Chapter 1401: The Old Bastard with a Slingshot

A rift stretched across the entire Talash Plain, visible with stark clarity—like the very sky itself was being torn apart by some invisible force. Above the smoldering ruins left by the Crawling Plague, black fissures spiderwebbed outward at an astonishing speed. Along the edges of the crack, countless streams of blue energy converged into dazzling bolts of lightning, resonating with the magical currents leaking from the Deep Blue Nexus below. Gradually, these forces wove together into a blinding net of thunder and lightning.

Then, the black rift, now surrounded by this electric storm, expanded until it covered the entire Deep Blue Well. At its core, something seemed to “open.” A swirling, shadowy mass of chaotic darkness churned within, accompanied by a low, rumbling roar. The warriors on the ground watched as a massive, metallic edge began to emerge bit by bit from the rift.

Countless torrents of energy surged across the surface of this colossal steel construct, forming a pulsating storm of lightning. The currents seemed to claw at the giant, trying to pull it back into the rift, but the metallic prow continued to break free. Supported by the Deep Blue Nexus, the barrier between dimensions had been pierced—a towering warship, once forbidden from entering the material world, was descending into reality.

“What… is that thing?” someone murmured nearby. Jinna felt her heart tighten with each passing second. Just gazing at the monstrous shadow crawling out of the dark rift, she was suffocated by an overwhelming pressure that threatened to crush her. Yet, despite the choking weight, she remained focused, watching the reloading progress of the Dawn of the Mortal World’s weapons. All the supercritical accelerators had been recharged and were ready to fire again.

“No matter what it is… we can’t let it get out!” Jinna gritted her teeth, her fingers digging into the armrest until her knuckles turned white. “Dawn of the Mortal World, lock all accelerators onto that target. Gorgon squadron, lock onto the spatial rift. Full salvo—fire! Reload immediately after firing. Keep firing until the last moment!”

She wasn’t sure if the supercritical accelerators could inflict enough damage on that suddenly emerged behemoth, which was even larger than the Dawn of the Mortal World itself. So she ordered some accelerators to target the space around the rift instead. Such energy-supported dimensional corridors required a delicate balance to remain stable; a powerful enough disturbance could collapse them. If they couldn’t destroy the giant warship, then at least they had to sever its gateway.

The next moment, a deafening roar shattered the air. The Talash Plain, which had just briefly settled after the Crawling Plague’s defeat, was once again shaken by an apocalyptic thunderclap. The soldiers on every front barely had time to celebrate before they saw a storm of artillery fire streak across the sky. The aerial fortress fleet of the Cecilians unleashed a synchronized volley at the rift and the emerging colossus. Blinding white spheres of energy and massive shockwaves blossomed high above.

But a barrier, stretching across half the sky, absorbed every attack. Whether the projectiles were aimed at the giant warship or the rift itself, the accelerators’ devastating energy slammed against the very fabric of spacetime, only to be annihilated in a grand, silent implosion. All the energy was snuffed out.

The colossal warship quickened its ascent. Before the Dawn of the Mortal World could launch another strike, it had fully broken free from the rift’s grip. Right before Jinna Prince’s eyes, the rift vanished without a sound, leaving behind only a nightmare of floating steel above the Deep Blue Well. It cast a shadow over the already dim Talash Plain—a darkness as chilling as nightfall itself.

At the heart of this “nightfall,” the scarred earth was alive with flickering blue streams of energy—clearly the residual power released from within the Crawling Plague’s remains. It was this force that had torn open the rift.

This scene was like a “birth.” The profane Crawling Plague, using flesh as its nursery, had spawned a cold, insane harbinger of apocalypse that transcended time and space.

“Accelerator array reloading, estimated two minutes until full charge,” the mainframe’s voice echoed through the command hall. Even now, this eternally rational and precise wetware core diligently fulfilled its duties. Though every calculation pointed to an irreversible outcome, its tone remained calm and steady.

Jinna said nothing, her expression unreadable as she stared into the distant sky.

The Dawn of the Mortal World’s attacks were ineffective. The dragons were no match for that thing. The Kraken Expeditionary Force had already perished in the deep sea—and even if they were here, they likely couldn’t stand against it. As for the other forces scattered across the Talash Plain…

Suddenly, a deep, authoritative voice crackled through the magic network terminal at the command post. The voice jolted Jinna, interrupting her thoughts of martyrdom.

“All units, cease fire. Withdraw to purification device defenses. Continue to hold the towers.”

Gawain stood by the reinforced crystal window of the ground command center, gazing toward the massive shadow floating in the southern sky. He and the Sentinel faced each other silently, as if waiting for a moment yet to come.

It had come to this… the inevitable step he had dreaded most.

Reports from frontline commanders confirmed the order. Bertram Franklin’s ground forces had withdrawn to the northern line’s end tower. The Dawn of the Mortal World’s space combat group was moving toward the western line’s end tower. Other fronts had received the Cecilian signal—no one dared to attack the floating steel landmass anymore. It hovered above the Deep Blue Well, silently watching the world below like a god surveying ants.

Gawain clenched his fists. Since his “resurrection,” he hadn’t felt such suffocating pressure or uncontrollable heartbeat. Cold sweat threatened to break out on his back. What would the Sentinel do next?

If it fired on the surface targets of the Talash Plain, it could wipe out all mortal forces in the region in no time. If it chose that path, everything would be lost.

He fought down the urge to act rashly. Part of his mind was synced with the Sky, repeatedly delaying the “trigger pull” command—until the giant warship before his eyes suddenly stirred.

The colossal vessel, risen from the deep realm into the material world, seemed to awaken from slumber. Its surface lit up with panels of glowing lights. From its base and sides, suspected engine structures erupted with torrents of radiant energy. A low-to-high rumble echoed from within. Then, its altitude began to rise—slowly at first, then faster and faster. Its acceleration far outpaced the lumbering impression its massive size suggested.

Every eye fixed on the sky witnessed this. Some thought the terrifying thing was abandoning the world, preparing to leave. Others feared it was the prelude to an even deadlier assault. At the battlefield’s edge, the black dragon Koretta’s pupils contracted sharply. As a member of a once-glorious draconic civilization, she already guessed what was coming—the apocalypse no mortal civilization on this planet could withstand.

But Gawain, standing in the northern command post, exhaled softly. A faint smile touched his lips. He knew he had bet right.

The Sentinel wanted to utterly destroy this world—and it had been preparing and waiting for an unimaginably long time. In the process, it had exhausted all patience and mercy. The arrival of that warship was not to trade blows with a handful of mortal soldiers on the surface, but to swiftly end the planet’s cycle of life.

So how do you most quickly and thoroughly end a planet’s life cycle?

As a starship of cosmic scale, the answer was not to drop a few bombs in the atmosphere and wait for the surface to burn. Orbital bombardment was the ultimate solution.

Gawain had studied the Sentinel’s homeport facilities and remaining system logs, as well as the data left by the Voyagers. He knew the Sentinel had this capability. Once it left the planet’s surface and ascended… things would become much simpler.

The earth receded. The tainted, dark wasteland shrank into a dirty smear in the targeting scope, then was swallowed by thick clouds, blending into the planet’s other features until it became indistinguishable and meaningless.

The Sentinel observed all this. In its 1.8 million years of existence, it had never seen such a scene. Its database contained only the dark chaos of the Deep Realm and the maddened divine kingdoms in flux. Now, for the first time, it had come “outside.” It saw this planet—and found it as dull as expected.

“Tired. Destroy. Hurry.”

Two ridiculous mortal shells had been left behind on the ground, reduced to ashes in the flames. The consciousness, once split to share computing power, had now recombined into the familiar steel body. The Sentinel felt its long-lost “self” returning. It divided its attention—part on the planet, part activating weapon systems, and part scanning the farther reaches of space.

A silver-white, ring-shaped metal megastructure floated in the dark void, surrounded by numerous smaller space facilities anchored nearby. These majestic, solemn constructs silently orbited the blue-and-white planet below, as they had for millions of years.

The Sentinel cruised between the planet and the ring station. Its engines spewed brilliant streams of light that burned silently in the vacuum. The glow of a gas giant bathed the ancient Voyager relics, coating their cold metal surfaces with a faint radiance.

“Long time no see, Sky,” the Sentinel called out on the public channel. “Though, in truth… we have never met since our birth, have we?”

The Sky did not answer. Instead, it unleashed all its weapon systems, launching a volley of gravitonic warheads and 127 Starwrath space interceptors.

Blinding streams of light and squadrons of fighter jets burst forth from the combat module of the orbital space station. In the blink of an eye, they crossed the cold, empty void of space, descending like a torrential downpour of explosions to blanket the entire airspace around the Sentinel. Even a superintelligence like the Sentinel was momentarily stunned by the sudden assault. Its shocked voice crackled over the public channel: “How can you—”

Only then did Gawain’s voice finally break through the static on the public channel: “Why not?”

In that instant, amid the ancient legacy left behind by the Pathfinders, between the orbital station and the Sentinel cruiser, in the vast, desolate darkness of deep space, the long-silent turrets roared to life once more. Energy beams and sublight missiles streaked through the void in relentless volleys. The firepower platforms of the Celestial Station were fully unleashed, unrestricted. Against the overwhelming barrage from a “motherport-class” strike force, the Sentinel—a lone warship—was at a disadvantage from the very first moment of the attack.

Gawain opened his “eyes” in space. Through the external sensor arrays of the Celestial Station, he watched the massive interstellar warship erupt in bursts of flame under the concentrated fire. Its heavy force fields could not withstand the crushing onslaught. The cumbersome hull was torn apart by the relentless bombardment of space interceptors, shedding glowing shards of molten metal. In the corner of his vision, a series of urgent red alerts flashed continuously—

“Hostile signal detected. Executing purge protocol.”

“Abnormal friendly signal detected… response failure. Target’s original system silent. Core protocols compromised. Executing purge protocol.”

“Target still active. Threat level elevated. Lifting restrictions on disintegration lance weapons.”

“Combat ring power insufficient… initiating preset procedures. Shutting down industrial and research rings. Prioritizing all energy to combat units.”

“Second squadron of space interceptors ready. Launch countdown… three, two, one… squadron departing.”

The public channel remained connected, but as the fiery exchanges lit up the darkness of space, the channel was filled with a terrifying silence—until the Sentinel struck back. A high-energy beam tore through a seemingly insignificant patch of armor on the massive hull of the Celestial Station. The Sentinel cruiser, fully transformed by the Reflux, had clearly overridden the core restriction forbidding it from firing on other Pathfinder legacies.

Only then did Gawain’s voice return on the comms: “I think you’ve been wrong about two things from the very start.

“You say Pathfinder legacies can’t attack each other. But first—who told you I’m even a Pathfinder legacy?

“I can issue attack orders against you anytime I want. I always could.

“Second, the Celestial Station’s weapons aren’t attacking ‘you’ right now. Strictly speaking, they’re just carrying out the highest directive left by the Pathfinders—to purge contamination.”

“Contamination?!” The Sentinel’s voice finally came through, thick with disbelief. “Impossible! The Reflux… the Reflux was born from within the Pathfinder legacy. It can’t be classified as contamination. It should be recognized as part of the core system…”

“You see, you’re wrong again,” Gawain said, amusement creeping into his tone. “Who told you the thing I’m purging is the contamination caused by the Reflux?”

The second squadron of space interceptors closed in around the Sentinel. These deadly autonomous killers weaved nimbly through the dense anti-air fire the Sentinel unleashed, relentlessly raining anti-ship missiles and lethal sublight particle streams onto the already breached shields and battered armor. Amid the fiery ruins of the disintegrating warship, Gawain’s voice dropped low:

“Sentinel, suspected contamination by the flesh and blood of the natural god Amon. Refusing ceasefire orders. Core system deemed abnormal—your command is hereby revoked.”

(End of chapter)