The infinity dungeon 252

Author note: man, I can't wait to release chapter 261. That's going to be a huge bombshell for y'all.

Chapter 252

Keeping an eye on the Renegade’s incoming teleportation while doing other things was easy, at least in the inner space, where neither Michael nor Icarus needed to physically be in the control room to access the data feed.

“Okay,” Michael said. “This time I'm going to give the Renegade a good old ass whooping.”

“Pride comes before a fall,” Icarus said.

Michael snorted. “Does it? Watch this.”

He led the way, Icarus following behind. The AI had chosen to wear cat ears today, and even though he was a hologram who could control his body, he had still chosen to wear the fake kind with a thin band of metal holding the ears up. 

Michael had decided not to ask.

“Is this the elven token of gratitude?” he asked when they arrived.

“Yep,” Michael said smugly.

Icarus looked at the black lump of rock. It was big, but… “It doesn’t look like much.”

Michael shook his head. “Told you to watch this. Now watch.”

Pulling deeply from the batteries, and even from the Coin Vault, Michael used his magic to coat the asteroid. Icarus squinted. He could tell what Michael was doing.

When the magic was suddenly released, the asteroid shot toward the black hole’s accretion disk faster than the speed of light–a feat only made possible by the lack of actual physical laws in the inner space. It reached the black hole in seconds, hitting the debris orbiting the event horizon and igniting in a spectacular nova of flame. For several minutes, the accretion disk was streaked with blinding white that slowly dispersed and spread out to the rest of the disk.

“Now check the collectors’ outputs,” Michael said, smug smile still in place.

“Oh,” Icarus mumbled, lacking the proper words.

The brightness had gone up by fifty percent, increasing the output of all the collectors. From not even scratching 0.30 silver per second of mana regeneration, Michael's capacity had suddenly shot up to almost 0.45.

When the shock wore out, worry took its place. Icarus glanced at the data feed, where the Qi had almost formed into the shape of the incoming Renegade.

“What makes you think this will be enough, though?”

Michael cocked his head. Icarus followed where he was looking, and finally saw it. 

“The aura,” he said. “The chaos has been pushed back some more. Do you think–”

“Not without the shield,” Michael said. “Which is why I need you to be my active meditator. Pull a few platinum coins from the Vault and keep the shield around the space active at all times.”

“You are going to use the spiral.”

“You’re goddamn right I am.”

Icarus breathed. This was the first big task that had to do with magic that he had been given ever since he started falling behind in terms of magical abilities. He could see the confidence in Michael's eyes, and for a moment he wondered whether perhaps the taint was also doing some good to his dear Michael, if perhaps it was bringing out some boldness that all the recent setbacks and losses had suppressed. If perhaps, it would allow him to extend more trust to his allies, like he had just done with him. Trust, as demanded by the first pillar, by the First Embrace.

He nodded, and no words were needed between the two. He was given control of the Vault and its shield and its contents, so he set to work. As Michael prepared himself to use the spiral, he extracted the platinum coins. He took more than he reasonably thought would be needed, spread them out at even places around the shield ring, and activated it.

The shield grew up and down, hexagons forming in all their brilliant radiance, shimmering blue and white. The purple chaos disappeared behind the wonderful light show, a hidden danger banished by the light of civilization and progress.

“I am ready,” he said.

Michael nodded. “If I manage to hit him, you will have to allow the energy I steal from him through the shield. You can do that?”

“I think I can.”

“Good. Let's do it.”

When Michael appeared in the surface world, he had already prepared the necessary mental steps to perform a teleport. The execution of the spell was flawless, its speed the fastest he could be without it being a proper skill.

It wasn’t fast enough. He saw the moment when the Renegade aborted his own teleportation.

He flared the spiral, gravity increasing a millionfold. Trees were uprooted, dirt and stone and debris flying to him. The storm above seemed to descend upon the earth. The inner space was bombarded with physical matter, which was all stashed away for construction. The chaos flooded in, pulled by the gravity and hitting the shield, making it flare so bright it was almost blinding. 

Brighter than even the accretion disk itself, the shield did not deplete the batteries. Instead, it pulled energy directly from the platinum coins, with Icarus performing the function of a relay that manually sent magic to it.

For a moment, the world stood still. The AI that had quietly taken over the world was busy doing something else. A secondary, less smart Icarus originally built to give to whichever military asked for a piece of the groundbreaking AI kicked in–Daedalus–and everything resumed as normal.

As for the Qi, the big flood they had prepared for did not come. When the Renegade aborted his teleportation, faster than Michael had ever seen the man do, all that was left on his side of the spell was a small handful of particles. They entered the inner space, moving like fluid that splashed and sloshed around the various machines.

“What should we do with it?” asked Icarus.

“Give it to the spiral. It clearly wants it.”

Right on cue, the spiral flared and drew the Qi toward the event horizon. The Qi tried to resist, using what was left of the Renegade’s will, but its most valiant efforts were trumped in seconds.

As it vanished, Michael groaned. “Intent.”

“What’s that?”

“He used Intent. That’s how he managed to be so quick. So we made him waste Intent, but he’s escaped once again.” 

Instead of throwing a fit, or getting angry, Michael simply shrugged. “Next time,” he said. “Or the next next. I am growing stronger all the time, he’s getting weaker. In fact...”

He suddenly took to the skies. “Shield up!”

Icarus complied. Flaring the spiral, Michael opened his arms. “Get ready.”

Icarus took position in the control room. “Ready.”

Michael, perhaps for the first time ever, finally let loose the full power of the spiral. “The storm,” he muttered, talking to it. “You can go to town with it, but only the storm.”

Eager, the spiral pulled. The storm began to shrink, flowing toward Michael in a vortex with him at the eye, like water flowing down a drain. He could see it shrink in real time, tracking it from the satellites in space, until all was left were clear skies.

He let the sun warm his face. It was late September, and now that there was no storm, the air was returning to its normal range of temperatures.

Then, he picked up the incoming phone call. “David!”

“Did you just obliterate the storm?”

Travis also added himself to the call. “What did you do?”

David snorted. “I was just asking him about that.”

“Overwhelming power,” Michael said simply. “I just solved a problem, aren’t you happy?”

“Happy?” roared Travis. “How am I going to explain this–”

David cut him off. “Your problem, infiltration man.” Turning to Michael, he smiled. “Good one, Mike. By the way, I should have some more materials for you soon. I know I haven't been very present these last few days, but I have been busy with merging Vanguard with the Candle Light division, and developing the various projects that are springing up from your clean up sites. Ah, and there should be a surprise as well. It should be ready soon, right Travis?”

“I will be the one presenting it to him,” the man said. “You lost at rock paper scissors.”

“Fair enough,” David said, surprising Michael with how well he got along with Travis now. Perhaps because the man was powering up, facing his fears, earning David’s respect. 

“I’ll be out, then.”

As the call ended, Michael shook his head. The warm light of the sun, coupled with the recent wins, had lifted his mood considerably. The phone call and witnessing the friendly banter between Travis and David had been the cherry on top.

He looked up, at the blue vault of the sky. There were no clouds, and with the aid of some mana he thought he could see a couple of stars even in full daylight.

Another layer shield appeared around him, surrounding his body completely. Then several others. He took a deep breath, eyes closed, and when he opened them back again, there was determination and just a hint of fear in them.

“Taint?” he muttered. “I don’t know what knock-off brand the dungeon gave me this time, Icarus.”

“Are you about to do what I think you are about to do?”

“I am.”

“Then, perhaps, it’s liquid courage?”

“That would be alcohol.” Michael said. “Alright, we are going up. You’re the Vault master now, keep those platinums at the ready. I might be under liquid courage, but it’s space we are talking about.”