She lunged to save Abyssal Friedrich der Große, but it was already too late.
This was a perfect two-step kill.
Friedrich had just suffered a mortal strike and was still reeling when the Reaper's scythe stabbed for her soul from behind once more.
Moments earlier she'd been up front, sword and chains in hand, trading steel-on-steel with Bismarck at point-blank range. She and U-47 were still over a hundred meters apart, but from Bismarck— even after she'd fallen back a notch during the massed bombing—the distance was no more than thirty meters.
Thirty meters!
For shipgirls, who call ten nautical miles "knife-fighting range," this kind of gunnery is something you could hit with your eyes closed—especially from Bismarck, who carried the skill Flagship Slayer.
Bismarck's hair whipped in the screaming wind as she stood atop a heaving crest. Her outstretched arm was steady as forged steel.
Her nine intact main guns had long since locked onto Abyssal Friedrich der Große. Nine barrels as one, the shells outraced sound itself—blood-red beams so dark they seemed to drip black—lancing straight into Friedrich's head.
An inescapable technique. A finishing blow.
Friedrich could only turn, watching as fire filled her vision.
Then her bearskin shako toppled into the sea and drifted away with the waves.
"Why—why—WHYY!!!"
Abyssal Musashi threw back her head and howled, a lone-wolf keen that chilled the blood.
Bismarck's face did not so much as flicker. She spared a glance at the spot where Friedrich sank, curled her lip, and snapped off a point shot at Abyssal Hindenburg.
Bismarck still wasn't running!
Heart in her throat, Abyssal Hindenburg barely tanked the hit—just as Abyssal Musashi, howling, charged in.
That was when Bismarck fell back.
Behind her, nearly two hundred six-star bombers formed into immaculate ranks in the sky. With missiles opening the way, they arrowed straight for Abyssal Musashi.
That was the true terror.
The enemy's carrier air wing had been waiting for this moment. They'd endured the entire battle for the chance to land the perfect, decisive hammer at the end.
Abyssal Hindenburg felt a chill in her marrow.
With her personal anti-air plus equipment bonuses she scraped just over 100 points, but before two hundred six-star bombers her odds of survival weren't one in ten thousand.
But the target wasn't her. All those bombers, the paired missiles, even a few mixed-in gun salvos—everything streaked for Abyssal Musashi.
Abyssal Hindenburg felt a flash of relief at her own narrow escape—followed a heartbeat later by a rising, burning shame that the enemy didn't even consider her worth aiming at.
The greater danger was Abyssal Musashi.
Her one true weakness was anti-air. On base stats alone, Hindenburg's AA was only 78—yet that was still forty points higher than Abyssal Musashi's.
So even if it meant dropping a gun and cutting some output, Musashi had to mount AA radar. There was simply no other option.
Even so, with the boosts from a high-speed scout, AA radar, and the main guns' AA trait, Abyssal Musashi's anti-air was a miserable 58.
AA was Abyssal Musashi's vital flaw.
And the enemy had seized it.
Whatever became of Abyssal Musashi, their plan to use a four-shipgirl squad as bait—lure the snake from its hole and annihilate it—had completely failed!
A shiver ran through Abyssal Hindenburg. For the first time she felt they might not be able to take the enemy's naval district.
Bismarck linked up with U-47, every sense on high alert, and headed for the naval district.
The soft platinum glow around her did not fade—that was the absolute-defense shield provided when the elite Damage Control Fairy activated.
With that shield, she could have toyed with the enemy a while longer. But the objective for this sortie had been achieved in full, and she had to account for the chance the enemy would go blood-mad and refuse to break off. So after sinking Abyssal Friedrich der Große and retrieving U-47, Bismarck withdrew at once.
To the north, two hundred six-star carrier planes blotted out the sky. The barrage seemed ready to rip reality itself, as if heaven's white-jade pillars and the sea's purple-gold beams would both splinter and fall.
Even Bismarck had to shake her head and sigh. "As expected, when it comes to sheer destructive power, no one tops Lexington and her lot."
No—more precisely, it was their own naval district's carrier task force under every possible buff: Oath Rings, level 110 training, stacked skills, tactical buffs, tight squad coordination, special cuisine, and a full complement of six-star ace aircraft.
The strongest "nuke-'em-off-the-map" strike group—painstakingly built up by their Commander, piece by piece.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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