BECMI Chapter 452 – To the Wormhole, and Beyond!

Soon enough we had come up to the edge of the main silvery dome that rose like a great impenetrable crystal ball into the sky high above us. The only entrances to the dome were located around the eight travel lanes/tubes extending out to the other domed cities, and naturally there was a thundering lack of anything happening at those places we could use to slip in past them.“A combination of a nigh-impermeable crystalline shield, a powerful force field, and an aetheric resonator with an… inversed tachyon signature?” Dame Adama judged shrewdly, inspecting the dome close up without actually touching it.

“Yes. It’s consuming time and using the feedback to maintain the Severance, turning a cost into a benefit. Quite clever. Doing this on a scientific level is extremely impressive, but since it is likely the culmination of everything their society was working towards, understandable. I hope we aren’t facing weapons technology of the same level, or we’re looking at quantum disruptors and temporal singularities coming at us en masse, not just energy weapons and more bots.” I looked up at the expanse of the thing. “They are slowing down personal time trying to make more time for themselves. If this wasn’t a dying demiplane they’d be ripping holes in reality and well, you probably have a better idea than I do what would come spilling in.”

Mithar’s Avatar looked up once, her blue eyes as hard as diamonds. “You have to appreciate their resolve,” was all she said after a moment, turning to Iatro.

Our tall and bronze-skinned Healer just shook his head. “They have given mercy to nothing, and everything else pays their price for them. We do not spare them.”

Dame Adama just nodded once. “We collapse whatever device and power source they are using for this before we leave. It is literally their time to die, and we are Creation’s tool to do so.”

There were only quiet words of agreement from everyone.

joined our Buffs, which would play havoc with any camera or optical tech or any purely technological robots or war machines. A spell cycled us through the outer lock, the temporal twisting here strong enough to impede all dimensional movement to bypass it. As it cycled and clicked open, doubtless alarms were already spreading inside that it had been opened without a signal, and security teams were coming to check on things…

There was a lot of shooting of energy weapons. Energy was important, as energy could be harvested easily. Ammunition was actually harder to make, and took up more resources. So, a rather substantial lack of kinetic weapons and physical assault devices, although they did have explosives.

That was important, because their personal shields were rated half-effective against material impacts versus energy assaults.

They had tactile mesh uniforms that were at least as effective as full plate armor, at a fraction of the weight, albeit requiring a power supply, and were also good at soaking energy attacks.

Adamantine Weapons accentuated with magic that treated nanofibers with a clear lack of respect, not so much.

Helos and I spent most of our time popping force fields and diverting explosive missiles and grenades back the way they’d come with . Actually, there was a lot of being thrown around, as Helix Shields blocked heavy laser and flechette guns frantically trotted out to stop us, screaming hyperevolved mutates were shoved howling into one another to disrupt their formations, weapons were ripped out of hands or diverted to shoot into one another, and by and large our melee specialists tore into them with complete impunity.

It wasn’t that the defenders weren’t halfway decent at melee combat, but their choice of weapons were shock gauntlets and plasma swords, and we already had the right energy resistances up.

The Force was with us!

Fire, lightning, sonic, cold, and acid attacks, in descending order. There were monofilament nets that turned back on them, shredding them as they were wrapped up in them. It turned out the monofilaments couldn’t sever magically-enhanced materials, which didn’t bode well for them, and our Rings were quick to impose Hexar Shields in the way of such things.

Tangler grenades of compressed superadhesives, gas attacks, needler guns brought out in desperation, some overconfident sorts coming out to mix it up with vibroblades and blast gauntlets. They were using everything they could to stop us from advancing, especially after we just kept wading through the laser fire and plasma blasts trying to stop us, and even the heavy particle beamers did a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

The inhabitants were vaguely humanoid in form, but their skins were more like coarse, bumpy leather of an even dark gray, their heads over-sized and vaguely reptilian with cranial ridges that seemed to be one of their more prominent identifying characteristics. Their eyes were all pupil and instantly adaptive to changing illumination conditions, and they had slits where ears would be on humans. Crystalline lines of embedded cybernetic circuits jutted out here and there on them, particularly on their heads, and they had some specialized cybernetics, although few of them seemed to be able to go the full cyberization route. I guessed that enhanced immune systems rejected deep cybernetic fusions and they couldn’t become true cyborgs, or more of them would have been brain-manning robo-shells, or biorganic constructs.

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Or maybe it was just pure ego. It didn’t really matter, in the end. I wasn’t taking samples of them.

An called them Oards, and indicated they were an end-line genetic mutation from basically human stock. They had absolutely no magical talent, for some reason no psionic talent to speak of, and were basically locked into the science paradigm for evolution. They had, however, come to the end of their genetic potential, and could not go further without mutating into something that was not Oards at all, and likely not even mortal.

They had solid Ruby souls, willing to kill universes in order to live, certain they were the apex creatures of Creation, and all others were only fit to serve or die before them.

They were not stupid, but we were hitting them fast and hard, using energies they had no personal experience with, speed and physical ferocity a whole level higher than they were used to, and doing so without visible use of advanced technology they could understand and neutralize.

They had both tracked and legged robots they unleashed on us, as well as nanite swarms and some flying drones, none of which performed well against electrical AoE attacks or reaping through hordes of them.

The Markspace telepathy was fast and furious, all eyes scanning all the time for threats, four experienced Warlords sharing tactics and choosing options at accelerated speed. If a couple hovertanks coming into view had to be instantly before they could prove a viable threat, well, we could do that, too.

Actually, we could them and cut a whole squadron of them right in half, which was not much appreciated by the enemy, especially combined with the way Helos and I could automatically blow apart the very force fields they were relying on the most to stop us.

told us where to go, much to their dismay. I had out scouting the path, and moving even faster than their drones, charting our course, noting their ambush points, while they struggled with their drones and robots being unable to see us. from a whole bunch of Oathrings was really messing with their ability to stay in formation, and their inability to follow us with surveillance technology was naturally giving them conniptions.

There were also a lot fewer of them for a city of this size than could fit here. Like, a tenth the optimal numbers or less. Even allowing for trying to conserve their numbers, it was plain they were dying out for one reason or another.

Well, they were going to go out with a bang instead of a whimper!

Dame Adama cut, the spell went off, and the thick duralloy door vaporized in a swathe of green light and molecular release. Fine powder fell to the ground in front of us, and she strode into the engineering core of the city.

The power supply in front of us seethed with enough energy to crack a planet in half or more, constantly being depleted as it was transformed into the anti-tachyon clash that was maintaining the Severance and also slowing down time within the dome proper.

“Are they burning a wormhole?” Sif asked archly, glancing at it as we all entered the massive chamber. There were oards around, and they started to snipe at us with laser pistols… which the Hexar Shields both blocked and reflected.

Jian waved a hand, and one of the creatures below us was jerked off his feet and into the containment field around the power core there. He started to scream, and there was a pop and sizzle of energizing matter as he went straight to plasma and was sucked inside the field.

“Useful,” Haki judged dryly, and then a dozen hands waved together as Rings gleamed.

Oards screamed, and then they popped and sizzled, and there was no more annoying laser fire coming from below.

“” Helos proposed, looking around at all the very complex machinery begging to be destroyed by massive eruptions of magical lightning.

“Simpler. .” I just pointed at the fields of force containing the power core. Bursting it would release the wormhole within, and destroy the technology that would re-initialize the field at the same time. Once power was interrupted, the Severance would end, and millions of years of time would come crashing down almost instantly.

“How far is the Portal out?” Dame Adama asked reasonably.

“A hundred yards in that direction,” Lunia pointed at a large door leading out of the area.

“Must be at the spatial heart of the place. Convenient,” Thor sniffed, his Armor showing some scratches and scuffings from power mauls, blast gauntlets going off, and vibroblades skidding off it, mussing the polish and the paint. had been plenty happy to show them magic’s version of similar effects in return, with ’s effect being particularly effective at pounding them down in one hit. He’d knocked the turret off one of the tanks with one hit from his Hammer, and could crush whole rows of defenders with their little force shields.

“Clear the way to the Portal, and blow the room behind us,” Dame Adama agreed, pointing.

High-level characters moved with unity of purpose and a speed that had repeatedly shocked the oards, going across disciplines to borrow things like Lightfoot and Heavyfoot with complete disregard for any Immortal Rules against learning such things, meaning we all moved with a grace and speed to rival adept Mystics.

Helos and I moved for the control banks of the force fields, while the rest surged towards the way out, promptly being met with a fusillade of energy fire and explosions that a from Dame Adama stopped in its tracks. The defending oards were swept aside and a wave of blew them off their feet even as began to deprive them of weapons… and Sif, Molniya, and Thor charged at easily thrice the speed of a sprinting human to reach the scattered oards rather faster than they could get back up and recover. Spear, Sword, and Hammer spun, leaving glowing trails of radiant light from behind as they rampaged through the oard lines.

Arbor and Jian provided ranged punch, Haki and Dame Adama provided back-up to the melee warriors, while Iatro, Lunia, Chardon, and Catleya used to constant effect, mostly to prevent use of grenades, trip oards, and misdirect heavy weapons, while they were also ready to use spells on the instant. Catleya was naturally Singing, her voice in triple stereo at the moment, turning this fight into a heavy metal fight song moment as the oards were being stomped.