harleyscars Chapter 93 Forging 938.M41
Chapter 93 Forging 938.M41
Chapter 93 Forging 938.M41
Enpu stepped out of his office. Cool white light shone on the corridor supported by a metallic frame. This was Wang Shu's office, deep within this asteroid. He had spent most of his time here since the Garros underground industrial system had taken shape.
He walked through several airtight doors toward the dock.
Wangshu stretched out in the darkness. This celestial body, about 300 kilometers in diameter, was originally irregularly shaped—its surface was pitted and uneven, with no two meridians having the same curvature. Now, its surface is being covered piece by piece with a thick layer of curved ceramic steel armor. Copper-colored pipes crisscross at the seams of the armor, and huge artificial lampposts are neatly arranged along the edges of the outer shell, bathing the entire celestial body in a cold white light. The material for the armor comes from ore extracted from the asteroid belt by a mining ship deep within it, transported back to the smelter inside Wangshu, reduced to ceramic steel ingots, and then cast into curved plates. The laying work continues, and large areas of exposed rock, dark and rough under the light of the lampposts, contrast sharply with the silver-gray armored areas.
The adamantine framework extends from within, firmly anchoring the armor plates to the original rock mass. Each adamantine beam, hand-crafted by Enp, is deeply embedded in the rock strata, locking the entire planet's structure in place to prevent it from falling apart during future maneuvers. The adamantine framework, stretching for tens of kilometers, interweaves and grows within the rock mass, supporting the dock cavities, reactor compartments, production line clusters, and computing nodes.
The weapon mounts are laid out in stages along the axis of the outer shell. The mounting positions for the macro cannons have already been reserved with reinforced adamantium bases; the rotating mechanism interfaces of the large-caliber turrets are encapsulated beneath the armor plates, awaiting installation; the bases of the light spear turrets also have pre-reserved depth-calibrated rails; the interfaces for the point defense arrays are arranged in rows along the armor seams; and the power and data ports for the rapid-fire turrets are already embedded. In future plans, the outer shell of the Wangshu will also integrate a void shield generator array and torpedo tubes.
The core module lies at the deepest part of Wangshu. Enpu passed through several airtight doors made of refined gold and stood on the observation platform. The low-frequency hum of dozens of giant fusion reactors traveled through the refined gold framework several kilometers long to the platform, causing the refined gold railings to tremble slightly. Dozens of servant production lines were rapidly expanding here—assembly lines designed for the space industry. Each batch of new servants rolling off the line was directly put into the construction of Wangshu.
This is Garros's contemplative mastermind extending into Wangshu.
Enpu turned and walked toward the dock.
The dock cavity, stretching for kilometers, extends into the distance supported by a high-gold framework, its dome so high that even the beams of searchlights cannot reach its top. The dock walls on both sides are filled with workstations and maintenance platforms, and the gantry cranes of rail-mounted cranes are arranged along the arc of the dome.
This is the shipyard of Wangshu. Not the dry docks that float in orbit like those of the Imperial Navy, but a giant shipbuilding facility embedded in a celestial body.
At the dock, the first two batches of ore-mining vessels have already been launched. The keel of the third batch is being laid, and the design drawings for the fourth batch are already scheduled in the database. All of these are built by the industrial system of Wangshu, this small foundry world.
These mining ships were named the "Metis-class." The two-kilometer-long hulls exhibited a rugged, utilitarian silhouette, with four heavy plasma-cutting beam launchers embedded in the bow. During operations, the cutting beams sliced the asteroids from their cores, and the fragmented rock was dragged by the traction beams into the processing compartments in the hull's belly, where it was decomposed and refined in a high-temperature furnace, reduced to crude metal ingots. The ore, after initial processing, was stacked in the cargo holds and periodically transported by the mining ships to the smelting area in Wangshu for further refining. They were the first tentacles extending outward from the Garros industrial system—not warships, but the stomachs of a war machine.
But the airspace reserved at the deepest part of the dock is Enpu's real target for this trip—a foundry ark.
He stood before the keel base. A small section of the adamantite skeleton had already extended from the base, its cross-section gleaming with a cold gray sheen under the light. This section of the keel was sculpted by Enp himself. Following his plan, the mainframe had its servants complete the surrounding bulkheads and piping.
The plan was based on the wreckage of a mechanical ark deep within a space wreck, combined with blueprints of industrial ship debris previously obtained from the Lucis wreckage and other space wreckage. The ark blueprints obtained from the Istvan River served as the main structure; although only one-third remained, the skeleton, bulkhead sections, energy pipeline layout, and propulsion system interface dimensions were all converted into data and stored in high-dimensional space. The ark had crashed into the Earth's surface from its orbit, its hull severely damaged, twisted, and fractured upon impact, but the wreckage scattered in the underground rock layers preserved complete structural information in the exposed fracture surfaces. The core framework of the propulsion system, the structural reinforcement logic of the propulsion unit base, and the interface design between the dock and production line compartments—these technical details, easily lost during conventional disassembly, were completely preserved during the decomposition process.
The Ark's design philosophy predates any warship from the M41 era. While its dock can accommodate multiple escort ships for battle repairs, its core function is not shipbuilding, but rather serving as a transport, maintenance, and upkeep base for the Titans. The forging bay can independently maintain and repair Titan-class divine machinery in deep space, with refineries and production lines providing a continuous supply of ammunition and spare parts to the Titan legions. During the Great Crusade, such Arks served as mobile fortresses for the Titan legions, responsible for deploying Titans to every battlefield on the galactic frontier and maintaining the Titan legions' continuous combat capability in deep space far from the forging world.
Dozens of Titans—Warrior-class, Marauder-class, and Warhound-class. They need hangars, maintenance platforms, ammunition supply lines, and expeditionary arks to transport them.
The ten-month construction period of the Ark was the countdown to the creation of the Garros Titan Legion from scratch.
Enpu turned off the data board, stood beside the keel base for a moment, and then addressed the core load-bearing nodes, reactor confinement cavity,
The key interfaces and other critical parts of the Titan hangar were extensively constructed, while the remaining secondary parts were handled by the Thinker's mainframe, which directed its servants to carry them out.
He turned and walked toward his office. The hallway lights shone with a cold, white light. Behind him, maintenance workers silently moved prefabricated components.
In the office, Enpu sat down at his workbench and picked up a data panel. On the scheduling panel of the Wangshu Thinker array, the production line had begun scheduling for the Ark's supporting systems—energy pipelines, cooling pipes, the landing platform for the Titan hangar, and the large hoisting equipment for the maintenance bay.
The ark's exterior is mottled, and anyone who sees it will understand that it drifted in the chaotic tides of the subspace for tens of thousands of years. Every trace of corrosion and every patch on the hull silently tells the story of that arduous voyage forgotten by time.
The ark's skeleton stretched into the void from the dock. All exposed armor plates were artificially aged during the shaping phase, featuring micro-craters, radiation fading, and weld marks repaired from warp erosion. Everything visible to the naked eye was old; even the great sages of the Forge world had to admit that this was a Forge Ark that had undergone a difficult return, a Titan transport ship carrying the ancient glory of the Empire.
Enpu put down the data tablet, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.
The Ark's skeleton stretched out in the dock. The return of the Titan Legion was destined to come at a price. Preliminary plans and a redemption scheme had already been devised, awaiting the day when the Ark and the Titans were fully formed. Meanwhile, the Metis-class mining ships were operating silently in the asteroid belt, their cutting beams slicing through the rock and their traction beams dragging debris into their hulls.
Wangshu has not yet been fitted with thrusters. According to the plan, once the outer armor is laid, a base for a giant plasma thruster will be reserved at the rear of the dock cavity. At that time, this armored asteroid will slowly move from the edge of the Garros system into orbit around the main star. Mining ships will shuttle between the asteroid belt and Wangshu, delivering ore to the smelting plant: the refined metal ingots will be directly processed within this small casting world. Meanwhile, the underground industrial zone of the Garros main star will continuously supply resources to Wangshu. It will become Garros's most important shipbuilding complex and the most fortified fortress on the empire's borders.
Waiting for the day the Ark is launched. Waiting for the day Wangshu enters the orbit of the main star. Waiting for the day when the cannon fire of Amegidon illuminates the sky.
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