Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Phoenix's Final Strike
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Gavin panted heavily in the technician cabin, one hand clutching tightly at his collar.
He felt countless tiny currents surging under his skin, striking hard at his nerve endings, nearly making him lose his footing. Phoenix's neural network gathered into a massive net, cradling him deeply within it. Mechanical arms automatically seized his dislocated left arm, snapping the bone back into place with a click.
"Welcome back, Marshal Celia," Phoenix said sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, our medical supplies have expired, and we don't have enough painkillers."
Gavin's face had gone pale from that snap, but after a moment, he caught his breath. "It's fine... What did you call me?"
"Marshal Celia."
"I..."
"The soul projection surgery must have glitched. This doesn't match our original plan—but thank goodness you're back. Everything still has a chance. I haven't let down half a century of waiting."
Gavin's mind buzzed. After a long pause, he instinctively latched onto the key point. "What was the original plan?"
To his surprise, Phoenix replied, "I don't know. I only received part of your orders—to preserve the Void Star people until the time was right, and to send suggestions to Bi'an and Griffin's mental systems until we recovered the marrow fluid. But the full plan was known only to you. You've never been one to bare your soul to a mech."
Gavin hadn't interfaced with many mechs, but he instinctively knew that was true of him. "I'm sorry..."
Phoenix sounded puzzled. "Why apologize? You're the commander."
Gavin fell silent for a moment. The restlessness deep in his body seemed to subside a bit. He looked up, scanning the technician cabin.
He felt an inexplicable closeness to Phoenix—not the condescending fondness he had for Griffin and Chaos Vermilion, but the casual familiarity of long companionship. Every corner here felt familiar, though dimmed by years of disuse. Still, he could clearly picture its glory days in his mind.
—Alliance Commander Gavin Celia.
Had he truly returned from the realm of the dead?
Gavin's gaze fell on a small slot at the base of the communicator, and he froze. There, in the dim light, gleamed a reddish-gold earring in a familiar shape—Griffin!
"Griffin transferred all the marrow fluid it extracted from you into me. That was part of your original design," Phoenix explained concisely. "Unfortunately, converting pure marrow fluid into energy has a high loss rate. I can't hold out much longer—probably just one more full-power output before I'm out of energy."
Gavin nodded, picking up Griffin from the slot and clipping it casually to his earlobe.
From the external display, the smoke over the desert was clearing, revealing a tear in the sky. The ghost battleship couldn't fully emerge from the black maw spanning the heavens. Only its prow extended, slowly adjusting its cannons to face off against the battered Bi'an at a distance.
Far behind them, the command building had collapsed halfway, with countless people crammed into air-raid shelters beneath the dunes. Over a hundred fighter jets from the imperial guard force roared into the dusty sky, but against the towering silver-white giant, they looked like a flock of insignificant birds.
Phoenix turned its head, gazing at Bi'an. Then its eyes slid past the emperor to the massive black battleship hovering high above.
It raised the Nirvana Gun.
Bang! A heavy thud rang out. Yunis shot up from the command seat, striding to the escape pod door in two quick steps and swinging a fist at Osrode!
With a dull smack, Osrode surged to block the punch. The two stared coldly at each other.
The younger Dark Star warriors around them stayed silent, some stepping back half a pace. After a long moment, Yunis ground out through clenched teeth, "Why didn't you just grab Celia and get him out of the base?"
"Why didn't you kill Heinrich?"
Their glares clashed like swords. Yunis's face was ashen from the relentless mental projection draining him, while Osrode was covered in blood. Though he'd ejected just before Dragon Rider exploded, he'd still taken some damage.
"The Alliance Phoenix still has energy. Your calculations were wrong from the start," Osrode said coldly. "The first strike was blocked by a 3S mech, and now even ambushes are useless... Instead of grilling me, think about how to minimize losses and explain it to the Elder Council."
Yunis shot him a glare and barked, "Someone! Prep the main console!"
Below the high command deck loomed a main console the size of half a football field, surrounded by countless terminals. Operators looked up at the order.
Yunis commanded, "Open the mech bay! Release Hydra!"
The sky seemed to split into a massive maw. The black battleship's front half protruded, its rear still hidden in unfathomable virtual space. Like a leviathan cruising the heavens, it soon opened a colossal hatch at its prow. A pitch-black humanoid mech with a serpentine tail burst forth, wreathed in flames.
—The Empire was only fifty years old, with little knowledge of the outer star systems, nothing like the deep-rooted Alliance. Heinrich froze at the sight of the bizarre mech. "What is that?"
"Some kind of mech," Bi'an replied hesitantly, "but its design philosophy differs from galactic mechs. No match in my database..."
"Black Mamba Hydra."
Heinrich whipped his head around. Phoenix had somehow pulled up beside him, and Gavin's cool voice came through the communicator.
For some reason, his voice sounded even more like Celia's—not just the timbre, but the cadence and tone, giving the emperor a dizzying sense of familiarity.
"The outer star systems have different space-time density from the galaxy, making giant mechs hard to maneuver. That's why Dark Star Hall warriors favor Dragon Riders for assassinations and ambushes. Centuries ago, as Dark Star Hall expanded into the galaxy, Dragon Riders proved weak in space combat, so they fused them with galactic mechs, developing bio-mechs modeled on ancient beasts."
Phoenix hefted the Nirvana Gun. Heinrich noticed fresh crimson threads surging through the grid-like veins on its barrel. He narrowed his eyes slightly, then asked, "Bio-mechs?"
"Yes. They load alien beast neural clusters into the main computer, so unlike high-end galactic mechs, they can't be directly mind-controlled. But their attack power far surpasses ours. The Black Mamba Hydra, using full optical circuit conduction, has broken the boundaries between biological and mechanical—strictly speaking, it's bio-optical armor."
Heinrich's pupils contracted sharply. Bi'an asked in astonishment, "Wasn't Dark Star Hall sealed in five-dimensional space four hundred years ago?! Did they..."
Bi'an might not be the Empire's top attack mech, but its tech was unmatched. Even it hadn't achieved full optical conduction—had Dark Star Hall perfected bio-optical armor four centuries ago?!
"Dark Star Hall's tech is astonishing..." Gavin paused, then said flatly, "A group holed up on a tiny asteroid forcing the Alliance—a behemoth spanning tens of thousands of systems—to send its elite legions. Was it really just because they were uniquely evil?"
His voice was even, detailed. Heinrich felt a daze, thrown back centuries to when he was a lowly guard, nervously seeking advice from Marshal Celia.
Celia had been swamped with duties and held no particular fondness for Heinrich, so his demeanor was never overly warm. But he'd never shown annoyance, always answering fully and frankly.
Since Heinrich rose to imperial leadership—and later emperor—no one had dared, or had the standing, to speak to him like that.
Heinrich murmured, "Celia, you..."
Silence from the communicator.
After a beat, Gavin's voice returned. "I don't know. Don't call me that."
High above, the massive hatch slammed shut. The Black Mamba coiled like a mountain. Its grotesque, enormous humanoid torso leaned forward, roaring at Phoenix, "Celia—!"
The earth-shaking bellow sent crowds scrambling up in the distance, crying out soundlessly.
Phoenix stood silent, towering motionless.
"Four centuries gone, Celia! Surprised to see us again?!"
"Dark Star Hall has returned! Back from the higher dimensions with power beyond your wildest dreams—! Today, the Empire falls, the Alliance rises anew, and Dark Star Hall's might becomes the center of the universe—!"
Twin venomous fangs flashed in the Black Mamba's maw as it dove with a hurricane gale!
"Repent for what you did, Celia! You're doomed to slavery, forever beneath us, for Dark Star Hall's revival—"
—Boom!
An electromagnetic cannon shot streaked with a long tail of light, slamming straight into the Black Mamba's gaping mouth. A deafening explosion blotted the sky, shredding half its face. Acid from its venom glands poured down like a torrent, turning the desert into a steaming white haze.
Heinrich released the throttle, asking indifferently, "Why do these guys always talk so much in a fight?"
Gavin: "...You noticed too?"
The Black Mamba thrashed wildly, its massive tail sweeping dozens of imperial fighters aside and smashing rocks with a thunderous crash. It roared in fury, lunging from the sky to land before Phoenix in an instant!
Half its venom gland ruptured, acid splattering everywhere. Phoenix dodged back half a step, raising its shield—when Bi'an charged in, shield flaring open, hurling the Black Mamba a hundred meters away.
Gavin jolted in surprise in the cabin, starting forward—then his body seized.
In that instant, sweat poured from every pore, drenching his back in seconds. An indescribable emptiness rose from deep in his nerves. He gripped the cannon edge desperately—crack. His nail split.
He knew what it was.
—Heat.
The syringe had injected less than a milliliter, but it was taking effect.
In those seconds of Gavin's freeze, Bi'an and the Black Mamba clashed fiercely. The serpent dwarfed Phoenix and Bi'an combined, its alien beast neural lineage lending brutal, bestial agility. Wild charges unleashed terrifying power.
Bi'an's intelligence outmatched it. Amid the whipping tail, it retreated while fighting, exploiting joint flex limits to slip into blind spots for surprise stabs, spraying purple-black foul acid everywhere.
Heinrich might be emperor now, but four centuries ago, he'd been just another guard under Celia—Yunis had never taken him seriously. Now wounded, he raged, "You bastard—! You're dead!!"
The Black Mamba struck with a whirlwind, lightning-fast coils crushing Bi'an's hull inch by inch. Then its myriad scales flared, secreting floods of acid to melt the entire mech!
"—Fire the megacannon!" Heinrich surged up in the cockpit, roaring, "Interstellar missiles, prep—"
Bi'an responded with a boom, cannon ports opening on shoulders, arms, and flanks. As energy peaked, Phoenix dove from above, Nirvana Gun cleaving the mountain-like tail in two!
Acid jetted skyward like arrows. The Black Mamba screamed, Bi'an breaking free.
At that moment, its cannons reached full charge. Heinrich and Gavin synced instinctively, mechs clasping hands midair. Phoenix spun, centrifugal force whirling Bi'an around to face the serpent—then the megacannon launched!
—Boom!
The sky quaked. The Black Mamba hurtled to the horizon. Bi'an's shell shattered, venting steam; Heinrich barely steadied it midair before turning. "What happened to you?!"
Gavin curled tight in the neural net, panting too hard to reply. Finally, stiffly: "I'm fine."
"Then why didn't you dodge? Why no firepower?"
The Gemini Emperor Heinrich and Alliance Commander Celia were foes for two centuries, intimately versed in each other's tactics. Celia was a battlefield soul, rarely in the front lines brawling—so the Nirvana Gun favored ion clashes and thermal blasts.
Yet he'd swung it like a cleaver in close melee. Energy shortage?!
"I-I'm fine..." Gavin clutched his arm, nails digging into flesh. Blood dripped into the neural net; Phoenix dared not absorb it—Omega pheromones teetered at critical danger levels.
"You must inject a suppressant immediately. The Royal Military Academy labs have backups..."
Gavin waved it off, using the extended neural tendril to force himself upright.
That single motion left his legs limp, marrow gnawed by ten thousand ants in numb, insatiable void. Worse, the mark Heinrich bit into his nape stirred, residual Alpha pheromones flooding his blood—that primal ferocity overwhelming...
Gavin shuddered a deep breath. Through the viewport, the Black Mamba tumbled far off, blasted by the megacannon.
Phoenix raised a hand, crimson marrow refilling the gun.
"Only once more, Marshal Celia," Phoenix said gently.
Gavin nodded. Next instant, the dual-S mech spread steel wings, rocketing past Bi'an to land before the Black Mamba!
"Celia—!"
Heinrich's roar shook the heavens. Simultaneously, the Nirvana Gun rose, summoning a storm of lightning in the atmosphere!
"Back to the realm of death!" Gavin bellowed. "Yunis—!"
The Nirvana Gun slammed down, bolts like a million arrows piercing earthward. Magnetic fields warped space visibly, tearing it like a dragon's maw from the clouds, devouring the serpent whole!
Then the rift expanded, swallowing the ghost battleship's prow in a godlike spectacle of creation's splendor. The tear ballooned, overwhelming Dark Star Hall's sky-spanning fissure!
Like one beast mouth engulfed by a greater one, the heavens plunged to primordial chaos, desert into eternal night. Amid collapsing space-time density, the ruined Phoenix shattered, plummeting like a meteor.
"Celia!" Bi'an lunged but the 3S mech couldn't withstand the rift's pull, disintegrating on contact and following Phoenix down—
Heinrich ejected, snatching Gavin's hand midair.
In that frozen instant before the black hole, their eyes locked as the ghost battleship crumbled overhead. Then suction surged, yanking them with billions of metal shards into the vast, unknown space tunnel.