The Balance Shifts
However, often the ideal is lofty, but the reality is harsh.
Humanity was unaware that the Crimson Flame Civilization intended to delay the passage of time to thirty years later. In fact, the longer the time was delayed, the more advantageous it would be for humanity, since from that year onward, humanity's warship manufacturing capabilities had surpassed those of the Crimson Flame Civilization.
However, the human side did not intend to drag things out like this, nor did they stop to develop for several or even a decade after the first war, as they had done before. Instead, they took a year or two to rest and recuperate before leading their Great Fleet to their next target.
Humanity no longer has enough Strong Artificial Intelligence for production; four bases are the limit. While dragging things out will give us an advantage, it also carries unknown risks. Therefore, after destroying the Crimson Flame Civilization's Second Planet base, the human leadership decided to continue the war.
Another factor in making this decision was that the members of all three fleets felt that time was of the essence, and if they continued fighting so slowly, they might not be able to finish the war even when their lifespans ran out.
It could be said that the sense of urgency regarding human lifespan led them to inadvertently disrupt the Crimson Flame Civilization's efforts to Delaying Time. However, the fleet's deployment was similar to previous ones; not all of them were mobilized due to the urgency, and the Third Fleet was still assigned to patrol and guard duties.
After some repairs and replenishment, the Great Fleet that set out this time consisted of eight million Assault Ship and six million Main Battleship, with the First Fleet and the Second Fleet each leading half of the warships.
After the Great Fleet reached the designated separation point, Yue Yuan gave tactical instructions to the Commander of the Second Fleet Man Yuemei, through the combat channel.
He pointed to a planet on the real-time shared star map and said, "This is the First Orbital Planet. The Third Fleet razed its defenses to the ground back then, but after so many years, the Interstellar Transaction Market has rebuilt resource development facilities on it. According to intelligence, most of the rare earth elements needed for the core shipbuilding base of the Interstellar Transaction Market come from this planet."
Most of this intelligence was obtained during the Third Fleet's Orbital Bombardment of the planet. It was discovered that many important rare elements, such as lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, rubidium, promethium, samarium, and gadolinium, are abundant on the planet, constitute a high proportion of its total reserves, and are extremely easy to mine.
Other planets also have these elements, but they are much more difficult to mine. In order to obtain resources more quickly, the Crimson Flame Civilization chose to resume mining on the First Orbital Planet.
At this moment, Yue Yuan glanced at Man Yuemei on the screen, then raised his sword finger and drew an arc on the star map on the sensor screen, and continued to say to Man Yuemei, "Your fleet will proceed along this route and must paralyze the resource mining base of the Interstellar Transaction Market within six months. Meanwhile, my First Fleet will infiltrate from here, threaten their core star field, and draw away their main force for you."
Once your fleet has successfully crippled its base, it should rendezvous with my First Fleet to jointly strike its core area. The core of this battle is not Orbital Bombardment, but rather making every effort to destroy the enemy's warships.
"I see!"
After a distinctive mature female voice rang out, the Great Fleet split into two and headed towards their respective destinations.
The First Fleet's seven million warships headed straight for the enemy's core area. About an hour later, a huge Gaseous Planet came into view—or rather, was displayed on the screen of the Lyra.
It is clear that the Lyra has reached the enemy's core area, while the Second Fleet has already begun fighting against the enemy's First Planet defense forces.
"Enemy fleet detected, size 8 million, distance 0.241 Astronomical Unit, number of New Warship unknown, estimated engagement time."
A report alerted all personnel on the Lyra that the battle was about to begin.
0.241 Astronomical Unit is approximately 120 light-seconds, which is considered a very close distance at the level of Level 3 Civilization.
"Fleet, 18 rudders, half-acceleration deceleration begins, switch formation to long-range engagement formation." Yue Yuan then spoke, simultaneously transmitting the command to the Strong Artificial Intelligence of the Lyra through the Auxiliary Chip.
The so-called long-range engagement formation is actually a transformation of the original spherical formation into a rectangular formation, with the Main Battleship positioned in front of the Assault Ship, relying on its armor advantage to fire at the enemy at long range. This formation looks like a group of warships spread out like a carpet.
The First Fleet's current objective is to buy time for the Second Fleet, rather than directly capturing its core star system. Humanity does not believe it can completely destroy the Interstellar Transaction Market in this battle.
"Report, Neutrino Detection data has been obtained." At this moment, the staff member in charge of the detection module sent an image of the Neutrino Detection results to the shared terminal.
Yue Yuan immediately exported it, then stared intently at the image and conclusion.
"So many?!" Yue Yuan was stunned when he saw the detection results.
The First Fleet is now close enough to the core area of Crimson Flame Civilization. Although there is still a Gaseous Planet between them, Neutrino Detection can already provide a fairly accurate picture of the general situation on the other side of the gas giant.
So what Yue Yuan saw at a glance was a dense cluster of tiny dots. He knew what these dots meant in Neutrino Detection; they represented warships or spaceships made of steel.
The fact that over 70 million dots have now appeared in the detection results tells him that the Interstellar Transaction Market also has 70 million warships or spaceships.
"Commander Yue, it's most likely their Residential Spaceship Cluster." At this moment, the Science Officer on the Lyra analyzed, "This Interstellar Transaction Market clearly comes from other star systems, and the probes have not found any trace of its home planet in this Star System."
If they still had that many warships, there was no reason for them to keep them hidden. They could have easily deployed them at the start of the war to annihilate us with numerical superiority. Moreover, the fleet that has already engaged us demonstrates that they don't have much fighting strength left.
Yue Yuan nodded. Indeed, the fleet in front of them only had eight million ships. The Interstellar Transaction Market, which had been at war with humans for many years, could not possibly be unaware of the strength of human warships. If the number difference was not significant, they would definitely not be a match for humans. Therefore, if they still had enough warships, they would not have only deployed so few.
It seems that after so many years of attrition, coupled with the improvement of human shipbuilding capabilities, the number of warships on the Interstellar Transaction Market side has really decreased with each battle, to the point that they can no longer muster a fleet with twice the number of human warships.
The scales of victory have tipped completely in humanity's favor, Yue Yuan estimates that in another ten years or so, they will achieve final victory.