Weapons of Mass Destruction

I take myself closer with Wraith Dance, coming to a stop standing over the body of the sleeping Champion. [Empyrean Lance] forms over my shoulder, and I fill it with as much mana as I can before pointing it at his head.

“No! Don’t!” Leth shouts desperately and tries to run, only to stagger and fall. Even then, he continues to crawl, his dagger already forgotten. “Please, don’t!”

After a glance at the Champion, I turn to Leth. “The moment he wakes up, he’ll probably try to kill me and I won’t be able to stop him.”

“He won’t!”

“Are you sure? You guys already tried to kill me once. I even killed the scout leader during my escape.”

“Please, don’t kill him, Nathaniel. I beg you.”

“He’s almost dead as it is,” I note.

“Please… don’t,” Leth stops crawling.

After scanning the tent a while longer, I take in the equipment, the lumoran corpses covered by bolts of cloth in the corner, the unconscious Champion and the level 7 technician slumped against the cracked stone floor, and dismiss my [Empyrean Lance].

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes.

“It’s not even your fault. Why are you apologizing?” I ask, helping him remove his metal armor until he stands there clad only in his white researchers uniform. And finally getting a look at his black skin and crystalline features I note that he seems fairly roughed up. He’s covered in wounds, his mana is unstable, and he seems like he might pass out at any moment.

Grabbing him by his clothes, I guide him over to a pile of blankets laid out on the ground and help him collapse atop them. “Sleep. I will wake you up in a few hours. I promise not to kill the Champion.”

“I…”

“Leth, you know me. I won’t hesitate to shake you until you pass out anyway. Rest.”

Still hesitating, he slowly closes his eyes and almost immediately falls asleep.

After checking the protective array around us, I confirm it’s safe and form a few thermal pyramids, moving them around the space, placing a few over by Leth, one near me, and settling the others next to the Champion.

Only then do I take a few steps and sit down on the floor in front of the Champion, who seems to have been pretending to be unconscious, after all, he awakened the moment I formed the lance.

“Hello,” I greet him.

He opens his golden eyes and slowly sits up straight on the bed, crossing his legs beneath him.

"Assistant Nathaniel?"

"Yes, that's me."

"It was wise of you not to attack. You would have died."

"Are you sure? I don’t think you’re in any state to use mana right now." I let my Mana Wavelength Iris flash, the golden circle appearing around my pupil before fading. "I can sense the state of your heart and mana."

He stays silent, and I don’t push it. Instead, I glance around and ask, "Did everyone else die?"

“Everyone who decided to stay and fight alongside me.”

"So, most of them, then?" I say. "I’ve seen and heard people talking in the camp. Most followed you with near-blind loyalty."

"I never deserved that kind of faith."

"Things like that are rarely up to you," I say with a shrug. "People can be irrational."

"Yes."

"Anything else I can do to help? We’ll probably need you to get out of here. I’m not sure, but I think there are still a few powerful mimics hanging around nearby."

Leaning back against the bed, Champion Feroy replies, "For now, help the technician, Leth. He knows what to do. I’ll do my best to save him at least and I promise to help you as well."

With these last tired words, he closes his eyes and falls asleep again. His heart, and the crystalline features that cover more of his body than any other lumoran I’ve seen, both acting erratically and I don’t think it’s just from the fight he just went through. There’s something I don’t know yet.

Observing him for a bit longer, I stand up and begin examining the defensive array, the equipment, and the materials and the components of the war armor Exoria while the lumorans sleep.

Leth is awake and feeding the lumoran Champion like a baby. The Champion seems accustomed to it, slowly taking the small cubes of food from Leth before chewing them and drinking water prepared from melted and filtered snow, hopefully not the yellow kind. For some reason, he makes sure not to touch Leth throughout the process.

Anyway, these cubes appear to be a special kind of food for high-level beings. I’ve encountered it before, though not in this form.

By now, I doubt normal food is enough to provide the level of nutrients someone so highly leveled needs. Our bodies can survive a week without food on their own, likely months at higher levels or in extreme conditions by consuming muscle or using mana as fuel.

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That’s something Lily and I are still working on, trying to figure out how it all works. An average person should be able to live on around two thousand calories a day. Professional athletes and huge, muscular strongmen or powerlifters likely consume around six thousand a day. There are even viral videos of them eating ten thousand or more.

By now, I’m sure even I, with my feeble body, require far more than that. Thirty thousand? More? Perhaps on the level of a gram of uranium which, at least on the internet, is rumored to contain twenty billion calories? Will we see a bunch of the most powerful attendees die of hunger, finding themselves unable to consume enough calories, or will they spend twenty hours a day eating like some animals do?

Hell Difficulty attendee mukbang videos would be something else.

As for the Champion, the Absolute, and creatures like Biscuit, I have no idea how many calories they could need.

I pause as a thought flashes through my mind.

How many calories did that Champion deer Biscuit ate contain?

I make a few estimates, considering the Deer’s size, its ability to regenerate, and its level. And though I lack proper data for an accurate calculation, the number still comes out terrifyingly high.

The good thing is that on worlds brimming with mana, even the plants seem more calorie-dense, not to mention the meat of monsters or animals, especially the higher-level ones.

That, of course, poses more problems. Logically, Earth should be filling up with ambient mana as well, from whatever source produces it, and thereby increase the caloric density of potatoes, fruit, grains, and vegetables. So, what would happen if a level 1 human were to eat a ten-thousand-calorie potato?

Some people are going to have a lot to think about and many problems to solve. Not me, though.

The lumorans here seem to have solved that problem, at least partially, and as weak as Champion Feroy seems, he probably needs some food so that his regeneration doesn’t sap his mana which he seems to be using for something or consume his body itself. There are also plenty of questions: Why is he in this state? Why doesn’t he regenerate properly? Are there some terrible hidden wounds causing it? Leth seems to suspect something, but for now, I decide not to ask.

At least I have free rein to spend most of my time around Exoria.

That thing is beautiful.

Rough, imperfect, patched-up, covered in misaligned parts, it’s akin to fixing something with duct tape, or an ugly piece of code you wrote that worked but was too late to rewrite from scratch once you’d gained new knowledge. Instead, you add more code that fixes one thing, breaks another, rinse and repeat. In the end, you wind up with a monstrosity that only one person truly knows how to operate, and that person is likely more important than the CEO of the company relying on that code.

Exoria feels exactly like that kind of monstrosity, and I’m in love. It’s like seeing the history of all the changes, improvements, and fixes made by every generation of lumoran technicians who worked on it. And damn, is this thing old, likely centuries old.

But I also notice another very interesting thing, and it answers questions, giving me something to ask the Champion about later.

So for now, I examine the open cockpit and survey the damage all over. There are smaller issues that I can fix. The safety mechanisms have been lifted likely by the Champion and meant to prevent foreign interference and spying. That’s what allowed me to examine it so thoroughly, and as my thanks, I perform all the fixes I feel like I can. I have no illusions that my fixes are perfect or even that they will last very long, but it’s better than nothing.

Seeing this crazy thing only increases my admiration for level 9 technician Ito, who oversaw it and is likely dead.

At some point, Leth joins me, and I continue working, this time following his lead. Where he has much more experience and knowledge, I have higher raw power and a more durable mind. I don’t mind being his support and relying on him to guide me, I focus on helping him as much as possible and making things easier for him.

At first, he’s a bit nervous, but we’ve worked like this before, and he eventually relaxes. Even he has trouble navigating the web of newer and older inscriptions and mismatched parts, but his instincts are good and his calm mind guides him.

We work on it for a long time and don’t stop until two days have passed, which I notice upon checking the timer. While Leth crawls onto his bed and immediately falls asleep after eating and drinking a bit, I send a message in the Community and get an answer.

Sset (Hell, group 4) - Don’t worry about us. You’re in more danger than we are.

Noname (Hell, group 4) -Has anything happened?

Sset (Hell, group 4) - I think some of the mercenaries with us are mimics. One of them attacked Izzy, probably because it sensed her [Empathy], and Noodle ate him. So we think she might be able to sense them if she levels up the skill. Sophie is finally awake and working on some kind of web that has the potential to strengthen and support Izzy’s skill.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - Is it safe?

Sset (Hell, group 4) - Ever since Sophie passed out and the web connecting us broke, I haven’t slept. Alongside Lily, I kept watch over everyone at all times, even if they just needed to go to the toilet, Nat. I had them write in the Community and ran additional tests to make sure none of us were mimics. I’m certain we’re in the clear. The mimic Noodle ate had taken over that technician’s assistant from the thylarin group. The one with the Fragment of Eternal Fire, so there’s a chance Noodle has it now, whatever that means.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - At least that’s good news. Did you notice? The system didn’t censor your messages. That probably means that there aren’t any other groups on this floor other than ours.

Sset (Hell, group 4) - That’s true. I don’t think Tacita could have cleared the 6th floor all that quickly with her specialization and the way she behaves, but Savant? Maybe. We spent over six months there, so he could have been luckier than us, maybe he’s already reached the 8th. I have to go. Take care.

Noname (Hell, group 4) –You too.

I close the Community and notice that the Champion has awoken once more, and he’s watching me. He gestures weakly. “Assistant Nathaniel, I have a request for you.”

“Please ask,” I say.

The crystalline features, once filled with shimmering blue mana are almost empty now, taking on an almost sickly pale color, creating a stark contrast with his black skin. Even his golden eyes seem to have lost some of their vibrancy.

“Don’t tell Technician Leth, but the next time I pilot Exoria, I will die. Though it’s something I’m willing to do. Technician Leth doesn’t know it, but within his body, I’ve stored something that needs to be delivered to our Absolute or to Champion Owain. No one else can be trusted right now.”

“Does it have something to do with the thing the pilot of Ardenyx brought back? Is that why he died?”

“His name was Hephas. Please don’t speak of him in such a cold way like he wasn't even a living being. He and Naeve were my disciples longer than you’ve been alive. They were kind people and the best disciples I could have asked for. I hope you never have to feel what I’m feeling right now.”

“I… I apologize. Truly.”

He offers a gentle expression in response. “It’s not always easy to care about someone you don’t know, and I understand that. I don’t know what drives you, but I can promise this, if you do what I ask, you’ll be rewarded handsomely. And I will stake what remains of my life on helping you both escape.”

“Why?”

For a moment, he seems confused by my question, but then his expression clears, and he smiles, still with a hint of that gentleness. “Because I’m a Champion of my people.”

“I will do it,” I confirm and hold back my question.

After giving his thanks he goes back to sleep. No, he’s not truly sleeping. It’s more like meditation or something like that.

If I’m right, he’s fighting the mimic trying to take over his body, a battle I don’t think the weakened Champion can win.

That could also be why no mimics have attacked this place yet. They’re minimizing their losses and waiting for the Elder Mimic to take over.