Fleet Departure

With the objective set, the Protoss war machine began to operate at full efficiency.

Their resources could still sustain three years of full-power operations, so Shen Jun was in no hurry.

The Form War spanned the universe. Traveling to other star systems to gather resources required a powerful fleet escort against unforeseen dangers.

At present, the surviving Protoss warships were few in number, and their quality was substandard. Shen Jun had already ordered all vessels that failed to meet specifications to be retired.

This included the heroes' personal flagships, which were to be restored into proper carriers. However, Tassadar still favored his Star Shuttle carrier, Zeratul had his old relic of a ship, and Vorazun had no need to replace Prophet.

Besides those three, Selandis's Purification mothership was relatively advanced. Kerasul estimated that it would take at least a year and a half to build one. Alarak's Death mothership continued the usual Tal'darim technological style, while Gao JianGuo's Khalai mothership merely needed a coat of black paint and could be built in a little over half a year.

The moment Shen Jun saw it, he found it utterly distasteful. Out of kindness, he upgraded Gao JianGuo's vessel as well, bringing it up to mothership specifications.

Talandar was still the most miserable one. Even after three years, the Ceberos interstellar fortress could not be completed.

Naturally, Shen Jun also needed his own flagship. It would not be the Spear of Adun, of course. Building that massive vessel had to be measured in centuries; even during the Protoss's most prosperous golden age, after expending countless resources, they had only built three arks.

For the current Protoss, building an ark was far too burdensome.

So Shen Jun had set his sights on Artanis's Aiur's Shield.

The strongest mothership.

One ship alone could wipe out a small fleet!

It had been under construction ever since Shen Jun reestablished the Daelaam, and only a few months remained before its completion.

While the Protoss prepared to head for the Sien Star System, He Xi chose to remain stationed on Aiur. She spoke with Keisha three times, and no one knew what Keisha had told her, but He Xi became even less willing to return to the Angel Nebula.

Shen Jun was quite helpless, though he certainly did not mind having a beautiful woman looking at him every day.

And so, two years passed.

The Protoss armaments had been fully restored.

The Phoenix Fighter force had expanded to ten thousand craft, with six thousand Void Rays, three thousand Scouts, one thousand Arbiters, and fifteen hundred Warp Prisms.

A year earlier, the Tempest's specifications had also been completed, and five hundred had been built within that year.

Only one hundred carriers had been built. Although carriers and Tempests were warships of the same class, carriers primarily served as the fleet's command center and were generally piloted by executors or their deputies. In the absence of a mothership, they could also serve as flagships. Moreover, they were enormous, with complex transport systems, making them the largest warships after motherships.

In a major war, a fully loaded carrier required one thousand Protoss. Even for ordinary travel, it required at least two hundred Protoss, including more than twenty Khalai engineers. Shen Jun had few Protoss under his command, and Protoss reproduced far more slowly than humans, so building too many carriers was pointless.

Tempests were different. Though they were only one size smaller than carriers, they were single-pilot warships. Their shape was strange: the cockpit was not much larger than that of a Scout, but extending from it on either side were two immense, symmetrical hulls like bull horns, their front ends unconnected.

The Tempest's weapon system relied on the Kinetic Matrix, which provided power through overload during battle and gathered extremely powerful unstable energy. This energy accumulated and fused within the ship's hull into a sphere containing highly charged particles, which was then fired at distant targets.

The Tempest had an exceptionally long range, twice that of a Void Ray. In extreme conditions, it could even strike across star systems. It could easily attack from beyond an enemy's visual range, and its energy cannon possessed a decay effect—not a chemical reaction—that accelerated the aging and deterioration of matter. Thus, enemy ships struck by a Tempest might show no major damage at first, but their entire hulls would soon become rotten and even disintegrate. The process was very brief.

This showed just how powerful the Tempest was, but the highly compressed sphere of unstable energy also posed no small danger to the Tempest itself. The Protoss piloting one had to wear heavy protective armor, and Tempest pilots were not permitted to serve for long periods. When the Kinetic Matrix overloaded, its overflowing Destructive Energy did not merely gather outside; the pressure within the hull was also immense.

The ring-shaped hull design largely existed to redirect the cockpit's internal energy outward. Even so, prolonged exposure to the energy field still placed a heavy burden on a Protoss's body. Therefore, Tempest pilots had to be rotated frequently to avoid casualties.

The Golden Armada was gradually taking shape.

As the Daelaam's first exploration of the Known Universe and a resource-gathering mission, its significance could not be overstated. Shen Jun naturally decided to travel to the Sien Star System personally. Well, in truth, he simply wanted to experience the majesty of Aiur's Shield...

Of course, Shen Jun could not truly be reckless enough to command the fleet alone. He still needed to bring the appropriate heroes.

Kerasul was indispensable for keeping Aiur's Shield operating normally. As for the research work on Aiur, Brahim could handle it without any concern.

This mission's main purpose was not warfare, so Alarak would not be coming. There was no need to bring Tassadar either; Aiur's defenses required him to oversee matters.

In the end, Shen Jun decided to bring Zeratul and Selandis.

They mobilized ten thousand Protoss: one thousand engineers, four thousand Nerazim, and five thousand Khalai Protoss.

Two hundred Scouts, four thousand Phoenix Fighters, two thousand Void Rays, one hundred Tempests, and ten carriers.

The ten carriers would primarily carry not Protoss, but Probes—a total of fifty thousand.

As for motherships, Selandis's Purification was unfortunately left behind. With one Aiur's Shield, there was no need to deploy two motherships over such a minor matter.

This force completely surpassed the fleet the Protoss had deployed in the war against the Trigonians. They were only going mining. Was there really any need to make such a huge show of force?

No.

Because Shen Jun had never intended to go there merely to mine!

The Sien Star System was rich in resources, and Shen Jun vaguely remembered it. It had appeared in the story, though he could no longer recall the specifics. Still, that did not prevent him from bringing it under Daelaam control.

Even the entire nebula containing Aiur would fall within the Protoss sphere of influence.

This could hardly be called ambition. A god-making civilization was inherently a nebula-level super-civilization; the Protoss naturally had the right to govern every star system within the nebula.

"Tassadar, the Sien Star System will become the Protoss's springboard into the Known Universe. I will establish a base there during this trip and will not return anytime soon. Aiur is in your hands while I am away."

"Hierarch, I will not fail in my duty. I guarantee that no foreign life-form will enter Aiur's atmosphere!"

Shen Jun nodded and warped aboard Aiur's Shield.

The vast fleet rose into the sky. The moment it broke through the atmosphere and entered space, consecutive warp jumps activated.