Xyrin Empire

The spaceship roared through the outrageously wide corridor, the alloy walls outside the porthole blurred by the high-speed movement, and we had been progressing inside the starship for over a dozen minutes. The Pandora Sisters were serving as the vanguard just a bit ahead, and the two little ones clearly felt that the dull anti-aircraft guns earlier weren't exciting enough, now eagerly hoping for millions of Terminators to block their path. I couldn't comprehend why two seemingly tender little Lolis were so interested in destroying things, just as I couldn't understand why there wasn't a single enemy in this corridor.

This is the third branch "Corridor" after entering the passage, the space around us is much narrower than at the beginning, but it still has nearly five hundred meters of width. Flanking us are towering alloy walls, with countless brackets emitting a faint glow, on which hung single soldier fighter jets or assault ships whose functionality was unknown. They appeared as if ready to face a battle; all the aircraft were in launch positions, with half of the aircraft's engine hatches already open, and the locking restraints under all assault ships removed. I could imagine that once a loud anti-aircraft alarm echoed through this passage, these densely packed killing machines would swarm like layers peeling off from the wall, filling the surrounding space, then rushing into outer space thousands of kilometers away. This speculation gave our small fleet of a dozen or so ships an intensely stimulating feeling—however, despite all aircraft being in a pre-launch state, none made a move, with the usage rate of the launch brackets reaching ninety-eight percent, nearly every bracket holding a jet or assault ship ready to launch.

I am now one hundred percent certain the Revenge Army had a major battle before retreating into the Shadow Space. Yet, one troubling question remained: why were these spaceships maintained in the final second of pre-launch state on these brackets without moving?

If the War Song were an ancient relic that ceased operations, this would be easier to explain, for no one would operate relic items within. However, this was evidently a functioning planet battleship, constantly creating chaos for my Celestial System Fleet, hence a functioning starship having such a relic-like halted launch passage was abnormal. It was akin to a lived-in house where the table in the center of the living room was covered with cobwebs and dust—though it might make sense if a reclusive otaku lived there.

"The situation of this planet battleship is a bit strange," I communicated my observations and thoughts via spiritual connection with Big Sister located in outer space. "It's not broken, but many parts inside seem to have not operated for a long time."

"Is the vibration inside severe?"

Big Sister asked with concern, making me puzzled: "Huh?"

"Apparently at least its 'shock absorption' is alright, I've withdrawn my power since the whole star system is a mess, the War Song is tilted ninety degrees, now spinning horizontally."

Me: "…"

In this eerie "safe" state, we traversed through the over-thousand-kilometer-long battlecruiser stacking area, ahead lay the closed inner defense ring, through which assault ships couldn't pass, though shuttles still could, yet I felt that wasn't too safe. Thus, I ordered everyone to leave the ship, with hundreds of elite Armored Scorpions clattering their joints in an open field segregated by complex pipes and mechanical structures, their small squad leader stored the ship into her personal space.

Pandora and Visca landed beside me, their faces full of disappointment, evidently, an empty "ghost" base didn't satisfy their desire to fire.

"No Revenge Army soldiers, no guard towers," Visca grumbled while extending her right hand, the tip of her index finger transforming into a needle glowing with blue light. She inserted the needle into a nearby cable, shaking her head, "The alarm system is still operational, but there's no information flow, it seems to have locked itself."

According to the starship structure diagram provided by Sandora, after passing through this thousand-kilometer battlecruiser stacking area and the first to seventh defense armor layers, we truly entered the heart of the War Song. Unlike pure planet battleships assembled with heaps of weapons and reactors, it possessed a very complex internal structure. Its "crust" and "mantle" were integrated, comprising seven layers of high-strength armor and complex battlecruiser stacking areas. In this layer, numerous war factories for logistical support to fleets and repair stations were present. We entered through an emergency ejection path that bypassed many war factories and empty compartments, minimizing direct confrontations with large forces of the Revenge Army, yet now it seemed somewhat superfluous.

"This is the entrance to the inner defense circle." After confirming the surrounding equipment codes and corresponding them with the structure diagram from Sandora once more, I pointed to a gate ahead and affirmed. The gate appeared exceptionally large and heavy, with a light blue energy halo fluctuating on its surface, its sides adorned with exposed pipes and cables. The exposed black pipes and mechanical structures contrasted sharply with the silvery-white alloy corridor opposite the gate, clearly marking the boundary between the outer and inner defense circles.

"Pandora, is there a way to crack this gate?"

I looked at the little sister who was one meter twenty tall and daydreaming beside me with a blank expression. Full of anticipation, I asked her a question, to which she nodded expressionlessly and began sticking space internal bombs onto the gate.

Cold sweat instantly broke out all over me. I pulled back this little fellow who thought of nothing but explosions, just as a thunderous "boom" echoed in my ears. I stared dumbfounded in the direction of the sound, to see Visca holding a smoking ship-to-ship Ghost Energy Cannon, contemplating the big hole she'd just blasted open. "Hmm, it looks even more fragile than expected. Is it because the force field hasn't been deployed?" she mused to herself.

I: "…"

Forget it, even if Silvia were guarding this place, this noise would be enough to call all the sentries over.

"The other side is a gravity-free space," an Armored Scorpion threw a probe into the newly blasted hole and conducted a simple analysis, "the energy flow is very obscure, interference is strong, and the probe has lost contact."

"Be careful, let's go in together."

I whispered, then took the lead and entered the still-smoking crater.

Although called a crater, it's more like a tunnel. Despite being just a gate, this barrier has an incredible thickness of hundreds of meters. If Visca hadn't used a weapon designed specifically to penetrate the armor of an Eternal Level mothership like this, and if her Abyss Energy didn't have an extremely strong corrosive effect, breaking through this exaggerated armor layer would have been a headache. The mechanical limbs of the Armored Scorpions moved rapidly through the metal passage, creating a creaking sound that echoed, pushing the atmosphere to an even eerier level. This place is too strange. It's obviously an important fortress of the Revenge Army, and even now—though it's very quiet beside us, the messages from the Celestial System Fleet indicate that the War Song is still actively launching a barrage of law strikes—yet, after Sister Big Sister's commotion, it went as silent as a blood clot. And from boarding the ship to now, I haven't even seen a single active escort ship…

As thoughts raced through my mind, I had already passed through the breach and suddenly felt light. I had entered a very vast and dark starship space. In front of me was a large expanse of giant columns, their outlines vague in the darkness, and countless dark red light spots flickered among these black shadows.

The hairs on my body stood straight up in an instant, every cell vibrating from its core. I was almost about to shout to the heavens, "What the heck"—a notion that turned into reality two seconds later.

"What the—!!! Retreat!!!"

A fleet, damn it, inside the inner defense circle is an overwhelming, countless number of fleets waiting for us!

All the Armored Scorpions instantly jumped to my side, raising a joint shield to protect their emperor. But I was even quicker, deploying a more powerful Void Shield. So it was unclear who was protecting whom. Visca and the Pandora Sisters simultaneously drew their weapons and began summoning Floating Cannons, preparing for a tough battle. But after I was prepared for the overwhelming barrage of artillery fire, the expected attack never came.

"Brother, they're just watching."

Visca ran over with confusion, tugging on my sleeve as she pointed with the giant barrel of her weapon to the distant, flickering red spots in the darkness. Now it could be clearly stated: those red spots were actually the cooling grids of countless Imperial Ships—red-heated cooling grids, which only meant one thing: the battleships had started operating.

Upon entering the inner defense circle, I found myself in a vast and dark space. There was no gravity, none of the expected bright interior ship lights or the orderly Imperial Base. In my sight were only numerous exceptionally thick black "pipes," crisscrossing in a tangled mess. They filled the entire space and resembled the internal network left behind by some plants after they dried up, like loofahs. Combined with the dark tones of the entire space, the interior of the War Song presented an unexpected eerie scene. The structure diagram provided by Sandora had marked this space, but initially, I didn't understand the complex network drawings. Now I knew—the deep mantle of the War Song was a spongy body woven from a network-like structure similar to a plant's internal network.

In this unprecedentedly immense, sponge-like structure with hollows dozens of kilometers wide, it's almost completely filled with the starships of the Revenge Army! Each warship sits in silence, the heat radiators emitting a dim red light, indicating that they are not asleep.

I admit, just a minute ago, I was deeply shocked, and every one of us was scared.

Though the initial sensing showed no high energy reaction ahead, we were met with the embarrassment of being surrounded by thousands upon thousands of starships once we appeared. Perhaps some interference in this space hid the energy fluctuations of the lurking warships from us, even eluding my spiritual power detection.

However, after the initial fright, we quickly realized something was amiss: the countless warships lurking quietly in the deep, dark space ahead showed no signs of launching an attack. They were clearly in an activated state, with dim lights occasionally flickering on the surface, much like a pack of wolves in the night, but as Visca said: they were merely watching.

An Armored Scorpion cautiously jumped onto a gigantic pipeline beside it, which looked to be at least a hundred meters thick, swiftly slid along to a nearby small Escort Ship, and lightly tapped the hull with the tip of its tail. The crisp sound of metal collision reached our ears, and all the warships remained silent, watching us.

"No data flow, all the warships are on standby," the Armored Scorpion slid back along the pipeline, "they seem to have just been activated recently, but I can't tell if there are any occupants inside."

"Keep moving forward, try not to touch these things."

I thought for a moment and then resolutely nodded.

We sprinted quickly through this eerie dim space, the massive network-like pipelines towering over us along with the Revenge Army's ships filling the entire space continuously swept by us, much like abstract dark sculptures. The dim red light emanating from the fleet and the blue light occasionally traversing the massive pipelines were the only light sources in this vast space, appearing bleak amidst the faint mist surrounding us.

Everyone had their Shields fully activated, and I was even prepared to switch to Void Mode at any moment, so if the surrounding spaceships activated, at least I could lead everyone out together—though the mission would fail that way. However, nothing happened, and in this strange and unsettling silence, we finally approached an enormous spherical machine body.

This should be the War Song Core, marked on the starship structure provided by Sandora. It is a device with a radius of about two kilometers, and what stands before us is actually the shell of this core; beneath the shell lies the true 'heart' of the War Song, a powerful mathematical rule modification device.

The colossal sphere before us shimmered with iron-black metallic luster, its surface densely covered with dizzying mechanical structures and energy patterns. The energy patterns flowed constantly in a unified direction, like the heartbeat of a giant breathing. The enormous pipelines that everyone had previously traversed gradually converged in the space around this area and eventually connected to the surface of the giant core before us. These pipelines, with diameters of a hundred meters or more, were like giant tree trunks with countless branches extending into the infinite darkness, like interwoven blood vessels, and beneath our feet was the heart.

The dense Revenge Army warships had turned into a distant 'night sky' with a blurred dark red cloud, now seeming much more adorable.

"Sandora, we've reached the War Song Core, and there were Revenge Army warships everywhere along the way, all activated, but none attacked us… Hmm, okay, now what about this big iron ball? There is no entrance, and everything around it is pipes; it looks strangely like a creepy sea urchin… Hmm, just now Pandora wanted to stick bombs on it, and Visca was burying landmines, but I stopped them…"

It seemed like the battle on Sandora's side was still intense; though she didn't explicitly mention it, based on the feedback from the data link showing the Ghost Energy Death Star's repeated 'rage' attack data, I suspected the Revenge Army's defensive fleet had started a suicidal charge. The War Song's interference with the Celestial System Fleet was getting increasingly severe, with a large number of mathematical rules altered, relying solely on the starships' own power to maintain the stability of the surrounding space laws, thereby causing the Celestial System Fleet to waste a vast amount of potential energy that could have been used for firepower and shields. After hearing the situation here, Sandora quickly said: "Near the core, there is a backup Super-Space Power Time Supply Device, a giant prism connected to a massive Ghost Energy Well located within a Space Fold. Destroying that prism will trigger a chain reaction, and the War Song's core, being a law-like device, will collapse into a random reality instead after losing the energy supply, and then the entire starship will be finished. You need to withdraw as quickly as possible; once the core starts collapsing, there's at most ten minutes to evacuate, or you might be sucked into the Void."

"So, the War Song is done for, right?"

I asked, frowning.

"Of course," Sandora swiftly replied. However, with our mind connection, she immediately thought of something, "Wait, Ah Jun, you wouldn't want to…"

"How can I get into this core," I knew some things couldn't be hidden from her, "I want to shut it down, not blow it up."

"That's very dangerous, and it's almost unlikely to succeed," Sandora patiently said, "That barrier wasn't designed with any openable entrance from the beginning because the War Song's core is non-physical, capable of self-repair, and it is purely an information disturbance source. Any unauthorized information penetrating the barrier will trigger a massive information surge, and all matter will be erased…"

"Brother, it's open!"

Visca's voice came from afar, and I turned my head to see her and Pandora each carrying a gigantic Ship-Slicing Blade (probably borrowed from a Scorpion), and behind them was a pipe that had been opened with a huge hole. The energy patterns on the pipe were obstructed, forming a dazzling halo around the several-meter-wide hole, and I could feel the 'ground' underfoot trembling slightly, apparently, the core had already started reacting violently—Pandora Sisters' action power was indeed formidable; once they heard that the barrier hadn't got any opening, they made their own.

"Ah Jun? Ah Jun? Why is there interference on your side?"

"Oh, it's nothing, maybe the core is about to explode—let's talk later."

I hurriedly finished speaking and disconnected the communication before Sandora could respond.

"Brother, are you really going in?"

Visca slightly worried, tugging at my clothes, but quickly couldn't anymore: because I had already entered Void Mode.

Yeah, that's right, the faceless, skinless, and cloth-less charcoal-headed form; although the situation was slightly better now: I successfully developed a nose, though the position wasn't quite right.

Given Sandora's warning, I figured it was safer going in like this.

"You guys wait outside; I'll make that thing stop, this shouldn't take long—no matter how advanced the information, it can't be more advanced than the Void, right."

"But it's dangerous; what if it doesn't shut down but explodes instead?" Visca's red eyes stared intently at this side, "Void Form isn't absolutely invincible, is it? What if there's really something that can hurt you?"

"Not that easy," I intended to smile, but upon realizing I had no mouth, I gave up, then stepped towards the 'entrance' opened by the two little girls, "after all, it's just such a little thing left…"

"Xyrin Apostle doesn't care about this," Visca mumbled.

"I care," I shrugged and stepped into the entrance.

I don't understand the structure of the War Song Core. There are countless huge pipelines connected to its barrier, but these pipelines actually have no intersection with the core inside. The structural diagram indicates that the inner layer of the War Song Core's barrier has a completely enclosed liner. I feel like I might have bumped into this liner, but it could also be an illusion: In the Void Form, my perception is quite strange, and I can no longer clearly distinguish the boundaries of matter, because the Void Form itself surpasses the concept of "matter."

After a minute, or perhaps in a moment completely devoid of the concept of time, I felt a white light fill my vision: I had passed through the barrier and arrived at the core of the War Song.

Blinding, very blinding, all I saw was an expanse of white. If not for the Void Form's lack of a retina, perhaps my 24K titanium alloy dog eyes wouldn't hold up. The so-called core is a large white light ball, its surface a surfing energy tsunami, the entire light ball floating in a grayish-white space, without any visible connections to the outside through pipes or beams.

I cautiously looked back, but found no metal walls as I had anticipated. The barrier that should have been the core's outer shell had disappeared.

All around was an endless expanse of gray-white space, with the gigantic light ball being the only thing in this space. I hesitated and reached behind me, met with no resistance. This gray-white space was not an illusion, but neither was it a space fold, which was very strange.

"It is an information refraction phenomenon that has already been rewritten into reality."

A voice suddenly came from all directions, timely answering my confusion.

"Speak human language," I frowned — then realized I had no eyebrows, so I gave up again.

"Simply put, the inside of the War Song Core's barrier is an information interference layer that can reflect information. The redundant information leaking from the mathematical modification device is twisted by this interference layer and then refracted and reflected countless times, ultimately forming an infinite ocean of information. As long as the mathematical modification device is running, this ocean will not disappear, and anything that falls into it cannot escape: it is infinite."

"Infinite? The largest reality Xyrin technology has ever created isn't infinite, right?" I tugged at my mouth — alright, alright, abandon it again, I don't have a mouth corner now…

"This is not a real space," the voice said in an unwavering tone, "I said, this is a place piled up with information. It's built on the perfection of mathematics, so whatever can exist in mathematical concepts can exist here. Mathematics recognizes 'infinity,' so it can be infinite here."

"So, am I actually standing in a bunch of formulas now? Is the world before me a sequence?"

"Perhaps."

I thought for a moment, then suddenly clapped: "Right, who are you?"

The atmosphere around suddenly stiffened, and I could almost imagine someone sliding off the table at this moment — assuming it had a table.

"Very strong jump in thought… How should I answer?" The voice sounded somewhat puzzled. I had already noticed that while communicating with me, the speech of the other party was sometimes fast and sometimes slow, as if it was between waking and confused. To be honest, at first, this voice really startled me, but I think my performance must have been perfect. Even under such a sudden situation, I managed to keep my expression unchanged — because I have no face now…

"Then, perhaps this is the answer:" that voice hesitated for a moment and finally remembered its identity, "The Queen granted this existence a name, PL-15, but PL-15 is now one of us, everything is no longer living independently, we are thinking together, we are fused together, well, I am PL-15, I use this data representation to converse with you, I am our representative."

I was dizzied by the severely misplaced subject-verb-object grammar, but fortunately, I still caught a few key words. I must admit the immense shock left me without suitable words to express my feelings for a minute, and the only thing worth appreciating is: I again guaranteed that Mount Tai could collapse before me, and I would remain unfazed. The reason I won't mention.

"PL-15," despite trying to calm down, I felt my voice tremble a bit while speaking, "Great Governor?!"

"The Queen bestowed this glorious title to PL-15," that emotionless voice still made me feel a sense of pride in the other party's tone, and "it" was speaking more and more fluently, as if the consciousness known as PL-15 was gradually waking up completely, or rather, separating from "them."

"Then, everything will be easier," I cautiously looked around. Everywhere was still a gray-white space, with only the giant light ball behind me emitting a low hum, but I was sure that if I started releasing the Void Domain, it would still be relatively easy to destroy things here, which meant the initiative was still in my hands, "PL-15, you know what you did, right."

Focusing and preparing, though I'm unsure where the real body of PL-15 is, nor certain whether they now have hostility, it's always good to be prepared. Based on the characteristics of Void Form, I feel that even if a sudden conflict arises, the initiative should still be in my hands.

Since the war with the Revenge Army began, this is the first time I have directly communicated with them. I can sense that this Great Governor is different from all the other Revenge Army members; its soul seems complete, with clear thinking, though I don't know how many thinking Revenge Army individuals like this exist. Judging from the other party's previous words, there should be quite a few. However, the attitude in their speech is baffling, because from the beginning, my stance and theirs should be as enemies. We have been engulfed in warfare across this universe for nearly a month now, yet they suddenly appear and are speaking to me calmly — is there anything more absurd in this world?

"We know, we know, but we are powerless, everything has spiraled out of control. We tried remedial measures, but it was too late; the evolved body now rejects any contact, so we can only watch them make huge mistakes in this world. We paid a huge price to suppress the activity of conventional warships within the Shadow Space and the defense forces of the War Song, but this suppression won't last long. We are ready to accept the Queen's punishment, and of course, you can execute it."

That indifferent voice continued its flat, factual tone, the content making me freeze momentarily, then pause my gathering of power.

"What do you mean — also, can't you show yourself? Talking like this makes me have little trust in you." I glanced around the gray-white space, shrugged, and said.

Although I remained calm in my tone, countless speculations had already emerged in my heart, certainly none self-consistent. I knew I was about to uncover a huge secret, potentially overturning all we had known for the past month, but I dared not establish a connection with Sandora before confirming certain things because everything was too baffling — this PL-15 and the others he mentioned who have already fused together, which should mean other Revenge Army members, are they not participants in this war?

So in these past months, whom have we been fighting until our brains almost spilled out?!

The voice in the air continued in its calm, unhurried tone: "I'm sorry, I cannot carry out your orders. Speaking with you here already relies on the core power of the War Song, and even so, such communication may not last long. I will be brief: The Revenge Army bodies have lost control, they now regard all remaining unregistered Xyrin soldiers as rebels. Please convey to our Queen, the Revenge Army never betrayed her, but we made a massive error. We should self-annihilate to atone, but before that, we must terminate this error and everything it has spawned. The Revenge Army's database doesn't contain your name, but by intercepting those Imperial Soldier communications, I am certain your authority is sufficient to earn my utmost trust: Please head to the control core as soon as possible, once we awaken, we will quickly perish. Now, time is limited."

I could hear that this voice was about to leave; it seemed it was impossible to clarify everything by asking them here, but before they disappeared, I still managed to ask one last question: "Wait! First, tell me how to shut down this damn core!"

The PL-15 was silent for a few seconds before responding: "The core of the War Song cannot be shut down by external commands. It only responds to the Queen and my commands, but now it has forgotten the Queen's voice, and I have lost the power to manipulate it. To stop the War Song, you either have to destroy it, or—force its core to shut down."

"I'll choose the latter; how do I do it?" I answered without hesitation.

"The War Song core is a mathematical rule modification device, so something with an absolute inability to be distorted, with an existence level higher than it can cause its order to collapse. The core's safety protocol will ensure it shuts down immediately in case of information collapse, preserving the starship."

A vague plan had already formed in my mind, but I cautiously asked, "And then? Can it restart?"

"In such an emergency shutdown, the core will inevitably suffer irreversible damage. After rebooting, some function may be destroyed, but this is the best option besides destroying the starship. Please decide quickly; the output power of the War Song has reached its peak, and the Queen's fleet is under attack. We are powerless now."

I took a breath and waved my hand: "I'll take care of things here. Hurry back and think of a way, even a little bit, to quiet those crazed shells."

The hidden energy fluctuations around us calmed down again, and I knew the voice and the souls of the Revenge Army behind it had left.

The words Bingdisi had once said suddenly resurfaced in my mind. She had mentioned sensing a restless mindset in the Mobra universe. At the time, I was concerned about her statement but eventually forgot it. Now, the hooligan's intuition seems to be confirmed: the souls of the Revenge Army did not vanish without a trace; they were merely driven out of their bodies and are now trapped somewhere.

That place is clearly the control core of the Shadow Space.

This is also why I chose to believe that voice, though not entirely.

After all, when fighting against the Revenge Army, Sandora mentioned that many of the enemy's actions resembled those under PL-15's command. I always believed the enemy leader was that so-called Great Governor, yet now it says it wasn't responsible for everything, which raises suspicions.

But at least there's one thing I still believe, which is the method to shut down this core in front of me.

Something absolutely unbendable and with an existence level higher than it? Probably akin to the principle of throwing a steel nail into a gear assembly, using something more "solid" to forcibly jam this mathematical rule modifier. Indeed, this is the best way to make it shut down immediately.

So what's here that meets this condition—need I say more?

I grinned and reached into my pocket—well, I don't actually have a pocket, but I still pulled something out from the black mist near my chest.

A palm-sized Dou Ding, curled up and fast asleep, occasionally mumbling while dreaming about something delicious.

Of course, it's God!

I firmly believe Dingdang is the most fitting being here. Her mystery level surpasses anything I've ever encountered, and Divine Race beings inherently have an abnormal resistance to any form of law-based damage. Even the most powerful Xyrin Emperor cannot compare to a True God in terms of law resistance. And more importantly: Dingdang absolutely cannot die! She can't even be injured! Because her temple is nearby…

I felt the spot on my chest where there used to be a pocket. Even though my clothes had entered another dimension due to Voidification, I could sense a certain inconsistency in that position, the mark left by a God's residence in the mortal world. In short, it's a temple—I must admit, with a subtle emotion, the thirty-five yuan stall goods I wore were now on par with the Eden Garden. According to the Goddess' Scripture, Section XX Article XX, if I'm nearby, Dingdang will be instantly teleported back to the temple at full health if she receives damage beyond her endurance. This was the last and most potent insurance I set up after deciding to believe in that suspected Great Governor's voice.

This is why I didn't choose to jump into this light ball myself: although theoretically my Void Form should also meet those conditions, I'm not sure if I will cause this thing to shut down rather than simply dissipate under overload. For a starship core, a Void Creature's energy level might be too high. And unlike Dingdang, I don't have the BUG skill of respawning anywhere, anytime without loss. Dingdang can teleport back into my pocket instantly if something goes wrong, but what about me—where would you find a pocket big enough for me?

"Hey? Ah Jun?" The surroundings changed, finally waking up Dingdang. The little one rubbed her eyes and looked around, "Is it dawn?"

Me: "…"

"Hey?! Ah Jun! Why are you curling Dingdang up?!"

Me: "…Go, Dingdang Ball!"

"Waah!!"

The little creature let out a series of exclamations as I tossed her into the starship core.

The curled-up green Dou Ding vanished into the brilliant light ball with a flash, and the latter immediately reacted as I hoped. Its surface glowed intensely, growing several times brighter, engulfing itself like a radiant stream. Fortunately, in a void state, I remained unharmed. As the light gradually dimmed, the light ball in front of me had turned into a dusky hue, its light flow no longer fluctuating but crystallized into abstract patterns. The surrounding gray-white space began to shake violently, like a television screen with poor signal. Seconds later, the gray-white space disappeared, replaced by the alloy walls of the inner-core barrier.

"Warning, detecting core abnormality, mathematical rule correction system overload, troubleshooting… Troubleshooting failed, identifying fault information, detecting audio information, translating: Where is this, don't scare Dingdang, Dingdang is very powerful… Confirmed as meaningless information, fault cannot be cleared. Loading emergency self-protection protocol, starship core is about to emergency shutdown, the warship will enter traffic control in thirty minutes…"

The small green figure shot out of the nearly solidified core in an instant, attaching to my nose and starting to gnaw: Now I'm regretting adding a nose to my Void Form—this is really giving Dingdang a place to latch onto!

"Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!"

Punching a hole in the starship core barrier which has now turned into a regular mechanical device, I quickly called for the anxiously waiting Pandora Sisters and a group of Scorpion Soldiers who hadn't even managed to fill in as extras to retreat full speed from the War Song. All its passages were gradually sealing off, but fortunately, as the voice claiming to be PL-15 had said, the defense units inside the starship were locked down, allowing us to escape smoothly. I then left behind half of the spaceship and several mass-produced mainframes to begin installing the pre-prepared starship propulsion engines on the War Song, intending to tow this temporarily inactive giant back to the Celestial System Fleet, while I led others to return to Sandora ahead of schedule. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to go to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast recommendation votes, monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)