The Final Pestilence

It wasn’t just the rain. The Hand of Glory also suspended the motion of some of the water I was controlling, while the AI froze the rest.

I stared at Pestilence. For a person who had been attacked by magic for the last two days, she seemed as healthy as ever. I wanted to ask why she coded the AI so poorly. I wanted to ask what her end goal was. I even wanted to ask if being bombarded with magic hurt.

But I had to focus on defeating her. Because if my conviction wavered, the Hama Yumi would become useless. And I couldn’t afford that at the moment, since I was using the bow, pulling back its string. A gleaming arrow popped up, moderately bright. Good enough. I just needed one shot. Nothing impressive.

The AI raised the nearby floor tiles to shield Pestilence. Probably the fastest reaction time it had so far. Too bad. I wasn’t aiming at Pestilence.

The arrow zipped through the air and hit the Hand of Glory. The arrow curved upwards after piercing the hand and continued into the night sky, sending it who knows where.

The raindrops were freed at once from the influence of the Hand of Glory; a bathtub’s worth of water plunged through the hole. With a wave of my hand, the fluid crashed through the computer units sequentially. Pestilence rushed towards the rampaging water. I flew to intercept her. With a swing of Cloudie, a gust of wind knocked Pestilence to the wall.

“Control the water for me,” I said to Raven telepathically. My focus had to be put on Pestilence. I charged her before she could stand back up. Vines shot out of her body towards me. Using Cloudie, I sliced the plants into pieces. I kept swinging the sword, hacking away at more tendrils approaching me.

Pestilence pointed her arms at me. That had to be a bad sign. I lurched to the side with the help of the Feather Mantle, just in time to dodge a stream of sticky red sludge shot my way, straight from her body. Ew. I even caught a whiff of rotten flesh; she must have intentionally added the smell.

The Fetus Jewel would keep Raven safe from most injuries, so Pestilence seemed to have switched to a strategy of restraining me. But it wasn’t just that; sneaky vines rushed from below, prying the Hama Yumi off my back.

Pestilence didn’t take the Hama Yumi for herself; instead, the plants carried the bow away from me. Stealing the magic artifacts? So that’s how it is.

I flew around in circles, keeping on moving so that Pestilence and the AI couldn’t get an opening to strike. The vines kept pursuing me, popping up like weeds. I cut them down with Cloudie before they had a chance to grow.

“All the stuff on this floor is destroyed,” Raven reported. She had been leading the waves through the racks while I was busy dealing with Pestilence. And this was without knowing the precise location of the water and the servers; after all, I was using her vision in my fight with Pestilence.

As much as I wanted to, I didn’t have time to praise her; instead, I turned and zoomed towards the staircase. This was just one of ten floors of servers we had to break. But I stopped short of the door.

Beyond the door was a web of mucus. I could try to cut past it, but it would leave me vulnerable to Pestilence’s attacks. And one was incoming. I turned around and dodged a giant hand made of wood. It veered its direction to chase me.

I sailed along the rows of wrecked computers until reaching the column of rainwater. The liquid sapped my body heat as I dove through it. It heeded my command, rushing forth to wrap around the wooden hand. The submerged lumber cracked and deformed until it was torn into smaller pieces. Too tiny to restrain me.

I zoomed back towards the staircase to find Pestilence standing guard. The stairs were no longer present. The two walls had been dragged together to close the space.

There wasn’t any other way down. Pestilence tossed a net of light at me. I retreated among the rows of server racks again.

“As long as I have a wish, the spear will grant it, right?” Raven asked.

“Yes, but it uses up your energy when you use it. Depending on what you wish for, you might pass out.” I had a feeling of what Raven wanted to do. But it was too dangerous. It was too reckless.

“That said. Do as you wish,” I ended up telling her. Her help could give me what I needed to complete my plan. Also, maybe even more importantly, this was her choice.

Raven reached out her arm to summon the OP Spear. Pestilence must have heard the electrical sparks from the spear, because she started speaking. “Su-chan, do you remember Ueshima Hideka, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Oh no. If Pestilence mentioned Hideka’s death here, Raven might not be able to focus anymore. Then maybe I had to take control of the spear for her.

“It’s… She… She… Um… Nothing… Just asking. But are you really siding with Dede-chan? This woman is a killer, and she will keep killing.” That was quite a hurtful statement, but better than her revealing Hideka’s death. Did she not realize how much Raven cared? Why wouldn’t she take advantage of that?

“I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore. But I’ve made my choice, and this time, no matter what she does, I’m going to take responsibility together with her. So, destroy all the floors of this building!” Raven declared while simply letting go of the spear.

It burst downwards, drilling through floor after floor. The concrete broke apart like glass, until a straight drop connected the ten above-ground levels of the data center.

Raven fell unconscious. The moment my spirit came out of her still-afloat body, I touched the Feather Mantle to move her. My steering came at just the right moment, narrowly evading a whole server rack thrown at me.

“Pestilence, have you finally gone insane?”

“You think you can protect Su-chan forever? You can’t. You can only rely on something that will exist forever. Nature. Nature will be here, before and after humans walk the planet,” Pestilence yelled. I guess her answer to my question was a resounding ‘yes’.

I lugged Raven’s body down to the second-highest floor and, through the Tide Jewels, commanded the chunk of water to follow us. The rain fed it so much that the volume of liquid here could fill a swimming pool. Pestilence plunged after us; the AI supporting her flight. I waved Cloudie to produce wind to stall her.

More rainwater joined my army of saboteurs, overwhelming the AI’s attempts to freeze the waves. The AI shot out more goo and net, hoping something would impede me. Unimaginative and simple. Most of these attacks could be easily dodged.

Maybe its adaptive ability would work better against people that it could actually detect with its magic. A blind spot just introduced too much uncertainty into its system. The AI had potential, to be sure. It came up with a couple of innovative uses of magic, like the wooden hand. Maybe with more time, it could even overpower me.

But I wouldn’t give it the time. I kept on leading the waves as they seeped through the layers of machinery. The more computers I wrecked, the more Pestilence lagged behind me. When I got to the fifth floor, she already couldn’t catch up. From then on, nothing else stood in my way, and I demolished the rest of the servers.