Chapter 49: The Final Song of the Black Tiger

At this time, Zheng Hu tried hard to stabilize the collapsing fleet, and did not realize that the Redemption had been exposed to the enemy's guns.

The commander of the Imperial Fleet had completed the organization of a salvo, and hundreds of main guns fired at the same time.

Dense bursting laser beams flew towards the Redemption.

Zheng Hu did not react until the Redemption was hit by the enemy's salvo.

Chen Cheng, the captain of the Redemption, was even more frightened and sweating.

Chen Cheng was not worried about his own life, but worried about betraying Qi Yiming's trust.

He knew how much Qi Yiming valued this warship. If the Redemption was buried here because of him, even Chen Cheng could not forgive himself.

The Redemption's hull kept shaking under the dense barrage, but the violent explosion imagined by the commander of the Imperial Fleet did not occur.

In fact, the effect of the salvo was very good. The outer armor of the Redemption dropped to 25% the moment it was hit.

The salvos from two directions made the two sides of the Redemption unrecognizable, but luckily, none of the main and secondary guns were hit.

Seeing that the Redemption was almost sunk, Zheng Hu was also scared and broke out in a cold sweat.

He could no longer care about stopping the disintegrating fleet, he had to protect the Redemption.

Chen Cheng also gave up supporting the friendly ships at this time, and turned on the power reactor of the Redemption to the maximum power, fully supplying the operation of the nanorobot production line in the ship.

The outer armor value of the Redemption recovered from 25% to 40% in just 1 minute, but it was still a drop in the bucket.

As long as the Imperial Fleet fired another salvo, the Redemption would definitely be sunk.

And the commander of the Imperial Fleet was doing the same.

"How long will it take to charge the main gun?" The commander asked the weapons officer anxiously.

"1 minute and 25 seconds..."

"Power reactor full power output..."

In a battlefield where every second counts, one more second may create different results. The commander understood this very well and kept urging the weapons officer to speed up the weapon charging speed.

At the same time, Zheng Hu commanded his ship to approach the Redemption desperately, trying to block the fatal attack for the Redemption.

50km…40km…10km…

Just when the Black Tiger reached the starboard side of the Redemption, the Imperial Fleet fired another salvo.

Zheng Hu had no time to speak, and the Black Tiger lost its combat effectiveness instantly due to the saturation attack.

The Redemption was not much better, although the starboard attack was blocked by the Black Tiger. But the port side was still hit by the burst laser fired by the Imperial Fleet.

The secondary guns on the port side of the Redemption were all destroyed, and the outer armor was directly penetrated.

On the Redemption injury monitor, the value indicating the integrity of the port side outer armor was instantly reset to zero, and even the structural value dropped by 15% in this attack.

Chen Cheng had no time to feel sad about Zheng Hu's death, and immediately turned the bow to prepare to break away from contact with the enemy ship.

However, the fleets of both sides were originally at the distance of cannons and bayonets. Even if the Redemption could run faster, it would not be able to escape the main gun range of the Imperial Fleet in a short time.

A few minutes later, the Imperial Fleet fired again...

At this time, Chen Cheng had closed his eyes: "I'm sorry, Captain... I failed to protect the Redemption..."

Just when Chen Cheng thought that the Redemption was doomed, the paralyzed Black Tiger struggled and blocked most of the attacks for the Redemption again.

Zheng Hu was standing in the position of the navigator with blood all over his face, and he pushed the throttle valve of the power furnace of the Black Tiger with great effort while enduring the severe pain caused by his physical injury.

"Xiao Chen, go... I can only help you block it for a while..." Zheng Hu's painful and firm voice sounded in the fleet communication screen.

"Tell Qi Yiming that I don't accept him... Relying on a high-performance warship to defeat me... I don't accept him... But it's worth it to see the unification of the Xuanwu Star Region in this life, I thank him Qi Yiming!" After that, Zheng Hu drove the Black Tiger again to block the third salvo of the Imperial Fleet for the Redemption.

This time, the Black Tiger completely turned off the engine, and as the internal energy went out of control, the Black Tiger was torn into pieces.

Chen Cheng tried hard to hold back the tears in his eyes, and urged the navigator of the Redemption to drive the warship as fast as possible...

With Zheng Hu's self-sacrifice, the Redemption successfully escaped the main gun range of the Imperial Fleet.

Chen Cheng breathed a sigh of relief, and the tears in his eyes could no longer be controlled.

Suddenly, the Xuefeng left the jump mode and appeared directly next to the Redemption.

Qi Yiming immediately connected to the communication with the Redemption.

"Why are you crying... Immediately start the combination program of the Redemption and the Xuefeng..."

Qi Yiming had no time to understand the battlefield situation. He felt very bad at the border.

But the defense line around the jumping bridge could not be fixed for a while, and Qi Yiming really couldn't leave in advance.

Until the defense line was half completed, Qi Yiming was really anxious, and he directly left his fleet and drove the Xuefeng to support Zheng Hu alone.

But he didn't expect to be a step late...

Seeing the miserable state of the Redemption, Qi Yiming didn't even care about Zheng Hu's death and immediately ordered the Xuefeng and Redemption to start combining.

"Please select the main control program..." The intelligent brain gave the option rigidly.

"Based on the Lightning, execute the emergency combination program..." Qi Yiming said calmly.

"Skip the 3rd, 6th, 14th, and 25th programs, and the emergency combination program will start..."

The two warships, which were originally very close, suddenly flashed dense arcs between the hulls.

The two warships approached each other quickly, and rigid structures extended from the sides of the two warships facing each other, and corresponding slots also appeared.

In less than 30 seconds, the hulls of the two warships shook, and then they fit tightly together.

The connection between the two ships was quickly covered by the armor layer.

The damaged secondary guns of the Redemption were put into the hull, and then six new secondary guns were ejected from the sterns of the Exploration and the Guardian in turn.

These secondary guns are the redundant secondary guns after several warships were combined. Due to the limited gun positions, these redundant secondary guns were stored as spare weapons, and now they are also in use.

The two warships are fitted left and right, so the overall appearance has not changed much, but the hull of the newly combined warship is much wider.

The remote repair weapon of the Redemption had been separated from the hull when the two warships were combined, and was pulled to the front of the warship by the tractor beam, where an additional gun mount was specially placed for this special main gun.

The four back-mounted turrets on the Redemption and the Snow Peak were rearranged along the central axis of the newly combined warship, two in front and one in the back.

The redundant main guns were taken back into the warship as spares.

Due to the combination of the two destroyers, the computing power of the upgraded Snow Peak has been improved again.

After loading a main control program, the Snow Peak, which could only load one auxiliary program, has the ability to load an additional auxiliary program.

That is to say, the current Xuefeng can run the main control programs of the Exploration and the Guardian at the same time. In addition, the Xuefeng is a combination of the Lightning, and the warship also has abundant energy supply.

After the combination was completed, the outer armor value of the Xuefeng dropped to 70% due to the heavy damage to the Redemption.

The Guardian once again received an oversaturated energy supply, and the speed of producing nano-repair robots received strong energy support.

The armor value recovered to 85% in just 3 minutes.

The new Xuefeng, which completed the emergency combination, became a monster warship that excels at both offense and defense.

"Zheng Hu, wait for me to avenge you..." Qi Yiming gritted his teeth and looked fiercely at the imperial fleet approaching the Xuefeng.