To be fair, Elinore truly cared for the lives of her subordinates and was definitely not worried that her own side's lightning strikes would boom the good ship she had her eye on.

This beautiful carnivorous older sister, despite being quite ruthless to herself, others, and matters in general, was genuinely not the kind of cold-blooded person who would send her own people to their deaths without batting an eye. In this world, there indeed exist so-called "famous generals" who are keen on using the blood of enemies, and even more so their own people, to nourish their military achievements, but Elinore was a good girl who smoked, drank, and killed, with proper moral values, and would never be touched by such things.

Furthermore, although she was also a bit of a thrill-seeker, she never implicated others. Even if she truly had to act as a suicide squad for a charge, she was always the first to go.

This was not a good habit, but it was one of the qualities that could earn the trust of her soldiers.

And so, the Destroyer Captains ended the communication with a neat military salute. Yu Lian felt that their loyalty should have shot up by several points across the board.

Within the next ten minutes, the Destroyers continued to play their role as long-range fire support. The 炮戰 between the two sides gradually entered a grinding stalemate.

The Empire's heavy cruiser was indeed determined to retreat, but facing the Earthlings' approach, it naturally couldn't escape the battle through the shortest straight line distance, so it could only move in a serpentine fashion, and for a time, it was unable to break free from the Asteroid Belt.

However, facing the opponent's hard shell, the Commonwealth Fleet was still unable to inflict a fatal wound.

If such a stalemate continued, it would probably end up being an anti-climax.

But at this moment, support from Fleet B finally appeared from another direction.

The two newly arrived Rangers were both modified for enhanced hangar capacity and long-range aerial combat command, so their firepower was insufficient, and they did not rashly enter the battlefield. However, the Corsica, the Thirteenth Fleet's official flagship, had already launched all of its fighters early on.

Three squadrons of Ghost Fighters approached the battlefield at a steady pace. The size of the fighters was much smaller than that of assault ships, and as long as they entered the battlefield at a standard speed, the dense Asteroid Belt would not pose too much of a threat.

It was only when Li Baolu could already see the flashing close-in weapon system fire on the Empire warship with his naked eye that he launched his attack.

"According to the original plan, the main targets of the attack are the enemy ship's thrusters and close-in weapon system turrets! Also, pay attention to the opponent's escort fighters. Furthermore, save the Type B special bombs for last, unless it's confirmed that the enemy armor has been torn open!" Major Asenborun said.

"Major, are we... really going to use that? It violates the Interstellar Convention." Li Baolu couldn't help but ask again.

"Little Knight, listen carefully, the Interstellar Convention is only effective between civilized nations. Are we currently fighting against the Emp... civilized nations?" Asenborun sneered.

This, aren't we fighting against the Empire? Li Baolu had been a good boy since childhood, and he was a bit confused for a moment.

"Idiot, we are suppressing bandits. Attacking an unknown ship that is the mastermind behind cults and rebels!" Martha Deacon smiled and gave her boyfriend a lesson.

The honest boy, Li Baolu, suddenly realized, although he still felt a little uneasy, he could only forget all distractions and forge ahead now.

Major Asenborun was very satisfied with his subordinates' reactions. As an old veteran of the Outer Rim Fleet, he had only learned three things in his service career: training, milking the country, and hating the Empire. Now, to fulfill the last one, he needed the help of these young comrades. He was very confident now, especially in the two youngest ones.

Sure enough, even those two "rookies" who had just graduated didn't rush in headfirst. Instead, like eagles observing their prey, they cruised around the Asteroid Belt for a few circles. They then discovered the Empire fighters hiding in the enemy ship's belly, and only then did they unleash a dense barrage of bullets, charging towards the enemy aircraft and the enemy ship.

Air Knight Lainong secretly clenched his fists. The opponent clearly had a numerical advantage but was overly cautious, so what could he do? Now, he could only fight to the death as an Empire Knight.

His desperate struggle was effective, at least successfully delaying the enemy aircraft's fierce assault.

However, as we all know, in aerial combat, as long as there is no generational gap between the two sides' fighters, the side with more people can bully the side with fewer.

Fortunately, while the Empire had a generational gap with the Commonwealth in Emblem Machines, it did not in the common weapon of space fighters.

Marquis Odgar also clenched his fists, forcing himself to divert his attention from the tragic aerial battlefield. He knew that if he hadn't let Lainong and the others take off with air superiority equipment early, they would have been focused fired by fighters by now. But he also knew that he was busy retreating and had no way to allow the fighters to land, so their fate was already sealed.

Cannot let their sacrifice be in vain!

Marquis Odgar closed his eyes, rubbed the ring on his left index finger, and re-entered the state of interstellar spatial awareness, preparing to find a passage for rapid transit.

However, at this moment, Yu Lian raised his head and sent a picture file to Ina, who was still happily firing the main cannon.

It was a hologram of the Empire cruiser, with a very small area marked with a red dot in the middle of its hull.

"Ina, do you see my red mark?"

Ina turned her head and looked at Yu Lian with suspicious eyes.

"Concentrate fire on this position!" Yu Lian said.

"Oh, a weak point!" She immediately showed an eager expression, even licking her lips with a bloodthirsty glint: "One shot into this ship and it's dead."

...The Hand of Glory's designer would be executed!" Yu Lian said helplessly, then added: "However, I reckon it will make the opponent very uncomfortable."

Seeing no movement from her, Yu Lian added: "This is much closer than when you fired at New Yumen last time, don't tell me you can't hit it!"

The sniper Miss stared at Yu Lian with her bright red eyes for a second, then cast a questioning gaze towards Elinore. And so, the senior student also glared back with her bright blue eyes.

Oh, Feifei's amber eyes didn't participate, she had been hiding behind the camera all along.

There seemed to be another pair of glasses, but Yu Lian decided to ignore them directly.

"I reckon this protrusion is really suspicious! So, this is also a spiritual energy user's intuition!"

A faint laugh seemed to come from behind the camera, but Yu Lian still decided to ignore it.

"Heh~~~ Commander, there's not just one spiritual energy user on this ship." Ina showed a smug expression, looking as if to say, "You can't fool me again."

"I'm Three Rings."

Elinore rolled her eyes, while Ina gnashed her teeth and shrank her head back. As for whether the gaze behind the glasses was envy, jealousy, or hatred, it wasn't too important.

Lieutenant Ina Hilika's first three bombardments, two missed, and one was blocked by the shield. However, the saturation fire from the other ships objectively provided her with fire support and once again stripped the enemy ship of all its shields.

And so, Ina's fourth bombardment finally accurately hit the red dot Yu Lian had marked.

A lot of electrical sparks seemed to erupt from the hit point on the Empire warship, but that was all; the damage was far less severe than the previous torpedo hits.

Ina pouted and didn't jump up to argue with Yu Lian. Instead, after a pause, her dark red eyes suddenly began to contract, slowly condensing into three layers of concentric pupils.

She continuously operated her right hand, pushing the performance of the main ion cannon to its limit.

Facts proved that the universe spirit would give candy to diligent good girls, especially those with unlimited potential like Ina, an SSR reserve. In the next brief half-minute, she completed a total of twelve shots, with ten of them hitting the marked red area.

Just as Yu Lian was estimating that the Corsica's ion main cannon would need a major overhaul when they returned, a clear explosion finally occurred in the enemy ship's thick armor, blowing an entire armor plate open and revealing a clear gash. Boiling flames poured out from that direction, like a constantly bleeding, heavy wound.

Yu Lian let out a sigh of relief. This way, the opponent's source material wave communication device should be irreparable for a while, and they would only be able to hide in that fortress that was still under construction, right?

Hehehe, I love seeing your despair when you see the other side of hope.

Before Yu Lian and everyone on the ship could start cheering, they saw a Ghost Fighter, designated RX78, in the entangled aerial battlefield, darting out like a sardine that had slipped through the net. It lightly dodged the crossfire of two turbo laser arrays, streaking Past the enemy ship at a height of less than ten meters, precisely dropping two shells with discordant markings into the inferno.

Those were the so-called Type B special bombs. Of course, they could also be called special toxin bombs.

These were not gas bombs that would simply die out when burned by high temperatures, but rather a biological toxin that, once it entered a confined space, would mutate to form an invisible, pervasive toxic mist, causing fatal harm to all carbon-based life forms.

High temperatures from ordinary fuel would even only help them spread.

This was indeed a rather discordant weapon, and thus it was banned by the Galactic Civilization Council.

However, aren't we fighting unknown pirates?

"That's so f*cking ruthless! That's so f*cking beautiful! Who is that?!" Yu Lian couldn't help but jump up, clapping and cheering.

"It's Lieutenant Li Baolu." Autumn Mountain Yawata looked at the holographic screen in front of him.

He's clearly an honest kid, but his degeneration is truly disheartening! Yu Lian thought.

He felt that he no longer needed to steer the ship, so he stood up, wanting to go over and quietly discuss something with the senior student.

"Are we preparing to board?" Feifei poked her head out from behind the camera. This was her first time speaking during this battle.

Indeed, judging by common sense, the two gas bombs that just hit should have killed a large number of enemies inside the ship. If the goal was truly to capture that beautiful warship, now would be the time to board.

...However, boarding now would still incur too many losses, and Lilia's militia couldn't be relied upon for a tough fight. Moreover, Marquis Odgar was still on board, and if nothing unexpected happened, there should be at least two to three spiritual energy users on board. If they were equipped with Emblem Machines, they would still be a fatal threat.

He didn't expect two gas bombs to kill a powerful spiritual energy user. Nor did he plan to take down the opponent right now.

Yu Lian couldn't help but smile bitterly, thinking that this was what he was about to discuss with the senior student. Just as he was about to speak, he heard Feifei say to Elinore: "Commander, I personally believe that if we initiate boarding now, the Marine Corps casualties will still be immeasurable! Furthermore, the boarding force we would rely on is a guest army, and strictly speaking, we have no command authority over them."