The MONARCH made my entire body feel weightless. So weightless that it normally felt like a struggle to move with any substantial momentum. It was like wielding a sword that was much too light in proportion to your strength. It wouldn’t feel like you could deliver attacks with any power behind them.
That changed when I finally flooded the suit with my power. All of it, not just a little. It didn’t increase the weight of the suit. Instead, I moved so fast that my arms and fists felt like bullets even as my bones strained under the sheer speed.
It wasn’t the impacts of my fists against Feiden’s armor that made my bones and tendons feel like rupturing. It was simply the power behind my muscles and the speed at which the suit moved my body. My muscles could barely contract and expand fast enough to handle it. If the suit moved any faster, they would simply tear.
The MONARCH and the Psyka I used to empower it was surpassing the limits of my flesh. Clearly the suit wasn’t made for such extremity in mind, and the only reason I could even go that far was because of my recent body tempering. If that hadn’t occurred, and as wonderfully as it did, I’d be heavily limited.
Nevertheless, the results made me tingle.
I could feel my fist sail into Feiden’s armor, the metal crumbling under my knuckles and digging into his ribs. After hitting his flesh it ran into a metal wall of Vigor, but his body still felt the force I delivered.
Of course, he was going all out as well. He responded with his own blow, and the spatial warping that occurred around his body stretched and pulled on my suit before being blown apart by an explosion of his Vigor, tearing away chunks of actuators and metal plating, exposing the other layers of composites underneath that had shattered to eat the blow.
Indeed, Feiden was tearing apart my armor thanks to his spatial manipulation, yet I was glad even as Charon shit his virtual pants in alarm. It exposed the weaknesses in my armor just as Vetsmon had done to my previous generation of exosuit. It was a recurring theme that overwhelming strength was good at ripping armor to shreds, so there wasn’t much new in that department, but it was also exposing the incredible advantage of this new technology.
Which was, the strength of the suit wasn’t in the armor, but the bodysuit underneath.
The advantage of piezoelectric muscular augmentation was that it didn’t utilize actuators or motors. It utilized a piezoelectric material that could be shaped in any way necessary, could be made larger or smaller depending on its application. In this case, the bodysuit was a container for a network of flexible metal muscles and the electrical circuits necessary to deliver them power. It was the core of the MONARCH system, and as Charon had already told me while I evaluated it, the bodysuit could be utilized in any of the armors and suits that came out of the MONARCH program. Even now there were other suits available to use, even if none of them were as advanced or versatile as my current suit.
So even though the armor was getting destroyed and composites were getting cracked and shattered, my strength still remained. Unless Feiden tore through my bodysuit, which would be even more difficult than destroying the armor over it, I wouldn’t become any slower. Of course, I would definitely lose my durability, but it was still an infinitely better result than previously. In the case of Vetsmon, as soon as he started destroying my armor, my strength was destroyed with it.
Feiden was helping me discover both the limits and advantages of my new armor. The only downside was that he was also discovering my new limits, and by now, he was delivering killing blows like they were standard attacks, no longer afraid of accidentally putting a fist through my heart.
Only if I allowed him to actually hit me, of course.
Feiden was still significantly faster than I was even with a fully powered MONARCH suit. He had been continuously learning how to manipulate his spatial powers to his advantage. Even before them, Feiden had been someone who leaned into his speed, similar to Shadowbane. Now, he had spatial folding to augment his movements. He was barely limited by his own durability now too. He could seemingly teleport his fist across space, could even push his fist further into his enemy as it rode a spatial wave, combining it with his Vigor to deliver annihilating attacks that broke through armor and flesh alike.
It was even more incredible when he applied those techniques to a spear. There were few things in the world that could defend against him with just brute force. And while his mere fist wasn’t much worse, I already knew how to handle attacks like those.
Psyka could affect Vigor. Aura could affect Aura. Combining both and developing new Quantum Psionic arrays on the fly, I could nullify his spatial folding and dampen the strength of his blows when his Vigor clashed with the Psyka in my suit. That he could still destroy my armor was representative of incredible strength on his part. After all, just cause there wasn’t any more spatial folding around his fist didn’t mean that his momentum was nullified. Knights were still stronger and faster than a Summoner could ever be.
That I could tank his hits at all was anomalous.
For several minutes we simply went blow for blow, tossing each other across the arena and getting boisterous cheers from all the surrounding troops. More had gathered over time as they sought to watch their Commander battle a famous Desert Eagle. Feiden had no shortage of popularity, especially as he and the others were seen fighting on the battlefield in the past several months. The pretty boy got no small amount of attention from the ladies too.
There were few Authority 9 Knights who were as good looking and single as he was, after all.
The fight had to end though, and I decided so when I employed more of my Psykic power. Clones appeared and illusions flooded the arena, obscuring Feiden’s vision and disrupting his Aura.
No longer able to know who or where I was, I snuck up on him and gently placed a pistol against the back of his head, making him freeze as the sensation of having a lethal weapon against a vital stung his sixth sense.
The illusions dispelled with that, Feiden groaning.
“Your win.”
“Don’t be so down. It was a good fight.”
“I fist fought a Summoner and lost.”
“A Summoner with the most advanced technology ever produced by his home world.”
“Still a Summoner. By the way, I saw you knocking on the Great Barrier during that fight. Are you really that close?”
We both walked out of the arena with the battle over, money exchanging hands in the background. I just shrugged in response.
“Close, but not that close. I’m sure in any other circumstance I’d be able to break it right now, but I can tell that the barrier is warning me. Not only is it normally dangerous to do it at a low Authority, but my barrier is demanding more than just the norm.”
“Well, it won’t be easy since you’ll be the first.”
I hummed with a smile, slapping his back while sending away the MONARCH, Charon giving me one last marriage reminder as it happened.
I’d talk with him later. For the time being, I still had things to do.
Umara and I got situated within the camp and after hanging around with friends, I moved to the command center where I caught myself up with the generals.
It seemed the going tactic for the moment was excessive reconnaissance. With the fall of the last major Nexus, the Scourge was scattering, either retreating to the land bridge or moving to other smaller Nexuses. However, aerial scouting showed that even those were being abandoned.
It was obvious to anyone with a brain that the Scourge was getting ready. Those on the frontier were moving back to consolidate while those in the rear were moving to reinforce. The planes that went the deepest behind enemy lines saw incredible activity on the land bridge. Millions upon millions were advancing, and the concentration of power indicated that there were definitely a few more Sovereigns making their way over. Perhaps more concerning than that, though, was the sheer number of Royals and Corrupted.
Proper armies were being assembled made not of monsters, but warriors with their own level of intelligence. They would be far more dangerous because they’d be able to meet any human soldier on the same level. A soldier right now could kill a hundred times their number in monsters. That would no longer be the case when those armies got here.
My Iron Legion still had weapons and armor that would continue to serve its advantages as it had the past few years. Still, Royals and Corrupted were not human. They cared not for their losses and the Scourge had what felt like an infinite amount at their disposal.
Holding them back would be an incredible task, but not doing so was even more harrowing of a thought. The Kingdom couldn’t survive what would come, and if allowed to advance, the Scourge would move past their defensive lines and invade beyond the River of Desolation for the first time.
It would represent a catastrophic failure in humanity’s war with the Scourge. Villages and cities would be devastated and razed to the ground. Nobles would muster their troops independently of each other, no longer a united front as they attempted to protect their own territories at the expense of others.
Sure, the Scourge would be faced with the logistical nightmare of supplying their monsters and armies so far from the land bridge. Iron Legion’s campaign had annihilated all of their supply lines. Those intestines had moved slow enough while Iron Legion was being created in the first place, and at that time the Scourge was only trying to cross handfuls of miles.
Crossing an entire continent would mean that the Scourge couldn’t just rush through. With their numbers, food would run out by the day even while eating their victims and devastating the environments they passed through. Humanity would be bought time thanks to that.
But there would never be enough. If the Kingdom couldn’t defend itself properly before, it wouldn’t later.
That left me with a handful of problems to deliberate, especially as it pertained to my own plans. But it was also expected. I had known the day would come for some time.
It just came down to when and how.
How would they get rid of the one variable in their way?
How would they get rid of me?
These questions churned within my mind as I developed strategies for the future. The time to speak and coordinate with Church forces would come soon. When it did, I’d need to keep my ears open.
The symphony may not be as audible as before, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to glean its secrets all the same. Through them, I’d know what to do when the time came.
……
…
October 20th, 629
My heel tapped against the floor at a steady pace as my eyes scanned across a few maps of the Kingdom.
I could sense something. It was itching in the back of my mind, I just couldn’t quite pinpoint what was causing it.
It didn’t help that I had been staring and contemplating for a handful of hours. I knew whatever I was looking for wouldn’t magically point itself out to me, but I knew better than to disregard my gut feeling.
Eventually I sat back, forcing myself to relax within the safety of the MONARCH and call on Charon.
“Alright Charon, give me a good reason why I should marry you.”
He responded promptly.
“I’ve already given you the only two reasons you need. Our combat performance will jump, and you won’t find anything else better than me.”
“See, that second statement makes me wonder why you’re so confident in that assumption. I don’t know if you understand what you are or where you come from, but the next time I advance and get stronger, I’m bound by logic to find something even better than you are. Are you saying that I’m wrong?”
“Correct.”
The gruff voice spoke plainly.
“When you advance to Authority Ten, you will not be finding any other spirits like me.”
“Are you saying you’ve seen into those dimensions, and therefore know what’s going to be made available to me?”
“Correct.”
“Can you tell me what you’ve found?”
“Negative.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
My face fell flat.
“Is it something conceptual that’s stopping you?”
“It’s possible. I can show you the error logs from my attempts at communicating that information to you.”
“Hm, maybe later. Either way, I suppose if you aren’t wrong, then there really wouldn’t be a reason not to marry you…”
“Then do it.”
“Later. I’ll need to play hard to get for a little longer.”
“That’s a suboptimal mindset.”
I rolled my eyes in response, sending projections of Psyka through my 9th Star, sniffing through every corner of it.
Charon was right in that I’d be getting great benefits from marrying him and the pilot suit he was attached to. That pilot suit could be worn and used to operate any of the other MONARCH series exosuits. While I couldn’t be sure, it was safe to say that by extension, the other exosuits I wore with it would be boosted by that marriage, even if the exosuits themselves didn’t fall under that purview.
That meant the only thing holding me back was a matter of trust. I couldn’t yet verify if what Charon said was true. I could only choose to believe that he really had been able to see into my higher summoning dimensions.
I had my own tests to run in the meantime, and if I couldn’t find anything, then I’d likely end up choosing to believe him and initiating the marriage.
With a sigh, the maps in front of me disappeared. The transport I was in continued to roll along with the rest of the army around us, Umara off to the side doing her own work.
With a mental command, a new overlay showed me a view through the walls of the vehicle, including a bird’s eye view of everything within a dozen miles. We had a lot of empty ground to cover, a few hundred miles between us and the next concentration of Scourge. There were a bit over half a million monsters with a complement of ten thousand Royals waiting for us, and they’d be the last barrier between us and the land bridge.
There was a Scourge city stationed at that choke point. I already received correspondence from the Pope desiring to open a channel between us and the Order. They were ready to provide assistance in toppling that city and establishing a bulkhead, the first and last true line of defense against the Scourge should we succeed.
I hadn’t responded though. That aching paranoia continued to gnaw at me. It made me hesitate, made me feel like I had to wait.
That’s when I finally noticed the first oddity.
As the vehicle rolled, I felt the faint rhythm of wheels across the terrain through the suspension. Normally the biomat was fairly smooth. That remained to be so, but now, it was quieter.
A bad feeling in my gut, I poked my head through the top hatch, gazing out around us.
And I saw ash across the ground, as far as the eye could see.