The hidden weapon had shattered, and the fleet seemed to have gone down too.
Viscount Ironwall was beginning to suspect that this time... he really had bitten off more than he could chew...
"My lord, in another half hour, the enemy blocking our path will enter the main fleet's firing range. Should we... revise our attack plan?" the adjutant asked cautiously.
"Should we send another fleet to attack the Solar System?"
It was a very practical question.
Unless they wiped out the enemy in the Solar System, their retreat could well be cut off. If their offensive against Twin Stars then ran into trouble, they would find themselves caught between two enemies.
The safe approach was to order the main fleet to turn around, eliminate the enemy in the Solar System first, then deal with the Long-Lived One blocking the wormhole at their leisure and clear the passage to Twin Stars.
Although that would undoubtedly disrupt their surprise attack on Twin Stars, judging by the intelligence on Twin Stars' combat strength... wasn't the Solar System clearly the real boss here?
What Viscount Ironwall could not figure out, however, was why the Solar System had previously acted as though his forces were beating it back when it was so powerful that all four hundred of his warships had vanished without a trace.
Those cannon-fodder mecha and that flimsy system-wide defense network were nothing like what a powerful faction ought to possess.
It was like someone already protected by an aura of martial energy pretending their punches only carried a hundred pounds or so of force...
What was the point?
Playing weak to catch the strong off guard? Feigning weakness before the enemy?
Were they trying to lure his forces deep inside and wipe them all out?
Viscount Ironwall could hardly help