Chapter 334 - Creator vs Creation (1)

Continuing to accelerate downwards towards the core of Styx-1, Dax kept a tight formation with the remaining 8 drones he had brought with him, a force which was reduced by the second as the Emergence defences installed inside the tunnel targeted them with impunity while the precursor's bio drones appeared to be mostly ignoring him. Still, Dax had to constantly alter his trajectory and constantly dodge attempts on his life as he made his way to the core. At the same time, Dax was busy constantly going over his strategies and tactics to deal with the precursor, evaluating and reevaluating his methods.

(Realistically I have a 60% chance of defeating them, but only a 30% chance of surviving if I do… A while back I wouldn't really have a problem with those odds, I would even welcome them in some circumstances. But now things are different, I'm actually looking forward to leaving the Empire behind, so I need to survive this and I have the methods to make that a possibility.)

Flipping around mid fall, Dax started breaking using the build in thrusters on his suit as he neared the core of the planetoid. Reaching the hollow core which had its metal core extracted before being minimally reinforced, Dax followed up with another burst from his thrusters which propelled him to the 'surface' of the hollow core.

[Welcome~]

Right as Dax landed a figure covered in a strange looking, highly advanced vacuum suit appeared right in front of him with some kind of blade in hand. Although Dax was confident in the durability of his armour, he nevertheless felt extreme danger from the blade that was rapidly approaching his neck, so he took a step back at the same time as his suit's mana forge went into overdrive. Grasping the extended hand which held the strange blade, Dax pulled the figure towards him as he lowered his centre of gravity as mana surged towards his free hand which surged towards the figure, as his fist connected Dax injected a burst of mana into the suit and sent the figure flying. Once minimum separation had been achieved, Dax activated the spell formation he had implanted with his punch, Creating a bright explosion.

(That's not enough!)

Following his instincts which were practically screaming at him, Dax started weaving together another spell, but as he once more felt something was wrong he aborted that and instantly collapsed his stance.

[Strong instincts that almost border on premonition, as expected of a pureblood~]

While the precursor continued happily chipping away at him, Dax once more dodged some unseen attack before sharpening his senses with the assistance of mana, only then did he spot a vague outline of a group of figures covered in the same kind of highly advanced vacuum suits surrounding him on all sides.

(They're definitely taking me lightly… Time to kick my struggle up a notch.)

Coming to a standstill after he had eliminated a vast majority of the cloaked opponents, Dax found the others had pulled back, in response to his actions, the communications system of Dax's suit was once more breached, it seemed the precursor was starting to show more than just a passing interest in Dax.

[You really are an interesting sample… What's your name, pureblood?]

"... I'm Dax of the Alpha-4 clan."

For the first time, Dax chose to respond to the precursor's constant remarks, and although it was followed by a short interlude of silence, the precursor actually responded to him.

[A member of the Alpha-4 clan? I was sure you were part of Alpha-2 at least, as pureblood privilege is restricted to that level…. But I guess it's simply because of genetic drift.]

Feeling like he had just heard something outrageous, Dax took a second to internalize what he had just been told before he responded.

"Am I even allowed to know that?"

[Properly not no, but those old farts don't seem to care much for me so it's okay if I share a bit of restricted information~]

(They sure are oddly talkative all of a sudden… I might as well take advantage of that.)

While Dax felt a cold chill run down his back every time he heard that sweetly sick voice which didn't seem to see him as anything other than a worm, he nevertheless had a very real chance to learn some very valuable information.

"Then while we're acting this friendly can I ask a question?"

[A question? You want to ask me a question, pureblood?... Sure~ Go ahead and ask.]

Perhaps wanting to draw out time for some kind of attack, the precursor nevertheless seemed ecstatic that Dax took the initiative to communicate. ;

"That planet was the angel that's with me is from, it's an old experiment isn't it?"

[Correct~ My, you're one smart pureblood!~ Although it happened before my time it seemed that some of the old farts wanted to play gods and see if this 'mana' thing native to the world could be exploited… The experiment nevertheless ended in failure when the unwilling participants learned that they had been lied to, there was even a small uprising which was quickly struck down.]

(A small uprising? They must be talking about the lost city of Aeth… So some qiton's joined hands with the natives? that would explain the hidden cache's of information found in the sanctuaries.)

"So it was just abandoned after that? Then I guess it wasn't a problem that I wiped out the leftover qiton's on the moon base."

[That shouldn't have been a problem, those prototypes were flawed beyond all belief, but I'm still impressed you managed to eliminate them~ As expected, I really have found myself a prime sample, it is deeply unfortunate that I need to get rid of you Dax, but don't freet, I can still extract plenty of valuable information from your allies and your corpse~]

With the precursor's voice suddenly becoming ice cold, Dax felt an entirely new sensation: Fear. ;

The feeling of a hand burrowing into his stomach and crushing his spine was something he had experienced before.

-

While Dax had gone ahead to the core and used his remaining drones as shields to reach the core, the rest of Dax's team also made quick progress. Having been divided into 3 teams led by Phillipa, Solaris and Ra, they 'walked' down the sides of the massive tunnel which was left after the iron race had extracted the planetoid's metal core.

"Here they come!"

As Ra shouted out, a group of particularly tough precursor drones broke out from the mass of Emergence bioforms as they charged Ra's position. From the last encounter Dax had with only a single one of those things, Ra knew that the group of 3 which now appeared in front of them demanded her team's full attention.

"We see them! Lux!"

"Right!"

In response to Ra's shout, Alice immediately took initiative as she poured mana into the 'ground' beneath her while coordinating a joint attack with Lux. As tentacles of metal appeared from the ground to trap the precursor drones, Lux instantly attacked with a spell of her own, clenching her fist and punching forward, a series of spears made out of fire shot forth and hit the trapped targets before they could free themselves, melting trough whatever they hit and partly embedding themselves in their target before they exploded.

"Converge!"

But this was only the first part of Lux's spell, as she screamed out she opened her clenched fist before stomped her foot into the ground as she closed her open hand like she was crushing something, in response, the series of fireballs created by the first phase of her attack suddenly stopped expanding before they started rapidly compressing around the precursor drones. Like time was running in reverse, the fireballs compressed down to their original size, but time wasn't running backwards, as when the fireballs reached the size of a pinball a spell formation suddenly appeared in the air around them before disappearing as the precursor drones suddenly started melting. Using her first spell as fuel, Lux had first compressed, then transferred the thermal energy into her targets, superheating them from the inside with an elemental spell which was as effective as it was outright brutal.

"Push them back! Let's wipe out these pests once and for all!"

Perhaps subtly influenced by her strong elemental affinity with fire, Lux felt an intoxicating rush every time she used elemental magic, to not let that intoxication impact her combat awareness she instead immediately got rid of those emotions by voicing them out loud. Unbeknownst to her, every time Lux shouted in that manner she also used a type of elemental magic which invigorated her allies around her.