Volume 2 Side Story 3: The Starbreaking Brigadier

Neutral Territory, Northeastern region of the Galaxy, Sector number 7, Solar System number 11, planet number 7.

Atop one of the seventeen pulsing mountains of metal and flesh that have protruded past the smokey layer shrouding the planet, two octopedes were fighting.

Both of them employed all eight of their limbs in combat. Each limb was capable of supporting the entire weight of their cylindrical torso and humanoid head, being distributed evenly across their ten-foot-tall physique.

The eight limbs on their bodies weren't identical, and their usage varied as well. The upper two limbs were the narrowest, despite being longer than the lower limbs.

The ends of these forelimbs were sharp, containing razor-like scales. Being used as whips in the fight, their swings often elicited painful gasps followed by sprays of gray blood.

The second most active limbs protruded out just a foot below the forelimbs. The heads of these two limbs had blossomed into four smaller segments, much like human fingers, which could form fists to fight as well as operate intricate semi-organic machines.

Right now, these two limbs were being used as hands in close combat.

Due to the abnormal gravitational pull of the planet, their battle was sluggish. Only a dozen moves or so were being exchanged per second. Had they not changed into their current physical forms, it would have been difficult to even move as fast as they were moving now.

After an exchange of almost a thousand blows, both cultivators separated.

"If we hadn't restricted this fight to purely physical movements, I would have lost," said one of them, revealing a voice one would expect to hear from a human teen. His skintight apparel had been ripped in many places, revealing sliced skin that leaked gray blood. The injuries were disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Good to see that you understand that. You can't get cocky when facing somebody above your realm," the other cultivator replied, showing two rows of sharp teeth in an inhuman smile.

"Accompanying our Brigade to the Colonizing mission here has been a blessing in disguise for you. The harsh environment of this planet seems to have loosened your bottleneck in combat expertise. The growth will serve you well if you plan to venture inside the fifth or the third planet."

Turning to cast his sight at the sky, the older cultivator's eyes traced the orbits of the two faraway planets that their scouts would soon occupy. For cultivators at his level, tracking nearby cosmic bodies was a simple task. Even the most minute reflections of light around them couldn't escape their perception.

"Has the solar implosion process gained any substantial progress in the last 20 hours? I came here right after my training session. Haven't had the chance to check what's going on inside the main panel," the young cultivator said curiously.

"The latest dataset is being analyzed right now. Everyone would receive notifications in their transmitters if any substantial progress is made. To succeed in implementing experimental technologies at a cosmic scale is always worth a celebration. Even a minor success will indicate that in the near future, we'd no longer need to rely on our Monarchs to head out in battle themselves. They'll be liberated from the time-consuming colonization missions. You can imagine the impact it will have on our advancement as a liberated civilization! Hahahahah!"

The younger cultivator didn't quite seem to share the enthusiasm. He interrupted his senior's hopeful laughter, saying, "But this kind of advancement isn't sustainable in the long run. We've all had this argument before. We're already in a crisis for resources, as things stand. Building these planet-sized machines to colonize each new solar system and recruit new cultivators for the Nocturna Dynasty is not a logically repeatable process. What if the next two or three solar systems we end up conquering turn out to have scarce resources? We'll run out of funding and materials if that happens. We're already so far away from the home solar system that mass-scale teleportation of materials to build Sunbreakers like the one on this planet would be impossible. Machines can never be an equal replacement for Cultivators!"

The older cultivator wrenched his gaze away from the sky and met his nephew's radiant white eyes. This was a question he had faced thousands of times as one of the most ardent supporters of this mission.

"Cultivation....is heaven's way," he said in a low voice.

"Our people are not welcome on that road. Once the full-scale cosmic conflict breaks out, the grassroots will need something other than cultivation to rely on. If nothing else, the common folk will have the option to set out on mobile Starbreakers to settle down in the furthest, most barren corners of the macrocosm where nebulas thousand-trillion-miles broad shroud the sea of cosmic bodies from heaven's eyes. So long as even the tiniest ember of our cause lives on, even if it be in the heart of the weakest mortal of the Nocturna Dynasty, we dare dream of a free new world where Celestials only exist in the spit-smeared annals of history."

The conviction in his tone seemed to shake the young cultivator's worldview.

"...I didn't expect you to end up as a member of that extremist faction, uncle Qingsong." he mumbled under his breath, sounding disappointed.

"Isn't the entire Nocturna Dynasty a home for extremists? My ideas are tame compared to the woman who invented the machine you're standing on, or the man who came up with the idea of terraforming each planet uniquely to give birth to new cultivation systems! Aren't those plans being implemented as well? Opinions can differ as long as the motive behind the opinion is for a good cause. My cause lies with the weakest people of the Dynasty. Call it what you will, but it is for the greater good, a just cause. I believe in it, as do our monarchs and overlords. That is why we're here, that is why we must succeed."

"But that's just idealistic talk," the younger cultivator said impatiently. "Logically, mathematically, there's no way we'd be lucky enough to encounter resource-rich solar systems one after another while the torn spatial boundary heals itself. We're already at the far reaches of the known macrocosm. Cosmic bodies here shouldn't be enough for this mission to resume for long."

The older cultivator waved his upper tentacle in a dismissive manner.

"It's natural for you younglings to be skeptical. After all, you've never ventured to the other side of the torn space where the Celestial Empire begins. The stars there are rich in cosmic energy, the planets thrive with hints of life, and qi can be found in almost every solar system. From here on, every new solar system that comes our way will be one of them. We need not be in fear of limited resources."

"What if... a celestial destroys the planets and solar systems that are being absorbed by the healing space and sent into our territory? They can certainly do so."

The young cultivator's question, which he had assumed would stump his uncle, made him chuckle instead.

"The heavenly mandate will allow no such act. Which Celestial dares go against the heavenly laws? They're there to protect the macrocosm, not destroy it for their own gains. Otherwise, our Dynasty wouldn't have made it past the home solar system. For Celestials, wiping out a civilization takes little effort. Just send in some meteors infested with spiritual parasites. In the targeted planets, everyone below the peak of the Physique Transformation Realm would be infected within a year or two. We couldn't have stopped any attacks of such caliber."

"...Since they're not going out of their way to harm us, why-"

A tentacle whipped itself around the young cultivator's thick neck, squeezing shut the remaining part of his sentence.

"Never forget. Never forget why the space in front of us was splintered. Never forget why our forefathers were exiled. Never forget how many geniuses of our Dynasty strayed into dark paths after confronting the heavenly way. Do you think the Overlord realm is our limit? That our monarchs don't have what it takes to step past their current realm? That our mutated form was a result of choice? Do I even have to explain these things now?"

Wang Qingsong's voice carried with it a chill that the young cultivator rarely felt.

He croaked out an unintelligible reply. The tentacle around his neck loosened slowly.

"Go, get back to your station," the older cultivator said with a sigh. "The hatred of the past will eventually be washed away from the minds of each successive generation. I shouldn't reprimand you for not harboring the same animosity towards the heavenly court as us old fellows. But I hope you retain that same skeptical attitude when you face a real celestial. Don't let them submerge you into the same regret that burns our ancestors still."

He fled as soon as the tentacle fully loosened. Watching his nephew's hurried retreat, Wang Qingsong shook his head despondently and turned his eyes back toward the infinite sea of stars above. The closest star, a typical spherical million-mile spanning gaseous hell, would soon change. Not only would it become the biggest contributor to the existence of living organisms in the solar system, but it would also form the foundation of the cultivators who reside here.

Deep in his musings, he almost didn't hear his transmitter go off the first time.

"Sir Brigadier, we have a situation up in the foundation wing, categorized as a grade-3 emergency."

The harsh mechanical voice jerked him back to his senses. A moment later, one of the numerous bodies of Wang Qingsong appeared at the bottom of another mountainous, cosmically visible structure jutting out of the planet's surface.

Doorway after doorway, tunnel after tunnel flickered past him as his body rocketed into the forest of metal and concrete. Soon, he was welcomed into a vast, airtight room by the worried faces of his most competent men.

"What's the development? Did the star have an adverse reaction to our artificial engineering?" he asked immediately, having considered all possible problems qualified to be graded at level 3, the highest possible type of emergency in this wing.

"No, no, it's... difficult to explain," Jun Haitang answered him hesitantly. "Just look at the report here."

A screen was handed to him where several sets of graphs were constantly shifting, accompanied by some live visuals of the core of the sun.

Wang Qingsong went through the reports uneasily. The more he discovered, the paler his blue eyes became, hinting at his tumultuous thoughts.

"This is....unusual," he commented after almost five minutes. Each of the past 300 seconds had been spent overloading his brain with data and calculations, simulations, and predictions based on the data. His brain felt as messy as his heart by the end.

"How can a new Nocturna cultivator appear where we haven't even set foot? Did any of our monarchs visit this solar system and leave a legacy to the sects here? Why weren't we informed of this?"

"...Er, Sir Brigadier, I think you should look at the last few slides. You've seen only half of the issue."

Flabbergasted, Wang Qingsong focused on the next slide... and his heart lurched.

"What does this even mean? A dao foundation isn't a damn toy! How can it appear and disappear from a tower matrix repeatedly? Impossible!"

Facing his suspicious glare, his subordinate coughed.

"No, it's not a prank, nor an erroneous data input by the scouts, Sir Brigadier. We've verified it. The soldiers stationed there have witnessed this...Ghost-like dao tower flicker inside the matrix with their eyes. From the structure and outline, it gives off the impression of a dao foundation belonging to an orthodox sect, especially popular in the central galaxies. But why such a tower would have anything to do with our newly created tower-matrix... is a question to be answered by the monarchs themselves, perhaps."

Right then, his transmitter blared once again.

"Sir Brigadier, emergency call from the Ministry of Operations!"

"Sir Brigadier, the President of the Starbreaker Foundation has asked for an audience!"

"Sir Brigadier, there's a summon from his majesty's office!"

In dozens of areas of the Starbreaker, Wang Qingaong's bodies sprung up from whatever they were doing, sprinting toward each call.

Ten minutes later, the frustrated Wang Qingsong who had been standing at the highest point of the Starbreaker roared angrily at the empty sky.

"Who the fuck is it?! Who?! Even if you're a monarch, I'll make you taste your own blood and meat! I'll cut layers off your damned soul! I'll toss your children inside the core of that sun! I'll taint your plane domain with immortal plagues!"

Author's Note: My Brothers and Sisters In Dao, I've published a small side project to see if webnovel contracts are worth it. Do check it out and leave your first impressions!