Chapter 179: Meat Grinder (Part I)

War, once it enters the close-quarters phase, sees grand strategy broken down into countless tiny and brutal local battlefields.

This starry sky instantly turned into a huge chaotic meat grinder.

"Energy overload in the starboard number three turret! Damage control team, reinforce immediately!"

"Port side armor damaged seventeen percent! Energy shield at forty percent and still dropping!"

"Rear! Three enemy ships have latched onto us from behind! Request fire support!"

Captain Li Mo's forehead was covered in sweat, his eyes bloodshot, staring fixedly at the chaotic battlefield on the screen.

His vessel, the Iron Fist, was now deeply entrenched in encirclement.

Three Moyun battleships, each twice the size of the Iron Fist, like three beasts from the abyss, clamped down on them from three directions.

Crimson plasma beams poured down like free money, wildly slamming into the Iron Fist's honeycomb shield, making the whole ship shudder violently.

The shield's energy index was plummeting at a visible speed.

"Fire!"

Li Mo's voice was hoarse as he pointed at the enemy ship dead ahead on the screen and roared.

"Main gun! Aim at its biological core—that red‑glowing tumor! Blast it!"

"But Captain, firing the main gun again will overload our power core!"

The chief engineer shouted anxiously.

"Execute the order!" Li Mo's eyes turned red. "Even if we die, the Federal still has countless warships! This big guy must die here!"

"Yes!"

The bow of the Iron Fist, its long‑silent main gun, once again blazed with brilliant light.

A bolt of electromagnetic shot, gathering the ship's remaining energy and several times thicker than before, erupted at sub‑light speed, trailing a long blue wake,

and struck true on the giant red pulsing tumor at the center of the Moyun battleship's hull, like a beating heart.

Pfft!

No earth‑shaking explosion followed.

The tumor was instantly pierced, and green, foul‑smelling fluid gushed out like a volcanic eruption.

The massive Moyun battleship shuddered, all its biological turrets fell silent, and the crimson light on its hull quickly faded.

It was like a giant beast struck precisely in the brain; after a few spasms it lost all life, becoming a cold, floating corpse in space.

"Nice shot!" a brief cheer burst from the bridge.

But before they could savor it for even a second,

the attack of the other two Moyun battleships also broke through the Iron Fist's shield, which was already on the verge of collapse.

Several thick plasma beams slammed solidly into the port side of the Iron Fist.

Boom!

Blinding red alarm light instantly engulfed the entire bridge.

"Port side armor breached! Decks three, four, and five have lost pressure! The ship can't hold!"

Li Mo, clad in steel battle armor, was hurled hard into the command chair by the violent shock.

He steadied himself, and through the cracked porthole saw countless Moyun warships converging like sharks scenting blood,

swarming toward their immobilized Iron Fist.

He felt no fear, only calmly picked up the communicator and opened the fleet's public channel.

"This is Iron Fist; we've lost power and can't escape, but we can still fight!"

He glanced at the frenzied enemy ships on the screen, and a faint smile appeared on his face.

"Intellect! After we all get out, overload the warp drive, aim at the Moyun warship and ram it, while detonating all the ship's ammunition stores!"

"Take as many as you can!"

"For humanity, forward!!"

Having said that, the ship's hatch opened and all thousand Iron Supermen aboard launched out at once.

Meanwhile, the doomed ship instantly entered warp travel; a few seconds later, upon contacting a Moyun warship, it detonated on the spot.

The next second, a gigantic firework of blazing blue and red erupted in the chaotic battlefield.

The Iron Fist slammed head‑on into a ten‑kilometer‑long Moyun warship, and together they were reduced to cosmic dust in the violent explosion.

Li Mo and his comrades had barely flown out when, a few million kilometers ahead, hundreds of thousands of Ripper Biological Mechs poured from a Moyun warship and rushed toward them.

"Brothers, the real battle has just begun—are you afraid?"

Gazing at the dark mass of enemy forces ahead, Li Mo shouted over the comms.

"Haha! Captain, what's there to fear? I'm too excited to wait—I'll let them taste the might of the Iron Supermen soon."

A crew member spoke excitedly.

Know that every soldier today has been injected with the second‑generation Super‑nome gene; though they can't match Qin Hao, individual strength is still not to be underestimated.

"Good enough—kill one to break even, a hundred to profit. Brothers, let's go together!"

Li Mo, without another word, surged forward first, the rest of the crew following close behind.

……

Elsewhere, in a squad of the Moyun Legion, the Moyun biological creature named Claw, which commands this fleet, was howling wildly in the public psychic network.

"Why?! Why are these insects' ships so hard!"

Just moments ago, one of its squads, a full twenty‑six ships, surrounded a lone human cruiser.

It considered it a sure‑kill hunt.

But the result was that it lost sixteen ships destroyed and ten severely damaged before finally, by suicidal ramming, blowing up that human warship.

One for twenty‑six!

This is still with the opponent alone!

This exaggerated, outrageous loss ratio sent chills through the biological brain of the Ripper.

The insects' warships, though few in number, each resemble an iron hedgehog armed to the teeth.

Their energy shields are thick enough to make one's hair stand on end. Their hull armor is solid beyond belief.

Their gunfire is precise and deadly.

What makes it even more desperate is that these human individuals are just as terrifying; on our side, it basically takes a hundred Ripper mechs to kill one of them.

It had only seen such strength before in the Elven Civilization.

However, what baffles it even more are those silver-white, droplet-like phantom warships.

They ignore all attacks and charge wildly across the battlefield.

Any compatriot blocking them will be silently cut in half.

They don't even need to fire; just that terrifying physical impact is an unstoppable killing blow.

"Commander! We can't hold on! Seventh Squad is wiped out! Twelfth Squad requests retreat!"

"Those silver phantoms... they're charging at us!"

Desperate wails rose and fell in the Ripper's mind.

Through its visual sensors, it saw three silver-white Nüwa-class warships forming a triangular formation,

slowly advancing toward it in a relentless crushing motion.

In their path, Moyun Warships were torn apart and pierced as easily as paper.

Flee!

This was the only thought in the Ripper's mind.

It frantically drove its biological engine, trying to escape this death zone.

However, it was already too late.

One of the Nüwa-class warships had already noticed it.

That silver-white warship merely adjusted its direction slightly; space twisted for a moment, it vanished instantly, and the next moment it slammed into it.

"No—!"

At the last of its consciousness, it only "saw" an infinitely enlarged, mirror-smooth silver.

Then everything fell into darkness.