I Only Wanted A Class In The Apocalypse

Chapter 1860: The Intergalactical Portals

”Interesting,” Hye fell into a long, contemplative silence. ”But surely such events are rare? How often can a world lose its hundred-year protection?”

”They are incredibly common,” Olana corrected him, her voice holding the cold pragmatism of a trader.

”The system is efficient. It groups worlds that finished their apocalypses at roughly the same time into clusters. These are the ʼHot Zones.ʼ An entire group of these worlds might lose their protection simultaneously, sometimes once every few days. The universe is vast, Lord; somewhere, a world is always dying.”

”What?!” Hye stood up from his throne, his mind reeling. ”Youʼre telling me itʼs not just one world at a time? Are they grouped together? In a single sector?”

”A Hot Zone typically occupies an entire sector,” Olana confirmed. ”The proximity is dense—a stellar system apart, at most. When the shields drop, itʼs not a single battle; itʼs a sector-wide meat grinder.”

Hye remained speechless for several minutes, the gears of his strategic mind spinning at a dizzying velocity.

He didnʼt care about occupying the worlds; he knew the Hescos and the Toranks would be there with their grand fleets, and he wasnʼt ready to challenge them for planetary sovereignty yet.

But the ”scavenging”? The harvest of bones from the billions of soldiers and monsters dying in those sectors? That was a goldmine.

He could enter a Hot Zone, deploy his fleet on the outskirts, harvest the residue of the slaughter, and disappear before the Sovereign races even realised a third party was in the room. He could become the phantom of the Hot Zones, the reaper who fed on the wars of others to build his own.

Hye stared at the holographic display, his mind racing through the complex logistics of the sector.

When he imagined the vast cluster of worlds gathered together in a single sector, contrasted against the isolation of his lone solar system, a long-forgotten memory flickered to life.

It was a memory of a transaction made long ago, a massive acquisition from the Toranks that had, until this very moment, seemed like a rare lapse in his strategic judgment.

He had purchased them in enormous batches, yet they had sat dormant, gathering metaphorical dust in the deep recesses of his inventory.

”At last,” he whispered, his voice thick with a mix of triumph and nostalgia. ”Here comes my dusty little secret: The Intergalactical Portals!”

With a flick of his wrist, he summoned one of the devices. It was a compact, unassuming cube, its surface etched with faint, glowing geometric patterns that pulsed with a low-frequency hum.

He held it up to the light, examining it with eyes that shone with newfound greed and excitement. To anyone else, it was a relic of a bypassed era of technology, but to Hye, it was the missing piece of a galactic puzzle. ”At last, I have a proper use for you, baby!”

Hye had once harboured grand designs for these cubes before he had ever ventured out into the true depths of the universe.

In his earlier, more cautious days, he had intended to use them to fortify his holdings—to occupy a distant world, link it back to his primary twin worlds, and flood it with his standing armies at a momentʼs notice.

In his eyes back then, these portals were the ultimate safeguard, the unbreakable shield against any invasion from the dark void of the outside.

However, progress had rendered them obsolete almost as quickly as he had acquired them.

His internal research and development department had been relentless, eventually engineering their own proprietary version of the portal technology that was more efficient and integrated seamlessly with his existing infrastructure.

The Torank cubes had been relegated to the status of expensive paperweights. He had used his departmentʼs versions to bridge the gaps between the scattered planets of his newly acquired territory, especially after seizing more ground from the Hescos.

His own tech sufficed for domestic needs, leaving the mass-bought cubes to be forgotten. At one point, he had even considered offloading them on the black market just to reclaim some of the resources heʼd spent.

But now, the tactical landscape had shifted. To maximise his efficiency in the coming conflict, he realised he couldnʼt afford a linear progression. He needed to hit every single hatching world outside the systemʼs protection simultaneously.

A synchronised strike was the only way to save time and fully leverage the sheer, terrifying power of his grand army of Soulers and Reapers.

Moreover, speed was his best defence. If he spent weeks or months travelling via conventional warp between one world and the next, he would essentially be inviting the grand races to intervene.

Every hour of delay was an hour given to the enemy to mobilise their heavy fleets and seize control of the hatching worlds for themselves.

Hye had no desire for a direct, protracted clash against the elite armadas of the high races; such a confrontation offered little profit and would only serve to complicate his long-term dominance.

”The plan is simple,” he muttered, his mind mapping out the trajectories in real-time.

”Iʼll dispatch my fastest scout ships and vanguard units toward these distant worlds. They wonʼt carry the bulk of the army—they donʼt need to. Theyʼll carry the portals. They can establish the links on any stable surface—an abandoned meteorite, a barren planet, or even a desolate moon within range of the target worlds. Once they link the portals together, I can simply bypass the void. I can deploy my entire legion everywhere, all at once… Itʼs a perfect plan! Hahaha!”

He stood there for a long moment, lost in the brilliance of his own strategy. To Olana, who stood just a few feet away, Hye had suddenly lapsed into a chilling, prolonged silence.

She watched him, her heart hammering against her ribs as he stared into nothingness, only to suddenly burst into the frantic, high-pitched laughter of a man who had either found god or lost his mind.

When he finally turned his attention back to her, the intensity in his gaze made her stomach drop. He didnʼt look at her as a person, or even an ally.