About two million kilometers from the battlefield—which, in space, was actually very close.
Before even approaching, they could see two Imperial Expeditionary Force battleships exchanging fire with three enemy battleships, dazzling Neutron Light Beams piercing the dark, cold void and lingering for a long time.
At the center of the five battleships from both sides, nearly two hundred warships of various sizes were locked in a chaotic melee, fighting fiercely.
Every few minutes, several dazzling light beams would pierce the void, and several warships would erupt in brilliant Sympathetic Detonations.
Li Qingyuan observed from afar for two minutes, then ordered the fleet to take a detour.
He had no standing to intervene in a battleship battlefield—if someone decided he was being too flashy and hit him with a couple of light beams, he’d drop dead on the spot.
Circling tens of thousands of kilometers around the battlefield, they spotted two Destroyers trailing thick smoke drifting slowly forward through the void ahead.
Li Qing immediately ordered his warships to close in, took aim at the targets from a distance, and opened fire.
After chasing back and forth for over ten minutes, they sank the two Destroyers, earning 1 point.
But just as they sank them, before he could even salvage the battlefield, the void ahead suddenly warped, rings of energy ripples spreading outward.
The warship’s alarms blared sharply:
“Large-scale fleet Jump detected. Please evade!”
“Retreat.”
Li Qing gave the order decisively, though the warship had already turned around before he could, reacting extremely quickly.
Before he had retreated even five hundred kilometers, the void in the distance violently warped, a surging Energy Tide bursting open as a Large Detachment Fleet led by 50 battleships Jumped into the field.
As the Energy Tide surged into the distance, this Large Detachment Fleet split in two and headed in different directions.
“Damn it, why are they chasing me?”
Most of the fleet headed toward the battleship battlefield not far away, but 20 battleships leading about five hundred small and medium warships were actually coming after Li Qing.
This was absurd—he only had one Destroyer and one Escort Ship.
But he quickly realized he was flattering himself.
This fleet’s target wasn’t him at all—they were simply heading this way, then turned mid-course, splitting in two again into even smaller fleets, apparently intending to flank the naval fleet from another direction.
Although the Xeno Fleet vastly outnumbered the Imperial Expeditionary Force, their weapons and equipment were inferior—not only was their average combat power lacking, their speed couldn’t keep up either.
To annihilate the enemy, they would need to employ some tactics.
Li Qing immediately transmitted a warning message to the distant Imperial Expeditionary Force fleet engaged in battle, then ordered his fleet to disengage from the battlefield.
But the warning was useless at this point.
The Imperial Expeditionary Force fleet, led by those two battleships, had already been fighting their opponents for so long that breaking away wouldn’t be easy.
After only a slight delay, several Detachment Fleets had completed the encirclement.
Li Qing could only watch helplessly as this Imperial fleet was encircled by a Xeno Fleet dozens of times its size.
In the end, only a handful of fast Destroyers escaped, and both Mainline Battleships were sunk.
“What a waste. If only those were mine.”
He clicked his tongue and left the battlefield.
After that, he didn’t rush off searching for enemies everywhere.
Instead, he ordered the fleet to wander aimlessly around the star system, scouting it out.
The battle situation inside the Instance was different every time, but the terrain within the star system remained the same.
Since he didn’t expect much achievement on his first entry into the Instance anyway, Li Qing figured he’d scout the terrain thoroughly first, to make things easier for his next run.
It was worth noting that in a massive battlefield like this, where hundreds of thousands of warships from both sides were gathered, it was impossible to activate a Hyperspace Engine to enter Sub-light Speed State.
Any small fleet with a Battleship would have an Interception Field, and a ship at sub-light speed would be intercepted in no time and trapped among enemy vessels.
Additionally, while it was possible to Jump into a star system from the outside, the Jump Drive could not be used to leave from within the system—unless one used an Emergency Warp to escape, consequences be damned.
Emergency Warp was a life-saving measure used when a warship was in a desperate situation.
It required no target and forcibly activated the Hyperspace Engine to Jump away within an extremely short time.
During an Emergency Warp, because there was no designated destination, the landing point was random, with a high probability of Jumping into the endless void between star systems.
Since Emergency Warp caused massive damage to the Jump Drive, the lower the Jump Drive’s level, the higher the chance of damage.
If a ship became stranded in the endless void between star systems and couldn’t repair its Jump Drive, it could only travel at conventional speed.
Considering that the distance between star systems was measured in light-years, flying such a distance at conventional speed—when would it ever arrive?
One light-year was 9.4608 trillion kilometers.
Even at a speed of 200,000 kilometers per hour, it would take 47.3 million hours—1.97 million days, or 5,400 years.
In other words, if you accidentally Jumped into the endless void and couldn’t repair your Jump Drive, you were basically dead.
So, under normal circumstances, when players recruited crew members, they would recruit a few who could repair engines.
If they couldn’t find any, they would simply prohibit Emergency Warp entirely.
Dying once only cost five years of lifespan, but being trapped to death in the endless void meant you were well and truly done for.
He spent several hours wandering around, drifting from one end to the other, then changed course and headed toward the star.
There were ships faster than him in this Instance, but certainly none on the Xeno side, whose technology was only Tier 3 or Tier 4.
More than half of the day’s 24 hours passed without him noticing, and Li Qing had already crossed an immense distance to reach the central region of the star system.
In the distance, he could already see the enormous bright-yellow star, as well as two massive fleets locked in battle at the star’s far edge.
This was presumably the main battlefield of the star system.
Each side had over a hundred Battleships and several thousand warships of various sizes, with the battlefield spanning tens of millions of square kilometers.
It was rare to see a battlefield of such scale, so Li Qing had his warship stop at an extreme distance to observe.
“Warning: Large-scale fleet detected Jumping into the vicinity. Please take evasive action!”
“Damn it.”
Li Qing was somewhat speechless.
His luck seemed rather bad today—twice now he’d landed right at a Jump point where a fleet was entering the battlefield from outside.
There was nothing to be done but move away.
But less than five hundred kilometers after he left, the warning from the combat system suddenly cut off, and the harsh red lights turned green.
A staff officer behind him quietly said to him:
“The incoming fleet is transmitting on Imperial Expeditionary Force frequencies. They’re friendly.”
“Keep moving away.”
Friendly forces didn’t scare him—what scared him was being spotted by friendly forces and forcibly conscripted into their ranks.
That would be awkward.
It wasn’t as if this kind of thing never happened—a large fleet spotting scattered warships on a battlefield would usually forcibly conscript them into the fleet, and a forcibly conscribed ship like his would most likely be sent in as cannon fodder during the melee.
A fleet this large could only be facing an equally powerful enemy.
In a chaotic battle involving thousands of warships, the fate of those pushed to the front lines was easy to imagine.
However, before the fleet had gone far, the bridge suddenly lit up with glaring red light again.
His subordinate reported that a Guidance Field had been detected lighting up in the void ahead—an enemy fleet was about to Jump in.
Li Qing was dumbfounded.
He froze for several seconds before coming to his senses and decisively ordered the fleet to retreat toward the star on the left.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come here to watch the show.”
Clearly, this was one of the main battlefields of this star system.
Both sides would receive reinforcements from time to time, so observing here was definitely quite dangerous.
Halfway there, Li Qing instinctively opened a Palm Universe channel.
A black circle appeared in front of the escort ship behind him, and he ordered over comms for the startled escort ship to enter it and take shelter first.
An escort ship’s speed was far inferior to a destroyer’s; following along at this point would only slow them down.
But after his subordinate entered the Palm Universe, Li Qing froze.
He extended his right hand, clenching and unclenching it before his eyes, surprise showing in his gaze:
“My Palm Universe can be opened inside an Instance too?”
He had never thought of opening the Palm Universe inside an Instance before—otherwise he wouldn’t have waited more than ten hours after entering to try it.
It had just been an instinctive action just now, and only after it succeeded did he realize it.
After the surprise, a strange look surfaced in his eyes.
He pinched his beardless chin a few times and muttered to himself:
“If I can open the Palm Universe, could I use it to do something?”
“For example, if I open the Palm Universe and load in some damaged, immobile warships, could I take them out with me?”
The moment this thought occurred, his mind became extraordinarily active.
He acted on it immediately, rushing straight toward the star—that was the direction of the battlefield.
The intense fighting earlier had sunk large numbers of warships from both sides, and now, pulled by the star’s gravity, they were slowly drifting toward it.
Without external interference, the wreckage would sink into the star and melt after some time.
But now his destroyer headed straight into the battlefield, keeping well clear of the warring sides, and arrived before the wreckage of a massive battleship.
With a thought, a huge black void appeared in front of the battleship wreckage as it slid toward the star under the star’s gravity.
The wreckage slid into the black hole like silk, then visibly faded into translucence, until it dissolved into nothing and vanished.
“No good!”
This meant the idea of collecting large amounts of wreckage to smelt into various metal materials wouldn’t work.
A shadow fell over his heart, and his confidence in the next experiment dropped sharply.
The second experiment was simple.
He quietly approached the battlefield and, from a distance, lured a cruiser over with gunfire.
He didn’t lure a destroyer because he was afraid it wouldn’t dare come.
Then, he reached out and gently pointed through the air, opening a black void in front of the cruiser pursuing him at full speed.
“Boom!”
Li Qing’s eyelids twitched slightly.
He could clearly feel that the moment the cruiser struck the Palm Universe’s passage, it seemed to merge with the entire world—an unimaginable force acted upon the Palm Universe, making his whole body tremble slightly.
But his exceptionally high innate Perception also clearly sensed that the Instance space itself seemed to shudder as well.
“Well, that doesn’t work either.”
He spread his hands, signaling that the plan had failed.
Cheating this way apparently wasn’t going to work.
Li Qing was a little disappointed, but not too much—at least now he knew, and wouldn’t waste time trying again in the future.
Moreover, through this attempt, he had discovered a secret—whether it counted as a secret or not, he wasn’t sure.
Just now, when the Palm Universe devoured that cruiser, he could sense the vibration of the entire Instance space.
Did that mean that if his Palm Universe were powerful enough, it could shake the Instance space, or even forcibly devour the entire Instance in reverse?
Or, from another angle, if he found an extremely small Instance space now and opened the Palm Universe inside it, could he forcibly devour it?
Or perhaps—was this Instance space actually something similar to the Subspace Void Psionic Realm?
And given that the Palm Universe could currently draw Void Realm Energy through coordinates to continuously restore its Origin Source, did that mean it could restore its Origin Source by devouring Instance spaces?
Li Qing rubbed his forehead, finding this idea quite interesting.
If he had the chance in the future, he could experiment with it more.
If he could find a way to quickly restore the Palm Universe’s Origin Source, that would be absolutely awesome!
“Alright, this attempt is about done. Time to leave the Instance!”
Without lingering, he ordered the warship to turn and head toward the star, planning to park the warship on the star’s surface and wait for the Instance to end in 24 hours.
While not exactly safe, this was the center of the star system, and with faster-than-light travel unavailable, there was no way to reach the safety of the system’s edge in the few remaining hours.
If they ran into the enemy’s main force halfway by bad luck, the risk would be considerable.
Two hours later, the Destroyer arrived at a position just over a thousand kilometers above the star’s surface.
The temperature here was already as high as three to four thousand degrees—steel placed here would quickly glow red hot, then melt.
From the outside, the burning flames on the star’s surface looked like water, and the boundless stellar surface stretched out like a limitless ocean.
The warship sailed along the star’s surface, looking for a place to anchor.
Just as it passed over a massive flame vortex, the ship’s lights suddenly flashed red, and a piercing alarm blared:
“Warning: drastic stellar energy fluctuations detected nearby. A stellar eruption is predicted in the surrounding area. Please prepare for response.”
“Damn it, did I forget to check the almanac before leaving today? Danger everywhere I go.”
Without needing his orders, the captain reacted immediately, ordering the warship to accelerate out of the area.
However, the eruption zone was even larger than he had imagined.
The stellar surface across a radius of several thousand kilometers bulged and erupted.
In an instant, everything turned blazing red—redder even than the warning lights inside the Bridge.
“Commander, we can’t escape the eruption zone in time.”
The captain’s face was somewhat pale, his voice trembling.
A stellar energy eruption had power second only to a Doomsday-class Weapon.
If this mere Destroyer was hit, death was certain.
But Li Qing didn’t panic.
He even had the presence of mind to reach out and pat the man’s shoulder, saying:
“Don’t panic. We’re not going to die.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, everyone felt the direction of the Bridge darken.
Looking up, they saw that the blazing red stellar surface outside the Bridge had vanished, replaced by a pitch-black void.
At this critical moment, Li Qing directly opened his Palm Universe and drew his flagship inside it.
Then, endless streams of stellar ion energy surged into the Palm Universe through the channel.
Li Qing instinctively adjusted the angle of the channel, and then everyone witnessed a scene they would never forget for the rest of their lives.