Chapter 444 To Delay the End
Dimensional destroyers. That was the only term which Daniel could think of to describe these monsters.
Only visible to those capable of understanding collapsed s.p.a.ce, these monsters would feed off of the chaotic celestial events, growing in power as a result. Once strong enough, they would make use of the power they were carrying to destroy everything.
A dormant plague of dubious origin, that would lay in wait for its moment to act.
Now, right in front of Daniel, hundreds of these ent.i.ties were swarming the gigantic wormhole, a tunnel forcibly opened between two distant points of s.p.a.ce right after the spatial expense was folded in itself.
Daniel was not sure of what to do. His first instinct was to stop these significantly bigger destroyers from keeping of eating, but he was not sure whether attacking any of them, would result in the same catastrophic scenario that he was trying so desperately to avoid. After all, it only took one use of the concept of collapsed s.p.a.ce contained in the stomachs of any of these monsters, to create a chain event that would ultimately destroy the entire dimension.
And yet, he could not simply do nothing as these now moon-sized monsters reached the planetary size possessed by those who inhabited the void, becoming powerful enough to fulfill what he believed to be their ultimate goal.
To stop such a mastodontic event would not be an easy task, but luckily, he at least knew where to start.
The first thing he did was to summon a small piece of stone, a stone which emanated his very own true essence, and was similar to the one he would feed to the Sacred Grounds of Hiel academy. A portion of his planet.
He then placed it on the side of his curved index, and with a flick of his thumb, he sent it flying through s.p.a.ce, and in the direction of the ma.s.sive wormhole. In his mind, he was praying that the Kurga would consider it just a random rock, and would not attempt to destroy it.
Once he finished doing this, he started to observe the different groups of s.h.i.+ps that composed the defensive grid around the wormhole. It was only then that he noticed that something was odd. The majority of these fleets were composed of a few frigades, and numerous smaller battles.h.i.+ps, but not all of them.
In a section of s.p.a.ce which, considering the position of the s.h.i.+ps, could considered the southern part of the wormhole, was a second grid of s.h.i.+ps. This grid was entirely composed of battles.h.i.+ps, tightly packed into a defensive formation. In the middle of this prison of battles.h.i.+ps, was a gargantuan metallic sphere, with metallic tubes that run across the surface in every direction. This metallic sphere was devoid of any form of propulsor, and it had been built in place.
From a simple look, Daniel was able to understand that this sphere was nothing but a more powerful and advanced version of the round s.h.i.+p, which had curved s.p.a.ce in order to allow the s.h.i.+ps to travel at a superluminal speed. However, instead of containing a single minuscule spark of energy which moved crazily within the round metallic sphere which contained it, this sphere contained thousands of them, all following a specific path, and creating a power so vast, that it could fold billions of light years of s.p.a.ce like nothing.
This ma.s.sive metallic sphere was the source of power that kept the wormhole opened, and without it, the s.p.a.ce would unfold, destroying the tunnel that it sustained. If that happened, the dimensional destroyers would lose their interest, and go back to their dormant state, in wait for more celestial events to feed off of in the future.
Daniel knew perfectly well that he would never be able to approach the wormhole"s power source without being spotted, after all, more than once had the Kruga soldiers proven that invisibility was not something they had no remedies against, and would only work in places where they weren"t prepared for it.
Their side of the wormhole, unfortunately, was not one of such places. Aware of the cultivator"s powers, the intergalactic union of alien races were on constant lookout for invisible ent.i.ties or objects, and their soldiers, were always ready to act.
Bad chances had never been something capable of stopping Daniel from doing what he needed to do, so he stored the helmet of his s.p.a.ce suit into one of his spatial rings, and merged his body with the darkness contained in the empty s.p.a.ce between him and the sphere.
For a few thousands of kilometers, Daniel was pleasantly surprised that none of the soldiers had gone to meet him in s.p.a.ce, and in the back of his mind, he hoped that no one would. But unfortunately, luck was not on his side. Just as his hopes were starting to go up, the hangars of the hundreds of battles.h.i.+ps started to open, and from them, emerged tens of thousands of flashes of light.
These flashes of light were incredibly fast, and approached him at a speed that he could barely follow with the naked eye. However, he was not there for confrontation, so instead of fighting his way through this swarm of soldiers, he used one of his oldest and most useful tricks. Around his body formed a layer of deflective spatial essence, which would confuse the actions of the soldiers, and prevent their attacks from reaching his body.
Unfortunately, Daniel had underestimated the importance that the alien races placed on this sphere, as with every kilometer he crossed, a hundred more of these soldiers would appear around him.
After about two minutes, when only a few tens of thousands of kilometers separated him from the sphere, Daniel found himself surrounded from all directions. He could feel the blades of these warriors flash past the surface of his body, only a few millimeters away from his skin. On the surface of these blades he could feel a nearly imperceptible plasmic edge, which would without a doubt be able to slice right through his essence of true immortality, and cut his body at an atomic level.
Similarly to the feeling of being stuck in the middle of a swarm of wasps, Daniel could not allow himself to be fully surrounded. The last time that had happened, the Kruga"s a.s.saulting party had managed to bring both him and his planet into a wormhole. So instead of relying on his evasive methods, he began to emit as much true essence as he could to the unbeknownst of the thousands of flashes that menacingly flashed by him.
Daniel"s power started to propagate outwards, staining the otherwise empty s.p.a.ce as a drop of ink into a gla.s.s of water, and kept on growing until finally, after two more minutes, the invisible power had managed to include all of the attacking warriors.
"Do not let him get near the key!" Said one of the captains to the rest of the warriors, through the use of their communication devices. "ATTACK IN FORMATION!" He then ordered.
In response to these orders, the thousands of soldiers flew into formation. They could feel the s.p.a.ce around Daniel was distorted, so instead of trying their luck by attacking one by one, they a.s.sumed one of the formations taught by their military, and turned themselves into an impenetrable net.
By being bound to one another, one of their attacks was bound to find its target.. however, just as the propulsors with which their suits were equipped with released a burst of power, the invisible power that was engulfing their surroundings turned into lightning essence.
The sudden appearance of a ma.s.sive electric discharge blinded the scanners of the s.h.i.+ps, which became completely unaware of what had happened. It was only after a few moments, that the light caused by Daniel"s attack disappeared, and their scanners were able to pick up on the result of the clash.
Floating in free s.p.a.ce were thousands of soldiers, all safe and sound, and yet, unable to move. The electronic components of their suits had been fried, and as of now, they were bound to float in s.p.a.ce with little to no breathable air, in the hope that someone could soon come to their rescue.
However, it was not the fate of these soldiers that worried the leading figures of the alien"s flotilla, but Daniel"s, whose body was floating in s.p.a.ce while unconscious. On his back was a ma.s.sive slash which revealed numerous of his bones, and from which he lost numerous droplets of blood that turned into dark red spheres right after flowing out of the wound.
"Send the shuttles to rescue our soldiers, and capture the human.. alive." Said the flottilla"s commander. In response to these orders, hundreds of small shuttles started to depart from their battles.h.i.+ps, and scoop the disabled soldiers from the s.p.a.ce in which they were floating in.
What they failed to notice was that while the movement of the soldiers was halted by Daniel"s attack, he was still slowly advancing.
A particularly quick shuttle, which had just departed from the commander"s frigate, rapidly calculated the trajectory of Daniel"s body so that they could interjected him before he could come any closer to the sphere. They then opened the cargo bay"s bulkhead to allow Daniel to float right into the shuttle, but right as his body was about to be recovered by the aliens on board, Daniel"s body straightened, and he directly dove through the other side.
The thick metallic wall did not obstruct Daniel in the least, as the moment his body touched it, it turned into a form of liquid metal that allowed him to float through, as if he had plunged into the surface of a body of water.
After diving through the shuttle"s external panels, Daniel focused the entirety of his power on the bottom of his feet, and with the highest speed he was capable of, covered the remaining few hundred kilometers that separated him from the metallic sphere in just a few moments, and landed over its surface.
The aliens were quick to react, and send thousands more warriors to get him off of the source of power that was keeping the wormhole opened, but it was too late. The moment Daniel"s hands had touched the sphere, every millimeter of it, exterior or interior, was mapped into his head. It only took a few moments for him to take control over the metallic essence contained in its thick panels, and use it to remove a few crucial screws, or break some important parts.
The many approaching soldiers instantly took hold of him, and separated him from the globe of metal with the fastest speed they could muster, but right as they were about to breathe in relief due to the seemingly intact state of the sphere, they started to notice that something was amiss.
Their sensors were reading sudden increases in temperature caused by the erratic movements of the sources of energy, which instead of moving in their predisposed pathways, were now wrecking through the interiors of the sphere.
"IT"S GOING TO EXPLODE!!" Shouted the soldier that was holding Daniel"s arm before letting go of him, and using the top speed that his suit allowed him to, to get as far away as he could.
Daniel did not bother to run away, and instead observed as the orb of metal started to glow with an increasingly more brilliant yellow color, and after only a few minutes.. *Crack*
The explosion caused by the collapse of the metallic sphere was initially not as catastrophic as the soldier made it out to be. The first thing to happen was the sudden expulsion of the artificial sources of energy used by the structure, which flashed past billions of kilometers in only a few instants, never to be seen again.
It was after the disappearance of the many orbs of energy, that the wormhole suddenly shut close, and the remaining power started to condense to the size of a human"s eyeball. Once this originally volatile energy became as dense as stone, it exploded with a power that could match that a dying star. A catastrophic event capable of destroying an entire system, and that left nothing of what had not managed to escape, unscathed.
Naturally, that was not Daniel"s fate. Right before the explosion, and immediately after the wormhole had closed, Daniel had teleported right next to the small stone he had thrown into the wormhole a few minutes earlier, reappearing right on the other side of it, weakened, and wounded.
His actions were only supposed to buy him some time to warn the universal government, but it was what he saw next, that made him lose hope.
Floating in the s.p.a.ce in front of him, were no less than two dozen armies, each belonging to one of the government"s major factions, or the government"s military itself. At the helm of each of these factions were some of their most powerful members, as well as a different child of Iewah, who stood in wait.. Fully prepared for Daniel"s appearance.
"So this is where the party was.. haha." said Daniel before letting out a grim laugh.