Skyfire Avenue

Kang Hui, who had been seated behind the control board in Tyrannosaurus, shot to his feet when he saw the red orbs. He thought he knew the plan, but it didn’t involve attacking one of their own planets!

Wasn’t the plan to use their ranged advantage to weaken the enemy? Why, then, would Lan Qing use his main guns right out of the gate? It was completely different than what they’d discussed!

He didn’t know the full scope of Middle Heaven’s capabilities, but he could guess. Lan Qing’s confidence in it, he had to assume the East’s bastion was formidable.

Angel would be no more.

Angel wasn’t a particularly large planet. If Middle Heaven’s blast didn’t outright destroy it, at the very least the damage would be apocalyptic. It would likely never recover or be used for human habitation ever again.

Yet as he watched, a scene unexpected by all revealed itself. As the orbs reached the halfway point between the bastion and the planet, they changed. Where they had been tightly packed spheres of energy, now they began to break apart.

Their angry red light flared brighter, like the corona of light from a space ship’s engines. At first it was kept close but soon spread out as the orbs themselves vanished into nothing.

All of that for nothing? Was Middle Heaven really so useless? Doubt filled the minds of those who looked on, let down by the spectacle. The aliens were just as confused.

But the truth was quickly revealed. Indeed the individual orbs had dissolved, but that didn’t mean their energy had dissipated. The many tightly compacted salvos of energy had broken apart and merged into a sweeping blast of power.

The scope of it had obviously been precisely calculated. As it collided with the wall of mist a magnificent display was revealed to the human spectators.

A breadth of misty space was burned away in a circular shape. A red light burned at the borders that disappeared as the mist receded. Then, with a burst of light and an ear-splitting roar, an explosion of red light emerged. It was so bright and so fierce that Angel was lost in its glow.

What was that?

The concussive force of the blast rippled all throughout the purple haze, ripping it apart. Its shockwave roared across space and burned away the fog like the crisp morning sun. The alien forces behind were revealed.

The blast embraced and surrounded Angel, but caused it no damaged. The aliens that had fled from the assumed trajectory of Middle Heaven’s attack now found themselves in the middle of it.

In an instant scores of aliens were reduced to a field of mangled flesh and blood. Those creatures which where specialized in defense survived much of the initial damage, but only just. This was Middle Heaven’s might, and destruction was unavoidable! Countless scores of the beasts were no more.

The shock of what they witnessed stunned every spectator. Not only did it clear away the mist, it also ripped their enemies apart. The surprise was similar to their first fight against the alien home worlds, though this time the bitter realization that they knew nothing was suffered by alien and not human victims.

Lan Qing had pondered over a solution to the alien tactic of hiding behind planets since witnessing it in the North.

Middle Heaven’s primary power source was molinite. It powered the ship’s engines as well as its engines – the main gun array included. Because the element was so unstable by nature, it would have been impossible to amass enough of it in a single shot. Eastern scientists then came up with a novel solution; prime diffusion.

By using rare metals that reacted well with molinite, they constructed an array of guns instead of a single cannon. They were constructed all over Middle Heaven and could be used either as weapons or as engines. How they were used depended on the amount of energy used and how it was channeled. It just needed to be programmed in advance. This attack had been modeled after the burn patterns from rocket engines.

If the payload had maintained their orb shape it would have frightened the aliens, but otherwise not caused a lot of damage. At beast it would have pressed them together, or had them hide behind the planet.

But the humans’ tactics were clever. What started as a salvo of compressed energy quickly broke apart at the halfway point, just long enough for the aliens to have moved from their path. However, they couldn’t fly fast enough to avoid the detonation.

Strike where it is not expected. This single surprise attack had killed far more than the twelve Capital ships from before had put down. The alien forces around Angel were thrown into chaos.

The human armada sped their approach and quickly charged their weapons. With high spirits, riding the momentum of Middle Heaven’s opening attack, they charged into the fight.

Was this the true power of Middle Heaven? Admiration was clear on Kang Hui’s face as he witnessed the aftermath of Lan Qing’s initiative. Scope, power, control... that attack worked flawlessly on all fronts, designed to blaze a path for them to follow.

Preparing everything in two days had not been an easy feat. Yet Lan Qing, in silence and alone, had set everything up perfectly. His opening move had not only annihilated their foes but also inspired his troops. In a blink everyone was in position and moving in to press the attack.

The twelve Capital ships rushed into the remaining alien forces, guns blazing. They held nothing back. Meanwhile Tyrannosaurus and Poseidon pressed ahead without engaging. They were quietly waiting in the wings, though just their presence was a deterrent against alien aggression.

Just then, an orb of dark purple was launched from Angel’s surface. At first it was inconspicuous but quickly broke atmosphere and entered space. It garnered notice when it shrugged off three blasts of Capital ship fire.

It was revealed to be an enormous creature in the shape of an enormous globe. The only reacted it had from taking three direct hits was to flatten out, and thus deflect the shots away.

This alien was over ten thousand meters in diameter – among the largest they’d ever seen. When the danger of the Capital ships had passed it stretched again to create a protective shell that warded off five more shots. It hung there brazenly denying the power of human technology.

All of a sudden the creature began to spin as though it were caught in a whirlpool. Several of its smaller brethren were sucked into its orbit, saved from destruction. All the while shots from human vessels bounced off its surface.

For a moment it seemed as though the titanic beast collapsed in on itself, only to burst out like an overripe tomato a moment later. A host of aliens were blasted from its corpse right into the human armada, over a thousand of them.

In an instant the separation human ships were depending on was gone.

But they had a plan. Once the Capital ships had come into firing range and released their payloads, all the support ships had begun to slow. Lan Qing adhered to the principle of exploiting one’s advantage to the fullest, and humanity’s range was among their greatest assets.

The soldiers slowed, then stopped, then sped up, then stopped. The timing and rhythm closely followed Lan Qing’s commands. The tactic was employed to make sure all ships stayed in formation, and didn’t break from the alien assault. It protected his troops from losing focus as the alien forces were flung their way.

The first ship to react was Middle Heaven, and it did so without quarter. Beams of red light fired from the forward array. The barrels glowed like angry eyes, glaring at the encroaching aliens.