297: A Plague of Phantoms: Incomplete Angels III

Chase

"VILE VERMIN!" Empress screamed as she slashed a Nephilguize down the middle with her bladed tail feathers. It's heart cleaved in two.

I growled and spun on my heel, firing Dia Caos at the three Nephilguize attempting to attack Empress from behind. The void bullets flew through the air and struck their targets near enough to the center of their chests that the resulting micro black holes decimated or heavily damaged their hearts.

Jiggles roared behind me as he channeled blast attribute mana into his bracer claws, setting them ablaze and tore into a small group of Nephilguize. He ferociously slashed and hacked through them without a care. Their bodies erupting into flames that quickly left nothing but ash. Those were the last of the group that attacked us.

I took a deep breath then looked around the hallway. Empress flicked her wings and tail feathers to wick off the blood. Jiggles was huffing and puffing as he looked around for something else to slash while Fours emerged from around a nearby corner, his claws and mouth covered in rapidly decomposing blood.

"That's the second group to attack us, Star Shaper." Jiggles said.

"Smaller than the first group at least." I said.

The pack of Nephilguize that attacked us were a splinter group of the evos that tried to attack us in the lab earlier. Instead of trying to break through the feathers that Empress used to block the door into the lab they split up into packs that were currently hunting my party down.

"My lord, we've been out of communication with General Bone-lasher for several minutes now." Empress commented.

"He's fine. None of the Nephil-freaks can get close to him with how fast he's moving." I said, then quickly reached out to him through our mental link. He was okay and still dashing through the various hallways to try and find a way to the staircase that Bo and Reagan were. We'd been traveling for almost ten minutes now and Bone-lasher hadn't found a route yet.

[This place sounds wrong, Pretender.] Fours said. I frowned and looked over at Fours.

"What do you mean wrong?" I asked. Fours turned his head left and right then walked over to the nearest wall and touched it with a clawed finger.

[Walls sound like they're moving. Just now and before.] Fours replied.

'Moving? Just now and before?' I thought then looked at the walls.

"Star Shaper, could I slash through the walls?" Jiggles asked. I turned to look at him and saw he was already raising a arm to destroy a wall.

"Jig…" I started but was too late. Jiggles slashed the wall but his claws bounced harmlessly off the wall. His brows furrowed and he slashed at the wall again and again. The result was the same, he couldn't damage the hexagonal tiles. "Jiggles stop. Breaking through the tiles won't help us find the staircase."

Jiggles stopped mid-swing with a defeated look on his face. He looked at me then sheathed his claws back inside his bracers. Empress walked over to Jiggles and shook her head.

"You might have finally evolved and reached heights like me but you're still a mindless oaf." Empress said. Jiggles huffed and trumpeted at her, swatting at her to chase her away.

"SHUDDUP GLITTERBEAK" Jiggles snapped.

[Master above. Here they go again…] Fours grumbled.

Turak'Kahn

"Here we are." Sylvester Arsaine said as he approached one of the clear doorways. Seamus was close behind him with Reagan and Anders directly behind him and Delphinium and I taking up the rear. He pressed his furry hand onto the button that opened the door.

Seamus rushed out onto the staircase the second the door opened. He looked over the rail, down at the floors below us and then up at the floors above. Everyone else followed Seamus out onto the staircase and I was amazed. A seemingly endless spiraling staircase that stretched into infinity. Which was very concerning for our chances of escape.

"Fuck a duck!" Seamus yelled and slammed his fist on the railing.

"What?" Everyone asked in unison. Seamus turned around to look at everyone.

"We need ta find the control center fer this facility or we'll be trapped here forever!" Seamus exclaimed.

"Yeah…we knew that already. This place is like an endless maze so obviously we'd get trapped here." Anders said sarcastically. Seamus shot the man a deadpan look then groaned and shook his head.

"Oh shuddup and listen ya idjit!" Seamus snapped then turned back to the railing and pointed below. "This laboratory is growing! Getting larger with each passing second!"

"That's impossible! Space doesn't grow!" Reagan exclaimed.

"Aye but it does. How do ya think the ancients managed to create a laboratory cut off from space and time. They grew their own pocket dimension and built the laboratory inside it." Seamus said.

"How is the space expanding?" I asked. Seamus turned and look at me.

"Security, when it marked us as intruders it starter warping the space. The blasted system is older than dirt." Seamus replied then started scratching his chin. "The bloody spacial matrix must have been overloaded. Could do a hard reset but we'd need Starlight fer that…"

"You sure sound like you know a lot about this place and this ancient splicer shit…" Reagan said. I eyed the older man as he continued to scratch his chin slowly.

"My village is obsessed with the knowledge that those old fossil's left behind. Since I born a normie learning about crap like that was…encouraged." Seamus said ominously.

"Well since you are so knowledgeable, where is the control center?" I asked.

"Half an' hour ago I would have told ya the center of the laboratory but now…space is bein' pulled and twisted. Creatin' pathways and hallways that didn't exist earlier. The control center could be at the bottom of the staircase or back through the door we came through." Seamus replied.

"Fuck! So we'll grow old and die in here!" Ander exclaimed. Seamus shook his head slowly.

"No we won't. This space is cut off from normal space-time. Nothin' in here will age or die. We'll live on in eternity..." Seamus said.

"Could the others outside the facility get inside? Or maybe find a way to rescue us once they realize we're stuck." I asked. Once again Seamus shook his head.

"No, we're cut off from normal space-time. That means that time is moving differently fer us than it is fer everyone outside. A second probably hasn't passed outside." Seamus said.

"But it's almost been hours! How the fuck is that possible?!" Anders exclaimed.

"Splicer magical shit…" Reagan said nonchalantly. Anders groaned and ran hos hands through his hair.

"This is what that woman means when she sent us with Chase!" Anders groaned.

"Well whining won't get us anywhere…" Sylvester Arsaine said suddenly, drawing attention to himself. Everyone looked over and realized he was standing near the edge of the stairs with two crystal sickles in his hands. "…and unfortunately we have company."

I rushed over to the fusion's side and saw two Nephilguize creeping up the stairs, glaring hungrily at myself and Sylvester Arsaine. Delphinium jumped in front of me and her second tail started to glow. A rainbow cube formed around the first of the Nephilguize, save its arms and legs. The cube then vanished as did the parts of the Nephilguize that were inside, leaving only the bloody severed limbs to fall on the floor.

Sylvester Arsaine jumped onto the railing, sliding down towards the Nephilguize and baiting it into attacking. The Nephilguize lunged at the fusion with outstretched hands, which he disarmed literally with a slash of one of its sickles then jumped over its head and spun on its heel when he landed and slashed at the monster. Cutting it in half and destroying the heart.

"Gods above, those things are annoying!" Sylvester Arsaine said then flicked the blood off his sickles.

"We need to hurry up and find Chase. If he is the key out of here we're Stranded if these Nephil-freaks kill him." Reagan said. Sylvester Arsaine chuckled slightly then walked back up the stairs to our floor.

"Are we even sure Chase can be killed. He's survived so much already, and is probably killing a bunch of then right now." Sylvester Arsaine said.

I opened my mouth to say something when a loud explosion thundered through the infinite staircase, rocking and shaking the stairs violently. I grabbed onto the nearest railing and held on for dear life.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU DAMN ANTS! BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!" A unfamiliar voice bellowed from a floor below us.

When the staircase stopped shaking I looked over the edge and saw a sea of fire about seven floors down. The flames started surging upwards and I quickly jumped back just in time to see a column of flames shoot past our floor and melt the railing that I had been leaning against.

"The fuck is that?!" Reagan demanded.

"How should I know?" I replied.

Another thundering explosion rocked the staircase followed by several more columns of flames. Something moved within the largest of the columns, its shadow blanked the floors below it and covering everyone in shadow. The column bulged and burst open reveling a bulking behemoth that looked uncannily similar to Jiggles only more than twice as tall and had four arms.

The new enormous evo trumpeted and held all four of its arms up above its head and started casting three axiom spell sigils at the same time. The sigils merged together and a golden spell sigil formed from their merging. Hundreds of fireballs formed in the air around it before lengthening into star tipped flame spears.

"DEVOID OF SYMPATHY AND TIRED OF LOSS! HARK THE FLAMES OF THE RIGHTEOUSLY FURIOUS STOKED BY THE ASHES OF THE WRONGFULLY DAMNED! MAY THE VENGENCE OF THE CONDEMNED CARRIED OUT BY THEIR BLESSED BURN YOUR POX RIDDEN SOULS!" The mysterious evo bellowed ritualistically.

I watched as the spell sigil shined a golden light down on everything beneath, feelings of awe washing over me. Those feeling were quickly killed off when a swarm of the Nephilguize soared up from the floors below. There had to be hundreds if not thousands of them and they were all heading towards that evo. However it didn't seem worried or even surprised, it smiled. A slight grin but it terrified me.

"Star's Chosen: Jiggles…" The evo said.

The moment it spoke those words the spears that had been floating around it shot towards the Nephilguize. Flying in erratic arcs they struck their targets incinerating them on contact, then exploding. The force of the first explosion rocked the staircase once again, the resulting shockwave knocked everyone back into the hallway that we came out of. Reagan and Seamus both nearly flying more than thirty feet backwards.

Explosions and fire rained down, and impossible heat rushing through the hallway through the open door. Thankfully that closed a moment later and blocked most of it. The explosions rang on for another three minutes before everything went silent. I sat up and looked over at Delphinium, she had been knocked out cold from the shockwave of the first explosion but other than that was unharmed.

"Gods above what the hell was that?!" Ander exclaimed as he stood up.

"Are ye blind? That was Starlight. The little bugger must 'ave fused with Jiggles." Seamus said standing up as well and walking over to the door back to the stairwell.

"Chase…that…makes sense. Only he could cast such a overpowered spell…" Sylvester Arsaine said as he too stood up.

"Might be a bit hot on the other side…" Seamus said, turning to face everyone while motioning to a section of the door that was mostly melted from the residual heat of the spells cast.

"I have something for that." I said then started casting a utility spell sigil. Red ribbons of energy flowed from the spell sigil and wrapped around Seamus, myself, Anders and Reagan before ripping and covering us with a red shield. "That should protect us from the heat."

"You have a spell for stopping heatstroke?" Anders asked. I looked at him incredulously.

"I am the ruler of Egypt…of course I have a spell to stop heatstroke. Do you know how hot Egyptian summers get? My capital city borders a desert." I replied.

"That tracks…" Anders said. I shook my head then turned and looked at Delphinium, she would be out for a while still so I decided to recall her. Once her crystalline structure was back inside my crystal I turned to Seamus.

"Let's hope Chase took care of all those Nephilguize or we'll be in trouble."

"It's Starlight, don't ye worry." Seamus said, waving my concerns away.