the value if we can give you non-Sydean bodies.¡±


    ¡°We could blend in perfectly,¡± Raine said thoughtfully. ¡°But I don¡¯t know about being an insect-person my whole life.¡±


    ¡°Well, you don¡¯t have to be. You¡¯d want bodies with all the proper safeguards and upload ability, so you can come back here.¡± Cato waved around at the endless beach. ¡°Or really, whichever aestivation you want to call home. It¡¯s your world, you can do with it what you want.¡±


    ¡°Our world?¡± Raine asked sharply, finding something odd in Cato¡¯s tone when he said those words.


    ¡°Certainly. If I controlled your substrates and your virtual locations, then no matter how nicely I acted you¡¯d still be slaves,¡± Cato said, sounding disgusted at the thought. ¡°So you control your substrates; bodily autonomy. This aestivation is jointly yours, property autonomy. And all the basic libraries are available in your databanks so you can be as independent as you like.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a lot of effort go through for us,¡± Leese said suspiciously, as it was considerably more generosity than generally made sense.


    ¡°I really don¡¯t like the responsibility that comes with such total authority,¡± Cato told them frankly. ¡°Makes me feel unclean.¡±


    Raine wasn¡¯t sure she completely believed Cato. No gift so rich came without a cost ¡ª but perhaps Cato didn¡¯t see it as a rich gift. If this was what he considered ordinary, then perhaps this was little more than gifting a fresh Copper their first weapon before heading out into the field.


    In which case, they had a long way to go.

 Chapter 2 — Redo From Start

    Cato was impressed with how well the two Sydeans were taking to existence as postbiological life.  He was aware that was some sort of chauvinism ¡ª a bias against, not System natives, but those who hadn¡¯t been raised to be postbiological from the beginning.  More than a few natives of Earth or the asteroid belt that he¡¯d known, raised on the surface or in rotating habitats, hadn¡¯t found the transition too dramatic but had still ended up as a single person in a single body, even if it wasn¡¯t a biological body.


    For those who remained completely digital, there were issues with knowing one was in a virtual world ¡ª and having complete control over it.  Finding life too easy or meaningless, they dissipated in hedonism, vanishing forever into an orgiastic simulation.  Even if they didn¡¯t go that far, some still lost themselves to other behavioral sinks, deprived of motivation, interest, or some other vital spark.


    Though perhaps the sisters¡¯ facility with their new form was simply a result of the intense culling the System imposed on people.  Anyone who was weak-minded, unsure of themselves, or unmotivated ended up dead before too long ¡ª let alone before reaching the higher ranks.  It wasn¡¯t particularly praiseworthy if people like Onswa and Arene, or Raine and Leese, were simply the surviving few percent.


    At the same time that he instructed the sisters on the intricacies of digital existence, he was slowly building up his industrial base.  Nothing about the process was particularly hard, save the decisions.  Risking time and materials to find deposits of useful material as opposed to spending those same resources building less effective mechanisms.


    Even if he was alone on a moon with an atmosphere that was little more than a faint haze of methane, he didn¡¯t want to lose track of time.  Perhaps it didn¡¯t matter, as he didn¡¯t know how long it had been, or even which planet he was orbiting.  For all he knew it had been years or centuries since he had encoded his gestalt and sent the sisters off to the rest of the System.  The organic primer he¡¯d supplied was good for at least that long.  But Raine and Leese might well be waiting on him, in desperate straits and needing something he could provide.


    His solar flower only had the smallest optical sensors, but he¡¯d landed in sunlight and without regard to the planet, so the sensors only saw a few stars and the local sun.  One that was circling around in the sky rather than sinking toward the horizon.  If it weren¡¯t for the local gravity, something around a fiftieth of Earth¡¯s, he would have thought he¡¯d landed on a comet.


    For several weeks the only allowable resource investment was in void ecology: growing additional solar flowers for power ¨C since the slow march of the sun wouldn¡¯t land him in darkness for months yet ¨C and sending burrowing tendrils through the ice and gravel until he had enough mass to set up more advanced facilities.  Only then did he feel like he could spare the time and effort to send up a micro-satellite, jetting along on a tiny methane engine since a simple chemical rocket was by far the cheapest option available.


    Once it had gotten high enough to send back a proper feed, Cato had to double check to make sure that the sensors were functioning properly.  It wasn¡¯t the riotous colors of the moons orbiting the planet, since they were quite similar to the kind of patterns found on icy bodies like Eris or Makemake back in Sol, but it was their position.  All six moons he could see were in a polar orbit, something so completely improbable he suspected the System had done something.


    His moon wasn¡¯t under the System¡¯s sway at the moment, very obviously so, but that didn¡¯t mean that had always been the case.  He could be wrong, and having an improbable number of moons in perfect polar orbits was simply a quirk like Luna¡¯s unusually large relative size, but his gut feeling was that it was artificial.  A quick survey didn¡¯t reveal any technosignatures on the moons, so System magic was more likely.  The System had shown the ability to overhaul enormous swaths of land, so adjusting nearby moons was entirely possible.


    The question would be why, aside from the polar orbits actually offering a night sky with multiple moons in exactly the same phase ¡ª something that featured heavily in art and virtual worlds but never in base reality.  It was a silly reason, but the System was entirely performative.  It was structured to create a reality centered entirely around fighting monsters and without complex technology.  Reformatting the night sky fit perfectly into that fantasy.


    Cato could still be wrong, but if the System had reached the moon once it might again, and that meant that long before he revealed his presence he needed to set up an insurance policy further out.  He couldn¡¯t operate from other planets, not with a communications delay of hours and a materials delay of months or years, but it would be a good backup.  Besides which, not every world would be like Sydea, and events might take months or years anyway.   A proper industrial base far enough away that even augmented System folks couldn¡¯t spot it was a worthwhile investment.


    He sent the feed to the sisters¡¯ aestivation, which they had altered to re-create the original base he¡¯d made over Sydea ¡ª with a few tweaks.  It was larger, with garden areas that hadn¡¯t existed in the original, but still overtly technological.  The windows showed the moonscape from the sensor feeds, blank and bleak as it was, but by the time he entered their aestivation after launching the satellite, they had replaced the outside view.


    ¡°That¡¯s Uriva,¡± Raine confirmed Cato¡¯s suspicion the moment he emerged onto the observation deck of their virtual station.   The globe below looked far different from Sydea, lacking any truly vast oceans or, for that matter, mountains, more an interconnected sprawl of shallow seas and hilly plains.  It looked like an old planet, one that hadn¡¯t had a major geological event in a long time, though he had to keep in mind his suspicions about the System overhaul applied to surface geography as well as orbital.


    ¡°Good to know we¡¯ve ended up where I had hoped,¡± he said, as the analysis programs rendered the view into a proper map.  ¡°Have you given any thought to talking to your other versions?¡±


    ¡°I think that would just be too strange,¡± Leese replied, her tail flicking back and forth.  ¡°They ¨C we? ¨C should know we exist, but it¡¯s probably for the best if we stay separate.¡±


    ¡°And I don¡¯t think I would want to merge with them even if we could,¡± Raine added.  ¡°That reconciliation thing.  Now that we¡¯ve been on the other side of the digitization process, I think it just sounds like going mad.¡±


    ¡°Most people think the way you do,¡± Cato agreed.  Given enough time, he had enough tools in his database that he could probably figure out how to reconcile Sydean neurology, but it wasn¡¯t something he was going to push on them.  ¡°We¡¯ll do the branch method, because if you¡¯re going to want to move deeper into the System with me, there will end up being lots of you working in parallel.¡±


    ¡°That feels less strange,¡± Leese said for the two of them.  ¡°As long as it¡¯s all forward.  Ahead of us?  It¡¯s not too weird.  Work on this planet, then on another planet.  Or I guess once we¡¯re ready to go down we might end up preparing for another world, but that¡¯s not too unreasonable?¡±  Raine grimaced at the tortured reply, but neither of them seemed too upset by the prospect.


    ¡°That¡¯s the spirit,¡± Cato said, trusting that they were generally right.  The good thing about coming to digital life so late ¨C Raine and Leese were, despite appearances, over four decades old ¨C was that most of what made a person had settled in.  There wouldn¡¯t be too much divergence between the different instances.  ¡°I¡¯ll try and get in touch with them as soon as I can.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll raise the framejacking,¡± Raine said, still pronouncing the unfamiliar word oddly.  ¡°We¡¯ve still got so much to figure out.  And get used to.¡±  She lifted a hand and snapped it like Cato had subjective months earlier, becoming Urivan.  Amusingly enough, the various carapace colors of the Urivan race included the orange and white of the two sisters, so they could keep that much at least.


    ¡°Still a little weird,¡± Raine said, her claws shifting awkwardly, the gripping limbs clicking against the notches on her shoulders where they rested.  Cato found the Urivan form, of pseudo-humanoid bug creatures, to be fairly odd, though he didn¡¯t have sufficient genetic samples to do any analysis for System nonsense ¡ª the sisters forms were from a kinematic model, rather than a genetic one at the moment.  He probably shouldn¡¯t suspect everything odd was System-altered, as the universe produced plenty of oddities on its own, but he would probably be more right than wrong if he did.


    ¡°When we get more infrastructure we can put together some android frames for you, and those might help more,¡± Cato reassured her.  ¡°The virtualization here is quite good, but base reality is still the best test.  Still need to get some samples of the actual biology before I¡¯m comfortable sending you down there, but that can probably be done without tipping off the System.¡±


    While he still wasn¡¯t going to let the System have access to any unguarded bioweapon technology, it already had plenty of opportunity to study the frames of anyone who had survived the initial apocalypse.  By picking carefully through the various common and public biomods, he got a library of what could be considered safe biotech to use.  If the System could look for specific gene sequences or the like, it could flag any of Cato¡¯s creations as being of Earth-origin, but he hadn¡¯t yet seen any evidence of that kind of thinking. The closest he¡¯d encountered was Uriva¡¯s total embargo on warframes, but that seemed related to System-jamming and the associated quest rather than any deeper analysis.


    While his factories built factories, he tutored the sisters and toyed with gene designs for some stealthier surface drones.  Nothing that he¡¯d be putting himself in, let alone Raine or Leese, but some semi-autonomous creatures that could get him the information he wanted.  Surveillance, profiling and sampling, everything that he would need for his ultimate goals, all of it hidden inside innocuous animals.  Innocuous as the System allowed, at least.


    The radiofrequency lizards he¡¯d given to Raine and Leese, which could communicate by bone induction, were a great test case.  The System description didn¡¯t even include the fact that they could process radio waves, or that the vibrations they caused were intended to be used to communicate.  It seemed likely he could hide other creations in plain sight, as if the System didn¡¯t seem to quite understand what an information transceiver was so long as it remained organic.


    Some kind of plant seemed like it¡¯d be the best bet.  While an animal would be mobile, bouncing signals off satellites was far superior even to birds, and optimizing plant biology for the energy demands was not too difficult.  It wasn¡¯t like chlorophyll and its analogues were all that inefficient, and while normal plants would never be able to spare the power, naturally evolved biology had severe energy constraints on the chemistry it could explore.  Cato had no such limitations and the expertise of some extremely bright people to draw on.


    He settled on an inoffensive, deep-rooting and thick-leaved plant with purple flowers, only slightly tweaked from its original form.  It had been created for luxury primitivists resorts, where there was meant to be no visible technology for the people pretending to live a savage lifestyle.  That meant he had something that could be put in a pot inside a city or planted somewhere in the wilderness and not look particularly out of place.  It was tempting to try and make some portion of it useful to incentivize people to spread it, but he had to remind himself that cultivation was practically unknown within the System.  People didn¡¯t even have herb gardens so far as he knew.


    After his experience with Sydea, he found the food situation to be one of its most insidious changes.  Not only were the lower ranks dependent upon System mechanisms for basic sustenance, but food couldn¡¯t be farmed and expanded and driven to marginal cost.  At least until the highest ranks, where apparently food became irrelevant ¡ª and by then, people were already trained to be roving murderers.  For the highest ranks, obviating all food requirements flipped around to be an unacceptable lack of constraint as there was no reason powerful people needed an actual civilization.  They could roam and kill and destroy what they wanted without suffering any consequences.


    In a way it wasn¡¯t much different from certain behavioral sinks that postbiologicals ran into, where they¡¯d vanish into a virtual world forever, but at least that was frowned upon.  Not the expected endpoint of all interaction with reality. A process that created killing machines and then set them atop all of creation was not what Cato would consider a good idea.


    Cato was glad he had something to distract him from his own musings, as otherwise the urge to glass planets and damn the consequences might have become far too compelling.  Tutoring Raine and Leese at least reminded him of the humanity ¨C or whatever the species designation of choice might be ¨C of the individuals inside the System. Though Cato did worry he wasn¡¯t exactly the best person to induct someone into the realities of postbiological life.  He¡¯d been raised entirely inside a community meant to accustom people to that transition and couldn¡¯t help but wonder if he¡¯d skipped a few steps along the way.


    ¡°Orbital dynamics are weird,¡± Raine said, wrestling with the control stick of her fighter craft.


    ¡°They sure are,¡± Cato agreed over the radio link, though such calculations were really second nature to him.  Virtual worlds aside, he¡¯d probably spent far more time outside gravity wells than inside.


    ¡°You can keep ¡®em,¡± Leese said cheerfully from inside her lab, where she was studying the progress of Cato¡¯s radio plant.


    All of it was virtual, of course.  He still only had enough factories to make more factories and add a tiny bit more computronium, but simulating basic physics and genetics was well within the capabilities of the aestivation.  Cato had suggested the two sisters try to take up some hobbies since they couldn¡¯t work all the time, but he had been thinking something closer to their System origin when he did.  Blacksmithing and leatherworking, or the like.


    Instead, Leese had jumped headfirst into genetic manipulation and Raine had turned into a flight junkie, both atmospheric and vacuum craft.  He hadn¡¯t tried to dissuade them.  On the contrary, he was glad that their chosen paths would be useful in the future ¡ª though he was fairly certain such a consideration had influenced their choices.  Cato didn¡¯t quite understand their attitude toward him, but he had to respect whatever loyalty it was.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Still working on getting our actual orbital infrastructure up,¡± he said, glancing at the progress report on the microsats he¡¯d been sending up.  They were tiny things, barely more than optical sensors and whisker lasers, but enough to start building up a rudimentary observation network.  ¡°We¡¯ll get you some real craft eventually,¡± he continued.  It would be insanely irresponsible to spend mass and energy on such a thing, until it wasn¡¯t.  Exponential growth meant personal craft went from impossible to practically free in a very short amount of time.  ¡°Most of them won¡¯t work inside the System though, I¡¯m afraid.¡±


    ¡°I can always get wings,¡± Raine said absently, vectoring off to whip around some improbably close-together asteroids in her simulation.  ¡°Maybe not for Urivan bodies though.  There are some races that already have them, and with augmented bodies¡­¡±  She trailed off as she targeted her virtual pursuers with railguns, sending hypervelocity projectiles sleeting through the void of space.


    ¡°Won¡¯t be too much longer before you can head back down, I think,¡± Cato said, doublechecking the timeline.  ¡°Too bad I had to start completely from scratch.  If I¡¯d been able to use the double-size warframes like I wanted, I could have shaved months off the startup.¡±


    ¡°I agree,¡± Leese said, frowning as she dismissed the lab and its information readout with a flip a finger.  ¡°Something in my gut wants to get down there as soon as I can.¡±  Cato didn¡¯t dismiss the sentiment.  Even in the postbiological era, the mysterious processes of intuition were correct more often than was statistically plausible, so instead he rearranged a few priorities.  The change only advanced the timetable by a week at most, sacrificing orbital coverage for landing ability and biologics, but a week wasn¡¯t nothing.


    The very first organic drones went down soon after.  He couldn¡¯t mimic a native mosquito-analogue and instead had to scavenge material from fights.  Spilled blood, severed appendages, or outright deaths were all targets for his creatures, though Cato only got the data dumps.  After flat-out eating people and carrying brains it shouldn¡¯t have bothered him, but the carrion-eater approach felt strangely ghoulish.


    Despite any reservations his simple scavengers got him genetic samples from dozens of Urivans, as well as plants and beasts from the surface to round out his biochemical profiling.  That led to intense cloning sessions to fine-tune blood and tissue, and start tinkering with the protein chains to create properly augmented versions ¡ª as well as allow Raine and Leese to try correct virtual bodies and even meat bodies once again.


    The Urivan frame was very different from the Sydean one, which was obvious to say but less obvious to experience.  The largest difference, from Cato¡¯s perspective at least, was that Urivans had an entire additional set of limbs over Sydeans.  The gripping claws that extended from the back and rested on the shoulder were tremendously strong, but lacked dexterity.  They were perfect for holding onto shields, or for that matter bracing spears or polearms.


    It likely would have been too much to expect Raine and Leese to adapt to the new style of fighting in new bodies, all in under a month, but they¡¯d dredged out some assisted learning overlays from the databanks and essentially programmed in some artificial muscle memory to bridge the gap while they adapted.  Cato should have thought of that himself, but had missed that particular trick since he was using one of the many onboarding rubrics that had been created for people who were newly digitized for one reason or another.


    Once he had the most basic skeleton of satellite coverage, orbiting at over a hundred thousand miles from the planet¡¯s surface to avoid the System¡¯s tech-killing aura, he started broadcasting to the surface.  He didn¡¯t know if there was anyone to receive, and there was no way that he could receive a reply, but he could at least send a message.


    ¡°This is Cato, broadcast only so no need to reply.  We¡¯ll be down soon.  Be careful and stay safe.¡±


    ***


    ¡°This is Cato, broadcast only so no need to reply.  We¡¯ll be down soon.  Be careful and stay safe.¡±


    The words buzzed through Raine¡¯s skull, nearly making her drop out of [Blazing Step].  She glanced back at Leese, and by mutual agreement they slowed to a stop, dropping down onto the slopes of the volcano.  Waves of heat battered them from a nearby lava flow, and they slipped behind a handy boulder to shield them from the heat coming off the molten rock.


    ¡°He said we,¡± Leese mused.  ¡°I can¡¯t think of anyone who that might refer to except for us.  The other us.  But why?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s probably no point in speculating,¡± Raine said with a shrug.  ¡°We can simply ask when he does whatever it is he needs to do.  At least we know that it worked now.  But is there any reason we should delay Platinum?¡±  She gestured toward the volcano, where they had just finished one of the last quests required to prepare for their city defense and ascension to Platinum.


    ¡°I¡¯d rather not,¡± Leese said, and Raine agreed.  If anything she¡¯d feel better if they could present themselves to their patron as full Platinums, a full rank above where they¡¯d been when they¡¯d first encountered Cato.  Especially since they had some requests to make, after having had months to advance and to think.


    They were wildly wealthy for people who had only been Golds for a few months, but they weren¡¯t going to be Golds for long and they had nowhere near the equipment peak Golds usually had.  Even with all their advantages, they just hadn¡¯t spent the time to kit themselves out properly, or to find quests that gave special rewards, and regular essence tokens went only so far in finding the best gear.  No matter how good their base abilities were, they still needed to be equipped properly for the best results.


    With Cato¡¯s global coverage and ability to spot things in even the most remote locations, they could hunt down rarities and start making up for their deficit.  Plus, if they could get a restock of the rations Cato had made, it would go a long way toward easing the troubles of traveling around the various worlds at both Gold and Platinum ranks.  Though it did seem like they could make Platinum on Uriva.


    Town defense quests, while necessary for ranking up, were not a common occurrence.  Not least because nobody liked being in a town under siege by monster forces, especially since if the defenders failed the entire town could be destroyed.  Even if people evacuated in time, that was people¡¯s homes gone, years of time and resources wasted.  Raine estimated each one had over a hundred town-stones invested, and losing would mean hundreds more Urivans would have to ascend to Gold to replace it.


    Of course, Uriva did have quite a few Golds.  Far more than Sydea, and enough of them at the peak of the rank that a town defense quest had been created of its own accord.  Raine had noticed it when checking the pylons in the local town Nexus, and hadn¡¯t believed it at first given the supposed rarity, but she was hardly going to protest.  Just the thought made her pull up her status to double-check the quest.


    [Defend Okrik Town.  Begins in 16 Days, 7 Hours.  Recommended Rank: Peak Gold]


    The cracked ashen gravel of the volcano shifted underfoot as a distant roar announced one of the wandering elites emerging from within the caldera.  Raine and Leese grimaced at each other in shared memory of how painful it had been to deal with, and Raine¡¯s armor was still scorched and half-melted from the fight.  Some monsters were just worse than others.


    The two of them took off again, hastily vacating the area so they didn¡¯t have to fight another.  Both of them needed to repair equipment, and maybe even buy some replacements.  Neither of them yet had a signature or growth weapon, nothing special that would hold them through many future ranks.  Cato¡¯s original equipment had been replaced by some C- and D-tier, Gold Rank purchases ¡ª barring the special spears, of course.


    Below them, the burnt and blasted volcano landscape gave way to a late evening jungle, the crackling of fire and heated stone turning to the hiss and growl of stalking predators.  Sydea had only one Platinum dungeon, but Uriva had entire Platinum zones and towns to support delving them.  Of course, the zones were nearly empty, as even on Uriva there weren¡¯t too many Platinums at any given time, but that they existed at all was fantastically useful.


    As Golds and non-Urivans they attracted more attention than they were comfortable with in the frontier towns, but there wasn¡¯t anything they could do about that.  The quests for the Platinum zones were only given out at the towns in question ¡ª or the Temple or Training Halls, and they hadn¡¯t yet dared go there.  At Platinum they¡¯d feel more confident dealing with other Platinums who might well be hostile toward off-worlders.


    The town at the edge of the [Churning Jungle Conflict Zone] was considerably more tolerant.  The Urivans there barely gave Raine and Leese a second look as they passed through the outer gates.  Unlike Gosruk, the boxes of the buildings were all decorated in the colors that Urivans preferred, some even holding sprays of flowers or ferns, showing how well-off the town was.  Raine knew that simply unlocking such decorations took a number of town upgrades, not to mention a certain amount of upkeep.


    They proceeded to the Nexus to turn in the quest, offering the claws they¡¯d harvested from the [Molten Obsidian Koro-ete].  It had taken three of the things to get enough, actually, simply because the stupid beasts kept breaking their claws during the fight.  But they¡¯d collected them all, and in return the pylon gave them a [Crystal of Wall Reinforcement], which according to its description could only be used during a town defense.  As soon as Raine and Leese received their rewards, the quest updated.


    [Town Defense Preparation Quest, Final: Retrieve three assault emplacements from the Dungeon of Charged Steps]


    ¡°Again?¡± Leese protested, aggrieved.  Raine snorted.  They had been to that dungeon three times, and each time they had hated it.  The shifting, timed maze in each floor was an exercise in frustration, and nothing there was even interesting to fight, so it was simply a grueling race through lightning-charged, tight corridors.  It was bad enough for them, so she couldn¡¯t imagine how bad it would be for unaugmented Gold Rank parties.


    In fact, trying to get all the preparation steps done before the deadline would have strained any peak Gold party, and it was only the ability to act as if they were somewhere in Platinum that allowed them to finish with time to spare.


    ¡°Well, at least we know how to do it,¡± Raine said with resignation.  ¡°Guess we¡¯ll add [Crystals of Insulation] to our supplies.¡±  Leese just sighed, and the two of them left the Nexus, slipping past a party of Urivans to shop.


    The next time they heard from Cato was nearly eight days later.  They had everything they needed for the defense quest, and merely had to wait out the countdown.  Which wasn¡¯t to say they were idle, but they didn¡¯t venture far from the rooms they¡¯d claimed in [Okrik Town].


    ¡°Hello again, Cato here.  I¡¯ve got you located, and communications should be possible within the hour.  There¡¯s a nice, remote hill southeast of you I can send deliveries to, but no warframes for a while.  The Urivan god was a lot more proactive than the Sydean one, and I don¡¯t want to draw attention either to me or to you.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve got to talk to him about his definition of soon,¡± Raine said, somewhat irritated.  It wasn¡¯t as if they could dictate to their patron, but she¡¯d been expecting some kind of update in a more timely manner, once he¡¯d made contact.   She found herself irrationally jealous of their other versions, who had to have been under his direct instruction the whole time rather than running around on Uriva.


    ¡°It would have been nice to hear more often,¡± Leese agreed, but bumped Raine¡¯s shoulder in admonishment.  ¡°Though he¡¯s right about not drawing attention.  The Bismuth was bad enough, I can¡¯t imagine facing an actual god.¡±


    Raine grunted, but couldn¡¯t argue with that.  She was well aware that despite their relative power they were very far down in the hierarchy, and what was worse they were fairly obvious.  There weren¡¯t many Sydeans around, and that was never going to change with Sydea disconnected from the System.


    ¡°Well, let¡¯s go to that hill,¡± she said instead, doublechecking her new armor and upgraded storage pack.  Not that she expected to run into trouble, but it never paid to be unprepared when leaving the confines of a town.


    They actually already knew the hill Cato was talking about, simply because it might feature in the defense quest when it finally engaged.  Raine didn¡¯t know much about the details of the quest and there were no Platinums she could ask, but they¡¯d done defense events in dungeons on rare occasion.  Any local landmark could turn into a point that needed to be captured or destroyed, and they had made certain to survey the area.


    It was late evening, the purple and orange and green moons glowing in the sky, and Raine craned her neck starting upward to try and see if she could spot one of Cato¡¯s machines.  With her augmented eyesight, boosted further by her Gold Rank, it was far easier to pick out the specks of birds and distant flying monsters, though nothing stood out to her just yet.  Though part of her wondered if any of the stars were actually one of Cato¡¯s creations, so very far away.


    ¡°And we¡¯re back!  You¡¯d be amazed at how finnicky it is to get proper communications when you can¡¯t use anything that could tip off the System.¡±  Cato¡¯s voice came through the lizards they still wore on their heads, a sound that wasn¡¯t exactly a sound.  ¡°Don¡¯t have worldwide comms just yet, but I¡¯ll work on it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good to talk to you again, Cato,¡± Leese said politely.  ¡°It¡¯s been months.¡±


    ¡°Yes, unfortunately things do take time.  I hope you haven¡¯t had too much trouble.¡±


    ¡°Only the usual,¡± Leese replied, glancing to Raine.  ¡°We were rather curious about the ¡®we¡¯ you mentioned.  Did you, ah, make more of us?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I instantiated another version,¡± Cato confirmed.  ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re wondering why.  At the time I didn¡¯t know whether you were going to be around when I was ready to contact the surface, that¡¯s part of it, but there¡¯s also the fact that you¡¯re my vanguard.¡±  The term stiffened Raine¡¯s spine, as well as confirming that Cato had neither forgotten their contributions nor intended to replace them.  ¡°It¡¯s you who go to new worlds and you¡¯re the ones who are reaching for ever-higher ranks.  You surely don¡¯t want to sit here and muck about with local politics and all the risk that¡¯ll bring.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Raine said, wincing at the thought.


    ¡°And I come bearing gifts!  Hang on, almost down.¡±  The moment he said that, Riane spotted a shadow against the stars, and a large oblong shape on vast cloth-like wings came into view.  It glided down the last hundred feet or so, and landed ungently against the ground.


    Raine and Leese approached it as mist rolled off from the cold surface, finding labels like This End Up and Open Here in System text imprinted on the black surface of the thing.  Between the two of them they popped off the top of the craft and found a number of color-coded metal boxes wrapped in some black webbing.  Half of them were red-orange for her, and the other half white for Leese.


    ¡°I have some new and updated Cato-spears for you to take, to set me up on new worlds, but that¡¯s simple enough.  One set of boxes have a large number of rations for you, and a small number of pills.  You can drop the old spears in the receptacle at the far end, there, since we don¡¯t want those going unaccounted for.¡±


    ¡°We had been wanting more rations,¡± Raine remarked, cutting the webbing as she unloaded the boxes from the craft, the contents not so frozen as the exterior.


    ¡°Well, these are special.  Since I¡¯ve had time to do more analysis, I¡¯ve figured out some more things I can add to your augmented bodies without harm, and the rations have the raw materials for it.   They¡¯ll make your scales tougher ¨C I¡¯m not sure how tough, but enough to withstand a Gold-rank blow without System augmentation ¨C and give you complete regeneration.  Also improve your pain response and either give you a backup for or decentralize various organs. You¡¯ll be much harder to kill and you should be able to eat anything.¡±


    ¡°That is a lot,¡± Raine said, blinking at Cato¡¯s list as she cracked open one of the boxes to peer at the hundreds of rations inside.  Enough to last for months, probably.


    ¡°We definitely appreciate the gifts, Cato,¡± Leese said politely, sorting through the goods as Raine began transferring rations to her storage pouch.  It¡¯d be a squeeze, but it would have been much harder if they couldn¡¯t store most of the weapons in their actual Skills.  ¡°What is this?¡± She peered at a box that, when opened, had a row of what seemed to be young plants, broad-leaved and unremarkable.


    ¡°A solution for our communication problems,¡± Cato said happily, voice still buzzing through her head.  ¡°Plant them outside the capital where the portal is, or in pots inside would be better, and near any town you can.  Won¡¯t give me global coverage, but it might at least let me talk with you on other planets thanks to the portal connections.¡±


    ¡°Certainly an improvement,¡± Raine said, her previous irritation easing.  She didn¡¯t expect Cato to apologize for the lapse in communication, but what he¡¯d sent along was an admission that it really was a problem.  And it didn¡¯t seem like they were to be replaced with their other selves.  ¡°We can place at least some of these before the defense quest.¡±


    ¡°Great,¡± Cato said, as Raine leaned over to inspect one of the plants.  ¡°Hopefully all the modifications will be done by then.  Live changes take some time.¡±

 Chapter 3 — Unfortunate Encounters

    Muar strode through the city streets, still slightly frazzled around the edges from his time in the [Dungeon of Charged Steps]. It hadn¡¯t been pleasant, but the healing of his divine Skills had kept his group intact. He wasn¡¯t with the Spikey Delvers anymore, simply because he had advanced too quickly, but the Temple had been quite helpful in giving him opportunities to fill in for groups who needed a temporary member.


    Sometimes he missed being in a group, even if the fate of the Gosruk Guardians had left a foul taste in his mouth. Poor Cormok was dead, of course, but it was the other two who tainted the memory of that time. Though with the portal to Sydea gone he wasn¡¯t certain he ever needed to worry about them again. Still, if something like Cato could appear on one world, it could appear on others, and Muar was not about to relax simply because the Sydean portal was closed. Perhaps especially because Sydea had been removed from the System, as it showed Cato was a real danger, and something that could compromise an entire world wouldn¡¯t stop at just one.


    At peak Gold, Muar could hardly do much about Cato¡¯s plans, but Gold was only a single step. It was amazing how fast he was rising with the proper support and the burning belief in the divine System driving him forward. Soon he¡¯d be Platinum, and then soon after that Bismuth, and then he would actually begin to see the power he needed. The System rewarded its defenders.


    First, he needed to ascend to Platinum, and that meant the town defense quest. The System had chosen [Okrik Town], in a piece of timing that was so perfect as to be unbelievable. He had finished the last piece of his preparation quest mere hours before the timer finished, so he simply needed to turn it in, refresh himself, and he¡¯d be ready.


    Muar entered the Temple, circling the nave and going to the more private pylon reserved for those in better standing. The quest rewarded him with a trio of [Charged Defensive Emplacements] for the quest, poles with a crystal at the top that could be placed on the town¡¯s walls. He had no idea how many Golds would be taking place in the ascension quest but, if there were enough, the emplacements alone could control the battlefield.


    After a quick [Clean] and a visit to the equipment pylon to ensure his armor and weapons were repaired, he proceeded to the Temple¡¯s teleport. The moment he appeared at the [Okrik Town] Nexus, he could feel the presence of a Platinum, somewhere in the building. That did make some sense; if the Gold defenders failed, the Platinum would still be able to deal with the attacking monsters and prevent too much damage.


    It also meant that the Gold defenders had a far tougher job, as they couldn¡¯t use the buildings for cover. The town¡¯s Nexus was what truly had to be defended, not the actual walls, but the Platinum would likely not let it go that far, and invalidate the quest by interfering. In fact, that made things so much more difficult that Muar doubted it was ultimately a good idea, but the Urivans could run their own towns as they wished.


    He left the Nexus and headed for the town¡¯s walls. At least two groups of Golds were there, with a dozen [Defense Emplacements] already deployed. The crystals sparked at intervals, crackling as Urivans paced along the tops of the walls. Muar vaulted up to join them, offering unfamiliar insectile faces a nod before finding gaps in the coverage and withdrawing his own quest rewards to help.


    [Defend Okrik Town. Begins in 3 Hours, 2 Minutes. Recommended Rank: Peak Gold]


    Even if it was still some time before the defense event would begin, he could feel essence gathering somewhere out beyond the walls, and clouds were starting to roll in from the horizon. Muar had never seen the Peak Gold quest himself, of course, as Sydea never had qualified for it and all the Platinums had needed to go offworld, but the advice he had gotten from the Platinum at the temple painted it as an intense affair. It wasn¡¯t just any quest, it was the barrier between Gold and Platinum and the entry to the first real step into independent power.


    In his previous life he wouldn¡¯t have made Platinum for years, if not decades. They¡¯d only fought at-rank beasts and dungeons, and Sydea hadn¡¯t offered many quests. His new role as a Paladin and access to the Temple gave him so many opportunities for equipment and Skill upgrades, as well as a hefty amount of essence to accelerate his development. The difference between the two worlds was astounding.


    Muar patrolled the walls, taking the measure of his fellow Golds and introducing himself. Even if he wasn¡¯t part of any of the groups as such, it was best to know where a Paladin could best fit in with the others. Some of the insect-beings were in heavy armor, with massive shields held in their gripping claws, but quite a few seemed to be pure casters, bearing orbs or discs that would help them focus their Skills.


    After completing two circuits of the walls, he noticed new arrivals landing near the town gate ¡ª and they were Sydeans. For a moment he just stared, half-excited and half-stunned to see some of his own. Ones who must have fled before the portals closed. Reflexively, he [Appraised] them.


    [Raine Talis ¡ª Peak Gold]


    [Leese Talis ¡ª Peak Gold]


    He stared for another moment, but for a completely different reason. Those two shouldn¡¯t have been on Uriva at all; they should have been stuck on Sydea with Cato. If not actually dead, considering the Bismuth would have flattened them the moment he saw them. But they were here, and that meant Cato was too.


    The few moments of shock were enough that Raine turned around and saw him. She narrowed her eyes at him and sprung forward, followed by Leese, the two of them flashing his way. Muar pulled his shield out with his Skill, bracing it with the rising fury of seeing the traitors whole and unbound. Golden light rose around him as Raine¡¯s spear blazed through air toward him, weapon and shield colliding in a thunderous impact.


    Despite all his Skills, despite the peerless defenses of his divine protection and superior equipment, Raine¡¯s attack pushed him back, sending him skidding along the top of the wall. His mace manifested in his hand, barely knocking aside Leese¡¯s strike, the shock of the impact ringing through his arm. It was far beyond what any Gold should have been able to do, especially with clearly substandard equipment. The Temple¡¯s quests had allowed him to be outfitted with items far superior to most at his rank, but it wasn¡¯t enough.


    They were using Cato¡¯s heretical strength. Even with all his advantages, all the gifts bestowed upon him by the System, he couldn¡¯t stand up to the two of them with his current strength. He blocked another terrible blow with his shield, finding himself hurled backward as if a Platinum had hit him. None of the Urivans seemed interested in interceding; to them, it was merely a dispute between outworlders.


    Muar had no compunctions about fleeing. It wasn¡¯t just about his own life; the Temple had to be informed. They had to know that Cato¡¯s agents were still alive and on Uriva, and even if he couldn¡¯t stand up to them, a real Platinum could. Or maybe even a Bismuth, since the Urivans had a few somewhere on the planet.


    Landing on the ground, he turned and bolted, his movement Skill sending him blurring along like golden lightning. He heard the crackle and hiss of fire and ice behind him, but in the scant few seconds before he blew through the Nexus door they couldn¡¯t catch him. One more burst of speed brought him to the teleportation pylon, the Temple selection being muscle memory at that point and practically instantaneous.


    When the familiar confines of the Temple walls appeared, Muar relaxed. The heretics wouldn¡¯t even have the option available to them, and if they did somehow make it to the Temple they would find themselves very quickly suppressed. He almost wished they would be so unwise, but he wouldn¡¯t be so lucky.


    Rushing to the High Priest¡¯s quarters, he barely bothered knocking before shoving his way into the Platinum¡¯s office. The Urivan gave Muar a severe look, the gripping claws clicking softly as they shifted, but Muar didn¡¯t worry about it. Not only were members of the Temple given more latitude, Muar himself was in good personal standing.


    ¡°I¡¯ve spotted Cato¡¯s agents,¡± Muar said bluntly. ¡°In [Okrik Town].¡±


    The High Priest blinked once, then stood. He didn¡¯t bother asking if Muar was certain, or interrogate him for any details. Instead, the Platinum merely withdrew a farcaster from his desk and activated it.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth, we have an emergency at [Okrik Town]. Two enemies.¡± The Platinum looked at Muar, who supplied the details.


    ¡°Two Peak Gold, Sydean, named Raine and Leese Talis. They hit like they¡¯re Platinums.¡± Not that it would matter to a Bismuth, but if the High Prest intended to go himself it would be best that he not be caught by surprise. He doubted even heretical Golds could actually harm the High Priest, but there was no virtue in being caught unawares.


    ¡°Yes,¡± the High Priest said into the farcaster. ¡°Very well. Yes, Honored Bismuth.¡± The High Priest attached the farcaster to his belt and beckoned for Muar to follow him back to the teleportation pylon.


    In a moment they were back at [Okrik Town], the chill wind sweeping in through the still-broken front door, and the High Priest stalked out to find the two Talis sisters. Muar followed, a moment later the heavy presence of a Bismuth appeared behind them. Only a few seconds passed before the Urivan Bismuth breezed past Muar to address the High Prest.


    ¡°They¡¯re not here,¡± the Bismuth said, then pointed at one of the Golds that had gathered for the defense quest, now gawking at them from the walls. ¡°Did you see two Sydeans leave?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Honored Bismuth!¡± One of them replied promptly, with an odd sort of salute. ¡°They went to the teleport pylon!¡± Muar growled under his breath. Apparently they had not only been smart enough to realize pursuing him was a mistake, but also that staying would be a problem.


    ¡°If they are still on Uriva, I will find them,¡± the Bismuth said to the High Priest, blurring back into the System Nexus.


    ¡°You might as well finish your quest,¡± the High Priest said to Muar, as the startled sentinel Platinum descended from the top of the Nexus to find out what was going on. ¡°We¡¯ll take it from here.¡±


    Muar nodded, but he knew that it wasn¡¯t going to stop there. The sisters were slippery, but they were not more powerful than gods and for whatever reason it seemed that they were fated to keep crossing his path. In his second life, the System had seen fit to grant him many blessings, bringing him further than he had ever managed before. It was only right that such largesse was meant to challenge the agents of a threat like Cato.


    He knew that he would meet the pair again, and so he had to make sure he was up to the task.


    ***


    ¡°Gods damn it,¡± Raine snarled as Muar vanished at the teleportation pylon. There was no telling where he had gone, but given how well he had been equipped and the divine Skills he had used, he was probably closely connected to the local Temple and representatives of the World Deity.


    ¡°We have to leave,¡± Leese said, not commenting on Raine¡¯s choice of expletive.


    ¡°On,¡± Raine snarled, to ensure that they could transmit to Cato. ¡°We ran into Muar. I don¡¯t know what he was doing here, but he was better equipped than we were and Peak Gold as well. Not enough to fight us but he still managed to escape.¡±


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    ¡°How the hell?¡± Cato sounded as blindsided as they had been. ¡°Well, you¡¯re going to have to bail. Get offworld. I saw the Planetary Administrator console and they can definitely find you if they know to look. Best go someplace that the Urivans and their System-God can¡¯t beg favors.¡±


    ¡°Good thing we already planted some of those communication ferns,¡± Raine muttered in resignation. ¡°But who knows when we¡¯ll have the chance to do a defense quest again?¡±


    ¡°The timing is awful, I agree, but you can take the chance to distribute those spears I gave you. The more versions of me you can get up and running, the better the support network you¡¯ll have.¡±


    Raine grunted and then followed Leese to touch the teleportation pylon. Giving up on the ascension to Platinum with less than an hour to go physically hurt, but both Leese and Cato were right. They couldn¡¯t stay on Uriva when higher ranks were looking for them. The quest would have to be some other time, on some other world.


    She appeared next to Leese in one of the major cities, one that had a portal. They slipped through it to Milau, then quickly transited to Reszen and from there to Ikent. Cato¡¯s communications ferns did work through those portals, though imperfectly. The two of them had made sure to plant the ferns outside the city walls ¨C each capital city they could easily reach from Uriva ¨C but it had been more than a little stressful.


    As outworlders, they didn¡¯t have the protection of any local powers or clans, so even if they no longer had to worry about starving to death from lack of any palatable food, any foreign city could be dangerous. If they had made Platinum, there would be very few who would be willing to start trouble with them ¡ª Bismuths had better things to do than interfere with spats between lower ranks. If they ever made Bismuth themselves, they would match anyone outside of the core worlds, which were essentially the only places to find Azoth and Alum ranks.


    In Ikent, the natives at least seemed uninterested in them. The bird-like people were half-sized, creating a sort of distance even beyond the normal separation of natives and outworlders. They didn¡¯t frequent the same shops and taverns, which meant that the bar Leese and Raine slipped into was entirely deserted despite being in a larger city. Raine touched the pylon and selected one of the cheaper, local drinks, which she normally would have avoided.


    With the changes that Cato had provided to their bodies, the foamy drink, which sloshed oddly in the lower gravity of Ikent, was not actually bad. There was a strange moment where she couldn¡¯t tell what she was supposed to be tasting, before something clicked and the flavors settled on something a little bit fruity and bitter. But it wouldn¡¯t poison her, which was the risk she would normally run by eating offworld food.


    ¡°So can you still hear us, Cato?¡± Raine muttered, since they¡¯d planted the ferns days ago, and there was no telling what had happened in the meantime.


    ¡°I can, but it¡¯s not the best connection.¡± Cato¡¯s voice came through the lizard¡¯s vibrations. ¡°Certainly won¡¯t last if you leave the city. I¡¯ll try and get more ferns to you though, so you can start distributing them there.¡±


    ¡°That will help,¡± Raine admitted, then sighed. ¡°But we¡¯re a bit stuck until we can find another town defense quest. We do need better equipment though; seeing Muar reminded me of how far behind we are.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re so powerful it¡¯s easy to forget,¡± Leese agreed. ¡°If we had proper weapons and armor, Muar wouldn¡¯t have escaped.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s that big a difference?¡± Cato asked, sounding intrigued. ¡°I was under the impression it was mostly Rank and Skills.¡±


    ¡°Equipment does more for you the higher your Rank and better your Skills,¡± Leese said, making Raine wonder how they hadn¡¯t had the conversation before. But then, Cato hadn¡¯t been involved with their equipment outside of his nigh-unto-Gold starting gear, which they¡¯d only just replaced. ¡°Your stuff is amazing, but it doesn¡¯t have special abilities, or interactions with our Skills like what we¡¯d find in dungeons.¡±


    ¡°Indeed, there¡¯s nothing I can do to make the System give me a specific result. I doubt you could get any raw materials forged, either?¡± It was a question, and Raine flicked her tail in an equivocal gesture, even if Cato couldn¡¯t see it.


    ¡°There are certain quests that require materials,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°And powerful items will generate quests to allow you to upgrade them. But I can¡¯t imagine that we could specifically get anything made from your materials.¡±


    ¡°So no crafters, then, huh?¡± He sounded more resigned than disappointed.


    ¡°Some people learn how to craft, but usually not until much higher rank,¡± Leese replied. ¡°It¡¯s not worth the time or the Skill slots otherwise, not when you can get useful equipment from the stores or dungeons.¡±


    ¡°Damn. My best advantage is manufacturing, and I knew that I couldn¡¯t generally match the System top end, but that really cuts down on the substantive aid I can send you,¡± Cato complained. ¡°Well, at least long term substantive aid. The more of me you can get up and running the more information and overwatch I can do.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll want to avoid the larger cities anyway,¡± Leese said. The only reason they had stopped was to make sure they could still stay in contact with Cato, so Raine drained her glass and stood.


    ¡°You¡¯ll hear from us in a day or so,¡± she said, and tilted her head toward the door. Leese followed her out, and the two of them slipped back to the Nexus. Ikent had an abundance of high mountains, and while they would have liked to select the tallest, Cato had suggested that a mountain near the equator would have worked better than raw height. At least for a planet with normal moons.


    She hadn¡¯t thought of Uriva¡¯s north-south moons as being particularly odd, but Cato had seemed quite upset.


    Emerging in a town near their target, the heat swept over them. If it weren¡¯t for their rank and the extra resistance from Cato¡¯s augmentations it would have been nearly as unpleasant as the polar climb on Uriva, the mountain emerging from a sun-baked jungle under the blazing sun. The moon itself was low on the horizon, just rising from the east, and so far as they¡¯d been able to tell there was only one.


    Climbing the mountain was easier, as the region was merely Gold Rank, and nothing there offered any real danger to them. With one exception ¡ª Raine could sense a Bismuth in the area, the pressure of the essence unmistakable to her senses. Whoever it was didn¡¯t seem to be paying them any attention, but she¡¯d never forget the terrible and casual power wielded by the sole Bismuth they had encountered.


    ¡°We should at least wait until the Bismuth is gone,¡± she muttered, and Leese nodded. Although it wasn¡¯t likely a Bismuth would notice two Golds moving through Gold-rank territory, flinging things into the air at the speeds Raine could manage with her Skill was quite obvious and unusual.


    The two of them pulled out their maps on the slopes and consulted. There was a dungeon set into the peak of the mountain ¨C something which was not unusual ¨C that they could run, though neither of them had done the research to discern what was actually within the dungeon. Still, as merely a Gold rank dungeon it would not be too difficult, and there was always the chance some powerful item could drop. While they could delve Platinum dungeons, and did, Gold dungeons still had good enough rewards to be worth it.


    If it took months for Cato to establish a new foothold, then one day wasn¡¯t going to matter one way or the other.


    ***


    The Assassin¡¯s Guild was not what Dyen had expected. The quest text had only given him the name of the guild, and considering the attitude toward killing people that had been common on Sydea he had thought it would be buried in the shadows, away from Platinums and Bismuths. What he hadn¡¯t expected was for the Guildhouse to be a bland building directly next to the Temple on Mowara, six or seven worlds away from Uriva depending on which portals were taken.


    He had never been inside an advanced building on Sydea, but there were supposed to be variants for every sort of Skill and build. Mage and warrior guildhalls, stealth and scout encampments, temples, and probably others that he¡¯d never thought of. The Assassin¡¯s Guild was not only entirely bare, it was entirely deserted, though not for lack of members. The quest to join the Guild upon rising to Gold had informed him that each member of the Guild would never see another within its walls. Assassins did not often work together, they certainly were not friends, but they all worked from the same Guild.


    There were the usual shop pylons, a teleportation pylon, private room, tiny tavern with a food pylon, but the most distinct feature was a display with bounties. Dyen had found killing Tornok Clan for their possessions to be lucrative enough, but if he were paid extra for doing so, it was even better. Besides which, he had a number of quests associated with taking assassination contracts, including his Platinum advancement.


    For the most part, Dyen stuck to Clan Tornok contracts. There were not quite as many as he would have expected, given how that particular Clan treated everyone in their territory, but the sheer power Clan Tornok wielded probably made them unpopular targets. Not that Dyen cared; that just meant there was more for him.


    He chewed on a Mowaran meat-stick as he perused the contract board, ignoring the strange taste. It was fortunate he had found something palatable at all, and one of his quests had given him an armband that rendered him virtually immune to imbibed toxins so he didn¡¯t have to worry about the usual issues of eating offworld. Just one of the advantages of the assassin path.


    The board held the usual contracts ¡ª some tokens for the death of one particular person or another, with occasionally something more interesting. A specific item offered in lieu of payment, or even occasional favors. Dyen didn¡¯t trust those at all, since he couldn¡¯t imagine anyone willing to offer a contract to the Assassin¡¯s Guild being willing to follow through on any supposed debt. Easier to just kill the person showing up to claim the favor, even if everything was purportedly anonymous.


    He reached out to the board, about to accept a contract to remove someone who was squatting on a dungeon and monopolizing it, before noticing a brand new contract as it scrolled onto the board. They were names that he knew.


    [Raine Talis and Leese Talis


    Sydean


    Last seen on Uriva


    Wanted for heresy


    Reward: 5 Bismuth Tokens, 1 Platinum Rank Equipment Token


    Recommended Rank: Peak Platinum]


    ¡°What have you been doing?¡± He muttered, more to himself than anything. They must have attracted the attention of someone who was both wealthy and knew how to post a contract with the Assassin¡¯s Guild. Likely someone from a Temple, considering that the reason on the contract was heresy, rather than anything reasonable.


    He had no temptation to take the contract. Rather the reverse; the two were his only link to Cato, and while Dyen had been doing well enough for himself, it was better to at least have the options Cato offered if the being was going to be foolish enough to help Dyen. There was no telling when he¡¯d need someone to destroy a Bismuth ¡ª though Dyen was getting closer to that goal himself.


    Only one condition remained for Dyen¡¯s ascension to Platinum, and that was to find and execute a contract for an entire delving group of Peak Gold or higher. Such contracts weren¡¯t common, and inspired vicious competition when they did appear, so he¡¯d been stalled at Peak Gold for months. It wasn¡¯t like the System created them. But so long as there were at least three people in the world, one would want another one killed. It was just a matter of time.


    Dyen¡¯s hand hovered over the contract for the Talis sisters, then he let it drop. He wasn¡¯t quite sure what the penalties were for failing or sabotaging a contract, and he didn¡¯t want to find out. There wasn¡¯t much the contract would tell him about them that he didn¡¯t know anyway. Instead he turned and strode to the teleportation pylon, intent on finding them himself.


    Unlike anyone else who took the contract, he knew what their goal was. He hadn¡¯t been privy to the details, but they had a mandate to help spread Cato to other worlds. If they¡¯d been discovered, they certainly wouldn¡¯t be staying ¡ª no individual or world was their goal. They¡¯d be moving on, and they¡¯d be looking to stay out of sight of the local powers. Most importantly, they needed mountains.


    He followed the portal chain to Risham first, Uriva¡¯s second world connection, and touched his map against the appropriate pylon. Studying the map, he found only one large mountain, and after another teleportation he was at the nearest town. Thanks to all his work he had more than enough tokens to pay for as much teleportation as he wished, which was a far cry from how it had been on Sydea.


    There was too much traffic at the portal Nexus for his tracking Skills to have found anything useful, but the town was practically deserted and there were clearly only three different people who had been through its Nexus in the past week. None of them were Sydeans. Unbothered, Dyen continued onward, chewing on some rations as he made extensive use of teleports and portals, hopping from world to world on the chain outward from Uriva.


    It almost surprised him when he picked up their trail on Ellesz, three worlds and fifteen hours later, in a remote town near an extensive range of volcanoes. The scent of salt blew in on lava-hot air, a glance outside showing towering peaks jutting from a broad ocean, though according to the map it was merely a Silver area. By his Skill the sisters had come through only hours beforehand ¨C a stroke of luck on his part ¨C so he could probably just wait for them. He wouldn¡¯t want to try tracking them over water and lava.


    He settled in by the teleportation pylon, to ensure that he could talk to them before they used it, and let time pass. Dyen¡¯s many assassination quests had taught him patience, and merely waiting under low stealth ¨C enough so that no Silver who happened by would notice him ¨C was no great hardship. Sure enough, his senses caught two Peak Gold signatures nearing the Nexus only a few hours later, and he straightened up as the pair entered the Nexus, their weapons ready as they had clearly sensed him in turn.


    ¡°Raine,¡± he greeted them. ¡°Leese.¡±


    ¡°Dyen?¡± Leese asked cautiously, as if disbelieving what she saw. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±


    ¡°More importantly, how did you find us?¡± Raine said, considerably more hostile.


    ¡°I knew where to look,¡± Dyen said with a shrug. ¡°But I am not the only one looking for you. I¡¯m here to warn you that there¡¯s a contract out for you at the Assassin¡¯s Guild.¡± The two sisters glanced at each other, then Raine planted her spear haft on the floor of the Nexus.


    ¡°Tell us,¡± she said.

 Chapter 4 — First Moves

    Cato found that, despite everything, he did enjoy the chance to explore a completely alien solar system.  There was a distinctly pragmatic reason to survey the planets and moons around the K-class primary, because he absolutely would need resources and hardened backups, but it was also just interesting.  Most of the bodies around Sol had been surveyed and tracked long ago ¨C save for a zillion chunks of ice out in the Oort Cloud ¨C so even if he¡¯d dabbled in exogeology, there hadn¡¯t been much novel work to do.


    His little probes found that the varicolored moons were, almost certainly, completely natural.  Aeons ago when they had formed, different energy and light levels on each of the balls of ice had led to a different strain of proto-bacteria dominating the methane- and water-rich bodies, which had just enough gravity to keep the bulk of the volatiles that boiled off the day sides.  The profiles he could glean, ratios of elements and molecules, implied that it was the same biochemistry as the Urivans themselves, so even if the moons had been moved they were likely original to the planet.  He didn¡¯t think the System would go so far as to imitate the natural circumstances, anyway.


    The jewel of the outer system was a mini-Jovian binary, orbiting close enough that the atmospheres visibly bulged toward each other.  One was an absolutely stunning blue, the other a seafoam green, and both bearing the distinctive curdled clouds of gas giants.  There were no rings, of course, but a cluttering of circumbinary moons made up for it, one of them actually out-massing Uriva itself even if the rest were of a much more reasonable size.


    Cato assembled a fully stocked probe and dispatched it to the binary, to set up another industrial base.  Not on the oversized moon, of course ¨C there was no point in being at the bottom of a gravity well ¨C but on a high-metallicity moonlet somewhat further out.  All the volatiles around made it simple enough to scavenge some deuterium from the abundant hydrogen and load the thing up with fusion fuel.  That cut the trip down to weeks, from the years required for a chemical rocket considering the various planetary positions.


    He hadn¡¯t needed such a backup on Sydea ¡ª at least, not so far as he knew.  It was always possible something had happened after this version of himself had been updated, but he¡¯d also pushed things on Sydea quite a bit faster than was wise.  Uriva would require a more deliberate approach, and quite a bit more buildup.  There was no point in tripping any alarms before he was ready to descend in force.


    Assuming it wasn¡¯t too late for that already.  The odds of running into the single person who would recognize Raine and Leese outside of Sydea seemed to be astronomical, though portraying multiple worlds as worlds under the System was misleading.  There were only a few major cities per planet, and maybe hundreds of towns but that was still not much compared to hundreds of millions of square miles of land area.


    Paring that down even further, the quests required to move from Gold to Platinum would naturally funnel people together, though Cato was somewhat surprised that Muar had kept up.  He had figured the man would just fade into irrelevancy, but that clearly was not the case.  Time had shown that just letting Muar go was a mistake, but at the time he hadn¡¯t even considered the cold-blooded murder of a man who was clearly upset, and rightfully so.  The events since had changed that, and now Muar was most definitely an enemy.


    Not that he was in any position to do anything about it.  He was still putting together his surveillance, and definitely wouldn¡¯t be suggesting either set of the sisters go anywhere near a Urivan town until he could warn them well in advance if he spotted Muar.  It was an oversight he had corrected, and while he was at it he added the Bismuth had had run into, Yaniss, into his surveillance matrix.


    Of course, he didn¡¯t need that matrix to keep track of Raine and Leese Uriv, as they had styled themselves, thanks to their new bodies.  The pair had gone with frames closer to what Cato would consider the standard augment, integrating a number of improvements beyond raw physical might.  Now they had full electromagnetic communications abilities built into their biology, and tracking them from orbit was easy enough.  It also meant they could be backed up continuously, without needing the kludge of the pseudo-bioweapon technology.


    They had also taken the lineage approach to their postbiological nature seriously and, while they hadn¡¯t changed their given names, they had taken on a lineage-based surname.  He would have preferred a more radical change, but there was no easy path to doing so.  The System lifted the names straight out of their heads, so they couldn¡¯t just assume cover identities by just wanting to.  They had to actually believe a different name applied to them.  At least there was hardly anyone who would have the context to suspect anything, though it was another reason to stay in dungeons and the general wilderness until he could get proper surveillance up and running.


    ¡°It¡¯s almost scary how easy it is to hit Silver,¡± Raine Uriv observed, the words being broadcast back out of the dungeon through the communications-relaying fern they¡¯d planted near the entrance.  ¡°This dungeon was nothing.¡±


    ¡°Best not get overconfident,¡± Leese warned.  ¡°Though yes, Silver is simple now.  Especially since we don¡¯t need to go to towns for our early gear.  Or rations.¡±  In addition to weapons, Cato had supplied the pair with a hefty amount of food and drink, though their altered and improved biology meant that they needed less than usual.


    He¡¯d dropped them in by way of glider, in a rerun of his early entrance to Sydea, though he didn¡¯t send any of his own frames along.  As much as he ached to get back on the ground and get a feel for things personally, Sydea had made it clear he needed to be more deliberate.  Besides which, Uriva didn¡¯t seem to have a handy crisis for him to leverage.


    Not only were there far more Urivans than there had been Sydeans, but the infrastructure he could observe was far better.  More buildings with more color, taller walls, broader footprints, and of course more settlements in general.  Somewhere around ten to twenty million Urivans was still hardly anything for a worldwide culture, but relative to the Sydeans they were thriving.


    All the arguments against the System still applied, but it was harder to demonstrate to people who were doing well enough.  So what if all they could ever do was fighting, if fighting worked for them? Nor did Cato have any handy ruined cities to point to, whether it was because they had been erased over time or the System hadn¡¯t preserved them during its initial purge.


    Then there was the System-God, who had been frighteningly responsive, if not outright aggressive.  If Uriva had been the world that Cato had first encountered, he never would have had a chance.  Fortunately, he had been able to gain a foothold, and even if Uriva was going to be tough to deal with, the Talis sisters were his insurance against it being too difficult.


    He wasn¡¯t going to be restricted to Uriva, and at the very worst he could deal with it by cutting off all the worlds connected to it.  Or rather, some other versions of himself would do so. Even with his communication ferns he wasn¡¯t certain he¡¯d be able to reconcile himself across multiple worlds ¡ª nor was he certain he wanted to.  That would require merging extremely different pasts, completely different approaches and thought processes, and just what he¡¯d done on Sydea was strain enough.  He¡¯d have to commit to divergence, and just send information back and forth.


    It was hardly a new problem.  Every variation of digital minds had cropped up somewhere and sometime, from a Summer Civilization created by a single egotist copying herself into the millions, to hapless civilians being scanned and duplicated by terrorists and criminals.  There was even a case of a community substrate being damaged, triggering their backups ¡ª only for a repair crew to restore the substrate years later, finding the entire thousands-strong community had been perfectly fine, merely cut off from communication.


    There were, thanks to these lessons, protocols for communicating between versions of the same person who didn¡¯t want to reconcile.  It wasn¡¯t as simple as just chatting, considering the strange feedback loops that could cause, but something less involved than a full gestalt merge.  Certain complex sub-processes bundled up information, preparing and packaging it for later transmission.  It was like an outer layer to his consciousness, part of the floating cloud of ancillary mind augmentation that he¡¯d adopted over the years.


    ¡°Cato?¡±  Leese¡¯s voice came over an entirely different channel, from an entirely different Leese than the pair he was watching down on Uriva.


    ¡°Here,¡± he responded, his virtualized human self touching the microphone controls on his access console.  The routing protocols for the comms-plants were extremely simple, mostly because he didn¡¯t want to expose an actual biological computer to the System, but still good enough that he could tell where Leese was calling from, and that she was communicating through the radio lizard.


    ¡°We ran into Dyen,¡± Leese said.  ¡°Someone put a bounty on our heads, so there¡¯s an Assassin¡¯s Guild contract on us.  I didn¡¯t even know the Assassin¡¯s Guild existed until just now.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡± Cato said, not really certain what else to say, blindsided as he was.  It wasn¡¯t that he¡¯d never expected organized opposition, it was just that he had figured that the two of them would fly under the radar ¨C figuratively speaking ¨C for a bit longer.  ¡°Does Dyen have any other information on the Guild?  How do we get that contract off you?  Also it sounds like I need to get you backed up again, soon as I can.¡±


    ¡°Well, we can die,¡± Raine said dryly, matching one of Cato¡¯s thoughts.  They¡¯d have to level up once again, but given the advantages of Cato¡¯s technology that wasn¡¯t a tremendous imposition ¡ª though it wasn¡¯t really a solution.  Not only was dying not exactly pleasant, the ability to come back from the dead was something best kept as a secret.  Muar knew it was possible, but he¡¯d only been exposed to the physical version, so Cato was happy to let his opponents continue to believe physical access was necessary for that particular trick.


    ¡°That won¡¯t help in the long run,¡± Cato replied.  ¡°And I¡¯m assuming you don¡¯t want to do that either.¡±


    ¡°Not really,¡± Raine admitted.  ¡°Dyen said the person who put out the bounty can withdraw it.  Or they can die, and that would remove it as well.¡±


    ¡°So, you have to find Muar?¡±  Cato hazarded.


    ¡°I think it was the local Bismuth that posted the contract, actually,¡± Leese said.  ¡°Muar certainly couldn¡¯t afford to do it, even if he knew how to contact the Assassin¡¯s Guild.  It¡¯s all anonymous, but Dyen said that we¡¯re wanted for heresy so the Temple on Uriva is probably involved too.¡±


    ¡°I bet if you used that railgun of yours on the Temple that¡¯d fix things,¡± Raine said, not at all joking.  Cato wasn¡¯t exactly shocked, but it took him a moment to parse it as more than an offhand comment.  For all that he enjoyed the company of the two Sydeans, they had been raised in the System and were more casually violent than he¡¯d ever been.  Violence was a useful tool, but Cato preferred to make it his last tool, as he well knew how many problems it ultimately caused.


    ¡°I¡¯m not up to that level of infrastructure just yet,¡± he replied, trying to be diplomatic.  It probably wouldn¡¯t be a good idea to start out with the destruction of a beloved institution if he wanted to be friendly to the Urivan populace.  Though he didn¡¯t really know how serious the worship of the System was.  Sydea hadn¡¯t had any tradition, but Sydea was also a fringe, frontier world.  ¡°I can deliver you more supplies if you want to stay out away from cities.  Can assassins find you if you¡¯re out in the wilderness?¡±


    ¡°Dyen says probably not, at least, not with the ranks that the reward is likely to draw,¡± Leese replied after a moment, reminding Cato that if they attracted the attention of really high ranks, entire planets could be at risk.  ¡°I really hate the idea of just squatting in a dungeon while we wait, though.  Muar is probably Platinum by now, while we have to wait for another defense quest.  Even Dyen might beat us to ranking up!¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately, there¡¯s nothing I can do to speed up the System processes,¡± Cato said, though he understood why she was so aggrieved.  Considering the additional augments he¡¯d given them, they should have easily beat their peers ¨C or opponents ¨C to the next rank.  Unfortunately, they were being kept back by circumstances not under either his control or theirs.  If it was a process of intrinsic prowess, Raine and Leese would be miles ahead, but the System¡¯s bottlenecks had crippled their timeline.


    ¡°How about this,¡± Cato said after a moment of thought.  He had framejacked himself a little bit to chew over the idea, but unfortunately thinking faster was no substitute for thinking better.  ¡°This defense quest, it randomly pops up, correct?  So the further afield you travel the more likely you are to encounter it.  I¡¯ll drop caches here, and you can loop back every once in a while to pick some up.¡±


    ¡°Every time we go through a portal, that¡¯s a chance someone could see us,¡± Raine objected.  ¡°It might be better to go to further worlds, but definitely not back to Uriva.¡±


    ¡°Then I can have someone bring you the supplies,¡± Cato said, conceding to Raine¡¯s argument.  ¡°Unfortunately the only place I have any kind of support is Uriva, and the System-God here is so aggressive I¡¯m afraid that¡¯d be worse than any assassin.¡±  Raine growled in frustration, and Cato sympathized.


    ¡°If you can hold out a few months, the other versions of me you¡¯ve delivered ought to be in a position to support you, and I might be able to find out more here.¡±  He didn¡¯t know if it was useful to have the Uriv lineage delve into the Assassin¡¯s Guild, but the further he got into the System the more likely it was that things like the Assassin¡¯s Guild would contest him.


    He couldn¡¯t assume they¡¯d never figure out Cato needed native agents to get around, or that he could only spread by portals.  Those were obvious and crippling weaknesses, only countered by the fact that System people needed those portals as well.  Until and unless Cato could work out better ways to transmit himself around, his best bet was to spread far and wide.  With enough redundancy, even the greatest concentration of force the System could manage wouldn¡¯t be enough.


    Until then, he was vulnerable, as were Raine and Leese.  Patience was their ally, even if it felt like he was pressed for time everywhere.  He had to remind himself that this was a marathon, that there could be millions of System worlds and just getting to them all could take centuries, let alone dealing with the complexity of engaging with the local forces.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    At least for most of them those forces would be only Platinum or, at most, Bismuth.  The true powerhouses were all in the core worlds and had other interests than dealing with petty politics or local spats.  Or so he had been told; the knowledge of people like Onswa and the sisters was necessarily limited.  The System was a big place, and when it came to the core worlds it might well be that Bismuths were as common as Coppers.  Which was a major reason he needed Raine and Leese to rank up, aside from their own desires.


    ¡°We¡¯re here on Ellesz,¡± Leese said after a moment.  ¡°If we can convince Dyen to stick around we¡¯ll see what else we can figure out about the Guild.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll send some stuff through, just give me a town,¡± Cato said, checking the sort-of-a-map he had of known System worlds and links.  He had a network map of dozens of worlds, some of which were connected only to one other planet and some of which had multiple portals.  ¡°There¡¯s not much I can do immediately, since I imagine the real problem is spotting assassins, given your other advantages.  Your senses are probably better than anything I can engineer on a moment¡¯s notice, but maybe something that operates a bit outside the System will help.  I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡±


    ¡°We aren¡¯t going anywhere,¡± Raine said, sounding glum.  ¡°Anyway, we¡¯re out of spears to distribute.  Though there were two worlds that didn¡¯t have any moons.¡±


    ¡°Oh?  That is unfortunate.¡±  The arguments about what was necessary for life to evolve had never truly been settled, but most people agreed that moonless worlds weren¡¯t a likely prospect.  Finding a life-bearing world without any satellites sounded like more System nonsense, in the same way that Uriva¡¯s polar moons were.  While it wasn¡¯t like humanity had never dabbled in extreme orbital engineering, unilaterally altering the sky offended his sensibilities.  More pressingly, it meant he wouldn¡¯t have any presence on those worlds without an alternate invasion plan.


    ¡°I¡¯ll have to figure out something for them too,¡± he concluded, though he didn¡¯t have any thoughts at the moment, other than waiting until he had built up on all the other nearby worlds.  If the System-Gods in charge were as lazy as the Sydean one had been, he might be able to manage a blitzkrieg.  Or perhaps he wouldn¡¯t need to, if he severed entire arms of the world networks.  Just as long as he got something through the portal before it closed.  ¡°For the moment, just avoid any places like that, and don¡¯t stray too far out of range of the comms network.  If worst comes to worst, we¡¯ll see what I can get away with on Uriva.¡±


    It wouldn¡¯t be optimal, but he couldn¡¯t be so heartless as to just leave the two because it would be inconvenient to help.  One of the great disconnects between those who lived the postbiological lifestyle and those who only knew of it was the attitude toward variant selves.  It was all too easy for those outside to think of additional versions of a person as expendable or backups, but the truth was that every variant was a complete person and needed to be treated as such.  He certainly didn¡¯t want to promote that attitude in the sisters ¡ª or have them think he held such a perspective toward them.


    ¡°Understood,¡± Raine said.  ¡°We¡¯ll stay in the area for the moment.¡±


    ¡°Do what you need to,¡± Cato told them, and signed off before he sighed and brought up his design suite.  He did take a moment to summarize the conversation for the Uriv Lineage pair, not so much for a fresh perspective ¨C they were the same people, after all ¨C as to keep them up to date with what needed to be done.  Though offworld travel was a little bit risky for anyone below Platinum, even if the bodies he¡¯d helped design for the Uriv Lineage had no issues with foreign food.


    ¡°So are we going to meet¡­¡± Leese hesitated, looking for the right word.  ¡°Ourselves?¡± She finished, sounding doubtful.


    ¡°Not if you don¡¯t want to.  Generally, I advise against it, but you know yourself better than I do,¡± Cato told them.  Some people could manage it, others found it too viscerally strange to be confronted with someone else wearing their skin and speaking in their words.  It¡¯d be worse for the Uriv pair, as they didn¡¯t even have their original morphologies.  ¡°It¡¯s probably best to just set up a dead drop, cache the supplies somewhere and let the Sydean Lineage pick them up.¡±


    ¡°That will be easy enough,¡± Leese said.


    ¡°We¡¯ll probably break into Gold by tomorrow,¡± Raine put in.  ¡°If we¡¯ve time, it¡¯d be better to join a group already going offworld.  Safety in numbers.¡±


    ¡°Whatever you think best,¡± Cato told them.  ¡°Carry on.¡±


    Cato was extremely limited in what kind of advantage he could design for the Sydean sisters to help them against the Assassin¡¯s Guild.  Without being able to hide the most advanced biotech behind System jamming, he was running at a disadvantage against the esoteric nature of Skills, and he doubted they would consent to or be able to handle a radical biological redesign anyway, even if he could manage it within the System¡¯s confines.  Especially since that might well render the gear they had acquired to augment their existing abilities useless, making them even worse off.


    So there wasn¡¯t anything he could do to make them immediately more powerful, and there wasn¡¯t anything he could do within the System.  He couldn¡¯t make them better gear, improve their Skills, or remove the contract against them ¡ª though the last might be possible as a last resort.  But he probably could obviate the stealth advantage that assassins used.


    System Stealth skills generally worked in opposition to perception Skills ¡ª magical and esoteric senses outside the realm of ordinary physics.  So invisibility might well mask a user against visible light, but not necessarily against the entire electromagnetic spectrum.  Some kind of silence Skill might mask a user¡¯s sound, but not necessarily their sound occlusion, which essentially no natural creature had the biological ability to process.  Then there were things like magnetoreception and electroreception, or complex chemical sampling to detect volatiles and exhaled breath.


    There were reasons he hadn¡¯t put all those into any of the frames he¡¯d made for the sisters so far.  The main one being that it was a lot of information to process, and even with specialized cortices processing so much information required energy, which raised temperatures and required more plumbing to bring blood and nutrients in and carry heat out.  Within the confines of a fixed skull size and temperature-sensitive wet chemistry, that required a lot of alteration.  Not to mention actually comprehending that information, which was a limitation of the mind rather than body.


    He decided the best approach would be something like the radio-lizards he had already given them.  An additional bio-engineered creature, maybe even an addition to the radio-lizard ¡ª though it was probably best not to put everything into a single, easily squished piece of meat.  Frankly he needed to do a little bit of surgery and add in a radio transceiver to the Sydean Lineage the next chance he got, now that they were more used to radio communications in general.


    As it was, they¡¯d need some way to communicate with the sensor-beast, something like growing a small microwave gland for very short distance communication.  Cato was glad he¡¯d had the foresight to include genetic self-modification packages in the bodies he¡¯d given the Sydean Lineage, though there was a reason he had to include significant amounts of rations along with the catalyst ampoules.  It was just too much to ask the frames to produce all the specialized proteins and macromolecules necessary for significant alterations.  Not to mention find all the elements and compounds exotic biology required.


    Out on the moon, the biological factories began churning, drawing in electricity to fuel the chemical foundries producing acids and proteins from raw carbon and hydrogen, nitrogen and phosphorous.  Solar energy fed computronium, which in turn supported programs that crunched the complex chemical and topographical problems of tailored biology.  Micro-labs grew tissue samples, stimulated with simulated environments, and collected data.


    Building custom creatures from scratch wasn¡¯t particularly easy, but Cato owed it to them.


    ***


    Raine Uriv hefted the poleaxe easily, shifting her stance slightly to catch the monster¡¯s pincer on one of her shields before bringing her weapon down in a whistling blow.  The enormous ant-thing offered no real resistance to the Cato-supplied weapon, ichor spraying out and coating the dungeon walls.  Beside her, Leese performed a similar execution, then followed it up with bashing the menacing spike on the front of one of her shields into the next monster.


    The Urivan bodies were strange.  Without a tail they should have been off-balance, but they weren¡¯t, especially not with the broader, armored feet.  In fact, the Urivan bodies were bigger and bulkier in general, with chitin plates over a tough, leathery hide that, according to Cato, shielded bones that were normally relatively soft.  Not a problem for them; she probably could have withstood a beating from Copper-rank monsters entirely naked.


    The biggest feature of Urivan bodies was the pair of gripping claws extending from the back and resting on the shoulders.  They were surprisingly strong, if slow, but extremely clumsy.  Three digits and very little articulation meant they could really only hold things.  However, shields were things, and between Urivan anatomy and Cato¡¯s augments, she could wield two massive, spiked shields with reasonable alacrity while still plying a polearm.  She¡¯d seen other Urivans do it, though they usually went for something a little bit smaller.


    ¡°Looks like the Guardian¡¯s through there,¡± Leese said, as the final ant-monster fell.  Raine grunted acknowledgement and collected her rewards from the kills, which she had had to put in an ordinary pouch.  They hadn¡¯t yet gone to a city to get maps and wallets from a pylon.  Then she joined Leese at the entrance to the Guardian¡¯s room.


    Once, a lifetime ago, the enormous silver-rank ant Guardian would have been intimidating, especially with the slowly shifting rock spikes around it indicating at least one of its Skills.  Now, it was just meat.  They¡¯d spent enough time figuring out how to operate their new bodies to be confident they could destroy anything that wasn¡¯t Gold Rank.  The two of them set themselves and rushed it.


    The proper way to kill the huge monster was likely to bait out its attacks, and whittle it down little by little while avoiding the earthen spikes.  Raine and Leese simply dodged the spike attacks, vaulting off the ground at speed and smashing into the monster like a pair of insectile meteors.  It was large enough that even with Cato¡¯s impossibly sharp weapons they couldn¡¯t simply behead it, but even large monsters had trouble dealing with massive rents running through vital areas.  A few minutes of chopping at a screeching, writhing behemoth resulted in it going still beneath them.


    [Squirming Depths Dungeon Cleared!  Essence Awarded.  Additional Essence awarded due to low Rank.


    Silver Rank Quest Completed ¨C Advancing to Silver Rank]


    The rush of ranking up was muted compared to what she remembered ¡ª and on purpose.  Cato had been candid about his reservations with that kind of feedback, and the two of them had put in damping for the effect.  Raine hadn¡¯t really felt it necessary, but after seeing how easy it was to go from nothing to Peak Silver, she appreciated it far more.  The entire process seemed pointless, and it was almost insulting how long it had taken the two of them to get there the first time.


    Perhaps if they had their original aspirations of climbing to the top, it would have been different, but they¡¯d been able to experience the alternatives, and Raine found that just killing monsters wasn¡¯t particularly fun.  Besides which, they had an alternate goal, one that had be done before she could write off killing monsters entirely.  Their purpose was to free Uriva from the System.


    Strength flowed into her limbs, and the System offered her the opportunity to promote Skills into the newly-opened Silver-rank slots.  The two of them spent a little bit of time with that while the Guardian corpse vanished into the dungeon floor, leaving behind the drops.  For once, they actually seemed like something one of them could use ¡ª a pair armlets sized for gripping claws, likely with some sort of protective bonus.


    ¡°Heads up, you¡¯ve got another group headed for the dungeon.¡±  Cato¡¯s voice came as Leese was picking up the armlets.  ¡°Don¡¯t think they know you¡¯re there but unless you hurry they¡¯ll probably find out.¡±


    ¡°I thought we were far enough out to avoid that, but I guess no Silver dungeon is going to be totally remote,¡± Leese said examining the armlets and then tossing them to Raine as she sent her comment back through the link they had with Cato.  ¡°The question is what we do.¡±


    ¡°We could just move quick,¡± Raine said, donning the armlets ¨C they did add a small amount of toughness ¨C and turning to grab the sled they¡¯d been using to carry the drops.  It wasn¡¯t a great solution, as if they were separated from the sled too long or left it too far behind they ran the risk of the dungeon absorbing it, but it was better than trying to fight with backpacks.  Even with Urivan frames that was uncomfortable.


    ¡°Or we could meet them,¡± Leese said thoughtfully.  ¡°We have to talk to the Urivans eventually.  And a group of Silvers isn¡¯t going to be an actual threat to us.¡±


    ¡°They aren¡¯t,¡± Raine agreed.  She wasn¡¯t exactly looking forward to dealing with other people, but that was the entire reason they were ranking up.  Both of them had hit Peak Silver from banked essence and bonuses thanks to clearing the entire dungeon at Copper, so they wouldn¡¯t look out of place, and they¡¯d just told Cato they needed to at least temporarily join up with a group.


    ¡°Good luck,¡± Cato said.  Raine was actually rather glad that Cato didn¡¯t try to second-guess their decisions, as she probably would have in his place.  Though such faith meant that any success or failure was entirely their own responsibility, and that was a burden in and of itself.


    After one last check the two of them made for the return pylon, which stood at the far end of the Guardian¡¯s room.  They didn¡¯t bother to look for the dungeon¡¯s core; they weren¡¯t Cato and it wasn¡¯t time to worry about destroying anchors.  Not yet.


    The sled bumped up the stairs, and within a few minutes they emerged from the [Squirming Depths Dungeon].  The entrance was set into the side of a lone hill, one that had Cato muttering about erosion profiles and stone composition, and the area around it was rocky and devoid of trees.  From that vantage they could see the group ¨C the standard four of a delving party ¨C approaching.


    Meetings out in the wilderness always had a touch of wariness about them.  There were no higher rank presences to remind people to stay civil, or other witnesses to intervene in a scuffle.  Not that there were too many people who would just attack another group of their own rank out of nowhere, but a rich or vulnerable target might prove too great a temptation for someone clawing their way toward more power.


    Neither Raine nor Leese looked like they fit either of those categories.  Cato¡¯s arms and armor looked functional but no more than that, and of course were technically at Copper rank or below.  Still, the two of them were fully equipped and the simple confidence they had in their own abilities was a clear warning they were not to be taken lightly.


    The group stopped to confer for a moment after catching sight of Raine and Leese, shifting slightly before continuing on.  They already had weapons readied, simply because there were always monsters and beasts out and about, but the foursome had clearly changed their focus from defending against random attacks to defending against Raine and Leese in particular.


    ¡°Hail,¡± Leese called to them, when they got closer.  ¡°We just finished the dungeon.  You might have to wait for it to repopulate everything.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡±  The leader of the group tilted his blue-carapaced head, gripping claws clicking once.  ¡°I appreciate the warning, though we can at least start on the first floor.¡±


    ¡°We cleared the whole thing in six hours,¡± Raine told them.  The leader gawked, and Raine used the [Appraise] that she¡¯d picked up during the dungeon run.


    [Harik Lim ¨C Peak Silver]


    [Koret Lim ¡ª Peak Silver]


    [Mokri Stek ¡ª Peak Silver]


    [Orek En-Stek ¡ª High Silver]


    ¡°That is a twelve level dungeon,¡± Harik objected.  ¡°Three days at least.  And you say the two of you cleared in in six hours?¡±


    ¡°We did,¡± Raine said, not boasting, just stating a fact.  Cato was oddly coy about admitting his power, and in fact she knew for certain that she hadn¡¯t yet seen its limits, but within the System it was better to be blunt about their capabilities.  If she had said they had gone in as fresh Coppers, that would be boasting, and unbelievable besides.  Two people completing an appropriate dungeon as martial savants was one thing; two people completing an impossible dungeon as immortal agents of an outsider god was another.


    The four exchanged glances and Raine did feel a little sorry for them. A single extra day of waiting might not sound like much, but having to camp out in the wilderness was not easy and depending on their finances it might well be a strain on their supplies.  She¡¯d been in that position before.  Or it might just be a minor annoyance, there was no real way to tell.


    ¡°We can stay here and help keep camp until it¡¯s ready again,¡± Leese offered.  ¡°Then you¡¯ll be needing your [World Elite], yes?¡± Raine understood the angle right away; this was an opportunity.  While the group might not be anyone important, she and Leese were literally nobody and hadn¡¯t even existed within the System until eight hours before.  They needed contacts.


    ¡°Yes¡­¡±  Koret spoke up, the slightly smaller brother of Harik, by Raine¡¯s reckoning.  The green-blue Urivan clearly didn¡¯t trust them, which was only appropriate.  ¡°We haven¡¯t yet decided on which one just yet.¡±  Which was a polite way of telling them to mind their own business.


    ¡°We have a way to locate many [World Elites] fairly easily,¡± Leese said, vastly understating the abilities of Cato¡¯s observation satellites.  ¡°We need to kill one ourselves, which of course we can do, but we don¡¯t have anyone to travel with offworld.  We could help you kill a Peak Gold [World Elite] if you don¡¯t mind us tagging along later on.¡±


    ¡°A tempting proposition,¡± Hark said after a moment, clearly not quite believing it.  ¡°But before we consider anything, we have to delve the dungeon first.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± Leese told them.  ¡°We have time.¡±

 Chapter 5 — Getting Known

    Gods were not supposed to feel fear.


    Initik the Warden, [World Deity] of Uriva, was fairly certain that aphorism only applied to the soft, distant rulers of the core worlds. The ones who had never needed to rise from Copper, or the ones who had been safely ensconced in their own power for so long that they¡¯d forgotten what it was to be alive. He very clearly remembered the early days before the System arrived and knew that even gods were not safe from those more powerful than them. Even so, he have never expected to feel so uneasy about the mortal realm.


    In the months since Sydea had vanished from the System, he had been uneasy, even with no particular reason to be. There had been no stirrings either on Uriva or from the Sydean near-corpse he had in stasis. Yet something primal, down in the depths of his soul, had kept him on edge.


    The fear came, at least a frisson of it, when his Interface delivered him a certain pair of names. Initik had kept track of Muar, even if the Sydean wasn¡¯t strictly one of Initik¡¯s divine users, if for no other reason than that uneasiness. When Muar reported that he had seen Raine and Leese Talis, whom Initik had seen die with his own eyes, it was obvious that the conflict with Cato was not yet done.


    It was vaguely possible the versions he¡¯d seen annihilated by Cato¡¯s weapon on Sydea were merely copies, in the same way that Cato could clearly copy himself, but his scrying had not implied that at all. They had been simply Raine and Leese, Copper-ranked.


    More proof that Cato worked in ways outside the System. Cloning or puppeting Skills might fool the usual Copper-ranked [Appraise], but not a [World Deity]¡¯s version of the same. Assuming Muar wasn¡¯t hallucinating ¨C and Initik very much doubted the Platinum-rank mortal was mistaken ¨C Cato¡¯s agents were still alive. Yet there was no global defense quest, so something was clearly different.


    He turned to his Interface, which chimed happily as he instructed it to see if it could find the two Sydeans ¡ª to no avail. That hardly surprised him, for they had to know that Muar would report them to the local Temple. They had to be on some other world, lost among the sea of millions.


    Initik stepped away from his Interface console, turning and leaving his System Space in a single stride. There was little he could do save for warn his neighbors ¡ª those that would listen. For some he merely left a message, as there was no point in engaging with them directly. Those of a similar background as the unlamented Marus, probably languishing in ignominy somewhere in the core worlds, weren¡¯t worth the effort of trying to convince.


    Mii-es of Ikent was an exception. She wasn¡¯t one of the half-sized natives, but the similarities of feathers had drawn her attention, at least according to her. Regardless of reason, she was the only representative of Clan Sier in the area, and he found her to be tolerable company. Better, she wasn¡¯t a fool, which showed in how relatively prosperous Ikent had become.


    He slipped through the ways of the System until he ended up at the green-pillared entrance to her System Space, and politely pressed some essence into her door chime. Mii-es didn¡¯t keep him waiting long, the woven reeds strung between the pillars parting to reveal a vast sky held up by carved jade obelisks. The obelisks were adorned with broad shaded spirals of wood, each wooden platform adorned with colored ropes.


    The ruler of the System Space waited for him at the top of the central obelisk, a tall and elegant form covered in iridescent feathers. Any mortal petitioner would have had to climb the long spiral to the top, but Initik was a [World Deity] and had no patience for those sorts of games besides, so he simply crossed to stand in front of the throne in a single step.


    ¡°Initik,¡± Mii-es greeted him, lifting a languid hand to wave jeweled claws at him. ¡°What news, darling?¡±


    ¡°Ill news,¡± Initik replied, his gripping claws flexing idly. ¡°The entity that corrupted Sydea is, I believe, still loose. Its agents were spotted on Uriva earlier today.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve had the gossip about Sydea,¡± Mii-es said, still in a lazy drawl and draped bonelessly against her throne, but Initik wasn¡¯t fooled. There was a sharp, bright light in her eyes. ¡°How much of a threat is it really, my dear?¡±


    ¡°If nothing else, it¡¯s hard to be certain when this Cato is actually dead,¡± Initik said, then nodded his thanks as Mii-es summoned a seat for him with a gesture. ¡°And in truth I cannot be certain Cato is here, as the only obvious marker was a global defense quest generated by the System directly. I do have the essence signature of the beasts Cato was using ¡ª but it may have realized that as I have not seen either quest or essence signature on Uriva.¡± Initik reached up to touch the icon on his chest, reaching into his private storage to withdraw a memory gem and tossing it over.


    She flexed a claw and it vanished partway with a surge of essence. Like Initik, Mii-es actually had chosen to work with essence directly rather than relying solely on Skills, which was one reason she had his respect. Though in truth he could only stand her personality for short stints.


    ¡°I do appreciate the information, dear. I will keep an eye, or two, on Ikent for just such an eventuality,¡± she said, winking her left two eyes at him. ¡°But do you really feel this Cato is a threat to us? Neither of us are some effete Clan appointee.¡±


    ¡°The crux of the matter is this: I don¡¯t understand what Cato is,¡± Initik told her, his gripping claws clicking against the chitin on his shoulder. ¡°If he were using purely mortal power, that would be nothing. But he is neither mortal nor deity, so I cannot know what to expect. It will be worse if he is intelligent enough to adapt, and avoid the warning the System gives us with that defense quest.¡±


    ¡°Not much of a warning then, darling,¡± Mii-es said, but she did tap her own deity icon, accessing her Interface. ¡°But I suppose I may be somewhat out of practice with direct action. Now is as good a time as any to brush up.¡± She flexed her jeweled claws, essence snapping around them as she invoked some sort of Skill.


    ¡°¡­are you asking me for a spar?¡± Initik tilted his head, almost unable to believe it. Most of the local World Deities wouldn¡¯t have deigned to lower themselves ¡ª or dared to try, depending on how much they knew of his past. Mii-es had been rather indifferent before, but he had no idea how old she was. Perhaps bringing the news of something genuinely new had changed her mood.


    ¡°If you think you can handle it,¡± Mii-es said, rising from the throne in a flowing, boneless sort of way, as if she had been pulled up by invisible strings. Wings unfolded from her back, each feather dripping with wicked sharpness.


    Initik flexed his hands, invoking his own Skills and summoning weapons to each limb. He¡¯d long ago retrained himself to use any and every weapon, finding no value in being constrained to merely a few once he no longer had to worry about limitations on Skills. If it ever came down to a fight against Cato, Initik had complete confidence. In combat, he was an absolute monster.


    ***


    They were absolute monsters.


    That was the only thing Harik Lim of the Warden¡¯s Claw could conclude about Raine and Leese, aside from the fact that their creche-master had an odd sense of humor. Or perhaps he had known what he was doing, with a group name representing the world itself. The pair were certainly worth representing the Urivan people.


    While they were waiting for [Squirming Depths Dungeon] to repopulate, of course he¡¯d offered to spar the pair. He wanted to test the claim that they had run through the entire thing in mere hours ¡ª not to mention their other claims. Ascending to Gold by killing a Peak Gold [World Elite] would surely result in a far better foundation than the Peak Silver one they had been considering tracking down.


    Raine¡¯s sparring pole smashed into his shields, sending him flying backward and forcing him to somersault to regain his balance, skidding on four limbs as he dug his shields into the ground. Though it was merely wood instead of a proper weapon, the impact made his gripping claws ache, and even before he¡¯d managed to recover she was on him again. He could barely keep her at bay, let alone attack, and beyond all that she was not simply attacking. She was instructing.


    ¡°You¡¯re too tall to brace yourself that way,¡± she said, her weapon flashing with impossible speed and forcing him to backpedal. ¡°Bend your knees more. More. There. Now spread your toes and hook your claws.¡± Hark felt odd in the bow-legged and splay-toed stance, but when another fantastic blow sent him skidding, he didn¡¯t lose his footing. His defensive Skill had enough leverage to hold him to the ground. ¡°Your gripping claws don¡¯t have enough articulation for that shield design,¡± she continued. ¡°It leaves gaps and interferes with your range of motion.¡± Harik had never had trouble using his maces and shields together, but given Raine¡¯s fantastic power he was thinking he should listen to her recommendations.


    What was most bizarre was that he knew the style that Raine was using. [Landslide Arms] was an earth and stone affiliated Skill, suited to heavy blows, but should not have granted the sheer speed Raine showed. If anything it should have slowed her down, a steady and unstoppable force, one slowed even further as the associated stone defenses tended to restrict movement. Yet she was faster than any of them, even Mokri, who was supposed to be their finesse fighter.


    Leese was no less capable, with another familiar Skill. [Zephyr Arms] was a rapid, mobile, almost phantom style that traded power for speed ¡ª but Leese hit with a strength far beyond what the Skill should have allowed. He could see her working with Orek on the other side of the clearing, dissecting the dazzled boy¡¯s forms and styles down to the tiniest detail. Harik had no doubt that the pair could have slaughtered them all in second if they wished, but fortunately they didn¡¯t have the disdain he¡¯d seen from other elites toward normal rankers like himself.


    For they were elites. Beyond elites, beyond the best-provided and richest that he¡¯d ever seen. The two looked young, but spoke and acted like seasoned Golds or maybe even Platinums. Yet he doubted even a Platinum would be able to dissect each of their fighting styles after one spar and help them shore up every weakness. Even their casters. It wasn¡¯t simply natural ability, someone had spent a lot of time and effort to ensure the pair had more knowledge than most veterans.


    Orek might actually be a problem. The boy was quickly becoming infatuated with the pair and, however kind they might be, Harik didn¡¯t want to chance offending them with the clumsy flirtations of a star-struck novice. Though it could be worse; Orek had no small talent himself, being nearly ready for Gold at his age and seeing someone who so vastly outclassed him could have put poison into the boy¡¯s ego. Fortunately, he saw it as inspiration rather than an impossibly distant goal, and it certainly helped that the two were giving real, applicable advice.


    The only thing he couldn¡¯t really figure out is why the pair were bothering with the Warden¡¯s Claw. Only Orek was in any way notable, all the rest of them being strictly average. Not that he was complaining ¡ª he was advancing quickly enough to stay ahead of the ravages of aging, and hadn¡¯t taken the drastic risks that tended to kill so many others who pushed too fast. The entire thing was clearly a fortunate encounter, but he couldn¡¯t help wonder what exactly the catch would be.


    It was on his mind when they finally started their delve, but even inside the dungeon he didn¡¯t want to broach the subject until they were deeper in. He took point as they proceeded into the depths, keeping in mind the pointers and tips he¡¯d gotten from Raine and Leese. It had only been a day¡¯s worth of instruction, so the improvements were small, but surviving and even thriving was the sum of many small improvements.


    They slowly worked their way through the first rooms, crushing the small swarms of waist-high centipedes. Harik couldn¡¯t help but think that Raine and Leese could have simply strolled through the rooms, rather than holding chokepoints and bringing down the monsters one at a time. Speed compounded; nobody at Silver could fight for hours at a time, so they had to take breaks simply to offset the strain of combat. If they could have slaughtered everything in seconds, then they¡¯d need only take a break once a floor, rather than once a room.


    ¡°So what do you all think of those two?¡± Harik only raised the question once they were six rooms deep, far away from the entrance and with some amount of privacy.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°I like them,¡± Orek said immediately, and Mokri clicked, cuffing his son lightly with a free hand.


    ¡°Of course you do, but keep your mind straight. You don¡¯t have a chance with either of ¡®em. Have to be some project from the core worlds. An Azoth, maybe.¡±


    ¡°Really? You think it¡¯s that high up?¡± Koret clicked doubtfully. ¡°A Platinum could do plenty without needing to invoke some core worlds monster.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve met Platinums,¡± Orek said, gesturing with his gripping claws. ¡°And so have you, at the Hall of Warriors. They¡¯re powerful, no doubt about it, but you don¡¯t surpass limits until Bismuth, and even they have more important things to do.¡±


    ¡°I have only heard of two Urivans making Azoth,¡± Harik said thoughtfully. ¡°Not sure if any of them are still around. Those circles are far beyond us.¡±


    ¡°So we shouldn¡¯t take them up on their offer?¡± Orek asked, sounding devastated.


    ¡°Gods, no. I mean, we should,¡± Mokri said. ¡°Even if the last we see of them is when we go offworld for the town founding quest, we¡¯ll have gotten more out of it than years of going on by ourselves.¡± He pointed at Orek. ¡°The level of instruction they¡¯re giving is what you¡¯d pay Platinum for at your Hall. Better, even. I¡¯ve not seen anyone who had familiarity with your weapon.¡±


    Orek had been lucky enough to acquire a growth weapon as a Copper, though a confluence of luck and daring, and the returning chakrams were quite potent ¡ª but so exotic that Orek struggled to upgrade his Skill. With no masters to turn to, he didn¡¯t qualify for a tier-up, and since he hadn¡¯t yet found a new weapon Skill token his was stuck at F-tier. Yet Raine and Leese had known exactly how to improve grip and angle, and even had discussed timing and rhythm after seeing Orek¡¯s [Cascading Volley] Skill in action.


    ¡°Assuming they¡¯re still around when we get out, we¡¯ll say yes,¡± Harik decided, looking around at the rest of his group. Everyone agreed.


    ***


    Cato was rather pleased with how the Uriv Lineage had taken to the information links. Some of the help they¡¯d offered the adventuring group was from their own experience, but a lot of it was taken from the same combat modeling program they¡¯d used for themselves. The program had originally been meant for a particularly involved gaming simulation, a third-party aid to train players for the highest level of raiding.


    It had no problem analyzing the physics-defying abilities of System Skills, and in fact it had been rolled into the suite that was used to figure out how to fight against any given System opponent. Getting it to run inside a warframe was not so easy, especially considering that a lot of conventional interface options didn¡¯t work with the biological restrictions. But with orbital support, that wasn¡¯t necessary, and simply streaming someone¡¯s sensorium for the program to crunch through was good enough.


    Of course, such an exercise took on an entirely different cast when it was actual life or death, rather than a game. What should have been a fun exercise in optimization and learning became desperately treasured knowledge. He''d gotten some degree of instruction himself when he was far younger, even before he was postbiological, so he was very aware of the difference in attitude.


    An ability to defend yourself, to determine your own life, was absolutely necessary regardless of reality. In or out of the System, in digital or fleshy bodies, in Summer Civilizations or base reality, a person had no real agency if they couldn¡¯t make their decisions stick in the face of opposition. But the capacity for violence should never be the only thing that granted agency, and the lack of choice gave such training a sinister cast.


    The other thing they had offered the group was tracking a World Elite and, by the time they actually needed to look for one, Cato¡¯s observation network ought to be up to the task. The primary issue he faced was that he couldn¡¯t directly appraise the ranks of the monsters on the ground. Disconnected from the System, he could only make guesses by apparent output of force ¨C when these roaming bosses encountered another monster ¨C and by the zones in question.


    He was fairly certain he¡¯d been able to figure out the zone boundaries simply by virtue of creature habitats, and assigned them to the appropriate rank, all the way up to Platinum. It would have been easier if he could directly access a System map like the one Onswa¡¯s Interface had shown him in Sydea, but that wasn¡¯t in the cards just yet. So far as he could tell there were no Bismuth zones, and he didn¡¯t know if that was a failure of his observation and ranking system, or if they genuinely didn¡¯t exist on Urivan. There had only been a single Platinum dungeon on Sydea, and no Platinum zones, so it wasn¡¯t out of the question, but Uriva was leaps and bounds more developed than Sydea had been.


    Then again, if Platinums could hit single-digit mach numbers, a Bismuth fight where each blow could flatten cities might require something special. An entire continent, or some kind of contained basement universe like dungeons generated. That was something another him would have to deal with.


    Finding a Peak Gold boss, specifically, would be a bit harder. It¡¯d be immensely embarrassing to point them to the wrong type of mob, and put a permanent dent in the reputation they were trying to create. Cato was already worried that somehow people would immediately realize that the sisters were imposters of a sorts, but such concerns seemed to be unfounded. Not only did the Warden¡¯s Claw fail to find anything unreasonable about their names, but nobody in town cared either.


    Part of it was simply that there was no need to keep records. The System accounted for everyone¡¯s identities, and trying to cross-check that was an enormous waste of time and effort. More specifically, time and effort for those of higher rank, who would benefit the least from tracking people. If the System reported that two Urivans were named Raine and Leese and were Peak Silver, they were. No origins or paper trail required; with how much people had to move around to rank up there was no point in that anyway.


    It was almost bewildering to Cato, who had grown up in a society where proof of identity was extraordinarily important. Within certain communities it wasn¡¯t necessary, of course, but everyone was very careful about who they let in to those communities. That wasn¡¯t even counting the natural and non-malicious confusion over identities, when postbiological minds could be duplicated by accident or on purpose. His own duplication and reconciliation schema had a thorough identity check built into it, as well as various methods of assuring that no individual instance had been compromised.


    That was the problem with a hegemonic central authority. Perhaps it worked well enough most of the time, but the moment it failed, absolutely nobody was ready for it. Cato was pretty certain people would get suspicious if too many versions of Raine and Leese began operating on different worlds, but mostly because with their augments they would be at the very top of any rank.


    The whole situation tempted him to go down himself, but it was a vague and restless inclination rather than anything serious. The invasive System prompts and the nightmarish loop of fight to live to fight again would drive him to something rash. As it was he still paced back and forth in his human frame, in the small rotating habitat built into the surface among the sea of factories, burning off energy for the psychological benefit of doing something while other people went and did the important work. There was bioengineering to do, but most of that was just waiting for the equipment to do its work.


    It didn¡¯t help that he was only intermittently in contact with the Sydean Lineage. To be fair to them, simply waiting near a central city with no other reason than to pick up any supplies Cato could deliver was not particularly interesting. Instead they¡¯d gone to grind dungeons. That wasn¡¯t how they put it, but that was what it was, since even with all their advantages they simply hadn¡¯t been ranking up long enough for the odds of rare loot to be on their side.


    A situation which frankly offended Cato¡¯s sensibilities. He didn¡¯t like dungeons to begin with, but it rankled that with thousands of years of human ingenuity at his beck and call the best he could do was give them starter equipment. Starter equipment based on designs older than spaceflight, even if the materials were newer. Unfortunately, the System¡¯s own rules meant that only System created items were useful at higher ranks.


    The Urivan Lineage voyaging out to find their world boss was at least a welcome break from spinning his own wheels. His surveillance satellites had located a likely prospect, an oversized four-winged hawk creature soaring through a region of plateaus and slot canyons. According to the sisters, world bosses like that did respawn after being killed, but the longer they were around the more powerful they got. The easiest ones to find and kill were generally farmed ¡ª though of course, System natives didn¡¯t use those terms. For them, it was no game.


    ¡°It¡¯s about six hundred yards above you, south-southwest,¡± Cato instructed them, watching through his satellites. ¡°Just give me the word and I¡¯ll clip its wings.¡±


    The reason why this particular world boss was rarely downed was simply that Gold Ranks didn¡¯t have enough flight maneuverability to bring it to earth. Or really, to properly get its attention, as it generally roamed far above the plateaus like some sort of mesa-dwelling albatross. Fortunately for them, Cato could do something about it.


    He didn¡¯t have proper railguns up, the Bismuth-killers that might as well have been nuclear weapons, but whipping together a small needle railgun was well within his capabilities, and so long as the bird didn¡¯t suddenly alter course it was easy enough to hit the thing with a much smaller munition. Not enough to kill it, of course, but hitting a wing would ground it temporarily and allow Raine and Leese, and the Warden¡¯s Claw, to attack it.


    The Urivan Lineage even had an excuse ¡ª they were using an item given to them by their patron. It was true, to a certain extent, though of course the sisters could hardly reveal the full reality. Cato wasn¡¯t particularly worried about the railgun setting off any alarm either, as he¡¯d already dropped supplies ¨C and even people ¨C on the surface, and a five-pound impactor wasn¡¯t even going to kill the creature.


    ¡°We¡¯re ready,¡± Raine sent, and Cato signaled the railgun. The velocity was lower than his Bismuth-killers, a leisurely four hundred miles per second ¡ª practically walking pace. That meant that the time between firing and impact was a bit under eight seconds, and so hardly a weapon of precision, but the bird¡¯s habits of movement made it quite predictable. The steel needle sailed through space, almost its entire trajectory in vacuum and only in the last few fractions of a second hitting atmosphere.


    The projectile blew a hole in the wing muscle, almost exactly where Cato had projected, and the thing tumbled down toward the ground. From there, he didn¡¯t have to do anything but watch as the six Urivans methodically dismantled the thing. There were limits to how many people could benefit from hunting one world boss, but apparently they were more relaxed for something so far above their rank. If it were Silver instead of Gold, only one of the groups ¨C the Warden¡¯s Claw or the Urivan Lineage ¨C could have benefitted.


    It made sense from game terms, perhaps, but in the real world those sorts of restrictions would cause no end of trouble. Cato didn¡¯t have to imagine there were fights over such things, or over drops in dungeons ¡ª he¡¯d been told. Raine and Leese had years as completely average people struggling through at-rank dungeons and scrounging every last piece of gear they could manage. He hadn¡¯t heard many stories from them, but Leese had mentioned a few unpleasant experiences with dungeon loot.


    Considering how unpleasant the division of rewards could get in games, he could well imagine how bad it could get in real life, where an equipment upgrade could be a matter of life and death. Dungeons weren¡¯t run for fun, loot wasn¡¯t an enjoyable hit of dopamine. All of it was deadly serious, and a poor choice of group companions, or poor luck with drops, could have very lethal consequences. Cato couldn¡¯t think of a more effective way to remove all the fun from it.


    The people from Earth, those few who had really taken to the System, had considered it just another game. It wasn¡¯t that they were detached from reality, which might have been understandable, it was that they genuinely preferred to be amputated of choice and thrown into a framework which required nothing from them but a simple behavior loop.


    In the satellite feed, nobody looked like they were having fun. They were professionals, doing their jobs, as even grounded the bird still had some form of lightning magic that was forcing the six of them to be very careful. It was clear all of them had to get some damage in for the System to count it, even the nominal healer.


    ¡°Done,¡± Raine broadcast, after allowing the youngest of the group the killing blow. Cato wasn¡¯t certain if there was a greater reward for the last hit, and added that question to the list of nuances he needed to understand to better work with System culture, but regardless it wasn¡¯t like the Urivan Lineage needed an extra boost. Augmentations aside, the System was going down on Uriva. In months or years, but it was going down.


    ¡°We¡¯ll need to give the Warden¡¯s Claw some time in town, but then we¡¯ll head offworld,¡± Leese sent. ¡°A stop on Ellesz shouldn¡¯t be a problem.¡±


    ¡°Excellent. I¡¯ll let them know you¡¯re coming and then drop down the supplies as soon as everything is ready.¡±


    They¡¯d probably have to delay a few more days, but Cato had just about finished the sensory organism. Part of him wished he knew how to make things more System-compatible, because if it could grow with Raine and Leese then it would be useful at all ranks and not just for a brief window, but he knew that it just wasn¡¯t possible. Even if it were, it¡¯d take years more experimentation and he wasn¡¯t sure he had the right outlook for it.


    What¡¯d he¡¯d come up with had ended up looking like a capelet, albeit one that lived and breathed. It wasn¡¯t exactly a single organism, more of an algal mat, a colony creature that looked like it was made of fur. The fur was actually many, many sensory tendrils, none of them particularly complex but the sheer amount adding up to an exceedingly sensitive surface that faced in every direction.


    He could have made a more discrete creature, but he was almost certain that it would get damaged at some point. The more surface area it had, the more likely it was to catch a glancing blow, and since he couldn¡¯t count on the System boosting its capacities he had to work under the restrictions ordinary physics ¡ª it needed that surface area, and not just for the senses. For respiration and radiating waste heat as well, though getting it enough energy to live and function was its own sort of problem. The capelets would need water and sugar regularly, even with photosynthetic uptake.


    The main benefit was that it would work no matter how much or little of it there was ¨C albeit at reduced efficacy if it was too damaged ¨C and it would regrow itself over time. If he could get supplements to them, he could speed that up by quite a lot, but even if they were out of contact for a while they wouldn¡¯t be left high and dry.


    He notified the sisters when it was ready, a day after the group had returned to town, and launched the care package. In addition to the capelets, it had more plants and supplements, both to spread his communication network and coax the Sydean Lineage biology to integrate properly with the capelets. They would be using direct nerve induction instead of microwaves, something only possible due to extra testing, but it would be more immediately usable than his first thought.


    Hopefully his gifts would be enough for the Sydean Lineage to keep themselves safe, at least until the other versions of him came online.

 Chapter 6 — Consequences of Getting Known

    ¡°You can pick the crates up anytime.¡±


    Cato¡¯s voice buzzed through Raine¡¯s head as she approached the outskirts of Ellesz¡¯s capital city. She let out a long breath, some tension within her easing. It was more stressful than she¡¯d expected to know that she was being hunted by assassins, who might be Platinum or even higher. Even if both she and her sister had incredibly sharp senses for Peak Gold, they didn¡¯t have the Skills to defeat dedicated stealth and assassination builds. Something Dyen had proven.


    It was damned unsettling, the way he could sneak around.


    ¡°Good,¡± she said, tracing a burning path after Leese. ¡°Dyen already intercepted one assassin.¡±


    ¡°What, already?¡± Cato sounded almost offended. ¡°How¡¯d that one find you way out there?¡±


    ¡°Tracking Dyen, apparently,¡± Leese replied, amused. ¡°The fact is, though, once we start passing through cities someone is going to find us.¡±


    ¡°Well, I can¡¯t stop that just yet, but this little gift ought to help you deal with it.¡± Cato¡¯s voice, even through the odd mechanism of the lizard, was confident enough to be reassuring. ¡°At least until the other versions of me get up and running.¡±


    ¡°And we get to Platinum,¡± Raine said.


    ¡°And you get to Platinum,¡± Cato agreed. ¡°And beyond, though once you start getting near the core worlds you¡¯re probably going to have to be very careful.¡±


    Raine nodded, even though Cato couldn¡¯t see it and such an idea was very far off. Reaching Platinum was one thing, but everyone knew crossing to Bismuth was an entirely different prospect. What exactly they would need to do was less clear, since they could hardly ask, but with Cato¡¯s help she was certain it¡¯d be no problem.


    The two of them reached the cache, a sled covered with a blanket of greenery and holding a number of odd-looking containers. For anyone who knew, they were obviously of Cato¡¯s manufacture, printed with odd notations of this end up and open here. Yet what struck Raine the most was that her own hands had put that sled there ¡ª and yet, not her hands. A version of her, an alternate that was not quite the same.


    Part of Raine regretted allowing Cato to create more of them to begin with. It was one thing to know she could wake up again if she died, it was another to know that there was someone else with her mind and her eyes and her name, wandering around the planets. But then again, the other version of her was stuck working on Uriva, preparing to free the planet. It was not a task she would want for herself.


    ¡°Oh, this looks nice,¡± Leese said, having already cracked open one of the crates. She pulled out a small garment of silken fur, black trimmed with white and gold. Leese draped it over her shoulders, settling the capelet into place and securing the front by simply pressing the edges together. It merged seamlessly, then actually moved, settling itself into place and sliding a collar up to cover the back of her neck. Raine shivered, finding it a little eerie.


    ¡°That¡¯s odd,¡± Leese said, then pointed to the near-identical twin still in the crate, clearly labeled with Raine¡¯s name, along with some brief instructions. ¡°Your turn.¡± Raine gave it an [Appraise], even if it was unlikely, as one of Cato¡¯s creations, that the System¡¯s description would help much.


    [Wary Mat ¨C Low Copper. This life form is very sensitive to the environment]


    Raine snorted and picked up the capelet, following Leese¡¯s example. The material was soft, ever so slightly warm, and it was hard to imagine it was a living being rather than a piece of clothing as she draped it over her shoulders. When the collar shaped itself to her neck, there was a brief wave of phantom sensation, then a thing that was utterly alien to her. Something like a presence, but also a sense, somewhere in the back of he mind. A phantom limb, a Skill, all of that and yet not quite like any of them.


    ¡°I¡¯ve included some exercises to help you synchronize with the anti-stealth capelets,¡± Cato said, intruding on her thoughts. ¡°But ultimately it¡¯s going to be a process of learning and adjustment, since everyone parses information differently. They¡¯re tailored to you, so you won¡¯t be able to share them. And they ought to regrow from damage, given resources. Speaking of which, that¡¯s what¡¯s in the rest of the crates. Supplies.¡±


    Raine and Leese quickly checked and itemized what Cato had sent them. More rations, though the name really didn¡¯t do the blocks of food justice. They were incredibly good, came in different flavors, and just one of them was enough sustenance for a full day. More Cato-spears, for delivery to different worlds, and more plants in their little metal stakes, to be driven into the ground and so increase the range of Cato¡¯s communication.


    Cato was far more generous than the System.


    So far they¡¯d been unlucky with loot, but that was simply because they hadn¡¯t delved enough dungeons. They could manage them far faster than most groups, but Peak Gold or Platinum dungeons still took a day or more, and they¡¯d only had a few months. Even with their augmented bodies, they couldn¡¯t spend every waking hour fighting through a dungeon, so they¡¯d only managed two or three dozen delves. Far more than they could have accomplished in the same time frame before, but they¡¯d spent years at it in their prior lives.


    ¡°We¡¯ll get some practice with these and then head on out,¡± Raine decided. The sooner they started Cato going, and the more planets they spread him to, the more likely it was he¡¯d be able to help with the assassination issue. Although she still thought dropping one of Cato¡¯s railguns on the Urivan Temple would solve the issue pretty thoroughly.


    ¡°Be careful,¡± Cato told them. ¡°Whatever happened to Dyen, anyway?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s skulking around by the portal,¡± Leese replied. ¡°I¡¯m glad he came to tell us but I¡¯m not fully certain what he wants. He wasn¡¯t warning us just because we¡¯re all Sydean.¡±


    ¡°Well, if he wants to present a bill, I¡¯ll pay it, not you two,¡± Cato said, and Raine¡¯s tail swished in amusement. For all of Cato¡¯s protestations to the contrary, he was practically a god, and a favor from him was more than either Raine or Leese could ever offer. Not that they exactly owed Dyen, but neither of them wanted to give him cause to join up with Muar or hunt them down himself. Unlike Muar, Dyen did have an augmented body and was a serious threat at his rank.


    They stored the supplies in their spatial bags, though the plants had to come along on the sled. It wasn¡¯t until after they received their Platinum estates that spatial bags could start carrying along living things. Considering Dyen was still lurking at the capital, they felt safe enough heading in to take the teleportation pylon, risking a city to jump to a dungeon with stealth monsters for testing. It was only Silver, and generally disused because it wasn¡¯t worth the risk, but it¡¯d be a good place to get used to Cato¡¯s newest gift.


    The [Shifting Safyx Dungeon] was located in an enormous tree, below which was a jungle of riotous colors, dense foliage pressing in from every side. The disguised creatures were long, slinky things reminiscent of the Tornok Clan, though they moved on all fours and didn¡¯t quite reach her waist. They were also no threat to Gold-Rank physiques, giving the sisters plenty of latitude to test out the capelets.


    It started out as a sort of itch inside her mind, a gentle pressure, a sense of having just forgotten something somewhere. A half-whisper, that made her reflexively look in directions where nothing was. Or at least, it didn¡¯t seem so at first.


    Establishing a rapport with her new equipment was like having a conversation, if one without words. Step by step, Raine could understand more, react better, and incorporate the little hints and prods into her actions. The capelet shifted so it stretched over her cloak, tendrils creeping around the edges and seeming to almost merge with the fabric ¡ª a reminder that it was a living being, not just cloth.


    The oddest thing, once she got used to it, was how she could see behind her. It wasn¡¯t vision, not at all, but rather just a knowledge of it. As if she had seen it and fixed it in her head, an environmental awareness that everyone learned in their first few combats. The camouflaged creatures became represented the same way ¡ª she knew where they were, even if she couldn¡¯t see them.


    In all, it took maybe an hour to acclimate to the new acquisition. Leese was ready at almost the exact same time, the two of them able point out the camouflaged creatures at up to one hundred paces. Their essence sense had a longer range, but it was far better than their sight and hearing, and any assassin would be able to hide from essence senses anyway.


    ¡°I know Cato only meant this for protection, but this is incredible for combat,¡± Leese remarked as they left the dungeon. ¡°Far easier to keep track of everything and everyone.¡±


    ¡°You do have a tendency to over-focus,¡± Raine agreed. Leese had always been more precise, but there was a reason why Raine was the one to take the lead in combat. If the capelet helped close that weakness, that alone made the equipment priceless. Leese just bumped her shoulder against Raine¡¯s protest and changed the subject.


    ¡°Which world should we go to next?¡± She pulled out her map, which Raine could no longer use without thinking of Cato¡¯s technology. Before, she¡¯d never questioned the System¡¯s contribution, the piece of almost-paper that could show all sorts of different places and scales, updating itself from exploration or from the pylons in central cities. After seeing Cato¡¯s ability to do something similar, and how much machinery it took to do so, she had to wonder where the System¡¯s workings were and how they operated.


    ¡°Kachyl,¡± Raine said aloud, peering over at Leese¡¯s map. ¡°Better to get further away from Uriva, and we don¡¯t need to cover every world right now. We can circle back later.¡± The map showed an entire network of worlds through the portals, where Uriva was a sole, dangling point at the end of interlinked connections. Their current world, Ellesz, had three connections, and their target had five. If nothing else, it gave them more routes out if they had to flee.


    ¡°Let¡¯s hope it doesn¡¯t come to that,¡± Leese said, responding to her thoughts rather than her words. ¡°Anyway, we have work to do.¡±


    The first real test of their capelets was at the capital city, where the portal from Ellesz to Kachyl lay. Not because they were expecting an ambush there, but because they knew Dyen was lurking around. If they could spot him, it would be proof that the equipment worked on more than just lower ranked enemies.


    ¡°One up on the roof there,¡± Raine muttered, while Leese swiveled her head to warn off a few lower rankers who seemed interested in their sled. ¡°Not Dyen.¡±


    The capelet didn¡¯t let her see the individual under stealth, but it was more like a hole in the wind and ambient noise. The silhouette had some fur, distinct from the crablike denizens of Ellesz, but was mostly covered in some kind of armor that sounded smooth and slick ¡ª though Raine would have been hard-pressed to say what exactly smooth and slick sounded like.


    Whoever it was didn¡¯t seem to have much interest in them, however. The void of a person stayed perched on top of its chosen building, not appearing to notice or care about them. Raine had to wonder how much she¡¯d never known existed within the System, simply because they weren¡¯t meant to be known to anyone else. Or because she was from a small, unimportant world.


    There would be more of that the closer they got to the core worlds, things that just hadn¡¯t existed or mattered on Sydea. With no high-rank patron, they would have to navigate much of it on their own, relying on their own abilities ¡ª and Cato¡¯s. Which Raine suspected they had not even begun to see.


    ¡°There¡¯s Dyen,¡± Leese said, subtly indicating toward another void, one standing atop a tavern building not far from the Nexus. Raine grunted, then deliberately looked in Dyen¡¯s direction and flicked her tail toward the Nexus. Continuing on, the pair went straight in and through the portal, while Dyen¡¯s stealthy presence trailed behind them. It was only after they had traveled to Kachyl¡¯s Nexus, gotten their map updates, and teleported to a frontier town that Dyen actually revealed himself.


    ¡°How did you spot me?¡± It was more of a demand than a question, but Raine just shook her head.


    ¡°Cato,¡± she said, and figured that was enough of an explanation. She didn¡¯t want to give away that it was the capelets, or how they worked. Dyen wasn¡¯t enough of an ally for that kind of information, and there was always the chance it would leak out if they spoke of it where anyone might be listening.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    ¡°Could I learn how to do that?¡± That was a question, as Dyen eyed them thoughtfully.


    ¡°Cato did say that if you wanted something for helping us out, he would be the one to settle accounts,¡± Raine said. ¡°But it will be some time before we¡¯re back in areas that Cato has sway.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep a tally,¡± Dyen said, and faded back into stealth.


    ***


    Dyen found that trailing around behind Raine and Leese was both more interesting and more lucrative than he¡¯d expected. It was an excuse to go to different worlds, many of which had their own native races, and while he¡¯d not considered himself the traveling sort before, there was at least something to be drawn from different lands and different skies. The lucrative part was how many people he got to kill.


    Tornok-Clan were more prevalent on worlds closer to the sprawl they controlled, just outside the core, but it was mostly other assassins that Dyen got to remove. Despite being in the Guild himself, he couldn¡¯t pinpoint precisely what everyone was using to track down Raine and Leese. They did stand out as the only Sydeans around, but it was still concerning how quickly they could find the pair. His best guess was that there was information being bought and sold somewhere, perhaps even by Guild members who were not confident in taking on the sisters themselves.


    Especially considering how many people had already failed.


    He¡¯d followed them to over a dozen worlds in the course of two months, where they sought out high places. It was easy to deduce what they were doing, after having seen Cato¡¯s so-called technology for himself, but it was hard to actually believe. The entire concept of just hurling a weapon into the sky and then for that to somehow become a god was utterly insane. But perhaps that sort of impossibility was what made Cato a god to begin with.


    In the process he¡¯d removed at least ten different assassins, and watched the sisters utterly destroy just as many on their own. The disturbing thing was that he was almost certain the pair hadn¡¯t actually beaten the stealth Skills. All such Skills came with a knowledge of when the stealth effect failed, barring greater stealth on the part of the opponent. Since neither Raine nor Leese had any such Skills, they shouldn¡¯t have been able to silently detect either him or the opponents stalking them.


    Regardless of the reasons, they were perfectly capable of removing any amount of Gold-tier opponents. It was the Platinums that were the problem, mostly because the pair lacked appropriate gear. Their fundamental strength and prowess was monstrous, but there was still a certain gap that should have been filled by weapons, armor, and trinkets. Things to make their Skills more flexible or hit harder, bypass armor, or counter movement Skills.


    The fact that they were able to deal with mid-Platinums while using only C- and D-tier gear, mostly Gold with some Silver-Rank trinkets, was a testament to how much Cato¡¯s gifts improved them. Dyen himself was far better equipped, as killing other assassins did mean he inherited quite a few items that were appropriate for his build, but he would have struggled against the sisters even with his own improved body.


    Dyen absolutely intended to cash in his aid with Cato.


    He did not have a death-wish, despite how he felt sometimes. If he died, he couldn¡¯t punish the people who took his wife from him ¡ª something he was still determined to do, and by adding Cato¡¯s power to the System¡¯s he had a genuine chance at it. Even if he grew to Bismuth or Azoth, normally challenging the old monsters was ridiculous with the advantages from having centuries to gather equipment and upgrade Skills. Cato¡¯s gifts could make up the gap.


    Unfortunately, so long as he followed the sisters he wasn¡¯t going to be near any worlds where Cato had established his power. Certainly Dyen hadn¡¯t heard of any defense quests through the rumor mill, though he wasn¡¯t as connected as others. Nor were there any other assassin¡¯s bounties for anyone obviously connected with Cato ¡ª at least, not until now.


    He was still learning all the nuances of how the Assassin¡¯s Guild operated, but clearly someone had taken note of how many failures there had been in trying to complete the contract on Raine and Leese. Not only had the reward been increased, but someone had ¨C anonymously, of course ¨C put together a group to deal with the pair. Dyen hadn¡¯t even known that was possible, or allowed.


    After paying the nominal essence cost for a copy of the group announcement, he left the Guild Hall on the world of Vereem where they¡¯d fetched up. There was only a faint temptation to join the group himself; there was no way they wouldn¡¯t suspect something when they found out he was Sydean. Singletons or pairs, assured in their superior stealth and Skills and equipment, were easily dealt with. A full eight Platinums was more than even the three of them together would care to risk ¡ª especially since they¡¯d not had the chance to hit Platinum themselves. Nor had he, since it relied on a specific sort of assassination contract that had yet to become available.


    Dyen breezed through Vereem¡¯s capital to the teleportation pylon, selecting the town where the pair were staying. His surroundings shifted, a sudden wash of hammering rain pounding against the Nexus, accompanied by a sticky tropical heat as he slipped out into the night. Even at Gold, even if he couldn¡¯t be hurt by the environment, it was still unpleasant.


    His tracking Skill let him locate the exact room they were staying in, though after the past attacks that wasn¡¯t as helpful as one might think. The doors and windows were too obvious as entry points, and anyone who tried breaking in would regret it. The sisters were capable of applying monstrous force. Instead, he just tapped on the door.


    ¡°Time to go,¡± he said, trusting that their ridiculously potent senses would penetrate the privacy shielding around the room. As expected, the door opened a moment later as Raine squinted out at him. Instead of words, he just thrust the copy of the group contract at her and let her read it.


    ¡°Definitely time,¡± Raine agreed, and shut the door again. Two minutes later, it opened and the pair slipped out, weapons ready. Dyen faded back into stealth as they returned to the capital, and overheard Raine muttering under her breath.


    ¡°Cato? What¡¯s the closest world you can provide support? Right, we¡¯ve got an entire group after us.¡± He couldn¡¯t hear the reply, but he knew how it worked, at least. At some point he¡¯d have to get one of those lizards for himself. ¡°Come on,¡± she said after a moment, and gestured at one of the portals.


    It might have seemed an overreaction, given how many assassins they¡¯d already dealt with, but numbers and context made a difference. They were being hunted by Platinums, who had few issues traveling offworld, and who had more than enough money to pay for rapid-fire teleportation in order to cover more area. Combined with Raine and Leese¡¯s builds having no room for any kind of stealth Skills, and them being about the only Sydeans around anymore, hunters could converge in very short order.


    In all, they made it four worlds before they were attacked.


    Raine and Leese were the first to notice, movement Skills sending them skating away from the area in front of the next portal a moment before a cloud of dark blades erupted from the walls. Dyen only managed to glimpse the Platinum assassin before he faded back into stealth, finding it was a species he didn¡¯t recognize offhand ¡ª a furred frog rendered in grayscale. The attack was so potent it shredded the Nexus walls, Platinum-rank stone that they were.


    Raine and Leese blurred as they dodged several more follow-up attacks ¡ª and not from the frog. One of the two groups had either gotten ahead of them or gotten lucky staking out the portal network. Dyen readied his Skills, sliding around the outside of the sudden burst of weapons and energy. Blades of ice hissed through a cloud of orange poison that had appeared to envelop the pair, but the two were faster than any Gold had a right to be. They hit a teleportation pylon and vanished.


    Dyen didn¡¯t follow. Unlike their pursuers, he actually knew what mattered, and that was getting just one or two worlds further on, where Cato had a presence. For most, running from the assassins would be a losing proposition, but Raine and Leese had very heavy backup not too far away. All Dyen had to do was ensure they reached it.


    He ignored the shocked bystanders and ran his perception Skills over the portal area, finding two separate traps and, rather than risk running out of time disarming them, tripped them with his rapier even as he jumped backward with his movement Skill, shadowjumping through the Nexus door.


    A screech of protesting metal came from within, but when he poked his head back inside, there wasn¡¯t anything visible. Only his essence sense caught the lingering remains of whatever Skills had been used, framing the portal. Like most offworlders, the Platinums hardly cared about who had been caught up in their hunt. Dyen sneered silently around at the damage to the Nexus, the bloodstains where people had been caught by shrapnel. At least assassin Skills tended to be precise, rather than destroying entire areas.


    Less than one minute later, Leese appeared by the teleportation pylon, with Raine following a moment later. They blazed through the portal with their movement Skills, and Dyen hastily followed ¡ª he didn¡¯t want to lose the chance to speak with Cato again. Ahead of him, the sisters plunged forward one more world, to Zeken, then hit the teleportation pylon, with Leese tossing back the name of a town before she vanished.


    Dyen found the town in question and arrived, invoking his movement Skill and only barely catching a glimpse of Raine and Leese as they left over the town walls. It seemed entirely unfair how well they could move when they clearly had barely anything for equipment, just relying on Skills and brute physicality alone. Even if Dyen¡¯s own movement Skill was meant more for short jaunts, he had found boots and a cloak that greatly enhanced the Skill ¡ª yet the sisters were still faster than him.


    It delayed him enough that he caught the assassination squad emerging from the teleportation pylon, essence rippling outward before they vanished. Then a second squad, close behind. Fortunately they didn¡¯t know to look for him; apparently only the one assassin had realized that Dyen was a Sydean and worth tracking down. Of course, Dyen had also been considerably more careful since then.


    By the time he left the town walls the sisters were mere specks in the distance, but Platinums were astoundingly fast. Essence erupted as the kill squads closed in, with Dyen lagging behind. Even as far away as he was, he caught Raine¡¯s voice, hard and cold.


    ¡°Leave, or die,¡± she said. ¡°So says Cato.¡± From far above, in the cloudless sky, came the crack of thunder.


    [Global Defense Quest! Destroy the Incursion: Recommended Rank: Bismuth. Reward: Overloaded C-Tier Skill. Location: Zemy Plains Conflict Zone]


    ***


    Raine Uriv clicked politely at the effusive praise from the young Copper she had been instructing, and sent him on his way. After the trip offworld, they¡¯d kept in touch with the Warden¡¯s Claw as a potential start for introducing Cato¡¯s goals, and in the process gotten introduced to more Urivans. Advising some of the friends of Orek¡¯s ¨C all of them in Copper or low Silver ¨C was no great hardship and she marked it as a credit to Orek that he still had friends in lower ranks. That could only last for so long, since there was so little each rank had in common with the others, but she still thought it spoke well of him.


    At the same time, she found him so restricted, so unimaginative, focused only on ranking up. It was hypocrisy of course, because not only had she been the same way before she met Cato, there wasn¡¯t anything else that could be done within the System. Yet after tasting some of the other options, she found it so tiresome.


    Part of her ached to be back flying. She actually liked some of the simulated mechanisms better than the System version, and the physical drone she got to pilot before heading down to Uriva was even better. There was just something visceral about the sensation of braking and thrust, of raw inertia, that wasn¡¯t present within the System. Flying was easy, to the point where it was almost cheating.


    And speaking of taste, it was strange how lacking the System food was. For the most part it was fine, and edible enough, but bereft of imagination. What she had thought was incredibly delicious before, the higher-rank meals available to Golds and Platinums, turned out to be using essence to hide a relatively small flavor profile. The same mechanisms that deadened the rush from killing and leveling also reduced the artificial impressions created by higher rank foods, meaning Raine and Leese turned more and more to Cato¡¯s supplies, simply because they were better. Just the ration sticks had more variety than was in the System¡¯s store.


    Which was why she had started using them as payment for some of the contacts she was trying to cultivate.


    The entire reason she and Leese were down on Uriva was to try and prepare it for System removal. That was why they were Gold, and would be Platinum when they got the chance, but it was also why they were talking to people and getting information on all the various towns. Not so much layout, as Cato could simply observe that from above, but what people actually thought. Their problems and their concerns. Without knowing what life was like on Uriva, it would be hard to know how to convince people of Cato¡¯s viewpoint.


    Annoyingly, it seemed like Uriva was actually doing quite well. There were high-tier buildings for every combat approach, including the Hall of Combat that Raine was using to teach, the taxes were low, and there were plenty of quests. Far more than she¡¯d ever seen on Sydea, thanks to the higher tier buildings, not to mention spontaneous quests assigned out in the various zones. The entire planet had a sense of purpose, lacking the general malaise that had hung over Sydea.


    ¡°I suppose it comes down to power, in the end,¡± Leese said, clearly able to read her musing from across the room. The two of them had been gaining status and goodwill be offering instruction for cheap or free, exactly because Cato had shown they couldn¡¯t just rely on power. When the System came down they¡¯d need people who actually wanted to help maintain order, not just those who had ruled by fiat of higher rank.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think just telling people this will happen is going to go over as well,¡± Raine sighed, joining Leese as they left the Hall of Combat. ¡°But there doesn¡¯t seem to be much to entice the higher ranks with, and I¡¯d rather not try with lower-rank malcontents. Most of them aren¡¯t reliable.¡±


    She¡¯d been hoping by teaching the lower ranks she would be able to find those who had merely been the victims of bad luck, or had been betrayed by group-mates, or otherwise left stranded at Copper or Silver by circumstance. Instead, she had found that most of them were incompetent or lazy, taking no risks and doing the bare minimum, or simply very, very young. In fact, they were all fairly young, which seemed strange to Raine. There should have been some older types, stalled at Copper or Silver, but the oldest she¡¯d seen was Mokri ¡ª who still hadn¡¯t been that aged, for a Silver.


    ¡°There is something odd.¡± Leese agreed with Raine¡¯s unspoken confusion. ¡°Not exactly something we can ask about, though.¡± The two of them looked Urivan, and had the right body language, but they hadn¡¯t grown up on the planet, and weren¡¯t ready to reveal themselves as outworlders. Though she imagined some people already suspected.


    ¡°At worst we can just show people how boring the System is,¡± Raine commented through their alternate link as the two of them made the trek back to their tavern room. ¡°Show them there can be more to the world than an endless fight.¡± She didn¡¯t want to say something aloud that would draw too much attention. Not in public.


    ¡°True, but that¡¯s only after Cato reveals himself.¡± Leese clicked in irritation. ¡°I¡¯d rather give him something he can use before then. I refuse to believe Uriva is doing so well there¡¯s no System-created problems here.¡±


    Raine clicked agreement, the reflex still not quite natural even after several months with the Urivan bodies, and stepped into the room. The moment the door closed, a sudden heaviness flooded the room, and Raine could feel her mind shift into the extra speed that Cato had given their bodes. A rent tore itself open in front of them, a portal appearing in fractions of an instant, and an Urivan with a gleaming black carapace stepped through. Reflexively, Raine used [Appraise] and gawked at the result.


    [World Deity Initik].

 Chapter 7 — Powerful People

    Cato-Zeken was unreasonably happy to have an excuse to get back down to the surface.  The other versions of himself would have to content themselves with secondhand memories, but he got to actually do something.  Maybe he would have preferred something other than fighting, but protecting Raine and Leese Talis from assassins had no moral ambiguity.


    The drop pod screamed through the atmosphere, carrying six of the forty-ton bioweapons, now further tweaked for Cato¡¯s use and, more importantly, with proper orbital backup for both combat algorithms and bombardment.  That was originally how they had been designed and Cato could only alter the design so much without running into constraints he couldn¡¯t solve.  The boys back on Titan were very bright, and really he suspected Leese would have more luck tweaking it than he would.  She¡¯d taken to bioengineering in a way he never had, and was getting the best education his databases could provide.


    But not at the moment, because Raine and Leese Zek were riding two of the bioweapons.  He still wasn¡¯t certain that it was best for the sisters to directly interact with their counterparts, but they could make their own decisions.  Plus, he didn¡¯t blame them for wanting to help instead of simply watching from afar.


    The pod deployed silk-like drogue parachutes, then released the compression on the stored hydrogen to inflate itself and catch the air, decelerating at multiples of a standard gravity.  A second later, the pod released the warframes, letting them fall the last hundred feet or so to the ground around the Talis sisters, the massive bioweapons shaking the earth with their impacts.


    He¡¯d ensured the warframes had the upgrades they needed to spot the stealthy high-rankers, painting their ghostly presences into his sensorium as he landed.  For most people under the System, he had to be somewhat forgiving, because they had grown up in a framework where fighting and killing was the only answer, always.  But assassins, those who specialized in killing other people rather than monsters, had taken more deliberate steps to become murderers.


    It was a little hypocritical that he wasn¡¯t going after Dyen for the same thing, but Dyen wasn¡¯t trying to kill the Talis sisters.  Cato knew that there was going to be trouble with Dyen sooner or later, but sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof.  Without Dyen¡¯s warning the assassination contract definitely would have blindsided them.


    ¡°I believe the ladies told you to leave, or die,¡± Cato rumbled from four throats, combat system flushing out the constant accumulation of rage from the mere presence of serial murderers.  He could well imagine all the killings a Platinum-level assassin needed to have performed.


    ¡°You really shouldn¡¯t give them time,¡± Leese Zek sent through the microwave communications.  ¡°These warframes all look Copper, so the warning won¡¯t help.¡±


    Sure enough, the warning did no more than stall the two groups for a fraction of a second before they moved in to attack.  Shadows lanced out, rocks split, water whips cracked through the air, and metal threads lashed.  It would have overwhelmed Cato¡¯s original warframe, but this time he had algorithmic combat coding backing up his reactions.  The six warframes broke and scattered, but not in flight.


    Predictive analysis tools took in data from their sensors, and those of the pod above, crunching through the movements and demonstrated Skills of the Platinums.  The light-gas guns went off, sharp cracks that targeted only two of the eight, bracketing them to prevent any Skill-driven dodge.  The projectiles in question were simple bullets, with the supposition that they¡¯d injure the Platinums but would be insufficient to kill them.


    The combat algorithms and the Zek sisters agreed that the first priority was the crab-like Clan Mokrom individual with what was termed aether Skills, some sort of System-only concept with no concrete analogy to physics.  Onswa¡¯s Skill, whatever it was called, had acted a bit like sourceless radiation damage when used on the warframes ¡ª and that was probably just the incidental effect.  The Mokrom was one of the primary targets for the light-gas guns, and after managing several hits on the carapaced torso, the Zek sisters descended upon him mercilessly in a pair of forty-ton warframes.


    Cato was in full framejack as he joined the assault, operating only slightly faster than the Platinums, but still able to precisely bring monomolecular claws to punch through a gap in the crab¡¯s armor.  Industrial-strength muscle combined with forty tons of mass bested the System¡¯s esoteric toughness and let his claws gouge a hole into where his modeling programs guessed the vital organs would be.  His warframe¡¯s vital sensors registered all kinds of warnings as the esoteric radiation of aether flushed through it, doing all kinds of damage in unpredictable patterns, but the warframe was disposable and the sisters had managed to avoid the Skill so only his was affected.  Better that damage was done to a war machine than a person, regardless.


    The aether user was, of course, not the only target.  With six warframes, along with Raine, Leese, and Dyen, the assassins were technically outnumbered.  The latter three weren¡¯t tied into the combat network, but they were competent fighters in their own right and more than capable of dealing with a Platinum one-on-one.


    The assassins had no idea what hit them.


    A Tornok Clan archer half a mile away loosed some sort of seeking arrow, which roared through the air as a lightning-charged bolide, just before Dyen emerged from the shadows in a brutal backstab to prevent any more ranged attacks.  Another crab person tried to take to the air, only to be intercepted by the Talis sisters, who had more aerial supremacy than the warframes.  The Zek sisters worked together to tear apart another Tornok Clan ¨C fully half of the eight assasins were of the ratlike race ¨C while Cato¡¯s last two warframes grappled with casters to keep them from any wide-range Skills.


    In a matter of moments, they halved the number of assailants, the combat algorithms guiding the warframes around System-empowered blows or Skill effects that would have destroyed them.  Even with machine assistance, Cato had found he was far less effective at exploiting openings than the sisters, so he focused on creating those openings. The back-tendrils of his frames snapped out to hammer against hands and feet, disrupting stances and aim while the others methodically disassembled the assassins.  The one warframe that had absorbed the aether retaliation started to undergo catastrophic failure, but it still had several seconds ¡ª time enough, in combat.


    He threw the failing warframe ¨C one which was being operated more by remote control than properly inhabited ¨C into the path of some massive shadow-ball in a sacrificial gambit while the Talis sisters plunged from above onto the caster like baleful meteors, having dispatched the airborne Platinum.  A moment later, silence fell over the battleground as all the opponents were dead.  No more than ten seconds had elapsed since the fight had started.


    Cato took stock of everyone, finding that the Sydean trio had only scuffs and scrapes, despite the grievous damage done to some of the warframes.  Unfortunately, his biotech couldn¡¯t stand up to higher rank System attacks, not in the way Dyen and the Talis sisters could, but he¡¯d designed the bioweapons to be disposable so it hardly mattered.


    ¡°You¡¯ve gotten better at fighting,¡± Raine Talis said, eyeing the pair of warframes her digital counterparts were controlling.  ¡°More cooperation, more variants.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Cato said, not correcting her about who, exactly, she was complimenting.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to head back before this gets weird,¡± Leese-Zek said, and the Zek sisters handed over control of their warframes as they returned to the orbital high above.  They hadn¡¯t yet committed to Zeken-specific bodies, in part because it was evenly split between Clan Mokrom and the furred, flat-tailed Clan Eln ¡ª so no actual natives.  Not to mention that neither of them had any interest in presenting themselves as being members of either clan.


    ¡°I can¡¯t stay too long,¡± Cato said, turning the nearest intact warframe to face the Sydeans.  ¡°Someone will come to check out that defense quest soon enough.  Looks like I¡¯ll have to actually focus on getting the contract removed at its source.¡±  He sighed with three of his remaining warframes.  ¡°We can¡¯t keep doing this.¡±


    Not least because it tipped his hand in ways he didn¡¯t want.  If Zeken were embargoed, it wouldn¡¯t be too bad, given the other worlds and portal connections his other selves had spread to, but he would have preferred nobody really know he was still around.  The global defense quest was a dead giveaway.


    ¡°I¡¯d like whatever they have that can break Stealth skills,¡± Dyen butted in, striding up to the gathering of warframes.  ¡°As payment for my help.  And a way to contact you.¡±


    ¡°The former is doable.  The latter ¡ª I¡¯ll consider.¡±  Cato certainly didn¡¯t trust Dyen to know about the radio plants and how that network was being set up.  The stealth capelet was a one-off, nothing that could compromise his efforts, but if Dyen wanted to, he could figure out which worlds Cato had presence on simply by testing the communications.


    ¡°We need to hit Platinum,¡± Raine said, ignoring Dyen.  ¡°We probably have the Feat of Glory, given how far up-rank we¡¯re delving, so we might be able to get to Bismuth in record time.  At that point, I doubt we¡¯ll need to worry about assassins.¡±


    ¡°Or it¡¯ll be worse,¡± Dyen said with a shrug.  ¡°Even with all Cato¡¯s advantages, I don¡¯t think it¡¯ll be enough to fend off Azoth rank assassins at Bismuth.¡±


    ¡°Possibly so,¡± Leese said, her spear vanishing in that strange, pseudo-virtual-reality manner.  ¡°But we aren¡¯t even properly geared yet.  There¡¯s a lot more we can do to become more powerful.¡±


    ¡°We can discuss this somewhere else,¡± Cato said.  ¡°Best for you to get off-world before ¡ª ah.¡±


    The world of Zeken had a surveillance network, just like every other world where Cato had established a foothold, and in learning from his mistakes he¡¯d added alerts for every single individual of note that he¡¯d gotten surveillance on.  He didn¡¯t want to be surprised by anyone they knew.  That wasn¡¯t the same as being able to do anything about such alerts, like the one that had just drawn his attention to a bird-person who had just emerged from the Nexus.


    The Bismuth known as Yaniss, of Ikent, had arrived.


    Cato had last met her on Sydea, just before the System went down, when she had been surprisingly ¨C for a System elite ¨C cooperative, seeming more interested in Cato and the origin of the quest than any Sydean natives or indeed even fulfilling the quest.  While she had left at his request, she¡¯d also tried to kidnap a version of him to ensure that he would follow up on his promise to tell her more about what was going on.  Of course, that version was lobotomized, mindless, and would have died the moment it lost connection, so all she had managed to take was a corpse.


    ¡°You¡¯d better leave now.  Bismuth on the way,¡± Cato told them, judging it worth the time to meet with Yaniss there and then, while he was already compromised, than draw more attention on some other planet.   His words jolted them into movement, racing away from the battle site at speed.  Yet even with the warning from his satellites, he was still too late ¡ª the teleportation she used was far faster than he¡¯d seen from Platinums.


    A metal pillar thrust up from the ground and then bent open into a portal, the diminutive bird-like Bismuth stepping through.  With a ripple, a translucent, metallic barrier sprung into existence around them, encompassing the entire area of the battle, the three Sydeans, and the remaining warframes.  When she spoke, it was in a lilting, almost sing-song tone.


    ¡°Found you!¡±


    ***


    Yaniss regarded the strange creatures belonging to the entity that called itself Cato with the same delightful confusion as the first time.  They should have been merely Coppers, except that her essence sense showed something fuzzy about them, an oddness she had never seen before.  The corpses on the ground showed that they certainly weren¡¯t Copper, though she knew that already.  What she didn¡¯t know was how.


    She very much didn¡¯t think it was as simple as a stealth or shielding piece of equipment, not least because there were multiples of the creatures.  The being she had taken to try and assure Cato¡¯s future cooperation had simply collapsed like a puppet ¡ª but she was familiar with puppet-type Skills.  Yaniss had studied the way essence flowed around all types of techniques, and she could list off all the Skills used in the battle just from their lingering signature.  Except the Cato creatures had no signatures.


    It was quite the wonderful puzzle.


    ¡°That was not a very nice trick,¡± she chided the Cato-creature, keeping half an eye on the Golds that were prodding the edges of her domain Skill.  ¡°The one that I took with me was never actually a person, was it?¡±


    ¡°Not exactly,¡± Cato replied, apparently perfectly calm and not at all aware of the rank difference between them.  Not that she could tell what rank he actually was.  ¡°Though you didn¡¯t give me much time to explain.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t spend much time to explain,¡± Yaniss shot back, sauntering up to the massive beast, which didn¡¯t either shy away from her or make any aggressive moves.  Up close, it was even stranger, as it didn¡¯t seem to be quite like any animal she had encountered, lacking even a proper heartbeat  ¡°Whatever happened to the other Bismuths?  I hear Sydea¡¯s portal closed.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re dead,¡± Cato said, matter-of-factly, and Yaniss chuckled.


    ¡°Is that a threat?¡± She idly poked one of the beasts, which was a dozen times her height, finding the scales on it far tougher than any Copper-rank material should be.


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who asked,¡± Cato pointed out, still unruffled.  ¡°I find things go better without threats.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve always thought it was the opposite,¡± Yaniss disagreed, taking a step back and looking up at the beast.  ¡°It¡¯s the fastest way to get someone to do what you want.¡±


    ¡°Only so long as you can still reach them.¡±  The Cato-beast shook his head.  ¡°Perhaps we can have this philosophical discussion after you let my agents head out.  I¡¯m afraid the quest will draw more attention than is safe for them.¡±


    ¡°But they¡¯re the threat I¡¯m using to keep you here!¡± Yaniss chided him, glancing over at the three Sydeans.  They didn¡¯t seem quite properly cowed for mere Golds, but they didn¡¯t have the strange fuzzy feeling to their Essence and [Appraise] properly reported who they were.


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°That¡¯s hardly necessary,¡± Cato told her.  Normally Yaniss had no trouble distinguishing between truth and lies, as people were very poor at dissembling in general, but the Cato-beasts were so foreign that she couldn¡¯t tell if he were truly as relaxed as it seemed, or taking advantage of the puppet¡¯s remove to simply act exceedingly well.


    ¡°I think it is!  Otherwise you¡¯ll simply drop your puppets and leave again,¡± Yaniss said, waving a talon to take in the beasts.  ¡°I want to meet with the real you.¡±


    ¡°Well, that would be a problem,¡± Cato said after a moment.  ¡°You would have to leave the planet.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think you were on Zeken,¡± Yaniss chirped, trying to trace whatever threads might be animating the puppets, but still finding nothing.  ¡°Which world are you on?¡±


    ¡°You misunderstand me,¡± Cato told her.  ¡°I am not on a world.  I am outside the worlds.  Outside the System, and I¡¯m not sure what that would do to you.¡±


    It was impossible, of course.  The very phrase outside the System was almost meaningless; gibberish invented by a madman.  And yet, and yet.  Taken seriously, it resolved the strange patterns that she had found lingering around Cato and the global defense quest that seemed to follow him.


    So few people actually presented a puzzle, so few things were actually a challenge anymore, now that she was a Bismuth and with all the power that entailed.  She had gotten powerful by following patterns, puzzling out the interlocking designs of the world and using them to her advantage, but there seemed to be fewer and fewer mysteries that she could delve into.  Essence didn¡¯t get that much more complex, from what she¡¯d seen, only more potent.  Even on the great war-worlds, the breathtaking scale was merely the same patterns repeated or amplified.


    If Cato were truly from outside reality, from some place where there were different laws and different patterns, then that might explain some of the oddities.  It might even explain why he was hard to read, as even people mostly operated by the same patterns. Something which had made it easy enough to ensure that if the quest she had first seen on Sydea appeared on any nearby world, she would be notified.  Which had certainly paid off, and hadn¡¯t even taken very long.  She knew the old monsters of the System planned on timescales of centuries or more, so after Sydea closed she had thought she might have to wait that long for another chance.


    ¡°You may not be lying,¡± Yaniss said slowly, looking the strange creature up and down.  ¡°But that still leaves us at an impasse.  If I want something from you, the only thing I have is your not-puppets.¡±


    ¡°Then I suppose I will have to give you something now,¡± Cato said, which made her feathers ruffle in surprise.  Nobody gave up anything for free.  ¡°I can tell you that I am from outside the System, from the reality that the System is corrupting.  That your planet was long ago conquered and your people enslaved by the System, chained to a framework with only one choice.¡±


    ¡°Words,¡± she said dismissively, even if the words in question ignited her imagination.  Yaniss had never heard of someone speak of the System so disparagingly; those that spoke of it at all called it the divine System, as it granted all Skills and advancements.  To consider reality itself somehow an interloper, a disease, was the sort of blasphemy reserved for madmen ¡ª or the sort of foreigner Cato proclaimed himself to be.


    ¡°I have been told you might consider a change in perspective more compelling,¡± Cato said, and she had to wonder exactly where he had heard that.  If he had been asking questions about her, none of her intelligence network had picked it up.  ¡°You lean toward an affinity for metal, correct?¡±


    ¡°Clearly,¡± Yaniss chirped, as if the nature of her Skills was not evidence enough.


    ¡°Then you¡¯ve seen that some metals are brittle, others are soft.  Some conduct heat, others simply melt.¡±  The black scales on the beast flickered, suddenly becoming a very System-like display.  It showed strangely alien symbols, alluring patterns, named for the metals of the early tiers: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum.  ¡°I can show you why they do that.¡±


    The symbols multiplied, arranging themselves row by row, some of the symbols labeled with words she knew ¨C iron, tin, lead, azoth ¨C but with many she didn¡¯t.  There was a clear order there, and a tantalizing glimpse of an enormous space of possibility beyond the metals that she knew.  Even stranger, some things were clearly labeled as non-metals, yet were included in the same structure, as if they were somehow connected.


    ¡°What is this?¡± She committed the entire thing the memory, to be dissected at some later date.  Just because it looked good did not mean it held any actual meaning; it could simply be a pretty lie.


    ¡°It¡¯s called the periodic table of elements,¡± Cato said, and it vanished, only to be replaced with more diagrams.  ¡°It¡¯s the crudest and broadest description of what is known outside the System.  Here are different versions of a single metal, steel.  There are thousands of versions, each with different properties and different uses.¡±  She recognized the iron, and the other components of each structure were other pieces from the previous periodic table.  Carbon, chromium, nickel, cobalt.


    ¡°What does [Sochic Steel] look like?¡± She asked, touching the band wound about her left wrist, the Growth Weapon that she had found so long ago.


    ¡°I have no idea,¡± Cato admitted, the diagrams vanishing as the scales returned to black.  ¡°That¡¯s the System modifying things, so there¡¯s no guarantee that it conforms to the patterns of nature ¡ª or to any at all, really.  It could be arbitrary, a one-off, as the System distorts reality to do whatever it needs.¡±


    ¡°That is¡­¡±  Yaniss clicked her beak.  ¡°Disappointing.¡±  She wasn¡¯t certain how much she believed him, but it accorded with some things she¡¯d noticed.  How similarities between lower Rank materials were eroded at higher ranks, becoming ever more idiosyncratic and difficult to predict.  The idea that there were no patterns there, no connections she could trace, was all too easy an answer, yet one that almost made sense.


    ¡°You won¡¯t find me arguing against that,¡± Cato said, and Yaniss laughed.


    ¡°I suppose you have given me something interesting,¡± she said, but before she could continue the feel of another Bismuth intruded on her perceptions.  Yaniss frowned and then tore open a portal to her Estate, an ability usually reserved for Azoths and above ¡ª but Yaniss had always been a savant, delving into essence and finding the most interesting things offered by the System.  Then she simply flung the Golds through, just before the other Bismuth appeared with a roar of cold fire, just at the edge of her Domain.


    ¡°They¡¯re at my Estate,¡± she told Cato as she gathered her Skills, eyeing the Tornok Clan Bismuth with disfavor.  ¡°I¡¯ll deal with this.¡±


    ¡°What are you doing here?¡± The Tornok Clan asked.  [Appraise] revealed his name to be Stoln, which was only vaguely familiar.  There weren¡¯t so many Bismuths outside of the Core Worlds that it was easy to lose track, but Yaniss had found most of the local Bismuths were uninteresting.  They were there because they had stalled out, unable to compete at the higher levels of the core worlds, not because they had something keeping them attached to the frontier.


    ¡°I am finding out interesting things,¡± Yaniss said, completely unthreatened by Stoln¡¯s attempt to push his water-based Skills through her metal Domain.  He hadn¡¯t even managed to evolve his own Skills far enough to get his own domain, so he was barely worth considering, as a Bismuth.  ¡°And you are intruding.¡±


    ¡°There is a quest,¡± Stoln said, as if that excused everything.


    ¡°And I am talking,¡± the weapon on her wrist unraveling and lashing out beyond her Domain dome, less an attack as a chiding smack, sending the surprised Bismuth flying backward before his movement Skill stopped him.  Unharmed, of course, given his own defenses, but it was an effective rebuke.


    ¡°It¡¯s probably best I meet you at your estate in a more surreptitious form,¡± Cato said, as Stoln bristled.  ¡°It¡¯s the building north of the capital on Ikent?¡±


    ¡°If you knew, why didn¡¯t you visit?¡± Yaniss complained.  ¡°Fine, yes.¡±


    ¡°Then I will see you there,¡± the Cato beast said, and all of them suddenly seem to lose cohesion, slumping down into a puddle of undefined muck, mixed organics and metals that she could feel now that they were no longer part of something living.  The quest vanished, and Stoln pointed a finger at her accusingly.


    ¡°What did you do?  I wanted that quest!¡±


    Yaniss sneered, turning to Stoln and gathering her Skills.  He was the usual sort of backwater Bismuth, good enough or lucky enough to surpass Platinum but lacking any kind of imagination or interest beyond getting more powerful.  She would return to her Estate in a bit, but first she needed to give Stoln a minor thrashing, to ensure he was more respectful in the future.  It wouldn¡¯t do to let such disrespect pass unanswered.


    ***


    Initik was no stranger to foreigners trying to push in on his territory  From the advent of the System itself, there had been people who had designs on Uriva.  Warlords, clans, even gods, and he¡¯d suffered none of them.  Even now, the mortal clans occasionally tried to establish a presence on Uriva; even the great clans had made attempts, likely at the urging of their respective [World Deities].


    He paid close attention to the events on Uriva, keeping an eye and ear on both his divine users and the advanced buildings ¡ª a compromise, as even he couldn¡¯t keep an entire planet under personal surveillance.  Nor did he want to; his role was to guide his people, not spy on them.  But he knew of almost every promising candidate as they rose through the ranks; even without the occasional tournament, it was not difficult to know who was on the lips of the Golds and Platinums in the various Halls.


    So when he started hearing of a pair of Urivans who not only came from nowhere, but arrived with an almost impossible breadth of knowledge, he was naturally suspicious.  While it was a credit that they were tutoring the younger and lower ranked, that was an easy way to ingratiate themselves with his people.  A false kindness, hiding a more dire purpose.


    But then he heard the names.  The names.  Scrying them directly, there was no denying it. They were the same names as Cato¡¯s agents, and that surely was not coincidence.  Yet the pair were in Urivan forms, and moved like they had been born that way.  A family named after the planet itself was strange, if not wholly unknown, and perhaps evidence of some attempt to fool the System even if it hadn¡¯t extended to their given names.


    Initik scryed them for days, keeping an eye on what they said and did.  It was a shame they were not one of his though, because their abilities were absolutely incredible.  The speed and strength gave them a full rank advantage, and the skill matched or even exceeding Bismuth or perhaps even Azoth.  He didn¡¯t know from whence came the incredible analytic prowess, but if they had been on his side, he would have been confident that there would be an entire generation capable of reaching Platinum, if not Bismuth.


    Unfortunately, they were not his.  Some of the half-conversations he heard made that clear enough, though he was absolutely certain they had a way to communicate that he wasn¡¯t seeing.  The two certainly didn¡¯t have any Skills or equipment that would allow it, and he couldn¡¯t even intercept any essence that might be carrying messages.  Which was unfortunate, because that only left direct confrontation ¡ª and the last time he had tried that with one of Cato¡¯s agents, he¡¯d been left with nothing.


    On the other claw, Raine and Leese were not Cato, like the one he had kidnapped.  There was a difference between the principal actor and those he used.  Though considering that the originals ¨C if they were the originals, and not some strange construct ¨C were Sydean and not Urivan, he couldn¡¯t be certain what he was looking at.  Or who.


    When it became clear that there was little else he could learn by simple observation ¨C and that he was neglecting other duties in the course of keeping a close eye on the intruders ¨C he moved to action.  As a [World Deity] he had access to any Skill he wanted, but that was such an enormous catalogue that even he didn¡¯t have everything he ever wanted at the tips of his claws.


    He selected a mix of temporal and divine Skills, to ensure that he would have time to interrogate them as well as the means.  There were Skills to compel action, but twisting thoughts was far more fraught and he had no guarantee that he could stop them from turning themselves into mindless bodies.  In fact he rather thought it unlikely he could in the end, but he didn¡¯t need to get that much information from them.


    Once they were by themselves, secluded ¨C as he preferred not to draw any attention to what would be a very blatant intervention by the gods ¨C Initik tore open a portal.  The pair of Urivans goggled at him, and he invoked his Skills.  Time around them froze as essence drained away from his domain into the mortal world, and he pulled them into his System Space.  That stopped most of the essence loss, though he¡¯d have to make something more concrete if he wanted to keep time-stopped without undue cost.


    Initik layered several Skills on the pair before he released them.  There was no such thing as true mind control, but he could induce lassitude, muddle their wits, force them to answer, and ensure those answers were the truth.  An effective method of interrogation, though it could be gotten around even by those with relatively little essence.  Questioning someone was, unfortunately, not a matter of brute force.


    Initik put the two time-frozen Urivans in chairs in a secluded area of his space.  His presence was sufficient to keep them held there, the essence within his domain bending to his will, but he didn¡¯t quite trust that something affiliated with Cato would be completely safe.  When he was satisfied with his preparations, he released them from their temporal prison, instead casting them into a time-accelerated bubble.  Just in case Cato decided to move when he realized his agents had been found out.


    ¡°Answer yes or no,¡± he snapped, as the two of them blinked, bewildered and blindsided.  ¡°Are you working with Cato?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± answered the one ¡ª Raine.


    ¡°Is Cato here on Uriva?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± answered the other ¡ª Leese.  Initik clicked to himself, then realized his mistake.


    ¡°Is Cato beyond Uriva?  On one of the moons?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Is he on other System worlds?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Answer in full,¡± Initik said crisply, feeling the compulsion Skills wriggling as somehow the Gold-rankers were fighting back.  ¡°On which moons?  On which worlds?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±  The words came from both of them, and Initik grunted, not particularly surprised.  There was little point in providing information to people who could be caught, question, or turned against their master.


    ¡°What are Cato¡¯s plans for Uriva?¡± He wasn¡¯t expecting much from it, but it was worth a try.


    ¡°To remove the System,¡± said Leese.


    ¡°To free Uriva,¡± said Raine.  Initik clicked in disappointment.  It would have been so much easier if they knew ¨C or had been told ¨C that Cato wished Uriva for himself.  That kind of motivation was easy to deal with.  But removing the System was harder to grapple with, if no less a threat.  He well remembered what it was like before the System had saved his people, and if Cato had his way it would spell doom for Initik and all his kind.


    He would have more questions later, but he had an immediate response to make.  He froze Cato¡¯s agents in time once again, dredging up a ring of god-metal from his estate to lock the Skill into place.  Then he returned to his Interface with a single step, teleporting across his System Space with a thought.


    Though his essence reserves were nowhere near the gluttonous worlds at the System¡¯s core, he was far more flush than nearly anyone nearby.  Unfortunately, he would have to spend everything he had banked, as well as exercise some of the direct essence control that he had mastered over the past thousand years as a [World Deity].  He reached out to his Interface, which chimed happily as he rested his hands on the console.


    The essence field of the entire world flexed, shuddered, and then heaved as massive bolts lashed out, in an upset that everyone on the planet could feel.  Each one snared a moon, a thin cable connecting the world¡¯s essence field to the one that claimed each of Uriva¡¯s partners.  The Interface hummed as it processed each of them, though Initik didn¡¯t know if it would be worth trying to keep them, to establish towns and dungeons.  A fleeting thought that he could turn a moon or two into an area for Bismuths and Azoths crossed his mind, but that was in the background.


    Instead he frantically scried through the moons, following any essence anomalies, until he found what had to be Cato¡¯s bases.  There were three of them, on three different moons, and widely distributed at that.  With a flicker of will he crossed to the moon himself, stepping out of a portal and looking at what was there, the airless surroundings bothered him not at all.


    A massive cavern had been hollowed out, and filled with arcane machinery that even as he watched simply ground to a halt, whatever strange energies that fueled them failing.  Here, there were domes of air with plants inside; there, impossibly abstruse mechanisms spooled out living things, the Cato-beasts that he had seen before.  Yet all of it had ceased functioning, the moment he had seized control of it.  Things melted, caught fire, even exploded.  There was nothing dangerous to him, but it did seem that Cato had told the truth about one thing.  He was not compatible with the System.


    It took hours more, mostly scrying to prevent further essence leakage from his already depleted stocks, but Initik was convinced that Cato¡¯s presence had been removed.  Even the small bits of things in orbit had been caught in the wave of essence, and rendered inert.  Which was fortunate, as even if he didn¡¯t understand what many of them were, in some he recognized the peculiar lines of weapons, pointed downward toward the planet¡¯s surface.


    Of course, that wasn¡¯t the end of it.  Cato was on other worlds, spread like some malignant fungus through means unknown.  But for the moment Uriva was safe.


    It was everyone else that was at risk.


    ***


    Light-hours from Uriva, in an industrial complex around a double gas giant, Cato sighed in virtual space.  He checked over the gestalt from the sisters, from the final update before Initik had whisked them away, and started another instantiation.  The system-god of Uriva was even more active than he¡¯d thought.

 Chapter 8 — Diplomatic Tasks

    Muar meditated within the Temple, consolidating the gains he¡¯d made at Platinum. The Divine System had seen fit to reward him with an A-tier Estate Token in recognition of his deeds, though he hadn¡¯t yet deployed it. Uriva had been generous to him, but he didn¡¯t think it was going to be his home. Especially not with the traitors still alive and on the loose.


    As he sat before the pylon, the System saw fit to speak to him. Sometimes divine guidance was subtle, hints and nudges and feelings, but other times it was more straightforward. Such as with the words that unrolled before his mind¡¯s eye.


    [The World Deity of Uriva has assigned you a Crusade!


    With Cato¡¯s influence loose on the frontier, it is imperative that the inner and core worlds are aware of his presence, and how to fight it. Rank up, make your way to the core worlds and identify any agents of Cato you might encounter on the way. Convey the threat of Cato¡¯s presence to those who might listen. Ensure that the inner and core worlds have no moons or similar objects outside the System¡¯s influence that Cato might infest.


    This is an ongoing quest, and will have ongoing rewards.


    In recognition of your efforts in combating Cato, you have been awarded a Feat of Glory.]


    Muar¡¯s tail swished, flexing with both satisfaction at the reward and anticipation that he had such a grand quest to follow. One that would surely lead him to further Feats of Glory over the coming years. Now that he was at Platinum, he could better appreciate all the factors that prevented people from rising all the way to Bismuth and beyond. At lower ranks, it was lack of skill and equipment ¡ª and cowardice. The rewards from delving dungeons and doing quests at or below the current rank were far inferior to those above, and those who wished to play it safe ¡ª or had no equipment to rely on ¨C were forced into a long, hard grind.


    Even with the benefits of the first, generous reward from the Grand Paladin, Muar would have had issues without all the experience he had acquired on his first climb to Gold. Those scions of the wealthy Clans who had incredible equipment and could quickly rise through the ranks would often find themselves too reliant on that equipment, and utterly baffled when at Peak Gold or Low Platinum their opponents were suddenly beyond them. Muar, though, knew how to apply himself properly.


    Yet even those restrictions paled in comparison to the primary bottleneck of Bismuth and beyond ¡ª Feats of Glory. Only incredible tasks, grand quests, and the intervention of deities could award Feats of Glory, and while only one was required to ascend to Bismuth, he had heard the requirements became far more stringent after that. And all of that was aside from the fact that the sheer amount of essence required vastly increased with rank.


    It had taken him something around six months to make it from Copper to Platinum, fighting all day, every day, and that was with the Temple quests giving him a massive tailwind in his headlong rush. Now that he was Platinum, it would take five times as long, doing the same things, just to accrue the essence required to reach Bismuth.


    A process he now actually knew about, thanks to the temple. How it required a specific proving ground, as well as the fulfillment of certain quests prerequisites and, of course, the Feat of Glory. It wasn¡¯t something that simply happened once certain criteria were complete, and required specific facilities that weren¡¯t available on just any world.


    If a Platinum took up, or was assigned, a post such as a Planetary Administrator or Temple Priest, it made it ever so much harder to reach greater heights. Platinum-rank food and drink, since under-ranked food neither nourished nor satisfied, as well as the upkeep required for an Estate, would eat into their gains and rewards, making it no surprise that Arene and Onswa had never managed to make it to Bismuth.


    Those were all things he understood, but the most important thing, the assignment from the gods, was not something he had heard of. A [Crusade.] Muar stood and made his way out of the nave, to the office of his superior ¡ª though not for long. The High Priest was almost certainly never going to make it out of mid-Platinum, especially since he probably wasn¡¯t even keeping up with his combat Skills. But he was still older and more knowledgeable than Muar, and that alone demanded respect.


    ¡°Honored Priest,¡± he said, no longer Honored Platinum now that he was at the same rank. ¡°I have been granted a quest, and hoped you might shed some light upon it.¡±


    ¡°Certainly, Paladin Muar,¡± the High Priest said, giving Muar his full attention. ¡°What has the System granted you?¡±


    ¡°A [Crusade],¡± Muar said, and shared the quest screen with the Priest. ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of this before.¡±


    ¡°I only have once before.¡± The Priest took a long breath and let it out, clicking slowly in a sort of a sigh. ¡°It is the Divine version of the Grand Quest, one that likely will not end until you have reached Alum, and perhaps not even then. You can expect the scope to slowly expand, and perhaps for others to join as the quest extends to them.¡±


    ¡°Then it is a great charge, indeed.¡± Muar didn¡¯t wonder that it had fallen to him, either. He was nowhere near stalling out, and he had no responsibilities to keep him near Uriva, unlike the Platinums or even the single Bismuth that resided on the world. Moreover, he had personally witnessed what Cato could do ¡ª and his world had been severed from the System. Nobody else could be trusted to have the same investment, the same fire burning within them. Of course he couldn¡¯t solely focus on the quest, as he still needed to rank up, but he would not tire of pursuing it.


    He thanked the High Priest and excused himself, returning to his room to ensure that he had everything properly stowed in his spatial bag. It wasn¡¯t likely he¡¯d be coming back to Uriva anytime soon, or ever. Once he had everything, he proceeded to the Nexus and the portals off-world. He had no specific destination in mind, merely aiming further in. There would be dozens, if not hundreds of worlds until he reached the core, and he would have to make certain they were all prepared. That they knew the signs and portents of Cato¡¯s presence, that they could identify his mortal agents, and were ready to take the necessary steps to safeguard their own worlds.


    Perhaps Muar couldn¡¯t stop Cato from spreading, but he could at least ensure people were ready.


    ***


    ¡°Isn¡¯t there anything we can do?¡±


    Cato-Ikent regarded the sisters where they sat in his virtual ready-room, high above planet. The events on Uriva put a hollowness into the pit of his digital stomach, but each world was almost entirely isolated thanks to the System¡¯s ban on technology. The only thing he could send through the portals to Uriva was another version of the sisters, and they all knew it.


    ¡°Cato-Uriva has their gestalts, and he has the industrial base. And clearly nobody knows about the radio-plants yet, either,¡± Cato pointed out. The version of himself on Uriva was restricted to extremely low bandwidth communication, bouncing the signal through distant relays to the surface, but wasn¡¯t completely cut off. ¡°Rescuing them from the System-god there is going to have to be his project. What we need to do is keep the same from happening to you.¡±


    ¡°Not easy,¡± Leese said, flicking her tail in irritation. ¡°If we want to get the connections we need to make any sort of preparations, we¡¯re going to draw attention.¡±


    ¡°I agree, which means we need an extra layer of deniability, or at least obfuscation¡± Cato told them. ¡°I¡¯ve been avoiding trying to shove you deeper into my world than necessary because the System is your origin. I need your perspectives, your willingness to engage with it, your understanding of its processes and the instinctive social nuances.¡±


    The sisters exchanged a glance, no doubt wondering where he was going. While he¡¯d given them free access to his databases, it would have taken subjective decades to even comprehend the index, let alone go through every possibility within. They were still a lifetime away from really knowing what Cato¡¯s civilization was like.


    ¡°I have access to some Summer Civilization technology,¡± Cato said, pulling up his father¡¯s archive. Some was a bit of an understatement, though in this case he cared more about the technology and techniques used to build a Summer Civilization than what they created. ¡°I figure we¡¯ll build a deep acceleration server, and then we¡¯ll spend several subjective years adopting different identities. Specifically, Ikent identities for you, and I suppose all our versions will have to do the same for their planets. Full immersion using all our surveillance data, and simplified abstractions of people to populate the simulation. Chatbots, basically, since I couldn¡¯t countenance raising an AI in these conditions.¡±


    He could spot the tell-tale signs of database access as they went to look up the terms and phrases he¡¯d used. It wasn¡¯t like Summer Civilizations ¨C those pockets of digital life who decided to accelerate themselves to thousands or millions of times normal speed ¨C were something they would have encountered before. He couldn¡¯t just framejack them up with their current hardware, either, as thousands-to-one ratios required far better cooling systems to deal with the amount of energy involved. Plus better simulation in general.


    Deep framejacking was such a disjoint from reality that without the proper simulation requirements and constraints, someone could learn very bad habits indeed. It also required very clear and proper coordination for entering and exiting the sim given the time magnitudes involved. All of that was a lot easier with an AI involved in the process, but an artificial intelligence couldn¡¯t simply be programmed. It had to be raised like any other child.


    Even if he¡¯d been willing, that still wouldn¡¯t have guaranteed anything. Even if the community that raised him treated AIs like any other person, they did not have human neural architecture and were in many ways completely alien to human sensibilities. Running thousands of simulated people, or monitoring enormous swaths of complex infrastructure, were indeed both tasks that they were well suited for, but that was assuming they wanted to. Low level algorithms were one thing, but a thinking being couldn¡¯t simply be tasked with work like a slave.


    ¡°I suppose that makes sense,¡± Raine said slowly. ¡°But, years? Doing nothing but pretending?¡±


    ¡°There was a reason I didn¡¯t suggest it immediately,¡± Cato admitted. ¡°We don¡¯t need to immerse in a pseudo-System, though, so you can keep up your education and experiments. There should probably be something to keep you familiar with System structure, though, and there are some tools to help you acclimate to new identities without losing your former one.¡±


    Even with all of that, it was a big ask. Despite all of Cato¡¯s varied experiences as a digital human, spending multiple years on something tedious but necessary was never enjoyable. Then there was the dissociation involved with extreme framejacking, where subjective years could pass only for base reality to barely change when they returned to it.


    ¡°Better than getting spotted and abducted by a World Deity,¡± Leese said after a moment.


    ¡°It¡¯s going to take longer to build the server than the real time passage during actual immersion,¡± Cato told them, confirming the instructions he¡¯d already queued for his autofactories. ¡°I imagine two years should do it, which is somewhat less than eight hours objective with the lower complexity Summer Civilization gear.¡±


    ¡°Wait, that short for that long?¡± Raine blinked, the tip of her tail twitching back and forth. ¡°What does the high complexity do?¡±


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°The most powerful I have the plans for is rated for over a million-to-one,¡± Cato informed her, after querying his database. ¡°You could meet someone in the morning, they could submerge themselves in it, and when they emerged at dinner time they would have experienced almost one thousand years.¡±


    ¡°They wouldn¡¯t even remember you,¡± Leese muttered.


    ¡°That degree of time acceleration is definitely to be taken with caution,¡± he agreed. ¡°And we might end up taking longer than the eight hours if we exit acceleration to decompress every once in a while. Or test what the System thinks.¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t be done in time to help the Sydean Lineage, though,¡± Raine half-asked.


    ¡°No, but I don¡¯t need to blend in to handle that. I just need to deal with Yaniss.¡± Cato wasn¡¯t sure what to think of the Bismuth. She had been far more amenable than almost any System native he had encountered so far, but she had also exhibited fairly odd behavior. The sort of focus that could drive someone to operate orthogonal to normal action, rational or otherwise.


    ¡°She is an odd one,¡± Leese admitted. ¡°It may sound strange, but she strikes me as too much for the frontier. She¡¯s more like that Paladin. The one that gave us so much trouble, not the other local Bismuths you took care of. Someone more fit for the core worlds.¡±


    ¡°If the core worlds have more people willing to talk, that¡¯ll be a blessing,¡± Cato said, though he doubted most of them would be. Not that he had any particular evidence of that, since nobody he had run into actually knew what the core worlds were like, but they were the heart of the System¡¯s power. Though he could take some guesses; any concentration of resources always resulted in a certain set of problems.


    That was a worry for another day and a future version of him. For the moment he had to go down and try to convince Yaniss to let the Sydean Lineage go. Fortunately it seemed the Bismuth was interested in knowledge that was easy enough for Cato to provide, rather than some more esoteric understanding. Or the kind of power that was not his to grant.


    He was damned lucky that he had already developed an Ikent frame, even if he hadn¡¯t descended to the surface yet. Or rather, it wasn¡¯t simply luck, as he knew that there was always the chance that he¡¯d need to make an appearance for local politics, but he hadn¡¯t imagined it would be so soon. Cato was already in the process of scrambling additional satellites and the re-entry glider so he could run the frame properly.


    After his other experiences, he was now ensuring that every un-jammed body was run purely remotely. Every planet he¡¯d encountered so far had an extra volume of System space stretching more or less ten thousand miles away from the surface, even if Uriva had showed that wasn¡¯t the limit. That distance still restricted how and where he could use his frames, and what they could do.


    If Yaniss wanted him to go deep underground, or into a dungeon, she was going to be out of luck. If she wanted more of the pseudo-display that he could create with the warframes, she was out of luck. And if she hoped to actually interrogate him, she was also out of luck.


    Cato took control of the diminutive Ikent frame, not much different from the mini-warframes he had used before, and buckled into the glider. The Ikent Lineage was getting a feed directly from the sensorium, so they could see and hear everything he did, and of course advise him. Since the moon was a bit too far for that kind of remote control ¨C over a light-second away ¨C he¡¯d be hopping from satellite to satellite, orbiting just outside the ten thousand mile radius.


    The powered vehicle dropped the glider off, letting it ride the last distance on inertia alone and aerobraking hard as it hit the upper atmosphere. Since he¡¯d spotted Yaniss returning to her estate he had to hope she¡¯d prevent anyone in the city from investigating the glider. There was no way that he¡¯d be able to forge through any long distance out in the wilds, even as augmented as the Ikent body was, so he was going to land inside the estate.


    Flames licked at the outside of the glider¡¯s re-entry shell until the satellites registered that he was going slow enough, and was deep enough in the atmosphere, to discard it, the shell and its drogue chutes falling away as he manually disconnected them from the glider. He ignored the initial System popup, having no intention to bother engaging with even the simplest of Skills. This version wasn¡¯t going to have to blend in.


    He worked the muscle-powered controls as he aimed for the so-called estate, something between Arene¡¯s walled compound and a System town. There were a number of buildings within its walls, but it didn¡¯t have the characteristic belltower shape of a Nexus and his surveillance suggested very few people actually lived on the estate. Regardless, there was plenty of open room in the walled courtyard to set down, though it turned out he didn¡¯t actually need to.


    When the glider neared the walls, a metal tendril rose up from within and enfolded the vehicle like a net, slowing it further and pulling it down with surprising delicacy. It was not so dissimilar to the technique that Hirau had used back on Sydea, when he intercepted a similar craft with grown plant life, but executed far better. From the inside, it was still a disconcerting jostling and scraping as the device was pulled down to the ground.


    Cato unbuckled himself when he was down, taking his diminutive self over to the door, though Yaniss opened it ¨C properly and with the handle ¨C before he got that far. Which was far more polite than the way Hirau had ripped it open, the last time he¡¯d dealt with a higher rank. The birdlike alien blinked at him, clearly taken aback.


    ¡°You¡¯re not actually Clan Ikent,¡± she accused, though whether she was referring to his name or just to his form he didn¡¯t know.


    ¡°I am not,¡± Cato agreed, ruffling his feathers. ¡°But I felt it would be better not to stand out here.¡± He stepped out of the glider, into a bright but cool morning. The estate got a glance, but he was mostly focused on the Bismuth. She might well be his avenue to peacefully dealing with Ikent. It was just one world among many, but it was his world, so he welcomed the chance.


    ¡°Nobody is going to say anything about what goes on here,¡± Yaniss scoffed, her beak clicking. ¡°Now, tell me everything!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid everything covers more than I could tell you in a lifetime,¡± Cato said dryly, shifting from foot to foot on the short grass. ¡°But I can start, though I will need you to let my agents head off. They¡¯ve other worlds they need to get to.¡± He¡¯d confirmed that Raine and Leese ¨C and Dyen ¨C were whole and hale, but he could tell that none of them were particularly thrilled to be stuck in the home of someone so much more powerful than they.


    ¡°Yes, yes, in a bit,¡± Yaniss said, waving it aside. Cato regarded her without much favor, but that was the sort of attitude he would have to expect from higher ranks. There were just too many reasons for them to think of themselves as better than anyone who wasn¡¯t as powerful as they, and he certainly didn¡¯t have the essence to trip their instincts.


    ¡°I do want to bring you on my side,¡± he told her. ¡°But it will be more on my terms than yours, and your continuing coercion does not endear you to me. There¡¯s no need to hold anyone hostage to get me to talk to you, because I am going to need your help on Ikent. Someone like you will make it much easier to remove the System from the planet.¡± Yaniss blinked at him, going stock-still for a moment, then tilted her head sideways in a distinctly avian gesture.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t jesting,¡± she said after a moment. ¡°You intend to¡­¡±


    ¡°Destroy the System,¡± Cato confirmed. ¡°Completely, and everywhere, but for here and now all that matters is removing it from Ikent.¡±


    ¡°Like you did on Sydea,¡± Yaniss said thoughtfully.


    ¡°I suspect it won¡¯t be as easy as Sydea,¡± Cato sighed. ¡°The timing on that implies the World Deity either left or died immediately after the Bismuth. Considering that removing the one from Earth took considerably more effort ¡ª but you don¡¯t care about any of that.¡±


    ¡°On the contrary!¡± Yaniss actually hopped on her feet, talons bouncing against the grass. ¡°Nobody knows much about the gods ¡ª you fought one? What was it like?¡± Cato gave her a level look, and she let out a long, whistling sigh.


    ¡°I can let your agents go, but I warn you it would be a mistake for me to send them from this place when some wandering Platinums might find them annoying and swat them. You should at least get them past Gold!¡± Yaniss seemed personally offended by the fact that the Sydeans were stuck at Peak Gold, through no fault of their own.


    ¡°Unfortunately, there were issues with their defense quest,¡± Cato said dryly. ¡°They were recognized. You can imagine that being opposed to the System comes with a certain level of ignominy.¡±


    ¡°That might be something I can help with,¡± Yaniss said thoughtfully. ¡°And some advice for reaching toward Bismuth. But I¡¯m going to want a lot more from you.¡±


    ¡°I can tell you quite a lot,¡± Cato said, as there was very little he could pass along that would damage his future goals. Virtually all the knowledge of a technological civilization was a curiosity at best within the System, and at worst outright wrong. ¡°And bring my people up to speed at the same time, if you have some sort of meeting room.¡±


    ¡°Eh,¡± Yaniss said indifferently. ¡°I can find something.¡±


    ***


    Raine Talis found Yaniss to be entirely strange, and not just as a Bismuth. The size difference was actually the thing that threw her the most; her essence senses couldn¡¯t deny the sheer power of the avian, but since Yaniss only came up to her waist her instincts kept thinking the Bismuth was some kind of beast or monster. Beyond that, Yaniss was oddly friendly and chatty, more like Cato than the distant condescension high-rankers she had known of, who separated themselves from lower rankers both by attitude and physical distance.


    Or at least, she was to Cato. She and Leese were more or less ignored, off to the side of the opulent room with Dyen, the three of them given food and drink and some place to sit, but held there with the implicit threat of a Bismuth¡¯s power. One that Cato readily ignored.


    ¡°I cannot even imagine that weight of metal,¡± Yaniss said, clearly enjoying the idea of dealing with Cato¡¯s factories. Neither she nor Leese had seen the enormous machines close up, but they had gotten a glimpse of the vastness of what Cato was talking about. And that was the smallest part of what he could create.


    ¡°When you start discussing the resources you can have ¨C and need ¨C for orbital industry, it becomes mind-boggling pretty much instantly,¡± Cato said, his voice sounding odd coming from an Ikent. It was too high, and a little bit reedy, rather than the bass rumble of his Cato-beasts. ¡°Unfortunately most of them are useless down here.¡±


    ¡°It sounds like it,¡± Yaniss said bitterly. ¡°So many fascinating things!¡±


    ¡°Which you can¡¯t mix with your System Skills,¡± Cato warned her. ¡°Everything magical about interacting with metals is invented by the System and doesn¡¯t apply in the real universe. I¡¯d say there¡¯s far more outside the System than in it, but they are exclusive.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m aware,¡± Yaniss said grumpily.


    ¡°Speaking of which,¡± Cato pressed gesturing toward the Sydeans. ¡°I hope you won¡¯t need her help much,¡± he added privately, by way of the radio lizards. ¡°I don¡¯t entirely trust her.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes. You three need to hit Platinum, and then beyond.¡± Yaniss faced them, clicking her beak as she regarded them. ¡°A defense quest is easy enough.¡± She pulled a farcaster from her spatial storage and spoke into it, listening to the reply. ¡°Ulea Town, Rissivi, four days from now,¡± she said, and Raine pulled out her map to find the world in question. It wasn¡¯t one they¡¯d yet been to.


    ¡°I¡¯m on the assassin¡¯s path, Honored Bismuth,¡± Dyen interjected, sounding more polite than Raine had heard for some time. Which was good for him, as Raine very much doubted that Yaniss was as tolerant as Cato.


    ¡°Then you¡¯ll have to figure that out yourself,¡± Yaniss said, instantly dismissing him. ¡°I do have some advice for when you hit Bismuth, though,¡± she added, tapping her talons against the burnished wooden table. All the furnishing in the estate were themselves Bismuth-rank, and impossibly opulent. ¡°You will have to determine which Skill will be your cornerstone going forward. I advise you to make it a sensory or movement Skill, rather than an offensive one. The people I know who elevated an offensive Skill all vanished off to the war-worlds. No interest in anything else.¡±


    Raine exchanged glances with Leese, the two of them definitely not liking that implication. They¡¯d heard rumors of various things in regards to the higher ranks, but never any suggestion that Skills affected people that much. Though, considering how Leese¡¯s divine Skills had altered her, perhaps it wasn¡¯t surprising.


    ¡°Honored Bismuth,¡± Leese ventured, putting down the mug of tea that the estate pylon had provided. ¡°We have heard that the ascent to Bismuth is different, that it grants you true immortality?¡±


    ¡°The ascension quest will result in your body being remade by essence,¡± Yaniss agreed. ¡°All your mortal frailties washed away. It doesn¡¯t appreciably change you, though it is necessary before you can use more advanced transformation and travel Skills.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t like the sound of that,¡± Cato¡¯s voice buzzed through the lizards. ¡°If nothing else it sounds like the bonuses from your advanced bodies might be mostly nullified at that rank. I¡¯ll have some more to provide you to let you keep that edge, though. Going to need some time in the bio-cots before you rank up, since I¡¯m not sure that I can do any of that alteration on a Bismuth body.¡± Raine inclined her head slightly in Cato¡¯s direction, then focused on Yaniss.


    ¡°Thank you, Honored Bismuth,¡± Raine said, mindful that she could hardly speak with the same familiarity as Cato. ¡°Can you tell us anything more about the Bismuth ascendance quest?¡±


    ¡°Only one of you can ascend,¡± Yaniss said, which jolted Raine backward. ¡°You¡¯d have to do the entire ascension grounds again for someone else to break through.¡±


    ¡°But we can do it again?¡± Raine pressed, and her tail uncoiled from its anxious contortion as Yaniss nodded.


    ¡°It¡¯s rarely worthwhile, given the restrictions imposed by the trial, and the quest itself is difficult.¡± Yaniss flipped a careless talon in their direction. ¡°You¡¯ll need far better equipment than that to do it.¡±


    ¡°Of course, Honored Bismuth,¡± Leese said, before Raine could say something undiplomatic. ¡°That is our next goal.¡±


    ¡°Then you should get to it,¡± Yaniss said, and with another crook of her claw a strand of metal shot upward from the floor, working itself into a circle and snapping into a portal that led back to where they had come from. The ground was torn and riven, but there was nobody around.


    ¡°Better get while the getting¡¯s good,¡± Cato said. ¡°I¡¯ll catch up with you and we¡¯ll see about what upgrades I can manage. We¡¯ll make sure you don¡¯t stall out at Bismuth.¡± A chime sounded as they stood and Yaniss frowned.


    ¡°Why is the High Priest here to see me?¡± Yaniss wasn¡¯t asking them, but it drove Raine and Leese to their feet. Dyen still managed to get through the portal before they did.

 Chapter 9 — Meddling Gods

    Returning to the System, Niya Talur, n¨¦e Raine Ikent, felt utterly out of place as they went through the rote requirements of slaughtering their way to Silver yet again. Only a few days had passed in base reality, but she and Leese ¨C under the guise of Karis Eili ¨C had spent five years living among a virtual Ikent community. It wasn¡¯t even a System community, but rather a place where they could pursue their other hobbies and interests, the ones they¡¯d discovered only after leaving the System.


    There were good reasons for it. First and foremost, it was awfully difficult to adopt a new identity when they were doing the same thing they had always done, returning to a life of ranking up and getting stronger. To really immerse themselves, she and Leese had needed a full break from their original lives and identities.


    The second good reason was that there were all kinds of skills that would still be useful in Cato¡¯s vendetta against the System. Leese had pursued her biology interests, while Raine had spent a lot of time in the pilot¡¯s seat of various craft, as well as commanding war games and troop simulations. It was odd for the two of them to be doing different things for once, but without the pressure of the System forcing them down a single path, they actually had room to move.


    Of course it wasn¡¯t like they never saw each other or worked together, or for that matter never saw Cato. Though he, oddly enough, spent most of his time in the simulation gardening ¡ª when he wasn¡¯t running simulations, at least. Within deep time he was merely their neighbor, not their patron. They hadn¡¯t even up come up for air or breaks from the deep time, just because what they were doing, what they could do now that they had the option, was just so utterly engrossing it never seemed necessary.


    Now that entire life had vanished like a dream. A dream that had lasted longer than their entire new life, one where the Cato they knew was a friendly neighbor who gave them vegetables, and not the distant god who sought to bring down the System. They had been bird-people for long enough that the feathers and the half-size stature felt natural rather than some bizarre fevered imagining.


    The mnemonic tools and combat algorithms that Cato had provided meant they hadn¡¯t lost any of their edge but, now that she was back in the System, Raine found she didn¡¯t like any of it at all. In fact, a part of her didn¡¯t even want to deal with it, would rather have returned to her beloved speedcraft even if they were virtual.


    Cato had warned them about this problem, but she didn¡¯t understand it until she actually experienced it. It was the real world that felt false, because it was like the entire thing had been on pause while she lived her life. No situation had changed, no developments had been made. No new threats had appeared. It was like loading up one of the saved games she had played in deep time, where everything waited for her to interact with it.


    But it wasn¡¯t a game.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we can ever do that again,¡± she told Leese, even as they went through the laughably easy task of ranking their surface frames up to Silver. ¡°It makes all of this seem so unreal. Not worth bothering with.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll get back into the swing of it soon enough,¡± Leese half-disagreed. ¡°But going from the virtual community to this is¡­¡± She trailed off and shook her head as her spear bisected a [Tunnel Eater], a monster that was mostly mouth. At this point, such fighting was just a chore to be done with as soon as possible. ¡°I understand more why Cato hates the System, but it would be so tempting to just not bother with it.¡±


    ¡°I almost wish that he¡¯d push harder to make us work at it,¡± Raine mused. ¡°Knowing that I could just decide to go play in my aestivation, and I wouldn¡¯t be punished for it, is this constant pressure in my mind.¡± Five years ago ¨C or two days ago ¨C she wouldn¡¯t have believed that he would actually grant them that option, but she understood him better now. How alien his perspective was, if this sort of lost time was a normal phenomenon for him. He had even said his father was from an entire civilization that turned its back on reality in the same way she was tempted to.


    She could believe now that he had no interest in conquering or ruling, or forcing people to work for him. Though that wasn¡¯t the same as being generous. Even for the two of them, there were huge swaths of databases that were off-limits. Some because the information within was genuinely harmful without a specific neurology, others because they were private. But he had freely admitted that some of it was simply information and knowledge that he wasn¡¯t comfortable releasing into the wild.


    ¡°Maybe we wouldn¡¯t be punished, but Cato would be disappointed,¡± Leese said. ¡°I don¡¯t know about you, but I¡¯d like to avoid that.¡± Raine barked a laugh.


    ¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°We wouldn¡¯t want that.¡±


    ***


    Cato-Ikent was still disturbed, even months after the initial discussion, by the revelation that people Bismuth and above were totally System constructs. He wasn¡¯t certain how deeply to read into what Yaniss had said, and perhaps the change was not as drastic as it sounded, but he already knew that at higher ranks, there was no normal equivalent to the System stuff. It defied analysis, and outside the System it simply vanished.


    Testing it would be a problem, but that implied that he couldn¡¯t abscond with a Bismuth the way he could with a Platinum or below. They¡¯d simply die outside the System, and crashing the System on any world with Bismuths was a certain death sentence for them. Ultimately he¡¯d have to extract any high ranker first if possible, though whether that meant some sort of replacement therapy under the influence of System-jamming or outright mindripping and putting them in another frame remained to be seen.


    All that implied he needed to do a lot of work before the Sydean Lineage got too much further. He probably wouldn¡¯t be able to do much more modification post-Bismuth, which meant he needed to sort out the hard changes now, and implement them with an eye for the future. So he needed to at the very least give them several sub-brains that could run wetware algorithms, even if he wasn¡¯t going to be using them just yet.


    With multiples of him, as well as different Lineages for Raine and Leese, dividing up that project was not too bad, though there was only so much that could be done in parallel. Most of the physical work was tweaking genes and working out the neurology problems, though he at least had been given more time to crunch through simulations and tests of the Sydean architecture. He didn¡¯t want to overload either of the Talis sisters with input, and even the stealth-detecting capelet was pushing it.


    Though he intended to add all kinds of things in the future, the primary project, and the one he wanted to get done as soon as possible now that they had hit Platinum, was adapting the combat algorithms. Translating it all over to wet biology wasn¡¯t entirely easy. Not only was he only passingly familiar with the project and the mechanisms in the code, but he also couldn¡¯t push as much energy through the processing substrate. He didn¡¯t want kill the brain from overheating in the middle of a fight, even if it could heal itself.


    At the same time, there was a certain buffer afforded to the biology by the fact that it was System-augmented. A little extra heat wouldn¡¯t cause the same problems for a Platinum as fever would in a normal body, even one with all his augments. Under conventional physics, chemistry had a very narrow range where it operated, but in the System that was no longer the case, and that was something worth abusing. At Bismuth, it might well be that neural connections were more like superconductors, and while he couldn¡¯t rely on it he could build in some future proofing.


    ¡°Is there any world nearby that¡¯s practically deserted?¡± Cato asked Yaniss, who was proving to be at least marginally helpful. She had her own interests he had to deal with, but it was better than having to fight. Though who knew how long that would keep up, since she¡¯d gotten into a spat with the local temple. Somebody had noticed Raine and Leese¡¯s presence. It surely wasn¡¯t a coincidence that the two planets that had the most significant development, and some of the few resident Bismuths, had been the most responsive to his presence.


    ¡°Maybe. It depends on your definition of deserted!¡± Yaniss pulled her map out of nowhere, flipping through it with mannerisms strikingly reminiscent of someone conversant with ¨C or addicted to ¨C digital displays. ¡°Renklin is a Hunting World. One city and one town, but lots of dungeons. There¡¯s traffic, but not many live there.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m thinking a place where having the world defense quest up won¡¯t attract much attention,¡± Cato clarified. ¡°Though I suppose if there aren¡¯t any high rank people, Renklin would work.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Copper to Gold.¡± Yaniss shrugged and sifted through the map. ¡°Sydea was the most deserted world on this part of the frontier. There¡¯s probably others like it elsewhere, but I don¡¯t have a map of every System world.¡±


    ¡°More¡¯s the pity,¡± Cato replied. The map she did have showed something like a galactic arm, a network graph of connected nodes in a shallow spiral, dense at the center and scattered at the edges. It was several hundred worlds, and if he extrapolated it to a full disk it put the size of the System close to a hundred thousand worlds.


    Smaller than it could have been, considering the immensity of the universe.


    ¡°I think we should just get away from the Sydea area as much as we can,¡± Leese said, speaking from the orbital facility where she and Raine were listening in. The pair were actually cooking, testing out recipes supplied by one Lineage that had come out of their deep time as chefs. ¡°The System clearly isn¡¯t tracking the Sydean Lineage every step of the way, or else they¡¯d have been accosted sooner. And the assassination contract is out of Uriva. It might be that all these issues are local.¡±


    ¡°True,¡± Cato replied to her, though not with the frame down on Ikent. ¡°I¡¯m too used to everyone having robust communications and records. Given what happened with the Uriv Lineage, I¡¯ve had the possibility of that degree of intervention nagging at the back of my mind. But if the news doesn¡¯t spread¡­¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of any [World Deities] making an appearance like that,¡± Leese said. ¡°Nobody in the temple had ever seen or talked with one directly. The most direct I know of is quests. If it weren¡¯t for the recordings I wouldn¡¯t have believed it.¡±


    ¡°That restraint won¡¯t last forever,¡± Cato mused. ¡°Once I start making serious moves it¡¯ll be hard for anyone to ignore. But if we have enough misdirection by then, and the Sydean Lineage are nowhere near, it¡¯ll be a lot safer. They¡¯re going to need something to block the actual scrying though, eventually. To hide their identities.¡±


    ¡°There are supposed to be artifacts that do that,¡± Raine told him. ¡°I don¡¯t know if any of us will be able to find one that would work for a Bismuth or better, but we can at least find out where to get one.¡±


    ¡°A reason to get you two down on the surface earlier, I suppose,¡± Cato acknowledged. He was spread over twenty different worlds already, and now that they had made Platinum the Sydean Lineage could launch heavier payloads even further, cutting down on the start-up time.


    The pair were out of easy communications range for the moment, even with the radio plants, going through the dungeons on the slow grind toward Bismuth. The plant network was reaching its limits anyway, even when most of what was being sent was simple text messages. He was going to have to make another pass at the problem, and implement something more robust. Maybe an actual tree, or something else that grew large and so could handle more power and more bandwidth.


    He had time for it to grow, probably. There wasn¡¯t an immediate crisis on most of the planets, unlike Sydea, but inevitably something would occur that he did have to address, and there was no telling when that would happen. His goal for the moment was simply to spread as far and as fast as possible, and gear up an invasion force for every planet so he could make whatever moves were required.


    With his orbital infrastructure it was obvious that he could deal with anyone below Bismuth, and even Bismuths could be removed if necessary ¡ª though the collateral damage made it impossible near inhabited areas. He wasn¡¯t sure how he was going to deal with Bismuth dungeons, considering the basement universe nature made them effectively immune to bombardment, but they might be less fearsome if every other System anchor and source of essence had been destroyed.


    Cato-Ikent wouldn¡¯t have any of those projects, though. He had to liaison with Yaniss, and try to actually convince her to align with him. Though that didn¡¯t seem to be all that difficult, even after he repeatedly warned her that all her power would be gone without the System. It would, or at least could, be replaced with postbiological technology, but that wasn¡¯t the same.


    The avian Bismuth was proof that even the System couldn¡¯t twist everyone to be a battle maniac. Of course, she was self-evidentially good at it, or she wouldn¡¯t have made Bismuth, but it was clear her interest was more along the lines of basic science. Inquiry about the universe. It would almost have been restful, if it weren¡¯t for the temple interfering.


    Clearly the local System god knew that Raine and Leese had been there, but didn¡¯t seem to realize that Cato was still a guest. Or at least, the import of Cato¡¯s presence. He wished he knew if that was due to a limitation on what such gods could do ¨C say, needing divine users to act as their eyes and ears ¨C or just a limitation in competence.


    ¡°This is ridiculous,¡± Yaniss said as she appeared out of nowhere, from yet another go-round with the local temple. ¡°All of my contacts are getting quests to find a new patron! And the costs for my favorite foods have suddenly gone through the roof.¡±


    ¡°That seems oddly petty,¡± Cato said with his Ikent frame, which was staying in the estate. For some reason he¡¯d thought that he¡¯d be spending long hours one-on-one, but Yaniss had an entire life to deal with. She didn¡¯t simply sit in her estate waiting for things to happen. ¡°And rather limited, if it¡¯s meant to be some kind of divine punishment.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve spent hundreds of years grooming promising talents and getting them into positions of power,¡± Yaniss snapped back. ¡°It¡¯s hardly nothing!¡±


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°That is a lot of work,¡± Cato agreed diplomatically. ¡°But it is also something that you would have to give up without the System, in favor of cultivating Ikent itself.¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be for years, though!¡± Yaniss scowled, flopping onto a couch with an impact completely disproportionate to her size.


    ¡°Perhaps,¡± Cato conceded. ¡°But if the gods start to move, it may have to be sooner than that.¡±


    ***


    ¡°So they just got away,¡± Initik said, regarding Mii-es with disfavor.


    ¡°Not all of us can just disregard the restrictions on interfering with the mortal world, darling.¡± Mii-es glared back. ¡°How many centuries of essence have you burned pursuing this vendetta?¡±


    Initik clicked softly, conceding the point. He had kept a sizeable reserve of essence exactly for emergencies, though he had never anticipated this particular sort of crisis, but that reserve was essentially gone. It would return in time, and once the moons were more trafficked by high rankers there¡¯d be even more essence, but that was not going to be happening any time soon.


    He had issued quests to entice both his Bismuths and those from surrounding worlds to try the new zones and dungeons, and if he got enough people running them it would help offset his expenditure, but it would still be years. It had been worth it, though he doubted anyone, even Mii-es, would truly agree. They hadn¡¯t seen what Cato could do firsthand.


    ¡°Besides which, if you are to be believed then capturing just a few of his agents would do nothing! I am punishing that Bismuth for ignoring my priests, but what else is there to do?¡± Mii-es dismissed the entire thing with a flutter of her talons. ¡°If any others with those names arrive I will take care of it, but really. There hasn¡¯t been any trouble that I¡¯ve heard of.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what worries me,¡± Initik told her, turning to regard the pillared surroundings that Mii-es was so fond of. He wasn¡¯t really seeing it, though, as his mind was on all the connected worlds between Uriva and Ikent. ¡°Where is he? What is he doing? I would have expected some response to removing him from my moons, but nothing. It¡¯s obvious that he wasn¡¯t merely there.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re obsessing,¡± Mii-es said, stretching languidly. ¡°I¡¯ll grant you that the business with Sydea was alarming, but hardly subtle. If this Cato of yours hasn¡¯t made any moves, it¡¯s because he can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°The structures on my moons didn¡¯t show any lack of capability,¡± Initik said with an irritated click. ¡°You should at least look to see if you can spot any of his devices outside your world.¡±


    ¡°I have done some basic scrying,¡± Mii-es told him. ¡°You should give me some credit, dear. So far I have seen nothing, but the night sky is immense. There are no blots on my moons, so I suspect I am unencumbered for the moment.¡±


    Initik let it go. Even if Mii-es was one of the few who actually admitted there was a problem, she was never going to admit that failing to catch one of Cato¡¯s agents was her issue. At least she was paying attention, and that was more than most. Until and unless Cato showed his hand elsewhere, most gods just didn¡¯t believe he was a threat. Even the memory crystal showing the strange weapon breaking divine protection wasn¡¯t going to intimidate most as much as it had Marus. A single, fragile, divine artifact did not compare to what a [World Deity] was, and most gods were not as cowardly.


    Instead he made his excuses and left Mii-es to her own world. Right or wrong, she would be the one that had to deal with the consequences. But the fact that Cato¡¯s agents had gotten as far as Ikent was alone suggestive.


    He stepped out into the transport space, the place outside of places, where all the connections between worlds flowed with their own essence, and considered the nearby region. Cato could have spread to ten, twenty, even thirty worlds, and while that was only the tiniest corner of the System, it was his corner. He didn¡¯t actually care if Cato humbled the rest of creation, as he had very few friends among the gods, but if that happened Initik would ultimately be encircled. To say nothing of what might happen if the core worlds fell.


    Initik had already done the best he could to warn the inner and core worlds in the person of the Sydean boy he¡¯d sent out on a [Crusade]. While other gods might not listen to Initik¡¯s opinions, Muar would be seen as having the backing of the System itself ¡ª and as the System took command of the quest, over time, he would have it. That was an authority that nobody, not even the gods, argued with.


    With a shake of his head, Initik threw off his mulling. There was no sense in just worrying, he had to take what action he could and let the rest fall as it may. The pair he had captured could stay in the stasis enchantment ¨C he had no hope of getting anything actionable out of them at the moment, but they could be useful in the future ¨C so the only handle he had on the situation was from an odd angle. The other creatures that had come from Ahrusk, or Earth as Muar said Cato had called it.


    The deity Neyar was the closest thing Initik had to a friend among the core worlds, and not coincidentally he had been keeping an eye on the newcomers. Admittedly, it was only because they were, almost to a one, incredibly powerful. Quite like the pair that he¡¯d spotted, so there was clearly something intrinsic to the place. It had been months since he¡¯d last checked in, and while normally years and decades could fly by without anything important happening, Initik doubted that would be true in this case.


    Initik followed the links from world to world, skirting around the large cluster that was at the core of the System and fetching up at the heavy portcullis gate that guarded Neyar¡¯s abode. The dark-furred deity admitted Initik without comment, summoning chairs and refreshments with a snap of his fingers in the orange-grassed valley that seemed to be the only thing that existed within Neyar¡¯s System space. That wasn¡¯t true, of course, but Initik had never seen any other sign of habitation.


    ¡°Take a look at this,¡± Initik said, tossing Neyar a pair of memory crystals. One showed the attacks that had killed the Bismuths ¡ª both the initial strikes, and the one that had cracked the divine protection given to the Paladin. The other, Initik¡¯s findings on Uriva and his subsequent actions, including what he¡¯d found on his moons. Rather than calling his Interface, Neyar simply curled his hand around the crystal and slitted his rearmost pair of eyes. That was the sort of easy mastery of the divine gift that Initik aspired to but hadn¡¯t quite yet achieved, even if he was leagues ahead of most of his peers.


    ¡°By itself, not a threat,¡± Neyar said. ¡°And yet¡­¡±


    ¡°Enough to scare the World Deity of Sydea,¡± Initik said, not as derisively as he might have. Coward though he was, the Clan Eln deity had been completely honest and had done his part to shut off the Sydean portal. Clearly it hadn¡¯t been enough, but it hadn¡¯t hurt. ¡°Are any of these other ones from Ahrusk showing anything like that?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Neyar said shortly. ¡°They are, however, causing other trouble. Not of that sort, but the usual incitements of clashing mortals. These so-called neo-humans have been upending things on War-World Osk. I imagine the debate is ongoing as we speak.¡± He flipped a hand and a scryed image of two gods appeared in one of the arches framed by the gazebo¡¯s columns.


    ¡°¡­and been controlling the [Great Radiance Dungeon] for the past six months! My priests have quests there!¡± Initik didn¡¯t know the World Deity that was ranting by name, but he did recognize Clan Lundt, the same as the prospective World Deity of Ahrusk. The heavy-set, densely-furred beings had always looked thuggish to Initik¡¯s sensibilities, though they wouldn¡¯t have become a major power in the Core Worlds if that was actually true.


    ¡°Have the rules changed just because some group is too good?¡± The speaker was a long-bodied, large-eared creature that Initik couldn¡¯t place, something with a vague resemblance to Clan Tornok but significantly larger and with twice the limbs. ¡°You simply want the essence that they¡¯re making me as I, for one, am entirely satisfied with their behavior.¡±


    ¡°Of course you are!¡± Another World Deity interjected, the scrying image shifting to include the newcomer, and Initik realized they were all communicating by scry and Interface. It was simply that the first two gods were clearly attached to the War-World and had similar System Spaces, but the third was not. Instead of the usual opulent meeting room, the Clan Lundt newcomer was at some sun-washed beach with naked females of his species cavorting in the background. Bad taste, in Initik¡¯s opinion.


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who is benefitting, at the expense of the rest of us! War-World Osk is a balance, so we all profit from the essence generation. These Ahruskians are throwing off that balance, even killing Azoths rather than¡ª¡± The Lundt cut off, and the Clan Tornok-alike laughed.


    ¡°Rather than bowing to your clans?¡± The deity scoffed. ¡°It¡¯s about time we had someone who would give your forces a challenge.¡±


    ¡°Not to interrupt,¡± Neyar interrupted. The quarreling deities all focused on him. ¡°Fellow deity Initik has had some interesting experiences with an Ahrusk-origin problem himself.¡±


    ¡°I have a memory crystal for you,¡± Initik said, glancing at Neyar, who tossed it into the scrying arch. He could track the complex patterns of essence duplicating it and sending it to the others, so they could see the same things he had. ¡°This is from something that also originated from the Ahrusk portal, and it is a danger that may be present in the ones on the War-World.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± the Ahruskian patron deity said, before he could even have looked at the memory crystal. ¡°They¡¯re powerful, but hardly more than that.¡±


    ¡°So you say! They don¡¯t treat fighting in dungeons or with [World Elites] with the proper respect. To them, it¡¯s more like¡­¡± The beach deity struggled to find a word. ¡°Like a game. They aren¡¯t serious.¡±


    ¡°Serious or not, they¡¯re doing better than anyone else at their rank,¡± the patron deity said, radiating smugness. ¡°And they¡¯re all mine. Teach you all to ignore the frontier worlds.¡±


    Initik clicked thoughtfully. That seemed to explain how that group of Ahruskians had gotten to the Core Worlds so quickly. The deity had grabbed them straight off of Ahrusk, offering them the option of migrating to the inner worlds and the core itself, even if the world was under Clan Lundt control. It was the sort of nonsense politicking that he avoided, seeing no value in it for his people.


    ¡°I would advise you keep a close eyes on them. Perhaps even ensure they get any quests associated with this phenomenon, this Cato, should it surface again. Whether they would be allies or enemies, their interaction would be instructive.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no point in sending any of my people back to the frontier,¡± the patron deity scowled. ¡°But if something comes nearer the Core Worlds ¡ª I¡¯ll consider it. If there¡¯s already System rewards it wouldn¡¯t hurt.¡±


    ¡°Very well.¡± That was the best Initik would get. He always considered essence a resource to be used, giving out quests and creating events specifically to drive his people forward. Many of the Core Worlds gods hoarded it and traded it and spent it on themselves, leveraging it against each other in their jostling and sniping.


    He couldn¡¯t entirely blame them, as there were hundreds of worlds between Uriva and the core and, even with portals, that created a comfortable amount of distance. He doubted most people in the core even thought of the frontier as anything other than some hazy, remote concept. A place where the lesser members of their clans could gain some minor credit.


    ¡°If you see anything, be aggressive,¡± Initik told Neyar, letting the other gods return to their argument. ¡°I mislike anything that can have that power, but can still go unnoticed.¡±


    ¡°Not everyone can simply expand their planet¡¯s influence,¡± Neyar reminded Initik, referring to the way the moons had been brought within Uriva¡¯s domain. ¡°Even with all the resources the inner worlds have, they would not dare commit to that expenditure.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s all nonsense,¡± Initik said with a contemptuous click. ¡°If not for protecting and improving their worlds, what is that essence used for?¡±


    ***


    ¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do, Marus, but new worlds don¡¯t exactly grow on trees.¡±


    ¡°Of course, I understand,¡± Marus said, touching his Interface. ¡°All I¡¯m asking is that you speak to father on my behalf. Obviously I don¡¯t expect any promises.¡± He transferred a certain portion of essence and his sister immediately brightened.


    ¡°Since it wasn¡¯t really your fault, I suppose there¡¯s no harm in lending my voice,¡± she conceded. ¡°Just don¡¯t make any waves in the meantime.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I won¡¯t,¡± Marus assured her. ¡°I¡¯m not stupid, I was just unlucky.¡±


    ¡°Luck is its own kind of skill,¡± his elder sister warned him, rising from her seat. ¡°Any more of it and nobody¡¯s going to trust you with anything.¡±


    ¡°I am aware,¡± Marus said, politely rising as well and showing her out of his System Space. When she was gone, he let out a long breath and shifted himself to his relaxation beach and summoned a sweet drink to his hand.


    Marus Eln, former World Deity of Sydea, was certain that his position would be far worse if he hadn¡¯t returned with such a bevy of essence. Though the recording of what the Cato had managed certainly went a long way toward convincing his superiors that Sydea was a lost cause. Even then, he doubted that he would have been treated particularly kindly if Clan Lundt hadn¡¯t also lost a world to, presumably, the same force. And that Lundt hadn¡¯t even escaped himself, though if he sent any messages back the Lundts weren¡¯t telling.


    As it was, Marus was reduced to a comfortable but unimportant post on one of the inner worlds, looking over one of the Hunting Worlds where the various clan scions trained themselves at the lower ranks. It required only slightly more supervision than Sydea had, simply ensuring that the standard quests were allotted at the proper ranks and guiding opposing clans away from each other ¡ª or toward each other, depending on the situation. A little bit of conflict did the mortals good.


    If he had his way, though, he wouldn¡¯t be there for long. Some judicious bribery and leaning on a few of his contacts had resulted in movement among his immediate family and, hopefully, the elders of Clan Eln. In his estimation the main issue would be whether Clan Eln actually wanted to stake a claim on some frontier world, rather than whether anyone within the Clan was competing with him for the post. Most people preferred the more interesting, more prestigious inner or core worlds, even if they weren¡¯t completely in charge.


    Marus took a long draw on his drink, savoring the sweet, fruity flavor, and admitted he probably would prefer the inner worlds too, if he didn¡¯t need to prove himself first. Without a proper success he¡¯d be relegated to something like his current post, or even worse, a peripheral nobody in his family¡¯s household. All the essence he¡¯d gotten from his efforts would be frittered away over the centuries until he had nothing of his own.


    A mere century or so wasn¡¯t much of a worry, though, so he exercised patience as the weeks moved to months without anything of note happening. He was rewarded when, eventually, his father sent him a message to call upon the family estate. Since Marus hadn¡¯t been back there since his flight from Sydea and his current post was enough of a punishment, he had some hope of good news.


    The estate was in its own System Space attached to the core world of Eln itself, as most of the Clan Eln households were. It was practically a world unto itself, a sprawling landscape dotted with castles, mansions, towers, and gardens, green and blue with white clouds above. The family entrance allowed him to emerge into the back courtyard of the expansive central mansion, the arrival point surrounded by crystalline trees and divine silks in the pattern of the Eln coat of arms.


    It was nothing he hadn¡¯t seen before, and he barely noticed the opulent scenery as he walked inside, nodding at the younger family members still residing there. His father¡¯s study was deep within, the walls dominated by scry-views from the various worlds that their branch controlled, each one accompanied by a small selection of the local Interface messages. His father himself loomed large in a thronelike chair, broad shouldered and with a tail capable of laying recalcitrant family members flat.


    ¡°Marus,¡± he rumbled.


    ¡°Father,¡± Marus returned, standing at attention on the far side of the enormous and ancient desk.


    ¡°I will not repeat what I said when you returned home,¡± he said, turning his full attention on Marus. ¡°I have had some people prevail on your behalf, however, and there is a certain merit in your decisive actions when it came to preventing any wider chaos among worlds near Sydea. ¡°


    ¡°Thank you, father,¡± Marus said, as the preliminaries sounded very hopeful.


    ¡°The Elders have told me that the System appears to be generating a new annex already, though whether to replace Ahrusk or Sydea I couldn¡¯t say. So we need not wait centuries for the next opportunity.¡± His father smiled, ever so slightly. That wasn¡¯t something Marus saw often. ¡°Since most of the clans are not anticipating something so soon, nobody else has claims to annexed worlds other than us and the Lundts. Even if the other clans find out, the deliberations alone will stretch past when it opens.¡±


    ¡°Am I to take it that you wish to send me to the newly annexed world when it opens?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± his father said, pointing at him. ¡°For two reasons. Until the incident, your handling of Sydea was entirely acceptable. But if what happened with Ahrusk and Sydea signals a new challenge the System is issuing to us, you have already seen it, you know the signs, and will to know to act early.¡±


    ¡°I certainly hope that does not happen again,¡± Marus said with a shudder, but he didn¡¯t even think of refusing the chance.


    ¡°You may have to suffer someone from the Lundt Clan joining you,¡± his father warned. ¡°As I said, it will happen before any deliberations can be finalized so it is unlikely we can squeeze them out entirely. But they have no promising candidates ¨C not after Ahrusk ¨C so I expect you can keep the situation under control.¡±


    ¡°Of course, father,¡± Marus said.

 Chapter 10 — Spreading Out

    ¡°Nobody¡¯s nearby,¡± Leese reported, as Raine withdrew the new, much larger and much heavier Cato-spear from her spatial storage. Not that either of them expected anyone else to be atop the enormous plateau, but their previous run-ins had shown that they were more obvious than they would have liked. In a process that had become exceedingly familiar, Raine prepared the weapon by slotting in the small vial of living green powder, revived with water, and then hefted it as she aimed into the air.


    The air boomed as the heavy spear vanished into the night sky over the world of Kesul, dozens of links away from where Sydea used to be. It was just one of many worlds they¡¯d seeded since their ascension to Platinum, working their way through the map that Cato had gotten from Yaniss. Both to stay away from the area near Uriva, where all their trouble originated, and to catch up their equipment. They¡¯d taken to cycling between delving through dungeons and striking out to new worlds, seeding a few dozen before returning to the most promising spots.


    ¡°Which dungeon was next?¡± Raine knew the list they¡¯d gotten from Cato just as well as Leese did ¨C she hardly forgot anything anymore ¨C but Leese was better at actually using that knowledge.


    ¡°[Great Zokan Heights Dungeon],¡± Leese said, waving in the direction of the far end of the plateau. ¡°It has a chance of spear growth weapons. Not much, but it¡¯s something.¡±


    ¡°That would be a relief,¡± Raine said. At Platinum, they were really feeling the lack of appropriate equipment. Even if it was lower rank, the multiplier-type equipment they¡¯d found before was surprisingly powerful with their advantages, giving them strength and speed above anything a normal, well-equipped Platinum would have, but their edge had been distinctly blunted with the vast majority of their equipment being catch-as-catch-can Silver and Gold drops.


    The two of them turned, and their movement Skills brought them across the plateau and its nearly continent-sized breadth in a matter of minutes. Each step of her still B-tier [Inferno Footsteps] blinked her forward in space, while beside her Leese¡¯s ice equivalent did something similar with bursts of fire and frost flickering across the landscape. It wasn¡¯t like Arene¡¯s wings, back on Sydea, but it was still a genuine teleportation.


    Even months later, Raine Talis found Platinum to be both unbelievable and underwhelming.


    Unbelievable, because for most of her life a rank that high had been a distant dream, the end result of ages of hard work and scraping by. They¡¯d saved tokens and taken risks for years just to reach Gold, and moving past Gold would have been harder still. Underwhelming, because with Cato as a patron it had not only been fairly easy, but was now merely the uncomfortable middle child between the anonymity of Gold and the true power of Bismuth.


    They wouldn¡¯t even know if they could jump directly to Bismuth until they reached the cap and got the quest, and could see if they had already completed a Feat of Glory. Something that was still a long time away. Before, their ability to delve a rank upward meant that by the time they completed the ascension quest they had a good amount of essence banked, enough to jump them partway through the new tier.


    For Platinum, it was only a bare start, and they couldn¡¯t delve into Peak Bismuth dungeons ¡ª for two reasons. The first was that they simply didn¡¯t have that power just yet. Low Bismuth was possible, but it was slower and rougher than in previous ranks. The second was that there just weren¡¯t many Bismuth dungeons around.


    It turned out that, at least on the frontier worlds, Platinum was the highest rank around. There would be maybe one Bismuth dungeon a world, for those with the best infrastructure, and even those were of lower tiers anyway. [Great Zokan Heights Dungeon] was one such. If they wanted to delve at higher ranks, they needed to head to the inner and core worlds ¡ª and for that, they needed more upgrades.


    Cato called it grinding, from his experience outside the System. Something that applied to people who weren¡¯t risking their lives with every fight and places where equipment wasn¡¯t something worth killing over. A group that included both her and Leese now, so that was what she¡¯d done to acquire the overloaded [Throwing Mastery] skill. The entire concept of grinding was still odd to her, because most people strived to make it through the ranks rather than focusing on equipment.


    The two of them landed just outside the dungeon, the entrance to which was marked by a massive ring of purple standing stones, each of which was laced with glowing yellow veins. The entrance itself was at the base of a tower of the same purple material, which was as wide across at its base as a capital city and rose hundreds of feet into the air. Not as big as some of Cato¡¯s constructions, but larger than any other single building she¡¯d seen so far.


    [Welcome to Great Zokan Heights Dungeon! Recommended Rank: Low Bismuth]


    It wasn¡¯t their first Bismuth dungeon, but the first one had been for Fresh Bismuths, and the monsters inside had mostly just been faster, stronger, and bigger. They lacked the complex Skill-like powers that Bismuth monsters could wield, and in a simple contest of power Raine and Leese had a significant edge. [Great Zokan Heights Dungeon] promised to be more of a challenge.


    They stepped through the entrance, readying spears and shields, and climbed the broad, purple steps of the circular staircase. When they emerged, it was into a brilliant daytime, a vast blue sky with white clouds and buildings ¨C towers, castles, fortresses, and hulking dark pyramids ¨C floating in the air. There were no paths up; anyone who wished to climb the dungeon would need flight or something like it, but that was only to be expected at Bismuth.


    The way to the next floor wasn¡¯t even visible, somewhere in the buildings scattered across the level¡¯s sky. Unlike Copper and Silver dungeons, which could be done in hours or days, a Bismuth dungeon could take weeks to get through, simply because of the scale of the things. Raine couldn¡¯t begin to imagine what even higher ranks were like.


    Though the constructions drew the eye upward, her capelet warned her of vibrations from below. She and Leese vaulted into the air just as a massive maw burst from the ground, teeth clashing shut on empty air. The wyrm snorted, a heavy gust of wind laden with poison, and Raine swapped to her poleaxe. The weapon burst into flame as she invoked her Skill, a fiery aura wrapping up around her entire body and burning off the poison. Though with their bodies, poison was a particularly impotent form of attack.


    Unlike for most people, her fire was blue and shed very little light in the spectrums most people could see. Cato had done much grumbling about how physics didn¡¯t apply within the System, but it seemed some concepts still translated. He had helped her figure out a much hotter flame, and Leese had been instructed on exotic forms of ice, ones that were as hard as steel even without the System¡¯s aid.


    The differences were small, but they had helped push both her and Leese¡¯s primary offensive Skills to A-tier. When her poleaxe came down, wreathed in pale fire, it cut a deep, searing gouge through the thick hide of the wyrm¡¯s head. Leese was immediately behind her, punching into the wound Raine had opened and sending expanding ice crystals through its skull.


    For a Platinum that would have been enough, but the Bismuth wyrm, a craggy brown monstrosity with teeth the size of a person¡¯s body, merely shook it off and dived back into the ground to ambush them from another angle. Despite its enormous size, the thing managed to submerge with barely a ripple, leaving only a patch of disturbed grass where it had been.


    The two of them waited in midair, Raine hovering on jets of fire pluming from her feet while Leese stood on a slab of ice suspended above the ground. She wasn¡¯t sure how much difficulty normal Platinums ¨C or Bismuths ¨C would have had in tracking it underground, but with the additional sensitivity from Cato¡¯s anti-stealth capes she found it easy enough. When it broke out again they were ready, falling like twin stars, the impacts booming through the dungeon and sending the wyrm writhing for a moment before it went limp.


    [Trembling Greatwyrm defeated. Essence awarded. Additional essence awarded for defeating an enemy of higher rank. Bismuth tokens awarded]


    The corpse vanished back into the dungeon, but the aftereffects of the poison breath remained, blighted and sickly plants strewn across the ground. Raine was glad that they were immune to that sort of thing, though she was worried about her communications lizard and capelet. They didn¡¯t have the same benefit, essentially only Copper even if they were Cato¡¯s creatures, and far too vulnerable to the kind of peripheral damage both Raine and Leese could brush off as nothing.


    She reached up to pet the lizard where it crouched on her head, stuck to her scales, and then transferred it to an inside pocket of her shirt to protect it. Then she exchanged nods with Leese ¨C who had already stowed her lizard ¨C and launched herself upward, away from whatever distractions there might be on the ground. It was clear the important things were above, and the [Trembling Greatwym] was likely only to discourage retreating to or camping on the ground. Great winged things wheeled and circled overhead, casting huge shadows from a false sun and flitting from building to building.


    After finding out that some of the dungeons and [Conflict Zones] on Sydea had been made out of the original cities and buildings of Sydea before the System, she had wondered how true that was for other worlds. All the buildings levitating in the air, serving as nests for monsters or beasts, might well have been built by the original inhabitants of Kesul, whoever they might have been. The odd markings here and there, over doors or windows, might be writing in a language destroyed by the System.


    Such thoughts weren¡¯t useful, not when they had to keep an eye out for attacks that might come at any moment, but they intruded nonetheless. At least her brain was sharp enough that, even while musing over the presence of very un-System-like buildings inside a dungeon, she still reacted instantly to the sudden appearance of a slate-gray bird emerging from the stones of the castle wall. Her capelet caught up a fraction of an instant later; for all its useful and incredible perceptual abilities, it was slow. Noticeably so at Platinum, and at Bismuth there was no way it could keep up.


    A ghostly spear of blue fire burst forth from the point of her weapon as she thrust it at the enemy, just behind Leese¡¯s own frozen arc from her poleaxe. Leese¡¯s blow cut a frozen path along the metallic feathers, piercing deep into the bird, while her own follow-up fire shattered everything that was frozen. Two simple cuts turned into a massive gaping wound, but once again that wasn¡¯t enough to fell a Bismuth.


    The next few minutes turned into a spiraling aerial duel as the bird tried to chase them down, launching its own feathers and controlling them to turn the area into a storm of sharp-edged, metallic blades. It was impossible to avoid them all, and the quality of their armor told as it took far more damage than it should have. Exposed scales were only barely scored; a combination of Cato¡¯s augments and their own rank and toughness multiplier equipment rendering them actually sturdier than their armor.


    [Razored Templebeak defeated. Essence awarded. Additional essence awarded for defeating an enemy of higher rank. Bismuth tokens awarded]


    Eventually it fell, plummeting to the floor below, and the two of them entered the castle. There they both changed to spear and buckler to take advantage of the close confines, creeping through the hall until they spotted the first pack of monsters. They looked like bird-beings made out of some crystalline material, though Raine was sure they weren¡¯t nearly as fragile as they looked.


    Perhaps they didn¡¯t have to clear the castle to finish the floor, but they needed the chances at drops and the essence gain from the Bismuth-level foes. So it was a long, slow grind through the castle, where each monster not only had Bismuth level strength and speed, but wide-area abilities that were supposed to contest what a Bismuth ought to have. As Platinums, they had to simply brute-force their way through, relying on their superior physical abilities to augment their Skills and crush armor, pierce hide, and shrug off damage. Worse, they needed to trade off who got the final blow in order to equalize essence income and drop rates, making the end of every fight incredibly tedious.


    By the time they finished the Dungeon Elites at the end of the castle ¨C what Cato termed a miniboss ¨C they were exhausted, nursing dozens of small injuries, and in dire need of a rest. Fortunately, or deliberately, there was a safe zone at the end of the castle, behind the throne room of the final fight, where they could rest and count their gains.


    ¡°I think this one¡¯s yours,¡± Raine said, flipping a B-tier Skill token to Leese. Tokens were a faster and surer way of upgrading a Skill than working through mastery of it, but finding anything above B was incredibly rare. Even B-tier itself wasn¡¯t common, the abundance of skill tokens of that tier only coming through their ability to dive a rank ahead.


    ¡°We can probably start selling these soon,¡± Leese said, the token vanishing as she upgraded her secondary offensive skill. She had taken [Inevitable Avalanche], which gave her a forceful option to go with the precision of her [Blizzard Spear]. Raine had gone in the other direction, taking [Dance of Conflagration] to give her something delicate and precise, providing her more opportunity to land the ravaging hits of [Inferno Spear].


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    ¡°Maybe,¡± Raine said doubtfully. ¡°Best not to draw any real attention, though. Considering what happened on Uriva.¡± Leese flicked her tail in acknowledgement and pulled out one of the actual equipment drops they¡¯d gotten, a pair of footwraps, while Raine retrieved a crystalline skirt from her spatial storage, giving it a thorough [Appraise].


    [Zokan Crystal Armored Skirt


    Tier: C


    Rank: Bismuth


    Coverage: Abdomen, Upper Legs


    This armored skirt provides moderate protection against blunt damage, and significant protection against all other types. It provides a multiplier effect to all Light and Sound based Skills.]


    Even if it was the exact kind of gear they wanted, the relatively rare multiplier type, neither she nor Leese had any Skills of that sort, so its secondary effect was useless. Yet for sheer protection it was probably worth to switch to it. Her current pants were D-Tier, Platinum-rank padded chain that added to the amount she could lift. Which was marginally effective in grapples, but they wouldn¡¯t be grappling anything Bismuth-rank.


    Each of the buildings floating in the sky was a similar experience, taking almost an entire day every time they cleared one. Then they finally reached the [Floor Guardian] at the top, and proceeded to the next level of the dungeon ¡ª an enormous mountain beset by storms of flaming hail and black lightning. They took a moment to change out some of their resistance accessories, and started the climb.


    In all, it was nearly a month to clear the entire dungeon, only able to conquer the final [Dungeon Guardian] thanks to new equipment they had acquired on their climb. Yet they didn¡¯t get the drops they actually wanted, so they had to start all over again. Being able to delve Low Bismuth at Mid Platinum was absolutely jaw-dropping by normal standards, but they had been spoiled by the power of Cato¡¯s gifts, and the task was more tedious than anything.


    By the time they were running low on supplies, kept in their spatial bags, Cato was well established on Kesul and had no trouble dropping them more. Better, they weren¡¯t just the usual sticks and drinks, but entire packaged boxes with instructions for simply adding water and having Raine heat them with a fire Skill. A few were even meant to be chilled with Leese¡¯s ice, something called ice cream ¡ª one of Cato¡¯s earth-words.


    Yet it wasn¡¯t actually Cato who had come up with these things, not entirely. Over the past few years the various versions of themselves had been busy on their own worlds, and not all of them had been down on the surface. The meals had come courtesy of themselves, tailored for their own tastes, and Raine had no idea how to feel about it. Knowing in the abstract there were other versions of them out there was one thing; getting gifts from themselves, knowing exactly what they¡¯d like best, was quite another.


    ¡°I can sanitize it more if you want,¡± Cato offered, clearly recognizing their discomfort. ¡°So I¡¯m not rubbing it in your faces. It¡¯s just I didn¡¯t want to take credit for someone else¡¯s work.¡±


    ¡°No, we can handle it,¡± Leese said for them, the pair of them sitting outside the tower. More of the radio plants had been part of the various packages Cato had dropped for them, so they had no problems communicating. ¡°We¡¯re going to have to get used to it anyway. If you¡¯re going to undermine the entire System, you¡¯re going to need more than just us. If there are hundreds of thousands or millions of worlds¡­¡± She shook her head, and Raine wrinkled her muzzle as she contemplated hundreds of years of just throwing spears into space.


    Not an enticing prospect, but odder to think they might well have hundreds of years. Cato said that the last updates he¡¯d do before they hit Bismuth would make it easier to have a backup, in case they died, and with Cato already active over dozens of worlds they would be quite difficult to truly kill. Of course, neither she nor Leese wanted to die, be resurrected, and have to start the climb all over again, not after how long they¡¯d put into it. At least after Bismuth it was much harder to be killed ¡ª and she¡¯d heard that at Azoth and Alum there were ways to come back that didn¡¯t rely on Cato¡¯s technology.


    They took a few more days to give themselves a break from the grind and spread a few more spears on nearby worlds, then returned to the dungeon. At this point they were practiced enough with the monsters and beasts within that it wasn¡¯t nearly so tough a delve, but the dungeon itself refused to cooperate. None of the drops were even slightly useful, and the particular combination of monsters was most irritating. But they kept at it, and two runs later they had all the luck.


    [Living Crystal Lance


    Growth Weapon


    Tier: A


    Rank: Bismuth


    This weapon can be shifted into different forms of lance and spear. It provides a major multiplier to all spear Skills, and is highly attuned to Ice, Lightning, and Sound Skills. This weapon can absorb essence to improve rank and tier.]


    The spear looked like a long shaft of icy crystal capped by a crescent blade, but Leese was easily able to will it into poleaxe and armor-piercing lance forms, the material flowing like water. It was absolutely perfect for Leese, but it was only the capstone of the drops. The same run netted them both several pieces of new armor, and Raine got a pair of [Pyroclastic Footwraps] that pushed her movement Skill to new levels.


    If they ran into Muar again, he wasn¡¯t going to get off so lightly.


    ***


    Time was strange. That was true enough when in a strictly biological body, but in digital form where time could be made to speed up and slow down at whim, it was even more true. Yet according to the clock it was over two years since Cato had come through the portal from Earth, when it seemed like it had just been a short time ago. Maybe the hasty mess of Sydea dominated his perceptions, but it seemed like he was doing nothing at all.


    A perception which was certainly untrue. On over fifty worlds he was building infrastructure, spreading from moons to outer or inner planets, with automated factories creating more automated factories. He wandered the halls of one such in a physical body, though one that was based more on void life than anything out of Earth just to avoid needing to introduce water and atmosphere to the enormous vacuum facility.


    It orbited at the distant edge of Kesul¡¯s gravitational influence, an asymmetric slab of metal and graphene surrounded by tens of thousands of miles of solar panels. The enormous facility was tooled for production, and mining equipment spread throughout the system fed its appetite. Mass drivers hurled packages of raw material from Kesul¡¯s two moons and, as of a few hours ago, its asteroid belt as well. The long funnel of the receiver grabbed the incoming packages, slowed them down with both mechanical and electromagnetic processes ¨C a spun graphene net was a surprisingly effective solution for how simple it was ¨C and redirected the boules for sorting and processing.


    The solar arrays powered cutters, smelters, rotating and microgravity alloying processes, chemical foundries, and the enormous computing power required to coordinate it all. Thankfully he didn¡¯t have to hack together all the operations himself, or even the complex logistics of processing lines. Some of it was just off-the-shelf, readily available programs, but a lot it came out of his father¡¯s Summer Civilization archive. While virtual civilizations could only do so much when it came to physical design and testing, they had solved information problems that most people didn¡¯t even know existed.


    Obviously the Kesul facility didn¡¯t require his personal inspection, but Cato-Kesul was feeling restless. Even if he wasn¡¯t reconciling completely with the dozens of other versions of himself, he knew what they were finding. The radio-plant network was enough to send updates across, maximally compressed, and the state of the System was depressing.


    As much as he wanted to, he couldn¡¯t simply start liberating worlds as he saw fit, even on those planets where he¡¯d been established long enough to create the infrastructure. It was best to try and ease people through the transition rather than spring it on them, but the moment he started to show his hand he would attract attention ¡ª a lot of attention. After what happened with Sydea he doubted it would stop with just a few Bismuths and a cowardly System-god.


    He had spent a lot of time running through simulations and situations, identifying how best to isolate sections of the System if he finally was forced to move. The network had orphan nodes and crossroads, places where he could sever dozens of worlds by a blitzkrieg of one or two and so cut off potential reinforcements with a simultaneous assault. It wasn¡¯t just the high-rankers that worried him either, but the potential of swarms of innocent low-rankers being used as shields or cannon fodder if he was forced to deal with gods by way of particle cannon. The approach was logical and necessary enough, but it was still soul-sucking to bear witness to so much that he could not yet address.


    Some of the evils didn¡¯t actually require the System. Slavery, or something close to it, was widespread on some of the worlds; certain species barred from Dungeons and effectively beholden to the large clans for their daily bread. The expected amount of casual murder, from the Assassin¡¯s Guild, to competing adventuring groups, or just because a lower-rank individual didn¡¯t grovel sufficiently.


    The System had more than enough evils of its own, though. On world after world he found ruins converted to Zones or Dungeons that bore the distinct fingerprints of xenocultures. Genetic sampling of monsters that connected them to the race on that particular frontier world ¡ª or a race that no longer existed. It seemed grimly certain that over half of the species that had been graced with the System had gone extinct, either as a result of the System¡¯s actions directly or by the more powerful clans taking over. There were probably a few scattered individuals somewhere in the System, but they didn¡¯t exist as a genetic population.


    Even ecosystems didn¡¯t really exist within the System. It simulated a reasonable facsimile of life within a given zone, but the web of predator and prey, symbiote and parasite, was a rough sketch. Every single planet would require a massive amount of reconstruction to prevent mass die-offs from starvation, or being completely overrun with a hyper-adapted life form.


    It was hard for him to not step in when he saw some of these things, but unless it was a dire emergency he needed to keep a low profile and spread out as far as he could. The Sydean Lineage was still the spearhead, able to go between worlds easily as Platinums and more capable of penetrating into the inner worlds. When they hit Bismuth, he¡¯d need them to come back and plug the holes in his coverage where a planet lacked moons or other handy nearby celestial bodies, unless he came up with an alternative in the meantime.


    The other Lineages, none of them actually going by Raine or Leese while on the ground, were spreading sideways from the main spine of the Sydean pair¡¯s travels. Even if they were able to avoid the obvious problem of the names, they still couldn¡¯t mingle much with the local population, as Uriva had demonstrated people were paying attention. Even with different names and forms, pairs of improbably-experienced Golds popping up all over would surely attract the wrong kind of attention. Once or twice would work, but that was best saved for something that really needed direct action.


    It wasn¡¯t possible to start preparing the planets for liberation, at least not yet, so they just focused on ensuring Cato was firmly entrenched. They had at least gotten the initial ranking-up to a fine science. Most of the time the sisters would don a frame appropriate for the nearby worlds, use his orbital surveillance to find appropriate dungeons in which to level, and tackle a roaming boss mob away from any prying eyes.


    The entire process only took a couple days, gated mostly by acquiring the proper Skills needed to fling a Cato-spear to the nearest moon. Sometimes after that, the Sisters abandoned the frame and returned to the orbital aestivation to pursue other aspects of the enormous amount of work that lay ahead of them. Sometimes they parked the frames in an out-of-the-way tavern, going back and forth between Cato and System pursuits.


    Regardless of their personal choices, there was a sort of impromptu collaboration between all the versions on different worlds. Even if they were the same people, individual version of Raine and Leese had started to diverge, moreso after the years-long deep immersion inside the Summer Civilization aestivation. That didn¡¯t change their fundamental personalities or interests, but it meant that some versions of Leese worked more with the original Sydean biology, and others with the biology of the locals, or of the flora and fauna. Some versions of Raine took control of drone fleets and surveillance animals, while others ran combat and logistics simulations.


    Worryingly, he hadn¡¯t spotted Muar again, and Cato doubted he could just hope that the System¡¯s violent nature had caught up with the man. Dyen, on the other hand, still popped up on occasion. Cato had, somewhat reluctantly, built communications capability into Dyen¡¯s capelet even if the assassin kept himself distant, and was how Cato knew the contract on the Sydean Lineage still existed. Another reason for the pair to find some identity-masking equipment as soon as possible.


    It was the Sydean Lineage¡¯s requirements that brought him out to the orbital facility in physical form, even corporeal presence wasn¡¯t strictly necessary. Cato pulled himself into the physical laboratory that Raine and Leese Kesul were using, the multipurpose tendrils of the void-life frame grappling the handholds and sliding through the narrow access corridors. To a purely visual inspection the lab didn¡¯t look like much; a few cylinders spinning for gravity, some pressurized areas, a lot of machines that were entirely enclosed with metal and ceramic shielding. Beneath that surface it would have looked like a horror show, with cloned tissues and nerves spread out like dissected remnants; chunks of brain wrapped in sensors; all being poked and prodded and subjected to biochemical stimulation.


    Of course, there was nothing thinking or feeling involved. The Sol System had gone through enough of those types of experiences that Cato¡¯s databases had many, many safeguards against such a possibility. Not that the information would stop intentional malice, but it was enough to avoid any accidental evil.


    ¡°How¡¯s the project going?¡± He could have simply looked through the plethora of data, or browsed the collaboration network the sisters had built, but that was so cold and impersonal and asking was a far more human way of going about it.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s about ready,¡± Leese replied, though she wasn¡¯t physically present like he was. Instead she was in a virtualization of the laboratory, with all the control surfaces arranged for comfortable viewing. ¡°Or as ready as we¡¯re going to get without forcing them to start ranking up from scratch.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s not much more I can add to their combat models,¡± Raine added, from her own part of the aestivation. ¡°Not until we see what things are like at Bismuth, at least.¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll get them going,¡± he replied. There was unfortunately no way around the defense quest; the technology he needed to modify the Sydean Lineage was not something he could allow the System to get at. Nor was he certain that without the jamming it would even work properly; if the System integrated it, the bioweapon-based genetic modification pods might become some unholy abomination. He glanced around at the lab, then left to continue prowling the facility as the version of himself in closer orbit around Kesul started things off.


    ¡°We¡¯re ready for your last upgrades,¡± Cato told the Sydean Lineage, where they were resting between Dungeon runs. He couldn¡¯t help but think that grinding the same dungeon for a year on end was incredibly tedious, but the results spoke for themselves. Instead of a motley collection of armor and weapons, they were clad in matching obsidian and crystal pieces, with weapons in a similar aesthetic vein.


    ¡°I think we¡¯re ready for them too,¡± Raine replied, kicking the outer tower wall of the Dungeon in clear annoyance. ¡°We need to move on from this Dungeon, and start dealing with higher ranks. The one with the [Appraise] artifact is Peak Bismuth, right?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what Dyen said,¡± Cato agreed. Yaniss had known of lower rank scry-blocking artifacts, but the Assassin¡¯s Guild knew of one that completely changed the information, which was far more useful. He doubted it¡¯d stand up against direct divine scrutiny, but it¡¯d let them travel around without tripping alarms. ¡°I can¡¯t guarantee that you¡¯ll be able to handle it when we¡¯re done with the upgrades, but you should be close.¡±

 Chapter 11 — Digging In

    ¡°I wish I could use Appraise on what I¡¯m seeing,¡± Yaniss grumped as she peered through the telescope.  Or rather, the digital version of Yaniss did, controlling the abstraction of a light collector five miles in diameter.


    ¡°That would defeat the point,¡± Cato-Ikent told her with a laugh.


    Cato¡¯s mind-ripping algorithms turned out to be entirely necessary.  There was no way that he could fully scan a Bismuth normally, and while there was a faint possibility that he could have brought in System-jamming biology to try, that would have been a risk on two fronts.  One, that it might be incredibly harmful to a Bismuth, considering they were supposedly almost entirely a System construct, and two, Yaniss was clearly already being watched in some way given the hassling by the local Temple.


    He''d prepared everything on an out-of-the-way world and Yaniss had spent a couple hours with a bunch of engineered biomass wrapped around her head.  The mindripper algorithms had pulled information out of her brain, and that was why they were generally so restricted.  None of the usual protections against foreign infiltration mattered, and like Roko¡¯s basilisk he could create a full copy of her consciousness without her input at all.


    Cato had also gotten genetic samples thanks to Yaniss literally spilling her own blood, along with gut biome ¨C which turned out to be sterile ¨C to try and avoid all the guesswork and testing he¡¯d needed to do for Raine and Leese.  Fortunately, even at Bismuth she was still biological, and not some sort of exotic System energy version of a frame.  He wouldn¡¯t have been that surprised if the System operated that way, with some central server from which all the high-rankers remotely piloted System-created bodies, but instead it seemed that the cells themselves operated without any apparent inputs and outputs.  He didn¡¯t know what to make of that, other than the obvious reliance on System exoticism.


    In some strange quirk, perhaps an unfair one, Yaniss had absolutely no trouble not only with being digital, but with reconciling multiple versions of herself. More than Cato, even, and her tendency to shove her gestalt over his radio network was putting a serious strain on an already overloaded system.  Still, her insight into the System was fascinating, especially since she was the closest thing to a researcher he could imagine.  The usefulness of which was proven as one of the programs he had running in the background pinged him with a conclusion at a fairly high degree of certainty.


    The Bismuth transition altered the fundamental nature of both people and items, according to Yaniss.  So long as some amount of essence was paid, at Bismuth things simply didn¡¯t decay.  It wasn¡¯t even as simple as being ultra-tough, but rather by examining her genetics and as he¡¯d seen with her cellular activity, the regular rules of entropy didn¡¯t apply.  It was a situation that would have made Maxwell¡¯s Demon proud, and not an approach that he would have immediately considered if it weren¡¯t for her bringing up the phenomenon.


    Given the crude nature of his toolset he couldn¡¯t categorize it completely, but it wasn¡¯t as simple as making things negative entropy, or even none ¡ª thermodynamics still needed to work for things to heat and cool, for energy to move at all.  But all the functioning seemed to be done without flaw or loss, without the inevitable errors that piled up and had to be dealt with but never could be perfectly.


    The System had a way to beat entropy.


    Whether essence itself, the exotic energy of the System, was similarly unconstrained from the laws of thermodynamics remained to be seen, but it certainly didn¡¯t act like it was infinite.  Though that was one of the things that particular program had been chewing through, doing a close analysis with more efficacy than anything he¡¯d worked with in the past. At this point he was certain that Luna and Enceladus had bundled in tools of their own design, things with more finesse than the standard programs he was used to.


    He wasn¡¯t really certain what to think of that.  The synthetic intelligences could easily have sent their own probes, or endorsed people going through the portal, rather than playing at something subtle by giving him aid when he was violating their own directives.  But perhaps the reason they had sent him ¨C or at least, allowed him ¨C to deal with the System was that he had no interest in anything it offered.  But even a nonhuman intelligence might be tempted to try and take what the System was for themselves ¡ª to almost anyone else, the System¡¯s processes would be impossibly valuable.


    Even he could admit that, given the energy requirements for everything he saw ¨C the Skill manifestations, monster creation, even the cost of handling the information for things like [Appraise] ¨C were astronomical.  The program¡¯s best guess was that essence was, ultimately, negentropic: it made more of itself, which was utterly incredible and it didn¡¯t matter in the slightest.  It all had to be destroyed, because that impossible, universe-bending property was being harnessed for petty, useless, and evil things.


    He didn¡¯t know, ultimately, what use the knowledge would be, even if he could take some guesses at why the System existed at all.  Without any sort of regulation an infinitely generating energy source might well rise up and collapse everything into a black hole, and it might well be that essence required some interaction with conscious life to be created.  Even if that wasn¡¯t the exact reason, the System¡¯s deep hooks into the minds of its victims was surely no coincidence.


    Aside from that useless speculation, the System¡¯s particular setup where there was a threshold at which someone actually entered into the post-entropy age mirrored some of the ways postbiological societies were arranged.  Cato himself had been born fully biological and raised in a deliberately technology-light rural habitat where he could learn about bumps and bruises, fresh air, and the connection between good work and having food to eat.  As he got older he could buy in of his own accord to more complex technological milieus and the inherent dangers they came with, until he finally felt comfortable taking the plunge into full postbiological life.


    A threshold within the System where people could take full advantage of immortality and ultimately infinite energy made some kind of sense, considering the absolute disaster it would be for infants and children to wield forces of that nature.  It made Cato lean toward the theory that the System was some sort of ultra-advanced aestivation with a touch of paperclip maximizer, some civilization¡¯s private habitat grown out of control.  But he was well aware that was due to his own bias and background, matching known patterns to scant data.  All his speculation could be wrong, and the System originated in a foreign reality or something even more esoteric.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not sure how it helps, but you¡¯ve helped solve at least one aspect of the System,¡± Cato told Yaniss, as he scanned through the report and mostly skipped over the complex modeling involved.  He only cared about the conclusions.  ¡°At least I think.  Without being able to look directly at its underpinnings we can only guess.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯ll send it to myself,¡± Yaniss said happily, tearing her attention away from the telescope.  While he¡¯d digitized Yaniss and given her the same autonomy as the sisters ¨C her own substrate, and the data and tools necessary for power and maintenance ¨C he had not allowed her into the inner workings of his operations.  He trusted her far enough to cooperate with her and offer her the benefits of postbiological existence, especially since her System-body wouldn¡¯t be able to survive a System collapse, but not enough to let her see the extent of what he was and could do.  Her database access was quite limited, and entire swaths of the information sphere ¨C as well as physical constructs ¨C were off-limits for her digital selves.


    The Bismuth version of Yaniss had an upgraded comms lizard, capable of not only audio information but low-bandwidth visual communication thanks to chromatophores.  The comms kept her abreast of her iterations spread over a double handful of worlds, helping make up for the lack of direct contacts.  Since she¡¯d lost most of her agents due to helping Cato, it was only fair he replaced them ¡ª but her constant communications were loading up his radio network enough that he needed serious upgrades.


    Over the past year and a bit he¡¯d worked with Leese, and they¡¯d managed to cobble together a far larger plant-form with the same capability, something more like a fungal mat than a standard fern.  Most of the time had been taken up with testing and debugging, working through the alterations to a laundry list of out-of-the-box solutions from his databases.


    FungusNet could grow quite large, acting as an immense transceiver just underneath the ground and raising tree-like towers for line-of-sight communications.  They had done their best to make it as innocuous as possible, with strict limitations on growth and none of the usual biochemical competition, to prevent the System from turning it into the sort of threat that would draw attention.  It didn¡¯t need to be particularly aggressive anyway, since with a different chemical basis than anything on the ground it wasn¡¯t vulnerable to predators or parasites ¡ª which didn¡¯t matter under the System, but once the System went down he didn¡¯t want it to immediate ruin the local ecology.


    Around Ikent alone he had several million tons of biochemical factories, and the other versions of himself weren¡¯t far behind, so dropping the fungal spores down on the various worlds was already underway.  Unlike the ferns, the fungal mat could be seeded with tiny, inch-diameter balls that he could toss down from orbit directly.  That wouldn¡¯t be very precise, but he could throw down hundreds of thousands and send the kill-code to all but the ones he wanted.  Now that he had proper infrastructure, he could solve so many problems just by raw numbers instead of cleverness.  Which was good, because Cato knew he really wasn¡¯t all that clever.


    Only the worlds at the edges of his expansion needed to have various instances of Raine and Leese carry FungusNet through.  The places where Cato hadn¡¯t yet been spread, or was only a few months into building his infrastructure and couldn¡¯t spare the time and resources for the task.  After multiple years there were many of those, but the System¡¯s portal network prevented a completely exponential approach.


    The portal network was actually fairly restrictive; many worlds only had a few links, and some only one.  It didn¡¯t matter if there were a thousand versions of himself and the sisters when he only had a hundred worlds bordering his territory.  They couldn¡¯t even follow too many links along the chain as Peak Gold was quite conspicuous outside their native world.


    Most places had more muscle than Sydea, and outworlders were seen as easy marks.  Which the sisters weren¡¯t, but they couldn¡¯t bridge the gap to Bismuth or, as they had already found, too many Platinums.  Nor could all the various versions of the sisters rush to Platinum, bottlenecked as they were by the defense quest requirement.  He couldn¡¯t change how frequently it occurred, so only a few pairs had gotten that far, on the edges of his expansion.


    The total count of worlds he¡¯d spread to was somewhere north of sixteen hundred, which sounded impressive, but that was less than one percent of the System¡¯s estimated size. Moreover, it didn¡¯t include the inner or core worlds, just the frontier where it was easier to operate.  Based on the presumed size and network layout of the System, he was slowly creeping around the outer two thirds of the disc, and what he really needed was the Sydean Lineage to drive a spike through unknown territory.  The further they spread him, the faster he could move and the more secure he would be.


    He still wasn¡¯t quite sure how he was going to deal with planets where Bismuth ranks were common and higher ranks existed, though he¡¯d already started plans on dealing with the occasional Bismuth dungeons scattered throughout the frontier.  The inner worlds would take more consideration, and likely more preparation as there was no doubt he would need more weight of materiel to deal with those.  Years, decades, maybe even longer simply to build the infrastructure, let alone execute on it.  Time enough for the System folks to figure out ways to stymie him if he wasn¡¯t already spread wider than they thought.


    The instances of Raine and Leese that had chosen to advance to Platinum had begun cutting branches through the frontier out from the main trunk of the Sydean Lineage¡¯s passage, following the massive perimeter of the System¡¯s portal links.  But he couldn¡¯t be content with that, since everyone agreed it was the inner worlds that controlled everything.  With the new upgrades, the Sydean Lineage could finally turn toward the core.


    ***


    The Hunting World of Renklin was not really a place for Platinums, so both Raine and Leese used their movement Skills to leave the city walls as fast as possible.  The highest zone on the whole world was just Gold, so they stood out ¡ª or would, if they were in the city for more than a second or two.  They blinked out, moving far and fast as the near-teleportation of their movement Skills allowed them.  Not to the extent of Arene or Onswa, who had managed to find or improve their skills to S-tier, but enough that they could reach the other side of the planet in minutes.


    ¡°Right, there is good,¡± Cato¡¯s voice came through the radio-lizards, stopping them in the middle of an ocean.  Hundreds of feet up, there was nothing around but endless waves.  ¡°I¡¯ll send everything down and get this done.¡±


    They¡¯d put a spear into the distant, blue-green moon over a year ago, so there had been plenty of time for Cato to establish himself and be ready for the day when they got their final upgrades.  All the preparations that could be made had been, but they¡¯d have to trust that obscurity would be their final shield.  As out-of-the-way and low-rank as Renklin was, the Defense Quest manifesting there wouldn¡¯t attract any immediate attention, and by the time any word filtered out, they hoped to be done with it.


    [Global Defense Quest!  Destroy the Incursion:  Recommended Rank: Bismuth. Reward: Overloaded C-Tier Skill.  Location: Zemy Plains Conflict Zone]


    A thunderous roar cracked through the sky above them as one of Cato¡¯s devices entered the atmosphere, an enormous dark slab plunging down toward the ocean.  The shock wave slammed into them, though their Platinum-rank bodies barely noticed it, fire and ice deflecting the spray and the spume as an object half the size of a town smashed into the ocean¡¯s surface.  It was far larger than any of the drops they¡¯d seen from him before, every inch of it radiating the strange essence static that accompanied his technology.


    Fog rolled out from it as the unutterable cold of metal chilled in deep space radiated out from the enormous slab, which bobbed and stabilized before the top opened up, hinging outward.  Warframes and other forms Raine didn¡¯t recognize lined the sides, acting as guards for the small dome in the center.  The black bulk of the interior shifted and then suddenly burst forth into thousands of small winged things that flocked upward and outward, circling the site.


    ¡°Right, get in,¡± Cato said.  ¡°We¡¯ll get this done as fast as possible.¡±


    Raine exchanged a look with Leese and then dived down toward the dome, where a Cato-beast opened the door.  Inside were a pair of very large black pods, much more substantial than the cots from before, once again color coded for each of them.  Without any further discussion Raine hopped into hers, stretching out on the oddly comfortable material before it wrapped over her.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    She awoke without having even been aware of falling unconscious, the pod retracting away to let her free.  For a moment she didn¡¯t feel any different, then it seemed like her mind expanded, a strange reverse vertigo where the world became small.  The sensation only a lasted an instant before settling, but all the knowledge she was used to getting from her capelet was entirely clear, she had an instant understanding of every thing in the room, and every single thing was utterly crisp.  She thought that Cato¡¯s gift had given her thoughts focus before, but now there seemed to be an entirely separate realm of thought when it came to her physical and kinetic understanding.


    ¡°So, you¡¯ve got radio antennae along your spine, in addition to the sub-brains,¡± Cato told them, though it was nothing he hadn¡¯t mentioned before. ¡°The capelet is now integrated into your body, so it should benefit from your System protections once it finishes growing out.¡±  Raine reached up to her shoulders, where the fringe of the capelet draped over her shoulders, merging with her scales at her neck, and sent it fluttering by flexing brand new muscles in idle wonder.


    ¡°What about the lizards?¡± Leese asked, holding hers in one hand and petting it.


    ¡°You can leave those with me here or bring them with you,¡± Cato replied, again speaking directly into her head.  A moment¡¯s thought and she could feel the way to turn that off, like closing her eyes ¡ª only with something entirely intangible.  ¡°You don¡¯t need them anymore, but you probably won¡¯t have anywhere to properly leave them until you cash out your estates.¡±


    ¡°It might be best to leave them,¡± Raine said, somewhat reluctantly.  She wasn¡¯t as attached to them as Leese, but she found she had become somewhat fond of having the little creatures around.  Even if they didn¡¯t do much, they were quite cute.  But chances were that they wouldn¡¯t survive the rigors of high-rank combat that were likely in the future.  According to Yaniss, at some point in Bismuth they could tie themselves to their estates in such a way that they could teleport across worlds to get to them ¨C assuming their movement Skills were high enough tier ¨C which would make it possible to house such fragile creatures.


    ¡°I¡¯ll send them up to orbit,¡± Cato assured them, one of the Cato-beasts entering the dome with a tiny version of the pods they¡¯d just used.  Raine and Leese deposited their lizards in the pods, gave them one last pet, and then turned to the door.


    ¡°You were out for a day, so it¡¯s best to hurry,¡± Cato said aloud.  ¡°I¡¯ll send these two up and then scuttle this thing.  I¡¯ve already chased off a few visitors but if a Bismuth shows up things could get explosive.¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course,¡± Raine said.  ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the least I could do,¡± Cato said, and Raine believed it.  Unfortunately the most he could do would end up getting attention they didn¡¯t yet want.  She followed Leese out the door and the two of them took to the skies, back toward the portal.


    While she had been told about the kinematic modeling and combat algorithms, she hadn¡¯t understood what that would mean.  Yet the moment she began traveling and using her Skills in earnest, she began noticing little things, small inefficiencies in movement and direction.  Fractional alterations in flexing muscles and Skill application, in posture and position, none of which were major but each correction added up.  Soon enough both she and Leese were moving half again as fast as they had before.


    [Pyroclastic Steps upgraded to tier A.


    Skill merge with Dance of Conflagration!


    New Skill: Whirling Inferno Flash]


    ¡°I already got a Skill upgrade and merge,¡± Raine reported to Leese, using the new connection in the back of her mind.  The radio, which didn¡¯t use essence and couldn¡¯t be overheard.  Skill merges only happened at A tier and above, and was the only way to get an S-tier Skill ¡ª aside from rumored, insanely rare token drops.  She did have another B-rank Skill Token to fill in the slot left by [Dance of Conflagration], but that could wait until she discussed the options with Leese.


    ¡°I¡¯m nearly there, I think,¡± Leese said, though she had been ahead of Raine on that front to begin with.  ¡°This new knowledge is ¡ª well, it¡¯s certainly something.¡±  Raine chuckled agreement as [Whirling Inferno Flash] sent her blinking forward at ever faster intervals.  Already she was starting to understand the nuances of the new Skill, the information not coming from some external source but just from her being able to recognize things she never had before.  Cato continued to act like a god, even if he didn¡¯t realize it.


    [Whirling Inferno Flash] wasn¡¯t merely a traversal from one point to another, it was a movement with inherent dance, something graceful and yet immediately part of combat.  Every step from it was to gain an advantage or dodge an attack, and even just traversing open air there was a feeling that certain particular steps were not only better than others, but exactly right.


    She was busy marveling at the new sensations when a vast roar suddenly boomed out far behind them, and she glanced back to catch a brief glimpse of something ascending to the heavens, a movement that would have been too fast for her before Platinum, and before Cato¡¯s upgrades.  Then they moved on, to the city and the portal offworld, where Raine found another surprise.


    She could see the future.


    It wasn¡¯t exactly that, but it was something close enough.  Just glancing at the motion of people gave her instant insight into how they were moving, where they were going, where their attention was.  She could suddenly both see and understand infinitesimal expressions, twitches of muscle ¨C even the motion of wind ¨C and put it all together to know everything that would happen a few seconds before it did.


    Somehow, implausibly, it wasn¡¯t too much information to handle.  Nor was it some visual overlay, just the same sort of understanding as measuring the distance and force of an attack in order to dodge or deflect it.  That, expanded to every single thing and person she saw.  There was a stir from the lower ranks as the two of them descended to land, drawing patterns outward as predicted behavior created possible futures in her head.


    ¡°We really need to hit that Bismuth dungeon and see what this is like,¡± Raine said, teleporting inside the Nexus and slipping through the portal there.  The two of them hopped from world to world as fast as they could, though at Platinum nobody was going to stop them, not even the cities that tried to tax portal access.


    Their target was a mid-Bismuth dungeon, something that was over twenty world-hops away, toward the inner worlds.  The inner worlds themselves were still off-limits, at least for the moment, as the pair wanted to be Bismuth themselves before they braved a region known to be frequented by Azoths ¡ª and they needed the artifacts that altered their status. Now that Cato had given them abilities that even Skills couldn¡¯t reproduce, that dungeon was almost certainly something they could clear.


    Leese¡¯s movement Skill upgraded not long afterward, and for similar reasons as Raine¡¯s, the two of them effortlessly sliding through space.  It was the sort of grace she had seen from Arene and Onswa, the fruit of decades or even centuries of experience with their Skills, but gained in only a few minutes.  The process was still ongoing too, an incredible level of feedback that didn¡¯t actually interfere with her habitual movements and muscle memory.  It was like with a single correction she¡¯d been doing it that way all her life.


    They would wait to actually replace their Skills until after fighting.  Not only did they need to decide what they most needed to shore up any weaknesses, but Yaniss had supplied information on Skill merging to let them build toward even better movement and weapon Skills.  With Cato¡¯s benefits and a Bismuth¡¯s knowledge, they could quite possibly have all their Skills at S-Tier while they were still in Bismuth, if not before.  As it was, they needed a good fight, and their target dungeon ought to provide it.


    The [Dungeon of The Abyssal Horde] was what seemed like an endless, pitch-black, blasted plain.  The frigid gravel wasteland was absolutely teeming with swarms of Bismuth-level creatures, each one a hulking figure somewhere between reptilian and insectoid, capable of hurling dark lightning and severing winds in addition to a horrific, corroding bite and wickedly sharp claws.  It wasn¡¯t possible to engage just one; the best scenario was a swarm of twenty or more, and it was frightfully easy for roaming packs to join in any fight.


    For most, it was a nightmare. For Raine and Leese, it was easy pickings.  Raine¡¯s [Whirling Inferno Flash] let her dance around the jagged, branching lightning before they even came into existence, able to predict the random-seeming forks after watching a few.  Leese simply breezed through them like a cold wind, sliding around anything in her path.


    Vulnerabilities and openings that she would have needed to react to before were obvious almost a full second in advance. That single second was an eternity in combat, and even longer for her as her thoughts were accelerated beyond what a Platinum usually could manage.  It was laughably easy to exploit every weakness, and she tore through the creatures with her obsidian and fire spear, finding herself back to the sort of overwhelming power she had come to expect.  Of course, the two of them still lacked the ability to project their power the way a true Bismuth could, but the multiplicative advantages from the gear they¡¯d spent so long getting stacked into far more potency than anyone at Platinum should possess.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go get those artifacts,¡± Raine said.


    ***


    Elder Nomok of the Tornok Clan was not happy.  There had been far too many losses on the fringe worlds ever since the Sydean portal closed, and he wasn¡¯t certain why.  The loss of such a well-connected Bismuth as Grand Paladin Nikhil was a blow, of course, though at least that had been easy enough to spin into a heroic sacrifice of closing off a world that needed a thorough cleansing.  Other attrition was harder to understand.


    Ranking up was not safe, of course, and indeed it shouldn¡¯t be.  The weak and stupid were culled by the System¡¯s testing, and those with no skill or talent were shown they were destined to remain at lower ranks. The heights were only for the exceptional and the gifted, like himself and the other Elders.


    All of them were Azoth, able to properly command the Bismuths that passed through the Tornok Clan¡¯s home worlds, just outside the core worlds proper.  More importantly, able to match the Azoths of other clan elders, and ensure the competition for territory and resources stayed within the proscribed bounds.  Of course an Alum would be able to upset all that ¡ª but Alums rarely ventured outside of the vast war-worlds of the core.  It was well known that Alums found the rest of the System to be insubstantial and ephemeral, unworthy of their consideration, and so there was no real worry of one arriving to upend the balance between the clans.


    At the same time, the Elders did have a farcaster that supposedly connected to a Tornok Clan Alum, somewhere in the core worlds, in the event of a dire emergency.  They had never dared use it, because short of another Alum they couldn¡¯t imagine anything they had encountered would count as dire for such an individual.  Nomok¡¯s current crisis, the disappearance of so many Platinum and lower-ranked parties, was something not even quite worth bestirring his own power to address.  A Bismuth would have been more appropriate, if he had one to hand he could trust with the task.


    ¡°Elder, we have a visitor that might be worthy of your attention.¡±


    The words of his retainer broke Nomok from his bad-tempered musing, and he turned from the balcony that looked out upon the massive gardens to regard the man.  The retainer was only Platinum, but exceedingly competent for the narrow field of managing Nomok¡¯s schedule.  Not that any person or event could truly make claims on Nomok¡¯s time, but he could hardly leave the current issue to the lower ranks.


    ¡°Elaborate,¡± Nomok instructed.


    ¡°A Peak Platinum, but one bearing a [Crusade] quest.  There are, in fact, quite a few Platinums with him.¡±  The retainer wasn¡¯t concerned about being threatened in general, but his posture told Nomok that the visitors had been well behaved.  ¡°He claims to have some knowledge both of Grand Paladin Nikhil and of the issue of our missing clan members.¡±


    Nomok¡¯s tail lashed in surprise, for there were two strange pieces in that report.  A [Crusade] was exceedingly rare ¡ª and exceedingly valuable.  Most quests could not be shared, could not spread, and certainly had no chance of reaching all the way to Alum.  A [Crusade], on the other hand, was a direct divine gift and, even if it demanded the utmost from those involved, was a surer way into the higher ranks than any other.  The patron gods of the Tornok Clan only offered such an opportunity on rare occasions, restricted to the most promising and even then only once every few generations.


    Someone else bearing such a valuable opportunity was worth his time indeed.  Then for the same individual to know about Tornok Clan¡¯s troubles was more than suspect, and certainly not coincidence.  It had to be cause and effect.


    ¡°Very well,¡± Nomok said, returning to his desk.  The office had a sort of severe opulence to it, and combined with his Azoth rank aura should be enough to ensure that the Platinum was sufficiently impressed.  Though perhaps he would not be, considering the [Crusade] quest ¡ª such a person, so closely connected to the gods, might see higher ranks as a simple goal, not an uncrossable gulf.  ¡°Send him in.¡±


    The retainer bowed and withdrew through the massive double doors, where Nomok sensed the teleportation pylon activating.  Such pylons were requisite, for he was almost halfway around the world from the capital¡¯s Nexus, where visitors were actually allowed.  The grounds for his personal branch of the clan occupied the entire continent, as the clan was hardly going to allow any outsiders to roam about their home unsupervised.  A short while later the pylon activated again, and Nomok used [Appraise] even if the visitor was not yet within sight.


    [Muar the Crusader ¨C Sydean ¨C Peak Platinum]


    The race was surprising, as Nomok had always heard that Sydeans were savages, barely more than animals, so for one to be god-touched was something indeed.  But the man¡¯s posture and the confidence with which he strode toward the doors demonstrated that he was perfectly self-possessed.  The retainer showed Muar in, and the Sydean walked forward to precisely the right distance and bowed.


    ¡°Honored Azoth,¡± Muar said, polite but not servile.


    ¡°Crusader Muar,¡± Nomok returned.  It wasn¡¯t so much the man himself that demanded respect ¨C after all, he was only Platinum ¨C but the title he carried.  ¡°I have been told you have certain information for me.¡±


    ¡°I do indeed,¡± Muar said, straightening up and looking at Nomok.  The Elder was forced to admit there was something in Muar¡¯s gaze that, even at his rank, commanded attention.  ¡°I will first ask, have you heard of the being that calls itself Cato?¡±


    What followed was a frankly unbelievable tale, one that Nomok would have grown tired with very quickly if it were not for the title and quest giving Muar¡¯s story legitimacy.  A threat from without the System ¨C one that had already killed both Clan Tornok Bismuths and Grand Paladin Nikhil ¨C that the gods themselves saw as a threat.  It did explain exactly why the Sydean portal closed, as even a Paladin didn¡¯t have that sort of authority.


    Nomok stopped Muar in the middle of his tale to issue orders that, should any other Sydeans cross into Clan Tornok worlds, they should be detained.  It was hardly likely, but in such a circumstance there was no need to observe any of the niceties of rank.  Better to simply obliterate any agent of Cato with overwhelming force.


    That simple action gave him the opportunity to accept the [Crusade] quest, which Nomok certainly did.  Such things did not come around often, and rejecting the direct urging of both the divine System and the gods themselves was a foolish move.  Besides which, the rewards of such a grand quest would be beyond measure, and even if Nomok had rejected taking the long climb toward Alum, there was no such thing as enough power.


    ¡°What about my other clan members?¡± He asked, not interested in the intricacies of Muar¡¯s journey to the inner worlds.  ¡°What might be going on there?¡±


    ¡°I did mention Dyen,¡± Muar said.  ¡°He also accepted Cato¡¯s heretical gifts, and while he was not a direct agent at the time, that is still a power beyond what should be possible at his rank, and a motivation directly opposed to your clan.  If Raine and Leese escaped Sydea before it was removed from the System, surely he did as well.  An elite fighter with a grudge, possibly even an assassin, would surely explain what has been happening.¡±


    ¡°It would indeed,¡± Nomok said, making another note.  Such an agent was far more difficult to track down than one might expect, but just knowing that there might be a rogue Sydean out for blood, one that was far more dangerous than he looked, would be knowledge sufficient to blunt most of the surprises such a person could create.  Being known was the worst thing that could happen to an assassin, and knowing the name of the agent made things even easier.  True, a member of the Assassin¡¯s Guild would have some measures against discovery, but every bit of knowledge made uncovering him easier.


    ¡°I commend you, Crusader Muar,¡± Nomok continued after a moment, considering the man before him.  ¡°You have spoken well and to the point, and the System itself gives assurance to your words.  I will certainly look into ensuring that this world is not vulnerable to anything that might spread into the space beyond the skies, and I can even offer you passage into the core worlds.¡±  That would be simple enough, and was in line with the [Crusade].  Better, it would spread the [Crusade] among others of the Clan, so even more could benefit from it.


    Considering Muar, he had a further thought.  At Peak Platinum, Muar was likely nearly ready for the transition to Bismuth ¡ª assuming he had a Feat of Glory to his credit.  Considering Muar¡¯s title, that seemed likely, so perhaps further ingratiation with both the plans of gods and the System¡¯s [Crusade] was in order.  Clan Tornok certainly had the resources for it.


    ¡°Tell me, Crusader Muar, are you ready for your ascension?  We have a place prepared for the Bismuth Ascension quest on our grounds, and I would be remiss if I did not offer you the opportunity to use it.  After all, you should be at least Bismuth before you enter the core worlds.  [Crusade] or no, you need to have true power before they will take you seriously.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Honored Elder,¡± Muar said, bowing once again.  ¡°I accept.¡±

 Chapter 12 — Annexation

    In a clearing in the middle of a Silver-rank conflict zone on the planet of Makel, an encampment of roving murderers and extortionists ceased to exist. They were removed, not by a higher rank ¨C though there were several on the planet ¨C or by a more moral group of adventurers. Instead, they were erased by a rain of projectiles traveling faster than the speed of sound, leaving behind only a blasted crater.


    Despite the grim solemnity of the task, Cato did take some satisfaction in executing people that he¡¯d caught murdering juveniles still in their Copper ranks, basically kids. He didn¡¯t know what their motives were, and he didn¡¯t care. Since he had the ability to take them to task, he did.


    His smaller railguns, the ones with a yield far below nuclear, were effective enough against the gold rank types and below. He could reach out and touch the worst offenders without having to be present himself, though Cato tried to restrict himself to only those performing the most blatant and obvious predation.


    On one world, he had removed a similar group ambushing and murdering or robbing people leaving a dungeon. On another, he¡¯d repeatedly eradicated a wandering elite that had a penchant for targeting the nearby lower-rank zone and those within it. Small touches like that he could manage, but little else until he was ready to make a larger move.


    By pure logic he shouldn¡¯t have even been doing the small things until he had thoroughly saturated System space, but pure logic hadn¡¯t driven him to invade the System to begin with. If he was the one who had to watch people fighting and dying, or being enslaved, or otherwise being abused, then would take any actions short of risking the greater campaign to help. It was all he could do.


    Until the System demanded more.


    ¡°Cato, we just got a quest,¡± Sili Kenek, n¨¦e Leese Haekos, reported from the surface of that world, one at the edge of the frontier but comfortably in the middle of his expansion, thirty or forty hops from Ikent and a few thousand light years toward the galactic rim in real space. ¡°There¡¯s a new world opening up.¡±


    ¡°What.¡± Cato¡¯s mind spun without catching for a few moments, the human frame sitting in the station on Haekos¡¯ largest moon blinking dumbly at the wall. Then he took a long breath. ¡°Is it to Ahrusk?¡±


    ¡°It says that the Gogri Portal Staging Area will be opening in three days,¡± Raine replied.


    ¡°Then we have three days to bring down the System here,¡± Cato said, starting a long series of commands to his industrial infrastructure above the planet. The vast majority of it was still tied up in the process of exponential growth. Mines fed factories to build more machines to disassemble more asteroids to feed more factories. Mass drivers hurled multi-ton projectiles through the vacuum, solar fields bloomed across millions of square miles, and the orbits just outside the planet¡¯s moon swarmed with specialized facilities. The outermost edges of his territory had very little beyond their initial infrastructure, but the worlds nearer the center of his expansion had fleets ready and waiting. Hundreds of thousands of warframes, supertankers of raw material, railgun platforms, and even a few particle beam weapons.


    The calculus balancing action against inaction held for the worlds that existed in a status quo, however much he disliked it. A brand new world was different. There was little to save on worlds that had been overrun by the System for thousands of years or more, but he would be damned if he was going to sit and watch some other planet suffer Earth¡¯s fate when he could intervene. He might be able to head off an entire apocalypse and keep some poor bastards from having all of reality ripped out from under them.


    If he had to justify it further, there was no way that any action against the System would go perfectly, and he¡¯d encounter things that needed to be changed, adjusted, or dealt with in better ways in the future, for larger campaigns. If there was no other reason, then this was a test run for a number of approaches that he could only plan and simulate, and needed now to test against reality. Unlike with Sydea, he¡¯d be able to keep transmitting the whole time until the portals went down, so the other versions of himself would actually benefit from the insight.


    Three days was barely enough time to get things moving. His military fleets alone would need at least a day to de-orbit from where they were parked, far enough away to avoid a potential retread of the Urivan solution. Mass drivers were light-hours away, around gas giants or seeded among asteroids and, while they retargeted their payloads and began sending packages toward Haekos, that cargo wouldn¡¯t arrive until things were well underway, serving as reinforcements.


    Factories retooled themselves, rebuilding material printers and chemical baths to churn out bioweaponry and orbital emplacements rather than more production capacity, and extra communications relays were launched into varying orbits. He double-checked the deep backup, hidden and quiescent out in the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud, tiny probes that could nonetheless rebuild from a disaster short of the System engulfing the entire heliosphere in its anti-technology reality.


    Raine and Leese joined him after a few hours, needing to find a spot to stow their System frames first. Though there was a good chance they wouldn¡¯t be using them for much longer, and they had avoided making any waves. Rather, they were masquerading as Peak Silvers under appropriate names for the amphibious, almost shark-like natives of the planet below.


    The natives weren¡¯t doing as poorly as the Sydeans had been, but he wouldn¡¯t exactly have called them thriving, either. Though it wasn¡¯t like he even considered the big clans to be prosperous, just the most successful crab in the bucket ¡ª a comparison that might have been in poor taste, considering Clan Mokrom¡¯s resemblance to the crustaceans in question.


    ¡°Do we even have the ability to deal with it in three days?¡± Raine looked over the timetables and deployment plans, some of which she ¨C or some version of her, anyway ¨C had a hand in designing. At the scale they were operating, just unloading cargo and weapons was a massive logistical challenge. ¡°It¡¯s going to be close,¡± she said, answering her own question as she examined their plans.


    ¡°It is,¡± Cato agreed grimly, sorting through the wargaming simulations for the ones that actually operated on such a short timescale. ¡°Do we know where the staging area is going to be? I suppose it doesn¡¯t matter too much, though,¡± he muttered. Three days to crash the System was a blitzkrieg; simultaneous assault, no buildup, no negotiations, no measured expulsion of outworlders.


    Then there was the cleanup and remediation, which was going to be even more frenzied than the actual fighting. He had to assume a total ecosystem collapse, up to and including the single-celled life responsible for producing oxygen. The System didn¡¯t really worry about such niceties ¨C it clearly regulated atmospheres, especially since the air didn¡¯t seem to leak through portals from one world to the next despite different pressures and compositions ¨C but the real world had to account for little things like breathing.


    ¡°I¡¯m most worried about the oceans,¡± Leese sighed, her virtual tail flicking back and forth. ¡°The coasts have a lot of obvious alteration, and I don¡¯t know what will happen when the System goes away. I wish we could have seen what happened with Sydea ¡ª though I guess Sydea didn¡¯t have as many changes as Haekos seems to.¡±


    ¡°Someone was always going to have to be first.¡± Cato flicked through the deployment options and finally selecting one. There was no point in dithering, and there weren¡¯t many choices to begin with. ¡°We just got unlucky.¡±


    Fusion engines lit, certainly visible from the surface, as heavily-armored transports moved into a closer orbit. There were thousands of them, though still only a tithe of what Cato would have preferred. Given a few more years of production he could have had ten times that number; a decade of buildup and he could have gotten into the thousands of times. After only five years on Haekos, he was still on the early end of the exponential curve.


    He made sure to send everything out through the radio network, which had grown fairly robust over the past five years. The fringe worlds still used FernNet rather than FungusNet, but the total bandwidth was slowly growing. It seemed to be consumed as fast as he could generate it, but for something like this all the ancillary messages could wait.


    The other versions of himself, or the other versions of Raine and Leese, weren¡¯t likely to be able to help directly, but FungusNet meant that they could still help. They could give him eyes and ears on worlds further up the chain, spotting any significant movement through the portals and giving him time to prepare for reinforcements or whatever else might be going on. Same with quests, and perhaps they could even provide distractions, depending on what happened, so all the nearby worlds started to move to a proper combat footing. Despite all the wargaming simulations, they¡¯d have to play a lot of it by ear.


    With only three of them ¨C Yaniss definitely was not involved in this operation ¨C there wasn¡¯t really a need for a real military structure. Most of the forces would be running on their own programming or by remote, despite being biological. Nevertheless, each of the three of them had their own area of expertise.


    Leese was less interested in the actual fighting than the brutal work of cleaning up the biological wreckage the System inflicted on its planets. Something Cato was grateful for, because that kind of repair was an utter slog. Raine had become more comfortable ¨C in sims, at least ¨C with acting as a commander-general for the swarm forces, all the thousands of tiny bio-drones. That freed Cato to take overall command, handle the orbital weaponry, and pilot any warframes that needed a delicate touch.


    There probably wouldn¡¯t be many of those. The hope was that they could hit things hard and fast enough to not need to engage any local forces, though that would be exceedingly difficult when it came to, for example, the Planetary Administrator Interface. Cato didn¡¯t know if the prior version of himself had been successful in cracking the intelligence out of the System construct, but considering how fast the portals had gone down it had been decided one way or another in short order.


    Messages flew thick and fast for the following hours, Catos far and wide preparing their forces as around Haekos massive craft fell inward toward the planet. Long-range surveillance coupled with the groundwork from Raine and Leese meant he had the exact location of every dungeon, and the towns were of course obvious. There were a good twenty Platinums around, including the local Planetary Administrator, and all of them earmarked for special attention.


    He didn¡¯t need to fight them, as such, merely keep them from interfering, and to that end had dredged up various non-lethal methods from the databanks. With a full analysis of their biology he could at least try to sneak around some of the protections the System granted, taking the same tack as forces up against warframes like the ones Cato tended to use. Rather than trying to damage the body, inconvenience the mind.


    Project Cringe had loaded the warframes with effects that would be absolutely horrible for Haekosians to experience. A stink so bad that it drove away all coherent thought; sounds like nails-on-chalkboard but a thousand times worse. Lights flashing at frequencies and in spectra to instantly nauseate and disorient the beholder.


    None of them were attacks as such. They didn¡¯t do damage, they didn¡¯t have any lasting effects. They were simply unbelievably harrowing to experience in the moment, as Cato could attest from actually inhabiting a Haekosian frame during testing. He doubted that he could render a Platinum fully unconscious, but he could at least drive them away from an area temporarily. The surprise would be as much a weapon as the experience itself.


    Cato flicked through the various tell-tales, sensor readouts, and condition reports ¡ª or at least one version of himself did, closeted away in a purpose-built virtual environment solely dedicated to monitoring the invasion effort. He would have vastly preferred a softer approach, and hated the idea of coming down on the world below with all the same consideration that the System had showed Earth. Yet he had been given no choice, and if he could manage to head off the death of millions or billions on whatever world the System was trying to annex, he would count that as a victory.


    He gave the order, and the campaign began.


    ***


    ¡°I¡¯m needing to cut off a world out on the fringes, so now might be a good time to run your Bismuth quest. If anything is going to distract the powers that be, it¡¯ll be this.¡±


    Raine twitched as Cato¡¯s voice sounded in her head unexpectedly, just as she was falling asleep. At Peak Platinum she didn¡¯t technically need much sleep, but after finishing a grueling Bismuth-ranked dungeon she certainly wanted it. So of course something would happen as she was lying down for the first time in a month.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on? Do you need us there?¡± She glanced over at Leese, who yawned and struggled upright.


    ¡°No, you need to stay well away. You¡¯re my vanguard; if you¡¯re caught up in any wars, then I¡¯ve already lost. If anything, now is when you need to be striking out as much as possible. Since I¡¯m going to be taking action, now is probably the best time to go deeper.¡±


    ¡°Then we¡¯d better do it,¡± Leese sent, rubbing at her eyes. ¡°We could use a few more bits of equipment, but we¡¯re probably better suited for ascension than anyone else at this point.¡±


    The past few years had been grueling, even with all their advantages. Less because of the danger of the fights than the sheer amount of time they¡¯d needed to spend in dungeons. Cato had referred to it as grinding, repeatedly fighting the same elites and guardians to seek uncommon gear. The sort that they wanted wasn¡¯t even often for sale, because few people sought out equipment that multiplied abilities, rather than added to them, and most people just turned it into the System pylons for tokens.


    Most people just didn¡¯t have the raw capability that an increase of ten to fifteen percent was worth it over the flat, direct boosts from more common equipment. After all their upgrades, it was the other way entirely for Raine and Leese, and after years of slowly accumulating useful gear they could blaze through High Bismuth dungeons. Not Peak Bismuth; area effects were still too powerful and they couldn¡¯t quite cross the gap, but fighting Bismuths at Platinum was nigh unheard-of to begin with.


    They had technically been ready for the ascension for over a year, but they¡¯d spent that time cutting a line out through the frontier worlds, spreading Cato¡¯s spears and searching for incremental equipment upgrades. Part of the delay was simply trying to get as many advantages as possible, but part of it was because they weren¡¯t sure how long it would take and that Bismuths wandering the frontier would stick out even more than Platinums.


    ¡°Time to go,¡± Raine said aloud, and pulled up the Bismuth Ascendance quest.


    [Ascend to Bismuth!


    Required Rank: Peak Platinum


    Feats of Glory: 1/1


    Dungeon Delves: 50/50


    World Elites: 75/75


    Current Task: Report to Bismuth Ascension Grounds. Nearest world: Akea]


    Ironically, it turned out their Feat of Glory was not related to delving above their rank at all. Instead, they had been granted it for surviving fifty assassination attempts by the Assassin¡¯s Guild. Nobody had tried to jump them since they hit Peak Platinum, but from their infrequent contacts with Dyen they knew the contract was still active. It had been upgraded to Bismuth-only after so many deaths trying to complete it, but they had also gotten the jewelry that altered the results of [Appraise].


    There were hardly any Sydeans out in the System, but at the same time most people didn¡¯t know what Sydeans looked like, so their cover identities simply used the species of a vaguely similar reptilian race from the world of Kellach. The differences weren¡¯t too obvious under their armor, and so long as they didn¡¯t run into anyone from Clan Kellach it would hold up to casual scrutiny.


    Raine was pretty certain that they¡¯d be able to spot and handle any assassins regardless. While most people relied on their perception Skills to track enemies, especially the ebb and flow of essence, the sensory capelet sprouting from her shoulders gave her a superior view of her surroundings compared to most Skills. Better, it benefitted from multiplier gear as well.


    She followed Leese out of their room, the two of them heading through the night for the Nexus portal to Akea. According to Yaniss there were easier and better Ascension Grounds in the inner worlds, but they didn¡¯t dare brave that before Bismuth. True, they still wouldn¡¯t be able to stand up against Azoths or Alums, but without direct clan backing the pair would not be welcome as mere Platinums.


    The Bismuth Ascension Grounds were on a remote mesa on Akea, not near any town, surrounded by a glowing dome that couldn¡¯t even by passed through by anyone below Peak Platinum ¡ª or above Low Bismuth. Crossing the boundary to the interior of the ground, she could see four circular metal frames, where portals might live, wrought out of copper, silver, gold, and platinum metals. Though Raine doubted the enemies within would correspond to the ranks.


    There was a pillar in the middle of the space bounded by the four portals, and as they approached two pedestals raised up, one for each of them. Each pedestal had a slot with a symbol inscribed on it, matching the one on the estate tokens they had received at Platinum. There was probably a benefit to not having used it yet, and she had no problem dropping it into the slot. Leese followed suit, and the copper frame lit, creating a portal within ¡ª and just as the System recognized Cato¡¯s invasion.


    [A Crusade!


    An enemy of the System has been spotted on a far distant world. All those who dare should make their way to Haekos, and destroy the invader.


    Rewards: Variable]


    The notification appeared only a few moments after they had used their tokens, and considering how far they were from Haekos Raine imagined the Crusade quest had popped up everywhere. Or at least, the entire region, perhaps stretching all the way from the frontier to the core worlds. She¡¯d heard snippets about the Crusade quest, and though nobody seemed to be doing anything about it, clearly some of the gods realized Cato was still about.


    But dealing with the gods was Cato¡¯s problem. He could clearly deal with divinity, so it was best if she and Leese ignored the entire thing and focused on what was important: getting stronger and preparing the way. The two of them readied their weapons and stepped through into a blazing desert landscape.


    [Bismuth Ascension Grounds: Copper Trial


    Skill and equipment strength restricted to Copper.


    Choose four Skills. All others will be locked for the duration of the trial]


    Raine almost laughed. The restriction would probably have been troublesome for most Platinums, having to remember how to fight as a far weaker version of themselves, but neither she nor Leese had been Platinum for all that long. Besides, with all of Cato¡¯s augmentations they were far, far more powerful than any normal Copper would be.


    She just selected her Platinum Skills, then went through a quick stretch and series of weapon movements as her combat algorithms adapted. Beside her, Leese did the same, the two of them taking a moment to acclimate as they eyed the surroundings. There was no real cover, just low dunes, but she wasn¡¯t worried. The way they were now, they could probably deal with Golds with their Copper-rank strength.


    A hissing noise and shifting sands preceded the sudden appearance of a horde of Copper-ranked scorpions, a black tide rushing in toward them. Raine switched her weapon¡¯s form to a broad-bladed poleaxe, almost smirking as she regarded the incoming swarm. This was going to be fun.


    The ensuing slaughter was relatively simple, but stretched on and on. The corpses melted into the sands in moments, preventing them from piling into a mounded wall around the pair as they easily cut through the endless waves. Minutes ticked by, and suddenly the scorpions pulled away, vanishing back among the dunes as something far larger made the sand tremble underfoot. A single enormous specimen burst forth from below, towering over them as it readied its claws.


    They unceremoniously dispatched it in a matter of seconds.


    Raine doubted that the entire Ascension trial would be so easy, but the System was clearly not designed for what Cato had given them. They weren¡¯t even winded after destroying the first guardian, and were more than ready by the time the second wave began, this one of hook-beaked birds. Each wave was not much more difficult than the last, though they differed drastically in the type of fight. Birds, monsters with pikes and spiked balls, stone golems, sand elementals ¡ª each one required a different approach, but with the same small set of Skills. It was obvious what kind of lessons the trial was trying to test, but they had more than enough experience and the combat algorithms besides.


    ¡°I wonder about the other Earthers,¡± Leese said, following the same train of thought as the Copper trial ended. They were awarded no essence or loot drops save a single token to open the Silver trial. ¡°If they all found it this easy, or maybe even easier.¡±


    ¡°Probably,¡± Raine agreed as they stepped through the portal that had appeared. ¡°The System must be an entirely different experience for them. Take a break here?¡±


    ¡°A short one,¡± Leese agreed, stretching and flexing her fingers. The Copper trial had taken most of a day, and the higher rank ones would probably take even longer, but that was not so great an imposition. They were restored to Platinum strength the moment they left the trial grounds, and at Platinum they could go for ages without sleep. At Bismuth, they¡¯d technically never need it again.


    Raine broke out some of Cato¡¯s special rations, heating up a hearty stew for both of them as she glanced over her status. There was no further update to the Crusade quest, but it had been less than a day. Whatever happened, it would probably be resolved before they finished their Ascension.


    ***


    ¡°That¡¯s definitely Cato,¡± Marus Eln said grimly, glancing over the shoulder of Lakor Eln, a very far distant cousin and the World Deity of Haekos. Annoyingly, he had to share the space with Oran Lundt, a particularly hard-carapaced dullard of the lamentable Lundt clan. Marus didn¡¯t quite follow all the wrangling that had occurred at the highest echelons of the clans, but he¡¯d been saddled with the brute for this annexation. The new world was to be a joint venture, and Marus had no idea how that was supposed to work but he¡¯d have to deal with it.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t look very¡­¡± Oran trailed off as the few things falling from the sky multiplied from tens to hundreds to thousands. Then even more, all over the planet. ¡°I stand corrected,¡± Oran rumbled, shifting his four armored legs. ¡°That is quite an impressive force.¡±


    ¡°Here,¡± Marus said, offering Lakor the memory crystal copied from Initik, the one that had the precise signature of Cato¡¯s creations. ¡°Best to destroy them before they can start to spread.¡±


    ¡°Yes, but¡­¡± Lakor said, accepting the crystal and letting his fingers play over the Interface. ¡°The cost to destroy all this is already close to bankrupting the world reserves.¡±


    ¡°Better that than losing the world entirely,¡± Marus said. ¡°We can¡ª¡± He stopped as the Interface displayed a quest notification, one that would make their lives much easier.


    [A Crusade!


    An enemy of the System has been spotted on a far distant world. All those who dare should make their way to Haekos, and destroy the invader.


    Rewards: Variable]


    Marus had no idea where a Crusade quest had come from ¨C they weren¡¯t exactly common, for a variety of reasons ¨C but it seemed that fate and the System were on their side. A frontier world such as Haekos had very few powerful mortals, but the Crusade quest would certainly bring in more. Better, the defenses and the quest rewards wouldn¡¯t be coming out their pockets.


    ¡°Destroy what you can,¡± Marus suggested, eyeing the quest. ¡°It¡¯ll make it easier when the reinforcements arrive, and we can empower them. More efficient than trying to erase all this directly.¡±


    ¡°I still don¡¯t like it,¡± Lakor said with a grimace, but pressed his hand against the Interface. A wave of divine light rolled over Haekos, and all of Cato¡¯s forces that were on the ground suddenly dissolved in a wash of gold. It would have been entirely satisfying to see the result of that divine intervention if that had been all ¡ª but the forces kept coming.


    ¡°Where is this all coming from?¡± Lakor said as, five minutes later, the hundreds of thousands of creatures Lakor had vaporized were replaced by more coming down from the heavens.


    ¡°If we¡¯re to believe what Cato has said, from outside the System.¡± Marus was secretly glad he¡¯d left Sydea before he¡¯d had to deal with that level of invasion. Weapons that could hurt gods were bad enough, but being able to summon enough warriors to blanket an entire world was its own kind of power. ¡°Scry the skies and we might see something.¡±


    Lakor grunted and manipulated the scrying, changing from all the various cities and towns to looking upward at the sky on the night half of the planet. For a moment, there seemed to be nothing but stars and the dark silhouettes of descending forces. Then they saw that the stars were moving, the entire heavens seeming to swirl. Lakor waved a hand, trying to expand the view, but even ten times closer, a hundred times, they didn¡¯t resolve to more than points of light. Some appeared, some vanished, but they had to be further away than Haekos¡¯ moon if they stayed so insubstantial.


    The scry suddenly caught on a descending construct, a dark bulbous pod that would be difficult to spot with low-rank, mortal eyes, for it had very little essence in it. It streaked down through the air, fire boiling from the underside, until it reached a certain point where it seemed to puff into vast gossamer sheets. Dark hexapedal creatures clung to the thin strands like seeds of an exceedingly strange plant, waiting until the headlong plunge had slowed before dropping the remaining few hundred feet to the ground.


    Alongside the Crusade was the defense quest that Marus was all too familiar with, one that would be a boon for a world if Cato were less of a threat. For any mortal foe, Lakor¡¯s divine intervention would have been enough, even if high-rank mortals couldn¡¯t handle it themselves. But Cato could hurt a god, which meant that wherever he lurked, he had the essence of a god as well.


    ¡°We may have to ask our clans for extra essence,¡± Marus half-suggested, though he didn¡¯t know if they¡¯d actually get such an allowance. He knew his father had already stretched a point to give Marus another chance, and he doubted many would think that defending a frontier world, or a newly annexed one, was worth spending too much.


    ¡°What I want to know,¡± Oran rumbled. ¡°How did he know to come here? Clearly this Cato has been building up his forces for some time, but nobody outside our clans knew there was to be an annexation, let alone when and where. The mortal races were only informed a day ago, but what we see is more than the work of a single day.¡±


    ¡°He seems to be from outside the System,¡± Marus started, and Oran shrugged.


    ¡°Maybe. Probably. Some sort of [Tamer] class, it looks like, and if he isn¡¯t using our transport network, then he has his own.¡± He waved at the sky visible in Lakor¡¯s scry. ¡°Somewhere out there. That still doesn¡¯t explain how he clearly knew beforehand.¡±


    Marus grunted, hating to concede the point, but it was a worrisome item. Cato obviously had forces beyond what even a normal [World Deity] would be able to conjure, but the fact that he had brought them all to this specific world implied some subversion deep within the System¡¯s core. Either that or he could move all his beasts at a moment¡¯s notice, but if that was true, why hadn¡¯t he moved before? No, clearly he had some interest in annexations.


    ¡°Perhaps¡­¡± he said aloud. ¡°Perhaps the annexations are infringing upon this Cato¡¯s territory ¡ª or his master¡¯s. He may have known because he sensed the System moving upon Gogri.¡±


    ¡°Heresy,¡± snorted Lakor. ¡°All the highest level divines hold that the System creates these worlds for us.¡±


    ¡°Which means it created Cato, too.¡± Marus pointed out the obvious logical loophole.


    ¡°The System gives us tests,¡± Lakor said stubbornly. ¡°If this Cato believes he is defending his territory, is that any different than any other monster or world elite or dungeon guardian the System creates?¡±


    Marus swallowed his objections, finding it hard to argue with Lakor¡¯s logic. He didn¡¯t believe it, deep down, not after seeing Cato use something that bypassed divine protection without divine essence, but it was indeed hard to believe there was really something outside the System¡¯s aegis. So far as he knew, such challenges were reserved for mortals and not for gods, but he wouldn¡¯t presume to say he understood everything the System did.


    ¡°The origin doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Oran Lundt said, rumbling from beneath his carapace. ¡°What matters is whether we can defeat him.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Lakor said. ¡°What matters is whether we can earn more from defeating him than what we spend to do it.¡±

 Chapter 13 — Flashpoint

    ¡°Oh, heck.¡±


    Cato¡¯s human frame felt like he¡¯d been punched in the gut when he saw a full ten percent of his forces vaporized in a single instant. It was exactly the same thing that had happened on Uriva, and while he¡¯d always known such a response was possible he¡¯d hoped that the technique was limited. After all, the few times he¡¯d needed to use System-jamming biotechnology, it hadn¡¯t provoked that level of response.


    He had planned for it though, so he simply slapped metaphorical buttons to cancel the deployment of all the bioweaponry still in distant orbit. There was nothing he could do about the forces on ballistic trajectories down into the atmosphere, and he¡¯d lose another ten percent just from that. Not that they were deaths, but that was all biomass that couldn¡¯t be used in the future. Worse, he¡¯d have to deal with things in a far more heavy-handed manner. He couldn¡¯t just leave a new planet to the System¡¯s apocalyptic arrival. Billions of lives might be on the line.


    Yet as the next wave fell into the atmosphere, nothing happened. The warframes and support biologics passed into System territory unmolested and intact. He stared for a moment, then scrambled to un-cancel the fleet movements he¡¯d just canceled, because if they were going to give him an opening he¡¯d take it.


    ¡°I wonder if that¡¯s a limitation or they just think it¡¯s not worth doing again,¡± Raine mused. In fact, most of the forces that had been destroyed were ones under her control. ¡°How long is the cooldown on divine Skills like that? Or maybe it¡¯s a cost issue? It¡¯s not like divine intervention is common.¡±


    ¡°Exceedingly rare, in fact,¡± Yaniss said. This version of her was being allowed to watch what was going on ¡ª but Cato had restricted her use of the fungal radio network for the moment. Not only because he needed all that bandwidth himself, but also because he didn¡¯t quite trust her commitment to operational security. ¡°They usually work through divine classes and quests.¡±


    They were all sharing a compound reality, part virtual and part real, so he could see her body language easily enough as she ruffled her feathers in thought. She didn¡¯t seem too put out by the restrictions, certainly less than Cato was. While bandwidth wasn¡¯t exactly sustenance for digital life, it was damned close and cutting people off even for good reason disturbed him in ways that were difficult to articulate. But he didn¡¯t have infinite resources and infinite goodwill to play with, so he had to put restrictions in someplace.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t the usual situation though,¡± Cato sighed. ¡°I¡¯m an outside threat, so there¡¯s the possibility that whatever rules they play by will be suspended. Essence is weird and I might have to worry about running up against nearly infinite energy. I know each planet is separate, so it might not be that bad, but the worst case scenario was really bad.¡± The energies he was contemplating scaled all the way up to planet-cracking levels, and he really did not want to face the awful possibility of needing to kill millions of innocents on some world to save billions of innocents in the long run, in the remainder of the System and whatever worlds it targeted in the future.


    ¡°I think you¡¯re putting too much trust in your simulations,¡± Raine said bluntly. ¡°Even if it might be that you can stop entropy with enough essence, I¡¯ve never seen anything even measuring up to what you do. Maybe there¡¯s something in the inner or core worlds, but now that I¡¯m out of it ¡ª the gods seem like administrators. They can do a lot, but they aren¡¯t omnipotent.¡±


    ¡°If I can exhaust their resources that would make things so much easier for me,¡± Cato acknowledged, watching the warframes descend through the atmosphere of Haekos toward their hundreds of targets.


    ¡°Even if they have infinite resources, it doesn¡¯t seem to be infinite everywhere. We¡¯ve already shown that. Essence may well make more of itself, and the System might be able to just remove matter from existence ¡ª¡± Cato growled, surprising himself with how much such a thing bothered him and needing a moment to suppress his outrage. ¡°Slow attrition doesn¡¯t work. But it looks like I can scale faster than the System. Certainly I can print a warform faster than it takes to go from Copper to Silver to Gold, or build a particle beam faster than the System can elevate a Bismuth.¡±


    ¡°Then we move to operations based on overwhelming mass,¡± Raine half-asked, and Cato nodded agreement.


    ¡°We¡¯ll shift the simulations in that direction, figure out ways to make them spend their energy on dead mass. And I¡¯ll crank the factories all the way up.¡±


    The original deployment simulations had anticipated upwards of ninety percent losses, and the new ones were looking even worse. But in the end, it was merely mass, and he had a lot of that to throw at problems. They couldn¡¯t replace it all instantly, but the extraction operations spread throughout the star system were supplying raw materials to the bioforges sitting in a distant orbit beyond the moon. He was getting several thousand tons per day, though unfortunately they didn¡¯t have enough time for that sort of supply chain to really come into its own. There was less than sixty hours remaining, and every single minute of that needed to be targeted at Haekos¡¯ System.


    If the gods saw fit to leave the defenses to the individuals, that was fine with him. He¡¯d take that mistake, since they didn¡¯t seem to be hardening Cato¡¯s true targets, either out of ignorance or inability. The longer they took to address that deficiency, the more effective he could be and the longer he¡¯d have to evolve strategies and counter-strategies. At the same time, the gods were the ones who were ultimately responsible and deserved to bear the brunt of Cato¡¯s efforts, while all the folks on the ground were victims of the apparatus. That stuck him with trying to prosecute as nonlethal a war as he could manage, something that made every objective far more difficult than it would be otherwise.


    He took command of one of the backup warframes aimed at the capital city, one of the five ton models that was more capable of getting inside the System buildings. The spun-graphene drogue chute anchored directly to the warframe¡¯s bones caught the air, slowing him down just enough to avoid injury before specialized enzymes severed those connections to let him freefall the remaining distance.


    The city below was hardly unaware of the deluge from the sky; beyond the standard defense quest there was some sort of Crusade quest, a word that translated perfectly between System-speak and Cato¡¯s native tongue. Fortunately, the lower ranks ¡ª Copper, Silver, and Gold ¡ª didn¡¯t pose too much threat to the actual war-machines. Leese had spent the time to come up with a number of nonlethal toxins appropriate for the Haekos natives in addition to the other discombobulators, ones that would still apply to some extent at the lower ranks, and Raine had free reign to apply them en masse.


    Years ago he might have worried about letting someone raised in the System have the keys to hundreds of thousands of killing machines, simply because their instincts were far more ruthless. It was not an insult to say they had been raised in a world where killing was not only expected, it was required, so their perspective on appropriate force was necessarily askew from his. But time and distance from that life had given Cato confidence in their judgement ¡ª in fact, it might be better than his in some instances, as the sisters were better able to appraise the true threat of people.


    Skills lashed out from the city below, bolts and beams in a variety of colors, some splashing against the deluge of bioengineered, fullerene-laced armor, others actually punching through. Far above, computronium ran combat algorithms on the thousands of sensor feeds, and the few System types with properly dangerous Skills were preferentially targeted. For most of them he had the right biological analysis to instantly paralyze or render insensate anyone of lower rank, but even for those he didn¡¯t, he had the sheer weight of biomatter to render problematic individuals helpless in a System-jamming cocoon.


    Even where he didn¡¯t have clever solutions, the new doctrine of overwhelming mass meant that he could drown the actions of any low rank individual in the tide of bodies. He was sure it was a horror show from the ground, with thousands of creatures falling from the sky, every single one of which was wholly unknown. To those on the ground, every single one of those refused to be classified under their known reality, the simple reflex action of [Appraise] failing to give any useful information.


    Just before impact, one of the higher ranks below managed to damage the warframe he¡¯d chosen to the extent that he couldn¡¯t use it, and he hopped to a different one, somewhat annoyed that random sniping had managed to target his frame in particular. Seconds later, the brand-new frame smashed down onto the Nexus of the capital city, in the middle of a number of Gold-rank defenders.


    Immediately he, and all the other nearby warframes, emitted the tones that he¡¯d determined were the most damaging psychologically. As he¡¯d hoped, all the Haekos natives recoiled, struck by an attack completely ungoverned by the System. After all, while the sounds were horribly and viscerally disturbing, they did no damage. The stinkbombs could wait for a moment, since he needed to drive the Platinum out of his office.


    Raine and the oversight algorithms located the exterior door on the Nexus tower, and he leapt the short distance, claws first. Five tons of bioweapon backing monomolecular blades shredded the door ¨C which still was tougher than it should have been, thanks to the System ¨C and Cato burst into an office that looked remarkably like the one back on Sydea. The decorations were different, but certain aspects seemed to be standard, including the interface.


    The Planetary Administrator reacted the moment Cato appeared, a narrow beam of water extending from his fingertip and punching straight through the warframe. It destroyed five separate organs and two sub-brains, but such things weren¡¯t actually lethal for the bioweapons and he was still able to spit small, gel-like ampoules from the warframe¡¯s tendrils. They didn¡¯t hit the Platinum, but they weren¡¯t aimed at him. Instead, they impacted the walls and floor and burst, releasing a specially formulated, aerosolized chemical at a temperature slightly above ambient.


    It was invisible in the common wavelengths, but quite opaque at the proper infrared, boiling out like smoke and flooding the room. It would take time to truly suffuse the office, but like some of the incredibly nasty chemicals humanity had worked with, it only took a trace amount to have an effect. Stochastic diffusion meant that those traces spread with baffling speed, and only a moment after the stinkbombs popped the Haekos-clan Platinum choked and groaned, toothy face twisting in a grimace of unrivaled disgust.


    ¡°By the gods, what ¡ª hurk!¡± The man could barely keep his feet, and Cato backed the warframe away from the door to give the Platinum an avenue to escape the tainted room. A fraction of a second later, the poor guy shot out of the door at supersonic speed, looking green around the gills. An aphorism that was a bit more literal than usual, given their physiology. He made it maybe a hundred feet or so before losing his lunch.


    As awful as the experience seemed, it was better than being forced to actually kill the guy. Cato sent another warframe into the office, one with the mindripper tools. The mindripper hardware was mostly composed of several hundred simple false minds with a single essence perception Skill each, awarded from abusing the defense quest, all hooked up to a high bandwidth link to orbit.


    If the Interface were strictly a computer, getting it to respond without proper authorization would have been impossible. All he would have been able to map would be the authentication protocols. But Interfaces were active, aware, alert, and it certainly was aware of a few hundred pounds of System-defying biomatter flopping down on top of it. He rattled off half a hundred orders that he¡¯d gotten from Onswa in quick succession ¡ª not that he expected it to actually respond to him, but the more data he forced it to process, the better.


    Leaving the process running, he skipped to another warframe, one that had landed closer to where the Platinum was still dry-heaving outside the office. It had been maybe three seconds since he¡¯d launched the stink attack, and half of the biowarfare frames were still falling from the sky. A silver dome suddenly snapped into existence, but it didn¡¯t affect any of his warframes; presumably, it was an anti-monster defense and Cato¡¯s creations were not monsters.


    ¡°Platinum Sekhel!¡± He shouted over the sound of so many Skills being used at once. Most people nearby were still focused on the sky, or the warframes nearest them, but he wanted to at least say something before one of the defenders tried sniping his chosen frame. ¡°I am not here to harm you or yours, but I cannot allow the portal to Gogri to open.¡±


    Sekhel straightened, spitting once more and taking a deep breath, the amphibious native half-glaring, half-staring at Cato¡¯s frame. Cato didn¡¯t really expect much; he hadn¡¯t had the time to make peaceful contact or lay any groundwork. What he wasn¡¯t expecting was for Sekhel to simply gesture incredulously around at the combat raging all over the city ¡ª which was fair enough.


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    ¡°I¡¯m not actually hurting anyone,¡± he said, though it probably didn¡¯t look that way, with some of the Coppers and Silvers cocooned in system-jamming biomatter already. ¡°Unfortunately you¡¯ve gotten caught in a war, but after it¡¯s all over I¡¯ll need you to take back control.¡± The middle of a fight was no time to be reasoning with the Platinum, but better to plant the seeds early.


    ¡°I¡¯d never work with a demon!¡± Sekhel spat, and flicked his webbed hands. A spiral thread of water lashed out a net of corroding liquid, and Cato abandoned the warframe as it was diced into pieces. Having the luxury of disposable bodies made dealing with intractable System folk so much easier, but Sekhel¡¯s words bothered Cato.


    He had never maintained the illusion that he could peacefully convert every ¨C or even any ¨C world within the System, but he did have to somehow manage to deal with the world after he cut them off. Now that he was faced with severing a world where the primary powers were going to be entirely hostile to him, he didn¡¯t know what he was going to do. People who fully believed that they were ruled by some foreign demon would, entirely reasonably, do all in their power to resist. Up to and including destroying infrastructure meant to keep them alive.


    Killing their god wasn¡¯t going to help with that, either. Clearly the Sydean version of himself had managed it, which meant the plan roughly worked. Destroy enough System infrastructure and the System-god was forced to manifest to personally protect the last few anchors; at least, that was what had happened on Earth. He had particle beams ready and waiting for such an eventuality, though he actually intended to break the city anchors earlier and leave some easily-evacuated towns as the bait anchors. The collateral damage from a particle beam weapon was not kind to anything near the impact site.


    Unfortunately, it seemed he was the only one concerned about collateral damage. Already offworlders were pouring through the portals, and none of them showed any interest in working with the natives. A dark-furred, almost bestial pseudo-canine Platinum emerged from the Nexus, glanced around, and started to unleash waves of barbed chain. In a matter of moments it had tangled everything within a hundred feet, digging into warframe and defender alike and painting the streets with the blood Cato had been trying to avoid spilling.


    Cato flagged it for Raine and the combat algorithms, but they were way ahead of him. A number of warframes tried to engage the Platinum with their light-gas guns, but that was mostly just a distraction. The sudden assault kept the Platinum pinned down, staying in the same place long enough for a low-yield rail flechette to thunder down from the sky, a full thirty seconds later. It wasn¡¯t the megaton-styled yields he¡¯d used to deal with Bismuths, but the saturation fire was enough to send deafening shockwaves through the city ¡ª and leave very little remaining of the intruding Platinum.


    Unfortunately, he very much doubted anyone would recognize exactly why that particular individual had deserved a lethal response, not in the middle of a pitched battle. One that he was slowly winning, though one he was willing to lose if it was necessary to preserve the life of innocents ¡ª including the Interface. It was difficult not to be the victor when he had ten times the mass of his opponents in weaponry, but no high ranks had yet arrived. Hopefully he could move fast enough that very few of them would.


    ***


    ¡°Cato has appeared on Haekos.¡±


    Initik regarded Mii-Es, reflecting that this was the first time anyone had come to him with news ¡ª at the very least the first time in the past several hundred years. It was certainly the first time anyone else seemed to be interested in Cato. Apparently Mii-Es had taken the warning more seriously than he¡¯d first thought.


    ¡°That is ill news indeed,¡± Initik said, summoning a seat and refreshment for Mii-Es with a wave of his hand. He was almost tempted to turn the weather of his personal space stormy to match his mood, but it was just a passing fancy. ¡°How did you find out?¡±


    ¡°A [Crusade] was called in this entire area,¡± Mii-Es replied, conjuring a map of System Space and waving her hand at a segment not too far distant from his own ¡ª but still quite a few nodes distant. Initik knew that the [Crusade] had to stem from his quest to Muar, yet he hadn¡¯t been included in the call. Perhaps that was for the best, as he wouldn¡¯t wish to send his people into the absolute disaster Haekos was certain to be.


    ¡°Ah,¡± Initik said, flexing his gripping claws. ¡°Unfortunately, I have no contacts in that area.¡±


    ¡°Actually, I didn¡¯t even hear of it from other deities,¡± Mii-Es admitted. ¡°I¡¯ve been keeping a close eye on my traitorous little bird, and she knew of it right away.¡±


    Initik grunted. Personally he would have removed the Bismuth himself, and immediately, rules be damned. He used essence directly so much that he didn¡¯t need access to all of his Deity perks at all times, though he believed a [Crusade] did loosen the restrictions somewhat. But keeping her under surveillance and finding out more about Cato¡¯s activities was an acceptable alternative.


    ¡°There¡¯s something even more interesting, darling,¡± Mii-Es said, eyes sparkling as she sipped from the narrow, fluted spout of her glass. ¡°Your friend Marus Eln is in attendance ¡ª apparently he is to take control of the new world the System is connecting there.¡±


    ¡°Surely not coincidence,¡± Initik said, though he was not referring to Marus. Cato had come from without the System, and despite the glimpses of his presence here and there, Initik had not seen or heard of more than that. That their enemy had revealed himself at the site of a new world was certainly not coincidence, though Initik couldn¡¯t say what precisely that connection meant. ¡°Perhaps I should visit.¡±


    ¡°The clans aren¡¯t going to like you intruding on their business,¡± Mii-Es warned him. ¡°Even if they are doing poorly. Especially if they are doing poorly.¡±


    ¡°I have weathered their displeasure before,¡± Initik said dryly. None of them had enough spine to actually try to fight him, and since he lacked interests outside his own world there was very little pressure they could apply. ¡°I would far rather that I offer some advice than leave it to people like Marus Eln.¡±


    ¡°Why, one might think you didn¡¯t believe in your fellow deities!¡± Mii-es tittered, an orange tongue flicking out to lick a drop of liquor from her beak. ¡°By all means, let us see how things are proceeding,¡± she said, shamelessly inviting herself along. Initik didn¡¯t mind; despite her demeanor Mii-Es was not actually a fool. She had managed to almost fight him to a draw, and while he had of course won in the end, it showed she was more formidable than most. She might possibly have something useful to contribute.


    Initik rose and conjured an exit to the in-between space of the System, the vast network that connected World Deities both to each other and to the mortal plane. Haekos was not a world he was immediately familiar with, but his Interface gave him the precise location in the vast panoply of the System¡¯s sprawl. He stepped into the currents of essence that flowed between them, hopping across all the dozens of worlds between Uriva and Haekos.


    He fetched up at a System Space that was very clearly of Clan Eln, with the tasteless, pristine opulence that was favored in the core worlds. While it was tempting to simply bypass the protections, he wanted to keep his presence legitimate ¡ª and he was well aware of Mii-Es behind him, who would no doubt be quite interested in his techniques. He certainly didn¡¯t want to share that sort of thing with a gossip like her.


    Instead he politely notified the owner of the space he was there and only moments later was let into what could best be described as a war room. The walls were filled with scrying images of various parts of the planet, with three deities gathered around an Interface projection of the essence flow on the planet. A list of the highest-ranked mortals hung unsupported off to one side, flickering as new forces arrive and departed. Or were killed.


    ¡°You!?¡± Marus Eln stared at Initik, then shook his head. ¡°Of course it¡¯s you. I hope you have something useful to contribute.¡±


    ¡°Check the moon,¡± Initik responded promptly, slipping into fast-time to take in all that was going on. If what had happened on Sydea was alarming, Haekos was downright apocalyptic. There were tens of thousands of Cato-creatures on the ground, more arriving from the air, and already a number of dungeons had been destroyed.


    Eliminating a dungeon was not generally done, given the heavy penalties levied on anyone who did so. But it did happen on occasion when a dungeon was particularly problematic or useless, in hopes that the next one would be an improvement. Wholesale annihilation was new, and it clearly wasn¡¯t simply opportune. With such deliberate targeting, Initik had to conclude Cato either had some personal grudge, or he needed to eliminate the dungeons. Of the two, he thought the latter was more likely.


    ¡°Suspend your dungeons,¡± he added, while the other Eln scrambled to redirect one of the scrying views to the moon above. The silvery-blue orb didn¡¯t show any signs of the rot that characterized Cato¡¯s presence ¡ª but then, his own moons hadn¡¯t either, as Cato had built them on the far side. Without stretching the System out there, even gods couldn¡¯t tell if there was some infestation. There were swarms of lights near the moon, but they were merely one tiny part of what seemed to be a complete englobement.


    ¡°Do my what?¡± The other Eln ¨C Lakor, according to [Appraise] ¨C blinked at Initik, and he had to wonder what kind of training the Eln clan actually give. Though admittedly, he couldn¡¯t think of a single normal reason to suspend dungeons, and had only come across the option while digging through his Interface to understand the essence flows better. Instead of answering, Initik conjured a memory crystal with the instructions and flipped it to the deity.


    Shutting down dungeon portals was a strictly temporary measure. They were an essential part of the massive essence management system of each world, both creating and regulating essence, and so the costs for sequestering them were fairly usurious. But it might at least stymie Cato¡¯s push, and give them more time. Time to come up with better solutions, ones that didn¡¯t involve the destruction of half the planet.


    The third deity, the crustacean-like Lundt Clan member who had remained so far silent, was quicker on the uptake. He brought up the list of dungeons with his own Interface, displaying how many had already been destroyed as wordless evidence of what Initik was advising. Even if they managed to fend Cato off, it would take quite a while for the planet to recover.


    ¡°Very well, fine,¡± Lakor Eln said, and turned to his Interface, clumsily going through the steps required to suspend the dungeons. Initik itched to do it himself, but this was not his System Space. Unless he was willing to show more cards than he preferred, he wasn¡¯t capable of using another deity¡¯s Interface.


    ¡°This is more than I expected, even with your warnings,¡± Mii-Es murmured, her voice sounding in Initik¡¯s ears despite the fact that she¡¯d drifted forward to examine the various scries, lingering especially on the one with many tiny dots drifting across the face of the moon. ¡°How was he able to summon all these creatures?¡± Her voice was louder that time, projected to everyone. ¡°Only the core world deities would have the essence for this spread of forces.¡±


    ¡°Whatever Cato is, it seems best to treat him exactly like he is a core deity,¡± Initik said grimly. ¡°Perhaps something even more dangerous. He has power I don¡¯t quite understand, and dare not underestimate.¡± Lakor sneered at that, but Marus smacked his tail against the ground in agreement.


    ¡°Somehow he can hide his essence,¡± Marus said. ¡°Or he uses some different version of essence we¡¯re not used to. Either way he¡¯s far more powerful than it may seem. And he¡¯s already powerful enough to blanket the planet with creatures.¡±


    ¡°So what?¡± Lakor scoffed. ¡°It¡¯s impressive, I¡¯ll grant you, but they¡¯re not doing much.¡±


    ¡°Do you have any idea how hard it is to fight non-lethally?¡± Mii-Es demanded, waving at the scrying images. ¡°He¡¯s subduing most of these mortals! Not all of them, but he¡¯s taken thousands prisoner. Tens of thousands!¡±


    ¡°Tens of thousands of Coppers and Silvers,¡± Lakor said dismissively, but the Lundt Clan shook his carapaced head slowly.


    ¡°They¡¯re more fragile, easier to damage,¡± he said, voice a grinding rumble. ¡°If anything, being able to gauge force so precisely is more impressive.¡±


    ¡°The question is why he¡¯s holding back.¡± Initik studied the scrying displays, eyes flicking from one to the other, trying to find something useful among all the noise. Even if gods could see anything they wished, that hardly helped when there was no telling where they should look. ¡°There!¡± He pointed to one of the screens, where it seemed someone was actually talking. For once, Lakor wasn¡¯t utterly useless and enlarged it, bringing out its sound.


    ¡°¡ªcannot allow the portal to Gogri to open.¡± The Cato beast told the Silver in question, who looked to be protecting some Platinum¡¯s estate. ¡°Preferably without too much collateral damage. Unfortunately, it seems my hand has been forced.¡±


    ¡°That explains¡ª¡± Initik started, then stopped again as the essence flows all over Haekos writhed and trembled. The Nexus for over two thirds of all the cities and towns had been destroyed, in a single instant, throwing the planet¡¯s economy and dynamics into chaos. Some of the scrying windows fuzzed out, the constructs disrupted by the sudden disorder. The strain trebled the cost of holding the dungeons closed, tremendously cutting into the time they had to counter Cato¡¯s strategy.


    Though in truth it might already be too late. It was obvious that once Cato got a foothold he was incredibly tenacious, and Initik shuddered to think what might have happened to Uriva if Cato had been allowed to run free. He¡¯d never seen the results of having so much infrastructure destroyed, and wasn¡¯t certain how close he wanted to be if it got much worse.


    ¡°Why is he so focused on this?¡± Lakor complained, touching his Interface and purging Cato¡¯s forces from the towns with an intact Nexus. Initik recognized his own technique, so at least Marus had learned something from Sydea. ¡°It¡¯s just going to be some barbaric waste of a planet! Why is he ruining Haekos for it?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s his own [Crusade],¡± Initik replied, even though the question was clearly rhetorical. ¡°He¡¯s stated that his goal is to bring down the System. Any and every world is a target if that¡¯s true, but I admit I don¡¯t quite understand why this is what made him show his hand.¡± That gap in understanding made Initik uneasy, for if he didn¡¯t understand his enemy¡¯s motives, he could never be certain of victory. The System had saved his people, and so seeing someone so dead set against it was difficult to credit.


    ¡°Spending all those resources on a fringe world, though?¡± Lakor grumbled, bringing up more scrying images. ¡°The clan gave us extra essence but at some point it just won¡¯t be worth hanging onto a single world like this.¡±


    Initik was almost shocked, but then, it was true that Clan Eln had hundreds of worlds. Losing one was more of a blow to the ego than to their actual power, and bleeding Cato¡¯s forces or pushing him to reveal his tactics might be worth it. Initik doubted that Lakos or Marus or, for the matter, Clan Eln and Clan Lundt were willing to commit the sort of resources it¡¯d take to kill Cato on Haekos, and even if they did, it might well destroy the planet.


    ¡°Besides which, I don¡¯t believe it¡¯s about the annexation,¡± Lakor said. ¡°It¡¯s not like taking Haekos would actually stop it.¡±

 Chapter 14 — Skirmish

    Haekos could have been going better.


    Being suddenly denied access to the dungeons Cato was trying to destroy gave him little choice but to raze the majority of Nexus buildings.  At least it was clear there were limitations on the technique that atomized all his bioweapon forces.  More, it was obvious that it only affected System-jamming constructs, leaving all his communications and stealth drones intact, which was a weakness he could absolutely exploit in the future.


    For the present he just had to hope he could do enough damage to the System to start to collapse or, better, draw out the System-God without commensurate harm to the native populace.  Though that was looking less and less likely as the higher ranks were starting to arrive, and they were far less concerned with collateral damage than he was.  Or rather, than Kili Frei ¨C n¨¦e Raine Haekos ¨C was, considering how much of the invasion force she controlled.


    ¡°I really do hate this,¡± Raine said, referring not to the combat but to the huddled groups of low-rankers being herded away from the concentrated chokepoints of System towns ¡ª some of which were nonfunctional anyway.  It was for their own safety, but it was still ripping people away from their homes and marching them about through force of arms.  In a way it was not so unnatural to those within the System, where the threat of violence saturated every dealing, but Cato wasn¡¯t from the System, and Raine and Leese were distant from it by way of deep time.  They were not much happier than he was, and had both abandoned their Haekosi bodies in favor of an orbital presence.


    ¡°It¡¯s not great,¡± Cato admitted, really wishing that the System-god would show up so he could just put an end to things.  The massive particle beams were in place, ready and waiting for one of the self-proclaimed divine beings, but so far he¡¯d only seen evidence of their action, not their persons.


    ¡°Could be worse,¡± Leese said, who was dealing with the noncombatants in the cities, the young mothers and pre-Copper juveniles, getting them out and away from the line of fire.  The shark-like Haekos children were quite adorable, in the way of juveniles everywhere, and Leese was herding the families out into bodies of water where they would be safe.


    Despite the obvious affinity for water, the actual System towns were land-oriented, with no real consideration for the physiology of the native Haekos.  They¡¯d all been founded on rivers and lakes, however, or on the coasts of the large freshwater seas, so each had a ready waterway along which the amphibious inhabitants could evacuate.  Everything he¡¯d seen showed that those within the System were focused on the cities and towns, and to a lesser extent dungeons, and generally didn¡¯t bother with bodies of water at all.  Only a tiny set of species were amphibious or otherwise at home in the water, and while that limitation hardly mattered at higher ranks, it was not something the System catered to.


    The families were surrounded by a swarm of aquatic warframes keeping the monster fish at bay and providing floating platforms for the Haekos natives.  In a worst-case scenario the water surface might serve to blunt the energetic results of orbital weaponry, though he hoped that most of the populace would be well away before that.  Most of them were riding ¨C or being forced to ride ¨C warframes just for the sake of speed.  Others were being carried, insensate, for their own safety.  They were entirely in the right to defend themselves and their families and homes, but Cato didn¡¯t want them to die for a hopeless cause.  There were already enough senseless deaths on Cato¡¯s ledger as it was.


    So far he¡¯d managed to avoid such casualties on Haekos, as the only orbital weaponry he¡¯d brought into play was the low-powered railguns.  But that was not going to last forever, as higher ranks meant he needed to exert more force, and unlike the System he didn¡¯t have a way of mitigating the side effects of energy expenditure.  Using Skills, someone could hurl a spear at supersonic velocities and avoid all the collateral damage that kind of launch or impact ought to have.  He was restricted to base physics, and thermodynamics offered not a single iota of grace.


    A restriction that he was reminded of when one of the world¡¯s Platinums advanced upon a floatilla nearly a hundred miles away from the capital city.  Raine pinged his orbital defenses, but the water made the pressure wave from any impacts liable to outright kill the lower ranks ¡ª and he definitely didn¡¯t want to murder any of the natives, even by collateral damage.  He still had the nonlethal methods of deterrence, but words were better still ¡ª when they worked.


    ¡°If you want to help, that¡¯s great!¡± Cato shouted as the Platinum swooped in on great leathery wings.  From surveillance he knew the man had a shapeshifting Skill, and frankly was more vulnerable to some of Cato¡¯s attacks than other high rankers because all his abilities were merely physical ¡ª he didn¡¯t embody any esoteric energy, merely focusing on martial prowess.  Though hopefully by coming off as friendly, there would be no need for battle.  Clearly the man wasn¡¯t expecting such a greeting and paused for a moment in bewilderment.


    ¡°What?¡± He stared down at the warframes and the several thousand low-rank refugees the flotilla was safeguarding.  ¡°But you¡¯re¡ª¡±


    ¡°Getting them to safety!¡± Cato interrupted, even if it was actually Raine who was doing the grunt work.  She could have dealt with the Platinum too, but it was better if Cato was the one doing the diplomacy.  Best not to let anyone else think that Cato had allies, let alone ones that could be easily named ¡ª or were the exact same ones who were even now undergoing their ascension to Bismuth.  ¡°When the higher ranks start coming through, the cities will not be safe.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who brought them here!¡± The Platinum snapped, his eyes flicking over the mixed group of aquatic warframes and civilians, clearly looking for some sort of opening.  The thorough mixing probably seemed like he was using them as shields, but his warframes were really there for their safety.  Even as he was speaking, the bioweapons had fended off eight separate attacks by oversized fish and sea monsters.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Cato admitted.  ¡°But if I let that portal open, it will kill millions, or maybe even billions.¡±  He had no way of knowing what was on the other side, and whether the target civilization was barely into agriculture or packed into an ecumenopolis, but no matter what the technological level, the arrival of the System was apocalyptic.


    ¡°But you¡¯re attacking us!¡± The Platinum protested, not that Cato blamed him.  Almost everyone within the System was victim of it, and none of them deserved the strife that it would take to destroy the System properly.  But its existence could not be borne.


    ¡°Azoth!¡± Raine snapped through her link, the warning accompanied by a ping from Yaniss and a short file-dump, no more than a paragraph.  Kosch, Azoth of Clan Renni.  Shadow Affinity user.  The orbital version of Cato focused all his attention on the capital city, where the portals were, and spotted the Azoth fairly quickly.  So far he¡¯d only seen people as high as Bismuth, but he understood that the ranks above were exponentially more powerful.  He hadn¡¯t been present where they had appeared on Earth, but he¡¯d seen footage and walking nuclear bomb was not too unrealistic a descriptor.


    The feeds from his warframes and drones showed a flat-faced, almost monkey-like individual with pale fur, clad in black armor ¡ª more than black, something that actively drew in the light around it and created clinging, shifting shadows atop a vantablack, almost two-dimensional cutout of a person.  His movements conveyed languid ease, completely unhurried, but he was in reality incredibly quick, moving as if framejacked to ten times normal.  The Azoth glided out the door of the Nexus and into the city streets, and Cato took the opportunity to at least try and address him before something precipitous occurred.


    ¡°Kosch of Clan Renni!¡± He called through one of his warframes, peeling it away from a group carrying a few unconscious Silvers away from the potential blast zone.  The Azoth jerked in surprise for a micro-instant, Cato¡¯s body-language analysis programs operating at full speed through a dozen framejacked eyes, and then turned to face the warframe in question.


    ¡°You know of me,¡± Kosch drawled, the shadows rippling at his feet rising up into a billowing black cape with a theatricality that Cato found entirely out of place for an active war zone.  Or perhaps that was just how high-rankers were, either by inclination or by the System twisting their minds for centuries or millennia on end.


    ¡°There is nothing for you here,¡± Cato said, having no interest in explaining exactly how he recognized the Azoth in question.  ¡°Whatever fight you are hoping for will not happen.  Haekos will be severed from the System, and it is best if you are not here when that comes to pass.¡±


    ¡°Words,¡± Kosch said, completely unworried.  ¡°The gods have called a [Crusade] to stop you, and so you shall be stopped.  The forces you have here are expansive, true, but you are merely insects fighting other insects.  There is nothing here of any real power.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re mistaken,¡± Cato told him, already knowing words were useless.  He began the targeting preparations, but he didn¡¯t dare fire his most powerful weapons just yet.  There were still civilians nearby ¨C for all that he had been trying to remove them from the cities ¨C and the mindripper wasn¡¯t quite done either, though it was dominating his bandwidth as it processed through the final checks of the mind-state it pulled from the Interface.


    ¡°Then let me demonstrate the futility of your swarm tactics,¡± Kosch said, spreading his arms and baring his teeth.  The shadows gathered around him exploded outward, and Cato lost the warframe he was using to talk to the Azoth.  From orbit, the magical wave expanded visibly, crossing miles in moments and sweeping out from the central city, blanketing half the continent in less than a minute and creating a perfect circle of vantablank emptiness.


    The Platinum he had been arguing with, out over the ocean, dived under the water to escape it, and the rest of his convoy pulled the refugees under, heading away from the suddenly lightless surface.  It didn¡¯t stop him from communicating, the light absorption not extending to radio waves, but he didn¡¯t have any clear idea of what was going on as the entire thousand-mile circle of darkness simply writhed for a moment.


    When it pulled back, it left nothing behind.


    It was like looking at a moonscape; everything the shadow had once covered had been rendered into dust, save for the System buildings; cities, towns and dungeon entrances.  They alone were intact, surrounded by bare rock and earth scoured clean of every living thing.  Every tree, bush, and blade of grass.  Every monster, creature, and every single person within that entire radius had been utterly annihilated.


    ¡°God damn that Azoth,¡± Cato swore into the shared communications system, and meant it.  The embodied versions of himself felt sick from the utter devastation, and for once he regretted the crystalline clarity of digital memory.  He knew with absolute certainty the exact number of men, women, and children murdered in that single instant.


    ¡°What ¡ª that¡¯s, that¡¯s¡­¡±  Leese sputtered, out of words, while Raine merely sent a grim-faced emoticon over the comms.  Cato merely pulled the trigger on one of the orbital particle beams.


    ¡°There¡¯s a reason Azoths don¡¯t bother with the frontier worlds,¡± Yaniss said, more sanguine about the destruction than he. ¡°Only the warworlds have anything that can withstand them.¡±


    ¡°Warworlds ¡ª and me,¡± Cato said grimly, in the moment before the beam weapon fired.


    Such a weapon was simple enough, in the abstract.  Take a partly or fully ionized atom, accelerate it through a magnetic field and hurl it downrange at speeds within spitting distance of light.  When it came to actually engineering something that could turn that concept into reality, rather a lot of finesse was involved.


    The result was a colossal cylinder below an immense halo of solar panels, rock and ice and metal wrapped protectively around the delicate internals.  Fractal heat radiators rated for tens of thousands of degrees sprouted from the solid surface like feathery antennae, but it was otherwise featureless except for a phrase engraved in thirty-foot letters.  To Whom It May Concern.


    The weapon was created entirely from the designs made at the end of the No Fun Allowed War, and most of the intricacies of its engineering were beyond Cato¡¯s expertise.  He did know the particle beams took absolutely ungodly amounts of power, with literal thousands of square miles of solar array supplemented by small fusion generators to keep the supply stable. Containing, directing, and focusing the ionized nuclei without the energy corroding the mechanisms was a delicate dance, as was neutralizing the beams after they exited the aperture with electrons accelerated in parallel.  Especially since it wasn¡¯t enough to do this with a few hundred or few thousand atoms at a time.


    A beam nearly a foot thick lanced forth from one of the monumental orbital weapons, traveling as close to lightspeed as made no difference, crossing the nearly fifty thousand miles to the planet¡¯s surface in a quarter of a second.  In full framejack, Cato watched the counter tick down, the actual emission invisible save for a few energetic twinkles where the beam intersected a stray piece of gas. When it hit the atmosphere the reaction was considerably more energetic, but the Azoth had less than a billionth of a second of warning before the stream of relativistic particles reached out and touched him.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Cato¡¯s larger railguns had an impact yield that was best compared to nuclear weaponry.  The particle beam could be best compared to standing in the heart of such a nuclear detonation, but continuously.  The particle beam wasn¡¯t a single shot, but a relentless lance of impossibly energetic mass.  Though it wasn¡¯t the heat nor the impact that did damage, not in a conventional sense.


    The System seemed to leave atomic and subatomic interactions alone, either by choice or because altering them would have too many consequences, as demonstrated by antimatter functioning exactly as expected.  With a particle beam, the particles were moving so fast and were so energetic that they actually collided with the atomic structure of what they hit.  The number of collisions was small, from a statistical point of view, but there were so many particles that the unending flood tore even System matter asunder.


    Perhaps the Azoth could stand in a nuclear detonation and survive.  Perhaps the Azoth was immune to heat and pressure, to radiation and scouring plasma.  But not even the System Gods were immune to being torn apart on an atomic level ¨C simultaneously throughout their entire body ¨C by a weapon they could not reach or deflect.  It was not light or heat for the System to invalidate; most of it would simply pass though all but the most exotic physical matter, as even the strongest System material didn¡¯t have the neutronium density that would be required for a reasonable shield.


    The Azoth¡¯s body actually absorbed the impact for a moment or two, whatever defensive skills and abilities he possessed preventing the devastation at the point where it hit him, though the atmosphere roiled as stray nitrogen and oxygen were stripped to ions by the particle beam.  Cato¡¯s entire orbital surveillance network strained to track the Azoth through the energetic mess, the other particle beams ready to take up the task should the enemy teleport or move out of coverage.


    It wasn¡¯t necessary.  An Azoth was not a System-god, and his toughness was actually limited.  Kosch vanished in a flash with a spectrum consistent with the constituents of carbon-based life, and a sudden bloom of ravening fire exploded outward from where the particle beam hit ground.  It took a quarter-second for the beam to cease, leaving only scorched and blasted ground and the capital city¡¯s Nexus building.  Nothing else was intact, all of it scorched and broken rubble in a slowly dissipating firestorm.


    ¡°What was that?¡± Yaniss demanded, but nobody answered her.


    Cato stared down at the wasteland in grim satisfaction, undercut by the oily sickness of contemplating how many had just died because of one power-drunk System-psychopath.  Neural alerts flashed as algorithms purged virtualized stress chemistry to prevent a spiral into something truly dark, but he still swore to himself that the next Azoth through wouldn¡¯t get the benefit of the doubt.


    If anyone was going to have nightmares about the conflict, it should be them.


    ***


    [A Crusade!


    An enemy of the System has been spotted on a far distant world.  All those who dare should make their way to Haekos, and destroy the invader.


    Rewards: Variable]


    Muar was quite tempted to go.  It was, after all, his [Crusade], and the confirmation that Cato really was out there gave him an itch to address it himself.  But Muar was only Bismuth, and he well knew that Cato was able to deal with Bismuths.  Besides, he¡¯d already sent several Bismuths and an Azoth in that direction, and while he had personal understanding of Cato that might well help, his primary task was to spread the [Crusade] to the core worlds.


    His core Bismuth Skill, [Divine Aegis], was like a warm glow at the back of his mind, providing a certain surety about his goals and his place in the world.  The System would not give him special treatment, but if he acted in the correct manner there was no limit to the rewards it would offer.  A point proven by the equipment he had acquired from Temple quests immediately after his Bismuth Ascension, the crystalline armor practically tailor-made for him.  A sign that the System favored him.


    So he proceeded with the work only he could do, which was why he was on the small moon of the planet Gos-Gos, just outside of the core worlds.  The inner worlds often had their moons included in the System¡¯s influence, as high-rank regions where those who had achieved Bismuth or Azoth could exercise their powers to the fullest.  Muar himself was there less for the experience of a proper Bismuth-rank Conflict Zone as to ensure there were no vestiges of Cato ¡ª or any place where he could get a foothold.


    ¡°Are you certain this is necessary, [Crusader] Muar?¡±  The Platinum wrung his hands, and Muar had to refrain from snapping at him.  He was the Planetary Administrator of Gos-Gos, as no Bismuth would waste their time with the job, and the patronage of Clan Mokrom meant nobody in their right mind would exploit the rank difference.  Yet it seemed the backing of deities trumped clan influence, to judge by the crablike being¡¯s demeanor.  Ever since Muar had arrived, the Administrator had been overly obsequious.


    ¡°You¡¯ve seen the quest,¡± Muar responded, his divine senses sharpening his vision enough to bring the small moonlets into view, riding high in the sky just beyond the fringes of the System¡¯s authority.  They were small, barely more than floating mountains, but Muar wasn¡¯t willing to take any chances.  ¡°Cato has already spread to elsewhere in the System, and you certainly don¡¯t want him here.  Something like that is a perfect invitation for him to ruin your world.¡±  He pointed upward, gesturing at the tiny crescents floating in the sky.


    He couldn¡¯t be absolutely certain the moon itself was not a problem, even inside the System.  Muar knew that Cato had a penchant for such bodies, but he didn¡¯t know if that was a rule.  Even if he¡¯d experienced Cato¡¯s nature directly, he didn¡¯t fully understand it or its rules.  While Cato was from outside the System, there was no telling if he had Skills related to moons and the gulf of emptiness outside of planets, or if there was something less direct.  Muar was fairly certain that the moon itself was free of heretical influence given that Cato was so adamantly opposed to the System, but Muar had still taken the time for a close survey.


    ¡°Very well,¡± the Administrator said, reaching for his badge of office.  Muar didn¡¯t know what the precise limits were on the authority of Planetary Administrators, but those in the inner worlds clearly had more they could do.  Or perhaps it was simply the presence of Temples and other advanced buildings; either way, the Administrator seemed to have far more leeway than Onswa ever had.


    Another quest bloomed in Muar¡¯s interface, for Bismuths and above, to bring down the moonlets.  It would normally be impossible, or at least exceedingly difficult, given that the System did not extend that far, but there was a solution even for that.  The quest issued a small, portable version of a Nexus, to allow the System to be projected beyond its usual limits.  Even if they were merely on loan, the expense explained the Administrator¡¯s hesitancy, but Muar knew they were entirely necessary.


    Unfortunately, he did not himself have a skillset appropriate to fulfilling the quest.  As a Paladin he was far more suited to defense, to be a bulwark between Cato¡¯s machinations and the loyal residents of the System.  Simply ensuring places like Gos-Gos were safe from Cato¡¯s interference was far more than he could ever manage by contesting the being directly.


    ¡°Thank you, Administrator,¡± Muar said, and invoked [Divine Aegis] in a particular way to bless the man.  The Platinum was mostly a bureaucrat, but even at that rank, he needed to maintain himself by running dungeons or visiting conflict zones.  A Bismuth-rank boost to defense, to be held in abeyance and invoked only when needed, was a reasonable gift.  Not that he needed it, given how wealthy Gos-Gos was, but it was wrong to leave him empty-handed even if Muar was certain the [Crusade] would provide something in time.


    ¡°As you say, [Crusader] Muar,¡± the Administrator said, tilting his carapace in a sort of bow.


    ¡°If nobody takes up the quest soon, be sure to contact me,¡± Muar said, lifting his farcaster.  As expensive as the device was to use across different worlds, it was invaluable for keeping in touch with other members of the [Crusade], or the Clan Elders who had gotten themselves involved.  Both Clan Tornok and Clan Mokrom saw the advantages in participating, even if many of them were not properly believers.


    Muar was not going to deceive himself.  Outside of some of the divine users he encountered, most did not have the proper fire of faith, and required more corporeal motivations to join the [Crusade].  But then, that was exactly why the System provided rewards, knowing as it did that people required some surety in their lives.  The rewards might not be quite tempting enough without a few words from the local Clans or Administrators, and he didn¡¯t trust the man in charge of Gos-Gos to put himself forth that way.


    The administrator dutifully connected his own farcaster to Muar¡¯s, so they could speak in the future, but his lack of verve implied that Muar would be the one initiating any communication.  But that would have to be a concern for the future, as there were still dozens or hundreds of worlds to which he had to carry the word of the [Crusade].  Others had taken up the call, of course, but he was the vanguard, the ultimate holder of the quest, the [Crusader], and the only one who had actually met Cato and not been suborned.  Haekos was still a frontier world, which at least implied that Muar was ahead of Cato and his agents, but Muar knew they were further spread than anyone but himself could imagine.


    What worried him was that he¡¯d only had a few unconfirmed sightings of Raine and Leese, and none of Dyen, for years.  He considered it impossible that they¡¯d simply met misfortune, and he also considered it impossible that they were being quiet.  In fact, traces of Dyen¡¯s movements had been fairly obvious, considering he was preying on the Tornok Clan, but the man himself was elusive.


    The alternative was that Cato¡¯s agents were being extremely stealthy, and had learned to avoid any obvious identification.  He doubted they could truly slip past the attention of the gods, but with a low enough profile, there might not be anything to draw that attention in the first place.  Such was the role of those within the [Crusade], to act as the eyes and ears of the System and the deities within it.  While he was confident in dealing with them, should they ever meet, that was not his purpose.


    The best way to combat Cato was to stay ahead of him, and so Muar was headed ever deeper toward the core.  In the end, it wouldn¡¯t matter what Cato did at the frontier, if the core worlds were unassailable.  Muar would make sure that they were.


    ***


    ¡°We can¡¯t afford this anymore,¡± proclaimed Lakor Eln, [World Deity] of Haekos.


    Initik was not much impressed, even if Marus Eln and Oran Lundt looked suitably grave.  Rendering all the damage to the planet, the fight for the people and their lives, as something that was merely expensive was anathema to Initik¡¯s way of thinking.  It wasn¡¯t as if the Eln clan deities were incapable, or lacking in skills and resources ¡ª they simply didn¡¯t care enough.


    Of course, Lakor had more than one world under his authority, and so could afford to lose one.  Or rather, he had other restrictions and couldn¡¯t afford to spend everything he had on defending Haekos.  That was the excuse, but Initik doubted it was genuinely anything more than an unwillingness to spend the effort it would take to truly secure Haekos from Cato.


    They¡¯d come at it too late to stop him from cluttering the skies, and destroying everything would be tricky considering it was all outside of the System¡¯s grasp ¡ª and incredibly far away, at that.  He¡¯d already suggested expanding the System¡¯s range of influence, but not only were the essence stores relatively low, the bulk of Cato¡¯s forces were coming from much, much further away than the moon.


    ¡°This has been quite instructive,¡± Mii-Es said brightly, unbothered by the idea of abandoning Hakeos to its fate.  Of course, she had come out from somewhere in the inner worlds herself, and so was not unfamiliar with worlds changing hands.  Though Initik suspected none of them quite understood that this wasn¡¯t like ceding a world to another clan.  Haekos, and everyone and everything on it, would be forever condemned to that terrible reality outside the System.


    Not that there was much left to lose, not after the Azoth had flexed his Skill.  In just a few moments, he had done far more damage than Cato had.  It did not escape Initik¡¯s attention that Cato had been very careful with his targets, with miraculously few deaths prior to the Azoth¡¯s intervention.  Perhaps it might have been worth the cold cost of lives if that level of power had actually countered Cato¡¯s stratagem, but ultimately it had been to no purpose.


    More disturbing, the weapon that had been used on the Azoth was not the same weapon that had been used on Grand Paladin Nikhil. While an Azoth¡¯s defenses weren¡¯t the divinely-granted immunity that had been given to Nikhil, they should have held up for more than a few fractions of a second ¡ª so Initik was forced to imagine this weapon also could be used against deities.


    He didn¡¯t bother to point that out.  Either they understood it, or they didn¡¯t.  Of the Elns, only Marus seemed actually upset by seeing the Azoth obliterated by something with no essence signature and an origin far outside anything they could scry, but that was only to be expected.  None of the clan gods had experienced a real threat in thousands of years or more.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s best to assume that Cato will go after the annexation again,¡± Initik said at last.  ¡°Whichever world it appears on needs to be highly protected, and the portal connection protected on both sides.  Along with constantly scrying the skies.  That might our best method of countering Cato and catching how he spreads between worlds.¡±


    ¡°We can issue special quests under the [Crusade],¡± Marus volunteered, though Lakor glared at him for it.  Likely due to the very same ledger that led Lakor to abandon Haekos.  ¡°I know I¡¯d rather not have my new world infested like this.¡±


    ¡°Our world,¡± Oran Lundt corrected, his voice a warning rumble.  ¡°I will ensure Clan Lundt knows the threat of this Cato is not overstated.  Though perhaps this is a blessing.  If he is busy here, then he will not be able to assault Gogri when the portal actually opens.¡±


    ¡°We can hope,¡± Initik said.  The assemblage of forces was quite impressive, and it did seem unlikely that Cato could conjure the same for another world, but it wasn¡¯t advisable to simply assume that would be true.  The System¡¯s rules did not apply to him.


    Lakor reached out to his Interface, going through the necessary process to sever Haekos from the rest of the network.  Since he controlled both Haekos and the worlds it linked to, he needed no cooperation to suspend the portals and rip away all the essence he could before detangling his System Space and leaving it to Cato.  Unlike with Sydea, he kept the scrying windows up to see what happened.


    No longer barred from the dungeons, Cato destroyed them in quick succession, the scrying windows starting to fail as the System was disrupted.  Initik hadn¡¯t even known that the System was vulnerable in that way, and while he had no idea how he might use the information, he marked very closely how Cato systematically removed every dungeon and town Nexus, and how the essence cycle on Haekos slowly failed.


    Suddenly, all the scry windows disappeared at once, the portals vanishing as Haekos was removed from the System entirely.  It was astounding how quickly that it was done, a matter of hours, although for anyone else it would have been impossible.  Half the dungeons collapsed before anyone of lower rank could leave them, and no high rank would risk the malus the System would assign for such an act.  Yet, the fact that it could be done at all showed Initik a glaring vulnerability that he would have to consider.


    ¡°There, it¡¯s relocated, ¡± Lakor said, pulling up a particular line from his Interface.


    [A new world is appearing!


    The Gogri staging area has been established on the world of Koh-rel.  Voyage into the new world and test its inhabitants.  Recommended rank: Copper to Silver.


    Time until portal open: 17 Hours]

 Chapter 15 — Escalation

    Cato had gotten a lot of people killed for no reason.


    If he¡¯d had more time, if he¡¯d been allowed to open discussions and negotiations with those on Haekos, if he¡¯d realized what the Azoth had been intending to do ¡ª if and if and if. Instead, people, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, had been annihilated because of the whims of a high ranker that he should have stopped, but hadn¡¯t. Worse, the entire disaster didn¡¯t even matter. The expansion was still going on, and he didn¡¯t even know if the Azoth was permanently dead, as Yaniss had heard the highest ranks could resurrect under the right circumstances.


    ¡°I suppose it¡¯s controlled from the core worlds,¡± Leese mused.


    ¡°That means we need to get access to the core worlds before we can be sure of stopping an expansion,¡± Raine said grimly.


    Cato Koh-rel didn¡¯t reply, his human frame still staring at the visual feed of where the portal to Haekos had once been. A small bit of him was envious of the version of himself on the other side, as that instance would only know that the System was gone and the portal wasn¡¯t opening ¡ª but that was a small twinge, ruthlessly squashed. That version also had to deal with an utterly devastated population and equally devastated planet.


    Something he would be addressing himself, and soon. Seventeen hours was not nearly enough time to move the forces he had around Koh-rel into position, and it had just been demonstrated that was a useless gesture anyway. He needed to get into the world itself and shut it down from that end ¡ª after the apocalypse brought on by the System. The only comfort he could draw from situation was that the people on the other side would be genuinely happy about removing the System from their world, and they would have the memories and artifacts of whatever civilization had been destroyed. There would be something to rebuild.


    ¡°Things could have gone worse,¡± Leese said, sending a ping through the network to make sure she had his attention. ¡°And now we know some of the consequences when we take over a world.¡±


    ¡°We do,¡± Cato replied, taking a long breath and letting it out, finding himself too soul-weary to contest Leese¡¯s choice of words. The Haekos version of himself had managed to transmit a lot of data before the portals closed, giving him a first-hand look at System collapse. Landscapes rearranging themselves, swaths of flora and fauna choking and dying in an atmosphere no longer meant for them, or vanishing outright as the System-stuff that composed them collapsed back into base reality. There was even a very clear shot of a Bismuth puffing into nothingness just before the portals closed, demonstrating a very grim reality that they would have to contend with.


    He, on the other hand, had a lot of work to do in order to prepare for the portal opening, since he needed to pour as much biomass through the portal as he could. If he wanted to actually save people, he needed to get things going fast, not through the slow and subtle growth he¡¯d used on thousands of worlds. To judge by how things had gone on Earth, the higher ranks would be discouraged from going through until the lower ranks had been given a chance ¡ª but with Cato¡¯s presence, there was no telling what would happen.


    They had to assume that the various System-gods if not the System itself anticipated their interference with the new world. So they wouldn¡¯t be trying to liberate Koh-rel directly, even if they could. If the System side was proactive enough with its orbital defenses, like sending people who could hurl rocks and burn anything coming into the atmosphere, it could keep Cato from establishing the sort of supremacy he¡¯d need for delicate operations ¡ª or for that matter, what Raine and Leese needed to command ground forces.


    Despite knowing he was responsible for the deaths of so many people, he was more determined than ever to bring down the System. And now he knew that simple containment wouldn¡¯t be enough; to keep any more worlds from being ruined he would have to go beyond subverting the System¡¯s frontier. It was a plague, a fungus-mold that would keep growing no matter what, rerouting around damage and spreading destruction everywhere it touched.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like the idea of Bismuths vanishing like that,¡± Yaniss mused. She¡¯d not had any role in the actual campaign, for a variety of mostly obvious reasons, but as the resident expert on higher ranks of the System, he¡¯d at least allowed her an observer position. ¡°It implies very strange things about my existence.¡±


    ¡°No more than a digital mind vanishing when the substrate is damaged. Or an organic mind dissipating if the meat fails,¡± Cato replied, sending checklists off to Raine and Leese, to eventually make their way to versions of him on other worlds. His distributed systems had a lot of computation power between them, however, and it was worth intelligently splitting up certain tasks, even if there wasn¡¯t enough divergence between his various selves to generate truly independent analysis.


    ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t consider the System real,¡± Yaniss objected.


    ¡°It¡¯s not base reality, but that¡¯s not the same thing,¡± Cato said, regarding Yaniss. She was projecting herself from her own private aestivation, as he only allowed her a limited perspective into the ongoing campaign. ¡°The world you live in is your reality, regardless of how it came to be, and the only chauvinism that makes sense is recognizing that base reality always has the final say. But Summer Civilizations or even just aestivations are real enough, and writing off such things as ephemeral dream-experiences creates its own problems.¡±


    In truth, Cato was a little surprised Yaniss was still responsive. She seemed exactly the sort to get caught by a behavioral sink and vanish into a virtual world of her own design. Yes, she was insatiably curious and interested in the workings of things, but there were methods to create virtual universes with infinitely unspooling vistas of discovery. Not that he was complaining, since her insight into the System was still useful, and he would prefer to have a consultant rather than a dependent.


    ¡°Actually, there have been plenty of virtual worlds like the System,¡± he told Yaniss, as Raine and Leese already knew what he was going to say. ¡°That¡¯s not the problem in and of itself. I certainly wouldn¡¯t want to live in one, but if someone else wants to that¡¯s their business. The issue is the System expands, it assimilates, and it forces everyone into the single mode of existence that it allows.¡±


    ¡°Maybe you could negotiate with the Elders in the core worlds?¡± Yaniss suggested. ¡°If anyone controls the expansion of the System, it¡¯s them.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t imagine that working,¡± Cato said. It wasn¡¯t that he¡¯d never considered negotiating, it was that he never considered it to be viable. ¡°They¡¯ve got to be thousands or millions of years old, set in their ways and used to their power, and I have no leverage to keep them from expanding except destroying the System. Even if they agreed to it, at some point they would think my attention had slipped and start expanding again. No, better to deal with it permanently the first time.¡±


    ¡°That seems very System-like of you,¡± Yaniss observed with amusement. ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t like resorting to violence.¡±


    ¡°There is a time and a place,¡± Cato told her. He hadn¡¯t tried to give her the full introduction to the postbiological society he¡¯d come from, since she still thought of herself as an extension of a Bismuth, but that was easy enough to rectify ¡ª so he sent her the full primer and associated databases then and there. Without any background on his civilization it was easy to think that, since Cato scorned the System¡¯s paradigm, that he preferred nonviolent solutions in all things. But it was a lesson learned in every age, often painfully, that some things needed to be stamped out with extreme prejudice, and that some people didn¡¯t deserve second chances.


    But it was also necessary to have a devil¡¯s advocate, and for that it was good to have someone like Yaniss around. Raine and Leese were very firmly on his side, and after years in a postbiological milieu ¡ª both subjective and objective ¡ª the digital versions of themselves were more like Cato than a System native. Yaniss was an entirely different perspective and that never hurt.


    Especially since the Sydean Lineage was still incommunicado. The feeds, relayed all the way out to Koh-Rel by FungusNet, showed the Ascension Grounds still domed over, but the real problem was the sisters were deep inside a dungeon or perhaps somewhere else in the System entirely. There were portals, so it could be anything. Not that he was worried about them, not with all the advantages they had, but the Bismuth Ascension was a major step, and one that might change their very nature and personality.


    If it were him, he would flatly reject such a thing. For many and varied reasons, even, but the Sydean Lineage had just seen it as part of ranking up. A thing to be cautious of, but no more unreasonable than Skills themselves.


    It wasn¡¯t Cato¡¯s place to stop them, and besides, he needed someone who could get into the core worlds, so he could only hope they emerged from the process close enough to themselves. If they decided they were no longer interested in Cato¡¯s campaign, he would be left in quite the lurch. Even if one of the other Lineages took up the torch, there was no guarantee they would be any more immune to the System¡¯s distortion.


    Those thoughts were hardly new, and really it was borrowing trouble to worry about it, but with his state of mind he was more inclined to consider the worst possible outcomes. With the new information, Raine was already spinning up new wargaming simulations, and some of the worst case scenarios were quite bad. Ranging from a full betrayal by some Lineage to gods and high-rankers wrecking planets, all of them could be ruinous if Cato played his cards poorly.


    The lack of ability to directly grapple with the System-gods was the largest frustration. He was sure they had the same gripes about the impossibility of engaging with him, assuming they had put some thought into what he was. Both sides were forced into a bizarre proxy war, fighting for territory rather than each other. To the detriment of those who lived in the territory, even if Cato firmly believed they¡¯d be better off without the System, once the dust had settled.


    Unfortunately, Koh-rel wasn¡¯t likely to much thank him. It didn¡¯t seem to have a native species ¨C or its inhabitants had gone extinct a long time ago ¨C and was inhabited by a tripartite coalition of Tornok, Mokrom, and a third Clan that seemed to have a degree of local dominance, a hunched and thick-skinned humanoid race called the Soach. There was the usual degree of infighting on Koh-rel, but they were all very firmly adherents to the System way of doing things.


    Cato Koh-rel was not looking forward to trying to untangle that particular mess, but he¡¯d have to. Even if the portal ¨C and Gogri beyond it ¨C was the real target, at some point Koh-rel itself would have to be severed from the System and he¡¯d be the one inheriting that disaster. It might happen as a result of trying to free Gogri, because even if he was retooling a few biofactories, there was only so much mass he could put through a portal. All the rest of the infrastructure could only be used against Koh-rel itself, but whether that was a good idea or not remained to be seen.


    ¡°We¡¯re not going to have as much materiel as I¡¯d like,¡± Raine said, her tail lashing even in her virtual space as she considered the manufactory visualizations.


    ¡°Well, now we know that we should have an invasion force on hand,¡± Leese said meditatively, sending out the message for all their various instances to start production. Designing such an invasion force on a moment¡¯s notice was not actually a problem, given the tools and simulations available to the three of them, and with judicious use of framejacking. Most of it was just tweaks to the warframes anyway, slotting in pre-existing packages or augmentations from Cato¡¯s databases. But framejacking did not help with the actual creation, which took real time, and overhauling the growth facilities was not a simple matter either.


    Two of the massive bioforges were already on the way to Koh-rel high orbit, frantically retooling in-flight, but both he and the sisters really would have preferred days of production, not hours. Every other version of them was doing the same, though with less haste, making sure they had sufficient volume of invasion-ready bioweapons. The risk, of course, was that the System-gods could completely no-sell them through their instant eradication method, but Haekos had shown there were limits.


    Where there were limits, there were exploits.


    He already knew that only the biowarfare platform and its associated System-jamming were affected by that particular counter, and while warframes were relatively expensive to produce, he didn¡¯t have to make only those. Various versions of him worked on different feints and probes to see precisely what counted, loading up megatons of inert carbon and silica with simple lattices of various types. When the time came, he¡¯d be dropping them along with ¨C or ahead of ¨C the real warframes to see if he could exhaust that weapon.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    There was not enough time for any real experimentation in advance of the deployment on Koh-rel, as it became obvious very quickly that the System folks were anticipating Cato¡¯s interference. Projectiles from the surface began sniping some of his larger observation satellites, the ones close enough to the System¡¯s edge that they were effectively expendable. Other versions of himself hastily worked to improve the stealth in other systems, now that his hand was tipped, in hopes that it wouldn¡¯t be so obvious how widely he¡¯s spread himself.


    So far nothing was targeting his larger structures further out, but those also had heavy armor and point defenses, so he didn¡¯t bother replying to the provocation. The wargaming simulations had come down firmly on the side of launching a single massive assault on the portal staging area, compared to trying to take and hold a region. Choosing when and where to strike had always been the attacker¡¯s advantage, and he wanted to hold onto that as long as possible.


    The seventeen hours passed quickly, even with the occasional framejack to solve some minor problem or another. Despite years of preparation and simulation, actually deploying forces into a gravity well always resulted in unforeseen issues. Unlike the System¡¯s Skills, which were identical every time, or digital information which could be copied perfectly, analog biology and mechanics required adjustment and maintenance.


    One of Cato¡¯s spy satellites caught the formation of the staging area an hour before the timer was set to end, which was one of the first things he¡¯d seen done by the System rather than by people within it. A space some dozen miles from a town in the southern hemisphere abruptly cleared, trees and creatures vanishing with no fanfare at all to leave a grassy circle a bit over a mile wide. Moments later, System buildings appeared from nowhere, a rough semicircle of white boxes and open, paved pavilions, and the familiar pylons.


    He was half-expecting some kind of non-player character to manifest too, just by how incredibly game-like the instantiation was, but of course the System didn¡¯t have those ¡ª so he felt no compunction about promptly blowing it to hell. Kinetic impactors, launched from one of the still-moving weapons platforms, hammered the area mere minutes after it appeared in a demonstration that was meant to be noticeable. It wasn¡¯t like he could affect the portal itself ¨C they¡¯d found that out on Earth ¨C so he could just drop an impactor from Sandkicker, one of his kiloton-rated railguns. One projectile hitting home every thirty seconds or so would do very well to deny the area to anyone else.


    With a four-minute transit time, he wasn¡¯t going to be hitting anything but a stationary target, and he wasn¡¯t able to even stop firing without a lot of lag, but finesse wasn¡¯t the point. The impactors eradicated the initial System buildings, though his observation satellites spotted one particular pylon that remained undamaged. That one would probably take a particle beam to remove, but in fact Cato didn¡¯t dare to even plan on it before he got a version of himself through the portal.


    The System answer to his continuous bombardment came some twenty minutes before the timer was up, when a higher rank Tornok-clan appeared with no fanfare directly in the middle of the cratered and blasted staging area and gestured with one hand. A giant matte-white dome appeared, looking as if it were made of rough marble, and the next projectile simply skittered off of it in a physics-defying manner. The silicon rod should have shattered, but instead simply bounced off with the vast majority of its velocity nullified, landing in the ruined foliage outside the dome. The next eight projectiles fared no better ¡ª most of them having already been in flight at the time, already on a ballistic trajectory from Sandkicker to the planet¡¯s surface.


    ¡°Not an Azoth I recognize,¡± Yaniss said, though Cato wasn¡¯t sure it would have been useful to know who it was. They were far past the point of negotiations being possible.


    ¡°And we¡¯re still hours out from getting particle beams in place,¡± Raine grumbled.


    ¡°Either I¡¯m missing something about the [Crusade] quest or people are getting far more interesting quests to lure Azoths this far out,¡± Leese said, pulling up a virtual version of the quest available to her frame on the planet below. ¡°Rewards variable doesn¡¯t mean too much to me.¡±


    ¡°It means they scale with your rank and contribution,¡± Yaniss said, sounding a touch impatient. Cato was sure that she¡¯d repeated the same thing to a number of different versions of Raine and Leese across a number of different worlds, as not every piece of information was proliferated. Just the important things. ¡°Everyone can benefit from taking part, if there¡¯s something that actually challenges you.¡±


    ¡°I suppose we should be glad we¡¯re only seeing one or two Azoths,¡± Cato mused. ¡°And that they¡¯re not interested in dealing with the orbitals.¡± He was still keeping his most important equipment far enough away from the System edge that maneuvering and point defenses could deal with the majority of attacks, but if an Azoth¡¯s energy output was roughly on the order of scour a continent then the right skillset could absolutely give him trouble.


    The timer finally completed and Cato flinched, knowing that marked the point of no return for whatever world was on the other side. All the death and destruction, reality being upended, and a war they¡¯d never asked for. But if he got through quickly enough, it might be possible to mitigate some of it.


    It took another hour for his forces to come within range, but when they did he started sending them down en masse. Drop pods de-orbited with effectively no attempt to slow down; all the organisms inside were instead cushioned by inert, shock-absorbing gel and the containers simply smashed into the ground at something above terminal velocity. He put several thousand light scout frames down all around the dome, less to assault it as to get precise targeting for the particle beam weapons that were finally within range.


    About as expected, the first wave got wiped by divine power, but even if Cato didn¡¯t have a full, planet-scale invasion force, he still had enough for a few dozen waves. The first few didn¡¯t have any heavy warframes at all, let alone the special ones meant to launch themselves into orbit via biological Orion drive the moment they could. He only had a few hundred of those, even with the bioforges growing more as fast as he could manage, and while one would be enough to get a foothold, he wanted to send them all. There was no such thing as overkill.


    The entrances to the dome were arches spaced about its perimeter, and the first of his scouts to survive showed him that, underneath the dome, the staging point had been reconstituted. In fact, the blasted, cratered landscape had been returned to something approaching normal, as if the bombardment had been completely undone. Which it might have; if the System could mess with entropy, simply rewinding that way was not out of the question.


    The Azoth wasn¡¯t inside. There were a few dozen System inhabitants which had presumably teleported there via the Nexus, but the Azoth himself was missing. Ignoring the lower ranks, Cato sent his warframes charging at the portal, aiming to establish a beachhead of some sort, and hopefully get enough perspective for one of his Orion warframes. Instead, what he found was the Azoth waiting on the other end, as the Tornok-clan promptly annihilated his scout.


    ¡°Damn.¡± Cato didn¡¯t have a good answer for that problem. He couldn¡¯t aim a particle-beam through the portal, or rather, even if he could, it¡¯d only hit what could be seen through the portal, and the Azoth had made the simple decision to stand off to one side. None of his ground forces had the punch to deal with someone of that rank, and there was no way to get at the planet except through the portal. More would appear over time, to judge from Earth, but only from elsewhere on this planet leading to that one.


    ¡°Someone seems to realize you need the portal,¡± Yaniss observed, and Cato resisted the urge to glare at her virtual avatar.


    ¡°We always figured they¡¯d come to that conclusion eventually,¡± he said instead. ¡°I¡¯m not sure we have many options.¡± Even if he crashed the System on Koh-rel, and there were probably more high-rankers arriving to contest that, then that would leave the newly annexed world without any support at all. He needed to get that Azoth away, and keep any other forces from going through, but he didn¡¯t want to break the portal yet.


    More, since it was clear that dealing with this annexation would take time, he wanted to prevent the whole entire System from getting involved, especially lower-ranked people who would only die in the crossfire. Even if the System generated more than its fair share of psychopaths, most of the lower ranks were just doing what reality told them and trying to survive. It was in Cato¡¯s best interests to close things out quickly, before the conflict spread.


    ¡°Is it worth escalating yet?¡± Leese asked. They did have plans for operations of all scales, specifically because the portals were such a chokepoint. Wargaming sims really showed the only reasonable way to free up such a chokepoint was to force people to worry more about other parts of the System.


    ¡°We¡¯re spread widely enough, and the Sydean Lineage is well outside the target area,¡± Cato said, drawing up a message to his other selves. It was time to show the System what advanced technology could manage. After Haekos, he would be glad of a reason to give the entire edifice a bloody nose. ¡°Saving an entire civilization is exactly what brought me here from Earth. I¡¯m sure they have this world hardened, but that¡¯s fine. I doubt they¡¯ll be ready for fifty planets at once.¡±


    ***


    Marus was cautiously optimistic.


    The portal had opened and so far it seemed that Cato was not waiting on the other side. Rather, it was obvious he was trying to invade through the very portal the System had provided, which reassured Marus that the being was not quite as all-pervasive as he had seemed for a moment. Whatever Cato¡¯s abilities were, they did not yet seem up to breaching the twin barriers of both god and Azoth protecting the portal itself.


    Cato¡¯s forces were also far, far less than they¡¯d been at Haekos. Even if Lakor had ultimately been forced to abandon that world, that skirmish had clearly massively depleted what Cato had been building up, and with what they¡¯d learned there it should be possible to thoroughly eradicate him on Koh-rel. A few additions to the [Crusade] turned the mortals attention to the skies, and there was an additional Azoth on the way.


    True, Cato seemed to have the capacity to kill Azoths, but it was clear he was unable or unwilling to use that weapon except in dire circumstances. And it was easy enough to avoid with a little bit of intelligence; simply avoid exposure to the sky. That wasn¡¯t always possible, but ensuring there were shelters was easy enough for a [World Deity], at least compared to the essence cost of other actions.


    With the portal open, Marus could have anchored his System Space to Gogri. Oran already had, and while Marus was loath to let the Lundt Clan make movements without Marus to curb him, he wasn¡¯t quite ready to make that leap. The main reason was that he had not seen the same weapon that had obliterated the Paladin back on Sydea, and cracked the divine protection the mortal had been given. That implied that Cato had yet to show his full hand, and Marus wasn¡¯t going to waste the time and essence to merge in his personal realm until he was more assured of the situation.


    ¡°I believe the Azoths will bring the situation under control,¡± Lakor said, studying the scrying windows. He¡¯d actively given a quest for the Azoth to protect the portal ¡ª from the other side. Which had some obvious dividends, as the relatively paltry assault force Cato had summoned couldn¡¯t do anything about the chokepoint. The attempts had gone on for almost two days, but each wave dwindled ever so slightly. A second quest had been given to entice other Azoths to come and remove some of Cato¡¯s creations from the skies, though those particular mortals had yet to arrive. ¡°I think Cato has come to the end of his strength regardless.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps, but he works in ways we do not yet understand,¡± Initik cautioned. Marus didn¡¯t like the insect being there, but Initik¡¯s suggestions had all been actionable and to the point. He would have preferred if the suggestions had come with the essence to enact them, but Koh-rel was very clearly going to be less of an expense than Haekos. It was unfortunate that they had to spend any essence at all, but the total proceeds from the [Crusade] might make up for it. That was an accounting to be done at a later time, after the crisis was over.


    ¡°Maybe Cato has some strange Skills, but even he can¡¯t fight a war over multiple worlds,¡± Lakor said dismissively. ¡°With the [Crusade] bringing the might of the System against him, I doubt he can last much longer.¡±


    Logically, Marus had to agree, but there was still an unease in his gut, placed there by witnessing the violation of divine mandate. If it had been by another god within the System, that would have been one thing, but Cato had gone at it an entirely different way, and that shock lingered with him. The revelation that things could violate the System¡¯s dictates, and that which should be absolute was not, made him question other things he had taken for granted.


    Suddenly Lakor¡¯s interface began wailing at him, warbling as all kinds of alerts began to appear. Initik moved up in a flash, with Mii-Es crowding in on the other side as Lakor wordlessly pulled up the status and scries from his other worlds. Lakor was in charge of eleven total, with Haekos gone, and every single one of them was generating the defense quest, the [Crusade] activating in tandem.


    He couldn¡¯t help but think that perhaps they were the ones who couldn¡¯t last much longer.


    ***


    ¡°Hey! Morvan!¡± Justin yelled from the shore several miles away, the giant wolf¡¯s Azoth-rank physique giving his naturally stentorian voice a truly heroic boost. Morvan scowled at Justin, and gestured in the direction of the massive rolling wave, then down at his home-made surfboard. The storm-tossed ocean of the war-world was as oversized as everything else on the planet, and that included the waves. They¡¯d kill any normal person, but were only mildly rough for Morvan¡¯s Azoth-ranked body.


    Having to fight off the occasional sea monster while riding the currents was really just a bonus.


    ¡°You can do that later! I¡¯ve had a message from the gods!¡±


    Morvan grabbed his surfboard and invoked his movement Skill, riding on the boundary between normal space and something else, the aether bringing him to the shore in an instant. Not that anyone from Earth was particularly devout, but the System admins were still important enough to be respected. Or at least, exploited for favors.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± Morvan asked, stowing the surfboard in his voluminous Estate, now linked to his spatial bags.


    ¡°There¡¯s a special quest going on out on the frontier, called a [Crusade],¡± Justin said. ¡°That¡¯s not what¡¯s interesting though. Apparently the main thing is that it¡¯s gotten big, and it¡¯s all been sparked by, supposedly, something from outside the System. Called Cato.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve got to be kidding,¡± Morvan groaned. ¡°That killjoy again? Still? Bad enough that he was trying to ruin our fun back on Earth, but he followed us here, too?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but it sounded like something we can get paid to look into,¡± Justin snorted, his tail thumping the ground. ¡°Not like anyone here is going to have the first clue what¡¯s going on if it really is someone from Earth.¡±


    ¡°Probably not,¡± Morvan sighed. ¡°Where¡¯s Kierstan? We¡¯ll have to go investigate. There¡¯s probably nothing to worry about if it¡¯s just him. He¡¯s too damned soft to actually threaten anyone, and there¡¯s the technology issue, too, so there aren¡¯t going to be any creepy AIs around.¡±


    ¡°True,¡± Justin agreed. ¡°He really should just have stayed on Earth if he didn¡¯t want to have fun.¡±

 Chapter 16 — The Tipping Point

    Exponential growth was a hell of a thing.


    Thanks to the tireless efforts of so many Lineages over so many years, he¡¯d spread to hundreds of worlds, and on each of those worlds he¡¯d gone into full-tilt industrialization. In a way it hardly mattered that he couldn¡¯t move forces through the portals in any meaningful way, as each world had its own armies and its own means of making them. Industry was the key. Factories, mines, and refineries; siphoning atmosphere from gas giants, cracking frozen volatiles on icy asteroids, and spinning out an endless acreage of solar panels.


    Some small percent of his ever-growing production base on each world was dedicated to building weapons and warframes rather than new industrial capacity, and a somewhat larger percentage was designed to be quickly retooled from one purpose to the other ¡ª a process that was underway after the warning from Koh-rel. Even if those portions of his infrastructure were relatively small, in absolute terms they were staggeringly large after years of dedicated growth.


    That sort of expansionist strategy would never have worked in the Sol System. Most planets, moons, and asteroids in the inner system had already been at least provisionally claimed, and even in the diffuse cloud of frozen bodies on the system¡¯s edge such behavior would have earned negative attention. Harsh words, harsher malware, and harshest railgun rounds were the expected escalation for anyone who tried to go full paperclip maximizer, and for good reason.


    There were no innocent motives for that kind of expansion.


    Obviously any sane individual or community wanted a few thousand ¨C or million ¨C years of stockpiled resources, but as far as raw mass went it wasn¡¯t unreasonable to meet those demands, even for people with organic bodies rather than running on substrate. Equally obviously, such an individual or community would want the industrial capacity to provide both luxuries and necessities, to upgrade infrastructure based on other people¡¯s work or to innovate their own, and to provide for their own defense. Only an idiot had an unarmed habitat.


    But reckless, fully exponential expansion only meant war or other, more inhuman motives. Sometimes it had been actual paperclip maximizers, machines of varying complexity with no controls or orders in place other than to expand. Other times, it had been people who simply had appetites or attitudes that could not be satisfied, and those were just the incidents that were public knowledge. There were rumors of a long, slow, quiet war in the frozen depths of the Oort cloud, an explanation for the occasional puffs of energetically vaporized material visible to the proper sensors, but he¡¯d never heard exactly who was fighting or why.


    Cato¡¯s expansion was firmly in the war category, but there was even more than that. After any given planet was cut from the System¡¯s bonds, he¡¯d need that infrastructure to fix the inevitable problems faced by the planet in question ¡ª and quickly. The people, certainly, but also ecological or geological instabilities, nonviable atmosphere, even solar radiance. There was no telling how much the System had altered a planet, up to and including its tilt and orbital eccentricity ¡ª not to mention cutting off thousands or millions of years of biosphere evolution to adapt to natural conditions. He might have mere days to correct a biosphere collapse.


    All of this was in every single solar system that Cato had expanded to, ignoring the newly-seeded worlds where he didn¡¯t yet have an industrial base worth considering. So it was across his entire territory. Every single world had a swarm of machines, ready and waiting to be directed, and after the warning from Koh-rel that swarm was growing far larger. Assaulting one planet or assaulting ten was the same amount of effort, especially since each version of himself was operating independently. He didn¡¯t need to split his attention, and couldn¡¯t be stopped or deterred from events on some different world since he was physically unable to cross from one to another.


    That amount of effort, all that materiel, was necessary to draw away the defenders at Gogri¡¯s portal, and isolate the warzone from further System reinforcements. Ignoring the potential for high rankers to teleport directly or the gods to provide transport, he needed to take seventeen worlds. Not that Koh-rel was connected to seventeen systems directly, but if he wanted a diversion he needed to take more than a few planets, and if he was to do that he might as well sever a small peninsula of the System¡¯s network.


    Taking into account all the connections and diversion he needed to deal with, he was invading over forty total worlds, several jumps around the selected nodes and the entirety of the network between them and Koh-rel. Some of the assaults were designed to be beaten back, in hopes that the appearance of a victory would draw System people ¨C who were decidedly not soldiers ¨C away from the targets he actually cared about. It was less than a tenth of the total worlds he had spread to and a tiny fraction of a percent of total worlds in the System, but still larger than any real-world military operation he¡¯d ever heard of. Not that Cato truly considered himself military.


    The two greatest challenges he faced, System-gods aside, were high rank dungeons and the Azoth squatting on the portal to the newly-inducted world. He had been given years to run wargaming simulations based on his observations, and sims at least gave him some options for dealing with the deities, even if Cato had not yet had the chance to deploy his solutions. In a way, he was looking forward to finally using the Big Bad Bug Bomb.


    His greatest strength was his ability to leverage resources. Cato wasn¡¯t some strategic genius, certainly nothing like Enceladus, but he had a lot of solutions in his databases and the ability to apply them. More importantly, he could apply them at scales undreamed-of by most people within the System.


    The drop pods had millions of tons of insects inside. Swarm intelligence was not a new concept. It had been toyed with even back in the early days of computing, but there was a difference between coordinating a large number of agents and embedding a fully reactive intelligence in a dispersed cloud of entities, let alone something as complex as the human mind. The model that Cato was using had first been engineered on Europa, with swarms of fish adapted for the planet-size ocean. But the specific version he was running was the one that had been weaponized by the improbably-named Team For Good Or For Awesome, in order to retake a McKendree Cylinder from someone else¡¯s ill-advised genetics experiment.


    The bugs themselves, as well as the drop pod, didn¡¯t actually have any of the System-jamming technology ¡ª at least, not immediately. Each of them carried raw materials and a catalyst to create and engage them in an instant, though, and from there to instantiate the organic fusion snot. It was the best solution he had to dealing with high rank beasts and dungeons, the ones he couldn¡¯t engage with warframes. It did take time, but the upside was that they weren¡¯t subject to the instant destruction from the gods, nor did they prompt the System quest.


    Anyone that was actually watching would still recognize the swarms of bugs as being something unnatural, but Cato had already been shown that the attention of the gods and various System-folks was not all-pervasive. If he could avoid tripping the automated defenses and garnering recognition, he could get away with a lot more. Even better, small insects didn¡¯t prompt the murderous instincts of System beasts and monsters, while some would inevitably be preyed upon, the swarm wouldn¡¯t necessarily be targeted by the area-effect Skills of high level monsters.


    The insects didn¡¯t have the benefit of the System jammers, so they were still subject to some alteration. Experiments had shown that, given some time, they would grow larger and the combat loop in their neural architecture would be significantly reinforced, but none of the insects were intended to live long enough for that to be an issue. Besides, they were being actively controlled either by Cato or by combat algorithms, rather than basic instincts.


    In general he wasn¡¯t worried about the System copying them. Without specific external stimuli ¨C actual electromagnetic waves interacting with certain glands ¨C they were nothing particularly special. Activating the System-jamming biology while still inside the auspice of the System was more risky, but he was fairly certain that it had been done back on Earth ¡ª and even if not, it¡¯d be awful difficult for the System to create something that rejected it by its very nature.


    The entire reason the System-jamming biology worked was, so far as anyone who wasn¡¯t a superintelligent AI could tell, because the System did interface directly with the mind. Skills were an invocation of software rather than hardware, so to speak. So the neural static acted as some kind of localized denial-of-service attack, leveraging processes built deep into the System¡¯s very nature, possibly even the rules of its altered reality.


    Overall, the Big Bad Bug Bomb was, in a very strange way, a subtle attack, even if he was dropping a million tons of genetically engineered material at a time. Various versions of him had spent the last few days ¡ª while one of him conducted a steadily ¡°losing¡± battle on Koh-rel in order to hold the attention of the System-gods ¡ª maneuvering their forces closer to the target worlds. The Big Bad Bug Bombs got dropped first, targeting all the unoccupied dungeons so he''d have enough presence to remove everything at once.


    Actual tons of insects translated into an unholy swarm, flowing out of the big drop pods like some kind of horrendous, chitin-laden fluid. They went directly into the dungeons, while the drop pods themselves dug roots into the ground, a modification of FungusNet technology acting as a control station. Some insects carried more FungusNet components to act as relays, though the distributed intelligence of the combat algorithms probably was good enough to navigate any given dungeon by itself.


    The most difficult thing would be if there were any floors that were hard-locked behind boss deaths, but the worst case scenario was to swarm any boss mob and detonate small fusion bombs inside it. Even Bismuths would have a hard time dealing with that, though according to Yaniss that kind of gating was less common with higher rank dungeons. She¡¯d heard stories that Alum-ranked dungeons didn¡¯t really even have discrete bosses, but rather entire cities or mountains of monsters and beasts. Fortunately he didn¡¯t need to target those anyway; the point was for the insects to find the core and detonate a fusion explosion on that.


    The first Bug Bombs crashed down on thirty separate worlds, flooding into Bismuth and Peak Platinum dungeons. They¡¯d take time to work their way through the massive dungeons, time that he could be using to deal with his other targets in the more usual way. Three hours after the Bug Bombs, the first warframes landed, drop pods blazing down from the skies and slamming to the ground by cities and lower-ranked dungeons.


    Surprisingly, they didn¡¯t get instantly vaporized. Cato had no idea what to think about that, and he desperately wished he had more insight into how the System-gods worked, because he didn¡¯t have enough data points for any conjecture. Even the best analysis software couldn¡¯t conjure answers from thin air. On the other hand, the blatant display of force and the accompanying System quest did stir a lot of people to action, and many of the worlds had native Bismuths.


    On Rhurel, a water-wielding Bismuth whipped up a vortex around an island city to protect it, while on Koes an earth-type erected domes that were less impressive than the Azoth¡¯s had been, but still troublesome. The world of Khem had someone who, once the invasion started, began sniping his orbital forces with tangles of wire traveling at hypersonic velocities ¡ª to varying success. But one or two Bismuths couldn¡¯t cover an entire planet.


    While the machinations of the System-gods were mostly invisible to him, he could still spot the currents when something happened. Having eyes on hundreds of worlds meant he could spot a sudden shift in traffic, and the ripple of notifications hitting people¡¯s own personal System interfaces. Of course, the sisters usually had frames to monitor the local notifications, but it was obvious that not everyone got the same quests. Higher rankers were getting preferentially more urgent quests to come defend the worlds in question, to judge by how quickly they moved.


    And finally, the Azoth reacted. Judging by how easily the System-god had abandoned the planets of Sydea and Haekos, the fringe and frontier worlds were not considered all that valuable. Less valuable than the more developed planets several hops inward, at least, and rather than spending Azoths on blocking his obvious goal, they¡¯d rather spend them on countering the far larger move.


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    It was a sour victory. Cato had once had grand plans of infiltrating worlds, showing people the alternatives to the System, getting them on his side, and only then bringing it down. Yes, there were people invested in their power, but the vast majority of individuals were not that powerful, and surely they had all lost someone to the brutal, ubiquitous violence the System required. Sydea had shown that it was possible, and the general reaction of the sisters and Yaniss demonstrated that, given the opportunity, people did see the value of life outside the System.


    But he¡¯d been forced to move in reaction to crisis, with no buildup and no gentleness. Raine and Leese hadn¡¯t had time to prepare the way on any world, partly because he was still trying to spread out and partly because Uriva had shown that System-gods would respond to the subversion. Or at least, could, and he had not been ready to show himself. Now his hand had been forced, and everyone would know that he was around.


    Cato-Koh-Rel dropped a full hundred of the orbit-capable warframes outside the dome the moment the Azoth left, the man teleporting back to the Nexus by way of a marble arch conjured from nowhere. They raced through to the other side and, since they weren¡¯t immediately annihilated, half of them promptly detonated their special packages as the rest scattered in all directions, the Orion drive kick sending Cato-payloads out of the atmosphere. It washed the area in fusion flames, but that was why he¡¯d kept up the assault, to keep the lower rankers out of the blast area.


    With that, his primary goal was complete, but he wasn¡¯t going to just halt the invasion forces everywhere else. Raine, Leese, Yaniss, and his sims all agreed that it was far, far better to carry through with it where possible. It was one thing to be shocked by the suddenness of it all, and have to adapt to a life without the System, and another to wait and anticipate another assault for years, letting the fear and resentment grow and poison the populace against him.


    Besides, if he was going to start trying to subvert the population on other planets, he would need a credible amount of strength. While the drastic steps needed to get at Gogri so he could combat its apocalypse were not ideal, he could at least make some use of his massive show of force. Dramatically and publicly removing just under twenty worlds from the System demonstrated that he could do so, and had the force of will to back his force of arms.


    ¡°Wait,¡± said Yaniss, or at least the version of her that was around Rhurel. ¡°If this gets cut off, does that mean there will be two of me?¡±


    ¡°One of you for each world,¡± Cato said, somewhat amused. For all that she took to reconciliation better than anyone he knew personally, she hadn¡¯t truly internalized what it meant to be digital life. One of the reasons why he was resistant to offering it as a primary incentive, even if on the surface it seemed to be all upsides. The experience of no longer being fully unique, among many other restrictions being rendered moot, could and did destroy people. ¡°If you don¡¯t want that, you¡¯ll want to reconcile back somewhere outside the invasion area and abandon this substrate.¡±


    ¡°Hm,¡± said Yaniss, and did just that without any further discussion. The substrate suspended operations, compressing and assembling Yaniss¡¯ gestalt into a static package, broadcast it through FungusNet and, upon confirming receipt, discarded the condensed archive. That particular operation was one of the sticking points for most people, as for some that was the same thing as suicide, even if continuity of experience was maintained throughout.


    Cato didn¡¯t have any problem with it, but of course he was staying, as were the sisters, though there was the possibility that they wouldn¡¯t be completely isolated. One of the worlds that was within the region of the System he was cutting off was a mere forty light-years from one of the worlds that was remaining within it, verified by spectral data of the star in question. It wasn¡¯t close enough to hold a conversation, not nearly, but he¡¯d already set up some deep-space broadcast and receiver equipment so that he could at least get updates once the connection was severed.


    The campaign was definitely going to take more than forty years. The scope of the System was so great that even if he faced very little resistance, it would take a lot of time to spread through the entire thing. A depressing thought, but Cato had known what he was getting into from the start. Maybe not the sheer scale of it, but they had all known the System was large.


    If there was any useful, actionable understanding of what happened when the System was cut off, he would definitely be able to apply it. Eventually. Forty light-years was even close enough to think about sending reinforcements, though that spun the timescale up to multiple centuries and used very untested designs, so it wasn¡¯t something he wanted to rely on. Slower than light just couldn¡¯t compete with the System¡¯s physics-breaking portals.


    ¡°Shoot, he took out one of the remediation ships,¡± Eshe Mor, n¨¦e Leese Khem, complained. The Bismuth sniper was one of the few high rankers with the skillset to reach beyond the edge of the System, and while the sheer number of forces made it improbable for him to put a serious dent in the orbital swarm, some targets were more valuable than others. Such as the big crafts full of machinery meant to fix the inevitable ecological disasters that would be left in the wake of the System¡¯s disappearance.


    Raine Khem wordlessly adjusted the trajectory plan to put Leese¡¯s remediation ships back where they should have been originally, well within the point defense blanket, while Cato took control of one of the scout-forms near to the Bismuth in question. He couldn¡¯t just sit back and watch, even if wasn¡¯t likely he could change any minds he had to at least make an attempt.


    ¡°You¡¯ll want to leave before the System falls,¡± Cato said, hijacking a nearby pseudo-bird scout¡¯s syrinx to speak System tongue. Amazingly, the Bismuth didn¡¯t react by reflexively shredding the spokesbeast, but rather snared it in wire ¡ª but with surprising gentleness, doing no damage to the scout bird.


    ¡°Who are you? Why are you attacking?¡± The Bismuth barked, almost literally, as his form was something reminiscent of a canine, though with almost catfish-like whiskers and oddly yellow-green fur.


    ¡°I am Cato, a being from a world that the System attacked,¡± Cato said. He¡¯d had years to consider his script for such questions, and had settled on an explanation that might not be perfectly accurate in every detail, but was more understandable. ¡°My quarrel is with the System, not with you or yours; none will be harmed if I can avoid it. But Bismuth bodies and higher cannot exist without the System, and so you will either need to trust me to give you a new body ¨C which you have no reason to ¨C or retreat until there is time to establish that trust.¡±


    He actually didn¡¯t know how he¡¯d do that. The stories of the fighting on the planets should eventually show that he was being entirely nonlethal, but he couldn¡¯t count on word to spread like it would in the information-dense polities of his home civilization. Natural propaganda wasn¡¯t reliable but, fortunately, he was in the position to execute the largest leaflet drop of all time.


    ¡°We will repel you and your kind, demon,¡± the Bismuth sneered, and pulped the bird-scout. Cato sighed, suddenly incredibly tired despite his human frame on one of the command ships being perfectly awake and aware. He knew that it was incredibly unlikely that he¡¯d be able to save many Bismuths, at least right now. Even if they could look around and see that he wasn¡¯t actually killing people, most of them would see no need to retreat, let alone believe that the System could vanish and take them with it.


    But he still had to try.


    ***


    Initik clicked softly to himself as he regarded the chaos in the Clan Lundt System Space. Most of the World Deities there likely hadn¡¯t seen each other in centuries, but they¡¯d all been brought together by a common cause. Cato had attacked all their worlds at once, finally demonstrating the true scope of his threat and forcing a cooperation that had never before occurred. Clan Eln and Clan Lundt crowded together, still separated but at least at the same table, shouting and arguing as scry windows showed the worlds under attack.


    Forty worlds was a worrisome chunk of the clans¡¯ holdings, though he understood both the clans had thousands of worlds under their purview. In relative terms, losing roughly twenty apiece was very little, but even in the normal fighting, backstabbing, and skullduggery between clans that many worlds didn¡¯t change hands at a time. And to someone like him or Mii-Es, who had a single chosen world, the scope of that attack was beyond anything they could withstand.


    He had no idea where Cato had gotten the amount of creatures on display, let alone the artifacts he used that floated out beyond the System¡¯s reach, but if he concentrated everything shown on a single planet he could reduce that world to dust in short order. Only Cato¡¯s determination to avoid harm to all those living on the planet prevented that.


    That was the greatest weakness Initik had discovered, and there was no guarantee it would be enough. Just because Cato had yet refrained from too much force out of consideration for the inhabitants of each world didn¡¯t mean he was incapable or even unwilling. His self-proclaimed goal, as delivered by Muar and reinforced by the conversations scried during the invasion, was to remove the System. If Cato was willing to go as far as assaulting dozens of worlds at a time, Initik very much doubted individual mortal lives mattered to him, so simply trying to hold people hostage didn¡¯t seem to have any logical basis.


    Not that direct combat was doing much, either. Wiping Cato¡¯s presence from an entire planet was easy enough; the crystal bearing the instructions on how to do so had already been passed on to other deities, along with the signature such a divine act needed to look for. But Cato didn¡¯t stay gone. Only Initik had been able to truly remove Cato¡¯s presence, and the squabbling Clan members seemed to have forgotten him entirely.


    ¡°¡ªessence cost alone would put me in debt for another century¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªClan Horash would see it as weakness if we just¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªalready a marginal world, so it can¡¯t be worth¡ª"


    Listening to the arguments and complaints, Initik found most of their concerns to be petty. The World Deities were administrators, not fighters. Bureaucrats, not leaders. He heard very little about tactics and strategy against Cato, and quite a lot about the costs incurred and the political implications among the other clans.


    ¡°They¡¯re all cowards,¡± Mii-Es muttered at his side.


    ¡°They grew up in a powerful Clan, were gifted their status as [World Deity] and trained to manage it without ever having to actually rise from being a mortal.¡± Initik clicked softly, his gripping claws flexing. ¡°Is it any wonder they find themselves at a loss when confronted by their first real threat? I merely fear the consequences if one of them¡ª¡±


    As if his words were prophecy, Lakor had apparently had enough of the bickering and decided to take action. Not just through the Interface, not just exercising essence from his System Space, but actually taking Koh-rel¡¯s battleground himself. Lakor invoked [Manifest], the way deities were meant to interact with mortals, even if Initik personally hated the Skill.


    The deity in question vanished from the shared System Space and appeared on his world, a colossal titan towering over the capital city Nexus. The Skill was hardly subtle, and while a Deity¡¯s presence that way provided all sorts of strength to those around him, there was no purpose to the form but combat. Combat at the scale that could level continents, or worse.


    In fact, the deity¡¯s first action was to gesture with one hand and rip an entire mountain from the ground, the white-sloped mass of rock hovering in the air for a moment before the deity pointed and sent the mountain screaming off into the sky, aimed at something beyond sight. It looked impressive, but was only equivalent to what an Alum could do. It was also irrelevant; fighting Cato wasn¡¯t fighting a single person. He was a swarm, but very far different from any dungeon or monster swarm, for it wasn¡¯t the sheer numbers that were the danger.


    The mountain vanished in a moment, and someone manipulated the scry-window to show, a few second later, a blooming explosion in the evening sky overhead. Mii-Es chuckled, though whether she was taking satisfaction in the destruction or she knew how pointless it was to hit a target that way Initik didn¡¯t know. He almost said something, but looking at the scrum of useless deities who had never properly fought in their lives, he didn¡¯t think it worth the effort.


    Cato¡¯s answer came a few second later. Two thin beams of almost-lightning came down from the sky, the Skill that had destroyed the Azoth. Normally something like that would be no threat to a World Deity. Normal Skills simply didn¡¯t affect Deities, and even the greatest of an Alum¡¯s destructive Skills required a certain something more to hurt a god ¡ª as Initik well knew, since he had done it, so long ago. But Cato¡¯s weapons weren¡¯t normal Skills, and whatever they were, they sneered at divinity.


    Lakor bellowed in pain and rage as the beams intersected him, and even went through him like some phantom energy. It was obvious that the beams held more power than it looked like, as where they touched the god and the ground both, fire and thunder blazed into existence. And the beam didn¡¯t stop; it was not a single Skill, but a continuous, channeled attack, with no end in sight. Lakor was forced to teleport away, moving from the ruined capital city to another major city on the other side of the globe ¡ª to no avail. A new set of beams found him there, as well, punching burning holes in divine flesh with their unrelenting fury.


    He ripped up more mountains, tearing holes hundreds of miles wide in the ground as he hurled the monstrous projectiles into the sky. One of the beams vanished, but was replaced by another, at a different angle. That was the danger of manifesting in a battle-form; like many transformative Skills, it changed a person, and the Eln was clearly focused on fighting when it was obvious that what was needed was a measured and intelligent approach, not blind aggression.


    Lakor had to be spending essence like water, but to no avail. The group gathered around the scry-views slowly went silent as the bizarre sky-beams went on and on, second after second, seemingly inexhaustible in their terrible effects. He kept trying to fight back by hurling things in the direction of the beams, but they seemed to be able to appear from any angle.


    Suddenly, a tipping point was reached and Lakor vanished in a massive billow of blinding flame. For a moment there was not a single sound within the System Space, and all the gathered deities simply watched the scry windows, none of them wanting to admit what they¡¯d just seen happen.


    Cato had killed a god.


    ¡°Time to go,¡± Initik said to Mii-Es, as the arguments erupted again, louder than ever. He had no need to stay and see the outcome. Even if they managed to push Cato off of some of the worlds, likely by using Initik¡¯s knowledge, the damage was done. Cato had shown that he was a genuine threat and not just to a few irrelevant territories. Even if Initik could keep Cato out of Uriva, that didn¡¯t mean the god-killer couldn¡¯t surround Uriva, cut it off from the larger System, and starve his world until nothing remained.


    Initik needed a new strategy.

 Chapter 17 — Elsewhere

    Raine Talis stowed her spear as the final guardian of the Platinum Rank Trial fell, fading back into the ground.  It had taken quite some time for her and Leese to chip through the incredible bulk of the hulking stone golem, all while avoiding the stone spikes and flechettes that erupted from the walls of the rocky chamber.  The finale for Leese¡¯s trial had been easier, as they had simply been able to cut through the swarm of amphibians that had been created to challenge them.


    Not that the Ascension Trial was nearly as difficult as it was meant to be, not with the advantages Cato had bestowed on them.  At every rank they were far more powerful than they were meant to be, and with the combat algorithms he had gifted them every fight was made transparent.  Even the most confused combination of flying stone and unstable terrain had been easily navigable, and the two of them had only taken a few glancing hits.


    Without those advantages, it was obvious why people didn¡¯t tend to take the trial more than once.  Being cut back to the vulnerable early ranks was an insane risk for most, especially for those who had spent decades or longer at Platinum in order to reach the Bismuth Trial.  For her and Leese, the trial was actually easier than their normal delving.


    Leese had ranked up first, so now it was her turn.  Raine walked to the pedestal that had risen from the ground where the guardian had fallen as Leese fidgeted behind her, plucking the trial token from where it hovered just above the slab of stone.  The disc of multicolored, crystalline material glittered in her hand, almost vibrating with essence, and the portal back to the trial ground opened in front of them.


    She held onto the disc, following an impatient Leese through the portal to the dais where they had both used their Platinum Estate Tokens to start the trial almost a week ago.  Raine slotted the disc into the dais, and the stone platform rumbled, rising from the ground to reveal a staircase leading down.  Now knowing what to expect, she headed inside without hesitation, with Leese just behind her.  There were no enemies, merely a vast and cavernous hall, at the end of which was a rippling pool of fiery liquid.


    For Leese, it had been a frigid blue, some sort of liquid ice, a material wrought out of pure essence that matched their chosen Skills.  This was the reason why only one person could ascend at a time; not only was the pool only enough for one person, but almost no party was served by multiples of the same affinity type.  She could feel the heat radiating from it as she approached, but it wasn¡¯t scorching like lava or fire.  It was something soothing, resonating with her own Skills.


    ¡°It¡¯s pretty intense,¡± Leese warned, hovering at the edge of the pool and restlessly pacing the border.  ¡°At least, it was for me.  I can¡¯t imagine fire is much different than cold.¡±


    ¡°Probably not,¡± Raine agreed, taking a breath.  ¡°Right, here I go.¡±  She strode down the broad steps into the pool, feeling the fire-aspected essence wash through her. They had learned there was no point in undressing, and the essence wasn¡¯t entirely physical anyway.  It flowed straight through armor and clothing and even her body, the liquid trembling and beginning to swirl around her.


    Her essence senses were almost blinded as the fire poured into her, suffusing blood and bone and scale, every nerve feeling like it was aflame and yet, it wasn¡¯t quite pain.  It was something else, a profound shift throughout her entire body.  Then time suddenly slowed, the vortex frozen about her, waiting as the System asked one simple question: what Skill embodied her transcendence?


    The two of them had Yaniss¡¯ wisdom to draw on, and they both knew that the choice was a profound one.  It would affect how they viewed the world, what appealed to them, perhaps even their basic nature.  So there was really only one option ¡ª a movement Skill.  Offensive Skills would drive them to ever more combat, and defensive ones only made sense if they had something to protect.  People like Yaniss, who chose sensory Skills, became strange and esoteric, but movement Skills infected Bismuths with wanderlust.  Which was exactly what they were doing anyway.


    Between Cato¡¯s gifts and Yaniss¡¯ knowledge, they had managed to upgrade their movement Skills to S-tier, the pinnacle versions that provided them with a wealth of different options and techniques.  At such a tier, not only was the Skill effectively multiple lesser Skills combined, it also was nearly as powerful as if it were a rank higher.


    [Khuroon¡¯s Fiery Stride set as Ascension Cornerstone]


    With one final blaze, she was remade.  The essence bloomed around her, new life and energy flooding through her veins as she broke the bonds of mortality and became one of the System¡¯s true elite.  She dropped to her feet in an empty pool, brimming with vitality as she took her first breath as an immortal.  At long last, she was Bismuth.


    Instead of stepping out of the now-empty pool, she invoked her Skill and turned into fire itself, blazing out and racing around Leese in joyous circles.  She had never thought that she¡¯d see this day, and even if they¡¯d come to it by roundabout means it was a truly momentous occasion.  Leese giggled and shifted into her ice form, blizzard following wildfire as they returned to the surface.  The protective dome that had cut them off from the world turned clear, letting them see the sky, and the dais itself glowed as it sank back into the ground.


    [Housing Token Upgraded: Personal Domain]


    Raine reformed herself, reaching out to snatch the upgraded token from the air and feeling the options when she held it.  While she could still establish an estate on any world she wished, there was now the option to create a smaller domicile unmoored to location.  Something perfect for the pair of them, as they wouldn¡¯t have any fixed abode for a very long time indeed.


    ¡°We did it!¡± She turned to show off the token to her sister as Leese condensed out of the Skill-driven snow, receiving a grin and a flash of a matching token in response.


    ¡°I never thought we¡¯d get here,¡± Leese admitted.  ¡°Let alone consider that we¡¯d be able to keep going.¡±


    ¡°It does make me wonder how well Cato¡¯s gifts will keep up now,¡± Raine said, though she could tell that nothing about the ascension had dampened the superior feeling of modified biology.  The capelet that was part of her body had lost none of its perception, and the combat algorithms still hummed away in the back of her mind, giving her almost prescient clarity of thought.


    ¡°We can find out,¡± Leese said, turning in the direction of the planet¡¯s capital city, where the portals lay.  ¡°We can finally go to the core worlds.¡±


    ¡°Cato?  We¡¯re back, and we have our estates,¡± Raine sent, knowing that even if the war had not gone well, it shouldn¡¯t affect his ability to talk to them so far from the front.  ¡°We can pick up our lizards and go the core worlds.¡±


    ¡°Everything went well?¡± He replied almost immediately, as if he¡¯d been waiting for them the whole time.  Which he probably had been; it was hard sometimes to remember that the Cato around any given world was actually a separate person from the versions of Cato on other worlds.  He always felt like the same person, and knew the same things, but he wasn¡¯t a single consciousness stretched across the System.


    ¡°Perfectly,¡± Leese confirmed.  ¡°We¡¯ll need to do some sparring to get used to our power and figure out what to put in our new Skill slots, but there weren¡¯t any issues.  How¡¯d it go on your end?¡±


    ¡°So-so.¡±  Cato sounded glum.  ¡°Not as well as I would have liked.  Turns out that it wasn¡¯t as simple as taking one world.  Best that you not go out that direction for a while.¡±


    ¡°What did you do?¡±  Raine asked curiously, hardly able to imagine the complications at the level above conquering entire planets.


    ¡°I had to cut off almost twenty worlds from the System,¡± Cato said, and Raine blinked slowly, her tail curling of its own accord.


    ¡°What?¡± She demanded.  ¡°How? Why?¡± She knew, intellectually, that such a move was a mere skirmish in the overall campaign, but actually hearing that Cato could casually sever a score of planets at one time, including fighting gods and high-rankers, was an entirely different thing.


    ¡°Turns out that just shutting down the planet wasn¡¯t enough, and the annexation still happened. The portal still opened, so I had to fight that, and then I needed to pull the defending forces away, so I just invaded the entire area,¡± Cato said, as if the ability to invade a score of planets was only to be expected.  A good reminder of who exactly their patron was.


    ¡°That¡¯s more dramatic than I expected,¡± she admitted cautiously.  ¡°Were you really ready for that?¡±  Cato kept her and Leese up to date on at least the general shape of what was going on, but all the details and to some extent the true scope was beyond them.  Their role was to be ahead of his great works, to open up new worlds for Cato to liberate.


    ¡°Sort of.  Maybe I shouldn¡¯t have done it, but if I¡¯m not going to save worlds the System is exploiting then why am I here?¡±  Cato sounded exhausted, which Raine didn¡¯t think was actually possible.  It wasn¡¯t like he was confined to a physical body.


    ¡°Do you still need us to go to the core worlds?¡± Leese asked.  Raine had no idea what they¡¯d do if Cato decided to change his mission, or theirs.  They¡¯d spent so much time bent on the task, and even their Bismuth choices reflected a future of spreading Cato¡¯s influence.  The idea that he might be having doubts was more than a little terrifying.


    ¡°Oh, absolutely,¡± Cato reassured them. ¡°If anything, it¡¯s more important than ever that I manage to spread out.  There¡¯s no telling what the scope of the fallout of this will be.  Just let me resupply you.¡±


    ¡°With our new estates we can carry a lot more than before,¡± Leese said. ¡°We have entire buildings, now.¡±


    Raine hadn¡¯t yet actually established her mobile estate, but Leese had, and it was the same building and plot of land a normal estate would have been ¡ª but it was inside an opaque dome, the entrance to which they could conjure and dismiss at will.  They would be able to store months or years of supplies and huge stocks of the special Cato-spears within easily enough.


    In fact, she had to remind herself that supplies would stretch far longer, as neither she nor Leese needed food or drink simply to sustain themselves anymore.  It was mostly for enjoyment, barring any major healing, which made Cato¡¯s provisions even more appealing.  She knew most of what he provided had actually been created by other versions of themselves, experimenting outside the system, but it was far easier to just think of it as something Cato did.


    ¡°I¡¯ll drop down a care package in a few hours, then,¡± Cato told them. ¡°Getting your pets back will take longer, though.  They¡¯re still a few dozen worlds away.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out to a clear space and we can sort out our estates,¡± Leese suggested, and Raine nodded agreement.  Leese had set hers up, but that wasn¡¯t the same as thoroughly exploring the options.  Movement was essentially as simple as thinking about it; at Bismuth Rank her movement Skill was practically instantaneous, and in a flash the two of them were a thousand miles away, on an island in the middle of the ocean.


    She invoked her Estate Token, choosing the personal domain option, and felt something akin to a new Skill settle into her.  With a simple effort of will an arch of fire appeared, leading to a completely blank circle of earth inside a white dome.  It was only once inside that the System presented options to her about what buildings to place, and where, as well as grass and trees and sky.


    The customization oddly reminded Raine of some of the things she¡¯d seen in Cato¡¯s station.  His options had been far more limited, but changing the colors of walls and the displays of windows had been simplicity itself.   It made her wonder how many similarities there really were between what Cato was, and what the System was.  Not that she didn¡¯t believe what he told her, but at times it felt like there was more moving in the heavens than Cato would admit.


    For the moment she just selected a relatively simple, open villa, with more windows than walls, and a brilliant summer sky.  The surroundings were just grass, and pragmatically there was room for dozens, or even hundreds of the huge packages Cato would drop from the sky. It was nice enough, but something about it left her unsatisfied and she wasn¡¯t certain why.


    ¡°I think I¡¯d just rather be off,¡± Raine confessed to Leese, stepping back through the archway onto the island.  The surroundings were merely Silver level and the monsters beyond irrelevant, their Bismuth level essence signature frightening everything away.


    ¡°Absolutely,¡± Leese agreed, her tail flicking from side to side.  ¡°I want to see what the core worlds are like!¡±


    They weren¡¯t kept waiting long.  Soon enough, they were treated to the familiar sight of Cato¡¯s packages drifting in from the sky, an entire swarm of them angling down toward the island.  Instead of waiting for them to arrive, she and Leese flashed out themselves and began plucking them from the air.  With their spatial bags linked to their estates, they could stow the cargo directly as soon as they touched it.


    ¡°Leave one for a moment so I can talk to you,¡± Cato sent.  ¡°I need a relay since there¡¯s no FungusNet out here.¡±


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°You could probably put a relay or something inside one of our estates,¡± Leese suggested. ¡°Maybe even a version of yourself?  I know you couldn¡¯t use it all the time, but it¡¯d be something.¡±


    ¡°Hm.  I can put a FungusNet node there, but while a full frame is tempting I¡¯m afraid that putting System-jamming inside a System space would draw attention to you that you wouldn¡¯t want.  A big neon sign to the gods or something.¡±


    ¡°We definitely don¡¯t want that,¡± Raine agreed, effortlessly hefting one of the packages.  It had to weigh nearly ten tons, and within the cradle that held the parachutes it appeared to be an almost seamless oblong of metal.  ¡°This is new.¡±


    ¡°Now that you¡¯re Bismuth, you can just fly to the edge of System influence and hurl a much larger package out,¡± Cato told them.  ¡°So each of these is the version sixteen or whatever we¡¯re up to of the Cato delivery mechanism.  Should work even in places where there aren¡¯t moons, so long as there¡¯s something out there, and will get me up and running much more quickly.¡±


    ¡°That will be easier,¡± Raine agreed aloud, though with their new movement Skills, finding a handy mountain wouldn¡¯t have been hard.


    ¡°I think we¡¯ll want to go straight for the core,¡± Leese said, glancing at Raine for confirmation.  ¡°At least to see it.  Then we can circle around the inner worlds and maybe head back out to the frontier on the other side.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I really need to know what I¡¯m dealing with when it comes to the higher rank places,¡± Cato agreed.  ¡°The more time I have to plan and prepare, the better.¡±


    ¡°To the core, then,¡± Raine said, already itching to go.


    ¡°To the core,¡± Leese agreed.


    ***


    The city absolutely reeked of fear.


    Eishe Suun, n¨¦e Raine Sunac, completely understood why.  Even if Sunac itself hadn¡¯t been included in Cato¡¯s campaign, it was close enough to hear from everyone who had fled from the invasion and the terrible orbital weapons that he had been forced to employ.  There were even whispers of the invader killing a god, and while those were swiftly crushed by the various Priests and Paladins, Raine knew that not only was it true, their patron had killed two.


    She had no idea what else had happened once the portals had closed, but the fact that so many worlds had vanished at once was enough of a shock.  Most of those at lower ranks didn¡¯t know much beyond the confines of their birth world, but the portals were an ever-present reminder of the greater System.  With Cato¡¯s actions, that reminder had become rather more immediate with the [Crusade] quest spreading to everyone within dozens of portal links or more.


    [A Crusade!  The being known as Cato has invaded the System!  Travel to the Frontier, where the following worlds may be in danger: ¡­]


    The list of worlds included Sunac, as well more scattered around in the vicinity of Cato¡¯s invasion.  Raine knew that Cato had actually allowed his forces to be beaten back on many worlds, to give the illusion of overextension and to draw people to the areas where they were ¡°winning,¡± rather than the nodes he was actually interested in taking.  She¡¯d joined the simulation wargames for that decision, and knew that feigning that kind of weakness would help in the greater scheme of things, but down on the ground there was no sense of triumph.  At least not among the lower ranks.


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure it¡¯s a good idea to start any propaganda here,¡± Leese sent to Cato, her transmitted voice echoing in Raine¡¯s head despite being on the far side of the city.  ¡°People are too shocked, too scared ¡ª and the quest is bringing in more and more offworlders.  Anyone that would be willing to listen are going to be cowed by all the high rank fighters.¡±


    ¡°I definitely don¡¯t want to incite any civil wars,¡± Cato mused.  ¡°Maybe I should start further away.  Or perhaps start anyway, just to sow the seeds.  I need to let people know there¡¯s a peaceful option.¡±  They had run some simulations, but the problem was that there were too many unknowns for any real accuracy.


    ¡°If you¡¯re going to start, do it now,¡± Raine said.  She was of the opinion that Cato needed to be as aggressive as he could, because that would be more understandable to those raised within the System.  A soft, subtle approach would only confuse the people he was trying to persuade, and give the higher ranks more time to work.


    ¡°Right.  I suppose if there¡¯s one thing I can thank the System for, it¡¯s universal literacy.¡±  Raine snorted softly, though she¡¯d been raised in a reality where even on a fringe, nothing world like Sydea, reading was as basic a function as eating, breathing, or fighting.  Finding out it was a learned skill outside the System had been fairly bizarre, though the benefits of multiple languages made the tradeoff worthwhile.


    ¡°If you¡¯re going to start with propaganda, I think the food angle is probably the best, at least here.¡± Leese said.  The pair of them had found that, since everything was purchased from the System, there was actually little variety in food and drink, especially at the lower ranks.  Even though most people could pay for their meals, there was a difference between that and having food as delicious as the culinary experimentation that she and Leese had managed.


    Food abundance wouldn¡¯t do much for people above Silver, but Copper and Silver encompassed the bulk of people anyway, and they were the ones least empowered by the System anyway.  The elites would require a different sort of persuasion, if they could be convinced at all, but there were also relatively few of them.  For most worlds of the frontier there were merely thousands of Golds, scores of Platinums, and anything above was in the single digits where it existed at all.


    ¡°Easy enough, all I need¡ª¡± Raine stopped listening to Cato as the feeling of a divine presence pressed down on the capital city.  A moment later, a rent opened in the air and a trio of Azoths came through, which was terrifying enough, but worse was that two of them looked familiar.  Not the specifics, but the general form was quite similar to Cato¡¯s human frame.  In fact, they almost looked related.


    ¡°Cato?  I think you should check out what just arrived.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± said Cato, as stricken as she¡¯d ever heard him.  ¡°Damn.¡±


    ***


    ¡°Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the worlds,¡± Cato muttered, which was inane and he knew it, but he¡¯d not been having the best week.  The annexation had been, frankly, a disaster, putting him into a no-win situation and forcing his hand.  The lack of proper planning meant all those innocents on the handful of worlds he had rescued from the System would be going through a hell of a tougher time than he¡¯d intended.  Despite seventeen worlds being removed, only two System-gods had tried to defend any of the worlds, and they had both gone down like chumps to the final iteration of the particle beam cannons ¡ª though the collateral damage was nearly unimaginable.  He didn¡¯t think of his operation as being part of the No Fun Allowed war that had driven the System off Earth, but he certainly wasn¡¯t enjoying it.


    Especially not with his cousins showing up.  Morvan and Kiersten were the same as when he saw them last, familiar faces on those ridiculous retro-Chorian bodies; an over-popular, flash-in-the-pan celebrity novelty trend that had come and gone years before Cato had transitioned into being fully postbiological.  With them was a neopredator frame that Cato wasn¡¯t familiar with, though it looked somewhat like some kind of megafauna wolf.  Not that there were any markings that could identify the person, since vacationing as a neo-predator was something that had been fairly common for years.


    Seeing them was, ultimately, not a surprise.  It was only logical that the powers that be would seek out the Earth-origin people to confront an Earth-origin threat, and at some point those selfsame powers would make that connection.  Or perhaps the various Earth types who had actually found the System to be preferable recognized what was going on.  Even if they¡¯d left before the conclusion of the No Fun Allowed war, Cato wasn¡¯t exactly hiding his origin and it was certainly no secret the portal to Earth had been closed.


    He wished that he was experiencing the encounter with his fellow neo-humans as a memory transfer or reconciliation after the fact, but confronted with the event he had no other choice.  He had to send down a frame to talk to them.  It wasn¡¯t like his presence was a secret anyway, even if he¡¯d allowed his forces to be defeated on Sunac.  The orbital factories were likely still visible to anyone of Azoth rank if they knew where to look, vast dark forms occasionally occluding the stars as they drifted out beyond geosynchronous orbit.


    The last time he¡¯d been on Sunac¡¯s surface it had been inside a warframe, but if he wanted to make contact with his cousins he¡¯d have to take a different tack.  It definitely wasn¡¯t something that he wanted to delegate to any version of Raine or Leese.  Morvan and Kiersten had been bloodthirsty, half-crazed maniacs when he¡¯d last seen them years ago, and as much as he hated to admit it there was nothing he wouldn¡¯t put past them now.


    Under the circumstances he simply selected a remotely-piloted human frame.  The only ones on Sunac who would even recognize the human species were the ones he wanted to talk to, and they probably wouldn¡¯t pay attention to a random Copper trying to get their attention if he weren¡¯t obviously human.  The exponential growth of power within the System didn¡¯t encourage someone at Azoth to even notice the lower ranks.


    He aimed a drop pod for somewhat outside the city where the other neo-humans had shown up, though he had to keep close surveillance.  If Bismuths had easy teleportation, then Azoths had something better and couldn¡¯t be relied upon to stay in one place.  Half of him actually hoped that they¡¯d move onward and he wouldn¡¯t have to deal with it, but he had no such luck.


    ¡°They¡¯re acting oddly, even for Azoths,¡± Raine observed, watching from a safe distance as the trio casually walked up to random people to ask questions.  It wasn¡¯t really a risk for her to keep an eye on Cato¡¯s fellow neo-humans so long as they were in the city, as a group of Azoths were the center of attention no matter what. At Silver, Raine¡¯s cover identity didn¡¯t even stand out from the rest of the people crowded into the capital city.


    ¡°They have a different attitude,¡± Cato said.  ¡°I¡¯m not sure I completely understand it, but it¡¯s more like the System is an afterlife, or the best possible game, rather than something to be taken seriously.  I¡¯m not sure how much they even see the lower rankers as people.¡±


    ¡°Some of that isn¡¯t much different from regular Azoths,¡± Yaniss put in.  She¡¯d been rather more reticent since the annexation war, spending more time digging through the public databases, but curiosity had drawn her out from her aestivation once again.  He actually had no idea what her biological instance was doing, but trusted that the Ikent version of himself would keep an eye on her.  ¡°For them, everyone lower ranked is just ephemeral.¡±


    ¡°Seems short-sighted,¡± Cato said, though he knew his perspective was skewed as well.  The concepts of mortality and aging, life and death, were entirely different for him and the culture where he grew up.  Radical longevity of whatever sort wasn¡¯t something everyone could handle, but access was widespread enough that lifespan was effectively a personal choice.


    He returned his attention to the drop pod containing his remote frame as it came within a few miles of the city.  Despite riding the line of being subsonic, the trio all looked in the direction of the drop pod, and Morvan crooked a finger.  There was a flash of light and suddenly the pod was floating in front of the Azoth trio, robbed of all its momentum without any sensation of inertia from within.  Cato took a breath of the bottled atmosphere within the craft and opened the manual door to exit the pod.


    ¡°You,¡± snarled Morvan, in System language.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid so,¡± Cato admitted, in his original tongue, but none of the Earth types reacted to it.  Up close, both his cousins looked just different enough from the last time he¡¯d seen them to seem faintly wrong.  Whatever changes had been wrought by the System were subtle but noticeable; a difference in the way they carried themselves, the expression behind their golden eyes.


    ¡°Why are you here?¡± Kiersten demanded, also in the System language, crossing her arms and scowling in a way more reminiscent of a teenage girl than someone who was at least theoretically an adult.  ¡°Not content with ruining the fun on Ahrusk?¡±


    ¡°Fun?¡± Cato had to catch himself to keep from being carried away by his incredulity.  He almost, almost, couldn¡¯t believe the utter selfishness of their perspective.  ¡°No, this has nothing to do with you.¡±  Which was at least half a lie, as if it weren¡¯t for the way the System had utterly corrupted them, he likely wouldn¡¯t have had the conviction to commit to his campaign.


    ¡°Then why are you here?¡±  Kierstan waved her hand, a convulsive movement with enough energy to send a shockwave sweeping through the city center.  Those who had remained to see what the Azoths were doing left in haste, movement Skills sending people blurring off in all directions.


    ¡°Because somebody has to be,¡± Cato told them, spreading his hands.  ¡°Someone has to stop the System.  How many people did it kill on Earth?  Do you know?  Do you even care?  And Earth is hardly its first or only victim.¡±


    ¡°None of your business,¡± Morvan said scornfully.  ¡°Not like you¡¯re any better, invading, what, forty planets? Since when did you find the guts?  You were always a backline caster before.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a game,¡± Cato said with some exasperation.  It seemed like the pair had gotten even more disconnected from reality since he¡¯d last seen them.  ¡°These are real lives at stake, millions or billions of them.¡±


    ¡°And they¡¯re not yours to control,¡± rumbled the third member of the trio, the neo-predator that Cato didn¡¯t know.  The analysis software running back in the orbital facility suggested that he had committed to the divine path, given the stylistic flourishes of the barding he wore.  With the way they¡¯d arrived, it was likely that a god was watching through his eyes at that very moment.


    ¡°Nor anyone¡¯s,¡± Cato replied stiffly, frowning at the gigantic pseudo-wolf.  ¡°I¡¯m giving them more choice, releasing them from the slave-brand of the System.  You know as well as I do what it destroys.  It erases people and cultures and languages, it destroys choices and futures.  The only possible response is to remove the threat, not just to Earth, but for God knows how many civilizations across the universe that the System might destroy.¡±


    ¡°The refrain of the busybody,¡± Morvan sneered. ¡°Stepping in where you¡¯re not wanted and taking on the burdens of people who neither want nor need you.  You¡¯re not a savior, you¡¯re just someone who can¡¯t stand people having fun.¡±


    ¡°Do they look like they¡¯re having fun?¡± Cato pointed at the cowering, fearful Coppers and Silvers, though in the end, it didn¡¯t actually matter what the human residents of the System thought.  They were the outliers, the ones who had thrived in an apocalypse based on murdering everything that moved.  ¡°Anyway, this isn¡¯t about you.  This is about removing an existential threat to all of reality.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Morvan scoffed.  ¡°We know you.  If you¡¯re trying to contest the System, you¡¯re going to be the one who¡¯s going to have to kill a lot of people, and you don¡¯t have the guts.¡±


    ¡°Yes, really.¡±  Cato stared at Morvan, wondering when his cousin had become so abrasive.  Morvan had always been the aggressive one, a tank or a berserker in the games they¡¯d played, but he had been lighthearted about it.  No longer.  ¡°You don¡¯t think I would have come here if I wasn¡¯t willing to commit to it?¡±


    ¡°Probably?¡± Kierstan shrugged.  ¡°You¡¯re just a copy, it¡¯s not like the real you isn¡¯t back on Earth still.¡± Cato winced.  His cousins had been profoundly angry to find out, after emerging from the Summer Civilization, that their original reality had been digital.  They¡¯d never been entirely comfortable with many aspects of postbiological existence and simply didn¡¯t understand others at all.


    ¡°Look, Keirstan, Morvan.  This isn¡¯t a game, for you or for me,¡± Cato said, hoping against hope that he could reason with them at least a little.  ¡°I¡¯m here because what happened to Earth shouldn¡¯t happen to anyone else ¡ª and the people in the System should have a choice of how they live their lives.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not planning on giving them the choice, though, are you?¡±  It was the neo-predator again.  ¡°The gods showed me visions of you.  Orbital bombardment, mass combat ¡ª you¡¯re taking away the System even though the people don¡¯t want it.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t allow evil to stand because I¡¯m not willing to endure the cost,¡± Cato told them, voice rougher than he intended.  ¡°And I¡¯m willing to shoulder the responsibility that requires, all the work and care to keep people safe even after the System¡¯s gone.  But who¡¯s responsible for what the System does?¡±


    ¡°You should just leave well enough alone!¡± Morvan sneered, ignoring the question as Yaniss made some quiet noise of understanding over the comms.  ¡°But you won¡¯t, will you?  You¡¯re going to sit there, and you¡¯re going to ruin things for everyone because you think you¡¯re better than the rest of us.¡±


    ¡°I¡ª¡± Cato began, but Morvan refused to be cut off.


    ¡°Well I tell you what, mister Cato, we might not be able to push you out of these systems if you¡¯re already in the orbitals, but we sure as hell can make sure you regret trying to take any others.¡±  Morvan sneered.  ¡°Now get the hell out of here and leave us alone.¡±  He raised his hand and Cato¡¯s frame vanished in a flash of System-induced fury.

 Chapter 18 — Reversal of Fortunes

    ¡°You are not being held responsible for this disaster.¡±


    Marus relaxed at his father¡¯s words. To say that the loss of so many worlds at once ¨C especially to an outside force ¨C was unprecedented would be to undersell the scale of the catastrophe. Obviously it had spread far outside of Marus¡¯ own assigned world, but to many he was the originator of the problem. He¡¯d heard the whispers that blamed him for allowing Cato to enter the System at all, and it would have been all too easy for Clan Eln to use Marus to take the fall for such a thing.


    Not that it would have actually solved the problem. Nobody actually knew the extent of Cato¡¯s forces, or where he was getting them. There was no way that he should have been able to put so many forces on so many worlds without even a hint beforehand, but Cato clearly had never cared about what was possible.


    ¡°However, this is something serious enough to take to the elders.¡± Marus¡¯ father swiveled his head a few fractions to regard the map of territories. Clan Eln had hundreds of worlds, but fully half of the ones lost to Cato¡¯s activities were theirs, putting a large bite into their steady expansion. Two millennia of work gone in days. ¡°Come with me.¡±


    Marus fell into place behind his father, feeling dwarfed and almost childlike in the shadow of the patriarch¡¯s enormous frame, even if he was hundreds of years old. It was rare for Marus to go any deeper into the family complex than his father¡¯s office; that was, effectively, the limit for anyone who was not a direct heir of the core worlds. They passed through halls lined with trophies and keepsakes, items that were rare even among the gods, and down a long passage to a great dark disc embedded in the wall. A portal connection.


    It blossomed into life at the touch of his father¡¯s deity icon, and Marus stepped through with some degree of trepidation. The core was a different place altogether; the deities there were not merely the family members who had been raised in the realm of the gods, but those who had fully committed to the divine path. That rarefied company had an understanding of the System that Marus could never hope to match, and in fact had no desire to try.


    The System Space was a place of great crystal pylons, each of them stretching across the interior from one end to the other, the world wrapping around itself like the inside of an enormous ball. The estates dotting the space, arranged around where the pylons touched the ground, were reminiscent of the Temple buildings in mortal cities, with carefully curated lawns and terraced balconies. Yet what most struck Marus was how thick the essence was, saturating the entire space and almost intoxicating with each breath.


    His father invoked his movement Skill, crossing to one particular estate with a flicker of will, and Marus followed, the two of them entering an ascetic vestibule that was neverthless as large as Marus¡¯ entire deity domain. It wouldn¡¯t have been surprising if they would have been made to wait weeks or months, considering the status of the elders that had to inhabit this particular System Space, but instead a mortal servant showed them through immediately.


    The Eln Clan Elder waiting for them, meditating at the base of the palace-width crystal, actually looked old. Marus hadn¡¯t seen anyone that appeared aged in longer than he could remember. It just didn¡¯t happen. Yet when the gray-furred, slightly hunched man opened his eyes, there was nothing frail at all in the power glowing there.


    ¡°Tell me,¡± the Elder said, voice oddly resonant, as if it was coming from something more than his body. Marus¡¯ father produced a memory crystal, holding it out in his palm, and it floated over to the Elder with some Skill wielded with incredible finesse. The clean, smooth lines of the essence involved were absolutely astounding, but Marus could only catch a glimpse before they faded.


    ¡°You,¡± the Elder said, looking at Marus, who hastily bowed under the weight of that gaze. ¡°You have seen this yourself.¡± It wasn¡¯t a question.


    ¡°Yes, Elder,¡± Marus said respectfully, finding it difficult to choose his words properly in the presence of the august personage in front of him. ¡°I can confirm Cato is a real threat. We were able to contest his attempts on half of the worlds, but the other half were taken with overwhelming force.¡± He didn¡¯t even have to mention Lakor¡¯s death, or that of the Soach Clan scion either. That news had run out far ahead of anything else.


    ¡°Yes, this is an unusual threat. We have not seen such a rapid change since¡­¡± The Elder trailed off, seeming lost in thought, then blinked. ¡°The balance between the Clans has been disrupted. This is something that we will have to address.¡± Without a flash or a flicker, suddenly several potent divine users appeared alongside the Elder ¡ª some clan Eln, but some of other clans entirely. Many had the appearance of being aged, but others appeared fresh-faced youths save for the glow in their eyes.


    ¡°There is already a [Crusade],¡± one said, responding to a conversation Marus couldn¡¯t hear. ¡°We can simply submit it to¡ª¡± The word that the deity used was not something Marus recognized; it didn¡¯t even sound like anything. It was like the special emphasis of System terms, distilled down to only the understanding the System granted, and it sent a flash of pain through Marus¡¯ skull rather than informing him of just what the elders were discussing.


    ¡°The creatures Cato uses are all merely Copper,¡± another said. ¡°Simply putting a minimum threshold on portals would cripple him.¡±


    ¡°World Deity Eis is patron for other Ahrusk beings,¡± brought up a third. ¡°Have him provide us what can be learned from them.¡± The tone made it clear that interrogating mortals was far below the dignity of any of the elders.


    None of them brought up Initik¡¯s role, and Marus was perfectly fine with that. The insect had been helpful enough, but couldn¡¯t be trusted when it came to the real powers within the System. In fact, his world was probably thoroughly within Cato¡¯s influence, and it was best to write off Uriva and, in fact, that entire area until they had a proper counter-strategy.


    Watching the Elders, those who could interact with the very heart of the System, take the issue seriously, Marus felt that Cato¡¯s days were numbered.


    ***


    Cato had always known that one of the greatest threats within the System was other humans. Not because of their physical abilities, even if they were superior to other System-boosted people at their rank. Not even because of their knowledge, for without an archive they could only guess at the broadest strokes of what Cato could do.


    It was because they could get inside his head.


    They knew what he cared about, what his limits were. His cousins, especially, knew that he wasn¡¯t about to just orbital-strike them, even if maybe he should. That both by nature and by goal he wasn¡¯t going to burn worlds, or take any easy option if it meant the deaths of innocents.


    What his cousins knew, and the System-gods didn¡¯t, was that Cato wasn¡¯t some cold war-machine, operating purely from optimized algorithmic logic. It wasn¡¯t enough for him to just to kill the System, he had to stop what the System did. He couldn¡¯t win merely with destruction; he had to preserve, improve, and free people from the shackles the System put on them. Even and especially any humans he could persuade away from the perverse, addictive behavioral sink of the System¡¯s processes.


    He had no idea what Morvan and Kiersten, or their neopredator friend, had in mind, but he had a foreboding hunch that it¡¯d be more effective than what the System and its people had thrown at him so far. They weren¡¯t trapped inside the paradigm of System Skills and abilities, where the strict hierarchy of personal power was all that mattered. Not that he had any idea what they might throw at him, since they didn¡¯t and couldn¡¯t control the orbitals, but he didn¡¯t want to underestimate them.


    ¡°They don¡¯t seem much like you,¡± Raine-Sunac observed.


    ¡°They were the ones who took to the System immediately,¡± Cato sighed. ¡°I thought I knew them. I played games with them when we were younger, games that were much like what the System does, but they weren¡¯t real. I thought ¡ª I don¡¯t know. I didn¡¯t expect them to hate the universe. But I guess they do.¡±


    ¡°What would be the point of that?¡± Leese asked, genuinely baffled.


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen it before, even if I don¡¯t completely understand the emotions,¡± Cato sighed. ¡°Some people want to punish reality for not meeting their expectations. They just hate what is, and make it everyone else¡¯s problem.¡±


    ¡°Nothing like your campaign against the System, of course,¡± Raine pointed out dryly. After so long, they didn¡¯t quite treat him with the deference due a god anymore, which he mostly appreciated.


    ¡°The System is a single entity and a distinct threat,¡± Cato replied, then flipped a virtual hand, acknowledging the point regardless. ¡°Even if fighting the System is a bit like tilting at windmills,¡± he said, then paused and pinged them with the appropriate database reference for the idiom. ¡°At least I¡¯m trying to make sure as many people and things are preserved as I can.¡±


    ¡°And what happens when the other humans stand in your way?¡± Raine pressed.


    ¡°I always knew it was a possibility.¡± Cato heaved a sigh. ¡°I can¡¯t let them stop me. Maybe they can be convinced to stop fighting if I cut off enough of the System, if I present enough of a threat. But if they¡¯re standing with weapons drawn between me and removing an entity that destroys entire planets on a regular basis ¡ª I¡¯ll have to go through them.¡±


    Apparently that satisfied Raine. Even if he didn¡¯t answer to the sisters, if he was expecting their help over the years and decades and maybe centuries that it would take, they at least needed faith that he wasn¡¯t going to waver at a critical point. It was one thing to charge into the System, affronted what it had done and determined to get his cousins back. It was another to carry that campaign out to completion.


    Yet the more he saw of the System, the shocking excesses, abuses, and most importantly the boring sameness of everything operating under the restrictions it imposed, the more he wanted to be rid of it. It wasn¡¯t even a magic system that was particularly interesting, to his mind. It was all rote, programmatic, a simple invocation for a simple output. There was no mythos, no mystery, no sacred ritual.


    He hated it.


    Some people considered base reality to have the same problems, but Cato had never found it to be so. Reality didn¡¯t lack any of those flavors. Perhaps it was simply the neural architecture, but even as digital life flitting between bodies at a whim, he was still struck by the beauty of the natural world, of the stars and the vibrant orbs of living planets.


    Cato looked out at the view, the planet below in all its living glory, and once again found the strength to push forward. He didn¡¯t want to try anything while his fellow humans were still on Sunac, but of course he needed to package up the exchange and send it to all his other versions. There was no telling where else they might appear, and that was not the sort of surprise he needed to spring on himself.


    ¡°That¡¯s a problem,¡± Raine suddenly remarked, unprompted, a few hours later. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen this type of System prompt before ¡ª it looks like a universal broadcast, and it says you now have to be Peak Silver or above to use portals.¡±


    ¡°Oh, damn.¡± It was very obviously a move aimed at him. He couldn¡¯t advance within the System, and all his warframes were forever stuck at the lowest ranks. He would still be able to drop his materiel from above, but only sufficiently ranked-up Lineages would be able to provide support across worlds. Depending on what exactly that broadcast meant, the portals and portal-like transitions within dungeons might be off-limits too. If that was the case, he had no idea how he¡¯d address that, but it would require testing. Surreptitious testing, to avoid tipping his hand.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    A few moments after Raine reported that issue, the various communications from other versions of himself confirmed it. Then other reports announced the other shoe dropping ¡ª the crusade had been expanded. To everywhere.


    The entire System, all the hundreds of thousands of worlds, had been told that Cato was the enemy and given incentive to combat him. Or more importantly, given incentive to not cooperate with him, which was one of the worst weapons they could wield against him. Of course there would be resistance, of course the powers that be would take offense to him removing people from their grasp, but he had much to offer the vast majority who were scraping and scrabbling to get by.


    No longer.


    It had always been a vague possibility, somewhere out in the wargaming algorithms, but the sad fact was that he had no good answer for the System directly telling the inhabitants not to work with him. To contend against the knowledge that reality itself would reward them hurting, opposing, and destroying him and his at every opportunity. Even with the defense quest, there was some degree of uncertainty, a degree of that unknown where he could maneuver. Now that was gone, and it was a war of his sentiment against the System¡¯s direct reward. Propaganda was going to be harder than ever.


    ¡°We might have to wait for a few years before making another move,¡± Leese suggested. Cato would have loved to capitalize on what he¡¯d just done to try and make the case that the people of the System could align with him, but she was probably right. The Crusade quest only had potency if it had a target; if he went quiet for the next few years, it would be useless and limp and people would forget about it. Probably.


    The problem was, there was no telling what might force him to move again. Another expansion perhaps, as he was forced to assume that his other selves on the other side of the cut-off section of the System were successful. But surely inhabited planets were not so common throughout the universe that they could be located easily. Or at least, there had to be some limits if the System had taken thousands or millions of years to spread as far as Earth.


    ¡°We might have to,¡± Cato agreed, looking at the world below.


    ***


    Morvan stalked back and forth around the Nexus building, seething. It was bad enough that their know-it-all cousin thought he was better, just because he was older, but to also send a copy into their new home to nanny them? When they were younger and played games, the man who now styled himself as Cato had seemed reasonable enough. But once Morvan and Kiersten had started spreading their metaphorical wings and finding people on Earth of a more similar mind, he¡¯d become an annoying pest. A busybody, a meddler, refusing to just let them enjoy themselves.


    By himself, Cato wasn¡¯t really more than a nuisance. He was too soft-headed and soft-hearted to be a real threat to anyone, but he¡¯d clearly been corrupted by the artificial intelligences back in Sol. Luna, perhaps, or Enceladus. There was no way he would have been able to get orbital bombardment technology otherwise, let alone have the spine to employ it. That much was clear by how careful he was about how he wanted to treat virtualized people, and not simply real ones.


    ¡°Morvan!¡± Justin¡¯s bark broke him out of his stewing, and he turned to look at the wolf. ¡°The gods wish to commune with us,¡± Justin continued, eyes glowing gold and fur whipping in an intangible wind. Purely theatrical, Morvan was sure. Justin had always been a little bit of a diva.


    ¡°Sure,¡± Morvan said with a shrug. He had yet to find the gods of the System to be all that impressive. They barely interacted with the real world, apparently too preoccupied with being a fake deity to actually live. When he reached that rank, he had so many things he wanted to do.


    He followed Justin, teleporting into the nearby temple and joining Kiersten where she was already waiting at the pylon. Nobody else was there, wisely giving the Azoths a wide berth ¡ª which was just as well, since most of them would be shocked by the lack of deference the trio showed the gods. Upjumped administrators just weren¡¯t impressive.


    Justin settled in front of the pylon, essence flickering and flowing as he invoked his Skills, and their surroundings changed. This actually was worth respecting, since it was real and not some virtual creation. The three of them, along with a circle of the Temple floor, had been drawn into some other dimension, one of the pocket universes the System used for dungeons and the like.


    [World Deity] Eis looked like some combination of ferret and otter and Morvan found it almost impossible to take him seriously. Even when Eis was being as dignified as possible, he had droopy whiskers. It was ridiculous.


    Eis was joined by two other deities, of different species but both looking like they were aged. He could tell right away that it was put on, given how common performative age was back on Earth. They may have looked wizened and wrinkled, but they didn¡¯t hold themselves like someone who was genuinely old and had to adapt to a weakening body. Of course, gods were entirely immortal anyway.


    ¡°Natives of Ahrusk,¡± Eis began, speaking while the other gods watched closely. ¡°You have been called to this place due to the heretic and blasphemer known as Cato. This coward claims to come from Ahrusk, to share your origin, and it is that connection that has granted you an audience. The faithful of the System require your insight into the nature of this outsider.¡±


    Morvan nearly sneered at that, and beside him Kierstan¡¯s shoulders twitched as she suppressed laughter. The translation was easy enough: the gods been caught with their pants down and now they needed someone who wasn¡¯t useless to bail them out. Not that they could admit that.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t going to be able to beat Cato in a confrontation on a planet¡¯s surface,¡± he said aloud, feeling like he was lecturing infants. Everyone knew what it meant to control the orbitals. ¡°What you really need is something that lets people carry the System with them, so you can go out and engage him in deep space. Just getting near any of his stuff will slag it, since it¡¯s not real enough to exist within the System.¡±


    ¡°Only Azoths or above,¡± Justin rumbled. ¡°The distances involved mean that nobody else would be able to get anything done. Even at Azoth it¡¯s going to take time.¡±


    ¡°How can the distances be that great?¡± One of the gods with Eis wondered.


    ¡°You could fit three war-worlds between this planet and its moon,¡± Morvan said confidently, even if he had no idea how far away the moon actually was. The point was that the vast expanses of vacuum outside of planets were large beyond the scale even the System¡¯s gods were familiar with. ¡°And Cato is likely based further away than that.¡±


    ¡°Doable,¡± Eis said doubtfully. ¡°But for every world in the System¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re still not likely to completely purge him that way, if he wants to be difficult,¡± Morvan told the god. He didn¡¯t want to get into all the digital mind technologies that Sol had on offer, but if Cato was fine with copying himself, he could stow copied imitations way out in the middle of nowhere, where it would be impossible to find. ¡°What you really need to do to beat Cato is make it so he doesn¡¯t want to take more planets.¡±


    ¡°He has said directly that he is opposed to the System itself, mortal,¡± Eis said, stressing the word as if it truly mattered.


    ¡°What Morvan means is that Cato won¡¯t just destroy things,¡± Kiersten explained.


    ¡°That¡¯s the weakness,¡± Morvan agreed. ¡°He wants to save people, or tell himself he¡¯s doing so anyway. If you just cut your losses, squeeze everything you can out of any world he¡¯s sighted on, and burn it rather than let Cato take it, he¡¯ll be too scared to move.¡±


    ¡°That seems excessive, and fearful,¡± one of the guest gods said scornfully, and Morvan shrugged.


    ¡°It hurts Cato more than it hurts you. Defeating him with sheer force of arms isn¡¯t reasonable. This isn¡¯t that kind of contest. You have to break his morale, his willingness to fight.¡± Morvan grinned widely, pleased with the solution. ¡°If he¡¯s going to get a bunch of random nobodies killed when he shows up, he¡¯s not going to show up.¡±


    ¡°We have already fended him off on over a dozen worlds,¡± one of the faux-elders muttered, but another one, a large, furred being with a flat tail, nodded thoughtfully, even eagerly.


    ¡°And I went to one of those worlds, and he showed up within minutes,¡± Morvan returned. ¡°I¡¯m not sure why he retreated from some battles and not others, but he¡¯s sure not gone.¡±


    ¡°How tenacious can one Systemless heretic be?¡± Eis muttered, and while it was unclear whether or not he was addressing them, Justin replied anyway.


    ¡°He uses entirely different tools, my lord,¡± the oversized wolf said with considerably more respect than Morvan thought appropriate. ¡°I suspect you might do well to think of him as a summoner or puppet user on an extraordinarily large scale. None of us know precisely what techniques he¡¯s using, or else we might be of more help, but I very much doubt fighting his forces will accomplish much.¡±


    ¡°Very well,¡± Eis said. ¡°Do you have any other insights to offer the gods of the System?¡±


    ¡°Cato doesn¡¯t like fun,¡± Morvan muttered. ¡°He can¡¯t be allowed to win, or he¡¯ll replace all this with his fake bullshit.¡±


    ***


    For the first time, Initik thought about expanding to another world.


    It was more of a passing whim than something seriously considered. He could very easily best any of his neighbors in combat, but that might bestir entire clans, and even with his prowess he couldn¡¯t hold out against them all. Especially since he had a vulnerability they didn¡¯t: he cared about his world.


    For most of the clans, frontier worlds were just useful fiefs, not something worth a personal investment. They had hundreds of worlds, and their people were spread everywhere. Initik had one home world, and that was it. Even those Urivans who had settled elsewhere in the System weren¡¯t his people. They had been changed by their time beyond the bounds of Uriva, their loyalties altered and their priorities shuffled.


    But now that he¡¯d seen what Cato was doing, what he was capable of, a single world didn¡¯t seem nearly enough. Out on the fringe of the frontier, he was too vulnerable, too isolated. Even if he had managed to wind up on fairly good terms with Mii-Es, despite her oddities, she was hardly a political powerhouse and her world was several links away. Not, then, a strategic alliance of any consequence.


    He lay on his back under a slice of Uriva¡¯s sky that had been hung in his System Space, his claws working slowly in idle thought as he considered the matter. Whatever the response from the big clans and core worlds might be, it wasn¡¯t likely to benefit him. More the reverse. He didn¡¯t know to what degree they could truly control the System, but it was certain they would privilege the core worlds over anything on the frontier.


    Initik new that he was caught between two titanic forces, and it was not a matter of withstanding both. That would grind him, and Uriva itself, to paste. Even as a god there were limitations, and if he wanted to keep his people and himself intact, he would have to maneuver very carefully indeed.


    His Interface chirped at him, and Initik glanced through the messages scrolling past. Then he was on his feet, reorienting himself with a flicker of will as he cursed. It seemed his own foresight was coming back to bite him.


    When he¡¯d sent Muar out with a [Crusade], it had seemed a great idea, a way of forcing people to take the threat of Cato seriously. But he¡¯d only instantiated a personal quest, one that could spread, and he hoped it would, but no more than that. The [Crusade] that had come back, projected out from the core worlds to the entire System, was something different.


    The call to arms was not simply one option of many, offering rewards for action, it was an imperative. It subordinated every other quest, every other incentive. Simultaneous with it came a rippling alteration of the portals between worlds, blocking the movement of the lowest ranks. That at least made sense, if it existed to limit Cato, but combined with the new [Crusade] it would very quickly drain all the higher ranks from every world ¡ª and with them would go every mentor, trainer, protector, guard, and troubleshooter.


    Worse, he had seen the sort of battlefield that the higher ranks were entering. The absolute devastation Cato could wreak. Even if at times Cato was oddly coy about employing his power, he could very easily destroy Golds and Platinums. He could even kill gods, and so Initik didn¡¯t entirely know what the [Crusade] was intended to accomplish.


    He did know that it would ruin Uriva.


    The effects wouldn¡¯t be immediate, but this was not going to be a short conflict. Cato had already shown he could command vast armies and move vast distances. Uriva¡¯s entire population of Golds and Platinums would simply vanish into the froth of war without a sign.


    Initik paced the perimeter of his System Space, claws clicking as they moved in reflexive uneasiness, as he tried to think of a counter-move. Even as a deity he didn¡¯t have the authority to override something like the [Crusade], nor to alter the rank-based restrictions on the portals, coming as they did from the deepest processes of the System. Locking down the portals out would work for a certain amount of time, but only a certain amount. He couldn¡¯t afford to isolate Uriva forever, even if he hadn¡¯t already spent most of his reserves on removing Cato¡¯s influence.


    He found his thoughts more and more drawn to the two not-Urivans he had in a stasis circle in the depths of his estate. They were not useful as intelligence, especially as out of date as they must be, time-lost for years, but they were a resource nonetheless. Initik had not missed Cato¡¯s interest in preserving the people of the worlds he assaulted, and on that single point they had a common interest.


    Initik was not so foolish as to believe that he could sway Cato to his purpose, or the reverse, but it might well be worth opening a dialogue. If nothing else, perhaps he could delay the inevitable until a better option presented itself. It had been some time since he had needed to use that particular approach but, ages ago when he was still mortal, he had learned that a little bit of fast talking could easily put him in a more advantageous position.


    He prowled into the room he¡¯d created to hold the pair, double-checking that the stasis was still in place. Of course, he should have been alerted if something had happened, but nothing beat inspecting it with his own two eyes. The two not-Urivans were frozen in time, exactly as they had for some years, and while keeping them that way was easy enough, unfreezing them might be tricky.


    The problem was that he wanted their cooperation, and he hadn¡¯t exactly left them in the frame of mind that would endear them to listening. He studied the pair closely, and of the two he decided on unfreezing Leese first. Her body language was subtly less aggressive than Raine¡¯s, less immediately protective of her companion.


    Initik shifted her out of the stasis circle, keeping the frozen time in place by sheer force of will as he carefully snipped away all the other Skills he¡¯d layered on her. Being freed of all that coercion didn¡¯t mean that she would take the time to listen, but a compulsion almost certainly would cause the self-destruction he had seen with Cato¡¯s agents before. Only then did he release the stasis spell. She immediately took a breath, eyes flicking around, and Initik spoke before she could make a decision.


    ¡°I am willing to release both you and your companion,¡± Initik said bluntly. ¡°But I wish to talk to Cato.¡±

 Chapter 19 — Shifting Tides

    The sisters were late.


    Specifically the Sydean Lineage, who had gone off for a quick jaunt to the core and not returned. They were the only ones who were ever out of contact for any length of time, and their very purpose meant they went deep into the parts of the System where Cato had yet to gain foothold. Every time they vanished from comms it generated a little spark of anxiety.


    Ever since he¡¯d needed to intervene against the assassination squad, that spark had been just a bit brighter, and it was even worse now that they were Bismuth. He didn¡¯t know what being fully made of System-stuff meant, in the short or long term, and whether or not they would stay on his side. Maybe not every version of him worried, as there were plenty of worlds where he was entirely busy with local affairs and would never have to deal with the matters of the frontier, but even in his multiplicity he shared priorities and memories.


    So when they missed their check-in with Cato-Nesil, a few portal links outside the hazy threshold to the inner worlds, various Catos started making plans. He couldn¡¯t really apply force outside of territories he¡¯d already infiltrated, and with the new portal restrictions even trying to push surveillance through was extraordinarily difficult. The crusade quest was of surprising if questionable help; there was a significant movement of Golds and Platinums, which meant a given lineage could cross over portals without drawing attention, but spending too much on any one world would stand out. Various Lineages could do preliminary scouting, but actually trying to spread Cato was risky with so many eyes, and high ranking ones at that.


    Nor was there any useful way to ask about the missing lineage. Golds inquiring after a Bismuth would be strange enough, but the Sydean Lineage were purposely not conspicuous. Despite their rank being enough to draw attention, if they simply passed through a world nobody would have thought twice about them. Even if they could have followed the missing pair into the core, there was no way to isolate the path the Sydean Lineage took. One day stretched into two, then five, then more, and the potential scenarios became more worrying.


    They might be captured, or dead. The System was a hostile place, and the sisters had major enemies ¡ª including Muar, who was still somewhere out and about and wouldn¡¯t be fooled by identification-obscuring artifacts. Or they may simple have abandoned their charge, as they were the only ones at Bismuth and nobody knew all the consequences of that transition. The System might simply have made them turn traitor. The little amount of data he had from interacting with them post-Ascension suggested they were acting somewhat out of character, but there were so many reasons for that he couldn¡¯t discern the reason. Guessing wasn¡¯t useful, so Cato was forced to go to one asset that might actually be able to help.


    ¡°Dyen,¡± Cato-Mishkel sent, on the world where the Sydean had bunkered down. Dyen had received much the same upgrades as the Sydean Lineage, including the communications link that let Cato track him fairly easily, though not the combat algorithms. He still didn¡¯t trust Dyen enough to give him the same edge as Raine and Leese, and if it ever came down to it he knew who he wanted to win a fight. ¡°I need a favor.¡±


    ¡°What happened?¡± Dyen replied immediately, sidestepping what Cato intended to say. ¡°Something to do with this quest?¡±


    ¡°It might, but I don¡¯t know,¡± Cato said, not needing to ask which quest. ¡°Raine and Leese left for the core, and they haven¡¯t returned.¡±


    ¡°I guess you¡¯re not in the core, then,¡± Dyen said, and Cato finally was able to get a lock on Dyen¡¯s location. Unfortunately, it was only location-by-inference, as none of Cato¡¯s orbital surveillance could pick up the Sydean. At such a long range, the System stealth was more than enough to defeat simple passive, optical sensors. Especially since Dyen was, so far as Cato knew, also Bismuth and at the point where ordinary physics started to get truly twisted. In a way it was surprising that the electromagnetic communication glands worked through the stealth.


    ¡°Unfortunately,¡± Cato said, not seeing any way to reserve that piece of information despite his mistrust for Dyen¡¯s loyalties. If he wanted Dyen to help then the Sydean at least needed a realistic understanding of what was required. ¡°I¡¯d like you to see if you can track them down. Find out if they need help.¡±


    ¡°I can do that,¡±  Dyen replied after a moment. ¡°But I want a favor too.¡±


    ¡°I figured you might,¡± Cato said. Dyen wasn¡¯t an ally like Raine and Leese, more of a mercenary. Though what he could supply Dyen was severely limited.


    ¡°When you take the Tornok homeworld, I want to be there,¡± Dyen said, his transmitted voice cold and hard. The Sydean had lost none of the anger against the Tornok Clan. Cato was tempted to blame the anti-entropic nature of essence, seeping into physiology and preventing changes in outlook and temperament, but Dyen had every natural reason to carry fury with him for the rest of his life.


    ¡°I can do that,¡± Cato agreed. He wasn¡¯t sure when he would be dealing with the Tornok Clan¡¯s homeworld, or how. It was too far in the future, and there was also the worry that Dyen was going to act like the Azoth from the annexation attempt and try to wipe out everyone there. If so, Cato would have to kill Dyen himself. Maybe he should have added something to Dyen¡¯s altered biology in case of such an extreme, but that would have violated too many closely-held principles. It was one thing to kill someone, and it was another to betray them with a substrate that he¡¯d provided in good faith.


    ¡°Then I will find them,¡± Dyen said, entirely unconcerned with whatever might be lurking in the core. There were two ranks above Bismuth, Cato knew, as well as the gods, but beyond that he had no information. Even Yaniss didn¡¯t exactly know, for while she had described the apparently infinite landscape of a war world, it was not a place she had stayed. Yaniss was not so combat-focused that it held her attention, and access to regions, dungeons, and quests were all controlled by factions so entrenched she couldn¡¯t even think about making inroads.


    The core worlds were no more monolithic than the clans he¡¯d encountered on the frontier, or at least so Cato understood from the fragments he¡¯d heard from Yaniss and various bits of surveillance. All the most powerful clans had holdings there, so his guess was that it was some kind of deadly court. He couldn¡¯t imagine that people raised from birth for combat, and with all their power gained from killing, would then play well together at the highest echelons of power. Even fearful kings and armchair murderers created deadly power games when there were real stakes.


    His communications network tracked Dyen across several worlds until the assassin vanished across the border, out of Cato¡¯s reach. Cato hated that he couldn¡¯t do anything himself, and wondered if he shouldn¡¯t have encouraged other versions of Raine and Leese to rank up in order to help ¡ª but considering the worries around the Bismuth transition, there were strict limits to what any of them were willing to risk.


    Not only was there the issue of potential mind control at higher ranks, but apparently there was actually some degree of compulsion from the quest ¡ª though, it was an open question, now, whether all quests had a degree of compulsion. Obviously there was the weaponization of the dopaminergic pathways, as finishing quests and objectives felt good. But even beyond that, they were goals written into the System¡¯s reality itself. Following a quest was just like going downhill, the path of least resistance. The frames he¡¯d built for the sisters and for himself could deal with some of the biological adulteration, but ultimately he couldn¡¯t block the altered reality of the System.


    For all the small quests, it wasn¡¯t much different from a general froth, sending people to and fro to complete their own personal objectives. A Brownian motion of ranking up and ¡°getting stronger¡± ¡ª a phrase that Cato was coming to hate. The Crusade quest, though, was some great strange attractor, pulling people away and off toward other parts of the System. The various Lineages found that it was easier to take breaks from System frames to clear their heads and ensure they stayed on task.


    Cato couldn¡¯t help but be aware that it was, to some extent, his responsibility. Whoever ¨C or whatever ¨C governed the inner workings of the System was ultimately at fault, but it was the natural and inevitable response to his actions. Blaming the System for defending itself was impossibly disingenuous, despite the horrific nature of that reaction.


    For the moment the target for the Crusade seemed to be the area near where he¡¯d cut off systems, the dozen or so worlds where he¡¯d attacked as distraction, doing no actual damage and not even injuring any people. He¡¯d even targeted dungeons where he knew someone was inside, letting the group ¡°defeat¡± downgraded warframes. An information-dense enemy would have realized that zero injuries was statistically improbable, and perhaps someone would figure it out in time, but in the immediate chaos and aftermath it just seemed like victory on their end.


    He was giving them time to settle again before considering exactly where and when to start the propaganda campaign, as some worlds seemed ripe for it and others the exact opposite. Retooled factories were printing up millions of tons of simple polymer leaflets, colored plastic with a few words and pictures, each one tailored to the species inhabiting the world below. There was no telling what the impact would be, but he really didn¡¯t want to try anything more extreme just yet. Morvan¡¯s declaration still made Cato uneasy. There was no telling what his cousins would think to do.


    Neither Morvan nor Kiersten had shown up again in any of the worlds Cato had under surveillance ¡ª or indeed, anyone he suspected of being from Earth, such as the neopredator that had accompanied his cousins. Most of his attention, even for the entrenched versions furthest from the recent action, was directed toward where he expected the conflict to come, so the transmission from Cato-Uriva caught most versions of him by surprise.


    Cato-Uriva himself was absolutely staggered, because years ago, after the actual System-God had appeared and the connection had been lost with the sisters¡¯ frames, he¡¯d assumed that their forms had been obliterated. Especially considering the followup that had destroyed his moon presence, and ever since then he¡¯d been building up in the outer reaches of Uriva¡¯s system. All that remained were a few satellites and a version of himself in half-hibernation, to shortcut the hours-long turnaround time of signals between the surface and the gas giants. It was this version which had taken the call, and sent out the news to all the others through FernNet and FungusNet.


    ¡°Cato?¡± The message system flagged the broadcast with all sorts of alarms, given that not only was it from an instance of Leese that was completely different from any that were known to be active, but the internal chronometer was ridiculously off. That wasn¡¯t supposed to happen even if she had been unconscious; the timekeeping biomachinery was tied to the cellular life cycle, so the only way that it wouldn¡¯t increment for five years was through relativistic dilation or some sort of magic. Cato was pretty sure he knew which it was.


    ¡°Are you okay, Leese? Anything I can do?¡± All his forces were days away, further out than in most systems, given the proactive nature of the local deity. ¡°I have space if you want to abandon that frame.¡± Though he doubted she would, since Raine¡¯s comms hadn¡¯t appeared.


    ¡°Not yet,¡± Leese sent back. ¡°I want to get Raine out, too, and for that, World Deity Initik wants to talk to you. Directly.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Cato blinked in his small virtual office, dropping into a time-accelerated framejack just to process that request.


    None of the wargaming simulations had ever suggested this possibility. Negotiation with the System Gods did appear in the furthest outliers of the probability cloud, a few fractions of a percent in situations where he had taken over vast swaths of the System¡¯s worlds, or somehow fully isolated them from the System itself. The versions of him in the cut-off section might well be dealing with the manifestation of those low probabilities at that very moment, but the possibility of the Urivan System-God trying to talk to him before hostilities open didn¡¯t even appear.


    ¡°I can send a frame down in a few hours,¡± he said, shifting back into real time. There was still one bioproduction facility in somewhat near orbit, but no active frames. The logistics of deep hibernation were fraught enough that just building a new frame from a bioprinter was a better option. It¡¯d also give him a chance to synchronize with his self in the outer system, just in case the current versions of the sisters wanted to send themselves over.


    Despite knowing that the System-God couldn¡¯t really do anything to him, and that this particular encounter was just one tiny facet of a long and difficult campaign, he found himself unaccountably nervous. He paced the virtual office, opening and closing his hands in a habit gained long ago when he was a child on a farm, while he kept the channel open with Leese.


    ¡°Do you know exactly what he wants? Any information you can give me?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea. He just showed up and now he wants to talk to you.¡±


    It took Cato a moment to parse that, before realizing she likely didn¡¯t know about the time passage. For some people it might have been a good idea to ease someone into the knowledge, but after years with Raine and Leese he knew better. Even if the ones he was familiar with had diverged from this Leese, the fundamental nature was the same.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been in some kind of stasis for a bit over five years,¡± Cato told her. ¡°I thought Initik had just killed you, and I¡¯ve been building up forces further out ever since. Now that I know you¡¯re still alive¡ª¡±Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    ¡°Initik said he¡¯d let us go if he could talk to you,¡± Leese interrupted him. ¡°If we¡¯ve been missing for five years and you didn¡¯t know, then going along with it is the best bet.¡±


    She was upset and he didn¡¯t blame her. He wasn¡¯t a god himself, but he knew that the sisters, even the versions more diverged and after the deep time immersion, still considered him a bit of one. Though the Urivan Lineage had continued on from the moment of capture, living and working on the station in the outer system, that meant nothing to the embodied versions who had been prisoners the whole time. He¡¯d failed them.


    He filled her in on some of the events during the time that she¡¯d been gone, but kept scrupulously away from talking about what the divergent versions of herself and Raine had been up to. It was one thing to know there were alternates out there based on conscious choices they had made, and another entirely to know there was a version that existed only because the original pair had been presumed dead. It was something that had happened more than once in the annals of digital life, and there was never any telling how someone might take it. Even people used to duplication and divergence could find themselves at a loss.


    Unsurprisingly, the older versions of the Urivan Lineage decided against transferring to a nearer satellite. The divergent Lineages collaborated, but didn¡¯t really talk as such, so of course they weren¡¯t going to want to meet a version of themselves that was even more strangely related. Which was fine, as he had always known that he would have to be the arbiter for any diversion strangeness that had appeared.


    When the frame was finally done, Cato linked himself to it and clambered into the now-familiar glider that he¡¯d used for de-orbiting so many times. Engines fired, shoving him back into the cushioning gel as his delta-v dropped precipitously. The System occupied more space in the Uriva orbitals than in most, considering the links upward to the moons, but given the staggering volume involved, there was still more than enough room to maneuver.


    ¡°Okay, starting to enter the System now,¡± Cato told Leese, and was unsurprised when moments later the glider was teleported elsewhere, appearing with no relative velocity on a tiny island in the middle of the southern ocean. Of all the times he¡¯d used them, he could count the number of actual proper landings on one hand. At least he was allowed to exit the vessel of his own accord, which was even less common than actually landing the glider.


    The island was completely cleared, a level surface with grass, a few trees, and single gazebo-like structure. Leese was seated there by herself, but a large crystal disk projected the image of a dark-carapaced Urivan in some ridiculously fantasy holographic display. The System-god Initik, obviously.


    ¡°Cato,¡± Initik said, a low grinding rumble.


    ¡°I am,¡± Cato said, then nodded to Leese. ¡°Where is Raine?¡±


    ¡°It surprises me that you seem concerned about agents of yours that are obviously disposable,¡± Initik observed.


    ¡°There¡¯s a saying about making assumptions,¡± Cato replied, his tone drier than he intended, so he took a moment to control himself. ¡°Send her out and we can have whatever conversation you like.¡±


    ¡°How can I know that you¡¯ll stay once you have what you want?¡± Initik countered, the insectile being¡¯s claws clicking as they moved restlessly.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t cost me anything,¡± Cato said, sitting down next to Leese and acting unconcerned. ¡°In truth, I would love to talk to a System-god. We¡¯ve been strangers, clashing in the dark from the beginning, and nobody seems to have a direct line to you types.¡±


    ¡°Mortals don¡¯t,¡± Initik agreed, and Cato internally bristled at the term. The analysis programs he was running recognized the signs of a sudden framejack from Initik, an alteration of micro-movements to indicate a faster time passage. It wasn¡¯t the same as it would be for Cato, since his was merely mental and Initik¡¯s seemed to cover his physical body as well, but it was the same principle. Then the framejack ended, Initik waved his hand, and the Urivan version of Raine appeared next to Leese.


    ¡°What¡ª¡± she began, then stopped as she took in the surroundings, Cato¡¯s human frame, and Leese.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you two go back,¡± Cato told them, since he¡¯d be far happier once there was nobody at risk. ¡°I¡¯ve got everything set up for you above,¡± he added, more privately. The glider had a FungusNet node, transmitting to the satellites above, though even without it he could have dropped something into the atmosphere to serve as a relay.


    ¡°Right,¡± Leese said, glancing at Raine. Cato could sense some quick radio communication between the two of them, and then they simply slumped in their chairs as they abandoned the frames. He could have finessed it more, but he thought it more important to get the pair out of danger than hide a fairly obvious ability from Initik.


    ¡°Puppets of some sort?¡± Initik asked, though whether it was genuine curiosity or some attempt at polite conversation Cato didn¡¯t know.


    ¡°It¡¯s complicated and mostly irrelevant,¡± Cato said, facing Initik¡¯s projection fully and lacing his fingers together as he reclined in the chair. Various simulations ran in the background to provide options and details, including the possibility that Initik had already gotten intelligence from the Sydean Lineage, but the actual conversation was his to conduct. ¡°I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a lot of things both of us could say, but what exactly prompted you to initiate contact?¡±


    ¡°What happened at Haekos and Koh-rel,¡± Initik replied, which was pretty much what Cato expected. ¡°Not only the threat you have demonstrated, but the surprising gentleness with which you handled the inhabitants of those worlds ¡ª and all the others you severed from the System.¡±


    ¡°My grievance has never been with the people, only the System,¡± Cato responded with a shrug, though it pleased him that someone had noticed. The more people who realized, the easier his task would be in the end.


    ¡°The two cannot be separated,¡± Initik said, his mandibles moving in a way that Cato only recognized as displeasure thanks to the analysis done for the Urivan frames. ¡°The System shapes people, gives them purpose ¡ª no, I am not here to discuss theology. I am here on behalf of my people.¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t aware you were an elected official.¡± Cato was only half-joking. It wasn¡¯t clear at all how the System-gods were created as, even though the obvious path was to ascend a second time at Alum, he hadn¡¯t run into anyone with any credible stories about it.


    ¡°They are my people,¡± Initik said sharply, not at all amused. ¡°I have safeguarded them for over a thousand years. I was there when the System came, and I have been guiding them ever since.¡±


    ¡°Wait, you remember your System apocalypse?¡± Cato asked, disbelieving. Obviously it was possible, but he would have thought it was only those who were fully absorbed in the System that would have managed to go all the way ¡ª or people like his cousins, who had uncounted hours sunk into games with a similar environment.


    ¡°Apocalypse?¡± Initik seemed to be tasting the word, which was a little bit difficult in System tongue. ¡°No. I was hunting a meat-on-legs.¡± The System-god paused, shifting his gripping claws. ¡°Our language was less complex, in those days. I was hunting, when the System¡¯s words appeared before me and I understood. From then on, I no longer had to go hungry, nor did we have to wander the plains searching for the bounty of the earth.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Cato said, leaning forward as he tried to understand what Initik was saying. ¡°The System arrived before you even settled down? You weren¡¯t growing plants in rows or keeping animals for food?¡± The System¡¯s language was insultingly light on terminology for agriculture and farming, likely because there was no need for those concepts when it was impossible to actually tame the land.


    ¡°We weren¡¯t,¡± Initik said slowly, as if the concept was entirely alien to him. Which it probably was. It sounded like the System had arrived at some point during their stone age, or maybe even earlier. Not that he could expect the technological framework of an alien species to mimic that of Earth, but agriculture was pretty key to being able to settle down and start thinking about how to perform tasks better.


    If so, then the advent of the System was not so much an apocalypse for Initik and the Urivans. They had nothing for the System to destroy save for a proto-language, and were effectively uplifted to the pre-industrial era in a single step. Considering what the System provided, it could be considered even further than that, but the point was that the System would absolutely seem like a unilateral upside. It was a complete dead end and suffocatingly oppressive, but such a local minimum would be very enticing.


    ¡°Our stories are certainly different,¡± Cato remarked after that bit of consideration, since he didn¡¯t see any way to delve into it in a useful way. ¡°But like you are working on behalf of your people, I am working on behalf of mine. The System killed so many of my people ¡ª more than exist on any world in the System. And it continues to expand and threaten other innocent civilizations. I have no idea how bad it was on what the System called Gogri, but even if they were halfway between your society and mine, than it likely killed millions.¡±


    ¡°The problems of other worlds are not my concern,¡± Initik said, waving aside Cato¡¯s words. ¡°I cannot expect to govern them or understand what they want. But my people need the System. Without it, how do we find food and drink? It gives us strength, power, longevity. Before it, our people barely lived past the first clutch, and even in the System it is not a sure thing.¡± Initik became more animated as he talked, gripping claws flexing and waving over his shoulders. ¡°I know you say you want to help people out of the System, and you think it is better for them, but my people cannot survive without it.¡±


    Cato opened his mouth, then closed it again as his common sense caught up and squelched his desire to dismiss Initik¡¯s concerns. The way that the insectoid alien had phrased something tickled a memory he had from long ago, some speculation about different approaches and xenobiologies. From nature¡¯s point of view, a creature¡¯s duty to their species was done once their reproductive capacity was depleted, and no few entered a very rapid decline afterward. Most of the time that was tied to age, but there were some examples of it being the other way around, where each generation ended because the next was born. The idea of a sapient life form being subject to such a restriction wasn¡¯t completely outlandish, even if it was horrific.


    ¡°Raine, Leese?¡± Cato sent to the sisters, who were in a portioned segment of the satellite¡¯s computronium ¡ª at least for the moment. ¡°I hate to bother you, but I¡¯m negotiating with Initik and I think there¡¯s something very important. I know you did more biology work on the Urivan frames than I did, was there anything in there about early senescence?¡± He¡¯d done a lot of Urivan microbiology, but the way the entire biochemistry worked over very long timescales was not going to be obvious from the nature of the cells and genetic information. The sisters had done the highest level analysis, and aside from glancing over the readouts from the bioengineering toolsets he hadn¡¯t delved too deep himself. The information was still stored in databases somewhere, but he was light-hours away from those.


    ¡°Yes, actually,¡± Leese replied after a moment. The contact was audio-only despite them being hosted on the same satellite as him, which was a little bit worrisome, but he was stretching a point to intrude on them anyway. Not that they were fragile, but he was sure they would prefer privacy as they sorted out being time-displaced and duplicated. ¡°I didn¡¯t bother to bring it up since we wouldn¡¯t be dealing with it, but females, especially, have some catastrophic outcomes after reproduction. None of which mattered in the System.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± Cato said, and pressed his lips together as he regarded Initik. His normal arguments, his normal assumptions, just wouldn¡¯t work for Initik. Somehow, he¡¯d stumbled across perhaps the only situation where the advent of the System was actually a net positive for the species in question, and the local authority knew it. Not that the exception changed his mind; a single bit of good didn¡¯t offset the genocidal murder of uncounted sapients, but it was a different problem.


    ¡°I can see why that would be a problem,¡± he said to Initick, emerging from the framejack. ¡°Not an insurmountable one, but ¡ª let us clarify things first. You¡¯re wanting to negotiate with me, for yourself? On behalf of some faction of World Deities?¡±


    ¡°Myself,¡± Initik confirmed. ¡°Only one or two of my number truly appreciate the threat you present, even after your showing against the Eln and Lundt Clan worlds.¡±


    ¡°Then I understand the risk that you¡¯re taking by talking with me,¡± Cato said, marking the names Initik mentioned for later inquiry, then shook his head. ¡°Well, I am entirely happy to negotiate with you or anyone, so long as you understand that removing the System is going to happen. But I have no desire to conquer, let alone rule. Obviously I don¡¯t want to enable abuses, either, but by and large I have to trust people to govern themselves.¡± He tilted his hand back and forth in an equivocal gesture. ¡°Something to be worked out as System support is replaced with technology.¡±


    ¡°And as I have said, the System is necessary for my people,¡± Initik said, sounding irritated for the first time. ¡°Unless you are claiming you can replace what is necessary with this technology.¡±


    ¡°I can,¡± Cato confirmed, tapping his fingers on the armrest of the chair as he thought. ¡°You are in a unique position, compared to most. The System came to you before you managed to build anything up for it to destroy. That¡¯s not an insult; civilizations take enormous amounts of time to get going, and nature is a harsh and uncompromising mistress. You could even be considered lucky that the System swooped in to shortcut thousands of years ¨C or more ¨C of incremental progress, but it¡¯s not the only approach. In fact, I can do even better.¡±


    Initik clicked doubtfully, not that Cato blamed him. Someone claiming they have all the answers and more was instantly suspect, because nothing was ever so easy. But for Cato, it was fairly simple.


    ¡°Where I¡¯m from, we have certain understandings about how bodies work,¡± Cato said, choosing his words carefully. Initik had been, by far, the most effective and annoying roadblock for Cato¡¯s plans, and had nearly stopped Cato¡¯s campaign dead before it had even started. The god also wasn¡¯t stupid, and it was obvious that flippantly invoking technology was far from sufficient. Just because Initik lacked scientific knowledge didn¡¯t mean he wouldn¡¯t understand a reasonable explanation.


    ¡°It took us thousands of years to acquire the knowledge, let alone to create the tools to interact with bodies properly, but I have that knowledge and those tools. Your problem is one that we have seen before, and one we have solved before.¡± He spread his hands then clasped them together as he regarded the Urivan.


    ¡°Something embedded in your bodies believes that your lives are finished after reproduction. A thought generated by nature, an idea whose time has come and gone, yet the consequences remain. The System language doesn¡¯t have all the words to describe, but for me it as easy to address as it is for you to conjure fire ¡ª and I can fix it permanently, so your children and your children¡¯s children never have to worry about it.¡± Despite Initik being merely a hologram, Cato could feel the Urivan¡¯s regard like a physical force.


    ¡°Strong claims,¡± Initik said, with a clear and very justified skepticism.


    ¡°Ones I can prove,¡± Cato told him. ¡°Given time. Agriculture and mechanics are readily apparent, but with the genetics changes ¡ª well, I would need volunteers. We would need communications, a partnership, even, in a way. You can¡¯t exist outside the System and my tools can¡¯t exist within it, but individuals can go back and forth. Say, if you let me put something near one of your moons.¡±


    ¡°The problem is,¡± Initik said slowly, his claws clicking as they moved restlessly. ¡°The problem is that I can¡¯t trust you and you can¡¯t trust me. Anything I tell you might well be used against me by you or the other gods, should they find out. And any cooperation you provide might similarly be turned against you.¡±


    Cato nearly smiled. That sort of blunt and clear-sighted admission made him think that Initik was the kind of person he could actually work with ¡ª but it also reinforced how dangerous he was. Someone so aware of the truths of the situation, and so uncompromising in articulating them, most certainly had far more he wasn¡¯t saying.


    ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Cato conceded after a moment, thinking about how damn useful it¡¯d be to have Initik shed some light on what might have happened to the Sydean Lineage ¡ª and how he didn¡¯t dare mention it. ¡°But under the circumstances, I am willing to risk any ill intentions on your part, if you¡¯re willing to risk some of your people so I can demonstrate I truly am capable.¡±


    Initik was silent for a time. Cato knew that, no matter what he asserted or what reassurances he gave, Initik had to believe there was a good chance anyone he sent would die or worse. Yet from someone familiar with the System, with all its severe depredations and violent confrontations, it couldn¡¯t be any more of a risk than day to day life.


    ¡°That may be possible,¡± Initik conceded. ¡°There is even a group that is perfect for part of that role, as they are already familiar with your agents. The Warden¡¯s Claw will do as I tell them. I simply need to prevent them from following the [Crusade].¡±

 Chapter 20 — Unwelcome Revelations

    Dyen had fairly run out of people to kill when Cato asked for his help.


    There was no point in going after the low ranking Tornok Clan. They were weak, useless things, and only the higher ranks were worthy of his time. All of them would die eventually, of course, but to spend effort massacring hapless Coppers and Silvers would be to demean himself ¡ª and undermine his vengeance. At the same time, he¡¯d found that the upper ranking Tornok Clan ¨C the ones who had given the orders, who encouraged the behavior, and the ones who were ultimately responsible ¨C were out of reach.


    They were Azoth, on a planet full of Bismuths and Azoths, in Estates that had System protections he was far from being able to bypass. For the most part he had busied himself with hunting down other assassins to rank up, having absolutely no loyalty to the Assassin¡¯s Guild. More the reverse, given how virtually every contract seemed to be motivated by spite and pique rather than justified revenge.


    Targeting assassins meant that none of his kills would result in the sort of random destruction that had killed his wife, and the capelet made finding assassins simplicity itself ¡ª or at least it had until he noticed System-produced versions appearing here and there. Cato had ensured that Dyen¡¯s was part of his body, and thus superior, but the equipment he had recovered from several of his theoretical compatriots was obviously inspired by the original version.


    [Revelatory Companion: B-Tier Companion Beast


    Improves passive senses and provides extra sensory input]


    His was better, but it still meant that hunting down the high-rank assassins, those who had somehow found out about this new piece of equipment and procured their own, was no longer straightforward. His usual approaches having stalled out, he was glad to have an actual reason to stray away from Tornok Clan space ¡ª and have help promised for when it finally came time to deliver the final retribution to those who had taken his wife from him.


    After Cato contacted him through the incredibly odd not-quite-a-Skill, he stretched out and invoked his Skills before leaving his bolthole. Dyen passed through worlds like a shadow, flitting from portal to portal under full stealth and with Skills that meant he was barely corporeal most of the time. Most people who ascended to Bismuth looked forward to the opportunities of the core worlds, but Dyen had never had any interest and never would. He cared little for the increasing grandeur of the capital cities as he approached the inner worlds, where the network of portals narrowed down to a central convergence, nor did the higher-rank essence signatures make him feel like he was in the company of his peers. All he cared about was reaching his target.


    A concern that went up in flames when he crossed the portal to the inner worlds, and everything unraveled.


    Blazingly powerful protections snapped over all the myriad portals in the expansive Nexus, and his stealth Skills blared warning as equally potent identification Skills or artifacts tried to pry past his obfuscation. He had a fraction of an instant to think, plenty of time given how much more facile his mind was compared to a normal Bismuth, and decided the trap was specifically for him. Tornok Clan wouldn¡¯t dare to accost or entrap every traveling Bismuth, even with the danger of Cato and especially when the [Crusade] was sending people in and out of the core worlds.


    He pulled on his Skills, not bothering to try and go backward through the fully protected portal he¡¯d come from, instead flitting forward toward the less guarded portals leading deeper into the inner worlds. The heavy, ominous essence signature of an Azoth appeared just as he slipped through a small crack in the barrier into the next portal, his stealth Skills draining energy as they worked harder than ever before to keep him hidden.


    Dyan caught only glimpses of the various capitals as he jumped through, pursued by ¨C presumably ¨C Tornok Clan elites. He took portals at random, just trying to stay ahead of their sensory Skills and lose himself in the press of suddenly far higher rank individuals that populated the inner worlds. Cato¡¯s gifts showed their worth as Dyen could take in and analyze the movements of people and the streams of essence projected by artifacts in a snap, sliding in, around, under, and through layers of security and unsuspecting bystanders.


    The headlong flight lasted no more than a few minutes, but it seemed like ages as he crossed a dozen worlds, at every step having to contort his Skills to keep himself hidden and fend off opposing Skills trying to search him out. He jumped from shadow to shadow, suppressing his own essence, not even breathing and, as he¡¯d learned from Cato¡¯s capelet, making sure even the wind of his passage didn¡¯t bear a single trace of his presence.


    Even when it seemed he¡¯d lost his pursuers, Dyen did not relax. That was the best way to get ambushed, and it was a technique he¡¯d used himself a time or two. Instead, he used the opportunity to open a passage to his portable Estate and slide inside, leaving only a finger of a shadow as a connection to the world outside. Whoever was searching for him wouldn¡¯t be able to find the signature while hidden, and his private space had a profile even more miniscule than his own.


    His Estate was a simple one, almost entirely given over to storage with a small and spare living area. At Bismuth he had no need to eat or drink or sleep, and so there seemed little point giving any real space to such fripperies. Instead, there were shelves and racks and chests of niche-use artifacts and single-use crystals, some of which he had taken from his kills and others that he had purchased from the System.


    There were limitations to the single-use crystals, most of which had contradictory effects and some of which made it actively difficult to perform anything but a single task. Relying on them rather than learning to properly use Skills was a great way to wind up dead, but they were unequivocally useful for special circumstances. Like being pursued by higher-rank agents, or trying to track people he hadn¡¯t seen in years.


    He exchanged his usual equipment loadout for one more geared toward movement and stealth, and less toward combat. For the most part he worked from ambush, destroying people with a singular strike of incredible magnitude, but that wasn¡¯t what he needed. Instead he needed to move fast, move light, and follow traces that were days old. If he wasn¡¯t familiar with Raine and Leese it probably would have been impossible ¡ª especially with their own obfuscation artifacts. They were masquerading as something other than Sydean, and only his familiarity with the pair meant he could tell any different.


    Dyen arranged several consumables to be easily available, and then crushed one crystal that rendered him entirely ephemeral. Only then did he emerge again, closing his Estate behind him and flitting back the way he had come. The technique was old, simple, and yet still worked. Whoever was looking for him would certainly not check on the worlds they had already chased him through.


    Once he had worked his way nearly back to the threshold world where all the portals came together, he let the effect lapse. All the predatory, high-rank presences were gone, the hunters off searching for him in further worlds while he tracked down the slightest whiff of where Raine and Leese might have gone. To that end he crushed another crystal, temporarily focusing all his not-inconsiderable perceptual prowess in a single direction.


    Essence trails sprang into being around him, the wakes of passages stretching back days or possibly even weeks, and he began hunting. There was the possibility that the pair had been caught by the trap on the nexus world, but he knew that Cato had provided the sisters things that Dyen couldn¡¯t even imagine. It was more likely, to his mind, that they¡¯d escaped in much the same way. Forward, not back.


    He crossed several worlds before he picked up their trail, barely distinguishable from the wake of other high-rankers who had passed through. Anyone who wasn¡¯t already familiar with them would have never noticed, considering how well they blended with the surroundings. Clearly the two had upgraded their movement Skills since he¡¯d last met, likely once again due to Cato¡¯s gifts. Having a god on their side really was unfair.


    Yet Cato wasn¡¯t everywhere, couldn¡¯t be everywhere, and here in the inner worlds those two were unsupported. Dyen didn¡¯t really pity them, but he had to be serious about tracking them down if he were to get what he wanted. He very much doubted Cato would feel like extending any more of his power to Dyen if the sisters never resurfaced.


    Their hurried path mimicked his, leading from portal to portal with eddies and twists that showed heavy use of movement Skills, not to mention the wake of the pursuers. Perhaps even combat Skills, though the particular tracking crystal he had used wasn¡¯t meant for that sort of investigation. There were crystals that offered more specialized boosts, but most of them seemed useless to him. Dyen kept a stock anyway, since after encountering Cato he was very aware that he was woefully ignorant and the usual, straightforward approaches were not the only ones. There was no telling what would be useful, and when.


    Dyen pursued their trail deeper into the network of the inner worlds, their trail looping and skating sideways here and there, but always going deeper. He spent several days following their circumlocutions, tracking punctuated by spates of hiding from the occasional Bismuth or Azoth that pricked his instincts, until he fetched up at one final portal. Unlike all the others it wasn¡¯t merely a circle in space, but a sphere hovering above a disk of Alum-ranked metal like its own miniature world. A portal to the Core Worlds.


    As Dyen approached it, a System notification appeared.


    [Warning: At Bismuth Rank, it may not be possible to return through this portal.]


    He considered it for a moment, then decided it didn¡¯t matter. Dyen plunged through.


    ***


    Raine Uriv had no idea what to do with herself.


    Cato had made it clear all the way back in the beginning that somewhere, somewhen, something would happen that made a version of her accidentally divergent or worse, accidentally redundant. There would be ¨C there were ¨C thousands of her, tens of thousands, and in the chaos of war anything could happen. But that had been some abstract lecture, a remote contingency that had never crossed her mind ¡ª not a reality that she had to live.


    She and Leese had returned to their normal forms, no longer needing to masquerade as Urivans or pretend an interest in ranking up in the System. It was far more comfortable than their subterfuge as a different species, and their surroundings were certainly meant to be relaxing. They were in virtual world not quite robust enough to be called an aestivation, a cozy little villa surrounded by greenery, but still obviously artificial, and she certainly didn¡¯t feel relaxed.


    ¡°What is the point of¡­¡± Raine began, but trailed off, not quite knowing what she wanted to say.


    ¡°Of us?¡± Leese finished. ¡°It¡¯s strange. There¡¯s so many of us, I know that in my head, that it shouldn¡¯t matter, but nobody else has lost five years.¡±


    ¡°Ten years, or more,¡± Raine corrected her. ¡°With the time compression.¡± Cato had provided a very, very brief summary of the goings-on for the past few years, and otherwise tried not to bother them. They¡¯d clearly missed a lot in the broad campaign, but insofar as Uriva itself, not much had been done. Mostly just buildup for the inevitable invasion ¡ª one that might no longer be happening.


    She didn¡¯t blame Cato for wanting to negotiate with Initik. Even if she didn¡¯t like the World Deity in question, he hadn¡¯t behaved badly enough to make it personal. The problem was that it left both her and Leese entirely at loose ends. There was no need to try and subvert the populace, and any other tasks they could have taken up were already claimed. Everything that they had done, prepared for, sacrificed for, and been captured for was rendered irrelevant. They were irrelevant.


    ¡°I mean. We don¡¯t necessarily need to do anything,¡± Leese said, though they both knew that wasn¡¯t really true. Yes, they knew that they could set up their own virtual world, pursue any hobby or interest they had, and completely retire from the campaign ¡ª but they didn¡¯t feel like they¡¯d earned it. They hadn¡¯t accomplished anything, and it sure didn¡¯t help that there was nobody they could retire with.


    They had each other, of course, but as immortals with near-infinite possibilities, that just wasn¡¯t good enough. Forever was a long time to spend with only one person, but there wasn¡¯t anyone else. Cato was a distant god, and they were surrounded by aliens that they didn¡¯t know or understand. The two of them had always thought that what they would do after the campaign was a thing for a far distant future, when they would know more and be more. Not something thrust upon them before they¡¯d even started.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°Relaxing isn¡¯t very relaxing,¡± Raine muttered, and Leese laughed, though it was more in agreement than anything. ¡°Maybe we should¡ª¡±


    She was interrupted by the chiming of the visitor alert, the doorbell as Cato liked to call it. Of course, he was the one asking for admission; a fresh reminder there wasn¡¯t anyone else. The only other digitized intelligence around was Yaniss, and she definitely didn¡¯t have a presence on Uriva. Raine exchanged looks with Leese and then admitted him.


    ¡°How are you two doing? Ready to be done moping?¡± Cato¡¯s words jolted her, and she cast an astonished glance at him before remembering that he knew them better than they knew him. Quite literally; this Cato had spent years with them, their other selves, that she and Leese had missed out on. The address was oddly over-familiar, and perhaps she should have been insulted, but the words hit just right. She was ready to be done moping.


    ¡°What do you have for us?¡± Leese asked.


    ¡°Since I assume you¡¯re not ready to vanish into a retirement aestivation, I have two options that I think might work. One is just to head out to the frontier; we can target a planet for you rather than spinning off a new Lineage, and you can start again there.¡± He paused, and Raine shrugged. The idea didn¡¯t excite her any, even if it wasn¡¯t terrible.


    ¡°The other is to take control of the diplomacy project here,¡± Cato said. ¡°I can send you the details of the agreement, but if we¡¯re going to get Initik on our side ¨C and maybe some of the other System-Gods ¨C then we need to prove that we can actually do what we say we can.¡± He flipped his hand, projecting a simulacrum of a large, rotating habitat orbiting one of the moons along with the data of how long it would take to reach that orbit, and a surveillance feed of a number of Urivans gathering together in a town on that moon¡¯s surface.


    ¡°Setting up the environment is easy enough, but I¡¯ll need liaisons to help the chosen Urivans adapt. And Initik decided to tap the group that you ran with before, though I¡¯m not sure if it was meant as a favor to you or just because he considers them already potentially compromised.¡± Cato shook his head. ¡°Regardless, they wouldn¡¯t all be total strangers.¡±


    ¡°That might work,¡± Raine said, considering the little model with interest. The more she thought about it, the more she liked it: they wouldn¡¯t have to be inside the System, they had found the Warden¡¯s Claw to be nice enough people, and it was actually important. Maybe more important than any of the other preparations on the other worlds. Getting World Deities on Cato¡¯s side would radically change the entire campaign. Even if it was only a few. She looked to Leese and the two of them came to an unspoken agreement.


    ¡°We¡¯d be interested, I think,¡± Leese said. ¡°We can stay Sydean, right? I don¡¯t think we want to change ourselves again.¡±


    ¡°Certainly,¡± Cato assured them. ¡°This isn¡¯t subterfuge anymore. Though of course I¡¯m going to make sure if Initik decides to pull the environment into the System you won¡¯t be trapped again. I think we¡¯ve learned that lesson.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Raine said fervently.


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll let Initik know. There¡¯s no rush, though,¡± Cato added, as he dismissed the habitat model. ¡°Even with all our infrastructure, it¡¯s going to take time to finish preparing everything.¡±


    ¡°I think we¡¯d prefer to get started sooner rather than later,¡± Raine replied. She was already starting to feel stir-crazy, not at all relaxed by the tranquil surroundings of the virtual world.


    ¡°Easy enough,¡± Cato said, flicking his fingers to send messages to them. ¡°There¡¯s a bunch of sims that will help with the orientation process. But first, mail call.¡± Raine¡¯s personal interface pinged her, showing hundreds, thousands of messages for both her and Leese. She exchanged glances with Leese, and then opened one at random.


    It was from herself. Or rather, from another version of herself, busy on some other planet, sending well-wishes and advice. The message was short and blunt, but it was still encouraging ¡ª as was another message, a softer one, from a different version of Leese. Odd as the messages were, they were more encouraging than she would have thought.


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep you looped in,¡± Cato told them. ¡°And get you some databases to go through. Once I get the factories over here, I¡¯ll let you be in charge of the habitat specifics.¡±


    ¡°We will take the charge seriously,¡± Leese said. Raine nodded silently, considering to herself.


    They knew exactly how powerful Cato¡¯s tools were, and how complex things would be outside the System, which made such a responsibly by far the heaviest one they¡¯d ever been given. There were innumerable details, nearly infinite possibilities, and they would have to make all the decisions ¡ª with Initik¡¯s cooperation relying on their success. For the first time since waking up in the new paradigm, Raine felt like there was a purpose calling to her.


    ¡°I have every confidence in you,¡± Cato told them.


    ***


    Cato hated how life refused to have a consistent narrative. Good and bad jumbled together, so much that would have in some ways preferred more bad news on the heels of the Sydean Lineage¡¯s disappearance, instead of the whiplash hope that this latest development could win him the whole campaign. A single ally from the self-proclaimed World Deities might well give him more access and intelligence than all the worlds he¡¯d already claimed. At the same time, the Sydean Lineage might well have disclosed everything they knew to some core worlds System-gods, threatening everything he¡¯d built.


    Initik¡¯s true support was years away, but the potential fallout of the Sydean Lineage was an immediate concern. They didn¡¯t know all his secrets, but they did know enough that he needed to start making some moves before the System people could figure out how to use that intelligence ¨C or the Sydean Lineage themselves ¨C against him. He wasn¡¯t about to try a massive military campaign, since he wasn¡¯t ready for that, but it was better to start the social campaign before the System-gods beat him to it.


    Accordingly, he decided to pull the metaphorical trigger on the leaflet campaign. As simple as it was, such a psychological attack might well be far more devastating than any military approach. At least, history had shown that propaganda was effective, and the truth was that now that his presence was known, there was no reason not to advance his cause while he was still spreading out.


    He began with the worlds that were already familiar with his presence, the ones that he¡¯d allowed to defeat his forces in the annexation incident. That way he could see the general reaction without compromising the knowledge of exactly how deeply he was entrenched. Boiling the frog slowly, if he was lucky.


    On each world, mass drivers were re-tasked to send small packages into the atmosphere. The leaflet bundles were light enough that aerobraking served entirely to slow them down, each bundle puffing into individual papers once the surrounding air was dense enough to crush the packing foam and free the simple mechanical securements. He¡¯d tweaked the leaflets themselves to be fairly fragile, degrading relatively quickly ¡ª if for no other reason than he¡¯d be dropping a lot of them. Thousands over every city and town, and even over every dungeon on each planet.


    The view from his orbital surveillance was impressive in some ways, but the view from the ground was even better. Various Lineages were on the ground, deep undercover as Coppers or Silvers, and some of them broadcast the sight of the papers floating down like strange snow. Some people took it as another attack, and here and there bolts of fire or whips of water cut through the air to destroy the floating pages.


    He also heard noises of fear, particularly from the Copper and Silver ranks, which was less amusing than the mis-aimed attacks. Cato never wanted to incite terror from those who were simply living their lives, which was exactly why he wanted to ease people through the transition rather than do it by force. Being guaranteed some continuity of law, of property, of hearth and home and food and drink did wonders for quelling unrest, but only if he was able to make those guarantees.


    Eventually, people did realize that the pieces of paper were merely words and pictures. He doubted anyone would believe his proclamations outright, but that was fine. The point was to sow doubt, and he could ¨C and would ¨C drop propaganda for years. Hopefully he could make some inroads against the reflexive System hatred, and the pervasive opposition of the Crusade quest.


    Except, of course, for the divine users. Cato hadn¡¯t seen any priests as such, nobody going around evangelizing about whatever moral code was ascribed to the System¡¯s machinations. It wasn¡¯t necessary, not when what the System wanted was so transparently obvious, but divine users were effectively the true believers, and it didn¡¯t take long for them to start denouncing the propaganda.


    ¡°Do not even consider the lies that Cato is spreading!¡± One Bismuth paladin shouted in a town square only minutes after the leaflets began dropping from the sky, glaring around at people who quickly abandoned any attempt to pick up or even look at the stray papers. Amusingly, since the papers weren¡¯t enemies it seemed that Skills in general weren¡¯t designed to deal with them, at least not without significant collateral damage, so they weren¡¯t being destroyed very quickly.


    ¡°These words only exist to taint your spirit!¡± Another, more priest-styled divine user said in an entirely different city, on an entirely different world, after the third batch of leaflets fell from the sky. ¡°Stay strong, and burn this heresy wherever you find it!¡±


    Despite the people proselytizing about how evil he was, Cato was relatively pleased with the leaflet drop. Millions of people were reading his assurances about what life would be like without the System, about how little he wanted to affect their ability to live ¡ª save for no longer needing to fight every day, of course. Maybe only a few percent would believe him, but historically almost all changes were wrought with that few percent of the population. Maybe the System was different, but in most populations the vast majority of people followed, rather than led, and were easily swayed when the winds changed.


    Yet that success wasn¡¯t enough to assuage his worries over the disappearance of the Sydean Lineage. As much as he wanted to do more, the propaganda campaign was the only activity he was willing to engage with, as he didn¡¯t want to expose any other versions to being targeted. Between the Crusade and potential targeting by the System core, everyone was laying low.


    Some versions had even underclocked themselves, not feeling like being distracted with aestivation worlds and yet having nothing in particular to do until time passed, and so they were running at ten percent of normal or even less. Cato wasn¡¯t entirely comfortable with that, as it was entirely possible to get disconnected from events in much the same way as with deep time, but it was hard to argue against it. There was a lot of waiting to be done, and automated industry needed only so much supervision.


    All of the Lineages on the propaganda worlds were at least temporarily active, even if there wasn¡¯t much to do there but observe. No matter how many simulations he did, that didn¡¯t tell him what the reaction was actually going to be, or what alterations he should make. It wasn¡¯t exactly possible to poll the System populace to find out their most critical issues.


    Two days into it, Cato-Sunac was still sorting through the sudden influx of data, as his observation creatures and orbital spy-eyes observed literally millions of people over dozens of worlds, when multiple portals opened at once. One in each of the worlds targeted for leaflets, which set off all kinds of alarms. The last time he¡¯d seen that, the gods had likely been involved, and his cousins definitely had been.


    The people who came through the portals seemed to be Azoths; confirmed by the sisters in the cities where they were physically present, and by general observation where they weren¡¯t. All different species, with one Tornok-Clan but the others exhibiting entirely different morphologies. Some of them were the first time he¡¯d ever seen the species, even with all the thousands of worlds he surveilled.


    ¡°The [Crusade] just changed to an evacuation order,¡± Raine reported from the surface of Sunac, echoed by the other versions across other worlds. Or at least, those versions of her that were Gold and above. Given the portal restrictions, it wouldn¡¯t matter or apply to those in Copper and Silver. Of course, neither Raine nor Leese cared about the quest at all.


    ¡°Huh, are they pulling out already?¡± Cato asked, mostly rhetorically. So far, very few world deities had seen fit to actually defend their worlds all the way. Some had, whether due to an excess of ego or because they were like Initik and actually cared, but for the most part they had abandoned their posts. Immortal self-styled gods didn¡¯t seem to want to put their lives on the line.


    ¡°Hear this, Cato!¡± One of the Azoths boomed out, followed irregularly by the others, not quite synchronized over the various worlds. ¡°You will not be allowed to take the worlds of the System! No world that you have defiled can be tolerated by the divines, so let it be known that this is on your head!¡± Even as they spoke, the other higher ranks filtered back through the portals, heading back into the greater System. And with haste.


    ¡°What are they¡­¡± Cato didn¡¯t finish the sentence, not wanting to articulate the foreboding feeling the vague proclamation gave him. ¡°Anything else going on, System-wise?¡± He knew the sisters would have told him if there was anything he should know, but he couldn¡¯t help the question.


    ¡°Just the evacuation still,¡± Raine reported from Sunac. ¡°It¡¯s marked as urgent, but there¡¯s no other changes or notifications that I¡¯ve gotten.¡±


    Still uncertain what exactly was going to happen, Cato began issuing orders to bring his forces in closer to the planet, a decision that was mirrored across all the propaganda worlds. Perhaps that was what the System elites were trying to do, to lure him in closer, but with all his factories and mining facilities at a safe distance, eradicating the existing forces would be at most a minor delay.


    For three hours, there was merely the outflow of the higher ranks under the eyes of the Azoths, , then the portals in each Nexus, at least the ones the sisters could see, seemed to flicker and shuffle, so that each of the propaganda worlds had a single portal left. Whatever hidden countdown or message that the Azoths were waiting on occurred a scant few minutes later. All of them spoke, again not quite in unison but close enough that it was obvious that they were being fed their lines.


    ¡°This world has been condemned by Cato!¡±


    On each planet, at the point furthest from the capital city Nexus, a dark spot appeared on the ground or the ocean. It expanded rapidly, a ring sweeping through the atmosphere and across the surface at hundreds of miles an hour, leaving only dust in its wake. Everything living and System-made, city or dungeon, plant or animal, dissolved into nothingness. It was exactly like how System-stuff dissolved outside its influence, but applied to ordinary flora and fauna, ordinary creatures ¡ª and ordinary people. Cato watched in horror as that dark wave swept over towns, leaving neither inhabitants nor buildings intact.


    It only took five or six minutes to cross the entire planet. FungusNet and FernNet kept transmitting all the way up to the end, as the ring crashed down on the capital city and the Nexus there, and the unsuspecting Coppers and Silvers who had no idea what was coming. Raine and Leese abandoned the frames for their respective orbital networks, unable to do anything against reality itself turning against them.


    The portals closed. Signal lost.

 Chapter 21 — Picking up the Pieces

    [Your Crusade has awarded you essence!]


    Muar was getting used to seeing the notification in the corner of his vision, as all actions against Cato and his dark purpose flowed upward through those who undertook the [Crusade]. It had significantly accelerated his progress through Bismuth, even if he had a very, very long way to go to reach Azoth.


    In a way it made up for the time he was spending outside of the Core worlds, traveling through the worlds that made up the innermost circle in order to ensure they had a personal connection to the [Crusade]. Muar didn¡¯t know which god or gods had finally taken notice of Cato¡¯s abilities, but the spread of the quest to all the worlds of the System was finally a response that matched the danger.


    ¡°If you can¡¯t do it, your priests need to petition your [World Deity] at the Temple,¡± he told the Platinum World Administrator patiently. On the frontier, such people were cowed by Muar¡¯s title and Bismuth Rank, but so close to the core, and with the backing of a real Clan, the man was clearly used to dealing with august personages. ¡°That moon can very easily be a threat.¡± He waved at the large silvery-blue crescent riding low on the horizon.


    ¡°But how?¡± The Platinum just didn¡¯t seem to comprehend the facts no matter how Muar stated them. ¡°It¡¯s just in the sky. You can¡¯t actually get there.¡±


    Muar knew that being a World Administrator for an inner world required someone to be at least marginally intelligent, so the blank, abject stupidity was just for show. Something to waste Muar¡¯s time and prevent the Platinum from having to actually do anything not ordered by his masters within the Clan. Such petty and venal games were unworthy of the divine System, made obvious by how those engaging in them were so obviously less.


    Yet it was a game that still had to be played, to do what was necessary to stop Cato. If he had more of a backing ¨C although the backing of the System should be enough ¨C then he would be far more effective. But he did not, and for now, should he fail to convince those in charge to act of their own accord, he would instead commune with the gods directly at the temple. None of them spoke to him as such, but certain System messages and the actions around planets demonstrated that he was being heard.


    On five different worlds, small moons ¨C barely more than mountain-sized ¨C had been brought down by Azoths. On two others, much larger ones had been brought into the System, transformed into high-rank Zones. For many inner worlds, such moons were already within the System¡¯s grasp, which was a pleasant surprise and prevented him from needing to do more than examine them for any possible influence.


    Thus far he hadn¡¯t found any evidence of Cato¡¯s subversive contamination, which either showed that Cato was far more subtle than Maur thought, or that he¡¯d outdistanced Cato¡¯s vanguard. While he wasn¡¯t certain, and could never be certain, Muar very well thought it was the latter. He hadn¡¯t heard anything further about Raine or Leese, save for messages from the Tornok Clan.


    The confluence portal had alarms that were set to trigger when any Sydean ¨C or even Sydean-alike ¨C entities crossed it, something writ into the deepest nature of the Nexus that held it. Twice they had been triggered, and twice the people had gotten away, vanishing into the core worlds. That had been days ago, and it was a worry, but if Raine and Leese were now trapped in the inner and core worlds, hunting them down might be far, far easier than if they were at large, somewhere in the entire length and breadth of the System.


    Unfortunately, the core worlds and especially the war worlds were absolutely massive, so perhaps tracking them down was a distant dream. But there were few places that allowed movement between those worlds, and he¡¯d already had subordinate [Crusaders] volunteer to monitor them after hearing from the Tornok Clan. Muar himself planned to go as well ¡ª but only after he had performed his most important task and ensured the inner worlds were proofed against Cato¡¯s invasion.


    ¡°If you do not wish to help, then you need not,¡± Muar said, interrupting the maliciously pointless blather of the Platinum in question. ¡°I will go to the Temple myself.¡± He turned away from the functionary ¨C flexing his Skills ever so slightly to make sure the creature would never benefit from the [Crusade] ¨C and crossed the city in just a few steps, his divine movement Skill easily covering the distance and bringing him to the steps of the Temple.


    Actually entering the Temple was done on foot, without Skills, as a show of piety. There were a number of people meditating around the central pylon, from mere Coppers to an Azoth, and Muar joined them in sacred fellowship. His higher rank and higher tier Skills gave him far more insight than he used to have, his senses allowing him to feel the flow of essence between the planet and the gods in addition to the direct influence within the Temple.


    His [Crusade Skill: Commune] let him construct questions and offer specific information directly to the gods, and by this time he was quite used to creating warnings about Cato¡¯s specific abilities and approaches. By inference from his personal experience, the gods themselves didn¡¯t seem to communicate between each other too much, no more than the administrators of various worlds did, so he had to repeat himself quite often.


    Muar hardly minded. It was his honor to bring such important news to those who needed to hear it, be they gods or be they mortals. Even if the [Crusade] had spread throughout the entire System, it was still his quest, and he was the only one who had been beyond the System, seen Cato¡¯s works, and returned. Unusually, he did get a response, in the form of a small addendum to his [Crusade] quest.


    [Meet the Ahruskians.]


    Muar thought he was beyond surprise, but this was not a development he¡¯d expected. Yes, it was not difficult to draw the conclusion that there were some individuals from Cato¡¯s home that were part of the System, but he would have thought they were justly suspect, and in disfavor with the gods. Though perhaps he was meeting them to ensure they were not loyal to Cato or what Cato represented. The horrible nihility of a world reduced to the merely material that Cato wanted to bring to them.


    Without ceremony, he withdrew from the Temple and followed the urging of the quest, crossing through several portals to reach the appropriate world. The quest led him to yet another Temple, a large and well-appointed one, of the maximum size and tier for the world, and taking up a goodly section of the capital city on that particular planet. He went past the meditation room, striding into the back to where the unmistakable essence signature of three Azoths radiated from one of the meeting rooms.


    The moment he entered, he could tell the trio had benefitted from the sort of unearned strength that Cato had offered him so long ago. There was a peculiar way they held themselves, even the quadrupedal one, something unnaturally precise and yet languid, as if they were inexpertly pretending to be people. Two of them bore a resemblance to Cato¡¯s fleshy form ¨C or frame, as it had been called ¨C but the third, the quadruped, clearly didn¡¯t. In fact, Muar hadn¡¯t ever before seen anyone at any rank lacking hands. Yet his quick, reflexive appraise showed they were all normal Azoth-rank individuals.


    ¡°Huh, you¡¯re the questgiver, eh?¡± Morvan spoke, and Muar instantly disliked him.


    ¡°I am the bearer of the [Crusade] and one of the few who has interacted with Cato,¡± Muar replied stiffly. ¡°The gods have guided me here, presumably to acquire more insight. You are from the same world as Cato?¡±


    ¡°Hell, we¡¯re related,¡± Kiersten said, though she didn¡¯t sound joyful at the prospect. ¡°Well, us two are. Justin isn¡¯t. Unless he¡¯s not telling us something.¡±


    ¡°You keep your family drama away from me,¡± Justin rumbled. ¡°I¡¯m just here to kill monsters and get rich.¡± Strangely, that particular Ahruskian had a distinct aura about him, marking him as a fellow divine user ¡ª but with an entirely different attitude. Muar wasn¡¯t certain what god would accept such a person, but it wasn¡¯t his role to question the machinations that occurred at such rarefied heights.


    ¡°Well, sure, we all are, but some people just can¡¯t leave well enough alone,¡± Morvan waved a hand dismissively.


    ¡°From what I understand, the gods wish for me to consult with you,¡± Muar said, somehow feeling like the only adult in the room even if the other three were a full rank higher than him. ¡°And you, with me. The threat Cato offers is a real one, and should be taken seriously.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not Cato,¡± Morvan disagreed. ¡°It¡¯s just all his toys. Believe me, there are some things over in Sol that are actually scary, but Cato¡¯s just a big wet mop.¡±


    Muar blinked. First, at the idea that they so casually dismissed what Cato was and what he could do, and second, at the implicit threat that Cato, among his kind, was a lesser being. It was impossible to tell how accurate that assessment was, because it was obvious that just by knowing Cato, they didn¡¯t have the proper respect for him. Their preconceptions blinded them, an imagined familiarity breeding unwarranted contempt.


    ¡°He has corrupted dozens of worlds,¡± Muar pointed out. ¡°And stolen several outright. That is quite enough of a threat for me.¡±


    ¡°Oh sure, but did you make it hard for him?¡± Morvan said, lacing his fingers behind his head. ¡°I don¡¯t mean fighting his stuff. That isn¡¯t anything Cato would much care about. You all just don¡¯t know what he¡¯s got going, and what it means that he¡¯s got the orbitals. Fighting him straight means a slog against logistics and industrial capacity, and frankly that game is shit. So we play a different game. We already told the gods about this ¨C you all don¡¯t fight him, and whenever he shows up, sterilize the world and let his dumb ass know that he¡¯s the reason. He¡¯s too weak to keep that it up after that,¡± Morvan finished, with an assurance that was horrifying at first, but became more appealing the more Muar considered it.


    Muar wanted to reject such a terrible strategy, but it did make a strange amount of sense. Pushing Cato off a world he had already infected might well be impossible if it had to be fought inch by inch. But Muar did already know that Cato wanted to, at least in his own twisted way, help those who inhabited the worlds.


    As terrible as it was, it might come down to a choice about killing millions to save the rest. Yet they were millions who would likely never rise above their base selves, never become more and, ultimately, never fully open themselves to the divine path the System laid out. Like he had once been. A terrible crucible, but one that would anoint the remainder with the strength, the virtue, that could only be earned from following the System¡¯s guidance.


    ¡°If the gods know of this, then they are surely acting on it,¡± Muar declared. ¡°Yet we cannot expect a single strategy to win against him. Individuals cannot decide the fates of planets that way, but individuals can act against Cato. They must. To fight his influence, his agents, to oppose him at the root rather than after he has compromised entire worlds. What can you tell me that will allow all of us to cut him out?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s harder,¡± Morvan said, frowning. ¡°Well, I did say he was a soft touch, so I bet if you find ¡ª"


    The Ahruskian was interrupted by the [Crusade] notifications appeared again.


    [The world of Sunac has been considered lost to Cato, and purified. Your Crusade has granted you essence.]


    [The world of Enksa has been considered lost to Cato, and purified. Your Crusade has granted you essence.]


    Muar watched as they scrolled past, the weight of grim certainty settling onto his shoulders. Cato had already forced the gods to act, no doubt revealing the full nature of his intractable infestation on the planets in question. Yet he doubted that would be sufficient to end Cato, despite the assurances of the Ahruskians before him.


    They were familiar with Cato, yes, but they also were not to be trusted given how casual they were about something so important as the System¡¯s very existence. They didn¡¯t seem to realize Cato¡¯s motivations ¡ª especially since they were part of his motivations. Muar had not been paying too close attention, and in a way he regretted it, but Cato had spoken of family that had found the System to be home. Certainly, that was the pair in front of him.


    ¡°It seems we will find out whether your strategy is sufficient,¡± Muar said after a moment. ¡°As your plan is being put into practice even now. But I very much doubt that one single stratagem alone will be enough to destroy him. Destroying some worlds he had his eye on is merely a setback.¡±


    ¡°Nah, he¡¯s going to blame himself for everything. Unless he¡¯s been altered to have more of a spine, that kind of thing is going to eat him up inside and he¡¯ll just wimp out,¡± Kierstan said, pushing her chair back to balance on two legs and lacing her fingers behind her head. ¡°Why are we even talking about him? We already gave our feedback, so I¡¯d rather not waste any more time thinking about our old lives.¡±


    ¡°I do understand,¡± Muar said, keeping his temper in check. Despite their power, he was not at all impressed with Cato¡¯s countrymen. He knew that they weren¡¯t as stupid as they seemed, or else they never would have made it to Azoth, but he really wished they would take Cato seriously. ¡°But I need to know as much as I can, if I am to move the [Crusade] forward and completely purge him from our worlds.¡±


    ¡°Fine,¡± Kiersten sighed and let her chair fall back to four legs before she looked over at Morvan. ¡°I guess we know some things about the real him. Though who knows how messed up his copies have become.¡±


    ¡°Then let us resume our discussion,¡± Muar said, eyeing the three Ahruskians. ¡°With your help we can purge him from the System once and for all.¡±


    ***


    Elder World Deity Keppel Eln meditated quietly in the outer vestibule of the True Core. There were dozens of others in the same space, from other clans, but nobody would have been stupid enough to start a fight. In the System¡¯s heart, no combat Skills were welcome. Not simply by custom and agreement, but by the System¡¯s own declaration.


    Only a small subset of those with divine affinity were actually allowed so close to the True Core, in the region where they could commune directly with the heart of the System. It was an enormous, globe-spanning cradle that merged the detached System Spaces of the gods with the most essence rich, most desirable world in all existence. Only the oldest and most powerful divines, those spoken of in whisper and rumor, had ever set foot upon the World Of The True Core. Keppel had, himself, never met any of those vaunted personages in all his years of service, and even now had no desire to draw their attention.


    Everything in the Core was arranged around that incredible construct; the massive war-worlds, the worlds of the powerful clans that had been taken into the Core, the myriad suns that illuminated them all. The closer a deity was allowed, the closer their world was brought, the more essence they had available and the more access they had to the innermost workings of the System. The Vestibule was the limit for everyone Keppel knew personally, but that was enough to do what he wished.


    At last the System¡¯s processes responded to his patient petitions and an Interface-like window opened in his mind. His authority to change things was limited, restricted by his worlds ¨C those of Clan Eln ¨C and also by his own personal piety. The System sampled his essence, fed it back into him, and so let him peek in on the results of their newest move against the Lundt clan, one which the most recent [Crusade] had provided cover to accomplish.


    The ability to purify a planet was not something to be taken lightly, and hadn¡¯t been deployed very often. It was a little bit worrying that a mere mortal could consider such a grand perpsective ¨C he had viewed the memory-crystal of that shamefully frank conversation himself ¨C even if it was only logical to believe the gods could do it. In fact, with sufficient effort an Alum could reach that level of destruction, though outside of the war-worlds, they wouldn¡¯t be allowed to.


    Yet an Alum wouldn¡¯t have been able to reap the not-inconsiderable benefits reported by the System¡¯s touch. Keeping the planet would have been better in the long run for the owners, of course, but the essence recovered from the purification, a bulk amount now waiting to be added to his coffers, was staggering. Enough to push forward development on other worlds, and so improve the Eln Clan¡¯s overall essence generation ¡ª once he¡¯d taken his share, of course. A disproportionate number of the worlds had belonged to the Lundt Clan, but they had not been foresighted enough to move first and therefore would only be reaping a tithe of the reward.


    Picking carefully through the staggeringly complex connection, Keppel considered the information the System presented him about his various worlds. None of the others had been reported to have any Cato presence on them, though if the assertions of the Ahrusk mortals could be believed that didn¡¯t guarantee anything. Not that Keppel entirely believed them.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    If it weren¡¯t for the System¡¯s direct blessing by way of the Crusade and the global defense quest, he wouldn¡¯t have credited it at all, but if they were to act, best to act aggressively, completely, and to ensure the maximum benefit for Clan Eln. Such as extracting some concessions from tangential clans for Eln¡¯s sacrifices in dealing with the threat.


    Less than a score of worlds had been targeted in total, very little compared to the total Clan extent and over half of them Lundt Clan¡¯s anyway. Unfortunate for Lundt, but since the so-called crisis occurred outside the usual maneuvering, nothing Keppel had done had drawn the censure of the other Elder Clans. If anything, he had gotten a certain amount of praise for his quick and effective solution to a potential problem.


    He finished allocating extra essence from the sudden windfall, only here and there as most of his Clan were doing just fine, and then pulled the rest into his personal accounts, where it joined the rest swirling through both his Estate and his body, a power ready to be unleashed when necessary. Not that there had been major clan war for millennia, but without that power, someone might well consider him vulnerable.


    Finished with his inspection and needing no other action from the True Core, Keppel rose and made his way out of the Vestibule. Even with movement Skills it took a few seconds to cross the white stone of the massive space and exit through the myriad portals that lined the circular outer wall, leading to the various Core Worlds. He emerged onto Core World Eln, hanging as it did above War World Osk, and took a deep breath of the familiar atmosphere.


    Servants hovered at attention, mortals elevated to exist in the rarefied air of the Core Worlds, where deities could walk free outside of a System Space. Unasked, several servants matched his pace, one holding drinks, another a tray of small tidbits, and a third controlling a crystal to play soothing music. Keppel strode along the flower-lined walk, barely noticing, his eyes more focused on the sky-dominating War World where the Ahruskians, somewhere, were pushing their way through Azoth.


    They would be a problem, eventually, and would be more difficult to solve than any threat the [Crusade] could pose. A simple enemy from without was easy enough to understand, and trading a few worlds to be rid of him was little issue in the long run. The Ahruskians, on the other hand, promised discord from within. There were too many of them, advancing too quickly, and it was disrupting the normal inter-Clan proxy competitions.


    He would have liked to just be rid of them, given that they weren¡¯t part of any real Clan and they posed a threat to those who were actually important, but the divine mandates of the System prohibited any action that direct. Not to mention, they had more than a few World Deities backing them ¡ª solely for the disruption, of course. Not every god was properly civilized.


    ¡°The others gave you no trouble, Father?¡± The question came as he reached the end of the path, where the white stone split out into a vast series of picturesque walkways that flowed through his extensive, almost continent-sized private gardens.


    ¡°Certainly not,¡± Keppel Eln told his favored daughter, who had been one of the most strident supporters of the purification plan. Remove a threat and acquire wealth at the same time, what was bad about it? Of course, those members of their own clan who had been displaced would need some compensation, but those out on the frontier were hardly valuable members or close relations. A little hardship might toughen them up.


    ¡°In fact¡­¡± he continued, bestowing a smile upon his daughter, along with some of the largesse of essence. ¡°In fact, some suitable framing of the facts has increased the cachet of Clan Eln ¨C and to a lesser extent, Clan Lundt ¨C among the other Great Clans.¡± He waved a hand dismissively, as they both knew that even if it wasn¡¯t a perfect victory, they had come out quite ahead of Lundt in the incident.


    ¡°Oh, excellent, father,¡± his daughter said, mirroring his smile and beaming broadly as she very obviously considered all the implications while counting her new gains. She was already a terror among the younger generation ¨C if one could call several hundred thousand years young ¨C and this would give her even more leverage for Clan Eln¡¯s interests.


    Keppel gave no more thought to the frontier skirmish of a [Crusade]. The System would endure as it always had and always would, uplifting the chosen of the divine. In the end, nothing else mattered.


    ***


    Initik eyed the thing moving into the orbit of the smallest moon with some disdain. Cato had been entirely transparent about what was coming, and where it was coming from, but Initik still found it to be completely alien. Something he couldn¡¯t grasp with essence, or with his own long experience.


    And yet, there was an odd sort of hope there. Cato might well be lying, and Initik gave it even odds, but the forthright earnestness Cato had about his particular problems was difficult to dismiss. It was demonstrably true that Cato could, in some way, render people immortal, but that wasn¡¯t the same as being able to fix all the problems he remembered from millennia ago.


    There was time enough to see one way or another if Cato could follow through on his promises, but only so long as it could be kept secret. While Initik was confident in his own abilities and his control of Uriva itself, the so-called purification of entire planets put an entirely different face on things. He didn¡¯t know how that happened; it wasn¡¯t something he knew how to do, and he wasn¡¯t certain he wanted to look for it. That was far too dangerous a tool to even admit his Interface had, no matter how buried it was.


    He couldn¡¯t imagine how much essence was involved. Far more than he had ever had available, especially now. After spending so much to push Cato off the moons, his ability to deflect the tides of the [Crusade] was drastically reduced ¡ª something made even worse because that expenditure was now entirely worthless. The best he could do was reduce its prevalence, using his own Interface overrides to block it from subsuming other quests. But the [Crusade] still existed, and his people were still at risk ¡ª especially given the updates his Interface had given him.


    [The world of Sunac has been considered lost to Cato, and purified.]


    [The world of Enksa has been considered lost to Cato, and purified.]


    ¡­


    [The world of Kelek has been considered lost to Cato, and purified.]


    Initik sneered at the feed as he glanced at it once again. Purified was an astoundingly cold way to describe the absolute destruction of an entire world and the people therein. Of course, the big clans didn¡¯t view it like he did. For them, random frontier worlds were only valuable for what the clans could take, so of course they didn¡¯t care.


    He was certain there was more politics there, as well. Different worlds, different clans, different World Deities in charge. Clearly there had been some internal shuffling of priorities, some payments for the inconvenience, but nothing that approached admitting that they¡¯d killed millions of people. After all, the dead were merely mortals, and mortals died by the millions anyway.


    But that wasn¡¯t something Initik would allow. He accepted that some amount of his people died, as there was nothing to be gained in padding the natural trials of the world. There would always be those who were too careless, too stupid, too egotistical or aggressive, that would drag down others if they were not blunted or burned by reality. But that was not the wholesale destruction of entire planets for no other reason than to deny them to the enemy.


    It was the kind of thinking Initik had seen before from the core worlds. Something expedient, politically useful, and probably ultimately ineffectual. Cato certainly hadn¡¯t revealed all his secrets, but it didn¡¯t seem that sterilizing planets did anything to hinder or help Cato¡¯s ability to coordinate forces. If the System portals were indeed necessary, as the restrictions on them implied, then simply shutting them down entirely would be sufficient. Just as had been done with Sydea.


    He dropped his scry, as the image of Cato¡¯s so-called station moved incredibly slowly, and there was nothing to see beyond a slow drift of some arcane hulk against stars. Stretching his gripping hands, he considered his options for potential allies against the mad egos of those who lived in the core worlds. He wasn¡¯t ready to reveal he was thinking of working with Cato to anyone, even if there were gods he trusted, but the actions of the core systems demanded some response.


    The only ones he knew of, who might have something substantive to contribute, were Neyar and, upon reflection, Mii-Es. The former had been a steady friend if not actual ally for centuries, but Mii-Es had been surprisingly friendly ever since the Cato situation had started ¡ª and most importantly, clearly had no love of the major clans. He didn¡¯t know why she was out managing Ikent rather than her own world ¨C or her clan¡¯s world, if she had a clan ¨C but she would certainly not inform them of any of his discontent.


    Making a decision, he touched his Interface, sending two messages. Unsurprisingly, the replies didn¡¯t take long. Everyone was a little bit on edge these days, considering the chaos the war had brought, so rather than communications languishing for days or weeks, his fellow deities often responded within hours. Also unsurprisingly, Neyar preferred to stay in his own domain, but that was all to the good. Initik didn¡¯t want any other deities near Uriva considering the ticklish situation with Cato.


    He stepped out into the between-space of the System, fetching up at Ikent after only a few steps and waiting for Mii-Es to answer the chime at her domain. She emerged in full regalia, her feathered form covered in silks, jewels, and ornamental armor, and while he didn¡¯t say anything his surprise must have been obvious. The avian deity clicked her beak and waggled her claws in an almost coquettish wave.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how you got to be friends with Neyar, darling, but he¡¯s a legend! I¡¯m not going to be at anything but my best.¡± She stretched her wings and then waved toward the connected lines of the between-space. ¡°Shall we go?¡±


    Initik clicked his claws in resignation and headed off toward the inner worlds. Even at a glance he could tell that a number of the World Deity spaces he passed had been reinforced, additional protections added ¡ª as if they would make some difference against either Cato or the actions of the core worlds. Yet it was a reflection of the change in attitude that had come in just the past few days. It was no longer business as usual, and even if few of the gods were directly affected, all those across the hundreds of thousands of worlds in the System felt the winds of change.


    They arrived at Neyar¡¯s domain, and were allowed inside to the valley of orange grasses. It hadn¡¯t changed at all, not that Initik had expected it to, but Neyar himself looked more stern than usual. His world was on the far side of the core from where Cato had so far been seen, but nobody with any intelligence thought that would matter for long.


    ¡°Welcome,¡± Neyar rumbled, conjuring a small pavilion with tables and seats; a divan suited for Initik¡¯s frame and a lounging chair meant for Mii-Es.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s so good to finally meet you!¡± Mii-Es gushed, bustling right up to Neyar. ¡°Though, perhaps the circumstances could be better.¡±


    ¡°Indeed,¡± said Neyar, giving Mii-Es a dismissive glance before gesturing for them to sit. ¡°It is not a crisis I¡¯ve seen before.¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t bode well,¡± Initik said, lowering himself into the flat, cushioned divan. ¡°You¡¯ve never seen the core worlds simply destroy entire planets?¡±


    ¡°Not like this,¡± Neyar said. ¡°It has happened on rare occasion, but usually those worlds were barely inhabited to begin with. I can only remember two times, and both instances were just a single world apiece, though I couldn¡¯t tell you what exactly prompted it. Probably core world politics.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re a bit past politics, I think,¡± Mii-Es drawled, drumming her claws on the arm of her chair. ¡°The Elder Clans unilaterally deciding to just destroy entire worlds is more of a threat than Cato. Initik has demonstrated that such measures are far from necessary, so Cato can be dealt with by individual deities like ourselves. But those with their hands on the deepest levers of power are too big to contest.¡±


    ¡°That is exactly why I wished for this meeting between clanless gods,¡± Initik said, not feeling the slightest qualm about deceiving his fellow gods with regards to Cato. They certainly wouldn¡¯t trust him with their innermost secrets. ¡°None who are not beholden to the Elder Clans of the core worlds, are safe. Not just from Cato, but also from those who might see the current crisis as a way to reach beyond what would usually be allowed.¡±


    ¡°Oh, are you thinking about some kind of coup?¡± Mii-Es said, straightening up from her languid drape over her chair.


    ¡°Nothing so dramatic,¡± Initik said, clicking at her reproachfully. ¡°Simply some form of agreement, of communication between those of us who are not part of that inner circle. Who have much to lose if they arbitrarily decide that our planets should need to be destroyed.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s clear we need some form of leverage,¡± Neyar agreed. ¡°Cato is like some dungeon or event; an outside problem that, together, we can fight. The Elder Clans holding a dagger to our backs is an entirely different matter, and needs an entirely different approach. We have all been betrayed in our long lives, by party members or friends, and it is with that wariness we need to contemplate the problems ahead. It will be impossible to deal with a true threat so long as we fear the Core.¡±


    ¡°We will have to be careful, though, and subtle,¡± Mii-Es pointed out with a click of her beak. ¡°In their current mood, simply voicing dissent might be seen as siding with the enemy.¡±


    ¡°I do not believe there is a severe rush,¡± Initik said, carefully avoiding anything that would imply he had inside information. ¡°After such a large battle and setback, it seems unlikely Cato will have either the forces or the wherewithal to try anything for a while. We merely need to be vigilant in our own territories, and see what we can do to protect ourselves from the threats within.¡±


    What he did not say was that if Cato proved true to his word, such gods might well be willing to take what the outsider was offering. Initik would not count the System out yet, but if Neyar had never seen the chaos that Cato¡¯s actions had brought, chaos that was only just starting, then he found it unlikely many gods would survive the coming events. At least, not as System gods.


    ***


    ¡°I don¡¯t¡ª¡± Cato-Urivan paced one of the rotating stations in a physical frame, sure that every version of himself was doing something similar. ¡°I can¡¯t do anything about that!¡± He flung his arm out, gesturing anywhere and everywhere, but it was obvious what he meant. There was a deep, devouring pit in his gut from all the people who had been outright murdered simply because Cato existed.


    He had no idea what was happening with the instances of Cato, Raine, and Leese who had been on those planets. In real space, they ranged from tens to hundreds of light years from other System worlds and, with the portals closed, real space was all that mattered. Moving on the slow way was just barely possible, but they were also the ones who had been left alone with the terrible specter of murdered worlds and he didn¡¯t know if they¡¯d have the emotional or psychological wherewithal to try.


    Ultimately it wasn¡¯t something he could know, not for decades or centuries at the earliest, and he wasn¡¯t one of the Catos stranded in a sterilized star system. He was the one who had to face the terrible threat that any move he made would result in genocide and extinction. That he was responsible for it, no matter that he wasn¡¯t to blame for the tragedy, and that the theoretical choice of condemning millions to save billions was no longer so theoretical. Or so favorable.


    Considering his terrible options, it occurred to him that perhaps he was the only one who had come from Sol to defeat the system was because he was the only one dumb enough to take the job. Anyone who thought about it would know ¨C he had known ¨C that millions of deaths was a best-case scenario for bringing down the System, and those wouldn¡¯t be abstract numbers. It wasn¡¯t a game. They would be something he was responsible for, and nobody sane would want that responsibility.


    ¡°Cato,¡± Leese said, and he stopped pacing, turning to face her augmented-reality representation. The out-system pair had their own, private station for their physical frames, one that he didn¡¯t intrude upon. ¡°We don¡¯t need to do anything right now. There¡¯s more than enough time to think up a counter-strategy, and Initik¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Cato interrupted, his mind still spinning uselessly. ¡°This nonsense will get him on our side for sure. But I don¡¯t like the cost.¡±


    ¡°None of us do,¡± Raine said, though the pair didn¡¯t seem quite as upset as he was. Though they were, of course, far more inured to violence, even extreme violence, due to their lives within the System. For them, destroying entire worlds was merely a scaled up version of the way towns could get overrun from the occasional dungeon break, monster wave, or special scenario like the Platinum rank-up quest. ¡°But if they¡¯re willing to do something so drastic, they must truly fear you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d actually rather they didn¡¯t, not like that,¡± Cato sighed. ¡°If they didn¡¯t know I was there, it¡¯d be better, or if they thought of me as a minor nuisance. If they are afraid, I¡¯d prefer they be too afraid to try anything.¡±


    ¡°You need a way to hold them accountable,¡± Leese said, as if it were that simple. He didn¡¯t have any way to get at the System-gods directly, as even if Initik somehow let him into that System space, Cato had no illusions that bioweapons alone would be effective. Even if he was willing to be extremely nasty and tailor genetic plagues, judging by his studies on Yaniss, retroviral engineering would be useless.


    ¡°I need a lot of things,¡± Cato said, stopping in his pacing and tapping his open palm against his fist, staring off into the middle distance as he thought. It was hard to push his mind past the devastation he¡¯d just seen, which was somehow worse even than what had happened to Earth. Despite all the devastation back at Sol, that had been collateral of a mechanical process. With those condemned worlds, it was clear malice aforethought, and aimed directly at him.


    The hollowness in his gut kindled with a new sort of anger, both at himself and at those who had decided to weaponize innocent bystanders against him. He didn¡¯t know what kind of malevolent mind would settle on that as a solution, but his contemplations put forth two prospects. His cousins, who knew him and could suggest such a thing ¨C even though he did not wish to think so ill of them ¨C or the Sydean Lineage, who also knew him and might have been turned by the System. Regardless of who it was, he swore that he would hold them to account. There was an ancient aphorism that terrorists were never to be negotiated with, because rewarding an act only encouraged more of it.


    ¡°Right now, we can¡¯t do anything,¡± Cato said, resuming his pacing. ¡°They hold the whip hand; they¡¯ve got a weapon we can¡¯t do much about. So we¡¯ll have to go silent, no matter what provocations they send our way. The only way we can undercut their strategy is if we¡¯re everywhere, if we can cut off everything as a fait accompli.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a long time to wait,¡± Raine pointed out. Their expansion through the System was something closer to linear growth than exponential, so it would be such a long time. Years, decades. But neither Cato nor the sisters were accountable to biological time, and they could wait those years and decades.


    ¡°Enough time for Dyen to find out about the Sydean Lineage,¡± Cato said, turning to look at them. ¡°But we can¡¯t rely on whatever comes of that. We also need to penetrate into the inner worlds ¡ª maybe they¡¯re willing to sacrifice the outer, frontier worlds, but I bet they¡¯ll be a lot more careful about where all the political power lies. For both of those we¡¯re going to need more powerful, faster-leveling frames. Ways to break the power scaling without going past Platinum. More surveillance, more communication. Maybe even more allies; I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll be able to find anyone who can be trusted, but maybe you can get some subordinates.¡±


    They had already done a lot of wargaming planning - computronium could power an awful lot of simulations - but none of it had included the System-gods declaring exterminatus on planets where Cato¡¯s presence was obvious. There were all kinds of strategies and approaches that needed to be reworked, and others that needed to be junked, but Cato was in no way giving up.


    Raine and Leese pulled up the planning tools, one starting to spin out simulations and strategies as he spoke, the other diving into bioengineering tools, and he took a moment to really look at them. The pair were proof that he could ease people out of the System, given time and space to work with.


    He needed them, not only as allies and helpers, but as a check and a sounding board. In a way, they were the only ones he was accountable to. Not just as individuals, but as the ideals they represented. And despite his own doubts, they hadn¡¯t wavered.


    ¡°Systema delenda est,¡± he said, choosing to focus on the work ahead. It would be a long, long road, but he couldn¡¯t waver from it. ¡°It¡¯s never been more clear. The System needs to be destroyed.¡±

 Book 2 Epilogue

    When the System fell on Heyk, it was just the start of the real work.


    Years and years of industrial labor ¨C a reflection of distance more than difficulty ¨C had resulted in an immense communications array floating at the edge of the star system. That far out, that the primary¡¯s light was a wan, thin thing, and solar power required hundreds of square miles of mirror just for basic functions. Even such an enormous swath of collectors wasn¡¯t enough for array, which had massive feathery spindles of cooling fins radiating outward from fusion generators and tanks of fuel good for several thousand years.


    The dishes and emitters of the array were measured in the hundreds of square miles as well, connected to the generators by a long tether of superconductor stretching through the void. The whole apparatus looked like God¡¯s own bola, two loose spheres of diffuse machinery connected by one single cable. Large as it was, the comms array was not underbuilt. It took a lot of power to transmit high-density messages over the distance of light-years.


    Cato knew he wouldn¡¯t get any response for a long time. He¡¯d been plotting the relative locations of System worlds in real space, and while some of the planets were surprisingly close, even the nearest neighbors were in the range of tens of light-years. More of the gaps were in the hundreds or thousands, and some an order of magnitude above that. The System Worlds seemed to become marginally more frequent in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud, where star densities were generally higher, but Cato-Heyk was only concerned with his own pocket of space. Other versions of himself would have to deal with the remaining System worlds.


    It would be decades yet before the transmissions reached any of the System worlds, let alone any of the worlds that had left isolated after the annexation war, but hopefully what he¡¯d learned would help his other selves. There was no way he could send any material support ¡ª nor any purpose, either. Even if he had been willing to strip the system dry, which he wasn¡¯t, actual travel times were centuries to millennia, and by then there was nothing reinforcements could do. Either some version of him would have everything under control, or no technology would be of any help.


    He swam through the expansive and delicate emission arrays in a void-life frame, not really needing to inspect it personally but feeling better for doing so. The only ambient light came from the stars, a shade of truly heroic proportions sheltering the transmitters and receivers from direct sunlight in order to keep them as cool as possible. In that faintest of lights he concluded his inspection and guided the void-life frame back to its docking cradle, which held all the mechanisms for the swarm of maintenance drones that would be keeping the array running.


    Reconciling himself back to the planetary orbits took nearly eight hours, though for the version of him back in orbit those hours were still incredibly busy. The world of Heyk was undergoing remediation on a breathtaking scale, as the System¡¯s collapse had left it nearly uninhabitable. Or at least, it would have become uninhabitable in months without intervention, as massive flora die-offs tanked oxygen levels and the lack of any native bacteria capable of breaking down alien biomatter meant the weathered husks wouldn¡¯t decay and couldn¡¯t be recycled on their own.


    ¡°They¡¯re trying to burn the grain crops again,¡± Leese told him the moment he finished the reconciliation process.


    ¡°How the hell can we convince them that they¡¯re supposed to grow food?¡± Cato asked rhetorically. In a way he didn¡¯t really blame the inhabitants, since they¡¯d not been prepared for the shift away from the System. To them, he was an apocalypse, unwanted and unwarranted, though at least they were alive to appreciate it ¡ª even if they chose not to.


    Without the individual power the System granted them, there was very little damage they could do to him. But they could do a lot of damage to themselves, and that was totally aside from Cato not wanting to be universally hated by an entire planet full of people. Especially a people he had a mandate to bring up to at least technological parity with what the System offered.


    ¡°Just let them starve a bit,¡± Raine put in, even more fed up with their attempts to help the inhabitants of Heyk than Cato was. He wished he could have said they were the natives of Heyk, but they weren¡¯t. The vestiges of native biology demonstrated that there were no remaining Heyk natives, and the three extant species were widespread throughout the System. The ratlike Tornok Clan, the crab-morphology Mokrom Clan, and the bulky, green, and thin-furred Intim Clan.


    At least he¡¯d finally gotten the three different species separated. None of them had the right biochemistry to live with each other, and Intim were outright allergic to Tornok Clan without the System running interference. It wasn¡¯t a situation that could last indefinitely; the planet¡¯s environment was in such shambles that he could easily adapt it to fit the biochemistry of one of them, but not all three. So, one would get the planet, and the other two would have to take to space stations.


    In all, Heyk was an unholy muddled mess. There were riots ¨C or attempted riots ¨C in all kind of places, people fleeing the remediated zones and then having to be rescued, and all kinds of agitation by former high-rank types who clearly thought they still were in charge. But he didn¡¯t want to just start imprisoning malcontents, especially since most of the former Coppers and Silvers were far less restive.


    Even the AI he¡¯d liberated from the former planetary interface was disgruntled, showing no interest in aiding Cato in the logistical struggles of his infrastructure. The information he had gotten from the System intelligence was less useful than he might have liked, as apparently it had done little more than manage the planet, but he¡¯d still packaged it up and sent it off. Even if he didn¡¯t have all the secrets of how the System worked, there might be wrinkles another version of him could exploit.


    ¡°We might have to start bringing people up to agri-cylinders earlier than I intended,¡± Cato said at last, looking over the reports. ¡°It¡¯ll just be easier overall once people are spread out and more responsible for their own maintenance.¡± He didn¡¯t intend to lock everyone into subsistence farming, but speedrunning civilization definitely required grounding people in the fundamentals.


    ¡°I bet you that if we promise that volunteers get double sized estates, we can empty out half the population,¡± Leese proposed. Cato laughed. If there was one thing orbital habitats had, it was space. His infrastructure could probably have built a habitat for each individual on the planet within a couple decades, so a few extra square miles was hardly an imposition.


    It was a little bit dishonest, but there was just too much of a gulf between him and the former System inhabitants for honesty to be useful. Some things they wouldn¡¯t understand, others they wouldn¡¯t believe, and that which they did understand and believe, they might well try to exploit ¡ª to their own detriment. Once again, something that made Cato want to tear his hair out. He knew that he wasn¡¯t the only Cato running into these problems, given how many worlds were cut off, but that didn¡¯t help him solve the problems.


    At least he wasn¡¯t alone, contending against a hostile world with only databases and algorithms. Even if they¡¯d just been around for him to chat with on occasion, the sisters would have been a great help and comfort, but their willingness to dig into the vast amount of work that needed doing made the long task so much easier. And hopefully some future version of himself would benefit from all the problems he was being forced to solve, however imperfectly.


    There had been a very tiny amount of time to squeeze out some last messages before all the portals failed, so they were all setting up deep-space comms, but he was the one closest to the System. Everything that he knew, and every bit of sensor feed from his world, was being sent to another version of himself forty years away. He didn¡¯t know ¨C and wouldn¡¯t, for almost a century ¨C how well that was going,


    He just hoped his information would help.


    ***


    The System had hit the poor bastards right in the middle of their age of sail.


    On the planet that Cato refused to call Gogri, every single civilization was in the middle of an absolute collapse. Similar to Earth¡¯s history, there were hundreds of distinct cultural and genetic groups, scattered over four major continents and several extensive archipelagos, and the System apocalypse had wrecked every single one of them. Whether it was the destruction of fertile farmland by terrain replacement, sailing ships being smashed by sea monsters, foundries crumbling, mines collapsing, or just monsters, nobody had escaped unscathed.


    Hunter-gatherers didn¡¯t have the numbers to stave off the sudden onset of hostile beasts everywhere, while the age-of-sail civilizations on the southernmost continent had all their supply chains fall apart and their cities turned into death traps. It was an absolute mess, a worldwide catastrophe, and Cato was starting with only the tiniest bit of biomass to deal with it. No real orbital infrastructure or observational capacity, just the warframes he¡¯d sent through the portal.


    There was one saving grace: the System¡¯s incursion was short-lived. He didn¡¯t know whether it was because it had been severed before anything was established, or whether any planet would lose the System without a connection to the rest of it, but mere days after he went through, the System collapsed, meaning Cato was completely unopposed.


    For the first time, Cato exercised the full extent of what bioweapon really meant.


    There were massive swaths of dead and dying plants and animals, transplants from the initial System onset, and he had no compunctions about going full hegemonizing swarm and sprawling over the area in a massive biomechanical production facility like some sort of grey goo. The version of him in orbit was doing the same on the local moon, working in parallel to come up with solutions.


    The natives were of some sort of pseudo-avian stock, but bulky and flightless in deference to a local gravity somewhat above Earth¡¯s. In accordance with most theories of technological advancement, the seafaring nations with foundries and roads were on the cooler southern continent, where snow fell ¡ª and if he didn¡¯t hurry, that winter would be their last considering that most places had, at best, a few weeks of food stores left. Some areas didn¡¯t even have anything that could be foraged or hunted, thanks to the System¡¯s replacement of the local flora and fauna.


    Already he had aircraft vectoring through the atmosphere, dropping biomass seeds onto likely areas to speed up the exponential growth part of the equation. The modeling showed that he would be able to barely fabricate enough food to stave off the worst of the starvation ¡ª with one caveat. The people had to cooperate, and no populace Cato could conceive of would just accept food and shelter from utterly alien machines from nowhere.


    ¡°I¡¯m really not looking forward to this,¡± Leese said, running her hands over her uniform as one of Cato¡¯s planes flew them in toward the remains of the largest civilization¡¯s palace. They were all their original bodies, albeit ones so heavily augmented they were closer to warframes, as Cato had no desire to deceive the natives about their nature even if the capabilities of said frames were more suited to a main battle tank. Just in case.


    ¡°We¡¯re not the ones who have to talk,¡± Raine said, entirely too cheerfully. ¡°That¡¯s on Cato.¡±


    ¡°Thanks,¡± Cato said, entirely insincerely, even if he was glad enough to have someone around to rib him about it. ¡°Hopefully this one goes better than some of the others.¡± Far too many of the smaller civilizations, or what remained of the ones nearest the incursion portal, had been unilaterally hostile to his approach. He¡¯d still try to get them supplies, but it would be harder.


    The aircraft descended near a battered palace, Cato maneuvering the whisper-quiet VTOL ¨C originally designed for getting around the inside of O¡¯Neill cylinder habitats ¨C onto the parade ground outside the palace walls. To their credit, the guards formed up promptly and precisely, head-feathers ruffled above colored forehead bands bearing rank insignia. They stirred uncomfortably when the ramp lowered, but didn¡¯t break as Cato came down the steps, flanked by Raine and Leese.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Though they were outwardly silent, the sisters did have a lively conversation in a radio backchannel, discussing all the details of what they were seeing. Even if they had known, intellectually, that non-System species would be different, they were still amazed by the sheer variety of different cultures and languages. Just one planet had more imagination than the entire System.


    ¡°I am here to discuss the recent cataclysm,¡± Cato announced to the guards in the hastily-translated local language. He very much did not want to use System tongue, though everyone here had been forcibly given understanding of it, and he was just glad he¡¯d had the computing power and surveillance to translate the polity¡¯s language in time. ¡°If you could show us to the ruler of these lands.¡±


    Even as he spoke, his spotty surveillance showed someone in obviously fine garments running flat-out from the palace. A messenger, perhaps, or maybe even one of the ruling family. He¡¯d not had enough time and resources to get spies into the palace itself, or eavesdrop by whisker laser, and wasn¡¯t even quite certain which members of the royal family were still alive.


    Before the guard detail needed to sort out exactly what to do with the strange beast and stranger people, the well-dressed man ¨C Cato preferred to think of them as men and women, even if they had feathers and talons ¨C burst through the palace gate and accosted the leader of the guard detail. He waited patiently with Raine and Leese for a quick, urgent conversation in low tones that his frame could pick up with ease, and then the courtier approached them, ruffling his feathers in the equivalent of a bow.


    ¡°King R-k-k-k bids you welcome, visitors, and invites you within to discuss our, perhaps mutual, problems.¡± Cato decided that first, he was going to have a devil of a time rendering the native names back into his own language, and second, that the king or his messenger was an exceptionally sharp fellow to have drawn so many conclusions on so little evidence.


    The guard detail was drawn up into an uncertain escort, shorter and bulkier than the three of them. It took Cato a moment to realize what he was reminded of by the three of them being so much taller and thinner than the native race and, thanks to the frames, far more smooth and graceful. He couldn¡¯t help but share it with Raine and Leese privately, over their comms link.


    ¡°We¡¯re elves,¡± he sent, and Raine replied with an exasperated emoticon while Leese stifled a giggle.


    They were escorted into an audience hall that could have fit into any number of human fictions in some ways, but was completely off in others. Cato left parsing out the meaning of the particular details for later, though the sisters discussed in the backchannel as the three of them approached a throne where an elderly bird was perched ¡ª with a gaggle of younger ones, down to near infants, behind him. Neither he nor the sisters offered any obeisance, and nobody asked for it.


    ¡°These are strange days,¡± the king said instead, in the clicking, warbling language of the kingdom. ¡°I receive you in the hopes that perhaps you bring better tidings than the disasters of the past three weeks.¡±


    ¡°I intend to,¡± Cato said firmly. ¡°Most importantly, I have supplies. Food, primarily, and the ability to pass messages quickly. Enough to, I hope, stave off the worst of the immediate disaster, and from there we can consider trying to fix everything else the System did.¡±


    ¡°Forgive me,¡± the king said slowly, regarding Cato with a sharp eye. ¡°It seems rather too convenient that someone claims to bring salvation so soon after ruin.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right to be suspicious,¡± Cato agreed readily. ¡°But the System is a pirate fleet I have been chasing, one that has been pillaging and burning ports.¡± He¡¯d chosen the metaphor to appeal to the maritime nature of the kingdom, in hopes that it would convey the essential details without needing to delve into the alien nature of specifics. ¡°Having run down the enemy in a port that is not my own, I still see the damage inflicted before I arrived ¡ª and I have the resources with which to repair it.¡±


    ¡°That would explain your timing,¡± the king said, generously conceding the point even if he obviously wasn¡¯t entirely convinced. ¡°But I find it difficult to believe that you would have enough food to feed a kingdom, even one so denuded as ours, simply lying around.¡±


    ¡°It is not merely to feed a kingdom,¡± Cato assured the king. ¡°It is to feed a world. You see my companions are not like me.¡± He gestured to Raine and Leese. ¡°They are from another world pillaged by these pirates, this System. It is not coincidence, but foreknowledge. I prepared for what I knew would come, once I found that the System had set its sights on you.¡±


    ¡°Then you are offering this aid to my enemies, too?¡± The king didn¡¯t sound happy about it, but Cato shrugged.


    ¡°The damage the System has wrought threatens to kill all life on this world; every kingdom, every village, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. Some things are not as important as they once were. What happens after this current crisis is a matter for the future.¡± Cato spread his hands, though that body language didn¡¯t quite translate.


    ¡°I have no stake in your politics, merely in repairing the damage done. I can¡¯t bring back your dead. I wish I could. But I can at least stave off starvation and provide help rebuilding ¡ª and most importantly, give everyone time to figure out how to deal with the aftermath of such a catastrophe.¡± He paused, considering the king, and how most people couldn¡¯t really connect to that scale of operations. Despite his statement ¨C and the truth ¨C that he had no stake in the politics, he also needed people who would cooperate with him if he wanted to save lives.


    ¡°That said, I am willing to liaise through you, if you¡¯re willing to help. I have no desire to provide supplies to those who would only see this crisis as an opportunity to enrich themselves.¡± Cato could have dictated further terms, but that might have shattered what culture was left after the losses from the System apocalypse. Besides which, he would far rather get along with the local authorities, wherever possible. After all, with the portal gone, it was a very long trip to anywhere else.


    ***


    Yaniss woke with a start, opening her eyes to look up at a sky-blue ceiling.


    It was the first time she had actually been alive outside of the System, having previously been more than content with the bizarre digital existence that Cato offered. One she had taken advantage of to collect all her various scattered selves and sink into what he called deep time. Years spent in a virtual world, delving through writing and movies and theme-park sensoriums, making sure she knew what it was like to be digitized.


    After all that, it still took incarnating into a biological body to realize how foolish she had been, struck by the sheer novelty of it all. How she had not properly considered how narrow digital existence was. The aestivations had been amazing to explore, but it was all synthetic and created to her specifications.


    It wasn¡¯t real.


    Cato had always been careful about how he used that term, more careful than Yaniss had thought it deserved before doing her research, but he¡¯d also never dissembled about the exact nature of the virtual world and the System. Base reality was what he termed the universe outside both, and yet somehow she had never experienced it before.


    Her body was grown from her own genetics with no alterations, no augmentations. A base form to match base reality, and from the very first moment she could tell the difference. It wasn¡¯t that she could feel more, because her senses as a Bismuth had been outstanding, and as a digital being they had been esoteric beyond belief. The difference was instead that what she could see, smell, feel, and hear was all immediate, raw ¡ª base reality, in truth, with nothing and no one filtering that experience for her.


    She slid out of the bed, which had been made appropriately for her size. Yaniss well knew the Ikent were diminutive compared to most of the System denizens, and appreciated that the architecture of the station Cato had built for her was properly sized. Or rather, had allowed her to build, as while she had been in charge of it, she had only been using Cato¡¯s tools.


    Yaniss ruffled her feathers, marveling a bit at the sheer clumsy imprecision of the reflexive gesture. It wasn¡¯t perfect, and that was itself a novelty. After a moment spent indulging in the feeling, she sought clothes, laid out precisely where she had specified, and she dressed herself manually for the first time in more years than she¡¯d ever bothered to count. Her sheer ineptitude in doing so was a little bit humbling, but refreshing at the same time. How much had she never truly learned because something was standing between her and what was real? Cato¡¯s databases, endless depths of built up knowledge, were almost entirely created by delving base reality, rather than frittering away their time in synthesized creations.


    Wandering out onto the rotating habitat, which was a simple ring rather then the massive cylinders she¡¯d seen in Cato¡¯s archives, she inhaled the scent of greenery as she walked up to the enormous glass windows set into the walls. Below her, where she could see it with her own two eyes, was the shining jewel of Ikent itself. She put a hand against the glass, expecting a chill considering what she had learned of space, but finding none. Which made sense, considering what she had learned of thermodynamics.


    ¡°It¡¯s a lovely view.¡± Cato¡¯s voice came from a distance, and she glanced to the side to see him walking toward her along the curve of the station. He, too, was in a base form ¨C though not completely unaugmented, like hers ¨C and she was fascinated by his presence. She had invited him, but it was clear this was a transient phenomenon. He would stow the body when not in use, and she had no idea what to make of that. Did that make the body not real, or Cato?


    ¡°It occurs to me,¡± she said slowly, looking from the human to the blue-green sphere floating in space. ¡°This is the first time anyone of my race has seen our planet with their own two eyes. After reading about your own species history, what happened with space flight ¡ª no offense, but it¡¯s wrong that we weren¡¯t the first ones to see our planet this way.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely wrong,¡± Cato agreed readily. ¡°The knowledge that you hauled yourself up out of a gravity well with fire and steel and rode an explosion beyond the cradle that birthed you? Utterly irreplaceable. I hate that you could only find this through me, rather than your own genius. But here we are.¡±


    ¡°Here we are,¡± she said, as Cato moved up to stand beside her. There was something strange about being next to such a tall creature while lacking the power inherent to a Bismuth. A visceral feeling that wasn¡¯t quite fear, but still some discomfort from natural instincts, long suppressed. She didn¡¯t hate it, novel as it was.


    ¡°It¡¯s a shame you can¡¯t actually walk on your own planet without being subject to the System,¡± Cato said. ¡°Or risking the entire planet being destroyed.¡±


    ¡°Or you could cut it off from the System,¡± she pointed out. Cato sighed.


    ¡°I could, but right now I¡¯m not ready for that. What if they decide to destroy a bunch of unrelated worlds to ¡®punish¡¯ me? I don¡¯t want to be responsible for that. When I move, it¡¯ll have to be on a far larger scale.¡±


    Yaniss hummed to herself. For the most part, such considerations didn¡¯t bother her. They weren¡¯t her planets after all, but Cato was a little bit a god and had broader concerns. And there wasn¡¯t any real rush, as it wasn¡¯t like any version of herself was precisely mortal. There was time, and she would certainly use that time to explore things properly, but already she knew one thing.


    She preferred to live in the real world.


    ***


    Raine Talis pelted headlong after Leese, doing her best to ignore the giant hole in her side made by some Azoth-tier beast she hadn¡¯t even seen. Cato¡¯s modifications were showing their worth as even such a grievous wound only barely slowed her down, pain dampened and with the combat algorithms already routing around the damaged muscles. Nor was it bleeding by some magic of Cato¡¯s gifts and, while she didn¡¯t know exactly why, the knowledge stuffed into her head did tell her how long it would take to regenerate. Not long, but certainly they needed to get to cover first.


    Given that they¡¯d been on the run for literal days on the war-world, ever since the sudden ambush in the inner worlds, it was questionable that they¡¯d have the chance to hide. Raine was pretty certain most people weren¡¯t thrown into an Azoth-rank Conflict Zone, but it was also the first portal that had warned her about being one-way. Not that the two of them had a choice, given that they needed more room to shed the high-ranking pursuers.


    ¡°Down there,¡± Leese sent across their radio band, the connection that allowed the pair to fight and move in such perfect coordination that they could well have been a single mind. The words were accompanied by something that was half-picture, half directions, instantly fixating Raine¡¯s attention on what Leese had spotted.


    Not a cave, for those were likely to hold something just as dangerous as the beasts pursuing them, but an overgrown series of slot canyons, indelible stone covered with riotous plants and vines. It was over five hundred miles away, but with their Bismuth-rank movement Skills, that was hardly a problem. Fire and ice trailed through the air as they leapt forward and down, plunging into the maze.


    The combat algorithms had already mapped the entire network from the air, teasing out the details from their senses and plotting the best paths. Raine and Leese zipped into the tangled maze, dodging gnarled roots and razored vines as they squeezed in, around, and through the cramped passages, teleporting from point to point when the foliage grew too dense. Somewhere behind them came a roar, and a wave of scouring sand blasted through the slot canyons after them. The front shredded Azoth-rank vegetation, nipping at their heels as they dodged and weaved for long moments before they outpaced it, leaving the Skill and its originator behind.


    Finally they had a moment to rest, closeted in a tiny niche, the signatures of Bismuth and Azoth-ranked beasts and monsters all far away. Raine reached into the inventory of her Estate, by way of her bag, and pulled out some of Cato¡¯s rations. The simple kind, where she could just unwrap the paper and cram down the bars. Even if she technically didn¡¯t need to eat at Bismuth, the bodies Cato had given them certainly benefitted from having extra fuel for healing.


    ¡°So where do we go from here?¡± Leese asked, half-rhetorically. ¡°We don¡¯t have a way back.¡±


    ¡°Then we go forward. This is a war-world. It¡¯s meant for people to rank up, so there has to be a town somewhere, and portals.¡± Despite the situation, Raine didn¡¯t feel overly worried. If they were normal Bismuths, they would have been dead ¡ª but given a chance to get their bearings and proceed on their own terms, the war-world was no problem for them. ¡°We¡¯ll get back to Cato soon enough.¡±


    END OF UNDERMINING THE SYSTEM

 Chapter 1 — Business as Usual

    It wasn¡¯t every day that a titan rescued a town.


    The armored figure was a massive fifteen feet tall, clad head to toe in heavy armor and wielding a poleaxe twice its size, the blade alone the length of a man.  The Platinum-rank World Elites ¨C all four of them ¨C assaulting the merely Silver-ranked town never had a chance.  The other aspiring Gold-rankers, nowhere near up to the task, huddled at the town center, maimed and exhausted, as the titan smashed through the monsters.  It wielded both weapon and magic, moving far faster than anything of that size should and hewing straight through the final wave of the rank-up quest.


    That massive poleaxe punched through a roaring, six-legged beast in a ripple of purple aether, opening a gaping hole in its body and leaving it to bleed out as silvery-grey gravity magic orbs tugged an armored elite out of position.  It windmilled as it tried to keep its balance, only to be cut in half when the titan blurred past.  The titan shifted its grip on the great weapon as it launched itself into the air, a prodigious leap that brought it down on the armored back of a razor-mouthed, long-legged beast and drove the poleaxe blade through the spiked skull.


    Movement Skills flashed as the titan crossed to the other side of the town with one swift motion, confronting the final Elite.  It was even larger than the titan, an armor-clad, four-armed monster with a flaming scimitar in each hand and lava dripping from its fangs.  The titan dodged the fiery slashes with an easy grace and brought the massive poleaxe around to crush the monster¡¯s helmet.  The sound wasn¡¯t so much a metallic ring as a tortured screech, the sturdy helm caving in as the strike instantly killed the monster.


    The quest finished, solely thanks to the efforts of the towering figure, with the town left miraculously whole and intact.  Relieved Coppers and Silvers watched from the buildings in both fear and awe as the titan strode through the town, ducking into the Nexus and touching the crystal there.  It did not speak to the failed aspirants, or to those within town, merely vanishing and leaving behind the corpses of the monsters that would have destroyed it.


    Within the titan, Kess Miche, n¨¦e Leese Sekhel stepped back in a purely virtual way and let Raine pilot it alone.  With the disappearance of the Sydean Lineage, nobody was willing to move to Bismuth, and so there was a need for something that could mimic that level of power.  There had been a lot of ideas and testing over the years, which had ultimately resulted in what Cato had dubbed the Jager Frame.


    It was, ultimately, controlled jointly by Raine and Leese, though either of them could step back into a miniature aestivation, or transmit themselves back up to proper infrastructure above.  Yet when they both linked into it, the massive frame had the benefits of two people¡¯s worth of System enhancements ¡ª getting that right was what had taken the longest time.


    Generally, Raine focused on the actual martial combat, and Leese had high-powered amplification and support Skills, but both sets of Skills applied to the combined body.  They were, effectively, cheating the System, creating builds that would never have been possible for two separate people.  It just wasn¡¯t possible for someone to forego the usual Skill balance and still survive Conflict Zones or dungeons.  But Leese hadn¡¯t taken a single movement Skill, while Raine had four.


    The combined body appraised as a conjoined identity, which nobody, not even Yaniss, had ever heard of.  Yet it turned out that the System had accommodations for such a thing that, through trial and error, they had managed to fulfill.  So the titan was Kess-Imel, a double-Peak-Gold Jager ¡ª or rather, now double-Fresh-Platinum.  They certainly stood out, but were so far different from anything anyone would be looking for that it was worth a bit of risk.


    Besides, only a small percentage of Lineages had even wanted a Jager, as there were on few instances of Raine and Leese who were interested in ranking up to Peak Platinum.  That was the minimum needed to push through to the inner worlds, which were considerably more rarefied than the frontier.  The core worlds themselves might be off-limits, but there were still hundreds of worlds where visitors below Platinum were not welcome ¡ª and acceptance of Platinum rank travelers was grudging at best.


    ¡°Should we go through now, do you think?¡± Leese asked, re-engaging and giving Raine a moment to take a break.  Which wasn¡¯t strictly necessary, but it was nice to take a moment away from the odd combined gestalt of Raine, Leese, the conjoined frame, and high-powered combat algorithms.  The Jager frame was something to pilot, not to be.


    ¡°We¡¯d better run at least one dungeon,¡± Raine replied, stretching virtually before engaging with the Jager frame again, steering it ¨C for it couldn¡¯t quite be called walking, strange as the combined control was ¨C toward an inn.  Of course, they had to adjust their Skills before they did anything, but Raine didn¡¯t think that any fresh Platinums would be able to move around in any of the inner worlds without being harassed.  They could hold their own, especially given the power of the Jager frame, but it just wasn¡¯t worth the trouble.


    ¡°I wish the dungeons around here were more interesting,¡± Leese muttered, sorting through her Skills.  Raine had to agree.  Compared to some of the deeply scripted offerings from Cato¡¯s games database, the System dungeons were just combat slogs.  At least so close to the inner worlds, with so many high-rank areas, they didn¡¯t have to waste their time plodding through remote Zones just to find a singular Bismuth dungeon. They had outgrown Platinum-rank dungeons before finishing Gold rank.


    Raine considered her own Skills.  They¡¯d gone with the most esoteric combination they could think of, Aether and Gravity, partly for the fun of it and partly because few people had experience dealing with those elements.  Monsters and beasts didn¡¯t usually have any real defenses against them, making the already powerful Jager frame even more effective.


    She started by just pushing up the top eight skills; three offensive, four movement, and one sensory, split between Platinum and Gold ranks.  Copper kept the basic skills like [Clean] and [Appraise], while Raine stuffed some additional self-enhancement Skills into the newly-opened Silver rank slots.


    They had more than enough Skill tokens.  With so many versions of themselves delving so many dungeons, there was a surplus for anyone who needed high-quality loot, and some of the instance had even gotten into crafting.  The Crafting skills were of marginal use at that rank, but being able to completely customize tokens and accessories meant that with everything available their Jager frame had started out with A-tier Skills and a full kit of equipment.


    The dungeon didn¡¯t take them long, despite its enormous size.  The algorithms didn¡¯t need them to even finish the first floor for full calibration to the new level of power.  They didn¡¯t even need to upgrade their gear; not that there was any point in taking the time to fully equip what was ultimately a disposable asset, and with their Skills and the absolutely stunning power of the Jager they blew through the other floors in only a few days.  Once, that would have been an incredible feat, something to marvel at, but after decades of practice Cato and the Lineages had it down to a fine science.


    Cato had been working just as hard as Raine and Leese, even if he didn¡¯t spend any time down on the surface of any of the System planets.  There was enough to do testing different bioweapons and frames, digging ancient and obscure genetic engineering projects out of what seemed to be an endless set of databases, or just managing the ever-expanding industrial infrastructure that sprawled through the outer reaches of every solar system they colonized.


    One of the fruits of all that effort was the Jager-sized Cato-spear.  It was actually several dozen tons, twice the size of the Jager frame itself, and had everything necessary to turn into a very small spaceship without any additional mass.  Something that they had found necessary, as none of the inner worlds had moons.


    Or rather, any moons they had were inside the System¡¯s aegis.  Only a few frames had gone to the inner worlds to distribute a new Cato, but they¡¯d all found the same thing.  Even if there had once been moons, they were gone.  Absorbed, or in some cases brought down to create some massive new dungeon or Conflict Zone on the surface of their respective planets.


    Lacking any nearby anchor, all of the Cato-spears had to embark on a years-long journey to one of the other mass concentrations in the solar system.  She would have said planet, but asteroid belts worked just as well for a staging area.  Or even less well-defined clumps of matter; anything with at least some volatiles and metals.


    ¡°Right, Cato, we¡¯re headed through,¡± Raine sent as the now Low Platinum titan approached the portal to the inner worlds.  There weren¡¯t many of them, and they were spaced widely, with at least a hundred worlds between each.  The chokepoints had actual security on them, deep inspections from both the System and higher ranks, even years after the last obvious activity.


    ¡°Stay safe!¡± He broadcast back, and the titan frame stepped through the portal.  Immediately, they could feel multiple senses and System constructs practically peeling their skin off, sweeping through them in ways they couldn¡¯t hope to stop.  Though that was exactly the reason they were so very far from anything associated with Cato, and no checkpoint had more than one Jaeger frame go through.  Thanks to Initik they knew that the gods did not communicate all that much, but that only made the risk of a few frames manageable.  More than that was certain to draw attention.


    Ironically, a direct interrogation would have been much tricker to pass.  They had made planetfall on an obscure Hunting World, but it would have been a lot more difficult to convince anyone they were of natural origin.  Difficult, but not impossible; the System¡¯s sheer scale and variety of options meant that their existence was at least plausible.


    She and Leese ensured they showed no particular fear or anxiety, leaning into the cold calculation of the combat brains and pretending to ignore the sudden attention as they strode forward to check in at the map and quest pylons.  It was a normal enough behavior, but they weren¡¯t looking for a place to stay and dungeons to delve.  They were looking for a remote point from which to launch Cato¡¯s spear and a passable reason to be there.


    The titan pulled up the map and studied it, unwelcome attention fading away.  With the augmentations they had, it was only a matter of seconds to memorize the local map and add it to their database.  If they were normal Platinums, there would be few places appropriate for them ¡ª and ones likely controlled by the local clans.


    Raine steered the Jager frame out into the city, taking note of the broad, colorful streets and towering buildings.  The opulence of the greater clans was obvious in the sheer, riotous selection of aesthetics.  In fact, it was to the point where the reds and greens and blues became garish, each of the System buildings competing with each other.  Raine was reminded of some of the bits of earth history they¡¯d lived through via aestivation ¨C one of the hobbies she¡¯d picked up with Leese, after learning how profoundly different people could be outside the System ¨C where wealthy people demonstrated their status by agglomerations of sheer stuff without regard for taste.


    Outside the city was the [Zoek Valley Border Zone], recommended for Low Bismuth, but not even slightly a threat to the Jager frame.  They easily cut down several overly-aggressive creatures, which had size on their side but nothing else, and fished out a FungusNet nodule from one of the pouches around the frame¡¯s waist.  They didn¡¯t yet have a spatial storage that allowed living things, so the fungus balls had to be carried manually, but that was easy enough given the sheer size of the frame.


    They seeded the region with a number of nodules under the guise of hunting down some of the creatures requested by the most basic of the available quests, sweeping through the towering forest only a few miles outside of the city.  Of course, the frame¡¯s relatively low rank didn¡¯t go unnoticed, and the augmented senses built into the Jager tracked two Bismuths stalking the frame for half a day.


    ¡°I wish they¡¯d just get it over with,¡± Raine complained to Leese.  ¡°Odds on robbery versus eviction?¡±


    ¡°Probably pretty even,¡± Leese sent back.  Plenty of higher ranks, even at Bismuth, preferred to stomp on the lower ranks.  Anyone rising too fast was a threat, to be removed before they became too powerful.  For the most part the two of them had avoided that simply because they¡¯d done all their leveling away from towns, and far more quickly than anyone would believe, but other Lineages had run into the attitude more than once.


    They decided to see what their pursuers wanted after planting a fifth FungusNet seed, something easily concealed as they extracted the teeth and claws of some sort of furry centipede, albeit one that was twice the size of their frame.  Instead of moving on, they turned to face where the nearest Bismuth was, planting the haft of their spear on the ground and waiting.


    It took a good fifteen seconds for the Bismuths to move, which spoke volumes about the intelligence of their stalkers.  Though as Cato had already observed, people that reached Bismuth weren¡¯t necessary very smart, just very good at fighting.  The pair of them sauntered into view, both of them from the same species.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    [Rish Cuy-mil.  Low Bismuth.]


    [Moshk Cuy-mil.  Low Bismuth.]


    They were what Cato would call humanoid, purple-skinned with coarse, pebbled skin and greasy-looking purple hair barely covering low-slung ears.  While Raine and Leese found most non-Sydean species various brands of strange, some few were outright unpleasant, and Clan Shoak was one of them.  It didn¡¯t help that the pair swaggered up as if they were impressive, a posturing that fell flat when the Jager frame was three times their height and probably thirty times their mass.


    ¡°You¡¯re pretty big for a freshie,¡± Rish sneered, planting hands on armored hips and peering up at the frame¡¯s helmet-obscured face.


    ¡°I swear, it¡¯s like he¡¯s watched some of those terrible movies,¡± Leese sent, far more amused than anything.  ¡°Pitch perfect high school bully.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ve probably been stuck at Low Bismuth for ages,¡± Raine opined.  ¡°Not smart enough to make the transition to more complicated encounters or figure out Domains.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s a lot of fancy gear,¡± Moshk said, completely unaware of the silent byplay.  ¡°Bet that cost a lot of tokens.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re being robbed!¡± Leese sent with glee.


    ¡°Does a Bismuth even need Platinum tokens?¡±  Raine wondered.  ¡°I mean, we have Bismuth tokens too, but they can¡¯t know that.¡±


    ¡°Very fancy,¡± Rish agreed. ¡°I bet you¡¯re a really good Platinum.  But we¡¯re Bismuth, so you ought to pay homage to your elders and hand over what you¡¯ve got.¡±


    ¡°No.¡±  The Jager frame¡¯s voice was deep and hollow, produced by something more like a syrinx than vocal cords.  It wasn¡¯t absolutely necessary, but the sepulchral tones added to the general air of menace that the huge frame produced.


    ¡°No?  He said no,¡± Moshk said, elbowing Rish.


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll just have to show him how bad an idea it is,¡± Rish said, pulling out a sword covered in darkness while Moshk conjured flames in his hands.  The pair moved forward in an eye-searing blur, powerful energies ripping apart the spot where the frame had stood only a moment before.


    The conjoined powers of the Jager frame really were cheating.  [Ethereal Step], a short-range teleport, chained into [Flowing Steps of Ghoruscan], a more sustainable aether movement Skill which let them flit around the battlefield.  [Passage of Ghoruscan] created portals at the same range as [Ethereal Step] while [Ghoruscan¡¯s Jaunt] gave her an extremely long-range option on a longer cooldown and at greater cost ¡ª and those were just the movement Skills.


    Leese¡¯s gravity orbs shot out around them, creating a wildly varying battlefield as they shifted position and intensity apparently at random.  Except every detail was designed to aid the frame¡¯s movement, and stymie the opponent¡¯s.  It didn¡¯t have nearly as much effect on a Bismuth as it had on Platinums, but in a fight even a small annoyance could multiply into something deadly.


    The enormous spear thrust forward at Rish, who hastily parried it with his own shadow-infused sword.  The difference in rank meant that, despite all the force behind it, he didn¡¯t instantly crumple under the blow ¡ª though it was obvious that he wasn¡¯t expecting a Platinum to hit so hard, so fast.  The frame had speed multipliers from boots, the growth weapon, and several accessories, while breastplate, cloak, and more accessories provided multipliers to strength.  Crafted items gave just a percent more to each, but those percents added up.  Considering the breathtaking physical capabilities of the frame¡¯s base form, and the support Skills Leese supplied, they hit more like upper Bismuth than lower Platinum.


    Then Leese triggered the syrinx and screeched one of the worst sounds from Project Cringe directly into Rish¡¯s face.  It wasn¡¯t an actual attack, the sound was at normal volume and couldn¡¯t damage the ears of a Copper, let alone a Bismuth.  But it was so horribly, viscerally unpleasant to hear that Rish flinched backward.  Which was a mistake, as a [Passage of Ghoruscan] redirected a heavy spear-thrust into the distracted Shoak-Clan¡¯s midsection.


    Flames enveloped the frame as Rish screamed, but Raine and Leese shrugged them off.  Non-esoteric energies were of little concern, which was why they had gone after Rish first.  Between the native toughness of the frame, an overabundance of resistance Skills, and the extra multipliers from crafted equipment, even a Bismuth¡¯s fire was barely an inconvenience.  [Rippling Spearwork] tore through Rish¡¯s flesh in the strange half-ethereal manner of aether Skills.  He vanished with a blip; not a Skill activation, but some kind of life-saving item.  Those sorts of things were available to Bismuths and above, and while the assailant escaping was an irritant, it wasn¡¯t some looming future problem.


    The Jager frame didn¡¯t care about making enemies.  It could be discarded easily enough, as the only bottleneck to reaching Platinum was finding a defense quest ¡ª and with Cato¡¯s now-expansive surveillance network, spread over tens of thousands of worlds, that was fairly simple.  If Rish decided to hunt them down in the future for the temerity of not dying when attacked, he¡¯d find himself disappointed.


    Moshk¡¯s flames strengthened, and Leese invoked additional defensive Skills as Raine repositioned, [Flowing Steps of Ghoruscan] carrying her straight through the flames toward Moshk.  Yet as their spear whistled down, he vanished into fire, the conflagration around them turning into a vast infernal wheel of flames, spreading miles in every direction.  The Bismuth ability to simply transform, turning into an element, was something that couldn¡¯t be overcome with brute force.


    Which didn¡¯t mean that the Jager frame was helpless.  Even through the thick wall of flames, the combat algorithms could integrate what their various senses, and sensory Skills, did pick up, and Skills could still affect those maintaining an incorporeal form.  They bounded through the fire, pushing past the heavy post-Bismuth essence that gave the flames a physical heft, as Leese¡¯s gravity orbs swept through an ever-so-slightly denser concentration.


    Part-attack, part-distraction, the tearing distortions of the gravity orb threw Moshk off-balance enough for Raine to send the frame leaping up, aether rippling along their spear as Raine brought it around for a heavy slash.  The blade ripped through the flame-form Moshk, suddenly forcing him out of his Skill.  He fell to the ground, spitting black-red blood, but before he could invoke his own emergency teleport, Leese¡¯s gravity orb redirected the frame downward.


    They slammed into Moshk, an aether-clad weapon backed by several tons of frame traveling downward far faster than simple gravity would allow.  The impact by itself wouldn¡¯t have done much to a Bismuth, but the aether empowerment let it slide past the Bismuth¡¯s usual defenses, and combat algorithms ensured that the point of the poleaxe hammered home right where the neck joined the shoulder.


    The weapon spitted Moshk from neck to hip, but even that wasn¡¯t enough to kill him.  It merely stunned him for a moment, long enough for Raine to pull a second, smaller spear from their storage and ram it through Moshk¡¯s eye.  Only then did the System inform them of their victory.


    [Bismuth-rank Clan Shoak defeated.  Essence Awarded]


    ¡°We¡¯d better go send out a Cato before that other guy causes trouble,¡± Leese said, not even bothering to celebrate.  Neither of them particularly enjoyed killing, and the experience of being accosted was more novel than actually dealing with it.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±  Raine steered the frame back to the city, not even bothering to check the body for useable gear, and headed directly for the Nexus.  Without so many watchers, they felt safer taking the teleportation pylon to one of the moons.  The small town there was technically in an Azoth zone, which made them exceedingly out of their depth, but they had no desire to actually engage with any of the monsters there.  Instead, they went straight up, [Flowing Steps of Ghoruscan] bringing them up to the edge of the atmosphere and beyond.


    Nobody paid attention to them; even in the inner worlds, Azoths were infrequent enough that most of the Azoth zones were unpopulated, the outpost town at its most basic level.  It was obvious that the moon and its associated Zones were new to the System; a relic of Muar¡¯s campaign.  That had been easy enough to learn about, even if they had no idea where Muar was now.


    They withdrew the massive, industrial-sized Cato transporter, and with muscle and Skills hurled it out into the blackness beyond.  They didn¡¯t need to worry about an exact trajectory, as even with Cato¡¯s augments they couldn¡¯t spot and target something as far away as another planet.  The twenty-ton caisson vanished into the sky, and Raine turned the Jager frame around.  The job was done, at least for this planet.


    Onto the next.


    ***


    Time wasn¡¯t a constant for a digital being.


    Cato-Uriv was perhaps the only version of Cato that hadn¡¯t felt the need to underclock for the entire last decade.  Even if he didn¡¯t reconcile with his other selves too much, he still got the abstract memory updates from them.  For most, once startup was finished and a few, or few dozen, new planets had been seeded, there was little to do but let the automated factories work.


    Which meant that Cato-Uriv was the oldest of his peers, and in some ways the de facto leader ¡ª though that was hardly an accurate word.  All the various versions of him were him, so each instance would be on roughly the same page and didn¡¯t need to be given orders ¡ª nor would they take them. But for those who spent most of their time underclocking, somewhere in an aestivation, or otherwise away from the business of dealing with the System.  Cato-Uriv was their better judgement, their emotional connection to the ultimate goals they had, solely by exposure.


    Unfortunately, he was also his own better judgement, which meant that for the umpteenth time he had to stop himself from calling up Initik and asking the Urivan System-god to look into the core worlds.  After the reports from the Jagers it was obvious that, powerful as the frames were, making inroads to the inner worlds required someone at a higher rank ¡ª like the Sydean Lineage.  He hadn¡¯t heard from or about either that pair or Dyen for a little over ten years, but that didn¡¯t mean he could write them off.  All of them were immortal, and from what Yaniss said the war-worlds of the core were the size of Jupiter.  Locating people who might be lost or imprisoned or holed up in some fortress somewhere took time, in such circumstances.


    ¡°Everything looks good,¡± said Leese Uriv the Elder, who was doing the heavy lifting for the Urivan genetics project in digital space.  Leese Uriv the Younger was, on the other hand, doing the heavy lifting for the Urivan youths, embodied on the station and dealing with the actual physicality of the Urivan project.  So far as Cato knew the two didn¡¯t talk, any more than any of the other varying Lineages, but they were collaborating.


    ¡°Unfortunately, it¡¯ll still be another couple generations before we can be certain we¡¯ve fixed all the problems,¡± Cato sighed.  It would have been nice if they could just rely on simulations, but they didn¡¯t have anywhere near the information to rely on digital recreations.  Base reality had all kinds of wrinkles that couldn¡¯t be automatically known without a lot of grueling detail work.


    ¡°We might end up with an entire population of spacefaring Urivans,¡± Raine Uriv the Elder said, only half-joking.  She was out somewhere in the black, jetting around the binary gas giants as she personally checked up on the enormous amount of infrastructure.  Like Leese the Elder, she was running support for her counterpart, both of them dealing with the ever-present issues of expanding and maintaining infrastructure.  That doing so meant both Younger and Elder had an excuse to go flying around in various over-engined craft was not at all coincidental, and Raine the Younger had even started building additional habitats around Uriv¡¯s moons.


    ¡°It¡¯s possible,¡± Cato agreed, also only half-joking.  Uplifting was a tricky subject, one with no good answers and a lot of very harsh lessons, but it was always easier with a small group.  By the time the genetics issues had shaken out, the Urivan group might well be conversant enough with technology to be their own separate civilization.


    That was a consideration for far later, however, and he had hopes that he¡¯d get insight from other versions of himself by then.  A number of the cut-off worlds were only a few light-decades away, so he¡¯d put together comms arrays in every single system, waiting and listening for each of those disconnected planets.  If nothing else, the versions of himself and the Lineages on all the sterilized worlds, the ones murdered by the System, would probably want to transmit themselves out if possible.


    Other versions, though, would have been uplifting ¨C or trying to uplift ¨C and fix the biospheres and civilizations of freed worlds, and he would be getting those updates in a steady stream once the signals finally crossed the distance.  Cato had an enormous wealth of records in his databases, but ones specifically about ex-System types would be even more useful.  Or maybe they¡¯d find it just as intractable as he did, but he could always hope.


    The process wasn¡¯t all hard choices and drudgery, at least.  In the orbital habitat, thirty Urivan men and women were raising an equal number of children, and while tiny insect children didn¡¯t quite have the neonatal features required for Cato to find them cute, the obvious joy on the part of the parents and nurses was heartwarming.


    As was the fact that, thanks to the genetic tweaking, they¡¯d lost none of the mothers.  Which wasn¡¯t to say there hadn¡¯t been some moments of panic for Raine and Leese the Younger.  Despite a thorough analysis, the precise form of the failure cascades writ deep into Urivan biology were impossible to know until the event.  Nature was cruel and unforgiving, but Cato had the tools to hold off her demands.


    The version of him on the Urivan station mostly watched from afar, leaving the onboarding and education to Raine and Leese, along with a bevy of virtual-intelligence interfaces ¡ª upjumped chatbots with access to certain databases or commands.  But that didn¡¯t meant he didn¡¯t care.  Obviously it was important to convince Initik about the virtues of non-System life, but Cato also hated how Urivans, like every other race within the System, had no unique culture.  No real concept of art or music, writing or dancing, and certainly no traditions of their own.


    Yet in a grassy field with a view of the stars, a small circle of Urivans were having an impromptu musical session.  It was very simple, just some drums and quick-fabbed metal bars to make a few sets of chimes.  There were plans for more complex instruments, if the Urivans had wished to find them, but there was no point to just copying someone else¡¯s work.  They were creating something of their own.


    Small and simple as it was, that was a tremendous step.  Not just for the Urivans, but for Cato¡¯s plans in general.  Taking down the System had never just been about destroying it as a threat, even though it was a damned big threat.  He had to spite it by actually saving those within, and not just in the sense of maintaining living bodies.


    There were thousands of races ¨C tens of thousands ¨C that had been flattened, constrained, diluted.  Their pasts erased, their identities forced into the tiny box the System allowed.  There had been no way to tell whether it was even possible for any of them to reach beyond the results of so many generations laboring under that immense weight.  Civilization was a long and difficult road, with fewer shortcuts than most would hope.


    But the Urivan project showed that what made people unique, what made them thinking beings and not just mindless psychopaths of destruction, still existed below the crushing tyranny of the System¡¯s reality.  Not that people were automatically good without the System, but at least they had options.


    The road to destroying the System was still a very long one.  Even ten years later, there were frontier worlds he hadn¡¯t yet reached, and the inner worlds were extremely tricky, let alone the core.  But seeing some success was a massive relief, and helped him face the tremendous task anew.


    He could see a future after the System.