Starting from the Planetary Governor

Chapter 1255: Chapter 682, “Tentacles

The subsequent developments in the battle closely aligned with the Queen’s estimations.

Gu Hang, leading the Alliance Main Fleet, eventually annihilated the reinforcements from the Insect Race fleet descending southward through the Lefu and Jianmen Star Domains.

In the end, only two Biological Battleships, accompanied by a few fast ships, managed to escape. The rest perished in this starry domain.

After victory, to prevent the insects from returning to utilize the remnants of these ships and transform them into biomass, the Alliance even spent extra time cleaning the battlefield.

Small fragments of ships were incinerated; larger biological ship carcasses, especially those of transport ships filled with biomass, were directly propelled into the system’s star to ensure complete and irretrievable destruction.

Simultaneously, Gu Hang also led a divided section of the main fleet to intercept the Insect Swarm Fleet drawn from the Santao campaign.

Although they had been instructed to flee, they were nevertheless intercepted and eliminated.

At Santao, Marshal Xi Rui also sent a victory report.

Following the withdrawal of the Insect Swarm Fleet, he ceased the offensive.

As the mission was accomplished, there was no need for unnecessary loss of life.

Upon receiving Gu Hang’s battle victory report, he decisively began the gradual withdrawal of forces from Santao.

The retreat process was relatively smooth. Although the enemy’s ground forces were incredibly numerous, lacking space support meant that with a stable base ensuring the orbital path above wouldn’t be hit by ground-based counter-orbital biological cannons, the main issue was resolved.

While continuously retreating troops, he also transported a precious ’Skyburn Torpedo’ to the ground.

This Skyburn Torpedo was detonated when few people remained on the planet.

Ultimately, nearly ten thousand people sacrificed themselves on the planet. After all, completely withdrawing everyone before detonating the Skyburn Torpedo was unrealistic; an unforeseen event could lead to disaster.

Detonating alongside allied forces isn’t honorable, but compared to obliterating this planet—once home to 90 billion people and now reduced to a massive biomass—it dealt a severe blow to the Insect Race, and the exchange rate was deemed worthwhile.

Why not withdraw all personnel before bombing… the core reason remained the concern that once withdrawn, without ground support while the Insect Swarm forces on the surface remained strong, if a Skyburn Torpedo dropped and was intercepted by biological cannons or flying insect demons, it would be a huge loss.

The lives of ten thousand soldiers versus a Skyburn Torpedo… obviously, the Skyburn Torpedo held much greater value.

Such is the cold calculation.

Nonetheless, Santao was destroyed. Truthful speaking, if all this biomass were collected by the Queen, it would equate to nearly half the amount brought by the reinforcement fleet from the south.

Another significant loss.

Gu Hang and Xi Rui regrouped again.

They spent about a week resting before setting off once more.

The original plan was to head west to establish contact with Salius and Matins.

But soon, they realized there was no need to do so.

The Insect Swarm itself withdrew.

The Queen recalled all available forces she could control and gather.

Those capable of hatching transport ships did so, loading them with biomass and soldier bugs, worker bugs, and fleeing; those too late to be taken were left, fully hatched into soldier bugs to trouble humans as much as possible.

She was aggressively retracting forces, almost entirely compressing into the Reya Duches Star System.

This was clearly an intention to engage humans in a protracted war on Reyadoces, the former ironclad mother star.

To wage a war of attrition.

But what is her leverage in dragging things out?

Initially, Gu Hang had only a guess without concrete evidence. But upon arriving at Reyadoces, he quickly realized what it was.

Peering intensely through the Subspace Shadow, gazing into the far reaches of the physical universe, he saw a massive Insect Nest Fleet approaching.

Not through Subspace, not via Star Realm Tunnel, but slowly traveling at sub-light speed from a distant location towards Reya Duches.

This Insect Nest Fleet, considerably large, was even larger than the Insect Swarm controlled by the Queen.

Could this be the so-called ’Duches Tendril’?

Humans refer to the upper structure of the Insect Nest Fleet as ’Tendrils’. This represents an immense level and is the largest scale Insect Race structure encountered by the Human Empire currently. When a ’Insect Tendril’ main force enters empire territory, it often results in a super large-scale disaster spanning multiple Cosmos Domains, necessitating the empire to muster an enormous force to potentially end it.

Throughout imperial history, ’Tendrils’ appeared and were successfully resisted only twice. Each occasion left a deeply profound and painful memory across the empire.

A single ’Tendril’ may consist of several Queens. They are generally equal and of the same rank among each other, but actually there’s a hierarchy based on the scope of the swarm each Queen commands. The strongest, likely the most ancient, is termed ’Mother’—in reality, Queens might have blood relations, although insects do not care for such nuances.

Since the emergence of the ’Void Wormhole’ hundreds of years ago at Reyadoces, with Insect Nest Fleets continuously appearing, imperial insectologists believed that perhaps a ’Tendril’ was advancing in this direction, moving from the physical universe layer, gradually nearing empire territory. The fleets appearing frequently were merely vanguard forces.

This potentially existent ’Tendril’ was named ’Duches Tendril’ based on geographical nomenclature.

Still, after observation, Gu Hang believed that this was not quite the Tendril’s main force.

The numbers didn’t quite match.

It seemed merely another vanguard departing from the Tendril. The Tendril’s main force was still far beyond observable range.

Nevertheless, the arrival of this Insect Race Fleet would substantially impact the battle situation.

Gu Hang observed this Insect Nest Fleet for two consecutive days, largely confirming his assumptions.

Furthermore, he analyzed a piece of information: this Insect Nest Fleet, at its current pace, would need approximately thirteen standard Tera Months to reach the Reya Duches Star System.

This meant that the human side had better resolve the Reyadoces issue in a little over a year to prevent the two sides from converging.

Time wasn’t abundant; considering the Queen had consolidated so many forces, achieving victory might require protracted efforts.

But it at least provided some space for maneuvering.

An idea gradually formed in Gu Hang’s mind.

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complements yesterday’s; this Chapter is indeed for today.

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