With the Covenant starting their attack, Liu Shu lifted any self-imposed limitations that had been stopping her from fully unleashing her strength.
The first limitation was utilizing her time skills to their fullest.
Liu Shu consumed 24 Eternity Strands and unleashed
Instead of targeting the army, she targeted the main control zones. So, for six full seconds, those zones became paralyzed.
Six seconds didn't sound like much for a war that had been ongoing for several years. Nevertheless, these six seconds were mixed with the effects of the other two time skills. So, what happened next felt like placing a small pebble in between the cogs of the Nexus army.
Carter was looking at the main battlefield when, suddenly, the world blinked. It was just an instant, yet the tools in front of him began sending bug reports and desynchronization alerts one after another.
"C-Commander! The enemy is initiating a full-force assault!"
Frontlines collapsed, messages were left and arrived late, communication was suddenly cluttered with similar messages due to the time-stop delay…
It was absolute chaos.
Carter shouted. "Fix communication as fast as possible! Deploy countermeasures prepared for their collective berserker activation! Quickly!"
His mind spun as he tried to make sense of the utter mess in front of his eyes. If before he had the reports in perfect order, now it felt as if someone had come, flipped the table, and then poured a bunch more documents without any sense of order on top of it.
Liu Shu was not done, though.
"
"
"
"
…
Her Aether Mana, Anima Energy, and even her Phoer Body Stars burned in the thousands, casting the same skill absolutely everywhere.
Once more, in what felt like a matter of seconds, the Nexus's army coordinated movements became utterly haphazard. Any type of movement change, no matter how big or small, became five times as hard to do.
Moreover, with everyone's inertia multiplied fivefold, every attempt to brake, dodge, or change course became a struggle. Soldiers crashed into one another, formations collapsed from lack of motion precision, and even the smallest navigation errors caused starships to ram into each other with devastating force.
Carter, who had spent the last twenty seconds trying to correct the absolute chaos that the time stop caused, suddenly began receiving endless reports of crashes happening everywhere. He attempted to lift his hand, only to find it much harder to do so than usual.
He became so confused for a moment that he forgot to speak. "What is happening?"
As he spoke, a woman who was sprinting and another crewmate who would've usually dodged each other crashed into each other.
"Argh!"
"Ouch!"
"What are you doing!? Can't you stop!?"
"I…huh? I stopped!"
"Right! Is that why…"
CRASH!
Someone slammed face-first into a wall, and that distraction caused another walking person to trip and fall.
Liu Shu observed the entire battlefield with cold, emotionless eyes. Her ternary essences touched upon the very basic forces of the cosmos, and at that moment, Liu Shu unleashed her roots.
"
The massive roots that appeared all around the battlefield swung, their strength causing people to explode on impact and also attracting starships with gravity pulls comparable to those of planets.
To call her a force of nature was incredibly accurate.
Carter quickly became accustomed to the changed forces, his commands spreading as he tried to reorganize the scattered armies and restore calm.
A minute had passed since Liu Shu unleashed all her means onto them, and the messages that were reaching Carter were nothing less than horrifying.
"Commander! We've lost 30% of the left wing flank! We count over 7 million fatalities!"
"Commander! The right flank has collapsed! Nine million fatalities!"
"It's urgent, Commander! The main frontline is being pushed back; fatalities number over 17 million!"
Carter closed his eyes and shouted. "Retreat! Move back to the Solar System! Tell all armies to start pulling back from their battlefield! First, you need to converge the falling two left flanks into one and use their gathered force to move away. On the right flank, we will send an elite unit and stabilize it. What is the situation in the outer Solar Systems?"
"Messages are still on the way, Commander. Not much time has passed since things began crumbling."
Carter bit his lip. While it felt as if hours had passed, barely three minutes had gone by. His fingers didn't stop in the slightest, constantly moving information, constantly giving out orders through the holographic starmap. He didn't stop. However, for the next several weeks to months, things were about to become incredibly brutal and complicated.
After around ten minutes or so, the messages coming from the outer Solar Systems arrived. They were not good.
"...Commander, very bad news. All fronts in the outer Solar Systems have collapsed. Casualties range from 68 to 92 percent."
"...92%?" Carter repeated, his face full of incredulity.
"Yes, this happened in the combined front where the Silver Corrupt Elder went to help. It seems that Strategic Class Sylvan: Light and Life were far too strong when combined. VIPs have escaped successfully, but most of the army has become space dust."
Carter asked, his tone somewhat fretful. "...How many VIPs have died?"
VIPs, an abbreviation used for
"It's not good, commander. 328
Carter tightly closed his eyes for a moment. The impact those news carried was several times more painful, even when compared to the millions of deaths he had heard about before. '...This won't end as simply as a military punishment.'
***
While this happened, Deadly Petal and the Covenant arrived at Liu Shu's domain edge. As for the armies resting in the Covenant's worlds, which were surrounded by Liu Shu's roots, they had some trouble setting off.
Now that Deadly Petal had lifted the time for talks and skipped to the time for action, Liu Shu had prepared a gift for the Covenant.
"
A gaping green maw manifested, and 121 Arboreal Winged Serpents flew down and appeared in the void.
The Covenant had tried to receive news from the Nexus's front, but naturally, peeking at active battle reports was not just difficult; it was almost impossible due to distance and location limitations.
Unless the Covenant had a spy right at the command center, sending exact news that even Carter had some trouble receiving on the frontlines was bound to be incredibly complex and difficult.
So, when the general tasked to send the army out of the Covenant Solar System to meet with Deadly Petal's army saw the pitiful 121 large Arboreal Winged Serpents, he blinked and scoffed. "Is this some kind of sacrifice intended to stop us?"
"General, we should be careful. Reports from the envoys say that Lady Heavenly Willow's summons are nothing to look down upon."
"You are right. Even then, try to ignore them. Slaughtering 121 Arboreal Winged Serpents won't do us much favor. We are already attacking a vulnerable World Tree; if we also indiscriminately kill these few summons, there won't be any excuses."
"...General."
Noticing something odd in their tone, he turned to look. "Is something the matter?"
The person checking the ternary essence signals gulped and spoke, his voice trembling. "G-General, the ternary essence signals are similar to those we get from
The general's relaxed expression tensed up. "Are you saying that those Arboreal Winged Serpents are Level 300 powerhouses?"
"Negative, General. Their essence trace is that of a
"Show me…"
As he was speaking, someone shouted. "General, the White Serpent with red stripes is making its move!"
Everyone looked, and a moment later, a small sun was born in the void. Light as bright as that of a star caused many to squint, unable to look. A few seconds later, the alarms blared as warning messages poured one after another.
"General! Four starships have been destroyed on the left!"
"One World Canopy Mothership had its shields broken and received damage to the hull!"
"It's bad! General, the 121 Arboreal Winged Serpents are moving incredibly fast our way!"
The general shouted. "All defensive shields up! All main cannons, stand by and attack at will! All secondary cannons, start suppressive fire!
As he was speaking, the world suddenly blinked.
"H-Huh? G-General, the Arboreal Winged Serpents have teleported. They are already in front of the right wing army and causing Moon Canopy Starships to collapse one after another!"
Forget going to war; the army that just left their home planet had become a firework spectacle for those looking from the surface. The 121 Arboreal Winged Serpents guided by the SS+ Tier powerhouse began causing tremendous damage to the large army, their figures moving like a phantom under the effects of Liu Shu's
Liu Shu's voice boomed out coldly, her tone nothing the Covenant had ever heard before.
"
Space screamed as Liu Shu's ternary essence forced the very folds of space to crumple like paper. Spatial energies collapsed the shields of weak starships, while those who could resist saw the energy shield percentages plummet sharply.
Then, as if everything had been a dream, green pillars of light fell from the sky and absorbed the Arboreal Winged Serpents back, space regenerating and returning to normal as well.
The only thing that was left to assure everyone that what happened was not a mirage was the wreckage of the starships and many corpses drifting in the empty void.
Everyone, as if they had reached some kind of agreement, became silent while looking around with fearful hearts.
After one full minute of nothing else happening, they all assumed that Liu Shu's offensive was over. "...What was that?"
Someone asked, their voice trembling. What they faced was not an opponent; it was something of a higher degree.
The general glanced at the several reports and spoke in a subdued voice. "Move out quickly. We must reach Deadly Petal's domain before Lady Heavenly Willow can unleash another attack like that."
As they restarted their engines, Liu Shu glanced at them with a cold smile. 'You think Deadly Petal can save you? I really can't wait for her to arrive at my domain's edge… At her advancement pace, it will take about three more days?'