Chapter 432: Titan-Class 001 Siege Core [1]
It was 1st March, Year 714 A.G.
6:13am.
VROOM!
A simple brown military truck drove through the Western wastelands, already far away from the city walls of Iron Reef and the neighboring Towns.
It was very early in the morning. Part of the world was still engulfed by the familiar bioluminescent mist, though it was reducing with each second that passed, allowing the inhabitants inside this truck to see where they were going.
Leon and Ren Nora sat idly in the truck, paying attention to the terrain around them instead of where they were going as under Ren Nora’s powers, the electric military truck drove itself forward.
Their destination was far away from civilization, deep within the Western wasteland where powerful Neon Beasts prowled.
Due to the presence of one of the 2 men inside this truck though, even as they drove through the territories of powerful Neon Beasts, none dared to attack them as instead they cowered and went into hiding.
This was the benefit of traveling alongside the ’Glitch’.
Besides, the truck was not. It was a stealth truck, blending seamlessly with the wasteland and becoming invisible in the process even while moving swiftly.
They preferred using this method of transport so as to avoid prying eyes that were following Ren Nora’s movement. Ren Nora was always watched by the other leaders of the world, just like he did with them.
And this time, with the foundation for a Civil War brewing and gathering momentum, the scrutiny increased even more.
This is why they needed this just to be able to leave the city.
Of course, this time it was not about Ren Nora himself but to prevent their enemies from seeing one of the core project that Leon had been working on for the past 3 weeks- the Titan-Class Siege Core of the Cannon Master Class Specialization.
After a few dozen minutes, when it was almost 7am, they finally arrived.
Looking from inside the stealth military truck, Leon didn’t see anything. It was like they stopped in the middle of nowhere. But if you paid attention, you’ll notice a shimmering bluish white haze in the air.
Leon recognized this bluish white haze immediately, not just because he was the one who paid for it but because he’d seen it before.
Afterall, this was the same barrier that Parasite used to hide his base back in Community G- a barrier featuring the Ghost Line ability of NetRunners.
But this one was of a higher grade, strong enough to even obscure the spying of the Zerphyr-7 Stealth Reconnaissance UAV if the aircraft didn’t focus here.
The stealth truck drove through the shimmering barrier, and then...
Bzzz!
Leon heard a faint sound like reality ripping into two. He blinked to adjust to the slightly uncomfortable feeling, and finally he saw their destination.
Hidden within the Ghost Line barrier is a large compound- a 400 by 500 meters large compound with a sophisticated Power Line Tower that is a mixture of a windmill, an ADE siphon tower, and a radiation power line.
Deep in the wasteland, here, the ADE density was extremely high hence why it was deserted, and also why it was perfect for Leon’s second base.
The massive Power Line Tower is located at the Eastern End of the compound where it draws energy from the wind, ADE, and the abundant radiation here to power and keep this base active.
As for what it was powering...
...it was the Titan-Class 001 Siege Core.
This compound was built solely to house, contain and power the Siege Core, and it stood at the heart of Leon’s second base of operations.
The Siege Core was not merely a machine, it was an empire condensed into steel, circuitry, and raw power.
Standing even taller than the Power Line Tower and spreading wide at 100 square meters, it rose from the compound and then the wasteland like a man-made mountain, dwarfing every other structure and dead tree in this part of the wasteland.
Not that anyone could see it. Afterall, it was hidden within thick layers of Ghost Line technology barriers.
In front of this construct, Leon’s other constructs like the Sentry-IV Autocannon Drone and the Bulwark MK.II Titan Frame looked like insects.
Even the War Turret would appear insignificant before the Siege Core.
The structure took the form of an immense technological tower that stretched hundreds of meters into the sky, with layer upon layer of an armored frame that spiraled upward around a central reactor column, creating the appearance of a citadel forged from black alloy and glowing energy veins.
This time around, Leon couldn’t actually finish this construction himself.
With Ren Nora helping and facilitating it, he sought help from the only D Rank Mechanist of the Geneforge Clans.
With the promise of the ’Glitch’ owing him a favor, Dr. Vex Larkinson did not hesitate to accept the offer and help Leon in this project.
Besides, it was a Siege Core! Which Mechanist didn’t work to work on such a massive project? He was glad to take part in the project.
Of course, the Mechanist Technician had ulterior motives in the end as he wanted to reverse-engineer the blueprint to get his own Siege Core blueprint but as he was already wary of it from the beginning, Leon thwarted all his efforts.
Only with the help of a Mechanist Technician was Leon able to complete this project within 3 weeks.
Without Dr. Vex Larkinson’s help, Leon estimated that he would have spent at least 2 months or even 3 months still stuck constructing it, this is how difficult it is to construct a Siege Core.
And this timeline is even because the one constructing it is him. In his estimate, Leon felt that any other Warmachine Specialist would need at least 5 months to construct a single Siege Core.
As for Cannon Masters, they simply didn’t have the aptitude and innate ability to construct a mechanical tower this sophisticated.
Along the tall frame of the Siege Core, countless armored plates overlapped one another like the scales of an obsidian dragon, concealing the unimaginable complexity hidden beneath.
At the heart of the tower existed the Core itself- a reactor so powerful that conventional energy metrics becomes meaningless.
The Siege Core is a perfect example of a construct that truly differentiates a Mechanist from a mechanic.
Contained within multiple layers of magnetic confinement fields is a miniature artificial star, compressed and stabilized through technologies centuries beyond anything the rest of Neo-Tokara possessed.
Rivers of raw energy and ADE flowed from the reactor throughout the tower’s internal systems, illuminating massive conduits that pulsed like glowing arteries beneath the armor.
With the help of the Power Line Tower, the Core generated enough power to sustain an entire Megacity indefinitely!
This is because it is constructed to be self-sustaining.
And yet, Leon had built it solely for war.
As for its functions...
