Chapter 1561 - The Curtain Call Battle (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Finding a path towards the brain of the First Born was not difficult, and in reality, the brain area was sure to be near the core of the planet. Once you were digging in the right trajectory, you would not be too far off. With the nervous system mapped after a planet-wide scan, locking on to the brain was a simple task.

Technically speaking, it was easy, but Hao Ren still proceeded with extreme caution.

The First Born planetside was brain dead, but that did not mean that it was not a threat. Those tentacles, the protector of the main body, equipped with means to eradicate any outside threats could operate autonomously even without the control of the brain. They would automatically destroy any threats around it and block all access towards the planet’s core. If not for that, the Executor’s war to reclaim their homeworld would not have become such a meat grinder.

Those defensive tentacles were only one of the headaches they needed to deal with. More came the deeper they got to the heart of the planet.

A planet infested by the First Born is different from most planets, these massive mythological creatures, just by existing on a planet will alter the entire planet’s internals. From the crust downwards, the deeper it gets the worse the alteration will be. The physical laws will get twisted and massive supernatural zones will be formed. Under the writhing grip of the First Born’s tentacles, chaotic energy fields were everywhere, and the tides of energy replaced the magma surge, and at times, even nightmares were made manifest, and this was most common closest towards the nervous system of the First Born.

The First Born within the planet was not a young one, and was a full matured First Born, not to mention with a brain that was out of control. Its brain dead state reduced its offensive capabilities, but greatly increased the danger within its body.

Hao Ren had already came into contact with more than one First Born and was naturally understood the various traits of this mythological creature. And based on experience, he needed to do a surface scan to map out the spread of the First Born’s main tentacles and from there find a suitable entry point.

This data was not hard to come by, Nolan had already sent out loads of probes to scan the entire planet’s crust data while she was grounded, and have also learned the general situation surrounding every exposed tentacle on the planet’s surface. After collating the data, Hao Ren noticed the crust had a number of very obvious, terribly so, ‘rifts’.

These rifts seemed to have passed through the main continents and oceans, and while they may look ‘healed’ from the surface and was covered by layer upon layer of rocks, mud, sea water and plant life, there were still various rifts internally, and based on the holographic projection, these shadow of the rifts meant that the planet’s ‘internal injuries’ were particularly garish.

These unnatural situation was not caused by normal tectonic movements.

Hao Ren recalled something that N-4 had mentioned. That meteorite storm that changed everything. Before the storm that caused the First Born to go brain dead, the First Born did one opened the crust before, and it looks like the First Born was wounded even more than expected from the bombardment, and it never did totally reseal the rifts across the planet.

This led to everyone agreeing that this rifts were the best entryway: No matter how strong a being is, an open, unhealed wound is the weakest point.

The Petrachelys darted silently across the atmosphere as it flew above one of the rifts and used the onboard radar system to scan the rock formations deep within the planet. Hao Ren stood on the bridge as he monitored the images that Nolan had displayed real time as she scanned the area.

A sudden shadow within the clouds caught his attention.

“An outer space debris. No threat detected, and is not within our flight path.” Nolan quipped. She was now fully armed and armored and a mere debris did not concern her.

But everyone else looked at the massive object that was slowly breaking through the clouds.

It was a massive spherical structure with thick metal edge with metal support structures around it. Twelve imposing black structures held the entire structure together like a group of silent guardians. This was clearly the fortress on the moon.

The thick clouds tore apart as shreds of it landed on the fortress before disappearing under the extreme heat. The fortress was clearly not slowing down as it made atmospheric entry, it was covered by a layer of scorching crimson light as the high-speed friction and violent shock damaged its ring walls and main beam. This ancient building (or spaceship) was disintegrating as it approached the planet and the first to fall off was the armor plating on the outer ring walls, as its main servers started going ablaze one by one and exploded into a massive fireball in the sky with molten metal rained across the land…

Lily was shocked by the scene before her. “Isn’t that the fortress?! What is the Cortex Prime doing?!”

“The Cortex Prime has already shut down, this is the automated system it left behind that is controlling the fortress.” The MDT explained quickly. “So that initial quake when we left was not some self-destruct system.. it was preparing to take off!”