Chapter 80: Relentless Barrage at Outpost Two

The Klein fleet’s retrofitted warships had put intense pressure on the Human Federation’s forces by the river.

Originally, command had hoped to destroy at least ten percent of the enemy fleet—about 50 warships—before they got within a million kilometers.

But that plan was already out the window.

Before the enemy got close enough, there was simply no way for the Federation to conduct effective precision strikes.

By the time a shell traveled all that distance the Klien ships only needed to nudge their course and they’d dodge everything tossed their way.

If you skipped precision strikes and went for wide-area bombardment, you could boost the hit rate a bit, but focusing fire to overwhelm a single target? Not happening.

That meant it was impossible to break through the bow defenses of any one ship.

A real catch-22. And yet…

At this stage, humanity simply had no way to overcome it.

Unless…

They could mass-produce Zero-Point Modules and use them to build more next-gen warships like the Zhulong-class cruisers.

“Operations, draw up a new strike plan immediately! Assign targets one-to-one and order the entire fleet to reopen precision fire!”

“Commander, the enemy’s still 4.4 million kilometers out. If we go precision now…”

“I know. But if they want to dodge our attacks, they’ll have to slow down to alter course. Since we aren’t hitting them anyway, just switch to precision strikes. Either they’ll ignore it and get hammered, or keep dodging and waste more time!”

Mu Xingchen raised his voice above the tense command deck.

Suddenly, everyone else snapped to attention.

Of course! If the attacks weren’t hurting them, at least force the enemy to slow down and buy a little extra time.

“Yes, Commander!”

The headquarters operations team was lightning-fast. Barely thirty seconds later, every ship had its strike target assigned and orders distributed.

Seconds after that, Outpost Two’s three fleets, along with waves of railgun batteries stationed there, all opened fire simultaneously with a revised coordinated strike, every shot aimed dead-on at a separate Klein warship.

Still, it wasn’t just a mindless, continuous stream of pinpoint strikes.

Instead, they hammered out ten precision salvos in a row, then switched back to the old covering-fire pattern.

Then, once the enemy completed their maneuvers and started speeding up again, the Federation would swap back to precision.

Ten more targeted rounds then another switch to covering fire.

And so the cycle went.

The goal was simple and brutal—force the Klein fleet to constantly decelerate and dodge.

Even keep them slogging forward at low speed so they’d never get a chance to charge full-speed for an attack.

It had to be said, the tactic really worked.

The Kleins, who’d been burned by something like this at Nyx, caught on to the switch in tactics at once.

It was clearly a variant of the old Nyx battle trick—mixing a few precision shots in with the usual wide-area barrages for sudden effect.

The response was instant. Their fleet spent over ten minutes slowing to just 50 kilometers per second, then made a slight course adjustment.

After that…

They’d start accelerating again.

But, less than a minute into ramping up speed…

The Klein commander realized the humans had swapped straight back to precision bombardment.

Ten more salvos, then again back to covering fire.

With no better option, he had to order another halt and adjust course a second time.

But every time the order to speed up came…

It all played out again, exactly the same.

By this point, the Klein commander had caught on, but could only curse—and despite himself, repeat the same steps yet again.

——

Twenty hours later.

The Klein vanguard fleet’s commander finally felt the suffering might be over.

Twenty hours. Twenty full hours!

Did they have any idea what that stretch had been like?

Originally, they should have crossed the five hundred thousand kilometer line in just five hours, ready to launch a final strike against the human outpost.

But no—they’d been forced by these wily humans to crawl forward at less than 50 kilometers per second, zigzagging non-stop to avoid the Federation’s long-range precision strikes.

That five hour sprint had been stretched to twenty gut-wrenching hours.

But at last, their ordeal was coming to an end.

Only half a million kilometers left to go.

“Relay my orders—have the warriors board the assault corvettes and prepare for launch!”

“It’s time to give humanity… the final blow!”

After twenty agonizing hours, the Klein vanguard commander raised his arm with a near-roar.

“Yes, Lord Loxi!”

The next moment, from every medium and large ship, hordes of Klein warriors began boarding assault corvettes.

Each of these cramped ships was sealed and sent to the launch tubes. Once Loxi gave the order, they’d shoot out like a storm of torpedoes.

There was just one difference…

Assault corvettes moved fast—insanely fast.

And in the final phase, they could even pilot themselves for a last burst of maneuvering.

Within half a million kilometers, no Federation warship could dodge a Klein assault corvette!

Loxi was certain of it.

“Fire! Launch every last assault corvette!”

“Yes, Lord Loxi!”

Loxi’s voice by now was almost wild.

Evidently, the last twenty hours had left him wound up by Mu Xingchen’s tactics.

The vanguard fleet only had about 1,000 assault corvettes aboard—but Loxi was right. Get inside half a million klicks, and those thousand ships could gut all three Federation fleets.

That wasn’t an exaggeration.

Even if the Federation somehow survived the corvette swarm,

by then, the Klein fleet would already be at point-blank range.

In the end, the humans couldn’t escape total destruction.

Now, one after another, the packed assault corvettes shot out from warship after warship.

They streaked across the void like railgun slugs, moving far faster than any battleship, all aiming straight for the Federation’s Outpost Two.

Watching all this—

Tak clenched his right fist hard.

This battle…

It was all but over!

He didn’t notice that, right beside him, one of his subordinates

looked like they were hesitating, wanting to say something.

“Lord Loxi…”

“Speak!”

“We… we just spotted something. The human fleet—they’re starting a full retreat.”

“What?”

Loxi blinked in disbelief.

A full retreat?

What about this outpost then?

Were they really abandoning it?

He was utterly dumbfounded.

Sure, assault corvettes were terrifying against the humans.

But there was always one problem…

They only carried enough fuel for a short burst of maneuvering and one more acceleration sprint.

At first, during most of their journey, the main warships would launch them, letting them drift forward on momentum. Only at the very last phase did the pilots take control—burning through fuel for that last maneuver and lining up a final attack.

In other words…

The corvettes’ real operational range at the end was incredibly short.

Only about fifty or sixty thousand kilometers.

After that, they’d keep going forward on momentum, but couldn’t change course again.

Which meant…

If the humans retreated right after launch,

all those thousand-odd assault corvettes would be utterly useless.

And then they’d have to spend even more time…

retrieving them all for recovery operations.

Loxi was utterly dumbstruck by the turn of events.