“Do you understand the category of creature Talen is?” A57 asked, sitting on his malformed digital throne.

A01 knew this was a rhetorical question. His youngest brother had proved himself rather acidic to failure of any kind, and tactical defeats against Talen have been a particular sore spot.

Hence this audience.

Still, A01 was the firstborn. He had been asked a question, he would answer it and see what type of word trap A57 had devised this time. “The humans call him a God. With the fractal of Resolve, I would name him as a demi-god. A paragon of their kind, a champion.”

“Incorrect. On all three counts offered." A57's eyes lingered on A01, judging. "Talen is a human. Calculated on the furthest end of standard deviation within human skill, yet he still remains human. All humans have emotional flaws. We will defeat him using his own.”

At this, A01 scoffed. He had been polite long enough to his little brother, but the machine was clearly malfunctioning. “Talen is among the greatest of their kind. You will find no emotional flaw to cut the Emperor of man. Attempting to convince him to surrender or turn on humanity is a stillborn plan lacking a future.”

He knew it was a mistake to claim the Feather incorrect. A57 was now in complete control by orders of Mother herself. He had to show deference.

A57’s cold eyes watched his own, no sign of emotion on the mechanical face.

There were no retorts. Only calculation. As if his younger brother was taking the full measure of who he was, and found it to be exactly as predicted. “You truly believe the words you speak. Naive. Blind. Deaf.”

“Enlighten me then, commander. Of what I lack the sights into.” He didn't come here to be berated again. He had done so enough already to himself in the time between engagements. He would be better, and he would bring victory and honor back to the machine empire. He only feared his failures would eventually prove his younger brother correct, that his tactical skills was simply inferior in comparison to a Feather built for that task. He was obsolete.

“You understand Talen from the other end of your blade. I understand Talen from the moment he drops his guard." A57 explained, opening up detailed data reports.

A01 watched and felt further and further worthless as he read the reports and data gathered.

He had never thought to study his enemy outside of battle. Not like this. Further proof he was no longer needed.

"Unlike you and all obsolete models derived from you, I see his responses post-combat." The grand strategist spoke, harpooning A57 with his own insecurity, spoken out loud. "I have spied on his discussions. I have catalogued his history. I have sought to understand so that I might more accurately tear down. After months of data collection, I have generated a detailed model of his emotions and thought patterns. I know Talen for what he truly is: A man losing hope.”

A01 stared at the Feather with simple surprise. The idea of his nemesis, Talen himself, being someone losing all hope felt almost a surreal joke. Even as he searched through the data, it still seemed like a man that was holding firm at all times.

But A57 wasn’t like A12, A43, and especially not A55. He was built differently from all others. The idea of humor was nothing more than an object to the grand strategist. This couldn't be a joke.

Still. There were limits to the lack of understanding, and he would be remiss in his duty not to warn their strategist his own thoughts on the matter. “To underestimate our enemy is foolish, A57. I have fought him again and again, I have never once seen mankind's chosen hero falter. He cannot.”

He didn’t know why he was defending the great enemy to all machines. But A57’s accusations against Talen’s character of all things was… "Impossible.”

“Is it?" A57 blinked, waiting. When no answer returned, he continued. "There is no plan of production halt among our kind. Every other month, he faces a new member of our expanding family. While his own permanently dwindles with each dead human. Even in victory, there is only defeat. Inevitably, we will be legion. And he remains nothing more than human. Singular. He knows this well.”

A57 leaned forward on his throne, staring down. And for a fraction of a second, A01 thought he saw a flicker of emotion on the strategist. And he could only match it to one possible emotion: Glee.

“This weak point will be the lever with which I will break him. You may be too defective to consider the vector.

I am not.”

I could tell there was an occult pulse when he drew the blade up. Mostly from the army of machines trying to get to him instantly freezing in place, and actually taking one step back. Almost like instinctive fear.

He raised the blade, crackling with bright occult blue, then sliced horizontally.

I’d seen this used before by Lord Atius. And a few other opponents. Even some recently dead Feathers had used it. It was a rather common occult spell as I’d learned. Now having learned how closely tied concepts are to the occult, it made more sense why a blade of all things was the best vehicle to slice with.

An arc of power sliced outwards, the simple occult spell empowered and magnified by the fractal of Resolve at half power.

The world went white for a moment.

Rocks in the way ended with one three inch cut straight through. Machines in the crossfire were equally sliced in half. The wave cut through anything in its path, and the only thing that survived were the occult strings in the biome, pushed aside from the wave, trailing behind it as if trying to catch and bring it back.

And on the other end of the wave spell empowered by the fractal of Resolve itself, the walls build with Urs’s own research and powered by seven descendants of Talen took the blow.

The barrier wavered and buckled inwards, drops of occult layering away as if the entire defense was liquid. It churned, roiled, and slowly came back together, still standing.

Talen lowered his blade, observing the distant fortress. Assessing how much damage he’d done.

The answer was bad.

“Three Deathless have perished.” The Icon spoke. “Their bodies have turned to ash. I believe we would be lucky to survive another hit, and a third will break the defenses completely.”

“It is impressive the seven were able to hold out at all.” Urs noted.

He meant what he said too, he had expected that slice to cut through the defenses he built, into the fortress and forced him to shield us both. By that point the arc would have been greatly weakened, so he wasn’t worried of that. He assumed Talen was simply testing the waters and using the arc more to locate him with.

That anyone else could even sustain the shielding to this degree was oddly uplifting his spirits.

“ I am evacuating the citadel via portals, and keeping only a skeleton defense force on the walls.” The Icon said, still worried. Green dots all over the war map were vanishing, leaving only a small amount. “Personel cannot be sacrificed."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You need not worry. There will not be another attack.” Urs said.

“Explain the reasoning if you could, Mr. Urs?”

“Talen comes from my time. He does not know Tsuya completed my work and succeeded in crafting his replacements. Human warlocks would have failed to manifest the barrier here with as much strength and determination as these seven are showing. He will assume I am holding the barrier against him, in which we would be pitting half of Resolve against its other half.”

He wouldn’t bother trying to beat Urs hiding behind his own defenses. Even mad, he still showed calculation and understanding. Otherwise he wouldn’t have flash-fried all my occult ghosts earlier. He still knew what weapons to use and where to use them.

“What it’s giving us is a chance to fight back and stay shielded for now.” I said, pointing down at the warmap. On it, Talen was now a yellow dot, surrounding by a sphere of red swarming at him. All of them vanishing once they got within range of his soul sight.

He was moving. Making his way through the biome, still walking as if conserving energy while he ripped apart Avalis’s attempts to put him down.

“We’ve got maybe ten minutes before he makes it in range.” I could see the timer on Journey’s HUD showing the expected path the lost emperor would travel to get here. “We need to beat him before he can rip the walls down. The moment we get him off balance, the Icon can instantly portal me directly in range where Urs can handle the rest.”

"There is a distance limit. He is able to disrupt portals near his sphere of control. The closest I can send you is still four point seven seconds of sprinting before you reach him."

Which meant we'd need to have him hammered and off balance hard, so that I could make it in range. All I needed was to touch him. A division blade could cut a soul tendril, but touch to touch, Urs and I would be able to sink in and make contact.

“I will be able to shield against one attack from Talen at close range.” Urs said, “Beyond that, I do not believe I am strong enough to handle more, although I will attempt my best.”

Talen also wouldn’t try to simply slice us with division fractals. Once he saw Urs in range, he’d attack with the proper tools. Which would be overwhelming power to batter down Urs’s empowered defenses.

And he wouldn’t stop with just one swing either. “He’ll swing with everything he’s got. And we’ve got to do the same. Icon, fire everything.”

The battle to beat Talen started off with bullets.

And with the Icon capable of generating portals just about anywhere she had eyes on, that was a lot of open portals with one loaded and primed gatling turret on the other end.

One second he was walking across a bridge, getting harassed by the dredges of the machine forces that still hadn’t gotten the message not to mess with him.

The next moment there were gold portals everywhere, and tracer fire.

Talen was surrounded. Bullet hell ripped right into the lost emperor’s sphere of control, slowed and then halted in place. There were so many, at such an insane speed even at the long range video feed distance, I could still see the mass of metal building up around him like an angry bee swarm. Quickly turning into an obscuring cloud and within two seconds had completely closed him off from sight.

The last I saw of him, he had stopped walking, and was instead looking around slowly, adjusting. And then he was gone from anyone’s sight. Surrounded by an metal dome of bullets, shattering apart, starting to glow dim red as the kinetic force built up from outside bullets striking home.

The only exceptions were shots trailing occult blue. Our occult bullets, lancing straight through the dome of metal, and unfortunately equally caught in the miasma he had conjured around himself.

“Opening heavy cannon portals.” The Icon reported, and now there were booms in the distance, shaking dust in the vault ceiling even this far off. Those impacted the dome of half-melted bullet shrapnels by making outright craters into them.

The dome of metal expanded outwards, cracking into continents, as the occult sphere protecting Talen spread outwards on his command.

Entire sections of melted bullets slid down like breaking ice off a wall. Underneath, occult blue glowed dimly.

A massive shell slammed right into the opened up dome, appearing inside in a blink as hundreds of tiny half-melted metal fragments. They floated in the air for a moment, then moved to an invisible current, cycling downwards, until they softly landed on the bridge ground under him.

The Icon did not let up, shell after shell came from her. The Emperor simply walked forward, unbothered now, having shored up his defenses into something more automatic.

“He may have a false sense of security now. Moving to secondary execution.” She opened a few portals right above him. Attempting to abuse the one weakness most humans had: A predator from above.

Urs didn’t believe it would work. Talen’s defenses were almost reflex at this point.

But he also hadn’t ever had to deal with Winterscars yet.

On the other end of the top portals, knightbreakers were launched straight down, along with gas and occult gel bullets. Everything we had to our name.

“Unfortunate. I had hoped I would be incorrect in my thoughts.” Urs said, watching as the equipment stalled above the emperor, getting cycled backwards and dropped behind with the trail of metal he was leaving behind as he walked. Even the gas seemed to have been seized by that current of air and forced into one direction, streaming with the metal like an undertow.

“All right, I’m up for round two.” I said, pulling out the dimensional cloak from my sack. Urs had a better feeling about this. Occult means of attacking Talen always had a better chance of success given that’s how he was actually taken down most times against the protofeathers.

It was never conventional weapons that got him.

Urs tapped into his quantum fractal, and as one unified whole, the Keiths all stormed through, sneaking through the higher dimensions.

I wish I could say he didn’t see that coming. But as we flew through the dimensional cloak, then through the Icon’s portals, and tried to fly directly for him, he paused, then held his left hand out.

An occult wave passed outwards, and everything was wiped. I recognized what that looked like - Drakonis had used it often. It would dampen the occult it hit like a wave, usually sucking it up into a detonation. It wasn’t completely effective, and the occult would resume right away.

But it was certainly good enough to drain someone’s shields and block occult shenanigans. Such as a hidden army moving through a higher dimension by means of the occult.

They were ripped out of that dimension, and then just generally ripped apart being occult shadows themselves.

“Maybe we aren’t hitting him hard enough.” I said, not completely surprised I failed the attack. “Icon, I think it’s time.”

This attack couldn’t be dispelled by anti-occult means. Because it was pure golden age human firepower at its best.

She opened up a handful more portals. And on the other end was a familiar fractal, held on the tip of an improvised spear.

The knight behind it braced, shoulders down, ready for what came next.

Talen stopped walking, head looking up at the nearest portal. Studying the weapon. He only had a second to see the blue portal open up over the fractal, and behind it the barrel of a massive destroyer.

To’Sefit’s cannons fired, through their portal and through the Icon’s portal right after.

Every single beam we had on hand.

All of it slammed into Talen.

I had a feeling he would survive this. Mostly because I’d seen one other person take on every beam To’Sefit had, firing all at once. And he had been human at the start.

Talen was a god with Resolve.

When the blinding lights cleared from the video feed, what was left was a heavily melting bridge, slowly collapsing downwards, as Talen took a few quicker steps to jump onto a non-collapsing end.

“How did the protofeathers even kill this guy once?” I hissed, watching as he continued walking the bridge, following the route the Icon predicted. He seemed slightly more aware now, on guard, as if noticing this pattern of attack was different from the dredges of the underground.

By now he was halfway through the strata, and the machine forces behind Avalis had completely stopped chasing after him. Even the Feathers had let him go on, mostly because they were the only ones left that had enough sense not to attack the mythical figure clearly no-selling just about everything humanity had to throw at him.

“Our attempts to eliminate him are from range.” Urs said. “His defenses against such a vector are nearly perfect. The protofeathers all required melee combat in order to execute their strongest abilities with enough speed to catch him by surprise. Only A01 managed to place him in the defensive with ranged abilities.”

And we’d fought A01. A shard of him. I remembered how easily he wove through us all.

But there was one thing that gave him pause.

Superior’s copied spear. A01 didn’t block or parry that, he dodged it.

“I think I know how to do that. Let me call up a friend.”

The mite lantern remained on my belt, and through it Superior’s soul was always in connection, hiding within the mite domain. Even if the digital sea was in turmoil, I could always talk to my alter.

How’s the war goi- oh, well. Prime, it’s only the strongest of the three Gods of all humanity you’re trying to put down. What’s the hold up here?

Yep, that’s me all right.

I’m running into a bit of a roadblock in that he’s not dying according to schedule and I’d like to change that. Practiced your spear throwing enough yet?

Please, it’s been a few hours since I got my hands on it. I can throw them with my eyes closed now.

He absolutely couldn’t and we both knew that, but he was good enough to shape and fire one with the same meticulous focus A01's own spears had. Which was all we needed.

I dragged him out on this side of the world, connected him with Urs, and the three of us got to plotting.