Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 520: Disconnected

"Yo, Nat, you alive?"

Huh. That sounds like Dennis.

I open my mouth. "Fuck off."

"He’s fine," Dennis confirms.

"He is NOT fine! He’s bleeding all over, and I can feel how hot his body is even from here! I swear I can see something moving under his skin!" Kim shouts.

"Kim, my boy," Dennis replies casually. "That... is just Nat being Nat, this is probably his optimal state. I’d be more worried if he’d gone more than a day or two without hurting himself. Right, Nat?"

"Dennis, my boy," I mimic him, voice dripping with sarcasm, "it hurts to talk. It hurts even more to listen to your voice. So, one more word, and I’ll put you into my “optimal state” for a week."

Silence follows, and I sense the two of them leaving the room, only for their presence to be replaced by two different signatures: Biscuit and Noodle. Biscuit sits off to the side, feigning innocence—so exaggerated it kind of feels suspicious.

Examining my body despite the pain, I notice strange sensations on my nose and belly, as if someone has been repeatedly tapping on them. Even the hair at my temple feels slightly wet, as though something very small had been biting and tugging on it.@@@@

Well played, Biscuit. Well played.

Meanwhile, Noodle is lying on the ground near my bed, noticeably larger, his belly bulging significantly. His eyes are closed in a satisfied expression, and I half expect him to open his mouth and let out a burp.

Keeping my eyes closed, I turn my attention inward, carefully observing my body without activating any healing marks. Damn. Who knows what could happen if my body started healing while my evolved trait is still applying? I can already imagine any number of horror-show scenarios. That also makes me wonder, how do people with his level of regeneration even handle stuff like this?

As always, my racing thoughts distract me from the pain, dulling it bit by bit.

I give myself half an hour to assess my still-changing body before stopping.

As I thought, the circuits are still there, but now they feel like they’ve been etched deeper into my being and there are a lot more of them. Where once there were pathways for channeling mana, there are now countless additional ones: reinforced for moving larger amounts of mana, and narrower for finer control. True to its name, this trait has evolved to reshape my physique, making it even more accommodating for mana than before.

The fun part? Now I have to modify my constructs again. A lot of the pain and damage I’m dealing with now Is a result of my changing physiology clashing with my damaged constructs. It looks like I won’t make it to my shift in Workshop Number 3.

I’ll need to let Sophie know so she can come up with an excuse. Sorry, Leth, it’s going to take me at least a day to optimize everything.

Overall, it’s exactly what I expected: an evolved version of my old trait, now heavily influenced by my Primary Class, which specializes in mana. I’ll need a few more days to test things properly, but even now, I’d estimate it to be at least on par with Mana Wavelength Iris.

Slowly but surely, my body is adapting to channeling increasingly insane amounts of mana, while my mana pool grows to equally absurd levels. It reminds me of that Lord from the Bastion—whose heart was used to power the fallen floating island.

Surely, I’m not just turning myself into the best mana battery ever.

A few days have passed, and it's becoming pretty clear they have no intention of letting us anywhere near Exoria.

We’re just newbies, after all, and it takes at least a level 8 technician to get close. Even Leth doesn’t have that level of clearance, and his boss, Quent, only gets access under the strict supervision of level 9 technicians like Ito. ȐÄNօꞖÈS

But damn, I want to see that thing. It’s already been long enough, so it should be about time, right? Right? I need more access. I want to take advantage of this abundance of equipment and resources they have.

While Sophie takes her time speaking with Leth I find myself standing off to the side with the twins, looking over the inner plating of a suit of war armor that belongs to one of Champion Feroy’s disciples. As before, this is a replacement part.

Apparently, Champion Feroy has two disciples. Someone told me their names, but I’ve already forgotten. I just know they have their own suits of smaller, less powerful war armor than Exoria. Their names are Praxion and Ardenyx.

The inner plating we’re looking at is Praxion’s. Judging by the scale, this armor is probably half as tall as Exoria and slimmer, likely focused on speed, though that’s just a theory I have.

Another pulse of incredible mana radiates outwards and the ground under my feet shifts as the environment around us changes.

The mild weather is immediately replaced by harsh cold and loud winds, threatening to blow us away, even with our powerful bodies.

Champion Feroy pulses his mana again. And the lights of a defensive array flare up, drawing in even more mana. The wind quiets and the cold becomes bearable, though it’s still chilling even to me with my thermal energy. The weather is just that extreme.

We’re sent to our tent to wait while they re-establish the workshops and defenses. On the way, snow begins piling up outside, gathering between the tents and on top of them. As far as I can see, there’s nothing but snow falling from a dark, wind-blown sky. We’re nestled against a mountain, the rocky wall serving to provide some shelter from the wind, but it remains relentlessly strong nonetheless.

“Izzy, heat the room, please,” Sophie asks before we even fully enter.

No one takes their jackets off. Instead, we huddle up in the living area as Izzy gets to work generating heat and Sophie makes a barrier to insulate us. It’s getting better as the camp heats up, but not enough to be comfortable, so having Izzy help is great.

“So I wasn’t the only one who was cold,” Maya says, sitting next to Izzy and pulling her closer, to use her as a heating pad. Noodle, now smaller, coils closely around her as well.

Sophie just rolls her eyes at her sister’s antics. “Lily, you have the highest constitution here. Could you feel the cold out there too?”

“Yes! I thought I would never feel cold again, but the weather outside is something else!”

“It’s probably the work of a Champion, either the lumoran’s in an attempt to slow the monsters or it’s coming from one of the monsters themselves,” Tess says, sitting beside me and gesturing as she speaks. “I’ll try to find out, but I’m not sure how much they’ll actually share with me.”

With a sigh, I create a thermal pyramidal contraption with empty spaces for me to send kinetic energy through, and in this way, I can now almost perfectly mimic the sound of crackling firewood. Even the light has improved vastly, shifting in intensity rather than providing a constant radiance to give it a more natural feel. I expand it a bit more and pump more thermal energy into it, adding to Izzy’s heat.

“Even if they are higher level than us, how do they plan to fight? Aren’t most of the mercenary fighters here around level 350?” Min-Jae asks.

Tess reaches her hands towards the thermal cube to warm them up, “They’re probably issued some kind of special equipment. And then they probably only fight for a few hours at a time. Do the war armors have built-in heating?”

Sophie snorts. “At this point, we’re no better than boot polishers. But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised, it wouldn’t even be that hard to implement.”

“But we are goddamn good boot polishers!” Dennis cries in an attempt to defend our team’s honor as assistant technicians.

“Isn’t it better this way?” Aaron says. “We can learn gradually and improve before they set us to doing the fancier stuff.”

Sophie doesn’t answer, gesturing to me with a nod instead.

Tess picks up on it, “Nat, please don’t do anything stupid.”

In response, I deactivate my Mana Wavelength Iris and lean back, “We might have no other choice sooner or later.”

I pick up Biscuit and put him on my lap, then extend a mana arm to retrieve his favorite blanket, wrapping it around him with only his small head poking out.

“The Champion just disconnected us from the Absolute’s web and cut off all connections. Even my Ley Lines leading back the way we came are gone. At the same time, the Absolute’s web covering this area started to disappear. Soon it’ll be gone permanently, or at least until the Absolute decides to remake it.”

“Oh boy,” one of the twins mutters. I sense them and Sophie doing their own checks, confirming my words.

I continue, “Either they tracked us down and we’re disconnecting to hide, or...”

Tess finishes my words, “Or we were always supposed to disconnect.”

I nod and lean back, thinking of all the reasons that might be the case.