Agent047
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736 - This Part of the Galaxy
🕑 Added 2024-09-22 09:39:21 +0000 UTCTime has a way of moving at exactly the wrong speed, especially for those who find themselves in a moment of anticipation.
For the inhabitants of the solar system, it felt like time was speeding by when they desperately wished for it to slow down. In the blink of an eye, twelve days had passed, bringing them to thirteen and a half days since Xalthar had sent out his message. The countdown was almost over.
Despite all the preparation, no one in the military felt confident that things would unfold as planned. Their extensive VR training had shown them that when facing the unknown, unpredictability is inevitable. This awareness kept everyone on high alert, a state they were able to maintain with ease due to their rigorous training. It also helped that they had already entered their military pods a week prior, ensuring they were mentally primed for the upcoming confrontation.
To humans, death evokes a tangle of emotions. Sometimes, we long for it to rescue us from despair, while other times, we fight desperately against its approach, knowing full well it's an unavoidable end. Most people shy away from places where death is likely, yet some willingly march into those very places, laying everything on the line to ensure their lives—if lost—are not lost in vain. It’s in these moments of peril that humanity shines brightest, as if the human spirit were a dying star, radiating one final, brilliant burst of light to leave a lasting mark on the universe.
But what happens when you take that ultimate price—death—and remove it from the equation? What happens when the bravest among us are given the ability to display this unyielding human spirit again and again, without the fear of it being their final stand? It becomes a game—a high-stakes challenge where the fear of death is no longer a limit, and courage can be displayed limitlessly.
This was exactly what the empire aimed for. In the upcoming conflict, every soldier controlling their robotic counterparts, which had dozens of backups spread across different locations, knew that their real bodies were safe. This allowed them to fight without hesitation, unburdened by the carefulness that can often hold back those afraid of dying—a mindset that could be detrimental to the ultimate goal.
By ensuring that no soldier had to fear the loss of their life but still understood the gravity of the empire's fate, the empire created warriors who could fight with everything on the line, without ever holding back. The result was not going to be just a battle—it was going to be a performance of pure human spirit, played out in the face of an uncertain future.
………………….
{Anytime now, sir,} Nova said softly to Aron, who sat in a meditative pose, his eyes closed, body still.
The room was colossal, spanning the size of ten football fields, with the only entrance located on the ceiling. Otherwise, the massive chamber had no visible openings, resembling a gigantic water tank. And in a way, the assumption was correct—this was indeed a tank, but not for storing water. Instead, it held liquid mana, a shimmering substance harnessed in its purest, second most concentrated form.
These tanks had been specially designed by Aron, not for anyone else's use, but as a personal reserve. The liquid mana inside had been converted from the electricity generated by powerful reactors, a process he'd refined over the years.
This reservoir wasn’t for everyday needs; it existed solely for those rare, extraordinary circumstances when Aron might need to perform something so immense that the ambient mana from the surroundings wouldn’t suffice. Whether it was a massive spell or an operation that required immediate action, this stored mana allowed him to bypass the usual limitations of scale or time, ensuring he always had the raw power needed at his disposal.
“Looks like I really have an almost infinite mana tank,” Aron remarked as he opened his eyes, observing the tank now nearly depleted, with only a few small puddles of shimmering liquid mana remaining.
He had spent the last seven days focused solely on absorbing mana from these tanks, and this was the seventh—his final reservoir filled to the brim with mana.
{For practical purposes, we can consider it to be nearly infinite,} Nova replied, materializing as a hologram in front of Aron. {However, in comparison to true infinity, the amount you've absorbed is still quite minuscule.}
“That’s for later, but first, let’s leave this place,” Aron said, floating toward the door on the roof of the tank.
{Should I start refilling the tanks now that the reactors are idle?} she asked. When Aron began absorbing mana, he had paused halfway through the first tank, directing Nova to start refilling it while he moved on to the others. This strategy was designed to maximize efficiency, allowing the reactors to fill the first tank despite that process being slow, while he absorbed from the subsequent tanks, ensuring that no time was wasted with the reactors being idle.
“No, we’ll only attract the attention of the incoming forces. My presence here is meant to be a last resort,” Aron replied as he passed through the door, entering a corridor that led to a control room. The room displayed the vastness of space outside, where he found himself on the third line of defense. He was alone on this line, prepared for the possibility that the first line might be breached too quickly.
“I really hope I don’t have to step up,” he murmured, gazing at the vast expanse displayed before him. The sensors they had deployed through the Oort cloud were continuously monitoring and updating the every base with their requiren information.
{Just in time,} Nova remarked, shifting the sensor feed to show him the current situation unfolding in real-time.
Space appeared as though it were being drawn into an invisible vacuum, powerful enough to even swallow light. For about fifteen seconds, beams of light seemed to spiral backward toward the center of this enigmatic void. Moments later, the absorbed light and surrounding space were forcefully repelled, creating a black void at the center of the chaos. The surrounding area looked as if it had been pushed outward, forming a shape that resembled the outline of a bracelet, a stark contrast against the cosmic backdrop.
Seconds after the wormhole fully opened, it seemed like a torrential rain of ships poured forth, as if they were fleeing from something unseen. Just ten seconds later, the reason became clear: the wormhole abruptly contracted to a pinpoint before vanishing entirely, as if it had never existed. The only evidence of its fleeting presence was the fleet of ships now left behind, scattered in the void of space.
The initial wave of a few hundred thousand ships was just the beginning. As each second ticked by, more and more wormholes began to materialize in the distance, each one spitting out additional ships into the fray. By the end of ten minutes, the chaotic scene had transformed into an overwhelming display of military might, as if the other side had completed their grand entrance, ready to assert their presence in this part of the galaxy.
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EternalCosmos
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