Chapter 604: Nitocris In The City [Bonus - ]

Chapter 604: Nitocris In The City [Bonus Chapter]

Harper watched the illusion settle with her mind spinning.

’She’s actually protecting my identity? Why?’

Ten minutes later, they reached the grand southern checkpoint of Iunu.

The gates were titanic, two three-hundred-foot slabs of white alloy flanked by automated mana-cannons and manned by dozens of royal guards clad in gleaming gold plate.

A long line of hover-trucks, merchant caravans, and tourists snaked toward the scanners.

When it was their turn, a burly guard with a scarred chin leaned out of the terminal booth, tapping his scanner wand against the counter.

"Identification," the guard grunted, not even looking up. "Name, sector of origin, and purpose of entry."

Harper’s physical body abruptly stiffened.

Nitocris had faced armies of primordial horrors without flinching, but standing in front of a modern turnstile, she looked completely lost.

’Wait, where did the girl keep the little rectangular glass tile...?’ Nitocris’s thoughts echoed into Harper’s mind like a grandmother trying to operate a high-velocity particle accelerator.

Harper’s physical hands began patting frantically across her cloak, diving into her pockets, pulling out a lip balm, a half-empty packet of mints, a hair clip, and a receipt for dry cleaning as her face began flushing bright red with uncoordinated embarrassment.

’I am so sorry, Harper!’ Nitocris apologized frantically in their shared consciousness, her dignity entirely evaporating into panicked fluster. ’Which pocket?! Why does mortal clothing possess six different hidden pouches?! Is it the left one?! Oh gods, he is looking at me!’

The guard slowly raised his head with his brow furrowing as he watched this plain-looking girl clumsily juggle three coins, a receipt, and an empty wrapper.

Floating beside them, Harper slapped her ethereal hands over her face, groaning in pure secondhand embarrassment.

’Stop, please, just stop...’ Harper whimpered mentally. ’Inner left breast pocket... Inside the leather card-sleeve and tap it flat against the blue glass, don’t shove it into his face.’

Why was she helping the woman that ripped out her heart... Harper really didn’t know. Was she this forgiving, what the hell was wrong with her?

’Ah! Bless you, scabbard!’

Nitocris deftly reached into the inner lining, pulled out the sleek silver ID card, and carefully tapped it against the reader.

BEEP!

[Entry Approved: Whitmore Commercial Logistics — Priority Class B.]

The guard sighed, handing the card back.

"Move along, miss. Don’t block the lane."

"M-May the sun shine favorably upon your household, honorable gatekeeper!" Nitocris blurted out with an awkward formal curtsy that belonged in a court from eight hundred years ago.

The guard stared at her as if she had grown a second head. "Yeah, yeah. Welcome to Iunu. Keep walking, weirdo..."

Nitocris scurried past the turnstile with Harper’s physical boots practically kicking up dust as she rushed into the bustling lower plaza of the capital.

Once they cleared the security perimeter, Nitocris leaned Harper’s back against a stone pillar, letting out an enormous shuddering sigh of pure relief.

’That was horrifying,’ Nitocris confided to Harper, wiping cold sweat from her brow. ’Modern bureaucracy is infinitely more terrifying than the rift-beasts of the first era...’

Harper’s astral spirit simply stared at her, completely numb.

’Is this the same woman as before...?’

It made her very confused. How did that terrifying woman turn into a frightened schoolgirl at a toll booth...?

However, the moment Nitocris turned around to face the main thoroughfare, her eyes widened into massive sparkling emerald saucers.

The lower market of Iunu was an explosion of her senses.

Towering holographic banners floated between white limestone arches, automated vendor carts rolled along magnetic tracks and the air was also thick with the mouth-watering aromas of roasting spiced lamb, caramelized figs, fried honey pastries, and sweet iced pomegranate nectar.

Hundreds of tourists and citizens in colorful silk tunics laughed, bargained, and strolled through the open-air pavilions.

"By the three suns..." Nitocris breathed, Harper’s physical throat audibly swallowing as her eyes darted from one stall to the next. "What is that marvelous contraption? And that smell, is that roasted fowl glazed in date syrup? Harper, look at that frozen white cream in those tiny paper bowls!"

Nitocris turned Harper’s head toward the floating spirit with her expression filled with a child-like, pleading eagerness that looked absurd on a conqueror.

"Harper..." Nitocris whispered softly. "I am going to die very soon. Within hours, my existence will fade into nothingness so before I shatter this soul, may I please try some of these wonderful things? Could I, could I use some of your money?"

Harper’s translucent form remained dead quiet.

She stared at the woman wearing her body.

’Why are you asking me like that? You’re holding a sword that can cleave a fortress... You could just force my hands to swipe the card so why ask for my permission?’

Seeing Harper’s heavy conflicted silence, Nitocris quickly lowered her eyes with an embarrassed flush dusting her cheeks.

"I... I understand," Nitocris murmured apologetically. "It was presumptuous of me... You don’t need to share your wealth so tell you what, once I breach the palace and slaughter Nefertari’s heirs, I will open the royal treasury for you. I will dump mountain-loads of pure, refined gold and ancient spirit gems into your Lord Inventory! You’ll be the wealthiest merchant in the entire world so, just two sweet pastries for now? Please?"

Harper let out an exhausted defeated breath that lacked physical air.

’Go to the bakery stall on the corner,’ Harper transmitted dryly. ’Buy the almond honey cakes and get the pistachio ice cream from the brass cart beside it. The card’s pin is four-eight-two-one.’

"You are an angel of mercy, Harper Whitmore!"

Within five minutes, Nitocris was strolling down the sidewalk with Harper’s physical cheeks stuffed full of sticky honey pastry, holding a double-scoop cone of bright green pistachio ice cream in her left hand.

LICK!

"Mmmph!" Nitocris’s eyes practically rolled back in sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. "Cold! It’s sweet, creamy, and freezing cold... How do they capture winter in a bowl during the height of the summer heat?! This era is truly miraculous!"

After devouring the treats with astonishing speed, Nitocris walked to the curb, looking at the stream of sleek hovering yellow vehicles gliding past.

’Now, how does one summon these mechanical chariots?’ Nitocris wondered, tilting her head.

She stepped right into the road, planted her boots wide, and aggressively raised both arms over her head, waving her hands in frantic circular motions as if she were signaling a naval fleet in the middle of a typhoon.

SCREEEEEECH!

A yellow hover-cab swerved violently with its repulsor coils hissing as it slammed to a halt barely three inches from Harper’s knees.

The driver, a middle-aged Khemet man with a thick black mustache and a floral print shirt, rolled down his window, sticking his head out with a furious scowl.

"Are you trying to commit suicide, lady?!" the driver yelled. "What kind of lunatic jumps into active traffic waving her arms like a windmill?!"

Nitocris didn’t flinch.

She simply offered him a bright and completely shameless smile, opening the rear door and sliding onto the faux-leather seat.

"Greetings, master of the chariot!" Nitocris announced regally. "Take me to the Grand Temple-Keep of Hathor-Sekhmet, situated at the apex of the High Dune!"

The driver stared at her through the rearview mirror, his mustache twitching in confusion.

"The... the what now?" the driver blinked. "The Grand Temple-Keep? Lady, what history book did you crawl out of? You mean the Royal Citadel of the Pharaoh-President?"

Nitocris blinked Harper’s eyes. "Is that what they call it now?"

The driver let out a booming laugh, shaking his head as he shifted the hover-drive into gear with the cab smoothly gliding into the flow of traffic.

"Man, you historical reenactment nerds are getting wilder every year," the driver chuckled. "First it was the kids dressing up in linen sheets for the Sun Festival, now you’re talking like an ancient inscription but yeah, I can take you to the inner gate tourist drop-off... Ain’t nobody getting past the second perimeter unless you’ve got an Al-Mansur seal tattooed on your forehead."

As the cab glided through the sprawling urban corridors, Nitocris looked out the tinted window with her green eyes drinking in the sights.

"Tell me, chariot master," Nitocris asked casually. "How fares the realm in this modern age? Is Khemet truly unified under the sun?"

The driver scoffed, tapping his fingers against the steering yoke.

"Unified? On paper, sure but that’s just propaganda for the World Council cameras... Ever since the First Era, way back after the death of the legendary First Per-aa, Nitocris, this entire nation’s been a mess. You know your history, right? Her older sister, Queen Nefertari, took the throne, and her reign was a disaster."

Nitocris’s posture subtly stiffened, her fingers digging slightly into the leather seat cushion.

"A disaster? How so?"

"The woman was a paranoid tyrant," the driver explained casually, navigating a busy skyway interchange. "She spent her entire rule purging Nitocris’s loyal generals, terrified they’d find out whatever shady shit she pulled in the rifts... When she died, the succession broke down immediately as the country fractured into four warring sectors... North Khemet, South Khemet, East, and West. Even today, centuries after the Al-Mansur dynasty patched it back together, the discrimination is disgusting."

He gestured out the window toward a sprawling crowded district of drab concrete housing blocks far below the skyway.

"Look down there. That’s the Southern Sector migrants... The High Court in Iunu hoards all the solar-quartz and water rights for the Northern aristocrats. If you’re from the South or the West, you’re treated like third-class dirt. You pay double taxes, you get no military protection from the rift-creepers, and you’re barred from holding high administrative office... They call us ’one nation under the Sun-Crown,’ but it’s just one ruling family sitting on the necks of millions."

CRUNCH!

A cracking sound echoed from the rear seat as Nitocris was staring down at her own lap.

Harper’s physical right fist was clenched so hard that the knuckles were bloodless, tiny fissures of black glassy energy leaking through the pores of her skin.

Beneath the beige cotton cloak, the ancient warrior’s heart was screaming with agonizing fury.

’I bled a million monsters into the dirt so that all the people of Khemet could walk as equals,’ Nitocris wept silently, her soul burning with unmitigated wrath. ’I built this empire for the humble, for the farmers, for the mothers! And that wretched jealous snake turned my paradise into a slaughterhouse!’

"Hey, we’re approaching the inner threshold," the driver announced, unaware of the apocalyptic demon sitting behind him.

The cab pulled up to a massive shimmering gold energy barrier that divided the commercial sprawl from the core.

Armed sentries in ceremonial eagle-visored helms stood beside automated toll terminals.

BEEP!

"That’ll be ten thousand Spirit Credits just to cross the gate, miss," the driver said, grimacing slightly. "The inner district is exclusive to high-tier nobility and verified luxury tourists... Even breathing the filtered air near the Pharaoh’s palace has a price tag."

Nitocris reached into Harper’s pocket, seamlessly tapping the credit card against the cab’s terminal.

"Paid," Nitocris said softly, her voice remarkably calm as the golden barrier parted, and the cab glided into the inner sanctuary.

Here, the air was entirely different.

It was cool, perfumed with imported jasmine and lotus oils, filtered by massive atmospheric terra-scrubbers.

Pristine gardens of luminescent blue flora lined wide, paved avenues of white quartz and in the center of the district, towering majestically against the burning sun, rose the White Citadel of Iunu, a colossal stepped pyramid of polished white titanium and gold, radiating the sovereign might of House Al-Mansur.

The cab pulled over at a designated tourist observation turnout three hundred yards from the citadel’s outer moat.

"Here you go, miss," the driver smiled, unlocking the doors. "Take lots of pictures, but don’t wander off the paved path. The palace guards don’t have a sense of humor about trespassers..."

Nitocris stepped out of the cab with her clothes fluttering in the gentle breeze as she paused, looking back through the open window with her expression genuinely warm.

"Thank you, chariot master," Nitocris said softly. "Drive far away from this district today. Go home to your family, take your children into your arms, and do not look back at the palace."

The driver blinked, confused by the strange farewell. "Uh, sure thing, lady. Take care of yourself..."

WHOOSH!

The yellow hover-cab turned around, its thrusters humming as it sped back toward the outer gates.

Nitocris stood alone on the manicured grass of the turnout, looking up at the towering white pyramid.

Her jaw was set and her green eyes blazed with cold resolution.

"Khemet was once a sanctuary for all living souls," Nitocris whispered, her voice trembling with righteous fury. "The land belongs to the people, not to the parasites who wear my sister’s face... As much as I wish I could stay and rebuild what was broken, I have made a sacred promise... I will end the bloodline, and then I will leave this world in peace..."

STEP! CLANK!

"Halt! Identify yourself!"

A palace sentinel, clad in full-body solar-quartz plate armor, holding an eight-foot kinetic halberd, stepped out from a decorative marble pavilion twenty paces away.

His visor lowered with his weapon locking onto Harper’s chest.

"This is restricted grounds! Civilian presence is forbidden beyond the marker! Hands where I can see them—"

SWOOSH!

Nitocris didn’t reach for a blade as her physical body simply collapsed inward instead.

Before the guard’s stunned dilated eyes, the plain-looking girl violently dissolved into a swirling, vortex-like stream of dense, lightless pitch-black sand.

WHOOOOOOSH!

The black sand didn’t strike the guard.

It flowed along the manicured lawn like an oily serpent, diving straight through the brass intake grates of a massive ventilation turbine set into the garden bedrock.

The guard stumbled back, his boots nearly slipping on the grass, his breath catching in his throat as cold sweat drenched his padded gambeson.

"Black... sand...?" the man stammered, his hands shaking violently against the shaft of his halberd. "What was that?! Was that the ancient omen...?"