Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (70 page)

“That’s good to hear. Maybe then—” His left hand groped
Tiza’s backside.

“Abyss, Tenderfoot!”

She smacked him, but other than Nolien rubbing the raised
bump on his head, he made no other reaction. The delegates muttered and the
Yun-Kee
podesta
nodded in recognition.

“I hope to see positive results in the future. Until then,
Yun-Kee will not barter slaves of any sort for the monsanity treatment
technology. However, we are interested in the devices that reverse physical
mutation. Is this suitable, Ambassador Enaz?”

Ponix nodded and mimed “call me.” Then his real scry
pinged. Without concern for the meeting, he answered it. He listened in silence
while all assembled stared at him. His daughter was embarrassed, but his wife
wasn’t. She grew a tiny hand at the back of her head so she could subtly tug
her ear. Ponix put the scry away and said, “Honorable delegates, please forgive
me for my rudeness. It was a call that demanded my immediate attention. There
is an urgent matter I must attend to. Please excuse me.”

He left his seat and grabbed the Trickster’s Chosen
without breaking stride. He dragged them out of the reception area and through
the hallway to his office. Once there, he dropped them on the floor and
activated the room’s Absolute Privacy wards. He stood with his face to the wall
and his hands clenched tightly behind his back.

“Do you mind explaining why Nulso Xialin is approaching my
village?”

“He wants to die,” Eric said.

“Now if you’ll excuse us,” Kallen said, “we have to herd
monstrous cats with your wife so we can play baseball with him.”

Above the forest canopy of Dnnac Ledo, Nulso Xialin
hovered. Order constructs in the form of speared battering rams pounded on the Chaotic
Curtain. He could feel it splinter with each blow. Soon, he would be inside.

His body was radiant with the lives he’d stolen and the
souls he’d eaten. At this moment, he was at the peak of his power. Never in his
life had he been capable of so much. He felt like he could fight an avatar and
win. It would be more than enough to squash an elf.

“Nunnal Enaz, before the sun rises, you, your family, and
your village will kneel before Order. I will drag you from your cocoon and
throw you at his mercy.”

Beneath the curtain and the forest canopy, he was ignored
or mocked. Every elf that noticed him was flabbergasted that he’d found their
location, but after the initial shock passed, they went about their daily
business. Secrecy was only one of their many defenses. It was impossible for him
to destroy the Chaotic Curtain, but even in that highly unlikely scenario, all
he would accomplish was his own death.

Dnnac, the Sage Tree, could fry him immediately with the
Holy Light Cannons in its branches. Meza Filef, the Scourge of Chaos, lived in
their village and he had a corps of veteran and apprentice warriors to back him
up. In fact, the Elven Preservation Society was lined up in the village square
and Meza was inspecting their equipment. Sister Sagart, their spiritual leader,
walked the village, praising Lady Chaos and denouncing Order. Tasio, their own
patron deity, was present and ready to fight in their defense. Why should they
feel the slightest worry? Instead, they pointed and laughed at the ordercrafter’s
feeble attempts.

Meza walked up and down the line of ordercrafter hunters,
fastening a glove in place as he did so. The elder were his subordinates during
the Conversion War and its aftermath, aiding in the tracking of kidnapped elves
and the termination of ordercrafters. The younger were their descendants,
admirers, or otherwise elves who wished to defend their home from its greatest
threat. All of them wore a similar glove on their left hand. It was decorated
on the back of the palm with an Eye of Order crossed-out with their own hairs
and, in the palm itself, ten more were sewn into the fabric of the gauntlet to
form the Flower of Chaos.

“Comrades, today is the day you trained for. Despite our
best measures, the enemy has found our home. The Guardians are not equipped or
trained for this and so it falls to us to neutralize the threat. We will stop
him and we will kill him. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Do not blame Annala Enaz for this turn of events. Naïve
and misguided she may be, but through her efforts, ten elves have tasted
freedom for the first time in years, and many more will follow. She shares our
goal and so she does not deserve our hatred. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Meza clashed his knuckles together. “Then let’s send this
bastard back to Grandmother!”

He assumed a power-up horse stance and his aura flared.
His subordinates copied him as a single unit. They crouched in preparation for
flight, then Quando jumped in front of them.

“WAIT!”

 “What is it, Nephew?”

“I was hired for the Summit’s security. The guild would
look bad if I didn’t do something. Besides, I want to show off for my
girlfriend.”

“I understand your feelings, but—”

Quando leaned forward and clasped his hands together under
his chin. “Please?” His puppets surrounded Meza and repeated the gesture.
“Pretty please?”

Meza stood straight and his aura diminished. “Oh fine! Go
play with your dolls, you overgrown child!”

“Thank you, Uncle!”

Wind surrounded him and he flew to the treetop. His
puppets generated their own spells and flanked him like wingmen. He slipped past
the curtain and prepared a grand opening attack. Nulso spotted him on the way
up and raked him with three claw constructs. He dodged them each in turn and
socked Nulso with a mana-charged punch. The Order Shield stopped all its force
but shook when he released an orc style anti-ordercraft spell rune. A second such
punch exploited the weakness created by the first and reached Nulso's body, and
tickled it. Nulso aura-flared, knocking him away.

“You dare mock me?”

The Order Shield mended itself by the end of his sentence.

“I do.”

Quando struck a heroic pose.

 “I am Captain Quando Plitsic Yahoeu IV of the Dragon’s
Lair Mercenary Guild Squad 3: Battle Mage corps. I have been hired to ensure
the safety of this village and its visitors. To that end, I am authorized to
eliminate any and all threats to them. Withdraw at once,” he pointed
dramatically, “or face the consequences!”

Fireworks, sent by Remho, exploded behind him for effect.

“I am Nulso Xialin, servant of the True Sovereign. I’m
here on a mission as well.”

Quando arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”

“I’ve tracked a murderous and treacherous witch to this
location. Nunnal Enaz is charged with the murder of Harry Butchin and is an
accomplice in other crimes such as corruption and blasphemy. For that she must
be brought to the Original Justice.”

“We don’t recognize that justice here; S.A.B.”

Nulso blinked. “What does that mean? AAARGHHH!”

His back arched in pain and golden-brown sparks shot in
all directions. Rei was stabbing him in the back with a chaotic dagger. The
threads controlling his mouth pulled back.

“Sneak attack, bitch!”

While Nulso was distracted by the puppet
on his back; the other two puppets flanked him.
They cast Flame Wave and Ice Cannon while Quando himself fired a Bolt of
Judgment. Weakened by chaotic energy, the Order Shield allowed all three to
pass and they fired, froze, and electrocuted Nulso at the same time. Another
man his age would die but despite the damage to his body, ordercraft kept him
alive.

Nulso thrust his arms apart and created ethereal hands.
With these, he grabbed the controls for local gravity. With a thought, he
generated four zones of intensified gravity around the elf and his puppets and
compressed them into spheres. Then he opened a bag.

“This Zerofinity was made by your village. Ironic that I
will imprison you with one, no?”

All four of them zoomed towards him, but instead of going
into the bag, they bounced off his renewed Order Shield. He dropped it and they
smashed into his head and stomach and other parts. Then they rebounded off the
inside of the Order Shield and pounded him over and over and over again. Nulso
dropped his barrier a second time to escape the torment.

“How did you do that?”

Quando and his puppets uncurled, completely unharmed and
unbothered.

“Anti-gravity! Elves developed it years ago.”

Nulso fired beams of pure
kon
from his hands. These
had enough destructive power to vaporize anything they touched instantly. The
elf's healing ability would count for nothing. Knowing this, Quando and his
puppets flew around like mosquitoes. Enraged, Nulso fired
kon
from every
point on his body in an ever-expanding three-hundred-and sixty-degree attack.
In the open sky, all Quando had to do was stay out of range until he ran out of
kon
.

"My turn again!"

Fire, ice, and lightning fired from three directions and
Nulso repelled them, only to be bludgeoned by a boulder the fourth combatant
summoned. While he was distracted, Quando flew up and slashed with a
chiem
.
The gash he left in the Order Shield compromised it enough for the three spells
to hit him again, which left him open for a stab.

"Your victims will
not
die with you!"

The elf warrior dragged the dagger from the ordercrafter's
stomach to his shoulder and greyish smoke poured out along with his blood. A
similar mixture poured out of his back from Rei's earlier wound. His ordercraft
invulnerability was now compromised and he leaked both spiritual and physical
life force.

"Elf, may you spend eternity as a mindless
slave!"

Four dozen tendrils shot out in all directions to grab the
annoying elf and his puppets but they ducked and dodged around all of them. The
ones they couldn’t, they attacked with spiritual power and chaotic daggers.
Between dodging, they found time to throw spells or mana bolts. Although they
didn’t break Nulso’s renewed Order Shield, they rattled him and kept him
frustrated, which weakened his focus and diminished his orderly power.

Through all of this, Quando regularly glanced down at the
village to see if his audience was paying attention. Meza’s ordercrafter
hunters and Alexis’ guardians followed his battle attentively, but he was most
interested in Alexis herself. Her hands were clasped in prayer and she had the
most adorable worried look on her face. She’d give him a hard time later for
taking too long or showing off, but for now, she was worried.

“It’s time to end this.”

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a tiny bag and
threw it at Nulso with the speed of a gale force wind. Nulso was so focused on
the puppets flying in and out of his reach that he didn’t notice it. The bag
expanded on contact and became a net glowing with the power of chaos. This
Order Nullifying Snare engulfed him, shorted out his Order Shield, prevented
him from regenerating it, and entangled his limbs. He could barely keep himself
afloat. Quando and his puppets arranged themselves around him and brandished
their chaotic blades.

“Elf Barbershop Style Finishing Move: CARDINAL DIRECTIONS
STRIKE!”

From four directions, they attacked as one and called out
their direction as they made contact. Do came from the east and pinned his left
arm to his side. Rei came from the west and pinned his right arm to his side.
Mi came from the North and stabbed his brain. Quando himself came from the
south and stabbed his heart. The chaotic nature of the blades finally negated
Nulso’s orderly immortality. Life faded from his eyes and his body went limp.

“HahHA! Another victory for the Qualified Quando and his
patchwork puppets.”

“We’re not patchwork!” they shouted in return.

“It’s the alliteration that’s—”

“Initiating
Direct Subjugation.”

A spirit pulse blew all four combatants away from the
corpse. It was unlike anything Quando had ever felt; immense, cold, and
imperial. It shorted out his puppets. They fell to earth and he could barely
maintain his flight spell. His soul was paralyzed by fear and his mana was
depleting at an alarming rate.

Everything around him was also depleting. It was losing
color and becoming less “real” than areas further away. He could faintly see
the veins of Noitearc in the sky and ground. Everything was dying.

All of this local life was streaming toward Nulso; patching
him up, restoring his strength, and increasing his power. Most changed of all
were his eyes. They were blank and dead. Instead of a human intelligence, Quando
saw a void, a black hole, and the emptiness of space.

“You…you’re not human.”

“You are
not worth my time.”

An ethereal hand appeared and plunged into Quando’s chest.
It happened before he could blink. Then he felt something cold and disgusting
spread through his body. Golden-brown light traveled down the spirit arm and
back to Nulso. It steamed and withered as it traveled to Nulso’s hand. The hand
began to sizzle and the smell of cooking flesh and raw garbage filled the air.

In seconds, Quando felt faint. His vision began to blur.
He tried to pull the hand out, but he couldn’t touch it. His hands passed
through it. There was a change in reality and that was when he realized the
truth.

“You’re…Namagomi!”

Nulso’s eyes narrowed.
“Of all the nicknames mortals have for me, that is the one I
detest the most.”

Just like that, Quando fell unconscious. With a thought,
his opponent put him to sleep. He crashed into the ground like a puppet whose
strings had been cut. Alexis cried out and ran to him. Cradling his head in her
lap, she gasped at what she saw.

All of Quando’s hair was stark white. She ran her hands
through it, searching for any strand of golden-brown, but there was nothing.
All of them were as white as the snow on the ground that would inevitably melt.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she reached the inevitable conclusion; her love
was now as good as dead.

Above her head, a sphere of golden-brown light coalesced in
Nulso’s hand. This was the Seed of Chaos that dwelled inside Quando’s body.
Without it, he was no more an elf than Tiza or Mebalos. The ordercrafter's
corpse directed the seed like a mage would a mana bolt.

“The Power
of Creation is also the Power of Destruction. That which grants eternal life
can also inflict permanent death!”

The corpse fired the Seed of Chaos at the heart of Dnnac
Ledo. It hit the Chaotic Curtain and then dispersed along its length. It was collected
by the trees and passed into the earth. Lines of power ran along the ground,
sprouting new life on their way to Quando. They entered every orifice and
traveled to every corner of his body. Emerging from his scalp, they restored
his hair's former color. Quando woke up to the teary-eyed face of his girlfriend.

“While the tears of a tragic maiden are heart-breakingly
beautiful, I’d prefer them to be accompanied by a joyful smile.”

Alexis chuckled and more tears came. “Idiot…”

She wiped the tears away and gently removed his head from
her lap. Then she stood up and drew her sword.

“Now if you’re done showing off, I have a job to do.
Guardians to me!”

Dnnac Ledo’s police formed a circle around their leader
and drew their own weapons. She pointed hers straight at Nulso’s body,
magically magnified her voice and shouted, “Ordercrafter! By your contract with
the First Child, you are automatically
persona non grata
in all
elf-villages. You have three seconds to leave or we will kill you.”