Barolomonde’s psionic cultivation was inherently inferior to Yang Ying’s by a considerable margin, and in terms of ethereal combat prowess, the Ghost fighters even surpassed Barolomonde’s own starfighter. The moment the two sides engaged, Barolomonde found himself at a distinct disadvantage.

However, the engagement was far from over. Barolomonde piloted his fighter through sharp evasions and dodges. His fighter’s shield absorbed dozens of blasts, depleting significant energy reserves, allowing him a brief moment to catch his breath. Just as he did, from another direction, another dense, inescapable barrage of light beams rained down. Caught in a pincer attack, Barolomonde reacted swiftly, but he could not withstand the sheer density of the beams. They covered nearly every available escape vector; even when he attempted to instantly shift his position, his coordinates were anticipated. He materialized hundreds of meters away, only to find the beams already waiting for him, like fish in a barrel.

Barolomonde’s fighter was instantly battered by continuous hits. Dozens of beams struck his shield every second, shaking and tumbling the craft violently.

Barolomonde cursed inwardly, realizing that two masters with superior psionic cultivation to his own had joined the attack. The appearance of even one such master was enough to shock the entire Solar System; how could two possibly emerge at once!

Yet, the assault did not cease; instead, it was relentless, causing his shield energy to plummet straight down, soon reaching the halfway mark.

Observing this trend, Barolomonde understood clearly that if the entanglement continued, his fate would likely be dire. He glanced over and saw the ten enemy battlecruisers still leisurely approaching Charon Star. A surge of fury welled up. He violently changed his fighter’s trajectory, abandoning the search for his attackers, instead executing continuous rolls and momentary shifts while desperately trying to evade the beams, all while steering towards the battlecruisers.

In his view, if he could close the distance to the enemy vessels, he could employ various measures to disable them, thereby resolving the peril facing Charon Star. Furthermore, the invisible enemy pinnacle masters would hesitate to press an attack, reducing the immediate threat to himself—a two-fold advantage.

“As if it would be that easy!” The two Blade Emperors seated within the Ghost fighter immediately perceived his intentions and would not allow him success. With a shared thought, the position of their floating gun turrets instantly shifted according to their will. All destinations were locked precisely between Barolomonde’s fighter and the battlecruisers, perfectly blocking his path.

“Floating turrets, full spread!”

The command was given, and over three hundred dazzling beams flared to life. The beams, some straight, some curving, immediately converged on Barolomonde’s fighter! Barolomonde was flying directly towards the array of floating turrets; the path ahead was entirely sealed by beams. If he did not evade immediately, at least a hundred beams would strike his fighter directly!

Barolomonde foresaw this even in his mental plane. The giant net woven from beams was about to overlap, leaving him with no avenue of advance. A quick calculation told him that under these circumstances, just two more full spreads from the enemy would exhaust his shield energy. Reaching the front of the enemy battlecruisers had become impossible.

With no path forward, he had no choice but to circle around.

Barolomonde made his decision in an instant. The fighter executed a sudden, sharp turn, carving an arc of extreme curvature to avoid the frontal light net, then banked again, intending to continue charging toward the battlecruisers.

However, the two clones had calculated every possible contingency when they initiated their attack. As Barolomonde’s fighter executed its second turn, they instantly split the floating turrets into three groups, firing sequentially. With their minds linked, they could execute the most coordinated maneuvers without even a moment of verbal exchange.

The first volley of beams was fired precisely when Barolomonde completed his second turn, the moment his fighter’s attitude was not yet stabilized. Unable to execute a third evasive maneuver in time, Barolomonde sensed the incoming threat and was forced to use a quick shift to move away from the light net, instantly appearing hundreds of meters distant.

Immediately following, the second wave of beams arrived. Barolomonde felt every hair on his body stand on end; he knew his new position had been foreseen. It was too late to bank the fighter again, so he had no choice but to initiate another shift.

Having dodged the second wave, the fighter reappeared hundreds of meters away. But Barolomonde suddenly shouted in the cockpit that things were going badly. Reaction time was now gone. The third wave of beams was larger than the previous two, with about half the available barrels unleashed by the two clones at this precise moment. Over three hundred and fifty beams gave Barolomonde no chance, striking his fighter almost entirely.

Although both were pinnacle masters, Yang Ying’s clones possessed nearly double Barolomonde’s psionic power. Their premonitions arrived further ahead of Barolomonde’s, and their calculation speed was significantly faster.

While dodging the net of beams during the initial full spread, Barolomonde had already fallen into the clones’ calculations; every subsequent move was entirely within their foresight!

After being completely enveloped by the third wave of beams, Barolomonde’s fighter shields were entirely depleted and vanished instantly. Barolomonde recognized the situation: the two pinnacle masters opposing him were vastly superior, and their coordination was seamless. Attacking the enemy vessels was beyond his capability, and lingering here for even a moment longer meant mortal danger.

He made an immediate decision: survival was paramount; if he lost his life, nothing else could be accomplished. He executed a sharp turn while simultaneously activating his Meteor Halo system, intending to accelerate instantly to one-tenth the speed of light and flee the battlefield.

“Trying to leave? Not so easy!”

At this moment, the floating turrets from the first attack had just finished their recharge cycle and were ready to fire. The two clones had long anticipated Barolomonde’s attempt to escape and immediately unleashed the fourth wave of attack using those fully charged barrels, followed by the fifth…

Barolomonde was now in a state where one wrong move meant total defeat. The two clones had already seen through his plan, continuously hammering Barolomonde’s fighter with beams. Although Yang Ying himself was still some distance from Hadark’s level, his two clones held an overwhelming advantage over Barolomonde. With such a vast difference in psionic power, even Barolomonde’s richer combat experience was insufficient to cause any upset.

Under the relentless assault of consecutive beams, Barolomonde’s fighter did not last long before being ripped apart in space, exploding with a thunderous roar into countless fragments. Before the fighter disintegrated, Barolomonde madly unleashed every weapon he had in all directions, yet he failed to strike even a single floating turret.

After the fighter exploded, Barolomonde drifted in the void, using rapid shifts while simultaneously drawing his Light Scepter and whirling it into a defensive sphere to ward off the beams shooting at him from every direction. However, the beams were simply too numerous; over seven hundred beams were like spectral serpents. Even for a pinnacle master, resisting them with only a single Light Scepter was impossible; this far exceeded his defensive perimeter’s capacity.

In less than a tenth of a second, Barolomonde’s right shoulder was struck, causing his movements to falter. Almost simultaneously, his left leg was hit, followed by his back and right leg. Then, the barrage became unstoppable; his limbs, torso, his entire body, were struck by beams. Barolomonde instantly exploded, blood spraying wildly.

The two clones felt no pity. They controlled the floating turrets, relentlessly driving the light beams forward, wave after wave—hundreds, then thousands of beams striking Barolomonde until, in their mental plane, they registered the cessation of his life signs. Only then did the two clones halt their attack.

By this point, Barolomonde had been pulverized into a pulp of gore, entirely shapeless, floating lifelessly in the vacuum of space.

“One down.”

One Ghost fighter flew forward, retrieved the Light Scepter as spoils of war, and the two clones steered their craft to join the battle on the other front.

Of the more than two thousand fighters Barolomonde had brought from Charon Star, half were now destroyed. Under the attacks of the cloaked Ghost fighters, they struggled to approach the giant battlecruisers. However, the defensive fire of the cruisers prevented any further advance.

For every kilometer they managed to advance, dozens of fighters were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire. Only a few master-level fighters retained the ability to close the distance, but blocking their path were Yang Ying’s eighth and ninth manifestations—individuals possessing pinnacle master strength—along with the six combatants surrounding Hadark. Like the pair who dispatched Barolomonde, they also boasted a psionic intensity of 2,980,000.

Ordinary Ape Master-class fighters stood no chance against the might of Yang Ying’s manifestations. After only a few exchanges, whether fighters or the masters themselves, they were torn to shreds by the formidable firepower of the floating turrets.

The battle was already one-sided, and with the addition of the two clones, the fighting ended even faster. In just two minutes, the remaining thousand-plus fighters were annihilated.

The battlecruisers recalled their returning Ghost fighters and continued their course toward Charon Star.

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Psionic Energy Temple on Mand Island, Master Kong Li slowly emerged from the Great Temple of the Council of Elders, stepping onto the terrace before the sanctuary. He looked up at the starry sky and murmured softly, “Has it begun?” His brow furrowed instantly as he fell into deep contemplation.

A short while later, Master Tu Xin also stepped out. He also looked up briefly. “I felt a disturbance in my mental plane, seemingly emanating from the direction of Pluto. A fierce battle appears to be unfolding there.”

“Indeed,” Master Kong Li nodded. “My perception is slightly clearer than yours. A war is indeed taking place there, and it is incredibly intense. I hear the countless death-wails of the Ape-men, I feel their terror… even Hadark is engaged in a bitter struggle.”

“Hadark!” Master Tu Xin exclaimed in alarm. “How is that possible? Could it be Yang Ying?”

Though he voiced the possibility, internally he found it hard to believe that Yang Ying could push Hadark into a desperate fight. In his estimation, regardless of how deep Yang Ying’s psionic power ran at such a young age, he could not defeat Hadark, who had been tempered through a thousand trials. Victory in combat relied on more than just immense psionic strength.

However, he could not dismiss Master Kong Li’s words. Kong Li and Hadark had faced each other for half a century, engaging in numerous battles. They knew each other intimately, even possessing a subtle sense for each other’s current condition.

“Yang Ying should still be in the Asteroid Belt. But suddenly, without any sign, he is at Pluto. There must be a reason. Could it be spatial jumping? Never mind, the Earth Military will investigate the specifics of that situation,” Master Kong Li shook his head, his brow remaining tightly knit.

After a moment, Master Tu Xin suddenly asked, “Master Kong Li, what do you estimate is the possibility of Hadark being defeated?”

Master Kong Li remained silent for a moment, seemingly calculating, before responding, “That is difficult to say; I cannot make an accurate judgment. Resolve, charisma, wisdom, martial prowess—Hadark possesses everything a leader should have, and martial skill is only the last among them. His persistent will to liberate the Ape-men from their status as bio-weapons and establish them as a free race in the galaxy—that stubborn insistence is the force that poses the greatest threat to the human world.”