Chapter 7510 Coordinated Deathborn
Chapter 7510 Coordinated Deathborn
Though Ves did not fault Andrea Vos and the other formation masters for producing a flawed work, nobody could ignore the consequences of this outcome.
Less than an hour passed in relative peace and safety before the first major incident occurred.
One of Formation Master Andrea Vos' fears had come true.
The deathborn no longer mindlessly assailed the protective bubble from all sides at a constant rate.
Instead, they showed increasing signs of organization. While most of them still kept up the pressure from all sides, the controller in the shadows had secretly grouped up tens of millions of them before launching them all like a giant ballista!
Alarms rang throughout all of the ships as the invisible boundary bulged inward!
The deathborn had launched such a strong push that the ships positioned closest to the anomalous changes suddenly became engulfed by the tide of darkness!
They had unexpectedly lost the protection of the defensive spell array!
This was not all.
The sudden assault did more than deform the protective barrier. It also exposed everyone else to a wave of negative emotions.
Abrupt feelings of hatred, envy, fear and so on briefly surged within the minds of most humans.
Only the strongest and most disciplined among them successfully shrugged off this unnatural influence.
The rest remained paralyzed for a moment!
Dozen or so seconds passed before the invisible wave of negativity receded somewhat, but not entirely.
"The deathborn has created a significant flaw in our defensive spell array!" A formation master hastily reported. "It is impossible to restore the barrier from our end unless our enemies have halted their offensive!"
"We need to push the deathborn back as soon as possible! Do not let them expand their initial gains!"
The human soldiers never fully let down their guard since they entered the Hypeh-Tekas System.
Though they enjoyed a bit more rest ever since the defensive spell array became active, they still maintained a necessary amount of caution.
That happened to serve them well as plenty of mechs on standby had been able to deploy within minutes since the start of the latest incident.
The warships also began to take action. Many spacers that had previously remained on standby quickly manned their stations and began to perform the necessary steps to open fire.
Large caliber cannons soon began to launch careful volleys of energy beams and projectiles at the 'breach'.
However, the sensor systems reported few discernable results!
All of the attacks sank right into the dark miasma before disappearing entirely.
Aside from temporarily dispersing a few crowds of deathborn, the warship-grade attacks failed to inflict any meaningful harm!
"Cease fire! Some of our ships are trapped inside this dark cloud! Our intangible foes don't care about our firepower, but the same cannot be said for our own side! Wait for the Saint Commander's instructions!"
The opposing side happened to time their surprise attack well. The Saint Commander had gone off duty and begun to enjoy her rest.
Though she had opted to stay inside the cockpit of the Minerva Mark II to guard against situations like these, she still needed a bit of time to wake up and bring her ace mech fully online.
Before she could deploy her Command Field, everyone else needed to pick up the slack and hold back the enemy incursion as much as possible!
The problem was that they lacked the means to repel the deathborn by themselves!
The warships proved to be ineffective.
The mechs performed barely better.
The Dracoloids and the Omega Threshers sent out by the Premier Fleet attempted to beat back the dark miasma and slay the deathborn with their diverse arsenal of weapons.
While they managed to kill scores of deathborn with every shot, the enemy numbers were so great that a few hundred mechs could never exterminate so many enemies in a short amount of time!
Besides, even if the mechs managed to clear away the deathborn, they could do little against the dark miasma!
Only one mech model possessed this particular ability.
When the nearest squad prototype Woodsap mechs finally flew close to the ongoing breach, their strong vitality and abundant reserve of wood energy immediately created a stark contrast.
The ominous atmosphere suddenly graced the arrival of a beacon of hope.
Even though the Woodsap mechs could no longer draw from Gaia's strength, a semblance of her touch and power still lingered through their organic frames.
It was as if every Woodsap mech was a seed from the great mother tree.
Though small and weak in transcendent power, they still stood head and shoulders above every other standard mech!
"The deathborn… are being restrained by the new biomechs!"
Something had changed since last time.
Previously, the Woodsap mechs demonstrated their ability to restrain and repel the deathborn, but the effect was not so strong at the time.
They had adapted since then. The Woodsap mechs exerted themselves more strenuously. They not only formed a small battle network with each other, they also squeezed their reserves of wood energy, which they had been stockpiling beforehand!
The newly arrived prototypes also harnessed the limited quantities of wood energy and life energy in the immediate environment, though it did not seem to make much of a difference!
As more and more Woodsap mechs launched from their motherships and arrived at the breach, they surrounded the protruding dark cloud from multiple directions and sought to push it back as much as possible!
It was working to an extent.
The new mechs proved to be more effective than their metallic counterparts in everything. All of their shots not only killed more deathborn, but also dispersed the nearby dark miasma more effectively!
Yet despite their relative success, they ultimately proved inadequate for the task.
"We don't have enough Woodsap mechs!"
A Woodsap mech could make a substantial difference in a small incident, but a larger one such as this demanded a lot more strength or numbers!
They only made a bit of progress before they hit a wall.
At that point, no matter how much they tried to push back the enemy intrusion, the other side quickly replenished the losses.
This resulted in a new equilibrium where the problem had only become slightly less threatening than before.
That was far from enough to solve the current threat or rescue the lost starships!
"Damnit! I thought that since the protective energy field had gone up, we would be done with this nonsense!"
"That defensive spell array is the only reason why we were able to contain the threat to this extent. Without it, the dark miasma would have engulfed our entire fleet!"
Many people began to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the active qi formation, but the collies responsible for setting it up felt unjustly blamed.
They had done their best to produce a work that could keep them safe under stable conditions, but to expect the same result under less ideal circumstances was way too unrealistic!
The fundamental problem was that the defensive spell array that they relied upon to keep them safe possessed limited resources and solutions.
The formation masters and other qi cultivators scrambled to plug the gaps and make adjustments to the changing situation.
Formation Master Andrea Vos personally held the formation artifact and periodically pressed her fingers against a few gems. She injected one instruction after another in order to alter the parameters of the active spell array.
"Andrea!" Ves called her out over a private communication channel. "What is the status of the defensive spell array?!"
"It was faltering, but we managed to stop the deterioration through our active management." The Farseer quickly explained. "An unattended spell array would have failed now due to their inability to adapt to dynamic changes. One attended by formation masters such as myself can marshal its resources much more efficiently. Currently, my subordinates and I are constantly monitoring the movements of the opposing side in order to respond to them as best as possible. We are also working to repair the existing faults, but we are not able to make progress due to the disparity between us and the deathborn. We managed to make an important deduction about the latter."
"What did you discover?" He asked.
"This attack… is organized." She said. "Though we have yet to obtain irrefutable proof, the remarkable obedience and coordination of the participating deathborn indicates that they are being subjugated by a leader, most likely a stronger variant of this intangible species."
Ves already came up with the same suspicion. A bunch of mindless and irrational deathborn could never show so much organization by themselves!
"Is it… the deathborn True God?"
"I cannot say, sir. I feel that this is not the case. Whoever is commanding this swarm of deathborn is likely a superior, but not too much or else we would have detected its presence by this time. From the manner and timing of the enemy's movements, I have reasons to believe that the enemy commander may be floating closer to our fleet. If your forces can seek out and eliminate this deathborn commander, there is a chance for the deathborn to lose their coordination."
Ves' eyes lit up! It would be convenient if they could make this happen!
"Please pass on your suggestion to the Saint Commander! Hopefully we can deal with this matter as easily as you think."
The Saint Commander would likely dispatch an ace mech or two to plunge into the dark miasma and hunt down this mysterious deathborn commander.
Half a minute passed before Casella finally made her move.
Starting from the Tortuous Scream, an iconic Command Field rapidly expanded outwards and bestowed the protection of true resonance to every mech or warship!
The Command Field did much to repel the darkness.
Together with the effects of the active defensive spell array, Casella's willpower pushed back the incursion and pushed millions of deathborn back!