Super Mothership
"Lord Isabel, due to intense interference from the star, we’ve temporarily lost track of the target.
Based on its trajectory, it’s expected to exit the stellar zone in 5 minutes, and our radar should reacquire it in 15 minutes and 32 seconds… assuming, of course, it hasn’t already been burned to ashes…"
The adjutant reported to Isabel in a relaxed tone.
Although the target’s course hadn’t taken it directly into the star’s innermost, extreme high-temperature, high-pressure plasma regions, even the outer layers of the star were by no means something a tree could withstand.
Isabel’s expression didn’t relax at all — on the contrary, it grew even more grim.
"Fleet at full speed. If it’s alive, I want to see it. If it’s dead, I want the body!"
She didn’t believe the target would be foolish enough to use a suicidal acceleration tactic — but if it had done so deliberately… then perhaps that enormous biological fortress was even more formidable than she had imagined.
And sure enough, fifteen minutes later…
"Signal detected! It… it’s still there!"
Everyone’s eyes turned to the reappearing red signal, filled with disbelief.
"M-maybe… maybe it’s already been burned down to nothing but a pile of wreckage?" the adjutant said hesitantly.
Isabel made no comment, but a faint unease stirred in her heart…
On the far side of the star — beyond the reach of the Feathered race fleet’s optical instruments — a giant burning torch appeared in the silent void of space.
Against the backdrop of the star behind it, it looked as small and flickering as a tiny spark, leaving behind a long trail of smoke-like ash particles.
As it sped away from the star, the smoke and flames gradually dispersed, revealing the scorched and unrecognizable body within.
This, of course, was the immortal who had undergone the "ultimate trial."
At this moment, over 90% of its surface was charred black, and parts of it had even crystallized. Its original form was completely unrecognizable.
Layer upon layer of leaves had been completely incinerated in the heat, even the smaller branches had burned entirely to ash. Its crown was now bare.
To put it vividly, the immortal now looked more or less like a blackened firebrand.
"Crack! Crack-crack!"
At that moment, tiny cracks suddenly appeared on part of its black outer shell. The cracks slowly widened, until finally — "crack!" — a narrow fissure split open.
From within the fissure, a faint, tiny green bud could just barely be seen…
Far away, in the Gemini spaceport on the second planet, Nie Yun stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, staring gravely in the direction of the nearby star.
Then, as if sensing something, a faint smile slowly spread across his face.
"Tsk, tsk. As expected of a grass-type Pokémon — its vitality really is tenacious!" Nie Yun clicked his tongue in admiration.
The immortal: "…"
If it hadn’t burned through a massive amount of psychic power at the last moment to shield itself from part of the damage, it would probably have been burned to only half its body by now.
Overdrawing its power to such a degree left the immortal’s mind utterly exhausted — it didn’t even have the desire to express its resentment through telepathy anymore.
After a brief exchange between the man and the tree, they both busied themselves once again.
The Immortal diverted what little remained of its life-giving water to focus on rebirth through fire, evolving an even more resilient body, while Nie Yun deployed mechanical bugs to begin repairing the Immortal’s internal mechanized systems.
Although he had already withdrawn most of the weapon platforms into the Immortal’s body for protection, and other critical facilities were built deep within the thickest, most armored core of the trunk, a self-diagnostic revealed that over 40% of the equipment had still sustained varying degrees of damage from the harsh environment.
Fortunately, the thrusters had been given priority protection, tightly wrapped by the Immortal’s still-functioning root tissues, so losses there were minimal, and they could be brought back online soon.
Even though the damage was severe, repairing these weapons and systems was no challenge at all for the mechanical bugs. Wherever the silver tide swept through, all the machinery was restored to pristine condition, as if newly forged — fully showcasing the formidable capabilities of advanced-civilization starship repair nanofluids.
…
While directing the repairs on the Immortal fortress, Nie Yun also split his focus, remotely controlling a new “feast” for the mechanical bugs inside the spaceport.
Taking advantage of his position, Nie Yun had just arranged for the third garrison fleet to deliver large numbers of mechanical bugs into the spaceport.
As far back as when the Forest Ranger had first “escaped” the solar system and docked at the spaceport for repairs, Nie Yun had already infiltrated the spaceport’s internal engineering robots. Through virus-like propagation, the bugs had quietly taken control of over a thousand engineering bots by now.
Given that the total number of engineering robots was in the hundreds of thousands, those controlled by Nie Yun were insignificant on paper — but they had already fed him a wealth of intelligence about the massive spaceport’s inner workings, laying the foundation for this invasion.
Over this period, the infiltrated engineering bots had continued to perform their duties as usual. Nie Yun never actively interfered, only carefully gathering intelligence about the spaceport’s facilities through them to avoid detection by the central AI.
But today was different. Isabel had already delegated the spaceport fleet’s garrison duties to Nie Yun.
Although the spaceport still had plenty of army ground troops on standby, the secondary-level access granted to him by Isabel gave Nie Yun incredible operational freedom and intelligence support.
Most importantly, every early-warning system and surveillance node of the spaceport was now fully exposed to him.
No matter how vigilant you are, you can’t guard against someone on the inside — and with his “x-ray cheat,” Nie Yun intended to make the most of it.
He deployed large swarms of mechanical bugs into the spaceport, and this time their main target was the massive hangars housing vast numbers of engineering robots.
Automated weapons and combat robots were closely monitored by the AI and would easily trigger alarms if tampered with, so Nie Yun once again chose the seemingly inconspicuous engineering bots.
But this time, it was no longer a small infiltration — it was a full-scale purge.
One by one, the silver spiders scuttled into the warehouses they already knew well, then scattered, climbing onto the standby engineering bots and disappearing into them like a drop of ink vanishing into the sea.
Row after row of engineering bots showed the faintest flicker in their status lights, with no outward sign of change — yet control had silently switched hands.
Engineering bots might have been insignificant and low-profile within the spaceport, but their sheer numbers were nothing to scoff at.
If necessary, Nie Yun could even issue a single command and let the defenders of the Gemini spaceport experience firsthand what it meant to face… the “Machine Enemy.”
TL Note- Enemy...
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