Chapter 495: Clash of Wills Among the Stars

What he said wasn’t wrong, but Song Chi didn’t feel the slightest bit apologetic.

Call it what you want—wasn’t it all just fear of the Heavenly Ruin’s might? If it weren’t for that, they wouldn’t have waited a whole year. Hell, they’d barely wait a month.

In the end, it all came down to who had the bigger fist.

After a brief silence, he finally spoke up:

“What’s past is past. Now, the Pan Family is under my protection. So if I intervene, isn’t that perfectly justified?”

“You—!”

…

The middle-aged man, who’d already clashed with Song Chi before, glared back at him. His face turned cold, eyes icy as ever.

They locked eyes for a long time before the stoic captain at the center finally broke the silence.

“And what if our Annan Consortium doesn’t agree? If our people attack anyway, it’s not like you’ll even get a chance to intervene!”

Song Chi didn’t flinch, his tone steady and calm.

“You’re welcome to try. I’m honestly curious—what matters more: the Pan Family’s last bit of worth or those hundreds of Annan Consortium outposts scattered across the galaxies? Oh, almost forgot. The Pan Family’s already handed me detailed coordinates for over three hundred of your frontier colonies…”

Their conversation was slow, almost deliberate, which kept the Zhulu-class Cruiser Captains on both sides of Qingluan Floating-land locked in a bizarre standoff.

And Song Chi wasn’t bluffing about those three hundred Annan Consortium colonial outposts. Judging by the dark looks on the three battleship captains’ faces, and the fact that none dared to give the attack order, he was dead serious.

After all, the Pan and Annan families had been bitter rivals for over a thousand years—of course they’d have dirt on each other.

Seeing the hesitation, Song Chi offered a proposal of his own.

“No one actually wants this to turn into a fight to the death. How about I make a suggestion? Up to you if you take it…”

“What’s your proposal?”

“Just like before. We head to the nearest Starfield Battleground. As a gesture of good faith, all three of you can fight me together!”

His casual tone didn’t sound like an act, making all three Annan battleship captains tense up. For a second, nobody spoke.

To face three battleships at once—and to suggest it so easily—meant only two things.

One, he was wildly arrogant and clueless about his own ship’s capabilities.

Or two, he had absolute confidence, truly believing he could take on several at once—even against superior foes.

To the Annan captains, Song Chi was no fool. So they hesitated.

This past year, they’d pulled every intelligence string they had—yet learned nothing about the Eastern Kunlun. That only made Song Chi more mysterious, and now here he was pulling this stunt. It was hard not to overthink it.

At last, the stoic captain broke the tension.

“Since you’re the one inviting us, it’d look like the Annan Consortium only bullies the weak if we refuse.”

“How about this: if we win, you give up on supporting the Pan Family. But if we lose, the Annan Consortium swears to leave the Pan Family alone for good. Fair?”

Song Chi met the gaze of the elder whose expression was calm as a lake, then nodded.

“Deal!”

With an agreement reached, Song Chi sent word to the Pan Family, telling them to stay put in Qingluan Floating-land. Then, with the three Annan battleships, he sped away—racing tens of thousands of light-years toward the Starfield Battleground.

…

They arrived at a shattered asteroid belt, nothing left but floating fragments—every valuable resource stripped away long ago. This was one of many battlegrounds under Silverplate Galaxy’s rule.

In a swath of vacuum cleared for the fight, four battleships faced off, divided into two sides.

The Annan Consortium’s elder captain sent one last message over the fleet comms channel:

“Friends, once we start, there’s no backing out. If luck’s on our side, maybe all four of us walk away. But if not, a grave among the stars awaits. I’ve roamed the Sea of Stars nearly four thousand years—my flagship isn’t weak. Are you truly prepared for this?”

“We’re already here. Skip the dramatics!”

The two lines echoed one after the other, and in the next instant all comms were abruptly cut. At the same time, all four battleships’ engines roared, gun ports blazing with gathered light—the battle was about to begin.

All four ships made the same call. They widened the distance, turning to pull further apart.

Seeing this, the three Annan captains couldn’t hide their confusion.

Their choice to increase the distance made sense—after all, with the numbers advantage, they just needed to keep the Heavenly Ruin at bay. Pummel it from afar, and eventually they’d wear it down.

But the Heavenly Ruin was outnumbered three to one. Shouldn’t it be charging in for close-quarters combat—taking them down one by one?

Song Chi could guess what was running through their heads, but he didn’t let up, still retreating at full speed.

Normally, getting up close would be the smart play. But the Heavenly Ruin wasn’t your average ship.

The golden Yin-Yang Counter‑Phase Annihilation Shield and the Angel King’s Authority Wings—two of the ship’s finest defensive assets—were at their best from a distance.

If he smashed into them in melee, those two golden shields would be nearly useless—a dumb move. Song Chi wasn’t about to throw away his edge like that.

Besides, he’d never believed the Heavenly Ruin was lacking in firepower either.

Once all four battleships were nearly a million kilometers apart, their main guns finished charging.

Inside the control room of the Heavenly Ruin, Song Chi set his sights on the leftmost vessel in the distance.

This battleship was barely ten thousand meters long—obviously a recent upgrade. Of the three Annan ships, this one was the weakest.

With the image of the Dual Pupils blazing in his eyes, Song Chi locked in his first target.

His strategy was straightforward. Outnumbered, he had to take out one as fast as possible. The weakest link was always the easiest to break.

A low, rising hum filled the air.

From the bow, a hundred-thousand-meter-class annihilation arrow and a sweeping wave of True Immortal Quantum Blade erupted almost at once, both aimed squarely at the leftmost battleship.

“He’s going for the Annan Yuanhe! Watch out, Old Third!”

The Annan Yuanhe’s captain reacted instantly—even before his comrades spoke. They’d already guessed he’d be Song Chi’s main target, so his guard had never dropped.

Sure enough, seeing both attacks streaking his way, the Annan Consortium’s third director triggered a special orange blink device without hesitation.

But in the next second, his expression changed completely.

“What?! Why isn’t the Annan Yuanhe moving at all?”

He’d just activated the blink, but his ship hadn’t budged—it was stuck in place. That’s when he noticed strange chains darting out of nowhere, anchoring his vessel.

Even so, his split-second focus let him recover fast. With plan A failed, he immediately switched to plan B.

He now triggered the ship’s red hull armor defense.

Before the two attacks landed, a second layer of dark red armor formed around the Annan Yuanhe, and its red energy shield shone at full power.

But all that careful preparation was for nothing—the outcome stunned all three Annan Consortium captains.

The Annan Yuanhe’s glowing red shield shattered instantly when it met the True Immortal Quantum Blade.

Song Chi wasn’t surprised. The Annan Yuanhe was a battleship, but because its seed was only Torch-class, it could only carry an orange hull and max out its modules at level 59.

That meant the red energy shield was already a full tier below the Heavenly Ruin’s Taiyi Quantum Swordlight Battery. With the added power gap, there was no way it could hold up against an attack like True Immortal Quantum Blade.

After breaking the shield, the weakened quantum blade slammed down on that red armor again.

A single devastating sweep carved a hole more than a kilometer wide, and it didn’t stop there. The annihilation arrow finally arrived right after.

This time, though, there was barely any explosion. The arrow simply slipped through the gap blasted open by the quantum blade, plunging deep inside the Annan Yuanhe.

A little was shaved off by the red armor and hull, but most of its force hit right in the ship’s control room—where the Consortium’s third director sat.

“Old Third!”

The other two captain’s voices crackled through the comms, but there was no answer.

Back on the Yuanhe, the ship’s lights faded, but it didn’t sink. Its captain must have fallen unconscious, losing control temporarily.

The remaining three battleships quickly and wordlessly shifted the fight, pushing the battlefield farther away.

Dozens of minutes ticked by.

“External attack detected. Energy shield at 32% integrity. Please repair immediately!” chirped the AI.

Song Chi barely paid it any attention.

In over half an hour, all they’d managed was to wear down the Angel King’s Authority Wings’ holy shield and scratch the Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield. Nothing to worry about.

And that was only because the Angel King’s Authority Wings hadn’t been upgraded to its seventh stage yet. If it ever was, Song Chi couldn’t even imagine how unbreakable the Heavenly Ruin’s defenses would become.

Just then, the two remaining Annan battleships seemed to make up their minds. Realizing their shields were nowhere near as tough as his, they decided to risk everything on a lightning assault.

A restless hum crackled in the void.

Suddenly, a ripple warped space around the second director’s eleven-thousand-meter-long flagship. A faint afterimage lingered, but in the blink of an eye, the ship appeared less than one hundred thousand kilometers from the Heavenly Ruin.

“Trying to trigger a special module that only works within one hundred thousand kilometers?”

Song Chi spotted the blink landing and immediately made his call.

He went to activate the Space‑skipping Pearl’s blink once more to put space between them, but found the Heavenly Ruin locked in place—it refused to budge.

“Looks like they’re using a pinpoint spatial seal that even trumps the orange-class module. Still, it might freeze my Space‑skipping Pearl, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work on the Angel King’s Authority Wings.”

He shifted his focus to the Angel King’s ‘Angel • Wing Blink’ feature.

But before he could trigger it, a chill ran down his spine—so cold it made his hair stand on end.

Song Chi whipped his gaze to the distant extreme battleship.

Sure enough, a beam of annihilation, over ten thousand meters wide, burst from its prow.

The beam streaked across nearly a million kilometers in a heartbeat, leaving Song Chi barely any time to react.

With no hesitation, Song Chi triggered the Angel King’s Authority Wings’ ‘True Spirit Guard of the Angel King.’ Ever since he’d gotten this golden module, it was the first time he’d used this powerful defensive feature in real combat.

Radiant holy light turned the cosmos to daylight. In a flash, a towering twelve-winged angel’s avatar appeared above the Heavenly Ruin.

“The Angel King’s True Spirit Avatar!”

Far off, the Annan Consortium’s elder captain could only howl in dread and anger as he caught sight of the phenomenon.

Although all twelve-winged angels were lords, the differences were obvious—only an Angel King wore a celestial crown. That was reserved for those of the eighth tier and above.

And sure enough, the angelic avatar above the Heavenly Ruin wore a dazzling, exotic crown.

With the Angel King’s presence overhead, the matter was settled. Even the extreme-level main cannon, cranked to level seventy-two and fired by the Annan Consortium’s elder captain, couldn’t so much as scratch the Heavenly Ruin. That annihilation beam didn’t even leave a mark.