It was fortunate that the Communication Beacons he had deployed earlier were far from the deep-space predators' routes. In theory, deep space was vast beyond measure, so the odds of being unlucky enough for the beacons to be found were low. But he knew all too well that this universe contained beings that deeply despised civilization. The moment he deployed a beacon, it was bound to be found.
In this situation, simply increasing the distance between the beacons wasn't safe. Who knew how far these warships could detect?
Given the size of a Stellar Titan, a detection range of a thousand light-years would be no surprise. Ten thousand light-years was possible, too. Capturing a Stellar Titan was actually the safer option.
"But there's no way we can beat a fleet of this size."
He looked at the Stellar Titan Fleet under observation. This fleet was impossibly vast, perhaps accumulated through years of repeated refreshes, and already numbered more than a trillion ships.
Such an absurd number even exceeded the combined fleets of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. What's more, they were all warships on the level of a Super Civilization. If they invaded the Milky Way Galaxy, it would be an unmitigated catastrophe!
To invade the Stellar Titans, he first had to eliminate their escort fleet. Otherwise, boarding those colossal ships was out of the question. He observed the enormous fleet from multiple angles, but after three months, he had no choice but to abandon the idea. "A fleet of this scale is beyond what the Empire can hope to take on right now."
The three months of observation hadn't been fruitless. He noticed that the fleet grew larger every day. The increase was slight—only around a million ships a day—but it was continuous, and small gains added up.
By