In the vast starry expanse between the Pisces Cetus Supercluster and the Laniakea Supercluster.
A fleet led by Laqilusa, another High-Level Commander of the Great Dark Nihility Organization, was currently traveling through this region.
Inside the Command Ship, Laqilusa wore an extremely grim expression.
From the all-band monitoring display, he had noticed that Ubenito's entire fleet had vanished.
Every signal had gone offline, as though they had never existed at all.
The sight made Laqilusa's heart skip a beat.
"What's going on?"
"Why have all of Ubenito's fleet signals disappeared?"
As if asking a question he already knew the answer to, Laqilusa turned to his subordinate.
That subordinate was already feeling baffled and uneasy.
He had wanted to alert Laqilusa.
But upon hearing the question, he immediately hesitated.
"Lord Laqilusa... could it be that Lord Ubenito's fleet was..."
The subordinate trailed off, his eyes darting restlessly.
Even without him finishing, Laqilusa knew what he meant, because the same thought was circling through his own mind.
"That's impossible!"
"Ubenito's fleet was..."
Laqilusa narrowed his eyes and suddenly felt a chill rise up his back.
An intense sense of unease filled his heart.
He immediately picked up his communicator and tried to contact Ubenito.
But the call would not go through. The system reported that no target could be found for connection.
"Damn it!"
"Could they really have been wiped out that fast?"
"I was counting on you people to buy us some time!"
Laqilusa cursed to himself.
As he spoke, he began trying to contact Halugeli.
Halugeli had likewise sensed that something was wrong.
Since they were too far from the Laniakea Supercluster, Halugeli had not taken the conventional route, instead traveling through the Intermediate Layer.
Using extremely high spacetime curvature and wormhole channels to accelerate their journey, they had already