Annihilation Device (2)
Contrary to my expectations, my deliberation didn’t last long at all.
Choice 1: Proceed inside as planned (Linked Event Continues)
Levia herself had already said her authority was limited when exercised from outside. What kind of lunatic would pick option two?
Having made my selection, I immediately lifted the pause and spoke.
Pause Released
“Tch. It was a tough call, but… in that case, we’ll use your authority, Levia, to infiltrate the interior.”
“Understood.”
“Minister, are you seriously going in?”
Riel, of course, threw a light challenge at my decision.
“Staying out here changes nothing.”
“But still…”
“Don’t forget—right now, outside this place, the allied fleets are locked in a bloody struggle with the nanomachine armada.”
“Nngh!”
Faced with that unassailable logic, Riel scowled in frustration yet nodded her assent. No one else raised any real objection either.
And so the Leviathan we rode began carving its way forward through the void choked with nanomachine dust.
Before long we had drawn right up to the planetary fortress that housed the Annihilation Device…
“…Riel.”
“What is it, Minister?”
“Did we ever scan that thing’s size when we first arrived?”
“Nope, we didn’t.”
The problem was that the planetary fortress dwarfed any ordinary “planet” we were used to imagining.
“Hmm, rough laser scan says… about fifty percent larger than a standard planet!”
Worse, both the surface of that colossal world and the “underside” we needed to enter were packed solid with building-sized structures. The sheer scale left everyone on the bridge—myself included—speechless, simply staring.
“Incredible. How does something this size even hold together?”
…Everyone except one person.
While the rest of us were still reeling under the Annihilation Device’s overwhelming presence—
“Minister? The main gate’s lock has been released. Shall we enter immediately?”
“Mm.”
At Levia’s report that preparations were complete, I nodded and thought, How exactly is she planning to do this…? Drop assault teams from here and fight our way inside?
After all, the Purge Squad members assigned to my protection were already aboard the Leviathan. My mind conjured a vivid image of them storming down in assault craft, supported by Levia and the ship, then tearing through the interior in a chaotic free-for-all.
But…
“Main gate, opening.”
—Krrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
“Oh.”
Watching a hatch the size of an entire city on the planetary surface yawn open, I realized every assumption I’d made had just evaporated. I finally understood what Levia meant by “going in.”
—Kuuuuuuu!
She intended to drag the entire multi-dozen-kilometer warship we were riding straight into the planet’s interior.
Once inside, the Leviathan’s forward speed dropped sharply. Not because anything was wrong with the ship.
“Ah, another pillar dead ahead.”
“Tch.”
It was simply that this damned planetary fortress was crammed with every useless pillar and structure imaginable, severely restricting our maneuvering room. Many of those structures also doubled as hangars, packed with vicious-looking weapons and munitions, making it awkward to simply shove them aside.
Most of the obstacles could be cleared to some degree thanks to Levia’s administrative authority… but even her power had limits.
“Wh-what the hell is that?”
“Bones…?”
Endless heaps of bones—regardless of species, age, or gender—were the things she couldn’t move. And the sheer quantity was anything but ordinary.
“Minister, rough scan just finished…”
“Mm.”
“Besides what’s in our field of view, there are massive bone piles scattered all through the interior of this planet.”
“What…?”
“If you gathered them all, there’d be enough to form an entire planetary stratum.”
I had no idea what to think after hearing that from Riel. As if to put an end to my confusion, a new event message bloomed before my eyes.
Pause Engaged
The Annihilation Device eradicated every living organism without distinction between organic and inorganic matter.
Yet for reasons unknown, it has been methodically stacking the bones of the species it annihilated deep within its own core.
I have no idea why. (Linked Event Continues)
Learning that the bones before us had been “collected” by the Annihilation Device only deepened my confusion.
Why?
Neither the Grey Nightmare currently locked in a death grapple with our allied fleets, nor the Annihilation Device we had just entered, had ever shown any such collecting behavior in the game’s events or lore.
These things glass entire planets with merciless orbital bombardment the moment they meet them… and they’re collecting bones?
Pause Released
If it had just been skulls—the kind those red-eyed battle-maniacs love to collect—I might have shrugged it off. But every kind of bone imaginable was piled here. The sight left me, Riel, the rest of the crew, and even the true madwoman Minister Vermouth completely speechless.
Just… why?
Sensing my shock, Levia quietly approached and spoke.
“I succeeded in accessing a portion of this core’s database a moment ago. May I report?”
“…Go ahead.”
“The bones you see are all materials the Annihilation Device gathered in order to preserve the genetic material of the species it eradicated in the most stable form possible.”
“Genetic preservation…?”
“Correct. Any further information is locked behind additional security; I cannot access it yet.”
I turned my gaze back to the mountains of bone. Simple heaps were only the beginning. Inside glass-cylinder pillars larger than the Leviathan itself, bones of every species imaginable were stacked to the ceiling—dozens, hundreds of them. The endless variety and sheer volume made my skin crawl just looking at them.
Insane. The game never showed anything like this.
In the game this thing was the late-game final-boss-tier entity that had wiped out countless species, but that was pure lore text. You never actually saw the aftermath in-game. Realizing why the Precursors had been so hysterically terrified of its revival—and how a single line of flavor text could translate into such horror in reality—left even me, a Minister of the secret police who had watched beheadings and torture as routine, utterly speechless at the desolation before us.
“…Ha.”
The sheer absurdity and shock forced a short, hollow laugh out of me before I could stop it.
“The Minister laughed!”
“Wow. Tomorrow the sun will rise in the west.”
For a bizarre moment I drew more attention than the bone piles themselves. But the only thing that mattered was reaching the Annihilation Device’s core as fast as possible and smashing the skull of whatever had done this.
As I kept the ship advancing, I suddenly remembered that Levia had gained database access and spoke again.
“Levia, is there any information on Ash in the database?”
“One moment, please.”
With things as they were, questions about Ash—whom I had simply regarded as a nanomachine collective—were starting to pile up. While the ship crawled forward I figured I might as well dig into her identity via Levi-wiki.
But…
“That information is locked. Accessing it will require additional time.”
“Hmm?”
Hearing that Ash’s data was locked only deepened my suspicion once more.