Chapter 1814: Moth Darting at Fire
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
An order from Burning Prairie was transmitted into the cockpit of the Draconic Phoenix through the top-secret channel. Bai Kaixin’s voice echoed next to Ding Lingdang’s ears. “Representative Ding, according to the remote surveillance of the highest command center, your body and the performance parameters of your Colossus are in a bad state. You have been ordered to retreat from the battlefield immediately under the cover of your affiliated crystal suit legion to rest in the No. 9 star fortress. The route of treat will be sent to your crystal processor shortly. Burning Prairie will provide fire support for you, too!”
As the Chief of Staff of the Burning Prairie Fleet as well as the general commander of the first attack group, Bai Kaixin was the highest spokesperson in space or the command center on the ground.
Even though Ding Lingdang was the pilot of the strongest Colossus of the federation, she still had to listen to Bai Kaixin’s command since she was in a battle sequence.
Ding Lingdang narrowed her eyes. A mouthful of sweet blood surged up from her throat, but she managed to swallow it back by force. “I will not retreat. The Draconic Phoenix can still fight, and so can I. Please reset my mission, Advisor Bai!”
“Representative Ding!” Bai Kaixin raised his voice. “Now is not the time for sentimentality. You know how important you are to the whole federation! Your shocking performance just now has attracted the attention of everyone both on our side and on the enemy’s side. A large group of enemies including three Colossi are coming at you. We cannot bear to lose you. Evacuate now!”
“I—I am not being sentimental!” Ding Lingdang gritted her teeth and breathed heavily, gathering the strength of every cell inside her body. “As you said, I am of paramount importance to the whole federation, but who am I if not the God of War, the Blazing Tyrannosaur, and an indomitable legend? Now—cough, cough—now, everybody is looking at me, the Blazing Tyrannosaur! If I retreat right now, what a serious strike it will be for our morale!
“If it were any other battle, I would definitely retreat to rest and perform maintenance without any hesitation, but this is the most critical moment now. The space gate of the Black Wind Fleet is being assembled! After I’m done resting, the space gate of the Immortal Cultivators will have been assembled and summoned a large batch of main-force troops! At that time, even if the Draconic Phoenix has recovered its full combat ability, so what? Can it stop the march of thousands of starships?
“I must carry on. Even if being an ‘indomitable legend’ is false and just propaganda, as long as one soldier of the federation believes it, I will certainly do my best to live up to their trust!”
Bai Kaixin fell silent. Noise from the bridge of Burning Prairie could be heard.
“Rest assured…” Ding Lingdang smiled. “I will not die. I still have a deal with Li Yao. So many extraordinary things have happened in the past hundred years. How can I die without looking at his stunned face?”
“Understood.” Bai Kaixin took a deep breath. “Recalculating the mission for the Draconic Phoenix and its affiliated crystal suit legion. The brief and the main direction of attack will be sent to your crystal processors soon.
“You’re right. Time is precious. We must destroy the enemy’s space gate before it is assembled. There’s no time for us to detour now. We can only break the arc-shaped net of defense centered at Black Swirl in a head-on clash!
“But we have our own trump card, too—Moth, which carries the wormhole bomb!
“Now, all the main-force warships including Burning Prairie will charge at Black Swirl, but our attack will only be a distraction. The real fatal blow on Black Swirl, which will rip a super opening in the defense net of the enemy, will be Moth!
“Both Burning Prairie and the Draconic Phoenix’s attack group have only one mission, which is to protect Moth and make sure that it gets within thirty kilometers of Black Swirl undamaged. Is that clear?”
Thirty kilometers was a rather long distance on the ground, but in space, it was very close and could be covered in the blink of an eye.
As the flagship of the Black Wind Fleet, Black Swirl naturally would not allow any starships of the federation to reach within thirty kilometers of itself.
Moth, which carried the wormhole bomb, was just a common carrier and did not have the ability to resist the barrage of Black Swirl and other starships of the Imperium. Before the violent space-time ripples completely swallowed Black Swirl, Moth would be utterly obliterated in a series of fireballs first.
The only solution was to ask the main-force warships of the federation to attack the Black Wind Fleet as bait and attract most of the firepower to themselves, thereby creating an opportunity for Moth!
“Masteress!” Jin Xinyue’s voice cut into the top-secret channel, too. She had arrived at the space battlefield. “It was I who came up with the Dim Moon Plan, and I will be responsible for it no matter what happens! Demons are part of the New Federation, too. Please don’t doubt the courage and loyalty of all the demons of the daring team on Moth! As long as you can make sure that Moth enters the area within thirty kilometers of Black Swirl, we will certainly give the Imperium a major setback!”
Ding Lingdang smiled.
She liked the plan because it was direct, simple, and clear enough. All she needed to do was rush forward.
The battle formation of the Black Wind Fleet had been completely stabilized, like a hideous beast in space. Black Swirl, on the other hand, looked like an enormous heart embedded at the middle of the beast’s chest.
Not far away behind Ding Lingdang, the main-force warships of the Burning Prairie Fleet, led by Burning Prairie, were gathering and condensing into an enormous cone-shaped battle formation. Although it was hard to recognize their relative speed with the naked eye, judging from the flourishing exhaust flames at the rear of every starship, they were accelerating nonstop!
Further away, the remaining forces of the Big Bai Fleet took a large turn and came back as quickly as possible, joining the assault against Black Swirl.
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
The brief of a brand-new mission, including the routes of attack, goals, and cooperative troops, was sent to Ding Lingdang’s crystal processor.
“Wu Mayan, and everybody else of the Iron Plateau Legion, can you hear me?” Ding Lingdang turned on the internal communication channel. “The time has come to decide the outcome of the war. Do you see the space gate at the rear of the enemy’s fleet? Once the space gate is done assembling, the Star Glory Federation’s one hundred years of preparation and six hundred years of pride will be gone!
“But there is still time. We can still stop it. The result of this war lies in the hands of everyone. Everyone!
“Read the information about the mission now. Target: the enemy’s flagship, Black Swirl. March forward, soldiers of the federal army!”
Bright flames jetted out of the Draconic Phoenix’s heavily wounded plate armor again. The nine exhausted dragons of spiritual energy were revived and regained their most vehement roars!
Ding Lingdang was the center of attention on the frontline. As the ‘God of War’ and the ‘Blazing Tyrannosaur’ of the federation, she was the pillar of support for a lot of soldiers of the federal army.
What was under her influence was not just her own affiliated legion but also the other few Colossi and even the crystal suits, the space shuttles, and all of the starships nearby!
Attack where the enemy’s firepower was fiercest!
Attack the hardest point of the arc-shaped battle formation!
Attack Black Swirl, the flagship of the Black Wind Fleet!
The destructive pillars of light were suddenly ten times more than before. On both the enemy’s side and the federation’s side, all the aggressive magical equipment of the starships were overloading, throwing out whatever was left of the ammunition and crystals.
For some of the starships, in order to trigger the highest damage of the mystic ray cannons, they even offered to lower the intensity of their spiritual shields, blowing up the enemy’s starships while being blown up at the same time. Enormous fireballs expanded abruptly, illuminating the entire dark universe with pale grayness that looked like the reflections of billions of stars!
The main-force warships of the Burning Prairie Fleet accelerated nonstop, like an enormous, shining hedgehog.
Such main-force warships of enormous scale boasted the best damage control system and liquid metal maintenance facilities. In the most extreme circumstances, even half of the starship could be filled up without affecting the high-speed flight of the starship in the vacuum.
Therefore, no matter how many bullets of spiritual energy hit them or how many Exos had invaded them, it was not so easy to alter their course or blow them up.
Under the cover of the behemoths, Moth was as inconspicuous as a supply starship that could be seen everywhere on the battlefield.
It stuck to the rear of a main-force warship like a tiny fish stuck to the body of a blue whale.
The main-force warship could resist most of the barrage for it. Also, in the environment where the space behemoths were crashing into each other, little attention was paid to such a small fry.
Behind Black Swirl, more and more star beacons were attached by the spiritual and magnetic force field, revealing the prototype of a space gate that would soon send out the most dangerous brilliance to the brown dwarf dozens of lightyears away.
All hope was on Moth.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
After a series of fierce fights, the Draconic Phoenix had been weakened to such a point that even a group of regular crystal suits was enough to cause a certain degree of damage to it.
But what Ding Lingdang was most concerned with right now was neither the performance of the Draconic Phoenix nor her own safety, but Moth and Moth alone.
The shield starships deployed at the outermost layer of the cone-shaped battle formation of the Burning Prairie Fleet were blown up one after another or lost their momentum and deviated from the right course, breaking away from the main troop.
Some arsenal starships set the sailing route to be the enemy’s trajectory after all the crystals and ammunition ran out and crashed into the enemy brutally. Even if they missed the enemy or were completely disintegrated before the collision took place, they were at least seriously affecting the enemy’s sailing routes, battle formation, and fire net.
Countless crystal suits and space shuttles congregated into a glittering nebula and devoted themselves to the swirl raised by the battle between the two starships, not retreating at all even if they were torn to shreds in only 0.1 seconds.
Burning Prairie, at the center of the cone-shaped battle formation, and Moth, which was hidden deep inside it, were still marching forward!