Chapter 1049: Storming 'Heaven'

Chapter 1049: Storming the "Kingdom of Heaven"

The battle on the ground had already drawn to a close, yet the decisive conflict at the Lagrange point was only just beginning.

In the deep, dark void of space, hundreds of long, spindle-shaped spacecraft advanced in orderly formations toward the Lagrange point, stretching out like a fleet of assault boats crossing a vast ocean, ships stretching for a thousand miles.

Its name was "Albatross," designation XTW-1, seven meters in length, three meters in width, shaped like an old-era rocket.

In truth, this craft was essentially an improved version of the old chemical-powered rockets.

The only difference was that the chemical propulsion system had been replaced with a more efficient plasma thruster, and the multi-stage rocket separation design had been eliminated.

More than half of the entire spacecraft's volume was allocated to the propulsion system; the rest was a crew cabin forged from ceramic steel, capable of accommodating up to four combat units.

Upon approaching the target, the landing craft would fire the crew cabin like a cannonball, which would then firmly attach itself to the target spacecraft.

Then the hatch of the landing pod would unlock, releasing combat personnel equipped with cutting equipment to breach the outer shell of the target spacecraft, before storming in with weapons.

It was no exaggeration to say that this was the smallest space combat unit in human civilization since the Three-Year War.

Unless missiles and neutron torpedoes were also counted.

Of course, no matter how small this thing was, it was still small relative to starships that spanned kilometers.

Facing the radar search of the Lagrange point space station, relying solely on small size and anti-radar coating was impossible to evade.

Not to mention that these hundreds of "Albatrosses" had no intention of hiding; they not only advanced openly but also formed neat formations in space.

This was undoubtedly a provocation.

From the moment this fleet set out, the radar of the Lagrange point space station had locked onto them.

However, the air defense systems deployed on the outer side of the space station did not open fire immediately. Instead, they kept monitoring while pre-aiming with the point defense system's mass accelerators, and simulated the Alliance fleet's trajectory and possible evasive routes through server calculations.

All preparations for firing were complete, and the two sides had faced off in silent stillness for several days.

Finally—

The moment the Alliance's landing craft array entered the boundary of the Lagrange point's "parking orbit," the mass accelerators that had been aimed at the Alliance landing craft from afar suddenly flickered with deep blue arcs, like a gas stove being lit!

Tens of thousands of mass projectiles were launched in an instant, weaving an impenetrable net in space!

In just half a minute, the Lagrange point space station had fired nearly the equivalent of a destroyer's worth of propellant!

And that overwhelming firepower, carrying enough force to tear apart asteroids, had almost sealed off every possible maneuver direction of the Alliance's landing craft array!

Such was the unadorned nature of combat on an astronomical scale.

All flashy moves and techniques were nothing but tofu dregs in the face of a sufficient quantity of "brute-force flying bricks."

Even deflector shields.

Could only withstand two or three more hits.

The Celestials had anticipated that the Alliance's landing craft might be equipped with deflector shields, so on top of the simulation result of a 100% destruction rate, they had added an extra 2.5 times the ammunition load!

This was almost the limit of the Lagrange point space station's single salvo of projectiles!

If a few more tons of propellant were added in a short time, it might push the space station out of its gravitational stability zone, and then correcting the coordinates and accelerating would take more time.

After completing the firing, each magnetic rail gun aimed forward immediately ceased fire, elegantly raising its red-hot barrel into the cooling slot, like the motion of holstering a gun.

The dense rain of projectiles was still in flight, expected to hit in two minutes.

At such close range, even if the Alliance detected the approaching projectile rain, they would have no time to dodge, only able to make futile last-ditch struggles or watch helplessly as their ships were riddled with holes by the dense barrage!

The distance kept closing, and the two clusters of dots flickering on the radar screen were about to collide!

500 km!

300 km!

100 km!

0 km—

Target hit!

Seeing the signal confirming the hit from the fire control system, the artificial intelligence consciousness running on the Lagrange point space station's server felt neither joy nor sorrow.

It was an already anticipated outcome.

Before the projectiles even hit the target, it had already simulated and calculated the result of the engagement on the server; now it was merely turning the calculation into reality.

These ships had no chance of survival, not even a one-in-ten-thousand possibility.

Yet just as it was about to lift the alert and move the camera away, the current in its cognitive plugin suddenly fluctuated at a frequency called "incredible."

"How... is this possible?!"

An unbelievable scene unfolded.

The cluster of dots representing mass projectiles on the radar screen passed straight through the formation of Alliance landing craft!

It felt like punching cotton, as if those projectiles had hit nothing but ghosts shaped like landing craft!

That was a trick!

There was no other explanation!

Without time for shock, the intelligent life running on the server immediately updated the combat command, separating the magnetic rail gun barrels from the cooling slots, recharging the high-energy capacitors connected to the rail guns, and preparing for a second round of firing!

At the same time, it changed the firing mode from indirect fire to direct fire, using the infrared reflection radar built into the cannons for active target acquisition!

The moment the infrared reflection radar activated, the bright dots flickering on the radar display vanished instantly, replaced by a string of flickering points less than five hundred kilometers from the Lagrange point space station!

The intelligent life on the server immediately understood what was happening—

These bastards had not only used electronic warfare equipment to simulate a group of nonexistent spacecraft, but also used active laser illumination to simulate the optical images of these spacecraft on its optical cameras, even including the rotating Earth in the background!

From the moment those five hundred landing craft set out, they had been doing this!

That was why it had detected nothing unusual.

As for the real landing craft, they were hidden behind that false holographic image!

Of course, that was already several seconds ago.

The distance between the two sides was now less than four hundred kilometers, and closing rapidly at several kilometers per second!

Just as the Lagrange point space station finally discovered the landing craft fleet that had arrived right in its face, the players lurking inside the landing craft also got a clear view of that majestic space fortress.

The magnificent steel framework stretched across space, like an artificial planet!

"Holy shit... this thing is huge." Staring at the forward aerial image displayed on his tactical visor, Jie Yan, eyes wide, muttered to himself.

He thought the Orion was already astonishing, but he never expected there to be something even more exaggerated, looking from afar like a mountain range suspended in space!

Soon, the voice of a teammate came through the comm channel, teasing.

Sha Ren Zhi Bi: "After all, it's a shipyard from the Human Union era. How could it lack some presence?"

Shen Dou Shi: "Speaking of which, once we take this place, it's time to open a new map, right?"

Yin Cha Yang Cuo: "We'll be counting on this thing to open new maps in the future."

Ban Ben Chu Sheng: "My broadsword is already itching for action!!!"

Shan He Ru Meng: "Captain!! How much longer until we arrive?"

White Steed Passing a Gap: “Only the last 100 kilometers to the target, all units pay attention! Activate the cushioning mode of the safety seats—”

“Prepare for landing!”

As Old Bai’s voice fell, a burst of exhilarated roars came through the communication channel.

“Awooo!!!”

They had been cramped in the narrow landing craft for days, just to make this trip!

Now, finally, the wait was over!

The 100 kilometers vanished in an instant, and the landing crafts, as if performing a space jump, suddenly surged near the Lagrange point space station.

Forcibly landing on a starport from the Human Union era—this was far more thrilling than an orbital drop to the ground.

Both sides had already exceeded the second cosmic velocity, and they were rapidly closing in on each other with a relative speed of several kilometers per second!

It was no exaggeration—

At this moment, the Burning Corps was no longer charging alongside the shells; they were riding atop them to land!

The distance between the two sides had reached its limit, and optical camouflage and electronic warfare interference had lost their effect!

After spotting the target, the point defense systems deployed on the station hastily opened fire to intercept, but the speeding mass rounds couldn’t even catch the exhaust of the landing crafts. They could only watch helplessly as the crafts broke through the hail of mass rounds, charged into the blind spots of the point defense systems, and began to decelerate!

The Lagrange point space station was, after all, not a true war machine like the Orion; it was merely a shipyard equipped with point defense systems.

This shipyard had no torpedo launchers, let any neutron torpedo reserves.

Although all ships of the Human Union era were built here, the supplies used by the ships were not processed here but at the processing center at the end of the old space elevator.

In other words—

The Celestials could no longer repeat their old trick of clearing the field by actively detonating neutron bombs.

This crucial intelligence was also provided by the Academy to the Alliance.

“Prepare for battle!!!”

Old Bai roared, then fell silent, waiting for the final collision.

The landing crafts soon split in two, and one by one, the landing pods were ejected from the crafts while activating their cushioning devices, spewing scorching plasma plumes toward the Lagrange point space station!

Even with the decompression of the cushioning pods, Old Bai’s eyes were instantly pressed blood-red.

That acceleration of dozens of Gs was beyond what humans could endure; only the “super soldiers” with physique and strength attributes exceeding fifty points could withstand it!

The flickering arcs of electricity were like a dark blue dagger, and the moment the dagger was revealed, they stabbed one after another into that fortress floating in deep space!

The thrusters of the landing crafts exploded the instant they struck the armor surface, and the landing pods that followed landed on the wreckage of the exploding crafts.

The pitch-black steel armor was instantly vaporized by the scorching plasma, leaving fist-sized craters, though these craters were but a drop in the bucket compared to the fortress’s towering volume!

“Engage!!!”

Shouting into the communication channel, Old Bai took the lead through the landing pod’s hatch, wielding a welding torch the size of a laptop computer and pressing it against the steel armor of the Lagrange point space station.

Although the outer shell of the Human Union space station was made of hard ceramic steel, no steel armor could withstand the continuous burning of plasma!

As he pulled the trigger, plasma at tens of thousands of degrees, accelerated by electromagnets, gushed out from the torch’s nozzle. Before long, it carved a shocking scar into the station’s ceramic steel armor!

Soon, Old Bai, holding the welding torch, cut a circular entrance into the fortress’s connecting section!

Hooking the torch onto his back, he tore off the severed steel and tossed it aside, then, gripping a heavy space rifle specially made by Boulder Military Industries, he led his three teammates into the fortress.

The interior of the fortress was utterly silent, devoid of sound or air.

According to the Academy’s intelligence, the last staff member of this space station had died a century and a half ago.

Since then, no living person had visited this station, and it had fallen completely into the hands of the “Celestials”!

To reclaim this station from the Celestials, they had to enter the station’s main control server and completely format the intelligent program born on that server!

Or—

Destroy it in a physical sense!

The server room housing the main control server was located in the deepest part of the station, already marked on all players’ tactical maps.

Confirming his position through the map projected on his tactical visor, Old Bai immediately synchronized the action route to his three teammates and then charged toward the target area.

As the players had anticipated, even though the fortress’s walls and point defense systems had been breached, the Celestials guarding the fortress did not sit idly by; instead, they displayed an extraordinary will to survive.

These beings not only awakened the few remaining androids and the shipyard’s production robots but also mobilized the smart shopping guides in the retail area and the “sex dolls” allocated for staff into the defense forces.

It turned out that these non-combat robots, once their safety protocols were lifted, could indeed form combat effectiveness.

However, due to the Celestials’ utter madness, the originally solemn battlefield suddenly became absurd.

The players encountered not only self-destructing wastebaskets and cooking robots charging with spatulas but also androids in sexy outfits and all sorts of bizarre things.

It felt as if they weren’t storming the ancestral tomb of the Human Union Aerospace Force but rather a large-scale smart equipment expo and a museum of Human Union-era fetishes.

“Holy crap… What kind of random junk is in this space station?”

Looking at the octopus-shaped monster sparking with electricity, Jieyan couldn’t help but mutter in surprise while lowering his gun.

He thought getting whacked by a frying pan was ridiculous enough, but now even Octopus Bro had shown up, and its combat power was absurdly high—two lashes from its tentacles nearly gave a teammate, [Daoxia Liuren], a concussion.

Fengkuang dragged Daoxia Liuren out from the corner, checked his injuries, confirmed he was fine, and set him aside.

The guy was probably reconnecting; he’d be fine in a while.

Standing nearby, Xihongshi Chao Dan floated over to the monster’s corpse and kicked one of its thigh-thick tentacles with his boot.

“Am I the only one curious what this thing was used for?”

Served as live octopus sashimi at a buffet?

Fengkuang coughed lightly and said expressionlessly,

“…I think it’s better you don’t get curious.”

Just as they were talking, Fang Chang’s voice suddenly came through the squad’s communication channel.

“…We’ve arrived near the main control server room. This is probably the Celestials’ last line of defense… Their resistance is tougher than we expected. We need reinforcements! Hurry up!”

Hearing that a team fight was about to begin, everyone’s spirits lifted instantly, including Daoxia Liuren, who had been slumped in the corner, now getting up.

The final boss was ahead!

After replying with “Roger,” Fengkuang looked at the teammates behind him and said calmly,

“Fang Chang needs reinforcements. We need to move faster!”

“Let’s get going…” Jieyan picked up the rifle that had fallen on the ground, reloaded it, and tossed it to Daoxia Liuren. “If we miss this, we’ll regret it for a lifetime.”