Chapter 971: Chapter 971: Arrest
(Still asking for monthly tickets. I won’t forget about this until the last day of the month!!!)
The three expeditionary armies attacking the Fallen Apostle’s research worlds at the front line have already engaged the enemy. They used the Void rifts of those three worlds as breakthrough points and successfully struck the enemy’s defense line. The scale of those Void rifts is larger than we expected, which greatly facilitated the expeditionary army. According to intelligence feedback from the front lines, soldiers can almost imagine how violent the escaped experimental subject was before it left the Fallen Apostle’s domain—”it” was like an angry bullet, piercing through several worlds consecutively, leaving planet-sized terrifying blood holes in one universe after another. As a result, the sovereign worlds of the Fallen Apostles suffered from a ‘ceaseless flow of blood,’ as planets were deleted from history due to information evaporation. For research worlds, this is a terrifying loss—it means many new materials will disappear from any records in the most thorough way unless they were previously stored in the spiritual network’s database. Obviously, things still under research would not appear in the public database.
At a time specially chosen by Lin Xue (a time that might help guide the future in a better direction, though the Miss never explains why she chooses so, as she puts it, a certain blockhead can’t yet comprehend the power of a butterfly’s wings—I regret to say I agree), the Imperial Admiral and the Royal Fleet have left the Starport. Under the cover of the Leaving World Courtyard System, we quickly approach the territory of the Fallen Apostles along the safe hidden routes previously explored by the expeditionary forces. However, we did not head to any of the three research worlds currently engulfed in war. Instead, we advanced toward a Void zone never before present in the coordinate library (a possible world or other entity’s Void information band). Although the course started on a path explored by the expeditionary forces, after three jumps, we entered an unfamiliar area. As you might guess, this direction was also indicated by the Miss. Although she doesn’t quite understand the stuff on the navigation tool, she knows what symbols should appear on it in a suitable future. Of course, she could only point out a vague location; according to this position, the fleet could not enter any specific orderly world. After all, she couldn’t directly locate the runaway experimental subject, and the information obtained through indirect positioning was always very vague, but that was enough. The fleet could already save a lot of time due to it.
To be honest, I envy the Miss’s ability to manipulate the navigation tool completely oblivious to its function. This would undoubtedly prove beneficial in exams, probably replacing the ‘choose C method.’ After all, in both situations, I can’t comprehend what it is, yet I can still fill in an answer…
During the fleet’s advancement, we maintained smooth communication with the three front-line units. The command center has moved to the Imperial Admiral’s bridge, where Sandora and senior staff were commanding three simultaneous battles from infinite distances. I pretended to help with strategies, Lilina pretended to be impressed, and Qianqian pretended to be very serious—but except for sitting upright, she had already started blowing snot bubbles.
About ten minutes into the front-line battle, when the Imperial Army and the Fallen Apostles officially engaged, a front-line commander suddenly reported intelligence: “Your Majesty! Something is off here!”
Sandora’s eyes immediately sharpened: “Report your findings.”
“Your Majesty, the number of stationed troops is far below expectations, I mean the enemy’s mobile units—we encountered the fiercest artillery fire from the semi-mobile outpost fortresses and space fortresses in space, with the number of Fallen Apostle’s ships being less than half of theirs!”
I glanced at Sandora: “Could it be that the experimental subject destroyed too many warships while escaping, causing the Fallen Apostles to run out of ships now? Remember, back in the Ruins World, we wiped out Harlan’s main force.”
“Even if their losses were great during the Ruins World battle, the remaining fleet on home ground couldn’t possibly be dealt with by merely a half Void creature,” Sandora swiftly said, “the strongest of the Empire is the fleet, not any individual; you can’t defeat a fleet, let alone just a clone. Who knows where those ships are.”
“At least for now, it seems like a good thing,” said my sister while asking Sandora, “But shouldn’t we be cautious about our own rear?”
Sandora narrowed her eyes: “You mean, the Fallen Apostles might have detected the movements of the Empire fleet and are feigning ignorance to mislead us, then counter-attacking Shadow City or other Empire territories?”
Listening earnestly despite her intense drowsiness, Qianqian suddenly summed up with an idiom: “Besiege Shu to save Zhao…”
It took me a while to realize that she meant “Besiege Wei to save Zhao…”
Sandora’s expression became serious, evidently considering my sister’s concern to be plausible. The Fallen Apostles are the most dangerous adversaries you can imagine, as severe a threat as the Abyss, but far more cunning. Like Lilina, you must guard against their tricks carefully.
I involuntarily glanced at the Miss, who slightly squinted her eyes, with white light flashing in her pupils: “A fifty percent chance.”
I requested she explain a bit more.
Lin Xue showed a slightly apologetic expression: “Two futures simultaneously appear, I’ve never encountered such a situation. In the first future, the Fallen Apostles have lost three worlds in this raid, and we achieve a major victory and find that troublesome so-called ‘clone.’ In the second future, they retaliate against Shadow City, nearly causing us to lose the Revenge Army Base and half the arsenal. The two futures appear together, completely overlapping. I don’t know what happened, but… it seems a previous prediction triggered a paradox, causing trouble with the filtering mechanism in my mind. What decision will you make now?”
The Miss’s predictions never manifested such severe contradictions; she usually offered two answers: she saw it, or she didn’t. Even with severe interference from the opponent, the vision was merely blurred, but now she simultaneously sees two nearly completely opposite directions. This made all of us gaze at each other with concern, yet Lin Xue remained calm: “Temporarily, I can assure you, this is temporary. Now let’s consider what we should do, whether to return and defend Shadow City or continue intercepting that experimental subject—I must remind you, that experimental subject is quite a bothersome guy. Even though I can’t see the other party’s identity in several predictions, any involvement with that target gives me an inexplicably sour mood, a feeling of wanting to hit someone.”
Sandora looked at my reaction, being a strategist but not adept at making decisions based purely on intuition. At this moment, she wanted my opinion. I thought for a moment and swung my hand vigorously: “The fleet continues forward, instruct Shadow City to heighten its alert level, bring the Leaving World Courtyard to full power, and deliver a bombardment at any abnormal information bursts in the void immediately.”
Finally, I shrugged at Sandora: “These clumsy methods are all I could come up with.”
“Clumsy methods are often quite effective,” Sandora nodded, refocusing on the battle report, “the First and Third squads have already detonated the ‘bombs’ near the Void rift, and the Void corrosion phenomenon in the target world is rapidly intensifying. The facilities stationed near the rift by the enemy have suffered serious damage, and the military goals are halfway complete.”
Everything that followed seemed as planned; the severely lacking defense forces of the Fallen Apostles were swiftly overwhelmed by the Empire fleet. Perhaps those already mentally unstable guys never imagined they would suffer a fleet bombardment in their homeland (certainly didn’t expect the Empire Army already having the means to eavesdrop on their communications: devices and experts). Their initial slow reaction caused them massive casualties, followed by the ‘gifts’ left behind by the Raider Fleet in the Void rift. These gifts expanded a full-dimensional rift originally half the size of a small moon to nearly the size of a constant star in a thousandth of a second, faster than the speed of light. All space fortresses established by the Fallen Apostles couldn’t escape and were torn to fragments by the runaway Void power. Subsequent military actions took place minute by minute. Assault landing crafts dispatched humanoid nuclear bombs, trained by Raven, onto the research planets already plowed several times by ship artillery. After pillaging some databases, the humanoid nuclear bombs burned all equipment, although they left the facility shells intact.
However, we never expected to capture much technology from the Fallen Apostle’s research facilities. Everyone knows that the most formidable technologies of the Xyrin Empire are actually two types, one being Ghost Energy technology and the other various forms of self-destruction… Later, it was confirmed that all the violently dismantled databases had indeed been cleared by their original operators.
One lament is that the three worlds with known coordinates are all research hubs, and for a research base, having no technological data fundamentally nullifies its plunder value. Hence, this attack by the Empire Army was destined only to damage the enemy, unable to gain much benefit for the New Empire.
Though it is always better than nothing.
The rapid maneuver spacecraft that first broke through the defense line traced spiral trajectories at sub-light speed in outer space, sketching out complex threads behind the Fallen Apostle defense line, and charged at the enemy from the flank before enemy counterfire descended again. This is a typical Xyrin Apostle-style reckless approach, where the Commander designates a target, and as long as two conditions are met: the target isn’t dead, and you’re not dead, the assault team will charge endlessly. Any obstruction outside of a frontal engagement is futile. The Fallen Apostle spacecraft, understanding the combat style of these once fellow compatriots, quickly reacted. The escort ship cluster on the periphery began dispersing at full speed, abandoning joint shields in favor of space and mobility to fend off Imperial Fleet’s high firepower and explosive assault ships. The battlefield behind the defense line became a chaotic mix, measured in tens of thousands of kilometers, as battle damage began to frequently appear within both fleets.
The second wave of assault ships ignited bombs and opened a massive Void Rift, choosing to form a temporary fortress. Some specially designed devices extended from the spaceship’s armor plates, forming two to three ships into a strangely shaped Space Fortress. These combined entities produced a joint shield far exceeding one plus another’s shielding, while energy beams focused on the armor plates, forming powerful artillery fire. This is an attack-defense integrated combination method — it came from a proposal by Carter and targeted research by Taville. The most significant advantage that Fallen Apostles possess over conventional Imperial warships is using raging Abyss Energy to enhance the explosiveness of all equipment. In response to this, the Sixth Fleet experimentally refined tactics and equipment, greatly increasing the speed of explosive small vessels, while large ships focused on joint shields and cluster artillery. The goal is to withstand the first lethal attack and then find it easier — Abyss Power still harms Fallen Apostles; they cannot sustain over-limit shooting for too long, and those bastards lack follow-up power — now, the new tactics provided by the Third Intelligence Core have shown results. On the frontal entanglement battleground, the Imperial Army first presented a suppressed posture.
“Enemy reinforcements will appear in twenty minutes,” Lin Xue muttered while rubbing her aching forehead. Some yet unconfirmable interference continually distracted her focus. “Thirteen minutes later, their gravity trap for blocking the battlefield will start cyclical weakening, which is the best time to retreat. Third squad, your time is at the fifteenth minute.”
“Fleet is acknowledged,” the frontline commander immediately responded.
“Their universe appears empty,” Sandora was already studying the environmental monitoring report coming back from the front line. Information scanning from 423,000 deep space probes gradually outlined the odd scene within the Fallen Apostle territory. “Besides those madman-made planets, the number of distant celestial bodies is extremely sparse, with hardly any fully formed stars or planets visible in the deep space range. Scanned within hundreds of billions of light years, all mass comes from clouds and dark mass zones undergoing rapid chaotic chemical reactions. The radii of the former usually reach millions of light years, appearing like crushed Milky Way, while the latter are merely empty spaces devoid of even dark matter, yet have ‘mass’ attributes. Could this be the appearance of a world destroyed by the Abyss and reassembled?”
“This eerie place definitely challenges scientific dignity, and Taville would get excited,” Lin Xue muttered while clutching her head. “Our soldiers don’t need to die here, prepare to have them withdraw.”
Sandora stared tightly at the information screen before her: “No, wait a little longer, they have just infiltrated an abandoned Space Fortress and might have found something.”
Almost as Sandora’s words fell silent, a frontline commander indeed sent an alert: “Your Majesty! We found a log file that wasn’t cleared in time!”
The log file was quickly decrypted, yielding a set of unencrypted regular information with a damage report on top.
“The test subjects went dormant after losing control for a short while, then suddenly acted aggressively, attacking multiple worlds continuously. Research facilities recording the last actions of the test subjects hoped to pinpoint the next actions of the targets,” Sandora scoured through the information transmitted from the front line. “According to predictions, the test subjects might attack a window universe called CX-8. Jumping from this window universe directly leads to areas the Fallen Apostles cannot monitor, equating to complete escape for the test subjects… I know where the enemy’s warships went!”
Our faces already revealed understanding: undoubtedly, the enemy discovered traces of those fleeing test subjects, deploying all remaining garrison forces to capture them, which explains the unusually weak defensive power in these three Research Worlds. Next, we need to seize time!
“The log records CX-8’s position,” Sandora glanced at Lin Xue, then nodded to me, “It’s on our current course. After two jumps, we can reach it.”
I gently tapped Lin Xue’s arm: “Well done, go rest for a bit, leave the rest to us.”
The Miss grumbled as she left, saying before departing: “Quickly, don’t let those test subjects be captured by the Fallen Apostles, or it’ll be a big trouble.”
The Royal Fleet quickly adjusted its engines, performing the final two jumps within the next six minutes. We have now entered completely unfamiliar territory where the Macro World’s furthest outpost cannot even see this situation. The final Void Node in the Star Domain was just crossed, and if we consider the Void as a roll of tape, we’re now in the blank space between two tracks—ahead lies CX-8 belonging to the Fallen Apostle territory.
“I never thought we’d be so close to the Fallen Apostles’ land so quickly, albeit an isolated island on the border,” Sandora mused, commanding the fleet to increase its stealth level to the limit and jump into the Main Material World.
I shrugged: “But conversely, how many times have the Fallen Apostles raided our territory, Azeroth, Kepulu, nearly inland, we should have expressed our frustration long ago.”
But although saying this, I somehow don’t feel much tension, despite this being a historic moment—the Imperial Army’s first attack on the home territory of the Fallen Apostles. This bizarre sense of smoothness is strangely unusual, as if we should be more serious, ahead of opening a meeting, organizing a day of oath activities, etc.? Anyway, I find it odd but still lacking a sense of crisis, possibly because of Lin Xue’s consistently relaxed demeanor.
CX-8 is a world of dark red.
The entire universe is dark red. This oppressive spectrum fills all outer space, everything in our view, including possibly those star-cloud tornadoes stretching like mountains several light years away and giant red spheres hanging against a black space background, all float with a dark red halo. These colors result from redshift.
The entire universe is experiencing redshift.
But this is incorrect—redshift should be based on the presence of light waves; space should be dark, with only actually existing things as light sources, like stars or a patch of hot Cloud Mist. But now, everything within the universe is glowing with redshift… How can this be?
Sandora spoke leisurely: “Abyss might have arrived when it was undergoing a big bang, the universe at that moment being a pot of hot, bright soup, and then Abyss destroyed its development process, leaving fragments turning into an incomplete snapshot. What we see is likely the scenic ‘frozen’ abnormalities, only here the ‘scenery’ not only involves visuals but also actual events; the data indicates CX-8’s borders still continuously fracture, likely to be erased by Abyss in a few thousand years, this is an excellent research target, if Taville was here in person…”
Taville’s Mass Projection suddenly appeared beside us, adjusting her glasses: “Yes, Majesty, I’m right here.”
I smiled at Sandora: “Do you think she’d miss submitting a traveling request?”
All looked helpless, and the command center transmitted a report: “Majesty! Fleet assembly detected within radar range!!” (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you’re welcome to visit Qidian () to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)