Chapter 215: Breaking Into the Main Ship, the Sudden Appearance of a Giant Battleship

The incident occurred so suddenly that the surrounding Marauder battleships only reacted when the Assault Cruiser completely detonated.

"Fuck, why did Old Blind Eye's battleship suddenly blow up!?"

"What kind of spaceship is that? How could it have such a powerful energy attack to instantly shatter an energy shield?"

A cacophony of voices erupted across the internal comm channels, mostly laced with panic and unease.

Spaceships and battleships were fundamentally different. A spaceship was merely a mode of transport for interstellar travel, while a battleship was a primary weapon in an interstellar war.

Because of their different operational focuses, a standard spaceship could never withstand a single strike from a battleship's main cannon.

The fact that the enemy spaceship could confront a battleship head-on proved it was a top-tier vessel.

Riding the shockwave from the Assault Cruiser's explosion, the Blazing Light Starship shot straight through the wreckage, tearing apart the remaining hull structure and triggering a secondary explosion.

"Damn it, how did that spaceship disappear from the radar!?"

"..."

The command channel was absolute chaos, intensely irritating Huo Jina until he could not help but roar, "Enough!"

The channel instantly fell dead silent. Huo Jina ordered coldly, "Stay vigilant of your surroundings. White Wolf, One-Eyed..."

He rattled off over a dozen nicknames in quick succession, commanding, "Your fleets will act as the first wave. Open fire toward One-Eyed's battleship to prevent the enemy from entering a warp state."

"The rest of you are the second wave. Spread out on my command and lock onto that spaceship. We cannot give it any chance to escape."

Huo Jina had realized their mistake. The previous concentrated volley from all the battleships might have looked spectacular, but the subsequent cooldown and recharge times left them awkwardly vulnerable, even costing them a battleship in the process.

"It is just a mere spaceship with no A-Tier Lifeform. Let's see how you plan to fight me!"

Massive energy beams pierced through the recently destroyed battleship, showing blatant disregard for the surviving Marauders scrambling to escape the area.

Wearing their armor, these survivors had managed to avoid dying from the Blazing Light Starship's attacks and the vacuum of space, only to be slaughtered by their own people.

A multicolored barrage of attacks saturated the sector, once again forcing the Blazing Light Starship to abort its jump state.

"These bastard sons of bitches, how fucking disgusting," Hunter cursed. Piloting the Blazing Light Starship, he did not charge recklessly into the enemy fleet like last time.

Claptrap had already calculated the energy attack trajectories. There were far fewer incoming strikes this time; the enemy had clearly learned their lesson and held back from a full fleet volley.

Forcing their way through now would likely result in heavy damage. He could only maneuver the Blazing Light Starship defensively, relying on the propulsion engines to dodge the incoming fire.

"If worst comes to worst, let's throw Pucha out to tank some hits," Hunter suggested urgently as he forced the Blazing Light Starship through a series of highly complex evasions.

"It's useless. Pucha has senile dementia and can only react passively," Li Yu shook his head. Hunter didn't know the full truth, but Li Yu did.

Although Pucha was an A-grade Mental Power Cultivator, he was currently suffering from severe cognitive decline. Even if they threw him out there, it would likely be a one-way trip.

"Then I can only try to see if we can break through their blockade!" Hunter gritted his teeth. His hands flew rapidly over the command console. The Blazing Light Starship vibrated slightly as its energy shield weakened a fraction to channel more power into pushing its speed to new limits.

Li Yu had another idea. "Or we feign surrender. I'm quite confident in a boarding action."

However, the enemy were no fools; they would definitely deploy various restrictive measures beforehand.

"I'll figure out a way to get close to the main ship. Can you fight your way in?" Hunter asked, steering the Blazing Light Starship in a direction facing away from the Stargazer Plunderers fleet.

The propulsion engines operated at maximum load, transforming the Blazing Light Starship into a streak of crimson flowing light, dedicating the vast majority of its power reserves to pure speed.

"I should be able to." Li Yu weighed the options in his mind and nodded with a solemn expression.

"Good!" Hunter shouted. The Blazing Light Starship wove through the artillery fire, rapidly approaching the fleet's Cangming main ship.

"Boss, what are they trying to do? They're charging straight at the fleet again. Isn't this just courting death?"

"Did they give up on escaping and decide to commit suicide?"

"Their target is me!" Huo Jina sneered. "Run the shields at full power."

In the next moment, the main ship's thick energy shields flared even brighter, coalescing into an interlocking pentagonal structure.

A deep blue energy beam struck true, spreading into a sea of electric arcs across the main ship's energy shield, but it completely failed to penetrate.

"This main ship won't be easy to deal with!" The Blazing Light Starship circled the colossal vessel, inadvertently causing the attacks coming from all directions to decrease significantly.

Since many of their attacks risked hitting the Cangming main ship in the crossfire, the Marauders could only helplessly watch the Blazing Light Starship loiter around it.

"Prepare the Ion Energy Capture Network!" Huo Jina commanded, laughing with wild excitement. "Let's see where you can run now! Today is my lucky day, haha..."

The surrounding battleships extended thick metal columns. Brilliant energy beams shot out from them, connecting and interlacing to form a massive energy trap.

"Fuck, the energy shield is too thick! I can't blast it open!" Hunter cursed in frustration.

"Let me try."

The Titan Symbiotic Armor covered his entire body. The Blazing Light Starship's depressurization blast doors opened, and he flew out into the void, landing directly on the main ship's shield.

Instantly, every battleship detected the armored figure that had suddenly leaped out, displaying his image on their holographic screens.

Huo Jina tensed up dramatically. 'Could it be an A-Tier Lifeform!?'

However, upon observing Li Yu's movements and analyzing the monitored energy reaction, he completely relaxed.

"I thought it was an A-Tier Lifeform, but it's just a B-Tier Lifeform," Huo Jina scoffed. "Does a mere B-Tier Lifeform think he can take on an entire fleet?"

"What is he doing?" one captain asked curiously.

"Should we attack him?"

"Idiots!" Huo Jina snapped. "Attacking him means attacking me! Ignore him. Once we capture the spaceship, he will be a rat in a trap!"

On the screen, Li Yu placed both hands onto the energy shield. Beneath the thick protective barrier lay nothing but the mottled alloy hull of the ship.

The sheer volume of metal required to construct large battleships made it impossible to use overly precious materials.

Battleships like this essentially relied entirely on their energy shields to stay in the fight. Once the shield failed, it was basically game over.

His mental power surged, and his Energy Manipulation superpower activated. The ability, which had just leveled up alongside his mental power to the B-Class, began to show its true potential for the first time.

In Li Yu's perception, the energy within the shield beneath his feet felt like individual bricks, tightly stacked together by the shield generator, rendering the construct nearly impossible to shake.

But that was only true against external brute force. Li Yu's Energy Manipulation allowed him to mold this energy to his own will rather than fighting it head-on.

"Damn, Boss, look!" Huo Jina was hyper-focused on capturing the Blazing Light Starship. As the ion network closed in, the maneuvering space left for the starship was rapidly shrinking.

The sudden shout in the comms channel gave him a massive fright. Before he could even yell back, he noticed on the screen that the guy in the white armor was somehow sinking directly into the energy shield.

Half of his body was already submerged, and he was still descending. The formidable energy barrier acted like liquid around him.

"What's happening?" Huo Jina was completely dumbfounded. He quickly checked the energy shield module, only to find absolutely no anomalies. Not even the energy reserves were being drained.

"How exactly is he doing that?" A chill ran down Huo Jina's spine as a sudden, ominous premonition struck him.

Li Yu landed softly on the Cangming's alloy hull. His eyes abruptly turned bottomless and profound. The Ship-breaking Blade in his hand extended segment by segment, and without a moment's hesitation, he slashed down.

The alloy hull was torn open instantly. The ten-meter-long Ship-breaking Blade ripped a massive gash into the metal, directly exposing the ship's interior cabin to the vacuum of cosmic space.

The Marauders stationed in that section of the cabin were still in a daze when the vacuum's terrifying suction instantly ripped them out of the ship, stripping away their vital signs within moments.

"Warning, warning. Hull breach detected in Sector B-33. Initiating lockdown!!"

Alarms blared continuously throughout the Cangming. Heavy alloy doors slammed down around the ruptured hull section, sealing the breach to prevent further pressure loss.

But Huo Jina's face looked exceptionally grim as he roared, "Move, all of you! The enemy has breached the ship!"

Li Yu dropped into the cabin and, without a word, stomped heavily on the alloy floor. The fragile decking instantly caved in to form a massive crater, from which rolling magma poured out, surging furiously through the compartments.

The magma swept forward, continuously spreading toward the other ship cabins. Accompanied by crackling purple-red electric arcs, it obliterated nearly every Marauder in its path; no one could block its advance.

Following the ship's internal layout indicators, Li Yu rapidly pinpointed the captain's cabin. He violently tore through layers of metal bulkheads and arrived at his destination in a remarkably short time, ripping the room open to the vacuum of space.

Huo Jina was furious, panting heavily. His body was already clad in armor. Besides him, every other Marauder in the room had been sucked out into the void amidst continuous wails of terror.

Only Huo Jina remained anchored, stabilized by several arm-thick white bone spikes extending from his back and thrusting deep into the surrounding alloy walls.

Parson Bone Spider was Huo Jina's Gene Chain. The bone legs of this creature were comparable in hardness to high-strength metal, and they could secrete highly corrosive venom.

As the air rapidly dissipated, all sound vanished along with it. Only the flickering crimson glow illuminated their silhouettes.

No words were needed. His thrusters ignited, leaving behind a ghostly trail of exhaust flames as Li Yu closed in on Huo Jina's back at high speed.

Just then, two of Huo Jina's bone spikes lashed out. The tips spewed an endless stream of green slime. The moment it touched the battleship's bulkheads, thick smoke billowed up as the metal visibly melted from the intense corrosion.

'He certainly has a knack for being disgusting.'

Li Yu's eyes flashed. His arm armor rapidly shifted shape, and as he clenched his fist, a highly compressed air cannon blasted outward. The corrosive slime splattered everywhere, instantly filling the vicinity with billowing smoke.

Li Yu accelerated in a burst of speed and violently grabbed one of Huo Jina's arms.

Electric arcs exploded across his entire body. His thrusters fired in reverse, bringing Li Yu to an instant halt. The mechanical structures on the gauntlet holding Huo Jina contracted, locking onto the man's arm in a vice-like grip.

Huo Jina's pupils contracted. The bone spikes on his back shot toward Li Yu, moving so fast they were practically a blur.

But Li Yu's reaction was even faster. He swung the Ship-breaking Blade in a horizontal arc. The blade light flashed, and Huo Jina felt a sharp, stinging pain as his bone spikes were neatly severed, sending blood spurting into the air.

"You motherfucker!" Huo Jina's eyes turned bloodshot. He slammed his other fist into Li Yu's chest, a heavy impact that produced zero sound in the vacuum.

Huo Jina felt as though his fist had sunk into a deep quagmire, sapping all his strength. A purple glow shimmered across his opponent's body; Li Yu had barely moved an inch.

Retracting the Ship-breaking Blade, the mechanical structure of Li Yu's arm reconfigured. A massive mechanical fist continuously compressed before erupting with terrifying force, smashing squarely into Huo Jina's chest.

Purple-red electric arcs surged violently. Huo Jina's fragile armor caved inward, and the overwhelming kinetic force sent him crashing right through the ship's hull.

"Boss! Boss!"

"What the hell is going on inside the main ship!?"

Outside, twenty fleet vessels encircled the Cangming main ship.

Everything had been proceeding normally; they had been methodically capturing the Blazing Light Starship. But just minutes ago, after that armored figure had bizarrely breached the energy shield...

...all the battleships suddenly lost contact with Huo Jina. No matter how much they hailed him, there was no response.

Just as the other battleships were preparing to dock and investigate the situation...

...out of nowhere, the main ship's outer metal shell exploded, leaving a gaping hole. Countless pieces of debris were sucked out into cosmic space like a tornado, dragging a huge number of their Marauder comrades along with them.

Before the Marauders on the other battleships could even process their shock...

...in the very next moment, the area housing the captain's cabin suddenly detonated. A massive shower of shattered metal flew out, along with a solitary figure—their boss, Huo Jina.

Blasted by Li Yu's devastating punch, Huo Jina had smashed through the hull and tumbled into the vacuum of space.

The incident was so abrupt that the surrounding Marauders froze in disbelief. It was only after watching Huo Jina tumble several times through the void that they finally reacted, their expressions drastically changing.

"Hurry and retrieve him!"

"Surround the main ship! Don't let the enemy escape!"

The Marauder channel erupted into noisy chaos. They deployed small aircraft to quickly retrieve Huo Jina, while the rest of the battleships hastily assumed a blockade formation.

Li Yu glanced at the Blazing Light Starship, which had already slipped free from the ion network. Because the fleet had shifted focus to surround the main ship, the ion network had stopped contracting, ironically allowing the starship to break out.

This sight nearly made Huo Jina, currently floating in space, vomit blood in sheer fury.

"I'll find a way to extract you," Hunter's voice rang out through his helmet comms. He was piloting the Blazing Light Starship along the perimeter, prowling for an opening.

"No need. I'll have Claptrap take over this main ship. The combat and energy systems are undamaged; it's still perfectly usable."

Just as Li Yu was preparing to operate the command console, he suddenly noticed the battleship's radar flashing a warning light. Due to the vacuum environment, he couldn't actually hear the blaring alarms.

He stepped closer to inspect it. The radar scan revealed an unknown vessel dropping out of its warp state and closing in on their location at extreme speeds.

Shortly after, a broadcasted warning echoed across every single frequency in the Marauder fleet.

"To all battleships: Cease all hostile intentions immediately, activate your energy shields, and submit to a boarding inspection. Defy this order at your own peril."

"To all battleships: Cease all hostile intentions immediately, activate your energy shields, and submit to a boarding inspection. Defy this order at your own peril."

A large expanse of cosmic space not far away violently distorted, and a colossal black-and-gold battleship slowly materialized. The flanks of its rectangular hull were lined with constantly shifting blocks of black metal.

Everyone couldn't help but look up at this suddenly appearing giant battleship. It had no escort ships in sight, yet the Cangming main ship, with its 1,700-meter hull, looked like an absolute toy in comparison.