As the Imperial War General whose reputation had preceded him for ten thousand years, his mere addition caused the otherwise mediocre Royal Guard Fleet to undergo a complete metamorphosis. The precision in seizing attack opportunities and the coordination in evasive maneuvers showed a qualitative leap compared to before.

Under a relentless barrage, they managed to sink over thirty thousand Imperial Space Force warships in a mere two minutes. Yang Ying and his eleven companions' harassment only caused some minor annoyances for Sandow.

Concurrently, Sandow expanded the reach of his telepathic projection, infusing the entire battlefield with the rising dictatorial ideology of the Royal Lineage. He branded outsiders, led by Yang Ying and Blade, as an insidious cabal inciting the throne to disrupt Imperial order to achieve sinister, unspoken objectives. He further urged the Imperial Space Force to see the truth and refuse to align with a royal house that had already become decadent.

The rank-and-file soldiers of the Imperial Space Force were mostly bio-synthetics and clones, with only a small minority holding true Imperial citizenship. Those citizens who enlisted, after a period of military training and ideological indoctrination, would invariably be slotted into officer or, at minimum, non-commissioned officer positions.

Sandow’s primary targets for his broadcast were precisely these individuals. Given his past as an Imperial Marshal who had once led this very Imperial Space Force to annihilate the invading Fifteen Clans Alliance of the Perseus Arm, and subsequently counter-attacked to reduce more than half the Perseus Arm to rubble, he commanded immense authority within their ranks.

Thus, the infusion of his narrative yielded immediate results: the Empress received numerous advisories from high-ranking officers suggesting they persuade the Empress to halt the engagement, restore the Senate, and regain control of the military through conventional means rather than the current, drastic measures.

However, Empress Alimia had endured Sandow's shadow for over a decade. Now that hostilities were openly declared, there was no possibility of reconciliation with the man who had murdered her father.

The Empress understood clearly that another failure in this conflict might well mean the end of the True Human Empire, which had endured for hundreds of thousands of years.

The Royal Lineage had never truly desired autocracy. Even after her father was assassinated by Sandow, the elder noble families of the Empire seized vast swathes of authority. Under their stewardship, the ambition of the entire noble class had swelled unchecked, especially within their own territories where the voice of the capital star was seldom heard.

Many territorial nobles had effectively established their domains as states within the state, and their influence was expanding beyond their borders over time. Initially, they meddled in peripheral matters unrelated to their jurisdictions or installed proxies, extending their tentacles outward. In more severe cases, this escalated to sponsoring piracy around their territories, thereby justifying the expansion of private armies garrisoned beyond their own borders.

This situation was escalating daily, and Sandow, leveraging his position as Regent over the years, had actively fueled this fire. He supported the nobles' limitless expansion of power, aided them in crushing those territorial lords unwilling to cooperate, and utilized their strength to suppress his own rivals.

Yet, even with such machinations, Sandow retained the support of the majority of the Senate elders, which led the Empress to doubt herself for a time—wondering if the Empire had truly reached its twilight, if the age was incompatible with monarchical continuity, and if it was time to yield to change and transition to a federal, republican, or other system.

Even so, she could never forgive Sandow, nor would she allow the Empire to perish by his hand.

She strove to stabilize her fleet, compelling the senior commanders to obey. For those who remained obstinate, she could only issue orders for the Military Police to dismiss, arrest, and detain them.

As for the lower-ranking soldiers, the Empress was unconcerned about their susceptibility to incitement. Both bio-synthetic and mechanical soldiers were inherently programmed only to obey orders; the Empress's decree stood as the highest authority among all commands—an enduring Imperial tradition and the greatest pillar of her confidence in reclaiming control of the Imperial Space Force.

Sandow had repeatedly attempted to alter this tradition, but thankfully, the Empress and her mother had managed to withstand the pressure and preserve it. During the expedition to the Perseus Arm, Sandow had also used his Marshal’s prerogative to conduct a purge of the entire fleet, but thanks to the covert efforts of several pro-Royal senior officers, the fundamental structure remained intact. The cohort of officers Sandow had promoted had all been contained the moment the Empress seized command authority over the fleet.

"Interference program decryption... Complete!"

Soon after, Blade finished purging all planted interference programs from the fleet systems. The entire fleet regained full operational capacity.

"All hands, shift to maximum combat readiness!" the Empress immediately commanded. "Reactor energy output to maximum, weapon systems charging, propulsion systems charging, defense systems charging—prepare to engage!"

"It seems your luck held," Sandow observed as the Imperial Space Force reignited their reactors and brought all weapon systems online. His tone remained unchanged, seemingly having anticipated this outcome with calm resignation. "Very well, I shall spare you today. However, Your Majesty the Empress, your obstinate insistence proves you are no longer fit to steward the Empire. In a few days, I will naturally lead my army to the capital star to seek an audience!"

The scale of the Imperial Space Force surpassed that of his Regent’s Guard. Their current disadvantage stemmed solely from the interference with their propulsion systems. Now that the interference was nullified, remaining would risk a protracted, grinding battle of attrition. It was strategically wiser to withdraw now while their battle record was favorable.

This preserved their gains, allowed them to demoralize the Royalist faction with their victory, and simultaneously boost their own morale.

As he spoke, Sandow coalesced an extraordinarily terrifying stream of energy and tore open a colossal wormhole fifty kilometers in diameter. "I trust we shall meet again soon... Halt!"

"You presume too much! You think you can just walk away like that!"

More than ten equally terrifying streams of energy erupted simultaneously, instantly shattering the massive wormhole into dust. Spatial energy surged outward, reducing the first thousand ships of the Regent’s Guard that had entered the wormhole to mere particles.

The ten thousand ships hovering outside the wormhole were also caught in the blast. Their ultra-hardened alloy hulls were peeled open like paper. Some ships, caught by the residual shockwave of the spatial collapse, lost half their mass as if evaporated into thin air. Consecutive fireballs bloomed in the void, merging into an expanse that momentarily outshone the distant stars a thousandfold!

These formidable vessels proved as fragile as glass under the violent spatial fluctuations. After a blinding burst of fire, only shattered wreckage remained.

Eleven streaks of electric light flashed, and Yang Ying and his companions materialized before the Imperial Space Force fleet. Through their advanced Spiritual Perception Eyes, they could discern countless energy streams flowing toward them from the fleet—streams that gathered like small creeks into great rivers, and then into vast oceans. At this moment, there were eleven such oceans, or rather, with Blade also emerging from the command vessel, a total of twelve oceans.

Supported by the now-restored Divine Core System, the spiritual power of Yang Ying and his eleven compatriots was amplified to the magnitude of oceans. With the slightest mental inclination, their surging spiritual force erupted like endless waves.

Without a word, the twelve launched a Wide-Area Psychic Storm. The immense electromagnetic force was channeled and gathered by their spiritual power before erupting violently throughout the Regent’s Guard fleet. Giant lightning bolts, tens of meters in diameter and kilometers long, struck repeatedly.

The brilliant arcs of lightning wove together into a seamless, gigantic net that enveloped the entire Regent’s Guard fleet!

After about twenty seconds, the shields of the warships began to break. The electrical current struck the hulls, causing massive, mountain-sized electrical sparks to erupt. The ultra-high voltage instantly coursed through each vessel, vaporizing the crew instantaneously, overloading components until they shattered. Within ten seconds, each ship was reduced to cosmic dust in a violent explosion.

Sandow had foreseen this and immediately ordered his fleet to form a defensive circle!

The Regent’s Guard fleet responded instantly. Each ship seemed to know its designated position from the very outset. While Sandow directed the overall coordination, this demonstrated the elite nature of the fleet.

Some ships, under Sandow’s direct control, utilized short-range teleportation modes to reach their intended points. After another twenty seconds, the shields on some vessels were nearing collapse, on the verge of being pierced. Yet, Sandow had finally completed the formation he desired: the fleet had configured itself into a highly regular geometric sphere.

He then unleashed several bursts of spiritual energy, accompanied by streams of power, which began to circulate around the fleet. These energy flows resembled multi-hued ribbons of light, circling the formation at the speed of light—a breathtaking spectacle, like ribbons of colored light adorning the void.

Upon closer inspection, minuscule runes could be seen woven throughout these light bands, so numerous that they defied counting even by units of billions or trillions, resembling the stars in the cosmic background.

The other Level Four entities within the fleet followed Sandow’s lead, also using spiritual power to guide and create bands of light enveloping the fleet. However, their light bands were noticeably thinner, their colors dimmer, and the rune count vastly lower—far inferior to Sandow’s creation.

The Wide-Area Psychic Storm crashed against the layered light bands, creating a dazzling, flowing spectacle, like a gigantic firework display across the cosmos. Across tens of thousands of kilometers of star-space, the interlocking flashes of electricity painted a scene whose grandeur a mere firework could not capture even a tiny fraction of.

The twelve figures of Yang Ying and his companions dissolved back into twelve streaks of lightning spanning the heavens, plunging directly into the heart of the light bands. After a swift, incandescent battle, the light bands vanished one by one until only Sandow’s original construct remained. This remaining structure suddenly flared with light hundreds of times brighter, dazzling like a newborn sun.

When the light subsided, the entire Regent’s Guard fleet had vanished. Only the twelve figures of Yang Ying and his companions remained, standing in the void, wreathed in arcs of electricity.