76: Chapter 76 Setting Sail in the Stars! ! Watchers' Starport

The "deep space walker" hyper-curvature ship vibrated slightly, breaking free from the shackles of North Star's gravitational field, sending out ripples in space.

This was the sign of the curvature engine starting.

Soon after, the entire ship stabilized completely, entering a space-fold flight state.

In the space-fold state, looking out through the observation window, the scene of the real universe appeared as if through a giant lens—

Nearby stars were stretched and distorted, turning into brilliant bands of flowing light, receding at incredible speeds;

while the stars in the far distance remained relatively still, like cold jewels dotting black velvet, silently witnessing the furrows plowed by the ship into the fabric of space-time.

The first stop of the diplomatic journey was the "Sentinel Starport," which held a legendary status in the military history of the Blazing Dragon Federation.

According to the itinerary, the delegation from the North Star Central Military Academy would meet here with dozens of elite teams from senior academies across the Federation to form a complete federal diplomatic mission before departing for the Holy Alliance together.

Sentinel Starport was located in a strategic hub zone leading to the border war zones of the Blazing Dragon Federation. Like the Prey Hub Starport, it stood on the boundary between the peaceful sectors and the war zones.

However, Prey Starport was merely an emerging war zone pivot built within the last five hundred years, whereas Sentinel Starport was an established fortress that had weathered a thousand years of war.

Stationed here year-round was one of the Federation's main legions, the Watcher Legion; their emblem was a shield surrounded by starlight, symbolizing an eternally insurmountable line of defense.

The route for this visit required crossing a vast expanse of space between the Blazing Dragon Federation and the Holy Alliance marked as a "Sub-War Zone."

Although this area was not part of the main battlefield, Zerg Swarm activity remained frequent. Wandering Zerg Swarms, lurking reconnaissance units, and even small-scale raiding fleets appeared here from time to time.

Regarding the "Leviathan"-class Zerg motherships—the kind of terrifying existence capable of destroying an entire planetary defense system single-handedly, like the one Li Yuan had encountered on Edge Star No. 7—there were more than a handful still prowling in this sector.

Consequently, the Federation Military Department placed the highest level of importance on the security escort for this mission.

According to orders, the Watcher Legion would deploy an elite mixed fleet specifically responsible for the entire escort mission of the diplomatic group.

This was both to protect these young elites who carried the future of the Federation and to demonstrate the military strength of the Blazing Dragon Federation to the member states of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Races, particularly the Holy Alliance.

...

Amidst the continuous and steady hum of the hyper-curvature engine, the ship crossed dozens of light-years in just a few days, arriving at a busy wormhole hub.

The "deep space walker" silently glided into the magnificent swirling energy cloud constrained by force field generators.

In an instant, everything outside the ship turned into a chaotic torrent of light and shadow; conventional physical perception failed completely, with only the steady gravity and lighting inside the bridge indicating the reliability of the protective force field.

The crossing was so brief it felt like a mere daze; when the ship emerged from the exit at the other end, the starry sky before them had already changed its appearance.

After several more days of conventional curvature flight, the ship finally reached the gravitational boundary of Sentinel Starport.

At the heart of this sector, designated as a military exclusion zone, was a starport primary planet the size of a star.

It was a complete man-made metal planet, its surface covered in layers of composite armor and functional modules.

Countless giant heat dissipation grids, like the planet's meridians, continuously emitted a faint blue glow;

dense sensor arrays, communication antennas, and weapon platforms formed the "mountains" and "valleys" of the planet's surface;

and tens of thousands of large entry and exit ports, like bottomless holes on the planet, breathed in and out a constant stream of ships.

On the planetary orbit of this artificial star, dozens of clearly discernible defense and berthing orbits circled. In each orbit, several or even dozens of behemoths comparable in size to giant planets floated—

those were the symbols of an era in the history of human interstellar fleets: ruler-class planet battleships.

The dimensions of these planet battleships generally reached the level of standard gas giants, their main structures mostly spheres or ellipsoids composed of metal and high-strength composite materials.

They were interconnected by sprawling "docking connection components," forming a steel network that covered the entire orbit.

These connection components themselves were fully functional giant docks and logistics hubs, with various secondary berths, maintenance arms, material transmission pipelines, and energy transport cables branching out from their surfaces.

The era of planet battleships has passed. In the current stalemate between humans and the Zerg Swarm, rapid response, annihilating the enemy in its infancy, and preventing the Zerg Swarm from obtaining material support are the primary tasks.

Planet battleships, with their massive size, relatively sluggish mobility, and overly concentrated value, make it difficult for them to deal with high-intensity, high-mobility Zerg Swarm main force raids.

They have withdrawn from the ranks of frontline decisive weapons, turning instead to take on the most core roles of logistics support, strategic command, deep space manufacturing, and permanent fortress support.

Besides these steel behemoths in orbit, the space of the entire Guardian sector was fully utilized. Ubiquitous automated defense platforms formed an airtight three-dimensional fire network—

from "Fortress Platforms" equipped with heavy particle beam cannons to "Floating Turrets" carrying intelligent missile clusters, they were distributed around key orbital nodes and space corridors according to strict algorithms.

There were even countless reconnaissance probes and micro-sensors as tiny as dust, numbering in the hundreds of millions, forming the nerve endings that covered every corner of the sector.

Zooming in, the focus shifted to those connection components and secondary docks. What was moored there were the true blades of the Watcher Legion today.

There were rapid rescue boats and assault gunboats as small as only a few kilometers in length, agile and swift, usually moored in groups beside the motherships like remoras clinging to giant whales;

there were also destroyers and cruisers ranging from dozens to over a hundred kilometers in length, with cold lines and weapon ports covering their hulls;

and even battlecruisers and battleships reaching lengths of several hundred or nearly a thousand kilometers.

It is worth noting that no traditional "aircraft carriers" can be seen here—

in the current era where planet battleships take on the role of super mobile bases, the tactical status of dedicated carriers has long been replaced.

Countless maintenance robots—from nano-repair clusters as small as insects to intelligent mechanical arms the size of large engineering vehicles—shuttled and worked within this vast "steel jungle," with welding sparks and the cold glow of cutting beams flickering everywhere like fireflies in a forest.