202: Falem combat methods

Iofer Federation Border, Sector E-244.

This was the foremost front where the Federation bordered external star systems and the strongest link in the Alivin defense system. Thousands of orbital defense platforms surrounded every jump point at the edge of the system, and the stellar base [Red Shield] was armed to the teeth, monitoring for the intrusion of even a single grain of dust at all times.

However, there was a fatal blind spot in the Iof People's defense logic: all their defensive fortifications were built upon the basic physical rule that "an enemy approaching the star system must produce spacetime ripples detectable by Tachyon Radar."

But today, that rule was rewritten.

None of the Iof People's detection equipment picked up the spacetime disturbance ripples generated by a large-scale fleet's Warp Drive.

In the deep space approximately 0.5 light-years from the E-244 system, the originally calm space suddenly churned violently like boiling water.

This was no ordinary spatial ripple; it came from the distant B-79 Blue Giant, using that magnificent Quantum Slingshot to convert immense gravitational potential energy into the power to crudely fold space hundreds of light-years away and catapult the fleet back.

There is no sound in a vacuum, but the impact of the gravitational waves released when the spatial structure returned to tranquility was enough to cause the atoms of all matter in this star sector to resonate.

A massive, silver-white fleet abruptly appeared in this void.

It was the main force of the Faleim Third Interstellar Expeditionary Fleet and the Seventeenth Interstellar Expeditionary Fleet.

Two Juggernaut Combat Platforms, each two thousand kilometers long—the [Galaxy Weaver] and the [Ender of All Things]—floated quietly in the center of the fleet like two silver artificial planets.

Surrounding them was a dense three-dimensional phalanx of warships, their vast numbers so great that they blotted out the starlight.

"Slingshot successful, fleet integrity at 100%."

"Coordinate calibration complete; a total of 45 system targets from E-244 to E-289 have been locked."

Talon stood on the command high platform of the [Galaxy Weaver], indifferently watching the red points of light on the Star Map.

"Execute Phase One mission: All-domain Raid."

Talon issued the first command without any emotional fluctuation.

"All fleet units, listen up: dissolve formations."

"With sub-fleets as units, initiate Jump Drives."

"We don't need to probe; jump directly into their faces."

"Execute!"

As the command was issued, this fleet, so massive it was suffocating, instantly dispersed.

This time, the Faleim People demonstrated what a true "Dimensional Reduction Strike" looked like.

Conventional interstellar warfare often revolves around contesting nodes in various important star systems; the attacker needs to advance system by system, while the defender relies on defensive facilities to block them layer by layer.

But the Faleim People had no interest in playing this game of pushing boxes with the Iof People.

They possessed Jump Drives.

Tens of thousands of warships activated their Jump Drives simultaneously, the immense energy of dark matter reactors violently tearing through three-dimensional space to teleport via high-dimensional rifts.

In the eyes of the iofer defenders in the E-244 system, the nightmare descended in a way that defied logic.

"Alert! Alert! Large-scale spacetime anomaly detected within the system!"

The commander of the [Red Shield] stellar base was still drinking a beverage that tasted similar to Earth's alcohol when the alarm nearly shattered his eardrums.

"Where? Is it the lane entrance?" he asked frantically.

"No... it's not the lane!" the radar officer's voice carried a sob. "It's... it's everywhere! Sir! They are above our heads! Behind us! On the damn planetary orbits!"

Shua! Shua! Shua!

Space shattered like a mirror.

One silver-white Faleim warship after another appeared out of thin air in the very core of the iofer defense system.

They didn't appear within the firing arcs of the fortress cannons; instead, they jumped directly into the blind spots of the defense platforms, into the ports where the fleet was moored, and even directly outside the atmosphere of the administrative planet.

This was a war without a front line.

Or rather, every inch of space was the front line.

"Attack! Fire at will!"

The iofer commander roared with all his might.

But he soon discovered in despair that the defense system he took pride in had become a mere decoration. Those heavy orbital guns originally meant for external defense tried to turn their muzzles to attack the internal enemies, only to find their firing arcs completely blocked by their own allies or facilities.

And the Faleim People's strike had already arrived.

A [Sciences End-class] battleship had just exited its jump state; though its shields were in a recharge phase, its hull—forged from neutronium composite armor—was itself the sturdiest shield.

Facing a squad of iofer cruisers attempting to charge, its bow suddenly split open, revealing a complex internal crystal structure.

[Focused Arc Emitter].

Zzzzt—

A violent, ghostly blue arc of electricity instantly pierced the void. This arc ignored the iofer warships' thick physical armor and shields, acting directly on the molecular bonds of matter and the nervous systems of the crew.

The arc was like a nimble serpent, leaping and conducting through the iofer fleet.

Such an attack produced no explosive flames or flying debris.

The few iofer cruisers struck by the arc lost power instantly; their engines died, and their lights went out. The hulls remained intact on the surface, but the internal circuit boards were completely melted, and all crew members were carbonized to ash in an instant by the high-voltage current.

This was the Faleim People's favorite "eco-friendly" tactic for dealing with low-level civilizations—preserve the hull, clear the crew.

On the other side, dozens of [High-Energy Radiation-class] destroyers were demonstrating the meaning of speed and passion.

The Higgs Field Cancellation Devices they were equipped with were enough to grant them nearly inertia-less maneuvering capabilities.

They were like a swarm of silver ghosts, weaving through the iofer People's ponderous battleship formations.

The iofer fire control radars simply could not lock onto these targets performing zig-zag maneuvers at speeds approaching the speed of light; all gunfire hit empty space.

In contrast, the [Phase Disintegration Beam] fired back by these destroyers seemed to make an iofer warship disintegrate instantly with every hit.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of sympathetic detonations bloomed within the system like holiday fireworks.

But this was not yet the most despair-inducing part for the Iof People.

Above the administrative capital of the E-244 system, [Planet Red Rock], a Paradox-type battlecruiser named the [Pi] was floating quietly.

It did not fire its cannons; it simply deployed its electronic warfare equipment.

"Initiate [Thought Network Blocking Protocol]."

"Initiate [Nanovirus Deployment]."

Following the captain's orders, an invisible torrent of data instantly crashed the Iof People's fragile military network.

Ground-based anti-air missile silos had just opened their covers when their control systems were locked, causing the missiles to self-destruct inside the silos.

Orbital defense satellites suddenly turned their guns and began frantically attacking their own allies.

Even the smart weapons in the hands of iofer soldiers fired aimlessly because their friend-or-foe identification systems had been tampered with.

Immediately following this, countless silver dust particles, too small to be seen by the naked eye, were scattered from The Pi and entered the atmosphere.

That was the ultimate weakened version of the Gray Goo storm, known by the Faleim People as the Devourer Nanite Swarm.

They were like a sentient metallic plague, attaching themselves to all iofer military facilities.

The armor of mechs began to rust and become brittle, the engines of starfighters were devoured, and the metal walls of space stations turned into fragile powder.

In less than three hours, this fortress planet with a population of two billion and hundreds of millions of ground troops stationed on it completely lost all ability to resist.

The soldiers discovered in horror that the weapons in their hands had turned into scrap metal, the fortresses they relied on for survival were collapsing, and that silver warship overhead looked down on them like a god, without having wasted even a single shell.

The Governor of the E-244 system sat slumped in his office, watching the wreckage of warships falling outside the window and the screen full of lost-contact signals.

There was none of the tragic see-sawing or heroic charging he had envisioned; the enemy hadn't even given him a single chance to deliver a stirring speech.

From the sounding of the alarm to total collapse, only three hours had passed.

From a strategic perspective, this was a massacre, and a massacre that required no sweat.

The same scene was playing out simultaneously in dozens of star systems along the Iofer Federation border.

The Faleim People's fleet split into countless sub-fleets, utilizing the elusiveness of Jump Drives to insert themselves like knives into every node of the iofer defense line at the same time.

The E-254 system was an important resource production site for iofer.

The defenders here didn't even have time to take off before being trapped in their hangars by Faleim assault ships that jumped directly into the atmosphere.

The Faleim People used a non-lethal weapon called the [Soothing Beam].

A soft green light wave swept across the globe.

The originally violent and warlike iofer soldiers, upon being irradiated by the light wave, had their adrenaline levels instantly drop to zero, and the desire for aggression in their brains was forcibly suppressed.

They threw away their weapons, and some simply lay on the ground and fell asleep.

This was a technology that forcibly eliminated hostility by interfering with brain waves; though it was temporary, it was sufficient for occupation operations.

The E-273 system was an important industrial hub.

It encountered a strike from a Faleim engineering fleet.

A massive engineering ship jumped into stellar orbit; it did not attack any targets but instead directly deployed a massive Dyson Cloud component around the star.

Of course, this wasn't to build a Dyson Sphere, but to temporarily block the sunlight directed at the planet by adjusting the angle of the components.

Dozens of minutes later, this planet plunged into eternal darkness.

Deprived of sunlight, the temperature plummeted, solar power stations stopped working, and the agricultural system dependent on photosynthesis collapsed.

"Surrender, or freeze to death."

The Faleim People's ultimatum was simple and direct.

Faced with such world-changing power, the industrial magnates of the Iof People shivered in the dark and chose to surrender without hesitation... In the underground command room, Lei Wen watched the holographic Star Map as the dark red areas that originally belonged to the Iofer Federation were being replaced at a visible speed by the green representing Faleim-occupied zones.

Those red dots were disappearing or changing color so fast it was like playing a game with the console open.

"This is the absolute generational gap."

Lei Wen lamented.

In the face of the Faleim People's tactical AI capable of predicting the future, indestructible dark matter shields, and teleport-like mobility, the Iof People's resistance appeared so clumsy and laughable.

The Iof People hadn't even managed to assemble a complete fleet; all their strength was consumed before it could even be committed to battle.

"Talon has done well; the Faleim Civilization is truly powerful," Lei Wen commented. "Efficient, cold, and extremely creative."

"In the presence of a higher civilization, traditional fleet broadsides do not exist."

"Electronic warfare, nano warfare, weather warfare, psychological warfare... I feel like this war is more like a military exercise for the Faleim People, bringing out technologies they've let sit idle for hundreds of years to scare the natives."

Price's holographic image added from the side, "According to battlefield data feedback, our new Jump Drives and Higgs Field Cancellation Devices have performed stably in actual combat. Although cooling times still exist, the advantage of this tactical mobility against low-tech civilizations is overwhelming."

"Furthermore," Price pulled up another set of data, "preliminary preparations for implementing [Neural Fine-tuning] and [Genetic Optimization] in the occupied zones have already begun."

"Those surrendered iofer soldiers and civilians are being gathered, categorized, and screened."

"It is estimated that within a year, we will obtain the first batch of completely loyal and efficient iofer laborers."

Lei Wen nodded; although it sounded cruel, it was necessary.

"What is that woman Barlena doing now?"

"Intelligence from the Sentry Array shows she is contracting her defense lines, concentrating all remaining forces in the core star sectors," Price answered. "She seems prepared to have a final decisive battle there."

"Also, the Sentry Array has detected abnormal gravitational fluctuations near the [Eye of the Abyss] system."

"The characteristics of those fluctuations..." Price paused, "are related to some kind of giant biological entity or high-dimensional entity."

"It seems she is still hiding one last trump card." Lei Wen narrowed his eyes.

"Then let's go see if her trump card can really stop Faleim's iron hooves."