Chapter 13: Four Plans 6600
The Mother Tree's will was vast and immense, but not refined; one could even say it was somewhat loose. Joshua allowed the other's will to connect with his own, then became serious, carefully reading the information contained within.
In just an instant, he felt himself leave the cliff by the starry sea in the central courtyard and arrive on the bridge of a starship. Joshua noticed that beside him was a three-hundred-sixty-degree psionic panoramic observation screen, and within the bridge, fifteen crew members were working intensely. A Midgardian who appeared to be the captain sat in his seat, staring at the dark cosmic space before him with a solemn expression.
"A Void Mother Beast is warping space! It intends to bypass us and head straight for the Garden of Flowers!"
"Use a space-time anchor to pull it down! The Garden of Roots is almost completely destroyed; we cannot let the Garden of Flowers suffer the same fate!"
"Anchoring successful! Warp space is stable; it has stopped!"
"Warning! The Mother Beast is releasing derivatives... Derivative Beasts numbering six hundred and twenty thousand, prepare for battle!"
The clamorous sounds were accompanied by figures rushing back and forth. Joshua understood that this was likely a recording of a recent battle between the Midgardians and what they called a Void Behemoth. The images, from several light-years away, were transmitted without delay via psionic communication to the Mother Tree, and then relayed to him.
Red emergency warning lights flashed continuously within the cabin. Joshua walked slowly through the bridge. The Midgardian starship was a semi-organic, semi-mechanical creation; its floor was a strange, fluorescent psionic plant that provided extremely strong adsorption force. He walked to the captain's position and looked forward, wanting to see what the enemy looked like.
Just then, the starship trembled violently. The psionic engine reached full load in an instant. Materialized psionic beams, guided by tractors, converged on a huge crystal at the ship's bow that had been polished into a million facets. They then condensed into a mighty silver spear of light. At the same time, hundreds of similar light spears were launched from other surrounding warships. The moment they were born, these light spears pierced the void, flying at light speed towards the distance.
It was a magnificent sight. Hundreds of bright streams of light appeared in the dark void, striking from all corners of the universe and converging on one point. They pierced through layers of barriers formed by the Void Beast swarm, which looked like mist. Then, they hit their target. On a massive celestial body, the scorching light spears, after penetrating the enemy's hide, shattered into countless silver psionic fragments. The hazy light illuminated the cosmos, revealing the general silhouette of the enemy.
"...Whoa."
Even Joshua, who was mentally prepared, couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. He stared at the hazy, enormous shadow in the infinite distance and whispered, "It's a bit big."
In cosmic space, a black celestial body was cruising through the void. Swarms of black beasts, like mist, surrounded it. The silver psionic light illuminated their forms, allowing Joshua to see more clearly: it was a terrifying super-lifeform with a diameter exceeding seven hundred thousand meters, and it was rapidly growing larger every moment. Huge bulges, like mountains, swelled on its surface, surrounded by deep red crystal veins that flickered with chaotic, unclear light. Those were the Mother Beast's reproductive chambers. Hundreds of thousands of Void Beasts surged from those erupting mountain-like orifices, surrounding their mother, using their bodies to block the repeated light spears from the distant Midgardian warships.
This was a Chaos Monster from the void, a giant beast traversing spacetime, a mobile cosmic fortress.
At that moment, the Mother Beast was pierced by silver-blue psionic chains. It had been pulled out of warp space by the combined effort of hundreds of warships. The Midgardian colonial star fleet was determined to use their lives to halt the terrifying monster's advance and drain its strength, but unfortunately, the effect was minimal.
Giant tentacles, tens of thousands of meters long, angrily lashed the void. Deep green psionic ripples spread through cosmic space, forming a huge psionic halo like a solar corona. Countless black-green slime could be seen slowly flowing over the Mother Beast's body, and countless Void Beast embryos were gestating within. Because its advance was blocked, the Mother Beast seemed extremely agitated. It decided to use its most terrifying means to end these ants that dared to block its path, to make these ant-like warships know the wrath of the God's favored clan.
So, a deep green light flared at the other end. After enduring several waves of light spear strikes and after more than a hundred seconds of energy accumulation, a dense, almost black spherical light shield rose from the deep red veins around the Mother Beast. It then expanded at light speed in all directions. Along the way, a dozen asteroids several kilometers long were touched by this light shield, only to disappear silently, as if completely disintegrated by some terrifying force. Light spears shot into the black light shield were also useless; they completely dissipated in less than a thousandth of a second, not even releasing psionic fragments.
This was a power the Midgardians could not understand. The light shield's expansion was too fast, and it was an all-around shockwave. The Midgardian fleet had no way to evade; they could only brace themselves. Perhaps they could skip the most troublesome step directly. Two Legendary experts, although their pure destructive power certainly couldn't compare to the direct fire of thousands of warship main cannons, had the advantage of flexibility. And with their transcendent power concentrated in their own bodies, when facing such a massive monster, besides being bigger than it, the best countermeasure was to be so small that it couldn't effectively target them.
As someone who had entered the space age in his previous life, Joshua naturally knew what that Chaos Giant Beast meant. It was a monster that could destroy a planet's surface by sheer size alone, a cosmic mothership that could instantly release hundreds of thousands or even millions of guardian beasts. Its opponent should be an entire cosmic civilization, the combined power of billions across several star systems to match its scale. If the Earth civilization of his time had encountered it, only planet-killing ships or stellar particle acceleration cannons could have defeated it head-on. The Mycroft World might need a true deity to guarantee victory.
Now, there was only a half-crippled psionic interstellar civilization and two Legendary experts... Hmm, barely a fight, at least not impossible.
And as long as it wasn't impossible, Joshua was willing to try.
"Count Radcliffe—"
Coming back to his senses, Nostradamus frowned. His expression was serious, and his tone became formal. The old mage even used Joshua's official title, ignoring the Mother Tree's will, and directly said, "Are you really planning to fight Chaos of that level? I mean, are the Sage missions you usually carry out all this difficult? Even the Void Observatory hasn't observed a Void Behemoth of that grade in all these years!"
"It's okay, at least I'm a Legendary this time."
Joshua comforted him instead: "Think of the bright side. At least this time I didn't see any signs of an Evil God's personal intervention. That's reassuring."
"You've seen an Evil God act personally?!" The old mage was genuinely startled this time. "And you're still alive?! How do you usually live?!"
To be honest, Nostradamus's mind hadn't even settled from the inexplicable journey to the other side of the multiverse when he was hit with one thing after another: a new psionic race, a strange spherical world, a sky full of stars that weren't a world but a super-large plane of stars. His familiar warrior friend's usual disappearances were for Sage missions, and the mission content was either saving worlds or fighting super Void Behemoths bigger than mountains. It was only now, hearing Joshua say he had actually seen an Evil God, that the old mage lost his composure. His will was already quite resilient.
"Both of you, there is more information about the Void Mother Beast in the Mother Tree Hall."
The Mother Tree's will did not interrupt their conversation. It waited until Joshua and the others were silent before speaking: "Do you require any further assistance? Should we go to the Mother Tree Hall now?"
Hearing this, Nostradamus glanced at Joshua, who shook his head: "No need. We already know the most critical information. Now, Mother Tree, can you tell us how much combat power the Midgardians have left?"
"As you wish." The Mother Tree naturally wouldn't refuse. Although this information was usually top secret, the Midgardian civilization at this point had no capital to refuse any help, especially since these two void beings, seemingly related to the Saint, were genuinely serious about helping them. What harm could telling them do? So it straightforwardly informed Joshua and Nostradamus of the majority of the Midgardian fleet's information.
"Flagship 'Pioneer' battleship... cruiser... destroyer... frigate... asteroid fortress, space station..."
Frowning, Joshua processed all this information in his mind. He whispered, "It's already a very strong force. If it invaded the Mycroft Continent, it would be comparable to, or even surpass, an Abyss invasion. Of course, that's assuming their warships can cross the world barrier and operate in the spacetime turbulence."
Although the Midgardians were said to be not adept at military affairs, they were still a cosmic civilization. Not to mention the fleet, just the main cannon of the flagship 'Pioneer' bombarding the surface would be enough to instantly vaporize a city of a million people. And this caliber of main cannon was mounted in a quadruple turret on the Pioneer, capable of easily vaporizing an asteroid. For the Mycroft World, which had just entered the magical industrial age, this was a power comparable to divine punishment. Except for a fortress on the level of the Church of the Seven Gods, no one could possibly withstand it.
In large-scale warfare, the Mycroft World was at a disadvantage. But when it came to high-level combat power, the situation was reversed. For a Legendary expert who could perceive energy fluctuations and know a few seconds before a cannon fired, such rigid attack methods were meaningless. Even if hit, it would be a minor injury, and a non-main cannon attack might not even break a Legendary's defense. Conversely, a Legendary expert who had sublimated into a super-lifeform could easily destroy a warship's outer armor and slaughter the crew inside those tin cans, just like the crystal insect—Joshua knew at once it was a minion of the Plague Evil God, You Er Dai Ma Si—which had effortlessly slaughtered half the Midgardian fleet.
"Do you have any ideas?"
Nostradamus approached. For this old mage, who had spent the first half of his life fighting cold weapon wars against Orc cavalry, the current situation was completely incomprehensible. He could only rely on instinct to estimate the relative combat power, but no matter how he compared, the enemy had a huge advantage. For a moment, he couldn't think of any plan.
"Many ideas."
Joshua nodded, his affirmative attitude even causing Milharbus, who had been respectfully kneeling on one side, to involuntarily lean forward slightly, not to mention Firefly and Lin, and the light orb in his pocket. Then, the warrior spoke frankly without hesitation: "Eliminating a super-lifeform nearly a million meters in size isn't actually that difficult. It mainly depends on execution difficulty, possibility, and imagination. In that time just now, I've come up with four plans."
Everyone listened intently.
"First, Nostradamus and I join forces to extract your main body, Mother Tree, from the crust. With the Midgardians' foundation, taking you and fleeing should be no problem. The Folbi people could migrate; you certainly can too."
This was indeed the easiest to implement, but what did it have to do with eliminating the Void Behemoth? Both the Mother Tree and Nostradamus found it a bit strange, but they decided to listen quietly. Joshua continued: "Before the migration, if everyone performs one more, or several, psionic gathering rituals, with that immense energy, it would be enough to severely wound the Void Behemoth when it approaches the Midgard Star, or even self-destruct and heavily damage it. At the very least, it could eliminate its derivative beasts. Then Nostradamus and I could pursue the opportunity. Without other creatures interfering, although the giant beast is huge, killing it would just be a matter of time."
"...The psionic gathering ritual cannot be held multiple times. Doing so would drain the life force of all Midgardians on the homeworld, killing at least several generations... And the surface of the Midgard Star would be completely leveled by the psionic eruption." After a long silence, the Mother Tree's voice trembled slightly. It vetoed the plan: "This plan is no different from a mutual destruction self-detonation. Even if the Midgardian civilization wins, it would be a desperate struggle for survival."
Nostradamus said nothing, also finding it a bit excessive. Joshua was unperturbed and continued: "Second, the Midgardian fleet joins forces with us to push asteroids, or even a couple of moons, to collide with the Void Behemoth. I saw in your data that both the Garden of Flowers star system and the Midgard system have asteroid belts and many large gas giants, all with abundant asteroid and moon reserves. If we can predict the Void Behemoth's path and lock it with space-time anchors, we can push celestial bodies to ram it. If one doesn't work, use two. If two don't work, use three. Keep ramming until it dies."
"No, no, Joshua, you don't understand space-time anchors." This time, it was Nostradamus who shook his head. "Just like a ship's anchor, to anchor an object of super-massive quality, you need an equal mass, at least a certain amount. And while anchoring, the caster themselves cannot move. This means that to anchor that Void Behemoth once, you need at least two hundred elite warships acting simultaneously, and the Mother Beast must not struggle violently."
"Pushing celestial bodies to ram it is somewhat feasible, but the enemy will definitely dodge, or drive its Void derivative beasts to destroy them. And even if it doesn't dodge, each collision would mean the loss of hundreds of warships. The Midgardians only have so many. How many times can they ram? And it might not even kill it. So, it looks beautiful on the surface, but is completely impractical."
"Just a suggestion." Joshua didn't mind Nostradamus's very logical rebuttal. He also knew this plan was very idealistic, but it was still one possibility. So he didn't dwell on it and continued: "Then, third—use the Midgardian central fleet as bait to lure the Void Behemoth near the Garden of Flowers' star. I noticed in the Mother Tree's intelligence that the star in the Garden of Flowers system has recently shown signs of fluctuation. Nostradamus and I might be able to join forces to trigger a stellar flare, annihilating the Mother Beast and its offspring completely."
Of course, that would also take out a few planets close to the sun, but there was no need to mention that.
If this were done, not to mention the central fleet acting as bait, the Midgardian colonies in the Garden of Flowers system would be completely wiped out, or at least rendered uninhabitable. If the Garden of Flowers' sun turned into a red giant, it would be killing eight hundred enemies while losing three thousand of your own. But that had nothing to do with Joshua.
"Are you a demon?!" Ignoring the completely silent Mother Tree, Nostradamus, after understanding the explanation, widened his eyes in shock and horror. "Not to mention we might die too! Self-detonating the First Flame, destroying several prime material worlds, just to kill one Void Behemoth? We might as well think about how to contact the Mycroft World and let the Seven Gods handle it! And why are all your plans self-detonations? Don't you have any other methods?"
Joshua didn't answer. In his view, aside from self-detonation, the Midgardians really had no way to harm the Void Behemoth. That thing was practically the prototype of a Star Devourer, second only to an Evil God in existence. How could it be eliminated without a great cost?
"In that case, there's only the last plan."
Saying this, he shrugged. "To be honest, although this plan is simple, it's also the most difficult, with a pitifully low success rate."
"What plan is it?" Nostradamus asked.
"The Midgardian central fleet engages in a frontal decisive battle, while you and I charge into the Mother Beast's body."
Joshua answered succinctly. "Blow up its energy core."