Apocalypse: Fairy System, Macronomicon [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

“Hah!”

“I can punish you for funding immortality experiments. Kebos O’sut.”

Jeb frowned. He spotted some kind of grey Myst moving around the emperor, but it was almost like an inverted ripple—as if the Myst moved inward toward the kitri the instant before he said the name, then rippled back outward after he said it.

That’s…weird.

Doors to the side of the throne burst open, and a battered keegan in chains was carried inside by imperial guards, his head drooping.

“This wanted criminal was driven back inside the walls of the city by the Roil. What should we do with him?”

“Put him right there,” the emperor said, pointing at the foot of his dais. The imperial guards tossed the keegan into the center of the room, then they seamlessly joined the wall of steel trapping the rest of the guests inside the ballroom.

“As you might know, research into any kind of immortality, and the deliberate engineering thereof, is punishable by death.”

The emperor flipped the list around and showed it to Kebos O’sut. “Were these children biologically immortal?”

Kebos lifted a bruised eye, peering through the list of names. “Yes.”

The surrounding guests immediately protested. “This is preposterous! You can’t just—”

The black knight flickered across fifty feet in the blink of an eye and punched the noble in the face hard enough to shatter his jaw—and more importantly, shut him up.

“And did these people...” The emperor moved his hand to the other side of the list. “...provide the capital required to make these children immortal?”

“Yes,” O’sut said, blood dripping from his teeth.

“Well, there you have it,” the kitri said, leaning back in his throne and casually folding the list.

“In light of the nature of the crime and as a gesture of goodwill toward the newest race to join the empire, I would like my human vassals to carry out the punishment. Mr. Courvar? Ms. Stile?”

The knight dressed head-to-toe in spiky black armor flicked her wrist, a jagged blade manifesting in her hand an instant before it crunched through the broken-jawed keegan’s wrist, followed by his neck.

All hell broke loose.

The nobles, whose composure had been holding on by a thread, panicked, scattering every direction like scared rabbits.

The imperial guards were composed of high-level aristocrats themselves, and they shoved the panicked men and women back into the center of the room through sheer superhuman strength, forcing them into a narrow kill box in the center of the hall, where the black knight went to town on their asses.

Brett was doing his own thing. He wasn’t able to move quite as quickly as the black knight, but he hit hard, and every once in a while Jeb caught a flash of light interspersed in the underwear model’s movements.

Seeing an opportunity to complete his Deal with Vresh, Jeb hopped out from the side of the room, aiming for Kebos, snatching up his errant foot and yanking it on as he did.

“Mr. O’sut!” Jeb said, aiming a finger.

The keegan glanced up, exposing his eye-holes.

“Pip four.”

O’sut threw up a manacled hand, interposing his hand between the spear and his eye.

The spear of force caught the restrained keegan’s hand and dragged him six feet across the hall, until it buried itself in the hard marble floor.

Gotta follow up, Jeb thought, hobbling forward as quickly as he could.

“You bastard! This is your fault!” O’sut said, flinging himself to his feet and charging Jeb. Jeb held out his palm, spread as wide as he could, and the telekinetic shield popped into being between them.

The keegan’s eyes widened as his fist was stopped by the invisible shield, giving Jeb enough time to get out of the way, catching the man’s wrist and wrenching it around the stationary shield. The move drew an anguished cry out of O’sut’s lungs rather than breaking the keegan’s arm like Jeb had been hoping, due to his likely insane Body.

And that was about as far as Jeb’s plan got. The keegan killer adapted faster, whipping his body the rest of the way around the shield and grabbing Jeb’s head, riding him to the ground.

From the expression on the man’s face, and the way he wrapped his oversized fingers around Jeb’s skull, he was planning on popping Jeb’s head like a grape. The keegan was even starting to drool a little, his eyes bloodshot.

As much as Jeb wanted to accuse him of throwing a tantrum, the man was about to crush his skull, so he was much more preoccupied with trying to alleviate the mounting pressure on his braincase.

Jeb grunted, pulling on O’sut’s wrists, but it was like trying to stop a Mack truck with a wall made of cardboard boxes.

And it certainly isn’t helping this fucking headache! Jeb thought as he struggled in the noble’s grip.

He tried to think of an out. With the suppression collar on, Jeb was even more gimped than usual, unable to simply shove him off telekinetically.

Usually the solution is to shoot an eye out, Jeb thought, taking his hand away from the man’s wrist, allowing the pressure on his skull to redouble for an instant as he aimed his finger at the killer’s face.

The keegan lunged forward, his pearly teeth nipping Jeb’s finger off in a fraction of a second before spitting it aside.

“Pip five!” Jeb shouted before the pain even registered. “Gah!”

The spear flew out from the severed tip of Jeb’s finger and caught a random noble in the side, forcing him to drop his magical blade, which skittered across the marble floor toward the two of them.

Jeb reached out and grabbed it, swinging with everything he had at the manic Keegan’s face. The blade didn’t penetrate more than an eighth of an inch into the bone. O’sut grabbed the blade barehanded and wrenched it away.

Okay, this isn’t looking good, Jeb thought. Time for the