978 No Retrea
Han Xiao’s intelligence had torn apart the fog of war for the dynasty, and they swept across the entire Kunde Race territory in just a month.
Each army legion split their operations up, intercepting the Kunde Race main fleet at different coordinates, launching a fierce fight in the starry universe. The battleship fleet advanced as it swept across the galaxy.
Under the firepower of the dynasty, the Kunde Race was caught off guard, losing ground and a large number of their battleships.
In a certain Star System, a dynasty fleet was fighting against one of the Kunde Race fleets. The enemy was in a state of defeat, constantly being slaughtered mercilessly. Yet another battleship of the Kunde Race was shot through by a cannon and transformed into fireworks.
The enemy’s flagship had already been completely surrounded, with the weaponry of the countless dynasty battleships aimed on it. Once they made any movement, the dynasty would fire and destroy it. The reason they had not done so was because they wished to capture them alive.
A small spaceship flew out of the dynasty’s fleet, carrying the officers of the dynasty who were responsible for taking over the flagship.
The enemy withdrew their shield, as though indicating their surrender. The small spaceship thus approached smoothly and docked itself into the enemy’s flagship. The comparison was just like a sesame seed against a grape.
Whoosh!
The sound of the valves decompressing was heard, and the main door of the flagship overed, revealing a dynasty with pale skin. It was Gaud.
The aide-de-camps of the various dynasty officers all possessed certain functions. Some were used more as secretaries, while some aide-de-camps worked part-time during dangerous wars. Gaud belonged to the latter.
In front of them was a large group of Kunde Race soldiers, surrounding them completely as they tightly gripped their weapons, strongly signaling their readiness for battle.
Gaud swept them with a look before ignoring them, reaching out to adjust the universal translator in his ear before speaking.
“Who is the commander? Please come out.”
The Kunde troops immediately went into turmoil, and one of them, dressed smartly in uniform, stepped out. His tone was heavy. “Intruder, why do you understand our language?”
Both sides had been fighting from the start and had not exchanged any information. To this Kunde Race officer, this was the first time they had communicated with the other party, so they were surprised that he knew their language.
“It’s just an insignificant piece of technology.” Gaud’s tone remained calm.
The intelligence that Han Xiao had passed to the dynasty was the full package, even including their languages. Thus, the dynasty did not need to crack the nuances behind their languages. Rather, they simply imported the language into the universal translator for easy communication.
The Kunde Race Commander did not ask further, instead saying, “Please stop your killing of our comrades. We have already surrendered.”
“Ok. As long as you surrender and hand over the command to the fleet, we will stop attacking.”
“Good. Please follow me.”
The Kunde Race’s commander turned around, and his men left a path for him to walk through. Gaud eyed them, a ridiculing smile on the corners of his mouth as he strode to follow.
The entourage walked down the passages. Along the way, the atmosphere was oppressive, and no one made a sound.
After a period of walking, Gaud suddenly let out a snort as he leisurely said, “After bringing us on so many twists and turns, is your ambush ready yet? Don’t make me wait too long.”
Once this sentence was spoken, the commander in front halted in his footsteps, jerking his head back with shock flashing through his eyes.
Had they been exposed‽
But since he had discovered it, how could he remain so calm‽
While they had already been seen through, they had come too far to retreat now. The tone of the commander grew harsh as he snarled, “After wantonly massacring my troops, you still want me to surrender? Dream on! Let’s die together!”
His words had just been said when heavy trembling came from below them. As Gaud glanced down, he saw the alloy deck quickly swelling up, the seams breaking apart. A dazzling blue light shone through the cracks.
“To place the Primordial Psionic Energy onboard your own flagship, it seems like you’ve long decided to sacrifice yourself...”
Before Gaud could complete his sentence, a huge shock reverberated across the entire flagship.
Boom!
The next instant, the psionic energy blasted out, instantly swallowing the bodies of everyone present, including Gaud and the Kunde Race Commander as it filled up the entire area!
At the same time, the dynasty fleet stationed outside discovered the anomaly and saw the surrounded enemy flagship implode, turning into an expanding Primordial Psionic Energy sphere. The energy mass quickly approached the dynasty’s encirclement, and this was precisely the plan of the Kunde Race’s commander—detonate and bury the dynasty fleet with him!
Within the commanding flagship, the commander on the dynasty’s side coldly snorted.
“Indeed, they decided to do a suicidal attack. Psionic handling team, take action!”
Once the command was given, one of the spaceships detached from the dynasty fleet. From the head of the spaceship came out a circular device, which shook slightly and resonated, forming an invisible bubble that enveloped the entire psionic energy sphere. An obvious distortion could be seen within the space.
The dynasty had long made preparations for the self-detonation of the Psionic energy. This device was specially designed to deal with the pollution caused by the psionic energy. It would wrap up the entire psionic energy sphere, and the energy mass that had just formed was still considered small and easy to handle.
The expansion of the energy cluster immediately slowed down, and reverted, slowly contracting inward instead of expanding outward, continuously shrinking.
The entire process lasted for over 10 minutes, and the Primordial Psionic Energy cluster gradually shrank from the size of the flagship to a sphere with a diameter of two of three meters, and still continued to compress rapidly.
The most common way to control the psionic energy’s pollution was to use a special equipment to compress its volume, increasing its energy density until it turned into an energy seed, before stabilizing this energy. This method was considered relatively eco-friendly, with the least side effects, and the only issues was that it took a long time, and could not be used when the energy had expanded to a certain extent.
At this moment, a figure stepped out of the psionic energy cluster, which turned out to be Gaud. Not only was he unscathed, not even his hair style had gone out of place, and he even carried with him the Kunde Race commander who was still alive.
The entire flagship was engulfed by the Primordial Psionic Energy, and only the two of them were still alive.
“You, you...” The Kunde Race commander stared with wide eyes incredulously at Gaud.
He had already made the preparations to die with the enemy, but at this moment, he could not believe what his eyes were showing him.
Gaud only glanced at him, before knocking him out, and stretching out his hands toward the energy cluster.
Whoosh-
Misty traces of the psionic energy moving could be seen in the surroundings as the cluster turned into a small seed the size of a rice grain, shining with a bright blue light.
This was a freshly formed psionic energy seed, akin to a blue gemstone. It fell between Gaud’s fingers, dyeing his fingers and face with a bluish tint.
Despite holding an unstable energy source in his hand, Gaud had a calm expression on his face. He flipped his hand, taking out a spherical containment device before tucking in the energy seed.
He then gestured to the dynasty fleet, asking his colleagues to turn off the control device that was suppressing the Psionic energy cluster before returning to the commanding flagship with the Kunde Race commander to meet his superior.
“Good job, I’ll personally record this merit for you.”
The dynasty’s commanding general personally welcomed Gaud back and patted his shoulder. It was precisely because of this ability of Gaud’s that he had allowed Gaud to board the enemy’s flagship.
The Primordial Psionic Energy was an extremely domineering substance; even a Beyond Grade A would suffer if unprepared. But Esper Abilities had unlimited possibilities, and a rare few abilities allowed the user to survive within Primordial Psionic Energy.
Gaud’s ability was one of them, and the meaning behind it was extremely special.
Before Gaud appeared, the whole universe was speculating about the existence of such a Super High Risk Esper Ability, but there was never a case to prove their point. Gaud was probably the only case of an owner possessing a Super High Risk Esper Ability to be discovered since the ancient times, or at least his ability was the most similar to this Super High Risk Esper Ability.
On the surface, he was just a Super from the dynasty military who had just entered the Calamity Grade, but due to the special nature of his power, he had received a lot of attention from his superiors and had entered the list of key Supers under observation. The dynasty regarded him as a potential Beyond Grade A seed and had high hopes for him.
Hearing the praise, Gaud smiled lightly and recollected himself, standing by the side. His eyes were deep and unfathomable, and no one knew what he was thinking.
...
The dynasty started warring on multiple fronts, fully moving into battle.
The Kunde Race armies were defeated one after another, the dynasty’s sudden full-scale offensive disrupting their momentum.
“Everyone, we are losing this war.”
In the conference room of the Kunde Race flagship, the Kunde Race leader placed his palms on the table as he glanced coldly at the upper echelons present.
“Our defeat was expected, but this process has spiraled out of our control,” one of the senior officials said solemnly. “Our fleets, which were hiding in different positions, were all accurately attacked by the enemy, suffering heavy casualties. This is strange, as though the enemy seems to have knowledge of our coordinates.”
The battle strategy of the Kunde Race was to slowly lure the enemy deeper into their territory, bringing them into the hinterlands before using their main fleet to attack the stargate and cut off any paths of retreat of the enemy. They would then use the Scorched Earth plan to wipe the area of as many enemies as possible.
However, the precise attacks of the Crimson Dynasty had disrupted their battle strategies completely and made them wonder if their own intelligence had been leaked.
“There’s no way for us to judge now whether the enemy is utilizing special observation methods to locate our hidden main fleets or have stolen our internal intelligence. If it’s the former, it’s still ok, but if the latter situation has happened, our situation now is grim. The enemy likely has insight on our Scorched Earth plan, and they might even have grasped the coordinates of all our troops, including our location.” One of the officials had an uneasy tone as he spoke.
The Kunde Race leader said, “No matter what, we have to prepare for the worst case scenario. We have yet to properly master the quantum network technology in application, and the enemy’s technology is better than ours. We should first temporarily give up on this convenient communication technology.”
“But in that case, we’ll become even more passive...”
“Forget about it. Now that the big picture is already gone, it’s time for us to evacuate and pray for the Scorched Earth plan to take effect.” The leader spoke in a commanding tone. “The problem remains, does the enemy have any information about our Scorched Earth plan? If even that is exposed, we need a remedy.”
“How do we remedy this problem?”
“The troops implementing the Scorched Earth plan have been out for a long time. Even if the enemy has gained their coordinates, it will take some time to catch up. Thus, as long as we cut off the link between them and the headquarters, closing the quantum network, we will cut off all information exchanges with the outside world, so the enemy will lose sight of their coordinates.”
Hearing this, everyone could not help but nod.
This was a method to turn the troops involved in the plan into a blind and deaf ghost fleet.
“Since the enemy know of our plan, they will have prepared to deal with it,” someone said. “Even if they do not know the location of the Primordial Psionic Energy explosion, they can identify by observation and quickly manage it. In this manner, the effect will be greatly reduced.”
“That’s right. Our strategy could be considered, to a certain extent, to have failed.” The Kunde Race leader’s tone was decisive. “But we must leave as few resources as possible for the enemy. In any case, we must cause a certain degree of loss to the enemy.”
Among the upper echelons, no one objected.
Seeing that there were no objections, the leader then opened the virtual screen of the conference room, entering his own permissions before accessing a confidential interface that monitored the location and status of all Scorched Earth plan troops in real time.
At this point, the interface showed that all troops were rushing to their destination, proceeding as normal.
Confirming that the plan was still running as normal and had not been destroyed by the enemy, everyone was relieved. This was their last hope.
Everyone quickly connected to the representative of the Scorched Earth plan, and his figure soon appeared on the virtual screen.
“There is an order from the upper echelons. Change all psionic energy bomb locations and cut off the quantum network links. Close all channels of information completely, and only reconnect to report the results when you have changed all locations.”
“Understood.”
With a few instructions, the leader ended the call.
Less than a minute later, the real-time monitoring on the virtual screens slowly dimmed one by one as the links were disconnected.
Seeing this, one of the officials sighed. “While this is not the best solution, at least it’s more secure.”
The Kunde Race leader nodded. Surveying his surroundings, he spoke in a heavy tone.
“Since it has been properly deployed, we can start to evacuate. Remember to bring all the Super captives with us.”
As matters had reached this point, the Kunde Race decided to recall their troops and evacuate.
They had profited by catching a few Supers during their past few battles, and planned to experiment on them, so they were taking them back to study.
...
At the same time, within one of the borders of the Kunde Race territory, one of the fleets of the Scorched Earth plan was being attacked by the dynasty fleet.
The Kunde Race battleship was being boarded, and the dynasty Supers cleared the soldiers within the battleship.
The captain barricaded the command room, immediately sending communication requests to the headquarters again and again. However, all of them seemed to sink into the sea without any sort of movement.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t the upper echelons answering the emergency call‽” the captain screamed in exasperation.
At this moment, a cold beam pierced through the metal doors of the command room, penetrating the captain’s body.
Whoosh!
“Argh!” The captain screamed and fell, and blue blood spilled out.
A dynasty officer who was holding onto an alloy knife walked in, and glancing at the communication call on the virtual screen, he smiled and turned it off before looking at the unwilling captain’s eyes.
“Don’t waste your energy. You cannot contact anyone right now.”
Hearing this, the captain’s eyes grew wide. “Don’t tell me...”
Swoosh!
The knife swung, and a huge shrimp head flew up into the air. Blood splashed everywhere, forming a poor representation of some abstract art.
Sheathing his weapon, the officer turned away, not bothering to explain his plan to the enemy. This was one of the lessons all military personnel had to undergo.
In fact, Han Xiao had not just delivered intelligence to them but had pulled out all the stops. Since he had decided to help, he had conveniently handed over the loophole program that left him in control of the Kunde Race quantum network, to improve his task evaluation.
The entire command system of the Kunde Race was completely reduced to a plaything for the dynasty, where the latter could manipulate them as they liked.
All the pictures seen by the Kunde Race headquarters, including their communication targets, were illusions created by the dynasty.
The Kunde upper echelons thought that their troops had received all their orders, but in actual fact, nothing had gotten through to the soldiers on the battlefield.
The Kunde Race had already turned completely deaf and blind and mistakenly thought that the situation was proceeding according to plan. This was just an illusion that the dynasty had arranged. Since their system was paralyzed, the troops could not call for assistance and could only be slowly eaten by the dynasty.
Without the support of an interstellar society, the Kunde Race was akin to a crippled Star Cluster civilization. Their quantum network technology was bad and completely vulnerable to Han Xiao. If they were a true Star Cluster Civilization in the explored universe, Han Xiao would not have been able to gain control of their quantum network so easily.
Virtual Mechanics were originally considered a strategic weapon in the intelligence department, and Han Xiao stood at the peak of the Beyond Grade A level. Furthermore, with the recent addition of his [Perfect Mechanical Sense], his role in wartime far outstripped that of the other classes.
It was enough to let the enemy die without knowing how they died.
...
Within a starry sky far away, the migration fleet carrying all the civilians of the Kunde Race turned around without anyone sensing, returning along their original path.
There was no display on the star map, so everyone in the ship was unaware.
The dynasty did not have a habit of letting its enemies go and had already set up a web to capture them all.
The Kunde Race had practically no way to retreat.