Chapter 2640: Two Swords Into One!
“Lei Chenghu…”
Wuying Qi’s soul was heavily struck again. He could not believe that Lei Chenghu, the “Last Immortal Cultivator of the Imperium”, had betrayed him!
“Now you should know why Lei Chenghu talked to you via the most confidential channel and even told you the intelligence about me!”
Li Yao chuckled like a thief. “It was not only meant to reduce your wariness. It was also to locate your command center through the channel so that my crystal processor specialist could sneak in, sabotage your facilities, and plant things that I needed!
“Do you know what the best part is? The best part is that the starships of the four Kurfürst families were attacking your network, including the most confidential channel of communication, incessantly. So, you did not grow suspicious at all when our cyber attacks were mixed in with the attacks from the four families!
“However flawless the defense of your core network was, the moment your secret base station that connects the capital and the Seven Seas Space Zone was compromised, a critical gap appeared on your impenetrable wall, and that was the best opportunity for my specialist!
“What happened next was a lot easier.
“When Lei Chenghu rambled on with you, my specialist snuck into your command center through the communication channel and hijacked the crystal cameras and communicators around so that you can be live streamed.
“So, when I prompted you to confess your whole plan, every word you said would be heard by Lei Chenghu in the Seven Seas Space Zone in five to ten minutes. His impression on you must’ve been reshaped already!”
While Li Yao laughed cunningly, the black sun condensed by Wuying Qi’s soul almost turned purple.
“Even if Lei Chenghu knows the truth, so what?”
Wuying Qi roared in fury, “The Astounding Thunder Fleet is still mired in the Seven Seas Space Zone. It will take them half a month and an enormous price to defeat the coalition fleet of the four families. They can’t recover or jump back to the capital in time without a couple of months’ rest!”
“That’s why I said you’re stupid. How could Lei Chenghu have ignored that? He certainly has the confidence to quell the chaos in the Seven Seas Space Zone if he dares to betray you!”
Li Yao burst into laughter. “All the battlefield data you received in the past week are faulty and meant to mislead you. Take a look at the real battlefield now!”
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
A second torrent of information flooded deep into Wuying Qi’s soul.
It was a picture of a magnificent space battlefield, taken at the most intense moment in the Battle of Seven Seas!
It could be clearly seen that infinite spots of light appeared in the picture. Some of them flew randomly like headless flies, and some were as organized and indestructible as bees.
They formed a gigantic hammer that smashed the enemy’s most vulnerable part.
Every distinguished general had their unique style. Lei Chenghu, as God of War, was not an exception. The battle array that was as solid and invincible as a hammer was Lei Chenghu’s mark that nobody could copy.
It was a picture where the Astounding Thunder Fleet crushed Yun Xuefeng’s fleet.
Wuying Qi, however, did not focus his attention on Lei Chenghu’s hammer.
Another mysterious fleet on the other side of the battlefield made him feel more surprised and vigilant than the Astounding Thunder Fleet did.
Under most circumstances, it was much more difficult to command a battle in space than on the ground. When the battlefield was millions of kilometers in diameter and the network might be ruined anytime, few commanders could order every starship effectively. Most of the time, the starships were simply fighting on their own.
Only some of the commanders, like Lei Chenghu, could’ve created a unique battle formation so that other people could recognize it as a fleet.
Wuying Qi was certain that neither the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors nor the border warlords had a commander as excellent as Lei Chenghu. Yet, the fleet maintained its battle formation on the battlefield when dozens of Colossi were on a rampage.
The glamorous formation and tactics that were impossible to be played showed up before his eyes!
Lei Chenghu’s battle formation was like a hammer, and the mysterious fleet that was both sleazy and brutal reminded Wuying Qi of an unpredictable blade.
A hundred rapid starships reduced their distance to the minimum and gathered into a thin saber that cut into the most vulnerable part of the array, blowing up the undefended starships into pieces and leaving before the reinforcements arrived. The mysterious fleet crushed the enemy without actually getting involved in a fight.
The style was light and sordid and was entirely different from that of the Astounding Thunder Fleet, but obviously, the mysterious fleet also had a remarkable commander.
Or rather…
Wuying Qi somehow felt that the commander of the mysterious fleet was even stronger than Lei Chenghu in certain aspects.
How was it possible?
The commander of a major fleet was even more difficult to be raised than the pilot of a Colossus. There was no such fleet commander in the Imperium. Where was he from?
To make things worse, the commander of the mysterious fleet even worked with Lei Chenghu and set up a trap for Yun Xuefeng.
The mysterious fleet seemed to be helping Yun Xuefeng to resist Lei Chenghu at first. After a few engagements, it won Yun Xuefeng’s trust and entered the core of Yun Xuefeng’s fleet to establish the defense.
Just like that, the mysterious fleet attacked Yun Xuefeng’s fleet from the center while Lei Chenghu hammered the fleet from outside. So, a complete collapse was the only outcome for Yun Xuefeng’s fleet.
The commander of the mysterious fleet and Lei Chenghu crushed the flagship of the coalition fleet of the four families after little time without paying much price.
That was not the end.
Their target was not Yun Xuefeng, who had more ambitions than abilities, but Song Yushi, who was more sophisticated. Or rather, Song Yushi was their main objective.
Through the information Li Yao transmitted, Wuying Qi understood their tactic immediately.
When they crushed Yun Xuefeng’s fleet, Lei Chenghu and the commander of the mysterious fleet blocked the battlefield to prevent Yun Xuefeng from asking for help.
In the meantime, they sent a signal to Song Yushi’s fleet in the name of Yun Xuefeng.
“Yun Xuefeng’s fleet has encountered the Astounding Thunder Fleet and is caught in a difficult battle. Please give us a hand for the Imperium’s sake.”
The message and the carefully devised data were sent to Song Yushi’s flagship.
It was true that Song Yushi and Yun Xuefeng were not friends. But as an ally, Song Yushi did not want the Battle of Seven Seas to fail.
Besides, now that Yun Xuefeng and Lei Chenghu were exhausted by each other in the fight, wasn’t it the best opportunity for Song Yushi to take advantage?
So, Song Yushi came, fought, and failed.
He was crushed in almost exactly the same way as Yun Xuefeng did. He was convinced that the mysterious fleet was on his side, so he attacked the “worn-out” Astounding Thunder Fleet without any worries. By the time the mysterious fleet bared its fangs on his back, it was already too late.
Under the teamwork of Lei Chenghu and the commander of the mysterious fleet, they crushed and captured Yun Xuefeng and Song Yushi’s fleets in only three days. Yun Xuefeng and Song Yushi were even caught alive.
The unexpected fiasco destroyed Yun Xuefeng and Song Yushi’s determination of resistance. Of course, it might also be because they reached a clandestine deal with Lei Chenghu. But anyway, neither of the two Immortal Cultivators refused the surrender.
It was much easier next.
“If Song Yushi and Yun Xuefeng do not want to die, do they have other choices?”
Li Yao grimaced and said, “Our fleet did not suffer great losses after the battles. The seven Adamantine-level Super Arsenal Warships were still functional. In the following days, Lei Chenghu was busy gathering and reorganizing the warships scattered in the Seven Seas Space Zone. When I jumped to the capital, he was already ready to go!
“The most difficult part was not to defeat Yun Xuefeng and Song Yushi’s fleets but to tamper with the battlefield data. It was barely possible to fabricate convincing battlefield data that were the polar opposite of reality.
“But thankfully, the four families had been blocking the capital meticulously, and we only needed to send you data every other day. Then, under the excuse that the network in the Seven Seas Space Zone was seriously disrupted, the errors and self-contradictions in the data would be explainable.
“Sometimes, when there was no time to fabricate data, we would launch empty communication ships and intentionally let the ace fleet of the four families destroy them, pretending that the valuable and detailed data were destroyed by the enemy. You didn’t grow suspicious at all, did you?”