“Of course I do,” Athena replied. “Deep within the gravitational well here… activate it. Do not let a single ship escape. Even those who are not Minotaurs are forbidden to leave this star system without our permission.”

“Understood,” Grace said, nodding once.

They were thrown about like nothing more than space trash.

Inside the twenty to forty ships caught in the gravitational snare, panic spread fast. Crews were stunned, fear gripping them as violently as the forces shaking their vessels.

On one particular ship, a beautiful elven woman struggled to regain control. Her hair, shaded in deep greens like living nature itself, floated slightly as the ship lurched. Her eyes, the same vibrant green, trembled with disbelief as she fought to stabilize the vessel.

“W-what happened?” she demanded. “Report! Why aren’t we in warp space? Why are we being thrown around like this when we had already entered it?”

But no one answered.

The bridge crew stood frozen, too shaken to respond. What they had just experienced was something none of them had ever encountered before.

Warp blockers existed, certainly, but they were technology only the mightiest powers could lay hands upon; something no Tier 2 civilization or below could ever hope to possess. Even then, those devices were of a different kind, requiring specific conditions to be met before they could function.

But what about this one? They could all tell it was different—vastly different. These ships had only just emerged from their own warp travel; they hadn’t had time to do anything, yet they were somehow able to activate such a device instantaneously. It made it impossible for the crew to even stabilize a warp bubble before being violently thrown out of it.

It felt like preparing to dive into a pool, only to find the water had frozen solid—or worse, had suddenly turned into a thick, jelly-like substance.

The elven woman’s gaze snapped across the bridge as her fear in this unusual and unsafe environment took a sharp turn, hardening into fury.

“Why is no one answering?” she shouted. “Are you all made of dust now? Damn it, what am I paying you for if you’re just going to stand there like stunned puppets in a situation like this?! Answer my god damn question right now, or I will have you thrown out of the ship and into the vacuum of space without a care!!”

“Ah—ahh! Sorry, sorry, Guild Captain!” one elven man replied cautiously. “It looks like the enemy has deployed some high-level tech that is making it impossible for us to enter warp travel. The way we were thrown out of warp space… it likely involves the same gravitational force technology used by those ships that have suddenly appeared and the Minotaur faction is attacking. Because of the high gravitational force acting upon our ship, we simply cannot enter warp.”

“This is the most likely conclusion I can come up with, Guild Captain, but I could be wrong,” he added quickly. “Mainly because our ship isn’t showing any signs of strain—a case that shouldn’t happen if a massive gravitational force was acting upon us. If I’m thinking a bit more absurdly… whatever tech those people are using, I think it is acting on space itself!”

Hearing this, the beautiful woman referred to as the Guild Captain raised her eyebrows. “Sigh… what are you speculating about, huh? If you don’t know, then don’t speak! Why confuse me with such pep talk at all? Just say it simply: can we utilize the warp drive or not?!” she said, a hint of frustration edging her voice.

“Umm…” The male elf scratched his head before answering. “That is not possible, most probably, Guild Captain.”

“So, we are stuck here then?” she said, her frustration becoming even more evident. “Dammit, why the fuck did I come here to this backwater place?! Sigh… our luck is truly wretched. First, we’re chased by our enemy faction, then we somehow survive and save our lives by hiding here, only to land in the eye of the storm where the whole galaxy has its eyes fixed. And now, there’s an enemy launching an attack right here!” She stomped her foot down in rage.

“Guild Captain, please, try to calm down a bit! We need to think of a solution quickly. I have a feeling that things won’t go well for any of us once the Minotaur faction’s attack on those forty-odd ships ends.” The speaker was another elven woman, just as beautiful though more curvaceous, who spoke up to the green-haired Guild Captain.

“Calm down?!” the green-haired woman shouted at the blonde elf at the top of her lungs. “How do you expect me to calm down knowing they could be the same people—or belong to the same faction—that took down the entire B-01 space station in a matter of minutes? It was a massacre! Who knows how many died there? And now they are here! What are the chances we can leave when our warp drive isn’t working?!”

She snarled, “Dammit, this is all because of those dark-skinned bastards! Had they not caused trouble, we could have left moments before these people arrived!”

“Please calm down, Green! Why don’t you contact those parties and see if we have a chance?” the blonde elven woman urged.

The green-haired Guild Captain sighed deeply and looked at her lieutenant. “And what if we can’t even get them to speak to us? Then what? It’s not like we can outrun them. Look—despite the continuous bombardment from the Minotaur side,those ships haven’t taken a speck of damage to their hulls! It just makes me wonder… who are they?” she said with a heavy, weary breath.

“Oh, come on! Can’t you at least try once and see if it works? If it does, fine. If it doesn’t… well, we can only die,” the blonde woman said flatly. Her bluntness left the other seven, including the Guild Captain, stunned and speechless.

The green-haired captain could only nod slowly. She turned to one of the officers in the command room. “Try contacting those people. See if we can reach out to them… it could be our only ticket out of here.”

“Dammit, we don’t even know who they are. I just hope they don’t have any malicious intentions toward us; we don’t belong to this race of bulls, and from the looks of it, they are only here for them! I hope they leave us out of this and let us go,” the green-haired woman said, her voice turning pleading.

Meanwhile, this same scene was unfolding across other ships belonging to various different species. Even a few Minotaurs on their own vessels shared those same thoughts—though they were few in number, they were willing to try anything for the sake of survival.

Back within the Antares-class battleship, Athena watched silently as a relentless barrage of various attacks slammed into her ship’s shields and those of the fleet under her command. Despite the sheer volume of fire, she showed no intention of making a move just yet. She stood poised, as if waiting for the attack to cease—or perhaps for something else entirely.

Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. “It looks like the intensity of their desperate attack is finally slowing down,” she noted coldly. “Grace, inform the others of my orders. Prepare all weapon systems. Target the Minotaur ships, the orbital weapon platforms, and the space station’s hangars.”

She paused, a sharp glint in her eyes. “Let us begin our move as well.”

“As you command, Captain,” Grace replied with a crisp salute. With lethal efficiency, she delivered the orders to the rest of the fleet through her own AI subordinates.

But then, Grace paused. “Oh?” she whispered, as if discovering something unexpected.

At that exact moment, a soldier dressed in dark military fatigues rose from his monitoring station. He turned toward Athena and reported, “Captain, we are being constantly contacted by the ships we’ve blocked from entering warp. A brief scan shows that most of them belong to races with no affiliation to the Minotaurs. How should I proceed? Should I accept their communications, or…?” he asked formally, awaiting her decision.

“Oh?” Hearing this, a flicker of interest passed through Athena’s eyes. “Is that so? Well, accept a transmission from one of them. Let’s hear what they have to say,” she added, a hint of amusement dancing in her gaze.

“As you command, Captain.” The soldier nodded, returning to his seat. He pressed a few buttons, and a holographic figure shimmered into existence in the center of the bridge.

The image revealed a beautiful elven woman dressed in a white-and-gold uniform. On her chest was a badge made of an unknown metal, embossed with the symbol of a tree. Her face was flawless, without a single blemish, and her hair and eyes were a vibrant green that evoked a feeling of serenity—as if she were the personification of nature itself.

However, the woman’s expression was anything but serene; her eyes were wide with shock, as if she hadn’t actually expected her communication request to be accepted.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep