Birth Of The Crafts-God

"We have an incoming vessel."

On board William's shuttle, a member of the crew suddenly stood up and notified everyone on board, including those on the other two shuttles.

William narrowed his eyes as he stared at the 'obstacle' on the radar.

"Have the 'Little Star' take on the other side. Trojan, be prepared to provide support when needed." William ordered with a cold voice.

'Little Star' was the name of the second shuttle, and ironically, the largest. It was large enough to be a cargo-type shuttle, but was fitted with powerful weaponry and defence shields. The stellar engine was also remarkable and powerful enough to enter space. Because of this, the Little Star was classified as a military-grade cargo vessel, although barely. As a result, it was mostly used by paramilitary forces.

"Unknown vessel with the communication profile zTC-872-b4, Delta Transporter, please identify for yourself?"

To facilitate communications between shuttles, there were two channels; the private channel and the general/public channel. Each fleet, unit or organisation could designate a specific frequency and use that as their private channel, but the general channel remained the same even one hundred solar systems away. Due to this uniformity, it was easy to prevent a scenario where one wiped out a friendly force without knowing so.

The code formed of words and letters was the advancing shuttle's IP address (Intranet Protocol as opposed to Earth's Internet Protocol) of the shuttle. The latter two words were the model for the shuttle. It was a Delta Transporter shuttle, and by mentioning it with the IP address, the speaker clarified who they were talking to.

However, despite such efforts, there was no response from the other side. Instead, it approached the Little Star.

"I repeat, Delta Transporter zTC, please identify yourself and state your objective."

Silence once again pervaded the communication channel as the crew on board the Delta Transporter made no effort to respond.

"Take it down."

The commander of the Little Star and one of the nine men on board, was a close aide of William. It was because of his identity that he led the shuttle and was sent to handle the newcomers.

Seeing that they didn't respond, he gave the order for the shuttle to be shut down.

While this sounded extreme, the man had his reasons.

First, their current location was secluded and it was technically impossible for anyone to be here especially since it was in the depths of the Millennium Mountains, along unexplored territory. In fact, the only reason William knew about it was because one of his men got lost during an expedition in the past.

The second reason was because of the presence of the Aión source and the absence of their enemies in the cave. There was a possibility that the escapees had requested for backup. Although it didn't make sense for the backup to have arrived so quickly, that was only on the condition that they weren't on their way from the start. After all, today was meant to be the day the Aión source matured, so it made sense for reinforcements to arrive, to help with the harvesting and pick up their men. Chances were that the reinforcements were close by and received the call for help, speeding over towards them.

The final reason was because, despite his attempts, the other side refused to respond. Since they were being so stubborn, the man felt it was only natural that they experienced what happens when one is stubborn. In others words, fuck around and find out.

Just as the crew took the commands and charged up their blasters, a beam of red light shot from the Delta Transporter and struck them. However, a transparent shield happened to have been activated earlier and the beam collided into the shield.

*Boom*

An explosion erupted on the shield with the impact transmitting from the shield and affecting the Little Star. The damage wasn't much, leaving the shuttle rocking slightly in midair, but the shield was severely damaged.

"Shield energy down by forty percent!"

"That wasn't an ordinary shot. Analysis shows it was fired from a portable Black Mountain canon. Those are illegal weapons!"

Red lights flashed and alarms blared as the situation inside of the shuttle became intense. This was because of the reports by the two men in charge of controlling the shuttle.

That one shot had consumed forty percent of the shield's energy which was astonishing. To understand how insane this was, one should recall that the Little Star was a military grade vessel with the ability to go into space. As such, its defences were top-notch amongst shuttles available to the public. Its shield was the same and could even survive the assault of a horde of fourth level Apertures Opening stage desolate beasts numbering one hundred.

Despite such a breathtaking résumé, the vessel had just lost forty percent of its shield energy with one hit. The only explanation for this was that the attack was powerful, and so too was the medium of the attack.

In this case, it was the second report that explained that, yet this explanation did nothing to calm their hearts.

A Black Mountain canon.

This was a true military grade vestige, unlike the Little Star that snuck into this category. The Black Mountain canon was so named because one shot from it was enough to wipe out a mountain from the face of Eretre. The energy behind each shot was both potent and formidable, making this weapon an undeniable figure of war. Usually, it was used by the military to combat large scale desolate beast hordes or powerful desolate beasts with a huge body.

Because of the devastating power of this weapon, it wasn't available to the public, and even in the military, few militaries could get a hold of it. For instance, the Baylands city-state's official military did not have this weapon in their arsenal. The Blue Springs City's and Trundel City's armies, however, did. This was because of their close proximity to the Millennium Mountains, which was a host to various powerful desolate beasts.

Seeing such a weapon, mounted onto a transporter shuttle, the crew on board the Little Star werrr shocked to stupor. They began wondering who exactly was the party inside that vehicle.