The stars, but they become the gray wind

"If you ask me, facing a fortress like this, perhaps only Yang Wen-li, who took down Iserlohn Fortress without a single soldier, could handle a truly terrifying planetary fortress of this magnitude."

"Oh... do you think so too?"

(Yang: Thank you. How can I possibly handle something like this?)

Gao Nifu and others were unaware that Yang Weili had been defeated almost without exception in front of the planets wrapped in the Barrier Star Ring in hundreds of simulated battles with Yuki and several Sky Star people. They were still discussing what method was needed to capture such a fortress?

While they were discussing leisurely and waiting for the damage control team on the ship to recover the reactor, they did not notice that two other spaceships had appeared in the galaxy.

The pure black body flashed again in the macroscopic three-dimensional universe. The Night Fighter used the superluminal drive in an almost unreasonable way to modify the physical laws and space-time parameters around it, and instantly jumped from the other end of the imperial territory to the Void Gate Galaxy. From a third-party perspective, there was almost no observable abnormality in the entire process, and it was impossible to respond to this completely invisible superluminal jump based on the changes in the surrounding space curvature and gravitational constant.

After the Night Fighter entered the system, it had no choice but to take the bait immediately. Instead, it waited for the next actor on the stage to take the stage. Yuki wanted to teach a certain arrogant, bald-headed overlord a lesson. When Lubinski, still smugly holding his fishing rod and casting the bait into the water, thought he had everything under control, he would never have imagined that what he had hooked was not a fish, but a sea monster that would send him to the west. This sea monster was powerful enough to bite him in two, fishing rod and all.

After a short wait, another mirror-warped space bubble with certain high-dimensional characteristics, which was caused by the fall from high dimension to low dimension, also appeared at the other end of the galaxy. The operators of the two spacecraft knew that the show was about to begin.

By the time the crew member in charge of radar operation noticed the sudden light spot on the radar, it was already too late. He was so scared that he almost spit out his coffee.

"Where did that thing come from? Why didn't we find anything before?" Gonif felt his legs trembling. To him, the black spaceship with wings appeared again, like a nightmare, and still appeared suddenly without any warning, only 5000 kilometers behind the Beluska.

"Damage Control, when will the damn reactor and engines be restarted?"

"Almost there. Give me another 15 minutes. Only the last two sensors are left."

"15 minutes?! That thing will kill us in seconds, hurry up!"

"Captain, we're already at our maximum speed. If we force this on without replacing these last two sensors, the flight control safety system might take over the entire spacecraft and shut it down."

"This damn safety system is not safe at all. It's going to kill us now!" The driver yelled almost madly at the damage control captain who was still replacing sensors in the reactor.

"The enemy is approaching! One...one thousand kilometers!!!" said the radar operator with a trembling voice of fear.

"It's over!" Gonif had given up on treatment at this point. They couldn't escape at this distance, and he collapsed on the chair due to exhaustion.

Just when the crew of the Belewka was almost in despair, in the phenomenon of blue shift of light and Cherenkov radiation caused by escaping from warp speed, the Time-Like Infinity made a precise short-distance warp jump to a position only five kilometers away from the Belewka, and directly used a tractor beam to pull the Belewka into its own hangar. Several crew members on the Belewka lost their grip due to the inertia generated by the tractor beam pulling the hull and fell to the ground.

"Captain, our ship has been captured!"

"I know. You don't need to remind me." Gonif wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He just wanted to have a good drink to calm down.

In the blue light produced by the activation of the warp engine, the Time-Like Infinity, wrapped in the warp bubble, disappeared again.

"The show is about to begin..." Inside the night fighter, the purple-haired girl smiled knowingly.

"Gilfias! Thank you for your hard work!" Reinhardt said to his red-haired best friend with a bright smile when he met him again.

Gilfias commanded the special forces, crushing the rebellious forces along the Empire's borders, completing each mission with flying colors. After completely defeating the remnants of the forces under Marquis Lidianheim, the deputy leader of the United Nobles, he absorbed the surrendered fleet, reorganized it, and then reunited with Reinhard's fleet.

In fact, one of the important reasons why Reinhard was able to lay siege to the noble coalition led by Duke Brunswick with all his strength was due to Gilfias's efforts to stabilize the recaptured areas and provide logistical support to Reinhard.

And now, after Gilfias and Reinhardt reunited, the noble coalition forces still entrenched in the Vulture City Fortress have entered their final dying struggle.

The Vulture City Fortress is now completely surrounded and isolated.

When desperate nobles in the Vulture City Fortress began to commit suicide, the will of the surviving nobles became increasingly depressed and withered.

Duke Brunswick, the leader of the alliance, was addicted to alcohol all day long and often cursed at Reinhard under the influence of alcohol, but everyone in the fortress knew that Duke Brunswick was just furious and impotent.

At present, only a group of young nobles headed by Baron Filger have not lost their fighting spirit. They advocate mobilizing all the fleets currently in the fortress to fight a final all-out battle with Reinhard. Fahrenheit, who opposed this completely reckless behavior and publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with Brunshback's tyranny and incompetence since the war began, was angrily denounced as a coward by Brunshback and the young nobles present. Brunshback and the young nobles simply ignored Fahrenheit's opposition and ordered all the fleets in the fortress to attack.

It also became the fuse for the failure of the aristocratic coalition army. The soldiers in the fortress who were unwilling to die with the nobles who had oppressed them for hundreds of years finally mutinied when they faced Reinhardt's fleet. After Baron Felger was killed by his soldiers who had been oppressed and treated unfairly by him, this action triggered a chain reaction on other ships.

After realizing that they were bound to lose, the soldiers and other officers looked at the captain with cold expressions, who advocated self-destruction of the battleship's reactor and suicide of all crew members. Without saying a word, they decisively took out the pistols at their waists and pulled the trigger at the heads of the nobles who served as captain and commander.

The mutiny among junior officers and soldiers went beyond just one or two ships. The lower-ranking officers, officers, and soldiers, who came from commoner and lesser noble families, refused to join the nobles who had long oppressed them and their friends and family on the road to destruction and death.

A large number of warships that mutinied sent signals of surrender to Reinhard's side. Reinhard's fleet suffered almost no losses and easily won the victory in this large-scale battlefield mutiny within the enemy. Brunschbeck, who had become a commander without troops in the fortress, was pressed into a chair in the chaotic fortress and was forced to drink a glass of poisoned wine by his adjutant. Under the influence of highly toxic cyanide, the brutal Brunschbeck ended his sinful life.

Chapter 234: A Turning Point in History (6000 words)

After Reinhard's fleet annihilated the fleet of the Noble Alliance and marched towards the Vulture City, they still failed to capture the leader of the Noble Alliance, Duke Brunshback, alive. It seemed that Brunshback eventually committed suicide by taking poison in his room, and another important person who was to be captured was also missing. The commander-in-chief of the Noble Alliance fleet, Merkaz, was no longer in the fortress. According to subsequent investigations, before this group of disunited Noble Alliance was completely defeated, Merkaz left the Vulture City fortress on his own ship and a very small number of ships and fled to the alliance. Reinhard expressed some regret for this result. Merkaz and Fahrenheit were the few commanders with real talents in the Noble Alliance. It was indeed a pity that he could not recruit them all under his command.

…………

A black shadow followed closely, and the Night Fighter that had already engraved fear in the hearts of the Alliance and the Empire suddenly appeared outside an Alliance local security patrol fleet, and the security patrol fleet was startled. A shrill alarm sounded in the warships of this patrol fleet, but before this patrol fleet could prepare for battle, the Night Fighter once again activated the superluminal drive and disappeared in the three-dimensional universe. By the time the Alliance local security fleet reacted to the emergency combat alarm, the Night Fighter had disappeared without a trace.

The news that the Invincible Battleship had appeared again in the Alliance territory was finally delivered to the desk of the Fessa Autonomous Lord Rubinski after a series of intelligence circulation. Rubinski was not surprised by the news. Not long ago, the tracking and positioning device he installed on the Beluska suddenly lost contact. He had sent someone to secretly install this positioning device on the Beluska without Gonif's knowledge. This device would regularly send him the status of the Beluska through the Beluska's flight computer. Not long ago, after the Beluska headed for the Void Gate Galaxy, the positioning device no longer sent any information about the status of the Beluska to Rubinski.

The last piece of information Rubinsky received about the Belewska was that the spacecraft's reactor and propulsion system seemed to have some kind of malfunction, and then the signal from the tracking device completely disappeared. This made Rubinsky speculate that the Belewska might have encountered something unexpected in that black hole galaxy. Perhaps it had crashed and sunk, or perhaps the ship was destroyed and everyone on board died. As for the cause, it might be the invincible battleship that had appeared again in the alliance, or it might be the work of the mysterious alien forces in that desolate black hole galaxy.

However, in Rubinsky's view, it doesn't matter whether the bait, the Beluska, caught anything before it was destroyed. Now that the Beluska is missing, even if the reason for its disappearance is not the invincible battleship, it is most likely related to the alien forces in the desolate black hole galaxy. What Rubinsky needs to do is to prepare another bait, a bait that is enough to attract the attention of the invincible battleship, and further expand the scale of the war, and drag another mysterious alien force into this war. Only when all parties maintain a state of chaos in the war will Feisha have a chance to profit from it.

…………

Inside the hangar of the Time Infinity, Gonif and his companions anxiously used external cameras to constantly observe the location of their spaceship. It seemed to be a hangar with quite a large space. In several other adjacent berths not far away, Gonif saw several other spaceships that were much larger than the Beluska. The strange thing was that these spaceships did not have the common robotic arms used to fix the spaceships around them. Instead, they seemed to be fixed to the berths in mid-air by some invisible force.

Although this spaceship belonging to the mysterious alien force did rescue Gonif and others from the Invincible Battleship, the owner of the spaceship has not yet appeared. After careful discussion, Gonif and the other crew members on the ship decided that for safety reasons, it would be better not to leave the Beluska for the time being.

"It seems that there is a tracker on this ship?" Yuki had already detected the existence of this tracker when he put the Beluska into the hangar, and decisively cut off the signal it was sending out. Yuki had already guessed the origin of this tracker.

"It's probably the work of that nasty old fox Feisha."

"You still have that tracker on the hull?" asked the purple-haired girl on the communication interface in front of Yuki.

"The signal has been blocked. Now that thing is just scrap metal. I plan to find an opportunity to dismantle it in front of the other party."

"As for the people on that ship, let's leave them alone for a while. I have some important things to do here."

…………

In the Vulture City Fortress, at the entrance of the hall where the victory ceremony was held, when Siegfried Gilfias and Reinhardt walked into the venue together, the guard guarding the door wanted to remind Gilfias of the rule prohibiting carrying weapons in the venue. Reinhardt waved his hand to indicate that he specially allowed Gilfias to bring weapons into the venue. Under Reinhardt's order, the guard who strictly abided by the rules opened the door of the venue behind him for the two of them without saying anything and let them pass. It was this small action that was ignored by Reinhardt that saved Reinhardt's life a few minutes later.

Although Oberstein expressed some dissatisfaction with Gilfias's "special power" around Reinhard, and repeatedly reminded Reinhard that as a hegemon and future monarch, he should not have any personal feelings, Reinhard only selectively listened to the advice of this staff officer, and he still retained Gilfias's special position in his heart.

One of the parts of the victory ceremony was to meet with the captured senior enemy generals, one of whom was Reinhardt's old acquaintance, Lieutenant General Fahrenheit.

"Fahrenheit? It's been a while since the Battle of the Asti Star Region, hasn't it?"

"Yes..." Fahrenheit was not afraid of Reinhardt, and Reinhardt had no intention of humiliating this brave and skilled general.

"Joining the Duke of Brunswick's camp doesn't seem like something you would do. I can let go of the past. Tell me, are you willing to follow me and become my subordinate?" "I am a soldier of the Galactic Empire. Since Your Excellency has taken control of the Empire's military, it is only natural that I obey your orders. Although this has taken a long detour, I am now back on the right track."

Reinhardt had the guards on either side remove Fahrenheit's handcuffs and allow him to join the officers in his own team. Reinhardt naturally wanted to have as many talented individuals as Fahrenheit in his fold, but it was a pity that he couldn't get an experienced veteran like Merkaz.

At this moment, a noisy murmur arose from the end of the line.

The Duke of Brunswick's body, encased in a glass coffin, was brought into the venue accompanied by an officer.

Brigadier General Ansenbach bowed to Reinhardt expressionlessly, then walked forward slowly along with the glass coffin.

Sneering laughter emanated from the ranks of officers on both sides, a manifestation of the disgust some of the soldiers present expressed towards a soldier who had presented his superior's corpse as a gift to his opponent and demanded his surrender.

With heavy steps, Ansenbacher walked step by step with the glass coffin to Reinhardt. Ansenbacher saluted Reinhardt respectfully again, then pressed the button to open the lid of the glass coffin.

When everyone present thought that Ansenbach opened the glass door only to let the victor Reinhardt examine Brunschbacher's body, a scene beyond everyone's expectation suddenly occurred.

Ansenbacher reached out to Brunschbeck's body and grabbed a strange cylindrical object from the corpse's opened military uniform. The sharp-eyed officers present recognized that it was an anti-tank rocket launcher. Most people were stunned by the sudden change. Some wanted to step forward to stop him, but Ansenbacher had already pointed the rocket launcher at Reinhardt.

"Marquis Lohengramm, I want to avenge my lord, Duke Brunschbach!" Ansenbach's voice rang out amid the stunned silence of the officers and soldiers on the scene, and then with a bang, tongues of fire spurted out from the tail of the rocket launcher in his hand.

The explosion blew off a whole piece of the wall behind Reinhardt on the left, and blew a big hole in it. Because it was not equipped with a sight, the hastily fired rocket-propelled grenade did not hit Reinhardt.

Seeing his attack miss, Ansenberg let out a sound of resignation. As everyone stood there motionless, stunned like fossils, Gilfias instinctively drew his pistol and fired at Ansenberg's arm, which still held the bazooka. The bazooka in Ansenberg's right hand fell to the ground in pain. In desperation, Ansenberg raised his left hand, which was still free, and pointed the ring on his middle finger at Gilfias, who was several meters away. However, Gilfias, who had already raised his gun, was still a step faster than Ansenberg. He pulled the trigger again at Ansenberg's left shoulder, wounding him. A stray laser beam barely grazed Gilfias's hair and struck the wall behind him, leaving a small black dot on the ornately decorated wall.

At this time, the guards and admirals present finally reacted. They rushed forward and worked together to control Ansembahalli and pressed him to the ground. Gilfias looked at the black spot on the wall behind him that was burned by the laser with lingering fear, and brushed his burnt red hair with his right hand. If the laser had deviated a few millimeters to the right, he might not have just had a few hairs burnt.

"Gilfiace! Are you okay?"

"Don't worry, Master Reinhardt. It's just a few hairs that have been singed."

Ansenbacher, who was pinned to the ground by Kemp and Bittenfeldt, suddenly laughed, which frightened the admiral and guards present, thinking that he had some tricks up his sleeve.

"Duke Brunswick, please forgive me, I failed! I, an incompetent subordinate, cannot fulfill the promise I made to you. It may take several more years to send this hateful blond boy to hell..."

"What nonsense are you talking about, you bastard!" Kemp was so angry that he slapped him. His head kept shaking on the ground, but Ansenbacher kept muttering to himself, "I don't have enough strength. I will go with you now..."

"Oh no! He's got something in his mouth! Stop him!" Reuenthal, sensing Ansenbacher's intentions, shouted. But before he could react, Ansenbacher's teeth shifted, crushing the cyanide capsule hidden in his back teeth. Reuenthal's hand slammed down his throat, trying to stop him from swallowing the poison, but it was too late. Ansenbacher had already swallowed the highly toxic cyanide. Ansenbacher's eyes gradually lost focus, his pulse and heartbeat rapidly ceased, leaving him a cold corpse.

Fortunately, this assassination was successful and did not cause any casualties except the assassin. However, Reinhard still felt a little scared. If he had listened to Oberstein's advice and not given Gilfias the right to carry weapons, it might not be just Ansenbacher who died, but himself or Gilfias. If Gilfias had not fired and injured Ansenbacher, he might have died by now.

While he breathed a sigh of relief, the victory ceremony that was supposed to be grand had to end abruptly in this sudden assassination. Watching the medical soldiers carrying the dead body of Ansenbach onto a stretcher, Reinhardt was once again grateful that he had a close friend like Kirphias whom he could entrust his life to.

"Gilfers, thanks to you this time, otherwise I might have gone to see Odin by now." Reinhardt thanked his close friend.

"Lord Reinhardt, it is my duty to protect you."

.........

After this unexpected assassination, at the rare joint suggestion and request of Oberstein and Gilfias, Reinhard increased the number of security and guards around him to prevent those with ulterior motives from approaching the youngest Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet in history.

But even if Reinhardt increased the number of guards outside his room, he still couldn't stop some guys whose technology was so advanced that it was completely unreasonable. On the night after the suicide, Reinhardt had just opened the door of his office, and I found that there was already a "person" waiting for him in the office.

"Hi, nice to see you again. You don't look too well. Did you suffer an unsuccessful assassination attempt?"

Yuuki said to Reinhardt who was sitting on the sofa with a surprised smile on his face.

"What are you doing..." Reinhardt gestured to the guards who had just noticed the abnormality in the office to put down their weapons and walked into the office.

"You want to know how I ended up here, right?"

"Given your technical level, there's basically no way you can stop us."

"For example... like this." Yuki snapped his fingers, and an exquisite glass appeared out of thin air on the coffee table.

"Micro-wormhole teleportation technology can transport a glass, so it can naturally transport a person. Of course, if necessary, sending a bomb directly in is also a piece of cake."

"Are you warning me?"

"Not really... We're not that interested in you right now. The reason that guy almost killed you was simply because he thought you were a bug interfering with his work."

"I'm here today because I've observed another interesting trend in the future—a turning point caused by the butterfly effect."

"Mr. Siegfried should have told you what I said to him, right? Sometimes, the development of a new technology, an accident, or even the death of a key figure can affect the future direction of a civilization on a temporal level."

"These seemingly small and unrelated events often trigger a series of butterfly effects, thus changing the future of the entire civilization. Interestingly, today I observed such a turning point that will trigger a butterfly effect."

"This assassination?" Reinhardt reacted.

"Indeed, in our observations of the future, the different outcomes of this assassination will lead to completely different historical developments."

"Then... in that case, which result would you prefer to see?"

"We didn't go to see it." Yuki gave an answer that Reinhardt didn't expect.

"what?"

"We went to see it." Yuki repeated again.

"If we deliberately look at a certain outcome and hope that something will lead to a certain outcome we hope for, then all future directions related to this thing will be fixed and become the result of complete mechanical determinism."

"So, apart from our own destiny, we usually do not interfere with or determine the future direction and fate of people like you who are too insignificant to us."

"For example, the assassination attempt you encountered today. It was precisely because we didn't deliberately observe and fix its results that it presented an uncertain result close to the macroscopic quantum state."

"Then... could I know what the other types of abilities are?"

"Now that it has happened, there's really no harm in telling you."

"The consequences will trigger a series of chain reactions, and the subsequent impact will be far-reaching. The process will be very complicated."

"Let's get straight to the point. There are three different outcomes: if the assassination succeeds, you die; if the assassination fails, he dies; and if the assassination fails, both of you survive."

"A man like Ansenbach actually gave up suicide after the assassination attempt failed... Wait, isn't the Yilinyiqisiwuxixi IX you are talking about Ansenbacher?" Reinhardt suddenly realized that the beautiful girl in front of him, who looked like she had walked out of a fictional fantasy story, was not referring to Brigadier General Ansenbacher who committed suicide after the assassination attempt failed.

"You know who I'm talking about." Yuki still stared at Reinhardt, whose expression changed drastically, sitting opposite him with a smile on his face.

"Could it be... Gilfias?" Reinhardt, who was always confident, now spoke with a trembling voice.

Yuuki nodded silently.

"The butterfly effect, Mr. Reinhardt. Events that appear to have no causal connection actually trigger a series of chain reactions."

"And the outcome of today's incident actually depends on another decision you made earlier that seems unrelated to this incident."

"I allow Gilfias to carry weapons with me?"

"No, it's not this. Only things that seem unrelated are the source of the butterfly effect. It has nothing to do with whether you allow your friend to carry a weapon around you. It's another matter..."

"Brunschbeck's attempt to bomb the planet Westat with nuclear weapons, a seemingly unrelated event, was the real source that changed the outcome of the assassination."

Reinhard found this difficult to understand. He didn't understand why the attempt of Brunshback, an old aristocratic family that had been eliminated, to use nuclear weapons to bomb the planet was related to the safety of his own life and the life of Gilfias.

"Your handling of this matter will play a crucial role and affect the outcome of the assassination."

"If you hadn't stopped Brunswick, it would have been you or your friend who died today."

"It was because you successfully prevented this incident that triggered a series of subsequent butterfly effects, causing the assassination to fail, and both you and your friend survived."

"The direction of the future is a very strange thing. Some seemingly unrelated events will eventually lead to catastrophic consequences, while seemingly related events will not happen at all in the end."