white star stealing star

Chapter 286 Unauthorized Departure
Fujisai Koshi was prepared to embark on the voyage with Shirahoshi.

Until the very last moment before he set off, he still felt that his current situation was so unreal.

But the scenario he had envisioned—a head-on clash with the legion he had sworn allegiance to—did not materialize.

Although their brief ascent did attract the attention of the outer reconnaissance aircraft, who then followed them, Shirahoshi, the navigator, paid no heed, even following the same path the legion had taken during its withdrawal. Fujisai could sense that their every move was under the legion's surveillance, perhaps even being observed by her mother, who was currently furious.
To everyone's relief, despite these circumstances, not a single Legion machine came forward with an attack order to intercept or capture it.

They were like outsiders who had been pardoned in this battlefield.

Until the three machines left the scorching planet of extreme heat, their mechs had already embarked on a short journey at a dangerous altitude.

In order to regulate the pressure inside the mech, the mech's power was fully activated, consuming nearly twice as much fuel as in combat mode.

They cannot sail for too long.

At this moment, some of the legion's machines and the houses that were still orderly evacuating came into the two's view. Many private machines were gathered in front of the seventh line. Even though many small fighter jets were flashing their warning lights and circling around to maintain their formation, it still looked chaotic.

The three mechs stood out awkwardly among the flying machines, yet none of them bothered to fight or pay attention to them. Shirahoshi already had the coordinates locked on, and she led the way, soon bringing Fujisai to the front of another legion's fleet.

Seeing that Shirahoshi didn't go around in circles but went straight ahead, Fujisai became extremely nervous, not understanding what Shirahoshi was up to.

His mech's energy was running low, and if a conflict broke out at this time, their only possibility would be being shot down.

But soon he discovered that the Legion's machines did not fire at the three approaching mechs, but remained silently suspended in the air, as if they had been given orders beforehand.

Fujisai was completely baffled. He followed Senki and Hyakuban without understanding why, until the energy indicator reached the critical point and the flight speed decreased sharply. Only then did he see a force coming to pick her up outside the Legion's machine's guard circle.

That was the fleet of the Shattered Stars.

At this moment, his mech suddenly slowed down drastically, losing all propulsion power.

Fujisai immediately tried to activate the emergency backup energy, only to find that the backup energy storage was empty.

when? !

Realizing that Raven had almost stopped, he slammed the fuel pump and instinctively activated the mechanical arm, trying to grab Thousand Machine's mechanical leg. However, due to the sudden acceleration of the other side, he fell behind by a body length and missed in vain. With a regretful sound of lights going out, Raven's internal energy was exhausted. Apart from a short period of air replenishment, Raven came to a complete stop, like a dead bird hanging helplessly, within reach of the Legion's machines.

Finally, watching as Thousand Machines and Hundred Thousand Machines relentlessly advanced until they were approached and captured by the Shattered Star Fleet, while he himself was surrounded and at the mercy of the fleet, he realized that his Raven had been tampered with by Shirahoshi at some point. During the final refueling, she had drained the fuel from the Raven's spare energy tank.

Fujisai had imagined how Shirahoshi would use him—to negotiate with the Legion, to use his combat power against them, until she obtained the leverage to save her family. He hadn't expected his role to be so weak, barely lasting a day. Should he be happy for her successful escape? But Fujisai felt a strange, unspeakable disappointment that drained him of all strength, leaving him utterly unresponsive to the fleet's calls.

It wasn't until Priven, seeing the unexpected gains, reported the matter to the temporary commander Yuan Xitong that he ordered the squadron to use claw chains to firmly bind the energy-depleted crows, and he personally led them to Yuan Xitong's location.

During this period, the Sixth Legion's flagship actually regained its signal, but the signal source was intermittent, and the link had to be rebuilt, making it impossible to share real-time information between the two sides immediately.

For more than ten minutes after losing contact with the rest of the world, the main ship was helpless against the heavy fog that had appeared around it.

Losing contact means more than just a broken radar signal and obstructed vision. Even the ship's internal communication lines are cut off, effectively severing all communication between the crew and the outside world. This means that starting to sail and change course, or using firepower to disperse the fog, would be extremely dangerous decisions.

After all, no one could be sure that only the main ship would be affected, and no one could predict whether rash action would collide with the legion's machines or whether stray bullets would injure their own people.

At that time, Ning Qiong had made absolute mental preparations. She thought of the enemy's trap and the possibility of a fight to the death. But what she never expected was that while she was racking her brains to think of a solution, Yuan Xilong quietly left the command room.

Ning Qiong could guess where he was going with a snap of her fingers, but she could only point to two soldiers and immediately set off for the helipad to intercept Yuan Xilong.

Before the two men returned, the main ship's signal had gradually returned. The information officers began the work of repairing and rebuilding the signal, filtering out the useful information from the numerous messages that had been uploaded but were corrupted due to the loss of signal connection, all in order to deliver them to Ning Qiong, who had been temporarily relieved of her command duties.

Meanwhile, Yuan Xilong had already obtained his own mecha from the tower's soldiers by using a fake password. Facing the thick fog outside the main ship, which was of unknown origin, and the radar that had completely lost its function, he did not hesitate to pilot the mecha away. As soon as he left, the two soldiers who had come to intercept him on a mission watched his mecha sail away, disappearing into the thick fog and vanishing without a trace. Helpless, they could only exchange information about the current situation with the dumbfounded tower soldiers.

Where was he going? To stop Fujisai from doing something foolish, of course.

He knew that if he wanted to set sail, he had to seize this one and only opportunity.

He had studied since childhood and had tried to maintain stable navigation in environments with poor visibility or where radar signals were completely blocked.

The simultaneous presence of both factors is like a person who has suddenly lost their sight and hearing trying to escape from a primeval forest.

But he still resolutely made up his mind to set sail.

He recalled that during his most emotionally unstable childhood, a strong person who briefly served as his mentor once said: "Try to understand the soul of the machine, let your sixth sense resonate with it. The auxiliary feedback given by the machine is far less sensitive and perceptive than the former."

However, despite his mental preparations, he did not expect the fog to be as dangerous as he had imagined.

There were no obstacles in the fog, and there were obvious changes and areas of varying density. He even saw an incredible small part of the scene within the fog.

It was a huge eye.