NOVEL NEXT Chapter 60
Chapter 60: Defeat
“Is this the limit of the NPC template?” Lin Zhichen’s expression was indescribable as he reviewed the personal panel of the NPC crew member. Such luxurious attributes would be rare even in the Federation.
It could be said that as long as psionic awakening was completed, this individual could directly transform three skills into psionic techniques, becoming a peak-level elite, just one step away from becoming a hero!
At this moment, the NPC crew members in the fleet were undergoing continuous transformations, and even the last batch of pirate crew members was rapidly improving.
In the state of Mental Resonance, Lin Zhichen felt like an invisible giant, with the NPC crew members as extensions of his brain and the warships as his limbs.
Psionic perception seemed to have entered a new level, enhancing both calculations and predictions beyond normal capabilities.
With a single thought, concise and clear instructions were transmitted to an NPC crew member, causing subtle changes in the fleet’s volley.
Using the base radar’s scan, the pirate fleet had now locked onto the incoming projectiles. The continuously battered pirate fleet began to turn and charge towards the Meteor Mercenary Group.
In normal space, a distance of merely 6.5 light-seconds wouldn’t be considered far; at sub-light speeds, it could be covered in a matter of minutes. However, in the asteroid belt, the fleet’s sustained bombardment inflicted damage on the pirate fleet with each wave of attacks.
At the beginning, even with numerous skill enhancements, the Meteor Mercenary Group’s hit rate did not exceed 10%. But now, the hit rate had directly increased to 20% and was still rising…
It seemed like just a moment of distraction, and the fleet’s hit rate had significantly improved. Even in the midst of battle, Lin Zhichen couldn’t help but feel curious. He diverted some attention to check the personal panels of his NPC crew members and immediately gaped in astonishment. It took him a few seconds to recover, and he murmured, “Expert level…”
Before departing from Earth Starport, they were a group of novice rookies. Before launching the attack on this pirate base, they were a group of skilled high-level professionals. But now, they became a team of expert-level talents proficient in warship operations!
The battle did not pause due to Lin Zhichen’s brief distraction. At this moment, Lin Zhichen could even bypass the captain to issue precise commands directly. Each successive volley not only had an increasingly higher hit rate but also saw enhanced projectile power due to the gunners’ elevated professional levels.
The pirate fleet, striving to charge from light-seconds away, faced growing threats. Previously, it took eighty to ninety hits to destroy a pirate ship, but now, being hit by just five or six projectiles would cause it to explode into a ball of fire.
With the improved hit rate, each step forward by the pirate fleet resulted in several to a dozen explosions. In just a few minutes, the entire pirate fleet was severely damaged, losing over fifty raiding ships.
In this special state, aided by the carrier’s radar, Lin Zhichen could clearly “see” the pirate warships’ formation gradually wavering, and their forward speed subtly slowing down.
These details, which might have taken half an hour of battle to discern in the past, were now immediately apparent to him in the state of Mental Resonance. He seemed to have transformed into the most precise computer, perceiving the minutest changes on the battlefield.
“The enemy’s morale is broken; they will soon waver and retreat!”
Reaching this conclusion, despite the pirate fleet still rapidly approaching, he did not hesitate to abandon the stationary bombardment strategy. Instead, he commanded the fleet to advance swiftly and press the attack.
This meant giving up their advantage of ultra-long-range shooting to engage the pirate fleet in close combat. Any competent commander would avoid making such a mistake, but Lin Zhichen did so without hesitation!
The fleet’s hit rate slightly decreased during the mobile shooting, but after a dozen volleys, the NPC gunners adapted to the mobile shooting. Not only did they regain their hit rate, but their skill improvement speed also increased. In a short time, they went from newly entering the expert level to nearly 50% of the experience bar.
At this point, the distance between the two sides was still 6 light-seconds, and it was rapidly closing. As the NPC crew members’ skills improved, their coordination became more swift and effective.
The hit rate gradually approached 30%, while the pirate fleet continued to suffer relentless attacks. Meanwhile, their radar still couldn’t detect the enemy’s presence.
This situation, where they could only take hits without being able to retaliate, gradually instilled fear in the once fearless pirate NPCs. Their steady morale began to decline bit by bit.
Although it wasn’t obvious at first, after half an hour of continuous battle, it finally reached a tipping point—the surviving pirate fleet had dwindled to fewer than two hundred ships, and the distance between the two sides was still 5 light-seconds.
The prolonged period of being passively attacked finally caused the fleet to show clear signs of wavering. Their previously orderly formation became scattered and disorganized.
At this point, even Wu Tianyi and the others noticed the signs, and they began to admire Lin Zhichen’s foresight.
“Big Brother, is the pirate fleet about to retreat?” Lin Ke asked over the communication channel. The victory was already certain; it was just a matter of how much they would gain:
“But Big Brother, according to the information I found on the Star Network, NPC fleets in the wild are supposed to be fearless, fighting to the last ship without retreating. Why are they starting to falter after losing just a little over a third?”
“What you saw were face-to-face battles, where the NPC fleet even had a certain advantage in fleet size,” Lin Zhichen replied. These were insights he had recently gained from his battles:
“But now, we are facing the enemy with an absolutely inferior fleet, yet we are defeating them with absolute superiority, without sustaining any damage ourselves. The pirate fleet hasn’t even been able to find us to counterattack from the beginning. This naturally has a significant impact on the enemy’s morale.”
In fact, morale was a very subtle concept, and was constantly changing.
In ancient cold weapon battlefields, armies on the front lines could generally not withstand more than 10% casualties. Those that could endure 30% casualties were considered elite.
However, in modern times, there had been many instances of armies fighting to the death until total annihilation.
This was a result of training, national identity, and changes in combat weapons. Various factors combined meant that modern armies could endure far greater casualties than ancient ones.
In the interstellar era, this was even more pronounced. Due to changes in combat forms, unless there was overwhelming force, battles typically continued until total annihilation.
Not only could the regular fleets of civilized societies achieve this, but NPC fleets, due to their emotional detachment and programmed consciousness, had a concept of morale that surpassed that of regular armies in civilized societies, comparable to elite units of intelligent life forms.
The difficulty of breaking the morale of an elite force could be imagined.