Chapter 1 Surrounded

The corrupted legion, which was besieging the remnants of the celestial body like a swarm of insects, had its outer formation disrupted by a mere small warship. This proved Haoren's judgment of these "Mad Lord derivatives" to be correct: they severely lacked rational thinking ability. Even if they had any remaining thoughts, they had all been replaced by a tendency for violent destruction. If a more "eye-catching" and more threatening target appeared within their perception, these monsters, acting almost entirely on instinct, would immediately shift their attention and launch a meaningless pursuit.

Of course, this "aggro-pulling" tactic was not omnipotent. The reason the corrupted legion could still be called a "legion" meant they still possessed at least a minimum of unified action and coordination. They would be interested in new targets appearing within their perception, but would not abandon their true combat objective because of this.

Therefore, the encirclement around the celestial remnants only experienced chaos and tearing, and did not completely follow the *Behemoth*.

But this was enough: all Haoren needed was to create a break in this encirclement.

On the verdant land covering the planetary fragment, the fairies clearly saw what was happening in space. They saw the silver-white warship that suddenly appeared, they saw the battle between the silver-white warship and the "bad guys," and they also saw the warship bravely charging into the enemy's army single-handedly—the fairies were deeply moved by this valiant and fearless battle, and cheered for this "ally" of unknown origin. Then, as they cheered, they watched as the silver-white ship only charged around in the enemy ranks once before turning its head and flying away...

"It flew away, it flew away! That ship actually turned around and flew away!"

"It wasn't here to help, it just got lost and accidentally wandered in! We're still doomed!"

"Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die..."

"Besides 'gonna die, gonna die,' can't you say something else?!"

"Wait a minute, look! There seems to be something else popping out behind it!"

While the fairies were once again panicking and arguing, some of them were still watching the situation in space attentively, so they were the first to notice the strange things that were constantly emerging from the dark background of the universe...

The noisy fairies didn't hear their companions' shouts at first, but after a while, they all quieted down, because the things emerging from the background of the universe weren't one or two, but were appearing in patches at a rate of thousands upon thousands. Soon it reached a point where it was impossible to miss them...

Countless shimmering "light membranes" appeared in space. After the light membranes faded, silver-white aircraft, like a combination of insects and machines, finally revealed their ferocity. They were like reapers descending from the shadows, or a swarm of insects eyeing their food covetously. These cold and emotionless metal creations possessed a suffocating aura, staring at all the corrupted monsters in an endless array.

The besiegers instantly became the besieged.

Even the corrupted demonic creatures, lacking logical thinking, couldn't help but hesitate when faced with this sudden change. Before this moment of hesitation had passed, the armed drones had already unleashed an unreserved attack—they carried twin-barreled main guns that accounted for one-third of their own size. Apart from the necessary energy, propulsion, and shield devices, the entire aircraft was almost entirely manufactured for this main gun. They were mobile turrets, prepared for battle from the day they flew off the production line. At this moment, the opportunity for battle finally presented itself, and the brilliant light of the drone swarm was finally able to illuminate the battlefield!

Tens of thousands of gun muzzles fired deadly energy beams, and silent explosions bloomed from every corner of the battlefield. The corrupted monsters finally reacted at this time, relying on their war instincts to launch a frantic counterattack—however, their formations were already completely chaotic.

The minions of these Mad Lords had completely disrupted their original formations in pursuit of their previous enemy. There were countless obvious breaks and disconnections in the dark army, and a large number of monsters in the outer layer of the encirclement had moved to positions that did not belong to them, which further exacerbated the chaotic situation on the battlefield.

The drone swarm did not let go of this advantage, and under the influence of the war command set, they quickly amplified this advantage: taking advantage of their superior agility and short-range space-warping abilities, the drone swarm quickly identified the disconnections in the corrupted monster swarm and launched a fierce attack, then charged into the enemy's ranks through these weak spots in the defenses, wreaking havoc.

Looking from space, this scene was like erosion and devouring: the silver-white swarm seemed to envelop a mass of black sludge, which was already in a loose state, like mercury, and infiltrated it along the countless cracks on the surface of the black sludge, devouring as it went. The silver-white was like a constantly spreading flame, burning the black parts.

The corrupted monsters would not sit still and wait for death. Although they had lost the initiative and positional advantage, their own counterattack was already quite powerful. Armed drones were not particularly strong combat units—although they had high-powered main guns and superior agility, this still did not change the fact that they were fragile units.

But the number of drones was enormous—so enormous that it was difficult to use numbers to count how many drones would appear on a battlefield.

When the number of *nurseries* reached a certain level, their rate of proliferation would far exceed the speed at which you could record numbers. When the space jump links were unobstructed, their speed of deployment would far exceed the speed at which your brain could process numbers!

So the drone swarm began to use its vast numbers to drown the corrupted monsters, who also liked to drown their opponents with numbers.

Drones were constantly being hit by turbid energy beams or flesh-and-blood projectiles, instantly turning into bright fireballs, but the destruction of each drone often meant that dozens or even hundreds of new drones entered the battlefield.

In space, the shimmering light membranes continued to flicker, and waves of armed drones deactivated their covert operation mode and threw themselves into battle.

And in the farther reaches, the sudden flashes representing the end of the warp were like a brilliant galaxy, violently fluctuating. Those were the subsequent troops still pouring in from all over the X Star Cluster and near the Executor homeworld to provide support.

Upon observing the Mad Lord's minions in space, Haoren realized that the water here was very deep, and that he should now be stepping into the deep end. So, before Nolan went to the battlefield, he decisively issued orders to the drone swarm to provide reinforcements.

The drone swarms had already taken root and sprouted in nearly one-fifth of the area of the X Star Cluster. Countless *nest factories* were manufacturing combat units day and night, so there was absolutely no shortage of troops. And the battlefield where the battle was taking place was actually not too far from the area controlled by the drones—the drone swarms that received the order were completely in time to participate in the second half of the battle.

Although they would definitely arrive much later than the drone swarms that had hidden themselves around the battlefield in advance to observe secretly, but now it seemed that they were not too late.

The drone swarms were deploying to the battle with a formation that almost "wrapped" the entire battlefield, and the silver-white streams of light devoured the black legion inch by inch.

The fairies stared blankly at the sky, and ninety percent of their vision... was silver-white.

"To be honest, it's a bit too unsightly..." In space, the *Behemoth* that Haoren was riding had already left the main combat area and was learning about the changes on the battlefield through real-time images transmitted by drones on the periphery of the battlefield. He saw those chaotic minions initially relying on their mad combat "will" and ferocious attack methods to launch a wave of favorable counterattacks, but they soon collapsed in the face of the drone swarm's interdiction, blockade, and numerical suppression tactics. "These monsters... their appearance looks very ferocious, but after the fight starts, they're all attacking randomly. Even those warships that look very imposing can't fire off many decent shots, and the surrounding cannon fodder doesn't have any decent cooperation or cover. To be honest, although the drone swarms have enough numbers to crush them, these monsters shouldn't be suppressed like this... if they had even a little bit of tactics, they wouldn't have ended up like this."

"How can things polluted by the Mad Lord have tactics," Vivian said with her arms crossed. "Didn't Rockmarten go crazy in the end too?"

"Just lamenting that these Mad Lord minions who have already flown into space are not much stronger than their terrestrial relatives in essence... at least there hasn't been much change in intelligence, which is quite unchallenging."

After Haoren finished speaking, he stopped making a sound and instead focused on watching the image presented on the holographic projection, because the battle had reached its final moments at this time, and he really wanted to see how those monsters were killed off.

The army of corrupted and mutated monsters had nearly collapsed in the face of the overwhelming attacks of the armed drones. Space was filled with charred fragments of flesh and twisted metal wreckage. Many fragments collided with the shield of that space continent as they floated, instantly evaporating into a wisp of green smoke. And the last group of monsters was being wiped out at a rate visible to the naked eye in the face of the drone's superior firepower.

They counterattacked frantically, scurried around chaotically, and tried to break through the drone swarm's encirclement from all directions.

Haoren watched this scene quietly.

Then he saw these blind monsters suddenly stop for a moment, and then launch a breakthrough in one direction.

Smaller, faster units charged ahead to serve as cannon fodder and meat shields. Some things with special abilities, like swollen fleshy sacs, floated around the formation to provide energy shields. The only remaining black warship of the monster army was in the middle of the formation, and began to use its more efficient secondary guns to clear the nearest drone swarm.

Haoren's originally indifferent expression instantly turned blank.

However, the struggles of that breakthrough force ended there—although they showed a strange order at the last moment and produced a little effect, the number of armed drones was simply too large.

The black warship and its escorting monsters were bombarded by millions of guns, and were completely annihilated in a few seconds.

This chaotic and insane battle ended, but it left Haoren with a huge pit in the last few seconds.