144: Chapter 148 This crystal now belongs to the Empire

The black battle axe frigate trailed a piercing, ghostly blue wake through the center of the dark star-shattered belt.

The dark gold engine, overloaded at full power, forcibly pushed this steel monster—which possessed no streamlining to speak of—to its physical limit speed.

In the center of the star field directly ahead, a massive lighthouse composed entirely of transistors and floating metal was emitting an extremely intense golden light.

Around the light, three full-strength formations, each painted with the emblems of different civilizations, were locked in a deadly struggle.

That was the core capture point of the Battle Royale format.

A sky full of crisscrossing laser beams and high-explosive particle beams wove a web of firepower with no blind spots within a radius of less than a hundred kilometers from the lighthouse.

Li Cang's fingers were clenched tightly on the armrests of his command chair, his eyes fixed on the rapidly expanding golden point of light on the holographic screen.

He did not activate the ship's side thrusters to perform any evasive maneuvers.

For a cobbled-together ship with a 99% disintegration rate, any sharp change in direction would cause the fragile keel to snap on the spot.

The battle axe frigate charged straight into the densest part of the firepower network.

The three opposing Commanders fighting in the central zone noticed this arrogant intruder almost simultaneously.

They didn't even have time to send a ceasefire agreement to each other.

An Elf Race Psionic Heavy Cannon Ship on the left and a Machine Ascension Civilization Interceptor on the right, acting on instinctive defensive reactions, simultaneously aimed their pre-heated main guns at this ugly black intruder.

Two high-frequency energy beams, thick enough to vaporize a small meteorite and interspersed with dozens of tracking micro-torpedoes, slammed heavily into the bow armor of the battle axe frigate.

A massive collision flash exploded in the vacuum.

The Commanders in the central zone reflexively waited for the system notification that this scrap ship had become space junk.

But after the flash faded,

The battle axe frigate had not deviated even slightly.

The mutant deflector net covering the exterior of the hull, which had a matte black texture, revealed its extremely unreasonable defensive mechanism during this concentrated fire.

When the high-energy rays hit it, it was like sinking into extremely viscous mud.

The beam's penetration was frantically consumed by the terrifying physical friction inside the field, leaving only ripples on the shield's surface.

The physical micro-torpedoes fared even worse.

The moment they touched this deflector net, their kinetic energy was forcibly stripped away by the turbulent gravitational flow within the shield, and their bodies were crushed into twisted iron lumps less than half a meter from the armor.

This mutant shield, forcibly fused from an advanced deflector shield blueprint and Warhammer crude armor under the suppression of two thousand points, used the most primitive physical hysteresis to neutralize these noble technological weapons.

Li Cang didn't look at the rate at which the shield percentage was dropping; he pushed the engine's throttle to the floor.

Twelve seconds.

Relying on this mud-like shield, the battle axe frigate forcibly tore through the crossfire blockade of the three formations.

The massive hull, carrying overwhelming kinetic energy, crashed head-on into the huge floating metal ring base beneath the central lighthouse.

There was a thunderous boom.

The ship's solid ram, welded together from anti-aircraft towers, plunged deep into the special alloy armor of the base.

The two massive man-made structures were now locked tightly together in space.

A violent structural vibration echoed through the interior of the lighthouse base.

The boarding forces of the three factions were currently gathered in the ring corridor above the base, fighting fiercely for the elevator leading to the top-level Crystal Authority Room.

This sudden, violent vibration caused them to temporarily stop their fire.

These elite soldiers, equipped with Psionic Lightswords and individual ion shields, hadn't yet figured out which starship dared to directly ram the system's core tower.

The alloy deck beneath their feet let out an extremely ear-piercing tearing sound.

The six waste discharge launch tube hatches of the battle axe frigate popped open once again.

Fourteen Astartes recruits wearing pure black masterwork armor were shot out of the hull by high-pressure gas like solid iron balls.

magnetic boots activated in mid-air.

The fourteen steel giants braved the violent, leaking air currents outside the base and landed precisely outside the entrance to the lighthouse's ring corridor.

Recruit Number One did not wait for assembly orders.

He raised his Heavy Bolter, which had been electromagnetically accelerated three times, and aimed it at the safety door of the corridor that had just closed.

The design strength of this door was sufficient to withstand continuous fire from individual laser cannons.

But the gun in his hand was loaded with depleted uranium armor-piercing bolt shells.

As the trigger was pulled, the bolt shell slammed into the center of the door panel.

The armor-piercing core pierced the surface armor and triggered a secondary explosion inside the door.

A large hole was blown in the safety door, and tongues of high-temperature fire mixed with metal fragments sprayed directly into the corridor.

The fourteen Astartes stepped over the fragments of the door and charged into this sealed ring corridor, which was less than three hundred meters long.

The three-party allied forces in the corridor hadn't yet recovered from the shock of the explosion.

The most brutal boarding meat grinder in the Warhammer system had already begun.

This was ultimate melee suppression.

Recruit Number Eight did not fire.

He pushed the motor of his high-frequency Chainsword straight to the redline.

An Elf Race swordsman wielding a Psionic Lightsword tried to use his agile movements to circle around to his side and cut him.

But Number Eight didn't even look at his movements.

His secondary heart pumped blood frantically as his massive body, clad in half a ton of power armor, crashed into him like a speeding tank.

The individual field shield the Elf was so proud of shattered like an eggshell before that absolute strength.

The Chainsword used no fancy sword techniques; it was just an extremely crude horizontal sweep.

The sawteeth bit into the Elf's thin armor.

Flesh and bone were instantly ground into a viscous paste.

On the other side, several semi-cyborg soldiers of the Machine Ascension Civilization raised their ion cutters, attempting to focus fire on the Fourteenth Recruit.

The Fourteenth Recruit's left hand had been severed at the elbow by the poison circle while he was grabbing the blueprints earlier, leaving him with only the Power Claw on his right arm.

He strode forward into the ion rays.

Several extremely high-temperature beams hit his black masterwork armor, scorching the anti-slip paint on the surface, but they were unable to penetrate that thick ceramic shield.

Fourteenth rushed in front of them.

His Power Claw directly gripped the metal head of the foremost semi-cyborg soldier.

Before the opponent could activate a self-destruct sequence,

The terrifying hydraulic power at his fingertips suddenly clamped shut, crushing the electronic brain and spare organic tissue together into a lump of sparking scrap.

He used the headless corpse as a throwing weapon, hurling it violently at the firing point behind that was currently reloading.

There was no tactical cover in this corridor, and no room to maneuver.

It was all one-sided crushing.

The fourteen Astartes were like fourteen uncontrolled lawnmowers.

Whether it was psionic shields or composite armor, under the impact of solid bolt shells and the high-frequency tearing of Chainswords, everything was turned into severed limbs and broken arms scattered across the corridor floor.

In less than five minutes,

The entire ring corridor was completely smeared with purple, green, and red blood.

Not a single alien soldier lived to retreat back to the central elevator.

Recruit Number One waded through the blood that reached past his boots and kicked open the door to the top-level authority room.

In the center of the authority room,

The golden High-Dimensional Crystal, representing core control of the Battle Royale area, was floating on a precise field base.

Inside the cockpit,

Li Cang watched the images sent back by Recruit Number One's helmet camera.

He did not hesitate.

His finger pressed down hard on the remote command interface.

"Pull it out."

Recruit Number One strode up the steps of the base.

He didn't try to hack the field, nor did he enter any operational passwords.

That power gauntlet, still stained with Elf Race brain matter, reached directly into the field and firmly grasped the high-temperature golden crystal.

The field base emitted an extremely ear-piercing system alarm, attempting to forcibly eject the external intrusion.

The Astartes' servo motors let out a pained groan under the high temperature, but that hand remained as steady as a mountain.

With a crisp sound of crystal snapping,

The High-Dimensional Crystal was forcibly torn from the power platform.

The light of the entire central lighthouse was completely extinguished at that moment.

The sky of the Battle Royale area darkened for a moment.

Immediately after,

The server-wide public frequency was forcibly covered by a sheet of extremely eye-catching, blood-red characters.

[Global Announcement: Central Energy Lighthouse has been forcibly seized.]

[Acquiring Faction: Unknown Black Box Civilization (Coordinates have been made public globally).]

[All current high-level resource outputs in the region will tilt toward these coordinates.]

[Global aggro lock activated; this civilization has become the ultimate wanted target for this session.]

The moment this announcement flashed, Li Cang's holographic radar exploded with a dense cluster of deep red light dots.

The high-tier fleets on the periphery, which had just been watching each other or hiding from the poison circle,

Now all acted like sharks that had caught the scent of blood, turning their main gun pre-heating lock signals toward this black battle axe stuck on the lighthouse base.

This was no longer a three-way brawl.

This was the whole world as the enemy.

Li Cang looked at the screen full of red lights flashing due to the locks.

He threw the golden crystal he had just seized, which was releasing a massive amount of basic repair resources, into the system conversion slot.

"Everyone, switch to Chainswords."

He didn't plan on running.

"Prepare to welcome the second wave of delivery guys."