CHAPTER 237: CH233 TOTAL ANNIHILATION

And just like that, within such a short span of time, the entire wall of over six hundred ships was obliterated.

Now, their shattered hulls either burned in fiery infernos born from the explosions, or drifted aimlessly in the cold embrace of space like scraps of twisted alloy. Among the wreckage floated the corpses of Minotaur warriors—mangled beyond recognition, their forms no longer resembling the beings they once were. It was carnage in the truest sense, painted across the void.

Those onboard these ships had no chance of survival—none escaped. The evacuation, rushed and sudden, had barely begun, and the majority of crews were still trapped within their doomed vessels when the Left Division’s attacks struck. They died where they stood. The death toll, if counted, would easily reach between two to four million—perhaps even more.

The few Minotaurs who had managed to evacuate in time could only watch in horror from the safety of the fortress hangar bays. They stood powerless as their fleet detonated before their eyes, taking with it countless comrades—friends, brothers, kin. All gone, none remaining.

Some survivors, pulled briefly out of despair, clenched their fists so tightly that their hands bled, their hearts screaming for vengeance against the enemy that had done this to them. But the rage faded quickly, swallowed by the grim truth: they were helpless. They had fled their ships like cowards, clinging to the safety of the star fortress.

And as the fury drained away, fear took its place—fear sharper than any blade. They realized that they, too, might soon meet the same end, consumed in fire and vacuum, just like their comrades. That thought rooted itself deep, and it made them tremble uncontrollably.

Some broke entirely. They collapsed to the floor, shrieking like beasts, their wills shattered, their rationality burned away in the same flames that devoured their fleet.

The only difference was that it was their mentality that had collapsed. Their bodies were still alive, but their minds were no longer rational. In this frenzied state, a fight broke out among them. No—these were no longer people, but raging bulls, or rather, maddened buffaloes.

The wall of ships they had built was undone in mere minutes. Once proud and pristine, those vessels were now nothing but a scattered field of wreckage—torn apart and left to drift through space like useless scraps of metal.

The fortress itself was half destroyed, its corridors and decks soaked with the blood of Minotaurs crushed beneath collapsed ceilings and fallen steel on many place’s with only few that had remind intact. Those who survived were little different from the dead—the same terror gripped them, only lessened enough that they had not yet lost their ability to think.

But their thoughts circled endlessly around a single question:

Could their commander, standing at the central console and working feverishly on his desperate plan, truly save them? Or would this attempt, like so many before, backfire—bringing the opposite of what he promised?

Deep down, most of them already knew the answer. Some had given up hope long ago and silently accepted their fate. Yet many others still clung to a fragile sliver of belief. Perhaps they would hold on to it until their very last breath.

Korvus’ broken horn quivered as he listened to the fearful voices around him. His chest rose and fell heavily while his bloodied fingers tapped at the console. Sweat trickled down his face, but he said nothing. He knew he was running out of time. And yet... he was close.

As Korvus worked tirelessly to manually activate the emergency shielding system, his mind cleared for a fleeting moment. It was like that strange clarity one feels when the end draws near—when death stands only a step away. For him, it was the same.

Korvus thought: No... this won’t work. None of it will. I won’t escape. Not when—

But the thought never fully formed. The clarity vanished almost instantly, smothered beneath the weight of his delusion. His mind pulled him back into its grip, rejecting reason, rejecting truth.

No. It will work. It has to. There is still a chance. I can escape.

With a snake-eyed determination, he crushed the last spark of doubt and slammed his hand down on the final button. At last, the emergency shielding system came alive.

The fortress shuddered violently, metal groaning as a massive barrier shimmered into existence. Six glowing layers of blue light unfurled around the bull-headed fortress structure, encasing it in an aura of unearthly brilliance.

The emergency system had finally come into full effect. And with it, Korvus’s last gamble.

Whether he could truly escape—whether he and the remnants of his race within the fortress could live to tell the tale—now rested entirely upon this single, desperate gamble.

He did not have to wait long.

The enemy opened fire once more, unleashing thousands of attacks at nearly the same instant. The torrent of firepower hammered into the newly-formed barrier, and the six-layered shield rippled violently under the assault. It shuddered like water under immense pressure, as though it could collapse at any heartbeat.

But it did not.

Instead, the shield absorbed the strikes, trembled to its limits, and then — with a surge of energy — stabilized, rebounding the enemy’s fury and returning to its glowing blue equilibrium.

Across the opposing fleet, Marcus, Kael, Joshua, Titus, and the other commanders watched in silence. Their expressions shifted ever so slightly.

"Oh..." they muttered, almost involuntarily.

Surprise. Mild, fleeting, but surprise nonetheless. Their combined strike had been repelled.

But that was all.

"So this was their last reliance, huh? No matter," Marcus muttered, his voice heavy with disdain. Finally running out of patience, he gave the order he had held back from the very beginning.

"All ships—every weapon system you have. Bring them all online. Fire upon the Minotaur fortress. End this at once. Unleash everything—and I mean everything—except the superweapons. Open fire on your own vectors!"

At his command, ninety battleships and hundreds of carriers, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes answered in unison.

The void erupted.

It was as though a thousand howitzers had fired at once, a storm of destruction born from ten-thousands of cannons, beams, and launch bays. Blazing firepower streaked across space at light-speed and crashed into the glowing blue barrier of the Minotaur fortress.

The shield convulsed like a water crust exploding under catastrophic pressure. The combined fire of the Left Division fell upon it without mercy, tearing into it with far greater intensity than before. Within seconds, the fortress’s first shield layer plummeted in strength—100% integrity fell to 50%, then to 25%. Then, like fragile glass under a hammer, it shattered.

What came next was hell itself.

Thousands upon thousands of missiles descended, detonating across the second barrier. Antimatter warheads, nova missiles that birthed miniature suns upon detonation, and graviton implosion charges—all erupted in a cataclysmic storm. The colossal blasts merged into mushrooming clouds of fire, shockwaves rippling across the battlefield.

The combined might was devastating: the second and third shields were obliterated instantly. The fourth wavered, torn halfway apart, before collapsing under the relentless follow-up salvos. The fifth buckled and imploded. The sixth, the last desperate defense, shattered within seconds.

And with the fall of the sixth and final shield, the last barrier between the fortress and the weapons of the Left Division was gone. Nothing remained now—no defense, no hope—for the Minotaurs. The shields had bought them time, but that time was over.

"Now, end this once and for all," Macron declared from the command deck of his Oblivion-class flagship, his gaze fixed on the dying fortress as its last layer of defense collapsed. His voice cut through the silence, carrying finality.

At his order, the fleet stirred. This time, even Macron’s own flagship joined in. Across the armada, weapons began to charge, glowing with deadly power. The entire fleet prepared to carve the grave of the Minotaur fortress.

When the charging sequence reached completion, Macron stood firm and gave the order, his voice a thunderclap:

"FIRE!"

In an instant, the void erupted. Thousands upon thousands of projectiles and beams roared forth, their brilliance tearing apart the silence of space. The storm of destruction streaked toward the Minotaur fortress, a tidal wave of annihilation.

Trailing behind came a swarm of missiles, their exhaust trails burning like a cascade of comets as they streaked forward, cutting through the void in deadly unison.

With no shield to protect it, the fortress was laid bare. Energy weapons struck first, slamming into the thick armor plating. Whole sections of hull were torn away in blinding eruptions, wiring and systems igniting in flames. Then the rail slugs followed, hammering into the already weakened spots.

Their immense kinetic force pierced the damaged armor, driving deep into the internal structures. Explosions ripped through the fortress from within, killing countless defenders as the very frame of the massive structure groaned and broke apart.

Under the full, focused firepower of the Left Division, the star fortress was reduced to a blazing inferno—an artificial sun, torn and shattered, detonating again and again under the ceaseless fury of energy and kinetic weaponry.