The spiraling, maddening moon of Carcosa ascended into the sky, its light casting surreal, shifting patterns across the landscape.
The familiar hum of distortion in the air marked the arrival of the Ordeal of the Dusk, a phenonon that painted the land in gradients of chaos.
"Huh, I'm starting to get used to this."
I stood atop the observation deck of the Landship, gazing out into the swirling, unearthly horizon.
As always, the maddening moon's presence was both magnificent and oppressive—a cosmic force that dared anything and everything to try its patience. The faint whisper of shifting reality buzzed in my mind, now that I'm no longer a re mortal.
And of course, with the Ordeal of the Dusk, cos the special type Calamity Object that shall open the bouquet of horror in this garden of horror.
But unlike the usual, that special Calamity Object arrived with no fanfare, no dramatic eruption—just the gradual, insidious alteration of reality.
A ripple spread through the air, distorting the moonlight into jagged, prism-like patterns. It wasn't a physical entity that materialized, but a pervasive phenonon, more akin to a rule carved into the world itself.
Even without Kuzunoha's usual comntary, I could sense the shift.
It was a phenonon type Calamity Object.
"Ah, there it is," ca Kuzunoha's voice from behind , light and playful despite the gravity of the mont. She perched on the railings of the observation deck, her crimson eyes glinting with mirth.
She tilted her head lazily, as though surveying an interesting puzzle. "Hazardous Immortality. Sounds poetic, doesn't it? You could write sonnets about absurdity."
"It is not inspirational enough for to make a poem about, sadly."
"What is the first special Calamity Object of the day?" Lupina asked, being carried by Charis as usual.
"Oh, nothing too catastrophic," Kuzunoha said with mock nonchalance, though the smirk on her lips betrayed her enjoynt. "For the entire duration of Carcosa's night, nothing within this region—not a plant, not a beast, not even our delightful little Calamity Objects—will be able to die.
"Not truly. Not even temporarily, if that's what you're wondering. They'll heal, regenerate, or simply ignore the damage altogether."
Phenonon-types always brought rules that defied normality. Every ti they appeared instead of the normal passive and aggressive Calamity Object, they always shift the playing field into sothing completely different.
In this case, the Hazardous Immortality would an that our main focus of the Ordeal for the day is to mark a dangerous and rule-defying Calamity Object as a priority, and then prevent as much collateral damage as possible on our side.
"Well," I remarked, glancing down at the bustling Landship crew below, "That makes tonight's festivities much more visible." I gestured toward Lupina, who was already connected to her Cognitive Engine headset, her disembodied head grinning with anticipation. "Lupina, broadcast the phenonon to everyone. Ensure they understand its nature before they encounter it firsthand."
"On it, boss!" Lupina's voice practically crackled with energy as she relayed the information to the bastioneers and Heavenly Maids, her tone laced with a mix of professionalism and her usual boisterous charm.
She was as happy as usual whenever I gave her any kind of task that was possible to be done in her current state.
Now that I thought about it, taking care of Lupina's ntal state felt similar to preventing a pet from getting stressed.
It felt that way much more, because Verina stopped being that one adorable dog that I have. She beca too powerful, too prideful, and too smart, inquisitive, and efficient—for the last one, only when I ordered it or when she felt like it.
She was no longer my cutie patotie that I wanted to pet and cuddle, in terms of my impression of her.
As the Ordeal began in earnest, the Landship defenses ca alive. The newly-installed turrets swiveled into position, their Neural Alloy barrels gleaming faintly in the eerie moonlight.
The drones humd to life, their cat-eared Supportive units scuttling to their posts, while the heavier Assault and Defensive Drones erged from their hangars, each carrying the extra firepowers and lethality of our neuromorphic technology.
The first wave of standard Calamity Objects arrived in force—a chaotic blend of everything, from writhing, malford entities and conceptual horrors that twisted the very air around them, to our usual Bloodhounds, Sandstalkers, and Shardfiends.
"With that phenonon, everything beca a persistent little bastard, aren't they?" Kara muttered, her voice crackling through the comms as she dodged a swipe from a grotesque, multi-limbed abomination.
"Don't waste too much energy on them," I recalled through the Cognitive Engine network. "Focus on containnt. They can't die, but they can be suppressed."
From the Landship's core, the confidantes joined the fray, each bringing their unparalleled abilities to bear.
Kuzunoha stood amidst the chaos, her hands weaving intricate patterns in the air as she disassembled Calamity Objects with surgical precision.
It was the very sa thod of storing an item into her arcane storage, by turning sothing into pure arcane material and saving their structure schematic for when conjuring it again, drawing it from the arcane storage.
But in this case, Kuzunoha skipped the structural schematic saving of the process, which would just completely dissemble the Calamity Object into arcane material, in which she just removed from her arcane pool, completely dissolving the Calamity Object into nothingness.
"Mmm~ So efficient~" I called out over the din, my tone tinged with dry amusent. "Why don't you do this all the ti, Kuzunoha?"
She laughed, a musical sound that belied the destruction she was wreaking. "Oh, darling Narcissus, where's the fun in that? Efficiency is so... boring. And the process? Ugh, don't get started. Dreadfully unpleasant when it cos to living beings."
So, she just doesn't want to be bothered with this thod unless necessary.
That was so like her.
Nearby, Viviane summoned a rift in reality itself, her fae magic creating a swirling portal that swallowed an entire group of regenerating Calamity Objects. They were deposited sowhere far from this realm—whether it was another dinsion, tiline, void, or reality altogether, even though I wasn't entirely certain.
She looked visibly tired with every usage of that spell, however, even though the energy that she used to cast it was conceptually infinite because of how fae magic works.
"You're getting rusty, Viviane," I teased, watching her wipe a bead of sweat from her brow.
She shot a glare, though the corners of her lips twitched in a faint smile. "Perhaps. But I'd like to see you trying to go back doing the thing you haven't done for multiple centuries, for an extended period of ti."
"I'll make sure that the food is imnsely nutritious for our beloved grandma, so you only need to work out every now and then." I gave her a thumbs up.
"I like slightly bitter stuff, in case you're wondering about my palate."
"Even your taste fits the stereotype."
Verina, ever the epito of controlled destruction, stood at the forefront. Though, this ti, she had no choice but to use more of her Furnace instead of relying on pure spellpower.
Her Furnace ability manifested as an intense, shimring heat that reduced Calamity Objects to puddles of molten material, trapping them in an endless cycle of death and rebirth as they failed to escape the effects of her conceptual heat manipulation, or never.
"Narcy, can I get a kiss on the cheek for doing an extrely good job?" Verina remarked, her voice as deadpan as ever as another wave of monstrosities dissolved before her.
"For now, you'll get a pat on the head."
"Your hand is soft and beautiful as always."
"Of course, you're talking about , after all."
"I wonder how it tastes…"
"My hand is not food."
"Twasty."
"My finger is not a pacifier."
"I-I think father's finger is as delicious too!" Charis exclaid out of nowhere.
"See? Now you're becoming a bad influence on Charis. No kisses are in the making until the end of the ordeal."
"Fwair."
After so usual confrontation with Calamity Objects that could be easily suppressed and dealt with within the influence of the Hazardous Immortality, there were also a couple of Calamity Objects that needed an extra effort.
Alow hum reverberating through the Landship as a Calamity Object that had been identified as the Tikiller erged from the spiraling moonlight.
It was an eldritch monstrosity—a towering figure cloaked in an aura of fractured ti. Its form defied logical comprehension, constantly shifting between states of existence. Its 'flesh' appeared to be made of cascading clockwork chanisms interspersed with organic material—each ticking and tocking in discordant harmony. Its elongated limbs ended in jagged, claw-like appendages that dripped with temporal distortions.
Wherever it moved, the concept of ti itself bent and twisted. The ground beneath it decayed and reford, objects aged centuries in seconds before snapping back to their original state.
"Well," Kuzunoha said, her voice uncharacteristically serious, "That one's going to be... tricky."
Viviane and Verina exchanged a glance, their usual banter replaced with quiet determination. Without a word, they moved into position, preparing for a coordinated assault.
As for ?
I'm here with Charis, snacking on so fruits that we picked from the hydroponic farm.
The Tikiller let out a soundless roar, an oscillation of distorted frequencies that seed to ripple through the very fabric of existence.
Even the maddening moonlight dimd slightly in its presence—the Calamity Object moved with an unsettling grace, every step fracturing sothing, and every movent was tied to a certain point of its history.
"Wee??" Sera attempted to land a sneaky strike toward the Tikiller, only to be missing completely as the Tikiller reverted to its own ti and ca back to a position that it had already taken in the past. "What in the radiant one!?"
Right, the bastioneers started to use as their swear words now—
Even if one of our bastioneers landed a solid hit or any kind of neutralizing attempt, the Tikiller could just revert its own ti and act as if nothing happened. What's worse is that it could also manipulate the ti of anything that made contact with it.
Thankfully, our bastioneers noticed this first and gave an order to their Cognitive Engines to not order any drones to fight against the Tikiller, sothing that I would've done if no one did it.
Seeing the whole thing, Kuzunoha, Viviane, and Verina acted imdiately. There was no need for words—this wasn't their first dance with sothing of this magnitude.
Kuzunoha raised a hand, her fingers tracing a sigil in the air. Her crimson eyes burned as she forced the Tikiller into the present through so ineffable arcane sorcery that was still hard for to understand, locking the ti-manipulating Calamity Object in this mont with a lattice of arcane constructs.
The sigil shimred and pulsed, its edges jagged and unstable as it fought against the Calamity Object's attempts to untangle itself from the temporal anchor.
Then, Viviane's fae magic surged, tearing a rift in reality that reached into the depths of the past. The portal's edges crackled with raw, chaotic energy as she bound the Tikiller's temporal pathways, dragging parts of its essence backward into a tiline it no longer occupied.
The strain was evident on her face, but her resolve never wavered.
To support our grandma, Charis and I readied our handkerchief and wiped every sweat that was trickling down on Viviane's forehead.
Viviane looked at us with a confused and annoyed expression, but it was worth amusent.
Verina followed with a precision that was almost terrifying. Her Furnace manifested as an all-consuming wave of heat that targeted the Tikiller's ti, forcing its existence to fast-forward far into the future relative to its own existence.
The 'heat' didn't burn in the conventional sense—it aged, eroded, and destabilized.
The Tikiller's movents slowed as its ability to manipulate ti was constrained. Its jagged limbs flailed, carving streaks of distorted chronology into the air, but the combined efforts of the three confidantes held it in place.
Until its ti passed the limit of its ti-manipulating power, unable to return to the presence evermore.
""They did it!"" shouted Charis and Lupina. Even if they didn't join the battle directly, they learned a lot by witnessing their seniors.
"Narcy, can I get another headpat?" Verina shouted from the ground, far below the deck.
"No, but give you a heart gesture instead," I said, sending my signal of love with my hands.
Verina acted as if her heart had been shot, as she fumbled to the ground. "Too cute…"
"Narcissus darling, I want one too~!"
"No, that can only be ant for ," Verina said as she pointed her crystalline musket to Kuzunoha.
"How dare you take a monopoly of the market," an annoyed vein appeared on Kuzunoha's face. "Such a preposterous behavour!"
anwhile, Viviane could only sigh as she shook her head. "What are you, kids?"
They act like kids, alright.
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