Chapter 1 The Alarming Start

A piercing alarm echoed throughout the spacecraft. The shield expansion system began charging as the alarm sounded. Large patches of azure veins appeared on the silver-white armor of the Tortoise Rock Terra, powerful energy surging within the shield generators, instantly surrounding the ship with several layers of translucent energy shields. A large number of secondary guns, close-in weapon systems, and missile platforms flipped and unfolded from beneath the deformable armor structure, gleaming coldly in space like a giant beast baring its fangs.

Nolan's voice lost almost all emotion, entering combat mode and speaking with the cold, rigid tone of a machine AI: "All weapon systems online… impact expected in five seconds."

In the past, Hao Ren would have been bewildered when the alarm sounded, but now his first reaction was to calm down. He quickly connected his mind to the ship's sensor systems and asked, "Where is the attack coming from? Who is it?"

"Unidentified entity. Only a very strong energy focus can be sensed within several astronomical units around the ship. Hostility level extremely high… Impact imminent."

Almost as Nolan finished speaking, Hao Ren saw a sudden burst of blinding light on the ship's external sensors. The light came without warning, as if space itself had suddenly erupted with endless radiance. From this light, large structures resembling vines or branches extended, instantly bridging the spatial distance and rapidly spreading toward the Tortoise Rock Terra.

The ship had no way to avoid it, as the attack came from all directions in space. Furthermore, these high-energy reactions seemed to interfere with the warp drive's calculations. Emergency warp activation also failed. Nolan could only maximize all shield systems and directly withstand the initial impact.

In space, the strange, glowing structures contacted the Tortoise Rock Terra's shields. It was a silent "touch," like a painless lick. However, everyone on the bridge instantly felt a violent jolt.

The surface of the Tortoise Rock Terra's shields rippled in layers. The seemingly harmless luminous "branches" generated an incredibly powerful impact upon contacting the shields, causing the entire ship to vibrate. But the inspector's flagship's powerful survival systems worked: the shields only fluctuated and were not breached.

The luminous branches in space were not discouraged. In fact, Hao Ren wasn't even sure if there was a rational operator behind these things. Looking at the glowing space structures, he felt they were more like a natural phenomenon. But regardless of whether it was a natural phenomenon, these things began their second attack.

More luminous branches appeared out of thin air in space, spreading from all directions as if trying to trap the ship. A large number of fine beams of light entangled the shields, and the entire ship began to sway uncontrollably.

Nolan began to fight back.

All defensive cannons rose from beneath the armor plating. Twenty-six secondary psionic pulse turrets began firing continuously, bright blue energy beams shooting from the gaps in the Tortoise Rock Terra's side armor plates, accurately striking certain intersections of the luminous branches in space.

According to Nolan's radar scans, these intersections were the energy nodes of the "branches." Destroying them should be able to impede the enemy's offensive.

The Tortoise Rock Terra's main gun also began to charge—this powerful weapon rarely had a chance to be used because in most cases, its power was overkill for Hao Ren. But today, it came in handy.

Hao Ren's mind was already connected to the ship's sensory systems. It was as if he was standing in the universe in the first person, personally feeling the energy storm sweeping across the entire space from all directions without any blind spots. He felt a new energy peak was arriving, and that this space was about to be blocked by the luminous "branches."

"This thing is trying to trap us here!" Hao Ren immediately shouted to Nolan. "What the hell is this?"

"It is a rapidly proliferating energy coupling structure," Nolan allocated a large number of processing units to the tactical module, making her voice sound even more inorganic. "This ship has detected an unprecedented energy tide rising in local space. The surge generated by the energy tide is converging on this ship as its center. If it continues to develop at this scale, this ship's shields will soon be torn apart."

All of the Tortoise Rock Terra's gun emplacements rose up, and dense defensive firepower ceaselessly swept through the luminous "branches" in space. These bombardments were effective. Whenever they hit a key node, several bright branches would collapse and dissipate in a dense explosion. However, the speed at which these energy bodies converged far exceeded the Tortoise Rock Terra's rate of fire. Even without looking at the data on the console, Hao Ren could visually observe that this area of space was being entangled and blocked by increasingly dense luminous structures, enveloping his small ship like a cocoon.

A decision had to be made.

"Accelerate, leave here—jump to the nearest gravitational focus, jump as far as possible."

"Acknowledged."

The Tortoise Rock Terra struggled to turn its bow amidst the layers of encirclement. A stream of blue light swept across the ship's hull, a defensive measure specifically used to "clean" attachments, slightly reducing the influence of the tendril-like branches. The ship seized this opportunity to activate its engines at full power, suddenly accelerating.

The warp drive was still experiencing interference from an unknown source. Nolan's countermeasures had begun, but the progress in breaking the interference was not satisfactory. With severely miscalibrated engine parameters, accurately jumping to a gravitational focus was almost impossible. Therefore, Hao Ren ordered them to "jump as far as possible"—just warp in one direction. It wasn't necessary to arrive at a specific location, but they had to escape this strange trap first.

Yes, a trap. Hao Ren felt that this place was a trap.

As the ship accelerated toward the gap, the energy structures spreading throughout the space seemed to be affected as well. As if a rational entity were truly controlling them, these energy tendrils became "angry." They twisted madly and began to chase the Tortoise Rock Terra's wake. Beams of light continuously wrapped around the ship's shields, and the constant explosions caused the entire ship to shake violently.

The impact was so strong that even the ship's inertial stabilizers couldn't withstand it.

Everyone on the bridge was nervous. When the attack had just begun, they had actually panicked a little. Even if they were knowledgeable and experienced, the experience of sitting in a ship being bombarded was very rare.

Lily gripped the armrest of her seat tightly. Although she was powerful, individual strength seemed useless in this situation. Her fur stood on end as she watched Hao Ren struggle to correct the ship's parameters, and couldn't help but ask, "Landlord… what's going on? When the drones came to scout, everything was fine, right? Why are we being ambushed as soon as we come in?"

"I still don't understand the situation," Hao Ren said quickly without looking up. "But the purpose of these attacks is very clear. It's definitely not a natural phenomenon… Something is preventing us from entering the X-cluster…"

Before he could finish speaking, he heard Nolan's alarm sound again: "Warning! Energy focus detected ahead… Unable to evade, brace for impact…"

A bright light appeared in Hao Ren's view from the ship's perspective. He saw the light cut down like a sharp blade, and the form of energy contained within the light shocked him.

Nolan tried her best to deflect the angle slightly. The beam struck a set of shield generators on the rear half of the ship at an oblique angle. A massive explosion erupted from the rear of the hull, scattering a large amount of metal and crystal structures in the explosion, leaving a tragic trail.

"Shield generators four through six offline, shield strength below thirty percent… Hyperspace stabilizer damaged, switching to backup component… Material leak in section seven, closing internal bulkheads. Warning, gravity generator malfunctioning, emergency correction in progress…"

One alarm after another sounded continuously. The gravity on the bridge briefly destabilized, and everyone floated up. Nangong Wuyue used her tail to tightly wrap around a pillar, one hand grabbing Doudou, who was flying off the console, and the other hand grabbing Elizabeth, who was about to fly away. But soon, Nolan restarted the backup gravity generator in the critical sections.

Nolan's voice sounded somewhat intermittent, as if she had a problem with her language function: "The attack contains divine power, energy level equal to secondary psionic."

Hearing her words, there was no surprise on Hao Ren's face: this was the power he had felt earlier.

The Tortoise Rock Terra used this level of power as well. The power level was the same, but the quantity…

Hao Ren glanced at the energy storm that was tightly clinging to the ship—it had now developed into a terrifying space structure with a scale of several astronomical units, surging behind the ship like an indescribable, hideous vortex. The fragments of matter ejected from the damaged Tortoise Rock Terra were completely swallowed the moment they fell into the storm. The small ship was hardly even a grain of sand in the desert in front of this great vortex.

In a word: Fuck.

It was impossible to return the way they came, because the warp drive was interfered with, and any precise jump was impossible. And with conventional navigation, the storm would catch up in a few minutes, not giving them enough time to retreat to the outside of the X-cluster.

Then there was only one way.

"Activate warp."

"But the jump parameters are still…"

"Warp directly, don't set a course, search for a gravitational source in hyperspace, land on any planet, preferably one with life signs," Hao Ren said firmly. "At the same time, issue an emergency recall order to the drone swarm, let them come in directly—if the jump is off, it doesn't matter, just build a fortress and start mass-producing troops."

"Order received."