Inside Andy's workshop.
"Move over! Shift that way!"
Gamma-9 slammed his shoulder hard into Bower's ribs, trying to shove the technical director away from the center of the screen.
"I am the Commissar! I have the right to stand at the very front to monitor the battlefield situation!"
"To hell with your Commissar!" Bower showed no weakness, reaching back to grab Gamma-9's heavy collar. "I led Engineering Department Two in setting up this communication system—I am the Technical Director! I have priority viewing rights!"
Beside them, Sisyphron and Roger were engaged in a fierce fight for position as well.
"Roger, you're blocking my view!" Sisyphron stood on his tiptoes. "I invested in this! I own shares in that hovercraft!"
"Who told you to be so short?!" Roger clung tightly to the edge of the console. "Stop pushing! Any more pushing and the signal will cut out!"
Just as the four of them were shoved together in a chaotic scramble—
BANG!
The workshop door was slammed open.
Tech-Priest Zor charged in out of breath, testing cables still dangling from his body that he hadn't had time to unplug.
A moment ago, he had been monitoring the reactor output power in the underground core area. The instant he heard news that the front line had engaged, he threw his work to the servitors, sprinting up three flights of stairs to get here.
"Out of the way, all of you!!"
Zor let out a metallic roar, his mechanical arms spreading wide to shove aside everyone blocking his path.
"Let me see too! Where's the data stream? Where's the combat feed?!"
"Stop pushing! The screen is up!"
With a loud shout from Gamma-9, everyone froze in place instantly.
Holding their breath, they stared fixedly at the massive holographic display.
Out on the open wasteland.
Wild winds howled.
A white, light-duty hovercraft flew low to the ground at high speed, the blue ion stream spewing from its rear leaving a scorched trail across the sand.
Ahead of the hovercraft stood two massive centipedes, several kilometers in length, blocking out the sky and sun.
The two gargantuan entities advanced slowly toward Horisenburg, their countless jointed legs scraping across the ground to produce a rumbling roar.
In comparison, the hovercraft Andy piloted appeared as tiny as a grain of dust.
The Læss drivers clearly noticed this reckless little creature as well.
However, they neither activated their defensive systems nor bothered to deploy the surrounding escort units to intercept it.
In their eyes, it was merely a passing bug that could be flattened simply by rolling over it.
The distance closed rapidly.
Two kilometers.
One kilometer.
Five hundred meters.
Sitting in the driver's seat, the blue light in Andy's electronic eyes suddenly flared with explosive intensity.
He roared at the back seat: "Battalion Commander Hulie! Drag up your goddamn Gauss disintegrator cannons!"
Sitting in the rear seat, Hulie was stunned by the sudden shout.
She had no idea what Andy was talking about.
What battalion commander? When was she promoted?
Wasn't she Deep Space Industries' Chief Xenos Tech Consultant and Machinist?
And what kind of bullshit tactical command was "goddamn"?!
None of that mattered now!
Andy's voice carried a fanatical urge to unleash raw firepower.
Hulie's body reacted faster than her brain.
For the sake of that fully decorated Building A apartment with all-weather hot water—the one she hadn't gotten her hands on yet!
Time to go all out!
Green light flared in Hulie's eyes instantly as her phase neural nodes operated at maximum capacity.
HUMMM—!!!
Floating along both sides of the craft, the six small black spheres released simultaneously.
Mounted below, the muzzles of the six Gauss disintegrator cannons raised instantly, locking onto the head of the subterranean megastructure on the left.
It was covered in bone armor several meters thick—the hardest section on the entire behemoth.
"Looking down on me, are you?!"
Grit-toothed, Hulie poured all her compute capacity into the fire control system.
"Fire for me!!"
Zzz—!!!
Six beams of eerie green light erupted at the exact same moment.
Converging into a single point in midair, they struck with precision directly at the center of the megastructure's forehead.
The hissing sound of matter dissolving echoed out.
The thick bone armor—which would take floating cannons half a day to chip away at—vanished instantly under the focused fire of the Gauss rays.
A gaping hole over five meters in diameter appeared out of thin air.
Through that massive opening, one could clearly see the complex biological structures inside, as well as two utterly bewildered Læss drivers sitting on neural connection seats.
Neither driver had even realized what had just occurred.
One second they were mocking Andy, and the next second their roof was gone, cold wind blowing against their bare foreheads.
Wait... what was that??
Is this a joke?!
How did our massive head armor just vanish into thin air??
"Now!"
Andy released the control stick and pulled out his high-caliber bolt pistol from his robes.
BANG! BANG!
Two gunshots rang out.
Two standard bolt shells whistled through the air, drilling straight into the gaping hole.
Precise headshots.
The heads of both Læss drivers instantly detonated into clouds of purple blood mist.
Losing its operators, the massive subterranean megastructure on the left instantly lost all power.
Its countless moving legs froze mid-stride.
Carried forward by inertia, its massive body slid a short distance before crashing heavily onto the ground, kicking up a vast cloud of dust.
A physical halt—the most lethal kind!
"One down!"
Andy jerked the steering wheel hard, executing an extreme drift beside the giant centipede's carcass.
"Next!"
Same recipe, same flavor.
Hulie was fully in the zone. Before Andy could even call out, she maneuvered the Gauss cannons to shift their aim.
Zzz—!!
Another six beams of green light.
The canopy covering the cockpit of the right-hand subterranean megastructure was flipped wide open as well.
Andy delivered the finishing shots.
BANG! BANG!
Two minutes.
In just two short minutes, two strategic-level behemoths capable of destroying entire cities were brought to a complete standstill.
Decapitation tactics!
No matter how thick your armor or how vast your body, once the driver was eliminated, you were paralyzed!
Yet the battle was far from over.
With the two giant creatures disabled, the tightly shut bone hatches along their backs suddenly popped open all at once.
HISS—!!!
A scalp-numbing chorus of shrieks echoed out as countless dark-red figures surged from the hatches.
These Læss warriors were completely different from the ones encountered before.
Although they stood around 2.3 meters tall—roughly Andy's height—it did not mean they were weak.
On the contrary, their mutational features were extraordinarily pronounced.
Four wide bone wings sprouted from the back of each warrior, and six razor-sharp wing-blades extended from their arms.
Elites!
Læss elite units!
Leaping down from the backs of the dozens-of-meters-high megastructures, their bone wings vibrated to produce high-frequency sonic booms.
As hundreds of elite warriors landed simultaneously, the resulting airburst felt almost solid.
BOOM!!
Andy's hovercraft sat square at the center of this blast wave.
Unable to withstand such an impact, the light vehicle flipped on the spot, tumbling several times across the ground before coming to a stop, billows of black smoke rising from its chassis.
Cough, cough—
Dizzy and disoriented from the fall, Hulie was just about to push herself up when she saw dozens of wing-blades chopping down toward her.
"Don't move."
A powerful arm suddenly wrapped around her waist.
Andy scooped her off the ground, holding her against his side with one arm.
He discarded his bolt pistol directly.
Then, his right palm began to melt and shift.
The mimetic polyalloy reorganized instantly, morphing into a two-meter-long vibration tachidachi that shimmered with a cold glint.
HUMMM—
Facing the dense, tide-like surge of surrounding elite xenos...
Not a trace of panic showed in Andy's electronic eyes.
The super compute capacity of the Commander-type Abominable Intelligence engaged at full throttle.
In his field of vision, the world slowed down.
The wing-blade strikes—lightning-fast in the eyes of ordinary people—differed little from a slow slide show to Andy.
Every muscle contraction, every joint articulation, even the trajectories of the airflow were calculated within his mind.
"Too slow."
Holding Hulie with one arm, Andy wielded the blade with the other.
Sans any flashy moves, it was the simplest, most efficient slash possible.
SWISH—
A flash of silver light cut through the air.
The three elite warriors rushing at the very front, along with the wing-blades on their arms, were sliced in half at the waist simultaneously.
The cuts were smooth as a mirror; even their blood hadn't had time to spray out yet.
Without pausing, Andy stepped forward, charging directly into the horde.
The tachidachi in his hand turned into a silver storm.
When the Læss's wing-blades struck Andy, the liquid metal absorbed the impact instantly before restoring its shape, leaving not even a scratch behind.
Yet every single swing of Andy's blade claimed several lives.
Huddled in Andy's arm, Hulie had closed her eyes in terror at first.
Soon, however, she realized she was completely safe.
Though Andy's movements were violent, the arm holding her remained rock-solid throughout.
Emboldened, her courage returned.
She reconnected to the six Gauss disintegrator cannons still hovering in midair.
"Die!" Hulie screamed.
The Gauss cannons began a wild strafing run against the outer perimeter of the horde.
Out on the wasteland, an extraordinarily bizarre yet hyper-efficient combat team was formed.
Andy the Tank handled the melee meat-grinder, while Hulie the Mage covered long-range crowd control.
Right at that moment...
A super-elite—noticeably larger than its kin—charged over.
Four bone wings sprouted from its back, and a full twelve wing-blades extended from its arms!
Letting out a piercing shriek, it swung all twelve blades simultaneously, sealing off every single evasion route for Andy.
It was a guaranteed kill stroke.
Yet in Andy's eyes...
"Fanciful garbage."
Andy didn't even bother to block!
He slammed straight into the blades!
SQUELCH! SQUELCH!
All twelve blades hacked into Andy's shoulder and chest, sinking deep into the liquid metal.
The super-elite froze. It tried to pull the blades out, only to find them completely stuck.
The mimetic polyalloy had deadlocked in an instant, trapping all its weapons tight.
Red light flashed in Andy's electronic eyes.
The tachidachi in his hand swept upward from below in a reverse slash.
RIP—
From crotch to crown, the super-elite was sliced cleanly into two halves.
The two halves of the corpse fell to either side, internal organs spilling across the ground.
Andy flicked the blood off his blade. The surrounding corpses had already piled into a small hill.
Yet even more xenos continued to pour out from the belly of the other giant centipede.
"Too many mobs here."
Andy glanced toward the second giant centipede.
"Let's switch spots to farm."
Holding Hulie, he bent his knees slightly as his hydraulic pumps roared to life.
BOOM!!
The ground shattered beneath them.
The two launched into the air, leaping dozens of meters high before landing directly onto the back of the second giant centipede.
---
Horisenburg, the workshop.
Dead silence prevailed.
The five people in front of the screen (plus Jetton, who had squeezed in later) all maintained the exact same posture.
Mouths wide open, eyes wide, completely unmoving.
Several seconds passed.
Only then did Roger trembling raise a hand, pointing at the screen.
"This... this is Andy's actual combat power?"
"Isn't this a bit too..."
Bower swallowed hard, picking up where he left off: "Too fucking brutal!!"
Gamma-9 was trembling so violently with excitement that he dropped straight to his knees, kowtowing toward the screen.
"A god! This is a god!"
"This is the avatar of the Omnissiah walking among mortals!"
"Did you see that?! A body impervious to blades and spears! That power to sever all things with a wave of his hand!"
"We should carve this scene into the walls! Write it into the scriptures!"
Although Tech-Priest Zor didn't kneel, his bionic eyes flickered frantically, recording this precious combat data.
"This chassis performance... this material strength..."
"Incredible... simply incredible..."
Sisyphron wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, a trace of relief showing on his face.
Thank goodness he had invested quickly back then!
If he had hesitated even a little in front of Andy, his end right now might have been even grimmer than those xenos!!
"Holy shit, Boss is fucking awesome!!"
Jetton shouted loudly from behind, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
"Boss is fucking awesome!!"
A burst of cheers erupted throughout the workshop.