120: Tian Enxing

The current situation in the Tianen Star System was far worse than Amira Radiance had anticipated.

When the massive and sacred hull of the redemption slowly cut into the orbit of Tianen Star, what was presented before everyone was not the prosperous trade hub once hailed as the "Pearl of Orion," but a scene of chaos and disorder.

The bustling space factory complexes that had originally orbited the two habitable planets were now empty, with only bare alloy skeletons remaining, silently recounting their abandoned fate under the cold light of the star.

To recoup their losses from the war in Orion, the evacuating nobles and tycoons had dismantled almost all the high-value industrial cores they could take, leaving behind only heavy structures that could not be moved and countless unemployed lower-class civilians.

The situation on the planet's surface was even more chaotic.

According to Governor Raphael's description, riots had broken out in most areas of the surface.

Having lost administrative management and social order, the civilians, shrouded in despair, began to storm the wealthy districts, looting food and any last possible chance of escape. The once sacred and pristine cities were now billowing with thick smoke, and the security forces had long since dispersed or joined the ranks of the rioters.

Everywhere on the two colonial planets, one could see Angel people with wings flying around in the sky and brawling.

As for the so-called remnant fleet in Governor Raphael's hands, it was extremely pathetic.

Less than two hundred warships were scattered sparsely across the vast orbit, most of which were armed merchant ships with temporarily installed gun turrets.

The armor plates of those warships were covered in unrepaired scars, and the plasma streams from their engine nozzles were intermittent, clearly lacking maintenance.

Such a defensive line, let alone holding off the Iofer Federation's main fleet for three years, probably couldn't even withstand a single charge from the opponent's vanguard.

"Is this what you want to protect? Lady Amira."

Major General Trier stood on the spacious bridge, arms crossed, coldly watching the chaotic scene on the main screen, his tone tinged with a hint of sarcasm.

"With all due respect, this looks more like a graveyard waiting to be cremated."

Amira gripped the armrests of her throne tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force.

She wanted to retort, wanted to defend the dignity of the Empire, but the cruel facts before her made her throat tighten, unable to utter a single word.

"General Trier," Amira took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, "I know the situation is bad, but we still have the strength to fight. With the shields and firepower of this redemption, we..."

"Mathematics does not lie, Your Highness."

Trier interrupted her, waving his hand, and a Faleim technician beside him immediately pulled up a set of detailed tactical simulation data.

"We have conducted tens of thousands of simulated confrontations between the performance data of the Incarnation-class battlecruiser and the active main warships of the Iofer Federation."

Trier pointed to the dense red and blue dots on the screen and began his despairing combat capability assessment.

"Undeniably, this ship is very powerful. Its focused arc emitter can bypass shields and armor to directly strike the ship's hull structure and the equipment and personnel on board. Its psionic shields have extremely high resistance to energy weapons, and every attack it makes can destroy one of the iofer people's most advanced warships. It can withstand the siege of numerous iofer warships..."

"However," Trier's tone shifted, "it is not invincible."

"Although the technology of the iofer people is relatively primitive compared to ours, they have reached a considerably high level in conventional physical destructive power. Their gravitational wave oscillation cannons cause physical tearing by distorting the gravitational field. This type of purely physical attack is highly effective against psionic shields designed primarily to defend against energy weapons."

"More importantly, it's the numbers."

Trier zoomed in on the simulation map, the red dots flooding the lonely blue dots like a tide.

"According to our intelligence, the iofer main fleet approaching the Tianen Star System possesses at least three thousand heavy capital ships and tens of thousands of auxiliary escort vessels. Even three thousand cats are enough to bite an elephant to death."

"Although the redemption's energy core has been optimized by us to use a hybrid structural power source, there is still an upper limit to its output power. When the enemy's saturation attack exceeds the shield's recharge threshold, the shield will overload or even collapse. Once the shield is lost, no matter how sturdy this ship's material armor is, it cannot withstand the concentrated fire of thousands of naval guns."

"So our observation team's conclusion is that if we clash head-on, the redemption will be completely destroyed after destroying about 1,000 enemy warships." Trier coldly delivered the verdict, "And the Tianen Star System will still fall, and you and your people will all die."

With every word Trier spoke, Amira's face turned paler.

She had long anticipated that she would face a grim situation upon her return, but she had not expected the situation to have deteriorated to this extent.

All eight main fleets of the Angel Empire had retreated, and the imperial high command had even abandoned all colonies located in Orion, retreating entirely back to the Perseus Arm.

She, who had originally been ambitious about a desperate counterattack, fell silent as well.

"Then... what should we do?" After a moment of silence, she asked blankly, "Are we just going to give up? No! There are billions of people on these two planets, I absolutely cannot give up!"

"If you can't hold the territory, then save the population."

Trier, although arrogant, was, after all, an excellent commander, and he gave the most rational advice. "Population is the cornerstone of civilization's revival. Abandon the foolish idea of a decisive battle with the Iof People in the Tianen Star System. Use the redemption's powerful deterrent not to kill the enemy, but to buy time."

"You mean evacuation?"

"Yes, a great retreat." Trier nodded. "Abandon industrial facilities, abandon those heavy assets that cannot be taken, and use the limited time to load as many people as possible onto transport ships and retreat to the hinterland of your Perseus Arm... Well, thinking about it, it seems my method is no different from what your civilization's high command envisioned."

"But we don't have that many transport ships!" Amira said anxiously. "The evacuation fleet has already taken away all the transport capacity."

"Then go borrow them, go seize them, go requisition them." Trier snorted coldly. "Isn't your Angel Empire an authoritarian and idealistic civilization? You are a princess of the Empire; this should be something you are good at."

Amira gritted her teeth, a figure flashing through her mind.

Her sister, the Empire's Ninth Princess, Filura Radiance.

Filura did not command battles on the front lines like other royal family members or sit out the war entirely, but was responsible for the entire Empire's logistics supply and shipping coordination on the Perseus Arm border. She held the largest reserve transport fleet the Empire currently possessed.

"Uncle Raphael, I need to connect to the Empire's logistics headquarters via the express psionic sensor line!" Amira said loudly.

At the edge of the Perseus Arm, at the logistics hub space station.

Filura Radiance was frantically dealing with a mountain of documents. The three pairs of wings behind her looked a size smaller than Amira's. Wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, she looked full of intellect and exhaustion.

When bad news from the front came one after another, she had already prepared herself to hear the news of her sister's death.

However, when the operator at the psionic communication relay station told her there was a communication request that needed to be connected, and after she agreed, that familiar figure appeared on the screen, the work terminal in Filura's hand dropped to the floor.

"Amira?"

On the holographic screen, Amira's familiar yet more determined face made Filura burst into tears instantly.

"Sister, it's me, I'm still alive." Seeing her sister's image, Amira also appeared quite excited, and she spoke at a very fast pace, recounting what she had seen and heard during the time she was missing.

"In other words, you were saved by a powerful unknown civilization, is that right?" Filura said with some suspicion and uncertainty.

"Yes, and I brought back a... very powerful warship." Amira had no time for small talk, and she said somewhat urgently: "But I need your help now. There are billions of people in the Tianen Star System waiting to be evacuated. I need ships, many, many ships!"

"Thank the True God... as long as you are alive, that's all that matters." Filura wiped away her tears and immediately returned to her capable self. "How many do you need?"

"All that you can mobilize!"

"This violates the General Staff's regulations. Current transport ships are strategic resources..." Filura hesitated for a moment, but seeing her sister's anxious eyes, she slammed the table. "Screw the General Staff! I thought you were dead! Since you are alive, I will go crazy with you!"

"I have three heavy transport fleets that have just unloaded cargo, and a luxury cruise fleet that was originally prepared to pick up that damn Duke. I will send them all to you! It can probably load two hundred million people at once; this is the limit!"

"That's enough! Thank you, sister!"

With Filura's promise of support and the full cooperation of Governor Raphael, a great evacuation plan racing against death was urgently launched in the Tianen Star System.

And at this juncture, the Faleim observation team proposed to go to the surface for field observation.

"We not only want to observe the war, but also observe the social ecology of your civilization." Major General Trier said to Amira. "This is the will of the Great Guide."

Amira could not refuse and had to arrange for a shuttle with the royal emblem to escort the observation team to land.

The shuttle passed through the chaotic atmosphere and landed on a high tower platform in the capital of Tianen Star.

This was the place with the best view of the entire planet, overlooking the super-city that was once immensely glorious but was now riddled with scars.

The cabin door opened, and Trier walked out with a dozen Faleim gene warriors wearing silver-gray tight combat suits and outer force field generators, along with a few technicians.

The air here was filled with the smell of gunpowder and fear, and the roar of explosions and the screams of crowds could be heard from time to time in the distance.

"What a chaotic and inefficient social management." Trier commented with a frown. "If it were the Faleim Civilization, in a time of crisis, the central AI would take over the route of every citizen, and such disorderly trampling and looting would never occur."

A technician behind him opened a black briefcase.

"Major General, the equipment is ready."

"Start. The Great Guide is watching us."

Following Trier's order, an exquisite silver disc popped out of the briefcase. The disc hovered in mid-air and began to rotate at high speed, releasing beams of high-frequency quantum waves invisible to the naked eye.

Hum—

A strange vibration rippled through the air.

Immediately after, a beam of light shot out from the center of the disc, constructing a lifelike holographic image in the void before everyone.

It was Lei Wen.

He was wearing his signature casual clothes, his hands in his pockets, looking around with a calm expression.

Through this special portable holographic projector, combined with high-dimensional quantum communication technology, Lei Wen could project his image and perception in real-time to the surface of an alien planet hundreds of light-years away from Earth.

This set of equipment allowed Lei Wen to feel the surrounding environment as if he were there in person; the only difference from being there himself was the inability to touch anything around him.

Although it was only a projection, the Faleim People present still followed their inner instincts and bowed their heads one after another in salute.

"Is this the city of the Angel Empire?"

Lei Wen's voice sounded on the platform. He first told everyone not to be so restrained, and then watched the scene before him with great interest.

The city was full of the unique style of an idealistic civilization. Most of the buildings were constructed of white unknown stone and golden metal, with shapes mostly being spires and domes, and the surfaces were carved with complex reliefs and runes.

Even in the midst of war, one could still see the design philosophy that pursued holiness, grandeur, and artistic sense.

A huge crystal obelisk stood in the center of the city, emitting a faint psionic radiance; it was the city's energy core and also a totem of faith.

In the sky, occasionally Angel people with wings on their backs flew by in a panic, and some were fighting directly in the sky, staging an aerial battle between bird-people.

"Very beautiful, and also very fragile." Lei Wen commented.

"The Guide," Trier reported respectfully, "the situation here is currently very bad. Social order has collapsed. Although Amira Radiance is organizing the evacuation, according to the current efficiency, at most less than twenty percent of the population can be evacuated before the Iof People arrive."

"Twenty percent..." Lei Wen sighed. "This is also something that cannot be helped. The survival of the fittest in civilization is always cruel."

He walked to the edge of the platform, watching the crowds running and flying towards the spaceport below.

Suddenly, his gaze was drawn to a scene in the distance.

In front of a burning cathedral, a group of Angel civilians with small wings were kneeling on the ground. They were not looting supplies or running away in all directions, but under the leadership of an elderly priest, were conducting their final prayers before the statue that was about to collapse.

Their expressions were so pious, so serene, as if the chaos and death around them had nothing to do with them.

A faint golden halo covered them; it was a weak psionic field formed by the convergence of the will of hundreds of people. Although it could not block artillery fire, it could block fear.

"Is this the power of an idealistic civilization?" Lei Wen muttered to himself.

In materialistic civilizations like Faleim or human, when facing a desperate situation of certain death, people might go crazy, might collapse, or might use their last bit of rationality to think of ways to survive.

But this group of people chose to surrender their souls to faith, thereby obtaining a kind of peace that transcends life and death.

"This is a very powerful force, if it can be utilized."

Lei Wen turned around and looked at Trier.

"Trier, record all of this."

"This is not just a record of war, but also a precious sample for us to understand the essence of psionic energy in this universe."

"In addition," Lei Wen said after thinking carefully, "tell Amira that if she needs it, we can provide her with a more efficient population screening and boarding management algorithm."

"Although we cannot directly help her win this war, we can help her save a few more people."

"After all... these people may all be our potential assets in the future."

Trier nodded knowingly: "Understood, Great Guide. I will have the redemption's ship AI intervene in their command system to optimize the evacuation process."