Breaking through the dimensional wall was no easy task.
He constantly checked the holographic screens in the cockpit, while carefully monitoring the display projected onto the visor of his pilot suit.
To be selected as a crew member of a mobile dimensional traversal weapon in this war meant being recognized as something exceptional.
Valsky had been chosen as a pilot in his twenties. He underwent repeated training at the Andromeda Federation's training facilities and had been deployed to the front lines several months ago.
The Andromeda Federation was a vast interstellar alliance composed of seventy galaxies, and its war with other multidimensional universes had begun due to trade friction. For the Federation, securing resources to sustain its explosively growing population was an urgent necessity. However, the resources within its seventy galaxies had already been exhausted, forcing them to seek new universes to exploit.
At that time, another universe offered resources in the form of trade. However, the people of that universe demanded enormous payments and the provision of Federation citizens as experimental subjects.
For them, human experimentation was routine. They were fascinated by the idea of experimenting on beings from another universe.
When the Federation refused, they responded by cutting off trade routes and initiating military provocations.
Then, fifteen years ago, a passenger vessel traveling through space was suddenly attacked by a warship from another dimension. The crew and passengers were abducted.
The Federation immediately demanded their release, but the other universe refused. Worse still, they launched indiscriminate thermonuclear strikes on planets.
The Federation could not remain silent. It retaliated at once, launching nuclear counterattacks using dimensional ballistic missiles. Thus began a war between universes.
When Valsky was still a child, the planet he lived on was attacked with toxic weapons.
To call it merely "toxic" was an understatement. The lush, green world became barren, and five billion people perished.
He barely managed to escape aboard an evacuation ship, but his parents remained behind and lost their lives. Since then, his homeworld had ceased to be habitable, and he had lost his homeland forever.
With no other way to survive, he entered a military academy that took in orphans. There, he was selected as a pilot for a mobile dimensional traversal weapon.
Designed as a bipedal humanoid combat machine, this weapon was equipped with a dimensional transfer engine, allowing it to break through dimensional barriers. It also possessed a hyper engine, enabling entry into hyperspace and faster-than-light travel.
Its power source was an annihilation reactor, granting it virtually perpetual operation. With the assistance of an onboard AI, it could be operated by a single pilot.
Dimensional travel meant breaking through the barrier between universes—like forcing one's way through the wall of a room to enter the next.
Such a reckless act meant that even the slightest mistake could cause a fall from the dimensional tunnel, trapping one forever in the void between dimensions. If lucky, one might explode and die. If not, one would suffer endlessly in that abyss.
"We are about to breach the dimensional wall. Prepare for impact."
The AI spoke in a mechanical tone.
When entering another universe, one collides with a kind of barrier known as the dimensional wall. Upon impact, intense resistance occurs, destabilizing the machine. Many rookies lost their lives at this stage.
But Valsky broke through the wall smoothly.
And then—he entered another universe.
The instant he exited the dimensional tunnel, he was thrown into a region filled with countless explosions.
"Maintain formation!" the squad leader shouted over the comms, and Valsky followed the formation.
Before them loomed a colossal warship, estimated to be ten billion kilometers in length. It was so massive it looked like a wall.
Around the enemy fleet, carrier-based craft swarmed like insects.
Valsky plunged into that swarm.
Whether this war could be won, what its purpose even was—he no longer knew.
All that crossed his mind was the memory of his homeland from long ago.
[Into the Fires of War] — End