Star Empire

"...Can you guarantee your own safety?" Victorville looked at the current "District Chief" of the First Day District with some worry, "Cavenriel, the target world is very, very far away from the homeland. If you really want to go to that place, Exploration may require more specialized determination of resource supply directions... Once serious problems arise, we may not be able to help you."

"It doesn't matter, Your Majesty." Cavernrel smiled slightly and then said seriously, "I will take Kaloust with me."

"This seems a bit familiar..." Vidoville paused, and a light flashed in his eyes: "Based on the vague judgment of the current situation, you are authorized to deal with that world, and according to the rules, bring enough defense power."

"clear."

Three hours later, an order field with a different frequency from the world barrier was separated from the world barrier of the empire's fifth quadrant outpost world. The interior of the order field flashed with golden and purple light spots. Each flashing light spot was A battleship that can cross the void.

Under the "self-information correction" of the void engine, the fleet began to accelerate and "drift" in the void. Everything that the imperial people were originally familiar with was in the "void gap" that was originally close in front of them but could never be crossed by conventional means. gradually disappeared.

In the distant void, a constantly "flashing" beacon is quietly sending communication messages to the fleet. This "void beacon" laid by the previous void detection formation is guiding the "direction" of this fleet's advance. ".

"His Majesty said that the previous scene seemed a bit familiar." Calost looked at the excited Cavernrel blankly, "I also have this feeling. Nearly 120,000 years ago, the first person we met When the Crystal Energy Vortex first appeared, the two of us were dealing with the problems at that time, but I was there before you."

"Why are you thinking about what happened before?" Cavernrel looked so excited that he didn't even listen to Calost's words. "This is the first time we have discovered that there is a multiverse directly inside the world barrier. , and the world barrier itself seems to have many interesting properties! Aren’t you excited about such a different world?”

"I just think it would be more troublesome to manage... After all, if there are additional layers of interference between those universes, the single universe reference anchor will... hmm? The beacon disappears?"

Before Calost could react further, Cavenriel also received an order from the emperor from the empire at almost the same moment: "Stop moving towards the target and return to the capital world immediately!"

"What's going on here?"

…

"About three hours ago, the first exploration fleet that established the void beacon had been destroyed." When Cavinriel and Kalost had just returned to the capital star, Vidoville raised a heavyweight topic, "The entire empire has entered the first level of combat readiness, and the specific details... please take a look at the report sent back."

As they spoke, in the minds of the three of them, the last news from the exploration fleet ahead began to play back again.

"The world barrier in this world seems to be stronger than any world we have ever recorded." A picture that is comparable to personal experience gradually unfolded, "Because the barrier is extremely complex, we have to try to use more direct To destroy this barrier..."

"Despite many unexpected situations, our probe finally successfully entered the interior of the world barrier. We don't know why this world barrier is so strong. In order to ensure that communications are not interrupted, we have to use a series of High-power weapons continue to delete the information spread by the world barrier to prevent it from re-closing."

"There is no space between the universe. These "mediums" have strange properties, and even we cannot observe and measure them too much. This weird filling structure reminds us of the once-abandoned definition, a kind of As "ether", it can support the existence of action at a distance. Perhaps, this is the best description of the existence between those universes - the world barrier is like a huge eggshell, the universe is like an egg yolk, each universe is suspended In the egg white, the "etheric sea"..."

"In this sea of ​​ether, there are many cosmic spaces floating... It's hard to imagine that such a structure does exist..."

"There are high-density blind spots in the scanning field of view of some detectors, which are enough to completely block crystal energy scanning waves and arcane scanning waves..."

"Look at that! What is that! Oh my god, what are they starting?! Stop them! Stop them--"

In the picture flashing in everyone's mind, the exploration fleet composed mainly of truth class and immortal class has flown to the earth inside a certain universe. The earth is vast and boundless, and the vast surface is covered with traces that can be confirmed to be artificial transformation, but whose nature and performance are extremely strange.

Black dents scale, meander, twist, and break across the earth. A large number of unknown structures are scattered and stacked. They are like melted buildings, or like the stubble after broken bones, pointing diagonally towards the sky. They do not follow any proportional relationship at all, and all scenes and environments are scaled arbitrarily, as if they are full. Malicious graffiti...

Some kind of hindsight suddenly exploded from the fleet - the entire universe was full of wreckage! But until now, the dark and weird atmosphere had not been noticed at all!

Several unknown humanoid creatures that were originally surrounding here and were very "eye-catching" in the wide-area scan were completely dead, and the truth-class main gun cluster salvo was instantly swallowed up by the blood-colored light that seemed to come from the depths of space.

"According to the last records and the information we captured, this burst may have been used to drive a broadcast. Since then we have been unable to contact the first wave of exploration fleets, and"

"The news coming later will be contaminated by the death wave." Vidoville blocked the continued playback of the data, and the surrounding space and atmosphere were as solemn as his expression.

"At the end of this returned message, there is another part written in a language that we have seen but cannot decipher. We have all seen that part of the text before, but this time, that text... seems to be in It has the intelligence to spontaneously translate into our language after detecting our attempts at translation.”

As he spoke, Vidoville began to activate a holographic projection, and in the projection, there were several large blood-red characters that were shaking and even emitting mist:

".The Solemnity Agreement is activated."

"Surprise?! This, this is."

"Now there is no time to worry about the original meaning of these words. We have no time." Vidoville interrupted the panicked words, "You also prepare the defense line immediately - as soon as possible!!"

"Vesrifan and I have ordered as many defense forces as possible to be concentrated as much as possible, and pay attention to relevant security operations and retreat sequences. We must first ensure the evacuation of the population in large-scale colonial universes, pay attention to transporting data, and send information to worlds with key protection deployments. Evacuate.”

The moment the order was confirmed, the overall retreat operation was already in full swing.

According to the detailed evacuation and preservation plans gradually developed over thousands of years, countless barges headed to worlds that had been colonized and experienced development. The people and vital parts of the equipment transferred here through the information transmission array were picked up at the predetermined location. This process is carried out as quickly as possible, and the cosmic benchmark stability anchor injects a large amount of computing power to maintain the stability of the world and the speed of transmission.

When the last batch of evacuated ships went to the heavy fortress world in order, the cosmic baseline stabilizing anchor cut off all support to the world gates and completely locked them. The connection between themselves and the main network was almost completely cut off. It is possible to avoid worlds where protection is not strong and can become dangerous springboards.

Within the defensive circle.

Fleets of all sizes began to gather near the heavy fortress star, forming a huge barrier composed of nodes. The heavily armored fortress star operates invisibly, and a layer of pale golden crystal energy shield that is so dignified that it can squeeze out liquid droplets protects the battleship group parked in the planet's low-Earth orbit.

At the two poles of the planet, there is a huge, pyramid-like purple pyramid-shaped crystal shining on each pole. The crystal is filled with extremely active arcane energy, and above the crystal are three huge energy rings surrounding it. Belt, these field structure generators work continuously, providing many supports to the battlefield beyond the actual visible field.

Scenes that are exactly the same or very similar to this are happening simultaneously in hundreds of universes and billions of planets that have been transformed. In addition, on a more macro level, an invisible wall is slowly forming. This wall gives all the soldiers a basis to "guard".

"We prepared these weapons originally to fight against the Death Tide Gate." On the capital planet, Victorville's eyes sharpened, "The progress of the overall defense line construction?"

"Preparations have been made. The first capital world, the second capital world and the corresponding protective world defense lines have been completed. The defense of key interval nodes has been completed -"

"All areas in the fifth quadrant are out of contact." "All areas in the fourth quadrant are out of contact." "Whole-wide warning, void outposts and all void information processing towers that can contact the South Celestial Pole of the universe have issued an alarm, and an unknown order field has exceeded the limit in the void. Scale, error, reporting aborted.”

".What?!" Vidoville was shocked, but before he could respond, hundreds of reports overlapped in front of his eyes in an instant. They were hundreds of reports that were stranded on those who had been abandoned. , warning beacons located in far-flung frontier worlds within other quadrants will only send back reports when the end of the world occurs.

A world that completely gives up its defenses, unable to hold on for more than a split second when an enemy whose true form is not yet visible appears, and are destroyed faster than the Empire can even react? !

Later, various alarms began to respond, and the entire empire network had no time to take any substantive action. In fact, it should be said that it was after Vidoville and others first noticed that a large number of nodes in the network had disappeared, that the empire's network structure was abnormal. Just like a limb cut off by a sharp blade, in a short period of time, the original shape of the limb The owner will notice such a wound, but it may take some time before the pain sets in.

"Why……"

"Those worlds... they are like flickering lights and candles, as if it doesn't take a storm to extinguish them..."

"Wait, set up an outpost before danger arrives, like... an early warning?"

"...Where is the early warning system? How could...this happen?"

The combined fleets led by Eskett, Torres and Orif are nervously watching the empty universe. Their fleet relies on millions of heavy fortress stars that have undergone comprehensive orbit changes and appear very abrupt and weird.

In the nearest area, in the area where the fortress constellation is space-reinforced and fire-locked, it is surrounded by several layers of thick crystal energy shields. The equatorial rings and the crystal matrices at the poles begin to radiate. The golden radiant cosmic benchmark anchor.

The empire has determined that if needed in a state of war, the cosmic reference anchor can also be used as a wide-area scanner, battlefield stabilizer, and full-band jammer - under the condition of controlling the order of the universe, the entire universe All can be transformed into weapons for the authority holder. In addition, the cosmic benchmark anchor itself can also make the entire universe and the entire world differentiate between "inside and outside". The Imperial Combined Fleet has confirmed that only in this way will the rear area not be tampered with and become the front line in a fierce firefight.

The outer battlefield was determined... The starry sky was cleared before the battle.

"Note that there is a large-scale blind spot at the intersection of the third and second hexagrams, and the relevant coordinates have been fully allocated to the corresponding target recipients."

"——Fire!" Esket responded immediately, and at the same time, there was the cluster firepower of tens of millions of warships.

The torrent of crystal energy and purple light beams that seemed like a storm exceeded the constraints of the basic laws of the world. They directly acted on a large area with an observation blind spot. However, these first cluster attacks that should have been extremely powerful seemed to disappear directly. , they didn't get any response in the dark space.

No, maybe there was a response.

In the originally dark and lightless space, a gray mist emerged from nowhere. It rotated and expanded, drawing the entire world structure into it. Lightnings darker and deeper than the singularity exploded silently, spreading and expanding uncontrollably. They formed a disgusting, mind-breaking complex giant tree, in which countless points wandered, Breathing.

With the appearance of the sky curtain, everything inside and outside the world seems to have changed direction in an instant, becoming blurred and complicated. Eskett had a splitting headache, as if she had been burned by crystal energy. No, it was worse than that, much worse than that. It seemed that she was about to be swallowed and torn apart by the boundless darkness.

The world, stars, space and everything else began to tremble violently. They no longer seemed to exist in any real way. They seemed to be just dots of phosphorus fire on the endless ocean. As long as the storm rolled over and the big waves pressed down, everything would be from there. end.

"...All units gather firepower and attack those nodes freely! Attack freely! Don't leave a window of firepower!" Eskett was almost tearing his soul apart. He tried his best to draw his attention away from the extended perception and let himself Retract into the protective structure. At the same time, he used his remaining sanity to quickly weave orders, and these orders were delivered as quickly as possible to the people of the empire who were fighting against all this: "All fortress stars began to release jump missiles, and the focus of calculation power shifted. Further enhance the stability of the spatial structure!”

In the process of tilting the firepower of a large enough number of firepower bases at all costs, a real rainstorm composed of purple and golden light streams was rising from the ground and falling towards the overwhelming sky.

At this time, the enemy still did not appear, but Eskett knew what those black-gray mist and black nodes meant - the unknown enemy was building a position.

Compared with the fleeting artillery fire, those jump missiles with pale golden traces are easier to pay attention to - they are extremely strong, and their role is to ensure that an information collision of sufficient scale can overcome the numerous blockades and affect the target body. The Empire considered such models equally valuable, so they are preserved to this day.

However, in the past, this powerful attack that could completely destroy the world barrier seemed to disappear after being delivered. The crystal energy spear disappeared instantly after it acted on the unknown space filled with fog, as if it had been Deleted out of thin air.

The jump missiles that noticed this situation chose to detonate nearby, trying to neutralize the edge of the sky with crystal energy radiation, but this had no effect. After many "explosions" extended to a certain range, the crystal energy's The glow will be cut off directly. Invisible walls, invisible disturbances are stirring it all up like crazy.

Eskett can feel those free crystal energies - those imperial artillery fires that have been dispersed. They are being drawn into the vortex, into the bottomless and terrifying vortex. The vortex is far from limited here. The vortex is far beyond my understanding - wait, perception! ? ! !

"Strengthen the output of the cosmic benchmark stabilizing anchor, and don't let that black-gray fog spread over!"

Is it that he and the fleet are no longer able to control their own power, or is the protection system failed?

Just as the order was issued, the gray sky suddenly shook violently, and countless turbulent waves that were enough to stir up the structure of the galaxy exploded from the center. Deep in the countless layers of shadows formed by countless rays of lightning and giant trees, a huge figure appeared from it.

For some reason, it seems like a terminally ill "corpse" that is convulsing crazily? ? Why do you think so? ?

"...Your Majesty, we may be in trouble." After a moment of silence, amidst the unimaginable noise and roar, Eskett weighed it again and again, and decided to connect to the highest security level communication with the capital area.

——! !

"Suffered - communication!!"

"Can void base station communications also be suppressed?"

"This is not suppression... this is stuffing!"

"I'm afraid..."

"Seize all opportunities - and report valuable clues at the right time -!!"