The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2692 The Fall of the Fortress (The End)
2692. The Fall of the Fortress (The End)

The Dawn Kingdom fleet's surprise attack on the planet Bilbrin gave the Galactic Empire's defenders absolutely no time to react!

This is a fixed mindset, because although the Dawn Kingdom does have a forward base in the Bilbrin system, this base is essentially a complex of spatial buildings, and although it is defended by a fleet, the number of this fleet is only one-third of the Imperial fleet.

In addition, the complex hyperspace travel environment between the Dawn Kingdom and the planet Bilblin makes it difficult to expand the size of this forward base and its garrison. That's basically it.

Lieutenant Admiral Dagon-Nils had previously launched a surprise attack on this location, which failed, mainly because Dunn-Wessex was unwilling to bear further losses and forcibly recalled the fleet. However, this failed attack gave the Galactic Empire considerable confidence, as they believed that without the Titans, the fleet remaining on Bilbrin was poorly supplied and unlikely to threaten their defenses.

Moreover, Dunn Wessex was already reluctant and unwilling to agree to maintain such a sizable garrison on Bilbrin, and this sentiment naturally infected the captains and officers of his subordinate ships. Almost everyone thought that they were just standing guard on Bilbrin, nothing serious.

Even if they launch an offensive in the future to eliminate the thorns left behind by the Kingdom of Dawn, that will be the responsibility of the main force in the rear, and will have nothing to do with the local garrison.

However, this time, the Dawn Kingdom fleet in front of them had been planning for a long time and was just waiting for a fatal blow!

Their strategic deception operation took a full month, spanning almost all fronts across the galaxy. They continuously misled the Galactic Empire's judgment through military, intelligence, and even political maneuvering before secretly deploying their fleet in an extremely drastic manner to launch the attack.

Moreover, the Dawn King Tang Xiao is personally in charge of this fleet!
With this shift in power, the situation suddenly became like a tiger entering a flock of sheep!
From the moment the Dawn Kingdom's fleet was mobilized to the moment it launched its attack, it took only one day, leaving the Galactic Empire less than half an hour to react!
In other words, from the moment the Galactic Empire discovered that a large fleet was rushing out from the direction of the forward base to the moment the two sides clashed, there were less than 20 minutes!

The Galactic Empire's military, which had been convinced they had at least two or three days to react, was thoroughly humiliated! As Palpatine had forwarded to Marshal Oswald Tessik, if they were really going to launch an attack, they wouldn't give them even an hour, let alone two or three days!

This judgment was entirely based on the Imperial military's own bureaucratic style and rampant factionalism, projecting their own experience onto others. Not only did they not have time to react, but even if they had time to react, it would have been useless.

Dunn-Wessex is unlikely to reduce the defenses of Palin-Minor to strengthen Bilbrin, and Marshal Oswald Tessik is unlikely to send troops directly to the King of the North's territory. Unless he intends to break ties with Dunn-Wessex, or His Majesty the Emperor intervenes and directly places Bilbrin under the First Star System's defense zone.

In fact, Dunn-Wessex would be very happy to do so, but the Galactic Empire could not agree to this great warlord of the North not taking on any obligation to guard the Empire's frontier.

Therefore, this is why even when His Majesty the Emperor personally visited, the First Star System Army remained only on Planet Scipio, and at most advanced to Planet Palancy after receiving news of the Dawn Kingdom's attack.

With his vast territory in the North and the backing of Quarter Power Shipyard, Dunn-Wessex was the de facto most powerful warlord in the Empire. And the core leadership of the Empire, including Emperor Palpatine, did not want this to become a reality.

Others, such as Darth Vader, while commanding a fleet no less powerful than Dunn Wessex's, were directly subordinate to the Emperor. He had no independent territories, and his fleet's logistics and supplies depended entirely on the Empire. Based on this alone, Darth Vader could never have been a warlord.

So now, when the Dawn Kingdom fleet launched its attack, the Galactic Empire fleet's formation was quickly shattered, with warships flying everywhere. However, their captains were still somewhat capable of making judgments, at least knowing to hide behind those armed asteroids to give themselves a chance to regroup.

But the situation was beyond saving!
At this moment, on the outskirts of the planet Bilblin, lasers and missiles are flying everywhere, and swarms of drones are almost ubiquitous.

Tens of thousands of drone swarms provided cover for other fighter and bomber formations, allowing them to bypass the Imperial fleet's frontal fire and launch attacks from the weakly defended rear, firing proton torpedoes.

But at this point, the asteroid belt surrounding Bilbrin finally came into play. The modified, armed asteroids were fitted with numerous close-in weapon systems (CIWS). While these CIWS lacked advanced fire control systems, their sheer number and the highly irregular distribution of asteroids meant that the CIWS were ubiquitous.

Amidst this dense barrage of fire, the Swarm II drones suffered massive losses. In the starry sky, the flames of exploding drones were visible everywhere; the swarm of drones, like a dark cloud, swept across the sky, only to be instantly ignited within the range of the armed asteroid's firepower, and then vanished in swathes.

However, the heavy loss of these drones gave the fighter squadrons an opportunity. Viking fighters carrying proton torpedoes quickly flew through the gaps in the anti-aircraft barrage created by the drones and launched a fierce attack on the Imperial-class Star Destroyers.

The Galactic Empire's fighter squadron also quickly took off, with TIE/LN light fighters and the commonly equipped TIE advanced X-1 fighters desperately intercepting the Dawn Kingdom's fighter squadron, and the two sides engaged in fierce fighting.

However, as with countless previous battles, the Galactic Empire's fighters were overwhelmingly crushed in these engagements. The Sabre-class fighters aboard the Eternal-class supercarriers possessed combat capabilities far exceeding any fighter currently in service with the Galactic Empire, and the Galactic Empire had no countermeasures whatsoever.

However, these fighters did buy some time. Vice Admiral Dalmar Holken, commander of the Galactic Empire fleet, made a decisive move and quickly ordered all warships to regroup and descend into planetary orbit.

After entering a planetary synchronous orbit, the powerful gravity of the planet is used to restrict the maneuverability of the Dawn Kingdom's fighters. This is a standard response in many situations, a last resort, and it will also cause friendly warships to be captured by the planet's gravity, thus limiting their maneuverability and forcing them to engage in direct firepower battles with the enemy.

But at least, it gave them a tiny bit of a chance.

Most importantly, Vice Admiral Dalmar-Holken was eliminating any possibility of escape for the warship captains. These captains had already deserted once during the previous assault on the Dawn Kingdom's forward base, so they all had a history of doing so. This time, they absolutely could not allow these warships to abandon their planets and run away.

In order to survive, the Galactic Empire's warships gradually assembled, forming seven irregular clusters, some with nearly 200 capital ships, and others with only a dozen or so capital ships and a little over a hundred light cruisers.

The warships of these clusters converged and formed a dense formation to fight back desperately.

The Dawn Kingdom's warships became more cautious at this point, because in the nearly one-hour raid, they had successfully destroyed 150 capital ships, severely damaging the Galactic Empire's garrison.

More importantly, it has dealt a blow to the morale of the Galactic Empire's officers and soldiers. The fleet is now demoralized, with officers and soldiers at all levels only concerned with saving their own lives; combat is no longer of any interest.

The battle has now reached a point where both sides have deployed nearly 700 capital ships in this large-scale engagement, and a victor has already been determined.

The Dawn Kingdom's fleet began a slight retreat, initiating targeted cleanup of the surrounding armed asteroids. This time, over 30 Hellsangel-class battlecruisers equipped with splitting beams began to demonstrate their immense destructive power against the asteroids.

Without a deflector shield, the split beam can often destroy an asteroid in less than 20 minutes, making it extremely efficient.

However, with thousands of asteroids around, they could still buy them considerable time. Lieutenant General Dalmar-Holken was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief and began to do everything he could to regroup his scattered fleet.

He had completely given up hope of victory; he could only hope to buy as much time as possible and wait for reinforcements to arrive. Meanwhile, in order to find out how the Kingdom of Dawn had managed to mobilize such a large fleet, Lieutenant General Dalmara-Holken dispatched a large number of reconnaissance aircraft to investigate.

However, the planet has been completely blockaded by the Dawn Kingdom's fleet, and all the reconnaissance aircraft have been shot down, not a single one survived. Moreover, the electronic jamming on the battlefield is extremely powerful, rendering long-range sensors completely ineffective.

Finally, with no other option, Lieutenant General Dalmar-Holken ordered the use of a deep-space telescope for astronomical research to conduct optical imaging detection, snapping a series of pictures in the direction of the forward base.

Finally, in one of the photos, Lieutenant General Holken saw his answer—the Stargate! A towering, massive ring-shaped structure with a diameter of tens of thousands of meters.

Although the photos are blurry, it is already confirmed that the Dawn Kingdom built a stargate on the planet Bilbrin in less than a month!
Lieutenant General Dalmara Holst quickly sent the photos to the Galactic Empire's Supreme Strategic Command, requesting reinforcements to be dispatched as soon as possible to destroy the stargate before more fleets could arrive.

However, what he didn't know was that reinforcements were completely impossible to arrive.

When news reached the rear that Bilblin had been suddenly attacked and that the planet had suddenly completed the construction of its stargate, the Galactic Empire was greatly shocked and immediately convened an emergency meeting to discuss the matter.

Their discussion wasn't about how to reinforce Bilblin. Judging from the situation, the planet was no longer capable of organizing an effective defense; sending reinforcements at this point would be futile.

Moreover, political factors must also be considered. Dunn-Wessex's attitude is crucial; he must set an example and prove that he remains loyal to the Galactic Empire.

The Supreme Strategic Command immediately ordered Dunn-Wessex to launch an attack on Od Mantel to tie down the rear of the Dawn Kingdom fleet as much as possible. They planned to decide whether to send reinforcements to Bilbrin based on Dunn-Wessex's response.

Meanwhile, there is another question that is truly crucial—how exactly did the Kingdom of Dawn manage to complete the construction of the stargate within a month?
If this problem remains unsolved, then there is no way to counter it. If the Dawn Kingdom continues to replicate this operation on the front lines, reducing the construction time of the Stargate to one month, then the Galactic Empire will find it almost impossible to defend all of its borders.

By then, the Empire will have no choice but to continuously shrink its defenses, and may even have to abandon the Inner Ring Sector.

Compared to this outcome, the gains and losses on Planet Bilblin are indeed minor issues.

Dunn-Wessex finally understood the importance and urgency of the matter. He didn't even wait for the Lyra to be fully repaired before quickly diverting half of the garrison gathered on Palin-Minol, sending a powerful force of 600 capital ships straight to Od Mantel.

He told his rear command that this would at least tie down the movements of another Titan warship in the North—the Taotie.

The battle on the planet Ode-Mantel quickly commenced. The Dawn Kingdom fleet defending the planet consisted of 150 capital ships and over 300 heavy cruisers, but lacked any warships of the caliber of Prophecy-class battleships or Eternity-class supercarriers. Therefore, Dunn-Wessex planned to launch the first attack, engaging the enemy in long-range combat, at least to establish a show of force.

With the help of the now-arrived Assertor-class Dreadnought, we can definitely suppress the Od Mantel planet's guard fleet.

Then, once the Lila is fully repaired, it can directly storm into the battlefield and reap the rewards of victory.

Under such pressure, the Kingdom of Dawn had no choice but to immediately withdraw the Taotie from Agamar to strengthen its defenses.

However, at this moment, the situation has changed again!

On the Titan warship Divine Messenger, which was engaged in fierce battle on the planet Bilblin, a sudden change occurred!

The Titan warship Divine Messenger used a doomsday weapon after the start of the war, but its subsequent movements became highly suspicious. It began deploying hyperspace beacons on the battlefield.

It is known that the stargate construction at the forward base has been completed, so what exactly is the Divine Messenger doing?
Now, the answer has finally been revealed!
A dazzling white light flashed by; it was the flash produced when the warship broke free of the hyperspace channel.

And appearing on the battlefield along with the flash of light was the second ship of the Anchoron-class Titan battleship—the Taotie!

What shocked every officer and soldier of the Galactic Empire on the battlefield was that the Taotie, guided by the hyperspace beacon of the Titan warship Divine Messenger, actually jumped directly into the planet's gravity well!
That's right, it's the area where the most Imperial warships are gathered!