The moment the alarm pierced his eardrums, Lin Yi's pupils contracted to pinpoints.
He could clearly hear his heartbeat resonating with the vibrations of the psionic fragments—it was the nest resonating, like an ancient behemoth breathing against his ribs.
"Chu Yao, what's the progress of the supplies transfer?" His voice was half a octave lower than usual, and his knuckles tapped rapidly on the command platform.
"47% of the main warehouse has been moved, and the medical team's emergency pods are stuck at the third teleportation gate." On the holographic screen, Chu Yao's forehead was beaded with sweat, and her fingertips traced blue light in the air. "The enemy's gravitational field is interfering with spatial stability, and the teleportation gate is collapsing every three minutes." Her AI assistant, "Zero," was projected onto her shoulder as a semi-transparent mechanical butterfly. In the data stream emitted by its wings, seventeen red dots were approaching the ground in parabolic arcs.
A dragon's roar came from outside the window, the sound waves making the glass of the command console vibrate.
Lin Yi turned his head and saw Long Wu's figure breaking through the dark clouds—that was no longer the rough man who had been grinning before.
The dragon's body, covered in golden scales, was a full thirty meters long. Its whiskers hung down like electrified golden whips, and half of a piece of star iron ore was still hanging from its tailbone, indicating that it had just returned from the mining site.
"Boss, take this!" Long Wu's dragon roar, mixed with the sound of wind breaking, exploded, and the crimson flames gathered between his dragon claws suddenly expanded into a fireball, which accurately smashed into the muzzle of the Judgment-class starship in the front row.
Amidst the shrieking sound of melting metal, the main cannon, capable of piercing through ten layers of composite armor, instantly twisted into scrap metal.
Behind him followed seven or eight people with true dragon bloodlines. Some of them transformed into dragon tails and wielded heavy swords, while others grew dragon horns on their foreheads and spewed out ice flames, actually tearing a gap in the enemy's vanguard.
"Well done!" Lin Yi shouted, and the power of spacetime in his palm surged up his arm as if it were alive.
He traced his fingertips across the void, and the portal, distorted by the gravitational field, suddenly rippled—that was because he had temporarily fixed the spatial structure with a "spacetime anchor."
The medical team rushed into the emergency cabin, their figures flashing in the blue light as they carried medicine kits as they ran.
"The forging bay needs support!" Whitebeard's roar exploded from the communicator, accompanied by the rumble of metal clashing in the background.
Lin Yi turned his head and saw the old man swinging a forging hammer taller than himself. With each strike of the hammer, purple sparks burst forth from the fusion of meteorite crystal and psionic fragments.
Aizen stood beside him, the silver patterns on his cuffs glowing with a ghostly blue light as he moved—a sign that he was simultaneously inputting the ancient civilization's forging formula. "This damn fusion is harder than the black iron I forged back in the day!" The white-bearded man wiped the soot from his face, and as the hammer fell again, the entire wall of forging furnaces simultaneously spewed forth crimson flames. "Little Aizen, increase the third set of parameters by ten percent!"
"Adjusted." Aizen pushed up his glasses, the reflection from the lenses obscuring half his face. "Fusion level increased to 89%. The first batch of battle blades is expected to be completed in three minutes." His fingertips left afterimages on the control panel, and the mechanical arm beside him immediately grabbed the reddening alloy and immersed it in a special cooling tank—the liquid in the tank glowed with an eerie fluorescence, the "Stardust Tempering Fluid" he had just concocted last night.
The battlefield suddenly fell into a brief silence.
A chill ran down Lin Yi's neck; this was a sign of a time-space perception warning.
He looked up and saw seventeen Judgment-class starships simultaneously unfurling their cannons—the energy condensed within those black hole-like barrels made the air ripple with oil.
"Attention everyone!" His voice spread to every job changer through the faith link. "Dragon Five, lead the True Dragon Team to hold back the left flank, Shadow Guards, protect the portal!" Before he finished speaking, he had already taken a step forward, and silver light mist rose around him.
The power of spacetime formed a vortex beneath his feet, and all the shells aimed at the supply points appeared in his "time horizon"—slower, slower, just half a second slower!
With a light tap of his fingertip, the three most lethal shells suddenly froze in mid-air, their surface energy patterns resembling fireworks paused on a pause button.
But more shells broke through his control.
The most recent explosion occurred ten meters away from the medical team, the blast wave blowing away three first-aid kits and scattering medicine all over the ground.
Lin Yi's pupils contracted sharply. Just as he was about to use the space-time technique again, he saw a blue figure flash by—it was Xuan Mingzi.
The old man had somehow found himself standing at the epicenter of the explosion, his withered hands pressed against the ground, and the flame of the bronze lamp suddenly surged into a crimson red.
The blast wave dissipated immediately upon contact with the flames, and even the flying shrapnel was burned into gold dust.
"They're looking for the core." Xuan Mingzi turned his head, a golden glint flashing in his dark pupils. "This attack is a probe; the next wave... will target the fusion body." His voice was like sandpaper rubbing together, his fingertips lightly pointing towards the forging chamber.
As if in response to his words, all seventeen starships turned at the same time.
The bow of the lead ship split open, revealing a giant cannon with a diameter of five meters—the "Annihilation Cannon," a deadly move capable of penetrating even mythical-level defenses.
"Chu Yao!" Lin Yi's voice cracked, "The trajectory of the Annihilation Cannon!"
"Locked!" Chu Yao's fingertips traced countless intersecting lines on the holographic screen. "The landing point... is directly above the forging chamber!"
Inside the forging chamber, Whitebeard had just lifted the last battle blade from the cooling tank.
The surface of the battle blade was shrouded in star-like patterns. The tip of the blade lightly grazed the ground, leaving a mark half a finger deep on the alloy floor. "It's done!" He laughed and tossed the battle blade into the air, but his expression changed drastically the moment he looked up—through the transparent dome of the forging chamber, he saw the annihilation bomb, glowing with a ghostly blue light, piercing through the clouds like a falling evil star.
"Aizen!" He grabbed his sword and rushed to the control panel. "Activate the protection matrix!"
Aizen's fingers danced frantically on the control panel, but the progress bar on the holographic screen froze at just 30%. "Gravity interference!" Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. "Three seconds needed!"
"Three seconds?" Whitebeard's Adam's apple bobbed as he suddenly plunged his battle blade into the energy bar beneath his feet.
The starry sky on the surface of the battle blade suddenly reversed, and the protective shield of the forging chamber lit up instantly—it was temporarily powered by the newly forged weapon.
He turned to Aizen, his wrinkles filled with ruthlessness: "These old bones of mine can hold out for another half a second, the remaining two and a half seconds... it's up to you!"
The annihilation bomb exploded ten meters from the dome.
The blue-white light waves spread like a living thing, vaporizing metal and causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear in the energy shields they passed through.
Lin Yi witnessed this scene from the command post, and the power of spacetime surged forth like a flood bursting its banks.
He bit his tongue and used his blood to draw a spacetime array in the void—a forbidden "spacetime barrier" that would drain his three-star mythical power.
The annihilation wave was abruptly stopped the moment the barrier unfolded.
Lin Yi knelt on one knee, black blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
He could feel the spacetime power within his body rapidly draining away, yet his gaze remained fixed on the forging chamber—where the protective shield had only one layer remaining, Whitebeard's blade was already glowing red, and Aizen's fingertips were still tapping away, the progress bar finally reaching 100%.
"Buzz—"
The roar of the protection matrix activating and the shriek of the annihilation wave exploded simultaneously.
The blue light shield collided with the annihilation wave in mid-air, and the resulting shockwave overturned three supply trucks, but ultimately failed to break through the final defense line.
"The supply depot has been held!" someone shouted, and scattered cheers echoed across the battlefield.
But Lin Yi's expression darkened further—he heard another sound besides the roar of the starship's engines.
It was a hissing sound, like tentacles rubbing against space, coming from the direction of the owl's nest.
He looked up at the sky, where the dark clouds had been torn open, revealing cracks.
At the end of the crevice, he saw a crimson glow emanating from the compound eyes of the Night Owl's nest.
Those previously dormant tentacles suddenly straightened, like countless black spears aimed at the earth—this time, they were no longer just bystanders.
"Boss!" Long Wu's roar was filled with anxiety, "The left flank defense is about to collapse!"
Lin Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stood up.
He could feel the spacetime power within him recovering, and the psionic fragments were burning hot in his palms, as if they were infusing him with new power.
In the distance, Whitebeard, wielding a red-hot battle blade, rushed out of the forging chamber and tossed the weapon to the nearest job changer; Aizen, leaning against the control panel, panted, his fingertips still tapping unconsciously, as if rehearsing the next round of defense; on Chu Yao's holographic screen, seventeen red dots were regrouping into formation; Xuan Mingzi stood at the center of the explosion, the flame of his bronze lamp flickering, as if telling some unspoken prophecy.
From the direction of the owl's nest, the sound of tentacles tearing through space grew clearer and clearer.
This battle has only just begun.
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