Chapter 60. Axon

Constantine felt cold as he opened his eyes. He was greeted by frosted metal and a little window. Taking a deep breath, he groaned as sterile air filled his lungs and a monstrous headache overtook his mind. Waking up after death was never a pleasant experience—one he had avoided for over a few decades. Nevertheless, he flexed his fingers as he felt the numbness throughout his body slowly dissipate. Then a hiss of machinery reverberated through the metal pod he found himself floating in as a large needle penetrated the back of his skull, and black liquid flowed into his decaying brain, rejuvenating it with life. He felt a rush like no other: euphoria, pain, joy, sadness. All his neurons fired off at once in an epic firework display of neural activity.

Constantine hissed through his teeth and clenched his fists as he tried to ward off the explosion in his head. But, alas, there was no way to sidestep the experience. It was just one of the many hicks he had to endure after death.

While gritting his teeth, Constantine looked up through the small window of his metal pod. The glass was foggy, but he could see the grand mosaic that served as his respawn room’s ceiling. “Dead again, huh…what a trash job.” Mist left his mouth as he grumbled, but much to his annoyance, he had to get moving before his body froze. Ice cubes bobbed around in the freezing viscous liquid he was suspended in, which cascaded around his arm as he pushed against the pod’s lid.

It required quite a bit of force, but eventually, he managed to pry it open, and a rush of warm air washed over him. Finally, he stood up with only his feet planted in the green-tinted slush he had been submerged in. Looking down, he confirmed he was completely naked, but that was to be expected. He did just die, after all.

Rolling his shoulders to get the stiffness out, Constantine stepped out of the pod and strolled across the pristine white floor. Droplets of water from his hair left a trail as he wandered past many other pods. He occasionally glanced through the frosted glass and saw a face that looked exactly like him…another one of his clones.

“This one only has another century before it expires,” Constantine muttered as he looked at a small display attached to the pod with a timer ticking down. While in thought, he rested his hand on the cold metal of a pod. “I should contact Axon for replacements. It’s been far too long since our last chat.” Shaking his head, he headed toward a large door at the end of the room. He counted twenty identical pods, some with clones of himself lying in wait for a respawn. With fifteen of them now empty, he had five more lives. “I only used that body for twenty years; what a bloody waste of good organic matter.”

Reaching the door, Constantine placed his hand on a green piece of glass, and a second later, he heard a click as the door magically opened. To this day, he still had no clue how anything in this place worked, but he didn’t question it. He was indebted to obey Axon; immortality didn’t come cheap. Entering the room, he walked straight over to a control panel in front of a floating brain suspended by many wires. On the control panel was a slab of pale green glass with the words:

[System Download]

Before doing anything, Constantine attempted to will the System screen, but only a red floating screen displaying an error appeared:

[Unknown Agent.]

Constantine shrugged his shoulders. As a person from another world, it was no wonder it didn’t recognize his clone as something that could be integrated. Finally, with a sigh, the young-looking man stepped up to the green glass control panel and placed both palms onto its smooth surface.

[System Download Started…]

He felt another rush shoot up his arms like millions of ants crawling under his skin. It made an old being like him shiver. Then, keeping his eyes open, he saw a blue screen materialize in front of him.

[Backdoor into World Core established…]

Constantine felt something gaze upon him from another realm. It was like a tingle on the back of his neck that made his hairs go on end.

[Connected to Axon.]

He threw his hands back, fell on his butt, and spent the next few minutes panting profusely as sweat dripped down his chin. The sensation of something watching him and the lingering phantom pain from the System download refused to leave. Shaking his head, he pushed himself off the floor and used the nearby wall as support.

“Status.”

There was a delay, but a blue screen appeared after a few seconds.

[System is outdated by a thousand years…update?]

[Yes/No]

Constantine hesitated on the yes button. If he clicked it, he might be free from Axon’s influence and finally escape his enslavement.

“Didn’t Axon say it was sending a Netherborne this year?” He tapped his chin as he looked at the floating screen. “But this world has already survived so many Netherborne attacks. So what would be different this time around? The World Core is safe at the bottom of a Grand Dungeon. No Netherborne is smart enough to go that deep for seemingly little gain.”

Constantine had told himself this would be the lifetime he tested the yes button, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. Saying yes had a chance to fail. What if he couldn’t join the System like everyone else on this lovely planet? He would then be cut off from Axon and doomed to die. He stared at his fist. “I am an outsider.” Then, hovering his hand over the no option, he whispered, “But maybe I can make a difference from this side…” He had witnessed the destruction of many planets during his thousands of years of service, but never had a planet survived this long. A part of him hoped there was a safe place in this pocket of the universe from Axon’s clutches…

He pressed the no option with great unwillingness, and the prompt faded out of existence, like all other times, never to be seen again. Sadly, an all-too-familiar one took its place. Without the updated System, Axon could easily hack in and overlay itself.

[Axon Agent: Constantine]

[Service Year: 8756]

[Primary Mission: Conquest of Astra]

[Secondary Mission List]

[Quest Log]

[Contact Axon]

Constantine clicked on the primary mission to make sure nothing had changed.

[Conquest of Astra]

[Axon continues its expanse throughout the quadrant. In search of planets producing abundant mana from their World Cores to fuel the first legion, the planet Astra has been identified as the next target for invasion. Your mission is to seize the World Core…]

Constantine shook his head and waved the screen away. To ask a mere agent like him to obtain a World Core was impossible, and with the planet’s World Core being so evolved that it gained sentience and created its own version of the System made invasion almost impossible.

Luckily the presence of the System and the abundant mana greatly affected Axon’s ability to interfere directly. Constantine smiled, thinking of all the times he and the other Hackers meddled with Axon’s plans to conquer this world.

Not only Constantine but the other agents all agreed enough was enough. So they banded together to banish the Netherborne and other creatures from the void that Axon managed to sneak past the planet’s defenses to give the world’s population time to flourish and grow.

Constantine felt some strength return to his wobbling legs, so he started leaving the chamber. He looked at the floating brain—his brain that Axon had captured all those years ago. He knew his end was coming soon; his constant meddling with Axon would come to light eventually, and when that happened, his brain, which looked so old and gray and contained all his life’s memories, would be vaporized.

On his way out, he passed by the other pods, holding the last few clones of himself he had left. Due to their constant failure at obtaining the World Core, he doubted Axon would go through the effort and wasted resources of sending more pods and organic matter his way.

Clicking on his Quest Log, flashing in the corner of his vision, another prompt appeared.

[Quest Complete: Bring Down the Demon King of Necron]

[Quest Provider: Duke Ferdinand of the Empire]

[Rewards: REDACTED]

Constantine ground his teeth, seeing his exp rewards were stolen once again. It was well known that quests could be given by ruling classes such as nobles. It was one of their rulers’ abilities to stimulate development. Axon urged him to take on these quests as the mana used to generate the rewarded exp was easy to hack into and stifle for its own purposes without the World Core’s notice.

The main disadvantage was that he had no way to level up since all his rewards went to Axon, not that he could level up without being updated to the current System. In return, Axon used its abilities to manipulate the flow of energy and provided Constantine with Hacker powers; however, he could only exercise his powers if they were for completing a quest.

Luckily there were generic quests like destroying corrupted creatures, which Axon brought into the world to generate more quests that it could monopolize.

[Quest Complete: Assist UNKNOWN by destroying the Empire’s army.]

[Quest Provider: Axon]

[Rewards: None]

Constantine reached a locker and began taking out some clothes with a frown. He rarely got quests given by Axon, but if he did, it meant he was assisting another agent of Axon with something to further the primary mission. But who was UNKNOWN supposed to be? Thinking for a while, he couldn’t come up with an answer, but Necron did come to mind. He may need to do more research into that new town.

“So long as nobody from Axon reaches the World Core, this planet will remain safe from its vile clutches.” He nodded to himself in the locker mirror and, feeling confident with his clothes, left the secure room, climbed the stairs, and entered the basement of his mansion back in the Empire.

“You look…younger, sir,” a surprised servant said as he entered the hallway of his mansion.

Constantine smiled. “Just did some self-care. Say, Ronald…”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Take me to see Plutus. That oversize sloth has some questions to answer me.”

“Certainly, sir. Should we take the car?”

Constantine nodded and led the way.