Chapter 914: Brilliant Stars (Middle)

Inside the clearest viewing window of the Kree frigate, Ronan saw a massive ship, its engines blazing like brilliant stars, the trail of its glow illuminating the entire night sky.

The flat vessel shot forward like a luminous arrow, hurtling toward the Kree Empire's First Starport.

The great shield hadn't activated, the gravity trap hadn't been deployed—no one had anticipated that such a magnificent ship would charge a starport in a suicide maneuver.

In an instant, a supernova-like burst of light obliterated every celestial body nearby; Ronan's inspection vessel was thrown by the blast wave to the opposite side of the star's orbit.

Its propulsion system was completely destroyed; the ship, like a meteor streaking with bright trails, plunged headfirst into a planet.

Violent shaking, earth-shattering explosions, desperate screams—years of cosmic combat experience allowed Ronan to activate his safety shield just before the ship crashed, saving his life.

Kree were carbon-based lifeforms, like most carbon-based beings, vulnerable to compression, explosions, and burns; the spindle-shaped ship struck the planet at speeds beyond its structural limits, and its hard hull offered no protection—instead, it turned into deadly shrapnel for the Kree inside.

The moment the ship's gravity stabilizer failed, Ronan was slammed against the bulkhead; after activating his shield, the viewport shattered completely, the command center resembling a hand-crushed wad of paper tossed into a trash bin.

The ship's final defense system ejected the command module; Ronan watched as other soldiers who hadn't activated their shields were flung out through the windows, torn to pieces in the fireworks of the explosion.

He landed with the command module; the violent impact drained over half his shield's energy, and the subsequent explosion of the control panel drained the rest; when Ronan crawled out of the wreckage, his face and body were caked in blood.

"Bang! Bang! Click! Bang!" The crashed ship continued exploding in succession, the tremors traveling through the surface, numbing Ronan's legs—but he ignored his own condition and turned toward the starport.

This supergiant star provided sufficient illumination for all celestial bodies within its orbit.

Ronan saw how the violent explosion's light bent and shifted, radiating dreamlike hues from the center like a dazzling firework he had never witnessed in the new era.

Ronan took a deep breath, stepped back two paces, and pressed the comm device on his arm, his voice trembling: "... upreme Intelligence, connect me to the Supreme Intelligence!! Someone has attacked the Kree Empire's First Starport!!!!"

His fury had reached its peak; when his voice erupted through the comm, it carried boundless rage—but the next second, he felt a sudden chill, his anger vanished instantly, replaced only by shock and terror.

Because after the explosion faded, he saw the actual body of the suicide ship.

He knew its paint scheme all too well—it was the flagship of the Skrull Empire, equipped with trap and weapon deployment systems, a primary assault vessel.

His voice began to shake; Ronan spoke tremblingly into the comm: "Skrulls... it's the Skrulls!!!! They've declared war on the Kree Empire!!!!!"

Raising his voice and screaming didn't give Ronan more courage; from the perspective of a microscopic member of a civilization, he knew exactly what this meant.

The Skrull Empire's lightning strike on the Kree Empire's First Starport—another millennium-long war was about to erupt.

Ronan immediately tried to activate the propulsion system on his armor to leave—but he discovered in despair that the propulsion unit had been destroyed along with the shield; he would have to find another ship to escape.

He knew the consequences of staying: if the Skrull Empire dared to shoot down the Kree Empire's flag, they wouldn't hesitate to capture an Accuser.

If cutting the flag before war was merely a morale-boosting signal, capturing a highly important Accuser for the Kree Empire would be a triumph celebrated by the entire populace—they wouldn't let this opportunity slip away.

Ronan scanned the planet's surface, then remembered: the inspection vessel was equipped with a small shuttle for docking with guest ships.

The small shuttle was located in the aft section of the ship, the part that hadn't collided with the planet's surface; if he could find it, he could escape before the Skrulls discovered him.

But now, he couldn't fly; to reach the aft, he had to pass through the forward section, still exploding violently; Ronan glanced at his depleted shield energy, gritted his teeth, and stepped toward the blazing wreckage.

While he was busy searching for an escape device, he didn't notice that as the explosions faded, one portal after another opened near the starport's debris.

"Hurry! This compartment is intact! Pull it back!"

"Dock! There's a complete dock here!... My god, there are seven or eight small ships still here, though they're shattered—parts should still be usable, hurry! Collect them!"

"Polaris, dismantle this section—the front half is too damaged to recover, tow the rear half away."

Several tiny black dots, insignificant against the massive debris, moved swiftly among the wreckage like ants hauling the corpse of a giant insect—methodical, chaotic yet orderly, clearly premeditated.

Shiler used a series of convincing deceptions to force the Skrull general Garna, disguised as Nick Fury, to activate the teleportation device linked to the ship during the crisis.

Earth's magical defense network monitored all teleportation occurring within Earth; any teleportation had to pass through the defense network, and to pass through it, authorization was required.

Strange authorized the Earth magical defense network to grant access; Garna successfully teleported back to the ship—but the system, routing through Earth's defense network, recorded the destination of that authorization: Garna's own vessel, the Polaris.

With exact coordinates, the sorcerers could open a direct portal; next came the much-anticipated boarding action.

Shiler, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and other superheroes Garna had believed dead suddenly appeared, stunning him so thoroughly he failed to react in time and was knocked unconscious by a barrage of punches, losing all resistance.

Next, Mystique took on the role of the mole; Skrulls could mimic humans, but Mystique could mimic Skrulls.

After using Mystique's shapeshifting ability to gain control access to the ship, Stark took over the vessel's control system.

As previously mentioned, the Kree civilization had developed only because the Skrulls had originally rejected them; furious, they stole a Skrull ship and used its technology to build their own civilization.

This meant the technological systems of both empires were fundamentally identical, including their ships.

Previously, humans had recovered several ships temporarily held by the Kree; the control systems on those ships were nearly identical to those on the Skrull Polaris.

So Stark easily located the throttle and acceleration controls—and he only needed to find those two.

As the former flagship of the Skrulls, once the Polaris's faster-than-light engine activated, hundreds of thousands of light-years were no longer a distant journey.

After performing a preemptive dimensional leap and calibrating direction, the Polaris moved at an terrifying velocity through physical space, then plunged headfirst into the Kree Empire's First Starport.

The Skrulls had not built planet-destroying warships like the Kree; though they possessed the technology, they prioritized greater maneuverability, so the Polaris was flat overall, narrow at the front and wide at the rear, resembling an arrow.

This swift arrow struck precisely at the junction between the upper and lower halves of the Kree Empire's First Starport, blowing off the dome and triggering massive explosions across the ground level, where most Kree were stationed.

It was unclear whether the explosion killed all the Kree—but when Polaris arrived through the portal later and unleashed an electromagnetic pulse, there were certainly no living beings left.

Next came the ant-colony phase: though humans were still weak, they were diligent.

Each sorcerer carried a portal; when moving large components, several sorcerers worked together using newly developed large-scale teleportation technology.

Massive portals opened above the dome and beneath the foundation; smaller portals opened across the fragmented impact zones.

At first, these portals didn't transport debris back—they brought in robots from Mercury; during the time Stark wasn't fulfilling his Iron Man duties, he had been buried in his Mercury base, inventing a series of robots designed specifically for transporting heavy equipment.

All mechanical equipment arrived through the portals, deployed on-site, and began moving debris—though robots were still less efficient than mutants.

Polaris hovered above the explosion zone, her green hair swirling as debris was gathered and sorted by size into different portals; other mutants like Black Widow, who could operate in space without life support, directed the flow on the other side of the portals.

But these materials weren't being sent to the Solar System—they were being taken to another, more mysterious dimension, where the very fabric had become pure void.

When Eternity had been disturbed by Thanos's interference with Death, he had suspended the entire Dark Dimension beyond the universe; he hadn't merely transported Thanos and his allies out—he had turned the entire dimension into a shard, affixed to the cosmic wall.

The Dark Dimension had been peeled away, but the dimension it once occupied still existed—now transformed into a newborn dimensional shard, forming a new star region.

Since the region had just been born, no existing civilization had marked a route there—perfect for storing filth.

The firelight of the explosion gradually faded; human portals dotted the center of the blast like scattered stars; more and more equipment was being removed swiftly and orderly, leaving only a few fragments that could prove identity.

Shiler, floating above, surveyed the scene, then said to Polaris: "That's enough. The remaining pieces all bear Skrull ship markings—adjust their positions slightly, create some residual explosions, and prepare to withdraw."

Polaris nodded, then shook her head, frowning: "I feel a change in the local magnetic field—something was flung out by the shockwave during the impact and explosion, and the explosions are still ongoing, but I can't be certain..."

Shiler raised an eyebrow: "Which direction? Send Tony's reconnaissance drones to check."

Polaris pointed in a direction and conjured a glowing dot in the air to guide the drone; Stark watched the feed and said: "That looks like... a crashed Kree ship? And not an ordinary one—probably an officer vessel..."

Instantly, the others widened their eyes; Captain America leaned in for a closer look and said: "It's definitely not a mistake—look at the patterns on the insignia; they're different from the markings we've seen on escort ships. This pattern resembles a cannon—anything related to weaponry could be an officer's special emblem..."

Shiler narrowed his eyes, remembering the Kree's special organization—the Kree Accusers. He smirked and said:

"Looks like we've caught a big fish."