Chapter 1047: Strong Attack and Actors

Chapter 1047: The Assault and the Actors

A thunderous boom!

The vessel caught in the crossfire vaporized in an instant; beneath the relentless barrage of countless ship cannons, not a single plate of armor could escape annihilation, leaving behind not even a whisper of wreckage.

A flickering, unstable portal tore open nearby, and Tolein tumbled through, his flight erratic, his heart still hammering with dread.

Fortunately, he had kept a teleportation spell ready in his palm, slipping away from the concentrated fire at the very last second; to suffer crippling damage before the battle even began would have been utterly humiliating.

“To order the fleet to bombard me without a single word of warning—what sheer audacity!” Tolein seethed, shock and fury warring within him.

When peers of the Super-A tier visited or challenged one another, did they ever strip away all dignity so completely?

Even if my intent was to issue a challenge, to silence me with a volley of cannon fire without so much as a greeting was an insult beyond measure!

In his eyes, even Super-A rivals harboring mutual grievances would observe at least a veneer of courtesy when one sought out the other. They were all figures of stature; to sweep a man of his standing away like refuse with artillery fire was a blatant violation of the unspoken etiquette among their ranks. This disgrace did not fall upon him alone; it reflected poorly upon her as well.

Just then, Hela’s voice echoed across the wide-band channel.

“You are a defeated foe of mine. Those I surpass are never granted the chance to catch up, and I harbor no interest in crossing blades with you again.”

At her words, Tolein’s features twisted in indignation; he had prided himself on his arrogance, only to discover Hela’s matched and exceeded his own.

His expression shifted through several shades of fury before he resolved to swallow his pride.

“Hmph. I have a mission to fulfill and no desire to bicker with you. You are practically a dead woman anyway.”

With a silent snort in his mind, Tolein activated a solidified magical communication rune, reaching out to his comrades lying in ambush elsewhere.

“Comrades, our assessment was flawed. Hela will not take the bait; she refused to engage and, with utter shamelessness, opened fire on me directly. The luring tactic has failed. Shift to a direct assault. At the very least, we have confirmed she remains within the stronghold.”

Swiftly, Sagman’s reply crackled through the magical link.

“Understood. Alter the protocol and commence the direct assault! Tolein, share your visual feed and mark our coordinates. Taylardi, tear open a portal and lead the strike on the star gate. Furthermore, preheat the spatial stabilizers; once we enter, seal off all warp and teleportation capabilities to leave Hela no avenue of escape. Adhere strictly to the original blueprint.”

……

Hela made her way to the stronghold’s supreme command chamber, her gaze fixed on the surveillance feeds that showed Tolein narrowly evading the fleet’s barrage in the outer void.

“He refuses to flee. He is undoubtedly harboring a scheme.”

Hela’s brows drew together, and after a moment’s hesitation, she retrieved her communicator to send a message to Han Xiao, intending to consult him.

Yet in the very next instant, a piercing intuition of peril surged through her, like a frigid draft rising from her coccyx and seeping deep into her marrow.

Her expression tightened, and she snapped her head upward; within her sensory field, several energy sources blazing like miniature stars had abruptly manifested nearby.

“Alert! Alert! High-energy signatures detected!”

“Alert! Alert! Star gate compromised! Requesting immediate reinforcement!”

The monitor’s display fractured into a new scene: beside the distant star gate station, a magical portal shimmered into existence, and two figures stepped through, revealing themselves to be Taylardi and Sagman.

Before the gate’s defense forces could even raise their weapons, the pair struck without warning. Swarms of summoned monstrosities poured forth, a tidal wave that pinned down the defensive fleet, while arcs of attribute-less arcane devastation and ceaseless beams of light shattered gate after gate with effortless ruin… The ambush had succeeded.

Beside Tolein, a second, colossal portal tore open, disgorging a dark tide of mechanical legions that spilled out like a breached dam and fanned across the void. At their vanguard stood three figures: a clone of Cthuyue, the feral beast Motes, and the Dominant Clone of Francesco, the “Mechanical Calamity,” who commanded the iron host.

Cthuyue and Motes were old acquaintances, but Francesco deserved particular mention. Cultivated directly by the Void Spirits, he was an anomaly; his true form remained imprisoned within the sect’s penal wards, barred from the outside world unless the order required his might. Only then was he permitted to deploy his Dominant Clone into battle, with meritorious service granting him a reduction in his sentence.

His conviction matched his epithet, Mechanical Calamity, a testament to the machinery-born disasters he had once unleashed and a tacit acknowledgment of his combat prowess. An energy-branch mechanic, he possessed a rare aptitude: his mechanical force amplification suffered far less degradation than his peers, and its splash radius stretched exponentially further, allowing him to buff an extraordinarily vast legion simultaneously.

His inclusion in this operation served to counter the legion’s stronghold fleet and contain the mechanical forces Black Star had stationed there, handling large-scale engagements; otherwise, a handful of Super-A tiers would find their attention hopelessly fractured by naval warfare.

The moment they breached the battlefield, the Mechanical Calamity directed his iron host into a brutal slaughter against the stronghold’s fleet.

Caught off guard by the sudden onslaught, the stronghold fleet initially faltered before scrambling to adapt, plunging the engagement into immediate, searing intensity.

Simultaneously, Francesco’s troops deployed an array of spatial stabilizers and wormhole countermeasures, activating them in unison to inflate shimmering “bubbles” that instantly anchored the local spacetime, rendering even teleportation spells utterly useless.

Witnessing this, Hela’s countenance darkened, her features etched with profound gravity.

The enemy had arrived fully prepared. Six Super-A tiers, including an anomaly of Cthuyue’s caliber…

Did they truly desire her death so fervently?

Despite her fiercely proud nature, Hela could not suppress a tremor of dread at the sheer scale of the deployment.

……Was this the predicament Black Star had once faced?

No, it was likely far worse. A death trap, pure and simple.

Yet her resolve wavered for but a heartbeat before she steadied herself, crushing her doubts into a furnace of combat fervor. Her blood seemed to boil, a warlike current surging through her veins.

A thunderous boom!

In the next instant, Hela shattered through the ceiling and rocketed into the sky, teeth gritted as she charged toward the outer void, her aura locking onto the several Super-A tiers that had targeted her from afar.

As she surged forward, death energy bled from her form, coalescing into a vivid crimson cloud of blood.

Observing this, the Crimson Demon, the feral beast, and the Mechanical Calamity’s Dominant Clone dove in unison, slipping past the distracted defensive fleet to intercept Hela in a brutal, head-on collision.

A deafening crack!

The impact resonated like heaven and earth shattering.

Across the planet’s curved horizon, a ring of crimson shockwave detonated outward!

The blood cloud forged from death energy dissipated into nothingness, and the crimson meteor plummeted toward the earth at accelerating velocity, utterly unstoppable.

A rolling, earth-shaking roar!

Carving a canyon-like trench through sprawling clusters of bases, Hela finally arrested her momentum, coming to a halt amidst a choking veil of dust and debris.

“Cough… cough…”

From the swirling grit, Hela hauled herself up, her gaze feral. She casually wiped the blood trickling from her nose and fixed her eyes on the trio hovering above.

In a direct clash, her current strength was plainly insufficient to withstand a three-on-one ambush; she had been blasted backward without resistance.

Just then, from the far reaches of the planetary stronghold, a dark tide of specks ascended, rushing across the distant horizon like a sky-obscuring flock of ravens. They were the mechanical forces Han Xiao had stationed within the base, led by his Dominant Clone, who had already descended.

And in the very next moment, a psychic ripple washed over the entire planet, and an ethereal, distant voice resonated within every mind.

“Black Star, your opponent is I.”

Vision blurred for a fraction of a second, and Cthuyue’s clone stood firmly across the mechanical legion’s path, raising a single hand and pressing it downward.

A thunderous boom!!

Every mechanical unit was instantly pinned to the ground, save for the Dominant Clone, whose body blazed with intense mechanical energy, barely holding its ground.

“Though my foes are machines, rendering telepathy’s greatest strength—mental devastation—useless, I am equally adept with telekinesis.”

The clone’s tone remained placid as he raised his palm vertically and thrust it forward.

A telekinetic wall spanning thousands of miles materialized with a roar, grinding forward. Every structure and machine in its path was shoved aside, crushed flat against the advancing barrier.

Segments of the mechanical force fired back at the invisible barrier, yet Cthuyue’s telekinetic power seemed bottomless. Even as the wall fractured under concentrated fire, he carelessly expended his energy to mend the breaches without hesitation.

The wall’s advance was nearly irresistible, acting like a colossal eraser that scoured a vast swath of the planet’s surface. Stripping away the crust, it hurled countless building fragments, soil, and machinery along its trajectory, sweeping them from the planetary curve directly into the outer void.

Aside from the Dominant Clone and a handful of highly mobile combat units that retreated voluntarily, the remainder of the mechanical force was pushed off the planet by the telekinetic wall, forced away from Hela’s battlefield to regroup in the outer void.

Simultaneously, Cthuyue’s clone followed in their wake, positioning himself squarely before Han Xiao.

“An astonishing display of telekinetic power.” Han Xiao’s Dominant Clone’s eyes gleamed.

“I draw my strength from the void dimensions; my telekinesis is boundless. In terms of energy reserves, perhaps only Olu of the Radiant Federation could rival me,” Cthuyue remarked coolly. “I hear you possess void bloodline as well. Once your divine metamorphosis reaches a certain threshold, you may well awaken to such power yourself.”

Han Xiao's Sovereign Avatar cast a sweeping glance across the surroundings, taking in the entirety of the battlefield.

At this very moment, the planetary stronghold could be divided into three distinct battlefields, where Hela clashed with the Red Demon, the Desolate Beast, and the Mechanical Calamity, surrounded by peril and thoroughly outmatched. Fighting three at once was far too much for Hela in her current state, and she appeared on the verge of suffering grievous wounds and defeat at any moment; yet Han Xiao knew her true depths. Though she could not claim victory against the trio, she could hold her ground for the time being, for her blood-draining prowess remained formidable, and the life-shortening terror of her abilities kept her foes wary, stifling their performance and daring them not to trade blows for wounds.

The second theater witnessed a large-scale legionary engagement, where the mechanical forces commanded by the Mechanical Calamity locked horns with the stronghold's defense fleet in a grinding stalemate; the fleet desperately sought to turn back and reinforce Hela, while the Calamity's machines held them in a vice-like grip.

The third battleground belonged to Sagman and Talerdi, who were assaulting the stargate station to sever Hela's retreat and the path of reinforcements, holding a commanding advantage; once they reduced every stargate to rubble, they would wheel about to join the siege, and by then, Hela would have no hope of enduring.

Han Xiao's Sovereign Avatar harbored the intent to intercept the pair, but the distance between the stargate and the stronghold's planet proved too great, rendering a timely arrival impossible.

Moreover, relying solely on the mechanical detachment at hand, breaking through Ksuye's blockade seemed a futile endeavor; the mightiest mechanical legions and apostle armaments remained with his primary body, hastening toward this sector but still requiring some time to arrive.

The situation was far from favorable... Han Xiao narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixing upon Ksuye.

"Are you utterly resolved to stand in my way?"

Ksuye's face remained a mask of indifference as he condensed his psychic fluctuations, establishing a one-way mental link solely with Han Xiao, and spoke slowly: "This Sovereign Avatar of yours shall remain here to keep me company."

He placed deliberate emphasis on the words Sovereign Avatar.

Observing the profound meaning behind Ksuye's expression, a sudden intuition struck Han Xiao, and he commanded his Sovereign Avatar to charge forward with the mechanical troops.

Ksuye, a telekinetic master, made no move to engage in skirmishing; instead, he rushed in to clash with the Sovereign Avatar in close quarters, the two colliding in a cacophony of strikes and sparks. The spectacle was remarkably fierce, enough to make any onlooker believe they harbored a blood feud.

Around them, the mechanical units unleashed a barrage of artillery that appeared devastatingly precise, yet in truth employed a comically inaccurate aim, with every shell deliberately grazing past their targets.

Ksuye made no effort to intercept them, allowing the stray fire to rain down upon the rear battlefield where Hela faced the trio, periodically disrupting Toraine and his companions' assaults, forcing them into evasive maneuvers and carving out precious openings for Hela.

Simultaneously, the mechanical forces fanned out, attempting to flank Ksuye, who erected a telekinetic barrier in mere token; yet several sections of the wall were conspicuously weakened, easily torn asunder to let wave after wave of mechanical soldiers slip through...

——It appeared as though Ksuye, entangled in close combat with the Sovereign Avatar and confronted by a formidable foe, could not spare the focus to sustain his telekinetic wall, thereby allowing a portion of Black Star's mechanical forces to exploit the breach and reinforce Hela.

Han Xiao finally confirmed it; the man before him was deliberately holding back...

No, it could hardly be called holding back; this was outright flooding the gates!

Why on earth was he aiding him so thoroughly?

Han Xiao's mind raced, and a sudden epiphany struck him. Within the one-way psychic link, he whispered a coded phrase:

"Council of the Gods? Acting?"

"Focus, and act."

Han Xiao's heart instantly steadied.

Good heavens, the opposing commander was a thespian!

Reliable!

He temporarily quelled his restless impulses, for the current stalemate could still be maintained.

He had already summoned aid from the Empire; though the stronghold's stargates might fall, imperial reinforcements could divert to the nearest surrounding gates. While they could not arrive directly at their base, and the support would take longer, it would not be unduly delayed.

"The Phantom Spirits have made their move, and others may be watching from the shadows. Remain calm, adapt to the circumstances, and wait for the reinforcements and my primary body to arrive," Han Xiao murmured inwardly.

Under Ksuye's deliberate leniency, a contingent of mechanical troops successfully reached Hela's battlefield to provide support. Now empowered by Han Xiao's mechanical force augmentation, their combat prowess was formidable; even in limited numbers, they could not be ignored by Toraine and his two companions.

With allies at her side, Hela finally exhaled, no longer forced to fight alone. Her predicament improved markedly, and the mechanical units coordinated flawlessly with her, advancing and retreating with disciplined precision.

The death energy, capable of siphoning lifespans, lanced through the air in every direction, striking profound dread into Toraine and Metes. Both had traditionally fought as vanguard tanks, yet now it was the Mechanical Calamity's Sovereign Avatar bearing the brunt of the frontline duty.

The fragile mechanical frame endured pressures no such chassis should ever face. Watching Toraine and Metes, two hulking brutes, cower and hesitate, the Mechanical Calamity, Francesco, was utterly speechless.

——Could you two pull your weight? I am not Black Star; my Sovereign Avatar is not that durable!!

"Damn it, Ksuye let them through. Is Black Star's avatar truly that troublesome?" Metes marveled, dodging a volley of concentrated fire from the mechanical units.

"Ksuye sent merely an avatar; after unleashing a powerful strike to divide the battlefield, a decline in his condition is entirely expected," Francesco replied, his tone utterly flat. "I did not anticipate Black Star's strength to be so profound; not only has he withstood Ksuye, but he retains the surplus energy to launch virtual incursions against my forces."

Elsewhere, the Red Demon Toraine was about to speak when his personal shield was suddenly shattered by artillery fire, leaving him no choice but to take a full blast of Hela's death shockwave.

He jolted instantly, as if a floating notification of -1-1 had materialized above his head.

Toraine could not help but glance toward Ksuye, who was supposedly clashing fiercely in the distance. His eyes held a grievous resentment, and a helpless sigh escaped his heart:

"My lifespan has drained away once more..."

...

"Wha... what is happening here?!"

In the outer space surrounding the stronghold, amidst the naval engagement, legion players aboard countless warships were left dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events.

Though many players had already founded or joined guilds, operating independently in the Free Competition Zone under the banner of the Black Star Legion as affiliated factions, a portion had chosen to march alongside the main force.

Particularly after the legion recently issued its faction war decree, numerous players had gathered at this forward stronghold, treating it as a provisional capital, constantly recruiting and forming parties to hunt down enemy faction players across the Free Competition Zone.

They never expected that while resting comfortably within the Black Star stronghold, they would suddenly be ambushed by multiple Super-A rank entities, reducing the location directly into a battleground for eight Super-A ranks!

What in the world is going on? Super-A ranks were supposed to be exceedingly rare; there were enough here to fill two mahjong tables.

Could it be... that we have stumbled upon major news once again?!

Recalling the Lighthouse Star campaign incident from the previous version, the players felt not fear but exhilaration. They hastily activated their recording functions, desperately aiming their lenses at the Super-A ranks' faces.

"This must be the major event of this version! And we happened to be here!"

"Keep filming, keep filming! I have a feeling this is going to cause some damn major incident!"

Many players thoroughly savored the thrill of being mere spectators, their excitement reaching a fever pitch.

...

Rapid footsteps drew ever closer.

Bang!

The reception room's doors were violently kicked open. Emrys, Silver Shadow, and Fodin, who had been conversing idly within, turned instinctively toward the entrance to see Aurora stumbling inside, her face etched with sheer panic.

"Teacher, something terrible has happened!"

"What is it?" Emrys asked, bewildered.

"Si... Sister Hela is being besieged by the Phantom Spirit Cult! Multiple Super-A ranks have descended upon her, all intent on her death. I witnessed it through telepathy!"

"What!"

Emrys shot to her feet, her force field erupting with a thunderous shockwave that instantly sent the surrounding furniture flying.

After more than a decade of shared trials, her bond with Hela had grown profoundly deep. Hearing that her student was in mortal peril, Emrys was instantly consumed by fury.

Just then, a holographic screen materialized in the room, displaying an incoming call from an administrative officer.

"Lady Emrys, Lord Fodin, a situation has arisen. A Super-A rank entity calling himself the Traveler has arrived at the Black Star Palace. He has specifically challenged the Legion Commander by name. How shall we proceed?"

"Simply inform him that Lord Black Star is not present," Fodin replied.

"...Ah, he stated that if Black Star is absent, he will fight the Sovereign Avatar instead."

"Tell him Black Star is currently occupied and has no time for combat."

"...Lord Fodin, he insists he cannot make this journey in vain. If he cannot find Black Star, he will challenge Lord Dragon Throne instead. This... he is a mage, and he refuses to leave. Without employing special measures, it will be exceedingly difficult to drive him away."

Fodin furrowed his brow, just about to speak.

At that moment, Emrys patted his shoulder, interrupting him. Her brows knitted as she said, "This visitor harbors ill intentions and likely has an ulterior motive. It may be connected to Hela's predicament. I will go and probe him. Tell him I accept his challenge."

Upon hearing this, Silver Shadow, who had remained silent, stirred with a flicker in his eyes. He perceived this as an excellent opportunity to forge connections; aiding Black Star's kin would undoubtedly yield substantial rewards.

Upon reflection, he stepped forward and volunteered, "My Lady Emers, permit me to take your place."

"It would be unseemly to ask a guest to take the vanguard. Fodin, escort Lord Silver Shadow to the watchtower to observe the fray."

Emers waved a dismissive hand, turned upon her heel, and strode from the chamber, her gown swirling like a dark blossom in motion.

Her tall silhouette vanished from their sight, leaving only a single phrase drifting back across the distance.

"Fear not. I am no stranger to holding my own."

——

(Ah, without the chapter comments to read, I have long since become a languid salted fish (′?.?))