Chapter 9: The Hunter and the Prey
While the Alien Lord furiously searched for Omega, the flagship began to shake violently ten minutes later, its lights flickering ominously.
BOOM!
A tremendous explosion resounded throughout the entire enemy-occupied ruined city.
All the slave armies watched in shock as intense explosive light enveloped a dozen surrounding streets within moments, reducing countless buildings to ash. A large number of slave soldiers were instantly vaporized before they could even scream.
The ninety-plus warriors led by the Alien Lord watched as a building in front of them collapsed and melted.
An incredibly powerful energy shockwave swept down the street, and endless explosive light consumed their vision.
"Ghost Warrior!" the Alien Lord roared skyward at the explosion that blazed like a small sun.
After some time passed, a massive crater appeared where buildings once stood, an empty expanse of scorch marks with wisps of black smoke rising into the sky.
The surviving xenos slave armies around the crater stared at the devastation in utter bewilderment, while the offensive of the advancing forces ground to a halt.
The human defense forces were equally astonished, erupting in cheers as if the act had been their own military's doing.
Deep underground in a collapsed sewer, a long spear extended into an empty tunnel after a thunderous roar, followed by heavy power armor covered in mud slowly crawling out.
"Good thing, I memorized the sewer map of this district in advance. Otherwise, that would have been a danger." Omega stood up with a self-deprecating laugh.
He'd been worried about the Alien Lord's mental attack, so he'd targeted the large spacecraft hovering near the rooftop instead. With his strength, infiltration went smoothly, and he fought his way through to the control room.
After a chaotic spree of destruction, the large spacecraft began to explode. He'd left himself time to reach the ground and escape, but he'd miscalculated the power of the weapons and the resulting explosion.
Typical large spacecraft had ion-heavy cannons as offensive weapons.
For a flagship like this, there was a high probability of nuclear weapons as well, not to mention the nuclear fusion engine serving as the propulsion system and any hidden antimatter weapons.
Once these high-density energy systems exploded, their power was comparable to nuclear weapons, directly clearing a large surrounding area.
Omega had fled into the sewer because the explosion's power was too strong and the shockwave too fast. Even if buried after the blast, he could force his way out by digging a passage with the Pale Spear and his heavy power armor.
He'd originally wanted to return to the surface and take advantage of the chaos to kill any surviving Elite Warriors, but the chaotic underground sewer maze wasted too much time.
After finally returning to the surface, Omega found it was already afternoon, and the intensity of the war had significantly decreased.
In the evening, Omega returned to his apartment early. After cleaning himself, he sat on the living room sofa, cleared his cluttered thoughts, and began organizing the Rangdan mental cultivation method he'd collected.
This mental or psychic cultivation method required special biological modifications from the very beginning, with varying levels of modification at different stages. It started with brain modification, then moved to full-body and organ biological augmentation.
For example, one aspect involved implanting a biological neural network throughout the entire body, allowing mental power to efficiently control the body.
This was completely different from Omega's expectation of some cultivation, magic, or fantasy leveling-up where you reach your peak and achieve perfect unity of spirit and flesh. He'd guessed wrong.
Besides the similar concept, the actual execution was completely different, all the result of bio-engineering.
His body was extremely powerful, possessing a demigod's physique that required no biological modifications. Aside from these differences, the Rangdan mental control technology, upon closer examination, proved to be exquisitely subtle.
Omega pondered and realized he could change his approach.
The biological neural network throughout the body could be altered; he could let his own mental power spread through his entire body, which could work even without a neural network.
After one night, following several modifications, Omega finally managed to create a viable method. "What should I call it now, hmm?"
Omega pondered several options, some of which were too edgy, some too old-fashioned, and calling it a system was just no. Finally, he settled on a simple name.
"Let's call it PCM, Psychic Cultivation Manual."
With his demigod strength, cultivating such a relatively low-level mental exercise method was incredibly efficient. Omega controlled his psychic energy, extending it bit by bit, spreading throughout his body.
In less than an hour, he achieved perfect unity of mind and flesh.
Omega was astonished by such rapid progress; he had directly reached the highest proficiency of an Elite Warrior.
"This is not cheating, right? Seems a little broken, or maybe it's just this body." Compared to a Rangdan warrior, Omega's physical constitution was superior by an immeasurable margin.
In the hall, Omega did a handstand, supporting his body with his right hand, gradually retracting his fingers. Before long, he supported his large body on just the tip of his nail.
"Perfect control of body and mind, now that's what you call 'Perfection'."
With a light touch, he flipped and landed softly on the ground. Omega felt this special state and nodded with satisfaction.
Knowing something was one thing, but being able to do it easily was another. With his own unique body and Rangdan's advanced psychic technology, he saw no limit to his potential.
"No matter how strong or intelligent someone is, not training and mastering yourself is stupidity, and I have no plans of being one."
Mentally, he didn't feel any obvious signs of improvement. Whether physical or mental, this body was a miracle of its own, but he was sure that if he remained consistent, he would surely break all limits.
The progress in his strength made Omega even more determined to capture more powerful Elite Warriors. He could interrogate them for more advanced Psychic knowledge or any variation of it.
'More is better', you can never hoard enough, that's what he had learned from his grinding session.'
After organizing his thoughts, he immediately piloted his aircraft and set out again for the front lines.
In the enemy-occupied city ruins, not far from yesterday's explosion crater, xenos would occasionally come to observe it, their expressions showing awe.
Among them, a squad of Elite Warriors patrolled the nearby streets, with giant war beasts several meters tall and an astonishing number of smaller war beasts maintaining constant vigilance. They lacked the confidence they'd shown when first disembarking yesterday.
On a nearby rooftop, Omega looked down at the large group of war beasts and slave armies. A cold smile crossed his face as he targeted ten Elite Warriors.
Whoosh!
He leaped directly from high in the sky, plummeting down. Countless monitoring eyes saw Omega in mid-air, but it was too late. With a thud as he landed amid rising dust, an Elite Warrior was cut in half.
Omega stood among nine Elite Warriors, with one already lying at his feet. They charged forward as the xenos Captain shouted, "It's the Ghost Warrior! All units, attack and kill him! Notify the Lord!"
Whoosh!
The spear's light sliced through one body, cutting it in half. It flew back spinning, and two Elite Warriors' heads flew off. Landing lightly, Omega was surprised at the improvement; his strength had increased so dramatically.
Though a normal person wouldn't see any difference, he could feel it in the way his muscles moved, just how more easy it became.
Whoosh!
As the xenos Captain raised his gun to shoot, Omega was already in front of him, striking upward with a diagonal slash and kicking the opponent away with a whip-like leg.
The battle was one-sided. By the time nearby war beast reinforcements arrived, the nine Elite Warriors had been killed, and one Elite Captain was knocked unconscious.
Then Omega went on a rampage, killing all the war beasts and xenos present.
Leaving a ground full of corpses, Omega departed with the heavily wounded and unconscious Elite Captain.
Not long after, a xenos spacecraft flew in and hovered high above. Upon seeing the ground littered with corpses from its monitoring, it didn't even dare land to collect the bodies. It flew away swiftly.
The Alien Lord showed no strong reaction to this either. 'Ghost's terrifying strength, combined with his stealth ability, is proving to be an annoying challenge.'
The most annoying was that this pest didn't even engage him in direct combat, making it impossible to catch him.
On the other hand, after some effort, Omega gained access to more psychic knowledge.
"How is this even considered technology at this point? Like how? If someone said this is magi, I can't even deny it."
In the following month, he didn't come across any Elite Warrior stronger than captain-level. Most Elite Warriors, in fear of him, had chosen to stay on the spacecraft in orbit and continue their command operations, while the major captain-level ones stayed directly with the Lord.
In the failed operation to capture Omega, the Rangdan suffered huge losses.
The xenos army had been attacking at the cost of losing a large number of elites and heavy weapons. But even so, the xenos army's offensive still pushed the human defense forces back on the front lines.
Relying on tactical nuclear warheads and a large number of hypersonic missile bombardments, they finally held out until the Imperium's reinforcements arrived.
[End of Chapter]