Ch.169169. The Valiana Campaign

The result of instructing Seia to gather various indigenous life forms from the planet ‘Stone World,’ including the intelligent species Truia.

The indigenous life forms from Stone World arrived in a dormant state at the nearest monster planet in the vicinity.

The monster planet immediately established a biological research facility within its planetary strata according to our—my will, and the delivered life forms were immediately subjected to analysis procedures.

Some were dissected while still alive—that is, with their life functions maintained—to analyze their structure, while others were dissolved in nutrient glands to analyze their DNA and every component that constitutes their bodies.

And in the midst of this, I-we quite accidentally discovered a peculiar biological organ commonly found inside these indigenous life forms.

This crystal-like organ attached to the lower part of the brain, possessing a kind of psychic function, appeared quite extraordinary, prompting our-my detailed examination.

‘…This!’

Truly, it was an organ for manifesting psychic abilities that I hadn’t anticipated at all.

This biological organ, resembling a crystal formation, could emit emotion-based psychic energy from the brain to alter the surrounding environment.

To put it simply, merely by existing, they possessed the power to terraform their surroundings into an environment specialized for themselves.

So the complex landscape within that planet was the result of these indigenous life forms causing planetary changes, and Truia’s strange adaptability was a phenomenon caused by a subspecies of psychic organ unique only to them.

While other psychic organs change the surrounding environment using themselves as a medium, the Truia’s unique psychic organ changes themselves to adapt to the surrounding environment.

‘Doesn’t this make it… even easier?’

And this characteristic unique to Truia, contrasting with other indigenous life forms, was extremely advantageous for creating a biological weapon meant to selectively exterminate only them.

All we needed to do was create either a disease that only affects those with the psychic organ carrying Truia’s unique self-modifying mutation function, or a biological weapon that identifies and targets that psychic organ.

And our-my thoughts were leaning toward the latter option.

Realistically speaking, diseases could be countered through various methods, and being fundamentally a “disease,” they wouldn’t withstand determined sterilization.

A biological weapon, however—specifically, the killer nanomachine virus I-we decided to use directly—is somewhat different.

The moment it’s dispersed, it identifies the Truia’s unique psychic organ, attaches to that individual, and begins reproducing inside the body, using the Truia’s flesh to produce more nanomachine viruses.

The nanomachine viruses produced by consuming all the body’s energy then decompose the remaining husk of the Truia’s corpse for nutrients—

The time from the nanomachine’s entry into the body until this point is about 3 minutes.

In just the time it takes to cook instant noodles, the nanomachine virus consumes one Truia, then immediately disperses toward nearby Truia, turning the surroundings into chaos.

Moreover, while it’s called a virus, this nanomachine virus is essentially a machine made of protein, capable of physically penetrating protective suits or walls, and immune to sterilization or antiviral medications.

It can even survive in the air for about 300 years, and since its infection is essentially a physical phenomenon, in emergencies, it can cluster together like fog and grind up any living being that enters.

Created solely to exterminate the Truia, this virus began mass production in empty spaces of nearby star systems as soon as its basic design was completed, meaning the Truia would soon face extinction.

Meanwhile, I-we left the Truia problem to Seia, but became interested in the psychic ability of these indigenous life forms to transform their surroundings to suit themselves.

While the principle itself is similar to the method I use when descending into this material universe and thus not particularly noteworthy, I-we judged that the organ generating the psychic energy was worth attention.

It has too many potential uses, and if utilized well, could be applied to high-dimensional, conceptual weapons currently under development, such as mass data weaponry.

However, as testing is fundamentally necessary before full-scale utilization, I-we decided to create experimental monsters equipped with this organ as a form of testing.

After deciding to deploy these experimental monsters in actual combat, I-we selected the Valiana star system as the location.

※ ※ ※

The Valiana star system.

Uniquely, it contains three Earth-type planets habitable without terraforming, and adding planets and moons that can be terraformed, it offers a total of 21 habitable regions.

It’s also quite wealthy thanks to a moon where the rare psychic-knight mineral can be mined, albeit in limited quantities, making it one of the few planets where the planetary defense force is better armed than the federal army.

The total population of the planetary system is about 600 billion.

Though this may seem excessive, considering that there are over seven planets specially modified for habitation where life originally couldn’t exist, the population is surprisingly small.

The entire planetary system has a unique yet well-integrated federal form, similar to a commonwealth—loose yet with a unified government.

It’s relatively close to monster territory and particularly near active war fronts, but it’s actually much safer than expected due to a massive space naval base nearby.

Therefore, to use this planetary system as an isolated experimental laboratory, I-we had to block the intervention of that space naval base.

‘Hoit, here we go!’

Only after creating a psychic storm—something I seem to be using more frequently these days—to surround the naval base could I-we deploy the infiltration fleet.

The monsters to be used in this experiment are all newly developed, and naturally, the ships are also equipped with terraforming technology like the new monsters.

The difference is that the psychic phenomenon generators installed on these ships don’t terraform the surrounding environment like other monsters do, but rather change their own form to match the surroundings—a kind of stealth function.

While their performance as ships might not be exceptional due to their focus on mobility and cargo capacity, they are certainly more suitable than anything else for transport purposes.

Thus, all 21 ships—one assigned to each planet—these 30km-class super-large vessels amazingly arrived near each planet without being detected—

‘Deploy!’

They immediately revealed themselves and released countless monster landing pods from their lower sections while simultaneously attacking the planets with their mounted weapons.

Of course, most of these direct attack attempts by the ships were wasted in vain.

Even though the planetary shield that normally surrounds the entire planet might be turned off during normal times, space defense turrets are always active.

Moreover, with various armed merchant vessels and planetary defense navy ships patrolling the planet’s surface, the ships themselves were pathetically destroyed and collapsed, but…

The true invasion was just beginning from this point.

The landing pods for deploying the new monsters were about the size of a 20-story building, specially made without independent navigation capabilities, designed solely to deliver monsters to the ground.

Naturally, the planets tried to intercept these landing… or rather, landing pods with planetary anti-air systems or shields surrounding the entire planet, but something was strange.

The battleship-grade lasers fired by anti-air laser turrets gradually faded as they approached the landing pods until they eventually disappeared, and the shields also faded like the lasers before being destroyed by physical force.

This, too, was obviously phenomenal protection through environmental terraforming—psychic energy that transformed the surroundings into a state where “no material exists,” neutralizing attacks and causing shields to thin.

And having repelled all interference, the escape pods adjusted their speed appropriately as they neared the ground to prevent damage to the monsters inside.

KWAAAAAANG—!!!!

With a thunderous sound, the landed pods began to pour out their monsters, and thus the Valiana War began.