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

Lian Peng had to admit — in a way, he was enjoying himself.

Combat between Cultivators at his level often carried all the thrill of watching ice melt. Too often it devolved into contests of attrition, Truths grinding against Truths until one side collapsed beneath the weight of inevitability. No blades clashing, no desperate struggle of fists and steel. Just quiet, crushing absolutes.

This, though? This felt… alive.

He twisted aside as a ray of concentrated sunlight carved past him, answering with a feather of azure flame as wide as a fortress gate. His opponent slid around the massive cube like a predator circling its lair, the enormous construct moving with unnerving grace for something of its size. The feather struck the cube's surface and sparked, leaving only the faintest scar that smoothed over almost immediately.

Yes. That cube was special. Even among the strange artifacts scattered through the wreckage, it radiated significance. He would need time — and no small effort — to unravel its mysteries once he hauled this prize back to the surface. After all, despite the stalemate, victory was not in question. The stalemate would end, and he would stand as the last.

Why?

Because he had already understood this construct's fatal flaw.

A slit yawned open on the wand-like weapon grafted to the machine's back, spilling a cloud of glittering red dust into the void. Lian Peng's beak curved in satisfaction. He did not need to know what the dust was to understand its meaning. The connection was clear: those devastating blue rods fueled the weapon's spells. Turning a tool into something capable of wounding a Divinity was no small feat — yet even this brilliance bore a fatal weakness.

It needed fuel. External, finite fuel.

Every attempt the construct made to dart back toward the shattered container confirmed it. Each time, Lian Peng had cut it off, forcing it away with flame and fury. A Divinity could pour endless Celestial radiance into their Avatar so long as breath remained in their lungs. This machine, for all its craft, carried only as many shots as its master could scavenge. Inevitability leaned in Lian Peng's favor.

And yet… he respected it.

To stand against a newborn Divinity without wielding one's own [Divine Avatar] was no trivial feat. Whoever piloted this construct fought with skill, daring, and stubborn resilience. Anger still burned hot in Lian Peng's chest — rage at the mockery, the humiliation, the insult — but beneath it smoldered a grudging respect. Not enough to stay his talons, of course. That line had long since been crossed.

No, he would crush this construct. He would drag its hidden master from the shadows and lay their secrets bare. The Lunar Scouts would claim this strange new Path for their own, bending it to reinforce their authority. With it, the balance of power among the Divine Families could finally shift, the long centuries of strain eased at last.

Yes… The Scouts would seize this power, as was their duty. And through them, the Grand Firmament would know stability and honor once more.

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The battle with the construct had taken a strange turn when a platform flickered into being, hurling the construct sideways as if it had bounced off the battlefield itself. It took a moment for Lian Peng to comprehend what was happening. When he did, his eyes grew wide. These machines were dipping in and out of the Dragon Stream as effortlessly as frogs breaking the surface of a river.

Impossible.

How?! Sure, some creatures could naturally enter and exit the Dragon Stream; the Lunar Scouts had been studying them for hundreds of years, trying to unlock their secrets. But doing so took enormous amounts of energy, so much so that most never used the ability except to escape or ambush prey.

Yet these constructs surfaced and submerged with reckless frequency, weaving through the void until it felt as if hundreds surrounded him. Only his Divine Sense kept the illusion at bay, showing him the truth: the same dozen or so darted in circles, slipping like minnows through water.

And they weren't even alive.

That was what unsettled him most. These were not void beasts with instinctual ties to the Stream, but lifeless constructs — little more than an assembly of parts around a hollow core. The Lunar Scouts had only just begun experimenting with dragging inert objects into the Stream through tethered beasts. Even then, success was rare and costly. So how had this hidden faction leapt so far past them? What secrets let them turn such crude things into Stream-dancers?

His feathers bristled. He halted his attack. He'd be a fool not to see that the larger construct was waiting for an opening to use its dwindling charges. Instead, he spread his Divine Sense wide, one portion anchored firmly to the container of blue crystals. Twice already, he had intercepted attempts to snatch more fuel, turning aside the smaller constructs before they could slip away with their prize.

Patience, he told himself.

The strange energy shield was an issue. But if he could break through that, the rest of the construct would likely crumple with one blow.

The void grew taut with anticipation. Both sides tested, feinted, probed for weakness. He lashed out at the smaller constructs when he could, but they darted like eels through the currents, vanishing in the blink of an eye. They could not evade forever. One slip, one mistake, and the final gong of this battle would sound.

But as fate delighted in mocking him, it was Lian Peng who slipped first.

A flurry of movements drove the construct between him and the Mortal World, Relictus, looming below. The wash of Celestial energy refracted off the Firmament, blurring his Divine Sense, a haze that dulled his clarity. That fraction of a heartbeat was all it took. By the time he realized the construct had halted instead of retreating, the trap had already sprung.

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An immense surge of energy bloomed before him. A miniature sun flared into existence at the tip of the construct's weapon, radiant and terrible, and for a moment, Lian Peng froze. Fear — the kind he had not tasted since boyhood — gripped him. Memory clawed up from the marrow: standing on Odtoi as his mortal world reached its Apex, the Divine Star blazing so vast it swallowed the sky. Then, as now, he felt it — the inexorable pull, the sweet, dangerous song brushing against his soul.

The touch of an Original Truth.

Instinct moved faster than thought. He opened his beak and summoned a small golden shard from his spatial ring. Compared to his towering [Divine Avatar], it was a mote, a sliver of light. Yet its weight eclipsed him utterly. The fragment of [Marici's Final Flame] pulsed, alive with Celestial energy, resonating to the call of its twin bound within the construct's strange wand.

The resonance thundered through the void. Others would feel it. Even in the distant Celestial World, such an echo would not go unnoticed. He had to end this. Now.

His throat swelled, fire searing through his veins as he unleashed a roar that cracked across the battlefield.

"[Immortal Moonfire!]"

Moonlit flame cascaded from his maw, lancing into the shard. It drank deep, igniting with solar radiance. Dragonbreath and moonfire intertwined, solar and lunar strands braiding together until they became something greater than the sum of their parts. For they had always been kin. Solar, lunar, stellar — all fragments of the same Origin, their division no more than the folly of mortals.

From the shard burst an Origin Flame that warped space itself. It met the construct's lance of annihilation in a cataclysm that shredded the void. Reality groaned, twisted, and cracked under the weight of their collision.

His Celestial energy drained in torrents. His Avatar flickered, wings guttering like lamps in a storm. But even through the strain, he knew.

Victory was his.

For no artifice, no weapon, no desperate mimicry could overturn the immutable weight of an Original Truth.

The Origin Flames pressed harder, driving the construct back, faster and faster, until it hurtled toward the Mortal Firmament of Relictus.

…Well, that's not good.

It wasn't like he could stop his attack either. The instant he slackened, the enemy's beam would carve through his [Divine Avatar] like a blade through silk, searing his Divine Soul and leaving him crippled — or worse. Having one's Avatar torn apart was said to be agony beyond comprehension. Some never recovered, forced into the shame of becoming Fallen Divinities, condemned to scrape and claw for centuries before regaining even a fraction of their former height.

No. He had to press forward, no matter the risk.

Relictus was vast by mortal standards, a swollen world that sprawled like a jewel beneath the Firmament. There were unlikely to be settlements anywhere near where the construct would fall. If by some miracle it pierced the Firmament and slipped inside, the worst outcome would be a beast tide born of sudden, unfiltered Celestial energy flooding into the land.

Hardly a calamity. More likely a boon. Beasts, plants, even common stone would twist under the infusion, birthing strange treasures and new veins of power. Mortal cultivators dreamed of such upheavals. To them, this would be a golden age.

And the construct itself? Once the Firmament sealed, its connection to the wreck and whatever foreign puppeteer lurked there would be severed. Its shell would lie dormant until some ambitious soul unearthed it. Perhaps a lucky mortal would stumble upon the ruin centuries hence, claiming its secrets as their own. Relictus would call it a "Fallen Star." With enough wit and will, such a mortal might ride its mysteries upward, breaching the heavens to stand among the Celestials.

A tale as old as cultivation itself. His own grandfather had whispered such legends by the fire, recalling the forgotten days when twelve planets had circled the Grand Firmament. To seize fortune from the heavens was the dream of every generation.

He didn't even have to worry about the possibility that the controller might be on the construct itself. Any living thing that returned to a mortal world would suffer the wrath of that planet's Firmament. Not even the Warden could survive that fate, let alone a random barbarian, no matter how much of a fight they had put up.

Yes… The more Lian Peng thought about this, the more he realized this was about as close to a 'perfect' ending as he could imagine. Lian Peng would best all the tools and tricks of the mysterious invaders, returning home with treasures and the secrets of a new Path. All the while, some lucky mortal in the mortal world he was in charge of would find what remained of the construct and, in time, rise to join them, adding their own experience to the secrets they had gathered.

Why, it was just like a story out of a novel, wasn't it?

Lian Peng chuckled, the rush of battle tugging at something long buried. He began to understand the appeal. Perhaps, once this ordeal ended, he might indulge in a novel himself.

Maybe that new one his attendants whispered about — the tale of a Mage Golem who gained sapience and rampaged through the realms with chaos and mischief.

Unrealistic, of course. Yet… entertaining.

With a renewed surge of will, he drove more Celestial energy into the beam. The Origin Flames thickened, a torrent of blue-gold fire that pressed harder, heavier, until the opposing stream buckled. The air — or rather the fabric of space itself — rang with the sharp crack of shattering glass as the rival energy fractured and broke.

Freed of resistance, his flames screamed forward and slammed into the construct's shield. The impact hurled it downward, hammering the vessel against the Mortal Firmament of Relictus. Spiderwebs of light etched across the invisible barrier, a lattice of cracks stretching for miles. Then, with a final push, the strain broke. The sound was like river ice splitting beneath the thaw, sharp and immense.

The breach yawned wide. The Origin Flames roared through, driving the construct in a blazing plunge. It struck Relictus with cataclysmic force. The land convulsed. A crater nearly a quarter mile across ripped into a plain of kaleidoscopic grassland, shockwaves radiating outward in rings of fractured color.

Lian Peng's [Divine Avatar] shuddered and came apart in a whirl of azure fire. The Origin Flames guttered out with it, leaving only smoldering strands of blue-gold light woven into his Divine Soul. Even drained, he felt the fragment of [Marici's Final Flame] still pulsing faintly within him. Victory, hard-earned and undeniable, curved a satisfied smile across his beak.

And he would not guard his prize alone. Already, he sensed the thunder of massive energy signatures streaking from the Lunar base. His people had surely raised the alarm the moment his [Divine Avatar] appeared. Interplanetary teleportation was ruinously expensive, but certain clauses justified the cost. Reinforcements were on their way.

Drawing a deep breath of the lingering Celestial energy, Lian Peng turned his gaze back to Relictus. To his surprise, the construct still endured. Scarred, broken, stripped of guidance — but intact, lying motionless beneath the sealing Firmament.

He exhaled and lowered his head, folding one wing across the other in solemn grace. His words flowed in the old cadence, the benediction of generations past — a prayer nearly forgotten by the young:

"Good luck, my future friend, whoever you may be. May this gift I leave grant you fortune, as it once granted me. May you rise on the wings of your Truth into the Light of Immortality, and may you, in turn, uplift another, as you yourself were raised."

The Mortal Firmament smoothed over, flawless once more, as though it had never been pierced.

And with that, the battle ended.