The Martial Unity

The weapons systems used by the arakai were vastly superior to those used by the humans. They didn’t launch attacks as primitive as light or antimatter. Instead, the arakai battle webships launched attacks composed gravitational pulses that were so intense that they collapsed webs under their own weight.

Along with gravity, however, the advanced sensors also picked up an entirely different kind of beam flying towards the war fleets of the first ten armadas even faster than light.

”This…!” One analyst gasped upon realization. ”These are tachyon beams! The enemy warships are launching superluminal attacks that we can’t possibly defend against!”

Humanity was not unfamiliar with this technology. In fact, they had faced it before. When the laminar worldship led by the Tendril of Light invaded the Solar System, the then highly primitive warships of humanity found themselves faced with the same overwhelming tachyon beam offensive.

The laminars had also dismantled human offensives with even greater ease than the arakai. But gravity and tachyons were not the only things that the arakai flung at the first ten armadas.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

A massive explosion of light that spanned a thousand kilometers erupted as a heavy projectile of prothanite blasted a battleship in the first armada. The explosion was so utterly catastrophic that it sent ripples across space and time itself, causing the war fleets of the first ten armadas to shake violently, dispersing inter-fleet coordination.

”W-What the hell was that?!” Grand Admiral Bornine gritted his teeth.

”According to our sensors, an arakai webnought flung a massive projectile that was made entirely of prothanite!”

”What’s the status of the struck ship?”

”The Bornellian Blaster XVII is… non-responsive.”

”Our sensors do not detect the ship at all, sir!”

Grand Admiral Bornine’s eyes widened with shock. ”…It was annihilated? In one shot?”

Battleships were the premier heavy naval vessel of human astronaval ship paradigms. They had the toughest hulls. The toughest defenses. They also had the highest destructive power and were armed with cutting-edge weapon systems.

They were also built with the best resources, often having Sage-level esoteric matter integrated into their systems.

And yet, one such ship had been utterly annihilated by an enemy webnought. The sheer power of the attack that it had inflicted had been enough to blast a hole in an entire planet, speaking to the sheer amount of power that these massive vessels that stretched nearly thirty kilometers had.

”According to our preliminary analysis, the enemy webnought fired a prothanite projectile that released its gluonic webs upon contact, causing the protons contained in the prothanite to blast outward with even greater intensity than matter-antimatter annihilation reactions! Non-dwarven hulls cannot possibly survive this kind of explosive ordnance systems!”

Grand Admiral Bornine gritted his teeth. ”Then adopt battle formation Hephaestus’s Fortress!”

This was a special battle formation that the Gaian Alliance had developed precisely for a situation where their enemy firepower was so overwhelming that it caused excessive destruction to human vessels. The only ships that had the durability to have any chance at survival were dwarven ships. Entire battle formations had been developed to rely on the incredible endurance of dwarven ships to push through enemy battle fire and get as close to the enemy army as possible.

Within minutes, the first ten armadas adopted this battle formation. Ships closed the distance between them, while the dwarven ships emerged to the front, forming a defensive shield similar to that of the ablative breacher shield of the Web of War.

The difference was immediate.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

The damage inflicted was heavy, but not untenable. While the dwarven shield ships and battleships were far from invincible, they weathered even destructive planet-shattering attacks much better than the instant destruction that the other warships would have undoubtedly suffered, even if they suffered great damage nonetheless.

”Grand Admiral Bornine, our ships are indeed the best humanity has to offer, but we cannot last forever!” The projection of a dwarven admiral faced Grand Admiral Bornine.

”I know, Admiral Sleghton,” Grand Admiral Bornine placated his comrade with a severe tone of voice. ”We are getting closer. We are closing the distance between us and them. And once we get close enough…”

His eyes blazed with intensity.

”We will show them our true power.”

The true power of human civilization was not its resources, nor its astronavy. The true power of human civilization was its infantry.

The countless pathwalkers that elevated individual combat power to extraordinary heights had always been the foundation of humanity at every stage ever since the Epoch of Evolution 186,000 years ago. Even though the grand admiral was not fond of the fact that the fleet he led was not the main character of this battle, he had enough sense to not deviate from the strategy.

The strategy had always been simple.

Get as close as possible.

That was why the world bridge had deployed them only ten thousand kilometers away from their enemy. That was as close as they could be deployed before the interdiction fields were too strong to be breached.

That was why the first ten armadas weathered the incoming onslaught even as they pushed closer and closer.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

Three thousand kilometers.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

One thousand kilometers.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

Five hundred kilometers.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

And, finally, one hundred kilometers.

”It’s time!” Grand Admiral Bornine roared. ”Unleash humanity’s warriors! Show them the might of our civilization!”

The carrier fleets of the ten armadas opened their hatches, launching forth payloads that were strangely humanoid-shaped. The payloads were so tiny relative to the massive warships that they were invisible in the grand scheme.

And yet, their impact was anything other than invisible.

”The time has come, my brethren.”

The voice of Sentinel Prime reverberated through space and time itself as he was launched towards the arakai interdiction force. His cybernetic body shined with blinding power as the circuitry running across his body hummed with intense energy.

”For humanity.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

A devastating explosion erupted from the space suppression heavyweight webship of the interdiction force as one of the ten strongest pathwalkers annihilated it with a single blow.

”FOR HUMANITY!”

BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM!!!