The carnage around Mori was evident from every single detail within sight. Clockworks were destroyed in a myriad of different ways. Some were torn apart, others were burnt full of holes. Some had slashes on their bodies while others sported crushed heads. None of the Clockworks were standing, which went to show the abilities of the Talonecs.
Mori marched forward, the Necromechs trailing behind her like ducklings. There was nothing to shoot, no resistance to their march up to the base of the wall. The massive cannons could not aim down far enough to aim at Mori and her entourage, so they had a relatively peaceful time strolling up the ramp to the wall’s gate.
It was not entirely peaceful, though. Gun and beam fire rang around them, the husks of Clockworks being thrown around as Talonecs shimmered from light to shadows, striking with impunity. Mori eventually reached the front gate, but it did not explode as soon as she arrived. “Hmm…” Moir hummed, “Can one of you take care of this?” she asked. The Necromech on her right nodded, stepping forward and shaping a shield into a circular sheet. It then held the sheet up to the door, and began to spin it. The shield was pushed into the door, but it began to crack a moment later, shattering into motes of purple light after a few more moments.
That was enough to satisfy the Necromech, though, as it thrusted a hand into the tear made by the pseudo saw. With slow, powerful movements, the tear was widened until it could fit any of those present through it. The Necromech who made the tear stepped through first, only to stumble back after being hit by some sort of explosion. Mori stepped forward to help her Necromech, but the explosion was met by the rhythmic clunking of an autocannon. Shot after shot was fired into the room, the sounds of metal being torn apart came as well.
Soon, the Necromech stopped its assault, and simply turned to Mori with a nod, walking into the room. Mori quickly followed, only to find a sea of shattered Clockwork husks. There were no armored units, but the hybrids were present en force. Scouts, Soldiers, and others were all also lined up in the massive hangar-like hall. The air shimmered and Mori felt the room being filled with her Talonecs, all searching the room for opponents.
By the time Mori had reached the center of the room, many slashes were made in the gates leading to other parts of the wall, Talonecs flooding through them. As soon as Mori noticed them, gun fire met beam fire all around them. Mori was confident in their victory that day, so she simply waited for her undead to finish having their fun, letting the Necromechs have their fun as well. If the wall was any indication, Mori had over prepared for the war. She could have done any of what she was doing with the first three hundred Talonecs she sent as an advance force.
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It had been too long, it decided. Or he. It was not sure. The body its soul had formed to pilot was male, but it did not really think about such things. It was made of mana, after all, so its body was in its mind’s eye. Besides, with such vague instructions from its creator on how to make itself, it had full control over itself. As long as it liked what it was, apparently.
The mana it had encapsulated itself in was condensed enough to bind to itself, which it did with ease. With the mana bound to its body, it could control it all as if it were a mental limb. She orb-like shape it had adopted to help condense mana was dissolved, turned into a teardrop. Then a cone, then a silhouette of a person in a cloak. The form felt… right. It then went over what it could do. It was… not much. It was given mana and told to do with it what it wanted. That meant that all it had at its disposal was the concept of death. Well, the will to live so strong that it defied death.
Either way, it had very little to do. The mistress was nowhere near it, its advanced siblings were all together, and they seemed busy, and the creature they all resided in had taken notice of it. There was a sense-based staring contest that lasted a long while, but the creature eventually turned away. It had won.
With that, it was in high spirits, and thinned itself out, leaving the big metal creature without leaving a trace. It flew high into the sky, looking out into the sandy wasteland. There were souls around. Not just in the legion of boat-like crafts around, no, they were in the sand, in the sky, over the horizon, tunneling under the earth. Those ones were small, insignificant, almost, but there was one direction it could sense more interesting souls from. It followed the rising sun, going on and on for a while until it found some stone mountains. There were more souls there, littered about the rocks and peaks.
It swooped down, finding a trio of souls laying amongst the broken wreckage of their bodies. Looking at them closer, they were sick. Hurting. There was a mastermind, but it did not care about such a thing. The souls were being dragged back somewhere, somewhere that caged their minds and made them slaves. It had to make a choice: let them live as slaves or die as free souls. It did not have the power to revive them, but it did have the power to set them free. So, it did exactly that.
Finding the finely woven strings of mana that drew the souls back to their prisons, it cut through them, leaving the ends thrashing like dying animals. It ignored those thrashing ends, looking instead at the souls trapped in cages of the energy of thinkers and mana. It tore the cages open, though it was harder than it expected, and let the souls go free. As soon as the blue mana all around them touched the souls, they began to writhe and thrash. It hurt, the undead knew.
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A skeletal hand of darkness reached out from the robed silhouette, touching the souls and filling them with its mana. It could not use the mana to revive them, but a lot could be done by simply twisting the mana into constructs that helped it. The mana filled the souls and, after a moment, began to unravel them. The thrashing stopped and the souls simply stayed where they were, slowly unraveling and dispersing into the world around it. After a while, the undead could see the core of the souls, a small nugget of soulstuff that it held off on letting disperse.
After feeling the nugget for a while, the undead let it go, watching as the bits of energy dispersed into the environment. It did not feel sorry for those souls, as death was a factor, danger, and inevitability of life, no matter what form that life took.
The undead flew off, finding the next cluster of souls. It found them a few minutes later, all being dragged back to their cages again. It cut the strings again and put the souls to rest properly, looking at the nugget-cores for a bit before letting them go.
It went about its day, finding souls being dragged to their cages and putting them to rest. It even found the soul of a little lizard, who had fallen off a cliff and died. The threads around that soul, though, were like wrought iron, nearly unbreakable unless it wanted to be there for years. It did not, and the lizard was not enslaved by anyone so it let the lizard go, watching as the soul disappeared to the great beyond.
Soon, night fell and the undead continued to free souls from their bindings. It brought a kind of warmth to its heart that could only be matched by its mistress’ embrace.
The thought reminded it of its creator, so it retraced its steps and made its way back to the place where it had broken from its shell. When it arrived, though, it could not find a single sign of its mistress, nor the metal creature her servants resided in, nor the legion of living souls that followed her. There were some tracks, but they were being cleared by the winds whipping across the desert at night. It was lost.
Not all was lost, though. It recalled some familiar mana echoes littering the ground and bodies of a particular group of souls it had freed. So, it returned to the mountains and tried to trace the mana back to the source. It failed spectacularly. The souls of the slain were mostly gone, and the undead kept getting turned around by following trails it had already followed before.
It was a whole two suns later before it found the large metal wall that covered a wide pass through the mountains. There were signs of destruction, soul-vessels slain, and trails from the massive armada. They were not perfect, but it gave the undead a way to follow. A while later, when the moon was high in the sky, the undead found something interesting. It was a large field, metal and flesh bodies strewn all around. Not only were there the bodies of normal metal life, there were also a couple unliving metal things around. They smelled of the mistress’ mana, but when it went to look at them, all it found was the metal shell. Their hearts were gone. That was probably good, since it did not want to have to put its siblings to rest.
What it did find, though, were a few souls that were holding on, pushing back against the cage. They were fighting a losing battle, but it did help the undead by letting it free them. It took hold of the bindings of their souls, breaking them free and laying them to rest eternally. When no more souls were around, it flew off, barely paying the small group of living people any mind.
The next night, after a lot of misdirecting itself, it found the next battlefield. There, it found more souls to lay to rest and a couple more siblings with their hearts removed. It went about its self-appointed work, laying souls to rest, but its peace was interrupted. A small gang of people, with all manners of fur, hair, skin, and hide, walked up to him, their guns raised, “Whatever you’re doing, stop it!” the leading human shouted, “You have no right to be here creature!”
The undead, however, had no clue what the human was yelling about. It sounded like one of those mysterious ‘other languages’ that was mentioned in its mistress’ memories. It ignored the living people, instead laying the souls around him to rest. Just as it completed its task, though, it felt a small bullet pass through where it shaped its ‘head’ to be. It turned to look at the human who shot, who shrieked in fright, firing again and again.
The undead was not amused, and simply left the living people to do their living people things. It continued on its merry way, laying souls to rest, getting shot at, and even becoming hurt by one of the living people’s mana spells. That living person got her soul touched for that one. It was not a forceful tap, but a brush. Perhaps it felt like a brush with death. It did not know.
Three suns and moons later, it found something interesting. It found the end of the big living person armada following the mistress. It floated through the stationary fleet, eventually finding the big metal creature the mistress resided in. It went through the walls, eventually finding the mistress. It condensed before her, floating next to her and waiting for any orders.
All of the living people in the room looked at it with alarm while it could feel its siblings looking at it with either confusion, amusement, or embarrassment. A moment later, the mistress turned to look at him, “There you are!” she shouted, standing up, “I heard ATHENA talking about you! Where’ve you been, big guy?” she asked, giving it a hug. It could not answer, as those noises did not really click in its head, but it enjoyed her embrace nonetheless.