Another destroyer was sent flying sideways.
It directly collided with the engine array of a heavy cruiser, triggering a catastrophic chain detonation.
The explosion's fireball instantly engulfed the intersection of the two ships, with debris wrapped in flames shooting out in all directions, affecting even more ships on the periphery.
With just a single projection of the Titan's Grip.
The core of the Blood Locust Fleet's charge formation and a significant surrounding area.
Had already transformed into a vortex of death composed of twisted metal, colliding and exploding wreckage, and deadly gravity ripples that had yet to subside.
On the Iron Blood Sovereignty, all screens were blaring alarms.
The bridge was deathly silent, save for the officers' heavy and desperate gasps.
The cruel and triumphant sneer that had been on General Knight's face earlier had long since frozen, then shattered, turning into a blank pallor mixed with disbelief and horror.
Just as his mind was still reeling.
His adjutant, face pale and voice trembling beside him.
Mustered the courage to lean in and report in a near-whisper, stammering.
"Com... Commander...
Preliminary statistics...
Our, our entire fleet...
Now... now only has roughly twelve hundred starships still showing detectable signals...
Among them, over thirty percent report severe structural damage, having lost mobility or combat capability..."
The adjutant swallowed, his voice dropping even lower.
"Those that can be immediately committed to combat...
I'm afraid...
I'm afraid there are less than eight hundred..."
"What?"
General Knight whipped his head around, his eyes glaring at the adjutant as if to confirm he hadn't misheard.
That number was like an ice pick, brutally piercing through his last shred of hope.
His body swayed uncontrollably.
Then his legs gave way, and he staggered, about to fall backward.
"Commander!"
The adjutant reacted quickly, stepping forward to support him.
General Knight barely managed to steady himself with the adjutant's help.
He shook his head, trying to dispel the dizziness.
His face was a mixture of horror, fury, and a touch of absurd, bitter laughter.
"Just one hit, and I lost two thousand starships!"
He muttered, his voice hoarse.
"I... I, a full Duke-class Fleet Commander, with three thousand warships under my command...
In the blink of an eye, I'm about to become a Fleet Commander who can only command two reinforced mother-class fleets?
What... what kind of joke is this?!"
He suddenly grabbed the adjutant's arm, his nails almost digging into the other's uniform.
"Are you sure?
The statistics aren't wrong?"
The adjutant nodded through the pain, affirming.
"Commander, the system's automatic filtering has been cross-referenced with the emergency reports from each mother-class fleet...
Yes.
The combat units you can currently effectively command are roughly equivalent to...
Two fully-manned mother-class fleets."
General Knight slowly released his grip and, with the adjutant's support, laboriously straightened up again.
He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to extract the last shred of rationality from the immense shock and sense of humiliation.
He had to face reality, no matter how cruel it was.
He raised his head and looked once more at the massive circular tactical overview screen ahead.
Just minutes ago, it had been densely packed with faint blue dots representing starships, forming an unstoppable charging array.
But now...
Vast swathes of the screen had gone dark.
Like candles extinguished in sweeping gusts of wind, they had vanished in clusters.
The once thick and imposing clusters of blue dots now appeared sparse and broken.
A terrifyingly large blank space had even appeared in the center.
It was as if an invisible giant hand had brutally wiped away a huge chunk of the entire formation.
Only about a third of the original dots remained, flickering dimly.
Many of these glowed weakly, indicating their precarious state.
A deathly silence fell over the bridge.
The silence lasted a full thirty seconds.
No one dared to speak, no one dared to move.
All the officers stared fixedly at the shocking blank space on the tactical screen, or lowered their heads.
The adjutant's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
He turned his head slightly, cautiously lowering his voice as if afraid of awakening something terrifying.
"C... Commander.
What... what should we do now?"
He paused, his voice growing even softer.
"Do we... continue the pursuit?
What if... what if they hit us with another one of those..."
He didn't dare finish.
But everyone on the bridge understood. A collective, sharp intake of breath echoed through the room.
A chill shot up from the base of their spines, straight to the crowns of their heads.
Another hit?
Just that one strike had reduced three thousand starships to less than twelve hundred.
Only about eight hundred remained combat-ready.
If there was another hit...
No one dared to think further.
Outside the viewports were the flattened wreckage of battleships, cruisers twisted into spirals and stretched like noodles.
And in certain coordinate zones, there was nothing at all, not even debris to be found.
Those images were already deeply etched into everyone's minds.
General Knight slowly turned around.
His gaze shifted from the adjutant's pale face, sweeping over everyone present.
What he saw was terror, fear, and ten thousand refusals.
And himself?
Rage still burned in his chest, searing his stomach into cramps.
But that rage was being slowly suppressed by another, colder, heavier emotion.
Retroactive fear.
What if that earlier strike had targeted not the core of the charging formation, but his flagship?
What if that deathly vortex of gravitational distortion had been offset by a few hundred thousand kilometers?
Knight's Adam's apple convulsed violently.
He looked out the viewport at the twisted, silent wreckage of warships, resembling a cluster of 20th-century sculptures.
An absurd yet utterly real thought surfaced uncontrollably in his mind.
If I had been there just now, would I have already been compressed into a two-dimensional world?
Turned into a painting?
A flat pancake?
Or vanished completely, not even an atom left?
He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, forcing the thought down.
When he opened them again, his voice had regained a certain restrained steadiness.
Though hoarse, though weary.
"Communications officer."
"Sir!"
The communications officer practically leapt from his seat.
Knight didn't turn around. His gaze remained fixed on the wreckage outside the viewport.
"Report to Admiral Scott."
He paused, enunciating each word clearly.
"Blood Locust Fleet reporting: Engaged with the Federation Fleet, encountered what appears to be a new strategic-grade gravitational weapon.
This weapon can trigger extreme gravitational distortion in local space without warning, causing devastating damage to hull structures.
Our combat loss..."
He took a deep breath, his voice trembling slightly, but he managed to speak the words in full.
"Combat loss exceeds eighty percent. Remaining usable combat units number less than six hundred.
We have lost the capability to pursue or engage in decisive battle."
The Bridge fell silent enough to hear a pin drop.
Knight's voice grew softer, yet clearer.
"Requesting... Commander's instructions on whether to continue pursuit."
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