Chapter 268: Chapter 267: Half the Population
This attack from the Harville Fleet was completely different from all the previous ones.
It seemed the Harville Fleet had intentionally concealed its true strength before, holding back the intensity of its attacks.
But now, they had unleashed their full combat potential—completely, thoroughly, and without reservation.
It wasn’t just their 600,000 Warships and vast number of unmanned combat assets making a desperate charge. Even the multitude of ships protected within the fleet—residential, industrial, passenger, and cargo ships, even Space-Air Carriers—joined the assault. Any vessel with a weapon, regardless of its type, recklessly began firing, launching laser beams and Energy Cannonballs into space as they all attacked Li Qingsong’s defensive line!
Meanwhile, those flame-like unidentified objects had finished splitting apart.
Li Qingsong’s reconnaissance revealed they had dispersed into millions of individual “entities,” each with a radius ranging from twenty to a hundred meters.
Millions of these unidentified objects were now rampaging through space, indiscriminately attacking any piece of technology they encountered.
The laser beams were manageable and could be defended against. What truly troubled Li Qingsong was their other method of attack: they would attach themselves to an Energy Shield and then destroy it.
Once an Energy Shield was gone, not even a Warship built with a Strong Core-technology hull could withstand conventional attacks!
The unidentified objects weren’t just proliferating; they were showing signs of spreading deeper into the Star System.
‘Right now, I don’t know if they can enter an atmosphere. If they manage to breach it and reach the surface of Planet Two, then the industrial complex I worked so hard to build, and the five billion Clones I painstakingly accumulated will be…’
‘My remote combat control base might even come under attack. If that happens, the front line will collapse, and I’ll be instantly defeated!’
‘At that point, it won’t be a question of whether I can stop the Harville Civilization, but whether they’ll turn the tables, capture, or even kill me!’
‘However… these unidentified objects don’t seem to discriminate. They treat any technological creation as a target.’
Li Qingsong saw them destroy some of the Harville Civilization’s old Detectors, which had been hidden in corners even he hadn’t spotted.
‘Maybe that’s why the Harville Civilization went to such great lengths to get them inside my defensive perimeter before detonating them…’
‘I probably don’t need to worry about a counterattack from the Harville Civilization. Even so, I have to divert more energy and forces to deal with these unidentified objects. I need to figure out how they operate and find a countermeasure as quickly as possible. I can’t let them keep running rampant in the Star System!’
Li Qingsong quickly reached a decision.
With the Harville Fleet making a desperate push to break through, and with those flame-like objects wreaking havoc in his rear and causing massive casualties…
‘Maybe I really can’t stop the Harville Fleet from escaping.’
‘But even if I can’t stop you, you’re not getting away unscathed!’
‘You’ve caused me so much trouble. There’s no way I’m letting you go without making you pay!’
With his decision made, the tactics of Li Qingsong’s Warships on the front line changed instantly.
They no longer focused on intercepting the Harville Fleet. Instead, they let them pass while simultaneously launching an all-out offensive from every angle.
Before, the primary objective had been to stop the fleet’s acceleration and create an opportunity for total annihilation. Now, the main goal was to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy’s living population!
The shift in tactical objectives was immediately apparent on the battlefield.
Countless Harville Warships were now under a ferocious, indiscriminate assault. Li Qingsong’s ships even managed to briefly tear through the enemy’s defensive line and penetrate the main fleet, inflicting enormous damage on the non-military vessels within.
The intensity and brutality of the war suddenly increased severalfold.
Because from this moment on, the casualties were no longer limited to remote-controlled Warships; intelligent life was now truly dying.
BOOM!
Amid a blinding flash, one of the Harville Civilization’s residential ships exploded, spewing out countless fragments of debris and severed limbs.
It was a medium-sized residential ship. Li Qingsong estimated that at least one million Harvillers had lived aboard it.
And now, more than a million Harvillers had perished in space!
Another fireball erupted, illuminating the entire surrounding Star Domain.
It was an Interstellar Missile armed with a high-yield Hydrogen Bomb. It had broken through the enemy’s defensive line at incredible speed and detonated beside a colossal Space-Air Carrier.
The massive, twelve-kilometer-long Space-Air Carrier was instantly vaporized, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.
A Space-Air Carrier of this size required a crew of at least ten thousand to operate. With the Hydrogen Bomb’s detonation, those ten thousand-plus Harvillers, along with hundreds of millions of tons of supplies aboard the carrier, were instantly annihilated.
Enduring one devastating loss after another, the Harville Fleet continued to accelerate at maximum power. Li Qingsong only abandoned the chase once the main Harville Fleet had fled to a distance of ten billion kilometers.
Ten billion kilometers was the current limit of Li Qingsong’s Super-distance Communication. Any farther, and he would lose control of his Warships.
‘If I want to continue the pursuit, to deplete the Harville Fleet’s resource stockpiles and leave them without enough supplies to reach the next Interstellar System, my main body would have to mobilize.’
‘But if I do that, all of my rear bases will be vulnerable to those unidentified objects. Without my main body there to command, they’ll be defenseless.’
‘Right now… I can’t give chase.’
Li Qingsong’s fleet halted at that distance, watching as the battered Harville Fleet continued to recede.
Li Qingsong knew that in that brief, final phase of the battle, he had destroyed at least one hundred thousand of the Harville Civilization’s residential ships.
They were of all sizes: large, medium, and small.
With an average capacity of 1.5 million people per residential ship, that meant a loss of at least 150 billion lives!
Half of the Harville Civilization’s population had been wiped out in this Star System.
The number of other ships destroyed—industrial, transport, shuttle, and scientific research vessels—was countless.
As for their Warships, Li Qingsong had destroyed over 400,000.
The Harville Civilization had only possessed 600,000 Warships in total. Li Qingsong had just destroyed over two-thirds of them, and every single survivor was damaged.
Even the remaining civilian ships had all sustained damage to some degree.
The Harville Fleet was now truly a broken, defeated remnant, just barely clinging to survival. Even if they managed to reach the next Interstellar System, it would take them at least a millennium to recover.