The DarkStar mothership slowly turned around, and hundreds of escort ships flew out, forming a combat formation around the mothership, confronting the mercenary joint fleet, with tensions running high.
The joint fleet sent a message, demanding that DarkStar immediately cease the capture of mercenaries, otherwise they would solve the problem by force. The three major corps were united and strong, with a tough attitude. Because they had no territory to protect, they were not as hesitant as interstellar civilizations. They were not afraid of retaliation at all. If you touched our people, we would fight you, no matter who you were.
Sarota was a little moved. He originally thought that mercenaries were just scattered soldiers, a disorganized mess, but he didn't expect that dealing with a small group of mercenaries would attract an entire mercenary fleet.
Sarota had to admit that he underestimated the mercenary industry.
The joint fleet's ultimatum was only ten minutes, demanding that DarkStar immediately withdraw all its forces, otherwise they would start fighting.
The relaxed mood was gone, and Sarota's face was solemn. He was naturally not afraid of the joint fleet. After all, the DarkStar mothership was equivalent to a mobile space station base, with many methods, but if a direct conflict broke out, the losses would exceed the estimates for this operation.
DarkStar was not burdened by honor and reputation. Even if they retreated now and were said to be running away because they were afraid of the mercenaries, it would not have any impact on them. Sarota was considering another question at this time:
——For the Secret Word Bead, is it worth having a direct conflict with a fleet? Can we give up this opportunity and plan for the future? Will there be such a good opportunity in the future?
After thinking about it, Sarota's answer was no.
Letting this group of mercenaries return to the organization was equivalent to expanding the search range again. If these mercenaries were scattered and divided into other teams, it would become very troublesome to find people. This was just a small problem. Letting these people return to the organization could easily lead to accidents, such as handing the bead to a new target without DarkStar knowing, or the bead being lost somewhere due to death during a mission, etc. All kinds of possibilities had to be prevented. At this time, all the mercenaries who had been in contact with the Secret Word Bead were here, and they could be wiped out in one fell swoop. There would be no better opportunity than this.
At this time, Siwadi issued a serious statement to the joint fleet and the DarkStar mothership, his tone earnest.
"I, representing the Holy Stone Border Defense Force, warn you that if you start a war here, we will regard it as a provocation and may consider you enemies, intervening in the conflict."
Once the announcement was issued, the effect was very obvious. The joint fleet opened fire directly at the DarkStar mothership without saying a word, stubbornly headstrong.
The dark universe exploded with colorful and dazzling light. The warship formations rammed into each other, carrying out various tactical maneuvers. Laser cannons fired at each other like urination. The mercenary fleet and the DarkStar fleet engaged in a fierce battle.
Siwadi's face darkened, and he was furious. Did they take his words as farting!
"Commander, what do we do now? Which side do we help?"
"Help my ass, watch the show!"
Siwadi gritted his teeth.
One side was a chaotic and evil terrorist organization that held grudges, and the other side was chaotic neutral mercenaries with no morals. Helping either side would be a waste of military force, and he didn't dare to let the fleet move around. If they moved, who knew what the Black Raven on the opposite side would do.
He might as well watch the mercenaries and DarkStar fight each other like dogs. As for the warning just now… just treat it as farting.
Across the chaotic battlefield, the Holy Stone and the Black Raven seemed to be watching the fire from the other side of the river, tacitly not intervening, but they were not doing nothing. The fleets spread out horizontally, forming a defensive line to surround the battlefield and prevent the war from spreading.
Tolerating both sides fighting outside the border was already the bottom line. If DarkStar or the mercenaries took an inch, the fleets of the two major civilizations would not hesitate to open fire.
……
The battle was about to break out!
Compared to hard power, the DarkStar mothership was stronger than this hastily assembled fleet. The joint fleet had no intention of fighting to the death. It sent out small spaceships, wanting to bypass the battlefield and fly to the planet to meet Han Xiao and other mercenaries, but Sarota keenly discovered this and commanded an independent formation to intercept them. The two sides were in a stalemate.
The mercenaries on the planet were the key to determining the outcome of the battle. Whether they were rescued or captured, once there was a result, the battle would end immediately.
Han Xiao's abandonment ship plan was originally just digging his own grave in Sarota's eyes, a desperate struggle, but now the situation had changed. Meaningless delays had become crucial. Abandoning the spaceship and gaining time, every extra second increased DarkStar's losses.
Damage reports came one after another, and the coldness in Sarota's eyes deepened.
The simple task that should have been easy had become so troublesome and棘手. The performance of that Heavenly Ring spaceship was the source of everything. If that pilot hadn't delayed for so long, he would have captured everyone and left long ago, and he would not have encountered the mercenary joint fleet at all. Sarota greatly regretted missing the opportunity.
Warships bombarded each other, the scene was grand, and the energy reactions emitted were as obvious as a stellar explosion on the detectors. Looking from afar, the exploding light was like twinkling stars.
From a distance, passing spaceships discovered the abnormality here. War was like a whirlpool, attracting many spaceships to watch from afar. The scene was quickly recorded.
In the interstellar era, the improvement of communication levels also improved the real-time nature of news. Distance was not a problem. Before long, the news of DarkStar and the mercenaries tearing each other apart spread throughout several surrounding star clusters.
After watching for most of the day, Siwadi received an unexpected communication request.
Buzz…
A pure-blooded Godora's face appeared on the screen, his face沉着, and said, "I am the Deputy Minister of Diplomatic Affairs of the Godora Civilization, fully representing the Godora Civilization, and I hope that the Holy Stone Civilization can immediately intervene in the battle and打击 DarkStar."
Siwadi's face was serious, and said, "This is our local affair, you have no right to interfere."
"DarkStar is an evil force, with countless blood debts, and is a common enemy of civilizations. Sitting idly by while they commit atrocities is a very irresponsible act!" The Godora diplomat's tone was awe-inspiring.
"Sorry, I only follow the Marshal's orders." Siwadi's attitude was firm. "Only if the Marshal directly orders me, will I intervene in the war. If you have any questions, you can file an application with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
In fact, Siwadi was the commander of the Third Corps and could handle matters of this magnitude with full authority, but he was just bringing out the Marshal's name, making it clear that he was playing for time.
He knew the Godora's thoughts very well. DarkStar was Godora's mortal enemy. It was not easy for them to show up once. They just wanted the Holy Stone to help them打击 DarkStar. However, the Holy Stone and Godora were not strategic allies and had no obligation to help. Moreover, political reasons were also quite sensitive. As one of the border army commanders, Siwadi would never listen to the requirements of other civilizations.
The Godora had no choice but to contact the high-level officials of the Holy Stone Civilization. However, the Holy Stone's noble institutions were best at shirking responsibility, procrastinating and refusing to express their position or give orders. The Godora had to strengthen their wording, stating that if DarkStar was allowed to escape, they would condemn the Holy Stone at the Shattered Star Ring Civilization Diplomatic Council.
Even so, the Holy Stone was still procrastinating, their attitude obvious, unwilling to provoke DarkStar and unwilling to be dragged into the water.
The Godora Civilization was just one of them. Because DarkStar had appeared so few times, more and more forces were paying attention to this matter, silently casting their gazes towards this battlefield from afar, the center of the storm.
……
Chi!!
In the dim underground, the high-temperature electrothermal cutting gauntlet flickered with red light, passing through the chest of a DarkStar warrior, as easily as cutting tofu, taking the person's life.
Han Xiao retracted his hand, and the DarkStar warrior swayed and fell. A team of DarkStar search team corpses were lying on the ground.
"Leave quickly, their reinforcements will be here soon." Melos called out in a low voice.
The ball car was parked aside. Han Xiao jumped back, manipulated the ball car to run away, and opened the panel. The interface of the task had changed.
[【Escape】 Task Rating: C]
Persisting for two days was a D-level rating. Every twelve hours increased one level. They had struggled to persist for two and a half days. The task had been completed. Up to now, more than half of the mercenaries had been captured, and only a small part was still running away. That is to say, the mercenary joint fleet and DarkStar's bombardment had lasted for more than a day.
If either the Holy Stone or the Black Raven intervened, DarkStar would retreat, and the mercenaries would have been rescued long ago. However, the two civilizations had always been watching, not helping anyone, which led to a stalemate, and the joint fleet was unable to meet the mercenaries.
"It's really unreliable to count on that group of mercenaries..." Han Xiao shook his head. Fortunately, he had called Emerus for help, adding a layer of insurance, but she was also very unreliable, and he didn't know when she would have time to come over.
If the player was captured, the task would fail. Some people were very cunning and wanted to use offline to escape the pursuers, but after logging in again, they found that the task failed directly, preventing cheating.
However, if the player was captured by DarkStar, there would be a lot of trouble. Han Xiao released a new task through the camp panel. As long as they were not captured by DarkStar, they could get extra rewards. In this way, even if going offline caused the [Escape] task to fail, at least there was a guaranteed experience when they were about to be caught up.
Fortunately, so far, no players had been caught. This made the DarkStar search team especially frustrated. The prey that was about to be obtained suddenly disappeared, making them confused and puzzled.
Boom!
At this moment, the passage in front suddenly collapsed. The ball car stopped urgently. A group of new pursuers walked out of the hole in the rock wall. The leader of the pursuers was Ashes.
"Found you, I won't be careless like last time."
Ashes was expressionless, his Esper ability was enhanced to the extreme, eager to move, and his fighting spirit was high. He had been staring at Han Xiao for a long time, and finally caught up.
Seeing this, Han Xiao's expression changed slightly.
"Why is it him again, this is not good..."
Grand Technician Han himself was not afraid of Ashes. Fighting was like two lumps of meat rubbing against each other. Anyway, no one could do anything to anyone. However, Ashes' Esper ability was too lethal to the companions around him. Melos was quite powerful, but facing Ashes would result in being instantly killed and turned into a pile of slag.
There was no way, that Esper ability was too perverted, it was a walking scum maker.
"That guy is very dangerous, retreat!"
Han Xiao had no desire to entangle. He pulled the joystick, and the ball car crashed through the rock wall on the side with a bang, rumbling and rolling, and immediately retreated.