380: Tears of God

Yukun stood on the flagship's bridge, her knuckles bloodless and white from gripping the alloy railing.

Outside the panoramic viewport was the Order Star God, Taiyi, who had just devoured half a planet.

The golden light flowing around its body, which should have symbolized Order and harmony, now radiated a pressure that made the fundamental rules of the universe tremble.

The shattered remnants of the Three-Body Star, like a rotten fruit gnawed away, floated "behind" it, silently narrating the god's cruelty and indifference.

A minute ago, she had witnessed a hellish scene.

Continental plates were like ceramic saucers smashed by a child; oceans of scorching magma were drawn away by an unseen force, transforming into ribbons of energy coiling around the divine body.

Forcibly condensing a physical form from the mass of half a planet—this was a madness immeasurable by mortal thought.

"All units, maximum combat readiness! Drone bays, full salvo!" Yukun's voice transmitted through the fleet broadcast.

It was cold, without a ripple, forcefully suppressing the physiological tremor that had risen in her throat from witnessing the planet's disintegration.

She was the backbone of this fleet; she could not bend.

"First to tenth waves, saturation attack sequence initiated!" The adjutant's roar echoed on the bridge.

In an instant, like a swarm of bees leaving a hive on a cosmic scale, millions of drones surged out from the launch ports of each ship, forming a metallic tide that blotted out the starlight.

The missile contrails, the eerie blue beams of plasma cannons, and the pale trajectories of railgun projectiles painted the dark void into a spectrum of death.

This torrent of firepower, enough to instantly reduce a Ceres-sized celestial body to elementary particles, poured down upon the towering Star God.

However, this ultimate creation of mortal wisdom appeared so pale before the Star God.

Taiyi didn't even make an obvious defensive posture; the golden radiance naturally flowing around its body formed an incomprehensible absolute barrier.

The drone swarm crashed into it like moths to a flame; even the explosion's flash was silently swallowed and annihilated by the golden light, leaving only subtle ripples.

The dense firepower only caused a slight delay in the energy flow on Taiyi's surface, as if a surging river had encountered a few insignificant pebbles.

"Attack ineffective! Repeat, attack ineffective!" The operator's voice was laced with desperate sobs, "Energy readings dropped by less than 0.001%!"

Yukun's fingernails almost dug into the alloy railing in her palm. She saw Taiyi's indifferent, all-ignoring "face" slowly turn towards the fleet array, and finally, its hollow gaze locked onto one of the fleet's core vessels, the carrier-class battleship "Orca."

Then, a golden teardrop, viscous like liquid amber, slowly seeped from Taiyi's eye, condensed into form, and refracted a cold luster in the vacuum.

"High energy reaction! Unidentifiable energy fluctuation! Source, Taiyi's eye!" The radar officer's shriek pierced the oppressive atmosphere of the bridge.

On the surface of that teardrop, a visible, invisible fluctuation suddenly appeared. It then stretched and deformed, transforming into a column of distorted fluctuation, visible to the naked eye, spanning the cosmos, silent but shooting directly towards the Orca at an unimaginable speed!

"All shields overloaded! Evade! Evade now!" The Orca's captain's roar exploded through the comms channel.

The ship's AI reacted half a second faster, but it was of little use.

At that speed, everything was futile.

The Orca's proud multi-layered combined shields—electromagnetic barriers, deflection fields, energy absorption layers—were as fragile as glass bottles exposed to a hammer before that fluctuation column.

The moment of contact, the dazzling white light of the overloaded shield generators flashed and vanished, then, like a popped soap bubble, silently and completely collapsed.

The massive carrier was completely exposed to the cold vacuum and the Star God's undisguised malice.

"Whale Shark!" Yukun almost didn't hesitate; the Order instantly reached through the encrypted channel, "Short-range Warp! Block in front of the Orca!"

"Whale Shark understands." The Whale Shark's captain's voice was unusually calm. This slightly smaller but equally crucial carrier's engines instantly overloaded, erupting in a dark blue exhaust, and space around its hull warped.

The next second, it had audaciously appeared on the fatal path between Taiyi and the Orca through a precise and risky short-range warp, building a defensive line with its broad hull.

"Orca, warp to the edge of the star system immediately! Disengage from combat, repair defenses!" Yukun ordered next.

She was betting that for the Star God to unleash an attack of this level, there must be a "cooldown period" for energy convergence or rule invocation.

The Whale Shark's defensive systems could at least buy time for one attack.

The Orca's captain gritted his teeth, facial muscles twitching. The feeling of being forced to be a "deserter" on the battlefield made him extremely frustrated, but he knew it was the only chance for the Orca to survive.

"Warp Engine maximum power! Deep space coordinates set! Hurry!"

However, Yukun miscalculated.

Just as the Whale Shark had disengaged from warp, and its hull had not yet fully stabilized from the spatial ripples, Taiyi's second golden teardrop had already fallen.

The second destructive fluctuation column, with no less speed and power than the previous one, tore through space!

"No—!" Yukun's pupils contracted sharply.

This time, the target of the attack was none other than the Whale Shark, which had just exited warp!

More fatally, the Orca next to it had only just begun charging its Warp Engine. Calculating by the interval between the two attacks, the massive hull simply wouldn't have time to enter a safe warp state.

On the battlefield, the Company Fleet's only two carrier-class strategic cores were both exposed in a "armor-breached" naked state, within the Star God's next attack's deadly firing range.

"Damn it!" The Whale Shark's captain, seeing the golden light of death rushing towards him, a fierce glint flashed in his eyes, "All hands, attention! Prepare for collision! Warp Engine overload!"

"Ram that thing directly. Even if we can't take it down together, I'll at least chip one of its teeth!"

This was suicide, a futile effort, but it was also the only way he could think of in despair to buy that slim chance of survival for his allied ship.

Its direction and speed would allow it to warp directly into Taiyi's face before the next attack arrived.

If lucky, it might even enter a state of spatial overlap.

This was a situation that had to be avoided in the warp procedure manual, as it would lead to a large-scale spatial collapse. Although it would eventually return to normal, nothing in that area could be expected to continue existing.

And now, this error, which should not occur, became the best weapon the Whale Shark's captain could think of.

The Whale Shark's engine nozzles erupted in an abnormal, incandescent white light, its bow aimed at Taiyi's divine body, and it began to accelerate without hesitation.

Yukun's heart almost stopped beating.

She watched with wide eyes as a third teardrop rapidly condensed at the corner of Taiyi's eye; the third attack was about to descend. And this time, no other battleship could stand in front of the Whale Shark and the Orca.

The flagship could block, but its even greater size and weight meant it couldn't possibly catch up. Moreover, it couldn't block.

It's over.

This thought uncontrollably surged into Yukun's mind; she seemed to see the image she least wanted to recall.

Just at this critical moment, an unexpected change occurred!

The impending third attack, that terrifying energy fluctuation capable of annihilating a carrier, actually... paused.

Taiyi's immensely vast divine body clearly hesitated. The golden teardrop condensing at its eye ceased to grow, and the precursory energy of the attack, as if choked by an invisible hand, rapidly dissipated.

Its "gaze," which had been indifferently watching the fleet, seemed to shift by an extremely tiny amount, as if sensing something more important.

The immense contrast of surviving a catastrophe made Yukun dizzy; she clung to the railing, barely preventing herself from collapsing.

What's going on? Why did it stop?

"Lord Helmsman! Encrypted communication signal received from the Three-Body Star's surface! Source, Honeycomb Experimental City!" The communications officer exclaimed in disbelief, his voice distorted by excitement, "Comms restored!"

"It's Dr. Xia Er!"

Honeycomb Experimental City? It actually survived that planetary-level catastrophe just now?

That's right, there was indeed a chance for Honeycomb to survive on the remaining half of the relatively intact sphere.

Yukun abruptly looked up: "Connect him!"

The holographic projection flickered a few times, revealing Dr. Xia Er's weary but unusually excited face.

The background of his laboratory was a mess, but the core equipment seemed to still be running. It just looked a bit "floating," suggesting that gravity had changed.

"Commander Yukun! Listen!" Xia Er's voice was urgent and hoarse, "Time is limited, I'll tell you everything I just learned as quickly as possible!"

"This is the Order Star God Taiyi, and it is not in its complete form right now! It forcibly extracted the planet's essence, and its form is unstable!"

He waved his hands: "Pexito's power has disturbed its absolute Order! She is buying us time! Seize the moment, attack its body with all your might!"

"Full attack! Kinetic or thermal, any form will do!"

Yukun immediately understood why Taiyi had suddenly paused.

It wasn't mercy, but that reinforcements had arrived!

Although she didn't know who this Pexito was, if she could interfere with Taiyi, she was at least a top-tier Emissary.

Perhaps, even... The flame of hope rekindled in Yukun's eyes. No matter the origin of the reinforcements, the situation had turned around.

She took a deep breath and issued the most desperate and resolute Order since the start of the war over the fleet's full-frequency channel.

"All units! Disregard defenses! Disregard losses! Target Taiyi's divine body! Full firepower! Covering fire!"

"Let it taste the wrath of mortals!"

All battleships, their muzzles once again glowed with light condensed to the extreme.

This time, it was no longer for deterrence or probing, but for, god-slaying!