Rebirth of the Super Battleship
Chapter 216: Control Access

Due to the special environment within the ship, high-powered weapons could not be used. Their destructive radius was too large and could potentially damage the vessel’s structure. Thus, combat inside the ship was inevitably dominated by precision weapons, such as high-energy laser rifles, Gauss-based kinetic weapons, material disintegration beam guns, and the like.

Xiao Yu likewise dared not use high-powered weaponry inside the ship. After all, he still intended to capture this vessel, he wasn’t willing to damage it too severely.

Under such constraints, the battle between both sides became rather restrained.

The damage inflicted by various automated defensive weapons far exceeded that caused by enemy combat robots. As a result, Xiao Yu’s robotic army took on a new mission: after eliminating enemy combat robots, they had to dismantle the omnipresent internal defenses to clear the path for the forces following behind.

The attrition rate of Xiao Yu’s robots had reached an astonishing level. After exploring less than one percent of the ship’s interior, over fifty thousand robots had already been lost. But exploration also meant occupation, thanks to their sacrifice, the territory under Xiao Yu’s control was slowly expanding.

Outside the ship, one robot transport vessel after another continued to arrive, latching onto the flagship and deploying their combat robots. Meanwhile, the battle over the breach itself had entered a state of white-hot intensity. As the flagship sustained more damage, Molian Civilization vessels on other fronts, entangled by Xiao Yu’s other battle groups, fought with suicidal determination to break free and rush to the flagship’s side to provide cover.

But Xiao Yu would never allow them to succeed. He commanded his own ships to respond with even greater ferocity and a total disregard for losses, intercepting and destroying each one.

At the same time, a fleet of approximately five hundred ships emerged from the inner star system, hurtling toward the battlefield at high speed.

“A final desperate struggle,” Xiao Yu sneered, deploying twenty thousand reserve ships to intercept the fleet and pin it down.

Xiao Yu didn’t expect his twenty thousand ships to eliminate the five hundred Molian ships; all he needed was to delay them. Once this flagship was secured, he could unleash the more than one hundred thousand ships currently engaged in holding actions and redeploy them to the other battlefronts.

Meanwhile, the fifty thousand ships Xiao Yu had hidden within the inner star system still remained motionless. Luka Two’s stellar performance had thoroughly convinced the Molian Civilization that these ships were entirely unaware of the outside conflict. Therefore, communication data links between those ships and the outside world remained active, Xiao Yu was still able to use these connections to infiltrate the Molian computer systems and keep their forces distracted.

“It’s not yet time to activate those fifty thousand ships… but when the moment comes, I believe they’ll give you a surprise…” Xiao Yu thought, accelerating the advance of his robot army once more.

As the incursion deepened, the resistance his robots faced grew ever more intense. But thanks to Xiao Yu’s complete disregard for losses and fearless commitment to the fight, progress remained steady.

After blasting open another sealed door, Xiao Yu saw, for the first time, a piece of Molian electronic equipment. And it appeared that, due to the crew’s hasty evacuation, the device had been left running and had not been shut down. Seeing this, Xiao Yu was overjoyed and immediately began examining the system.

From previous hacking efforts, Xiao Yu had already acquired a basic understanding of Molian electronic devices, and this time, the research proceeded smoothly. He quickly located the data interface and connected it to the interface on the robot.

Information belonging to Xiao Yu surged through the link, quickly flowing into a brand-new world.

It was the data realm of this flagship.

This meant that Xiao Yu had successfully opened up a second battlefield.

“First, locate the ship’s control modules. Then pull up a map. After that… try to take control of the ship…”

Xiao Yu knew exactly what to do after gaining access.

As his intrusion deepened, he gradually gained control over several data pathways. Xiao Yu issued a command and instantly, the walls of the corridor outside the door began to emit a soft white glow, illuminating the entire passage.

This meant that control over the corridor’s lighting system had already fallen into Xiao Yu’s hands.

“Very good! Control over the lighting may be insignificant on its own, but if I can take over the lighting, then I can take over the weapons systems, the lockdown doors, even the ship’s external weapons systems and ultimately, the entire vessel…”

This realization greatly boosted Xiao Yu’s morale.

Using this foothold, Xiao Yu’s computational force began to expand outward.

Meanwhile, the robots continued to advance smoothly. After seizing another corridor, Xiao Yu encountered the first Molian Civilization lifeform. Just as he had expected, the creature stood about 2.5 meters tall, like a giant. When discovered by Xiao Yu’s robots, it was shouting wildly and trying to shove a weapon, something that resembled a firearm into its own mouth.

“Trying to commit suicide? What’s the point? Even if I take over this ship, I won’t mistreat any of you. I’m counting on you to help advance my technology,” Xiao Yu sighed, as he directed a robot to leap forward and strike the creature squarely on its head-like organ.

Whether from fear or the impact, the Molian being lost consciousness. Two robots lifted it up and began quickly retreating with it toward the rear.

Xiao Yu planned to bring this creature aboard his own ship for detailed biological analysis, both to support the current assault and to aid in future biosphere construction.

The capture of the first Molian lifeform meant that the speed of their retreat within the ship could no longer keep up with Xiao Yu’s robot army, it also meant that Xiao Yu would be able to capture even more of them moving forward.

“Advance! Keep pushing forward!” Xiao Yu ordered.

As the robot army surged onward, the battle in the data world was also intensifying. Xiao Yu was someone who could challenge the computer systems of an entire Molian star system single-handedly. Here, even the largest data system still belonged to a single ship.

The territory under Xiao Yu’s control continued to expand. As a result, certain scenes began to appear throughout the vessel.

In one corridor, a squad of Xiao Yu’s robots was engaged in fierce combat with enemy forces. Under the assault of Molian combat robots and automated defenses, his squad suffered heavy losses until suddenly, the automated defenses stopped firing. Then, they turned and began attacking the Molian combat robots instead.

This was because Xiao Yu’s control had extended into that area, the defense weapons had now fallen under his authority. However, since combat robots required higher security clearance, he still could not take direct control of them for the time being.

With the help of these “traitors,” the Molian robots suffered massive casualties. Under Xiao Yu’s control, the intercepting doors that blocked the robots’ path now opened one after another, and the defensive weapons, originally deployed to repel invaders, switched sides and began attacking their former allies…

This was the outward manifestation of the war being waged within the data world.

During this digital battle, Xiao Yu discovered that some areas were beyond his reach.

“Hardware-level defense mechanisms? So I can’t access those areas through digital intrusion alone?” Xiao Yu murmured to himself. “These must be the ship’s top-level clearance zones, like overall control of the vessel, external weapon systems, internal life support, and control over combat robots.”

In those sections, the Molian Civilization had implemented purely hardware-based security systems, which meant there was no way to breach them through digital means alone.

This wasn’t a matter of Xiao Yu not being powerful enough, it was simply impossible through data-layer intrusion.

“But that’s fine. If I can’t hack it digitally, I’ll take control through brute force… Hmm, sector A745 should be an armory. Let’s capture it first and see what the Molian Civilization has stockpiled…”

With that thought, Xiao Yu ordered his robots to head quickly toward the designated area.

On the way to the armory, they encountered even fiercer resistance. Even with the help of previously converted internal defense weapons, Xiao Yu’s robot army suffered heavy casualties. The weapons systems guarding this armory seemed to require an even higher level of clearance, Xiao Yu’s current access wasn’t enough to control them.

Moreover, the number of enemy combat robots had increased significantly, causing another spike in robot casualties.

But after a grueling battle, Xiao Yu finally captured the armory. Some robots immediately seized the portable weapons stored inside, and after a brief familiarization with their functions, began using them in combat.

In the model inside Xiao Yu’s mind, the red area representing captured territory continued to expand, finally covering the entire ship.

This meant that the ship’s outer structure was now completely under Xiao Yu’s control. What came next… was the push into the deeper, more central regions of the flagship.