The sudden sneak attack plunged the capital of the Hongxian Federation, Puji Star, into massive panic. Since the Federation's founding, its capital had never experienced war.

The troops guarding the capital had never imagined that Puji Star would actually come under assault.

They were, thankfully, usually well-trained, and after the initial chaos, they managed to regain their composure. However, they quickly discovered that their casualties were devastatingly heavy.

The enemy's firepower was concentrated on a single base, resulting in the complete destruction of two "Quasi-Satellite" class warships and two "Mist Mountain" class warships.

The highest-ranking commander of that base was killed in the very first wave of the attack; he had been patrolling nearby commanding a "Quasi-Satellite" vessel and was unfortunately struck down.

The Deputy Commander immediately assumed command and began organizing a counterattack, but all nearby patrol ships had been annihilated, and it would take at least half an hour for the warships in the naval port to launch.

At that moment, the only defense they could rely on were the anti-aircraft cannons stationed at the base. Vaguely visible on the sensors was what appeared to be only a single enemy vessel, though they couldn't be certain. The enemy's stealth capabilities were formidable, having gone undetected until they were within 2,500 kilometers of the base.

Furthermore, the power of the enemy's main cannon was terrifying—its destructive capability rivaled that of their strongest anti-aircraft guns. And its range exceeded two thousand kilometers. Such a light cannon was utterly unheard of.

The base commander made an immediate decision: he requested immediate support from headquarters.

The three bases surrounding Puji Star were distributed in an equilateral triangle formation. They had originally been satellites of Puji Star, subsequently converted into military installations.

Apart from these three military bases, there was an even larger military installation located near the space jump point, twenty million kilometers away.

When the high command of the Hongxian Federation learned that Base No. 1 on Puji Star was under attack by unknown spacecraft, they were utterly perplexed. They couldn't fathom where these unknown ships had materialized from.

Some quickly recalled the fleet that had raided Mandes Star. The methods used in both attacks were identical.

Realizing this, the personnel at the Supreme Command felt a wave of relief. Ever since Mandes Star had been suddenly overrun, they knew their domestic defenses had become dangerously lax, allowing the enemy an opening.

Following that realization, they implemented a series of decisive measures, such as mandating that over half of all warships assigned to any military base must be deployed on patrol duty.

Therefore, even though the four patrol ships at Base No. 1 were destroyed in the attack, the warships from the other bases could quickly be dispatched to provide aid.

The Supreme Command immediately declared Puji Star to be under Level One Alert, ordering all warships to emergency activation. Even a third of the ships from the base near the space jump point were redeployed.

The entire national machine sprang into action instantly. With the capital threatened, no one dared to slacken; they displayed an unprecedented level of efficiency.

Before the reinforcements could arrive, Base No. 1 was not entirely idle. The commander ordered all anti-aircraft cannons, large and small, to target the single enemy vessel and enter a charging state.

Even if the enemy was within the firing range of those massive cannons, delaying them for even a moment would be beneficial.

The smaller cannons, usually reserved for dealing with pesky mechs, were the first to complete charging and began firing. Several shots accurately struck the enemy ship. On the sensors, the enemy vessel finally revealed its true form.

It was an egg-shaped warship, yet its bulk was larger than a standard transport freighter. The Base No. 1 commander felt a strange uncertainty; judging by its shape, it looked more like a cargo vessel. Standard warships were rarely designed this way.

Could the attackers be some reckless band of pirates? he mused.

Non-standard warships possessing extraordinary weaponry, appearing and vanishing without a trace, certainly fit the profile of pirates.

Pirates were perhaps the most troublesome faction because one could never gauge their true strength. Pirates operating around ordinary intermediate-level civilizations were usually no match for a regular navy and only capable of fleeing.

But if one encountered pirates who had spilled over from a higher-tier empire, all one could do was lament their misfortune; such groups could wipe out an intermediate nation in minutes.

The pirate gang that had nearly annihilated Davor fifty years prior was a remnant of a group that had fled the Ge’an Empire.

The Ge’an Empire’s agreement to elevate Davor to an intermediate civilization was largely due to that war. Although they were merely pirate remnants, having defected from a high-tier power meant their fleet was far beyond what a nascent state like Davor could resist.

It was unbelievable that Davor had managed to destroy them.

The commander of Base No. 1 immediately reported the intelligence, along with his speculation, to the Supreme Command.

By this time, the medium-range cannons had also finished charging. The Base No. 1 commander did not hesitate, launching all of them.

Several bright spots flared on the hull of the enemy ship. It did not evade this barrage, but it appeared to sustain no significant damage.

Fifteen minutes had now passed since the enemy fired its first light cannon. A destroyer in the naval port had begun its activation sequence.

Suddenly, the Base No. 1 commander noticed a peculiar phenomenon: the suspected "pirate ship" was not advancing on the base but was holding its position. This caused him confusion but also settled his nerves somewhat; whatever the reason, as long as the enemy wasn't charging, the base was significantly safer.

A few more minutes passed. Some of the main cannons were beginning to finish charging. As he hesitated about whether to fire them, a faint green beam shot out from the enemy vessel, striking the largest anti-aircraft cannon.

The energy accumulating at the cannon's muzzle swelled like a balloon. The specialized alloy barrel, designed to withstand temperatures of twenty thousand degrees without deforming, was instantly melted into slag.

A piercing alarm blared throughout the entire base. Just as it sounded for the second time, a terrifying explosion erupted, enveloping an area nearly a hundred kilometers in radius.

The resulting shockwave shattered most of the isolation shields, instantly suffocating almost everyone outdoors, save for a very few fortunate survivors, in a vacuum.

The destruction wrought by the blast did not stop there. Within the nearly one-hundred-kilometer radius affected, every structure was melted into a mass of scrap metal. The base command center, located about five kilometers from the epicenter, was caught in the wave, and all the command staff inside were instantly wiped out.

Zhong Yun had not expected a single shot from the "Chaos Ray" to yield such surprisingly positive results. The last time he used it, the enemy had remained completely unharmed; this second deployment had unexpectedly caused such massive devastation. The "Chaos Ray" truly was a weapon that tested one's luck.

Seizing the opportunity, Zhong Yun immediately engaged all thrusters, pushing toward the base while the enemy was momentarily inert. The reason he had held back earlier was to wait for the enemy's heavy cannons to fire.

Although the Mars was ruggedly built, it could not withstand several shots from those heavy cannons; after all, it was not an impregnable fortress with monstrous defensive capabilities.

Approaching within five hundred kilometers without encountering any resistance, Zhong Yun was unaware that the preceding explosion had already destroyed the enemy's command center. He launched the mech and fighter squadrons he had prepared, unleashing full firepower onto the enemy ships in the naval port that had not yet finished activating.

When warships remain stationary in a port, they are essentially sitting ducks. Due to the angles, although there were many warships docked, few could gain a clear line of sight to the Mars.

The Mars only endured a dozen or so energy blasts of moderate power before destroying eight "Mist Mountain" class warships and several dozen destroyers within the naval port.

The deployed mech squad and fighter teams quickly secured the entire base. The enemy mechs and fighters, now leaderless, could offer no effective resistance.

Taking the base with such minimal cost, Zhong Yun felt the outcome was unexpectedly smooth. He and Chen Wen and the others marveled that luck, indeed, played a significant role in warfare.

Solely because the "Chaos Ray" performed beyond expectation, the enemy lost its capacity to resist, allowing the Mars to land effortlessly and annihilate all the warships that hadn't even managed to launch.

If the enemy commander could somehow perceive this, he would likely be beating his chest in bitter regret. In a direct confrontation, even if the Mars could have taken the base, it would have incurred substantial costs and required far more time.

Before the enemy reinforcements could arrive, Zhong Yun rapidly set up defenses. The unexpectedly easy capture of this base significantly increased the probability of his overall plan succeeding.

He ordered mechs to secure the anti-aircraft cannons that remained undamaged; these could all be repurposed to fend off the arriving enemy reinforcements.

With the cover of this base, the Mars became even more formidable. The first "Mist Mountain" class warship to arrive was torn apart by a blast from a heavy cannon the moment it entered the base's two-thousand-kilometer perimeter, dissolving into a brilliant fireball.

The ships following behind were struck with horror; they clearly saw the energy blast originate from the base itself. At that very moment, an urgent notice flashed from the Supreme Command: "Base No. 1 has fallen. Exercise extreme caution."

However, this warning came too late. The two "Quasi-Satellite" class warships following closely behind met the same fate as the preceding vessel, being pulverized into cosmic dust by the terrifyingly powerful energy cannon before they could react.

Zhong Yun quickly tallied the losses and realized he had annihilated nearly half of the enemy's total warship complement. This result was unbelievable even to him.

Is this truly Davor's divine luck?

But the good fortune seemed to abandon them then. What arrived next was a super-fleet composed of seven "Quasi-Satellite" class vessels, fifteen "Mist Mountain" class vessels, and one hundred destroyers.

This fleet completely surrounded Base No. 1. Thus commenced a fierce defensive and offensive battle—a conflict between 122 ships against one—destined to be recorded in history.

P.S.: I managed to finish this before midnight. My writing energy has been very low recently; composing war scenes is extremely taxing, and my typing speed has significantly slowed. Moreover, perhaps the content isn't very engaging. I should conclude this war soon. By the way, I am running a poll regarding the content of this book on the page.