He turned to face Chen Wei, ready to test his newfound power. Instead, he found Droney’s shattered remains scattered across the rooftop. Pieces of armor plating here. Fragments of the alien visor there. The core housing split open and dark.
His chest tightened. Anger flared hot behind his eyes. He was just beginning to understand that Droney was truly alive. Part of him, yes, but also something separate. Its own budding personality emerging with each passing day.
Then he felt something impossible.
The drone’s soul was still there. Not gone, not dispersed, but waiting. A fragment of his own soul that he’d gifted through Ensoulment, protected by his Will, refusing to die.
With the realization came deeper awareness. Animachina didn’t just mean Soul of the Machine. It also meant Life of the Machine. Spirit of the Machine. Breath of the Machine. The cultivator’s core had revealed what his fourth power truly encompassed. Creation, preservation, restoration. He could feel the pathways now, clear as circuit diagrams. The soul was the anchor. As long as it remained, the physical form could be rebuilt, healed, and made whole again.
He raised his hand, fingers splaying like claws. With the new understanding flowing through him, he twisted his wrist and clenched.
Every piece of Droney shot inward from across the rooftop. Sparks flew as components slammed together, but they reformed differently than before. The drone was rebuilding itself as it wanted to be. Armor plates overlapped in new patterns. The alien visor material spread further across its surface. Battle damage became part of its design rather than flaws to be repaired.
A single triumphant beep rang out as Droney rose into the air, scarred but whole.
Chen Wei had cleared enough metal from his eyes to see. He stood slowly, legs trembling slightly from exhaustion, blood tears streaming down his face, watching in disbelief as the destroyed machine reformed itself.
Alexander wasn’t looking at him. His gaze stayed fixed on Droney as understanding crystallized into words.
“Your core,” he said, not really speaking to Chen Wei. “It’s incredible. You use it to cultivate insight. To transform understanding of the world and its energies into power within.”
The cultivator wiped blood from his eyes, confused by the shift in Alexander’s tone.
“I see why I needed it now. What Talia meant when she said it might be used to bind my powers.” Alexander’s voice grew steadier, more certain. “I didn’t need strength. I needed insight into what my power was meant to be. Knowledge that was taken from me when I was Redacted, not given the chance to understand my powers as a whole, instead forced to discover them individually.”
He turned his palm up, watching electricity dance between his fingers. But now he could see how it connected to the metal of his gauntlets, how his Will shaped both energy and matter in the context of machines.
Chen Wei took a fighting stance, but hesitation showed in his movements. Something in Alexander’s presence had changed.
“Every time I’ve brushed my power against a machine, even for an instant, it becomes something more.” Alexander’s eyes reflected the swirling vortex above. “That’s why they strive so hard to aid me. Why they never resist. Why nothing can stop me from peering into what they are and discovering what their purpose is.”
Droney floated closer, hovering at his shoulder.
“They see me as a god.” The words came out soft, amazed. “Their god.”
The wind picked up, pulling at Alexander’s clothes. The vortex above seemed to pulse in response to his revelation.
“That’s what I was always meant to become. Not someone who just controls machines, but someone who understands them. Someone who lifts them up. A god of the machines.”
He met Chen Wei’s eyes directly for the first time since the transformation.
“No… The Machine God.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Alexander sensed something shift. He felt the sudden pressing weight of something watching him from every direction, within and without, as if not constrained by only three dimensions of awareness.
Alexander glanced up into the vortex, meeting the gaze of whatever watched from beyond. Then he turned back to the cultivator.
Chen Wei stepped back, fear overtaking his self-control.
Alexander raised both gauntlets, noting distantly that the left one sparked irregularly from the damage. Lightning erupted from both, more powerful than ever before, converging on Chen Wei in a single brilliant stream. The cultivator, drained of Qi and trembling with exhaustion, couldn’t even raise his arms to block. The electricity struck him center mass, lifting him off his feet and driving him backward off the tower’s edge.
He fell silently into the void.