Warhammer, but Emperor's Chosen

But it's a pity.

The Stars withstood their bombardment and returned fire in the shortest possible time. Two starships were torn apart by the explosion of the nova cannon, including the Explorer-class starship, and they joined the ranks of space hulks.

Although the other three starships survived because of the long distance, their gravity shields were easily torn apart, and their hulls were torn into pieces by the impact of the blast wave, just like fishing boats in a tsunami that lost control under the shock wave.

Ou'visa watched all this with his own eyes, and now he could only pray that the people above were okay.

Even though he knew there was little hope.

Because once the protection of the shield is lost, the blast wave will inevitably kill almost all the crew members on it!

Just one shelling reduced the fleet's strength by nearly one-third.

Such horrific losses almost made O'visa want to give up, but he knew that there was no chance now.

When they began to engage human warships, there was no chance of escaping the fight.

If we turn the ship around and run away now, humans will only kick our ass.

Moreover, they could not escape from the battle.

No matter what the reason, they must not let this human fleet that bombed the Tau world leave safely!

"Captain, the 'Anrike' asks if there is a new combat plan?"

He heard the communicator's somewhat panicked voice.

"Sail at full speed, close the distance with the human warships, and order the fleet to continue firing!"

O'Visa gritted his teeth and ordered, "This is the only thing we can do now."

Waiting and expecting, expecting that the enemy's shield has reached its limit, expecting that the human warship will be destroyed in the next moment!

Having withstood so many rounds of bombardment, he did not believe that the shields of human warships were infinite. It took a long time for humans to reload their super weapons, and they could take advantage of this gap to close the distance between the two sides and pour out firepower at a shorter distance to defeat the enemy. This was their only chance!

If not...

O'visa closed his eyes in some pain, if he couldn't break the human shield.

Then their only fate is to become garbage in space like the destroyed starships.

But he forgot one thing.

While he hoped to close the distance and concentrate his firepower to break the enemy's shield.

The Stars were waiting for the same opportunity.

As for the Stars, which lacked the ability to engage the enemy head-on, it also looked forward to the distance between the two sides being shortened so that it could strike hard at the enemy with macro cannons and light spears.

"Fire!"

When the Stars approached the side of the Explorer-class starship, O'Visa roared and issued the final order.

-----------------

"Fire!"

boom!

The broadside cannons opened fire fiercely, directing their horrific firepower at the starship on the right. With just one salvo, the shield of the Explorer-class starship was broken. The light spears did not give it any breathing space, and the scorching beams of light directly cut the starship in half.

On the other side, four frigates also successfully made a breakthrough.

With their advantages in numbers and maneuverability, they successfully damaged a merchant cruiser with torpedoes, and in a close-range broadside bombardment, they broke the shield of another merchant cruiser with macro cannons and successfully destroyed it with light spears.

The price we paid was negligible, just a portion of the energy consumed by some macro cannons and the firing of light spears.

Obviously, the longer this naval battle lasts, the better it will be for them.

Noah asked:

"Nono, that's the last Explorer-class starship, right?"

"Yes."

Nono nodded slightly, "The enemy still has 8 merchant-class cruisers left..."

After a brief pause, Nuo Nuo was a little surprised, "Are they... retreating?"

On the tactical panel, those merchant-class cruisers had already passed by the Stars.

After the close-range broadside engagement, they did not choose to continue chasing and engaging with the Constellations. Instead, they went in the opposite direction of the Constellations and headed straight for the Bok Anjiamen world in deep space.

Noah raised his eyebrows slightly, subconsciously thinking that this might be a conspiracy of the aliens.

But he soon realized that maybe it wasn't a conspiracy, the Titans had simply given up struggling.

At least one of the two Explorer-class ships was the Tau flagship, and when the flagship was destroyed, command of the fleet automatically passed to the highest-ranking captain of the remaining fleet.

And the new commander seemed unwilling to let his compatriots make meaningless sacrifices again.

After all, the war is still going on.

Even a fool could see that their firepower alone could not penetrate the void shield of the Stars.

In this situation, the Tau people only have two choices.

Either they are unwilling to see their sunk costs go to waste and continue pursuing.

Or give up struggling and cut losses in time.

Those who choose the former are undoubtedly gamblers, but those who choose the latter may not be rational, they may just be cowardly.

But no matter which situation it is, it means that the Titans have completely given up struggling.

This is an undeniable fact.

"Do you want to chase?" Nono asked.

Noah thought about it for a moment and shook his head in denial:

"Nono, take us to Mandeville Point."

The active retreat of these Tau people might not be an attempt to lure the enemy deeper into their territory. They might be deliberately luring the Stars to chase them, and then circling the Stars in the galaxy to delay the arrival of more Tau support fleets.

It doesn’t matter how many of them come, because they can’t penetrate the void shield of the Stars anyway.

Noah was also confident that with the speed of the Stars, he could catch up with these Tau warships and destroy them all in the shortest time possible.

But right.

You can chase and kill, but it is not necessary.

Their mission has been completed. This galaxy has no attraction to Noah. What's the point of chasing down a few Tau starships?

In fact.

If the Titans had not come forward to meet him, he would not have bothered to cause trouble for them.

Instead of playing house with the Tau, let's look at the Milky Way in the distance, my friends.

Noah's eyes were focused on the star map, which was not the star map of the ship itself, but the star map that came with the "treasure bag". It showed hundreds of billions of stars in the entire galaxy, as well as the subspace channels connecting these stars.

Some star systems have extremely busy subspace channels, connecting to more than a dozen other star systems.

But some star systems are relatively lonely and do not even have a subspace channel.

That's what the Tau Empire is like.

Among the nearly three hundred colonized planets, there is not even a single subspace channel to be found on most of them.

For example, in the world of Bock Anjiamen, one of the only two subspace channels was drawn by Noah, connecting to the Crest galaxy.

Noah originally planned to return along the same route. Since the mission had been completed, he planned to go back to Macragge to report on the progress of the mission.

As for what to do next.

Noah also has plans.

Or go to the Great Whirlpool Universe and find Huron to discuss cooperation.

Or find a planet to colonize.

Yes, colonization.

Although interstellar trade is extremely profitable, the profits from discovering a new habitable planet are equally significant.

It is not easy for other exploration fleets and Rogue Traders of the Empire to find a habitable planet. Although they can judge whether a star system is worth exploring based on the type of stars in the star system and whether there are planets in the habitable zone before heading to the target star system.

But even if the target star system has planets in the habitable zone, many of them are dead planets and cannot be colonized at all. Moreover, the range that the exploration fleet can explore is actually quite small.

Because in the past tens of thousands of years, from the Dark Ages to the present 40K era, human footprints have spread all over the galaxy. In the core universe of the human empire, there are basically no undiscovered colonizable planets.

If you want to find new planets to colonize, you must go to the universe beyond the light of the Astronomican.

For example, the Tau Empire and the Halo Stars.

However, it is extremely dangerous to explore these cosmic regions.

Almost every year, a large number of fleets disappear during the exploration process, including not only Rogue Merchants, but also the exploration fleets of the Mechanicus.

of course.

This was not a difficult thing for Noah.

Because he has a cheat!

Noah can clearly see from the star map whether a star system has habitable planets.

Most star systems are shown very crudely on star maps, with only one shining star and a subspace channel connecting to this star.

However, there are a few star systems that are displayed slightly differently on the star map. For example, the Bock Anjiamen world and the Crest galaxy. These two star systems are also represented by "light spots" on the star map, but on the left side of these two light spots, there is also a small green sphere highlighted.

Such prompts will not be displayed on the entire map, but will only be displayed when Noah zooms in on a star area.

This green sphere symbolizes the planet of life, and also represents that the current galaxy has habitable planets - not planets located in the habitable zone, but planets that can be colonized and you can move in with just your luggage!

no doubt.

This could greatly reduce the difficulty of finding habitable planets.

Because Noah only needs to look for star systems with "life planets" on the star map to find new colonies.

Besides that, there is 'Orange Planet'.

Although such a planet is not habitable, it can become habitable after certain transformations.

In the Imperium, such things are often referred to as Death Worlds.

Of course, even if Noah has a cheat, this is still very cumbersome.

There are so many stars in the Milky Way, thousands of them. If Noah were to search them all one by one, he wouldn't have the patience to even take a quick look.

And even if the target star system has a habitable planet, Noah cannot confirm whether the planet has been colonized by humans or other aliens.

of course.

These are things for the future.

He had to go back to Macragge and enjoy himself for a few days. Although Plantim had been destroyed, Ultramar was not the only garden world.

This kind of lazy behavior is undoubtedly very shameful, but Noah doesn't care, instead he is justified:

I've been fighting all my life, can't I just enjoy myself?

But...

Noah's gaze fell on the world of Bok Anjiamen on the star map.

This planet originally had no subspace channel, and Noah only drew a subspace channel leading to the Crest galaxy.

Then the problem is coming.

Where the hell does another subspace channel come from?

“This line didn’t exist when I came here!”

Noah frowned, maybe this was just a coincidence - that's weird!

Although the Warp Channel is not static, the Warp Storm can make the originally stable Warp Channel become turbulent, and can also establish connections between planets where Warp Channels originally did not exist.

But the problem is that when Noah arrived, he didn't experience the subspace storm at all!