Reborn: Rise of the Greatest Summoner

390 Tethering at the jaws of death [1]

Bzzz!

The mech disappeared despite all his methods to stop it.

After it disappeared, the gigantic Space Bug remained standing on Planet Titania, looking up at the radioactive skies as different thoughts filled the mind of this thousand year old Monster.

"I NEVER THOUGHT THERE WERE OTHER SURVIVORS". He muttered to himself but to everyone who heard it, it was like a roar.

The massive eyes of this Space Bug gleamed, they showed excitement.

"OTHERS AT LAST!"

"I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE PRICE OF SURVIVING THE DESTRUCTION WAS TO FOREVER LIVE A LONELY LIFE, BUT NOW I BELIEVE EVEN MORE IN THE GOD OF MACHINERY, HE ANSWERED MY PRAYERS".

"HE LIBERATED US FROM OUR PREVIOUS STATUS AS SLAVES".

"HE MADE OUR MASTERS KILL THEMSELVES THROUGH WARS, AND HE MADE US THE ONLY SURVIVORS OF THESE WARS THROUGH OUR MUTATIONS".

"HAHAHA…!"

The sight of a Giant Bug cackling would horrify anyone.

After laughing to his fill, his eyes which remained focused on the skies became focused. "FROM WHAT I JUST SAW, WE HAVE ENEMIES".

"OF COURSE, NO EMPEROR TAKES HIS THRONE WITHOUT FACING ENEMIES".

Having witnessed Onana use up the gift from his master to call upon his master's powers, he naturally assumed that the enemies had a Grade A Super.

But he was not deterred.

"MY FAITH CAN NO LONGER BE SHAKEN".

"THE GOD OF MACHINERY HAS DECIDED THAT I AM TO BE THE EMPEROR, SO NOTHING CAN STAND IN MY WAY, NOT EVEN THOSE BLUE ALIENS".

After reveling in the highs of his awakening and witnessing this great discovery, he finally calmed down as he observed his body.

"THE HIBERNATION THIS TIME WAS MORE BENEFICIAL THAN BEFORE".

"I GAINED EVEN MORE MUTATIONS".

"I SHOULD SPEND SOME MORE TIME TO STUDY THEM AND UNDERSTAND MY NEW POWERS, AFTER THAT, IT WILL START".

The next moment, the metal surface of the planet cracked open again as the gigantic Bug was sucked in before it finally closed back.

While all this happened, the other Space Bugs all remained prostrated and inactive as they remained a gray color, blending with the Planet surface.

Even after the Godfather left, they remained prostrating.

…

Bzzz!

General Aztog's fleet left warp travel to find themselves in an anomalous space.

Wom! Wom! Wom!

Multiple alarms rang across the 3 Spaceships, attracting a lot of attention as panic set among them. The only reason why they didn't falter was General Aztog.

"Do not panic!" The General's authoritative voice was calming.

"I have experienced something like this before, this is a spatial storm".

"All you need to do is deploy and activate all the space-time stabilizers, and deactivate all spaceship systems that have a negative effect on space-time".

"Then, lastly, believe in me, I'll lead you all through this".

Despite Champion Onana risking his life to protect their retreat, the Giant Space Bug was just too powerful, all 3 Spaceships still suffered damages of various degrees and was why they didn't get to their destination before falling out of warp travel. Their FTL drives also suffered damages.

The worst part was that what dragged them from warp travel was a spatial storm, one of the deadliest anomalies in space.

At this moment, for a region across thousands of kilometers in this space, space and time seemed to be engaging a game of tug of war.

Space squeezed, ripped, and tore itself apart at rapid frequencies before repairing itself again. After repairing itself, it repeated the deadly sequence.

Each cycle of this sequence was extremely dangerous to those stuck in it.

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

The 3 Spaceships suffered even more damage by the second.

After just barely surviving a battle by the skin of their teeth, most of them still felt rattled but with General Aztog's calming words, they regained their nerves.

'The Champion already risked his life to protect us once'.

'We can't throw his efforts down the well without fighting'.

'We must fight!'

'We must survive!'

Filled with conviction, the whole fleet came alive.

The engineers went to the repair bays to perform emergency repairs on the internal damages suffered by the Spaceships.

The other crew and warriors deployed space-time stabilizers while also using their own methods to try calming the terrible fluctuations in the space-time.

Escaping a spatial storm was not a sprint, it was a marathon.

They persevered through Day 1.

They persevered through Day 2.

They suffered through Day 3 and 4.

By the 6th Day, all 3 Spaceships already suffered terrible hull damages and were barely holding. Not just the Spaceships, their crew were already pushed to their wits end both mentally and physically.

Despite their exhaustion, they still put in their all to struggle.

On the 8th day, a miracle happened.

BZZZ!

To all of them, they felt like they were suddenly liberated.

Looking out, they discovered that the spatial storm was already in the distance. Escaping it left a feeling in them like they were liberated.

The crew and warriors felt emotional, some even broke down in tears.

'We did it!'

'We survived!'

While they jubilated, General Aztog's voice reverberated again.

"There's no time to rest, we need to save the Champion".

They were all jolted awake on hearing that.

"He risked his life to save ours, now we need to reciprocate and do the same. A good deed should be repaid with another good deed".

"Every Engineer should work on repairing the Spaceships and making them space worthy again".

"Every sensor-oriented software Engineer should focus on maximizing the powers of the Spaceship sensors to search for traces of the Champion".

"I know he is alive somewhere".

Despite their exhaustion, both mentally and physically, General Aztog's words pulled the whole fleet to order as they overexerted themselves even more in a bid to find Champion Onana.

To achieve this feat, they would give their very all.

…

~BERSERKER~

[WARNING! Critical Damage across all Systems!]

[WARNING! System failure detected across multiple mech systems!]

[Armor Integrity: 17%]

[Power Reactor Energy Reserves: 8%]

[FTL Drive State: Unusable!]

…

[Owner State: Critically Injured!]

[Frozen State: Barely Intact!]

[Percentage of Death: 85%]

[Making Countermeasures…]

[Directing 50% Power Reactor energy reserves to keeping the automatic mech cryo tube intact!]

[Directing 10% Power Reactor energy reserves to sending distress signals!]

[Mech Armor deteriorating 65% faster!]

Silently, Berserker drifted through space like an abandoned metal wreck.

Floating alongside the tiny asteroids and metal junk in space, Berserker looked nothing like a once majestic Grade B mechanic suit.

Its armor was totally damaged, only the frozen interior prevented radiation from entering rampantly but some still slipped through.

Every second, the state of this once state-of-the-art mech deteriorated.

Despite this, Berserker never gave up as it gave more effort to preserving Champion Onana's life while also giving it's best to send out distress signals.

It was already more than a week since it started floating in space.

8 hours later, its deterioration hit a peak.

~BERSERKER~

[WARNING!]

[Armor Integrity: 3%]

[Power Reactor Energy Reserves: 0.05%]

[WARNING! POWER REACTOR ENERGY RESERVES: 0%]

Instantly, the mech lost all power. The A.I shut down including every interface and virtual mechanisms of the mech, the cryo tube barely survived.

By the second though, the frozen state started being more affected by the radiation energy seeping in as there was no more energy to protect it.

In 30 minutes at most, Champion Onana would die.

At this moment, he was tethering at the jaws of death.

22 minutes later…