Ever since the Obsidian Orb settled in orbit of Kayana VIII-E, the mysterious masterwork fortress did not conduct any tests. There was no need to test its capabilities when it was already built a lot close to perfection from the onset. So long as it had not incurred any damage due to getting hit or wear and tear, there was no need for its highly competent crew to conduct any live tests. Saint Stark spent the remaining days until the inevitable attack on improving her skills and abilities. She cherished each additional day of practice as the native aliens continued to accumulate their forces. Her ability to fight at close range had experienced a huge improvement. She still maintained a lot of confidence in her marksmanship at longer ranges, but she could use more work in improving her ability to deal against multiple enemies at medium range. The Amaranto Mark III began to shoot at large quantities of cheap and disposable target dummies. The Rubarthans were able to produce them en masse for an affordable price as they did not need to be made out of expensive alloys. However, they needed to be fast and agile enough to give Saint Stark a decent challenge. Their compact sizes and excellent maneuverability made it difficult for the Amaranto to take them down in sequence with the least possible delay. The Instrument of Vengeance was a luminar crystal rifle that was optimized for maximum firepower. Its firing rate had always been a lesser concern. Fortunately, the upgraded power reactor enabled the Amaranto to charge up the rifle fast enough to be able to fire serviceable energy beams at an acceptable firing rate. The frequency of attacks did not come close to matching that of other ace rifleman mechs, but it at least granted the Amaranto Mark III a means of thinning swarms of elite phasefighters. "Shouldn’t phasefighters be a lower priority to us?" Stark questioned. "There are plenty of orbital defense platforms and first-class multipurpose mechs that can handle the enemy small craft." "That may not necessarily be the case. The elite phasefighters are almost always armed with powerful transphasic missiles. If they are able to outmaneuver our mechs, they may be able to get close enough to launch their payloads at the Obsidian Orb. Its defenses will not break after getting hit by hundreds or thousands of missiles, but it will deplete them much faster. It is worse if the phasefighters are equipped with space suppressors." "Space suppressors!" 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶 Given how ubiquitous space suppression modules had become, the cosmopolitans easily stole the technology and converted them to alien usage. The main reason why phasefighters had not been equipped with space suppressors in the past was because the strike craft preferred to maintain their distance from their foes. However, if the aliens wanted to take down a strategic asset like the Obsidian Orb as effectively as possible, they could drain its defenses a lot faster if it was swarmed by thousands of phasefighters that generated their own space suppression fields! "Will the aliens employ this tactic against the Obsidian Orb?" Enjoy more content from freewebnovel "They have done so in the past against other important fortifications. The Obsidian Orb is much stronger and more threatening than those orbital fortifications, so the alien commanders would be stupid to hold back." Stark frowned. Her Amaranto Mark III was not suited to take down lots of weaker targets. That was what the Minerva and Promethea were for. Both high-ranking mechs were much more capable of swatting down lots of flies. "So I should divert my firepower to advancing alien strike craft and missiles as long as they are capable of threatening the Obsidian Orb, is that correct?" "Correct. We are aware that you would much prefer it if you attack the enemy phase lords, but trust me, the Obsidian Orb can repel them much more effectively than you. Your Amaranto Mark III may be a powerful masterwork ace mech whose performance is drastically amplified by your Saint Kingdom, but the Obsidian Orb is a massive station-sized masterwork that is filled with tech that is no worse. It may lack true resonance empowerment, but its enormous scale alone more than makes up for this shortcoming." That was what made the Obsidian Orb so mysterious in the eyes of Saint Stark. She still couldn’t figure out its full power despite staring at it ever since it arrived in the Kayana System. Its reflective black surface continued to obfuscate its secret. The entire surface had a blocking effect similar to alloys infused with Solus Gas, so Saint Stark was not able to glean much information. She could only go by the words of the Stewards Siamesia to judge its effectiveness. "I hope the expectations we place on it are not misplaced." The guest pilot said. "You Rubarthans are all placing a huge amount of confidence in it, but since it is visible in the open, the native aliens will definitely be able to take this super fortress into account." "Good." Jeri smiled in satisfaction. "This added variable is the reason why the alien commanders have yet to commence a direct assault. Delays are good. Delays will disrupt the offensive rhythm of our enemies and cause their greater plans to become disjointed. The native aliens are already diverting reinforcements originally allocated elsewhere to star systems such as ours in order to prevent the assaults from turning into disasters. We are putting an especially great strain on their phase lords. Super fortresses such as the Obsidian Orb can only be defeated or driven away by their native gods. There shouldn’t be enough of them to overwhelm all of our prized masterwork fortresses." This caused Davia Stark to figure out the intent behind the move to put the super fortresses into action. They were a direct response against the enemy phase lords. There were only so many of them participating in the Red War at the moment. The Red Cabal faced a difficult choice. They could either disperse their phase lords across many different star systems and incur greater losses as a result, or they could suspend the attacks on numerous star systems in order to concentrate more phase lords in the places that hosted these superweapons. In other words, the alien commanders had to choose between bleeding time or bleeding phasewater-infused blood! Saint Stark personally hoped that the aliens would be arrogant enough to spread their phase lords thin. The fifth defensive band might still fall anyway, but at least the human defenders should have a better chance of winning their local battles! On a fateful day, the aliens had ceased to skirmish the human scout forces in the periphery of the star system. They had clearly consolidated their forces and moved out in order to assault the first of three fortified positions! "How many phase lords?" "18 in total. There are 2 greater phase lords leading 16 lesser phase lords." "That is… less than I expected." "I agree, Davia. The alien commanders have proven to be patient, shrewd and cautious, so they must definitely know that this is not enough to dislodge the Obsidian Orb, let alone destroy it. My intuition tells me that they are hiding a powerful surprise of their own. This may come in the form of hidden greater phase lords or weapons of mass destruction. Remain watchful." As the alien armada continued to advance towards Kayana VIII-E, the human defenders received another piece of news. An explosive development had occurred that shocked everyone! "This is bad! Yernstall is cut off from the galactic net!" "WHAT?!" Many people began to fear the worst. As time passed by, numerous starships that had stopped just beyond the edge of the Yernstall Central Star Node confirmed that their FTL travel got cut short because the entire star system by a strong spacetime bubble! "Those damn aliens! They pulled off the same trick they used to isolate Bridgehead One!" "So this is where the missing alien forces ended up! It turned out that they had been sneaking through our territories for the purpose of attacking our important star system!" "What are the mechers and fleeters doing?! It is dead obvious that the aliens might pull off this stratagem again. Why hadn’t they been able to stop it before the aliens were able to do it again!?" "Wait. The latest news reports that the spacetime bubble is losing power at a very fast rate. It won’t last more than a week! It sounds like the defenders failed to prevent the spacetime bubble from going off, but they are at least able to tear it down at record speed. Besides, ever since the Bridgehead One debacle, we have all learned our lesson and dispersed everything important across many different star systems. Yernstall is still important, but it isn’t irreplaceable." The temporary absence of Yernstall couldn’t have happened at a worse time. While it was true that it was not as important as before, it definitely held a lot of top assets that temporarily got cut off from the rest of human space! This meant that there was a chance that Star Designers, god pilots, dreadnoughts and so on would not be able to fight where they were needed the most! However, the Red Cabal definitely paid an enormous price to cut off the Sapphire of the Red Ocean. A strong spacetime bubble could only be generated by 6 ancient phase whales working together! If it was only able to last for a week in the universe, then that meant that those inside were probably crushing the powerful aliens inside the bubble! The trapped people also prepared much better tech to exhaust the spacetime battle, proving that red humanity was no longer as vulnerable to this kind of attack as before! While this was fairly bad news, what happened next in the Kayana System instantly applied a huge amount of pressure onto the defenders across the frontlines. "Our sensors have detected a massive teleportation event a short distance away from the alien armada!" "It’s… it’s a phase whale! A greater phase whale!" "How big?!" "As big as a small moon, which roughly corresponds to the size of a mid-tier greater phase whale! Its phasewater concentration must be close to 100 percent and should be extremely resistant against all forms of attacks." Compared to the nunser and jureg greater phase lords that previously led the armada, the disparity in size was too great. Phase whales were the original body cultivators of the Red Ocean. Their physiques were already as large as starships from the beginning, and they only grew bigger from that point onwards! This had always given the phase whales a natural advantage in the Red Ocean. Despite their clumsy appearances, it was much harder to defeat them just because they had more phasewater and mass at their disposal! "Alo. Jeri. Is the Obsidian Orb capable of defeating a greater phase lord of this size?" "...I suppose we will find out, Davia. We need to adjust our plans." Even though the greater phase lord was still far away from Kayana VIII-E, the alien aquatic titan already seemed to cast a dark shadow over the fortified moon. The Kayana System was not the only location that became host to phase whales. Reports came in of other star systems detecting the arrival of phase whales, both lesser and greater ones! Pretty much every contested star system in the Upper Zones was at risk of falling due to the unexpected arrival of so many phase whales! The Red Cabal had finally decided to stop hanging back. After studying the human defenders and figuring out their threat levels, the phase whales finally gained the confidence to lend their strength to the offensive! The mass dispatch of phase whales signified their determination to topple the last line of defense and eradicate the humans from the Red Ocean once and for all! "We are in deep trouble!" "I thought these phase whales were lazy! How many of them came out of hibernation?!" "Stop complaining and start fighting!"