Chapter 220: The Truth of the Universal Mega-Corporation! Fire! Hit Them!
From what was happening now, it appeared that the local humans had already developed a spacefaring navy—more troublesome than the Reapers had anticipated.
But it wasn't a major issue.
After all, this human civilization hadn't even made it out of its own solar system yet. To put it bluntly, they were still a backward "primitive" group unworthy of serious consideration.
From beginning to end, the Reaper Queen and her billions of Reaper drones never once regarded humanity as their primary threat.
Meanwhile, the Reaper fleet that had come under attack by the human warships swiftly began to respond.
They adjusted their flight trajectories and used ballistic data to approximate the general position of the fleet ahead.
Then, following the Queen's command, the Reapers launched their first probing salvo against the enemy.
Whoosh—!!
In an instant, the forward turrets of the mothership clustered together and fired a barrage of concentrated energy blasts straight ahead.
From a distance, these beams raining down like a storm resembled a dazzling fireworks display.
But for all their bluster, the Reaper bombardment was basically useless.
They hadn't managed to lock onto the location of the Infinity-class fleet in time. The volley was fired blindly, aimed only at a general area.
And space—especially in a galactic sector—is unimaginably vast. Even a nondescript region spans a staggering range.
As a result, the Reaper mothership's energy blasts failed to hit the megacorporation fleet directly. Only a few scattered shots grazed the ship hulls.
But even those were meaningless. The damage didn't even trigger the antimatter shields—it dissipated harmlessly on contact.
Upon noticing that the barrage had produced less effective results than expected, the Reapers immediately began more precise calculations and scanned for detailed information on the fleet ahead.
They decided to change direction, first escaping the human fleet's target lock. Once they could pinpoint the enemy's exact location, they would strike back.
At that moment, stealth gunboats disengaged from the Infinity-class juggernauts' launch bays and flew toward the Reaper mothership.
The Astartes warriors tasked with executing the decapitation strike were now just over 20,000 kilometers from their target.
Back aboard the Infinity-class flagship's command center, comms from every combat unit lit up the control hub.
[Report! Second volley ineffective. Repeating: second volley has failed to breach the enemy's energy shields.]
[Sir, we've detected high-frequency pulse emissions from the enemy—they're attempting to locate us.]
[Should we initiate a jump? If we remain in place to continue the assault, we risk a retaliatory strike!]
[…]
Amid the flood of urgent and chaotic reports, Morgan Blackhand stared at the central console, where countless data streams and battlefield intelligence reports scrolled by.
As he absorbed the onslaught of information, he couldn't help but feel a newfound sense of empathy for his boss, Li Ang .
Just commanding a single interstellar fleet already pushed him to the brink—let alone running the entire Universal Megacorporation. That seat wasn't for the faint of heart.
Frowning, Morgan kept an eye on multiple holo-screens displaying real-time fleet data, while carefully tracking the third volley's energy cannon charge status.
When the "Charging Complete" notice flashed on-screen, he finally gave the order:
"Prepare for another coordinated salvo. Adjust the fleet's heading. Attention—all engines switch to antimatter drives for repositioning. Do not use jump drives."
"Yes, sir!"
With Morgan's clear directive, every ship's pilots and gunners immediately worked in sync with the flagship's command protocols, executing the orders swiftly.
As the fleet maneuvered rightward, plasma cannons, electromagnetic railguns, M6A4 laser batteries, and Mark-class magnetic cannons—all fully charged—opened fire simultaneously.
Whoosh—!!
The energy cannon discharges shook the interiors of many warships. The sheer output reverberated across the entire fleet.
Meanwhile, thousands of missile pods unleashed a massive payload: thousands of strategic plasma bombs and tactical hydrogen warheads streaked into space.
The first two volleys had been gradually escalating tests of firepower—not all-out strikes.
The purpose was to gauge how much the Reaper energy shields could withstand, providing data for the scientific teams to analyze.
So the earlier failures had been expected by Morgan Blackhand.
But this time, they were going all in—focusing every ounce of offensive output on a single point: the Reaper mothership.
A quote attributed to Li Ang , widely repeated throughout the Universal Megacorporation, now echoed in Morgan's mind:
"Anything can be destroyed. It's just a matter of how much energy it takes."
Even the toughest metals would eventually suffer localized, permanent structural damage from sustained force—and then suddenly snap.
Even the elusive quantum-phase wraith soldiers could be reduced to formless subatomic particles under overwhelming energy bombardment.
And the Reaper's energy shields were no exception.
Soon, Morgan watched as his fleet's full-force salvo appeared in real-time on the holo-screens—each projectile and beam rendered as glowing dots streaking through space.
He could clearly see the energy blasts from the corporate fleet rapidly closing in on the Reaper mothership.
The electromagnetic railgun rounds from the Infinity-class supercannon struck first, slamming into the mothership's tip.
Next came the plasma bolts, followed by laser fire, and finally, the plasma bombs and tactical nukes screaming toward their target at Mach 70.
BOOM—!
In the silent vacuum of space, radiant blasts bloomed like fireworks. Though no sound could travel, Morgan Blackhand—hardened by countless battles—could almost hear the roar in his mind.
At that moment, the forward observer reported in:
[Captain, sir!]
[Enemy interceptors have taken down 777 of our missiles. The rest have breached their air-defense grid.]
[…]
As the observer spoke, tremors rippled across the screens—visual confirmation that the attack had landed. Over 80% of the total firepower had reached its target.
BOOM—!!
When the final plasma bombs and hydrogen warheads impacted the Reaper mothership, a fusion of ghostly blue light and sun-like brilliance erupted, illuminating the void.
Everyone aboard the fleet stared in stunned silence. A chill of awe crawled across their skin.
Never before had they felt the true force of the Universal Megacorporation's full might—never like this.
Before this day, no one had ever witnessed an Infinity-class juggernaut unleash its maximum firepower on a single target.
Not even veterans who had served aboard for over 20 years had seen the full offensive capacity of these warships put to use.
This was just two Infinity-class ships.
If all 200 were to fire in unison—surely the mothership would be annihilated on the spot.
After a brief silence, the crew gradually snapped back to reality and returned to their duties.
The observers began forwarding visual confirmations to Morgan Blackhand.
"Sir, reporting in—the Reaper mothership's shield has collapsed. Our volley was successful!"
On-screen, the Reaper mothership's energy shield had reached its limit and was visibly starting to fracture—crumbling and breaking apart.
Like a shattered mirror, layer upon layer of mesh-like shields disintegrated into ash, exposing the entire mothership to the vacuum of space.
As expected! The Reapers' mothership shield has its limits—there's no way that thing could hold up under sustained energy bombardment forever.
Morgan Blackhand let out a silent sigh of relief. This time, he had ordered the entire fleet to unleash their maximum firepower.
Full-powered energy cannons, electromagnetic railguns, fully loaded plasma bombs, hydrogen bombs—everything was launched in a single devastating salvo. But once fired, it would take fifteen minutes to recharge and reload.
During this output cooldown, the corporation's fleet would have to rely on close-range guns and a limited number of long-range artillery strikes.
But such meager firepower couldn't possibly travel tens of thousands of kilometers and accurately strike the Reaper mothership.
At best, it could be used to take down some of the Reaper's deployed drones.
If even that concentrated barrage failed to shatter the Reaper's shield…
Then Morgan would have no choice but to deploy drone units equipped with antimatter shielding, controlled by AI, to try and break through the enemy mothership's defenses.
But executing that plan wouldn't be easy—not by a long shot. The Reapers weren't idiots. There's no way they'd sit back and watch enemy craft leisurely approach their mothership.
Any drone meant for breaching the shield would likely be shot down halfway there by the Reapers' dense anti-air defense network.
So if the shield could be broken by that volley, that was clearly the best-case scenario.
Now, seeing that the Reaper mothership's shield had indeed collapsed, Morgan Blackhand immediately issued a new command:
"Proceed with the operation as planned!"
"Draw as much attention from the enemy as possible—give our assault team a chance."
"Yes, sir!"
With the commander's orders received, the crew across the fleet swiftly began executing coordinated maneuvers from their respective stations.
With the Infinity-class flagship under Morgan's direct command leading the charge, the rest of the fleet followed seamlessly, moving in unison toward the Reaper mothership.
Beep—!!
Suddenly, a sharp, urgent alarm blared through the bridge.
A sensor officer quickly turned to Morgan Blackhand and reported:
"Sir! The enemy has locked onto our position—they've also detected the location of the assault shuttle!"
The sudden bad news made Morgan Blackhand furrow his brow. He hadn't expected the Reapers' reconnaissance tech to be this advanced.
If the assault team led by V got intercepted before infiltrating the Reaper mothership, things would get extremely complicated.
They needed to divert the Reapers' attention immediately—buy as much time for V as possible.
"Full thrust—advance at maximum speed!"
Of course, Morgan's order didn't mean the fleet would charge straight at the Reaper mothership like a bunch of ramming torpedoes.
Instead, the fleet shifted into a "drift" maneuver—splitting into upper and lower formations as they advanced from different angles toward the enemy mothership.
After all, the Reapers had already unleashed a dense barrage of energy cannons. Morgan needed to shake off this incoming salvo and reposition for a counterattack.
Right now, the distance between both fleets wasn't exactly close, but not terribly far either—there was no need to activate FTL engines.
The most efficient option was to rely on standard propulsion systems, using minimal energy to shift position and break free from the enemy's targeting lock.
And here was where the technological gap between the corporation and the Reaper civilization really showed itself.
While both sides had faster-than-light engines, the Reapers' standard propulsion was still based on nuclear fusion.
The corporation's standard engines? True-blue antimatter tech.
The efficiency and power difference between the two systems was nothing short of dramatic.
What's more, the corporate fleet, while larger in number, was far smaller in scale compared to the Reaper's mothership.
Bigger had its advantages, sure—but so did being smaller.
When both sides engaged their standard propulsion in an attempt to break targeting locks, Morgan's fleet was always going to be faster.
As Morgan gave the command, the corporate fleet swiftly dispersed and veered off its original trajectory at high speed.
From the central command deck of the Infinity, Morgan could see through the holographic display that the Reapers' energy barrage was closing in fast.
At this point, there was no need to rely solely on sensors—everyone onboard could see it with their own eyes through the observation windows. Clusters of eerie green energy were streaking past the hull of the Infinity-class ship.
Despite the Reaper mothership's counterattack, the crew of the corporate fleet remained calm—barely giving it a second glance.
Their antimatter shields could withstand simultaneous hits from ten Infinity-class main cannons. Compared to that, the Reapers' fancy green energy blasts were about as threatening as the "Action Beam" from Action Mask in Crayon Shin-chan.
Thanks to Morgan's timely commands, most of the Reaper's return fire merely grazed the Infinity , causing no real damage.
And now, with the first wave of energy attacks dodged, the helmsman initiated the first stage of acceleration—activating the antimatter engine.
Instantly, a deep rumble and vibration spread throughout the ship—a direct result of the Infinity picking up speed.
The Reaper mothership, already relatively close, began to rapidly "grow" in their view—expanding across the holographic display and the windows alike.
Seeing that the distance between fleets had narrowed to an optimal range, Morgan Blackhand finally gave a sharp nod and spoke in a low, commanding voice:
"Deploy the fighter squadrons. Hit them hard."
His voice had barely faded when the officers below responded in unison:
"Yes, sir!"
…
(Show your support and read more chapters on my Patreon: p@treon.com/psychopet. Thank you for your support!)