Volume 2 Chapter 21 Solarite Weapons

Chapter 21 Achenosiris

I

Achenosiris opened the door of the temple quietly.

The first floor was a library and he wasn’t interested in it, so he walked up to the second floor, where he encountered Yanni and Stasha.

“Who are you?” demanded Yanni.

“I am Achenosiris, leader of Macchina Gloriosa, and I want to ask you this question too. Santo Cielo is the property of Macchina Gloriosa. Hatpesis had died. I found her corpses beside the on-call room. She once told me that she had met some dangerous Normanian barbarians. You two are the Normanian barbarians she said, aren’t you?” demanded Achenosiris in Normanish, finding out that they were those Normanian criminals that had defeated and killed Hatpesis and Tutanchanubia.

Yanni and Stasha still didn’t say anything.

“Seemingly my guess was right. Since you’re dangerous criminals, I will tear you two into pieces!” announced Achenosiris.

Achenosiris pressed the button on his ring and summoned his power armour. Tentacle-like bandages extended out of his back. Staring at Stasha, Achenosiris decided to attack her firstly, but Yanni interposed, holding up his shield.

He used to trust his shield heartedly, because it was made of lunarite and lunarite was one of the hardest things in this world, but half a month ago, his shield was pierced through easily by Nephthytia’ machinite flechette. Since Nephthytia was able to break his defence, Achenosiris must be able to do that too.

However, he had no choice. He must protect Stasha.

Achenosiris shot a bunch of bandages towards Yanni and entangled his shield with it. With a pull, the bandage cut his shield into smithereens easily like a piece of cake.

Stasha threw one of her daggers towards Achenosiris, but the latter parried the flying dagger easily with his mummy bandage. When he withdrew the mummy bandage, Stasha had already run up to him, beginning to slash him with another dagger which she was still holding in hand.

She was considerably dexterous and her dancing step was difficult to dodge. The Submatrix inside his armour was computing rapidly in order to figure out the attacking patterns of Stasha.

Achenosiris shot a dollop of bandages onto the ground, which assembled into a mummy-like automaton composed of metallic bandages.

Violently, the summoned mummy punched his metallic fist towards Stasha. Stasha dodged most of his punches, but one punch still hit her on her chest. A thrill of nausea ran through her spine. She felt hard to breathe and wanted to vomit.

Luckily, she had Yanni with her. Though without his lunarite shield, Yanni was still a brilliant fighter. He charged towards the mummy automaton and kicked him on his back, sending him hurtling out of the temple. After falling to the ground, the mummy automaton broke into pieces.

Roaring angrily, Achenosiris brandished his bandages towards the two. In order to dodge the bandages, they jumped down from the second floor to the ground.

After their fall, Stasha and Yanni lied on the ground, injured seriously, while Achenosiris was staring at them, ready to take their lives with his bandages.

Stasha and Yanni had no strength to fight back now. They could feel that several of their bones had been broken and the only thing they could do now is waiting for their death.

Achenosiris shot a strip of bandage towards Yanni first. He could feel the energy lurking inside it, the energy which could cut him into half within a second.

That fearsome strip of dart-like bandage was flying towards him, glowing in eldritch dark green light. This bandage was sharp enough to cut through the magical barrier of Nephthytia easily like a piece of cake.

However, no one died.

Slowly, Stasha and Yanni opened there eyes. Floria was standing in front of them and the stellarite shield was held in her hand. She had parried Achenosiris’ bandages.

However, the energy inside the bandage had penetrated through the shield. It was corrupting Floria’s hand and Floria was screaming in pain.

“Attivo-Solarito!” shouted Stasha. It was the spell to activate the stellarite weapons.

The instant her voice broke off, the stellarite shield commenced to glow with slight red light, and it absorbed all the energy inside the bandage. Obviously, Stasha had activated it successfully with the spell given by the Arcane Shadow.

“Impossible!” shouted Achenosiris.

Aisling walked towards Achenosiris from the distance slowly, the stellarite ring shinning on her finger. Her right hand was glowing, preparing for magical spells to fight Achenosiris, and Cuore Celeste was held in her left hand.

“Who are you? Wait … Hatpesis told me about you. You’re an elf, aren’t you? And the gemstone in your left hand must be Cuore Celeste. Give me the gemstone and I will spare the lives of your four,” threatened Achenosiris.

“My magic will break you, Achenosiris,” warned Aisling.

“No, it won’t. I’ve beaten Nephthytia, the most power magician in this world!” smirked Achenosiris.

“Maybe I cannot win this fight alone, but I have friends,” announced Aisling.

Aisling gave off two clouds of green mists. They went into the noses and lungs of Stasha and Yanni. Taking in the healing gas of Aisling, Yanni and Stasha recovered from the injuries done by Achenosiris just now. Then, Floria gave the stellarite shield to Yanni and the stellarite daggers to Stasha.

The fight commenced.

Achenosiris shot another strip of blade-like bandage towards Yanni, but he parried it easily with his new stellarite shield. With his full strength, Yanni tossed his shield towards Achenosiris’ knees. It didn’t miss, and with an awful scream, Achenosiris kneeled on the ground painfully.

Stasha ran up to Achenosiris, her stellarite daggers ready for blood. Achenosiris wrapped himself with his mummy bandages, which formed a indestructible barrier. The daggers of Stasha couldn’t break the mummy bandages of Achenosiris.

Suddenly, Achenosiris spread all bandages, they impacted on Stasha’s chest, knocking her to the ground.

The instant Achenosiris spread his mummy bandages, Aisling shot a gigantic spore bolt which exploded on Achenosiris’ chest, sending him hurtling in the air for several meters.

Achenosiris was boiling with rage. He couldn’t believe that there were something that could compete with his power armour.

He couldn’t beat those Normanian barbarians, but those barbarians couldn’t beat him too. However, the aim of Achenosiris was not beating them, but robbing Cuore Celeste from them.

Now, Cuore Celeste was held inside Aisling’s hand.

He pretended to pant heavily, as if he were about to lose.

As expected, Aisling let her guard down, thinking that Achenosiris had no strength to fight right now.

She was totally wrong.

Catching her off guard, Achenosiris reached out one of his tentacle-like bandages and it entangled the gemstone.

Screaming in pain, she loosed her grip on Cuore Celeste and Achenosiris pulled it to his hand with the bandage.

As fast as a gust of lightning in the thunderstorm, Achenosiris cut a hole out in the wall of the grotto and jumped out of it. Outside the hole he cut out was the sky and the sea of clouds.

Achenosiris opened his parachute and soon he would land on the ground under Santo Cielo.

“Adieus,” smirked Achenosiris.

Descending with his parachute, he would move downwards for thousands of metres all the way back to the desert.

Floria wanted to shoot an arrow to destroy his parachute but he had already disappeared under the sea of cloud so that Floria missed her target.

They failed. Cuore Celeste had been taken away by Achenosiris. They were done.

Soon the process of the great mechanization would be launched.

II

Achenosiris had flown back to Le Meraviglie by an Flying obelisk in Ombra Fortress.

It might take as long as one month to walk from Le Meraviglie to Santo Cielo.

However, it would only take one day to fly between these two places.

…

One day later.

Achenosiris inserted Cuore Celeste into the Mother Matrix.

The process of mechanization began. Mother Matrix unleashed a cloud of mechanical particles. Those particles were the automaton viruses.

The process of mechanization began. All the cells of Achenosiris were transforming from organic to metallic. All his desires and emotions were washed away by the Matrix.

He was turning into an automaton, and it was his destiny. The world of machines was where he belonged to.

Slowly, Achenosiris walked out of the room.

He saw one of his employees.

“בְּווֹן פּוֹמֵירִיגִّייוֹ, אַקֵינוֹסִירִידֵי!׃” [Good afternoon, Achenosiris!] greeted that employees.

Achenosiris charged up to him and bit him on his neck. When Achenosiris’ teeth touched the employee, the automaton virus penetrated through his skin and merge with his blood, turning him into a automaton too.

The great infection commenced.

…

Within half an hour, nearly all people in Le Meraviglie had been infected by the automaton virus. People had turned into automatons, and they began to turn other things on earth into mechanical structures too.

Soon, the earth would be a mechanical planets, a gigantic cosmic device; after that, other planets in the solar system would be turned mechanical too; finally, the whole universe would be a machine, and the earth would be the core of it.

Macchina Gloriosa had won. The death of Hatpesis, Tutanchanubia and Nephthytia worthed it.

III

Floria, Yanni, Stasha and Aisling went back to Ombra Fortress.

Cuore Celeste had been taken away by Achenosiris.

Without doubt, he was flying back to Le Meraviglie in order to mechanize this world right now.

He had to be stopped or the whole earth would be a piece of lifeless metal. Achenosiris could fly fast and arriving at Le Meraviglie earlier than him was difficult.

There were many flying obelisks parking inside Ombra Fortress. They hijacked one of the obelisks and Yanni began to drive it.

Gradually, the flying obelisk rose up, cracked the ceiling of the Ombra Fortress open and soared into the air. After that, it started to move forwards towards Le Meraviglie at a formidable speed, and it was nearly as fast as the power armour of Achenosiris.

There were windows in this cockpit. Looking out the window, cerulean sky and white cloud could be seen. Below them was the marshmallow-like clouds and this flying obelisk was like a boat sailing on the endless sea of cloud.

Soon the night was coming. The sun went down and the moon rose up.

Since there was no air pollution above the clouds, stars could be seen, and they were shining and decorating the sky of the night.

As the time passed by, those clouds dissipated gradually. Below the clouds was the path in the desert that they had walked through.

From the flying obelisk, Aisling, Floria and Stasha could see some desert villages with residents. Those villages were the only illuminated places in this dark desert. Unluckily, they had seen none of those villages on the journey from Le Meraviglie to Santo Cielo.

Even in such a barren land, there were still some lights to dispel of the darkness. Hope always existed.

While Yanni was driving the flying obelisk, the girls were chatting.

“So assassins have once fought with the high elves? I don’t know this at all! I only know that in the 47th century there were wood elves moving to Desertia to join a mysterious rituals, but no one alive knows what that ritual was. It’s really a forgotten history,” admitted Aisling.

“Elves don’t know this history, and neither do assassins,” added Stasha.

“I can’t believe that high elves lost. Without doubt, that ritual has really exhausted them,” guessed Aisling.

“I am a half-Assassin, so you and I are historical enemy, Aisling,” joked Stasha.

“Yep, historical enemy,” agreed Aisling.

Solemnly, the two shook hands with each other.

“You two are hilarious,” giggled Floria.

Involuntarily, the girls looked at Yanni.

“I couldn’t believe that I’ve found the Sanctum of Life. If we really beat Achenosiris, I will have to try to unseal that gemstone and enter Cuore Celeste,” whispered Aisling.

“Yeah. That’s where you belong to,” Floria put her hand on Aisling’s shoulder.

“Anyway, we’ve gone through a period of hopelessness, but now with those stellarite weapons, I think we can beat Achenosiris,” summarized Stasha.

“But what if he would be faster than us, arrive at Le Meraviglie, and mechanize the world before we could stop him?” questioned Aisling.

No one answered.

Clearly, the journey ahead was still full of uncertainty.