Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Looking at the Big Bai Fleet on the light beam that was charging, turning, attacking, retreating, and dispersing unpredictably, haunting the enemy like a ghost, the leadership of the federation found it hard to believe their eyes.

Right then, an advisor of the military, who had wrinkles all over his face, suddenly cried, “Yan—Yan Xinjian!

“The tactics that the Big Bai Fleet is adopting today are quite similar to Yan Xinjian’s classic case where he gathered the space pirates and assaulted the coalition fleet of the six sects of Heavenly Saints City under the cover of the cosmic storm!”

Upon hearing that, the specialists of starship battles beamed with interest and started recalling that battle.

The starship specialists and commanders of all levels were mostly from the Flying Star Sector. The most powerful fleet in the Flying Star Sector over the past five hundred years was the coalition fleet of the six sects of Heavenly Saints City.

Yan Xinjian, on the other hand, was the only one who had been a commander of the fleet and who had completely destroyed it later!

It was no longer debated whether he was right or wrong, but the classic cases left by the best commander of starships in the past five hundred years had always been included in the textbooks and studied by the schools of starship commanding in the federation.

In the most famous ‘Counterattack of Spider Den’, the six sects of Heavenly Saints City summoned all the forces of the major sects of the Flying Star Sector first and established an enormous army that marched to Spider Den overwhelmingly.

Yan Xinjian established his authority over the disobedient space pirates as the supreme space pirate. In less than one year, he suppressed all the dissidents and built the ruffians into a strong army governed by strict rules.

At that time, the secret sailing routes and jump points from Spider Den to the outside world were almost all discovered and blocked. The space pirates were isolated and had nowhere to run. They were short of reliable logistic bases and factories. The number, level, firepower, and defense ability of their starships were far worse than the specifications of the coalition fleet.

The new commander of the coalition fleet, the leaders of the six sects of Heavenly Saints City, and even most space pirates, did not think that there would be any suspense in the battle. They thought that the final battle would be fought on the orbit of Spider Den, if not on the ground of the planet.

However, under the cover of a once-in-a-hundred-years cosmic storm, Yan Xinjian threw the helve after the hatchet and commanded the fleet of space pirates to bypass the main troop of the coalition fleet and assault the logistics fleet at their rear!

In the battle, Yan Xinjian’s marvelous command was best demonstrated. He obviously had the chance to completely destroy the logistics fleet, but he did not. Instead, he mixed his own fleet among the enemy’s supply starships, taking the enormous and clumsy carriers as his ‘shields’ and ‘barricade’. In such a way, the main force of the coalition fleet’s firepower was limited to the maximum extent. Eventually, they were lured into the fiercest turbulence in the cosmic storm, and Yan Xinjian secured a miraculous triumph!

The classic battle where the weak defeated the strong influenced the future generations for almost three hundred years.

At the very least, during the years when Li Yao and Professor Mo Xuan visited the Flying Star Sector, the six sects of Heavenly Saints City still had not entirely recovered and were unable to organize a coalition fleet of the same scale. They had to count on the ‘Grand Illusionary Soldiers’ to besiege and clear Spider Den.

The current battle was almost like a recurrence of the battle years back.

After passing through the enemy’s battle formation and testing their firepower, the Big Bai Fleet simply dived into the depths of the second wave of the Black Wind Fleet’s starships and regarded the components of the star beacons and the space gate as shields to resist the infinite fury from ‘Black Swirl’!

Such a highly dangerous game was like a dance on the edge of a blade. When they were disrupting the enemy’s battle formation completely, they would very likely be disrupted by the enemy. One moment of carelessness, and they would never be able to get out if the guardian starships around the star beacons managed to stall them.

In the past five hundred years, or perhaps forever, Yan Xinjian was the only lunatic who had been audacious enough to make use of such a tactic.

Even the countless starship commanders of the New Federation, after studying for a hundred years, had to come to the conclusion that such a unique, insane tactic was inimitable and that it should not be copied at all!

That was because such a tactic to maintain high calmness and control during a close-distance charge, thereby completely disrupting the enemy while changing one’s own battle formation freely, was too demanding for the computational ability, the commanding ability, and the insight on the performance of the starships. It was so demanding that it was almost a natural-born gift that could not be earned through training!

Any commander who had not reached Yan Xinjian’s level would embrace their own doom if they copied his tactic recklessly.

“Yan Xinjian’s sharpest sword can only be used by himself.”

It was a very popular conclusion among the starship commanders in the Star Glory Federation.

But today—

“No. It’s not a recurrence.” Gazing at the ‘sword auras’ on the light beam that were sharp, eccentric, fierce, or fickle, a lot of starship specialists remarked almost feverishly, “This is almost a ‘strengthened version’. It is even more impressive than Yan Xinjian’s performance!”

In terms of both personal combat ability and commanding ability, Yan Xinjian had been one of the most distinguished people at the edge of the cosmos in the past thousand years.

However, a lot of starship specialists and historians believed that he had never brought out his full potential or reached his own ‘limits’!

Despite his immense capabilities, he had been so greedy when it came to the so-called ‘treasures of the Star Ocean Imperium’ on Spider Den that he betrayed the six sects of Heavenly Saints City and degraded into a shameful space pirate from a glorious Cultivator. Eventually, he had been haunted by his own guilt and even killed miserably because of mental derangement when he was trying to break into the Divinity Transformation Stage.

After his death, his soul had been attached to countless rats that mauled and brutalized each other until they gradually died off in the years that followed. That was truly a miserable ending.

More importantly, Yan Xinjian had been born at a wrong time. When he distinguished himself, the seven Sectors of the New Federation were still separate from each other, and their techniques, magical equipment, and tactics could not be shared. The experts from different Sectors had no chance to discuss and debate with each other, either.

The competition between the coalition fleet of the six sects of Heavenly Saints City and the fleet of space pirates, from today’s perspective, was nothing more than a storm in a teapot.

Even if one was born a dragon, one would never be able to soar into the sky if one grew up in a small pond!

Yan Xinjian had been very strong, but he could have been stronger if he had been born two hundred years later and grown up today when the New Federation had splendid collisions with the Imperium, the Covenant Alliance, and even more formidable foes. A lot of starship commanders and specialists of military history all believed so.

Then, right now…

An even stronger ‘Yan Xinjian’ had revealed himself right before them. The glamor of Yan Xinjian’s sword was displayed again, in an even sharper, more fluent, more natural, and more sordid way.

Yes. It was more sordid!

Although Yan Xinjian was known as the supreme space pirate, he had received the strictest education for Cultivators since childhood, and he had been the most conventional starship commander in the beginning.

Although his tactics were aggressive and cunning, they still had the rigidity and strictness of a regular army, which was slightly different from the style of the real space pirates who fought unpredictably and lawlessly just based on their animalistic instincts.

But the Big Bai Fleet before everyone’s eyes had perfectly combined the strictness and aggression of the regular army and the cleverness and keenness of the space pirates. It was like a wolf in space that had been armed to the teeth!

“What did the Big Bai Fleet go through in the drill last year?”

The commanders of all levels and all the specialists looked at each other in bewilderment, not having the first clue what was going on.

Even Guo Chunfeng stared at Jin Xinyue weirdly. Nominally, Bai Xingjian was the top general under her banner.

“Hey, let me ask you…” The two ‘compatriots’ who were both transformed into humans from demons whispered to each other. Guo Chunfeng could not help but ask, “Is this Bai Xingjian Yan Xinjian’s b*stard son? Why didn’t you tell us about such an important trump card?”

“I don’t know anything about that, either!” Jin Xinyue did not know how she should feel. “The dates do not match. When Bai Xingjian was born, Yan Xinjian had already been gone for almost two hundred years. Besides, even if he were Yan Xinjian’s b*stard son or true disciple, that still can’t explain why he is so strong!”

“No wonder this boy couldn’t stay in the Burning Prairie Fleet for long.” Guo Chunfeng sighed and grinned. “I thought that he was too arrogant, but after witnessing his true capability today, I’ve finally realized that he was too modest!”

At this moment, almost a hundred analysts inferred the changes in the next couple of hours based on the situation of the battle so far.

The first data that jumped out, on the other hand, was the capability of the commander of the Big Bai Fleet after their comprehensive evaluation.

Divinity Transformation Stage!

The guy who was commanding the Big Bai Fleet right now had computational ability and commanding ability at least in the Divinity Transformation Stage!

The highest command center was caught in dead silence again. The big shots were too shocked to feel overjoyed.

In the end, it was Wan Guqing, the Speaker of the Federation, who made the new decision.

“Right now, we still can’t reach out to the Big Bai Fleet. In any case, they have disrupted the Black Wind Fleet’s pace of attack and earned precious time for us!

“The first branch of the Burning Prairie Fleet must unfold into battle formation at any cost as soon as possible and enter the battlefield before the Big Bai Fleet is exhausted!

“Ask the nine Colossi at the Heaven’s Artillery to be prepared to be projected into the battlefield anytime!”

Everybody was baffled by the decision.

The Colossi of the federation had not been deployed in the most perilous moment a while back. Right now, the Big Bai Fleet had come to save the day and cast the Black Wind Fleet into an organized mess. The situation of the battle had been greatly soothed. Why were the most elite and precious forces of the federation to be projected at such a moment?

“The circumstances right now are different.” Staring at the light beams, Wan Guqing said, “While we can infer the capability of the Big Bai Fleet and the following changes of the battle, the Black Wind Fleet can definitely do the same.

“Right now, they are in a hurry to join the front and rear of the fleet and finish the deployment of a defensive formation before the Burning Prairie Fleet arrives, but the Big Bai Fleet has stabbed into their bones like a shining saber and is even churning hard there!

“I don’t know much about the battles of fleets, but if I were the commander of the Black Wind Fleet, this is the time that I would consider deploying my Colossi!”