Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 47

Of course, the battleship also had more powerful weapons than conventional armaments like missiles, such as large-caliber railguns, small-caliber coilguns, plasma beams, and quantum bombs—weapons of near-cosmic scale.

However, these weapons couldn’t be used unless the main power source was functioning.

The only weapons available on the battleship now were missiles.

That didn’t mean the missiles were weak.

Then and now, the most powerful and devastating weapon was still the nuclear missile.

However, it could only be used with a code authorized by the main base, so Kang Chan couldn’t use it.

If he could have used it, Kang Chan, who had given up on life, would have used it without hesitation.

As all the missiles remaining on the battleship, except for the nuclear missiles, were launched, the huge hangar door on the upper part of the spacecraft slowly began to open.

The creaking sound echoed from the dented upper deck due to the crash impact, but the opening mechanism functioned correctly.

Inside the fully opened hangar, a huge object slowly revealed itself.

The Red Rabbit, which had been quietly sleeping, was finally awakened.

Various connected cables were automatically detached from the Zoid [a type of mecha or robotic combat unit], and a flight pack for aerial assault was attached to the pylon on its back.

The pressure in the ejection device began to rise, and in a short time, the huge Zoid, with a combat weight of nearly 80 tons, left the hangar, revealing its massive form on the exterior of the battleship.

―Woooooong!

The wings of the huge flight pack mounted on the Red Rabbit’s back unfolded in an instant, and as the mounted ion engine spewed fire, the Red Rabbit soared into the sky, flying towards Kang Chan like a flash of lightning with a roar.

15. The Enraged Red Rabbit

“What’s he muttering about to himself?” Green wondered.

Green looked at Kang Chan, who was muttering to himself, her face etched with fear.

Then, Green witnessed an unbelievable sight.

A huge object began to fly across the sky at an unimaginable speed.

Moreover, there weren’t just one, but dozens of these huge objects.

And another shocking thing happened before Green’s eyes.

An area wider than her field of vision flashed simultaneously, and a huge flame covered the entire area with an earth-shattering roar.

Green, watching the massive explosion, couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The explosion stretched for several kilometers.

It was such a vast explosion.

As far as she knew, the only magic with such power and attack range was Meteor [a powerful spell that summons meteorites].

However, she couldn’t feel any mana [magical energy] from the explosion in front of her eyes.

And the things flying in weren’t simply falling meteorites like Meteor.

They didn’t just fall vaguely from the sky but could freely change direction, finding their target points themselves.

Such things continued to fly in steadily, plunging towards other places and exploding.

The sound was so loud that she, with the pointed ears of an elf who had far superior hearing than humans, had to squeeze her head in pain.

She blocked her ears and screamed.

“No! My children! My children!”

Clearly, the place where the massive explosion was occurring was the elven village where hundreds of thousands of green elves were fighting.

If so, it was obvious what would happen to her children who were caught in that massive explosion.

“Ah, no! Stop! I said stop!”

Green screamed, but the missiles continued to roar and fly towards their next target.

Green, watching those missiles, wandered around like a crazy person.

Then, she shouted urgently at Kang Chan.

“This is your doing, isn’t it? Stop it right now!”

Green glared at Kang Chan with eyes full of anger, but Kang Chan only stared back at her with emotionless eyes.

“You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!”

Green was screaming that she would kill him, but she couldn’t reach him from the sky.

Then,

A tremendous attack poured down on Green.

Dududududududu!

The attacks followed one after another.

Green ran away as if her soul was leaving her body.

Desperately plunging into the forest, Green barely managed to escape the relentless attack.

It was truly an attack of tremendous power.

Green glared at what had attacked her.

Then, a huge object slowly revealed itself from the sky.

Green was so surprised again that she couldn’t close her gaping mouth.

“Huh! What, what is that!”

The huge silver-white Gigantes [another term for a large, powerful mecha] that appeared in the sky slowly landed next to the human with a tremendous storm.

It was a Gigantes with huge steel wings and a mysterious appearance, 10 meters tall, that she had never heard of or seen before.

Seeing smoke rising from the back of the Gigantes’ hand, it was clear that the terrifying attack from before was the work of that Gigantes.

The Gigantes that landed on the ground slowly lowered its head and opened its shoulder armor, and the human jumped up and sat in the Gigantes’ cockpit.

“Ha, a Gigantes that flies in the sky! I’ve never heard of such a thing! Is that an ancient giant? Phoenix, help me!”

Green, who was silently watching Kang Chan board the Zoid, called Phoenix because she could not face the giant steel giant with her own strength.

Then, Phoenix, who had recovered to some extent from the injuries inflicted by Arteon’s attack, screamed and slowly flew up into the sky.

Restraints extended from the cockpit to Kang Chan’s head and shoulders, pressing Kang Chan into the seat.

And through the biochip implanted in his head, the Zoid attempted a neural connection with Kang Chan.

-Neural connection complete.

As the neural connection was completed, Kang Chan slowly opened his eyes.

Then, he and the Zoid were one, and he himself had become a giant steel giant with a height of 10 meters.

-The pilot’s injuries are very serious; injecting medical micromachines.

“I don’t need it…….”

Treatment no longer meant anything to him.

His body was already dying.

-Understood.

“Red Rabbit, how long has it been since you and I connected?”

-It has been exactly 53 years, 6 months, 12 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes, and 55 seconds since Captain Kang Chan and I last connected.

“That’s right… It took 50 years just to get here… After waiting for those 50 years, I was able to meet Jaina here…”

As Kang Chan recalled the day he first met Jaina and fell into sadness, tears flowed from Kang Chan’s eyes, who was quietly sitting in the cockpit.

-Beep! High energy reaction ahead.

As the warning sounded, Kang Chan, who had been lost in emotion, returned to his emotionless gaze.

As he turned his head in the direction where the enemy had appeared, Phoenix, who had recovered from his injuries, was screaming and flying up.

“I’ll kill you! 30mm railgun fire!”

-30mm railgun, automatic error aiming in progress.

As the Red Rabbit stretched out its hand towards Phoenix, three gun barrels popped out on the back of its hand, and the gun barrels began to fire in turn.

“Die! You bug-like bastard!”

As the large-caliber railgun, which was incomparable to the railgun for rifles, poured fire towards Phoenix, the fired bullets created a clear spiral vortex and penetrated Phoenix’s entire body.

Then, Phoenix screamed.

In fact, Phoenix was an incorporeal spirit, so physical railgun attacks were of no use at all.

However, the ice of Hell Frost, which was still frozen, was shattered by the railgun and tore through Phoenix’s body, causing him extreme pain.

“Keuk! You bastard!”

The enraged Phoenix spewed a breath of tremendous heat towards Kang Chan, and the Red Rabbit soared into the sky to avoid the flames.

Then, the innocent forest behind was engulfed in Phoenix’s breath, causing a massive explosion and turning into a lava zone.

Kang Chan continued to fire the railgun at Phoenix from above, but when Phoenix was no longer taking damage, Kang Chan took out an even more powerful weapon.

“Prepare to fire the Buster Cannon!”

The Buster Cannon, which was mounted for engagement with space battleships, was a weapon that accelerated plasma particles and emitted them as a beam, and was the most powerful weapon mounted on the Zoid.

-Buster Cannon firing preparation. Plasma particle acceleration in progress, countdown to firing in 30 seconds.

The Buster Cannon, which looked like a double-edged blade mounted on its back, appeared above its shoulders, and plasma particles began to discharge between the double-edged blades.

Jijijijijijijik!

Phoenix flew into the air and rushed towards Kang Chan. Then, Kang Chan began to evade again while targeting Phoenix with the railgun.

He had to buy time until he could fire the Buster Cannon.

As Phoenix flapped its wings and screamed at Kang Chan, dozens of huge flame feathers, each 2 meters long, rushed towards the Red Rabbit.

Each one was a terrifying feather with the power equivalent to Hellfire.

To avoid the feathers that followed him like missiles, Kang Chan began evasive maneuvers while scattering chaff [a defensive countermeasure].

The chaff used by the Zoid wasn’t a simple aluminum foil made of aluminum, which was commonly used by past fighters, but also equipped with small, high-performance explosives that could destroy approaching enemy weapons and fighters.

As Phoenix’s flame feathers approached the sky where such chaff was scattered, a massive explosion occurred in the air, and Phoenix’s flame feathers were also caught in the explosion, causing an even larger explosion.

As such a massive explosion filled the sky, a streak of dazzling light burst towards Phoenix through the explosion.

The flash of light, pouring down with the speed of light, didn’t even have time to evade.

Jiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

“Kuaaaaaaaak!”

Phoenix’s body, pierced by the dazzling flash, was split in half, and the plasma beam pierced through Phoenix and struck the ground.

Because it was a beam weapon that accelerated plasma particles rather than a physical attack, its properties were almost similar to light magic, and Phoenix had no choice but to take tremendous damage, unlike the railgun attack.

If Phoenix’s flames had turned the vast land into a lava zone, the Buster Cannon created a small, deep hole and penetrated deep into the ground, and gradually the hole melted with high heat and widened, eventually causing a massive explosion.

Then, Green, who was hiding in the forest, was blown away by the massive explosion, and the storm caused by the explosion flattened all the trees in the forest.

After the storm swept through,

The scene of destruction, reaching hundreds of meters, revealed its miserable appearance.

The earth was cracked like a spider web as if an earthquake had occurred, and the gaps were filled with red-hot lava.