EXILE COG: OMEGA PROTOCOL

Chapter 8 : The Shadow Caster

The air in the Ashfall Desert suddenly ceased moving, as if the atmosphere itself were holding its breath in fear. The gray sand, which usually flew wildly, now fell straight down, adhering statically to the slowly trembling ground. Zenith stopped, his yellow lenses spinning rapidly, scanning for any sudden, drastic surge in mana spectrum.

"Damn, I was just about to say this desert was pretty calm for a slow suicide spot," Zenith muttered, his voice raspy, swallowed by static.

"Zenith, what is it?" Prince Elara asked, his face paling as he felt a heavy pressure constricting his lungs.

Marcus had already drawn his cracked sword, standing defensively in front of Elara. "There's a spatial distortion ahead of us. Zenith, can you feel it?"

"Feel it? Uncle, my entire circuitry feels like it's being tickled with high-voltage electricity," Zenith retorted.

Suddenly, dark purple electrical sparks erupted in the air, about five meters in front of them. Sand particles lifted, forming a vortex that grew denser and denser until it shaped a towering human silhouette. The light faded, leaving behind an incredibly vivid holographic projection, the figure of a man in a black robe with intricate silver embroidery, his white hair neatly styled, and his eyes radiating an arrogance capable of freezing the blood of an ordinary human.

High Sorcerer Valerius.

"Remarkable," Valerius stated, his voice sounding clear despite being only a long-distance transmission. "I didn't expect this pile of scrap to carry the remnants of the Aethelred bloodline this far."

"Valerius!" Elara shouted, his voice trembling with a mixture of anger and horror. "What did you do to my mother?"

Valerius merely offered a thin smile, his cold gaze shifting from the Prince directly to Zenith. He ignored Marcus as if the veteran were just dust beneath his feet. "The Empress? Oh, she is serving as a very useful foundation for our new order, Prince. But let us discuss the more interesting failure here."

Zenith stood rigid. His eye lenses began flashing red, an indication that Omega mode was knocking very loudly at the door of his consciousness.

"Zenith," Valerius called out with thick mockery. "The kingdom's proud Elite Cog. The Mechanoid supposedly possessing pure logic above all else. Look at you now. Rusted, tattered, and hiding behind a scrap joke. You failed to diagnose the poison within the Empress centuries ago, and now you think you can be a hero to her son?"

"Ugh, maybe you should just shut up, Boss," Zenith retorted, trying to maintain his Exile persona despite his body beginning to shake violently. "Your breath is reaching me through the mana transmission, damn it. My olfactory circuits are about to short out."

"You are still useless trash, Zenith," Valerius continued, his voice dropping low, piercing straight into the deepest point of trauma in Zenith's memory. "You didn't save her. You just let her rot from the inside while you were busy counting gears. And now, you don't even realize that you are the final key to the Dark Magitek I am building. You are not a protector; you are a vessel waiting to be filled with darkness."

WARNING: CORE TEMPERATURE RISING.

PROTOCOL OMEGA: ATTEMPTING OVERRIDE.

Zenith felt his head about to burst. Memories of the Empress lying rigid, the cold sting of his failure, and ancient military commands demanding slaughter began flooding his core. The cold aura of the Warlord (Omega) started enveloping his body, extinguishing the steam from his ventilators and replacing it with heavy magical pressure.

"I will ... destroy you," Zenith growled. His voice began to change, becoming a deep, emotionless mechanical baritone. His eye lenses now glowed permanently blood-red.

Marcus stepped back, sensing the immense bloodlust radiating from his robotic companion. "Zenith, don't!"

Just as Zenith was about to charge the projection, a futile act since it was only light, a small, warm hand gripped his cold, trembling metal arm.

"Zenith, don't listen to him!" cried Prince Elara. The teenager stood beside Zenith, holding the robot's hand tightly, his eyes staring directly into the terrifying red lenses. "He just wants you angry! He's afraid of you!"

Zenith froze. Elara's touch felt like cold water splashed onto burning circuits. His fragmented logic began to fight back. Omega demanded blood, but Elara required protection.

Slowly, the red color in Zenith's eyes dimmed back to a dull, flickering yellow. He drew a ragged mechanical breath, forcing his transition back down.

"Damn ... you're really good at holding hands, Prince," Zenith said, his voice returning to its nihilistic tone, though a faint tremor was still audible.

Valerius raised an eyebrow, looking slightly surprised by the self-control the mechanoid displayed. "You were able to restrain it? Interesting. It seems this trash still has a few remnants of a sane operating system."

Zenith straightened up, looking at Valerius's projection with a casually insulting demeanor. He scratched his mechanical ear as if clearing out dust.

"Listen up, High Sorcerer or whatever your overly long title is," Zenith said with a cynical smirk on his metal face. "Speaking of failures, looks like you failed to get attention as a kid, huh? You had to make a huge projection in the middle of the desert just to show off that tacky silver embroidery."

Valerius narrowed his eyes. "What did you say?"

"Yeah, super tacky, honestly," Zenith continued, his voice now annoyingly cheerful. "If I had a face like yours, I'd ask for a scrap metal mask rather than showing up in public. And about the Empress? Yeah, I failed back then. But the difference between you and me is simple. I know I'm trash, but you? You're a piece of dirt that thinks it's royal perfume."

"You seek death, Cog," Valerius hissed, his voice now containing a genuine threat.

"Death? Ugh, I've died a thousand times in the junkyard, Boss," Zenith spat toward the projection's feet. "Seriously, instead of lecturing us here, you should go deal with your Dark Magitek plan. I hear the launch is going to be a total failure because the initiator is just an old wizard who needs a hug."

"You don't know what you are facing," Valerius said, his projection beginning to flicker due to unstable emotion.

"I know exactly what I'm facing," Zenith countered, this time with a very serious yet still crude tone. "I'm facing an idiot who thinks he can control a Blood Oath. Remember this, Valerius. As long as I have a single bolt left, you won't get anything from this kid. Now, you should just delete this projection before I use it to light a campfire."

Valerius stared at Zenith with pure hatred for a moment. "Enjoy your remaining time in this desert, Zenith. Because when we meet physically, I will not only destroy your core, but I will make you watch as your prince begs for death."

Zing!

The projection exploded into purple motes of light that were instantly swept away by the desert wind. The atmosphere returned to silence, but this stillness felt far more oppressive than before.

Marcus let out a long breath, lowering his sword. "Zenith ... you just insulted the most powerful sorcerer in the kingdom with obscene jokes."

"Well, better to be insulted than ignored, right?" Zenith replied, his shoulders slumping as his system power dropped drastically from restraining Omega mode. "Damn, my head feels like it was hit with a mace."

"Thank you, Zenith," Elara whispered. "You were amazing."

Zenith turned toward the prince, his yellow lenses flickering softly for a moment before he looked away. "Amazing how? I'm just power hungry. Let's keep moving before another projection shows up asking for donations."

They resumed walking across the vast desert. However, Zenith knew his provocation came at a high price. He could sense something on the horizon, a low-frequency vibration that continuously tracked their path.

"Uncle," Zenith called softly to Marcus so Elara wouldn't hear.

"Yes?"

"Get your rusty sword ready," Zenith said, his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. "Valerius isn't going to wait long to send couriers who can actually bite."

Just as the sentence finished, Zenith's acoustic sensors picked up the roar of heavy machinery from behind the dunes. Not just one, but dozens of heat signatures appeared on the radar, surrounding them with impossible speed. In the darkness of the Ashfall Desert, pairs of purple sensor eyes began to emerge one by one from behind the sandy gloom, forming a perfect circle of death. Zenith clenched his fist, realizing that his strategy of humor might have just invited a storm he couldn't extinguish alone.