Chapter 434: Peak of the Sixth‑Level Civilization

Before the control panel of the dilapidated starship, Qin An idly snapped his fingers.

There was no roar of any beam cannon, nor the bright flash of activated shields.

Even the rusted gunport cover did not budge.

Only a few dozen metal cylinders, each the size of a soda can, suddenly flashed into existence in the vacuum,

then, like raindrops merging into a water surface, they vanished instantly.

……

Beyond the starry sky.

Inside the Raiders' flagship, the piercing alarm had not yet sounded.

The Unicorn Ogre was toying with a bone flute in his hand, a trophy from his previous slaughter,

He was still pondering how to turn that group of glowing jellyfish into specimens.

"Fire."

He gave the order offhandedly, too lazy even to lift his head to glance at the battle.

This was the crushing of a fifth‑level high‑stage by a fifth‑level low‑stage, with no suspense.

However, the expected tremor of ten thousand cannons firing together never arrived.

"What's going on? Did the gunners die?"

The Unicorn Ogre lifted his head, somewhat impatient.

The next second, his bone flute slipped from his hand with a clack, shattering on the floor.

On the holo‑screen, the leading vanguard battleship was undergoing a "mutation" that defied physical common sense.

That warship was three kilometers long, clad in super‑gravity armor hard enough to withstand a stellar explosion.

But now it was like a chunk of chocolate tossed into a microwave.

No explosion, no firelight.

The incredibly hard alloy armor was … melting?

No, it wasn't melting.

It was a fundamental collapse of material structure.

The ship's bow turned into liquid, drawing strange metallic filaments in space,

then the whole vessel seemed to lose the concept of "solid," collapsing directly into a chaotic mass of metallic mud.

Within that mud, countless Raiders soldiers didn't even have time to scream,

but fused with their warship, becoming part of that indefinable substance.

Then came the second, the third…

This bizarre phenomenon spread at extreme speed.

Some ships' engines were still spraying blue light, but that beam suddenly turned into solid crystal, sealing off the entire engine room,

even the energy from a nuclear fusion reactor explosion was forcibly frozen into a space the size of a fingernail.

In some ships, internal gravity rules were altered, and thousands of crew were instantly pressed by their own weight into meat patties, thin as paper.

This is not war at all.

It's a magic show nobody can understand.

"Unknown force field detected!"

"Physical constants are deviating! The strong interaction force has failed!"

"Holy shit! Our shield generator turned into… a pile of sand?!"

The comm channel was filled with subordinates' terrified, distorted howls.

The Unicorn Ogre sprang up from his throne, his three eyes filled with incredulous fear.

He had roamed the cosmos for tens of millions of years, having seen countless ways to die.

But he had never seen anything like this!

It was as if an invisible deity, armed with an eraser, was casually smearing across a canvas,

turning hardness into softness, burning into freezing.

"This must be the work of a sixth‑level civilization!"

"Retreat! Everyone, jump! Quick!"

The Unicorn Ogre howled, reaching out to hit the emergency jump button.

Pop.

His palm struck nothing.

That red button, at the moment he touched it, turned into a gorgeous… flower?

In that fraction of a second of his stunned pause, the entire flagship emitted a grating distortion.

All control panels, all weapon systems, and even the super‑strong alloy supporting the ship's keel rusted away in an instant.

It was as if, within a single second, the ship had undergone a billion‑year weathering.

The once ferocious, domineering flagship turned into a heap of floating scrap iron in space.

The whole process took less than thirty seconds.

The Raiders United Fleet that had prowled the star seas was left with nothing but that nauseating space junk.

And not far away, at the center of the encirclement.

The jellyfish ships that had been ready to meet death hovered silently.

If they had jaws, they would probably have dropped to the floor by now.

The joy of escaping death had not yet risen; a deeper dread seized their hearts first.

Too scary.

Compared to that gang of brutal plunderers, the existence that wiped out everything by just throwing a few 'pull-tab cans' is the true source of terror.

……

Is that it?

In the little broken ship's cockpit, Qin An looked at the floating scrap metal on the screen and pouted slightly in disappointment.

There's not even something that would let me press the keyboard a couple more times.

The main brain's emotionless voice sounded:

【Rule Overwrite is a dimensional strike; fifth-level civilizations cannot comprehend it, so they cannot defend against it.】

【This kind of battle inherently has no entertainment value.】

That's right, it's pretty much like stepping on a bunch of ants.

Qin An propped his feet on the control panel and casually grabbed a packet of snacks from beside him.

Did that three-eyed flagship leave any survivors?

【The engine and weapon systems have rusted, but the life-support systems remain.】

【But his current mental state…… is probably not good.】

In the corner of the screen's surveillance feed, that invincible unicorn troll huddled in the rubble corner, clutching the phase-shift button that had turned into a flower,

His whole body trembled like chaff in the wind, and he muttered incoherently.

His cognition collapsed.

Alright, leave a memento for his comrades.

Qin An brushed off the residue on his hands and said, "Forget them, let's go. Where are we headed next? I want to find a place to fish."

The little broken ship belched a puff of black smoke, wobbling twice as if about to fall apart, then suddenly surged forward.

Without a dazzling space tear, it slipped into the dimensional interlayer like a drop of water merging into the sea, vanishing without a trace.

Meanwhile, the Jellyfish Civilization, after confirming safety, carefully cleaned up the battlefield.

They found some extremely faint energy residues from those warship wrecks.

After analysis by their civilization's top scientists,

they arrived at a conclusion they themselves could hardly believe.

That energy waveform matched the dimensional engine prototype displayed by the Yanhuang Civilization at a technology exchange conference a thousand years ago, with a ninety-nine percent similarity.

When this conclusion was reported to the leader of the Jellyfish Civilization,

It fell silent for a long time.

Finally, he issued an order that none of his people could comprehend.

"Give our civilization's most precious Primordial Sound Star Map coordinates as a gift to the Yanhuang Civilization."

"Tell them we…… are willing to become their most devoted subjects."

……

Qin An didn't care about the tsunami this caused in the low-level civilizations circle.

Even the Primordial Sound Star Map that the Jellyfish Civilization offered with all its might,

in the end was merely casually filed away by the Yanhuang Civilization's diplomatic department into the archives, not even worthy of being placed on Qin Hao's desk.

At this point, Qin Hao's gaze had long since moved beyond these trivial matters.

Yanhuang Heavenly Court, the Supreme Council Hall.

This is the power core of the entire Laniakea Supercluster.

A massive star map projection hovered in the center of the hall, showing the real-time dynamics of the entire supercluster.

Each light point represents a ghost fleet capable of destroying a star system.

Qin Hao stood with his hands behind his back beneath the star map.

Behind him stood all of the Yanhuang Civilization's core high-ranking officials, as well as their children who had grown up.

Everyone's breathing was somewhat hurried.

Because they knew that today, Qin Hao would announce a decision.

"We've been too complacent for over a thousand years."

"So complacent that many thought the sixth-level peak was the end."

He raised his hand, his fingers tracing the brilliant star river map.

"But in the eyes of truly advanced civilizations, we are nothing more than a bunch of primitives who just learned to build houses. We've merely made the walls a bit thicker and the fences a bit tighter."

"This supercluster is still too small."

Qin Hao turned around, his gaze like a torch, sweeping over everyone present.

"Our territory is no longer limited to the Laniakea Supercluster."

"Our vision must look far ahead."

The hall fell deathly silent, save for the increasingly violent heartbeats of everyone present.

Qin Hao pointed toward the boundless void above.

"Prepare to assault the seventh-level civilization."