Before they could recover from the [High-Energy Reaction] alarm, a powerful beam suddenly blasted past the Star Origin, grazing its edge.
[Shield Decreased: 350]
???
"F-f..."
"Boss, wait! We aren't the target. We just got caught in the crossfire."
Feng Xiao had instinctively started to issue a counterattack order, but Wang Hao hurriedly stopped him.
Looking around, they saw that the beam from moments ago wasn't the only attack. Other beams and energy cannons were constantly streaking past in all directions.
Countless asteroids and massive meteorites were being brutally pulverized.
"Where are these attacks coming from?"
Feng Xiao looked at Wang Hao.
"Based on the Matrix's calculations and energy readings, they're coming from around these coordinates..."
Feng Xiao glanced at the coordinates, and the Star Origin immediately changed course.
About five minutes later, the Star Origin rounded a huge red star. The moment it emerged on the other side, everyone's eyes widened.
Hundreds of enormous, bizarrely varied starships were locked in battle. Exaggerated energy fluctuations spread without end as nearly a thousand main-cannon beams and ship-mounted weapons crisscrossed the battlefield, hammering away at one another's shields.
Besides them, tens of thousands of makeshift conventional warships were also exchanging fire without hesitation.
Terrifying energy explosions and shock waves covered nearly half the star system!
Every so often, they saw dozens of Star Weapon attacks, each spanning millions of kilometers, destroy countless warships. Dense swarms of starfighters and individual mechs also clashed like bees.
Attack waves and shipwrecks were everywhere. Even the corpses of crew members and pilots drifted through space, their faces contorted and deathly pale.
The surfaces of dozens of planets had been devastated by the relentless shock waves, their crusts scarred with enormous impact craters and ravines.
Some of the smaller, less structurally stable planets had even suffered broken tectonic plates.
"So this is interstellar warfare?!"
Wang Hao stared wide-eyed. Thinking of the wars between countries on Earth Star, he couldn't help feeling that they were weak.
"Even the civilization wars between third-level civilizations aren't this extreme," Ilde said with a sigh.
Countless beams, energy cannons, and dense volleys of missiles crisscrossed through space. Violent energy shock waves and explosions even lit up the surrounding stars.
If sound could travel through space without an extremely powerful energy fluctuation, the explosions and the roar of the energy cannons would probably have been enough to echo across the star system.
Calmly piloting the Star Origin close to the star, Feng Xiao concealed it in the glow of the star's immediate vicinity. He activated panoramic mode, motioned for the other two to stay calm, and took out a cigar.
He also switched on the ship's built-in recording function.
Then he leaned back in his chair. "In fact, either side is capable of wiping out a third-level civilization. But to the Alliance, this is just two bands of space pirates fighting.
"Sit down and take your time watching. You've never seen a spectacle this grand, have you? I haven't either."
The battle was brutal, but these were only space pirates. In this day and age, human life was both the most valuable thing and the least valuable thing there was—at least, to a bunch of space pirates like these.
Wang Hao and Ilde agreed. Wang Hao then asked, "How many people are on the battlefield?"
"Hard to say. Definitely more than ten million."
"Space pirates can find that many people?"
Wang Hao was astonished.
Feng Xiao smiled. "We're in a vast interstellar society. Never mind the population at large—the Blood Cloud Chaos Sector has existed for more than two hundred thousand years.
"Given that the Blood Cloud Sector is half the size of a galactic arm and contains hundreds of thousands of star systems, how many habitable planets and resource planets do you think it has? And how long has life there had to grow and multiply?"
Wang Hao felt as if his values as a human being had been shaken to the core.
"Then the children born here..."
"Maybe they're normal children for the first few months of their lives. But do you think anyone who makes it past the age of five will still have normal values?
"No matter what they were like at birth, they'll still become space pirates as they grow up. Their values are already twisted.
"This is the Blood Cloud Chaos Sector!" Feng Xiao said calmly.
Wang Hao still couldn't accept it. "Why doesn't the Alliance destroy a place like this?"
Ilde spoke up. "The first people to enter the Blood Cloud Sector were traitors who betrayed humanity during the Nirvana War, the most important war humanity had fought in two hundred thousand years.
"The second wave, and the waves that followed, were demons who had massacred countless planets and even nations. By the time humanity had successfully emerged from the war and secured its position, they had already grown powerful.
"New generations raised on anti-human ideas had come to dominate the entire sector. Although it could have been destroyed outright, humanity had just finished the war and needed time to recover.
"But someone proposed that, since everyone in this sector bore the blood of betrayal, they might as well seal it off as a training ground and a Star Point harvesting ground, and let them suffer through endless war.
"The four Blood Guard Starports and war fortresses we know about are just the surface-level blockade. In reality, there are also numerous Subspace bases and shallow-dimensional flow-layer hubs covering the Blood Cloud Sector from the fourth dimension.
"Any unit entering or leaving the sector's borders or specific regions is detected instantly."
Feng Xiao summed up, "It sounds like a paradise for criminals, but it's really just a whetstone.
"No one cares if a small group of space pirates slips out. But if the main members of the major pirate groups and criminal organizations carrying the blood of betrayal dare to take even one step beyond the sector with their main forces, a devastating strike capable of destroying a star will descend in an instant..."
Wang Hao sat stunned for a while, then nodded.
Betrayal was a grave crime anywhere.
And betraying all of humanity was even worse.
"But..."
Rumble!
A violent energy-level fluctuation came and went in an instant. Energy waves and explosions engulfed the Star Origin, and its shield readings began to fluctuate wildly!
[Shield Decreased: 8k] [Shield Decreased: 7k] [Shield Decreased: 9k]
When the attack's shock waves finally dissipated, the Eternal Sun Wall had lost more than twenty-four thousand energy points!
That was even with some of the attack converted into shield energy and absorbed, and the legendary talent negating fifteen percent of the damage.
If the ship had taken the full force of the attack, its shield would very likely have been on the verge of collapsing!
"A single attack! They didn't even concentrate their fire!"
Ilde's expression shifted. Nearly thirty thousand damage from a single attack?
The core main cannon of a Star-Land Class starship!
Star-Land Class starships could carry multiple main-cannon-type Star Weapons, but one of them was always the primary focus of their development.
A shot capable of dealing this much damage was most likely from the core main cannon!
"Damn it! We've been spotted!"
Feng Xiao's expression changed drastically. His Divine Sense ability was warning him frantically, as if a deadly threat had locked onto him!
The Star Origin's engines roared to life as it shot around to the far side of the star, but the sense of danger only grew stronger.
At the very moment the danger reached its peak, the Star Origin finished charging and leaped straight into Subspace.
A terrifying sphere of light shot past the spot where the Star Origin had vanished, then crashed into the enormous star, raising "sparks" that stretched for thousands of miles!
At the center of the battlefield, aboard one of several Star-Land Class starships engaged in combat, a slender man in a red trench coat furrowed his brow.
"To think it dodged. That outsider starship is lucky. Let's hope there isn't a next time."
The slender man snorted.
"Pretty boy, you still hate outsiders as much as ever. You're willing to use the core main cannon like that.
"So how do you plan to win this war without your core main cannon now?"
A voice signal suddenly came from the opposing starship, its calm tone full of mockery.
"Heh."
In an instant, dazzling light gathered once more!
"Oh?"
Before you continue