Board & Conquest: A Godly LitRPG

Chapter 117: Space Program

Wepwawet ordered a class meeting, and everyone answered his call.

Ganesha and Artemis showed up first, followed by Ishtar and Horus—the latter being noticeably tense, likely because his observatories had been busy checking Glatisant’s ‘Season of Dragonstars’ theory. The Epona-Anansi-Hel axis arrived next, with Sun Wukong naturally arriving fifteen minutes behind schedule.

“You’re late,” Horus complained. “Again.”

“Are you kidding? I usually arrive half an hour after the meeting starts! I’m super early this time!” Sun Wukong grinned ear to ear. “Besides, I always calculate my timing precisely enough to make an unforgettable entrance.”

“I personally always keep a balance of a little late, but only enough for plausible deniability,” Ishtar mused. “It has been a while since we last gathered like this.”

“Not since the last Divine Peacekeeping Force conference,” Epona replied, before offering Wepwawet a polite nod unlike her two hanger-ons. “You said you had critical information to share with us?”

“Yes, and I wasn’t willing to risk being overheard on Elphion, since Beelzebub has already shown the ability to fool our perception, and we don’t know the limits of his Miracles,” Wepwawet replied before clearing his throat. “We’ve found and extensively interrogated the lunarian rebel known as Thoon.”

That got the entire class’ attention. Horus’ eyes immediately widened with interest. “You have a lunarian in custody?”

“Custody is a big word, considering he and his disciples readily agreed to cooperate with us,” Wepwawet replied. “I’m going to keep their location secret for the time being, since Beelzebub’s forces will likely make their assassination a top priority. The fewer people who are aware of their existence, the better.”

Epona scowled as she sat in her chair. “What did he tell you?”

“More or less everything.” Wepwawet was still in the process of verifying Thoon’s intel, but he was accurate on enough things that he was tempted to take his word at face value. “How the lunarians are organized, where they are located, how they keep sneaking onto the planet, and maybe how we can strike back before he wipes us all out within the year.”

“We have less than that,” Horus said rather ominously. “My aerial observatories brought troublesome findings, but we will be discussing them next.”

Wepwawet nodded and used mana to shape a hologram of Elphion and its two moons. “Here’s what we’ve learned: the lunarians arose as a civilization on the smaller of Elphion’s two moons, which they call Home by contrast with Elphion, which they call the Colony. Both moons are mostly composed of blackstone, which, as you all know, possesses intense magical properties.”

“Pele told me that magmorians evolved from a chunk of blackstone that fell from the sky centuries back,” Ishtar noted. “No wonder the lunarians became such an intelligent, naturally psychic race when they evolved while surrounded by it.”

“Exactly. Home actually has a faint atmosphere of some kind, albeit one so thin it can only sustain life in one place: its largest crater, where gas densely gathers.” Wepwawet pointed at the crater in question. “That is where lunarian civilization arose and where their only city, Lune, is located.”

“None of our observatories saw any sign of a civilization there,” Hel complained.

“It must be magically shielded from detection,” Epona guessed, her eyes squinting at the crater. “Beelzebub’s Idol has to be there.”

“So we’ll have to storm it,” Artemis said with determination. She hadn’t forgiven the Titans and their allies for despoiling the Wyld. “How many lunarians live there?”

“Thoon’s intel is centuries out of date, but he estimated Lune’s population as a few thousand lunarians, and twenty times that number in slaves abducted from Elphion,” Wepwawet replied. “He provided us with a rough map of the city and information on their defenses, but again, it likely changed since he last visited it.”

“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves here?” Anansi inquired. “You’re talking about invading a hostile capital city on the moon without any way to get there!”

“Yes, yes, we’ll discuss that soon,” Wepwawet replied dismissively. While they had buried the hatchet to focus on the fight against the Titans, he hadn’t forgotten Anansi’s earlier schemes against him. “To give you a little history of the lunarian colonization of Elphion, their species prospered in Lune but eventually created spaceships to cross over to Elphion in order to expand their territory to the planet. They arrived on a primeval world full of animals and… primitive… creatures.”

“You mean dragons?” Ishtar teased him.

“Yes, l mean dragons.” Wepwawet shuddered. “When they realized that trying to enslave them was a lost cause, the lunarians experimented with local animals to create most of the non-magmorian intelligent species on Elphion, namely elves, humans, werelings… even demons. All these creatures were engineered to serve specialized slave roles and to be easily dominated by the lunarians’ psychic powers. During that period, Thoon and his followers formed a sect very similar to Buddhists on Earth–”

“This world has alien insect Buddhists?” Sun Wukong immediately cut in, his body brimming with excitement. “Awesome, I love the concept! You have to introduce me to them! I’m already imagining those old geezers’ faces at the Celestial Bureaucracy if I can get a bug on the team!”

“I figured you would say that,” Wepwawet replied with a chuckle. “Anyway, Thoon’s beliefs clashed with the whole ‘enslaving our own creations’ part of the lunarian culture, so he trained his werelings on how to resist lunarian control and equipped them with high-grade artifacts to defend themselves. This spiraled into a worldwide slave rebellion supported by the likes of Thoon and Grand-Loup on one side, and the lunarian population led by the Overmind on the other.”

“The Overmind?” Ganesha raised an eyebrow. “Is that the lunarians’ leader?”

“Yes and no,” Wepwawet replied. “My Champion Bernard discovered that a lunarian's corpse continues to emit a psychic signal so that its parasites and kindred can recover the remains. The Overmind is the reason why. It is a living, sentient reliquary of most dead lunarian brains and psychic imprints. Lunarians are too individualistic to submit to anyone, but they do listen to the Overmind’s advice. It’s the closest thing they have to a spiritual and cultural guide.”

“So we need to take it out to cripple the lunarian army,” Ishtar noted. “I can guess how your story ends; the Overmind’s side lost the war, flipped the board rather than admit defeat by triggering an ice age, then either fled back to Lune or entered hibernation like Archon.”

“Sadly, that’s pretty much it,” Wepwawet confirmed. “The lunarians used a combination of terraformers and blackstone bombardments—the so-called Season of Dragonstars—to ‘sterilize’ the surface, nearly exterminating all life on the surface and forcing the likes of Thoon into hibernation.”

This story originates from NovelBin. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“The Season of Dragonstars?” Hel scoffed. “Did you make up that term?”

“This is no joking matter,” Horus snapped at the undead queen. “I’ll take over now, if you don’t mind.”

Wepwawet nodded in agreement and allowed his cousin to take the lead. Horus waved his hand, rose up from his seat, and slightly altered the hologram to show the moons rotating around the planet, and then growing closer once they crossed.

“The Season of Dragonstars is apparently a natural phenomenon that has struck Elphion in ancient times, according to my astronomers,” Horus explained. “Once the moons get close enough to each other as part of their cyclical revolutions, their mutual gravities resonate with the blackstones and tear them up from the surface like two oranges peeling each other through friction. The stones are then flung down to Elphion in meteorite rains.”

The hologram showed blackstones being pulled from the moons and falling on Verglane before the moons continued their rotations until they crossed paths again above the southern ocean; noticeably bigger chunks were torn apart this time.

“This natural phenomenon should only happen every few millennia or so, but the two moons have begun to follow an abnormal orbit lately,” Horus said with a scowl. “If what Wepwawet says about the lunarians is true, then Beelzebub is likely using either a Miracle or lunarian magitechnology to accelerate the process.”

Artemis scowled. “That’s why the moons are crying out in pain. They’re tearing each other apart!”

“And since each revolution brings the moons closer, this results in more and more blackstones being torn away and flung at Elphion,” Horus concluded. “The lunarians will have no choice but to pull back after the twelfth revolution; otherwise, the two moons risk growing so close they might hit each other, but they’ll likely decimate all civilizations on Elphion’s surface before we reach that stage.”

Ishtar, whose civilization was close to the second meteorite’s rain point of impact, clenched her jaw. “How long do we have?”

“According to my astronomers’ calculation, the second rain will hit the ocean west of the Wyld, creating small tidal waves that will hit it and Zoramesh’s coasts,” Horus replied. “They’ll strike too far to cause much damage beyond minor disturbances, but the third will hit Megaloria and my own Sekhem with enough force to devastate cities. The fourth will likely wipe out half of Sun Wukong’s Kathay from the map, the fifth will devastate both Valentine and Timberain, and so on. There’ll be so much dust in the atmosphere by the eighth, an ice age will become inevitable, even with terraformers, and the twelfth will strike hard enough to cause tectonic plates to rearrange themselves.”

A dark silence fell upon the class as the apocalyptic implications became clear. The Season of Dragonstars would likely decimate their civilizations and likely destroy most of their Idols, leaving Elphion nearly undefended against the next Titan Incursion.

“We can’t allow things to progress that far,” Wepwawet said grimly. “We need to strike Lune within the next few months, the sooner the better.”

“Oh, right, sounds good,” Hel replied with heavy sarcasm. “All we have to do is cross the infinite void of space!”

Epona’s question proved more constructive. “Can Thoon help us with that?”

“Thankfully, he can,” Wepwawet confirmed. “He informed us that the lunarians actually have two ways to sneak onto Elphion. The first are moonstone-powered spaceships… and those lighthouses.”

“Lighthouses?” Artemis quickly caught on. “Wait, like the one Karen found north of your shores?”

“Indeed. ‘Lighthouses’ like that one are actually teleportation beacons that can connect to Lune when the moon passes over them.” Wepwawet crossed his arms. “The reason why we haven’t spotted any ships is because the lunarians likely defaulted to using teleporters rather than risk accidentally revealing their capital’s location.”

“Then all we have to do is to find and subvert them,” Anansi said with a malicious grin. “I have a handful of Miracles that would do the trick.”

“The issue is that the Overmind constantly monitors those devices,” Wepwawet replied. “Thoon thinks he might be able to hack into the network to teleport a few troops into Lune, but the Overmind will quickly cut off his access the moment they notice it.”

“We could send an elite task force to take out the Overmind,” Ishtar suggested. “If the Overmind is down for the count, then Thoon can reactivate the beacon without opposition and send reinforcements.”

“But if they fail, they’ll be stranded behind enemy lines,” Ganesha pointed out, being the most mindful of their followers’ well-being. “Could Thoon have stored a ship somewhere we could use?”

“The structure where we found him is actually one such ship,” Wepwawet said. “We have enough blackstones and crafters to quickly repair it, maybe even build one or two more, but they will likely get shot down if it tries to approach Lune directly. Not to mention that most of our Champions can’t survive on the moon’s thin atmosphere.”

“We don’t need to send many forces onboard,” Epona pointed out. “The ship only needs to carry my teleporting sword, then we can establish a permanent foothold on the moon.”

“Right, we could use the same tactic you tried to use on us in Lavaland,” Ishtar said, Epona shifting in her seat when reminded of this fiasco. “We can throw an army of golems at their doorstep easily enough.”

“How many of these swords can you produce?” Horus asked.

“It is actually a set of twin Artifacts opening both ways, so I cannot create more than two with Miracles, but my crafters are already working on developing smaller replicas to deal with the Brood,” Epona replied. “If this Thoon’s ship can be modified to carry and drop them on the moon's surface, we’ll be able to besiege Lune from multiple angles. Ensuring our troops can survive the local atmosphere will be a bigger hurdle, however.”

“My troops could do it,” Hel boasted. “They don’t need to breathe, so they’ll be right at home!”

“I also have troops that could survive the lunar environment, like slimes, mimics, golems, and dragons,” Wepwawet said, recalling how Soumis could hold his breath underwater for a very long time.

“We could even drop one of my kaijus on these bugs’ doorstep!” Artemis suggested with trepidation. “It’ll squash their city in no time flat!”

“How about I send my own Zodiac Buddha Protector statue and we see which of us can demolish it quicker?” Sun Wukong suggested.

“We could combine both the ship and lighthouse plans,” Anansi cunningly suggested. “Use the big scary army to keep the lunarians’ defenses occupied, then hijack one of their lighthouses to send saboteurs inside while they’re distracted.”

That could work, Wepwawet conceded. This would essentially be a repeat of the Lavaland siege, albeit with the roles reversed, with the gods as the attackers and Beelzebub as the defender. I could use my experience of how the first attempt turned out to refine our strategy…

“We’ll have to go all in if we agree on this plan,” Wepwawet warned his allies. “Time is of the essence, and we’ll have to mobilize all of our resources to ensure even one ship can take off the ground. Are we all in agreement?”

Nobody voiced an objection, with more talks being focused on which troops they’ll have to send, which Miracles would best support the effort, how to logistically arrange that while lessening the impact of the blackstone rains… it was eerie how well the class worked together now that they had decided to work towards a common goal.

Even Hel and Anansi are being constructive for once, Wepwawet mused. That was something rare enough to be noticed. The Titans tried to divide us, but we’ve managed to find balance anyway.

“A space program involving slimes, swords, and hastily built spaceships…” Sun Wukong stroked his chin. “Has this been done before? I think it has been done before.”

“And we’ll do it again!” Wepwawet boasted upon raising his fist. “Our mortals will get a space program before they get an afterlife! Onward with Operation Artemis!”

“What?!” Artemis blushed on the spot at the surprise. “Wepy, we can’t call it that!”

“Yeah, why should we name it after your girlfriend?!” Hel protested. “It’s my army who will do the heavy lifting, it should be named Operation Naglfar!”

“I’m voting for Operation Chang'e,” Sun Wukong said. “I still owe her for the whole Jade Rabbit thing.”

“Uncle Khonsu will be pissed if he learns that you didn’t choose him,” Horus told Wepwawet. “He’s already angry at being forgotten by most mortals.”

“I’m the one with the ship, the lunarian, and the lighthouse,” Wepwawet replied sternly. “I’m the one holding the cards… and I’m a boyfriend first, and a class president second!”

“See how he went mad with power since we elected him?” Sun Wukong quipped. “He’s never relinquishing his post!”

“I like the name Operation Artemis,” Ganesha said, ever the supportive friend. “Plus, my andvari will be happy to work on new spaceships.”

“How do you manage to kiss butts so well with a trunk and tusks, my elephant friend?” Anansi asked with a deadpan look. “The logistics involved are truly impressive.”

“Aww…” Artemis was redder than a tomato, but Wepwawet could tell she was pleased with his attention; she was just a bit embarrassed to admit it in public. “Ok, I’ll lend my name to the plan… but just this once!”

“Then it’s settled.” Wepwawet pointed a finger at Lune’s crater. “We’re flying straight to the mooooooon!”