The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 641 The best defense is to counter the force of the attack! (Seeking monthly votes at the beginning of the month!)
[Celebrating, my foot! The aliens' counterattack is just around the corner!]
Cat Tea received a private message.

Most of the 300 players who were captured earlier have died.

After being captured by the Plans Shrimp People, they were forced to work as slave laborers on the alien warship, doing menial tasks such as moving goods and cleaning.

How could players possibly stand this?

After the initial novelty wore off, most people quickly clashed with the Plans Shrimp Man—trading some of their warriors with them before dying themselves and being resurrected on the ground.

Only about twenty players with strong curiosity and a sense of mission "endured the humiliation" and remained on the Plans Shrimp Man's spaceship, trying to obtain more valuable information.

Now is the time for them to demonstrate their value!

As the players sounded the horn of their great counterattack, they stayed by the porthole as much as possible, keeping a close eye on the fleet outside.

They clearly saw the explosion of the first cannon and the disintegration of the spaceship.

The footage of the three spaceships charging their main cannons was also included.

"Something's happened! The aliens have retaliated!" Cat Tea quickly notified the others after receiving the news.

The joyful atmosphere in the operations center immediately vanished.

Soon, others also received more accurate information—

"The aliens are retaliating! All three warships have fired their main guns simultaneously, and the charge-up is almost complete!"

This news immediately threw the scene into chaos:

"No time for self-check! Charge it up and fire another shot!"

"Does this cannon have a shield? Can it stop a railgun?"

"What a joke! We haven't even collected all the blueprints for the city shield yet!"

"Damn it, I told you not to rush things. Set up defenses first before firing. Now look what's happened!"

"Stop being a hindsight expert, come up with a solution now!"

"Where are the people in space? Can we interfere a bit?"

"Zhao, you expect to capture three spaceships with only twenty or so prisoners? Dream on!"

……

The construction of [Deep Space String] was organized and led by a large group of civil engineering experts.

These people are truly adept at organizing large-scale infrastructure projects, but they have virtually no experience in commanding combat operations—especially in this kind of unconventional, futuristic warfare.

There wasn't even a contingency plan in place for the possibility of alien retaliation; everything is in complete chaos now.

Soon, those players who were well-informed among the onlookers outside the cannon also received the news.

They all turned around immediately, hurrying to get away from the cannon.

But there were just too many players gathered here, it was practically a sea of ​​people, how could anyone squeeze out?

Stewart, who was squeezing into the crowd to join in the fun, realized that he couldn't leave, sighed and gave up struggling, then looked up at the sky.

The [Deep Space String]'s previous shot, with its maximum power, cleared away all the obstructing white clouds in the sky.

At this moment, the sky is clean and clear, with nothing obstructing the view.

Therefore, the players on the ground were able to see:
Three dim stars are slowly becoming clearer.

On the rooftop of a building in the southwest direction, Yanluo pointed his telescope at the sky. He didn't need any additional information sources to guess that the aliens would definitely retaliate.

Unfortunately, he didn't know the infrastructure developers and couldn't persuade them to adjust their plans.

Through the eyepiece of the astronomical telescope, the increasingly bright stars revealed their true forms—

The main cannons of the three spaceships are charging!
Yama withdrew his gaze, realizing that he too had made the mistake of relying on past experience.

Previously, Mansheng had encountered orbital attacks from the Plans Shrimp People, and the scorching beams of light falling from the sky left a deep impression on him.

It also provides accurate estimates of the coverage area.

So this time, when he went to watch the spectacle, he chose a location farther away than many others, precisely to escape the range of orbital weapons.

but……

He predicted a single orbital strike, not three!
Now he can only pray that the aliens' attack is accurate enough, that all three shots lock onto the cannon, and that it doesn't affect the surrounding area.
-
While he was praying, the loading team had already completed the second round of loading.

The massive cannon barrel began charging up again!
Moreover, this time the energy storage speed is significantly faster than the first time!
Yama even suspected he was hallucinating—he felt he heard the sound of electricity surging!
The sound came from all directions and quickly converged on the giant cannon in the center.

Three seconds later, he realized that the sound might be an illusion, but his intuition was right!

Because behind him, the city was fading into darkness, row by row—

Those holographic signs and large advertisements that used to flash 24 hours a day were turned off one by one, block by block.

The multi-level indicator lights of the three-dimensional transportation system turn off from far to near.

The brightly lit shopping malls and shops, which were brightly lit even in broad daylight, suddenly went dark.

……

Their power was ruthlessly drained by the super cannon to prepare for this catastrophic disaster.

The indicator lights on the giant cannon barrel were rapidly increasing in speed, and rings of blue electromagnetic surges swept across the barrel...

The rapid charging made this one look even more spectacular than the first shot!
But this time, the operations center didn't rush to fire.

"Deep Space String is 100% charged and ready for launch."

The familiar voice came through the loudspeaker again.

But this time, what followed was not "Fire!", but a woman's voice: "Keep charging!"

That was Cat Tea's voice.

At this moment, her vision split in two—

On the left is the first-person perspective of the player who infiltrated space, showing the charging progress of the Plans Shrimp Man's main cannon.

On the right is the control panel in front of me, which displays the current operating status of [Deep Space String].

"Deep Space String is 120% charged and ready for launch."

The electronic voice continued broadcasting.

"Keep going!" Cat Tea gritted her teeth. "Damn it! Hurry up! How can alien technology charge so slowly!"

"The Deep Space String is fully charged and has entered an overload state. It will suffer irreparable damage in 5 seconds. 32"

With one second left in the countdown, the spaceship's main cannons in space finally finished charging, and all three cannons fired in succession.

A dazzling white light descended from the sky!

At that very moment, Cat Tea finally issued its final command:
"Fuck them, fire!!"

The entire cannon barrel was almost completely enveloped in intense blue light due to the excessively strong electromagnetic effect, and even trembled slightly.

Everyone can see it:
The entire cannon is at its limit and is about to explode—or short-circuit?
But just a second before the barrel exploded, a burst of intense blue light finally erupted from the muzzle, meeting the trajectory strike that was falling from the sky!
This is the defense strategy that Cat Tea came up with in a brilliant way—

Even a laser weapon, when used for orbital strikes, takes time to travel from space to the ground. Considering its incredible destructive power, its speed must be slower than the speed of light!
That's enough for the giant cannons to fire shells, attack against attack!

Under the watchful eyes of countless people, four beams of light—one blue and three white—converged in the air.

In an instant, a blinding ball of light burst forth in the air.

The player on the ground, who had been staring intently at the sky, suddenly screamed in agony, covering his eyes and regretting his actions.

But immediately, he couldn't resist squinting through his fingers to watch this earth-shattering collision—

Inside the sphere of light, violent energies are colliding fiercely!
The cannonballs, enveloped in blue energy, and the white high-energy particle beams tore at and annihilated each other, emitting the crackling sound of electricity and the low-frequency roar.

The heatwave generated by the superposition of energy spread rapidly, evaporating even the distant clouds and turning the sky an eerie purplish-red. The hot wind swept over them, and the players on the rooftop could almost smell their own burning hair.

In this unprecedented super collision, the players' meticulously crafted super projectiles, relying on the powerful kinetic energy of extreme overload, stubbornly pushed upwards against three laser beams that were almost merged into one!

The shell's outer casing was scorched by the laser, producing a dazzling flame, and a bright yellow flame appeared where the blue and white light met!

The shells are melting rapidly.

The molten iron, formed from the melting at the front, left a trail of orange-red slag in the air, like a wildly dancing fire dragon!
Push the high-energy ion beam back!

The ion beam, centered on the contact point, sputtered outwards in arcs of energy that randomly struck the city.

This astonishing spectacle left everyone speechless, their hearts pounding.

He couldn't even utter a word of praise.

But this grand and magnificent scene only lasted for a short 3 seconds.

The sustained high-energy impact generated astonishing heat, rapidly melting the shell from 30 meters to less than 10 meters.

The dragon's size kept shrinking until it reached its limit.

"Boom" a loud noise.

The shell finally exploded, blasting out a large, bright burst of fire.

Now, the players who were watching the spectacle finally knew just how much explosives those ruthless bomb-crazed freaks had stuffed into the "super shell"!
—The shockwave from the explosion even reached the ground!

Molten iron and twisted fragments shot down like meteors, randomly taking the lives of hundreds of enthusiastic spectators.

But this is only the smallest loss.

After the Plans Shrimp Man's high-energy ion beam destroyed the super projectile in a head-on collision, although it consumed a huge amount of energy, its residual power remained!

With no more obstacles, it descended from the sky in an instant, hitting [Deep Space String] precisely!

The players around the cannon instantly vaporized.

Players a short distance away were swept by the intense heat shockwave and fell down in swathes like harvested wheat.

Players further away were blinded by the burst of white light, their vision reduced to a vast expanse of white.

Besides the deafening roar of the explosion, all I could hear was the creaking and squeaking of metal deforming and twisting.

After only a few seconds had actually passed, but a long time had passed in their senses, their eyes regained their ability to see.

But what lies before us is already a scene of devastation—

Let's set aside the buildings that were hit by the energy arcs and melted and ignited.

We'll skip over the charred corpses of players scattered across the ground for now.

The true core, the planetary cannon that everyone is so concerned about—[Deep Space String]—has suffered heavy damage!
The middle of the cannon barrel was twisted and deformed, the coil inside the hollow acceleration rail melted and twisted, steel fragments kept peeling off, the charging cable caught fire and burned, and thick black smoke rose up.

This severe loss deeply distressed Yama.

The loss of this devastating weapon hurt him more than the deaths of millions of players!
……

Inside the heavily guarded operations center, the "command post" was not completely destroyed.

Four players with relatively strong characters successfully survived.

Many new players entering the virtual world have a misconception: that all players in the Mansheng City have similar physical attributes.

Experienced players may have one or two more abilities due to playing more games, and their equipment may also be better.

But the basic attributes remain the same.

As long as the newcomer has good skills, they can also beat these veterans!

To some extent, this idea is not wrong.

However, they severely underestimated the difficulty of this task and could not even imagine how skilled a newcomer would need to be to defeat an experienced player with only average skills.

In fact, many abilities—whether it's the extremely difficult-to-obtain Nen ability or the relatively easier-to-break limit skills—can improve a player's basic attributes.

You can even practice boxing and fight in the Sky Arena. The more you fight, the higher your basic attributes will be.

Although it doesn't have the immediate effect of skills, it can still create a significant gap between you and a casual player who does nothing over time.

Therefore, in Mansheng City, the differences between "combat players," "logistics players," and "casual players" are not merely differences in names.

In many cases, this is also a real difference in combat strength and attributes!
Like now:

Despite the indiscriminate attack that killed everyone else, four players who had spent a lot of time playing the game and had almost never missed a major battle managed to survive.

The Civil Engineering Saintess Cat Tea is also among them.

She rushed to the sparking control panel and quickly checked the still-operating monitor screen.

After a few simple attempts, she couldn't help but burst into laughter.

"Hahaha, a great success!"

"I knew it! This is how you can do it!"

"I'm so awesome!"

She was so excited!

Because the completeness of [Deep Space String] is still as high as 71%!

The most critical and costly energy core boasts an integrity rate of up to 88%!

—These losses even stemmed from energy overload, rather than orbital strikes!
The previous attack by the Plans Shrimp People destroyed everything within its range with a single orbital strike.

This triple-powered version should have melted the entire giant cannon into molten iron, burned the surrounding buildings into torches, and left everyone without a trace.

Just look at all those corpses in the square outside...

The impact of this strike was far less than expected!

and so--

Without a doubt, her tactics were a huge success!

The losses have been minimized!
[Deep Space String] doesn't need to be rebuilt from scratch.

With enough resources, it can be fully repaired within two or three days!

Of course, before that, we have to wait for the system to fix the power system in the surrounding blocks.

"Brilliant!"

"She has ideas; no wonder she's the Holy Maiden of the Civil Engineering Sect!"

"You're really something. You can take charge next time."

The other three were convinced and offered their praise.

There was no one at the doorway, but then a round of applause came from inside. They turned around and saw that the person who came in was Xu Meng.

However, before they could say anything, Xu Meng disappeared from their sight again.

It's like I made this special trip just to give them a round of applause.

After a few strange seconds, the group quickly put the matter aside.

There are more important things to do now—

Clean up the mess, repair the giant cannon, be wary of the shrimp people, and...

Working overtime to build a defensive shield for the city!
Until it can withstand orbital strikes, [Deep Space String] must not fire recklessly again!
(End of this chapter)