Chapter 25 — When Enemies Collide
Deep inside the inverted pyramid, where daylight had never been particularly welcome, Cipheron's command chamber glowed with the sickly light of hundreds of screens. Pale symbols crawled across black displays, streams of network traffic flowed through layered diagrams, and the low vibration of buried machinery made the walls seem almost alive. Cipheron sat hunched over the central console, his single crimson optic fixed on the information pouring across it while the fingers of his repaired arm moved with impossible speed. Keys clicked beneath metal claws, gears whispered beneath restored plating, and every few seconds some distant mechanism answered him with a mechanical hum. The arm the children had helped restore performed perfectly. Cipheron found that intensely satisfying, particularly because he intended to use it for things they would almost certainly have objected to.
He had changed the network again.
Not obviously. Obvious changes were for amateurs, conquerors and anyone else foolish enough to announce that they were rearranging the world before they had actually finished doing so. Cipheron had woven his alterations through old pathways, dormant relays and forgotten Archive structures so delicately that nobody monitoring the region appeared to have noticed. Eidon certainly hadn't. Eidon was too busy parading around the desert with an entourage large enough to announce his position from several kilometres away. Other rulers beyond this region were no better: powerful Aetherkin who talked endlessly of stability, territory and control while treating the world as if it were a board upon which only they were allowed to move pieces.
Cipheron's speaker emitted a dry burst of laughter.
"Order."
The word sounded insulting when he said it.
They wanted to control the world by imposing structure upon it. Borders. Hierarchies. Rules. Obedience. They believed power meant making everything behave predictably.
Cipheron wanted the opposite.
He wanted one perfect disturbance.
One event so violently unpredictable that all their neat systems would crack at once.
His claws paused over the console.
Far beyond the ordinary network lay something older: a sealed boundary buried beneath layers of Archive architecture, known in surviving records only as the Wall of Fire. It was not a wall in any physical sense. It was a barrier of restrictions, filters and adaptive defences wrapped around an isolated region of the world-network, a place whose contents had been deliberately removed from ordinary access so long ago that even Cipheron had failed to determine who had first ordered the isolation.
That, naturally, had made him want to open it.
The oldest surviving fragments referred to things beyond the barrier only indirectly. Some records had been damaged. Others had apparently deleted themselves when accessed. Previous guardians had maintained the Wall, but most of those guardians were long gone, destroyed during conflicts from earlier ages and earlier cycles. The Wall itself had endured.
It learned.
It adapted.
And Cipheron had spent a great deal of time teaching it that he was cleverer.
He did not know exactly what waited beyond.
That was the best part.
His crimson optic narrowed as another layer of protection folded away beneath his intrusion.
"One," he murmured. "I only need one."
One unknown presence entering the established world would be enough. Alliances would fracture. Territorial powers would panic. Networks would overload. Eidon and every other self-important ruler who imagined himself master of a stable world would discover precisely how little control they truly possessed.
Cipheron did not particularly care what happened afterward.
That should have bothered him.
It didn't.
Once, perhaps, the calculation would have ended differently. His mind had been built around analysis, probabilities, systems and outcomes. But something inside him had fractured when Eidon sabotaged him years before. The damaged thought structures had not merely malfunctioned; they had begun producing reactions that Cipheron had once regarded as messy organic inefficiencies.
Resentment.
Humiliation.
Rage.
He understood perfectly well that the emotions were irrational.
Knowing that did absolutely nothing to make them smaller.
Cipheron's claws tightened.
He remembered Eidon laughing.
Remembered being discarded.
Remembered every creature that had dismissed him afterward.
His gears gave an unpleasant grinding sound.
"Let it burn."
He pressed the command key.
Another section of the Wall's security architecture began to unravel.
Cipheron watched it with something dangerously close to delight.
Had he still been capable of stepping outside his own obsession and examining himself as another problem, he might have recognized the irony.
The greatest error in his system was no longer in the network.
It was sitting in front of the keyboard.
Thirty kilometres away, Shun lowered his Resonance Linker and squinted across the desert.
A sonar pulse rolled outward.
One bright signal appeared near a distant ridge, followed by a dense cluster of smaller signatures moving around it.
"There."
Haruto immediately leaned over his shoulder.
"You're sure?"
Shun checked again.
"I'm sure. Eidon is travelling along the southern ridge. He has at least a dozen Aetherkin with him, possibly more beyond the edge of the scan."
Daichi looked toward Caelan.
"Remember the plan."
Caelan glanced at him.
"Lure Eidon toward the pyramid."
"And don't fight him longer than necessary."
"Yes."
"And don't improvise."
Caelan smiled.
Daichi's expression fell.
"That smile is exactly why I added the last part."
Misaki stepped closer before Caelan could answer. Her orange hair shifted beneath her blue travelling cap as the wind crossed the ridge, and her expression was much more serious than Daichi's increasingly desperate attempts to regulate Caelan's behaviour.
"He's stronger than you."
"I know."
"And Destiny's Chosen doesn't protect you from him."
"I know that too."
"Then don't get carried away just because you're enjoying yourself."
Caelan studied her.
Misaki held his gaze.
There was no fear for herself in it. Just concern for somebody about to deliberately attract the attention of an Elite-stage enemy.
Eventually Caelan nodded.
"I'll bring him where we need him."
"Preferably with all your limbs."
"I've grown attached to them."
"Good."
Raikōmaru bounced forward.
"I can come."
"No."
"You didn't even think about it."
"I thought about it yesterday."
"Things could've changed."
"They didn't."
Raikōmaru's ears drooped.
Caelan crouched and tapped him lightly on the forehead.
"This part needs speed. You stay with the others."
Raikōmaru muttered something rude beneath his breath.
Caelan heard it.
He approved enough not to mention it.
Then he looked toward the distant ridge.
His smile returned.
Wind curled around his boots.
The air lifted him.
And Caelan shot across the desert.
There was no roaring transformation, no blazing aura announcing his arrival from kilometres away. There was simply a thirteen-year-old boy in dark cultivation clothes moving so quickly over the sand that the dunes behind him exploded into long streaming wakes.
Shun watched the shrinking figure.
"He's accelerating."
Daichi stared.
"Of course he is."
"Quite rapidly."
"Shun, I don't need measurements."
"I haven't given any."
"Please continue not giving them."
Far ahead, Caelan laughed into the wind.
He had spent two weeks sparring with Luminel under controlled conditions.
This would be much more interesting.
Eidon travelled in exactly the sort of vehicle one might expect from someone who believed ordinary transportation was an insult to his personal importance.
The enormous land crawler rolled across the desert on broad articulated treads, its outer hull polished until sunlight flashed painfully from gold-plated trim. Bright banners snapped from the upper rails, speakers had been mounted along both sides for reasons nobody except Eidon considered essential, and the main viewing deck was shaded beneath a ridiculous crimson canopy. Several powerful Aetherkin moved around it as guards, while an enormous plated beast hauled an auxiliary carriage containing equipment, provisions and, judging from the noise, enough instruments to threaten the musical health of the entire region.
Eidon reclined on a cushioned seat.
A drink rested in one hand.
Music played somewhere behind him.
Life was, he had decided, almost tolerable.
Then one of his guards exploded.
Not dramatically enough to satisfy Eidon artistically, but quite effectively.
A heavy horned Aetherkin standing near the front of the convoy barely had time to turn before a tightly compressed sphere of spinning wind struck it directly in the chest. The impact folded armour inward, lifted the creature from its feet and hurled it through the air before the sphere burst, shredding outward in a violent spiral.
The guard hit the sand and dissolved into scattered essence.
The convoy stopped.
Eidon stared.
His drink slipped slightly in his fingers.
Caelan hovered perhaps fifty metres away.
He raised one hand.
"Hello."
Eidon blinked.
Caelan smiled.
Then waved.
Eidon's face changed.
"You."
"Me."
The glass cracked in Eidon's hand.
Caelan looked around at the convoy.
"I expected more."
Eidon stood.
The surrounding guards bristled.
Some lowered horns.
Others spread claws or drew weapons.
None attacked.
They couldn't.
Several clearly wanted to. One black-furred wolf-like Aetherkin crouched so low its claws carved furrows into the ground, yet the moment where intention should have become action simply failed to exist. Another raised an arm, snarled, and found itself unable to complete the motion.
Caelan noticed every one.
His smile sharpened.
Eidon noticed too.
He did not understand why his soldiers behaved strangely around the boy, but he understood insult perfectly.
"What did you say?"
Caelan tilted his head.
"I said I expected more."
Eidon's eye twitched.
Caelan looked deliberately at the gaudy crawler.
"Although perhaps the decoration used up the budget."
One of the musicians gasped.
Eidon's expression became almost serene.
That was considerably more alarming than shouting.
"You came here," he said softly, "alone."
"Technically."
"Attacked my procession."
"Yes."
"Killed one of my soldiers."
"That also happened."
"And now you're insulting my vehicle."
Caelan looked at it again.
"I assumed honesty was encouraged."
Eidon screamed.
The sound carried across the dunes.
Caelan's grin widened.
There it was.
Eidon lunged.
Unlike his soldiers, nothing in fate stopped him.
Caelan's Eyes of Fate opened.
The world split into possibilities.
Eidon crossing fifty metres in an instant.
A strike from the right.
Another path—high.
Another—feint followed by a downward blow.
Caelan moved before the first attack began.
The sand where he had been standing erupted.
Eidon tore through the empty space.
Caelan appeared farther away on a current of wind.
"Too slow."
That was unnecessary.
Therefore he said it.
Eidon pursued.
Behind him, the convoy lurched back into motion. The weaker Aetherkin followed their master, snarling and racing across the desert, although none could direct an attack at Caelan himself. They could chase. They could obey Eidon. They could prepare to fight anyone else who appeared.
But the boy ahead of them might as well have been separated from their hostility by an invisible law written into the future.
Eidon had no such limitation.
A blast tore across the sand.
Caelan twisted around it.
Another came.
He dropped beneath it, accelerated and skimmed so close to the desert that his boots nearly touched the dunes.
His heart beat faster.
Not fear.
Excitement.
Eidon was stronger.
Dangerously stronger.
Which meant, unlike most enemies in this world, he could actually fight back.
Caelan laughed.
Eidon heard him.
This did not improve the situation.
"STOP RUNNING!"
"That would rather ruin the plan."
"What plan?!"
Caelan glanced back.
"You're doing wonderfully."
Eidon roared and accelerated.
Far ahead, almost invisible against the horizon, the inverted pyramid waited.
Caelan turned toward it.
The chase followed.
Exactly as planned.
More or less.
Cipheron's command chamber erupted with alarms.
His hands froze.
The central display flashed crimson.
LARGE HOSTILE GROUP APPROACHING OUTER SECURITY PERIMETER.
Cipheron's optic snapped toward the screen.
He opened the external feed.
The first thing he saw was Caelan streaking across the desert.
The second was Eidon behind him.
The third was Eidon's entire absurd travelling procession thundering after both of them.
Cipheron stared.
For perhaps one full second, his processors produced nothing useful whatsoever.
Then:
"Why?"
He enlarged the image.
Eidon was clearly furious.
Caelan was clearly enjoying himself.
That made even less sense.
Cipheron's attention split across several screens. Had Eidon discovered the network intrusion? Impossible. Cipheron had hidden the alterations too carefully. Had he traced the access routes toward the Wall of Fire? No. No external probes appeared in the system.
Had he simply decided to attack?
That was somehow more offensive.
Cipheron's claws returned to the console.
"Of all the incompetent, overdecorated—"
An alert interrupted him.
HOSTILE UNITS ENTERING DEFENCE RANGE.
Cipheron stared at the ongoing Wall intrusion.
He was close.
Painfully close.
The barrier's architecture was folding apart one layer at a time, and stopping now would cost him hours of progress.
Another alarm shrieked.
HOSTILE ELITE-STAGE SIGNATURE DETECTED.
Cipheron's repaired fingers curled.
"Eidon."
His voice crackled with hatred.
Of course.
Of course the creature responsible for ruining him would appear at precisely the worst possible moment.
Cipheron made a decision.
It wasn't particularly nuanced.
He opened the pyramid's defence controls.
A single command appeared.
REMOVE ALL INTRUDERS.
Cipheron struck the key.
Across the outer pyramid, long-sealed weapon ports opened.
Turrets rotated.
Buried mechanisms awakened.
Energy gathered beneath ancient stone.
Outside, Caelan saw every one of them activate through Eyes of Fate.
His grin disappeared.
"Perfect."
Then the first beam fired.
The explosion rolled across the desert like distant thunder.
Inside an old fortified shelter carved into a rocky rise several kilometres from the pyramid, dust drifted from the ceiling.
Haruto and Yuto looked toward the narrow viewing slit at exactly the same moment.
A column of black smoke was climbing into the sky.
Another explosion followed.
Then another.
Yuto tightened his hands around his Resonance Linker.
Michael pressed close against his leg.
"It started."
Haruto did not answer immediately.
He stood with his arms folded, staring at the smoke while distant flashes illuminated the horizon.
According to the plan, they were on standby.
Haruto hated the phrase.
It sounded respectable.
Responsible.
Strategic.
It also meant hiding in a bunker while everyone else did something useful.
He kicked lightly at a pebble.
Yuto looked up.
"Are you mad?"
"No."
Yuto waited.
Haruto sighed.
"Yes."
"At me?"
Haruto looked horrified.
"No!"
Yuto smiled.
That somehow made the irritation worse because now Haruto felt guilty for looking irritated around him.
He turned back toward the slit.
The last time he remembered feeling this useless had been during a football match years ago. He had been younger, smaller and somehow even worse at thinking before moving. His team had been behind. One of the opposing players had broken past him, and Haruto had thrown himself into a tackle far too late and far too hard.
Red card.
The coach had been furious.
Haruto had spent the remainder of the match sitting on the bench while everyone else played.
He could still remember staring at the field with his arms crossed, convinced that every missed chance happened specifically because he wasn't there to fix it.
Misaki had found him afterward.
Even then she had been the sort of person who noticed when somebody was miserable and found it impossible to leave them that way.
She had stood beside the bench in her usual boyish clothes, orange hair shifting in the breeze, and looked at him for several seconds.
Then she had said, "You know sulking doesn't make the red card disappear."
Haruto had glared.
"I wasn't sulking."
"You were trying to murder the grass with your eyes."
That had made him laugh despite himself.
Misaki had bumped his shoulder.
"Next time, think before you launch yourself at somebody."
"That's boring."
"You got thrown out of the game."
"Still boring."
She had rolled her eyes, but she'd stayed until he stopped looking quite so miserable.
Back then there had always been another game.
Another weekend.
Another chance to run onto a field and prove himself.
This wasn't football.
There were no referees outside.
No whistle to end things.
If somebody made the wrong decision near Cipheron's pyramid, they did not receive a red card and sit on a bench.
They got hurt.
Or worse.
Haruto knew that.
He understood perfectly well why the group had been divided. Yuto was eight. Michael was powerful for a Juvenile partner but still young. Haruto himself had already demonstrated how badly things could go when he allowed fear and desperation to force Ryu into Gravefang.
Staying behind was sensible.
He still hated it.
Another explosion flashed beyond the bunker.
His fists tightened.
A memory surfaced.
Misaki again.
This time not years ago.
After the Cyclodrake fight.
Haruto had been angry with himself then too, his confidence shaken by everything that had happened with Ryu and Gravefang. Misaki had found him alone and, instead of telling him to stop being stupid or pretending everything was fine, had simply sat beside him.
Eventually she'd said, quietly:
"Why don't you challenge yourself again?"
Haruto had looked at her.
She had smiled.
"I know you. You'll be able to do it."
Then, with the sincerity that made the words impossible to laugh off:
"I believe in you."
Haruto had remembered that sentence more often than he wanted to admit.
Misaki believed in people almost recklessly. Not because she thought they were perfect, but because when she saw somebody struggling, her first instinct was to help them stand.
Haruto stared toward the smoke.
He wanted to be out there.
Not because he thought he could solve everything.
Not entirely.
He wanted to help.
Wanted to protect the others.
Wanted to prove that he could face danger without repeating the same mistakes.
Yuto shifted beside him.
"Haruto?"
"Hm?"
"You look scary."
Haruto blinked.
"Sorry."
Yuto smiled brightly.
"It's okay."
Haruto rubbed the back of his neck.
For a few moments they listened to the distant battle.
Then Yuto said, "We have a job too."
Haruto looked down.
Yuto gestured around the bunker.
"We're supposed to stay ready. If they need us, we go. Right?"
Haruto stared at his younger friend.
Then laughed softly.
"Yeah."
Yuto looked pleased.
Haruto leaned against the wall again, though this time he stopped glaring at it.
Waiting did not feel like action.
That didn't mean it was useless.
He knew that.
He simply needed to convince the rest of himself.
Another blast rolled across the desert.
Haruto's hand closed around his Resonance Linker.
He was tired of sitting on the sidelines.
But for once, he was going to wait until the moment he was actually needed.
Then he would move.
And when he did, he intended to make it count.