The Machine God

Chapter 260

Superhuman Limits

Alexander frowned.

The ship’s descent had slowed, but it was still falling too fast. Hundreds of bioelectrical signatures flickered inside the hull. He’d expected the wizards to have magicked up a solution by now. An enchantment. A backup system. Something.

They hadn’t.

He gritted his teeth. Seizing a ship that size with Metallokinesis was out of the question. The mass alone would drain him dry in seconds, assuming he could even grip enough of the structure to matter.

Instead, he reached out and flooded the hull with oscillating waves. The same way he’d accelerated the Sleipnir. Or the Jupiter asteroid. Except both of those had been in space. Moving in the same direction. Without gravity dragging directly opposite every wave he sent. Power flowed out of him, pulling heavily on reserves that were already running low.

The ship slowed. Fractionally.

Flashpoint scoffed. The sound was followed by a crack of thunder as he launched toward Alexander.

Drones rushed in from every direction. Droney threw everything it had into the intercept. The combat drones were fastest. The first one reached Flashpoint and exploded against a wall of heat. The second shattered on his forearm. A third slashed across his path. Flashpoint batted it aside without looking, the wreckage spinning away in flames.

Alexander’s left hand came up. A lightning bolt shot across the gap. Flashpoint answered with a marble from his good hand. The two attacks met between them. The detonation blew smoke and fire across the sky.

Flashpoint raced through it.

Alexander’s right hand stayed extended toward the falling ship. The waves pulsed. The ship slowed another fraction. Then another as the wizards on board fought for their own survival, doing something to aid his own efforts.

The two shield drones slipped into position on either side of him. Their barriers activated, curving inward, sealing Alexander inside a sphere of shimmering energy.

Flashpoint hit the barrier fist-first. The impact rippled across the sphere’s surface. Flames dominated one side of Alexander’s vision. Cracks radiated outward from the point of contact, fractures spreading through the energy field. The barriers flickered. Keda’s decay beam had eaten most of their reserves. They had almost nothing left.

He ignored it. A few more seconds. That was all he needed.

Flashpoint burst around the sphere, faster than the drones could reposition. His hand came up, fingers glowing bright white, and he drove them through the barrier and into the nearest shield drone. His fingers melted through the alloyed casing, into the emitter housing, toward the power supply. The alloy ran like water around his wrist.

The ship hit the ground.

Alexander felt it through his senses. The impact rippled through the structure. Bioelectrical signatures vanished. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Each one winking out as decks collapsed and compartments crushed.

The shaking stopped. The ship settled. A few more signatures blinked out.

But hundreds survived.

Half the barrier vanished. The ruined shield drone detonated, fragments scattering. Alexander flicked a finger at the remaining shield drone and stored it in his ring.

His left hand came up to block. Too slow.

Flashpoint’s fist slipped past the guard. Wreathed in white flame, it connected with the center of Alexander’s chestplate and detonated on impact.

The OACS cracked.

The sternum plate, already bent inward from Flashpoint’s first attack, already buckled from the knee, split along the stress line with a sound Alexander felt in his teeth. The broken edge drove into his chest, jamming tight against his ribs. His breath caught. The next one came shallow, his lungs fighting the metal for space to expand.

Heat flooded through the breach. The superheated air around Flashpoint poured through the crack in the seal, and the OACS atmospheric systems screamed warnings across the HUD. Breach detected. Thermal containment compromised. Atmospheric integrity failing.

The explosion sent Alexander tumbling through the air. The mace drones crashed against Flashpoint from behind, buying a second of separation.

Alexander stabilized. Gasped for breath. The air inside the suit was already noticeably hot. Each inhale was shorter than the last, his ribs pressed against bent metal, his lungs half-filled with air that tasted like heat.

But the effect was weaker than it should have been. The HUD was reporting the external temperature wasn’t nearly as high as it had been at the start of the fight. Flashpoint showed no obvious strain. Only the blood he’d coughed up earlier, dried by the heat and flaking from his face. But he had to be running as low as Alexander was.

Droney sensed the same thing and pressed the attack, sacrificing more of the combat drones, shield-blades extended, driving at Flashpoint’s vulnerable spots. Face. Neck. Hands. Back of his legs.

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Alexander burst toward Flashpoint, one mental thread reaching into the broken section of armor with Metallokinesis, pulling and twisting, forcing metal away from his ribs. The other thread poured Animachina into a handful of the remaining mace drones as they battered the superhero.

Then he collided with Flashpoint hard, catching him in the chest with a shoulder. Something cracked. Flashpoint grunted. And the pair went spinning through the air, punching and grabbing at each other.

Fire erupted between them, and both went tumbling away from each other.

Alexander corrected, racing after Flashpoint.

The superhero pointed with his good hand and fired a dull red marble.

Alexander concentrated Electrokinesis into his gauntlet and backhanded the attack away from him before it exploded. Without slowing, he brought his knees up, and drove them into Flashpoint’s face with a final burst of speed.

Cartilage crushed. Bone cracked. Teeth broke.

Alexander reached down and grabbed him by the open-faced helmet before the superhero could twist away. Lightning erupted from his palms again. He poured everything he had left into the electricity tearing out of his soul, burning its way into Flashpoint’s head.

Flashpoint screamed. Then he exploded.

Everything went white.

Alexander hurt everywhere. Thinking was hard.

He blinked. The HUD flashed, red and angry. The OACS screamed warnings in his ears. A gentle wave of Technopathy calmed and silenced the suit.

Metallokinesis pulsed, breaking his free fall. His attention dragged across the sky to an unknown metallic signature falling past him.

The helmet. Flashpoint’s. Crimson flames painted along the sides and back, charred and warped.

Alexander shook his head. Inhaled, pushing past the pain in his chest. Blinked again. The blurriness withdrew, and in the distance he spotted a ball of fire racing across the sky. Shrinking.

A dozen drones gave chase. Droney led the charge, though a tendril of worry ran back across the bond between them.

Flashpoint.

Getting further away.

Running. Fleeing. Escaping.

Alexander growled. Metallokinesis pulsed, and sharp pain answered deep in his chest. He raced across the sky after the fireball.

While one mental thread maintained the flight, pain shunted to the side, the other thread tried to calculate. Flashpoint would reach the gateway, only to find it sealed by Keda. Who was dead. Leaving the gateway to be claimed by anyone who knew how. Would Flashpoint know how? Would he try? Did he have the reserves left to even accomplish it?

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Too many maybes. But even if he succeeded, he’d find no allies on the other side of the gateway.

Alexander gritted his teeth and pushed harder anyway. The rational part of his mind argued that he should withdraw. Drop down into the forest below and hide. Recover his strength, and try again another time.

But Flashpoint was strong. He stood near the top of all the Tier 2s Alexander knew. Maximilian. Julia. Sindre. Hjordis. Guang. And there was still a chance he was the Eternal Flame. Or could become it. freewebnøvel.coɱ

Flashpoint would never be this vulnerable again.

And he’d walked out of the fortress before taking flight. He’d never encountered the anti-flight ward. He wouldn’t know it was there.

Alexander continued to accelerate. The distance closed. Ahead, Flashpoint had slowed further, forced to defend against Droney’s relentless wave of harassment.

Then Flashpoint angled downward, aiming for the fortress. For the section of the main courtyard visible where the ceiling at one end had collapsed.

Droney threw itself at Flashpoint along with the rest of the drones. Battering him from the side, trying to delay his progress for even another second.

Then Flashpoint, Droney, and all of the drones passed the invisible threshold.

They all dropped hard into the courtyard. Droney and the drones dropped like rocks, crashing into the ground, bouncing, then rolling across the floor.

Flashpoint yelled. The flames holding him up sputtered, and his arms windmilled instinctively, trying to keep himself from falling. He landed on his feet, and his legs buckled beneath him.

Alexander didn’t hesitate. He threw himself down after Flashpoint, aiming for the superhero’s back.

The ward cut through his flight halfway down, turning targeted descent into ballistic free fall. Five hundred plus pounds of man and armored combat suit with nothing but gravity, momentum, and Will behind it.

Flashpoint pushed himself to his knees. Coughing, one hand on the floor. Blood dripping from his ruined face.

Alexander slammed into his back, smashing him straight back down onto the floor. Then he bounced, crashed, rolled, before screeching metal hit the wall and came to a stop.

Alexander lay face down on the courtyard floor.

His powers were running on fumes. The drones were scattered across the floor around him, grounded, dark, silent. Droney lay somewhere behind him, the bond reduced to a faint pulse.

He tried to push himself up. The suit was too heavy. The servos had failed. Five hundred pounds of dead metal pinning him to the floor.

The HUD flickered back to life, damage reports flooding the display unprompted. Major power failure across multiple sections. Left leg actuators offline. Right arm servo response at twelve percent. Atmospheric systems dead. Fusion cell output critical.

Alexander sent a whisper of Technopathy through the suit. The internal catches released. Then the smallest pulse of Metallokinesis he could manage, threading into the seams. Inner legs first. The plates split apart and thunked against the floor. Then the right and left torso sections, separating along the internal joins. Under the arms. Inner forearms. Each piece falling away with a dull clang that echoed through the ruined courtyard.

He pushed himself up. The helmet caught on the chest piece for a moment, then pulled free.

Alexander lifted it overhead, then dropped it on the ground beside him.

Air hit his face. Cool compared to what he’d been breathing ever since Flashpoint cracked the armor. Because Flashpoint’s Domain was dead. He sucked in a breath that filled his lungs. His ribs ached where the sternum plate had crushed against them, but they expanded. All the way.

Across the courtyard, Flashpoint was struggling to his feet.

Alexander looked down at himself.

He had to hold back a laugh. It would have hurt too much to be worth it.

He’d suited up for battle in the OACS, and beneath it he’d worn his favorite three-piece suit. Black. Tailored. Just in case he needed to be presentable for Flashpoint’s death date.

The jacket was plastered to his body, drenched through with sweat. The shirt beneath had gone translucent. His hair was matted to his head. Sweat dripped from his chin.

He was panting. Hard. Every breath visible in the effort it took.

Twenty meters away, Flashpoint found his footing. frёeωebɳovel.com

Alexander took a step toward him.