"Can the engine output be increased any further? Even by two percent!" Kane's voice was slightly hoarse, his fingers gripping the armrests of his seat so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"No! The main energy circuit melted during the overload launch, and the backup energy can only maintain the current thrust! Forcing an increase will cause the thrusters to overload and explode!" Leah's answer was resolute. Data streams flashed wildly in her eyes as she tried various possible solutions to optimize the flight trajectory, but the physical limits were like a cold, insurmountable wall.
"Damn it! Are we going to go through all that trouble to take down that damned rock, only to be buried with it in the end?!" Rex growled irritably, his heavy armor gleaming coldly in the dim light, offering no sense of security.
Just then, Leah suddenly issued a warning: "Commander! An abnormally high-energy reaction has been detected on the planet's surface! The energy readings of the crystal core... are changing drastically!"
Everyone's eyes instantly focused on the planetary image.
The grayish-white region, almost entirely covering the planet, reached an unprecedented peak in core brightness, even briefly surpassing the radiance of the star CME behind it! That light was no longer stable; instead, it pounded and contracted violently like a heart!
The fluctuations transmitted by the crystalline consciousness also underwent a dramatic change! The previous euphoria and urgency vanished, replaced by a scream of… **utter terror and rage**!
**"Destruction… Wrath of the Stars… Escape… I must… escape!!!"**
It clearly sensed the terrifying power emanating from the star, enough to annihilate it along with the entire planet! Its seemingly invincible conversion ability appeared so insignificant and fragile before the pure energy storm at the stellar level!
It didn't want to die! It had to escape!
"What does it want to do?" Rex asked nervously.
The next second, the answer was revealed.
On the planet's surface, at the center of that enormous grayish-white region, it suddenly **collapsed inward**! It was as if an invisible black hole had formed there, devouring all surrounding matter and energy! Even light was distorted!
Then, an indescribable beam of energy, condensed to the extreme, shot out **reverse** from the center of the collapse, not towards the Nightingale or the CME, but straight towards… the empty space beside the planet!
Where the energy beam passed, space violently distorted, as if forcibly torn open! An **unstable wormhole, its edges flashing with grayish-white arcs of electricity**, was being forcibly opened by the crystal at the cost of burning its own vast accumulated energy!
"It…it's trying to open a wormhole! To perform a hyperspace jump!" Leah cried out in alarm, "It's abandoning the planet and escaping!"
"Don't even think about it!" Kane's eyes flashed with cold light! They had paid such a huge price, even risking their lives; how could they allow it to escape like this!
But the Nightingale was now in dire straits, its weapon systems all disabled; how could it stop it?
At this critical moment, just as the wormhole, maintained by crystalline energy, was forming and still extremely unstable, another mutation occurred!
The vanguard of the CME—a stream of high-energy particles moving at an even faster speed—**prematurely** contacted the edge of the wormhole!
It was like cold water being poured into boiling oil, or like two completely different laws of physics clashing violently!
BOOM!!!
A silent yet awe-inspiring **spatial storm** erupted at the wormhole's entrance!
The grayish-white wormhole energy and the CME's stellar energy collided, annihilated, and distorted wildly! Forming a temporary, extremely dangerous **energy turbulence zone**!
Under this intense interference from external energy, the unstable wormhole not only failed to stabilize but instead underwent a catastrophic **collapse**!