Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

A Mage Tower has three inseparable components:

The ‘Tower’ itself, which was the infrastructure, or the 'body'.

An ‘Intellectual Core’, the ‘brain’.

And like most large constructs, a ‘Core Reactor’ that served as the power source.

“This should be… the Intellectual Core’s true body…” Ymir muttered to himself within the darkness of the room.

As an information-path lifeform, Ekatroncheiron, Ymir’s true body is a stream of pure information. Through the alteration of information of its true body, he can literally merge and take control of almost all non-living objects, including rocks, dirt, walls, or even puppets.

Despite that, infiltrating a Mage Tower is extremely difficult because the tower would be protected against infiltration. As a matter of fact, a Mage Tower is usually infallible from the outside as not only defensive force shields protects it from harm, but there are also countless contingencies embedded into the very walls of the tower. Its internal systems are also protected by authentications and controls, not allowing random people to deactivate its defenses.

Even when he somehow merged with Nana's sole to enter the tower to bypass the external inspection checkpoints, there will be more than enough contingencies to stop him from wreaking havoc to the Tower’s core infrastructure. For example, each door would be locked and only those with a certain level of clearance can open it. 

His racial ability to pass through walls would be ineffective as the very walls and doors are engraved with rune formations designed to block it. Otherwise, a Mage Tower would be papier-mâché in the face of ghosts or other ethereal infiltrators. 

However, Ymir was Mordred’s split soul. He has been granted Mordred’s engineering skills and infiltration techniques. The man had designed far more powerful Mage Towers than Tactical Horde Mage Tower. Naturally, most of his original designs were over-the-top, with only a few of them can be built realistically, but that still implies his mastery upon Mage Towers architecture in general.

The ‘tech tree’ of Hartina Kingdom is also heavily influenced by Galatreon; it was inevitable that the design of this Mage Tower is quite similar with the one in the minor towers in the extreme south. The magic machinery devices of the Tower which combine the concept of magic and science are mere toys in front of him. Authentications, access clearance and other security procedures are mere child’s play. 

That being said, Ymir has successfully infiltrated the second most important facility of the Mage Tower, which was the room where they kept the Intellectual Core of the Mage Tower.

Mage Towers are ‘alive’, in a sense that they are sentient despite not being a true lifeform. Naturally, it was actually the Intellectual Core's role as its mind, rather than being alive. Its existence can be likened to Artificial Intelligence, but instead of a product of science, it is a product of magic.

When the Intellectual Core noticed there's an existence that managed to infiltrate its most important facility, the Mage Tower activated one lockdown procedure after another, completely isolating Ymir in a spherical, dark force field.

Despite being physically in proximity to the 2-meter-diameter spherical crystal processor glowing in faint cyan-blue light which was the Intellectual Core's true body, Ymir is being separated by a powerful rank 3 force field.

Forget about breaking it, not even light can pass through. In Ymir’s perspective, he is suddenly displaced into a location devoid of air, light, and gravity.

"Intruder detected… Analysis in progress…" The Intelectual Core began analyzing him.

While Ymir couldn't even see what's happening outside the force field, he was capable of sensing when he was being inspected by investigative methods. 

He is literally a being of pure information, it is still within his capacity to do at least this.

Ymir smiled, "Rank 1 information-path killer move, [Trojan Horse Package]!"

Ymir's weight… no, Ymir's volume reduced almost half of the original as he used a part of himself as the material to activate his method. 

Technically, the rank 3 force field does not even allow light to penetrate from inside to outside. Ymir's method has no chance of passing through as it lacks penetrative power 

However, the IC is currently using an investigative method on him. In a sense, the force field will have to open up a gap from outside to inside so that the Intellectual Core can inspect what is being held within the cage.

This gap was the only thing that Ymir needed as he wasn't even aiming to break the force field. He was after the process of being investigated by the Intellectual Core. Ymir knew that the IC hadn't  raised defenses against counterintelligence methods of this caliber.

WUU! WUU! Red warning lights immediately shone across all over the Mage Tower. The Tower instantly entered the highest battle readiness state, with most of its combat puppets in the storage churn to life. 

Even then, it would take some time for them to arrive here. 

Ymir's method would be able to destroy or completely dominate most rank 1 or even rank 2 spiritual entities due to its extremely specialized nature, but the Mage Tower's IC is a rank 3 existence. He was only capable of disrupting its operation for a short moment. 

The force field is instantly deactivated and Ymir is currently being registered as a friendly unit in the IC's perspective.

It's too bad that the IC couldn't harm friendlies, especially one with a 'high' clearance like the Ekatroncheiron infiltrator.

It knows Ymir is an outsider, an enemy that should be eradicated, but his identification is a problem. It quickly tried to flush its corrupted self and purge whatever virus Ymir had injected into its system.

In the meantime, Ymir hastily interacted with the crystal body of the IC, physically hacking it to disable most of the monitoring system of the tower. In addition, he also put some of the battle puppets that the IC controlled into a frenzy state to cause chaos.

Naturally, he also controlled some of the puppets to clear a path for Mordred.

'Phase 6… should be done now. Phase 7 is the forceful entrance to Lord Inquisitor Erebus' micro plane…" Ymir scrambled the information system of the Mage Tower, specifically their IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system, to further sow chaos and discord while sending architectural data towards Mordred. It also includes the super admin access clearance of the tower as well as the location of Lord Erebus' micro plane.

"I should quickly return… before I perish." Ymir muttered to himself, as his ghastly visage slowly evaporated. He is expending a part of himself to maintain control over the Intellectual Core. “I can only hack the Intellectual Core for two second… It seems like… I cannot maintain total control until the end of Phase 7. Main Soul, I leave the rest to you…”

Ymir had expended almost all of his body volume. His cultivation base reduced from the middle-stage of rank 1 into the early-stage of rank 0. 

This was the cost of trying to delay a rank 3 spiritual existence for two mere seconds.

Fortunately, he had left before the IC finished changing his identification clearance. Smoking out an Ekatroncheiron within a puppet-filled Mage Tower would be as difficult as finding a specific grain of sand in a beach.

 

….

 

Crunch! Mordred’s fist crushed the head of a battle puppet which was equipped with a heat saber, a glowing red warhammer, and even a pair of white-hot  axes. The weapons in the puppet’s four arms are glowing red hot, capable of melting most rank 1 metal alloys by touch. 

Unfortunately, their combat data has been analyzed by Mordred. Its movement pattern has been deciphered, they are mere toys that couldn’t pose the slightest threat, not even with their four arms equipped with different weapons.

“Hmm? A transmission from a secret frequency…?” Mordred suddenly raised his head, picking up a wave of information in the air. 

“Super admin access and the location of Lord Erebus’ secret plane. Neat.” Clank! He pushed the now-useless puppet, as most of its precious parts had been stolen by Mordred through the small tentacle-like metal appendages that came out of his hand. Each of these appendages are merely as wide as a finger, some are as thin as hairs, but they gleam in prismatic color during activation, indicating that it has been siphoning information or precious metal resources from the puppets’ core components.

Just as he was about to leave quickly towards his next destination, another group of battle puppets appeared. The new arrivals seemed to have been tempered in battle as their knight-like armor has been chipped in various areas. 

“I have no time for this. Rank 1 information-path killer move, [Fatal Kernel Error]!” Mordred’s heterochromic eyes flashed in prismatic light, transmitting harmful data towards the puppets.

The firewalls or other digital defenses of the puppets couldn’t defend against Mordred’s digital attack. Electronic warfare is his forte since his body is a literal machine. The programming language of the puppet might be a different one in Galatreon, but not by much. Even if the creator still tried to incorporate magical language, Mordred would already have what’s necessary to obliterate their digital defenses after analyzing the puppets that he physically destroyed. 

And so, the puppets fell down as their operating system experienced a fatal kernel error, in the most literal fashion possible.

Mordred then casually looted their corpse, putting them inside his dimensional storage. “That’s the 41st… there should be enough time for repurposing them.” He jogged towards the direction of his goal which was on the three floors above.

Naturally, the Mage Tower is actually very harmful towards infiltrators. Most Legendaries who own a Mage Tower would usually participate in its construction, willingly using a part of itself, sometimes blood but most of the time, their radiation, to ‘personalize’ the mage tower. Since this is an enslavement-path Mage Tower, then the indoor area of Tactical Horde Mage Tower has an intense enslavement-path ‘domain’ of mental suppression.

An artificial enslavement-path environment, so to speak.

Unregistered individuals would be corroded under the Mage Tower’s domain, which would finally end up being enslaved by the IC. Not only that, beasts would be easier to be enslaved, and most enslavement-path experts will feel the ‘burden’ of dominating beasts reduced significantly. 

In short, an all-round amplification for enslavement-path cultivators while a suppression of other paths.

That being said, Mordred could feel the rejection of the Mage Tower, but he is constantly altering his IFF identification while spreading multiple bogeys to confuse the IC. 

After swiftly navigating through the myriad of doors, corridors, elevators, and sneaking through defensive lines filled to the brim with mechanical puppets and enslaved insect-type beasts, he finally reached a conspicuous door. 

He used the super admin access codes which were given by Ymir, but it seems like the IC has purged the clearance. Suddenly, Ymir arrived from the shadows and immediately entered Mordred’s Soul Phylactery before reporting.

“2.07 seconds? That’s shorter than expected.” Mordred frowned, “Do you know who else is in this Mage Tower?”

Ymir instantly replied, “Other than the Tower Master, who was a Legendary enslavement-path expert specialized in mechanical puppets, there’s three other notable rank 2 grandmasters: Lord Inquisitor Erebus, Lord Mage Mitsubachi, and Lord Swarm Shiroari. All three are present in their own micro-plane, they won’t physically descend as the IC has reduced the maximum battle readiness state after realizing the lack of rank 2 intruders.”

“I see, that explains the high amount of termite and wasp beasts in the tower. Our secondary plan to lure out Erebus has failed. Looks like we have to proceed with our original plan.” Mordred wasn’t reliant on the secondary plan, so he simply shifted gears and moved on to the original plan. 

Erebus is currently holed up in his micro-plane, which should be a powerful blood-path environment. Any other path would be suppressed, weakening all non-blood-path cultivators. Thus, it was better to lure him out in the main world where his blood-path advantage is not too apparent. He’ll also be limited by his identity as a vampire, further limiting his methods. 

Even so, it’s not a problem in failing to lure him out as it was merely a secondary objective. 

“About the super admin access…”

“Not a problem. You should recuperate as quickly as possible, I might need your help soon.” Mordred replied as Ymir quickly consumed souls in the Soul Phylactery to recover his cultivation base. In the meantime, Mordred used his magic eye with the power of Psychometry to glimpse at the past.

Through it, he easily gained the access code and biometric data of Lord Inquisitor Erebus’s servant, unlocking the door. 

Lord Inquisitor Erebus’ room consists of a large, empty hall with a dimensional portal in the center. Very similar to the dimensional portal in Mordred’s previous minor inheritance, it is a circular metal gate with precious magical runes of space-path engraved on it. Naturally, there’s also a console on the gate to interact with it.

Repeating the same thing with his psychometry, Mordred gained access to open up the dimensional door towards Lord Erebus’ micro-plane.

Before going in, he took out Lupusrazor. He tapped the wolf’s head, his hand glowing in prismatic pixels as he update Lupusrazor’s AI with the newest version. Only then, the two entered the portal at the same time.

….

 

A knight-like priestess encased in transparent ice is using a chainsword to cleave a demonic puppet, infernal in both design and attacks.. The demonic puppet looks exactly like a demon, its metal frames twisted, corrupted, and burning in demonic fire that would mutate biologicals it touches. 

RATATATATATA! The chainsword produced sparks as it tried to slice the demonic puppet’s weapon which was a real demon-possessed halberd. The halberd gives out a nails-on-chalkboard scream of agony as the demonic puppet uses the demon’s power bound into the halberd to amplify its attacking power. 

Chainsword’s teeth are falling off, unable to completely split the halberd, but Larissa, who is draped under Mage Armor and multiple blessings, are constantly using Effulgence Weapon blessings to restore the teeth with her ice. This has been going on since Mordred’s departure. The fallout of their duel has resulted in destroying multiple rooms, walls and doors. There are also some survivors who tried to meddle in the fight by assisting Larissa, but they are abruptly slain by the demonic puppet.

“Let’s slow down the pace a bit.” Larissa telepathically commanded the demonic puppet, “While Irae and other pests aren’t that hard to handle because they are also  enslavement-path cultivators like me, Ishihara is a different matter.”

The Shadow Stalker-possessed puppet naturally obeyed Larissa. 

At the same time, in another part of the Mage Tower, a womanly figure draped in pale white bio armor akin to a humanoid-crustacean is engaging in a battle with the same demonic puppet that Larissa fought. 

This demonic puppet has exactly the same appearance, but the one who is controlling it wasn’t a Shadow Stalker, but Larissa herself. The shadow stalkers couldn’t hold a candle against Ishihara who is now going serious. 

Ishihara’s hand is no longer that of a human, but a mantis shrimp’s. Its dull, roundy exoskeleton is made out of the hardest bone that she can produce, it is the most lethal weapon in her arsenal. 

Boom! The sound barrier broke with her fist, the demonic puppet should be broken as the force of Ishara’s fist is close to a rank 2 attack in terms of damage potential, but the puppet was of Mordred’s design. The raw force of Ishihara’s attack is dissipated through one of the sound-path modules in its inner parts. 

In Ishihara’s perspective, it was as if she’s hitting a wet sponge. Her fist doesn’t feel connected to her target. 

It’s not that she is weak, but it’s a matter of compatibility. Influenced by Mordred’s primary path of sound, each of his creations are able to endure greater punishment from raw brute force. After all, sound-path is a cultivation path that would typically hurt oneself before others.

Ishihara couldn’t lower her guard, despite being able to attack twice or thrice before her opponent could react. Just as her fist made contact with the puppet’s abdomen, it retaliated by using a demonic fire breath. 

Whoosh! Ishara’s figure is bathed under the crimson red of Demonplague Chaos Dragon Flame. Her pale white bone exoskeleton twisted, it is starting to mutate after enduring the demonplague flame. 

The female officer wreathed in pain as the flame burned away at the nerve endings behind the bone plates that protected her weak, fleshy body. 

When she was ambushed by the demonic flame the first time, its power was that of rank 0. But now, it was a genuine rank 1 flame, capable of matching her defensive power. Above some part of her bone plates, there are red scales starting to form. Patterns of reptilian scales are evolved on top of the bone plates, spikes and perhaps other cancerous limbs would grow soon if she kept on being burnt in this fire. 

PSSHHHTT!!! She temporarily retreated as her bone plates flapped, exhaling steam which contained blood particles that extinguished the flames. She activated her bloodline power, mixed with her bone-path methods that slowly changed the color of her exoskeleton.

From her original pale white exoskeleton, spots of red, green and blue have begun to appear. These colors along with the bone plates themselves become denser and denser until there’s no more white on her bone plates. Furthermore, the mutation on her bone plates caused by the flames has healed. Her eyes have become beady, like that of a shrimp. She has become a humanoid mantis shrimp boxer, colors and all.

“Rank 1 bone-path killer move, [Calcification]!” Ishihara muttered as her body generated intense bone-path radiation.

‘Motherfucker, is she like Mordred? Do I have to fight her second form? Will there be a third form later?’ Larissa cursed as she used the demonic puppet to evade Larissa’s attack to make some distance between herself and the humanoid shrimp policewoman. Ishihara’s radiation is slowly corroding the soft, low-resistance metal parts of the puppet into calcium, making it more difficult to maneuver. 

‘She’s actually more problematic than the 20-or-so rank 1 enslavement-path cultivators that I'm currently fighting with the other Shadow Stalkers…’ Larissa complained to herself, but she swallowed it down when she recalled that it was either this, or participating in eliminating Lord Erebus- in his own domain, at that.

Despite this, multitasking is her forte. She semi-automated the other battles while simultaneously using a large portion of her computation power to supervise the battle against Ishihara.

In a Mage Tower filled with enslavement-path masters, Ishihara is a unique existence in a sense that she is the bane of all enslavement-path cultivators. This made for a somewhat uphill battle for Larissa, currently using swarm tactics herself.

And so, as Larissa’s puppet gouted flame and tried to keep it’s distance, the Mantis Shrimp-woman pummelled away at the puppet with heavy, machine gun blows every chance it was given.