Intergalactic conquest with an AI-Chapter 430: War for the Blood. {7}

Before the war had even reached the Necrotech World, before the armies had landed and the fleets had clashed, Little Red had been preparing.

Quietly. Meticulously. Over the course of weeks, she had used her royal access and her deep knowledge of Kaelzar tech to scatter thousands of tiny devices across multiple solar systems, those devices were small, nearly invisible machines made of living metal, each one installed directly on the surface of distant suns.

These devices, powered by warp tech, could siphon raw solar flares, redirecting the energy across space in real time.

So all this time, while Zanar had been draining his own reserves to fuel every blast, every beam, and every strike, Little Red had barely used any of her own power at all.

She had simply been acting as a conduit, channeling the fury of distant stars through her body.

The massive fireballs that erupted from her hands weren’t created by her stellar energy; they were borrowed from actual solar flares, stolen moments before they would’ve burst naturally from their stars. To the untrained eye, it looked like she was burning her own life force.

In reality, she was barely sweating.

All her own stellar energy had been focused on strengthening her body, enhancing her natural defenses, and keeping her mind razor-sharp. That’s why she still looked fresh. That’s why her eyes still gleamed with mischief. That’s why she hadn’t even started taking this fight seriously yet.

Just as Zanar prepared to launch a direct strike against Little Red after finally realizing something was wrong with her seemingly endless power, his communicator flared to life with a sharp tone. A familiar voice came through, deep and calm but with undeniable authority.

"That’s enough, Zanar. Fall back. We need to reassess our strategy before committing further."

It was the voice of the Supreme Commander himself.

Zanar froze mid-motion. His body was tensed for combat, energy still pulsing through his limbs. But loyalty ran deeper than instinct. The moment he heard that voice, he didn’t question it, not even for a second.

With a clenched jaw and a quiet nod to no one, Zanar turned away and began his retreat, vanishing behind a veil of stellar mist and high-speed propulsion.

Meanwhile, Little Red had sensed it. She had seen his hesitation, his shift in posture, and the slight turn of his head. She was about to pursue, to unleash one final fiery strike that would have made his retreat far more painful.

Her hand lifted; the heat was already gathering around her palm. But before she could act, another voice came through, calm and familiar. A holographic figure materialized beside her, glowing softly in the air.

"Sister, there’s no need to chase him. Instead, use this chance to fall back as well. Restock your ammunition and recharge. We’ll need you at full strength soon," said Cleo, her holographic form flickering gently beside Little Red like a ghost of light and data.

Little Red stayed in place, still floating above the battlefield, her long red hair waving with the hot winds created by the earlier clashes. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she began scanning her surroundings, not just visually, but with every tool embedded into her enhanced body.

Infrared, electromagnetic, radiation pulses. She even reached out with her stellar energy, weaving it through the air like a massive radar to feel for movement, temperature shifts, and anomalous signals. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Something felt... wrong.

"Is something happening, youngest?" Little Red asked while glancing sideways at Cleo’s hologram. Despite her casual tone, her senses were on high alert.

Cleo nodded. Her expression remained cold and unreadable, but a flicker of concern pulsed through the data lines of her projection.

"The infected are evolving faster than expected. Their strength increases with each passing hour. Worse, their numbers are rising instead of falling, despite our efforts. We’ve also begun detecting mutated forms approaching with Tier 3 combat levels."

As she spoke, a holo-screen opened in front of Little Red, displaying detailed reports with maps flashing red, graphs showing exponential growth curves, enemy evolution timelines, and sensor logs of strange, new bio-signatures.

Little Red silently swiped through the information while her eyes narrowed further. Then she closed the screen with a flick of her fingers.

"Understood. I’ll begin my retreat... but before that, I’ll leave the enemy a parting gift." Cleo simply gave a short nod before her holographic form shimmered and faded out of existence.

Then, slowly, Little Red lifted her arm.

In an instant, red rings of fire began to materialize around it, one after another. Each ring rotated slowly in a different direction, like ancient machinery aligning in perfect synchrony.

There were ten in total, each one glowing hotter than the last. The ninth ring buzzed with fiery energy, but it was the tenth, the final and largest ring that was broader than even Little Red’s body, that pulsed with something far more dangerous. It was no longer just heat. It was raw stellar rage.

Her voice echoed with mechanical clarity.

[Activate Amplification Mode. Warp Flare Armament charging... 10%... 50%... 76%... charge complete. Firing.]

And then it happened.

From each of the nine rings, solar flares were summoned from far-off stars, siphoned in real time through her warp-linked sun-beacons. They surged forward, spiraling like dragons made of plasma.

But the tenth ring was different.

It didn’t channel a flare; it opened a path.

A massive ray of pure stellar fire, pulled directly from the heart of a nearby sun, surged forward through the ring like a spear hurled by the stars themselves.

The beam screamed across the battlefield in a blinding line of white-hot destruction. Anything in its path... be it infected, broken tanks, or soldiers too slow to move, was incinerated instantly.

The entire battlefield was cut in half, the line of fire stretching for kilometers. A silence followed. A stunned, scorched silence.

Only the wind and the soft crackling of molten earth remained as Little Red lowered her hand, her crimson rings slowly fading out one by one.

Only after the last tongues of fire faded and the scorched air began to settle did Zynataria give a small, satisfied nod.

She hovered there for a moment, watching the trail of destruction left behind by her sister’s final strike, then vanished in an instant with a flicker of stellar energy, leaving nothing but a glowing afterimage and the burning battlefield behind her.

Elsewhere, on the opposite front, Rex had made a calculated decision.

He had ceded just over a kilometer of land to the infected, a brutal stretch now referred to by all sides as the "Zone of No One", a volatile, festering battlefield where neither the mercenaries nor the Kaelzar dared to step. The infected roamed freely there, adapting and growing stronger with every fallen corpse.

And while Rex still technically had the upper hand, since his forces outnumbered the enemy, and the Kaelzar legions were dug in deep, he had decided to hold the line instead of advancing. There was no point in pushing forward blindly.

"If I make one aggressive move, they’ll send that Tier 6 bastard again," he muttered to himself, scowling as he watched the enemy front through a magnified lens.

He exhaled and dropped down from the high observation post, landing atop one of the newly arrived Mauler Juggernauts, massive walking fortresses equipped with twin siege cannons, hydraulic claws, and layered plasma shielding. These beasts were now tasked with reinforcing the front line, turning the zone into an unbreakable bastion.

Rex sat down heavily on the armored shoulder of one of the Maulers, leaning back against its heated plating with a grunt. The tension in his body slowly eased as he looked over the battlefield, watching the flickers of torchlight from the Kaelzar engineers welding barricades and planting sensor spikes.

"Tsk... At least those bastards lost ground to the infected too," he muttered while rubbing his temples. "Still... doesn’t change the fact it feels like they kicked my ass."

Just then, a soft voice came from nearby; it was humble, almost guilty.

"I’m sorry, boss... I was useless this time..."

It was Mini Cleo, her voice filtered through the vocal processor of the battle doll unit she currently inhabited. She floated just above the ground with her head bowed in shame, her mechanical hair shimmering slightly under the dim battlefield lights.

Unlike Cleo’s usual avatars that were sleek, humanoid, and brimming with presence and elegance, this battle doll was something else entirely. It didn’t pretend to be human. It didn’t try to mimic life. It was a weapon, through and through.

Built entirely from reinforced living metal and adaptive nanomachines, the frame was shaped like a doll but carried the destructive potential of an orbital strike team. Its core wasn’t a heart, but a small nuclear reactor, humming faintly behind layers of reinforced shielding.

To a Kaelzar, radiation meant nothing. Their machine bodies were immune to it, their software hardened against the chaos of atomic decay. But to organic enemies and even more so to the infected, the reactor was a walking death sentence.

That made the battle doll a portable catastrophe, a last-resort weapon disguised as a cute, petite figure floating beside Rex. But Mini Cleo’s voice was still filled with disappointment.

"I wasn’t able to do anything decisive. I wasted too much energy. Veracruz nearly ran dry, and I didn’t even trigger the failsafe properly... I should’ve done better."

Rex looked over at her. The doll’s bright eyes... artificial as they were, they seemed to dim slightly under the weight of her own guilt.

He sighed and waved one hand lazily.

"Cut it out, Mini Cleo. You did fine. We’re still alive, the line’s still holding, and we learned something. That’s a win in my book."

Mini Cleo didn’t respond immediately, but she lifted her head just a bit.