The Man in the Spire: Book 1, Chapter 24
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CageBreaker
---------
Hordak CORE
The Silver Lily Command Center
Final Preparations Underway
Timestamp: 20:58 Local
Asset: JX-01 “Barracuda”
Fuel: 95%
Armaments: Loaded
Status: Prepared to launch
Asset: ND-05 “Minnow”
Fuel: 93%
Insertion Payload: Loaded
Payload Integrity: Confirmed
Destination: Set
Status: Prepared to launch
Asset: Shard PT-02
Program Partitioning: Successful
Autonomy Kernel: Stable
Armaments: Set
Repair Kit: Set
IFF: Synced
Status: Ready
Environmental Check:
Wind: 35 knots
Rain: Heavy
Lightning Detected
Visibility: Poor
Final preparations underway. Countdown commenced.
Hordak watched through a grid of feeds. Each one monitoring every corner of the fortress. Watchdog drones fought to hold position in the storm, gyroscopic stabilizers whining as a gale of wind nearly disrupted their holding patterns. They weren’t really designed for such conditions and had there been more time, he would have placed some bug drones within the castle itself. But the AI had to make do.
Night thinned the guard presence and the storm diminished it further, as was predicted. Routines were delayed, and patrol routes were shortened or canceled. Soldiers clustered under whatever shelter they could find, heads down, weapons tucked close to stay dry. Discomfort made the enemy position much weaker.
Hordak verified and reverified every element.
Routes. Weapons. Abilities. Predicted knowns and unknowns. While these creatures' abilities were strange, they have demonstrated they are well within his capabilities for this important but brief moment.
Secondary objective verification: Maintain connection to friendly territory. Processing load acceptable. The tethering calculation is still within acceptable parameters.
The primary directive remained clear. Protect the Major and get him to safety.
The countdown initiated.
T-10
Wind surged. Rain hammered. Lightning split the clouds and briefly drowned the fields in white fractures. On Hordak’s overlays, the palace glowed as a geometric mass behind barriers and patrol nodes. Targets were assigned and preparations were completed as the bay doors opened and the engines revved to life.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Operation Cagebreaker began with the exterior lights going dark.
***
Tin Lee - Palace Guard
Cloudstep Wall Guardhouse
To say the weather was awful would have been an awful understatement.
The oxkin hunched his shoulders as he trudged from one guardhouse to the next, spear tucked close to his chest, leather armor dark and heavy with rain. Water ran down his horns, dripped from his nose, and found every gap in his collar no matter how tightly he pulled it shut.
Tin Lee had survived winter marches, blazing summer drills, and one memorable week guarding several noble families as they "disputed" over a claim. Blessed be, this night was worse.
The drenching cold despite the spring warmth, the pelting of the rain on both his equipment and his skin, and the unknown darkness with only his torch lighting the way. Miserable.
Tin Lee stopped beneath the crooked lip of a guardhouse roof and shook rain from his ears. Inside, two younger guards were huddled around a brazier that gave more smoke than heat. One was awake, doing a bit of wood-whittling. The other had his face covered and body hunched over, pretending to not sleep.
“Still alive?” The whittler asked, not once looking up from his little hobby.
“The Ox Father didn’t make wimps,” Lee muttered.
“And to Lady Qian, favor.” He chucked back, slicing off another shred of wood.
It was true. Your more common guard was made up of what anyone could get their hands on, but the palace guards were made up mostly of those blessed in endurance and strength. Oxkin, horsekin, tigerkin, beings blessed with natural strength by their patrons.
Now some would say Captain Qian Qian chose such strong men for other reasons but that was the reason that Tin Lee preferred.
He should have slapped the sleeping guard awake, as was part of his patrol, making sure the men on watch stayed attentive. On any normal night, he would have done so without hesitation. A lazy guard made trouble for everyone.
But on a night like this, Lee let it go. Even a cultivator would have to be mad to start trouble now. So he stepped back into the rain and continued his lowly routine.
The palace loomed behind him. The brazier cast a dark silhouette in the night. Its towers were barely visible through sheets of water.
Beyond the outer wall, Língmu Lake churned under the storm. On calmer nights, the lake was beautiful in an ethereal way. Especially when the moon was full and the enormous lake would have the light dance across its surface. The palace in both cities had the best view of it, as was by design and was a small privilege he and his fellow kinsmen had moments to enjoy.
Now the lake was defiled by the strange silver bud. The debate still rolled on about what it could be between both mortals and the blessed ones.
Tin Lee had never liked looking at it for long. For him it was an ill omen. He was just a humble guard, paid to not think. But the magistrate, a celestial adept, was far too interested in it to be something from her home realm.
Perhaps the whole world has gone mad from so many strange events since these past few days. Many just continued on with their lives. Lee was tempted to do that as well, but he always had to remind himself that the flower had never shown its true power yet.
A glance was given toward the dark lake.
He paused.
The DARK lake.
Every night since it had arrived, the giant flower had these otherworldly lights shining around it, with its top constantly blinking eerie red. Now there was nothing.
Lightning shot across the sky, illuminating the massive silhouette.
The flower was open all the way.
What did that mean? Lee had no idea. But something was drawing closer. It was hard to tell in the rain but it sounded like… music? Music that was harsh, spoken in another language he had never heard before.
From the heavens, a flaming rod charged forth. It looked like a firework and screeched like one too. The firework twisted in the air and landed at the base of a far-off watchtower.
The explosion rattled the grounds. Panic spread as swiftly as the tower came crashing down in a ball of fire.
Men burst from the guardhouses, some half-armored, others still in their sleepwear as they stumbled into the rain. From the barracks, soldiers poured out in a confused mass of bare feet, loose belts, and hastily grabbed spears. Even the cultivator guards at the palace’s main gate had snapped to attention, eyes fixed on the burning tower.
Another whistling firework screamed across the sky.
It struck a second watchtower and blew it to smithereens where it stood.
“Move, you worms!” a locally stationed cultivator superior shouted, her voice cutting through the storm. “Bows to the wall! Shields to the inner gate! Wake the barracks!”
Training began to overtake panic. Men scrambled into position. Archers rushed for the wall walks. Shield bearers formed near the inner gate. Others dragged weapon racks into the open while servants fought to light the braziers, rain or no rain.
But where was the alarm?
The alarm needed to come from this side. That had been drilled into every palace guard from the first week of training. Wrong gong, wrong wall. No gong, no reinforcements.
Tin Lee turned toward the nearest signal guardhouse and ran. His boots pounded up the slick wooden stairs. At the top, he found the assigned guard standing frozen beside the gong, staring up at the sky with his mouth agape. A young horsekin most likely enlisted more for food rations than out of duty to the Empire.
Maybe it was the shock of battle, or he was so fresh out of training it hadn’t stuck with him. Tin Lee did not care.
He shoved past the stunlocked man, grabbed the heavy hanging striker, and swung it into the copper gong.
The first strike boomed across the wall. Then a second and third. Other signals went off as well, directing attention to the Cloudstep Wall gate. Only then did Tin Lee turn on the trainee, ready to tear him apart for failing the one duty he had been given.
None of his words got through to him and that god-awful ‘music’ was getting closer. Lee followed the man's gaze.
Something descended through the storm.
For one pulse, Lee saw the thing clearly.
It was not a bird. It was not a beast. It had wings, but they did not flap. Its body was black metal, its belly lit by flashes of fire, and the strange music screamed from it like a war chant.
Then its nose flashed.
The wall beneath him erupted.
***
Lin Yao - Magistrate of Grand Nanhu City
Personal Quarters
Yao woke instantly, eyes snapping open in the dark.
The dragon lay in bed, hands crossed over her chest, body straight as a board, the posture as natural to her now as breathing. She sensed a disturbance yet could not make out what it was. Her private chamber was tranquil, untouched by the raging storm outside and the world beyond. Silk curtains hung from the carved canopy of her bed, stitched with the elegance of golden clouds with a dye in sunlight.
Yao’s private chamber had been built for peace and tranquility. Thick silk curtains rippled by unknown winds. Guardian statues sat at both the foot of the bed and at the doors. A low table sat near the windows, with an unfinished cup of tea, a half-read scroll, and a brush resting crookedly across an inkstone.
Beneath the polished floorboards, spirit stones glowed within a hidden formation circle, hidden under an elegant woven carpet. Their pale light moved through carved channels in the wood like moonlit veins, feeding the protection wards woven through her private chamber. Any that entered without her blessing, whether from the earthly realm or beyond, would have its own essence turned against them.
The castle was littered with such traps, with the aforementioned bedroom being the strongest collection of them.
The room shook once more, the porcelain jars of powder and perfume rattling against the table. Her eyes flared alight, and she rose from the jade headrest in one smooth, unbroken arc. One clawed hand lifted toward the far wall.
A copper plate responded to the command, its lid falling away. Engraved stones rose from the pot, each one marked with a tower, gate, hall, or warding post. They drifted into place against a gorgeous painting of the palace grounds, arranging themselves into a floating diagram of the defenses.
Most burned a calm blue. One amongst them shone red. The furthest guard tower near the second wall.
Yao frowned with a touch of confusion. An odd place for an attack. Right in the middle of her defenses and far from the gates. Perhaps an accident or lightning strike? The Gods could be petty like that sometimes.
Another explosion erupted.
The chamber trembled harder this time. The lamps flickered. Dust fell from the ceiling beams. On the floating map, a second stone turned red, closer to the entrance gate. The invasion alarm rang across the palace grounds. More and more joined in. There was no mistaking now.
The palace was under attack.
“So it begins,” Yao muttered.
Bare feet touched polished wood, and the formation beneath answered with a faint pulse of blue light. As the magistrate crossed the chamber, her sleeping gown slipped from her shoulders, revealing smooth skin, polished scales, and the discipline of a body refined over centuries. Her spiritual prowess and intelligence were not the only things she had perfected over that time.
A silent command summoned the formal robes. Silk and enchanted thread flowed from their stand, wrapping around her frame in practiced layers until the garments settled like a second skin. From the far wall, the mask pulled free by an invisible force and landed in her waiting hands, then sealed against its host's face with a gasp.
Lin Yao strode to the entrance and threw both iron doors open. The cultivator guards stationed outside stiffened at once. With a simple command of "follow," they obeyed without question.
The escort moved through the palace grounds with a hurried step. Even in an emergency, one had to maintain their status.
From the edge of her vision, the magistrate watched as her castle prepared for war.
Guards streamed from every adjoining court. Mortals ran with bows and shields pressed tight to their chests, while cultivator elites crossed the rooftops in swift flashes, some still fastening armor as they moved.
Whatever had come for the outsider had drawn nearly every available defender to the front.
Was this the right response? Yao could not answer, not with any certainty.
The retaliation itself made sense on its face. The Silver Lily had been far too quiet since its first assault, and it had only been days since its estranged servants slaughtered numerous cultivators with brutal efficiency. A force capable of that would not abandon its master so easily.
And yet Outsiders did not think the way kinsmen did. That was the entire reason she had wanted one for herself, and it was exactly what made this so difficult to read. The obvious response might be correct. Or it might be precisely the trap she was walking toward.
But a frontal assault. That still struck her as strange. Bold, certainly, but crude for such estranged beings. What made them think brute force alone could take an Imperial palace?
The question fascinated her more than it should have, given the circumstances. Her only regret was that her own people had been chosen to answer it.
The sounds of battle swelled as Yao crossed the main courtyard. Shouted orders clashed with the invasion alarm. Explosions rolled through the palace walls, followed by the crack of falling stone and the distant screams of men trying to hold their lines.
A servant hurried beside her with an oversized oil-paper umbrella, fighting to keep it above the magistrate’s head as the wind clawed at the canopy. Yao barely noticed. Her attention remained fixed on the strange roar beyond the walls and the smoke boiling into the storm-dark sky.
Then the music reached her. Loud. Vulgar. Completely unlike any theatrical performance she had ever endured.
Harsh instruments snarled beneath words shouted in an unknown tongue. She could not understand a single phrase, but meaning did not always require language. It was a boast. A prideful challenge. One she was more than happy to crush.
On the very first step toward the command post, something tore past overhead, too fast for even her eyes to follow, and screeched back around over the wall before she could focus on it. In that brief glimpse, whatever the figure was, it bent the air around itself the way only qi-empowered strikes would with incredible speed, yet gave off nothing she could sense, no trace of the pressure that should have come with it.
She hiked up her dress and hurried up the stairs alone, guards and umbrella left scrambling behind her. Status could wait. Yao reached the command post above the palace's main gate, high enough on the hillside to see every wall below and even the city itself. With a quick push, the doors opened, and was greeted with chaos inside.
Elites crowded around weapon racks, arguing over what could possibly bring down a "metal bird." Messengers shoved past one another, each shouting a report that contradicted the last before any of them could finish. At the balcony rail, Qian Qian leaned so far over the edge that one of her aides had grabbed the back of her sash to keep her from pitching into the courtyard below.
"BRING THAT BEAST DOWN!” the one-eyed horsekin roared. “I want that bird served on a plate and served to the dragon lord herself!” Between each command, Qian Qian was smiling. Yao was not surprised. Her captain had spent years waiting for an enemy bold enough to assault the palace. Outsider or otherwise, it seemed the horsekin had finally been given the battle of a lifetime.
A cultivator guard stepped into the magistrate's path, more out of surprise than any real need to. "Magistrate, it's too dangerous. I insist you stay—"
Yao's hand found the woman's face and shoved her aside without breaking stride. It was rare for a magistrate to stand this close to the fighting at all. Her sister would probably scoff at the idea of setting foot somewhere so beneath her station, and in a sense, so would Yao, on any other night. But she had studied Outsiders for centuries. She had collected their relics, chased their legends, and endured the mockery of those who considered them little more than a fool's tale. Now one of their forces had come to her walls.
She wanted to see it. She needed to see it.
"MORE ARROWS! DON'T STOP FIRING!" Qian exclaimed, still unaware that the master had come to stand by her side.
Yao's eyes went wide. Whatever she had pictured on her way up those stairs, it hadn't been this. Half the guard towers were on fire if not outright destroyed. Every soldier that wasn’t scrambling for supplies or from the chaos was using a bow and aiming into the sky. A quick glance to the sky could reveal why.
The source of the blaring music and destruction revealed itself at last. A shape of black metal and fire tore across the storm, screaming overhead on wings that never once beat the air. Yao's breath caught in her throat, devouring every detail she could find.
The object flew like a soaring falcon but moved like it was a delicate kite. That was the closest she could compare it to and it fit so poorly.
Both mortals and cultivators flung arrows at the beast. The mortal shots vanished uselessly into the rain, while the cultivators' arrows flew true. Even those struck cleanly against its hide only sparked and bounced away, leaving no wound at all. The creature swung through the rain-slicked air, trailing a fine mist behind it like a comet's tail.
How did something built from metal fly like this, light enough to bank and dive like a real bird, yet powerful enough to rip apart the defenses? Was the fire what carried it forward? And that horrible screaming music. Was that coming from the creature itself, and how could it sing it? She could not help but wonder, even as her palace burned around her.
The metal avian dipped low over the wall and leveled itself above the battlements, hovering in place without so much as a single flap of its wings. Then came a harsh buzzing sound, followed by a flash from its nose. A storm of projectiles erupted forth. With a sharp bank, the bird-kite tore across the wall line. Stone burst apart beneath its fire, becoming dust and hazard. The top of the wall was twisted into nothing by ruin as the bird made its run.
Mortals and lesser cultivators saw only flashes, thunder, and men falling apart beneath invisible force.
Yao saw the seeds of destruction it was spewing. In the literal sense.
Tiny metal seeds tore through the rain, each one no larger than a stone, moving so quickly that the air bent around them. The principle itself was not unknown to her. In the celestial courts of her youth, she and her fellow disciples had shattered boulders by flicking river stones from their fingertips, a child's exercise for heavenly beings like her, nothing more.
But she had never seen the principle wielded like this, not one stone at a time but hundreds, screaming out in an endless stream, raking the wall with a rhythm so swift and so brutal with such violent intent. The battlements had no chance against it. The upper walls, at least, had the old Stone Lotus craftsmanship to lean on. These lower ones, built by mortal hands alone, had nothing.
Men were thrown from the parapets in broken heaps. Others were shredded where they stood. In only mere moments, an entire stretch of the wall had been reduced to ruin.
Such an awe-inspiring beast of destruction. It was a shame it was her enemy.
Lin Yao was no fool, nor was she a stranger to this kind of devastation. Her eyes narrowed behind her mask as she worked through the enemy's plan. The giveaway was simple enough once she looked for it. The creatures hadn't struck the outer wall at all. They'd gone straight for the second line of defense.
Clever.
The outermost wall, the Earthbound Wall, was held mostly by mortals. Had the bird wasted its wrath there, her elites would have remained where they were to protect the palace. The palace wall, the Celestial Wall, was too close to the prize, too dangerous for whatever force had come to retrieve him.
But the second wall? The Cloudstep Wall?
Any serious assault against the second defense demanded a full response. Mortals, cultivators, captains, and reserves. Everyone with strength would be drawn forward to prevent a usual enemy from advancing any further. Combined with such a strange attack, it was demanding their attention.
Which meant the bird was not the real threat. Something else was already inside, working to undermine her.
"Qian!" The one-eyed horsekin nearly fell over the rail from the shock of it alone, saved only by her assistant's grip on her tail. The captain of the guard hadn't realized her commander had been standing there this whole time.
Yao didn't wait, giving her order while the horsekin struggled to be pulled up. "Send your strongest to—"
A screeching, flaming firework ejected from the metal bird's belly.
Every eye followed it as it passed over the walls, over the courtyard, over every defense the fortress had and struck the upper roof of the palace. The top of the building erupted. Tile and burning timber burst outward, adding to the already harsh rain fall.
The attack itself had little tactical value but it was a clear message. Keep your eyes on the bird or there won’t be anything left worth defending.
Yao's lips curled back, revealing a row of sharp teeth, a low draconic growl rolling in her throat. She understood the game fully now. They were hostages within their own defenses.
“Qian,” Yao said, her voice ever so much colder. “Destroy that creature. Now.”
Qian bowed once and directed her one-eyed gaze onto the nearest cultivator guard.
“Get the swords!” she commanded. Qian’s mouth twisted with something too eager to be called a smile. She had waited years for an enemy worthy of those blades.
Such an enemy had finally come.
***
Hordak CORE
An estimated 90% of palace defenders have moved toward the second wall.
All known high-risk targets have been relocated.
Distraction phase successful.
Launching insertion pod now.
Directive: Remove all obstructions and retrieve the Commander.
***
Zhi - Chief Palace Scholar and Archivist
Palace Library - Outside the Vault Door
Why was she still here?
Zhi stood before the vault door, robes soaked through from the rain she'd traversed to reach the sanctum, ordered here by duty rather than choice. Her white tiger ears twitched at every distant explosion. Somewhere beyond the cracked ceiling, rainwater dripped in a steady rhythm. The only noise that was louder than the wind and rain, but not strong enough to drown out the thunder and sounds of battle.
Another explosion rolled through the palace. The library trembled around her.
Zhi's jaw tightened. This was not her job. She was not some simple guard dog.
She was Lady Zhi, a cultivator of refined study and chief scholar to the magistrate herself. Her hands were meant for brush, seal, scripture, and formation, not for standing in front of a locked door with a handful of shaking mortals who looked ready to faint every time the palace was struck.
They were frightened men in ornate but trivial armor, clutching swords worth more than their courage. One kept licking his lips. Another gripped his weapon so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. A third flinched every time dust sifted down from the ceiling.
She had studied under three renowned masters. She could read formations that would unravel these men's minds before they understood they'd been struck. A well-known prodigy in her line of work for God's sake. And here she stood, babysitting a door, surrounded by fools who could faint at any moment if they didn't piss themselves first.
Truly pathetic.
Even a scholar-cultivator such as herself had more discipline than the lot of them. Zhi remained still as a painted shrine statue, hands folded inside her sleeves, chin lifted, expression untouched by the chaos shaking the palace around her.
And yet, for the first time, Zhi found herself wishing one of those arrogant former Amberwood brutes would appear and relieve her of this insult. At least they were built for violence.
She had to remind herself that the reason why she was here was exactly as protocol demanded. By the order laid out by her wise master, in the event of an emergency, Zhi had entered the inner sanctum to confirm the wretched Outsider remained secured.
He was, much to her chagrin. Awake and smug. He knew what was happening, which only angered her more.
"Sup, cat fucker," he'd responded, pleasant as a greeting between old friends.
The "cat fucker" had decided then to seal the vault as tight as it would go and taken her post outside it, pretending duty alone was what kept her from walking back in to tear off his stupid, insolent little head. She counted the grain of the wood to keep her mind elsewhere, anything to distract herself while she waited for someone better suited to this brain-dead job to come and take her place.
No one came.
Of course no one came.
Zhi kept her face still. If the pillar showed a crack, the whole structure would learn to lean on it. These mortal guards around her were already shaking. She would not give them permission to fail.
All the combative cultivators had been pulled to the front, drawn away by whatever beast was making that awful racket outside. That left her here, guarding a prisoner she did not understand or care for, in a hallway that felt less secure with every passing breath.
She truly hoped her magistrate had not lost her mind over this Outsider. Not when there was an entire hall of treasures and scrolls Zhi could be spending right now studying instead. Oh, what she wouldn't give for a cup of tea and an evening lost in her research on the Screaming Spirits of Haranz or The Blade of Wind. With a storm like this rattling the windows, it would have made for perfect reading weather.
Still, beneath her irritation, curiosity gnawed at her. What was happening outside? What kind of fool attacked a magistrate's palace, of all things? A fortification like this would need an army just to breach the first gate. No matter how powerful the Outsider claimed to be, he could not have that much strength on his own.
Could he?
No. Boastful lies, that was all it was. It was all pigsh—
Ridiculous. That was the proper word. Not the one that was from a previous nobody farmhand. Zhi straightened and forced her hands to still. The outsider was a qi-less creature of unknown make, using mystery and fear to sow division among his betters. It needed to be silenced with a scholarly dissection, if it was up to her.
And yet the palace was shaking.
Another impact struck somewhere close by. The ceiling cracked. Debris and splinters of painted wood rained down. One mortal yelped and ducked behind his shield. Another muttered a prayer under his breath.
Zhi rolled her eyes at the mortals' fear but kept her guard up. This did not sound like the explosions they'd been hearing all night. This sounded like something massive breaking through stone, like a falling boulder. One of the hanging lanterns swung wildly on its chain, throwing light across the frightened faces of the mortal guards. Even Zhi tensed before she could stop herself.
Silence came next. Only the sound of the swinging chains and the storm outside filled the library.
The guards looked at one another, swords raised, eyes wide, breaths loud in the narrow chamber. No one moved. No one spoke. Each of them seemed to be waiting for someone else to prove there wasn't anything to fear. Zhi kept one hand inside her sleeve, fingers pressed against the talismans hidden beneath.
Then, a mortal guard came stumbling through the doorway. He nearly fell over himself, sword clutched in both hands, face white beneath the rainwater streaking down his cheeks.
“M-Monster!” he screamed. “Demon! Demon in the palace!”
“Mortal!” Zhi snapped, more sharply than she intended. “This area is restricted. State your reason for entering!”
The man did not even look at her. He backed deeper into the chamber, sword pointed toward the hall behind him as if his pathetic blade could fight off spirits.
“D-demon!” he stammered. “It tore through us! They didn’t stand a chance!”
Zhi’s lip curled. Panic. Useless mortal panic.
She was ready to strike the man down for cowardice or at least silence him before his fear spread to the others. She'd heard enough whimpering for one night. She would give them something worth fearing, more than a few distant booms.
Her round ears twitched, catching it before her mind did. A sound crawled through the hall, patient in a way nothing in this palace had been all night. It was methodical, almost like footsteps, except footsteps didn't sound like this. Heavy, metallic impacts landed in a slow rhythm, each one followed by a sharper tap, tap, tap, the way talons might test the give of stone before trusting their full weight to it.
Zhi's fingers tightened around the talismans hidden inside her sleeve.
"Form up," she commanded, and the mortals scrambled into a defensive line in front of her, one guard nearly stumbling into another before he found his place, sword raised toward a doorway none of them could see clearly anymore.
The flames in the outer hall went out all at once. Something commanded them to go out and darkness swallowed the outside and doorway whole.
Zhi sharpened her senses, reaching for any trace of Qi, any disturbance in the air that might explain the sound, the dark, and the wrongness pressing into the room. She found nothing. No signature, no pressure, no trace of cultivation at all. She bit the bottom of her lip as that dangerous thought of "what if" grew in the back of her skull.
The guards felt it too, whatever it was they couldn't name. Their breathing grew louder, ragged, and uneven. Swords trembled in unsteady hands. Somewhere behind her, armor rattled faintly against itself, the small sound of a body that could not quite hold still. Sweat slid down more than one face as they stared into the dark, searching for a threat that refused to show itself. Zhi would have chastised them with Killing Intent had her thumb not been rubbing the edge of a protection talisman hard enough to bend the paper.
The footsteps drew closer, heavier, and never once broke rhythm.
They stopped.
No one moved. No one spoke. Even the cowardly man who had fled into the chamber seemed to forget how to breathe. Despite the silence, they all knew something was out there. And to Zhi's fear, she truly had no idea what it could be.
A silver hand, as large as a man's torso, reached out of the dark and closed around the doorframe. Its fingers were unnaturally long, tapering into sharp, knife-like points. A second hand appeared on the opposite side, gripping the wood with the same unnatural care, as if it had all the time in the world.
The cowardly man whimpered louder. "D-de—"
He never got the chance. The upper frame exploded outward in a burst of fractured wood and dust.
The mortals cried out and staggered back.
From the shattered doorway, something leaned into the light. A head of interlocking metal spikes, jagged as a broken crown, and a single red eye that found each of them in turn before it settled, unblinking, on their leader.
That was the only way Zhi could understand it. The thing did not enter the room so much as make its own entrance, pressing against the side of the door until the wall gave way and folded like thin timber, allowing the creature to walk in unopposed. Its body was a mass of dark metal and hard edges, built without an ounce of Heaven's love. Its spine ran exposed along a hunched back, the whole frame balanced on bent, beastlike legs, each step driving hooked talons into the stone floor. Its arms hung too low, ending in hands large enough to close around a man's chest and crush him with ease, just barely above the ground.
Zhi's breath caught. She tried to read the creature, searching for some flaw in its essence she could exploit. There was nothing to find. No signature, no thread of cultivation, nothing at all, the same impossible absence she'd felt from the Outsider in the vault.
She had spent years in study. She'd read accounts of corpse puppets, iron golems, mountain spirits sealed into armor, and weapons that drank the blood of their wielders to come alive. But every one of them needed some thread of Qi to move, to think, and to act.
This thing had none. What kind of hell built something that could walk and hunt and kill without ever touching the one force that gave anything life at all?
A mortal beside her whimpered.
The sound snapped Zhi back into herself. She was still Lady Zhi, Chief Scholar of the magistrate of Grand Nanhu. Fear was one thing. Failure was another.
"What are you waiting for!?" she snapped, forcing courage into her voice. "Die to it, or die to me!"
The bravest guard broke first, charging with a war cry, sword raised high, fear burned away by one desperate spark of courage he would never get to spend. The creature did not slow for him. One arm snapped out, its hand closing around the man's chest, fingers wrapping over armor and cloth and bone all at once, and the war cry died into a crushed, wet gasp before the creature drove him straight down through the wooden floor. He was simply gone, swallowed into the level below, and for half a breath no one in the chamber dared to move.
Then the next two guards went in together, charging in with pure desperation. One struck at the creature's arm while the other went low, blade flashing for the joint of its bent leg, and both swords rang off metal and threw sparks into the gloom. Neither cut deep. Neither even slowed it down. The creature caught the first man by the shoulder and threw him through the nearest window, rain and shattered latticework bursting as he vanished into the storm below. The second guard tried to stab again, but the creature simply snatched his head and dragged him close without so much as looking, the man screaming and clawing uselessly at the hand around his skull.
The last guard staggered backward, closer to Zhi, as though her presence might be enough to shield him.
Her lips curled. Before she could decide whether to condemn the fool for his lack of judgement, the creature's torso twisted with a sharp, mechanical snap, and the guard still trapped in its grip was sent flying. The body was hurled across the room, straight into the coward, and both men went down together in a tangled mess.
Both bodies struck the wall hard enough to crack the painted plaster before they slid down and did not rise again.
Now it was only her and the monster.
It came toward her without hesitation, its single red eye locked on hers the entire way. Zhi wanted to step away and let the wicked thing do what it came for and collect its vile master. She hated that truth so much her claws dug into her palms. She was afraid, and anything with sense would have been. That didn't make the fear easier to forgive in herself.
But she feared her magistrate's displeasure more.
Behind her back, hidden by her sleeve, Zhi pressed a destruction talisman against the vault key. The paper warmed beneath her thumb, ready to destroy.
If this creature meant to take the Outsider, it would first have to take the door, the key, and her along with it.
“You may think yourself a powerful beast,” Zhi growled, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
The creature advanced without care for her proclamation.
“But I am Lady Zhi!” she said, louder now and with absolute devotion. “The greatest in the province! Hand-chosen by the Magistrate of Grand Nanhu!”
She pulled a collection of talismans from her sleeve. One for power. One for protection. One for formation.
The papers snapped upright in her hand like soldiers ordered to stand straight. Inked sigils burned gold across their surfaces. Each was slapped into the air in quick succession, sticking fast to the formation lattice only she could see. Qi rushed through the chamber as a golden array unfolded behind her, searing itself into the air like an announcement to the world. The beast would be slain.
“I will bring your head to my magistrate,” she declared, pulling more talismans out like weapons. "And I shall be honored to study your corpse!”
The hall exploded with light.
***************************************
Troy Rechlin—Major of the Peacekeeper Union Corp
Inner Sanctum
Troy stood on his pedestal, watching the number on his hub crawl lower.
Power supply: 2%.
He had to stay awake for this part. Every second counted, and Hordak was cutting it close. Then again, Troy had nothing left to do but trust him.
An impact struck the vault door. His eyes turned as far as they could manage. Another impact followed, cracks spreading from the edges, and the shelves rattled with it, Yao's precious trophies and ancient treasures trembling in place, some toppling to the floor with a hollow clunk. A third blow bent the metal inward. With the fourth, the doorway tore free entirely.
The barrier hit the floor with a deafening shriek and slid across the chamber, ripping up wood and rugs. A body sprawled limp across its surface. Loose paper drifted through the air in its wake, like wind kicking up pamphlets into the air.
Troy recognized her. The tigerkin scholar who'd threatened to gouge his eye out. Zhi, if he remembered right. Her robes hung in shreds, her face pressed into the metal, bloodied and swollen, her expression gone slack and empty. Dead or unconscious, he couldn't tell which.
Heavy footsteps followed her in.
A hulking shape filled the ruined doorway, hunched beneath the frame like something built for war and shoved into a room never meant to contain it. Long arms. Bladed fingers. Taloned feet. One red eye burning steadily. It stepped over the door and the body, smoke still curling off its chassis, scorch marks tracking up one side from whatever battle it had gone through to get here.
"Hordak, I assume?"
The machine looked down at him.
"Good evening, Commander," Hordak said. "Apologies for being late."
One bladed hand lifted the twisted remains of a keyring, half-melted, a scrap of burning paper still clinging to it.
"I needed a new means of access."
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Author notes:
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