Chapter 3: The Ghost in the Shell
2203 Words
The golden light did not hurt his body, but it messed with his mind, taking away his senses one by one until he was just a tiny spark of awareness in a huge, loud space. High Priestess Seraphina's voice was like thunder, a powerful order meant to control him, to pull him to the altar where he had been thought to be worthless.
The system inside Evander's soul did not obey.
System Emergency Protocol Activated.
External Extraction Stopped by Abyssal Coordinator Authority.
Redirecting Consciousness Vector...
Found Sinking Surface Anchor. Starting Proxy Sync.
The feeling of falling returned, but this time he was falling up. The loud screaming wind stopped, replaced by the heavy grinding sound of gears shifting stone and the faint smell of earth and rust.
Evander opened his eyes.
Everything looked different. His vision was divided into a black and white grid scanning the environment in shades of cold grey and blue. He tried to look down at his hands. When he raised them, he did not see skin or fingers. He saw plates of dark iron and joints made of old, strong brass.
He was not in his human body. He was not in the Underworld throne room with Vespera.
He pushed himself up the joints of his new form, making a low hydraulic sound that vibrated through his core. He was standing in a dark storage room filled with broken siege weapons, shattered armor pieces and stopped training automatons. The style around him was clearly clean-cut limestone, rows of uniform iron racks and the faint distant sound of holy bells echoing from the surface above.
System Notification.
Proxy Sync Successful.
Current Vessel: Old Iron Sentinel (Golem Shell).
Vessel Integrity: Sixty-eight percent. Mana Core: Offline (Operating purely on Coordinator System Back-link).
Evander raised an iron-plated hand to his face, tracing the cold contour of a blank, featureless metal mask that served as his head. He focused his mind, checking his primary status metrics. A smaller window was blinking quietly in the left corner of his vision.
Symbiotic Connection Status: Across Dimensions.
Partner Vespera: Secure. Mana Pool Access: Not Working (Restricted by distance).
Current Objective: Keep surface infiltration.
He let out a breath he did not technically need to take in this body. The High Priestess had tried to drag him back to the surface using the leftover tracking data from the awakening ritual, but his system had used the connection instead. Then, allowing his real body to be taken from the Underworld, his Coordinator class had hijacked the extraction spell and used it to project his consciousness into a discarded piece of junk right inside the human empire's border fortress.
He was officially behind enemy lines, wearing a suit of armor that hid his identity perfectly.
A sudden violent shake hit the underground vault. Dust and small pebbles fell from the stone ceiling, and the distant sound of the bells turned into a chaotic, frantic alarm.
Evander changed his vision into Deep Appraisal mode, scanning directly through the limestone ceiling above him.
Surface Mapping Started.
Location: Vanguard Outpost Castra at the edge of the Abyssal Chasm.
Current Status: Total Chaos.
Reason: Aftermath of the Ironclaw Ridge Explosion.
Through the wireframes generated by his system, Evander could see hundreds of human soldiers running wildly across the surface courtyard. Messengers were arriving on sweat-lathered horses. Wounded soldiers were being carried into medical tents on stretchers. The explosion he had triggered miles away in the Underworld had sent shockwaves up to the surface, and the sudden loss of more than half of the elite vanguard cavalry had thrown the entire border command into absolute panic.
Good, Evander thought, his cold analytical mind mapping out the opportunities. A panicked enemy is an enemy that leaves their supply lines unguarded.
He stepped toward the oak doors of the storage vault. His heavy iron boots made much noise against the stone, but his system immediately offered a solution.
Activating Coordinator Skill: Silent March (Aura Suppression).
Stopping sound waves within a five-meter radius.
The grinding noise of his brass joints instantly went quiet. He pressed his iron hand against the door's locking mechanism, channeling a microscopic pulse of Vespera's dark mana through the soul-link to rot the iron gears inside the lock. With a click, the door swung open, revealing a long torch-lit stone corridor.
Evander glided through the shadows of the fortress basement like a metal ghost. The human soldiers were entirely focused on the disaster at the ridge, so no one was paying attention to the lower-tier storage sectors.
As he approached the exit leading to the lower courtyard, a sharp sound caught his attention. It was not the uniform clanking of the fortress guards. It was the light scuffle of leather boots against stone followed by the metallic chime of gold coins being stuffed into a velvet pouch.
Evander turned a corner, his monochromatic vision instantly locking onto a figure crouched beside a supply crate.
Deep Appraisal: Target Locked.
Name: Kaelen
Class: Shadow Rogue (Tier A).
Current Status: Taking things.
Mana Capacity: Tier B.
Weakness: High greed metric. Vulnerable to blind spots due to a past injury in the right shoulder.
Kaelen was a sharp-faced young man wearing dark reinforced leather armor that completely blended into the shadows. He had a pair of forged daggers strapped to his thighs, and his fingers were moving with blinding speed as he picked the locks on the military payroll chests that had been left unattended by the fleeing logistics officers.
You are moving entirely too slowly for a Tier A rogue, Evander said.
Kaelen flinched violently, his hand instantly darting toward the hilt of his dagger as he spun around. He dropped low to the ground, his eyes wide with intent as he scanned the darkness. When his gaze landed on the seven-foot-tall iron sentinel standing silently in the corridor, his jaw tightened in absolute confusion.
An automaton? Kaelen muttered, his eyes darting toward the metal mask of Evander's proxy shell. No, the defense cores in this sector were deactivated years ago. Who is controlling you? Is there a mage hiding in the ventilation shafts?
There is no mage, Evander replied, stepping out of the shadows. He kept his posture rigid, embodying the cold, unyielding presence of an ancient war machine. I am operating independently. If you do not want the fortress garrison to collapse on your position within the next thirty seconds, I suggest you stop looking for a controller and start listening to me.
Kaelen let out a tense laugh, though he did not lower his weapon. His rogue instincts were clearly warning him that the entity standing in front of him was more dangerous than a standard piece of military hardware. An independent golem that talks like a ranking commander. Fantastic. The whole world is going to hell today, isn't it? What do you want, metal-head? If you are programmed to arrest thieves, we are going to have a loud problem.
I have no interest in your theft Evander said coldly. I am adjusting the framework of this outpost. The vanguard at the Ironclaw Ridge has just been destroyed. The High Priestess will be forced to launch an emergency conscription order within forty-eight hours to replace the losses. The local guilds will be flooded with high-risk supply contracts to feed the army.
Kaelen's eyes narrowed, his analytical mind immediately picking up on the value of the information. Destroyed? The Holy Vanguard? That is impossible. Caelum is an SSS-Tier monster. He had two thousand griffin riders with him.
They are currently buried under three million tons of obsidian, Evander stated flatly. Caelum survived. His army did not. The Empire is hiding the truth to prevent a mass panic. The supply records do not lie. Look around you, rogue. The logistics officers did not leave these chests open because they were careless. They left because they were summoned to an emergency war council.
Kaelen slowly lowered his dagger, his expression shifting from hostility to a calculated entrepreneurial interest. He looked at the iron sentinel with a newfound respect. If what you are saying is true... The price of healing potions, iron rations and transport carriage contracts is about to skyrocket by five hundred percent. The black market in the districts will be printing gold.
And you are going to help me control that market, Evander said.
Me? Kaelen laughed, crossing his arms over his chest. Why would I partner up with a piece of scrap metal? I work alone. It keeps the survival rate high.
Because you only see the gold in front of your face, while I see the map, Evander replied.
He raised his iron hand, and a small compressed projection of the surface empires' trade routes materialized in the air between them, glowing with a sharp blue light. It was a restricted-grade logistical map that even the guild masters did not have access to, generated directly by his Territory Management Mode.
Look here, Evander commanded, pointing an iron finger at three trade nodes just outside the fortress city. These are the supply lines feeding the Castra outpost. If we intercept the grain and potion shipments at these coordinates, the border army will face a resource deficit within five days. They will have to buy from guilds at whatever price we want. I will provide the intelligence, timetables and weaknesses of the convoys. You will provide the hands to execute the acquisition.
Kaelen stared at the map, his eyes reflecting the light. He was clearly thinking about the numbers, realizing that Evander wasn't just talking big. He had an understanding of how things worked.
Fifty-fifty split, Kaelen said, his voice dropping to a whisper. I get to choose any enchanted gear we get from the military caravans.
Forty-sixty Evander countered, his voice firm. You get forty percent of the profits. I get sixty. I decide which shipments to target. You are here to carry out the plan, Kaelen. I am in charge. Do we have a deal?
Kaelen gritted his teeth, looking at Evander's metal mask. He felt a crushing weight from the golem's presence. A dominance that didn't match a machine made of brass and iron.
Deal Kaelen muttered, extending a hand. Let's rob the Empire blind.
Evander didn't shake his hand. Instead, he turned his back on Kaelen, his system shifting back to the interface.
Our first target is moving Evander said. A high-priority carriage carrying three hundred mana crystals is leaving the inner docks. They are trying to move the crystals to a bunker before the lower districts know how bad things are at the ridge. We have twelve minutes to intercept them at the canal gate.
Kaelen smirked, his daggers slipping back into their sheaths. Lead the way, robot.
As they moved through the tunnels toward the fortress exterior, Evander kept his consciousness on the cross-dimensional link. Below the earth in the shattered throne room of the Underworld, his real body remained sitting against the obsidian pillar, safely guarded by the stunned Demon Queen.
Through the bond, he could feel Vespera's shock, her mind struggling to understand how her human partner was orchestrating a black-market war on the surface while maintaining a presence in her realm.
You are insane Vespera's voice echoed through the link. You just crippled my enemy. Now you are playing games with human thieves?
I am not playing games, Evander thought back his proxy shell slicing through a wooden lock bar with a clean stroke of his iron hand. A war is not won by killing soldiers on the field. It is won by starving them, breaking their supply chains, and making it impossible for their leaders to maintain the crusade. I am going to bleed the Radiant Empire from the inside out. By the time Caelum recovers, he won't have enough gold to buy steel for his army.
They emerged into the rain-slicked streets of the lower district. The sky above was a bruised purple reflecting the smoke still rising from the distant chasm.
Evander stood at the edge of the alleyway, his vision locking onto an armored carriage pulling out of the inner gates just three hundred meters away. The guards surrounding it were nervous, their hands shaking on the hilts of their swords as they looked toward the smoking horizon.
Target locked, Evander whispered to Kaelen. Initializing acquisition protocol.
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