After observing the arrival of the Molian Civilization fleet, Xiao Yu received a message transmitted via Faster-Than-Light broadcast.

The content of this message made Xiao Yu sneer coldly in his heart.

“Damn it, don’t play that game with me! Who lives or dies has yet to be decided!” Xiao Yu roared in response. “If you want war, then war it is! All ships, enter combat mode! Let’s teach these bastards a lesson!”

Xiao Yu had suppressed his rage for an entire year, preparing all this time. Over this year, Xiao Yu had made full preparations to give the Molian Civilization a hard lesson.

The Molian fleet was still 17 billion kilometers away, rapidly approaching Xiao Yu at sub-light speed. At that rate, they would reach him in a day. Xiao Yu had no intention of meeting them head-on. Although time had been tight, it was enough for him to construct many simple defensive structures, which would give him a certain advantage in combat power.

The Molian Civilization had forty thousand warships, while Xiao Yu commanded a fleet of one million ships. However, over six hundred thousand of Xiao Yu’s ships were purely disposable ultra-small vessels, with far less combat capability than even Village-Class ships. Apart from bolstering Xiao Yu’s numbers and providing some harassment, they were of little use. Among the remaining four hundred thousand ships, over three hundred thousand were small Town-Class ships with limited combat capability.

Xiao Yu had deliberately hidden eighty thousand large ships, waiting for the right moment to bring them into battle.

That was the true state of Xiao Yu’s forces. Moreover, except for the newly built ultra-small ships, the rest appeared externally damaged and worn as though they had suffered severe losses.

However, these damages had no effect on the ships’ combat performance. The damage was all deliberately fabricated by Xiao Yu, designed to match his cover story that his fleet had suffered heavy losses in the planetary explosion, so as not to arouse suspicion from the Molian fleet.

“I sincerely cooperated with your civilization, and we agreed to settle things after killing the aging Specter. But you! You despicable, shameless scum! You detonated an entire planet and inflicted such devastating losses on my fleet. Today, I will make you pay. I will not rest until I have slaughtered every last one of you!”

Xiao Yu roared, feigning extreme fury.

“Hahahaha!” What answered Xiao Yu’s fury was the arrogant laughter of the Molian fleet commander. “In conflicts between civilizations, there is no need for morals or honor. As long as we can wipe out your repulsive Predator Civilization, what does it matter if we’re ten times more despicable? Today will be your extinction day! Killing you, this monster of combined soul and computer, who knows how much fortune and power it will bring to our Molian Civilization! We will continue to grow stronger, until we stand atop the universe itself!”

“Enough talk!” Xiao Yu bellowed, and as he stared at the Molian fleet still five million kilometers away, he issued the attack order.

First to greet the Molian fleet was a barrage of countless small negative matter cannons. Torrents of tachyons shot out at Faster-Than-Light speed, racing toward the Molian ships and steadily draining their shield energy.

Yes, Xiao Yu had successfully miniaturized the negative matter cannon. However, this miniaturization had little value and was only useful under these particular circumstances.

What Xiao Yu had achieved was not true miniaturization. True miniaturization retains power while shrinking both size and mass. For example, in the Earth era, guns could be considered a miniaturization of ancient giant catapults, their size and mass were reduced drastically while maintaining similar or even greater destructive power. That was the kind of miniaturization Xiao Yu aspired to, not reducing a catapult into a child’s slingshot.

What Xiao Yu had actually produced was more akin to turning the negative matter cannon, a giant catapult, into a toy slingshot. But even slingshots could deal damage in large numbers. The key advantage was their Faster-Than-Light attack speed and simple, rapid production.

Over the past year, Xiao Yu had deployed vast numbers of these small negative matter cannons on the gas giant’s orbit and its various moons. In large numbers, they could continuously deplete the Molian fleet’s shield energy, paving the way for the decisive battle to come.

“Stop struggling. Surrender now and we might still give you a chance to live. How about assigning you a low-end personal computer as your resting place? Do you really think these toy weapons can defeat the great Molian Civilization?” The Molian fleet commander continued laughing wildly on the comms.

“Hmph, a bunch of fools.” Xiao Yu let out a cold snort, making no reply.

The Molian Civilization fleet was closing in rapidly, with the distance shrinking from five million kilometers down to four hundred thousand kilometers.

“Material disintegration beams, high-energy laser weapons, all beam-type weapons, fire at full power!” Xiao Yu ordered.

These beam-type weapons traveled at the speed of light, and they weren’t only equipped on Xiao Yu’s ships, but also deployed on the various satellite bases and space turrets. After Xiao Yu gave the command, countless visible and invisible beams shot out, racing toward the Molian fleet.

Both sides shared the same understanding of warfare. At this distance, Xiao Yu chose to use beam-type weapons, and the Molian Civilization responded by opening fire at this range as well. Even while still separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers, the battle had already begun.

“Antimatter weapons, gravitational bombs, all projectile weapons, fire at full power!” As the distance closed to under fifty thousand kilometers, the projectile weapons joined the fray.

In an instant, the once dark expanse of space was illuminated by countless explosions, resembling countless little stars.

“Cannon fodder ships, forward!” Xiao Yu shouted, as hundreds of thousands of ultra-small ships surged into battle.

The two sides had now entered close-quarters combat.

This was truly a graveyard of ships. Every moment, ships were exploding. Projectiles and beams flew in from all directions, above, below, and everywhere, creating omnidirectional combat. In this massive battlefield, any single ship’s strength was insignificant, but collectively, these countless minor contributions accumulated into the final victory.

The situation for Xiao Yu was not optimistic. His technological strength was somewhat inferior to the Molian Civilization. Although over the years Xiao Yu had made progress in multi-layer shield systems and applied them to his ships, it still wasn’t enough to withstand the fierce firepower of the Molian fleet.

His small ships were being rapidly consumed, and ground defenses were quickly being destroyed. Some Molian ships had already broken through Xiao Yu’s defensive perimeter and were attacking various defensive structures set up in space and on the satellites.

It was a breathtaking scene. One of this planet’s satellites possessed a dense atmosphere and had once been covered in vast quantities of water ice. But as the star expanded and emitted more heat, the ice melted into liquid water, forming a surging ocean on the satellite. On these oceans and bits of land, Xiao Yu had deployed numerous ground-based defenses: small laser turrets, surface-to-air missiles, and more.

Now, these installations were facing complete annihilation.

At this moment, it was daytime on the satellite. A massive fireball hung in the pale red sky, radiating endless light and heat. Fierce winds howled across the surface, and waves surged violently. Amidst the waves floated numerous obviously artificial structures of various shapes and sizes, but all of them continuously launched energy weapons into the sky. The beams pierced through the pale red sky, shooting into the vast vacuum of space, searching for their targets before detonating in brilliant flashes, releasing their destructive force.

Moreover, these ground-based weapons were capable of adjusting their positions with the satellite’s rotation, always keeping the battlefield within range.

These ground defenses contributed considerable firepower.

But the advantage did not last long. After a period of intense attacks, dozens of shuttle-like Molian ships pierced through the star’s atmosphere and descended into low orbit around the satellite. Like magnets, they immediately attracted the attention of all nearby weapon systems.

These small defense installations were fully automated and didn’t require Xiao Yu to expend additional computing power. The moment enemy ships were detected nearby, they launched attacks almost instantaneously.

Some attacks shot up from beneath the water, some fired from the ocean’s surface, some streaked in from beyond the horizon, others launched from mountaintops and underground tunnels. Some were beam weapons; others were projectile weapons. The sky was filled with crisscrossing trajectories.

The weapons descended like a swarm of mosquitoes drawn to the scent of blood, overwhelming the enemy.

One Town-Class Molian ship could no longer withstand the endless barrage and exploded in a massive fireball.