"Commander, aren't we being a bit reckless? What if those millions of pilots who are essentially suicide operatives manage to slip through?" As a senior staff officer, the Commander's deputy had the right to offer counsel.

"It's the only way," the Commander murmured, "The enemy strikes from within precisely to neutralize our full potential. If we don't deploy the fighters, isn't that like tying our own hands? As for the infiltration by suicide troops, there’s nothing to be done about that now. So long as we are cautious when using the carrier-borne aircraft units, we can spot the self-detonators the moment they attack our allies and shoot them down, while simultaneously restricting all carrier-borne aircraft movements to prevent them from infesting other warships. That way, we can proceed."

"Yes, sir." The deputy relayed the Commander's supplementary orders to the fleet.

Among the two hundred thousand escort fleet ships, there were tens of millions of carrier-borne aircraft, the vast majority of which remained uninfected, far outnumbering the two million Vhyrongs. Furthermore, the two hundred thousand warships possessed firepower several times greater than the five hundred thousand Devourers.

When engagement began, the anticipated betrayal by the suicide operatives did occur, and in significant numbers, confirming that many more were still hidden among the ranks.

The Haisen Guard Fleet reacted swiftly, ejecting the aircraft attacking friendly forces from their ranks, flagging their signals as hostile, and ordering other fighters to join the suppression.

However, this action significantly dampened Haisen morale. The self-detonators had once been their comrades, and now they were being forced to kill them, evoking a sense of shared sorrow and commiseration—grieving for the rabbit when the fox dies.

"Excellent, excellent," Vaida observed the Haisen response with approval. "They still dare to deploy their air forces without hesitation. That Commander has quite the fortitude. Very well, let me show you that I, Vaida, possess not only infectious suicide operatives but also self-detonating bats for aerial combat!"

From within Vaida, a dense swarm of self-detonating bats erupted, numbering three to four million—nearly half of its entire air force contingent. Ahead, the Vhyrongs, Devourers, and Haisen fighters collided, unleashing a storm of intense firepower. In mass combat, the Vhyrongs and Devourers proved remarkably threatening.

The small biological units launched by the Vhyrongs were called Coiling Worms; they possessed tracking capabilities and the ability to strike multiple targets. Whenever a target was hit, a portion of the Coiling Worms would detonate, while the unexploded ones could launch toward another nearby enemy, capable of up to three or four ricochets.

Of course, each ricochet caused a reduction in destructive power, as the Vhyrong's attack potency was directly proportional to the number of detonating worms.

The Devourers' acidic spores had the capacity for splash damage and slowing targets. Moreover, the corrosive nature of the acidic spores surpassed that of standard bio-acid; no armor could withstand their corrosive might.

If a fighter took even one hit from a Devourer's spray, its outer hull would be dissolved in mere seconds. In comparison, the target-slowing attribute was more effective against larger, capital-class vessels.

The Haisen Guard Fleet warships engaged the Zerg forces with their main cannons. Brilliant beams streaked across space, striking toward the enemy host, but the effect appeared akin to swatting mosquitoes with cannons. The swift Vhyrongs easily danced between the beams, evading them with masterful ease.

The Devourers were more problematic. Due to their considerable size—reaching nearly a hundred meters—the ship main cannons posed a genuine threat. The Haisen, ranking eighth among the advanced civilizations of the Orion Arm, had mastered ship main cannon technology up to Level Eight energy calibration.

Although the Devourers' thick carapaces effectively weakened the incoming beam weapons, a couple of direct hits were usually enough to destroy them.

Fortunately, the Devourers were incredibly agile. Their centipede-like bodies could bend in any direction, and the pair of membranous wings on their backs allowed them to make abrupt shifts in flight vector, dodging the energy beams.

As for how the Devourers maneuvered in the vacuum of space without air to push against for directional changes, the principle was highly complex, difficult for even Earthling technology to comprehend, and thus need not be elaborated upon here.

The fierce battle raged for half a standard hour. Space was littered with Zerg corpses and fighter wreckage, and thousands of Haisen warships, close-encountered by Devourers and self-detonating bats, had been corroded or blasted into mere collections of space debris.

On the Zerg side, nearly three hundred thousand Vhyrongs were killed, yet the number of Haisen fighters lost permanently to the void was more than ten times that figure. Some of these losses were thanks to the self-detonating bats; approximately one million two hundred thousand of these bats remained, while over one hundred fifty thousand Devourers had been destroyed.

On the Haisen convoy side, the threat posed by the self-detonators showed no abatement; instead, it continued to spread steadily. Over twenty thousand warships had reported encounters with suicide operatives to the command vessel, and nearly ten thousand more ships had been sunk by other escort vessels after being identified as compromised by self-detonators.

In summation, the Guard Fleet had eliminated more of its own personnel than the Zerg had managed to kill.

"We have neutralized twenty percent of the enemy's forces, while our own ship losses stand at ten percent, and civilian casualties at seventeen percent... We should still be able to win the final victory." The tone sounded profoundly uncertain.

The Commander listened to his deputy's report and nodded calmly, but the deputy, who knew his superior well, recognized that the Commander’s heart was far from tranquil.

This engagement had devolved into a meaningless war of attrition. If the enemy—those bugs—did not retreat soon, the convoy's escort fleet, even if it annihilated them all, would incur devastating costs.

Moreover, under the current circumstances, the morale of the escort fleet soldiers had plummeted to the absolute nadir; any moment they might collapse, leading to a massive rout.

Indeed, deserters were already appearing across the battlefield—either refusing to witness friendly forces suddenly redefined as enemies and fearing the same fate, or simply paralyzed by the sheer terror of the conflict, desperate to flee as far away as possible.

"If the battle doesn't change course soon, we will be defeated by the collapse of our morale," the Commander stated. "Has the enemy's massive bio-carrier entered our effective range?"

"Almost, a very short time remaining," a staff officer reported. "Twenty standard seconds! Nineteen, eighteen..."

"Prepare all warships' main cannons, target the enemy's massive bio-carrier, and ensure it is annihilated in a single strike!" the Commander commanded. "Although we don't know why the enemy is so careless as to leave such a colossal target within our firing arc without maneuvering, since they have offered us this opportunity, it would be an insult to their generosity not to strike!"

Since the beginning, the Commander felt as though he had stumbled into some gigantic trap. The Haisen Federation possessed a creature resembling a spider, and the Commander felt as though he was stuck in the creature's web, unable to flee, forced only to watch as the web's owner came to claim him.

He shook his head, dispelling the sensation. Speaking of which, the enemy's Level Four entity had made a brief appearance at the start of the engagement, uttering a sound, and had not been heard from since. What was that entity contemplating now?

"Three, two, one!" the staff officer continued counting down. "The enemy massive bio-carrier has entered range!"

"All forces, lock on, FIRE!" the Commander roared the order.

A cascade of dazzling light beams shot forth from the escort fleet toward the Overmind Vaida. Even the void of space could not obscure the radiance of these hundreds of thousands of energy columns.

Boom! Boom!

As everyone expected, the beams struck Vaida directly. Although the dispersal of the impact points meant most beams missed, the remaining focused energy was irresistible, instantly shattering Vaida. Even a planet would suffer catastrophic damage under such a massive concentrated volley—the ground cracking, oceans vaporizing.

"Status of the target?" the Commander inquired immediately after the salvo hit.

"Calculations show thirty-two percent of the firepower struck the target. The target was instantly vaporized, leaving nothing behind!" a staff officer exclaimed with excitement.

The Commander nodded, about to speak, when the staff officer's expression twisted into one of profound terror. "Wait, what happened?! Unbelievable! Impossible, no!"

"What is it?" the Commander frowned, demanding sharply.

"The target is completely unharmed! No, it reverted from vaporization instantly, as if time rewound! It was certainly vaporized just now, but now it has reappeared, looking completely untouched by the attack! This... this is simply impossible!" The staff officer seemed on the verge of mental collapse.

The other officers nearby exchanged shocked glances, their eyes filled with disbelief and accusation, as if suspecting him of lying.

The Commander flickered instantly to the staff officer's side, peering closely at the detector. He saw that the so-called 'massive bio-carrier' remained fixed in position, showing no sign of having sustained any attack.

"Impossible! Such a violent bombardment, and not a single mark left on it!" The Commander's fists clenched so tight his knuckles threatened to shatter. He raged internally.

He was unaware that all Overminds possessed an ability called, "Serve the Overlord, resurrect instantly upon death." Overminds were Level Four entities. Ordinary beings could not destroy them; even if their physical shells were obliterated, the Overlord, Yang Ying, could instantly resurrect them. This was the inherent nature of the Overminds, the highest caste of Zerg second only to the Overlord.

Only another Level Four entity, or the Void Energy controlled by the Dark lineage of the Protoss, could truly harm an Overmind's existence.

The failure of the main cannon salvo became the final straw that broke the Haisen resolve. Under a pincer attack from within and without, the Haisen forces descended into panic. Morale shattered, and numerous warships began to scatter in desperate flight.

Inside the command vessel, Commander Gu Ran sank into his chair. He could not see a shred of hope in this battle.