Chapter 970: Chapter 970: Invasion
(End of the month!! Double!! I’ve been waiting for this moment for a month, so I’m asking for monthly tickets — Speaking of which, was I just out of my mind a few days ago? Why did I suddenly update 10,000 words? It would have been so much better to save them for today. It seems I’m inherently a very simple person...)
This might be a good thing, especially for Qianqian:
Our sunny beach vacation has finally come to a peaceful end, lasting for a full five days, enough for that group of girls to thoroughly enjoy themselves.
Of course, you can’t just blame Qianqian for only knowing how to play because we really had nothing to do. I mean, the three fleets sent to probe the Fallen Apostle’s lair hadn’t reached their destination until yesterday afternoon — those damn Fallen Apostles hid far away, and no matter how streamlined the three fleets were, they were still a large target. In order to prevent exposing the position of the Imperial Mainland, all warships could only use the highest stealth mode to slowly jump along the farthest route to the target world, which would take four to six days — fortunately, these few days weren’t enough for Harlan or Hara to clean up the mess caused by the experiment accident. I’m very glad that the one causing trouble for them was a Void Creature. The latest intelligence shows that the out-of-control test subject tore open sheets of void rifts in every research world before escaping, and it’s impossible for those Fallen Apostles, no matter how exhausted, to repair the void rifts in three worlds within a few days.
After joyfully playing (at least the girls at home who didn’t have to think about national affairs had a joyful playtime) for a few days of vacation, the First Family returned to Earth, and now we’re sitting in the living room at home. Personally, I feel much more comfortable staying at home, especially since Anwina returned to normal after arriving home. I no longer have to eat fish grilled by Sandora — she finally managed to make food that her lover could eat without needing rescue, and she seemed extraordinarily excited about it. I ate grilled fish for five days straight, and now I get nauseous when I see anything with scales, including the true forms of Isana and Lin.
Nearly a week’s madness has finally made Qianqian and a few kids feel fatigued. Now the big kid is leading a group of smaller kids to take a nap upstairs. Yakumo Lan lazily lay at my feet; the leisurely life with us almost reverted her back from a Demon Girl to a gigantic canine. Not only does she love sunbathing, but she also enjoys curling up at someone’s feet at home, using her nine tails to form a warm cushion in exchange for rewards of fried tofu and grilled chicken wings. I’m very worried that one day she will try to catch mice in the yard and fight with Wangcai across the street. Dingdang is cultivating her new invention on the windowsill not far away, a small blue and white flower. It’s said that she wants the flower to produce lollipops. The cultivation experiment has now achieved initial success: it can produce many sticks, but no sugar.
Lilina is the third among the kids, apart from Pandora and Visca, to still be full of energy. The demigod body makes this girl almost have no concept of fatigue. Now she’s crossing her eyes at her fingers, one moment appearing as if cross-eyed, and the next moment spreading her eyes apart as if having a stroke. I used to do this a lot in elementary school, and seeing Lilina do the same now makes me realize how foolish I must have been as a kid.
"What skill are you practicing?"
Working with Sandora on frontline intelligence was really boring. Seeing Lilina act foolish next to me, I couldn’t help but shift my attention and poke her cheek while saying that.
"Pupil Skill," Lilina’s eyes actually shimmered with green light, evidently showing she was actually channeling Divine Power into her eyes, "you wouldn’t understand; once this skill is mastered, this Pope here will make enemies tremble, it’s a pupil skill that’s unbeatable."
"Ha!" I gave her a tap on the back of her head, "How about you explain it."
"Since you sincerely asked," Lilina solemnly withdrew the Life Divine Power from her eyes and turned her head, "To put it simply, it’s a special application of Life Force. Now this Pope’s left eye can nearly emit Life Power at the level of Rules, while the right eye can emit the opposite force—"
Me: "..."
"In other words, whoever I glare at with my left eye will get pregnant, and whoever I look at with my right eye will miscarry. If both eyes are focused on an enemy, they can do nothing but keep having babies on the battlefield, and this applies to any gender..."
I glanced at Dingdang, who was waiting for a herb to produce lollipops on the windowsill, then looked at this black loli attempting to control targets’ pregnancies and miscarriages with eye power, and felt a sharp pain in my liver.
This bizarre master-servant pair can make someone’s liver hurt!!
"Ah Jun, if you have time to beat up Lilina, you might as well look at these first."
Sandora’s voice serially and eerily came from beside me, causing me to shudder involuntarily, and quickly turn my head to a focused posture: "Actually, I already have a plan. The advanced troops can attack the nearby worlds to fake an intelligence failure and thus reveal the location of the scientific world of the Fallen Apostles, then we embrace the weak point for a blitzkrieg and retreat after smashing..."
"Good idea," Sandora enlarged the battle report diagram, "But you’ve already mentioned it once before."
"... Then I really don’t have other tricks, I’m really not an expert in this area."
My motto has always been to either not help or definitely not mess up, even though Sandora having high hopes for me is quite flattering, knowing my limitations is also important.
Sandora tapped on the data terminal: "Now, the hybrid fleet formed by the Sixth Fleet and the First Fleet has split into three routes, arriving near three target worlds. Current intelligence shows that the Fallen Apostles have not detected the approach of the Imperial Army, and all three worlds have different degrees of infiltrative damages, with large amounts of information and matter evaporating from those worlds, indicating that Carter’s intelligence is correct. The out-of-control test subjects tore several big holes in each research world, which severely hinders the Fallen Apostles’ re-defensive layout of the worlds. Perhaps we could use these rifts in our operation — I mean, let warships rush directly in through those void rifts."
"Wait, the Fallen Apostles will surely deploy heavy forces near the void rifts," Even though I’m not an expert, I do know some common sense, "Wouldn’t doing so face strong resistance from the enemy? Even a surprise attack might suffer heavy losses."
"We can use the power of the Void," Sandora smiled slightly, "The Sixth Fleet is special. By summarizing the experiences accumulated during the skirmishes in the Ruins World and with Carter’s suggestions, I loaded those ships with large-yield multidimensional disturbance bombs, which can tear bigger gaps into the already damaged World Barriers. We can assault through those void rifts and then deploy a large number of disturbance bombs at the entrance. After the fleet strikes into a safe distance inside the world, activate all the bombs, and a powerful Void Storm could destroy all the fixed posts set by the Fallen Apostles near the rift, causing them immense chaos."
Sandora indeed deserves to be an old veteran strategist, mastering all sorts of unscrupulous combat methods. This plan could be called a sinister trick. If my decision to launch a surprise attack on the defensively-weak worlds of the Fallen Apostles when they were caught off guard was like stabbing them when they were down, Sandora’s approach is like stabbing while also rubbing in 200 grams of cumin, 500 grams of salt, 100 grams of ginger, 350 grams of dark soy sauce, 150 grams of cooking wine, a touch of MSG, a little five-spice powder, and just the right amount of chili...
"Two fleets have already reached their operational positions, and currently the Fallen Apostles have not yet noticed the movement of the Imperial Army," a new message uploaded, the corner of Sandora’s mouth lifted ever so slightly, "It’s time for the Imperial Army to settle the first account. In thirty minutes, the three detachments will simultaneously attack three research worlds of the Fallen Apostles. This will be the first preemptive strike by the Imperial Army since they went to war with them. After a successful strike, we should have a good celebration."
"Before celebrating, prepare the Royal Fleet."
Lin Xue suddenly stood up from the sofa, with a strange smile on her face and said, "Our action time is at hand... Oh my, this is going to be a big one..."
I’ve gotten used to this Miss Prophet occasionally blurting out a sentence or two of inexplicable words. In most cases, following them immediately is always right, but this time, after I unconsciously notified the Command Center, I suddenly froze: "Uh, girl, what do you mean by going too far?"
Lin Xue’s face carried an inexplicably mysterious expression: "Don’t ask, get ready for a fight, mixed doubles— the out-of-control test subject is about to appear, it’s incredibly formidable... Heh, heh heh..."
Lilina couldn’t help but shrink against me: "Boss, Sister Xue’s state is really strange."
I deeply agreed: Miss Xue is clearly in a darkened state!
But seeing this girl’s expression, I knew now was definitely not the time to ask questions, so I could only start preparing for departure. Perhaps soon, some fleet report would come in about encountering the fleeing clone, and then we, as a family, would have to grab our gear to hunt them down. Lin Xue hadn’t mentioned where the other party would appear, indicating that this matter still lay in a state of superimposed outcomes. So it’s best to be fully prepared—capturing a half-void creature, no preparation can be excessive.
The Royal Fleet was already prepared, and the recently partly repaired Revenge Fleet was also on standby at the Starport. Pandora and Visca teleported to the Imperial Admiral, while Sandora looked upstairs: "Do we need to call Qianqian? If we don’t bring her, it might be difficult, and her ability is very useful for capturing targets."
"Go wake her up," I grabbed Lilina casually, "We’ll wait for you on the flagship bridge."
Soon, rubbing her eyes, Qianqian, and a completely disheveled Lilina, who looked like she’d been trampled by thousands of monkeys, arrived at the Imperial Admiral’s bridge. I glanced at the latter: "What happened to you?"
"I hate naughty kids, especially crescent ones..." Lilina said angrily.
"Hey, Ah Jun, time to catch someone, I’ll deploy the restraint skill... Has it not started yet?"
Qianqian seemed like she hadn’t fully woken up, rubbing her eyes and looking down at the command hall below, which had already entered combat readiness. There were only ten minutes left before the three Expeditionary Armies launched an assault, though this time the Imperial Admiral and all the leaders were not personally on the front line, but the military command was still directly issued by the rear Command Center: based on the spiritual link, the Imperial Army’s combat command is never affected by distance.
The command links of the three sub-fleets were directly connected with the officer platform, and the frontline commanders responsible for the raid were in direct contact with us. Now, the last fleet also sent information: "The third squad has reached the target location, the detector detected an information evaporation phenomenon at the current position marker, confirming our unit has entered a Void Rift. It’s large, the enemy’s remedial measures seem ineffective."
"How large?" Sandora casually asked, "I want more detailed data."
A middle-aged officer with a scruffy beard on the communicator glanced at a certain screen beside him: "Hmm, in the Main Material Plane’s zone, it’s roughly equivalent to a third of a moon, which for the Void is already a quite deadly erosion hole. Within the area, the information evaporation detectable per second has already reached 26 ’Xi Mu’ units. If this rift has persisted for five days, then at least two solar systems in the target world have already been erased from history. If this rift cannot be repaired, it’s estimated to lose control and breach the cosmic order across the rift in seventy-two hours."
Sandora glanced at me: "So, it’s possible that the four basic forces could be disturbed by the Void, each deviating by a few percent, causing the whole world to collapse. It seems your clone, although perhaps not perfect in power, is much bolder than you."
The Expeditionary Army began deploying those ultra-high-yield "bombs" Sandora mentioned in the Void. These things aren’t physical entities but a bound cluster of information, which can be implanted into the world barrier, making the membrane that separates the universe from the Void—the ’time-space-law’ barrier—fragile. The process is similar to using minute errors in code to cause a normally functioning program to start deleting itself, or causing a world to treat its own barrier as an alien object, leading to a repulsion reaction. The Void Evaporation phenomenon and Void Erosion phenomenon created huge disturbances at the rift, and the Fallen Apostle still hadn’t realized that the Imperial Army was already stuck on the "shell" of their universe. Once all the "bombs" were in place, the time reached the scheduled attack moment.
"Action begins!"
Sandora and I issued the order simultaneously—in fact, my main role here was to shout these four words...
The Raider Fleet, almost bursting with anticipation, immediately began adjusting the "information representation" of its warships. As attackers, the biggest advantage of jumping from the Void into the real world is that this process leaves no trail; you’ll appear directly on the other side of the gate without passing through it. The enemy’s interception fire couldn’t react in time—according to the feedback screens, at the moment the first wave of ultra-high-speed assault ships rushed through the Void Rift, not a single Abyss Battleship visible on the screen even turned a turret!
The first warships that rushed in were the super-fast assault ships, with the fleet also mixed with assault battleships modified from the "Expedition Class" as a blueprint. These warships, designed to break through defense lines, usually have close-range artillery arrayed from the bow to the engine nozzle, likened to a whole body covered in thorns. They open fire towards all small spacecraft within direct attack range along the advance route, forcibly tearing through the fleet clusters arranged near the rift by the Fallen Apostles like a barbed blunt knife, abruptly breaking through to the other end of the defense line, and then rapidly phase into anti-phasing, dispersing into the vast universe. Immediately afterwards, the second wave, consisting almost entirely of assault battleships, also rushed into the rift.
After the first assault ended, the Fallen Apostles were clearly still in a state of confusion. They certainly did not expect a sudden aggressive attack by the Imperial Army in their own realm—something that had never happened before. The New Empire’s consistent low profile had made them too comfortable with the security of their realm. Of course, the main reason was the numerous erosive holes in the universe caused by the experimental accident, which left them overwhelmed. The enormous energy required to "stitch" a Void Rift shut made it impossible for them to activate enough outposts quickly, and the defensive line near the rift was penetrated outright by a bunch of small ships.
However, the combat instinct ingrained in the Xyrin Apostles still led them to organize a defense subconsciously. The second wave of the Raider Fleet faced fierce interception fire from the enemy, while at the same time, gravity traps began to block the fleet’s support.
"The main forces have entered the Main Material Plane!" A commander of a raid team connected to the communication link, "All detected cosmic constants have deviated from normal values! Taville Chief’s prediction was correct, the Fallen Apostles’ homeland is in a chaotic state... We have deployed all deep space exploration probes, all warships will do everything to return information before being destroyed! Thank the Emperor for his blessing! Magnificent discovery!"
From the start, we kept speculating about what the place where the Fallen Apostles were hiding should look like. We once thought they would hide inside the Abyss Gate, and later Bellavilla’s memory negated this assumption. We learned the Fallen Apostles themselves could not survive continuously in a pure Abyss environment; the Abyss’s self-destructive tendency would cause them to collapse. According to Bellavilla, the Fallen Apostles are hiding in the Main Material World, these worlds are patched together remnants of already vanished worlds, a considerable part is fragments of the Old Empire’s territory. When these worlds perished, they had already been infected by the Abyss and were delisted from the Void Sequence. Their coordinates are hidden in the deepest part of the Void, making them extremely hard to discover. Bellavilla’s memories from the Fallen Apostle era were evidently influenced by some power, preventing her from accurately recalling what those worlds were like, and Carter had a similar situation. However, Taville, based on existing data analysis, deduced that these worlds should be regions with extremely bizarre cosmic constants, where contradictions and paradoxes abound, yet manage to maintain an abnormal balance. Our raid on the Fallen Apostles’ nest (at most the peripheral nest, as these research worlds would definitely not be located at the core of the territory, and quite frankly, the Imperial Army’s current strength is not likely to directly strike the Fallen Apostles’ "inland") did not have a single goal. Besides probing its territorial boundary and slowing down the other side’s research activities, a very important reason is to determine what kind of world the Fallen Apostles inhabits.
All the raid ships carried research probes designed by Taville.
Just then, a frontline commander suddenly sent a communication:
"Your Majesty, there’s a bit of a problem here..." (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to Qidian () to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)