Chapter 229: Heavier Than A Mountain

Chapter 229: Heavier Than A Mountain

I surveyed the shambling towers of rocks that followed me. Now, I just needed to figure out what to do with them. I supposed I could consume them all or chop them to bits with my sanitation lamp. Or maybe I could destroy them permanently? I supposed I could consume them and transmit them to energy like anything else. That would probably be the simplest approach.

After considering it a bit longer, I decided there was no reason not to. Arcing through the sky, I curved to attack the first one in the pack. My Sanitation Lamp shot forward in a beam of blinding blue-violet light. It blasted the stone to surprisingly little effect. The rock in its front slowly heated up, but only the single rock the laser touched was affected, not the whole pile. Based on my modeling, it would take me a significant amount of energy and time to heat even that to the point where it was slowly melting a hole.

All right. That wasn't going to work. I needed to change tactics. I came in closer using my Air Manipulation and tried to lift them up, but came up with only dirt and snow. The piles were somehow much heavier than my sensors indicated they should be. It was as if I was trying to pick up the entire mountain instead of a few individual rocks. Confused, I tried to use my vacuum to pull them into my dustbin. Again, they didn't budge. As though they were connected to the earth themselves rather than floating collections of disparate rock.

Pulling out my Divine Sword, I charged the monsters head on. The golden blade passed through the arm of the lead golem, and I felt the rocks easily shatter in its path. The arm fell loose, with several cracked stones hitting the ground beneath them. Activating my vacuum once more showed that I had no trouble consuming those. But the rocks were now strangely inert. They had no energy beyond that of a normal stone, unlike what I'd expected.

Slowly, other nearby rocks worked the pile. The arm regrew as rocks shifted and morphed into a new limb, replacing it.

I hacked into it again, spinning between its legs as I took off. The pile collapsed as the stones were split in two. But it kept reforming slowly as the others closed in around me. How odd. I decided to try something else, this time slashing straight up its body with the sword. The whole thing collapsed into just a pile of unmoving rocks. But as I flew up, one of the others swung at me. A fist made of rocks smashed into the soft plastic covering of my sensors and sent me hurtling back toward the mountainside. I felt the plastic shell crack in a few places, and my energy levels slowly drained as my repair functions went about mending the damage.

These things were strong. They moved slowly, but I was having real trouble hurting them. And without being able to simply pull them into myself and dissolve them, I realized I didn't have as many offensive weapons as I had thought. Perhaps I had grown arrogant in my last few fights.

Fighting a weakened demon lieutenant after it had just woken up had felt quite impressive, even if Beatrice deserved a lot of the credit. So had destroying the Wraith and the undead with it. But I had to accept that I was remarkably well suited for fighting those enemies, and maybe I needed to be a little more creative in some situations.

Huh? This was a really weird phenomenon. I wonder if it was what Daedalus was feeling. I needed to go find him and ask.

***

Bee knocked on the door frame of Arthur's office and held her breath. She watched as Arthur finished scratching something on a paper before looking up and noticing her.

She had to admit she was a little bit nervous. It had been several hours since they had their argument, and Bee took most of that time to calm down before talking to Susan. But now she had to come at least mend fences. It wasn't that she was entirely convinced the man was right, but she could see his point of view now and understand his frustrations. She hoped that he also felt the same way. At the very least, maybe he'd see how her decision at the time made sense. But it wasn't something they should be fighting over when they both agreed on the main points. And when they had a war to address.

"Hey," Bee gave a slightly awkward wave. He looked at her for a second with hard eyes before gesturing for her to come in. She shut the door behind her before taking a seat in one of the chairs across his desk.

She opened her mouth to apologize, but Arthur beat her to it. "I'm sorry I lost my temper with you earlier. That was out of line. I understand you were put in a tough situation and made the best of what you could, but as a father, it's hard for me to see the safety of children put aside so recklessly."

Bee was waving her hands in front of her. "No, no, no, no. That was my bad. I probably could have made some better decisions." She hesitated, then sighed. "I talked with Susan a little bit, and she helped me see it from your perspective. Well, I can't say I 100% agree with some of the statements you made. I do think that you are probably right in that I should have been more insistent on coming home with them. However, I do not think that Night Knights are going to see it that way. Say that they're children as much as you like, but they have real power. They don't all have to listen to us if they really don't want to."

Arthur nodded thoughtfully, "Yes, they're all young and easily impressionable. They've looked up to you and Tony and Void, obviously with all your going out saving the day, and they want to do the same. I tried to help teach Bradley to avoid something like this, but..." The man sighed. "I should have realized this was a more general issue. But I think we actually can figure something out for them."

Arthur paused. "It's been a long military tradition to use young boys as messengers and pages during battles. They run arrows between fletchers and run messages between officers. It's a useful role but one that we'd prefer not to spare men for if we don't have to. Most importantly, it's safe.

"I think perhaps we can get the Knights involved with the effort like they want, but in a non combat way. That will help them learn discipline and structure. Then, one day far in the future, they can choose to take part in a more direct manner if they want to. Once they're mature enough to make that decision. Though hopefully, they won't even have to at that point."