Chapter 57: Planet Buster, Activate!
Rekka cleared his throat, his expression entirely too serious for the absolute nonsense about to leave his mouth. "I just taught Stelle an emergency distress code. In the future, if any of us are accidentally captured or trapped somewhere we absolutely cannot escape from, as long as there is even a fleeting chance to pass a message to the outside, you must look the person snooping for information dead in the eye and say, 'The Milk Dragon and Belial will avenge me.'"
A heavy, suffocating ten-second silence fell over the Parlor Car.
Stelle stared blankly ahead. Dan Heng froze with a coffee cup halfway to his mouth.
"What on earth is that," Dan Heng finally asked, his voice flat and devoid of hope.
"I'll show you a video. You'll understand immediately."
Rekka tapped his holographic interface, projecting an incredibly abstract, deep-fried visual monstrosity for the entire crew to witness. He had personally edited this masterpiece based on the chaotic depths of his own memories.
On the projection, a cartoonish, chubby yellow dragon was poorly spliced next to a menacing, red-and-black cosmic overlord. A distorted, booming voice echoed through the pristine train car.
"Hello to all the little kids posting Milk Dragons! I am Belial! I am coming to destroy the universe! All the Ultramen have been defeated by me! Do you dare to stop me? The cowards have all swiped away, but I want to make your funeral grand..."
A track of canned, low-quality villainous laughter blasted through the speakers, clipping the audio horribly.
"..."
The entire crew remained dead silent as the holographic projection flickered out.
Dan Heng set his coffee cup down on the table. He set it down entirely too carefully. "After watching this, I feel like the Black and White Reapers are standing right behind me, ready to escort my soul to the afterlife." He pinched the bridge of his nose, desperately trying to massage the brainwashing audio out of his skull.
"It's so weird. But wait, let me look at it again."
March 7th blinked. Her bright pink eyes went completely blank for a second, then shifted into deep confusion, before finally settling into a terrifying, glassy-eyed addiction. She reached out and tapped the replay button on the projection.
"Hello to all the little kids posting Milk Dragons—"
"Stop playing it. Turn it off right now." Dan Heng reached out and clamped his hand around March 7th's wrist, his grip firm. "Watching this kind of thing once is already enough to severely shorten a person's lifespan."
"But listening to it a few more times, I actually find it quite catchy!"
"It is not catchy at all."
Dan Heng's expression flattened into a mask of pure, unadulterated intellectual despair. He looked like a brilliant scholar who had just watched a millennium of accumulated knowledge get tossed directly into a trash can. He let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the cosmos.
"So, are we really going to use this abstract garbage as our official code?" Dan Heng asked, sounding completely defeated.
"Please do not look down on Belial. He is the legitimate Emperor of the Belial Galactic Empire," Rekka corrected, raising a finger. "Regardless of how abstract the editing is, he is canonically very powerful."
"Fine, fine. Then what about the Milk Dragon?"
"Adding the Milk Dragon is the only way to confirm that this is just a coded abstract meme, and not a warning that the actual, literal Belial has arrived in our universe."
Dan Heng rubbed his temples harder, attempting to banish the deep-fried image from his mind. Unfortunately, the fundamental rule of the universe dictated that the more desperately one wanted to forget something, the more vividly it burned itself into their retinas.
"So, our emergency code from now on is... this?" Stelle asked, her deadpan voice betraying zero emotion.
"Yes." Rekka nodded proudly.
Before the conversation could devolve any further, the Parlor Car doors slid open. Himeko poked her head inside, her elegant smile a stark contrast to the brainrot that had just polluted the room. "Pom-Pom just informed me that the Express is about to perform a warp jump to our next destination. Everyone, please get ready."
"The next planet?" March 7th's attention was immediately diverted, the cursed video instantly forgotten. "Where are we going?"
"It is a planet called Jarilo-VI," Himeko explained, stepping fully into the car. "The last time the Astral Express visited there was thousands of years ago. According to the records stored in the Data Bank, it was a lush and incredibly beautiful world. However, after so much time has passed, it is highly likely that earth-shaking changes have occurred."
"Thousands of years are more than enough for a civilization to go from absolute prosperity to total decline," Dan Heng noted, his analytical mind returning to normal. "And certainly enough for a planet's entire ecology to undergo drastic changes."
"Don't be so pessimistic!" March 7th put her hands on her hips, thinking for a moment. "Maybe they've developed exceptionally well! There could be towering skyscrapers everywhere, flying cars, and a level of technology rivaling the most advanced planets in the galaxy!"
"It could also be a frozen wasteland," Rekka countered, leaning back lazily against the plush sofa. "Or perhaps it's currently being besieged by endless hordes of terrifying monsters, just waiting for us to descend from the heavens and save them."
March 7th glared at him, puffing out her cheeks. "Can't you say something positive for once?"
"This is called objective analysis." Rekka spread his hands in a gesture of pure innocence. "Look at our recent track record. When has any of our outings gone smoothly? It is either a Swarm disaster or a full-scale Antimatter Legion invasion. Following this established pattern, Jarilo-VI definitely won't be some relaxing vacation resort."
"So, are we going down there to fight a war, or are we going for a sightseeing tour?" Stelle asked, gripping her baseball bat slightly tighter.
"We will only know for sure once we get there." Himeko smiled warmly, entirely unbothered by the chaotic speculation.
"Attention all passengers! The Express is about to perform a warp jump! Please return to your seats and sit tight, pom!" Pom-Pom's voice crackled through the overhead broadcast system.
"Hold on tight to the armrests. The first time jumping might make you a bit motion sick," Rekka kindly reminded Stelle, gesturing to the seat beside him.
Stelle sat down, gripping the armrests. She glanced across the aisle. "Why isn't March sitting down?"
"She wants to see if she can maintain her balance on her feet during the spatial jump."
"Can she?"
"I have no idea. But I've heard she falls miserably on her face every single time she tries. Don't worry, I've already prepared a first-aid kit with iodine and bandages for her."
Stelle blinked. "Is that an exaggeration? Is the warp jump really that dangerous?"
"If you don't sit properly, the shifting gravity makes it incredibly easy to trip."
The hum of the Astral Express deepened into a resonant vibration. The stars outside the window stretched into brilliant streaks of blinding light. The jump initiated.
With a tiny, entirely inconspicuous pulse of energy from Rekka's foot—just a little helpful nudge to the shifting gravity—March 7th immediately lost her footing. She let out a yelp and successfully took a spectacular tumble onto the plush carpet. Thanks to the soft flooring, it didn't hurt in the slightest, but her pride took a massive critical hit.
The streaks of light outside snapped back into solid stars. A massive, ice-white sphere loomed in the window.
"So this is Jarilo-VI..." March 7th muttered, picking herself up and rubbing her nose. "Just looking at it makes me feel cold."
"Uncle Yang, I have a plan."
Rekka raised his hand high in the air, drawing the attention of the senior Trailblazer.
Welt Yang turned around, his expression calm and attentive. "I'm really not at ease with the potential dangers lurking on this unknown planet," Rekka continued, his tone entirely too earnest. "Why don't we make some active preparations before we officially begin the Trailblaze?"
"Hmm... preparations before the Trailblaze." Welt nodded slowly, resting a hand on his chin. "Indeed, your consideration is quite thorough. It pays to be cautious. So, what specific preparations do you intend to make?"
"A targeted elimination weapon!" Rekka announced, puffing out his chest. "The planetary-level Planet Buster cannon!"
He proudly swiped his holographic interface, displaying the terrifying mechanical masterpiece he had been tinkering with all morning. He had poured his absolute heart and soul into this project for a full forty-five minutes—nearly half a System Hour! To create something of this magnitude in such a timeframe was nothing short of a miracle!
Though, one had to wonder where exactly the "heart and soul" went, and how forty-five minutes could ever be considered a "full" amount of time to build a weapon of mass destruction.
"Planetary-level... Planet Buster?" March 7th's mouth twitched violently. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"It is exactly what you think it means." Rekka nodded, his face glowing with unearned pride. "A masterpiece that took me nearly half a System Hour to complete! Though the construction time was short, the lethal efficiency is incredibly high. Look—"
Rekka pointed out the Parlor Car window, gesturing toward the massive silhouette of the Hyperion docked alongside the Express.
"I have already mounted the Planet Buster directly onto the Hyperion's main hull. This way, we can perform a complete planetary elimination from orbit in advance. Once the surface is glassed, we won't have to worry about any unexpected dangers during our Trailblaze!"
Welt felt a phantom pain strike the back of his skull, as if his cerebrum and cerebellum had just started a fistfight inside his head. A massive migraine bloomed behind his eyes.
"Are you speaking a human language right now?" Welt asked, his voice trembling slightly.
"Yes."
"But... you..." Welt sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. "What if there are innocent people down there?!"
"Eh, it won't affect people at all. What's the problem?"
"?"
Welt stared at him, completely lost for words.
"Essentially, this is a highly specialized, targeted elimination device designed specifically for the Antimatter Legion," Rekka explained, pulling up a complex schematic on his screen. "Since the monsters of the Antimatter Legion are composed of genuine, highly concentrated antimatter, their energy signatures can be easily identified from orbit and specifically targeted for localized elimination..."
Rekka launched into a dense, rapid-fire technical explanation filled with quantum mechanics and energy wave frequencies that absolutely no one in the room understood. Even Welt, with all his vast mechanical knowledge, couldn't quite grasp the middle portion, only managing to comprehend the basic summary Rekka provided at the start.
"So..." Welt adjusted his glasses, his heart rate finally returning to normal. "That actually sounds... somewhat reliable?"
"It was always reliable." Rekka put his hands on his hips, looking offended. "Otherwise, what did you think I built? A literal Star-Destroyer Cannon? I already told you it's for targeted elimination."
He was joking, of course. A normal human body couldn't possibly contain antimatter of that purity, meaning the cannon's targeting system would completely ignore any organic lifeforms on the surface.
"Since you built a highly specialized, precision weapon meant exclusively to counter the Antimatter Legion," Welt began, his tone dripping with deep helplessness, "why on earth did you name it 'Planet Buster'? A name that sounds like it is going to blow the entire planet into cosmic dust?"
Welt sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose exactly like Dan Heng had earlier. "Wouldn't it be much better to just call it an 'Antimatter Purifier'or a'Void Ranger Elimination Array'? At least those names wouldn't make people's hearts stop beating when they hear them."
"Uncle Yang, you don't understand. A weapon's name must have absolute deterrent power." Rekka shook his head, looking at Welt as if the older man were a naive child. "Think about it. If a terrifying enemy attacks, and I strike a dramatic pose and shout, 'Activate Antimatter Purifier!', the momentum of the battle instantly drops by half. It sounds like I'm turning on a vacuum cleaner."
Rekka grinned, his eyes gleaming with chaotic excitement. "But if I point at the sky and shout, 'Planet Buster, Activate!'... the feeling is completely different, right? The enemy will wet themselves before the beam even fires!"
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