Chapter 987: Chapter 531, First Battle of the Cruiser_2

The swift pursuit, precise artillery fire, and oversized artillery’s deadly power against small to medium-sized ships…

When these features combine, it means slaughter for the enemy.

Five ‘Doomsday’ light spears, five Wrath of Loyalty, firing in relay, had already made those few rebel destroyers flash with red light, energy shields quickly overloaded; the X-class ‘Heaven’s Punishment’ light spear could destroy the enemy upon a single hit!

The few destroyers that came for the hunt were counter-hunted, and the rebel fleet near the orbit of Yuehe VII.3 also learned of the happenings at the transition point.

They were quite shocked at the moment.

They had already received information that the Alliance Army had set out. But it was supposed that the main force of the Alliance would take at least two more months to reach the main battlefield in the northern Menghe Star Domain.

Yet, there are new ships arriving now?

And it’s a Chalice-class, that’s a battlecruiser…

In the southward offensive of the Fury Flame Battle Group, there are bigger main force ships. The combat ship of the Fury Flame Battle Group is equivalent to a battleship level; concurrently, a proper Retribution-class Battleship is also participating.

But they are not in Yuehe VII.

The strongest ships of the rebel fleet in this Star System are only two cruisers.

After receiving news of the arrival of Wrath Owl and the loss of several destroyers on their side, the rebel ships slowly moved out of the orbit of Yuehe VII, intending to exit this star system.

Staying was purely courting death.

Yet, even wanting to run now was already a bit late.

Wrath Owl was advancing at full speed, not heading toward Yuehe VII.3 but instead blocking directly at the transition point where the enemy was escaping north.

In terms of distance, Wrath Owl was definitely farther, but under a full-speed pursuit, Wrath Owl managed to catch up with the rebel ships before they could transition.

The two Lunar-Class Cruisers were too slow.

Of course, Wrath Owl, moving at full speed, also effectively abandoned its accompanying ships. Those three Lunar-Class Cruisers definitely couldn’t keep up.

Only a few Crazy Shark-class Destroyers, pushing their engines to the max, could barely follow.

The enemy ships were clearly quite surprised too.

The Chalice-class is indeed rare within the Empire.

Battlecruisers themselves are already uncommon, and places capable of building battlecruisers often prefer to grit their teeth a little more and get a proper battleship.

And among the rare battlecruisers, the more common ones are the Dragon Serpent-class, the kind constructed on Jindi Star. The Chalice-class is even rarer among battlecruisers.

It’s known that battlecruisers are fast, but no one expected the Chalice-class to be the fastest of the fast.

The rebel fleet, which failed to escape due to miscalculation, was confused for a moment.

Leave ships to cover the retreat, and forcibly transition the other ships?

Scatter and run, and whoever gets caught is unlucky?

Or… fight head-on?

No matter what kind of dilemma they face, when Wrath Owl appeared before them, it was already the moment they had to make a decision.

And their choice, it seems, was to fight desperately.

It’s an understandable choice too.

No matter what level a ship is, it’s ultimately a part of war, a part of the fleet. Battlecruisers are fast and pack a punch, but they also have the drawback of being fragile, just like how battleships have super strong head-to-head combat ability but face issues with inflexibility.

A single ship’s shortcoming doesn’t necessarily have to be covered by itself. That cost would be very high.

Since it’s fleet action, just fulfill your duty well, leave what you are not good at to other specialized ships.

And right now, this Alliance battlecruiser, in order to rapidly pursue, has become disconnected from its fleet, with only a few destroyers following, so it seems not unbeatable.

By risking some losses, if they can take down this Alliance battlecruiser, it would be quite a significant achievement!

Led by two Lunar-Class Cruisers, over thirty ships assaulted Wrath Owl.

Wrath Owl sidestepped its body, not charging directly into the enemy fleet, but skimming past sideways at a certain distance.

‘Heaven’s Punishment’ light spear fired first, directly annihilating an enemy escort ship.

Immediately thereafter, 12 L-class specification heavy artillery, 24 M-class specification cannons, all began firing in succession.

The firepower of this one ship was almost equivalent to the entire enemy fleet!

The enemy’s two Lunar-Class Cruisers, combined, only had six L-class artillery pieces.

Of course, this level of firepower can indeed pose a threat to Wrath Owl.

After all, battlecruisers are thin-skinned and cannot withstand much more than standard cruisers.

But its extremely high speed and agility cause the enemy’s firepower to miss a lot.

Conversely, Lunar-Class Cruisers find it almost impossible to actively evade Wrath Owl’s strikes.

Certainly, the combat distance between the two sides is actually quite far, and the hit rate itself would naturally suffer.

This naval battle lasted about an hour.

The sixth rebel ship destroyed by Wrath Owl was one of the enemy’s two Lunar-Class Cruisers. The other one’s Void Shield had already turned red, as it had been hit by a Heaven’s Punishment earlier on.

To this extent, the enemy fleet had already lost their courage entirely.

They began to retreat.

Not daring to forcibly transition from the jump point, as at that moment the Void Shield, the energy shield would be off, making them sitting ducks before they can complete transition, unsure how much they’d get blown off.

They could only scatter in over twenty directions, up, down, left, right, and escape.

Wrath Owl, no matter how fast, could only pursue in one direction.

So naturally, they picked the biggest one to chase.

First, they chased and hunted down the remaining Lunar-Class Cruiser, then turned the ship around to change direction, relying on superior speed and agility, they caught three more ships before the enemy disappeared entirely.

Two of them were blasted to pieces by Wrath Owl. The last escort ship chose to surrender.

Turning off the energy shields, turning off all weapon systems, letting Wrath Owl’s cannons aim at it.

Navy Marine Corps boarded the ship and took control.

…

In this naval battle at Yuehe VII, the Alliance won decisively.

This was also Wrath Owl’s debut battle, as well as the first battle of the Chalice-class battlecruiser built by the Alliance.

Although the intensity of the fight wasn’t high, mostly targeting ‘small fry’, it demonstrated the character of a battlecruiser: a bully of lesser opponents.

If it were a battleship or a battle carrier instead, it wouldn’t have achieved such results, afraid even if they were chased, they’d have all run away.

Over twenty enemy ships still disappeared into the vast space of the Star System. Even if the Star Language Tower on the ships kept scanning for signals, it would occasionally catch some information, but soon it would disappear again.

Pursuing and hunting based on this information might yield some results.

But playing this hide and seek game would undoubtedly be a lengthy process.

Wrath Owl didn’t have time for this.

Those three Lunar-Class Cruisers that couldn’t keep up went directly to the orbit of Yuehe VII.3 and successfully contacted the ground forces.

Under the guidance of ground forces, over twenty Alliance ships conducted a three-day orbital strike on the surface.

The Princess’s Rebel Army’s ground forces couldn’t withstand this kind of orbital bombardment at all.

The remaining space stations in orbit wouldn’t intercept the bombardment and threat the ships; the orbital cannons they captured after occupying the surface were indeed there, but only a few in number, hardly posing any impact.

With the aerospace threat removed, the Alliance Army on the ground became active again. After the orbital bombardment, they swiftly carried out the final cleanup of the enemy’s viable forces.

The Alliance Army launched a counterattack on a global scale.

In this planet, the total number of Alliance Army and Pact Army exceeded fifty million; the Princess’s Rebel Army numbered over seventy million.

These seventy million rebels could never be wiped out cleanly in a short time, but their losses must have been significant.

Worse yet for them, to avoid orbital bombardment, they had to semi-voluntarily abandon their formations.

Once an army breaks formation, the loss of combat effectiveness would be grave.

In just three days, the situation on the ground had been completely reversed.