There were still endless small ships trying to rush in and block the Japan ship’s advance, but it was of no use at all. Their actions perfectly illustrated an idiom, a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
In the end, the Japan ship still came to a halt. The reason it stopped was not the obstruction from those ships, but that Xiao Yu felt the distance between the Japan ship and that Nation-Class ship was already close enough.
At this moment, the Japan ship was less than 500 kilometers from the Nation-Class ship.
During the approach, conventional-level attacks had never ceased. Although the energy consumption was too great to launch a spatial weapon attack again, in terms of conventional firepower the Japan ship still had considerable reserves. The conventional firepower of a Nation-Class ship was also extremely powerful, and among the small ships besieging the Japan ship, ships were constantly being hit, constantly exploding and disintegrating.
As time slowly passed, the number of ships besieging the Japan ship had already decreased by at least one fifth. Correspondingly, the Japan ship’s situation grew ever more dangerous. But Xiao Yu did not care. He was not afraid that his attacks would ultimately fail to destroy this Molian Civilization Nation-Class ship, because he still had one last ace, ship self-detonation and a Four-Dimensional shield explosion.
The energy released by the explosion of the Four-Dimensional shield was even more formidable than a spatial weapon. The Molian Nation-Class ship ahead had already fallen to the brink of destruction; it absolutely could not withstand such a fierce attack.
The Japan ship’s condition grew worse. At least one third of its engines had been burned out, and the shield system was on the verge of collapse. Its stockpile of ammunition was not large either. A great number of launch racks and turrets had been destroyed, causing the Japan ship’s combat strength to drop by more than one quarter.
“It’s fine. At the final moment, I will give you a big surprise.” Xiao Yu was already smiling slightly in his heart.
Xiao Yu no longer cared in the slightest about the decrease in ammunition reserves or the reduction in stored energy. Now the only thing he sought was to fire all the ammunition he had stored, to hit as many ships as possible. If he missed, it did not matter at all (even if it missed, it was still better than letting it pile up inside the ship and be wasted for nothing, right).
With this mindset propping him up, the Japan ship displayed a surge of power like a final resurgence before death. Everyone understood that after such a resurgence came death, and an unavoidable death at that.Therefore, the Japan ship’s fierce attacks did not drive off the fleets’ encirclement. Braving heavy casualties and dense barrages of fire, they still attacked, and kept attacking.
Their attacks finally produced results. Xiao Yu muttered to himself, “Very good, very good, your objective has been achieved. You have eliminated my flagship, and you have obtained the most important battle result. However, there is one thing I am very curious about, how will you face the fall of Star System Number 2, and the destruction of your flagship as well? How much pressure will your military leadership bear within your civilization?”
“Your stratagem is impeccable in terms of planning and wisdom, but you miscalculated one point, namely that in the realm of large ships my combat power is stronger than yours, and not just a little. Therefore, let your Nation-Class ship, along with all the senior military personnel, leaders, and commanders aboard it, be buried with my Japan ship.”
“Goodbye.”
In this fiercely contested battlefield, Xiao Yu sent out a message by radio for the first time, offering his greetings to the intelligent beings of the Molian Civilization.
The Japan ship exploded with a thunderous roar.
This was the first Nation-Class ship to be destroyed since Xiao Yu’s fleet was formed. Yet at this moment, Xiao Yu felt not regret, but a faint, hidden anticipation.
When a Province-Class ship self-destructed, the Four-Dimensional shield could already unleash power of that magnitude; then what about the explosion of a Nation-Class ship? How astonishing an amount of energy would it release?
The specific calculations had not yet come out. Through the few reconnaissance satellites remaining outside the battlefield, Xiao Yu saw a scene like this.
In the middle of the battlefield, a star appeared. Xiao Yu knew it was not a star, but the energy released by this ball of light, the radiation across all bands, the heat, and the destructive force could completely rival a star.
This mass of light indiscriminately swallowed the small ships that had surrounded the Japan ship; their destruction did not even raise a small ripple. Next to suffer misfortune were the ships a bit farther from the Japan ship, among which was the Molian Civilization flagship that had lost its propulsion system and could neither move nor flee.
The surging flames and violently erupting energy soon reached it. Xiao Yu saw its shield system, which had withstood two spatial-weapon strikes, rapidly melt away like snow under the blazing summer sun. After the shield system dissolved, what followed was the ship’s structure. The gases inside the ship, driven by pressure, surged out through the breaches but could not extinguish the sea of fire; instead, they made the flames even fiercer. The energy conduits were severely damaged and thrown into chaos, and explosions finally began to appear aboard it as well.
At first they were only small-scale explosions, but as the extent of its damage rapidly increased, some core sections began to be affected, such as the energy storage area and the propulsion section. Explosions in these areas were not something that could be brushed off as minor.
It finally turned into a ball of fire, whose intensity was only slightly weaker than the Japan ship’s explosion. In the raging sea of energy created by the Japan ship’s detonation, its explosion at last raised a splash, unlike the destruction of the other small ships, which could not even produce a bubble.
Xiao Yu sighed inwardly, “It truly is a Nation-Class ship; even its explosion is different from other ships.”
The destruction of the Molian Civilization’s Nation-Class ship marked the final end of this campaign. Xiao Yu had paid a tremendous price and inflicted enormous damage on the Molian Civilization. The Japan Nation-Class ship was destroyed, three Province-Class ships were destroyed, and the total number of other ships destroyed was several hundred; on the Molian side, one Nation-Class ship was also destroyed, the loss of Province-Class ships reached as many as eight, and the losses at other tiers amounted to more than seven thousand ships.
“This is me, the Divine Ark Civilization’s combat power.” Xiao Yu thought, full of pride.
This battle was the decisive engagement that determined the outcome of this Void Ambush Campaign. Having lost the frontline command system, with even the flagship cut down by the enemy, the blow to their morale was enormous. Even putting aside morale as a psychological matter, besieging, pursuing, and blockading require extremely precise overall command and coordination; without the presence of commanders, relying solely on tacit understanding among them to do this? A joke.
By contrast on Xiao Yu’s side, he had always exercised remote command over his ships; the probes and vessels scattered throughout space were his eyes. For Xiao Yu there was no distinction between front line and rear. Wherever Xiao Yu’s instruments existed, it was the front line to him. This meant that he could take advantage of the enemy’s loss of its command system and its resulting clumsiness and sluggish reactions to make many arrangements and responsive tactics.
In fact, that was exactly what Xiao Yu was doing at this moment. In the void, the ships on Xiao Yu’s side, which had been besieged, pursued, and blocked by the enemy’s ships and were fleeing in haste, suddenly changed tactics. Because the Molian Civilization’s ships had suddenly fallen into disorder and that precise coordination no longer existed, the offensive and defensive situation immediately reversed. At that moment Xiao Yu’s ships, as if they had taken a perfect restorative, swiftly swung their bows around and charged toward the opposing fleet.
Scenes like this were occurring widely throughout this expanse of void spanning several hundred billion kilometers. Without precise and comprehensive command, the Molian Civilization’s ships could no longer cause sufficient interference with Xiao Yu’s maneuvers, and so Xiao Yu’s ships began to concentrate. Once the ships were concentrated, under Xiao Yu’s precise command and mutual coordination, and with the inherent combat strength of medium and large ships being higher than that of the Molian ships, what could still stop Xiao Yu’s slaughter of the Molian ships?
The destruction of the Japan ship purchased overall superiority in the campaign. Xiao Yu began frenzied retaliation. Slaughter, slaughter, continued slaughter. Innumerable flashes flickered in this dark starry sky, like sparks igniting a prairie fire.
The Molian Civilization’s ships finally began to retreat, and Xiao Yu unhesitatingly launched a pursuit. In the void, Xiao Yu’s fleet chased for nearly two light-years, and only when they encountered the enemy’s relief fleet did they reluctantly abandon the pursuit.
After such a great battle, these ships needed rest and resupply before they could continue fighting. By now their consumption was too great.
The ambush campaign in Star System Number 4, up to now, was finally declared over.
This was the first large-scale battle at the one-million-ship level between the Divine Ark Civilization and the Molian Civilization. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but overall it was still Xiao Yu who won.
In this campaign, Xiao Yu paid the price of more than 190,000 ships destroyed and annihilated nearly 300,000 ships of the Molian Civilization. There was also an added outcome to this campaign, Star System Number 2 ended up in Xiao Yu’s hands, and with Star System Number 2 as a bridgehead, Xiao Yu would be able to penetrate more deeply into the Molian Civilization’s sphere of influence and launch more battles.