Setting Out
"The Zerg's borders are simply too vast; a force of just over 100 million is simply insufficient to block them. Furthermore, I will explain that to prevent the Zerg from detonating the star, the interception forces must maintain a certain distance from it."
"Moving away from the star means moving away from the battlefield, and moving away will further extend the interception line, allowing our warships to disperse naturally. If anything goes wrong, we can minimize the losses."
Conrads spoke eloquently, and the expressions of the high-ranking Lashudia Clan softened considerably upon hearing his words. However, they still raised some questions.
"Was intercepting the opportunity just a pretext?"
Conrads thought for a moment and nodded, "Most likely. Our purpose in this expedition was simply to achieve some impressive victories. We didn't expect Mowei to buy us so much time, giving us the opportunity to secure our first victory against the Zerg. This already exceeded our expectations, and we don't need to be overly greedy. However, if a suitable opportunity arises, such as discovering the Zerg and finding that their numbers are small, we shouldn't give up this advantage."
"That's right, it seems you're in good spirits. I was worried about you for a long time." A Lashudia Clan nodded in satisfaction.
After this war, Conrads, as the commander-in-chief of the Coalition Army, would undoubtedly gain immense personal glory and be recorded in official history.
This war was relatively easy to fight. Apart from the minor characters in the outer circle suffering more losses, the other races did not suffer too many losses.
These high-ranking members of the Lashudia Clan were worried that Conrads would be blinded by this victory, thinking the Zerg were nothing special, and would do something reckless out of arrogance. Now it seems that all these worries were unnecessary.
After appeasing and seeing off the prominent figures of the Lashudia Clan, Conrads returned to his expressionless demeanor. As an Intellect, his orders from the Great Overlord were to stall for time as much as possible; however, there was no specific plan for how to stall, leaving him to rely on his own ingenuity. Fortunately, he had the assistance of other Intellect.
The Zerg have only been developing for a short time and need more time to become stronger. Rowan originally just wanted to fight a fierce war, then temporarily abandon this territory and fight back when he had the strength. Anyway, the interstellar coordinates are here, and the Star Sea Alliance can't escape.
However, with the continuous exploration of Anchor Unit, the establishment of new branch bases, and the increase in Intellect, Rowan's strength improved by leaps and bounds. Coupled with some gains on Porter Star, Rowan felt that if things continued this way, the Zerg wouldn't even need to leave, and they could already have a showdown with the Star Sea Alliance this time.
However, the gap between the two sides was still quite obvious, so Rowan ordered the Intellect to stall for time as much as possible. As a result, the Intellect began to set the pace, which was also the reason why the commander of the Daibo Civilization always felt that the atmosphere within the Coalition Army was somewhat strange.
The frequent manipulation of the pace by the Intellect, while increasing the risk of exposure, forced a slight relaxation in order to buy time.
Fortunately, the Intellect are so well concealed that they exceed the Star Sea Alliance's understanding. Even if they exhibit some anomalies, others will only find it strange and will not be able to connect it to anything else.
Imagine someone next to you who has social anxiety suddenly shouts in the street, suddenly becomes incredibly socially adept, and launches into an impromptu performance. You'd only guess that they've been through something traumatic, and you wouldn't suspect that they're actually an alien.
Moreover, the Intellect only made slight changes, and the extent of the changes was not this great, making them even more difficult to detect.
After a period of wrangling, the Le Clan, Wuqu Clan, and Metesi Clan tribes were still unable to change the outcome. Despite their best efforts to delay, they ultimately allocated half of their troops to participate in the operation, just as planned.
Because of the cover provided by the Outer-Ring Civilizations, and because these three races already had more advanced range and technology, and were positioned further back, the gradual withdrawal of troops was not particularly noticeable.
Furthermore, under Conrads's arrangement, some troops from other civilizations were drawn from their ranks to gradually fill the gaps. Those foreign tribes themselves did not need to participate in such dangerous missions; they were only there to provide cover, so they were naturally happy to do so.
In this way, the reduction in the three races' forces became even less noticeable, but this operation was extremely time-consuming. Coupled with the deliberate procrastination of the three races, and under the constant urging of Conrads and other foreign races, it took nearly half a year to finally gather the forces.
Although the Lashudia Clan war fleet was located further back in the main fleet and had not participated in the battle, after half of it was withdrawn and the formation was further dispersed, with only some fighter jets and other aircraft inserted in the gaps, it was not easy for the Zerg, who were at a great distance, to spot it.
Although they didn't need to secretly move each warship out one by one, they did need to relocate the excess personnel, which was a considerable undertaking. Furthermore, while they didn't need to guard against the Zerg, they did need to guard against other races; otherwise, if it were discovered that their frontline warships were being controlled by Epoch Clan AI, it wouldn't look good.
So, under the pretext of filling gaps in the formation, the carrier-based aircraft of these warships frequently took off, while Transport Craft were hidden among these aircraft and transferred to other warships.
Therefore, the delay caused by the Le Clan, Wuqu Clan, and Metesi Clan tribes was something the Lashudia Clan was happy to see, and also something that the Intellect like Conrads wanted to see.
To avoid detection by the Zerg, warships, after separating from the main force, will first sail to a rendezvous point 0.1 light-years away, where they will gather and wait for other friendly forces.
Fortunately, this process could be completed simultaneously with the deployment of warships, so it did not take too much time.
More than half a year later, the fleet composed of the four races finally set sail. They first had to disperse into a dispersed formation and enter warp speed. Then, according to the pre-arranged formation, they headed to different locations, where they would wait for the Zerg or for further orders.
After six months of fierce fighting, the number of Zerg forces continued to decline. With a significant gap in the number of forces on both sides, the side with the advantage could continue to accelerate and expand its advantage, and vice versa.
The Zerg army now numbers less than one billion, a reduction of 30% compared to six months ago. This is only because half of the forces of the three powerful races— the Le Clan, Wuqu Clan, and Metesi Clan— were redeployed. Otherwise, the Zerg army might have already dropped to 800 million.
According to calculations, in another eight or nine months, the number of Zerg forces will drop to an extreme level, and their organization will be broken up. If it weren't for the threat of the Stellar Bomb, they could have charged in now and then divided and surrounded the enemy, without having to go through all this trouble.