Chapter 850: Battlefield

After the Petrachelys’ void engine had administered a powerful ‘shock therapy’ the timeflow of the skewing point at the Solenne Gateway was reset and once again flowed as normal. In actuality, a ‘reset’ was not the accurate terminology, as within the skewing point, the timeflow was normal, just that the surrounding universe was moving much much slower, but these minute details is not important.

The Petrachelys slowly closed into Solenne’s orbit with all early-warning radars and weapon systems online. As on this planet, the god-slaying war had just ended ten hours ago. No one could be sure that the perimeter was safe. Nolan used the ship’s radar to do a rough scan of the energy signatures on the planet’s surface and immediately detected several hundred high-intensity flash points, yet there were no locations that had any danger indicators.

“This is the main gate of the holy land, and the entire planet is turned into a fortress. High-intensity energy signatures are normal, even if the fortress have already been leveled.” Hao Ren said as he commanded the ship to break into the atmosphere. “Woah… that seems bad.”

As the Petrachelys broke through the thick layer of cloud and the planet’s surface that was previously hidden now lay naked before them. Hao Ren saw kilometers upon kilometers of scorched earth and the land was ablaze. The demarcating lines between land and water and all planet life is can no longer be distinguished. The rivers had long dried up, leaving an ugly worm-like gully. The sea was left with nothing but a boiling water pit, and lava flowed freely across the land. A massive ring shaped mountain was visible from orbit, and that was probably the crater made by some powerful orbital weapon.

Hao Ren even saw a deep snaking trench all along the equator that turned his gut. The trench had went through the whole planet’s circumference and an omnious red glow came out of the exposed mantle. The trench had divided Solenne into two. Hao Ren had no idea what sort of weapon that could inflict destruction of such a scale on the planet, but he was sure that, if the prepetrators behind this had enough time or did not faced such resistance, they would have blown the planet into oblivion.

Hao Ren looked at one of the window panels of the communicator. He knew that Muru was looking at the surface. But the giant guardian had not said a word. To break the awkward silent, Hao Ren asked. “Muru.. this place…”

“This was once a grand and beautiful holy land.” Muru spoke slowly. “This was one of the most beautfil gardens Mother had created. Everyday many pilgrims from the nearby star systems would visit here. As the planet could not receive the amount of devotees, many of them were happy that they were able to pay their respects in orbit.”

“And it’s all destroyed now.” Lily sighed. Even the husky would have moments like this. “Are the treacherous children that strong?”

“More than you think. Solenne was a fortress, and while it was open to pilgroms, this planet was meant to serve as a stronghold. There were powerful planetary shields and orbital defense systems. Across the planet there’s around 2,500 holy sanctums, and the power of these sanctums could easily destroy anything in space, yet the planet was taken. Only after did they overcame the defensives did they destroyed the planet. That trench over there is caused by a gravitational tide weaponry. Because the resistance at the gateway was ferocious, normal troops could not stamp out the fighting. So the treacherous children decided to annihilate every planet in the area, but before their plan could be fully enacted, the explosion of the Star of Creation put a halt to it.

“There’s plenty of time to drown in nostalgia. Time is of the essence.” Y’zaks reminded the rest. “Time has started flowing again in this place, and any information left on the battlefield is being engulfed by the inferno.”

Hao Ren immediately ordered the ship to continue its descend as he activated every sensors and detectors to look for sign of life on the planet. He then turned towards Muru, “Can you hear the voice of the other guardians?”

“Not yet. But we are already quite close.” There was confusion in Muru’s voice. “But that distress signal was on-off.”

Y’lisabet hugged her arms as she thought about it, and there was something she did not quite understand. “Wait a minute, if the time in this area was distorted before, then how did the distress signal got out? It would take ages for it to travel out of Solenne to the wider universe, and there could be distortions as well.”

The MDT flashed in blue as it spoke. “There’s indeed this problem, and there is a possiblity of some sort of interruption when the nebula ‘hit’ realspace, causing any data from the planet to go out on the normal timeflow.”

Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. “And?”

“The distress signal that Muru received probably was not real time. It was probably from the main universe ten thousand years ago, or a few hours ago on this planet. It was sent when the fighting was till ongoing. But now, as you can see…”

The MDT did not continue and a screen showing the scene outside popped up.

A desolated land. There was nothing but fire, smoke, shell crates and death. There were no signs of life, no hope of possibly finding anything. Regardless of whoever that sent the signal, they had probably already perished heroically in the flames of war.

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Muru did not say anything and simply let out a long sigh. He probably had anticipated this since the beginning, and had maintain his composure, yet his sigh was undoubtedly heavy.

Lily too was slightly disappointed, but she did not gave up and continued monitoring the images from the cameras and probes. As a new set of images came into her sight, she saw something akin to a silhouette of ruined structures and amongst them, a fireball sped past.

“There’s something there!” Lily immediately leapt up from her chair. “I saw a flash! A firefight!”

Hao Ren immediately enlarged the image that Lily was pointing to. “Nolan, set location.”

Nolan swiftly directed some of the more sensitive radars towards the direct. “Energy signature positive… There are signs of logic control, and life signatures. Hostile engagement positive! Increasing speed!”

There was an ongoing battle! Is there anything more astonishing than that?

Hao Ren tried hard to rein in his emotions. He knew deep within that what the ongoing fighting on this planet means. This was something unpredecented, a scene that transcended ten millenais was about to unfold before him, and his fingers was tingling. He activated a console on the captain’s seat. “Nolan, bring the weapon systems online and set it to assault mode.”

The MDT subconciously asked. “Pardner, you sure about using those guys within the planet’s atmosphere?”

Hao Ren pointed to the desolated earth outside. “You think the Planetary Preservation Accords is applicable here?”

“Ugh… you have a point.”

“Lets stay alert, we may run into the remnants of the treacherous children’s army.” Hao Ren said as he inspected the weapons’s status. “Those guys won’t be push-overs. They dared to go fighting face to to face with a real god.”

The Petrachelys descended to a lower altitude, and used the thick smog and extreme heat to mask her approach towards the combat zone. It did not take long for them to reach the flashpoint as the flashes of combat raged.

Once great structures once stood on the battleground were nothing but bombed out ruins, while it was still quite some distance away, one could tell from the silhouettes that the building was enormous. There were pillars of smokes coming out of the building that streaked to the sky, within it were the occasional flashes. Hao Ren turned to Muru to enquire about the place. “You know what once stood there?”

“Ahead of us is possibly a holy sanctum.” Muru’s voice came from the communicator. “The city is a sub-part of the sanctum. There were many lightstreams flowing towards the sanctum to provide it energy. Seems like the power system had already been destroyed. Beware of the places with the green light, they are crystals formed from the collapse of the lightstream. Once one explodes it’ll cause a chain reaction.”

Under Muru’s guidance Hao Ren saw a belt of eerie green trail on the scorched grounds. They were as wide as rivers, coming from all directions. All of the streams converged upon the building, and the crystals were probably the condensed form of energy, and best to just leave them be.

At that very moment, the Petrachelys picked up a few active energy signals from the middle of the city ruins. “Warning. Unknown entity detected. Warning. Unknown entity detected…”

The images from the sensors outside immediately appeared on the holographic projector. Hao Ren saw three streamlined objects the shape of a lobster appearing amongst the ruins.

Muru’s voice rumbled. “It’s those treacherous children!”

Hatred seethed through his clenched jaw.