The Martial Unity

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”Damage. To. Interdiction. Force. Has. Increased. By. 2%!”

”At. This. Rate. Every. Interdiction. Vessel. Will. Be. Destroyed. In. Two. Hours!”

”Sentinel. Prime. Is. Completely. Immune. Interceptor. Harassment!”

The command room in the Web Bringer mothership grew darker as the arakai discovered the horrifying power of a top-ten pathwalker. Quantity of firepower was almost an irrelevant concept to such an extraordinary force. No matter whether they threw a thousand, ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand starfighters against such a monster, he remained unfazed in the face of their destruction.

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”We. Must. Deploy. Our. Cruiser. Webships!”

”We. Can’t! The. Sentinels. Are. Sticking. Very. Close. To. Our. Interdiction. Force! We will. Destroy. Our. Own. Vessels. If. We. Direct. Heavy. Firepower. Towards. Them!”

This was the fundamental dilemma that confronting such large numbers of pathwalkers at close quarters provided them. Warships were more destructive than the pathwalkers, but their output was wide-scale and less precise in nature. One could not unleash a moon-shattering heavy ordnance attack and expect the impact not to affect friendlies.

—o-o—o’s expression tightened as her six arachnid eyes sharpened. She was keenly aware of this dynamic, which was why she didn’t order the cruiser webships to hunt down the pathwalkers. The interdiction force was comparatively fragile and would not be able to avoid suffering great damage.

That was why the breachhead had been equipped with ablative breachers that were covered in prothanite, but those damn pathwalkers destroyed half of them with Operation Lightfury.

That one operation caused a cascade of failures that the arakai had been unable to account for.

But they were not without means.

The time they had taken to study human pathwalkers allowed them to realize that the interceptor crafts would undoubtedly not be sufficient to deal with stronger pathwalkers who could ignore the small crafts as if they were little flies buzzing about.

She had no choice but to use the other solutions that they had prepared.

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”Very. Well. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Deploy. Them. This. Soon. But. We. Have. No. Choice. But. To. Deploy. The. Ascended. Arakai,” she declared with a resolved voice. ”Deploy. Fleet. Carrier. Ooo—o—o.”

Her six eyes sharpened as she beheld the rampaging Sentinel Prime.

”Let. Us. See. How. This. Machine-human. Deals. With. My. Twin. Sons.”

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”Deployment. Order. Confirmed.”

”Ascended. Arakai. Carrier. Has. Spurred. Into. Action.”

Within the Web of War, a fleet of sub-capital carriers moved in discordance with the rest of the web, moving towards the interdiction force, and the section of where the sentinels were deployed.

The humans weren’t the only ones with strong warriors.

”Deploying. Ascended. Arakai. Payload.”

Hatches opened as numerous arakai emerged from within them, shooting towards the arakai with a great amount of speed and power. Their bottom half of their faces were covered with a special black web that functioned as a breathing apparatus, though the rest of their turquoise fur was covered in a white web that contrasted with the dark background of outer space.

Their arachnid eyes sharpened with aggression.

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”Punish. The. Humans!”

”Make. Them. Pay. For. What. They. Did. To. Our. Divine. Mothers!”

”Die!”

Their web stingers pointed towards the sentinels, causing them to launch an onslaught of web shots.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

”Argh!”

”Now what?!”

”It’s… it’s the arakai! They’re shooting webs at us!”

The appearance of arakai combatants immediately caused the sentinels to turn towards them. The starfighter interceptors were annoying to weaker pathwalkers, but the ascended arakai had a reputation for being strong in combat, as well as tricky to deal with due to their powerful webs.

Unlike the starfighter interceptors, these creatures could actually harm the sentinels.

Some distance away, emerging from a catastrophic explosion completely unharmed and unfazed, Sentinel Prime momentarily paused his decimation of the interdiction fleets. He frowned as he spotted the arakai swarming his brethren. Their webs began to slowly infiltrate the slight gaps in their bodies between flesh and machine, causing some of their components to slowly jam.

”I should help them.”

Killing the ascended arakai was a worthy goal of his power. He knew, based on the intelligence briefings he had sat through, that the ascended arakai derived their power from esoteric bioengineering upgrades. That meant that they had esoteric matter in their bodies. Killing them and claiming their bodies would allow them to get their hands on useful esoteric biotechnology.

In particular, Sentinel Prime was interested in anything that could potentially be used to upgrade his own power. While esoteric technology was no longer exclusive to the Panama Continent and Martial Civilization, they still controlled almost half of it and were considerably more advanced at it than any other civilization, including the dwarves. This war could help his people catch up if they could get their hands on a lot of arakai.

Alas, just as he surged towards the new army of ascended arakai, he was intercepted.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

He barely managed to defend himself from an incredibly fast web shot, having just managed to unleash a plasma blast that burned them before they could bind him. He floated away as his cybernetic eyes sharpened on two figures that floated weightlessly a kilometer away from him.

A male and a female arakai stood next to each other, with armor webbing that was distinctly different from that of the other arakai. His cybernetic eyes lit up as his sensors detected an abnormal amount of negatron matter in those webs, along with some other Transcendent-grade esoteric matter. Some of which he identified immediately, like Space-Time Sap, or more scientifically, Coupling-Phased Graviton Condensate. A substance that could ’stick’ to space and time.

Just looking at that, he could tell that these two arakai were not ordinary.

Their arachnid eyes bore into him with a deep intensity as their pincers struck against each other in silent clicks. He applied the translation software he had downloaded shortly before the operation had begun, translating their messages.

”We. Are. The. Web. Hunting. Twins.”

”We. Are. The. Offspring. Of. The. Divine. Mother.”

”We. Will. Capture. You. Alive!”

They charged towards him with blinding speed, unleashing a volley of webs at the top-ten pathwalkers.