Chapter 41: Breaking the Blockade

Day 157

Today, my father told me about the history of our clan. In facts, our Xuan family is the servant clan of the Bai family.

The Bai family is one of the most renowned cultivator families in the entire Empire of the Rising Sun. It is even one of the three great families that govern the empire from the capital: the closest confidants of the emperor.

It is said that there are several powers in the nascent soul realm and that their ancestor reached the divine sea realm. [Reminder, ranks 5 and 6]

Although these are just rumors since he hasn't emerged from seclusion for thousands of years, no one dares to provoke them.

Even so, the Bai family is not very numerous, with less than two thousand members.

Papa told me that every year, there was a tournament among the young of our clan to become the servants of the few young members of the Bai family.

Each member of our clan has two years to prepare, and to participate in the tournament, one must be at the pinnacle of the body forging realm.

Papa told me this will probably be the greatest opportunity of my life, so I plan to work twice harder and win this tournament. I still have a year and a half left, and I plan to reach foundation establishment before then!

…

"Admiral, we just lost Gold Leader and several hundred rank 10 starfighters."

"Which sector?"

Replied Admiral Chen impassively, still with his eyes closed.

"Gold Leader's last known position was 89.973691 fore, 67.296043 lateral, at 195 397 285 kilometers from the Mayflower."

"Hmmm."

Admiral Chen suddenly sent a surge of spiritual sense toward the area, scanning the perimeter over a million kilometers.

It lasted only a few microseconds before the surprised enemy commanders reacted and repelled it.

Nevertheless, he no longer displayed his impassive expression, but had an extremely somber look, though his eyes remained closed.

"We have a problem. Get me in communication with all our starfighters."

"What? But Admiral, that's against protocol to—"

"Vice-Admiral Nazumo!"

The sudden explosion of anger from Admiral Chen made the serpent-man tremble all over.

"Open the direct communication line!"

Although the admiral could contact the starfighters with his spiritual sense, he was currently too occupied monitoring the battlefield and confronting the enemy commanders.

The man under his gaze swallowed and, covered in cold sweat, nodded, handing his diadem to the admiral.

"Yes sir."

…

On the battlefield where the starfighters were clashing, the alliance pilots faced an enemy nearly twice as numerous.

Besides the starfighters, the invaders had also deployed a few thousand troop transport shuttles a few kilometers long, fiercely guarded by the enemy starfighters.

As the alliance pilots continued to explode one after another, they suddenly heard their transponder crackle before emitting a long message.

"To all alliance pilots, this is Admiral Chen. I regret to inform you that we have detected enemy starfighters at the true god level."

All the pilots felt their hearts skip a beat, but the admiral continued.

"We are outnumbered and racing against time, but we must hold our ground. I know we don't have starfighters of that caliber, and that you will all face death today, but we don't need such starfighters to win! What we need is the warrior within us. The same warrior ready to give his life to protect his own."

"Every enemy you destroy is one less that will cross the wormhole. That will be billions of civilians, including your families, who will stay alive behind our defense lines. Thanks to you, they will move forward and tell the story we are writing today. The story of those who sacrificed their lives so our children and their children can live without knowing the monster called war. So let's show them, show these invaders they came to invade the wrong galaxy!"

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 12 minutes and 27 seconds]

…

The gigantic battlefield stretched over hundreds of millions of kilometers but was dangerously approaching the platform.

The invading fighters didn't want to annihilate the alliance's and kept rushing forward, sometimes even missing opportunities to destroy fighters to gain ground.

This is the only reason the alliance fighters managed to hold against the invaders, despite being outmatched in strength and numbers.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 6 minutes and 52 seconds]

…

At some point, the two defense fleets got bogged down in thestarfighterskirmishes 50 million kilometers from the platform.

With the direct support of the defense battleships, the enemy fighters and transporters suffered serious losses and were forced to slow down to evade shots.

At the same time, some bombers approached the alliance battleships and dropped devastating explosives, shaking the shields and forcing them to focus on defense.

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 5 minutes and 47 seconds]

Many true gods and high gods personally took action and bombed the enemy divine rank fighters, eliminating them one after another.

...

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 3 minutes and 19 seconds]

Of the millions of enemy ships, only about fifty thousand starfighters and barely two hundred shuttles were left as they managed to break through the defense fleet's blockade, now 20 million kilometers away from the platform.

With the constant fire from the enemy fleet, the admirals couldn't risk changing the battleships' course and continued to fire at full power on the invaders' fleet.

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 2 minutes and 48 seconds]

The main cannons of the battle stars kept their target on the fleet, but all the auxiliary cannons turned towards the group of fighters.

The invaders found themselves caught in a pincer, with the battle stars in front of them and hundreds of thousands of fighters behind.

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 1 minute and 27 seconds]

They were 10 million kilometers from the platform, now fewer than 30 000 fighters and 150 shuttles, but the closer they got to the battle stars, the more accurate the shots became, and their losses increased.

…

In the platform's engine room, the huge reactor displayed red-orange hues, and some parts began to melt as they could no longer withstand the intense heat of the molten core.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 58 seconds]

…

The fighters manage to pass through the battle stars, but the firepower didn't diminish at all.

There were only 8,000 fighters and 65 shuttles left, now 4 million kilometers from the platform.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 25 seconds]

…

The entire engine room began to melt. Fierce electric and spiritual energy sparks resonated throughout the room, blowing up the walls and machines into pieces.

On the other hand, there were only 3500 fighters and 42 shuttles at less than a million kilometers from the platform.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 14 seconds]

…

Several energy sparks ran through the wormhole as it became increasingly unstable.

At that moment, the first starfighter managed to cross the wormhole.

Another was disintegrated by one of the energy sparks before a shuttle could cross the platform.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 8 seconds]

…

At the same time, a massive laser beam struck the surface of the wormhole.

Short ago, the platform was stable and powerful enough to convert the laser energy into its own, but it was now far too unstable.

This triggered a massive explosion that ravaged the wormhole's surface and took several starfighters with it.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 5 seconds]

…

As the platform's energy source deteriorated, the sparks multiplied exponentially on the wormhole's surface.

At that moment, only a few fighters could still cross the wormhole while the majority were blown up by the sparks.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 3 seconds]

…

There were ultimately no enemies left. All had either crossed the wormhole or been disintegrated into fine particles.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 2 seconds]

…

The alliance fighters immediately began a nosedive and turned around, fleeing the area as fast as they could.

…

[Time remaining before reactor overload: 1 second]

…

In the engine room, the temperature suddenly became too high, and then...

BOOOOOOOOOOOM

Everything exploded.

In less than a second, the explosion spread from the reactor core to the entire platform.

With the disappearance of the energy source and the metallic structure, the long-unstable wormhole finally became uncontrollable.

Suddenly it compressed into a tiny point and

Rumble

It released a massive wave of torrential energy.

All the fighters were directly reduced to ashes and then the battleships and battle stars were sent flying like twigs blown by the storm.

All electronic systems shut down or malfunctioned. The battle stars and motherships fared relatively well, but several already damaged battleships were directly shattered into pieces.

The energy wave continued to propagate and eventually hit the invading fleet.

The battlefield seemed to calm down, but it only lasted a few moments. The battle stars and motherships quickly recovered and restarted their systems.

But as the alliance reopened fire, the invading ships turned around and activated their jump engines before disappearing into subspace.

The few thousand alliance battleships took a bit longer to recover and immediately reopened fire on the enemy.

With no more objectives, the invading battleships also turned around and disappeared into subspace.

Their commander was not stupid, and the battle stars were not to be taken lightly. With such firepower, a surprise attack was fine, but a frontal battle would be pointless.

They weren't even sure they could win, and even then, the losses would be staggering.

Having now accomplished their duty, they had no reason to stay here.

…

In the Mayflower, sparks flew everywhere, and soldiers ran at full speed in all directions.

On the bridge, Admiral Chen finally opened his eyes and sighed.

"17 shuttles and 1528 fighters entered the wormhole. With the wormhole's instability, most should have exploded inside, and the rest must be scattered all over."

Vice-Admiral Nazumo approached the admiral and gave a military salute.

"Reporting, Admiral, we have lost all of our starfighters, one battle star, and 926 battleships. Additionally, everything else is damaged to varying degrees due to the platform overload, and several battleships cannot jump into subspace."

The admiral sighed again, seeming to have aged several years.

"Now that the enemy fleet has left, long-distance communications should be restored. Contact Earth, I need to inform the high command of this whole fiasco."

"Yes sir!"

…

In an unknown galaxy, a singularity blossomed in space.

Several sparks burst into the void, and space deformed. The singularity expanded over several kilometers and then suddenly, a dark silhouette was ejected from the void.

As the light from the local suns illuminated the silhouette, it revealed a strange transport shuttle.

It was deformed in several places, and many parts of the armor were missing.

Inside, the lights flickered, and sparks crawled along the walls.

Suddenly, several pairs of sharp red eyes opened, observing the relative darkness of the shuttle.