Chapter 261: The Illusion Shatters
“Are you sure?”
Mr. Sang was so excited he stood up, but he held back from celebrating prematurely.
“I still need proof!”
“Yes! We saw the flash of a thermonuclear explosion, and debris spreading out spherically!”
Oh—that’s truly wonderful!
Mr. Sang, a man in his fifties, was overcome with emotion, feeling like he was young again. He vigorously pumped his fists a few times under the table.
“Did those four surviving warships just flee?”
“No! We didn’t observe any signs of orbital ascent. They likely just changed course to an equatorial synchronous orbit on the planet’s far side, hoping to use the planet’s curvature to evade our war mech’s main cannon fire!”
“Excellent.”
Haha, ha!
This is foresight.
This is the Cangyuan Executive Officer’s character flaw! His obsession is simply too strong!
Even with his fleet heavily damaged, he’s unwilling to abandon the operation.
Even after witnessing power far superior to his own, he’s still futilely trying to achieve his pre-set combat objective.
Is this bravery?
No, this is stupidity!
Cangyuan, like Apollo, is a company where the boss has absolute power, a one-man show.
When the boss is capable, this might be one of the best systems in the universe, allowing for concentrated efforts to achieve great things.
However, if you encounter a foolish boss, then you can only concentrate efforts to do stupid things.
“Release the relay drone, fleet take off!”
The order was given.
The back of the Big Squid deformed, and a large drone separated from the mothership, taking off under the escort of the Dark Sun pirate fleet, flying towards the horizon.
Their length was slightly longer than Cangyuan’s frigates, their overall volume was larger, and their shape was peculiar, with segmented armor plates.
Like the body of a crayfish.
The aerial view was much better than on the ground. A moment later, the drone’s high-power radar successfully detected the Cangyuan Fleet’s traces.
This radar, leveraging the golden age’s phased array T/R component technology and superior engineering design, had a detection range more than 20 times that of the Dark Sun fleet’s radar.
It was also the one that almost detected Chang Kong and Lu Yuan earlier.
“Target locked, orbital altitude 35,000 kilometers, distance 65,000 kilometers. They haven’t gone far! Still within range!”
“Report! Main cannon fully charged.”
“Good! Strafing fire on the enemy’s remaining forces!”
“Yes!”
Following Mr. Sang’s command, the drone’s layered armor plates shifted. It curled up like a shrimp, its main body bending into an arc.
Boom!
Outside the office, a blinding light once again engulfed everything.
Looking down from space at this moment, one could see a dazzling pillar of light appearing in the atmosphere, and “auroras” distributed in concentric circles in the high altitude.
The main cannon of the giant war mech projected a powerful energy, bypassing the limit of its firing arc, shooting into the airspace below the horizon that was originally unreachable, and continuously strafed for about five seconds.
“Hit! Nuclear explosion observed! A total of four fireballs, they’re all wiped out!”
The pirates on the fleet shouted loudly in the public channel. Mr. Sang, hearing the good news, also trembled with excitement, then felt an indescribable sense of relief and exhilaration.
The nightmare of several months could finally end.
I had almost forgotten what it felt like to have no worries!
No one can stop me! Apollo will continue to expand, and Dark Sun will plunder tons of wealth throughout the Star Alliance, creating endless terror!
No, I need to calm down! I need to stay clear-headed! It’s still too early to celebrate.
This self-proclaimed clever boss picked up the communicator.
“The fleet will release drones for cover, then a portion will advance to inspect the target explosion area. I want to see tangible evidence that they have been destroyed.”
“But, Mr. Sang—we’ve already captured the explosion’s energy radiation, all of this truly happened.”
“Listen to me!”
“Alright—”
A sub-fleet consisting of four frigates and one destroyer detached from the Dark Sun fleet and headed to the battlefield area for “cleanup.”
“Confirmed! We found wreckage, and its flight path matches the explosion’s location!”
Upon receiving the news, Mr. Sang plopped back into his boss’s chair.
Excellent.
“Wait, this piece of wreckage, it seems a bit off…”
However, the next sentence made his heart seize up again.
“What? What do you mean?! What’s wrong? Explain yourself!”
“I—we can’t quite judge. We’ve taken pictures and sent them to you.”
Mr. Sang craned his neck, leaning forward, and quickly opened the photos on his computer.
He saw that the piece of wreckage in space was relatively large and intact. Its color and the curved shape of its surface were completely different from the Cangyuan warships seen in previous news programs. Instead, it bore some resemblance to the giant war mech he possessed, reminding him of creatures in nature.
“This is! Impossible!”
A drop of cold sweat ran down Mr. Sang’s forehead.
“Warning! Unidentified objects approaching at high speed! Quantity: greater than 300.”
A sharp siren, along with emotionless voice alerts, simultaneously sounded on the communication channel.
Instantly, Mr. Sang felt his heart as if struck by a heavy hammer. Those alarm sounds had already transformed into screams and wails in his mind.
The Cangyuan Fleet had departed 25 days ago.
This means they had already fully mastered the drone camouflage technology, which we still cannot replicate, a month ago!?
The Cangyuan Fleet was, in fact, never truly discovered by Dark Sun. Lu Yuan did indeed bombard Ruins Star from high orbit, but he never dared to hope that this bombardment would cause substantial damage to the enemy’s “ace” on the ground.
The true purpose of this bombardment was merely to test the opponent’s strength, to probe their true capabilities, and incidentally, to create a diversion, telling Dark Sun that we had indeed arrived and would indeed launch a fierce assault.
But after the bombardment, the Cangyuan Fleet not only never lowered its altitude but instead ascended, retreating to a higher, safer position,
Quietly overlooking the battlefield and observing the movements.
What proceeded towards the planet’s surface, from beginning to end, were the “Phantom Army” released by two “Wuyi” class vessels, consisting of as many as 400 black tech drones disguised as 7 fake targets!
It was precisely these drone swarms that were hit by the super-weapon-level main cannons!
Thanks to the newly developed swarm drone collaborative mode on Emerald Star, they can now form larger groups. Although this reduces the number of fake targets, they can use more complex algorithms to create more realistic warship illusions, greatly reducing the maximum distance at which they can be detected.
As for the explosions after being hit, a nuclear warhead could simply be pre-inserted into a few of them.
Of course, this method of faking thermonuclear fuel explosions can only be described as “relatively realistic”; the explosion of a nuclear warhead is not entirely identical in fireball shape to that produced by nuclear fuel.
If Dark Sun also had a professional scientific team accompanying them, like Cangyuan, sitting in the bridge and closely monitoring the battlefield situation, then perhaps they could have discovered the flaw in time.
Unfortunately, from beginning to end, they were merely a group of space pirates who lived by licking blood from blades, relying on cruelty and viciousness to survive.
A scientific team, and such, was simply too much to ask.
They were taking advantage of the uneducated!
Under the deception of the drone swarm, Dark Sun sent one-third of its fleet strength directly below the Cangyuan ambush point.
What awaited them, naturally, was a dense volley from three different models of electromagnetic cannons, as well as 41 “owl” heavy fighters that had accumulated immense speed increments through long-distance dives!
“Qinling” class electromagnetic main cannon, single shot maximum power 1000 tons TNT.
Modified warship main cannon pod, single shot maximum power 250 tons TNT.
“Wuyi” class, single shot maximum power 50 tons TNT, single volley power 300 tons TNT.
“owl” heavy fighters, each equipped with four laser cannons, illumination power exceeding 1GW.
The bomb bay carries 3 warp missiles, each carrying a 1.5 million-ton equivalent nuclear warhead, with a single drop quantity of 123 missiles, and a total power of 184.5 million tons TNT!
Although these missiles could not activate warp mode due to the influence of Ruins Star’s gravity well, relying on the approximately 35 kilometers per second initial launch velocity provided by the fighters, and their own orbital change and evasion capabilities, their interception difficulty was no less than that of electromagnetic cannon shells, and could even be said to be more threatening.
It was completely different from the “Moras” launched by the Jialan in a relatively static state back then.
The presence of fighters also provided physical support for close-range detection of enemy drone camouflage.
Through the data link, the Cangyuan Fleet timely adjusted its aiming targets, pouring its firepower as much as possible onto the real warships.
Facing such a dense and sudden saturation strike, the Dark Sun fleet only offered symbolic interception resistance, and then was swallowed by a hail of projectiles and a large number of nuclear fireballs.
After the first wave of attack, 8 of the 13 warships were reduced to cosmic debris and dust.
Two damaged warships fled without looking back, resolutely. The remaining 3 showed some backbone and reacted quickly, immediately locating the Cangyuan Fleet’s position and frantically firing all weapons on board.
However, neither lasers nor kinetic projectiles could penetrate the Cangyuan warship’s defenses in a short time.
The thickness of their armor and the length of their health bars were completely on different levels of strength!
“Executive Officer, current energy shield overload rate 19%, anti-laser coating integrity greater than 97%, overall safety factor greater than 1, can continue combat!”
“Understood. All ships, attention, cease attacking enemy warships. Concentrate fire on that uniquely shaped unknown vessel. If we observe it turning its front towards us, immediately initiate warp retreat!”
“Understood!”
Clearly, whatever that thing was, and whatever principle it operated on, it could relay and deflect the Big Squid’s super-powerful main cannon.
Currently, the Cangyuan Fleet was in orbit at an altitude of 100,000 kilometers, just at the edge where warp travel was possible.
Each warship, enduring the fire from Dark Sun’s remaining three ships, launched a second round of bombardment at the large drone.
The opponent did indeed adjust its posture and quickly turned its front towards them, as Lu Yuan had expected.
“That ship is equipped with a kinetic shield, and its power is very high! Our initial bombardment failed to overload it!”
“Opponent’s firing axis deflection completion 55%, we have at most 30 seconds left, then we must warp! Push harder, brothers!”
“Don’t rush me! Reactor power is constant, I can’t just run over and push the cannonball!”
“Why not!? Overload the reactor to the limit for me! If anything goes wrong, it’s on me, Black Smoke!”
“Alright, I’m going all out!”
“Continue bombardment! Don’t stop!”
Fortunately, the Cangyuan Fleet, with its numerical advantage, had superior firepower.
In the last five seconds, the large drone’s action of rotating its firing axis suddenly stopped, followed by an explosion.
Its kinetic shield was finally breached.