Kai kept his back pressed to the metal wall behind him, minimizing his presence as he rounded the pathway spiraling up to the peak of the golden cap.
Footsteps echoed above him, strutting out hollow rings as armored boots clashed on rusted scrap. The soldier that had just passed was descending. Kai gritted his teeth. He was too far out from the cave entrance to go back in, and he was out in the open. He couldn't fight the soldier, but there wasn't anywhere to hide.
Not anywhere obvious.
When the soldier descended, he tapped the earpiece under his helmet and said, "All clear. I've marked the coordinates out for a drone escort. I'm coming down to lead the extraction team up."
The soldier passed by the tunnel and thought about it peering into it for a second, but decided against it. From the report his analytics system had droned into him, the innards of his mountain were infested with mutated insects.
The soldier did not notice Kai hanging over the edge of the pathway, feet swinging in the wind as they dangled over a five hundred meter drop.
When Kai heard the soldier's footsteps fade into the distance, he hoisted himself up and made a dash up to the top. The rest of the soldier's squad were coming. This was the only chance he had to look for that voice.
Come, it beckoned.
And Kai went.
With an energy he didn't know he had, he sprinted across the golden peak, making his way to the top where he found himself looking at flat ground. They very tip of Golden Peak was a perfectly flat, perfectly circular platform, and the sheer symmetry of it left him wondering for a few seconds.
The Fields were chaos incarnate – bits and pieces of odds and ends of so many different machines and parts all jumbled together – but this was so orderly. Golden jewels, watches, statues, and the like all arranged in such a neat manner that they made up a smooth floor.
You're here. The voice was louder now. Tore Kai away from his wonder. Made his horns buzz – he felt the echoes rattle in his head, giving him a dull headache.
Kai went down on his hands and knees and started sifting through the floor, shoveling out fistfuls of golden accessories here and there, following where his horn told him to go, where the voice called him.
Here, it said.
Kai knelt at the center of the peak, and he punched inside. He felt something soft underneath the gold, and he fished it out, a spray of coins clinking beside him. He found himself staring at a book.
Leatherbound and black, its pages molded and bloody. There were archaic litters etched on its cover, sinister scribbles that looked like scratches made by a knife. When he opened the book, the pages were filled with this chaotic writing, packing the margins tightly, as if the writer had so much to write but so little space to put it on.
You need me.
The voice came from the book, travelled up Kai's arm and into his head.
A blast echoed from behind him, and in his peripheral vision, he saw his other arm flying through the air, a neat arc of blood trailing behind it.
"Stay where you are and do not move!" screamed a synthetic voice. He heard the familiar Redband boots sink into the gold behind him, but he didn't care.
He didn't care that his arm was gone. He couldn't even feel it. He just stared at the book.
Look at that. You're weak.
"I am," Kai whispered.
You want to keep your family alive.
"I do."
You remember the soldiers with red on their arms. You remember them taking your parents.
"I do."
You felt so helpless.
"I did."
You don't want to feel that anymore. You don't want anyone to feel that anymore.
"Yes."
Then be my Chosen.
Though Kai's lips formed the word for yes, it was his heart that spoke.
He stared wide-eyed as the book dissolved into the wind, little specks of black that faded into nothingness.
A rough, metallic hand clutched his shoulder.
"You're under arrest according to Section V of the Elsian Carta. Remain silent and be cooperative if you value your life."
"A mere human dares raise their voice against me?"
Kai didn't recognize his voice. He didn't recognize himself at all. He moved, but it wasn't him. He didn't tell his body to move. Something was inside him, taking control of him, and he was a captive audience, seeing through his eyes but having zero input.
He saw himself stand up and turn around, a vicious smile wreathing his lips. The Redband soldier stepped back and fired his kinetic rifle, a concussive shockwave echoing from his gun barrel as it slid back and a rail pushed out at immense speeds, punching out a clean hole the size of a baseball in Kai's chest.
"Insolence," he heard himself say.
He saw himself raise his hand and ball it into a fist. The soldier's gun ripped out of his hand and floated in the air before crushing itself into a compact ball of shriveled metal. The soldier rushed to unholster his blaster pistol, but Kai's arm shot forwards and clutched the soldier by the neck.
"You'll pay for the damages you've wrought upon my mortal Chosen."
A crackling black shadow enveloped the soldier, hungry and vicious, rippling over every inch of the man's body. The soldier struggled and thrashed for one precious second before his body crumbled into dust, sifting through his now empty armor and pattering on the ground. The soldier's armor, now empty, fell on his pile of ashes, a grave marker for those insolent enough to challenge a demon god.
"Hm." Kai saw himself looking down at the hole in his chest and glancing at his stump of an arm. The bones had started growing back, filling in the empty space. Musculature pink and raw started growing on the bones, the color enriching with red as blood vessels formed. But the healing was incomplete, the skin noticeably absent and the flesh underneath soft and raw – unsuited to be out in the open.
"The humans of his era have so little mana to consume."
More footsteps, several now, hurried up, attracted by the commotion.
Five Redband soldiers surrounded Kai. A helicopter drone buzzed overhead, casting a laser sight down at Kai's chest.
"Such disrespect! There was a time when you humans bowed before me. Became my priests to spread my word far and wide. But now this!"
The Demonic God within Kai spread his arms wide, inviting all the soldiers to come forwards.
"But no matter. I will teach you fools fear once more."