Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Chapter 237: Heart of the Aemos

The grating noise continued as Kothar pushed the door further and further, the loud thumps becoming louder and louder, completely filling Kothar's head as he pushed.

[What is that?] Kothar said, he had yet to look at what was behind the double doors, his head down as he focused every fiber of his being on pushing the ridiculously heavy doors.

[It almost sounds like the beating of an enormous heart. Knowing how their technology seems to be alive, it just might be.] Silane replied, if she simulated the sound of a heart, scaled up thousands of times, it would sound very similar to the sound they heard now. 

[That's impressive, but also off putting, I'd rather not find out we were in the body of some enormous beast this whole time.] Kothar responded, the disgust clear in his voice. 

[If my speculations are correct, then we won't be within some enormous beast, but rather within some bioengineered machine, made from scratch by these invaders.] Though they had been fighting the invaders all this time, Silane's voice was clearly filled with admiration for them.

[Alright, but I don't think you'll ever convince me to attach some sort of bioengineered machine to my body, even if it'll make me far stronger.] Kothar's sounded adamant, for some treason, though he could stomach cutting himself open, and attaching machines to his insides, he couldn't stand the thought of attaching some weird sac of foreign flesh and blood to himself.

[I don't Kothar, back when you were an ordinary Sentinel, you swore you'd never give up your stomach, but when the Starheart tech was first announced, you leapt at the chance to volunteer for it.] Silane had an almost teasing tone in her voice.

]That was different.] Kothar grumbled back, meanwhile grunting out loud as he pushed the door the last few centimeters, with it now being wide enough for him to slip through.

Kothar caught his breath for a few moments, even his mana strengthened body had needed to utilize every inch of power within to push the door, this was something that his magic couldn't help him with. 

Spatial and Lighting Magic were destructive and fast in their own right, but they did lack the everyday utility that say Earth Magic could have, for example,  using angled pillars of stone to push the door open. 

But Silane had plans for even that, intending to strengthen Kothar's bones and muscle at the cellular level, utilizing nano machines.

However, for now, Kothar was within the depths of the invaders' ship, about to step beyond the two mysterious doors that towered over him.

Taking one last enormous gasp of air, Kothar slipped through the gap he had pushed open, sucking in to draw his chest in, a screeching sound coming from his armor as it scraped against the grayish/black material at the edge of the door.

Kokthar looked around, he was now within a cavernous hall, the usual tubes that had lit the corridors of the ship gone, replaced with enormous lanterns placed on the red ground at regular intervals.

"Squelch" Came the noise as Kothar stepped forward, the floor was so moist that it sounded as though Kothar was stepping on very thick, almost solid mud, fluid being pushed out from the red ground as he stepped forward.

"Thump!"

"Ba-thump" Now the sound felt as though it came from all around Kothar, and as the thumping noises echoed around the room, the floor shook and pulsed.

It seemed as though the walls were closing in on Kothar, and then the walls rippled and they pushed outward again.

[We're inside it, Kothar! We're inside the heart!] Came Silane's excited voice, she sounded like a child who had discovered a particularly interesting insect in their garden.

[Silane. Please don't forget. We are on a mission.] Kothar responded, trying his best to remain serious in the face of Silane's oddly bright and cheery voice. 

[I know, I know. But look at the floor and the walls, we must be within the wall of the muscle itself, the fibers of the heart muscle look like ropes, those pipes we saw all through the ship must be what carry the 'blood'.] Silane's amazement continued, as she continued to gush about the enormous heart that they were standing in.

Kothar let Silane's voice fade into a drone in the back of his head, and looked around the enormous hall they were in more.

It looked as though it curved right around, mirroring the corridor they had been earlier, but rather than the featureless gray walls, there were now walls made of the red corded heart muscle. 

[Your electromagnetic sensors! They're picking up the action potentials travelling through the muscle!] Silane voice rose in volume, coming back into Kothar's focus. It was true, he could feel the vibration of his belt just before the heart thumped, as the electrical signal travelled across the muscle, triggering the heart to pump.

[If only we could get a sample of this tissue, and a sample of the 'blood' within all their devices.] Silane complained, thinking off all that she could do with this living machinery, in the Alliance she had been able to access their bioengineering research, but it was limited to creating odd hybrids and regrowing the limbs of veterans, not anything like this. 

Kothar sighed, and walked over to one of the walls, drawing a section of cloth out from one of his many pockets, and drawing his short blade.

[There, this should be enough for you to investigate once we have the time and resources, as for the 'blood', there's hundreds of dead soldiers below whose weapons are filled with it.] Kothar said, as he sliced off a section of the wall, the wall rippling as he did so.

Silane said nothing, though she wanted to point out that the 'blood' within the ship and within the weapons might be different, she knew that Kothar had already gone out of his way to collect the piece of muscle.

[Now, back to what we were here for.] Kothar murmured, turning away from the wall and facing the small, black doorway set into the wall, from which the powerful, spatial fluctuations emanated.