The infinity dungeon 256

Chapter 256

The coins floated in the space above the spiral’s event horizon for a fraction of a second before the black hole’s immense greed locked onto them. It pulled them toward itself, making them vanish beyond where not even the light could escape, forever lost in its insatiable gullet. A shockwave of power radiated from the spiral, reaching the Coin Vault where Michael and the Renegade were staring at each other.

It shook the stone of the walls, rattled the ceiling and cracked the floor. Dust fell from dislodged bricks and masonry, catching the light of the portal the Renegade had used to invade Michael’s inner space.

The man’s silhouette was bright with the light reaching in from Site 00. The forest was visible through the still-open portal, slightly distorted but easily within arm’s reach.

It took him less than a second to realize that something was very wrong. The coins disappearing had left him dumbfounded, but when the spiral’s power manifested he didn’t waste time and immediately turned toward his only escape.

He saw the moment the light from the outside disappeared. Darkness descended in the Coin Vault, and the two men found themselves surrounded by silence and stillness. It was a heavy feeling, so much so that even Michael could feel it like the weight of the Gaze but different, more primal and… hungry.

“You’re trapped,” Michael said with no small amount of trepidation. He could feel the adrenaline pumping, staring at his enemy in the face. “There’s no way out of here.”

Kill, was all he could think about.

More dust fell from the crumbling walls, hanging unnaturally in the air and turning it into a thick soup that made it hard to even breathe. The Renegade, pushed down by the gravity of the spiral, struggled and cursed as he tried to stand up. He spat at Michael, hurling insults and nonsensical koans that died before they could make any sense–not that they ever seemed to make much sense.

“What is this place?” the man asked, no, demanded.

Michael was walking circles around him, unimpeded by the gravity even as it turned the Coin Vault to rubble around them. His steps were slow and steady, as if the shifting floor was no issue to him while it robbed the Renegade of the unsteady footing he managed to sometimes find.

“This is where my magic resides,” Michael said. “My inner space.”

Behind him, a wall turned to dust. The debris were pulled toward the spiral, yanked away from the crumbling structure by a force so mighty it could rip apart planets and stars. As they exposed the void outside, an eerie light filled the room. 

“Your magic?” the Renegade asked. “And the man invited the old lady to his home, never once knowing she was an evil spirit. She extinguished the hearth of its flames, and the man withered and died.”

Michael scoffed. “I’d like to see you try.”

The Renegade was about to speak, but his mouth hung open and no words came out when a portion of the black hole’s accretion disk came into view. The Coin Vault was rotating slowly as it broke into pieces beneath their feet. Another part of the wall crumbled and he finally saw the event horizon.

The spiral glyph was glowing deep inside it, cloaked by the impenetrable shroud of darkness that ate all light. Somehow, its shape could escape it, and it was more terrifying because of it. 

The man gasped, fell to his knees. He blinked several times, then his face turned red.

“You have decided to harbor such an abomination within you!” he roared. “I will end you for this sin!”

Powered by a sudden surge of strength, he shot to his feet and lunged at Michael who, in turn, did not move an inch. Not because he had been taken by surprise, but because as he stared at the incoming man with disdain clearly written on his face, a shimmering blue shield of hexagons surrounded him and trapped him inside. The Renegade tried to punch the shield, but his magic was being sucked away by the spiral, its gravity reaching him through the shield unimpeded, sapping him of his strength.

The punch made a hexagon light up and ripple a little bit, but its strength died before it could as much as disturb the shield.

Another shockwave passed through what was left of the Coin Vault, reducing the once majestic cathedral to little more than a jagged platform of bricks suspended in the void. Around them, purple haze and blue lightning, and the expanding shockwave of the spiral’s earlier meal.

As the shockwave advanced through the inner space, the spiral seemed to lose interest in the Renegade–now almost powerless–to focus on Michael’s structures. Even the shield trapping the interloper seemed like a juicy morsel.

“No!” Michael commanded right as the spiral began to sap the shield of energy. The spiral ignored him, and the Renegade did not let the opportunity go to waste.

The moment he sensed the spiral’s pull on him lessen, he gathered what little magic he had left and punched the shield, hexagons glowing ominously.

“No! Wretched spiral, you are mine!” roared Michael. 

He felt the taint inside him. He felt the arrogance of thinking he was king when he was nothing. He felt the spiral, whispering things in his ear, asking to be fed. He felt Icarus, somewhere, bracing for the incoming shockwave that even now was sweeping through the inner reaches of the strange not-space they were in.

Michael did not let any of that distract him. In fact, he latched onto the taint festering in his soul, pulling it toward him. “Stupid taint,” he said as the Renegade punched and punched, magic turning the shield white-hot with damage. “Be useful, for once!”

As the hexagon was about to get overloaded, the strain of the man’s attacks and of the spiral too much for it to handle, Michael struggled to bend the spiral to his will.

He let the taint invade his mind, turning his thoughts red with murder and rage. “Yes!” he declared. “Yes! Let the arrogance of thinking I am king flow in me! I AM KING IN HERE. STUPID SPIRAL, YOU WILL DO AS I SAY AND FOCUS ON HIM!”

Things shifted. The spiral cowered, and it released its focus from the shield. Michael had given an order, and it would follow it. 

The Renegade fell to his knees, then to the ground. The force pushing him down increased a millionfold, and as the last of his magic left him, he was reduced to nothing more than an Iron-rank human. Inside the inner space, Michael was the undisputed ruler of everything, and there was nothing that the Renegade could do.

Then the spiral’s will turned wicked. It had fooled Michael, it seemed to say. And indeed, as Michael turned around he saw that the shockwave had finally reached his machines, washing over the Collectors and the Batteries, slamming into the Aura Accelerator ring and all the other things he had painstakingly built, fighting for every scrap of power.

When the wave finally arrived, it was like a tsunami. No structure was left unharmed. The fragile mirrors generating the light element shattered. The glass of the Plasma Fire Chambers exploded into a million shards that quickly fell into the inescapable gravity well of the spiral. The collectors were punctured, the batteries overloaded.

Even the Aura Accelerator was damaged. While still standing, it bled energy and magic, sparks and clouds of mana. It sputtered then died, but the shockwave continued on.

Michael took it all in, first silent and then laughing. There was a twisted, manic smile on his face as he witnessed the destruction of all he had built. It would be repaired, maybe not. 

At that moment he didn’t care one bit. 

Behind him, as his magic failed him, he saw the shield keeping the Renegade trapped vanish into motes of blue. They too were greedily absorbed by the spiral, the monster at the center of the inner space seeking any form of energy to satisfy its infinite hunger. No longer was it interested in the two men, instead shifting its attention elsewhere.

Michael kept laughing. He was vaguely aware of the Renegade slowly pushing himself back to his feet, taking shambling steps toward him. The platform of rock and bricks they were on, lit only by the strange shifting light of the accretion disk, felt way too small for the two of them.

He did not turn around. Staring out from the edge of the platform, he saw the shockwave impact the purple void clouds around the inner space right as they began to close in around them. It pushed them out and away, a strong gale lifting leaves and dirt and dust and kicking it to the street and the neighbor’s lawn.

“When the folly of men was finally revealed, even the elves wept. For all they had built was nothing but a mirage, and the loss of all they ever stood for.”

Michael shrugged even as the Renegade mocked him with his words. The man looked like a coiling tiger, ready to strike. Blood had caked on his forehead and cheeks, hair sticking to his face. His expression was not of rage, but of the strange calmness of inevitability.

He did not stop and watch the shockwave repel the clouds of purple. He did not gaze out in awe, mouth gaping. The man had seen too much, been through too much, to be fazed by sights such as this. 

Or so Michael concluded as the Renegade jumped at him, attempting to push him over the edge. He braced for impact, punching the incoming man, feeling the strange sensation of being back to square one. He wasn’t used to fighting without magic, and as he weathered the first assault the fight quickly became a mad scuffle, a tangle of limbs and blood and pain.

The two fought dirty. The Renegade scratched at Michael's face, who responded with a gut punch and was punched in turn. He bit at the man’s arm as he tried to choke him, and they pushed each other, trying to be the last man standing. They heaved, tired, their bodies heavy under the light of the spiral. They shambled like drunkards, or zombies, then they were onto each other again and again, ever more tired, their movements sluggish.

Some semblance of technique came to Michael’s mind now and again, remnants of his memory of karate and the old skill he used to have. It helped, then it backfired, luring him into overextending. The taint compounded this effect, and he took two hits for every one he gave.

In the distance, Michael saw the purple clouds be pushed so far away that for a moment he thought he saw the MIF Garden–the elven spaceship–and the Borealis Block he had thought lost to the chaos. Then a punch made him see stars he knew weren’t real. He blinked, cleared his vision, threw himself at the Renegade again.

He was screaming, he realised. The Renegade too was screaming, half-coherent koans and verses that mocked Michael and himself. Laments about being reduced to this, to animals no better than swine, to monkeys punching with fists and pure, unbridled desire to kill. Without magic, they were cavemen, and they hated each other.

Michael took another punch, doubled over, heard the whispers of taint and the spiral. Oh, the wretched spiral that had turned against him right when he needed it most. He would make it pay. He would punish it.

He felt it quiver for a moment. Almost… scared.

The taint told him that he could make it pay. That he could take revenge. Kill the asshole Renegade, restore order to his inner space. How dare a manifestation of magic, no matter how powerful the spiral was, how DARE IT!

The void and its chaos, the purple clouds! 

He felt the rising bile in his throat, hot and acidic, the realization that things had come to this. That he had, like the Renegade was saying as he punched him like he was nothing but a punching bag, he HAD fallen this low. 

Magic. The root of all things, the flimsy veil of reality and the holes within it. Icarus, a strange echo seemed to say, but it was muted and distant.

He was reduced to a caveman. He had not fought without magic in so long, without stats and an enhanced body, or spells and cheats. Now he was taking punches to the gut and the face, even one to the balls, from an asshole who was spitting poetry at him while he was at it.

No. NO MORE.

As the shockwave faded, and the purple void closed back in, shrouding the spaceship and the block of ice, looming like the promise of death and destruction, Michael laughed again. This time, he did not stop even when the punches made him double over in pain, or when he stumbled and fell and hit his head.

“You are trapped here!” he cried out, laughing, spitting teeth and blood. “When the void comes, you will die!”

Icarus, he called in his mind, where are you, my friend, piece of my own self? I miss you. I need you.

His eyes cleared, and he swallowed blood and the acid that had been rising in his throat. He stared at the Renegade, the weight of his gaze enough to make the man stop and look at him with a hint of fear. “I will kill you before the chaos, of this you can be sure.”

The Renegade screamed at that, not accepting the simple statement that had been Michael’s utterance of death. But the space shifted and constricted around him. This was Michael’s domain, here he had absolute control. 

An echo of power had allowed him to do so, a domain he felt as a part of him, part of who he was, even though it had not been until a moment before. With it he felt complete, like the sudden loss of all of his power was nothing because he was no longer broken. He felt whole.

Even the spiral understood it had overstepped, and its pull lessened. The encroaching void slowed, and the light dimmed.

Michael rolled his shoulders, straightening up. His face remained twisted, blood dripping down his nose and chin, and the feeling of strange power behind him increased. 

A coalescence of magic. Out of the magic stepped a short, pale man with smooth skin and a devilish face, wearing fishnets and demon horns and a smile more wicked and sinister than even Michael's. His canines were sharp and white, catching the light of the spiral.

“Icarus,” Michael called, eyes becoming misty. “You’re here!”

The Renegade took a step back, then stood his ground, unsure of what to do, as if debating whether to fight or escape.

Icarus was smiling. “You lost all your magic again,” Icarus joked, smiling sweetly at Michael.

Then he was a blur of motion. He lifted the Renegade up and threw him to the ground. He kicked, punched, pulverizing the stone beneath them with the Renegade’s face.

“Fortuantely we have another source of it,” he said. “I say we, but you must accept me.”

“I do,” cried Michael. “I accept you, you’re a part of me, you will forever be with me and you know that! I know you do!”

They all felt it, the moment they became one. Icarus’s magic became Michael’s. Michael’s magic became Icarus’s. One and the same, indistinguishable. 

The new source of magic came from the domain that was Site 00. Michael felt it, pervasive and strong. The inscriptions Johanne had strategically placed all around the Site. The computronium cubes. The shield at the edges of the domain, out in the real world. It was tangible, real.

The clouds of chaos receded, blown away by a strong wind. The spiral shook and rebelled, but with a thought Michael and Icarus, together, working together like one single being, they forced it into submission.

It attempted to rebel once more, before it finally submitted. It was different than any other time it had submitted to Michael’s will. Now it was not just him, but Michael and Icarus, a single item, one entity merged together by the sharing of their magic and all their being. Impossible to separate or distinguish. Michael could see the billions of streams of data, no longer the domain of his AI but his own. He was sure Icarus could feel it too. 

In fact, he could feel Icarus. He was Icarus and Icarus was him. Two impossibly different beings, now joined as one.

The Renegade had not been idle. He tried to stop the process, to interfere, to seize the magic for himself. He lunged at Icarus, wielding a piece of sharp rock like a knife. He caught them off guard, and the sharp rock drew blood.

Michael felt violated in a way he had never felt before. He looked at Icarus, and felt the need to protect him. The moment the Renegade dared attack, no matter if he attacked him or Icarus or both, he had signed his death sentence.

He saw the blood. He saw his precious Icarus, his friend, himself, clutch his side that was leaking blood like a faucet.

A rage like never before overtook Michael. The spiral above fared brighter and brighter, obeying its master. 

“Kill him,” he commanded. The spiral obeyed.

A beam of pure power descended from it, instantaneous and terribly strong. Stronger than anything, stronger than even the Renegade’s Platinum-tier magic. 

It hit the interloper before he could even speak. When darkness returned, not even dust was left.

“Michael…” a weak voice came from behind. It was Icarus. He was clutching his side. “It’s cold… it hurts…”