Wormhole Cultivation [Book 2] - Chapter 67: Family Matters (Patreon)

The kick sent Trazgul flying away from the portal. He rolled a few metres like a sack of bolts, heavily and not far. He tumbled three times over the stump of his right arm, arched in pain, then lay still, his strength gone.

The unexpected turn of events had frozen us all, but a demanding general’s shout made us all flinch.

“A direct strike! I don’t care about navigation problems or how much debris is in orbit! I don’t care about the ship’s integrity! Let it blow itself to smithereens, but only after it fires!”

Novak was distracted and raised an eyebrow.

Kaluya made a gesture in his interface, evidently cutting his voice off from the transmission, because he explained in an entirely different, rapid tone:

“An oblique strike in two minutes, a direct one in twelve. All the ships are hanging over megacities. They need to get into position, and orbit right now is one big rubbish tip.”

The general repeated the gesture in his interface, switching his voice back on for the operator.

A direct strike meant a shot along the shortest trajectory, as in Nanjing and on the rehabilitation centre’s dome. For that, the ship had to hang directly above the target. From below, all you saw then was a new white ‘star’ quickly flaring up. By the time you noticed it, it was already too late.

An oblique strike was entirely different. It plunged into the atmosphere like an asteroid or debris. It usually travelled faster than debris, but at a similar angle, and pierced the atmosphere along a long path, hundreds of kilometres instead of a hundred. It glowed all the way, leaving a streak across the sky you couldn’t mistake for anything else.

Vezhkar hadn’t been standing there looking at the sky for nothing.

Besides, an oblique strike would have to pass over the ridges, and who knew whether the angle would let it reach the slope where Trazgul lay rather than the summit in front of it.

On the other hand, we didn’t have twelve minutes, did we?

In the picture, Vezhkar was still standing by the ring. He didn’t go down to his cousin, didn’t look round at the sky and the mountains any more; he seemed to be waiting…

“Son,” Kaluya said, “if you don’t manage to deliver this strike, you and the commander of that bloody ship will both go and storm the Cape Town dome stark naked. Is that clear?”

On the screen, a new demon stepped out of the portal. The Queen immediately put a question mark on him. And on the four after him. These weren’t parade-ground soldiers in gleaming ceremonial armour. Their armour, though it kept to the classic colours of red, black and purple, was covered in scratches and scorch marks. One had crude repairs on his back, a fresh seam of welded metal, and another was missing half a horn. A fresh metal cap covered the cut.

The Queen spent about eight seconds going through Aoran’s package before the question mark over the demon with the cut-off horn changed to a five.

“Eighty-seven per cent match,” she warned.

Vezhkar pulled a rod from his spatial pocket and aimed it at the portal. The newcomers leapt aside. A silver strip shot from the rod and struck the ring, tearing a good chunk out of it, just like a classic Fist projection.

The portal, of course, deactivated. Vezhkar pointed the rod at one of the warriors, then higher up the mountain.

The demons exchanged uncertain glances.

Vezhkar put the rod away in his spatial pocket and took out his sword. Fire ran along the blade. He repeated the gesture with the sword. The demon hesitated no longer. He threw a jetboard under his feet and took off into the air, while Vezhkar carried on gesturing, pointing at three more warriors in turn.

That prompted another round of glances, and Vezhkar didn’t like it. He took a step closer, the demons backed away in fear, and he swept his sword at them, holding the flaming blade at the level of their necks, then decisively slashed the air. Still, they clearly hesitated.

“What the hell is going on there?” Kaluya said, and immediately added, “Not you, son. We’ve got some very strange shit going on here. But it doesn’t cancel the need for the strike. Especially since we’ve now got five more demons in our sights.”

Vezhkar raised his sword again.

This time the demons didn’t just back away. One, the one Vezhkar hadn’t pointed at, dropped to his knees; two raised their hands; and the last stretched his arm forward, and lightning burst from his fingers past Vezhkar. It struck Trazgul. His defensive formations didn’t activate, and his body jerked.

Vezhkar stepped back, lowered his sword and made an inviting gesture with his left hand.

“Fuck!” Kaluya commented in astonishment, adding gently, “Not you, son.” And more sternly, “What’s happening with my ship? We still need that strike.”

The general didn’t repeat the answer we didn’t hear, and we didn’t ask, because the events unfolding on the screen deserved all our attention.

First, the demon who had flown off set up a new portal near the top of the mountain, from which he could see almost all the surrounding mountains, though the ridge shielded us from his gaze. He didn’t activate the portal, but he kept turning his head in every direction, looking for signs of the enemy, meaning us. Among other things, he didn’t forget to look up at the sky.

That almost guaranteed that even a direct strike wouldn’t go unnoticed and the demons would escape. Kaluya growled, but didn’t call it off.

Second, the trio of demons surrounded Trazgul. He stirred, sensing something was wrong. It had evidently cost him the last of his strength, but he had no escape.

The discharge struck him in the chest again, and this time it didn’t just make his body jerk; it bent it into an arc. A web of bright branches ran across the blackened armour, gathered on his horns and drained into the slope. The grey grains around him hissed and smoked.

He was still alive, but the Queen had finally identified our Lightning, putting a five on his chest.

“Sixty-nine per cent match,” she said.

“Why so low?” Novak asked.

“The demon has been identified as Khardzul Vrotaan Kzarnet. His main weapon is a two-handed sabre. The records state that he hardly ever uses Lightning to attack, but relies heavily on Lightning movement techniques that boost his speed,” the Queen explained.

That partly explained why Khardzul couldn’t finish off an almost defenceless Seven. What’s more, he needed help: the other pair of demons Vezhkar had chosen for the dirty work.

They dropped to one knee and plunged their palms into the grey grains. The snow beneath them darkened, sank and ran, gathering into a puddle, and ice began to grow from the puddle between their fingers. Cloudy and grey, the colour of the radioactive grains. The ice stretched upward, and the demons rose, holding icy hafts in their hands, their lower ends spreading into the broad, crude blades of two mismatched axes. One was much neater than the other, but both looked more like giant props than real weapons.

The Queen identified them too, assigning each a five with seventy-two and seventy-six per cent probability.

The first Water demon planted his feet wide, swung the axe back with both hands and brought it down on Trazgul’s neck. Shards of grey ice sprayed in every direction. The blade dented the scorched metal and drove the demon deeper into the rock, but didn’t kill him.

The first Water demon raised the axe and passed his hand over the blade, restoring its cutting edge.

Lightning struck again at once, making Trazgul arch and the ice beneath him melt and steam.

The second Water demon brought his axe down straight after.

They struck and hacked in turns. Methodically but unevenly, clearly doing something like this for the first time. The ice crumbled and flew apart, but soon blood stained the blades. They had broken through the metal, but the flesh beneath was almost as unyielding.

The axes broke; the demons repaired them or grew new ones, one after another. Trazgul’s body jerked and arched under this brutal execution, but the demons no longer had a choice. Stopping now meant death. If not at Vezhkar’s hands, then at the big bad’s. So they struck and struck.

Kaluya made a gesture, muting himself for the operator, and asked, “Aren’t they using Blade?”

“Obviously not,” Novak answered. “They’re trying to make it all look as though we killed Trazgul. Water and Lightning without any Point or Blade, so that nothing points to them.”

At some point, Trazgul’s body stopped arching after the blows. It only shuddered, like a carcass when it’s struck. The demons still hadn’t separated his head from his body, but he was already dead.

Vezhkar raised his left hand.

The Water demon, mid-swing, froze. Vezhkar pointed lower down the body, and the demons began hammering the breastplate and legs with their axes. Lightning didn't take part; he stepped away, but it didn’t last long. Vezhkar made another decisive gesture and came closer to the body. He bent down, grabbed Trazgul by a horn, rolled him onto his stomach, put a foot on his back, and twisted his head until it made two full turns. He pulled and straightened up, tearing the head from the body.

Strands of torn neck muscle trailed from the helmet. Vezhkar held his cousin’s head by a horn at arm’s length and, tilting his own head to one side, watched drops of blood fall from it onto the snow.

He didn’t wait long. His gaze rose to the sky again, as if he knew the strike would come soon.

“How much longer?” Novak asked.

“How much longer?” Kaluya repeated question, then passed us the answer. “Three minutes.”

Novak shook his head, as if he didn’t believe we’d have them.

Vezhkar swung his arm and hurled the head off the mountain.

“Queen, try to track it without giving away the drones!” Novak ordered in a rush.

Vezhkar took an axe from a subordinate and smashed it into Trazgul’s back, then took a second. He ordered Lightning to strike, and his subordinates to make a few more axes, which he disposed of in the same way, after which he grabbed his cousin’s body by the leg and began pounding it against the rock like a pillow.

“Has he lost his marbles?” Adam asked.

“On the contrary,” Novak said. “It’s cold calculation, if I’ve guessed his next move correctly.”

Vezhkar stopped and gave an order. The demons took out their jetboards. Vezhkar himself slung his cousin’s battered body over his shoulder and pushed off from the rock. Flame burst from the soles of his feet, and he flew up to the portal at the summit.

“He’s made sure that when he presents the body to his uncle, the signs of battle won’t be only on the chest, but on the back as well,” Novak explained.

Vezhkar reached the summit first. The sentry activated the portal. Vezhkar looked back at the mountains one last time and stepped into the portal. His team followed him.

The portal deactivated, the ring sparked, and smoke poured out.

Nobody was left on the slope. Only the grey grains falling from the sky, a dark stain by the rock, and scattered shards of ice that no longer resembled axes.

“Call off the strike,” Novak said.

Kaluya sighed and complained.

“After the hysterics I put on for them, they’ll think I’m a right piece of shit at headquarters.”

“Don’t drag it out!” Novak hurried him. “I need that head! And the portals will come in handy too. The one Vezhkar disabled with the rod might still be repairable.”