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Chapter 157 - Megastructure
🕑 Added 2021-06-23 17:18:01 +0000 UTCYes, I know what must be done.
I gesture at those who were present in the moon-like battle station above Zohigal back then. She wants a replay of what happened, which means we need to be there together. Her scenario was supposed to have me killing Luna, and Rolan attacking me in revenge, forcing us to kill each other. And this time, she wants us to play it out as it was supposed to go.
"Come quickly, or the Goddess of the Sun will smite you." Shelnir declares in a mocking tone before cutting the connection on her end. As if that was a signal, an alarm blares throughout the command center.
"A beam attack is coming from the Rhodos station!" Hestia announces in a frantic tone.
"Do not worry." Sintress stands up from among the rows of consoles and reassures us in a calm tone. Her Perfect Sanctuary should be able to stop anything thrown at it as long as it isn't surrounded by an inhibition field generator. "I will keep us safe."
"The shot should still take a few minutes to reach us. We can simply dodge." Senka sits down on the chair next to Exla and takes over the controls for the Queen Pelomyx. It seems she has determined that she can't help the cloud girl while she's fighting inside her own head. Although Senka can invade one's mind, the technology-based system in Exla is quite different from that.
"Do both." I decide before gathering those who were with me back in Zohigal. Kamii, Hestia, Tokomaha, Rolan, Gram, and Sigurd are on the bridge, and I'll need to go and get Aurelia afterward. "We'll go on ahead."
The Queen Pelomyx may be able to travel at a relevant fraction of the speed of light, but I can move faster in space now. I will put an end to things as quickly as possible.
"What are you going to do? Do you even know where to go?" Senka asks with a skeptical expression.
"I'll find it." Shrugging carelessly, I respond in a casual tone.
"That's the quickest path to failure." The doll girl rolls her eyes and sighs, then types something on the console with one hand while moving the steering joystick with the other. A moment later, the main screen changes and displays an adjusted image of the Sun that allows us to look at it. "Over there."
Senka points at a dot near the equator of the still relatively distant Sun. That must be the Rhodos station, the facility that must be housing the Imagination Engine.
"I hope I don't overshoot it this time." I mutter to myself and garner a horrified stare from everybody around me. When I realize that, I wave off their concern with a smile. "Don't worry. I got this."
Their expressions don't change, and I understand that my casual attitude doesn't necessarily instill great confidence in people. Growing more serious, I begin to explain the plan with all the self-confidence I now feel after understanding my true power.
"You have the ship, Senka." Once I finish, and everybody is on the same page, I transfer command to the doll girl and leave the command center with them in tow. She's the only person here who can operate it while Exla is busy with the virus; I doubt Sintress ever bothered to learn Alverost's technology.
We walk down the corridor in silence, with Korenga following us as if it's the most natural thing. Kerry is riding on her shoulders but has to duck their head to avoid hitting the rims of the bulkheads along the way. I will take everybody who can and wants to fight for this final outing.
When we reach the elevator to the hangar, I tell the others to go ahead. I'm heading to the cabins to get Aurelia and Tahiri while they take the time to put on their spacesuits. As they board the elevator, Kamii and Hestia stay behind for a moment while Tokomaha keeps the door open.
"This is it, right?" Hestia asks, and I know what she means.
"Yes, it's the final battle." I reassure her. It's not the complete truth, but this is the last confrontation in which they can help. Once the Old Humans are defeated, humans and demons can finally be at peace. But for its continued existence, I will have to find Mataku and end it once and for all. And only the other Crawling Chaoses can help me against him.
I can tell that Kamii's amethyst galaxy eyes seem to see right through me, but she doesn't speak up. Hestia might know too, but she smiles warmly and enters the elevator after the others. The little dark elf nods to me and follows her, and Tokomaha stares at me for a moment longer before stepping back and letting the door close. Her amber eyes tell me that she's thinking her part too.
It's the same as Aurelia earlier. Everybody is afraid that I will leave them behind and go to a place they can't follow. And it's true; I'm a being from another dimension that isn't bound by the laws of this one. That fact will catch up to me one day when the Outer One finds a way to enter this dimension to reclaim their parts.
But that could be in a hundred or a million years from now, for all I know.
As I make my way to Tahiri's cabin, I think things over. Aurelia said she wanted to deliver the final blow against Shelnir herself, so I'll leave her to it. This time, Serent won't be there to save her when she gets skewered by golden weapons. But if things look dire, I will put an end to everything with my newfound powers.
When I reach the door to the God of Storm's room, it opens and reveals Aurelia and Tahiri emerging from within. They shouldn't know about our short conversation with Shelnir, so they must be heading to the command center.
"Chaos?" The Golden Queen wonders, but a shadow falls over her expression. "Is it time?"
"Yes." I get straight to the point. "We're heading out. Shelnir wants to play her games, so we'll go along until we're close enough to end her."
"Understood." Aurelia's eyes grow cold, and she nods in assent. There's no more need for words when it concerns the Guide of Tomorrow.
"Are you ready, Tahiri?" I ask the God of Storm, who glances at the Golden Queen before looking at me with a smug smile.
"I am always ready." She declares in a confident tone and floats past me out of the room. Then she turns around and looks into my eyes with her rainbow-colored irises, wearing an expression that shows her determination. "Let my storm eclipse the sun."
I smile at her words and lead the way to the hangar.
Everybody who needs it is suited up. I look across the gathered to take in the sight, noticing some discrepancies here and there. Kamii's spacesuit leaves her crab pincer out, while Tokomaha didn't even bother trying to put one on. Everybody else is properly wearing theirs though, and Hestia is in the same half-mech suit she wore during our battle against the Venus Fleet.
"Rewera?" I wonder when I see the maid leader among them, already wearing a spacesuit and carrying the helmet under her arm.
"Please let me accompany You, Your Majesty." She bows with her eyes closed, robbing me of any will to oppose her. There are no other members of the Maid Corps, so it's merely her selfish wish to fight by my side. She lost a king and a queen before because she was busied elsewhere; she doesn't want that to happen again.
"Alright." Although I doubt there's anything left in this universe that could threaten my life, I grant her permission with a nod. She may gain a measure of redemption when she can feel like she's helping me in this monumental battle.
Svanhild and Halthor, both former Chosen Knights and now nothing more than traitors to the yet to be enlightened Alliance, are ready to lay down their lives to defeat the Old Humans. They don't have a connection to Luna like the other humans do and care more about ending the arbitrary reign of the false gods.
"Before you say anything, I stuck my head into space." When I stare at Tokomaha, who's in her usual outfit, she waves her wooden spear in front of me and argues. She did stop the moon from falling by turning so big that she could be seen across half the globe. At that time, her head was definitely far outside the atmosphere, and she had no trouble with that.
"Then you have to wear this." Kleihn suddenly walks over from her workplace and hands the little goddess a dome-shaped breastplate. It appears to be a Hestia-bot inhibition field generator dome, which the gremlin maid must have reprogrammed like the experimental watch that I carry.
"What is that?" Tokomaha dislikes unnatural things and would sooner wear no armor than cover herself in metal. She eyes the breastplate with the suspicious look a dog would give upon being offered only vegetables for a meal.
"It's an anti-inhibitor." The gremlin maid explains, but that doesn't tell the God of Growth much.
"It allows you to use your powers even inside an enemy's inhibition field." I speak in the Adanak language, causing Tokomaha to tilt her head before showing understanding.
"I only had time to make two." Kleihn turns to me and says in an apologetic tone while gesturing at her workbench where another completed anti-inhibitor lies. "If only I had started sooner."
"Don't worry. We should be fine with those two and this one here." I reassure her and point at the watch in my hand. It covers a large enough area, so it can work for several people at once. And I know whom to give the other breastplate to.
"Whatever it is that you want to do, do it quickly. We're still being shot at." Senka speaks into my mind and expresses the urgency of the situation. It would seem that the beams from the Rhodos station have all been dodged or blocked by the Perfect Sanctuary so far, but the fear of being damaged so close to the Sun still exists.
"Aurelia, please wear the other one. I know it doesn't look great, but-" I turn to the Golden Queen and request of her, but her glare stops me from continuing. Still, she walks over to the workbench and touches the device with a finger, turning it golden.
"As long as I do not change anything on the inside, this should be fine, right?" She asks Kleihn, who stares at the gilded breastplate with round eyes, then nods slowly. The only transmutation magic that demons know of is the gaze of a medusa, which are a very rare existence.
Aurelia gestures with her hand upon which the golden toga she's wrapped in splits apart and reveals her naked form underneath. The breastplate changes its shape and fits itself around her chest with the dome on her back. Kleihn's expression upon seeing this gives me the impression that she realizes she should have reworked it to be this way from the start.
Golden weapons fly in from all around the hangar and converge on the Golden Queen, who takes them apart and rearranges them into laminate armor. The toga comes back to join the outfit, completing its natural look. Within but a moment, she's covered in a suit of armor I can imagine she used to wear as the queen of Terminus.
Everybody's eyes are on Aurelia, who takes the attention in stoic silence. She revealed her nakedness in front of many people, but it bothers her as much as it does me.
Meanwhile, Tokomaha is fiddling with her breastplate, looking for ways to put it on. Maybe it's better if she gets the anti-inhibitor watch after all, even if that may leave Rolan and the others more vulnerable. The God of Growth could maintain a sizeable army of clones that way.
"What's your plan, sister?" Asoko walks up to me and asks with a tilt of her head. I haven't told anybody that I can travel through space faster than the Queen Pelomyx, so they may be thinking that I'm having Flann teleport us after all. I still think that entering the Rhodos station without assessing the situation from the outside is a mistake, so I won't do that.
"I'll fly us there. And all of you will be inside me." I finally declare, glancing at Korenga. She already knows the procedure and sighs; last time, I kept her in a pool of water inside me so that she wouldn't touch me and unravel my transformation. I don't have to do it the same way this time.
"Us, too?" Uten and Saten wonder, clearly worried. I have the same instinctual fear of being swallowed by another of my kind, so I understand their apprehension.
"You don't have to, but you need to hold onto me then." I pat their heads, then look at Asoko. She rolls her eyes in thought as if trying to come up with an alternative even though she doesn't even know what I want to do.
"Let's get this over with." Rolan steps forward and puts on his helmet. His expression is one of unease, but the determination to get back Luna is trumping all doubts. And he trusts that I won't eat him at this point since I have no reason to anymore.
To make things easier for everyone, I transform into a doorway that leads into a hollowed-out space on the other side. I've changed my interior into a replica of the command center, made from all the materials I can recreate with my body. That way, they should feel at ease during the journey to the Rhodos station.
Rolan is the first to enter, leading by example to show that he's willing to put his life in my hands. When the others see it, they follow him and enter me one by one.
Finally, Korenga steps up to me and looks through the doorway with worry. Being in the confined space of a Crawling Chaos's interior with other people might be a bad idea. If she goes berserk, she could rip them apart before I can do something about it.
"Don't worry." I reassure the Black God, but she looks around with her brow furrowed. Since I'm shaped like a door, my voice must have sounded disembodied. "There are plenty of people in there who can hold you back if things go wrong."
Raising an eyebrow in doubt, Korenga sighs and steps over the threshold. As long as she isn't in her black form, her touch doesn't bother me. I just need to make sure not to give her any reason to transform since that could cause me to lose my shape and eject everybody into space - or accidentally go into digestion mode.
Once the door closes, I can work my magic and place the room into my infinite depths. Nothing happening on the outside should affect it unless I allow it to.
"Now, for you three." I address my split parts. Since they have an instinctual fear of going inside me, we'll have to work something out. The simplest solution is if they grab onto me for dear life as I approach light speed. "We'll take it outside."
I carry Asoko and the twins outside the Queen Pelomyx and teach them how to move through space without the need for propulsion. Be it because my quick evolution affects my split parts, or it's simply in their natures as Crawling Chaoses, they grasp the concept within moments. With this, they will at least be able to move even if they separate from me.
The Sun is many times larger than what it looks like from Earth, but it's still quite a distance away. According to Senka, the Rhodos station is about halfway between the Mercury Screen and the Sun. That puts it at about half the orbit of Mercury, which is still an immense distance for human minds.
Not so for a Cosmic Horror that deals in eons and cosmic distances as a mortal would in hours and kilometers.
"Now, hold on tight." I warn Asoko, who's hugging me from behind. Uten and Saten are holding onto my arms and tighten their grips when they hear me speak in the vacuum of space. I have them secured with tentacles, but I don't know how my shape changes when I move through space like I did to catch up to the solar storm.
I begin to accelerate, or rather will myself to move toward the Rhodos station I can see in the distance. My eyes are interior telescopes overlaid with filters, so I can roughly make out the silhouette of the space station that houses the Imagination Engine. Since I have no reference point, I can't tell how big it is, but it appears to be disc-shaped.
The darkness of space and the light from the Sun bend before me as I accelerate to the point where I no longer perceive my surroundings. Last time, Flann had to call me back from the edge. This time, I control my emotions better and voluntarily slow down again. My vision warps and the light filling my view draws back together into the form of the Sun, now more than twice as big as it was before.
The Rhodos station is a short distance from me, but I seem to have been moving slightly to the top and left. If I had continued like this, I would have missed it.
From this angle, I can see that the structure is elongated rather than a disc, separated into three sections. The one closest to the Sun is a giant concave dish that seems to be used for shielding it from the star's heat radiation. Its shape indicates that this could also serve to collect energy directly in case the Mercury Screen fails.
Shielded by that dish is a cube-shaped section that should be the Imagination Engine. Beyond that is another smaller structure that looks newer in design. It appears to have been built and added to over time, giving it a far less uniform shape than the other two it's attached to. On its surface, facing away from the Sun, is the concave dish that houses the beam cannon. Alverost must have built that after he awakened from stasis.
"What was that?" Uten and Saten ask in wonder, looking around wide-eyed. They're referring to the physics-defying mode of transportation I used.
"Interesting." Asoko mutters in a reflective tone. Both she and the twins should be able to learn this in no time after witnessing it once. All we need now is to find out how to control our direction and pinpoint our destination without any deviation. Then, we'll be able to go to distant galaxies and play among the stars.
"If the Imagination Engine or Luna weren't in there, I would crush the whole station as I did with the detached city section." I spit out in disdain. For now, the world still needs the power of imagination, and letting Luna die would leave a bad aftertaste.
"Then let's get to it." Asoko says and flies ahead. We're close enough to the Rhodos station that we don't need to use my space zooming ability anymore. And I can tell that my other half wants to experience the freedom of moving through space some more.
"The sun seems so close, but I don't feel any heat." Saten wonders as he lets go of my arm.
"But I'm afraid to transform into a body that could." Uten admits, completing his twin brother's thoughts.
"I wouldn't recommend it." Not feeling the heat radiation from the Sun at this distance must be another perk of being a Crawling Chaos. If I transformed into a human body, who knows what would happen. I've seen a movie in which a person was evaporated in an instant upon being exposed to the Sun at a similar distance. "Let's follow auntie Asoko."
"I heard that." My other half turns around mid-flight and glares at me. She must know that Uten and Saten consider me their mother, so that makes Asoko their aunt. But being aware of it is quite different from actually being called that.
"She told us not to call her that." The twins whisper to me, but due to the nature of a Crawling Chaos talking in space, my other half overhears it again.
"That's why you should definitely call her that." I stare Asoko straight in the eyes while saying this, grinning smugly from ear to ear.
"Stop it! I'm not old enough to be an aunt!" She complains, much like how I did when Uten and Saten first called me their mother. But I came to consider my responsibilities as an adult, so maybe this will help Asoko mature as well.
As we fly toward the Rhodos station, I realize that we may have underestimated the distance and its actual size. Even though I can tell that we're moving quite fast, and it has grown bigger in our vision, it still feels quite far away.
The beam cannon gathers energy for another shot and unleashes it. But the Queen Pelomyx is too far away for me to spot even when I follow the attack's path without searching for a while. I just have to hope that Senka and Sintress are keeping it safe.
"Where do we break in?" Asoko asks while looking across the Rhodos station.
"I see something coming out of the station." Uten suddenly points ahead.
"Looks like they scrambled fighters." Saten shades his eyes, although it's a pointless gesture when the Sun's brightness is so overbearing.
"Now those make for good reference points." I assert while watching the ships emerging from multiple hangars around the beam cannon. They're still tiny dots compared to just the beam cannon dish, let alone the entire structure.
That puts the Rhodos station at several dozen times the size of the Queen Pelomyx when it still had the city section, which was around ten kilometers across. Just the forward section is already the area of the Fields of Huwinn, with the beam cannon about as large as Arkaim. The cube housing the Imagination Engine is even larger, and the concave dish is many times its size still. This is a veritable megastructure, and right now, it only exists for the sake of upholding Old Human supremacy.
If not for all the demons and other beings on Earth who rely on its power, I would destroy it after saving Luna.
"We won't be wasting time fighting those." I announce to my split bodies when I see that they're growing plasma cannons. Without another word, I gesture at the approaching swarm of fighter crafts and crush them all within my palm. They're pulled together into a single point and compressed into a small metal sphere.
"You have to teach us how to do that, too." Uten and Saten complain when they see me make short work of the enemy army.
"All in due time." Patting their heads in passing, I fly ahead and move toward one of the hangars, which are slowly closing as if hoping that it could bar our entry.
"It doesn't look like they want to let us in." Asoko looks across the surface to find an opening, but the darkness in the shadow of the concave dish and the dark gray material of the station makes it hard to discern its details.
"Shelnir and Elaine aren't on the same page." I muse and look at the openings from where the beam emerges. "We'll have to make our own door."
With these words, I fly toward one of the closed hangar bays. As a test, I create a spirit spear in my palm to see if there's an inhibition field generator. The fact that magic works means there isn't. But I don't doubt for a second that Shelnir has some of them prepared inside, not knowing that Kleihn has developed countermeasures. Once more, her prediction will fail because she will have underestimated us.
Before, I melted my way through things by surrounding myself with plasma. But now, I can tell that I don't need such tricks to overcome physical barriers. Putting a hand on the metal, I push on it and open a palm-shaped hole in it. Gliding forward, I erase the metal as it comes into contact with my body and enter the Rhodos station unhindered.
"You're moving ahead too quickly, sister." Asoko calls out to me, and I turn around to find her and the twins looking in through the me-shaped hole in the hangar door. She's not talking about me breaking in by myself without waiting for them to be ready.
"You'll be able to do all this in no time, too." I reassure them with a smile as I look around the hangar. It's not pressurized, so the hole isn't sucking air out of the interior. Soldiers in black armored suits rush in to confront me, as they did in Alverost's battle station.
I can feel that they're humans, and the fact that they carry laser guns tells me they aren't Old Humans. They must be people gathered from Earth and made to live here to serve the false gods until they die, never learning the truth about the world they came from.
The soldiers line up and point their weapons at me while Asoko and the twins enter after me. They must be wondering how I opened the hole, so they aren't sure what to make of me yet. As new humans, they're pitiful, but I don't have mercy to waste on those who can't understand the difference in our power from me literally single-handedly pushing my way through steel.
"It's time." I mutter and instantly grow into a large door that opens to reveal those inside me. They're already aware of the situation and spring forth to face the unsuspecting defenders.
