Legacy of the Void Fleet

And maybe, he could even take this as a chance to escape altogether.

The idea, while simple, did indeed have some merit to it.

’You are dreaming. Do you really think I can let you have your way?’ Thinking this, Ritika couldn’t help but chuckle before quickly disappearing from her position.

The Dark Demon transformed into a streak of amber light as it moved, its back-mounted weapons beginning to fire short bursts at rapid speed toward the starfighters and mechs.

Many reacted quickly and dodged, though a few were suddenly hit by the attack and were engulfed in blasts.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before they broke away from the raging fire and were safe and sound, though their shields had been completely depleted by the attack.

’Fuck! Just how powerful are their shields? Even an all-out attack from someone at the peak of the Genius Law Compression Realm wasn’t able to harm them, only destroying their shields.’

Dark Soul cursed as he rushed forward frantically. ’This gamble must pay off.’

But unfortunately, facing an even stronger opponent—and one who could read through his intentions—the hope of succeeding was nothing but an illusion.

Especially when it was nothing more than a gamble.

The Dark Demon had not even covered half the distance between him and the battleship Leonidas when the space ahead of him warped violently again.

The spatial fabric was torn open yet again, folding in on itself, and from it, Dark Knight appeared.

Seeing that, Dark Soul’s heart trembled in shock.

He was chasing me from behind, so how did he suddenly appear right in front of me?

He was confused, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it, as Dark Knight was already mildly laughing and launching a lethal attack head-on.

"NO! TOO FAST!" Dark Soul cried out.

He instinctively pushed both arms of the Dark Demon forward, forming a cross, and immediately afterward, an energy shield appeared.

The void-purple sword of Dark Knight, which was gushing with energy, slammed directly against the fragile shield.

BAM! BOOOM!

The sound of two things colliding rang out, followed by an instant blast that generated a localized shockwave. Even the gravity in this region of space became unstable, creating localized vacuums.

The hard-light shield created by the Dark Demon shattered into blinding shards of energy and light.

The sheer kinetic force ripped through the Dark Demon’s left forearm in a brutal fashion, throwing the hundred-meter-long mech away like a pebble.

The Dark Demon was hurled across tens of hundreds of thousands of kilometers in a fraction of a second, crashing violently against the shields of a friendly battlecruiser in the vanguard’s front.

BOOOM!

"Ughhh... cough! Cough!"

The collision rocked Dark Soul, who was inside the Dark Demon’s cockpit.

Then came the black lash of pain, and he quickly coughed out blood, spraying the cockpit around him.

The resulting impact even affected the battlecruiser’s own shields, which flickered intensely before returning to normal.

Meanwhile, Dark Soul had no time to properly recover or even catch his breath.

His visual feed flickered again.

Warning bells began to ring, and his senses began to scream.

[Left Arm Module System: Function Failure]

The mech’s internal system popped up and announced.

"SHUT UP!" Dark Soul roared, wiping the blood from his lips and forcing his hands back onto the control sticks with some difficulty.

And before the warning bells could cycle again, the space ten meters directly ahead of the Dark Demon began to fluctuate.

A purple vortex spun open once again, and from it, Dark Knight stepped forward.

A purple vortex spun open once again, and from it, Dark Knight stepped forward.

Panic quickly surged through Dark Soul.

Even White Kalen within the sea of consciousness felt the same fear.

Dark Soul slammed down and pulled on the control sticks, forcing the back- and leg-mounted thrusters to immediately come online.

The thrusters kicked the Dark Demon upward, taking it away from its current position in the blink of an eye.

It happened so fast that even Ritika wasn’t able to react and retract her attack in time.

In the split second of evasion that her enemy had managed to execute, the Dark Demon had already escaped the position it had occupied.

Where the Dark Demon had been just a moment before, Dark Knight unleashed a horizontal sweep of its dark-purple sword.

The energy slash that erupted from the sword struck against the battlecruiser’s strong shields.

And then it cleanly sliced through not only the shields, but the four-kilometer-long vessel itself, cutting from bow to stern as though the warship were not made of powerful Tier-3 materials, but butter or paper.

BOOOM!

The explosion was followed by a blinding, soundless expansion that ripped the split cruiser apart in a single giant fireball.

Yet as the fireball vanished into the void, the two—or rather, now multiple—pieces of the massive ship began to disappear, molecule by molecule, until nothing of it was left.

As if it had never existed in the first place.

Dark Soul had no happiness on his face after successfully escaping a death sentence just now.

Instead, his breath was hitching as a cold, suffocating terror gripped his heart, making his hands—and no, his whole body—tremble against the controls.

The attack wasn’t just powerful.

Its aftereffects were even more dreadful.

It had completely wiped the cruiser out down to the molecular level, along with the people within it.

Yet again, it showed the disparity between him and his opponent.

It had him completely under its palm of control, so much so that he began to have the illusion that he hadn’t even dodged a few moments ago because he wanted to.

But because the enemy had allowed him to.

If Ritika knew this, she would have been absolutely speechless.

’Dude, I’m not some almighty being, okay? I’m just a realm stronger than you and have a complete inheritance designed specifically for me, giving me another boost. But that’s it.

That dodge of yours was absolutely perfect. I didn’t think you could pull that off either.’

That was what she would have said.