Grand Cross (3)

Even the massive armored hatch that formed the main gate could not withstand the insane surge of energy. It warped and melted away, and at last a colossal torrent of power poured straight into the fortress’s interior.

That, in turn, was more than enough to reduce every facility inside — and the entire “defense fleet” with them — to something like a golden-brown roast, or sugar residue that had melted and smeared itself flat.

And of course, the player bases ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠docked on the exterior fared no better. In the end their base barriers cracked and failed, and every last one of them was reduced to base-roast as well.

With only a slight time lag, the exact same scene unfolded across the territories of the various factions and of Humanity alike. Suddenly, players understood firsthand why the usually half-assed operators had, this one time only, gone out of their way to plaster a special warning message across their screens.

Grand Cross. (3)

Naturally, once that insane result was laid out in plain sight for every player to see, most of them could not contain their astonishment.

Or rather, “astonishment” wasn’t quite the word. They were so thoroughly overwhelmed that their brains might as well have blue-screened.

That stunned silence, of course, did not last long.

Roughly five minutes after the Grand Cross’s bombardment had turned Fluksas Interstellar Fortress into a golden-brown, crisp-inside-and-out croissant—

The moment their brains rebooted, the players started venting their reactions at full volume.

And we were no exception.

“If that thing had fired at us… do you think we could have held?”

“Absolutely not, I would say.”

After a long silence, that was what I finally managed to get out. Jessica, who had been glued to my side, immediately shook her head in firm denial.

The other superhumans watching over comms each had their own takes as well.

—“Commander, if we take a hit from that Grand Cross fortress’s main gun, no ship in existence could survive it.”

—“Exactly. Even the Kraken would end up as dried squid, you know?”

—“And just in case you’re thinking it — do not try to neutralize it with Ouroboros’s fire, Commander.”

—“Avoidance is the only answer, in my opinion.”

—“I think so too-nya. Far too dangerous-nya.”

“So that’s how all of you feel.”

The consensus was a resounding we get hit by that and we are absolutely dead. I glanced over the superhumans making those faces, then simply nodded as if to say, fair enough.

And as one might expect, it was not long before the same spectacle began to play out, one after another, in other sectors — specifically, across the various clans’ territories.

In the middle of all that, the Loki Clan — having stretched its reach across not only the Pirate Coalition but also the old Earth Federation and even Space Monster territory — somehow managed to get hit twice while every other clan was still only eating a single shot.

And beyond Loki Clan’s particular misery, the other mega-clans — not to mention the lower-tier clans and regular players — were all getting thoroughly wrecked in their own ways.

In that same fashion, clans that thought of themselves as pretty tough kept quietly ramming into the problem, getting hammered, and getting driven off — and it was happening constantly.

Even Humanity, currently the strongest of the player factions, ended up eating a massive L from the Grand Cross’s chaos.

The players were all going so this is the power of the Ancient Empire! in a chorus of pure awe.

Which made sense — in the actual game, the Ancient Empire was basically a MacGuffin that almost never showed up.

But these were our players we were talking about.

Sure, they were a pack of bastards who spent most of their time stabbing each other in the back and betraying anyone within arm’s reach — but unlike a “faction” they had already acknowledged among themselves, they weren’t about to sit around going ooh ahh at some no-name boss forever.

After roughly two more main-gun volleys that erased strongholds and fleets, they carefully, methodically mapped out its weaknesses — and then threw every single effort they had into using those weaknesses to bring the Grand Cross down.

On top of that, this event line hid one unexpected hidden event the players had not accounted for.

The Grand Cross’s attack targets were not limited to “commanders = players.” NPCs were fair game as well.