Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 589: Pursuit and Escape

At this moment, Xiao Yu had already finished evading the stellar explosion. Xiao Yu sacrificed two planetary bases, using them as shields in front of himself to protect his other creations from this disaster.

Xiao Yu laid low here for a full week, and only after the peak energy of the stellar explosion had passed did he dissolve this formation. By this time, although the energy released by the star’s eruption was still intense, it was no longer capable of having much effect on the creations of a Level 5 Civilization.

“It is time to resolve the Level 5 Civilization Alliance.” Xiao Yu thought silently, steering his vast fleet to return. At this moment, in the Death Flower Star System, the star had already vanished, becoming an expansive nebula emitting intense radiation. The radiation from this nebula, both in the visible and invisible bands, was extraordinarily strong.

Xiao Yu knew that hidden within this nebula was a white dwarf. Stars destroyed by a stellar cannon had two outcomes. The first was to explode and shatter completely, leaving nothing behind. The second was to leave behind some kind of compact object, a white dwarf or a neutron star or a black hole. The primary factor producing these two different outcomes was the power of the stellar cannon.

The Level 5 Civilization Alliance had clearly chosen a lower power mode of destruction, which produced a weaker stellar blast, because that method helped the Level 5 Civilization Alliance avoid being caught in the explosion’s aftermath.

“Given the pitiful mobility of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s planetary war stars, at this moment they should still be within the bounds of the Death Flower Star System.” Xiao Yu mused. “Right now the environment there must be like hell. Regions far from the star can return to calm relatively quickly, but the surroundings near the star may not recover for millions of years.”

“Fighting in such a place increases the danger more than a little. But it does not matter. If I must bear this pressure, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance must bear it as well. And because my technology is more advanced than theirs, they will suffer a greater disadvantage than I do.”

Relying on transporting stars for encirclement and interception, and ultimately forcing the Level 5 Civilization Alliance to death, though reliable, consumed too much time. Xiao Yu had no confidence he could eliminate them before they achieved a technological leap. So he would try to see whether conventional operations could wipe out the other side. If so, it would save a great deal of time.

Xiao Yu had not fled very far to begin with, so returning did not take long. Still, along the way, although he had prepared himself mentally, the harshness of the environment sent a chill through his heart.

During this period, the average density of the space around the star had increased by hundreds and thousands of times. These materials had originally been part of the star. Now, because of the stellar explosion, they possessed extremely high kinetic energy, and the emptiness of space could not quickly reduce their temperature. Thus Xiao Yu’s fleet endured tests from interstellar dust impacts, abnormal radiation, high temperatures, and more. He even had to drop out of curvature flight after reaching a certain distance from this star system. Attempting curvature flight in such harsh conditions was far too dangerous.

Xiao Yu finally saw the Level 5 Civilization Alliance. Several tens of billions of kilometers ahead of him, more than one hundred planets were orbiting each other under the thrust of planetary engines, and within those more than one hundred planets lurked large numbers of warships.

According to the laws of physics, more than one hundred planets could not exist in this state of mutual orbiting at such close distances. The only outcome of such a configuration would be collision or escape. Some planets would collide, others would flee the gravitational loop. The presence of planetary engines, however, altered this outcome through humanoid power and allowed them to exist stably.

Xiao Yu perceived that, since they no longer needed to orbit a star, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s defensive ring had shrunk considerably. A smaller defensive ring meant an increase in defensive strength per unit area. This was obvious. Xiao Yu had of course anticipated this, but he still decided to give it a try.

After years of war, the two sides had reached the point where nothing needed saying. There was no perfunctory pre-battle exhortation to surrender, no communication, nothing at all. Xiao Yu’s warships had already charged. The Level 5 Civilization Alliance immediately responded. Three planetary war stars broke from the gravitational ring and, together with roughly fifty million warships, came to meet the attack.

Under the waning corpse-like white glow of that dead star not far away, surrounded by interstellar dust, under various high-energy radiation and high temperatures, the two greatest powers below Level 6 once again engaged in fierce battle.

Countless ships began to break apart and explode, adding a slash of light to this waning cosmos. Wreckage roamed everywhere through space, some shattered by subsequent barrages, more flying off directly into outer space to become interstellar dust wandering the universe.

“It still will not work.” Xiao Yu thought helplessly. “Although the Level 5 Civilization Alliance has lost a great deal of strength, due to the shrinkage of the defensive ring and the addition of some star system defense weapons, I still cannot eliminate them in a short time. Then let us begin transporting stars.”

Xiao Yu quickly drew back part of his strength, leaving only about five million warships to carry out continuous attacks on the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s defensive ring, to drain their combat power, distract their minds, and keep them from focusing entirely on developing technology and restoring production. Then large Expeditionary Army units set out.

“The seventeen stars in the surrounding area are all my transport targets. Calculating by stellar trajectories and current positions, hm, it should be done like this.”

Xiao Yu rapidly computed a thorough and detailed plan. Based on the current acceleration direction of the Level 5 Civilization, Xiao Yu would first transport Star Number Two to block the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s path of advance. During the transport of Star Number Two, work on transporting the other stars would not stop, though the trajectory of the other stars had not yet been decided and would depend on the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s next moves.

These seventeen stars, under Xiao Yu’s control, would become seventeen movable massive bombs. It had to be said that, after mastering the technology of transporting stars, one indeed held a tremendous advantage in wars within the scope of Level 5 civilizations.

The first star Xiao Yu transported he named Star Number One, and according to position and other differences, he named the rest from Star Number Two through Star Number Seventeen. At present, Star Number One was still chasing the Level 5 Civilization Alliance, while the other stars were in the construction phase.

With the initial construction experience and related technology in hand, building the second set of star-transport instruments was much simpler. Xiao Yu scarcely spent any time before Star Number Two entered curvature space and began heading straight toward the fleeing Level 5 Civilization Alliance.

Events did not deviate from Xiao Yu’s expectations. After Star Number Two began to move, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance immediately adjusted their trajectory. They had no choice. Otherwise, in roughly twenty years, that star would approach close enough that its explosion would kill them all. Even if planetary war stars could block the force of the stellar blast, the planetary war stars were finite. No one could endure such attrition.

Xiao Yu also fully considered the possibility that, after the transported stars reached a certain point, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance would dispatch a strike fleet to destroy the stars at long range. After meticulous arrangements, Xiao Yu judged that this method was not feasible for the Level 5 Civilization Alliance.

The Alliance’s ship mobility was far inferior to that of his own ships, and there was a substantial gap in overall strength. At the same time, to defend the main base, they could not dispatch too many ships for this task. In other words, if the Level 5 Civilization Alliance sent few ships, they could not complete the mission. If they sent many, their main base would be threatened.

Therefore Xiao Yu did not worry that the Level 5 Civilization Alliance would adopt this mode of operation and could proceed with peace of mind in transporting stars.

After the Level 5 Civilization Alliance made their first trajectory adjustment, the second star Xiao Yu transported set out. Some trouble arose in transporting this star because it was too massive, more than twenty times the mass of the Sun. That mass already put it in the category of a giant star. But the larger the star, the greater the explosive power, and Xiao Yu was very happy to use such an enlarged model of a stellar bomb. He carried out a series of technological upgrades and finally managed to transport this star, guiding it to travel toward the Level 5 Civilization Alliance.

As this star drew ever closer, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance made a third trajectory adjustment. They began escaping along the gaps that existed between the current star positions, attempting to slip out of this stellar encirclement. But Xiao Yu quickly adjusted as well, recalibrating the stars’ paths based on the Alliance’s trajectory, seeking to encircle the Level 5 Civilization Alliance once more.

Thus, in the pitch-black starry sky, a distinctive pursuit-and-escape battle unfolded.