The Ancient Ship (2)
What Meteorn’s feed was showing us was nothing short of this:
The wreckage left behind by combat—things so thoroughly annihilated that their original forms were impossible to make out.
In other words, the ship’s internal defense grid: unmanned turrets and drones bristling with grenades, machine guns, beam cannons, and every other nasty toy imaginable.
And right there on the screen, clear as day, was someone carving through that nightmare arsenal like a butcher at work—armed with nothing but a pair of close-combat weapons.
“We only just discovered this, but it’s genuinely astonishing.”
“...Yeah.”
It was impressive, no question.
The moment that “someone” seemed to swing a blade, an unmanned combat robot bigger than me would split clean in two.
They dodged or blocked every bullet and grenade the drones and defense turrets spat out, then pulled off aerial acrobatics that put the floating drones themselves to shame.
The only real problem was that I had to rely entirely on the running commentary from Meteorn and the rest of the Purge Squad to understand any of it.
—Flash! BOOM!
“Did you see that? That entity just kicked an incoming grenade aside, spun it around, and slammed it straight into another combat robot’s head.”
“...”
“Whoa, are they seriously jumping off drones mid-air?”
“Incredible. That form is pure spirit-marine material.”
“No way—dodging bullets there and slicing the robot’s legs clean off?”
I could hear the Purge Squad and the marines on the other end of the comms throwing out evaluations left and right.
But my own eyes simply didn’t have the dynamic vision to keep up with those movements.
“Everything’s just... flashing.”
“They figure if they can see it, then of course the Minister and I can too, yeah.”
To put it bluntly, watching this was no different from an ordinary person trying to follow a fight between Super Saiyans in Dragon Ball.
“Still amazing though, yeah. How do joints even bend at that angle?”
Even Riel could track the blink-and-you-miss-it combat thanks to her heavily modified humanoid vision.
What the hell are they seeing? Show me what you’re showing them!
Of course, wishing for it didn’t make the figure on the screen slow down for my sake.
It wasn’t until some time later that I finally managed to catch even a glimpse of the person’s actual form.
A short while later.
A weaponless unmanned drone charged in as if intending to self-destruct.
The one who had already dismantled every defense system casually drove a fist straight through the drone’s optical sensors—
—CRUNCH! BOOM!
—then slammed the wreckage into the deck without changing stance, as if to prove they were still perfectly fine.
Grateful I no longer had to watch Super Saiyan-level nonsense, I immediately hit pause to get a proper look at the figure...
> [PAUSE]
Ah, shit.
I’d hit pause without zooming first—classic dumbass move. Mentally cursing myself, I released it.
> [PAUSE RELEASED]
I zoomed in, then paused again to examine the form properly.
> [PAUSE]
Filling the entire office screen was a Precursor Empire combat soldier—exactly as they existed in my hazy memories.
Unlike the mechanical, SF-style powered armor worn by the Purge Squad or the Prosnark Marines, this was something else entirely.
An ornate, knight-like combat suit gleaming in radiant gold and platinum, studded with glittering jewels and decorations that looked straight out of a fantasy novel.
And the energy swords mounted on both wrists—blades whose length could be freely adjusted—left no room for doubt.
Those “jewels” were actually advanced integrated circuits that assisted the wearer’s combat performance and generated protective barriers. In short, what the setting called a mere soldier was, by our standards, a walking armored vehicle or light tank.
I’d never thought much of it while reading the lore books.
But seeing one in actual combat made me understand, on a visceral level, why so many empires had never dared open full-scale war against the Precursors.
A single one of these soldiers was roughly equal to—or superior to—an entire platoon of the Purge Squad currently on site.
Ha... how the hell do we deal with that?
I kept turning the problem over in my head, staring at the Precursor soldier on the screen...
Yeah. No chance.
Remembering the numbers Meteorn had shown while panning the camera, I reached the only possible conclusion: the forces present right now had zero hope of taking this thing down.
Immediately after—
> [PAUSE RELEASED]
—I released the pause and ordered Meteorn to get the hell out of there and rejoin the main force.
“Meteorn, withdraw immediately.”
“Understood. All units, rapid withdrawal.”
“Precursor assault! All hands, reverse charge!”
“Taaaaah!”
Of course that damned Precursor soldier wasn’t about to let our allied force’s escape attempt go unchallenged.
“Minister, the target has begun pursuing us.”
Barely finished slaughtering the defense systems, and already coming after innocent marines and Purge Squad members. I snapped additional orders to Meteorn at once.
“Concentrate all forces and engage only after regrouping. No full combat until then.”
“Understood, Minister.”
But no matter how fast they ran, the opponent was a superhuman with body modifications far beyond our own.
Within moments the distance between Meteorn’s allied force and that super-soldier shrank at a terrifying rate, teetering on the edge of total disaster.
Then—
—CLUNK! Whirrr... THUD!
“Minister! Bulkheads just dropped and sealed behind us!”
“What?”
Thick reinforced bulkheads slammed down between the allied force and the Precursor super-soldier, blocking the path completely.
Everyone on site—including me—froze for a second.
—SLASH! SLASH!
But the insane super-soldier started carving through the bulkheads with those energy swords like some kind of Jedi. Meteorn immediately ordered the unit to keep running.
At last the scattered allied forces managed to regroup in a vast chamber that looked like an auditorium.
The moment Meteorn’s unit stepped inside, the Precursor soldier came flying after them in a shower of bulkhead fragments.
“...”
“Cancel reverse charge! All units, combat ready!”
“You little... spirit!”
The sudden appearance of the Precursor soldier sent every trooper in the chamber drawing weapons, ready to open fire at a moment’s notice.
Yet the soldier, under the murderous gazes of the entire force, simply looked around... and shook their head in open disdain.
Then the visor of the helmet retracted, revealing the face beneath. The soldier surveyed the troops again and spoke with pure contempt.
“What a pack of crude savages. You actually intend to challenge me with those ridiculously primitive weapons?”
“...”
From the face that had been hidden by the visor, to the combat suit, to the speech dripping with racial supremacy—
This Precursor was the living embodiment of a fantasy “elf.”
Still radiating absolute confidence, she glanced around once more.
“Ah, right. You’re the savage who kept running from me and received help from this ship, aren’t you?”
She directed the remark at Meteorn, who had a weapon trained on her from one side.
“...Help from the ship? What does that mean?”
“Dunno, yeah. Probably talking about those bulkheads dropping, yeah?”
I whispered with Riel beside me, trying to parse the comment.
“Hmm, no... no. Looking closer, you’re nothing more than a controlled slave. The true source controlling you is elsewhere.”
The elf-like woman pointed not at Meteorn, but at the camera lens of the terminal mounted on his arm.
“First I’ll dispose of everyone present. Then I’ll take my time learning exactly who is puppeteering you inferior creatures.”
The sheer arrogance and sense of racial superiority made the killing intent on every face in the allied force spike even higher.
She merely snorted at their reaction.
“Let me teach you one thing.”
With that, she reactivated the energy swords on both arms and took a single step forward.
“No matter how many of you lowly vermin gather against me... the hopeless gap between us will never shrink!”
And roughly three minutes later—
“Minister, do we finish her off like this?”
“W-wait! I’ll give you all the equipment and information! Just spare me!”
Watching the absolute peak of patheticness on the other side of the screen—and realizing our allied force was stronger than I’d expected—I found myself feeling a very complicated mix of emotions.