It took nearly half an hour, but Avery was eventually able to round up the entire squad he had brought with him and put up a protective field around them.

Doing so was extremely difficult for him as he had to extend his powers out half a kilometer in all directions to encompass all of the ships even when they were flying in a tight formation.

This was certainly something he had never tried before, and it was only recently that he had started to learn how to control the strange abilities his unknown ancestry allowed him.

’F*ck this is tough. And now I’m either going to have to share my secrets with more people or come up with some sort of excuse later.’

Once everyone was ready, the twelve vessels set in a course for where the rest of the fleet was engaged with the space monsters blocking their escape.

A quick jump to light speed brought them to their destination.

Whatever horror was sealed away in the large dark purple asteroid was not a problem that any of them wanted to deal with. Avery’s plan was to let the system’s space monsters handle it and get the hell away from this place and never come back.

Now that they had gotten far enough away, the oppressive energy was not nearly as strong. Normal people could no longer feel it at all, though those that were sensitive to the psychic abilities could still sense its presence.

"Glad to see you made it back. The message I received has still left me with many questions. Can you explain in more detail what is going on?" Zefield said to Avery over a call.

"Sorry, there’s no time. We need to get out of here quickly. I’ll explain everything once we’re far away. For now, just know the longer we stay here, the worse our situation is going to get."

Avery’s response was not what Zefield wanted, but from the grave tone of his voice, he knew that something truly dire awaited them if they lingered. At least, that is what his gut was telling him.

Understanding that they were on a time limit here, Zefield ordered the fleet to attack more aggressively than before.

That meant that they would have to take some greater risks and use plenty of expensive disposable weapons, but that was better than taking too long and everyone dying.

Avery was especially aggressive. His understanding of the threat that would soon be breaking free was better than anyone else’s.

He was not afraid of fights that could be won, but he instinctively knew that there was nothing the entire mercenary force Zefield had gathered could do against the entity that had been sealed away in this system.

Just its presence leaking through the cracks in its prison had been enough to leave even people as strong as Kasandra, Jasmine, Liesel, and Kaiden stupefied states where they were unable to do anything.

’We’ve got to break through soon. I need to take out more of the monsters. Faster. Faster!’

Avery’s emotions were running high and he pushed himself to eliminate the now discordant space monsters in the area.

Thankfully, only half of the combat capable types remained as all of the Fluem and Dorumin had flown off to the asteroid under their leaders’ commands.

Only the Volmargars and Hinvieners that were currently in a frenzied state posed any real threat, and the two different species saw each other as enemies just as much as they did the mercenary fleet.

This created a brutal three-way fight, but one that the side Avery was on was clearly winning.

Although the mercenaries were eliminating the space monsters at an impeccable rate, time felt like it was going by frustratingly slowly.

Nevertheless, eventually the numbers of enemies were whittled down and there were only a few hundred more creatures to eliminate.

At Zefield’s command, only those with the strongest armaments continued to attack, while the smaller ships prepared to enter hyperspace.

It seemed that they would all finally be able to escape this system that had proved to be several times more dangerous than even the most outlandish estimates.

There had been far too many space monsters, and the commander types and whatever was sealed away in the giant asteroid were unprecedented threats.

"The way is clear now. Those that are prepared, activate your hyperspace drives." Zefield ordered across the entire fleet.

Several hundreds of small craft began generating the specialized energy field necessary to breach the boundary between normal and hyperspace.

In a flash, all of them disappeared, and the larger vessels that remained prepared to escape as well.

However, just before they could, was when everything went horribly wrong.

The commander types controlling the Fluem and Dorumin had done their best to contain the entity that their creators had manufactured them to subdue long ago.

Sadly, with only two of them in peak condition, they were unable to keep the fiend from breaking free.

An amorphous appendage broke through the cracks in the rock and flashed like a bolt of lightning.

Its target was the nearest commander type.

With almost no resistance it pierced straight through the enormous space monster’s body.

This was not enough to kill the leader of the Fluem in one go, but what happened next probably made the creature wish that it had died.

Like a fish that had been harpooned, the commander was reeled into the asteroid and dragged through a fissure to small for its body to fit.

Its bulbous form was compressed, and sprays of its dark green blood sprayed out as its vessels burst.

Once it had been dragged inside of the prison, the being that had been trapped there for more than a millennium feasted on flesh for first time in so long.

When it was satisfied with its meal, it released a roar of not sound, but psychic energy.

This time its power was not confined to just the entity’s immediate area, but nearly the entire system.