Heading to my personal armory, I began grabbing whatever weapons I could. The whip, Night Fang. Both of my swords, Nocturne and Blood Angel – though I was already carrying Nocturne with me. I grabbed a few devices that I had, uh, "confiscated" from the late Miranda Miller, experimental weapons that she had invented. Even though she was a mad mage, the weapons she developed were second to none.
Magic shuriken with a homing ability, laser traps, remote mines and even a net gun. I didn't bother with the Chains of Void because the creatures clearly didn't use magic, and I relied heavily on magic. Everything else, I strapped to my utility harness, locking them tightly in segmented sections. I fastened my armor and locked it tight. Hopefully the new material would prove capable of resisting the xenomorphs' highly corrosive acidic blood, but I wasn't putting much faith in it. In any event, it should at least save me from the creatures' claws and tail.
I doubted it, though. Their inner jaws were known to possess enough power to punch through a helmet.
Once my preparations were complete and I had armed myself, I readied to depart. Raising Nocturne, I went to the casting chamber where there was lots of mana. Taking a deep breath, I plunged the black blade into the center of the magic circle that I had drawn over the floor.
"Good hunting, my lord."
I glanced up and acknowledged the group of dark mages with a polite nod. It was thanks to their efforts that I had the magic circle drawn. Further to the side, Silvia and Stella stood, visibly worried.
"Be careful, my lord," Silvia said.
"Make sure you come back safely," Stella added. I nodded and then infused my sword with mana.
The runes in the magic circle, inscribed by blood, glowed fiercely. Shadows danced about before engulfing the entire chamber. My glasses went dark, despite the multi-spectrum optical sensor arrays installed within their lenses. Not fearing the dark, I tightened my grip on the hilt of my sword and allowed the shadows to consume me.
Distortion. Alien shrieks. A realm of chaos. Daemons clawing at the fabric between reality and un-reality, the materium and the immaterium. Primordial gods whose only desire was to see the universe burn, and for chaos to reign over the universe, breaking all known laws of science and physics. Amidst flames that were not flames, the omnipotent creatures turned their gazes upon me, millions of eyes staring unblinkingly at my tiny, insignificant form.
I screamed.
And then I crashed through the forest, tumbling across the trees and grass. Nausea overwhelmed me and I bent over, gagging and coughing. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to blank out the horrid images that flooded my mine, to tune out the laughter of thirsting gods.
"I'm never casting that spell again," I vowed to myself, still shuddering from the translation. The trip through the…warp (?) was so violent, so insane that I felt as if a part of my soul had been torn out and left in there. I would never feel the same again.
The price to pay for this transportation spell was too great.
Well, I was already here. It was pointless to regret it now. The decision had been made and my first goal had been achieved. Clambering unsteadily to my feet, I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.
Casting a spell, I tracked the distress beacon to the dark mage I had appointed as my agent here in the southern provinces. To my lack of surprise, he was dead, his mangled corpse lying abandoned against a tree. I looked at him sadly before lowering my head and offering a prayer.
"Thank you," I told him before reaching out to close his eyes. "Your death will not go unavenged."
Closing my eyes, I then cast a spell, gathering the fragments of memories that had been scattered about right before the poor dark mage's death. One thing that stood out to me was Flynn. He wasn't just creating a new breed of insect warriors. He had also made extensive modifications of himself and no longer resembled a giant wasp. Now he looked like a humanoid bug with a scorpion-like tail and massive claws in place of his thin wasp-like legs from before. His mandibles were still there, as were the compound eyes, but he was otherwise a completely different monster from before.
Much stronger physically, especially if I looked at those bulging muscles. He moved with a speed and grace that weren't present before and his wings had been transformed into blade-like appendages that cut like blades at incredible speeds too fast for the human eye to follow.
The entire dark mage cell that I had inserted here had been butchered in this manner…just by him alone.
And now Flynn was creating an entire hive of creatures like himself, near-perfect organisms so lethal they could destroy the world.
I was the only one who could stop them now.
Rising to my feet, I turned toward Gunnison Town in Colorado province and began my journey of extermination.
First, I traced the path of the monsters to a father and son pair who had died after being impregnated by them. Seeing their corpses, I lowered my head and mouthed a prayer before I disposed of their bodies with magic. They deserved a proper burial, to be honest, but I didn't have the time to take care of them.
As for the face hugging parasites that had implanted the embryos in them, I completely destroyed them, leaving not even a single trace behind.
I activated the functions in my glasses to track the trails of the xenomorphs, which had traversed the forest and toward the town. I didn't intend to go straight to Gunnison Town – my presence would draw suspicion from the townsfolk. Well, I could pass off as human, but being loaded for bear like I was right now, they would wonder what I was doing there with so many weapons.
I didn't want to be asked too many questions. Not to mention, I would stir a panic if I told everyone about the nature of the creatures that had infested their place. I wouldn't be able to protect anyone if they were busily stampeding about and hampering my work. I could imagine how the monsters would take advantage of the chaos to drag away human hosts while I was doing my best to protect others. Unfortunately, I couldn't be everywhere at once.
No. The best and most effective way to eliminate these monsters was to go straight for their hive, endanger their queen so that she would withdraw all of her drones and praetorians to protect her, and nuke everything in one fell swoop. Not to mention I would find Flynn there, designing himself as the king or rogue.
In order to eliminate Flynn, I couldn't reveal my presence just yet. Popping up in the middle of town, announcing myself and causing such a big commotion – yeah, there was no way Flynn wouldn't notice that.
So I kept a low profile for now and followed the trail all the way to a sewer entrance that opened up in a huge hole by the edge of the town. Normally it would be a place where the homeless would make their homes, but it was unsurprisingly empty.
The xenormorphs' trail had led here, which meant that if there were any homeless people inhabiting this part of the sewer before, they would have been captured, cocooned and used as hosts for the parasitic creatures.
This was not good.
Pushing up my glasses, I scanned the dark interior of the sewer cautiously, looking for any signs of the monsters. As I waded through the ankle-high waters, I looked around, one hand on the hilt of my sword. The deeper I went, the tenser I got – especially when I thought I heard an inhuman cry in the distance.
An alien shriek that I had never heard anywhere before.
Swallowing, I bit my lip and treaded the waters as carefully as I could. It didn't take long before I finally came across the previous inhabitants of the sewers. At least three homeless people had been captured and cocooned into the wall.
Leaning in and inspecting them, I saw that they were all dead. I was too late to save them. The holes in their chests and their faces, frozen in a rictus of horrified expressions were just the most visible indicators.
Shaking my head, I cast a spell and destroyed them, leaving no trace of the resin material that the monsters secreted to build their hive, as well as the corpses of the poor homeless people who had been used as hosts to incubate the parasitic monsters.
I had to avenge them. I could only hope I wasn't too late.
Once I was done with this sector, I ventured deeper into the sewers. My glasses still made nothing out, despite me hearing hissing above and in the sides. My imagination? No, it couldn't be.
There…a shadow darting across one of the side paths. I froze and scanned the tunnel for anything, but nothing showed up on my lenses. No thermal signatures, nothing.
"Maybe they don't show up on infrared at all," I muttered to myself. Fine. Be that way. My smartgun relied on motion-tracking…wait, what? I didn't have a smartgun.
Shaking my head, I continued to sweep the area. I was pretty sure I detected lots of motion here and there, the creatures keeping their distance. There was even one monster supposedly above me, uncoiling as I walked below it. For some reason it didn't drop down on me even though I was ripe for the taking. I got lucky, I guess.
Since the monsters didn't want to attack me yet, I decided to make use of the situation. Reaching for the devices pocketed into my utility harness pouches, I extracted them one by one before throwing a single one at the wall of the sewer.
Resembling a triangular mine or something, it clamped onto the wall through magnetism or some sort of magic and hummed, a series of red lines glowing along the center of its three equilateral ledges.
Turning around another corridor, I threw a second device into the distance and watched as it attached itself to the wall, coming to life with a hum and red light. A third went into another tunnel and I made sure I had covered all angles.
These devices were all confiscated from Miranda's laboratory. I had stolen them, went through their uses and manuals and decided to keep them. I even assigned several dark mages to try and reverse-engineer and reproduce these hi-tech magical devices and weapons because they were pretty useful.
As insane as Miranda was, she was still more than capable of producing some amazing weapons and devices.
Pushing my glasses up my nose, I gave the place one final look before I dropped down into the crevasse in the middle of the sewer, throwing up a huge splash. Sucking in a deep breath, I let out a yell of challenge. My voice echoed across the sewer, bouncing off the walls and sending reverberations throughout the place, which manifested in ripples.
For a moment, there was silence – other than the fading after echoes of my shout, of course. I listened very carefully, still monitoring my surroundings with my enchanted lenses.
Then I heard it. Hissing in the distance.
To my complete lack of surprise, I saw several xenormorphs emerge from crevices and fissures in the sewer walls, or climbing from the three tunnels that led into the center. I narrowed my eyes while calmly casting a spell. With a snap of my fingers, I triggered the triangular devices that I had implanted onto the walls.
With a whir, the traps came to life, emanating a web of laser nets that covered the three corridors that I had seen. Ruby red lines of superheated mana glimmered, forming a deadly barrier that served to trap the creatures in here with me.
The first two lunged at me with bloodcurdling hisses, their claws extended to rip the life out of me.
Immediately, I responded with an ice spell, hurling two gigantic icicles at them. the one closest to me found itself impaled by the icicle, but even though it didn't get killed by my frozen projectile instantly, the momentum behind my attack sent it straight through the laser nets, which sliced through its tough body as easily as a hot knife through butter, sending pieces of the monster flying about.
The second xenomorph dodged my icicle, though, and pounced on me. I was barely able to dodge its lunge and get out of its way before its talons ripped through the air.
Spinning about, I kicked it in the head, sending it crashing into the tainted waters. Conjuring another icicle, I impaled it to the ground. Without waiting for it to thrash its way free, I drew Blood Angel and decapitated it, making sure to stay clear of its acidic blood.
Unfortunately, by now the remaining two xenomorphs had closed in on me and I wasn't able to do much except dive to the side before they could rip off my head…