After three more weeks of traveling down the spatial channel, Erin's starship was finally near a specific spatial entryway within the Ursidae Tribe's core realm.
According to the spatial route's data, this entryway was the closest one to the Morack Family's core-homeplanet. After exiting, at half-warp speed, it would take them only a few hours to reach this home planet.
Unlike the many home planets that exist in the inner and outer realms, there was only one core-homeplanet for each Chieftain Family inside the Ursidae Tribe. It was generally the largest and most strategically placed planet that the Family had full control of. Every other life planet within their respective core realm jurisdiction was an auxiliary planet at best.
At this point, Erin started treating Winslow as a temporary right-hand beastman. When Erin was toggling the visibility of Dragon's Grace recently, he noticed that the glow Winslow was emitting turned from dark green to a grayish white.
He later discovered through Aura that this grayish white light represented a shift from good intentions to loyalty. Once it was pure white, the loyalty of the target would be at its highest. After becoming aware of this, Erin trusted Winslow a lot more. He thought about the potential uses for Dragon's Grace too.
Now that the starship was about to exit warp, Erin could only temporarily place these thoughts aside.
[Exiting Warp Drive in 3.. 2.. 1..]
The countless rays of light steadily slowed down until Erin and Winslow saw a familiar scene. Just like anywhere else, the spatial channel's barriers were still translucent from the inside. They could clearly see the external space from their position.
A short distance away, Erin already spotted the tiny silhouette of the spatial entryway with his naked eye. There were over a hundred large dots surrounding this entryway.
Erin activated the starship's main front-facing cameras and focused the live-video feed on these dots.
"Goodness. They've actually prepared over a hundred destroyer-class starships just to guard a spatial entryway?!" Winslow found this incredulous.
The sight was ridiculous to him. From a defensive standpoint, the size of the entryway was limited. There could only be so many hostile starships exiting at any one time. That means the defending forces had a heavy advantage. They could easily fight ten times their numbers so long as they had enough ammunition!
These hundred plus Destroyers could defend this spatial entryway from at least a thousand enemy starships in the Destroyer-class!
Even Erin thought this defense was excessive.
"AI, activate the passcode signals. Adjust the shields. Allow them to scan for Planetoids. Do not let them send life-scans to identify anyone on-board though."
[Understood.]
It only took two seconds for Erin's orders to take effect.
"Alright. It looks like we have quite the audience ahead of us." Erin let out a somber laugh. Winslow smiled awkwardly. If it weren't for the fact that the spatial channel only moved one way at a time, he would have advised Erin to turn back and think of a different plan.
After a few minutes passed, the starship finally reached the spatial entryway and exited. They were finally out of the spatial channel!
The moment Erin's starship left the channel, all of the defending Ursidae Destroyer-class Starships aimed at Erin's ship. If it weren't for the passcode signals being emitted and the special insignias on his starship, he would have been blown to pieces by now.
[Scans have been detected.]
Seconds later, all of the defending starships withdrew their weapons. Several of them moved aside to allow Erin's starship to go through.
Although the defending ships couldn't get a full life-scan of the people on-board, they already confirmed that there were no Planetoids on Erin's starship. This was the main reason why these guardships were here in the first place.
If the starship didn't have such high-ranking insignias on it, maybe they would have gotten questioned more. However, the authenticity of the insignias was the first thing the defending starships confirmed. None of them dared to disturb the privacy of an esteemed figure in the tribe.
From the hundred-plus Destroyer-class starships, two of them approached Erin's starship.
"Those are Morack starships." Winslow recognized the insignias on these two starships.
What Erin and Winslow didn't realize was that the High Elder's insignia on their starship looked nearly identical to these approaching starships! The visual difference was the approaching starship's insignias were made of bronze and iron whereas the one on Erin's starship was composed of gold and silver. The unique codes imprinted on these insignias were also different.
Although Erin scanned the insignias before, he only did so after Winslow left the command center. At that time, he was taking precautions against Warrick's gift and didn't fully trust Winslow. Erin was not familiar with the differences between the tribe's insignias.
[Communication message has been received. Accept?]
"Accept it." Erin noticed that when the two approaching starships got close enough, they both turned around and floated quietly in front of his starship. The sight looked like guards accompanying a guest.
"Greetings, honored senior. We shall escort you back towards the Family's core-homeplanet."
"Honored senior?" Winslow muttered in confusion. 'Perhaps the insignias that Warrick gave us are related to this Family?' Winslow thought as he glanced at Erin.
Erin had the exact same idea in his head after seeing this message.
"Well then, there's no use contemplating things here. Let's go." Erin ordered the starship to continue their journey to the Morack's core-homeplanet. Except, unlike the solo trip he expected, Erin's starship was now being escorted by two Morack Destroyers as well.
Since these starships were in the same class, they could easily travel at the same speed.
It only took a few hours for Erin's starship to finally appear in the system where the Morack Family's core-homeplanet was. The sight astounded both him and Winslow.
Thousands of small space stations hovered around the huge core-homeplanet like a planetary ring. Millions of dots were flying in and out of the planet at any one moment. While not many were military-grade starships, there was an incredible abundance of civilian-grade starships with some fighters mixed in.
The planet had two moons nearby. Both of them looked like two miniature life-planets because of how developed they were. One looked like a commercial hub because of how bustling it was. Whereas, the other was very quiet with large military-grade starships traveling around it. On its surface, there were many large laser cannons that could be seen with the naked eye. The appearance felt more like a defensive military base.
While most starships were traveling within that vicinity, there were several trails of glimmering lights flowing in and out of the system. Most of these trails started from the commercial moon.
The trails stretched out of the system until it could no longer be seen by the naked eye. All of these trails were composed purely of starships! The scene felt vehicles flowing in and out of a vibrant metropolis.
None of these trails were going in the direction of the spatial channel that Erin's starship had just come from. The spatial channels weren't easily accessible to most people.
As Erin's starship finally approached the giant planet, a squad of small starships launched from the moon that looked like a defensive military-base. They surrounded Erin's starship respectfully.
The two escorting Destroyers sent out notifications that these smaller starships will replace their positions. The Destroyers had to return to their original posts.
These smaller starships would guide Erin's starship all the way to the docks inside the planet. Erin didn't particularly care who was guiding him so he accepted this transition easily.
Erin knew that this core-home planet probably hosted a lot of the high-level figures, the defensive measures on the planet were likely some of the highest in the entire Ursidae Tribe. Therefore, in his opinion, this was finally a safe place where he could recollect himself and plan for the future.
Erin activated a live-video feed. It began broadcasting throughout the entire starship. Now that he confirmed everything was fine, he wanted to let everyone know about their safe arrival.
The moment his starship entered the planet's atmosphere, the view became even more marvelous. While there were no extremely tall skyscrapers or modern buildings, the entire planet was covered in glorious architecture. It even felt a little ancient because almost every building appeared to be made of stone. Erin instinctively felt like this stone wasn't ordinary.
Most of the buildings were thirty to forty stories high. The most remarkable part was that each building was so wide, they felt like individual temples and palaces. All of them were interconnected to each other with long stone bridges and pathways. There was a lot of beautiful greenery in the places between these buildings.
Winslow was in a daze. Even in his youth, he had never seen such a sight before. Although he considered his Branch's main city magnificent, this view was many levels higher.
After basking in the view for a bit, Erin spotted many public docks around them. It was obvious because of the thousands of ships parking inside of them. While some were planetary ships, most of them appeared to be smaller civilian-grade ships. After taking a closer look with his starship's cameras, Erin didn't see any docks large enough for his starship.
Because the Assegai Exodus II was a newly created destroyer-class starship, its size was comparable to a large city! Very few planets had the capabilities to maintain docks that could host the size of these starships.
Erin presumed that a mega-planet of this magnitude and development would have facilities to match.
That in mind, since they were only hovering over a small part of this mega-planet, Erin knew that he couldn't judge the planet from such a narrow standpoint. Besides, his starship was still following the small escorting starships.
They were currently traveling across the atmosphere at an unrushed pace. The AI would also notify him if any compatible docking facility was successfully detected too.
In less than a minute, the AI detected an area that could support his starship's docking. It was actually on the other half of the mega-planet! This was also the direction that the escorting ships were going to.
While they traveled across the atmosphere, Erin noticed that the number of starships in the air were getting less and less. It seems like a vast majority of them were concentrated in the territories that they flew by. The time zones also shifted from daylight to night.
When they finally reached the other side, both Erin and Winslow's jaws dropped.
Unlike the place they were at previously, there were not that many buildings here. There were many lights accentuating the surroundings. Most of the area looked like something from a high-class garden. The plants and trees on the ground were lush, well-trimmed and clearly maintained.
Although this amazed the two of them, it was not the reason why they were so shocked.
They were stunned by the few buildings that were all breaking through the planet's troposphere; which was the lowest section of the atmosphere! The millions of dotted lights that spanned these buildings made it very obvious how immense they were.
It wasn't just the height that stunned them, it was also the fact that these buildings were also ridiculously wide! While the ground could still be seen from the front, both sides stretched to the horizons. There were no visible gaps between some of the buildings.
It felt like an extremely large intergalactic space station was planted on this side of the planet.
The most unusual thing about this sight was that there were actually very few starships in the air. There weren't even any planetary ships either.
All of the starships that he saw were at the fighter-grade at the minimum. He even saw quite a few military grade ships guarding the surrounding skies. When his starship hovered close, these guardships made way.
The dock that the AI detected was located inside of one of the largest buildings here! With its height breaking through the sky, the starship entrance to it could even fit carrier-class starships with ease. The escorting starships were obviously bringing Erin's starship into this dock.