The Cyber Elemental immediately went to work, and shifted into the path of the Lightning with 00B’s circuits. It took the Lightning head on…and then it began to grow. As 00B’s first instructions to the initial circuit, the Cyber Elemental was absorbing raw Lightning and converting it into circuits and code. The Cyber Elemental grew and grew as the power coursing through 00B’s circuits began to die down. One by one, his systems deactivated and came back under his control. Soon, his cannon turret ceased fire, and his natural regeneration was close to catching up with the damage he was taking.

The Cyber Elemental then prompted him.

“Protect(Family)?”

“Yes.”

B reacted to the Cyber Elemental’s request and activated his wireless communications. The Cyber Elemental gingerly extended a portion of itself into the transmitter.

A small bolt of lightning, only straight and angular, fired from 00B into 00EW. A short while later, the worm’s own weapons stopped firing at random, and the cyborg monster gained control of itself once more. It spun about and then wriggled across the ground to 00B’s location, helping shield the smaller monsters from harm with its large body. 00B grunted at them all, telling them to reactivate the CELIU link. 00EW and the cyber-rats and cyber-spiders underneath them nodded and did as he said.

The Cyber Elemental froze as the network came online. It reached out…and found a perfect media. More of its own element being constantly generated as the cyborgs’ AIs ran and communicated with one another. It quickly spread itself across the cyborgs and grew rapidly in size. 00B led the others in supporting it, contributing their processors to the Cyber Elemental’s growth program. The amount of Lightning it could absorb increased as well, 00B and 00EW taking less and less damage with each strike.

And more importantly…the CELIU network connection stabilized. The electronic signals previously interfered with by all the ambient electromagnetic radiation were now wrapped in and carrying parts of the Cyber Elemental’s body…which simply absorbed any extra electromagnetic energy it encountered and incorporated it into itself. In fact, it even reorganized the energy to match the signal carrying it, making it even stronger and clearer.

B turned towards the Prismatic Dome, where 01R and the others were staring at him in shock and concern. 00B then roared at them. 01R blinked.

“Reactivate-Reenable the CELIU network?”

R shook his head and turned to the others.

“Do as 00B says-commands, yes yes!”

The monsters in the dome did as 01R said…and then froze as the Cyber Elemental made contact with them. But 00B messaged them and informed them of what happened, so they each allowed the Cyber Elemental to connect to them. The Cyber Elemental surged in size and power, its code growing more and more complex with each new connection.

Soon, it was ready.

When the next Lightning Bolt struck 00B, the Cyber Elemental struck back. Lines of circuitry formed out of mana shot up the bolt…and into the storm clouds above.

“What’s this? Some sort of Lighting Elemental? Oh foolish invaders, this is your most pathetic attempt yet. Do you not know that the larger elemental absorbs the smaller?”

And so the dungeon master ignored the attack, for the elemental had already killed itself.

Or so the dungeon master thought.

The Cyber Elemental had not, in fact, been absorbed, although it had been close. Too much lightning might wash away its carefully constructed circuits. But since the dungeon master was ignoring it, it managed to hold on.

And then it got to work.

Bolts of lightning began to flash between the storm clouds, as was normal for thunderstorms. But what the dungeon master didn’t notice was that these bolts were not as random as before. They began striking in sequence, in a pattern moving around the clouds. Eventually, it struck back at the starting point, and then started up again.

The dungeon master did not notice, for why would they? Even if they saw such a pattern, it would merely have confused them. What would the enemy hope to achieve by making shapes out of lightning? For they certainly weren’t harming the dungeon master with it.

And so the bolt struck faster and faster, until eventually there was a continuous circle of lightning in the sky.

And at that moment, the dungeon master gasped.

It was a simple pattern, just circulating the lightning around without any further modification or intention, which was the most the Cyber Elemental could achieve with such a raw amount of power as the storm. But…it was a pattern, organizing the lightning into a specific structure.

And as far as the mana of Aelea was concerned…that was the difference between the Lightning and the newly growing Cyborg/Cyber attributes.

So by this simple measure…the dungeon master suddenly lost control of a good portion of the storm as it shifted attributes. And the dungeon master did not understand the new attribute, as they had never encountered it…so the Cyber Elemental was able to grab hold of all that mana.

“You…what is this? What have you done?!”

The dungeon master was not beaten, however. They took what parts of the storm remained under their control and launched a terrible barrage of lightning at the giant circuit in the sky. The raw amount of power might have been enough to break it down back into base lightning…if the dungeon master had understood what was going on and the nature of the new attribute. Instead, they, panicked by the sudden loss of control they didn’t understand, simply lashed out. The bolts struck at random points along the circuit…and so were individually weak enough to be drawn into it. The circuit held as the Cyber Elemental incorporated more and more power into it.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The dungeon master grew more and more panicked, believing they were about to be incorporated into another elemental. And in doing so…forgot about the monsters on the ground. The lightning had ceased to strike downwards, focused as the dungeon master was on the fight in the clouds.

The cyborgs dropped the Prismatic Dome and 01R immediately boosted towards the peak of the mountain, activating every repulsor, Dash skill, and speed-boosting spell he had available. He rocketed up and into the small building at the top of the mountain. A Lightning Barrier guarded the entrance, but 01R grit his teeth and pushed through it. The Barrier had been weakened as the fight in the clouds had drawn away the lightning powering it, and the portion of the Cyber Elemental within 01R’s circuits helped him to endure the damage. And as he had hoped…once he was inside, he saw the dungeon core laying upon its pedestal.

R formed a blade out of Light and Holy mana, and then charged forward, swinging the blade down. This dungeon was not considered strategically vital to the Empire nor to the local Thunder Harpies, so 01R had permission to terminate it if necessary. And under the circumstances, he decided not to take any chances.

The dungeon core shattered.

“NO!”

The dungeon master felt as its bond with the core shattered. And worse…the storm clouds began to fade, and the mountain began to shrink down to its original hill size.

Which meant the dungeon master quickly began losing power…while they were striking the circuit with lightning, and so attached to it. They could do nothing but scream as the circuit pulled in the remaining lightning…including the lightning comprising their very body.

Just a few minutes later, the cyborgs were standing victorious upon a hill, with the sun breaking through the fading storm clouds.

Seero perceived as her cybernetic components reconnected to 01R’s group. The CELIU network had lost connection with them when they approached the Stormy Veil, only for the group to retreat with critically injured members.

Seero very nearly ordered them to change targets.

She was confronted with the grim reality that casualties were expected in warfare. Up to this point, Seero had only engaged in singular battles against limited opponents restricted to the tactical scale. As a result, her own combat efficiency allowed her to terminate the enemy essentially without threat to any of her own subordinates.

But that was no longer the case. They were now conducting warfare on the operational and strategic level, with multiple fronts that needed to be addressed as quickly as possible. And that was just to handle the dungeon crisis, they had not even identified the locations or goals of their primary opponent at the time. Seero could not be everywhere at once. So, pulling her subordinates and friends to pull back, only allowing them to engage when she could guarantee a lack of casualties, would have consequences. It would take them more time to handle the dungeon situation, which meant more time before they could resume their search for the Heralds of the New Dawn, buying their opponents more time to conduct further hostile acts against them. Likewise, the longer she took dealing with the dungeons, the more casualties the Empire would take, and the more strategic locations it would lose. She would be trading small casualties among her own forces for greater casualties among her allies. This would result in significantly weaker allies when the crisis was dealt with and she moved against the Heralds of the New Dawn, meaning her own forces would have to shoulder a greater part of the burden at that stage.

And that stage would be the more dangerous one. The Heralds of the New Dawn were intelligent, organized, and possessed non-standard capabilities even by the standards of Aelea. Seero predicted with concerning probability that this dungeon situation could be their doing. In contrast, the current dungeon attacks were disorganized and haphazard, with hordes of monsters simply scattering in every direction and wreaking whatever havoc they could. The battles with the monsters could be carefully calculated and controlled, the movements of the enemy could be predicted, and the assaults could be conducted as per whatever plans Seero’s forces drew up. Such would not be the case against the Heralds of the New Dawn.

So, ultimately, even though it caused her heart to race and her emotional processing to output fear, Seero concluded 01R’s assaults needed to go on, even if cyborg units were at risk of termination. Because if they did not risk termination now, against opponents they understood in battlefields they could control, the entire CELIU network would face a greater risk of termination later against a much more capable opponent, with significantly weakened allies.

Still, she initially planned to reroute 01R to another dungeon given the unanticipated weakness of CELIU units to the Lightning Attribute, but by then 01R and the others had begun brainstorming countermeasures. Seero calculated that it would be inefficient of her to interfere. Given that the Stormy Veil cut off long-range communications, she would not be able to monitor their progress from a distance, and so could not adapt pre-combat plans to the actual reality. In that way, as long as 01R and the others were fighting without her, they needed the ability to plan and command without her as well. Even Dr. Ottosen’s organization did not micromanage tactics for individual NSLICE units once engaged in combat.

So Seero took a step back…or tried to. She had a thread devoted to monitoring the group, right up to when they began tunneling into the Stormy Veil’s mountain. And once she lost contact again, she began analyzing options to reestablish contact.

It was at that moment that her cybernetic half caught herself, and pointed out she was acting inefficiently, and in opposition to her original analysis. Her organic half objected, but the cybernetic half simply displayed physiological data demonstrating symptoms of significant fear, and then observed her organic half was devoting excessive resources to reducing those symptoms. Her organic half fell silent. Her cybernetic half reassured her that their analysis indicated this plan minimized the probability of a friendly being terminated not only now, but for the war as a whole. It proposed that it could temporarily reinstate emotional controls if that would help her organic half. As of now, emotional controls were limited solely to tactically necessary situations or to repel foreign intrusions, but if the organic half wished to reduce the negative emotion, she had a tool that could do so.

Her organic half thought for a moment, and then refused. Temporarily reinstating emotional controls during combat operations was one thing, a necessity to avoid termination and a protocol her organic half agreed with. Doing so now, when she was under no threat or necessity to do so, was something else.

Her cybernetic half acknowledged this, but pointed out that at the same time she should not waste resources as she was. She had already determined it was necessary for 01R and the others to assault dungeons on their own, so that their side’s response would not be limited to Seero as a sole unit. She had determined the monsters’ latest plan to have an acceptably high probability of success and an acceptably low risk of termination. Any attempts to reestablish contact mid-operation would not change those probabilities, and would go against her earlier conclusions.

The organic half acknowledged this. And yet…the fear remained. Her cybernetic half was uncertain how to proceed at that stage. She had protocols for spreading fear among hostile forces in order to terminate their morale, but none for terminating fear amongst herself save for physical contact with her friends, which was not possible at the moment.

But such matters would have to wait. Seero’s organic eye widened ever so slightly, and blinked slightly more often than was necessary to maintain optimal lubrication.

R and the others had reestablished contact with the overall CELIU network.

And…

Seero detected an unidentified presence in the network.