Douluo Dalu 4: Ultimate Fighting

TL: GoldenLung

He quickly turned his head to look at the large screen beside him. The panoramic projection of the battlefield showed that, with the mothership at the center, four Dragon King-class escort ships and twelve War God-class warships had opened fire, with the beams of the huge soul cannons sweeping across the enemy in an instant, like ploughing and sweeping the ground.

At the same time, the opposing side also lit up, with thousands of warships bursting out various colors of light, shooting towards the Federation's side.

As Yan Xinghe had predicted before, the enemy warships were unable to stop the firepower of the Seventh Fleet. One by one, the enemy warships kept exploding, while on the Seventh Fleet's side, a series of brilliant halos erupted from the protective shield system powered by the mothership, but no enemy rays could penetrate into the protection range.

Amidst the violent roar, no sound could penetrate the interior of the warship, but the vibration could, and even with protective shields, Dragon Three still trembled constantly.

Lan Xuanyu instinctively clenched his fist. This pure head-on confrontation was undoubtedly magnificent and powerful. But in his heart, he actually disliked this kind of battle. This kind of battle had no tactics at all, it was just a brute force clash, with each side bombarding each other, fighting to win with firepower.

"Captain, is there really no tactics involved in open space combat?" Lan Xuanyu asked in confusion.

Yan Xinghe said, "There is a tactic. It's just that when our protective shield is strong enough and the opponent can't break through our defense, what's the use of tactics? Even if they go around to our back, they still can't break through our defense. The importance of a mother ship in a space fleet is not about its attack power, but its defense power. You may have noticed that the mother ship doesn't have a particularly powerful main cannon. It's not that it's not equipped, it's just that it's not easily used because it consumes too much energy. All the energy is focused on defense, and the overall protective shield formed by the mother ship and the four Dragon King-class escort ships at its core is impenetrable even to Super God-level experts. This is our strongest point. So, those strong individuals in the Dragon Horse galaxy came up with a plan to undermine us from the inside."

Lan Xuanyu knew that when he talked about undermining from the inside, he was referring to the Proto Dragon Crystal.

At this moment, the fleet of the Dragon Horse Galaxy on the opposite side changed formation. Thousands of warships quickly dispersed like a large pocket, surrounding the Seventh Fleet.

In the previous round of exchange, the opposite side lost at least over thirty larger warships. This was still due to the fact that the distance between the two sides was far, and the firepower couldn't fully exert its power.

The Seventh Fleet slowly moved forward, maintaining its firepower, constantly launching attacks towards the front and sides.

As Yan Xinghe said, the attack of the Dragon Horse Galaxy fleet was unable to break through the defense of the Seventh Fleet, which made this war seem somewhat boring, as if it was just a continuous consumption of resources.

Yan Xinghe smiled and said, "Now let's see if they can hold back."

Lan Xuanyu curiously asked, "Hold back on what?"

Yan Xinghe said, "Hold back on using what gave you so much military merits." As he spoke, he pointed to the constellation on Lan Xuanyu's shoulder.

Upon hearing this, Lan Xuanyu immediately understood. Obviously, the Federation had a plan against Proto Dragon Crystal, specifically targeted at them. If they were to use tactics corresponding to Proto Dragon Crystal at this time, it would mean the tactics would be exposed.

An interstellar fleet may not satisfy their appetite.

"What if they hold back?" Lan Xuanyu asked.

Yan Xinghe said, "According to the information we have gathered from our current investigation, the Dragon Horse Galaxy has approximately 3,000 warships. There are over 1,000 here, and a large portion of them are scattered around the galaxy. If one fleet is not enough, don't we still have two wings and two other fleets behind us? The attraction of three space fleets should be enough. Actually, they don't want to fight us so soon. They were probably hoping we will develop Dragon Source Star for a longer period of time and rely more on Proto Dragon Crystal as a power source. Only then will there be more warships equipped with Proto Dragon Crystal. Their leader is really daring and almost succeeded." ℞

The gunfire on the battlefield began to thin out, for a simple reason: the warships from the Dragon Horse Galaxy had expanded the scope of their encirclement, moving out of range of the Seventh Fleet's artillery fire. However, the Seventh Fleet paid them no attention and continued to fly forward, still aiming for the direction of the Celestial Steed Galaxy.

Lan Xuanyu was after all the most outstanding student in the Star Wars Command Department of Shrek Academy. Under the guidance of Yan Xinghe, he had basically understood the operational plan of the Seventh Fleet. No wonder Yan Xinghe appeared so relaxed. This tactic was carried out on the premise that our side knew the opponent's biggest conspiracy, while the opponent still thought that their conspiracy had succeeded.

Yan Xinghe looked at his soul communicator and said, "The Third and Fifth Fleets should have already taken action. For the opponent, the opportunity will come soon."

"Dragon Three, Dragon Three." A low call came from the communicator.

"Dragon Three in position." Yan Xinghe took a few steps forward and came to his command position.

The big screen flashed, and the face of General Bai Ling, the commander of the Seventh Fleet, appeared on the screen. "The Third and Fifth Fleets have already made contact with the enemy. Prepare to implement the Crystal Source Plan."

"Yes!" Yan Xinghe stood at attention and saluted. He did not explain any further to Lan Xuanyu, but instead gave a series of orders.

"All space mechas and space fighters are ready to engage in battle. The crystal source plan has been initiated, reporting the induced area reaction at any time."

Lan Xuanyu's gaze was firmly fixed on the holographic image.

At this point, the local warships had basically surrounded the Seventh Fleet in an encirclement, but kept a considerable distance away from the firing range of the Seventh Fleet. As the Seventh Fleet advanced, they also advanced.

In fact, such a surrounding tactic had no tactical significance, as it was more like an escort. As long as the Seventh Fleet entered into space jump, the encirclement would naturally be lifted.

At that time, each warship in the Seventh Fleet had a separate metal room. Inside the room, there were small machines with various shapes and sizes of Proto Dragon Crystals inside each machine. Some of the larger Proto Dragon Crystals were so rare that not even Lan Xuanyu had seen them before.

On the surface, the Proto Dragon Crystals shimmered with a dazzling light, emitting a captivating glow. The internal energy of the Proto Dragon Crystals continued to output outward, as if providing a constant source of energy.

These separated energies were then converged through a special channel and transmitted to an unknown location.

The system was called the Energy Filtering Conduction System by the scientists of the Douluo Federation. Its existence was previously used to test the energy intensity of individual Positive Circulation Source Soul Circuits.

After the outbreak of the Proto Dragon Crystal problem, the scientists within the Federation urgently consulted with each other and then sent this device to various fleets.

Their function was simple, which was to keep the Proto Dragon Crystals in a state of continuous energy release. And such a state was like being always in use…

Although the spiritual consciousness of the Head Dragon of the Celestial Dragon Planet was powerful and was seeded among so many Proto Dragon Crystals, he only sensed the state of these crystals from a distance and could manipulate them in the simplest way. Like when Lan Xuanyu and the others discovered it last time, it was because the exposure was too obvious, and there happened to be a fragment of Celestial Dragon's divine consciousness guarding the base where the Proto Dragon Crystals were produced, which led to them taking action against him.

After researching within the Federation and with many powerful individuals, even if the Celestial Dragon was strong, it was impossible for him to sense the true situation around each Proto Dragon Crystal across interstellar space. Lan Xuanyu and the others must have encountered one of his fragments of divine consciousness at that time.