The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2650 Battle of Planet Ode-Mantel

2650, Battle of the Planet Ode-Mantel

The two Titan warships took only one day to make a large detour and arrive directly at the battlefield on the planet Ode-Mantel!
At this moment, Admiral Gerard Perein, who was directing the fleet's attack, was completely unprepared!
He had indeed been notified that two Titan warships from the Kingdom of Dawn had departed from the planet Bilbrin, their destination unknown, and most likely heading to the planet Od Mantel.

The problem is that the hyperspace routes in the Bilbling Galaxy are extremely complex. Just getting in and out of this galaxy takes a lot of time and requires multiple jumps to leave. The main challenge is avoiding several nearby black holes, whose hyperspace turbulence poses a significant threat to navigation.

The reason the Galactic Empire was able to control several secret routes was because they had mastered the gravitational laws governing the black holes around the Bilblin galaxy. The laws governing the operation of black holes are very difficult to decipher without spending a lot of time analyzing them.

Then, because there is no direct route connecting Ode-Mantel and Bilbrin, the only way is to go around them via Dorin and Voltex, which actually takes a lot of time.

During their previous invasion, the Dawn Kingdom was unable to decipher the workings of black holes, forcing them to resort to this desperate measure: directly confronting them with two Titan warships. Furthermore, a large portion of their fleet was concentrated on the planet Dorin, awaiting guidance from the hyperspace beacon of the Divine Messenger Titan warship.

Therefore, upon receiving news that the two Titan warships had left the battlefield, Admiral Gerard Perein was not alarmed. Instead, he instructed Vice Admiral Dagon Nils to be careful, lest the Titan warships launch a surprise attack.

As for Gerald Pereira himself, he wasn't too worried. According to his estimate, even if the Titans really did move towards him, there would still be three or four days left, and he could calmly adjust his formation and retreat slowly.

Furthermore, he cannot retreat rashly now; he must maintain continuous pressure on the planet Ode-Mantel. Otherwise, if he were to be intimidated and run away, he would inevitably be pursued during his retreat, and rebuilding this massive fleet of 450 capital ships would take far longer than rebuilding those two Titan warships that were wandering around aimlessly.

Moreover, his current fleet contains a large number of small and medium-sized warships, reaching 2000, and he is worried that these warships will suffer even more losses during the retreat.

So the result was that, a day later, Admiral Gerard Perein was still launching an offensive against the planet Od Mantel.

At that very moment, the sensors issued a warning, informing him of a large-scale hyperspace fluctuation. Immediately afterwards, two Titan warships appeared on the battlefield!
Upon witnessing this scene, Admiral Gerard Pereira nearly had his heart stop!
Especially when he saw the two Titan warships rushing towards the battle site without stopping, he immediately felt that something was very wrong.

It's important to understand that the Imperial Fleet is currently on the offensive! Moreover, the Dawn Kingdom Fleet defending on the other side has roughly the same strength as the Imperial Fleet, and the planet Ode-Mantel also has the firepower support of the Agonev-class interplanetary base and a large number of defensive facilities.

In other words, the Dawn Kingdom's fleet consisted of 350 heavy cruisers. While their combat effectiveness rivaled that of capital ships, their size was far smaller than the 1600-meter Imperial-class star destroyers, so a direct one-to-one comparison wasn't accurate. It was this slight advantage that allowed Gerald Perein to maintain his offensive.

Furthermore, he never expected this attack to yield many results; as long as it could hold back the Dawn Kingdom's fleet and prevent them from gathering more troops to attack Bilblin, that would be enough.

But now, with the arrival of the two Titan warships, the balance of power between the two sides has immediately changed!
The enhancement effect of Titan battleships on a fleet goes far beyond simply adding two more super battleships. Whether it's the fleet shield of the Anchoron-class Titan battleship or the phenomenon generator of the Prophet-class Titan battleship, both are powerful forces capable of deciding the outcome of a battle.

"Retreat immediately! Retreat! Quickly!" Gerald Perein roared. He couldn't care less about anything else; he had to get out of the battle as soon as possible before the Titan warships entered the battlefield.

He doesn't have much time left!
The two Titan warships emerged from their hyperspace trajectory very close to the battlefield; a normal hyperspace jump couldn't bring them this close to the planet. But that wasn't the most unusual part. What was truly unusual was their speed!
“How is this possible! How is it possible for them to come over now?!” Gerard Perein slammed his fist on the control panel.

Upon receiving the retreat order, the warships in the Imperial Fleet immediately turned toward one side of the battlefield according to the retreat plan, and gradually increased the distance while maintaining firepower suppression as much as possible.

At this point, turning around is absolutely not an option; doing so would only result in a massacre.

However, Admiral Trench, who was commanding the battle aboard the Titan warship Divine Messenger, would never give him that opportunity.

"Spread out, attack formation. All ships, attack. Tsk tsk tsk tsk..." Admiral Trench tapped the battle map with his pointer, and a holographic projection was drawn out with a spot of light, which was exactly where the Imperial fleet was located!

The Dawn Kingdom's fleet was already poised to launch. The high-speed maneuver of the Titan warships was part of the plan, so all the warships were previously in a very conservative defensive formation. But now, they charged out like arrows released from a bow!

Currently, in the Dawn Kingdom's navy, virtually all warships exceeding 5000 meters in length have replaced their hyperspace engines with warp engines developed by the Forerunners. Warships equipped with warp engines can largely ignore the effects of gravity wells.

In hyperspace travel, the greatest obstacle actually comes from the gravity of those massive celestial bodies. Correspondingly, the hyperspace maneuverability of the warp drive is also much faster.

The Vasari phase engineers played a crucial role in the success of this surprise attack. When constructing the stargate foundation at their forward base on Bilbulin, the first thing they built was the phase beacon. This phase beacon was merely a positioning device for the stargate; relatively simple to construct, it was extremely fragile and easily destroyed, and generally not the first thing they built.

However, the phase engineers first set up the phase beacon, and the location that the beacon pointed to was the planet Od Mantel!
On the planet Ode-Mantel, a stargate is also under construction, though not yet completed. However, this unfinished stargate has already had its phase beacon installed. Thus, while neither stargate is yet operational, they can already provide directional guidance. For Titan warships equipped with warp engines, the phase beacon guidance allows for faster warp jumps.

In reality, even without using the phase beacon, it would only take these two Titan warships about two days to reach the planet Od Mantel, half the time the Galactic Empire had estimated.

The Galactic Empire's intelligence agency had absolutely no clear understanding of the mobility of the warp drive!

Led by two Titan warships, Admiral Trench launched a general offensive! After the Taotie Titan warship entered its combat position, it immediately deployed its fleet shields. A pale green light screen enveloped the row of Dawn Kingdom warships in front, and the Divine Revelation-class battleships and Hells Angel-class battlecruisers at the forefront immediately began to rampage!
The Imperial fleet's firepower, intended to cover their retreat, was largely absorbed by the fleet's shields, preventing the Dawn Kingdom's fleet from suffering counterattack damage during their sudden attack. They then deployed their attack formation and launched a resolute assault on the Imperial fleet.

The battlefield situation instantly became extremely brutal, with countless lasers and missiles raining down like a storm, illuminating almost the entire starry sky.

Admiral Trench commanded the Prophet-class battleships and Hells Angel-class battlecruisers to rush toward the Imperial fleet at top speed. These two types of warships were almost identical, possessing incredibly powerful voltage-type cladding armor, making them difficult to sink unless subjected to concentrated attacks from Imperial-class Star Destroyers.

Furthermore, with the firepower of the Divine Revelation-class and Hells Angel-class ships positioned on both sides, they could fully utilize their flank firepower as they charged into the Imperial-class fleet formation.

Admiral Gerald Perein knew he absolutely could not allow these heavily armored warships to break into his formation. He immediately ordered fighter squadrons to take off to cover the retreat of the capital ships, and ordered bombers to circle around to the rear of the Prophet-class battleships and use proton torpedoes to directly attack the warships' vulnerable engines.

But Admiral Trench retaliated in kind, scrambling his own fighters to directly engage and launch an attack on the Galactic Empire's fighter formation.

The Dawn Kingdom fleet on the planet Ode-Mantel didn't have many Sabre-class fighters; these most advanced fighters were mostly assigned to the combat formations of the Eternal-class supercarriers. However, they were still equipped with the new F-41 Claymore fighters, operating in conjunction with Viking fighters. The performance of these fighters and the skill of the pilots who joined the Rebirth Project were still far superior to the fighter formations of the Galactic Empire!

The Titan warship, the Divine Messenger, had already deployed its phenomenon generator and began charging its doomsday weapon. The sight of terrifying energy constantly gathering filled Gerald Perrin with dread. When he saw the bow of the Titan warship constantly adjusting, he knew that his flagship had been locked on.

Because the Assertioner-class dreadnoughts that were supposed to be assigned to him have not yet arrived, his flagship is currently only an Imperial Class II Star Destroyer, which is not even enough to launch a single doomsday weapon!

Without hesitation, Admiral Gerard Perein immediately ordered a retreat. He quickly boarded a shuttle and left his flagship, flying towards another Star Destroyer at the rear of the battlefield.

However, at that moment, an F-41 Claymore fighter jet that was originally chasing the TIE bomber spotted the Lambda-class shuttle that had suddenly taken off. The Claymore immediately abandoned its original target, activated its afterburner system, and flew over at high speed.

As the alarm sounded repeatedly, indicating that he was being targeted by the fire control radar, Admiral Gerard Perrin, who was inside the shuttle, seemed to hear the end of his life! The guards next to him quickly put a spacesuit on him and led him to the entrance of the escape pod to wait, ready to put him into the escape pod and launch him out if the situation became critical.

However, doing so would be too dangerous on a battlefield amidst the chaos of battle.

At this moment, the Claymore fighter jet had entered the attack position, and the pilot, Rosen Ford, was keeping a cold eye on the system data inside his helmet that was directly reflected in his pupils.

As a pilot in Project Rebirth, Rosen Ford has experienced five deaths. Although he has no memory of dying, he is still very clear about dying in battle. Over time, emotions have long since disappeared from his mind, leaving only cold killing commands.

His wife, unable to bear the change, had already divorced him, taking their daughter with her, and left his life forever—a fate shared by most fighter pilots. But Rosen Ford had no regrets. Like most soldiers of the Kingdom of Dawn, he held only one belief—to finish all the wars in his generation.

That's right, for this belief, he would rather become a natural disaster!
Although the Lambda-class shuttle in front of him was frantically performing evasive maneuvers, and although more than a dozen TIE advanced X-1 fighters were charging towards him like madmen, Rosen Ford's heart remained cold. He reacted quickly, and the Claymore fighter also performed a series of violent and complex roll maneuvers, maintaining lock-on throughout the process and not losing sight of its target.

Imperial fighters around them had already launched shock missiles, but...

"I am the calamity!!" Rosen Ford shouted, pressing the launch button.

Almost instantly, his fighter jet was struck by countless laser beams and exploded into a fireball. However, the four Gemini-III missiles he had launched, equipped with antimatter warheads, had already traced a complex arc and were heading straight for the shuttle!
A nearby Imperial-class Star Destroyer fired its close-in weapon system furiously in an attempt to intercept the four missiles, but only managed to intercept one; the other three hit the shuttle directly!
A fierce burst of flames flashed for a moment, and then the Lambda-class shuttle silently shattered into countless fragments.

Fortunately, at the last moment, Admiral Gerald Pereira was launched into the escape pod and was caught by another Imperial-class Star Destroyer with a tractor beam and pulled into the ship's interior.

At the same time, the light of the doomsday weapon pierced through the entire battlefield!
Four Star Destroyers and more than ten light cruisers were instantly hit by the doomsday weapon and reduced to ashes! Among them was the flagship where Admiral Gerald Perrin had been!

This imperial fleet had completely lost its will to fight; their only remaining thought was to retreat, retreat, retreat!