Comparison

Unfortunately, things did not develop as they had hoped. The Epoch Clan searched the wreckage—nearly two-thirds the size of an entire warship—over and over several times. In the end, they even fired directly into it to clear it out, yet they found no trace of the Zerg Queen.

Over at the XM768 Star Gate, the mysterious organization had destroyed part of the facilities, making it impossible for the Epoch Clan to reactivate the Star Gate. The fleet stationed there was not large, consisting of only a few dozen ships, and had already been sabotaged from within by "their own people," putting it out of the fight.

There were still some ground forces at the Star Port. Upon learning that the mysterious organization at the Star Gate was merely using disguised merchant ships, they temporarily requisitioned some merchant vessels and headed for the Star Gate to provide support.

However, only a few thousand kilometers after leaving the Star Port, they came under a sudden attack. Several warships with no markings whatsoever and a bland, generic design slowly revealed themselves.

Merchant ships were civilian vessels after all. Even if they had weapons, most were meant for dealing with things like obstructing asteroids. Moreover, this was within the territory of the Mid-Ring Civilizations, and most of the merchant convoys passing through belonged to this level or below.

Their enemies, meanwhile, looked entirely ordinary. Yet judging from the various observable specifications alone, they had unquestionably reached the level of the Inner-Ring Civilizations, perhaps even approaching the performance of Epoch Clan warships.

Against the mysterious organization's warships, even vessels from the Mid-Ring Civilizations would have been useless, let alone their armed merchant ships. The more than one hundred requisitioned merchant vessels did not even get a chance to fight back or flee before they were