Chapter 131 The Glitch in the God

Chapter 131 The Glitch in the God
The celebrations in the streets of Aurora Citadel lasted for three days and three nights. Bonfires roared, barrels of ale were drained, and the unified packs howled their absolute triumph into a sky that was finally clear of dreadnoughts and dark-matter drop pods.

The Prime Spire hosted no festivities.

I woke up at midnight to find my bed empty. The sheets next to me felt freezing cold.

I mumbled to Kade while I sat up to rub my eyes and wake up.

The balcony of Star-Metal construction had an irregular light which emitted a weak indirect light.

I removed the heavy wool blankets from my body while I stepped onto the cold stone floor.

Kade was on his knees. His back muscles showed extreme tension because he did not wear a shirt. The Star-Metal plate on his chest emitted a white-gold light which began to malfunction by alternating between a bright healthy state and a horrifying sickly state.

He spoke to himself while the World Engine made his voice sound like a mechanical machine. The right gauntlet of the metallic man dragged along the balcony floor while it created deep irregular patterns on the solid stone surface.

I hurried to Kade and dropped to my knees next to him.

I attempted to pull him from his trance state by grabbing his human shoulder. His skin was burning hot.

He turned his head toward me.

His blue eyes had disappeared. His eyes appeared as solid silver. The Architect had completely taken over his human mind through the logic matrix.

Kade whispered the cradle to me while his voice vibrated with metallic sound which caused my chest to ache. The cradle remembers the iron. The dark space is singing. The object demands to return to its original location.

I commanded Kade to wake from his trance while my feral gold eyes appeared. I used both of my hands to hold his face while I felt his liquid silver veins radiate blistering heat. "Look at me! I am your Luna! Anchor to me!

The silver fractals which marked my arms from the astral teleportation experienced a faint pulse when my skin touched his skin.

Kade took in a sharp breath while he gasped. The solid silver in his eyes violently shattered, giving way to the terrified, desperate ocean-blue of my husband.

He collapsed forward, burying his face in my neck, his massive frame shaking uncontrollably.

Kade choked out to Elara that something was pulling him while he gripped my back tight. The structure beneath the trench... it's not just a ruin. It's transmitting a frequency directly into the Star-Metal. It's trying to rewrite my matrix. If I don't answer the call, it's going to tear my mind apart.

The Cradle of Iron

Valda and Finn entered our private quarters after one hour to examine the geometric patterns which had been gouged into the balcony floor.

Valda ran her fingers along the stone's deep grooves and said that she had never seen runes like this. The stone markings belong to neither Fae nor Void nor Aethelgard.

Kade told the room that the supreme leader Kade emerged from the bed to start his own public announcement. The Star-Beasts didn't create the Star-Metal, Valda. They were just tasked with guarding it. The World Engine was built, but it had to be built somewhere.

The horrifying understanding which I experienced made me look at Kade. The foundry.

Kade softly said the cradle which served as the original source of magic power. The Earth has remained undisturbed since the Mariana Plate buried the source magic point. When the Aethelgard drill sheared the top of the cavern off, it woke up. And it knows I have the Engine.

I said that we needed to go down and handle the situation while my voice became stern. I looked at Finn. The Nautilus ready for departure?

Finn experienced a mix of excitement and terror which caused his gills to flare. I repaired the hull plating and integrated some of the salvaged Aethelgard slipspace tech into the ballast systems. She will dive faster and deeper than ever before. But Luna... the deep ocean is angry right now. The tectonic fusion left the currents chaotic.

Kade will smooth out the situation while I grab my heavy tactical jacket. Valda, get your sword. We leave in twenty minutes.

The Abyss Returns

The Mariana Trench descent this time brought us an entirely different experience. We didn't pursue a Void mutation or compete against a cosmic drill. We were heading into a ghost story.

The command cabin of the Nautilus became a space with unbearable tension. Kade stood perfectly still by the forward viewport, his silver-blue eyes locked on the pitch-black abyss outside. He used his gravity wells to create a path through the boiling thermal currents which disturbed submarine operations.

Finn made his observation that they had reached the outer mantle cap while his webbed hands operated the navigation controls.

The ocean floor became visible through the Star-Metal reinforced glass.

The Alpha Prime's divine status was commemorated through this ancient structure. The Pacific and Mariana tectonic plates had been joined together through a distance of several miles by a luminous white-gold Star-Metal seam which created a perfect bond between their massive and jagged plate boundaries.

Valda inquired about the location of the breach while she looked over Kade's broad shoulder. Kade pointed at the location.

The Aethelgard dark-matter drill had created a massive deep perfectly cylindrical crater which extended into the bedrock from its point about three miles away from the welded seam.

Finn piloted the Nautilus straight into the drill hole.

We descended through bedrock and crust until we reached an impossible underground void.

The submarine’s floodlights activated to illuminate the total darkness which surrounded them.

Valda exhaled the words "By the Goddess."

Our location existed inside a gigantic cavern which the submarine lights failed to reach its boundaries. The water here remained completely motionless while the temperature dropped to extreme coldness and all aquatic creatures vanished from the area.

The cavern held a structure which should not exist because it lay half-buried under centuries of silt and ash.

The area consisted of a single building which stood as a gigantic ziggurat made from dark metal that reflected light like an oil slick on water. The gateway did not emit the white-gold color of the World Engine or the sickly gray shade of the Aethelgard. It emitted a faint deep indigo light which defied all limits of brightness.

The Cosmic Key

Finn carefully piloted the Nautilus to land on a smooth metallic plaza which led up to the ziggurat.

Kade moved to the airlock, just as he had done during the tectonic fusion. "I will create the gravity bubble," Kade said. "You can join me outside."

Diving suits were unnecessary for us because Kade's absolute gravity well created a 50-foot dry air bubble as soon as the outer airlock opened.

I stepped out of the submarine, my combat boots clinking softly against the iridescent metal floor. Valda entered the area with her Star-Metal sword drawn while she examined the dark water which lay beyond the gravity bubble.

We walked toward the ziggurat's base.

The giant gates which reached a height of a hundred feet were built into the enormous monolithic wall. The exact same deep jagged geometric runes that Kade had carved into the balcony stone covered them entirely.

Kade moved to approach the gates. He used his Star-Metal gauntlet to touch the central seam, summoning the World Engine's infinite tectonic power.

"Open," Kade ordered.

The doors opened because the white-gold light emitted huge amounts of localized kinetic energy which pushed against the doors with billions of tons of force.

Nothing happened.

The World Engine's pure iron material slid away from the iridescent metal because it could not establish a secure hold. The gates remained perfectly, absolutely sealed.

Kade stepped back while holding his chest because he experienced a painful heart feedback. "The matrix is making me unable to enter," he said. "The matrix detects iron but it blocks access to the Engine. The door needs a different frequency to be opened."

I examined the massive gates with my full attention.

The metal surface had been carved with deep jagged runes which failed to emit glowing white-gold light. They lacked both glowing white-gold and glowing indigo light.

The dormant particles perfectly reflected the peculiar fractal patterns which had been formed through dimensional friction that had damaged my skin.

Earth magic does not interest it, I whispered, while I moved toward the giant doors after passing by Kade. "It exists from before the creation of Earth."

I did not create the weather. I reached up into the infinite, blinding vacuum of the stars.

The silver astral starlight burned through my veins, creating a blinding cosmic light which illuminated the dark ocean floor. I pressed both my hands against the cold iridescent metal gates.

I used the ancient runes to push the starlight into them.

Liquid silver magic flooded the geometric carvings while racing upward the hundred-foot doors created a breathtaking web of cosmic light.

The ancient gates of the cradle began to open through grinding sounds which resembled two planets colliding while they released air that had not contacted the ocean for a billion years.