3. Cryptic Call.

Alexys leaves the throne room of Archon Hyphus, the giant mechanical doors of the throne room close behind him with the sounds of screeching and hissing.

He walks through the hallways of the Dread Fort, his gaze scanning every centimetre of space ahead of him, he had grown used to always staying alert and thus, his senses are razor sharp.

The design of the hallways are hellish and disturbing, rusted support beams with charred spikes of metals protruding from them, blood and viscera is sticking to the wall as if the rotting flesh is some sort of mortar, pipes of dark aether faintly leak out and create a very putrid smell when mixed with the stench blood.

The sounds of gears and mechanical whirring is constant and eternal inside the Dread Fort, the sounds are always screeching, rubbing and scraping due to the severe rusting of the mechanical aetheric machineries, the once elegant and mesmerising hallways of marble, silver, sapphires and gold are now what you know of, the hallways of the Dread Fort.

The red and orange lights in the ceiling are disorganised, sometimes flicking on and off and even strobing, the lights are reminiscent of ever-watching eyes that leave no sense of privacy untouched from fright.

The hallways are maddening to the normal man, yet, Alexys is no normal man, he has been tormented that he doesn't understand the concepts of freedom, improvement, joy and desires. Even in the dim light, his power armour, Black Hand— an armour which was constructed of a black and grey metal, the armour is designed to be rigid and angular with it's chestplate made to deflect strikes or to block it with the built-in Aetheric force field generators, the gauntlets of the armours had multiple built-in weaponry on them— two dark aether autocannons, multiple extendable blades on the sides and one shockwave blasters which have enough power to pulverise bone and armour on each gauntlet. The upper abdomen of the armour is shielded by a pentagonal piece of armour which points down, the waist is protected by angled armoured plating. On the chestplate, the red and black emblem of the Hyphus Technocracy— A ten-pointed with a skull on it's center shines, a grim reminder of his masters. His armour is fully mechanized and powered. The pauldrons of the armour are also heavily protected with both built-in force field generators and angled armour, on each pauldron is a small dark aetheric spewer; a weapon which fires dark aether similar to a flamethrower. On his pauldrons, his rank of Archon Inferior is proudly yet, grimly displayed— A ten-pointed star with two crossed swords. The elbow caps have spikes on them which make jabs even more deadly. On the back of the armour, there's two flaps which cover jetpacks, these jetpacks boost his speeds greatly and allow flight. The boots or greaves of the armour have built-in boosters and shock absorbers which further increase mobility, the knee caps of the armour have sharp spikes on them which make kicking even more deadlier. On the back of the armour, there are four auxiliary mechanica arms, each one fully functional like a human arm yet, longer and more deadly as each one has sharp claws which can cut through metal and flesh with ease. And to top it off, his armour is adorned with spikes, varying in sizes but all are in organised patterns, giving the armour a menacing look.

...

As Alexys continues his walk through the long and labyrinth like hallway, he runs into a Netherforged Prime, the being looks at Alexys and simply stares at him for a while before speaking in a mechanical voice, "Praise- aise-- Arch-Archon-" it's speaker module malfunction, the speech cuts off and then, without warning, the Netherforged Prime lunges at Alexys, a giant, sharp yet, rusty blade extended from each of it's biomechanical arms as it fires a torrent of corrosive liquids from a biological weapon mounted on it's hunched over back. Alexys quickly moves out of the way, dodging with unmatched and inhumane speeds, he retaliates by firing two powerful shockwaves from his shockwave blasters, Netherforged Prime has most of it's body almost instantly pulverised by the powerful shockwaves, turning it's body into a butchered and mangled pile of rotting flesh and dark aetheric machineries affected by Machina Mutatio.

Alexys stands over the beings corpse, a pile of both flesh and rusted aetheric machinery. He quickly contacts Leo Uzra, the one in charge of the Mendicor Units to figure out why but before he can do that, the corpse of the Netherforged Prime speaks, the speaker module is still partially intact but all other components, including the brain and any computers in it have been reduced to smithereens from the shockwaves, "Meet-- 2 days later-- Lex Fort-- ALONE--", Alexys stared in disbelief and shock as he heard the clear voice, it came from the speaker module of the Netherforged Prime, the voice is constantly getting cut off by static and sounds of gurgling flesh and blood from the corpse, yet, Alexys got the message— to go to Lex Fort two days later, completely alone and encounter whatever being was responsible for the manipulation of the Netherforged Prime. The place where this 'meeting' is to take place is Lex Fort— A fort in the northern reaches of the Hyphus Technocracy, the fort has been partially turned to ruins and the remaining part is monitored by the Technocracy and used as am outpost and storage facility for a nearby mine, the fort was constructed nearly 130 years ago and it was named after Lex Eziss, a military general, but, just like most things, it, too, was severely damaged by the war between humans and the Archons during the Era Styx and now, it has lost it's past glory and honour.

He quickly pulverises the remains of the Netherforged Prime and rushes through the hallways, his speeds greatly increased by both his armour and his urge to find out more about what he just encountered.