The Tide Had Turned
Without other fleets, the outcome of this battle for the First Fleet was already a foregone conclusion. The Crimson Flame Civilization clearly knew this as well, so as the two fleets prepared to engage, another of their fleets entered the detection range of the First Fleet.
It was a fleet with five million warships. Judging from the area where they appeared and their original direction of movement, they were originally supposed to be going to support the defense forces of their First Planet. Perhaps they realized that the human fleet that appeared here was not something their own fleet could handle, so they changed course and turned towards the human First Fleet.
The two fleets together number thirteen million ships. Yue Yuan is used to fighting with fewer ships than others, and the Strong Artificial Intelligence has already summarized many sets of coordinated tactics, making it extremely proficient.
The Crimson Flame Civilization was aware of the human tactics, but they had no better way to counter them. With a numerical advantage of less than twice that of humans, they had to launch a close-quarters assault to destroy the human flagship in order to win. Otherwise, they would only fall into an increasingly disparate disadvantage through long-range attrition.
Therefore, the moment the two fleets entered the effective range of the Laser Energy Cannon, humanity began kiting tactics, maneuvering and firing at the same time, trying to keep the distance beyond 15 light-seconds.
As soon as the battle began, humanity achieved a significant advantage in casualties, with a ratio of 1 to 4.
However, this tactic changed slightly as another fleet of the Crimson Flame Civilization joined the battlefield from another direction. The Crimson Flame Civilization's reckless charge made it impossible for the Human First Fleet to maintain distance through maneuvering. Many of the warships that were originally in the forefront were now bogged down in close combat.
Yue Yuan was neither surprised nor afraid of this, because in the long-range attrition battle that had just ended, the enemy had destroyed more than two million warships due to their eagerness to charge, while his own First Fleet had only lost less than four hundred thousand Main Battleship.
Of course, based on the feedback from the attack, humanity also discovered that these destroyed warships were not their New Warship, because they were too fragile.
Indeed, the Crimson Flame Civilization's New Warship were all in the rear echelon, and their purpose was self-evident: they wanted to use the relatively powerful armor of their New Warship to attack the core of the human fleet and then destroy the Lyra.
The tactics were good, but the results were not good.
These New Warship did indeed withstand human long-range fire and successfully broke into the human First Fleet, but what they were facing now was not the human Flagship Lyra, but the assault warships that were originally positioned at the rear.
Upon discovering that the New Warship of the Crimson Flame Civilization had successfully penetrated the fleet formation, the human Main Battleship consciously turned to avoid them, and instead, the Assault Ship from the rear charged forward.
At first, the Commander of the Crimson Flame Civilization was quite pleased to see the human Assault Ship charging forward. However, when he saw the acceleration of these warships and the fact that they didn't fire a single laser cannon during the charge, he began to feel that something was amiss.
However, when he saw that the enemy's assault warships were hit by a few Electromagnetic Railgun from his New Warship and then destroyed by the Super Micro Nanobots in the warheads, he realized he was overthinking it.
It wasn't until the fleet Commander saw his New Warship's armor pierced by the enemy's Electromagnetic Railgun, followed by an internal explosion, that he realized he had made a mistake.
But it was too late. He could only watch helplessly as his prized armor was pierced and as New Warship were destroyed in repeated internal explosions.
"Damn it! Notify headquarters, Earth civilization has mastered a technology that can penetrate the armor of New Warship. Although I hate to admit it, we have failed. Tell the Main Civilization to run away while they still have time. We don't have thirty years left. We can't hold out until then. I will use my life to buy as much time as possible for the evacuation."
After relaying the instructions to the communications officer, the Commander immediately activated the fleet-wide communications system and ordered, "Cancel the subsequent order for the New Warship to launch a surprise attack. The fleet shall cease its advance. The rear fleet shall immediately turn around and create distance!"
"Long-range combat? Lord Kexterlin, do you know what this means?" the fleet Commander from the Crimson Flame Civilization who came to provide support questioned.
The Commander, known as Kexterlin, remained silent for a long time. "I know that our two fleets will perish in this starry sky, but at least this will buy the Main Civilization three months. If we engage in close combat with this Earth civilization fleet, or even launch a surprise attack on their flagship at all costs, we can certainly destroy their warships faster and in greater numbers, but in return, our two fleets will be destroyed even faster."
Your Excellency Keqierqin, you need to know that at this distance, Neutrino Detection can already reach our spaceships hidden on the far side of the Gaseous Planet. If Earth civilization finds out that we don't have many warships left there, our people will be doomed.
So, while they haven't discovered us yet, let's buy some more time so our new leader can lead our people away quickly. If the Great Commander hadn't sacrificed himself in the previous battles, with his decisiveness, he would have led the Civilization Main Body away ten years ago, instead of hesitating and waiting until now.
"Perhaps you're right, Lord Sterling. In the end, it was our Crimson Flame Civilization that was too careless, thinking that we could roam freely with our Level 3 Civilization technology just because we came to a remote star system. The unknowns of the universe are beyond the scope of the Interstellar Transaction Market to explore and understand. This Earth civilization is clearly not something that has just stepped from Level 2 Civilization to Level 3 Civilization. The Interstellar Transaction Market has not even listed this star system as Safe Star Region."
"It's no use saying all this now, Your Excellency Keqierqin. Let us contribute our last strength for our Crimson Flame Civilization! Hopefully, our Main Civilization can learn from this calamity and never again engage in such foolish broadcasting behavior."
"Alright, let's have a good fight."
The conversation between the two fleet Commander of the Crimson Flame Civilization had already explained the problem. Unfortunately, Yue Yuan was unaware of the true situation, and the objective he set was merely to hold off the enemy and buy enough time for the Second Fleet, rather than to annihilate them directly.
So when Yue Yuan discovered that the enemy had suddenly abandoned the surprise attack tactic and instead widened the distance, he felt strange, but more so cautious and delighted to have achieved the first phase of the strategic objective.
Yes, just as the opposing Commander said, although humanity has detected the situation on the far side of the Gaseous Planet through Neutrino Detection, they do not know the specific type of spacecraft. Therefore, the leadership of the Lyra still believes that at this stage, it is safest to continue to proceed steadily and cautiously.
Thus, humanity missed the opportunity to deliver a fatal blow to the Crimson Flame Civilization Main Body, and the two fleets of the Crimson Flame Civilization unexpectedly accomplished their goal of holding back the Earth Civilization fleet, as they had told their Main Civilization.
It can be said that both sides achieved their strategic goals by a series of unexpected events.
It wasn't until the Second Fleet successfully destroyed the enemy's First Orbital Planet defenses and crippled their resource extraction sites, and then came to rendezvous with the First Fleet, that humanity realized something was really wrong.