Open Fire

After realizing their attack was ineffective, the Swarm ceased firing. Dialo, upon discovering this, assumed the Swarm had given up and, believing himself invincible, immediately ordered the entire fleet to maintain formation and advance at full speed.

"Your Highness, I think it's best to be cautious."

"Don't worry, Aslite, according to the intelligence, the Electromagnetic Cannon is the Swarm's only long-range attack method. Oh, I forgot, they also have a very primitive projectile device? Haha, please forgive me, I didn't mean to forget, but I thought that thing only existed in ancient times. I really can't imagine that the Zerg, who have entered the space age, would still use such primitive things." Dialo was in a good mood and laughed, "I heard that thing isn't very accurate, with an absurdly low hit rate."

Aslite was also puzzled. The catapult-like device shown in the data was too illogical, and that was precisely what puzzled her. She didn't think that the Zerg, who were valued by the Suzerain, would make such a basic mistake.

She told Dialo about her concerns, and after a moment's thought, Dialo reassured her again, "Don't worry, even if that thing actually has a 100% hit rate, that kind of physical attack is completely useless against our Repulsion Field. Besides, its appearance is impossible to hide. Look at the Zerg's current deployment; I don't think they can deceive our observation devices at such close range."

"What if they have other weapons? Like bugs that shoot lasers?"

"Aslite, as a great Duoqi Race, you shouldn't be asking such a question! Even we haven't solved the problem of long-range power supply for laser weapons yet, do you think the Zerg will? I admit they do have some unique strengths and a promising future, but right now, they have to lie low in front of my fleet!" Dialo said seriously, then ignored Aslite and silently watched the approaching Chuyun Planet.

The Duoqi Fleet was incredibly fast, and whether the Zerg fired their cannons or not didn't affect their speed. Under Dialo's command, they rapidly closed in on Chuyun Planet, closing to within 500,000 kilometers of it.

Calling this distance "melee combat" in space is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is indeed extremely close. Given the current technological level of the warring parties, this is an extremely dangerous distance; an energy beam weapon could traverse this distance in just over ten seconds.

This means that the two sides are about to begin an extremely brutal war, and the losers will be annihilated, especially for the side with the disadvantage in speed, who will have almost no option to escape.

Seeing Aslite's lips twitch as if she wanted to speak, but ultimately held back, Dialo smiled slightly and said, "Aslite, what do you want to say?"

"Your Highness, isn't this position too close? Our Repulsion Field can only cover a small area at the front of the bow. If the Zerg discovers this and attacks us from both sides, even with our defenses, it will be difficult to withstand the attack of a large-caliber Electromagnetic Cannon."

This is indeed a drawback of the Duoqi Race's Repulsion Field; the position generation device cannot be miniaturized.

Even if all the space inside the warship were used to place the field generation device, it would only cover 30% of the ship's area. So, in the end, it is still an auxiliary device, which just happens to be able to suppress the Swarm.

"Of course I know that, but the Zerg don't," Dialo said, pointing to the two displays. "The Zerg bases on Laze Planet and near the star have already sent support here."

The image on the screen zoomed in, revealing several Megastructure images, with the background showing a location near the orbit of a star.

The largest Electromagnetic Megastructure in the Swarm Riken Star System is located on Chuyun Planet, where the Zerg have resided for a long time, resulting in its longest Megastructure period. However, it was the primary target of the missile attack. Even so, Megastructure spanning over 200 kilometers cannot be destroyed by a mere hundred or so low-yield Tactical Nuclear Bomb. Although riddled with holes and severely damaged in functionality, most of the Strain within it are still alive and are currently working to repair themselves.

The images Dialo showed were of Megastructure structures in near-stellar orbit. Although the energy there is more abundant and the Megastructure grow faster, the near-orbit bases are only recently established, and their growth time is too short, resulting in them currently only being tens of kilometers long. However, compared to warships that are around two thousand meters long, these are still enormous.

"The Zerg bases near the star are using these giant Electromagnetic Catapult to continuously launch combat forces this way. These forces will reach the battlefield faster than the autonomously powered Zerg forces. Although these forces are difficult to form a large force due to the limited number of giant Electromagnetic Catapult, once they arrive, we will face multi-angle combat. Once we are in that situation, the drawbacks of the Repulsion Field will be quickly exposed."

"What does Your Highness mean?"

Seeing that Aslite seemed to understand his meaning, Dialo nodded and continued, "That's right. Although we are very close to the Zerg forces now, this distance will greatly reduce the flight time of the energy beam. Ten seconds is not enough time for the Zerg forces to make an effective evasion. But we have Repulsion Field. As long as we maintain the angle, we are practically invincible."

"In this situation, if we fire with all our might, we have a chance to eliminate the Zerg forces in front of us in a short time. Then, we can turn around and attack the Zerg forces attacking from near the star's orbit head-on. Then, using our speed advantage, we can fight our way to the Zerg near-orbit base. It's a relatively new base there, and they don't have many troops. As long as we can quickly eliminate them, we can turn around and engage the Zerg reinforcements from Laze Planet. It's only a matter of time before we deal with the Zerg in the Riken Star System."

"When the time comes, we'll take care of the Riken Race first, then fight our way up to M580 (the Duoqi Race's Proxima Star System designation). I believe that by then, the Zerg will fully recognize my greatness, and I will have more say!" Dialo spread his arms wide, as if he had already won.

It sounded reasonable, but Aslite felt something was off. After much thought, she finally found a flaw. "Repulsion Field withstand physical impacts also consumes a lot of energy. While resisting the Zerg's Electromagnetic Cannon, we simply cannot fire at full power."

"So now we need an information gap. Didn't you see the Zerg have stopped firing? Seeing them like that is why I chose such an aggressive tactic. The longer we hide the drawbacks of the repulsion field, the greater our advantage will be."

"But Your Highness, I feel like something's not right."

"Stop talking, Aslite. Although we can slowly wear down the Zerg with our technological advantage, that's nothing compared to annihilating them in a short time. If we want to gain more, we must keep them in check."

Aslite moved her lips slightly, but ultimately chose to keep quiet.

Seeing that he had "convinced" Aslite, Dialo smiled smugly, "Fire!"

On the other side, not far from the Binary Star Defense Line between the Duoqi Race and the Swarm, many high-ranking officers of the Riken Race witnessed everything that had just happened.

The Duoqi Race's amazing repulsive field rendered the Zerg's main long-range attack weapons useless right from the start. This made the Riken Race wonder if the Zerg were finished, while also marveling at the powerful technological force of the third party that had entered the fray.

However, what happened next was unacceptable to them.

Thank you for the 450 Qidian coins reward from Abyss Order, and thank you for the 100 Qidian coins reward from Pili Zhutian and Book Guest Good Brother.