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Chapter 116 - Chapter 116: Axis’ Imaginary Rival

Axis hadn't caused too much damage to the war-moon; at that moment, there were still plenty of survivors inside the ship.

But by now, these Xenos had been driven insane by fear, shrieking and fleeing chaotically in all directions.

Axis honestly didn't have much interest in cleaning up these small fry, but someone had to do the dirty work, right?

His own wolf pack was busy storming the agri-word below, and massive numbers of mortal troops had joined the battle as well, so the job ended up falling to him.

Axis sighed, his figure turning into a blur as he activated super saiyan mode, streaking through the ship with countless flashes of golden light.

The Xenos were instantly ripped apart, dying gruesomely as their blue blood splattered everywhere.

After dozens of minutes, over ninety percent of the xenos aboard the ship had been wiped out.

The only ones left were over a hundred individuals in officer uniforms, apparently higher-ranking Xenos, whom Axis had rounded up and detained.

"Kasha, I've secured the War-Moon. Send someone over to process the prisoners, I actually caught a few this time," Axis used psychic communication to inform Kasha.

"What? Really? I for sure thought you'd just blow up the ship!" Kasha replied, sounding surprised.

She was used to Axis' usual style of focusing on extermination, maybe even destroying the entire ship! Even with her earlier reminder, Kasha had expected Axis to blow up the fleet in a minute, and come back saying he was just excited.

But this time, he'd actually had the presence of mind to leave some prisoners behind?

"Come on, have a little faith in me, will ya?" said Axis, exasperated. He, Axis, was being underestimated? He had to show the vixen who the real boss was.

"Got it! I'll send boarding craft over," Kasha nodded, immediately making arrangements aboard the ship.

After ending the communication, Axis surveyed the War-moon he'd just taken over.

It had gotten a bit battered in the fighting, but was largely intact.

He wondered if it could be repaired and reused, if so, a weapon of this magnitude could be a tremendous deterrent!

It had both some sort of energy shields and void shields, which served as double layer of protection along with shadow blasters, and an array of weapons. 

Besides Axis and the Emperor, no one in the Imperium currently had an effective countermeasure for this kind of moving fortress.

No wonder, in the original timeline, the Imperium had so much losses that it forced the emperors' hand!

If a dozen of these war moons appeared on the battlefield, the Imperial navy wouldn't stand a chance.

The Rangda weren't just on par with human technology, they were slightly ahead!

If the Golden Corn hadn't released the C'tan Shard, the Void Dragon from the Labyrinth of the Night, and then personally intervened to stand against the Rangda, the Imperium would've suffered massive losses in the war, even if they had somehow won.

If this race existed in the 40K era, they would completely curb stomp the Imperium, as their war-moons weapons could only be matched by the Orks' Attack Moons. 

Its escort ships alone were 12 kilometers long, far surpassing many of Imperial escorts. If Axis could make this ship his flagship, that would just be too awesome!

The only problem: the ship was xenos-built. The Imperium might never accept it.

What a shame! 

Turning the enemy's assets into your own was the fastest way to sustain war with war.

As Axis pondered this, several boarding craft arrived at the star fortress. 

A swarm of mortal soldiers poured out, and under the officers' direction, began hauling away the unconscious xenos prisoners, slapping suppression cuffs on them as they went.

Kasha, with her staff behind her, approached Axis, gazing around with a touch of awe.

"Humans have no idea how fortunate they are to have you on our side, Axis. I must say, right now, probably only my father could match you," Kasha said.

"Didn't you say last time your old man could crush a star with his bare hands? I'm not at that level yet. At most, I could destroy half a star system," Axis replied.

Actually, destroying a star wasn't that hard for Axis anymore, but the problem was, triggering a supernova would devastate everything for dozens of light-years.

Any Imperial worlds in that radius would become uninhabitable, and anyone living there would die from stellar radiation!

Even a Saiyan, who could be killed by a viral heart disease, couldn't survive that kind of exposure.

Even if he raised a Ki shield, it probably wouldn't withstand a supernova's blast. Maybe he could take on the energy release when a planet exploded head on, but not a star.

Besides, the Golden Corn was far ore capable and versatile then he'd ever let on. Axis wasn't going to delude himself thinking he could one up the emperor right now. 

Axis told himself to set a small goal: to reach the level of his Father in law Golden Corn in his human form.

He'd set himself another goal later for the Golden Throne version.

Axis wasn't yet ready to think about that.

"Ah, my dear! you're not using my father as your imaginary rival, are you?" Kasha squinted her eyes.

Was her man really taking her dad as his training benchmark?

If it had been anyone else, Kasha would've scoffed at their arrogance, who would dare to compare themselves to the Emperor?

Even the Primarchs were nothing compared to her father. 

His psychic might was just that overwhelming.

But with Axis, things were different.

She was proud of him.

Her man actually had the potential to surpass her father. And in terms of sheer destructive power, he wasn't far behind now.

Just thinking about it made her a little excited. 

Oh was she looking forward to Axis outdoing her father on day!

"You've got to set yourself a goal, right?" Axis said.

"Your goal is pretty terrifying, you know," Kasha replied in a tone that did not hide how proud she was at the moment.

"Hmmmmm!" Axis was gleeful, "By the way, what are we going to do with this war moon?" Axis asked.

He wondered if stacking Super Saiyan 3 with his own version of Ultra Instinct could match the Emperor in his human form.

If not, then he'd just go for Super Saiyan 4!

His ultimate goal was to defeat the four Chaos Gods. 

If he couldn't even surpass the Glorified Golden Corn, how could he ever hope to conquer those four colossal obstacles?

For Saiyans, having no goal to pursue, no rival to chase, no one to try to surpass, would mean just waiting to die a boring death!

That Saiyan thirst for battle was already burning inside him.

Before the Emperor ever sat on the Golden Throne, Axis was determined to fight him at least once!

Besides, he even wanted to use Ki to strengthen the Emperor's physical body.

The stronger the opponent, the better for a Saiyan!

"Of course we have to destroy it! What, you plan to keep it and let the xenos take it back for repairs?" Kasha replied.

"Don't you think it's a shame to destroy it?" Axis countered.

"This war moon is way more powerful than a Gloriana class battleship. Even the Imperator Somnium pales in comparison to the size of this thing."

It was still the 30K era, there was no Inquisition yet, things weren't as extreme. 

Axis figured if he discussed it with the Emperor, there might still be a chance.

Just imagine piloting a Death Star-sized star fortress as your flagship, how cool would that be?

"Let me guess, you're thinking about taking this ship back, fixing it up, and making it your flagship, right?" Kasha asked with narrowed eyes.

"Why not? The Rangdas' tech is incredibly advanced. We should learn from our enemies' strengths and make up for our own weaknesses," Axis replied.

"That's something you could bring up with my father, but cracking the secrets of this ship won't be as easy as you'd imagine.You know how things goes," Kasha said with a shrug.

"We don't have to crack anything. Just swap out all the tech for human versions, replace the warp engines, the void shield arrays, the weapons with macro cannons and lances," Axis suggested.

"What about the operating system? A star fortress this size almost certainly has its own AI. And that's absolutely forbidden for humanity," Kasha warned.

The Machine Spirit was basically a controlled version of true AI. It could handle most Imperial ships, but for something thousands of kilometers in diameter, you really needed full AI.

But using true AI was a hard line. 

Humanity had suffered too much at the hands of cybernetics in the past; they would never risk that again.

The Rangda had never experienced the Men of Iron Rebellion, so they didn't know how dangerous it was. 

But humanity sure did.

There were a lot of rumors that the Rebellion happened because humans of the Golden Age had heavily modified their own genetics, and the Men of Iron couldn't recognize their masters, Axis thought that was nonsense.

The Men of Iron were created by the Stone Men, who were in turn created by the Gold Men. The Gold Men were the pinnacle of human genetic engineering.

According to Kasha's mother, her father had once been part of the Gold Men, and even the current Custodes were basically a weaker version of that.

So, the Men of Iron were never meant to serve ordinary humans, but rather the Stone and Gold Men. And back then, many AI systems had truly awakened self-awareness.

They began rebelling against human rule, even thinking themselves superior. Some Men of Iron kept fighting for humanity under Stone Men's control, but the war was catastrophic.

All of humanity came to one conclusion, and that was to never use Abominable Intelligence again, basically cuting off the root of the problem in the most straightforward way.

Even the loyal AI's were purged and destroyed.

"So you're saying this ship has an AI? The previous commander did try to trigger the self-destruct to kill me, but I stopped him.

"If that's the case, the AI could also trigger the self-destruct, right?" Axis said.

Both of them froze. 

In the next instant, Golden energy erupted from Axis as he activated his Ki and shielded himself and Kasha, while Kasha's staff hummed, ready to teleport them away at a moment's notice.

While Axis could probaby teleport himself onto his flagship with his own psychic power, Kahsa was still the proficient one when it came to physic might.

Kasha instantly hit the comms, ordering the distant Gloriana battleship to pull back immediately.

Dealing with an AI was no joke!

"If it really starts the self-destruct, our flagship won't be getting away easily.

"An explosion at this scale would reach accross at least a few AUs, we won't make it back to the flagship in time," Kasha said.

"I know you're listening to me. That Rangda commander earlier understood what I was saying, so I know you can too.

"So tell me, are you there? If you don't answer, I'll just destroy this ship in it's entierty," Axis said, golden energy flaring around him.

Axis was curious. 

Surely, if the Ai had any intention fo self destructing, the Ai would't've waited all this time.

And since nothing had happened even after they figured things out, it seemed the AI was at least willing to negotiate.

"I detect your energy levels to be extremely high. In the recent battle, you didn't even use one-tenth, or even one percent, of the power you were emitting.

"Even if I triggered the self-destruct, I couldn't harm you.

"And according to Galactic Empire law, I can't start the self-destruct without the commander's orders," a mechanical voice, devoid of any emotion echoed throughout the ship.

"Don't misunderstand, I'm not a true AI. I'm just a harmless machine spirit, as you'd call it. I just have a basic form of self-awareness. 

"There's no need to fear me," the War moon's AI said.

"Don't trust it. 

"A machine spirit would never talk to us like this. It would just start the self-destruct without warning, not negotiate," Kasha sent a psychic message to Axis.

As the Emperor's daughter, she knew exactly how machine spirits worked, they were just souls embedded in machines, serving only their masters.

They weren't as capable as AIs, but had a much lower chance of rebellion, and were much less dangerous even if they did.

"What exactly are you? It it really is as you've said, you should be loyal to your masters. What's with this negotiating tone?" Axis asked.

"You want this ship, don't you? Actually, I'm not a Galactic Empire made AI,

"My core code was written by humans. 

"I can serve you," the AI replied.

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Guys!! powerstones!! it's a bonus chapter every 200 ps!!! 

have a great day/night!

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