114: The truth from thirty-five years ago

On the other side, in the star system neighboring the Faleimland System, designated as the B-79 star system.

This was originally a desolate star system that contained nothing but a violent B-type blue giant, but at this moment, it had become the starting point for the entire Faleim Civilization's will for vengeance.

A massive Quantum Slingshot floated quietly in the near-orbit of the blue giant. Although it was merely a simplified, small-scale version of a true Quantum Slingshot, it was still a breathtakingly magnificent, giant ring structure. It utilized the infinite energy released by the star to create an extremely unstable spacetime singularity at the center of the ring.

That was a one-way door to a distant shore, a realm that only civilizations possessing extremely advanced space and field technology dared to tread.

However, restricted by the fact that this star was not a neutron star, the depth of its gravitational potential well was insufficient to support the massive mass of the entire Third Interstellar Expedition Fleet for a one-time projection.

After billions of simulations by the Truth Ring supercomputer, an optimized allocation plan was presented to the desk of Consul Price.

A task force fleet known as "Heavenly Punishment" was quickly assembled.

The scale of this fleet was not large in the history of Faleim People's wars; one could even say it was somewhat meager.

The flagship was a Paradox-class battlecruiser with an eerie, geometric aesthetic—the causality.

Surrounding this giant ship were 5 Sciences End-class battleships representing the power of destruction, 10 High-Energy Radiation-class destroyers known for their speed and high-frequency firepower, and 20 Time-Layering-class frigates responsible for escort and electronic suppression.

A total of 36 warships.

This was the maximum mass that the small Quantum Slingshot could carry in a single launch.

"This is enough."

Lei Wen's holographic projection spoke to Price, "Go and scout the bottom first. If the opponent's strength exceeds our estimates, we will proceed to the next step of the plan."

"Initiate launch sequence."

As the order was issued, the solar prominences on the surface of the B-79 star seemed to be pulled.

The ring structure of the Quantum Slingshot began to spin crazily, and the micro-singularity expanded instantly, compressing the surrounding spacetime to the extreme like a stretched rubber band.

The 36 warships turned into a stream of light that could not be captured by the naked eye, rushing into the distorted spacetime vortex.

This operation did not involve a long voyage, nor did the crew experience tedious waiting.

At the quantum level, distance has no meaning.

Almost at the same instant, in a strange star field about 95 light-years away from the Faleimland System, space shattered like a mirror, and the task force fleet jumped out of thin air.

This was a chaotic star field filled with interstellar dust and fragmented asteroid belts, where the light of the stars was obscured and dim.

"All-ship self-check complete, energy shields at full capacity, weapons systems online."

On the bridge of the causality, the task force commander, Major General Sal, was a soldier who was even colder and more reverent of pure violence than Trier.

He glanced at the Star Map, which were the coordinates calculated by tracing back photon information through the sentry array.

"Activate wide-area scanning, search for characteristic signals."

Just a few minutes later, the radar officer's voice rang out: "Commander, a high-frequency signal band has been captured! The characteristics of this band are 98.7% similar to the probe that intruded into our home system thirty-five years ago! The signal source is moving, about 5 light-hours away from us!"

"Got you." A glint of bloodthirst flashed in Sal's eyes.

...

In the cosmic space about 5.4 billion kilometers away from the task force fleet, a heavy transport fleet belonging to the Iofer Federation was struggling to pass through this asteroid belt.

This fleet consisted of over two hundred giant armed transport ships fully loaded with supplies and fifty heavy cruisers responsible for escort.

The ferocious geometric edges on the hull, the dark red paint, and the demon skull emblem unique to the Iof People all displayed the affiliation of this fleet.

Fleet Commander Grom was currently sitting irritably on the bridge, clutching the thigh of an unknown creature and chewing on it in large bites.

"Damn those Angel birds! If it weren't for the tight situation on the front lines, I wouldn't be walking this ghost road full of loose rocks!" Grom cursed, "How much longer until we fly out of this damn nebula?"

"Report, sir, we will be able to enter the main shipping lane in three standard hours, and then..."

Before the radar operator finished speaking, a piercing alarm suddenly exploded, and the red warning lights illuminated the entire bridge like a blood pool.

"Enemy attack! Detected ultra-high-energy space fluctuations! Right on our flank!"

"What?" Grom suddenly threw away the food in his hand, "Is it an ambush by the Angel people? How could this group of bird people get behind us?"

"No... not the Angel people!" The radar operator's voice was filled with terror, "Unknown ship identification codes! Unknown energy reactions! My God... their speed is too fast!"

Before Grom could react, the image on the main screen left him completely stunned.

Dozens of silver-white warships seemed to have grown directly out of the void, ignoring inertia and the obstruction of meteorites, instantly cutting into their large and bloated formation.

Those warships were simply too beautiful, beautiful like finely crafted works of art, completely different from the crude and bulky violent aesthetics of the Iof People.

But this beauty was fatal.

"Fire! All gun positions, fire at will! Blow them all up!" Grom roared.

The reaction of the iofer escort cruisers was not slow; hundreds of blaster cannons and gravity wave emitters fired simultaneously, and dense red beams and distorted force fields poured toward the small silver fleet like a rainstorm.

However, a scene that made all the Iof People despair occurred.

Those blaster beams, capable of tearing apart asteroids, hit the opponent's thin, deep-blue shield, like raindrops hitting a lotus leaf, only able to stir up insignificant ripples before sliding off into the void.

And the gravity wave attack, the trump card that the Iof People prided themselves on, was neutralized and smoothed out by some unknown force field the moment it touched the opponent's hull, as if it had never existed.

"This is impossible... our main guns are completely ineffective?"

Immediately following was the counterattack of the Faleim People.

That was not a battle; it was a slaughter of ants.

The causality did not even use its main guns; it simply released dozens of unmanned advanced carrier-based aircraft.

These drones were as flexible as living metal birds, weaving through the dense iofer formation at high sub-light speeds.

Thin purple beams shot out from the drones; those were miniaturized dimensional cutting beams.

The captain of an iofer heavy cruiser watched helplessly as a purple beam swept across his bridge.

He did not hear any explosion; he only saw the console in front of him, the adjutant beside him, and the ceiling of the entire bridge dislocate along a smooth tangent line at the same time.

The next second, the entire cruiser was like building blocks cut by a fruit knife, shattering into a pile of neat slices.

"This... this is... our cruiser was actually destroyed by carrier-based aircraft...!" Grom trembled all over.

He saw the 5 Faleim battleships fire simultaneously; those were kinetic weapons named [Neutron Emitter].

Five clusters of neutrons, accelerated to 99% of the speed of light, instantly pierced through five iofer warships attempting to resist.

No warship's shield or armor could resist this attack; the neutron stream killed all the crew the moment it penetrated the hull, and the entire ship turned into a large amount of debris.

In less than an hour.

49 escort heavy cruisers were all beaten into space junk, with only one flagship remaining in place.

And those two hundred-plus armed transport ships were like sheep driven by a sheepdog, shivering and stopping in place, engines off, shields down, not daring to make any moves.

Because above that huge silver flagship, a massive force field generator was flickering; that was a faster-than-light suppressor, which interfered with the spacetime structure of this space, preventing any ship from entering a faster-than-light state.

Escaping was already a luxury.

"Battle over. Enemy escort forces completely annihilated. We have zero losses. The transport fleet has been captured."

Sal's voice was as cold as if he were reporting on a routine exercise.

"Begin boarding and searching. I want all the data from this fleet, especially their Star Map and navigation logs."

Thousands of fully armed [The Arbitrators] combat robots forcibly cut open the airlock of the iofer flagship.

Under Grom's terrified gaze, these robots ignored the guards' fire and went straight into the ship's main host interface.

Data streams surged crazily.

Half an hour later, a complete piece of intelligence was sent to Sal, and simultaneously sent to Lei Wen and Price.

"Iofer Federation..." Lei Wen looked at the demon emblem on the screen, as well as the file extracted from the database regarding the S-56 star system engineering mission thirty-five years ago.

The file clearly recorded: In order to eliminate potential threats, the iofer military department ordered the induction of the S-56 supernova, targeting an unknown star system at coordinates XXX.

"It was actually them." Killing intent boiled in Price's eyes, "These barbaric guys actually dared to make a move against us."

Not only that, through scanning the cargo of the transport ships, they discovered that this fleet was transporting the key materials used for manufacturing that kind of "anti-psionic weapon" on the front lines.

"the guide, the evidence is conclusive." Price turned to face Lei Wen's holographic image, "The Iofer Federation is the culprit who attacked us, and also the greatest source of chaos in this star field."

"Since they like destroying other people's homes..."

"Then we will pay them back in their own coin." Lei Wen took over the conversation, revealing a chill that made the entire star sea freeze.

He looked at the coordinates on the captured Star Map marked as the Iofer Federation's capital star system—[Gate of Hell].

There was a similarly huge red giant star and several planets that had been modified like war fortresses.

"We don't need to play low-efficiency tricks like supernova explosions as they do."

"We have a more direct way."

Lei Wen said directly to the communication screen.

"I authorize the task force fleet to execute the jump procedure immediately."

"The target is the Iofer Federation's capital star system."

"We are going to execute a reciprocal retaliation. They wanted to destroy our home system, so we will destroy their capital star system, destroy all the planets within their capital star system, and extinguish their star!"

The moment Sal received the order, a cruel smile appeared on his face.

"Following your will."

The Quantum Slingshot in the B-79 star system still needed time to recharge, but the Jump Drive carried by the Faleim warships, although having a long cooldown penalty, could perform point-to-point precise jumps. Moreover, with the Iofer Federation's level of technology, even if all the warships of the task force fleet entered the weak state of the jump energy recharge period, it was completely not something that the Iof People's ant-like military power could block.

Thus, following Commander Sal's order, the 36 warships from higher-dimensional technology began to recharge; this time they did not need the slingshot.

They would turn into 36 sharp swords, plunging directly into the heart of the Iofer Federation.

"Jump Drive activating..."

"Coordinates locked."

"All fleet, jump!"

Space shattered again.