Chapter 31: The Weapons of the Midgardians
While Joshua and Nostradamus were engaged in their prolonged chase with the Void Mother Beast in the Distant Light Star System, on the orbit of the gas giant Neptune Star, within the Midgardian cosmic fortress naval port, a small squad of Midgardian soldiers in officer uniforms were walking hastily through the passageways leading into the warship's interior, their faces filled with urgency and deep concern.
"At least six ultra-high-energy reactions have appeared around the asteroid belt in just thirty minutes. It's clear that the battle between the void creatures is rapidly approaching the Neptune Star Fortress."
The commander of the First Fleet spoke to the technical officer beside him in an anxious and impatient tone. "Although there are other fortresses behind us, how many seconds can a fortress without a fleet hold against a Mother Beast? What the hell is the Technical Department doing? Hasn't that thing been built yet?"
"Not yet, sir."
Hearing the First Fleet Commander's serious inquiry about the project's progress, the technical officer immediately replied cautiously, "The main structure has been assembled, but the energy pressure is insufficient to fire... There simply isn't an engine powerful enough on the Neptune Star Fortress."
When he said this, the officer's face showed a look of having unspeakable difficulties: As the Midgardians' final resistance plan aside from summoning void lifeforms, the construction of that thing had long been on the agenda at the Neptune Star Fortress, but no one expected its energy consumption to be so terrifying that the entire fortress's power supply was far from sufficient.
"Then connect the ship's engines to the fortress."
Without any hesitation, the First Fleet Commander had already arrived at the short-range teleportation entrance leading to his flagship. He said in a rather suppressed tone, "I will notify Bani and Xina later. The Second and Third Fleets will both agree."
"It's not enough." But the technical officer shook his head. "Sir, we've already calculated it. Even if we put all three fleets' engines together, while maintaining basic propulsion, the energy intensity would still fall short."
"What?!"
This news immediately made the fleet commander, who was about to board his flagship, stumble and nearly fall. He turned around, his angry expression suggesting he wanted to curse, but as the commander of a fleet, he held back his irritable mood and gritted his teeth, "If it can't even be activated, what's the difference between it and scrap metal?!"
Were they really going to be done in here? They couldn't even defeat the void monsters, and when they encountered the Mother Beast, they would be crushed like ants?!
The technical officer seemed to want to open his mouth to explain, but before he could actually begin, a massive, unprecedented pre-transition sign appeared in the transition guidance field of the Neptune Star Fortress. In an instant, whether commander or officer, soldier or logistics personnel, they all looked into the distance in unison, holding their breath, guessing whether the terrifying Void Mother Beast or something else was transitioning in.
Fortunately, the transition channel appeared silver-blue, the color of Midgardian psionic energy. Those sensitive to psionic energy were even delighted to learn from the transmitted fluctuations that the other party was not a short-distance transition within the star system, but from the direction of the homeworld!
The next moment, accompanied by the unfolding of thousands of ring-shaped transition channels, thousands of new warships with gleaming external armor appeared before the eyes of all the soldiers at the Neptune Star Fortress. A thunderous roar of cheers erupted as a result.
Meanwhile, by the port, the commander of the First Fleet watched the reinforcements from the homeworld—the Midgardian Central Fleet—slowly approaching the Neptune Star Fortress port. He wasn't as excited as the others. This commander seemed to think of something, then immediately grabbed the technical officer beside him and said in a lowered voice, "Tell me, if we add the engines of these warships, would it be enough to activate it?"
The officer was stunned for a moment, as if calculating in his mind. Then, he grinned and said, "Enough, sir."
But before the two could finish their conversation, in a star field not far from the Neptune Star Fortress, a dazzlingly bright light suddenly appeared. This light was like a supernova igniting, releasing an intense radiance that no one could look at directly. A visible, light-golden circular energy wave could be seen spreading three hundred and sixty degrees from the distance, sweeping over all Midgardian installations. The various departments responsible for reconnaissance and information gathering in the fortress immediately fell into chaos, as the powerful energy radiation even burned out the fortress's detectors and radar, overwhelming the sensitive psionic probes, rendering the entire fortress blind.
But no detection equipment was needed. In that instant, whether it was the three fleets originally at the Neptune Star Fortress or the Central Fleet that had just transitioned from the Midgardian homeworld, they all understood one thing without exception.
That was, whether victory or defeat, the battlefield of the Mother Beast and those two void lifeforms had arrived around the orbit of Neptune Star. They had to prepare early, even... take the initiative to attack.
At the same time, in the Distant Light Star System, on the orbit of Neptune Star.
A colossal beast, nearly a million meters long, a thousand-kilometer-level giant, was rolling and spinning painfully in the vacuum of space at high speed. Deep green psionic energy, accompanied by the waving of tentacles and limbs, stirred up patches of vacuum energy tides. Several asteroids it had pulled from the asteroid belt were hit by the aftershocks and shattered cleanly into flying debris.
At this moment, the Void Mother Beast was covered in tens of thousands of huge holes, from which deep green high-temperature plasma gushed, then condensed into clumps of nearly black ice in the cold vacuum. This was the result of its body's rapid metabolic regeneration to expel foreign matter—but even with such a violent rejection reaction, the Mother Beast could not get rid of the foreign matter inside its body. It was quite ironic that the minions of the Plague Evil God, who usually used plagues as weapons to erode others' bodies, were invaded into the core area of their own body by another creature.
Soon after, the Void Mother Beast suddenly stopped its rapid advance and rolling, and stayed still in space as if dead. At this moment, it seemed to have lost all signs of life, even the thick psionic shield on its surface began to dissipate. But the next moment, it suddenly began to struggle violently. Layers of carapace, flesh, and psionic mineral veins twisted together, forming countless wrinkles, and countless originally curved tentacles stretched straight on its surface. In an instant, it truly looked like a giant cosmic sea urchin.
Then, countless light-golden rays of light began to spew from the tens of thousands of huge holes all over the Mother Beast's body, like millions of swords made of light. Subsequently, countless wounds also cracked open on the vulnerable areas of the Mother Beast's surface not covered by carapace. Even more intense and scorching light and energy impacts burst out from within, lighting up a new star in the vacuum of space. The excessively intense heat even ignited the carapace and flesh on the Mother Beast's surface within a tenth of a second, completely turning it into a giant fireball, making it look like a small sun.
At the same time, a small silver dot seemed to be ejected by the violent energy impact, flying out from the deepest part of the Mother Beast's body along a bright energy beam. It flew rapidly for hundreds of kilometers in space before belatedly showing some signs of life. A faint silver halo, so weak it seemed like it could shatter at any moment, appeared around the small silver dot, allowing it to stop drifting with the explosion's aftermath.
"...Cough, cough."
Expelling the waste gas from his throat, Joshua, battered and torn by the explosion he had created, weakly opened his eyes and looked at the Void Mother Beast, which had completely turned into a fireball in the distance. At this moment, he had no mind to care about the results of his attack. Instead, he tremblingly raised his four arms, brought his palms together in pairs, and lit a silver light above his empty chest.
Having lost the Fusion Core Heart furnace, Joshua could now only use the residual energy he had left to maintain his body's activity and movement. But that little energy was not enough to allow a Legendary expert to move again, let alone sustain a warrior drifting in space for long. The only thing the warrior could be thankful for was that he hadn't fallen unconscious in that terrifying explosion, wasting his meager energy, but had maintained a trace of clarity, allowing him to still have some energy reserves when he left the Mother Beast's body, giving him a chance to turn things around.
Closing his eyes, his four arms paired together, Joshua used his last energy to mobilize a trace of Steel Force and began rapidly shaping something in the void. Although the object in the silver light was unclear at first, soon, a primitive circular energy core could be seen. This structure could now only be seen inside magical beasts on the Mycroft Continent. Its efficiency in utilizing free energy from nature was extremely low, not to mention supporting a Legendary expert's body, not even an ordinary small airship.
But this was the limit of what Joshua could achieve now—with his current energy reserves, he was completely incapable of using Steel Force to directly shape a furnace of the Fusion Core Heart level. He had to proceed step by step, upgrading from nothing.
The full utilization of energy is a sign of civilization's progress. In the primitive early days, intelligent beings used fire to burn wood and grass for energy. Then, as civilization advanced, they learned how to arrange firewood to burn more efficiently. They also learned to use the power of rivers to operate machinery and used various tools to conserve energy. Later came steam, electricity, and nuclear energy. Each more efficient use of energy represents a leap forward for civilization, from primitive combustion to fusion reactions, the wisdom contained within is consistent.
For extraordinary individuals, it was the same. At this moment, because Joshua had used his heart furnace as a weapon to attack the Void Mother Beast's energy core and thinking center, he had no other energy source besides a small reserve. So he had to start by imitating the most primitive, simple, and least energy-consuming magical beast core. Immediately, accompanied by a flash of silver light, a primitive magical core, over ten meters in radius, translucent and flawless, appeared in the warrior's chest. It connected to the various organs in his body and began rapidly absorbing the surrounding free energy, initially restoring energy supply to the most important parts.
Originally, given the energy consumption of Joshua's organs, a primitive magical core would have been barely enough to supply even one, let alone several. But because of the explosion inside the Void Mother Beast, a vast wave of energy was spreading in all directions. The overly concentrated energy caused Joshua's magical core to operate overload, meeting some of his needs.
Having obtained an energy source, the warrior did not stop his actions. With another flash of silver light, countless runes and energy circuits immediately appeared on the primitive magical core. Regular patterns, like circuit boards, emerged on it and adjusted its shape. Before long, a ring of energy-gathering wings, similar to solar panels, appeared on the outer layer of the primitive spherical magical core. Driven by the runes, it collected surrounding energy more efficiently. In an instant, the area within several kilometers around Joshua turned into an energy vacuum. A steady stream of energy began to restore the supply to more organs, allowing the warrior to initially regain mobility and Gold-rank energy.
From a primitive magical core to the energy centers used in various magical workshops and magical puppets, only a few simple runes and energy circuits were needed. But what it contained was the research and diligent optimization of dozens of generations of people in the Mycroft world. However, this energy center did not exist for long before it was again upgraded by Joshua using Steel Force. Suddenly, within the originally translucent energy center, a seven-colored light lit up. That was the color of elements, also the color of energy. Countless mutually reinforcing and counteracting energies began to circulate within the core. It no longer needed to plunder large amounts of free energy from the outside but began to self-produce energy by consuming some high-energy substances provided by Joshua.
This was combustion, but millions of times more advanced. The heat produced by a piece of wood and the heat produced by rocket fuel cannot be the same, and the same goes for energy. Upgrading the energy source inside his body in one go to the level of many high-level mage towers and giant war puppets, Joshua finally breathed a sigh of relief. Now, it could be seen that in the center of his originally empty chest, there was already a flicker of energy light. Although it was not comparable to the previous sun-like furnace core, it was a huge improvement compared to before, equivalent to the energy produced by several Ultimate-level beings.
Having reached this point, Joshua was too lazy to continue upgrading step by step. With the much more abundant energy, he decisively mobilized Steel Force and began rapidly transforming the energy furnace inside his body—from an elemental core that could self-recover energy reserves, to a resonance furnace that resonated with the surrounding Great Source using energy, to a star-vein furnace that directly connected to the space-time fluctuations in the external void to obtain the power of stars. The energy furnace core inside the warrior was updated almost every few seconds, essentially replicating the history of energy furnaces on the Mycroft Continent, until the end.
A gray steel sphere rotated rapidly within a ring-like halo. It constantly flickered with countless bright blue arcs, which were then received by the star ring. This was a magnetic energy core that resonated with the electromagnetic fields of external stars through magnetic field rotation. It could provide Joshua with a steady stream of energy almost equivalent to Legendary level in a universe like the Starry World. But this was not the end point the warrior was pursuing. With the flash of silver Steel Force, the gray steel sphere began to shrink. Under the pressure from Joshua, this magnetic energy core, representing an almost infinite source of energy, was endlessly compressed and condensed in a distorted gravitational field, and then...
Boom. With a barely audible roar, a fireball like a sun suddenly burst forth, seemingly trying to burst out of the warrior's chest. But under the powerful electromagnetic and gravitational field constraints, it was drawn into the depths of the furnace core, which had long been prepared for it in the center of his chest. As this miniature sun returned to his body, Joshua opened his eyes, and golden light shot out from them.
Forty-five minutes had passed. Joshua had reshaped the Fusion Core Heart furnace and returned to the Legendary realm.
Only then did he have the spare energy to sense the Mother Beast in the distance, which had flown half a light-second away and was now broken and battered.
"Still not dead?"
Sensing the Void Mother Beast, which had been blown from a circular shape into a crescent moon but was still barely alive, Joshua couldn't help but frown. He moved his arms, trying to restore his pitted outer shell as much as possible, and let his newly ignited, still weak furnace core prioritize restoring energy to his combat parts. "I remember the chain reaction destroyed at least six energy cores and severely damaged the thinking center..."
Although he said this, since Joshua could regenerate his Fusion Core Heart furnace in less than an hour, it was not surprising that the Mother Beast, with two remaining energy cores, was still alive. Because of this, the Mother Beast, whose internal core had exploded, had been blown from a round full-moon shape into a crescent moon missing one side. This injury was certainly not light. On the other hand, even with only two energy cores left, the Void Mother Beast could still drag such a massive body around. Its energy utilization efficiency was no less than that of the Fusion Core Heart furnace, and in some ways, it was even more stable. Joshua decided that if he had the chance, he had to figure out the structure of that energy core. It might be a design from a level like the Plague Evil God.
But why didn't the Void Mother Beast take this opportunity to kill me? Although it certainly wouldn't succeed, the other party should at least try. Thinking this, Joshua once again sensed in the direction the Mother Beast was heading. Then, his expression changed slightly. "The Midgardian fleet?! No, it's the Neptune Star Fortress!"
The long, high-speed chase had brought Joshua and the Void Mother Beast all the way from the edge of the Distant Light Star Domain to the orbit of Neptune Star, located in the outer layers of the star system.
And at that moment, from the direction of the distant Midgardian fleet, a powerful psionic energy fluctuation suddenly erupted, so strong that even Joshua couldn't help but be shaken! This made the warrior immediately disregard his weakened state and begin flying rapidly towards the direction of the Mother Beast and the Midgardian fleet.
He had a premonition that those Midgardians, who seemed to lose battle after battle, were not as fragile as everyone imagined.