Chapter 547: Ch Sooner or later, they were bound to meet and clash...

During this chaos and chaotic takeoff, there was no chance something bad wouldn’t happen—accidents were bound to occur.

And one happened indeed. A heavy carrier, about 200 meters long, had taken off not long before and was slowly, steadily gaining altitude. Just then, a smaller 70-to-80-meter corvette below launched, yawing uncontrollably.

The corvette collided directly with the frigate’s ventral thruster area. The impact was catastrophic, instantly crippling the thrusters.

The smaller corvette, also suffering severe damage, tilted violently and plummeted back toward the ground. BOOM. It blasted apart upon impact, but fortuitously, the area below was empty and caused no harm to others.

The frigate’s condition, however, was no better. It was still climbing and hadn’t yet reached an altitude where losing thruster power wouldn’t be fatal; instead, it rapidly lost lift. It crashed hard into the terrain below, churning up a massive plume of dust as the screams of the people trapped inside were abruptly cut short.

Meanwhile, far away from the imperial starport in a floating compound anchored over the central city, one figure stood entirely still, watching holofeeds from across the planet.

He was none other than the Star Lord—the architect behind this disaster. The Star Lord hadn’t fled the cataclysm of his own making, nor was there any trace of fear in his eyes.

With arms folded, he watched calmly as countless people were swallowed by the earth, crushed by falling buildings, and swept away by tsunamis. Not a single hint of guilt or pity could be found on his face.

Instead, he wasn’t paying attention to the star people at all. The Star Lord’s gaze was fixed solely on the sky—or rather,what lay beyond the planet’s atmosphere, deep in the black of space.

It was as if he could see straight through the clouds to the Antares-class battleship, and even further behind it, the Obliterator itself. He could see the human starfighters and mechs pulling back.

The Star Lord’s lips curled into a thin, bitter sneer, his features twisting in a way that made him appear on the very brink of madness.

"Flee, you human scum," the Star Lord muttered, his voice quiet yet chillingly steady. "Run... run back to your ships."

"You humans think you can do as you please, huh?" he whispered. "Like you did to those slaves of the Bright Republic?You think too simply, humans. Far too simply. I’ll never hand over the satisfaction you crave—not on my watch. You think you can use those things to wipe my people out? Not on my watch." He let out a short, hollow laugh.

He raised his hand high toward the distant human fleet, curling his fingers into a tight fist as if crushing their hulls right in his palm.

He raised his hand high toward the distant human fleet, curling his fingers into a tight fist as if crushing their hulls right in his palm.

"I may have failed to destroy you today, but don’t worry. You humans will suffer a fate far worse than anything my people or I could ever endure."

"I would rather see every stone burned, every ocean boiled over, and every citizen of this world—or any in this star system—swallowed whole and buried beneath a billion tons of rubble before evaporating into ash, than see a single one of them die at your filthy human hands. You aren’t worthy of that."

Just as these words left his mouth, the central city, which had already split into many parts, began to change even further.

Multiple areas were now missing, and in their place were gigantic fissures. From those fissures, dense, molten lava was pouring out, rushing towards the still-standing buildings and the remaining crowds on the ground relentlessly.

"Ohh my God! Wh-what is that?!" someone shouted, seeing the lava rushing and gushing towards them. He stood petrified and terrified.

"Ohh nooo! Lava is coming! Everyone, runnn!" another person shouted. Gritting his teeth, he ran away. In front of him was an open flying car. His eyes lit up as he immediately got inside, took flight, and rushed towards the spaceport.

"H-hey, wait for us! Take us along, please!" someone shouted.

The guy reacted as if he hadn’t heard those voices at all. Without paying them any attention, he quickly drove the flying car away and soon disappeared beyond the horizon.

At the same time, those left behind were burned to a crisp before the lava could even get near them. The intense heat spreading rapidly from the fissures burned them alive. They weren’t even able to scream, much less say anything.

While their deaths were brutal, at least they were freed from pain and suffering in that very moment...

Situations like this were no longer rare. At this point, across all three planets, every place was experiencing something similar. People tried to run away or even reach higher ground, yet it all ended in the same way, and that was their death...

Even the spaceports were quickly either flooded by lava or swallowed as the land beneath them collapsed into the earth below. Those who were able to escape were lucky, while those who weren’t... well, nothing of them remained at this point.

All of this flashed before Star Lord’s eyes, but he still didn’t flinch, as if he had thrown away every emotion that might make him hesitate about what he was finally about to do...

Instead, he spoke, "The time has come."

With that, he pressed the red button in front of him without a single ounce of hesitation or fear.

Thousands of kilometers below the planetary crust, near the planetary core, a crystalline substance was pushed through one of the pipelines surrounding it. The already unstable core reacted even more violently as it absorbed the crystalline substance and began to contract crazily...

A few moments later, with a brilliant flash of light, it began to expand crazily outwards, and thermal plasma started erupting across the planet, followed by the other two planets not long after the first...

BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

"There it goes," Yami said, watching the planet explode right in front of his eyes. He couldn’t help but sigh as he saw even those few ships that were still near the planet, close enough to be affected by the explosion’s shockwave, quickly and brutally obliterated, leaving behind only a few hundred other ships that had taken off earlier and managed to survive.

"Sir, should we take those targets down?" the officer beside his command seat asked.

Yami shook his head without much contemplation. "No, let them go! And what do we gain by targeting them? It’s not worth it. They are much more useful to us alive than dead!"

"..."

The officer nodded his head upon hearing this and made no further comments.

A few minutes later, a notification arrived. "Captain, we have received a notification from the mothership!"

At those words, Yami stood up from his command seat.

"It’s time to return," he muttered softly before raising his right hand and speaking in a strong tone. "Everyone, it’s time for us to move! Head towards the mothership. We are leaving!"

"..."

Current Timeline, Back in the Obliterator

After finally calming down a bit and going through the details with the Red Empress, Kallus couldn’t help but speak.

"There really is a variety of people out there, each with unique thought processes, including some extreme ones as well... The Star Lord was one such example."

"Nevertheless, this doesn’t change or affect our plans or progress. Captain Yami’s decision to let the survivors flee was good as well.

Those who escaped were high-ranking individuals and officials, and they should be able to make more accurate and logical judgments in case the Star Empire comes looking for us and blames us for this," Kallus said righteously at that moment.

"..."

The Red Empress rolled her eyes at this and spoke. "What are you acting so righteous for, huh? It’s not like you actually care about those few Star Empire people or are afraid of the Star Empire, huh?

After taking down so many of their elites and destroying assets worth trillions of Federation credits, could it be that the loss of one star system and a few billion people is somehow more serious?"

╭(╯^╰)╮

Kallus shrugged his shoulders and added, "Ohh well, we can always pretend to be saints, no? Whether they believe it or not, what does it matter? Do they even have the ability to reject us or dispute our statement?"

Then, smiling slyly, he added, "Not to mention, they’ll soon have troubles of their own to deal with!"

With that, he burst into laughter.

┗|｀O′|┛ Oww~~

The Red Empress simply surrendered to his logic...

Meanwhile, far away, another disaster was already unfolding. More than ten Tier-One states had already been taken down by the invading race emerging from the fissure, yet neither Kallus nor anyone else across the galaxy had any idea about it.

Especially Kallus and the Celestial Void Empire, who had no idea just how serious this disaster was or how close those beasts already were to the Sol Region.

Sooner or later, they were bound to meet and clash...