A few hours since the last chapter...

Succubus Homeland, The cliffs overlooking the docks

 

Rex had been woken up at night by a succubus who was working at the docks with the workers. That was because something incredible was happening offshore, out in the ocean near the island. A battle was happening between 2 monsters that were the size of aircraft carriers. Rex was having issues telling what the monsters looked like under the dark ocean waters, but he could see light-emitting organs on the bodies under the water.

 

One of the creatures appeared to be a giant serpent with large fins and a dragon-shaped head. It was biting and tearing at a large fish that looked like an island and was covered in sharp spines. The sounds of their bodies crashing into each other sounded like boulders falling into the water, and they churned up large waves that traveled to the docks.

 

Every time the giant serpentine head appeared out of the water to try to find a good place to bite the massive ugly fish, it caused Rex to suck in a deep breath of air. Several large bone spikes, as long as a human's arm were buried several inches into the cliff walls. This was an attack from the ugly spine-covered fish, each one of them was covered in a thin clear fluid that shone in the moonlight. This large indiscriminate salvo had fired when the large snake-like creature pushed this ugly monstrosity towards the surface of the ocean.

 

These spines had easily buried themselves into some of the steel plates that were welded together to create the hull of the ship. This sight had caused Rex to nearly fall over in panic when he saw it. He had only been watching this spectacle for a few minutes. Next to him was the sleepy Kira and his group of guards. The guards had started construction of a longhouse in front of their modest home. While it made sense in a way, it was quite strange having an L-shaped building surrounding your house.

 

Succubus logic... incredible!

 

The sounds that the serpent creature made were loud and sounded like thunder when its teeth made an impact. The other creature was silent, as it continued to fire spines at the giant serpent creature. Every once in a while the large bone spines would be launched in the direction of the island, or out into the ocean. This was the first time Rex had seen a battle between such giant creatures that weren't on a movie screen. As blood continued to dye the waters around the giant creatures, Rex felt a fear that he had never experienced before.

 

It came from seeing a creature that he currently didn't have a way to deal with. When hearing that creatures could be larger than the vehicles of war that humans created in the modern world, Rex wasn't sure how he would feel seeing it. Now he was seeing a sea serpent that was thicker than a school bus, and easily several hundred meters long.

 

The other fish looked like a stone fish with thick plates of bone and spines all over its body. It was a horrific-looking creature with a mouth filled with sharp teeth that were as long as Rex was. From what he had heard, this was the equivalent of a deep ocean eel fighting a small ugly fish. These were nothing special compared to the more unique monsters that came from the deep ocean.

 

Looking around he could see close to a hundred succubi all gathered together with explosives, this was in the case they came closer to the island. The fight was right at the edge of Rex's vision, but the succubi could see it all. The winner was the ugly poisonous fish, but it was heavily wounded. The ugly fish was covered in thick bone plates, but they didn't seem to save it from the giant sea serpent's crushing bite strength.

 

The waters around the two were empty of any other monsters, even with a large amount of blood pouring out of the giant creatures. The bloody waters were even soaking the concrete a light red from the blood that was carried over and washed onto the docks from the waves.

 

The large serpent was having issues moving, and its head seemed to be paralyzed, its mouth partially open. The teeth that were larger than Rex were on full display for all of the succubi to see. The large ugly fish had finally started to make a move, as it darted forward and opened its large mouth filled with razor-like teeth. It buried these teeth into the sea serpent, and took a savage bite, tearing off a bloody chunk from the poisoned serpent.

 

Just the aftershocks of their struggle would be enough to kill Rex easily, their movements caused large waves. He was currently rethinking his idea of building small ships, and he was feeling like the island was incredibly underwhelming. There were almost no defenses that had been built, and they had monsters right in their backyard.

 

The dock was the only place with waters deep enough to allow a ship to dock, but the caveat was that it was right against a sheer cliff that surrounded the east side of the island. This was until it narrowed down into the swamp at the north side of the island, but the waters were too shallow to land a large ship there. This was the problem with the entire island, and the waters were filled with reefs and sharp rocks all around it. This meant any monsters would also come from the docks as well, it was a weakness they had overlooked for a long time.

 

“Kira, you said that monsters that were this powerful can be found on the mainland?” Rex asked the succubus next to him.

 

Kira looked at him with confusion on her face briefly, she then remembered that he didn't have a good understanding of the mainland. She was also quite upset with him currently, she had worked up her courage to tell him about her future goal of sleeping together and having beautiful children! He had merely told her it would be good for her race as if it didn't concern him in the least!

 

“Yeah, we can tell them based on the mana they release from their bodies. The small monsters that are higher tier are the really scary ones. They are either fast or poisonous.” She told him with a straight face a bit upset. “They also have really strong abilities in some cases, you have one on your wrist.”

 

Rex looked down at the bracelet on his wrist, the other one had disappeared. This was something that was happening every night, as Blue seemed to send the other portion of itself away on missions. This only lasted a few hours each night, but he trusted the little creature not to cause any issues for them. It was the first time he realized that he needed to understand more about monsters. They were the actual rulers of the planet and the top of the food chain.

 

Rex had treated them much like the dangerous predators in his last life, but this was the first time he was having to seriously consider how he would deal with one. This was looking like it was a job for a coastal artillery cannon, something with a giant diameter like 16 inches. The shells would weigh close to 100 pounds, easy to carry for a succubus. During the late 1800s, international waters were set at 5 miles, this was considered the range of modern coastal artillery at the time.

 

It would be a job for the future weapons plant that was being built. A normal coastal defense only had a few cannons, but Rex was thinking of placing them all around the island. The new 50 caliber machine gun was also being produced for the pirate ship and was its main weapon. These would also be installed around the artillery points, he was also thinking of installing 12-pound cannons that were fitted for grapeshot.

 

The 16-inch cannon would also serve a second purpose, battleship artillery. Rex eventually wanted to meet up with the foxes and mouses, and make a port. It would become his furry paradise filled with fluff! Rex was quite disappointed that they only had ugly dog beastmen, he wanted a beagle like Canabus or a border collie!

 

Looking back at the waters, the fight was over, and the serpent had succumbed to the poison and his wounds. Currently, the giant ugly fish was starting to take bites out of the giant floating carcass.

 

“Alright, Sisters! This is our best chance!” Kira declared to the gathered succubi.

 

Rex looked at Kira in shock, who was currently flaring up in righteousness. Her mood had been foul the entire evening, this was clear by how much pampering she demanded. Before he was allowed to sleep he had to give her a back rub, a foot massage, and he had to oil her tail. To get the best cracking noise from her tail, the skin needed to be supple. This required constant care and maintenance.

 

Kira raised her fist in the air, a giant block of C4 was stuffed in a plastic bag. She wasn't the only one who had one, all of the succubi did. Rex sucked in a deep breath of air when he saw what the succubi had done to them. The C4 was frosted in a white powder, this was lead azide, it would detonate under enough force. Right now all of the succubi were eagerly swinging these bags around, none of them had just a single one of them either.

 

“Today the succubi will destroy our enemies!” Kira cried out to the gathered succubi, who responded in a single voice. She extended her wings with a serious expression as she measured their response.

 

“HA-OOH!” They responded in unison, as they all began flapping their wings.

 

Soon Kira and the entire group were airborne, leaving Rex alone on the cliff with his guards. This group of succubi who were flying towards the ocean wasn't alone, soon, even more, began to join them. They began to quickly arrange themselves into tight formations, as they all rapidly ascended into the air. Rex quickly lost count, but he realized this must be most of the succubi on the island, all 700 of them.

 

These bombs had no kind of fuse or delay to them, they exploded entirely from the force of the drop. The ugly monster was completely unaware of the death that was flying above it, it probably thought they were just birds. Rex watched all of the succubi get in position above the giant fish that was eating before he saw specks begin raining from the sky.

 

Rex was shocked at the amount of explosives he was seeing, it was easily a few hundred pounds. The packages fell silently, almost as if they were completely harmless. Rex sucked in a deep breath as he watched, and plugged his ears.

 

The packages of C4 that hit the creature, bounced off harmlessly, Rex had already expected this though.

 

BOOM!

 

The first one that hit the water exploded from the force of the impact. This immediately started a chain reaction, as the massive amount of heat and pressure detonated the surrounding explosives. The explosions quickly spread and formed a cloud made of heat and pressure, before the furious roar was released. Rex felt the pressure wave hit him in the chest, and he felt like he was being squeezed. He closed his eyes, as a blast of hot air passed over him.

 

That was several hundred pounds of C4!

 

Rex finally felt like he could catch his breath, as he heard the pained roar of the ugly fish. Rex looked out in shock to see that it had all of its flesh burned off. The water it was swimming in was boiling its burnt organs, as all of the heat the water had absorbed was being rapidly dissipated.

 

The creature was crying out in pain and thrashing weakly, it was dying. Rex watched as its struggles grew weaker and weaker, the water had quickly cooled around it, smoke was rising from its body. Rex's shock was interrupted by sounds of loud cheers coming from the sky above it. Rex was shocked to hear how happy all of them sounded, the body of the sea serpent had already begun sinking into the ocean.

 

She is becoming even more aggressive!

 

Rex reached up and began rubbing his face with his palms, that was because he was aware of where this behavior would lead her. He was worried that she would bite off more than she could chew, and pay dearly for it. That was always what happened to people like that, they either became heroes or corpses. The last thing Rex wanted to see was Kira being seriously injured, or worse.

 

I'm bad with women...

 

Rex's wife in his previous life had constantly taken advantage of him, this was because he thought that her happiness was all that mattered. Rex had never been good at expressing his feelings, he was more of a logical person. His brain began to spin rapidly, as he tried to figure out who he could talk to.

 

I know what to do!

 

Rex knew of one person who put Kira before anything else, even the other members of her species. It was someone who was shockingly irresponsible once you got to know her. The former leader of the succubi, Kera!

 

-

Meanwhile...

Sydiche, Anna's room

 

A large bed had been torn to pieces, and its stuffing was ripped out. The wooden furniture was shattered into pieces, and remains of clothing were torn and tossed about. Anna had woken up in the middle of the night in anger and immediately began breaking everything around her. This was something she had been experiencing more and more lately. A blind rage that seemed to come from nowhere, and was accompanied by a splitting headache.

 

A fear had also begun to slowly start eating away at her, it was because she felt like her blood was weakening. It felt almost like something was eating her blood from the inside of her, and she was powerless to stop it. A strange smell had started coming from her body, it smelled almost sickeningly sweet. Her already pale skin had gotten even paler, and her veins were shown clearly through it.

 

She had eaten several of the prisoners in the keep, but it didn't seem to have any effect on healing her. Gorging herself on blood seemed to only slow the corrosion that was slowly happening to her. As she took several deep breaths and felt the pain in her head subside, she suddenly thought of her father. She had sent a messenger the other day to inform him something was wrong with her.

 

-

Meanwhile...

A city representing the body of the vampire

 

The entire center of the city had been conquered, it stretched into a perimeter several miles from the lake of blood. The various tall stone and wooden buildings were being demolished by giant machines with large tracks and steel rollers. As the steel monstrosities continued to eat the buildings, thick black smoke was issuing out of large stacks coming from the back of the machine.

 

A tank made of thick black steel, with giant tracks was being assembled inside of it, its pilots were being created in vats filled with dark fluid. In every street and on every corner one of these tanks could be seen, firing their main cannons at the buildings outside of their current perimeter.

 

An attempt at building a large building in the center of the lake of blood was producing no results, and it kept crumbling. A man in purple watched the building crumble into its foundation, a look of hatred on his face. In his arms was a blob of clear blue arms, it looked like it was slowly fusing into his chest through his purple robes.

 

“Brother, we will become one once more, then we will find a new host.” He looked around with hatred on his face, as he saw the eternally dark and damp location that reeked of blood.”This place is disgusting!”

 

Behind him an experiment was being performed, one of the vampires that resided in the city was being dragged by one of the black-armored figures. The thin and dainty vampire was screaming and struggling against the large black armored hand. The owner of that hand stood several feet taller than the vampire and was several times as wide. His helmet resembled a gas mask with a thick red visor, it was one of the mold's various victims.

 

A large vat filled with thick black fluid that resembled oil stood waiting with a heavy steel lid that stood open on a hinge. The black-armored man-made raspy breathing noises as he got to the edge of the vat, violently forcing the vampire over the edge and into the oil. Forcing the vampire and his entire arm into the fluid, the vampire's fingers could be seen rubbing against the glass. The armored man reached up and closed the heavy lid on his arm, a scraping noise was made as he extracted it.

 

The vat closed with a loud thud and was secured by using a lever on top of the lid. Through the glass, the struggling vampire could occasionally be seen, as he fought to get out through the glass. The black-armored figure watched this all silently, his eerie breathing was all that could be heard. The struggle soon died in the glass and the oil seemed to writhe in the vat. It took almost a minute before its movement seemed to come to an end then a crack formed in the glass.

 

The small crack turned into a spiderweb, as it shattered and spewed oil everywhere. The vampire was gone, and a large black armored figure was revealed. The armor matched the armor of the original black armored figure, but skull motifs were added to the new one. In place of a gas mask, it had what looked like a jawbone made of black metal covered in sharp fangs. It looked more aggressive than the original black armored figure.

 

“Look, brother, I have made them one of us, now they can help us find a new home!” The purple-robed figure said with a smile, a loving light in his gaze.

 

On the back of the purple-robed figure, his clothes seemed to be becoming darker, as if they were slowly turning black.

 

-

Meanwhile...

Sydiche, Anna's room

 

A thought suddenly occurred to Anna and seemed to root itself in her mind. She should go and see her father, it wasn't worth waiting for him when she was dealing with this. This thought seemed like such a good idea, and she suddenly felt all her anger clear up. A smile made its way onto her face, and a cold sweat could be seen coming from her skin. Looking at her eyes you would think she was delirious, a change was also starting to occur on her skin.

 

The thin blue veins that covered her body and moved her precious blood were slowly starting to raise. It was almost invisible to the naked eye, but her little sister had been watching her closely the last few days since she returned.

 

The first sign something was wrong was Anna's explosive temper, then she noticed a strange smell on her that was growing stronger over the last few days. The more worrying part was that the servant that she had attacked, had suddenly died the other day. The servant that died smelled the same way her sister did, but it was slightly different.

 

When she saw her older sister coming towards the door, she quickly ducked into the room across the hall silently and closed the door to a crack so she could watch her. Her sister seemed to stumble a little bit, as she began to make her way towards the main audience room. Following closely, she tried to stay out of her sight. Watching her sister start to turn towards the entrance of the keep, a sense of dread began to fill her.

 

Why is she leaving? Where is she trying to go?

 

A sense of fear filled her, as she watched her sister transform into a small bat, her dress falling to the floor. Running forward she tried yelling towards her sister, but she wasn't able to stop her. Yelling out even louder, her sister acted as if she didn't exist. She also quickly turned into a bat and began to follow after her sister in the moonlight.

 

-

Morning...

Succubus Homeland, Succubus homeland

 

An engineer that worked on industrial machinery and didn't understand anything about coding, was like a person with no legs saying he was the fastest sprinter. Almost every facet of production was linked to electronics in some form or another, and Rex had to teach himself all of this. He regretted taking chemical engineering as a minor, he always wished it had been programming.

 

I wouldn't have been stuck making weapons!

 

90% of all weapons in the world required chemical knowledge. Rex had even had the privilege of creating the fuel for chemical lasers. A lot of people think electrical-powered lasers were the strongest, but they were completely wrong. Chemical lasers were commonly used in high-end production, they could burn through tungsten and titanium like it was paper in front of a blowtorch. If the laser on the planet-sized weapon existed that could blow apart a planet, it would be possible to make it with enough chemicals.

 

I hate programming!

 

Rex had a giant sheet of paper in front of him, on it was a dense map of symbols. A common misconception that people had with machines, was that they were smart. If you tell a machine to stab itself in the head(Power supply) with a drill, it will with no hesitation. Unless you tell it to hesitate first.

 

Humans once wondered “what would happen if we only followed the rules very precisely, and nothing else?” This lead to the creation of all kinds of machines being created, then we unearthed the research of Alan Turing. Turing thought, what if I have a tape of infinite length that was comprised of 0's and 1's. These 0's and 1's were the code for the question, and the machine would look at the tape and either leave it, change it, or move on.

 

This machine would follow a set of complex algorithms that would allow it eventually complete its changes to the tape based on this flow chart, and halt on the correct answer. This was the foundation for how all machines work fundamentally. They see a problem and compare it to their chart to find a solution. Unlike a sentient creature, if they don't know what to do, then you are likely to see them just fall to pieces.

 

All of the machines in the arms plant had to be carefully inspected, this was because some of them loaded explosives into various casings. One small problem in their settings could cause them to blow themselves to pieces, especially if they dealt with primary explosives. Rex had heard horror stories of machines that made grenades having accidents, and setting off the C4+TNT mixture.

 

Rex had discovered that enchanting could be likened to programming, it followed very specific mathematical equations. There was an entire branch of enchantments that seemed to exist for this very purpose. Rex had first come to this conclusion based on the existence of what acted like logic gates.

 

For years Rex had been stuck on something when it came to enchanting, and that was how to advance it. Theoretically, he could determine every single possible frequency of mana using the equations he created, they formed a large circle on a graph. If the center point produced a result of nothing, then everything else from there produced a different effect. Rex had decided to liken it to a color spectrum on a graph, but he had no idea what any of the specific shades resulted in.

 

This meant he had no idea what the specific result would be, or what it would do. It was like spinning a wheel of fortune, and 5/10 times it could land on a bomb. This meant that the two kids had not done any serious research, they only worked on what they had available to them. They just didn't have a safe place they could test things conveniently.

 

With all of these different components, he was able to plot them onto his enchantment spectrum, this made him think that everything that was around it was closely related to this field. This was very important to what he was designing, it was the equivalent of a CNC mill. A CNC machine worked by creating what were called tool paths, this is how it calculated exactly where it would cut. What Rex was trying to do was create an entirely different system, this would also act as a test.

 

Rex had seen all kinds of logical fallacies in the elves' enchanting work, it was enough to spark an idea in his mind. It had to do with a difference in how the enchantment on the glass ball worked, and how computers in the modern world did. When a computer did not have a solution for what you wanted, it exploded and violently screamed “404!” This system seemed to work completely differently. As long as it had something close, it went with that instead.

 

Rex compared it to having a car that turned right when it heard right and left when it heard left. It begins driving when it hears the word go. The driver says “Alright, let's go!” Then the car suddenly aims its tires right and begins driving through a house, killing the family inside. A computer would have heard alright, and discarded it as incorrect. This system would see it as an attempt, and go for it.

 

This seemed to be the main reason for using a strongly enchanted magical material, it acted like the processor in the computer. What Rex was planning on doing was making an enchantment that relied on this twisted logic to create a new type of CNC machine.

 

Instead of tool paths, it would be programmed to try to cut absolutely everything in the bed. This was its standard instructions, this is what it tried to follow by default. It would then have another enchantment that told it the exact size of its milling bit, this plate would be replaceable. The final part of this equation was an enchantment that acted to tell it what it absolutely must not be cut under any circumstance.

 

This would create a more extreme fallacy than he had anticipated, but he was wondering if he could get past this by giving it enough mana. Rex planned to make the entire enchantment out of truesilver, for its filler he was going to create a special type of amalgam using silver, mercury, and zinc. It would be the most magical thing he could create, it's very existence was to try to figure out the weird logical fallacy it existed in.

 

Rex had a stack of iron plates to act as his base for testing enchantments. Today Rex was going to experiment on the missing symbols he would need to complete the large enchantment he was making. This would be the first enchantment Rex had attempted to make that was more than just a simple circuit. He was skipping “Hello World” and going straight into programming a fairly complex machine.