Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Revival of the Dark Star Pattern
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In the year 3000 of the Galactic Calendar, Alliance Marshal Gavin Celia once again became a Dark Star Warrior, freely handing over unimaginable national resources that sent the Dark Star Hall's power soaring to new heights.
In 3005, the Dark Star Hall joined forces with Celia to ambush the Alliance fleet, only for the intelligence to leak. The Dark Star Hall suffered devastating losses, and Celia faced intense questioning from the hall's elders but managed to slip away unscathed.
That same winter, the Alliance declared war on the Dark Star Hall under the banner of combating interstellar terrorism, swiftly eradicating all of the enemy's secret bases in a matter of days.
As the war escalated, Alliance Supreme Commander Gavin Celia personally led troops into battle, charging through millions of star systems before finally handing command to his trusted iron guard, Kaleyan, just moments before landing on the target planet. Piloting his mech Phoenix, he unleashed the Nirvana Spear to tear open a five-dimensional rift, sealing the entire Dark Star Hall into the void.
The Alliance lost over a million lives in that campaign, while the Dark Star Hall was all but annihilated, never to reappear in the galaxy for the next four centuries.
What no one knew was that in the spring of the second year after the war's end, Marshal Celia received an antidote specially developed for the purpose in front of the entire Alliance Council. The venomous mark that had tormented him for over five years was finally purged from his body...
Yet while physical scars could be erased, some shadows lingered in his heart, unbroken even after centuries.
"As long as darkness festers in the human heart, the Dark Star Hall will never truly perish, no matter a millennium's passage!"
"We'll come back for you, Celia!"
"The day we meet again will be the day you die, traitor!"
...
"When you walked past me without a glance and said 'What does it have to do with me,' did you ever imagine this day would come?"
Osroed finally released his bite on Gavin's throat, lifting his head with a smile.
"When you landed on that planet and ignited the flames of war, sitting in your Phoenix mech and claiming 'I don't remember,' did you ever think you'd end up like this?"
Gavin's head lolled back limply, his body bound tight by the vines, arms dangling at his sides.
"You probably never saw it coming, huh?"
Osroed paused, then spread his arms wide, pulling Gavin into a crushing embrace, his arm muscles bulging with the force of it.
"But no matter. This time, you'll etch my name into your soul—never to forget it, even in death..."
Gavin lay utterly still, his face deathly pale as if already gone, his chest no longer rising or falling.
The nearby warriors chuckled, their eyes gleaming with barely restrained lust. Barnett even reached out to stroke Gavin's face.
"Tsk tsk, the Exile Army finally did something right."
"It wasn't meant for you, originally..."
"This is your one shot in life to top Celia. Savor it."
Osroed laughed too, leaning down to kiss Gavin's tightly shut eyelids. Like a hunter savoring his hard-won prey, he gripped Gavin's throat and trailed kisses from the bridge of his nose to his cold lip corner. Just as he was about to force his jaw open for a deeper kiss—
Gavin's eyes snapped open.
His pupils burned a deep crimson.
"Osroed," he whispered, "Yunes was at least a rat. You're not even that."
Osroed jerked his head up. Bloodlight swirled in Gavin's eyes as countless black patterns exploded from his pupils, racing across his cheeks to his chest, arms, and fingertips in an instant!
A fierce, intangible aura of death erupted from him, and the black vines hissed, loosening before retracting into the void at the sense of it. Osroed staggered back half a step, stunned.
"—The Dark Star Warrior pattern?!"
But how could that be?
Four centuries had passed. Celia had reincarnated twice. Why would the pattern still linger in his body?!
"Watch out!"
Barnett's shout rang out as Gavin shot forward like lightning, coming eye-to-eye with Osroed in a flash!
A series of sharp claps echoed as they exchanged blows in a blur. Then, with a swift twist, Gavin locked Osroed's arm.
Up close, Osroed stared into his pupils—and froze.
He saw the Celia of old.
—the Alliance Supreme Commander Gavin Celia from four centuries ago, brushing past him without a second glance.
A thunderous roar erupted in the desert. Yellow sands cascaded from the dunes, revealing a corner of the black base beneath. Then came another earth-shaking boom, smashing a hole through the roof from inside as two black Dragon Riders burst out.
"What was that?"
"What's going on?"
In the Race Committee command post on the other side of the base, staff rushed to the radar screens. A bright blip was speeding toward the base exterior.
"It's Luan Zhu!"
"Luan Zhu's team broke out!"
"Deploy the mechs—prep for the finals!"
By the rules, once the first two teams emerged, the finals could begin immediately, and any team that escaped afterward was eligible to compete for the championship.
Luan Zhu's group was out. One more, and the finals would start. At the staff's command, the hangar bays unlocked layer by layer. Luan Zhu's pitch-black eyes lit with indicators, energy and neural locks disengaging. Propelled by powerful jets, it rocketed from the hangar into the vast desert depths.
Dozens of kilometers away, Gavin had been blasted from the base by the explosion. Intricate, demonic black patterns covered his entire upper left side, his hair whipping in the wind to obscure his face. He still clutched the unconscious Dean tightly.
"Still thinking of your worthless teammate at a time like this?!"
A black Dragon Rider streaked past, Barnett's voice closing in.
"Both of us have to get out for finals eligibility!"
Osroed barked.
"Careful! Mechs incoming!"
In a flash, Barnett lunged from behind, grabbing for Gavin's collar. Gavin released Dean, hurling him onto the dune, just as he was seized.
The Dragon Rider roared ferociously. Barnett bellowed,
"Over here—!"
Gavin twisted midair, his blood-red pupils locking coldly onto him.
"You?"
Barnett faltered.
Back then, as Alliance Supreme Commander reborn into the Dark Star Hall, Celia had been mostly silent. When he spoke, it was only sharp barbs traded with powerhouses like Yunes—and only if they provoked him first. For Osroed, "What does it have to do with me?" had been a rare indulgence.
To someone like Barnett—a rising star among the younger generation—Celia hadn't spared so much as a glance.
"You damn—"
Barnett roared in humiliated fury, but before he could finish, a streak of light flashed across the distant sky.
With a sharp crack, Gavin reversed the grip, locking Barnett's wrist.
"Luan Zhu!!"
The streak closed in. The C-grade mech disassembled midair, cockpit swooping to snatch Gavin from Barnett's grasp!
Osroed roared over the gale,
"Fall back! Now!"
No need for repeats. A series of metallic booms rang out as Luan Zhu reassembled in a heartbeat. The shockwave from its activation hurled the Dragon Rider over a hundred meters!
"Damn it!"
Barnett tumbled through the air before stabilizing, looking up to see the steel giant hovering, its mechanical voice rumbling low:
"C-grade mech Luan Zhu fully activated. Armaments online. Primary directive: Load electromagnetic cannons."
The barrels extended from its shoulders, swiveling to target.
Osroed sped in.
"Fire—!"
—BOOM!
Three massive blasts erupted simultaneously. The desert quaked, tens of thousands of tons of sand pouring down like waterfalls, kicking up a blinding storm of dust.
High above, the three electromagnetic rounds collided in a retina-searing flash.
At the same moment, in the command post's sublevel one, a black fissure tore open. Lasgard stepped out from the spatial crevice, military blade in hand.
"They actually hauled the Alliance's top mech out of the lab?"
Behind her, the lollipop tech emerged too, glancing around curiously.
This underground hangar was like an enormous air-raid shelter magnified a hundredfold. Rows of C-grade mechs lined the walls like silent steel titans in the dark. At the ceiling's center hung a silver-white avian mech, left wing spread wide in gleaming majesty, right wing shattered and scarred by half a century's war.
...
"Phoenix."
Lasgard whispered, stepping back to take in its battle-worn form.
The tech grumbled,
"No word from Osroed's side—they must not have him yet... Figures they'd screw up cooperating with Yunes. Probably doomed to fail."
"They never backed the plan anyway."
"But no choice sometimes—you gotta swallow your pride and do what you hate. Hope Osroed keeps it together. Honestly, though, his interest in that guy seems bigger than some little regime on Ophiuchus. Who knows what he'll do—better not push him too far."
The tech paused, then switched gears.
"So what now? Can't grab the guy—can you control Phoenix?"
Lasgard gave a faint smile.
"No, I can't."
"Not even you?"
"Phoenix is double-S... but its neural lock is the rarest 4S in the universe. You know smart mechs pick the path most beneficial to themselves? It's attuned to absorbing Celia's marrow fluid, neural lock tuned to 4S peaks. After Celia died, taking any other pilot would downgrade it, so it chose dormancy. Eternity stretches ahead—maybe centuries from now, another Celia-like figure emerges, and then it'll boot up."
"Choosing pilots on a 'better none than wrong one' basis,"
Lasgard added.
"That's the gulf between 4S and 3S intelligences."
The tech frowned in silence, the hangar falling still. After a beat, he asked,
"So even Emperor Heinrich doesn't qualify?"
"Phoenix would remember—shot down by the then-S-grade Bian over Ophiuchus, leading to Celia's defeat and suicide... No way it'd accept Heinrich."
The tech mused, then sighed.
"Guess we go with the spatial crevice after all."
Lasgard nodded. The tech pulled gear from his case, positioning it beneath the suspended Phoenix, tuning spatial frequencies one by one.
Unlike Osroed's compact device, this would birth a massive crevice—potentially warping spacetime for hundreds of meters around. They preferred stealth, but Phoenix's sheer size and mass left no choice.
Ready at last, the tech stood and glanced at Lasgard.
They nodded.
The tech drew a deep breath, arm raised.
"—Activate!"
A thin black fissure linked the devices, blooming into a vast spatial slice that surged upward like a dark sack engulfing Phoenix!
The hangar warped violently. Just as the blackness neared the mech—
An electromagnetic round sliced the air. BANG!
The spatial rig shattered. The black veil snapped back!
"Who?!"
They whipped around, then froze.
On the nearby stairs, Heinrich lowered his gun barrel, face impassive, gaze icy. Guard troops poured through the doors, encircling the chamber, countless muzzles trained on them.
"Phoenix isn't offline for those laughable reasons. You overthought it."
The emperor intoned from on high.
"My neural threshold just isn't high enough."
They blinked. The guard captain bellowed,
"Fire!"
Gunfire thundered through the depths. But simultaneously, Lasgard and the tech vanished into the black fissure. The next instant, they rematerialized midair. The tech shouted,
"Too naive!"
The nearest guard couldn't dodge, sent flying by a midair kick. They slipped into another crevice, emerging to weave through the troops, one from left, one from right—straight at Heinrich!
"That's all you've got, Heinrich—!"
In that instant, their pupils flushed blood-red, black patterns erupting to cloak half their bodies. Military blades raised, they dove—
CLANG! CLANG!
Heinrich's wrist-mounted Bian split in two, solidly parrying the twin blades' earth-shattering strike!
Midair, Lasgard and the tech both stiffened.
"Too naive."
Heinrich smirked, flicking his wrists to hurl them both away!