Chapter 683: Chapter 296: Attack from Outer Space Chapter 683: Chapter 296: Attack from Outer Space Within just a short eight minutes, the United Fleet had suffered a catastrophic blow. Aside from Japan's two “10.10 Fleets,” the fleets of Canada and Australia had been completely annihilated. Even the Maritime Self-Defense Force of Japan only had 18 warships left; all other warships had sunk. Compared to the initial vibrant spirit during the establishment of the United Fleet, its current state was utterly tragic.
Everyone had originally thought that Dream Island was an easy target, ripe for the taking, but it turned out that Dream Island was a ferocious wolf, one that did not even spit out the bones of its prey, suffering heavy losses before even getting close. Embarking with the thought of reaping the benefits of Dream Island, none expected to hit such a formidable steel wall, gaining no advantage and teetering on the brink of complete annihilation.
Upon realizing that the situation was entirely different from what he imagined and that he had suffered significant losses, Yamazaki, the commander of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, felt a chill in his heart and nearly passed out. Japan had sent its elite warships and 80% of the total Maritime Self-Defense Forces, aiming to demonstrate Japan's naval strength and gain enormous benefits. But who knew that Dream Island was merely playing possum, sending out a single terrifying Artificial Whale, which left the Japanese Fleet in disarray.
Luckily, the Japanese Fleet's training was more thorough and their coordination more skilled, so even when sprinting at high speed, they managed not to completely scatter. Upon detecting the threat, they quickly established a Regional Air Defense Network, narrowly evading an extremely horrifying anti-ship missile rain attack. Still, even so, Japan lost all of its auxiliary vessels, and the two “10.10 Fleets” themselves lost two ships, creating an irremediable breach in their air defense network.
Scattered on the sea were a few members of the Maritime Self-Defense Force of Japan who had miraculously escaped death, but their numbers were very scarce, no more than five hundred. Japan had sent out a total of 35,000 navy soldiers this time. Including the remaining personnel from the two “10.10 Fleets,” the number of survivors among the Maritime Self-Defense Force soldiers was less than 5,000. In other words, up to now, Japan had lost over 30,000 elite soldiers.
These soldiers were Japan's seeds for a naval force, to be rapidly expanded once Japan restored a regular military arrangement as a normalized country. But it was beyond expectation that they would be virtually wiped out here. After losing this batch of seed forces, it was anybody's guess how long it would take for Japan to train so many elite troops again.
At this point, Yamazaki could no longer care about his secret task; his mission now was to preserve the last 5,000 seeds of Japan's Army, the last hope for Japan's resurgence. If these were also lost, Japan's recovery would be hopeless. Thus, he shouted loudly, “Maintain air defense formation, retreat, immediate retreat!”
While retreating, Yamazaki urgently reported the details of the attack and his losses to Japan's prime minister in the rear, hoping the Japanese Government could persuade the US Forces to come to their rescue. Although the Japanese Navy was formidable during World War II, Japan's current military had not been through the baptism of modern warfare. Even though their warships and equipment were advanced, they lacked the US Forces' rich combat experience and became utterly disarrayed when encountering unexpected situations. So upon realizing they were in grave danger, Yamazaki immediately sought tactical guidance from the rear to prevent further losses.
The exchange of anti-ship missiles had been monitored by satellites in outer space, so Yamazaki could also observe through satellite feed the United Fleet's anti-ship missile attack on the Artificial Whale. From the angle of the footage, it seemed like the Artificial Whale had been sunk by the anti-ship missiles. But Yamazaki caught the discrepancy; he knew the Artificial Whale had deliberately dived deep into the ocean, meaning their missiles hadn't hit it at all, and the barrage merely killed countless fish.
It was precisely because he discovered that the Artificial Whale was undamaged that Yamazaki was so terrified, as he had no idea if it might surface again. If the Artificial Whale resurfaced and launched another round of saturated missile attacks on the remaining ships of the decimated United Fleet, even if the attack only destroyed one or two warships, it would create an even bigger hole in their air defense formation, leading to greater losses in the next attack.
By now, Yamazaki had come to a grim realization: their submarine fleet lurking beneath the surface was most likely doomed, having probably been destroyed by the Artificial Whale. Even without firing torpedoes, the sheer impact would be enough to sink all of their submarines.
There were eight severely damaged warships in this sea area. However, their damage was too severe to be salvaged, and they had sunk one after another during this time. Thus, at this time, besides Yamazaki's 18 warships, there were no other warships from the United Fleet left in this sea area. Beneath the surface, there were two submarines from the United Fleet, but after witnessing the drastic changes above, they were so frightened that they did not dare to surface and instead chose to flee towards Japan.