Self-exploding! Self-exploding!

At this moment, the two fleets have entered the close quarters killing phase. Within a radius of tens of thousands of kilometres, tens of thousands of ships are tangling and killing each other. Every moment there are flashes of the ghostly blue light of energy shells, every moment there is the glow of high yield hydrogen bombs exploding, every moment there are ships exploding and disintegrating.

This is the cruelest of spaceship graveyards.

Beyond the frontal battlefield, there are side battlefield engagements. The battles here are not as fierce as the frontal battlefield, but their thrill is no less than that of the frontal battlefield.

Here, at every moment, there are satellites fighting satellites in the dark. Tracking, counter-tracking, concealing, counter-concealing, trying to preserve themselves while eliminating the other satellite. While preserving themselves, they also have to carry out the task of intelligence gathering on the frontal battlefield.

Hawk saw that one of his own satellites had just been launched from within the internal factory when it was targeted by a diamond-shaped Lucca civilisation satellite, and after launching several thousand kilometres of tracking, the diamond-shaped satellite finally locked it down, firing a laser beam that destroyed his own satellite. Immediately afterwards, it was spotted by Hawk's anti-monitoring ship and its life was ended by a miniature nuclear bomb.

It was in this cruel context that the war began.

In the middle of the frontal battlefield, Hawke also saw that three of his own village class ships and two village class ships were targeting one of the other village class ships, and a total of five of his own ships were dodging the enemy's shells on one side and firing heavily at the enemy village class ship on the other. However, due to the mass limitation, the power of the energy cannons on these ships was too small, and after ninety seconds of bombardment, the ship's shields were not broken, but the village ship took advantage of the opportunity to finish off two of its own ships.

The situation changed when another village ship joined the fray and after a hundred and thirty-five seconds of shelling, the village ship's energy shield flared up and then disappeared without a trace. In the next moment, it was hit by dozens of energy shells at the same time, and the whole ship exploded and disintegrated.

The four remaining ships left the area immediately and scattered, looking for other enemy ships and launching an attack. During this process, the monitoring satellites around the battlefield provided Hawke with a constant stream of real-time and detailed information, allowing him to provide the most accurate and efficient command to the four ships.

However, in the frontal battlefield, Hawke was at an absolute disadvantage. Because of the force field, Hawke's ships were losing moment-to-moment power. As soon as the speed of movement increases, a huge amount of energy immediately spreads out from the hull, affecting the ship's internal instruments, equipment, weapon systems and even the fusion reactor.

This unknown force field severely limits the flexibility of Hawke's ship. It forced Hawke to fit the trajectory of the opponent's flagship to the maximum extent possible while fighting to prevent energy generation caused by relative motion.

To counter this situation, Hawke quickly deployed the two City ships so that they were 40,000 kilometres away from the opponent's flagship and escaped the force field coverage. Then, the energy cannons began to prepare.

One hundred teardrop shell fragments were ready, and after being processed through a strong magnetic field, high temperature and pressure, these fragments would be fired to instantly explode at least a thousand times the maximum power of a normal energy cannon when they reached the opposing flagship.

Hawke hoped that by attacking beyond his opponent's imagination, he would be able to finish off the opponent's flagship and break the odd force field coverage.

Sixty seconds had passed, and the energy cannon was ready.

Hawke was silently waiting for the right moment.

Hawke began to guide his own ship to attack the enemy ship violently, drawing away all the ships that were between his City ship and the opponent's flagship, all the ships that could make a blocking move. The moment this fleeting opportunity arose, both City ships fired their most powerful energy weapons at the same time!

At that moment, there was no other material between the Houston and Philadelphia City ships and the opposing flagship. In other words, even if the opposing flagship had known in advance that two energy cannonballs were coming towards it by means of over-range detection, it would not have been able to defend itself or manoeuvre another ship in front of it to save itself by sacrificing the smaller ship.

It had to rely on its own energy shield to stand up to these two energy blasts!

Hawk had sacrificed at least three thousand ships to fight for such a situation.

Before the two City ships fired their energy cannonballs, the twelve giant energy cannons on top of the ε Eri c armed satellite had already fired their own cannonballs in advance, which would then converge with the energy cannonballs fired by the City ships and bombard the energy shields of the enemy flagship ships together.

Through the ubiquitous surveillance satellites, Hawke was keeping a close eye on the enemy's flagship.

Hovering in space, the ship was covered in a pale inky glow, and from a distance, it looked like a star of destruction, a symbol of decay and death. It had at least a thousand turrets on its body, firing powerful energy shells every hour of every day. Its firepower was so powerful that, to the extent that the ship flew into any area, any ship belonging to Hawk in that area would be completely annihilated within ten minutes.

Hawke once sent an assault team led by five county-level ships and a thousand village- and township-level ships to try to trade quantity for quality and wipe out this flagship-class ship. However, the closer they got to the ship, the stronger the force field they were subjected to. Before they could enter the best firing zone, they lost a quarter of their ships under the influence of the force field, and then the remaining 700 ships were caught in a trembling battle with the other side's escort fleet.

All the way up to the point of total death, this squad did not even get the chance to send a single salvo at this flagship-class ship.

This result made Hawke's heart cold and immediately, Hawke was even more determined to destroy the flagship at any cost. This is why Hawke sacrificed three thousand ships to create an opportunity for the two City ships.

The Houston and the Philadelphia, forty-two thousand kilometres from this ship. The two shells, representing Hawke's greatest strength, would reach this ship in zero point three seconds.

Hawke was watching closely.

With a flash of the two City ships' cannon muzzles, immediately, two energy cannonballs, haunted by an ethereal blue light, flew towards the enemy flagship-class ship at a speed almost invisible to the naked eye. On the way, they merged with the twelve conventional energy cannonballs fired from the ε Eri c base, making a total of fourteen powerful cannonballs that blasted towards it!

These fourteen shells, after zero point three seconds, blasted above the flagship-class ship's energy shield.

Hawke saw an amazing sight.

Fourteen energy shells, the most powerful attack Hawk had made since he had left the solar system until now. Even the ten cannons that had been fired in unison when facing the water droplets were nowhere near as powerful as this one.

Fourteen energy shells exploded together, and a huge energy flow raged through space, and through the monitoring satellite, Hawk even detected a fluctuation of space there.

It seemed that even space was affected in this moment, creating a distortion.

The pale green shield of this flagship ship, in this instant, instantly became miserably white, and moreover, the brightness was raised by at least a few levels, as if it had suddenly turned into a star.

Huo Ke's heart rejoiced. For Hawke knew that this was a sign that the shield was about to break!

However, the next moment, Hawke was disappointed. The energy shield, after instantly becoming miserably white, surprisingly slowly dulled down again, and eventually, it still returned to a light ink colour, only it seemed to have thinned a lot, and, the movements of this flagship-class ship, too, became slower at a perceptible speed, and the strength of the force field coverage had also decreased a lot.

"Take advantage of your illness! Fourteen energy shells won't even kill you! I don't believe it, USS Houston! USS Philadelphia! Go!" With a fierce heart, Hawk commanded the two Fortress-class ships, and charged up with over a thousand escort ships.

As if the Lucca civilization had finally reacted, all the alien ships within the battlefield began to close in on the flagship ship. The two City ships also attacked with all their might, regardless of the 10,000 or so ships left in the battlefield.

The situation on the battlefield was at its most intense for a while.

"Even if we lose all 10,000 ships, I will finish it! I still have 80,000 ships at ε Eri b and ε Eri a. These ships, if they're gone, they're gone, I can afford to lose them!"

Hawke attacked frantically, and in the middle of the battlefield, Hawke's ships were depleting at a mind-boggling rate.

Immediately, the nanobots inside the ship began to repair the wound, but before the wound could be repaired, another shell flew over from nowhere and disintegrated the county ship with a loud explosion.

Before dying, the prefect ship also fired one last shell that blew up a country-class ship with very dull energy shields.

In this moment, the frantic Hawk, surprisingly, had the Lucca civilisation on the defensive side.

"Up, up!" The two City ships, carrying their respective escort ships, approached towards the enemy flagship with desperate efforts, firing their energy cannons with desperation.

The two City ships were already broken in multiple places and their manoeuvrability had been severely reduced.

Finally, with only a hundred kilometres left to the enemy flagship, the two City ships reached their limit and lost power.

"All right then, self-destruct! Self-destruct! These two City ships are also loaded with hydrogen bombs totaling over twenty billion tons equivalent, and huge fusion reactors, exploding together will not be much less powerful than a water drop shell fragment, I'm sure."

"Then, go to hell!" Hawke let out a roar.