Chapter 269: New-Style Weapon

Chapter 269: Chapter 268: New-Style Weapon

Although Li Qingsong’s lingering frustration hadn’t been completely vented, he’d managed to release most of it.

But that wasn’t the full extent of his gains.

The vast battlefield from the previous war was still littered with an unknown number of incredibly valuable Warship wrecks—and maybe even surviving Harvillers!

By salvaging those wrecks, he could hopefully analyze the Harvillers’ technology, which was more advanced than his own.

While the applications of reverse engineering were always somewhat limited, it would still be a boost.

As for any surviving Harvillers, besides the hope of uncovering the secrets they held about Human Civilization, Li Qingsong could also potentially extract technological data from them.

Compared to reverse engineering, this technical data was what Li Qingsong valued far more.

But now was not the time to be cleaning up the battlefield.

Those flame-like unidentified objects were still rampaging throughout the Star System.

‘It’s time to deal with them with everything I’ve got!’

In the previous phase of the conflict, while directing his fleet against the Harville Fleet, Li Qingsong had also been trying various weapons and methods to deal with these flame-like unidentified creatures.

Li Qingsong had used a variety of weapons, including Energy Cannons, Laser Cannons, Energy Cannons, Interstellar Mines, and Interstellar Missiles, but in the end, he found that they were either ineffective or had very little effect.

The Energy Cannons and Laser Cannons, it went without saying, were essentially useless against these entities.

The other Energy Cannons did have some effect. However, based on their current weapon parameters, their shells couldn’t lock onto the targets, nor could they trigger an explosion.

The shells fired by these Energy Cannons were designed to target Warships; they were very effective at locking on, detonating on approach, or making a direct impact. But these unidentified objects were practically incorporeal. How could anything lock onto them? How could anything be triggered to detonate?

Weapons like Interstellar Mines and Missiles faced the same predicament.

After trying all kinds of weapons, Li Qingsong discovered that, at present, the only thing with any effect—any killing power at all—was a nuclear weapon.

There’s no air in space, so a nuclear weapon’s most significant killing mechanism—the shockwave—is nonexistent. But even without a shockwave, a nuke can still inflict damage through its electromagnetic pulse, thermal radiation, and high-energy radiation.

It was this thermal and high-energy radiation that could actually damage the flame-like objects!

Li Qingsong saw that under the blast of thermal and radiative energy from a nuclear explosion, the flame-like objects were like candle flames in a storm—instantly dispersed, ceasing to exist.

But… nuclear weapons also had extremely severe limitations.

Depending on the yield, a nuclear weapon’s kill radius in space varied, but it usually didn’t exceed 10,000 kilometers.

A radius of 10,000 kilometers might seem huge, but in the vastness of space, a sphere of that size is utterly minuscule.

Besides, the flame-like objects were extremely maneuverable, even more so than his own Warships.

This meant that whenever he launched a nuclear warhead, the flame-like objects in the target area would quickly flee, and he could only manage to destroy a small fraction of them.

Furthermore, he had a limited supply of Interstellar Missiles equipped with nuclear warheads; the quantity was not large.

Nuclear weapons were merely a supplementary tool on the interstellar battlefield. What fleet would ever be heavily equipped with them?

For a moment, faced with these unidentified objects, Li Qingsong felt like a tiger trying to eat a hedgehog—utterly at a loss for how to begin.

The billions of brains that constituted Li Qingsong spun at top speed, and every kind of sensor was aimed at the unidentified objects, straining to collect any and all information about them.

Right now, apart from the processing power needed for essential functions, Li Qingsong was dedicating almost all of his spare cognitive capacity to analyzing and thinking about these unidentified objects.

Li Qingsong had no choice but to give this his all.

It had been less than a month since the Harville Civilization had released these unidentified objects, and they had already caused him immense trouble.

One after another, Warships had their Energy Shields torn down and were then destroyed by these unidentified objects;

One by one, satellites lost contact, obviously destroyed by them.

Each satellite was a pair of eyes for Li Qingsong. And now, these eyes of his were rapidly dwindling;

Unmanned Warships, space-based Cannon Platforms, and automated space defense systems were also sustaining heavy attacks, their numbers constantly decreasing;

Even non-combat assets, such as logistics ships, transport vessels, space-based supply depots, and Space-Air Carriers, were under massive assault.

In just one short month, Li Qingsong had lost over 30,000 Manned Warships alone! Their rate of attrition was almost higher than that of the Harville Civilization itself!

By now, Li Qingsong had been forced to gather nearly all his fleets around three large planets, relying on his limited reserves of Hydrogen Bombs to mount a meager defense and just barely hold on.

Of course, Li Qingsong was capable of producing Hydrogen Bombs. But because they had never been used in large quantities, his production lines were small, and their output was limited.

Besides, even if production were sufficient, the lethality of Hydrogen Bombs against these objects was simply too limited. Relying on them alone wasn’t going to work; he had to find a new means of attack.

As he rapidly thought, analyzed, and researched, Li Qingsong was filled with rage.

‘I defeated a powerful Strong Core Civilization in its prime on the main battlefield, killed half its population, and practically wiped out its entire Warship reserve.’

‘And now you… this bunch of bizarre things… have forced me to do nothing but huddle around a planet, just barely holding on. How can I possibly vent this frustration if I don’t wipe every last one of you out!’

Amidst his rapid research, Li Qingsong soon found a way to combat these unidentified creatures.

‘If thermal and high-energy radiation can damage you, then I’ll focus my research in that direction!’

‘Hydrogen Bombs are too clumsy? A single one weighs at least ten-plus tons? Their delivery isn’t agile or precise enough, the kill radius is too small, and the overall efficiency is too low?’

‘Fine, I’ll develop small-scale weapons! Even if their kill radius is smaller, I can launch them in massive quantities. Their delivery will be faster, they’ll be more maneuverable, and far more precise.’

‘As long as it can accurately get close to one of those unidentified creatures, a kill radius of just a few dozen meters will be perfectly sufficient.’

After a period of desperately holding the line, Li Qingsong finally developed a brand-new weapon.

This weapon could still be categorized as a type of Energy Cannon. Its kill mechanism was still explosive damage, its total mass did not exceed 50kg, and it could be mass-produced and launched in large quantities.

The biggest difference compared to the Energy Cannons Li Qingsong had previously manufactured was that these could finally lock onto and rapidly track the flame-like unidentified creatures, which possessed high temperatures and unique shapes!