Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 232: Choosing a Battleground

Tyrannus was working on an essence accelerator, his aim to discover what kind of reactions took place when a thin, focused stream of essence smashed into another kind at nearly the speed of light, when he got the news.

He was right in the middle of tweaking the math that would allow the donut-shaped model to keep pace with the essence, which didn’t always like to behave as it should, when a blinking light stole his attention away.

The silent blinking light was directly above the panel of instruments that tracked the magical fluctuations around Paradox’s ‘territory’.

Tyrannus raised a brow and set the accelerator down, peering down at the instrumentation.

It showed that some military-grade portal tech had literally reamed reality itself somewhere around Chicago.

Is he summoning help from another plane? Or perhaps widening the portal between Chicago and Manita? It’ll need to be big enough for an eight lane highway to pass through eventually.

If he was summoning help, that was a losing game, as Tyrannus simply had more collateral to bribe outsiders with, not to mention his rather advanced unsummoning technology.

He didn’t know if Paradox was aware of it, but Tyrannus could selectively force Outsiders back to their home plane for pennies on the dollar. Any outside help Paradox could must would eventually be banished. Although it would be fun to watch.

No, Tyrannus thought, shaking his head. Paradox likely wouldn’t do anything that ill-advised. It must be something more. I can’t rest on my laurals and assume I’ve already won. Complacency breeds weakness.

His men on the far displays that interpreted the raw data would be running up to him with the news any second now anyway.

Thump thump thump! There it was, the distinctive sound of scurrying.

“My lord!” a scientist said, screeching to a halt in his comfy loafers on the sterile tile flooring, a piece of paper rattling in his hand. “Something’s happened near Chicago!”

“And what would that be, pray tell?” Tyrannus asked, habitually retracting his aura of terror so the man didn’t choke to death on his own fear. That killed productivity.

“A portal has been opened a few miles outside the city. Sensors indicate that it’s a stable portal held open by an artifact, rather than an individual Blessed’s cast.

“Hmm.” Tyrannus thumbed his chin. A stable portal outside Chicago? The crux of the issue was where did it go, and what was it for?

“We also have other reports from people on the ground that Chciago is currently dealing with an ant colony.” His assistant said.

“Ah. That’s it.” the answer to ‘what it was for’.

Paradox is dealing with the ant problem by shuffling them off somewhere else. It’s a bit of a lazy solution, though.

“There seems to be deliberate intereference with our readings, so it’ll take a moment to figure out what plane the artifact is targeting.

Tyrannus snapped to attention. “Interference? What does it look like?”

“Umm, well,” The technician simply handed Tyrannus the print-out, showing higher-than usual amounts of Giant’s Breath and Shadow Ash in the atmosphere, which was warping the ability of sensors to read the artifact more accurately. Not that it mattered, Tyrannus had already figured out where it was going.

“It’s going to Norgosh.” Tyrannus said, handing the paper back as his aura of terror flared up. As with so many of his other emotions, he had to filter everything through flavors of rage to interpret what he was feeling. An unfortunate side effect of his heritage.

I’m feeling…urgency.

Paradox wasn’t just in Norgosh, he had opened a portal straight to Alkush, who was the guarantor of Tyrannus’s immortality.

The little ape figured it out after seeing it only once, and is making a hyper aggressive move to cut me off from my immortality. But…

It can’t be that simple. Alkush is nigh unto a god within his own domain, having received a mote of the demon lord of War’s portfolio. Paradox is strong for a human, but a Greater Demon in their own home…

Ah. That’s where the sense of urgency is coming from.

That was where Paradox’s desk toy came into play. Gna’kis would’ve served as valuable enough trade to trade for permanent immortality, but as the baby demon lord was stolen from him and altered to become something sickeningly human, Tyrannus had somewhat overlooked or simply neglected its true form:

It was a Demon Lord, no matter how small and weak. It housed a single fragment of divinity within it in the form of a nascent portfolio.

If Perry could feed enough demons to his desk toy, then he could achieve the power he would need to not only disrupt Tyrannus’s immortality, but the entire economy upon which Tyrannus’s empire was built.

The worship that he sold to the demons would dry up if the humans stopped perceiving Tyrannus as something above mere mortals, and that would happen if his road crumbled. The road was the lifeblood of the Empire. It passively both collected worship for the demons, facilitated trade among his people, expanded the range of the empire, and acted as a repellant for violent monsters.

It was the contract upon which he traded the worship of millions for power and immortality, the very cornerstone of his power.

He’d done a fine job understating the road’s importance, treating as a potent charm but ultimately a convenience, rather than the vital lifeblood it was.

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But now the boy had caught wind of his immortality, he’d tracked down the originator of the deal, and would soon discover that the road acted as the physical manifestation of the contract. Then Paradox would be fully aware of its importance.

That could not be allowed to happen.

Tyrannus glanced down and saw the technician, a man by the name of Conner, choking on his own spit as he twitched, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Apologies,” Tyrannus said, retracting his aura.

Conner gave a shuddering gasp before coughing violently, slowly levering himself to his feet.

“Would you please send for my generals?” Tyrannus asked, folding his talons over each other in the picture of perfect patience, despite his body screaming at him to act immediately, tear a rift to Norgosh and douse Paradox and his ilk with dragonfire.

No.

William wanted to do that, but Tyrannus was the picture of relaxed control. And in front of his people, he would always be.

“Yes, milord,” The technician rasped, coughing as he jogged away.

So you’ve chosen a battleground and baited it.

Paradox had likely chosen the benighted realm of Norgosh to force Tyrannus to leave behind a large portion of his support network and keep collateral damage to both Chicago and the Empire a minimum.

The question was: Which of them would emerge from Hell the victor?

A few minutes later, his generals arrived. The stone-faced men and women filed into the room and sat around the oblong table Tyrannus summoned from the floor.

Once they were all there, waiting quietly for him to speak, Tyrannus opened his mouth, a faint hint of smoke rolling up to tickle his eye.

He blinked a clear eyelid.

“Is the machine ready?”

“Yes sire.”

***Paradox***

Slak’vreth Deathseeker’s steel-sheathed fingers closed around the leather-wrapped handle, raising the blade into the air, her gaze scouring the seemingly rough steel blade.

Perry didn’t try to get cute with it.

Steel was a strong, cheap, durable material, and his job wasn’t to flaunt his ability to reinforce objects by making it out of cardboard or some other suitably unsuitable material. His job was to make a badass sword to the satisfaction of a Greater War demon. Something that might determine if he survived the next couple days.

No, it was simple steel. Thick, heavy, and rough looking, with a deceptively sharp edge where alternating carbon and iron atoms alternated to make something of a molecular sawblade.

“What is its name?” Slak’vreth asked, measuring the blade against her arm and grunting in satisfaction.

“It has none.”

“Odd for a masterwork of this quality to lack a name,” Slak’vreth murmured, her gaze travelling to the hilt, where the enchantment was housed. “Among the infinite realms of War, the number of blades this powerful can be counted.”

I made it in an hour.

Perry wanted to interject that the definition of infinite would invalidate her statement, but he didn’t wanna be pedantic around the killing machine.

Worst thing they could do was call him a nerd and leave him high and dry. That was actually pretty bad, considering where they were and what they were planning on doing.

“My former blade was crafted by a monastic order who were forced to watch the slaughter of the surrounding villages in the valleys below, before they were set upon themselves. They named it ‘Endurance.’ The invader took the blade for himself after they had surrendered, using the masterpiece to execute the remaining monks it had been forged to protect.”

“Okay?” Perry said, not quite sure where she was getting with this.

“The monk’s souls wound up residing inside the sword, rendering it a cursed blade, which slowly poisoned the warlord who had stolen it, to his demise.”

“Cool.”

“As it passed from owner to owner, the curse grew stronger, harming both the wielder and their victim in equal measure as the monk’s desire to protect was twisted by time and hatred. Eventually the blade came to me and I was able to master its curse.”

“Alright?”

“And you damaged it irreparably with a single strike.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“My point is, what legend follows this blade, I wonder?” She asked, inspecting the blade.

“I stamped it out of rolled steel and did some basic heat treating before putting an edge on it. Took about an hour.” Perry said with a shrug. “The enchantment uses a pretty big diamond, but it’s lab-grown one. The enchantment in the handle is where most of the action is,” Perry said as he launched into a description of the simple enchantment and how it worked.

Slak’vreth’s brow raised as he spoke, as if she couldn’t quite understand or believe what he was saying.

Finally she took her old sword and jammed it into the dirt atop the hill, whipping the new blade through it.

With a screech of distressed metal, the ancient cursed two-hander was split into over a dozen pieces as scintillating crimson echoes of the sword slashed across it from every angle.

“…It will suffice.” Slak’vreth said, scowling down at the remains of her legendary sword.

“Feel free to name it,” Perry said.

“This is a job for it’s creator.”

Well, the primary gimmick is made using Echo Parrot and Hadoken crab.

“’Echo’ will do nicely then,” Perry said, taking the handle and inscribing the name in the hilt with an etching pen. In a matter of hours, the name would reveal itself.

“Echo it is,” Slak’vreth said, taking the blade back from him. “Now, let us begin our campaign against Alkush. The lord of war has no pity towards the defeated, and I will have Alkush’s power for my own.”

“March!” Slak’vreth Deathseeker shouted, pointing Echo towards the distant castle seemingly brimming with artillery.

Perry did not wanna get hit by artillery, but Deathseeker didn’t seem to give it a second thought.

“Whoah!” Perry and company nearly lost their balance, having to crouch and hold onto something as the hillside they were perched on stood up and began marching.

Throngs of lesser demons and trolls fell into step beside the massive lumbering lump of stone, trotting to keep up with the Earth Elemental slash Mobile Command unit’s ground-eating pace.

“There is no sensation more thrilling than setting out on a new conquest,” Slak’vreth, said, smiling out into the wasteland as her features were lit by the flames beginning to spread out below them as her minions began outpacing the command center and setting things on fire.

The effect was somewhat marred by her teeth, which had been filed to points.

BUZZ.

BUZZ.

Perry’s phone vibrated in his breast pocket.

“Can you excuse me? I need to take this,” Perry said, fishing the phone out of his pocket and holding it up to his ear.

“Can I come out of the phone now?” Gna’kis whined from inside her highly shielded prison.

“Asolutely not,” Perry said. Slak’vreth Deathseeker was ‘friendly’ towards Perry, but Gna’kis didn’t even enjoy such flimsy protection. If the greater war demon knew she was there, she would immediately be consumed, allowing Slak’vreth to transcend to a Demon Lord herself.

Perry needed to create an opportunity to feed Gnakis some scraps of the demons fighting on the fringes of the battle to grow her power, else Gna’kis would be forced to sit out the entire confrontation, which was less than ideal.

He needed a little more chaos than there was currently. But soon he’d have it. A matter of days.

“Just wait until Eugene has had a little more time to spread, alright?” Perry said

“Ugh, fine,” Gna’kis groaned, ‘hanging up’ the phone on him. She was still in there, but she’d disconnected the mic.

In the meantime, the eighty trolls with her symbol etched into their foreheads continued consuming demon meat.

Power was flowing in, one way or another, greatly accelerating Gna’kis’s growth. Thankfully it was flowing in from Alkush’s minions rather than Slak’vreth’s, so she didn’t feel the loss.

Slak’vreth Deathseeker watched him out of the corner of her eye as he put the phone back in his pocket. Perry felt a cold sweat build as he considered how poorly things might go if she realized he was carrying such valuable cargo. The symbol on the troll’s foreheads was a dead giveaway that they served another master, but would she believe there was a vulnerable Demon Lord actually here, under her nose?

Finally she spoke:

“You get service in Nargosh?” She asked, her head tilting quizzically.