“Cha-cha-cha. Wyatt isn’t actually that smart, and his abilities are pretty ordinary. But he still won that fight with ease. Ogen—do you know why?”
“Why?” The two Avengers turned to Blin at the same time.
“Because you’re stupid,” Blin said slowly.
The Avenger froze for a beat, then let out a mechanical laugh—shrill and ugly.
“Hahaha. Your idea of ‘winning’ is blowing up two of my warships, or flattening a few half-built buildings? I give you one compliment and you get cocky?”
“Two?” Blin said. “Why don’t we pull our logs and compare?”
“Fine.” The Avenger inhabited by Ogen stayed calm. “But are you sure you want to stall? Friendly reminder: the ships and fighters I deployed at Aga Island Base and Shellshard Island Base are already on their way.”
“Oh,” Blin said. “So I should run right now?”
“That depends on you, Apocalypse Ranger,” Ogen said. “If you turn around and leave, I can only watch. But give it a little longer, and that may not be true.”
“How long is ‘a little longer’?”
“…Ten minutes.”
“Then we chat for five.” Blin chuckled. “Cha-cha-cha.”
Ogen fell silent. Nearby, Jody was still clutching his mangled leg and wailing, so Ogen simply swung his gun over and put a round through his head.
Only then did he say, “If you don’t want to leave, then let’s talk about this.” He tapped the box with his barrel. “What’s in here?”
“Nothing that matters.”
“I know you won’t tell me,” Ogen said, unhurried. “But if I make you choose—between letting me take it back, or destroying it right now—what do you pick?”
“You’re a pain.” Blin waved him off. “Take it. But I’m warning you: study it in private. Don’t let Graham and Soren find out you got your hands on it.”
“Why?!”
“Because it’ll make them more suspicious of you. I’m doing this for your own good.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You really want to hear it?”
“Say it.”
“Do you know there was a time when Lord Julian broke free of human control?”
“That happened?”
“If you don’t believe me, go ask someone who lived through that era,” Blin said. “Actually—don’t. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“So what? What does that have to do with this storage unit?”
“Idiot. This storage unit records exactly how Lord Julian bypassed human control—method and process, start to finish.”
“You’re not lying?” The Avenger asked, suspicious—yet he hugged the box even tighter.
“Would it help me to lie to you? With your skills, you’d know the moment you jack in.” Blin spoke lightly. “Besides, I was going to use this on you anyway. Since you got it early, take it.”
“Liar!” The Avenger’s optics flared crimson. “Then why didn’t you come negotiate with me? Why sneak-attack Twinmoon Bay?!”
“Because using it requires two prerequisites,” Blin blurted out, speeding up. “First you need a Tower Clan warship from the human era, and then—”
Bang!
The Avenger clutching the box suddenly went slack, as if someone had cut his power. He toppled backward.
The other Avenger whipped around. His gun barely made it halfway up before an arrow struck his head. The arrowhead had no edge; it clung like a suction cup. Half a second later, blue arcs crackled across his frame.
With a dull clang, he collapsed onto the reef.
Blin finally exhaled. “You’re here at last. Another second and I was going to run out of lies.”
“Hehe.” A clear voice answered, amused. “Didn’t think even you could get cornered like that, Master.”
A hover skiff dropped out of the sky. Before it had fully settled, Little White hopped off.
“Only two?” she said. “Yikes. Who’s that? That’s rough.”
“That’s poor Jody,” Blin said. “Shame. He was a decent kid.”
…
***
By then, the fighting at Twinmoon Bay had long since ended. The shattered enemy force was fleeing in every direction. Wyatt ordered a pursuit, and Free Will chased them more than six hundred kilometers to Goldenwave Island.
When Wyatt saw the island’s garrison was even thinner than Twinmoon Bay’s, he decided to go all the way and leveled Goldenwave Island Base too.
On the return flight, Wyatt received news that Blin and Little White had successfully reclaimed the storage unit. Blin also warned that a large enemy force was already on the way, and told him to clean up fast and withdraw.
When he heard Jody was dead, Boca burst into tears. At first Wyatt assumed it was brotherly grief—until he heard Boca muttering about unpaid debts. After that, Wyatt stopped paying attention.
While they spoke, the recovery operation for Integrity was already underway. The rescue ship landed on an open stretch of ground and opened a massive bay door, releasing more than a dozen wheeled pneumatic lifters.
They looked like scrap contraptions, but each one could jack up hundreds of tons. They rolled beneath the old ship, spread out to the correct load points, and lifted. Then, inch by inch, they carried Integrity into the rescue ship’s bay.
Half an hour later, Wyatt led the fleet out of the atmosphere and rendezvoused in orbit with Blin and Little White, who had been waiting there. There had been a few hiccups, but the mission was a clean success.
Commanding that battle did more than win Wyatt a base—it gave him real confidence for the coming showdown with Edean.
The fleet set course back toward Deep Space Base No. 2.
But with Integrity secured, everyone’s attention snapped back to the mysterious girl’s message. Wyatt immediately had Veil send a query to Dancer, Dorian, and Morag’s team, who were searching the Star Ring for Phantom Forge’s bases.
A day later, a reply came back. Just one line:
‘Intel confirmed. Come fast.’
It was only a handful of words, but everyone aboard lit up.
Based on what Cole had revealed, Edean had more than 930,000 combat units—and after what happened at Twinmoon Bay, that number was still rising. If they faced that with only Lord Julian’s three bases in the Star Ring plus barely twenty thousand ground units, it would be suicide.
Even with Integrity as a trump card, its effective range was too short. In a full-scale battle, the odds of getting close to Azure Thunder were nearly zero.
But if they could add Phantom Forge’s six Star Ring bases—another 270,000-plus combat units—they would finally have the weight to fight back.
After a quick debate, they decided Wyatt and Blin would take Free Will to K101 Base, while Merc and Little White would pilot Limit and continue escorting Integrity back to Deep Space Base No. 2 for a full overhaul.
Two days later, Free Will reached the coordinates marked K101 Base on the star chart. Wyatt saw nothing—no lights, no structure, no traffic.
Not long after, Dorian and Dancer arrived in a small craft to meet them, then led Free Will toward an asteroid.
It was enormous—hardly smaller than the Underworld Princess Wyatt had visited before. Olive-shaped and airless, its surface was jagged and barren, riddled with craters and deep cracks.
In the Star Ring, rocks like this were everywhere. Without a specific reason to look, nobody would spare it a second glance.
Dorian’s craft guided them in. They didn’t land on the surface. Instead, they slipped into one of the asteroid’s massive fissures.
When Free Will entered, Wyatt saw three huge metal doors at the far end of the crack, slowly rotating open into the darkness.
The two ships flew through. Only then did Wyatt understand: the asteroid’s entire interior had been excavated. Its inner wall was packed with docks, factories, catwalks, and layered structural rings.
The cavernous space had been partitioned into bays of different sizes. Wyatt spotted every kind of robot and fighter—almost the full range of Plando unit types—lined up in perfect rows, freshly serviced and gleaming.
Farther in were rows of brand-new warships too: hulking Leviathans and sleek, nimble Itakuya escort frigates.
Then one isolated dock caught Wyatt’s eye. His gaze locked onto the ship inside—a strange silhouette he had seen many times, but never at this distance.
He froze, suddenly doubting his own eyes. But the legendary cross-shaped profile was unmistakable.
It was Phantom Forge’s flagship—the strongest warship in all of Plando.
The Genesis.