The face-off between Arthur Vance and Grand Flesh-Architect Osric Malveaux was not merely a clash of weapons. It was an ideological trial between two fundamentally opposed philosophies of living existence.
Osric rested his massive, four-meter hard shell claws upon the arms of his high-pressure throne. From his open chest cage, the twelve grafted organs pulsed in a chaotic, warring rhythm that generated conflicting elemental auras. Waves of freezing frost from the Qilin lung clashed against blistering magma heat streaming from the Drake heart. That created violent spirals of boiling steam that hissed across his semi-clear skin.
“You speak with the ignorance of youth, Arthur,” Osric rasped, his voice echoing through the vast cathedral. “You were born into a world protected by the Federation’s castle cities. You never saw Year 0. You never saw the skies turn black as the rifts tore open! You never saw three billion humans slaughtered in ninety days by ancient calamities that our weapons couldn’t even scratch!”
Osric’s clockwork compound eye spun in its brass housing, clicking rapidly as it adjusted focal lengths. “You talk of harmony, boy! What harmony was there in Year 0? When the Antarctic drilling rigs pierced the mantle, we let loose cosmic forces that tore the earth open! The Vanguard Federation tells schoolchildren that the rifts were a natural disaster, a sudden awakening of ancient mana! But I was there in 2082! I was the chief medical officer on Project Genesis!”
