Kaius left his team behind, watching his back anxiously as he waded deep into the fires of mana irradiated from the mana core. He licked his lips, feeling the energy prickle on his tongue. It was like walking through the deepest depths of a storm, a latent charge that threatened to strike at any moment.

  Yet for all its violence, he wasn’t worried. Not one bit. If there was anything he was well suited for, it was this task. It wasn’t just his resistance; it was his mentality, his familiarity with discomfort and pain.

  When he’d unlocked the system, his first two years had been filled with torturous agony as he clawed together the components for his first and most valuable skill. Two years of subsisting on poison and diseased meat. Two years of sickness and fire, of crushing earth and the all-consuming suffocation of water. He still remembered the dozens of needles stuck into his chest for days at a time, each threading minute amounts of void and aether mana through his body as blood and bone simply dissolved in its path.

  He’d done that with only twenty Willpower. Hells, he’d started the process with none. Compared to then, his flesh was steel and his mind was adamant.

  Besides, this was Arcane. Not only did he already have a resistance to it, a gift he had stolen from his first brush with a Centurion, but it was a flavour of mana that was intimately familiar to him. He used it every day, bound it into his glyphs, and fuelled his Mystic Rend. He was an old hand to its burning touch, and even throwing himself into the pyre, he did not shy away.

  Besides, forcing Rapid Adaption to work so heavily sounded like a damned good opportunity to potentially break through with the skill. He smiled, taking another step, and felt the burn heighten as arcane finally started to seep through his skin. For anyone else, it would have long since happened, but even with this superficial resistance he could not bar the energy’s entry forever.

  As the mana coursed through his system, it attacked him from the outside in. For now, the damage was minor, but it would grow. At least, it would have.

  Rapid Adaption roared into being within him, surging to wakefulness as it forced back and dampened the influx of arcane. Kaius breathed deep, revelling in the purifying burn that soaked into his lungs. Nodding with satisfaction, he continued his approach.

  Step by step, the weight of the energy grew ever heavier. It soaked through his armour, permeating every physical defence he had. At first, it was simple pain; then the caustic power radiating from the pool at the room’s centre sank its rabid fangs into his flesh.

  Skin cracked and broke, a spiderweb of jagged pain that stretched across every crevice of his body. His health bar roared into being. With the advantages of Greater Regeneration, his recovery easily kept pace with the damage. Hells, with his resistance, he was barely even dipping into his health pool, his healing efficient enough to subsist largely off his regeneration.

  That only lasted for another ten steps. Then the pull deepened, and Kaius felt his health shrink hair by hair. Not so fast that he had to rush, but still something to be wary of.

  Nor did health prevent the damage from occurring in the first place. His boots grew sticky and hot as his tunic clung to his chest, constant weeping drips of blood staining him from the inside out. Kaius breathed stoically. It was merely pain, an old hound he was long used to bringing to heel.

  Besides, he could feel Porkchop right there with him, the bond strong. His brother watched on with pride, a supporting presence at his back, and urged him forwards.

  Kaius arrived by the pool, gasping. Every breath sent jagged shards ripping through his throat and lungs. His eyes stung, just as susceptible to the arcane energy as the rest of him and filled with blood besides, yet the magic of his Truesight worked hard to bring him the clarity of vision he needed.

  Right at its edge, the sapphire pool that contained the central core of the Imperial ruin was even more visible. More beautiful. Never before had he seen such a rich colour, like a liquefied gem polished to a sheen. It seemed to soak up and radiate all the mana that entered it, spreading it evenly so that the stacked towers of crystal wafers within were saturated in an even density.

  Some necessary function for the reactor to work, perhaps.

  The thought gave Kaius pause. Why would a mana source need to be surrounded by its own product in such an even way? Whatever the liquid was, producing it with alchemy couldn’t have been easy, and with the monumental volume of the stuff, it wouldn’t have been done unless it was vitally important.

  He shook his head. Regardless of why, it was clear that the stacked wafers were the source of the mana in the room. It surged up from the base of the pool, so deep that even with the illumination of arcane and the perfect crystalline clarity of the fluid, he couldn’t make out the bottom. Like smoking chimneys, the stacked wafers reached out of those depths, climbing toward the sky.

  Kaius frowned, crouching down at the edge of the pool as he stared at the wafers more closely. This close, he could see that there was something inscribed across the entire surface of those blocky pillars. He could tell from the bare edges of each wafer, yet the vast majority of their surface was cloudy.

  Runes, they had to be. But even with the full weight of his Truesight, he couldn’t make them out. Just how far had the Eternal Empire progressed their craft? He couldn’t even fathom the level of fine control it would take to inscribe the physical formation that finely, not to mention the sheer surface area of the stacked wafers.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Had they spent centuries on each core? Or had runic expertise been so great that hundreds of master runewrights could could cooperate and dedicate themselves to a single project for years?

  Regardless of its construction, he realised what the stakes were. In many ways, the image of chimneys that had come to his mind was surprisingly apt. They were filtering away excess mana. He was sure of it. He could see it — the power slipping out from the cracks between wafers.

  Surface area was maximised to increase contact with the fluid around them. He could see it. So too did that explain the purpose of the pool itself; it was simply speeding up the rate at which this excess venting could be expelled.

  Kaius stood up and grinned. Regardless, it gave him a solution to their problem.

  If the core was far below the bottom of the pool and these were merely the safety vents, like the spout of a kettle, then all they would have to do was break them and the facility’s mana core would destroy itself. Hells, he doubted it would even be as explosive.

  From what he could see with his mana sight, the stacked crystal pillars weren’t just acting as arcane chimneys. They were controlling the rate of expulsion, keeping it reduced to a manageable level. Perhaps the core below required a certain density of mana to function, and these chimneys stopped it from getting too high or too low.

  He was convinced that breaking them would vent the excess pressure, especially if he struck the central spike of crystal in their middle where arcane ran in a bright, almost liquid stream. Violent, yes. Perhaps not the best for his health, even with his resistance. But far safer than an explosive detonation.

  He turned to his team.

  “I think I can safely destroy the pillars from here. Looks like they’re pressure vents for the reactor below. It’s got to be deep — I can’t see the bottom of the pool even with Truesight.”

  His words came out raspy and wet, a result of the ongoing war between wild arcane and his own health within him.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come back here?” Ianmus called. “Who knows what will happen if you destroy them while you are standing next to the pool?”

  Kaius shook his head. “I don’t want to risk it. Judging by the flow of mana, the lower we break the spires, the more effective it’ll be. Don’t worry. I’ll run back as soon as I fire a barrage of nails.”

  “You’re sure?” Porkchop sent through their bond, steadfast support firm in Kaius’s spine.

  “I’m sure,” he sent back silently.

  “Just be ready,” he cried aloud. “If anything’s going to bring all the demons from hell down onto our heads, it’ll be messing with the core.”

  His team nodded, and Kaius saw them steel themselves. Kenva drew an arrow, while Ianmus clutched his staff a little tighter, his keyseal shining brilliantly as it drew on the wealth of mana surrounding it. Porkchop just gave him a steadfast nod. His brother was already in his armour, and Kaius knew he was ready to go to war.

  Seeing this, and having no reason to wait, he levelled his hand at the closest spire of crystal, aiming for a spot as deep as he was confident his nail would be able to penetrate. He loosed, the glyph on his hand glowing bright as his other held his blade in a ready grip.

  Quick as he could, Kaius snapped off a shot at every single one of the seven spires of crystal, his last flying free just as his first struck the glowing pool.

  Twisted metal spun, boring its way deep. His spells were slowed by the pool but not stopped. Kaius knew they would hit — even as the virulent arcane currents tore into the metal projectiles, they were moving too fast. The degradation was far too slow to turn them aside.

  Kaius turned and ran. No way was he going to stand right next to the edge when the barely contained arcane was unleashed.

  Two Shunts detonated behind him, cracking force warbling strangely in the air as it interacted with the arcane surrounding him. He burst back toward his team like all of the hells were on his tail.

  Barely three long strides into his flight he heard a shuddering crack followed by six more. There was a flash, and the mana surrounding him doubled, tripled, in an instant. Burning knives cut his flesh, health draining as Rapid Adaption fought like a rabid wildcat.

  An alarm sounded, shrill and piercing, and Kaius heard a tinny voice — the same that had announced every other misfortune in the Imperial ruin.

  “Alert! Tome-wafers critically damaged by saboteur activity, anomalous Gold-level threat to mainframe!”

  Tomb-wafers, what in all the hells were those?! Gods’ scorn, had he fallen for some trap?

  “Castellan-executor mobilisation authorised!” the voice continued, monotone urgency striking discordantly.

  A half-breath later, Kaius saw a surge of mana to the left of the room. It wasn’t arcane. No. He recognised the affinity from one of his own spells.

  Slip Step.

  It was Spatial mana.

  Kaius’s eyes widened only moments before a roaring crack tore through the dome as an automaton materialised.

  It was a titan of steel, fifteen strides tall and built like a sculpture of adamant. There was none of the mechanical oddity of lesser creations like the Centurions.

  This one was built like a man cast from the brightest burnished copper, every pore and every hair rendered in loving detail. Its only adornment was a colossal blade held in both hands. Every inch of its body burned with a weight that Kaius had never experienced before in his life.

  It held his focus so completely that when he hit the ground at the end of his flight, he stumbled, just barely skidding to a halt.

  Almost instinctively, Kaius analysed the creature with his Truesight. It didn’t even attempt to shield itself from inspection — so brazen and sure of its own victory. Hells, he was almost sure the being wanted him to see.

  His breath caught in his throat at what he saw. It was terrible. Awe-inspiring. And yet most of all Kaius felt relief.

  The trap had been sprung. Now he knew what they faced.

  An existence beyond Gold; beyond even the lauded heights of Platinum.

  Mythril.

  Imperial Castellan-executor – Level 501:

  Automata, Elite, Negator, Skirmisher

  At least there was only one of them.

  “Fucking run!” he screamed.

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