After a few days of "luck", the intelligent races of the Kepru Sector finally encountered their first tragedy.
The Empire had been using its sharp teeth to intimidate the ignorant intruders. It seemed to have completely lost its patience. It raised its sharp teeth and claws and tore a military planet full of Proteus warriors into pieces.
It was still according to the precise and cruel numbers on the timetable, broadcasting to the entire sector without missing a single millisecond. But this time, some people who were still clear-headed realized that there was a huge difference between this broadcast and the previous one. This difference made them confused at first, and then they panicked.
There was an Independent Federation journalist who recorded the scene at that time. It was like the atmosphere of the execution ground. The ruler of the Empire stood on the high commander's platform and announced the list of destruction to every information port in the entire sector. Behind the ruler of the Empire, everyone was looking at the opposite direction of the screen, casting a gentle expression at the natives of Kepru. It was the last expression a priest on the execution ground would show to the condemned.
"Number 74, Planet Tedaklan, will be destroyed in thirty minutes."
That was the largest fortress planet that Tadalim had built in the eastern part of the Empire's occupied territory. The entire planet's grayish-blue ground was covered with their army. The Tadalim fleet stationed there numbered up to a hundred thousand. All of them were heavy warships, including aircraft carriers. That was the largest fleet that Tadalim could gather after such a long period of high damage. There were no Holy Motherships. Their few Holy Motherships had now been taken as trophies by the Xiling Empire (of course, I didn't dare to let the Proteus know that their race's monument had almost become the playground of the little Schilling Princess. Otherwise, even the Proteus of Shakuras would fight me to the death). Their ground forces almost filled every corner of the planet. The eyes of the zealots and hunters flashed in the darkness, staring at every inch of the night sky. Huge colossi and various mechanical guards wandered around the mountains and ravines of Planet Tedaklan. Such a scale of defense, if it was before the appearance of the Xiling Empire, would have been considered invincible. Tadalim would also proudly declare that this was the strongest line of defense in the universe! Even a billion insectoids wouldn't be able to breach this place!
But now, when Planet Tedraklan appeared in the death plan, what permeated the planet was not courage filled with confidence, but the sorrow of fighting to the death in the face of the apocalypse.
The so-called interception battle had long been proven to be impossible to succeed. The power of each planet's battleship was not something a conventional spaceship could contend against. Even the Schilling Fleet hidden under their crust was enough to wipe out any opposing force of any size. The only effective counterattack occurred two days ago in the battle royale. Tadalim used human wave tactics and suicidal attacks to successfully delay the voyage of a planet's battleship, causing its destruction to be delayed by about three minutes. That was the result of the battle.
Only by relying on a fixed planet base, continuously using powerful shields and suicidal spaceships to consume or deflect that terrifying light could there be a chance of survival. This was the conclusion that Tadalim and human scientists came to after joint research. Of course, this theory was based on the fact that the energy used by the Schilling army had a storage limit. If the Schilling people could really break the law of conservation of energy and make the energy of the planet's battleship infinite …
Then the Kepru Sector could only pray. Under the influence of the 'revelation', the Kepru natives who firmly believed that the Xiling Empire was here to destroy the entire universe believed so.
"Spaceship No.7 is approaching the target. Escort formation deployed. Energy core activated at any time." The broadcast on the bridge echoed softly, making it impossible for people to associate it with the apocalypse. It was Liliana's idea to set the host personality of the Empire Admiral to such a gentle and beautiful Jiangnan girl style. Her reason was that this would better inject a sense of humanity into the iron-blooded Xiling Empire. But listening to such a soft voice announcing the order to destroy a planet and countless lives, I could only feel a strong sense of distortion under the strong contrast. "Planet Tedraklan has been locked on. The enemy fleet has not taken the initiative to intercept. The destruction will begin in five minutes."
"Uh, I kind of understand why the broadcast on the battleship is so stiff." Liliana scratched her head in embarrassment. "This voice sounds really weird. Let's change it back."
"Phew …"
Renault exhaled helplessly but didn't say anything. Only a bunch of Shiring Apostles would be able to change the host settings of the entire Galactic Coalition Fleet's flagship on a whim.
The massive planetary battleship that was 1.5 times the size of Earth had stopped in its predetermined orbit. Before that, it had been traveling at full speed using the Quasi-Coordinate Engine. This kind of engine, which moved huge objects at high speeds regardless of mass and acceleration by continuously and minutely changing spatial coordinates in a higher dimension, consumed a lot of energy. Without being able to use the Psionic Abyss as the core of the battleship, 'Zero' 7 needed about five minutes to recover its energy supply after getting into position. During this time, the defensive firepower of the battleship itself was very weak, and only about ten thousand Schilling heavy-duty frigates could protect it. This was the only chance to attack a fleet of battleships, but it seemed that the guardians of Tedaclan were not willing to do so.
As the battleship deployed its escort formation, the energy core that overlapped one hundred and twenty-seven space-time psionic wells was slowly burning, a blue starlight floated on the surface of Tedaclan. It looked like an Eternal-class galaxy was gathering energy, but in fact, it was a large number of Proteans refining their spiritual energy and gathering it on hundreds of huge buildings on the surface of the planet. The buildings were shockingly tall, even piercing through the thick atmosphere filled with methane and carbon dioxide. Small spheres stretched out in low-Earth orbit, looking like the antennae of insects. At the roots of these buildings were a large number of crystal structures. These mutated crystal towers were injecting immeasurable 'psionic' energy into the towers. The main source of the psionic energy came from the crystal towers on the planet's surface and the Protean battleships hovering in the planet's atmosphere. The other part came from the Protean 'Protoss' of the entire planet. Such powerful energy caused the hundreds of towers on the planet's surface to emit a dazzling blue and white light. Then, a huge energy field appeared tens of thousands of kilometers outside Tedaclan's atmosphere.
"It looks like a mirror."
After analyzing the data sent back by the starship, Tawil quickly determined the principle of these things. Of course, she was not referring to the appearance of the gray energy cloud, but its principle and structure.
"It is surrounded by strong spatial mirror effects and gravitational disturbances, almost the limit of what Protean technology can achieve. The enemy seems to be trying their best to avoid the possibility of contact with the mass-energy conversion ray. Perhaps they have cleverly discovered that this ray has the property of devouring any energy and matter indiscriminately, so they intend to use this method to deflect it before it comes into contact. At least in theory."
"Will this method work?" Naturally, I did not understand a lot of technical jargon. Although Tawil had tried her best to omit many of the nouns for me …
"If they have enough energy, they may really be able to deflect the first ray, but it is impossible to deflect the second ray."
"Then there is no need to use the line of fire," Sandora ordered coldly. "Conventional weapons will do as well. You can use whatever method you want. I want Tedaclan to be completely destroyed in the first attack of the Imperial Army. We do not need to fight back."
"Everything will be as you wish."
Seves, who was on standby, bowed respectfully and began to choose the weapon that Sandora requested.
Perhaps after this sector calmed down, the soldiers who had participated in this strange war would come to realize how meaningless the initial resistance was. No matter what price they paid, even if they could really prevent the destruction of planet Tedraklan, or even destroy a planetary battleship, it was meaningless to the overall direction of the war. There were hundreds of such planetary battleships in the hands of the Empire, and the latter was just an expeditionary force. No one could imagine how powerful the complete strength of the Xi Ling Empire was. Even if all the races in the Kepru Sector were to use their power to cause damage to the Xi Ling Empire, it would not be greater than unscrewing two bolts from a battlecruiser fleet. But at this moment, the defenders of Tadalim were still carrying out a futile resistance, trying to use the most powerful spatial refractor they could condense to deflect the lethal decomposition ray, as if that would be able to turn the tide of the war. To be honest, at this point, Tadalim's resistance was no longer related to victory. It was merely a manifestation of spirit, and other than proving the courage of these zealots, it was completely meaningless.
The colossal warship — or perhaps it could no longer be called a warship, but a giant planet that had turned into a weapon and the gray-blue planet Tedaclan faced off from afar. Macroscopically, they appeared to be very close, as if two combatants were wrestling in close quarters, but in reality, the distance between the two was almost a million kilometers. The massive planetary warship and the heavily-guarded Tedaclan were no bigger than a bean in the eyes of the other. It had not reached the optimal range for the Mass-Energy Conversion Ray, which was why Tadalim's defenders were still doing their best to prepare, focusing the 'mirrors' that could not be strengthened any further and doing everything possible to prevent the planet from being hit by that ray. The remaining mobile forces were on standby in the planet's orbit, ready to launch a direct attack if the disintegration ray was ineffective against the Schilling Fleet.
In fact, the attack on Tedaclan had already begun. The Schilling Starship did not activate its gravitational regulation system, and under the effect of gravity, Tedaclan's orbit was slowly changing. But no one cared about that now: if the starship attacked, not a single atom would be left on Tedaclan, and by then, the orbit and the like would be meaningless.
It was still quite a distance away from the optimal shooting range of the mass-energy conversion ray, but the Xi Ling planet's battleship stopped at that position and did not move forward. Under the gaze of countless pairs of eyes, the crust of this' spaceship 'was slowly cracking open. The huge rift that originally existed was like rapidly drying skin that rapidly penetrated the surface of the entire planet. The complex mechanical structure and crystal system underneath flickered with a red warning light, like the pulsating flesh and blood of a giant beast that was gradually exposed. The entire starship was slowly opening up. The warriors of Tadalim knew that this was a sign that the starship was about to attack. When its equator opened up at a thirty-degree angle, the dark red planet's core would …
Wait a minute! It was still opening!
While the Tadalim officer was still curious as to why the enemy would activate their weapons outside their firing range, he suddenly realized a disturbing fact. The Xi Ling Empire's planetary battleship was still slowly opening its "crust". It was not opening at thirty degrees, but it was splitting into two along the equator! This process may seem slow, but when it was magnified on the entire planet, it was shockingly fast. In a few minutes, the death star had completely changed. It had completely split from the equator, and the northern and southern hemispheres were evenly divided into four parts. That's right, it was like a watermelon that was cut from the top and then cut from the middle. The planet's battleship was divided into eight irregular parts, and they were far away from each other. The dark red core just floated in the dark space, as if a giant had cut open his chest and held out his heart for people to see. The disturbing red light was still flashing regularly inside the eight pieces of the planet's battleship, completely eliminating the possibility of the starship disintegrating due to an accident. In fact, this possibility was just something that the 'undetermined' used to comfort themselves with.
"Attack! Everyone attack! All units, attack the core at full speed! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Before it attacks!! "
The Tadalim commander yelled frantically in the command channel, but it was too late.
The planet of Tedraklan began to tremble, and the violent, global earthquake was just the beginning. In space, the side of the grey-blue mineral planet that was facing the Schilling starship was slowly bulging, as if there was a bubble expanding beneath it. Then, some white fog began to emerge from the bulging area. That was a sign that the underground magma was about to erupt. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, the core of '007' was still emitting a dim red light, as if a calm eye was watching the changes of the planet.
Tadalim had already understood what the attack was. In fact, this attack was more primitive than the mysterious light that could erase the entire planet from the physical plane. Even humans could relate it to a gravity generator, a gravity generator that could tear a planet apart.
But that was not the end. The planetary warship that launched the attack did not seem to be satisfied with such a boring spectator. It trembled slightly and began to move slowly, not towards Tedraklan, but to the side. But very quickly, this movement was proven to have an arc. It was part of an arc with Tedraklan as the center, and the arc was becoming more and more obvious in space. The planetary warship that was using its gravity weapon to hang Tedraklan completely ignored its own mass and inertia, and with a graceful posture like a ballet dancer, it completed a stunning spin dance in a minute, drawing a perfect semicircle before coming to an abrupt stop.
The gravitational noose changed direction in an instant, and the disintegrating Tedraklan and its defense forces that had yet to set off were pulled out of their original orbit by the gravitational force.
Like a small iron ball being swung by a rope, Tedraklan was grabbed by the throat and thrown in another direction — toward its sun!
Nearly a billion pairs of eyes in the Keplu Sector witnessed this tragic scene. The warship of the Xiling Empire used the most primitive and barbaric method to show how far the difference in power could reach. A planet was forcibly dragged out of its orbit by the gravitational hinge, and then thrown into the sun like a piece of garbage!
Of course, before this, Tedraklan had completely disintegrated in the gravitational turbulence. Its planetary structure fell apart, and the exploding crust and mantle blew up its original defense fleet. All life on the planet had died the moment the planet changed orbit, and in the end, only a barely recognizable fragment of the planet fell towards the sun. Due to the distance, the falling process may last for a month, and the main structure of Tedraklan would be vaporized in a circle before coming into contact with the sun's corona. For a planet, this was already a very heroic way to die.
The entire attack was over. It took 29 minutes and 38 seconds for the doomsday notice to be issued, and the attack took only five minutes. The planetary warship used five minutes and a hammer throw to inform the rats of the Empire that the cat was tired of playing with them.
When the entire sector fell into a temporary silence due to the abnormally tragic "battle" (mainly because this was the first planet full of life that perished, and the planets that were destroyed before this were basically mineral planets that were rarely known), Zeratul brought us a piece of news.
The scouts of Shakuras found an ancient "holy land" in a hidden space, and the source of the revelation was there.
I can only say that Tadalim was too unlucky. They were probably just one day away from the end of the war … Of course, even if the revelation was eliminated, they might still choose to fight against the Empire. This was something that even Zeratul firmly believed.
The Dark Templar society of Shakuras was the first to know about what happened on Tedraklan, but they only expressed slight regret over it. From this, I once again felt the Proteus race's bigotry in their beliefs and their coldness towards those who didn't believe in them. Such a race that easily fell into extremes and stopped moving forward, I really didn't know if they were better than the humans or …
Forget it, why should I worry about those religious fanatics?
"But I really did not expect you to destroy a planet in this way. Throwing it into the sun, this is probably the most barbaric way to declare your power."
On the way to the "holy land" that Zeratul mentioned on the bridge, the Queen of Blades, who had obtained limited freedom, said to me on the Empire Admiral.
"I smell a conspiracy, a conspiracy that involves the entire sector and the so-called strongest races," the Queen of Blades had an unfathomable smile on her face. "You … Oh my god!"
"… Little Bubble, I told you, you can't bite Kerrigan's bone wings …"
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