I chose the safe house, and the Human Alliance regretted it.

However, the empire's resilience exceeded Wang Wei's expectations.

Billions of human soldiers and millions of warships fought a fierce battle against the star beasts under the starry sky for three days and three nights.

In the Star Beast Battlefield, the first line of defense has always been firmly held by the Third Fleet.

However, the price is equally heavy.

The corpses of star beasts, the wreckage of warships, and the bodies of human soldiers were scattered across millions of miles of void.

The star-destroying warships charged and launched, their terrifying energy beams uninterrupted since the start of the war.

The amount of energy fluid consumed was countless, reaching an astronomical figure.

"Third mixed formation, sixth echelon, take over the battle line."

An order was issued from the Third Fleet's main control room.

Behind them, a full fleet of hundreds of thousands of warships sailed toward the front lines of death.

At the same time, hundreds of millions of human soldiers flocked to the coordinates.

All the soldiers understood that their task was not to annihilate the beast tide, but to keep the endless beast tide outside the empire's borders.

The beast tide was less than 10,000 kilometers away from the vanguard of the battle line, a distance that would take less than ten seconds for the star beasts to sprint.

The commander of the sixth echelon issued the first order: "Push forward. The defensive line cannot be lost."

Hundreds of thousands of warships advanced simultaneously, followed by 80,000 battle formations.

Those were hundreds of millions of human soldiers, suspended behind the starship in a void formation, their energy shields fully activated and their weapons fully charged.

Without the armor protection of a starship, they formed a sea of ​​people in the void.

The first wave of contact.

Hundreds of thousands of warships opened fire simultaneously!

Countless beams of energy were so dense that they intertwined in the starry sky to form an opaque net, like a burst of stars, sweeping away the horde of star beasts ahead.

Star beasts fell and melted in droves.

But the beast tide attacks followed in quick succession.

"boom--"

The low-tier warship's energy shield shattered after only a moment, not even having a chance to charge into the beast tide and self-destruct.

One clash left countless pieces of debris beneath the starry sky.

The star beasts are ferocious, cold-blooded, and unafraid of death.

The First Empire's warships then carried out imperial orders mechanically.

The vast starry sky was illuminated by the attack of warships.

Human soldiers followed closely behind and charged into the beast tide.

The human warriors, forming battle formations, poured into the gaping hole in the fleet.

The two sides clashed in close combat.

After a round of collective attacks, the battle formation engages in a brief skirmish lasting one or two seconds, with sharp blades piercing through armor and star beasts' claws penetrating human bodies.

Faced with an endless tide of beasts, the human soldiers had little room to maneuver.

Self-destruction became the dominant theme and the most direct and effective means of killing the enemy.

The self-destruct energy exploded amidst the dense beast tide, and flesh and shattered armor mixed together in the vacuum, forming a bloody ruin.

A medium-sized warship was simultaneously struck from below by several star beasts, causing its hull to break in half.

The foreground section of the ship continued to slide forward for another ten seconds due to inertia.

The captain sat in the remaining half of the bridge, his gaze sweeping over the two remaining secondary guns on the control panel. He spat out a mouthful of blood and then pressed the button to output all remaining energy.

The severed hull, like a kicked iron ball, crashed into the densest part of the beast tide, turning into an incandescent ball of light in the energy chamber's explosion. The shockwave cleared away the beast tide within a radius of hundreds of kilometers.

But a few seconds later, the empty space was filled.

The commander of the sixth echelon stood on the flagship's bridge, watching the lights representing their side on the star map go out one by one.

His voice was steady: "Left flank breach, follow-up fleet to fill it. Battle formations B7 to B12 advance 300 kilometers to block the beast tide's infiltration through the breach."

"Report: B7 battle group is completely wiped out and unable to advance." The communications officer's voice trembled.

The commander paused for a second. "B13 replaces B7. Continue."

The sixth echelon, a detachment of 20,000 warships, held out for 47 minutes, with a total casualty rate of over 70%.

The echelon commander's orders arrived: "Seventh battleship squadron advance. Sixth squadron join in on site."

"Integrate on the spot"

This means that the remaining warships and battle formations will be reorganized into the next force.

There was no rear support, and no time for rest.

The surviving soldiers and warships charged into the next battle with the support fleet.

The Star Beast Battlefield became a massive meat grinder across tens of thousands of miles of front lines.

Both sides were using their flesh and blood to counteract each other's strength.

Time slips away little by little—

The sixth team fought alone for more than ten hours, during which the starry sky was never dark for a single second.

"The entire left flank of the echelon has been wiped out," the communications officer announced numbly.

"Move up on the right wing," Zi Chen's voice came from the control room.

"There is no strength left to make up for it."

The commander coldly stated, "On the reserve warships."

Fifty thousand reserve warships sailed toward the beast tide, their crews filled with young faces.

These cadets, urgently conscripted from military academies across the empire, had an average age of nineteen, and many had not even graduated.

Their battle formations were arranged neatly and precisely, just like in a teaching simulation, but that was when there was no enemy.

When the reserve warships actually faced the beast tide, their neat formation was broken within minutes.

These nineteen-year-olds were facing a beast tide for the first time.

It is much larger, faster, and more ferocious than the holographic teaching images.

Inside the ship's cabin, someone stared blankly at the compound eyes of a star beast outside the porthole, forgetting to move.

His classmate next to him had already pressed the launch button—his finger had been on that button the whole time, but fear made him forget to lift it and instead pressed it down.

But none of them backed down.

A nineteen-year-old captain, his voice trembling with tears, watched the approaching star beasts, but he still managed to shout, "Main guns, charge! Fire!"

"Push forward, the defensive line cannot be lost!" someone shouted.

The voice was young, with a crack, as if the throat hadn't fully changed.

At the same time, the Third Fleet Command sent a one-way communication to the entire Sixth Echelon.

The message was very short, consisting of only two sentences:

"The first line of defense cannot be lost."

"If we can't hold this position, your location will become that defensive line."

There was a few seconds of silence on the communication channel.

No one speaks.

Then--

All warship engines simultaneously illuminated with blue lights.

Ahead, tens of millions of soldiers floated in battle formation in front of the reserve fleet, like a sea of ​​people rushing towards lava.

This time, the battle formation led the way for the fleet.

The soldiers of the empire gave these younger generations a final lesson with their lives.

That's how war is; when death is happening right next to you, you feel fear.

As your teammates die one by one, you forget your fear and pick up your weapon to charge.

The fleet's firepower and engines were running at full capacity simultaneously.

The reserve fleet is like a red-hot knife stabbing into butter, pushing forward by melting itself.

"Charge!"

The lead ship let out its last, immature roar.

Advance by 3,000 kilometers.

Five thousand kilometers.

8,000 kilometers.

10,000 kilometers.

These young people had only one thought in their minds: your position is the position of the defense line.

The number of reserve warships is also decreasing rapidly.

However, their charging position was even higher than that of all the warships in the sixth echelon.

The great battle raged until the stars dimmed.

The sixth echelon lost 90% of its forces in this battle, but it pushed the vanguard of the beast tide back by a full 10,000 kilometers.

The first line of defense was not lost.

Those warship wrecks, those young reserve warship soldiers whose tears hadn't even dried, those veterans...

Their blood and remains mingled together, solidifying in the void to form a "defense line" stretching for thousands of miles.

This defensive line is made of flesh and blood, yet it is as strong as steel.

The power bays of the last batch of warships in the sixth echelon lit up with dark red warning lights.

Zi Chen's voice came from the control room.

"The seventh echelon will be added, and the sixth echelon will be merged into it."

Upon hearing this, the commander of the sixth echelon placed his hand on the control panel.

The adjutant said, "We only have enough energy left for one salvo from the main guns."

The commander turned the control panel toward the direction of the beast tide.

He took one last look at the star map—a small patch of blue that hadn't yet been swallowed by the crimson, but it was still there.

He looked away.

"Use that salvo to clear the way, overload the engine—crash it in."

The adjutant did not answer, but silently placed his finger on the cover of the self-destruct button.

The final salvo of main guns cleaved through the front ranks of the beast tide.

The warship's engine blazed brightly, transforming into a long-tailed arrow of light that plunged deep into the beast tide.

White light.

The sixth echelon designation was officially removed from the Imperial order of battle.