The ten thousand surveillance cameras floating around the No. 3 space gate captured everything in the space within hundreds of thousands of kilometers. After being computed and analyzed by the super crystal processors, the picture was projected to the enormous light beam of the control center.
It could be clearly seen that, on the ninth jump point near the No. 3 space gate, the three-dimensional space that was absolutely empty suddenly spread out black ripples like an erupting spring.
In only a moment, the feeble ripples turned into overwhelming and colorful tides, which even affected the starships on the neighboring jump points that had just leaped out of the space gaps.
Those starships all hurried to dodge in a panic with the maximal power. The spiritual shields of many of them were shining brilliantly, implying the great pressure that they were enduring.
At the center of the ripples, or tides, was a flower that was unbelievably glamorous but perished instantly.
When the materials weighing millions of tons had intense reactions and completely perished, the enemy they released left ineffaceable spots on the dark universe and every observer’s eyes. The white spots gradually turned into the shape of a skeleton, representing death and destruction.
Every piece of surveillance magical equipment in the control center was shrieking, informing all the staff that a terrible accident of “superimposing teleportation” had taken place!
Two starships that jumped to the Divine Rain Planet from different worlds, for some reason, arrived at the very same coordinates at the same time. Every unit on the two starships, every cell of the crew members, and even every atom that made up the units and the bodies overlapped.
The consequence of such overlapping was catastrophic.
Even if only ten percent of the two starships overlapped, the super explosion caused would still swallow the two starships in the blink of an eye. The crew members did not even have the time to panic when they were torn into shreds in the cellar if not atomic level.
It was just the beginning.
The space swirl caused by the collision of the space ripples brought forth by the two starships boasted a high attraction force that absorbed all the materials that were fleeing away in a hurry, transforming them into part of the death and destruction, like a tiny black hole. Even some of the starships that failed to escape in time were gradually attracted and about to be involved in the serial destruction.
“How did it happen?”
The most dazzling and devastating picture on the surveillance light beam cast the control center into a moment of suffocation and silence.
The manager of the Navigation and Coordination Center of the No. 3 space gate roared furiously, “Who is responsible for the coordination of the ninth jump point? Why did they send the same accurate jump coordinates to two starships?”
The scale of the universe was far beyond the imagination of any human being. Theoretically speaking, it was impossible for two starships to run into each other in a space jump.
However, in order to increase the precision of the jump, The Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, mankind’s ancestors, created the magical equipment such as “star beacons” and “space gates”, which attracted travelers everywhere like the lighthouses in a dark night.
As a result, the jump coordinates of the starships that passed the space gates would be limited to an extremely small range. Chances were that two starships might affect, overlap, and melt with each other.
When two starships overlaid in the same space, or two bodies of flesh and blood jumped to the same spot simultaneously, there would be dire consequences.
The Navigation and Coordination Center on the space gates was an administrative department created to avoid such accidents.
According to the size and navigation radius of every space gate, the area near the space gate would be classified into different jump points, each of which had unique jump coordinates and control code.
Under normal circumstances, before a starship performed a space jump, it would send a request to the target space gate. After confirming the identity and mission of the starship, the target space gate would send the jump coordinates, jump time, and control code to the starship according to the traffic of the space gate at present.
In such a way, the safety, regularity, and rapidity of the space jump could be guaranteed.
Therefore, in a normal jump procedure where the two parties communicated closely, it would be barely possible for two starships to land on the same spot, leading to such a serious accident.
The identities of the two overlapped and mutually-destroyed starships had been confirmed. They were two carriers that had come to the Divine Rain Planet to ship goods on a normal, monthly transportation mission. Their jump requests had been sent over a day ago!
Then, there could only be one possibility.
It was a human-error accident. The coordinator gave the two starships the control code of the same time and coordinates.
The manager of the control center of the No. 3 space gate immediately blushed and glared at the coordinator of the ninth jump point.
There was no telling if it was because he sensed his superior’s scorching eyes, but the coordinator suddenly trembled violently and hissed. His face became grave, and tremendous foams spurted out of his mouth. He collapsed to the floor, cramped nervously, and peed and s*ited his pants.
It seemed that some kind of terrible disease had attacked him.
“Well…”
The manager of the control center was slightly stunned. “Doctor! Somebody call a doctor!”
At this moment, everybody in the control center of the No. 3 space gate was overwhelmed.
The chaos caused by two overlapped starships could not be settled so easily. While the fuselages of the two starships had been too badly destroyed to be rescued at all, the fragments raised by the explosion were still sweeping across the entire area.
Under normal circumstances, even a carrier would boast a spiritual shield of reasonable intensity, which would be enough to withstand the broken pieces.
But this place was next to the space gate. Every minute, a starship would leap out of the void and condense into a solid form from the fractured state.
It was the most vulnerable moment for the starships and the crews.
Even the experts in the Nascent Soul Stage and even the Divinity Transformation Stage would be more fragile than ever in the state between the three-dimension and the four-dimension. They could even barely control their own souls.
If one of the pieces happened to hit the power unit or the arsenal of the starship, or if a starship happened to jump to the pieces from the void and overlaid with the pieces, it would definitely be a tragedy of serial destruction.
Therefore, desperate roars were echoing both from the control center and from the bridges of every starship nearby.
Everybody was operating so quickly that their hands were cramping. Every surveillance camera was aimed at the starships that had already leaped out of the void. More than 90% of the computational ability of the mainframe crystal processor was dedicated to the recalculation of the sailing routes and the order by which the starships were being teleported. Both the human brains and the crystal processors were overloaded, with white smoke popping up from their heads.
In the turmoil, nobody noticed that on the nineteenth jump point, which was the farthest away from the No. 3 space gate and usually served as a backup point, a dark warship that seemed to have been melted into the universe surfaced from the void without a sound.
It was a warship that seemed to be carved out of a black gem.
The application of the energy-absorption and anti-interference materials reduced the ripples it raised when it ripped apart the three-dimensional space to the minimum, making it look like a crocodile that slowly craned its head out of the thick swamp.
When its slender yet powerful body completely surfaced from the “universal swamp”, revealing the lightning camouflage on the two sides of the body and staring at the chaotic space zone, still nobody caught its existence.
It was the first crocodile.
Very soon, the second, the third, the fourth… the tenth crocodile popped up from the void dozens of kilometers away. They were as soundless as the first crocodile. Except for the feeble ripples that looked like black fog, they barely showed any signs. The only thing that declared their intimidation was the lightning paint on the starships that were in the shape of abstract tigers.
Such a paint was the symbol of the Astounding Thunder Fleet.
After the space jump, they were only dozens of kilometers away from each other, short enough to gather into a battle formation quickly. It was almost a perfect group jump.
It was not until this moment that the control center of the No. 3 space gate finally detected the unannounced guests.
“What… What the heck!”
Looking at the light spots on the surveillance light beam that were gathering into a battle formation as quickly as bees and ants, the manager of the No. 3 space gate couldn’t have been paler. “How is it possible? So many unauthorized, unknown starships have jumped to the Divine Rain Planet at the same time… Where did they get the jump permission and the control code? It’s impossible! It’s absolutely impossible!”
To avoid the awkward situation where the enemy’s large group of troops marched into the heartland rapidly and unstoppably, both the Imperium and the Covenant Alliance had extremely high control over their own space gates. The frequency of the signals sent by the space gates was one of the top secrets too.
Every starship changed the frequency every day to broadcast different navigation signals. Only by learning the navigation signals of today, or even a particular hour, which included the top confidential data like the “jump password”, could the navigation purpose of the space gate be best achieved and the precision of the jump be maximized.
If the coordinates of a space gate were known but the jump password could not be decrypted, there was a 99% chance that the starships would jump to the edge of the target world. Perhaps it would take them ten to fifteen days to cruise at the sub-light speed before they arrived at the resourceful area at the center of the world, namely the planets frequented and mostly developed by human beings.However, the mysterious intruders had jumped right next to the Divine Rain Planet. There must’ve been—
The manager of the control center of the No. 3 space gate was greatly alarmed. Out of intuitions, he drew the mini storm bolter from his waist.
But all the navigators, coordinators, and operators before him were performing the operations according to the regulations dutifully, with confusion on their faces. There was not the slightest anomaly.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The noises of boots echoed in the corridor. They were the guards who were responsible for the safety of the No. 3 space gate.
The manager of the No. 3 space gate was slightly dazed, because he did not order the guards to come. When he turned back, the gate of the control center had been kicked open, and more than twenty soldiers in crystal suits barged in aggressively, followed by the deputy captain of the guards who was not wearing a crystal suit but the military uniform of the Imperium’s army, except that there were stains of blood on the uniform, as if he had just killed someone.
On the other hand, the armband that represented the Li family on his left arm had been ripped away, replaced by a new armband that said “Honor the Majesty and Settle the Rebellions” intimidatingly!
