Ch.137137. The Last Master of the Galaxy

After the devastating defeat and annihilation of the Allied Forces who launched a preemptive strike against the monsters.

Humanity ultimately concluded that they were the only beings in the galaxy capable of stopping the enemy known as monsters, and declared the establishment of a pan-universal organization called the United Galaxy.

The United Galaxy, established for joint response against monsters and pan-galactic peace, obviously revealed humanity’s blatant intention to become the dominant power in our galaxy. However, there was nothing other civilizations or species could do about it.

It had been proven that the imminent major invasion of monsters could not have been stopped without humanity, and in the face of a real threat to survival, petty pride meant very little.

Therefore, setting aside their dignity and pride for the moment, these alien civilizations officially joined as member states of the United Galaxy, which was daily expanding its influence while preparing for full-scale war against the monsters.

They established an integrated military force, developed systematic defense networks between planets, and simultaneously installed artificial psychic flows—called Starways—between civilizations using cutting-edge technology developed recently (20 years ago) to enable rapid travel between planetary systems.

Various alien civilizations that had previously used distance and travel time as a defensive barrier now had to yield before the monsters that ground everything to dust as they advanced.

Pride, national security—none of it mattered against monsters that simply killed whatever they saw, pursued and killed those who fled, and crushed with overwhelming numbers those who stood to fight. They couldn’t even be reasoned with.

Fortunately, the minority species that survived in this hellish era weren’t foolish enough to antagonize each other in the face of an absolute common enemy.

Frontline planets were completely restructured into fortresses, and in the process, surface civilizations were stripped and relocated to other uninhabited planets—construction projects of insane scale.

Additionally, warp gates orbiting like satellites were installed around each frontline fortress planet for convenient travel, while firmly establishing logistics systems and building organic networks connecting rear supply storage planets and industrial production planets.

The galaxy, which until now had been almost like the Age of Exploration, was thus unified under the leadership of the Human Federation, becoming close enough for different species to somehow coexist, albeit with some friction.

Of course, except for the Human Federation, most participated with great reluctance.

Now, to learn more about the invading forces responsible for all this… let’s turn the clock back a bit.

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Shortly after humanity’s reinforcements and the Allied Forces drove back the monster legion blocked by the Lizardmen, the Allied Forces—as if possessed by something and despite the Human Federation’s desperate warnings—pushed their armies into monster territory.

In truth, beyond potential gains, this was primarily an action to avoid completely ceding leadership to the Human Federation. Surprisingly, the Allied Forces’ scale was quite reasonable.

A total of 4,000 interstellar civilizations participated, organizing a fleet of approximately 2,000 capital ships exceeding 20km in length.

Moreover, they had invaded with the intention of only taking recently acquired planets from the monsters and then withdrawing. Had everything gone according to plan, they wouldn’t have completely lost their leadership position in the pan-universal organization to humanity.

“Had everything gone according to plan,” that is.

The majestically advancing fleet didn’t even need landing forces.

They surrounded planets with their ships, scorched the surface with ground-attack weapons, and crushed any monster fleets they encountered with various psychic weapons.

Additionally, this Allied Force included psychic beings who had attained divine status from several species, allowing them to advance relentlessly, pushing forward and forward until…

One day, without any warning signs, all communication with the outside of the fleet suddenly ceased.

Naturally, the Allied Forces viewed this strange anomaly as the work of the Hive Mind, the monsters’ leader, and attempted to restore communications or make direct contact with the outside—but to no avail.

Small dispatch vessels sent out disappeared at some point, and even when they tried to move using warp or spatial movement powers, it was revealed by the divine beings that a specific area had been cut off at the psychic dimensional level.

Somehow, the Allied Forces fleet had lost all means of contact with the outside and become isolated in the middle of monster territory.

Of course, they had time.

The fleet had preserved food supplies for at least several decades stored in subspace, some alien species’ ships were capable of self-sufficiency, and most civilizations were psychic-based, requiring relatively fewer supplies.

Therefore, these stranded forces decided to return home, slowly moving toward the edge of monster territory using slower but stable short-distance teleportation, when suddenly…

The incident occurred abruptly.

There was a flagship belonging to a species called Ultia, traveling near the middle outskirts of the Allied Forces fleet.

These mineral-psychic beings, whose ships resembled two cones with their bases attached—floating in the air due to their psychic-based development—had invested considerable effort in this expedition, bringing their space navy’s flagship and even having a divine being directly participate, despite being a minority species.

Being a minority species, they had only one capital ship and about 50 escort vessels. As they were traveling alongside ships from other species, a sudden anomaly occurred at the center of the Ultian flagship.

Space distorted at the center of the flagship, and simultaneously, a massive psychic energy storm engulfed the Ultian fleet’s flagship.

All crew members on board, including even the divine being serving as commander, were absorbed by the psychic energy storm, and ships near the storm were also pulled in and annihilated without exception.

As the psychic energy storm that had been absorbing everything around it took on a massive form—it revealed itself as a gigantic dragon with a galaxy-like exterior: a Cosmic Dragon.

Its maw was large enough to bite through capital ships, the psychic waves generated by its wingbeats shattered the psychic shields of battleship-class vessels, and its body appeared to be composed of countless smaller Cosmic Dragons numbering in the tens of quadrillions.

Just as no mortal, mechanical species, psychic-specialized species, or divine being could even contemplate opposing it—making one suspect this entity might be the Hive Mind itself—

The massive Cosmic Dragon disintegrated into countless smaller Cosmic Dragons that attacked the fleet whose shields and systems had been completely shattered. Simultaneously, tens of thousands of monster capital ships (interstellar Hive Ships) revealed themselves through spatial jumps, surrounding the enormous fleet.

Of course, knowing this didn’t mean the Allied Forces could do anything about it.

Even the psychic beings with divine status, who had always acted so dignified, now had to fight for survival. They needed to deal with the small Cosmic Dragons—no larger than carrier-based aircraft—attacking their ships before they could even think about the Hive fleet.

And this proved incredibly difficult.

The absolute truth since the beginning of cosmic warfare—that larger meant stronger—had held only because larger ships could protect themselves with more powerful psychic shields. But now, those shields, the premise of that law, had been shattered by the giant Cosmic Dragon.

As a result, the fleets of conventional civilizations, which typically delegated escort and small craft interception to lower-class ships, were overwhelmed by Hive Dragons attacking from all directions like waves. Only a very few ships—those with divine beings—were barely holding on.

And what greeted these ships were none other than Cosmic Dragons that had recombined to grow to capital ship size (20km in length).

Kill one, and two appear; kill two, and three appear; kill three, and five appear; kill five, and ten attack.

Even divine beings who possessed ships, prepared for massive losses and permanent soul damage, might have overwhelmed the enemy at first, but as time passed, their eventual defeat was inevitable.

One by one, ships possessed by divine beings were devoured by recombined Cosmic Dragons. They were led to be unable to join forces, then picked off one by one—

In the end, the Allied Forces were completely annihilated without a single survivor—that was the full account of the incident.