Near another Federation Cruiser, a Swift fighter, while pursuing an enemy aircraft, failed to notice the Imperial Battleship closing in from the flank.
That Battleship was turning, its massive hull like a moving mountain range, blocking the fighter's flight path.
The pilot yanked the control lever, trying to pull up.
Too late.
The fighter crashed into the Battleship's armor, exploding into a fireball.
No one stopped to mourn.
Because more enemy ships were approaching.
From the direction of Alnitak Two Fortress.
The Imperial Fleet's formation had pressed in dangerously close.
Those Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers were advancing toward the massive space fortress along intersecting, crisscrossing trajectories.
The diagonal, intersecting flight paths drew countless overlapping arcs in the void, like weaving a colossal net.
The distance kept shrinking.
Eight million kilometers.
Six million kilometers.
Three million kilometers.
The fortress was about to enter the maximum firing range of the Imperial main cannons.
At that very moment.
The silent fortress moved.
Not as a whole.
Its front end.
The sharp conical structure began to slowly unfold from the tip, layer by layer.
One layer, two layers, three layers.
Twelve enormous conical armor plates spread out in all directions like blooming petals.
Those were Plasma Radiator Wings.
The surface of each radiator wing glowed with a faint crimson light, a sign of the frenzied energy flow within.
As they unfolded, their edges began to shine with a piercing blue-white radiance, like burning blades.
The moment the radiator wings fully extended.
The fortress's true core was revealed.
It was a cannon.
A giant cannon with a diameter exceeding ten thousand kilometers.
Its barrel was not a traditional metal structure but consisted of twelve stacked Superconducting Ion Confinement Rings.
Those confinement rings hovered in the void, separated by minuscule distances, slowly rotating.
The surface of each ring flowed with deep blue energy patterns, like the veins of a living creature.
At this moment, those confinement rings were operating at a frenzied pace.
The color at the gun muzzle began to change.
Dark blue, bright blue, blazing white.
The light grew brighter and more blinding, as if someone had stuffed a star into the cannon's chamber.
Charging complete.
The next second, a beam of light erupted from the muzzle.
This was no ordinary beam.
It was the Stellar Fall Plasma Annihilation Beam.
Thick as a mountain range, blazing white like the scorching sun, carrying enough violent energy to annihilate everything, it traversed nine million kilometers of void, striking directly toward the advancing Imperial Fleet.
The Imperial Fleet attacking Alnitak Two was indeed executing crisscrossing maneuvers.
Those warships began frantically evading the moment the beam was fired.
Turning left, turning right, pulling up, diving.
Every captain reacted with their utmost speed, trying to escape the path of that deathly light.
But it was too late.
That light was too fast.
So fast that those evasive maneuvers had barely begun when the beam swept through the fleet's formation.
A T5-Class Battleship bore the brunt.
Its shield flared up the instant the beam made contact.
That pale blue energy barrier flickered desperately, trying to block the annihilating light.
Yet it didn't even hold for a second before shattering completely.
The moment the shield exploded into a shower of light debris, the beam struck the Battleship's hull directly.
The leviathan, several kilometers long, was like an ice cube thrown into a furnace.
Annihilated.
Starting from the bow, the warship was stripped away layer by layer by the high-energy particle stream of the beam.
Armor vaporized, the Keel melted and snapped, compartments evaporated, and the reactor was swallowed by the beam before it could even undergo a Sympathetic Detonation.
That Battleship vanished completely the instant the beam swept over it.
Leaving behind only a few wisps of ionized mist that dissipated in an instant.
The beam continued forward.
Wherever it passed, explosions erupted in a continuous chain.
Warships exploded densely, vanishing densely.
Along the path of that beam, Imperial warships were destroyed, annihilated, erased one after another like dominoes.
The beam lasted a full three seconds.
Three seconds later, the light faded.
Leaving only a persistent, lavender Ionization Afterimage stretching across nine million kilometers of Void.
That afterimage resembled a massive scar etched across the sky of this battlefield.
Ionized particles at its edges still danced frantically, emitting faint hissing sounds that lingered for a long time.
Beneath the afterimage.
The Imperial Fleet's formation had been torn open by a massive breach.
At least over a thousand warships had been utterly erased by that beam.
Several hundred more warships, with varying degrees of damage, barely maintained their positions at the edges of the breach.
Inside the Bridges of those survivors, a deathly silence reigned.
Everyone was staring at the still-flickering Ionization Afterimage outside the Viewports, staring at the giant cannon that had fallen silent once more.
That cannon was silent again.
But it had already proven itself.
Its very existence was a form of deterrence.
A deterrence of death.
On the communication channel, Slate's voice sounded.
Hoarse, low.
"The fleet in the Second Star direction..."
He paused.
"Report losses."
A few seconds later, a fragmented reply came through.
"Losses... one thousand four hundred thirty-seven ships..."
"Including ninety-eight T5-class Battleships..."
"The rest..."
The voice grew softer and softer.
Slate was silent for a second.
Then he spoke a single sentence, very softly, so soft it was almost inaudible.
"Continue the attack."
"Don't stop."
He was silent for three seconds.
Then he spoke again.
"Dispatch reinforcements."
"Ram, Dragon Rider-class Fleet, immediately reinforce the Second Star direction."
The order was given.
Ram and the Dragon Rider Fleet detached from the rear formation, accelerating toward the Second Star direction.
Those warships passed through the remnants of the fleet that were regrouping, inserting themselves on both sides of the torn breach, reconstructing the assault formation.
The Imperial Fleet in the Second Star direction steadied its footing and continued to advance.
At this moment, the Fortress Cannon had just finished firing.
It was currently in its cooldown period.
Its heat-dissipation vanes were still deployed, the surfaces of the twelve conical Armor Plates glowing with a dark red afterglow—traces of heat slowly dissipating.
Inside, the twelve superconducting containment Rings had also stopped rotating, floating silently within the cannon barrel, awaiting the next charge.
This was the best time to attack.
The fleet in the Second Star direction began to accelerate.
Closer and closer.
Right at this moment.
From another direction, the Alnitak One Fortress moved.
Not its Main Cannon, but the fortress itself.
On the side of the central cylindrical section of the fortress, hundreds of rows of auxiliary thrusters ignited simultaneously.
Blue plasma exhaust surged from the nozzles, pushing the massive structure as it slowly altered its posture.
Immediately following the fortress's tail section, hundreds of main engines ignited simultaneously.
Blazing white tail flames erupted in the darkness, like hundreds of light spears piercing the void.
The Alnitak One Fortress began to move.
Its direction: Second Star.
A faint smile curled at the corner of Slate's lips.
He stared at the tactical screen, watching the fortress's trajectory as it gradually approached the position of another fortress.
They intended to converge.
To form a tighter crossfire network.
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