It seemed like a normal day.
The expeditionary fleet resided in the outer system of the Amswick Star System for several weeks without incident.
The hundreds of starships of the Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers recovered much of their condition after settling down in the port system. Though none of the vessels were sent to drydocks, as long as the space around them was calm enough, the repair crews could already perform a lot of external repairs without issue.
The previous battle took a huge toll on the Graveyard. The Larkinsons did not spare any expense to restore her space worthiness, but without access to existing starship repair facilities, the repair crews had no choice but to rely on lots of manpower and loaned industrial equipment from local companies.
Thousands of technical workers crawled over the hastily patched hull of the Graveyard. Few of them performed any manual work as the parts and materials they handled were too heavy for them to move around. Instead, they controlled and directed various machines to restore the defensive integrity of the defensive ship.
None of the workers noticed that something special was taking place. They were just ordinary clansmen who did not possess any remarkable traits. Even the rare worker with noticeable spiritual potential had yet to detect any disturbances.
They weren’t alone. Many other Larkinsons in the fleet performed their duties and went about their day without realizing the significance of what was taking place within their midst.
The first individuals to notice the growing fluctuations spreading through space were not actually human.
Instead, a pair of powerful mechs stored in different places began to stir.
“Ma’am! The Quint… the Quint is activating!”
“What?!” A chief technician dropped her multitool. “According to the schedule, Commander Ingvar’s training session doesn’t begin in three hours. Did anyone sneak into the cockpit?”
“One of our bots just checked the cockpit. There is no one sitting in the piloting chair. The Quint isn’t interfacing with anyone!”
Several systems began to come online as parts of the Quint lit up as if it was undergoing a twisted activation sequence.
Due to its extremely dense glow, no human dared to get close to the spiritually enhanced mech, but the chief technician quickly pulled back all of the bots and remote instruments that were crawling around its frame for fear of incurring damage.
A lot of confusion and even alarm began to spread. The possibility that a mech had gone rogue somehow was a nightmare scenario!
The crew members didn’t run around aimlessly, though. While they never encountered a situation where a mech without a mech pilot had gone rogue, they performed regular drills where accidents like this took place.
The clansmen all moved out as isolating barriers fell into place. Numerous powerful mechanical arms began to extend from the deck and bulkheads and forcibly clamped the Quint in place.
Half a minute later, a pair of unarmed Bright Warriors briskly walked over and stood ready to press the rogue mech down should it exhibit further erratic behavior.
“Is the Quint doing anything?”
“It doesn’t appear to be moving for the moment.”
“Please stand by and wait for our mech designers to arrive. Maybe they can tell us what is taking place.”
Aside from this masterwork mech, the Amaranto also exhibited similar behavior. Though the expert rifleman mech never fully activated on its own accord, the fact that it was halfway ready to move and fight alarmed many crew members serving aboard the Spirit of Bentheim!
While the relevant personnel tried their best to control the situation and figure out why their two prized masterwork mechs were going out of control, certain people were already beginning to sense something amiss.
“Huh?” Venerable Joshua looked distracted and stopped paying attention to the drama being broadcasted in the living area of his grand stateroom.
“What’s wrong?” Ketis asked as she cuddled next to him on the couch.
“There’s something in the air I think. Can’t you feel it?” He frowned. “It’s as if a storm is building up in the distance.”
Several moments passed by before the mech designer sensed something strange as well.
“I think I know what you’re talking about. There’s something funny going around…”
Others began to notice the growing anomaly as well. Venerable Tusa, Venerable Dise, Gloriana, Juliet and so on all paused as they sensed a rising pressure in the distance.
Even the expert candidates started to feel a hint of growing energy!
As the Larkinson Clan slowly realized that something significant was taking place, the Blinding Banshee turned into a wellspring of expanding energy!
Calabast and many of the Black Cats serving on the espionage vessel started to slow down as a massive presence began to loom over their minds.
“Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!”
Arnold was exhibiting a lot of distress as he sensed something much more powerful and enormous coming into existence in the center of the cargo bay!
“Damnit, Ves! What are you trying to make?!” The spymaster said as she tried her best to keep herself upright.
Even a spiritually dull woman like her had difficulty maintaining her wits in the presence of so much spiritual pressure!
The dwarves who were locked into place had it even worse. They were all less than a hundred meters away from the source of all of the invisible upheaval. If not for their mechanical limb locks holding them upright and in place, they would have collapsed or attempted to use their thick, stubby legs to run as far away as possible!
“Mmff! Mfmmf!”
“MFMMFMFMF!!!”
“MMMMFFFFFFF!”
The dwarves all tried their best to scream out and move their limbs, but their metal bonds and gags had robbed them of all control over their physical bodies. Their strong and dense muscles that were designed to resist heavy gravity did not avail them at all against the power of technology!
Ves, the source of all of their suffering, completely ignored their distress. The average dwarven soldiers whose wills were already broken did not possess much value to him. They were completely expendable in his regard. It was already a great honor for these dwarves to be present in the same space where their god was about to be born!
WHACK!
“Only my successful test subjects have value.” Ves smiled as he cracked the skull of another dwarven expert candidate!
The remarkable individual broke through just a short time ago but already his force of will had bloomed to a remarkable degree.
When Ves caved in the dwarf’s hardy skull with his even harder hammer, the death of the test subject in question caused his spirituality and force of will to unravel.
If nothing happened, the incorporeal elements of the deceased dwarf would dissipate within minutes.
That was a huge waste of valuable ingredients to Ves. Since the design spirit he was making was not dwarf enough in his perception, he decided to sacrifice his dwarven captives to ensure that Vulcan would truly possess a dwarven character!
Ves took control of the dwarven expert candidate’s spiritual remains and ground it apart. He threw his latest spiritual ingredients onto the giant spiritual form that began to look more and more like a dwarven version of himself!
The most uncanny aspect about the dwarf’s appearance was its majestic black beard! The addition of traditional dwarven-style facial hair onto a smooth but broad version of Ves’ face caused him to look almost unrecognizable!
“Even I feel weird seeing myself like this.” He muttered.
Fortunately, the appearances of spiritual existences were a lot more malleable. Vulcan’s current form was just one of its facets.
There was no way that Ves actually wanted to create an incarnation that was 100 percent dwarf!
“I can’t inject too much dwarven essence in my developing spiritual product.” He reminded himself. “The largest proportion of ingredients come from myself, so the human character of Vulcan is dominant. His dwarven form is just a secondary form.”
At least, that was what he hoped. He wasn’t sure if his elaborate design for Vulcan would work out the way he planned.
“Well, I need to quickly process these powerful dwarves and help Blinky complete the process.”
Blinky was doing a fantastic job at piecing the different shards together. As a spiritual life form that excelled at spiritual energy manipulation, the cat could pretty much complete this entire process by himself.
It would be even better if Ves was personally involved as well. The combination of him and companion spirit working together delivered better results.
In his earlier experiment, Ves managed to induce eight breakthroughs. Their collective spiritualities and willpower had grown so strong in a short amount of time that they had become valuable ingredients!
WHACK!
WHACK!
WHACK!
Ves quickly struck his hammer against eight more dwarven skulls. He had to exert all of his physical strength to do so because the skulls he was caving in were much harder and tougher than that of baseline humans.
He even began to heave at the end as he exerted himself more than he expected.
“Bashing in dwarven heads is a lot more difficult than I thought”
The effort was worth it. He smoothly managed to harvest the spiritualities of the test subjects without incurring much loss. They all went on to supplement the design spirit that was supposed to be their god.
Ves briefly lifted his bloody hammer and directed his gaze at the remaining dwarves before shaking his head.
“It takes way too much time to hammer them all to death!”
The spiritualities of these weak-minded dwarves were too negligible. Besides, the increasing spiritual pressure from the center was already killing them anyway. Ves had inputted way more spiritual energy in Vulcan’s creation than he had done for any other spiritual product!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
At a certain point, the heads of the dwarven captives closest to the center failed to endure the pressure and violently exploded! The headless bodies remained upright even as there was nothing left above their necks, causing the survivors to feel they were only moments away from suffering the same fate!
Strangely enough, only a small number of dwarves died in this fashion. Many more managed to keep their heads intact, though their minds became increasingly more scrambled.
Blood and other biomatter began to spray across the bodies of the surviving dwarves. In the end, only several dozen prisoners had lost their heads.
If Ves bothered to sweep these dwarven captives with his spiritual vision, he would have noticed that they all possessed spiritual potential!
The quality that made it possible for them to surpass their mortal limits had also caused them to be more susceptible to dangerous spiritual influences!
As death began to color the cargo bay in red, Ves had returned to the middle and put the Hammer of Brilliance back onto the pedestal.
He gazed at Vulcan’s increasingly more defined spiritual form and began to feel as if he had reached a turning point in his life.
If he proceeded with his original plan, then he would create a new incarnation that would become inseparable from his life.
No matter how Vulcan turned out in the future, Ves would have no choice but to support the design spirit as best as possible, because their existences had to be intertwined!
When Vulcan was close to coming to life, Blinky no longer infused the near-complete design spirit with universal life energy.
Ves inspected the vial and noticed that it only had around 20 percent of its potent energy left.
“It will have to do. I don’t think Vulcan can absorb anymore.”
At this stage in its creation, Vulcan had become saturated with spiritual energy! Each and every part of his condensed shape radiated with power!
Ves intuitively sensed that it was not wise to continue with injecting any further energy. His latest spiritual product had not experienced any growth over time and needed to evolve on his own in order to increase his capacity.
“Well, it’s okay. I need to save the remainder of this energy for myself.”
Ves had reached the most crucial step of the creation process. It was at this time that he would make a profound change in his life.
“In order to transform Vulcan from an independent design spirit to an interdependent incarnation of myself, I need to make a sacrifice as well. Nothing comes for free.”
He directed his gaze at Blinky.
Mrow..?
Ves smiled and nodded. “Do it before I regret this decision.”
Mrow!
Ves closed his eyes just as Blinky dove into his head and attacked his mind!
Since Ves deliberately lowered his defenses, his powerful companion spirit was able to tear out a small but significant chunk of his Spirituality, causing him to feel as if his concentration was literally being torn into half!
“AHHHHHHHH!”
