200,000 kilometers per second!
Zhuang Liqun's eyelashes fluttered slightly.
He didn't speak, his gaze fixed on the point of light marked as a Stargate at the edge of the Star Chart.
The light point was still, unmoving.
Still unaware it was being targeted.
"Good."
Zhuang Liqun spoke, his voice not loud, yet in the confined space, it was as clear as a strike against metal.
"Activate auto-cruise."
The engineer in the front row pressed a button.
"Auto-cruise activated.
Course lock established, deviation correction frequency at 1,200 times per second."
"Automatic course correction system, initiating synchronization."
"Synchronized. Gravitational disturbance compensation enabled, evasion program on standby."
Zhuang Liqun took a step forward.
He leaned down, looking at the panel partially covered by an anti-static film in front of another engineer.
At the center of the panel was a fist-sized, silver-white rectangular block, its surface smooth and unmarked.
Zero-point energy bomb.
The detonator safety light was still green.
"Remove it."
Zhuang Liqun said.
The engineer didn't hesitate.
His fingers flipped open the anti-misoperation cover, pressed a knob, twisted it clockwise all the way, and pulled it out.
The green light went out.
No red light came on.
That meant there were no more safety measures.
The engineer withdrew his hand, his Adam's apple bobbing once.
Zhuang Liqun straightened up and continued.
"Detonation mode."
The engineer took a deep breath and began configuring.
"Primary mode: remote detonation.
Signal encryption channel reserved, accepting command code: BSM-2287-LD."
"Backup mode: contact detonation.
Impact sensing threshold calibrated to the armor density of the zero-point energy bomb."
He looked up.
"Dual-mode parallel connection.
Activation of either pathway will trigger immediate detonation."
Zhuang Liqun took one last look at the Star Chart.
The light point representing the Stargate still hung there quietly, completely unaware.
He withdrew his gaze, his tone as calm as if discussing something trivial.
"Let's retreat."
He paused, the corner of his mouth lifting faintly, almost a smile.
"Next... we'll just wait for the fireworks to go off."
One engineer looked up, but his hands didn't stop moving.
Zhuang Liqun turned his head slightly, looking toward the palm-sized viewport.
Outside was gray rock, and from the gaps in the rock, the faint, dark orange glow from the Loba Star seeped through.
"If the weapon systems on the other side all malfunction..."
His tone carried a rare, almost naive curiosity.
"I'd really like to stay here a bit longer and see with my own eyes what a zero-point energy explosion looks like."
Zhuang Liqun shook his head gently.
"It must be spectacular."
No one responded.
Thirty seconds later, at the tail section of the meteorite.
A cover plate disguised as natural rock slid open silently outward.
A sliver of cold white light shone through the gap.
Immediately after, a small shuttle less than twenty meters in length slid gracefully out from the narrow exit.
The shuttle emitted no active detection signals, and even its navigation lights were off.
Drifting away from the meteorite under inertia alone, it was like a withered leaf detaching from a giant tree.
Then, the rear thrusters glowed with a faint blue light.
Change course.
Accelerate.
Vanish deeper into the colossal shadow of Loba Star.
Ten minutes later.
Meteorite, gravitational boundary of Loba Star.
The final gravitational reading flickers.
Breakaway.
Almost simultaneously, the meters-thick camouflage rock layer at the tail section of the meteorite bursts outward like a blooming metal flower, violently peeling open!
Sixty fusion engine nozzles, neatly arranged in six concentric circles, extend, unfold, and lock into position from deep within the meteorite.
Back when the Imperial transport ship was seized, there were simply too many captured engines—might as well install them all!
The inner walls of the engine nozzles glow with the dark-red patterns of preheating.
The next moment.
Ignition.
No sound.
Only sixty searing blue-white plasma exhaust plumes erupt in the same instant.
In the vacuum, they carve out sixty straight, razor-sharp deathly trails stretching kilometers long.
The meteorite's velocity surges once more.
Like a javelin hurled by the hand of a god, trailing sixty blazing wakes, it tears free from Loba Star's gravitational grip entirely.
Toward the Stargate.
It screams onward.
Stargate Defense Perimeter.
Flagship bridge of the Demon Prince.
The alarm sound arrives without warning.
Not the usual gradual alert, but a shriek dialed straight to maximum volume, like metal nails scraping violently across glass.
The gravitational wave detector's screen explodes from calm waveform monitoring into a blinding crimson in 0.1 seconds.
Values spiral wildly.
The sensor officer practically leaps from his seat, voice distorted by shock.
"R-report!!"
"High-mass celestial body!
Extreme relative velocity!
Approaching from the direction of Loba Star's shadow—!"
He stares fixedly at the rapidly expanding blip on the screen, pupils contracting.
"It's closing in on the Stargate!"
Admiral Scott whirls around, his gaze slamming into the main tactical screen.
There, a faint echo once lost in background noise now drags a lengthening, blood-red threat trajectory line, pointing straight at the Stargate.
His lips move.
No sound emerges.
Because none is needed.
The blip's velocity reading refreshes frantically by the second:
190,000 km/s.
192,000.
193,000.
198,000.
Still climbing.
Admiral Scott's roar cuts through the alarm's shriek.
"Intercept!
Intercept immediately!!"
On the other side, the flagship bridge of the Abyssal Destroyer.
Admiral Armstrong stares at the number.
200,000 kilometers per second.
His pupils abruptly contract.
The next second, he hears his own voice—
sharp, torn, unrecognizable as something from his own throat:
"All warships!!"
He lunges toward the command console, hands gripping its edge, veins bulging in his neck.
"Shoot that meteorite down!!"
"Do not let it near the Stargate—not even half a step!!"
The command transforms into electrical signals, spreading across the entire Stargate Defense Perimeter in 0.03 seconds.
In that moment.
Across the nearly twenty thousand various types of Imperial warships deployed densely in multi-layered spherical shells around the Stargate, their turrets begin to rotate simultaneously.
Not coordinated, not responding in staggered waves to a formation salvo command.
Simultaneously.
Like a giant beast studded with steel spines, awakened in an instant.
Every barb across its body points in the same direction at the same moment.
Bow main cannons.
Broadside turrets.
Belly vertical launch systems.
Close-in defense arrays.
Every weapon capable of firing, every weapon already charged or undergoing emergency overload charging.
All aimed at that meteorite.
Fire.
In the next instant.
Over five thousand heavy particle beams erupted simultaneously from the bow main cannon muzzles of more than a thousand battleships!
They varied in thickness and shimmered in different hues.
Indigo, blazing white, violet-blue, orange-gold.
Each one was an annihilation torrent capable of vaporizing a starship.
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