It did not take long for a response from Deckan to reach the Eclipse. The response, while at first not outside of their expectations, soon completely surpassed anything that they could imagine. As they had thought, the March had not been to this region of space yet. They would have had no reason to destroy so much territory, so the captain had doubted it was them in the first place.
What surprised them was the fact that Deckan responded that they knew who the opposing party was. And because of that knowledge, they ordered a full retreat. The Eclipse was recalled due to the enemy’s overwhelming power.
This was an order that came directly from the God Queen, so the Eclipse did not even consider disobeying. They immediately activated their recall feature to return to Deckan’s system. Not only them, every ship that had gone in the same general direction as they had was being ordered to return.
Far across the empty void of space, a giant planet drifted. Numerous thrusters propelled the planet, allowing it to move at a high speed. Within the planet, there were no oceans, no forests or meadows. Only a single, massive forge that spanned the entirety of the planet, both inside and out.
“Reporting to the lord sovereign!” A clockwork soldier stepped forward, the gears in its chest clicking as they turned.
The figure that the soldier addressed was… to call it massive would not do it justice. Even seated atop its throne, the being it spoke to was several kilometers tall. The former ‘head’ of the Gears’ research and development within their homeland, and the new sovereign of the current realm.
There was a long period of silence after the soldier spoke, but it did not seem to pay it any mind. Eventually, a voice echoed out from high above. “Have the stellar forges been prepared?” The voice was an odd mix of two different voices, one harsh and the other serene.
“As you have ordered, all stars within a hundred lightyears have been converted!” The soldier reported reverently, after which another moment of silence passed. However, within the head of the giant ruler, there were two voices holding a discussion.
One of these voices was represented by a blue wisp, its voice gentle and flowing. “Now that we have the forges, it should be time to prepare for the next step. Should we continue expanding our forces here, or begin the campaign?”
The other voice was represented by a red wisp, its voice harsh and angry. “Clearly, we have to strike while the iron is hot! Who knows how far that fool Geer has gone in all this time? With the stellar forges backing us, we should be able to easily conquer the homeland, god or not!”
The blue wisp fell silent at that, seeming to think it over. “However, we only have one chance at this. If anything happens…”
“Oh, that guy will definitely kill us!” The red wisp laughed madly. “But that’s what this is! Either he dies or we do! This is what we’ve been waiting for all along!”
As the blue wisp was about to speak up, another voice spoke, this one coming from outside of the sovereign’s mental space. “Reporting to the lord sovereign!”
The two voices spoke at once, the sovereign itself matching their question. “Another one? What is it?”
The second soldier that had arrived quickly knelt down before the mountainous figure. “Our long-range scans have detected traces of another space-faring race within this realm. The energy residue suggests that they are using ships to traverse the stars.”
The blue wisp appeared thoughtful at that. “Another race? It’s been so long… I had almost given up hope on finding any truly intelligent life on this side of the dimensional wall.”
“Hah!” The red wisp was pleased by this discovery. “You wanted to wait and build up our forces, right? What better way than this? Once we assimilate their technology, there is sure to at least be some increase in our power. At the very least, we can test the fleet.”
The blue wisp thought it over, before doing something similar to a nod. Afterwards, the giant sovereign again spoke in its dual-tone voice. “Prepare the Godslayer Fleet. Find the traces of these aliens and track them back to their homeworld.”
“At once, lord sovereign!” The two soldiers responded immediately, before turning and running away to execute their orders.
“Well… that’s not very good.” I muttered, looking at the factory planet of the Gears as it sailed through space. Behind the factory planet were far more ships, some even larger.
However, the biggest structure that they had built was one which they were unable to bring with them. Rather, in the region they had left was a truly enormous construction. One which linked dozens of stars together, each surrounded by a full sphere of metal. The energy and heat from these stars were gathered, used to power the fleet through the effect of a fourth-tier spell.
These were the stellar forges, so large that they had to move entire stars to complete the project. Sitting next to me, Bihena furrowed her brow. It was one of the odd moments when she chose to join me in the living room, so I had been projecting what I was seeing to the television.
“If they turn all of that power into a weapon… is there anything that the people down there can do to stop it?” She asked with uncertainty, seemingly able to measure the energy within the stellar forge.
“Tsubaki might have a way to resolve it with her domain. Aside from her… I don’t even know if James would survive a blast from that.” I shook my head, unable to offer a better answer. They had built that fleet with the idea of fighting a god in mind. Most likely, this was the same fleet that Phisher had seen in his ‘dream’.
The primary difference here was that they had more warning of the impending attack. And with that warning, they could prepare countermeasures. Udona was not so uncaring that she would hold this information back from them, after all.
“What’s that?” James asked in surprise as he listened to the request coming in from the God-Queen herself. “That kind of power… how is the progress of your new warships?”
On the screen, Udona shook her head bitterly. “Aside from the prototype, the rest won’t be ready in time to sortie. And I’d rather not take on a fleet of this scale with one ship, regardless how powerful its potential may be.”
“Understandable, completely understandable.” James gave a small nod. “I suppose there isn’t a candidate available to quickly become a God of Manufacturing to speed up production?”
“I’d have to ask Accalia, but I doubt it. Do you not have any other solutions?” There was a tone of concern in Udona’s voice as she asked that, to which the former Keeper chuckled.
“I do… but those would have been the easiest. Let’s see… I’ll need you to send me all of the details about the enemy that you can. The sooner I have it, the better I’ll be able to plan.”
At that, Udona was finally able to let a small smile creep its way onto her face. “Have you forgotten? I’m the Goddess of Education.” After saying such, she closed her eyes, and James felt a stream of knowledge entering his mind all at once.
“Woah!” He brought a hand up to his head reflexively. “Now that’s a rush. Okay… if this is all accurate, I can have a countermeasure prepared within a month. How long did you say that it would take them to get here?”
Udona’s face fell slightly at that. “A month…”
“Then I should have plenty of time.” He grinned, the tight deadline only seeming to spur him on further. “Sorry, Goddess, but it seems I’ve got work to do.” He abruptly cut off the line, spinning in his chair. “Chel! We’re restarting Project Heartbreaker!”
Chel, standing on top of the perfection chamber, blinked as she heard that. She furrowed her brows, focusing to dig through her memories so that she could remember exactly which project he named that. “Wait, the defensive one or the–”
“No, no, the defensive one.” James cut her off abruptly, not wanting her to mention the other Project Heartbreaker.
“Are you sure? This world doesn’t seem to have the technology for that kind of project.” Chel mentioned hesitantly, looking around as if their lab would only prove her point.
“And that’s what makes it exciting!” He grinned broadly. “Get Tsubaki on the line. We’ll be using geometric magic to replace the missing components. Aside from that…” He rubbed his hands together, excitement in his eyes. “It’s time to ramp up production.”
Chel blinked, before letting out a helpless groan. “And he’s in full automation mode now… guess I should just take care of my part, then.” She shook her head, hopping down from the machine and walking over to a terminal.
After dialing a number, she smiled at the kitsune that appeared on the screen. “Tsubaki? Hey, it’s me. Sorry for the sudden call, but James wants your help with a project. Wait, what’s with that expression?” Chel’s eyes went wide as she saw the color drain from Tsubaki’s face. “I promise this won’t be anything like the last time, okay? We really just need your help for like, a month tops. Maybe as little as a week.”
“Oh, and bring Dana, too!” She added, almost as an afterthought. “We need the brightest minds we have for geometric magic. There’s some big bad that’s approaching one of our worlds, and we don’t have all the technology we need here to stop them!”
Tsubaki’s eyes instantly regained their focus at that, her expression hardening. Despite her aversions to James, and her desire to avoid prolonged projects for a little while, the news that there was danger approaching on such a scale forced her attention to the task at hand. “Understood. I’ll get the two of us ready. Is there anything else that I should know?”
Chel thought it over for a moment before responding. “James is currently in one of his little episodes right now. He won’t bother you much even if you show up looking how you normally do. The project we have to work on is really big, so he’s planning a fully automated production line for it.”
Tsubaki nodded, looking slightly relieved at that, before Chel spoke again. “Also, he is really bad at naming things…” The kitsune goddess looked… suddenly confused when she heard that, but slowly nodded her head once again.
“I… see? Anyways, we’ll be over there in a few minutes. Let me just make sure we have everything we need first.”
