What appeared before Da'an was precisely the allied fleet led by Sandwall. Emerging from several massive wormholes outside the effective range of the Imperial fleet, they were positioned on the flank, immediately forming an attack formation, with the vanguard of over half a million ships charging toward the Imperials first.
Da'an knew well that Sandwall held far more cards than he did; even without counting the million-plus warships harassing various sectors of the Dassen Starfield, the remaining force still outnumbered the Imperial fleet by more than half.
However, Da'an would not shrink back because of this. The Imperial Space Force would attack without hesitation even when facing a superior enemy. This was the very soul of that army, the source of pride for every Imperial serving in the Yu Lei Corps.
Da'an had once served as a Space Force Commander millennia ago, and he was intimately familiar with all of this. He had experienced countless unforgettable moments with this fleet. Although the personnel of this Imperial Space Force had turned over countless times over the millennia, that spirit remained to this day. Da'an could feel this spirit, which was the fundamental difference between his fleet and the loose coalition of noble private forces opposite them. In Da'an's view, the Alliance had been established for too short a time, and its various sub-fleets still needed integration; this was evident in the way they were arrayed—they had not yet shed the air of a disorganized rabble.
As long as this spirit endured, even if the enemy outnumbered them two to one, Da'an did not believe he would lose!
Yet, Sandwall, being one of the foremost renowned generals of the Empire over the last ten thousand years, was clearly not someone to be defeated by mere fighting will. Da'an sighed and issued orders to his subordinate staff officers.
The Imperial fleet turned its bows in unison to meet the Alliance fleet.
Aboard a senior command vessel within the Imperial fleet, Blade arrived at the observation deck. He had chosen not to move with his main body but remained with the Space Force fleet.
On the other side, Yang Ying said to Shakarovi, "It seems Sandwall has made his move; it's time for our duel to end as well."
"Enough of the nonsense," Shakarovi roared. "To end this fight, use your actions to do it!"
"Just as I wish." Yang Ying transformed into a bolt of lightning, executing several turns before suddenly appearing on the flank of Shakarovi's fleet. With a lift of his hand, a flash of golden light erupted, and a massive golden light curtain radiated outward from him!
Shakarovi immediately sensed danger and ordered his fleet to fire upon Yang Ying and the golden curtain.
The golden curtain vanished almost instantly, existing for less than half a second from appearance to disappearance—scarcely the blink of an eye for a normal person. But under the shroud of the curtain, a colossal fleet materialized!
These warships possessed ram-shaped bows, greatly differing from the common Imperial ship designs. It was clear they were not of Imperial manufacture but were the mightiest vessels of the Tran race: the Minotaur-class Battlecruisers.
There were one million of them in total, ten times the size of Shakarovi's fleet.
Yang Ying offered no further words, directly ordering the Battlecruiser fleet to charge their Main Cannons and fire in unison!
He understood perfectly that Shakarovi could not handle an assault of this magnitude. The tactic of suddenly appearing on the battlefield by transporting troops through palm-sized interstellar space had never before been seen in the Empire.
In the True Human Empire, a nation that had endured for hundreds of thousands of years, all manner of tactics had already been developed to their zenith. Countless wars over countless ages, and the geniuses they spawned, had long since unearthed every possibility of warfare.
By this day, even the most brilliant individuals could only pick at scraps; truly new tactics scarcely existed. Any tactic they considered novel could find a similar historical precedent.
This comprehensive war history carried another consequence: tactical standardization.
How to maximize the effect of a tactic, where its flaws lay, and what needed attention—all these had been answered throughout long history, resulting in an incredibly mature tactical system based on these foundations.
This meant that individual flashes of inspiration were almost worthless against the accumulated war experience of hundreds of thousands of years, because every idea an individual conceived had already been considered countless times by their predecessors, and the mature tactical system already held countermeasures.
Conversely, the completeness of the tactical system brought another problem: rigidity.
With the establishment of the tactical system, the art of war in the Empire seemed to have reached its peak, without any major breakthroughs for a long time. This caused almost all Imperial commanders, from top to bottom, to suffer from a degree of ossified thinking; they acted strictly according to their experience and disregarded any scenario that had never appeared in history.
As a Fourth-Tier Extreme expert with tens of thousands of years of memory and experience, Shakarovi had memorized the war histories of every previous generation of the Empire. In a normal engagement, whatever action the opponent took, various possibilities and corresponding countermeasures would immediately surface in his mind.
But this also led to a result: he would not consider things that had never appeared on the battlefield before. And Yang Ying's sudden appearance was precisely such a thing—something that had never existed in the history of the Empire.
According to Shakarovi's experience, if an enemy arrived via a hyperspace jump, the hyperspace detectors would have issued an alert beforehand; Imperial hyperspace detection technology was highly advanced, and under normal circumstances, the fleet would have ample time to prepare for battle.
If the enemy arrived via wormholes, they would inevitably be unable to arrive simultaneously because wormhole openings were limited in size, preventing all ships from passing through at once. To enlarge the opening would require more energy, which in turn meant more warships—thus, simultaneous passage was still impossible.
Therefore, the countermeasure against wormhole troop transport was to immediately move the army close to the wormhole and destroy it, which was akin to intercepting an enemy mid-passage in primitive warfare. Naturally, the side using wormholes would send its most elite fleet as the vanguard, tasked with buying time for the main force to pass through.
Who won and who lost would depend on the comparison of forces and the commander's on-the-spot direction.
But now, Shakarovi saw a flash of gold, and a massive fleet ten times his size suddenly appeared—not via a spatial jump, nor through a wormhole, but through an unprecedented and unheard-of method of troop transport. This had never occurred in any historical Imperial battle record, and the tactical system had no corresponding defense!
"Blast it!"
Shakarovi immediately ordered his fleet to turn to the flank and attack the enemy, but a fleet's turn was not as swift as a person's movement; it required at least ten seconds, not including the time needed to aim the cannons.
Thus, when the crimson beams of the Main Cannons struck Shakarovi's fleet, the majority of their broadsides were still facing the Minotaur Battlecruiser fleet.
Imperial warships were mostly long and slender; the area exposed on their flanks was far larger than their bows or sterns. Consequently, the coordinated volley from the Minotaur Battlecruiser fleet inflicted devastating damage on Shakarovi's force!
The Main Cannons of the Minotaur-class Battlecruisers possessed an energy level of Tier Nine, equivalent to medium-to-high firepower among Imperial warships, already reaching a level capable of damaging large Imperial vessels. In Shakarovi's force of 100,000 ships, only a little over 30,000 were large warships; the remaining 70,000 or so were medium and small vessels, whose function was to escort the larger ships and engage fighters and mechs, possessing far weaker defenses than the capital ships.
One million crimson energy beams instantly obliterated over 50,000 warships of Shakarovi's fleet, with the large capital ships nearly wiped out!
Although Shakarovi had tried his best to maneuver the fleet to evade, the Minotaur Battlecruiser fleet was also equipped with the Divine Core System, allowing Yang Ying to link his spirit with the entire fleet, greatly enhancing firing accuracy! Immediately following this, the Main Cannons fired in unison once more!
On the old Jūshou-class Battlecruisers, a single Main Cannon attack consumed 150 units of energy from a pool of 250, and then required a five-minute recharge for the pool to replenish from 100 to 150 units before a second shot could be fired. To fire a third time, a further fifteen-minute wait was needed for the pool to recharge from zero to 150 units before the cannon could fire again.
However, the current Minotaur Battlecruisers were vastly different from the older Jūshou-class. Their energy pools had been greatly expanded, and even though the Main Cannon energy level had been upgraded from Tier Seven to Tier Nine, the existing energy in the pool still supported three full discharges.
The energy pool recharge rate had also been drastically improved. After the third volley, the Main Cannons could fire once every five minutes, significantly boosting the threat level of the weapons.
After the Minotaur Battlecruiser fleet unleashed its second coordinated volley, one million Main Cannon beams enveloped all of Shakarovi's remaining ships. With a blinding flash of light, Shakarovi's fleet was reduced to cosmic dust.
Only Shakarovi's command ship survived, sheltered beneath a protective shield darker than the night, but having lost his entire fleet, it was impossible for Shakarovi to conjure another black shield of the same caliber.
Meanwhile, Yang Ying channeled energy from the Imperial Fortress and the Minotaur Battlecruiser fleet through the Divine Core System into himself. Engulfed in crackling golden electrical light, he flashed directly before Shakarovi, condensing a Lightning Javelin in his hand, and with a swift movement, thrust it toward Shakarovi's chest!
Shakarovi exerted all his strength to summon layer upon layer of protective fields, shields, and barriers, while simultaneously struggling to evade to the side, loudly proclaiming his surrender. But Yang Ying ignored him; the Lightning Javelin had locked onto Shakarovi, and every layer of defense was pierced by that single strike!
Shakarovi could neither evade nor block it; the Lightning Javelin plunged into his chest with almost no hesitation. A violent burst of black light flared.
Shakarovi had fallen!