Chapter 300: The Time Has Come

The radius of the Lyra G16 Star is approximately 750,000 kilometers. Its total surface area is about seven trillion square kilometers.

The half of its surface facing Planet One has an area of roughly 3.5 trillion square kilometers. From this, a significant portion of the stellar light from over a trillion square kilometers was focused.

It was like the magnifying glass Li Qingsong used to burn ants as a child—the magnifying glass focused sunlight, achieving a high enough temperature to burn ants to death or ignite paper.

And now, this colossal “magnifying glass,” a combination of an intelligent civilization’s technology and the innate abilities of the Electromagnetic Creatures, focused the stellar light onto Planet One.

Under normal circumstances, Planet One received only one hundred-millionth of the star’s total radiated energy. But now, that figure had suddenly been raised to one hundred-thousandth.

Although this was still insignificant compared to the star’s total radiated energy, it was a thousand-fold increase over the energy Planet One had previously received!

For Planet One, it was as if the star had suddenly become a thousand times brighter!

Such intense energy radiation immediately triggered a series of catastrophic consequences.

Unfortunately, even by combining technology and their natural talents, the Electromagnetic Creatures could not sustain such a large-scale concentration of stellar light for long—only a few minutes at most.

After this, the brightness of the star as seen from Planet One plummeted. The star’s brightness as seen from everywhere else also returned to its usual level.

At the same time, at least one-third of the tens of millions of Electromagnetic Creatures died, dissipating completely and merging into the star.

This was a necessary price. Not only did Li Qingsong understand this, but so did Electric Calamity. But… perhaps because the Electromagnetic Creatures had a different attitude toward life and death than Li Qingsong, Electric Calamity had not objected in the slightest when Li Qingsong first proposed this plan.

Now, the Stellar Cannon had finally been fired successfully. Not only were the tens of millions of ships, bases, fortresses, and satellites of all sizes in space swept clean away, with only a few large vessels luckily escaping destruction, but Planet One’s face had also been completely altered.

The side facing the star had been utterly transformed into a sea of fire. Magma covered every inch, and the endless “vapor” of magma escaping into space even gave Planet One a temporary atmosphere.

The change in the planet’s crust triggered unprecedentedly violent volcanoes and earthquakes on its surface. Even the side facing away from the star was affected.

Countless buildings collapsed, countless facilities were destroyed, and innumerable intelligent lives were lost.

But compared to the other side, the damage to the far side was immeasurably less. Some industrial facilities were even able to remain operational.

However, Li Qingsong was not worried about this in the slightest.

The reason was simple. An industrial system is a highly integrated whole. Suddenly losing half of it didn’t mean a fifty percent reduction in industrial capacity; it meant the loss of almost everything.

It was like cutting a person in half. The result wasn’t that the person lost half their lifespan; it was instant death.

Without power, how could the remaining factories operate? Without a supply of materials, the factories couldn’t start up even if they were intact.

Of course, within this remaining fragment of the industrial base, there were bound to be some smaller, complete systems that could still function.

Furthermore, with this fragment remaining, the time and resources needed to repair the entire system would be far less than rebuilding everything from scratch.

As things stood, if the Alliance was given time, the Red Dog AI’s capabilities meant it could still complete the reconstruction in a relatively short period and regain sufficient industrial power.

Those few short minutes had felt as long as a century. Now, having finally endured that Purgatory-like period, a still-reeling Haimo Lan quickly received a situation report from Red Dog.

His eyes instantly turned red.

Millions of ships, bases, and fortresses, and over 100 billion people, had been turned to ash in just a few short minutes.

“Stay calm! What you need to think about now is what to do next!”

The sharp reprimand from Red Dog snapped the verge-of-collapse Haimo Lan back to his senses.

Breathing heavily, Haimo Lan muttered, “As far as I know, even the Electromagnetic Creatures can’t use a method that concentrates stellar light so drastically for an extended period, let alone use it again in quick succession. Besides, now that we know the Electromagnetic Creatures exist, they won’t be able to launch a second attack if we’re consciously on guard. Right now, right now, the most important thing is… Fall back! Fall back!”

Haimo Lan began to scream himself hoarse. “Recall all Warships from Planet Two! Fall back to defend Planet One and buy us time to rebuild our industrial system! As long as we can rebuild our industrial system, we can still win the final victory! Your industrial capacity is undamaged! We may have lost a huge number of civilians and engineers, but our soldiers haven’t suffered many losses. As long as we have time, we can still defeat Human Civilization!”

“Very well. In that case, fall back immediately!”

The Alliance’s high command made its decision in an extremely short amount of time. The panicked and confused ranks of the Alliance quickly found their resolve.

Over at Planet Two, amid the fierce battle, hundreds of thousands of Alliance Warships quickly began to rally, attempting to disengage from the battlefield.

A cold smile touched the corners of Li Qingsong’s mouth.

He clearly perceived this change, and he also knew that, being at a technological disadvantage, he lacked the ability to stop these returning Alliance Warships with conventional means.

And once those Warships returned to defend Planet One, he would certainly be unable to take the planet in a short amount of time. Coupled with the Red Dog AI’s industrial capabilities, they might actually be able to rebuild their entire industrial system in short order.

By then, he wouldn’t be able to fire the Stellar Cannon a second time on short notice. Even if he could, the enemy would very likely destroy it in the initial stages, preventing it from firing at all.

In that case, he would still be the one to lose!

The only thing he would have gained was a major victory in a single battle, while the overall course of the war would remain irreversible.

At this moment, the most crucial, most central point was whether he could stop these hundreds of thousands of Warships from falling back.

‘So then…’

‘The time to use a strategic weapon like the Unified Force Field has finally arrived!’

While desperately tying down the hundreds of thousands of Warships to prevent them from rallying and escaping, Li Qingsong also maneuvered dozens of giant Space-Air Carriers to rapidly approach the battlefield and directed numerous robots to begin deploying components in space.

Aboard the Honor Spaceship, in Conference Room One, Red Dog’s expression was grim.

Haimo Lan bellowed.

“A weapon of mass destruction is coming! Prepare the Variable Energy Shield!”