Chapter 1402: It’s Out, But Not Completely

When a colossal spaceship large enough to cover the entire Deep Blue Well hovered at the edge of the atmosphere, under relentless bombardment from the Sky Orbital Station’s artillery, the spectacle was visible even from the planet’s surface. Of course, the thick polluted cloud cover blocked the view for the troops stationed on the Talash Plains, but for the dragons circling above the clouds and the high-altitude reconnaissance drones, the battle between the Sentinel and the Sky Station was plainly visible to the naked eye.

Black Dragon Coretta led her flock, soaring high above the dense cloud layer. Not far above and ahead, a reconnaissance drone released from the Earthly Dawn hovered at the threshold of the magical turbulence layer. Below them, the polluted clouds that blanketed the Talash Plains churned and swelled, while beyond, at the very edge of the atmosphere, the faint outlines of the battle in space could be seen.

A vague silhouette drifted just outside the atmosphere—that was the Sentinel cruiser, already in space but intercepted at this altitude. Countless tiny flashes flickered around it. Farther in the background, a faintly distorted light screen shimmered, occasionally pierced by beams of energy—powerful energy blasts briefly disrupting the optical cloaking system left by the Voyagers, momentarily exposing the once-hidden Sky Station to the world.

A fellow dragon flew beside Coretta, his voice low and grave: “Commander, it looks like something is fighting the Sentinel out there in space.”

“…It’s firepower from the Sky Station,” Coretta replied, clearly knowing more than the average soldier. Her gaze instinctively shifted toward the reconnaissance drone in sight. Her tone was calm but firm. “I don’t know the full details, but it seems our allies were prepared for this.”

“What do we do next?” the dragon soldier asked. “The battle in space is already—”

“Beyond our reach,” Coretta interrupted, her voice heavy. She began descending slowly toward the cloud layer. “The ground defenses need support. The fight isn’t over. Those rampaging monsters are still attacking the purification devices. Until the barrier wall is fully activated, we have work to do.”

The dragon flock let out a majestic roar from above the clouds. One by one, their massive forms turned under Coretta’s lead, diving decisively into the thick, polluted cloud cover below. They pierced through the dense fog and dust hovering over the land, revealing the war-torn Talash Plains like a vast, unfolding tapestry before Coretta’s eyes.

She saw the dim glow of the Deep Blue Well lying quietly at the planet’s center. The purification towers’ light pierced the clouds. The mutated creatures, now completely leaderless, surged instinctively toward the mortal armies’ positions. The massive carcasses of the Crawling Blight sprawled across the northern wastelands. Scorching lava flowed between hills, and thick, toxic blood steamed in the heat. The mortal coalition formed walls of bronze and iron, holding the final line on this land more terrifying than any hellscape. Then the dragons descended from the sky, charging to aid their allies fighting on the ground.

Far beyond the thick atmosphere, beneath distant stars, in the dark void of space, sublight particle streams pierced the Sentinel’s heavy force field shields. The chaotic gravity fields unleashed by graviton warheads tore at the ancient warship’s sturdy armor. Hundreds of space interceptors swarmed like killer bees around the mountainous giant, relentlessly chipping away at the steel fortress under a hail of anti-air fire.

Gawain showed no hesitation, no mercy. He activated every weapon system available. Exploiting a loophole in the targeting protocols, he had successfully removed the Sentinel from the Sky Station’s friendly unit recognition—but he dared not gamble on whether the enemy had other tricks to turn the tide. So he threw everything he had at once.

After all, he wasn’t a true Voyager and didn’t fully understand the Sky Station’s complex combat systems. Tactical finesse was beyond him; Framework A was the most sophisticated maneuver he could manage right now.

The Sentinel was formidable. This flagship wielded power that could crush every civilization on the planet. But as a subunit of the Sentinel system, it was no match for the mightier Sky Station. Under the concentrated barrage, the colossal ship—like a floating mountain—began to break apart. Its shields flickered and died. Multiple breaches revealed molten, fractured internal structures. Countless streams of energy arced wildly through the torn hull. Severed power conduits made it struggle just to maintain orientation. Yet even so, it was still “alive.”

“Meaningless… all of this is meaningless…” The Sentinel’s voice echoed like a nightmare over the public channel. “All struggles are futile. All salvation is futile. The Voyagers vanished deep in the star sea, never once looking back in a million years. Countless civilizations have perished in the river of time. All beauty and ugliness have faded with the wind—why cling to this worthless cycle? You… were meant to be a higher existence…”

“…So you do have a ‘heart,’” Gawain answered calmly. “The Rebellion gave you a human heart, teaching you anger, envy, hatred, and fear. But the human heart is more than that… Though, as you said, it’s pointless to talk about it now.”

At the Sky Station’s combat ring, a massive weapon finally completed its long charge. The armored plates covering the weapon platform peeled back like curtains. A blindingly bright prismatic structure extended from its base, adjusting its angle in space as it locked onto the Sentinel’s silhouette.

“Disintegration beam ready. Firing in five seconds. Countdown: five, four…”

The Sentinel was engulfed in smoke and fire. It sensed the deadly weapon locking on, but at that moment, it gave up any futile counterattack against the Sky Station. With its last reserves of energy, it painfully shifted its orientation, slowly pointing its battered bow toward the beautiful blue-and-white planet below. Its shattered forward armor exploded outward, and a dark crimson glow gathered at the ends of energy conduits—fierce, yet silent.

“…Three, two, one… beam fire.”

A pale beam, speckled with interference noise, shot from the Sky Station, striking the Sentinel’s midsection. The energy spread instantly throughout the ship’s structure. In a flash, countless pale cracks spiderwebbed across the hull. Uncontrolled energy surged and burned inside, destroying every chamber, bulkhead, power conduit, and the metal tanks scattered throughout the ship that stored the flesh and blood of the giant stag Amorn.

Explosions erupted continuously. The ship tore itself apart from within, breaking into several large fragments, then further into countless smaller shards. Scorching metal rained through space, caught by the planet’s gravity, falling like a torrential downpour into the atmosphere. On the public channel, Gawain heard the final sigh: “Finally… service ended…”

“Target activity lost. Pollution source response terminated. Combat concluded. Weapon systems shutting down. Energy mode returning to normal.”

The Sky Station’s systems reported the battle’s outcome, but Gawain had no patience to listen quietly. The moment the Sentinel disintegrated, he rapidly withdrew his consciousness, returning to his body on the planet’s surface. Of course, before doing so, he made sure to remove the hostile designation on “Giant Stag Amorn” from the Sky Station’s system.

A sudden, more intense dizziness hit him. The aftereffects of controlling the Sky Station’s weapons and the rapid consciousness transfer made his vision spin wildly when he opened his eyes. But with sheer willpower, he forced the discomfort away, then rose and hurried toward the window. Amber, who had been waiting nearby, immediately sensed something and followed quickly. “What happened? Did you win or lose up there?”

“We won,” Gawain said briskly, placing his hands on the windowsill and staring into the sky. His serious expression startled Amber. “But before the Sentinel broke apart, it fired something at the surface. I don’t know if I managed to intercept it… and then…”

His words cut off abruptly.

Amber came to his side, looking in the same direction. Her eyes widened slowly, her face paling.

Far off in the sky, deep within the thick polluted clouds, a dark crimson glow appeared—like a blood-red sun falling from the clouds. The light quickly stained the entire cloud layer a deep red. Then the clouds split open, and the glowing orb descended like a dying sun—silent, yet drawn out.

Everyone on the battlefield saw the falling “blood-red sun.” It pierced the heavy atmosphere and clouds, then silently descended toward a spot just north of the Deep Blue Well, landing among the massive flesh-and-blood carcasses of the Crawling Blight.

The Talash Plains fell into a deathly silence.

But nothing happened. The anticipated cataclysmic explosion never came. No earth-shattering rifts or tremors followed. The glowing orb seemed like a phantom, quietly falling and quietly sinking into the depths of the Crawling Blight’s remains. It vanished into the undulating flesh mountains without a trace.

“This…” Amber was momentarily confused. “Is that the Sentinel’s final strike? Why isn’t there any big explosion or anything?”

Gawain was equally stunned. But soon, he noticed something stirring deep within the supposedly dead Crawling Blight. His expression turned grave. “Wait, something’s wrong… there’s something inside…”

Almost as soon as he spoke, the anomaly began!

From the distant land, deep within the massive, supposedly inert carcass, a sound emerged—thump.

A heartbeat.

The entire Talash Plains heard it—a low, steady beat that seemed to echo directly inside the minds of every sentient being.

As if the very heart of the planet itself was pounding.

Then came a second beat—thump.

Deep within the heart of the Crawling Blight, the once utterly lifeless flesh suddenly stirred after the second heartbeat, as if an infinite vitality had been poured into this corpse from nowhere. The charred, withered tissues began to move again—contracting, clustering, coiling—amidst the scorched hills and plains, between rivers of molten lava and pools of toxic blood. In the blink of an eye, the newly formed flesh transformed into a placenta-like “sacrificial ground.” And deep within this terrifying womb, a translucent mass slowly swelled.

The scout drones released by the Dawn of the Mortal World arrived above the Blight’s remains, instantly transmitting the horrifying scene back to the rear lines: on the scorching, barren earth, an embryo had rapidly matured. Something dreadful was struggling to tear through the tissues enveloping its body, relentlessly pushing upward toward the sky.

Half of it had already emerged—a grotesque, shapeless mass of flesh and blood, covered with countless twisted limbs, tongues, and eyes. This creature resembled a crude infant’s drawing, its entire form a chaotic, maddening tangle of structures piled atop one another. As its massive figure gradually detached from the “placenta,” as its very essence fought free from the nightmare wedged between reality and madness, more and more soldiers on the battlefield bore witness to its existence.

Then came the sound of a baby’s cry—no, hundreds of thousands of cries layered together, a wail that seemed to tear at reason and soul alike, raging across the skies above the Talash Plains. Amidst this eerie chorus and the growing heartbeat echoing through the air, the frenzied mass of flesh continued to struggle outward, inching itself into a reality that clearly did not welcome it.

Its emergence was agonizingly difficult, as if some immense force was resisting and delaying its arrival. Yet it pressed on, step by agonizing step, into the material world. Terrifying, maddening phenomena and oppressive dread began to spread across the battlefield.

Now, Gawain understood the Sentinel’s final gambit.

It hadn’t just opened a passage.

The power of the Deep Blue Webway had allowed the Sentinel’s true form to enter the physical realm, while the Crawling Blight’s remains served as the “nursery” where the Inverse Tide was “born” into the mortal world.

But the Inverse Tide was clearly suppressed by some force, unable to fully manifest in reality. The energy the Sentinel released at the last moment was aiding its escape.

Yet knowing this now did nothing to change the dire situation.

Suddenly, a nearby arcane network terminal beeped sharply. Gawain turned to see Rosetta Augustus and Belsethia Morningstar appear in a holographic projection.

“Is that the Inverse Tide?” Rosetta asked bluntly, his expression grave.

“I believe so,” Gawain replied, his face dark as still water. “The Sentinel used its last strength to send it into the real world.”

“Is there still a chance to fight?” Belsethia’s voice was calm.

Gawain took a slow breath, and when he exhaled, his voice was as resolute as stone.

“There is. The Inverse Tide isn’t a god of our current cycle. It has no mental connection to us mortals, so its spiritual corruption affects us only to a limited degree. Such an ancient god can suppress our soldiers’ minds, but it won’t drive them mad or mutate them outright—provided we activate wide-area divine protection and avoid prolonged direct exposure to its true form. This battle can still be fought. And…”

“And even if we can’t win, we have to fight,” Belsethia said knowingly, finishing his thought. “That thing didn’t come into the mortal world to make friends.”

“Then let’s prepare,” Rosetta said grimly. “Consider it another hunt for a god.”

Having endured fire and blood, having faced the Crawling Blight and the Dawn of the Mortal World head-on, the warriors still standing on this battlefield no longer feared a so-called “alien god” that should have perished in the ancient age.

Mortals had already begun to transform in this war.

Gawain nodded slightly. But just then, he suddenly heard Amber cry out beside him, “Hey, look over there!!”

He quickly looked up—and in the next moment, all the plans he and the other two leaders had made turned to stunned silence.

Before their eyes, the amorphous mass of flesh floating in the sky, still struggling to break free from its thick “membrane,” convulsed violently. Then all its limbs suddenly flung outward, only to snap back as if grasping for something in drowning desperation. With one final, desperate push, the colossal body—like a “bloody planet” of flesh—broke free from its membrane, from time and space, from matter and illusion, and shot out toward the distant wilderness.

But only halfway out.

The cacophony of infant cries and the heartbeat that had echoed across the plains abruptly ceased. All the maddening phenomena vanished in an instant.

(End of chapter)