Chapter 398 357: Landing Battle, Sacrifice, and Facing the Battle

Just as the combat briefing ended, cries of alarm suddenly echoed through thebridge.

Reinhardt snapped his head toward the front of the bridge. There, in the external view created by the holographic projection, a small Boarding Ship had slipped past the ship's defensive fire. Its tail engulfed in flames, it buzzed like an out-of-control fly, heading straight for the bridge on a collision course!

Faced with this suicidal attack, the color drained from even the face of the veteran Navy officer, Kurs.

If they let that Boarding Ship hit them, it wouldn't just be the people on the bridge—the entire Avenger Flagship would likely be destroyed with all hands lost!

His eyes wide with fury, he jabbed a finger at the Technician Priest at the helm and roared, "What the hell are you doing?! Evade! Now, evade—!"

The Technician Priest at the helm, Danske, had cold sweat pouring down his forehead. The pressure in his own systems was skyrocketing.

He was already giving it his all.

But this ancient ship was so absurdly advanced that it wasn't flown with traditional joysticks. It required a neural interface, translating impossibly complex lines of code to achieve neural synchronization with the ship's control systems.

This wasn't simply multitasking; it was more like doing a hundred things at once.

He wasn't a Mechanical Sage or a Master of Casting. He was just a logistics and maintenance team leader from the Fourth Fleet who had been tightening screws for thirty years.

Controlling twelve thruster engines at once was already overloading his nerves. Executing a course correction at this short range was an exponentially more complex maneuver—one he couldn't pull off even if it fried his brain.

In war, everyone has their own value and purpose, even a nobody, a grease monkey who'd spent his life tightening screws.

At this moment, Danske's overloaded consciousness became painfully clear. He knew the safety of the entire ship rested on his shoulders.

Repelling boarding enemies was the duty of the Imperial Knights; his mission was to maintain the ship's stability, to find any way to avoid disaster and protect the vessel's integrity.

He had to give it his all and find a way to resolve this dire crisis.

A trickle of blood slid silently from his nostril.

'Praise the God of All Machines...'

In that split second, everyone watched as the Technician Priest at the helm let out a series of guttural, beast-like growls. Wisps of steam, like smoke from a fire, began to rise from his head.

The Avenger Flagship, too, began to turn, but with excruciating slowness.

As the out-of-control Boarding Ship closed in on the bridge, many of the Mortals on board stared in terror, holding their breath.

Even Koller's brow furrowed.

In a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, as if death itself was arriving, the bridge fell deathly silent. The only sound they could hear was Nelom, unable to stop himself from cursing.

"These madmen..."

Reinhardt's face was a mask of stone. His right hand gripped the railing so tightly that he crushed a handprint into the solid steel.

The scene unfolding before him reminded him of the surprise attack the Punisher Ship had once faced on the Verne Front Line.

The same kind of out-of-control ship.

The same kamikaze run toward his own vessel.

He refused to believe it was a coincidence; this had to be the trickery of the Ten Thousand Changes Demon Monarch.

The next moment, as the out-of-control Boarding Ship, trailing fire, slammed into the heavy armor directly in front of the bridge.

Many had already closed their eyes, bracing for death.

But in that split second between life and death, a deep blue Energy Shield composed of a dense hexagonal lattice materialized directly in front of the bridge.

THUMP—!

The muffled sound of the impact was like a boom heard from underwater.

The instant the Boarding Ship hit the Energy Shield, it was like an egg hitting solid steel. It erupted into a massive fireball, and in that same moment, the ship was utterly obliterated into scrap!

Immediately after, the pulverized wreckage scraped along the Avenger Flagship's hull. Like a dense shower of rain, it rattled against the ship, a blur in the holographic view before being left far behind.

Having snatched his life back from the hands of the Death God, Kurs felt his heart pounding in his throat. But the close call also reignited the old Navy veteran's fighting spirit.

The adrenaline rush reminded him of the time a bullet had grazed his scalp.

But this was only the first crisis to face the Avenger Flagship. After the first Boarding Ship was destroyed, six more vessels broke through the defensive fire and plunged headlong into the already-wrecked hangar bay.

The force of the impacts was so immense the entire bridge rocked as if struck by an earthquake!

Kurs was about to order the technical team to have the helmsman steer them around the enemy's Titan-class Battleship, but as he turned and raised his hand to give the command...

"Technical team, I..."

THUD—!

As the bridge shuddered violently, the Technician Priest who had been struggling to control the Avenger Flagship collapsed. As if struck by lightning, his body went rigid and fell straight to the floor, an acrid, burnt smell rising from him.

"Damn it..."

Kurs rushed over and knelt beside the Technician Priest. He didn't even need to check for a pulse. The intense heat radiating from the body on the floor told him everything he needed to know: this ordinary Technician Priest had silently given his all to the war.

No one knew what piece of shipboard technology he had activated in his final moments, nor could they imagine the torment he had endured.

And until the very moment of his sacrifice, no one had even known his name.