Chapter 19: Wrong Direction Opened
Spitting out a sentence in fragments, the commander of the Third Fleet gasped sharply. Midgardians didn't actually rely on oral breathing, but precisely because of this, this confused behavior occurred under shock. This middle-aged Midgardian soldier, whose leaves on his head had all turned yellow despite being only in his prime, unconsciously clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, muttering, "What's going on? How is the number six times more than last time?!"
Soon, someone answered his question.
"According to detection, a large-scale warping reaction occurred around the Root Court Star System, Commander. It's the Space Amoeba Swarm!"
The universe wasn't only inhabited by intelligent life; there were also many strange space-dwelling organisms, such as Void Clouds, Crystal Lifeforms, Deep Space Jellyfish, and so on. Space Amoebas were one of them. These massive lifeforms, naturally capable of warping space to move, always traveled in clusters. They had enormous bodies and gentle temperaments, often visiting star systems settled by intelligent life. The Root Court Star System was no exception. But this time, they encountered Chaos Monsters, becoming their prey and causing the number of Void Monsters to surge.
Now, with the conclusion of the first wave of Void Monsters' collective space-time jump, a second wave, dense and sky-obscuring—no, that description wasn't accurate; it should be said to be a galaxy-obscuring—endless jump ripples began to appear behind the first wave of scout monsters. Their number, calculated by the ship's psionic computing core, was two million five hundred seventeen thousand three hundred twenty-nine.
The overly complex jump ripples even interfered with each other, merging to form a massive psionic vortex that even Midgardians couldn't understand. Through this deep green vortex, large enough to swallow half a planet, one could see the other end of space-time. There, an incredibly huge super-massive lifeform, over nine hundred thousand meters long and still expanding, was waving its tentacles, attempting to cross billions upon billions of kilometers to arrive here. Fortunately, that giant lifeform hadn't yet accumulated enough power to jump and would arrive later. Unfortunately, the second wave of two million Void Monsters had already begun their jump!
"Crazy..."
Recovering from the shock, the Third Fleet's commander's gaze refocused. His eyes swept across the dense light screens before him, observing the data within. This middle-aged Midgardian gritted his teeth and touched his withered yellow leaves—the worst possible sign, and they themselves knew it.
So, when the order came from the flagship's bridge, not many were surprised. There were certainly emotions, but most were merely unwillingness.
"If we had intact warships... we definitely wouldn't lose to those people in the First Fleet!"
Many began to resent the Midgardians' national policies over the past millennia. Due to millennia of war, these psionic plant lifeforms abhorred conflict. Even in the interstellar age, if not for needing to protect themselves from various space-dwelling creatures and other civilizations, they wouldn't have formed regular interstellar fleets and colonial groups. Instead, they would have remained on their homeworld, immersed in meditation. But now, the consequences were manifesting. A civilization that had entered the interstellar age for a millennium wouldn't have formed a fleet cluster exceeding two thousand ships if not for the Void Monster invasion. If they had a fleet of one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand, with over ten colony worlds, then even the Void Mother Beast might not have been their match.
But now, everything was too late.
As the Second Fleet also began to activate their extended psionic one-dimensional rays for jump preparation, only the Third Fleet remained to deal with the frenziedly attacking Void Monsters. These Chaos lifeforms, virus-shaped yet tougher than alloy, mostly lacked special attack methods. Only the kilometer-class giant monsters could mimic psionic light spears, firing psionic energy balls as ranged attacks. Most of the time, their weapon was themselves.
Any matter, at extremely high speeds, possessed terrifying lethality. The Void Monsters used this as their tactic. As deep green acceleration light streams trailed countless electromagnetic sparks behind each monster, their speed instantly accelerated to an unbelievable three-thousandths of the speed of light in just over ten seconds! This speed might seem unremarkable, but in reality, it was terrifying enough to make one tremble. This was order; in fact, if these monsters didn't have to disregard their own lives entirely, they absolutely couldn't achieve this.
Immediately, one could see this scene: the sky-darkening beast swarm erupted with a green light bright enough to illuminate a small part of the Far Light Star System. Then came a collective acceleration charge that even distorted the vacuum. The Third Fleet, guarding the Second Fleet's migration, was on high alert. All ships stopped moving, remaining in place, deploying maximum-power pinpoint psionic shields. Meanwhile, engines ran at full load, and light spears began to condense.
Even if everyone died here, they had to stop these Void Monsters! They had to buy time for the First and Second Fleets to reorganize, so they could cooperate with the satellite fortress to annihilate these two million Void Monsters and withstand the approaching Void Mother Beast!
Alzera was helped to the medical bay. Before him was a psionic-projected light screen, broadcasting in real-time what the bridge could see. Silent, emotionless, fearless of death, the Void Monsters sacrificed all activity in their bodies just to accelerate their corpses to three-thousandths of the speed of light. They used their own bodies as cannonballs to bombard the colony world's Third Fleet. Seeing this, the old man felt a chill run down his spine. His first thought wasn't of his own life or death, but what would happen if these Void Monsters targeted the colony world instead of the fleet?
Hundreds of thousands, even millions of meteorites accelerated to three-thousandths of the speed of light crashing into Flower Court Star... In just an instant, the once beautiful planet would become a hell on earth, right? And a hell not even described in Midgardian mythology—a demonic realm called the Scorching Hell.
"Prepare for impact!"
The enemy was about to arrive. The entire Third Fleet of four hundred fifty ships had adjusted their formation, combining into a three-dimensional cone formation. All ships activated their shields at full capacity, ready to withstand the impact of these low-light-speed projectiles. The Second Fleet's jump was almost complete; psionic vacuums could already be seen forming. All Second Fleet ships began to phase, preparing to enter psionic space and initiate the jump.
But the impact never came.
A crimson concentric ring, appearing abruptly in the middle area between the countless Void Monsters and the Midgardian Third Fleet, stirred space-time, causing massive energy fluctuations. The excessively violent nature of the energy even led to repeated violent explosions in the vacuum. Plasma, accompanied by heart-stopping spatial tears, tore through thousands of square kilometers of vast space. Though insignificant on a cosmic scale, it greatly disrupted the Void Monsters' charge trajectory. Blocked by energy fluctuations, explosions, plasma, and spatial tears, the vast majority of Void Monsters lost their three-thousandths-of-light-speed velocity.
"It's a jump channel!"
On the Third Fleet's flagship bridge, the commander instinctively crushed the control stick in his hand, muttering in disbelief, "It's a fluctuation from the homeworld! But how is that possible?! And why is it red?!"
Every lifeform had a different psionic color. Midgardians were mostly silver or blue, while Void Monsters were uniformly deep green. What was red psionic energy? And when did the homeworld get reinforcements? Wasn't the Central Fleet supposed to be supervising the Void Gate ritual? They still had to build at least seven or eight space fortresses and satellite fortresses in the homeworld's defense system. How could they come to their aid from several light-years away? They themselves had given up, ready to be the sacrificial force for the First and Second Fleets, to burn out their last embers!
"Wait, the Void Gate ritual? This red jump channel, could it be...?!" Suddenly, the commander recalled a possibility, and his eyes widened.
But the progression of reality wouldn't stop due to everyone's astonishment. As the crimson psionic jump channel began to rotate violently, layer upon layer of concentric rings contracted and condensed, finally forming a vortex-like massive exit. The next instant, a red-gold light stream shot out from it, charging straight toward the Void Monster army!
"What?!"
Before anyone could pay attention to what existed within that light stream, all Midgardians watching this scene were dumbfounded. Regardless of whether that suddenly appearing creature was a reinforcement from the homeworld, it shouldn't directly charge into the Void Monster cluster! That was millions of cosmic lifeforms that could overwhelm a planet's army just by sheer numbers!
But then, what appeared in their eyes were four thick light pillars, interwoven with silver and red. These four light pillars pierced through the black monster cluster, then produced violent explosions. In an instant, thousands of circular explosion spheres appeared in the darkness. Blazing flames, accompanied by metallic gas at hundreds of thousands of degrees, spread through the cosmic void. In just that one strike, over five thousand monsters were directly reduced to nothing, and almost the same number of Void Monsters turned to charcoal!
One strike annihilated over ten thousand monsters! This terrifying lethality immediately made the Midgardian Third Fleet commander's heart clench. Although this was due to the monsters' dense formation from their collective charge, it still demonstrated the mysterious existence's power. If it charged back and forth a few hundred times, wouldn't this massive monster cluster be completely wiped out?
Shaking his head, the commander abandoned this fanciful idea. Not to mention whether that being had the energy reserves for such an operation, the Void Monsters would soon disperse. Facing an existence with such lethal power, even mindless ones would instinctively flee and avoid it. The vast distances on a cosmic scale would create enormous gaps. In that case, one charge from that being would be lucky to kill a few hundred monsters.
But the next moment, the commander had no energy to calculate the mysterious existence's attack efficiency. As circles of crimson concentric psionic ripples slowly subsided, the cosmic space, with the particle clouds from monster corpses dispersing, the entire Midgardian colony world's Third Fleet saw the true form of that mysterious existence.
It was a four-armed giant, over four hundred meters long, entirely gold-red, like a warship. Golden halos, like the surface of a molten sun, flickered on its four arms. Circles of silver light intertwined and mixed with these halos. Clearly, the four massive beam attacks earlier were emitted by this giant's four arms.
"It's... it's a Void Lifeform!"
"It's our Void Lifeform!"
"Did the ritual on the homeworld succeed?!"
Instantly, the entire Third Fleet erupted in cheers. For some reason, courage surged within them, as if the appearance of this giant and the success of the ritual already marked a preliminary victory. In reality, the giant's earlier feat proved this point. It could freely enter and exit the monster swarm, as if entering an unguarded territory, demonstrating its power far surpassing ordinary Void Monsters!
"Wait, be careful!"
In the medical bay, Alzera was feeling elated at the sudden appearance of powerful reinforcements. But from the light screen, he suddenly saw a glimmer of light flashing not far from the four-armed steel giant. Sensing danger, he immediately roared loudly, completely disregarding that the being couldn't hear him at all.
Meanwhile, far away, within the Void Monster's position, the four-armed giant stood on the corpse of a kilometer-class giant Void Monster. It slowly moved its four arms, overheated from fully unleashing energy beams, seemingly still unclear about the situation. To its left, another kilometer-class giant Void Monster, sensing the enemy's distraction, immediately accelerated fully to two-thousandths or even three-thousandths of the speed of light, creating a distorted ripple in space as it charged straight toward it!
Three-thousandths of the speed of light meant a velocity close to one thousand kilometers per second. This was a speed impossible to achieve within an atmosphere, a speed that could easily break free from a star system's gravitational pull, a fundamental speed for traveling from one galaxy to another besides jumping. This terrifying acceleration didn't originate from Midgardian civilization but likely from another civilization devoured by the Void Monsters. It was a speed that biological nerves could absolutely never react to.
But that was only for naturally evolved organisms.
Whether through precognition or instantaneous reaction after detection, the steel giant didn't pay much attention to the approaching Void Monster. Standing on the kilometer-class monster's corpse, it crossed two arms over its chest, its eyes scanning the entire Void Monster swarm, seemingly appraising its prey. Meanwhile, its second left arm on its shoulder raised high. Dark gold energy particles condensed at the speed of thought, forming a massive long-handled battle axe. Without even looking in the enemy's direction, it casually swung the axe. One could only see a dark gold light blade flash, then disappear.
Then, the charging kilometer-class Void Monster stopped its assault. The next second, it split open from the middle, revealing its horrifying interior—strange organs and energy cores composed of countless tumor-like particles. Then came a violent self-destruction, turning into a spark in the dark cosmos.
And at this moment, Joshua, who had finally figured out what was happening, had a very simple thought in his mind.
"Tch, the jump gate opened in the wrong direction."
The warrior muttered softly, "This is bad... the jump drained all my energy."
On his chest, the golden light representing the Fusion Core Heart furnace pulsed rhythmically, its light fluctuating, flickering slowly.