Chapter 16-5 A Choice of Skins (I)

Chapter 16-5 A Choice of Skins (I)

Glaive Benhatas body remains missing, an entire node has been stolen after appraising the situation at the Trident. As of now, I am certain we face an enemy ace that has achieved a feat beyond skill.

It really smacks the words right out of your mouth.

Aside from myself, Not-Here, Signtaker, and perhaps a few other notable Godclads who have their ontologies rooted around clandestine miracles, few others can do what I suspect has been accomplished today.

And dont think I dont know what youre all suspecting. Yes, I am a suspect. No, I didnt do it. But Im interested in finding out who managed this so I can meet them.

Right now, I can tell you that whoever were facing doesnt just have a Heaven, but an extreme mastery of the Nether. To the level that they can outright steal the ghosts and sequences from our survelliance phantasmics without triggering alarm. Likewise, they must know how we operate considering how they avoided the attention of our patrolling Incubi altogether.

My suspicions are that were facing a team of high-caliber individuals. Perhaps a dedicated Fallwalker cadre empowered and supported by Highflame. But that still doesnt fully explain the Necrotheurgy situation.

No one should match us. At least, no one at present. The Low Masters no longer have the resources to conduct such dives, even between the No-Dragons, Highflame, and Omnitech, I doubt they managed to train anyone up to our capabilities.

Subsequently, I suspect were facing a freelancer unit.

Like the White-Rab. But this is too loud for him.

I recommend myself as lead investigator for this incident. Count me among the suspects still, and put me on watch, but I want take charge of this hunt. Theres something about this that I

Im just interested in understanding our enemy.

It has been too long since weve faced a proper enemy ace.

-Shotin Kazahara, Ori-Thaum Godclad on the Breach at the Trident

16-5

A Choice of Skins (I)

Crimson exploded as Dice tore her way through the Syndicate enforcers within the megablock. From fires creeping along blood-made fissures, Avo watched the progress of his chosen Ensouled, and likewise did Drausthe glass shimmering with her presence.

Desperate screams mingled with gunfire as the former FATELESS surged forward, a tidal wave of slashing gore, shredding through all in her path.

Syndicate golems should have been en route to assist. But Draus ensured their permanent deactivation, and from their ruins found new nectar for his Frame.

[Sangeist x6; Snake-King x2; Galeslither x3]

In the three days after his acceptance into Aegis, a multitude of demands occupied his attention as he found himself preparing and reacting in equal measure. Though Calvino promised immediate delivery of requisitioned equipment, none could predict the fickle whims of New Vultun.

When thaumaturgy was in play, reality grew slippery and promises were rendered paltry.

A spatial detonation had delayed the goodsand only now were the Agnosi close to stitching the leak.

In the meantiime, things still had to be done.

Between Chambers and Cas, the initial preparations for the Cult of the Unborn began without ill omens. Chambers fared better with his new gifts when there wasnt the need to null his subjects, but there was still a lingering unease as he jackeda bleedover that Avo never experienced.

Watching the half-strand wrestle with his own actions as the full weight of sonder came down upon him was a fascinating thing to observe. How humanity joined and undid. Ghouls never had thatwant for community and empathy. It was their greatest boon, and also why they were barren of culture or future.

To want was to build, and ghouls didnt want. They needed. They craved. And then never got better.

Regardless, Chambers managed to plant an Auto-Seance in the Skintakers mind easily enough. Avo would direct him to claim more of such individuals to seed their influence across the Nether. For now, though, the manipulation would begin slowly as the Ghoulpounder Thoughtcast began its slow reorientation in content. The templates warned Avo against building concrete plans before the forecast for audience reactions was settled. A broad trajectory was what needed to be followed. Everything else was a matter of organic development and steering.

Draus, in the meantime, took to raiding and assassinating key Syndicate personnel as something between a pastime and pre-shaping operations. As active as Avo found himself across the Nether and in deepening his influence over the city using Chambers as an exntension, the Regular did as an operating squire finding new angles to hurt their foes.

She kept a close watch as Dice tore a bloody swath through the Three-Fingers. With Avo culling the Syndicates jocks and Necros as a scouring flame, Draus assinating key figures in its command structure, and Dice serving as a blunt force instrument, the Three-Fingers collapse arrived in an abrupt instant.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Without orders to follow and with the leadership decimated, what once stood a Syndicate of over fifteen thousand members and armed with forty-two golems shattered into warring gangs that fought each other over the rights of its corpse.

Dice never stopped hunting. Whatever happened to her hardened her against human contact and made her more predator than a girl. Even as the Syndicate that enslaved her collapsed, she spent little time on rumination or grief. Instead, she went after their offshoot gangs, then rival Syndicates moving in, and even an Exorcist drone detachment deployed to investigate the situation.

Today, she was living her new life to the fullest in Block-10 of the Tortuganda districtmajor death-stake under Sanctus, Omnitech, and Ashthrone. A splinter faction of the Three-Fingers fled here after their initial culling, pushing into the district like rodents fleeing a flame.

{This is just posturing,} Calvino said, supplementing Avos eyes with Voidwatchs. Satellite imaging and Aegis intel far exceeded the presentation of Avos individual efforts, granting him exact details regarding troop movements, the key commanders in the field, and the expected outcomes for each scenario.

New Vultun itself appeared as if an alloyed rash disfiguring the world, a sprawling series of scars and gaps that stretched the span of an entire continent that stood as a rising apex at its core. Narrowing over the skies far above Nu-Scarrowbur, Avo found that the Guilds had only dispatched approximately five thousand golems on each side. Enough to fight a brief war according to Calvino, but nothing prolonged.

This was ultimately just posturing. Both sides were wary to reignite a battle before their strength was restored. Some wounds left by the last great war still lingered, and Highflame especially seemed shy to tread on the path of repeating old mistakes.

{AEGIS REQUISITION HAS ARRIVED AT LOATHING}

UPDATING DEEPNAV

Finally.

Drawing the bulk of his consciousness back across his sessions, Avos halo burned bright as he attached ego to vessel while he prepared to notify the cadre.

{Youll be able to access almost any gene vat in the system once you get your ansible. I look forward to seeing you print some new bodies. Fake bodies take some getting used to, but considering how many minds you have churning inside you, I suppose you can install the necessary habits and adaptions both ways.}

+Have been looking forward to this for a while,+ Avo said. His mind wasnt just on creating human molds to carry his mind, however, but also further enhancements to the idealized monster that was his base form. The Low Masters kept him humanoid because they were fools playing with stolen equipment. Now, Avo had another chance to mock their failures and enhance his own formor abandon it altogether.

Another quieter urge also called to him in the back of his mind.

He could complete the ghouls. Finish a new design in his image and set them upon his former brothers.

It would be a fitting euthanasia, condemning monsters designed to feast upon humanity to be devoured in turn by their upgraded offspring. The deliciousness of such an offense would be a delight to inflict on both the Hungers and the Low Masters as well.

{Alright. Dont be in a rush,} Calvino said. {Start with a pre-existing human body first before you go off playing genetic jenga.}

+Whats jenga?+

Calvino fed the information directly into his mind, and Avo found the game to be rather banal.

Draus, Avo said, collapsing the wall of blood serving as the door to his cell and stepping into the hallway. Meldskins arrived. Open the passage. Time for pickup

Avo! Kae said, emerging suddenly from the lip of another cell as if springing an ambush. With her hair disheveled and bags hanging below her eyes, it was clear that the Agnos had indulged in little sleep and decided against the use of suicide to keep herself persisently energic. Still, there was a flicker of focus in her eyesthe look she got when she was consumed by her work. I have it! After two nights of reading through the Elder Mythos over and over again, I know the changes we need to make to our Heavens and canons! Also! Also I have a new theory about your Imitators and why the rest of us arent showing your symptoms! We need to

Requisitions first, Avo said. Talk while we go pick our kit up.

She nodded and followed behind him. Crumbling into a moment of silence, he could feel the discomfort in her thoughtstuff as her mind leaped to another topic that she yearned to broach but remained too uncertain to do so.

Well hunt the Glaives as soon as things are settled enough, Avo said. Already thinking of how to prepare the run. Need to outsource a dive to someone first. Get an overview of what we need.

A low huff came from the waifish woman. T-thanks.

No. Not thanks. My ascension broke your life. Shouldnt pretend. Shouldnt lie to ourselves.

Her mind grew tighter. Well, at least were doing something about it, right?

{Shes looking for reassurance,} Calvino said. {Judging from her tone shes pretty confused about if shes supposed to hate or like you.}

Avo grunted. +Not going to include any of that in my sheathes.+

{That what? Human emotion? Hate? Like?}

+Validation,+ Avo replied. He saw it in Chambers and he saw it again in Kae. For all community mightve been worth to humans while they lived as tribes, it existed only as a weakness to monsters that sought to break society.

He shook such thoughts aside.

It was finally time to see himself improve. First in coldtech, then with his Heavens as well.

Everything else could wait until after.