Chapter 284: The Biggest Trump Card

In terms of energy supply, it was equipped with 16 modular, large-scale Nuclear Fusion Reactors. Each unit was relatively independent, so the failure of one wouldn’t affect the rest.

Under normal operating conditions, only half of the Nuclear Fusion Reactors were needed to meet its total energy demands. The other half served as a backup, ready to come online at a moment’s notice.

For propulsion, it was equipped with a total of 128 Thrust Devices distributed across various parts of the Warship. Depending on the propulsion mode, it could not only maneuver at extremely high speeds but also deftly adjust its orientation in space, ready to defend or attack at any moment.

Even its hull was constructed from a super-alloy newly developed by Li Qingsong, one that incorporated Strong Core technology. This ensured it would not deform even under extreme g-force pressure.

The strength of its hull was so immense that, provided it maintained the correct orientation, it could take off and land on the surface of a large planet like Earth!

From every perspective, it was a War Giant Beast of unprecedented combat power.

And now, this War Giant Beast was leaving the space dock that had birthed it, setting out for the battlefield.

There, tens of thousands of Earth-class, Venus-class, and Mercury-class Manned Warships, along with innumerable Unmanned Warships and unmanned combat installations, were divided into two factions, locked in a fight to the death.

The battlefield had ground to a stalemate.

The reason was simple: both sides were controlled by Li Qingsong and the Wukong AI. Their technological levels were identical. And while their tactics differed, their tactical proficiency was the same. It was only natural that they would be locked in a stalemate, with neither side able to gain an advantage.

But now, one of the factions had been joined by a Mars-class Warship.

At that moment, the four Energy Giant Cannons fired simultaneously, unleashing their fury in four different directions.

A single projectile, weighing 50 grams and glowing blue-white like molten metal, shot out at a staggering 300 kilometers per second, hurtling toward a distant Mercury-class Warship.

In the process, countless radar waves scanned the projectile, and in an instant, thousands of interceptor missiles launched to meet it.

But its speed was too great, making interception extremely difficult. Of the thousands of interceptors, only a single one managed to score a hit.

Normally, a single impact would be enough to alter a projectile’s flight path, causing it to miss its target.

This time, however, the projectile’s mass was too great.

The more massive an object is, the less its trajectory is affected by an impact of a given force.

Although the massive projectile’s trajectory was altered by the impact, the deviation was minuscule. It remained locked onto the Mercury-class Warship!

The collision was inevitable. The moment the projectile violently slammed into the Strong Core shield and was stopped dead by the Strong Core material, its Strong Core Excited State destabilized, and the immense energy contained within instantly erupted.

There was a violent flash of light. The next moment, the Mercury-class Warship’s outer Energy Shield vanished. Simultaneously, smoke billowed from within the ship before dissipating into the vacuum of the Cosmos.

A single projectile had not only disabled its Energy Shield but had also caused the shield generator to overload and burn out!

On a space battlefield at the current level of technology, a Warship that lost its Energy Shield was like a warrior on an ancient battlefield losing their armor. Any sword or spear could easily kill even the mightiest soldier!

The next moment, a stray round from an unknown source struck its reactor module, and the Mercury-class Warship erupted in a massive explosion.

In the vastness of space, the Mars-class Warship was like a Celestial God descended, unleashing its might without restraint.

Energy Giant Cannons, large, medium, and small Energy Cannons, Laser Cannons, Cannons, Missiles, Landmines…

Besides being nigh-invincible itself, it could also leverage its larger, deep-scan battlefield radar to provide intelligence support to the rest of the fleet!

With the arrival of the Mars-class Warship, the battlefield was thrown into chaos, like a shark suddenly thrown into a stagnant pond. The deadlock was shattered instantly. Within a few days, the opposing force could no longer withstand the pressure and was completely routed.

Having thoroughly verified the combat capabilities of the Mars-class Warship and gained a preliminary understanding of how to wield this War Giant Beast, Li Qingsong was filled with joy.

‘I’ll need to build another one. Both sides of the engagement need a Mars-class Warship. Only in an evenly matched fight can I truly master how to use it and develop new combat techniques.’

Li Qingsong made his decision.

The Mars-class Warship was extremely difficult to manufacture. Even for Li Qingsong, with his immense industrial power, mass production was impossible.

But that didn’t mean he would stop after building only one or two.

The reason he decided to pause after building two was that there was another, more important task at hand—a task even more critical than the Mars-class Warship.

This undertaking would consume all of Li Qingsong’s available mental capacity. It would even impact industrial production and routine research, forcing him to suspend certain projects.

This task was the updating and iteration of the Unified Force Field.

As Li Qingsong’s greatest weapon at this stage, the Unified Force Field held irreplaceable strategic value. It was his true, ultimate trump card.

At this point, technology in every field had seen massive breakthroughs—he had even managed to build a Mars-class Warship. It was only natural that the Unified Force Field should also be upgraded.

However, its technological advancement was somewhat different from other fields.

To make an analogy, Li Qingsong considered the complete Unified Force Field apparatus to be more like a massive piece of software.

Such large-scale software might seem enormous, with tens of millions of lines of code and numerous functions. But sometimes, a single character change is all it takes to make the entire system crash.

The same was true for the complete Unified Force Field apparatus. It consisted of a vast number of devices—at least one billion of them—but if even a single one was built incorrectly and deviated from the specified standard, the entire system would collapse.

Updating and maintaining large-scale software is one of the most complex and difficult tasks. Likewise, updating and iterating the existing Unified Force Field array was equally complex and difficult.

‘This will require a complete restructuring and optimization, starting from the most fundamental logic. The difficulty is no less than when I first researched this entire technology from scratch…’

Facing the mountainous, ocean-sized workload before him, Li Qingsong let out a soft sigh.

‘But it can’t be helped. No matter how difficult, it has to be done. That Intelligent Mechanical Calamity has been chasing me for millennia. I should at least be courteous enough to prepare a big surprise for them…’

Li Qingsong diverted a full two billion of his consciousness connections to this task.