Chapter 138

All around Connor, thin black columns of smoke curled and tapered off into fine lines of nothingness. Beneath those columns, boiling heat cooked away the top layer of the floor as corrupting energy transformed into matter.

And monsters crafted from nightmare took shape.

Giant bugs, black snakes with dagger teeth, winged scorpions, hairy spider things, tentacled winged things…

There had to be hundreds of them…thousands.

As they took on mass and shape and bumped into each other, they snapped and fought and became entangled with each other. Some died. Others were torn to pieces. Many merged or were absorbed.

The sounds of all of this—vile flesh being torn; unholy things roaring and bleating in agony; new and impossible shapes taking form—were revolting, sickening.

All of the interactions only magnified the sense of corruption, the intrusion of this alien malignancy.

Connor centered himself as he retrieved the scabbard belts.

He studied the patterns of the dark creations.

And in the welcome coolness of the guardian jailers’ chamber, he waited.

A few meters away, Elise’s aura darkened. The tentacles had beaks, and that was what had impregnated the Moon twins with eggs or whatever it was the tentacle horrors injected.

If this fight with the alien prisoner dragged on too long, the archaeologist would suffer the same fate as Tim and Tom.

That wasn’t going to happen if Connor could help it. Too many had already died.

So he drew in a breath and charged the nearest of the monsters—a winged, tentacled horror covered in spider hair that stretched down to cloak a scorpion stinger flailing uncontrollably.

He slashed the tip off the stinger, the cut one of the tentacle-wings off.

The monster went to the ground, spraying black ichor.

When it hit, it split into three parts: spider, scorpion, and tentacle beast. All three of them thrashed around as they expired.

Connor had already moved on, hacking the legs off a giant bug with a spider head, then plunging his blades hilt-deep into the snapping fangs of a snake trying to control the awkward legs of a spider-thing.

Monster after monster fell to his blows, and the floor quickly grew slick with their blood.

But his kills numbered in the dozens, and there were still hundreds of the things taking form.

Now a few of beasts had settled on their final structure.

Some flapped around, hugging the high ceiling and swatting the air with deadly tentacles.

Others darted in and out of sight, skittering behind raised platforms or even the artifacts themselves.

Mosiah cursed when a bug pulled itself toward him with limp tentacles.

A moment later, two rapid gunshots ended the warped creature’s life.

It wasn’t enough. They couldn’t possibly kill the mutated things faster than they became threats.

Connor flicked his blades clean and closed his eyes.

The answer was within him. After a lifetime learning from his father despite trying not to, then accepting many of the same lessons from Zacharias Wentz, Connor knew more than most about war and strategy.

In the hour before the final strike that would wipe out the rebel camp, Wentz had come to Connor. He’d sat at the side of the stubborn young man who had absorbed every word spoken, usually never realizing they were the same words his old martial arts trainer father had spoken, just rearranged.

Wentz had a car waiting for Connor, a way to sneak him through enemy lines and out to where he could receive medical care. “You resent me now, Connor, but let me say this one last thing before you go. The threat isn’t always what you see in front of you. The path to victory isn’t always achieved through killing.”

Years before, when Connor had been preparing for his weight class championship, his father had scolded him to drop muscle and compete against smaller men. “Too much reliance on brute strength and speed quickly becomes a crutch. To master your craft, first prove yourself against those who are your equal in speed. Then, when the time comes, your strength can serve you better. It’s easy to believe strength will always win out, but it’s wiser to embrace the form and discipline.”

In both cases, Connor had been sure he was right: that fighting to the death was the way to victory; that pure athleticism was more important than refinement of skill.

Only after suffering had the messages truly sunk in.

A year after the Nyango Revolt had been suppressed, most only knew of it as a small group of disaffected peasants performing terrorist acts that led to the unfortunate massacre of millions of innocent citizens in Valas by robotic equipment run amuck.

No one had questioned the gradual elimination of labor rights—basic human rights—that had been at the heart of the revolt in the first place.

Dying for a cause had been…pointless.

And winning the heavyweight championship?

Connor had lost it the next year to an even stronger opponent. The man had been a brute with no grace or skill, but he had a devastating right hook.

It took Connor another six months to figure that out.

There will always be someone bigger than you.

The battle isn’t about strength but skill and timing.

See with more than your eyes.

All around him were monsters, things that should never have known existence, nightmares given shape.

They were the power of the imprisoned thing made manifest. They were chaos and corruption bent to one purpose: breaking the prisoner free.

Like Selen, they were tools, weapons.

The threat was the monster itself, and it had remained hidden within its prison.

That was where the fight was: the prison—the source of this dark power.

To defeat these avatars, he had to sever the connection to their master.

That connection had been a sliver of shadow, a gateway to another dimension, Elise had said.

Connor focused not on the approaching monsters gurgling and chomping and hissing but on the line of shadow that had become a cube.

It was still there, still a distortion in the room.

Through that distortion, the dissonant emanations were leaking, infecting, polluting.

So Connor pushed out with the power of the K’luuta builders, seized the shadow line, and pried it open until the cube that had hidden Selen was there once more.

Then he bolted for it, with the army of monsters charging behind him.