BOOM


A snow avalanche was triggered as the black mecha, adorned with red highlights, straightened its knees that had buckled from breaking the fall from orbit. Its head rose from the cloud of snow dust created by the impact.


Ismail, now one with the mecha, reached back and drew a sword as tall as the machine itself, its colors matching the mecha’s own.


He raised the sword as if it weighed nothing and pointed it toward the military base, which had been relentlessly firing upon his mecha since it entered the atmosphere. His shields had already expanded to cover a kilometer radius, creating a protective dome that now contained the very avalanche his landing had caused.


The sword, etched with runes, glowed for a moment before sending out a shockwave.


BRRRRRRRRWWWWWWWM


The shockwave immediately turned the snow accumulated within the shield into a large lake of water.


“My time to shine,” Ismail said as the cutting edges of the double-sided sword disassembled, moving to hover around the mecha, partially submerged in the water. His hand still held the hilt, which now resembled a wand.


Moments later, the water inside the shield dome began to move, gaining momentum as it sloshed back and forth, accumulating energy for ten straight seconds. Then, the entire mass of water passed through the shield, forming a crescent-shaped wave large enough to overshadow the base below. The attacks from the base that had been targeting the shield were redirected, now desperately trying to stop the oncoming wave.


BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The wave crashed over the base, which had activated its own shields moments after realizing it was impossible to completely stop it.


“That’s all I needed,” Ismail said, not disappointed that the wave hadn’t destroyed the base. The instant it crashed over the structure, he lowered his wand-like hilt and absorbed the energy he had infused in the water, instantly freezing it and burying the base in ice.


Partial energy manipulation was his ability. It was limited to absorbing and infusing energy into things he could physically touch or connect to with mana threads, making him a very dangerous individual, depending on how he used it.


When he first awakened, he realized that any energy he absorbed would dissipate immediately. While still useful, his inability to store it was a major limitation. The empire, however, gave him a solution: his mecha’s biological parts were modified to store the energy he absorbed, allowing him to repurpose it for something else, making him an even more scary individual who gets stronger with time while you get weaker.


“I’m done with the base,” Ismail announced to his team members as he watched the timer for the rescue mission and saw that only three seconds remained. At the same time, the sword parts dislodged themselves from the ice, returned to reassemble into the single massive blade it was before that.


………………….


Four minutes ago. CONCLAVE CENTRAL COMMAND.


When the five objects appeared on more than a thousand planets, every heart in the command center stopped. Despite evidence pointing to the empire being behind Dreznor, making it clear that they could use wormholes, they had never imagined the Terrans could use wormholes on this scale. They struggled to comprehend how it was even possible. It would require at least a thousand individuals with a high affinity for spatial manipulation, followed by years of training. For a small civilization like the Terran Empire, with only twenty billion people, finding that many candidates in such a short time should have been impossible. Furthermore, they would have needed to modify the technology for human use, a process that had taken other civilizations decades, if not more, and cost hundreds of lives.


That initial shock lessened slightly when the first images arrived, showing only five mechas per planet. It seemed the empire was either reckless, overestimating themselves, or taking a desperate gamble. However, that assurance shattered when they saw the capabilities of those mechas, and their hearts sank once more as they realized the empire’s mecha technology was superior to their own.


But as if playing with them, hope was kindled once again when they saw the five mechas being overwhelmed by attacks, forcing them toward the planet. This filled them with the expectation that if they just persisted, the shields would be breached and the mechas destroyed.


That feeling didn’t last. All at once, the defensive vessels were destroyed, allowing the five mechas to descend upon planets that now had zero orbital defenses.


This time, however, they were not given the opportunity for hope to return. They watched as a single mecha used the snowy environment of its landing zone to cause an avalanche, turn it into water, send a massive wave at the base, and then bury it in ice, effectively neutralizing it instantly.


And that was just one planet. Similar events were happening on the other thousand planets, with the largest difference being that the abilities used by the five thousand mechas were all unique.


They were not even given time to think of countermeasures, as their remaining defensive measures were scattered across those star systems, and they were experiencing an attack on this scale for the very first time.


Though waiting was the best course of action before deciding on a response, the scale on which the empire operated turned that observation into simply watching as they lost control of a thousand planets.


Just as they were about to start discussing the situation with the information they now had in hand and formulate countermeasures and counterattack plans……………


BRRRRRRR BRRRRRRRRR BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR BRRRRRRRRRRR


The alarms in the central command blared once again, interrupting them. This time, the screens showed footage from the POVs of different ships that were currently holding the human-occupied space stations hostage.


“Oh, come on,” one of the officers in the central command said involuntarily.


But this time, they didn’t remain passive. The temporary head shouted, “Order them to destroy the space stations, now!” not wanting to experience two large-scale defeats in a row.


Because that would mean his weekly term as head of the operation would come to an abrupt end, and worse, he’d be lucky to keep his head afterward if he allowed it to happen.



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