Technology Had Exploded to Absurd Levels

Having returned to the fleet outfitted with new equipment, Beint, as the overall commander, issued an order to the massive fleet: "Set out! Destination: Kao Star, Dias Empire territory!"

Waves of gravitational ripples appeared around the fleet. Then, the enormous spacecraft stretched like dough into straight lines pointing toward the far horizon.

Those lines grew thinner and thinner until they vanished completely.

Two days later, Lu Shang, who was directing the Swarm to infect an industrial planet of the Dias Empire that they had just conquered, suddenly received a warning from a solid planet occupied by the Swarm.

That solid planet had previously received Lu Shang's order to remain stationed in this red dwarf system. It was in the process of hatching into a planetary organism when, several minutes earlier, it detected an unidentified gravitational wave coming from beyond the Kuiper Belt.

There were no Swarm units in that direction. If it was not a Swarm individual, then it could only be an enemy of the Swarm. The Swarm on the solid planet immediately sent Lu Shang a warning signal.

And during the time the solid planet sent its warning, a special gravitational wave had already sealed off its faster-than-light capabilities.

The enemy's sudden attack was something Lu Shang had grown somewhat accustomed to. Calmly, he ordered the solid planet to engage.

At that moment, Beint stood on the bridge, methodically directing the fleet into formation.

"Gravitational interference ship formations, press forward! Prevent it from entering faster-than-light travel!"

"Main fleet, do not attack! Reverse thrust and maintain distance from the enemy!"

"Radar ships, maintain precise ranging and report to me in real time! Our lives are in your hands!"

Unable to wrap itself in a warp bubble and move faster than light, the solid celestial body could only be displaced through psionic momentum acceleration.

That was somewhat troublesome. It was not that it could not accelerate. Psionic acceleration differed from thruster acceleration: thrusters imparted momentum from a point to a surface, then eventually to the entire object.

Psionic acceleration, however, could directly impart momentum to the entire object. Since every particle accelerated at the same rate and in the same direction, the planet would not deform as it moved.

Still, because the celestial body itself was so massive, psionic acceleration required a relatively long acceleration period to reach high speeds.

The solid planet maintained its acceleration as it approached the enemy. Yet through the displays of the Swarm's various sensory organs, the enemy was maintaining formation while retreating, always keeping its distance from the solid planet.

Most crucially, the enemy fleet remained outside the effective range of level ten psionic power the entire time.

That could only mean one thing.

"They've discovered psionic power's weakness?"

Lu Shang raised an eyebrow, then shook his head. "So be it. I knew it couldn't stay hidden. Frequent battles against large fleets were bound to expose it."

"But even if you've discovered that weakness, what can you do?"

Lu Shang sneered and ordered the psionic brain on the solid planet, "Launch sublight rocks! Knock out those gravitational interference ships!"

"Understood."

After the psionic brain on the solid planet responded, huge quantities of rocks rose from its surface and began moving in uniform acceleration around the planet itself.

Within a few breaths, they reached sublight speeds that radar could barely track.

Because of the excessive distance, the Swarm could not distinguish the types of warships in the enemy fleet. Lu Shang therefore ordered the Swarm to target the largest vessels.

After one wave of attacks, the Yinlun Sea Kingdom fleet equipped with new weapons had already suffered severe losses.

"Detected sublight kinetic strikes!"

"Gravitational interference ship No. 1432 destroyed!"

"Gravitational interference ship No. 7763 destroyed!"

"Gravitational interference ship No. 0064 destroyed!"

"Gravitational interference ship No. 2436 destroyed!"

Reports of battle losses rose one after another, but Beint, the commander, felt more relaxed than ever.

That was because the enemy had done exactly what he expected. One of his suspicions had now been completely confirmed.

"So that's how it is. Although its psionic output has already surpassed the Void God, as long as we stay outside its effective range, this is its only remaining method of attack," Beint murmured.

Although the enemy still possessed sublight kinetic strike capabilities, such attacks could not swiftly and immediately wipe out the entire fleet in a short period of time.

Compared to the battles between the Dias Empire and the Swarm organisms, this was no small improvement.

After submitting confirmation of his discovery to the Galactic Alliance General Staff, Beint issued an order to his fleet. "Prepare to strike! It's time to give these Swarm organisms a surprise!"

The main fleet charged up and unleashed full firepower. Yet there were no dazzling lasers, no plasma bombardments, and no imposing kinetic weapons.

Before the full barrage and after it began, everything looked exactly the same, as if nothing had happened.

However, the sudden changes on the solid planet showed that there was indeed a difference between before and after the firing.

Countless enormous depressions inexplicably appeared across the solid planet's surface. Innumerable Swarm organisms fell into the vortices emerging from those depressions. The entire solid planet was like a water balloon viciously kneaded by a brat, warped beyond all ability to maintain its spherical shape.

At the centers of the vortices, blinding light erupted continuously. Accompanied by violent bursts of light, the entire solid planet was blown apart.

"Fuck?!"

On the other side, Lu Shang was also startled by the strange phenomenon. Through the Swarm's senses, they had not detected any attack striking the solid planet at all.

His expression quickly darkened. This was a very serious problem.

It was not terrifying that the enemy had discovered psionic power's weakness. What was terrifying was this unknown form of attack. If he could not determine what kind of attack it was, he could not defend against it!

If this continued, the roles of attacker and defender would be reversed!

"All planetary organisms, move out. Surround that area. I need to find out what happened there!"

The entire Swarm stirred.

A great victory in the Battle of Kao Star!

The good news swiftly spread throughout the Galactic Alliance, giving the alliance's steadily declining morale an unprecedented boost.

The Galactic Alliance did not conceal the principles behind the new weapons. Perhaps they believed that if the Swarm reverse-engineered the wreckage, the principles could not be hidden anyway, so they simply made them public.

And through those living intelligence networks, Lu Shang quickly learned of it all.

The attack was achieved through particle accelerators. Particles accelerated to the extreme, approaching the speed of light, could collide and create microscopic black holes. Ordinary microscopic black holes would rapidly evaporate, but as long as the kinetic energy continued to increase, the microscopic black holes formed would exist longer, because the energy invested was converted into their mass.

What devoured the solid planet were several microscopic black holes created by high-speed collisions!

"A weapon that induces the creation of microscopic black holes..."

"Light-speed strikes..."

"Exploiting the weakness of psionic range..."

"And gravitational interference ships disrupting faster-than-light travel..."

The corner of Lu Shang's eye twitched as he muttered, "I really did underestimate this alien alliance."

"Just you wait! You won't be this lucky next time!"