Xyrin Empire

The translucent, pale gold "glass" beads floated quietly in mid-air, appearing motionless. However, if measured with precise instruments, you'd discover that they not only rotated on their axis but also orbited slowly along their respective paths, around the smallest bead at the center. Initially, the orbit seemed puzzling, but upon closer observation, you'd notice that the trajectory of these little beads was very familiar: a few elliptical concentric circles forming a small-scale constant star system.

The outermost bead seemed to be slightly disturbed in its rotation, spinning with an intermittent speed as if something half-melted inside was sloshing around—this reminded me of a half-cooked egg spinning on a table. In fact, this might very well be the case: a normal planet with a half-melted earth core wouldn't spin stably if slapped suddenly, and this bead now represented a planet… The power of Big Sister seemed to create a bidirectional connection between the two, with the small ball in her hand influencing the corresponding celestial body's motion, and in turn, changes in the star would be immediately reflected in these small balls. I was stunned by the bizarre scene before me, and a firm voice in my heart told me that this was Big Sister's curse in action. But behind this definitive voice, a more rational idea struck my nerves: since when did Big Sister's curse reach such a level?

Was Akmonde really my never-before-seen second brother…? Uh, cut that part.

Big Sister carefully maintained the suspension of these little beads in the air with her spiritual power, her brow slightly furrowed, seemingly pondering how to destroy the small ball representing the "War Song." It rotated slowly before me, as inconspicuous as the other small balls, its surface emitting a pale golden glow that felt faintly familiar.

"Sis, what are these things…"

I cautiously started to speak, unsure if Big Sister could be distracted to talk, my voice low for fear of disrupting her concentration. Anyone with an IQ higher than a table could see that Big Sister was using a super move. Though it didn't appear glamorous, the power was certainly more outrageous than anything labeled a forbidden curse. If lost focus now would cause backlash—if such exists—I reckoned Big Sister would ground me for sure.

"You noticed as well," Big Sister had a slight arc on her lips. Apparently, while enhancing her spiritual power, she had leisure to explain to me, "These things can increase my strength, but more importantly, they have some kind of inexplicable yet tangible symbolic connection with everything in the world. Until today, I didn't know how to use them, but a few minutes ago, when I saw the star system, I got inspired, and never thought it would succeed in one trial. If not for this, merely using a direct curse to turn off the 'War Song's' defense system would've been a headache for me."

Honestly, without her explanation, I vaguely sensed these beads seemed problematic: though they appeared similar to ordinary glass or high-transparency plastic, ordinary materials could not withstand Big Sister's continuous spiritual power assault. They now served not only as the carrier of the curse but a conductor to transfer and amplify the curse's power across the entire constant star system. I believed that few existences could persist under such power, not even including Cu Chulainn and a few others enriching to triple digits…

After a moment of contemplation, Big Sister began trying to gather the small beads with her hand. Like a clumsy girl futilely attempting to embrace soap bubbles in mid-air, she exaggeratedly spread her arms wide, forcefully pushing those seemingly weightless small balls (which seemed to become heavier due to the bidirectional mapping with their celestial counterparts). Seeing the usually mature and steady Big Sister make such a young girl's gesture, I instinctively wanted to laugh but the next moment I shockingly realized the intention of my sister was to compress the entire constant star system into a ball of grape jelly and could no longer laugh.

Slight commotion already erupted among the Commanders' seats. The warship's detection system surely discovered the target constant star system inexplicably descending into chaos. Under normal gravity, explaining why all celestial bodies suddenly stopped their orbital push and descended was no easy task.

…Everyone, don't provoke Big Sister. Theoretically, she could now pinch a Sargeras to death as easily as play. When Akmonde destroyed Dalaran, he spent a good three and a half minutes urinating in the mud, but Big Sister does it with a handful of glass beads, that's the disparity in level!

"Actually, what I wanted to ask is, what exactly are these beads?"

I scratched my head, always feeling that the material of these little beads seemed familiar, yet I couldn't recall.

"Huh? I thought you noticed," Big Sister gave me a surprised glance. She had abandoned the idea of making all planets collide (hampered by the fact that those real planets couldn't move at light-speed, pushing these beads also proved laborious). Instead, she casually flicked one of the small beads. On the monitor, the dark-brown planet beside the War Song began jittering intensely as if having a seizure, with its surface crust cracking wide open, debris flying into outer space. "These things are actually from the Divine Race; remember when we rode Lin to the Divine Realm?"

I nodded, deeply impressed by the staff at the gas stations near the Void Node selling sunflower seeds, soda, and maps.

"Then remember when Lin replaced a scale, and Bingdisi carved out a mahjong set?"

Me: "…"

A foreboding feeling welled up!

"Later Bingdisi tried carving dice, but since only small leftover scraps remained, she failed several times…"

I remained silent: "…"

Big Sister had an exuberant smile: "Eventually, she made a bunch of oddly shaped knobbles, so I let Little Baobao polish them into marbles. They were really hard to work with; this stuff is unbreakable. Luckily, Bingdisi helped—and then she got inspired thinking grinding them into beads seemed fun…"

I turned pale: "I think I know what the deal is with those Dragon Balls that Mercury Lamp was fiddling with recently."

Big Sister and I remained silent for a few seconds, then simultaneously said, "Those actually can summon a Divine Dragon!"

"Your Highness," a sudden call from the warship captain saved me from my thunderstruck state. The situation had changed again, "The escort formation of the Revenge Army is being suppressed by the super space-time firepower, and their mother's hip situation is also worsening!"

Quickly, I focused my gaze on Big Sister's face. By now, she had become acquainted with operating those "Divine Artifact Beads." By touching them, the damage she caused to the "War Song" and its "Port" became increasingly evident. Besides the War Song, the other planets had already fragmented in unreasonable abrupt stops, acceleration at sharp angles, and Thomas spins. The sight of each planet being torn apart was magnificent. Yet the War Song's shield continually rippled. Clearly, although the various safety facilities prevented it from being destroyed as a regular planet by a curse, its damage definition system wasn't working properly. Big Sister's power is beyond even mysticism's explanation, so the damage definition system designed to withstand conventional harm was quite limited in its effect.

Though the starship's energy shield weakened rapidly, its armor remained undamaged. The shield flickered rapidly, yet the starship itself remained steadily hovering in outer space, contrasting starkly with the chaos around ordinary planets. Evidently, its class coordinate engine resisted Big Sister's will.

"It won't work," Big Sister frowned, "The starship's structural strength is very high, and I'm sure it has devices inside that can buffer physical damage; my curse can't penetrate it… Ah Jun, looks like you need to board it. Now, as it maintains its stability in space, its shield strength has declined. Call Pandora and the others, and break the starship from the inside."

"Should've done this earlier."

I swiftly grinned, getting up to teleport to the shuttle platform.

"Ah Jun," Big Sister called from behind, "Be careful, after all, it's a planet battleship. The possibility of a High Order Apostle garrison can't be ruled out; being careless could cost you."

I waved my hand reassuringly to my sister without turning my head, then transported to the shuttle Gnaku. The Armored Scorpions had already assembled, ready to join me in infiltrating the War Song and sabotaging the colossal structure from the inside.

A few minutes later, we were in space, heading towards the War Song, its shield now dimmed.

Pandora and Sandora had almost cleared the surrounding space of the enemy's assault troops. Suspended behind them was a curtain-like array of Floating Cannons, occasionally bursting with flashes from the massive cannons that made one's scalp tingle. Any Revenge Army ship that slipped through was either severely damaged or crashed outright. Compared to the weapons of the Leader Level Apostles, those Single Soldier Fighter Jets, merely meant to be a nuisance on the battlefield, were as fragile as paper.

The two little ones, already a bit bored, unsurprisingly rushed over and climbed into the cockpit, announcing they wanted to join the next battle. I could smell the faint scent of heated metal that hadn't dissipated yet from the two little girls. Visca, tidying her somewhat messy hair, looked out the porthole and curiously asked, "Is that my sister's power?"

We had just skimmed past a planet close to the War Song. Following Visca's point, in the distant space was a planet already in tatters. Massive chunks of planetary fragments and a half-molten core, yet to cool down, drifted in the universe like floating garbage. This was the second planet my sister had just torn apart, with one-third of it already headed towards space. The remaining mantle and core were still temporarily orbiting as usual. However, this was only temporary; once my sister reclaimed those beads, the order of this Constant Star System would collapse. They would turn into a cloud of Interstellar Dust in an inexplicable gravitational storm — currently, my sister hadn't figured out how to retract her new Super Killing Move.

"It's a pity it was of limited effect on the War Song. It only weakened its shield. The thing's power unit counteracted my sister's curse, and after wobbling twice, it stabilized again."

I shrugged and said.

Landing on the starship was much easier than expected, alarmingly easy. We encountered no anti-aircraft fire at all. The emergency validation-type second-level system we planned to use never got deployed. It's normal for the enemy's anti-aircraft fire to weaken due to my sister's curse interfering with everything here, but its total absence was strange: The War Song seemed uninterested in protecting itself from the start, focusing solely on performing long-range attacks on the Celestial System Fleet, without much interest in counterattacking the attacks it was enduring.

If something's abnormal, there must be something strange about it. The idea that such a massive Planet Battleship would lack any anti-aircraft guns was simply inconceivable and even insulting to the escort fleet around it. Yet, this was the reality. We completed our landing without any interception, presenting a vast silvery-white metallic landscape. In the horizon's distance stood continuous mountain ranges, which I matched with pre-landing images. I reckoned it should be… something important anyway.

I connected to Sandora through the Spiritual Connection: "Sandora, we're on the War Song's hull, and we encountered no anti-aircraft fire. Isn't that a bit off?"

"No anti-aircraft fire?" Sandora's voice sounded slightly surprised, but she quickly added, "Let's not worry about that for now. How did you manage to handle that damage definition system?"

I thought for a moment, then answered honestly, "Sister made voodoo dolls."

I thought my summary was simply exquisite!

The nature of my sister's power is hard to explain in a short time, as long as Sandora knows she's developed new functions. I asked her how to get into the starship, like if there was any secure, unguarded passage nearby spacious enough to allow dozens of Assault Ships to charge through straight to the starship's core — Sandora's response was to remind me to take my medicine on time.

"How could such a passage exist!" Her Majesty the Queen exclaimed helplessly, "There are entrances, but definitely not safe. They're near the equator of the starship, averaging one warship launch port every thousand kilometers. I'm sending you a map with the shortest route to the starship's core. It's not the safest, though: once detected as an invasion, all passages in the starship become equally dangerous, so the shortest is the easiest to break through. You must reach its core quickly, then I'll tell you how to destroy it. Be careful on the way, although the guards can't match you, you're not just dealing with one guard. If you really can't get through, retreat immediately. As long as you can cause some sabotage inside, lowering the starship's output meets the goal. The Celestial System Fleet still has Law Resistance, and we can withstand it."

"But I didn't intend to just…" I signaled the spaceship to take off towards the launch port Sandora pointed out, almost blurting out what I had in mind, but I mumbled a few words to brush it off and asked about something else, "How's it going over there?"

"Just lost inertia laws and some mathematical algorithms, and the Revenge Army in the real world has now returned to defense. They're currently skirmishing with the Fourth Fleet. Fortunately, the Dead Star Fortress poses a significant threat to these return enemy ships. They don't dare to advance directly, but after all, they're Xyrin Apostles. If the delay drags too long, they might have their entire fleet rush over for a self-destruct, so you must act quickly. Currently, to counteract the Laws Impact, all starship outputs have decreased to seventy percent."

I hurriedly ended the communication with Sandora and ordered full speed ahead, finally arriving at the "launch port" Sandora mentioned a few minutes later.

I initially thought I'd have to search for a while, but when a grand canyon, about enough to fill thirty years' worth of Hollywood movies, appeared in front of me, I had no words left.

…The "launch port" on a Planet Battleship, really a misleading term. It met many of my requirements, such as access to the starship's core, wide enough for dozens of Assault Ships to charge into recklessly, and even enough for Pandora to gleefully toss bombs inside. The only unmet requirement was, it had an anti-aircraft gun emplacement nearby.

And this emplacement opened fire!

"Damn! Didn't intercept earlier, now they're all firing at once, huh?"

I was startled by the sudden overwhelming anti-aircraft fire, unable to resist cursing. God knows why this starship's defense system seemed to fire in erratic bursts, but one thing was certain, we caught it in an alert phase. Dense interception fire made it impossible for the Assault Ships to approach. I frowned tightly, observing the wave-like anti-aircraft emplacement below like a sea of light, and eventually made a tough decision:

"All units, avoid — I'm releasing Pandora and Visca now!"

The two little girls head-butted me hard and then rushed out giggling. They didn't seem like they were facing a barrage of artillery, more like going on an outing. But indeed, that's the reality: Pandora, a highly agile Leader Level Apostle with an advanced anticipatory evasion module. The anti-aircraft guns on the planetary surface are meant for targeting ships, and aiming at two little dots capable of continuous jumping and knowledgeable of any anti-aircraft gun firing sign? Quite a task!

Moreover, the Pandora Sisters weren't planning to take on those vast numbers of cannons themselves; they summoned a number of Floating Cannons three times their opponents', turning this battle from a thousand cannons against two little girls into a thousand cannons against three thousand Floating Cannons — and those thousand cannons were fixed!

Pandora and Visca leisurely commanded the devastating floating cannon barrage to bomb the enemy emplacement, occasionally taking down a few with beams as thick as main pillars themselves. Floating Cannons were continuously shot down by anti-aircraft fire, but the sisters replenished faster than they were destroyed. The whole scene was brutal, unfair, outrageous, and inhumane, and of course, bewildering — because aside from this anti-aircraft emplacement near the warship passage firing, surprisingly no extraneous enemies appeared. The warship passage that should have spewed forth countless Single Soldier Fighter Jets to intercept intruders, was silent — though, if it did make any noise, no one would care anyway. Let's not discuss this further, it gets unappetizing…

"Brother, brother, the passage is cleared!" Visca's voice rang in my mind, filled with joy from full firepower. Just as I was about to say something, she chirped away, "I and this kiddo will go in first! Don't lag behind, okay?" and swooshed into the starship's bottomless launch passage. I was stunned for a second, then shouted, "Those crazy little girls!"

Leading the Assault Ships behind, loaded with soldiers, I quickly followed, already determined in my mind, once I catch these two little crazies, apart from anything else, I'll first compare heights with them! (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)