Seizing the opportunity, the woman timed it perfectly, controlling her warships to burst out of the array veil with a surge and speed towards the sky.
As the silver cruiser broke out, the outer layer of deep blue spores became increasingly agitated, surging madly towards the sky, but due to the scorching high temperature, they resembled moths to a flame; countless deep blue spores evaporated under the heat of several thousand degrees.
The exception was the advanced deep blue spores that had shed from the bark of the deep blue mother tree. Their resistance to high temperatures far exceeded normal spores.
Approaching the silver cruiser just the same, they were not vaporized like the regular spores but merely slowed down a bit, continuing to close in on the cruiser.
Fortunately, the speed of these advanced spores was not fast. Compared to the cruiser that had quickly flown beneath the mother tree's treetop, their rate was negligible. Additionally, their numbers were extremely limited, posing no threat to the woman's flagship in the short term.
Beneath the treetop, the silver ship's hatch opened stealthily, followed by a gravitational field that surged out from the cruiser, enveloping the Deep Blue Fruit above and pulling it down into the ship's hangar with all its might.
Disturbed by the unexpected touch to its essence fruit, the lifeform of the space plant at fifth rank began to tremble slightly, and the bark on its trunk started to fall off at a rate ten times faster than before.
From the battleship's main control room, a man's roar came through the communication screen.
"Level 2 emergency response activated, the deep blue spore storm is about to hit, we won't be able to get out if it's any later, Ansewei, hurry!!!"
The woman didn't need the reminder. As soon as the first signs of a level 2 emergency response appeared, she had already responded.
The main cannon at the bow of the silver warship swiftly rotated, aiming directly at the Deep Blue Fruit above.
A jet-black beam shot out, striking precisely at the stem connecting the Deep Blue Fruit to the mother tree.
Under the beam's incision, the stem, tougher than ordinary alloys, snapped off. Now unsupported by the stem, the cruiser's gravitational field faced no resistance, rapidly pulling the fruit, over five meters in diameter, into the ship's hangar.
Catching the moment the Deep Blue Fruit entered the hangar, the woman quickly closed the hatch. While multitasking, she rapidly turned the cruiser around, aiming again towards the trinity array veil, now on the verge of collapse below.
As the vessel turned, the woman caught a glimpse of the sky in the corner of her eye—a fleeting glance that reflected a count of Deep Blue Fruits in the hundreds.
Yes, the deep blue mother tree bore hundreds, even thousands of fruits, a sight truly covetable.
A touch of sorrow flashed in her eyes. A huge price had been paid for this operation. How could she not want to take more? But doing so would significantly exaggerate the mother tree's stress response. In the end, all five warships present would be doomed to stay here forever.
The trinity array veil, spawned from three purple components of the same source and only slightly less mighty than the orange component, suddenly collapsed. The next second, countless deep blue spores swarmed from all around, instantly enveloping several Torch warships, including the silver cruiser that had just swooped down.
The energy shields of the five warships hummed almost simultaneously, a sign of their struggle against the relentless erosion of countless spores.
Moreover, the Torch ship captains noticed that not only were the ship's energy shields dimming, but even the Warship Armor beneath was starting to turn a light blue from the spores and viruses infiltrating in threads and strands.
In a moment, all five Torch ship captains visibly paled, well acquainted with this condition.
This was the deep blue virus contained within the spores. Light erosion would slowly turn the surface of an object to a light blue color. And if they didn't quickly leave the area where the spores were, over time, this light blue would progressively shift deeper.
Once fully turned to deep blue, it meant the object had been completely eroded and would disintegrate into deep blue dust within minutes, serving as fertilizer for the deep blue mother tree and its spores.
In the silver cruiser's main control room, the woman called out urgently.
Hearing this, the man in the adjacent black cruiser nodded slightly.
With a thought, a special purple component inside the black cruiser was activated.
"Repulsion Field Stance, activate!"
As he declared, a ring of cyan extended from the black cruiser, spreading rapidly in all directions.
The intense repulsion shockwave followed, and all the surrounding deep blue spores, even the advanced ones, were pushed tens of thousands of meters away.
Seeing this effect, the woman's gaze shifted to the jump drive component on her ship.
Right after the jump here, she had immediately activated a special component on her warship; it had the effect of halving the buffer time for a specific component. With this activation, the buffer time of the jump drive on her flagship was instantly halved. Plus, with the minutes that had passed since then, less than one minute remained on the buffer.