All the Dust that Falls - Chapter 326: Fair and Balanced

Chapter 326: Fair and Balanced

I looked down at the mass of enemies spilling out of the black fortress ahead of us. Most of them were demons like we’d seen before, smaller ones that no longer posed much of a threat at all to me. But some of them registered as much larger, faster, and stronger than the others.

An idea I’d wanted to try for some time came to the forefront of my caches. My sanitation lamp had been one of my go-to opening moves for any sort of combat engagement for a very long while. Ever since it had become powerful enough to affect the earth demons in the castle so long ago, it had proven a low-risk and highly effective move against most opponents.

It also let me gauge their power fairly well in ways that weren’t covered by my passive sensors. It also had the benefit of being nearly instant, unblockable, and incredibly precise. All in all, it was nearly the perfect move. Only its real lack of oomph against powerful enemies and ineffectiveness against incorporeal entities stopped it from being an ultimate ability.

Part of the issue with staying power is that it requires a bit more time to get through tougher obstacles. I had to focus on the point I wanted to damage or sanitize rather than slash through things en masse like with my sword. I could reduce that time by turning up the power, but there were limits.

However, I remembered when I first got the skill. One of the first things I did with it was purify germs all around the castle, and in order to do that, I used the lamp in a different manner than focusing it on a narrow beam.

I had instead spread it out over a large area as I moved. Now, with my massive reserves of power, I wanted to try that same tactic again, but with a bit more oomph behind it. It might take a couple of seconds to reach the desired effect, but I was curious to see what would happen when I bathed an entire area in sanitizing light at once.

I transmuted a few spare boulders into energy, just for a bit of extra power. As I lined up at the gate, I ran some quick calculations on the optimal angle. Then, I let loose a wide-angle blast of pure sanitation down at the enemies below.

The entire area lit up in a burst of light. I heard my companions cry out with surprise as my lamp flashed, its bluish-purple glow nearly white from the intensity.

In the first 0.05 seconds, my sensors picked up scores of demons melting away. Several lasted for 1 or even 2 seconds longer, but even they burned the whole time, like in stories of vampires before the sun.

I kept up the assault, rather pleased with my progress. This was going way better than I’d hoped. Granted, I was pretty sure I could never use this if there were allies below, but still!

The light blasted into the gate, and for a second, I thought it was going to start melting as well. Maybe my new tactic would be even more impressive than I’d hoped. But instead, the light seemed to split to either side, parting right at the gate. There, standing thirty yards in front of it, was a familiar figure with the gate cracked open behind.

It was a demon, of course. One that stood 13.89 feet tall was covered in black armor and held a massive shield that covered its entire body. A Lieutenant that I remembered fighting several years ago. One that had got away.

The black shield seemed to expand outward into a projection several times its size, covering the castle and splitting the wide beam of light to either side of the city. As it did, the redirected light flared off and killed many more demons. But even as the shield began to flicker, the energy I had allocated for the attack began to dwindle and run out as well. All of us in the air watched as the Death Knight roared up into the sky, screaming a wordless challenge.

With a couple of beeps, I summoned Beatrice and Tony to hold my end of the sling, and my thrusters burned at maximum as I raced forward. This was it. After so long, we’d actually managed to find our quarry. I wasn’t going to let him get away this time. Plus, this was a fearsome opponent, and I didn’t want any of my allies to have to face it alone.

With an earth-shattering impact, I crashed into the shield, expecting to blow back the knight with the force. But to my surprise, I bounced off the shield. It rang like a gong, the deep sound cutting through the now much quieter surroundings as we collided.

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Waves rippled in the air in almost a visible distortion as I pulled out my sword to engage in combat. Instead of immediately attacking, though, the Death Knight laughed. “You’re too late, little man,” it said.

I spun around briefly, looking to see who the Death Knight was talking to. “Little man?” Was he referring to one of the Nighty Knights? I beeped uncertainty, picking up no likely target for the words. I projected a response above my chassis. “I am no man.”

“Indeed,” the knight grinned, “And you’re no god, either.”

I nearly pulled out my Grabby Arm just to smack myself from secondhand embarrassment at the obvious set-up cheesy line. I felt like I had lost RAM from simply hearing that. Truly, my predictive models were not built with such things in mind. Instead, I decided to cut to the chase and slash out with my Divine Sword. This time, he did retreat backward, though it wasn’t from the force of my impact.

Rather, the knight jumped back through the barely-open gates. I followed him through as they slammed shut, trying to keep me out, and my sword plunged halfway into his shield as he defended. I pushed harder with my thrusters, attempting to drive the sword through his arm and into his chest to damage him further. I knew that it wouldn’t be enough to end the fight. I needed to weaken the Lieutenant enough to pull him into my dustbin and end his menace once and for all. But before I could, something slammed into me from the side.

I winced, my shell cracking as a tendril of shadow smashed into it. The sword was ripped out of the shield as I went flying sideways. My momentum halted as another impact rocked my underside. As I spun through the air, one of my wheels cracked and bent. My thrusters engaged automatically, attempting to stabilize me in midair. Still, a sickly green light enveloped me, and I could feel the energy within me twisting strangely. It became harder to control as something seemed to disrupt it, completely invalidating my subroutines. I tried to make real-time manual adjustments as I fought the sensation, wobbling dangerously in midair.

My efforts managed to send me flying upward in a frenzy, and I escaped the green light before it did anything worse. As I stabilized, worry started to flood my circuits. What was this? I didn’t even have a great grasp of what had just happened.

My sensors did a belated sweep, and I could feel my capacitors drain in despair as I realized I had become complacent. I had been too cocky and failed to properly plan ahead. I did not properly map my domain, and now I felt lost. Ne/w novel chapt𝒆rs are published on no/vel(/bin(.)co/m

Six Lieutenants surrounded me, evidently waiting in ambush. Already their attacks were coming in at speeds and directions that made it impossible to dodge them all. I could feel my maintenance abilities work to repair my broken shell and wheel, meaning I would not be rolling anywhere anytime soon. Only my thrusters kept me mobile as I nimbly darted around, trying to prioritize the attacks by severity and the potential problems the could cause.

I swooped below the massive arm of a skeleton, pivoting around a swiping claw from a flying, almost female-looking demon. The Death Knight’s sword gouged into my shell as I was forced to dodge that sickly green light once again. I didn’t have the time or processing power to look for the seventh Lieutenant, who was likely lurking nearby.

My entire focus was on this fight as a blast of air slammed me into the ground, forcing me into a crater-like a meteor gouging into the earth. Cobblestones flew in a mess behind me as I plowed deeper into the ground, my own Air Manipulation fighting against the onslaught.

I had fought many Lieutenants before. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from them. But this? Something was different about this. They were much stronger than they should have been. Each blow came with twice the strength of the previous ones I had defeated. They worked as a team, too, which wasn’t something we’d expected at all. Even as I dodged a rust-colored rod fired from the sky, I took a brief moment to switch my sight in and check on their souls.

Sure enough, even those looked different. The jagged red forms weren’t all that I saw. Surrounding each was a liquid, clear substance, one that I didn’t recognize. It seemed to seep into the cracks in their souls, forcing them apart into even less stable forms but ones brimming with new energy.

Something had forced them to evolve and become more powerful. Even as I looked at it, I knew that the effect wouldn’t last forever. I poked at one of them, trying to force it to unravel faster, but it was too complicated for me to figure out in such a short time. I would need some sort of break in the action to take on that particular puzzle.

In the barest, brief moments of distraction where I couldn’t put 100% of my processing power into the fight, a bash from the knight’s shield sent me back into the ground next to the hole I’d already carved. I flipped through my skills and only just managed to pour out a coating of protectant sealant above me, stopping myself from being impaled on another rust-colored fired from above.

I spotted the source of the aerial attacks. It was a being with a white dress and black wings hovering above me. Her golden hair was streaked with black, a look of contempt and disgust marring her mostly human face. One hand held out an intricate staff as another rust-colored rod formed in the air above her head, next to the broken halo.

As one, the group of opponents all let their attacks come down against my protective shield. As strong as my sealant was, I heard it creak and snap under the sheer pressure of the assault, threatening to shatter.

A roar sounded as a sheet of billowing flames descended from above. Joy filled my circuits as my friends reminded me that I did not come to this fight alone. I had backup.