Star Gate

The Otherworld Inn sailed slowly under cover, using the chaotic magnetic fields and gravitational environment near the brown dwarf to further conceal its trail as it cautiously approached the area with the heavy signal feedback.

Amid the dim starlight, Yu Sheng was the first to spot a patch of lights flickering in the darkness—red and orange lighting systems anchored in space, with conspicuous holographic beacons nearby.

Immediately afterward, the ship's External Monitor picked up several space structures farther away.

Sentry Cannon platforms of various sizes floated in space. Between them, they could see faintly flashing wide-area Shield Generators, as well as energy broadcast towers and reactors powering a large number of space facilities. A huge fortress-like space station stood at the center of the Sentry Cannon formation. Its heavy energy shields blurred the outline of the entire structure. It seemed to be the Command Center of this defensive position. Numerous ships of all sizes cruised around the fortress—two of the larger vessels were "Dark Star"-class missile cruisers Yu Sheng had seen once before.

And within the layers of protection formed by countless gun platforms, fleets, and armed space stations, hidden beneath the brown dwarf's dim radiance, Yu Sheng finally saw what the "Star Gate" looked like.

It stood there majestically, its scale far surpassing that of any ship or even any space structure. Its enormous main body was a ring-shaped megastructure stretching across the sea of stars. Lights flickered across the giant ring's surface, and countless antenna systems stood there, stabilizing spacetime structures, guiding ships through warp jumps, and transmitting and receiving deep-space signals. From a distance, they resembled endless towers running one after another. At the "front" of the giant ring was another, somewhat smaller ring-shaped opening, apparently a passage for ordinary ships. A sheet of leaping red light