“Would you like a partner, Hunter?”

Looking up at the Construct, I was jarred out of my ruminations, abruptly remembering the offer that had interrupted my practice initially.

“Uh, sure, thank you. So, how do we do this? I assume you have a way of moving fast, like Lucas, Dee Yu Kay Three?”

“Speed will not represent a limiting factor for me. I would suggest you attack me, while I will defend, Hunter.”

I was not entirely sure how to react to that, but then I remembered my new grip strength in my left hand, and realised that if the prosthetics increased physical prowess, there was probably some parity in our physical performance. If what they had explained about the relative strengths of our systems was true, cultivators should have an edge in direct power, but if that was the case, any advantage I possessed would likely be entirely overshadowed by the difference in our levels. At least, that was the case for people without my particular abilities. Still, I did not expect to have the sort of advantage I would have against somebody at the same stage as me.

Moving a short distance away I dropped into a proper defensive stance against an actual opponent for the first time in weeks, a grin stretched over my face. Having the initiative, I took a short breath and Focused, keeping the electrical flow contained within myself as I had been practicing. I was not at full output, still cognizant of the fact that back on my adopted home – I really needed to ask Walker what it was called when I got back – I would not have access to near limitless Experience.

I was just about to tap my Path when a shudder ran through the floor, accompanied by a deep sound of a vast gong or bell being struck that hurt my ears. I felt the floor shift slightly and I stumbled, looking around in panic, remembering that we were on the bottom of an ocean. My mind filled with all sorts of possibilities; giant rocks falling, and nonsensically giant sea creatures attacking us. Dropping my Focus, but keeping my metaphorical hand on its hilt, I stood and looked around frantically.

“It would appear that I am under attack by another Construct. I must go to meet them, and am likely to be occupied repelling them and their Level Four and Five subordinates. If you happen to encounter any lower-Level individuals, your assistance in their dissuasion would be appreciated, Hunter.”

“Wait, we’re being attacked? Aren’t we the only ones on the planet?!”

“Dee Yu Kay Three. We certainly were when last I surveyed this world, however my senses only extend so far. It would seem that, given the unlikelihood of another of my kind randomly arriving at this location, on this world, within the near infinite multiverse, that this enemy has come looking for me, and perhaps that the gods of this world have conspired to open a gate, Hunter.”

“Why would somebody track you to another world to start a fight? Why would the gods help them? Aren’t they supposed to... not interfere? You seem really calm about all this, Dee Yu Kay Three.”

Calm was an understatement, neither the Construct's tone or posture had changed in the slightest, at either the physical motion of the facility, or while announcing the attack.

“I am currently at the forefront of system research. Even without what I have learned from Lucas, my prosthetics have the potential to significantly outperform many others. Those who reach my Level are not always those most keen in their research. As for the gods, it is within their purview to instigate inter-planer wars between the inhabitants of their world, and those of another. Perhaps your presence was the final straw... If you will excuse me, while my opponent may not be the most dedicated to improvement, that is not an indication of weakness, Hunter.”

I was opening my mouth to reply when the figure I had been speaking to simply vanished; they did not fade, there was no flash of light or smoke. They simply ceased to be, like a frame being cut out of a movie.

I looked around the hall, wondering where I should start. Despite all the time I had spent in that facility, I still spent an embarrassing amount of time navigating about, since other than the lights, the facility was basically featureless.

With a shrug, I left the hall in the direction the shift had come from, hoping I would not lose my way too badly. Lucas and DUK3 had sort of kidnapped me, but they had been pretty nice about it, or had at least been helpful. I could not imagine these invaders would leave me alive, or even give me much of a chance to express what side I was on, especially if, as DUK3 had suggested, the gods of this dead world were conspiring to get rid of us. I had never met a god, but if they were petty enough to start a ‘war’ over three people, they sounded like a bunch of petty assholes. Though, given Xiournal’s comments about how they seemed to receive my presence, maybe that should have been more obvious...

Another shudder ran through the warm metal, so I reoriented in that direction, turning down long corridors that were effectively identical to the ones I had left, until I walked into another hall – hopefully not the one I had started in – with four strange humanoid figures standing at its centre. Each of the figures stood shorter than me, at about five feet and relatively slender for their height. They were oddly reptilian, though shaped mostly like humans, with scales ranging from a deep blue to a lime green, but with feathers of red, purple and yellow sprouting backwards from their heads. And of course, they were partial constructs, though thankfully it was only partial; the tunics they wore showed off arms and legs of various materials. The figure closest to me seemed to have limbs constructed from some kind of pearlescent stone, looking similar to a beetle shell, and I had to admit that I was a little jealous as it caught the light and reflected a bright, orange, almost perlescent gradience. Another looked to have limbs crafted from some petrified wood, with the third and fourth having limbs of what looked like chrome and angular crystal respectively. They were not a race I had seen among my options when I had been busy creating my body, which in itself was interesting as I had yet to encounter another example of the race I had chosen, the ren.

“We have company, some sort of freak. Ugh, it’s disgusting.”

The figure with the beetle shell limbs had apparently spotted me, and was staring with weird, triangular pupils in ochre-on-ochre eyes. Of course, the putdown sounded beautiful to my ears, and if I had not been able to understand, I may have thought it quite gentle.

The other three figures, who had been looking around, perhaps trying to orient themselves in the featureless maze turned almost as one to regard me, heads tilting to the side in the motion I was familiar with from DUK3.

“Coldest Void, look at it. Do you think it’s an experiment?” This from the chrome limbed figure.

“I hope not, if that’s what a Level One augmentation does to you with this Construct’s creations, I want nothing to do with them.” The one with the angular crystal’s voice was slightly higher pitched than the others

“Let’s put it out of its misery. Look at its feathers, they’re barely there at all. Limp and frail. Ugh.”

“Me not you. Me... me. Waste. Waste! Me not test... Yes, me test, me not bad test. Sex things. Me fight you cloaca!”

As before, when I attempted to speak in their language, I sounded like I had taken a few too many blows to the head. Who knew they had no word for ass? Still, I seemed to have got my message across, as the four dropped into fighting stances, though not ones I was familiar with, their bodies dropping lower, almost parallel to the ground.

“We have to kill it now, what if it’s contagious?! It’s only a Level One, we can do it in a moment.”

OK, so apparently my meaning had not really been conveyed as well as I would have liked. Still, I did not think it mattered as far as results went.

Dropping into a stance of my own, I Focused and pushed hard into my Exemplar; I had no way to know how strong those four were so I was not going to mess around. Praxis surged within me as I tapped it almost to the point of my reserves starting to drain. Holding back was great, in theory, but since I was in an actual fight against fighters of unknown strength, I was going to abuse the obscene refresh rate of that dead world for all it was worth.

The four figures all but froze for a moment as I gathered my time aura close and dashed forward, hoping to eliminate the threat before they had a chance to react. It did seem, however, that I had underestimated their own speeds. As I closed the distance, the four began to move – not fast enough to appear normal, but certainly faster than I had expected given how far beyond my level I was operating at that moment. But as surprising as their speed was, it was not enough to keep pace with me. As I arrived at Chrome’s position, I converted my momentum to a downwards punch, adding my weight to it as I turned my ankle. As my fist made contact with the top of the feathered skull, I loosened the grip on my lightning and let it flow out and into the unprotected flesh with an attenuated, echoing snap and a disturbingly damn crunch.

Catching movement out of the corner of my eye, I quick-stepped around Chrome and turned to put them between me and Beetleshell, even as a shimmering energy began to build in the palm of their out-facing palm. My Instinctive Precognition flared, and dipping low without a chance to think, I caught Chrome around the waist and tossed him into the air between us. I may not have been as strong as I was fast, but at a strength fifty times that of a normal human, tossing one largely defenceless person into the air required pretty much zero effort. As the figure rose into the air, an almost blinding light illuminated the hall and there was a slow crackle of sound as I dodged just in time for a burning hole to blasted through Chrome by a beam of what looked like concentrated plasma. The body slowed the beam for only a fraction of a second, but that had been what I needed to dodge, and the huge charred tunnel though my former opponent’s flesh was a pretty good sign that they would not be getting back up.

Knowing I had to prioritise taking out the asshole with the hand-cannon, I rushed towards them, hoping to arrive before they could charge another shot, but suddenly found myself falling towards the distant ceiling. Flexing my core to provide force, I turned around my centre of gravity so my feet were pointing up – down? And landed in a crouch before jumping as hard as I could... which was a mistake. I do not do a lot of jumping, and I had somewhat forgotten that I was more than strong and fast enough to leap the fifty feet or so without giving it my all.

I rocketed towards the floor like a missile to smash down and through Beetleshell in a spray of gore. My opponents may have had some dangerous toys, but speed is king. Which is why – despite shedding a bunch of momentum turning one of them to jam, I also smashed bodily into the floor. Luckily, it seemed that while their limbs made them faster than I expected, their bodies were way squishier than mine. I hit the floor and lost my breath, my vision turning black for a moment, only to come back to myself as my control slipped and lightning lashed about me. With a groan I steadied my mental grip and stood; my body hurt everywhere, but it did not seem like I had damaged anything too seriously. Looking around, I found Woody and Crystal staring at me with a close approximation of horror, and I looked down at myself to see blood and viscera fall off of my slick black robes. I imagined seeing what they had seen and grimaced. I would probably have nightmares later, but I did not have time for that here and now; there were an unknown number of these invaders in the facility, and backup could show up any moment. And given that I had no idea where these guys fell in the power scales, beyond not Level One, I did not want to take any risks just because it had been fairly easy so far.

I ran at the still staring figures, seeing a strange pulse as I did so and the air turned slightly opaque. I got the feeling I was about to do something stupid as I decided to run though the phenomena, and I thanked Instinctive Precognition again as I dropped my weight and kicked to send me leaping sideways, skipping along the ground until I found the edge of the disturbance, only to find myself once again falling upwards as another pulse caught me, Crystal started running up a series of floating steps, made from the same opaque air, towards me.

As I once again landed on the ceiling, the running Crystal caught up to me, throwing punches at me and dropping back out of range as I retaliated. It was a strange exchange; you never expect to fight somebody who is upside-down and it was disorienting enough to slow me down. I could jump to reach the irritating shit, but I knew it would be easy to overshoot the very short distance. With a mental shrug, I braced myself and blocked an incoming blow with my left arm and released the lightning. Power rocked through them as they stiffened, lazy smoke beginning to drift in the near-frozen air as it danced about them in the bright white arcs of my highly efficient new addition.

Cutting the power once again, I turned, looking up – down? I looked at Stonewood, who was apparently responsible for fucking with my world view. Not wanting to smash myself into the floor for a second time, knowing there was likely more fighting ahead, I took a few moments to try to work out how hard I would have to jump, but that was apparently enough time for my last remaining enemy to decide that retreat was the better part of valour. I watched as the figure began to turn and run and was about to jump when I found myself dropping. The sudden reversal of up and down bent my brain for just long enough that I did not have a chance to push off. The drop should have given Stonewood the chance to escape the room, as fast as they seemed to be, before I dropped the whole distance, but there was one thing they had not anticipated, and that even I had not noticed until that point: having more time in which to do things meant I also fell faster... relatively speaking.

I hit the floor far sooner than I should have and drove myself forward, catching up to the fleeing gravity-manipulator just as they reached the door and drove my fist into the back of their head – and I am fairly sure their skull – cracked. They fell slowly to the ground to tumble end over end into the far wall where they lay, unmoving.

Dropping my Focus and stepping off my Path, I waited for a minute or so to make sure nobody was getting back up, and after checking for pulses – despite not knowing if they even had pulses – I left the gore spattered hall to carry on in the general direction of the shudder.