hotmtlnovel Chapter 60 Destroyed Spaceship
Chapter 60 Destroyed Spaceship
The timer skipped the sixth day.
The terrain ahead suddenly opened up. The area that his consciousness extended to explore expanded several times in his perception. Liu En slowed his pace, letting the Casteran mech walk in front, and extended his consciousness forward, probing into the depths of that huge space—not the cargo hold, not the bridge, not the standard cabin structure of any warship.
The space was so vast that his consciousness couldn't fully grasp its boundaries in one go. It was at least tens of kilometers square, and the ceiling was so high that even the beams of searchlights couldn't reach the top. The ground was littered with a jumble of metal components—the wreckage of captured Imperial equipment, fragments of abandoned ships, and a fortress-like core structure cobbled together from various crudely made mechanical devices. These devices shouldn't have been able to function under normal circumstances—the pipes were connected backwards, the gears were jammed together, but the Greenskins "thought" it could work, and it actually did. The workshop area, built by the Greenskins' tech-savvy lads from scrap metal, was a hybrid of junkyard, parts warehouse, and arsenal, filled with sparks from welding torches and the clanging of power hammers.
The number of green-skinned creatures in space could be tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands. Their outlines spread out in his consciousness like densely packed starlight. These green-skinned creatures appeared as blurred outlines in his mind, not through temperature, but through the space they occupied, their movement trajectories, and the subtle disturbances they generated when interacting with their surroundings. Tens of thousands of outlines piled up in a space tens of kilometers square, like a swarm of bees stirring. The green-skinned creatures had multiplied in the wrecked spaceships for thousands of years. Their spores drifted to every corner of the wreckage; every crack, every damp pipe joint could potentially sprout new green-skinned creatures. The wrecked ships were their cities, their farms, their arsenals.
Their roars surged from the depths of space: "WAAAGH! Shrimp! Kill all the shrimp!" The rhythm of the pile driver smashing steel plates and the roars of hundreds of thousands of green-skinned soldiers overlapped, causing dust to fall from the bulkhead.
Something even larger lies deeper in space. Metallic, crudely constructed, several meters tall, bipedal, with armor plates welded to its torso, weapon platforms, cannons, nozzles, and buckets pieced together. In consciousness, it wasn't a precise outline, but a towering shadow with an unusually dense distribution of metal. It wasn't part of the wrecked ship; it was something the Greenskins themselves had built. Ancient junk, the Greenskins' Titan-class war machines, knock-offs of the Imperial Titans, ranging in size from several meters to tens of meters. Its core components were plundered from the wrecked ship by the Greenskins, gradually taking shape over centuries of modification and piecing together by the tech-savvy kids. It wasn't finished yet; openings remained on the sides of its torso, cables dangling from them, exposing its internal structure, but the reactor was already running, a low-frequency rumble emanating from the depths of space, the tremors felt even through several layers of bulkheads. According to any laws of physics, that reactor lacked a crucial cooling circuit and should have melted down long ago—but the Greenskins collectively "thought" it was fine, and it indeed continued its steady rumble. It was even painted yellow because Techba firmly believes that "yellow makes it explode more fiercely".
Liu En's consciousness quickly scanned the edge of the entire space. The entrance passage was high up on the side wall of the space, with a drop of more than ten meters from the ground to the entrance, below which was a gentle slope. The passage was not wide enough to barely accommodate two people side by side, but once inside the space, everyone could spread out. That breach, that narrow entrance, was the only crack in the entire abandoned ship's lair. His consciousness, probing through that crack, was almost touching the green-skinned workshop area deep within the space. The density of the green-skinned creatures there had already begun to spread outwards, and there were already scattered patrols active on the ground below the slope. They hadn't yet detected the people coming from the direction of the entrance, but they would soon.
He turned around and lowered his voice on the garrison channel: "Large space ahead, Greenskin nest. Tens of thousands, including Titan-class units. The entrance to the passage is narrow. Kara, you take two companies and set up defenses inside the passage, establishing firing positions along the walls. Don't go out. Auxiliary units, reinforce the fortifications behind you. Mechs and armed auxiliary units will be on standby in the middle section, waiting for my signal."
The tide of soldiers wasn't the kind that surged forward in single echelons of thousands; it was a dense, overwhelming mass, blocking the entrance to the passage and crowding the slope. The passage was at the top of the gentle slope, offering a panoramic view of the entire green expanse of space below. But not now. They were busy with their own affairs deep within the space, chattering and clamoring in the Tech Tyrant's workshop area, climbing up and down the scaffolding of the ancient junk. By the time they began to surge forward, Kara and her team's firepower would be confined to the narrow firing arc at the passage entrance.
Kara didn't ask any further questions. "Understood."
Liu En stood at the entrance of the passage, and the field unfolded. His consciousness touched it, and the adamantine skeleton grew from within the bulkheads on both sides of the passage. It wasn't a one-time reinforcement; it started from the passage exit, advancing segment by segment into the space, with a layer of composite armor being poured into the bulkhead at each step. The adamantine skeleton grew rapidly and quietly within the rusted walls. Within minutes, the passage exit was transformed into a firing position extending into the space. Thick adamantine armor plates were embedded in the bulkheads, forming a firing position several meters deep, capable of accommodating two companies of Kara's men within the passage, using fortifications to block the entire space's firing arc. On the gentle slope outside the passage, he continued to shape the adamantine skeleton, constructing an arched breastwork in the middle of the slope. The surface of the breastwork was aged, with clear welding lines, appearing to have been hastily welded overnight by a pack-type mechanized servant—the passages inside the wrecked ship were narrow and the ground rugged, all the servants were multi-legged walking structures, with no wheeled vehicles.
He retrieved several thermobaric bombs from the ammunition crates carried by the slingers beside him—they had been found earlier in the Astragalus Armory and Kara had had the slingers transport them to the front lines with the supply convoy. The sealed crates bore the Imperial Ordnance Department's control markings, their outer shells covered in a thick layer of dust but perfectly sealed. This level of assault weaponry had never appeared on the Black Pearl's equipment list; it was strictly controlled Imperial military supplies. He personally deployed the thermobaric bombs on the outer side of the curved breastwork in the middle of the gentle slope, keeping the detonation remote control with him. Several slingers followed behind him, securing the bombs in their designated positions according to his commands—their multi-legged configuration allowed for smooth movement on the slope, specifically designed for carrying heavy loads and short-distance distribution.
He reported the new fortified position coordinates and firing range demarcation plan in the garrison's channel. Kara replied that he had received it, and the veterans began to take their positions. The dull thud of heavy explosive grenade tripods being set up on the passageway floor echoed throughout the channel. Transport vehicles stacked ammunition boxes at the rear of the position, their six legs moving steadily. Once fully loaded, they lined up in the passageway to transfer supplies to the rear.
The green-skinned creatures deep within the space didn't notice them. The roars of WAAAGH surged from the depths of space, a cacophony of piling machines pounding steel plates, the combined roars of hundreds of thousands of green-skinned creatures causing dust to fall from the bulkheads. "WAAAGH! You idiots!" "Die! Die! Die!" They were unaware that they were trapped inside their nest.
Liu En stood behind the arched breastwork, his consciousness extending into the depths of space. The gentle slope leading from the passage exit to the depths of space was hundreds of meters long, with piles of scrap metal and debris on both sides, offering only a narrow firing arc for the machine gunners' firing positions. But when the Greenskins surged up from the depths of space, the slope would transform into a slaughter tunnel hundreds of meters long.
The waiting time stretched on endlessly. The timer ticked past countless hours, and the veterans in the corridor leaned against the bulkheads, eyes closed, resting, the muzzles of their heavy-explosive guns always pointed towards space. The convoy of transport vehicles stood quietly behind the line, ammunition boxes stacked beside the veterans.
Liu En leaned against the inner side of the arched breastwork, his consciousness covering the entire area. No new Orcs approached within a five-kilometer radius, and the deployment in the passage behind him was functioning normally. The ancient junk deep within space wasn't finished yet, but it was almost there. It was waiting for its weapon platform to be installed, for its reactor to be running stably, and for the tech-savvy kids to weld the last piece of armor plating. Liu En was waiting too. Waiting for that cannon to be installed, waiting for the Orcs to swarm out, spread out on the gentle slope, and expose themselves to the firing range of the artillery positions. Then, crossfire would repeatedly harvest the Orcs in the narrow terrain, while those few molten bombs would be left for the ancient junk—the moment it stepped out of the workshop, the explosion would tear its crudely made body apart from the inside.
Once everything is over, he will advance into the depths of space, disassemble the ancient junk, and archive its material composition information. The blueprint of the ancient junk will be categorized as a "Greenskin Vehicle" in higher dimensions. Those crudely made armor plates, crudely grafted energy conduits, and weapon systems built from scrap metal will connect in his field perception to the unusually developed brain region within the Tech-Master's corpse—the Ancient Ones wrote the blueprints of the war machine into the Greenskin's genes, and the Tech-Master instinctively "thought" about the ancient junk. The truly terrifying aspect of "thought" is that it not only affects the Greenskins themselves but also distorts the surrounding reality—if enough Greenskins believe that the ancient junk's cannon can penetrate an Emperor-class Titan, it truly can. The corpses he has disassembled along the way and the ancient junk are two views of the same blueprint: one drawn on a living organism, the other welded onto scrap metal. The Tech-Master is the living manufacturing line, and the ancient junk is the product spit out of that production line. His database contains a complete blueprint from fart connoisseur to tech master, except for the piece of the ancient scumbag.
He didn't need the weapons of the Ancient Ones, nor did he need the army of the Greenskins. What he needed was to understand how the war machines of the Ancient Ones operated at the genetic level. This wasn't something that could be figured out in a day or two.
The timer skipped another hour. He closed his eyes, a portion of his consciousness entering a higher-dimensional space. He opened the fart spirit's blueprint in the database, creating a new entry next to the mycelial network's topology: "Comparative Analysis with the Servant Wet Component Core Data Injection Protocol—To be completed." Once this was over, once the Black Pearl left the wrecked ship, once he had plenty of time to squander during his subspace travels, he would extract these interspecies underlying logics one by one and weave them into Garros's servant system.