Global Era of Star trekking Chapter 1806 - 880: All-Out Strike
Previously on Global Era of Star trekking...
[Human Emperor City · West Wall · Section 76 Frontline]
Endless shock waves kept slamming through the heavy composite armor, hitting deep into the bones of Li Qing, who served as the eighth rank Star River Captain leading the "Dragon Flame Fleet."
The [Fiery Fire Dragon], his main vessel—an ancient Star River Ship that had hit eighth rank over tens of thousands of years—tossed about now like a tiny vessel caught in raging tempests.
Within the command bridge, blaring alarms, the whine from energy surges, and the creaks of straining structures blended into a chaotic roar, nearly splitting eardrums apart.
"Port side third and fourth auxiliary cannon array cluster overload! Buffering in progress!"
"Energy Shield value has dropped over seventy percent—repair it fast!"
"Right section of the defense line: third detachment's warships have sunk more than thirty percent—send reinforcements right away!"
Warnings from the tactical commander and the ship's Intelligent Brain poured in relentlessly, the commander's tone laced with raw exhaustion and raspiness. Every update meant fresh drops in their fighting strength. Li Qing gripped the controls with iron force, eyes locked on the nightmarish view beyond the wide viewport, knuckles drained of color.
Beyond the hull, the once-familiar hues of the Chaos Void had vanished, overtaken by a boundless, howling tide of blood-red madness from the alien warriors.
These foes battered the [Civilization Great Wall], its light screen as solid as a stellar barrier; every collision sent fierce tremors across it, spawning waves of distortion.
Beyond that barrier, blasts of energy, acidic biological sprays, rotting spores, and jagged bone lances—all manner of lethal barrages hammered down like a storm, bursting into bursts of annihilating radiance.
Despite the dual seven-colored rule defense layer and the layered backing from Human Emperor City's shields, fissures of varying sizes still cracked open now and then, inflicting devastating losses on the Dragon Flame Fleet's crew, who unleashed wild volleys from within the protection.
Boom!
The forward main cannon of the [Fiery Fire Dragon] thundered anew, unleashing a massive crimson particle stream that vaporized scores of seventh-rank Alien Race foes in the wide sweep ahead.
Yet seconds later, the emptiness filled rapidly with fresh horrors, as the secondary batteries kept blasting away, weaving a tight web of shots to halt the alien fighters from nearing the barrier.
Still, the secondary guns' power remained constrained; for all their volume, they struggled to unleash the kind of swift, massive destruction that banks of primary cannons could achieve.
It wasn't only the [Fiery Fire Dragon]—across the whole Section 76 front and the broad west wall of Human Emperor City, hordes of Torch Warships in every rank built an iron forest, barrels belching flames in a frenzy.
The stuttering glows from those discharges lit up the captains' grim and unyielding expressions, shifting from brilliance to gloom. Each broadside demanded lengthy recharge pauses, and every strike drew fiercer retaliation from the foes.
"Commander! Three o'clock position—Rift Beast swarm! They're pooling power to eat through the shield!"
The fleet's group comm erupted with the deputy commander's frantic alert.
Li Qing whipped around, catching sight of a cluster of "Void Rift Beasts" that looked like drifting jellyfish, wreathed in sparking erratic energy fields, clustering close. Tentacles intertwined, they merged forces to build a sinister purple orb pulsing with dark menace, aimed at a key spot on the outer [Civilization Great Wall] defense layer.
The targeted patch of the barrier began subtly shifting shades, its energy levels spiking wildly.
"Pour every gun we have into suppressing them! Stop that formation!" Li Qing bellowed, prompting the [Fiery Fire Dragon]'s trio of main cannons—freshly cooled—to unleash again, sending three ruinous rays slicing through the void.
Nearby vessels reacted at once, a torrent of rays and projectiles charging that zone like hungry predators.
Boom boom boom boom!
The barrage of blasts engulfed the Rift Beast pack.
But before the blast's glow faded, a dark form shot free from the chaos—it was the slimmer, incredibly agile avatar of a tenth rank legendary beast, the "Mythical Void Armor Beast"!
Clearly, it had timed its move with the Rift Beasts' assault, exploiting the brief lull in the barrage.
Claws aglow with spectral energy that ripped at the fabric of space, it lunged savagely at the barrier's weak point, freshly hammered by the focused assault and not yet steady.
"This is bad!" Li Qing's gut twisted.
A strike laced with that mythical force at the node could easily rip a hole in the defense.
In this dire moment, a rough yet determined voice cut through the open channel:
"Cover me, all of you!"
From the formation's edge, a heavily damaged [Star River Ship]—the deputy commander's command ship [Vast Sky Ding]—pushed its engines to the breaking point for a final surge, charging headlong into the shadowy killer beast's manifestation.
"Old Zhang!!"
Rage tore through Li Qing; he knew this second-in-command well, even if the higher-ups had loaned him out temporarily to the fleet—he wasn't from the Sheng Tang Dynasty Royal Family, but years of shared battles had bound them in unbreakable camaraderie.
No response came.
Just a thunderous blast of self-sacrifice!
The [Vast Sky Ding], packed with its volatile warheads, erupted in a dazzling, merciless bloom of annihilation; the massive blast waves didn't just erase the mythical avatar but also scoured vast swaths of battered alien troops.
The price: total loss of the [Vast Sky Ding], and Old Zhang, the Star River Captain, lost forever to the stars.
A heavy quiet fell over the Dragon Flame Fleet's comms, broken only by labored breaths and distant booms, as grief fueled an even hotter blaze of wrath.