Light Speed ​​War

Chapter 49: The First Battle

Three days after the invisible black hole bomb was deployed.

"Gentlemen, through our long-range 'sky eye,' we've discovered eight more waves of warships heading in this direction. The fastest one should arrive in about four days. We're now on the verge of action and have no choice but to act," Iron Curtain said worriedly.

"Commander, what do you think of us launching a surprise attack on them?"

"That's exactly what I meant. That's why I called this meeting. I wonder if the commanders and Dean Zhou have any suggestions?"

"The enemy fleet will definitely increase in number, and the fleets of other members of the Galactic Alliance will probably arrive as well. If this drags on, things could get complicated. Instead of just passively responding, we should take the initiative and defeat them one by one now."

"That's true."

"Dean Zhou, what do you think?"

"I'm just worried that once we get involved in the war with the Galactic Federation, it will never end. The Galactic Federation has been at war with the 'Light-Descent Civilization' for so many years, and the Galactic Federation has not disappeared. We cannot underestimate them. Although we are powerful, we will eventually be outnumbered."

"What Dean Zhou said is true. Even if we win this battle, we will probably have a hard time gaining the upper hand against the entire Galactic Alliance."

"The most advantageous factor right now is that they don't know where we come from and they know nothing about us. As long as we avoid the Thor civilization, we can succeed. In addition, our warships are modeled after the warships of the Thor civilization. If our warships suddenly disappear at the beginning of the war, or even return to the various conventional weapons they have fired, and if we use the 'vacuum energy extractor' of the 'metal civilization' and create a Thor messenger with a mechanically synthesized voice, combined with robots and mecha warriors, the effect will be even better."

"To confuse the enemy and sow discord among them?"

"Correct."

"Black hole bombs and black hole guided missiles are also ready at the same time."

"Alright, everyone, hurry up and begin manufacturing the Thor Gods' intelligent robots and mech warriors."

"Yes, sir."

While Filch and his men were anxiously awaiting reinforcements from friendly ships, bad news was reported.

"Marshal, something terrible has happened. The Deep Space Darkness Detector has detected frequent fluctuations in dark energy in space. It seems the enemy is about to open fire."

"Hmph, our reinforcements are almost here. I'm going to fire the first shot. Pass on my order to fire laser cannons at the area of ​​dark energy fluctuations."

"Yes."

In the visible space, beams of laser light converged into dozens of energy torrents, shooting toward the Earth Empire fleet at the speed of light.

To the great surprise of Marshal Felch of the Osme Empire and the commanders of other civilization fleets, these torrents of energy suddenly disappeared as if they had fallen into an abyss.

"Do you want to die?" A synthesized mechanical voice suddenly rang out.

As soon as the words were spoken, the warships hidden near the sun of Tabb Star appeared one after another, and then countless super-powerful plasma cannons shot towards the fleet led by Filch. These plasma cannons created a halo around the warships.

"Thor, it's us, the Osme Empire and the other members of the Galactic Alliance!" When Filch and the others saw the appearance of the enemy warship, they were surprised and full of doubt, and they just shouted at Thor to stop the attack.

Without uttering a word, the enemy commanded its warships to bombard the Allied fleet relentlessly. Electromagnetic projectiles, plasma projectiles, lasers, and guided missiles were all fired in unison—an act akin to that of a madman.

"Sol has gone mad!" several Allied fleet commanders unanimously agreed.

The Osme Empire's 100 million allied warships launched a fierce counterattack, retaliating in kind. However, before their various shells, lasers, and missiles could even make contact with the enemy warships, the enemy warships vanished instantly, along with those 100 million imposing shells, lasers, and missiles.

Filch and the others became even more certain that this was the Thor gods, because only the Thor gods would resort to this "old trick" of making their own warships disappear along with the enemy's weapons.

"Hmph, Thor, do you really think we can't subdue you?" Filch sneered.

"Pegasus Star Fleet, please launch a surprise attack on the left. Yin-Yang Star Fleet, please launch a surprise attack on the right. Ship Bottom Star Fleet, please launch a surprise attack from above. Tomi, you lead your fleet to launch a surprise attack from below. I will lead my fleet to launch a frontal surprise attack from the center."

"Good!" the entire fleet responded in unison.

In space, the five fleets took their positions and charged toward the opposing fleet together, unleashing a barrage of kinetic energy projectiles, beam projectiles, and electromagnetic projectiles.

The laser beams fired by the Yin-Yang Star Fleet were strange; they were actually a double beam that spiraled around each other and were incredibly powerful. Upon reaching the enemy ship, the double beams accelerated and rotated around, like a "light drill," instantly destroying many enemy warships the size of villages, damaging the energy shields of some town-level warships, and creating a large halo on the body of a county-level warship.

What is impressive about the Pegasus Star Fleet is its massive kinetic energy cannonballs. Each of these large cannonballs splits into six or seven thousand smaller cannonballs midway through the process. These smaller cannonballs seem to be intelligent, aiming at the same spot and impacting that spot one after another at an extremely high speed, making them typical high-speed pile drivers!

The most unexpected tactic of the Ship Bottom Star Fleet is that their warships launch large, round orbs of light. Before these orbs hit the enemy warships, they break apart and burst out into numerous mechanical insects. These mechanical insects then attach themselves to the warships and rapidly laser-cut the hulls.

"Everyone, time's almost up. It's time to end the experiment. Release the 'vacuum pump' immediately," Iron Curtain commanded.

"Yes, sir."

Then time began to rewind. Everything returned to twenty minutes earlier.

Filch and the others were astonished to find that everything had returned to the moment before the battle, back to the moment when the two fleets were gazing at each other. In what was roughly the middle of them, a translucent metallic sphere appeared. The translucent metallic sphere emitted concentric halos of different colors, a mesmerizing array of hues, with shadowy, relief-like components shimmering within.

"Metal Civilization!"

Filch and the others had only heard that the "Metal Civilization" possessed such a powerful weapon capable of temporarily reversing time, but they had never actually seen it. This was because the Galactic Alliance members all knew that the "Thor's Civilization" and the "Metal Civilization" had the best relationship.

Filch and the others hesitated for a moment. If they used conventional weapons, no matter how they attacked the opponent, the opponent could be resurrected with this monstrous weapon of mass destruction, and their efforts would be in vain. Unless they could drain all the vacuum zero energy in this space, but the other members of the Galactic Alliance did not have this ability.

"Since you're using vacuum energy, don't blame me for being ruthless. Hmph, so what if it's vacuum energy?" Filch sneered, a glint of cunning in his eyes.

"Launch Deep Space Darkness Volatile to destroy the metal sphere and all enemy warships!"

"Yes, Marshal."

Silently, the semi-transparent metal sphere, the "vacuum pump" created by humans, exploded instantly. At the same time, the intelligent energy shields of all the warships of the Earth Empire were instantly stimulated, their light intensified, and the hulls were surrounded by a large circle of light. A powerful unknown energy was impacting the warship shields.

"Detonate the black hole bomb and launch black hole-guided missiles. All warships, retreat in the opposite direction at the speed of light," Iron Curtain issued the order.

To Filch and his team's surprise, only some small enemy warships were damaged by the dark energy shockwave. The enemy warships' energy shields seemed to be very powerful, unlike the common energy shields.

As they were pondering this, alarms blared: "Warning! Warning! Strong gravitational field detected!"

Some Alliance warships, unable to accelerate in time to escape, instantly fell into the gravitational trap of the black hole bombs, their hulls torn apart by the powerful gravity, and were quickly reduced to pieces. Other warships with slower acceleration were caught up by the black hole-guided missiles and were also torn apart and destroyed within minutes. Most Alliance warships accelerated to the speed of light along the edge of the black hole bombs' event horizon, escaping the gravitational field region of these black hole bombs.

The Tabians were terrified, for they discovered that the sun above them was first rapidly shrinking, and then rapidly expanding again.

The Tabians observed through their telescopes that sunlight was being distorted due to gravitational lensing. Most critically, the Tabian sun was rapidly moving towards the planet Tabian! Further observation of surrounding stars revealed a blueshift in the Tabian sun and stars aligned with it, while stars moving in the opposite direction were redshifted. The Tabians concluded that the planet Tabian was accelerating towards its sun! The reason, of course, lay in the fact that both fleets between Tabian and the sun had used weapons that disrupted the gravitational balance of space. The Allied fleet used anti-dark matter, annihilating with it to create invisible, ultra-short-wave energy pulses. As dark matter was depleted, the gravitational pull on the side of the sun closest to Tabian weakened, while the gravity on the other side, where dark matter existed, pulled the sun away. Similarly, Tabian was pulled away by the gravity on the side facing away from the sun. This interaction aimed to balance the gravitational forces, explaining why the early Tabians observed the sun rapidly shrinking. When Earth's human warships use the black hole's gravitational field, Tab's star will be pulled toward the sun by the enormous gravity, causing the sun to grow relatively quickly. Therefore, Tab's star will soon accelerate its fall toward the sun.

"Marshal, please save our planet Tab." Delsu had already led his fleet, abandoning his compatriots who were panicking and wailing on Tab, and fled at near-light speed away from Tab and the sun. During his escape, Delsu seemed to have some conscience and asked Filch for help.

"Marshal, what should we do about Tabus?" Tomi asked his superior, since Tabus was a planet belonging to the Osme Empire.

"Ignore those people," Filch said coldly. "Wait six or seven days, and the reinforcements will arrive. Then we'll fight again!"

Filch's four-nation fleet ignored Delsu's distress call and continued to flee the gravitational battlefield.

Filch and his men raced for three days and three nights before the Allied fleet finally came to a halt. Everyone was still shaken by the powerful gravity bombs and missiles they had encountered.

"The Thor gods, who have been missing from the Galactic Alliance for many years, are truly amazing. After more than 250 years, they have invented such a powerful gravity bomb," Filch and several fleet commanders remarked.

When they looked back to observe Tabb and its sun, Tabb had already disappeared.

"Has it already been swallowed by the sun?" everyone wondered.