Though Ves became distracted by Marvaine's distress, the battle outside continued to rage without any interruption. Mech pilots continued to die at a steady rate. Although there were still plenty of mech pilots who were fast enough to eject their cockpits before their mechs got completely destroyed, there were instances where they couldn't react fast enough. Many mech pilots initially became shocked when the missiles carried by some of the starfighters homed right in on their machines and struck with great might! The missiles that most humans were accustomed to dealing with were generally powerful but not to the point of being able to fell a well-armored mech in a single strike. The explosive ordnance utilized by the aliens were different! "Careful! Most of the missiles and bombs carried by the alien small craft contain warheads that are laced with a small amount of phasewater. At least a part of the damage is able to pass through the armor plating of your mechs and damage their internals. What is worse is that the transphasic explosions can also pass into your cockpits and affect your bodies!" "Where do these aliens get all of their phasewater?!" "Have you forgotten that the indigenous aliens ruled over the Red Ocean for ages? It is no surprise that they managed to hoard enough phasewater to spend some of them on producing stronger consumables." "Most of these missiles don't have the power to inflict significant damage on a starship, but they are more than potent enough to destroy our mechs. They were originally designed to take down shielded starfighters, but their effectiveness against mechs is even better because none of them have transphasic defenses." This caused everyone to revise the threat level of the enemy starfighters. Though the aliens thankfully couldn't carry too many powerful transphasic missiles at once, the human mech pilots constantly had to remain on guard in case death was homing in on their machines! That caused a lot more mech pilots to take the missiles seriously. They worked harder to intercept them before they could reach their targets. Aside from missiles, there was an even greater threat that mech pilots had to take into account. As the alien warships moved closer, their formidable array of gun batteries were beginning to down more and more human mechs! In most cases, even the smallest frigates and destroyers had the potential to wipe out entire mech companies at once. Their armaments were larger to the point where the primary guns could instantly vaporize or blow apart one or several mechs upon a direct hit! This was a threat that few mechs could defend against. Aside from trying to track the orientation of every gun battery on every warship within engagement range, it was too difficult for the mech pilots to predict whether they would lose their lives without any chance of evading the attack or ejecting their cockpits ahead of time. "We can't allow their warships to keep mowing down our mechs like this! Their firepower is too irresistible and their gun batteries never seem to tire out. Forget about the alien starfighters. They're not that big of a threat once they have exhausted their missiles. It is their warships that we should truly be worrying about!" Many mech forces slowly made the same conclusion and directed more mech forces to attack the warships. While their high-ranking mechs were already busy with taking down the larger and more formidable cruisers, there were many frigates and destroyers left that also needed to be taken care of before they could deal any further damage! Though the mech forces all moved to adjust their strategies and movements, the aliens responded by making their combat drones and starfighters stick even harder to the human mechs. The first priority of the alien small craft had always been to screen and protect their warships against threats, especially other small craft! Though the mechs employed by the human invaders were much different from the starfighters the aliens were accustomed to fighting against, many of them quickly learned how they should best fight against these large humanoid machines. After several exchanges, the aliens quickly found out that their starfighters generally possessed an advantage in mobility. The nature of their designs meant that their thrusters and other mobility systems were proportionately larger and stronger. This design trait allowed them to accelerate considerably more than a mech of equivalent size or mass. The aliens therefore moved away from starting dogfights to running more coordinated attack runs. Similar to lancer mechs, the starfighters circled around and charged towards a specific mech unit while firing all of their forward-facing guns for a time. Before the alien craft got too close and put them at risk of getting intercepted by melee mechs, the starfighters quickly changed course and flew away before they could get caught. At least the mechs that were specialized in ranged combat could still shoot them down from time to time, though it was a bit harder for them to hit their targets due to the superior mobility of alien starfighters. The melee mechs had it worse because they rarely had the opportunity to catch up to any of the elusive starfighters! Some of the faster ones still managed to catch up to the alien craft. If they coordinated with many other mechs to circle around and box in the starfighters with great effort, they could easily gain an opportunity to chop the enemy small craft while suffering minimal losses in return. It took too much time and effort to set up these ambushes, and the aliens piloting the starfighters possessed strong survival instincts. Many melee mechs only spent a fraction of their deployment time swinging their weapons. The vast majority of their time was spent on flying from one coordinate to another coordinate in space! "Forget about the starfighters!" Commander Sendra of the Swordmaidens growled to her fellow sisters. "I've just consulted with General Verle. He has given us permission to storm their smaller warships." "Isn't that dangerous, ma'am? We'll be flying right into their gun batteries!" "Those frigates and destroyers are already taking out enough of our mechs as it is. Our expert mechs can easily take care of them, but they don't have the time to complete their jobs as quickly as we want. It falls up to us and our other comrades to extinguish them from the battle." "It will take too long to break through their energy shields, ma'am. The longer we are stalled outside their protective envelopes, the longer their gun batteries can tear our machines to shreds." "We know. That is why General Verle has given us all permission to employ our battle formations." The Swordmaiden mech pilots all grew thrilled when they heard this news. "Truly, commander? Weren't we supposed to save it until the end or if a powerful new enemy emerged?" Commander Sendra's expression grew tense. "Plans can change. Besides, we don't need to do our best to save our best for last anymore. Even if we get exhausted at the end, there are still many other mechs and mech pilots that can finish the job while we make a temporary retreat. The Seven Saints should be strong enough to handle the enemy reinforcements provided that they are not bogged down by too many existing opponents. Our job is to unburden the Saints and enable them to fight as freely as possible!" Her words infused a strong sense of purpose and mission into her subordinates. The Swordmaiden mech pilots could play a key role in shifting this large and messy battle into their favor. The Swordmaidens hadn't been the only mech legion that had been tasked with assaulting the alien warships. The Penitent Sisters along with the Glory Seekers also sent forth as many Valkyrie mechs as they could spare! "Let's hope these aliens haven't heard about our party trick." The effectiveness of battle formations largely depended on whether their opponents were familiar with the Larkinson Clan. So far, this didn't appear to be the case. Larkinsons had already observed that many aliens had been taken aback by glows. If this was the case, then there was a high likelihood that the 1854210 pirate group along with other pirate outfits had no idea what was coming! Many mech pilots started to grin once they thought about this possibility. "Don't fly in such an obvious formation. Spread out and make it seem as if we are trying to launch a regular attack." As thousands of predominantly melee mechs pulled away and proceeded to approach the alien warships from several different angles, the rest of the Golden Skull Alliance tried their best to facilitate this stratagem. The Transcendent Punisher Mark II's of the Eye of Ylvaine had been pounding and softening up the alien pirate fleet for a while now. Their constant bombardment not only wore down the energy shields of the enemy vessels, but also produced an even more useful effect. Whenever an alien warship lost or was on the verge of losing their energy shield coverage, they quickly flew behind another nearby friendly ship to give them the opportunity to recover their defenses. This was why the Transcendent Punishers had largely been unable to down too many warships as of yet. The aliens were using the same tactics that the Larkinsons often liked to use when their own carriers were under threat! While the alien pirates were doing a good job at preserving all of their warships, their maneuvering gradually caused the enemy fleet to compact over time. The distance between the pirate vessels steadily reduced as they all tried their best to support each other. To the approaching mech pilots, the alien armada turned into an incredibly attractive target! "Get ready to join up with our expert pilots!" As the mechs gradually formed up into several cohesive formations, Venerable Joshua, Venerable Dise and the Handmaidens of Deaths ceased their attempts to attack the warships. The Everchanger, the First Sword, the Valkyrie Krista and the Valkyrie Ursa all led their respective battle formations! The power of death increasingly loomed over this section of the battlefield. The more sensitive aliens may have already sensed that something was wrong, but without knowing anything about the Golden Skull Alliance, they could not imagine that the specter of death that was staring at their souls was much more real than they could have ever imagined! Though the formidable guns of the warships began to tear into the four approaching mech formations, this wasn't enough to stop the charge from taking place! Even as hundreds of mechs began to fall out of formation, the remainder steadily maintained their places until the aliens encountered a series of phenomena that caused them to question reality. First, a giant sword manifestation appeared over the Swordmaiden battle formation. With Venerable Dise and her companion spirit doing her best to concentrate and leverage all of the added power granted by her fellow sisters, she unleashed all of the might at her disposal into the center of the enemy pirate flotilla! "SWORD OF LYDIA!" The giant greatsword thrust straight into several destroyers in a row! Venerable Dise had deliberately angled the giant sword so that it could strike as many warships as possible, and her efforts partially paid off as the gigantic sword impaled five destroyers in an instant while inflicting heavy damage on a sixth vessel! Though the pirates still retained a lot of warships, they had become so shocked that they were ill-equipped to defend against what happened next. As the Valkyrie mechs of the Peninent Sisters and the Glory Seekers unleashed Helena's might, three different death energy waves flew into the pirate formation from different angles! Many aliens screamed as they instinctively felt they were about to meet their doom, only for their bodies to collapse at their stations as their spirits had disappeared. The alien warships had no means to defend against an attack that could not be blocked by either energy shields or material obstacles. The death energy waves launched by the battle formations led by the Handmaidens of death raked through the middle of the alien warship formation, reaping an untold amount of lives before losing cohesion. The death energy wave launched by the Penitent Sisters followed a more complicated trajectory as Venerable Joshua was able to exert greater control over it with the help of his special domain. Instead of following a straight line, the latter death energy wave circled around the periphery of the alien warship formation. This allowed it to sweep through many alien warships that had managed to escape the earlier attacks launched by the Glory Seekers. In the end, the four battle formations managed to neutralize over thirty frigates and destroyers in an instant! Not only that, but the remaining alien pirates that had managed to escape this powerful blow were all intimidated by what just happened. The attacks launched by the Larkinson Clan and the Glory Seekers went far beyond what should be possible! The sight of Helena alone still haunted many alien crew members, causing them to perform noticeably worse than before. "The aliens have been taken aback! We must press our advantage and strike while the iron is hot! Don't let the remaining ones find their footing again!"