Dungeon Robotics 141

Hey everyone! I need your opinions on this chapter. I'm leaning towards version 2 but was worried you guys might think I'm making him too powerful. Let me know in the comments!

Regan

After finishing my tests with the array, I moved a bit further outside the station’s influence and looked at the planet. The Eruio Continent which housed my main core was directly in front of me, or under me depending on how I looked at the orb. Looking past it, no matter which way I turned my sight, the Maelstrom raged just off the coast by a few hundred kilometers.

The storm managed to cover what appeared to be over ninety percent of the ocean surface. From the instruments on the station, the storm easily reached the Mesosphere of the planet. Given that Murgin was several times larger than Earth that put the storm several hundred kilometers in the atmosphere. It reminded me of the Big Red Spot on Jupiter.

Looking at the planet, I had two options to get my network up and running. I could modify my satellites to act as transponders or build a facility on the moon that would bounce the signal. The problem with the second option was that it would be subject to the moon’s orbit, which unlike my station was not locked in place. 

I decided to hold off on the moon base for the moment and started moving along the satellites modifying them as I went. Unlike the array, I didn’t need quite as strong a signal to get through the atmosphere. With line of sight and the lack of interference from the planet, I could make a link much easier. Plus, there was already the existing link that fed back to the station that would serve to amplify the link.

I was working on the third satellite when I got a message from Puppet. Holding my hand out, a projection of the group appeared. I was a bit worried when I saw Azra literally smoking in the background. None of them were too hurt though and they reported that they found the perimeter of the Seal.

I closed my hand when they finished their report. That was a close call. I would need to upgrade their defense capabilities soon. Their group only had Azra for defense and Natsuo as a backup. We could never be too careful. 

Still. For the undead to have magic on that scale. The reports were understated in my opinion. I could see now that most of the people that went there likely died before they could gather any useful information. My question was where the power originated from. Was it caused by the evil locked away or by the people that locked the evil away?

“Not enough information.”

I went back to work on the satellites. I was at the seventh and close to the Ly’call moon when I sensed a tremendous mana wave forming quite a distance from the planet. Looking in the direction it was originating from, my sight was quickly blocked by the moon. The mana had shifted to physical energy as it came in contact with the moon.

I sent a warning to the station and quickly shifted the aim of all the satellites towards the moon. I waited as what I feared happened. The increasing physical energy overwhelmed the gravity of the moon, and cracks the size of canyons started to appear. The glow of the still partially molten core spilled out from under the surface as the friction of the pieces started to heat them all up.

There was an explosion that sent a shockwave rippling through the area around the moon. I quickly linked with the station core and created barriers on all the satellites. Even then that was enough for a few of the closer ones as they vanished, ripped apart by the force of the wave. Once the wave passed, I took in the situation.

The moon had split into four large chunks by this point. Their opposing gravity causing them to smash and collide as they began to coalesce. That caused hundreds of thousands of pieces ranging from a pebble to the size of skyscrapers to start to rain towards the planet. I connected to my entire network. “All ships! Prepare for short range teleportation!”

I tightened my grip then gestured around me. This was really going to tax not only my mana, but the new links I’d just established. I moved the large ships first as they could serve as shields against the debris. The first of the debris had entered the range of the satellites and they began firing as rapidly as they could.

The first of my fleet arrived and I was joined by Duilin, Julie, and Izora. “Master! What happened?” Julie asked. Her suit closed around her mouth to allow her to breath. She could be in the void of space for nearly eight hours before she would need to recharge the air, which she could do with some mana if necessary. 

“Something broke the damn moon!” I responded through gritted teeth. I was channeling a ton of mana at the moment and couldn’t afford to let my concentration slip. “Deal with the debris that is incoming!” 

There was a storm of laser and plasma firing through the air as the ships and satellites began destroying the moon fragments. Even with the concentrated effort of close to three hundred satellites and the forty ships that I had managed to teleport so far, chunks were making it past the line. Most had been small so far and quickly burned up in the atmosphere. 

It was a stalemate for nearly five minutes, and we were starting to turn the tables as I had all my ships working to take out the debris. Looking back to the moon, the four large chunks were still in the middle of a planetary tug-of-war with each other. I wasn’t well versed in planetary mechanics but something like this could take years to settle. The planet would be enjoying daily meteor showers. 

One of the chunks turned out to be weaker than the others as one of the impacts caused it to fracture even more. In only a few seconds, it exploded into an entire new rain of death. Millions of shards were blasted toward the planet and thus the curtain of my ships and satellites which were quickly burning through not only our ammunition but also mana. 

One of the pieces turned into a molten ball from all the forces at play. It streaked towards one of my carriers. The ship unleashed a full barrage on the incoming moon chunk, but only managed to split it in two, with one going under the ship, the second half tearing tore the back end like it was paper.

Something like that would put a hole in the planet big enough for a city to fit. I quickly formed a portal with the another one pointing back at the debris of moon. The moon chunk that was large enough to be an island was flung back into the mess it came from. Its passage even pulling some of the smaller chunks along with it. 

Gravity. That was the answer, I just needed to throw enough of it at the center to pull the four chunks of moon back together while also overcoming the energy causing them to rebound when the collided. 

“You guys handle this. I’m going to try and stop this.” Julie and Duilin nodded as they used their magic to break the moon chunks around them to dust. I accelerated into the insanity that was the meteor storm around me. The moon was roughly five hundred million kilometers away, give or take a few. I could use line of sight teleporting to up to fifty million, but the inference was stopping me from doing more. It would be a dangerous game of leapfrog to get close enough to attempt anything. 

Looking through the field of destruction, I spotted an area that was as clear of debris as it was going to get. With a breath, I vanished and reappeared in under a second. A moon rock the size of a van struck me full on just as I appeared. I punched out and shattered the annoying thing into a thousand pieces. 

That was how the next minute went. A shard of stone that I found hard to believe was naturally occurring nearly took my left arm off. It was at the closest site, so I wagered it was something the moon’s core might have been made from. Shockwaves from the collisions that were occurring all around me were equal to some of the blows I took from the Demon general. 

Pulling my staff from my sub-dimension, I created a barrier around me. The debris was starting to really hammer me around and if I wanted to create a spell to control this mess, I couldn’t afford to be distracted. With that done, I looked at to the center of the shattered moon to see what I was working with.

Version 1:

My dungeon senses went into overdrive as they worked out the mass, gravity, velocity, and other important information of all the debris flying through the void in front of me. The main problem was the explosion had given the various chunks too much kinetic energy and they were sticking together once they collided thus adding more energy to the equation.

Creating something to not only bring them together, but hold them together wasn’t beyond my capabilities, I could create a blackhole after all. The problem was the mana cost. I only had my internal reverse to use. 

One possibility was I could create a blackhole that grew in response to the amount of energy it ate. There were many issues that came with that. Not only could it inadvertently grow to the point that it could threaten the planet, but given how ambient mana works in the universe, I could create something that I might not be able to control. 

While I debated, another chunk the size of a city got catapulted from the fighting chunks and flew towards Murgin. It gained velocity before I could capture it with a spell. The portal I created only managed to cut it in half. I couldn’t hesitate any longer. Pointing my hand towards the center of the mass, I constructed the spell script as quickly as I could.

A pinprick of black formed in the center of the moon that quickly grew as it ate everything around it. It wasn’t long before I no longer had to sustain the spell and started to feel its gravitational pull. I moved back staying at the border of the pull. I made sure that I could still feel the link to the spell.

The ejected pieces slowly came to a stop before they began falling back towards the moon. The blackhole reached the max mass I set it to grow to. It should be enough to pull everything back into the gravitational hold of the moon and hold it there long enough for the moon to stay together barring any large hits from extraterrestrial bodies.

Version 2:

My dungeon senses went into overdrive as they worked out the mass, gravity, velocity, and other important information of all the debris flying through the void in front of me. The main problem was the explosion had given the various chunks too much kinetic energy and they were sticking together once they collided thus adding more energy to the equation.

Creating something to not only bring them together, but hold them together wasn’t beyond my capabilities, I could create a blackhole after all. The problem was the mana cost. I only had my internal reverse to use.

I glanced at my staff then and an idea sparked. I extended my hand and pulled a sub-core from my sub-dimension. I fused the core to the staff then aimed for the center of the moon. With a lunge, I sent it flying into the shattered moon’s core. Everything that came touched the staff was absorbed by my sub-core.

It soon arrived piercing through the partially still molten core. The core activated and its aura tore out. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I was finding out. Much like the sub-core at Jade Wind the energy rushing into the core threatened to tear it apart. The only difference was that my consciousness was here and I could control it to some extent.

The core broke through tiers one and two in a matter of seconds. Much like the station core, the aura expanded in a sphere until it was roughly the same size the moon had previously been with a radius close to two thousand kilometers. Just a bit bigger than Earth’s moon. 

Using the core and the moon fragments, I increased the gravity of my new moon core. The ejected pieces slowly came to a stop before they began falling back towards the moon. Turning to take in the damage caused by the event, I found my fleet had survived with only one ship being destroyed, the automata onboard were being ferried over to other ships. Over half of the fleet had suffered other damages and it would take us time to repair.

Teleporting back to the others, I found Duilin and Julie nearly out of mana but without injuries. I would have been impressed if something without intent managed to hurt either of them. “That was fun,” I said coming to a stop next to them.

“What caused it?” Duilin asked looking back to the planet. There was a meteor shower, but nearly all the debris that made it past them was small enough that it would burn up in the atmosphere. It would make a night light show for a few days.

“I don’t know, but I plan to find out.”