Chapter 268

“Wake up.”

Alexander jabbed the wizard in the ribs with a cybernetic finger and zapped him.

The wizard startled awake with a gasp. His hands flew to his face where Alexander had grabbed him, checking for damage. Then his eyes focused and found Alexander sitting on a rock between him and the only way out.

The fear in the wizard’s eyes was immediate.

Alexander waited while the wizard’s gaze darted around the cave. It wasn’t much. A shallow depression in the mountainside, narrow enough that Alexander could touch both walls with his arms outstretched. The ceiling was low. Droney hovered above Alexander’s right shoulder, visor locked on the wizard with an intensity that suggested the little drone was enjoying itself.

A single surveillance sub-unit hung at the cave mouth, rotating slowly, scanning the mountainside. Alexander wished he’d kept some of the holo-drones. The island’s defenses needed them more than he did at the time, and projecting illusions hadn’t seemed useful against a man who could sense heat signatures.

In hindsight, they would have been invaluable for surviving in another reality.

Further back, the cave narrowed into darkness. Gnawed bones were scattered across the stone floor. Clumps of matted fur clung to the walls where something large had rubbed against them repeatedly.

The wizard noticed the bones. His breathing quickened.

“Relax,” Alexander said. “Whatever lived here is long gone.”

Droney translated.

The wizard’s attention came back to Alexander, then slid to where his staff leaned against the wall.

“I think you’re smart enough to realize how outmatched you are,” Alexander said. “If you fight, you already know how that ends. So let’s just talk. I’m Alexander.”

The wizard hesitated.

Alexander held up a finger. Lightning crackled from the tip. “It goes without saying that if you don’t talk, I’ll have to poke you relentlessly until you do.”

“Lirum.”

“Okay, Lirum, I’m going to ask you some questions. Let’s start with how the ships are tracking me.”

Lirum looked at him strangely. “Your magical signature, obviously.”

“That’s it? No thermal or motion sensors?”

“What are those?”

Alexander frowned. If everyone on their planet had magic, maybe they didn’t need anything else. But he himself didn’t possess any magic, which implied no magical signature. Which might explain why the ships hadn’t seemed to be able to locate him.

Which meant Artensah Driscol was doing it.

“What about the Whispering Creep?”

He’d been ignoring the enemy Divine’s attempts to draw him into responding. It seemed that as long as he didn’t directly address the wizard’s whispers, the Divine couldn’t locate him.

Lirum’s eyes widened. He almost rose. “He Who Whispers is Exalted! You can’t speak about him like that.”

Alexander laughed. “Exalted? Is that what you call your Divines? Do you have prophecies about them ruling the world and waging war against each other, too?”

Lirum shook his head. “Of course not. They are all powerful archmages. Our diviners speak of them leading the Great Exodus, where the Empire of Stars shall conquer the First World.”

Alexander sighed. “Of course they do.” Then he paused. “Wait. You said ‘exodus.’ Why do you need to exodus?”

“Our world is dying. All the mana is being stolen by the First World.” He hesitated. “Don’t you know this?”

“Uh. No. Why would I know that?”

Lirum stared at him for a few heartbeats. “Because… aren’t you doing it?”

Alexander pointed at himself. “Me? Like, personally? Or do you mean superhumans? Because there are a lot of us.” He scratched his head. “I suppose it’s possible one of them is siphoning your magic, but we thought it was just flowing through the gateways. We know Qi is coming from the cultivator’s world.”

Lirum looked confused. “But you need it for your superpowers don’t you? That’s what the archmages say. It’s why you’re so strong, because you are stealing so much of our mana.”

Alexander studied the young wizard. He really believed what he was saying. Indoctrinated. He shook his head. “Lirum, our powers come from our souls. We don’t use mana.”

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He didn’t mention that Augustus had been siphoning from the generators to power his magical enchantments until recently, when the gateways had become permanent fixtures. It would confuse the issue.

Lirum’s eyes widened. “You’re lying! There’s no way you can do the things you can do without mana.”

“Your archmages are lying to you,” Alexander said. “We had superpowers years before the gateways opened.”

One mental thread began turning the idea over, though. There was a very big problem hidden within what the young wizard had just said.

His other thread continued the questioning. “How many Exalted are there?”

Lirum’s mouth had set into a line. He kept glaring.

Alexander considered whether to go through with his threat or not. Interrogation wasn’t exactly in his bag of tricks, though given his powers, he could probably get good at it fast.

But the stubborn young man sitting across from him was no monster. He wasn’t Santiago or Radiant or Flashpoint. He was no Mercy or Pandora or Ripper. Or the other guy. Lirum was just some ignorant kid, probably born a few rungs above the people being crushed under the Empire’s boot, and taught the world worked in a fucked up way.

It wasn’t his fault.

Alexander changed the subject instead. “How were you flying so fast? Every other wizard I’ve seen is slow. Even Keda, and that guy had every reason to fly as fast as he could before I killed him.”

Lirum’s stony expression cracked. He hesitated. Then he glanced at his staff. “I bound an acceleration spell into my staff instead of teleportation like most people do.”

Alexander nodded. “Totally understandable. Flying is the greatest thing ever, and the faster the better. Teleportation is lame in comparison.” He thought about the Skipper. “And it can get you killed through no fault of your own. Portals are okay, though.”

Lirum looked confused again. “Teleportation is safer than flying, though?”

“You’re probably right. But at least if you die while flying, it’s completely your own fault.”

Lirum’s mouth opened. Then closed.

Alexander reached out and grabbed the staff. Then he turned it over in his hands. “Anyway, where does the Empire keep all their unbound staves and wands?”

Lirum was staring at his staff. “The Grand Archive.”

Alexander flicked a cybernetic finger against the staff, causing the wizard’s eye to twitch.

“And where’s the Grand Archive?”

“In space.”

Alexander clicked his tongue. There went the heist plan. “How many spells can you bind into a staff?”

“I’m a second circle wizard.”

“What does that mean exactly? The Whispering Weirdo said he’s a fifth circle. Is that good?”

Lirum looked up. “The Empress is a seventh circle wizard, and She’s the strongest wizard in history. He Who Whispers serves as part of her inner circle. Of course it’s good.”

Alexander squinted at the wizard. He had an idea based on the abilities Keda had shown. “So… two circles, two automatic spells? Five circles, five automatic spells?”

“It’s not as simple as that!”

Alexander raised an eyebrow.

Lirum held his silence for a moment. “Okay, yes. Each circle means more spells bound to your staff. The System lets you cast them without invocation or material, in return for a cooldown.” He paused. “But it takes a lot of knowledge and skill to add each circle!”

Alexander nodded. “Of course, of course. And your spellbook?”

Lirum crossed his arms. “It’s safe in my soulspace where you can’t reach it.”

Alexander raised the staff. “I assume this is similarly bound, which is why I couldn’t put that other wizard’s staff in my storage ring. Well, until one of your ships incinerated him and the other five just to try and land a hit on me.”

Lirum blinked at that. Then he glanced at his staff. “Yeah. You’d have to kill me to break the binding.”

Alexander tilted his head. “Hmm.” He paused. “I suppose I can live with that.”

Lirum gulped.

Alexander stared at him.

Lirum’s arms dropped to his sides. “I-I could also just release it. I can always make another one later…”

Alexander’s eyes widened. “Really? You can do that?”

Lirum nodded sadly.

“That would be amazing,” Alexander said. “I just want to borrow it. My friend really needs it. He flies like an old man.”

Lirum brightened at that. “So you’re going to return it?”

Alexander frowned. “What? No. Why would I do that?”

***

An hour later, Alexander was racing through the mountain valleys again.

The ships had ranged beyond the reach of his powered senses, circling somewhere to the north and south, steadily expanding their search grid. Lirum had been right. They tracked entirely by magical signatures, apparently. Though, if the Empire had been any less elitist, they would have tracked the magical signatures of their own discarded soldiers and found Lirum sitting in a cave.

Apparently Tier 1s weren’t worth the effort while the hunt for the invader was still ongoing.

Alexander had taken the opportunity to retrace his route and retrieve what he could. The second squad had yielded a handful of staves. Some of the wizards were missing entirely, along with their equipment, which made sense. He hadn’t been going all out. Most of them would recover.

The first squad was a different story. The same weapons fire that had torn through the wizards had incinerated every staff in the pile. Twisted, blackened fragments of wood and shattered gemstones were all that remained. The ship had destroyed its own people and their equipment in one salvo.

Six staves, wasted. Because the Empire valued killing him more than preserving its own resources.

It was a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.

The multiversal war was only getting started. And it was worse than any of them had suspected. If the System was siphoning what made magic and cultivation work from their respective realities, and pouring them into Earth 1, then it was obvious what followed.

Invasion. An all-in, desperate, fully committed invasion from each reality forced to chase its own power through gateways into another world.

Gabe had said as much, just without the why or the scope of the threat.

But Lirum’s indignant words had carried far more weight, because he didn’t even understand the horror of what he was saying.

And if it was happening across two realities, it was probably happening to all of them.

Alexander hoped he was wrong. But he couldn’t shake a question from his mind. What if the System’s Phase 2 was to bring together its various playgrounds?

The result would far too easily explain that one word everyone kept throwing around.

Cataclysm.