Read Novel Full Chapter 744: Oops!
Chapter 744: Oops!
Liam saw how Elise had done the whole thing, and he nodded in approval. He was impressed that she had caught on to his subtle message — that he wanted to make a statement — without him having to say a single word about it. She had built it exactly the way it had to be built, and the world was reeling because of it.
The livestream had been running for over an hour now, and with every passing second the viewer count continued to explode, climbing by tens and hundreds of thousands at a time, a number that no longer looked like a number so much as a rising tide.
"Liam, the Emperor Class-II Starship has been completed," Alex said. "Have you thought of a name for it? You named the Emperor Class-I Starship Voyager. What are you going to name this one?"
"I honestly haven’t thought of a name for it," Liam admitted. "I haven’t even explored its interior yet. Though I’m thinking of taking it on its maiden voyage soon — but it’s going to be true interstellar travel. I’ll be using the Emperor Class-I Starship for solar-system-bound cruises from now on."
Far below, on Earth, that single sentence detonated in ten thousand rooms at once.
In a US situation room where the mood had already curdled into something close to despair, a woman from the intelligence side set down her coffee very slowly.
"Did he just say interstellar," she said and it was not a question. "The Class-I, the one they’ve been calling Voyager, is being demoted to a solar-system cruise ship. Because he’s built something better. Something for leaving the solar system entirely." She looked around the table at faces that had stopped pretending to have answers. "We spend our lives worrying about a man we can’t reach on Earth. He’s telling us, on a livestream, that Earth was never the edge of anything for him. He’s about to leave the solar system like it’s a suburb he’s outgrowing."
Nobody said anything, because there was nothing useful to say.
In the public feed, the comments tore upward too fast to read, a single roaring smear.
*he said INTERSTELLAR so casually. like it’s a weekend trip*
*the ship the size of a small town that went to jupiter is the DOWNGRADE now??*
*we can barely get to mars and he’s demoting his starship to a cruise ship*
*"solar system bound" he says. BOUND. like the whole solar system is a fence he’s tired of*
"And I was about to ask you to give Voyager to me, since you’ve got a better one now," Matt said, his expression sulking.
"Matt!" Stacy called him out, shaking her head.
"This is the kind of greed they warned about in the Bible," Kristopher said. "Why do you want a Starship when you already have a private luxury space shuttle — the Earth equivalent of a private jet and a luxury superyacht?"
"Because!" Matt said.
The group couldn’t help but roll their eyes at his shamelessness.
"What? Can’t a man dream?" Matt asked, arranging his face into the picture of a betrayed and bullied soul.
"At least you know it’s a dream," Harper said. "You already have more than all of us, so stop that sickening greed of yours."
And down on Earth, the whiplash of it was breaking people’s minds in an entirely different way — because the same feed that had just casually confirmed interstellar travel was now showing a young man whining that his personal spacecraft wasn’t good enough and demanding a starship, and being told off for greed by his friends.
*he has a PRIVATE SPACE SHUTTLE and he’s upset it’s not a starship. sir. SIR.*
*the most unserious people alive. they own the solar system and they’re bickering like it’s a group chat*
*a man is standing in the vacuum of space and the drama is about who gets the spare starship. i cannot breathe (unlike him apparently)*
"Liam, can I get a private space shuttle too?" Elise asked, poking her index fingers together and making the cutest expression she could manage.
"Not you too, Elise," Kristy chuckled.
"What? I want one too," Elise muttered. "You should see how Matt rubs it in our faces every chance he gets."
"That’s slander! I did no such thing," Matt protested. "I am extraordinarily humble."
"You and ’humble’ in the same sentence," Alex said. "It’s like saying an orca isn’t the serial killer of the animal kingdom."
Everyone — including Liam — turned to look at him, strange expressions on all their faces.
"What kind of analogy is that? That’s messed up, man," Kristopher said, shaking his head as though deeply disappointed.
"I never knew you were someone like that," Stacy said. "I expected better from you."
"Yeah, man. That’s really messed up," Matt chuckled.
"Wha — why — why are you suddenly against me?" Alex said. "I thought we were attacking Matt. Sigh. What a cold world."
"Well, the sun’s right over there," Lana said, gesturing vaguely toward the distant, brilliant point of it. "I’m sure it’ll warm you up nicely."
"Even if I landed on the surface of the sun, I’m pretty sure the exosuit would still keep me alive," Alex said, grinning. "It’s too overpowered."
If the situation rooms of the world had been quiet before, they went silent as tombs now.
"Stop the feed," someone in a European defense briefing said sharply. "Go back. Did that boy just say the suit survives the surface of the sun?" He had.
He couldn’t understand how they could be so causal about a piece of personal equipment that could keep a human being alive on the surface of a star.
"It truly is overpowered," Matt agreed. "And the fact that it boosts your physique makes it even better. Plus it has flight capability."
The intelligence and defense analysts of a dozen nations wrote the same three things down at the same moment — survives the sun, enhances the body, grants flight — and understood, with a sinking certainty, that Nova possessed personal technology so far beyond anything on Earth that the gap could not be measured in years or decades. And these were the suits Liam gave to his *lfriends.
"But even with all that," Alex said, rolling his eyes, "how many seconds did you last sparring against Liam?"
"It was five minutes," Matt shot back, laughing, wearing a look that said in your face. "And those five minutes got me my space shuttle."
Alex said nothing. He simply flicked him a middle finger.
Then he added, "I will definitely get my hands on that space shuttle."
And that exchange — small, petty, forgotten by the friends the instant it passed — landed on the watching world like a hammer. Because it meant the exosuits, the suits that survived the sun, that granted flight and enhanced the body, were nothing against Liam himself.
His friends wore godlike armor and lasted seconds to minutes against him unarmored. Whatever the vacuum-breathing had suggested about his power, this confirmed it went further still — that the technology everyone was terrified of was, next to the man himself, a toy.
*so the god-tier suit that survives the SUN gets you five minutes against him. FIVE MINUTES.*
*the tech isn’t the scary part. the tech never was. HE is the scary part*
*every government on earth just quietly gave up in the same second i think*
"What is going on between those two?" Liam asked Stacy in a stage whisper, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Why are they acting like lovers?"
"That’s been happening ever since Lucy delivered the private space shuttle to Matt," Stacy replied, chuckling. "Alex is... jealous."
"I’m not jealous," Alex said.
"Yeah, right. I can see the jealousy oozing out of you," Matt said, smiling sinisterly.
"You’re right, Liam. They are indeed acting like lovers," Kristopher said, with an evil smile. "That’s strange. I never knew they had such preferences."
"Fuck you, Kris," Matt and Alex chorused together.
Kristopher and the rest of the group burst out laughing — and somewhere on Earth, a billion people watched the most powerful being in the known universe giggle behind his hand while gossiping about his friends being in love, and felt their grip on reality loosen just a little further.
*the most terrifying entity in existence is just... a dude. a silly little guy. i don’t know if that’s comforting or a thousand times worse*
"Liam, are you flying to Abu Dhabi for the F1 final, or taking your superyacht?" Elise asked.
"Superyacht," Liam replied. "I’ll enjoy the view of the sea on the way."
"I had no idea you watched F1," Harper said. "That’s new."
"It’s not that I actually watch it," Liam said. "But there are some things I want to try out, and I want to appreciate the level of engineering competition going on in the sport."
"There are things you want to *try out*?" Matt said. "I hope the FIA and the sport will be okay."
"They have nothing to worry about," Liam said, amused. "Though I do have this insane idea of building a race track in space. It won’t work, though because while it sounds cool, it isn’t viable."
"You’re talking about a gravitational slingshot, right?" Alex asked. "Like around Jupiter and Saturn?"
"Something like that, but not exactly. The idea’s still vague in my mind, and I’ll probably never pursue it. The space tourism business line will handle all that sort of thing anyway."
"Lucy told us about the space tourism business line," Matt said. "The idea of touring space in a cruise ship, then descending onto a planet with a shuttle, and renting a shuttle for a stretch of time. Though I’d say the craziest of them all is the space hotel. Damn."
"Come on, Matt," Lana said. "Why are you giving the world spoilers?"
"Oops," Matt chuckled.
***
While Liam and his friends chatted casually on the surface of a moon of Jupiter, the world below was losing its mind, and everything was tipping over into chaos.
Every single word the group said carried staggering implications, and governments around the world were staggering and scrambling to keep up — interstellar travel, sun-proof suits, a personal power that dwarfed even that, a space tourism industry, a space hotel, and a confirmed public appearance all landing in the span of a single casual conversation. Analysts couldn’t write fast enough. Briefings were being rewritten while they were still being delivered.
But it was worse — far worse — for three parties in particular. For the United States, which had spent a year proving to itself that the most powerful being alive lived inside its borders and answered to none of its power.
For the UAE, which had just learned that this being was coming, in person, to a stadium on its soil. And for the FIA, which had just heard the man who owned Nova Technologies say, with a small smile, that there were things he wanted to try out at their sport’s biggest event of the year — and had no idea whether to be thrilled beyond measure or terrified out of their minds.