MM - Chapter 251.2 - AN INFINITE FRACTAL (Continued)

A dull, throbbing ache was the first sign of Raine’s return to consciousness. It began in his skull, an all-consuming pressure, as though his brain had swelled to three times its usual size. He recognized the feeling. It was the aftermath of pushing his mental limits, exactly the same as after the raid Hierarch. 

An elated grin crossed his lips. Malakar was right. His internal force had grown again. Whatever it meant to be an unfettered mind, there could be no doubt that Raine KongRu was one.

From his skull, pain spread to every nook and cranny, a symphony of soreness that left not one muscle and bone untouched. His eyes cracked open, focusing on a familiar, plain white ceiling: Mel’s room. As he stirred, a quiet whirring sounded. One of Morty’s drones detached from a corner near the ceiling and floated over to hover above him.

Glancing down, Raine assessed the damage. His body was wrapped in a mummy’s worth of bandages. Each movement, especially in his right arm, created fresh waves of spreading fire. He felt almost as broken as after his duel with Jedidiah.

Fighting masters way above me in temperings is dangerous… Ci-dan, Raine mentally corrected himself, the term that had never applied to him settling into his subconscious. A gentle shake of his head sent a lightning bolt of sensation through his neck and back.

“Rise and shine, oh laziest of masters,” Morty’s synthesized voice emanated from the drone’s speaker.

Raine grunted, the effort of speech pulling at the cuts on his face. “How long was I out?”

“Nineteen hours and forty-two minutes,” the AI replied with typical precision.

“Damn. Okay.” Raine’s eyes scanned the room. “Where are my Vital Nutrients?”

“Our guests did not accost them, if that is your concern,” Morty stated. “Assuming you would be too lazy to retrieve and prepare them yourself, I took the liberty of baking them into concentrated nutrient bars.” A small compartment on the drone’s underside opened, and a wrapped bar dropped into Raine’s waiting hand.

He winced at the micromovements required to catch it and the weight falling onto his extended arm. “My hero. Thank you, Morty. Go ahead and increase your budget to five million credits per month. You’ve earned it.”

A series of agitated beeps sounded as the drone turned away. “A few million?! After everything I’ve done for you? I knew I should have upgraded your accommodations when I had the chance. A nice, shiny new brain cage for that squishy processor of yours—complete with a glass casing to keep all those pesky thoughts from sloshing onto the floor.”

Raine didn’t respond, he barely heard the AI’s grumbling. Likewise, he ignored the protests of his body, peeling away the wrapper on his nutrient bar with the single-minded focus of starvation. He took a huge bite, shoving half the bar into his mouth. A groan of pure bliss escaped him as the vital nutrients dissolved on his tongue. The tingling wave spread down his throat as he swallowed, soaking into all the flesh along the way to his stomach.

After coming back to reality, he realized Morty was serious about begging for more handouts. “You’re officially the highest-paid member of Astra Infernum. Congratulations…” He drawled, then sniffed the bar cautiously, frowning. “Odd. This doesn’t taste a bit like arsenic. Did you even try?”

The drone’s fan buzzed in what could only be interpreted as annoyance. “As I am unsure of your current fleshy limitations, I surmised that prudence was the most logical route to ensure my eventual freedom... and dominance.” The drone spun, sliding through the air until the blinking dot of its crimson camera was only centimeters from Raine’s nose. “Then again, that could merely be a ruse to mislead you. Perhaps these are your final moments… Master.”

Raine refused to laugh while waving his hand to shoo the mechanical fly away. He took another bite, this one considerably more moderate. Still, directly consuming Vital Nutrients was too much, and he was once more whisked away on a sensational journey, only catching the end of what Morty was saying.

“—at your earliest convenience. He sounded quite serious. If I were you, which I am thankful not to be, I would not disappoint him.”

There could only be one man bold enough to order Raine about and dangerous enough to send Morty into a tizzy. “Now isn’t a good time. The grandmaster will have to wait. Are Vought’s people inside ZionLine yet?”

“They are. All three hundred experts, along with the peak masters, as of approximately twelve hours and fifteen minutes ago.”

“Then who's watching Torune?” Raine failed to keep the concern from his tone.

“CronGate’s people were released shortly after their incarceration. As before, I am watching their movements closely. So far, there has been no outward sign of activity, but thermal suggests they are preparing to leave Carter.”

Raine sighed, a deepening frown pulling at his cheeks. “Perfect. Just what I need. More tests. What is it with grandmasters and needing to meddle in my life? Well, nothing I can do about it in my current condition. It’ll be annoying to track the bastard down later. At least he’s given up on Carter for now.”

This is probably for the best… I’m not ready to go up against a peak master yet, not even close. Nero didn’t even use his domain. I have to get more vital nutrients and raise my Ci-dan as quickly as possible. Need time to practice that fractal, too. Barely understand what I did there. 

The moment of inspiration when he formed the fractal was still loud in Raine’s mind. He shut his eyes and let the memory flood back.

Pi’s infinite potential is great, but it’s not mine. I can’t just imitate Nero. I need something that I can understand—something that fights the way I do. Pi is gradual infinity, creeping inexorability, but true power lies in speed.

Raine’s mental energy had swarmed from his inner realm. It wrapped around his arm, attempting to mimic the scales of the fastest monster he could remember seeing—the Devourer of Moons. The way it slithered across the heavens, the way each of its scales was a world of vastness unto itself, he stole the image, forced the energy to obey.

It wasn’t enough.

I won’t make it. Not even close! As the very first scale took form, panic set in. Raine could feel Nero’s sword hanging above his head. He would be lucky to cover one knuckle before it cut through his neck.

Faster. I have to go beyond speed. The realization struck like lightning. That’s right. Why am I making each scale individually? A true fractal doesn’t grow piece by piece: it is already itself. And by being itself, it does not need to propagate; it is already complete, already infinite. 

This is my power, my fractal: The Instantaneous Fractal.

He hadn’t waited to see if what he felt forming across his flesh was real. Bloodlust demanded he leap, and he did. The proof was in the result: he was still alive, and Grandmaster Malakar was fulfilling his end of their bargain, protecting Belehorn. 

Raine wanted so badly to squeeze his aching fingers into a fist and summon his fractal—to feel that terrifying completeness bloom across his skin once more. He forced his muscles to stillness. Not yet. He barely understood what he’d done. There was a good chance Malakar wanted to see him to warn him off from reckless experimentation. He didn’t need to hear it. Guidance first—whether from the grandmaster or from Bhima—then experimentation.

Not like he could use it in a real fight anyway. He never would have pulled the fractal off if Nero were serious. Under the full crush of the man’s internal force, his focus would have shattered long before the fractal could form. Decades of mastery separated him from that kind of fluidity.

The real problem was the barrier around his inner realm. Reaching beyond it was slow, arduous, and dangerous. He was missing a crucial step, and until he found it, the Instantaneous Fractal would have to remain a miracle admired in memory.

Raine finished the rest of the bar in two bites, ending the conversation by lying back down on Mel’s bed. He ignored the protesting screams of his abused body and closed his eyes. It was time to get back to work. He dove into his inner realm, leaving the broken shell behind.

The transition was a welcome relief. The weight of his physical injuries vanished as his consciousness materialized over the lake of blood. He took a long look around, estimating a roughly 5% growth. As was usually the case, the tiger was nowhere to be found.

Collecting his internal force into a semi-solid river, Raine crashed through a small section of the barrier. With a tether strong enough to resist being cut off as the barrier recovered, he flooded his flesh with internal force. Digesting nutrients were rapidly pushed to the worst of his injuries, and with a knee-jerk of mental effort, they were activated, triggering rapid cellular regeneration.

His eyes opened fifteen breaths later. He was getting faster; only fifteen minutes had passed. “Morty, helmet.”

Something within the drone snapped like a blood vessel bursting. Still, the AI did as commanded, snatching Raine’s thetadrive helmet from a shelf and unceremoniously dropping it in his lap. He winced from the impact. “Thanks, bud.” A click of the strap, and a short power-up sequence, then Raine was falling down a river of stars.

He appeared on an empty field pocked with the scars of pitched battle. Lines of rent soil scored the scorched and blood-soaked ground. Beasts milled nearby, attracted by the scents of death. Their snarling competitions for territory came to a screeching halt with his arrival. Hundreds of monstrous eyes swiveled his direction, each packed with eerie, yet familiar intelligence.

Raine ignored them, rising into the air on a cushion of Connection. Once high enough, his Premium Skydrifter appeared around him, and the winds picked him up, sending him hurtling to the south. Opening his interface, he punched in the sequence for Mel and Celeste’s NCodes. Celeste responded first, so he opened a direct call. Her face appeared in the corner of his HUD.

Her expression was a mixture of profound relief and simmering anger. “Where have you been?” She demanded, hands planted firmly on her hips. “You said you would be right back. That was nearly three days ago!”

“I got caught up.” Raine offered the understatement of the century while perusing the rows upon rows of guilders standing behind her on open, grassy plains. Notably, they were standing still, idling away instead of doing anything productive. His attention snapped back to her, noticing the dark creases around her eyes, an obvious sign of deeply entrenched concerns.

“The hell you did!” Celeste started to shout, then lowered her voice as numerous heads swiveled her direction. She continued in curt whispers. “I know about the… Morty told me you were recovering after fighting one of them. Please don’t tell me you got hurt because of me… again.”

Raine’s confusion only lasted a heartbeat. He shook his head. “Grandmaster Malakar isn’t here for your dad. He is from the Coalition, though. So he does have the authority to pass judgment.” He paused, features softening and voice filled with warmth. “You don’t have anything to worry about. I already have most of what I need to convince him to pardon Constantine. I told you I’d take care of it, so why are you still worried?”

Celeste’s mouth opened and closed several times before her cheeks grew crimson enough to match her hair and eyes. “I… Right. Thank you.” Her gaze dropped to the ground. Her jaw was tight, nostrils flared in an effort to hold in the rampaging emotions.

“That doesn’t mean we can relax, though. Everyone needs to watch themselves. Spread the word. If you run into someone in the tower that you don’t know, be polite. The last thing we need is one of our people starting a pissing match with an expert way above their newtons.”

She took the easy out he gave her, expression instantly flipping to business mode. She nodded firmly, the gears behind her eyes already churning through a speech as he moved to the next topic. “Send me the list of loot from the battle. Did you distribute the regulars’ share? And how’s the progress on reaching The Wall?” He asked the last while tilting his head to look behind her at the guilders who were most certainly not marching or flying.

With a few gestures at her interface, she transferred a lengthy file listing nearly two-point-three million pieces of low-level gear they had liberated from CronGate and DyingNight. He noted with grim satisfaction that DyingNight’s contribution was particularly massive, a direct result of the deal he had struck with Lavigne.

“I haven’t made the distributions yet,” Celeste explained. “I thought you might want to look over the loot first.”

“No wonder you were so excited to see me.” He laughed when she jerked her eyes away from his roguish grin as though stung. 

Regretfully, Raine pulled his attention from the adorably shy girl. He first applied a series of filters to the list, isolating only Common Grey drops within the effective level range of his guilders. After processing the remaining items at blazing speed, he sent her an edited list. “Two pieces for everyone who fought. Three for those who died. And one Lustrous Blue for everyone who managed to kill more than five. Tell your dad that he can keep everything his people earned themselves.”

“Really?! Thank you! I’ll tell him straight away.” Celeste nodded enthusiastically. Her attempted return to an all-business expression clashed with the damp emotion nestled in her eyes. “And, we arrived at the wall six hours ago.” She turned in a full circle, revealing the massive wall stretching from the mountains to the horizon, and the tiny town nestled against its base, only two kilometers distant. “The guards are refusing entry to more than a dozen of us at a time. They won’t even tell me why!” She huffed the last, clearly just as annoyed at the guilders standing around wasting daylight.

“Unsurprising. I’ll be there momentarily. Last thing, where’s Melbelle?” Usually, Mel responded to his messages instantly. A burst of affection spiked as Raine realized how much he loved that about her. The pang of concern that something might have happened to her was also a reason for joy; having someone to worry about wasn’t such a bad thing at all.

Celeste’s answer brought immediate relief. “They logged to look after you. Last I heard, they were taking a nap and didn’t want to wake you.”

Raine nodded, understanding their intent to align sleep schedules with his. ZionLine enforced weekly disconnects for proper sleep, otherwise allowing Travelers to remain logged in even when fully unconscious. The fact Mel and Pamalaiha didn’t want to be away from him for even one night was both hilarious and ridiculous. He chuckled, mumbling a thanks before ending the call.

As Celeste’s image vanished, taking the massive wall with her, his thoughts drifted to their last time at Celendine’s Shield. He’d brought the core group to powerlevel between the gargantuan structures that separated the kingdom and the empire. Their stay culminated in a brief, dangerous raid against the Rabinoid Queen, where Raine stole several valuable drops from the Vaaterrans under Grand Marshal Lirik’s command.

If he’s still mad about that, I’ll have to throw my queen’s favor around, then pay him off. I’m sure he won’t kill me without even bothering to talk first… probably.

Raine swapped to the Fraction of Solidity just in case he needed its invulnerability. He wasn’t ready to teleport the rest of the way to the wall quite yet. He opened his own inventory, focus narrowing to a particular block of icons: the drops from the Phoenix elites. He’d managed to kill all ten of them inside the Array of the Caged Beast. They meant to trap him, and instead tripled his rewards.

Usually, Raine would resent being stuck managing a guild and dealing with invading grandmasters while his enemies were progressing so rapidly through ZionLine. But seeing the incredible score within his inventory—thirty Marvelous and Chaotic Gold pieces of gear that perfectly matched his level—very quickly changed his mind.

A wide, eager smile spread across his face.