Chapter 168: Encirclement

Immediately after, it rolled wildly through space like a deflated balloon, completely losing its combat capability.

The battle situation, from a prior advantage, instantly turned into a crushing defeat.

"Report, Commander! The target has been destroyed!"

"Report! We've hit the enemy ship's nerve center; it's now paralyzed!"

"Hahaha! Commander! This manual is so useful! One shot, one hit!"

Within the Federal fleet's command channel, a flood of excited reports filled the air.

Earlier battles, though advantageous, felt frustrating because the many mosquitoes were annoying; they could be eliminated, but it was time‑consuming and labor‑intensive.

Now, they have obtained this "key."

Every Moyun Warship, in their eyes, has become a target riddled with fatal weak points.

They no longer need to conduct saturation attacks, nor even fire their main cannons.

Usually one or two precise secondary shots, or a cheap kinetic missile, can easily render an enemy ship several times larger than theirs completely combat‑ineffective.

War, at this moment, turned into a precise, efficient, surgical strike.

The Federal fleet's ammunition and energy consumption rates dropped by more than seventy percent instantly.

Yet their war gains surged wildly at a terrifying speed.

The Moyun fleet's formation, like butter cut by a hot knife, was easily torn open by the Federal fleet into huge gaps.

Clusters of Moyun Warships, before they could react, were precisely struck at the "vital point," turning into cold debris in space.

Inside the King Insect-class Mothership.

Commander Ka La Fa, with a near‑collapse of consciousness, was feeling his fleet's casualty reports.

In that brief hour just now.

Its fleet lost over fifty thousand ships again!

Moreover, this loss was entirely different from before.

Previously, they could rely on numerical superiority to trade blows with the enemy, even managing to blow up dozens of enemy ships.

Now, their fleet, before the enemy, is as fragile as a bunch of immobile wooden stakes.

The opponent's attacks have become unusually precise and deadly.

Each attack hits, at just the right spot, the most vulnerable, critical part of their warships.

And on our side, we have a fatal flaw: under the massive gravity of the star system, it's hard to achieve faster‑than‑light travel.

"They... they have seen through our weakness!"

Ka La Fa's massive brain trembled violently from extreme fear.

"Impossible! The Moyun Civilization's biotech is the Empire's top secret! How could these lowly insects analyze it so thoroughly in such a short time?!"

It cannot comprehend.

It's like a primitive man, facing a modern tank, not only unafraid but pulling out an 'M1A2 Main Battle Tank Maintenance and Repair Manual',

then precisely stabbing a stone spear into the tank's engine cooling vent.

This is no longer science; it's metaphysics!

"Commander! We can't hold on! The enemy's attacks are too bizarre!"

"Our formation has been completely disrupted! Requesting retreat! We request retreat!"

"If we don't leave now, we'll all die here!"

The lower‑rank commanders' desperate wails rose and fell in Ka La Fa's mind.

Retreat?

The thought flashed through Ka La Fa's consciousness.

It glanced at the battlefield.

The human fleet of over two thousand warships now resembles not a spear but a massive fishing net slowly tightening.

They split into dozens of small combat groups, charging recklessly within their own fleet,

splitting, encircling, then annihilating.

While our four‑hundred‑thousand troops are like sardines trapped in a net, panicking and crashing about with no means of retaliation.

Defeated.

Defeated so thoroughly, so swiftly, so... humiliatingly.

"Retreat..."

Ka La Fa finally issued the order he least wanted to give.

The will to survive ultimately overcame everything.

"All units! Disengage from combat immediately! Retreat to the rear space node! Quickly!"

Its thought, like a decree of pardon, spread throughout the Moyun fleet.

Those Moyun Warships, already terrified, instantly turned their bows upon receiving the order, fleeing like a pack of stray dogs back the way they came.

They could not even maintain basic formation, instinctively and frantically trying to escape this hellish battlefield.

"Want to run?"

On the bridge of the New Sun‑Chaser, Zhang Xianzhong watched the enemy's collapse, a cold curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

"Got into my pocket and still thinking of getting out? Dream on!"

He had been waiting for this chance for a long time.

"Transmit my orders!"

Zhang Xianzhong's voice was filled with soaring battle spirit.

"All reserve fleets of the Second Defense Line, immediately jump from both sides to the rear of the battlefield; cut off their retreat, completely block it!"

"First Fleet, all units, chase after them! Beat the dogs in the water!"

"Remember! Our goal is not to defeat them, but to annihilate them completely!"

"Today, I will make this starry sky the burial ground of this so-called Imperial Expeditionary Force!"

"The hunt begins!"

"With Zhang Xianzhong's order."

"Originally deployed at the Mars defense point, the Federal Second Defense Line, composed of twenty thousand warships and hundreds of thousands of regular warships, finally moved at this moment."

"A huge spatial ripple rose in the starry sky behind the Demon Cloud Fleet."

"A Federal fleet ten times larger than the First Fleet appeared out of nowhere like heavenly soldiers, completely blocking all retreat routes of the Demon Cloud Fleet."

"At the same time, the warships of the First Fleet went full throttle, like a pack of bloodthirsty sharks, fiercely chasing after that fleeing school of 'fish'."

"An unprecedented interstellar great hunt officially opened its curtain."

"Seeing their retreat cut off, the Demon Cloud Fleet fell into utter despair."

"They were like beasts trapped in a cage, with nothing left but a final desperate struggle."

"But their resistance appeared feeble and powerless before the Federal Fleet, which had fully seized the initiative."

"The Federal Fleet was like a group of the most efficient butchers, harvesting their lives with the most precise cuts."

"The war had completely lost its suspense."

"Now the only suspense is how to deal with that hundred-kilometer-long King Insect Mother Ship."

'"Xiao Qin," Zhang Xianzhong glanced at Qin Hao beside him, eyes full of inquiry, "That big guy, can we take it down?"'

"Qin Hao smiled and replied, 'Commander, what do you say?'"

"His gaze passed through the porthole and fell upon that huge mother ship frantically fleeing."

'"It is now a piece of meat on our chopping board."'

'"Cut it however we want."'