The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet-Chapter 152: Ambush

The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet-Chapter 152: Ambush

Chapter 152: Ambush
The large fleet moved towards the Neilox system; there was under a day’s worth of travel left.
Personally, I am very surprised there have been no ambushes yet.
The flight had been smooth with no issues whatsoever, and now we were nearly near the planets I was going to turn into suns–the moment all prisoner life was extracted. I wasn’t a complete monster.
Lila had been spending a large amount of time practicing with the artefact I had given her, and an old goat had been stalking us trying to have another look at it. Lila nearly was ready to give it up for a moment to let him study it, but that was a big nope from me!
If she really wanted to give up my gift for a few seconds, then she could do it after people were done murdering each other, a much better time and place.
“Are you going to fuck off?”
“My, my, what a foul tongue.” The man in question had managed to arrive on Nina’s ship, and by utilising his influence and telling Nina directly who he was, he allowed himself free rein on board this ship.
Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but it was annoying, and I had full confidence that Espr knew this was going to happen and was why it stopped me from stealing something and had me go to the man.
You are going to pay for this somehow, Espr.
(“ You should be thanking me, the artefact you made is many times better than it would’ve been if you used some random below-average scrap you found in a trash bin or someone’s pants ”)
They were speaking the truth, but I was very allowed to be annoyed about the situation.
I asked, “Are you sure you should be here? Don’t you have important business and planning to handle?”
“Ha, my granddaughter handles that; I am simply a guest accompanying her, plus those discussions just dissolve into a mess anyway.”
Not wrong there.
There was still a lot of conflict underneath the surface of the calm fleet, differences in opinions on how the assault should be handled.
The prisoners were a major dilemma that divided people into many different factions. Of course, everyone wanted to
save
them, but the definition of save varied as some believed freeing them from Dominous graphs by unintentional–or intentional–murder was fine.
Now the clear issues with that thought process were obvious, but the reasons for it were also clear to the people here.
However, the reason why larger arguments didn’t form was because someone was put in charge to hammer down on that and to make the ‘tough decisions,’ which really boiled down to people doing and acting however they want on the mission within certain parameters.
I let out a loud sigh. “There are certainly better places for you to be.”
He laughed. “But why wouldn’t I be curious about how you created such an artefact?”
“You could do better,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Usually it doesn’t take me two seconds after flying away to do so.”
I thought I destroyed all those damned drones.
(“ You did, but it shouldn’t be surprising that he is able to detect the differences in the quality of an artefact ”)
Erghhh….
I internally groaned. I was going to try reading some books, which had become harder with this dude wanting to visit for talks. Nina could do much to remove since she was super famous and, more importantly, was offering some weapons and items for her teams to use.
Can’t blame her for taking the deal.
Craftalot didn’t mean harm, but he was an annoyance to one person–me.
“Sigh…” I adjusted my posture. “I’ve been delaying this, so what do you want?”
“For that, even I am not 100% sure.” He chuckled, but I could see a deep worry and curiosity in his eyes. “But I am curious about how you created the artefact.”
“Similar to something you have done in the past, I would assume. I have seen some of your past works.” I was half lying, since I knew he had done something similar with his artefacts thanks to Espr, but there was a massive difference between connecting them to the void between domains in the Existence of Possibilities and me linking the artefacts to my personal domain.
He smugly asked, “A fan?”
“As much as a normal person, I guess.” I shrugged. “It would be crazy if I did not know of your work.”
“But most don’t know of the requirements that go into my more special pieces.”
“Thank you, I’ve got good eyes.” I accepted the non-existent compliment.
“Hmmm, there is a lot to talk about regarding the artefact; it is impressive, and it has my seal of approval. There are, of course, common factors among other artefacts; there is clearly a being sealed within it, and it has its own mana supply that regenerates over time. Both were rare but have been seen before in dungeon artefacts.”
“Are you going to keep going around the star?”
“But the back and forth has barely even started.” He complained, “Where is the pizzazz?
“Left in a bunker somewhere.”
“No fun.”
“Plenty of fun, just not when a weirdo is stalking my artefact I created for my coworker.”
“Stalking? Please, I am the co-creator of it at this point.”
“You just dropped it off.”
“It was given with love and appreciation of what was going to come.”
“As if you knew what was going to happen.”
“What? I clearly did.” He over-exaggeratedly nodded, “I was waiting for the moment with a camera.”
“Oh, you are right! You were stalking before anything had even happened, weirdo.” I shook my head in disappointment. “One of the greatest figures of time, just a creep.”
“Oh ho ho ho.” He laughed. “It is just a passion for crafts, that's all.”
He laughed, and an evil smirk was plastered across my face. “Is that enough back and forth for you?”
“Yes, quite fun.” He nodded with a chuckle, “Reminds me of the good old days, a bunch of kids shit-talking to each other, wonderful times. My wife was the best at it.”
His laughter died down as he reminisced about the past.
“On the topic of the artefact, in truth, I doubt there is much I can help you with.”
“Don’t be like that.” He waved my words away. “We can always at least learn a little bit from each other’s rambles.”
“But honestly, I am not sure.” I shook my head. “You create artefacts that replenish their own mana by connecting them to the void between dimensions.”
“Oh, so you do know about that.”
I didn’t answer his question. “Likely by tying them to a source, which would have to be something powerful, like a soul, specifically your soul.” As a consequence, if one of those items' connections got destroyed in a nasty way, he was prone to taking some of the damage. Which was why I was telling him this information. When I destroyed the artefact on Jellannax Station, it likely rebounded and hurt him as well.
“Wonderful, wondrous thinking. What made you think of that?”
“Because I do something similar. Directed via me as well, just linked to a specific place in that void.” The difference was that I wouldn’t take damage, as artefacts were connected straight to my domain. It just required me to bridge the gap in the beginning.
“Impressive, I’m surprised you managed to reach a similar process to me.”
“Different roads might still go past similar scenery eventually.” I created a flame in my hand that morphed into various shapes and colours. “I’ve spent the vast majority of combat facing a section of my life without items, artefacts, etc., and could only rely on my body and magic.”
“Your control is certainly… impeccable.” He gulped as his eyes analysed my magic. “I was curious if you were a higher level than me or not, but that control… is beyond anything I have seen.” My magic looked difficult, but some might assume it was in the realm of possibilities. But under the scenes, I was manipulating the flames within the fire, creating a war scene. Very fun to do, but nearly impossible to see unless I made it big, but that would defeat the point.
“Anything I make would be worse quality than anything you would do, obviously. I am basically empowering items with abilities that mimic my powers, while you are creating artefacts with whatever shape or appearance you desire.” I gave a few more half-truths.
Then he asked, “Hmm, what do I need to pay you for you to perform such an action on an artefact of my own creation?”
“Not sure. I don’t exactly need anything.”
“Then you are here on this mission for personal reasons.”
“Aren’t you as well?” I smirked.
“That I am indeed.” He scoffed, “But no plans at all?”
“You would have to ask me at a vastly different time and place.” I stood up from my chair and looked around the area, seeing where everyone was on the ship.
“Well, I won’t be talking to you for much longer,” I said, opened my communications, and sent Nina and the crew an urgent message.
“Why is that?”
“Because we are about to be shot at.” I said as I watched with my [Star Mapping] a small fleet of fighter ships emerge from a nearby asteroid belt. The vessels hidden within large retrofitted words, which for sure was a choice. Curious if they had prepared that ahead of time and moved them into place or if they created them for the mission; either way, it gave me a little chuckle.
He asked, “What direction?”
“Asteroid belt, forward and right of the ship’s path.”
“Thank you.” I assumed he was sending a message to the rest of his accompanying crew, including his granddaughter. I spied on the ship earlier and found the members of the Blazer band on it, even the lead, who was presumed dead, but I guess he faked it and went into hiding, which, to be fair, was reasonable when a terrorist group tried to kill you.
Within seconds, a golden shield appeared around our ship.
Craftalot hummed, “Nina is truly impressive, with refined abilities at such a young age.”
“She would thank you for calling her young.” I said. No idea if the woman in question was listening.
“Everyone is young in my book.” He laughed back.
Then a large barrage of physical missiles and mana attacks fired from the asteroid belt, followed by at least fifty different space fighters flying in for a bombing run.
Oh, that is a lot.
The assault fleet's ships immediately took defensive action; shields were raised–if they weren’t already–and anti-fighter weapons began to fire.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The silent explosion of space railed upon the fleet, and a few shields had been broken through.
“Nasty weapons.”
Nina came into the room. “Their quality is always annoyingly above average.” Our ship didn’t suffer any damage thanks to Nina, and neither did Craftatlot’s vessel; it didn’t even need to raise shields.
Rapid response space fighters launched from the larger vessels to combat the attackers.
“Bloody worms. I will be excited to destroy whatever armoury division they have hidden within the rocks.”
“Make sure the explosion is big.” Said Nina.
“Will do.”
I examined the combat.
I wonder why they decided to go ahead with a preemptive attack.
Objectively speaking, it was smart. It was easier to attack an unaware fleet from a blind spot than when they were fully prepared. However, most ships here already had their weapons ready, so an earlier attack would’ve been more beneficial, but there were many reasons why they couldn’t have done that.
The enemy and the allied fighters engaged in lightning-fast combat as the ship blitzed past the larger vessels in seconds.
“Do you have any plans to get involved?” Asked Craftalot.
“Debating on it.” It wouldn’t be hard for me to deal with these flies; perhaps aiming could be a challenge based on the speed, but it appeared that the fighter ships were doing a fine job. “Might wait if any surprises come our way.”
“By the fact you found the enemy first, I will trust your senses on that.” He replied, and a metal staff appeared in his hand.
“Plans on your end?” I asked, and I could feel a large amount of mana within the jagged edges of that brick of a walking stick.
“Going to support my granddaughter.” He laughed and vanished, likely returning to his ship.
Through the comms on the ship, there was an announcement from Nina. “Everyone, I have gotten word that we will be speeding up the assault, and all ships are supposed to increase their speed to max.”
It's still going to take a little bit for us to reach the destination.
The order must’ve come from higher up, and I watched as a few ships already began speeding forward faster. It wasn’t like we were going slow in the first place.
“Any other plans we should be aware of?” I asked since she was right beside me.
“Do you remember what was discussed about the prisoners?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is all; I am not going to restrict you to following my orders.”
“Understood, madam.”

Chapter 152: Ambush