Chapter 1 Space Folds

In the vast expanse of the starry sky, a spatial fold appeared out of nowhere, accelerated its rotation, and swiftly transformed into a wormhole, from which hundreds of thousands of Yggdrasil battleships sailed out.

"Finally here."

In the command room of the main ship, a creature resembling a stick insect stood with its arms crossed, its tone playful. Judging by its uniform, it was a high-ranking military officer, with a string of medals hanging on its chest.

Oville, a military commander of Yggdrasil, belonged to the "External Operations Guidance Group," a talent pool composed of elite mid-level commanders from Yggdrasil. This person was responsible for special operations such as exploration, infiltration, and intelligence theft for many years. Currently, he commanded the 274th Pioneer Exploration Corps, which was also the fleet dispatched to this location.

His skin was like a leaf, with clearly visible veins flowing with emerald green light. His entire being seemed like a plant that had attained sentience—one of the favored species of Yggdrasil, a Green Sprite.

Not all races devoured by Yggdrasil were qualified to become favored. Favored races were elite groups empowered by Yggdrasil, similar to Super A-grade races, with extremely high rates of superpower awakening, as well as unique talents and naturally outstanding Yggdrasil connection degrees.

Oville fiddled with the medals on his chest and issued orders in a slow and deliberate manner: "Attention all units, follow the predetermined tactics, take separate routes to the navigation target, and avoid possible encounters with enemy fleets as much as possible. Our goal is to reach the destination, not to be deadlocked here with the enemy's intercepting forces."

The previous few wormhole passages were interfered with by spatial stabilization anchors, preventing them from teleporting over, which had kept the 274th Pioneer Exploration Corps on standby for several days. Yggdrasil naturally guessed the strategies of the three major civilizations, knowing that this "unknown civilization" wanted to intercept them in this area to prevent them from reaching their territory.

Therefore, Yggdrasil decided to have the exploration team take separate routes. The more routes the hundreds of thousands of exploration ships took, the more teleportation coordinate options Yggdrasil had. As long as the opponent's spatial stabilization orbit wasn't blocked in time, they could slowly probe inward until they reached the opponent's territory.

This approach was time-consuming and labor-intensive, but Yggdrasil was not short on patience. The method was simple, crude, but effective. If one route was blocked, they could simply take a longer route next time. Sooner or later, they could penetrate the opponent's interception network. Their advantage was that they didn't care about losses and had enough capital to make mistakes. What they feared the least was a protracted war.

Under Oville's command, hundreds of thousands of battleships scattered and acted, like celestial maidens scattering flowers, quickly disappearing from sight.

Meanwhile, Oville's personal troops advanced swaggeringly along the route of the previous exploration team.

"Although the Executors believe that this civilization is suspected to be the hometown of that outsider from last time, it cannot be confirmed at present. If not, I don't know if there are any individual powerhouses here..."

Oville squinted his eyes and casually glanced at a figure in the corner of the command room who was closing his eyes to rest.

Yggdrasil had specially arranged for a Holy Tree Envoy to travel with the ship. If they encountered the enemy's intercepting forces, they would take action depending on the situation, with the goal of forcing out the individual power of this unknown civilization, even if it meant sacrificing themselves.

…

Three days later.

A small fleet of the Void Spirit Religion searched along the trajectory of the exploration team.

The captain was connected to the command channel, listening to the frequent reports from other units, his expression serious.

"Currently, a total of seven thousand two hundred enemy ships have been intercepted. It has been determined that the enemy is taking separate routes, and the total scale of the enemy is still unclear..."

"Sir, this is very disadvantageous to us." The adjutant beside him said with concern.

"It is indeed disadvantageous." The captain nodded solemnly. "But we can only try our best to intercept them."

Yggdrasil divided its forces too much, and not all routes were used as mediums for the Seers, so even the Sons of Destiny channel could not monitor all the divided routes of this exploration corps. The three major civilizations could only send troops to patrol everywhere, like sieving through various areas repeatedly to intercept the fish that slipped through the net.

This approach was like looking for a needle in a haystack, relying heavily on luck, and would also lead to the dispersal of forces. However, the outer defense circle had not yet been completed, so they could only adopt a clumsy method to catch Yggdrasil's moves. No matter how troublesome it was, they couldn't let Yggdrasil's exploration corps directly attack their core territory.

The outer domain defense circle was a major project. The principle was to use the Shattered Star Ring as the center, establish a virtual sphere, and then continuously enlarge and spread it until it covered the current position. Then, the three major civilizations cut off a spherical arc-shaped section on the side of Yggdrasil's advancing direction, and enlarged or reduced it as appropriate to form a three-dimensional boundary, thereby determining the basic range of the defense circle, and then establishing a large number of wormhole rapid support bases to compensate for the problem of the long front line.

Due to the large area of the arc surface, this seemed like an impossible project, but in fact it was only a limitation in terms of manpower and resources. With the engineering efficiency, military strength, and resource reserves of the three major civilizations, it was enough to bear such a project... Since they didn't want Yggdrasil to drive straight in, there was not much room for ingenuity in establishing a defense line.

Just as the captain was about to speak, the anti-stealth radar suddenly issued a warning, pointing to a position diagonally in front, displaying a group of moving unknown targets.

"Encountered them!迎上去 (Yíng shàngqù - Meet them head-on)!"

The captain's eyes narrowed, and he immediately gave the order.

The fleet immediately changed direction and headed towards the target, while the radar-locked target did not turn its head and also rushed straight towards them.

Before long, this Void Spirit Religion fleet met Oville's personally led troops, appearing within each other's line of sight.

"Fire!"

The captain didn't say a word, his face contorted, and he let out a Li Yunlong-style roar.

The Void Spirit Religion fleet immediately opened fire, unleashing a volley of shots. The ship-borne artillery muzzles lit up with dark red light, then burst out with dazzling beams, cutting through the star-like curtain. At the same time, Oville's personal troops also returned fire.

Two waves of opposing light rain crossed paths and shot into each other's formations, splashing countless sparks on the shields.

Neither side had any intention of communicating. As soon as they met, it was a battle of fire and water, shooting back and forth with great enthusiasm.

Just as the two sides were fighting fiercely, suddenly, a mental fluctuation erupted from Oville's main ship, sweeping across the Void Spirit Religion fleet in the blink of an eye.

Many Void Spirit Religion battleships seemed to have an emergency response, suddenly ejecting complex magic circuits composed of energy, resisting the mental fluctuations head-on. They were bombarded with magic sparks, immediately dimmed a lot, flickering non-stop, and suffered heavy damage.

"Super A-grade esper! Requesting support!"

The captain's face changed, and without saying a word, he directly requested support in the command channel.

Because there were too many search teams divided, the limited number of Super A-grades was naturally insufficient to be assigned to each team, so they were all waiting in the main base. Only when the search teams encountered Yggdrasil powerhouses could they request Super A-grade support.

In order to prevent ordinary crew members from having their memories stolen by mental magic, esper abilities, and other means, the search ships had undergone special treatment, deploying mental barrier enhancement devices, and engraving special industrial enchantments, used to resist mental intrusion. The number of times they could resist depended on the opponent's strength, so that the crew members inside the vehicles would not be instantly killed upon meeting.

Not long after the words fell, a phantom suddenly appeared in the battlefield, and then suddenly solidified. Kesuye arrived through the high-dimensional apocalypse teleporter.

"This is the individual power of Yggdrasil?"

Kesuye's eyes narrowed, flashing a hint of interested splendor.

The next moment, boundless mental energy poured out like a flood, slamming into Oville's troops.

The mental energy released by the Holy Tree Envoy suddenly rolled back, turning into a shield to protect the fleet, but it only lasted for a few seconds before being crushed into dust by Kesuye's vast mental energy. Exploration ships were squeezed into scrap iron one after another, exploding into fireworks in the sky.

Seeing this, the Holy Tree Envoy hurriedly rushed out of the main ship and launched an attack towards Kesuye. The mental power wave turned into a needle and shot towards Kesuye's brain, immediately making a "ding" sound, unable to penetrate Kesuye's thick mental barrier at all.

Without saying a word, Kesuye released even more solidified mental energy in his backhand, immediately binding the Holy Tree Envoy. The huge difference in energy level made it almost impossible for the opponent to move.

"Let me see your memory..."

Kesuye's eyes flashed, and his mental energy probed into the Holy Tree Envoy's brain.

This was his first contact with an Yggdrasil powerhouse. Before this, he had only heard Han Xiao talk about it, and had not experienced it himself. At this time, he couldn't help but want to peek into the other party's memory.

However, at the moment when the mental energy tentacles probed into the Holy Tree Envoy's mind, a vast pressure suddenly came along the mental link.

Boom!

An indescribable sense of fear crashed into his heart in an instant. Kesuye instantly felt a bone-deep palpitations and chills, as if he had been glanced at by an endless giant beast.

An extremely strong sense of vigilance suddenly rose in his mind, as if something extremely terrifying would happen if he didn't cut off the mental link.

—Because the Yggdrasil's mind network connects all individuals, once you try to peek into an individual's memory through mental means, it is equivalent to connecting to Yggdrasil. Outsiders will immediately feel the mind network's huge pressure and strong coercion, and will also be noticed by Yggdrasil... If you stubbornly maintain the mental link, you will give Yggdrasil a chance to reverse devour your soul, and at the very least, your sanity value will be cleared, and you will fall into madness.

"This is Yggdrasil?"

Kesuye hurriedly withdrew his mental energy, his eyes astonished.

He finally understood the reason why Han Xiao was so wary when he mentioned Yggdrasil.

Although it was only a fleeting glance, he almost felt exhausted at that moment. The sense of oppression he felt in the face of a high-level being was deeply imprinted in his heart.

Dispelling the idea of peeking into his memory, Kesuye increased his output, bombarded him with mental energy, and before long, the Holy Tree Envoy's consciousness was crushed, and his body was also blown into pieces of dust, crushed to death.

In the only remaining exploration main ship, Oville lit a cigarette, took a puff, and shook his head helplessly, looking at the artillery fire coming from outside the window.

"Tsk tsk, an unsuccessful expedition... I hope we'll have better luck next time."

The next second, the artillery fire engulfed the spaceship, causing a violent explosion. All the crew members, including Oville, turned into seeds and returned to the embrace of Yggdrasil.

…

At the same time, in Yggdrasil civilization, the Tree King Palace.

"What a powerful esper, killing Manny so easily."

Tedlen and other Executors' faces tightened, revealing a look of seriousness.

They had just been watching the encounter between Oville and the sacrificed Holy Tree Envoy through the mind network and saw the whole process.

"Did you see the situation when this esper arrived? It's similar to the teleportation method used by that outsider last time." The Mind Tree King said faintly, "There is a 70% chance that we can confirm that this unknown civilization is the hometown of that outsider."

"This is good news." The Town Tree King nodded.

The last outsider had already made them feel pressured. If they encountered a new enemy at this juncture, they would doubt whether they could fight on two fronts and take down two prey at the same time.

But now that it is highly likely that the two are the same enemy, it is a relief—in this case, the exploration team discovered the enemy's lair when they had no clue, it is simply an auspicious sign of "destiny lies with me"!

"This esper's level should not be as good as that outsider, but it is powerful enough. Ordinary Holy Tree Envoys are far from his opponents. It can be seen that this is indeed a civilization with very developed individual power." Tedlen pondered.

The Mind Tree King hummed and said slowly: "The other party's strategy is very clear. They plan to establish an interception circle here. It is obvious that it has not yet been completed. We can destroy it a little bit... Next time, choose coordinates that are a little further back for teleportation, and let the troops build a temporary base there as a guide. When the time comes, we will mobilize a large army and launch a general attack."

"We don't need to investigate the intelligence before launching a general attack like before?" The Town Tree King turned his head and glanced.

"Intelligence naturally needs to be collected, but focusing only on this is too conservative and rigid. It is best to flexibly adjust the plan according to the situation. Knowing the intelligence is one aspect, and taking the opportunity to disrupt the enemy's deployment is equally important. The two do not conflict. If we let the other party comfortably build an interception circle, we will have to spend several or ten times the cost to break through it later. It is better to take action now and destroy the enemy's plan."

The Mind Tree King narrowed his eyes. The style of the Yggdrasil civilization is more pragmatic. He does not have the habit of waiting for others to transform before taking action.