In the end, the Three Great Empires made their decision and announced the withdrawal of their troops. Just as they were preparing to orderly evacuate the Fierce Feather Star System, the energy monitoring stations they had installed within the system suddenly emitted a piercing explosion.
"Warning! Warning! The cosmic energy level is increasing at 28.3 tis the expected rate! Warning!"
"Quick! Quickly report to Your Majesty! The energy level near Earth is rising rapidly, it’s suspected that a mutant has acted! Hurry!"
"Her Majesty the Queen! Phoenix! It’s the Phoenix!"
Previously, when the Phoenix rely revealed a hint of its presence, it terrified the Shi’ar Empire beyond asure, but this ti, the Phoenix truly erupted.
An invisible wave of energy spread out from around Earth, and in an instant, it turned everything into a sea of fire. In the vacuum of space, there should be nothing that could burn, yet the flas existed, gradually engulfing everything—matter, dark matter, space, ti...
The supre rulers of the Three Great Empires could no longer maintain their calm deanor. The Skrull Emperor frantically shouted, "Withdraw the troops!! Quickly withdraw the troops! Get out of here fast!!!"
Even the Supre Wisdom couldn’t help but override the automated evacuation procedures, starting to withdraw troops at the highest efficiency.
Lilandra’s side was even more frantic. The noble elders were wailing, and he had to pretend to be calm while continually issuing evacuation orders: "First pull the capital, Ferocious Feather Star, out, then let the main battleships retreat in order. Leave the escort ships that can’t go; we can revive them later!"
But things were not that simple. Previously, the Three Great Empires had set up nurous blockade devices here, and shutting these devices down would take ti. Even the most efficient blocking devices from the Kree Empire require at least 2~3 seconds to lift the blockade. The Phoenix’s power needs only two seconds to destroy a star system.
The jump devices were unusable, and flying out solely relying on engines was fraught with gravitational traps surrounding the system. Although they knew the exit routes, there were only two. With so many battleships and planets, how could they evacuate quickly?
At this point, the drawback of the Skrull Empire’s desperate reinforcent ca to light. The temporary redeploynt was not part of the Three Great Empires’ tactical coordination, leaving the excess battleships without an adequate parking space, crowding the original Skrull Empire grounds where the density of battleships was too high, and it was one of the escape exits.
Now that the Phoenix was about to erupt, the Skrull Empire was sure to let its battleships go first. But with 70 billion assembled here, consisting of countless battleships, devices, equipnt, and temporary factories, even at the fastest speed, it would still take several minutes to withdraw. This was already under a highly chanized transformation of the Skrull Empire, with the best evacuation plan calculated by supercomputers and executed resolutely. Any mishap would exponentially increase the ti.
But they had blocked that path, and the other two empires couldn’t force their way through, so they had to use the other route. But, the other route had to let the Shi’ar Empire evacuate their capital and crucial resource planets. These planets had no propulsion, relying solely on battleships to tow them out, making them inherently slow and imnsely large, blocking all Kree Empire battleships.
Though this ti the Phoenix’s eruption was slower than before, within less than ten seconds, with Earth at its center, the Phoenix Fire had already incinerated everything within a range of about twenty astronomical units. The Three Great Empires lost dozens of main battleships.
"Well done, Jean, just take it slow. Try to control the Phoenix and don’t let it burn too fast, so conflicts and internal strife can arise among them."
"Don’t worry." Jean Grey’s voice was slightly breathless, evidently controlling the Phoenix wasn’t easy. He said, "After training in the Androda Galaxy, I feel more adept."
Controlling the Phoenix isn’t about hindering its destruction, but redirecting and slowing its path of destruction. It’s akin to driving an out-of-control truck, the challenge lies in decelerating it and avoiding collisions.
Nonetheless, Jean Grey practiced extensively in the Androda Galaxy, which was distinct from Earth, being particularly vast and allowing the Phoenix to unleash power judiciously. The more one practices, the more proficient one becos.
Now, she controlled the Phoenix Fire, spreading it outward at a relatively slower pace. Everywhere it reached, the Three Great Empires trembled in fear—whether it was shielded main battleships or colossal gaseous giant planets, this entity was more curse than fla. Once clung to, it couldn’t be extinguished and would instantly incinerate into ashes, leaving no need for rescue.
The situation for the other two empires was decent; being primarily robots under the main brain’s control allowed them to remain free from excessive fear. But the Shi’ar Empire differed, being carbon-based like Earthlings, sharing their emotions. Moreover, it was a fusion state with various races, lacking unity and possessing an intense fear of the Phoenix. Under extre stress, many battleship captains went insane.
Disregarding evacuation orders, ignoring allied movents, anyway, I refuse to die. Whoever runs slower is at the front!
Nurous Shi’ar Empire ships started scrambling chaotically in the cosmos, desperately trying to escape, squeezing through gaps, hiding behind planets. The orderly evacuation of the other two empires was disrupted by them, and ultimately, everyone descended into chaos.
"Lilandra!!!" The Skrull Emperor roared over the comm channel, "Can you control your people?! They’ve completely ssed up our evacuation plan and crashed into two of our ships!!!"
"I can’t control them!" Lilandra scread uncontrollably, "They’re afraid of the Phoenix, don’t you understand?! People killed by the Phoenix can’t be resurrected!! They’re terrified!!!"
"Calm down." The Supre Wisdom was still trying to soothe him, "At least get your people to stop first, our battleships can drag them out..."
"Impossible!" Lilandra said, "You robots simply don’t understand; we’re capable of fear. People in fear aren’t rational and can’t hear others. Now they’ve completely lost it!"
"Then you at least have to take so asures!!!"
"What asures can I take? I..."
"Oh no." The tone of the Supre Wisdom sank, "Phoenix..."
His words were abruptly cut off. Because in that split second, the Phoenix had erupted completely. In re fractions of a second, the entire Star System was flattened, everything not evacuated turned to ashes.
The entire Star System fell into a deathly silence.
This was also the first ti the Human race witnessed Phoenix unleashing its full power. Black Bolt couldn’t help but say to Professor X, "How much does Her Majesty the Queen of the Shi’ar Empire love you, to keep Jean Grey safe in such a catastrophe?"
Professor X just smiled and didn’t speak. Black Bolt looked into those bright and clear blue eyes and sighed, "Beauty is a knife over the head."
"Sorry, I could only maintain control for that long." Jean, brought back by Logan, said a bit dejectedly, "This power is too violent, as soon as it’s used, it inevitably goes out of control, without exception."
But cheers erupted in the command room. Steve was the first to rush over and hugged her, then said, "Do you know what you did, Lady Grey? If JARVIS’s intel is correct, you annihilated one of the leaders of the Three Great Empires, the Supre Wisdom!"
"What?!" Jean’s eyes lit up, "The Supre Wisdom didn’t escape?!"
"Yes, the Kree Empire withdrew the slowest, and the Supre Wisdom was also furthest from the edge of the Star System. He might have been too busy deploying troops to notice what was happening on your side. His battleship housing his main brain was directly destroyed by you!"
"But he is an electronic life, shouldn’t he have backups?"
JARVIS nodded and said, "Of course, there are other main brains in the capital of the Kree Empire, but as far as I know, creating one capable of handling commands of this magnitude is not easy. He’s severely weakened this ti as well."
"More importantly, the Kree Empire suffered the greatest loss this ti, they won’t take this lying down." Nick Fury walked in and said, "They had nothing to do with this, they purely ca to support, and played the biggest role in the war, but ended up suffering the biggest loss. The Supre Wisdom won’t swallow this."
"Could we see them fall into infighting?" Wanda raised an eyebrow and said.
"I bet the three of them are already at each other’s throats."
"Lilandra!!!" This ti it was the Skrull Emperor and the Supre Wisdom who roared together. They were about to lose their patience with this foolish woman.
"Why are you yelling at !" Lilandra said, "You were the ones who were slow, what’s it got to do with ? Do you want to pin all your failures on ?! Dream on!"
"If it weren’t for you..." The Skrull Emperor choked on his words, unable to articulate a single sentence. Facing Lilandra gave a sense of futility like a scholar eting a soldier, where logic falls on deaf ears.
When you talked reason with him, she vented emotions; when you vented emotions with her, she reverted to discussing profits and losses. Talking to Lilandra was like playing music to a cow.
"Forget it." The Skrull Emperor decided not to beco what he hated, he said, "What should we do next? Still attack the Nine Major Kingdoms?"
"We have to fight." The Supre Wisdom said, "These damned Humans have already started celebrating victory. If we don’t retaliate, how will the Interstellar Society view us?"
Adding up the populations of the Three Great Empires, it indeed amounts to quite a number, totaling at a few hundred billion. But analogous to Earth’s situation, this isn’t very many. One Earth can hold 7 billion, 100 Earths would be 700 billion. The population of the Three Great Empires is only about the capacity of 100 Earths, and given their colonial scope, it’s already relatively small.
The total interstellar population is much higher, estimated conservatively at tens of trillions. Among them, the advanced civilizations with interstellar colonization capability add up to a far greater population than the Three Great Empires, although each has a smaller scale, many are not lacking in high civilization and strong technology levels, old enough to be a headache for the Three Great Empires.
Interstellar resources are limited; if you gain more, I have less. Many advanced civilizations aren’t pushovers, eyeing opportunities to take a bite out of the Three Great Empires. So the Three Great Empires still have to care about their image in the Interstellar view.
"Then let’s fight." The Emperor of the Skrull Empire said, "For now, the three of us will cease hostilities, gather our armies, and advance towards the Nine Major Kingdoms."
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