“We are still working to ascertain the exact circumstances which allowed the infiltration, but as of now, we believe it slipped in through an emergency passage.”
Tarchon led Nyxalrai off to the side, where his massive war machine loomed. It was a lot less pristine than the last time she’d seen it — when Tarchon had pulled her out of the war’s initial strike — and yet the damage only seemed to make the mech more intimidating.
“It shouldn’t be possible,” he said as a wall of steam spilled from his shoulders. Tarchon was not happy. “The security shouldn’t have been bypassed so easily; especially not under Ta̽'Ș͑t̕r̊a͑ḷa̾͆n͙͂o̼͗v͐͐̿͝'r̝͇͎͓͜’s eye.”
“Was there much damage? Losses?” Nyxalrai asked, trying her best to ignore the stares of those around her. She was anything but ashamed of what she was — they should be envious of what they saw — but she still found it nerve-wracking. It was, after all, announcing herself as a perfect sacrifice.
Despite trusting the Technocult, she didn’t know all the members here.
“Minimal. The damage will take a few weeks to repair, and some projects were hit that will have to start from scratch. Ta̽'Ș͑t̕r̊a͑ḷa̾͆n͙͂o̼͗v͐͐̿͝'r̝͇͎͓͜ took care of the assault before it could become a major loss. No, the problem is that we lost three primary nodes to the Worshippers in our haste to defend the cathedral.” He glanced down at Nyxalrai, noting her discomfort. “None will speak. Information lockdown is integral to our continued existence.”
She nodded. Nyxalrai’s… classes with Ta’Taish had stuffed her mind with more than rituals and how to correctly write a report. The Technocult were strict in their data protocols. Not like that was a surprise; they were sticklers for all their rules. But learning there was more than simple trust at stake to protect her secrets calmed her heart.
“Were there other places attacked by one of these Mad creations?” she asked. “I was attacked too. If it was just us, it makes me worried that they know who has been hunting all the cults. Or at least they know I’m connected to the Technocult.”
If word got out that the one who killed Solan was part of the Technocult… well, things wouldn’t go well. The Technocultists were disliked enough by the other factions.
“No…” he trailed off. The click of gears in his chest was barely audible over the hum of his turbines. “If you were assaulted by a Mad in tandem, then we must speak with Ta̽'Ș͑t̕r̊a͑ḷa̾͆n͙͂o̼͗v͐͐̿͝'r̝͇͎͓͜. Come.”
Nyxalrai followed. Her eyes fell over the scrapes and layers of soot that charred parts of his mechanical body. He was as banged up as his mech. At least, visibly. For all the surface damage she found, there wasn’t so much as a dent that actually interfered with his machinery. She wouldn’t be surprised if the burnt steel was also from his own flamethrowers.
She remembered how obscenely powerful those had been. Even with all her healing, she wouldn’t want to get caught in that blaze.
“Can’t she speak here?”
The Technocult leader had a bad habit of being everywhere at once in the cathedral. Couldn’t so much as look the other way when Nyxalrai touched explosives. With the thrumming blue energy passing through conduits overhead to power the oversized cannons, surely she was listening in.
“Ta̽'Ș͑t̕r̊a͑ḷa̾͆n͙͂o̼͗v͐͐̿͝'r̝͇͎͓͜ has her attention elsewhere. We lost a lot of ground to the Worshippers today, and she is now trying to fend off Coral AI’s digital assault.”
Digital assault? What did that look like?
Nyxalrai was a moment from voicing her question when they arrived before the cult leader’s suspended sphere. Ta’Stralanov’r’s chamber was as awe inducing as the first time she’d been here. The massive metal shell pulsing with near-unfathomable energy that spread out from the orb and along the walls like a massive circuitboard. Everything was pristine.
Tarchon stood in silence, and so Nyxalrai did as well.
She took the quiet moment to dislodge the concealer. Well, the pauldron wasn’t exactly designed to be taken apart, but with a quick break to the arm and an uncomfortable peeling of bark from rubber flesh, it clunked to the ground.
Her eyes pointedly did not look at how much flesh the twisted needles had taken with them. Hadn’t even been a week this time.
Nyxalrai rolled her shoulder and relished the feeling of her body stitching itself back together. It felt so much nicer not to be bound. The concealer wasn’t even that invasive, and yet its presence disgusted her. Like its mere presence made her form lesser.
The chainsaw tail gave a similar sensation, even if it didn’t dig into her flesh. She pushed through the distaste. No matter how the spinning blades of death twinged at her instincts, she took far too much enjoyment in the way they butchered cultists to give them up.
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Especially with Inqyͮͩ̿ḿ͔ͦe.
Ta’Malis had come to her with quite a few designs that her body had rejected almost unilaterally, despite not cutting into flesh. Her mutations were already the pinnacle, and obscuring their form with machine was an insult.
Honestly, the way her mind revolted at mutations being covered by Ta’Malis’s intricate craftsmanship did a lot to show how far ahead Ta’Stralanov’r was. She was in a whole other realm. When her concealer’s entire purpose was to keep Nyxalrai hidden, it was surprising she wasn’t on the ground puking every time it activated. Nyxalrai barely even felt unsettled.
Still, not every one of Ta’Malis’s creations had been rejected. Her favourite was just a little too heavy — and loud — to bring out of Pink for a casual hunt.
“Have you found anything?” Ta’Stralanov’r’s voice was sharp and clear, as if she wasn’t also on the other side of Coral fighting the Machine God.
Nyxalrai’s eyes let her see all of the cult leader. She couldn’t see the god she fought, but the web of power that spider-webbed throughout Coral concentrated in a few brighter points, which seemed to flicker and glitch.
“There was another Mad. It attacked N̪ỷx̱̽alr̘a͎i.”
Ta’Stralanov’r hummed. The energy pulsed, and Nyxalrai could somehow see that the woman’s gaze turned down to the concealer at her feet. A lump of metal with more than a dozen bite marks taken out of it.
“Did you kill it?” the brain in a jar asked, attention back on Nyxalrai.
She nodded.
Really, the cult leader’s true form was rather hard to fathom. Was she the brain in a box of glowing blue rituals, spiked with a million near-microscopic needles? Or was she the data infused into that strange blue plasma-like energy that had hooked itself into half of the systems across Coral?
“Good. The last thing we want is a Mad running loose.” Ta’Stralanov’r’s consciousness seemed to fade for a moment as an entire line of webbing went dark. In moments, she cut into a separate path, and spread to the same area, albeit less directly. “I am not pleased to admit this caught me off-guard. Use of Madness is something I expected the cults to resort to only in their final hour. It is mutually assured destruction.”
“The one that attacked me had stitches and Otherflesh.” Nyxalrai didn’t need to say which cult that meant.
“As did the one that breached the Cathedral,” Tarchon added, likely for Nyxalrai’s benefit.
“It is too early to say whether this was the Bodytwisters or simply a means to curtail and redirect attention from the perpetrators. All this attack has proven, is that the Omen Artisans have shifted tactics. Likely due to someone altering what they considered temporal certainties.”
“You think the Omen Artisans are involved?” she asked, ignoring the very pointed look a bunch of glowing blue lines couldn’t possible achieve.
“They are in bed with the Worshippers. Their forces arrived in coordination with the infiltration. Given the route the Mad invaded, the information could have only been sourced from the Omen Artisans.” She paused for a moment, her attention elsewhere once more. “We are aware — from your own report amongst others — that the Bodytwisters have begun operations with Omen data. It does indicate no deceit is involved, but I wish to withhold conclusions until an investigation is performed and evidence is gathered.” Her gaze shifted to Tarchon for that last part.
“Already underway,” he grunted.
“Do they know I’m linked to the Technocult?” Nyxalrai asked. “Why else would they attack us at the same time?”
“We do not yet know for certain that the other cults were spared,” Ta’Stralanov’r said. “But it is not impossible. Between that chainsaw, flamethrowers, and that new toy of yours, there is much evidence to lead you back to us.”
Nyxalrai felt her spines quiver. She hadn’t even considered that.
“Though the probability remains low,” Ta’Stralanov’r continued, and Nyxalrai swore she could feel the sick amusement of the woman as she enjoyed her panic. “Your MO features tendencies from each of the cults. Bodytwisters more than most. And ever since you began using rituals in your… hunts, there is none that would mistake those as one of ours.”
She had to raise a brow at that. The Technocult leader sounded annoyed that she didn’t like their rituals. Despite how Ta’Taish tried to teach her those rigid, modular, blocky things, Nyxalrai couldn’t allow herself to use them.
There was no fluidity to the Technocult’s rituals. No creativity. They served a purpose, and that was all they were good for.
If Nyxalrai so much as tried to draw one, or sing those dry lyrics, it felt like dragging her claws along Ta’Taish’s metal sander. It was so wrong it almost made her ill. Nothing like the natural lines and harmonic melody of a true ritual.
She still found Ta’Taish’s lectures useful for the fundamentals… but not so much the actual creation.
“So there’s no one to strike at in retaliation?” she asked.
“I would say you are welcome to focus your efforts on the Worshippers, but such action would only prove to those watching that we are connected. Neither of us want that attention as of now.”
Ta’Stralanov’r was right, of course. As much as she’d love to head off and make the only good cult’s day a little better, she couldn’t underestimate those on the sidelines. It was an unfortunate fact that the cults were happy to leave the Technocult and Worshippers to throw resources at one another.
Neither were a threat so long as they kept hacking at each other. But if they learnt the Technocult were harbouring the one to take down Solan, there would be no way out.
Not with Nyxalrai as she was. The Technocult had previously lasted for years in a war against the rest of Coral, but she knew the pinnacle cults had never truly invested resources against them. It was impressive they lasted as long as they had. But in this timeline, if they knew they held a true threat, nothing would be held back, and they would resort to extremes.
Extremes like Madness.
Maybe it was already too late to avoid the cults turning on the Technocult. At least with the Bodytwisters and Scriptures duking it out, it would take time to shift out of one war and into another. Time Nyxalrai needed. She still needed to get stronger.
She couldn’t hit the Worshippers, and the Omen Artisans were as tucked away and well defended as ever — she had tried — but she still had the Everseeing Eye ceremony to crash.
It was about time she had her seventh evolution.