The warband commanders equipped with subspace-powered mechs were the most formidable assault spearheads.
The pyramid ships, once harbingers of endless death and shadow to the Pirate Star, now seemed as fragile as common metal vessels when faced with the onslaught of the commanders and the Mythical Squad.
With a single slash, Whitebeard tore a gash more than ten meters long across the nearest pyramid ship directly ahead.
Even after inflicting such massive destruction, the expenditure of his psychic blade aura was negligible. Like a hot knife through butter, the energy continued carving furiously into the ship's interior.
Inside the vessel, the Necron warriors poised for battle had no time to react. Whitebeard's sweeping blade aura engulfed over a thousand of them in an instant.
Their biomechanical bodies, forged of living metal, could not last even a millisecond under its power—they cracked and unraveled the moment they were struck.
The lesser intelligence cores infused within their metal frames were likewise annihilated in a single psychic impact.
The warriors caught in the sweep were utterly exterminated, reduced to scraps of living metal that could never be reassembled or revived.
With Whitebeard spearheading the assault, his entire warband surged into the pyramid vessel with overwhelming momentum, leaving no Necron behind—not even the lowest cannon-fodder units. Each one was relentlessly destroyed with the fusion of psychic power and haki, ensuring permanent death.
Kaido, too, charged ahead like Whitebeard.
Swinging his spiked club, he smashed open a massive breach in the flank of an enemy vessel, then led a hundred of his strongest warriors with tribal recruits surging in behind them.
Yet unlike Whitebeard, Kaido lingered outside the ship. With psychic transmission, he called out:
"Old man, something feels off! According to Lord Roya's intel, these metal skeleton freaks should still have at least five overlord-class lords in their ranks. So where are they? I don't sense a single one!"
As he spoke, his gaze turned toward the other battlefronts. Sure enough, he saw that Nuwa and the Mythical Squad, after breaking into an enemy ship, had not pressed inward but instead remained outside, clearly guarding against something.
Meanwhile, commanders like Squard, Kizaru, Aokiji, and Kuma, much like Whitebeard, were charging at the forefront with their warbands.
Still engaged in slaughter, Whitebeard replied to Kaido via psychic link:
"Kaido, when will you ever learn? Just follow Im's battle orders!"
"Whether there are a few overlords left doesn't matter. What matters is that not a single Necron unit escapes—we must annihilate them all!"
"Our warbands don't have enough awakened psykers. We may not perceive hidden Necron units. These wretches—if even one slips through, it's a disaster! Stay close, and make sure nothing gets away!"
Kaido chuckled darkly:
"Old man, your warband's numbers are huge. Mine's made of nothing but the best—the elite of the elite. Every single one of us is already fully awakened!"
"You go have fun chopping up the grunts. I'm going to find myself an overlord for a real fight!"
With that, he unleashed his psychic power to the limit, detonating a blast of indiscriminate psychic shock in all directions.
"Hiding your tracks, skulking about? Let's see if I can blast you out of your holes!"
In this peculiar star domain—where subspace and the material world overlapped so closely—the effect was extraordinary.
Within subspace, the energies belonging to the Silent King's vast projection were jolted by Kaido's psychic shock, triggering an instinctive, defensive subspace storm.
In a flash, it erupted from the desolate vortex core at the system's heart, sweeping outward to engulf the entire star region.
The Hades and the six pyramid ships were caught within its scope, instantly swallowed by the storm.
Every awakened psyker, Whitebeard included, felt their souls tremble violently, their grip on their bodies nearly torn away.
Only after the storm passed did they gradually regain control.
As Kaido shook off the dizziness clouding his mind, he saw Nuwa already lashing out with two jade-green psychic whips, pursuing six figures who were charging swiftly toward the Hades' bridge!
Exactly as suspected!
The remaining five overlords—plus one who seemed to be a newly risen overlord—had concealed themselves through some unique means, aiming to launch a decapitation strike on Roya at the bridge!
By sheer accident, Kaido's reckless blast had broken their concealment. Exposed under the subspace storm, they were forced to reveal themselves prematurely. Convinced he had achieved a great feat, Kaido grew elated.
He roared, brandished his spiked club, and blasted his propulsion thrusters at full output, hurling himself after the six Necron overlords with reckless abandon.
Roya sighed inwardly in helpless frustration. He knew then that his carefully laid plan—to bait these six overlords and annihilate them in one trap—had been ruined yet again by Kaido's refusal to follow orders.
Kaido and the Mythical Squad's intentions were good, yes. But in truth, these six overlords were not the key to this battle.
The true threat lay in the countless Necron forces.
Only by completely exterminating every Necron unit in this star domain could the Silent King's revival be meaningfully crippled.
Thus, the greatest value of Kaido and the other high-level combatants was not in matching the enemy's overlords one-for-one, but in quickly clearing out the hordes of lesser units.
Roya had already seen through the overlords' presence when he expanded his spiritual domain.
This "decapitation strike" by the six overlords was in fact playing right into his hands.
His original intention had been to lure them into striking, then wipe them all out in one fell swoop—removing the Silent King's high-level forces entirely. Without them to intervene, Whitebeard, Kaido, and the other commanders could have exterminated the Necron masses with unparalleled speed.
But Kaido had once more sabotaged the best possible strategy…
Now, with Kaido and the Mythical Squad's pursuit, the six Necron overlords abandoned their assassination attempt and turned to engage them directly.
Such an even trade of strength was a poor outcome for Roya, whose forces were already stretched thin.
The more time wasted on this level of battle, the greater the chance the Silent King would perceive Roya's strategy and evacuate his key units ahead of time.
Within the tri-linked pyramid tomb, the Silent King stood in the grand control chamber at the junction of the three structures, hands clasped behind his back, watching the battlefield beyond.
Behind him, the three Star Gods stood in a row.
The half-man mammoth cackled:
"Heh heh… looks like this little one has already uncovered your secret. He's moving fast, cutting down your little fragments."
The half-man roc added with a mocking sneer:
"You still haven't grasped the essence of a Star God's spirit! No soul means no soul! No matter how precise your calculations or control—you'll never make up for that!"
PS: Access the complete/finished chapters/series at Patreon: NanamiTL
~ every 50 PS = Bonus Chapter
~ push the forward with your [Power Stone]