[ Chapter 42: Space Combat ]
**Day 1,187.**
**Location: The Atlantic Ocean (Seabed) -> Low Earth Orbit.**
**Current Status: Multi-tasking.**
**Mood: Tenuous Patience.**
There is a fundamental rule in game design: You do not start the Raid Boss while the trash mobs are still wiping the party.
I stood at the bottom of the Atlantic, the pressure of the ocean forming a heavy, silent curtain around the air pocket I had carved out. In front of me, the ancient stone doors of the temple were groaning open, spilling violet void-light that tasted like sour grapes and entropy. Inside, the "Prisoner"—the Void Lord that Guest_01 had so helpfully woken up—was stirring.
Guest_01 straightened his tie, looking smug. He expected me to panic. He expected me to engage him right here, right now, in a duel of fates beneath the waves.
But my System HUD was blinking red in the corner of my vision.
**[Alert: Orbital Defense Integrity at 64%.]**
**[Alert: Zorgon "Phase-Breaker" Frigates entering the mesosphere.]**
**[Alert: 12 Million Players currently engaged in combat.]**
If I stayed here and fought the Void Lord, the shockwaves alone would cause tsunamis that would wipe out the East Coast. Meanwhile, the Zorgon fleet upstairs would glass the planet while I was distracted.
It was a classic pincer movement. A DPS check on two fronts.
"Guest," I said, my voice vibrating through the water.
He raised an eyebrow. "Architect?"
"You're trying to stream-snipe me," I said. "It's rude."
I raised my hand. I didn't aim at him. I aimed at the temple.
**[Skill: Gravity Well (Inverted).]**
I poured a significant amount of my Day 1,187 mana surplus into the gesture. I didn't crush the temple; I isolated it. I wrapped the entire underwater coordinate in a sphere of localized, hyper-dense gravity. Time inside that bubble would slow to a crawl. The Void Lord, who was currently trying to crawl out, would find himself moving through molasses made of lead.
Guest_01's smile faltered. "A stasis field? You're just delaying the inevitable."
"I'm pausing the cutscene," I corrected him. "Wait here. I have to go clear the lobby."
I crouched. The seabed cracked.
"Don't go anywhere," I warned. "I'll be back to kill you in ten minutes."
I launched myself.
The water around me vaporized instantly. I became a cavitation bubble moving at Mach 20. I shot up through the darkness, through the twilight zone, past a very confused school of tuna, and breached the surface of the Atlantic like a reverse torpedo.
I didn't stop at the surface. I kept going.
The air thinned. The sky turned from blue to black.
I arrived in Low Earth Orbit.
The view was... chaotic.
The golden dome of my planetary shield was still holding, but barely. It looked like a cracked windshield. The Zorgon fleet had fragmented. The massive dreadnoughts were hanging back, wary of my return, but they had unleashed thousands of smaller interceptors and boarding craft.
The space around Earth was a swarm of angry metal bees.
But the bees were being swatted.
"Zero," I projected, floating amidst the debris of a destroyed satellite. "Give me the tactical view."
**[Overlaying Grid.]**
The stars were replaced by red and blue markers.
Blue was humanity. Red was the Zorgon.
And for the first time in history, the Blue markers weren't hiding in caves. They were out here. In the void.
***
**The Artillery**
**Location: The Tungsten Spire (Ruins) – Levitating Platform Alpha.**
**Player: Elara (Level 45 Arcane Weaver).**
Elara couldn't breathe. Or rather, she could, but only because of the shimmering translucent bubble the Architect had placed around the floating platform. Outside the bubble, there was only silence and death.
She stood on a chunk of the shattered Moon base, currently drifting about two hundred kilometers above the Earth. Around her were fifty other mages—Pyromancers, Cryomancers, and Kineticists.
They were the Artillery.
"Target solution locked!" shouted the Raid Leader, a guy whose avatar was wearing a tuxedo and a wizard hat. "Sector 4-Bravo. That destroyer is trying to align its bombardment cannon with London. Burn it!"
Elara raised her staff. It was a **[Void-Core Rod]**, dropped from a dungeon just last week. It hummed with unstable energy.
She didn't cast a small spell. In space, there was no air resistance. No gravity to drag a projectile down.
"**[Meteor Swarm]**," she chanted, her mana syncing with the fifty other players.
A magic circle the size of a football field ignited in the vacuum above their heads. It was silent, burning with a ghostly blue flame.
From the circle, massive boulders of conjured rock, wreathed in magical fire, launched forward.
They crossed the ten-mile gap to the Zorgon Destroyer in seconds.
The Zorgon ship's point-defense lasers tried to intercept, vaporizing a few of the rocks, but there were simply too many.
*Impact.*
Even without sound, the impact was felt. The rocks smashed into the alien alloy. Kinetic energy transferred instantly. The destroyer buckled, its spine snapping under the barrage.
"Good hit!" the leader cheered. "Reload! We have incoming fighters, three o'clock high!"
Elara drank a mana potion, the blue liquid tasting like blueberry syrup and ozone. Her hands were shaking, not from fear, but from the sheer adrenaline of being a living flak cannon.
Suddenly, a green lance of plasma shot from a Zorgon fighter, aiming straight for their platform. It was too fast to dodge.
Elara flinched.
But the beam didn't hit.
Ten meters from their bubble, the beam curved. It bent at a ninety-degree angle, as if it had hit a mirror, and shot off harmlessly into the dark.
**[System Notification: The Architect is watching.]**
**[Buff Applied: Divine Deflection.]**
Elara looked up. Far in the distance, a tiny, golden figure was floating against the backdrop of the sun.
"He's guarding us," she whispered. "Focus fire! Don't let him down!"
***
**The Boarding Action**
**Location: Zorgon Light Cruiser *The Xylar* (Interior).**
**Player: Ren (Level 62 Void Walker).**
Combat in zero gravity is a nightmare if you rely on your feet. If you rely on murder, however, it's a playground.
Ren kicked off a bulkhead, spinning in a tight corkscrew. The interior of the Zorgon ship was dark, lit only by emergency strobes and the flashing of gunfire. The gravity generators had been knocked out by the initial breach.
"Damon!" Ren shouted over the team comms. "You're drifting!"
Damon, the massive tank, was floating helplessly in the center of the corridor, his giant shield clutched to his chest. He looked like a turtle flipped on its back.
"I hate this map!" Damon roared. "I can't charge if I can't step!"
Three Zorgon soldiers—insectoid cyborgs with multi-jointed limbs and magnetic boots—scuttled along the walls. They raised their plasma rifles.
"Wall run!" Ren commanded.
Damon growled. He slammed the edge of his shield against a floating piece of debris, using the Newtonian reaction to propel himself downward toward the floor. His magnetic boots engaged with a heavy *CLANG*.
"Finally!" Damon grinned.
He raised the **[Aegis of the Moon]**.
"**[Shield Bash]**!"
Damon didn't just hit the lead Zorgon; he plowed through it. The sheer mass of the shield, combined with the momentum, turned the alien soldier into paste against the far wall.
Ren didn't use the floor. He used the shadows.
**[Skill: Shadow Step.]**
He vanished from mid-air and reappeared directly behind the second Zorgon, who was clinging to the ceiling.
Ren's daggers, the **[Void Fangs]**, didn't glitter. They absorbed light. He drove them into the gaps of the Zorgon's chitinous armor.
The alien spasmed and floated away, dead.
"Engine room is ahead," Ren said, wiping purple ichor from his visor. "If we blow the core, this ship takes out the two frigates flanking it."
"Lead the way, little man," Damon grunted, stomping along the ceiling with his mag-boots.
They reached the blast doors. They were sealed tight.
"Can you pick it?" Damon asked.
Ren looked at the three-foot-thick alien metal. "I'm a rogue, not a laser cutter."
Suddenly, the ship shuddered violently. A notification popped up for both of them.
**[Quest Update: Assistance Granted.]**
The blast door hissed. The metal groaned, turning cherry red in the center. Then, it simply... peeled. Like a banana. Someone, somewhere, had grabbed the door with telekinetic force and ripped it open from the outside.
Through the gap, Ren saw the golden aura of the Architect fading from his sensors.
"Show off," Ren muttered, but he was grinning.
They burst into the engine room.
***
**The Architect's View**
I was playing the world's most high-stakes game of "Whack-a-Mole."
I hovered in the exosphere, my senses expanded to cover the entire orbital grid. My mana regeneration was screaming to keep up with the expenditure.
Every time I saw a cluster of players about to be wiped out, I flicked a finger.
*A Mage squad running out of air?* I condensed a pocket of oxygen around them.
*A Healer targeted by a sniper drone?* I slightly increased the density of space in the bullet's path, slowing it down enough to be dodged.
*Ren and Damon stuck at a door?* I opened it.
It was micro-management hell, but it was working. The Zorgon were confused. They were fighting an army of immortals backed by a god who was cheating the physics engine.
But the Zorgon were an empire for a reason. They weren't just going to let us grind them for XP.
**"ANOMALY DETECTED,"** the Zorgon hive-mind voice boomed across all frequencies. **"ORGANIC RESISTANCE EXCEEDS PARAMETERS. INITIATING PROTOCOL: EXTINCTION LANCE."**
I froze.
The retreating dreadnoughts—the massive pyramids at the edge of my range—were aligning. They weren't aiming at the players. They weren't aiming at the cities.
They were linking up.
Three dreadnoughts connected via beams of hard light, forming a triangle. In the center of that triangle, energy began to build. It wasn't purple void energy, and it wasn't blue plasma.
It was red. Pure, unstable crimson.
**[Warning: Stellar Converter Class Weaponry Detected.]**
**[Target: North American Plate.]**
**[Estimated Damage: Crust Fracture. Atmospheric Ignition.]**
"They're going to crack the planet like an egg," I realized.
The energy ball grew. It was the size of a small moon now. They were ignoring the players, ignoring the losses. They were going for the checkmate.
I couldn't deflect that. It was too big. If I tried to catch it, the bleed-over energy alone would incinerate the atmosphere below me.
I needed to destroy the gun before it fired.
"Zero," I barked. "Range to target?"
**[40,000 Kilometers. Outside the effective range of the Player Artillery.]**
"And me?"
**[You can reach it. But you cannot leave orbit. If you leave, the planetary shield collapses, and the smaller ships will glass the surface.]**
I was tethered. I was the shield bearer. I couldn't be the sword.
I looked at the red sun growing in the distance. It was firing in thirty seconds.
"I need a projectile," I said desperately. "Something fast. Something heavy."
I looked around. Debris. Satellites. The ruins of my base. None of it was enough to punch through the shielding of three linked dreadnoughts.
Then, my eyes landed on a particular signal.
A Zorgon Destroyer. The one Ren and Damon were currently inside.
It was drifting, engines dead, but its reactor was critical.
An idea formed. A terrible, reckless idea.
"Zero, open a channel to Ren."
*"Boss?"* Ren's voice came through instantly. *"We just blew the cooling rods. We're evacuating. This thing is gonna blow."*
"Don't evacuate yet," I commanded. "I need you to override the navigation."
*"What? It's dead in the water. Engines are toast."*
"I don't need engines," I said, my eyes glowing with a dangerous light. "I am the engine."
I reached out.
**[Skill: Telekinesis (Supreme).]**
**[Target: Zorgon Destroyer *The Scourge*.]**
**[Mass: 4.5 Million Tons.]**
I grabbed the ship.
Inside, I could hear Damon screaming as the artificial gravity shifted sideways. *"What is he doing?!"*
"Ren," I said calmly. "Aim the nose of the ship at the bright red light."
*"The Extinction Lance?"* Ren paused. *"You want to ram it?"*
"I want to throw a bullet," I said. "You are the bullet."
*"We'll die upon impact,"* Ren stated.
"You're gamers," I reminded him. "You respawn. The planet doesn't."
There was a silence on the line. Then, a chuckle.
*"Damon,"* Ren said. *"Buckle up. We're going for a ride."*
*"I hate you both!"* Damon yelled, but I could hear him locking his magnetic boots.
I focused. The veins in my forehead bulged. The daily 10% increase was surging through me, a torrent of infinite power seeking an outlet.
I pulled the ship back, winding up like a pitcher on a mound.
The Zorgon fleet saw the dead destroyer moving. They tried to intercept, firing lasers at the hull, but I wrapped the ship in my own golden aura, reinforcing its structure.
"Strike!" I roared.
I threw the ship.
**[Skill: Kinetic Bombardment.]**
The Destroyer accelerated. It went from zero to Mach 50 in a heartbeat. Inside, Ren and Damon were undoubtedly turned into jelly instantly, killed by the G-force long before impact.
**[Player Death: Ren.]**
**[Player Death: Damon.]**
**[Respawn Timer: 60 Seconds.]**
Their sacrifice was not in vain.
The dead ship became a relativistic spear. It tore through the vacuum, trailing a wake of golden fire.
The three dreadnoughts saw it coming. They tried to disperse the formation. Too late.
The *Scourge* slammed into the center of the crimson energy sphere.
*CRACK.*
The universe held its breath.
Then, physics gave up.
The reaction caused the crimson sphere to detonate prematurely. The explosion was a supernova in miniature. The three dreadnoughts linked to it were instantly vaporized, their atoms scattered across the solar system.
The shockwave rippled out, catching hundreds of smaller Zorgon vessels, tumbling them like leaves in a hurricane.
On Earth, the night sky turned bright as noon for three seconds.
**[Target Destroyed.]**
**[Zorgon Command Structure: Critical Failure.]**
I stood in the void, panting. Not from exhaustion—my mana was infinite—but from the sheer mental strain of aiming a four-million-ton bullet.
The remaining Zorgon ships stopped firing. They were leaderless. Their big gun was gone. Their swarm was being eaten alive by the mages.
They did the math. The math said: Run.
**"RETREAT,"** the signal went out. **"SYSTEM DESIGNATION: EARTH. CLASSIFICATION: DEATH WORLD. ABANDON."**
The ships turned. Engines flared white. They warped, blinking out of existence one by one, fleeing the sector.
Cheers erupted over the global comms. Millions of voices screaming in victory.
"We won!" Elara cried out from her platform. "They're running!"
I watched them go. I didn't chase.
I lowered my hands. The golden shield flickered and stabilized.
"Zero," I said, my voice quiet. "Casualty report."
**[Player Deaths: 4.2 Million.]**
**[Civilian Casualties: Minimal.]**
**[Earth Infrastructure: 15% Damage.]**
"4 million deaths," I whispered. "That's a lot of respawn sickness."
But they were alive. The planet was spinning. The moon was... mostly there.
I floated there for a moment, letting the silence of space wash over me. It was peaceful. The stars didn't care about wars or gods. They just burned.
My HUD blinked again.
**[Alert: Temporal Stasis Field (Atlantic Ocean) degrading.]**
**[Time Remaining: 2 Minutes.]**
The peace shattered.
"Right," I sighed, cracking my neck. "Halftime is over."
I looked down at the blue marble. Down there, in the dark water, the real threat was finally waking up. The Zorgon were just the warm-up band. The Void Lord was the headliner.
And Guest_01 was waiting.
I tapped my comms.
"Attention all players," I broadcasted, my voice weary but firm. "This is the Architect. Good job on the Tutorial."
I let that sink in. The confusion. The horror.
"Loot the bodies. Repair your gear. You have ten minutes."
I turned my body toward Earth, letting gravity take hold of me once more.
"Because the Main Event is starting in the Atlantic, and I'm going to need a bigger raid group."
I began my descent.
**[Day 1,187 Continues.]**
**[Space Combat: Concluded.]**
**[Next Phase: The Abyssal Throne.]*
[ Chapter 42 Ends.]