Chapter 39 — War Drums of Aries

Aries Star Zone Flagship [Golden Ram Imperator] · Combat Command Core.

The [Golden Ram Imperator] was universally acknowledged as the most aggressive flagship among the Twelve Zodiac Lords of the Divine Court. The hull was cast from condensed magma rock and incandescent white titanium-chromium alloy, shaped overall like an argali ram charging with its head lowered. The massive bighorn-simulated structure extended forward to form a collision armor-piercing blade, capable of inflicting nearly undefendable physical armor-piercing damage to enemy ships of any class in interstellar melee. The hull was densely covered with over a hundred high-dimensional law turrets of various calibers; when fully unleashed, the firepower coverage was enough to flatten the surface of a planet within three minutes. Scorched black marks branded from past interstellar campaigns remained in the crevices of every armor plate—these were the proud medals of this flagship.

The Aries Lord—that giant of a man built like a steel bighorn—single-handedly expanded the dome projector, locking the three-dimensional star map of the blind spot right above the entire command console.

His stature was unquestionably the most imposing among all the Zodiac Lords. The edges of the plates on his Magma Gladiator Heavy Armor still emanated the low-temperature dark red left over from a previous drill. That pair of backward-curving golden ram horns cast two distinct shadows under the high-frequency lights of the bridge, while his crimson pupils, burning with battle intent, were currently locked onto the black area marked "Blind Spot · Null Error" on the star map, as if staring at a stubborn stone waiting to be smashed.

God King Jupiter's directive had arrived one physical hour ago.

"Tactical blockade of the blind spot's peripheral nodes." He repeated these words in a low voice, his tone flat, but carrying a thick accumulation of pressure, like a raging fire choked by chains.

He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the staff officers standing solemnly in the bridge.

"Blockade, I know." The Aries Lord rumbled. "But I'm going to make things clear today—this blockade is not just purely surrounding without attacking."

None of the staff officers made a sound. They all knew that in front of the Aries Lord, any decorative language was garbage.

"The first Null Error in the history of the Divine Court appeared in my star zone, on the patrol orbit of my personal guard, decapitating four of my divine envoys—" The Aries Lord raised his hand and directly smashed his fist onto the projection console. The star map shook. "God King Jupiter tells me to blockade, so I blockade. But after the blockade, I'm also going to sneak in and see with my own eyes exactly what the hell in that blind spot has this kind of capability."

---

Aries Flagship, Fleet Dispatch Center.

The order was issued via the military spectrum channel, and the entire Aries War Zone immediately entered a state of pre-battle readiness.

Above the command console, the Aries War Zone map unrolled to cover a vast projection area of a full physical unit.

The Aries Lord's vanguard fleet was divided into three routes:

Route One: Led by the heavy battlecruiser group of the Aries Flagship's personal guard, they would cut straight into the blind spot's southern channel and establish a permanent physical blockade ring thirty thousand physical units outside the blind spot. Route Two: Rapid reconnaissance squads would use stealth jumps to bypass the blind spot's rear, locking down all possible escape jump points. Route Three: The Aries Lord's own flagship would advance to the forward command position after the blockade ring was complete, monitoring all physical dynamics within the blind spot throughout the entire process.

Twenty-seven battlecruisers, forty-six rapid reconnaissance ships, and the top-tier high-dimensional law turrets carried by the flagship—the Aries Lord had no intention of using a small squad to test that darkness again. This time, he was going to smash it with his fist.

The staff officers of the dispatch center quickly launched tactical deductions, listing four optional blockade orbital routes on the projection console, each with its pros and cons, each annotated with expected maneuver times and resource consumption.

The Aries Lord glanced at them and frowned.

"The fastest route." He pointed at the first orbital route marked in red. "Detours are what cowards do."

"My Lord, the first orbital route passes through the border area of the Scorpio Star Zone. If the Lord of Scorpio has routine patrols during this time, the two fleets will physically cross paths at an extremely close distance—"

"Then they can get out of the way." The Aries Lord interrupted impatiently. "The Lord of Scorpio isn't an idiot. My flagship entering their star zone is to execute an Inner Cabinet mission, not to look for trouble."

He paused for a moment, his voice lowering half a pitch: "Moreover, the Lord of Scorpio... that woman plays dirty, it's not good to clash head-on, got it? Take a slightly longer detour. Go with route two."

The staff officers quickly verified the directive and transmitted the orders to the command systems of each sub-fleet.

"Once preparation is complete, the vanguard deploys," the Aries Lord ordered with a rumble, standing on the high platform of the dispatch center. "Have the forward probes enter the blind spot first for a sweep, and figure out exactly what state it's in now. I don't fight unprepared battles."

Pausing a beat, he added, "If the probes also disappear after going in..."

His crimson pupils narrowed, rarely narrowing so slowly.

"Then I will go in personally."

---

Golden Ram Imperator · Lord's Private Quarters.

Without even taking off his armor, the Aries Lord sat cross-legged on his thick, heavy magma-rock bench.

He was universally acknowledged in the Divine Court as a straight shooter—he didn't play power games, he didn't do politics, he was a pure, hot-blooded warrior who always charged at the very front. He didn't have Jupiter's shrewdness, he didn't have Saturn's calculation, and he couldn't even be bothered to learn the face-saving tricks the other Lords in the Assembly Hall habitually played.

But "straightforward" didn't equal stupid.

He stared at the Null Error data report on his desk, slowly pondering for a long time.

Four divine envoys, collectively annihilated, leaving no residual waves of law.

In his three hundred years of war experience, he had seen collective annihilations of divine envoys. In the chaotic melees of high-dimensional battlefields, an out-of-control explosion of a high-dimensional weapon could evaporate a squadron in an instant. But that kind of annihilation would leave a massive aftermath of law collisions—a large swath of blood-red warnings would erupt on the Star-network, like a rock smashed into a calm lake, the splash impossible to suppress.

But the data this time was empty.

Quiet.

That quietness made him feel a rare, uncomfortable vigilance amidst his overwhelming battle intent.

That was not something mortals could do.

...But perhaps it wasn't gods either. Because he had seen too many law impacts left by gods; those were a completely different set of data characteristics.

He had no answer. The only thing he could do was—bring enough troops and go see with his own eyes.

His gaze fell to the broken, old warhammer head hanging on the wall of his private quarters—not the [Aries Siege Hammer] he used now, but the piece of scrap iron he had ruined in his first interstellar campaign. He had always kept that piece of scrap iron, not out of sentimentality, but out of a simple reminder: every battle that made him feel "this is a bit troublesome" turned out to be more than twice as difficult as he expected.

Null Error was giving him a bit of that feeling right now.

But feelings were feelings; the battle still had to be fought.

He stood up from the rock bench, closed the data report, threw it back onto the desk, and then gave a deep order to summon the commanders of the sub-fleets:

"Before deployment, all personnel check the energy output conduit seals of the law turrets. I don't want any misfire accidents on the battlefield. Increase the launch frequency of the forward probes to the maximum level, and sweep the blind spot inside and out more than three times for me. Any abnormal fluctuations, transmit them back to the flagship command center immediately, without delay."

He paused and added a sentence:

"If something inside can make a law probe disappear, that means that thing possesses the ability to physically interfere with the power of gods in a true sense. That is an order of magnitude none of us have ever seen. No squad is allowed to advance alone; you must maintain a dense formation."

This sentence made his several sub-fleet commanders fall silent for a beat, before they beat their chests with their fists, uniformly acknowledging the order.

---

Aries Flagship Main Deck, Pre-deployment.

The vanguard fleet formed up under the illumination of the main turrets. The high-dimensional law directors on the bows of the ships lit up one by one, emitting fiery high-temperature energy halos. The scarlet battle flag of the Aries Flagship unfurled in the void, the burning argali totem and magma patterns on the flag looking like a blazing flower of flame under the starlight.

After each sub-fleet completed its combat preparations and the main engines finished charging, one thousand three hundred Aries Guard Divine Soldiers lined up in sequence on both sides of the flagship's deck. They were the elite of the elite in the Divine Court; every single one had undergone the practical tempering of no less than three interstellar campaigns, the chips and weld marks on their armor serving as silent medals of merit. Facing the Aries Lord at the very front of the flagship deck, everyone simultaneously struck their left breastplate with their right fist, emitting a uniform, thunderous crash of metal!

"Aries Vanguard, pledge our lives to the Lord!"

The Aries Lord stood at the very front of the ranks, gazing in the direction of the blind spot—that pitch-black star sector had always been an unmarked dead zone on the star map, a visual blind spot for the Divine Court's scanning arrays.

He didn't make an overly long speech. That wasn't his style.

He simply raised that tens of millions of tons heavy meteoric iron warhammer, the [Aries Siege Hammer], lifting it high amidst the blazing red light of his magma armor.

"The war drums have sounded, blind spot." He spoke in a low voice, not loud, but carrying a heavy weight, "You had better be an opponent worth my coming personally."

The main turrets of twenty-seven battlecruisers roared and ignited at the same moment.

The low-frequency vibrations of the high-dimensional engines transmitted through the flagship deck to the soles of every divine soldier standing there, like the universe itself letting out a low growl.

The Aries Vanguard Fleet, like a meteor shower, boomed forward in the direction of the blind spot.

At the exact same moment the thrusters at the rear of the flagship spewed raging flames, the Aries Lord slowly lowered his warhammer, quietly looking at the starry sky ahead.

The battles he had fought in his life were too numerous to count with numbers. He had personally experienced the political games of the Inner Cabinet, the sovereignty struggles of several star zones, and planet-destroying annihilation wars. He had seen the arrogance and madness of gods, the fragility of mortals evaporating in the fires of war, and countless "impossible victories" and "inevitable defeats."

But the term Null Error had never appeared in his dictionary of war.

He wasn't afraid of it.

But he respected it enough not to rashly send himself into that digital void.

The silent darkness deep in the universe welcomed the sound of the iron hooves of the Divine Court's army for the first time. And on the other side of the darkness—on that wasteland, it was unknown if anyone was looking up at the starry sky, feeling that rolling ripple of battle intent closing in.

That battle intent, like a dewdrop hanging on the edge of a blade, trembled quietly in the pitch-black void, ready to fall at any moment.

The sound of war drums had already resounded throughout the entire Aries Star Zone. The battle lines of the blockade ring were closing in on the blind spot inch by inch; that was the iron net jointly constructed by twenty-seven battlecruisers and forty-six reconnaissance ships, the Divine Court's first formal declaration of war against that darkness. Deep in the blind spot, someone would sense this tightening iron cage. How much time they had left, no one knew. And the Aries Lord, standing in the cockpit of the flagship, looking at that darkness on the star map, had only one thought: no matter what is inside, once I get in, the answer will naturally present itself. The Ram of the Divine Court never hesitated toward the destination before setting out. They simply lowered their heads and charged, until they smashed that wall, or were smashed by it.

Thus, let them come. And let there be war.