Sui Meng's seemingly offhand yet weighty "application" echoed across the bridge.
As the words fell, even Wu Ji's holographic projection—composed of light particles and meant to be purely rational—froze for a split second. Between her clear brows, there flickered a fleeting, lifelike trace of surprise.
As a strategic-grade sapient AI refined through multiple iterations, her emotion-simulation module was highly advanced. Her mindset, logic, and analytic capacity far exceeded those of ordinary humans, yet under core foundational constraints, absolute rationality always held sway.
The very term "Grand Device Array," clearly, had tripped her internal thresholds for resource allocation and strategic deterrence tiers.
The adjutant in Terminator armor beside them reacted more directly.
His helmeted head turned toward Sui Meng. Though his face was hidden, the lenses seemed to flash, and his low voice carried a faint, hard-to-catch doubt:
"Father, given the current universe's integration, our present deployments and administrative progress indicate conventional means can stabilize the whole theater within the standard time unit.
By normal judgment, there is no need to bring the 'Grand Device' to bear. Would this not be… excessively grandiose?"
His question was not timidity, but the instinctive resource-efficiency calculus of a capable commander.
The Diwuzu Legion already held the field. In his view, calling on a truly "strategic" class of weaponry for a war already won was not the optimal solution.
Sui Meng's gaze remained on the star chart, as if he could see through the hull to the starry sea still ringing from war.
He did not take offense. Calmly, he explained:
"Your reasoning aligns with standard consolidation procedure and is not wrong. But this application is not for an occupation consideration."
The Primarch paused, then continued: "According to Dr. Halsey's non-classified technical brief uploaded recently to the internal net, Phase One of the 'Grand Device' project has been declared complete. Four prototypes have passed baseline validation and stand on standby."
He turned, letting his eyes pass over the adjutant and Wu Ji's projection, a deeper light in them:
"Facing potential hostile forces, the unknown makers of the God-Seal, and a cosmos not yet fully revealed, this is an ideal proving ground to test the Grand Device's combat efficacy and deterrent potential.
Not only can we validate its operating parameters in a complex cosmic environment, we can also use this chance to evaluate its detection and disruption effects on deep space, interstitial dimensions, or anomalous psionic entities."
His final words carried strategic intent: "Perhaps we can even use it to flush out the shadowed forces behind the God-Seals—those who forged and spread this filth.
Rather than wait for their next covert probe, we should create a shock and a deterrent they cannot ignore."
At that, the adjutant's doubt vanished, replaced by comprehension.
He bowed. "Understood, Father. I did not think far enough and failed to perceive this layer of strategy."
Binding new-gear trials to deeper strategic deterrence—and even to drawing the serpent from its hole—was indeed a superior layout.
Wu Ji's image returned to perfect poise and efficiency. "Application logic updated with appended strategic testing and hostile-force enticement objectives.
Requesting repackage and encryption level uplift. Uploading now via top-priority channel to the Prime Universe, directly to the Emperor's terminal."
Data streams flickered in her eyes, then sank from view.
－－－－－－－
The scene shifted, leaping across space and dimensional veils to the Prime Universe, the nexus of the Human Empire's power and faith—
deep within the Earthly palace complex, in the solemn and vast Meditation Hall.
A soaring dome seemed to pierce the heavens. Subtle energy halos flowed along the walls. The air was steeped in a special field born of immense psionics fused with peerless technology.
At the hall's center, upon an ancient-shaped Golden Throne radiating endless majesty and might, the Human Emperor, Samuel Young, sat in state.
His eyes were closed, but his consciousness, like an invisible network, linked to countless nodes across imperial space.
Before him, dozens of hard-light holoscreens of varying sizes and translucence hovered in silence, cycling and scrolling torrents of data at a pace beyond mortal grasp.
A substantial portion bore the latest battle reports and analyses from the Dead Space universe, alongside Sui Meng's preliminary consolidation report.
The Emperor's will was the finest "filter," pulling key points with speed.
At Sui Meng's thunderous removal of the Unification Church's mid-to-high command, and his shoot-on-sight treatment of the incorrigible, a barely perceptible note of approval crossed the ageless eyes that seemed to hold the births and deaths of stars.
In his view, entities like the Unification Church—which bewitched minds with the sham of "ascension" and wagered the blood and souls of billions as sacrificial coin—were the ultimate profanation and "cancer" against order, life, and the collective reason of humanity.
Such filthy, net-negative "trash" organizations must be extirpated root and branch, from physical to ideological levels, to cleanse society and warn posterity.
On this point, Sui Meng's decisiveness perfectly matched his mind.
His awareness skimmed the follow-up:
how the Diwuzu Legion efficiently took over Earth and the solar system, reformed the EDF remnants, forced cognitive reform on rank-and-file believers, and "radiated" imperial influence to fringe colonies…
A sequence of moves like flowing water, revealing how a young legion had, in war's forge, honed speed and skill.
Though the initial shock of the blood moon host brought some turbulence, Sui Meng stayed steady—even taking colossus form to reverse the tide—and steadied the whole.
'Well done.'
The faintest whisper sounded in the Emperor's thoughts, tinged with a trace of satisfaction.
His youngest son at this stage was growing at astonishing speed in blood and fire. His command, decisiveness, and faithful execution of imperial doctrine met expectations.
This cross-universe expedition had not only expanded the frontier; it had greatly tempered the Diwuzu Legion—gain upon gain.
Yet when his mind touched the request appended at the end—submitted by Sui Meng and uplinked under Wu Ji's encryption—Samuel Young's brows, which could hold the cosmos, twitched almost imperceptibly.
'The Grand Device…'
The word echoed in his mind.
He knew Halsey's project progress and the four prototypes' latent might—enough to shake physical law.
Fielding one in a universe still under conquest and not yet fully stable would, from a technical validation and strategic deterrence standpoint, indeed hold value; Sui Meng's "draw-them-out" idea bore a measure of foresight.
But…
Invoking the Grand Device was no small matter.
Its energy draw, potential impacts on local spacetime, unpredictable cascade effects, and the signal it might broadcast to other higher civilizations in the wider multiverse…
All demanded the utmost caution.
This was not merely military; it was a decision of the highest sensitivity for the Empire's long-term strategy and security.
Samuel Young's will settled, like a bottomless sea.
He required a fuller assessment of the Dead Space universe's long-term value and risks, and of the opportunities and challenges the Grand Device might bring.
His son's application sent ripples through his contemplation.
After all, the "Grand Device" was an inner-circle code for ultimate deterrence and purification, its prototype drawn from the Halo universe's ancient Forerunner superweapon long lost in time—the "Halo."
A device capable of emitting tuned energy waves to selectively clear all complex neural life—its science and its "philosophy of annihilation" stood near the pyramid's peak even across the vast, uncountable multiverse.
The Human Empire's overwhelming technological edge in most known parallel-universe campaigns—crushing alien civilizations and heresies beneath iron tides—owed at least half its credit to Dr. Catherine Halsey's top-tier Imperial Research Directorate team.
This brilliant—at times obsessive—giant of science had led an elite cadre of scholars and engineers, selected with care, to root themselves in the Halo universe for over a decade.
Like patient archaeologists and keen decoders, they tirelessly reverse-engineered and unraveled the principles of the vast Forerunner legacy.
Those years had not been wasted.
Halsey's team's results were transformative.
Many of the Empire's proudest cutting-edge systems bore the Forerunners' imprint—
short-range teleporters on Terminator armor that raised Astartes veterans' battlefield mobility to a new dimension;
and on flagships like the Renwei Yonggu, and some newer capital ships, the ultra-long-range portals enabling intergalactic transits—their spatial folding and stabilization theories rooted deeply in Forerunner phase-tech comprehension.
These became the bedrock of imperial power projection and strategic mobility.
Yet among all the findings, none was more brilliant—or more contentious—than the successful replication of the "Halo," the Grand Device project.
It was not mere imitation, but recreation and adaptive improvement after a thorough grasp of its operating mechanics, energy propagation, target discrimination, and range control across complex systems.
With Emperor Samuel Young's personal approval, and lavish backing from the Engineering and Research Directorates, the Human Empire had begun its own Grand Device construction years ago.
Under absolute secrecy and iron guard, four man-made ring-structures—each eight thousand kilometers in diameter—had been completed:
Grand Devices 01 through 04.
They were not "simple" weapon platforms, but mobile fortresses and super-labs integrating the Empire's latest tech with the Forerunner legacy's essence.
Now, those four monumental creations, metal gleaming cold as they "rode at anchor" in the dim reaches of the Halo system's Kuiper Belt, were among the Empire's heaviest—and most dangerous—trump cards.
Psionics flowed around the Golden Throne as Samuel Young weighed the card's use.
Sui Meng's rationale was solid:
test efficacy, deter latent foes, even lure out the hands behind the God-Seals.
Risk existed, but the Grand Device's very purpose was to reduce imperial casualties at decisive moments through absolute force, accelerate the integration of resisting worlds, and impose the ultimate deterrent on all alien and heretical malice.
To leave it on a shelf would be the true waste.
After a brief stillness, the Emperor decided.
He approved Sui Meng's request.
Samuel Young stirred his psionics. Space before him rippled subtly, and a holo channel of soft white light took form, linking to a core research facility far away in the Halo universe.
Light congealed on the screen, resolving into Dr. Catherine Halsey's face.
?!
Apparently not expecting a direct call from the Emperor, Halsey blinked, surprise flickering in those luminous eyes.
It lasted only a heartbeat. She slipped back into her usual slightly languid, confident smile—behind which lay razor focus and absolute readiness for orders.
"Your Majesty, your command?"
Her voice carried clean and steady through the link, tinged with a researcher's rational cadence.
On close look, she had changed little from more than a decade past. Time seemed to have left few marks.
But a deeper, settled maturity radiated from within, and an ineffable, near-perfect poise had replaced earlier sharpness.
Clearly, this genius with deep mastery in biomedicine had, with the Empire's top-tier biotech in hand, performed more than a little "optimization" and "youth maintenance" on herself.
Samuel Young skipped pleasantries and went straight to the point.
Even through the screen, his imperial gravitas pressed through. "Dr. Halsey, prepare Grand Device 01.
You and your core team are authorized to depart at once for the newly opened, linked universe and assist the Diwuzu Legion in completing the final consolidation."
He paused, then added in a tone that brooked no dissent: "For this operation, Grand Device 01 will be under your team's direct command and operation. You will collect all combat data without fail.
At the same time, a Spartan company will be assigned as your team's dedicated security detail throughout, to ensure the absolute safety of the Device and the research team."
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