The aliens locked in a struggle against the Spirit of Bentheim received a massive blow that shocked them to the core! The unexpectedly powerful outbursts from both the Macharia Excelsia and the Amaranto crushed their confidence and shocked them into retreat! None of the humans knew whether any ranking alien commander issued a general retreat or whether the individual aliens spontaneously chose to pull back. Whatever the case, as soon as 6 yurzen light cruisers and one crucial puelmer heavy cruiser sustained heavy damage from machines that were only a fraction of their size, the remaining n yurzen warships split up from each other and ran the hell away from the scary human capital ship! Given how much of a scare all of those fleeing yurzens received, they might not stop warping away like their lives depended upon it until they finally exited the Corellix System entirely! "Don't bother with chasing or eliminating the fleeing yurzen warships. The remaining destroyers and light cruisers are too fast for us to catch up to them." General Verle spoke over the command net. "Venerable Joshua, move out and neutralize the threat posed by Stingray 2 as best as possible. Prevent the ship from moving and disable her gun batteries with as minimal damage as possible. We will soon send out shuttles filled with small-scale bots to secure the interior." "Roger that. I'm on my way!" Joshua reported as the Everchanger rocketed away from the scarred but indomitable Spirit of Bentheim. "Venerable Brutus, Venerable Isobel, I need the two of you to move out and do the same for the six yurzen light cruisers struck by the Macharia Excelsia. Each of them have sustained heavy damage, but some of their gun batteries and other important modules are still working. Once you have taken care of them, we will dispatch boarding troops to clean up any remaining resistance inside the vessels and take them over if possible." "Understood." The Star Dancer Mark II and the Promethea both split up and confidently set out to disable the gun batteries and other threatening features from the crippled vessels. Venerable Brutus Wodin had only played a relatively minor role in the battle so far, so he and his expert mech were still in good condition to handle the more intact and troublesome alien vessels. Venerable Isobel Kotin and the Promethea had expended a lot more effort throughout the lengthy engagement, but it hardly mattered now that the tide had turned. Exhausted or not, the Promethea was exceptionally suited to fight warships, especially now that the crippled vessels lost their transphasic energy shield coverage! "Venerable Stark, please keep watch and remain vigilant for any ambushes and surprise attacks that may occur. The most notable threats that may emerge are the sudden launch of superweapons from a hidden archeship or activation of exotic high technology from Stingray 2. We have deployed additional listening devices to increase our detection rate, but stay sharp." "Acknowledged." The expert pilot spoke. "Saintess Ulrika, please report your condition. Are you still in good fighting condition?" A weary and pained female voice spoke back. "That... took more out of me than I expected. I can still fight if I have to, but I can't exert more than 20 percent of my peak ability at this time. I cannot even maintain my Saint Kingdom anymore." General Verle frowned, though he had already been warned that this might happen. "What is your estimate on your recuperation time?" "Weeks. Maybe a month. I can't give you a more precise estimate." "Understood. If possible, please remain visible and present a strong posture to anyone who may be watching. Even if our adversaries have guessed that you have lost most of your combat effectiveness, we still need to deter them as much as possible." "I will do my best, but I won't be able to do the best possible job without an active Saint Kingdom." While the expert mechs moved into action, the Spirit of Bentheim did not remain idle. The ship turned around and approached within 30 kilometers of Stingray 2 before deploying her Gravity Net. This essentially prevented the damaged puelmer heavy cruiser from reengaging a warp drive or activating any other alien device that relied on spatial warping! The battle on this side of the Corellix System had essentially come to an end. There was no chance for the crippled warships to make a comeback. The Golden Skull Alliance had built up a lot of proficiency on how to safely secure and capture damaged alien vessels, so unless the aliens blew up their own vessels somehow, there was little chance that any complications might occur." The Transcendent Punishers all remained on standby while the expert mechs all undertook their own respective tasks. The Larkinsons directed special attention towards Stingray 2. Venerable Joshua carefully disabled the gun batteries that were largely unable to track or threaten his expert mech. At the same time, the Everchanger switched his design spirit to Lufa and amplified his glow to envelop the entire crippled and immobilized alien vessel. The trapped puelmer crew members were probably unreconciled at their imminent defeat. They could be trying to overload their power reactors, arm any possible anti-matter bombs that the vessel might be carrying, wipe all of the data in their alien computer systems or try to board their escape vehicles. Whatever the case, under the calming influence of the Angel of Tranquility, it became a lot harder for the defeated puelmers to summon the desire to offer any further resistance! Seeing that the situation on this side of the battlefield was under control, Ves relaxed and started to shift his attention to the much larger scale battle taking place close to the original ambush site. The rest of the expeditionary fleet had begun its assault on the partially crippled Stingray 1 and the diminished yurzen raiding fleet. The absence of a fair amount of destroyers and light cruisers did not seem to reduce the firepower of the main alien fleet too much, but the consequences were actually a lot more serious for the aliens in this confrontation. This was because the smaller and faster warships were actually a lot more suitable to repel small craft! The lack of a hefty amount of smaller and faster-firing gun batteries made it so that the tens of thousands of mechs approaching from a distance sustained a lot less interception fire than normal. Although the remaining warships still possessed plenty of guns that could eliminate a mech with a single direct hit, the mech forces of the Golden Skull Alliance had scattered their units like usual to reduce the loss rate. Having drawn a lot of lessons from their previous assault against the wheednar raiding fleet, the mech forces entered the fray with additional adaptations compared to last time. For example, the mechs leading the charge this time consisted of lancer mechs that carried special armaments this time. The familiar Transcendent Chargers flew alongside the Redlances that debuted in battle for the first time. Regardless of their model, both groups of mechs were equipped with the specially developed transphasic blast lances at this time! 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦 The Larkinson Clan invested 5 grams of phasewater in each of these special lances. Although Dulo Voiken and the Design Department held high expectations for this specialized shield-breaking weapon, it still remained uncertain whether they were worth the expense. Compared to the Transcendent Chargers, the new Redlances held their transphasic blast weapons with greater confidence. Their design spirits were entirely different! While the Transcendent Chargers were more suitable to be deployed against mechs due to their greater precision, the Redlances were expressly designed to counter shielded warships due to receiving the support of the Phase King! The Redlances soon overtook the other lancer mechs with the help of their more modern and powerful flight systems. As the dozens of recently fabricated lancer mechs flew closer, they attracted more attention from the aliens. Stingray 1's impressively accurate secondary laser cannon batteries managed to down seven Redlances alone before these new mechs had any opportunity to complete a single charge in their short lifetimes! Fortunately, the quantity of mechs barreling forth was so exaggerated that the puelmer heavy cruiser spread its firepower and focused on eliminating other mechs as well. This gave the remaining Redlances a good opportunity to close in on a large yurzen warship at an oblique angle and drive their exaggeratingly long blast lances into a segmented energy shield! As the Redlances moved close enough, their sturdy lances collided against the energy shields with considerable force before unleashing transphasic directional explosions just an instant later! As the segmented shield suffered a rapid succession of serious blows, the Redlances turned away and barely managed to prevent themselves from colliding against the energy shields with their frames. After suffering several dozen transphasic explosions, the heavily abused segmented energy shield momentarily collapsed! A momentary gap had emerged! Before the alien vessel could attempt to close it by shifting another segment in its place, a handful of charging Redlances and Transcendent Chargers managed to pass through the main defensive layer of the yurzen warship! "We're inside!" "Let's wreck these gun batteries!" Even though only a small amount of mechs got through, they enjoyed near-absolute superiority in the current situation! Most of the large and powerful gun batteries were rendered completely defenseless as they were physically unable to track or angle their muzzles towards the fast-moving mechs. The lancer mechs employed multiple lances to wreck the most threatening gun batteries before using a shorter and handier spear to destroy the remaining gun batteries! Though the unprepared yurzens quickly tried to relieve their mech infestation by calling back a couple of squadrons of starfighters, they were unable to move past the entanglement of hundreds of other mechs that were eager to cut them down! Elsewhere, the Golden Skullers intended to neutralize the threat posed by Stingray 1 as much as possible. They already had a fairly good estimation of how powerful she was by studying the performance of Stingray 2. While the ships possessed many individual differences, they both boasted a respectable amount of secondary laser cannon batteries that were good at taking out lots of mechs with precise but overwhelmingly powerful shots! A lot of ranged mechs had already begun to open fire on Stingray 1, but the multi-layered transphasic energy shields of the puelmer homeship resisted the relatively weak attacks with remarkable efficiency. The only standard mechs that were able to deal more effective damage against this vessel were the Nullifiers, but once Stingray 1 expressly concentrated her fire against the elite Battle Crier mechs, the transphasic rifleman mechs quickly started to drop! The Nullifier Battalion hastily aborted its attack and pulled back before it lost too many of its elite mechs and mech pilots. "Leave Stingray 1 to our ace mechs. The Jedda Sandivar and the Royal Jeem are enough to contain this puelmer warship." This was true to an extent. Without the support of the Macharia Excelsia's firepower, it would take a much longer time to exhaust Stingray 1's defenses. The puelmers would have plenty of time to employ all sorts of dangerous countermeasures over the course of this fight! This was why a certain expert pilot decided to step forward and propose an alternative solution. "Leave Stingray 1 up to me!" Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson spoke. "I can take her down myself! I just need to make my Dark Zephyr bypass the enemy ship's energy shields." "Are you being serious, Venerable Tusa?! Your expert mech did not receive any recent upgrades that suggests that it has gained this capability." "That's because it's not necessary. I can do it myself. Believe in me! It won't take long to see whether I'm right or wrong. I am already closing in on Stingray 1!" As the Dark Zephyr danced around the laser beams that sought to intercept the elusive expert light skirmisher, Tusa actually could not guarantee that he would be able to do what he claimed. Nonetheless, the expert pilot boldly charged forward as he was determined to succeed this time!