Chapter 697: Chapter 696: Orbital Bombardment

Yu Sheng was a kind-hearted person, unable to bear seeing others suffer.

He knew that building a Star Gate wasn’t easy, and the Hidden Monastery must be heartbroken to lose such a strategic facility, and would definitely try to find a way to reclaim it.

So he delivered the Star Gate.

Now, the Hidden Monastery didn’t need to consider dispatching a fleet to the border—the massive space structure was currently suspended in orbit over the Saint Realm, casting a colossal shadow over the planet’s atmosphere from an almost dangerously high altitude.

The massive silhouette was clearly visible from the surface, and you could even see the light streams emanating from around the Star Gate—these were concentric wave patterns caused by large-scale spatial distortion, with starlight from distant space forming around the force field of the Star Gate, making the whole structure look like an eye hanging over the home planet.

Inside and outside the Supreme Temple, countless eyes witnessed this bizarre and terrifying scene, and most of them didn’t even initially react to what was happening—after all, people had only heard of a car crashing into a toll station, not the toll station coming towards them. Moreover, a Star Gate had a whole bunch of auxiliary facilities like gravitational anchors and acceleration bridges. It’s like when the toll station crashes towards you, it also brings along an entire ring road and two gas stations...

The High-level Priest in front of the Holy Temple exclaimed in shock, and within just two seconds, he realized something even more terrifying than the Star Gate jumping into the sky over the home planet—

Fleet!

As if to confirm this nightmarish thought, at the very moment the word "fleet" flashed into his mind, the High-level Priest noticed countless tiny flashes around the massive space structure—dim but clearly visible.

Those were the light explosions from large warships jumping into the universe from Super Space.

The immense fear distorted his voice: "Holy! Quickly, seek shelter!"

"Get into the bunker," the voice of the Holy came from beside him, with a calm tone that quickly dispelled the fear and panic in the heart of the priest, "Sound the alarm for the home planet—prepare to fight to the death with the invaders of the home planet."

The voice of the Holy was like a cold, biting wind, clearing away the confusion in the mind of the High-level Priest, filling his mind once more with powerful confidence and determination—

Yes, the decisive battle with the heretics... the day to dedicate everything to the Path of Venerate Saint... this day was bound to come, everyone was prepared for it, and today, the day has arrived...

The piercing sound of the air raid sirens echoed over the mountains and plains, and soon, the warning was spread across the entire planet—from the Supreme Temple atop the mountains to the factories beside the river valleys, from the cold research rings at the poles to the equatorial space elevator command center, the message of the impending space strike swept through the Saint Realm like a storm.

All major cities and temples quickly raised their heavy defense shields, and the anti-aircraft cannons and missile silos hidden among the towering mountains and valleys were activated in haste. The home planet’s defense radar adjusted its angles, trying to lock onto the targets of the United Fleet already in orbit—however, before these defense systems could get into position, the first round of orbital bombardment had already landed on the ground.

Battleship torpedoes carved dazzling trails of fire through the atmosphere, heading for cities and factories with dense energy signatures. Continuous streams of high-energy particles beamed down from space, beginning to tear apart the planet’s various large and small shield systems. Then, countless armed drones catapulted from carriers, diving into the thick atmosphere of the Saint Realm like a swarm of meteors, heading towards the direction of the temples.

Hong and Baili Qing stood on the ship bridge of the flagship "Mass Effect," looking through the large panoramic window at the intersecting web of fire in space, and the planet with its thick atmosphere and blue-green facade in their view.

Large and small flashes were erupting on the planet’s surface.

The planet was vibrant, even unnaturally vibrant.

"This is the data just sent over from the ’Zero Calculation,’" an intelligence officer came before Hong, transferring the data on the screen to a holographic projection, "Their radar array just did a rough scan of this planet, and found they could only detect the surface layer. It seems there’s some strong source of interference buried deep within the planet. Besides, they’ve analyzed this planet’s ecosystem, and this part is even stranger..."

Baili Qing’s eyes fell on the constantly changing projection screen in mid-air, while Hong’s voice came from beside her: "...A lush shell covering an empty tomb..."

A slight commotion suddenly came from below, and someone at the control seat was pointing at the window in surprise. Baili Qing quickly gathered her thoughts and looked up towards the direction of the window.

Yu Sheng was standing outside the window, knocking on the glass.

Luna stood beside Yu Sheng, while Erin was stuck to the window like an octopus, curiously watching the busy scene in the hall with wide eyes—and behind them, a giant Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was floating in the cosmic space, paddling leisurely.

Baili Qing: "..."

"Look," Hong gestured with his mouth, pointing outside, "your friends."

At that moment, Baili Qing really wanted to say she didn’t know those bizarre creatures floating outside, but after holding it in for a long time, she finally sighed: "I’ll go get them."

She increasingly missed the days of working overtime at the Special Service Bureau.

At least back then, the antics of Yu Sheng and his group were still limited to within the atmosphere.

A moment later, Baili Qing personally went outside and invited Yu Sheng and some of his comrades onto the ship bridge of the Mass Effect.

"Wow—" The little puppet lay on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, eyes wide with excitement, "Is this the bridge of a space battleship? Is this the fleet command center? So many people! Hey, back on our ship, there’s usually hardly anyone, almost like it’s haunted when Yu Sheng pilots it... Wow! Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, look! The Saint Realm, weren’t we just there?! Orbital bombardment, it’s orbital bombardment! Blow those jerks to bits... Hey, don’t cover my mouth..." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

As Yu Sheng frantically tried to hold down the chatty puppet, he grimaced at Baili Qing and offered an apologetic smile: "She’s a bit too excited, we just had quite the thrill down there... Hey, let go! Let go!"

Baili Qing’s eye corner twitched by three pixels, and with an expressionless face, he looked at the group before him. When he spoke, his tone was weary: "If you ever can’t find the spaceship entrance next time, just message me."

"No problem, no problem," Yu Sheng cheerfully waved his hand (still dangling the flapping little puppet) and then turned his head to glance in the direction of the Star Gate— part of its arc structure was currently suspended at the corner of the observation window, its heavy armor bathing in sunlight, and Boundary Land’s battleships kept jumping into the battlefield through the transition passage, "How does it feel to jump directly to the sky above the enemy’s home planet from the border assembly point?"

Baili Qing didn’t reply, as the voice of Hong interjected from the side: "An impressive and... astounding ’tactic’, I think this will become an extremely unique page in the history of interstellar warfare."

Hong came over, with a faint smile on her face, and continued speaking to Yu Sheng: "Frankly, it exceeded any commander’s wildest imagination, so much so that we didn’t even have any tactics to match your actions—but fortunately, when jumping the fleet directly above the enemy’s home planet, there wasn’t any need for tactics."

Yu Sheng looked curiously at the unfamiliar girl in front of him.

Thin and frail, her skin pale to the point of being somewhat frightening, wearing a white long dress, with black hair almost reaching her ankles, for some reason, her eyes were closed, though her face carried a friendly and appropriate smile.

And in further "perception", Yu Sheng noticed more—her body temperature was very low, almost no heartbeat could be felt, nor any sign of a living person’s breath.

Hong tilted her head slightly, also curious as she observed the renowned "Angel Hunter" before her.

In the first second after their "gaze" met, she found her heart starting to beat.

In the second second, she felt something sprouting within her veins, and her blood began trying to flow.

In the third second, her eyelids started to quiver, a terrifying urge that didn’t seem to belong to her pushed her to open her eyes.

Her heart pounded like a drum, blood boiled within her veins, a buzzing noise filled her mind, and the "human" standing in her vision quickly collapsed inwardly into an unobservable dark void—

A pair of illusory eyes suddenly floated over from the edge of her vision, hovering in the air between Hong and Yu Sheng, and those eyes disturbed Hong’s sight, jolting her awake.

"Is it pretty? Looking more? Haven’t seen enough?"

Baili Xue’s eyes drifted about in the air, circling Hong’s head, repeating from left to right with an inexplicably joyous tone.

For the first time, Hong didn’t manage to suppress the little monster that had run out from Baili Qing’s "Illusion" with her aura. She instinctively took a deep breath and stepped back a little before finally steadying herself, then resolutely cut off her Spiritual Vision.

When she looked at Yu Sheng again, the unobservable void collapsed once more into a human shape.

Baili Xue continued to float around her, seemingly pleased at a prank well-done.

Yu Sheng then raised his hand to greet those eyes floating in the air: "Hey, Little Xue, long time no see."

Baili Xue swayed in the air: "Long time no see!"

"Are you okay?" Yu Sheng turned to look at Hong, "Were you unsteady just now?"

Hong opened her mouth: "Uh, no, I just..."

Before she could finish, Erin jumped in: "Looks like low blood sugar, look how skinny this is, look how pale she is, hey Ironclad Expression, your cafeteria must be terrible—"

"I’m not Ironclad Expression."

Erin: "So the cafeteria really is terrible..."

"Stop, stop, what a mess," Yu Sheng quickly interrupted Erin’s rambling digression, then glanced up and down at the slender girl in front of him, "I just remembered, when I contacted Baili Qing earlier it seemed she mentioned the one in charge of this operation wasn’t her, but..."

"Hong, Boundary Affairs," Hong took a gentle breath, finally able to introduce herself normally, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Angel Hunter— and everyone from the ’travel agency’."