Chapter 8 - Cities of dust.
The room shook with explosive force as he hunkered down behind a steel barricade. He flipped up his soot smeared goggles and peered over the rim of the barricade. He looked towards his glider and grimaced. The original glider sat in a shimmering haze, while his variation was now strewn across the test area.
He stood up and noted it on a grimy white notepad. He walked over and checked his obsidian chest. It was empty. He shook his head and
sat back, and accessed his new variation of bug. His eyes opened and he saw himself as a human. He opened his large wings and alit into the soft gunpowder tinted air.
He flew up through a soft material into the open sunlight. After a moment he relaxed and extended a pair of rigid wings. He relaxed as the strain from beating the wings softened to nothing and he rocketed through the air, propelled by miniscule gunpowder ignitions. He propped open his eyes and examined his surroundings.
Below him he noticed another of the rippling trees, Curiosity gaining over better judgement he cut his gunpowder ignitions and plummeted down towards the earth. His sensors discerned no distinct openings so he flipped his body around and let loose a small reservoir of
gunpowder that blew a small hole in the leaves. Retracting the larger wings, he descended down through the hole and caught sight of a large black beast stampeding away from the spot on eight long legs. He blinked in surprise and set off after it.
After a couple of minutes he regained the distance lost and found himself flying next to a large spider. On top of the beast were six
Cognit holding on for dear life. The one at the front beating the brute. Tentatively he reached out towards the beast and sent a calming wave.
"Human!" Came a frantic response. "Not spider death." The beast slowed to a stop but the lead Cognit kept beating it furiously. With the realization that this was an intelligent creature, he became enraged and extended his wings as he flew towards the Cognit. He put on a quick burst and sliced past the lead Cognit.
Turning in a sharp roll, he retracted his wings and came to a rest in front of the decapitated body. The other Cognit were looking at the body in surprise and fear. They looked up and he imagined what they might see, a strange metallic killer bird or a blood wreathed agent of their destruction.
He launched himself into the air and blasted past them in a rage. He flew through a bloody rage and screamed when he finally came back enough to see a large wall rise up in front of him. He cut up and rocketed above it. When he glanced back down he could see the remnant of humanities power.
An Immense city, full of redstone and broken down walls. He dropped down as he spotted something perfect. Peeking through the blasted sides of the wall was an abundance of obsidian. He flew up toward the top of an outlying skyscraper and landed on the side of it.
He ran a quick Nav system laying out the path he had took to there. After a moment he turned his beam on and focused it towards his base. He opened his eyes and stretched for a moment. He grabbed a couple of lenses from his shelf and attached them to his goggles. He yawned as he stood up and walked up a quick flight of stairs.
He slipped his goggles down over his face and looked off towards the east. After a moment he saw the slight glimmer of light. He grinned and grabbed his sword and hopped onto the glider. He was going to town.
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Achilles stretched and stood from his hammock. He yawned as the fluid seeped down his face and he walked from the room. He picked up a chicken from the pen to the side of his door and clutched the dead between his mandibles as he walked down the hallway.
He turned into the classroom and sat down, the chicken started squawking and quickly grew irritating. He reached up and ripped the chickens body from his mandibles then chuckled as he tossed the head up and sucked it down his throat.
The rest of the body soon followed. His first instructor strolled through the door and he relaxed, His plans had been delayed some. But in reality he was in a much better place to act then he had been.
He relished the aftertaste of the chicken as he listened to the instructor as he began to speak.
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His glider rippled the leaves below him as he shot through above the forest towards the city. His questions now finally answered about the strange land whales, he would salvage what he could carry from the city. Then he would return to his little fort and continue his experimentation with the gliders.
He approached the high wall and skidded to a stop as he caught a real first glance at the sheer size of the city. The walls themselves rose high into the sky and capped off at an imposing fifty blocks. He held out his hand as he gently accelerated along the side of the wall. As his fingers brushed the cold stone, a loud grating echoed from around him.
He veered away from the wall and spun his glider in a tight circle. The wall shook violently, dust cascading from the stone as a gap appeared. Cautiously he went through the gap and found himself at the epicenter of colossal destruction.
The skyscrapers were bones up to just before the wall started. Their innards showcased to be made of stronger materials such as steel and obsidian. He floated forwards through the ravaged city and shivered at the cold air rushing through the virulent bones of a lost era. He approached the larger tower and concentrated on his bug.
He shivered and toppled from the highest of heights. He shot towards the ground and triggered multiple explosions to unfreeze his metallic parts. His wings tensed then unclasped enough to allow his rigid set to extract themselves. He cut them out and made to tilt upwards right as he smashed into the ground.
He screamed in agony as his glider dropped to the ground from the overload. He couldn't move, and his eyes seared from intense pain.
Something dark approached through the growing haze and he lost consciousness.
