Frank was in a panic. Synthesis reactors are already at their limit, and will soon begin to collapse, the mountain is already beginning to not withstand the chaos that is happening inside. Frank of course felt some pride that this was the fruit of his efforts, but this was absolutely not what he wanted to achieve. Suddenly he thought that maybe it was worth giving up, he showed his usefulness, and he might be treated with respect, but in his perception there was an image of Slender, whose flesh was boiling, bursting and regenerating, there was no longer interest in his eyes, there was anger, fear and rage. He tried to absorb the drugs that were on him, but as soon as he got them out, the nanobots converted them into energy, and intensified the attack on him.
BLAC commented – “It’s too late. The reactors cannot be stopped, the mountain has already begun to melt from friction, the storm, now there are only two living creatures, you and him, and this is not for long.”
Frank looked closer and saw that the hulk, who was carrying him, was no longer bleeding, but was starting to burn, the temperature rose sharply, only due to the hulk’s field, he did not feel it in full volume, and gradually this field narrowed, so he began to burn.
Horror began to fill Frank’s mind, and BLAC’s stimuli were no longer able to contain it. He chose the way out, and was mistaken, there is a dead end. The end of the road, emptiness is nothing. Why does he keep moving there? The image of Slender dissolving into a bloody mist said that now he was alone, but that does not matter. There is no one to run from, there is simply nowhere to run.
He won, but the winning process created an irreversible cycle. These are the last seconds, Frank thought. Apathy fell on his mind, it didn’t matter where he was going, whether he burned up in hot magma, or was sprayed by the explosion of reactors, or just twisted his neck when stopping at the destination of the path. The unburned remains of the nanobots grouped together to form a field and tried to surround and protect me. The hive signals have already been lost and burned out.
BLAC lost the need to control many processes, and said – “This is an interesting experiment, thanks to the form of their energy, colossal power can be transmitted without wires. It is a pity that there is no time to conduct experiments and understand the nature of this phenomenon.”
Frank asked a little thoughtfully – “that is, you implemented it all without having an exact idea of how it works?”
“Yes. There was no need to understand, energy is energy, it is transmitted by electrons or magnetic fields, and there is a sample, what is a transmitter and what is a receiver, it does not matter as long as there is a result. The hive subroutine was tuned to the unknown environment, just find working version and use it. “
“Hmm, let’s forget about science and knowledge then, we need to quickly reach the center, in all wet fantasies about magic, there are always teleports” Frank chuckled with a bit of irony.
BLAC said, “We cannot stop, whatever it is, the body will not be able to withstand the overload.” and as if in confirmation of his words, the body of the hulk turned to dust, only a shrinking bloody fog carried Frank by inertia among the falling pieces of rock, and periodically knocked through the next partitions, for the fastest achievement of the goal.
Frank saw a guiltily smiling cat in front of his eyes, which only conveyed the knowledge that if he stopped at such a speed, even if he performed impossible acrobatics, he would die from pain shock, and therefore BLAC uses his body as a puppet to maximize the chances of survival, and his consciousness will only hurt.
The last thing he heard was “Farewell” and he fell into the void.
********************************************************
The boy lay on the straw and thought. If the dream continues, I will change again. He saw a note of fear in the Master’s eyes as he tried to give me energy. Something happened. He has become stronger, not much, but now quite at the level of his peers.
He always believed that he was weak because he was born that way, sometimes such people came across in these mines. But he is different, why?
They, too, are dreaming something … why did dreams begin to appear only recently, or for a long time? How long has he been in these mines?
The boy suddenly realized that he knew more than he ever thought. He began to remember how many times he went out on the river, and realized that the number is too large to be true, there are 365 days in a year, why 365? how does he know? What does it mean? Numbers, exactly as numbers are used in counting, no one ever taught me how to count. But now I know that in a year I would go out 52-53 times on the river. But then I am several decades old? My body is only an 8-9 year old child. How can I be tens of years old? Does time go differently here? Otherwise, how is where? In the Warlock world?
A severe headache pierced the boy’s consciousness, and he began to fall into the world of dreams, absolutely not wanting it now.
He saw how the Warlock, led by his servants, tried to leave the catacombs, and even the subordinate main warrior walked like an obedient servant behind him. But two more main warriors came out to meet him, along with someone who looked like the one who had been attempted once upon a time in their colony. He was a different person, but the aura, the aura of the nobility was felt in him, and besides, he was monstrously strong. The boy had never heard of the insanely strong Cultivators, or magicians. With one movement of his hand, he destroyed the undead warlock, the main warrior took the warlock in his hands and ran, breaking through the walls. The undead began to form something terrible, three legs, four arms, a double head, it was obviously a creation from the remains of bodies, but it was strong, especially against the two main warriors accompanying the noble. They weren’t used to fighting such an abomination, and as soon as one died, he became part of it. And before the fate of the second was sealed, the nobility completely destroyed this abomination. A cadaver, a thought surfaced in the boy’s memory, dead bodies being experimented on.
After the abomination, the cadaver was destroyed, a bloody fog full of small creatures that the boy saw in a previous dream, attacked the second main warrior, and began to take control of him, last time they could not subdue such a war, but this time it it was in seconds, they got stronger. But the nobility destroyed the second warrior, before he completely lost control of the body. The nobility did not see these little creatures, he did not know what he was fighting with. For some reason, the boy felt pride, not understanding why, but he understood that he wanted to see this nobleman dead, not only because it had happened in the colony once, but the main character of the dream was Warlock and the boy instinctively rooted for him
The boy suddenly gained the ability to see everything that happens in the catacombs, on an unimaginable scale. In size they exceeded the mines in which he now lived several times, and this was one of the largest mines, as he heard. He saw death, and the dismemberment of the soldiers, how they reassembled in new abominations, rushed at the noble, gradually, each subsequent one achieved better results. But this was not enough, he would soon catch up with the warlock, when suddenly all the bloody fog began to destroy the rocks, and created powerful gusts of wind with fragments of the rock, starting to bombard the noble without stopping, the noble began to lose energy to defend against these completely insignificant attacks, but their the volume did not give him the opportunity to create a full-fledged defense against this when he was trying to restore energy or use artifacts, small creatures? minigolems? nanobiobots? they were destroyed and became stronger. Suddenly the catacombs began to melt, were the energy sources to blame created by the minigolems? microgolems? nanogolems?
The sudden realization of the concept of miniaturization, almost brought the boy out of sleep, but heaviness in his head, pain in his head. Cognitive dissonance? the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes…? Lots of extraneous information suddenly awakened in his mind. It doesn’t matter, I have to see the ending.
At the moment when he was distracted, the nobility was disfigured, fragments of rock, and burned with fragments of magma. Powerless rage was read in the blazing skeleton, turned to dust.
He saw a warlock with a sad expression on his face rushing somewhere surrounded by a bloody fog, the boy could not understand, he won, why is he sad? He did not seem to know this noble. But suddenly it became clear to him. The concept of a double-edged sword surfaced in his mind. What killed the noble will soon kill the warlock. Nowhere to run. Suddenly, the warlock’s eyes glazed over, like those of puppets, before that, and his body began to deform, the skin was covered with metal alloys, creating an outer frame. Suddenly there was an unimaginable roar, the Mountain trembled, the flame spread in all directions, turning the mountain to dust. Warlock’s body flew at full speed into the cave, in which there was a huge magic stone, the boy had never seen anything like it, the stones that he had seen earlier in the mines were smaller than a fingernail, someone said that the slave who found the stone with a fist was even released. But this stone in the cave was several tens of the height of a man? about a hundred meters? and half that in diameter?
Not far from it were rows of metal boxes, apparently guards were sleeping in them? Several thousand boxes with numbers. and the coat of arms. The boy had once seen this coat of arms. The Master possessed several crates of ingredients.. If he is not mistaken this is the coat of arms of the supplier of the most valuable ingredients, it is not surprising that there were a lot of them in the kitchen.
There was some kind of distortion above the crystal, vortices were visible in it, through which one could see fields, mountains, seas. But instinctively, the boy understood that it was impossible to get into him alive, in order to go through this distortion as a whole, he had to be very strong, for example, like that noble one. The main warriors can and can cross it, with the help of any artifacts. But the warlock in its current state will not be able to. Perhaps the bodies in the boxes were used as mediums, transferring consciousness from this portal, for simple warriors. The Warlock whispered something.
The boy did not understand that but understood the phrase “I at least said goodbye” flew at full speed into this distortion and sprayed into particles…
This is how I died…
*********************************************
The alchemist eagerly absorbed elixirs, trying to restore energy, his body was already in perfect order, all old wounds were healed, all the impurities accumulated over the years of taking non-standard drugs disappeared. He should have become stronger, younger, make a breakthrough, but this did not happen, he himself turned into an energy abyss, as an important rare ingredient. He ordered the servants to bring him, but they said that he was unconscious, he said to drag his body then.
The alchemist was sure that when he was testing the boy that something had invaded into him, and it was necessary to bring it back, a costant thought in his head said that this must be done as quickly as possible. When the servants brought him in and laid him on the table, he drove everyone away and locked the door. Then he turned into a bloody mist, and a huge stream of energy began to saturate the boy’s body.
The boy opened his eyes and whispered with a glazed look, “it could be worse” …
End of the prologue.
