The Martial Unity

Even as the warships drew closer and closer, firing a large amount of long-range energy sieges on the enemies, hatches across the warship opened, causing a large number of MECHAs and Martial Artists to emerge from within the warships.

It also unfurled a large number of spacecraft armed with guns across their body.

“HAHAHA!” Sage Nel laughed as he led an army of Martial Sages. “ALIEN OCTOPUSES! ATTACK!”

“ATTACK!”

The army charged through space as they moved to reinforce the defensive forces protecting Pioneer III. The battered Martial Artists and MECHAs of the latter regained a surge of morale and energy as they realized all was not lost.

“ATTACK!” Sage Nathan roared with rising confidence. “We can win! Kill them all! Bring death upon them!”

RUMBLE!!!

The very fabric of space and time shook as the many forces involved in the war came together in an explosive series of collisions and explosions. Even as the war raged, the crew of the Pioneer III grew stunned as they beheld the very familiar warships of the Panamic Space Force growing closer and closer to them. They established radio communication channels, ensuring they were secure.

BZZZT

Before Admiral Lewenil in the Pioneer III command room, a three-dimensional hologram of Admiral Vensherh. They were both of the same rank, but their uniforms were different. While Admiral Lewenil was an admiral in the Panamic Space Organization, a non-military organization, the more militaristic uniform of Admiral Vensherh made it clear that he was of the Panamic Space Force.

“Commander of the joint reinforcement force of the 180th, 156th, and 62nd battalions, Admiral Lewenil,” the latter smiled at the former. “H-How…” Admiral Lewenil stammered, unable to even control his shock. “It was impossible for a world bridge to Barnard’s Star to be opened within the next three months. How was a wormhole possibly opened on such short notice with no preparations for it? Were there contingencies prepared for just this moment? Or…”

His eyes widened. “Have the people of Panama suffered energy losses to compensate for this mission?”

The very thought of it made him lament. Pioneer III was supposed to open a new world to the people of Gaia and Gaian Civilization; it was meant to be a pioneer of hope and salvation, not a burden that forced them to make sacrifices to protect it. It rankled his pride and his morale to even think of such an outcome.

Admiral Vensherh laughed at the speculation of his peer. “Not at all, Admiral. There was no extreme measure pursued to open the wormhole to allow our joint reinforcement force to enter this star system.”

“Then how…?” Admiral Lewenil grew even more stunned.

Admiral Vensherh smiled.

“It was His Majesty, of course. The Emperor of Water himself opened a wormhole to Barnard’s Star with his personal power.”

Admiral Lewenil’s eyes widened with shock at those words as his expression grew completely loose. “…What?”

“It’s true,” Admiral Vensherh heaved a deep breath as he placed a hand on his beating heart.

He was one of the few humans who had been extremely close to the Emperor of Water when he unveiled his tremendous might upon the world around him. It was nothing short of profoundly moving to the very depths of his soul.

“I do not know what he did,” Admiral Vensherh continued with a deep tone of voice. “I don’t know how he did it. But he bridged the gap between stars and opened a path for us to come here. Such is the might of Emperor Rui.”

Admiral Lewenil grew stunned at those words. Opening a wormhole across light-years was unfathomably difficult. It took three percent of all the negatron matter extracted from Gaia over the past seven years and a minute, but a visible proportion of the annual energy generated by the entirety of Panama to open a wormhole that was large enough to fit a large fleet of warships across such an astronomical distance.

And yet, the Emperor of Water had done it with his own personal power.

Admiral Lewenil reeled as he struggled to process the truth that his colleague and now comrade in arms had shared with him. He had known about Martial Transcendents and their power, of course.

He largely regarded them as myths in the past. There were flowery stories, but not a single person had seen them in recent times. And a large and growing population had begun to believe that Martial Transcendents were fairy tales.

Until the Emperor of Water becomes the first Martial Transcendent in a decade.

The power that he had displayed before and now moved Admiral Lewenil. The Admiral knew that he would have to contact the Emperor and personally thank him for saving their lives.

Although their death and destruction in the absence of this aid were not guaranteed, the battle had been going extremely negatively, making it unlikely that they would have emerged alive from it.

“We must win this war,” Admiral Vensherh drew his attention with a serious voice. “The Emperor of Harmony has given us the opportunity to win. We must not waste this moment. Let us merge our central commands and direct the battle together against the astralites.”

“Astralites?”

“I will explain once we have gotten the important matters out of the way. Just know that the Milky Way Galaxy is more exotic and more intense than anything we could have fathomed about it.”

Pioneer III began coordinating with the emergency reinforcement force as the tide of battle began turning around. The additional Martial forces and especially the presence of MECHA Masters allowed for a systematic push back of the astralite aliens. They began forming a perimeter around Pioneer III, protecting the omni-ships from the attacks of the astralite aliens. And yet, even that was merely the beginning of the war. The astralites, as the humans would quickly realize, were not that easy to deter.

They were the masters of space war.

A species evolved for conflict in the vacuum of space. They were merely getting started.