Resurrection Empire-Chapter 1048 - 409: The Fleet and the Invisible Sphere

As Ren Zhong's shuttle was just breaking through the atmosphere of Source Star, he received a communication from Ying Hao.

Ying Hao expressed confusion over his actions and asked what exactly he intended to do and what about the mobilization meeting scheduled for the evening.

Ren Zhong was prepared for this; he used his health issues as an excuse, stating that he needed to undergo some solar radiation treatment in a zero-gravity environment, thus explaining his sudden departure.

Ren Zhong told Ying Hao that he was now a High Rank Level Eight Mechanical Warrior, preparing to advance to Level Nine, and also intended to adapt early to space combat.

Ying Hao found this somewhat incomprehensible.

With a great battle imminent, how could a commander pursue personal strength?

Yet Ren Zhong was determined; once the shuttle broke through the atmosphere, it accelerated swiftly away, and even the efficiency of electromagnetic communication greatly reduced, transforming real-time chat into increasingly delayed exchanges of short messages. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Subsequently, Ren Zhong provided Ying Hao with reassurance.

He informed Ying Hao that once other mid- to high-level managers in the army learned from his training materials, they would somewhat grasp his strategic thinking and start to recognize him.

Then, at this time, Zheng Tian, his direct disciple, could temporarily step up and assume his responsibilities, thus ensuring a similar outcome in the war.

Ren Zhong explained: "I originally planned to have her serve as my Chief Deputy Officer. Although Zheng Tian's prestige isn't on par with mine, her military capabilities are not inferior. Many details in the training materials were proposed by her, which I then summarized and compiled. Over the years, I have been busy with my duties as Pu Cha official, while Zheng Tian has been the actual commander of the Starfire Army. The achievements the Starfire Army has gained on the First Continent were largely due to Zheng Tian comprehensively understanding and implementing my strategic thoughts."

"So letting Zheng Tian temporarily take over my position isn't going to harm the overall situation. She would need about five days to prove herself. During this time, Chairman, you only need to monitor and supervise, observe whether her abilities are as I described, and also provide her with some backing. Of course, don't worry about her seizing power because she is absolutely loyal to me. And I am someone you, the Chairman, trust the most. Since you've chosen me, naturally, you should believe in my every decision, including this one."

Ying Hao was basically persuaded.

After hanging up the call, Ren Zhong decisively cut off his "WeChat."

He guessed that Li Yang would also call him.

With Li Yang's keenness, talking too much might expose his "betrayal." Rather than allowing room for error, he preferred to adopt the ostrich's approach of burying his head in the sand.

Based on Ren Zhong's understanding of Li Yang, after he lost contact, he wouldn't immediately resort to drastic measures but would instead stabilize Ying Hao, making him cooperate with Ren Zhong's arrangement, observe for two days before making a decision.

After all, Ren Zhong could help Li Yang with both solving problems and leading charges. Li Yang must value this important "friend" quite a bit.

In space, beyond the far orbit, Ren Zhong's shuttle traced a winding curve, quickly navigating among the formations of long-distance Space Ships.

Ren Zhong turned his head to gaze at the colossal objects outside the glass curtain wall.

There were two types of Space Ships.

They were the massive spherical transport ships and the spindle-shaped combat ships.

The spherical transport ships, named the Annual Ring-Class, had standardized specifications with a diameter of about thirty kilometers.

A central axis divided this enormous spherical ship in half. One half had a relatively smooth surface where only a few varying sizes of round openings could barely be discerned. Ren Zhong deduced that these round holes were primarily weapon firing ports and Shield Probes.

However, the other half was different, with neatly arranged crater-like structures.

Each "crater" had a diameter of 55 meters.

Ren Zhong speculated that these "craters" were likely the nozzles of variable-direction medium engines.

In the deep space where gravitational effects were insufficient, with the technological level of Source Star's humans, Super Long-Distance Navigation could only rely on medium propulsion.

According to the data, medium propulsion was divided into two modes. One used the ship's own heavy materials as a counter-propulsion carrier, usually for intense conditions like acceleration and redirection. The other relied on force fields and used the vessel's own gravity and impact absorption to continuously attract and collect cosmic dust in space, transferring it into the engine, accelerating it to extremely high speeds, and then ejecting it to provide thrust, like marine animals propelling forward by sucking and spitting water. This mode was typically used in cruising.

As for the spindle-shaped combat ships, they were ten kilometers long. The head had massive ring-shaped openings, which Ren Zhong analyzed as being stacked main gun arrays of the Hunter, forming powerful space warfare weapons.

On the combat ships, there were also numerous ring-shaped, rectangular, square, and various-sized metal seams.

The precision of these seams was very high, making them completely indistinguishable to the naked eye. Ren Zhong only found the seams by activating the nanoscale scanner on his Red Blade Armor.

He speculated that these seams were covering panels, beneath which various weapons were concealed, as well as entry and exit ports for small and medium-sized combat units responsible for space fighting.

At this time, various small transport vessels were continuously traveling between Source Star and the ship formations, with a few slightly larger transport vessels flying in from the distant depths of space.

All kinds of resources from within the Source Star System were converging towards the fleet with high efficiency, preparing for departure.

In the deep space, it was quiet, with only these metallic creations, but Ren Zhong inexplicably felt the atmosphere to be desolate and murderous.

Fortunately, he passed through the entire formation without incidents and headed directly towards the direction of Yuanjin Star, without intercept from warships.

Ren Zhong began to accelerate.

At this moment, he discovered a surprising gift from Qian Wangshen.

Originally, Ren Zhong planned to spend two to three days reaching his destination, but upon activating the full-power acceleration mode, his cabin was quickly filled with a transparent gelatinous liquid, precisely the "Deep Sea Gel" frequently used in the buffer layer of his armor.

With the assistance of Deep Sea Gel and his own Level Eight Mechanical Warrior physique, he was able to withstand a terrifying acceleration of up to 350Gs.

The true limitation of equipment acceleration wasn't the materials but the occupants inside.

Although Ren Zhong felt slightly uncomfortable, it wasn't life-threatening, and he could adapt by gritting his teeth.

Ren Zhong was very pleased about this.

It would be a relatively short silent journey from then on.

Time unknowingly passed three hours, during which he experienced acceleration followed by deceleration, and finally, he arrived at coordinates slightly beyond Yuanjin Star's orbit, where he hovered.

To the naked eye, it seemed empty here.

There was no movement when using electromagnetic radar scanning.

Metal detectors also had no reaction.

Even gravity detectors could scarcely detect any anomalies.

If he didn't know for certain that the old frozen ones were here, Ren Zhong would almost believe he came to the wrong place.

He continued to increase the power of his gravity detector, raising sensitivity.

But he wasn't in a hurry; he was waiting for Hua Yuelan in Starfire Town to transmit a piece of Source Star civilization programming source code externally via the electromagnetic communication network, trying to infiltrate the base of the frozen elders.

Finally, the gravity data in front of him showed extremely slight fluctuations, indicating Hua Yuelan had succeeded.

The Red Blade Armor's AI quickly processed these fluctuations and projected a simulation onto Ren Zhong's eyes through retinal display.

Ren Zhong could finally "see" that an olive-shaped metallic object over a hundred kilometers in diameter was blocking between him and the Source Sun.

If he continued straight forward, he would crash head-on into this invisible entity.