While Grete was "trembling" in Mephitican's palace, the ship carrying Cheng Yu and the others had already crossed the region under Balchik's control and entered the Combat Zone.
Cheng Yu looked out the ship's window. A Giant Phantom Hand behind an old man dressed like a mage crushed a planet to rubble, turning Balchik's military installations and personnel on it into cosmic dust along with it.
Cheng Yu's brow twitched at the sight. Traversing the vacuum of space in the flesh and destroying a planet so casually put the old man's strength at Silver Five at the very least. Of course, Silver Five was nothing surprising to Cheng Yu, but this was the fucking front line!
As Cheng Yu understood warfare, on a battlefield locked in a stalemate, those on the very front line were all cannon fodder. Even the slightly outstanding ones were just outstanding cannon fodder.
And Shatla could field someone like that without a second thought? The Legion had won both its earlier Qualification War and the subsequent battle against Shatla's "mercenaries" without the slightest difficulty, but apparently there was a reason these giants had held sway over the Small Heavens for so long.
The situation on the battlefield changed from moment to moment. With a flash, a figure wearing cyberpunk-style gear appeared behind the old man, then fired a blade of light from their wrist that pierced him straight through the heart.
Another flash, and the figure vanished. It was GG for the old man, too.
Things like this happened constantly on the front line. Farther away, through some unknown means employed by one side or the other, a sun became a supernova, "rising majestically."
A powerful ion storm swept through several stellar systems, but across the long Frontline Battlefield between Balchik and Shatla, this was