Chapter 579 Anti-World Weapon (1/2)
When Joshua and Nostradamus began another pursuit against the Void Mother in the Beam System, a tense atmosphere was spreading amidst the Midgardian Fleet Command Center in the Sixth Trail of the Sea God Star Fortress after they had lost most of their psionic sensors along the way and hence was left in the dark.
”Hurry up. Aren't the calibrations ready?” The Commander of the First Fleet was pacing around irritably in the meeting room. From time to time, he would level an angry glare at the blank screen, look up into the distant space or sigh heavily. Even so, the most the middle-aged Midgardian could do was ask after the technical department with an urgent tone.
Having heard the inquiry from a commanding officer, a calm, feminine voice responded from the other end of the communications tool.
”Sir! The emergency assembly is unfinished, but the technical department is understaffed—”
”Almost every surviving elite engineer from two different star systems are under your disposal!” The Commander retorted with a tinge of unreasonable demeanor, cutting the other person short. ”Deal with it! I want to hear that your department has accomplished your task!”
”…Yes, Sir!”
Having heard the exchange, the Commanders of the Second and Third Fleets shook their heads slightly. Be that as it may, the Commander of the First Fleet understood that he had been behaving unreasonably. He certainly knew what labor was required for 'that'—something like completing their task in three hours was nothing less than a blind order.
Even so, the Midgardians no longer any time for delays. The Void Mother and countless Void aberrations had arrived at their system, and were undergoing a battle that exceeds several astronomical units. To utterly wipe out those pestilences of the universe, the Midgardians could not sit idly by and watch as those two sides fought their own battles—they must join the fight.
”Those monsters… Even the Main Fleet had trouble dealing with them, and yet they were as trivial as dust to those two Beings…” The First Fleet Commander calmed himself, suppressing the terror in his heart. ”Still, at least they're at least. And if 'that' is completed, we would at least have some countermeasures be it Void Mother or Void Being.”
There was a nervously-charge atmosphere around the entire Sea God Star Fortress. The three fleets were now undergoing extra repairs and temporary strengthening, with every Midgardian engineer virtually ignoring all matters related to price-quality ratio. They had moved all external attachments and sensors from the fortress to all remaining warships and starfighters, for everyone knew that if they lose this one battle, this planetary region had no future to speak of—it was far better to squander all funds and resources now than to have it all be destroyed by the Void aberrations.
It was at that moment that an emergency transmission arrived at the command center.
”Gravity shift detected! The distortion of dimensional pathways is pointing to the Void Mother's imminent approach to the Ambroya Asteroid Belt—toward us!”
”Why?!”
Everyone in the command center paused at once, but being handpicked cream of the crop, all of them swiftly recovered.
”Could it be,” one of them, a Midgardian whose chest was decorated full of honor medals, conjectured gloomily, ”that the Void Mother had gotten rid of the two Void Beings from the Mother Planet?”
The overtly-pessimistic opinion was synchronously disregarded by everyone present. Adjusting the screen, the Third Fleet Commander displayed the detected gravity trail, calmly analyzing even as his cheek muscles tightened. ”Incorrect. The Void Mother's change of direction was too sudden—instead of saying that it was naturally coming to wipe us out after it had gotten rid of its opponents, it would a better guess that it was changing paths urgently after being dealt a certain blow!”
In other words, it was running away after being beaten. Everyone knew what the Third Fleet Commander was saying, but none dared to agree with his notion since it was much more unbelievable than that pessimistic conjecture before. It was not as if they had not seen the Void Mother's psionic gravity shield—the Void Saint be praised, it was a defense that was barely penetrated by countless simultaneously unleashed luminous lances! Unless those two Void Beings could move a dozen-kilometer class meteor to strike it at terminal velocity, even Sina could not come up with any way to break the Void Mother's psionic shield.
Indeed, the commander's guess was not wrong. The Void Mother had certainly turned away haggardly after being pounded by a gigantic asteroid that was accelerated to unimaginable speeds.
Still, the damage it received was not as serious as it had been on the surface.
The colossal Void Mother was still moving swiftly amidst the vacuum of the universe. The dimensional distortion it wrought with psionic energies, combined with its voluminous mass, had pulverized every aberration and small asteroids, while the sporadic injuries over its body were quickly regenerating to its original state at a visible speed.
Green blood flowed backward, returning into its body as if alive, while charred and severed muscles curled, reattaching themselves into a complete part. Its thick and sturdy chitin shells and its assorted tumorous organs grew like mushrooms after rain, multiplying and regenerating over both inside and outside of the Void Mother. As Joshua and Nostradamus frowned at it while trying to keep up, it incessantly absorbed Void aberrations as nutrients, speedily regenerating its own power to its peak.
The old mage even suspected that it would soon abruptly stop, turn around and launch a counter-offensive. If that was the case, he and Joshua would have to turn as well and make evasive maneuvers despite their thrilling pursuit now.
”It won't turn back.”
Suddenly, Joshua was speaking into the spiritual link as if he could discern Nostradamus's worries. ”It now knows that our power is capable of injuring it—that is why before it could attain sufficient inorganic matter to regenerate and repair its psionic shield organ, it would never risk attacking us again.”
The warrior's words were so assuring that it calmed the old mage considerably. Even so, Joshua went on, his tone abruptly changing. ”Regardless, it is ultimately a lifeform of Chaos, nor could I ascertain if it would play its cards according to logic—”
”Then why are you chasing after it so tightly?!” At those worlds, Nostradamus almost did not stop the teleportation spell he was casting, and quickly pressed on. ”If we're too close when it turns back to attack us, we can't just evade it—we'd have to fight it head on!”
At the moment, the two Legendary champions were just two hundred kilometers away from the Void Mother—with their respective speeds, it would not take a second for them to run into each other. Still, Joshua's gaze appeared to be deep as he shook his head in response to Nostradamus's doubts. ”We don't have any other chance,” he said with a low voice. ”There's this one opening at least for the moment.”
”If the Void Mother recovers its psionic shield, it would be almost impossible for us to deal a blow on it like before with its wariness now. It would hence be horrendously difficult to kill it, which is why we must deal an irreversible blow on it in a single breath.”
”We can't let any chance go if we don't want to chase that monster for months across this system!”
Nostradamus could understand the reason behind those words—and Joshua was not wrong. The setback just now was but a moment of carelessness for the colossal Chaos minion. If it had indeed fought seriously from the start, it is their duo who would be at a disadvantage. And if both sides could not find a meaningful edge over each other, the planetary system as their battlefield, they would have to turn their tactics from a brief sniper warfare into an extended and mobile one, and who knows how long that would last.
If Joshua was alone and the old mage did not come, it would have been genuine attritional combat. Until now, the Void Mother never revealed any blows that could cut through Joshua's defense, while Joshua would in turn had no way of vanquishing the infinite aberrations or swiftly punch through its psionic shields—the difficulty of the labor would have increased over ten times.
”Could you hurry?” Joshua asked, discontinuing the topic at hand while the old mage sent him through multiple short-distance teleportations. ”This distance is still a little far, my attacks can't reach the Void Mother.”
”It's not that I can't, but you're too heavy—you mass is affecting the opening of portals, and I can't guarantee teleportation precision if we go any faster.”
”…”
While they were discussing further the ensuing battle, both men noticed that the Void Mother was rapidly changing its form after most recovering from its injury.
A layer of protective shell that glinted in dark, cold light now covered its dark green body of flesh, while a thin layer of transparent crystal substance was now shrouded over its weak compound at its front end. Its dozens of mountainous reproductive tracts were completely sealed and enveloped by heavy shielding, while the Void Mother's own spherical form had elongated into an ellipsis similar to a spindle.
Beyond that, the Void Mother's incalculable tentacles were hurriedly degenerating along with incredible lifeforce conversion, finally turning into bone spines that were short but sharp and covering its ellipsis body. Unlike the 'fortress mothership' form it used against the Midgardians and the Folbians, the Void Mother has completely changed into a combat form specialized against superior beings!