‘Of course, it was impossible to deploy all twenty-four of them at once.’
Lin Miao's original plan upon receiving the information was to strike first, disrupting the enemies' plans before those hostile to the Great Devourer could organize their battle lines and launch an attack.
This was a practical application of the saying, “The best defense is a good offense.”
In other words, this attack would merely be a minor harassment or a surprise raid.
In such an offensive, there was no need to commit too much military strength.
Hestia and her friends had grown rather quiet on the deity forum lately.
The reason why these frequenters of the deity forum had suddenly gone quiet was obvious.
They were consulting one another and organizing their forces, preparing to take revenge on the Great Devourer.
If they were to clash head-on with a fully prepared enemy, not only would victory be difficult, but their losses would also be too severe.
A single deity was already difficult enough to handle. If two gods attacked together, it would be an unwinnable battle. Thus, they had to keep at least one of them occupied.
“Won't doing this invite some kind of penalty?”
Lin Miao muttered to himself in a low voice, staring at the glowing Divine Net before him.
What he was doing now was precisely the kind of order-disrupting behavior that the deities of the Divine Net utterly loathed.
However, the Divine Net did not misinterpret Lin Miao's identity or impose any sanctions on him, despite his covert activities.
This was because the “order” currently advocated by the deities of the Divine Net had grown far too bloated, transcending the actual definition of order established by the system.
Evidently, the Divine Net did not forbid competition among deities.
The original purpose of the Divine Net's existence was to maintain basic order, allowing deities to grow stronger than the Outer Gods of the external universe through mutual competition and exchange.
But what about the current deities?
Perhaps because the passage of time had dulled its original meaning, order had become nothing more than another weapon in the hands of today's deities.
Whatever benefited them was deemed order, while any disadvantage was labeled oppression.
To them, even a miserable planet suffering from an invasion by Outer Gods was merely a playground to be exploited for their own amusement.
Even a coalition formed by deities could not entirely violate the fundamental laws of the universe.
A stagnant pool of water would eventually rot and breed arrogance.
Lin Miao, an unorthodox deity who had awakened through unconventional means, had unexpectedly become a beneficiary of this stagnation.
【Elise is awaiting the Great One's command.】
On the screen, Elise, sitting in her nest within the terrarium, looked up at the sky as if waiting for Lin Miao's response.
The fleet centered around a single Chronos was fully prepared for deployment, waiting only for the Queen's command.
And the Queen, in turn, was eagerly anticipating the instructions of the god she worshipped.
“Deploy!”
Lin Miao took a deep breath and answered her expectation.
Upon receiving his command, Elise immediately directed the massive space mutant to initiate a warp.
The moment it broke through the atmosphere and entered outer space, a colossal surge of energy began to erupt from Chronos's body.
This energy fluctuation not only warped its massive form but even distorted the entire surrounding space.
It also affected the other space at the pre-entered coordinates, causing everything in that vicinity to vanish in an instant.
...
“Commander, we've detected an unknown warp signal!”
“What did you say?”
Commander Ashe, who had been yawning, suddenly snapped his eyes wide open upon hearing the urgent report.
This was the outer boundary of Zion, a famously disputed territory known as Kalamanda.
Here, Zion stood in opposition to another etheric civilization known as the Zaun Coalition, maintaining a constant state of tension and preparing for armed conflict.
This meant they had to react sensitively to even the slightest changes or variables.
Moreover, if it was a sudden warp signature, they had all the more reason to respond with extreme caution.
“Did the enemy tear up the temporary agreement?”
Not long ago, they had reached an agreement to notify each other before warping to avoid unnecessary alerts and the accumulation of fatigue.
Ashe was extremely tense, wondering if Zaun had torn up the agreement and brought in reinforcements.
“No, sir. It's an ally... An allied coordinate is currently warping in!”
“...What?”
However, the situation was rapidly growing bizarre.
This was because the warp coordinates they detected belonged to their own forces, yet the actual location of the warp was behind the defensive line they had established to block the Zaun warships.
“Ai, what's going on?”
“According to the wavelength analysis, this is a vessel class that does not exist in our database.”
He asked the AI in a panic, and the AI replied that the ship currently deploying a warp field and initiating a large-scale warp was something they had never seen before.
For a split second, a thought flashed through Ashe's mind: Could it be a new type of allied warship?
Of course, this guess was utterly absurd. There was no reason not to inform them, and they were obligated to provide advance notice of any warp.
Unless they were going to war with Zaun, there was no reason for their side to conceal the identity of a new warship and warp in.
Thus, Ashe and his subordinates had no choice but to watch helplessly as the warp field gradually expanded.
In any case, it was too late to react even if they wanted to.
The vast majority of their forces were deployed facing their hostile counterparts, Zaun.
Whether it was their warships or their orbital defense platforms, their orientations and positions were all directed outward.
If some hostile force had somehow stumbled upon the data of an older warship and successfully obtained and decrypted their classified coordinate information...
Then, rather than being brutally blindsided from behind, their chances of survival might actually be higher if they raised a white flag and surrendered to Zaun.
“What is that?”
Finally, accompanied by a flash of light, a colossal object warped into the silent void of space.
A violent shockwave rippled outward, triggering the alarms.
Ashe and nearly everyone observing the scene froze amidst the blaring alarms.
At the same time, the behemoth covered in a massive exoskeleton and floating in space began to slowly unfurl its curled body.
“Attack!”
Savoring the thrill of striking the enemy's weak point, Elise issued the command to attack.
The first to move were the Hive Motherships and Brood Lords that had warped in alongside Chronos.
There were no declarations of war or negotiations over communication channels.
Surrounding Chronos like escorts, they launched a synchronized assault, ruthlessly battering the panicked Zion warships and orbital factories without a word.
“M-Monsters! Unidentified monsters!”
In their panic, they attempted to fight back, but turning their giant warships around and re-aiming their weapons in the opposite direction took a considerable amount of time.
In that fleeting window, the Hive Motherships used their psionic barriers and uniquely thick exoskeletons to withstand the enemy's bombardment. They surged forward, grabbing the enemy vessels with their tentacles and driving their proboscises deep inside.
Just as the Rum had experienced, they were utterly bewildered by this unprecedented form of fleet warfare.
This was because information regarding the Great Devourer had not yet reached them.
To begin with, no one could have imagined that the Great Devourer would warp directly to this location.
This held true even for the deities who had been spectating.
“The enemy is attacking the stern!”
The Zion regular army's capital ship, which was even larger than the outdated Rum, had its stern tightly bound by a Hive Mothership. The Hive Mothership instantly breached its shields and drove its proboscis through the hull plating.
Integrating all the technology and bioengineering the Great Devourer had accumulated so far, this proboscis possessed the strength and ability to melt, breach, and pierce the outer hull of any spaceship.
Meanwhile, the Brood Lords swarmed the area, engaging the enemy's carrier-based fighters and escort craft in a fierce exchange of fire.
“Hurry, assist our allies!”
Sitting aboard his larger and more powerful flagship, Ashe, hoping to assist his allies, hastily ordered the flagship's main cannon to fire.
“As expected, its power is immense.”
Elise frowned as she watched one of the Hive Motherships, which was latched onto an enemy vessel, have over ninety percent of its body vaporized by the collateral damage of the flagship's support fire.
As she had anticipated, the enemy's accumulated power and technology were still superior.
If they had clashed head-on instead of launching a surprise attack, they would likely have been suppressed by overwhelming firepower and wiped out before they could even get close.
“We still have power of our own.”
But they were fully prepared for this surprise raid.
Inside Chronos, Celia spoke up, prompting Elise to order Chronos to fire.
Chronos's mouth gaped wide, revealing the tip of a colossal weapon housed within, its barrel spanning hundreds of meters.
Perhaps this was somewhat inefficient.
What it was about to fire was not so much a new technology as it was a disproportionately upscaled version of their existing Disintegration Cannon.
Yet, they had built it nonetheless. Harnessing its overwhelming mass, Chronos's main cannon unleashed a sudden, massive surge of firepower, shooting straight toward Ashe's flagship.
Elise disliked inefficiency, but looking at it from another perspective, it meant they could execute such feats at will whenever she desired.
“What is this firepower...”
Ashe gritted his teeth as his hull shook violently under the bombardment of the Chronos-class Disintegration Cannon.
The AI failed its analysis once again.
This was because the Disintegration Cannon was an incredibly inefficient light-based weapon, and its signature could not even be found in their database.
“E-Enemy vessels are approaching!”
“Approaching?!”
One absurd event after another unfolded.
While they were exchanging fire with Chronos, several Hive Motherships rapidly closed the distance toward them.
“Shoot them down! Kill them all!”
At Ashe's command, aside from the main cannon engaged with Chronos, numerous gun batteries locked onto the Hive Motherships and opened fire.
However, the Hive Motherships, curling their bodies into spheres to maximize their defenses, managed to breach the defensive fire and catch up to the flagship.
“Commander! On top of the hull!”
And yet, all of this had been a distraction from the very beginning.
The real threat was a smaller Brood Lord that had quietly slipped past under the cover of the Hive Motherships. An even smaller figure, riding atop the Brood Lord, crossed through the vacuum of space, shattered the already cracked overall defense shield, and forced their way inside.
“It... It can't be a human, can it?”
Ashe watched the screen displaying the top of the warship, his eyes wide with shock.
Like an armor-piercing shell concentrating its force onto a single point to shatter plate armor, the entity that had breached the shield—using a body far smaller than the warship or the barrier itself—resembled a knight clad in black armor.
Digging its claws deep into the outer hull of the warship, it stood upright and raised a sword.
A blue-black aura surged around the sword and its entire body, and a lock of black hair fluttered wildly as if whipping in the wind.
“Got you.”
Grinning beneath her mask, Kerrigan brought her raised sword slicing straight down.
The sword instantly pierced the outer hull, but compared to the massive, thick plating, this was at best like being pricked by a toothpick.
In the etheric civilization, physical size was equated with power and output, making it difficult for them to comprehend what was unfolding before their eyes.
However, individuals like Kerrigan had attained skills and power that transcended physical limitations through rigorous training.
The Realm of Martial Zenith contained within Kerrigan's sword erupted, triggering an explosion that damaged the hull and finally created an opening for her to slip inside.
The crew members who faced her were slain instantly before they could even run or fight back.
With an individual of Kerrigan's caliber infiltrating the vessel, the warship was bound to fall into utter chaos.
A single, independent entity was paralyzing a colossal flagship.
A monster capable of easily deflecting rifle bullets and cleaving through heavy iron doors with a sword was closing in on the bridge.
Watching Kerrigan step toward the bridge on the internal security cameras like the avatar of death itself, Ashe screamed at his men to stop her.
Terrified by this overwhelming, common-sense-defying martial prowess, his subordinates trembled helplessly as they watched their combat powered armor get sliced through by Kerrigan as easily as tofu.
“Heavens, what is going on?”
And this entire spectacle was being broadcasted without filter to the Zaun Coalition ships that stood in a day-and-night standoff with Zion's forces in Kalamanda.
Explosions echoed one after another, and from the radio, the occasional wails of Zion soldiers begging the monster for mercy could be heard.
Rate on N.U.
