Book 8: Chapter 73: The Prime

Path of Dragons

The heat enveloped him, clinging to his skin and burning his lungs. The Temperate trait of Elijah’s Cloak of the Iron Bear helped mitigate all but the worst of it, but what made it through was still enough to send sweat pouring off of him in buckets. The second he’d stepped into the massive smithy, Guise of the Unseen had been stripped away, so, he’d abandoned the Shape of Venom for his human form.

He knew he was being watched, and by multiple sets of eyes. He’d caught sight of a few golems – huge, hulking creatures of metal and rock – but they’d ignored him as they went about their business tending to the forge.

Elijah couldn’t figure out what they were doing, but he wasn’t terribly fussy about it, either. He didn’t need to know what was going on. He just needed to kill the person in charge. And he was more than prepared to make it happen. He’d spent months in the Primal Realm. Outside, the world had continued spinning. No one really knew where he was, either.

It wasn’t the first time he’d felt some urgency concerning the completion of the Primal Realm, but with what felt like the end drawing so close, that sense flared until it was the only thing he could think about. He took steps to limit that as he tried to focus on his environment, but it was not easy.

To help in that endeavor, Elijah catalogued the features of the smithy. It looked like a giant-size version of what Carmen was building back in Ironshore. Sure, there were differences – like the prevalence of magma fueling the forge, the use of golems, and the absence of ringing hammer blows echoing through the space – but it was similar enough that he couldn’t fail to make the connection.

Elijah continued on for more than a mile until, at last, he reached the center of the space. It was characterized by an enormous anvil densely covered in fanciful runes. They pulsed with energy, glowing and dimming with every passing second.

But Elijah was more interested in the thing standing before it.

At least forty feet tall and shaped like a man, it looked like a bronze statue. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was moving, Elijah might have mistaken it for one. However, that would have only lasted as long as it took him to sense the dense ethera gathered in its chest.

It looked at him with a featureless face of smooth and silvery metal, and from somewhere within, a voice emanated. “You killed the abomination,” it intoned in a surprisingly human voice. The inflection was right, but there was something missing. Something important. “For that, I should thank you. The Failed Iteration was always a black mark on my otherwise pristine record.”

It chuckled – an odd sound, coming from an entirely stationary form – then said, “I am not. They are a primitive race, ripe for improvement. They have failed to live up to their potential, but I am optimistic that they will prove a potent material with which to continue the Great Work.”

It shifted, and Elijah saw that it carried a huge blacksmith’s hammer in one hand and a wrench in the other. Both were stylized and densely inscribed with glyphs. Elijah could feel their power even from almost fifty feet away. What’s more, he felt incredibly small in the presence of such a creature.

Weak, too.

It was obviously a higher level than him. Perhaps it had reached the peak of the ascended grade, but Elijah very much doubted it. It was close to level two-hundred though. Of that, he was absolutely certain. It was not an insurmountable deficit of power – especially given his exceptional cultivation – but Elijah knew better than to underestimate the thing.

“The Engineer has given me a quest, you know,” it said, stepping out from behind the anvil to reveal that it had four legs. “Would you like to see?”

Before Elijah could answer, the thing waved a metal hand, and a system notification appeared floating above the anvil.

“Prime Mechanique?” Elijah asked, unsurprised by the notification’s contents. He suspected that every Primal Realm featured a similar directive. Otherwise, the leaders might not follow the script and fail to even attempt to conquer Earth.

“Not a title I have taken upon myself, but the Engineer is never wrong,” it said. Elijah could practically hear the shrug in its voice, even if its shoulders never moved.

“There’s no chance I can convince you not to go through with it, is there?” Elijah asked.

“No.”

He sighed. “I didn’t think so,” was his reply. If he was honest with himself, he’d hoped to hear that answer. After everything he’d seen, his anger was still at a low simmer. He wanted nothing more than to kill the Prime Mechanique, if only so he could tell himself he’d avenged all those poor souls it had violated. “Tell me where you got your subjects.”

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“Why?”

“Humor me,” Elijah said, planting the butt of his scythe in the floor. It clicked loud enough that he knew the Prime Mechanique could hear it even over the roaring furnaces nearby.

“I…I do not know,” it admitted. “Why do I not know?”

“Because you’re just a pawn,” Elijah said. “A person who surrendered their soul in the hopes of gaining a Feat of Strength. None of this is real. You are within a Primal Realm, and I am going to kill you.”

“I see. If that is the case, then –”

Elijah launched an instance of Storm’s Fury at the monster. The lightning lanced out from the end of his staff as green flames erupted all around him. The Antlers of the Wild Revenant flared to life as well. He hadn’t chosen to activate it. Rather, something had attempted to influence his mind, slamming into it with enough force that he very nearly blacked out. But the helm’s Plain Sight trait protected him, shielding his mind just enough to keep him from succumbing to whatever the attempt at mental manipulation meant to inflict upon him.

“Do not resist. Adaptation is key,” the Prime Mechanique stated, the voice emanating from every direction and echoing throughout the entire facility.

Elijah barely heard it. Storm’s Fury had done absolutely nothing to the creature, so he knew he needed to take a different route. For all that his spells were versatile, he knew that his true strength lay in his various forms.

The thunder of a hundred heavy footsteps heralded the arrival of the golems. The huge and heavy things were featureless and made of melded metal and rock, and Elijah suspected that if he let them land a single blow, it would be enough to break bones. So, in addition to keeping an eye on the Prime Mechanique, who advanced with implacable deliberation, he needed to account for the new arrivals as well.

Fortunately, he had a perfect form for that.

Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Master, then rushed the golems. The Prime Mechanique was enormous and undoubtedly powerful, but it was not fast. Or perhaps it simply didn’t see the need to hurry. After all, there was nowhere for Elijah to go. Far away, the doors to the smithy had already slammed shut, trapping Elijah inside. So, it was fight or die – flight simply wasn’t an option.

Not that he intended to run away.

Far from it. As Elijah darted among the golems, the heavy-handed things aimed one lumbering blow after another in his direction. But in the Shape of the Master, he was far too quick for them to pin down. Couple that with his improved reflexes, and he was absolutely untouchable.

Or so he thought.

He found out otherwise when the Prime Mechanique leveled its hammer in his direction and let loose with a bolt of lightning that quickly branched out into a wide arc of electricity.

Elijah leaped as high as he could, narrowly avoiding it and maintaining his charges of Heart of Fire. He flipped through the air, his staff spinning as he intercepted a half dozen hunks of molten rock the golems had hurled in his direction. He knew that if even a drop of that hit him, it would drain Heart of Fire and force him to start over.

And with how chaotic things had gotten, he didn’t think he could afford to let that happen.

The momentum of those thrown balls of fire and rock altered his path enough that when he finally landed, he hit the ground nearly two hundred feet from the Prime Mechanique. He skidded across the ground, then darted back into the fray. The golems burst into flames – not unlike the Failed Iteration – but even when they sped up, Elijah managed to stay just ahead of them.

He gained charges of Heart of Fire quickly, and after only thirty seconds, it was saturated.

However, he knew he couldn’t let loose with Ignite. After what had happened the last time he’d used it, he was wary of employing fire against these things. Besides – he had a new ability to use, and though he never would have tried it with something like a spell, he felt fairly certain what Child of Fire entailed.

By that point, the Prime Mechanique had gotten much closer. It attacked with its tools, shooting lightning at Elijah ever couple of seconds. He managed to dodge each attack until he was right on top of the forty-foot-tall creature.

Then, he used Child of Fire.

His skin burst into a corona of flames as a massive influx of attributes flowed into him. He had the wherewithal to check his status, which told him that he’d gained three-hundred points in every physical attribute. That was coupled with the sixty he already received from the form itself, and his totals – at least in the physical categories – had nearly doubled from his baseline.

And that power was intoxicating.

Though he didn’t have time to truly revel in his new strength. The countdown had already begun, and he had a little more than thirty seconds to make use of the power he’d been granted.

He leaped, slamming into the Prime Mechanique hard enough to stagger the huge construct. Doing so sent an echoing gong through the forge, but Elijah paid it no heed. Instead, he clung to one of the many ridges on the thing’s body, climbing toward its head. It tried to swat him off, but he was far too quick.

So, it erupted in electricity that quickly enveloped Elijah.

He ignored it.

After all, his Constitution as well as Regeneration had received quite a buff as well, and he had no issues enduring the worst of its attacks. When he reached the construct’s neck, he slammed his scythe’s blade into the metal, tearing a hole with a single blow. The Sophisticated-Grade weapon held up without issue, so Elijah yanked it free, then attacked again. And again after that.

It was only a few seconds before he’d torn a gaping hole in the thing’s neck. Of course, the monster hadn’t remained idle, but with such a disparity in attributes, Elijah was nigh unstoppable. Even when it tried to rip him free, he simply slapped its massive hand away like the annoyance it had become.

He gripped the edges of the hole he’d created, then used his immense Strength to open it wider. It resisted even that, proof of the thing’s power, but Elijah would not be denied. With a roar, he widened it just enough to allow him to slip inside.

It wasn’t hollow, but there was plenty of space as well. In fact, the interior looked more like a skeleton than anything else. Sure, there were tubes and wires and circuitry, but Elijah didn’t care about any of that.

Of course, that didn’t keep him from tearing it up as he went along, aiming for its chest. It might not kill it, but any damage he could inflict was a good thing.

Then, with only ten seconds left on Child of Fire, he reached his destination. There, a heart beat. It was huge – like something that would belong in a whale – but just like the one he’d taken from the Failed Iteration’s corpse, it was entirely mechanical. Elijah tore into it with ruthless fury, slamming his scythe blade into it multiple times a second.

Sparks flew with every blow, and at first, even with his massively enhanced strength, his efforts were fruitless. But then, on the tenth blow, he chipped something away. The fifteenth attack dislodged a massive chunk. And after that, his flurry overwhelmed the core.

Just as his buff ran its course, Elijah ripped the thing apart.

The sudden cessation of his enhanced attributes came as a shock to his system, and he suddenly felt like he was moving in slow-motion. Complicating that was the fact that the Prime Mechanique had begun to fall. When it hit the ground, Elijah smashed into the inside of its chest cavity, then bounced a couple of times before rolling to a stop.

But it didn’t matter.

He’d done what he set out to do. He’d defeated the boss of the Primal Realm.

So, why hadn’t he received a notification?

An echoing silence filled the air for a few seconds as Elijah looked around, confused. Then, a voice echoed through the forge, “Prime Golem destroyed. Adapting to new parameters.”