The Weight of Mortal flesh
Chapter 2: The Weight of Mortal Flesh
The glow of the datapad seared Kia's eyes, but she didn't look away.
Lena's apartment was a tomb of flickering screens and half-empty nutrient packs all from the thing called refrigerator which keeps food fresh. The air inside the flat was stale with the metallic tang of overworked machinery, the purifier in the building was working barely enough to keep the polluted air of the metropolis separated from the inside of the building.
Kia—*Lena*, She corrected herself bitterly, scrolled through the endless feeds, her fingers trembling as they brushed against the holograms of the datapad. She had been cooped inside after her first feeding for the last few days. Internet - it was a wonderful thing, even more mysterious and wonderful than a miracle in her home world. With a click of her finger she could know all she wanted to know about this world. There was no need to scheme or pretend to gather information…It was just that easy.
Rightly written in the wiki of 'Brief Human History about the Internet'.
'It is a relic of the ancient 21st century which remains the most useful invention for the human race as a whole even in the current 27th century.'
Taking full use of the Internet, Lena quickly found out more about the kingdom she right now lives in, Midas Empire. An inter-galaxy empire that stretches through half of Andromeda galaxy spanning across several solar systems with innumerable planets and stars. First Lena was shocked after learning about the scale of the universe which was quite different from the coinciding planes of existence of her home world but it wasn't that hard to grasp.
But as she read on, her mind nearly became numb. First with the knowledge of an inconceivable amount of void that lies in the universe - a vast space of nothing, not even air or mana. It was empty of everything. Second, the technology to travel distances so long that it takes even years for a light to travel. How did they do it?
Lena was initially skeptical but adding to her confusion was that the answer about wormhole/space gate technology was right in front of her on her screen, at least a theoretical explanation. But she can't understand even an iota of it even after absorbing all of Lena's memories.
After an embarrassing amount of time, where she familliarised herself with this modern world. She ultimately shut off her device and leaned back on the chair to take a break. 'How absurd? What kind of world had she barged into?'
It didn't take long for Lena to pick her up tab once again but this time what she was searching for was a familiar subject - Magic. Mana was the same as in her world, mages were rare individuals who have special extra genes present on chromosomes…. Lena frowned as she directly skipped this mumbo jumbo and focused on easily understood parts.
After getting some hang of it, she came to realization about a unique quality of this world. Completely unlike her world where most of knowledge was kept secret. Here Magic was a free subject just like every other subjects, even if it is miraculous technology like wormhole.
How extravagant!
In her world, a mage's research was closely guarded secret till the end of his life. More secret knowledge was, the more it was considered valuable. But here so called novice and expert mages freely argue and discuss about new mana theories on the Internet. It was a completely different approach that impressed her.
As Lena was searching about Mages, clicking on links after links inevitably brought her to the topic of strongest Mages of this world. An Archmage - a title given to exceptionally gifted mage who is able to wield the mana as easily as controlling his limbs. They are pinnacle but rarest of rare of the world, who stand on the highest peak, overlooking everything beneath them. There was even a comment that says, an Archmage is just like a Neutron-Pulse bomb, a strategic weapon that can tilt wars just by deterrence alone.
'Archmage Valen'
In the corner of the internet which she was accessing, that is Empire of Midas, This name burned across nearly every third headline. Clearly, Valen was the sole archmage of the Midas Empire who served as Grand Chancellor of the Royal family. He was deemed as one of the strongest in the known universe but Lena was a little confused, if he was so strong why is he serving the Royal family?
As soon as Lena began to read about him, she was soon drowned into innumerable pieces of articles about him. From rumors to leaked pictures, it was like he was an even more famous celebrity than the various actors and pop singers. Ultimately she found a clip, which had a headline -
'Leaked video of Archmage Valen taking action personally for first time since he became Grand chancellor. Watch it before it gets deleted off the internet.'
Lena was intrigued as she clicked this leaked video, its timestamp blurred, its source anonymized. The screen erupted in light.
A man stood atop a crumbling skyscraper, his long jacket whipping in a storm of his own making. Lightning coiled around his hands, raw and primal, before lashing outward. The building across from him—a fortress of reinforced steel and plasma shields—vaporized in a single strike. Ash rained over the city like snow.
Kia's body froze as she even forgot to breathe for a moment. It was just a few seconds of content before the video stopped. But even after a long time she wasn't able to come to terms with what she had just seen. Her mind was blank as the strength of the most secure defensive structures in the world was still fresh in her mind owing to her recent research on the same topic, but what was that? Vapourized… In Just a few seconds?
Lena had personally seen Gods, Demigods and Demons in her world. She had even seen primal creatures that blotted out the sun with their wings, devils that devoured a throng of armies in one gulp. But this… this was different. There was no ritual, no incantation. Just a flick of the Archmage's wrist, and the world bent. He didn't even appear to strain after such a devastating strike, it appeared like a casual action of his.
'Power without sacrifice?', she thought, her stomach twisting. 'IMPOSSIBLE' .
Yet there it was.
Lena slammed the datapad down, the clatter echoing in the silence. Her reflection stared back from the blackened screen—Lena's face, Lena's frail limbs, and Lena's hollow eyes.
"Pathetic," she muttered in rage.
Lena fingers curled into fists, nails biting into her palms. In her world, she'd been a powerful Succubus not strongest yet not weakest. Here, she thought a world devoid of demons and gods of her world, she would be a predator but after seeing this short blurry video, it made her realize that she can't even be called as prey. Even if her demonic body had transmigrated along with her soul, she still would not be able to handle half the strength of that strike.
"Pathetic" she muttered again but this time her words were more of despair than anger.
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Late at night, Lena finally walked out of the temporary gloom which had settled upon her. She relaxed and consoled herself that why is she even putting herself against this Archmage. It's not like Succubi are hunted as evil in this world, so what does she have to fear? Moreover,... Hehe… it's not like she wants to rule the world so there is no need to think of herself as prey. She could simply stay away from this individual.
But as Lena made her mind, in the deepest corner of mind she silently dug the grave of her unrestrained fantasies of ruling the world as its goddess. It was not her fault, learning this world was devoid of gods and demons, her first thought as inhabitant of her old world was to claim this world for herself.
The city's underbelly pulsed outside her window, a neon-lit beast called a dystopia feeding on desperation of humanity. Kia, unmoved with struggles of the average human in the ultra capitalist driven world of greed, paced leisurely in her cramped flat, while her mind raced as she finally found the answer to her earlier doubt.
'Cyber-Skeleton Mechs'.
This was the Empire's or average humanity's answer to Mages and Mana. She'd skimmed through its specs earlier just like she had skimmed various high level technologies that were away from scope of her mind—titanium alloy frames, plasma cannons fused with runic enchantments, neural interfaces that turned pilots into living weapons. A single unit could level a city block. A squadron could glass a planet.
Only thing that settled in her mind after all those techy words, were the above written last lines. The strength boasted by reviewers was too much, in fact for a second she thought these just to be fantasies, figments of unrealistic imaginations of the weak against the real privilege of mages. But as she saw several videos of proving such claims of destruction unlike limited Archmage videos. She was clearly impressed by the ingenuity of the human mind.
There was no magic or mana involved. Such machines which when piloted by the men and even computer systems, can wreak havoc almost as comparable to a strongest of mage. Only difference was that several of these cyber-skeleton soldiers needed to compete with a single strong mage. But that was a moot point considering one who was running this weapon was an average human just trained to extremes.
Therefore the biggest advantage of such a cyber-skeleton comes into view was that any average human after being sufficiently trained can pilot it as compared to mages who are born with 1 in a million chance. Only requirement for this machine was money and tech, which was only in the hands of a few rich, therefore giving them the ability to vie for the world against the force of nature known as mages.
There were several types of cyber enhanced armors for soldiers to use packing exceptional power, from large building size mechas to most advanced to date cyber-skeleton that fit on the body of humans like second skin. And these most advanced cyber-skeletons were strongest, standing at top in the hierarchy of tech warfare. Each of these cyber-skeleton was weighed in wealth that is inconceivable to normal humans.
And the Royal Military under the thumb of the royal family of Midas, has two such full teams of cyber-skeletons. Though Lena was assured that even these two teams can't do anything against the Archmage, opinion on the internet was divided, many saying things like they are comparable.
After finally getting the hang of this world's top powers Lena's laugh was sharp, brittle. "So this is what passes for gods here."
Lena paused, her gaze drifting to the cracked holographic mirror that was still flickering on and off with her appearance fluctuating on its screen. She had long checked her body and what result she had come to was that…. Lena's body was a cage. No familiar demonic claws. No leathery wings. No mana coursing through her veins. Just soft flesh and brittle bones of a human.
Lena pressed a hand to the screen as If asking the girl in the mirror. "What are you worth?"
The answer came in a whisper, not her own.
'Nothing'.