NOVPUBFinally, the long wait was over.
Theoldown of Brionac had ended, which meant weuld finally return to battle—and earn as much as weuld.
"…Well, that was the initial plan, but…"
After our little discussion, wempletely changed our objective.
Assassinating King Meyers.
It was a monumental task, but based on our plan, it wasn't as impossible as it initially sounded. Stages 1, 2, and 3 were feasible enough, posing little risk to us. But stages 4 and 5—thenclusion—were dependent on too many variables.
Ituld be as easy as stealing candy from a child or as difficult as hitting a bullseye blindfolded from over 400 meters away with a bow. The difficulty depended entirely on how "perfectly" we executed the earlier stages, making every step intennected.
I shook my head, clearing away the distracting thoughts swirling in my mind.
"But first of all, we need to find where the Eclipse Sovereign is currently."
Without knowing its location, we wouldn't even be able to begin stage 1. Our first priority was pinpointing the enemy flagship.
Thankfully, we had a massive amount of data to work with.
The Star Map is updated in real-time, providing the rough positioning of the enemy fleet. Using that as our basis, we just needed to locate a large enough formation and investigate it up close fornfirmation.
"Right now, there are six locations where the Eclipse Sovereignuld be," Eva finally spoke, leaning back in her chair from exhaustion.
She had been analyzing the data since we arrived at the ship, making her the hardest-working one among us at the moment. All for the sake of narrowing down the potential locations where King Meyers might be.
What? There's the possibility of him not participating in the war?
No, there was no way he would stay hidden in a remote, safe place whilemmanding his forces. Well… he probably was, but that's not what I meant. He had to be somewhere in this star system, at the very least.
Eva marked the potential locations on the Star Map,loring the areas blue instead of red.
Six zones—all positioned at the outermost edges of the Astoraxia-001 Star System.
"Should we check them out one by one?" Cassandra asked curiously.
"No need." I shook my head, anfident smile tugging at my lips. "If I were King Meyers, then out of these six… I'd choose this position." I pointed at a specific location among the six.
"That place is…"
Eva frowned, but realization flashed in her eyes. She must have caught on to my reasoning the moment I pointed at it.
The key difference was the density of nearby defenses.
Whethernsciously or instinctively, a leader would always station troops to protect important locations—especially themselves. In short, the position with the highestncentration of defenses, the hardest to reach, and guarded by hundreds—if not thousands—of smaller red blips along the way, was the jackpot.
After all, unless the enemy was deliberately using a dy or if their leader was amplete psychopath with a deranged mindset, that position was the likeliest place to find the enemy's true headquarters.
"Got it. Setting the waypointordinates," Eva responded, as if everything was proceeding exactly as expected.
Cassandra let out a small sound of awe before quickly returning to normal.
…I wasn't feeling lonely from their weak reactions, okay?
Anyway, Eva swiftly locked in the waypoint for our "final" destination.
However, weuldn't head straight for it.
As mentioned before, there were a ton of enemies along the way. And without a doubt, they would be deploying both warp and jump jammers. That meant we had no choice but to engage them one by one, carving a path toward the enemy's stronghold.
Does it stillunt as assassination when we leave a thick trail of blood behind?
I didn't remember where I had heard it, but apparently, as long as no witnesses remained, no matter how boisterous the attack was during the event—it was stillunted as an assassination!
In gaming terms, it's close to the "Stealth is Optional!" kind of mission!
Soon enough, the waypoint was set. Several white circles appeared on the Star Map—intermediate waypoints we needed to follow to reach our target.
"All right, hang tight!"
With everything in place, I pushed the Range Fan forward.
---
*BOOM!*
A ship exploded briefly before being extinguished, leaving behind only the remains of a Super-Dreadnaught class vessel—with a massive hole piercing through its hull from one side to the other.
"Hit!" Evanfirmed before adding further, "Next target, about 500 meters to its right, 100 meters above. A Battle Cruiser, moving left at a pace of 1,000 m/s...!"
"Got it..."
I muttered as I gently tugged the lever in my hand, adjusting the aim by a hair-breadth before pulling the trigger.
The Brionac, stationed at the ship's helm, quickly gathered energy for fifteen snds, charging up to 100% before firing a prismatic beam of white energy forward—striking the enemy ship over 200,000 kilometers away.
It was so far that, even at maximum zoom, the enemy was barely a dot on our external cameras!
"Hit!"
Yet, even at this distance, it wasn't even half of Brionac's rated maximum range—and nowhere close to its theoretical limit.
Ofurse, when we first started this "sniping without engaging" tactic, my accuracy was below 50%. But now, I had finally regained my sense of it, pushing my hit rate to nearly 100%, even against moving targets.
"All enemies wiped out. Coast is clear," Cassandra reported steadily, double- and triple-checking the Star Map and radar to be sure.
"Confirming enemy wipeout," Eva echoed before adding, "Jammers are now offline. We can move once again."
"...Alright. Percy, activate the jump drives!"
[Command received. Activating Jump Drives. Maximum ship speed: 5 km/s. Jump speed multiplier: x10,000. Initiating Jump.]
A minute later, the Range Fan flashed, entering hyperspace travel without troubles.
Three hours had passed since the war began.
In that time, we had already shot down—sniped, to be precise—hundreds of ships larger than a battleship. Any vessel smaller than that was ignored… Or rather, they were simply too small to hit accurately from such extreme distances.
The real problem was that the Meyers Royal Family was advancing rapidly through the Astoria Star System. In just three short hours, the total area under theirntrol had surged from 7% to nearly 26%—more than tripling.
Soon enough, the Jump was forcefully interrupted. A telltale sign that we've approached the enemies' range once more.
"After this point," I took a deep breath, steadying myself, "we'll be behind enemy lines."
The pressure was mounting.
Beyond this point, we would be surrounded—hostiles in every direction. The slightest mistakeuld mean instant death.
To make things worse, the path we took had left a trail of destruction in our wake. There was no doubt the enemy had already taken notice of our movements and might have set up a trap ahead.
"...Alright!"
Well, that had been the case since the very start, hadn't it?
In short, we just had to stick to the same simple approach we had been using all along to avoid enemy observers.
"Cassandra, it's your turn again!"
With a hint of hesitation, she cried in reply. "Y-Yes...!"
Carefully, she retrieved the key from between the deep, soft "cushions," holding it before her. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the key forward—its shaft releasing a bright flash of multlored light.
The key sank deep into empty space as if inserting itself into an invisible keyhole.
Outside the ship, just a few hundred meters ahead, a crack appeared in the thin film of spacetime. Blue and purple sparks flickered violently, revealing a rift that was flashing like some unstable Teslail.
We had used it dozens of times over the past hour, and…
'As expected, the rift bmes more unstable the more we use it…'
By now, it looked eerily similar to those in movies where the protagonist recklessly approaches and gets struck by some unknown force—then gains a weird superpower.
And the worst part?
'We still need to use this, even in this unstable state!'
Thankfully, thennection to the parallel world remained stable. However, unlike our earlier jumps, passing through the rift now caused an overwhelming wave of nausea—even for me.
"Keep your heart strong!" Immanded the girls, swallowing hard. "Prepare yourselves!"
Carefully, I pressed the pedals, pushing the ship through the rift—
*RATTLE!* *RATTLE!*
"...!"
Just as expected, the moment we entered, the ship rattled violently as if we were inside a blender. The nausea surged, forcing me to shut my mouth and grit my teeth—desperately preventing my stomach from revolting once again.
"Urp!"
"Urk…!"
Eva and Cassandra, however, had long since succumbed to the sickness. Judging by the number of times they had hurled, nothing was left for them to throw up. Now, they were just gasping for air, trembling slightly.
Their faces were pale, their bodies weak, as they wiped the drool from their lips. But, to be fair… I probably didn't look much better myself.
"W-We survived that one..." I exhaled, my voice shaky.
By the way, the ship's generators had already been upgraded. Since Dark Energy didn't exist in World-One, I had permanently switched our backup generator to a nuclear fusion furnace.
We had spent a hefty sum on the "fuel," but it should hold for at least 100 hours ofntinuous maximum output.
Thanks to this, we no longer suffer from an energy shortage upon reaching the parallel universe.
As the nausea slowly faded, I straightened up and spoke.
"Anyway... let's proceed as planned."
The first stage of our mission to assassinate King Meyers: Approaching the enemy's flagship via transit through World-One!
Finally, the real mission was beginning.
