Mecha Girl Smoothie's Star Annihilation Cannon

Rektol looked at the ancient technological circuits on the blueprint.

He crumpled the edges of the parchment in his grip. The pungent smell of disinfectant stabbed straight into his nose.

He lowered his head and looked again at Smoothie in the cradle.

The baby girl did not cry. Her large eyes reflected the cold mechanical blue light from the instruments beside her.

The blueprint was densely covered with drawings of gears and energy-conduction lines.

This was a weapon design the Celestial Dragons had hidden at the bottom of their treasury. No one had been able to build it in eight hundred years because they lacked an inexhaustible energy source.

Rektol threw away the blueprint.

The paper fluttered to the floor. He turned and picked up a medical scalpel from the iron table.

The blade was thin, gleaming with a ghastly, icy light beneath the incandescent lamp.

He walked to the cradle. With his left hand, he turned Smoothie over, making her lie facedown on the hard sterile blanket.

Smoothie's tiny arms flailed twice. A bubble of drool escaped her mouth. She did not cry.

"Bear with it." Rektol's voice was hoarse.

The scalpel's tip pressed against the spine at the back of the baby girl's neck.

He drew it downward with force. Flesh split open, and blood gushed out. Beads of blood rolled down her tender white back and dripped onto the iron plate at the bottom of the cradle.

Rektol picked up the Wapometal wire.

The wire was thinner than a strand of hair, yet tougher than Fine Steel.

He held his breath. Pinching the wire in his right hand, he pushed it inch by inch through the incision and into Smoothie's spinal nerves.

The baby girl's body suddenly arched like a bow.

A shrill scream exploded through the laboratory.

All ten of Smoothie's toes dug desperately into the wool blanket. Her fingernails had even torn off.

The agony made her convulse violently. Rektol's large hand pressed down hard on her back, as immovable as an iron ingot.

"Don't move." He gritted his teeth, a thin layer of sweat forming on his forehead.

The Wapometal wire extended downward along the nerve endings, bit by bit.

Each metal wire wrapped perfectly around the fragile spinal cord.

Rektol's hand trembled slightly. He drew a deep breath and forcibly steadied the muscles in his fingers.

He could not make the slightest mistake. If he severed the central nerves, the Mecha Girl Project would be ruined.

Half an hour later, the final wire was connected.

He attached the other end of the wire to the Ancient Energy Furnace beside them, a machine the size of a water tank.

The furnace's outer shell was covered in rust. Seastone residue was wedged into the gaps between its gears.

Rektol extended his index finger and pressed it against the furnace's activation port.

The heart in his chest suddenly pounded.

"Boom!"

Two hundred million volts of savage electricity flowed along his fingertip and directly into the machine that had lain dormant for eight hundred years.

A harsh grinding of gears came from inside the furnace.

Rust pattered down, striking the floor of the sterile room.

Blue-white electricity lit up the furnace's core.

Then the current surged wildly along the Wapometal wires and poured into Smoothie's spine.

The baby girl stopped screaming.

Her eyes flew open. The blood vessels in them vanished in an instant, replaced by two dazzling clusters of blue light.

Smoothie's breathing rhythm changed.

Each inhalation and exhalation matched the deep hum of the Ancient Energy Furnace perfectly.

She was no longer a body of mere flesh and blood. The inexhaustible electrical energy of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit had become the perpetual power source for her body.

Rektol released his hand and shook the sweat from his forehead.

This was only the first step. He turned and walked toward the weapons rack in the corner.

He lifted a black, cylindrical metal tube with both hands.

The first Miniature Plasma Cannon. It had been recreated exactly according to the ancient blueprint.

The cannon barrel was heavy, weighing a full thirty pounds.

Rektol carried the barrel back to the cradle.

Smoothie turned over and looked at the chunk of metal that was larger than her entire body.

She extended her right arm.

Rektol aimed the bottom of the cannon barrel at the joint of her right arm.

"Engage." Rektol growled.

The Wapometal inside Smoothie's spine instantly came alive.

Countless tiny metal buds pierced through the skin of her right arm, spraying blood everywhere.

Like living creatures, the metal buds clamped tightly onto the base of the Plasma Cannon.

Flesh and machinery forcibly fused together at that moment.

The high temperature instantly dried the blood around the wound, producing a sizzling, scorched smell.

Smoothie's right shoulder suddenly sank downward.

Thirty pounds was enough to crush the bones of a baby.

But she was not crushed.

The Ancient Energy Furnace in her spine roared to life. Electricity flowed into her right arm.

The mechanical joint gave a crisp click.

Smoothie slowly raised the right arm bearing the Plasma Cannon.

The black barrel gleamed coldly beneath the incandescent lamp. The muzzle was larger than her head.

She tilted her head and looked at the dark muzzle.

The corner of her mouth actually twitched, producing an indistinct mechanical sound.

Rektol watched the scene and let out a long breath.

It worked.

He bent down and lifted Smoothie with one hand.

The baby girl clutched Rektol's collar with her left hand, while the heavy cannon on her right arm hung at her side.

Rektol strode out of the sterile laboratory.

The airtight door slammed shut behind him.

He walked upward along the steel passageway. His boot soles struck the iron stairs, producing hollow echoes.

He continued until he reached the open-air launch platform atop the warship.

The sea wind, carrying the salty tang of seawater, rushed toward him and scattered the smell of blood clinging to Rektol.

The sky was completely dark.

The rain clouds over the New World hung low. The black clouds looked like a thick, battered quilt.

The sea was utterly silent. Not even a trace of starlight could filter through.

Rektol placed Smoothie on an ammunition crate half a meter tall.

"Raise your arm." Rektol gave the order.

Smoothie immediately raised the Plasma Cannon on her right arm.

Mechanical gears turned, and the muzzle pointed straight at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle.

The movement was stiff but absolutely precise, without the slightest unnecessary shake.

"Test-fire."

Rektol stepped back half a pace and folded his arms over his chest.

A row of blue indicator lights lit up across the skin of Smoothie's back.

Energy surged wildly from the interface in her spine. Following the metal nerves in her right arm, it poured entirely into the Plasma Cannon's charging chamber.

"Vmmmm—"

A high-frequency charging sound rang out across the launch platform.

The sound grew sharper and sharper. The surrounding air warped from the heat.

Inside the muzzle, a dazzling azure sphere of light appeared.

The sphere was like a miniature sun.

It illuminated the entire steel warship's deck as brightly as day.

The pirates below, who had been carrying supplies, all stopped working. They covered their eyes and did not dare look up.

Rektol narrowed his eyes, feeling the terrifying heat radiating from the muzzle.

"Boom!"

A muffled explosive roar sounded.

The cannon's recoil erupted violently, blasting the ammunition crate beneath Smoothie to pieces.

Wood splinters flew everywhere. Her entire body slid two meters backward, carving two white trails across the iron plate with her legs.

A blinding blue beam blasted from the muzzle.

The beam was more than two meters in diameter.

Carrying destructive heat and kinetic force, it shot straight into the night sky.

It moved too fast for the naked eye to track.

The beam pierced through the rain curtain. The raindrops vaporized the instant they touched it, sending vast clouds of white mist rising.

The blue light pierced the heavens.

It slammed into the thick storm clouds.

There was no explosion, only pure cutting.

The heavy clouds were like a piece of black, tattered cloth. The blue plasma beam forcibly sliced them apart.

The beam did not lose momentum. It shot straight beyond the atmosphere.

It carved a vacuum belt dozens of kilometers long through the clouds above the New World.

At the edges of the opening, the clouds were baked orange-red by the heat.

Starlight poured through the enormous rift, dozens of kilometers long, and once again spilled across the sea.

The sea wind surged wildly, trying to fill the vacuum zone drained by the beam.

The entire sky was split in two by that single shot.

On the sea.

Aboard a Marine warship patrolling hundreds of nautical miles away.

The lookout rubbed his eyes, and the brass telescope in his hand fell onto the deck.

He pointed at the blue rift in the distant sky that refused to fade. His mouth hung wide open, but not a sound came out.

Aboard Whitebeard's Moby Dick.

Newgate stopped in the middle of a drink. He stared at the enormous vacuum belt in the sky, the knuckles of the hand holding his liquor gourd turning white.

Inside the Hall of Power in Mary Geoise.

The five old men stared at the phenomenon outside the window, their red wine glasses halting in midair at the same time.

Every faction on the sea raised its head at that moment and stared at the beam that had split the sky.

Everyone felt a chill crawl up their backs, their hearts turning utterly cold.

The Charlotte Family had already evolved into a monstrous empire beyond all reason.