223: The Consul's Trial and the Last Line of Defense

Cloud City, Supreme Council Hall.

The holographic projection slowly dissipated in the air, the image of Valerius being thrown into the vacuum like a frozen rest note.

No roars, no crisp sounds of shattering cups.

Augustus sat on the obsidian throne, symbolizing the highest authority in the pan-universe, his hands clasped under his chin. His heart rate monitoring data was projected at the edge of his retina, the green line as flat as a corpse's.

“One hundred and twenty-seven years.”

Augustus’s voice echoed in the empty hall, so calm it sent chills down one’s spine. “Valerius fought for the Alliance for one hundred and twenty-seven years. He destroyed thirty rebellious civilizations and burned seven star systems to glass.”

He lifted his eyelids, looking at the dark figure standing at the bottom of the steps.

“And now, he’s thrown out like a bag of trash.”

At the bottom of the steps, Prax remained silent.

He wore a matte black power armor without any reflective coating, standing there like a black hole that swallowed light. This armor, named “Night Owl,” was the pinnacle of Alliance technology; every servo motor was silenced, so even when he moved, not a single sound of mechanical operation could be heard.

“This is a desecration of order.”

Augustus stood up, adjusting his unwrinkled cuffs. “Since commercial rules can’t control these beasts, then activate the ‘Purge Protocol’.”

He extended a finger and lightly tapped in the void.

A red command stream instantly penetrated layers of encrypted networks, reaching the front lines.

“I want Hanhai Base turned into cosmic dust. I want that Chen Feng to kneel before Valerius’s tombstone and repent.”

“As for that experimental subject...”

Augustus’s gaze fell on Prax. “That’s a blemish on the Titan Project. Prax, you go take care of it.”

The black faceplate lifted slightly.

“No need for a fleet.”

Prax’s voice, processed, sounded like a low hum of metal friction. “Give me an assault boat. I’ll personally rip out that imposter’s spine.”

Augustus waved his hand. “Granted.”

...Hanhai Base, Combat Command Center.

The alarm blared hoarsely, and the red lights made everyone’s faces look ghostly.

Su Li stared intently at the main radar screen, her hands trembling violently on the control panel, her fingernails almost digging into the metal surface.

“They’re insane... they’re all insane...”

Her voice held a hint of desperate crying.

The radar screen no longer had a black background.

Dense red dots converged into a red ocean, surging from all directions, tightly encircling the faint blue dot representing Hanhai Base.

Data streams refreshed frantically:

[“Consul” class battleship signal detected: 3000 vessels]

[“Judge” class heavy cruiser signal detected: 12000 vessels]

[Enemy total force assessment: 145 times Hanhai’s defensive strength]

This was not war.

This was a massacre.

“Consul” class battleships were the Alliance’s trump card, strategic deterrent weapons. The main cannon power of each was enough to blast a hole straight through the Earth’s crust to its core. Usually, this level of force was only deployed to destroy a stellar civilization.

And now, they came overwhelmingly, obscuring the light of the stars, plunging the sky above Hanhai Base into eternal night prematurely.

“All communication channels are messed up!”

An intelligence officer took off his headset, shouting in terror, “The frontline Exile Fleet is retreating! They’ve never seen anything like this! Some are trying to surrender, others are scrambling for escape pods!”

Fear spread through the command center like a plague.

The fanaticism from defeating the Phantom Fleet earlier was as fragile as a sheet of paper before this absolute violence, easily pierced.

“Snap.”

A crisp snap abruptly cut through all the noise.

All communication channels were forcibly muted.

Chen Feng walked onto the command platform, his leather shoes making rhythmic “tap, tap” sounds on the metal floor.

He still held the unfinished synthetic wine in his hand, looking as composed as if he were inspecting work.

“What’s the panic?”

Chen Feng walked to Su Li’s side and placed his hand on her trembling shoulder. His palm was dry and warm, providing a strange sense of calm.

“This is the Alliance you fear?”

Chen Feng turned around, looking at the suffocating red ocean on the large screen, a mocking curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

“This means they’re desperate. Augustus is desperate.”

He raised his wine glass, toasting the screen from afar.

“If it were a few ships, they’d be here to suppress bandits. But tens of thousands of ships...” Chen Feng’s voice suddenly rose, spreading throughout the entire base via forced broadcast, “They’re here to deliver money!”

“Open all-frequency broadcast.”

Chen Feng put down his wine glass, adjusted his tie, and his eyes instantly sharpened like blades.

“Tell everyone, this isn’t a disaster. This is Hanhai Trade’s biggest ‘demolition business’ since its establishment.”

“As long as we survive this wave, the wreckage of those warships will be enough to feed us for a hundred years!”

His voice was steady and powerful, carrying the madness and confidence of a gambler going all-in. This almost blind composure was like a powerful shot in the arm, injecting itself into the morale of the army on the verge of collapse.

In the previously chaotic communication channels, the gasping sounds gradually subsided.

Indeed.

They were going to die anyway.

What if they fought with this crazy boss and won?

...Outside the base, the first line of defense.

This was a hastily built position. Abandoned containers, scrapped spaceship hulls, and even hollowed-out asteroids were haphazardly piled up to form a crude steel Great Wall.

Jax sat in a mech that had just been painted with the Ascendant Alliance emblem.

This mech was a patchwork job; its left arm was an excavator shovel from an engineering robot, and its right arm was welded with an old-fashioned cannon scavenged from the black market.

But he didn’t retreat.

Behind him were tens of thousands of exiles, also piloting various mechs and armed with crude weapons.

They looked at the oppressive steel canopy above, at the battleships larger than their home planets, their throats dry, their legs weak.

But no one ran away.

Because Chen Feng had said that dying on their feet was their only entry ticket.

“Buzz—”

A low hum came from deep within the base.

The ground began to tremble.

Thousands of silver-white metal towers rose from underground; these were the automated defense matrices supported by the Mechanical Divine Court.

Immediately after, blue energy streams converged at the tower peaks, intertwining in mid-air to form a massive, translucent energy dome, enveloping the entire Hanhai Base.

“The Divine Court’s turtle shell is up!”

Someone shouted in the communication channel, their tone carrying a hint of surprise at a narrow escape.

Jax gripped the joystick, his palms slick with sweat.

“Brothers.”

He roared into the channel, his voice slightly distorted by tension, “Don’t embarrass the boss. Even if we die, we have to chip a tooth off them!”

“For the Alliance!”

Scattered roars erupted, then converged into a wave... In space.

The Alliance First Combined Fleet flagship, the “Arbiter”.

The bridge was as spacious as a football field. Hundreds of officers in crisp uniforms were busy at their posts, without a hint of panic, only the cold precision of a finely tuned machine.

The Fleet Commander looked at the illuminated blue shield on the tactical board, a trace of disdain flashing in his eyes.

“The Mechanical Divine Court’s deflection shield? It’s a bit troublesome, indeed.”

He snorted coldly, “But in the face of absolute firepower density, skill is meaningless.”

“Orders.”

The Commander raised his hand, as if shooing a fly. “First volley. Saturation strike. I don’t want to see that shield still active in ten seconds.”

“Yes!”

The next second.

The starry sky lit up.

Tens of thousands of battleships’ main cannons charged simultaneously, their dazzling light eclipsing the stars.

No probing, no calls for surrender.

Tens of thousands of thick beams of light, like a divine downpour, poured down on the tiny base with the will to destroy everything.

The silent vacuum was torn by energy.

The beam rain struck the blue shield.

“Boom—!!!”

Though there was no sound in space, the energy fluctuations that erupted in that instant made everyone in the base skip a heartbeat.

The sky turned into a blinding white day.

That blue shield violently twisted in the first second, emitting a mournful groan of overload. Countless cracks spread across the light curtain like a spiderweb, as if it would shatter completely in the next moment.

“Warning! Shield generator overloaded by 90%!”

“Warning! C-zone energy node melted!”

“Warning! Deflection field about to fail!”

Eve’s usually calm electronic voice was now as rapid as a countdown.

Inside the base, the ground vibrated wildly. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the indicator lights of precision instruments all turned a dazzling red.

“Hold on!”

Reno roared into the channel, his massive mechanical arm pressing hard against the shaking command console. “Route all backup power! Don’t let it break!”

...Just as everyone’s attention was drawn to the world-ending bombardment above.

No one noticed.

Under the cover of the sky-filling beam rain, an inconspicuous black spacecraft, only the size of an escape pod, was silently weaving through the gaps of destruction like a swimming fish.

It had no shields, no weapons.

It relied on an extremely bizarre phase stealth technology.

Whenever a beam was about to hit it, its hull would instantly become transparent, as if entering another dimension, allowing the energy capable of vaporizing steel to pass right through it.

This was the “Night Owl” assault boat.

Inside the cockpit, Prax looked expressionlessly at the approaching Hanhai Base.

A red coordinate was locked on his retina.

That was Chen Feng’s location.

“Foolish barrier.”

Prax muttered softly.

He abruptly pushed the joystick.

The black assault boat turned into an afterimage, crashing straight into the crumbling shield.

No collision.

No explosion.

The assault boat, like a drop of ink dissolving in water, bizarrely penetrated the defensive field that even battleship main cannons couldn’t breach.

“Sizzle—”

Inside the shield, the air slightly distorted.

The black hull materialized, hovering above the base.

The hatch popped open.

Prax leaped down from a hundred meters high.

“Boom!”

He struck the plaza outside the command center like a heavy bomb. The alloy ground instantly collapsed, sending out a visible shockwave.

The dust settled.

The dark figure slowly straightened up.

He looked up, his eyes hidden behind the faceplate staring intently at the huge floor-to-ceiling window of the command center.

Through the glass, he saw Chen Feng standing inside, and also the young man standing behind Chen Feng.

Prax drew the weapon from his back.

It wasn’t a gun.

But a jagged black chainsword, still dripping with plasma fluid.

“Found you.”

At the same time.

In the sky, the struggling blue shield finally let out a crisp shattering sound under the immense pressure of the second volley.

“Crack.”

A massivecrack (crack) tore across the firmament.

Beams of destruction pierced through the crack, like the Sword of Damocles, striking directly downwards.