Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 568: Probing

Xiao Yu did not believe his so-called psychological offensive would yield an obvious effect. Although everything he said was true, the other side had prepared for so long and expended such enormous effort and resources. How could they waver because of a few words from him? Xiao Yu’s goal was only to plant a seed of distrust in the hearts of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s members. In the future, that seed might ferment and ultimately burst the entire alliance.

Events did not deviate from Xiao Yu’s expectations. After this broadcast, he received no response. Instead, the opponent’s defenses became even tighter. Xiao Yu let out a slight sigh and made his decision.

“Prepare for the first contact battle.”

This contact battle also carried another task, which was to assess the current technological level of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance and how far it had advanced since the last time he fought the Pegasus Civilization.

This data was crucial for Xiao Yu. He had to judge whether the union of twenty Level 5 civilizations, after integrating their technologies, could push them to the level of a Level 6 civilization. If the answer was yes, the situation would be very unfavorable for Xiao Yu. He would have to speed up his offensive and break the Level 5 Civilization Alliance before it advanced to Level 6. Otherwise, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance might turn around and destroy him.

Xiao Yu had not forgotten how, after obtaining the Pegasus Civilization’s technology tree, his own technology had leaped forward immensely in a mere five hundred years. Now twenty civilizations had condensed into one, jointly sharing their technologies and research power, and nearly one thousand years had passed for them to integrate and digest these technologies. As for the current technological level of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance, it was truly hard to say.

Therefore, the first contact battle was merely a tentative operation to understand each other and evaluate the opponent’s strength.

Under Xiao Yu’s control, one million warships, led by a standard Continent-Class warship, slowly advanced forward. During the previous five hundred years of development, Xiao Yu had built ten more Continent-Class spaceships and had comprehensively upgraded the original Asia, America, and Europe Continent-Class spaceships. Up to now, among the thirteen Continent-Class spaceships, the Asia ship was still the most formidable. The standard Continent-Class ship dispatched this time had overall performance roughly equivalent to the pre-upgrade Asia ship.

This Continent-Class spaceship was named Europe Two by Xiao Yu because it was modeled after the Europe ship’s style and counted as part of the same series.

Europe Two led its subordinates, steadily approaching the defensive circle of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance. In response to Europe Two’s movements, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance quickly reacted.

Xiao Yu saw a planetary war star begin to break free of the star’s gravity and slowly move toward his position. Advancing with it were roughly five million warships.

“Combat method centered on a planetary war star, is it? Interesting. Then let me see what kind of power your half-finished planetary war star possesses.” Xiao Yu thought to himself.

Presumably, the Pegasus Civilization was also very clear on the nature of this battle. Xiao Yu needed to probe the Pegasus Civilization’s technology and war strength. Likewise, the Pegasus Civilization needed to probe Xiao Yu’s technology and war strength. In this tentative battle, neither side would dispatch an overly large force.

“Perhaps I can conceal a portion of my strength and induce a misjudgment of my power on their side. This misjudgment might bring me certain advantages in future battles.” Xiao Yu quietly made up his mind. After consulting with the Military Committee and the scientists, Xiao Yu set this figure at ten percent. In other words, in this contact battle, Xiao Yu’s fleet would only perform at ninety percent of its capability.

In the boundless dark void, the two fleets slowly drew closer. Both sides were moving at unhurried speed, clearly attaching sufficient importance to this first battle and exercising great caution.

But the battle still began in the end. Upon entering optimal firing range, Xiao Yu’s side struck first. Small and medium-sized ships opened fire with negative matter cannons and light-beam weapons against the enemy ahead. Large ships, while launching conventional weapons, were also waiting for the optimal moment to unleash space-based weapons.

Seeing that his side had seized the initiative to attack, Xiao Yu felt slightly relieved. Clearly, the side that attacks first has the longer weapon range. The current situation was that the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s fleet had entered the weapon range of Xiao Yu’s fleet, while Xiao Yu’s fleet had not entered the Alliance fleet’s weapon range. This represented a certain technological gap and meant that at least in weaponry Xiao Yu remained ahead of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance.

Moreover, this advantage was obtained while Xiao Yu concealed ten percent of his fleet’s performance.

After coming under attack by Xiao Yu’s fleet, part of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s fleet immediately accelerated, even entering curvature flight directly, only dropping out of curvature when they arrived before Xiao Yu’s fleet. The two sides instantly fell into a melee, while another portion of the fleet continued to escort that planetary war star, still slowly approaching.

Fierce fighting began at once. Through innumerable sensors installed on each spaceship, Xiao Yu collected battlefield information with meticulous thoroughness, for instance, what kind of damage a single shell from his side inflicted on the enemy ship, what kind of loss a single shell from the enemy inflicted on his own ship, comparisons of maneuverability, defensive strength, offensive power, endurance, and so on. All intelligence fell within Xiao Yu’s scope of collection. This intelligence would become crucial reference material for Xiao Yu’s subsequent strategy.

At this moment, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance had roughly two million ships engaged in the melee, while Xiao Yu’s fleet had only one million ships. Yet the comparison of strength presented a situation entirely opposite to the numbers. One could almost say that the Alliance’s two million ships were being suppressed by Xiao Yu’s one million ships. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

This was because, whether in offensive power, defensive power, or maneuverability, those ships were no match for Xiao Yu’s ships. Situations often occurred where a County-Class ship of the Level 5 Civilization Alliance fell into disadvantage against one of Xiao Yu’s Town-Class ships, and two City-Class ships could not withstand the attack of a single City-Class ship of Xiao Yu’s.

One against two, even one against many, was the general state of the battlefield.

Sensing this, Xiao Yu quietly let out a breath.

“Fortunately, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s technology still lags far behind mine. Understandable. They are living beings and, unlike me, do not possess such vast computational power and limitless energy. The technologies of twenty civilizations require at least several hundred years just to integrate and organize in the initial stage. To completely digest them, relying on their capabilities would require at least two thousand years.” Xiao Yu thought to himself. “Overall, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s ship combat power is much stronger than the Pegasus Civilization’s when I fought them, but compared to me, it still falls far short. With my fleet concealing ten percent of its performance, at the same size and mass, they can reach less than forty percent of my ships’ capability.”

This figure was extremely precise, derived from Xiao Yu’s analysis of tens of trillions of data points. The data covered an immense range and contained everything, and there had to be certain connections among them. By analyzing the relationships between these data points, Xiao Yu believed that this figure was accurate and not a result of deliberate deception by the Level 5 Civilization Alliance.

The reason was simple. Different technologies complement each other and advance in tandem. Under normal circumstances, to use an example, if a warship’s defensive strength has a value of eighty, then its offensive strength should likewise be eighty. Normally it would not be the case that a warship’s defensive strength is eighty while its offensive strength is ninety or seventy. Of course, this excludes encounters like Xiao Yu’s serendipity in obtaining other civilizations’ legacies.

This was the logical relationship among different data. After analyzing tens of trillions of data points and confirming that no logical gaps existed among them, Xiao Yu finally affirmed the accuracy of this figure.

Of course, it was also possible that the Level 5 Civilization Alliance, like Xiao Yu, had concealed its overall strength and reconstructed a set of combat capability data that fit a logical framework. But after analysis, Xiao Yu considered the likelihood of the Alliance doing this to be low.

After obtaining this set of data, the Level 5 Civilization Alliance’s follow-on forces, clustered around that planetary war star, also reached the edge of the battlefield. Xiao Yu immediately dispatched part of his fleet in an attempt to attack this planetary war star and test its related data.

The ships sent to attack the planetary war star were immediately intercepted by enemy ships, and the planetary war star seized the opportunity to open fire as well. Xiao Yu saw that at least three super negative matter cannons were installed on this planetary war star. Each volley from a negative matter cannon could annihilate a City-Class ship and severely damage or even disable a Province-Class ship. It even posed a significant threat to a Nation-Class ship. If several such planetary war stars attacked together, even a Continent-Class ship would have to avoid their assault for the time being.

“These are the offensive power data for this planetary war star. Hmm, the escort fleet is roughly three million ships. Defensive strength data temporarily unknown…”