The moment the flagship cabin door closed, an alarm blared in our ears.
Lin Yi's combat suit tightened automatically, and the nanofibers against his skin sent a cool sensation through him—this was Chu Yao reminding him that the energy fluctuations at the core of the giant city had exceeded the critical value.
"Commanders, connect to the holographic projection in thirty seconds." Chu Yao's voice, though crackling with electrical noise, was clearer than ever. "An interdimensional fleet has been detected jumping through a stargate. The order of magnitude... exceeds four times the estimate."
The tactical screen suddenly lit up, and Long Wu's image appeared first.
His flamboyant blond hair was tinged crimson gold by the dragon-patterned battle aura, and the broken blade spun in his palm, creating a whirlwind: "Brother Lin, leave the left wing to me. The dragon pattern of the World-Destroying Sword Formation has been engraved with nine new lines. This time, it can turn their star gate into a sieve." His words still carried the eagerness unique to young men, but his pupils surged with an unyielding solemnity—three days ago, he had watched his cousin be corroded into bones by the extradimensional acid. At this moment, his knuckles were white from clenching his fists, and the bloodstains on the broken blade were ones he had secretly smeared on himself.
"Don't be hasty, young man of the Long family." The white-bearded projection followed closely, the old man's Tremor-Tremor Fruit hanging around his neck, a faint blue light gleaming beneath his dark brown skin. "I'll guard the central command." His calloused hands pressed against the edge of the tactical platform, the metal surface cracking with a spiderweb pattern. "Back then, I lost my right arm protecting my granddaughter. Now, these old bones are just what I need to shatter the courage of these foreign bastards." When he mentioned "granddaughter," his Adam's apple bobbed. Hidden in a pocket beneath his armor was a drawing of "Grandpa Superman" drawn by his granddaughter with crayons.
"What about Aizen's side?" Lin Yi tapped the star map with his fingertips, his gaze sweeping over the coordinates of the floating giant city.
"The Hogyoku fragments have been implanted into every Black Sail warship." Chu Yao's projection suddenly gained a physical presence—the tips of her hair shimmered with the silver light of data streams, and half a charred chip was embedded in her left chest, left behind three days ago when she shielded him from an arrow. "He said... this is a greeting gift for the intruders." When she spoke of the "greeting gift," her voice was as soft as a sigh, yet it made Lin Yi's heart tighten—Aizen never spoke without certainty, which meant...
"Attention all units!" Chu Yao suddenly raised her voice, and red dots surged from the stargate on the tactical screen like a tidal wave. "Enemy fleet warp complete, 120,000 kilometers from the main ship, expected to enter firing range in 10 seconds!"
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He had anticipated that the silver-robed man would have a backup plan, but he hadn't expected that the other side would dare to put all their main force into the first battle—this wasn't an attack, but an attempt to completely crush the confidence of the allied forces.
His fingertips traced the star chart, the resonance pathways of the seven keys casting golden light on his retina. Suddenly, he recalled the enemy general's dying words: "Let you tear open the last line of defense yourselves." The line of defense... could it refer to the energy breach during the resonance of the seven keys?
"Long Wu, break through on the left flank!" His voice was like a blade chilled to the bone. "Use the World-Destroying Dragon Mark to stir up the nebula and disrupt their formation!"
"Understood!" Before Long Wu's image disappeared, the broken blade had already slashed into the void.
In the distant nebula, crimson-gold dragon patterns leaped out as if alive, stirring up stardust wherever they passed. The three enemy ships in the front row were pierced through by the dragon patterns, and the explosions made his face turn bright red.
"Whitebeard, shatter their shields!" Lin Yi's palm pressed against the communicator, the heat of the key burning his skin through the metal. "Targets: the Third, Seventh, and Twelfth Fleets. Tear a breach in their defenses!"
The old man's laughter, mixed with shockwaves, came from above: "Young friend, taste the real Tremor Fruit." He raised his palm to the sky, and shockwaves spread from his palm, with a crisp sound like shattering glass echoing in the air—the sound of space being shattered.
120,000 kilometers away, the Third Fleet's energy shield suddenly developed a spiderweb pattern. The next second, the entire warship was shattered into dust, and the fragments were kneaded into balls by an invisible hand and slammed into the Seventh Fleet.
"Chu Yao!" Lin Yi turned to look at her projection. "Skynet Protocol, calculate the Hogyoku detonation point!"
"Locked." Her fingertips traced the virtual keyboard, data flowing between them like a web. "Aizen's Hogyoku shards... synchronized with the Seven Keys frequency the moment you pressed the communicator."
Before the words were even finished, the black-sailed warship on the tactical screen simultaneously lit up with a ghostly blue light.
The alien ships that had originally been mixed in with the Allied Forces suddenly had their Hogyoku fragments explode on their hulls. The shockwave, wrapped in dark purple energy, precisely struck the enemy ships' power plants—twenty enemy ships exploded almost simultaneously, the flames blending together and turning the stargate blood red.
"Great!" Long Wu's cheer burst from the communicator. "Brother Lin, look, their flagship is retreating!"
Lin Yi didn't laugh.
He stared at the few red dots that had suddenly disappeared from the tactical screen—those were the flagships of Night Owl's trusted generals.
His intuition told him that the real danger was yet to come.
"Port side of the main ship!" Chu Yao's alarm sounded again. "High-energy reaction detected. Target... is the remnant soul of the enemy general who was previously defeated!"
Lin Yi looked up at the porthole.
Amidst the stardust, the black mist, enveloped in charred scales, rapidly approached, the runes on the scales gleaming with an eerie green light—the patterns on them were identical to those on the seventh key in the silver-robed man's hand.
His right hand rested on his left chest, where the time-space compass Chu Yao had given him was hidden. "Activate the time-space trap," he said softly, a cold smile playing on his lips. "Since you're so eager to die... I'll give you a big gift."
The moment the black mist pierced through the defensive barrier, the entire flagship suddenly fell into an eerie stillness.
As Lin Yi watched the black mist twist and deform in space and time, recalling the enemy general's dying words, the cold light in his eyes intensified—he wanted to see what secrets the silver-robed man's so-called "defense line" truly concealed.
In the realm where time and space stood still, the charred scales shrouded in black mist suddenly trembled violently.
The imprisoned Night Owl's trusted general let out an inhuman shriek, and the green patterns on his scales flowed wildly, attempting to tear apart the stagnant space-time—his remnant soul resonated with the main ship's power plant, and a dark blue energy flow was drilling into the ship through the cracks in the defensive barrier.
"Want to take us all down with us?" Lin Yi stared at the energy index jumping on the tactical screen, his knuckles tapping rapidly on the control panel.
The words "defense line" spoken by the enemy general three days ago before he breathed his last suddenly rang in his ears. He looked up sharply, and the phantom images of seven keys in his pupils overlapped to form a star map—it turned out that this remnant soul was the trigger to detonate the seven-key resonance device at the core of the main ship!
"Ryugo!" he growled into the communicator, "If you don't kill him now, once he connects to the power unit, the entire ship will be turned into fireworks!"
Long Wu's response was a crimson-gold arc of light that pierced through the void.
His broken blade, already enveloped in dragon-patterned battle aura and transformed into a fire dragon, was now piercing through stardust thirty kilometers away, its speed so great that even space itself was torn apart, creating translucent ripples. "Don't worry, Brother Lin!" His voice, tinged with a dragon's roar, said, "When this bastard corrupted my cousin, I swore I'd shatter every last bone fragment of his!"
The black mist trapped in time and space suddenly solidified.
Long Wu's figure actually broke through the static domain by force—the World-Destroying Dragon Pattern originally carried the attribute of spacetime turbulence, and at this moment it resonated with Lin Yi's spacetime trap, tearing open a rift in the stagnant space that was only wide enough for a blade to pass through.
"Die!" Long Wu roared, his broken blade piercing precisely into the core of the black mist.
Crimson gold and ghostly green collided in the void, and the shockwave made the portholes of the main ship vibrate.
The black mist shrank like a deflated balloon, and as the last charred scale fell into space, the green patterns on its surface suddenly condensed into the words "Night Owl," which were instantly burned to ashes by the dragon patterns.
"Done!" Long Wu's image reappeared on the tactical screen. His blond hair was whipped up by the aftershocks, and although there was blood at the corner of his mouth, he grinned arrogantly. "That so-called general, he wasn't even as loud as the firecracker my cousin set off!"
Whitebeard's projection flashed in immediately afterward, the blue light of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit flickering in his palm: "Young friend, the enemy fleet has begun its retreat." A rare smile appeared on the old man's wrinkled face, but his fingers remained pressed on the shockwave emitter. "However... the spatial fluctuations during their retreat are a bit off." He pulled up a star chart; on what should have been a smooth jump trajectory, seven fine folds had appeared. "It's as if someone is forcibly dragging them along with a spatial anchor."
Lin Yi's fingertips magnified at the folds, his pupils suddenly contracting—the positions of those seven folds corresponded precisely to the seven nodes where the energy was weakest during the resonance of the Seven Keys. "Chu Yao, analyze the source of the fluctuations." His voice suddenly became as heavy as if weighed down by lead.
"Calculating..." Chu Yao's projection suddenly materialized, the data stream at the tips of her hair turning dark red. "Detected...unnatural spatial disturbance." Her finger pointed to the edge of the star map, where a blurry black shadow was devouring starlight. "The source of the fluctuation...may be from that region."
Everyone's eyes turned to the porthole at the same time.
In the once star-studded sky, a shadow has appeared, obscuring the sun.
It has no specific form, yet it causes all observation instruments to malfunction simultaneously; it makes no sound, yet it causes a stinging pain in the eardrums of everyone who sees it.
Even Long Wu's dragon-patterned battle aura trembled slightly, as if in fear of some ancient being.
"That's..." Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit powers suddenly went out, and he instinctively clutched the portrait of his granddaughter around his neck. "I've seen this description in ancient texts from the far north—'The Gaze of the Abyss.'"
"Night Owl's master." Lin Yi pressed his palm against the spacetime compass on his left chest, where a burning pain emanated. "The 'defense line' the silver-robed man spoke of isn't our weakness at all; they're paving the way for something far more powerful." He turned to look at the enemy ships gradually disappearing from the tactical screen, his voice icy. "Pass down the order: all warships to level two alert. The seven-key resonance device in the main ship's core will shut down three nodes. Long Wu will lead the left flank fleet to repair the spatial folds. Whitebeard, guard the center—"
"Brother Lin!" Long Wu suddenly interrupted him, "Look at the star map! That dark shadow... is it laughing?"
Everyone's breath caught in their throats at the same time.
The surface of that shadowy mass of light appeared as if it were pupils, and as it "stared" in that direction, fine cracks appeared on the main ship's defensive barrier.
Chu Yao's alarm sounded again, this time mixed with a sharp buzzing sound: "Unknown energy entity detected, strength...exceeds mythical level!"
"All units, take immediate rest!" Lin Yi abruptly pressed the ship's communication button. "Reinforce all defensive fortifications within three hours, with a focus on protecting the Seven Key Resonance Device!"
Chu Yao, activate the backup power; Whitebeard Senior, use shockwaves to cover all spatial folds; Long Wu, bring back your world-destroying sword formation—" His words suddenly stopped, his gaze fixed on the spot where the black shadow had disappeared.
Within the lingering spatial fluctuations, the phantom images of seven keys were clearly reflected.
As night fell, the searchlights of the main ship drew silvery streaks across the sky.
Lin Yi stood in front of the command cabin window, watching Long Wu's fleet return to its positions like silver fish, while Whitebeard's shockwaves wove a defensive net in the nebula.
But he knew that the real test had only just begun—when the shadow's "gaze" fell again, the so-called "spark that could start a prairie fire" was nothing more than the first spark before the storm.
"Chu Yao," he said softly, "review all the ancient texts about 'The Abyss's Gaze.'"
"It's already underway." Her projection leaned against him, the data stream at the tips of her hair no longer a cold silver, but a warm gold. "However... there's something you need to know." She held up half a charred chip, left behind three days ago when she shielded him from a hidden arrow. "Just now, when the shadowy figure appeared, this chip... transmitted my 'mother's' voice."
Lin Yi's breath hitched.
He turned to look at Chu Yao, only to find that for the first time, she saw human fear in her eyes.
And in the unseen depths of stardust, the dark shadow is reforming.
The phantom images of seven keys flowed within its body, eventually piecing together a distorted smiling face—
"The game has only just begun."
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