Shadow Space

Under the joint orders of the two emperors, the Imperial forces withdrew across the entire front. After launching an ineffective Emperor's Breath, the Celestial System Fleet voluntarily fell back near the Moblado Star System. Then we began abandoning heavy Space Fortresses scattered throughout the remote reaches of the galaxy, even those that housed genuinely important space factories. This series of movements was completed in less than a day. Before the Vengeance Legion could react, the Imperial forces had already gathered all their main strength and assumed the posture of preparing for a final battle, which clearly caught the enemy by surprise.

We really were preparing for a decisive battle, just not here.

Mist God Star Base had finished disassembling. The Empire Admiral flagship and more than a dozen large carrier ships that had formed this gigantic city had left that turbulent hell planet, transformed again in space, and reassembled into warship form. Beneath Mist God Star's dense clouds, only several observation posts and a teleportation device for transferring the "tomb" ruins back to Shadow City remained. Majestic Imperial ships filled space, and a stifling atmosphere shrouded Mist God Star's high orbit. The dozen or so pitiful little boats of Moblado's "space force," which had come to see us off, were inconspicuously swallowed by the shadow of Empire Admiral's Heng Tong Bi, looking like fragile plants about to topple over.

Still, this was already pretty good. At least the Holy Pope had rebuilt the joint government's "space force," which had been abolished for over a hundred years, in just a few days, and taught them in such a short time how to fly warships to the borders of their homeland. That was remarkable efficiency. Because of things like the Guns of Atonement, which could turn conventional space forces into scrap metal,