Chapter 670, Collapse and Breakout

Chapter 670, Collapse and Breakout
The army group on the northern front is different from those on the western and southern fronts.

There is an absolute main body on the Western Front: the Ortopis Regiment, the Solar Fleet, and the Solar Legion.

Although there are three of them, they are all direct troops working for Holy Terra, and they have been cooperating with each other for a long time. Salilius has full leadership authority over the Solar Fleet and the Solar Legion. Whether it is the fleet commander or the head of the Star Army, they have no objection to obeying Salilius' orders, and he can fully mobilize the troops of the Western Front Legion.

Not to mention the southern front, just the alliance itself.

Of course, there are some additional forces on both the Western and Southern Fronts. For example, there are some remnants of the Phoenix Regiment who stayed behind during the first Western Front offensive; there are other regiments, even ships and Astra Militarum troops who joined and were recruited during the assembly process; there are local troops recruited from the Magre Universe...

The same was true on the southern front. There were some troops deployed from the Eastern Universe, and even from the Yunmengze Universe to the west of the Eastern Universe, who obeyed Gu Hang's command.

However, these "foreign troops" on the southern and western fronts were only subordinate, not core forces, and were merely icing on the cake.

Gu Hang or Salilius have strong enough control over their core troops, which in turn enables them to control the entire army.

But the northern front is not like this, the northern front is a real coalition force.

Of course, there is the Black Crusaders as a core, but to be honest, their proportion in the entire northern front cannot be compared with that of the western front, let alone the alliance on the southern front.

There were also twice as many people from other war groups; as for the fleet, it was also a fleet put together. In addition to the Black Crusaders, the Devouring Stars Domain gave great support. The ships from the Devouring Stars Domain were of the same nature as the Northern Fleet and Yunluo Fleet of the Dragon Eagle Star Domain back then.

There is no subordinate relationship between the fleets under these star domain governments. They are forced together. Maybe when they left their hometown and joined the expeditionary force, they were told by the boss of their own government to try to bring the fleet back. After all, for a star domain, the value of the fleet is very great. If it is really destroyed by the empire, it will take many years to rebuild it relying on the financial capacity of the star domain government.

Especially some poorer star fields.

When the Northern Legion and the Zerg were fighting among the fleets in the Rheaduches galaxy, these star field fleets were the first to collapse.

They just slipped away and ran away.

The clever thing about the Hive Fleet was that they did not hunt down the escaping human ships, but instead focused on putting more pressure on the human fleet.

Seeing that the battle was becoming more and more difficult to hold on to, and seeing that the ships that were supposed to escape had actually escaped, the remaining human ships, which were already in a state of turmoil, fled even more.

At this point, the human side's overall fleet losses were not particularly serious. After all, the most important ships were still there.

The biggest impact is on morale.

The biggest impact on the war situation is that there is a gap in the entire fleet formation. The Hive Fleet can take advantage of the lack of firepower of the human ships and attack from there. Not only will it be easy for other ships on the human side to be hit by side fire, but some core ships inside will also be exposed.

In a swift assault, the most important ship in the Northern Legion fleet, the flagship of the Black Crusade's Third Fleet, the flagship of the entire fleet commanded by Le Roy himself, the battle barge, was destroyed after being hit by concentrated fire.

Before and after the explosion, there were single ships that escaped from the battle barges that were about to be destroyed. Perhaps Leroy himself and some important people who were still on the ship escaped. However, due to the poor communication environment, no one could contact Leroy, and he could no longer effectively command the entire fleet.

Immediately, Marshal Xi Rui of the Black Crusaders' Fourth Fleet took over the command. The battle barge he was on was indeed the second flagship in the entire fleet sequence.

Marshal Xi Rui's handling of the situation after taking over was definitely not wrong. Tactically, he tried his best to make up for the tactical formation of the entire fleet after a battle barge was destroyed; strategically, he also tried his best to appease people's hearts and avoid the total collapse of the fleet. However, no matter how hard he tried, the total collapse still came.

With Le Roy missing and the flagship destroyed, more ships began to withdraw from the battle.

The order was passed, but there was no response.

I don't know whether the communication was really interrupted by the Zerg's omnipresent and extremely powerful communication interference ability, or whether it clearly heard it but deliberately did not respond.

The Inquisition warship where Qin Zhiping was located was actually the one that lasted the longest.

But it's meaningless.

Seeing that defeat was inevitable and realizing that the situation was hopeless, Qin Zhiping had no choice but to order the ships to evacuate.

Or, it would be better to call it 'breakthrough'.

He successfully broke through. Although his ship suffered heavy damage and he could no longer contact the main force after traveling through the star realm after the breakout, he and his crew survived.

But just when they breathed a sigh of relief, bad news came one after another.

The ship's damage management department reported that the ship was seriously damaged and there was no way to repair it under the current conditions. They could only patch it up and try to keep the ship running. But they had no way of guaranteeing how long the ship could run. Perhaps, it would suddenly be damaged at some point.

Qin Zhiping could only take his ships and try to run eastward.

He knew that running north would lead to his own death, as that was also the territory of the Zerg. It would be better to run eastward, towards the Alfonzo star field occupied by the Alliance, as that was closer, and if he really ran over there, there might be a glimmer of hope.

Then, they were attacked by the Void Zerg's hunting ships.

Obviously, in the previous war, the Zerg ignored the escaped human ships, which was just a battle strategy at the time. After they won the fleet decisive battle, these escaped ships were all spoils of war, and they must find a way to get them back.

Of course, they could not escape pursuit while dragging the damaged ship.

The last bit of motivation was enough to allow his Inquisition ship to make an emergency landing on the world called 'Taiyuan Star'.

20% of the crew on board died in this forced landing.

But at least, 80% of people survived.

The feeling of surviving a disaster did not stay in their hearts for even a second. What came immediately was the endless pursuit of the swarm of insects!

(End of this chapter)