Chapter 534: The Shot That Shook the Void
The Extreme North Ice Fields had become a vast crimson ocean. The Blood Clan had been wiped from existence. Steam curled from the Shatterstar mech, which stood silent before the colossal portal.
[Energy recovering... Estimated time: five minutes, forty-three seconds.]
Ethan kept his eyes on the display, watching the energy gauge climb. The last onslaught had drained Shatterstar’s reserves, drawn directly from a star. Now, it only needed time to refill. That was the beauty of infinite energy—no matter how much was consumed, it would always return, given a moment’s pause.
Nearly six minutes later, the bar reached full.
"Shields online," Ethan commanded. The mech stirred, its massive form rising to stride through the shimmering red membrane of the portal.
A low hum filled the cockpit. Light and shadow warped, space bending in every direction. Then, in a blink, Ethan emerged into a world he had never seen before.
The sky here was locked in eternal twilight. The team’s arrival left them momentarily speechless. Above, countless figures clashed in a savage melee. Black-armored warriors and crimson-clad masters of the Blood Clan tore into each other, their blows ripping open the very fabric of reality. Spatial rifts split the sky in jagged scars, spreading farther with each strike.
And higher still, Ethan felt two overwhelming presences.
"We’re going up." His hands moved across the console, engaging Shatterstar’s advanced propulsion. The mech roared skyward. As they climbed, his focus fixed on a lone black-armored figure locked in combat.
"It’s her..." The view zoomed in, and certainty gripped him.
"Shatterstar, target that red monstrosity. Main cannons. Everything we’ve got."
The figure in black wasn’t losing ground, but her opponent—a massive crimson abomination—was no less formidable. Their struggle shook the void itself, as if the heavens had been shattered beyond repair. Behind them stretched the endless emptiness of the cosmos.
[Main cannons charging... Initiate lock-on function?]
Ethan frowned. Normally, Shatterstar would simply charge and fire. Why prompt for a lock this time? The realization struck hard. The enemy’s power was so immense that without precision, the shot could miss entirely—and with it, waste the bulk of their energy.
"Lock on. Lock on! Blast that thing to hell."
[Lock probability: 32.8%...]
The number on the display twisted in Ethan’s gut. Barely a third chance to hit. What sort of monster were they facing?
"Doesn’t matter. Fire a shot first!"
The twin cannon barrels extended from Shatterstar’s head, a deep hum building as light gathered within them. The glow intensified, a color Ethan had never seen in all his battles.
[Warning. Main cannon overheat. Charge terminated. Requesting fire.]
Alarms shrieked. Ethan shielded his eyes against the searing brilliance filling the cockpit. A quick glance at the gauge confirmed the cost: the blast had drained seventy-three point eight percent of Shatterstar’s total energy.
"Fire!"
The mech obeyed. The barrels hissed, venting superheated steam, and then two beams erupted, each as thick as a water barrel, streaking outward in lines of furious red. The lasers were so vast, they dwarfed the cannons that had birthed them.
"Hmm?"
The red monstrosity in the void had at first felt a flicker of joy when Shatterstar appeared, mistaking it for reinforcements. The black-armored figure, though her expression gave nothing away, had also turned her full attention on the mech. As the cannons began to charge, she slowed her assault, ready to dodge at the first sign of danger.
When Shatterstar finally fired, both combatants let out a sound of surprise. That split-second hesitation, combined with the measly thirty percent lock-on probability, somehow aligned into perfection. The beams hit squarely. The crimson monster twitched to react, but it was already too late.
The twin blasts struck its enormous chest, not converging but punching straight through with blinding speed.
The impact detonated with a deafening boom. A fiery-red orb of light erupted from within the creature, swelling at a terrifying pace before vanishing in an instant.
"Holy hell..." Ethan’s pulse hammered in his ears. He shifted his gaze toward the black-armored warrior. Even she—so cold, so composed until now—was scrambling, fleeing in panic as the expanding orb of destruction chased her relentlessly.
"Shatterstar, save her!"
[Beep, beep, beep. Danger! Danger! Danger! Shields engaged.]
The orb ballooned outward, racing toward them. In less than a heartbeat, it had closed to within a thousand meters. Ethan’s desperate command was ignored. Shatterstar’s systems had already chosen survival, automatically diverting all power to its shields. Cold and merciless—such was the logic of high technology.
[Beep, beep, beep...]
The alarms screamed without pause. Ethan’s gut twisted. He had gone too far. The attack was devastating beyond measure.
"Close-quarters system online! Recharge the shield!" He forced Shatterstar backward, drawing the Scale of the Earth Guardian forward like a bulwark. Every scrap of remaining energy was poured into strengthening the barrier.
Inside Shatterstar’s chest cavity, the old turtle shook like a leaf, words tumbling uselessly from his mouth. "Th-th-this... this..."
Uncle Jed and the others were no less shaken, jaws hanging open. Ethan had once claimed he could destroy a world, and while none had taken it as idle boasting, none had imagined that this machine they had dismissed as an "external toy" carried such raw, apocalyptic power.
"That brat... if he had this kind of artifact, why didn’t he use it earlier?" Uncle Jed’s voice quavered with outrage and disbelief. "I wouldn’t have had to suffer at the claws of those beasts! Wouldn’t have been left trapped in an ice pit, unable to climb out—"
"Sooner?" Bongo, who almost never spoke, cut him off. "You’d already be bowing before the Lord of the Underworld."
Jed snapped his head around, startled at the retort.
"Forget that—look at the Blood Clan!" the Dragon Child cried, pointing downward.
Everyone turned. Below, the battlefield had dissolved into chaos. The so-called masters who hadn’t been obliterated in the core blast were scattering like frightened insects. Blood Clan elites and black-armored warriors alike abandoned their duels, fleeing in every direction. Even outside the orb’s radius, the residual shockwaves slammed into the ground. Masters caught too close were obliterated instantly, erased without a trace.
And there was something even more chilling. As the Dragon Child pointed out, the Blood Clan warriors weren’t just destroyed; their very essence—their blood energy—was gone, not even a wisp left behind. Utterly annihilated by the violent surge.
Ethan’s chest tightened. So the Blood Clan’s so-called immortality wasn’t absolute. It had simply never faced an attack of this magnitude.
But his brief triumph soured quickly. The armor of the black-armored soldiers, supposed allies, was melting under the residual heat, dripping away in molten sheets. Ethan’s heart sank. He had crossed the line. This was no victory—it was devastation. He had dealt a fatal blow to the enemy, yes, but at the cost of his allies as well.
It was the kind of strike that harmed a thousand foes while cutting down eight hundred of his own.