Chương 612: Travelers From Afar and Encountering Vorathen.

At a distance away from the Ceperet Solar System, a fleet of metal ships silently moved through the void of space. Their size varied greatly, with two central ships that stretched for over ten kilometers in distance. Their exterior was smooth, maintaining a strangely elongated shape with no windows. When observed from a distance, their design wouldn't be much different from an oval slab of black metal with propulsors on the back and panels at the sides.

Each time a small piece of debris approached the spaceships, a very small fluctuation would occur, shattering it as if it had hit some kind of invisible barrier. While the outside of the ships was dark and gloomy, it was more for efficiency than following a trend of any sort. The insides, on the other hand, were carefully crafted to be pleasant on the eyes.

The pathways that stretched were mostly white in color, but every so often, one would be able to see plants, small garden rooms, and many other entertainment spaces. The sleeping rooms were separated into three: one side for single males, another for single females, and the middle one for couples and other families living abroad. This design choice came from previous experiences and mistakes. With families in the middle, the urge for either side to sneak into the other was reduced greatly.

In one of the main control rooms of one of the ships, around 150 people gathered together to control the spaceship's functions.

"Report." The person sitting in the main seat, overseeing everything, spoke lightly. After he spoke, a man approached holding an artifact with a screen that could be interacted with by touch.

"Lord Altherion, all systems are operating at their best capabilities. There have not been any indecent reports, either. For now, everything is going swimmingly." Altherion saw the man smiling as he spoke and nodded, satisfied.

"That's always good to hear. We had some problems in the first month, but it seems that everything is now solved." The man by his side nodded lightly.

"Throwing the problematic people off the ship into the void seemed to have worked perfectly and sent a clear message." Altherion didn't react to those words; he pondered to himself.

'We will arrive in a few months… do I follow that boy's advice or not?' After he encountered Dain that day, he was contacted by him. At first, he just wanted to know where his daughter died so that he could go and slap whoever it was to death and vent his anger. Yet, once he spoke with Dain, his thoughts very subtly changed. As he sat on his seat, recalling all the conversations, he spoke aloud for no one in particular.

"That Tianlian Liu Shu seems to be a potential problem. We should uproot her quickly and be done with it. That way, there will be no future potential problems. How should we approach?" A woman nearby, of quite a high rank, stopped looking at the screen in front of her and made a suggestion.

"Star Lord Altherion, while I do understand that you have a personal vendetta against Tianlian Liu Shu, I would like to recommend not becoming too involved in it." Altherion didn't dismiss her. After all, one couldn't become a "Star Lord" by being an arrogant and despotic leader.

"Continue." The woman nodded and spoke logically.

"Our ship's main <Aether Mana Cannons> have offensive abilities comparable to a full-strength blow of a decently strong Level 175. Even Lord Altherion would be in danger if hit straight forwardly, right? We've also lost the battle for this world to the Covenant. Therefore, I recommend erasing the world altogether. We might receive a penalty, but any and all problems that stem from it will disappear." A man at the side frowned faintly and raised a hand to ask for permission to speak.

Altherion glanced over and nodded. The man spoke with a wry smile.

"While under normal circumstances, I wouldn't disagree with Marisella, we are not in a state of war. If we dare to annihilate life so indiscriminately without a war as our background, the System Penalty might send us back to Level 0." Altherion knew that he was exaggerating, but the loss would not feel too far off from what he said. Marisella became thoughtful at that report and reluctantly agreed.

"You are… right, Draevin. There are basically no high-level creatures there. Moreover, destroying a world that has yet to evolve might give us the negative <Planet Killer> title. We already have enough negative <Titles> as is for indiscriminately killing World Trees. No one really needs any more." Negative titles were not equally applied to everyone. The higher the level, the more difficult it was to achieve the same negative title through an action. After all, the System wanted to protect, but not dictate life.

It was a neutral existence that judged objectively. It had its exceptions, but overall, everyone was looked at through the same lens and evaluated equally. On the other hand, the stronger the individuals became, the less influence the <System> had on them. It was not because it couldn't affect them, but because the achievements one accumulated over their long Leveling Process would eventually make new feats rather insignificant in comparison.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Take, for example, the <Defender> title. It was a hard-to-get title that would appear when one managed to overcome the siege of a more potent and larger force while being the lowest-level person on the battlefield and simultaneously contributing the most. If those were the only conditions, many of the lowest-level people managing some siege weapons of war would get the title for themselves. But it didn't work like that.

The reason was that <Titles> materialized when the [Feat] was a distinguishing moment that was relatively impressive when compared to one's own strength and achievements. So, a child defeating an adult might get a <Young Genius> title, but a young man defeating an old man would not get it. It was easy to forget because of the absolutely ridiculous list of <Titles> Liu Shu had, but usually, people with five or more <Titles> were considered overly exceptional.

The average number of <Titles> per person was three or four. Altherion listened to them and looked at Marisella.

"What are your final thoughts?" Marisella, who had interrupted at first, looked awkward as she sighed.

"I guess that we can't use those cannons." Draevin smiled.

"Actually, we can." Marisella almost rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"Are you messing around with me? I will give you a beating once Star Lord Altherion returns to his chambers!" Draevin laughed.

"You were just too drastic with your measures. You wanted to destroy that entire world, while we don't need to do anything close to that. The only anomaly, or the being that allowed for anomalies to exist in the first place, is Tianlian Liu shu. Hence, we just aim at her and fire. Once we confirm the kill, we are done." Marisella frowned.

"But with their strength, wouldn't that raze a large chunk of the planet's surface?"

"You are underestimating the durability of a planet. The most dangerous is disrupting the atmosphere and causing a mass extinction event. If we do that, we will end up deep in the mud. But we don't have to worry. We would approach Ceperet, be careful that the envoys the Covenant sent don't discover us, and once we make sure that we can shoot, we do so. We won't even need to leave the ship…" Draevin paused and looked at Altherion.

"Of course, that would be the case as long as Altherion finds our combined plan worth following. Otherwise, we can deploy our armies and just kill everyone as we had planned initially, leaving Tianlian Liu Shu for Star Lord Altherion." Marisella snorted, but he felt satisfied when Draevin described the plan as something jointly built. Meanwhile, Altherion got thoughtful. Then, he asked, confused.

"I've been fighting in the front lines for all my life, and this is my first time aiming for such a weak planet. Who will receive the penalty once the cannon fires?" Draevin commented.

"There is a deep research book about how weapons affect the <System>'s judgment. However, it seems that the <System> evaluates things too accurately. Therefore, the people losing Experience Points would be everyone knowledgeable and participating in the plan." Marisella had heard about that book, but she never brought herself to read it.

"I've also heard about it. I read a summary that said there are no loopholes when taking action. The System not only takes the <Action> into account, but also the <Intent> behind it. That's why the <System> is much less harsh when deaths occur by involuntary collateral damage than direct action." Altherion was rather old-fashioned, so this was the first time he heard about that research book. Even as he listened, he realized he already knew everything being shared from his own experience.

"Alright, contact Vaarn's ship. We'll make some tweaks to our initial approach." At this moment, a woman sitting far in the front spoke aloud.

"We've officially entered the Ceperet Solar System's Oort Cloud. The distance remaining until the objective is 2. 4 light-years. Estimated arrival time: Four years and two months. Meanwhile, in the Golden Sap City, Liu Shu reacted as her roots finally reached another milestone.

"Oh! There it is. I was wondering where Vorathen was." The Ceperet Solar System had seven planets, named Solkara, Vorathen, Ceperet, Nualis, Feltera, Tiravel, and Erynthea, from closest to the Sun to farthest. Nualis had been her first objective, so it was not surprising that it was the first planet she encountered. For the others, she was just spreading her roots and hoping to bump into them. And this time, she finally encountered the big spinning rock that made out Vorathen's silhouette.

"At first, I had wondered how bad it could be for life to be unable to develop in Vorathen, but now I understand." Vorathen was a volcanic world, and even from a distance, she could see the glowing magma seas and rivers on the surface. This confused Liu Shu.

"Why is there so much magma? Shouldn't it have cooled down a while ago?" That would usually be the case, but Vorathen was somewhat unlucky. As Liu Shu glanced at the spinning planet, she noticed the oddity.

"That's… a red hole?" On the side of the World that was previously facing the Sun, a gargantuan crater that could be seen from space appeared in front of Liu Shu's gaze.

"... Meteor impact? With a crater that large, it is more like a Moon impacted onto Vorathen's surface, not a meteor…" That thought made Liu Shu wonder if she would be able to stop something like this from happening.

'If a Celestial Object as large as the Moon were in an impact trajectory with Ceperet…" Liu Shu pondered for a moment, and then her brain flashed with an idea.

"Right, why use forceful means? Can't I just… push it? Space is so large, and trajectories need to be incredibly precise. So, pushing it a bit would deviate its path enough for it to miss Ceperet." Leaving behind another worry, she glanced at Vorathen and smiled.

"Well, let's conquer you as fast as I can." All around the World, spatial rifts opened, and Liu Shu's roots appeared in the hundreds. These roots were larger than mountains, falling into the planet and plunging into it without any care for the world.

'After all, there is no life, so I can be as rough as I want.' If Vorathen could communicate, it would probably be weeping and asking for mercy. The penetration was too forceful, shaking it enough to make its tectonic plates shiver.