Chapter 35 — Raising the Battle Flag

At the edge of the sky-blotting shadow of the [Aries Outer Defense Line: 11th House Sky Sentinel], which was as massive as a stellar cluster, the Deadzone asteroid belt hung like a cold Stonehenge in the pitch-black space.

Inside the lower casting cabin of the [Orbit-breaker One] explosion-proof warship, orange-red high-frequency electrical arcs sparked rapidly, and the air was filled with the pungent scent of high-micro-particle lead dust and melting high-temperature metal.

Old craftsman Barnaby was leading several mechanics, securing a roll of dark lead explosion-proof fabric dismantled from the [Golden Saint] patrol boat onto a magnetic wire pressing table. This fabric inherently possessed extremely strong high-dimensional polarized light absorption properties, presenting a heavy texture as pitch-black as a cosmic deadzone.

Barnaby held a high-frequency welding torch, precisely branding molten silver liquid metal, mixed with Divine Envoy Gar's divine blood, along the energy-conducting circuits on the inner layer of the fabric.

Divine blood and silver reacted violently under thousands of degrees of high temperature, solidifying on the pitch-black fabric into a fractured star-track of pure gold interspersed with blood-red, running across the entire flag.

This was not just a flag symbolizing mortal unyieldingness, but a [High-micro-particle Polarized Light Disruption Coating] cleverly deconstructed and modified by Barnaby. Under the dense high-frequency scanning of the Sky Sentinel's space-based defense line, any metal hull would produce faint polarized light backscatter. But once this coated flag was hung over the ship's bow main radome, it could reduce this backscatter amplitude by three orders of magnitude, providing physical-layer stealth cover for the warship during its sprint.

Old craftsman Barnaby wiped the black oil from his face, having checked the final weld seam with a high-frequency thickness gauge and a polarization sensor. His voice was rough and crisp: "Coating conduction path tested. After the silver-titanium-chromium plating bonded with divine blood, radiation resistance increased by 40%, and the polarized light scattering rate dropped by three orders of magnitude. Elias, this flag can cover the warship's physical amplitude under a polarized light sweep."

Elias slowly stepped forward, his long hand stroking the fractured star-track on the flag surface, sharp as a knife.

"The flag's name is [Orbit-breaker]." Elias's eyes were cold to the bone, devoid of any superfluous sentimentality or nonsense. "Raise it, lock it dead onto the bow active radome."

Amidst the metallic roar of the [Orbit-breaker One]'s outer hull main control robotic arms, this ten-meter-wide [Orbit-breaking Blood Flag] was firmly locked above the black warship's main mast and radome. Under the long-distance sweeping of the 11th House Sky Sentinel's ten-thousand-fathom polarized light beam, the blood-red fractured star-track on the flag glowed with an icy red light that pierced the darkness, compressing the entire warship's physical signal to the absolute limit as it prepared to crash against the Sky Sentinel defense line.

On the assembly line in the rear of the hall, veteran Caleb was directing fifty assault team members to tune their equipment. The members were snapping silver-titanium-chromium short shields, cast from the patrol boat's spare deck, onto their left-arm battle armor, locking them tight with magnetic fasteners. After microscopic deconstruction, these short shields were enough to withstand the high-frequency polarized light sweeps of small patrol boats. Old craftsman Barnaby went through checking the shield gaps one by one with a polarization detector: "The polarization filters are all locked tight! Don't let the polarized light leak in and burn your arm armor! Mechanics company, lock all the spare high-frequency knife hooks dead for me!"

Inside the main command cabin, the atmosphere was heavy as iron.

Astrologer girl Lyra clasped both hands on the control panel of the miniature Orbit-breaking Astrolabe. The star-track lenses in her pupils refracted parameter light spots at high speeds of tens of thousands of times per second:

"Elias, the physical orbit intersection angle data is out." Lyra's voice was calm and precise, abandoning all emotional fluctuations. "The Sky Sentinel fortress possesses three thousand six hundred space-based main polarized light cannons, forming a high-frequency cruising array with no dead corners. However, every twelve physical hours, the Sky Sentinel's main gravity well undergoes a [High-dimensional Intersection Collision Phase]. During this process, the main axis gravity lens deflects, and a seven-second amplitude dead corner will appear in the [Micro-biased Electromagnetic Defense Sector] on the southeast side of the fortress."

"Seven seconds." Veteran Caleb stared at the engine room pressure gauges, his mechanical eye rapidly adjusting under the dark red halo. "The [Orbit-breaker One]'s main thruster lacks high-dimensional sacred coolant. If we forcefully push it to the 120% extreme overload, the existing waste lead oil and water cooling systems can maintain it for eight seconds at most. On the ninth second, the zirconium alloy pipes of the Akashic main furnace will instantly rupture from high-micro-particle overheating."

"Seven seconds of dead corner, eight seconds of limit." Elias stood at the main control console, his pitch-black pupils cold as polar ice fields. "This means we only have one second of physical margin for error. If even a single main polarized light cannon deflects half a degree toward the southeast defense sector, the entire ship will turn into vaporized wreckage in the void."

In the lower engine room, Barnaby wielded long iron tongs and high-pressure bolts, forcefully riveting the red-hot main furnace pipes onto the shockproof steel frame. A dozen mechanics holding high-pressure cooling guns and liquid nitrogen nozzles stood ready in strict formation. The thick, heavy lead oil cooling pipes vibrated deafeningly under the air pressure. Barnaby responded coldly over the intercom: "Pipes are all riveted dead with forged steel bolts. As long as the main axis doesn't collapse, the engines can maintain a 120% blast for eight seconds. Start the ship."

At the same moment, in the high-dimensional Heavenly Realm, inside the fiery red fortress battle-hall of the Aries main star.

Within this magnificent hall formed by intertwining golden-red sacred flames and endless gravity arrays, the chilling, oppressive aura of a totalitarian warlord shrouded the entire sector of the sky. Hundreds of thousands of high-dimensional warships cruised in the golden-red nebulas, the massive defense arrays spitting out world-destroying polarized light.

The [Aries Lord] sat squarely on a solid gold heavy divine throne. His long, broad hand casually flipped through the ledgers of smuggling tax revenue and mineral income from his jurisdiction. To him, the entire Aries Star Zone was nothing more than a private machine for producing high-purity crystals and maintaining the scale of his army.

Below him, the finance officer and staff officer of the Aries Legion respectfully bowed their heads in summary: "All the star core crystals extracted this month from Extraction Station 097 and the outer waste mining zones have been warehoused. After deducting the customary share given to the Twelve Houses of Political Affairs, the remaining 80% high-purity crystals have been sent to the Lord's private reserve vault. Additionally, border-crossing tax revenue from the black market smuggling routes on the edge of the Taurus Star Zone increased by ten percent this month."

"Lord." An Aries personal guard bowed and reported at this time, "Fifteen minutes ago, Divine Envoy Gar's patrol boat signal was lost on the edge of the Tartarus blind spot. The official filing sent from the 8th House (House of Disease and Death) shows that Gar's divine rune status is [Encountered a high-dimensional gravity storm during patrol, naturally lost contact]."

A trace of disdainful, cold mockery appeared on the Aries Lord's wild, rugged face: "Gar, that piece of trash, dying in a gravity storm saves this Lord from auditing his accounts. The crystals he secretly hoarded up all went to waste in the Deadzone storm."

The personal guard inquired: "Lord, do we need to suspend commercial smuggling tax collection at the 11th House Sky Sentinel in the southeast defense sector and initiate a full-frequency polarized light sweep?"

The Aries Lord snorted coldly, waving his broad iron hand: "Suspend tax collection? For a piece of trash divine envoy who died in a storm, affecting this Lord's crystal warehousing this month? Order the 11th House Sky Sentinel: maintain the polarized light defense line on regular cruising mode. Just send two patrol squads over to fish the wreckage out of the Deadzone."

The extreme greed for profit and absolute arrogance toward the lower realms of a high-dimensional warlord led the Aries Lord to make the coldest and most self-serving choice—and this choice perfectly exposed the regular cruising dead corner of the Sky Sentinel's polarized light defense line entirely to the mortal warship hiding in the shadows!

Inside the [Orbit-breaker One] main control cabin.

The red numbers on the holographic control console jumped rapidly: [High-dimensional Intersection Collision Countdown: 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 10 seconds...]

Veteran Caleb gripped the main propulsion lever tight, the aperture in his mechanical eye shrinking rapidly. He turned his head, looking at Elias standing in the front cabin: "Overload thrust will reach 40G within a second. The centrifugal dampers in the explosion-proof cabins are set to maximum, but mortal flesh will still bear heavy pressure."

"All hands, lock shock-proof armor buckles." Elias's tone was hard, his hand pressing on the battle knife at his waist, his eyes unblinkingly staring at the sweeping trajectory of the Sky Sentinel's polarized light in the distance. "The instant the dead corner appears, eject at full speed."

Throughout the entire cabin, over two hundred mortal warriors and miners locked their shock-proof safety locks tight, hands gripping gun handles tightly, the sound of their breathing masked by the spewing biological gases. Every person's eyes were as cold as hard lead artillery shells about to leave the chamber.

"3, 2, 1... Intersection Collision! Dead corner has appeared!" Lyra's clear voice cut through the final silence.

Boom!

Veteran Caleb's mechanical arm instantly pushed the main propulsion lever to the max!

The [Orbit-breaker One]'s main thrusters spewed out blinding blue-black light pillars a thousand meters long. Skimming the edge of the asteroid belt, the massive waste-lead armored warship roared through the cosmic void at a speed that nearly tore its physical structure apart!

The extreme gravity overload pressed the ship's skeleton into violent creaks. The black battle flag on the bow radome forcefully absorbed the slightly biased scattered light. Like a dead-silent ghost arrow, the warship skimmed the briefly extinguished polarized light dead corner of the Sky Sentinel's southeast defense sector, skimmed the gravitational naval mine dead corners hidden in the void, and at exactly 6.4 seconds, smashed through the outermost gravity web of the Aries defense line with a boom!

In the lower mechanics cabin, the deafening hiss of high-pressure liquid nitrogen violently spraying erupted! At the exact instant of the seventh second of overload, Barnaby and the mechanics squad forcefully cut off the overload pressure valves. High-pressure coolant instantly suppressed the Akashic main furnace that was on the verge of melting down, successfully averting the catastrophic explosion of the entire ship!

The overload temperature on the main furnace dashboard plummeted after rapidly spiking into the red right before the eighth-second critical threshold! [Orbit-breaker One] had successfully torn through the Sky Sentinel defense line!

After shaking off the shackles of the Sky Sentinel's gravity well, the [Orbit-breaker One] slipped into the gravity flow field leading to the Taurus Star Zone. Outer hull monitoring on the lower level showed that the [Orbit-breaking Blood Flag] polarized light coating on the radome presented a faint red heat dissipation halo due to strong absorption of polarized light. Old craftsman Barnaby led his men to check the outer hull thermal insulation cabin, reporting: "Radome polarized light coating intact, micro-biased scattering amplitude entirely within the dead corner envelope. The mechanics company worked overnight to open the exhaust valves to prevent secondary cracking from thermal stress."

Veteran Caleb finished checking the thruster data and walked up to the main console to report: "Captain Elias, minor thermal stress cracks have appeared on the number three zirconium alloy pipe of the main thruster, and our entire ship's micro-pressure gas and rations are only enough to last seven days. If we cannot find high-purity crystal conduction rods to repair the main furnace as soon as possible, the warship will break down in deep space at any moment. In the rear cabin of the hall, the warriors have already finished sorting and cutting the silver-titanium-chromium alloys and law crystal cores dismantled from the original [Golden Saint]."

"We cannot enter the Divine Court's Twelve Houses' fortresses, and the Aries airspace is under total lockdown." Elias stared at the star map, his eyes calm as ice. "The only place that can accommodate smuggling ships, replenish black market supplies, and is not under the direct surveillance of the Aries Lord is the [Taurus Free Black Market] at the border of Aries and Taurus. Those profit-driven smugglers only recognize hard currency, not Divine Court wanted posters. Using the dismantled high-micro-particle alloy to exchange for main furnace conduction rods and rations is our only way to survive."

Lyra operated the Orbit-breaking Astrolabe, holographically unfolding the black market gravity flow field ahead: "Ahead is the gravity neutral zone between Aries and Taurus. The surrounding celestial magnetic fields are extremely chaotic, suitable for concealment. The black market trading port's electromagnetic signal has already been captured, gravity turbulence yaw angle corrected, stealth navigation beam established! Entire ship's course locked!"

Elias looked at the vast starry sky gradually unfolding outside the porthole. With his hand resting on his battle knife, he issued diplomatic tactical orders with an icy tone:

"Order the entire ship to check equipment and cargo! Once we reach the black market, the assault squad will all equip silver-titanium-chromium shields. The black market is a mixed bag of dragons and snakes; if the smugglers dare to eye our cargo, we use crude iron knives to negotiate with them! Destination: Taurus Black Market route, move out!"

In the shadows of the observation deck, Vespera's (Umbra's) charming violet eyes pierced through the overloaded sparks, looking at the boy Elias, who had been as calm as ice and precisely controlled the entire situation within the seven-second dead corner.

"A seven-second borderline of life and death, millisecond-level physical margin for error..." Umbra coldly evaluated deep in her heart. "The supreme wall built by the Divine Court's arrogance was truly chiseled through by this Anomaly boy using the most cold-blooded calculations."

The black warship charged head held high into the vast, expansive free sea of stars, and the cruel feast of star wars unrolled with a thunderous boom!