The infinity dungeon 249

Chapter 249

This time, the chaos spilled in. There was no moment of temporary peace, no eye of the storm, no delay before the rush of things happening too quick for the mind to properly process overwhelmed Michael.

He saw a spiderweb of cracks expand to what was left of the undamaged sections of the boundary. He got a glimpse of a terrible wave of void, like roiling clouds of purple and magenta vapor spilling in.

It was almost faster than he could fly. The ship, responsible for the damage, had been barely visible for a moment, a beacon of blue light amidst the purple cloud, before it disappeared again.

Michael immediately turned to flee, flying toward the center of his inner space, burning magical coins to fuel his mad rush. His heart was in his throat, beating, and he dared not look back at the incoming wave of destruction. 

“I lost contact with the Flagship," Icarus said. “Michael, run!”

He was running, but the chaos was closing in. He absorbed more coins, taking their energy for himself, not even noticing that it wasn’t coming from the boundary anymore. There was no boundary. His mind imagined the Flagship, swallowed by the void, buffeted by tall waves of chaos, its shield slowly depleting. Soon, it would flicker out and fail, dooming the ship to destruction.

The Accelerator ring came into sight, a thin band slowly growing thicker. It looked so far away. Next to it, a second band of blue gave Michael faint hope. Maybe, maybe he could burn coins and turn on the big shield, buy himself some time.

He flew, faster than ever. Seconds crawled by, stretching into infinity, the vastness of the inner space now an enemy to overcome because the wave of purple chaos was right behind him, and the faint hope of salvation of the shield ring was so far away.

Then he was there.

Michael stopped, realizing that there was nothing to be gained from going deeper toward the black hole. His machines were all here, small dots before the coming giant. The void cloud was everywhere, a purple sandstorm wall, encroaching from all directions, infinitely vast. It roiled with cyan thunder, temporarily lighting its dark depths, before any light was swallowed up again by the chaos itself.

Michael realized that he had been staring, mouth open, strangely ensnared by the sight of the chaotic void. He shook himself awake, returning to the present, panic once again setting in. Icarus's voice was a droning sound in his ears, words he could not make out nor parse. This was it, the destruction of all he had worked so hard for. It would fall into the black hole, then something awful would happen, he was sure of it.

He was not going to let it. Not without a fight. 

In his panic, Michael absorbed all of the mana coins he had left at once. The energy slammed into him, and he directed it toward the shield projector ring, its shiny blue becoming a blinding white. The shield manifested, growing like liquid from the ring, rising fast, faster than even the hexagon shapes could manifest. Crisscrossing lines followed, now the hexagons formed, and then the shield was complete.

Moments later, the void washed over it like a tidal wave. The shield brightened, billions of white dots where it made contact with whatever particles the chaos void was made of.

“Michael, the black hole!”

He turned around, eyes bloodshot. Behind him, the storm was pounding against the shield and he thought he could hear its droning sound. Then he saw what Icarus was talking about. 

He cursed, cursed himself and his panic. He flew, faster and faster, trying to intercept the wild magic that had escaped his grasp when he had absorbed all the coins. All the energies of several dozen gold coins were falling into the black hole, save for their mana, because in his rush to act Michael had forgotten that the shield only took mana in its current iteration. The rest had been ignored, and the spiral had sensed it, and had wanted it.

The flow of energies stretched like a comet falling into the sun. The black hole was hungry, pulling faster and faster. Michael tried to control it, pulling energy from the rich dungeon air of the sixth floor. Except, this time the energy did not rush to him. Coins materialized in the inner space beside his floating consciousness, then they too began to fall. He pulled from them, unraveling them, taking their energies.

It only added to the mess that was happening. He struggled, and failed.

The moment the stream of energy touched the black hole’s event horizon, Michael felt the spiral flare all of its tremendous power. It pulsed, and the stream of energy vanished all at once, not even giving Michael a chance to fight a tug of war he knew he would have lost. It just disappeared in a moment, no fanfare, leaving nothing behind.

He knew he had lost when the spiral shone even through the impassable blackness of the black hole. Then the pulse of energy came, the expansion wave that always brought change in the inner space. It utterly destroyed the Plasma Fire Chamber and the Pure Light Mirror, but Michael had worse problems to deal with.

He rushed back to the shield, ahead of the wave, then stopped.

What could he even do?

He simply stood there, watching in stunned stillness. There was nothing he could do.

The expansion wave approached, closer and closer. It washed over the Accelerator ring, then reached the shield.

Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, then two. Michael was about to sigh in relief, but then he saw it. The shield had trapped the wave inside, and was now bulging outward, unable to contain it. It even pushed the void back as the pressure built up and up and up.

Michael realized that he was laughing. Cackling, manic fits of spasming laughter mixed with tears. How ironic this twist was, he thought, and it was all he could think. The shield around Site 00 had done the same, triggering the mana storm that even now was a constant source of headaches. 

And he had gone and done the same.

He was done laughing, only the leftover spasms and rushes of random neurotransmitters left, when the shield gave out. It bulged out one last time, then broke, its hexagons drifting away and vanishing in the dark purple night of the void.

Michael stared, motionless. Utterly still, a marble statue.

A minute passed. Then two.

Slowly, he regained his ability to think, and move. As his hand twitched, he suddenly realized that he was still alive, still kicking, and the shock that this realization sent through his system was enough to jolt him to full awareness.

The void had not moved. It was still there, held at bay by some invisible force, even with no shield to keep it out. It was closer than it had been, but not by much, in the grand scheme of things.

Michael was wary of getting anywhere near the void, but the more he stared, the more he felt it. The call. He had to know. He had to see for himself. 

He flew to the Accelerator ring, seeing the shield projector ring just outside of it. Mere inches away was the chaos, a solid wall of roiling clouds and silent thunder. It swirled and whirled and churned like a stormy sea, but it was like he was looking at it through transparent glass.

The Aura Accelerator ring glowed gold. In his panic, Michael had cranked up the aura it could generate to maximum.

“Try lowering it a little bit,” Icarus said. His voice was quiet, cautious, almost reverent but also filled with curiosity.

Michael did, going through the motions with a strange numbness that told him he was still processing whatever the fuck had just happened. As the Accelerator wound down a little bit, he saw the void close in like a shy mouse testing for traps. The scare it gave him made him restore the full aura, and it was like a strong wind blowing the chaos back where it had settled before, back at its furthest distance from the rings.

“It’s the aura,” he muttered after a long time spent pondering.

Then the call of the void was back. What would happen if he stuck a finger in the void, what if he lowered his aura gradually, to see how far the void would come? What if the void touched the rings? What would happen then?

He shook his head, banishing those thoughts. He had been arrogant enough today, and he was under no illusion that he had things under control.

In fact. “Before I do anything, anything else, I want the shield back and powered.”

Icarus did not argue. Michael could see why: the AI was staring at the void with the same transfixed expression as he was.

“Yes,” Icarus said instead, not tearing his eyes away from the purple clouds. “Shield. Good idea. More than one shield. You said five? Let’s do ten. Then, only then, can we start experimenting.”

Michael nodded. “We are on the same page, then.”

“But do it on the surface,” Icarus said. “In fact, you should go there immediately. I am detecting a Qi teleportation coming in.”

Michael’s eyes widened. He left the inner space in a hurry, literally threw himself toward the exit, left the dungeon and took to the skies. The Qi dissipated, the incoming teleportation canceled, but his nerves remained frayed. Perhaps this was the game the Renegade was playing.