118: Temple Star No. 18

After leaving the gravitational embrace of the Solar System, the human First Interstellar Fleet plunged into that suffocating, ancient darkness.

Although the faint blue tail flames spewed by the antimatter engines carved a magnificent ribbon of light hundreds of kilometers long in the vacuum, as if trying to etch humanity's mark on the canvas of the universe, this massive fleet was as insignificant as dust drifting in the ocean compared to the vast journey measured in light-years.

Interstellar travel was never a romantic affair. Once the initial passion and grandeur faded, what remained was endless monotony, loneliness, and the deadly crises that could descend at any moment.

Six months after setting sail, the fleet encountered its first severe test.

"Warning! Dense rock clusters detected in the flight path ahead."

Inside the bridge of the flagship pacific, the piercing alarm shattered the tranquility that had been as regular as clockwork.

At this moment, the fleet had accelerated to 5% of the speed of light. At this speed, the kinetic energy generated by the impact of even a grain-sized piece of space dust would be comparable to a large-caliber armor-piercing shell, and they were about to face a deadly barrage composed of hundreds of millions of such "bullets."

"Magnetic shields at full power output! Laser close-in weapon systems, prepare! All ships maintain dense formation, using the flagship as a shield!" Commander Li Zhenhua's voice was as steady as iron.

The fleet quickly contracted, and the pacific, with its thickest armor and most powerful shields, took the lead.

Soon, the silent impacts began.

Dense blue ripples erupted on the surface of the shields—sparks from the violent collision of energy and kinetic force. Occasionally, a few larger meteorites penetrated the shields and smashed heavily into the hull armor, emitting a teeth-grinding sound of twisting metal.

"Armor damage in the port side D4 area! Air-tightness decreasing!"

"Number 3 thruster cooling pipeline breached! Antimatter catalytic reactor temperature is rising!"

Bad news followed one after another. In that extremely dangerous high-speed state, even the smallest failure could trigger a chain reaction, causing the entire warship to turn to ash in an antimatter explosion.

"Engineering team, with me!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Chief Engineer Wang Kai, responsible for the propulsion system, donned his heavy magnetic exoskeleton armor and led a team of elite engineers and repair robots out of the airlock.

In the near-absolute zero vacuum and a relative speed of 15,000 kilometers per second, they were like geckos clinging to the edge of a cliff. Wang Kai used his magnetic boots to hold onto the trembling hull, while the laser welder in his hand spewed blinding light, cutting off the damaged pipelines and completing a bypass connection in just a few minutes.

When he returned to the airlock, his life-support system alarm had been sounding for three minutes, and his anti-radiation coating was almost completely stripped away.

This was just a small episode in the long journey.

Following this were the psychological challenges.

"Deep space claustrophobia" began to spread among some of the younger crew members.

The unchanging starry sky outside the window and the sense of despair from being far from home and isolated gnawed at people's minds like a poisonous snake.

To deal with this problem, the fleet activated the highest level of psychological intervention mechanism.

Every day, crew members were forced to enter full-immersion virtual reality pods to spend two hours in the perfect Earth environment built by AI—such as surfing in a virtual Hawaii, skiing in the virtual Alps, or simply sitting in a virtual home having dinner with an AI-simulated family. Of course, many people also chose to indulge in virtual games.

The psychological monitoring algorithms provided by Paradox Technology scanned everyone's mental state in real-time. Once fluctuations were detected, psychologists and political commissars would immediately intervene.

On the technical level, the long-term stability of the antimatter engines was also tested.

When they reached the eighteenth month of the voyage, an extremely dangerous resonance phenomenon occurred in the magnetic containment bottle of a frigate. The antimatter mass began to vibrate unstably and could annihilate against the wall at any moment.

At that critical moment, the fleet's scientists did not choose to abandon the ship.

Through the combined computing power of the shipborne mainframes, they recalculated a new magnetic field frequency model in just ten seconds and remotely injected it into the frigate's control system via the data link, forcibly suppressing the restless light of destruction.

Just as Lei Wen said, human learning and adaptability are infinite.

In this dark deep space without any outside help, these children from Earth learned how to dance with death.

They patched leaks, soothed minds, and became increasingly resilient and mature through crisis after crisis.

The fleet continued to accelerate, moving forward unswervingly toward that purple galaxy.

...

Hundreds of light-years away, at the junction of the Orion Arm and the Perseus Arm, another completely different "voyage" was unfolding.

It was a rout, a great escape.

With the destruction of the Iofer Federation capital, the Gate of Hell, the crazy all-out attack launched by Iofer Federation Speaker Barlena to cover up the truth and divert internal conflicts finally became the last straw that broke the camel—the Angel Theocracy Empire.

The Abyss Nebula defense line, which the Angel people had guarded for nearly a thousand years, finally collapsed across the board under the reckless onslaught of the Iof People.

This was not a tactical retreat, but a strategic avalanche.

On the Star Map, the golden territory symbolizing the Angel Empire was being swallowed by a dark red tide at an astonishing speed.

Dozens of resource star systems fell one after another within days. The iofer fleet was like a pack of sharks that had smelled blood, hunting down fleeing Angel ships everywhere.

The command chain of the Angel people had completely collapsed.

Because the nodes of the psionic communication towers were pulled out one by one, the Empire's proud super-light-speed communication network became fragmented. Frontline generals could not contact the rear General Staff and High Priest, and sub-fleets lost coordination, forced to fight on their own, only to be defeated one by one by the superior forces of the Iof People.

This was a silent tragedy.

Several major super-light-speed routes connecting the core area of the Perseus Arm were crowded with tens of thousands of ships.

These were refugee fleets trying to escape the war, as well as remnant fleets escorting high-ranking imperial officials and important assets.

However, the rapid assault fleet of the Iof People did not let them go.

Against the backdrop of the gorgeous yet cruel nebula, countless white Angel civilian ships were pierced by the red beams of the Iof People, silently disintegrating in space like birds with broken wings, and the thousands of civilians inside instantly turned into ice sculptures.

And on those colonial planets that had not yet been evacuated, desperate resistance was playing out in every city and even in front of every temple.

...

Temple Planet No. 18, an important colony behind the Abyss Nebula.

There was no developed industry here, nor were there sturdy fortresses, only continuous white marble temples and devout believers. They communicated with The Void Realm through their sincere prayers and stored the obtained psionic energy into artificial psionic crystals to support the war on the front line.

But today, the holy land was burning.

The sky turned a nauseating dark red. That was not the light of a star, but the iofer warship groups densely packed in orbit blocking the sunlight.

Countless burning wrecks and huge landing pods dragged black smoke, smashing toward the ground like a meteor shower.

"For the True God! For the Empire!"

In front of a magnificent cathedral, the commander of the 7th Psionic Marine Corps of the Angel Empire's Temple Planet No. 18, a mid-level Psionic user with two pairs of wings named Saliel, held high the humming psionic lightsaber in his hand and let out a final roar.

Behind him were thousands of psionic warriors wearing platinum armor, and around them, the once-beautiful city had turned into ruins, with the smell of scorched plastic and blood permeating the air.

The trembling of the earth became increasingly violent.

In the pervasive smoke, huge and hideous figures appeared.

These were the ground main battle weapons of the Iofer Federation—the 【Hellfire】 heavy mechs.

These steel monsters, over ten meters tall and covered in armor plates and heavy weapons, took heavy steps, crushing exquisite statues and flower beds. Their dark red electronic eyes flickered with cold murderous intent, and the blaster cannons on their shoulders began to preheat and rotate.

"Fire!"

With a roar that shattered eardrums, a dense rain of kinetic bullets swept over like a storm.

"Form up! Holy Shield!"

Saliel shouted, and all the psionic warriors simultaneously raised the psionic generators on their left arms. A dazzling golden light connected, forming a translucent psionic barrier in front of the formation.

The blaster rounds hit the barrier, sparking circles of golden ripples, and the shockwave of the explosion completely blew away the surrounding broken walls.

But this was just the beginning.

The iofer mechs not only had long-range firepower but also brutal melee capabilities.

A dozen vanguard mechs activated the thrusters on their backs and rushed into the Angel people's lines like cannonballs. They brandished huge chainswords and high-frequency oscillating axes, each swing bringing up a rain of blood.

"Kill!"

Saliel flapped his four wings, and his whole body turned into a golden stream of light as he met them.

He nimbly dodged the giant axe chop of a mech in the air, and the psionic lightsaber in his hand instantly swelled to three meters long, slashing heavily at the mech's cockpit with high-frequency psionic energy capable of cutting molecular bonds.

"Zzz—!"

Accompanied by the harsh sound of metal cutting, that seemingly indestructible heavy mech was forcibly split in half, and the iofer pilot inside was vaporized by high temperature before he could even scream.

"Divine Punishment!"

The psionic warlocks behind Saliel also began to counterattack. They chanted spells, and blasts of psychic shock and psionic telekinesis bombarded the mech groups.

Although the Angel people's technology tree was skewed, their psionic power was indeed a sharp weapon for infantry to fight against armored units.

Heavy mechs were paralyzed and short-circuited in the psionic storm, or even crushed by powerful telekinesis.

The battle entered a white-hot state.

This was a fierce collision of flesh and steel, faith and machinery.

The ground was piled with mech wrecks and the broken corpses of Angel warriors. Golden blood and black machine oil mixed together, flowing on the white marble square.

However, no matter how heroic the Angel warriors were, the direction of the battle was already doomed.

They had long since completely lost air superiority.

In the sky, an iofer cruiser slowly lowered its altitude, and its huge shadow completely shrouded the battlefield.

The heavy gun muzzles under the ship's belly began to flash with destructive light.

Saliel looked up at the warship, a flash of despair in his eyes.

He could feel that his psionic energy was about to be exhausted, and the warriors around him were becoming fewer and fewer.

He tried to contact his own fleet in orbit, but there was only deathly silence in the communication channel, and then he tried to pray for the arrival of the True God, but only the crazy artillery fire of the Iof People responded to him.

"God... have you abandoned us?"

Saliel muttered to himself.

But he did not flinch. He had been awarded the Third-Class Seraph Medal, he had his own honor, and behind him was the cathedral where the holy relics were kept; he had nowhere to retreat.

"Everyone! Burn your psionic energy! This is the final battle!"

The remaining hundreds of warriors resolutely overdrawn their life force. The golden light on their bodies became unprecedentedly dazzling, like hundreds of burning small suns.

They no longer defended, but launched a desperate counter-charge toward the mech legion surging like a tide.

At that moment, they really looked like a group of Angels with broken wings, blooming with their final radiance in the dark abyss.

Boom—

But the cruiser in the sky fired.

A thick beam of energy descended from the sky, instantly swallowing the entire square.

The cathedral, the statues, and those heroic Angel warriors... all were instantly vaporized in this destructive white light, leaving no trace behind.

Three days later, Temple Planet No. 18 fell.

This was just a microcosm of the collapsing map of the entire Angel Empire.

In the vast sea of stars, countless similar planets were burning, and countless devout souls were fading away in despair.