Hundreds of meters of flame surged into the sky. Rolling fire and smoke spread wildly, destroying every building in their path as the entire ground trembled under the bombardment of countless energy missiles.
Dozens of missiles, small in size but with power comparable to nuclear weapons, broke through the clouds and hurtled toward a massive city on the barren land below.
Thick smoke nearly blotted out the entire sky. Everywhere lay human corpses with parts of their bodies replaced by machinery. The sprawling city had become a living hell.
Even outside the city, nearly a hundred wrecked conventional warships could be seen.
Beyond the barren planet floated even more warships, stripped of their combat capability or reduced to scrap. Three starships that had lost their luster stood out the most.
Not far away, Star Origin hovered among countless warship wrecks, firing missiles down at the surface.
"Modified into half-mechanical humans from birth to boost their combat power and growth rate, with their minds completely brainwashed. Tsk, tsk.
If even a four-digit number of people had their own thoughts, I wouldn't have to wipe them out."
Feng Xiao shook his head. He wasn't a bloodthirsty maniac, but these people had been altered and brainwashed from birth, and had completely lost their own thoughts and sense of self.
Why leave any of them alive?
What if one of them had the makings of a fated big boss, grew powerful, and came after him? Who would be responsible then?
Things like that weren't unheard of in the vast universe. There were both positive examples and cautionary tales.
The positive example was a powerful family that conducted human experiments and left a child alive. The child grew up to become a gifted esper and trained all the way to lv90.
In the end, he led the Guardians in wiping out the family.
The cautionary tale was about a great nation that accidentally harmed civilians while clearing out space pirates. A child who lost his parents in the incident joined the pirates and awakened a starship.
After enduring countless hardships, he killed the official who had ordered the indiscriminate attack.
But he was killed soon afterward by a Guardian who descended on the scene.
Still, he had achieved his goal.
So, when acting in the universe, if you could pull out the weeds by their roots, you did. Better yet, when you left, you blasted the very ground they grew in until it turned to crystal.
The bombardment lasted a full ten minutes. Missile after missile was replenished and launched, and finally they fired the main cannon once and dropped a virus for good measure.
Only after confirming there were no problems did Star Origin leave.
Watching the pirate city vanish completely, Feng Xiao couldn't help but commend himself for being cautious.
That was right. Cautious.
It definitely wasn't because, when the pirate leader had just called him a bastard over the wide-area channel, hundreds of thousands of people in the pirate city had joined in to mock him.
"Tell me, you've never killed anyone before, so why aren't you even a little upset?"
Sipping his tea in a good mood, Feng Xiao looked up at Wang Hao and Ilde, who still seemed eager for more, and asked in confusion.
"Huh? Do diehard space pirates with half their bodies—or even their brains—turned into machinery count as people?
Wouldn't they be better classified as highly intelligent war machines?" Wang Hao waved a hand.
"Millions of beasts who had plenty of food but preferred to eat human flesh. Not reducing them to elementary particles was already letting them off easy."
Feng Xiao accepted Wang Hao's and Ilde's reasoning, shook his head, and began to tally their spoils.
Aside from Star Points, a pirate group capable of occupying a living planet—though it was the most worthless kind—was still quite wealthy.
They even had ten pieces of Titanium, along with all kinds of rare metals and plants. They had a whole pound of Planet Crystal Core, a substance that was practically the interstellar equivalent of diamonds.
Their treasures were worth nearly twenty million Alliance Coins.
"Find an ordinary star and hide in its corona for a while. Once Star Origin is back to full strength, we'll keep moving."
Wang Hao nodded and piloted Star Origin toward a nearby small star system.
Buzz...
[Special spatial fluctuations detected. Locking coordinates based on spatial oscillations.]
[Coordinates confirmed—×××××××××]
The three people aboard Star Origin felt a jolt and exchanged a silent glance. Then they rushed toward the coordinates displayed on the screen.
At the same time, pirate starships throughout the Blood Cloud Chaos Sector received the alert. Many captains looked at the coordinates on their screens, bewildered.
Most only wondered about it for a moment before dismissing it. Only a few captains seemed to know what it meant, and they all showed interest.
In an instant, nearly a thousand powerful starships converged from every direction. Among them were many veteran Elite Starships and Star-Land Class starships!
But without a doubt, the strongest reaction came from the four Blood Guard Starports. The moment they detected the spatial fluctuations, they identified their source.
A Sub-dimension!
"We absolutely cannot let those pirates get their hands on the Sub-dimension world. Dispatch a fleet at once and seize it!"
The colonel gave the order without hesitation.
The pirates had already occupied three collapsed spaces and made them their homes. That was the limit of what they could tolerate. If they thought they could also claim a Sub-dimension world, the equivalent in size to a standard star sector despite being the smallest of its kind, they were dreaming.
Sub-dimensions were different from collapsed spaces. The latter collapsed when their Space Heart was removed, but a Sub-dimension could continue to exist even after its core was taken out.
It could even condense another one.
Most importantly, a Sub-dimension's rules were more complete. They usually contained abundant, fully developed resource and ecological systems.
Even the smallest Sub-dimension could supply the resources needed for a civilization to advance from Level One to Level Five.
The Sub-dimension Core also had countless uses. For example, a device developed by the Alliance that could permanently connect to a fixed anchor point in another universe needed a Sub-dimension Core as its power source.
Then there was the Dimensional Essence it could produce. It could directly raise the talent of any captain with a purple-quality talent or higher to Epic grade, and also grant a dimensional trait.
There were many other uses. In short, there was absolutely no way they could let the people of the Blood Cloud Chaos Sector get their hands on it.
"Yes, sir! How many troops should we dispatch for this operation?"
The adjutant stood at attention and asked.
The colonel rubbed his chin. "All four Blood Guard Starports will send troops. One Star Dome Class starship, four Star-Land Class starships, and twenty Merit Elite Starships from each should be enough."
"What about conventional warships?"
The colonel replied calmly, "Conventional warships can't enter the Sub-dimension, but send one Small Battle Star and its escort fleet from each port to clear the area."
"Yes, sir!"
Violent explosions erupted, sending metal wreckage flying in every direction.
Ilde used the ship's cannons to blast the starship blocking their way to pieces, then clicked his tongue.
Even a mid-level starship dared to block their path. Was Star Origin's size so unimpressive that it failed to intimidate anyone?
Feng Xiao quickly checked the data and asked without looking up,
"How much farther?"
"Ten minutes at most. Then we'll reach the coordinates at the source of the spatial fluctuations," Wang Hao answered casually, focused on piloting Star Origin.
Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh!
Several starships suddenly appeared. Ignoring Star Origin completely, they sped straight ahead.
"That's the third wave."
Feng Xiao looked up at them calmly. His mind kept circling around the possible locations of the Sub-dimension Core. His father seemed to have mentioned something about it once.
That's right. Not long ago, Feng Xiao had also confirmed the exact type of space that was opening this time.
It was the most precious kind: a Sub-dimension world!
For this operation, he had even spent nearly half his Star Points and a large amount of Titanium to raise Eternal Sun Wall directly to lv5!
A shield value of 60,000.
With such powerful defenses, even the core main cannon of a Star-Land Class starship would need at least two shots to break through the shield. Their safety margin had soared.
The only unfortunate thing was that Star Origin didn't have a powerful main cannon.
Compared with its defense and speed, its damage output of less than three thousand felt a little lacking.
Fortunately, they weren't going to fight a Star-Land Class starship head-on this time. Ships would arrive at random locations after entering the Sub-dimension, so there was no need to get bogged down in a fight with the pirates.
Before you continue