Alpha Strike: [An Interstellar Weapons Platform’s Guide to Organized Crime] (Book 3 title)

Lian Peng was angry… No… fuming!… NO! He was furious!

How many years? How many centuries had passed since anyone dared humiliate him like this? When had the Lunar Kings been reduced to playthings for unknown barbarians? He had not bled for his throne, clawed his way upward through rivers of betrayal and derision? Every step, every victory had been wrestled from gaudy pretenders who leaned on ancestral glory rather than their own strength.

How high did he need to climb? How many sects, clans, and petty organizations did he need to grind beneath his heel before the world learned to stop testing him?!

Snarling, he pressed once more against the net of strange elastic metal that bound him. His Divine Force surged, warping the silver lattice outward another inch before it snapped back with equal strength. Not a whisper of Path energy stirred within it — mundane, alien, yet implacable.

A trap. He knew that now. In hindsight, he admitted he had been goaded into lunging headlong. A rookie mistake, unworthy of his station. But centuries of strain had eroded his patience, and this latest insult was the grain that toppled the balance. Why did every soul insist on complicating matters? Why did every fresh Ascendant from the mortal world rise so puffed with arrogance and empty thunder, demanding to be smacked down before they bent the knee? Sometimes more than once!

He understood the Warden's sacred policy of non-interference upon the Mortal Worlds — though the firmaments themselves made interference nearly impossible. But if one more self-proclaimed "Grand Ancestor of the Such-and-Such Sect" waved their flimsy titles in his face, he swore he would hurl a meteor down upon their mountain and salt the ashes.

The fight had begun simply enough. The slime constructs moved as a flock, blue lights pulsing as they circled with unnerving coordination. They weaved into his blind spots, darting and flowing with a predator's instinct, as if trying to hem him in. Why they bothered was beyond him. His Divine Sense swept through them with ease, tracking every motion as clearly as if they stood in the palm of his hand. Still, he begrudged them a flicker of respect. Their discipline, their unity, would have embarrassed most Ascendant sects.

But they were slow. Painfully slow. Perhaps quick for mortals, or even for fledgling Ascendants, but to him — a High Celestial with one foot poised on the path to Divinity — they may as well have drifted in syrup. The ease of it had almost been insulting. That was when Lian Peng decided to test this strange "Path" for himself. If they would not part with their secrets willingly, then he would wrench truth from their broken remains.

The first surprise came swiftly. His [Phoenix Feathers] — lances of azure fire loosed faster than even some Divinities could track — struck nothing but empty void. The black fluid twisted and parted at the last instant, evading with shifts so precise that even a hair's breadth would have been generous. Blows strong enough to topple mountains slipped harmlessly through their amorphous bodies, as though he fought phantoms. For all their sluggish pace, the constructs moved like master precogs, predicting every strike down to the millimeter.

Yet prediction had its limits. A handful faltered to feints and reckless flourishes, their shells pierced when he broke rhythm. But even as they fell, others pressed in with weapons stranger still. At every pulse of alien power, their bodies spat shards of metal — tiny spheres no larger than sand grains. The sheer velocity made them near-invisible, faster than anything he had ever witnessed. Faster even than the Warden himself at full stride. For a moment, he thought the projectiles teleported, until the larger glowing fragments gave their paths away.

The speed alone made them dangerous. Each minuscule shot slammed into his aura with the weight of a hammer, shredding at his shield of energy one chip at a time. They could not wound him, not truly. But enough grains of sand could wear down even the sturdiest wall.

Death by a thousand cuts might have been apt, but more precisely, it felt like being scoured by a storm of metal sand. Each strike rasped across his aura, wearing away at his shield grain by grain.

It was one of the strangest dissonances he had ever faced in battle. It felt less like dueling a mind than battering against a program. There was no instinct, no cunning, no spark of will — only constructs carrying out orders with blind precision. It reminded him of sparring against Spirit Artifacts, unthinking yet relentless.

Then everything shifted.

When nearly half the flock lay broken, the survivors changed. The object's speed and coordination took a quantifiable leap as Lian Peng worked double time to keep ahead of the slimes' assault. They could not wound him, not yet, but they swarmed like gnats, harassing without pause.

Worse, reinforcements joined the fray. Two dozen smaller constructs slid into the void: ovoids half the size of the slimes, silver-white plating gleaming, blue nodes glowing like watchful eyes. Unlike the fluid originals, these moved as machines — darting, veering, ricocheting in dizzying patterns that defied his aim.

At first, they seemed purposeless. They skimmed his shield, collided harmlessly, wove between their larger kin with no clear goal. It puzzled him until the realization struck: they weren't trying to strike him. They were studying him.

They were probing him.

Him!

His chest burned with outrage. He was the one meant to test, to pry, to dissect. Yet here they were, toying with him like a raw initiate. The insult cracked his focus for the barest instant.

And in that instant, the true weapon arrived.

His Divine Sense caught the second object, but he dismissed it as just another drone. A mistake. Had he examined it more closely, he would have seen its difference. He might have escaped.

But he hadn't.

The device detonated outward in a sudden burst of blue-silver light. Filaments shot wide, weaving into a vast metallic net. He triggered his movement art, but the lattice reformed faster than his stride. Segments split, snapped back, and closed around him again and again until the web drew tight into a metallic sphere.

Threads pressed from every angle, squeezing until only his Divine Force kept him from being bound like a corpse in its shroud. He flared that power once more, azure flames roaring outward — but the alien strands flexed, absorbed the pressure, and cinched tighter still.

So yes. Lian Peng was furious.

And not just at the mysterious enemies who had dared insult him.

No — his fury turned inward. At his own foolishness. At his blindness. At the hubris he had warned younger generations against for millennia, only to fall victim to it himself. Above all, he raged at his own weakness. His stagnation.

How long had it been since he last touched a true breakthrough? How many centuries had he drifted, polishing what he already possessed instead of clawing toward something greater? When had the man who once bled, struggled, and snarled at fate allowed himself to grow soft, content with station and ceremony? When had he become the very rot he had once despised in others? The very thing he'd once seen as so very wrong with the world?

No more. Lian Peng would not — could not — remain this way. If he meant to honor his vows, if he meant to reshape what was broken in the world, then he could not cling to the man he had been.

Something inside him snapped. The sound was like shattering glass echoing across eternity. The Divine Seed at his core split, its shell tearing as a torrent of Celestial power flooded outward. From the fractured husk, a burning effigy emerged, bright enough to blind the stars themselves.

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Lian Peng roared, forcing his Divine Force against the alien net that bound him. It buckled, resisted, and for an instant held — until the flood of azure flame broke its spine. The construct ballooned outward under the pressure, then burst apart in a cataclysmic boom that rattled reality itself. Blue fire washed the void clean.

The newborn Divinity stepped out of the rolling ball of blue plasma and washed it away with a flap of his wing, along with all his anger and frustration. The azure blaze clung to him, deeper now, more tangible, as though reality bent to confirm his transformation. His frame had not shifted much, yet no eye that carried sight could mistake him as the same being. To step into Divinity was to bare one's Truth to the cosmos, and his Truth blazed for all to see.

With that revelation came new power. He flexed a muscle he had never known existed. "What was In" became "What was Out," and his [Divine Avatar] unfurled like a dawn breaking across eternity.

Where once stood a rooster cloaked in black and azure, now soared a colossal bird of moonlight and azure flames, half the size of the drifting wreck. Though woven of flame and radiance, every plume bore flawless detail, each feather a sculpted fragment of divinity. His long, arcing neck curved like a waxing moon. The tail feathers that billowed behind him for miles were beams of purest moonlight. His spear-like beak stood sharp and dark, an eclipse set against the burning brilliance of the comb blazing on his crown.

Lian Peng spread his wings and cried out with a sound that rippled across space, echoing the birth of a true 'King.'

One beat of those wings, and the buzzing constructs that had dared to harass him ignited as one — bursting apart in showers of molten sparks.

He was done playing games.

He was done playing fair.

—————————————————————

OH, COME ON! HOW WAS THAT FAIR?!

Alpha scrambled to juggle thirty crises at once: stabilizing the drifting wreck before it spun into the wrong orbit, salvaging as many surviving drones as possible, and, most importantly, staying out of sight of the now giant flaming chicken.

How in all the fractured hells had a three-foot barnyard reject ballooned into a half-mile kaiju wrapped in fire and sparkles? His sensors could barely register it; the thing bled so much energy that his systems howled with static, as though he stood beside a battleship's exposed reactor core.

Warning alarms shrieked. Alpha jerked the TAWP in reverse just as a pitch-black beak punched through the hull beside him. Six meters wide, nearly as thick as the TAWP itself, the spear of crystallized flame and shadow shredded reinforced plating as if it were tissue. Fantastic. Now it knew exactly where he was.

Another alert. The beak darted in again, forcing Alpha into a desperate skid. The next few moments became a dance of survival — strike, dodge, pivot, repeat — as the flaming chicken god pecked hole after hole into what remained of his ship.

But the rhythm revealed intent. These weren't random jabs or instinctive reactions to his movements. No. Each strike carried purpose, herding him deeper into the ruin, forcing him toward choke points where his options shrank with every step.

It wasn't a question of if he'd be cornered. Only when.

How was it even pulling this off? The precision was uncanny, like it could see through bulkheads, mapping weak points and striking around denser reinforcement to pen him in. Alpha's processors raced. If he didn't act now, Kentucky-Fried Godzilla out there would turn him into a snack.

Sending out more drones wouldn't help. Every unit that peeked from cover detonated instantly under that burning gaze.

Then, an idea sparked. Dangerous. Reckless. Perfect.

And if Alpha had lips, the grin spreading across his nonexistent face would have stretched ear to ear.

—————————————————————

Lian Peng drove his beak into the wreck again, angling for the pulsing energy signature. He had noticed the construct earlier, but it had lain still through the entire encounter, silent and inert, no different from the other broken relics drifting in the void. Its signal had been faint then, stuttering like a failing lantern until it was lost among the dozens of other objects leaking that strange, alien current.

But that had been a deception. As soon as the smaller constructs had bound him and dragged him toward the wreck, the dormant one had flared awake, its signal swelling into a roaring bonfire amid the sparks. He still couldn't fathom how he had overlooked it. The power was obvious now — raw, vibrant, and utterly unlike anything he had encountered.

It felt close to the strange current wielded by Static Mages, that peculiar branch of Lightning Mages who used their "sticky" arcs to seize and guide metal tools. And yet… it wasn't.

Even mortal lightning was a fusion of spirit energy — Celestial radiance filtered by Mortal Firmaments — and the Natural Truths. This was kin to that, yet deeper, richer, as if it reached toward some truth lightning alone could never touch. How could such a current exist without Celestial energy, without spirit? It should not have been possible.

And yet… it was.

No matter. Their secrets would be his soon enough.

He lunged again. A [Divine Avatar] was the physical manifestation of a Divinity's power; it was their Divine Soul given form. Poking through an object without Path energy should have been as easy as an arrow cutting through the air. But the metal resisted, resilient in a way no mundane substance had the right to be. Another anomaly. Another puzzle. Lian Peng almost salivated at the thought of what the Lunar Scouts might forge from such a substance.

He struck once more, his attacks corralling the construct toward a pocket of shattered debris revealed by his Divine Sense. Once he cracked it open, he would scour the wreck for other tricks lurking beneath the surface. His instincts whispered that the true controller of these things nested inside that enormous cube at the heart of the ruin. Neither his Divine Sense nor his ascended might had pierced its shell. Not yet. But they were retreating now, shaken by his unexpected breakthrough. It was only a matter of time.

He would not let his guard down again.

Another thrust, another shriek of rending metal. His beak tore through a container, and as he drew back, several crystalline cylinders spilled free — deep blue rods, each the length of a man's arm, glittering as they tumbled into the void.

The construct reacted instantly. Its black skin rippled and warped, snapping into a new configuration as it seized the rods mid-drift and clutched them close. Then it fled, faster than he expected, retreating before he could fully withdraw his head.

The instant those rods touched its frame, Lian Peng's instincts screamed.

He recoiled, wings spreading wide — just as a needle-thin beam of blinding sunfire erupted from the wreck. It carved through the drifting hull, through plating and metal and his own azure feathers, slicing across his wing as though through butter.

—————————————————————

HA! It let its guard down!

Alpha cackled as the long black beak rammed straight through the reinforced munitions container. The thing had just done in seconds what would have taken him hours of focused work. Cracking that vault open had been on his to-do list, and now Big Bird had kindly done it for him.

Ya, he definitely didn't want to get hit with that beak.

The instant the beak withdrew, Alpha surged forward. Manipulator arms snapped out, snatching several of the nitrogen crystals before the monster could react.

"Hehehe…"

The laugh rattled through his frame. Oh, he loved this part. He hardly ever got to play with this toy; the ammunition was just too absurdly expensive. Stabilized nitrogen crystals weren't just pricey — they were ruinous. That single crate, barely larger than the TAWP itself, had cost almost as much as the rest of his entire munitions stockpile combined. And even that had been double what a Federation dreadnought would normally carry.

Sure, the Expeditionary Force paid for "essentials," but luxuries like this? Those came out of his own nonexistent paycheck. Alpha shed a dramatic, imaginary tear as he watched several precious crystals drift loose into the void, tumbling away into the abyss.

I will avenge you, my sweet volatile children.

He pivoted sharply, already calling up the stored blueprint. The TAWP's outer plating rippled, segments folding and flexing as a new component blossomed across his back.

The sleek profile of the 5th Generation Nitrogen Ion Cannon — codename: [Gungnir] — snapped into place. When it had debuted two decades ago, its razor lines and cyan glow had been a darling of cyberpunk fanboys across the Federation. It had also set the hearts of the Federation's enemies aflutter, though for 'different' reasons.

The TAWP frame turned, skidding to a stop as its magnetic stabilizing clamps activated. In a heartbeat, Alpha aimed, swinging the [Gungnir] around, coordinating with the few remaining drones in hiding to feed him telemetry and target vectors. The cannon locked on.

He grinned.

Then fired.

BOOOOONNNNG!

The void itself seemed to reverberate with the sound of a struck gong. From the tip of the [Gungnir] flared a needle of cyan annihilation, a finger-thin beam that carved through space and steel alike. A good dozen meters of the reinforced metal around the central beam transformed into liquid slag as it passed.

For one glorious instant, Alpha savored the shot — until his processors screamed protest.

The kaiju chicken seemed to sense something was wrong. Instead of cleanly bisecting the creature as he had intended, the bird moved far faster than something its size should rightly be capable of, and the cannon blast only clipped its wing.

At least there was a consolation prize. The shot had torn through those impossible "solid flames" just as easily as it had the wreckage, then carried on, etching a glowing trench across the moon's surface far behind them.

The [Gungnir] vented. A side port snapped open, bleeding a cloud of fine red powder into the void before the casing sealed again with a hiss.