Chapter 526: Ch 526 The petty Grievances

"This is not the time for petty grievances that you hold against the loyalist faction, nor do you hold the authority to strike at the loyalist faction. Their fealty belongs to the throne itself, not to the person sitting atop it. Push them too far, and replacing the occupant that is you also becomes a trivial matter."

Those had been the Supreme Elder's exact, unvarnished words.

Remembering them now, the Emperor's face turned an ugly shade of livid ash.

He was the Star Emperor—the sovereign lord of countless worlds! By all rights of empiers mandate, every star system, fleet, and mortal soul beneath the heavens of star empier ought to bend to his singular will. Yet here he was, cornered and dictated to by a mere frontier Marquis and the old bone of elders of his own imperial clan who were already half a step in there graves.

Where the hell is my absolute authority in this?

Was an Emperor merely a gilded figurehead to be commanded and constrained by anyone who cared to bare their teeth at him?

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Countless light-years away from the Star empire's capital's Star System, deep within the shimmering depths of a hyperspace transit corridor, the black silhouette of the Obliterator tore silently through the void.

On the bridge, Kallus and the Red Empress stood once more in quiet discussion.

"Are you certain?" Kallus asked, an edge of incredulity forming on his tone as if he couldn't quite reconcile the report with reality.

"Hard to accept, isn't it?" Reading the visable disbelief in his eyes, the Red Empress let out a faint, mocking chuckle before shaking her head. "Yet it's entirely true. Our informants embedded in the star empier imperial court are transmitting exact same updates practically in real time."

She crossed her arms, eyes gleaming with hint of amusement. "The Star Emperor is actually trying taking advantage of this crisis to purge one of the old loyalist factions or maybe other's as well—the very bloc we are sitll unable to subvert or sway. And his grand motive? let's just call it star emperor own vanity. He's doing this to them simply because they refuse to fuel his ego."

"Incredible. Is he merely arrogant, or really that brainless?" Kallus leaned back against his command seat, exhaling in disbelief. "To wage petty internal feuds at an hour like this is already bad enough. But stripping front-line troops away from critical defensive points of his own empier where hostile alien race converge upon and two at that?"

He paused, a dark smile touching his lips. "Without a fallback plan at that? Without any kind reserves in place? Then that isn't just an assault on his political rivals; he's essentially throwing entire star sectors and their populations directly into the meat grinder."

Kallus shook his head, looking toward the hyperspace distortion beyond the viewport. "Even if the Empire somehow manages to survive this ordeal in one piece, which it likely wont well for the most part... but anyway if it did just how much territory will they even have left to rule? does star emperor even thought about it?"

The Red Empress gave a slight shrug. "Perhaps he is both."

Her gaze drifted back toward the star charts glowing faintly in the dim bridge lighting. "As sovereign over such a colossal tier 3 empier, he ought to know the true cost of territorial loss. And they are not some barren territory with minimal resources , but the rich expanse of the Southern Border—a cradle of high-tier mineral and heavy and earthly treasures, rich agricultural hubs, and heavily developed star systems mostly around the eastate of that noble grey."

She tapped a sharp fingernail against the display console. "Ceding ground like that means bleeding vital tax revenue, stripping away immense industrial output, and sacrificing trillions of imperial citizens and causing drop in crictical cultivaiton resources, leading to decline in overall power of state. No ruler with a even a hint of sanity would intentionally eat away their own foundation for petty court politics."

"He is Unless fool," Kallus murmured, a flicker of thought passing in his eyes, "Maybe , though i'm not too sure it has less to do with his own sanity and everything to do with the Star Empire's Fortune."

Before he could follow the train of thought any further, the bridge was cut through by the sharp scrape of a chair. A bridge officer snapped to attention from his navigation console, raising a crisp, urgent salute.

"Commander! Long-range gravimetric sensors just flagged a massive obstruction dead ahead in the hyperspace corridor—impact vector in roughly five minutes!"

"Likely, we have reached the outer territory of the Star Empire and are encountering their heavy gravitational field or some kind of anti-hyperspace/warp-space device!"

"Should we bypass it directly, or...?" the captain asked, hesitating as he awaited orders.

"Bypass it? Why bypass it?"

A sharp, dangerous smile crept onto Kallus's face. "Since we are already here, we might as well announce our presence and our intentions without holding back a single thing."

The Red Empress paused, momentarily taken aback by the sheer audacity, before a matching smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. "More chaos, then?"

"Precisely," Kallus chuckled, a sinister edge in his grin that sent a cold shudder down the captain's spine.

When did the Imperial Commander become this terrifying? the officer wondered in silent dread, swallowed by the sheer oppressive aura rolling off the man. Oh well... it's the Star Empire on the receiving end anyway. Who cares?

Shoving the thought aside, Captain Sam straightened and asked, "Then... what are our orders, Commander?"

Kallus cast an unblinking gaze at him. "What orders? Prepare our main weapon batteries: all 120 capital-class quad antimatter annihilation cannons, and all 80 SE-238 Obliterator-class 1,500mm dual anhilaiton railguns. Spin up our secondary armaments and point defenses—the 269 SE-298 Sentinel close-in weapon systems and all 18,000 EW-203 Pulverizers. Load every single one of our 10,000 missile pods with heavy plasma warheads. Start cycling their fire controls right away."

The grin on Kallus's face widened into something monstrous with hint of madness.

"The second we drop out of hyperspace, I want every primary, secondary, and defensive battery to open fire simultaneously. Let's treat this entire star system to a fireworks show they'll never forget, shall we?"

A biting chill raced down the spines of Captain Sam and the rest of the bridge crew, the sheer scale of the ordered devastation leaving the air heavy and suffocating. Beside him, the Red Empress merely shook her head, an amused glint in her eyes.

Captain Sam snapped his trembling nerves back under control, saluting with rigid urgency. "Y-Yes! Right away, Imperial Commander!"

Dropping the salute, he spun on his heel and rushed back to his console to initiate the firing sequence.

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Meanwhile, on the other side, a star system serving as a major stronghold along the Star Empire's northern border—where it bordered both the Bright Moon Republic and the Hegemony, two Tier 3 states—was, contrary to earlier assumptions, currently on high alert.

Command over the entire star system and its stronghold had been seized by one of the Empire's twenty-four Super Grand Fleets: the Brutal Blood Super Grand Fleet. Composed of four Grand Fleets, it brought nearly 15,000 vessels to the front, every single one a mid- to peak-level Tier 3 warship, ranging from standard destroyers to massive super-battleships. Combined with the local defense command's existing garrison, the total force deployed here swelled to well over 120,000 ships.

This vast armada—roughly forty percent Tier 3 mid- to high-level warships, with the remainder consisting of peak Tier 2 to low Tier 3 vessels—formed an overwhelmingly powerful defense line, casting constant patrol sweeps across every corner of the system.

At the center of it all sat a spherical star fortress spanning 2,500 kilometers in diameter. Capital ships constantly drifted in and out of its docking bays, including standard battleships over ten kilometers long and gargantuan super-battleships stretching past fifteen.

Inside the central command bridge, over four thousand personnel bustled at their stations. Each possessed a human-like appearance distinguished by snow-white hair and a starry gem embedded in their forehead, marking them unmistakably as members of the Star Race. Some directed heavy space traffic control, others coordinated sub-defense detachments across nearby systems, while the majority remained fixated on local grid defenses and radar arrays, scanning for the slightest anomaly.

Suddenly, an operator monitoring the anti-hyperspace and warp-interdiction systems went wide-eyed. A glowing red contact flared across his console.

Slamming his hand onto the alarm console, he bellowed into the comms:

"Alert! Massive object moving at high velocity through a hyperspace corridor directly toward the system! The target has been snared by our anti-hyperspace array and is being dragged down by the gravitational domain!"

"Alert! Massive object moving at high velocity through a hyperspace corridor directly toward the system! The target has been snared by our anti-hyperspace array and is being dragged down by the gravitational domain!"