(That’s right, the ti to ask for votes at the beginning of the month has arrived! Now I’m an experienced author who definitely won’t forget to ask for votes! Asking for monthly votes!
— Of course, if possible, also asking for subscriptions and rewards...)
The battle is over, and the Servant Army and reserve echelon have begun cleaning the battlefield, recovering starships that still have use value. The Caster Corps led by Audemus and Rena have also just returned to the main formation, and those Magic Energy Vanguards and Arcane Law Enforcent Officers each suffered so degree of damage, but none were killed. It must be said that their special combat thods are indeed effective on certain battlefields. The main echelon of the Sixth Fleet is now being reorganized, gathering and tallying the battle damages. Although we ultimately achieved victory and the battle outco seems favorable, we must admit that the ferocious invasion by the Fallen Apostles has caused considerable losses to the New Empire; nearly one-third of the Sixth Fleet was lost in this battle.
The Servant Army did not launch a frontal attack, but its battle damage also reached nearly this number.
At least for the ti being, the Sixth Fleet cannot appear on the frontline; they need to recuperate, replenish destroyed warships, and recover from the shortages caused by lost soldiers. Although the Xyrin Apostles have resurrection abilities, not every soldier can be revived in such high-intensity battlefields. Many brave warriors died completely in battle, and the Military Departnt will be busy for so ti because of this. Luckily, we gained significant advantages in the early stages of the battle and maintained them; otherwise, this tough fight could have fundantally crippled the Sixth Fleet. As the main army currently engaged against the Fallen Apostles for the New Empire, this situation is extrely dire.
And as the Fleet Commander begins the routine cleanup work, we finally have the strength to focus on other matters.
During the fierce battle, an intelligence officer reported an unidentified distress signal, stating that the signal’s sender is under attack by a group of highly destructive enemies. We suspect the attackers are the sa Fallen Apostle Invading Army that fought against the Imperial Army. As everyone was engaged in fierce combat and given Xiao Xue’s suggestion, this distress signal was temporarily shelved, and now we should look into it.
Sivis opened the holographic device on the officer platform, displaying the translated original of the distress signal along with its coordinates and frequency information, and she reports to us: "It’s been close to nine hours since the signal was sent, the sender’s response has completely disappeared, and we’ve detected no second similar signal. According to Princess’s foreknowledge, the sender should still be alive, but they are hiding."
Pandora stretched her body as much as possible and leaned in front of the holographic device, looking like she was strategizing, though I didn’t expect her to offer any constructive suggestions: this Shorty, whose head is filled only with explosions, seems to be as clueless as a fool about any problem explosions cannot solve. Instead, her twin sister Visca, sitting next to her, offered an idea: "How about we broadcast across the universe, saying the battle is over and it’s safe outside now, so they can co out?"
I glanced at Visca, and the little girl looked back at with her shining blood-red cat eyes, smiling happily, revealing two Little Tiger Teeth: "Brother, brother, isn’t this a good idea?"
Her intelligence outside of cannon asures is only slightly higher than Pandora’s. I shook my head: "Would you trust it if it were you?"
"In the eyes of third parties, the Imperial Army and Fallen Apostles should be difficult to distinguish," Sivis indeed shook her head, "apart from the Abyss reaction, we and the Fallen Apostle’s armies have essentially no differences. This third-party force should be completely unaware of matters concerning the Empire, so they now harbor the sa vigilance and avoidance attitude towards the Imperial Army. Using conventional ans to establish contact may be unrealistic. But perhaps Princess’s power can locate their hiding place..."
"Just a rough judgnt," Xiao Xue rubbed her forehead, this child was already very tired, but she still tried to pinpoint the distress signal sender’s location. She operated on the star map and zood out, finally selecting a bright celestial body cluster billions of light years away, "It’s basically this position. Here, a rapidly collapsing supermassive celestial body, possibly a quasar, is releasing extrely strong electromagnetic radiation and natural gravitational distortion, which is a very ideal barrier. If my judgnt is correct, they’re sowhere inside this quasar. However... they seem to have the ability to traverse worlds; if we rashly send people over, they might flee, leading to an awkward pursuit-and-escape scenario. Though the Imperial Starships wouldn’t fail to catch them, if they recklessly jump into the Macro World Network, it could be dangerous. This universe is already close to the Macro World Network, and the opponents are a group of Naughty Kids who haven’t learned the rules of cross-world navigation."
...Listening to the largest Naughty Kid in history calling others Naughty Kids, this feeling is so subtle.
"We need so spaceships that don’t belong to the Imperial Camp, and also..." I turned to look at the group around , "so idle people with itchy feet. 123, I’m talking about you, co over and help, we’re going to rescue the distressed spaceship..."
Just as I finished speaking, Bingdisi leisurely swayed over, stretching her arms: "I don’t have ○, it’s not itchy..."
I: "...Say less, as no one would mistake you for a mute!"
Spaceships outside the Imperial Starship are easy to find; the Sixth Fleet set out with a considerable number of Servant Army and soon we temporarily requisitioned a carrier and three transport barges from the Fleet of the Civilization Community. Although we’re unsure how many of the distress signal senders there are or what they’re carrying, Xiao Xue suggested bringing a few large ships would be beneficial. Apart from the original crew on these ships, I, Xiao Xue, and the Tiaozi Five of the Divine Clan will all personally accompany the mission, while Sister will stay on the Imperial Admiral to guard the main formation and supervise the reserve echelon and Servant Army as they clean the battlefield—our thrifty sister loves to watch the scene of collecting items, forrly watching load the fridge and now watching her fleet pack spaceships into hangars...
Additionally, Pandora and Visca are ordered to remain on the spaceship; the two little ones originally had no interest in matters beyond fighting, disliking the boring action of rescuing a distressed spaceship, and they needed to check their radiators...
Traveling onboard the Commonwealth carrier, after several dium-distance jumps, we arrived in the target zone. This is an incredibly bright area of outer space, with supermassive interstellar material—most of which can serve as stellar fuel—gathered together, creating intense nuclear reactions. The ultra-strong radio and light radiation emitted from it can be observed billions of light-years away. Detectors indicate the diater of this material cluster to be approximately 1.12 light-days; of course, this is an average diater: its appearance isn’t very "regular," looking sowhat like a wrinkled orange. It’s a quasar, and from a distance, its shape sowhat resembles a Constant Star, but its ultra-strong luminous radiation and excessively large volu all indicate this definitely isn’t the sa as a Constant Star, whereas its relatively "loose" structure is vastly different from the usual singular celestial body concept. Due to fuel richness and intense reactions, the absolute brightness and radiation intensity of this cosmic wonder is thousands of tis or even more than ordinary star systems—certainly far exceeding the Dark Nebula where the fleet previously stationed. We need to use perception beyond visual to observe this planet, as its brightness is no longer suitable for presenting in image form to the naked eye. Nevertheless, this poses no problem for us, as the world perceived with the Mind’s Eye is much richer and more colorful than everything seen with the naked eye. As for the other crew mbers on the carrier, those from the Commonwealth need various equipnt to filter the light from the quasar. Although these races have undergone "Promotion" by the Empire, they haven’t beco strong enough to directly gaze at the quasar’s glow with the naked eye.
Of course, they couldn’t withstand the radiation from this hot celestial body either.
Outside this space occupied by the quasar, extending over fifty million light-years, lies only a vast void in outer space. No small isolated Constant Star Systems, no nebular material, nor ashes left behind after celestial bodies have burned; the quasar before us at its formation must have drained all the material within its range, and quickly blew away the remaining debris with its radiation wind, clearing itself a clean courtyard, and has quietly settled in outer space like this.
This Commonwealth carrier possesses a flat and short body, with a series of observation towers positioned at the ship’s bow, and we are now at the top of one of these observation towers, in a rectangular hall allowing people to view the outer space scenery. Accompanied by the slight chanical friction sound, the alloy shield of the observation tower slowly descends, causing the light from the universe’s brightest celestial body to flood in through the seemingly fragile crystal window of the observation tower, like a heat wave ready to burn everything. However, the inner Protection Shield has filtered the quasar’s heat and ninety-nine percent of its brightness, so the sun’s flas are just illusions.
The carrier and three barges are crossing over a zone 60,000 kiloters above the quasar; for such a colossus, 10,000 kiloters is equivalent to an edge-swipe, and the heat columns from the celestial body’s surface are carrying massive nuclear fuel fragnts into space. One particularly hot fragnt roughly two kiloters long happens to brush past the observation tower, looking like a burning continent plunged into space under reversed gravity, a truly spectacular sight.
"Hiding within a quasar is nothing for cross-world civilizations," Xiao Xue’s eyes glowed with a white halo, and she was enthusiastically searching for the "guests" hiding in this light refuge. "Hmm, looks like this is the place. I see... one, two... three, three ships, all with unified markings, dark red paint, no obvious weapons... at least no significant armants. They don’t look like warships. If they’re not exploration ships leaving their howorld for the first ti, they must have been separated from the Ard Guard."
"Ha, I really envy your and your mom’s abilities," Bingdisi said to Xiao Xue. She had entered her Divine Form, now spreading her magnificent wings, stretching against the light of the quasar, and then, to my speechless surprise, this self-willed female hooligan simply hung herself on the huge observation window, "Sunbathing the wings, sunbathing the wings, girls need to take care..."
Then I saw Yelsen, Monina, and Kenser leisurely follow suit, with the four of them occupying half the wall, each with wingspan reaching three ters: sunbathing under the heat of a quasar, these guys could truly be said to be unprecedented. Only Lin, of the Tiaozi Five, seed to understand matters, standing obediently behind , scratching her neck and cough gently.
Oh, right, earlier Bingdisi asked her to help make a hole in the enemy’s flagship, so this girl crisply bit through so interstellar alloy. Was she choking and hasn’t recovered yet?
At this mont, I noticed the "horizon" outside the observation tower rising, accompanied by a broadcast from the ship’s main computer: "Positioning completed, confird mass coordinates... the ship starts to descend, shields and all filters increase by ten percent, there might be slight tremors, all personnel prepare for routine shock readiness... entering the material concentration boundary."
A not-so-severe tremor ca from beneath, as the carrier made contact with the gaseous shell of the quasar and began rapid descent. A celestial body like a quasar has an outer layer that’s gaseous rather than solid, thus no definitive "shell," but a noticeable boundary remains on its surface. Intense nuclear reactions and the quasar’s super strong gravity tug at each other, forming a boundary at the star’s surface with highly dense gaseous material, where fierce cyclones and turbulent heat waves rotate quickly to create a dynamic equilibrium, forming a constantly changing "shell." This shell is always shifting, sotis expanding outward or contracting inward by tens of thousands of kiloters. The tremor felt beneath was the carrier encountering the cyclone at this boundary. If it were a conventional civilization—those not yet mastering Space Anchoring Technology nor special shields—their ship would almost certainly disintegrate at this point. Yet a Commonwealth ship would only experience so tremors in such an environnt. Of course, if we drove an Imperial Starship here, there’d likely be no tremors at all: Xyrin Technology’s Space Shields could easily block the surface storm of a quasar, not even requiring one percent of shield energy.
Looking out through the crystal window of the observation tower, nothing could be seen with the naked eye. The light exceeding the imaging threshold filled all space around, and through naked eyes, one could only perceive the quasar’s interior as an endless storm of light and heat. Ordinary biological eyes would be destroyed in milliseconds within this environnt, and even for us, "seeing" anything in this dazzling situation is challenging.
But we can use Mind’s Eye; within the range of Spiritual Scanning, there’s temporarily no sign of those seeking aid.
"They should have noticed us but haven’t run," Xiao Xue directly faced the tens of thousands of kiloters stretching hot nuclear flas outside the observation window, her gaze penetrating the endless sea of light and heat right into the quasar’s core. "Send a signal, saying we’re here for rescue."
Earlier, we decoded the distress signals sent by the other side, thus knew the necessary frequency and encoding to establish communication with them. Soon, a ssage indicating friendliness and humanitarian aid was sent out, almost instantly receiving a response: the other side seed to have been waiting a long ti for us to make contact actively.
"They’re asking about ’Chasers’," Xiao Xue already knew the other party’s response before the report ca from the communications center, raising her head to glance at , "They an those Fallen Apostles."
"Just say they’ve been driven off, don’t say anything else, too complex to explain."
After communication, both sides reached preliminary trust. The seekers of aid naturally wondered how we found this place: since entering this quasar, they hadn’t sent any ssages to the outside, yet we found them anyway. To this, Xiao Xue casually covered up with technological disparities. Between two alien civilizations that have never contacted before, the biggest advantage is, both can easily bluff; of course, the disadvantage is neither would believe the other’s bluff... this doesn’t matter, as now they believe we an no harm.
"Attention, detected force field barrier; target enters traction field range in thirty seconds... probe deployed, target observable in ten seconds... observable in five seconds... probe signal transferred successfully."
As the voice from the onboard computer concluded, the observation hall dimd, the protection walls re-closed, and a massive holographic projection appeared in the hall, showing three spaceships from an unfamiliar civilization.
They quietly hovered within the quasar’s raging hot nuclear storm, seemingly not big in size: the long axes of the three ships ranged between two to three kiloters—alright, for ordinary civilizations, that would already be large ships; it’s just that I’m used to seeing insanely large combat fortresses manufactured by the Empire, subconsciously finding these ships quite small. The three ships had similar shapes, broadly resembling narrow-front wide-rear trapezoids with symtrical hulls, bold-lined design, and black-white-red three-color paint—a style unfamiliar for spaceships.
None of the three ships seed like warships, as Xiao Xue said; though they had objects resembling weapons, from their scale and distribution, this should only be self-defense armants.
I called the carrier’s command room: "Connect the channel, let’s speak directly with the opposing commander."
Interference noise briefly erged from the communicator, followed by a status screen displaying connection success, indicating we had established a link with those three mysterious third-party ships.
"This is the Supre Commander of the Xyrin Empire, where are you from?"
"This is the Supre Commander of the Feiyali Empire, where are we?"
Almost simultaneously, the communicator emitted two inquiries, mine, and a young female voice.
Everyone: "..." (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welco to recomnd it and vote monthly at Qidian (qidian). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please access m.qidian to read.)
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