Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 273 A final charge, a final attempt (7k remaster)

Thick, oxygen-rich air with the smell of sulfur permeated the command hall at the center of the ring.

On the display screen, the real-time situation of the main battlefield in the Kuiper Belt is changing.

The red dots representing the Imperial fleet, like boiling magma, relentlessly assaulted and tore at the blue defensive lines representing humanity. The casualty ratio remained dismal; human warships had gained an absolute advantage in individual performance, tactical coordination, and battlefield information that was beyond the comprehension of the dinosaurs.

After multiple rounds of attacks, the remaining 100,000 Devouring Fleet has been reduced to very few ships in this fierce battle.

As the war intensified, neither the inner nor outer rings remained safe, and the Devouring Empire's command center relocated to the inner ring region. With the Devouring fleet annihilated in the war against the Kuiper Belt, the atmosphere in the hall reached its lowest point.

The latest news is that the fleet commander, the dragon Gondor, has just been killed on the front lines of the Kuiper Belt.

Its final reserve fleet, in a wedge-shaped assault formation, destroyed six star-class warships of the solar system fleet head-on and broke through the counterattack of 200 human planetary warships.

Then Gondor lashed out with his tail and roared, and the remaining Devouring Fleet spontaneously converged around it.

Finally, about 20,000 Imperial fleets focused on the vicinity of Gondor. The remnants of the Imperial fleet broke through the triple fleet defenses set up by the humans and destroyed several counterattacks by the human fleets. At the cost of almost total annihilation, they completely broke through the Kuiper Belt defenses.

Humanity lost at least three thousand planetary-class warships and sixty stellar-class warships.

However, the human fleet completely surrounded the remnants of the Devouring Fleet.

Before the Devouring Fleet was completely annihilated, facing the total encirclement of the human fleet, the flagship of the Devouring warship, where Gondor was located, rammed into the nearest human star-class warship, perishing together with a star-class warship that could not dodge in time, and was finally riddled with holes by a barrage of electromagnetic cannon fire.

Three star-shaped hydrogen bombs buried the remains of the Devouring flagship, leaving no trace of the Devouring Empire's last large warship, thus completely eradicating the nearly 60 million-year-old era of emperors and nobles.

At this moment, the atmosphere in the command hall was so oppressive that it felt like water could be squeezed out of it.

After the death of the savage dragon Gondor, the tyrannical dragon Karl became the last pillar of the Devouring Empire's spirit.

All the dinosaurs in the command hall focused their attention on Commander Big Ring, hoping that he could lead them to final victory.

The cost of this war was far too cruel. The ferocity of the human insects far exceeded the dinosaurs' understanding. If given the chance to choose again, after devouring Eridanus, the Devouring Empire would have preferred to target the Centaurus system (Trisolaran system) rather than the Solar System.

Unfortunately, history has no "what ifs".

After humanity's Kuiper Belt defenses annihilated the Devouring Fleet, the main force of the Solar System Fleet truly emerged on the battlefield. It was a powerful fleet composed of 2,100 star-class warships. They bypassed the battlefield where the two sides were fighting and entered the [Advance 4] state from Jupiter's orbit, constantly accelerating. Now they have reached the speed of light at 0.1c and are heading straight for the Great Ring.

In their first encounter, the human star-class fleet unleashed a power that the Devouring Empire could not comprehend. The enemy used the vanguard of their fleet to completely withstand the attack of the Great Ring Gamma Ray Cannon and launched more than 8,000 star-type hydrogen bombs for saturation bombardment, with their target being the Great Ring Equatorial Engine!
Of course, the Devouring Empire's counterattack also shocked the main force of the human fleet. All three fleets noticed that the Devouring Empire did not use lasers to intercept these hydrogen bombs at all. Instead, it was as if it had come to life. The 6312 equatorial engines of the Great Ring Equator entered the "detonation burst firing" mode. The 6312 plasma jets, each 100,000 kilometers long, intersected and twisted, intercepting almost all of the stellar hydrogen bombs!
The Solar System Fleet and the Devouring Ring were both shocked by each other's actions.

Subsequently, both sides began to adjust their war strategies simultaneously.

2100 star-class warships began to turn, intending to attack the ring from the rear, but the more than 23000 ring engines on the back of the ring also showed similar flexibility as equatorial engines, with the length of the plasma jets extending from 10,000 kilometers to 100,000 kilometers, and the color changing from blue to blood red.

Even if the angle of attack of a stellar hydrogen bomb is tricky, the engines of the Devouring Empire can be adjusted at large angles to provide cross-cover and wipe out the incoming stellar hydrogen bomb.

By this point in the war, at least 2 star-shaped hydrogen bombs had been released, but fewer than a few hundred had actually detonated.

Hundreds of star-shaped hydrogen bombs are simply not enough to shake the giant ring itself.

While these large ring engines cannot threaten human warships tens of millions of kilometers away, they can use the jet stream from the engines themselves to block any physical attacks from the enemy.

Both hydrogen bombs and electromagnetic railgun shells will be completely consumed in plasma jets at hundreds of millions of degrees.

The equatorial engine and the large ring engine almost completely protect the equator and back side of the giant ring.

As for frontal bombing... using precious stellar hydrogen bombs to bombard the iron crust layer in front is not very meaningful, and even using stellar hydrogen bombs to bombard the dinosaurs' settlements would be a losing proposition.

Humanity's enemy is not those ordinary dinosaurs, but the Great Ring itself.

Only by destroying the engines can the threat posed by the giant ring to the solar system be eliminated; otherwise, all efforts will be in vain. Those engines are the sole objective of the solar system fleet.

The destruction of nearly a hundred equatorial engines reduced the Great Ring's turning ability to some extent, but the 360 ​​gamma laser beam cannons, 6000 equatorial turning engines, and 23000 planetary engines remained, so the Devouring Empire still stood on the solar system.

If the large ring has a health bar, then the opponent's health bar will still be above 90%!

Humanity will never allow a large ring capable of swallowing prey to enter the solar system so easily.

Even if it comes at a great cost.

Three days later,
On the morning of September 18, 203, the colossal body of the devouring ring was already visible to the naked eye. It slowly crushed the meteorite fragments of the Kuiper Belt, and the gravitational field caused the post-war Kuiper Belt fragments to form a fine meteorite belt around its ring.

The giant engulfing ring is now less than 100 astronomical units from the sun.

In these three days, in addition to the three main forces, hundreds of star-class warships waiting in Neptune's orbit and Uranus's orbit also arrived one after another, blocking the inevitable path for the Devouring Ring to enter the solar system.

Also within these three days, in addition to Eris, which had already been destroyed by the giant ring, Haumea and Makemake also flew into their attack orbits. Both dwarf planets were more than 20 astronomical units away from the giant ring. Although the distance was far and it was not the best position to attack, in order to block the giant ring's advance as much as possible, the two dwarf planets still launched a long-range gamma-ray bombardment.

But this also revealed their location.

Compared to Eris and Pluto, which are about 0.6% the size of Earth, Makemake and Haumea, being irregularly shaped celestial bodies with only 0.15% the size of Earth, are even smaller. The gamma-ray turrets deployed on these two dwarf planets would have lower power, and these two irregularly shaped dwarf planets would not have any protective "mountain array".

Under MOSS's calibration, the two uninhabited dwarf planets were destroyed by the rings' counterattack after more than ten rounds of laser attacks. However, unlike Eris, which was penetrated, these two smaller dwarf planets were almost heated into a molten state by the high-power laser salvo. They then shattered into fragments in the cold universe, becoming wandering molten meteorites.

Including Pluto, which was taken away by the Wallfacers, all four dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt have now 'disappeared'.

While Haumea and Makemake were drawing the firepower of the Great Ring, the human fleet that had destroyed the Devouring Fleet in the Kuiper Belt began to gather in the direction from which the Great Ring had come. Tens of thousands of planetary warships assembled in the Kuiper Belt war zone, which had been reduced to meteorite fragments.

The 500×500 planetary-class warships formed a planar square array, and in addition, there were 365 star-class warships located within the planetary-class warship array.

The distance between the two sides is less than one billion kilometers!
The giant ring continues to roll forward at a constant speed of 0.001c.

More and more Kuiper Belt debris surrounded the giant ring, forming a fine belt of meteorites.

On the human side, this fleet, which accounts for nearly 60% of the remaining ships in the solar system fleet, also abandoned the pointless acceleration and changed formations in a relatively static array. These ships constantly used precious time to make minor adjustments to their positions to ensure that all ships were on the same plane.

With the fleet fully assembled, the entire fleet launched the largest saturation attack to date in space warfare against the giant, almost moon-sized, swallowing ring that was already visible to the naked eye.

3000 million electromagnetic cannon shells, 75 interstellar nuclear missiles, 16000 stellar hydrogen bombs, and 6 beams of gamma lasers of varying power all flew toward the Great Ring!

The large ring has no engine on its front; only gamma laser beam weapons can intercept it.

Unexpectedly, the Big Ring abandoned all interception of incoming physical weapons, and even abandoned interception of those stellar hydrogen bombs.

360 super gamma laser beams launched a full-force counterattack towards the fleet.

The Giant Ring is determined to crush the last remaining human fleet's defenses in the Kuiper Belt head-on.

The lasers from both sides arrived at each other at almost the same time!

6 beams of shipborne gamma laser light plowed 6 furrows into the surface of the swallowing ring.

Meanwhile, 360 super gamma laser beams collided head-on with the Zhou Tian defensive array, which consisted of 365 star-class warships as its base and 25000 planetary-class warships as its focal points!
A low-spec version of the Zhou Tian Xing Dou Grand Array!
It's Luo Qing! Luo Qing is still putting in the effort!

The starlight shield rippled out brilliantly, and 360 gamma lasers, like 360 ​​burning galaxies, collided with the Zhou Tian Star Array. The entire array lit up with a dazzling blue light the instant it struck.

Unlike the Mountain-Protecting Array, this inferior version of the Zhou Tian Star Array is not supported solely by the Wallfacer's spiritual power. Instead, it incorporates the nuclear fusion engine energy of 25000 planetary-level warships. This unique fleet formation was already handed over to the three major fleets by the Wallfacer. This is the first time that a human fleet has appeared in the deep space of the universe in the form of a cultivation array.

The first laser struck planetary warship number 731 at the corner of the array. The star array, like thin ice branded with a hot iron, instantly cracked, and the blue light dimmed at a visible speed. But before the shield could completely shatter, the three adjacent planetary warships immediately channeled their energy, and the blue light at the cracks reformed. However, the second and third lasers followed closely behind, like heavy hammers repeatedly striking the same point.

The energy density of nuclear fusion is ultimately inferior to that of spiritual energy. Luo Qing merely constructed an energy transmission system and then released it in front of the fleet in the form of an array shield. In reality, the essence of this confrontation is a confrontation of total energy.

The total energy released by 2500 planetary-level warships plus 365 stellar-level warships is definitely far less than that of the 360 ​​laser cannons of the Great Ring.

But it's alright. The human fleet's goal is simply to unleash all its firepower, empty all electromagnetic cannons, empty all interstellar missiles, empty all stellar hydrogen bombs, and use gamma laser beams to deplete its last energy reserves, thus buying time for the main fleet's final acceleration!
"boom--"

The shields of warship No. 731 were completely annihilated by the seventh laser beam, which instantly pierced through its hull. The alloy armor, like burning paper, turned into incandescent steam in the high temperature. The space officers and soldiers inside the bridge were also instantly melted, leaving only a wisp of light that was absorbed into the void by the Emperor's Banner.

The first gap appeared at the corner of the formation.

The 360 ​​super gamma laser beams entered maximum power operation. In order to attack the human fleet with maximum efficiency, the dinosaur weapon operators even ignored the power limit of the gamma laser beams and entered the overload excitation stage.

More gamma lasers surged in through the gap, like a flood finding a crack. The shields of warships 732 and 733 simultaneously flashed red alarms, their energy readings plummeting. The stellar-class warship "Kunlun" immediately turned its guns around, its two shipborne gamma lasers meeting the laser beam at the gap. The collision of the high-energy photon beams stirred up turbulent energy currents, but with little effect. The giant ring of lasers continued. The 360 ​​beams, like 360 ​​ever-extending pillars of light, were firmly anchored at different points in the array. The shields of the fleet's defensive array thinned at a visible rate; first, the warships at the edges of the array began to disappear like candles extinguished by the wind, then the ships in the center.

Even so, humanity did not forget to continue unleashing firepower. After depleting all physical weapons, they used energy weapons for a long-range counterattack.

The front surface of the large ring is completely broken and tattered, with tens of thousands of meters of metal peaks even being flattened, revealing the dark brown main mechanical structure inside.

Approximately 16000 stellar hydrogen bombs exploded on the surface of the giant ring. The thrust of these hydrogen bomb explosions completely negated the 3 engines of the giant ring. The giant ring continued to decelerate at 1% of the speed of light, gradually falling to the third cosmic velocity over a long period of 6 hours, which is only 1/10000 of the speed of light.

Approximately 70 nuclear missiles were launched into the surface of the giant ring. The atmosphere on the surface of the giant ring had become so thin as to be a vacuum after countless nuclear explosions. During this period, tens of millions of electromagnetic projectiles struck every corner of the surface of the giant ring.

The industrial infrastructure and interstellar docks on the surface of the Great Ring have been completely destroyed and will not be able to be effectively restored in the foreseeable future of ten thousand years.

On the dinosaur side, they used gamma laser beams to break through the shield woven by the Zhou Tian defensive array, destroying approximately 1600 planetary-class warships and 30 stellar-class warships.

However, at least half of the 360 ​​super gamma-ray arrays shut down due to overload.

The human fleet, having unleashed its full firepower, began to disperse and evacuate.

There's no point in keeping the fleet concentrated here any longer. The giant ring's speed is starting to climb again from 1/10000. If the fleet doesn't evacuate, the giant ring will crush the human fleet in a few hours, just like a giant crushing 25000 ants.

They have done their duty; all physical ammunition has been fired. The Kuiper Belt defenses are doomed to fall, and now it's up to the main fleet.

Beyond the sky.

The final column of 2100 star-class warships, after three days of great cyclonic acceleration, has reached full power at forward speed four and arrived at the battlefield for the first time at 20% of the speed of light! Moreover, they have all circled around to the back of the giant ring.

A fleet of 2100 star-class warships, propelled at 20% of the speed of light, began to fly at full speed toward the back of the giant ring!
Nearly ten thousand more stellar-type hydrogen bombs were launched, with tens of thousands of engine nozzles on the back of the ring whipping out plasma flames stretching 100,000 kilometers, relentlessly striking and intercepting them. These stellar-type hydrogen bombs were gradually shattered. However, interception was not 100% successful; at least several thousand stellar-type hydrogen bombs destroyed their corresponding ring engines.

In this sprinting cosmic spear, 1800 star-class warships at the rear of the array, like ephemeral flowers foreshadowing their own fate, suddenly turned and scattered just before reaching the critical turning point! In the instant of turning, they violently "thrown" the last 10,000 star-shaped hydrogen bombs, which embodied the essence of all human industry, toward the outer edge of the giant ring's equator with inertia at 20% of the speed of light!

A standard capacity of stellar-class warships is 40 stellar-type hydrogen bombs. The three main fleets carry a total of about 8 stellar-type hydrogen bombs. The ammunition depots of these warships have been exhausted. This all-out gamble will force the giant ring to lash more "long whips" outwards, drawing fire for the truly lethal strike.

The real spear of destruction was those 300 star-class warships at the forefront, showing no intention of turning back! The blue light from their engines was so intense it was blinding, and their hulls rubbed against the sparse interstellar matter at high speeds, creating a blazing glow.

Like 300 meteors burning with the will to die, they crashed straight and resolutely into the 300 key points on the back of the giant ring.

With a mass of one million tons and a kinetic energy boost of 20% of the speed of light, the true destructive power of each star-class warship is no less than the explosive power of 23 star-type hydrogen bombs!

The three fleets have long reached a consensus that a true cosmic weapon is not an infinite accumulation of the explosive yield of stellar hydrogen bombs, but a physical weapon that utilizes the kinetic energy of the universe!

The power of 300 ships, equivalent to the explosion of 23 stellar hydrogen bombs, if all of it were unleashed on the giant ring, would absolutely be enough to completely disintegrate it.

Even if only one star-class warship were to strike the back of the ring, the energy generated would be enough to destroy at least several thousand ring engines!

As for the crew of these 300 star-class warships, they have all been transferred to other warships. These star-class warships are controlled by independent AIs connected to MOSS.

The terrified dinosaurs manipulated the large ring engines on their backs to control the exhaust flames, aiming them at 300 human warships in an attempt to intercept these extraterrestrial madmen.

Nearly 20,000 large ring engines all focused their firepower on the central impact point, which formed a terrifying sea of ​​plasma fire above the giant ring, with enough power to instantly vaporize a human starship.

But! The expected evaporation did not occur.

The 300 ramming warships simultaneously emitted a faint red glow on their surfaces.

These warships were all meritorious warships that had participated in the expeditionary fleet's operation through the giant ring. Only they were equipped with the latest shipborne iron curtain device. Humanity did not hesitate to throw out the most elite part of the solar system fleet as a one-time super self-destruct truck!

Endless plasma tail flames intertwined and scorched the star-class warship that had entered within 10 kilometers, but the absolutely still nano-molecular layer armor covered by a faint red light successfully withstood the high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees.

The flames from the engine failed to incinerate the warship.

At 20% of the speed of light, a distance of 10 kilometers is covered in the blink of an eye!
Just moments before the 300-ship fleet collided with the giant ring, thousands of magnetic bottles containing 300 antimatter bullets, manipulated by the ring's magnetic field, were gently tossed through the endless sea of ​​fire. The Empire, having already circled around to the back of the ring to devour the human fleet, knew what humanity intended to do and had contingency plans for dealing with the full-speed impact of the star-class warships. At least a thousand antimatter bullets, enveloped in a strong magnetic field, were distributed within the gaps of the ring's engines, sheltered from the plasma jets, and positioned at an altitude of 10,000 kilometers above the ring. As the 300 star-class warships began their charge, the strong magnetic field containing the antimatter bullets had already been adjusted, ultimately ensuring that 300 antimatter bullets precisely appeared directly in front of each star-class warship.

The antimatter bullets annihilated the moment they touched the stellar-class warships. Under the annihilation of matter and antimatter, these warships, which were enhanced with the Iron Curtain, quickly tumbled into a ball of blazing white light.

The annihilation efficiency of matter and antimatter is almost 100%, but the yield of an antimatter weapon is far less than that of the warship itself. A small portion of the millions of tons of mass of a star-class warship is annihilated, and the enormous energy released after annihilation explodes in the form of photons. Most of it is engulfed by the energy explosion after annihilation, and the kinetic energy at 0.2c is also swallowed up by the back shock caused by the initial explosion, leaving only scattered metal jets bombarding the surface of the large ring, with greatly reduced power.

The stellar-class warships, which had already begun to veer and shift course, clearly saw that the 300 stellar-class warships transformed into 300 bright, incandescent white suns just before impacting the giant ring.

The anticipated collapse of the giant ring did not occur. Instead, three hundred orbs of light, slightly more powerful than a stellar hydrogen bomb, were generated. The metal jets destroyed fewer than three hundred of the giant ring's engines, and the remaining kinetic energy was used to power the robust structure on the back of the giant ring.

On the Natural Selection number.

“It’s an antimatter weapon,” Zhang Beihai said.

"The dinosaurs really did possess antimatter weapons..." Dongfang Yanxu murmured.

"The Wallfacers had already shared this information, but the dinosaurs had never used antimatter weapons, which caused the fleet to overlook the existence of this weapon."

"Was the sacrifice of those warships in vain?" Dongfang Yanxu asked.

"No, it wasn't a waste of time. You'll see soon enough," Zhang Beihai said calmly.

The news that 300 antimatter weapons destroyed 300 star-class warships hung like a death curtain over humanity's three main fleets.

The last hope of using the warships themselves to destroy the giant ring has vanished.

Countless crew members who had been transferred to other warships closed their eyes in anguish upon witnessing this scene, realizing that the sacrifice of their own warships had served no purpose.

These 300 star-class warships were annihilated by matter and antimatter when they were still 1 kilometers away from the surface of the giant ring. At this distance, the photon burst that occurred could no longer threaten any of the engines on the giant ring.

The dinosaurs erupted in hysterical cheers, their countless roars echoing throughout the giant ring.

Not only humans possessed new technologies, but the technological reserves accumulated over millions of years by the Devouring Empire finally saved the empire at a critical juncture! They proved that the Devouring Empire's foundation was not something that the insect civilization could easily shake!

But the cheers didn't last long. Three star-class warships suddenly veered off course from the fleet's deviation. They used up all their nuclear fusion fuel to perform a tiny overload maneuver. This tiny maneuver was enough to turn the three star-class warships from skimming over the giant ring into crashing into it.

They flew towards the giant rings at 20% of the speed of light, but unlike the previous 300 ships that crashed into the center, they would crash into the edges of the three giant rings.

"Come back! What do you want?!"

The frontline commanders of the three fleets roared through their respective communication channels.

"Based on the principles of deep space operations, our ship has full command authority during wartime, and this decision was made jointly by all officers and crew members on board."

"Based on the principles of deep space operations..."

"Based on the principles of deep space operations..."

The same three replies were simultaneously transmitted from the three warships.

The three resolute replies silenced the entire fleet's communication channels. Zhang Beihai was right; in fact, the remaining 200 warships equipped with the Iron Curtain device had all had a momentary impulse, including himself, but in the end, only three star-class warships made the choice.

They had no opportunity to transfer the crew members from the fleet.

The dinosaurs had no idea that the human fleet, which had already begun to veer off course, would launch three surprise attacks from unexpected angles, heading straight for the edge. More antimatter bullets were launched into the distance via the magnetic field, but it was clearly too late.

Just 12 seconds later, the three star-class warships, at 20% of the speed of light, broke through the plasma jet interception of the equatorial engine and crashed into the giant ring with immense kinetic energy.

Three spheres of destructive energy, far more terrifying than any previous stellar hydrogen bomb explosion, erupted. This was equivalent to the combined detonation of 70 stellar hydrogen bombs. Even with the highest structural strength of the giant ring, it was utterly unable to withstand such a massive kinetic energy bombardment. Beneath the fireballs, which were thousands of kilometers in diameter, three bloody gashes appeared on the giant ring.

More than 10,000 large ring engines, along with their surrounding supporting structures, were destroyed within the blast radius. Only one in ten equatorial engines survived, and billions of dinosaurs perished in this cataclysmic event.

The giant ring suffered a truly devastating blow. This was a vengeful attack by humanity on this giant ring that had wandered for 6500 million years and destroyed countless primitive civilizations!

Even so, the shattered giant ring after the explosion did not stop moving forward. It still carried the most primal desire to feed and the despair of the surviving dinosaurs as it staggered toward the solar system.

And right in front of the broken giant ring, a figure carrying Pluto had been waiting for it for a long time.

(End of this chapter)