Warfare Augmented Intelligent Frame Unit

Chapter 76 - The Temple of the Machine God

Chapter 76 - The Temple of the Machine God

After several minutes of weaving through the chaotic sprawl of the asteroid belt, we finally arrived. Suspended in the endless void of space, untouched by time or light, was the Void Box. Our ship glided around it cautiously, scanners sweeping every angle, but the readings remained an abyss of nothingness. The cube loomed in absolute darkness—not just black, but the kind of void that seemed to devour light itself, like an artificial black hole frozen in place.

I had always imagined it to be small. When I first saw the pictures, I assumed it was no bigger than a refrigerator—perhaps large enough to store a body, but nothing more. But now, standing before it in the cold silence of space, the Void Box dwarfed us all. It was monolithic, stretching as wide as Orbital Tech's colossal arena, its seamless edges sharper than anything nature could create.

Agent Feena's voice crackled through the comms, slicing through my trance. "We're here. Helmets on. We're approaching the Void Box personally." She spoke with the crisp efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times, already fastening her helmet. Myrrh and I exchanged a glance before following suit, the familiar click-hiss of our suits pressurizing filling the cabin.

The ship's hatch released with a low mechanical hum, and we stepped into the weightlessness of space. Our suits' built-in thrusters hummed as we drifted forward, carefully maneuvering toward the enigmatic cube. As we closed the final few meters, Agent Feena turned to me, her green eyes flashing like twin emeralds against the backdrop of the void.

"The Void Box is an indestructible celestial body," she explained. "We've tested over a hundred weapons on it, and not a single scratch. We even considered nuking it—just to pry it open—but let's just say that would have blown our budget along with everything else." She crossed her arms and fixed me with a knowing smirk. "That's why we brought you, Zaft. You're our best chance at cracking it open."

I frowned, suppressing a sigh. "So... you recruited me just to blow shit up?"

"Well, if you've got a better idea for opening this box, be my guest," Agent Feena said, arms crossed, her tone half-challenging, half-expectant.

She wasn't joking. That much was clear.

Beside me, Myrrh tightened her grip on her morpher, the faint glow of activation flickering at her fingertips. She was ready—ready to transform, to summon something colossal, something mechanical and powerful enough to tear open the unknown.

But I knew better. I stretched out my hand toward her and gave a small shake of my head. Not yet.

Then, I felt it—a tingling sensation running down my left arm, like a ripple of static crawling over my skin. But this wasn't normal. It was localized—an isolated pulse of energy threading through one specific part of my body.

I looked down.

Crimson circuits. Pulsing. Flowing. Spreading under my skin like veins of molten light.

"WMD? No..." I muttered, barely able to hear my own voice. That didn't make sense. I hadn't even activated the WEEB System—the gateway to the WMD series—and yet, something inside me had already begun. Something unique. Something different.

Compelled by an invisible force, I gently hovered forward, my breath shallow, my pulse matching the strange rhythm of the circuits now surging through my arm.

I reached out.

The moment my fingertips met the surface of the Void Box, the crimson circuits surged outward, spreading across its impenetrable shell like wildfire. The darkness that had once consumed all light was now being infected, overtaken by an overwhelming, unnatural glow. The circuits raced and expanded at an exponential rate, turning the inky black cube into a lattice of searing red patterns.