Free Web NovelChapter 501: A Satisfactory Response
"And that satisfactory response would be...?" Johan asks. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
"Destruction" Ezra curtly responds, his gaze washing over them. "Utter Annihilation of them and their habitat. Nothing less would do"
Like this, the convened gathering planned their attack.
Already, Sidal had deployed a number of subordinates for scouting purposes.
Thus, he put up another holographic showcasing the planet from which their problem held a foothold.
From there, a plan came together from sifting through suggestions until an optimal option was found.
Concluding the strategy meeting after a single hour, they immediately put it in motion.
Going first, Ezra utilizes his <Teleportation> after receiving spatial coordinates, appearing multiple miles from the target planet.
Being a largely populated galaxy, the hustle and bustle is ever present with spaceships and other cargo shuttling to and fro.
But movement of vehicles is sparse compared to Cretin Hub for example as the area is more rural compared to others, so to speak.
Taking a long look at the planet in question, Ezra sees it looking unblemished, seemingly devoid of any sign of substantial life activity.
But through Sidal’s scouts, Ezra knew it was simply masked-concealed by a barrier that would have to breached to truly witness the planet’s truth.
With a cursory look over his initial position, Ezra fixed his gaze on the planet the hijackers are stationed and takes off in its direction, casting <Universal Concealment>
Moving to a safe space not too far nor too close to the planet, Ezra places an anchor point into space with <Gatemark>.
Activated, the portal opens up for his compatriots to step out–or rather, fall out of.
Frederick being the only one missing.
As they step out of the portal, standing upside down from Ezra’s perspective, they tumble.
Flustered for a brief moment, they fix their bearings.
A metallic box sways in Ashton’s hands, seemingly weightless.
"So far so good" Ezra gestures to them. "Is it ready?"
"Yes" Valentine replies, her eyebrows raised. "Zydrax says he will coordinate with you to bring it out"
"What about the pilot?"
"Sidal vouched for him as one of his most trusted subordinates"
"Hmm, good enough. Let me recover my nova essence and then we give it a go"
Ten minutes later, fully recovered, Ezra takes a deep breath before activating <Gatemark> and exerting himself upon it to widen the portal’s size.
Right off the bat, much of his nova essence is wasted because a space tear isn’t something once can grip easily with nova essence, feeling much like trying to scoop out a tunnel in quicksand.
Initially straining himself, his control suddenly improved all of a sudden as though fine tuned.
’Zydrax’ Ezra calls out, realizing what just happened. ’Your help is greatly appreciated’
[You are Welcome] he replies. [Now, you need to lift yourself upwards whilst holding the portal stable, otherwise you’ll be pierced through the chest to say the least]
With a grunt, Ezra concentrates his nova essence, gradually widening the portal.
’I...don’t think I can make it much bigger? Is this large enough?’ Ezra queries, looking at the portal circle with a circumference wider than the average trampoline.
[Yes. This should do]
Ezra rises upwards and out of the portal’s path, his body quivering as his brain strains in concentration.
’Hurry! I can’t hold it at this size for much longer!’
[You wouldn’t need to]
On cue with his words, a sharp pointed edge gleaming in cobalt blue makes its entry through the portal, the rest of it exiting with it to reveal the cause of so much trouble.
A spaceship.
Gleaming cobalt blue, it is a petite beauty, a light spaceship designed to hold only a few passengers and abysmal weapon capabilities.
It is a vehicle primarily designed for scouting, and skirmishes.
But it would suffice.
"Phew..." Ezra exhales. "Let’s get this done with"
"Let’s wait for you to catch your breath" Theron counters, smirking. "Can’t have our strongest element enter battle in bad conditions"
The drain on his reserves is severe, making it take more time, so he only recovered about 30% before ordering them to push forward.
Whilst the others were inclined to wait for Ezra to fully recover, he wasn’t.
No matter what, the spaceship had made them far too noticeable, it would be nonsensical to think they wouldn’t attract the hijackers attention should they stay there for ten whole minutes.
And though the spaceship has stealth being one of its strong points, the energy expenditure would reduce the effects of their planned strike, and so they set their plan into motion.
Moving to stand atop the spaceship, it buckles slightly under the extra weight but remains afloat.
Using their nova essence to better suction their footing onto the spaceship, focused to avoid getting thrown off by the inertia as their surroundings blur as it launches itself forward.
At some point, they all feel a wave pass through their bodies.
Doubtlessly, that was the concealment barrier, which also acted as a detection system.
The ship hits a sudden pause, reality regains motion as they arrive in front of the planet.
Being of very small size, the planet’s gray landscape had one-third of it’s mass covered in the metal foundation that holds up the hijackers base.
From afar, once could see a dim blue glow running below the metallic platform following lined paths to supply energy to the base.
The evidence of it being an organized operation was all to clear.
Real hijackers, scavengers wouldn’t have a base this orderly.
Already, Ezra could make out figures moving in hurried paces, an alarm blaring from atop the tallest structure, a thick metal tower stretching into the sky with a construct reminiscent of a bead at its top, now blinking red.
Yet neither he nor anyone felt any turbulence at the sight.
They had prepared for it after all.
On cue with their arrival, everyone jumps off the spaceship, except Ezra, who immediately starts infusing the ship with his nova essence.
Simultaneously, the ship lit up with lines of dark green light growing all over as they then all conjoined to reveal a small current from beneath the ship.
Following this, multiple of the planets installed defenses turn in the ship’s direction, charging up to eliminate this threat.
On the other hand, the siblings made sure to put more distance between them and the spaceship upon seeing this display.
And just as the defenses looked primed to fire, the spaceship fires off first! Beating their opponents attacks with less than 10 seconds to spare.
As such, a piercing ray of dark green light greets the planet, striking through to the surface.
"It’s an attack!"
"Take cover!"
Such were the words as the hijackers scattered from the sight of the light ray.
But unlike one would expect, the ray does no noticeable damage upon contact, and rather seem to adjust meld with the planet’s surface.
"Ahhh!" One screams, before opening his eyes to see himself unarmed by the ray of light. "Eh?"
Whatever’s threat it held fading like dust as the attackers subconsciously relaxed.
As they did that, the light ray’s true purpose is revealed at once.
Condensed from strangulite, the light ray was never aimed at piercing the planet or destroying its core.
No, it was to dissolve the circuitry of the entire base, rendering it’s inhabitants defenseless and most importantly, cutting off their options to request reinforcements.
As such, the defenses and machinery positioned all over the base rapidly become unresponsive, dead metal.
"M-My Netset!" One panicked, tensely tapping his communicator in futility.
Named after it’s ability to strangle and snuff out the energy flow in artificial creations, the strangulite spreads to every part of the base, literally paralysing it.
Or rather, putting it in a comatose state.
Of course, this included communicators as well.
As soon the light ray cut off, the siblings got to work, splitting up in two groups to cover more ground.
Ashton, Theron and Valentine as one group, Velora, Roxanne and Johan as the other.
The former groups head for the base’s control center, with Ashton opening the silver box with him and taking out a metallic obsidian ball?
Which he then activates, using the singulat button at its top and tosses into the air to immediately disassemble into pieces.
Pieces that reveal themselves as a cluster of tiny nanobots reminiscent of a beehive.
With a few scans, the bots set off immediately, the trio quickly trailing after them.
On the other hand, the other trio dashes across the base with imputiny, eliminating all hijacker that had the fortune of crossing their path.
With their bloodline transformation active, the hijackers found themselves at the mercy of Roxanne’s silver hawk form, Velora’s crystal snake form and Johan’s iron-scorpion form.
Now mid rank Transcendents, their forms are no longer of the lower rank beasts that their bloodlines had come from.
Roxanne silver skin had become much much harder and her feathers easier to utilize, and even redirect mid-air.
Velora crystal skin had become exquisitely resplendent with its interaction with light, and had now gained the ability to absorb light into her crystal skin and use it in a myriad of ways.
Johan’s form received simple, but an overall augmentation.
The texture of his scales, stinger and arms all much harder.
They moved in efforts to stiffle the possibility of any hijackers leaving.
What bad fortune it then is that the hijackers weapons are of the same nature as their base, being majorly metallic energy rifles.
And of course, it too had been turned into dead metal, leaving the hijackers, who were only experienced being predators up until now, which no choice but to be prey.
As expected, they didn’t too well to it, but whether little ingenuity they could cobble together to protect themselves utterly fails them as Roxanne’s feather daggers pierces their form in only vital areas.
On this note, the trio arrive at the base’s spaceship hanger after questioning their victims for it’s location.
And good thing too, because a good amount of hijackers had made their way here also.
While strangulite indeed turned them into dead metal, countermeasures have been built it since long ago, and most spaceships of today would have one or two solutions for it.
Being that the case, the trio could not afford to handle things delicately as one spaceship had even begun to take off.
Velora and Ashton work to smash through it and eliminate its passengers, with Velora using her crystal scales to temporarily blind the driver.
Johan tore off its booster with the pincers of a iron scorpion, stopping it dead in its tracks as it flips on itself due to inertia.
Meanwhile, Roxanne speedily picks off the other hijackers as the trio secure the hanger.
Spent, Ezra could only sit on the ship in a lotus posture, entering meditative recovery as his chest heaved and his head ached.
Upon reaching minimal level of stability, Ezra stirs himself to enact the last part of the plan.
Walking off the spaceship, Ezra descends to a part of the planet that lay barren.
Still heaving, he sits in a lotus posture once more, placing his palm on the planet’s surface.
And then....
’<Absolute Induction>’
(Netset: A name popularly used for the communicator.
