Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Although the crystal suits fled crazily the moment they heard the earsplitting alarms, the Gold Vulture’s ubiquitous rays of destruction had locked onto them in advance.

Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts and killing intent tied up the limbs of those crystal suits and invaded their power units like invisible vines, making their evasion movements slow, twisted, and abnormal. Eventually, they were pierced through by the gold flying swords made of remnants, raising a series of explosions. The pieces caused by the explosions further produced even more, even sharper, and even more brilliant gold flying swords!

There was nothing but desperate silence on the bridge in the flagship of the Divine Rain Fleet.

As long as there was the tiniest crack on the determination to fight, it would inevitably collapse.

Besides, even if they were to concentrate all of their firepowers and destroy the Colossus at the price of several starships and hundreds of crystal suits, it would still be of no help to stop the entire Astounding Thunder Fleet’s thunderous strike.

Right then, the Divine Rain Fleet suddenly detected a second wave of weird and powerful waves near the No. 3 space gate. A great number of massive objects were slowly passing the wormholes and jumping to the Divine Rain Sector!

The intelligence burned up the last resolution of resistance in the Divine Rain Fleet.

With everything coming to this point, they could only pray that it was the reinforcements from other worlds or even the capital, who had received their distress signals that they sent out before the battle began.

However, the few experienced generals in the fleet vaguely felt that it was not right. It wasn’t long since the distress signals were sent out. Even if they were not blocked by the enemy’s interferences but delivered to the outside world successfully, it seemed unlikely for the allies to gather so quickly and jump over in reinforcement in a formation.

As it turned out, as the new fleet slowly revealed its hideous appearance, the shapes and models of the starships did not match those in the database of the Li family at all.

Also, it was not the emblem of the Li family on the newcomers, but “Honor the Majesty” on one side and “Settle the Rebellions” on the other, both written calligraphically.

They did not collide with the Astounding Thunder Fleet that was right next to them. Instead, they emitted signals in tacit understanding. Then, while the Astounding Thunder Fleet lunged at the Divine Rain Fleet, the new fleet charged at the No. 1 and No. 2 space gates of the Divine Rain Sector.

Queen Li Linghai’s Deep Sea Fleet had finally arrived!

The powerful reinforcement of the Deep Sea Fleet and the ruthless performance of Li Yao’s Gold Vulture completely destroyed the last bit of determination of resistance in the Divine Rain Fleet. The morale of the defenders was almost reduced to none.

The highest commander of the Divine Rain Fleet made the helpless and most judicious choice—to retreat!

The full-terrain starships that were smaller and could fight in the high-gravity environment within the atmosphere fell back to the main planet of the Divine Rain Sector and continued to resist the enemy based on the firepowers on the planet and on the orbit defense rings.

The heavy arsenal warships and the cruising motherships, which were too huge to land within the atmosphere, accelerated to their highest speed and escaped all the way to the edge of the Divine Rain Sector.

The battle formation of the Divine Rain Fleet had already taken shape. It was as difficult to turn it around instantly as to ask a running elephant to stop in half a second.

Lei Chenghu did not let go of the rare opportunity. He launched attacks at the critical moment when the entire Divine Rain Fleet was turning around. The fury of the “God of War” that had been repressed for a long time and the commanding arts that had been honed for a hundred years were all carried out, teaching the rookie soldiers of the Divine Rain Fleet a good lesson of what a real war was!

Li Yao took the chance to go on a killing spree in the chaotic battlefield in the Gold Vulture, training himself crazily with fire and blood, while he melted the violent strength of the “Supreme Emperor” deeply into his cells and his soul.

Crystal suits were crushed into smithereens, starships were riddled with holes, and Colossi were torn apart. It was needless to describe the goriness of the battle.

Under the cover of the ground-based firepower on the main planet, at the cost of half of the starships being damaged and destroyed, whatever left of the Divine Rain Fleet finally broke away from the battlefield and escaped to the dark universe far from the star in panic.

Strategically speaking, it was not a wrong choice.

The absolute strength of the four Kurfürst families was still far higher than the only two troops of the reformists, the Astounding Thunder Fleet and the Deep Sea Fleet.

Although the Astounding Thunder Fleet had blocked the outward communication of the Divine Rain Sector before the battle, such a blockage had a high consumption of spiritual energy, and the range of the blockage was very limited.

As long as the remaining soldiers of the Divine Rain Fleet fled to the edge of the Sector, there would always be a way to send the distress calls out.

By the time the army of the four Kurfürst families arrived, the remaining part of the Divine Rain Fleet would naturally be able to march back again in cooperation with the reinforcements!

Such a choice could “preserve the available forces as long as possible”. Nobody could argue that it was wrong.

However, under the current situation, such a choice also meant the resourceful main planet, the orbit docks outside of the main planet, and the three space gates were all given to the reformists for free.

The Divine Rain Planet boasted a very strong ground-based firepower, and it was defended by quite a few well-trained crystal suit legions with advanced gears. Should the landing battles really begin to compete over every street and alley, it would be impossible to occupy the planet without a couple of months.

However, the reformists did not need to go so far as to break into the atmosphere. Outside of the near-planet orbit, quite a few space warehouses had stored tremendous military assets.

Because the Divine Rain Sector was one of the main supply bases of the Li family, according to the tradition, the resources collected from the hundreds or so resource planets nearby would be shipped to the Divine Rain Planet first, where they would be refined and further manufactured in the factories, until they were finally packaged into military assets that could be directly allocated to the starships, the Colossi, or the individual soldiers.

Such refining, manufacturing, and packaging work naturally could not be done on the ground of the planet.

Shipping the resources weighing millions of tons would consume abundant fuel, and so would shipping the products back to beyond the atmosphere. Therefore, as long as the manufacturing and the packaging factories were deployed in the zero-gravity area above the atmosphere, the fuel cost would be saved.

It sounded like a very sensible and reasonable choice.

But at this moment, the spaceports, factories, and warehouses without the protection of the atmosphere all fell to the hands of the reformists.

Unfortunately, for the defense of the capital, those warehouses were all stashed with military assets that were enough for the next step of the Astounding Thunder Fleet and the Deep Sea Fleet.

As the No. 1 and No. 2 space gates were completely destroyed by the Deep Sea Fleet, and the navigation frequency of the No. 3 space gate was changed to something that only the reformists knew, the chaotic battle gradually died down, and the reformists got the situation in the Divine Rain Sector under control.

Although half of the Divine Rain Fleet was still fleeing and the other half was running about crazily on the battlefield like headless flies, and the ground of the Divine Rain Planet was still under the control of the defenders, the reformists had got the resources that they desired most as well as the initiative of the battle.

An invisible bridge of information was established between Iron Torrent, the flagship of the Astounding Thunder Fleet, and Dragon Abyss, the flagship of the Deep Sea Fleet. Millions of data streams were being exchanged quickly.

Li Linghai: “General Lei truly deserved to be called ‘God of War’. You have destroyed the enemy unstoppably like a thunderous rock. I’ve been thinking one thing lately. Now that a small Astounding Thunder Fleet is already so remarkable under your command, what miracles will you create if all the army of the Imperium is managed by you?”

Lei Chenghu: “You are flattering me, Your Grace. We have settled the enemy so quickly in this battle mainly because of the contributions of the amazing ‘Vulture Li Yao’ under your command. To be honest, before him, I never thought that a Colossus could be operated in such a way.”

Li Linghai: “In that case, if General Lei doesn’t mind, just let him stand by your side and play a more important role later.”

Lei Chenghu: “… Right now, our army has achieved the first goal in our strategy, but the situation is still highly treacherous. The fleets of the four Kurfürst families may show up and besiege us at any moment. Although we have controlled the only space gate of the Divine Rain Sector, given the enemy’s advantage in number, it is still possible for them to jump to the edge of the Divine Rain Sector secretly and establish three to five new space gates at the same time. We wouldn’t be able to discover and destroy all of them in time.

“Also, the ground-based firepower of the Divine Rain Planet is rather fierce. We cannot take it down any time soon. Even if we do, it will consume all of the resources we have just earned.

“I do not want my men to survive the barrage of the Covenant Alliance only to be torn into shreds by the Imperium’s own cannons.

“So, please fulfill your promise, Your Grace. Didn’t you say that you had abundant supporters within the Li family and that they would launch a small ‘coup’ in the Li family, seize the power of the Li family, and join the reformists the moment our army arrived here?”

“Rest assured.”

Li Linghai’s eyes were shimmering. “Please continue to clear the enemies in space. Leave everything else to me. I… will certainly win!”

In the secret communication room on Dragon Abyss, Li Linghai cut off the communication with Lei Chenghu and was caught in deep thought. Black flames seemed to be leaking out of the pores all over her body, enshrouding the white-haired witch in a cluster of black mists.

Dragon Abyss had accommodated a most advanced super-space communication base, which sent out a sharp signal half an hour ago that ripped apart the four-dimensional universe and shot in a certain mysterious direction.

However, it received no replies at all.

Li Linghai crossed her hands below her chin. Faced with the silent light beam, she did not seem to have any feelings.

However, the cracking sounds that the metal cabin wall emitted as it was squeezed and torn betrayed the anxiety and madness in her heart.

Finally—

Twisted colors spread out on the black light beam, like bubbles popping up in the stagnant water. The hundreds of bubbles congregated into a face that was rather similar to Li Linghai but was much older, wearier, and furious.