Super Mothership
Looking out through the observation window, they saw that the neighboring asteroid suddenly bulged outward from within before violently rupturing.
The massive explosion sent countless chunks of steel and rock flying, blasting open a crater several kilometers deep. Huge amounts of debris were hurled into space, creating what looked like a miniature meteor shower.
"Boom!" A gigantic rock fragment over thirty meters across crashed directly into a fortress cannon that had been fully charged and ready to fire, triggering a secondary explosion that left the entire area in ruins.
If the interior of the Gold Coin Pirates' base hadn't been thoroughly reinforced with special blast-resistant materials, that single explosion would have been enough to shatter the entire asteroid.
Nor was that all. The blast also knocked out a large section of the surrounding defensive installations.
The glowing energy around one cannon after another quickly faded. Their barrels drooped lifelessly, while lights across the area blinked out one section after another, radiating outward from the blast site as though someone had suddenly cut the power in the middle of a dark night.
"Boss! A critical power node on Asteroid No. 2 has been destroyed. The defensive installations in Sectors 13 through 18 have lost their energy supply..."
"Useless trash!" Gold Dagger cursed through clenched teeth, his face ashen with rage.
In reality, that had merely been the closest explosion to them. Throughout the rest of the base, even farther away, massive fireballs continued erupting one after another.
It wasn't just the exterior that had suffered. The interior had been riddled with destruction as well. The invading robots had left the base full of holes, deliberately targeting many of its vital core facilities.
The entire eastern section of the base had disappeared beneath smoke and flames as more and more defensive installations were damaged to varying degrees.
Gold Dagger had never imagined that a mere few tens of thousands of robots could inflict such devastating losses upon them.
The robots themselves weren't particularly powerful. In a head-on fight, a single Chainsaw Maniac could massacre an entire squad of them.
What made them terrifying was their astonishing combat wisdom.
Not intelligence.
Wisdom.
They behaved nothing like rigid, pre-programmed machines. Instead, they resembled intelligent lifeforms possessing mechanical bodies.
Some crawled through ventilation ducts.
Some actually powered themselves down and played dead when confronted by large groups of guards.
He had even seen one absurd robot on the surveillance feed take a group of Gold Coin Pirates hostage, point a gun at them, and force them to walk in front as human shields while clearing a path.
Was that seriously something a robot would do?
He had considered the possibility of remote control.
But where were they?
This was the Gold Coin Pirates' headquarters!
Not only did the chaotic energy fields generated by the fierce battle outside heavily interfere with all forms of communication, but the base itself was packed with countless signal-jamming devices.
After all, the most important requirement for remote control technology was a stable communication signal. A constantly interrupted, unstable signal was practically worse than having no signal at all.
It was like trying to remotely control a highly sophisticated robot designed for an 8G network using a 4G connection running at only 100 Mbps. The poor machine would probably start having seizures.
And transmitting a smooth remote-control signal inside their own heavily jammed headquarters?
Even the Imperial Royal Family couldn't pull that off.
But now wasn't the time to dwell on technical details.
Gold Dagger turned his attention back to the battlefield.
These mysterious suicide squads were carrying enormous quantities of explosives. Not only had they infiltrated the base and begun widespread sabotage, but they were also continuously pushing toward the central asteroid where Gold Dagger himself was located.
Their objective was obvious.
Capture the king before taking the castle.
"How are our defenses here?"
"Don't worry, Boss. We've already begun concentrating every guard unit we can spare and have sealed every access corridor with heavy defenses. With only a few tens of thousands of robots, there's no way they'll break through to us!
If things somehow become dangerous, we can simply blow up the connecting passages and turn this asteroid into an isolated fortress.
The outer shell of our asteroid is protected by more than ten meters of superalloy armor. There's no way anyone can breach it through conventional means.
Even if the enemy somehow has a Legendary mech and tries to launch a surprise attack, we have our own independent large-scale shield system. This place is absolutely secure!"
"Good." Hearing his subordinate's confident report, Gold Dagger finally relaxed slightly.
This core asteroid fortress had cost him an astronomical amount of money to build.
Layer upon layer of defenses protected it both inside and out. If absolutely necessary, it could even activate a massive defensive barrier capable of withstanding attacks from a Legendary mech.
The only drawback was its enormous energy consumption. A shield spanning hundreds of kilometers couldn't be maintained for long, so it couldn't be activated unless there was no other choice.
With defenses this airtight, unless the enemy completely crushed their front lines, there was no chance of pulling off a successful "base rush."
Looking at the burning battlefield outside, Gold Dagger's expression remained surprisingly calm.
The base had undoubtedly suffered catastrophic damage. Repairs would require an enormous amount of work and money.
But in his eyes, anything that could be solved with money wasn't truly a problem.
As long as they could hold out until reinforcements arrived, even several pirate fleets working together wouldn't be able to defeat them.
There was only one thing he couldn't understand.
Lord Kloros's plan had clearly been a success.
Through a series of covert manipulations, Black Sail and the Twin Dragons had nearly beaten each other to death.
So how had they suddenly made peace and turned their combined forces against him instead?
Now that he thought about it, the absence of the Dark Temple and Karon pirate fleets had instead left him isolated in an extremely dangerous position.
It felt as though the enemy had anticipated every move, used his own strategy against him, and beaten him at his own game.
That feeling of being completely seen through sent a chill down Gold Dagger's spine.
Yet the Red Dragon Pirates' headquarters really had been destroyed.
The war between Black Sail and the Twin Dragons couldn't possibly have been fake.
Which meant that something unexpected must have happened after the battle had begun.
If he could identify that turning point, he would know who had been manipulating everything from the shadows.
At present, the Gold Coin Pirates were under attack from all four directions.
The forces on the other three fronts were obviously Black Sail, Red Dragon, Madman, and Dragon Cavalry.
But on the eastern front...
The seven pirate fleets of the Shattered Star Region all knew each other well.
These shameless, bizarre robots definitely weren't something Black Sail or any of the other pirate groups could have produced.
Which meant a completely new faction had intervened in the joint assault.
And Gold Dagger had a growing suspicion that this mysterious hidden force was the real cause behind the disaster that had suddenly befallen him.
Furthermore, although the fighting on the other three fronts looked more intense, Black Sail and the others were clearly focusing on tying his forces down while leaving the main assault to the eastern front.
What kind of confidence did that require?
Since when had the Shattered Star Region produced such a hidden power?
One capable of uniting Black Sail and the Twin Dragons, who had practically become sworn enemies?
Suddenly, something clicked in Gold Dagger's mind.
He remembered the intelligence report he'd received not long ago.
The mysterious Ghost Captain had reportedly joined the Twin Dragons not long before this battle.
During the fighting, he had suddenly unveiled a long-lost Legendary mech, completely turning the tide.
The Ghost Captain...
The Machine Race...
Strange robots possessing unknown technology...
A hidden organization...
If there was anyone whose mechanical intelligence surpassed all others...
Who else could it be but the Machine Race?
As he connected all these clues together, inspiration struck him like lightning.
Could it be that the mastermind behind all of this was...
"Boss! Something's happening!"
A subordinate's startled shout abruptly interrupted his thoughts.
Looking up at the surveillance screen, Gold Dagger saw that from within the meteor swarm—which had nearly been annihilated by the base's overwhelming firepower and reduced to little more than cosmic dust—countless blue lights suddenly burst forth once again.
This time, they weren't small robots.
They were mechs.
Ten-meter-tall war machines.
There were over 30,000 of them.
Judging by their appearance, many of them were actually the Gold Coin Pirates' own flagship export model—the Bronze mech.
As the image zoomed in, everyone quickly noticed the emblem displayed on each mech's chest.
It depicted a ghost ship with tattered sails.
"Just as I thought..." A look of understanding appeared on Gold Dagger's face.
The one behind all of this... really was you.
The Ghost Pirates.
Or rather... All Things Returns to One Society.
At long last, Gold Dagger felt that he had pierced through the layers of mist and finally caught a glimpse of the truth.
Of course, he could never have imagined that the boast Nie Yun had casually made had been treated as top-secret intelligence by Gold Fang... and then sold to Gold Dagger.
Absolutely convinced that he had uncovered the whole truth, Gold Dagger never considered that beneath the "veil of truth" he thought he had lifted...
...there might not be a divine revelation at all.
It could just as easily have been... a pair of safety shorts.
TL Note- Secrets....
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