The Pioneers were going all out this time. Missing such a golden opportunity would be an unbearable loss.
The Pioneer Fleet committed two entire legions, their formation spanning dozens of light-minutes as they stubbornly held their ground against the fortress firepower of the Katon Fleet, firmly pinning down the enemy's naval forces.
On both flanks, fighter swarms broke through Katon's interceptor screens with overwhelming numerical superiority, wave after wave penetrating deep into the fleet formation while launching antimatter missiles as if they were free.
Hundreds of thousands of mechas followed closely behind, deploying multiple loitering guns at full power. After breaching warship shields, they boarded enemy vessels, slicing turrets apart with laser beams before swiftly retreating after destroying propulsion engines.
As the fighter swarms advanced deeper, warships found themselves isolated and surrounded. Concentrated fire wore down energy shields until mechas moved in for the kill. Against cruiser-class vessels, mechas could breach armor to reach and detonate reaction furnaces deep within.
Tens of thousands of Katon warships found themselves besieged by millions of fighters. In the brutal close-quarters defense, Katon's corvettes and destroyers were quickly eliminated. Only cruiser-class and above could temporarily withstand the assault thanks to robust shields and dense point-defense weapons.
But as time passed and fighter swarms concentrated on capital ships, even battleships began having their shields overwhelmed, exploding one after another like fireworks across the void.
Though the Pioneers suffered heavy fleet losses while maintaining their diversionary pressure, their fighters had successfully fragmented the enemy formation, severely disrupting Katon's firepower and rapidly reducing friendly warship attrition rates.
Seizing this opportunity, the fleet advanced further until within firing range of the Katon Fortress.
Now with fighters suppressing enemy fire, the fleet unleashed its full might. Thousands of battleships poured firepower into the Katon Fleet, disregarding return fire—this was a knife fight where victory went to the boldest.
As their fortress came under concentrated fire, the Katon Fleet descended into greater chaos. Their formation had completely collapsed, and with so many vessels, orderly retreat became impossible.
The Pioneer Fleet was outmatched in both size and firepower, but the Katon forces never anticipated so many fighters hidden among the asteroids. A single intelligence failure had allowed these fighters to penetrate their formation, leaving no room for maneuver.
Their only option now was to cut losses, withdraw decisively, and preserve their main fleet strength.
Thus the Katon Fleet began turning to retreat while desperately maintaining suppressing fire against the Pioneer advance.
In desperation, Katon forces deployed hastily manufactured space mines across the battlefield—weapons too weak to threaten warships but deadly to fighters.
Wave after wave of mines spread through the void, claiming fighter after fighter that strayed into their path.
Yet these last-minute weapons proved too few. Against a battlefield spanning dozens of light-minutes, the scattered mines only provided localized protection around certain warships, failing to meaningfully hinder the fighter swarm's assault.
Fighter jets and mechas swarmed around the warships, unleashing relentless fire. Once their energy reserves ran low, they simply rammed headlong into their targets—there were no conditions allowing them to return for repairs or refueling.
By the time Liu Hai finished his tasks and turned to assess the situation in the Stardust Star Region, the battle had undergone a dramatic reversal.
"What the hell happened?" A bewildered Liu Hai quickly replayed the projection, finally grasping the reason for the turnaround.
He also spotted the mission completion credentials the Pioneers had provided him. Once resources were gathered, he could use these credentials to claim his reward from the military.
"A tiny opportunity was exploited to expand into the current advantage. Though the fleet suffered heavy losses, the gains made it all worthwhile."
In the projection, tens of thousands of fighter jets besieged a fortress. Particle cannons converged into a storm of fire, raining down relentlessly. The fortress's energy shield visibly weakened under the assault.
After over ten minutes of concentrated fire—while enduring the barrage from tens of thousands of fighter mechas and thousands of antimatter missiles—the fortress's shield finally collapsed, dissolving into scattered light particles. The overloaded shield generator erupted in flames, clearly destroyed by the strain.
The moment the shield fell, hundreds of mechas surged forward. They first crippled the propulsion engines, then obliterated the warp drive sensors before systematically dismantling the fortress's remaining weapon emplacements.
"That fortress is done for! Too bad it's a Katon Creature's—retrofitting it would be harder than just building a new one."
Seeing a Katon Fleet fortress swarmed by mechas, Liu Hai knew it was finished. Without propulsion or warp drive, the fortress had no choice but self-destruct.
Surrender was never an option. Though interstellar civilizations were bound by the Boss's sixth-tier regulations against genocide, prisoners of war didn't exist.
Sure enough, minutes later, the fortress's antimatter reactor detonated. The entire structure—spanning over a dozen kilometers—began annihilating from within. A violent energy tide erupted, engulfing nearby fighter jets that hadn't escaped in time, erasing them alongside the antimatter annihilation.
This was the first fortress destroyed, but not the last. Despite being guarded by thousands of battleships, the interwoven defensive fire couldn't stop the suicidal onslaught of the fighter swarm.
Drones were cheap—so cheap that veteran Pioneers typically operated one or several production lines each. The only cost was the time spent mining and transporting resources, with even the energy supplied by re-fusion reactors consuming light elements.
Thus, the Pioneers had long accepted the possibility of losing their entire fighter swarm. As long as they took down even one more fortress, they'd come out ahead.
After more than a dozen hours of combat, the Katon Fleet's three legions had been nearly wiped out—corvettes and destroyers almost entirely destroyed, their warship numbers plummeting by an order of magnitude.
Cruiser-class warships had also suffered heavy losses, with the remaining few barely holding on under the fighter swarm's bombardment.
Only the battleships and fortresses could still maintain firepower under the relentless assault. Their shields, rated for tens of thousands of degrees, combined with highly efficient energy supply systems, kept the fortresses' energy shields resilient.
Unfortunately, there were simply too many Fighter Jets. The orderly assault of tens of thousands of jets meant the Fortress Shield wouldn't hold for long. Nearby Battleships even turned their secondary guns, firing wide-range Particle Cannon blasts by releasing Force Field Binding—yet the results remained unsatisfactory.
One by one, warships Detonated under the relentless assault of the Fighter Swarm, their wreckage hurtling at high speed across the vast Star Region.
When more than half the fleet had been destroyed, the swirling debris ironically began to hinder the jets' mobility, giving the Katon Fleet a brief respite. Seizing the opportunity, they broke free from the Pioneer Fleet's firepower entanglement and fled desperately toward the outer reaches of the Star System.
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