Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'

Massive barrage, precision guidance, agile maneuvering, swift attacks, efficient lethality, a spectacular sight.

Arcane Missiles like schools of piranhas turned and swayed in the Eye of the Galaxy. Except for a few distant targets, which could be intercepted by drones, most of the missiles locked onto their targets.

BOOM!

The silent void should not carry sound, but the intense arcane explosions made the entire space of the Eye of the Galaxy tremble.

What was originally a battle confined to the free fire zone finally caught the attention of the higher-ups.

"Hey, what was that vibration just now?"

"I don't know—ugh, my head hurts, what's happening?"

"My ears are ringing! Ugh—space, space is making noise! The Eye of the Galaxy is cursing us!"

A massive amount of ships sunk with spectacular detonations, creating anti-matter annihilation of enormous scale. The first and second Night Butterfly lines were deploying meteorite weapons, and the Night Butterfly engineers, who were preparing for artillery support, clutched their heads, resonating with the physical shockwaves from the continuous arcane explosions and annihilations.

This resonance wasn't strong, but it was enough to cause the dislocation of ear stones, entering into the semicircular canal. Already working in the void, the engineers couldn't adjust their body posture without gravity, and the ear stones got stuck there, causing dizziness and nausea.

This was the reaction of a materialist.

For the Night Butterfly soldiers, who wholeheartedly supported idealism and believed in the animism, this sudden noise and dizziness seemed like the Eye of the Galaxy's hatred towards them.

They were all too aware of how the originally peaceful and harmonious mining workers had been slaughtered and forced into production lines, only to die on the assembly line.

Now, amidst the chaos, the Night Butterfly soldiers fell into disarray.

The void is silent, but ghosts can scream and demand a soul.

In the Layer Abyss, there were quite a number of people on the Mysterious Pathway, normally, no one is afraid of ghosts.

—except those who truly have a guilty conscience.

When the frontline desperately needed artillery support, the Meteorite Operations Units of the first and second lines fell into fear of nonexistent undead.

The residual echoes of the shockwaves even reached the third line, where the frontline temporary operations command's superstring computer immediately captured this anomalous data.

"Detected an anomalous space quake, with a scale covering a starfield of 300 cubic light years."

Upon hearing this report, military staff officer Covington's first reaction was disbelief, and his second reaction was still disbelief.

"This is impossible, only the cursed who've been through the Border Abyss can trigger a space quake—investigate the area immediately."

Although young and freshly graduated from military school, Covington wasn't one to blindly trust data. As one of the few who could apply theory to practice, he personally came to the frontline to experience combat and was already quite familiar with the environment of the Eye of the Galaxy.

The structure here is quite unique, not to mention gravitational disruptions, dimensional fluctuations frequently occur, perhaps because this is a zone of uneven Layer Abyss mass distribution.

—Due to various beings stronger than Kappa (10), even Omega Tier (final) beings and deities, lingering in the Layer Abyss and refusing to dive down into the Mass Abyss for battle, their presence severely affects the mass structure of the Layer Abyss.

Even kindergarteners know that objects with large mass tend to be spherical, and the universe is no exception. The Layer Abyss structure resembles an ellipse, but due to the existence of extremely powerful entities, either God Embracers who can bend laws to their will or simply Pathway deities, the cosmic mass balance is disrupted.

Narrative Omega and deities are relatively calm, typically they stay at home in retirement, all three narratives are centered in the core area.

However, those strong entities and even deities who secretly floated up, refusing to participate in the Mass Abyss battle royale, perhaps even the Void Overlords, their presence can severely alter the mass structure of nebulae and even star systems.

Some may become areas of hyper-gravity, compressing a proper stellar body into a black hole, others may exhibit boson agitation phenomena, causing complete temporal disruption, some even have their material laws rewritten.

The Eye of the Galaxy, being a region slightly smaller than a typical star system, happens to lie adjacent to an affected area.

Anomalies often occur here, many soldiers even encounter lifelike illusions, some directly have offspring with non-existent civilized beings, later receiving court subpoenas demanding child support.

In one particularly extraordinary case, a unit collectively engaged in combat with a fleet from thousands of years in the past.

All the complex natural environmental causes, along with the significant strategic significance of the Eye of the Galaxy in astronomy, dictate that whoever captures this place gains a combat hub, directly enabling homeworld warfare against adversarial civilizations.

Covington had always been composed.

"Yes. Searching—estimation points to the shock source originating in the central fire exchange area—five minutes ago, the Crystal Tower deployed the 'Decisive Battle Weapon', deploying it to the free-fire zone, the fighting has continued since then…"

The communicator's voice was nearly trembling:

"Currently, our losses are severe: 'Prince Dadun' destroyer has been sunk, 17 'Hel' class mother ships, 88 'Storm God' class light destroyers, 223 'Eye of Taelman' cosmic submarines, and 522 assorted fighter planes and mecha devices…"

"Total missing in action soldiers: 87,000."

Once the report numbers were mentioned, the entire temporary command post fell into a deathly silence.

87,000.

Not casualties, but MIA, but everyone knew, in interstellar warfare, MIA and KIA are no different. With the vast universe too enormous, the success rate of rescuing soldiers is akin to alchemy in a junkyard.

At least in four or five tons of electronic components, there's genuinely gold, but in a tens of light-years wide Eye of the Galaxy, where do you find people?

Exhausting air is one thing, Zeta Rank at least can last seven or eight days in space.

But with limited food, radiation, and extraterrestrial bacteria—unfortunately getting directly irradiated by stars leaves not even a speck of ash.

Yet even so, 87,000 people.

That is 87,000 people!

"Even in the Eye of the Galaxy… losing 87,000 in five minutes is terrifying."

Covington's pupils continuously contracted and expanded, the life monitoring system showing his arrhythmia.

That is not a mortal!

Zeta Rank regular soldiers are all powerful beings with Divinity. Within civilization, they are at least referred to as Ascenders. In the atomic era, any one of them tossed in could be a deity capable of destroying heaven and earth.

Among them, there might be some with extraordinary talents like Canyue, capable of causing damage to planets.

The Eye of the Galaxy is indeed brutal, but no matter how cruel it gets, the soldiers can at least resist, and there will always be survivors.

87,000?

Free-fire zone, now there are only 100,000 in total!

How long did they resist?

Five minutes!

Not enough time to even shoot and upload a short video, nearly 90% of the troops in the free-fire zone were annihilated?

After a brief silence, the members of the command staff erupted.

"Decisive Battle Weapon? Did the Magicians finally summon the Demon God?"

"Impossible, they are materialist fools who periodically undergo thought screening. How could they summon a Demon God? You cannot apply the typical magical civilization's case to those bastards of the Crystal Tower."

"Then at this scale, it can only be Kappa (10)!"

The discussions became increasingly absurd, and Covington could not help but remind:

"Governor Bablushka just fought to mutual destruction with Balkmon, where would they get a Kappa (10)?"

"That can't be said for sure."

The teleportation array opened, and a Night Butterfly general wearing a metal mask entered the command department surrounded by Mechanical Paladins.

He slowly raised his head, and everyone present immediately felt invigorated, standing up collectively. Covington, more startled, quickly took off his hat to salute:

"Greetings, Marshal!"

"Blessings of the Night Mother."

'Skeleton Marshal' Dufen Herman slightly raised his hand, making a gesture of blessing. His physique was robust, without any signs of mechanical enhancement, instead maintained by the surge of mechanical force and magnetic field energy keeping his muscles perpetually swollen and tense.

He walked to the command platform, unhurriedly removed his military cap, revealing a bald head full of black scriptures. Lightly tapping his fingertips on the computer, mechanical force surged, and the computer obediently revealed all its information as if it were a well-behaved child.

"Hmm, indeed."

Dufen Herman gently calmed the computer's 'emotions':

"Fortunately, I set off in advance. The information provided by the Narrative Civilization was spot on."

Covington was stunned:

"Marshal, did the Narrative Civilization predict this event?"

"More or less. Not long ago, the 'Obliteration Sanctum' informed us to pay attention to a special individual — the former President of Baizhu Star: Leoz Dominet."

Herman said nonchalantly:

"Although due to interstellar law, the Temple cannot provide us with any form of support, sharing some interstellar 'news' does not fall outside the law."

"Leoz Dominet was indeed a hero a few years ago, but he is no longer in power. Moreover, sir, Baizhu Star no longer possesses the corpse fragments of the Eye of Discernment, which can be said to have been released by the Crystal Tower intentionally to offset financial losses..."

"At the border region of Layer Abyss, Leoz might be a thing of the past, but in the Layer Abyss, he has never been a nobody."

Herman spoke as his eyes sparked with electricity, beginning to remotely take over fleet command:

"The Temple has been doing business with Leoz for over a decade, initially intending not to interfere with the Eye of the Galaxy's situation — Of course, following the severe losses suffered by the consortium and the Empire due to 'silent disconnections', they began to stir towards the outside world, and the Temple also didn't intend to stay inactive, starting to fund those who share our idealism."

He lightly moved his fingertips, the mechanical force transported through subspace channels to the front line battlefield.

"Although there was no economic or military assistance, the Temple shared critical interstellar information with us."

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

An arcane missile bombing shattered the energy shield, releasing various arcane effects on the ship armor, with flames and frost interplaying wildly in the vacuum.

"Leoz Dominet has ascended to Iota (9) and even slain a Kappa Rank Void Overlord."

Li Aozi moved like an arc, quickly leaping between ships. Even battleships with heavy armor could not resist the barrage of missiles Li Aozi launched at close range.

"Hmm? Isn't this the ammunition depot?"

Li Aozi glanced inside, this seemed to be a female soldiers' dormitory. Some young Night Butterfly women, just receiving the battle command and caught unprepared by the sudden attack, instinctively clung to the nearby supports to avoid being sucked into the vacuum.

At Zeta Rank, after one ascension, regardless of gender, their appearance wouldn't be bad, especially those with large physical activity and beliefs in deities; all were slender and pure virgins. At this moment, they were even more thinly clothed because of the sudden event.

So the Shining Sword directly struck towards the bewildered sailors.

Regrettably, in the vacuum, no screams or cries for help could be heard.

Even someone as compassionate as Li Aozi could only watch as hundreds of Zeta Rank Night Butterfly female soldiers were reduced to ashes under the lightsaber's roasting.

Why didn't they resist?

A mere few million degrees, only a kilometer-long short sword, should be easy to dodge.

It must be that they faced suffering and discrimination in a civilization like Night Butterfly, making life difficult, and they seized this opportunity to commit suicide.

Alas, Night Butterfly.