Chapter 2683: Turnaround A huge wave of relief swept across the bridge. The Golden Skull Alliance prevailed! After sacrificing thousands of mechs and losing a lot of mech pilots, the Larkinsons, Glory Seekers and Crossers managed to achieve a military victory against their opponents! The behavior of the enemy strike force conclusively set the hard-won victory in stone. The deep strike fleet carriers of the Friday Coalition and the larger fleet composed of carriers from the Praetor Clan and Planat Clan were all beating a desperate retreat! Their sudden turnaround reflected the fact that they no longer possessed the confidence to defeat the expeditionary fleet. Instead, it was their turn to fear death and capture! Now that they no longer had enough mechs to complete their objectives, they recognized that their defeat was already set in stone. Their subsequent actions were no longer geared towards achieving victory. The chance of salvaging a win after losing so many combat assets was too slim. Instead, the enemies who initially attacked the expeditionary fleet were solely trying to preserve as many assets as possible. Any mech or starship that fell in the hands of an enemy would only compound their losses! Thousands of trained mech pilots and starship personnel were still aboard the fleet carriers and combat carriers. All of these well-trained servicemen took decades to nurture. Their loss would definitely hurt the national strength of their respective organizations! The aggrieved members of the Golden Skull Alliance definitely didn't let their opponents off! The ambushers had to pay a price for launching an unprovoked attack. "Mr. Melin! Don't let the Fridaymen off! Use whatever strength you have left to cripple the mobility of their fleet carriers!" "Yes, sir!" The bunker on the Spirit of Bentheim that housed the Prophet's Fist was still glowing! Unlike Vincent Ricklin whose breakthrough ended prematurely, Taon Melin still had plenty of juice left in the tank! Ves and Major Verle did not want to waste the temporary power of the Larkinson Clan's newest expert candidate. At this moment. The Prophet's Fist was surrounded by a sacred white glow that was unquestionably Ylvainan in character. The forced resonance that affected the entire mech temporarily elevated it to the performance standards of an expert mech. Soon enough, Taon Melin showed what an artillery mech was truly capable of at the expert level. The Prophet's Fist fired radiant white positron beams that struck the thrusters of the Eager Condemnation. An instant later, the glowing mech fired its gauss cannons. Two white comets slammed into the wounds opened up by the earlier attacks. The resonance-empowered projectiles slammed into the rear of the Eager Condemnation with great violence! Fragments of thruster components exploded from the damaged capital ship. Immediately, her acceleration dropped by 7 percent. While that didn't sound very impressive at first, this was just the first salvo! Fleet carriers were combat vessels, so their propulsion systems shouldn't be so easily affected by damage. Yet the power of the Prophet's Fist was easily able to overcome the initial layers of defense. The other Transcendent Punishers joined in on the action as well. Though the range was quite considerable, there was no way for the huge and lumbering capital ships to evade! At this distance, it was no problem for regular artillery mechs to land their shots on a reliable basis. "Hahaha! Look at them running! Serves them right for trying to kill our patriarch!" "Don't let any of them get away!" Despite being besieged from behind, none of the remaining enemy combatants had any intentions to fight to the death. First, there was no benefit to it. Victory was unattainable, so it made no sense to continue the fight. Second, they still had an escape route. Space was very open and the battle took place beyond the edge of the zone that prohibited FTL transitions. This meant that as long as any of the fleeing ships distanced themselves far enough from the enemy, they could instantly slip into the higher dimensions and "Don't let those starships run!" Colonel Ariadne Wodin of the Glory Seekers commanded! "The outcome of this battle has been decided, but we still need to bleed the Fridaymen more. Don't let any of their deep strike fleet carriers escape!" This time, it was the expeditionary fleet's turn to inhibit their opponents from escaping this star system! The enemy strike force had stopped to prevent their targets from running by launching gravitic interference missiles. Instead, it was the Golden Skull Alliance's turn to detonate gravitic payloads that disturbed the local region of space! The Larkinson Clan didn't stock up on gravitic interference missiles, but fortunately its allies already had that covered. Both the Glory Seekers and the Cross Clan had already loaded their missileer mechs with the appropriate missiles. Now, they fired them in the vicinity of their respective targets. The soldiers of the Wodin Dynasty did not want to let any of the deep strike fleet carriers go. The Glory Seeker missiles all detonated close to the Eager Condemnation, the Amagi, the Forward Momentum and the Orca Tyrant. The Hexers did not even let the Auralis off! Even though all of her crew had been wiped out some time ago, the Fridaymen were already employing multiple methods to take the paralyzed fleet carrier out of the hands of their opponents. As for the Cross Clan, their surviving mechs were already racing after the ships of the Praetor Clan and Planat Clan! However, the chase was a bit more restrained here. Unlike the Fridaymen, the traitor clans still retained a considerable amount of strength. Even when the surviving Crosser mechs from both the left and right side converged back together, they only roughly matched the amount of opposing mechs. They needed to borrow the help of the surviving Glory Seeker mechs in order to enjoy a decisive numerical advantage, but the problem was that the Hexers weren't very interested in battling a desperate opponent! Patriarch Reginald Cross — who had managed to return to the Hemmington Cross — made an urgent plea to Colonel Ariadne Wodin. "We can't let them run!" His projection angrily shouted. "We have suffered far too much at the hands of the Praetors and Planats. We must not let their ships crawl back to their nests. If we can't take all of their carriers, then we must at least destroy them. I will not stop chasing them until I have cornered Damira Planat!" The expert pilot of the Erin Tear had managed to eject and return to her mothership as well. Just the thought of letting that woman flee from this battle alive made Reginald Cross very indignant! "Patriarch, I understand your desire to take revenge, but there are still around 1000 enemy mechs left." The colonel replied. "While we outnumber them by more than two times, a battle against a cornered enemy will definitely produce further losses. It is difficult to tolerate further sacrifices when we have already accomplished our primary goal. We survived." "It's not enough! Don't think I haven't seen your mechs chasing after those deep strike fleet carriers as if they are your birthday presents." "The Fridaymen have essentially lost their ability to protect their ships. Aside from some bunker mechs and scattered ranged mechs, their ability to threaten us is nil. We do not have to make any sacrifices to overtake their carriers. It's a different story when it comes to your old enemies." "Then help us! As long as you can facilitate the capture or destruction of the Soaring Eagle, the Vindicator 35 and the Palmis Crislin, I won't demand reparations for most of the damage we have incurred. We have lost a lot of good Crosser mech pilots from this battle. We have also lost Venerable Banner Cross." Both of them briefly fell silent at this mention. The Golden Skull Alliance hadn't actually lost a lot of expert pilots. The ones who lost their mechs successfully ejected from their broken machines and safely returned to their motherships. However, Venerable Banner Cross never had the chance to do so when the Jeanne D'Arc stabbed its sword straight through the Leskin's cockpit. This was an incredibly painful loss to the Cross Clan. The most troublesome aspect was that Venerable Banner Cross sacrificed his life to block the Fridayman expert mechs. Colonel Ariadne Wodin knew that she could not act rashly at this time. The Cross Clan certainly needed to be compensated for the losses they suffered while fighting opponents who were only enemies by association. She quickly pulled in Ves into the conversation. His projection appeared quickly. After briefly filling him in on the situation, Ves briefly frowned until the commanding officer of the Glory Seeker asked some very relevant questions. "How many artillery mechs do you have left? What are their conditions? How many hours do they have left before they are spent?" Her questions reminded Ves of the greatest performers of the Larkinson Clan in this battle. While his prime mechs and his battle formations arguably stole the show, as far as he was concerned, the battle would have never ended up as good if not for his Transcendent Punishers! Ves quickly used his implants to access the most current status update. "We have around 160 Transcendent Punishers. Most of them are tired but can still fire their weapons continuously at low intensity. As the designers of this heavy artillery mech, I can assure you that they will be able hold on for several hours. They are not made of glass. Several dozen of Transcendent Punishers have suffered varying degrees of damage, so their combat effectiveness is not as good. There are also a handful of artillery mechs that were previously taken out of action. Our mech technicians are working as hard as possible to restore their combat ability." 160 artillery mechs! Perhaps that did not sound like much when the battle started off with 16,000 mechs, but now that the number of enemy threats dipped below 1000 combat effective mechs, this was a priceless advance, especially when it came to ranged combat! If that wasn't enough, the Glory Seekers and Crossers also retained a considerable amount of bunker mechs! Even though their heavy artillery mechs weren't as flashy as the Larkinson Clan's Transcendent Punishers, they were still a force to be reckoned with at this stage of the engagement! Of course, the same went for the enemy. Their artillery mechs were still covering for the retreat of their fleet. Even so, both Ariadne and Reginald looked ecstatic! As long as the Larkinson Clan pitched in their artillery mechs, their side could easily crush the remaining enemy bunker mechs! "If this is the case, the remaining enemy mechs will not be a problem." She confidently stated. "We still have a significant amount of artillery mechs at our disposal. We don't need to assault the enemy remnants directly. We can just maintain a safe distance while bombarding the propulsion systems of the enemy carriers. Since the vessels are currently trying to run away from us, their main thrusters are in our sights. Even at three times the distance, our artillery mechs can still cripple their legs. Once we have accomplished that, we can suppress or demolish their surviving mechs with continuous bombardment." The three suited and armored figures quickly hashed out a plan. While the Larkinsons and Glory Seekers still prioritized immobilizing the fleet carriers of the Friday Coalition, they promised to lend their strength to cripple as many starships of the traitor clans as possible. Patriarch Reginald was not content with forcing the three fleet carriers of the two clans to stay. He wanted to immobilize the 50-odd combat carriers that the Praetor Clan and Planat Clan had brought as well. As long as at least one of the combat carriers was able to escape the star system, then there was a good chance that Venerable Damira Planat and Venerable Albert Praetor would escape from the vengeful patriarch's grasp! The Cross Clan did not want to let either of them crawl back to their respective clans! Weakening his old enemies by depriving them of their valuable expert pilots would hurt more than robbing them of their carrier vessels. This was especially the case for Venerable Damira Planat! As a high-tier expert pilot, she was effectively an ace pilot candidate, someone who was able to revive her clan as long as she managed to advance. There was no way that Reginald was willing to let this happen! "Do not let any enemy escape!"