Corvis Eralith
The visit to Gideon's lab felt like closing a vital valve on a pressurized system. The Council's acknowledgment of Alacrya's military superiority, the green light for the Beast Corps—it was a release, a terrifying exhale after holding my breath for a lifetime.
Five days later, the bureaucratic machinery was grinding, funds allocated, but the tangible fruits—the first exoforms—were months away. The urgency, a constant hum beneath my entire body, propelled me back to the Castle vaults, drawn to the silent titan resting within.
The Barbarossa. Its crimson armor, thick as the ancient Castle's walls, drank the dim vault light. The four external prosthetic reinforcements to the limbs, massive pistons and articulated joints of gleaming, rune-etched metal, stood poised like a resting predator's legs, radiating dormant power. It was more than a machine; it was a defiance, a promise forged in Grey's greatest gift and desperation.
Standing before it, the familiar ache in my body throbbed, a grounding counterpoint to the potential thrumming within the steel behemoth.
"Are we going to upgrade this behemoth?" Romulos materialized at my right elbow, leaning casually against the Barbarossa's massive shin guard, his spectral form incongruous against the solid metal. His voice held a bored curiosity, laced with his usual disdain for the mundane.
We should, I replied internally, the thought sharp and clear. Relying solely on melee weapons won't suffice against legions. We need the remaining weapons I have thought about.
I knew General Aldir's disapproval would be a palpable force when he discovered my absence. Yet, understanding bloomed within me, echoing Grandpa Virion's profound respect for the Asura depicted in the novel's fragmented memories. Aldir was different.
His concern for my capture by Agrona wasn't merely strategic, fearing Epheotus losing ground; it felt… almost real. A genuine worry for the lesser caught in the god's crossfire. That unexpected sliver of regard made his inevitable displeasure almost… bearable.
We are going out, I declared to Romulos, the decision crystallizing.
His spectral face lit up with a predatory grin. "Oh, finally. But wait…" His expression turned mockingly thoughtful. "You haven't installed a flying mechanism yet… oh! Crash onto the Beast Glades below us? Delightfully primitive. I approve." He chuckled, the sound like dry bones rattling in the vast silence of the vault.
His immediate grasp of my reckless plan was unnerving. Preparations were swift, driven by necessity. I installed a dedicated radio unit, its frequency locked solely to the Castle's command channel—a lifeline to alert them in case of necessity.
A second, illicit channel pulsed quietly: the direct line to the Lances' personal comms, a network Gideon had woven after I'd explained the principles. Council approval be damned; in the coming chaos, speed would mean survival.
With Sylvia's immense mana core slotted securely within its housing, the Barbarossa hummed to life, a deep, resonant vibration I felt in my bones, a sleeping giant roused. The cockpit entrance hissed open, revealing the familiar, cramped space.
Leaving Berna was a pang. Her soft whine echoed in the vault as I sealed the hatch. If the worst happens, I reassured myself, the Grandus Clan's Beast Guardian will be teleported to me thanks to our bond now that I had a mana core. She was safer here, away from the planned crash zone.
Settling into the pilot's seat, the Dark Visor being sealed once more around the Barbarossa's helmet, the world outside became a 360-degree panorama of the vault walls.
My fingers danced over the startup sequence—lights flared across the console, systems whirring and clicking into readiness. I maneuvered the colossal machine towards the vault's massive exit, its heavy tread echoing like thunder in the confined space. Sunlight, blinding after the vault's gloom, flooded the cockpit as the doors groaned open.
The Barbarossa stepped out onto the precipice—the sheer drop from the floating Castle to the distant, hazy expanse of the Beast Glades hundreds of meters below. My stomach lurched, not with fear, but with the sheer, dizzying scale of the fall to come.
Just as I prepared to engage the runic dampeners on the legs and step off, a voice cut through the ambient hum of the machine and the whistling wind.
"Corvis! Wait!"
I knew that voice. My hand froze on the controls. Through the Dark Visor, amplified and crystal clear, I saw Tessia sprinting across the landing platform, her silver-gunmetal hair whipping in the wind, eyes wide with exhilaration.
"I want to ride your machine with you!" she beamed, skidding to a halt beside the Barbarossa's colossal leg, looking small against its bulk.
No. The word screamed in my mind. Too dangerous. Too cramped. Too unpredictable. With a sigh that fogged the inside of the visor for a second, I hit the release.
The Dark Visor retracted, the cockpit hissed open again. Leaning out, the wind tugging at my hair, I looked down at her eager face. "Tessia, there isn't enough space for the both of us—"
———
The cockpit was never designed for two. Tessia was wedged into the narrow space beside the pilot's seat, her knees drawn up, her shoulder pressed firmly against mine and the cold metal wall. The air instantly felt thicker, warmer, filled with the scent of ozone, heated metal, and Tessia's faint, familiar floral soap.
Her excitement was a tangible force, vibrating through her as she craned her neck, eyes wide as saucers, scanning the dizzying array of glowing runes, flickering dials, and unfamiliar controls.
"What do you say?" she chirped, shifting slightly and accidentally elbowing me in the ribs. "We can stay here even if it's a little tight." Her grin was infectious, utterly oblivious to the sheer insanity of our situation.
"That's only because I built it anticipating I would be taller when I piloted it properly," I protested, wrestling with the mechanism to close it around our cramped forms. "That's the only reason we're not suffocating or fused together like mana-welded scrap." But Tessia wasn't listening. Her fingers were already hovering, drawn like magnets to the brightly lit buttons and switches.
"What does this do?" she asked, her finger descending towards a large, unmarked blue toggle before I could snatch her wrist.
"Tessia, don't—" Too late. She pressed it.
A deep, resonant thrum shuddered through the Barbarossa. The ambient power hum died instantly. The console lights flickered and died. Silence, thick and sudden, filled the cockpit.
A complex mechanical whirring sounded from behind us, and a heavily shielded compartment slid open within the cramped space, revealing Sylvia's pulsating mana core, now disconnected and inert. The sheer presence of it, even dormant, filled the tiny space with a pressure that made the air crackle.
"It removes the battery..." I said, my voice tight with exasperation and a flicker of genuine alarm. Carefully, reverently, I grasped the warm, impossibly dense core. The familiar thrum of Sylvia's power resonated faintly against my palms, a comforting, terrifying reminder of its origin and potential.
I slid it back into its housing, feeling the deep clunk as it reconnected. Lights flared back to life across the console, the deep hum returning, a giant's heartbeat restored. "Now, please, stop clicking everything. And especially," I emphasized, grabbing her hand and physically moving it away from the central console, "do NOT touch that big red button in the centre."
She pouted, genuine confusion wrinkling her brow as she looked at the prominently placed, ominously glowing red button. "Why is it in the centre and red if you don't want me to press it? Isn't it the starting button?" Her naivety was almost endearing, if it weren't potentially apocalyptic.
"I thought so too when you installed it, actually," Romulos chimed in, his phantom form now lounging across the instrument panel, one translucent leg dangling over a pressure gauge. "Aesthetically pleasing, centrally located… prime real estate for ignition. But no. You always did have a flair for the dramatic finale."
That, I thought grimly, was the self-destruction override. A final, desperate gambit. If capture by something worse than death was inevitable, a single press would bypass the standard ejection sequence—which would jettison both pilot and core—and trigger Sylvia's core to detonate in an instant.
The resulting blast wouldn't just level a small town; it would scour the landscape clean for miles. A monument to mutually assured destruction.
"Just… don't press it," I repeated, my voice low and serious, locking eyes with Tessia. The sudden intensity in my gaze must have registered, because her playful pout faded into wide-eyed understanding. She nodded slowly, pulling her hand back as if the button had burned her.
"Fiiine," she whined after a moment, the tension easing slightly. Then, the spark of excitement returned. "Then… can I drive it?" Her eyes shone with hopeful mischief.
A reckless part of me wanted to say yes. To share the impossible sensation. But the rational core, the one forged in pain and responsibility, prevailed. "Sure," I said, injecting a note of calm into my voice. "After I start it."
I pulled a heavy, ornate key from an inner pocket of my uniform—a deliberate design choice, echoing the ignition keys of a world long lost. I'd imbued it with a lock attuned solely to my mana signature the night before.
Only I could wake the titan. Inserting it into a slot beside the steering yoke, I turned it. A deep, satisfying clunk echoed through the frame, followed by a rising whine as primary systems fully engaged.
"Okay," I said, guiding her hands to the primary control levers. "Use these to move it. Gently. The Dark Visor," I pointed at the Dark Visor outside, "will show you everything around us. Try a small step."
Eagerness radiating from her, Tessia tentatively nudged the lever forward. The Barbarossa's massive right leg lifted with hydraulic smoothness, then planted itself a meter ahead with a ground-shaking thud that vibrated up through the cockpit floor.
"Ouch!" Tessia gasped instantly, recoiling her hands from the controls and clutching her temples. Her face paled. "How… how can you withstand that? It's… it's like trying to cast dozens of spells simultaneously, all screaming different instructions! The visual input, the kinetic feedback, the mana flow…" She shuddered, breathing heavily.
Oh. Stunned realization washed over me. Was it that overwhelming? For me, piloting felt… intuitive. An extension of my will. I'd never considered the sheer cognitive load.
"Meta-awareness," Romulos stated flatly, appearing perched on Tessia's shoulder, though she remained oblivious. "It doesn't just understands mana. It filters, prioritizes, interprets. It shields your fragile organic brain from being fried by the raw data stream. Her mind is merely… lesser. Unaugmented by true insight." His tone was dismissive, clinical.
Ah. The explanation clicked. My unique perception wasn't just a tool; it was a necessary buffer, an integral part of the interface. Without it, piloting the Barbarossa was neurological suicide.
"It's… complex," I said gently to Tessia, seeing the genuine pain and disorientation in her eyes. "Takes practice. Or… specific aptitudes." I didn't elaborate. "Better let me handle this part."
I retook the controls and maneuvered the behemoth back to the very edge of the precipice. The wind howled around the armored frame. Below, the Beast Glades sprawled like a rumpled green and brown blanket, impossibly far down. The drop was vertiginous.
Tessia, still rubbing her temples, peered over my shoulder at the yawning abyss through the canopy. Her earlier bravado had evaporated, replaced by wide-eyed apprehension.
"Wait… it can fly, right?" Her voice was small, tight with sudden fear. "We aren't actually going to… crash onto that, right?" Her gaze flickered between the distant ground and my face, searching for reassurance she clearly wasn't finding.
I offered what I hoped was a confident smile, though my own heart hammered against my ribs. "It's perfectly safe." The words felt inadequate against the sheer scale of the fall. Before doubt could fully take root in her, before I could second-guess my own calculations, I pushed the control yoke forward.
The Barbarossa tipped over the edge.
Tessia's scream was primal, shredding the air inside the cockpit. Her arms locked around my torso in a vice-like grip, burying her face against my shoulder. We plummeted. Weightlessness seized us, the Castle platform vanishing above in a blink.
The wind roar became a deafening shriek against the armor. The ground rushed up with terrifying speed, details resolving with horrifying clarity—individual trees, rocky outcrops, a winding river like a silver thread.
"THIS IS TRULY PRIME ENTERTAINMENT!" Romulos bellowed over the simulated roar in my mind, his spectral form doing a gleeful mid-air jig beside us. "THE ANTICIPATION! THE IMPENDING IMPACT! EXQUISITE!"
My focus narrowed to a laser point. The runic arrays etched into the Barbarossa's massive legs and feet glowed with intense, building light. Kinetic energy, vast and destructive, needed channeling, now. Fifty meters… thirty… ten… The ground filled the entire visor. Tessia's scream was a continuous note of pure terror.
NOW.
I slammed the controls into a specific configuration, not to stop, but to redirect. The Barbarossa hit the slope of a large hill not with its feet, but in a controlled, rolling impact, its colossal left fist leading. The world outside became a violent, tumbling blur. The cockpit shuddered violently, throwing Tessia and me against the restraints with bone-jarring force.
Through the Dark Visor, I saw the armored fist slam into the earth, cratering the ground, absorbing a massive portion of the kinetic energy in a spray of dirt and shattered rock. Runics on the arm flared blindingly bright. The machine rolled once, twice, metal shrieking against stone and earth, then skidded to a grinding, shuddering halt, half-buried in the hillside, tilted at a steep angle. Dust plumed, obscuring the view.
Silence. Eerie, ringing silence, broken only by the frantic pounding of my own heart, the hiss of cooling metal, and Tessia's ragged, gasping breaths. The console lights flickered, but remained on. Systems readouts scrolled – minor structural stress, runic dampeners overloaded but intact, core stable. We were down. We were… intact.
"See?" I managed, my voice rough. I turned my head, finding Tessia's face inches from mine. She was pale as bleached bone, her eyes wide with residual terror, her knuckles white where she still clung to my arm. "Everything's… alright." My attempt at a reassuring smile felt shaky.
Tessia blinked, slowly processing. The terror receded, replaced by a dazed incredulity. She released her death grip, pushing herself back slightly against her seat.
"You…" she breathed, her voice trembling. "You have gone completely crazy, Corvis…" She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the lingering vertigo. A strange, almost bewildered look crossed her face. "But… why did I… like it so much?" A faint, disbelieving tremor touched her lips, threatening to become a grin.
The adrenaline crash was hitting her, mixing with the sheer relief of survival. "Simple," I explained, my own nerves still jangling. "It dumped a tidal wave of adrenaline into your system. Fight-or-flight, cranked to its absolute peak. It's… intense. Like the best sparring session you've ever had, times a thousand. Your body doesn't know whether to scream or cheer."
She took another deep breath, color slowly returning to her cheeks. Understanding dawned in her eyes, mingling with the lingering shock. "I think… I understand…" she murmured, a genuine, if slightly shaky, smile finally breaking through.
She peered out the dusty canopy at the sun-drenched, rolling hills of the Beast Glades stretching before us, the Castle a distant speck high above, almost invisible due to the concealing spells around it. The silence of the wilderness, broken only by distant bird calls and the settling groan of the Barbarossa, felt profound.
"Let's go," she said, pointing forward, the spark of adventure reigniting. "Into the Glades."
Before I could engage the locomotion systems to extricate us from the hillside, the newly installed radio crackled to life, shattering the quiet.
"Corvis!" Grampa Virion's voice, thick with exasperation and underlying worry, boomed through the cockpit speakers. "By the Elshire, boy! Couldn't you at least alert me before launching yourself off the Castle in that metal monstrosity?! Your mother nearly had a fit when she couldn't find you and saw the vault empty! Where in the—"
"Hi Grampa!" Tessia chirped, leaning towards the radio receiver, her voice bright and deliberately cheerful, aiming to derail his tirade.
Silence. A distinct choking sound, followed by sputtering, came through the speaker. "Tessia?! Little One? What are you doing inside that contraption? Is Corvis even there? Is he conscious?!" His voice climbed an octave, pure paternal panic cutting through the anger.
"Yeah, Grampa," I interjected quickly, injecting as much calm as I could muster. "I'm here. We're… fine. Just… testing."