Chapter 60: Total Annihilation
In the vast, profound depths of space, a fierce battle began against the backdrop of the dark red Enemy God Star.
But this battle seemed a little strange.
Li Qingsong’s "Mercury-class" Warships seemed to only care about charging straight ahead, ignoring everything else.
They didn’t return fire, perform tactical evasions, or conduct interstellar scans. Nothing.
They just charged forward.
And so, projectiles from the unknown warships rained down furiously upon the 250 "Warships."
In the next moment, a dozen or so Warships exploded violently, turning into shrapnel.
Li Qingsong felt no heartache. He endured the communication delay of over four minutes, controlling the Clones with all his might and focusing every effort on collecting combat data from the unknown warships.
’They also use projectiles as their main offensive weapon. But these obviously aren’t gunpowder bullets. Gunpowder bullets can’t reach this speed.’
The maximum velocity of a gunpowder bullet was only about seven to eight kilometers per second; it could never break ten kilometers per second.
The reason was simple. The maximum detonation velocity of gunpowder itself was only seven to eight kilometers per second, so how could it propel a projectile to ten kilometers per second?
Yet, the projectiles Li Qingsong observed the enemy firing had a velocity of at least 40 kilometers per second!
These were clearly not gunpowder bullets. Based on his understanding of human technology and its future projections, Li Qingsong quickly made a judgment.
’They’re Electromagnetic Cannon Projectiles!’
By employing a propulsion principle similar to High-speed Ion Propulsion and using an electromagnetic field to accelerate the projectile, the bullet’s velocity could be boosted to the current speed of around 40 kilometers per second!
Although the mass of a single projectile was small, its velocity was high enough. With high velocity comes high kinetic energy, and naturally, high destructive power.
Thus, compared to gunpowder bullets, Electromagnetic Cannon Projectiles offered a combination of improvements: higher speed, greater destructive power, and lower mass for easier transport.
A single one of Li Qingsong’s bullets weighed 10 grams; carrying 400,000 of them would total 4 tons. In contrast, an Electromagnetic Cannon Projectile could be as light as 0.5 grams, so 400,000 of them would only weigh 200 kg, drastically reducing a starship’s load.
And what’s more, the destructive power of Electromagnetic Cannon Projectiles was even greater.
’But Electromagnetic Cannon Projectiles have an extremely high demand for electrical power. High-speed Ion Propulsion has the same characteristic.’
’In that case, the enemy’s Warships must possess an extremely high power supply capability. Such enormous power consumption could never be met by chemical fuels.’
’Even a nuclear fission reactor would struggle to keep up.’
’So...’
’It’s highly likely they’re using miniaturized Nuclear Fusion Reactors as their power source!’
Another piece of technology that Human Civilization had yet to master even at its peak!
’A technological gap! The gap between my current Warships and the enemy’s is more than a single generation!’
The difference was like trying to fight a swarm of drones, planes, artillery, and missiles with a Maxim machine gun from World War I!
This fight was completely unwinnable!
But it didn’t matter. Li Qingsong hadn’t planned on actually fighting in the first place.
Even without the technological gap, how could he fight? His real body was on Ceres while the battle was happening at Enemy God Star. The round-trip communication delay was around four minutes.
’So let’s just not fight! Sending them to their deaths should work, right?’
A short while later, the majority of Li Qingsong’s 250 "Mercury-class Warships" had been destroyed. The remaining few took the opportunity, while the enemy was not yet upon them, to self-destruct and finish the job.
At this point, the enemy seemed to sense that something was wrong.
Through spy satellites positioned far away, Li Qingsong observed the enemy’s subsequent actions.
They maneuvered their Warships slowly forward and began salvaging the wreckage of his ships for analysis.
The enemy must have found it exceedingly strange. Faced with an attack, they didn’t dodge, evade, or fire back. Had they really come just to die?
With such doubts, it was only natural for them to conduct a follow-up inspection. And Li Qingsong had never expected to be able to hide the truth from them.
That’s right. The so-called "Mercury-class Warships" he had sent to attack the enemy’s nest on Enemy God Star were not actually Warships at all!
The machine guns, Machine Guns, Missiles, and radar systems on them were all just empty shells—props with no actual function.
They were just old cargo ships that he had refitted with new shells to disguise them.
The real Mercury-class Warships were still safely hidden in the ground-based factories!
They were just some obsolete, worn-out cargo ships. If they were sent to their deaths, so be it. Li Qingsong couldn’t care less.
As long as he could buy more time, that was all that mattered!
Through the spy satellite’s view, Li Qingsong saw the few Warships that had come to inspect the battlefield return to their mothership, looking somewhat furious and exasperated.
If they weren’t furious, why else would they vent their frustration by firing a few more shots at the wreckage?
’Now that they’ve discovered they were tricked, what will they do?’
Li Qingsong continued to watch closely.
A few days passed. The unknown Warships were still guarding their mothership and had not left. Li Qingsong breathed a sigh of relief.
He knew he had guessed correctly once again.
The enemy had indeed chosen to remain on the defensive, to keep waiting for his second fleet to arrive.
Li Qingsong considered this a very reasonable choice for the enemy to make.
After all, while the first fleet had zero combat capability and was a complete sham, who could guarantee that the second fleet would be just as powerless?
’Perhaps the opponent’s strategy is to use a powerless fleet to trick us into thinking the second fleet is also a sham, thereby luring us away from defending our home base?’
’Since we’ve already waited for months, what’s the harm in waiting a little longer? Once the second fleet arrives, we’ll annihilate it completely, whether they’re real Warships or disguised cargo ships. Then we can launch an expedition to the enemy’s home world without any worries.’
Under these circumstances, Li Qingsong stalled for over another month before the second batch of 25 small fleets finally arrived near Enemy God Star, completed their assembly, and once again began their charge.
It wasn’t that Li Qingsong didn’t want to stall longer; he simply couldn’t. If he dragged his feet any more, he feared the enemy would really throw caution to the wind and attack.
But that was fine. By now, he had completed all the necessary follow-up arrangements back on Ceres. Everything that needed to be done was done. This second fleet could be sent to its death.
The course of this battle was, once again, completely devoid of suspense. The 250 cargo ships disguised as Warships were all wiped out in just a few hours.
Using the view from his spy satellites, Li Qingsong saw the enemy’s next move.
A total of 45 Warships gathered around the mothership with an unprecedented level of efficiency. They completed resupply in the shortest time possible, reassembled in the shortest time possible, and in the next moment, ignited their engines simultaneously, eager to begin their expedition to annihilate this annoying opponent.
But in the next instant, Li Qingsong saw all 45 of these powerful Warships—at least two generations ahead of his own—simultaneously cut their engines and retreat back to the mothership in a slight panic.
Even though there was no information exchange between the two sides, Li Qingsong could almost hear their cries of shock and anger.
"What’s going on? What’s happening?!"