The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet-Chapter 165: Worsening Situation
Chapter 165: Worsening Situation
“Who the fuck makes a mech that big!?”
The complaints from a soldier were shared among everyone in the assault fleet who happened to be underground when they first entered the massive workshop where the machine was being worked on. The area was clearly built from an underground ravine, as digging out this area seemed unfeasible in any reasonable timeframe and there were still signs of the natural land formation.
Nina squinted her eyes as she felt a headache coming on. The team thought they were heading lower, towards where the more restricted vaults and upper management were. They had already encountered increased security as the deadliness and experimentation of the defence increased. It really felt as if the engineers in charge of the defence got the opportunity to have
fun
with the process after there were enough of the regular types of automatic machines.
However, when their scanners picked up that the hallways lead to the large space, they chose to follow it. Worst case, it was likely a hangar bay for various machines, which at least by destroying, they would be helping the people still above ground.
Once they reached it, they got a surprise they weren’t expecting. A hulking machine bigger than some warships.
Mech sizes had been very consistent over the years.
Size1 Mechs, which were twice the size of an average human. Size2 Mechs, which were twice the Size1 so four times a human in height. Then Size3 which was twice the size again.
Size4 and Size5 Mechs sure existed, but were barely used since they reached levels of impracticality. Humanoid mechs were considered G Mechs. Most of the Mechs brought by the assault fleets landed in the G1 and G2 range. There were a few outliers, but they were what was the most common. The enemy fleet of Mechs was similar but held many more outliers than what was considered normal, and that wasn’t even considering the swarm of drones and smaller bots.
“Stay back!” Nina ordered as she raised her shields, covering the whole team. There was no time for people to ask why, as many of the guns on the large machine lit up and began blasting their location.
“Egh!” The continued bombardment caused cracks in her shields as she wasted more energy reinforcing them and creating backups. The whole area of ground disappeared in seconds as the rock and metal were shredded into dust and debris.
While it was going on, the surface above the ravine began to open, and the mech that was only partially online before lit up as its massive arms reached for the surface.
“Has anyone been able to contact support?!” Nina asked; her comms had stopped functioning. “We need cannons on that thing now!”
The group watched in horror through the explosion and falling rubble as the gigantic thing pulled itself out of the hole.
“What do we do?!” Someone yelled back as their position was still under fire. Not a single one was able to communicate with the ships in space, so they could start preparing their cannons early. By now, their sensors would’ve noticed it, but every second counted.
Nina slowly had the assault team she was escorting push back to get out of the explosions’ range. That mech was a clear danger to everyone, from the smallest people to likely even their ships in space, but did they even have the firepower to take that thing down quickly? They still had a base to explore and more dangerous people to fight.
I split my attention into two as I focused on flying and dealing with the mech.
Inspired by all the drones littering the base, I created ten basically mini drones of Starlight. They mostly just looked like sharp prism constructs.
I was controlling them, and their whole purpose was to ram, poke, and cut. So they were mosquitoes attacking a stupidly big mech that was around the height of a skyscraper, a medium-sized one but the fact it was in that range was still ridiculous. It had to be someone high up on a pet project that they just loved because there was no way such a thing like that made it past review.
Though the thought made the second thought of breaking it all the more sweeter.
The mosquitoes swarmed and began attacking the mech, but its outer layer of shields was tough. Scanning the plating, which also seemed heavy, they might not be able to do much damage even if they did break through. I likely required a lot more Starlight to empower my projectiles if I wanted to break it, which I couldn’t do from this distance. The further I travelled, the weaker my mosquitoes were getting due to the restrictions Existence was putting on me.
I thought I was dealing with it well enough, but that was likely just the fact that it hadn’t affected me too hard yet. I was able to prepare for the fight ahead of time by storing energy and firing arrows from space since the flight time was short enough that they kept their energy. I could create permanent Starlight structures, but they weren’t that strong. I mean, they were tough for an ordinary person to break, but they weren’t something usable for a situation like this.
Here finally.
“Um, here you go.” I dropped off the duo at an extraction point. I had guns aimed at me when I came down, probably due to the fact I was communicating on comms, but pointing at the box with people inside was a good way to stop that–after shooting failed anyway.
“Anyone else?” The man near the ship asked, and he had taken a shot at me earlier.
“Not that I know of. I found these two when I broke through one of the transport hatches a little bit away from the central area.” I clicked my fingers, and they fell out of the Starlight box into the safe arms of the rescue team.
The place I had reached wasn’t just for prisoners; it primarily was a medical bay for the injured that had been brought into combat and were either quickly being patched up, if that was possible or taken further away off the planet.
Once I dumped the duo off, it was time for the flight back and a much faster speed.
How are we going to deal with this…
When I was making my way back, I saw a massive number of white drones fall down from the sky, firing at the mech from all directions. The mech was countered with its massive number of weapons. From the sky a few warships had begun firing at it but an additional layer of shields appeared above it, protecting it from space bombardment.
I watched as the bots teleported, shot fire, lightning, acid, and ice, and shot large projectiles that were way larger than the body and did a bunch of other things that bots that size shouldn’t be able to do.
Hmm, so there is only one man, I think, who could’ve brought that many strange bots.
I increased my speed as fire shot out from beneath my feet.
The large giant mech began firing back at the spaceships using the cannon on the top of the mech’s head.
BOOM
The large blast broke through the atmosphere and tore through the shielding and a segment of one of the warships.
Yikes…
There was plenty of power in that cannon, not as much as the big four cannons, but still deadly. The drones increased their offensive, breaking through the shield in areas to do damage to the body before the shields quickly repaired themselves.
Finally, as I neared, I saw a figure come down from the sky seemingly out of nowhere. I hadn’t noticed him before.
“Good evening!” I heard Craftalot’s voice echo in the area as if he was speaking on a speaker.
At his announcement, many of the machine's cannons turned towards him and shot.
“Why are you standing there?!” Nina yelled as a shield appeared around Craftalot’s body. She was flying below without the rest of her squad with a shield around her.
I was also now in the area. “Oh, hey, you two, and Craftalot, do you have to announce your presence to the whole world?”
“How is this?”
I could hear Craftalot’s voice in my head.
Not another one…
Nina responded, “
What is happening?”
“Well, communications are dangerously down, so we are speaking in a magical mind space.”
I said,
“So you got an artefact which lets people talk through their head. Good to know.”
“The wonders of engineering.”
He said with a large sense of pride.
I flew around the mech like a flaming missile, creating claws of Starlight and tearing at the metal when the shields broke.
I can do damage like this, but how much needs to be done to take this down?
“C–”
Nina paused.
“Celestira, what is your energy looking like?”
I did give her that name to use. I mean, it would be hard in situations like this for her to just call me 'guard' all the time.
“Pretty good.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Craftalot replied,
“You are recovering at a fast rate.”
“Pervert.”
Craftalot coughed, “Huha?”
I asked Nina,
“Hey Nina, can you do that Moon projection thing you did earlier that was melting the bots? Or are you too exhausted?”
“I’m alright; I just deactivated that ability since there were civilians in this area as well, and I didn’t want them hurt when they exited the facility.”
That’s fair.
I thought to myself. Keeping my thoughts to myself was pretty easy, and it looks like the other two had no trouble with that as well.
“Well, if you are done saving civilians for the moment. It might be good to turn that back on.”
“...Craftalot can you keep a lookout if anyone is coming and warn me?”
Nina asked; she didn’t want any prisoners to die by being caught up in her attack.
“I can; I am also working on restarting the communications. So far, it has only affected us on Asta.”
I replied,
“That’s good at least.”
Nina questioned, “Do we know why comms went down?
“Currently unknown,”
Craftalot replied, but from his tone, he was clearly working on it.
A soft light emerged over Craftalot’s body.
Nina paused.
“Celestira, I can't use my protection on you.”
“That’s fine; worst case, I can tank it.”
“That’s not safe.”
“It will be fine.” I pushed back against her worry, “There is a reason why it doesn't work on me and is probably the same reason why your moon melt attack won’t harm me.”
“...Okay, let me know if you begin to face any consequences.”
“Will do!”
Laughed as my body heated up with energy. I was still in my energy-conservative state, but there was enough I could do to fight effectively while being net positive.
Laser fire came from the mech shooting in all directions. Nina, with her slower speed, tanked most of the attacks that went her way with her shields. Craftalot was flying around on a bloody surfboard, which he definitely didn’t need to use. Dodging the dangerous attacks and any that seemed to be too close for comfort literally bounced back.
Then there was me throwing myself like a cannonball towards the annoying stick.
Chapter 165: Worsening Situation
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