Chapter 146 - Save the Best for the Last

After the smoke slowly drifted away, the monstrous silhouette of the gigantic Cthulhu Cosmic Beast was gone, leaving behind nothing but scars on the alien terrain. Two enormous craters gaped in the ground, their edges still glowing faintly from the intense heat of the Uranium Blades’ impact. Beside them stretched a deep, canal-like trench carved into the soil, the result of the Particle Cannon’s devastating beam.

Now that I could see the full scene clearly, the shapes of the craters formed something absurd—a crude resemblance to a gigantic phallus. The realization almost made me laugh. Of all the things we could have done upon arriving on this planet, reshaping its surface into something so vulgar felt bizarrely inappropriate.

“Cosmic Beast neutralized,” Agent Feena declared in a calm, authoritative tone. “Good work, girls.”

“Is he truly gone…?” Fei murmured, her Frame Unit descending beside us with a low metallic hum.

“I’m certain he is. Not a single trace of his filthy cells could have survived the atomic-level blast. I would say Agent Feena reduced him to the very last atom,” Myrrh said, her voice dripping with smug confidence.

A cold shiver crawled down my spine. Something about this silence felt wrong.

“Hey, don’t jinx us again,” I muttered under my breath.

Suddenly, the radio on my belt emitted a sharp beep, followed by an urgent voice crackling through the static.

“On your guard! Cosmic Beast rematerialization imminent!” Agent Steve warned.

Without warning, a streak of crimson lightning erupted from deep within the planet’s surface, shooting skyward like the sudden bloom of a colossal tree in a sped-up timelapse. Its jagged branches twisted and forked through the sky, and from its heart, reality itself began to tear apart. The crimson lightning wove into a writhing trunk, and at its center, a gaping rift formed, its edges bending and distorting the air around it.

From within that rift, a massive, clawed hand emerged, scaled and ridged like an ancient dragon’s talon, its grip curling hungrily into the open air. Moments later, the monstrous head of an octopus-like titan forced its way through, its slick skin glistening under alien light. Two enormous, blood-red eyes glared down upon us, burning with unrestrained fury.

Then came its voice. It was not sound in the air, but a shattering cry in our minds, reverberating inside our skulls.

“YOU CAN NEVER DEFEAT ME! I... AM... INVINCIBLE!”

The Cthulhu Cosmic Beast rose in full, towering three hundred meters into the alien sky. Its form looked untouched by the carnage we had just dealt—it was not merely healed; it was an entirely new body, freshly conjured from the void.

We all instinctively covered our ears, though it did little to block the telepathic assault. This was the first time any of us had faced a Cosmic Beast that spoke in a human tongue. Normally, they sputtered incoherent sounds, as if spamming a keyboard at random.

“What the hell!?” one of the SENPAI WAIFUs cried. “Is this guy really immortal?”

“All WAIFUs, Formation C! Engage the enemy and hold your positions! Keep your distance!” Agent Feena’s voice cut sharply through the chaos.

“Roger!” the WAIFUs replied in unison, activating their leg and backpack thrusters to leap backward into defensive positions. They took cover behind jagged, spire-like rocks jutting from the alien terrain.

“Beam Rifle, Tower Shield, Equip!” the support units called out, triggering their WEEB Systems. In an instant, their WAIFU partners were armed with sleek, high-powered rifles and towering energy shields, the gear locking into place with a satisfying mechanical hiss.

The WAIFUs opened fire in unison, their beam rifles releasing a storm of green energy bolts that streaked through the air like a swarm of angry comets. Each shot punched through Cthulhu’s colossal form with ease, sizzling as it burned clean holes into its rubbery, alien flesh. 

For a brief moment, the monster’s body looked like a constellation of smoking wounds. But in the blink of an eye, every injury sealed over, the flesh knitting together as if time itself reversed for the creature.

Cthulhu retaliated without hesitation. Blinding beams of crimson light erupted from its eyes, zigzagging unpredictably through the battlefield. The lasers tore into the rocky cover, exploding stone into molten shards. Some WAIFUs were struck directly; their metallic limbs spun away through the air, and head units rolled across the ground before vanishing in bursts of sparks. The battlefield had descended into chaos, and it was clear we were on the losing side.

“Agent Feena, your orders!” I shouted over the storm of laser fire. “What superweapon should we use?”

Her Frame Unit turned toward me, its visor glinting in the flickering light. She shook her head slowly. “No, Zaft. This will be the professionals’ fight from here on out. You three head for the Cosmic Tree.”

“Agent Feena, are you sure?” Myrrh asked, her voice trembling with concern.

“I am sure,” Feena replied, her tone firm but calm. “We just threw the largest twin-nuclear strike in humanity’s history at that thing, and it accomplished nothing. My instincts tell me we are wasting precious time here, but if we leave this squid abomination unchecked, it will become a much greater threat. That is why I am tasking you three with ending the mission.”

My gaze shifted to the display on my WMD Series interface, where the Level 10 Superweapon icon still glowed, untouched and waiting. “I still have one card left to play. Maybe that will—”

“Save the best for last, Zaft,” Agent Feena interrupted. “You should remember that… for Myrrh’s sake.”

“Huh?” I blurted, my mouth hanging open.

“Haha, still clueless, I see,” Agent Feena replied with a faint, knowing smirk. “Anyway, I’m convinced the enemy’s goal is simply to stall for time until the Cosmic Goddess is resurrected. You three need to bypass this monster entirely. I will hold it off, but you must finish the mission quickly. I cannot guarantee we can contain this creature for long.”

Myrrh glanced at me, then at Fei. Without a word, she gave Agent Feena a firm nod. “Got it.”

Fei followed with a sharp nod of her own. I still felt uneasy about Feena’s decision, but there were no alternatives. They were trained professionals, and deep down, I had to trust they knew better than I did.

I nodded in agreement and activated my WEEB system. “Beast Transformation, Activate!” I shouted. My left arm lit up with intricate lines of glowing blue circuitry, pulsing like veins of energy. I thrust it forward toward Myrrh and Fei, enveloping them both in a surge of luminous code.

In an instant, Myrrh’s body reshaped into her towering cybernetic phoenix form, metallic feathers shimmering like molten gold. Beside her, Fei’s figure shifted into a powerful cybernetic sabertooth tiger, her fangs gleaming under the alien light.

I leapt onto the crown of Myrrh’s head, gripping the ridged plating for stability. She extended her massive talons, gently clamping around Fei’s armored frame. With a mighty beat of her wings, Myrrh launched us skyward, the wind tearing past as the battlefield shrank beneath us.

While we ascended, I switched my WEEB to the WMD Series. My left arm flared again, this time with bright sky-blue circuits tracing down to my fingertips. “Particle Accelerator, Activate!”

Myrrh’s cybernetic phoenix form shimmered with a pinkish-crimson glow, the metallic feathers catching the light like molten steel. With a deafening sonic boom, we tore through the skies, leaving a spiral of contrails in our wake.

“YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” The colossal Cthulhu bellowed, its voice pounding in my mind like a war drum. Its eyes flared with a searing crimson light, and in the next instant, a barrage of zigzagging laser beams lanced upward, streaking toward us with murderous precision.

Before they could strike, two brilliant green beams cut across the air, intercepting the attack in a crackle of energy. I whipped my gaze toward the source and saw Agent Feena, her Frame Unit braced against the recoil, both hands gripping sleek beam rifles that glowed hot from rapid fire.

“Fly away, and never look back!” she shouted, her voice sharp enough to pierce through the chaos. “That is my order!”

I gave her a firm nod, letting the moment burn into my memory, then shifted my focus to the mission. My WMD Series lit up again as I triggered another command.

“Lightning Storm, Activate!”

From Myrrh’s back, a set of spiked silver-white wings burst forth, doubling her count to six. Arcs of lightning danced between the metallic feathers, snapping and flaring like captive storms. 

With a single mighty beat, she surged forward, accelerating faster than the wind could catch us. The battlefield vanished behind, swallowed by distance, as we sped toward the heart of the chaos—the towering Cosmic Tree, the source of it all.