The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

2837, Titan Killer & Planet Killer

"What's going on! What's all that yelling about in the engine department?!" Major General Carrick was extremely nervous. Hearing the static in the communication, he turned around and shouted.

The adjutant went to investigate and returned with a horrified expression, saying, "General! Something's wrong! The engine department reports that the reactor's power generation efficiency is being continuously disrupted, and the power supply efficiency has now decreased by 20%!"

"What did you say? How is this possible!" Rear Admiral Carrick's expression changed drastically. "Why is the power generation efficiency of our warship's reactor decreasing?"

"I don't know! This is the current situation! Our power generation efficiency is continuously decreasing!" came the exasperated voice of the engine department manager over the communication line.

"What caused this? Those missiles, or those beams?" Major General Carrick shouted.

[It's likely the beams fired from those large warships!] The engine department manager chattered incessantly over the comms. [Wait a minute… I've detected something! I've observed strange quantum resonance around our warship! Damn it… quickly check the hypermatter state stored in the reactor! …The hypermatter is decaying? The metastable equilibrium of the hypermatter has been broken? How is this possible!]

Major General Carrick immediately interrupted him, shouting, "Speak like a human being! I just want to know when the power supply will be restored?!"

"All we need is for their beams to be unable to reach us!" the engine department manager said.

"I'm giving you ten minutes! If you can't restore power in ten minutes, I'll put you in a court-martial!" Carrick roared, then hung up the phone without another word.

He turned and lunged at the control panel, shouting to the operators, "Keep your distance! Quick! Don't let these strange warships attack us!"

"That's impossible, General," the operator said with a mournful face. "With the energy supply reduced, we still have to keep the ship's internal equipment running, the deflector shields are being depleted, and the weapons are being used up! Where would we find the extra energy for the propulsion systems?"

Carrick looked desperately at the gunnery crew, only to see that the firing rate of the warship's XX-9 heavy turbine laser cannons had dropped to 20 rounds per minute! This was because each time they fired, they needed a longer charging time to reach the firing requirement.

This firing rate is already half of the normal rate of fire! In other words, the firepower of the Guardian Executor-class super star destroyer has already been halved as soon as it starts firing!
The adjutant was also covered in cold sweat. "This might be somewhat similar to the separatist Doomsday Battlefield-class battlecruisers... however, the Doomsday Battlefield-class mainly increases energy consumption during transmission, and its impact on the warship is far less significant!"

The communications department also learned the models of the two warships from the miscellaneous communications on the battlefield—the 2000-meter-long, broad-bodied warship was called the Keltu Destroyer; the 2300-meter-long, relatively slender warship was called the Vakonos Destroyer!
The naming convention was extremely strange, completely different from the XXX-class warship naming system commonly used by the Dawn Kingdom and the Galactic Empire. Carrick looked at the battlefield holographic projection and saw five 2000-meter-long Keltu Destroyers attacking his flagship, the Guardian. The Guardian's counterattacks were already becoming weak and ineffective. Worse still, the crescent-shaped particle wave cannons fired from these Keltu Destroyer battlecruisers were incredibly powerful, constantly shaking the Guardian's already severely depleted shields.

Meanwhile, the other 15 Keltu Destroyers were attacking the Imperial-class Star Destroyers, and these warships were fighting in a completely different way than normal space warfare. They did not concentrate their firepower at all; instead, each warship simply picked up an Imperial-class Star Destroyer and started a one-on-one battle.

Without exception, the Imperial-class Star Destroyers attacked by the Keltu Destroyers showed obvious signs of fatigue, with visibly insufficient power supply, flickering deflector shields, and a reduction in the firing frequency of their turbolasers to less than one-third.

What's worse, these Keltu Destroyer battlecruisers showed extremely high readings on the scanning equipment—they were heavily armed, heavily armored, and had sturdy shields, making them veritable numerical monsters.

After being afflicted with a debuff that weakens you from head to toe, you then have to fight a numerical monster one-on-one. That's the strategy of the Keltu Destroyer! Simple, straightforward, and utterly despairing.

The other Imperial-class Star Destroyers opened fire, but the Keltu Destroyers' incredibly thick shields completely ignored them. According to calculations, their shields were strong enough to withstand the attacks until the Imperial-class Star Destroyers they were targeting were destroyed!

Major General Carrick was utterly devastated, because based on the current battlefield situation, he would lose 15 Imperial-class Star Destroyers in 30 minutes! Yes, those 15 ships targeted by the Keltu Destroyers!
But something even worse happened: 10 Vakonos Destroyers began flying at high speed toward the planet Scipio, their formation began to break apart, and they headed toward the planet's main cities that had already been explored.

These massive 2300-meter-long warships began to split apart, with one after another planet-destroying beam launch platform detaching from the sides and anchored in space. These 50-meter-diameter planet-destroying platforms, each with a sharp focusing device at its front, hovered like swords over the major cities of Scipio.

"Destroy those platforms! They're going to bomb the planet! No! Activate the planetary shield! Quick!!" Major General Carrick screamed. What kind of place is Scipio? The financial center of the Galactic Empire! If this place is bombed, it's a slap in the face to the entire Galactic Empire!
Major General Carrick's communicator was vibrating wildly, with countless communication requests being sent in. Any one of the names in those requests was someone that a mere major general like him could not afford to offend!

High-ranking officials, nobles, wealthy merchants, generals, governors... every communication was filled with vicious curses and angry threats, but the content was strikingly similar: if he dared to let a stone fall on Planet Scipio, he would suffer the most severe punishment.

But what was the use? Rear Admiral Carrick smiled dejectedly. The Guardian limped along like an old man; 15 Imperial-class destroyers were desperately fighting the numerical monsters one-on-one, while another 35 Imperial-class destroyers were firing wildly, but to no avail. His forces were simply insufficient to stop the 10 Vakunos Destroyers from bombarding the planet!
Each Vakunos Destroyer has 10 Star Destroyer beam launch platforms, plus the warships themselves, that's 100 Star Destroyer platforms plus 10 2300-meter behemoths.

"Not even a single stone can fall on Planet Scipio?" Major General Carrick murmured. "That's great. These are planet-destroying beams, not stones, and not just one, but a hundred..."

All the planet-destroying beam firing platforms simultaneously began charging, unleashing 100-degree orange-hot beams that shone upon the planetary shield! After a brief charging period, the second round of irradiation immediately commenced! (End of Chapter)