※ The battle for Ba'erqincheng was decided the moment the reinforcements from the Ancient Legion's fleet were locked on and struck; no matter how mighty a warrior, once reduced to a vegetative state, even a child could easily slay him.

Sixty thousand Ghost fighters swarmed the Ancient Legion's capital ship ceaselessly, like bees around a hive. Third-generation anti-ship missiles sliced deep into the ship's outer armor, igniting violent explosions within. Even behemoths like the Dragon King-class battlecruisers were left riddled with holes and ablaze after just one pass by thousands of fighters. After Yang Ying gave the order to attack, his main soul returned to Ship Number One, leaving Blade to command the battle. Blade and his five other clones each took command of ten thousand Ghost fighters, splitting into six massive formations that assaulted the Ancient Legion reinforcement fleet from the front, rear, top, bottom, left, and right directions, pushing inward step by step. The outer formations of destroyers and frigates were broken first, followed by light cruisers, heavy cruisers, until they reached the core, the Dragon King-class battlecruisers. The effect of the lock-on permeated the entire fleet; every aircraft in the hangars—whether standard fighters, Fang fighters, or Master-grade fighters—was held fast, utterly unable to move an inch. Although this reinforcement fleet boasted the scale of two main fleets, it was far from being one; it was merely a collection of "loose" warships. These vessels were meant to replenish damaged fleets on the front lines from the Ancient Legion's rear echelon. Consequently, the complement of Master-grade experts was limited to only two: Master Ape Mi Jia and Master Ape Bensa, who served as the temporary fleet commander and vice-commander, respectively.

At this moment, Fleet Vice-Commander Bensa arrived at his hangar bay, intending to retrieve his fighter, while simultaneously engaging in telepathic communion with Commander Mi Jia aboard the flagship. "I can feel the life force of our warriors draining away rapidly. The enemy's scale is too vast, and their movements so elusive. Before I could even react, they had already deployed such a massive formation. This doesn't seem like the work of humans." He approached his fighter and saw white electrical arcs sporadically tracing across its surface. He swiftly entered the cockpit and attempted to activate the power system, but there was no response whatsoever; the same was true for all other systems. "Lord Mi Jia, my fighter is unusable. How is it on your end?" Bensa inquired telepathically. "Lord Bensa, it is the same here. Not just the fighters, but all systems on the warships are paralyzed. Radar, communications, weapons, power—not a flicker of response. Even the escape pods are unusable," Mi Jia's voice resonated from another warship, directly entering his mind. "This situation bears a strong resemblance to what Gang Di and the others encountered half a year ago. However, our ships were all equipped with Hú protective shielding, and the Boron attack shouldn't have been able to achieve such thorough results, disabling every system. For humans to have developed military technology like this is truly perilous," a current of worry flowed through Bensa's thoughts. "This bizarre attack must be reported to Lord Weng Sha Lie on the front lines. Otherwise, should the humans launch such an assault again, the entire front line risks annihilation," Mi Jia stated grimly. "Yes, we must find a way to notify him," Bensa responded with equal seriousness, though a question arose in his mind: "Strange. If humans possessed this technology, why didn't they deploy it during the several battles near Jupiter? If all warships suddenly became immobile on the battlefield, the Jupiter campaign would have concluded with a human victory long ago." "Human minds are far more complex than that. Their internal conflicts regarding history, ideology, and faith, as well as their selfish desires for greed, jealousy, hatred, and lust for power, drain their energy, preventing them from unleashing the full might of their race. Otherwise, the Legion would have perished years ago. I suspect the situation remains the same now." Although the battle situation was disadvantageous—no, 'disadvantageous' couldn't describe it; it was a situation of certain death—even under these circumstances, Mi Jia showed no inclination to look down upon the humans. "Indeed, Lord Mi Jia. Humans possess nothing beyond sheer numbers," Bensa closed his eyes, enveloping his entire fighter with his potent Master-grade mental energy, and roared, "How can we lose to such people! Move for me!" The fighter responded to his will, yet this was merely him lifting the aircraft through sheer psychic force, not a sign of its power system recovering. "Poison!" Bensa, seated in the cockpit, used his mental power to levitate his fighter toward the hangar door. Arriving there, he cast out his light staff, controlling it with his psychic energy to slice an opening—large enough for a fighter to pass through—in the hangar door with a blade of silver light. Then, he waved his hand to recall the staff and guided his fighter out beyond the confines of the warship. Outside the warship, the environment was similarly transparent, occasionally flickering with white electrical arcs. However, this was enough for Bensa to make a judgment: he was inside a transparent sphere. Immediately, he thought: if he could move the fighter outside this transparent sphere, perhaps this anomalous state would dissipate? For a Master-grade expert, the vacuum of space was no issue at all; even inside the hangar moments ago, it had been a vacuum. Bensa made up his mind, sealed the cockpit canopy, and continued to guide his fighter, supported by his mental power, toward the edge of this transparent sphere. Suddenly, a Dragon King-class battlecruiser ahead of him was swarmed by a group of Ghost fighters. The Ghosts flew past from tail to nose, launching missile after missile into the Dragon King-class hull—a total count exceeding five thousand. A few seconds later, the Dragon King-class erupted in a massive explosion starting from the stern. The blast traveled along the hull, quickly engulfing the entire warship in flames, followed by a secondary, larger detonation that atomized the vessel into dust.

The Ghost fighters summoned from the floating continent were not in stealth mode, and the Ghosts previously brought by Blade, which were cloaked, had also revealed their frames. Thus, Bensa, from the cockpit, clearly saw the culprits destroying the warship. "These are Earth Army Ghost fighters," Bensa exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock. "Incredible! Their performance severely contradicts the intelligence reports. The communiqués stated that the humans' newly equipped Ghost fighters, while representing a leap forward compared to aircraft like the Night Owl, still lagged slightly behind the Fang fighters. This shouldn't be happening! The Ghost fighters before me surpass the Fang fighters piloted by high-level Apprentice Ape pilots by more than a mere margin. And the sheer number of them—so many!" Bensa felt as if the universe were playing a colossal joke on him. The Fang fighter had always been the Ancient Legion's trump card against the Earth Army. Apart from the Psionicist fighters, the Earth Army had no comparable model to engage the Fang fighters, and the Psionicists suffered from a severe numerical disadvantage. Consequently, for a long time, whenever the numerically superior Fang fighters were deployed, the Earth Army was inevitably routed. However, judging by today's battlefield, these Ghost fighters, which appeared stronger than the Fang fighters, were numerous. Besides this immediate swarm, Bensa observed from the combat erupting in several other directions that even more Ghost fighters were present there. The total number of these aircraft even exceeded the total number of Psionicist fighters in the Earth Army! "Impossible? How is this possible?" Bensa instantly felt a chill run through his limbs. What he was witnessing defied all logic. He could never have imagined seeing such a sight before witnessing it with his own eyes.

"Lord Mi Jia," he immediately informed Mi Jia via telepathy. "Such a thing!" Mi Jia’s voice sounded enraged and shocked, the impact on him no less than on Bensa. However, he quickly regained his composure. "If this is the case, then what I said earlier makes even more sense. This attack must have been initiated by a small faction within humanity—a small group that has mastered Ghost fighter technology and supplied it to the Earth Army, while secretly retaining a model of Ghost fighter that is even more advanced. Besides the Ghost fighters, they also possess the technology to paralyze warships and have demonstrated superior stealth capabilities, enabling them to launch this assault. As far as I know, among the human factions capable of such a feat, there is only one!" Bensa instantly understood, retorting, "It must be the Tran Mercenary Group that used the Gāng Kǒu to ambush Lord Gang Di and the others! They sold the Ghost fighters to the Earth Army, but we never expected them to possess so many even more advanced models under their command. Is this Earth government foolish? They have such a powerful force lurking beside them and haven't paid it any heed!" "This is what humans are!" Mi Jia roared.

At that moment, Bensa's fighter silently slipped out of the sphere's area of effect. He was pleasantly surprised to find the white electrical arcs jumping across his aircraft slowly diminishing. Clearly, his fighter would soon be able to restart. He relayed this discovery to Mi Jia. Mi Jia was also delighted, immediately commanding, "Lord Bensa, please proceed immediately to the Jupiter front line and report these events to Lord Weng Sha Lie. Since we now know the method, I will follow shortly." "Understood!" Bensa replied loudly.

On the other side, after leading his forces to destroy another Dragon King-class battlecruiser, Blade suddenly detected a signal on his radar near the crippled battlecruiser. Upon zooming in with the optical imager, he realized it was a Master-grade fighter! Blade was intimately familiar with the lock-on's weakness. Although electrical arcs still danced across the fighter's fuselage in the optical image, Blade knew that the disappearance of the arcs was only a matter of time. He toggled the control stick, pushing his craft to maximum acceleration as he charged toward Bensa's fighter! His remote weapons had all been deployed; one hundred and seventy uranium cannons focused their beams simultaneously on Bensa’s aircraft. Bensa felt the hairs on his body stand on end, a sense of fatal crisis engulfing his heart. "Not good, I've been locked on!" Bensa's heart tightened. His fighter's power had not yet recovered. He roared and unleashed his full psychic energy, propelling his fighter to shift sideways.