Number One Commander - Chapter 123

There’s a reason why their forces were spread out to handle the enemy Inzektors. Namely, it was easier to deal with them by having a concave. There was a fatal weakness to this, it was that any point of their frontline was breachable if the enemies attack became concentrated.

Luon face couldn’t help but distort at the scene in front of him. The swarm of Inzektors moved like a living snake as it flew towards their team’s direction.

“We got to escape!”

It was the first thing that had appeared on everyone’s mind. Luon thought about the battle from a different type of perspective. If the enemy breaks their formation now then what would happen next? It was more than likely that they would break up and spread out, but the situation changes if they have been breached.

The Inzektors would have direct access to attack the Fleet ships behind them. Knowing this Luon decided to take action before their line of defense becomes destroyed. He left their formation along with the 4 robotically controlled ships and dove towards the enemy swarm.

“Luon what are you doing!” Belle shouted as she shook away the fear she had just felt moments ago.

“There’s no time for this, we got to go help him!” Gizmo began to motion his ship towards Luon, but he was stopped by Luon.

“Don’t follow me! All we need to do is make them go back and spread then back out again. I’ll bait them away while you guys rearrange the formation, so it works even without me!” Luon said.

“Why can’t you just use the robots to bait them away?” Belle continued to follow Luon despite his remarks. She wasn’t able to catch up. Luon pressed a button on his ship indirectly stopped her own.

“It isn’t good enough to just use the robots, sending that way would be pointless,.Just trust me on this,” Luon replied.

“What abou-” Before anyone can ask Luon about his plans he cut off the communications channel on his ship. Luon didn’t plan on dying or at least in vain, and he didn’t have the leisure to explain his strategy.

The first thing he needs to do is drag the enemies away from the area where his squadmates were at, and to do so, he has to obtain their attention. But what could he do? He needed to do something crazy and reckless to attract their attention, but at the same time, he didn’t want to end up like a fly being struck by an electric fly swatter on the first try.

The formation changed, the robotic ships that surrounded Luon no longer had the regular V-shape. The four of them aligned themselves with each other and begun to spiral around behind Luon’s ship. This setting was designed to shut off most of the functionality of the robotic AI to conserve energy that can be reused on the ship. There was no complex thinking, all they had to do now was follow along Luon’s ship while spiraling and taking down the closest enemy.

Luon’s squad of 5 maneuvered like a drill scratching at a pile of dirt as it dove into the Inzektors formation. Before his eyes was a massive wall of Inzektors but this despite this he didn’t appear fazed at all. Luon opened a compartment on his ship and placed a circular object inside before resealing it and pressing a button.

Hearing a sound of something being ejected from his ship he could see the object that he placed in the compartment fly out towards the swarm of Inzektors. The small thing that Luon had launched towards the Inzektors was ignored. Their intelligence wasn’t able to recognize what use it could be. Instead, they dove towards the ship like a tsunami wrapping around a surfer.

But Luon wasn’t worried, he looked at the Inzektors with a smile on his face as he said to himself, “Fools, feel the power of explosions!”

The small, circular object suddenly radiated in a bright white light causing the Inzektor to screech as a response. But before they could do anything else, the Inzektors that were caught in the blast radius were vaporized without a trace as Luon’s team dove right in the opening.

The confident Inzektors were enraged, the few ships before them had vaporized so many of their allies. All of the Inzektors turned green and shot acid at Luon and the four robots, but things didn’t turn out as they anticipated it to.

Luon’s spiral formation expanded and the ships adjusted their positions while increasing their speed, these set of actions caused the Inzektors to miss their target, but their goo did hit something. Since Luon and the robots had dived in the middle of the Inzektor swarm, it was no surprise that many of their shots had killed each other.

Luon managed to breakthrough without any more interruptions, but after he did, he twirled back towards the swarm and repeated the same action. Escaping was not his goal, he was aiming to attract the entire Inzektor swarm. After breaking through once more, the Inzektors turned smarter. They no longer shot their goo at Luon and focused on physically grabbing his ship and reinforcing the thickness of their of the places where Luon could break in.

“If one explosive doesn’t work, then why not two? If two don’t work, then I’ll just keep using more.” Luon fearlessly smiled at the enemies attempt to reinforce their encirclement.

Their wall shattered as their attack pattern adjusted to Luon’s antics. Forming a huge ball, they shot their goo simultaneously at Luon who easily evaded by increasing the distance between them. His assault wasn’t over yet, his goal was to get the enemy to spread out instead of clumping up. He wasn’t able to dive inside of their formation anymore as the risk was too high and he wasn’t armed with any huge explosive weaponry to destroy it.

However, anticipating their action, Luon motioned his small group to towards a different direction. Explosives weren’t the only thing in his arsenal. The laser turrets did its best to repel the Inzektors that were closing in on them as he circled around the clump of Inzektors. Fortunately, the ships with the robots were in had been refueled moments ago, if he focuses on dodging he would be able to last a while longer.

The Inzektors once again responded to his change, they started to trail Luon instead of staying clumped up.

At this point, Luon had all of the Inzektors on his tail. The moment he ran out of energy is the moment he would die on the battlefield. Just like Chester, he was a living Inzektor train, no, it was more like a dragon.

The massive swarm of Inzektors would enter the attack range of the other squad causing them to let out a few stray shots, killing a good number of Inzektors. However, because of their actions, some of them would stray off.

It was an okay if it was a few, but once Luon realized that it was too much for the squadron to handle he would turn back and like a dragon devouring its own flesh, he went through the main body of Inzektors once more.

Belle appeared amazed as she muttered, “Wow, since when were these ships armed with explosives? How come I don’t see any attached to my ship?”

“More importantly, you should be questioning why he has so many explosives in the first place, as well as the cost for them. Just letting you know now, but I got a message from saying that either you or Arisa is footing his bill,” Gizmo said as checked his BMPU out.

“What?! How much is it?” Belle asked, unlike Arisa, she had to earn her own money unless her father had authorized it so. He might be lenient in regards to military munitions, but Belle couldn’t imagine her father to be happy if she spent a considerable amount for explosives.

Belle received a message from Gizmo and looking at the content she became shocked. She silently redirected the material to someone else while having a solemn expression.

Kiri asks, “So did you send it to her?”

Belle replied with a smile, “Yeah, after all. Fleet expenses should be sent to the fleet right?”

“Hmm, okay. Let’s help Luon clear this up now,” Kiri said as she looked at the scene before her.

Luon continued to slowly dwindle and drill through the Inzektor forces while using the multiple frontlines as leverage. He dug through the swarm with bombs while decreasing their forces with laser beams. This didn’t last that long though, soon their energy reserves plummeted, and the only actions Luon could make was barely enough to just move around the Inzektors and firing bombs at concentrated locations.

Seeing his actions, the Inzektors spread themselves out to prevent them from getting bombarded. This action was the turning point of the battle. The nearby squadrons started to exterminate the Inzektors as they pushed onwards, no longer afraid of being attacked by a group Inzektors when they regain their attention.

The battlefield had been reset, the only difference Luon was trapped in the midst of all of the Inzektors. Looking at his energy reserves Luon realized that he wouldn’t be able to make it back to the base in this state, and going out now will just make the situation the same as before, Luon would wound up dead like Chester.

But unlike Chester who brought doom to his team, Luon decided to go down fighting. The five ships changed direction and charged towards the Swarm Host. His actions caused several Inzektors to chase after him.

At this moment, a tentacle had partially finished regenerating and attacked Luon’s squadron, destroying one of the 4 robots before Luon managed to make it inside of the Swarm Host.

Passing through a membrane his ship skidded and crashed inside of the Swarm Host.

Luon quickly donned a mask and exited the ship after shrouding himself in mana. He looked at his ship with regret, it was fully customized and out of energy. He stored it away into his intraspatial bag before running towards a direction. Luon and the 3 robots made their way to one of the tunnels that were connected to the area he crashed in. He slashed through the membrane-like door and jumped in. Surprisingly the regeneration rate was quick. The opening he had sliced open barely allowed him to get inside.

The four of them began to run as an explosion rang out, the four ships were switched to self-destruct evaporated the hanger they were in once before. Unfortunately, one of the robots was caught in the explosion as it shielded Luon and the other two with its body. Slicing open another membrane Luon was now inside of the Inzektor. His BMPU read that the atmospheric elements contained the proper gases to allow him to operate without the mask.

According to the mission data, he needed to find the heart of the Swarm Host and destroy it before leaving the place. His ship was inoperable, but he believed that his team would be able to clean up the Inzektors outside and get him out of there.

It wasn’t going to be easy, he soon heard a series of sounds coming from down the tunnel. A swarm of white Inzektors which resembled ants covered the tunnel.

Luon took out his sword as he slowly muttered to himself, “Well, let’s see how long we can go for.”

His robotic allies took out some rifles, and the two forces clashed.