The second line of defence

After paying a huge sacrifice, Hawke was able to bring two of his own ships, close to a distance of less than a hundred kilometres from the other flagship. Then, without hesitation, Hawke detonated his two City ships.

Immediately, an endless amount of light and heat erupted in the centre of the explosion, as if two small suns had suddenly appeared in space.

The two City ships were vaporised internally and their external armour was torn apart and reduced to fragments, which were then accelerated to nearly one-half the speed of light by the explosion of immense energy.

These fragments, and the infinite amount of light and heat, launched an indiscriminate attack on the surrounding ships. Hawk saw that the flagship ship, under the irresistible force, had its energy shield torn apart in a mere flash, and then, as if swallowed by an invisible mouth, half of the ship was directly eroded away, while the other side exploded and disintegrated.

At the centre of the explosion, within a range of two hundred kilometres, there was no longer a single intact ship.

Because the ships were too densely distributed, this explosion destroyed nearly three thousand of Hawk's ships, and more than four hundred of the other ships.

This was the power of a large ship self-destructing under a dense distribution of ships.

"No matter what, we have finally eliminated the opponent's flagship, so that they can no longer attack with their force field ..." Hawke breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, the other side still had more than four thousand ships left, among which, there were four City ships, but they did not have such an almost perverted attack means as force field coverage. For Hawke's part, there were still more than nine thousand ships left, more than the other side, but there were no City ships.

With these nine thousand ships, Hawke estimated that he would be lucky if he could eliminate more than a thousand ships of the other side. After all, the difference in technology was there. If they were still fighting under the force field coverage, Hawke's 9,000 ships could only destroy at most 500 of the other side's ships.

But Hawke was not afraid. Because, in the interior of the galaxy, Hawke still had a full 80,000 ships! And that was not counting the armed satellites, the solar sails, the weapons placed in the asteroid belt!

In other words, even if he had to trade twenty ships for one, the winner would definitely be Hawk.

Hawke's heart was suddenly filled with confidence.

"This battle will definitely be won by me! After I repel this wave of attacks, I will have enough time to prepare and escape.

With his energy high, Hawk commanded the remaining 9,000 ships and continued his attack, trying to consume as much strength as possible before the 9,000 ships were depleted.

After the loss of their flagship, the fleet of the Lucca civilisation showed signs of disorganisation. Excitement rose in Hawk's heart.

This was a weakness common to the fleets of intelligent civilisations. That was, it had to be under the command of a core before all the battle power could be fully brought into play. If this core was lost, then the battle power of the entire fleet would drop by at least twenty percent.

This problem, too, is quite present in human civilisations, which is why, in ancient battlefields, there was the rule that the main general died and the deputy general took his place, in order not to lose the core of the army.

But after the loss of the main general, even if a second-in-command comes up in his place, the entire army's combat power is still weakened considerably. This means that Hawke's odds of winning are further increased.

Such problems, however, did not exist for Hawke. Because Hawke's entire fleet, was under Hawke's direct command, there was no question of command art, morale or anything like that, which was an advantage of the mechanical civilization.

Within twenty minutes of the flagship being wiped out, Hawke had eliminated over three hundred of his opponent's ships at a cost of three thousand ships of his own. The battle-damage ratio began to move in favour of Hawke's side.

Twenty minutes later, the battle damage ratio began to slowly increase again, and Hawke knew that this was the establishment of a new commander for the Lucca civilisation.

In the middle of the battlefield, energy shells were flying everywhere, there was fire and wreckage everywhere. Hawke was frantically launching an attack by exterminating a hundred enemies and damaging a thousand of his own.

Time passed, another hour. Hawke's fleet was getting smaller and smaller. In the end, there was only one ship left, a county-class ship.

At this moment, this county ship was already scarred, its power system efficiency had dropped by 80 percent, it could only barely move at a hundred kilometres per second, its armour was covered in scars, and its nanobots had been depleted, which meant that it could no longer repair its wounds. In terms of weaponry, the hydrogen reserves have been depleted and the fusion reactor has lost 90 per cent of its energy level, meaning that it can only fire energy cannons equivalent to those of a village class ship.

Even so, the dilapidated prefectural ship was still attacking bravely. Hawk manoeuvred it close to a village ship with dull energy shields and blew itself up before an energy blast could hit it. The village ship and an unspecified number of Lucasians inside it were taken to their fate.

The ship's self-destruct represented the fall of all of Hawke's ε Eri c defences. With the loss of the ship's power, it was only a matter of time before the armed satellite fell.

Eventually, the battle report was summed up by Hawke. In this amazing battle, Hawke eliminated the opposing fleet of over 2,500 ships, including, among others, the opposing flagship, at the cost of six armed satellites and 20,000 ships, including two City ships.

Overall, the battle performance was quite satisfactory to Hawke.

Half of the opponent's 5,000 ships had been lost, while his own side had lost only a fifth of its strength.

The scales of victory were tipped in Hawke's favour.

After a short rest and a full replenishment of energy on the ε Eri c, the two thousand five hundred ships began to set off towards the ε Eri b defence line. And with great momentum, they had the air of a strong man who would never return.

Seeing the Lucca civilization doing this, Hawk's heart, however, was puzzled.

"Why? They should be well aware of the strength of my fleet, knowing that I have 80,000 ships, countless bases, and solar sails waiting for them, and that they are definitely no match for me, but why are they still moving on? What other backhanded, hidden underhanded cards do they have?"

In Hawk's heart, a vague worry grew. This phenomenon was too out of line with common sense.

"A bitter ploy? At the cost of two thousand five hundred medium and small class ships, and one flagship class ship, if it's a bitter ploy, this price is too big ... but the more they pay, the more they must want to get. No one is going to make a losing deal."

In an instant, there were countless speculations flashing through Hawke's mind.

"Respond to changes by increasing the strength of the ε Eri b defense line and increasing the number of ships to forty thousand. Together with the power of the asteroid belt, and the armed satellites, and the power of the solar sails, these forty thousand ships will be able to completely annihilate the Lucca civilization ships at their current stage of strength. If they have any killer weapons, even if all these forty thousand ships are destroyed, I still have a backup force that will not hurt my foundation."

In an instant, Hawke made up his mind. This response method could be considered foolproof. According to the current strength shown by the Lucca civilization fleet, if they refused to explode the killer, or if there was no killer, they would be completely destroyed by these 40,000 ships, and if they exploded the killer, at most, Hawke didn't want these 40,000 ships, and anyway, there were still 40,000 ships at ε Eri a.

With everything set up, Hawke began to wait quietly at the ε Eri b defense line for the arrival of the Lucan civilization fleet.

In the quiet of the universe, more than two and a half thousand ships emitting a pale ink glow were quietly advancing. Ahead of them, the ε Eri system, which emits enormous amounts of light and heat all the time, is a fleet that, like a moth to a flame, is moving forward without any hesitation.

Thirty million kilometres from the ε Eri b defence line, out of range of the laser and energy cannons, the lone fleet came under the first attack laid down by Hawke.

It was the giant solar sails orbiting the ε Eri system, 130,000 of them. These solar sails were not orbiting the ecliptic of the ε Eri system, but were orbiting the poles of the ε Eri system at a ninety degree angle to the ecliptic of the ε Eri system. Therefore, these solar sails are not obscured by the ε Eri galaxy, and a total of 130,000 solar sails, wherever they are orbiting, are available at every moment to strike at enemy targets.

Moreover, because of the stellar energy approach, these solar sails do not have to worry about energy consumption. Therefore, when they were still 400 million kilometres away from the Lucca civilisation fleet, these solar sails were the first to launch an attack. The power was a little less, but these weapons were free, so they were not used for nothing.

A total of more than 100,000 high-energy lasers were fired out across the vast expanse of space, shining continuously and uninterruptedly on these dark green ships.

These high-energy lasers would continuously consume the energy of the enemy's ship shields and would continue to do so until one civilisation was destroyed.

They were like a nasty mosquito, not very powerful, but exceptionally annoying.

It took two days for the Lucca fleet to cover the 300 million kilometres. At the end of the long journey were the 40,000 ships on Hawk's side, which were standing by.

Since the enemy fleet was not protected by the force field, Hawke once again sent out a torrent of bullets to attack. This time, nearly 70 million miniature nukes were blasted at the other side. Hawke hoped that these miniature nukes could destroy more than five hundred of the opponent's ships.

After firing the mini-nukes, the laser weapons were launched when the two sides were 10 million kilometres apart. Just as the laser weapons were unleashed, a torrent of bullets rushed in front of the Luca fleet.

Another great battle was soon to break out.