The Martial Unity

Most likely, the heat limit was one that was the limit of what its geological metabolism could withstand. That was why, rather than trying to damage it, they heated up the planet from the outside with more gentle, distributed lasers that would cook the planet’s surface and begin heating up the conscious heavenly body from the outside.

And it was working.

RUMBLE

The sheer amount of energy raining down on the planet, even if distributed and diluted across the surface of the planet, was quite intense, causing anomalous geological activity to unfold upon the planet. The sharp, shining lights of the planet began to wobble as the heated atmosphere began to refract light passing through it. This caused the image of the surface of the planet to look liquid rather than the solid that they had verified it to be.

BLOB BLOB BLOB…

The water on the surface began to bubble as the temperature of the planet began to rise at a rather alarming rate. The conscious planet clearly knew that at the rate things were going, its internal temperatures were going to rise, causing the planet to die as its metabolism would get shut down by the extreme temperatures that it was being heated.

The countermeasures began almost immediately.

“Admiral, look!” an analyst summoned the attention of the admiral of Pioneer VIII, who watched the battle from a distance. “The infrared sensors have picked up a massive surge in the infrared radiation emerging from the planet!”

“Not just infrared, we’re seeing a consistent rise in the intensity of the radiation from the planet; somehow, the planet is greatly elevating its blackbody radiation!”

Blackbody radiation is the spectrum of radiation that objects emit at various temperatures. Hotter objects released radiation that was higher in frequency and smaller in wavelength, while colder objects did the opposite. Admiral Soehok’s eyes sharpened as she realized with a single glance at the data that, while the temperature of the planet, as measured by gravitational sensing, was quite high, the blackbody radiation it emitted somehow resembled that of an object that was ten times hotter.

In other words, it wasn’t just limited to waiting for it to radiate away its heat normally to return to regular temperatures for another heartbeat. Only now did they realize that it also had the ability to heighten that process of radiating away heat, something that they hadn’t noticed in all the intelligence that they had collected from their little research and experimentation phase.

If they had more time, of course, they likely would have picked up on that as well, but reality was that with the deadline being as short as it was, it was ultimately not something that could be reasonably picked up.

It certainly deviated from the most optimal solution, but it was not the worst thing in the world. The reality was that even if the gargantian tried radiating away its energy through heightened blackbody radiation, it was still not a complete solution.

VMMMmmm…

Nobody had missed that the lasers unleashed by the gargantian had slowed down a little due to the fact that it had less leeway as far as its internal temperature goes. Their plan was a success, even if there were variables that they hadn’t expected.

The Operation Gargle commanders had also been psychologically prepared for unexpected outcomes, since their intelligence was not absolutely perfect. They had come prepared with extra slack to accommodate a large margin of error. They had a great offensive capacity that could be sustained for a long time. They had energy that they were accessing from the wormhole that Rui was holding open with his own personal might as a Martial Transcendent.

And, of course, they had their pathwalkers.

“Laser intensity has reduced by fifty percent.”

“Atmospheric and terrestrial temperatures have stabilized.”

“Deploy the ground units.”

This was the riskiest part of the operation, but it was one that they had resolved to go through.

CLACK CLACK CLACK The hatches of the various fleet carriers opened up, unleashing pathwalkers that were flung at the planet at high speeds. The ground units were composed of Martial Sages, more than any other demographic. Nearly two thousand Martial Sages descended towards the gargantian, accelerated by its gravity as they made their way through outer space and eventually its atmosphere.

This was when the first true signs of panic could be detected from the gargantian as it unleashed a whole onslaught of laser beams at its newfound opponents, threatening to incinerate them alive.

And yet, there were too many, and they were grouped together for it to conveniently aim at all of them. The planet unleashed many a laser beam in their direction as they propelled.

Some even hit.

VMMM VMMM VMMM!!!

Thin pillars of light brightly emerged from within the planet as they coursed in the general directions of it invading army of pathwalkers that had been deployed towards the planet. However, they missed.

This was something that had also been tested, shockingly enough, in just the span of a few months. They knew that the resolution of the gargantian’s aim was very limited. It couldn’t target human-sized targets very well at such a close distance with lasers. It would be like asking humans to take out individual bacteria on their hands with a needle.

The lasers largely missed, although the occasional attack did end up hitting hard, knocking out a small proportion of pathwalkers before they even reached the ground.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

A large wave of pathwalkers peppered the ground as they landed upon the surface of the planet like meteorites, and indeed they were. Craters emerged across the surface of the planet as the pathwalkers quickly shook it off and immediately got to work.

“Heat the planet!”

“HEAT THE PLANET!”

BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOOM!!!

The pathwalkers went berserk, unleashing large-scale attacks upon the planet’s surface, causing even more energy to turn into heat. The widespread lasers couldn’t hurt them since they were spread across the surface of the planet. Their attacks upon the planet seamlessly contributed to the attack upon Garg, bringing it closer to its limit.