Amidst the deafening roar of the explosion, the black Mobile Suit—having just sunk a destroyer without breaking a sweat—didn't pause for a second.
Shamila had given them a chance before the fighting started. Now, the gloves were off.
The other escort ships hesitated, fearing friendly fire as the Gundam charged directly into their formation after decimating their ally. Capitalizing on that moment of hesitation, Shamila piloted the Dark Goddess, leaping through the air and landing heavily on the deck of another destroyer.
A standard Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is roughly 500 feet long and about 60 feet wide. Compared to such a massive warship, the fifty-foot-tall black Gundam looked almost insignificant.
But looks were deceiving.
The sheer force of its landing tore through the reinforced steel deck. The impact alone shredded most of the automated turret systems nearby, sending metal shrapnel flying.
Then, the black mech reached for its waist, drawing two beam sabers that crackled with the color of fresh blood.
Inside the ship's bridge, the crew fell into a terrified silence, watching their inevitable doom approach.
Vwoom.
The sabers swung.
The two crimson blades carved a perfect cross in the air.
Formed from highly concentrated Hell Particles, the beams sliced through the ship's superstructure like a hot knife through butter. The bridge—roughly the same height as the mech itself—was instantly severed into three distinct pieces.
The cut edges glowed bright orange with molten steel.
Before the officers inside could even scream, the ensuing explosion swallowed them whole.
By the time the fireball erupted, the black Gundam was already airborne again.
Although the second ship had only lost its command center and hadn't fully split apart or sunk yet, the psychological impact was devastating. Seeing the black machine rise from the flames without a scratch, a suffocating blanket of fear and despair descended upon the entire fleet.
"Fire! Open fire!"
"Destroy that monster!!"
Inside the central aircraft carrier, the fleet commander—whether a disguised Skrull or just a panicked human—was screaming hysterically, his face twisted in terror. He ordered the ships, which had briefly ceased fire, to engage immediately.
His voice cracked with desperation. Standing beside him, the XO whispered a hesitant warning.
"Admiral, firing at this angle... we're guaranteed to hit our own ships..."
"I SAID FIRE!"
The Admiral turned on his subordinate with a savage snarl.
But before the argument could go any further—
A crimson beam of energy traversed several miles in a fraction of a second, punching straight through the carrier's bridge.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still.
At this point, it didn't matter who was a Skrull and who was a traitorous human.
A blinding white light consumed everything.
A catastrophic explosion tore the carrier in two. Massive geysers of water and twisted metal debris shot into the sky, signaling that this multi-billion-dollar toy had officially retired from history.
However, the "culprit" behind this devastation was currently scratching her head awkwardly inside the cockpit.
"Did I hit the primary magazine? Did that trigger a chain reaction?"
"Well... tough luck for them."
In reality, Luca's orders for this sortie had been specific.
Beyond just intercepting the enemy, Shamila was supposed to test the weapon systems and flex their muscles for the rest of the world watching. That was why she hadn't just nuked the fleet from orbit immediately. She had to take a few hits, show off the melee combat, and only then bring out the beam rifle to clean up.
Furthermore, since the Skrull population was low and most of the sailors were likely just manipulated humans, Luca had requested—for "humanitarian reasons"—that she try to disarm them rather than sink them. That was the whole point of the surrender broadcast earlier.
Shamila hadn't expected her first rifle shot to drill straight into the ammo depot and cause a catastrophic cook-off.
The carrier didn't just sink; the blast was so violent that the destroyers behind it had to take evasive action to avoid colliding with the sinking wreckage.
Perhaps it was the Admiral's final scream that did it, but as the flagship went under, the remaining captains panicked. The guns that had gone silent roared to life once more, firing in unison.
A dense rain of CIWS rounds hammered the Gundam's outer armor.
But the result was futile. The rounds sparked harmlessly against the plating, achieving absolutely nothing.
"Well, the Boss said if they don't stop firing, I have permission to return fire indefinitely."
"In that case..."
The black Gundam, which had been hovering and tanking the hits, suddenly blurred into motion.
This time, Shamila didn't bother with the beam sabers or close-quarters combat.
Relying on the insane thrust-to-weight ratio provided by the Solar Furnace, the machine shot backward, putting distance between itself and the fleet in a heartbeat. It left the incoming tracers trailing uselessly in its wake.
While maneuvering, the Gundam even found the time to use its head-mounted vulcan cannons to swat a few opportunistic fighter jets out of the sky.
Once she had cleared the kill zone, the Gundam spun around in mid-air to face the fleet.
She raised the beam rifle, leveling it at the remaining ships.
Inside the cockpit, the targeting system sang a continuous, rhythmic tone. Beep-beep-beep. Locked on.
In the next second, a dozen crimson beams fired in rapid succession.
Each beam was a sentence of death, striking the distant ships with surgical precision just as they tried to pour more fire into the sky.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions chained together, turning the ocean surface a hellish red.
Countless pillars of water erupted and collapsed, creating a misty rain over the burning graveyard.
The moment Shamila pulled the trigger, the carrier strike group—once the symbol of humanity's peak naval power—was rendered meaningless.
As the final warship was swallowed by a fireball, Shamila didn't even bother looking at the surviving jets buzzing around in panic. Without a carrier to land on, they wouldn't have the fuel to make it back to the nearest land base. They were no longer a threat.
Shamila simply looked out at the chaotic, burning sea, calmly holstered the beam rifle onto the mech's back, and muttered coldly:
"Annihilation mission: Complete."