Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 52: The Eclipse Sovereign

I quickly checked the sensors and readings spread across the displays, my eyes darting from one critical alert to another until I pinpointed the source of the shock.

"Damn! The portside shield’s been obliterated! Hull integrity down by 15%!"

Without hesitation, I activated the emergency airlocks to isolate the damaged section. That should keep the hull breach from spreading—at least for now. But the real problem wasn’t the damage itself. It was where the attack had come from.

"I found the origin of the attack!" Eva’s voice was sharp with urgency. "Fuck! Judging by the size alone… that’s a Super Dreadnought-Class vessel!"

A chill ran down my spine. ’No way…’ Eva pulled up a visual feed, and the moment I saw it, my heart clenched.

That thing—I knew it all too well. I had fought it countless times before… and lost 99% of the time.

"That’s the Eclipse Sovereign! What the hell is it doing here?!"

The Eclipse Sovereign. One of the few EX-Class ships in the game. A vessel beyond the reach of any player, no matter how skilled or well-equipped. The player ship limit was capped at SSS-Class, and EX-Class was reserved only for boss-level NPCs. In other words…

’We just triggered a goddamn boss fight!’

This wasn’t good. The Range Falcon was in decent shape, but nowhere near its full combat potential. Even in peak condition, our odds against the Sovereign were an abysmal 0.01%.

"Eva, deploy decoys!" I barked. "We’re sitting ducks without a shield!"

As I twisted the controls, rolling the ship 90° to obscure the exposed portside, Eva growled back in irritation. "I know, you bastard! Don’t rush me…!"

A relentless storm of laser fire rained down around us, each shot narrowly missing as I twisted and wove through the onslaught. Meanwhile, the Sovereign loomed in the distance, floating 500 kilometers away like a silent executioner.

To any rational observer, our fate was sealed. We were outgunned, outmatched, and out of time. But I wasn’t about to roll over and die.

I know every strength and weakness of the Eclipse Sovereign. There’s still a way out of this!

The Sovereign had no blind spots—its hull bristled with hundreds, if not thousands, of turrets. Any fool who tried to approach would be torn apart in milliseconds. But at this distance, only its main weapons could reach us.

"Decoys deployed!" Eva called out. Her hands were a blur over the controls. "Now, back to blasting these fuckers—"

"Wait! Do not touch that big-ass sphere over there!" I warned.

Fighting this monstrosity head-on was suicide. The Brionac was the only weapon aboard the Range Falcon capable of penetrating its defenses, but if we wasted it on the Sovereign, the rest of the enemy fleet would rip us apart.

We had to prioritize survival.

The decoys flickered to life, casting multiple false images of the Range Falcon across the battlefield. A simple trick, but devastatingly effective—it threw off enemy targeting systems and worked even better when combined with our LV1 Stealth Module.

The difference was immediate. The incoming barrage thinned by more than half, giving me much-needed breathing room to maneuver.

But it wouldn’t last forever.

The longer we stayed, the more decoys we lost. The enemy fleet was adjusting, closing the distance, their accuracy improving with every passing second.

At this rate, in sixty counts, we’d be space debris. We had to act—now.

Dodging another wave of lasers, I steadied my breath and waited for the right moment. Then, I shouted—

"Cassandra! Hit it!"

"Y-Yesh!"

Her voice trembled, but she moved with precision. A single press of a button—and the entire Range Falcon lurched violently.

Not from an enemy attack, but from the sudden, overwhelming gravitational pull of a nearby black hole. Not just any black hole—the entrance to the Meyer Family’s private wormhole!

The three hours we spent inside the station hadn’t been for nothing. During that long time, I hacked through their systems. With Cassandra’s helpful knowledge and support, we set up a backdoor—a secret override that gave us full control over the wormhole’s activation, closure, and even target designation.

And now, victory was in sight. The battlefield shifted in an instant!

The Eclipse Sovereign—a behemoth of destruction—suddenly found itself facing the one force in the universe it couldn’t overpower: Gravity itself.

A normal ship, no matter how massive, would be crushed inside a black hole. Even with specialized wormhole technology, entering one without proper shielding was suicide. And with the Eclipse Sovereign’s massive size, just turning on its protective modules would take minutes—they’d be swimming in the Event horizon long before they finished!

Of course, we weren’t just jumping in blind.

Just like Jump Gates allowed for safe hyperspace travel, there were devices designed for wormhole entry survival. And we had just one shot at making this work.

"Percy! Resume activation of the Wormhole Protection Modules!"

[Command Received... Extreme Gravitational Shielding switched on. Radiation Nullifier at 100% output. Chrono Stabilizer active. Spacetime Integrity Stabilizer active. Wormhole Protection Modules 100% online.]

I gritted my teeth.

We had ten seconds to enter the wormhole—before the lock I placed on the controls would reset. If that happened, the operators on the other side could shut it down easily. And even now, relentless attacks rained down on us.

’Looks like I need to find ’that’ module first once we get out of this mess…!’ I randomly thought.

I kept my grip firm on the controls, weaving through intricate laser nets designed to cripple the ship. Shields were holding, but barely—fluctuating between 30% and 60% integrity. The damage was tolerable for now, but something else felt off.

The Eclipse Sovereign was completely silent, a chill crept up my spine.

"I’ve got a bad feeling about this…"

We were only three seconds away from the threshold. Even if I had doubts, there was no time to hesitate. I floored the thrusters to 1000% output, the ship groaning as we surged forward. The black hole’s immense gravitational pull was accelerating us rapidly—we’d make it in time!

Or so I thought.

"…!"

An instinctual warning flared at the back of my mind. Without thinking, I wrenched control of the Brionac from Eva, began charging it, and flipped the ship 180°—just in time to see a powerful array of twelve laser beams converging into a single, concentrated blast aimed directly at our main thrusters.

"FIRE!"

I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the trigger. The Brionac’s high-energy prismatic laser streaked forward, colliding with the incoming attack mid-flight.

And then, something unexpected happened—the enemy’s laser beams swerved away.

Instead of an explosive impact, the polarly charged energy beam of the over-science weapon—Brionac—caused the other photons to do the impossible—taking on a similar charge to it. The magnetic repulsion bent the attack’s path, scattering the incoming photons in all directions, causing it to miss!

If forced to explain in physical terms, then the extreme energy in the Brionac’s beam caused an intense magnetic field, inducing an exaggerated Magneto-Optic effect and bent the laser attack away!

Right after the exchange, for a split second, the battlefield distorted, the view outside shifting into a surreal double-vision effect. Space twisted, warped, as if seen through a fisheye lens. Then, everything turned pitch black—it was the moment we passed through the event horizon!

The Range Falcon’s Radiation Nullifier kicked in at full output, blocking all external radiation—including visible light.

The ship was rendered blind. No visuals, no external feeds, no anything.

We could only rely on Percy’s Automated Pathing and the gravitational pull of the white hole waiting on the other side.

"…Phew."

A few seconds after breaching the event horizon, I let out a deep breath. "We survived that, didn’t we…?" I muttered, grinning.

"Survive? We barely made it out in one piece!" Eva snapped, her fingers still trembling from the adrenaline rush. "One misstep and we’d be scattered debris in space! I’m definitely claiming hazard pay for this, you bastard!"

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I shrugged, smirking at her rant.

"Anyway, we’ll be arriving at the Kariki Star System in a minute. Hang tight, everyone!"

Wormhole travel was fast. Ridiculously fast. We barely had time to steady our breathing before we were already closing in on our destination.

If not for the Chrono Stabilizer, the trip would have felt like decades due to the sheer gravitational distortions inside the wormhole. But that was beside the point. Right now, our priority is survival.

I tightened my grip on the controls.

If enemies were waiting outside the white hole, we’d be screwed.

Thankfully, it had only been five minutes since we informed Kobo and Alban about our escape plan. It’d be difficult for them to organize a full-scale blockade in such a short time.

’Still… To think our enemy owns the Eclipse Sovereign…’

This wasn’t just bad in terms of raw firepower. It was a financial nightmare. Whoever was after us wasn’t just powerful. They were filthy rich.

The Eclipse Sovereign wasn’t just any warship. Even Kariki—the wealthiest individual in the universe—couldn’t afford its operating costs.

Meaning…

This wasn’t just a single individual. A massive organization was after Cassandra’s life.

But something didn’t add up. The Eclipse Sovereign wasn’t supposed to appear until Chapter 7. And back then, it was owned by the Militia. And yet, this one? There’s no way it belongs to the Militia right now…

Questions piled up. But for now, I had no answers. I shook my head, focusing forward.

First—let’s grab that damned Egg and enter the next leg of the Main Quest!