“They will be ready in about a minute. We can proceed with the attack then,” Eclipse replied, her eyes never leaving the tactical displays.

Ezra nodded, though a hint of impatience colored his voice. “Why the delay? The main batteries should have been cycled by now.”

“The Shadow Divisions,” Eclipse explained calmly. “Sectors One and Two are just finalizing their takeover of the enemy’s main battleships. While only the cleanup remains, those vessels are currently drifting directly within our line of fire. That is the only thing preventing the strike; the weapons have been charged and ready for some time.”

She adjusted a holographic slider, highlighting the positioning of the captured ships. “In two minutes at most, those ships will be moved out of the firing corridor. Our flanks are already rushing forward to provide a screen for them, ensuring the transition is safe—though at this point, nothing should go wrong.”

“I see,” Ezra murmured, his eyes narrowing as he watched the distant heat signatures of the enemy. “Then they need to move quickly. I can see the Minotaurs’ intentions from a mile away. They’re planning to tuck tail and flee.”

Eclipse allowed a rare, ghost of a smile to touch her lips. “They certainly intend to, Sir. But where could they possibly go?The worlds behind them are already under fire, and those that aren’t will be soon. There is no sanctuary for them. Let them try to escape… it makes the hunt more enjoyable, don’t you think?

“That it does, but what is there to enjoy in hunting them? We don’t have time to waste on such things,” Ezra said, shaking his head dismissively.

“That is a bit regrettable,” Eclipse murmured, a hint of a bitter expression crossing her face. Ezra didn’t pay any attention to her pout, which caused her to puff out her cheeks in annoyance. She was an AI, but the emotions she portrayed were so natural that, if she were in one of her cloned bodies, no one could tell she wasn’t human.

Ezra shifted the topic, waiting for the final seconds of the weapon preparation to tick down. “Have you deployed the mining bots yet? Any progress on that front?”

Eclipse nodded in confirmation. “I initiated the deployment the moment you gave the order. The vast asteroid belts not far from here—specifically those near the last and second-to-last rings of this star system—contain a massive wealth of resources. We’ve found significant deposits of Tier 3 materials, and while the Tier 2 high-grade alloys are a bit lower in volume, they are more than sufficient for the construction of our local defense units.”

“What about Tier 1? Have we found any?” Ezra asked, countering her report with a sharp question.

Eclipse slowly shook her head. “As of now, no. There is no sign of Tier 1 deposits. I have deployed specialized scout bots to scan the deeper reaches of the star system, so we may get results soon… but based on the ambient mana concentration here, it is unlikely. Finding hyper-alloys or even standard Tier 1 materials is difficult given their rarity in this sector.”

“Indeed,” Ezra agreed, his expression turning somber. “The mana concentration in this region is far too thin. Finding Tier 1 alloys is never easy; they are high-level resources that don’t just appear in abundance, especially not in a backwater galactic corner like this.”

He let out a long sigh, his face hardening with a serious edge. “It is concerning. We cannot rely on a vast, unlimited supply of high-grade resources from the Universal Plane. Even if we wanted to harvest from there, we would have to contend with entities far more powerful than anything we face here. Fighting them is significantly more dangerous than hunting for rare resources in the real world—even if those resources are nearly impossible to find.”

“At some point, you will all have to step up and face those challenges, won’t you? like imperial leader is doing ! ” Eclipse added with a soft sigh. “The resources found in the Universal Realm and those found here are simply incomparable. The purity and potency of what we harvest there versus the real world is like the difference between Heaven and Earth.”

“That is the truth of it,” Ezra admitted, his gaze drifting to the stars. “But for now, we are helpless. That realm is not something we have any claim over yet. We can’t rely on it for everything, and even if we tried, our current abilities wouldn’t be enough to hold it. For now, we must make do with whatever resources we can scavenge in this reality.”

He paused, a small spark of tactical optimism returning to his voice. “Though, it is fortunate that our technology allows us to synthesize Tier 1 alloys by refining and mixing Tier 2 materials. It’s costly, but it’s effective enough for our elite units.”

“That does indeed take some of the pressure off our shoulders,” Eclipse agreed, nodding as she finalised the synthesis protocols in the background.

Helran didn’t kill the pilot; instead, he let the unconscious body slump to the floor like a sack of meat. He turned his predatory gaze toward the remaining crew, his voice an enraged, fierce snarl.

“You idiots! What are you staring at?!” he roared, the sound echoing off the metallic walls of the corvette’s bridge. “Close the hangar doors and take off! Or do you want me to throw you out into the vacuum like I did the last one?!”

The Minotaur pilot and the few bridge technicians trembled uncontrollably. They had seen Helran’s cruelty firsthand, and the fear of him was—for the moment—greater than the fear of the human fleet outside.

“Damn it! I said close the door and take off now! Why are you still looking at me?! Move!” Helran shouted, beginning to stalk toward the primary pilot’s chair.

“I-I’m on it, sir! Right away!” the pilot stammered. His hands shook so violently he nearly missed the controls, but he managed to slam the sequence buttons.

The heavy hangar doors of the small corvette hissed shut, sealing them inside. A low hum vibrated through the floor as the engines roared to life. The ship, a small vessel with a capacity for only about forty people, began to lift off from the docking struts, hovering unsteadily in the dark bay.

As the pilot initiated the launch, he stole a cautious glance at Helran. Up close, the terrifying commander looked different. His face was deathly pale, and sweat dripped from his brow so heavily it looked as though someone had poured a bucket of water over his head. Even more shocking was the slight, frantic tremor in Helran’s hands. If one weren’t standing just a few feet away, they would never have noticed, but to the pilot, it was clear: Helran wasn’t just angry. He was terrified.

As the pilot maneuvered the corvette toward the primary exit, he couldn’t push the question from his mind: What could possibly cause a Grand Admiral to shake with such primal terror?

He remained ignorant of the truth, but Helran was still mentally linked to the battlefield. Through his tactical feeds—and the sensory input of his clone still stationed on the Star Fortress command bridge—he watched the utter annihilation of his people. The fleet was gone, reduced to scrap and drifting tombs. Only a few deserters remained, cowering behind the massive station like frightened children.

Under any other circumstances, Helran’s fury would have been legendary. He silently swore that if he survived, he would hunt down every one of those cowards and hang their entire bloodlines for betraying the clan. But his anger was quickly swallowed by a cold, suffocating dread.

He had felt it—a sudden, cataclysmic spike of energy radiating from the core of the human fleet.

On the command bridge, his clone’s eyes went wide as he stared at the energy indicators . he energy build-up was off the charts. Surrounding mana spiraled like a whirlpool around the enemy flagship, howling as the spinal-mounted cannon began to glow with blue light.

Even without instruments, he could tell that whatever the enemy was about to fire far surpassed any weapon the Minotaurs had ever encountered. While the precise target wasn’t yet officially locked, Helran’s instincts, honed by a lifetime of war, screamed the truth: the Star Fortress was the target.

The very structure he was trying to flee was about to become ground zero for a pinnacle-level strike.

“No… no, no, no,” he muttered in despair, his voice cracking with fear. He realized with horrifying clarity that the energy build up was reaching its peak. If he didn’t clear the blast radius in time, the corvette would be nothing more than a speck of dust in the coming explosion—assuming the ship could even make it out of the hangar.

“What do I do… what can I do now?!” he whispered, eyes darting frantically. He was trapped in a race against a weapon that could erase a fortress, and he was still miles away from the exit.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep