Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Nirvana Spear Unleashed
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Meanwhile, high above in the sky, two black Dragon Riders linked up in mid-air, their firepower weaving into a massive net that spanned the heavens, crashing down headlong onto the mech Ranzhu!
Gavin sat in the cockpit, countless chaotic memories flashing before his eyes, unable to distinguish which were illusions and which were real.
He seemed to transform into the legendary Alliance Commander Gavin Celia, yet at the same time, he was still that bewildered Omega youth who had first opened his eyes on Red Soil Star. The contradiction between his self-perception and his memories tore at him, causing a splitting headache, his fingers gripping the control stick so tightly that they turned pale.
—Boom!
The light net smashed down overhead. The C-grade mech couldn't evade it, and the cockpit immediately blared with flashing red lights: "Warning! Warning! Shields damaged—return to base immediately!"
Gavin's memories were a jumble, but he recognized the Dragon Riders as specialized combat weapons from the Far Star System. Rather than resembling airships, they were more like gigantic aerial motorcycles, with exteriors akin to monstrous beasts—highly maneuverable, agile in movement, and packing immense firepower. Since their mass was less than a tenth of a mech's, they imposed minimal burden during space travel, making them the preferred mounts for Dark Star Hall warriors.
A C-grade mech's hardware couldn't compare to the Dragon Riders, let alone their speed, which was worlds apart. Gavin abandoned manual controls, linking his mental power directly to the mech's neural network, instantly doubling the command speed—
In that instant, the steel giant whipped around and dove toward the ground, shaking off the pursuing light net; just seconds before smashing into the earth, it leveled out in a horizontal skim, then rocketed upward!
A whoosh of wind surged up as Ranzhu narrowly grazed the edge of the light net at the last possible moment, flying at full speed toward the command center!
Osroed and Barnett exchanged a glance. The two Dragon Riders streaked through the high sky in brilliant trails of light, chasing after it in unison.
At the same moment, inside the underground hangar of the command center, the spatial device warped violently. A black rift tore diagonally from the wall, instantly swallowing five or six C-grade mechs into the void's spatial crevice.
The ceiling collapsed abruptly, countless massive chunks of brick and rubble mixed with sand cascading down. The Imperial Guard immediately fell back to protect the Emperor, only to see amid the crumbling earth a blood-soaked technician hoisting the spatial device high, shouting, "Heinrich!"
"You think this is the end? Far from it! Today, your ambitions and your life will both be buried in this desert!"
Chunks of broken brick crashed down around him as Heinrich took half a step back. Suddenly, a girl's figure leaped from the chaos, arriving before him in an unfathomable instant, her knife's electric arc slashing down diagonally once more.
Heinrich shook his head with a smirk, casually grabbing her wrist and swinging her through the air before slamming her heavily to the ground!
"Ah—!" Lasgard spat out a huge mouthful of blood on impact. Before she could rise, the Imperial Guard pinned her down. Even then, she refused to yield, struggling fiercely—until Heinrich's knife pressed firmly against her forehead. "Don't move!" he said coldly.
Blood trickled from Lasgard's mouth as she glared viciously at the Emperor.
"You're impressive compared to your peers, but still too green." Heinrich sheathed his blade with a flick. "I knew something was off when I saw you all at the prelims' end. How could there be so many geniuses in the world? If your mental threshold rivals that of the War God Celia, why had Military Intelligence never reported it?"
Lasgard faltered.
"The Dark Star Hall and the exiled Federation government are in league, and you lot are their sleeper agents planted in the system military academy." Heinrich asked slowly, "Let me guess who sent you—Yunis?"
Lasgard's face changed instantly.
Even at the height of its power four hundred years ago, the Dark Star Hall had been shrouded in utmost secrecy, never revealing even the names of low-level warriors to outsiders—let alone someone of Yunis's caliber. After centuries adrift in five-dimensional space, the organization had faded from collective memory; now, only a scant few even knew of its existence.
Yet this Emperor not only knew—it, but could name Yunis outright!
Where had the intelligence leaked from? The exiled government?
In truth, she couldn't know that Heinrich only knew of Yunis—and wasn't even certain he was with the Dark Star Hall. But from her expression, Heinrich got his confirmation. He nodded. "Exactly as I thought."
He recalled that eerie fragment from Celia's memories, his heart sinking slightly. Why had Yunis told Celia, "You can fool those old men, but not me"? What did "There is a place for you in both light and darkness" mean?
What was Celia's connection to this interstellar terrorist group? Could he possibly have once been—
A chill ran through Heinrich's body. He didn't dare pursue the thought.
Just then, a loud "clang!" echoed from behind him, followed by agonized screams and heavy thuds. Heinrich whipped around to see the gravely wounded technician somehow standing again, his expression dazed and eyes vacant, like a marionette as he swiftly cut down several guards, his blade still dripping blood.
"Stop!" Heinrich roared in fury, drawing his blade and lunging forward in a single bound!
But at that moment, the technician's figure flickered and vanished into the black spatial crevice. Seconds later, he reappeared right in front of Heinrich, their electromagnetic blades clashing with a "clang!"—bright electric sparks erupting several meters wide!
This time, the technician's strength was immense, matching the Emperor blow for blow. Heinrich was slightly taken aback as the man shuddered oddly all over, his eyes rolling back, face rigid. Seconds later, he jolted violently and looked up at Heinrich.
For some reason, Heinrich felt like it was a different person entirely. That gaze brimmed with infinite hatred and cruelty. When he spoke, even his voice had completely changed:
"What an honor, Your Majesty. I didn't expect you to know my name."
"...Yunis?!"
The technician grinned strangely, his voice low and rasping like a venomous serpent's hiss—identical to the pale, sharp-featured man from Celia's memories:
"Did you think I'd only send those two kids after you? One might say the heavens are truly with you, Emperor Heinrich. Or perhaps you're so obsessed with Celia that any matter touching him clouds your judgment?"
Heinrich's eyes darkened. Sparks flew with a series of clangs as they exchanged over a dozen moves, the blue electric arcs from their blades shredding the falling rubble overhead and at their sides into dust!
Clang! A sharp ring echoed as Yunis spun back onto the stairs, their blades locked tight. Heinrich stared him down at point-blank range. "What other tricks do you have? Spill them all now—might as well get it over with."
Yunis smiled without answering, countering with a question: "When Celia died right in front of you, did it feel good?"
"..."
"Too bad I wasn't there to see it. You know, for centuries I've fantasized about watching him die before my eyes—watching that detestable face twist in despair, his breathing slow to a stop, his body turn pale and stiff, never to trouble you again. How exquisite that would be?"
Heinrich gritted his teeth. "What exactly is your relationship with Celia?!"
Yunis sighed languidly, the eerie voice sending shivers down the spine.
"—Five hundred years ago, we entered the Dark Star Hall together, lived and ate as one, trained under the same master, faced death countless times on missions—until we both rose to high-rank warriors. What do you think our relationship was?"
Celia had been a Dark Star warrior.
Heinrich's mind went blank.
"We were, of course, the best of brothers—" Yunis yanked back and slashed diagonally; their blades rang with a "clang!" of metal on stone. He then retreated abruptly!
Heinrich charged after him, only to hear raucous laughter from behind some fallen boulders: "Your Majesty! See? The Dark Star Hall has honed its blades for four centuries—today is your doom!"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Heinrich cleaved through the massive brick-rock. Bursting from the flying debris, he saw the technician's body convulse and collapse unconscious with a thud.
Yunis was gone.
Heinrich stood dazed, a tumult of emotions churning indescribably within.
But the chaotic situation left no time for dwelling. Seconds later, the ground quaked as a familiar roar thundered from above, followed by panicked screams and fleeing footsteps—the shrill cries even reaching the underground hangar: "—Warships! Warships!"
"Sound the air raid alarm! Enemy invasion!"
"Run—ahhhh—"
The alarms pierced the ears deafeningly. Heinrich could afford no more distractions, bounding up the stairs two at a time to the command center's first-floor hall, then bursting out the door—only to freeze solid.
A colossal spatial rift, unprecedented in history and spanning hundreds of kilometers wide, tore across the desert sky, dominating the entire visible heavens. A black phantom warship was slowly emerging from the rift, its blood-red eye emblem on the prow stark even under the blazing sun.
Two rows of five hundred electrothermal cannons extended from the bow, muzzles flashing with blinding light, aimed squarely at the command center in the desert.
Behind Heinrich, countless panicked people shoved and jostled, screaming as they scattered.
In just two short seconds, Heinrich had no time for anything else—no space to marvel at the Dark Star Hall's universe-defying, hair-raising spatial transit tech.
In that moment, he thought only of Celia. More precisely, the Alliance Commander Gavin Celia who had stood before the solar storm at the Battle of Venus Fortress.
If any future historian revisited this scene, they would marvel at the fateful, cyclical coincidence: the Alliance War God of a century past and the Imperial Sovereign of a century hence, separated by irreconcilable hatred and the boundary of life and death, faced with the same peril—made the same choice.
In that instant, their thoughts were eerily identical, every detail a replay of history.
"Bian—An—!"
The black twin blades transformed abruptly, disassembling and reshaping amid dazzling light into a towering alloy colossus. It lingered on the ground for a mere 0.1 seconds before blasting skyward, unfurling an unprecedented massive defensive shield toward the warship's five hundred primed electrothermal cannons!
The world fell silent in that moment.
In the suffocating hush, the cannons fired as one, countless light-arrows raining down to slam into the invisible barrier. Titanic electrothermal orbs poured like a monsoon, sliding along the shield's curved surface across the sky, erecting millions of radiant aurora bridges at the horizon.
Amid the earth-shattering roar, Heinrich unleashed a soundless bellow.
At the same time, hundreds of meters behind Bi'an, the mech Ranzhu streaked across the desert trailing long exhaust plumes—pursued now by only Osroed's lone Dragon Rider.
"Damn it..." Osroed muttered a curse, glancing up at the phantom warship. He knew this was Yunis's domain now—his own schemes had fallen through.
But with matters at this point, there was no choice left. In a fit of venting rage, Osroed slammed the comms button, sending a targeting signal to the warship, using himself as a reference to report Ranzhu's position. Moments later, the warship's bay doors opened, and six Dragon Riders swooped down through the gale, blasting Ranzhu to pieces mid-air with successive cannon fire!
"Can't even handle a C-grade mech, Osroed!" Yunis's voice laughed over the public channel.
"Shut up! It's out of ammo!"
Osroed left it at that, watching as the shattered Ranzhu crashed into the desert, kicking up vast clouds of sand. The cockpit ejected from the wreckage, rolling to a stop; seconds later, Gavin stumbled out disheveled, leaping onto a dune.
Osroed bellowed over public comms: "Grab him!"
The seven Dragon Riders dove from the sky, zeroing in on Gavin standing alone on the dune. In that moment, behind him, the shoving, screaming crowds seemed like a distant still image, dotted across the magnificent, desolate desert backdrop.
It should have been a strangely grand vista.
Gavin stood against the wind, hair and collar whipping wildly, the nearest Dragon Rider nearly upon him from overhead. Just as it was about to bisect him at the waist, in the command center's underground hangar a hundred-plus meters away, the suspended silver-white Phoenix's eyes lit up.
Thousands-of-degrees flames erupted from its tail, instantly melting the steel restraints binding it into molten slag. Then, the Phoenix soared into the air, streaking across the desert like a comet under all eyes.
Gavin turned, his gaze locking instantly with the incoming Phoenix's.
The next second, the Phoenix closed in, opening its technician cockpit to scoop Gavin up. At that precise moment, the Dragon Riders arrived—with a series of thunderous booms, the Phoenix's myriad razor-sharp left wings snapped open, pinning several Riders dead in front!
Roiling sands howled up as Osroed, Yunis, and the others inside the Dragon Riders paled.
"Double-S mech Phoenix: autonomous startup complete."
"Directive one: Nirvana Spear."
With a series of mechanical clanks, the Phoenix completed its humanoid reconfiguration, raising a hand toward the sky. The next instant, something detached from golden Bi'an's side and plummeted at high speed, landing perfectly in the Phoenix's grasp.
"Nir... Nirvana Spear..." Yunis murmured, then roared: "Fall back! Fall back now—!"
The Dragon Riders halted in unison, then retreated at full throttle—but it was too late. Crimson marrow fluid surged through the grid lines, filling the entire gun barrel, which then blazed with radiant black light.
Time seemed forcibly frozen—then the Nirvana Spear swept horizontally in fury.
In that instant, billions of volts of current blanketed the heavens, drowning all sound; the few Dragon Riders too slow to retreat vanished utterly in the electric cascade, without even time to cry for help.