Xiao Yu had focused all his attention on the asteroid belt, and naturally, he had no idea that so close to him, a debate was unfolding about the disappearance of those two probes. If Xiao Yu had known, he might have felt a twinge of sympathy.
Having personally experienced life in a Level 2 Civilization, Xiao Yu understood very well just how arduous space exploration truly was. It was an endeavor requiring meticulous precision, where no mistakes could be tolerated. The resources consumed by such projects were not something any individual organization could bear, only an entire nation could sustain that colossal expenditure.
Every tiny interstellar probe within the Solar System had been supported by a vast team behind it. That team had to consider countless factors, fuel consumption, instrument reliability, the gravitational influences of celestial bodies encountered during the voyage, adjustments to its own trajectory. Any error, however small, could mean massive societal resources were wasted.
This primitive Level 2 Civilization in the star system was at roughly the same technological level humanity had once reached. The two probes Xiao Yu had casually destroyed might trigger an extensive internal investigation and purge within their organization, as they would be forced to determine the cause of the failure, and someone would have to take responsibility for the incident.
Xiao Yu did not waste much thought on these matters. At this moment, he was immersed in tense preparations for combat.
“This creature really knows how to hide… But tachyon probes are a detection method beyond its understanding. It cannot escape the search of the tachyon probes. Hm… found it!”
Xiao Yu’s mind brightened with excitement. The tachyon probes indicated that the beast was concealed somewhere within the asteroid belt, and the nearest force to it was the Province-Class fleet led by the Tianjin. The Tianjin was commanding over eighty thousand assorted ships, standing by for Xiao Yu’s orders.
The moment he located the Level 4 Alien Beast, large numbers of tachyon probes began converging on its position, locking onto it so it could not leave their detection range.
“Attack at once!” Xiao Yu’s command came down swiftly. The smaller ships of the Tianjin fleet maneuvered deftly into the asteroid belt, weaving around drifting rocks as they unleashed a fierce barrage toward the unseen target.
As the Tianjin fleet opened fire, the other Province-Class formations also rapidly closed in. Xiao Yu’s flagship, the Yanjing, did not take part in the fighting; instead, it waited calmly outside the belt, protected by roughly one hundred thousand ships.The asteroid belt, which had always been fairly tranquil, instantly descended into chaos. Xiao Yu watched as countless asteroids were shattered to pieces in an instant under the hail of weapons fire. The fragments, propelled at tremendous velocities, collided with other asteroids. Those collisions altered more orbits, which in turn struck still more rocks, and thus, with the battlefield at its center, a chain reaction began spreading outward.
“Awrooo!” A roar heavy with an ancient, desolate resonance echoed in Xiao Yu’s mind. Along with it came an enraged message. “You think this is enough to deal with me? You think this is enough to deal with me?”
At this moment, the Level 4 Alien Beast finally abandoned all attempts at concealment. Perhaps it now understood that its hiding tactics were useless before Xiao Yu.
In the visible universe, its form emerged, its colossal body stretched over seventy kilometers long. Amid the asteroid belt littered with rubble, it appeared overwhelmingly imposing, defiant beyond compare.
In the next instant, its body moved, braving the furious cannon fire as it accelerated outward at incredible speed. Countless ships and probes followed it in tight pursuit, never letting it slip away.
The beast’s target was the largest asteroid in the belt.
This asteroid had an irregular shape, roughly resembling a rectangular block. It measured over five hundred kilometers in length, with an approximate volume of four million cubic kilometers. An asteroid of such magnitude possessed a considerable gravitational pull.
At this moment, the Level 4 Alien Beast stood atop the asteroid like a solitary mountain rising abruptly from a planetary surface. Countless tendrils on its body swayed back and forth, like vines fluttering in an unseen wind. Above it, innumerable densely clustered ships hovered. Compared to the beast’s immense bulk, the ships looked no larger than a swarm of insects.
Village-Class and Town-Class ships were responsible for close-range assaults and pinning the target. Countless small vessels swarmed around it, constantly releasing their attacks while trying to evade the lashes of its tentacles. A barrage of gravitational bombs, antimatter bombs, and high-energy laser cannons pounded it relentlessly.
The larger ships maintained a somewhat greater distance. Their firepower was on an entirely different scale from the smaller ships. An endless torrent of artillery cascaded down, pouring over the Level 4 Alien Beast.
“Clever enough to fight with the asteroid as cover, so you can reduce attacks from one direction. But do you really think that will help you?” Xiao Yu sneered coldly in his heart.
The fierce assault continued unabated, and the intensity steadily increased as the other Province-Class fleets rushed to reinforce. The number of ships kept growing.
At that moment, for reasons he couldn’t explain, Xiao Yu suddenly recalled a film he’d watched long, long ago back on Earth called King Kong. One scene had left a particularly deep impression on him: atop a skyscraper, the colossal Kong fearlessly faced the armed aircraft buzzing around him like insects.
The current scene was strikingly similar to that image. Only this time, the Level 4 Alien Beast’s body dwarfed Kong’s many times over, and Xiao Yu’s ships were more advanced by orders of magnitude compared to those planes.
“It’s useless,” Xiao Yu sighed softly. He maneuvered a City-Class ship around to the far side of the asteroid. The weapon launch platform deployed, and a rocket carrying a high-yield antimatter bomb shot forth, burrowing deep into the asteroid’s interior.
This was a ground-penetrating missile specially designed for planetary environments. Under Xiao Yu’s control, it bored into the asteroid’s depths. Then, as he deactivated the strong magnetic field that restrained the antimatter, matter and antimatter met, and in that instant, a tremendous explosion erupted.
Xiao Yu watched indifferently.
“Trying to use the asteroid as your shield? I’ll just destroy it and see how you cope,” Xiao Yu thought coldly.
Even though space was silent, Xiao Yu could still sense the violence of the blast.
An asteroid with a volume of several million cubic kilometers shattered completely. Countless fragments flew in all directions, raging energies surged everywhere, and amid the swirling debris that glittered like a starfield, Xiao Yu perceived an enraged roar.
“Awoooo!”
Xiao Yu showed no mercy. His vast fleet continued their ferocious assault on the creature. Each gravitational bomb cleared a space hundreds of meters wide. Under the sweep of the material disintegration beams, huge volumes of rock vanished, converted into hydrogen gas. Countless high-energy lasers melted the flying debris into incandescent torrents.
Xiao Yu was sure now that the Level 4 Alien Beast had been wounded.
Dozens of writhing tentacles flickered among the rubble. A Village-Class ship, unable to dodge in time, was seized by a tentacle and flung violently into an asteroid over ten kilometers wide. Instantly, the ship exploded in a flash of fire and was obliterated. But more vessels surged forward, and countless volleys blasted the tentacle clean off.
The battle raged with unimaginable ferocity.
A County-Class ship weaved skillfully through the field, dodging asteroid after asteroid while unleashing powerful attacks. Just then, an enormous tail swept down from above. As it lashed side to side, any asteroid in its path was smashed to dust. The County-Class ship pushed its formidable agility to the utmost, yet still failed to evade the lethal strike and exploded in a ball of fire.
County-Class ships were equipped with Four-Dimensional Shields. The destruction of that ship left a massive wound on the creature’s tail, dozens of meters deep and over a hundred meters long.
Xiao Yu watched as a giant asteroid, more than twenty kilometers across, was hurled violently out of the belt by the blast. It flew straight toward the star, accelerating to a relative velocity of over forty kilometers per second.
Xiao Yu reflexively calculated the asteroid’s trajectory, and at once came to a conclusion that astonished him.
“Eh? It will orbit the star once, and when it comes back around, it will impact directly on that life-bearing planet?”
“An impact by such a massive body would be enough to annihilate the entire civilization. No, I have to stop it. I finally found a primitive civilization, there’s no way I’ll let them perish for something like this.”
Destroying an asteroid of this size would require only a few Town-Class ships. But just as Xiao Yu was about to act, a new thought arose in his mind.
“Since I plan to approach this civilization as a savior… why should I destroy it now? It would be better to wait until the asteroid is nearly upon them, then step in to avert the disaster. They would be endlessly grateful to me.”
Xiao Yu mused to himself.
And so he watched the asteroid speeding away, making no attempt to intervene. He turned his attention once more to the Level 4 Alien Beast.