Chapter 257: Chapter 256: One in a Hundred Million
Gazing at the distant battlefield, which shone like a cluster of stars, a hint of madness flashed through Li Qingsong’s mind.
‘The Cosmos is vast, home to countless civilizations. I’d bet that I’m the only one in the Strong Core Stage who can pull off an attack like this!’
‘So, the Harville Civilization… Consider yourselves honored. You’re the first civilization in the Cosmos to ever experience an attack like this. Now, enjoy it!’
A few dozen seconds passed in a flash. Finally, the X and Y Bosons responsible for creating the Unified Force Field arrived on the battlefield, traveling at near light speed.
Just before their arrival, the Energy Shields on all of Li Qingsong’s assets—whether they were manned or unmanned spacecraft, Interstellar Cannon Platforms, or laser emitters—flickered imperceptibly as their frequencies underwent a minute change.
According to Li Qingsong’s research, there were only three ways to counter the effects of the Unified Force Field.
The first was to tune one’s Energy Shield to a specific, unique frequency. This would block the Unified Force Field’s influence, preventing it from affecting the shielded structure.
This was the least costly and most convenient method, with virtually no side effects.
This was the method Li Qingsong employed.
However, to use this method, one had to know the precise parameters of the Unified Force Field in advance. It was obvious, then, that only the field’s creator—Li Qingsong himself—could use this technique.
The second method was to rely on the sheer strength of an Energy Shield to resist the field head-on.
Since Energy Shields were essentially composed of Particles in a Strong Core Excited State, they also had some resistance to this type of field, though their efficiency in doing so was quite low.
The third method was… luck.
One could simply leave it to fate. Who knew? Perhaps a particular geometric point in space would happen to be in an area where the Unified Force Field’s coverage was weaker.
There were only these three methods. No others!
And so, with nearly all of Li Qingsong’s shielded installations remaining unaffected, a wondrous spectacle unfolded.
The sensors on the numerous manned and unmanned spacecraft instantly detected changes in their own systems. This data was immediately relayed via Super-distance Communication to the control base in the rear.
In that instant, countless alarms in the control base began to blare, their piercing wails tearing through the air.
The next moment, across the vastness of Deep Space—within a radius of approximately four million kilometers centered on Planet Two, which encompassed the entire battlefield—countless dazzling fireballs erupted simultaneously, as if millions of suns had suddenly ignited across the combat zone.
The Strong Core Excited State draws its energy from mass-to-energy conversion. Its conversion efficiency is quite low, far below that of hydrogen or atomic bombs, peaking at only around 0.00005%.
Under the widespread coverage of the Unified Force Field, the mass-energy conversion efficiency dropped even lower, to only about 0.000001%.
But even at this rate of one in one hundred million, a 1,000-ton Warship would still have approximately 10 grams of its matter converted into energy.
A mere 10 grams of matter might not sound like much, but its equivalent yield was a staggering 210,000 tons of TNT!
In other words, the effect was equivalent to a 210,000-ton-yield Hydrogen Bomb detonating at point-blank range from within the Warship’s own Energy Shield!
What was the result?
Simple.
In the face of such unparalleled temperatures, it took only an instant—not even a hundredth of a second—for the Warship to be blasted into a ball of fire.
What remained after the fireball dissipated?
Nothing at all.
Not even a scrap of debris remained. All the matter that composed the spacecraft had been completely vaporized by the extreme heat, utterly reduced to interstellar dust.
It had vanished into thin air.
And now, under the widespread coverage of the Unified Force Field, this was not the only Warship to have vanished into thin air.
In that instant, Li Qingsong saw millions of fireballs, each one like a detonating Hydrogen Bomb, bloom across the vast expanse of the battlefield.
And those were just the larger, easily distinguishable ones. The smaller, weaker explosions—from a satellite or a small unmanned spacecraft, for example—were impossible to discern, completely lost in the blinding light from the larger ships’ destruction.
Li Qingsong saw that not even the Harville Civilization’s Warships were spared—including those that had yet to join the battle and were still docked in the bays of their motherships.
Not all of those densely packed Warships needed to be affected directly to cause an explosion. A single small or medium-sized ship was enough.
A point-blank detonation of a 200,000-ton-yield Hydrogen Bomb was more than enough to obliterate the entire colossal mothership, along with the hundreds, even thousands, of Warships docked inside.
In a single instant, everything under the widespread coverage of the Unified Force Field—Warships, satellites, Cannon Platforms, and Landmines alike—was swept away, like an autumn wind scattering fallen leaves.
‘At this moment, Li Qingsong wasn’t thinking about pressing the attack and expanding his victory. Instead, he was focused on maximizing his defenses, switching his own ships’ internal systems to safe mode as fast as possible.’
‘Only then could he protect his own forces from the endless, violent, Hydrogen-Bomb-like detonations. Otherwise, amidst such a chaotic electromagnetic environment and the onslaught of radiation and thermal shockwaves, his own ships would be destroyed by the enemy’s exploding fleet, even if they were immune to the Unified Force Field itself.’
Planet Two itself was not directly affected.
This was because the Unified Force Field was more sensitive to metallic and comparatively smaller targets.
A planet is neither metallic nor small, and its sheer mass can effectively block the X and Y Bosons, so it would not be affected by the Unified Force Field.
However, it did suffer indirect effects.
With the equivalent of one high-yield Hydrogen Bomb after another detonating in its vicinity, an endless tide of heat and radiation surged forth. In an instant, the planet’s atmosphere began to churn violently as winds the likes of which it had never seen since its formation swept across the entire globe.
A few short seconds later, the Unified Force Field dissipated. The fiery light from the explosions of countless manned and unmanned installations finally vanished.
The battlefield fell silent in an instant, utterly still.
In the rear, at the battlefield control base, the piercing alarms still shrieked. The Harville Warriors, who had been in the heat of battle just a moment before, removed their helmets and stared at one another in stunned silence.
‘A moment ago, they were perfectly connected to their Warships, right in the heat of battle. And now… they’d lost contact in an instant?’
‘A malfunction? That didn’t seem right. After all, their comrades had lost their connections too. It was impossible for all of them to fail at the same time, right?’
‘Besides, who’d ever heard of a method that could interfere with Super-distance Communication?’
‘Then…’
‘Where’s my Warship?’
‘Where did my huge Warship go? It was perfectly fine a moment ago!’
At that moment, even the crews of the few remaining Harville Warships—those that had survived either by sheer luck or because they were large enough and their Energy Shields strong enough—were stunned into inaction.
But Li Qingsong showed no such hesitation.
‘Perfect. Strike while they’re down!’