Super Mothership
Since the era of firearms, physical armor had already begun to be phased out by history.
Whether it was guns and cannons, or more advanced energy weapons, all had the ability to pierce through defenses by at least one level.
In World War II, the thickest armor reached 650 mm on the Yamato, which was hailed as the world’s most powerful battleship — yet its ultimate fate was to be sunk by aerial bombs and torpedoes.
Its sinking marked the end of the era of big battleships and heavy guns, and also signaled the complete imbalance between offensive and defensive technologies.
From then on, the development history of large weapons in various countries shifted toward the direction of hiding deeper, moving faster, and striking more accurately.
After entering the interstellar era, the Gemini civilization developed force-field shield technology, which finally changed the awkward situation of defensive tech.
Even though starships kept getting bigger and bigger, Gemini never considered thickening the armor to improve a ship’s defenses.
Before there’s a breakthrough in materials science, increasing armor thickness could only offer a negligible improvement in protection — the cost and benefit were completely disproportionate.
However, for the Immortal, its massive body, with powerful regenerative abilities, was naturally a super tank with high defense and a massive health pool.
Its densely layered foliage alone was already 2–3 km thick, with defensive capability comparable to 2–3 km of ultra-strength armor, forming a natural barrier.
After experiencing the fire calamity, the water of life fully stimulated the Immortal’s evolutionary potential.
The optimized new leaves were even tougher — not only more heat-resistant, but also evolving their primitive photosynthesis ability into something close to a primary energy absorption ability, greatly enhancing its capacity to absorb and convert microwaves and high-energy photons!
Energy-based rays would inflict some damage while also being partly absorbed by the Immortal, weakening the attack and even accelerating repair of damaged areas at the same time — even Nie Yun was impressed by this new ability.
Combined with the ultra-reflective mechanical insect coating, beam weapons at the frigate level were already unable to inflict much damage on the Immortal.
Of course, that didn’t mean this wave of attacks was completely ineffective — at least the highly-penetrative force-field rays managed to sever quite a few branches and even inflicted some damage on the Immortal’s body.
But the dense foliage provided excellent visual concealment, making it impossible for Gemini to assess the effects of their attacks.
So, on the surface, the Immortal seemed completely unharmed by this wave of firepower!
Then, in the next instant, the Immortal — having just stunned Gemini with its formidable defenses — decisively launched a counterattack!
The branches shifted and repositioned at high speed, quickly opening up dozens of pupil-like firing ports.
In the next moment, the Immortal turned into a glowing hedgehog, shooting out dozens of massive beams from all over its body — the spectacle even surpassed the broadside salvo of the Sea Clan’s fleet!
“Not good! Evade!” the two commanders exclaimed.
But just a few seconds later, two massive fireballs erupted within the Sea Clan fleet — two warships were reduced to cosmic dust, becoming the first casualties of this encounter.
Not only that, but the shields of another three or four ships nearby suddenly plummeted to dangerous levels from the spillover of the attack!
In fact, the Sea Clan’s interception fleet had already entered the Immortal’s firing range long before this, and Nie Yun had simply waited for them to close in before launching the first volley — and the close-range salvo delivered spectacular results!
This was no Hou Yi-class sneak attack; it was a head-on engagement after the Sea Clan fleet was fully prepared — yet still two ships were taken out in one exchange, a true demonstration of hard power!
“I-It’s fortress-class main guns! At least ten of them!” the observer cried out in a panic.
When all the Sea Clan officers heard this number, cold sweat instantly drenched their faces.
Isn’t its body supposed to be just a cosmic organism? What’s with this density of fortress-grade weaponry?
So is this a cosmic organism that has undergone mechanized modification? Or a mechanical fortress that has been biologically integrated?
By their original estimates, even if this cosmic creature had been mechanically modified, at most it would be like strapping a machine gun to a jeep — at best it might reach the firepower of an armed jeep.
And yet? You turned a jeep into a Tiger tank? Does that make any sense?!
Fortress cannons are called fortress cannons because their power supply, cooling, and other supporting systems take up too much space — ordinary small warships simply can’t carry them.
At this kind of weapon density, this tree… hasn’t it already been hollowed out inside?
Immortal: “...Not quite, but close enough...”
As the saying goes, “a man lives for his face, a tree lives for its bark.” The central woody core of a tree is not indispensable — as long as it is not completely destroyed, it does not impair the tree’s internal material exchange. This is also why hollow old trees are still able to survive.
From this perspective, plant-type lifeforms are actually more suitable than animal-type lifeforms for fortress-style modifications as cosmic organisms, with an innate and excellent compatibility!
Although shocked by the Immortal’s awe-inspiring offensive and defensive capabilities, the two commanders of the Sea Clan were seasoned veterans of many battles. They immediately analyzed the enemy’s characteristics and began issuing a series of targeted orders.
“Fleet, spread out to the flanks — watch your maneuvering and evade enemy fire!”
“Switch to kinetic weapons for area saturation fire! Launch special missiles to probe the enemy’s weak points!”t
“Minesweepers, deploy dark mines to block its advance route!”
…
As the orders were given, the Sea Clan fleet began to move slowly to the flanks, clearing the Immortal’s direct path ahead — obviously preparing to avoid its frontal assault.
At the same time, each ship’s bow extended its firing rails, and with a surge of ghostly blue sparks, “whoosh whoosh whoosh!” countless solid alloy rods were launched at high speed by electromagnetic rails, all aimed straight at the Immortal!
Meanwhile, over a dozen small minelayers scattered a string of basketball-sized floating dark mines. Relying on inertia, these inconspicuous mines drifted evenly into the Immortal’s advance path.
There is no such thing as the strongest weapon — only the most suitable weapon!
This was the famous saying of Gemini’s military strategist, Thompson.
Since energy weapons proved ineffective, then switch to kinetic weapons!
The Immortal’s massive body did have natural advantages in both attack and defense, but that didn’t mean it had no weaknesses.
Aside from its solar sail, the Immortal’s acceleration depended entirely on the massive propulsion unit at its root. These thrusters were fairly effective for one-way acceleration of its colossal body — but when it came to maneuverability… it was practically zero!
For the Immortal, which took dozens of minutes just to turn around, agility… was its biggest shortcoming!
And extremely low agility naturally meant extremely low evasion. Even if it could anticipate the enemy’s attack direction, it was basically impossible for it to dodge in time — and that was what gave the Sea Clan their chance!
Kinetic weapons fired slowly, and in interstellar battlefields they were easily dodged by the nimble maneuvers of normal starships. Therefore, they were mostly used as short-range combat weapons. But in terms of armor-piercing ability, even a small celestial body dozens of kilometers wide could be pierced through by a single high-speed electromagnetic projectile!
Clearly, these two commanders were no fools — using this kind of weapon against the Immortal was undoubtedly more lethal than energy weapons!
Countless projectiles carrying massive kinetic energy came hurtling toward the Immortal, and suddenly — ghostly blue sparks began flickering across the Immortal’s trunk…
TL Note- Air Defense?
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