A fleet of spaceships blasted through space and headed for the newly discovered civilization.
In the mothership, Netchaz sat quietly in the captain's cabin. Even though it had been just over a month and a half, there were dark circles under his eyes and a gloomy expression on his face.
All the arrogance that the Young Master Netchaz possessed was gone. Now, only a solemn teenager with a heavy mission on his shoulders remained.
Compared to when they set off, more than half of the ships were missing. They lost three rank 2s and plenty of rank 1s. The loss of Sovereigns and the lower powerhouses was something they didn't even bother to count.
"Young Master, Eeral succumbed to her injuries." The door opened with a reluctant creak and an old man with a long beard bowed.
The news of a rank 1 passing away wasn't so new anymore. But it still caused Netchaz to grip his seat's armrest tightly.
"Those commoners, those tradesmen, they have no fear in their bones. They think they can dance on our hands just because we're down for a while." The Old man's expression was fierce and cold. But if someone looked closely, they could find another emotion in his eyes, something he was desperately trying to hide.
Fear.
A fear that was engraved in his bones when the Havoc tribe was chased to the point of near extinction by the Nexus Empire. Had it not been for the Crimson Specter, they'd have been long gone.
The current crisis was unexpected.
Someone had somehow found their approximate location and then hell began. It wasn't an organized group nor was it a well-trained force.
It was the common people, everyday merchants, and travelers. Over the years of their tyranny, Havocs troubled a lot of people.
All of them bore a grudge. But most of them continued to live on with their lives after the unpleasant encounter.
Some, however, had their lives entirely altered by the Havocs.
People who had their parents, children, or spouse murdered or raped in front of them. People who lost their entire life's savings and ended up as mercenaries. People who lost their reasons for living because of Havocs and just wanted to die taking one of them down.
It was a weak, unorganized, decentralized force. They were like little ants going up against an anaconda. It's just that there were too many ants.
It was as if karma came knocking on their door, hundreds of thousands of people, no, perhaps over a million desperados themselves attacked the Havocs.
It was ridiculous that over 99% of them died without being able to kill a single Havoc. But the remaining 1% dealt a tremendous blow.
And it wasn't that the 99% died without making any impact. They couldn't kill anyone but they sure did injure thousands of Havocs and wrecked their ships.
The easy journey turned into a tribulation and the Havocs had to take detours to prevent these nasty enemies from following them into their new nest.
"Send a few ships to scout. The utmost priority is to not alert the enemy." Netchaz stopped the ships a few million miles away from the asteroid belt at the edge of the solar system.
Behind this belt was a chain of planetoids that served as the Human Empire military's first line of defense.
Even though humanity had been advancing rapidly, there was still a big gap between their applications of aura compared to the ships used by the famous pirates who roamed free even in a duchy.
So far, no one had been able to detect the incoming fleet. Naturally, the stationed army couldn't detect the scout ships when they sneaked in.
"This…"
On a large planetoid nearly half the size of Earth, Bali walked out of the duel grounds where the soldiers were put through grueling battles and stared at the black sky. "…I feel something is off."
The scout ships discovered that the civilization was very weird. There were a couple of celestial rankers, mostly rank 1. But there was also a peak rank 2 and a handful of rank 2s.
It didn't the heft to have a peak rank 2, much less the other rank 2s, however weak they may be. Typically, it'd take over a hundred rank 1s to produce a rank 2. But here, things seemed illogical.
It's like someone broke the rules of the game and just brought rank 2s into their civilization.
As the scouts entered the civilization in stealth and checked out the planets, they realized that while the planets already exceeded the threshold of a province, everything felt…fresh.
"Their language isn't the lingua franca…what the hell are they even speaking?"
Even though there were many dialects and varying scripts, the language of the Alliance had long been unified.
"Never mind, crack into their systems and find out the detailed information." The scouts kicked off the special machines set for the job.
A virtual ghost along with a halo and a pair of wings appeared in the space above the ship in stealth.
"Boo wins the bet, hehe."
"…But why didn't Bali find these ships? It shouldn't be a problem for a peak rank 2." Oob flapped its wings in frustration and muttered.
"Bali should've. But Bali isn't used to this type of stealth." Boo said and asked, "What is Oob going to do?"
"I've informed the Queen." Oob folded its wings like it was crossing its arms and said in a smug tone. "There are twenty peak rank 2s in that fleet, we have six."
"But the Queens are weak! A-Aren't we going to lose? Sarah is a monster. She reached high rank 1 already. Even if she can fight rank 2s, she can't win."
Oob flapped its wings and smacked Boo on the forehead.
"Ouch!" The little ghost rubbed its forehead and cried with aggrieved eyes. "But how? Boo's body is not even here! This is just a virtual projection!"
"Stupid ghost." Oob crossed its wings once again and said in a prideful tone. "I am the Heaven's Will. I can go anywhere."
Boo bit its lips and decided to complain to Varian after he returns. It'd be best if this guy's feathers were used to tickle others' underarms.
"You're thinking something very disgusting."
"…No. Boo never thinks disgusting things." Boo lied with a straight face. Living with Varian for so long, it learned a few tricks.
"Hm…" Oob rubbed its halo with its feathers like it was rubbing its chin and waved its wing. "Anyway, the Queen I informed is not the Queen of Radiants, but the Queen of Shadows."
"B-But she can't control her power recently and has gone into a coma several times." Boo panicked.
Oob shrugged. "I told her I'll take the shot and finish off the enemies. But she insisted. In her own words, 'My husband doesn't even want to return after two months. Can't I at least vent my anger on these bastards?'"
Boo shuddered. It read enough comics and watched enough shows to learn that girls changed drastically after marriage.
"Don't worry about her problem. If things go wrong, I'll block them." Oob reassured.
"And Boo will take her away. It's Boo's specialty to run away." Boo puffed out its chest and said proudly.
"…"
The scout ships that were supposed to crack into humanity's meta net began to slowly disintegrate.
The emergency signals they sent at the last moment barely reached the fleet when the space in front of them cracked apart and a figure in black slowly walked out.
Dark fumes emerged from her body as she slowly turned to the mothership. Three different auras were spreading out from her and distorting her surroundings.
In the distance, Boo, Oob, and Sarah were about to intervene and rescue her.
"But when did she reach rank 2? And mid rank 2 already?" Oob asked in confusion.
"Last night, she just went from peak rank 1 to mid rank 2 after one of her comas." Sarah bit her lip.
Oob circled around Sarah in panic and muttered. "S-She is slowly waking up."
The auras of Sia and Enigma were fighting against the third aura. The powers of mind and gravity were trying desperately to suppress the roaring darkness that broke out of her body in defiance.
'Stay down!'
'Don't!'
The surging tide of darkness clashed with the defenses of the two and everything went blank.
All the aura around Sia vanished and she floated in space like a lifeless object.
Netchaz and the Havocs were frightened by her appearance at first. But the subsequent changes confused them. Out of caution, they decided to send a bunch of rank 2s to assess her situation.
Even though she exuded the aura of a rank 2, she felt…dangerous. So, it'd be best if they could kill her now before any variables arose.
Oob gathered the power of the entire civilization to condense an attack. Boo prepared to rush in and get Sia out.
As they all prepared for their own moves, a flood of aura exploded out of Sia's body and engulfed everything in sight.
"Arghhhh!"
"Spare!"
Millions of Havocs, regardless of age, power, and skill, and tens of thousands of their spaceships all melted away into the darkness.
Forget fighting back, no one could even move an inch in resistance. The darkness was all-permeating, all-devouring, and all-powerful.
A second later, the space was empty except for an exceedingly beautiful figure. She looked to be around 26 or 27, her hair was mostly black except for a few strands of red, blue, and green.
Her clothes, built from the power of darkness, were pitch black, yet the seemingly sacred designs on them were glowing majestically.
Just by standing there, the woman caused the space around her to distort violently and all light coming from the solar system and the stars began to avoid her.
Her aura fluctuated violently, staying at rank 2 for a second and then rushing all the way to rank 5 and higher before falling.
"That's enough!" Enigma's cold voice rang out of nowhere and two lights engulfed the woman.
A new stalemate ensued.
Beads of sweat appeared on Sarah's forehead as she poured her aura into the invisible link existing between her and that woman because of Synergy.
With her help, the stalemate broke.
That woman's mature body turned slightly young and a beautiful young woman of 23-24 years appeared.
Panting heavily, Enigma checked her body. Her expression grew worse as she noticed her mid rank 2 auras going to high rank 2s.
Enigma looked at Sarah with a complicated expression and said. "She's more powerful than we thought."
"How strong?" Sarah bit her lip.
"Incomprehensible," Enigma shook her head. A wry smile appeared on her usually indifferent face. "I only caught a glimpse of what she could do…the Centaurus Duchy Varian went to has suffered irreversible damage and didn't recover even after 500 years. It's because of the aftermath of one of her attacks back then."
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