SGT CH186

Tianjia: The Little Cake Runs Away 5

◎”Return the Imperial Consort immediately. Otherwise, We will annihilate your entire army and flatten the Zerg!”◎

The number of warships on the Zerg’s side was several times that of the Tianjia.

Yet whether it was Mu Si or the Zerg military females, all knew this was a battle without a glimmer of hope.

Before the absolute grade disparity brought by an SSS-grade, whatever they did was merely a dying struggle.

The Zerg fleet had zero chance of victory.

There was only the distinction between total annihilation and tragic defeat.

The Blood Moon Imperial Standard representing the Tianjia Emperor hung high atop the flagship.

Looming over the hearts of the Zerg officers and soldiers like a nightmare.

Second Prince Mu Li’an had already boarded his mecha, preparing to face the battle in person.

He was the only S-grade in the Zerg fleet.

Under these circumstances, if he remained in the flagship to command, the Zerg side would lose its strongest combat power, which was very disadvantageous.

Remaining in the flagship meant a slow death, able only to watch his subordinate soldiers sacrifice themselves.

Rather than that, it was better to hand command over to another suitable bug while he stepped onto the battlefield to fight to the death.

The adjutant attempted to persuade the Second Prince to leave first under their cover.

“There are no deserters among the Zerg,” Mu Li’an said with a stern expression.

This was also the first time Mu Li’an had encountered an opponent so powerful as to drive bugs to despair, and his heart was likewise shrouded in gloom.

Yet he could never abandon his comrades and flee before the battle.

Even if he died, he would die on the battlefield.

Before this, there was still one matter.

Stopping his inspection of his equipment, Mu Li’an looked toward the adjutant and said:

“Albert, I have a very important mission to entrust to you. Find an opportunity to take the two Excellencies away and bring them safely back to the Empire.”

“Your Highness!”

The adjutant’s face showed urgency; he did not agree with the Second Prince’s decision.

He naturally understood the importance of high-grade males.

Yet the Second Prince, as an imperial prince, was equally vital.

If the choice were his, he would rather abandon the two A-grade males from an enemy nation and use their lives to cover His Highness the Second Prince’s retreat.

“There is also a third choice,” the adjutant said urgently:

“We can use these two Tianjia males to negotiate with the Tianjia Emperor!”

“Albert!”

Mu Li’an’s voice turned sharp.

The Zerg had never possessed a tradition of using males to sue for peace or evade battle.

Military females were born for war.

How could they shrink from battle?

How could they surrender males while hiding behind to prolong their meager existence?

“Your Highness…”

The adjutant’s lips parted slightly, still unwilling to give up.

He also knew using males to negotiate was humiliating.

Still, those were only enemy males, weren’t they?

Mu Li’an’s deep purple eyes stared fixedly at the adjutant as he said coldly:

“Colonel Albert, execute military orders.”

“…”

Under military orders, the adjutant could persist no longer.

Straightening his cap, he offered a final military salute to the Second Prince.

“Yes! Sir! Guaranteed to complete the mission!”

Having assigned the duties, Mu Li’an piloted his mecha, boarded the lift platform, and deployed into the battlefield.

The Second Prince was low-key and reserved by nature, yet his mecha was a dazzling crimson just like his gege‘s “Phoenix,” resembling a blazing flame.

Entering combat state, the Second Prince’s aura was completely different from usual.

Cold, lethal, sharp.

Irresistible in momentum.

The moment the Second Prince’s mecha appeared, it took down three Tianjia combat vessels.

As he joined the fray, the tide actually showed signs of the Zerg overpowering the Tianjia.

The situation appeared advantageous to the Zerg, yet Mu Li’an’s heart remained suspended high, not daring to relax in the slightest.

He cast a glance toward the cold, solemn Tianjia flagship.

The Tianjia Emperor had not made a move yet.

Furthermore, the Tianjia warships had never opened fire on their command flagship.

They had only fired sporadic shots toward areas of intense skirmishing.

The command flagship had sustained no damage, which was the main reason the Zerg military females could fight in an orderly fashion up to now.

This peculiar stance made Mu Li’an suspect that the Tianjia knew there were two high-grade Tianjia males aboard the Zerg ship.

Perhaps… the Tianjia fleet had come precisely for this.

Yet would two A-grade males alarm the Tianjia Emperor?

Mu Li’an felt bewildered.

·

Adjutant Albert escorted the two males out of the room, heading toward the hangar.

Although he would have preferred to negotiate with the Tianjia using the males in exchange for a chance of survival for the Second Prince and all soldiers in the fleet.

Since he had received military orders and accepted the mission, he would carry it out wholeheartedly, even at the cost of his own life.

“Your Excellencies, please board the ship with me.”

Albert had selected a light warship.

This type of warship specialized in speed.

Equivalent to abandoning firepower completely, relying purely on its agility and speed to carry the males out of the Tianjia encirclement and return to the Empire.

This was also the only possible way to get the males away.

Just seeing the light warship before him, Mu Si understood the Zerg’s plan.

He merely did not understand why the Zerg, knowing full well the chances of victory were slim, still chose to engage the Tianjia, and still took the risk of leading them away.

“The Tianjia Emperor’s target is me.”

Mu Si halted his steps and spoke: “You can hand me over in exchange for a ceasefire.”

Joshua’s hand gripping Mu Si’s arm tightened.

Mu Si patted him reassuringly.

He had only mentioned himself, not Joshua.

He hoped Joshua could accompany the military females to the Zerg.

Previously he had been uneasy about letting Joshua go to the Zerg, but after interacting with the Second Prince, he trusted the Second Prince’s character, believing the Second Prince would not let Joshua suffer humiliation.

Albert was not swayed by the male’s words.

“The mission I received is to bring you both back to the Zerg.”

As for anything else, it was not for him to decide.

“Please, Your Excellency.”

Albert opened the hatch, ushering the males aboard.

Just as Mu Si was about to say something, he suddenly sensed an immensely powerful pressure, an icy aura diffusing across the entire battlefield.

Beside him, Adjutant Albert also felt it, his face turning grim as he looked outside the hangar, his voice faintly trembling.

“This is…”

“The Tianjia Emperor.”

The Tianjia Emperor had made his move in person.

Upon the battlefield, a towering pitch-black mecha appeared soundlessly, standing quietly in the void.

Even without making a single move, the pressure naturally emanating from it was enough to make every bug shudder.

This was a colossal mecha bearing alloy twin wings, its lower back connected to numerous steel tentacle-like appendages.

Many parts of its chassis were plated with black armor resembling serpent scales: mysterious, formidable, and ferocious.

Coupled with crimson eyes glowing with red light, it looked like an iron monster.

From top to bottom, it exuded the ultimate aesthetics of violence.

Eerie blue flames from burning energy stones swirled around its form, framing it like a god of death stepping out of the abyss.

Every Zerg military female on the battlefield felt immense oppression, as if witnessing the descent of death.

The Tianjia military females, on the other hand, were extraordinarily invigorated, as if endowed with absolute confidence. Their offensive grew increasingly ferocious, launching charges with reckless disregard for death.

Facing this strongest powerhouse of the Tianjia in thousands of years, even Mu Li’an, an S-grade Female Zerg, felt immense pressure.

Rising alongside that pressure was a raging fighting spirit.

Clashing with the strongest Tianjia was a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He might die.

Yet military females never feared death.

Mu Li’an charged his energy cannon, calculating the trajectories of the Tianjia warships, and at the split second the warships parted, he fired abruptly.

The charged energy cannon manifested as a crimson beam, piercing through the Tianjia warships’ defensive line to strike directly at the Tianjia Emperor’s mecha.

The Tianjia Emperor had perceived this attack long ago.

He did not even move, merely drawing together the colossal wings behind his mecha to block the menacing barrage.

Mu Li’an had not counted on this strike dealing damage to the Tianjia Emperor, merely using it to draw the attention of the Tianjia military females. Seizing the opening, he maneuvered his mecha at high speed, firing at the Tianjia Emperor from tricky, lethal angles.

With a single mecha, he achieved an overwhelming blanket of suppressive fire.

No matter how powerful the defensive capability of the Tianjia Emperor’s twin wings was, they could not deflect so many attacks arriving from different angles simultaneously.

The Tianjia Emperor finally found a trace of interest.

Facing the barrage filling the sky, the Tianjia Emperor unexpectedly detached the alloy wings from his back, assuming a posture of entirely abandoning defense.

Connecting the roots of the two wings together, the Tianjia Emperor formed a weapon that looked like both a scimitar and a chakram.

Hurling the chakram outward, the Tianjia Emperor deflected the incoming frontal attacks; simultaneously, the black mecha dissolved into an afterimage, vanishing from its spot.

In the next instant, the nightmarish black mecha appeared behind the high-speed moving Second Prince.

Mu Li’an felt waves of chill crawling up his spine, his combat instincts triggered in urgent warning.

Mu Li’an had never imagined that in a cosmic space battlefield like this, the Tianjia Emperor would choose close-quarters combat with a mecha.

This was absolute confidence in his own strength.

Mu Li’an wanted to dodge, but it was already too late.

His mecha was sent flying from a heavy blow, colliding with the chakram spinning back after being thrown.

The chassis was instantly impaled.

Red alarms flared inside the cockpit.

The Tianjia Emperor’s mecha appeared before him, grasping the chakram jutting through the chassis and disassembling it.

The colossal chakram split back into two wing scimitars in his hands.

“You are an outstanding warrior, however, it ends here.”

Holding the scimitars, the Tianjia Emperor slashed down toward the Second Prince’s mecha.

The mecha was critically damaged, its energy core destroyed, rendered immobile.

For the first time, Mu Li’an felt death from such close proximity.

Yet, just as the scimitars were about to cleave the Second Prince’s cockpit open, the Tianjia Emperor abruptly halted.

The scimitars hovered over the cockpit.

The generated energy currents shattered the high-strength transparent canopy of the cockpit, leaving cracks across the massive screen.

However, Female Zergs could naturally survive in the vacuum of space.

Aside from worsening the mecha’s damage, this blow caused no real physical harm to the Second Prince himself.

Mu Li’an did not understand why the Tianjia Emperor had suddenly stopped.

Yet this was not the time to pause and ponder.

Seizing the opening, he ejected from the mecha, returning to the Zerg fleet under the cover of a rendezvous vessel.

The Tianjia Emperor had no inclination to stop him.

On the screen before him, the communication link with the Zerg command flagship had been established.

A beautiful male with platinum-blond long hair appeared on the display.

“Si Si…”

The Tianjia Emperor murmured, his fingers twitching slightly, wishing to touch the male he pined for day and night.

Yet this was merely an image on a light screen; his true Imperial Consort was still inside the Zerg command flagship.

The Tianjia Emperor reacted quickly, suppressing his lapse in composure.

He scanned the Imperial Consort thoroughly from head to toe.

His gaze lingered for a moment on the emerald earring on the Imperial Consort’s left ear, then quickly moved away.

Confirming that the Imperial Consort bore no injuries, the Tianjia Emperor breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked into the Imperial Consort’s eyes.

Wanting to know whether the Imperial Consort had suffered, whether he had been frightened.

Yet he only saw the Imperial Consort’s gaze dart away the very instant their eyes met.

The Imperial Consort… was unwilling to look at him.

Bitterness welled up in X’s heart.

Yet he could not show the slightest hint before the enemy.

He could only force down all emotions, maintaining his customary cold majesty.

His sharp gaze swept toward the Zerg officer beside the Imperial Consort.

In an icy voice loaded with extreme oppression, the Tianjia Emperor said:

“Return Our Imperial Consort immediately. If the Imperial Consort suffers the slightest scratch, We will annihilate your entire army and flatten the Zerg!”