# Chapter 18: Distant Light Star System
When Alzera turned eight hundred and seventy-five years old, he did two things. He went to visit his wife's grave. After that, he enlisted in the military.
Visiting his wife's grave was not a major matter. After all, even with the long lifespans of Midgardians, death was an unavoidable thing. For them, in the cycle of their long lives, death was merely a necessary step. Everyone would eventually return to the Mother Tree and become part of eternity. The aged Alzera felt that even he himself could be called by the Saint's summons at any moment to leave this material world, let alone his wife, who was slightly older than him. But this time was different.
Very different.
That kind old woman, Alzera's wife, had not died naturally. The natural lifespan of a Midgardian exceeded a thousand years. Even death was mostly a slow withering, a painless period lasting one to two years before the person's psionic energy would peacefully deplete and they would die. But Alzera knew very well that his beloved wife's departure had not been peaceful. She had died in an abnormal gravitational fluctuation at a space station—a man-made meteorite attack. The result was that the old lady had died without a complete body. Even her psionic energy had not returned to the Mother Tree but had dissipated into the boundless star sea.
This was truly terrible. Alzera thought so. Alone in the sky, would she feel lonely? The starry sky was so vast—could she find her way home? Her soul might still be drifting in the star sea, waiting for the day he would come to retrieve her. But these were all just beautiful fantasies. The dissipation of psionic energy meant the disappearance of the soul. There was no way she could wait for him to come for her. The old man silently stared at the inscription on the tombstone: Beloved Wife, Loving Mother. This was the annotation of her life—pale and powerless. And he knew that his wife, the respectable woman who had accompanied him through six hundred and ninety-two rotations of the home star, the mother of their four children, was completely dead. Her soul had also dissipated into the star sea. Even if he returned to the Mother Tree after death, there would be no day they could meet again. This was eternal separation.
And the cause of it all was those void monsters.
That damned mother beast.
Alzera did not stay long at the cemetery. He knew that standing alone before the wooden tombstone made him no different from a damned fool. He should have more important things to do—things far more worthy of his energy than mourning the dead. His wife was already dead. What stood before him was merely a cenotaph. Wasting time here had no value. For an old Midgardian who already had little life left, it was an enormous waste.
So that afternoon, the old man opened the recruitment office of the Fifty-first District of Flower Garden Star. After dealing with the dissuasion from his three sons and one daughter, and after rebuking the office staff in his capacity as an elder, Alzera, a former Omega-level psionic, rejoined the military he had left three hundred and fifty years ago. The next day, he was back in space. The day after that, he was serving in the Third Detachment of the Flower Garden Colony Star Fleet, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and the position of Deputy Leader of the First Special Action Group.
He had returned to the military he had once sworn never to return to. He had broken his promise. This was not a breach of faith, because the young and hot-blooded Alzera was already dead. Now, there was only an old man seeking revenge for his deceased wife. It was that simple. Nothing more.
The addition of a former Omega psionic was inspiring for any fleet. Although their abilities were insignificant in the vastness of space, with the assistance of specialized ship facilities, they could easily unleash lightning storms that shattered meteorite clusters, detect enemy movements millions of kilometers away, and even use psionic energy to scan planets directly from space to determine if life existed on them. And although the name "Special Action Group" sounded peculiar, it was actually easy to understand under another name: Space Fighter Pilot.
Midgardian bio-ships were so massive and their weapons so scarce that when facing certain special situations, they were helpless against creatures and objects that approached the ship. That was when the Special Action Group stepped in. These highly skilled psionics would pilot specially designed space fighters, using psionic beams to protect the ship's safety. If the pilot was an Omega-level psionic, they could even threaten enemy ship-level targets with a single fighter. Alzera was exactly that kind of person. His power, amplified by the fighter, could easily penetrate ship armor. Although using this level of psionic energy at his age would damage his lifespan, since the pilot himself didn't care, who else would?
The old man didn't care. He only wanted revenge, even if the price was his life.
"The Third Detachment is issuing an emergency bulletin. Warning. The Third Detachment is issuing an emergency bulletin."
Hearing the piercing alarm in his ears, Alzera opened his silver-blue eyes. Burning, materialized psionic energy flowed in his pupils. The old man was now wearing a full set of white space combat suits, waiting in the Special Action Group's changing room. Although his body was aged, his ears were still good. He could hear the content of the alarm.
"Massive psionic reactions detected from the Tumen Star Domain direction. An ultra-massive target is warping space—fully confirmed. The warping entity is a First Sequence Target, codenamed Void Mother Beast, a super lifeform. All personnel, Level One Combat Alert!"
"Compatriots, we must fight with all our might! Behind us is Flower Garden Star—the last colony star of us Midgardians. We have no way to retreat. If it falls, the enemy can strike directly at the home star!"
Alzera silently listened to the impassioned pre-battle speech broadcast through the speakers. His heart was as still as an ancient well. But this did not mean the old man did not want to go into battle and kill the enemy. On the contrary, he wanted to—more than anyone. But what psionics needed most was peace of mind. Only with a calm heart could they draw endless power from the light within. As a former Omega-level psionic who could not unleash his full power only because of his age, Alzera knew that the more he wanted to kill those void monsters, the more he needed calmness—calmness like death itself, so that he could bring death to the enemy.
"They're here."
Alzera heard the sound of orderly footsteps. It was the other members of the Special Action Group coming to the changing room to put on their combat suits. He stood up from the chair in the changing room and took a deep breath. The old man could feel the psionic energy of this ship—a blazing fire of psionic energy suppressed by countless minds, calm without the slightest ripple, like fire burning in the abyss, not even a flicker of light visible. The Third Detachment was mostly composed of remnant colonists from Root Garden Star and exiled fleet members. Their homes had been devoured by the mother beast, their families turned into fluid organic resources sucked dry by the monsters, their psionic energy becoming nourishment for the swarm, entire planets reduced to ashes in blazing flames. The Saint bore witness—this was a group of avengers. And now, they had taken up arms.
So...
"It's time for revenge, boys."
The old man, now standing, watched as a group of Midgardians opened the changing room door. Their skin, exposed outside their military uniforms, was covered in various peculiar tattoos. "Avenger," "For the Children," "Farewell, Mother." Things like that. Although they were just simple words and phrases, they made people fall silent. These survivors of Root Garden Star had lost everything except their lives.
Silver-blue eyes containing psionic energy met in silent exchange. They nodded to each other without a word. The middle-aged Midgardian at the front—the Special Action Group Leader, another Omega-level psionic—said in a dry, low voice: "It's beginning."
Indeed, it had begun.
At the Midgardian colony, Flower Garden Star in the Distant Light Star Domain, three fleets slowly emerged from seven large space stations. The first fleet was well-equipped, with perfect external armor and faintly visible psionic shields. The second fleet appeared somewhat aged, likely the previous generation of main battleships that had long been mothballed. The third fleet was mostly battered—even though repairs had been completed, their old scars were still visible. The total number of the three fleets exceeded two thousand. This was the final fleet the Midgardians could muster after abandoning their economic system and prioritizing military production. They were a star river force second only to the home star's central fleet. Among them were young people who had enlisted to protect their homeland, elite warriors who had served for over two hundred years, and retired veterans who had unhesitatingly abandoned their peaceful lives to return to the military for revenge.
But now, no matter who they were, no matter what past or hatred they carried, as the psionic engines emitted silent oscillations in space, causing silver-blue ripples to reverberate against the black background and white starlight, only one thought remained in the hearts of all Midgardian soldiers.
Fight.
And then, die here.
—WOOOM!!—
Hours later, at the edge of the Distant Light Star System, countless dense ripples suddenly appeared. These ripples were like raindrops falling on a lake—innumerable concentric circles of various sizes emerged on the surface of space almost simultaneously. The lightning of psionic stars crisscrossed within these vortices. The "storm" generated by the energy even blew away the thin nebula matter at the edge of the star system, as if the most violent giant had swept its hand across the earth, clearing away everything that existed upon it.
"The enemy vanguard has arrived in the Distant Light Star Domain!"
The Midgardian fleet, long aware of the enemy's direction of approach, had been lying in wait here. Urgent battlefield alarms repeated across the psionic network of all ships. All captains and soldiers confirmed this. Through optical lenses, they clearly saw the scene at the edge of the star system not far from them: countless void monsters of bizarre shapes—not ferocious in appearance, yet instinctively terrifying—were swarming out of space like ants. Their sizes varied. The large ones were several kilometers long, comparable to battleships. The small ones were only a few meters in size, more than ten times smaller than space fighters.
The three types of void monsters, designated "Scout-class," "Main-class," and "Giant-class," had already begun to finish their jumps, leaping out from subspace.
Without exception, these terrifying monsters all emitted the light of psionic energy—the power they had seized from the dead of the Forbi people and the Midgardians. As soon as they appeared in space, they began to spontaneously spread outward, like a virus. One could see deep green energy fluctuations expanding, faintly confronting the silver-blue light of the Midgardians.
"Don't let them break out of the battlefield! Even leaving one behind could cause massive losses in the rear!"
Sitting in the seat of his personal fighter, Alzera wore an auxiliary breathing mask. He heard the order from his captain. As this order was issued, the old man sensed that the ship he was on was activating at full power. He could feel the psionic engine running at full load. He could sense endless energy converging, converging into a massive spear of light.
The next instant, the light spear was fired.
And he received his order: Special Action Group, deploy immediately. Clean up any remaining monsters. The old man couldn't help but laugh, the tubes of his auxiliary breathing mask trembling.
The final war—at least for him, for this avenger who had no intention of surviving.
It had begun.
In an instant, thousands of beams of light converged into spears, shooting toward the distant monster swarm. The vast distance of space meant that even light took several seconds to reach its target. But these were all volleys pre-calculated based on each jump trajectory. So without a doubt, those void monsters that had just jumped out of psionic vacuum took a solid hit—and the result was indeed devastating. The temperature of the Midgardian psionic light spears exceeded a million degrees, capable of vaporizing all material in the mortal world. After penetrating the target, the subsequent detonation of the psionic light spears would bring another wave of million-degree fragment impacts. Each psionic light point could easily kill any life, igniting them into torches in space.
The void monsters could not resist this power. These creatures, resembling viruses in appearance, the first wave of Plague Evil God's minions, were without exception shot down by the continuous volleys of light spears. The high temperatures ignited their bodies, turning them into interstellar dust. These monsters had just emerged from their jumps and had no time to release their power. They could only leave behind clusters of ash under the fierce attack of the Midgardians. The edge of the Distant Light Star Domain had now completely become an ocean of surging energy. It even affected the jumps. Many void monsters, not yet having emerged, were lost in the void realm due to the space-time fluctuations caused by the massive energy.
Even those that slipped through were hunted down by the outer clusters of space fighters, like swarms of bees. These fighters, generally piloted by high-level psionics, possessed limited short-range jump capabilities. They were incredibly agile and could easily hunt void monsters below the kilometer scale. Many monsters writhed their tentacles and limbs in pain in space, letting out silent roars, before dying under the volley fire of thousands of beam cannons.
Without a doubt, the Midgardians' first wave achieved remarkable results. In just a few minutes, they killed tens of thousands of giant void monsters, with countless smaller ones—most turned to ash in the aftermath of the light spears. But despite this, the commanders-in-chief of the three fleets showed no excitement. On the contrary, their faces changed almost simultaneously: They had miscalculated!
It wasn't a miscalculation in strategy. Void monsters had no intelligence. Even the mother beast was not like in the stories, possessing a will that commanded all monsters. They were essentially clusters of entity plague that proliferated by instinct—giantized chaos viruses. What the Midgardians had miscalculated was the quantity.
"Two... million?!"