The battleship shuddered violently. The high-energy particle beams fired by the triangular warships disturbed local gravitational fields in space with every shot. The battleship swayed east and west incessantly, like a pedestrian burdened with a lead weight on their left hand, a pig's head dangling from their right, and two cured pork knuckles strapped around their neck. Dozens of high-energy beams rained down, and the main structure of the battleship emitted an unbearable groan. With a sharp "crack," more than a dozen palm-width fissures suddenly split open on the floor of the command cabin.

"Counterattack!" Gu Xiechen roared in a single breath.

Penghua pulled his head free from the wall and darted to the command cabin's fire control platform, slamming his fist onto the bombardment control button. Just as the Heath officer in front of the platform was reaching out to press that button, Penghua's punch flattened his palm. The unfortunate officer paused for a moment, then violently retracted his right hand, letting out a hysterical scream.

The automatic counterattack protocol of the third-rank battleship engaged. The main cannon and hundreds of secondary turrets along the hull simultaneously fired, unleashing a rain of dense light streams that enveloped all enemy vessels.

Silently, a thin, black light shield, seemingly no thicker than a strand of hair, materialized before the high-energy light beams launched by the battleship. The shield rippled slightly, like disturbed water. All the high-energy beams pierced this shield and vanished without a trace. They were not nullified by the shield; rather, they seemed to pass through a black hole and disappear entirely.

The triangular warships used this fleeting moment to execute a graceful, sweeping arc, gliding directly above Gu Xiechen’s vessel, where the dense rain of light descended once more.

Fu Ya gasped, "The legendary Subspace Complete Defense Energy Shield! Even among Six-Star Civilizations, this has only existed in the theoretical validation stage in laboratories!"

Hylis's eyes lit up, and he shrieked, "That technology is mine! It must be mine!"

Gu Xiechen snorted coldly, and the Azure Lotus Ring suddenly slipped from his hand, shooting out of the battleship as a disc of circular cyan light. A hazy blue radiance swept over the black warships, causing several of them to vanish instantly. He didn't even deign to argue with Hylis; it was safer to secure the good stuff first.

The so-called Subspace Complete Defense Energy Shield worked by artificially creating a short-lived subspace warp aperture within a localized area. When enemy fire approached, all incoming projectiles entered the subspace, leaving the battleship itself entirely unharmed. Even in the Star Alliance's most advanced Six-Star Civilizations, this technology was confined to theoretical research lectures in laboratories; yet, these small warships had already deployed it practically.

"No! This is an unprecedented discovery, an ancient relic! You cannot hoard it!" Hylis, finding courage from some unknown source, lunged towards Gu Xiechen.

Ducat grabbed Hylis by the throat and slowly lifted his entire body. Ducat rumbled, "We act; you cooperate. What is rightfully yours, you will receive a share of; what is not, you cannot seize! If you try to seize it by force, we don't mind resorting to violence."

"I'll cooperate! I will cooperate completely!" Hylis threw his hands up immediately, smiling sheepishly at Ducat. "We are allies! We are allies! Please, do not let force damage our friendship! Um... those warships, I only need one for my personnel to study. Is that acceptable? Is it? Speak, please!"

Gu Xiechen recalled the Azure Lotus Ring and, in turn, took out the Ink Jade Square Beast-Patterned Water Vessel. While summoning True One Profound Water to turn into mist, obscuring the three enemy ships, Gu Xiechen stated calmly, "That is only natural. I am a man who strictly honors agreements. As long as you don't do anything foolish that compromises our alliance, you have absolutely nothing to worry about."

The faint black mist enveloped the three warships. Under Gu Xiechen's command, they lumbered forward toward the colossal space base ahead.

Along the way, they encountered at least several thousand small, perfectly triangular warships. These vessels danced around like lightning; although flying in normal space, their fire control radar scanned them moving at speeds equivalent to ten times the speed of light! Ten times light speed in normal space—an outrageous velocity!

Everyone stared at the fire control radar's feedback data, struck dumb. This completely shattered the theoretical foundations of all current Star Alliance spatial physicists. While Star Alliance warships could fly extremely fast, they required the use of subspace; exceeding the speed of light ten times over in normal space was simply incomprehensible and impossible to accept.

Only Gu Xiechen’s divine sense slightly pierced the true state of these ships: they seemed to exist simultaneously in normal space and subspace. No, perhaps their physical essence resided within the spatial barrier between normal space and subspace, and the ships seen in normal space and subspace were merely projections of their true form. By altering the structural composition of their hulls and the energy frequency filling every atom, they could appear anywhere at will.

Since they weren't truly anchored in normal space, any speed they achieved was mathematically possible.

A wondrous artifact forging technique recorded in the Compendium of Celestial Artifacts flooded Gu Xiechen's mind: the True Magnetic Two Energies Separating Light Sword. According to the description by the Great Clumsy Hermit, this sword was forged using powerful magnetic lines naturally occurring in certain Heaven and Earth Chasms, refined from an intangible energy state into a solid material using Primordial Fire as the raw ingredient. This sword possessed a flight speed hundreds of times faster than light, achieving the terrifying realm of instant arrival, leaving no trace of the killer's silhouette.

This True Magnetic Two Energies Separating Light Sword was a semi-energy, semi-material existence. Once successfully forged, it could not be nourished by the Nascent Soul or True Essence like ordinary magic treasures. Instead, it had to be stored in a specially made sword box to constantly gather and strengthen itself with the so-called Two Energies Separating Light Qi. From this, Gu Xiechen deduced that this Two Energies Separating Light Qi was the strange energy existing in the spatial barrier between normal space and subspace. Thus, these swords operated under the same principle as the small warships outside, explaining their incredible velocity.

Having grasped the logic, Gu Xiechen suddenly laughed heartily. "So that’s how it is. No wonder they fly so fast; it’s not strange at all. It’s just that the materials are hard to find. Hmm, where did these warships get their materials?" Gu Xiechen looked out the viewport at the surrounding ships, his heart pounding wildly.

The others didn't understand why Gu Xiechen was laughing, but he knew it well. The magnetic lines generated by the Heaven and Earth Chasms required to forge the True Magnetic Two Energies Separating Light Sword were notoriously difficult to locate. The Compendium of Celestial Artifacts recorded that the Great Clumsy Hermit spent many years searching just to find enough material to forge a set of three flying swords, which he gifted to an old friend famous throughout the Three Realms for his swift (Evasion techniques). Even the Celestial Crafts Hall had no scrap material left.

But these Roman warships flying at such incredible speeds must be made of material that could potentially be used to forge the True Magnetic Two Energies Separating Light Sword! If that were the case, Gu Xiechen wouldn't mind forging it as his own Natal Magic Treasure! Imagine fighting someone in normal space: before their magic weapon even launched, his flying sword had already severed the enemy's body in mid-air. Such destructive power was profoundly tempting to Gu Xiechen.

Lost in this thought, Gu Xiechen rapidly deployed the Azure Lotus Ring, collecting every triangular spacecraft flying near or far into the ring. Wherever the cyan light passed, the Buddhist Sumeru Mustard Seed Divine Ability spanned both normal and reverse space, absorbing the true forms and projections of these warships into the ring with immense spiritual force. There was no chance for them to escape.

Gradually, the three warships approached the enormous space base ahead.

Everyone looked at the magnificent artificial structure before them and simultaneously gasped, feeling a chilling numbness spread through their bodies.

It was a space base shaped generally like a pyramid, divided into hundreds of levels from bottom to top. Thousands of thin cables interconnected adjacent levels, upon which massive elevators moved swiftly up and down, constantly transporting various metal components or finished mechanical parts to the various layers.

The scale of this base was beyond description. According to the fire control radar scans, the thickness of every single layer exceeded ten kilometers. The uppermost layer, the smallest in area, had boundary sides stretching over one kilometer each. As for the lowest layer, which was continuously receiving minerals shipped down from the super-dreadnoughts, its edge length reached a terrifying fifty thousand kilometers—it was a continent, an artificial metal continent.

Ducat released Hylis and stared blankly out the viewport at this massive, unbelievable structure.

Gu Xiechen lightly tapped Hylis’s shoulder with his fan and chuckled, "Your Highness, if you are interested in this base, I can forgo my share and transfer it to you! Hmm, provided you can actually control a base of this magnitude, hide its existence, and possess the ability to defend it from invasion."

Hylis shook his head dryly. He was merely a prince of the Heath Empire, one of the three most important princes, but only one of three.

Such an incredible space base, left in this empty void, would be a waste. If he tried to take it back to the Heath Empire, not only did he lack the means to transport it, but even if he did, he couldn't protect it. Six-Star Civilizations, hearing of it, would certainly seize the base and casually dismember the Heath Empire into hundreds of broken nations under the pretext of anti-human crimes.

"As an ally, I transfer the due benefits of this base to Your Excellency Xiechen Gu!" Hylis wisely stated. "However, I require five of the ten super-dreadnoughts that I discovered. That alone is enough to solidify my unshakeable position within the Heath Imperial family! Furthermore, you must provide me with adequate compensation!"