Boom!
The shockwave created a massive tremor.
Even with the protection of its large-scale shield, the Deimos Frontline Base tilted by a full fifteen degrees.
A large number of attitude stabilizers and linked shield generators were instantly burned out.
"Lock target anchor points!"
"Locking... We cannot lock onto the enemy!"
The intelligence officer's voice amplified the unease in the command center.
This was the first time the Sky People had ever encountered a situation where they had confirmed spatial coordinates but were unable to "aim" at the enemy at that location.
It was like knowing someone was standing right there, but being completely unable to see them.
"What!?"
"Hyperspace strike, not within a detectable dimension!"
A universal rule of interstellar warfare: the first thing to do after a surprise attack is not to assess your own damage, but to immediately return fire with a heavy blow. Regardless of the ship's type or model, most starships from civilizations with FTL technology use the most efficient integrated universal Imaginary energy engines.
The blueprints and design principles for this type of engine are completely open-source, provided by the Interastral Peace Corporation to any civilization that steps into the stars. It's useless to those who can't, as the basic requirement for the technology is the ability to utilize Imaginary energy.
While different civilizations have their own modified versions, the overall framework remains largely the same: the moment a ship fires its main cannon is also the moment its own shield strength is at its lowest. As long as you aren't destroyed in one hit, launching an immediate counterattack is the correct tactic, but that's predicated on... being able to successfully lock onto the enemy.
This was precisely the situation the Sky People were now facing.
Although their sensor equipment wasn't the version provided by the Antimatter Legion, it was still a standard product of a high-level civilization. In the countless battles the Sky People had fought, they had never encountered a situation where they were completely unable to achieve a target lock.
In reality.
Even if they had used the Antimatter Legion's sensors, it wouldn't have made much of a difference.
In the current cosmic sea, apart from a very small number of civilizations that possessed specialized "Quantum Sensors" for studying the Abyss, no one had yet deployed a detection device on the battlefield capable of detecting the spatial fluctuations of the Quantum Sea.
"Damage report!"
The commander of the Sky People was no amateur.
The entire civilization had only established four frontline bases in total. The individuals holding this position were all frontline generals who had risen through the ranks on the back of extensive military achievements.
The frontline base still existed.
This meant that the enemy's maximum attack power was not high enough to destroy the base in a single blow.
In other words.
With the shield strength already raised to its maximum of sixty-five percent (the remaining energy was needed to maintain weapons and equipment), the enemy had no chance of shooting them down with another sneak attack.
Any form of energy.
Regardless of its fundamental nature, it would inevitably decay during its "transmission" through the vacuum of space. Under these circumstances, to take down the Deimos Frontline Base, the enemy would have to close the distance.
At that point, their stealth capabilities would be worthless. And if they were truly capable of that, they probably would have chosen a close-range assault from the very beginning.
"Overall energy reserves down twenty-six percent."
"Overall structural integrity loss at 2.11 percent. No anomalies detected in the 44 main engines. Only five instances of minor damage across 29,700 pipelines!"
Phew.
The commander's agitated brainwaves gradually calmed.
A saturation strike had caused so little damage, proving that the attacking enemy's civilization level was no higher than their own. They probably just had a breakthrough in stealth technology.
It was most likely some old rival who had accidentally discovered the frontline base's coordinates and sent a guerrilla fleet to cause trouble—
"No, wait!"
A continuous series of explosions echoed through space, the intense light and sound cutting off the optical detection equipment.
"Report on the garrison fleet's status!"
The base itself had indeed not suffered much damage.
But if the garrison fleet had lost its combat capability... The spatial anchoring technology ensured the Deimos Base's stability and greatly enhanced its defenses, but it also meant that without a fleet and without the ability to lock onto the enemy, they would become a sitting duck!
"Garrison fleet at ninety-seven percent losses!"
"Only the standard battleship Nephele, along with one heavy cruiser and two frigates under its command, have survived!"
"Status of the flagship?"
"...It has been sunk."
"..."
The communication channels in the command center fell silent.
"Send a distress signal to the home world."
For the Sky People, who were capable of throwing themselves into a star, requesting reinforcements was an extremely difficult thing to accept.
"Add a supplementary note."
"We are under attack by an unknown fleet. Advise all bases to maintain shield activation rates at or above twenty-five percent."
It was both a warning and an excuse.
"Notify all sections of the base."
"Enter Level 2 alert status. We may be tied up with this guerrilla fleet for a long time before the home world sends reinforcements—"
"!?"
A situation that completely defied the theories of space warfare occurred.
The attacking fleet did not use its powerful stealth to retreat. Instead, it tore through the gradually stabilizing space gate, bursting forth with an exaggerated spatial distortion!
"What is..."
"What the hell is that thing!?"
---o---
A ten-thousand-meter-class starship.
Considering hull strength and energy consumption ratios, a giant starship of this size far surpassed the standard for battleships and flagships, reaching or even exceeding the category of a super-flagship. Only the ultimate order of a galactic civilization, the Titan-class starship, would possess a long axis exceeding ten thousand meters.
On a side note.
10K was the entry-level for a junior Titan. According to the intelligence possessed by the Sky People, the largest Titan-class starship in the cosmic sea was the world-destroying weapon owned by the Genius Club, followers of Nous, the Astral God of Erudition: a Super-Titan with a long axis of 360,000 kilometers.
Of course, sheer size did not equate to combat prowess. The Sky People, having witnessed and destroyed many civilizations, had even seen a new civilization, just stepping into space, launch a 100,000-meter-long "kitbashed toy."
But the things before them were no mere mock-ups.
Firepower, armor, FTL speed, and stealth. Even ignoring all these hardcore standards, there was one thing that the commander simply could not comprehend—
These four warships...
Why were there so many reactions from different Paths!?
Most civilizations had a corresponding faith.
Civilizations without faith existed, but they were exceedingly rare and couldn't make significant waves in the cosmic sea.
There was a piece of common knowledge shared by all civilizations:
Unless they split into different races, a single civilization would only believe in one Astral God. Even for Astral Gods in the same faction, they would never tolerate the betrayal of a follower converting to another faith.
Based on this line of thought.
The attackers were simultaneously displaying the Paths of Erudition, Preservation, and Trailblaze. While these three Astral Gods were indeed in the same, or at least not hostile, factions, it couldn't possibly be that followers of all three had teamed up just to take them down, right!?
The Sky People didn't seem to warrant that level of attention. If they were going to attack someone, it should be the Antimatter Legion!
And...
Speaking of the Antimatter Legion, the reason for the command center's earlier complete silence had been found: within the energy readings of this fleet, they had actually identified the presence of the Path of Destruction!
On a side note.
The Sky People were only able to identify these four Paths because of the massive influence of these four Astral Gods (even with the Astral God of Trailblaze having fallen). As for a Path represented by dragons, like the Path of Immortality, they had never even seen it, so they couldn't be expected to recognize it.
The Sky People commander desperately wanted to send a signal saying, "Captain, don't shoot, it's me!" but considering that most of the powers the enemy wielded were from opposing factions, he could only attribute this to his own lack of knowledge.
After all.
Races and civilizations that betrayed their own Path to follow other Astral Gods were rare, but not nonexistent. There were even beings like the Mourning Actors, a "Reverse Retainer" group that was granted power by Aha, the Astral God of Elation, precisely because they went against the grain.
No matter how strange this fleet was.
Since they hadn't adopted hit-and-run guerrilla tactics and had instead appeared directly in front of the frontline base...
"Reduce shield strength by ten percentage points."
"All weapons, charge! Take them all down—no, take down at least one for me!"
The commander's methodical voice brought the entire frontline base back to operational status.
"I'd like to see."
"What kind of thing dares to provoke us so brazenly!"
BOOM!!!
---o---
And then.
The commander witnessed a tactic he had never seen before:
With their shields at full power, they were facing a boarding action from an enemy that was, by all logic, at a severe numerical disadvantage!
The exchange of fire between them lasted for less than ninety seconds.
This strange fleet suddenly changed tactics, launching a massive number of kinetic weapons at the Deimos Base.
In close-range combat, kinetic weapons did indeed have the advantage of good shield penetration and being difficult to defend against. But the distance between the two sides was currently a full 3 million kilometers!
Aside from spatial weapons.
All non-beam kinetic or hybrid weapons had basically no practical value at this range. Even completely ignoring the obstruction and deflection caused by asteroids and space junk, and assuming these kinetic weapons could continuously accelerate, by the time they hit the Deimos Base, it would be an unknown amount of time later.
A frontline base this large couldn't be hit by "guessing"...
"Warning!"
"Warning!"
"Large number of high-speed flying objects detected!"
"Large number of high-speed flying objects detected!"
"Estimated time to impact: 4, 3, 2..."
"Point-defense gravity cannons!!!"
BOOM!!! xN
A dense web of ripples spread wildly across the shield's surface!
The point-defense gravity cannon was the base's fastest-reacting, lowest-energy-consuming asteroid interception weapon, usually used to clear out small pieces of space junk that weren't detected in time.
The upscaled version of this weapon, the Gravity Mortar, had the effect of distorting light beams, but the ones deployed at the Deimos Base were clearly not the big ones. Now, all the point-defense gravity cannons were being used to deflect or neutralize the kinetic weapons fired from the unknown fleet.
Kinetic weapons that had lost their acceleration were trivial.
However, this was exactly what they wanted—
BOOOOOM!!!!!
As a continuous series of explosions erupted across the surface of the frontline base, the overall structure, which had been almost completely intact moments before, saw its damage rate instantly spike to over seventy percent. After all, for such a massive space construct, and with shield technology provided by their backer, spending too much on structural materials would have been prohibitively expensive.
Therefore.
The alloy used to construct the frontline base only had outstanding performance in corrosion resistance. As for its strength...
The moon-like, cratered devastation spoke for itself.
---o---
"Arrived smoothly."
As part of the first wave, Himeko landed inside the Deimos Base with perfect stability.
[Collapse]
This skill was not just for protecting against impact. Its spatial properties, which were the complete opposite of the Authority of the Void generated by Imaginary energy, were the foundation of the Empire's Quantum Legion in their long war against the Quantum Sea, and a technological innovation they took great pride in.
After this skill was popularized throughout the Empire.
It was adapted by various legions in different ways. As elites among the Helljumpers, the legion members participating in this expedition could each use Collapse to perform an extreme spatial drop with a maximum error of no more than 1/300,000. When an entire unit of Helljumpers shared their processing power, the maximum error would have another two zeros added to it.
Missing the target?
Impossible!
Himeko glanced around.
Her current identity was just a science officer at St. Freya Academy. Although her position at her original work unit hadn't been canceled, her identity as "Assistant to the Head of the Fifteenth Chamber" clearly couldn't command these legion veterans.
Even though Welt held the highest military rank in the expeditionary force—in the absence of a Legion Commander, Welt, as the Head of the Fifth Chamber, automatically served as the supreme commander—he couldn't just grant her a promotion out of thin air.
"Looks like I'll have to do it myself."
Fortunately, the legion's execution was extremely high.
The Helljumpers responsible for the first wave of the boarding action had already received their mission objectives before setting out. They would form five-man teams and swiftly proceed to the marked armories and energy centers to capture the vital points of the frontline base.
Himeko just needed to follow them.
It was worth noting...
Although the Helljumpers were an elite unit, their strength was far from the Primordial Species level. The teams, composed mainly of Mechanical Species with a small number of Primordial Species mixed in, mostly consisted of members at the "Old Templar-class" level of strength. An "Old Honkai Emperor" would be considered an elite among elites.
However, that being said.
In close-quarters combat, what level of power would these non-humanoid, ten-thousand-strong Templar-class units, operating with extremely high synergy, be able to achieve...
The Sky People.
Would be the first civilization in the cosmic sea to find out.