Soul of Burning Steel

Just when Joshua's incarnation was thinking in the lord's mansion.

On the edge of the world's star river, near the pioneer fortress group, a huge mothership as large as a mountain, with a total length of more than nine kilometers, is rushing through the void between the world and the world, and bursting out of the whirlpool-shaped time-space gate, as if it is Avoid the terrifying existence that is chasing after you.

The surface of this giant mothership is dilapidated, scorched black, and covered with marks left by the violent artillery bombardment, but even so, it can still be vaguely seen that its original painting is bright golden, and there is a printed on it The sharp triangular banner—that was the banner of the Chartres army.

This giant battleship is like a huge spinning cone, the whole body is smooth and flat, almost without any protrusions, but on its edge, there are dozens of energy crystals shining with cyan light.

But now, the energy crystals on the mothership have started to go out one by one. Obviously, the "ultra-long-distance teleportation" carried out by the mothership just now has exhausted its energy reserves. The space-time storm will quickly tear up the mothership that has lost its barrier. This huge civilization creation will become the extravagant coffin of all crew members.

At this time of despair, the operator of this mothership still has no intention of giving up. It uses the last energy of the mothership to send a distress signal to the surrounding space-time domain, broadcast in a wide area, and look for possible helpers. It doesn't matter if the other party doesn't have the strength to rescue them, but the most critical information must be sent out.

They firmly believe that there must be an existence nearby that can help them—because the super-long-distance transmission of the mothership locates the area with the highest energy density in the surrounding space-time boundary, but the space-time boundary is also the most stable area. , which generally means that there must be a powerful void civilization around it.

They anxiously and urgently waited for the reply of the distress signal, but their mood fell into despair and unwillingness little by little with the passage of time.

Thankfully, eventually, the signal returned.

Depressed but extremely excited cheers and shouts came from the control center of the mothership whose lights had turned dark red.

And within the Pioneer Fortress community.

Right here at this time, Nostradamus, who is about to use the super-large composite detection array to detect the galaxies in other worlds in the distant multiverse, is at the core of the fortress, checking the progress of the observation array and the summary of the data. Condition.

The old mage is fine-tuning the data of the observation circle, smoothing the surrounding time-space turbulence, and making it easier to observe later. He has been busy for a long time, and will soon produce results-a large area of ​​time-space turbulence around the observation circle has been calmed down. The super-giant observation circle, which is huge enough to cover the sky of a world, is slowly unfolding.

But suddenly, a burst of abnormal teleportation fluctuations disturbed the space-time turbulence that was finally smoothed out, and made this observation fall short.

"..."

Nostradamus, who squinted his eyes, heard an observer on the side gasp, and immediately issued a second-level alarm, reporting: "Abnormal space-time fluctuations and signals from unknown civilizations have been detected—according to the feedback of energy fluctuations, A large void battleship has teleported to our security zone!"

"They seem to be broadcasting the surrounding space-time domain in all directions, which has interfered with our data collection. This matter must be reported to the superior..." Speaking of this, the observer seemed to think of something, he looked back Go, Nostradamus has walked slowly behind him.

"Connect it." The old mage said blankly: "See what it wants to say, can you stop them, don't disturb our observation."

"yes."

The observer immediately connected to the other party's contact channel, rolled his eyes, recalled what he had learned before, and then said in a very businesslike tone: "This is the United Fortress of Mycroft, the 'Pioneer' fortress group. Friends from other worlds who are broadcasting in a wide area, please turn off all channel broadcasts, change the way of sending information, do not disturb others, civilization creates an atmosphere of communication, and regulating information channels is everyone's responsibility..."

In accordance with the "Regulations on Biological Communication in Different Worlds", the observers carried out a stable and very formal communication—roughly, asking the other party to turn off the free mic—and after receiving the information from the Pioneer Fortress, the other party was silent for a long time. Then there was a burst of earth-shattering cheers and shouts, mixed with many incomprehensible languages ​​of other worlds.

"What are they talking about?"

On the side, other observers asked the others blankly, and the others shook their heads—the demonic language is spoken in Mycroft’s world, and there are few elven languages. Because of the popularity of the common language, even dwarves and goblins don’t speak it. Dwarves and goblins speak. In the case of language unification, it is true that there are not many talents in Mycroft's world linguistics.

However, before these observers and Nostradamus could figure out how to guess what the other party meant, and how to make the other party understand what they were saying, suddenly, the communication channels that were originally full of languages ​​​​from other worlds It suddenly became quiet, and before everyone wondered if they were disconnected, a voice could be heard, stammering, very old, and the pronunciation was not standard, and one could even speak very clumsy Mycroft Cosmopolitan, facing The Vanguard Fortress initiates a communication.

"Here is the flagship of the Second Fleet of the 'Schartel Star God' (hereinafter referred to as the Chartres), the 'Distant', the great, respectable, and extremely prosperous Mycroft civilization, the captain of the Distant, Selma Your heartfelt blessings and greetings... Dear strong man, our battleship has encountered a terrible accident and cannot move. Now the battleship has run out of energy, and the life-support circulation system is on the verge of stopping. We are frightened and sincerely pray for your mercy and assistance. .”

Although, even an eight-year-old child can speak more fluently than the other party, but hearing a civilization in another world suddenly speak their own language, the shock that this incident brings to everyone is no small matter.

But after hearing these flattery and flattery calls for help, which were completely grammatically nonsensical, Nostradamus, who was originally a little angry because the other party interrupted the detection experiment, was a little angry and laughed. After all, if you don’t hit the smiling person with your hand, naturally you can’t lose your temper. Seeing the communication observer turn his head and look at him, he instructed in a low voice: “Ask where the coordinates of their warships are, how big they are, and how many there are. people."

"A channel for the communication of void civilizations in another world, it seems that they know us very well, and even know our language, they are very valuable,"

At this time, Yuanyuan was hit. Because the pioneer fortress did not reply for a long time, the atmosphere in the ship became flustered again.

"Captain, do you really know the Common Tongue of Mycroft?" A high-ranking officer couldn't help asking in a low voice: "This thing has been eating dirt in the library for thousands of years, can they understand what you say? ?”

"My family was the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chartres Empire thousands of years ago, and my blood has the language inheritance of 21 foreign civilizations!" The captain named Selma retorted with a low growl: "I use The most important is the oldest language format of Mycroft civilization - they like to hear this kind of words, those arrogant guys usually dismiss any civilization, but as long as they use this language format to ask for help, no matter what, they They will reluctantly make a move, or at least make a gesture!"

And soon, a reply from the Vanguard Fortress appeared on the channel of the battleship Yuanyuan.

Countless people from Chartres, who knew they were about to be saved, wept with joy, embraced each other, and even entangled their tails.

And a few seconds later, a clearly visible space-time ripple appeared out of thin air in front of the flagship Yuan Yuan.

It was a space-time crack that was hundreds of meters long, and it was still growing and expanding. Between breathing, this space-time crack became a thousand-meter-long gap that could span a city. giant portal,

Circle after circle of incomparably complicated magic runes expanded rapidly, and then formed a ring of complex and magnificent rune flowers. The process of unfolding the petals is the process of the gradual expansion of the time-space gate.

"Time, space-time gate?!"

"So fast, so big?!"

"Compared to our teleportation and this space-time gate..."

And when the people of Chartres were shocked by the technology and power behind this rapidly opening time-space gate, in the giant time-space gate with a radius of five kilometers, enough to completely accommodate the entire Chartres mothership, a relatively small, but The figure of an old man with a sense of presence but incomparably huge appeared in the center of the complicated magic circle.

Ten minutes later.

Nostradamus, who rescued a group of embarrassed Chartres from the half-destroyed battleship, received a piece of news that shocked him.

"The Chartres... in civil war?"

He and Thelma, the captain of the Faraway, sat on both sides of the reception table. The old mage stroked his black beard, secretly thinking about the meaning behind the news: "Speaking of which, the world of Mycroft has also Not quite, but better than these guys in all-out civil war."

The Chartres are a race that is more similar to "lycanthropes" in the usual sense. Specifically, they look a bit like upright walking cats (not catgirls). According to the records of the integrated information base, The Chartres are known for their sensitivity, irritability and arrogance, but this race also has advantages. In the common saying, it is particularly 'believing in evil'. As long as the people of Chartres suffer once, they will remember it in their hearts. They are born with the power to engrave their memories in their blood. The stronger the people of Chartres who engrave their memories, the longer the memory will last. Any Chartres person can clearly remember where his ancestors suffered, and never fall twice in the same place.

They regard 'sacrifice' as the core of their culture, and the 'sacrifice' of their ancestors as a noble inheritance, so the original Glory Era had a good impression of this civilization, thinking that they had 'potential for glory', which was in line with the then-Mikero The core values ​​of husband civilization—especially the foreign minister of the Shart people is very good at the art of language, which is very good in the impression of glorious civilization, so the treatment is different from that of ordinary civilization, and can even be used separately in the integrated large information base. Listed, Special Records.

All in all, it should be regarded as a friend, at least a verbal friend.

According to the captain, the two major factions among the Chartres had a huge disagreement because of the latest meeting. One side was cautious and wanted to observe the surrounding situation conservatively, and then determine the timing of the comeback. On the other hand, It is to restore the territory of the Saudis thousands of years ago as quickly as possible, and relieve the population pressure that is about to explode.

But for some reason, this time, the content of the memory that should have been top secret was exposed to the public by a mysterious person. Immediately, tens of billions of Shart people were all shocked by it, and then went crazy—they had never experienced the current situation of their world. People will never know what kind of dark and hopeless life they lead, but people who have not experienced their history will never understand their fear of the chaos of the outside world, especially when everyone knows it. Recently, the Chartres Void Observatory discovered that the surrounding When there are signs of super-large-scale chaos revival in the space-time domain, the whole world will be torn into two factions.

Chartres licks the dog (doesn't)

first update