The Martial Unity

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Silent collisions blasted in space as the Martial Artists clashed with astralites in the vacuum of space. Pioneer III had become the epicenter of a surrounding space warzone. If not for the outer layer of the hull being made of invintium, Pioneer III would have sustained much worse damage than it had. It hovered in outer space in the solar system of Barnard’s Star, struggling to try and maneuver in and about the star system.

In the command room of the omni-ship, the crew struggled to move the ship to as safe a spot as possible. Ideally, they wanted to move away from the battle between Martial Sages and the strongest astralites, who were shockingly strong enough to hold their own with the Martial Sages.

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Tremendous collisions that didn’t make so much as a peep in the vacuum of space rang around them. “Mapping of the warzone complete. Charted trajectory to safety plotted out.”

BZZZT

In a map before them, an image pointing out the trajectory that the omni-ship could take to move out of the zone of conflict had emerged.

Admiral Lewenil nodded with a grim expression. “Execute extrication. We must secure Pioneer III’s safety above all else. What if we hide among the asteroid swarm in the solar system? Make it harder for them to locate us.”

“Sir, that is not recommended,” one of the analysts told him with a grim expression. “The preliminary data collected from the long-range scans suggest that the asteroid clusters actually serve as habitats of the alien species.”

“What?” Admiral Lewenil’s eyes widened at those words as he walked over to the analyst’s monitor. “What do you mean?”

“Take a look at these strange rock formations, sir,” she pointed out at the many littered asteroid fields that came together to form a giant clump of rocks. “Our scans reveal this.”

She brought up an infrared image as well as faint X-ray scans, revealing not just heat signatures of the octopus-like aliens, but also lines of heat running around the inside of the asteroids resembling intricate circuitry.

Admiral Lewenil’s eyes widened as he realized that they were dealing with a species that was not just individually mighty, but also technologically powerful. “This…”

There wasn’t just one or two asteroid clumps; there were many. They were fitted in with asteroid clusters to make them seem entirely inconspicuous and undetectable.

“No wonder the octopus-like aliens seemed to come out of nowhere!” Admiral Lewenil realized with a stunned expression. “They live among asteroids as a part of their habitat! That would explain why they caught us off guard the way they did.”

The fact that they were individually powerful was troubling, but the fact that they potentially had a sophisticated space civilization was even more troubling. BOOOOOOM!!!

RUMBLE

A heavy collision struck Pioneer III, making the omni-ship shudder and shake even as it hobbled away from the battlefield as fast as it could. Sirens began ringing across the entire ship as the damage became apparent.

“Sir, we have detected serious damage to section A-162 of the rear-thruster!” one crew member told him with an urgent tone. “Our capacity for short-range maneuvering has been damaged!”

“The rotor’s interior bearings have been damaged, sir; it’s not something that we can fix in the heat of battle.”

“Sir!” A crew member monitoring the battle urgently drew the admiral’s attention. “The Martial Artists—They’re starting to lose!”

Admiral Lewenil’s eyes widened as he rushed over with a horrified expression. “No. No. No. This can’t be…”

He watched with a hint of despair as the octopus-like aliens began to outmaneuver the Martial Artists. They had quickly learned that the Martial Artists, strong as they were in terms of raw power, were surprisingly immobile in space, relative to their power. They clearly had some kind of apparatus that allowed them to rotate and move around, but it was limited. The octopus-like aliens appeared to have deduced that the Martial Artists were not accustomed to space battle. It didn’t matter how much raw power they had if they didn’t have leverage. It didn’t matter how strong they were if they couldn’t position and maneuver themselves as well as they would have liked.

Ultimately, Martial Artists drew their power not from raw strength, but rather from efficiency, and in situations where they could not be efficient, the unmatched power of a Martial Artist simply would not manifest.

This was the reason the octopus-like aliens began to overwhelm them. Not a single analyst had missed the fact that their combat styles had changed since the battle had begun. They had initially confronted the Martial Artists head-on, only to be hit by attacks that could level cities and countries with the sheer force.

Once they realized how strong Martial Artists could be in direct confrontation, they quickly changed their battle style, leveraging their superior maneuverability to shift around the Martial Sages, constantly aiming for their blind-sides and their vulnerabilities.

And it was working.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Sage Nathan gritted his teeth as he barely managed to defend against a tentacle attack that concentrated its force at his vitals. The impact sent him flying away across the emptiness of outer space, forcing him to exert force into his exo-Martial suit to halt his momentum to return to the battlefield.

That was another problem they had run into that they hadn’t expected, which was that they could just be blasted away from the battlefield through the vacuum of outer space, and the Pioneer ship would no longer be protected. It forced the Martial Masters and the Martial Sages to exert even more effort, draining their stamina faster than normal battles in a terrestrial environment.

But that wasn’t the only tactic they used.

The octopus-like aliens also discovered how individualistic Martial Artists were in battle. Martial Artists didn’t fight in formations or utilize sophisticated cooperation. They barely even came together as a group, leaving many openings for the octopus-like aliens to infiltrate and gang up on all of them one by one.

They could eliminate Martial Artists one by one in this manner.

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“Rgh!!!” Sage Nathan balled up several alien combatants who swarmed around him, threatening to ravage his exo-Martial suit and rupture it. The other Martial Artists tried to reach him in time to help protect him from the aliens.

And yet, the only unit that came to his rescue was none other than a MECHA.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

A powerful explosion erupted around Sage Nathan as a MECHA Master unleashed lasers precisely around him, blasting the octopus-like aliens away.