Chapter 137: A One-on-Three Slaughter

The Oort Cloud was a super-large cloud wrapping around the Solar System, consisting of material remnants from the early formation of the Sun and its planets.

It started from a place 50,000 Astronomical Units away from the Sun and extended all the way to 100,000 Astronomical Units, with a span of a full Light Year, filled with various icy substances and interstellar dust.

This kind of nebular celestial body wrapping around a Star System existed on the periphery of most young Star Systems in the Galaxy and was a natural boundary for an interstellar civilization.

This point was widely recognized by the Star Alliance and various civilizations.

Nowadays, the Oort Cloud, which had been very peaceful for billions of years, was unusually lively. Outside it, there were a large number of Leite warships, while inside, human warships also cruised within, patrolling closely.

Ivan was one of them. He was of the sixth generation after the restart of Earth Civilization and was only twenty-three years old now, but he had already received fifteen years of strict military training.

He performed extraordinarily in it and was an ace-level figure of the Earth Army; similarly, he received corresponding treatment.

For example, at this moment, he was driving Earth’s fourth-generation interstellar warship, the “Ghost”. The reason for using this name was that Ivan was basically in an invisible state when patrolling the Oort Cloud.

In this state, he had encountered Leite warships more than a dozen times, but was never detected by the other side, just like a ghost in the darkness.

Ivan often tracked behind these Leite warships, watching their every move.

The technological advantage made Ivan feel immense awe for those scientists of Earth from the bottom of his heart.

These Leite warships were unusually cautious, or perhaps one should say cowardly. As long as they went slightly deeper into the Oort Cloud, it was bound to be a sequence of more than ten warships; they never acted alone.

But this situation was slowly changing. Perhaps because they did not feel threatened, the warships dispatched by Leite became more and more dispersed. Two months later, basically every operation was a combat sequence composed of three warships.

Three ships! Ivan silently compared the combat power of both sides. He was in an invisible state and could take out one ship in the first instant, turning the situation into a one-on-two.

“Mara, do you think we should teach these guys a lesson?” These Leite warships intruded into human territory so recklessly, which made Ivan extremely annoyed.

Mara was the Digital Life on the fourth-generation warship. Unlike the third-generation warships which had a pairing of two humans and one Digital Life, this newest warship was more powerful, adopting a mode of one human and one digital entity.

Because it was in an invisible state, the Disintegration Field spread over the warship’s surface caused serious interference to Subspace signals, so Mara could not establish contact with the Earth side.

At this moment, the judgment standard of this Digital Life regarding the current situation was only the difference in combat power between the two sides.

“Ivan, after calculation, our side has a 75% win rate. Do you confirm you want to make a move?”

Digital Life was already very humanized now. Although their essence still abided by permission settings, the words they spoke were already no different from humans.

“Attack! Mara, lock onto that leading warship, make sure to destroy it in one fell swoop!” Ivan hesitated for a moment, but soon made up his mind.

“Target locked. The Disintegration Field on the surface of the Ghost has been removed, and the automatic evasion mechanism after attacking has been activated!”

“Start the attack!”

Subsequently, a thumb-thick, deep purple energy pierced towards the Leite warship like a sharp sword.

At this moment, the Leite warship only had an ordinary Protective Force Field open, merely to prevent the impact of cosmic matter on the warship during flight. The super-strong Protective Force Field used in combat could not be kept on all the time, as that consumed a lot of energy.

Facing this sneak attack, that leading warship made no reaction and was directly pierced through the engine section by the Ghost. Instantly, the warship’s energy went out of control, creating a massive explosion.

The remaining two spaceships were a bit confused and did not immediately counterattack, but separated and fled to the left and right.

After making the attack, Ivan immediately let the Ghost re-enter the invisible state. This took five seconds, which was not short, but the Leite warships did not seize this opportunity.

Ivan did not intend to let a single one of these three warships go; he immediately chased after one of them.

In the Oort Cloud, because it was filled with a large amount of icy matter, attempting to conduct Warp Flight would only result in the destruction of the machine and the death of the person, because the warship’s Protective Force Field could not defend against the impact of a large amount of matter at such high speeds.

Therefore, both sides used ordinary acceleration flight modes. At times like this, what was tested was the performance of the warships.

In this regard, Earth’s latest generation of warships obviously had the advantage. The Ghost could accelerate to a Sub-light Speed of 0.3C within half an hour, whereas for the Leite warships, according to Mara’s observation, it took at least forty minutes to accelerate to 0.3C.

The initial speeds of both sides were the same. Soon, the invisible Ghost caught up with the Leite warship that fled first and maintained a synchronized speed with it.

Ivan was just about to order Mara to prepare for an attack, but found that the warship which had fled in the other direction had already caught up again.

Clearly, the Leite People had now regained their composure and were in a defensive counterattack posture.

If the Ghost attacked at this moment, although it could kill one of them, it would place itself under the enemy’s gunfire.

“Mara, is there a certainty of evading the rear attack?” Ivan did not have the slightest impulse; instead, he became even calmer.

“80 percent probability!” Mara immediately reported the data.

Ivan did not hesitate in the slightest and immediately ordered the attack!

In this not-so-dense Oort Cloud, above two Leite spaceships showing slight signs of panic, a deep black spaceship suddenly appeared!

A transparent wave dived towards the Leite warship in the first instant; this was Subspace Annihilation!

And closely following the transparent wave was a deep purple energy strike. This energy strike arrived before the transparent wave despite being fired later, weakening the Leite warship’s Protective Force Field to a critical level.

An instant later, before the Leite warship’s energy shield could recover its energy, the transparent Subspace Fluctuation arrived upon the Leite warship, and then, silently, it sank into the opponent’s protective shield.

In this silent Universe, the warship disintegrated irresistibly, turning into elementary particles.

The other Leite warship did not react slowly; the energy strike immediately descended upon the Ghost.

But the Ghost, which had made evasion preparations in advance, just slightly shifted its hull, and these two deep blue energies rushed out past the ship’s belly, their edges leaving two obvious trails on the warship’s Protective Force Field path.

The Ghost immediately started to accelerate and began to adjust its flight direction, while constantly making various fine evasion maneuvers, not giving the opponent a chance to lock onto the engine section.

The superior performance of the fourth-generation warship was displayed to the fullest. The Leite warship could only watch helplessly as the Ghost’s figure in front became smaller and smaller, finally shrinking to a point and disappearing from view.

The Ghost re-entered stealth mode!

The Leite warship no longer dared to entangle and directly turned its bow, preparing to rush out of the Oort Cloud and fly back to the Space Fortress to seek shelter.

But how could Ivan just let it go! Mara immediately began to estimate the Leite warship’s flight path; he prepared to intercept from another direction.

The maximum speed of both sides’ spaceships was 0.3C. If the speed went higher, a series of physical limits including relativistic effects became obvious, and acceleration started to become difficult; this was a technological bottleneck.

Both were on the periphery of the Oort Cloud, and flying out was just a matter of ten-plus minutes. The Leite warship was the first to rush out of the nebula’s range, and the Space Fortress was already in sight.

Clearly, the Leite side had already received the news that the warship was attacked, and more than a dozen spaceships had already started to stand ready. Seeing their own spaceship fly out now, but not seeing the Earth side’s warship appear, they all subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.

Clearly, they did not expect that humans possessed invisible warships.

The people inside that desperately fleeing Leite warship were about to go crazy; only they knew that the opponent had been following behind all along. This shadow lurking in the darkness was waiting for the moment the Leite side let its guard down.

At this very moment, Mara seized the fleeting combat opportunity and launched the attack in the first instant.

Without a doubt, the Leite warship met its demise under this combined attack of energy and Subspace Annihilation by the Ghost.

All of this happened right under the noses of the Leite People!

After being stunned for two seconds, the Leite warships immediately began to counterattack. Fifteen deep blue, solid-like energy lines, like sharp swords, thrust towards the Ghost.

But the Ghost, at the same moment, activated Warp Flight, transforming into a stream of light and fleeing towards the depths of the Universe.

Warp Flight, possessing a speed that even light could not match, was the best means to dodge this series of energy attacks!

A warship in Warp Flight mode could not be locked onto or attacked by any technology of a Fifth-grade Civilization level.

Light energy attack methods had already been rendered ineffective against the Ghost, and since it could not be locked, Subspace Annihilation was also declared ineffective.

Subspace Annihilation attacks were extraordinary; they were powerful and could not be dodged once locked, but they had the fatal weaknesses of slow attack speed and short attack distance.

However, the Ghost’s stealth function could perfectly conceal this point. It could start the locking work while invisible, and launch the Subspace Annihilation the moment it appeared, making it almost unsolvable for Leite spaceships.

Warp Flight also required preparation time, but it was similarly concealed by the stealth function, which was also the reason why Ivan could activate Warp Flight mode to escape in the first instant.

Stealth was the god-level skill of the fourth-generation warships!

For a period of time in the future, when facing this unparalleled shadow killer, Leite warships would be like weak lambs, only able to passively accept the slaughter.