Chapter 224: Data War!

Words : 1573 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Bases and warships were fundamentally different types of entities. The key distinction lay in their nature: warships possessed a high degree of autonomy, and their connections to data centers were unstable. This was why, even with the captured flagship-class vessel, Xiao Yu had been unable to launch an attack from within the digital realm. But bases were different. Due to their structural function, they were required to maintain constant communication with the data center. The connection between them was solid, so solid that even severing it would take at least an hour. So far, Xiao Yu had endured six volleys from those massive cannons, losing over ten thousand ships in the process. Currently, he was less than twenty million kilometers from the target. At his present speed, it would take approximately another twenty-five minutes to arrive. Meanwhile, the firing rate of those cannons had increased to one shot every thirty seconds, and it was still accelerating. Excluding the ships stationed at the system’s periphery, Xiao Yu had mobilized a total of 300,000 ships to head for the system’s core. Now, fewer than 290,000 remained. If each cannon blast wiped out 1,500 ships, then Xiao Yu’s forces could only withstand fewer than 200 more volleys. In truth, even surviving another 100 volleys would leave Xiao Yu’s fleet too weak to breach the planet’s defenses, signaling the failure of this operation. To advance and fail to breach the planetary defenses meant death. To retreat would only result in prolonged bombardment by the heavy cannons. For Xiao Yu, failure equaled annihilation. “Calculating conservatively, I need at least 200,000 ships to ensure a successful breach and a total victory... which means I can only afford to take 60 more volleys. At the current firing rate, that gives me just 30 minutes. But if their firing rate continues to increase, based on that trend... I’ll only have ten minutes. Fine then, within ten minutes, I must break into the data center’s defenses and disable those cannons! This is my only chance!” Xiao Yu steeled his resolve. The mission was extremely challenging. First of all, the Molian Civilization’s computer architecture surpassed Xiao Yu’s. Moreover, Xiao Yu had limited understanding of the Molian Civilization’s computational paradigms. And this was not just any data center, it was a central hub for the entire star system. The number of authentication layers and defensive nodes was bound to be overwhelming. Even with Xiao Yu’s immense computing power, he couldn’t guarantee success. As his data streams surged into the Molian Civilization’s computational system, Xiao Yu encountered the first defensive node. It was a barrier originating from the base itself. Meanwhile, the robots in the rear continued to pour in. These machines brought with them a wealth of specialized tools, equipment Xiao Yu had specifically prepared for warfare in the digital realm. They bustled throughout the space base: pulling out cables here, dismantling computation modules there, or installing critical hardware elsewhere... The assault was unfolding simultaneously in both the digital and physical worlds. Thirty seconds later, the first defensive node was successfully taken. The robots kept working. So did Xiao Yu. His goal was to seize absolute and complete control over the base, to convert it into a forward operating base, a beachhead for launching his digital assault on the data center. This part of the task was not particularly difficult. One minute and twenty-five seconds later, the base had been fully secured. “Whew...” Xiao Yu let out a faint breath. A journey of a thousand miles had taken its first step. During that minute and twenty-five seconds, he had endured another three volleys from the giant cannons, losing over five thousand more ships. “The firing rate’s still climbing...” Xiao Yu muttered, pouring his computational power ever more frantically into the digital realm. The Molian Civilization’s computers used a mixed-radix system, whereas Xiao Yu’s computational architecture operated on a quaternary system. Through conversion at the space base, the Molian Civilization’s characters, ranging from zero to fifteen, totaling sixteen symbols, were translated into four symbols, zero to three, which could be processed by the Yanjing’s Supercomputing Center. Countless commands were transmitted from the base into the planetary Supercomputing Center, and through the analysis of returned signals and data, Xiao Yu launched successive waves of digital assaults. The Supercomputing Center’s defenses were formidable. Although the space base already had a considerable level of access, there remained a significant gap between that and the level Xiao Yu required. What stood before Xiao Yu now was an impregnable data fortress. His computational power surged forward like a torrential flood, but it couldn’t tear down the stronghold. Xiao Yu’s mind was stretched to its absolute limit. After upgrading to the latest quantum computing architecture, the Yanjing’s central computer reached over 95% utilization for the first time. This meant that if the scope of battle expanded any further, Xiao Yu wouldn’t have enough computing power left to control his fleet. It was dangerous. But even with such massive computational force, the fortress remained unbroken. The digital world was unlike the human mind. Computers made no distinction between friend and foe, they only recognized permissions. If you had the access rights, you could enter and make use of its resources. Clearly, Xiao Yu did not have the necessary permissions to access the system and order the cannons to cease fire. So what to do? Xiao Yu employed two tactics simultaneously. The first was deception: exploiting potential vulnerabilities to trick the system into believing he had permission. The second was brute force: overloading the system with connection requests to drain its computational resources. Under extreme computational loads, errors might arise. And it was through those cracks that Xiao Yu hoped to gain access via deception. These two strategies complemented each other. But the Supercomputing Center’s defenses exceeded all of Xiao Yu’s expectations. Five minutes had passed. There was still no progress in the digital assault. Meanwhile, the Molian ships attacking the base and besieging Xiao Yu’s fifty thousand warships had increased to over a thousand. In addition, intense cannon fire from other bases was raining down on the area. The Molian Civilization no longer seemed to care about the Molian lifeforms still inside the base. They were prepared to destroy the entire installation. Under such circumstances, Xiao Yu’s fleet was suffering constant and massive casualties. In just those five minutes, he had already lost one-tenth of his fifty thousand ships. To defend the base, Xiao Yu was resorting to tactics that could only be described as suicidal. When outside attacks couldn’t be intercepted, he even directed his ships to act as living shields, throwing them directly into the line of fire. Xiao Yu was trading the destruction of his fleet for time to keep the base alive! Yet still, the digital assault showed no signs of success. “There has to be a way... there has to be a way...” Xiao Yu muttered, continuing to hammer the defenses while thinking furiously. As he pushed through his thoughts, his mind began to settle. Xiao Yu’s brain started operating at an even higher speed. And from this accelerated clarity, an idea slowly emerged. “That’s it. Abandon deception, go full brute force... If I can’t get access, then neither will they. I’ll crash the entire data center. But that means I won’t be able to extract any intel or tech from the digital realm. So be it, deal with the crisis first! Once I reach the planet’s surface and start taking bio-specimens, I might still be able to capture some of their data storage units. I’ll recover them later if I have to. I’ll get my hands on their intelligence and technology eventually!” Xiao Yu gritted his teeth and made his decision. He had a lot of computers. Within the remaining 300,000 ships, every vessel was equipped with a powerful central processor. The higher the ship’s class, the stronger its computing power. Now, Xiao Yu intended to harness the power of every last one of them, merge all of their computational capacity into a vast torrent of data and blast the fortress apart, crashing the data center entirely! Xiao Yu disengaged the Yanjing’s central computer from direct processing. It now functioned solely as a massive data relay. On one end, it was linked to the space base, which in turn was connected to the Supercomputing Center. On the other end, it connected to the central computers aboard the 300,000 ships. In that moment, massive waves of connection requests, access requests, and data packets flooded into the Yanjing, through the base, and into the Supercomputing Center. One robot, unable to withstand the colossal data throughput, immediately shut down. A faint wisp of black smoke rose from its body, its computational module had burned out. As it collapsed, another robot instantly took its place. The combined force of over 300,000 supercomputers surged forward through multiple relays, all aimed at the Supercomputing Center on the planet’s surface. Under this massive wave of data requests, Xiao Yu clearly felt a change: the feedback from the data center began to slow. That meant its computational load was increasing. Xiao Yu’s objective was simple: overload the system until it collapsed. Under the assault powered by 300,000 advanced computers, the impregnable fortress finally began to show signs of stress. It became unstable. And then, it began to make mistakes.

Chapter 224: Data War!

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