2024-08-08 22:59:44
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Chapter 842
The breath stopped in his throat. His heavy, mechanical body slumped forward, resting against Caster’s chest. Elias Thorpe was dead. Caster wrapped his arms around his oldest friend. He held the heavy, broken cyborg tightly. He sat on the blue crystal floor of the silent cavern, holding the body, and he cried. He cried for the young boy who had sat in the back of the classroom throwing paper. He cried for the arrogant student who had burned his own face. He cried for the monster who had ripped the world apart just to feel safe. He cried until he had no tears left. The cavern was perfectly quiet. The gentle, warm hum of the Central Node filled the air, singing a lullaby of creation and peace. After a long time, Caster gently laid Elias’s body down on the crystal floor. He crossed Elias’s one human arm over his chest. Caster picked up his wooden walking stick. He pushed himself up to his feet. He felt a hundred years older, but his soul felt incredibly light. He turned around and
Chapter 841
Elias looked back up at Caster. Caster stood quietly, leaning on his wooden stick. His face was bruised and dirty. His clothes were ruined. He looked so weak that a strong wind could blow him over. But Caster had just saved the universe. "A closed loop starves," Elias breathed, his brilliant mind finally doing the correct math. "A machine that only eats... eventually runs out of food. It eats itself. That is what the Ash Warden was. A starving black hole."Elias stared into Caster’s tired, kind, gray eyes. "You did not take, Caster," Elias whispered in awe. "You gave. You plugged your own soul into the world... and you poured yourself out. An open system. It flows outward. It connects."Elias Thorpe realized that his entire life, his hundred-year crusade of blood and iron, had been a mathematical failure. He had pursued absolute, isolated power. He had cut himself off from humanity to become a god. But to be a god is to be alone. And a system with only one node eventually dies in
Chapter 840
Elias needed the ambient chaos of the broken world to feed the spinning machine. But Caster had just cleaned the world. The ambient chaotic planar energy was entirely gone. The atmosphere was completely purified by the golden and black wave. Without the thick, toxic energy in the air to feed on, Thorpe’s hastily built mechanical life-support systems were failing rapidly. The heavy brass pistons in his mechanical leg locked in place. The thick glass tubes on his shoulder stopped bubbling. The sick, angry red light in the center of his chest flickered, turning into a dull, dying orange. "No," Thorpe gasped. His mechanical voice box was broken. The voice that came out was weak, human, and full of raw panic. "No, no, no. The pressure. I need the pressure."He tried to stand up. He pushed with his heavy brass arm. The gears screamed without lubrication. The metal sparked. Thorpe’s body betrayed him. The machine could not carry its own weight anymore. He collapsed to his knees. He h
Chapter 839
The heavy wooden staff swung downward. It moved with the blinding, terrible speed of a falling star, aimed directly at Caster Spellbound’s exhausted, beating heart. The First Sage Chancellor’s eyes burned with cold, white fire. The ancient god-king wanted to crush the old alchemist and reclaim his throne. Caster did not close his eyes. He did not flinch. He stayed on his knees, his bloody hands locked onto the heavy brass rods of the Heart Alchemy Engine. “I am the author,” Caster thought. His mind was absolutely clear. “I wrote the new rules. The old world is closed.”The sharp tip of the wooden staff was only one inch away from Caster’s chest. Suddenly, the giant Central Node floating above them pulsed. It was the final, completing pulse of the cosmic dialyzer. Caster had pumped his perfectly balanced soul—the mixture of bright golden truth and dark, heavy consequence—into the very roots of the earth. The machine had processed the cure. The network had accepted the new code.
Chapter 838
Caster stared back at him. He did not have any magic left to fight. He was completely empty. "I saved your machine," Caster said softly. His raspy voice sounded incredibly weak compared to the booming voice of the ancient founder. "The world was breaking. I balanced the core.""You touched my core!" the Chancellor roared. The ancient man slammed the bottom of his wooden staff against the crystal floor. A shockwave of pure, blinding blue magic blasted out from the staff. It hit Caster in the chest, knocking him backward. Caster rolled across the floor, groaning in fresh agony. Up on the balcony, Sikoa screamed. She grabbed her daggers and ran toward the broken bridge, desperate to find a way down to help Caster. "Stay where you are, street rat," the Chancellor commanded without even looking up. He waved his left hand toward the balcony. An invisible wall of hard, solid blue magic slammed into Sikoa and Solon. It threw them backward, pinning them flat against the far wall of the
Chapter 837
The chaotic, dead void-energy that was keeping their bodies animated had been completely neutralized by Caster’s wave. The dark magic was cancelled out by the perfect balance of life and death. Without the dark magic pulling their strings, the puppets collapsed. It happened all at once. The twelve Thralls simply fell forward. Their heavy armor crashed against the blue crystal floor. Their weapons made of sharp black glass shattered into harmless dust. The thick purple smoke leaking from their eyes faded away. Their faces relaxed. They did not look like monsters anymore. They just looked like very tired, dead soldiers who had finally been allowed to go to sleep. The threat of Elias Thorpe’s personal army was finished. "They are down," Sikoa breathed. She let her daggers drop to her sides. "Look at the core," Solon whispered in awe. Sikoa turned her head. She looked at the center of the massive room. The Central Node was beautiful. Before, it had been blindingly white, covered
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