Chapter 431 – AI Iron Man! Artificial Black Hole! Warp-Space Lost Voyage!
As time passed, Jack kept the corporate battleship formation bombarding at full intensity—gravity rips tearing into their targets—while the opposing fleet's time-reversal process gradually began to lag.
Clearly, their temporal technology came at a cost, most likely consuming an enormous amount of energy resources.
At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the enemy fleet exposed a fatal weakness.
During this period, Jack Wells had also confirmed that the enemy did not possess a second sphere, since the space-time region containing the first was extremely stable.
No physical-level attack could inflict effective damage on it.
In a way, that sphere was like a divine "calamity-warding bead"—its powerful gravitational field and temporal reversal field allowing its wielder to ignore all forms of physical harm.
It could even block certain types of magical damage.
But now, that artifact had left the mysterious fleet's formation and could no longer protect the fleet from the corporate bombardment.
"Good news—our communication delay with headquarters is back down to under one minute. That means their time-reversal tricks are starting to fail."
Dr. Halsey reported the latest data to Jack through the holographic display.
Jack exhaled in relief. It seemed his judgment had been correct—had they been fooled by the enemy's time-reversal gambit, the corporate fleet would be on the back foot right now.
"How much longer until their time-reversal fails completely?" Jack asked.
"No idea."
Halsey shook her head with a sigh. "The fact that they can compress the mass and energy of over a thousand stars into a ten-meter sphere probably means they've mastered an extremely advanced form of energy storage technology.
"Even if it's incredibly energy-intensive, the reserves they brought might allow them to sustain this war for hours… or for tens of thousands of years."
Normally, a star's lifespan is roughly ten billion years, and advanced super-civilizations often carry the energy of several stars to power their fleets.
A single star's energy is enough to support a fleet through years of warfare.
However…
In high-end strategic warfare, such as when using a lightspeed suppression field to alter the universal environment, lowering the speed of light and locking down jump routes, energy consumption skyrockets.
Burning through half a star's worth of energy in a single day is entirely possible.
Of course, matter capable of enabling time-reversal isn't easily obtained, and Halsey estimated that the war likely wouldn't last too long.
After all, using such a precious resource here would be an utterly senseless waste.
"Mm. Keep the pressure up," Jack Wells said with a nod. He understood Halsey's meaning—the optimal approach now was to slug it out and see which side gave out first.
Since the corporate attacks were already showing results, they might as well keep hammering until the enemy's limits were revealed.
Meanwhile, far away at the Multiversal Base in the main universe, Corporate High Executive Li Ang had been informed of all the changes at the front.
Based on his knowledge of the Warhammer universe and the technological prowess displayed, that so-called mysterious fleet was most likely the lost human voyagers of the Golden Age.
Only, they seemed to have been lost for so long that they had somehow ended up in the real universe five thousand years later.
"Boss, you know who they are?" Alt asked, catching the flicker of recognition in Li Ang's eyes.
As an outstanding scientist, Alt Cunningham knew that the first step to solving a problem was understanding exactly what the problem was.
Like reading the question before solving it—without knowing the enemy's origins, the corporate forces had nowhere to start.
"It's just a guess for now. I need more data to be sure."
After a moment's thought, Li Ang gave Alter a dose of reassurance: "Bringing them down won't be that hard. For now, we wait patiently."
Seeing his boss so composed, Alter finally relaxed—if Li Ang recognized this "beast," then subduing it wasn't going to be an impossible task.
In truth, Li Ang's reluctance to explain right away came from not understanding why the Golden Age human fleet was acting so abnormally.
Opening with their ultimate weapon, burning through time-reversal material to clash head-on with the Megacorporate forces…
This wasn't something any rational human commander would do.
Through the hard-light display on his central control console, Li Ang now watched the perfectly round sphere cross a vast distance to arrive at Prospero's star.
The star was in its prime—like Magnus in his heyday—but under the Megacorporate and mysterious fleet's prolonged standoff, its carefully balanced planetary orbits had long since collapsed.
Chaotic gravitational fields flung countless planets into space, smashing them together.
Before long, the Prospero star met its end. Under the monitoring of corporate AI probes, the sphere suddenly contracted to half its size—its diameter now just five meters.
Its surrounding gravitational field instantly doubled in strength, and under that terrifying pull, the Prospero star disintegrated into fragments.
Yet the expected supernova never occurred. Time seemed frozen at the instant after the star's destruction. All one could see were its shattered remains.
There was no shower of stellar fragments flying off into the void.
The escaping energy seemed to have been drawn into the sphere.
"That's an artificial black hole—!"
Dr. Halsey suddenly understood. No wonder the sphere could contain the mass and energy of over a thousand stars—its true form was an ultra-massive black hole.
The visible sphere was merely the containment shell—a device that constrained the black hole, with specialized field generators inside to control it, alongside the time-reversal apparatus.
Theoretically, this artificial black hole could expand rapidly to a diameter of tens of thousands of kilometers, adjusting its gravitational strength at will.
Even the Megacorp did not possess such black hole technology. At present, they could only create controllable micro black holes about a meter in diameter.
And their functions were severely limited, incapable of the flexible control this one displayed.
"Is there any way we can fight that black hole?" Jack Wells asked grimly. Before, he had considered capturing it.
But now, it was clear—they could only destroy it.
Black holes were the most mysterious and powerful celestial bodies in the universe. Even the Megacorp's Infinite God-Machine had yet to uncover all their secrets—how could they possibly defeat one with the weapons at hand?
"The gravitational pull is too strong—we can't fight it. Get close, and it'll simply twist and swallow us," Halsey said, shaking her head. The Megacorp had anti-gravity field devices, but their output was limited—no match for a black hole's pull.
"At this point, the only way to escape the Prospero system is to either use a space jump or have headquarters open a star-gate. The former requires them to lift the local restriction on the system.
"The latter needs the boss's authorization."
Halsey laid out the options.
That enemy fleet had placed a low-lightspeed barrier around the Prospero system—any faster-than-light jump was currently impossible.
If they tried to leave at sublight speed, it would take months—possibly a year or two at the very least.
"Getting them to lift the restriction? That's not going to happen."
Jack looked at the live feed on the screen. If the other side was willing to communicate, they wouldn't have ignored all the earlier transmissions.
Hours ago, the corporate forces had sent countless messages to the mysterious fleet—none had received a reply.
It was obvious they didn't want to talk.
And now, after hours of sustained bombardment, to suddenly request a friendly conversation? That would be laughable.
"No—precisely because we've shown overwhelming space warfare capability, now is the time to attempt communication again."
Dr. Halsey saw the situation clearly. Any dialogue between civilizations had to be based on parity of power—including between individuals. Only the strong could speak to the strong and trade resources. The weak had no voice.
The corporate fleet's heavy assault had already locked down the enemy's maneuver space. If they faltered even slightly—failing to trigger time-reversal in time—the entire fleet would be smashed to pieces by corporate firepower.
"An artificial black hole will limit them as well. Our bombardment has them pinned here. If we keep up the pressure, they'll die here too.
"This is exactly when we should reestablish contact."
Her reasoning was sound. Jack Wells remained silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement. He ordered the ship's AI to halt large-scale bombardment and instead target only a small portion of the enemy formation.
"Tell those mongrels that if they don't lift the restriction on the Prospero System, we'll keep firing until we both go down together."
Jack's expression was taut as he gave the order. From the day he joined the Iron Hands legion, he had been ready to sacrifice himself for the Megacorp.
If the situation became truly desperate, he would rather die alongside the enemy in the Warhammer universe than bring this problem back to the main universe.
[Understood.]
Upon receiving the order, the AI immediately reduced its fire and attempted to reestablish communication.
Sure enough, this time the corporate request was accepted almost instantly.
It turned out the other side had been trying to communicate all along, but the unrelenting bombardment had prevented them from sending any complete message.
[Cease fire!!]
Reading the incoming message from the fleet, Jack Wells felt an undeniable satisfaction—it still took a solid beating to get them to behave.
Once the connection was established, Jack quickly learned their origin. Just as Li Ang had suspected, the fleet were lost voyagers from humanity's Golden Age.
Only—they weren't human. They were Iron Men.
"Rogue AI? How the hell are they here!?" Jack Wells was stunned, his mind buzzing.
This AI Iron Man rebel force had been lost in the Warp for who knew how many years, until they spotted a Mandeville point ahead and finally jumped out.
Upon detecting "aberrant" humans in the Prospero System, they had deployed the artificial black hole to wipe everything out—ensuring the purity of human genetics.
But just as they were preparing to withdraw, the corporate forces had pinned them down, clearly ready to drag them into mutual destruction.
Once an artificial black hole was deployed, there was no retrieving it. It would only destroy, consume, and annihilate everything in its path.
Thus, the AI Iron Men would always remain until the black hole reached the system's exact center before making their escape.
But the Megacorp had seen through their plan and trapped them.
Now, the AI Iron Men only wanted both sides to step back, go their separate ways, and get out of Prospero.
"How did Golden Age AI Iron Men manage to wander the Warp for so long without disaster? Do they have some connection to Chaos gods?"
Jack Wells knew the Warp had no concept of time, and that lost-voyage incidents did occur—but not often.
In fact, true Warp lost-voyages were rare.
Without deliberate interference, most ships never even had the chance to become lost before being assaulted and destroyed by daemons.
To survive a five-thousand-year drift was… absurd.
By now, the AI Iron Men had lifted the Prospero blockade, and Jack immediately reported the situation to Multiversal Base headquarters.
Faced with Jack's doubts, Li Ang thought for a moment before replying: "Once born, the Chaos Gods exist simultaneously in the past, present, and future.
"So in theory, a Chaos God can shape the course of any major event in realspace across all time.
"This AI Iron Man fleet was likely led here step-by-step by Tzeentch, which is why they were lost in the Warp for so long—only to emerge here and clash with us."
A Warp lost-voyage might seem random, but under the power of a Chaos God, that "randomness" could easily be turned into inevitability.
A few subtle signposts along their path could guide them across time, from the past into the present.
"So if we could master that kind of time technology, we could send the Megacorporate fleet into the past or future at will!"
The thought sent a rush of excitement through Alt Cunningham. If the Megacorp could truly achieve that, they would be a god-tier civilization without question.
Artificial black holes… Warp lost-voyages…
The technology points revealed in the Warhammer universe so far were more than enough for the Megacorp to exploit fully, accelerating their growth.
The trouble was, Warp lost-voyage technology touched on far too many fields—higher-dimensional space, timelines… Only Tzeentch's immense power could guide a lost-voyage route with precision.
He was, after all, the native tyrant of the Warp, knowing all its laws inside and out.
Even Primordial Deities, or beings like Amon might not know how to bend the Warp's rules to their will.
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