Xyrin Empire
Chapter 432 - Chapter 432: 432 hanging

Chapter 432: 432 hanging

After several days of “luck”, the Wisdom Race of the Kepulu Star Zone finally suffered their first tragedy.

The Empire, which had always been intimidating the blind intruders with its sharp teeth, seemed to have completely run out of patience. It raised its fangs and claw blades and tore a military planet, fully loaded with Protos Warriors, to pieces.

It was still a broadcast issued to the entire star zone with the precise and cruel timing noted in the schedule, accounted for to the millisecond. But this time, some individuals who were still alert noticed a huge difference in this broadcast compared to all the previous ones. This difference initially left them baffled, and then they plunged into severe panic.

An Independent Federation journalist recorded the scene at the time: It was like the atmosphere on a gallows. The ruler of the Empire stood on the high Commander’s platform, announcing the list of destruction to every information port in the entire star zone. Behind the Empire’s ruler, everyone was looking in the direction opposite the screen, casting gentle expressions towards the Kepulu natives — expressions that were the last a priest on the gallows might give to a condemned prisoner.

“No.74, Tedariclan Star, destruction in thirty minutes.”

That was the largest fortress planet established by the Taldarim in the eastern occupied areas of the Empire. The surface of the planet was covered with their army in hues of grayish blue, and the garrisoned Taldarim Fleet tallied up to a hundred thousand: All heavy warships including carriers. After such prolonged heavy casualties, this was the largest fleet the Taldarim could muster. There were no Holy Mother Ships present: Their few Holy Mother Ships were now trophies of the Xyrin Empire (Of course, I didn’t dare let the Protos Natives know that their racial monument had almost become a playground for Little Princess of Xyrin, otherwise even the Protos people of Shakuras would fight me to the death), and their ground troops almost filled up every corner of the planet. The zealots and hunters’ eyes twinkled in the dark, staring at every inch of the night sky. Vast giants and various mechanical guardians wandered through the mountains and gorges of the Tedariclan Star. Such a scale of defensive power was once considered impregnable before the Xyrin Empire emerged and the Taldarim would have proudly claimed it to be the firmest defense line in the Universe. They believed that even a billion from the Insect Race could never breach it!

But now, with Tedariclan Star included in the plan for annihilation, the atmosphere on the planet was not filled with confident courage but the bleakness of a desperate fight in the face of Doomsday.

The so-called intercept battle had already been proven to be an impossibility. The power of each Planet Battleship was beyond what any routine spaceship could contend with, and even just the Xyrin Escort Fleet hidden beneath their crust was enough to sweep away any scale of intercepting troops. The only most successful counterattack occurred in the great melee two days prior; using human wave tactics and kamikaze attacks, the Taldarim managed to delay the voyage of one Planet Battleship, causing its schedule of destruction to be approximately three minutes late — and that was the full extent of their success.

Only by relying on the fixed planetary bases, continuously utilizing strong shields and kamikaze spacecraft to deplete or deflect that horrifying beam, was there a glimmer of hope: This was the conclusion reached after joint research between the Taldarim and human scientists. However, this theory rested on the premise that the energy used by the Xyrin forces had storage limitations. If the Xyrin People had truly managed to break the law of conservation of energy and infinite the power of Planet Battleships…

Then all the Kepulu Star Zone could do was pray — as believed by the Kepulu natives who had become firmly convinced under the influence of “Revelation” that the Xyrin Empire was here to destroy the entire Universe.

“No.7 Starship has approached the target, escort squadron deployed, Energy Core ready to activate at any time,” a soft voice echoed gently across the bridge, making it impossible to associate with Doomsday. Setting the main AI personality of the Imperial Admiral to have the gentle style of a Jiangnan girl was Lilina’s idea; she reasoned it would better inject a humanized touch into the iron-blooded Xyrin Empire. But listening to such a soft voice reciting the command to destroy a planet and countless lives, I could only feel a twisted sensation stemming from the stark contrast, “Tedariclan Star locked, enemy fleet has not initiated interception, destruction will begin in five minutes.”

“Uh, I kind of understand why the broadcast voices on battleships are so bland,” Lilina scratched her head in embarrassment, “This voice sounds really weird, let’s switch it back.”

“Sigh…”

Beside him, Reynolds helplessly let out a breath but said nothing more, because the sudden whim of a little girl to change the main system settings of the entire Interstellar Coalition Flagship was a feat that only those slippery Xyrin Apostles were capable of pulling off.

The giant Planet Battleship, “Zero” number seven, which was one and a half times the size of Earth, had now come to a halt in its predetermined orbit. Before this, it had been using its Class Coordinate Engine at full speed to travel, the kind of engine that propels huge objects at high velocities without regard to mass and acceleration by continuously and minutely altering spatial coordinates in higher dimensions, consuming massive amounts of energy. Without the ability to use the Ghost Energy Abyss as the starship’s core, after “Zero” number seven had taken its position, it still required about five minutes to restore its energy supply. During this time, the starship’s own defensive firepower was extremely weak, and the only protection it had was from approximately ten thousand Xyrin heavy Escort Ships–an attack on a Starship Fleet was only possible at this time, but it seemed the guardians of the Taiklan Star had no wish to do so.

While the No.7 Planet Battlecruiser unfolded its escort formation and its energy core, with one hundred twenty-seven Super Space Ghost Energy Well connection ports overlapped inside, was slowly beginning to ignite, a blue starlight shimmered on the surface of the Taiklan Star, which looked much like an Eternal Level galaxy concentrating energy. But in reality, a large number of Protos Natives were refining their Spiritual Energy and gathering it atop several hundred huge structures on the surface of the planet. These structures, towering in height, even pierced through the thick atmosphere of methane and carbon dioxide, stretching out small spheres in the near-Earth orbit that resembled insect antennae. And at the base of these structures were massive Crystal formations; these mutated Crystal Towers were injecting immeasurable “Ghost Energy” into the tall buildings. The main sources of this Ghost Energy were the Crystal Towers established on the surface of the planet and those Protos Warships suspended within the planet’s atmosphere, while another part came from the entire planet’s Protos “Divine Race”. Such potent energy caused the several hundred towers built on the planet’s surface to emit a blinding blue-white glow and then, a massive Energy Field appeared tens of thousands of kilometers outside the Taiklan Star’s atmosphere.

“It looks like a mirror.”

After analyzing the data sent back from the starship, Taville quickly deduced the principle of these things. Of course, she wasn’t referring to the drab appearance of the Energy Cloud Mist but to its underlying principle and structure.

“Its periphery is filled with strong spatial mirroring effects and Gravity disturbances, which is almost the limit of what Protos Technology can achieve. It seems like the opposition is trying their best to avoid contact with matter-energy conversion beams and has cleverly discovered the property of these beams devouring any energy and material indiscriminately, so they plan to deflect it before contact–theoretically speaking.”

“Is this method effective?” I naturally couldn’t understand all that professional jargon–although Taville had already tried to omit many of the terms for me…

“If they have enough energy, they might actually deflect the first exposure, but a second exposure would be impossible to deflect.”

“Then let’s not use beams,” ordered Sandora coldly, “Conventional weapons will do. Whatever method you choose, I demand that Taiklan be utterly destroyed in the Empire Army’s first attack. We do not need to counterattack.”

“Everything will be as you wish.”

Standing by, Sivis respectfully bowed, then began to select the weapon of Sandora’s choosing.

Perhaps after things had cooled down in this star zone, the soldiers who had participated in this odd war would suddenly realize just how pointless their resistance had been. No matter the cost, even if they managed to prevent the destruction of the Tedariclan Planet or destroy a Planet Battleship, it would be meaningless in the grand scheme of the war. The Imperial Army had hundreds of such Planet Battleships, and they were just part of an Expeditionary Army. No one could imagine how powerful the Xyrin Empire really was. The damage that all the races of the Kepulu Star Zone combined could inflict on the Xyrin Empire wouldn’t be greater than the effect of unscrewing two bolts from a formation of Battlecruisers. But at this moment, the Taldarim Guardians were still making a futile resistance, trying to use their most powerful spatial refraction mirrors to deflect the fatal Decomposition Beam, as if this could somehow turn the tide of battle–truth be told, at this point, Taldarim’s resistance was no longer about victory; it was merely an expression of spirit. It had no significance other than to prove the courage of these fanatics.

The enormous warship–or perhaps it could no longer be called a warship–now a weaponized gargantuan planet, confronted the grey-blue Tedariclan Planet from a distance. It might seem to the macroscopic view that they were very close, even like two wrestlers grappling hand to hand. But in reality, the distance between the two was nearly one million kilometers. The vast Planet Battleship and Tedariclan, with its vigilant defenses, looked no larger than a bean to each other. They hadn’t yet reached the optimal firing range for the mass-energy conversion beams. As a result, the Taldarim defense forces were still preparing with all their might, focusing their reinforced-to-the-limit “mirrors,” doing everything possible to protect the planet from those rays, while the remaining mobile units were on standby in the planet’s low orbit, ready to counterattack the Xyrin Escort Fleet should the Decomposition Beams prove ineffective.

In fact, the attack on Tedariclan had already begun–the Xyrin Starships didn’t activate their gravity regulation systems. Under the influence of universal gravitation, Tedariclan’s orbit was slowly changing, but nobody cared about this anymore: if the starship attacked, there wouldn’t be a single atom left of Tedariclan, and then its orbit would become meaningless.

Although there was still a substantial distance from the optimal range for the mass-energy conversion beam, the Xyrin Planet Battleship halted right there, without moving an inch further. Under the watch of countless eyes, the crust of this “spaceship” was slowly cracking open. The already existing vast rifts, like the rapidly drying skin, quickly traversed the entire surface of the planet. The complex machinery and crystal systems underneath began to flash with warning red lights, as if revealing pulsating flesh within a behemoth, gradually becoming exposed. The entire Starship was slowly opening up, and Taldarim’s warriors knew that this was a harbinger of the impending attack; once its equator opened to a thirty-degree angle, that dark red Earth Core would…

Wait, it was still opening!

As the Taldarim officers curiously pondered why the enemy would activate its weapons beyond optimal range, they suddenly realized an unsettling truth. The Xyrin Empire’s Planet Battleship was still slowly widening its “crust,” not stopping at thirty degrees, but dividing along the equator into two halves! This process may have looked slow, but when scaled up to the entire planet, it was alarmingly fast. Within minutes, that Death Star had completely transformed: it had split entirely at the equator, with both hemispheres divided into four parts each. Yes, just like a watermelon cut in a cross at the top and then sliced horizontally–it had become an uneven collection of eight parts drifting away from each other. The dark red core floated in the void of space, an unsettling red light rhythmically flashing inside the eight fragments of the Planet Battleship, ruling out any possibility that the starship had accidentally self-destructed–a possibility that was nothing more than a comfort to the “uncommitted”.

“Attack! All units, full-speed attack on that core! Quick! Quicker, quicker, quicker!! Before it attacks!!”

The Taldarim Commander screamed madly over the command channel, but it was already too late.

Tedariclan started to tremble, the intense, planet-wide earthquakes a mere prelude. In space, the naked eye could see the grey-blue mineral planet bulging on the side facing the Xyrin Starship, as if an expanding bubble lay beneath. Then, white vapors began to emerge from the swollen area–the sign that magma was about to erupt. Meanwhile, millions of kilometers away, the core of “Zero” continued to emit a dim red light, watching calmly like an eye observing changes in the planet.

Taldarim had come to understand the nature of this attack. In fact, it was more primitive than those mysterious rays capable of erasing an entire planet on a physical level. Even humans could conceive of it–a Gravity Generator powerful enough to tear apart a planet.

Yet, that wasn’t the end. The attacking Planet Battleship seemed unsatisfied with such a passive observation. It trembled slightly, then began to slowly move–not towards Tedariclan, but to the side. Soon, this lateral movement was revealed to have an arc–to be part of a circle centered on Tedariclan. The arc became increasingly noticeable in space, the Planet Battleship, busy executing its victim with a gravity weapon, completely disregarded its own mass and inertia, and in one minute, completed a stunning pirouette, tracing a perfect semicircle, then stopping abruptly.

The gravitational noose instantly changed its direction. Disintegrating Tedariclan and its still unmoved defense forces were pulled out of their original orbits under the influence of gravity.

It was as if a tiny iron ball had been swung on a rope, Tedarclan’s throat was choked, and then flung toward another direction–its Sun!

Nearly a hundred billion eyes in the Kepulu Star Zone witnessed this gruesome spectacle, as the Xyrin Empire’s warships demonstrated the gap in power with the most primitive and savage methods. A planet was forcibly dragged out of its orbit by gravity hinges and thrown into its looming Sun like a piece of trash!

Of course, before that, Tedarclan had already completely disintegrated amidst the gravitational turmoil. The planet’s structure crumbled, the exploding crust and mantle shattered what remained of its original escort fleet, where life had ceased the moment the planet deviated from its course. What finally fell toward the Sun was barely discernible as planetary fragments, and because of the distance involved, this descent might take an entire month, with Tedarclan’s main structure vaporizing before even contacting the corona, following rounds of solar orbit–this was already a rather heroic way for a planet to die.

The entire attack finished; from the issuance of the doomsday notice to the end took 29 minutes and 38 seconds, while the attack itself lasted merely 5 minutes. In that short duration, the planet battleships made it clear to the rebels of the Empire with a swing of the chain ball: the cat was tired of playing with the mice.

When the entire star zone fell into a temporary silence from such an unusually savage “battle”–primarily because the planet that perished was the first one teeming with life, while before that, those destroyed were mostly uninhabited mineral planets–Zeratul brought us a message.

The scouts from Shakuras had discovered an ancient “Holy Land” hidden within space, the source of the revelations, was right there.

All I could say was, the Taldarim were just too unlucky, they might have been just one day away from the cessation of the war… Of course, even if the revelation had been erased, it is still likely they would have chosen to battle the Empire, something even Zeratul was convinced of without a doubt.

Regarding the events that took place on Tedarclan, the Dark Templar society of Shakuras had been informed immediately, but their response was merely a minor expression of regret. From this reaction, I once again felt the fanatical devotion of the Protos race and their coldness towards those of different beliefs; such a race, easily falling into extremism and stagnation, I wondered how they truly compared to humans…

Forget it, why should I worry about those religious fanatics?

“However, I never expected that you would destroy a planet in such a way–by throwing it into the Sun. This might be the most barbaric demonstration of power,” said the Blade Queen, who had been granted limited freedom, while we were en route to the “Holy Land” Zeratul spoke of on the Imperial Admiral.

“I smell a conspiracy, one that involves the entire star zone and you so-called mightiest race,” the Blade Queen said, her face always holding an inscrutable, smile-like expression. “You… oh my God!”

Me: “…Little Baobao, I’ve told you, you can’t bite Kerrigan’s bone wings…” (To be continued, if you wish to know the ensuing events, please visit www.NovelFire.net, where more chapters are available. Support the author, support genuine reading!)