Commodore Ashton couldn't wrap his head around it.
When he received the order, he knew Jump Point Z-78 had been attacked.
He set out with his fleet immediately.
Full speed ahead.
Seven hours.
That was the fastest speed he could muster.
But this scene before his eyes...
Four thousand starships couldn't even hold out for seven hours?
The communication screen suddenly lit up.
The face of another fleet commander, Commodore Daniels, appeared on the screen.
His expression was equally grim as he stared at the wreckage outside the window, slowly speaking.
"Commodore Ashton."
Ashton looked at him.
Daniels took a deep breath and voiced the conclusion he had just reached.
"I'm afraid there are more than four thousand starships here."
Ashton frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Daniels extended his hand, pointing to the dense wreckage outside the window.
"Look closely."
Ashton gazed outward.
Among those wreckages.
Some were civilian-converted military cargo ships and passenger ships, smaller in size with weak armor.
Others were standard Imperial main battlefleet vessels.
Battleships, cruisers, destroyers.
And the numbers...
He made a rough estimate and began to sweat on his forehead.
"This..."
His voice started to tremble.
"This must be... over twenty thousand ships..."
Daniels nodded.
Ashton opened his mouth, his voice hoarse and strained:
"Commodore Daniels... are you saying..."
He struggled to form that thought into a complete sentence.
"The fleet from the front line... has warped back..."
"And..."
"Was wiped out here?"
Daniels looked at him without speaking.
But that silence was an answer in itself.
Ashton's body swayed slightly.
He steadied himself against the command console, barely managing to stand firm.
His gaze fell once more on the wreckage outside the window.
Over twenty thousand ships.
All dead here.
In the six hours it took him to arrive.
A terrifying image surfaced in his mind.
Those Imperial officers and crew who had just warped back, thinking they had finally escaped with their lives.
They didn't know what awaited them was a meticulously laid death trap.
Commodore Ashton stared at the dense wreckage outside the window, remaining silent for a long time.
His brow was tightly furrowed, his lips pressed into a thin line.
As the commander of a mother-class fleet, he had witnessed many large-scale battles.
But this scene before him still stirred an indescribable sense of bewilderment in his heart.
He turned his head, looking at Commodore Daniels on the communication screen, his voice carrying a rare hint of hesitation.
"So what do we do now...?"
Daniels was silent for a second.
Looking at Ashton's bewildered face, he understood what he was thinking.
Two commodores, over eight hundred warships, facing a graveyard of more than twenty thousand wrecks.
Anyone would be at a loss.
Daniels took a deep breath.
His voice came through the communication screen, not loud, but carrying a steady, reassuring force.
"Let's clear Jump Point Z-78 first."
Ashton was taken aback.
"Clear it?"
Daniels nodded.
"In case any more allied forces from the front line warp back..."
He paused, his gaze falling on the wreckage outside the window.
"At least they won't arrive and immediately merge with a pile of wreckage."
Ashton opened his mouth, wanting to say something.
But looking into Daniels' calm eyes, he swallowed his words back down.
He nodded.
"...That makes sense."
Daniels continued.
"Oh, right."
His tone remained steady, as if arranging a routine matter.
"We also need to be vigilant against the Federation Fleet taking the opportunity to warp in."
"Lay a minefield around the periphery of the warp point."
Ashton's eyes lit up.
Clearing the warp point.
Laying a minefield.
Once these two tasks were done,
not only would the safety of the allied forces returning later be ensured,
but it would also prevent the Federation Fleet from exploiting any gaps.
The sense of confusion in his heart was diluted considerably by these two clear directives.
He nodded, his voice regaining the steadiness of a commander.
"Understood."
The communication ended.
Ashton turned and gave the order to the communications officer.
"Transmit orders to the entire fleet..."
"Clear Jump Point Z-78."
The two mother-class fleets moved simultaneously.
The Battleship Group slowly advanced, forming a line 1.8 million kilometers from the edge of the warp point.
The main cannons began charging energy.
"Fire."
The moment the command was given,
dozens of heavy particle beams erupted from the gun muzzles of the battleships, slamming violently into the field of wreckage.
Wherever the beams passed, the wreckage was instantly vaporized by the high temperature.
Only a few fleeting wisps of ion mist remained, proving they had ever existed.
But there was too much wreckage.
Over twenty thousand ships.
Dense and packed.
Layer upon layer.
The main cannons blasted away one batch, only for another to remain behind.
The beams continued their sweeping fire, like a giant flamethrower, plowing charred channels through the piles of debris.
And for the particularly massive pieces of wreckage—
the entire keel of a battleship, the hull of a stellar carrier—
more precise handling was required.
This was when the heavy cruisers went into action.
Operating in pairs, they approached those giant beast-like remnants.
Then, using tungsten alloy steel cables, they began towing.
Engines at full power.
The immense pulling force caused those hundreds-of-meters-long wrecks to shudder violently.
Then, they slowly began to move.
Dragging them out of the core region of the warp point.
Not long after.
At the N-12 Jump Point, the epic battle here had also drawn to a close.
Floating warship wreckage now blanketed this star domain.
Shattered hulls, extinguished engines, scattered armor fragments drifted slowly in the dead silence.
Once-blazing energy cannon scars, like vicious gashes, were etched onto every piece of metal debris.
Although during the subsequent fighting, the Erebus Direct Fleet had brought in over 90,000 more retrofitted starships as cannon fodder,
it was to no avail.
The imbalance in top-tier combat power simply could not be compensated for by these 90,000-plus retrofitted starships.
In the end, the Erebus Direct Fleet, including all warships from the flagship Eternal Night onward, was completely annihilated under the combined assault of the Army Breaker Fleet and the other forces.
At this moment, Rockwell could no longer hear General Slater's complaints.
After all, the two of them were now reunited underground.
On the bridge of the battleship City-Crusher.
Admiral Chen Song stood before the command console, staring at the overwhelming expanse of wreckage outside the window, the smile at the corner of his mouth now utterly unrestrained.
That smile spread from his lips, tugging at the wrinkles by his eyes, finally transforming into a hearty, unrestrained laugh.
"Ha ha ha ha!"
He laughed wildly, boldly, completely unlike an admiral who had just commanded an entire bloody battle.
"Damn it!"
He slapped the command console with a sharp crack.
"That battle was a blast!"
The staff officers beside him were startled by his sudden outburst of laughter, but soon joined in.
Yeah, it really was.
Forty thousand against one hundred eighty thousand—a nearly fivefold advantage in numbers.
The enemy even had over 160,000 retrofitted ships acting as meat shields, dragging the fight out for nine hours.
But so what?
Didn't we still win in the end?