Rebirth of the Super Battleship
Chapter 222: Crisis!

When the Henan disappeared, there hadn’t been a single ship positioned in front of it. Xiao Yu speculated that if even one ship had been in the way, the outcome might have been different.

Xiao Yu’s Four-Dimensional Shields were powerful, but not invincible. Ultimately, the root issue lay in the low technological level of Xiao Yu’s own civilization. These Four-Dimensional Shields could only reach their full potential in the hands of a Level 5 or even Level 6 Civilization.

Still, the fact that a Province-Class warship equipped with Four-Dimensional Shields had vanished without a trace was enough to shake Xiao Yu to the core.

During this time, Xiao Yu had conducted some research on the Four-Dimensional Shields and gathered preliminary data. He confirmed that in a three-dimensional world, the fourth dimension could not exist stably on its own, it required an immense amount of energy to remain stable.

The defense principle of the Four-Dimensional Shield was to bend all incoming attacks away from the ship through a twisted fourth-dimensional space, preventing them from making contact with the ship itself. This process consumed energy. To put it metaphorically, the Four-Dimensional Shield was like a spring-loaded door. Every attack, whether physical or energy-based, was like an object of varying size trying to pass through the door. Upon entering, the object would be deflected outward.

But because of the spring, opening the door required energy. The wider it was pushed open, the more energy it consumed. Naturally, the more powerful the incoming force, the wider the door needed to open, and the greater the energy cost.

Once Xiao Yu could no longer supply enough energy, the shield would collapse, just like a spring-loaded door being smashed apart by a massive object.

It was certain now: the mysterious attack just now had a power level so high that the Four-Dimensional Shield didn’t even react before it. Along with the Henan, it simply ceased to exist.

“Is this the ultimate weapon of a Level 5 Civilization?” Xiao Yu muttered, as he swiftly maneuvered hundreds of Village- and Town-Class ships to form a shield wall in front of the Beijing. For added security, he even positioned several City and County-Class ships equipped with Four-Dimensional Shields ahead of the flagship.

Not only the Beijing, but the remaining eight Province-Class warships were now heavily protected. They were simply too massive, too difficult to build, and too valuable. Losing even one would feel like bleeding from the heart.

Just as Xiao Yu completed these maneuvers, roughly ten minutes after the disappearance of the Henan, the mysterious attack struck again.

Against the pitch-black backdrop of space, as the vast fleet surged toward the bright star, two thousand ships suddenly vanished.

They disappeared without a sound, as if some invisible giant beast had swallowed them whole in a single gulp.

All two thousand had been ships positioned in front of the Beijing. Almost simultaneously, a City-Class warship directly behind them had its Four-Dimensional Shield suddenly flare brightly. In that instant, Xiao Yu detected energy levels three times higher than the maximum load. The Four-Dimensional Shield shattered instantly.

However, this form of attack was different from all known types. The collapse of the shield didn’t cause the ship to disintegrate. It was as if… the ship had simply been drained of all its energy in a flash, causing the shield to vanish. But the shield’s disappearance had managed to neutralize the incoming energy.

As a result, aside from its engine being burned out, the ship sustained no other damage. Once its emergency backup engines came online, the shield reappeared, once again enveloping the ship. However, the backup engine had far less power, which greatly reduced the shield’s strength.

Besides this City-Class warship, several hundred other City and County-Class ships were also hit. But seemingly because the several hundred small ships in front had absorbed the brunt of the blow, only about twenty were destroyed. The rest were not annihilated, only registering a sudden massive energy loss before stabilizing again shortly after.

This time, Xiao Yu had survived the attack.

“Once every ten minutes?” Xiao Yu thought, still shaken. “I’m advancing at just under ten thousand kilometers per second. There are fifty minutes left until I reach the target. That means I only have to withstand five more attacks. Hah… this kind of weapon… is truly terrifying.”

Under the assault of that enormous cannon, over two thousand warships were obliterated in an instant. After this round of attack, Xiao Yu immediately redirected even more ships to shield the Province-Class vessels, and at the same time accelerated his fleet’s advance once again.

Less than ninety seconds later, Xiao Yu once again detected a massive void on the planet, caused by the sudden disappearance of a tremendous volume of air. Clearly, this attack was identical to the last.

But this time, the damage was absorbed by the thousands of small ships Xiao Yu had deployed ahead. The Province-Class warships suffered no losses.

“Too terrifying… absolutely terrifying…” Xiao Yu muttered to himself. “Could this be a weapon made possible only after mastering antimatter technology? But how is this connected to antimatter? In giant particle colliders, I can create antimatter too. Why have I never seen it produce such devastating results?”

Xiao Yu vaguely sensed that while mastering antimatter technology marked the threshold of a Level 5 Civilization, the reality of antimatter tech was far more complex than he understood.

When antimatter and matter collide, both are annihilated, releasing all their mass as high-energy photons. He had already witnessed the destructive force of antimatter bombs during the internal conflict aboard a flagship-class warship. But even then, the damage had never been remotely as horrifying as this weapon.

No, this attack couldn’t be based on antimatter. Antimatter annihilation releases immense energy, yet when Xiao Yu’s ships vanished, he detected no energy bursts at all. They just silently… ceased to exist.

Xiao Yu’s thoughts raced as he accelerated further.

“One thing’s clear: this weapon is strategic in nature like the hydrogen bombs of the Earth era. It has terrifying power, but comes with very high activation requirements. That’s why even their Province-Class warships don’t carry it, and it’s only deployed at their planetary bases. If I can just get close enough to destroy them, the threat will be gone. Yes, I must destroy them. And if I can obtain the manufacturing tech for such weapons… that would be priceless.”

Three more minutes passed. Before Xiao Yu had time to reposition enough ships to shield the Beijing, the next blast arrived.

This time, over 1,300 warships were annihilated.

Due to a shortage of Village and Town-Class ships, a significant portion of the blast’s power reached the City and County-Class warships in the rear. As a result, more than 200 of those larger ships vanished. A portion of the attack even struck the Beijing directly.

Fortunately, the energy wasn’t quite sufficient to cause a fatal blow. The Beijing’s Four-Dimensional Shield only flickered violently, and nothing more.

“T-three minutes?! The interval shortened?” Xiao Yu’s heart trembled. “How is that possible?!”

Dozens of seconds later, he saw it again, a massive void.

But this time, its diameter was smaller about four thousand meters.

“That’s not the same cannon! How many of these things do they have?” Xiao Yu’s nerves strained tighter still.

“There are still more than forty minutes until I reach the target! At a rate of one blast every three minutes, I’ll be hit over fifteen more times! That’s almost thirty thousand ships lost! How did it come to this?!”

If Xiao Yu still had a physical body, he would have been drenched in cold sweat by now.

To destroy over ten thousand Molian warships, Xiao Yu had paid the price of one hundred thousand ships. But now without even reaching his enemy, he was about to lose thirty thousand just from these planetary cannons.

And… who knew if they’d accelerate the attack frequency even further?

He couldn’t retreat because he had no idea what the range of these weapons was. If his small ships ran out during retreat, he’d need to sacrifice County-Class ships. If those ran out, he’d have to lose City-Class ships. And if those were gone, it’d be Province-Class next. And once those were gone… Xiao Yu would be gone too.

He couldn’t spread out either to reduce losses. If he did, the enemy would just aim directly for the Province-Class ships. In that case, he’d die even faster.

All this meant he had no choice but to approach rapidly and in a tight, compact formation. Only in such a dense structure could the Province-Class ships receive enough protection.

But a tight formation also meant each blast would strike with maximum efficiency.

Just one minute after the previous strike, another blast.

This one annihilated four hundred City and County-Class ships, and eight hundred Village-Class ships positioned in front of the Beijing.

And even then, a considerable amount of residual force reached the flagship. Its Four-Dimensional Shield flickered violently again.

“No good! The interval’s getting even shorter! At this rate, I’ll be wiped out before I even reach the target! This can’t continue!”

Xiao Yu’s nerves were stretched to their absolute limit.

“This is it… the most critical moment…”

“Then, the fifty thousand warships I planted in ambush before, it’s time for you to act!”