I, a ship girl, am the savior of civilization.

Laura doesn't care, after all, she's tried everything in Stellaris, from planetary neutron destruction to divine judgment spores and infernal rays. But Belfast might not be so sure.

"It's alright, Lady Laura. Little Belfast also participated in the war while she was with Sister Santi and Sister Lexington, so please don't worry."

Belfast gave Laura a fist bump and answered earnestly.

While Laura was wandering around aimlessly, Belfast was also trying to mature and keep moving forward to become like her older sister Belfast.

It's just a battlefield, nothing to worry about!

"Little Belfast..."

Laura had never fulfilled her responsibilities as a guardian to Belfast. While surprised by Belfast's resolute decision, a wave of guilt also swept through Laura's heart.

However, when Laura thought that Belfast was her maid and, in a sense, her guardian, she immediately felt relieved.

"In that case..."

After confirming that Belfast had already developed the ability to stand on her own, Laura was ready to travel around this new world with Belfast. However, just as they were about to discuss their next exploration plan, a noisy sound came from above.

Before Laura could even look up to see what it was, a hail of bullets rained down from above.

I almost forgot, this is still a battlefield.

Instinctively, Laura pulled little Belfast into her arms, preparing herself to withstand the attack.

However, before Laura could summon her ship-slaying sword to shoot down the aircraft that was firing at her from above, a cold, metallic sensation enveloped the two of them. Accompanied by a violent rolling sensation, Laura and Belfast were swept away from the range of the hail of bullets.

"Well?"

Looking to her side, a helmet gleaming with metallic sheen was the first thing that caught her eye. Laura quickly realized that it was the person in power armor who had "saved" her and Belfast.

Well, let's just call it a rescue for now.

According to the principles of Noah's Light's transmission, the planet I'm on should also be closely related to humanity, and this war might be between humanity and some other civilization.

Without their ship equipment, Laura and Belfast look like ordinary girls, perhaps with a cross-dimensional buff. In wartime, those willing to lend a helping hand are most likely humans.

In other words...

Looking up at the massive fleet of ships in the sky, whose structure was identical to the airships that had attacked her, Laura roughly deduced the situation on the battlefield.

Air superiority is being gradually lost, and enemy airships are even allowed to attack non-threatening civilians instead of concentrating their firepower on human air forces. Defeat in this theater of operations is a foregone conclusion.

While deep in thought, the human soldier, clad in power armor, deftly dodged the incoming bullets with Laura in her left hand and Belfast in her right, slipping into the nearby ruins and using a dilapidated building to block the airship's firing trajectory.

"This is Herbert. Are there any survivors? Repeat, are there any survivors...?"

The airship in the sky relentlessly fired in the direction Herbert had left. The already dilapidated walls teetered on the brink of collapse, and the highly penetrating weapon attacks continued to damage the cover, advancing steadily towards the three of them.

While their location was still relatively safe, Herbert tried to contact his squad members, but ultimately received no response.

Damn it!

Herbert glanced at Laura and Belfast, a serious expression creeping onto his face hidden beneath his helmet. If he were alone, the power armor could reduce the heat signature detected by the airship to a safe level, allowing him to escape safely. But…

The situation is different for these two ordinary people who appeared on the edge of the war zone.

"Listen, I'll lure the enemy away while you head towards the safe zone. There are still some of our men guarding the area not far away; you can seek their help later."

After replacing his weapon with a brand new magazine, Herbert slowly stood up and pointed in a direction. Compared to the two insignificant civilians, he, clad in power armor, was clearly more worthy of attention.

"Strive to survive before Reach completely falls."

"Reach?"

Laura paused for a moment, then turned her attention to the prompt from Noah's Light. The series of events that had transpired earlier had prevented her from paying attention to the main quest panel provided by Noah's Light.

[Side World: Halo]

Main Quest: When Humanity Shines Like a Star

[Detailed Description: In the perilous universe, humanity in the Halo universe faces numerous threats: the Covenant, the Flood, and even the more unknown and mysterious cosmos. But the greater the hardship, the brighter the light of humanity shines. Perhaps, humanity doesn't need suffering and bloodshed to prove its greatness.]

[Main Quest Requirement: You know what I mean, right?]

[Main Quest Reward: Single-Unit Multiverse Construction Technology]

Indeed, this is the world of HALO.

According to Herbert, the planet Laura is currently on should be Reach, humanity's most important military base and mining planet.

As Noah's Light said, humanity in the Halo universe has paid too high a price for survival. In fact, without Laura's impulsive creation of the Universe and the subsequent merging of the Trisolaran universe, the Human Alliance in the Stellaris universe would likely have faced many hardships as well.

Civilization needs war and suffering, but not endless bloodshed. Even without Noah's Light's demands, Laura was not prepared to stand idly by.

“Wait a minute, Uncle Herbert. If it’s alright, could you please tell Laura…”

With the ship-slaying sword materializing in her hand, Laura unleashed a spatial rift, completely tearing apart the flying ship that had been attacking her earlier, and asked softly.

"How is the battle going on Reach?"

170.ONI, Operation Red Flag

An invisible spatial rift tore the spaceship apart completely. Even light could not continue to propagate until the rift healed. After a flash of black light, the once arrogant spaceship exploded into a ball of sparks and fell into the sky.

"So, what's the current situation on Reach?"

Laura sheathed her ship-slaying sword and looked back at Herbert, repeating her earlier question. Although her own ship had reached Tier 7, Laura still needed to consult with those who had personally experienced the events in order to gather information.

However, Herbert did not answer Laura. Instead, he raised his assault rifle and swung the muzzle back and forth between Laura and Belfast.

"Who exactly are you people?"

Without a UNSC (United Nations Space Command) military designation, Herbert knew very well that this was definitely not a trump card hidden by the human side, like a new Spartan program or something.

In other words...

Herbert's heart sank, and he couldn't help but think of another possibility.

Perhaps this is another type of extraterrestrial life that humanity has encountered since the Covenant. Therefore, Herbert must consider what the appearance of Laura and Belfast will ultimately bring to the UNSC.

More importantly, why would two people who look exactly like humans appear on Reach?

Reach is now on the verge of collapse. Apart from those responsible for delaying the retreat in batches, all other civilians and military personnel who could be evacuated have already left.

The planet Reach is now teeming with Covenant members. But if Laura and Belfast were aligned with the Covenant, there would have been no need to destroy the spaceship before.

If there's any reason for it, they shouldn't be looking for a lowly soldier like myself who's been disbanded and has no access to any important intelligence.

After instinctively aiming at the two men, Herbert was momentarily at a loss for what to do next.

"Don't you dare hurt Lady Laura! Ugh..."

Seeing Herbert point his gun at Laura, Belfast couldn't sit still any longer. Her ship armor materialized on her body. Although she knew Herbert couldn't hurt Laura, Belfast still decided to make contact with Herbert's weaponry first.

However, before Little Belfast could perform a minimally invasive ion beam surgery on Herbert, Lora stopped her with her hand.

"This is actually quite difficult to explain."

Considering Herbert's academic background, Laura explained her origins in the simplest way: "Well, let's just say we come from other universes."

Laura then gave a brief description of the Starry Universe, which helped Herbert understand the key points of the matter.

Friendly, outsiders, another human civilization, the ship girl alliance is awesome, Reach and the UNSC still have hope.

Most importantly, even if Herbert insisted on distrusting them, it wouldn't affect Laura and Belfast in any way. The two of them had already revealed Earth's coordinates, rendering Herbert's previous worries meaningless.

Why did Reach, humanity's most important military and production base, fall? It was because the planet's coordinates were exposed, allowing the Covenant fleet to sneak over.

Now that Laura knows Earth's coordinates, Herbert has nothing more to worry about. If it were the Covenant, with so many extraterrestrial colonies already lost, humanity would have been wiped out long ago.

So, let's believe Laura's words. If we can make contact with humans in another universe, the war between the UNSC and the Covenant might be reversed.

However, thinking about the current situation on Reach, Herbert couldn't help but feel a bitter taste in his mouth.

"We have lost contact with Reach, but the situation here, in New Alexandria, is not optimistic. The Covenant fleet appeared too suddenly, and we had no leads even for a period of time after the war broke out."

With a sigh, Herbert removed his helmet and slammed his right hand hard against his right leg, the crisp sound of the power armor colliding echoing through the ruins.

"Even after realizing the severity of the war, the fleet and army stationed on Reach fought desperately, but the time they gained was not enough for most civilians to be safely evacuated."

"Well, although the truth may not be pleasant to hear, Laura thinks it's still necessary for Uncle Herbert to know the reason for the delay in information."

After scanning the ashes-covered ruins of the city, Laura thought for a moment and then summoned the Colossus Ring. Sitting on the ring, Laura brought up a holographic screen and showed Herbert the information she had just gathered from various military bases on Reach.

"The cause of all this was actually a top-secret operation called 'Operation Red Flag' set by ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence).

Laura swung her legs and placed the contents of Project Red Flag in front of Herbert.

According to ONI's assessment, if the current situation continues, humanity will inevitably be defeated by the Covenant, which has a technological advantage. Therefore, they must make strategic decisions that can change the entire battlefield situation.

Therefore, ONI decided to seize a Covenant flagship and dispatched the most powerful human unit, the second-generation Spartans, and the latest intelligent AI to decipher the Covenant database and obtain the location of its capital, the City of Faith.

Then, using the flagship, they bypassed the Covenant capital's garrison fleet, infiltrated the City of Benevolence, captured the Covenant leader, and forced peace negotiations.

Because it was extremely difficult to lure the Covenant fleet to deploy its flagship warships, ONI's initial objective was to use a colony planet with abundant Forerunner technology as bait.

Of course, given the importance of Reach, ONI did not initially set it as a target. However, due to an unexpected accident, Reach was exposed to the Covenant, so ONI simply decided to make use of it.

What happened next was pretty much as Herbert had predicted: Reach's space defenses were practically nonexistent, allowing the Covenant fleet to easily breach the detection.

As ONI had predicted, a Covenant CSO-class supermothership, the Long Night, appeared on Reach. Even for the Covenant, a CSO-class warship was a loss they couldn't afford.

However, because the incident happened so suddenly, before ONI could even deploy the second-generation Spartans on missions, the squad on Reach destroyed the Covenant's CSO-class mothership.

ONI: ...

Strategically speaking, ONI's plan was very bold, almost entirely based on the formidable individual combat capabilities of the second-generation Spartans. But in reality, it did have a certain degree of feasibility.

Moreover, as ONI judged, humanity had to take action that could turn the tide of the war before it became irreversible. Even if Operation Red Flag would result in the loss of at least hundreds of millions of lives, they had no other choice.

But for the unsuspecting Noble Squad, blowing up the Long Night, which had invaded Reach, was also a choice they had to make, for which they paid a heavy price.

Neither of them was wrong, but... after learning everything, Herbert felt inexplicably frustrated.

While Herbert was caught in a dilemma, Laura realized something.

If Herbert is correct, this is New Alexandria, and the time difference between this and the destruction of the Long Night is not too long, which means...

The surviving Noble squad should be in this city that is about to fall?

171. Damn, is that true? Let's get him!