Then, the light consumed everything.
The first energy beam struck the bow.
The Imperial Glory's thick frontal armor was as fragile as paper against the power of the Sky-Opening class main cannon.
Upon contact, the armor vaporized, and the energy beam pierced through the ship unimpeded, exiting from the stern.
The second and third beams struck the bridge area.
Observation windows, alloy structures, control panels, people.
Everything vanished instantly in temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees.
The fourth through twelfth beams were evenly distributed along the ship's midline.
The Imperial Glory's 4.3-kilometer-long hull was skewered like a kebab, pierced through with nine giant holes each over a hundred meters in diameter.
The thirteenth through twenty-sixth beams covered the engine compartments and reactor areas.
The entire process lasted 0.7 seconds.
Then, the reactor went critical.
The Imperial Glory's core.
The fusion reactor that powered the entire battleship.
Under thirteen consecutive direct hits from the main cannon, the containment field completely collapsed.
There was no conventional explosion.
It was a process more terrifying than an explosion—the conversion of matter into pure energy.
The entire battleship lit up from within, like a lantern suddenly ignited.
Light gushed from every breach, every crack, growing brighter until the entire ship became a blue-white sphere of light over two kilometers in diameter.
The sphere's brightness momentarily surpassed that of the surrounding stars, briefly illuminating the entire smoke-filled region like daylight.
Then, expansion.
The hull could no longer contain the raging energy, beginning to disintegrate from within.
First, the external armor plates peeled off and vaporized like fragile eggshells, then the skeletal structure fractured, and finally, the reactor core released completely.
The true explosion occurred.
Not a single explosion, but a chain reaction—thousands of energy release points detonating simultaneously.
In less than a second, the Imperial Glory transformed from an intact starship into a blazing nebula over a hundred kilometers in diameter, composed of metallic vapor and plasma.
The shockwave spread outward at light speed.
The three nearest Imperial destroyers were instantly blown away, their shields overloaded, their hulls disintegrating as they tumbled.
The cruisers farther away barely stabilized, but their sensors were blinded, and their surface armor melted under the intense heat.
And at the center of that still-expanding nebula of death, nothing remained.
No wreckage, no debris.
Only emptiness, and slowly cooling, dark red metallic vapor.
On the bridge of the Indomitable, Yang Shao stood motionless.
He had witnessed the entire process.
From the sudden flare of twenty-six main cannon beams in the smoke.
To those beams converging precisely on the Imperial Glory's position.
To the massive battleship being riddled with holes in 0.7 seconds.
To the final white-hot sphere that devoured everything.
He didn't even realize his fingers had dug into the alloy armrests of the command chair, his nails broken and bleeding unnoticed.
"Confirmed..."
The communications officer's voice cut through the dead silence of the bridge, dry as sandpaper grinding.
"Confirmed Wells Sub-Fleet flagship [Imperial Glory]...
Destroyed."
"The energy signature has completely vanished. No life signs, no debris...
Confirmed total annihilation."
No one responded.
Everyone stared out the observation window at the fading afterglow of the explosion.
The light had been so intense that it left a ten-second afterimage on their retinas, as if that nebula of death was still there, still burning.
"They..."
The Chief of Staff finally spoke, his voice trembling.
"They actually did it...
While completely blind...
With a single volley...
They blew up Wells' flagship..."
Yang Shao slowly sank back into his command chair.
His mind went blank, then was flooded by a surge of complex emotions.
Shock, awe, lingering fear, and a hint of... absurdity.
An hour ago, he had been worried about Qin Bei Wang's safety, ordering him to retreat.
Now, that young man, with a salvo from 24 main cannons and a textbook decapitation strike, had shown everyone.
Who truly ruled this battlefield.
"Commander!"
The sensor supervisor suddenly shouted.
"Detecting large-scale chaos in the Imperial Fleet!
After losing their flagship, the chain of command among the sub-fleets has broken!
They've begun fighting independently, their formation completely collapsed!"
Yang Shao snapped his head up.
On the tactical screen, the over fifty red dots that had barely maintained formation were now in utter disarray.
Some were turning to flee, others spinning in place, and some even colliding with each other.
Clearly, captains of different sub-fleets, having lost unified command, were issuing conflicting orders.
"Opportunity..." Yang Shao murmured, then his voice suddenly rose.
"All ships, listen up!
Abandon the original advance plan, switch to full assault!
Target: all Imperial starships that have lost command! Split and encircle them, annihilate them one by one!"
"Understood!"
The engines of 49 Federal capital ships simultaneously blazed with their most intense light.
Like a pack of wolves scenting blood, they abandoned their cautious encirclement formation and charged at full speed toward the chaotic Imperial Fleet.
And deep within the smoke, Qin Bei Wang's fifth and sixth coordinate broadcasts were already calmly sounding.
This time, the targets were the flagships of the Poison Spider and Ranger Fleets.
A pack of wolves without its alpha leader was nothing but lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
The hunt had entered its final, and most brutal, stage.
Inside the communication channels of the remaining Imperial starships, panic now reigned supreme.
"The flagship is gone!
Commander Wells, he..."
"Who's in command?
Who does the Poison Spider Fleet answer to?!"
"Fire Fox Fleet requesting orders!
Repeat, requesting orders!"
"Remaining ships of the Brown Bear Fleet, break out individually!
Repeat, break out individually!"
No responses, no coordination, only desperate shouts and contradictory orders.
An Imperial cruiser attempted to turn and flee, only to collide head-on with a destroyer that was also turning.
The shields of both ships overloaded simultaneously, their hulls grinding together with the sound of twisting metal before being struck at once by Federal missiles from behind.
Amid the explosion's firelight, more chaos spread.
And at the center of it all, the cloud of metallic vapor that was once the Imperial Glory slowly expanded and cooled in the vacuum.
Like a massive, silent tombstone.
Commemorating the fall of an old general.
And the end of a battle.
Two hours later, cleanup operations were still underway at the Seventh Jump Point battlefield.
Sensor data indicated that within this spatial region measuring less than one light-minute in diameter, over three million tons of metal debris were currently drifting.
These were the final remains of sixty-five Imperial Starships.
Some wreckage still burned, with plasma erupting from severed conduits to form eerie blue arcs in the vacuum.
Others had already cooled, becoming icy metal tombstones that reflected pale glimmers under the starlight.