Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Rok Nardin - War of Cyborgs
https://youtu.be/pnwL0EWCeBE
Chapter 24: The Sky
Mid Afternoon - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 1 : Fredericksburg, Virginia | East Coast United States
World: Earth | Rank: 6 | Population: ~1,893,120,000
(Moments prior)
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*fwip-WO-WOOOM* Bolting out of the crater without care for the deep, searing pain ripping through my legs, the molten ground fell away as if I had darted off the peak of a mountain and deafening screeches tore across the sky. "KREEEEEE!"
Below, my eyes danced across an old town, overgrown with vegetation, and completely littered with black, scaled creatures scurrying and scattering like ants whose nest was stepped on.
Though, most only ran to their deaths. *SPLAASSHH* From the towering tsunami of molten material to the splatters descending like rain, the moment they stepped outside the buildings they made home, they were dunked in liquid fire. -What an unfortunate place to build a hive...-
For a fleeting moment, I nearly felt pity from their screams.. their pleas against fate as their bodies were boiled.. but as the radiating heat of the magma touched my cheeks, and the metallic scent of iron reached my nose, some memories of the days I spent leveling up, constantly put my life on the line, returned to the front of my mind, and the monsters' screeches turned into a nostalgic melody. "Hm..."
Looking down and clasping my hand, hearing the cloth coating my palm creak like hide, displeasure pushed through my mind, weaving between each and every fiber of my reconstructed mind with every pulse of pain—dissatisfaction with my own insufficiency.
Compared to my peak, I had fallen so far...
But at the same time, I felt better than I ever had. My body was tattered, torn, and broken, yet my mind felt the most unburdened it had ever been.
With every step toward that falling dot over the horizon, more memories replayed.. recollection of the days I nearly lost my life to a mere goblin, and the heart gripping, fear-induced fire that followed it.
Once again, the fires of motivation had begun to grow, and for the first time in centuries, I found pleasure in the pain and dissatisfaction. For once, my body wasn't invincible, and my strength wasn't unparalleled. -Even to just reach my peak, I have a long way to climb...- But the thought of doing it without the System's help only fanned the flames.
"Haha!" It truly felt like I had travelled back in time. -When was the last time my mind raced like this?!-
Watching Bella continue accelerating toward the horizon, beginning to fall faster than I could get under her, I scanned the forest below to find a firm footing. Compared to Leviathan, the ground on Earth felt more like wet clay, so with every stride I was taking over the trees to avoid colliding with things in the forest, my entire lower half would plunge through the ground before reaching something hard enough to push off of.
But upon finding a large rock jutting out of the ground, that changed. -Let's try treating the ground like water...- *Tap-Woom* Planting my foot into it, the rock glowed, nearly turning molten before I flattened my trajectory to skip across the ground like a rock across water. *FWIP-CRRAAACKKK*
But even lowering myself to the treetops wasn't enough, so I flattened it more, and more, until finally, I was plowing through the forest like the edge of a giant's blade, zipping through trees, the bodies of wandering creatures, and even a village of orcs without hardly leaving the ground. *WOOM-CR-WOOSH*
All that was left in my wake was a plume of dust, wooden splinters, sublimated blood, and a streak of destruction akin to the slash of a sword across nature's beauty.
But despite that sacrifice, Bella never stopped accelerating, and eventually, I lost the race.
-Shit...- Watching her disappear behind the horizon as a wall more akin to a cliff than something manufactured rose over it, curses rang through my mind. My legs were screaming, my shattered skull even more-so.. but with one final lunge from several kilometers out, I left the forest, passed over a wide pasture, and clipped the top of the wall to slow down just enough to fall toward where Bella landed. *CRRRACKLEEE*
But the curses ceased the moment my eyes landed on the street below.
While surrounded by several bloodied and mangled bodies of armored humans, Bella stood.. quivering, but standing... "Phew..."
Relief.
Her paws were mangled, her shoulder was caved in, and she was being attacked by a number of mercenaries, but she survived the fall.. even if it seemed like only barely. -As for the airship...-
Looking up, a streak of smoke and fire had split the sky, descending toward the horizon like a comet gearing to slam into the heart of humanity.
However, its trajectory was shifting. People were trying to save it.
But it wasn't shifting fast enough to completely avoid the towering railgun in its path.
If I didn't do something, the left side of the ship was going to get taken off, and everyone inside, as well as the people in the city below it, would lose any remaining chance of survival they had.
-I need to reach it before they do...- Feeling my pupils dilate as the mana in my body stiffened to hold together my tattered muscles, my eyes snapped to the mercenaries gathered around Bella before landing beside one wielding a spear.
It was something that wasn't going to survive the throw. With how brittle Earth's materials were, I was absolutely certain of it.
But even still, I snatched it from his grasp, dug my foot into the concrete, and transferred every shred of force I could muster through the hilt's balance point with my mana unintentionally bleeding into the shaft through my finger.
*Fwip-CRRRRACK* The spearhead melted instantly, splattering over the city around me like molten shotgun pellets before the hilt, glowing but intact, continued, sharpening the half-molten staff into the tip of a dart and connecting with the edge of the railgun just before the airship reached it. *THOOM*
The dart ceased to exist almost instantly—evaporating with the flash of lightning as it transferred every speck of energy it could to carve away the edge of that hunk of metal.
But... -Shit...-
The airship still lurched as the outer half of its wing tore away in a molten splatter.
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- Diana Hale ~
Staring out that window—tracing the outlines of towers against the horizon—my perception of time warped as if a black hole had descended on my head. Each second appeared to last longer than the last, and with every sequential beat of my heart, my senses further blurred as if unable to keep up.
It felt like fear had gripped my heart so tight my mind was simply shutting down, and I couldn't even pass a thought of resistance against it.
But in the next moment, something other than darkness washed over my mind... -Huh..?-
Visualizations of trajectories, masses of blurry approximations, and memories of flight school I hadn't recalled in years consumed every open instance of thought my subconscious could find...
And then, a voice punched through it all... *Beep* "Awakened skill: Level-Headed."
Subconsciously dropping my gaze to the wall of controls below the glass, my pupils tightened, scanning the instruments like a machine as an overwhelming energy steadied my hands and muffled my internal screams of fear.
As if the system had taken liberty over my mind, all conscious thought faded, and illegible symbols and formations blew through my mind like the winds a tornado...
Though only for a moment.
*Clink-THOOM—WOOSH* Getting knocked out of my trance by a rock of the ship, I fell onto the back of one of the pilots' seats, immediately locking eyes with the ghastly pale boy below before he jumped up. "AAHHH!" Slamming into the wheel, the ship's tilt sharpened.
But as if the action was programmed into my head like an order, I grabbed his collar so hard I drew blood from my palms and yanked him out to take his seat.
The other pilot jolted instantly, tightening his white-knuckle grip on the steering column before snapping his eyes to me.
Unlike the boy, he still seemed calm—his mind overtaken by the calculations of something foreign the same as mine were before turning back to the control panel, flipping a number of switches, and jumping up.
Almost instantly, the weight on my steering column compounded several-fold, and the ship rocked. *KKRRRMMM* -WHAT THE?!- He handed me the controls. -Why's this so.. HEAVY?!- Scanning over the flight instruments without a chance to see what the man was doing, I finally noticed the emergency power wasn't being allocated to the controls, leaving me to fight against the flaps without the motor-assisted steering.
...And while the ship most certainly had mechanical systems helping me, I was losing that battle of strength...
Even after I drove my foot into the right pedal and put every drop of strength I had into the steering column. -Come.. ON!- *KREEEEEEE-* The ship was trying to respond, but we were losing altitude fast.
Too fast...
But it seemed the ground shouldn't have been my worry... The next time I managed to look up through the glass, a wall of metal appeared to almost reach the edge of the cockpit—coming so close I could see the manufacturing marks on its side. -Ah...-
The world froze in that instant. -We're.. dead, huh...-
Though the body of the airship was going to miss it, the only manually operable wing we had was about to get sheared off.. and with the jar of the collision, we were going to slam into the city as a ball of fire.
*RUMBLE* Feeling the ship jolt as the screech of tearing metal echoed through its metal shell, I instinctually let go of the steering column to save my shoulders before it jerked with the cleaving of the wing. *RATTLE*
Watching it go limp, I felt all hope drain from my face. The rudder controls were too stiff to budge, and with the steering column broken, I couldn't even try to resist.. no matter how futile my efforts seemed...
Looking out the window, we were going to slam straight into the heart of Arlington, cleave through a sea of skyscrapers, and roll as a ball of fire all the way to the river... -The death toll will be in the millions...-
But as my foot finally eased.. giving in to the eclipsing futility, an electric spark met my ears, and the older pilot's strained voice pierced my skull. "PULL ON THE CANARDS!"
As if getting ripped out of the dark, my eyes snapped open to find the control panel completely dark without even emergency power...
But somehow, I still reached for the wheel, and tugged with everything I had.
*KREEEEEEEE—* The ship responded instantly—throwing me into the seat as the view of the city was seemingly pushed down by the horizon.
It was too late... *—RRRRMMMM* But, I pulled...
The strain drew the world into a blur; black creeping in from the edges.
But no burst of willpower could get blood to my suffocating brain as it folded into darkness.
*THOOOOOM-SKRREEEEEEE-KRRM-krshhhhhh...*
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