Chapter 63: If You Won't Come Over, I'm Coming to You!

The armor plating of these combat starships appeared to be constructed from some extremely high-tech material, making them exceptionally sturdy.

Facing a barrage of projectiles that lasted for a full three days, although they were hit multiple times, not a single ship was destroyed. At most, their outer hulls became pitted and scarred, with some equipment mounted on the exterior being ruined.

The most heavily damaged combat starship seemed to have its thrusters crippled, causing it to lose mobility.

Though the combat results were modest, they were still enough to satisfy Li Qingsong.

After all, Li Qingsong had never expected to threaten the starships with a mere torrent of bullets; heavily damaging one and inflicting varying degrees of damage on the rest came as a purely unexpected bonus.

Other means were prepared for dealing with these warships.

At this moment, the three-day bombardment had drawn to a close. The entire surface of the enemy planet had been practically plowed over by his own hand, and no artificial structures remained visible anywhere on the ground.

It was precisely at this moment that the true Mercury-class warships had completed their preparations.

Previously, he had not dared to dispatch them out of fear that the enemy might discover anomalies. But now that the cards were on the table, such reservations were gone.

Consequently, these 500 Mercury-class warships and 50 of the largest cargo freighters simultaneously ignited their engines at maximum acceleration.

Methane and oxygen burned furiously within the combustion chambers, continuously generating high-temperature, high-pressure gas.

Confined tightly within the chambers with nowhere to escape laterally, these gases were compressed and expelled from the engine nozzles like an explosion, thereby providing the ships with surging reactive thrust and propelling them into rapid acceleration.

In a very short span of time, these vessels accelerated from a mere 1 kilometer per second to a velocity of 11 kilometers per second!

Following this, the ship engines were shut down, and the fleet entered a state of inertial coasting.

During the subsequent flight, the starships would perform at most only minor trajectory adjustments.

It was not that Li Qingsong did not want to accelerate to even higher speeds, but rather that it was simply unfeasible.

After all, he possessed neither high-speed ion propulsion technology nor secondary pressurization propulsion technology; he had to rely entirely on chemical propellants.

Furthermore, the consumption of chemical propellants was massive. Had he accelerated further, his fuel reserves would have been depleted even with cargo vessels trailing behind.

It mattered little, however. Even traveling at this current speed, it would take no more than a month or so to cross the vast distance of over 40 million kilometers and reach the battlefield.

This time, Li Qingsong still chose not to have his primary consciousness arrive at the battlefield.

This meant that when operating these warships, there would still be a communication delay of about four minutes. Inevitably, this would cause the performance of these 500 warships to be subpar and their combat effectiveness to plummet sharply.

Yet it did not matter, for Li Qingsong had his own plans.

Moreover, this first batch of 500 departing warships did not constitute the entirety of this war.

Remaining behind at the main base with virtually zero communication delay, Li Qingsong continued to command approximately 900,000 clones as they threw themselves once more into another endeavor:

Manufacturing more Mercury-class warships with all-out effort, and sparing no expense to produce additional machine gun bullets, autocannon shells, fuel, consumables, and interstellar missiles!

Almost on the very first day the 500 Mercury-class warships set sail, the first batch of subsequent supply materials was finished.

That consignment consisted of ten million machine gun bullets, ten thousand autocannon shells, along with substantial quantities of methane, pure oxygen, and interstellar missiles.

Packaged into ten large containers, they were loaded onto cargo freighters, accelerated to appropriate velocities, placed into proper orbits, and then directly cast off into space to fly autonomously toward the enemy planet.

Afterward, the cargo freighters returned to base, took on a second batch of supplies, cast them into space once more, and repeated the cycle.

Three days later, the first batch of rush-ordered Mercury-class warships was completed.

Totaling five ships, they finished their replenishment at the space station before likewise embarking on the journey toward the enemy planet.

Thus, whether bullets or warships, shells or fuel, various kinds of supplies continuously departed from the planet Luoshen and flew toward the enemy world.

At this moment, approximately a little over a month remained before the first batch of 500 Mercury-class warships would arrive at the battlefield.

The surviving enemy mothership and warships once again fell into a dilemma.

Their own base had been destroyed, leaving them with almost no logistical supply capabilities. Meanwhile, the enemy warships, though technologically inferior, were continuously closing in.

What course of action should they take?

Should they rush to repair the base and restore supplies as much as possible, or... abandon supply efforts altogether, head directly for the enemy's planet, and wipe out their base first?

The more rational choice was undoubtedly to eliminate the enemy's base.

However... since that previous torrential hail of bullets could be used to destroy their own base, employing it for defensive tasks seemed equally feasible.

Just imagine that overwhelming rain of bullets bombarding them relentlessly from the planetary surface without a moment's pause—how could their warships possibly fend it off?

Thus, only a single option seemingly remained.

Relying on the superior performance of their own spacecraft, they must withstand the enemy's relentless assaults while racing against time to repair the base and restore supplies!

This time, they must remember to build the base underground!

Once supplies were restored, it would not matter how many warships the enemy sent; they would all be utterly useless!

Judging by the technological gap between the two sides, there was a very strong hope of achieving this.

Consequently, those dozens of warships remained stationed near the enemy planet. Under the watchful gaze of Li Qingsong's spy satellites, they frequently landed and took off between the planet's surface and the mothership, seemingly engaged in all-out emergency repair work.

For a time, silence returned to the battlefield.

Then, the first batch of 500 Mercury-class warships arrived.

Half of the dozens of enemy warships surged forward to intercept the Mercury-class fleet.

This time, however, Li Qingsong did not directly command these Mercury-class warships to engage them in a hard-fought, head-on collision.

Even though the enemy fleet's logistical supplies were severely deficient and most of their vessels were damaged,

Li Qingsong merely executed a very simple tactical maneuver.

Retreat with all might! Flee! Simultaneously, machine guns, autocannons, and missiles were all fired off in a chaotic barrage as he launched an all-out offensive!

Because the tactics were simple, they could be executed even while enduring a four-minute communication delay.

Flashes of fire dotted the vast, profound depths of space.

As expected, most of his offensive was intercepted, failing to destroy even a single enemy warship. Conversely, more than a dozen of his own ships were directly wiped out by the adversary because they failed to escape in time.

Fortunately, the main fleet finally managed to break away.

Seeing their foes flee, those enemy warships returned to the side of the mothership, intending to resume their emergency repair tasks.

"Not pursuing? How can that do? If you aren't coming over, then I'll be coming to you."

Li Qingsong sneered coldly, directly commanding the fleet to close in once more.

Machine guns, autocannons, and interstellar missiles once again commenced their violent bombardment.