Chapter 1765: The D-Day
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The day where the fate of the universe was decided, such an imposing yet distant word, it could so easily be incorporated as part of a story, or a play, or a verse in a troubadour’s rhymes. But when it appears in the form of divine legends and heroic epics before everyone, no one would have thought that such a thing would happen in real life, happen while they were still alive, happen right before their eyes.
Tannagost, Valley of the Sacred Spring, New Pioneering Point. Spring of the Third Year of the New Calendar. Dawn. Windless.
Ulyanov held the weapons that had been handed out a few days back, as he stood on the watchtower outside the pioneer settlement. His vision slowly swept across the great vines of the forest in a distance, and the cold night valley wind kept him awake.
The weapon in his hand was a marksman rifle capable of launching a rail-guided crystal needle, and another sidearm capable of firing electro-plasma hung on the pistol strap on his thigh. These two weapons were not items from the Zormite civilization, rather they were supplies from the supply depot of the droid manufactoriums. Ever since each pioneering settlement had reached self-sufficiency, the supply depots had not been activated for a long while. And their most recent activation was to supply the locals with weapons, and this was not something many had thought of.
As the civilization that had only reached self-sufficiency in food production was not capable of producing modern weaponry, so that had to be provided by the manufactoriums to equip them against the minions of madness.
Yet, for the Zormites who had experienced apocalypse, the simulated ark, interstellar migration, and now settling on a totally foreign planet, facing challenges was second nature to them, a survival skill. The end of the universe and the planet’s destruction held little difference to them, and if picking up arms would give them a chance at survival, they would not hesitate to do so, and where these weapons came from, it was immaterial at all.
Plus, they have Zorm, the First Born guarding the planet in the distant void, so, a Second Born like them had nothing to fear.
Ulyanov moved his slightly numb fingers as he ran his hand through the cold and solid surface of the electromagnetic rifle in his arm. For the past three years, he had been active across various settlements as an engineer, designing water wheels, mills and various farming equipment. Yet this experience of guarding a base fully armed was not foreign to him, and he at times would recall the things that had happened in the simulated world, recall the dream that was not deleted. He was a member of the Grey Fox Mercenaries, fighting tooth and nail to survive in a world destroyed by nanomachines…
He then recalled that Grey Fox, the powerful lady captain with a gray ponytail and cold, sharp eyes. Where was she now? Perhaps she was with the other powerful outlanders, over at another battlefield in preparation for this universe’s most grueling challenge?
Footsteps upon the staircase rang from behind, and Ulyanov turned back and saw a massive figure ascending the watchtower. It was another Grey Fox member back in the dream world, Carl.
After being reborn into the real world, Carl became a farmer and was sent with him to this new settlement to care for the large swathe of farmland east of the settlement. But when the goddess’ command came seeking volunteer combatants, Carl stood up like he did and volunteered.
Perhaps he should thank that out-of-control dream world that many had experienced all sorts of bizarre lives, and were subconsciously imparted with all sorts of knowledge both useful and useless. Even though they had to undergo a painful process of ‘consciousness re-calibration’ after ‘waking’ up, but that left Zorm with plenty of battle-hardened veterans.
With an almost perfect body born from the Lifeblood and a mind tempered inside the dream world, almost every Zormite could take to the field if given a weapon.
“There’s still time before the next watch,” Ulyanov said as he looked at the big man.
Carl sounded bored. “I can’t sleep, so I just decided to come early.”
As he said, the normally demur hunk of a man looked up and stared slightly entranced at the sky.
From the skies above the Valley of the Sacred Spring, it was easy to spot the most eye-catching celestial body in the sky. It was a crystal moon, CARS’ supermassive unified orbital station.
Beneath the “moon” was a red spot, and that was Zorm’s eyes to look at the planet.
The First Born, a companion that had lived with them on their homeworld had lost its body when the planet fell into the sun, but the outlanders had created a new conduit for its consciousness and had him merged together with CARS, and in the past few years, it was Zorm who had remotely controlled the ‘sacred springs’ of Lifeblood across Tannagost and transferred the spirits of the Zormites into the real world.
Ulyanov looked up as well and saw many moving lights around CARS, each of the lights were a smaller space object: Some were starships, some were space fortresses. He could not help but comment, “This planet is a strategic base for the observers, and CARS has a large number of combat satellites, we should be safer than most other planets.”
“The goddess said that the enemy may try to bypass the void defenses and directly attack the mortal worlds,” Carl replied as he pointed to his head. “Through here, we are the biggest gap.”
Ulyanov shrugged. “Ah well, who cares. The goddess also said that the ones capable of infiltrating into the mortal worlds are the lowest of minions, as long as we have a proper gun, it’s still gonna be one shot one hole.”
At that very moment, a golden ray flashed across the skyline towards the settlement.
Ulyanov reflexively lifted the electromagnetic rifle, then held it down again, while Carl nodded. “It’s them.”
The golden light flashed passed like a shooting star, and within a few seconds, they had arrived before the watchtower. Only after the lights had stopped moving was he able to see who they were. It was the three Einherjars, and glowing magical energies floated on their golden armor and formed a pair of wings of light.
As if they had just walked out of a legend.
The light forged soldiers were reinforcements sent by the observer, and frankly speaking, Ulyanov was surprised when he first saw these empty armors. While the ancient Zormite civilization had indeed worshiped the goddess and had supernatural knowledge regarding the divine arts, magic, especially necromancy was something beyond their world view, and for a spirit to operate an empty armor was pretty much an aberration in traditional Zormite literature. It took Ulyanov a long while to convince himself that this was ‘robots created using a totally different tech’ for him to be able to face these walking armors.
Compared with those terrifying necromantic objects, the Valkyrie was much more welcoming. While he also heard that the goddess of war was actually a spirit, at the very least, she was a looker…
The three Einherjars circled around the watchtower once before landed near the temporary camp by the settlement. Ulyanov recollected himself and nodded to Carl, indicating that he was about to get some rest, and walked towards the stairs by the watchtower.
Just as he was about to descend the watchtower, he suddenly felt shaky, and a foreign and mysterious image appeared in his mind.
He saw the stars in the light of the universe snuffed out in an instant, as countless of stars had writhing tentacles and eyes growing out on them. At the same time, massive blasphemous dark structures moved about among the stars tearing the entire universe apart while a squirming nondescript object looked down from high up, and within all this, he was all alone, surrounded by the endless terror.
The terrifying images had only appeared for a moment before disappearing, and Ulyanov found himself shivering, even slightly losing his balance, but his mind, tempered as a mercenary in the dream world quickly recovered. He swiftly regained balance and swept his gaze across the entire perimeter. In his sight, that metal watchtower suddenly had spots all over it, as the rifle in his hands had a rotten meat-like revolting texture to it, but the satellites in the sky then flashed, and his vision quickly returned to normal.
He looked up towards Carl, and the big guy was looking back at him, the fading fear was still apparent in his eyes, and sweat was all over his forehead.
“It’s time,” they said in unison.
A piercing alarm then rang all across the settlement at the Valley of the Sacred Spring.
Then, the entirety of Tannagost…
Followed by Holletta, Io, the Executor’s planet, Collow, every planet with life on it.
The barriers of Overwatch Bastion lit up in white-blue radiance as the transformable structure slowly opened up, revealing the cannon platforms and missile launchers hidden below. A storm of beams was soon unleashed from every defensive structure, and within the vortex of beams, there were countless of flickering light. Those were the light left behind by the warp missiles entering hyperspace after their short acceleration burst.
The cannons roared silently in space, and over at the front line before the bastion, the dark visual screen no longer existed.
A chaotic dimension beyond description had torn apart the visual barrier as countless of writhing black mist and twisted frames that were beyond three-dimensional perspective, and shuddering stars out of an abstract art suddenly gushed out and occupied the entire sector, overlooking the entire battlefield.
Friends, please check your SAN level.
“The visual barrier has been opened! Physical target detected!”
“All weapons online, defensive shields into combat mode, power up the Annihilation Lances!”
“Minions detected, their numbers… overwhelming!”
“The droid swarm has been unleashed. Sector S3 and S4 are facing intense assault!”
“The guardian third fleet has arrived at Sector S4…”
The command center suddenly burst into a hive of activity like cold water poured into a boiling pot of oil as Rheia squinted before the maddening images that filled the screens.
“It’s time to say a permanent goodbye, my old foe…”