The Almighty Ring

“Release reconnaissance ships. Set information transfer to be in real-time. I want to be alerted if there are any readings,” Jiang Fei ordered.

Unlike other forces of a different race, the Trade Federation applied a different approach in warfare. They valued life over their weapons and equipment, to a certain extent. That being said, the death of soldiers was treated as severity when compared to ships. Hence, they were accustomed to deploying more than enough unmanned drones to do preliminary checks and if possible, assaults.

Compared to Wayfinders used by the Valsalrian Army, the Trade Federation’s reconnaissance drones were stronger in terms of telemetry scans and weaponry as a Wayfinder was a single unit of observation. The Trade Federation had the capability to construct more drones in case they were destroyed. Unlike Wayfinders, reconnaissance ships had a certain level of offense and defense capability. Once discovered by the enemy, reconnaissance ships were able to defend against attacks while Wayfinders could only escape if not destroyed. More often than not, Wayfinders were made to be destroyed upon discovery while reconnaissance ships put up a fight.

A squad of ten reconnaissance ships was released from the main Hypercruiser of the Fifth Fleet. They possessed a certain level of interstellar travel speed which was almost the same as Jiang Fei’s personal one-man-shuttle. Not long after they were deployed, they vanished from sight and only appeared on the screen as ten dots. A few minutes later, footage of an empty void was transmitted.

“Forward area looks safe, sir,” someone reported back.

“Maintain current speeds. Keep scanning the sectors for enemy presence,” Jiang Fei said.

Seconds passed like minutes and the longer it got, the further the reconnaissance ships flew. A few minutes passed and the squad of reconnaissance ships arrived in the Alpha Sector.

“Report! One of the reconnaissance ships is currently being attacked!” cried the officer that was in charge of the reconnaissance ship squad.

“On screen!” Jiang Fei cried. This was what he had been waiting for!

“Displaying on-screen, commander.”

Live footage of the unmanned reconnaissance ship was projected on the main screen on Meteor. There were about eight enemy ships, of different designs, surrounding the reconnaissance ship, attacking it at the same time. The enemies’ ship was fast but their firepower was incredibly weak. As reconnaissance ships were designed with a certain amount of armor, not too heavy as they affected travel speeds, the enemy’s ship firepower was too weak to cause significant damage.

One of the enemy ships charged in, perhaps thinking that they had a clear shot, and was destroyed instantly when it got too close to the reconnaissance ship as it took a shot to the bridge.

“Huh. To think that this is the level of equipment they were given as beginners,” Jiang Fei said to himself. From the looks of it, the “starter equipment” given to players were so weak that they could be considered as White tier equipment in certain MMORPGs.

“We are to move forward but not engage the enemy,” Jiang Fei ordered.

“Sir, why aren’t we heading in for a full-scale attack? Based on the readings, the enemies are weak and we could crush them all in one quick sweep,” a captain asked. When even a reconnaissance ship could destroy the enemy, imagine deploying an entire fleet to attack. He was curious as to why Jiang Fei wouldn’t want to launch a full-scale attack.

“Do you want to die so soon? Have you forgotten about previous assault attempts by other forces in the universe? Do you know what happened to them?” Jiang Fei scoffed in condescension. The enemies were still roaming around the safe zone and if Jiang Fei launched a full-scale attack that close, he would be subjected to be terminated by the real NPCs that safeguarded safe zones.

He had seen, firsthand, what safe zone guards could do. Two fleets were instantly destroyed in one clean attack. Jiang Fei wanted to suppress the expansion of players into the universe but he would want to do it slowly and from a safe distance.

“How long must I pretend…” Jiang Fei muttered to himself.

The enemies were not a usual one that anyone would expect to face. If they were, Jiang Fei could train himself to a certain strength level before he faced them, no matter how strong they are. However, these were literal gods from a higher dimension! A race of gods that could do whatever they wanted! They were the people that governed everything, the ones that held the pencil and Jiang Fei was the doodle on the paper. They could erase his existence with a simple stroke, destroy the universe if they felt like it!

Becoming stronger was not a way Jiang Fei could rely on to defeat the invaders from the Gamma Dimension. If he wanted to defeat this new form of enemy, he first needed to enter that dimension and find a way to allow himself to be in the same physical world as them.

“Sir, we are currently 0.5 light-seconds away from the enemy. Judging from their movement, it seems they have not yet discovered our presence. Do we proceed?” said the radar operator.

“Proceed,” Jiang Fei said.

The reconnaissance ship was about to be destroyed. Then again, Jiang Fei wanted it to be so. From a certain point of view, whoever took helms of the reconnaissance ship must be a great pilot to be able to hold it for so long.

“Release attack drones. Two squadrons should suffice. I want the drones to seek and destroy only half of the enemy’s fleet. By the way, when half of the enemy’s fleet is destroyed, reduce firing output to non-lethal firepower. Let the enemies destroy them,” Jiang Fei ordered.

“Sir? Why would we waste two squadrons of attack drones just to destroy half of the enemy’s fleet?” one of the captains voiced his concern. Although they had never been cheapskates in warfare, letting attack drones be destroyed without fully utilizing their purpose would still be a waste.

“Tsk. What do you know about warfare? Do you see just how many ships they have? It wouldn’t be much even if we destroyed all of the ships! What I’m doing is giving them a little incentive. To bait the enemies to deploy more ships for us!” Jiang Fei explained.

“Brilliant! As expected of commander Jiang Fei!”

…

Once Jiang Fei explained, the captains understood. Praises were showered on him and some even started groveling at his feet, figuratively.

Two squadrons of attack drones were deployed and sent directly to deal with the enemies. Since this was not a full-scale attack, Jiang Fei had no immediate plans to deploy a larger force.

…

“Oh yeah! We’ve just got the First Blood achievement!”

“No sh*t! What else would we get?”

“It’d better be good. I’ve been waiting too long just to log in!”

“What do you think of the game so far?”

“It’s fine. I did read something about someone reporting a bug. The person had complained about the game being overly realistic and had caused him to suffer a traumatic experience!”

“Don’t mind that report. What kind of fun would we be having if the game is not realistic? It would be a complete waste of a lower dimension!”

“Shush! The reward has been distributed! Each of us got 200 Achievement Points!”

“There’s one extra reward! It’s an Ion Cannon! Lucky! I could finally change my weapon! This would make shooting things down much easier!”

…

Players aboard the ships that had just destroyed one reconnaissance ship cheered happily after reaping the rewards.

“Yo! My radar is picking up something!”

“There are so many of them!”

“The more the better! It’s time to farm!”

“Get them before Pirastro and the others return! We cannot let them take all the rewards!”

Players got even more excited when the squadrons of drones Jiang Fei had deployed arrived.