The next day.
The morning sun had yet to fully rise above the horizon.
The thin dawn light draped Edo in a cool lead-gray veil.
More than eight hundred warships and spacecraft of various sizes slowly spread out across the vast darkness of space.
Each hull reflected the distant light of the stars.
Like a metallic swarm of bees scattered across black velvet.
Kizaru's First Fleet formed a multilayered spherical defensive formation around its flagship, the Sylph.
The outermost layer consisted of over two hundred spacecraft from the Shogunate Self-Defense Fleet, one hundred Storm-class frigates, twenty thousand carrier-based aircraft, and five thousand Siren Claw Assault Drop Pods.
The middle layer consisted of thirty Grand Line-class heavy battlecruisers, fifty Four Seas-class destroyers, and over ten thousand Decepticons of the Mechanical Race.
At the innermost layer stood the most formidable Red Line-class Warhammer Battleship, the Sylph.
As well as six Grand Line-class Warhammer Battleships: the Amaterasu, Shamash, Amun-Ra, Boros, Helios, and Thor.
Every warship belonging to the First Fleet.
Was shrouded in the ghostly blue glow of electromagnetic defensive force fields.
They were waiting for the main force of the Galactic Empire's Seventh Fleet, which would soon arrive.
At the same time.
East of Nagoya on Gintama Star.
The dense mountain forest resembled an ink-wash painting rendered in rich, heavy strokes.
Layer upon layer of green leaves glimmered with the radiance of life beneath the sunlight.
The morning mist curled through the woods like a mysterious, weightless veil.
The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and rotting wood.
Birdsong from deep within the jungle drifted near and far, adding to the secluded stillness.
Within this tranquility, three black figures swept soundlessly and swiftly over the treetops from afar at speeds far beyond reason.
Like drops of ink melting into