The Black Hole Gate was quite friendly to attackers.
Why? Because it was large enough—so large that even tens of thousands of legions could all arrive in roughly three hours.
In other words, before a Black Hole Gate, the defenders' advantage in troop numbers could not be maintained for long.
Moreover, even destroying the Black Hole Gate was useless. Its internal transit network had a protection mechanism: once an exit was destroyed, the fundamental particles being transmitted would be redirected to the nearest alternative exit and reassembled.
Of course, the Federation's Iris Plan was an exception. In essence, the Black Hole Gate itself was not destroyed by the Iris, nor was the Black Hole Gate disabled.
More precisely, once the Iris was deployed, it did not completely seal against the Black Hole Gate's passage exit. Instead, there was a gap of 0.00000001 micrometers.
At that distance, the fundamental particles could not reach the gate's reassembly zone at all.
However, for some reason, the Iris could no longer be activated and deployed.
And it was not merely an issue with the Iris. More critically, although the Federation had always monitored the Sweepers' Black Hole Gate network, it had never discovered when the Bas Empire had made its way here.
It was like the tactics the Federation had used against those seven Sweepers before had now been copied wholesale and used to slap the Federation in the face.
Although the Federal Fleet at the Black Hole Gate still held an absolute advantage for now, no one knew how long that advantage could last.
After all, no one knew how many fleets the Bas Empire had deployed.
Or perhaps the Bas Empire was followed by fleets from other Sweepers? Or had the remaining eight Sweepers all come?
In any case, once the battle