novelraw Chapter 240: Planar Research
Chapter 240: Planar Research
Inside the Arcane Legion's laboratory, Skele-Avarice stood at the central
control console, his bony fingers drumming a frantic, rhythmic beat against the
cold stone.
"Thirty-seventh calibration failure! Will someone inform me why the energy
circuit of Experimental Node Three is still redlining?!"
Avarice's voice wasn't particularly loud, but every busy undead in the hall
visibly winced. A Lich Centurion in charge of that sector braced his
non-existent heart and drifted over.
"Reporting, Deputy Commander! Eighty percent of the node's cooling runes were
incinerated during the last energy surge. The replacements are being etched
under emergency conditions. We are currently utilizing Frost Spells for manual
temperature control, but the effectiveness is..."
The Lich's voice trailed off into a whisper.
Avarice snatched a data-heavy report from the desk and, without a word, slapped
it against the Lich's bald cranium with a sharp thwack.
"I do not care for your methodology! Use Frost Spells, gather a hundred mages to
blow cold air on it—I don't care! I want that node below the safety threshold in
thirty minutes, or you'll be doing manual labor in the mines!"
"Yes! Right away, Deputy Commander!"
The Lich Centurion fled back to his station as if the Sovereign himself were
chasing him, barking orders at his cowering Skeleton Archmages.
Avarice watched the frantic, chaotic scene, feeling the soulfire in his sockets
throb with stress. Ever since the spatial fluctuations began, not a single
member of the Arcane Legion had clocked out on time. They were so buried in work
they hadn't even heard of the "Dual-Kings Board Game Championship" sweeping the
rest of the Empire.
What truly galled Avarice was General Lust. That irresponsible woman had dumped
this structural mess on him and vanished, leaving behind research notes that no
sane entity could decipher.
"And what in the name of the Void is this supposed to mean?" Avarice muttered,
staring at a page with a sketch of a ghost making an 'octopus face.'
"Did the test subjects sprout eight legs and escape the vats? Or did the
experiment fail so spectacularly it looked like an octopus sprayed ink on the
walls?"
He squinted at the arcane graffiti, hoping for a spark of inspiration, but felt
only a phantom ache deep within his skull.
Just then, a figure strolled into the lab, humming a tuneless, cheerful melody.
Clad in casual traveling robes, she held a paper bag that wafted a heavy,
cloying scent of sugar.
"Yo, Avarice! I'm back! Look at the treasures I've brought from the Silvermoon
City night markets! The latest 'Rainbow Sugar-Coated Worm Jerky'! They're
incredibly crunchy, and the protein content is triple that of standard beef!"
Lust held the bag out to Avarice, a carefree, dim-witted smile plastered on her
face.
The cacophony of the lab died instantly. Every skeleton and Lich froze, their
soulfire snapping toward the door, then pivoting in unison toward Avarice.
Avarice snatched the bag and, without looking inside, dropped it directly into a
nearby waste bin.
"You actually had the audacity to return?"
"Of course I did. This is my lab, after all." Lust didn't seem the least bit
offended. She began to circle Avarice, clicking her tongue in mock wonder. "My,
my... it's only been a few weeks and you've turned quite grim. Your bones have
lost their luster. Are you neglecting your polishing? Is work being mean to
you?"
"My condition is a direct result of your absence!" Avarice gestured wildly at
the chaotic laboratory. "While you were out, the teleportation arrays suffered a
total system failure! More importantly, an unidentified infiltrator manifested
within the Empire's borders!"
"Oh? How exciting! Why wasn't I notified?" Lust's expression held zero tension;
instead, she looked genuinely intrigued. "Where is this intruder? Did we catch
them? Male? Female? Aesthetic rating? What are their combat traits? Any peculiar
psychological quirks?"
Avarice's jawbone clicked with suppressed rage. "You have the mental bandwidth
for that? General Pride already drove her back to her origin point! The 'notes'
you left behind were utterly useless for stabilizing the rift!"
"They weren't 'useless,' they were my precious research insights," Lust huffed,
pulling a fresh notebook from her spatial storage. "Now, stop being such a
grump. Here is the field report sent over by Pride and the local Orlando mages.
I've already skimmed it."
Avarice snatched the report and began to read with clinical focus.
- Target Confirmed: Originates from an unknown Plane.
- Combat Assessment: Peak Tier 5, with Tier 6 potential.
- Status: Neutralized. Target escaped utilizing an unidentified planar
extraction method.
- Extraction Coordinates Locked: Data attached.
- Mission Status: Complete.
At the end of the report was a series of spatial coordinate strings so complex
they would have made a normal scholar's eyes bleed. Avarice's soulfire locked
onto the data, his brain racing to identify the patterns.
"Unknown Plane... extraction protocol..."
Lust suddenly pulled out her emoji-riddled notes and began to outline her
hypothesis.
"Look here!" She pointed at the coordinate strings in the report and then at a
page in her notes featuring a giant question mark next to a weeping face.
"An entrance and an exit! Do you see why our previous experiments failed? We
were like a pack of idiots building a doorframe without knowing where to put the
door!"
"We assumed space-time travel was like swimming in a river—you can go upstream,
downstream, or maybe paddle into a side-creek. But we never considered that
outside of the river, there are lakes. There are seas!"
Avarice understood her immediately. Their previous research had been confined to
the native timeline and spatial dimensions of their own world, trying to warp
local space to achieve movement. They were like a fly trapped in a bottle,
buzzing against the glass but never leaving the vessel.
But the intruder—her arrival and her desperate departure—had inadvertently
pointed them toward the mouth of the bottle.
"We possess an accurate set of external coordinates," Avarice whispered, his
soulfire burning with an unprecedented intensity. The fatigue and irritability
evaporated, replaced by a surge of raw scientific fervor.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Lust's face split into a grin of reckless
ambition as she began punching commands into the console.
"Let's send our neighbor a little greeting!"
"Wait!" Avarice pinned her hand to the controls. "General, we have zero intel on
that world! If it houses a civilization more advanced than ours, this gesture is
a death sentence. It reveals our position!"
"Our position was revealed the moment she left," Lust countered, her expression
shifting into the sharp, focused mask of a General. "And if they were truly
overwhelmingly superior, they wouldn't have sent a single Tier 5 scout. They
would have sent a legion."
She leaned in, her fingers becoming a blur against the runes. "Time is our only
resource, Avarice. We accelerate now."
"Output power at minimum: 0.01 percent." "Injecting Coordinate A—our current
locus." "Locking Coordinate B—the target's extraction point." "Directional
Space-Time Fold... Initiating burst!"
Lust slammed the red activation rune. The lights in the laboratory dimmed for a
split second.
Nothing happened. The lab remained silent.
"See? I told you it would be fine," Lust said, spreading her arms with a
'told-you-so' look.
Just then, at the heart of the great teleportation array, a palm-sized,
shimmering rift began to tear open. It was unstable, flickering like a dying
candle, but it held.
Every member of the Arcane Legion stopped what they were doing, staring at the
tiny, jagged tear in reality. Lust and Avarice stood side-by-side, watching the
glowing aperture in silence.
They had done it.
They had finally opened the door to another world.
☆☆☆
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