Everybody on the battlefield saw the most unbelievable scene.
“Heavenly Crystal”, the transparent Colossus that seemed to be carved out of a whole piece of diamond, danced the splendid death of dance while it dragged the other three Colossi into its rhythm.
The three Colossi were like marionettes that were under its control, cramping and colliding with each other.
Countless iron balls were darting close from all directions and attached to the three Colossi. Other than locking the Colossi with the magnetic fields, they also spurted out highly-sticky glue that stuck themselves to the Colossi, as if countless burdens that weighed thousands of kilograms had been added to them.
The burdens were also spurting out flames of light to all directions, making the Colossi completely out of control at the mercy of the iron balls.
In the end, “Heavenly Crystal” dug open their spiritual residence and blew the users inside into smithereens without any mercy!
The heated battlefield a moment ago turned into disheartening silence.
Of course, it was Song Changlie who was disheartened.
“You-You-You—”
Song Changlie stepped back and fell to his own command chair. His lips trembled nonstop, and he could not even say a whole sentence.
“Boss Bai, what are you trying to do?”
His voice was full of confusion and desperation as he wailed, “I am Marquess Hushan of the Imperium. How dare you do this? You-You can’t kill me. If you kill me, you will be killed too! There’s no way that you can explain it to the four families!”
“Idiot, do you still not understand what’s going on?”
Boss Bai’s hologram put on a smile of disdain and mockery. “Everything I do is exactly the instruction of Commander Yun. Do you think that the fleets of a hundred Sectors have jumped to this tiny Seven Seas Space Zone at the cost of tremendous labor and resources just in order to annihilate a bunch of insignificant rebels?
“Hehe, the rebelling reformists are just rats and cockroaches that are not worth mentioning. If the purpose is to annihilate them, they would’ve been obliterated by nothing more than a gentle sneeze!
“Commander Yun’s real purpose, however, is to grasp the army of a million starships in his own hands with the great opportunity and transform it into a loyal, invincible, obedient force that only listens to the command of himself and the Yun family!”
“Ah!”
Song Changlie’s eyes bulged as he blurted out, “How dare Yun Xuefeng? How dare the Yun family?”
“If you don’t accept fate’s gift, you will only be punished by fate. Now that such a great opportunity has been present, why daren’t Commander Yun?”
Boss Bai grinned hideously. “After the battle, while the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors will be gone, hundreds of thousands of starships, including the sixteen Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships, will also belong to Commander Yun and the Yun family. By then, who in the entire universe can compete with Commander Yun and the Yun family?
“Hehe, after I make such great contributions for Commander Yun and the Yun family, I will be qualified to be knighted myself. Why can’t I explain it?”
“You’re out of your mind!”
Song Changlie pointed at the light beam, his hair rising. There was no telling whether he was angry or shocked. “You, Yun Xuefeng, and everybody else in the Yun family are all out of your mind! You… You do not care about the big picture at all!”
“The big picture? Hehe, if the Song family truly cares about the big picture, why are you competing with the Yun family about the choice of the new emperor? If the Song family truly cares about the big picture, why has your fleet been wandering at the edge of the space zone without any intention of marching at the Seven Seas Grand Market? Are you not waiting for Commander Yun’s fleet to crash and bleed first before the Song family cleans up the mess? Furthermore, if Commander Yun doesn’t crash and bleed, you may even stab him in the back!”
Boss Bai spat and smiled. “Alright, you’ve wasted enough time. I know that you are secretly preparing escape capsules. It’s useless. You know too much now. Go to hell!”
The hundred starships that belonged to the “Coalition Fleet of Pyromaniacs” opened fire at the same time. The ten thousand rays of destruction ignited the dark space again. Powerful spiritual waves ripped ripples in the vacuum, making it look like an ocean that was in the middle of a storm!
Under the collective attack of ten thousand pillars of light, the spiritual shield of “Tiger Roar” endured only half a minute before it turned from green to orange, and from orange to deep red, until it fell apart like glass that was full of cracks.
Without the protection of the spiritual shield, it was impossible for the armor that was made of superalloys inlaid with reflective porcelains to resist the burning when the temperature of almost ten thousand degrees was focused on one point.
Furthermore, the real-entity weapons, including the high-energy particles, the explosion bullets shot from the railguns, and the space torpedoes, hit the target too.
Fireballs burst out like a supernova outbreak. At first, it was just a tiny, insignificant spot of light, but it expanded into a gargantuan object hundreds of meters in diameter in the blink of an eye, enshrouding “Tiger Roar” without leaving a single gap. The plate armor that was several meters thick was ripped apart easily, and tremendous materials, fuel, and even crew members inside were sucked out. Congregating into an overwhelming torrent of debris, they were spurted into the infinite vacuum, making “Tiger Roar” look like a heavily-wounded and bleeding tiger.
The paralysis of “Tiger Roar” marked the end of the brief battle.
Nine out of ten starships chose to surrender to Boss Bai. They did not care who their commander was in the first place, as long as he was enough to bring them better chances of survival and more trophies.
Therefore, the commanders of those starships almost cheered when they joined Boss Bai’s side.
Of course, they were more or less nervous since Boss Bai had proved brutal enough to kill a marquess of the Imperium.
However, despite their concerns, Boss Bai would certainly not hesitate to kill the unimportant small fries like them if he was bold enough to kill Marquess Hushan. Who of them was willing to die with Song Changlie?
Only part of the starships that belonged to the Song family, after witnessing the destruction of “Tiger Roar”, fled further away to the edge of the Seven Seas Space Zone desperately.
What they were using were the most rapid attack starships that were fast and inconspicuous. When the two parties were a million kilometers away from each other, it was very difficult to catch up with them again.
Boss Bai did not intend to catch them but simply allowed the starships to flee. He seized every moment to regroup the subordinates that he had just subdued.
What he did not know was that, while Song Changlie was unable to get away from the vortex of destruction on “Tiger Roar”, he had sent the record of his conversation with Boss Bai to the other starships of the Song family, which had brought it out of the battlefield.
Or perhaps he knew it, but he did not care about it at all.
“Alright, the size of our fleet has reached the limit. If we continue to expand, it will be beyond what we can control and command.”
Boss Bai said to Xiao Lishui, his chief of staff, with a smile, “Give the order that all the starships that just surrendered to us should clean the battlefield. Ask them to blow up the debris of ‘Tiger Roar’ into pieces. Make sure that everyone’s hands are stained with blood.
“Whoever dawdles and dare not do it, let the others blow up his starship too.
“I want the most complete regrouping finished in three hours. Then, we will set off and search for our most beloved ‘Commander Yun’!”
…
On “Landslide”, the flagship-in-general of the coalition fleet of the four families, Yun Xuefeng was pacing back and forth anxiously on the diagonals of the bridge, making the 100,037th step in the past twenty-four hours.
At the center of the bridge, the hologram of the Seven Seas Space Zone was still covered in the dense fog, and the result of the battle was still nowhere to be seen.
A war in reality was entirely different from a game.
In a game, the commanders could learn everything on the battlefield like omniscient gods. Even though they could not see the numbers and movements of the enemies, they could at least see their own forces clearly. Their every order could be delivered to the battle units in the frontline instantly, and the battle units would be absolutely loyal to them and carry out their orders without any hesitation.
A war in reality was far from that.
The universe was so vast that the battlefield was billions of kilometers in diameter, and too many battle units had been scattered in it. Due to the incessant interferences from the enemy, the communication between two battle units was already very difficult, not to mention the cross-connection between Yun Xuefeng’s flagship and the other battle units.
As a matter of fact, it had taken Yun Xuefeng thirty hours, but he still hadn’t reached out to all of the starships under his command.
The status icon that implied the connection of every starship to the command chain showed 70% of the starships were still dark. It meant that they were still not connected to the battle network yet. There was no telling at which point in the dark universe they were struggling in, if they hadn’t been knocked down by the defenders.
Yun Xuefeng felt that he was a lone traveler sitting in the middle of a dark fog, waiting for the starry lights to be ignited around him. Every light was a warship under his command, and he did not know how much longer he had to wait before he gathered enough strength to attack the Seven Seas Grand Market.
The good news was that “Landslide”, his flagship-in-general, had finally found a peaceful and quiet rendezvous that had not been discovered by the defenders yet. It could stay here and summon more starships to join it.
Besides, only two Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships were caught in fierce battles after being detected by the defenders. Of the other fourteen Adamantine Super Arsenal warships, ten had been reached. They were all in perfect condition and were summoning the shield warships, the arsenal warships, and the comprehensive supply ships around, condensing into powerful Adamantine Fleets.
Yun Xuefeng estimated that as soon as three to four Adamantine Fleets took shape, he would be able to march toward the Seven Seas Grand Market and suppress the defenders.
The bad news was that, although the ten Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships had been reached, the commanders of those ultimate warships were much more undetermined than he expected. Almost everybody was complaining that abundant garrisons of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors had appeared around him. They reported that they were about to be engaged in fierce battles and were doing their best to escape. Therefore, it was temporarily impossible for them to cooperate with the commander’s operation in the next step.
At first, Yun Xuefeng thought that those Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships did meet unexpected enemies.
However, nine out of ten commanders of the Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships that he had reached said the same, which almost made him burst into fury. How on earth could the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors have so many starships to attack ten Adamantine Super Arsenal Warships at the same time?
