https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-91-Morning-Star-Research-Institute-Illusion-Butterfly-Drones/12833466/
Chapter 92: The Stellar Civilization Battlefield
Chapter 92: The Stellar Civilization Battlefield
BOOM!
As the Azure Sky emerged from the spatial vortex, Song Chi had barely recovered from the intense sensation of weightlessness when a series of sharp explosions echoed in his ears.
The ship's violent tremors accompanied the explosions.
[Alert! Hull armor damaged 2%, please repair immediately!]
[Alert! Hull armor damaged 4%, please repair immediately!]
[Alert! Hull armor damaged 6%, hull integrity compromised 1%, please repair as soon as possible.]
Without waiting for his body to recover, Song Chi clenched his teeth, the pain clearing his mind and helping him quickly assess the Azure Sky's situation.
Looking ahead at the projection screen, he saw a dense cluster of bizarrely shaped starships engaged in a chaotic battle, their relentless cannon fire nearly illuminating the dark expanse of space.
In this battlefield, where the number of starships exceeded five figures, the Azure Sky's appearance caused little more than a ripple. However, the indiscriminate fire from all sides was unavoidable. In just a few seconds since its emergence, the Azure Sky had already been hit by several rounds of stray cannon fire.
"This luck... Last time, I was dumped into a star sea void, and now I end up in the middle of a battlefield. There's no way to escape in the short term."
Cursing his luck, Song Chi could only hope that the dark matter energy shield generator, which had activated automatically, would complete its charging process quickly.
While the battlefield was vast, most of the starships were of the zeroth and first tier. Second-tier starships were relatively rare. Once the Level 29 dark matter energy shield was active, the Azure Sky would be safe from immediate danger.
However, the dark matter energy shield generator required 30 seconds to fully charge, and during this half-minute, Song Chi could only manually maneuver the Azure Sky to dodge the incoming fire.
Suddenly, as if a starship in the battlefield had noticed the Azure Sky as an intruder, a second-tier attack landed on the ship's left side. Instantly, the internal lights flashed red, and the emergency alarms blared.
[Alert! Hull armor damaged 42%, hull integrity compromised 28%, severe damage, please repair immediately!]
This single attack had destroyed nearly a third of the Azure Sky's hull armor and damaged over a quarter of the ship's structure, placing the Azure Sky in an extremely precarious position.
Seeing this, Song Chi split his focus. One part continued to maneuver the ship to dodge, while the other urgently commanded the semi-automated ship AI to activate the "nanobot repair kit." Although the repair kit's effectiveness was limited, it was the only option since the Azure Sky did not have any spare parts for hull repairs.
As the nanobot repair kit activated, the Azure Sky's hull armor and structure showed some improvement, but it was quickly negated by the continuous barrage of attacks.
Despite his best efforts to dodge, the battlefield was a chaotic sea of cannon fire from all directions, making it nearly impossible to avoid.
Time slowly passed, and another ten seconds went by. With only ten seconds left until the dark matter energy shield generator was fully charged, the ship shuddered again, followed by a rapid series of warnings.
[Alert! Hull armor damaged 57%, hull integrity compromised 40%, please repair immediately.]
In just twenty seconds, the Azure Sky's hull armor damage had reached nearly 60%. Song Chi's brow furrowed as he reflected on a phrase he often heard in his textbooks.
"Every interstellar war is a massive meat grinder."
At this moment, he deeply understood the essence of that statement.
Moreover, the need for high-quality hull armor components rose to the top of his priorities. The Azure Sky's current gold-rock hull armor was only of white quality, and he had never bothered to reinforce it beyond Level 10. If it had been a blue-quality hull armor, it would have been reinforced to at least Level 20, and the current crisis might have been avoided.
Exhaling, Song Chi cleared his mind. In a fraction of a second, his mental focus intensified, and his mind became crystal clear. An expert observing him would recognize his state as the "limit-breaking state."
In this state, his mental power, which usually allowed him to focus on two tasks simultaneously, now enabled him to handle three tasks effortlessly. With this enhanced focus, Song Chi could dodge incoming attacks more effectively and simultaneously control the Azure Sky's main and secondary cannons to retaliate.
From the main cannon at the ship's prow, a particle beam several centimeters in diameter shot out, instantly piercing several bizarrely shaped starships. In the face of a second-tier blue-quality main cannon, these alien starships were incredibly fragile.
At the same time, the Azure Sky received notifications of dozens of zero-tier floating land essences.
Although the particle beam attack only destroyed a few alien starships, each ship carried multiple alien beings. Destroying a first-tier starship typically yielded around ten strands of zero-tier floating land essence.
Song Chi's eyes lit up. This was more than he had anticipated.
With this calculation, the current battlefield seemed like a good place to harvest floating land essence. Based on his rough estimate from the Sky Eye patrol radar, the battlefield contained over twenty thousand alien starships, with several thousand being first-tier.
Of course, while the potential was enticing, his primary focus was still on surviving until the dark matter energy shield generator was fully activated.
BOOM!
The main and secondary cannons continued to fire, and the Azure Sky's floating land essence rapidly accumulated. With his enhanced focus, the rate of hull damage significantly decreased. Finally, after narrowly dodging another round of attacks, the dark, energy shield enveloped the entire hull of the Azure Sky.
With the dark matter energy shield generator fully activated, Song Chi's operations became bolder. He no longer focused primarily on dodging but instead directed the Azure Sky's main and secondary cannons to precisely target the surrounding alien starships.
The dark matter energy shield now had over 300,000 hit points and a defense value in the tens of thousands. Even a direct hit from a second-tier alien starship would cause minimal damage. As long as not thousands of starships focused their fire simultaneously, the Azure Sky would be safe. Therefore, Song Chi had no concerns.
Drifting through the starry battlefield, when Song Chi spotted a cluster of first-tier starships, the Canopy immediately fired a shot.
Initially, he had been somewhat concerned that these unknown alien races might have other reinforcements. If any starships of the second tier or higher appeared, the Canopy would still be at risk of sinking. However, after gathering data from various starships over time, he no longer had any such worries.
Through his investigations, he had come to understand the situation of this alien civilization.
This was a technological civilization known as the Starlight Civilization, which had only developed for about two thousand years. It currently occupied only five life-bearing floating lands and over a dozen resource-rich floating lands, with a territory spanning no more than a hundred light-years.
Due to the lack of technologies like spatial gates and spatial jumps, and the unfortunate absence of wormholes or other star sea passages, the Starlight Civilization was essentially trapped in this small star domain. Over a thousand years, the resources in this star domain had been almost entirely depleted. As a result, the Starlight Civilization remained a low-tier, second-class technological civilization.
Perhaps because of the lack of hope, over time, the Starlight Civilization had not focused on researching spatial technologies. Instead, they devoted their energy to internal conflicts. The current starry battlefield was a result of a war between two factions within the civilization.
Song Chi found this situation somewhat tragic. To him, the Starlight Civilization was like a frog at the bottom of a well, content to stay in its narrow world without exploring the vast star domain around it.
However, from another perspective, a civilization born in an isolated star domain might not even have the concept of spatial gates or spatial jumps. Without such concepts, how could they even begin to research or break through these technologies?
Reflecting on this, Song Chi felt fortunate to have been born into the Ember Human Civilization, a powerful, high-tier star sea civilization.
Time passed quickly as he continued to drift, and soon half an hour had flown by.
At this moment, a starship nearly a kilometer long appeared in the direction the Canopy was heading.
This starship had a nearly hundred-meter-long crack on its right side, and its main cannon at the bow was emitting thick smoke, clearly the result of a fierce battle.
Seeing this, Song Chi's eyes flickered with determination. He maneuvered the Canopy straight toward the starship.
At the bow of the Canopy, a blinding light rapidly gathered, and the particle beam cannon began to charge.
With the dark matter energy shield generator and the particle beam cannon both enhanced to the second tier, Song Chi was not about to miss this golden opportunity.
Despite the star domain's remoteness, it still contained over twenty floating lands, and there was a good chance that one of them harbored star sea curios. As the highest-tier starship of the Starlight Civilization, a second-tier starship had a high probability of possessing such treasures. With this in mind, Song Chi was even more determined to sink this severely damaged second-tier starship.
It seemed that the starship's engines had been heavily damaged in a previous battle, and it did not attempt to evade the Canopy's main cannon, which was in the process of charging.
Boom!
A scorching particle beam shot out, piercing straight through the second-tier starship of the Starlight Civilization. Just as Song Chi thought the enemy might have some hidden move, the particle beam cleanly penetrated the starship.
Indeed, it was entirely pierced through.
Despite its impressive size, nearly a kilometer long and comparable to a cruiser in the Ember Human Civilization, this starship was far inferior in terms of armor defense, firepower, cruise speed, and radar precision. Even a frigate could outperform it, and some small energy ships could do so as well.
Thus, a larger starship did not necessarily mean greater combat power. Only when all aspects like armor defense, firepower, and speed were enhanced could the size advantage be fully utilized. Otherwise, it was just a moving target.
Song Chi felt a surge of joy, confirming his suspicion that the starship's engines had been damaged in the previous battle, leaving it unable to evade the Canopy's attack.
While maneuvering the Canopy around the second-tier starship and waiting for the particle beam cannon to recharge, Song Chi also controlled the Canopy's secondary cannons to continuously fire at the starship. The main target was the secondary cannon ports, as the main cannon had already been damaged in the previous battle, and these secondary cannons were the only threat to the Canopy.
Boom!
Buzz!
Under the bombardment of the Canopy's secondary cannons, the alien crew inside the starship did not sit idly by. They also controlled their secondary cannons to attack the Canopy. The second-tier secondary cannon shells hit the dark matter energy shield, causing ripples.
However, that was all. An orange-quality dark matter energy shield generator, enhanced to level 29, was far beyond the capabilities of a low-tier technological civilization's second-tier secondary cannons.
Soon, the particle beam cannon completed its recharge. As soon as the charging was done, another scorching beam shot out, piercing through the starship once more.
This time, the beam hit the main control room. After this attack, the starship's secondary cannons ceased firing, suggesting that the particle beam had killed all the aliens inside.
Song Chi was not in a hurry. Although several Starlight Civilization starships were approaching, they were all zero-tier and first-tier, posing no threat to the Canopy. Therefore, he did not immediately summon the Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Golems for boarding. Instead, he fired a few more rounds from the particle beam cannon.
Once he was confident that most of the aliens on the second-tier starship were dead, he summoned ten Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Golems, equipped them with used military exoskeleton armors, and attached a brainwave beacon to one of them before opening the Canopy's hatch.
Led by the golem with the brainwave beacon, the ten Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Golems, armed with advanced titanium alloy long knives and battle shields, charged directly into the starship's engine room.
As the ten golems boarded the starship, Song Chi immediately maneuvered the Canopy to a safe distance. After all, it was a second-tier starship, and there was no telling what hidden tricks it might have. Out of caution, Song Chi did not want to get too close.
Fortunately, the range of the brainwave remote control system was sufficient, and even though he had exited the Limit Break state, he could still control the ten golems with ease while multitasking.
(End of Chapter)
Chapter end
Report
