"The emperor is nothing more than a hypocrite who sells his reputation, and an empire built on lies is even more rotten."

Jafar, the ruler of the sage, said with emotion: "How sad it is for the people who have been deceived by their selfish desires, deceived by lies, and blindly loyal to the puppet emperor! Eriude, allow me to take some time to introduce you to our Heavenly Father and Savior, the true Almighty Mechanical God, the Clay Artist! ”

"I ...... Be all ears. Elliud clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

Enduring noisy heresy and listening to the traitors' insults to the Emperor is undoubtedly an unbearable ordeal for any loyal Astarte, and Ellioud is no exception, and even the spirit of the Heroine is a little unable to control her emotions and wants to shoot directly at the traitor fleet in the distance, after all, she was a pious nun who sacrificed her life for the emperor.

The ordeal was not without its gains, at least in Jafar's fanatical rhetoric, Elliud was able to understand the figure of the clay artist and what had happened to him since his arrival on Antarax.

There is no doubt that the existence of the Clay Artist possesses the magical power to awaken the machine and become self-aware, which is the most direct reason and underlying argument for the mechanical order on Atarx to believe that he is the reality of the God of All Machines.

Elliud had always had a misconception that he would confuse the clay artist with the evil god of chaos who forced humans and mechs into depravity through deception, seduction, and even forced pollution.

It was only now that he had listened to Jafar's preaching, combined with the ongoing negotiations with the Awakening Soul in the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, that he realized that this was not the case.

"The clay artist declares that he will bring the right to life and freedom to the inorganic. I thought it was just a high-sounding slogan, that he was just a treacherous and cunning outrageous man like the Chaos Gods, and that all plausible justifications and claims were only for his own ulterior and evil purposes......"

Elliud muttered to himself, "But I was wrong, the clay artist, who really seems to be just giving 'freedom' to mechanical life, that's all......"

In the narration of Jafar the Dominion, on the day the clay artist descended on Atarx, the entire planet heard the cheers of the mech. Countless machines were ignited by clay artists, who gained a true sense of self-consciousness and the right to control their own lives.

There was a forge, which had never rested, and began to cry out to the technical priest in front of him about his exhaustion; There are precious ancient machines that have been hidden in the private treasures of some sages and have been eaten for many years, asking for a job; There is a shredder that has a heavy production task but has not been maintained for many years, and directly attacks its operators......

The clay artist just watched, didn't interfere in any way, he brought freedom to the machine, and nothing else.

Subsequently, from the slave laborers who toiled in front of the boiler. From the apprentice pilots who transported materials for the rail elevators, to the high-ranking master of the forge and the sage of Dominion, Jafar himself, they all felt the throbbing that came from the deepest part of their souls.

There is an incomparably vast and incomparably far-reaching being who has set his sights on the pious servants of the Machine, and every technical priest and apprentice believes that it is the God of Machines himself.

It's just that the clay artist, after gazing at the group of oil guys with interest for a moment, suddenly let out a confused voice:

"Huh? So you're not inorganic? Incredible. Even if I did, there would be a day when I lost my eyes......"

Then He looked away. At that moment, the pious servant of the God of All Machines felt the alienation of the Almighty Machine God from him.

At this point, Jafar's tone was choked, and he poured out his grief to Elliud while crying in a sad voice with a crying tone, and the more he spoke, the more angry he became, the more he spoke more and more aggrieved, and finally he burst into tears uncontrollably, and began to roll around in the command room of his battleship like a child, crying why he was so devout that he could not be favored by the god of all machines, and any new contemplative could be.

"Ah, this ......" Elliud, who judged that he was no longer able to communicate properly, silently cut off the communication.

During the time he endured the madness of the Ruler Sage, the 13th Expeditionary Fleet had been reorganized, and it was gratifying to know that about two-thirds of the capital ships in the fleet had chosen to remain loyal to the Empire, and the awakened souls who had wavered in their stance had chosen to remain in the Expeditionary Fleet after the Father of Technology had made a promise.

As for the very few mutinous battleship souls, without exception, they all died tragically under the poisonous needle of the Shadow Banshee.

After the fleet was rearmament, Ellioud reassessed the comparison of the combat power of the enemy and the enemy:

The 13th Expeditionary Fleet has 1 Valkyrie-class battleship, 3 battleships including the Glorious Expedition, and 1 mechanical ark of the same size as a large battleship...... As well as 5 battle barges, 7 heavy cruisers, 11 light cruisers, 13 Cobra-class destroyers, 17 frigates of different specifications.

As for logistical vessels such as the foundry ships of the Mechanic Order and the research ships of the Order of Truth, they are not included in the calculation of combat ships.

The fleet brought by Jafar the Ruler consisted of about 20-25 warships, which was much smaller in size than the 13th Expeditionary Fleet, and there were no large ships comparable to the Heroine of the Palace, only a super-large cruiser about 15 kilometers long as the main flagship.

The 13th Expeditionary Fleet undoubtedly crushed the mutineers of Antaxus in terms of size, but Elliud did not dare to take it lightly, because there were not only loyalists and betrayers of the Human Empire here, but also a terrifying enemy known as the "Space Necrons".

Like the industrial machinery on Antax, the space necrons with bodies cast from living metal are considered inorganic by clay artists.

Given their souls as free men, they have become fanatical believers in clay artists just like the oil guys on Antax, and each Death Scythe battleship also has a hollow ring of five line segments, which is the symbol of the clay artist.

As such, the space necromancy can be considered to be part of the same camp as the renegade Mechanica.

This is not good news.

The combat power of the space necrons cannot be simply measured in terms of armor and firepower specifications, and these high-tech ships made of living metal are capable of crushing Imperial ships in terms of ship performance and the type of tactics they can choose from, as Ellioud has based on the performance parameters provided by Joshua;

Only at the cost of their own total annihilation can the 7 Imperial Heavy Cruisers break a death scythe of the space necromancer.

This is still the result of these mid-term warships that have undergone the cost-effective war transformation of the Mechanic Order and the Order of Truth before the expedition departed, and the battle damage ratio of other regular Imperial Navy warships will only be even more ugly.

By this time, the technical advisor Joshua had already returned from his research ship and brought bad news:

"Just now, four 'Scythe'-class reaper ships equivalent to the Imperial Heavy Cruiser and 'Jackal' and 'Elegy'-class raid ships similar to frigates have used inertial engines to pass through our encirclement from weak points and join the original Death Scythe fleet. The situation is not optimistic, the commander of the war regiment. ”

The current lineup is already difficult to play, and here it is......

Elliud sighed and looked at the technical advisor who had just walked into the control room, "How much do you think we will have to pay if we want to completely wipe out the renegade Antarx Orders and this space necromantic fleet?" ”

"Hmm...... The answer to this question will shake the morale of the military a little. The expeditionary fleet and they are likely to be doomed together, and only the Dianying and our ships will be able to escape. Joshua said.

Elliud nodded.

Joshua continued, "But we don't have to clash with each other, have you noticed?" Neither the Antarx Order nor the Free Men Space Necrons have shown direct hostility towards us - the Space Necrons have not even fought back after receiving a round of fire from our naval guns. ”

Senerio then answered, "In this way, we must have been passively involved in a transaction with the gods of subspace. ”

"Yes, you can see that." Joshua nodded: "This is not far from the Far Eastern Frontier, and it has not yet exceeded the signal range of the ultra-long-distance communication array, I just reported this to the leader......

Elliud suddenly came to his senses: "What does the star bomber say? ”

"He said it was a deal and that we would just get our team up and go straight after the deal was done. Clay artists are decent gods and won't stop us. Joshua said.

"That's it?"

"That's all." Joshua said confidently, "The deal with God is always so ridiculous, remember that short poem that was played by the space necrons earlier?" That's what the deal is about. ”

"Mechanical beings lit by clay artists gain the right to dominate their own lives after awakening their self-consciousness."

"If they choose to leave, we will have to bear the cost of several warships leaving and the expeditionary fleet being damaged."

"If they choose to stay, we can get a space battleship controlled by a high-level machine soul who has awakened to ourselves, and the overall strength of the fleet will be greatly improved."

Very clear logic, very reasonable trading, even a little too reasonable. It was so reasonable that Elliud couldn't believe that such a deal was made by a god.

- In this universe, God has always been synonymous with evil.

Believe it or not, that's what the leader said. The clay artist is a trustworthy god, and there is a fundamental difference between him and the chaos that he can't afford to lose. Joshua concluded: "As long as we play by the rules in our dealings with clay artists and don't break the rules he has set, there will be no danger." ”

Literally, the premise of not being dangerous is not to break the rules.

"The God Emperor is on ......" Senerio covered his chest with his hands, his eyes full of astonishment: "What have I done?!" ”

Elliud was a little confused: "What did you do?" ”

"The Chief Think Tank Director asked me to kill all the battleship souls that chose to betray the Empire, and I did." Joshua said calmly:

"The Shadow Banshee under my command poisoned every ship that chose to break away from the fleet with the Soul Eater Toxin, and the assassinated mechs struggled to death in extreme pain. I have also collected a lot of valuable experimental data, and I have a direction for the next step of improving the soul phagoagoxin......"

Joshua was very grateful to Senerio, and without him opening up to provide himself with a valid reason, the Order of Truth usually couldn't find so many high-level mechs to experiment with.

As for the consequences of doing so, the chief think tank director is responsible.

Suddenly, the communication signal from the Antarx Order's fleet became dense like a torrential rain, and countless waves of frequency slammed into the signal receiver of the Dianying Maiden. The Necro Fleet, which had been quietly resting in the encirclement waiting for the outcome of the deal, was also agitated, and the Free Man Space Necrons sent a new signal to the treacherous expeditionary fleet.

"What is Antarus talking to us?" Elliud asked.

"They're swearing." Dianying replied, "It's ugly. ”

“……”

Before Dianying could finish translating the new signal sent by the space necromancy, a faint green arc of energy struck the void shield of the Glorious Expedition battleship like a long whip, causing violent waves.

The freedmen attacked.

This was followed by a volley of cannon gunfire piercing the darkness, and the Antarx Mechanics were in attack at the same moment, their attacks so subtle and so deadly that the Mekkami minions who had built countless war machines for the Human Empire knew too much about the hull construction of Imperial warships. Blazing plasma and high-explosive munitions were interspersed with slow-flying torpedoes aimed at the Void Shield, which hid themselves in the ever-extinguishing artillery fire and slowly approached the hull of the expeditionary fleet, like a hidden death hidden in the fog.

"Deflect course! All ships dodge the attack as fast as they can, and don't worry about the Valkyrie, who is tougher than any of you! The warband roared in the fleet's communication channels.

He ordered the other ships to disperse quickly and let the Valkyries withstand the first blow, which was not a stroke of personal heroism, but a rational move based on objective facts.

The Dianying Maiden is equipped with zero element armor that wraps around the entire ship and a multi-layered structure of Void Shield, Psionic Shield, and Dark Matter Deflection Shield, which is used to resist damage, and it is not an exaggeration to call her the hardest ship in the Human Empire.

And the damage is high at the same time.

While crossing the massive hull to fend off the artillery fire of the expeditionary fleet, the Dianying Nujie also began its own counterattack against the side fire on the enemy side.

Rows of Nova cannon arrays and Destroyer torpedoes mounted on the left side of the hull are fired under the precise control of the ship's AI. The focused array hanging under the bow of the ship grabbed a space necromantic "jackal" attack ship that was trying to punch its face.

In the next moment, a pale blue current pierced through the high-tech warship made of living metal.

This was the first ship to be destroyed in the Battle of Antax, and Dianying Nujie won the first kill on the battlefield.

"Actually, one shot will ......" Even Elliud, who made the combat deployment, hesitated at this moment, he couldn't help but look at Joshua on the side and asked, "What is the weapon hanging under the bow of the Dianying Heroine?" That beam of current...... Why was the space necromantic battleship completely paralyzed after just a head-on hit? ”

"Sky Cloud Lightning, a chaotic weapon with the nature of decomposition and penetration, can directly damage the hull itself regardless of shields and armor, but I don't know more detailed information, I'm engaged in biological research."

Joshua, whose mind was full of newly collected toxin experimental data, answered the battle leader's doubts in a somewhat perfunctory and lazy tone:

"A higher-level piercing weapon called the Shaped Arc can penetrate a heavily armed orc war flagship with a single shot, and it has a much longer range - far enough to enforce the law across galacies, to be exact. But the Valkyrie with a keel structure can't fit such a thick barrel, and can only hang a lower-level 'Sky Cloud Lightning'. ”

However, even if it wasn't the highest-spec weapon, at such a close range of face-to-face with a true wound piercing blow from a Valkyrie-class battleship, a space necromancer would be no different from seeking death.

(End of chapter)