Chapter 87
Machine GodThe Qi cannons swiveled toward him and opened fire. The nearest level fired first, then a heartbeat later the next joined in, then the next. The wave rolled upward just as it had against Chen Wei below.
Alexander threw himself sideways as obsidian projectiles filled the air where he’d been. Unlike the cannonballs below, these shots moved like arrows of solid shadow, leaving trails of purple-black energy. One grazed his shoulder. Even through his armor, it felt like ice searing into his soul.
He launched himself upward, then yanked himself sideways, then up again in rapid succession. Each movement triggered the next level of cannons. The pattern was predictable but relentless.
Five floors of range, just like below. But unlike the archaic cannons below, these kept firing, clearly not requiring physical ammunition.
Alexander pushed harder, throwing himself from side to side across the tower, each time trying to gain just a little more height. Three floors. Eight floors. Twelve floors up before Chen Wei even burst through the gap from below.
The cultivator emerged into a storm of Qi projectiles as the lower cannons reacted to his presence. But Alexander had already gained the distance he needed. Blood seeped from dozens of small cuts where shrapnel had found gaps in his Qi defense. The burns on his arms from the earlier battle had started to crack.
He kept climbing desperately. Thirteen floors. Fourteen. His muscles screamed. His damaged chest plate rode up, scraping painfully against his throat from being used as his anchor to throw himself upwards repeatedly.
Below, Chen Wei had started his pursuit, leaping from cannon to cannon, gaining ground with each bound. His movements were still powerful but less fluid than before, each landing slightly off-balance. But Alexander was too close to the exit now. The cultivator wouldn’t catch him before he reached the top.
A cannon in Alexander’s blind spot swiveled toward him and fired, unnoticed in the brief moment he’d tracked the cultivator. Droney intercepted the shot, purple energy crackling across its surface. The drone spun wildly from the impact, emitting a long warbling beep before its systems compensated and it righted itself.
Alexander looked up. Two more floors to the exit. He gathered everything he had left and threw himself upward with Metallokinesis, spending precious energy to pull Droney along with him.
A Qi blast caught him in the chest mid-flight; the impact spun him around. His armor took the worst of it, but a chunk of the chest plate vaporized.
Alexander pulsed his power again, correcting his trajectory. Another blast tore toward him from above, from the final cannon. He crossed both arms in front of his face. The projectile struck his gauntlets with enough force to crack them. Through the ringing impact, he thought he heard something shift inside the left gauntlet’s housing.
And then he was through the gap.
Wind hit him immediately. He’d emerged onto a rooftop, the tower’s summit. Above, a vortex of blue-purple light spiraled upward into infinity, as if it might pull everything into its hungry depths. Beyond the edges of the tower, only pitch-black void stretched in every direction, broken by streaks of blue-purple light being drawn upward into the vortex.
There, on a small platform near the roof’s edge, two pedestals stood barely a meter apart. Golden orbs glowed atop each, pulsing with inner light.
Alexander threw himself forward with the last of his strength, arcing through the air toward them. As he flew, he could feel the orbs calling to him. The right one felt familiar, resonating with signatures similar to his own powers. But the left one... it felt like insight. Like knowledge of self. Like understanding.
He reached for the left orb, then hesitated as he landed between the pedestals, glancing at the right. He could feel them both buzzing in his awareness, just like the dimensional gateway had. The left one called for him, while the right felt like… a familiar suppression.
Alexander considered the implications. The System was managing thousands of fights right now. Its attention divided across realities. Its power stretched thin.
His ambition flared, burning away caution.
Alexander spread both arms wide and brought them down to grasp both orbs.
The left orb responded immediately. Power flooded up his arm. Golden energy that felt like liquid enlightenment, carrying knowledge of internal cultivation, of building power from within.
The right orb sat cold and dead under his palm.
Alexander reached into it with Technopathy, sharpening it into a single point. Nothing. He pulsed Metallokinesis throughout the Technopathy, intertwining it the same way he had against the gateway. There was a matching pulse of pain inside his skull, showing that he’d about reached the limits of his Metallokinesis. Still nothing. He flooded the orb with Electrokinesis next, pushing current directly into its core.
The orb grew hot, beginning to vibrate. It was resisting. Fighting him.
Scrambling for any edge, Alexander pushed his Animachina into it as well. The mysterious fourth power he barely understood.
The orb’s resistance spiked, pushing back against his intrusion. It felt almost angry, as if it were rejecting his attempt.
Alexander held on, pushing harder with all four powers at once.
Something cracked. Not physically, but deeper. The suppression vanished in an instant.
Power exploded up his right arm, different from the cultivation energy. This was raw superpowered potential, undefined, waiting to be shaped by someone’s dream. But Alexander already had a dream, and it transformed immediately into something familiar.
The two energies met in his chest, clashing violently.
Alexander’s back arched as the conflicting powers threatened to tear him apart. His heart hammered. His chest felt like it might explode. The cultivation knowledge wanted to create organized channels, meridians for energy flow. The superpower wanted to spread everywhere, suffuse every cell.
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He tried to force them into separate spaces within himself. The cultivation energy to his core, the superpower to his limbs. But they rebelled against containment, crashing together again and again. Each collision sent agony throughout his body. His vision blurred. Blood ran from his nose.
He tried compressing them together, forcing unity through pure Will. The energies recoiled violently. His muscles seized. His bones felt as if they were splintering from within. A scream tore from his throat.
Through eyes wide with pain, Alexander stared up into the vortex above. The blue-purple spiral pulling everything upward, not fighting the forces within it but channeling them into a single direction.
He let go of trying to force control.
Instead of trying to control them separately, Alexander began to spin them. Rotating the energies around each other like a double helix. They resisted at first, then began to merge, creating something entirely new.
Power flooded through him, but it wasn’t raw or chaotic anymore. His four separate abilities—Technopathy, Electrokinesis, Metallokinesis, and the mysterious Animachina—stopped fighting for dominance. They streamed together like tributaries joining a river, each maintaining its nature while flowing as one.
The cultivation core had given him the framework he’d always lacked. A center point where technology and energy, metal and soul, could exist in harmony. His powers refined themselves, impurities burning away, inefficiencies vanishing. What had been four desperate attempts to control the world around him became a single, purposeful current.
For the first time since he awoke in a totally new world, Alexander felt complete. The constant strain of juggling separate abilities vanished, something he hadn’t even realized was there, hindering each of his powers in different ways. The exhaustion that came from forcing powers to work together disappeared. Even Droney, hovering nearby despite its damage, felt different to his senses. He could feel the growing core of intelligence, sense within it curiosity and loyalty.
The integration reached its crescendo. Lightning crackled from his eyes as his back arched one final time. The golden orbs beneath his palms dimmed, their purpose fulfilled. Power settled into every cell, every thought, every breath. The rooftop fell silent except for the wind and the hungry pull of the vortex above.
Behind him, Chen Wei reached the rooftop. His breathing came in ragged gasps, though he tried to hide it. Dried blood crusted his forearms where the lightning had charred flesh. He saw Alexander gripping both orbs, stealing both prizes, and rage transformed his features.
“Thief!” Chen Wei roared, Qi exploding from his feet as he launched forward, fist pulled back with enough force to shatter stone.
Droney spun to intercept, spraying a cloud of metal dust from hidden vents. The same tactic that had worked against Julia.
The glinting cloud caught Chen Wei full in the face. He screamed, momentum still carrying him forward. His fist, pulsing with destructive energy, slammed into Droney’s face.
The drone’s armor buckled. Chen Wei’s Qi pulsed again, tearing through the plating and into the delicate systems within.
Droney exploded. Pieces scattered across the rooftop, bouncing and rolling to the edges.
Chen Wei dropped to his knees, both hands pressed to his eyes. Instead of screaming, he gritted his teeth at the pain and focused inward, Qi-light beginning to seep between his fingers as he burned the metal contamination from his eyes. Steam rose from his face, but he remained silent, determined. His Qi flickered weakly, nearly depleted from the climb and the cleansing.
Alexander released the orbs and sank to one knee, chest heaving. He drew in a deep breath, then another, feeling the integrated power settle into his bones. When he finally straightened, the world felt different. Clearer. The Cultivator’s Core had given him exactly what Talia predicted: a way to unite his disparate abilities.