WHIRRRRRRRRR—BZZZZZZZZZT!
Across the three-hundred-mile crescent of the Black-Skull Pirate Armada, the starry vacuum groaned under the concentrated overload of one thousand warship reactor cores!
Heavy, yard-thick plasma power-transfer cables snaked out from the nine hundred and ninety-nine escort dreadnoughts, locking into the dorsal spine of Admiral Black-Skull’s thirty-mile bone-skull flagship. Every single gigawatt of reserve spirit-fuel, blood-stone ammunition, and reactor heat across the entire thousand-ship fleet poured straight into the gaping, mile-wide jaw of the ancient titan skull mounted at the flagship’s bow!
Within two seconds, a blinding, fifty-mile-wide sphere of blood-crimson annihilation plasma condensed between the skull’s fangs.
The surrounding space-time fabric warped and cracked like overheated black glass under the sheer thermal density of the charge.
It was the ultimate strategic super-weapon of the outer rim: the [Half-Step Rank 8 Combined-Fleet Star-Destroyer Laser Cannon.] A single, fleet-draining annihilation beam carrying enough concentrated firepower to punch clean through a mid-sized planet or vaporize a thirty-mile moon into atomic ash!
“DIE! SWALLOW MY THOUSAND-SHIP ANNIHILATION BEAM AND TURN TO ASH, GU CHANGSHENG!”
On the flagship bridge, Admiral Black-Skull pulled the master firing trigger with both trembling hands!
