All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 156: A Wholesome and Friendly God

Chapter 156: A Wholesome and Friendly God

Harold was very happy to be on the opposite side of the city when the gates fell. When the attack had started, it was accompanied by a simultaneous assault on the postern gate led by Shades. When the report came in, he had split off from Arthur's men to take care of it.

Technically, most of the mages who came with him could have taken on the task too. But they had all proven themselves to not be the best under pressure. When combat had broken out nearby, they had a tendency to freeze. With enough training, some of them might have gotten over it, but they didn't have time for that.

Harold had spent plenty of time fighting, though not leading armies, so it was left to him when the time came to repel shades. It had been a little too easy to force the initial assault back, but soon after, the city wall shook as the main gate was brought low. Now the rear of the city had almost no attackers.

The worst hadn't reached this side yet, but Harold still got started looking over the city from his position on the wall. He needed to go and see where he could help if there was any salvaging the situation. Moving quickly, he began to pick his way toward an access point of the wall. Then, a familiar shape arced up and out of the city, landing amongst the undead.

It was a black disk. The same demon that had haunted his nightmares for far too long. This confirmed all of his suspicions. That this undead plague was not a naturally occurring plague. That it was, in fact, caused by some otherworldly power. Something new that had just come to life.

He'd warned Arthur about this, but it appeared there was nothing his friend could do. It had already taken the gates. With its army flooding in and the powerful creature watching over the battle, there was little doubt the city would fall.

He froze for a second at the top of the stairs leading down. Harold had a choice to make.

What could he do? The city was lost. There was no saving it. Perhaps he could evacuate some survivors. The more he took with him, the less the demon could claim and add to its army. On the other hand, the slower he was, the easier to follow he would be. But could he really run away by himself?

The last time he had clashed with the forces of this demon, they had not pursued when Harold and his men fled. So presumably, it was more patient and methodical, which made it all the more terrifying. Had it been willing to let them go because it knew it would be able to destroy them later? When did the undead plague spread across the land? That showed a level of foresight, planning, and self-control that demons were not known for.

If he hadn't known better, he would have assumed this was a devil of some kind. Some creature of malicious order rather than one of pure chaos. But he had performed the summoning himself; no devil would have answered that call.

Harold still hadn't figured out the connection between it and the undead. Perhaps he could stay long enough to try to unravel this? It might be their only chance to defeat such a terrifying combination of opponents. Was it worth the risk?

He shook his head. No. The king and the warden both needed to know why Caleb had fallen and why. The warning he could bring was far more valuable. What little information he had gained would have to be enough.

Acting quickly, Harold began to gather all the officers that were nearby. He took charge and explained that the front gate had fallen.

They opened the postern gate a few minutes later and started the evacuation. This mass of people fleeing might prove too much of a tempting target for the demon to allow. But Harold couldn't live with himself if he didn't try to save as many people as possible. Civilians were ushered out of their homes with as much food as they could carry. Some didn't want to go, and the army didn't force anyone. They merely spread the word that the city would fall and started trying to get as many people on the road as possible. In the meantime, Harold ran back up to the wall.

He couldn't see any signs of the demon, but he could see the undead moving. Something was happening. Their numbers were such that they completely covered the vast field near the gate, though Harold couldn't get a clear view of the whole scene. What he did see was great dust and debris clouds swirling around them, obscuring them from sight. It seemed like a forming tornado. The dirt from the trampled fields of the long siege funneled into the vortex of power. Something out there was happening, something very bad.

He hoped word would soon reach his friend, and they could save as much of the army as possible. They would need the troops in the coming trials, but he had already still stayed too long. He couldn't trust anyone else with this message in case it was intercepted. So back down the wall, he ran. Grabbing a horse, Harold soon was overtaking the head of the stream of refugees. The men would have to defend them. He'd go ahead and try to prepare places for them where he could.

But someone needed to inform the king - this whole province had fallen.

—

These annoying black clouds of nothing were very distracting. It wasn't that they were harming me too much, but every time they got close and touched me, I could feel a bit of my energy drain away.

I couldn't seem to do anything to them. Pushing them about with Air Manipulation didn't do much. Which made sense because there wasn't anything for the air to press on.

Even focusing on them with my sanitation lamp, I hadn't had any effect on them. This was highly disturbing as that mutation had been my most reliable form of combat for a very long time. It gave me both range and power in a continuous source of damage.

The other thing that made them so annoying was how quick they were. Not having to worry about things like air resistance, they could move and change directions almost instantly. The one time I did manage to cut one with my Divine sword, it clearly was harmed, and it let out a weird screeching noise that didn't transmute through the air but directly into my processor. After that, none of them got close enough for my sword to touch them.

Of course, I could have boosted them and possibly outspend the things. However, that would have meant an unacceptable loss in efficiency cleaning up these zombie mess makers. It was still far better for me to stay on the ground and spin about until their numbers were significantly lower.

Similarly, I couldn't get them with my Mop. I had hopes for that one, but they were pretty low anyway. That also made anything made of physical matter useless, along with my air purifier and my spray bottle. Not that I could hit them with my spray bottle. It just had as little effect as my manipulation.

That was basically all of my options. Even just my basic vacuum suction wasn't doing anything. I had never failed like this before. I had been able to suck up anything that wasn't a liquid since… wow, it truly had been a long time. Even things that were supposedly too large for me with my limitless dustpan had not been an issue, even if some of them needed slight trimming. But even as I devoured dirt from hundreds of yards away with the power of my section, I wasn't able to get at these beings of black energy.

My sensors told me something was changing with them. As they got closer to me, their energy began to crystallize and stop being so chaotic. I figured that might have been my domain affecting them, but the transition was very slow. Based on my models, It would be nearly a decade before they were just chunks of crystallized energy. And if I ran out of materials to convert, I wouldn't be able to stay ahead of their energy leeching for nearly that long.

I searched around my dustbin for anything that might have been useful. A glowing mass of white plasma caught my attention. I had some energy stored there from when I gained my first followers. I had pretty much forgotten about that, as I hadn't thought of a use for it. Perhaps that sort of energy could be used as a weapon? I focused on my Void Manipulation. I let the smallest a bit out and zapped one of the nothings with it.

The thing definitely was affected by the jolt. But instead of being vaporized and dispelled or whatever I wanted to happen to this being, it grew and darkened even further. Nope, that wasn't what I wanted to do. The target was now about three times its original size and moved even faster. I could feel the energy he was pulling from me triple as well. Okay, so giving these things energy was not the right move. I cast around in my dustpan for anything else that might be useful.

Could I release the humans I had in time out? Maybe. I couldn't be sure they wouldn't be angry with me, though. Now it didn't seem to be time to use something unreliable if I had other options, so I continued to sort through my dustbin.

As I moved the contents around in the energy, black clouds darting to and fro overhead, I started to have an idea. From the beginning, I had always been aware of what was in my dustbin. But I only started to be able to sort through it like this once I got my Void Manipulation mutation. Maybe it might have more potential than just sorting through the contents of my dustbin. What if….

Not quite believing it would work, I simulated the idea of reaching out with my dustbin to touch the beings floating around me. Nothing happened, but I could feel… something. Something felt right about using the Void Manipulation outside myself. It was possible, but these beings weren't of the void exactly. I could feel there was no matching void around me.

But I didn't give up. I couldn't give up. I could feel there was some kind of void nearby that my mutation was trying to work with, but the void was in my dustbin.

Suddenly, I had another weird thought. If I could manipulate the void… I reached out, stretching with all my might. Slowly, ever so slowly, the inky blackness I had come to associate with my storage space oozed out from my chassis and reached toward the patch of nothing attacking me. It was just as I had imagined - a perfect blackness reflecting zero light. Its only features were its shape and, as it grew, the occasional item from my dustbin that floated within.

It stretched out like a bubble, slowly expanding. As its surface area grew, the rate at which it expanded also grew. Weirdly enough, it didn't seem to have too much of an effect on the zombies or anything else around. Until it touched them. Then, it was like they had stepped into a tar pit. As they were slowly sucked in, I could sense them joining the rest of my dustbin's contents.

However, it was a different story for light. The sun's rays seemed to bend and twist around my void, stretching and distorting until my sensors had trouble unscrambling the mess. The same effect caught the floating creatures as well.

Directing the void's flow, I reached out and just managed to brush the first dark cloud floating above as it scrambled to pull against the strange force. Its screech was unlike anything I'd ever heard it make before.

It froze in place, and my void slowly sucked the rest of it in. It screeched even louder and more frantically before finally falling silent as the void consumed it. With determination now, I forced the void bubble further and further out of me. The void inside my dustbin was infinite, but I could feel my battery plummeting at an alarming rate. Even worse, I could feel my control of the void starting to falter. I couldn't let it fail. It seemed that the consequences would be devastating if it did, even if I wasn't sure how I knew.

I kept an iron grip on the ever-expanding bubble of void, and it caught the next enemy and the next and the next.

Their calls seemed to bring the others toward us as if it was a call for help, and the nothing-beings came flooding back to attack me. But I was ready.

All around me, I could see that the screeching affected even the zombies. It seemed that the cries weren't auditory or even a mental thing; the fluctuations picked up by my sensors indicated that it was affecting the energy of the creatures surrounding us. I could only hope that the humans inside the city would be all right.

When I finally got the last of them, I started to reel the void in. It was a tenuous balancing act, and I had to transmute loads of material to keep my battery from faltering. I completely lost track of my surroundings. All my processing power was solely focused on containing the ever-shrinking bubble before it expanded and consumed something that I didn't want it to. I felt the zombies reach for my now stilled form and bat at me with their arms. It, too, fell into the void. But I ignored it all.

I couldn't let the void escape my control.