Zi Ye darted back to her room, pausing only briefly. She half-expected An Junlie to come looking for her, but the whole ordeal with Tang Wen had ruined her mood, and she had no idea how to respond to An Junlie's talk of marriage. With a decisive move, she grabbed her datapad, comms unit, and info-slate, stuffed clean clothes into her bag, slung it over her shoulder, gathered Douzai, and headed toward the stern of the ship.

The crowd was sparse at this hour; those who weren't sleeping were working. Since robots didn't snitch, no one noticed her slipping away.

She reached the mech hangar at the rear, pulled up the control panel for the access ramp, extended it, boarded her mech, settled Douzai in a safe spot, and slid slowly out of the hangar. With a "whoosh," she shot out into space.

A nearby warship immediately spotted her, locking onto her mech to determine if she was friend or foe.

Zi Ye instantly recognized the warship as friendly and urgently transmitted: "This is Zi Ye."

The captain aboard the warship, Xiao Chi, paused, then exclaimed, "Goddess, where are you going? Piloting a mech is dangerous!"

Zi Ye: "...Uh." She immediately activated the mech's warp drive.

The mech was far more compact and agile than the warship, and its warp speed was quicker, making her vanish in an instant.

Xiao Chi sensed something was wrong and rushed over to Xiao Huang, who was sitting by the main cannon launcher. "The Goddess has left! What do we do?"

Xiao Huang didn't hesitate. "Then we go too! I've been tired of fighting for ages!"

Xiao Chi wholeheartedly agreed.

The two put their heads together, contacted their comrades on the other warships, and ten of them together steered their warship out of the fleet, chasing after Zi Ye’s trajectory.

The Fleet Commander instantly spotted the "deserters," dispatching scout ships while simultaneously checking the roster for missing personnel. Upon discovering that the missing individuals were the four youths Zi Ye had brought back from the junkyard planet, an immediate report was sent to An Junlie.

An Junlie was beside himself.

Not only had Zi Ye run off, but she had taken her people with her. Was she truly that resistant to him?

The twins volunteered immediately: "We'll go look for her for you."

An Junlie stated firmly, "I'm going myself."

The twins quickly restrained him. "You can't! Clearly, she left specifically to avoid you. If you go, she’ll flee even faster."

An Junlie’s face darkened almost completely; the twins’ words were like salt poured directly onto his wounds.

Regardless, the twins managed to calm him down. The two of them piloted a small destroyer and set off to find Zi Ye.

Zi Ye warped out of the Hope Galaxy. The star systems devoid of conflict appeared exceptionally serene. Staring out at the sea of stars, Zi Ye suddenly didn't know where to go.

She decided to stop running altogether. She shut down the mech’s engine and let it drift aimlessly.

The mech she was currently piloting was her newest and most formidable creation, unmatched by any other. It was an improvement upon the Divine Raven design, incorporating Douzai's rarest component—Neutronium alloy!

It also possessed a grand and imposing name: Little Maiden.

Douzai crawled around the control panel, occasionally extending its tiny pink tongue to taste-test things. When its tongue touched the light screen, it felt cold and carried an unpleasant flavor, prompting it to slap the screen hard with one paw.

The mech instantly cycled through several transformations before finally shrinking into the shape of a small sphere.

Zi Ye: "..."

Well, for evading enemy tracking, this form was certainly useful. Large warships couldn't even detect the mech's presence, let alone spot it, even if they warped right in front of her.

Relief washed over her. She wouldn't have to worry about enemy patrols or An Junlie tracking her down.

The war was too depressing. Tang Wen was a scoundrel, and An Junlie was a brute. She had been suppressing herself for a month during the conflict and had no desire to deal with these vexing matters or have anyone find her now.

However, the Wolf's Den was also in utter disarray, leaving her nothing to entertain herself with. After drifting in space for a while, she sadly realized she had nowhere to go.

"Douzai, what should we do?" Zi Ye lifted the silly creature and asked.

The silly thing turned its head, gave her a sidelong glance, chirped, "Jee?", then lowered its head and continued searching for food.

Zi Ye decided to tease him. She took out a metallic chew toy from her bag and dangled it in front of him. His eyes lit up, and both paws shot out to grab it.

Zi Ye held the chew toy high above his head. The creature actually leaped up to snatch it.

Zi Ye clicked her tongue in approval. "A foodie is a foodie; only for the sake of food can such great energy be unleashed."

Douzai seemed to understand her words. He retracted his claws, shyly covered his face, and snuggled into her embrace, rubbing against her.

Zi Ye couldn't help but let out a snicker. She handed him the chew toy and sighed, "Douzai, you're the only one who didn't lose weight during this war; in fact, you gained! Wait, not a person, a creature."

Douzai happily clutched the chew toy and gnawed on it, too content even to utter a "Jee" for her.

Zi Ye leaned back against the seat, touching her earlobe. Little Sprout’s shrunken body was still pressed tightly there. Perhaps she should seek out the Void Storm?

Douzai couldn't speak and was entirely unsuitable for heart-to-heart conversation.

If Little Sprout were here, it would certainly point her in the right direction.

As she pondered this, Little Maiden suddenly emitted a low-level alert.

Zi Ye’s expression sharpened. She looked towards the control panel, where a colossal shape had just appeared on the screen.

Although Little Maiden was small, its system was the most advanced in the galaxy, bar none. It could automatically detect warships up to 1,000 km away and would issue an alarm if it detected an enemy or unidentified vessel.

Zi Ye placed Douzai aside and zoomed in on the massive object on the screen. It turned out to be an aircraft carrier!

The carrier's exterior somewhat resembled the classic model from the Angelic Dominion, but it lacked any legion markings. Zi Ye couldn't rotate the view to check for flags on the other side.

She pondered for a moment and decided not to investigate further. While carriers were rare, they weren't nonexistent. However, carriers were scarce in this particular sector... Zi Ye suddenly snapped back to reality: logically, there shouldn't be any carriers in this star system!

This route headed toward the Hope Galaxy, in the opposite direction from the Bubble Cluster.

Was the Angelic Dominion transporting material to the battlefield?

Zi Ye thought back carefully. An Junlie had mentioned that they wouldn't need any additional personnel or resources to repel the Allied Forces of Audo.

If it wasn't an Angelic Dominion carrier, could it be one belonging to the Allied Forces?

It certainly couldn't be a Wolf's Den carrier, and the Hope Legion couldn't afford one.

This meant it was most likely an Allied Forces carrier.

Zi Ye manually locked onto the massive object ahead and directed her mech closer.

Her mech, in its spherical form, was only ten meters in diameter—a tiny fraction of the carrier's size. Even if the carrier spotted it, attacking her would be like swatting a mosquito with anti-aircraft artillery.

Zi Ye, bold to the point of recklessness, charged straight toward the carrier and clung to its external shield layer, determined to see where it was headed.

Simultaneously, Zi Ye activated her datapad and began hacking into the carrier's system to steal its travel route.

The primary function of an aircraft carrier being transport, its system security was somewhat mediocre. After five minutes, Zi Ye successfully breached it and copied the route map.

The route clearly showed a path from the Interstellar Federation to Phia, then bypassing three legions from Phia, skirting the Bubble Cluster, and cutting through the Xining Star System.

Damn, this was a major enemy!

The primary reason the Allied Forces were being suppressed right now was that their supply lines were blocked by the Bubble Cluster, leaving them critically short of ammunition. If this carrier successfully reached the Allied base, their advantage would vanish.

Zi Ye clenched her fists. It absolutely could not be allowed to succeed!

Ahhh!

Zi Ye felt frustrated. Why had she taken out a small mech? If she had brought the Plunderer warship, she could have engaged it directly!

Of course, even a carrier wouldn't be easy to destroy. The most prominent feature of a carrier was its incredibly thick hide. Furthermore, supply ships were invariably protected by escorting warships.

In short, brute force was out; it had to be a matter of wits.

Zi Ye pondered for a moment and began scanning the control panel for nearby warships.

The Xining Star System was too remote; she searched for two minutes without finding a single warship. Just as she was about to give up, a Dreadnought flashed into view.

Seeing it, she instantly laughed.

It was a Dreadnought from the rear battle zone, and it belonged to the Angelic Dominion, no less.

This was the first time she was glad An Junlie had come looking for her. With military force involved, hehe, that carrier wouldn't get away!

To prevent the carrier from noticing her, Zi Ye sent an encrypted message to the warship: "An Junlie, there's an enemy aircraft carrier here. Let's blow it up!"

Half a second later, the warship returned a message: "I am not An Junlie. My name is Xiao Chi."

Zi Ye: "(⊙o⊙)? Xiao Chi works too. Be careful coming over; don't let it spot you."

Xiao Chi replied cheerfully: "That's great! We were already coming out to find you, and we happen to have enough ammunition ready."

Zi Ye: "...Well, whatever the reason they brought ammunition isn't the point; the key is that they have ammunition."

She opened the star map and carefully examined the aircraft carrier's advance path.

Where should they ambush it? The Xining Star System was too clean; it had very few asteroid belts, and none were on the carrier's projected route.

While she was wrestling with the location, Xiao Chi messaged again: "Those two look-alike show-offs have broken out too. We just ran into them."

Aixbent?

Zi Ye's eyes lit up. The more people involved, the better! The more, the merrier—ideally, they could take down the carrier in one go.

Zi Ye shut down her engine, contentedly hitching a ride on the aircraft carrier. Suddenly, she thought of something and messaged back: "Call up a few more people and ambush it near the stargate for the Xining System!"

In space, there was only one type of warship that could not pass through a stargate: an aircraft carrier. Carriers were too massive; they would knock over the stargate rather than pass through it. To move from one system to another, they required high-speed orbits or an induced field—meaning someone needed to activate the induction field in the destination system for them to jump.

Therefore, near the stargate, the carrier would certainly have to wait for the corresponding system's induction field to be established.

Zi Ye nodded with satisfaction.

The carrier moved quickly, its warp jump feeling like a mobile fortress shifting at the speed of light. Zi Ye kept her mech tightly affixed to the carrier, feeling as though the air currents might rip her off.

When they finally warped to the destination, she didn't waste a second. While planting a virus into the carrier's system, she retreated, making sure to signal her comrades to begin the assault.

Heh heh, carrier, prepare to die!