"Outer space?"
The heroes' gazes shifted to Alice in unison. Metal Knight and Child Emperor quickly grasped the implication.
"Did the [Ark] detect something out there!?" Child Emperor asked immediately.
A sense of alarm gripped him.
How vast was this mobile fortress called the Ark? Where was it even located?
These were all unknowns; they had never seen the Ark in person, knowing only that it possessed teleportation capabilities and could provide armaments and support.
But to suggest it could detect a spacecraft flying toward Earth from deep space? Even if the vessel was already relatively close to Earth, that level of detection was staggering.
Moreover...
Cold sweat beaded on Child Emperor's temple.
This was bordering on a Type III encounter. Although, according to Tatsumaki, Herta seemed to fall into this category, actually hearing that an alien spaceship was closing in on Earth felt entirely different...
"Let me ask first—is this ship commanded by Ms. Herta?"
"It does not match the signal of any vessel under Auntie Herta's fleet," Alice replied.
That wasn't entirely unexpected. According to Tatsumaki, that woman Herta had vanished right in front of her; perhaps at her level, she no longer had any need for something as primitive as a spaceship.
Humanity hadn't even managed to leave the atmosphere yet, so how did such a terrifying, mysterious power from behind the scenes suddenly emerge?
"Can we identify the ship? Who are they? Is there any way to communicate with the commander?" Child Emperor pressed.
"The [Ark] has already sent a handshake request, but there has been no response." The young girl's expression shifted the moment she finished speaking, and she stood up from her seat.
"The ship is directly above A-City! The [Ark] has deployed its armaments!"
The situation had just escalated significantly. The heroes realized this instantly.
They had been speculating about the nature of this impending crisis. While it made sense to fear Herta as an extraterrestrial, they hadn't expected an alien attack to come from someone else entirely.
Still... the only extraterrestrial they knew was Herta. While this wasn't her, whether it was related to her remained an unknown.
Regardless, they had to deal with the disaster at hand.
"Everyone! We have monitored the situation on-site!" Just then, the voice of Sitch, the official in charge of the 'Earth is in trouble' prophecy, boomed through the room, and a screen projected onto the table.
On the display, a steel fortress resembling an inverted crown hung abruptly in mid-air.
Over a hundred cannons were locked onto the same target, while a dozen fighter jets, looking like Gundams, danced through the sky, pouring endless firepower and reinforcements into the fray.
Opposite the steel fortress sat an aerial warship nearly a third the size of A-City. While the fortress was by no means small, in terms of sheer scale, they were on entirely different levels.
Yet, despite such a massive disparity in size, they were somehow locked in an evenly matched battle.
"At that altitude..." Child Emperor's face darkened.
He wasn't the only one; most of the heroes looked grim.
Few among them possessed anti-air capabilities; Tatsumaki was the only one truly suited for aerial combat. If the two sides kept fighting in the clouds, the rest of them would be of little help.
"That is not the [Ark]'s full power," Alice said. "But... if we shoot it down... the people in the city..."
If a warship of that size fell onto A-City, the destruction would be catastrophic. Even if it didn't wipe out everyone, the casualties would be unimaginable. That was a cost they could not accept.
"Issue an evacuation notice to the citizens of A-City immediately!" Bang shouted.
"Yes, Mr. Bang!" In truth, the Hero Association had already taken action the moment the threat appeared; every hero currently in A-City was assisting with the evacuation and crowd control.
"How long can the [Ark] sustain its power?" Metal Knight asked, looking at Alice.
It was a blatant attempt to fish for intel, but it was information he genuinely needed.
"Hmm..." The question stumped Alice. She instinctively looked at her Sword of Light.
After Herta's modifications, the sword—made of nanotechnology—was no longer just a weapon; it functioned as a communication device and could even assemble into armor.
The girl naturally passed the question on to the Ark's AI.
"Kei?"
Since it was the AI assisting Alice, it was named Kei.
Following her query, a voice that was clear, calm, and slightly indifferent emanated from the Sword of Light: "The [Ark] possesses the 'State Superposition' property. Its dimension, time, and existence are indeterminate. It cannot be destroyed from the outside, and it will never run out of energy."
"..."
Those who understood were silent. Those who didn't understand were also silent.
The former didn't understand how such a thing could be created or how the technology was achieved; the latter simply had no idea what that meant.
If what this voice says is true... then this [Ark] is much more than just an aerial fortress. If its dimension, time, and existence are indeterminate, doesn't that mean it could exist in any dimension, at any time, in any location?
Metal Knight's real body felt his hands tremble. If this were true, it could even function as a time machine. Returning to the past or venturing into the future would theoretically be possible!
Facing Herta, who possessed such technology, did Earth ever have a chance of resisting?
It was likely that she hadn't paid them the slightest bit of attention from the very beginning.
"In other words, it can keep going indefinitely? That's good enough." The others didn't have much of a concept of what was just said, only taking away that they didn't need to worry about the Ark running out of steam.
"Anyway, let's head up there first," Saitama said, his tone flat and unruffled.
"...?"
Only then did everyone notice the bald man who had appeared from out of nowhere.
It wasn't that they hadn't seen him—they had—but no one had bothered to bring him up, and he hadn't said anything. Combined with the tense atmosphere, no one had spared him much attention.
Only Silver Fang, who had seen Saitama in action, had been keeping an eye on him.
"Right you are. While we may not be able to do much as we are, we can still help evacuate the citizens."
The sooner the citizens were out, the sooner they could resolve the issue.
Even though they all knew the battle in the sky was a lopsided war of attrition and the alien ship would eventually be shot down, the longer it dragged on, the higher the risk of something going wrong.
Bang's words were clearly more effective than Saitama's.
With him leading the way, everyone exited to the Association's grounds. By now, most of the staff and all the heroes were already on the move, offering their strength to face this sudden catastrophe.
As S-Class heroes, they were, naturally, no exception.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL