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Instantly the crew and commanders onboard that cruiser believed Xia Fan must have gone mad.

After all, the Sawtooth Tiger class cruiser was fourteen hundred and thirty-two meters long, far larger in size than the ninety-two meter Disaster!

The bigger the ship, the greater its firepower, and the more advanced its weapons and radar system. Using a cruiser to deal with a frigate was considered a drop in dimensionality Normally, a cruiser could easily dispatch three frigates that were of an even higher grade than the Disaster by itself.

!!

Nevertheless, what had happened was still well beyond anyone’s expectations. After he shook off the interference from the three ships, the Disaster revealed its astonishing speed. A bright blue flame burned as the Disaster reached its top speed. In fact, the ship found itself shaking violently once again due to how fast Xia Fan was pushing it.

*boom*

After the Disaster entered its range, that Sawtooth cruiser shot its stasis webifier.

A cruiser’s stasis webifiers were extremely efficient. Normally, a frigate would see its speed immediately drop off by ninety percent. In other words, if a frigate could originally move at a speed of 100, this number would drop down to 10 after said stasis webifier was used on it.

However, even after the Disaster found itself affected by those stasis webifiers, it still maintained its astounding speed. Its engine seemed like it had propulsion energy hooked up to an endless supply of energy, and was circling around the cruiser at a crazy speed.

Two warships, one big and the other small, began opening fire at one another!

Several minutes later, an amazing scene appeared on everyone’s screens. The Disaster was very clearly the weaker ship, yet it had no problem suppressing a foe that was seemingly several times stronger than her. The energy shield of the Sawtooth cruiser was rapidly draining, appearing as if its first line of defense was about to breached!

Just what in the world was going on?!

The reason was due to the difference in their hit percentage.

Using hunting as an analogy, using a rifle to shoot a bear made it easier to hit the target, but if one wished to hit a sparrow flying at high speeds, they would need a bit of luck as well!

The Disaster was like that hard-to-hit sparrow. Though it had been hampered by the stasis webifier, its two powerful fourteen megaton engines meant it could still move swiftly in space, much faster than even a fast interceptor!

Such a small target moving at such high speeds meant that the heavy fire from that Sawtooth Tiger-class cruiser only had a temp percent chance to hit, and the vast majority of its shots missed their target.

On top of the Disaster’s speed, it was also fitted with an energy shield at the battleship-class, so what firepower the cruiser managed to land hardly posed a threat, allowing the Disaster to shrug off whatever damage it was dealt.

On the other hand, while the firepower of the Disaster could not match its opponent’s, it was able to hit one hundred percent of the time. After its two stasis webifiers locked onto the warship, the speed of the Sawtooth Tiger-class cruiser had practically dropped down to zero and it was no more than a sitting duck. That allowed the Disaster’s six medium rapid-fire cannons to unload an uninterrupted barrage on the cruiser!

Xia Fan wanted to torture the enemy to the very end!

While the Disaster’s firepower was not designed to take on a cruiser, as long as it had enough time, it was more than capable of destroying enemy ships that were several times bigger than itself!

—

Time passed, and the crew of the Sawtooth Tiger class cruiser began to feel an abject sense of despair.

The damnable small ship was far too frightening!

It possessed unparalleled speed, and a defense rating at the battleship-tier, with destroyer-tier firepower. It was presently using a torturous method of slowly but surely grinding down the cruiser.

Their energy shields had been completely overpowered, and the Disaster was directly damaging the armored hull of the cruiser right now!

The moment he punctured through that layer of armor, all that would remain was the structural layer that safeguarded the lives of the crew!

In contrast, the Disaster’s energy shield was always maintained at around twenty percent, thanks to its quick speed, strong defense, and the low hit rate of the enemy. Though it was very dangerous, that was enough to resist the assault from the cruiser.

*Kaboom*

Practically at the same instant, both the Disaster and the enemy went into overclocked mode.

The moment they started to overclock, the longevity of the equipment onboard the ships would be cut short. There was a high possibility that their equipment would turn into scrap before the fight was even over.

Both sides were staking their lives to emerge victorious!

After the overclocking, the cruiser’s hit percentage began to climb. The Disaster’s energy shield quickly dropped, but its attacks on the enemy became even more ferocious!

*Boom*

Finally, after the Disaster had lost more than seventy percent of its armor plating, the Sawtooth Tiger-class cruiser’s final structural safeguard was breached.

The moment a section of the warship was penetrated and the hull torn, any crew inside the cabin would immediately be sucked into space.

This was the moment!

The Disaster used the opportunity to intensify its fire, targeting the part of the ship that had been breached.

Without any armor plating to protect the structural integrity of the ship, explosive rounds immediately made it into the cruiser and ruined wall after wall. It caused an immense explosion that obliterated the enemy from inside!

The fourth kill!

A complete wipe!

The Sawtooth Tiger class-cruiser so many times larger than the Disaster had been turned into a smoldering wreck in space. As the explosions continued internally, the hull was torn asunder, and the crew were thrown into space as countless debris shot out in every direction like bullets!

Traveling Buddha raised his two arms and yelled, “We did it! We’re victorious!”

A single frigate had consecutively taken out four ships. This was practically a victory that would find its way into textbooks!

Xia Fan collapsed into his captain’s chair. From the start to finish, he had been manually controlling the Disaster, not once using the AI combat assistance system.

That was because Xia Fan was a speedster, and the efficiency of the auxiliary system might not be quicker than what Xia Fan could do with his two hands. The skirmish had been so intense that there was also a possibility for the system to make mistakes.

“The moment you decided to charge at that cruiser, my back was already breaking out in cold sweat. After all, that ship was way bigger than us, and their firepower would be many times greater than what we could muster,” Traveling Buddha said as he sat down on the ground on the command deck. He had set out his favorite tea set. At this moment, he very much needed to drink a cup of tea to calm his nerves.

Xia Fan sat across from Traveling Buddha and smiled, “The key lies with our two cores. The mechanical core ensured operational efficiency and reduced losses, while the energy course provided a steady stream of power. Without either of these two cores, I would have chosen to flee long ago, and not have taken the risk.

“These cores are treasures. If I had four Prime Cores in my possession, even if I had to face off against twice the number of enemies we had just fought, we would still be able to emerge victorious.”

Traveling Buddha laughed out loud, “Come, have a drink. I’m so anxious that my throat is practically smoking.”

——

And so, the two pals sat down on the control deck of the cockpit and shared a pot of tea, enjoying that moment of glory that belonged only to the victors.

The three Federations harbored great hatred of the Murder Shrine, so whether it was killing their members or the destruction of their ships, a huge reward would be awarded for achieving either feat.

The Disaster had an automated recording system, and it had of course recorded the entire battle from start till finish. When they returned to the Union, Xia Fan would surely obtain an astronomical reward, and planned to use that money to purchase himself a new ship.

Though the Disaster was a good ship, the retrofitting job he had done on it had been far too hurried, so even though he managed to get it done at the last minute, its interior was already in a huge mess due to Xia Fan’s handiwork.

Furthermore, this fight had revealed that the Disaster was too small, unable to fit the more powerful equipment that he desired; being able to fit the battleship-tier energy shield generator had been at the expense of Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha having to sleep on the floorboards.

As they were about to drink their second cup of tea, the alarm system suddenly blared.

Xia Fan scrambled to the console and pushed the accelerator handle to eighty percent, and then studied the radar array. That was when he discovered that a large amount of warp signatures had appeared near them!

Warships warped by relying on artificial wormholes, and there would be a tear in space when a wormhole opened.

A fleet was hurrying over through wormholes. There were a total of one hundred and twenty-eight of them, which meant it was a full consolidated fleet made up of one hundred and twenty-eight warships!

Xia Fan piloted the Disaster in the opposite direction, while also getting his ship ready to make an emergency warp. But before he left, he wanted to see just who this fleet belonged to.

If it was a fleet from the Murder Shrine, then his radar could record the models and various data of the ships, which would be a great help for the Federations when they dealt with Murder Shrine the next time. It could be considered a form of information-gathering.

Xia Fan was nervous as he hovered his hand over the button to activate the warp generator.

He watched as ripples appeared in the darkness of space, rapidly expanding white lightwaves appearing in the universe.

Next, ship after ship appeared from the wormholes, arriving at the periphery of the cosmic storm.

Xia Fan watched the radar system scan the ships’ identification code and shouted in excitement, “Those are our warships!”

During their voyages, military ships would always transmit their identification codes in order to prevent errors in judgment.

In contrast to them, pirate fleets or those aligned with the Murder Shrine would not do such things, because their identities were shrouded in secrecy, and being identified would mean trouble for them.

This fleet that Xia Fan encountered was called the Starcloud Union Outer Frontier Task Force’s Third Fleet.

In no time at all, Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha were invited onboard the flagship of the fleet, the Ocean Star.

Ocean Star was a small dreadnought gunship twelve thousand meters in length. The Disaster easily docked in the landing bay of the dreadnought.

In Ashen Moon, there were two types of flagships: motherships who carried unmanned drones, and dreadnoughts that had huge cannons installed.

The Ocean Star was considered the latter. It had two large-caliber main battery cannons that only needed three salvos to destroy a cruiser, twelve salvos to reduce a battleship!

In any case, a mothership was an all-around choice, able to provide support to an entire fleet and also engage in combat, while a dreadnought was just a standard warship killer, whose sole purpose was to take down enemy ships.

Traveling Buddha and Xia Fan exited the Disaster and their eyes immediately shone.

Standing just below the Disaster and wearing a special military uniform, the person who had come to receive them was none other than their old friend from Blue Boiling Point, Soul Flying Bird!

“Birdie! Why are you here?!” “Long time no see! How did you end up on the Outer Frontier!” Traveling Buddha and Xia Fan gasped in shock at the same time. The three shared a warm hug.

Flying Bird was still as suave and handsome as ever, his head of long green hair having been shorn short, making him look much sharper.

“Are you looking down on me?” Flying Bird pointed at his epaulet and said, “Half a month after the two of you graduated, your bro here garnered enough points to graduate.

“I’m now an adjutant onboard the Third Fleet!”

Xia Fan placed his arm around Flying Bird’s shoulder, “So you mean to say you didn’t join the Special Bureau?”

Flying Bird explained, “The Outer Frontier Task Force is a bit of a unique organization, jointly manned by members of the Special Bureau, Security Bureau, and Intelligence Bureau, as well as the military. Members from all over are pulled in here. Right now I am with the task force, but may find myself transferred back to the Special Bureau in the future. Who knows, it’s all up to those higher-ups!”

Traveling Buddha was not convinced., “Your family must have arranged for you to be placed here, right?”

Flying Bird nodded, “That’s right, my family pulled strings. The Special Bureau is fairly peaceful right now, and my family says that there’s more work to do with the Outer Frontier Task Force out in the Outer Frontier, with frequent skirmishes with people from Murder Shrine. It’ll be much easier to accumulate battle achievements here. My family hopes I can head to the Headquarters after my stint here.

“It can’t be helped. I couldn’t do anything about it, either. In a family like mine, it is the words of the elders that count. I just have to follow whatever arrangements they make.”

Traveling Buddha took that seriously. He and his elder brother were like sacrificial pawns to their clan, and now that his brother had cut ties with the clan and had been rebellious all this while, his grandfather and father had finally let him go. It was how Traveling Buddha finally got a semblance of freedom.

“Let’s go. Admiral Parker is waiting for you. He’s the Fleet Commander of the Third Fleet, and my direct superior,” Flying Bird made a welcoming gesture to Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha to head them in the right direction.