Lv1 Skeleton

Chapter 68

“The bomb was successfully placed on the asteroid.”

“Great!”

The android before me seemed incredibly pleased, but their expressions didn’t match their words. I guess there are limitations to how closely they can replicate humans after all..

“There are 12 hours, 24 minutes and 54 seconds until detonation, Valen will now set a course back to Earth.”

‘Johra why don’t you take the chance to ask her what we talked about.’

‘Oh right.’

“Hold on a second Lena, is the Kuiper Belt far from here?”

“At Valen’s current movement speed could arrive there in four days.”

“Can you show me the trajectories of the recent asteroid impacts on Earth?”

“Here you go, the brighter the point the more recent they were, while the darker ones were one of the first to arrive on the planet.”

It was demonstrated on the 3D hologram before us.

“Lena if we assume that all this is being orchestrated by a single entity, can we try and track the origin of the asteroids?”

“An interesting idea, the might be a large margin of error but we should be able to get a general idea.”

“Please guide the ship to the middle of that area.”

“I’ll change our course and we should arrive there in 7 days, 14 hours, 15 minutes and 16 seconds.”

“Why have your answers become more precise all of a sudden.”

“I got scolded by my sister.”

‘Johra that is the proper military answer, you need to understand Zaira’s personality, she is a bit of an ottaku.’

‘Hoot. Gross, then are you also an otaku?’

‘What nonsense are you spewing out, I’m not an otaku, I’m a normal person.’

‘How could you say that considering the personalities of the A.I. you’ve created.’

‘Yea, but I’m normal….’

‘Sure, let’s just agree that you’re a closet otaku.’

‘No! No!’

“Lena, open up your hidden fantasy collection!”

“Just follow the lights.”

I spent the whole journey indulging in these masterpiece movie. If I had been in a human body I would have teared up at least a dozen times, but I was able to better focus on the quality of the movie because I was an undead. Still, it was too bad that I couldn’t enjoy some popcorn, cola and dried squid.

‘Johra how can you be so relaxed, simply watching movies like this? What about the entity hidden behind the scenes?’

‘Do you think that’s all I’m doing? Tell me, what’s the most important thing when it comes to creation magic.’

‘Imagination’

‘That’s right’

‘Ah… I see, so you weren’t just passing the time.’

‘Of course not, anyway so now that my Creation Magic has levelled up, Do I still have only a max of three where the new one replaces the oldest?’

‘At level 2 you have the option to rearrange the order of your spells and keep 5 of them’

‘Wow, that’s a pretty big difference, what about the third level Gnoss?’

‘I’m not sure, among supreme sages there is no knowledge of the third level. Although there was once a supreme sage that reached that level, there are no records or information about it.’

‘A new frontier huh? Interesting, Research!’

‘How did you even get it to level 2 so quickly?’

‘I selected it as Magic Research.’

‘Wow… so there was such a way.’

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‘How about you? How does a supreme sage get it to level 2?’

I used my divine grace. With it you are able to bring about changes which defy the laws of the world. But previous supreme sages have been selfish and used the grace for their own ends, which ended up distorting its power. By the time I inherited it, it was less than one hundredth its original strength.’

‘Is that so, then was that the same grace which you used to give me this Creation Magic?’

‘Indeed, however there wasn’t enough remaining to boost it up directly to level 2.’

‘And was it grace that you use that time when you were almost banished to the strange dimension?’

‘Right, I had used up most of my grace that time around to make your Avatar a Chosen Warrior.’

‘This grace thing sounds pretty convenient, so what exactly is it?’

‘It’s like a portion of divinity, a blessing to share a small piece of a god’s power.’

‘Oh, then does that mean that you have the backing of a God?’

‘Exactly, well actually I used to…. Let’s leave it at that because I can’t divulge any further information.’

‘What! But I’m curious now.’

Gnoss was no longer answering my queries because it seemed like he had certain constraints to follow.

I simply went back to enjoying my movie until our arrival.

“Johra, we are 10 hours away from arriving, but I think you should come up and see this on the bridge.”

“Got it.”

I followed the lights to arrive to the bridge, curious about what Lena wanted to show me.

“Is that a distortion of light?”

“Right, from Earth it was just a small blip which could be attributed as a an error in our equipment, but from up close like this it’s as clear as day.”

“How many are there?”

“There are about 200 of them, anywhere from 1 to 10 kilometers in diameter.”

“Jora, with a shape like that I believe that they are ships, just that they are using some kind of cloaking device.”

“How are you able to deduce its size then Lena?”

“I’ll put it up on the screen, it’s an estimation based on the distortion of light in the surroundings.”

The object of the shape was quite distinct, and just as Gnoss pointed out, it definitely looked like a ship.

“Lena is Valen armed with any weaponry?”

“Although its purpose isn’t an offensive one, it still has a Tri-force laser cannon and your antimatter bombs which were meant to destroy the comet.”

“Let’s try targeting the nearest one and hit them with both the laser gun and antimatter.”

“It’s a 1 hour, 59 minutes and 58 second countdown until we can lock on to them with the lasers, I’ll fire the bombs ahead of time so that they arrive simultaneously.

‘Time to find out who exactly were these beings that dared mess with us on Earth.’

In anticipation for the space battle to come, I gripped the captain chair as her final countdown began.

“10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1 Impact!”

A huge explosion was visible despite the vacuum in space. Although there was any sound heard, our ship was still rocked by the shock.

“The target’s camouflage has been deactivated been it doesn’t appear to have taken any significant damage besides that.”

We were finally able to get a good look at our opponent, it was a pretty small vessel at only 2 kilometers long, with long ominous black stripes decorating its underbelly.

“The enemy’s weapons are targeting us, taking evasive maneuvers.”

Valen performed a 180 degree swirl and but a moment later, a beam shot through what was our previous position.

“Lena what would happen if we were hit by that?”

We would instantly be destroyed as its power is beyond what our energy shields can sustain. This vessel was not designed for combat after all.

“Hmm… then is it possible to continue avoiding?”

After a short interval another beam was fired out, but Lena succeeded in predicting its trajectory and dodged it entirely.

“Fortunately I’m able to easily predict its firing path and avoid it with our mobility. It’s firing rate appears to be every 2 minutes and we can have a good idea as to when they shoot because their weapons heat up before firing.”

“We can’t keep avoiding them forever though, eventually they will get lucky. Can you catapult me over there?”

“It should be possible, but what can you achieve all by yourself?”

“Just let me try once.”

“I will prepare the ejection capsule, just follow the lights on the floor.”

‘Johra just what is the actual purpose of fastening the seat belt?’

‘Shut up you, it was just an old habit.’

‘Are you rushing head first into danger again?’

‘It’s fine this time, I’m confident that I’m not crazy and have things under control.’

‘I’m sorry to tell you Johra but… this idea of yours is pretty crazy.’

‘Ok, maybe you’re right.’

‘I wasn’t sure why I was embarking on such a risky mission, but I just felt it was necessary.’

“Don’t forget to secure the console properly around your neck.”

“Yes, I’ve done it already Lena.”

“You can communicate with me through the console anytime, except in the vacuum of space because there are no vibrations.”

It looked like a necklace when hung around my neck, and would be useful if I need the A.I.’s help.

“ 3…2…1 Blast off!”

I felt the pressure of the high speed travel rocking my ejection capsule. I was moving towards the enemy ship at tremendous speeds, when it suddenly appeared in view, straight on a collision course.

“Shit, I cant run into that!”

I quickly unfastened my seat belt and escaped from the capsule by using my flying skill. Shortly after it collided with the crash and after the small explosion, my transport had disintegrated into dust.

‘Ouf, that was close….’

I was relieved that I had escaped that calamity, the ship was only a few hundred meters from me.

‘Johra they have their shields up.’

‘I know dammit… if it wasn’t for that, the laser and antimatter bombs would have been more effective. I guess I only have one choice.’

‘Create Teleport’

[You have learned Teleport Lv1]

I used the teleport to appear on the other side of the shields and the vessel’s defensive weapons immediately turned towards me as they detected my intrusion.

‘Well they aren’t very welcoming.’

I made it to the ships surface through a series of short teleport jumps, using them to dodge the incoming fire.

‘Material Creation Positron’

I created a tiny 1 microgram positron and threw to the nearest turret. An controlled explosion soon followed, leaving behind a large hole in the vessel.

‘Good, everything is working out so far.’

‘Create Invisible’

I cloaked myself as a precaution and then descended through the dark hole and into the ship.

‘That was quite close with the positron explosion previously, I don’t have any high fire immunity so I should be more careful in the future.’

‘Johra, that there looks like the mainframe.

‘Forget about it, I have no way of reading or interacting with their language.’

‘Have you forgotten about Lena? Just connect with her through the device hung around your neck.’

‘Oh, would that work?’

‘Sure, just leave it to her.’

“Hello? Lena, can you try hacking into this?”

I was able to communicate with her because the inside of the cabin was pressurized.

“Yup, leave it to me, but I think you will have to get a bit closer to it.”

I approached it and once we were quite close, dozens of black threads emerged from my console as Lena had began hacking the opponent’s mainframe.

‘It looks pretty gross. Also, by the way is Lena any good at hacking?’

‘Do not worry, as per my design, they would have been practicing among the A.I.’s their hacking skills over the last 140,000 years. I’m confident that they have improved to the point where it should be possible even if it might be Alien technology.’

The console which Lena was using to hack looked more like a parasite than a piece of technology.

“Johra, the ship will now self-destruct in two minutes.”

“Ah…Okay. How’d the hacking go?”

“I succeeded, hurry and escape!”

I didn’t have time to worry about retrieving Lena’s console and simply fled for my life. Though my flight skill and a series of teleports, I quickly arrived back on Valen which had been waiting for me in the distance.

‘Shouldn’t we escape immediately?’

Just as I arrived on Valen I heard Lena give the order.

“Set a heading, back to Earth!”

“We are already on our way there.”

“Is the enemy casing us at the moment?”

“No, when I hacked them I sent a series malware, so they should be confused for quite some time and think that ti was nothing more than a malfunction.”

“Oh, are they really so incompetent?”

“It appears that all those ships are simply UAVs, as an A.I. I was able to infiltrate their system and learn quite a bit about them. It appears that despite their advanced science and technology, their defense against hacking is quite weak. We definitely benefited big time because of you. Take a well deserved break while I thrift through all this data.

‘Johra, Lena’s hacking ability makes up for her personality disorder.’

Gnoss tried to provide an explanation.

“Yes Lena, great job there.”

‘It seems like your crazy plan actually paid off this time Johra. These new developments are quite interesting, we’ve finally unearthed the cause of the sudden changes which occured to Earth. These guys a large debt of several billions of people to answer for…’

‘Oh please Gnoss, stop saying we, it’s not like you contributed this time around in any way.’

‘I made Lena right?’

‘Lena is Lena and you are you.’

‘Why do you have to be like that?’

‘It’s just the way it is, next time you’ll have to try a bit harder to be more useful so can stick it to those darn Aliens.’

‘Ok, maybe you’re right.’

I opened a direct channel back to earth in order to transmit the results of Lena’s analysis.

“Hey Zaira, how are you?”

I would have to wait some time for her response because there was roughly a 30 minutes delay between transmissions.

Sichik- – –

It’s a bit awkward to wait so long, and it felt like I was only talking to myself.

“Johra just keep talking, it takes an hour to get a response.”

“I’ve encountered some ships hidden within the Kuiper belt, and they are likely suspects for what has happened to our planet. We managed to gather some information thanks to Lena’s hacking and I think we can come up with some decent countermeasures now.”

After about an hour we received a response from Earth.

“Johra, I’ve already received all relevant information form Lena. I’ve also heard about your bold assault, and I’ll have to ask you to refrain from acting so cavalier in the future. You are a key component in the successful reinvigoration on humankind, and should be protected at all times. If you really need to perform a risky mission, send Lena alone, I’ve already copied her root code so it isn’t a big deal even if she dies.

Also, it appears that with this information we were able to detect a fluctuation in the geomagnetic waves at the center of the planet. I’ll be awaiting your prompt arrival.”

“Huh… was there also a group hidden within the planet’s crust?”

‘So the volcanic activity and meteor showers were indeed linked after all. There was someone pulling all the strings after all! Damn, if only I was smarter and had noticed all this sooner!’

Gnoss appeared to be angry as he scolded himself. It was my first time hearing such an angry voice from him.

‘Gnoss don’t beat yourself over this too much. I mean, even if the humans had noticed it, there wasn’t much they could even do to stop it. Without a magic system like I have, it just wouldn’t be possible.”

‘Hmm…. is it like that? Still, how sad… the death of billions of humans and creatures….Sniff”

“That’s already all in the past now, all we can look for is to get our revenge, and restore humanity to its former glory. That was the purpose of the Gamma station which you designed.”

‘Thanks Johra, if it wasn’t for you….’

‘Say your thanks after our work here is done. If we celebrate too early we are doomed to fail.’

‘I know, from now on I’ll be behind you 100%. Of course I’ll still have certain constraints and stuff I can’t talk about, but aside from that, I’ll support you completely. I tried not implementing my knowledge from the other world over here to Earth, but playtime is finally over.’

‘Wait, are you telling me that you’ve been holding out on me this entire time?’

‘Just transmit to Lena what I will be explaining you shortly, and tell her to send it to Zaira who can implement it back on Earth. It would also be helpful if you could create some magic jewels.’

‘What? Why?”

‘We will turn this ship into a hybrid of science and magical knowledge.’

‘Cool, so Valen will be able to fire magic spells?’

‘That and so much more.’

‘Will it really be as awesome as it sounds?’

‘You can look forward to it.’