Necromancer Dreams of Mechs Chapter 38: Chapter 44

Read chapter 38 of Necromancer Dreams of Mechs by Magic on NovelPedia.

Chapter 38: The Flesh Hangar Once again, I found myself brooding over the Architect’s words. The last part echoed like a curse. The worst of it was that I knew exactly who she meant. “Ciara’s dad,” I muttered. It had to be him. The thought alone was terrifying. Dynamex Corp wasn’t just a corporation. It was the boogeyman of corporations. Think of the biggest name company you can, then realize Dynamex owned a thirty-percent stake in it. Thirty percent of all major industries. Forty percent of the world’s financial resources. They didn’t just control markets — they controlled reality. And now, they have the power to trap people in digital prisons. No trial. No escape. Just endless torture in a fabricated world of their design. Or maybe… it wasn’t her father. Maybe it was Ciara herself. I didn’t want to follow that line of thought. Not yet. I trusted no one but Nathan and his dad. Ciara? I liked her. I enjoyed her company. But I remembered what she had said to me. I would get stronger to protect what was mine. She’d put it that way, not me. And the more I thought about it, the more it felt rehearsed. I wanted to slap my cheeks and shake off the paranoia, but my formless state didn’t allow it. Instead, I forced myself back to the present. The Forge. The Architect had called it the Necro Tech Forge. But what was it, really? Was it for reforging existing minions? For evolving unevolved ones? Or something else entirely? No matter what I tried to imagine, nothing happened. The void stayed empty, taunting me. Frustration gnawed at me until, finally, I realized the problem: I was thinking too much like myself and not enough like a gamer. I had spent almost two months trapped here without normal games. My instincts had dulled. I’d forgotten how menus worked, how systems wanted to be used. This world had buried me in its illusion of “reality,” and I was getting lost in it. I had to forget about the world and remember the rules. This was still a system. Still a game. With a sigh, I shifted my mindset. This was just another menu. Immediately, my perspective warped. The void dissolved, and I stood within a colossal hangar. Flesh and metal interwove in grotesque harmony. Walls of pale sinew pulsed faintly beneath plates of steel. Machinery grew like tumors from the living structure, cables and veins indistinguishable as they snaked overhead. The floor stretched into an infinite platform, dotted with skeletal scaffolds and mechanical arms tipped with claws. The air hummed, alive with mechanical breath. And then — my body reformed. Not in my usual clothes. Instead, I wore a black bodysuit that was sealed from ankles to throat, studded with raised silver discs that glowed faintly. At the collar, the suit flared upward, an angular ridge rising from my chin to the back of my head like a mechanical halo. I looked like a futuristic ninja drafted from a cyber-dystopian nightmare. “I’ll take it,” I muttered. Not exactly stylish, but workable. Maybe I needed to put more thought into what I imagined. This world seemed to bend to imagination, and if so, I couldn’t keep relying on half-formed ideas. A holographic menu unfolded before me. A list of unevolved minions filled the display, their races, stats, and empty “abilities” tabs lined in neat rows. “A sad bunch of boys… and girls,” I muttered, eyeing the skeletal placeholders. “Weird to think of racks of bones as men or women.” Below the list glowed my remaining Spirit Points: 58. Enough to test the system. I selected a random entry. Minion Evolution: Bone Minion Race: Naga Stats Strength: 283 Constitution: 311 Dexterity: 555 Agility: 534 Intelligence: 822 Wisdom: 436 Abilities: — At once, the platform beneath me lit up. A skeletal serpent coiled into existence, its pale vertebrae rattling as it rose. The bone Naga stood tall, humanoid ribs fused into the upper body while its lower half coiled into a massive serpentine tail. Empty sockets stared ahead, silent and awaiting command. From the walls, a mech