265 The Four Horsemen
265 The Four Horsemen
I searched for Guesswork the fastest way I knew how, which meant abandoning roads, hallways, and any normal sense of travel. I teleported across different cities in uneven jumps, blinking through offices, empty corridors, rooftops, and once through the middle of a cafeteria where a woman dropped her coffee as I appeared beside the vending machines and vanished again before she could even scream. Guesswork tended to orbit centers of authority whenever something large was brewing, so I kept aiming for places where people in suits gathered to argue about things that would inevitably get someone else killed.
It took longer than I liked, given all the chaos, but I managed to find someone who could point me on the right direction.
I landed inside a conference room that vibrated with raised voices and clashing egos. A long table dominated the space, ringed by well-dressed men and women with expensive watches, tired eyes, and the collective posture of people used to being listened to. Guesswork stood at the head of the table, shoulders tight, expression caught somewhere between irritation and exhaustion.
He was in the middle of a heated argument.
“You’re ignoring the data because it’s inconvenient,” Guesswork snapped, palms flat against the table. “The Devil’s Triangle isn’t a contained incident. The projections show cascading failure across the coastal population centers if the breach widens.”
A gray-haired man across the table shook his head sharply. “Your projections rely on assumptions that your power provides, and we’ve already established that those predictions are not verifiable.”
Another woman leaned forward, tapping a pen against her tablet. “We are talking about evacuating millions of people and shutting down half the shipping infrastructure in the Atlantic. You’re asking governments and corporations to burn billions over what currently appears to be a terrorist cell with delusions of grandeur.”
Guesswork’s voice sharpened. “A terrorist cell that keeps producing new fighters at a rate that doesn’t make logistical sense. It’s a fucking invasion out there, so I suggest you get your heads straight and stop dawdling.”
“That doesn’t justify an evacuation order,” someone else cut in. “Your so-called crisis zone is isolated to the Triangle itself. Every engagement report indicates the casualties are limited to the combatants involved.”
“And we are still not convinced your ability is giving you reliable projections,” another man added coldly. “Several analysts believe your power may be extrapolating worst-case outcomes rather than real ones. The fighting happening outside will be suppressed in record time. This fanatics are nothing more than civilians, victims of incitement that probably would’ve been avoided if the GDF was doing there job properly.”
Guesswork’s jaw tightened. “You’re casting doubt on my power because the conclusion is inconvenient. And now, you are blaming the GDF?”
“Because the conclusion costs us everything,” the gray-haired man replied. “And let’s be honest, the GDF is nothing without Griffin.”
I stood quietly near the wall while the argument spiraled, realizing halfway through that I must have looked like an absolute chump without my mask. The suit didn’t help. Everyone in the room wore one, which meant I blended in surprisingly well for a guy who had teleported into a high-level meeting uninvited.
Still, subtlety had never been my strong suit.
I phased everyone’s pants off.
One moment the room was full of dignified officials and executives. The next moment trousers and skirts slipped straight through their bodies and puddled on the floor as if gravity had suddenly remembered them.
The resulting panic was immediate and chaotic.
Chairs scraped violently. Someone yelped. Another person tried to grab clothing that had already fallen beyond reach. A security agent near the wall lunged for his sidearm before realizing his holster had disappeared with the rest of his belt.
Honestly, it looked pretty amusing.
A few of them finally noticed me standing there.
“What’s happening?” I asked Guesswork.
Guesswork dragged a hand down his face before glaring around the room. “What’s happening is that I’ve gathered representatives from governments and corporations across half the planet to explain an existential threat, and instead of listening they keep arguing over quarterly losses and supply chains. These fools are so ill informed it’s painful. Every projection I’ve run shows the same thing, but convincing them to move past their corporate interests for the sake of the bigger picture is apparently impossible.”
I shrugged. “Just put them at the bottom of the list, when the need for an evacuation does take place. It’s like everyone here forgot about the meteor two years ago.”
To be honest, I would have preferred they started moving people immediately, but I knew enough about bureaucracy to realize how much money and infrastructure it took to push something like that into motion.
The room went quiet.
People stared at me.
Guesswork tilted his head slightly before speaking. “Let me guess why you are here. You want advice. Tell me anything new, and I’ll do my best.”
“The Cult of the End is collecting souls from the people they kill,” I said.
For a second there was silence.
Then the crowd laughed.
It was the restrained kind of laughter people used when they thought someone important had said something stupid but didn’t want to be rude about it.
One of the executives leaned toward another and muttered, “Did he actually say souls?”
“This is exactly the problem with letting capes dictate policy,” another voice said under their breath. “We move from counterterrorism to metaphysics in a single sentence.”
A woman near the end of the table shook her head. “Soul harvesting is not a real phenomenon. There is no empirical framework for anything resembling that claim.”
“Even if these cultists believe that nonsense,” someone else added, “it only proves they’re insane, not that the concept itself has any basis in reality.”
Another man scoffed. “We are supposed to evacuate entire cities because a group of delusional murderers thinks they are collecting souls?”
“They probably believe the souls are fueling some apocalyptic ritual,” someone replied dryly. “Which is exactly the kind of fantasy extremist groups latch onto.”
I let them finish before speaking again.
“There’s no scientific proof behind the existence of souls at current times,” I said calmly, “but they do exist.”
Guesswork sighed and glanced around the room. “Sorry about them. They are the voices of various companies and governments around the world that I managed to gather, and as you can see I’m doing my utmost in futility to convince them. Let’s talk somewhere else.”
I stepped closer, grabbed his shoulder, and phased us both out of the room.
The conference table, the panicking executives, and the scattered pants vanished instantly as the world folded around us.
We reappeared on a rooftop overlooking the coastline.
From that height, the battlefield around this particular city-state were quite visible. Helicopters circled overhead while SRC troopers formed defensive perimeters along the shore. Explosions flashed in the distance, lighting up clusters of cultists charging toward fortified positions.
“I noticed something,” I said, watching another wave of fighters surge toward the barricades. “It seems they are not losing any numbers at all. They keep tossing this rag tag cultists on our way, and they just don’t seem to end.”
Guesswork followed my gaze toward the distant chaos. “There’s a working theory forming among several teams. Portal technology. Not crude wormholes either, but something layered and stable enough to move large groups repeatedly. The traces we’ve found suggest the cultists aren’t all coming from this world around the globe.”
He crossed his arms thoughtfully.
“There might be entire worlds behind them. Parallel environments, isolated populations, possibly even controlled breeding grounds for recruits. Multiple investigation teams have already reported anomalies in the neurological scans of captured cultists. Certain regions of their brains show deliberate structural changes. Parts responsible for fear responses are suppressed, while other areas related to obedience and pattern fixation appear enhanced.”
He glanced toward the distant fighting again.
“They are modified people.”
I leaned on the edge of the rooftop, staring at the endless tide of bodies moving through the smoke.
“What are they doing with all of the souls, Guesswork?” I asked quietly. “I don’t really have the luxury of time right now. They are gathering all of these souls, but for what means? Moreover, there’s four of them highly rated capes assaulting the Devil’s Triangle right now, and I’m honestly not making any meaningful progress.”
“Do you know about the theory about how there’s no intelligent life that exists outside our planet?” he asked suddenly. “In the entire universe, there’s only a single world with lifeforms like us capable of emotion, thought, and communication. Outside that? Nothing. Aliens are not real and couldn’t be a thing. Of course, parallel worlds are an exception.”
He leaned against the rooftop railing while the wind pulled at his coat.
“A prevailing theory is that it was because the world in itself has a soul of its own, and that’s why we can exist. This theory came from a lost civilization born from a parallel world, studying the concept of souls, eventually leading them to learning about the Source and harnessing it in ways that other organisms among many parallel worlds can’t do.” He paused briefly before adding, “Guess what? The SRC didn’t like that and they annihilated them for it.”
I frowned at him.
“Please tell me there’s a point to this.”
Guesswork continued as if he hadn’t heard the impatience in my voice.
“The same way souls exist, perhaps heaven and hell too? I’ve seen many things in this line of work. The SRC have ways to distort time for their people in unimaginable ways. I’m in fact way older than the last time you met me.” His eyes shifted toward me, strangely calm despite the explosions echoing across the streets. “So, I want you to listen to this little wisdom I have for you. You don’t need my advice.”
I scoffed.
“You are wasting my time. You know I didn’t come to you for a pep talk.”
“Griffin’s not coming,” Guesswork replied flatly. “She’s dead, remember? You have to do this by yourself, and you need to make it work.”
That hit harder than I expected.
My mind drifted back to the words of a different Guesswork, the one who claimed to have come from the future. I remembered the quiet certainty in that version of him when he talked about the point where everything broke apart. I imagined we were nearing that meaningful moment, the one where the path eventually led to destroying the SRC.
But it felt wrong.
It was too soon.
Guesswork pushed himself away from the railing and faced me fully.
“You’ll be fighting the Four Horsemen, Nick. That’s what the capes you were fighting would be called if we fail to stop them. The thing is, it won’t be you who’s going to stop them. If you fight them now, you will lose, so I ask you draw out their abilities as much as you could. That way, the others would improve their chances.”
“I don’t see myself losing to them,” I replied.
“I didn’t say anything about you losing to them.”
I rubbed my temples in frustration.
“Stop feeding me riddles, Guesswork.”
“You will die,” he said plainly, “but you’ll be fine. When you get back on your feet, gather your strength and others then you can try again. By then, I hoped the Four Horsemen would already be dealt with.”
He glanced back toward the streets below where the battlefield burned brighter with each passing minute.
“Now, go. The stage was probably set up. By now, the nukes should’ve landed on the Devil’s Triangle.”
That was cold, even for Guesswork.
The way he said it made it sound like the thousands of people tangled in that battlefield were just numbers on a chart. Soldiers, capes, cultists, and civilian staff who got caught in the chaos. To him, they were variables already accounted for.
Fodder.
Guesswork spoke again as if discussing something routine.
“I’ll have a capable cape watch the fight from the distance and perhaps a few drones. Nicole would probably be sending someone. Make the most of it, Nick.”
“I’m going now.”
I teleported in warp-state with my Intangibility-30 wrapped tightly around me and found myself hovering over the Devil’s Triangle.
It still looked the same in shape.
A massive triangular patch of exposed ocean floor sat where the water used to churn with storms and wreckage. Except now, the entire place had been nuked.
The aftermath looked apocalyptic.
Great sections of the seabed had been vitrified into glassy craters where nuclear fire had burned the sand and stone together. Jagged shockwaves had carved trenches across the exposed ocean floor, turning the area into a landscape of shattered rock and molten scars. The water around the perimeter had boiled and rushed back in unevenly, forming thick curtains of steam that drifted across the battlefield like ghostly fog.
Most of the flying ships that once surrounded the Devil’s Triangle were simply gone.
Where there had once been fleets of vessels forming offensive lines, there were now twisted skeletons of steel partially buried beneath pulverized debris. Entire hulls had been peeled open by the blast waves, leaving ribs of metal jutting upward like broken bones.
Some ships had been completely erased.
Only fragments remained.
But one ship still existed.
It had clearly been caught in the blasts, its hull warped and partially melted, yet it still stood like a dying monument in the center of the devastation. The vessel had crash-landed into the seabed at a crooked angle, half embedded in the stone as if the ocean itself had tried to swallow it.
That was the main ship of the cultists.
The one storing the souls.
Briana’s Trench was gone.
The massive abyss that once split the ocean floor had vanished beneath kilometers of collapsed rock and nuclear debris. In its place, several large machines crawled across the ruined terrain like insects. Their mechanical drills bored through rubble while scanning equipment swept back and forth.
They were digging and trying to find the trench again.
Paleman stood among the devastation.
He tilted his head upward toward me, his pale featureless face somehow locking onto my position despite the complete absence of eyes. The blank surface where his face should have been reflected the orange glow of distant fires.
I couldn’t see the others, which meant they were waiting.
I didn’t waste time thinking about it.
The soul storage had to be destroyed.
I shifted deeper into warp-state while keeping my body intangible, compressing space around me until acceleration snapped into existence. Superspeed surged through my movement as I dropped toward the crashed ship like a meteor.
Then something appeared in front of me.
An armored rider materialized through a burst of teleportation technology.
A mechanical horse stood beneath them, its metal body hissing with steam while glowing joints flexed like living muscles. The rider wore dark armor and held a long lance angled toward me.
I slowed instantly.
I already had a clue who these two were.
Both the horse and the rider.
I descended to the ground instead of crashing straight through them. The moment my feet touched the shattered seabed, I accelerated sideways and swung my arm in a warp-state punch.
The rider tried to react, though he was too slow for me. My fist phased through the helmet and struck the inside. The helm split apart and fell away.
George stared back at me.
Except it wasn’t the George I remembered.
The younger face he once had was gone. His features had matured into something sharper and older, the roundness replaced by hardened lines. He looked like a more mature version of the boy-facade I once knew.
Then the horse beneath him must be Dullahan.
Except she looked different too.
Her mechanical body had grown larger and heavier, armor plates layered over her frame while vents along her sides vented thick streams of steam. Her eyes glowed faintly beneath the metal skull. Not to mention, she was now a horse, instead of her humanoid shape.
George’s lance shifted into warp-state.
He swung it in a brutal arc aimed straight through my torso.
I caught the weapon with my hand and collapsed its structure with a warping twist. The lance crumpled and disintegrated into fragments.
I didn’t care much for Dullahan.
But George was a close friend.
Which made this situation far worse.
I kicked into warp-state again, intending to disable him quickly.
Paleman appeared beside me. He didn’t move fast in the normal sense. His arm expanded grotesquely as the flesh swelled outward into a massive pale limb before swinging toward me with crushing force.
I phased downward through the seabed and reappeared on the other side of George, still trying to understand what had been done to him. I reached toward him, trying to pull him off Dullahan’s saddle.
The horse let out a metallic neigh that blasted steam from her vents, and then she teleported.
Both of them vanished.
A figure wrapped in a red scarf appeared in front of me almost instantly, moving with terrifying speed. “Not so fast, mister.”
War’s fist came flying toward my face.
I sliced the arm off with a small warping motion of my hand. The severed limb fell, and then regenerated. The stump twisted violently as muscle, bone, and skin erupted outward to rebuild the arm in seconds. War immediately swung again with the freshly formed limb.
I cut that one off too.
His other arm came at me.
That one dropped as well.
Both regenerated.
War kept pressing forward without slowing, throwing punch after punch while his limbs were repeatedly severed and regrown. His red scarf began to writhe violently as the cloth unraveled into liquid streams.
Blood.
The scarf wasn’t cloth at all.
It was liquid blood shaped into the form of a scarf as it poured endlessly from his neck. The crimson fluid surged outward in bursts, forming spikes, blades, and high-speed projectiles that shot toward me from multiple directions.
I phased the skin off his body with a quick intangible hand. His organs were exposed, however skin regenerated instantly over his body. A sudden crushing pressure wrapped around my body.
Telekinesis.
Master Sequence had grabbed me.
I spotted him hiding behind a cluster of broken rock near the wreckage and picked up a large chunk of debris. I forced the stone into warp-state and threw it directly at him.
The projectile screamed through the air.
George appeared beside it mid-flight.
A new lance materialized in his hand as he parried the rock cleanly in half.
Paleman burst from my flank. His body distorted again as a massive tentacle erupted from his back and smashed directly through my torso. It passed harmlessly through me, getting used to his null attribute. I kept my body intangible while slicing the tentacle apart with a sustained warp-state edge. The severed mass collapsed onto the ground.
I grabbed War by the throat who recklessly threw himself on me.
Before he could regenerate another attack, I forced my hand through his chest and pulled upward, ripping him open from the inside. Blood and organs spilled out violently as his body split apart under the motion.
Then I teleported.
Using Intangibility-30, I reappeared instantly behind Master Sequence where he was hiding behind a broken slab of rock.
My hand moved.
Master Sequence exploded with a self-destructive means. His body burst apart violently as if detonated from within, scattering fragments of flesh and metal across the debris and then the smoke cleared.
The Four Horsemen stood before me. George sat calmly atop Dullahan. War’s body had already reformed completely. Paleman’s pale figure remained untouched. And Master Sequence stepped out from behind another piece of wreckage as if nothing had happened. It seemed the one I killed had just been another spare body.
They looked completely unharmed.
It almost looked like I wasn’t trying.
I stared at them for a moment before exhaling slowly.
“Yeah,” I muttered, irritation creeping into my voice. “This is getting annoying. I guess it looks like I’m slacking off right now.”