113: Hello, this side faces the enemy.

"Hum—!!"

Instantly, space fluctuated violently. A massive warp bubble expanded rapidly from a tiny point, and then, a flash of white light streaked by, and all the Warships vanished on the spot.

From The Consortium's perspective, their Warships were firing, and suddenly, the targets were gone.

"Report! Target lost!"

On the Bridge of the *Enqing*, the Radar Operator stared at the passing white light, completely dumbfounded—

"Wait, no, my energy beam was still locked onto you, how did you suddenly disappear?"

"How is this any different from having a successful takeoff about to happen, only for the network to disconnect and the screen to go blank?" (Referring to War Thunder here).

He instinctively felt something was wrong and immediately rechecked the data from other equipment:

"Radar lost target! No abnormal gravity waves!"

"Heat source vanished!"

The more he looked, the more absurd it felt. Did they really just vanish on the spot?

Gould listened to the Radar Operator's report, frowned, and immediately ordered:

"Use close-in defense fire combined with camera functions to search the surroundings!"

"It must be a trick!"

"Maintain combat alert, slowly disperse into combat formation!"

As he spoke, he suddenly remembered the small aircraft that had just beaten the Decoy Fleet into oblivion, and added:

"Frigates, move slightly closer to the large Warships to facilitate mutual anti-air support."

"Also, shut down the Gravity Conduit generators to prevent the enemy from connecting for a sneak attack."

The communications officer beside him quickly replied:

"Orders transmitted, all captains have confirmed receipt."

Gould nodded.

Currently, all Warship systems were running correctly. Today's Thinker Array was performing quite well; it seemed the Clones secretly purchased from the Empire were indeed quite useful.

Staring quietly at the fleet searching for the enemy ships, he was absolutely convinced that he had caught this fleet of invaders. But after that trick, where had they hidden?

A feeling of restlessness rose in his heart.

...

So, where exactly had Xi Hai and his fleet hidden?

The answer was—at a warp point only 30 gimi away from the battlefield.

This location was suggested by Speer after consulting the star map. Not only was it close to the battlefield, but it was also shielded by an asteroid cloud and a Node Space Station, making it extremely difficult to detect.

He was currently standing on the Bridge of the *storm*, his eyes occasionally glancing at the small dots on the torpedo launchers—

Those were the torpedoes that had just been launched.

They had already been retargeted, following the trajectory replanned by night lamp, flying toward the ambushers that had just appeared.

"It's a good thing we calculated the retreat warp point in advance; we almost fell for it."

After confirming the damage to the Warships, Xi Hai breathed a sigh of relief.

He hadn't expected the energy pillar on the other side to look so intimidating but turn out to be all show; that shot didn't even scratch the paint on the *storm*.

"Enemy fleet footage retrieved!"

"4170 combat vessels! High-value targets marked!"

"The enemy is deploying!"

The enemy's formation was simple: they were just surrounding the central Battleship, aiming their bows at the position he had left from, forming a fan shape, while a large number of small ships patrolled the perimeter on alert.

These guys were still hoping to find him there? Laughable.

He opened the temporary command channel consisting of himself, White Shark, and Speer, and gently called the other two,

"White Shark, Speer,"

"Next, we will split into three groups."

"night lamp will upload the groupings to each Warship's control system."

"I'll leave the on-site command to you."

"I won't say anything else. Strike and retreat. The goal is to inflict casualties on the enemy's effective forces."

The voices of Speer and White Shark came through simultaneously:

"Received."

The massive Warships began to move, the fleet began to change formation, and the three small fleets gradually separated.

On the Bridge of the *storm*, the command console projected the star map, looking like an electronic sand table. The crisscrossing thin lines on it emitted a faint light, illuminating Xi Hai's smirk:

"Weren't you looking for me?"

"Now I'm here,"

"You'd better be ready."

"Hum—!!"

Instantly, three warp bubbles opened, and like three arrows released from a bowstring, they flew toward the battlefield.

...

"Warp Drive Module, cooling down."

Because it was the closest, the fleet led by the *storm* was the first to arrive.

The "Lei-style" heavy ion cannons on the bows of the two eternal storm ships had already begun charging when they entered warp travel, and almost the second they arrived, they quickly locked onto their targets.

At this moment, due to the angle, the fleet led by Xi Hai had their bows facing the sterns of most of The Consortium's Warships. Good opportunity!

"Salvo!"

Instantly, the ion cannons that had completed their lock-on violently unleashed thick, long beams of light.

Without any delay, the thick, long beams of light, carrying world-destroying power, slammed into the Battleship protected in the center.

Countless missiles were also ejected from the launch tubes, flying toward the small Warships in all directions.

However, those beams of light did not actually make contact with that Battleship.

Just ten-plus meters away from the Warship's armor, an oval-shaped Shield appeared instantly, constantly pushing the violent ion stream elsewhere.

Circles of ripples and waves raged across it, and flashes of distortion flickered over it, but the Shield stubbornly held on.

Continue breaking the Shield or change targets?

Watching the enemy Warships slowly turning, Xi Hai made his choice without any hesitation:

His current goal was to inflict as many casualties on the enemy as possible, so—clear the small fry first!

"All direct-fire weapons, change targets!"

"Prioritize clearing other large enemy Warships!"

The order was issued, the ion cannons immediately stopped drawing power, and the beams of light crossing the battlefield immediately dimmed.

Less than two seconds later, new beams struck several large Warships nearby—it was said that those should be the Battleships newly built in this era.

That kind of oval-shaped Shield appeared again, but this time, in less than five seconds, the high-energy, scorching ion stream shattered the overloaded Shield.

Immediately, the beam struck the stern of the Warship that hadn't finished turning. Like a red-hot iron rod poking into a block of butter, it melted through the armor in less than half a second and pierced out from the bow.

The surrounding large Battleships, Battlecruisers, and cruisers were the same.

At this moment, a patch of small dots rapidly approaching the enemy fleet suddenly appeared on the radar screen—

It was the batch of torpedoes that had changed course earlier!

They had been silently sailing using their side auxiliary thrusters, and only until they were close to the target did they ignite their main terminal engines, completely baring their fangs—

Patches of bright white light points suddenly appeared in mid-air, as if someone had manually lit up a starry sky.

They screamed silently, roared, carrying the most primal desire for destruction, and charged forward recklessly.

The Cosmic Army fleet of The Consortium had not yet fully dispersed, and the defensive network they formed was relatively dense, but this batch of rapidly approaching warheads was simply too scattered—so scattered that the Thinker Array in the central control of every Warship began to heat up frantically, and the computing load instantly soared to over 70%.

The fleet's turn was 30% complete. If nothing went wrong, they would unleash all their firepower on the ambush fleet in a dozen seconds or so.

Unfortunately, the enemy they encountered this time was different from before—

"Jump to Warp Point 9!"

"I still think it would be better if they aimed their engines at us."

Watching the enemy Warships struggling to turn in the hail of bullets, Xi Hai ordered thus.