The Main Mothership of the Golden Lion Empire drifted in the void like a colossal titan of steel and light. Its body stretched five million kilometers in length, a vast continent adrift in darkness, larger than most worlds and still swelling year by year. Where once it had been a vessel, it was now a realm in itself, its hull lined with towers, factories, hangars, and fortresses.
The Mothership lived on a rhythm: depletion and replenishment. Every week, its forges devoured entire seas of Eternal Ore, Star Metal, Sunsteel, Voidsteel, and alloys unknown to lesser civilizations. Vaults that began the week overflowing would stand empty within days, every ounce poured into the hunger of creation. Then the auto-miners delivered more, hauled from stellar veins and void-rich asteroids, and the cycle began anew. Like a heartbeat, the Mothership grew, and with it the reach of the Golden Lion Empire.
The Blacksmith Area
The Blacksmith Area was a cavern of flame and thunder carved into the Mothership's heart. The air shimmered with heat, thick with smoke and the iron tang of molten ore. Furnaces lined the walls, their mouths yawning with white fire, while anvils and crucibles stood on platforms like altars. The clang of hammers rang without pause, sparks scattering like golden stars in a night that never ended.
Urio Azkiel stood at the center of this tempest.
He was broad as an ox, his arms corded with muscle, his chest bare beneath a leather apron streaked with soot. His hammer an Adavar Steel masterpiece bound with Ena Core runes — pulsed with each strike, channeling both muscle and energy into every blow. Before him loomed the pride of his craft: the Penetration Teleportation Cannon.
The Cannon stretched like a bridge between worlds, its length measured not in meters but in kilometers. Arrayed with runic conduits, stabilized by triple compression rings, its barrel gleamed with Voidsteel and Eternal alloys. It was not a weapon meant to fire destruction, but something subtler, more dangerous.
Where most civilizations built walls anti-space-jump barriers, lattices of dimensional anchors meant to lock their realms from intrusion the Cannon built doors. When fired, it pierced those barriers with resonance, tearing corridors through sealed space and stabilizing them into gateways. Fleets could surge through. Mechs could march. Entire armies could arrive unbidden, no matter how well a fortress thought itself defended.
Urio rested his hand on its plated surface, feeling the low vibration of power that ran beneath. "Not a weapon," he murmured to himself. "A promise."
Behind him, apprentices worked feverishly. They polished conduits, engraved stabilizer runes, and adjusted crystalline sockets for Ena Cores. Each one bore burns and soot-stains, yet none slowed, driven by an obsession that bordered on worship. The PTC was not merely steel; it was inevitability forged into form.
"Master Urio!" called Torio, the youngest of his apprentices, sprinting forward with a sketch in hand. His face was streaked with grease, his eyes bright with relentless curiosity. "If the resonance scatters at high output, could the legion emerge kilometers from the intended target?"
Urio studied the parchment, nodding slowly. "Yes. That is why we build in threes. Always threefold balance. If one stabilizer falters, the others hold. At worst, they arrive a hundred kilometers away. At best, they arrive at the enemy's throat."
From the far side of the chamber, a sharper voice cut through the din. "At worst, they die."
It was Luka Azkiel, Urio's father.
Lean and sharp-featured where Urio was broad, Luka's hands shook faintly as he sketched equations midair, his mind forever racing ahead of the forge. He had no patience for half measures, and his scorn for error was absolute. "Balance is no comfort to the dead, boy," Luka barked at Torio. "Perfection is the only mercy you may offer your comrades."
Urio's hammer paused mid-swing. He respected his father's genius, Luka was already designing antimatter cannons, their destructive potential rivaling the fury of stars, but the old man's words always carried daggers.
The apprentices bent back to their work, chastened.
The Mech Area
Across the steel bridge from the Blacksmith Area lay the Mech Area, ruled by Yulia Azkiel.
If Urio's forge was a tempest of flame and thunder, Yulia's domain was precision incarnate. The chamber rang with the hiss of plasma welders, the hum of assembly lines, and the rhythmic pounding of mech frames being bolted into shape. Sparks cascaded like waterfalls, illuminating titans of steel rising from the assembly floors.
Yulia moved among her apprentices like a general among soldiers. Tall and stern, her hair tied back in a braid, she carried a datapad in one hand and a laser-scorer in the other. Every mech frame was inspected, every weld checked, every alignment scrutinized. She tolerated nothing less than perfection.
"Balance is not theory," she said to a pair of apprentices adjusting a mech's stabilizer core. "It is survival. A commander's mech must not falter when the line breaks. If your weld is weak, you are not merely sloppy you are a murderer."
The apprentices nodded, pale, and worked with trembling urgency.
Around her, young prodigies labored with manic intensity. Rina Huria, her hair tied in a messy knot, soldered conduits with a smile that never faded, as though every spark were a blessing. Farren, silent and steady, welded plates with the patience of stone, his work flawless and unhurried. And Torio, ever reckless, sketched revisions on blueprints even as Yulia scolded him, daring to imagine mechs with wings of plasma or joints of living alloy.
"Dream later," she snapped at him once. "Build first." Yet a faint smile tugged at her lips when he turned away.
All across the chamber, mechs of every shape and scale took form. Commander-class mechs, towering titans with plated armor and Ena Core hearts, destined for generals and warlords. Personal mechs, sleek and agile, designed for duels and skirmishes. Even experimental frames, their silhouettes strange, waiting for trials yet to come.
Here, creation was not just industry. It was obsession, artistry, and devotion.
The Pulse of Creation
Between the Blacksmith and Mech Areas, the Mothership pulsed with life.
The twelve long-range energy cannons, each ten thousand kilometers in length, loomed along its flanks. New turrets railguns capable of striking across solar systems, charged cannons that could collapse entire shields bristled like the spines of a beast.
And at the heart of it all, the Penetration Teleportation Cannon waited, gleaming with potential.
Workers whispered to each other as they labored. "No barrier will stand against us," one said. "Not the dwarves with their runic locks, not the elves with their fusion veils, not even the vampires with their cloaks of bloodspace. Wherever we wish to go… we will go."
Urio heard them, but did not join. He knew the truth better than any of them: the PTC was not a weapon of destruction, but it would lead to destruction all the same. For wherever the Empire arrived, war would follow.
And yet, he lifted his hammer again. The forge demanded it. The Empire demanded it.
The Mothership pulsed, alive with fire, steel, and unending creation.