The planet with a huge ring of planets was named Double Jupiter, and it closely resembled the Jupiter from the Solar System of Ancient Earth, but was more complex and dangerous. The difficulty of landing on it was even greater.
It wasn’t just challenging for the newcomers; even graduates faced a slim chance of landing safely.
The gigantic ring was composed of countless meteors, making it difficult for airships to pass through without collision, especially when pursuing speed.
During the flight, pilots also had to avoid disturbances from tidal forces and various other sudden celestial phenomena.
Everyone held their breath.
On the screen, each Military Academy’s team was easy to recognise, and soon, the final race began with thousands of vessels flying at once. The speed was too fast, and the scene too thrilling, as the airships began to approach Double Jupiter with extremely high difficulty maneuvers.
Lin Fu’s gaze began to dart around, focusing on Xu Jinglan’s Flying Team while not forgetting to observe the competition.
At the same time, various data were still jumping on the screen.
"We are about to enter the Constant Star Gravitational Capture Zone, please be aware!"
The electronic prompt echoed through the venue, but no one paid attention, because even without the alert, everyone saw what was coming. Everyone knew how to calculate entering the Constant Star Gravitational Capture Zone; it was basic knowledge.
"The first to enter is the First Military Command College."
"The second is the Glihuade Star System Military Academy."
The initial announcements were clear, but later warnings were drowned out by various accident alerts. Many airships suddenly entering the gravitational capture zone were disturbed by gravity. A slight mistake in maneuvering would cause the vessel to lose control. Combined with the meteor-formed rings, it would crash and explode into fireworks, turning into cosmic dust.
Bursts of explosions occurred in the starry sky, one after another, incessantly. This was merely a simulation; had it been real, those few seconds would have seen tens of thousands dead at the very least.
And it would have been the sort where no bodies would be found.
Wars in the interstellar era were this cruel. Departing from the bloody mess of the Ancient Earth Era, battles had become more of a spectacle, yet often a single campaign would result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of deaths.
A standard Cosmic Fleet had to have at least two million soldiers in service. The last court coup saw the Galaxy Empire completely cripple three Cosmic Fleets.
The number of soldiers who died was always something the Military Department was reluctant to mention.
The first obstacle weeded out a third of the teams.
In the midst of these continuous explosions, Xu Jinglan’s Flying Team silently and safely entered the ring of the planet, completely unaffected by gravity.
Only after entering the planetary ring did the real contest begin.
The flying teams started coordinating their tactics, and battles erupted. The combat was dizzying—without being directly involved and lacking extensive combat experience, one couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening.
Competitions needed to be rewatched repeatedly afterwards.
Lin Fu only saw sparks before her eyes as the battle never paused. The alerts for the total annihilation of flying teams kept sounding, and the names of Military Academies exiting due to death started appearing on the ranking lists one after another.
The Military Academy Students in the venue covered their faces in distress.
Lin Fu realised she couldn’t oversee the whole situation and decided to focus solely on Xu Jinglan. Gradually, she began to understand the strategy.
"This tactic... it’s too crafty," Ji Xiu muttered under his breath.
It turned out that as soon as Xu Jinglan’s Flying Team entered the planetary ring, they started setting up a wide-range Silence Field, disrupting all information communication in the battle. This was because the Elbert personnel were subpar, and many Military Academies had previously agreed to target them secretly.
If that was the case, they might as well disrupt all communications; this would prevent any coordination, rendering all previously arranged tactics useless.