Although the repeated salvos launched by the 57 modified Omega Threshers was taking a greater toll on her willpower, the Saint Commander did not allow the bunker mechs to take it easy. The more Phase Disruptor bolts and energy beams they channeled into the opposing hulls, the more damage the alien vessels sustained! The cohesion among the enemy warships deteriorated as more and more hulls fell out of position and drifted off after losing most of their power and propulsion. Alien spacers desperately tried to engage in damage control. They put out fires, performed emergency repairs and tried their best not to scream and panic. Their efforts produced very limited results. There was no way to fix a melted azure shield generator or patch up a broken power generator. What was worse was that secondary explosions, accidental electrical discharges and explosive decompressions regularly inflicted casualties among their number! Their gods had forsaken them! Just two human false gods had managed to completely dictate the battlefield! At this point, it was rather admirable that half of the alien soldiers still retained their fighting spirit. The phasefighters and warships under the command of the Protector of Karnak proved to be a cut above the rest. Even as the less disciplined and well trained forces of the various raiding fleets began to falter, the soldiers responsible for defending the Screed Tanner System tried their best to rally the remaining aliens and prevent them from routing. The native aliens still had a chance of winning this battle. The Tortuous Scream, though powerful, was only a single warship. She was clearly orven-made and had only been half-heartedly converted for human use. The native aliens therefore had a good idea on her layout, performance and weak points. So long as they pushed through the human lines and struck the battleship directly, they should most definitely be able to shatter apart the most threatening human vessel! They only had to brave the formidable attacks launched by the Tortuous Scream while also shoving their way past the human mechs. Whether this plan was realistic remained to be seen, but it served its use in rallying the confused aliens and giving them a common goal to dedicate towards. "The native aliens are exposing themselves to greater danger. Their phasefighters are trying to bull their way past our mechs, and they are succeeding due to their numbers advantage!" "Their surviving warships are forming into flanking squadrons before attempting to circle around the main battlefield. They are likely attempting to pincer our flagship from multiple directions at the same time." Of the 133 alien warships, more than a quarter of them had been knocked offline. Much of the remainder had incurred varying degrees of damage. The Tortuous Scream along with the warships of the Bluejay Fleet had managed to breach the energy defenses of multiple enemy warships and inflict serious damage onto their outer shells, but other alien warships would swoop in and use their own intact azure energy shields to provide valuable cover! This enabled the damaged but unbroken vessels to patch up their holes and contain the worst of damage so that they could fight against. More and more ships like that appeared among the native aliens. The Premier Fleet and the Bluejay Fleet had been spared from following suit as they relied on their shield link technology to keep their own vessels protected over a much longer period than normal. This meant that the shield link arrays and shield generators of every linked vessel needed much more time and attention to return to their peak conditions, but the Larkinsons could worry about this later. For now, they needed to ensure that the last enemy offensive could not get through and pummel the Tortuous Scream from multiple directions at the same time. Various different intelligence sources painted a worrisome picture for the command staff. "The native aliens are becoming desperate enough to disregard their losses in order to inflict a serious blow against our flagship. The precision attacks launched by the Viscounts have lost much of their deterrent effect. The native aliens know what is coming and they are psychologically prepared to see it through the end. These fanatics are still praying to their native gods despite seeing their own deities forsake them not too long ago. This is not does not make sense!" "The native alien belief in their native gods is too deeply rooted in their society. Their behavior cannot be measured by logic, so do not even bother to try. What matters is that these aliens are fanatical enough to persist in the face of overwhelming opposition." High Captain Gilbert de Raanvanchas tried to figure out how to stop all of those flanking warships from getting through and pummeling his ship from several different directions. "There are too many enemy warships! At this rate, our Enfeoffed mechs will not be able to eliminate most of the hijacked vessels. Diverting other mechs to our defense will help, but that will free up much of their surviving phasefighters, which are still numerous enough to inflict serious damage to our forces." Despite wiping out thousands of phasefighters, the defenders still had thousands more! What was worse was that the Larkinson mechs and other friendly units mostly managed to eliminate the weaker alien strike craft.few The more threatening ones that refused to execute the directives of its own maker still remained intact for the most part. These elite phasefighters managed to avoid too much attention and set themselves in a position to save the day at an opportune time. "The aliens must die." The Saint Commander succinctly stated. "The current Viscounts are unable to disable much of their warships in time. Part of it is due to the absence of space suppressors in the vicinity of our targets. Another part of it is due to orientation. As long as the enemy vessels keep their bow pointed in our flagship's direction, they can prevent the bunker mechs from targeting their propulsion systems." This was one of the downsides of relying on ranged weapon systems, especially energy weapons that lacked a strong enough visual impact. Even without their phase lord leaders, the remaining alien officers had scrambled to form effective countermeasures. From using the hulls of smaller and less important ships as literal cannon fodder to redlining their propulsion systems, the native aliens were willing to ruin their own vessels just to be able to destroy the Tortuous Scream! "Our flagship needs to back off and delay the moment of interception as much as possible." "On it, sir, but do not expect to be able to outrun the enemy warships. Their sub-capital ships are significantly lighter and possess higher acceleration rates than our battleship. The warp factors of their drives should also be superior." There was no outrunning the pursuing alien vessels. The Bluejay Fleet attempted to provide cover. They were able to stall one of the pincers, but lacked the numbers and firepower to do the same to the other pincer. The Saint Commander finally made an important decision. "I am demoting the current batch of Viscounts back into Knights. The modified Omega Threshers have exceeded my expectations in this battle, but their limited angles of fire have become too much of a constraint." As much as the mech pilots of the Enfeoffed first-class multipurpose mechs wanted to retain the power of a mid-tier expert mech, all good things came to an end. So long as this power did not belong to the mech pilots, it could be given and taken away at any time. The Saint Commander only provided minor consolation to the 57 lucky mech pilots before seeking to empower an entirely different group of first-class multipurpose mechs. She decided that this was a good time to test out a second major feature of the Minerva Mark II. A certain metallic owl-shaped fey soared across space and approached a troop of prepared Larkinson mechs. Unlike the Omega Threshers, the Dracoloids fared much better when fighting up close than from afar. This was exactly what the Saint Commander needed at this time. At this time, the Dracoloids had not left the radius of the Minerva Mark II's Command Field. The ace command mech was able to amplify the range of Casella's Command Field to a ridiculous extent, so it was not easy to escape her diluted domain field. Even so, when the Victrix arrived in front of the Dracoloids, every Larkinson mech pilot felt as if they were standing right in front of the Minerva Mark II! The owl fey began to transmit an uplifting message to the Dracoloid pilots! "Arise, my new Viscounts, and carry my power into battle. Breath fire into the hulls of the alien warships and rend their propulsion systems asunder!" Every Dracoloid gained a vague corona and glowed brighter. Power exuded from all 57 machines as they each carried a significant measure of Casella's true resonance! After the Dracoloids irrationally reared up their draconic heads and released a spray of searing flames, they flew straight towards the pincer of enemy warships that were attempting to attack the Tortuous Scream directly! The dragon mechs flew much faster than before. Combined with Casella's excellent skill and intuition, the Dracoloids skillfully evaded most of the intercepting fire that was being channeled in their direction. It did not matter too much if they got struck by an attack. The Dracoloids were designed to take a few beatings. The imitation resonance shield proved to be fairly effective at blocking attacks as well, and even if some still went through for one reason or another, their empowered armor systems easily repelled any lingering attacks. Once they got close enough, the Dracoloids finally got to work. They circled two of the larger enemy warships at a time. They were playing a dangerous game! As long as the secondary and tertiary gun batteries still remained operational, the new Viscounts could potentially become beset by so many attacks that they would wear out their defensive measures in record time. However, the Dracoloids did not have any intention of maintaining this distance. They utilized their entire arsenal of weapon systems in order to breach the energy defenses at the rear. This took a bit of time, but not that much! When a whopping 57 mid-tier expert mechs utilized their claws, integrated gauss cannons, integrated plasma cannons at the same time, the energy barriers simply couldn't take it anymore. Their generators suffered a major fault that needed to be addressed in record time! The Dracoloids all managed to get inside the defensive envelopes of the two warships. They wanted no time and quickly began to savage the metal parts that were closer to the rear of the enemy vessels. Once they managed to breach the engineering bays of the enemy warships, the dragon mechs released a short spurt of resonance-empowered flames that completely wiped out anything important and recognizable! However, the Dracoloids did not stick around long enough after they initially crippled the enemy warships within reach. The Dracoloids hopped away from their defeated enemies and began to repeat the same moves again, down to the second! It became clear that this had become a new pattern. The Dracoloids did not waste any time on chatter or explanations. Their main objective was to neutralize the offensive launched by the warships that comprised this pincer. After multiple rounds of hopping, over half of the ships comprising the pincer fell out of formation and tumbled in multiple different directions! The crew grew horrified when the damage inflicted by the Viscounts had left them almost completely adrift! The Dracoloids were unstoppable. Their pilots became so infected by the rush of power that they constantly egged each other on. They truly enjoyed the moment of invincibility! While the Dracoloids possessed lackluster ranged solutions, that was okay. Their offensive capabilities as well as the honest exposure to their main weaknesses were enough to put them on the shortlist. The repeated words of encouragement and the presence exuded by the Victrix made the Larkinsons aware that they were fighting in the presence of their ace commander. This was enough to make them docile and obedient!