"The Melowa people might have committed treason." Sandora saw us all caught in a state of stunned disbelief, and she reiterated.

I couldn’t quite catch up with Sandora’s pace for a moment; I could only scratch my head and ask, "What’s the deal with this conclusion?"

"Do you remember the time in the Giant Dragon Kingdom? Silver Dragon Char once told us about their world’s gods from the historical records of the dragons," Sandora reminded everyone, "The ’gods’ that Char spoke of were actually the Imperial Army of the Fifteenth Day Zone at that time, for the Empire created those dragons, and they revered the Xyrin Apostles as Creator Gods, while the Servant Army of that time was considered as the Divine Servants by the dragons. In the historical records of the dragons, after the Great Catastrophe, the Gods led personally, followed by the Divine Servants, but after a century, the Gods never returned, while those Servant Armies alone sailed back, and looted the Imperial Relics remaining near the Forgotten Garden. This part of history has been believed to be distorted due to the conceptual disjunction effect. We thought those returning Servant Armies might have been ordered by the Xyrin Apostles to retrieve something from the Mother Star. But recently, Orelia conducted a survey of the remaining facilities in the Heavenly Realm City and found that some facilities theoretically in safe areas had mysteriously disappeared. From then, I kept an eye on the legends of the Guardian Dragons. But now... you can see the Empire symbols on their ships."

"Even if you don’t consider it treason, their current behavior is full of oddities," Big Sister slowly said, "To remove the emblems of their old masters and create new army insignias is not a trivial matter. Unprovoked attacks on the Fifth Fleet—this is not behavior typical of a normal army... So, Cocogina Commander, how exactly did the conflict between you and these attackers arise?"

"Conflict? We still don’t know why we were attacked!" The light on Cocogina’s body brightened instantly, and his three eyes flickered rapidly, a sign of his current, truly Spartan mood, "We settled in a remote place, nurturing a new home for two hundred years without any contact with the outside world. Not knowing whether those monsters were still pursuing us, we even erased all traces of us in the Void after finding a docking place. And just by maintaining such a low profile, we got suddenly attacked—They appeared in our universe in large numbers, heavily equipped, and headed straight for the capital, bombarding all our planets along the way, with no intention of communicating. It seems their sole purpose in appearing is to annihilate us completely. Without the crisis reaction ability developed by the Fifth Fleet during years of fleeing, we would not have been able to escape facing attackers with more than twice our strength. It’s an utterly nonsensical attack—you mentioned that those Imperial Army called Fallen Apostles attack all targets randomly due to Abyss Infection, but I saw no trace of the Abyss on those attackers."

"So, no one knows why those Melowa people suddenly launched the attack... the clue has broken again," Big Sister sighed, "I feel their actions are indeed bizarre. They smuggled away a large number of Empire facilities tens of thousands of years ago and now unreasonably attack the Fifth Fleet. What’s the connection between the two?"

"Anyway, I have a bad feeling, very... unsettling," Xiao Xue looked at us and stuck out her tongue, "The Melowa people’s actions are disturbing, maybe my mom could see things a bit clearer."

"Let’s address it once the Fifth Fleet safely arrives," Sandora suddenly interrupted the discussion about the Melowa people, glancing intentionally or unintentionally at me before looking towards the communicator, "Cocogina, maybe I’ve found a way to let you swiftly cross this journey—it might be a bit adventurous though."

"Anything could be more dangerous than the peril we are in now?" Cocogina’s light dimmed a little, "Damn it... a warning probe has lost signal, the enemy is closing their encirclement, enemies are everywhere in this Quadrant!"

"Alright, then let’s talk about my method—let the Void take you over!" Sandora didn’t hesitate any longer and strongly patted my shoulder, "The speed limit of the Void Engines is due to incapability in significantly correcting its own displacement of information. Once the displacement exceeds a limit, it suffers surrounding Void Erosion leading to a collapse of its information structure. But if you can be in a gentle Void environment, free from that environment’s interference on your starship’s Order Field... you could unlock the Void Engine’s safety lock, allowing it to leap over theoretically infinite ’distances’ in one go."

I rubbed the place on my arm where Sandora had patted, suspecting that I might be getting sold out.

"Are you joking?" Cocogina didn’t seem to understand what Sandora was saying, merely feeling he heard something outlandish, "You think you can make the Void obey your command? I admit, you Xyrin Apostles wield great power, but I don’t think you could command the Void, let alone have it willingly endure such a rift within itself. Your arrogance truly shocks me."

Sandora shrugged, suddenly pinching me and saying through the Spiritual Connection, "Ah Jun, buy me fried chicken tomorrow."

Me: "...Oh, but why did you suddenly think of eating fried chicken?"

Sandora sneakily stuck out her tongue at me when no one was watching: "I’m experiencing the sensation of commanding the Void..."

Me: "..." That’s what this is all about! Sandora, you’ve learned to be bad, who have you learned this mischief from!

Thinking it over, I came to a sorrowful conclusion: probably from me...

Sandora would occasionally act mischievously as she was now, mostly influenced by my presence—let’s not delve into the weird logic here. As it was, Cocogina was now utterly confused because the small movements between Sandora and me were not obvious, leaving him puzzled as to why we suddenly fell silent. But Sandora quickly addressed Cocogina’s confusion: "The Old Empire at its peak couldn’t command the Void, but the New Empire actually has this potential—this is my partner, another Leader of the Empire, an authentic Void Creature. His power is the power of the Void, his will..."

Sandora glanced at me, ultimately deciding not to be overly explicit: "Sometimes it’s the will of the Void."

Me: "..."

"Void... creature?" Cocogina’s perplexed voice came over, seemingly unacquainted with any knowledge about Void Creatures, given his origins from the Allen Spirit Clan. Perhaps, besides the two Divine Races and the Xyrin Empire (maybe three Divine Races now?), no one can imagine that the Void could manifest its own consciousness, "I’ve never heard that term. Is it your new technology?"

"It’s very complicated to explain, suffice to say, the only thing you need to know is that the person beside me can transform into the Void, and he can control the Void unconditionally—of course within a certain scale. If you can cooperate a hundred percent, he can envelop your entire fleet in a safe Void Domain, guaranteeing you can safely overcharge your Void Engines to tens of thousands of times. However, if the cooperation fails, you are all doomed. Imagine what happens when you leave Order Field in a Void Domain, you will become a wisp of an echo, dissipating fast to a point not even the most sensitive antenna could pick up. I will handle the technical details, what remains is whether you have the determination and courage."

"Give me some time, I need to consult with my deputy officer." The light in Cocogina’s eyes dimmed again, yet he didn’t waste time asking repeatedly about trivial matters and just temporarily hung up the communication.

Sandora smiled gently, saying just before the line was cut: "Act quickly, you know it’s not the time for meetings now."

"Uh, Sandora, what exactly are you planning?" I finally got the chance to express my uncertainty, "Why do I feel like you’ve sold me out?"

"How could I put my partner in danger," Sandora pinched my ear with a smile, just like I often did to her. Then she seemed to realize that we weren’t at home, coughed twice to regain her usual coolness and authority, and said, "Ah Jun, to explain my plan, first you need to understand a deeper layer of knowledge about ’moving location’ in the Void... um, don’t show that expression. I’ll try to explain it straightforwardly. By the way, you are a Void Creature, so this knowledge should be easier for you to understand."

I shrugged, indicating to the Council, those Tobelu scientists, and the surrounding officers of the Fourth Fleet to carry on with their tasks (actually, they hadn’t any intention to join the commotion), then sat down and assumed a listening posture.

"In the Void environment, there are no mathematical or physical meanings to coordinates, distance, displacement, direction, or any related driving forces. You are well aware of this, right?" Sandora started with basic Void knowledge. After receiving my affirmative reply, she continued, "In the Void environment, the only thing that allows an orderly object to exist safely is the Order Field, or in more common terms, the Void Shield. It rapidly simulates the information environment of an orderly world through various Math Rate devices, allowing things within the Order Field to exist safely without being decomposed into basic information elements by the Void. Essentially, the Order Field relies on a self-consistent and ultra-fast computing device, and this computing device can be affected by any external interference related to information. Now, let’s talk about the elements needed to ’move’ in the Void; that is, to modify one’s ’information representation,’ causing a shift in information representation, which is equivalent to getting a new ’address’ in the vast original information sea of the Void. To draw an analogy closest to Earth, it’s like treating the Void as an omnipresent radio signal containing theoretically all existing bands, and the Void Engine is like the sensitive capacitor on a radio. This capacitor adjusts the circuit’s resonant frequency to synchronize the radio with a particular frequency station, thus you receive the signal—this is the ’movement’ in the Void environment. Each time you adjust the radio dial—adjusting the maximum amplitude of the sensitive capacitor—measures the ’speed’ of the Void Engine’s driving force. Do you know what the theoretical driving force of a Void Engine is?"

I combed through it, first ensuring I had understood every bit previously, then comprehended that Sandora’s mention of the Void Engine’s driving force referred to its ability to ’advance’ a certain ’distance’ within the Void in one go. So I estimated and replied, "It seems not to exceed a Quadrant. I remember the record set by the strongest Void Wanderer ever made by the Empire was a jump from one Quadrant border to another. Of course, then that ship became a monument..."

"...That experiment is considered black history, and it was merely the maximum jump limit a Void Exploration Ship could reach, not the driving limit of a Void Engine. The true jump limit of a Void Engine is—infinity."

I was momentarily stunned: "Huh?"

"Infinity. The principles of any Void Engine are the same; they entail altering the current Order Field’s information representation, continuously adjusting the information offset to enable a ship to ’move’ through the Void. In purely theoretical terms, this modification amplitude is indeed infinite; meaning, theoretically, it can instantly jump from any point in the Void to another arbitrary location because ’filling data in a table’ is not a progressive event. Changing one to a million does not require writing out all the numbers in sequence—only the final result matters. And since a Void Engine is like a device for rewriting numbers, its operation process is not process-oriented—I see your expression, I know what you want to say. Yes, even though the Void Engine theoretically has unlimited jump amplitude, in reality, even the most advanced ships must move slowly when crossing Quadrants. The limiting factor to their jumping speed is the aforementioned ’Order Field.’ The Order Field simulates a mathematical environment of an ordered world, ensuring that every component of a Void Spaceship does not dissolve into nothingness due to paradoxes. However, modifying information representation imposes a massive burden on the Order Field generator because information representation is a critical data point within the Order Field. Once this data changes, the entire Order Field must be recalculated. The larger the change in data amplitude, the greater the difference between the recalculated Order Field and the original. The delays caused by the system’s own performance become more pronounced. When these adverse factors reach a certain degree, the two Order Fields fail to connect—the worldviews they construct completely conflict, leading to every rule being a paradox, ultimately resulting in Field collapse, and the substantive parts of the ship entirely exposed to the Void environment... and then sooner or later becoming background noise in the Void."

I once again combed through it, pointing to my own nose, "Then my role is—"

"I was simply considering the situation of the family," Sandora glanced at Big Sister, who was whispering, "Due to Ah Jun’s information disturbance effect, now those around you can move within the Void completely cost-free, similar to the High-level Divine Race. This is because they carry your ’Mark.’ You represent the aspect of Order within the Void, which allows the Void to permit existence of Order objects marked by you within its ’body.’ So if you could Mark the entire Fifth Fleet..."

I suddenly saw the light: "Oh, hanging military plates to avoid tolls... isn’t this illegal!"

Sandora finally couldn’t hold back anymore, biting onto my arm, yelling exasperatedly through the Spiritual Connection: "I’m talking business here! I’m talking business here!"

Just at this moment, our communication device lit up again, with Cocogina’s big profile popping up on the screen: "We have finished our discussion... uh, what are you..."

Everyone fell into a solemn silence. Sandora awkwardly got off my arm and instantly put on a cold face as if nothing had happened: "Now I’ll discuss the technical details..."

"Please be as quick as you can," Cocogina might have made an awkward gesture, "We can now confirm that we’ve lost another warning probe, and the enemy’s encirclement has further tightened. They’re about to detect our main force."

It seemed this was the pivotal reason urging them to make a quick decision.

Sandora quickly finished explaining the so-called technical details. In fact, the engineers of the Fifth Fleet didn’t have much to do—they only needed to remove the protection device on the Void Jump Engine, allowing it to overload without limits. Once they completed this, they could voluntarily write collective wills under Cocogina’s organization—because after that, they could only pray for luck and my operational skills.

"So, what do I need to do?"

After temporarily ending the communication with Cocogina, I began confirming my task details with Sandora, who didn’t answer me immediately but contacted Shadow City: "Sivis, prepare a Void Shuttle packed with all types of positioning devices."

Only then did Sandora turn to me and say: "Next, I’ll send you to the Fifth Fleet..."

I: "..."

"Of course, I want to be with you," Sandora didn’t wait for my response and had already decided the next step, "No objections or reasons for refusal. I know how reckless you are, and I’m not comfortable."

"Is it necessary though?" I felt embarrassed, and Sandora’s concern felt unwarranted, "You’re aware that I’m invincible in the Void environment."

"It’s not about whether you are invincible or not," Sandora naturally kissed me on the cheek, unfazed by the surroundings, "Do you think I would let you go alone at a time like this? Besides, I’m worried about any tricks the Fifth Fleet might pull. They don’t trust us, and honestly, I don’t trust them right now either. This is not a matter of feelings, but a matter of principle."

I knew Sandora’s decision was final, and it seemed there was no way to change it, so I could only nod in agreement.

Then let’s set off, to be launched to the end of the Void... (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to go to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations, monthly tickets, as your support is my greatest motivation.)