"How much longer until the evacuation time limit?"
Lin Yu asked the mini White Jade projected on the mecha's control panel after expending a great deal of effort to capture a Star Adjudicator and deliver a fatal blow to it.
"Six minutes left. The Ultimate Bomb was sent into the teleportation channel a minute ago."
Speaking of which, it had been more than half an hour since he led the seven army commanders to hunt the Star Arbiter.
During this period, the eight of them had only managed to kill 16 Star Arbiters. Other than Lin Yu who had killed 5 Star Arbiters alone, the other seven only managed to kill 2 Star Arbiters at most.
This showed how difficult it was to kill this new type of combat bug. This was not because of its strong defense, but because its ability to conceal itself was too unique. Even with the Federation's current mainstream scanning technology, they were unable to accurately capture its location.
Of course, the general location was still known. Lin Yu also used a focused dark energy cannon to fire a shot in the general direction, and the result was that he successfully killed the Star Arbiter.
However, the problem was that even Lin Yu could not continuously release an attack of this level. The other army commanders were only A-class dark energy manipulators, so the area covered by the same attack was much smaller. Moreover, the number of times they could use the same attack was even less than Lin Yu.
Therefore, in the end, Lin Yu could only return to the most primitive method, which was to set traps, lure prey, and finally kill it.
However, after all, this type of combat bug was no ordinary combat bug. Its intelligence was not inferior to a King Arbiter. At the same time, it had Aliya's command behind it.
Therefore, the same trap or lure method could not be used twice. Lin Yu had to constantly think of new ways to continue hunting.
This was also why the Star Arbiter was so difficult to kill even though it posed no threat to Lin Fan and the other army commanders.
Of course, if the Federation was given a certain amount of time, through the various data obtained from this battle, and through the three major research institutes to develop a special detection method that could detect and locate the Star Arbiter, there was a high probability of success.
However …
Now that the Federation was facing more and more external threats, they did not have the time to do so.
It was because of this that Lin Fan changed his mind and gave up on the plan to defeat the Zerg head-on. Instead, he directly used the Ultimate Bomb that had not been tested yet!
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In the entire arm of Lampard, the area with the highest concentration of Insectoids.
Other than the King Zerg, Imperial Zerg, and Aliya at the center, there was not a single inch of empty space within the one light-year area. Every inch of space was filled with Zerg swarms.
If the Federation wanted to get rid of Aliya, they would have to start from the outermost area. They would have to fight their way in bit by bit, which would take a terrifying amount of time.
One had to know that no matter which direction they went in, even if there was not a single insect on the way, it would take a few years for the warship to fly.
After all, the area was filled with insects, and there was no space for hyperspace travel or teleportation.
Therefore, Lin Yu wasn't in a hurry to attack Aliya. Even if he wanted to attack, he wouldn't be able to.
And this …
This was also something that Aliya came up with. She wanted to use the absolute advantage of numbers to form an absolute defense against the Federation.
Alright, it couldn't be said to be absolute, but it could at least stall the Federation for a long time.
At this moment, in the center of the area, Aliya seemed to be in deep thought.
From the beginning, she had already noticed that the Federation's fleet was retreating in an orderly manner. This was not Lin Fan's style.
It could be said that he felt that he couldn't take her down, but the Federation had not suffered much damage. Even after the Star Adjudicators attacked, they did not cause any serious damage to the Federation's fleet. Instead, she had lost nearly 30% of her Star Adjudicators, which was enough to be considered a serious loss.
In short, although the number of warships lost made the Federation's generals feel pain, in terms of the overall ratio, Aliya felt that it was not even a scratch.
But thinking about it, losing a few million out of 5 billion conventional warships was indeed not even a scratch for Aliya who had always treated her subordinates as cannon fodder.
However, it was this thought that made Aliya even more confused.
After all, from the overall perspective, the Zergs were at an absolute disadvantage. As long as Lin Fan paid the same amount of warships, plus a certain amount of time, he could definitely take her down.
Retreat …
It didn't make sense at all!
But the problem was, although she was confused, the humans had really retreated. There was no way to fake it.
And it wasn't just the Federation's fleet on the Lombard arm. Even the ten attack groups on the five main spiral arms of Newman had retreated!
Now, there were less than ten warships left in the Newman Star System, and they were constantly hunting down their own Star Adjudicators!
Could it be that because she commanded the Star Adjudicators to evade those powerful warships while constantly attacking the Federation's conventional fleet, the humans withdrew the other fleets first, and waited for these few warships to kill all her Star Adjudicators before resuming their attack?
It was not impossible, and it seemed to be quite possible!
Then wouldn't it be stupid for her to let the Void Adjudicators continue to tangle with the humans on the frontline and be slowly killed by the humans?
No, she must immediately recall all the Star Adjudicators. This kind of power must not be used up there.
Aliya, who thought that she had seen through Lin Fan's strategy, made a decision that she felt very good about.
She ordered all the Star Adjudicators to end their entanglement with the humans and immediately return to base camp. But she did not realize that this decision of hers had done Lin Yu a great favor!
-----
Lombard arm, the former combat zone of Qin Tian's fleet.
A minute ago, the new warships that were still entangled with him suddenly all ran away, which surprised Lin Yu.
Originally, he was still having a headache about how to safely retreat.
After all, even if the Federation's shield technology had developed from the energy shield to the dark energy shield, there was still one thing that the humans could not solve.
That was, whether it was warp, teleportation, or hyperspace travel, they could not be performed with the shield activated.
This was a great hindrance to Lin Yu's retreat plan.
If he wanted to activate the hyperspace engine, he must first turn off the shield system, and without the shield, with the Star Adjudicators' attack range and power, they could definitely destroy him before he entered the hyperspace.
This was something that even Lin Yu could not avoid.
Seeing that the Final Bomb was about to arrive, Lin Yu even considered letting the other seven commanders retreat first, while he stayed behind to protect them, and then find a chance to escape.
But he did not expect that all the Star Adjudicators would suddenly run away!
This …
This was a pleasant surprise!
"Everyone, activate the hyperspace engine immediately, the target is the expeditionary army base camp!"