Chapter 32: Subspace Shatter Cannon
In the Distant Light Star System, the Midgardians, who had all their psychic detection probes destroyed by continuous high-energy explosions, also used optical instruments to spot the Void Mother Beast right before their eyes, visible even to the naked eye.
Its massive body was scorched by flames, its sturdy biological structure torn to shreds by terrifying explosions. The Void Mother Beast's nearly shattered carapace and flesh, mixed with its own blood and pus, scattered everywhere in the sky. The broken, crescent-moon-like shape it had been blown into was laughable, yet it sent a deep chill down one's spine.
The battle between void lifeforms and the long chase were nearing their end. They had pursued each other from the edge of the star system all the way to the orbit of Neptune Star in the center. Countless asteroids had been destroyed by the shockwaves along the way. Unfathomable energy remnants and massive amounts of cosmic debris were spreading in all directions. They might be drawn in by the gravitational pull of the Distant Light Star System's sun, forming a new interplanetary orbit.
But even so, the battle was not over.
Especially for the Midgardians.
On the Midgard Central Fleet, Fleet Commander Taquin stood before the observation window on the bridge. The 360-degree observation platform formed by a psychic light screen allowed him to see the entirety of the surrounding cosmic space. With his naked eye, he could see the deep blue Neptune Star behind them. With the aid of optical instruments, the old man could see the hideous face of the Mother of Demons in the distance.
It was a swollen mass of flesh floating in space, a festering, breathing sore. Its crescent-shaped body moved rapidly through the vacuum, trailing a long stream of green blood mist. The Void Mother Beast's shattered black carapace could be seen constantly closing and reforming under the writhing of its green flesh. Countless lymph nodes and cartilage tissue, severely damaged by the explosions, piled up like garbage, yet remained connected to the main body, attempting to regenerate. It was less a creature and more a giant, deformed ball of flesh. More than a biological mothership, it resembled a tangible, ever-spreading plague tumor.
"...So this is what the Mother Beast looks like."
Taquin, who had only seen this giant creature in the records of the Mother Tree, looked up at the ugly void invader that, even missing half its body, was still larger than their entire fleet. Starlight reflected in his eyes. The old man whispered, "It has been severely wounded. The reinforcements summoned by the Void Gate ritual are indeed powerful, but this should be their limit."
No one thought the two beings who had descended were weak. They had already done better than any Midgardian could have imagined. Destroying nearly half of the Mother Beast's body? That was a task that might not be achievable even if the Midgardians committed all their warships and fortresses.
"Commander, preparations are complete." Accompanied by footsteps, a middle-aged Midgardian arrived at the bridge observation platform. He said in a voice suppressing excitement, "The Psychic Vacuum Containment Engine from the homeworld has been successfully installed. It can be started at any time."
"Then begin charging." Taquin turned his head to look at his first mate, then said in a calm, unwavering tone, "This is the purpose for which we crossed several light-years to come here."
"Understood."
The middle-aged Midgardian left, carrying the order to attack. The old man remained on the observation platform, gazing into the dark cosmic space.
No tree grows branches on only one side, so no organization would pour all its resources into a single plan. The summoning of the Void Gate was indeed a last resort the Midgardians used in desperation, but all Midgardian high-ranking officials, including Milharbus and Taquin, held no expectations for beings from beyond the void. If they could help resist the Void Mother Beast, that was naturally good. If not, it wouldn't exceed the worst-case scenario. Apart from restarting the ancient ritual, the Midgardians had another contingency plan.
That was the superweapon simultaneously constructed in the Midgard home star system and the colonial star system fortresses.
It had been millions of years since the Midgardian ancestors awakened their psychic powers. Two thousand years had passed since they abandoned instinct and truly began to control psychic energy with reason and wisdom. On land, in the sky, and across the star sea, they had developed countless unique psychic abilities. But warship shields, psychic light lances, space fighters, and jump engines were all inventions from a thousand years ago. In the following millennium, even though the Midgardians suffered severe setbacks and took a long time to recover, they should have achieved something new.
Now, that achievement had taken physical form. 'That thing,' hidden deep within the Midgard homeworld fortress and deep within the Neptune Star fortress, was largely completed. However, it couldn't be activated because the energy supply intensity exceeded the budget. In response, the Midgardian high command decisively ordered the dismantling of the homeworld fortress's engine section and had the Central Fleet jump to load it onto the Neptune Star fortress. With two fortress-grade engines supplying power, supplemented by the energy of half a fleet, the superweapon could finally operate smoothly, targeting the enemy outside the home star system.
"Beep—"
A sharp warning sound, accompanied by the sudden disappearance of the observation light screen, rang out. Red lights flashed in the bridge of the *Pioneer*, the flagship of the Midgard Central Fleet. But Taquin was not surprised. He knew this emergency alarm was because the energy in the flagship's core engine was being seized by another massive facility, and the energy maintaining the warship's operation had fallen below the standard line. At this moment, not only the *Pioneer*, but the entire Midgard Central Fleet, as well as the First, Second, and Third Colonial Sub-Fleets, should be in the same situation. The energy of all warships was converging.
Converging on their hope.
On the Neptune Star orbit, in front of the fortress, facing the charging, severely wounded Void Mother Beast, the Midgardian fleet, which had been gathered like an umbrella in cosmic space, slowly dispersed. The front-line main fleet withdrew one after another, revealing the colossal thing they had been shielding—a gigantic, diamond-shaped octahedron over ten kilometers in length. The edges of this massive metal construct, with its light silver shell, were covered by a layer of transparent psychic crystals. But under the transport of massive amounts of energy, they were no longer transparent, instead glowing with a blue light like the sky.
It was constantly charging, generating thousands of psychic arcs erupting in the vacuum. As the charging neared completion, the giant diamond-shaped octahedron began to slowly deform. A few seconds later, its front end contracted, forming a concave opening. A transparent spherical crystal focuser was embedded in its center, connected to four constantly charging psychic crystals. Now, the transparent focuser was completely filled with silver-blue psychic energy, revealing star-like points of light within.
On the warship bridge, Taquin narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew it was time to activate.
And so, the next instant, a highly concentrated silver-blue stream of light pierced through spacetime, originating from the direction of the Neptune Star fortress. It carried no heat, no impact, not even an energy reaction. It simply irradiated the Void Mother Beast, still flying towards Neptune Star, at the speed of light. At this moment, Joshua, who was following the Mother Beast's trajectory, widened his eyes. He saw this long-prepared strike by the Midgardians but didn't understand what was happening.
A psychic light stream with no heat or impact? What were the Midgardians up to? Were they planning to give the Mother Beast a highlighter?
Dismissing this absurd thought from his mind, Joshua couldn't help but come up with many other guesses. Perhaps they were trying to use psychic energy to control the Mother Beast while it was weak and its mental core was damaged. But that was equally unfeasible. The Void Mother Beast's mental power was so vast that even if all Midgardian psychic energy were combined, it would only be a close match. Trying to wrestle with the Mother Beast using just two fleets? That was far too arrogant.
Joshua had many other guesses, but soon, as the Midgardians' true purpose became apparent, he widened his eyes and cleared all other thoughts from his mind.
"It's a jump!"
Indeed, it was a jump.
Accompanied by Joshua's surprised utterance, a spacetime fluctuation so vast that even the Void Mother Beast's opening of a spacetime channel to cross star systems paled in comparison appeared on the Mother Beast struck by the silver-blue psychic light stream. In an instant, the 'Psychic One-Dimensional Space' that the Midgardians relied on to cross the star sea and colonize the universe opened directly. This silver-blue light, thousands of times larger than the space a warship's built-in jump engine could create, instantly engulfed more than half of the caught-off-guard Mother Beast's body, forcibly 'jumping' it into psychic space!
At that moment, Joshua finally understood. What was the Midgardians' trump card? It was this jump device, capable of transmitting objects tens of kilometers in size!
A thousand years ago, the Midgardians already possessed jump engines that could bring colonial ships to other star systems, officially ushering them into the era of interstellar colonization. But precisely because of this, they also discovered the jump engine's shortcomings.
The carrying capacity was too small.
The most advanced psychic engine of the Midgardians could at most transmit a warship with a diameter of no more than three kilometers for a jump. Anything larger would result in transmission loss due to insufficient psychic space. Every colonial ship arriving at a new planet had to start from scratch, using the resources on their own vessel. Even if the homeworld wanted to provide support, it had to expend massive energy, sending hundreds of warships back and forth for over a dozen trips just to barely establish a new colony. The wasted psychic energy during this process was incalculable. Therefore, they began researching the jump of large objects.
Due to the severe setback caused by the Crystal Insect incident, Midgardian civilization stagnated for a long time, including this research on large-mass jumps. But recently, the research was restarted and achieved gratifying results. However, because it wasn't fully mature and couldn't perform safe transmissions, it wasn't announced. Now, this civilian facility originally intended for directly transmitting a colonial ship group had been completely modified into a military weapon, and the flaw of unsafe transmission had become an advantage.
In the cosmic vacuum, the Void Mother Beast, struck by the psychic jump light stream, immediately had a large portion of its body missing, as if erased by an eraser. The remaining part, after a brief pause, began to writhe frantically and painfully. Most of its body had been transmitted into psychic space, while the remaining part was split apart. This was a blade formed by space. No mortal substance could withstand its shearing, not even the Plague Evil God's minion, the Void Mother Beast.
But this was not the end. If it were just ordinary transmission, at most, most of the Mother Beast's body would be transmitted to a distant place, requiring a long time to recover. It would eventually devour other life and matter and return to take revenge on the Midgardians. Both Taquin and the weapon's designers had thought of this. So, accompanied by the old man's hearty smile, silver-blue spacetime ripples appeared again. This was not a channel formed by a successful jump, but an exit formed by a failed jump, where matter was expelled from psychic space!
How could a large-scale jump generator modified into a weapon truly complete a successful transmission? The matter drawn into psychic space would be sliced into millions of pieces by countless space blades, like sharp knives, and ground into microscopic particles invisible to the naked eye! This was the result the Midgardians confirmed when they saw the wreckage of their own warship after their first failed jump thousands of years ago. The Mother Beast would be no exception!
*We might have really created a terrifying weapon.*
This thought suddenly flashed through the mind of Central Fleet Commander Taquin. This superweapon, named the 'Subspace Shatter Cannon' by the Technical Department, possessed enough power to instantly pulverize giant asteroids. No matter how tough the material or shield, after being forcibly transmitted and then cut by the space cracks caused by the failed jump, it would become as fine as sand. No fleet had a way to counter this weapon unless they specifically developed facilities to counter transmission. Otherwise, they couldn't even defend against it.
As the old man pondered, the light of the failed jump faded. Accompanied by countless space cracks spreading like a spiderweb, a mass of black-green flesh and blood fell out of the silver-blue psychic space. This was the residue of the Mother Beast's flesh, cut millions of times by space.
"Success!"
"We did it!"
"Seventy-seven percent of the Mother Beast's body has been cut by psychic space and has lost activity! Wait, why are there still a few points?"
In the spacious control room of the Subspace Shatter Cannon, countless technicians high-fived in celebration. They cheered and rejoiced with tears in their eyes, celebrating the imminent victory. But one technician's puzzled question immediately dampened the atmosphere. Everyone gathered behind him, looking at the information displayed on the psychic light screen before him.
"Significant psychic reaction detected... The Mother Beast's psychic core generated a shield, maintaining the stability of the surrounding space. It wasn't cut to pieces!"
"This is the weakness of the Shatter Cannon! If the enemy also possesses powerful psychic energy, they might be able to force a successful jump instead of being cut to pieces by the failure!"
The atmosphere heated up again, as everyone knew that even if the Mother Beast still had its psychic core after losing its flesh, it was no longer a major threat to the Midgardians. Perhaps it would even become their trophy, a research subject for the further advancement of their civilization.
But Joshua, flying rapidly towards the seemingly inert flesh residue of the Mother Beast, shook his head violently.
"No! The power of this superweapon indeed exceeds my imagination, but how could the Mother Beast die from such a purely physical cutting attack?!"
*It is a super-lifeform composed of nanoscale biological virus aggregates!*
*Cut to pieces? Lose a lot of mass? Flesh ground into paste? Does that mean anything to the Plague Evil God's minions? Even a slime wouldn't die from being cut up, let alone a chaotic creature! Only by using the millions of degrees of heat from a psychic light lance to completely incinerate that mass of flesh residue into nothingness can it be considered destroyed! The Midgardians' superweapon at most dispersed the Mother Beast's form, causing it to lose some mass. That's all!*
And as the light of the Midgardians' superweapon gradually faded, the seemingly inert flesh suddenly began to move slightly. It started to rapidly reorganize itself around the psychic core as its center. This subtle movement was almost non-existent to the Midgardians, who were far away and could only observe with optical instruments. But to Joshua, who was constantly observing through his Steel Force vision, it was very obvious. He could even see a research ship leaving the Midgardian fleet, heading towards the Mother Beast's flesh residue.
*The Void Mother Beast is indeed severely wounded, but it's still alive. If the Midgardians are careless, they might be counterattacked!*
*But if that's the case...* Joshua, flying rapidly, suddenly turned his head and looked at the Midgardian fleet's Neptune Star. The blue gas giant was slowly rotating.
A crazy idea suddenly appeared in his mind.
A method to truly reduce the Void Mother Beast to nothingness.