Star Ocean: Starting from the Abandoned Mining Space Station.

Chapter 356 Reinforcements
Within the Mechanical Race's star gate system, the star gate named No. 7 by the Empire is being activated.

The mirror membrane is slowly covering the circular area inside the stargate frame.

And near the star gate is the mechanical fleet ready for battle.

When Chen Ming's Zerg gathered to attack the mechanical colony, they were already preparing here, obviously guessing Chen Ming's next move.

This does not affect Chen Ming's continued implementation of his plan.

Just look at the fleet composed of at least four motherships, 130,000 cruisers and more destroyers and escorts.

He suddenly realized that he had some misunderstandings about the mechanical race, or the power of industry.

Chen Ming's previous speculation on the number of warships owned by the Mechanical Clan was based on the data he usually learned, and was estimated through the combat readiness of different star fields.

He thought that after the battle with the Black Mist Zerg just now, there should be very few cruiser-level forces left within the Mechanical Clan's star field.

But the facts were obviously not what he thought.

But those numbers would obviously continue to increase in a real war.

The war between the Machines and the Empire has been going on for several months since it started.

They must have analyzed the empire's intentions long ago and had already begun the industrial transformation within their territory.

Not to mention battleships, at least cruisers will definitely be mass-produced.

The 40,000 ships Chen Ming had previously estimated were just the norm.

In a real war that would lead to destruction, the most likely scenario is that all productivity would be used to produce tools of war.

No matter who it is for.

However, the number of 130,000 cruisers is also quite large for the mechanical race's star field.

They probably have placed all the cruisers produced in recent times here.

Logically speaking, after the previous battles, the Mechanic race should have understood that in front of the Zerg, all ships that are not battleships are just cannon fodder and cannon fodder that can resist a little bit. Why did they prepare so many cruisers?
Wouldn't it be better to use these cruisers in the war with the Empire, or even to raid Imperial colonies, than to leave them here?

There are two possibilities for the Mechanical Clan to do this.

One is to act as a meat shield for those motherships and the stargate itself, so that the motherships will at least not face the concentrated fire of millions of Zerg fleets at the same time in the early stages of the attack, thereby creating an opportunity for the motherships to quickly clear the Zerg fleet.

The possibility of doing so is very high.

The firepower of the mother ship, especially when facing a dense battle line, is quite terrifying. Dozens or even hundreds of warships can be affected by a random sweep.

The power of main force weapons is so strong that one contact will basically kill you.

This is a situation that the Zerg fleet cannot avoid when attacking.

Just like before.

Although the Black Mist Zerg fleet drove away the three Mechanical motherships, its own losses were also considerable.

If the Mechanical Clan had more cruisers, then it would be possible for them to rely on cannon fodder to delay the attack until the mothership could create enough results.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the mothership really has so much war supplies to destroy so many Zerg warships.

Another possibility is that they did this for some subsequent arrangements.

But no matter which one it is, it doesn't have much impact.

There is no way Chen Ming would give up his plan just because of some speculations.

And to him, all the mechanical destroyers and frigates were just cannon fodder.

All the cruisers were just like a mantis trying to stop a chariot in front of the Zerg fleet.

The only thing you need to pay attention to is the Mechanoid mothership.

The appearance of these four motherships brought the total number of the Mechanical Clan's battleships to twelve.

What's even more troublesome is that this time, there are two motherships guarding the Stargate system, each equipped with a psychic spine cannon.

Moreover, there are four or five motherships behind Chen Ming's Zerg fleet, which may catch up at any time.

The three motherships can destroy hundreds of thousands of Zerg warships in just over ten minutes with tens of thousands of cruisers acting as meat shields.

If the Mechanic race were to gather seven, eight or even more motherships within a galaxy, the number of his Zerg warships lost would definitely not be calculated by simply multiplying by two.

This might be the reason why the Mechanicals deliberately released so many cruisers into this galaxy.

Chen knew clearly that he could not delay any longer.

In particular, the star gates within the galaxy are still being activated.

He knew of eleven motherships that the Mechanical Clan could mobilize, and there were likely more behind the star gate.

Under Chen Ming's command, the Zerg fleet immediately launched a long-range attack on the stargate itself.

The Star Gate is a huge building, but in Chen Ming's opinion it is also very fragile.

In order to maintain the basic function of the star gate for long-distance travel, the star gate itself must have a large number of high-precision equipment, which means that its own defense capabilities are definitely not strong. Destroying it directly is definitely the best way to prevent the mechanical race from continuing to send reinforcements here.

And even if the star gate is damaged, it’s not a big problem. At worst, we can just repair it.

Even if Chen Ming doesn't understand the operating principles of the star gate, his abilities can still be used on it.

However, Chen Ming's idea did not come true.

Because just as the Zerg warships fired countless acid plasma balls towards the star gate, and these bright green light balls were approaching the star gate.

A force from an unknown source suddenly acted on all the plasma balls, deflecting their trajectories. Not a single one of them hit the target successfully.

That is the power of the singularity in action.

Ranged weapons have absolutely no effect.

If you want to destroy the star gate, you have to get close enough.

However, the mechanical fleet near the star gate was closely arranged near the star gate.

Although they didn't know that Chen Ming could send additional afterglow cores over for control, they knew that if the Zerg touched the star gate, they would be doomed. There would inevitably be an outcome between the star gate being controlled and being destroyed.

The Zerg cannot be killed completely, even if the Destroyer comes. Without the support of the Star Gate, it would be equivalent to completely abandoning this star region.

They must be stopped here.

Relying on the mothership and the upcoming reinforcements, the Zerg fleet will be destroyed here.

The firepower of the four motherships is extremely terrifying.

They are distributed at different positions of the star gate, protecting the star gate behind them.

However, the Zerg are even more terrifying.

The Zerg fleet in space can attack the stargate from any angle. The twelve spine cannons of the Mechanical Clan cannot withstand attacks from a 360-degree circular surface even in two-dimensional space, let alone an attack from a spherical surface.

Before, when the Black Mist Zerg attacked the Mechanical Race, the Mechanical Race could escape and engage in guerrilla warfare with the Zerg within the galaxy, but now the Mechanical Race must block the star gate at all costs.

This is simply using their greatest disadvantage to fight against the Zerg's greatest advantage.

Even if the Mechanicals have two Psychic Spine Cannons, it will be meaningless.

One of these two psychic spine cannons is the Soul Killer that Chen Ming knew.

It is completely ineffective against the hive consciousness of the Zerg swarm.

All we can say is that the Soul Killer is naturally antagonized by creatures with hive minds like the Zerg. Of course, it is also possible that the Zerg are naturally antagonized by this type of weapon.

There is mutual restraint, and who wins or loses depends only on who is stronger.

If the Soul Killer is stronger, then the entire Zerg will be killed directly by the Soul Killer.

But if the Zerg's consciousness is stronger, then the Soul Killer will obviously not have any effect, just like it is now.

The other psychic spine cannon can tear apart the structure of the Zerg cruiser out of thin air, which has a terrifying visual effect.

But the actual effect is only slightly stronger than the normal ridge cannon.

It doesn't have the suppressive power of the Destroyer at all.

The outcome is obvious.

The Zerg's acid cannons almost formed a wall of acid that trapped all the mechanicals inside.

The Zerg's biological fighters can completely destroy any warships that fail to erect full-angle shields.

The war within the Stargate galaxy can no longer be called a battlefield.

It is a combination of a meat grinder and a pulverizer.

What was minced was the flesh and blood of the Zerg, and what was shattered was the structure of the Mechanical Race.

The Mechanoids are already trying their best to stop the Zerg fleet.

But the Zerg are still gradually crushing the Mechanical fleet.

The time that hundreds of thousands of mechanical cruisers can hold out in the battle with the Zerg is simply not enough for the mothership to defeat the Zerg fleet.

The mechanical fleet's formation was quickly shattered by the seemingly endless Zerg. The four motherships could only barely maintain their shields to keep the Zerg outside.

They still have the ability to protect themselves and to destroy the Zerg, but they no longer have the ability to protect the star gate.

After the Zerg tore through the defense line formed by the Mechanical cruisers.

The four motherships suddenly stopped where they were, all weapons stopped firing, and all running systems came to a standstill in an instant.

The mothership didn't stop, it was... stagnant.

All the acid cannons fired at the mothership, all the biological fighters and biological missiles that rushed towards the mothership's shield, all stopped abruptly after approaching.

Even the Zerg warships close to the mothership's shield fell into stagnation like the mothership.

But Chen Ming did not disconnect the links of those locked Zerg units.

The consciousness of those Zerg units remains active.

And what they felt was that the space around the mothership seemed to be locked, making them unable to move.

If that were all, it wouldn't be a big deal.

But at the same time, the mirror of the star gate that was about to open suddenly flashed for a moment.

A twisted force swept towards the surrounding space with the base of the star gate as its origin.

This is a force that distorts space.

While distorting the space, it is also tearing apart the Zerg in the surrounding space.

Only a small number of mechanical races and Zergs in the stasis state of the mothership survived.

All other Zerg fleets that dared to approach were crushed into pieces by this unstoppable force.

And the scope of this force is expanding rapidly.

Only the Zerg fleet, which was close to the periphery and could not directly attack the Stargate due to the range of fire, was spared from the attack of the Stargate using the space distortion caused by the singularity. Just one counterattack by the Stargate caused more than half of the Zerg fleet to be destroyed.

The Zerg fleet that originally had four million soldiers now only has over one million soldiers left.

This attack almost completely cleared the area around the star gate.

The remaining Zerg that survived by relying on the indiscriminate stasis of the mothership also found it difficult to continue fighting between the mothership and the remaining mechanical warships.
And the Zerg fleet just outside Chen Ming has not yet filled the gap of the past.

The Mechanical Clan’s star gate…was activated successfully.

Ripples appeared on the gorgeous mirror film, and complete mechanical warships were passing through the star gate and entering the galaxy that the Zerg was invading.

In just a blink of an eye, four newly appeared motherships were stationed around the star gate, protecting the star gate itself together with the motherships already in the galaxy.

And within the mirror of the star gate, more and more mechanical warships are flying out at high speed to join in this battle.

The fighting power of the mechanical reinforcements looks very intimidating.

It seems that the mechanical clan has really arranged all their main forces here.

But Chen Ming was not afraid.

Its Zerg fleet still outnumbers the Mechanicals, and the attack that the Stargate just released is definitely not likely to be used a second time in a short period of time.

This is not just Chen Ming's conclusion based on the power and impact of the attack and the energy consumed.

Moreover, he could sense that the surrounding space could no longer withstand further disturbance after the previous one.

To be precise, it is impossible to disrupt it again.

The mechanical race wants to replicate the space distortion just now, unless they can forcibly flatten the disturbed space.

Doing this is ten thousand times more difficult than disrupting space.

Therefore, Chen Ming was not at all panicked and continued to let the Zerg rush towards the star gate.

The Zerg's behavior became more extreme from this moment on.

Many of them have given up attacking and survival, just to allow themselves or their companions to touch the star gate and the mirror of the star gate.

It's not just the star gate itself, but also because behind the star gate, there must be another important star region of the mechanical race.

If the Zerg can spread there, Chen Ming will have more power and the Mechanicals will lose more opportunities.

And the most important thing.

As long as the Zerg corpse fragments or blood can finally contaminate the star gate, Chen Ming's goal will actually be achieved.

The Zerg fleet still charged towards the star gate fearlessly, and like a meat grinder, it crushed all the mid- and low-level warships of the Mechanical Clan that emerged from the star gate.

Then Chen Ming suddenly discovered a problem.

There's something wrong with the material these warships are made of.

When Chen Ming attacks the mechanical clan, he often deliberately collects some materials from the mechanical clan.

After all, the battles he had fought with the mechanical race so far were all large-scale, and each time a large number of mechanical race members and mechanical warships were destroyed.

The main structure of the mechanical family is usually Baiyun steel alloy.

And due to the problem of technological loss, the proportion of Baiyun steel in the Baiyun steel alloy of the mechanical family is usually only a few percent.

Therefore, it is still valuable to collect the remains of the mechanical race, and it may supplement household expenses.

Even if it is difficult to collect these materials in some cases, just letting the Zerg warships eat them and digesting them during battle can also become a part of the Zerg warships' endurance.

And in this battle, Chen Ming did the same as usual.

Then he found out.

There is a problem with the material ratio of the warships that appear in these star gates, and something is missing.

In this mechanical star field bordering the Empire's Galo star field.

The materials used by most mechanical units, whether ground units or warships, are mostly produced from the galaxies in the nebula area that Chen Ming is attacking at this time.

In this nebula environment, there exists a dust-like material that is unique to this nebula. It is suspended in this area and is also the basis of this nebula, filling every corner.

Therefore, everything in this nebula will have this special material mixed in it, and it will be mixed in with everything.

This special substance has an effect somewhat similar to that of Baiyun Steel, making the quality of resources mined from this nebula better than those from other places.

Therefore, the mechanical family usually does not actively precipitate this substance. At most, some precision components will precipitate it if the purity needs to be guaranteed.

And most things that are manufactured will carry this material.

Therefore, Chen Ming can distinguish which mechanical individuals are original to this star field and which are foreign.

That's why he kept wondering where the reinforcements of the Mechanical Clan were.

Those external reinforcements will not be mixed with materials unique to this nebula.

And now Chen Ming can be sure.

These fleets that emerged from the star gate are the external reinforcements of the Mechanical Race.

However, this was just an ordinary fleet. Although there were four motherships in the fleet, more than 40,000 cruisers came out of the star gate one after another, as well as a large number of destroyers and escorts.

In the empire, it is equivalent to a medium-developed star field taking out all its military forces.

It can be said that this is a fleet with considerable comprehensive combat capability.

But in Chen Ming's opinion, it was completely meaningless and there was no point in him being so defensive.

Chen Ming has been looking for reinforcements from the Mechanical Clan, and has been worried whether the reinforcements from the Mechanical Clan will have strength beyond his expectations.

If another Destroyer or a slightly weaker Spine Cannon comes along, the battle may become one-sided.

He was also worried that reinforcements would suddenly appear when it was fighting the mechanical race, causing the failure of some important battles.

So he has been preparing many backup plans.

But the result... is this?
Chen Ming felt like he was fighting a battle of wits and courage with the air.

He had felt some pressure in his heart before, after all, he really didn't know the strength, number and location of the reinforcements.

But now that the mechanical reinforcements have appeared, there is nothing to say.

But he still had doubts in his mind.

Is it really that simple?

The several traps set for him by the mechanical tribe were almost impossible for him to avoid without special abilities.

Some of them even targeted his abilities, but the hidden parts of his abilities were better known than the mechanical race knew, so the mechanical race had not been able to achieve their goals.

And now the backup measures arranged by the Mechanical Clan don't seem to have the same feeling as before. Is it possible that this is also a trap set by the Mechanical Clan to make him let down his guard?
Hard to say.

Chen Ming's eyes swept across the mechanical race's foreign reinforcement fleet.

He couldn't even be sure whether this powerful-looking fleet was the entire external reinforcement of the Mechanical Clan.

If there are other reinforcements and these are just baits, he might still run into trouble.

Chen Ming always believed that when fighting against the relics of the shining civilization, such as the mechanical race, one must be extremely vigilant until the last mechanical race is killed or controlled.

To put it simply, it means to pay attention tactically and despise strategically.

This shows how much he values ​​the mechanical race tactically.

It would not be easy for the Empire to get those millions of cruisers.

You can get it out if you really want to, but it is absolutely impossible to do it within a week in a very relaxed situation.

At the very least, we need to change the production line and mobilize the whole country to produce it.

But there is no need for the Empire to do so.

Because the Empire can produce capital ships.

If we have the capability to produce millions of cruisers, we can also produce thousands or tens of thousands of battleships.

Chen Ming has personally experienced the suppressive power of the main battleship on lower-level ships several times.

The huge loss was enough to show the true power of the mothership.

If it weren't for the limited size of the Mechanical Star Domain itself, and the Zerg being strengthened to an outrageous degree by Chen Ming, the battleship itself would be invincible unless it encountered an opponent of the same level.

So Chen Ming will not be arrogant.

Even though millions of cruisers seem extremely powerful, even the Empire cannot easily produce them.

He also has absolute awe for the truly powerful, battleships.

Cruisers were only lower-tier ships after all, and he had to have capital ships.

Chen Ming's eyes were fixed on the newly emerged reinforcement fleet of the Mechanical Clan and the eight motherships surrounding the star gate.

But immediately his gaze turned to the star gate next to him that was still open.

And those Zergs who were moving towards the star gate, with every distance they advanced, countless corpses of their own kind would be crushed.

Compared to the main battleship, the stargate is indeed more important.

Moreover, as long as Chen Ming's psychic power exists, and as long as a little flesh and blood covers the mechanical clan's battleships, these battleships will sooner or later be his.

So he didn't hesitate at all, he knew what he really needed.

The Zerg continue to fight.

Still advancing towards the star gate, gradually approaching the mirror of the star gate.

And the mechanical clan’s reinforcements are still flying out of the mirror continuously.

Even though these reinforcements might be destroyed the moment they left the star gate, and even though the damaged debris was immediately bounced back into the star gate, the Mechanoids were still fighting against the Zerg.

If Chen Ming and the Zerg were given another three minutes, they would be able to withstand the attacks of eight motherships and the counterattacks of reinforcements that continued to emerge from the star gate, reach the star gate, and enter the star gate.

However, the mechanical race is ultimately a "species" with clear considerations.

At the moment when the Zerg were about to touch the star gate, even though there were still a large number of spaceships sailing in the mirror of the star gate, there were also a large number of ships with only half of their bodies appearing.

The mechanical race also forcibly closed the star gate.

While using the star gate to destroy his own spaceship, it also stopped Chen Ming's greedy ambition to go directly to the other end of the star gate.

At the same time, the edge of the galaxy suddenly saw the fluctuations of a hyperspace channel engine being activated.

A warship that cannot be observed by the naked eye has entered the galaxy.

That's the Destroyer.

(End of this chapter)