Rebirth of the Super Battleship
Chapter 225: Breach

Based on his deductions, Xiao Yu believed that the Molian Civilization couldn’t possibly station too much population within this star system. The vast majority of their defenses were likely operated by automated electronic systems. This made the Supercomputing Center constructed on the planet’s surface a critical strategic target.

As long as that computational hub was destroyed, the Molian Civilization’s combat strength would drop by at least half. Those colossal cannons could very likely be disabled as well.

Under Xiao Yu’s onslaught, the data feedback from the Supercomputing Center became severely delayed. Externally, this manifested as a significant drop in the firing frequency of the giant cannons. Additionally, the attacks from other bases on the one he had occupied began to wane.

This development lifted Xiao Yu’s spirits immensely.

“Push harder! Take down the Supercomputing Center in one decisive strike!” Xiao Yu thought, increasing the intensity of his assault yet again.

At this point, Xiao Yu even stopped monitoring the Molian ships at the edge of the system. Taking a risk, he rerouted the computing power of another 100,000 ships into the offensive. The surge of data was so immense that even the Yanjing’s supercomputer, tasked only with data relays, began to show signs of lag.

Under this overwhelming torrent of data, the burnout rate of the robots inside the captured space base reached alarming levels.

Meanwhile, Xiao Yu’s main strike fleet accelerated its approach once more.

The fifty thousand ships were dwindling at an astonishing pace. But Xiao Yu’s sacrifices were not in vain. Ten minutes into the data assault, the feedback from the Supercomputing Center began to return error messages. Then, three minutes later, it went completely silent.

“It must’ve triggered its internal protection mechanism, it’s rebooting,” Xiao Yu speculated.

The rebooting of the Supercomputing Center meant that the numerous defensive facilities in orbit around the planet had lost their connection. Almost simultaneously with the reboot, Xiao Yu saw a great number of space bases go silent. The formations of Molian Civilization ships also fell into disarray. They lost navigation, centralized coordination, and unified command. This meant they had become nothing more than scattered forces, their combat strength slashed by at least half.

Before the war in the physical realm had even concluded, Xiao Yu had already seized victory in the digital one.

This kind of victory was impossible to replicate, at least not for any other technological civilization. To launch a data war at this level would require millions of intelligent entities acting in perfect unison. Coordinating so many minds was an almost insurmountable challenge. In other words, only Xiao Yu could utilize such a method.

“One massive crisis, finally resolved,” Xiao Yu exhaled softly. With the Supercomputing Center captured, the most perilous moment had passed.

“It’ll take at least an hour for it to reboot and resume normal operations. I’ll reach the planet’s orbit in less than half an hour. That means… in that half hour, I’ll finish destroying its hardware. Erase the threat at its root.”

Xiao Yu made his decision.

Without the support of the Supercomputing Center, the Molian Civilization’s fleet could now only be described as a scattered mess. With over a thousand Molian ships currently engaged, it was questionable whether they could even match Xiao Yu’s fifty thousand ships, let alone his full force.

As expected, once the massive fleet of over 200,000 warships arrived at the planet’s orbit, the battle turned completely one-sided. The countless ground-based and orbital defense bases became little more than set pieces. Without the command and coordination of the Supercomputing Center, they were less effective than a standard elemental decay grenade.

At this moment, the fifty thousand warships that had first infiltrated the system had been reduced to just over twenty thousand. But they had finally escaped danger and rejoined Xiao Yu’s main fleet.

Over a thousand Luka scientists from the Psychosocial Sciences Division finally allowed themselves to relax completely. Many of them, now transferred to The Paradise, collapsed onto the floor and fell into deep sleep the instant they were safe.

During this entire period, they had remained in a constant state of psychological tension. Each Luka had lost at least ten kilograms in body mass, proof of the immense mental strain they had endured.

“These past days have been hard on you,” Xiao Yu thought with deep emotion. “If not for your success in stalling for time, deceiving the Molian people, and infiltrating their systems, I might have been completely annihilated by those giant cannons.”

“I’ve witnessed your contribution with my own eyes. Once this war is over, once we’ve found stability again, I will reward you all properly.”

“Now, it’s time for the harvest.”

Xiao Yu ignored the remaining orbital defenses of the planet and launched a ferocious pursuit of the Molian ships that still retained combat capability. Simultaneously, tens of thousands of Town-Class vessels were dispatched for rapid planetary deployment.

As they passed through the dense atmosphere, the true face of the planet was revealed to Xiao Yu.

A sea of yellow sand, no water, no vegetation, no life. Even its atmospheric composition was dominated by various harmful gases.

This was no life-bearing planet. It was a dead world, much like Mars.

Yet scattered amidst the yellow sand were countless metallic constructs. These structures had sleek, shiny exteriors and followed advanced engineering principles in their architectural designs.

There were an incredible number of them. A rough estimate placed at least fifty thousand of these installations on the planet, varying in size and scattered across the landscape in a distinct pattern.

“These must be their bases… and all kinds of storage depots. What I want is inside.”

Here, Xiao Yu finally got his first close-up look at the massive cannons. Faced with these enormous structures, things that hardly seemed possible for living beings to construct, Xiao Yu could only feel awe.

Even the planetary engines he had once built paled in comparison to these giants.

They were colossal. Viewed from above, the ground was covered in countless silver-gray structures, each tens of kilometers in length and width. The land area they occupied was comparable to an entire county on Earth. They resembled entire cities more than military bases.

And there were hundreds of such bases across the planet. They were distributed in a strategic pattern, ensuring that no matter how the planet rotated, they could target any point in space for bombardment.

“With bases this enormous, if they were operated by intelligent individuals, how many personnel would it take? The Molian Civilization couldn’t possibly station that many people here. These facilities must be extremely automated.”

“The most likely case is that each facility has its own independent computer system. They possess a degree of autonomous control, but the highest authority must rest with the Supercomputing Center. Otherwise, when I captured that center, these cannons wouldn’t have ceased firing. Which makes this interesting, if I take control of these installations and gain access to their electronics, I might be able to obtain the manufacturing technology behind these giant cannons…”

That was a powerful temptation. The battle in space had largely come to an end. The thousand-odd Molian warships had been eliminated, and countless space bases had been destroyed by Xiao Yu.

Aside from the County-Class and higher vessels, which were too massive to land, Xiao Yu committed over two hundred thousand Town-Class warships to the planet’s surface.

More than two hundred ships gathered above one of the bases alone. Each ship carried at least two hundred combat robots, meaning over forty thousand robots had been deployed at this location.

These robots initiated a highly efficient infiltration operation. Some landed atop the base, some in front of it, but regardless of their landing points, they immediately began attacking the base using their equipped weapons.

On the planet’s surface, over fifty thousand bases stood. The vast majority were military installations, all designed for space warfare. Not a single one had been designed for ground or low-altitude combat. A brief analysis told Xiao Yu all he needed to know about the mindset of the Molian Civilization.

If thousands of warships in space, vast numbers of orbital bases, ground bases, and these devastating giant cannons couldn’t stop an invader, then how could they expect to succeed with ground-level defenses?

Thus, within just a few minutes of combat, tens of thousands of robots successfully breached the base. They swept rapidly through the crisscrossing corridors, probing surrounding circuitry and trying to establish links with the base’s central computer.

This same scene unfolded across thousands of bases. The more than two hundred thousand Town-Class vessels had brought with them over fifty million combat robots, flooding across the planet’s surface like a tide.

Xiao Yu already had advance intel on the distribution of various resources, including the storage sites for bio-type commodities, meaning living creatures captured by the Molian Civilization from other planets and civilizations, and the location of the Supercomputing Center itself.

As for the alien lifeforms, Xiao Yu had little interest. But scientists from other civilizations? Those, Xiao Yu was very interested in.