179 Anomaly
It had been a little over 4 days since Layton arrived at this mobile base, it was a medium-sized warship moving sporadically within a certain range near the front line. Their squadron was mainly one for defence responsible for annihilating enemies from other races who had snuck into the human race territory to wreak havoc. Layton’s and Zero’s squadron weren’t the only ones, in fact, most of the individuals that had travelled to this plane were gathered into similar teams, some for defence and some for attack, it was only taken for granted that the same would be true for other races. Of course, this wasn’t to say that the squadron’s comprised of only travellers, some aborigines were also present but most of them were logistic personnel, the few that weren’t had followed the squadrons responsible for attack and had snuck into enemy territory. The remaining few that were supposed to be responsible for the defence had instead scattered to various planets near the frontline and set up camp, using the path inscribed by Layton on the Rosetta to merge with the life planet and stationed there almost indefinitely.
Layton was naturally aware of the popularity his stone had as more flashes of inspiration and insights trickled in, although he was aware he had inadvertently made a huge contribution to the current war Layton didn’t really gain any other benefits, he had spent his time trying to transform his insights to fit his current state.
A sharp alarm brought Layton out of his introspective state, leaving his room he walked toward the deck of the spaceship. The deck was a spacious one filled with numerous screens showing various complicated data, energy readings and spatial fluctuations, the ship was connected with that of other squadrons that were scattered around the human race territory, the ship all had a connection together and formed a large network to monitor all activity in the surrounding so as to appropriately discharge adequate help.
Layton walked towards Zero who was already silently waiting in the middle of the room, “there is a problem with the anomaly we observed earlier” Zero said immediately Layton was within speaking distance,
“Didn’t it head for that life planet, the guardian there should be an injured immortal” Layton replied, the ship had earlier detected someone sneaking into the human race’s territory but by their calculations it was headed within the range of one of the life planets that possessed a guardian, the so called guardians were the individuals who practised the path on Layton’s Rosetta and merged with a planet. The ship had already sent information and parameters they deduced towards the guardian with the aim of him solving the issue. There was no backup prepared as the guardian was a former immortal coupled with the bonus of the life planet and his renewed strength it shouldn’t be a problem to solve the issue or stall for time while sending a message for assistance.
“He’s dead,” Zero said flatly, as she stared at the rapidly changing data the logistic personnel brought up trying to deduce what exactly went wrong.
“Give me the coordinates,” Layton said after taking a look at the data on the various screens around him, judging from the information it was very likely the guardian had died not long after he met the anomaly and a sort of special method had been done to divert the existence of their sensors, it was only now that the method seemed to have failed and then they noticed a problem with the monitoring of the life fluctuation of the guardian. Layton proposed to go because the incident seemed too weird and smelled like a trap, his current form was one that wasn’t easily destroyed and so more suited to rush head on to confront the issue. Zero on the hand would naturally stay behind as someone was needed to be stationed on the ship to prevent any accidents.
The constant spatial force field surrounding the ship dimmed for a moment and Layton left the ship [ shuttling towards the position outlined by the coordinates. In a matter of seconds, he arrived, in front of him lay a dilapidated planet seemingly devoid of all forms of life, immediately Layton gazed upon the celestial body he fisted forward, his punch stirring the spatial stability of the surrounding space close to the planet forming a sort of spatial earthquake. The planet quickly started to shake and disintegrate, a painful roar echoed from what was supposed to be the core of the planet as the planet crumbled to pieces leaving a weird blob of grey flesh, a reptilian snout formed from the blob as the creature roared in pain and gazed at its attacker with tyranny in its beast like gaze.
Immediately he arrived Layton’s gaze already penetrated through the planet and found the creature that was forming in the depths of the planet, from his perception he could feel the creature was a newborn in the process of being formed which meant the creator had already left after murdering the planets guardian, it was very likely the corpse of the guardian and the lives of the aborigines of the planet were used to cultivate the creature.
.....
Layton ignored the beast’s growl and simply retracted his fist and sent a punch forward once more. This time the surrounding stellar energy and radiation gathered around forming a huge circular orb that was sent forward with his fist. It crashed heavily on the hideous creature but it didn’t have the effect Layton expected, the skin of the creature rippled as the energy that was supposedly in a frantic and dangerous state was swiftly absorbed by the creature through the skin, and the creature began rapidly evolving ensuring the unstable energy it was absorbing did not go to waste, its hideous snout stretching forward as its newly grown spikes that seemed to serve as a spine lit up as the familiar fluctuations of the law of lightning seemed to ripple around them and from its maw a swift thunderbolt emerged tearing through space shooting towards Layton.
