When Gu Qing’s reconnaissance vessel jumped through the warp point, the sight before him rendered him momentarily silent.
—The entire Ares system had become a hellish wasteland.
Broken starships and overturned bridges floated in the void like snapped iron bones. Burned armor and shattered mech fragments drifted quietly in zero gravity.
In the distance, lingering flashes of energy cannon fire no longer marked victory, but the desperate cries of trapped beasts.
Gu Qing’s eyes narrowed, expression cold as he asked, “Have the front-line representatives of the Merfolk and Orcs been located?”
The auxiliary display quickly flashed a star map, coordinates blinking.
“Coordinates locked. Preparing to land,” the co-pilot reported.
The reconnaissance ship’s engines hummed, navigating through wreckage and smoke, slowly descending into low orbit above a support planet.
As the vessel pierced the clouds, the battlefield came into sharp relief—shattered fortifications, scorched energy towers, mech corpses strewn across the ground, blackened and smoldering.
The ship finally touched down. When the hatch opened, a blast of heat and acrid smoke hit them, carrying the scent of scorched metal.
Gu Qing looked up; his vision was immediately consumed by fire and ruin.
Distant wreckage of starships sent plumes of black smoke into the sky. Energy beams and cannon fire crisscrossed the murky horizon, carving streaks of light across the darkness. The land resembled a graveyard consumed by flame, occasional embers flickering among the corpses, and the wind stirred ash and charred fragments.
He did not pause. Stepping out, he immediately contacted the Orc and Merfolk command representatives in his guise as Blue Dae, arranging to meet at a temporary command pod in the ruins.
Everywhere along the way were twisted steel and shattered walls. Former garrisons lay in rubble, uncollected corpses scattered among the trenches.
“This isn’t war… this is slaughter,” Little Tian Dao whispered, unusually quiet for its normally chattering self.
Blue Dae’s expression remained unchanged. A flash of his blade sliced effortlessly through blocking debris.
He traversed the ruin-strewn battlefield, moving through smoke and flickering flames, finally arriving at the temporary command zone—a metal pod hastily converted from a damaged ship.
When the hatch opened, a sharp smell of rust and chemical reagents filled the air. Muted whispers and signal interference carried a sense of tension; every pair of eyes fixed on them warily.
The atmosphere weighed on their chests like a crushing force. Gu Qing felt the full weight of front-line pressure in an instant.
He looked up, joining the Orc and Merfolk representatives. After a brief, tense silence, his voice cut sharply through the oppressive air:
“—You’re saying the monsters have evolved?”
Rein’s face was iron-like as he nodded heavily. “Yes. The original giant creatures were already hard to handle. Now they’ve split into smaller units, fast and elusive. Soldiers are being cut down one by one.”
“Those small units… they seem like spores detached from the main body. Each has only one eye, yet can slip into the tiniest cracks in armor, even mimic human cries for help…” A representative’s voice trembled, pale as paper. “Our worst losses came the night they disguised themselves as retreating soldiers and led us to open the gates ourselves…”
“They sense psychic fluctuations, targeting the weakest-minded soldiers.” Navien’s tone was exhausted and hopeless. “Even civilian zones are being affected; defenses have completely collapsed.”
The room fell silent in shock.
An Allied officer muttered under his breath: “It’s all Serro’s fault! He dismissed these creatures, deployed the main forces in the wrong sectors… and now? The insect army and our forces are nearly wiped out, reinforcements can’t reach us, and the battlefield is chaos!”
“What is your Insect Emperor doing?” Rein slammed his fist on the table, eyes slicing toward Blue Dae.
Blue Dae did not respond. He lowered his head, opening his personal interface to call Milton on a private channel—but the signal was completely blocked, the screen flashing red to indicate forced jamming.
A panicked Orc soldier burst in, shouting:
“Report—! The hyperspace communications station has been seized by the creatures! The main control system is lost. Remaining forces are retreating, and all external contact is cut off!”
The room erupted in alarm.
“All external links severed?!” Navien’s face paled.
“Are we supposed to just wait here to die?!” Rein shouted, pounding the metallic table, shaking the entire surface.
“We’ve already lost too many comrades!” another representative from the border systems cried. “If this drags on, even Ares itself won’t hold!”
Anger and fear swirled like a thick fog, pressing down on every heart.
No one could offer solutions, no one could take command. The tension was suffocating.
Blue Dae stood slowly, white military uniform gleaming in the pod’s light, blue hair flowing like water. His gaze swept across them, calm and steady, voice low but resolute:
“I’m going to handle the hyperspace communications station.”
A stunned silence filled the room, until someone blurted: “Are you insane? That place is a monster nest! Going there is suicide!”
“What can you do alone? Even if you infiltrate, how can you reclaim control? It’s the core of the entire hyperspace network!”
Blue Dae’s face remained calm. His eyes were as sharp as ice, piercing through every fear in the room:
“There is no better option. If we can restart communications, we can contact the outside, request support, and redeploy the Allied forces. At least that’s more meaningful than waiting to die.”
His words were brief, but each struck like a blade, slicing through panic.
Rein and Navien exchanged a glance, recognition flickering in their eyes. They stood, nodding:
“Right. Even if we die, we’ll take a few monsters down with us!”
The group fell silent for a moment, then quickly readied themselves.
Rein and Navien adjusted armor and weapons, confirming rear support and communication links.
Finally, the three of them, filled with resolve, stepped out of the command pod, onto the scorched road leading to the hyperspace communications station.
As they approached the abandoned energy conduit area, an eerie hiss sounded—
“Hiss… hiss…”
“Hiss… hiss…”
Countless small black shadows poured from cracks in the wreckage, swarming them. Red glints of malice shone in their eyes.
“Damn it… magical energy derivatives!” Little Tian Dao squeaked, voice unusually grave. “Gu Qing, be careful! Spiritual energy is thin here; you can’t fight head-on for long!”
Rein roared, swinging his massive axe. Ochre-colored psychic energy burst from the ground, forming towering stone pillars that slammed into the approaching monsters. Each strike shook the earth with the sound of cracking rock, a mountain’s weight behind every blow. Yet the creatures twisted and warped with uncanny agility, dodging strikes as they neared.
“Energy cannons, pulse rifles—useless! They absorb our attacks faster than we can hit them!”
Navien stood beside Rein, palms glowing with sea-blue psychic energy. Waves of force rolled outward, colliding with monsters and debris, pushing some back but failing to stem the overall tide. Water-like waves crashed against metal wreckage, echoing sharply, shards scattering, yet the swarm continued pressing forward.
Seeing the pair struggle, Blue Dae’s eyes narrowed. He slowly lifted his right hand.
A streak of light extended from his palm, like a rift across the starfield. Where it passed, energy and light dimmed. His silver-white spirit sword, Tianyuan, responded to his will with a low resonance, echoing across the wasteland.
Sword intent poured down like a celestial curtain, countless beams striking from the void, raining like meteors, an instantaneous judgment upon the swarm. The monsters were shredded, leaving behind a charred wasteland.
Little Tian Dao trembled, poking its head from Blue Dae’s mindscape, stammering:
“T-This… is like an epic boss crushing minions… I swear, those Orcs and Merfolk must be worshipping you as a god now…”
Rein and Navien stood dumbfounded, their minds ringing in shock.
“What… what is this power…”
“He isn’t an ordinary insect…”
The swordlight faded, leaving only echoes.
Blue Dae, clad in silver-white battle attire, stood amidst the corpses and flames, a figure of shura incarnate.
He turned, eyes as sharp as ice:
“Mount your mechs. I’ll lead the way—let’s carve a path out.”
Rein and Navien stared at him, one thought flashing through their minds:
—Perhaps this insect truly can lead them to reclaim the hyperspace communications station.