Xyrin Empire
Chapter 570 Pirate Betrayal?

Chapter 570: Chapter 570 Pirate Betrayal?

Sister Jier and Silvia’s unexpected arrivals brought me troubles like never before.

The former is Little Baobao’s most cherished collectible. I can hardly imagine what the Little Princess would look like throwing a tantrum after losing such a beloved toy, even though Big Sister was brimming with confidence, asserting that she could handle a tiny one barely over a meter tall. But everyone knows how much a child of this age might value their "toys." Sister Jier attempting to escape was akin to boldly snatching a bone from the jaws of Wangcai...

Alright, my metaphors have gotten weird again.

However, I didn’t plan to send Sister Jier back. Although her spontaneous departure was quite the headache, the illustrious Heroic King, famed throughout history, had been reduced to being a little girl’s collectible for a long time. Even I felt a bit sympathetic towards her. Since the gal wanted a bit of freedom, letting her be happy for a few days wasn’t out of the question.

...Since we were already aboard the pirate ship, there was no point in hoping to disembark. Might as well let Little Baobao continue training her upon return.

And Silvia’s interruption was even more troublesome than Lady Shining’s.

Let me put it this way, I felt as if I had accepted a mission to escort an NPC, leading a level one vase across the Frozen Throne, and this vase was ever so eager to provoke the countless elites around.

Just thinking about it is enough to make one wet their pants.

Of course, the Silvia who almost brought our entire fleet crashing from high orbit definitely wasn’t a level one vase, but there’s a saying that different types of pain all feel the same when they kick in, and I wholeheartedly agree now.

Leading Silvia and Lady Shining back to the Light of El Command Center, I first reassured Big Sister and Qianqian with a calming gesture, bringing back these two smugglers went surprisingly smooth. Lady Shining seemed already half-trained, very aware of who the boss was here, and Silvia didn’t go out of control unexpectedly (if she had another power awakening, I might have had to transform into the Void just to subdue this former emperor, especially since I’m still injured). But after the smooth capture, how to handle the slowpokes became a huge problem.

The Protos’ spaceship was filled with their Race’s "Crystal" style everywhere. The command area of the Light of El was almost entirely constructed from spiritual crystals packed with vast energy, interspersed with a few pieces of machinery that shimmered with a golden radiance. Each piece elegant yet sparkly. This environment was clearly very much to Sister Jier’s taste. True to Little Baobao’s pet, her obsession with shiny treasures was hardly weaker than that of the Little Princess, although clearly not as bold as Little Baobao who managed to drag an entire Holy Mother Ship into her space. Sister Jier just kept touching the elegant and sparkling crystals and devices around the command area with shining eyes, while the Templar standing guard beside her took deep breaths with every movement she made.

Thankful to be doing this in the name of the Empire, if it had been someone else, such desecration of the sacred Holy Mother Ship would have gotten them thrown into outer space long ago.

As for Silvia, in such a bizarre environment, she obviously couldn’t remain entirely oblivious. This girl, whose brain didn’t function particularly well, encountered a strange, blonde, flat-chested, and sharp-tongued lady today, and ever since, she has been trapped in an endless loop of non-response—astonishment—crash—non-response—astonishment—crash. I have no idea how many times Silvia’s brain had to restart in just the past ten minutes, but she has been gasping dramatically all along. It proves that even slowpokes, when thrown into an alien spaceship, can sense that something’s off.

The only silver lining was that Silvia’s weird train of thought still held the upper hand. No matter how amazed she was by her surroundings, her single-threaded brain couldn’t process two sources of information simultaneously. For instance, when she saw a tall, bizarrely shaped Protos Warrior bowing to her, she immediately forgot the astonishment brought by the spatial transporter...

Moreover, one comforting fact was Silvia’s absolute trust in me. Although she looked continuously surprised, she firmly remembered my words: "Everything is a secret, ask no excessive questions." She never pried, which spared me a lot of headaches, and I even began to suspect that, given Silvia’s current pace of adaptability, another half an hour might result in her completely ignoring the strange surroundings.

A similar instance had occurred once before when she was transferred from Academy City to Shadow City. It had taken this girl just fifteen minutes to adapt to the environment...

"Should we send her back because she’s slow to catch on?"

Although I firmly believed that Silvia would soon adapt, even ignore the fact she was on a spaceship in outer space, for safety reasons, I discussed this with Big Sister.

Big Sister, with a mysterious smile, turned her head to look at Silvia cautiously exploring the command hall filled with crystal radiance, like an animal suddenly placed in a new environment, unexpectedly shook her head.

"Ah Jun, do you think we can keep it a secret from Silvia forever?"

I was stunned, then thought about Silvia’s intellect and nodded resolutely, "Maybe we really can!"

Big Sister: "..."

"Cough cough, okay, I get it," seeing that Big Sister seemed inclined to twist my scalp, I quickly raised my hands in surrender, "Indeed, no matter how dull Silvia’s mind is, staying in Shadow City for a long time will sooner or later expose her to these things. As for the specific consequences... Well, it depends on her train of thought. Anyway, during the wave of crossings, that girl had miraculously been content for more than a month."

Big Sister nodded in agreement. "Moreover, maybe all our worries here are unnecessary. Silvia might never even suspect anything."

I followed Big Sister’s gaze and immediately agreed: a few minutes ago, Silvia had still been astonished by the bizarre appearance of the Protos people, but now she was already treating it as something perfectly normal and was busy trying to sell her desserts to Zeratul.

Uncle Z, not having a mouth is indeed a great misfortune in life, right?

"Warning, warning, probe EW30D0F2455 under attack, lost communication, probe under attack, lost communication! Aggressive targets detected in space! Aggressive targets detected in space!"

While we were discussing whether Silvia’s thought processes were beyond saving, the alarm suddenly resonated throughout the command hall of the Light of El.

Everyone instantly looked at each other in confusion.

"Fleet, enter battle readiness! All personnel to battle stations, we’ve been discovered!"

The commander of the Light of El loudly gave the order, these elite soldiers of the New Federation Government Army were fully equipped to handle such emergencies. In less than a minute, all personnel in the command center had taken up their battle positions, and the fleet began to reorganize its formation. The battlecruiser array swiftly expanded their spacing to a distance of ten kilometers, an arrangement that not only slightly reduced the chance of area damage from beyond-visual-range attacks but also allowed all battlecruisers’ Ghost Energy Shields to form a resonating field, strengthening the defense of the entire troop. This technology from the Empire had made the Human Clan Battlecruisers of the New Eden Federation their most impregnable class of ship. Meanwhile, behind the battlecruiser array, ships from the Protos natives formed a more sparse crisscrossed formation. Unable to use the Ghost Energy Shield resonance technology due to the incompatibility of Protos native technology, their ships relied on their own multi-layered Energy Shields to withstand attacks that penetrated the battlecruiser defenses. Meanwhile, the Holy Mother Ship, Light of El was located in the center of the entire formation, covering all surrounding allied forces under its Invisibility Field.

"How far is the crash site of the probe from here?"

I got the curious Silvia to honestly follow Qianqian to count the patterns on the pillar, then went behind Zeratul and asked Big Sister.

"In this position," the tall Protos Warrior pointed at a small spot on the floating screen, where a tiny red light was continuously blinking, "passing through this asteroid belt, hidden behind the mist and meteorites, a Star Spirit Probe encountered an attack from energy weapons, this is the last image it transmitted."

The screen switched, showing the probe just after it had passed through the asteroid belt and entered a zone of heavy element clouds; the empty scene lasted for about ten seconds, then the probe changed direction, and a large group of blurry shadows mixed with bursts of flashing lights suddenly appeared on the screen, but just a moment later, an incoming white light ball caused the screen to turn into a layer of interference patterns.

The last image transmitted by the probe before it was destroyed was captured by us; the blurred shadows were clearly important information. I believe the Protos’ probe had the highest definition camera, but the heavy element clouds on the periphery of the asteroid belt severely affected the clarity of the image. We could only vaguely determine that it was probably a group of small to medium-sized spaceships engaged in battle.

The battlefield was very far from the probe, and the white light that hit the probe was likely just a stray bullet. Well, poor Mr. Probe.

Reynolds and Zeratul were waiting for my opinion. Although they are the supreme commanders of the Federation Army, the big boss was currently staying on his own spaceship, which somewhat restrained the two Supreme Governors.

"Sakura," I turned my head to greet the large inverted cone-shaped crystal hovering above the Command Hall, which immediately descended—it turned out that the crystal, which looked like a chandelier in the hall, was actually Sakura’s "base," "You temporarily transfer to the Spiritual Crystal, there might be a battle soon."

Knowing that her greatest usefulness now was as a wireless router rather than a fighter, the Giant form of Sakura obediently nodded and drifted towards the transporter. Meanwhile, Jier Jiamishi, who was bored next to me, got a slap on the forehead: "What are you waiting for? Your task as the Heroic Spirit Guard is to protect the router!"

The Heroic King was startled and immediately exploded with rage: "Am I just a stabilizing power supply?!"

This guy even knows about a stabilizing power supply?

After sending away the grumbling Heroic King and a group of Heroic Spirits who were somewhat depressed by the lack of a fight, I issued a command for the entire fleet to engage in invisibility and jump to the edge of the asteroid belt.

In an instant, the Federation Fleet entered the periphery of the battlefield, where, at this distance, we could already observe occasional flashes of light in distant space with the naked eye.

"This is the situation of the combatants."

A Human Federation officer switched the screen, presenting us with an extremely chaotic battlefield.

Both sides consisted of small to medium-sized warships, each less than one kilometer in length, utilizing their agility to carry out high-mobility operations across the entire battlefield. The oddly shaped ships almost showed no unified design style or hull markings—oval, conical, geometric assemblies, slanted trapezoids, all kinds, as if purely modified for combat, abandoning all standardization just like the images we had received from this universe, all utterly mismatched forces, patchwork vessels. The weapons employed by both sides were also all over the place, from long-range heavy missiles, rapid-fire lasers, medium-range particle cannons, close-range ballistic weapons, and even force field weapons obviously following a different technological path, installed in a nearly random manner on those assorted ships. Honestly, seeing a fighter no bigger than a Boeing airplane suddenly emit a laser beam almost half its cross-section thick and then disintegrate immediately left me utterly speechless.

"What a mess, it’s just like a gang fight!"

Even as a non-professional soldier, I couldn’t help but criticize this type of battle. The chaotic engagement and equipment immediately reminded me of street gang fights, though on second thought, these days even high-level gangsters know to have a consistent fish tattoo on their arms...

"It might be two groups of interstellar pirates," the more experienced Reynolds noticed some clues, "Interstellar pirates can’t possibly have all standard equipment; half of their weapons and ships are looted, and the rest are self-modified and assembled from scrapped warships. They lose the advantages of unified model standardization, easy maintenance, and rapid deployment, but gain the advantage of versatile and cunning tactics. That’s their favorite trick."

I nodded. In the fiercely competitive industry of interstellar pirates, Reynolds was an old hand, who had fashioned his subordinates from such makeshift parts before he transformed into a Federation Governor.

Of course, perhaps things weren’t as bad in the past.

"However, my guess may not be accurate," he glanced at the battlefield again and honestly admitted, "These chaotic armies are much more fierce than the pirates I remember. Despite their disordered gear, their combat awareness is astonishingly impressive, surpassing that of many regular armies. Such pirates would never form suicidally orderly formations when fighting for territory."

"Whether they are pirates or something else," I pointed to the center of the battlefield, "before they’re all dead, we must intervene in any way possible to make them cease fire. In this strange universe, we need a guide—uh, the Federation ships should handle these guys without a problem, right?"

"Of course," Reynolds said with a proud smile. "Although we can’t compare to your Imperial Army, dealing with these few battered minnows will take only a moment."

"Remember, our aim isn’t to sink them," I reminded him, "we need a group of guides, not to serve as an invading army."

"Big brother, big brother!" Before I could finish, Visca had already scrambled up to my neck, "Let me take the stage, just for an instant..."

"Stay put," I pinched Visca’s soft little face, "You’re not at war now, these people have done us no harm. You’d wipe them out immediately!"

"The Great Harmony Cannon is ready, targeting the small warship cluster at coordinates E1030,56823,45F64. Curved Light Ship firing preheated, prepare to counter the enemy’s large targets, carrier aircraft entering launch track—3, 2, 1, attack!"

Following a series of calm commands from the commander of the Light of El, the Federation Army, which had been invisible on the edge of the battlefield for over ten minutes, suddenly went online... er, launched an attack. Thousands of bright beams pierced through the dim cloud mist of heavy elements, densely splashing over to the rear of the battlefield.

The sudden attack plunged the chaotic battlefield into even greater disorder. Clearly caught off-guard by the unanticipated sweeping behind their lines, the intensely dense beam stunned them, but under inertia, a mob Reynolds described as having overwhelming combat power still threw fire at their enemies for several seconds before realizing what was happening. Immediately, their formations drastically changed. A portion of small fighters still tangled desperately in the central stick zone of the battlefield, while the larger ships on both sides had already moved away from their original positions, all aiming at... the empty expanse of space.

Where’s the enemy?

This is why invisibility is the most irritating underhanded tactic in this world, and even more odious are those who can still attack, defend, and even escape while invisible. We modified the Holy Mother Ship’s invisibility field a bit, not much improvement, but it acquired a crucial new feature: gravity cloaking, allowing the whole fleet to disappear from any mass detector—a new generation invisibility field second only to Xyrin Phase Stealth Technology. Clearly, the interstellar pirates caught in the melee lacked even basic counter-stealth equipment and were dumbfounded by our barrage from an unknown source.

However, this deadlock didn’t last long. The ragtag bunch of small ships only paused briefly before collectively making a decision. In my somewhat surprised view, the two sides, which should have been entwined in a fight, abruptly combined forces and dumped an overwhelming firestorm in our direction.

Er, I didn’t expect them to be so aggressive. I merely fired a few blanks, and I haven’t even sunk one ship, have I?

It felt like a policeman walking down the street, observing two groups of gangsters fighting with knives, pulling out a gun to show some authority, only to have both gangs forget their previous grievances and charge at him instead. And so, the police officer was quite taken aback.

"Now we can confirm," Reynolds waved his hand, "These are just a disorganized, undisciplined bunch of pirates—open fire!"

(To be continued, if you wish to know what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com. New Chapters are available and support the author, support genuine reading!)