The Martial Unity

However, the biggest problem was that Martial Art was incompatible with space. Martial Art were ordered and organized forms of human violence, which evolved for a specific environment.

With land underneath one’s feet, with air to breathe, and gravity anchoring one to a world.

Outer space was an environment that had none of that. Thus, Martial Artists of the Lower Realms were completely inept at space warfare. Only Martial Artists of the Upper Realms had grown powerful enough to be effective in outer space.

They had received some basic training in accordance with space preparation protocols to truly elevate Panamic Civilization to a spacefaring civilization. But none of them liked it one bit; it was deeply counterintuitive and made all of their prior experience meaningless.

Not even sky-walking helped them with spacefare. They were provided with an esoteric light breathing apparatus that fit inside their mouth, and an esoteric innovation by the Kandrian Empire meant to allow them to generate a temporary atmosphere around them as a crutch to retain some of their techniques.

Otherwise, even Martial Masters would be completely useless in space.

It was why not even the gigantic numbers of Martial Artists they had at their disposal would necessarily allow them to overwhelm the alien army, for they were operating at limited amounts of power due to the drastically different environment.

In this regard, it was shocking that Martial Apprentices who had pursued MECHAs were considered assets that were also highly valuable in space despite the disparity in power between the two. It revealed the immaturity in Panama’s space warfare paradigms.

The same, however, was not true for the other armies, having mastered space warfare to a greater extent. While history didn’t indicate an excessive amount of space conflict between the six civilizations of the true world before the Unfolding, it was certainly something that had happened.

RUMBLE

The very fabric of space and time shook as the spaceborne organic botanical superweapons propped themselves protectively across the perimeter of much of Gaia’s surface, placing themselves in between the incoming army and Gaia.

The therianthropes specialized in close-range bioweapons, as did the giants. They occupied the forward-most layer of the conjoining armies of the civilizations of Gaia. The dwarves, the tekvores, and the evolutionaries filled in the gaps between long-range artillery and sieging and the closer-range brawlers in the giants and the therianthropes, creating a spectrum of an army that floated in space.

The Gaian army began taking shape, and seven distinct armies came together to form one gigantic army that served as the protective force of Gaia. RUMBLE!!!

The spaceships and the spacecraft bearing the crest of the Panamic Alliance engraved on their hulls roared forth, flanked with millions of MECHAs and tens of thousands of Martial Masters and Sages, aiming to intercept the individual laminar units flanking the incoming laminar army. They had been entrusted, out of all of the armies of the true world to take on the laminar spacecrafts and laminar integuments that seemed to freely float through the very fabric of space and time.

Everything was ready. Now, they merely needed to wait.

Not for the laminar army to reach them physically, no,

But for the army to enter the siege range.

Space warfare took place across much, much greater ranges of combat compared to warfare on land, where attacks had much stricter range limits due to the presence of gravity and drag. Here, as long as one’s aim and predictions were accurate enough, battles could theoretically even occur at the distance of light hours.

RUMBLE

The laminar army drew closer and closer as they grew more and more visible from a great distance away. It resembled a wave of soap bubbles because of how odd and alien the laminar spaceships were. Each of them is spherical in shape, comprising many layers and an iridescent transparent outer layer of varying sizes.

Yet, despite how different and alien their spaceship paradigms were, not a single soldier or pathwalker dared to underestimate just how powerful these strange crafts could be. After all, this was the same civilization that created a wormhole the size of a planet across who even knew how large a distance.

RUMBLE

As the laminar army approached, Amare clenched her fists as her expression hardened. She didn’t know what these creatures were or why they seemed to want to destroy everything, but she knew that she couldn’t allow her daughter to fall into harm’s way.

She found the sensation of outer space to be uncomfortable. There was an imbalance between her internal pressure and the absence of a counter-balancing pressure that she needed to compensate for. Additionally, the chill of space was not fun, either. Her long brown hair floated despite being tied up in a tight bun, while her clothes hovered, free from gravity.

“Hold.”

The electronically muffled voice emerged from the earpiece in her right ear. “Not yet.”

RUMBLE

The army drew closer.

“Not yet.”

RUMBLE

The air grew electric with peril as the laminar army approached within a million kilometers of Gaia.

And yet, despite this distance, it was still wide and vast.

RUMBLE

“Now! Commence the long-range laser siege!” The commander declared to the elven siege army at the very back. “Fire!”

RUMBLE!!!

The very fabric of space and time began to boil as the elven botanical superweapons charged with power, before firing off extraordinarily intense lasers of light.

VMMMMM!!!!!

The terrifying amount of energy they output was so intense that it made even Amare feel goosebumps running across her skin. A siege of lasers across many thousands of kilometers of the flat army spread charged towards the laminar army at the speed of light.

The utility of projectiles in space warfare was diminished tremendously due to speed limits, giving enemies enough time to react to them. The only weapon at their disposal worth deploying at such astronomically long ranges.

VMMMMMM!!!!!

The beams of light traveled for just a few seconds before eventually blasting into the laminar army with tremendous impacts.

Or so they hoped.

To their greatest shock, the wave of soap bubbles and jellyfish that was the invading laminar army simply absorbed the lasers in the blink of an eye.