From high above, a mass of green-skinned monsters was crammed together, writhing in a heaving swarm.
Then suddenly, the greenskins began to bulrow upward. It was as if the ground beneath a huge pile of them were swelling, like some monstrous mound rising under a living stack.
Only when that bulge rose high enough did the truth become clear. Countless Orks had piled themselves onto a flying craft, almost completely burying it, wrapping it in a layer of Ork flesh.
In the next instant, the craft smashed past the speed of sound. The speed of its sudden acceleration produced a vapor cone, the compressed air forcing moisture to condense into cloud.
So a great mass of white mist exploded in place as well.
At the same time, huge numbers of Orks were flung away.
They were like toys made of building blocks. Once hurled off and slammed down hard, their bodies shattered into several pieces.
But not all of them were thrown free. Quite a few Orks still clung to the ship's surface.
The weapons in their hands could not dent the hull enough for them to hook themselves in place, so they used other methods instead, especially a certain kind of slime that let them stick fast to the ship.
They desperately wanted that toy. They wanted to tear it apart, and they also wanted to fight the prey inside it.
So whatever they had in hand, they smashed with it like mad.
If they had no weapon, they pounded with their fists and clawed with their nails.
Some even used headbutts, or sank their fangs in viciously, trying to chew the thing open.
A few smarter ones were already feeling around for switches, seams, and possible entry points.
"WAAAGH!!!"
One of them could not help bellowing in excitement after noticing it was rising farther and farther away from the ground.
That height thrilled it so much that it began pounding its chest with both hands and jumping around.
As a result, it forgot that it was standing on an object moving at extreme speed, and it was flung right off.
Like a bowling ball shot through the air, it smashed into several of its own companions and sent them flying too.
The ones that remained were still stuck like gum that could not be shaken off, but once the ship began violently scraping against the atmosphere, the temperature shot upward at an astonishing rate.
The Orks still clinging to it melted and carbonized almost like plastic, turning into countless sparks that drifted away.
After breaking through the atmosphere and reaching space, it looked like a tiny handful of individuals were still stuck fast, not yet burned to ash.
But when the ship finally braked to a halt above sea level, its hull was already spotless.
The extreme heat had disinfected it clean of the Orks, as though they were some kind of biological contamination.
Then suddenly, an entrance opened in the ocean in a deeply bizarre way, like the petals of a kaleidoscope unfolding into a hole, yet no seawater poured into it.
The water looked as though it had turned solid.
Once the opening fully unfolded, the metal passage descending into unfathomable depths gave the impression of the muzzle of some colossal cannon.
In reality, it was a high-speed passage leading straight down to the planetary core.
Once inside, it became a spiral tractor-beam tunnel.
Since the tractor beam was being used to move the ship, the ship itself did not need to fly. It was simply dragged forward.
After entering the layer of the energy engine, the tractor beam carried the ship weaving back and forth through gigantic "blades of light" enlarged countless times over, all pointing toward the core. The scene was spectacular.
Ten minutes later, it reached the core and entered the space where the other ship was located.
Next, that other ship, which was itself a weapon, would be grafted onto this one like a suit of exoskeletal armor.
And once this combination was complete, that ship, the one that was itself a weapon, would leave the core and shut down ghost mode.
In other words, this planet would fall back into realspace.
Begin.
The two ships started combining with each other.
There was none of the dramatic transforming and recombining one might have imagined.
It was simply like a person putting on a suit of exoskeletal armor. It was fitted right over it.
As for dealing with the greenskins on the surface...
"WAAAGH!!!"
"WAAAGH!!!"
"WAAAGH!!!"
Countless Orks were howling as they all rushed toward a single location.
According to their companions, the thing that had flown into the sky had come back down again at the sea.
So they were all swarming in that direction.
"WAAAGH!!!"
One Ork hanging onto the side kicked several others off.
The reason was simple: the craft was overloaded. If this kept up, it would fly too slowly to catch up with the others, and it might even crash.
And the sea was very close. Once airborne, they could already see the coastline immediately.
"WAAAGH!!?"
Something strange had happened to the ocean. Huge numbers of bubbles were rising, the sea was roiling, and thick white steam was pouring upward.
The Orks that witnessed it did not understand what it meant, but the sight only made them howl even more excitedly.
Then, almost at once, they realized something was wrong.
The temperature in the air was rising rapidly.
And if one looked carefully at the ground, the changes there were even more dramatic. The vegetation and everything else covering the surface were melting away like plastic under intense heat.
As for their own kin, one after another, they looked like...
Yes, that was it.
It was exactly the same as the kind of roasting they themselves had done before.
Earlier, they had dug up an enormous sheet of metal, then thrown their food onto it, the symbiotic creatures that were also their mounts and pets, while building a fire underneath it.
They had grilled them like that, and to be fair, they had tasted pretty good.
But now, the land itself seemed to have turned into a gigantic iron griddle, with the underground continuously heating it up.
Was this trying to turn them into teppanyaki?
"WAAAGH!!!"
They roared as their aircraft broke apart.
The ground below was visibly heating to a glowing red.
That intense heat ignited the mostly wooden craft as well, causing it to disintegrate.
...
[Asuna: That kind of high-temperature sterilization should have wiped them out completely, right?]
[Whisperer: If the whole surface has been vitrified and they can still survive, I honestly don't know what else to call a species that monstrous.]
[Tendo Civilian Security Company: Planet-scale BBQ.]
[Fallen Angel Kuroneko: That comment is painfully accurate.]
Of course, the livestream operated from a god's-eye perspective centered on the streamer, but even that god's-eye view had its limits.
Right now, the streamer was in the core control room, operating the massive emission device heating the surface, so there was no way to directly see what was happening on the ground.
However, the control room had outside surveillance feeds, including orbital monitoring images, and they were able to use the god's-eye view to watch those monitors.
They could see exactly how the surface was being heated, how it was being burned until it looked like glazed glass.
The scene really was unprecedentedly spectacular.
Then, in one of the surveillance feeds, something ominous suddenly appeared right up close.
It was the Orks' Attack Moon.
(End of Chapter)
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