Brother, just how powerful is our family?

It wants to speak. Not through a consciousness network, because there is no consciousness network between the Shibumon and humans.

It wants to use sound, in some language that humans can understand.

However, the vocal cords of the kuji are completely different from those of humans, and the sounds they make are just hissing and harsh noises to humans.

But it still had to say it. These were the last words of the Kujira Beast clan.

"Hiss—hiss—hiss—"

On the bridge of the Vengeance-class warship, Qin Zhanjun stood in front of the porthole, looking at the beast floating in the void.

It is not large, only a little over two meters tall, insignificant compared to those beasts that can travel hundreds of kilometers.

But Qin Zhanjun knew that this little worm was the supreme leader of the worm clan—the Lord of Calamity Nest.

"What is it doing?" the adjutant asked.

"They're talking," Qin Zhanjun replied calmly, "though I can't understand them."

"Should we capture him alive?"

Qin Zhanjun was silent for a few seconds. The word "capture alive" flashed through his mind.

Capturing the Calamity Nest Master alive will yield all the secrets of the Beast Clan: their history, their lair, and their Rift technology.

But he shook his head. "No. It's worthless now. The main force of the Kuzumon has been wiped out, the nest has been destroyed, and the Rift Generator has malfunctioned. It's alive, but only as a symbol. A symbol that a Kuzumon once existed."

Qin Zhanjun turned around and looked at his adjutant. "We've chased it for so long, not to capture it alive, but to completely annihilate it. Let it disappear along with the history of the Silent Beast."

"Yes."

The Star Destroyer Cannon began charging.

The Lord of Calamity Nest sensed the gravitational fluctuations around the cannon.

It knew it was a harbinger of death. It didn't try to escape. It knew that trying to escape would be futile.

At its current speed, it's less than one percent of the speed of light, while the attack from the Star Destroyer cannon travels at the speed of light.

It was already dead the moment it saw the flash of the cannon.

It did just one thing. It released its grip on the core of the fracture generator.

The cold, lifeless stone slipped from its hand and drifted slowly away into the void.

Then, it used its last bit of energy to activate a special organ within its body.

That was an organ it had never used.

It is a secret organ possessed by every generation of Nest Masters of the Kubi Beast Clan, passed down through generations.

Its sole function is to send a final distress signal to the overlord civilization when the Beast Clan is on the verge of extinction.

The moment the organ was activated, an almost imperceptible energy wave was emitted from the body of the Calamity Nest Master.

Energy waves have extremely high frequencies and extremely short wavelengths, making them almost impossible to propagate in normal space.

However, it does not propagate in normal space.

It propagates through higher dimensions, flying towards the center of the Milky Way at a speed far exceeding the speed of light.

That place is the location of the dominant civilization.

The content of the energy wave is very simple, consisting of only one sentence, neither language nor text, but a set of pure information codes.

Translated into human language, it would roughly mean this:

"Orion Arm, Beast Clan, mission failed. Uncontrollable forces have emerged. Requesting intervention from the Overlord Civilization."

The moment the energy wave was emitted, the planet-destroying cannon opened fire.

The body of the Calamity Nest Lord began to collapse.

It's squeezed from the inside out, like a crumpled piece of paper.

Its exoskeleton shattered, its internal tissues were compressed to the extreme, and then it disappeared.

It wasn't blown to pieces, nor burned, but disappeared from three-dimensional space.

At its location, a tiny, almost invisible black hole appeared.

The black hole evaporated within seconds, releasing enormous energy that illuminated the surrounding space as bright as day.

Then, everything returned to calm.

The Lord of Calamity Nest, the last Lord of the Beast Clan, an ancient being who had lived for tens of millions of years, vanished just like that.

Along with its body, its memories, and the entire history of the Kujira Beast clan it carried, it vanished.

Qin Zhanjun stood in front of the porthole, looking at the empty void.

He didn't speak, his expression remained blank. His eyes were fixed on the spot where the Lord of Calamity had disappeared, and he stared there for a long time.

"Report, target destroyed." The adjutant's voice rang out from behind.

"confirm."

"Confirmation complete. No signs of life remaining."

Qin Zhanjun nodded. "Search the surrounding area. See if there are any relics left behind."

The search lasted for several hours. Fragments of the Shibumon were recovered by salvage ships and transported back to the warship for analysis.

The core of the fracture generator was also found; it had drifted hundreds of thousands of kilometers away to a piece of rubble, where it lay quietly, like an abandoned baby.

"What is this?" the adjutant asked, pointing to the stone.

"The core of the rift generator. The device the guillotines use to open the passage." Qin Zhanjun glanced at it. "Take it back. The Academy of Sciences needs it."

"Yes."

The fleet lingered in the void for several hours, and after confirming that no beasts had escaped, it began its return journey.

Cracks opened one after another, and warships disappeared one after another.

After the last rift healed, this star field returned to silence.

Only the core of the fissure generator on that piece of rubble was still flickering slightly.

Inside the core, beneath the energy liquid that had already seeped away, there was an even smaller, more hidden structure.

It was a tiny, almost invisible crystal.

Inside the crystal is stored the last distress signal sent by the Lord of Calamity.

The signal has been sent. It is traveling at a speed far exceeding the speed of light through higher dimensions, heading towards the center of the Milky Way.

No one knows when it will arrive.

Maybe a few years, maybe decades, maybe hundreds of years.

But one day, it will arrive.

Then, the overlord civilization will learn that an uncontrollable force has emerged in the Orion Arm.

At that time, the Yanhuang civilization will face an even more powerful enemy.

But now, nobody knows any of this.

The Qin army's fleet is on its way back. The officers and soldiers of the fleet are celebrating their victory.

Two hundred billion descendants of Yan and Huang are waiting for news of their triumphant return.

They thought that once the beasts were eliminated, the war would be over.

They believed that from then on, the Yanhuang civilization could live and work in peace and contentment in this starry sky, without any worries.

They are wrong.

But before they realized they were wrong, there was a brief and precious period of peace.

This peace may last for a few years, a few decades, or even a few centuries.

But no matter how long it takes, it is what the Yanhuang civilization needs most: to recuperate, develop science and technology, accumulate strength, and prepare for the next war.

Because the next war will be far more brutal than the war against the slugs.

The enemy's strength will exceed everyone's imagination.

But that's a matter for the future.

Now, victory belongs to the Yanhuang civilization.