Behind Chai Shao were several personal guards. He sat in spaceship number 110, a Spore-class, listening to the explosive background music.
"My lads, let's go!"
The intelligence of the Spore-class spaceship far exceeded their imagination. As soon as Chai Shao finished speaking, the control system responded before any of the guards.
"As you wish, my Duke of Qiao!"
"Whoosh........."
While the guards stared in bewilderment, the spaceship shot into the sky.
On the ground, others who were still familiarizing themselves with the spaceship's performance were stunned.
Cheng Yaojin scratched the back of his head in surprise, "Damn, when did Old Chai get so fierce?"
"Taking the lead?"
Even Li Xiuning was confused. Had her husband taken some kind of stimulant?
"Pass my order, take off, and pursue!"
"As you wish! My Eldest Princess!"
After a burst of synthesized electronic voices, spaceship number 119, emblazoned with its designation, followed closely behind spaceship number 110.
Their actions had immediately foiled the plan to first familiarize themselves with the spaceship's performance before taking off to intercept.
If Chai Shao were to be lost, it would be one thing, but if Li Xiuning were harmed, Li Shimin would surely flay them alive upon their return!
Cheng Yaojin dared not hesitate and immediately ordered his spaceship, number 911, to ascend rapidly.
Next came Xi Tong's spaceship, number 120.
Then, Ge Luoyang, Ma Chao, Zhuzi, Zhang Tian, and others followed in succession.
Li Yannan, who had just assigned his personnel, also had to rush to follow.
Time was limited, and Xi Tong had only managed to modify eighteen spaceships. All of them were now heading towards outer space.
Li Yannan sat in the command center of his spaceship, looking at the control panel flashing with lights everywhere, completely clueless about how to proceed.
Just moments ago, he had merely asked how to take off and catch up to the other ships, and then his spaceship, number 055, had taken off on its own.
This was utterly bewildering!
With the ship airborne, he was still completely unaware of its offensive and defensive capabilities.
How was he supposed to fight?
But he no longer had time to dwell on these thoughts. Given the current situation, he had no choice but to press on.
This fleet of eighteen spaceships broke through the atmosphere in less than fifteen minutes, arriving in Ge Luoyang's vicinity.
On the holographic display, one red dot after another began to appear.
Those were signals from other civilizations' spaceships.
Apart from Xi Tong and Ge Luoyang, these were all first-timers in space, including the commander, Li Yannan.
The dark expanse of space was like an unfathomable abyss, and fear and awe should have been their prevailing emotions.
But now, everyone's eyes were fixed on the red dots on the display.
In less than an hour, these alien ships would appear!
This time, whether for them or for the entire world, it was the very first true space war!
All countries on Earth were watching.
With Xi Tong's previous battle, the nations seemed to have gained some confidence in the face of this coming conflict.
With the tacit approval of the higher-ups, all space centers immediately broadcasted the satellite images to the public online.
Everyone held their breath, watching and waiting.
Only one person was an exception!
After informing the others to stand by, Xi Tong piloted her spaceship alone, advancing deeper into space from low Earth orbit. With each segment traveled, she would stop and deploy nuclear bombs into the void.
Repelling the enemy outside of low Earth orbit was the final line of defense!
If they wanted to play, she would play big!
It wasn't until half an hour later that large black shadows appeared thousands of miles away.
Xi Tong had already deployed over a thousand nuclear bombs in the void!
As she looked at the image restored by the spaceship's system from the feedback signals on the holographic screen, her entire demeanor turned serious.
The sheer scale of this fleet surpassed her imagination.
In their last engagement, she had captured several reasonably intact Warrior-class spaceships.
Through infiltrating those spaceship systems, she had gained some understanding of their ship classes.
The fleet before her comprised one Invincible-class warship, eighty Fearless-class warships, and nearly a thousand Warrior-class ships!
Such strength was enough to turn Earth into a new asteroid belt!
She couldn't understand why these beings were so wary of Earth!
It was like an elephant inexplicably attacking an ant, which was truly perplexing.
"Alert, alert!"
"Detecting high-intensity energy fluctuations, analyzing!"
"Analysis results: Star Destroyer cannon charging probability is 99.99%!"
"Enemy attack expected in ten minutes!"
They were actually preparing to fire without even a greeting?
If that was the case, why should she be polite?
"Activate nuclear bombs! Fire!"
As Xi Tong's voice fell, invisible radio waves were transmitted outwards through the spaceship. The nuclear bombs floating in the void instantly awakened from their dormant state.
No sound was transmitted back; all that could be seen were nuclear bombs spewing scorching exhaust flames, hurtling towards the approaching enemy vessels.
Soon, the people of Earth witnessed this awe-inspiring scene.
In some regions, people didn't even need to watch the live broadcast. They could simply step out into an open area and look up to see dense clusters of light points streaking across the sky above them.
In the void, the enemy fleet also reacted swiftly upon seeing this.
Laser cannons and ion cannons fired consecutively, intercepting the dense barrage of nuclear bombs.
Xi Tong seemed to have anticipated this scenario, and instead of being nervous, she revealed a confident smile.
The next second, the silent space erupted with bursts of intense light.
Some of the nuclear bombs detonated the moment they were intercepted.
Nearly a hundred brilliant flashes lit up the dark expanse of space as if it were day.
The same happened on Earth; many areas plunged in darkness were illuminated in an instant, as if hundreds of suns had suddenly appeared in the sky.
Following the light radiation came powerful ionization radiation, which swept in all directions like waves.
The laser and ion cannon shells fired by the enemy ships were instantly annihilated.
The bright lights lasted only a few seconds before vanishing without warning.
Daylight once again turned into darkness!
And this was merely the beginning.
Not all nuclear bombs had detonated; hundreds more warheads in the second wave passed through the areas of the explosions, continuing their trajectory towards the enemy ships.