Chapter 696: Breaking the Star Alone

The sixth-level Black Giant named Darryl stepped out of the teleportation array and saw three planets at first glance.

They hung silently beneath the star’s radiant glow, slowly orbiting along three different paths.

The innermost was a reddish-brown rocky planet. Its scorching surface was riddled with metal mining pits, and crisscrossing orbital transport lines covered the planetary body like scars.

The middle planet served as the primary colony of the entire star system. Deep green vegetation blanketed the continents, while gray-white urban clusters spread along coastlines and plains. Several-thousand-kilometer-long orbital elevators pierced heaven and earth, their tops reflecting cold silver light under the star’s illumination.

On the outermost edge of the star system floated a gas giant. Its largest moon also hosted colonial outposts.

The three planets resembled three leaves hanging from an invisible branch. Thus, the Tentacle Tree Civilization had named this star system “Trifoliate.”

Darryl stood in space, his vertical chest orifice opening and closing slightly as his gaze slowly swept across the outermost moon. According to the intelligence, a native civilization lived there—an indigenous intelligent species classified as a “protected species” after being conquered by the Tentacle Tree Civilization. They were kept in so-called nature reserves, with fixed annual visitor quotas opened for colonial nobles to come and observe. It was somewhat similar to a zoo.

At that moment, a sharp, piercing alarm suddenly echoed across all three planets.

The instant the five Black Giants appeared, the three colonial planets entered maximum alert status thanks to their spatial early-warning devices. All planetary orbital defense platforms swiftly turned, gun barrels unfolding as blue light points began to converge and charge.

Near the star’s orbit, several massive energy collection installations also slowly adjusted their postures. These devices were shockingly enormous, capable of casting clear shadows even on the star’s corona layer. They began extracting stellar energy; orange-red streams of power surged madly along transmission channels into the central energy storage cores.

At the same time, the garrison fleets stationed on the three colonial planets all lifted off. Hundreds of engine exhaust trails shot out of the atmospheres, drawing neat white trajectories across space before rapidly deploying into interception formations.

Inside the flagship’s command cabin, the garrison commander gripped the control console edges tightly, his tentacles turning slightly pale from excessive force. The five target signals on the detector were crystal clear.

Only five.

He had double- and triple-checked the scan results, yet it remained five.

But his heart sank deeper and deeper.

Because the energy reading of the foremost target displayed: [Exceeds Measurement Range Limit].

The four behind it showed standard fifth-level fluctuations.

Five against thousands of warships. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

In terms of numbers alone, they held an absolute advantage.

Yet the battle report of the entire border fleet’s annihilation had already been synchronized to every colonial military district. He knew exactly what “Exceeds Measurement Range Limit” meant, but the situation before him left no room for further thought.

The battle erupted without warning. The fully charged stellar orbital cannons fired first.

Boom!

Several orange-red beams shot out abruptly from the star’s edge—focused torrents formed by directly extracting stellar energy. The beams spanned tens of millions of kilometers. Wherever they passed, interstellar dust evaporated instantly, leaving fleeting dark traces in the vacuum.

Theoretically, orbital cannons of this caliber already exceeded the main gun limit of sixth-level warships with a single shot. And now, all of them locked onto Darryl at sublight speed.

In response, Darryl simply straightened his body slightly, fully shielding the team members behind him.

The orange-red beams slammed into him. Dazzling light instantly swallowed his upper body. Coronal material exploded into vast streams of high-temperature plasma, sweeping across his body like a solar storm. The blinding radiance even overshadowed the distant star.

Inside the bridge, all the Tentacle Trees stared fixedly at the observation screens.

Then, as the light faded, Darryl remained standing there unmoved. Not a single mark had been left on his chest. The stellar energy capable of evaporating warships had simply flowed across his liquid metal body surface for one cycle before being evenly absorbed into his entire form.

Darryl’s vertical chest orifice opened slowly, then closed slowly, as if savoring the energy from earlier.

In the next instant, he raised his hand and pressed lightly toward the direction of the stellar orbital cannons.

Buzz!!!

A highly condensed dark shockwave instantly pierced through space, crossing tens of millions of kilometers in a flash. The energy collection installations on stellar orbit didn’t even have time to deploy their second layer of shields. The moment the defensive barrier touched the shockwave, it shattered like a fragile eggshell.

Immediately after, the entire installation began collapsing from the center. Its steel structure disintegrated layer by layer, ultimately turning into countless fragments that were slowly dragged by the star’s gravity into the depths of the corona.

A deathly silence fell over the bridge.

Darryl had already turned around.

“Ashel, Emerson. The innermost planet is yours.”

“Everett, Perry. The outer moon is yours.”

Spiritual power converted into communication signals through the Dao Soldier system and transmitted to the four fifth-level Black Giants beside him.

“The main planet will be handled by me.”

“Understood!”

Once the orders were issued, the four Black Giants immediately split up, forming two small teams and flying off in different directions.

The garrison fleet tried to intercept, but their cannon fire couldn’t even slow them down. The Black Giants didn’t spare the warships a single glance, flying straight through the fleet formation. The elemental aftershocks generated by their rapid flight caused several escort ships that were too close to lose control and tumble on the spot.

Darryl ignored the already chaotic enemy fleet and descended alone toward the main colonial planet.

His speed wasn’t actually fast—at least, not by Black Giant standards.

But to the Tentacle Trees on the surface…

It was a black divine giant comparable to a mountain range, slowly descending from beyond the heavens.

The instant Darryl entered the atmosphere, the air was violently compressed.

Boom!!!

A massive, visible white shockwave cloud exploded around him. Wild winds swept the surrounding cloud layers into turmoil. Large swathes of mist were blown away, and the entire sky seemed to brighten.

The planet’s orbital defense platforms reacted immediately. Over a thousand defense platforms distributed at different orbital altitudes completed their locks simultaneously. Energy beams, electromagnetic cannons, missile arrays… Countless attacks poured in from all directions, and the entire upper atmosphere was completely lit up by explosive firelight.

Darryl hovered in midair, allowing all the attacks to engulf him.

Then, he exhaled.

A vast surge of energy erupted violently from his vertical chest orifice.

Rumble!!!

A spherical elemental shockwave exploded outward with him at the center.

The shockwave struck the first orbital platform, instantly twisting it. Its energy core overloaded on the spot and exploded almost instantly. Then came the second, the third…

In mere seconds, all of the planet’s over one thousand orbital defense platforms were wiped out. Burning steel fragments fell toward the ground like a meteor shower.

One strike.

The outer atmospheric orbital defense system of the entire planet was completely paralyzed.