Hawke was closely monitoring the movements of the opposing fleet. At every moment, real-time footage of the battlefield was transmitted for Hawke to launch his analysis.
Through the surveillance satellite, Hawke saw the image of the torrent of bullets attacking the opponent's ships.
Each of the 70 million miniature nuclear bullets was only a fraction of the size of an ordinary pistol bullet, with a killing range of only a few cubic decimetres. However, the increase in numbers made up for the lack of their attacking power.
Hawk saw that the Lucca ships, which had lost their force field protection, had no choice but to start using laser interception to intercept these bullets. However, they were simply not equipped with so many miniature laser guns on them, and moreover, the number of these bullets was simply too large for them to form an effective interception against this torrent of bullets.
Because of the opponent's dodging and the laser interception, at least four fifths of the bullets in this torrent of 70 million bullets missed their target, but even if only one fifth of the bullets were there, their number was still more than 10 million, how much damage could such a large number of miniature nuclear bombs cause?
For the first time in reality, Hawke saw how many ants could bite the elephant. One miniature nuclear bomb was like an ant, and the opponent's ship was an elephant, so the attack from one miniature nuclear bomb would have almost no effect on the ship, but what about ten? What about ten thousand?
Hawke saw a continuous, dense flash, like a brilliant swarm of stars in the universe. Hawke saw that just under the attack of these countless brilliant flowers, the energy shield of a country-class ship dulled at a speed visible to the naked eye, finally disappearing without a trace as the subsequent miniature nukes began to attack its armour directly.
It was still desperately firing laser beams to intercept the miniature nukes, but when ten were intercepted, a hundred more would come rushing up, and when a hundred were intercepted, a thousand more would come rushing up.
Under the continuous nuclear attack, its external armour was rapidly breaking down. Hawk saw that these breaches were being repaired at a rate visible to the naked eye. Apparently, they were also equipped with nanobot repair equipment. However, the speed of repair simply could not match the speed of destruction. Finally, under the continuous attack of the miniature nukes, the country-class ship exploded and disintegrated.
What happened to this country-class ship was just a microcosm of the entire vast battlefield. All the ships in the entire Lucca fleet were suffering from the same predicament. Accustomed to force field protection, they were not equipped with sufficient interceptor kinetic weapons, a shortcoming that was finally exposed when they lost their flagship class ships.
This wave of miniature nuclear attacks took out at least seven hundred ships of the Lucca fleet, and, of the remaining two thousand or so, all took on injuries of varying sizes.
It was an amazing feat. But Hawke was surprisingly more worried.
For Hawke saw that the Lucan fleet, badly damaged and with less than forty percent of its initial battle power, was still marching determinedly towards the front.
"This isn't right, it's definitely not right." Hawke pondered, "What exactly do they have to fall back on? In this situation, instead of running away, how dare they come up here to die? If they run away, I can't catch them. Could it be that ... they really have a killer? I need to be more careful."
Seeing this anomaly of the other side, Hawke became more and more careful.
After the flood of bullets ended, it was time for the long-range strikes from the conventional laser cannons and energy cannons. In fact, if the bullet reserves were not used up, Hawk really wanted to give them another bullet flood attack.
When the enemy was far away, it was fine to shoot arrows, but when the enemy got closer, the battlefield was the domain of swords and hammers.
After the long-range exchange of laser and energy cannon fire, only 1,800 ships of the Lucca civilisation remained in the battle, while on the Hawk side, there were more than 38,000 ships. No matter how they were counted, even if the Lucca civilization ships could take one for twenty, they still could not defeat Hawk.
With deep concern, Hawk began to fight head-on with the opposing ships.
The difference in numbers was too great. The battlefield was completely lopsided. According to the simplest mathematics, the average opponent, one ship, would face a siege of more than twenty ships from Hawke. In this case, numbers, completely compensated for Hawke's lack of defensive and offensive power.
The eight armed satellites of the ε Eri b were also in on the action, occasionally firing a long-range energy blast as they saw their target.
Thirty minutes later, the Lucca fleet was down to 1,200 ships. Hawk's ships, there were still more than thirty-six thousand left.
"At this point ... still refuses to come up with a killer?" Looking at the Lucca civilization fleet that was in a miserable situation but still struggling to hold on, Hawke's heart, became more and more puzzled.
"Well, perhaps I am overthinking." Maybe they don't really have a killer weapon, but they are desperate for some other reason, like, they won't be allowed to go back if they can't kill me."
Along this line of reasoning, Hawke began to reason.
"Perhaps they misjudged my power from the start, and they confronted me with the same thinking as they would an intelligent creature. But don't they know that? The biggest difference between a mechanical civilization and an intelligent creature civilization is that with enough resources as well as computing power and time to develop, a mechanical civilization can proliferate indefinitely, an intelligent creature civilization cannot."
"For example, if I were to replace these 100,000 ships, and the various bases, with humans to operate them, they would have to have a population of nearly 100 million, and they would have to be specially trained."
"Perhaps ... really is the reason for their blunder." Hawke consoled himself, but the worry within him did not disappear, instead a strange feeling bubbled up, as if, there was some kind of potential danger, like a hunter walking in the middle of a dark jungle being targeted by a tiger hidden behind the trees, only making one feel anxious and chilled behind.
"Let's take care of these 1,200 or so ships first. I don't care if it's potentially dangerous, it's only right to eliminate the visible enemy first."
With determination, Hawke cast aside all mental burdens and began to concentrate on the enemy in front of him.
Under Hawk's siege, the ships of the Lucca fleet were rapidly dwindling.
In the midst of the battlefield, which was like a slaughterhouse for ships, every second, a ship was mercilessly shredded and turned into a pile of wreckage, blue energy shells flew everywhere, and interstellar missiles carrying high yield hydrogen bombs were fired everywhere.
"Quickly." Hawke made up his mind.
It was at this moment that Hawke suddenly monitored an amazing image.
This image came from Hawke's home base, ε Eri a.
Seeing this image, Hawke finally figured out where his premonition of danger was coming from.
At a time when the remaining ships of the Lucca civilisation were about to be all wiped out, the Lucca civilisation, at last, had revealed its cards.
Before, Hawk had forgotten one thing. That was, were these five thousand ships, the entire power of the other side?
Before, Hawk subconsciously thought that these 5,000 ships were all the power of the other side. However, Hawke had forgotten one possibility. Why couldn't the other side first conceal part of their power, use the revealed power to attract their attention, and then use the concealed power to make a surprise attack and kill them in one fell swoop?
Hawke already knew that the other side was definitely a veteran of many interstellar wars. Then, only Hawk himself can use ploy, can use strategy, Lucca civilization will not?
Is this ... possible?
"The Lucca civilization has not mastered FTL navigation technology, and from my previous information, I can also learn that it is expensive to exchange FTL navigation opportunities within the Guardian Alliance. I didn't expect that they had laid such a big net for me, and paid such a big price for me. ..."
"In addition to that free FTL transmission opportunity, they, also redeemed another FTL transmission ah ... two FTL transmissions, one opening outside the galaxy and one opening inside the galaxy."
"The first time, it was five thousand ships, the second ... number is unknown for now, but, definitely more than the first!"
That was the picture Hawke saw.
Hawke saw that at ε Eri a, Hawke's home base, just a few dozen kilometres away from ε Eri a, a spatial fluctuation suddenly appeared, and from this spatial fluctuation, a steady stream of spaceships began to appear out of thin air. As soon as these ships appeared, they attacked the ships Hawke had placed in orbit around ε Eri a.
This place was still underneath the various space-based turrets that Hawke had set up. In other words, the space-based turrets could not attack them. And because the ε Eri a itself was in the way, the solar sails could not attack them either.
The only ones that can attack them are the 40,000 ships that Hawke left in his lair. But none of these ships were in combat mode, and although they were fully powered up, none of their weapons and equipment were activated, nor did they have any miniature nukes.
Almost in an instant, Hawke was in a serious crisis.
"So, this is a sneak attack ... I actually got a sneak attack ..." Hawke was shocked beyond words.
The opponent's airships, still appearing in a steady stream, were growing in number, a full, full seven thousand of them!
ε Eri c at the defense line, the other side used more than two thousand five hundred ships to bury Hawke's twenty thousand ships. In other words, Hawke had to have at least eighty thousand ships to be able to tie with the Lucca civilization fleet.
However, Hawke only had 40,000 ships, or 40,000 ships without any preparation.