The battle had ended. The servant army and reserve troops began to clean up the battlefield and retrieve the starships that still had value. The Spellcaster army led by Odemsius and Rena had just returned to their base. Almost all of the Magic Vanguards and Arcane Enforcers had sustained some degree of damage, but not a single one of them had died in battle. It had to be said that their unique battle style was indeed useful on a specific battlefield. The main force of the Sixth Fleet was currently regrouping, gathering and calculating their losses. Even though we had obtained victory in the end, and it seemed that the results of the battle were not bad, we had to admit that the ferocious invasion of the Fallen Apostles had caused significant losses to the New Empire. The Sixth Fleet had lost close to a third of its forces in this battle.
The servant army had not launched a direct attack, but their losses had also reached this number.
At the very least, the Sixth Fleet would not be able to appear on the battlefield for a period of time. They needed to recuperate, replenish the destroyed warships, and recover the losses caused by the soldiers who had died in battle. Even though the Shiring Apostles had the ability to resurrect, not every soldier could be resurrected in such a high-intensity battle. Many brave soldiers had perished in battle, and the military would be very busy for a period of time because of this. It should be said that it was fortunate that we had obtained a relatively large advantage in the early stages of the battle and had maintained it. Otherwise, the entire Sixth Fleet might have been damaged in this battle. As the main force of the New Empire fighting against the Fallen Apostles, such a situation would be extremely terrible.
As the commander of the fleet began his routine finishing up work, we finally had the spare energy to pay attention to some other matters.
At the height of the battle just now, the intelligence officer had reported a request for help from an unknown source. The person requesting for help said that they were being attacked by a group of extremely destructive enemies. We suspected that the ones attacking them were the invading army of the Fallen Apostles who were fighting against the Imperial Army. As everyone was in a fierce battle at that time, and with Xiaoxue's suggestion, the request for help was temporarily put aside. Now, it was time for us to take a look at it.
She turned on the holographic device on the officer's platform, which displayed the translated text of the request for help, as well as the coordinates and frequency of the message. She reported to us, "It has been close to nine hours since the message was sent. The sender's response has completely disappeared, and we have not detected a second similar signal. According to Her Highness's prediction, the sender should still be alive, but they are in hiding. "
Pandora tried her best to stretch her body in front of the holographic device. Her expression was solemn. As General Sives, she had to at least look like she was strategizing. However, I didn't expect her to come up with any constructive suggestions. This short wintermelon's brain was filled with explosions. She was like an idiot when it came to problems that couldn't be solved with explosions. Her twin sister, Visca, who was sitting next to her, suggested, "Why don't we broadcast to the entire universe that the battle is over and it's safe outside? Let them come out?"
I glanced at Visca. The little girl also looked back at me with her sparkling blood-red cat eyes. She smiled happily, revealing her two small canine teeth, "Brother, brother, isn't this a good idea?"
Her intelligence was only slightly higher than Pandora's. I shook my head. "If it were you, would you believe it?"
"In the eyes of a third party, it should be difficult to distinguish the Imperial Army from the Fallen Apostles." Sives shook his head as expected. "Apart from the reaction of the Abyss, there is basically no difference between us and the Fallen Apostles' army. This third party should know nothing about the Empire, so they should have the same vigilant and evasive attitude towards the Imperial Army. I'm afraid it's unrealistic to use conventional methods to establish contact with them. However, with Her Highness's power, you might be able to find their hiding place … "
"I can only make a vague judgment." Xiaoxue rubbed her forehead. She was already very tired, but she still tried her best to determine the location of the person who was requesting for help. She fiddled with the star map a few times and zoomed out. In the end, she chose a bright celestial cluster that was hundreds of millions of light years away. "It's roughly this location. There is a supermassive celestial body that is rapidly collapsing. It might be a quasar. The strong electromagnetic radiation and natural gravitational distortion it emits is a very ideal barrier. If my judgment is correct, they are somewhere in this quasar. However … they seem to have the ability to travel between worlds. If we were to send our people over hastily, they might run away. By then, it would become an awkward situation where one side is chasing the other. Although it's not that the Empire's starships can't catch up to them, it would be dangerous if they were to jump into the macro world's network recklessly. This universe is already very close to the macro world's network, and the other party is a bunch of naughty brats who have never memorized the rules of cross-world travel. "
It was a very strange feeling to hear the biggest naughty brat in history call others naughty brats.
"We need a few spaceships that don't belong to the Empire's camp, and …" I turned to look at the people around me. "And a few fellows who have nothing better to do. 123, I'm talking about the few of you. Come over and help. We are going to rescue the wrecked spaceship … "
Before I could finish my sentence, Icetis swayed over and stretched. "I'm fine. It doesn't hurt …"
"… No one will think you're mute if you don't say a few words!"
Spaceships other than the Empire's starships were easy to find. When the Sixth Fleet set out, they brought a large number of servants with them. Soon, we temporarily requisitioned a carrier and three barges from the civilization's fleet. These were their largest ships. Although we weren't sure how many people had sent the distress signal and how much they had with them, Xiaoxue said that it would be good to bring a few large ships over. Other than the original crew members on these ships, I, Xiaoxue, and the five Protoss Bar would personally accompany them. Sis would stay on the Empire's Admiral to guard the formation and watch the reserve echelons and servants clean up the battlefield. Sis was a diligent and thrifty person, so she loved watching people clean up the house the most. In the past, she used to watch me put things in the fridge, and now she watched her own fleet move spaceships into the hangar …
In addition, Pandora and Visca were also ordered to stay on the spaceship. The two of them had no interest in anything other than war, and they didn't like such a boring operation like rescuing a wrecked spaceship. Moreover, they still had to check their radiators …
Riding on the civilization's carrier, after a few mid-distance warps, we arrived at the target area. It was an extremely bright area in space. Supermassive interstellar matter — more than half of which could be used as stellar fuel — gathered together and produced intense nuclear reactions. The intense radio and light radiation released could be observed from tens of billions of light-years away. The detector showed that the mass of matter had a diameter of one or two light-days. Of course, this was the average diameter. Its appearance wasn't very "regular", and it looked a little like a wrinkled orange. It was a quasar. Observed from afar, its shape was a bit like a star, but its super strong light and heat radiation as well as its huge size indicated that it was definitely not the same thing as a star. At the same time, its relatively "loose" structure was also very different from a normal single planet. Because of the rich fuel and the intense reaction, the absolute brightness and radiation intensity of this space wonder was thousands of times or more than that of a normal star. Of course, it was far more than the dark nebula that the fleet had stopped at. We had to use perception methods other than vision to observe this planet because its brightness was no longer suitable for the naked eye to see in the form of images. Of course, this was not a problem for us. The world perceived by the mind was far more colorful than everything seen by the naked eye. As for the other crew members on the carrier, those ordinary races from the civilization community, they needed to use various equipment to filter the light of the quasar. Although these races had been "promoted" by the Empire, they were not strong enough to look directly at the light of the quasar with the naked eye.
Of course, it was impossible for them to withstand the radiation of this hot celestial body.
And outside the space occupied by the quasar, there was only vast, dead space in the region that stretched for 50 million light years. There were no small isolated star systems, no nebula matter, and no ashes left after the celestial body had burned. The quasar in front of us must have squeezed out all the matter in the area when it was formed, and then used its own radiation wind to blow away the remaining residue in a very short time. It swept out a clean courtyard for itself, and just like that, it quietly settled down in space.
This civilization community's carrier had a flat, wide, and short hull. At the front of the ship was a series of observation towers, and we were now at the top of one of the observation towers. There was a rectangular hall here that allowed people to see the scenery of space outside. Accompanied by the soft sound of mechanical friction, the alloy shield of the observation tower slowly descended. The light from the brightest celestial body in the universe penetrated the seemingly fragile crystal wall of the observation tower without reservation, like a heat wave that was about to burn everything. But the inner layer of the protective shield had filtered the heat and 99% of the luminosity of the quasar, so the flames formed by the sunlight were just an illusion.
The carrier and the three barges were passing through the area 60,000 kilometers above the quasar. For such a huge celestial body, 10,000 kilometers was equivalent to brushing past the edge of the quasar. The heat column from the surface of the celestial body below carried a huge amount of nuclear fuel fragments into space. One of the scorching fragments about two kilometers long flew past the observation tower. It looked like a burning continent falling into space under the influence of gravity. It was a spectacular sight.
"Hiding in a quasar is nothing for a cross-world civilization." Xiaoxue's eyes glowed with a white halo. She was looking for the 'guests' hiding in the One Light Shelter with great interest. "Hmm, looks like it's here. I see … one, two … three spaceships with the same logo, dark red paint. I don't see anything that looks like a weapon … At least, there's no obvious powerful equipment. It doesn't look like a battleship. If it's not an exploration ship that left home for the first time, then it must have been separated from the armed guards. "
"Ha, I'm so envious of you and your mother's ability," Icetis said to Xiaoxue. She had already entered her god form and was now spreading her gorgeous wings. She stretched her waist while facing the light of the quasar. Then, under my speechless gaze, this willful female rogue hung herself on the huge observation window. "Sunbathe your wings, sunbathe your wings. Girls should take care of themselves …"
Then, Elson, Monina, and Kenser followed suit. The four guys with a wingspan of three meters instantly occupied half of the wall. To sunbathe under the light and heat of a quasar, these guys could be said to be unprecedented. Among the five Protoss Cops, only Lin was sensible. This honest girl was standing behind me obediently, scratching her neck and coughing.
Oh, right. Previously, Icetis had asked her to help cut a hole in the enemy's flagship. So, this girl had bitten a hole in the interstellar alloy. Is she choking now and hasn't recovered yet?
At this moment, I noticed that the 'horizon' outside the observation tower was rising. The spaceship's mainframe broadcast, "Positioning complete. Mass coordinates confirmed … The spaceship is beginning to descend. Shield and various filtering levels increased by 10%. There may be slight tremors. All personnel, prepare for conventional impact protection … Contact material concentration boundary."
A gentle tremor came from under our feet. The spaceship came into contact with the gaseous shell of the quasar and began to descend rapidly. The outer layer of a celestial body like a quasar was not solid but gaseous. Therefore, it did not really have a distinct 'shell'. However, there was still a relatively obvious boundary on its surface. The violent nuclear reaction and the strong gravitational force of the quasar formed a boundary on the surface of the quasar. Violent cyclones and turbulent heat waves rotated rapidly on this boundary, thus creating a dynamic balance and forming an unstable 'shell'. This shell was constantly changing. Occasionally, it would expand tens of thousands of kilometers outward or shrink tens of thousands of kilometers inward. The tremor that came from under our feet just now was caused when the spaceship came into contact with the cyclone on this boundary. If it was a spaceship created by a conventional civilization that had not yet mastered the spaceship anchoring technology and special shields, it would have disintegrated on this layer. However, the spaceship of a civilization would only tremble a little in this environment. Of course, if we had come with an Empire starship, I'm afraid there would not even be a tremor. The space interrupter created by Schilling technology could easily stop the storm on the surface of the quasar. It did not even need to consume one percent of the energy of the shield.
Looking out through the crystal window of the observation tower, we could not see anything with the naked eye. Light that far exceeded the imaging threshold filled all the space around us. Looking with the naked eye, you could only see the endless storm of light and heat inside the quasar. The eyes of ordinary creatures would be burned in a millisecond in such an environment. Even we could hardly 'see' anything in such a dazzling environment.
However, we could use spirit vision. Within the range of our mental scan, we did not find the silhouettes of those who sought help.
"They should have noticed us, but they did not run away." Xiaoxue stared at the nuclear flames that stretched for hundreds of thousands of kilometers outside the observation window. Her gaze pierced through the endless sea of light and heat and reached the interior of the quasar. "Send a signal. Tell them that we are here to rescue them."
Previously, we had already deciphered the distress signal sent by the other party. Hence, we knew the frequency and coding needed to establish communication with the other party. Soon, a friendly and humanitarian message was sent, and we received a response almost instantly. It seemed that the other party had been waiting for us to take the initiative to speak for a long time.
"They are asking about the 'pursuers'." Before the report from the communication center reached us, Xiaoxue already knew the other party's response. She lifted her head and glanced at me. "They are asking about the fallen apostles."
"Just say that they have been defeated and run away. Don't say anything else. It is too complicated to explain."
After some communication, both parties reached a preliminary level of trust. Of course, the person who sought help also asked us how we found this place. After they hid in this quasar, they did not send any signals to the outside world. However, we still managed to find them. Regarding this, Xiaoxue simply used the difference in technology to fool them. The greatest advantage of two alien civilizations that had never come into contact with each other was that both parties could talk nonsense. Of course, the disadvantage was that both parties basically did not believe the other party's nonsense … But that was not important. Either way, the other party believed that we had no hostility.
"Attention, a force field barrier has been detected. The target will enter the range of the traction force field in thirty seconds … The probe has been released. The target will be observed in ten seconds … The probe will be observed in five seconds … The probe signal has been successfully transferred."
Following the voice of the mainframe, the observation hall dimmed and the surrounding protective walls closed up again. A huge holographic projection appeared in the hall. Three spaceships from an unfamiliar civilization appeared on the projection.
They quietly floated in the middle of the surging thermonuclear storm in the quasar. They did not seem to be large in scale. The long axes of the three spaceships were between two to three kilometers. Alright, to an ordinary civilization, they were already large spaceships. However, I had seen too many of the insane giant battle fortresses that the Empire had built. Subconsciously, I felt that these spaceships were really small. The appearance of the three spaceships was similar. They were generally in the shape of a long trapezoid with a narrow front and a wide back. They had a symmetrical hull and a sturdy design. They were painted in black, white, and red colors. I did not recognize the style of the spaceships.
The three spaceships did not seem to be battleships. This was just as Xiaoxue had said. Although they seemed to have weapons on the surface, based on their size and distribution, they should only be self-defense firepower.
I called the aircraft carrier's command center. "Connect the channel. We will speak directly to the other party's commander."
There was a moment of interference noise from the communicator. Then, the status display window showed that the communication was successfully transferred. We had established a connection with the three unidentified third-party spaceships.
"This is the Supreme Commander of the Xiling Empire. Where are you from?"
"This is the Supreme Commander of the Fairy Empire. Where are we?"
There were two questions in the communicator almost at the same time. One was mine, and the other was a young woman's voice.
Everyone was speechless.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
