Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 145: The Eye Beyond the Rift

The way back wasn't any "quieter" than the way forward, as the pesky aliens had already converged along the path we previously took.

Using the same formation as before, the ships positioned at the outer perimeter were beginning to show signs of strain—their shield's energy steadily failing.

If I had the Range Falcon with me right now—or more specifically, the Warp Nexus Module—then we wouldn't even need to locate the exit. We could've simply warped out to any chosen region we preferred.

I'm starting to seriously regret sending it back home ahead of us...

"A fifth of the fleet's medium-to-large-sized ships have shields down to their last 10%!" Eva reported with rising urgency. "At this rate, our loots will—I mean, the ship will get breached!"

"... I know." I sighed, noticing the greed peeking through her professional tone.

Though I wanted to come up with a solution immediately, I wasn't exactly free to do so. I was already manually flying the ship while simultaneously operating the turrets.

It wasn't easy, especially with those damned Shuulwailers who could cloak their presence using psychic interference. Things were even worse now that we were heading back—the alien swarm density had more than doubled.

So, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that my hands were already full.

Just a moment later, Eva raised her voice again. "Arthur!"

"Bah!" Annoyed by her persistent calling, I snapped. "You know what? You handle it. I'm leaving the fleet formation to you since I'm kind of busy right now!"

I expected her to argue back or get flustered, but to my surprise, a wide grin appeared on her face.

"You said it!" she said with a spark of enthusiasm.

Immediately after, she issued a command to the fleet. "I'm transmitting a new formation layout. Refer to your updated positions and perform your designated roles!"

Curious about what she'd come up with, I quickly checked the data—only to realize that it was a formation optimized for our current fleet makeup. Instead of a full spherical defense, she halved the area of engagement into a hemisphere.

By doing this, the number of ships exposed to alien attacks at once was drastically reduced.

When their shields reached critical levels, they could rotate out and retreat into the protected interior to recover, while fresh ships took their place at the edge.

With this structure—though it left us vulnerable to rear assaults—we could maintain forward momentum indefinitely, sustaining minimal losses so long as we kept moving.

During the initial minutes, the rotation between the two ship layers happened rapidly.

The shields were already nearly drained, after all.

But with every successful cycle, the time between shifts increased. The entire fleet's condition began to stabilize—completely—within just 7 minutes!

By the way, our ship was positioned at the very front—the tip of the spear, so to speak—taking on the brunt of alien aggression.

I wasn't suicidal, nor was I being noble on behalf of the pirates who would otherwise occupy that slot. No, I chose this position for a simple reason: survival.

This was the hot zone—the focal point for alien resistance. If I left this critical spot to just any ship, and they failed to hold the line, the entire fleet could collapse in an instant.

At this point, I had likely destroyed dozens of times more enemies than the second-best ship in our formation. That alone spoke volumes about the pressure the Black Halberd—our ship, the lead striker—was enduring.

In fact, I'd already burned through every last missile onboard. We had nothing left now but the turrets, and my own reflexes.

Minutes passed, and yet, the gargantuan Void Dragon looming ahead remained utterly colossal. Its sheer scale was so immense that it distorted our sense of distance. We couldn't even tell if we were getting closer or not—it simply felt endless.

However, one thing did become apparent—an unexpected blessing: the closer we got to the Void Dragon, the fewer aliens we encountered head-on.

Even the aliens feared approaching it directly. They began detouring around the massive creature, creating a noticeable gap in their attacks.

"We're within the Void Dragon's range now!" Eva announced soon after. "Please follow the projected path I've calculated—this route is the safest we can take!"

Damn... Is she gunning for the MVP award for this entire expedition? Eva wasn't holding back at all.

On the primary visualizers of every ship, a transparent wireframe route appeared. Each ship had its own customized path, designed to weave safely through the terrain ahead.

The route she charted was intricate—making full use of the dragon's massive joints and limb structure. She specifically directed our movement over parts with limited mobility—such as the legs, lower back, and hips—to minimize risk.

By the time we reached that point, it became obvious that the alien swarm had stopped chasing us altogether.

I didn't know whether this was a blessing in disguise—or the prelude to something much, much worse.

But as we steadily approached the Void Dragon itself, the true reason slowly became clear.

"Woah! The instruments are going crazy!"

The ship trembled violently, nearly spinning out of control—apparently being caught in the grip of an overwhelming gravitational force radiating from the dragon's colossal body.

Right.

This dragon was massive enough, and dense enough, to possess its own powerful gravitational field!

What's more, the sheer intensity of that gravitational pull was comparable to that of a neutron star—almost reaching the incomprehensible force of a black hole!

Had it not been for Eva's meticulously plotted trajectory helping us counteract the intense gravitational drag, we would've already ended up crashing headfirst into the iron-tough scales of this gigantic being—each scale stretching wide like a moon in diameter.

Under this crushing gravity, the smaller ships were faring the worst. Their thrusters simply weren't powerful enough to fully resist the pull. One by one, they were getting drawn in toward the dragon's massive hide, inch by dreadful inch...

"Activate the tethers!"

But Eva wasn't about to let any of them go down like that.

At her command, the larger support ships sprang into action. Firing out thick towing hooks with practiced precision, each one locked onto a struggling small ship and began hauling it forward against the pull.freewēbnoveℓ.com

This strategy wasn't without consequence—all of the smaller ships suffered minor hull damage from the tension of being yanked mid-flight—but it was a far better outcome than being flattened against the dragon's back like bugs on a windshield.

With our collective average speed hovering around 1,000 kilometers per second, it still took us over two whole hours just to cross the vast expanse of the dragon's back and reach the far side.

By that time, all ships had their shields fully recharged, and every crew was back at their stations, alert and ready.

Two hours was more than enough for the weary crews to catch some rest too, temporarily handing over controls to their ship's onboard AIs.

As we emerged on the other side, my eyes immediately locked onto a glowing formation in the distance.

"That's the rift—our exit!" I exclaimed, zooming in through the viewport.

Now, all that remained was to reach it and escape from this zone… or so I thought.

"Is that... a living creature?"

Floating ominously beside the rift—roughly 0.03 AU away—was something else. Something unfamiliar. It hovered calmly, yet gave off a menacing presence.

I couldn't say for sure what it was—this was my first time seeing anything like it, much like when I first encountered the Detonids.

This creature, though, resembled something from the ocean depths—more like a sea urchin than anything else.

It had a small, central spherical body bristling with long, sharp spikes. Each spike glowed with neon lines—some red, some yellow, some green—each spike shining with a singular color, and all evenly spaced.

Altogether, there were just a few dozen of them, creating a bizarrely ordered symmetry.

The problem wasn't in its shape, though. It was its scale.

The rift was massive—clearly visible to the naked eye even from this distance—and yet, the red, glowing eye of the urchin-like entity was the same size as the entire rift.

"What do you think? Any chance we can bypass that thing?" Eva asked, lips pursed tight in concern.

"If it's alive and self-aware... Then no."

I didn't recognize this exact species, but I knew of something similar. That one spun like a top when provoked, causing the jagged protrusions on its body to grind like an industrial sander—pulverizing anything caught nearby.

If this thing starts spinning, with those long glowing spikes acting as shredders... it could probably annihilate our entire fleet in seconds.

Despite that threat, we continued flying for another 15 minutes, gradually distancing ourselves from the Void Dragon and inching closer toward the rift—now nearly halfway there.

"All ships, standby." At that moment, I gave the command.

"Huh?" Eva glanced at me in confusion, but held back from pressing further.

Still, I explained my intention to her—and by extension, to the rest of the fleet. "That thing's an unknown. I'm not risking everything by strolling up to it blind."

"...Makes sense. So you're going to attack from range?"

"Exactly that—and to confirm if it's actually alive. For all we know, it might just be some massive, dormant asteroid-like object with zero hostility."

To carry out the test, I selected one of the high-powered turrets located atop the Black Halberd. Carefully aligning the targeting system, I locked onto the eerie floating mass.

A second later, I squeezed the trigger.

A brilliant beam of laser energy surged out, streaking across the void toward the unmoving target. fourteen seconds later, the impact was made.

And then something very wrong happened.

"...!"

The moment I "saw" the laser made contact, I instinctively rerouted power to our shield systems—cranking them up to maximum. Just one heartbeat later, the very same laser beam we had fired... rebounded straight back and slammed into our shield wall.

The entire ship shook from the attack.

"Shit!" Eva gasped, eyes wide with horror. "It reflects attacks?!"