The Martial Unity

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”The. Humans. Have. Sacrificed. Their. Own. Ships. To. Get. Their. Pathwalkers. Through!”

”The. Number. Of. Pathwalkers. Assaulting. The. Interdiction. Force. Has. Increased. Tenfold!”

—o-o—o gritted her pincers with anger in her six arachnid eyes. The sacrifices that the human armadas undertook were extreme, but they paid off. The pathwalkers had been safely delivered to the interdiction force past the damaged breachhead and had begun to wreak havoc on the interdiction vessels, as if paying back the arakai for all the misery that their own fleets had suffered.

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”Deploying. Starfighter. Interceptors!”

”Ascended. Arakai. Forces. Deployed!”

The two standard counters to pathwalker rampages were quickly deployed, but nobody expected that they would be enough. If the sentinels of the First Armada were a model, then they would barely be able to stall the pathwalkers at best. Even now, Sentinel Prime had managed to handle the twin divine children of the Divine Mother that led them. They didn’t expect that the other divine children would be able to handle the other peak pathwalkers.

Humanity’s top one hundred pathwalkers were composed of forces that were so powerful that only one or more divine children could possibly handle them. And the top ten, in particular, were too overwhelming.

With the pathwalkers already having reached the interdiction vessels, there was absolutely no chance of being able to fend them off soon enough. At least, not while the interdiction vessels were spread out engaging in their operations. There was only one conceivable way to prevent the interdiction force from suffering grave damage.

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”The. Intelligence. Web. Recommends. That. We. Halt. All. Field. Control. Operations. And. Retreat. The. Interdiction. Force. To. The. Core. Of. The. Web. Of. War… Your. Excellency.” A female arakai official bowed before the web hammock of the Divine Mother.

Those words made —o-o—o’s expression crumple in an ugly fashion. She hated the suggestion, because it was an admission of defeat. The humans had targeted the interdiction force in order to deny the arakai force the ability to secure the star system from invasion. This way they could keep battering the Web of War using their surprisingly advanced wormhole systems.

The Greater World Bridge that the humans had created was only a tiny fraction the size of the Gate of Conquest that the arakai used, but it was way beyond what a civilization that was only a ten-thousand-star-strong civilization should have been capable of. Then again, each and everything about human civilization was exceptionally unusual.

This tiny, irritating civilization seemed to be capable of punching tiers above its own weight class.

—o-o—o remained silent for several seconds, almost as if she was fighting her own decision to make the rational decision, but eventually exhaled with grim acceptance.

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”Halt. All. Interdiction. Operations... Evacuate. The. Interdiction. Force. To. The. Web. Bringer. For. Repair. Reconstruction. And. Replenishment.”

The Web Bringer mothership at the center of the Web of War wasn’t fifty kilometers wide for no reason. In addition to command and control, it also possessed a vast array of other functions, including support and logistics. That included massive shipyards built into the six legs of the spider-shaped mothership.

The Web of War wasn’t a deep strike force; it was a self-sustaining invasion force that could handle all situations by itself. It was designed to succeed at invasions no matter the cost and no matter how long it took.

It was a formula that worked for the arakai. Although no minor civilization had ever succeeded in stopping the arakai invasion in the past thousand years aside from the humans, the arakai were familiar with failure. They also understood that losing a battle didn’t matter.

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”We. May. Have. Lost. This. Battle. But. We. Will. Win. The. War.”

Divine Mother —o-o—o’s words were filled with venom as she watched the interdiction force retreat on her orders. It was unfortunate, but the interdiction operations couldn’t be maintained once the force retreated. The field control and area denial operations were conducted with gravity anchors, space quakers, and other space-time technologies that indiscriminately affected everything within their scope, which was why they had to be thrust up front.

If they were placed at the center of the Web of War, where they would be absolutely safe, then they would affect the wormhole web of communication and transit between webships, thereby severing the Web of War.

The only solace the Divine Mother could take was the fact that even though this battle was more of a loss for the arakai, the humans had anything but a proper victory. This was a pyrrhic victory at best. And the tactic that they had used to achieve that victory was not sustainable.

Those warships that the humans had sacrificed were not ordinary warships. They were warships that had been chosen to be a part of the first ten armadas of the Strategic World Bridge Force. They were first-class warships that were made from the best materials, the best shipyards, and the best engineers. They were elite astronaval assets that could not be burned at such alarming rates.

If the humans did choose to go through with this foolish sacrifice, then they would simply be gifting the arakai a lot of raw resources that were scattered around the Web of War, which the arakai could use to repair their interdiction force and even build new forces. In the long run, it would guarantee a victory for the arakai.

This was a one-time strategy that could not be repeated again. Humanity would need to figure out another way of preventing the interdiction force from eventually locking down the Arima III System.

On top of that, she had to remind herself that the core of the invasion force, her titanic webnoughts and webships, were entirely unharmed. They would still be able to devastate the forces of human civilization if they dared to try and reclaim the star system.

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”We. Have. Suffered. A. Temporary. Setback… We. Will. Not. Allow. It. To. Happen. Again,” Divine Mother —o-o—o swore with a fierce set of clicks.