At the end of her life, Abyssal Yamato felt a trace of comfort.
So I wasn't a coward after all.
She strained to send a signal. She might be sinking, but that horn still held tremendous power—she couldn't let it go to waste.
The next instant, Yamato sensed a force wrench the long horn from her.
A streak of blue slid across her fading vision.
Bad…
They even have a submarine here—
Musashi, you're in danger!
Abyssal Musashi shrieked and flew into a rage.
She might have despised Abyssal Yamato—might have wished to personally sink the disgrace to the J-faction—but she would never allow the enemy to kill her. And to do it right in front of her? It was a slap in the face.
The Abyssal Friedrich der Große, bear-pelt shako atop her head, stepped forward. "And those gnats?"
The gathered Abyssal flagships started and looked back.
Through the heaving tsunami, they couldn't see the silhouettes of the four shipgirls. But the search radar showed they were no longer in place—two new shipgirls were escorting them, driving hard to the south.
The returns prickled at Musashi's instincts.
There was something in the air. A scent she didn't like.
But fury smothered caution, and her strength gave her contempt for traps.
She slapped the lava-horned drakes that formed her rigging and screamed,
"Pursue! Chase them down!"
Bismarck gave Changchun a nod. "They're counting on you."
"Leave it to me!"
Changchun thumped her chest and fired two missiles.
At thirty nautical miles—and with the enemy closing like a lightning bolt—her shots landed in a heartbeat.
Her missiles were single-target; forcing them into splash damage was pointless.
But what she needed was rapid, repeated single-point strikes.
One Changchun missile hit like more than a dozen Lexington-class Doolittle sorties. If an Abyssal flagship didn't actively defend, it could be sunk outright!
So the pursuers had no choice but to act. Dodging was futile—the missiles were virtually sure-hit. They had to saturate the sky and try to shoot them down, or turtle up and eat the blast with their rigging.
It slowed the chase.
And Changchun's missiles came one after another—practically bottomless.
Amid the storm-torn seas, Helena and Leipzig had already shepherded the four badly damaged girls to within ten nautical miles of safety.
But there were too many Abyssal flagships. Changchun could stall only two at a time.
The rest nipped at Helena's heels, salvo after salvo detonating into towering walls of water—enough to make Changchun's heart clench.
Bismarck hesitated no longer. She charged.
A guided-missile destroyer was, by nature, defensive and supportive. They'd pushed Changchun dangerously close only to maximize her firing tempo.
To stop the enemy here, it had to be Bismarck—the super-battleship.
The Flagship Killer spoke again. Bismarck's three main guns—nine barrels—gathered the armor-piercing bite of the Type 91 AP shell into a single beam and hurled it straight at the charging Abyssal Musashi.
Nine became one: a red-black lance that streaked for Musashi's face.
A shot like that had just taken Abyssal Yamato's head clean off. And in raw training, Bismarck was level 110—an entire tier above Musashi's 107, not merely "three levels."
So, loath as she was, Musashi had to wrench one of her magma-horn drakes across her body and take it head-on. The blast shoved her back hundreds of meters.
The dragon's horn warped under the impact.
There was no dodging it; Bismarck's skill cannot miss. Utterly shameless.
Bismarck pressed the advantage. The nine barrels fanned, calling out targets across the enemy vanguard and hammering the other charging Abyssal flagships in turn.
Her name and shadow weighed on them: she had sniped Abyssal Kaga with a single round, then, before their eyes, executed Abyssal Yamato—and now she had driven the 107-level Musashi back.
No flagship dared take her salvo lightly. The arrowhead of the pursuit wavered.
For a moment, one ship held the pass and ten thousand could not break it.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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