NOVPUBAs the County-Class spaceship launched, the entire fleet unleashed a frenzied assault ahead. Kinetic weapons, laser cannons, energy cannons, and hydrogen bombs created a near-carpet bombing effect.
All of this was for a single purpose: to clear the path for the County-Class spaceship about to be launched.
At that moment, the Swarm Queen went berserk. Its massive body erupted with countless circular openings, spewing endless Swarm creatures every second, blocking the fleet’s advance with their sheer numbers.
However, the distance between the Queen and Xiao Yu was only 10,000 kilometers. At this range, Xiao Yu’s weapons could unleash their full potential.
The Swarm creatures spawned by the Queen were mercilessly slaughtered by Xiao Yu, only managing to slightly hinder his progress without causing him any significant trouble.
Within the Hebei, the County-Class spaceship was fully operational. It carried no weapons, but its defensive systems had been strengthened to their absolute peak. In essence, it was like a turtle shell—highly durable but devoid of any offensive capabilities.
But this was merely a facade. Inside this County-Class spaceship was a colossal hydrogen bomb capable of shattering a planet.
The carrier for this massive bomb wasn’t a missile; it was a County-Class spaceship.
Indeed, this County-Class spaceship had been designed solely to transport the hydrogen bomb.
The Hebei’s outer hull opened its enormous hatch, releasing the County-Class spaceship. Under the cover of relentless firepower, it began its journey toward the moon.
At this moment, the Swarm Queen, which had devoured the entire moon, seemed to sense the impending danger. Xiao Yu noticed an even more frantic outpouring of Swarm creatures from its body. Simultaneously, brilliant orange-red flames began to erupt from one side of the moon.
“Those are… planetary engines!” Xiao Yu exclaimed in shock.
These bright orange-red flames numbered in the hundreds of thousands, covering nearly one-eighth of the moon’s surface. It was as if countless planetary engines had been buried beneath its surface.
Under the thrust of these hundreds of thousands of engines, Xiao Yu observed the moon accelerating at an increasing rate. At this pace, it would reach the escape velocity of Planet Three in twenty minutes, allowing it to break free from Planet Three’s orbit.
This tactic was eerily similar to how Xiao Yu had propelled Moon One out of Aquila A’s orbit.
“It’s trying to escape!” Xiao Yu concluded instantly.
The County-Class spaceship carrying the massive hydrogen bomb was still over 8,000 kilometers away from the moon. In the vacuum of space, this distance meant even a bomb of such immense yield could only inflict limited damage on the moon while risking significant collateral damage to Xiao Yu’s fleet.
Xiao Yu wanted to accelerate the County-Class spaceship, but the Swarm ahead continued to appear in endless waves. They sacrificed themselves, buying precious time for the Queen’s escape.
Faced with this situation, Xiao Yu felt a sense of helplessness.
He even deployed gravitational bombs, his most powerful weapons since acquiring thousands of them from the Luka fleet. Yet, he found that even gravitational bombs were ineffective in this scenario.
A single gravitational bomb could clear hundreds of kilometers of space and annihilate hundreds of thousands of Swarm creatures. But how many Swarm creatures were there? Even trillions would be an understatement.
The Queen, carrying the moon within its body, continued to accelerate. After twenty minutes, it finally reached Planet Three’s escape velocity and broke free from its orbit, fleeing along the tangential trajectory into the vastness of space.
At that moment, Xiao Yu made a firm decision: “Pursue it! I must destroy it!”
As Xiao Yu piloted the Hebei to give chase, a scene unfolded that made him grit his teeth in anger.
The remaining Swarm creatures on Planet Three’s orbit didn’t follow the Queen in its escape. Instead, they flew in the opposite direction.
That direction… was Planet One, the homeworld of the Arrow Beast Civilization.
It was a classic strategy of “besieging Wei to save Zhao”—the Queen escaped while sacrificing a portion of its forces to attack a location Xiao Yu was compelled to protect.
Moreover, Xiao Yu had no way of knowing how long the Queen had been there before his arrival or the current situation on Planet One. This meant that if Xiao Yu didn’t want to witness the extinction of the Arrow Beasts, he had to rush there as quickly as possible.
Xiao Yu couldn’t split his forces as the Swarm Queen could. His superluminal communication system was only effective within 500 million kilometers, unlike the Arrow Beasts and the Swarm Queen, who could use superluminal communication without any range restrictions.
This meant that if Xiao Yu chose to pursue the Queen, his entire fleet would have to depart together. However, this would leave Planet One and the Arrow Beasts on it in grave danger.
If the fleet diverted to Planet One, the Queen would be allowed to escape.
It was a dilemma. Xiao Yu contemplated for only a moment before making his decision.
“Consider yourself lucky,” he thought bitterly as he directed his massive fleet toward Planet One at full speed.
“I don’t know how things are on Planet One for the Arrow Beasts. I hope the situation hasn’t spiraled out of control. But… given the circumstances, it’s probably not looking good. This Queen displayed exceptional combat strength. Even I wouldn’t be able to handle it without the Hebei, let alone the aging and weakened Arrow Beasts.”
This was indeed the case. Without the nearly indestructible Hebei, Xiao Yu had almost no chance of surviving the battle with the Queen, let alone forcing it to retreat.
In this battle, Xiao Yu had lost several thousand ships, including ten County-Class ships. This was primarily because over 90% of the enemy attacks had been absorbed by the Hebei. Without the Hebei, Xiao Yu would have likely lost one or two City-Class ships just trying to escape the Swarm.
The Hebei’s combat capabilities had been fully demonstrated in this battle. Its presence had more than doubled Xiao Yu’s fighting power, elevating him from a disadvantaged position to a level capable of driving the Queen away.
As they advanced toward Planet One, traces of the Swarm were evident everywhere. It was clear that they were still in contact with the Queen. Along the way, these Swarm creatures launched suicidal attacks on Xiao Yu’s fleet. Without replenishment, they were only a minor nuisance, consuming time rather than posing a real threat.
Xiao Yu knew that the Swarm Civilization was a type of Alien Beast Civilization, and an extreme one at that. Within this civilization, only the Queen possessed intelligence, while all the subordinate creatures followed her commands unconditionally.
The fact that these creatures could still act and attack Xiao Yu meant that they remained under the Queen’s control.
In this sense, Xiao Yu’s situation wasn’t too dissimilar. His fleet operated in much the same way; only he possessed intelligence, while the ships acted under his command. However, the Queen’s computational capacity seemed limitless. The sheer number of Swarm creatures on the battlefield had exceeded 10 billion. If Xiao Yu had to command such numbers, his brain would have crashed long ago.
Xiao Yu kept a close watch on the Queen’s movements, confirming that it had not stopped within the Aquila Three star system. Instead, it was heading toward a distant star. Xiao Yu had named this star Aquila Four, a quintuple-star system consisting of five stars of nearly equal mass orbiting each other.
Even with three stars of similar mass, their orbits would be chaotic and nearly impossible to calculate. A quintuple-star system was even more unpredictable, rendering trajectory calculations futile.
“It’s a pity I couldn’t destroy it this time. Letting it escape leaves a hidden danger. I need to devise a way to eliminate it before leaving the Aquila Three star system. Otherwise, if it returns after I’m gone, the Arrow Beasts won’t stand a chance,” Xiao Yu thought, a trace of worry surfacing.
“But for now, it’s too early to dwell on that. First, I need to reach Planet One and assess the Arrow Beasts’ situation.”
With that decision, Xiao Yu continued clearing out the remaining Swarm creatures in the Aquila Three system as he advanced toward Planet One.
Planet Three was 9 billion kilometers away from Aquila Three. Closer to the star by 4 billion kilometers was another gas giant, which Xiao Yu had named Planet Two. Xiao Yu’s current position was near Planet Two.
Another 4.8 billion kilometers inward was Planet Three’s orbital path. However, Planet Three was currently on the opposite side of Aquila Three, meaning Xiao Yu was still 5.2 billion kilometers away from it.
This distance would take Xiao Yu just seven days to traverse.
Along the way, Xiao Yu annihilated over 1 billion Swarm creatures. This disturbing phenomenon gave him a foreboding sense of unease.
“Arrow Beasts, please hold on. I promised your kin that I’d protect you…” Xiao Yu silently prayed.
Time passed slowly, and in the distance, the massive Planet Three finally came into view.
