The fighting between the two sides had come to a complete stop. Everyone was watching a single battlefield.
A streak of golden light was locked in combat with more than a dozen dark-red streaks.
Their battle was so fierce and perilous that any outsider attempting to interfere would be torn apart in an instant.
It appeared to be one against many, but in reality, it was still a one-on-one fight. One side simply possessed the ability to create duplicates.
No matter how many dark-red machines the golden unit destroyed, as long as they were not all eliminated at once, they would quickly multiply back into a force of more than a dozen.
A machine's strength was not determined solely by its capabilities. The pilot's own abilities mattered just as much.
Asseylum now understood that point better than ever.
Mr. Kain's machine appeared evenly matched with Count Saazbaum's Kataphrakt, but in reality, he was under tremendous pressure.
In terms of overall performance, Kain's machine was actually inferior to Saazbaum's.
Without the Lambda Driver system, the difference between them would have been comparable to the gap between a Martian Kataphrakt and one built on Earth.
However, the Lambda Driver primarily consumed the pilot's mental energy, placing an enormous burden on the person operating it.
Asseylum had not previously understood just how great that burden was. Now, however, she was seated in the cockpit's copilot seat, which also served as the training position.
Through the training system and the sensors wrapped around her body, she could share Kain's sensory feedback and experience just how extraordinary his piloting truly was.
Operating at this level required both incredible reflexes and immense computational ability.
When dozens of missiles attacked, for example, the computer could analyze their trajectories, but many evasive actions still had to be executed by the pilot instead of being left to an automated system.
After all, the enemy missiles might be genuinely intelligent weapons. They could continue altering their trajectories according to the opposing pilot's commands. Under those circumstances, the computer could not predict everything, and the pilot had to make the final judgments.
The amount of mental calculation required in a single second was terrifying, and every calculation had to be followed by an equally rapid physical command. All of that placed an immense burden on the pilot.
Through their shared senses, Asseylum could understand what Kain was doing, but she was only receiving the information. She was not personally executing those maneuvers, so she did not suffer the same operational strain.
However, she faced another burden entirely unrelated to piloting.
The faster a fighter accelerated, the greater the G-forces acting upon its pilot. Anyone whose body had not undergone specialized training would be unable to withstand the strain.
Asseylum was experiencing those same crushing G-forces inside the cockpit.
In fact, her presence was preventing Kain from using his full strength.
He had to monitor her physical condition while simultaneously performing even more complicated calculations to deal with the enemy's attacks.
That was probably even more exhausting than simply fighting at full power.
Furthermore, the Lambda Driver system's mental consumption was horrifying.
Through the training system, Asseylum sensed that she could channel her own mental energy into it as fuel.
Wanting to help, she connected everything she had to the system.
The result felt as though someone had struck her directly in the brain. She nearly lost consciousness on the spot.
Only then did she understand how much mental energy Kain was consuming.
The power that had nearly emptied her mind had been enough to withstand only a few of Saazbaum's attacks, yet even that had pushed her brain to the brink of overload.
If she tried it again, she felt that her brain might burn out completely.
How many attacks had Kain already endured?
The cockpit's temperature had originally been comfortable, but now it felt like standing beneath the merciless glare of the midsummer sun.
Some of that heat might have come from the machine, but Asseylum was certain that most of it was radiating from Kain's body.
If she had been in his place, she would have died long ago.
Even as the G-forces made every bone in her body seem to groan in protest, she did her best to appear unaffected. She did not want Kain to waste any more attention worrying about her.
"What's wrong? I can feel your movements slowing down," Saazbaum said with a chuckle over the open channel.
The machine before him was undeniably powerful, and its pilot's abilities had far exceeded anything he had imagined.
If not for the advantages offered by his own Kataphrakt, his opponent's piloting skill would have completely overwhelmed him.
Without quantum duplication, Kain would have killed him countless times already.
In a sense, he had already been killed many times. An unknown number of his physical duplicates had been destroyed, but this technology prevented him from truly dying.
There was only one way to kill him. Every physical body had to be destroyed simultaneously, leaving none behind with even the slightest chance to use quantum teleportation and create another.
It was a pity that such an extraordinary man had chosen to serve the Vers royal family.
Saazbaum had no intention of attempting to recruit him again. He had already made an offer, only to be ignored.
After observing Kain's personality throughout their battle, Saazbaum understood that no offer could ever sway him.
Kain had completely classified him as prey, and Saazbaum felt exactly the same way about Kain.
Only one of them would leave this battlefield as the hunter. The other would fall as prey.
Kain's movements were slowing, and the transparent, elastic-looking energy shield surrounding his machine was visibly weakening.
Victory herself was already beckoning to Saazbaum.
"Hm? Have you given up resisting?"
The opposing machine had suddenly stopped moving altogether.
"No. I've simply finished calculating the parameters of your quantum duplication. The game is over, that's all."
This was the first time Kain had responded to him voluntarily.
Throughout the battle, Kain had been analyzing the limitations of Saazbaum's technology.
Every physical body produced through quantum teleportation was an original, but they did not each possess an independent mind.
No matter how many bodies Saazbaum created, all of them shared a single consciousness.
If each body possessed an independent mind, an immediate problem would arise. Every body would begin making its own decisions.
Furthermore, the more independently thinking duplicates there were, the more chaotic the battle would become. Even if every one of them was Saazbaum, there was no guarantee that they would coordinate perfectly.
Operating multiple bodies through a unified consciousness allowed them to achieve flawless coordination. All those separate bodies could effectively be treated as parts of a single entity.
However, a single consciousness could not control an unlimited number of physical bodies.
This did not appear to be a numerical restriction of the technology itself. It was a limitation of the operator.
More bodies required the consciousness to divide its attention among more tasks. Yet the mind's computational ability did not increase merely because it possessed additional physical forms.
Create too many, and the resulting mental burden would cause the operator's mind to collapse.
Additionally, each quantum teleportation could produce only one new body at a time. A single body could not instantly multiply into three.
The teleportation range was limited as well, and determining that range had been Kain's highest priority.
He had finally calculated it.
The entire range fell within the effective radius of his special attack.
"The game is over? It looks like you're the one who's finished."
As Saazbaum spoke, another Martian Kataphrakt under his control shot forward like lightning. Its beam blade stabbed heavily into Kain's defensive shield.
More than a dozen machines now attacked from every direction. Kain was completely surrounded.
As each machine pressed forward, Saazbaum increased the output of their beam blades. The tips of more than a dozen glowing weapons slowly sank into the shield.
At the same time, the machines released their ultra-high-voltage electricity, covering the entire area in a blazing veil of lightning.
Kain's normally invisible defensive shield was now so severely distorted that it resembled a soap bubble on the verge of bursting.
Saazbaum increased the energy output again.
It did not matter if the machines exceeded their limits and self-destructed. He still had three bodies held in reserve.
As long as they were not all destroyed, he would not die.
"Go join that naive princess in death..."
The malicious words abruptly caught in Saazbaum's throat as his consciousness nearly plunged into darkness.
It felt as though something had stirred the contents of his skull.
No, that description was not nearly horrific enough.
It was as though countless barbed needles had been driven into his brain and then ripped free all at once, tearing his nerves into innumerable pieces.
The agony did not seem to originate from his physical body. It pierced his consciousness and his very soul, making him wish he could die that instant.
Yet that same excruciating pain dragged his fading consciousness back awake.
Through his dazed senses, Saazbaum saw himself being killed.
More precisely, nearly every Kataphrakt surrounding Kain had been destroyed almost simultaneously. The golden machine was already closing in on Saazbaum's last remaining body.
What had Kain done?
There was no time to think about that now.
He only needed enough time to perform one more quantum teleportation!
Damn it!
His body could not recover from the agony tearing through his soul.
It was too late!
In the next instant, the cockpit erupted with sparks and blood mist. Kain's sword pierced through the enemy machine and tore Saazbaum's body apart.
"I... didn't... lose. Heh... heh..."
Before those words had fully faded from the open channel, Kain completely obliterated the machine before him.
He frowned as the connection went dead.
Saazbaum's final words had not sounded like the bitter refusal of a defeated man. He had sounded as though he genuinely possessed one final trump card, laughing with an arrogance that seemed to echo up from hell itself.
Twenty seconds later, Kain finally discovered what that trump card was.
The lunar base contacted them directly. The entire installation had fallen into chaos.
An enormous number of Landing Castle thrusters had been secretly installed across one hemisphere of the Moon.
Those thrusters were about to activate, forcing the Moon out of its orbit and sending it crashing into Earth!
(End of Chapter)
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