Chapter 80: Chapter 79: Round Three
With Carl in a bit of a hurry to leave he told Lillim and the kids that they could stay, but he wanted to get back to fighting The Carrion. He was well aware that Lillim was wanting to discuss the inversion with him, but he didn’t feel he needed to be there for that bit.
"Fine, wherever this new bloodlust of yours is coming from, I won’t be a hypocrite and tell you to deny it."
"It’s not bloodlust... It’s just easy."
"Easy?"Nergal cocked his head to one side with the word. "Must be the first time I’ve ever heard a mortal call dealing with those pests easy..."
"No, I don’t mean like that, well maybe with Majesty but no... I mean it’s easy in the sense I know where I stand. They want me dead, they aren’t just slaves of the system playing their roles and there is no ulterior motives."
"That makes more sense, the simplicity of the situation must be refreshing." Nergal nodded with understanding, a sense of empathy Carl found wholly annoying since it made him feel unreasonable.
"Anyway, thank you again, I’ll see you all at home Lillim. If I take the kids now, I can guarantee that Ki-ko will want to come with me to Lunelia."
Lillim nodded, sighing in blatantly false annoyance at babysitting.
Carl returned to Lunelia, appearing not far from Majesty.
"Hello Majesty, how are you today?"
’I am good Creator, the creation Squidge is resting at the ascent closest. We have yet to lose one of my offspring to anything but time."
Carl nodded then noticed a fair bit of tech loitering the area.
"What’s all this?"
’The one who placed it introduced herself as Alysse, she said that these units are energy cells, they gather energy for something called "The Nest", which is also on the first floor. She told me to tell you to contact her when you get back.’ Carl nodded in response and sent her a message.
It turned out that she just wanted to tell Carl that The Nest was a mapping drone station and also bring a map projection ring that can be updated at a local nest with relevant local map data.
"Alysse, you are seriously putting us to shame."
"Yeah, that’s what I do... Now go and kill some of these things so the drones go unnoticed."
Carl gave a fake salute, then ran down to the ascent, as eager to finally be with Squidge again as he was to fight The Carrion.
"Hey Bud! Looks like we’re a team today, let’s see how much stronger you got." Squidge didn’t answer, just nodded and jumped over the royal guard before expanding into a massive blob of slime.
The Carrion, which were unfortunate enough to get pulled into his gelatinous body began bubbling as he digested them.
As he grew and took on the same form he had back when Gillian and the others chased him up the tree, the most noticeable difference was the fact that he now had five heads.
He also seemed to have stolen some inspiration from Tiamat and each one was that of a different creature.
"You know if you change too much your mum is gonna kill me!" Squidge just laughed and began tearing through every one of The Carrion trying to ascend.
Carl popped the ring onto the nest to get the most up to date data and could see they had located the ascent from the third floor, then he joined in with Squidges rampage.
Side-by-side again, they were almost unstoppable and tore through the tide of The Carrion with ease. ’Majesty, hold back the royal guard on the first floor, when we reach the ascent we will call you to our position.’
’As you command, Creator.’
"Squidge, let’s fight our way to the ascent and hold the line for the royal guard to move up."
"You got it Dad!" Squidge was clearly having fun, knowing that Carl was relying on him rather than Majesty as he had with Gillian and Blanc, made him feel more accomplished.
The battle was going smoothly and then they felt the tremors of something big heading their way.
In perfect harmony, the drones and centipede-types seemed to clear the tunnel, which left them wondering what was coming for them.
It wasn’t long before they found out, though they were suddenly less interested in knowing. The good news was that it wasn’t one large creature like the tremors had suggested, but rather a group of six which walked shoulder to shoulder in perfect unison.
Each one was a head taller than Carl and about twice as wide, their bodies covered in a thick carapace that looked like The Carrion’s equivalent of heavy armour.
At a closer look Carl realised that their heads were actually almost on the floor and most of their mass was actually a growth on their backs, a large cylindrical growth that seemed to be filled with other narrower cylinders.
"Squidge, does that look like Mum’s battling gun to you, or is it just me?..." The moment Carl finished asking the question the main barrel was backlit with some kind of intense bioluminescence.
Carl ordered Squidge behind him and transformed his spear into a shield reflexively, just in time for the first barrage which chewed through the shield with concerning effectiveness.
It was a split second decision to open a portal back to quarantine on the ground behind them that saved them, but not before Carl took a hit to both his shoulder and thigh.
As he fell through the portal and it crackled shut, leaving him to grunt with the burning pain as he dragged himself into decontamination.
The moment the sterilising gas sprayed into the wounds, it filled him with a searing pain.
Lydia was already entering in a hazard suit to get Squidge through sterilisation and start seeing to Carl.
The moment the quarantine scanners clicked to show there was no signs of contamination, she got Carl to the infirmary.
She updated everyone and it wasn’t long before Klaire and Kyubi arrived, though the latter only claimed to be there to assist with treatment, she was clearly upset.
Carl had already blacked out from the pain but the addition of forced regeneration was enough to bring him round.
Squidge had recounted the event to each of them and after he had been healed they asked for his version as well.
Everyone was satisfied they acted with due care, but that did nothing to stop Klaire’s anger that Carl and Squidge put themselves in that position.
When Alysse found out she was distraught, her ego deflated in an instant that saw her throw herself into diagnosis and refinement to make sure it never happened again.
The last thing Klaire did was take Carl and Squidge back to their home on Haven, then she took Levi on a revenge mission.
There was a simple fact that she felt the boys had forgotten, one that she wanted to impress upon them, that she was the most devastating combatant in terms of damage output and mass destruction.
Not only her, but Levi too and as a duo the only ones in the entire faction that could really out-do them were the immortals.
When the pair arrived, Majesty quivered from the sheer hostility radiating from her. ’Do you have orders from the creator?’
"I don’t take orders from him, he is my husband. Have one of your offspring show me where he was before he disappeared."
Since Carl had been neglecting the task of checking her stat block, no one realised that she had considerable instinctive and psychic acuity, but in that moment the sheer terror she felt being in Klaire’s presence would have eased their concerns about her dramatically.
A royal guard arrived almost immediately, skidding to a halt and backing away from the woman, it looked to Majesty as if asking if she was in danger.
’Please follow this one, it will show you to the place I last sensed them.’
"Thank you, when I get down there the guards at this ascent tunnel will be briefly paralysed mind, body and soul. If they act strangely, I’ll slaughter you all." She didn’t know it, but her first meeting with the Carrion-hunters had cemented her as the boogeyman of their kind.
The royal guard led them to the ascent dutifully, then without a word between them Levi’s eyes snapped open, freezing both The Carrion and the royal guard in place as Klaire called her gatling gun into play and stepped between two of the carrion-hunters as it wound up.
By the time it started firing it was pressed solidly against the abdomen of the drone closest, the spinning barrel tore into it and the airburst from the first round made it explode from the inside out.
As the Thorax burst, the starlight rounds superheated the creature’s fluids, soaking all the surrounding drones in the searing hot viscera.
A dozen rounds followed and tore into the drones behind the first as its low remains dropped to the ground and the upper remains were thrown into the adjacent drone.
Klaire let Levi keep the royal guard frozen long enough for them to observe the consequences of bringing harm to Carl, then Levi released them, though it was only so they could get out of Klaire’s way.