Behind them, with Bismarck holding the line, Changchun was free to unleash missiles like a gleeful turret, firing once every three or four seconds in a steady rhythm.
That brief delay was all Helena and the others needed to close several nautical miles of distance, pulling up to Bismarck's side.
Bismarck smashed aside one of Abyssal Musashi's counterattacks with her cannons. The half-transparent barrier that flared around her flickered and dented slightly.
It was the outward sign of her defensive skill: Unsinkable Battleship.
Her gaze flicked to St. George, nearly cleaved in half, and her frown deepened. She bellowed, "Get her back to the naval district!"
To ordinary eyes, St. George looked utterly dead—but a shipgirl's life was tied only to her endurance bar. If she hadn't sunk, whether she had three points left or just one, she was still alive.
Supply her with resources, repair her for a dozen hours, and she'd be a fine warship again.
That was the monstrous nature of shipgirls. Among the Abyssal-corrupted, there were also mighty champions, but when they were gravely wounded it could take years to recover—if they ever returned to their peak at all.
A shipgirl, by contrast, could be back to full strength in less than a day. How could Abyssalized beings ever hope to compete with that?
At Bismarck's order, Helena answered at once.
Leipzig, however, pivoted and stayed at Bismarck's side.
"Boss, I'll cover you. The enemy's submarine pack is closing in!"
Light cruisers and destroyers excelled at anti-submarine combat. What Bismarck could barely detect, Leipzig at level 110 could read as easily as lines on a palm.
And Leipzig also carried her skill to boost G-faction allies' firepower by seven points. Combined with the special meals and other buffs, it was nearly an extra battleship gun added to Bismarck's arsenal.
But Bismarck refused flatly.
"Leave now—don't get in my way!"
Leipzig could share some of the pressure, but Bismarck would not place her in mortal peril.
Hearing her tone, Leipzig knew better than to argue. She bit down, wheeled about, and sprinted away at full speed.
The danger was real: an Abyssal submarine strike, even in daylight when torpedoes were weaker, could still push Bismarck into heavy damage. And if the pack hid a max-trained Abyssal flagship among them, even she could be wrecked in one salvo.
None had been sighted so far—but their own naval district hid so many cards, who could say the Abyssals didn't have some of their own?
Still, with Bismarck's order given, Leipzig withdrew, praying her commander could "face-tank" the torpedoes by luck alone.
Torpedo evasion came down to agility and luck, and Bismarck—an unlucky battleship—excelled at neither.
At least the Oath Ring added five points of luck.
That was no small bonus. With her base of only eighteen, the ring's blessing was enormous.
But submarines launched from close range, from blind spots, in crisscrossed spreads that were virtually unavoidable.
Dodging a massed strike really would take luck—exactly what her admiral always called "facing the dice roll."
As the rescue squad neared the rendezvous, Abyssal Musashi's rage broke. She slashed her hand down.
"At any cost—leave none alive!"
"At any cost" meant charging through, even if it meant taking heavy damage.
Forty Abyssal flagships surged forward as one, forty arrows streaking toward the rescue team.
Behind them, hundreds of thousands of Abyssal carrier planes swarmed like black clouds, with half a million Abyssal troops pressing from behind.
The Ink Sea roared. Waves shattered and surged, and in an instant it was as though the whole ocean reared up like a beast a hundred miles long, ready to swallow the tiny rescue squad whole.
Every Abyssal expected Bismarck to retreat. Yet before tens of thousands of foes, before forty flagships, she raised her guns and charged headlong.
Her voice thundered, a roar that split the sky.
"I am Bismarck, under Commander Hikaru! Do you dare—"
"—to face me in battle!!"
Boom—
Her shout was so fierce that heaven and earth dimmed, and the raging tsunami itself faltered. It was as if the monstrous sea-beast bowed its head before her.
One roar of defiance shook the world.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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