Chapter 2671: Auralis (1/2)

The wave of energy seemed to travel a bit slow on the map, but in reality it moved incredibly swiftly for how much devastation it was able to wreak.

It was already absurd for a strange energy wave to knock out and possibly kill the minds of so many Bloody Herons and other elite mech pilots.

No one expected the reality-defying attack would go on to slaughter the entire crew of the Auralis.

This was one of the Gauge Dynasty's proudest fleet carriers! While she was certainly not the largest capital ship from the Friday Coalition, she possessed a rare deep strike configuration which allowed her to traverse much more distant stars at good speeds.

Unlike some of the other deep strike fleet carriers in Task Force Umbra, the Auralis was not a minimal effort.

The cheaper fleet carriers such as the Vanguard Group's Forward Momentum and the Puffer Clan's Orca Tyrant only carried the basics. They were thinner, lighter and offered less room for mechs. While that made them fairly maneuverable compared to other capital ships, this was hardly what military leaders sought in a vessel that was supposed to undertake dangerous missions behind enemy lines!

The Auralis was a true deep strike fleet carrier as far as everyone was concerned. She was clad in thick, premium starship hull plating that could take a heavy beating for a time. As long as the vessel rotated along her axis, she could absorb a huge amount of punishment as long as none of the incoming damage wasn't concentrated.

The Auralis was definitely the most expensive and impressive fleet carrier out of the five she traveled with. Not even the Konsu Clan's Amagi or the CRC's Eager Condemnation matched the luxuries that the Gauge Dynasty had foisted on the starship.

It was actually quite noteworthy that the Gauge Dynasty was even willing to supply such a valuable fleet carrier for this operation in the first place, but then again, it had many more capital ships to spare.

Yet for all of the defenses that granted the Auralis so much value, she possessed a least one major weakness.

Relative to the other deep strike fleet carriers, her mobility was abysmal. While her FTL range was commendable, that was solely due to the quality of her specialized long-ranged FTL drives.

Her sub-light propulsion system was actually quite powerful, but that was mostly responsible for allowing the lumbering vessel to keep up with ordinary transits. Her straight-line acceleration was barely passable, but her other maneuvering characteristics were wholly inadequate.

The Auralis was deliberately built to be tough enough to block and bounce off any damage with her powerful shield generators and heavy hull plating. There was hardly any capacity left to install powerful maneuvering thrusters that could help with turning her orientation or allowing her to dodge to the side in a timely manner.

The side thrusters were so weak relative to the mass of the lumbering vessel that it was as if a mouse attempted to move a chair.

Even though there wasn't any friction in space, it still took an awfully long time for these piddly thrusters to move displace an object that massed an uncountable of tons. Just like every other capital ship, the Auralis was so heavy that she was unable to land on a planet with standard gravity.

Considering all of these disadvantages, the Auralis was the perfect follow-up target for the energy wave. It was big, valuable, and difficult to defeat through conventional attacks.

Yet the death energy evoked by the Penitent Sister battle formation was not material in nature. Just like normal spiritual energy, it passed through every solid obstacle and only interacted with other forms of spiritual energy and spiritual phenomenon.

Aboard the Auralis, the only spiritual presence aboard the vessel was the inherited spirit of her crew. Over 20,000 crew members served aboard the well-staffed vessel. They serviced the mechs, ran the many functions of the vessel, facilitated the complicated and risky process of performing long-ranged FTL transitions and so on. All of these Fridaymen were highly-trained professionals with at least a decade of experience under their belt.

None of these Gaugers were weak!

Yet despite the prodigious defenses of the Auralis, the minds of all of these loyal and professional soldiers had been snuffed.

The vessel failed to evade the full breadth of the attack. While she had actually detected the danger and started to move in time to save at least a portion of her crew, she wasn't maneuverable enough to save them all entirely.

It turned out that it was pointless even if she succeeded. The energy attack exhibited enough control to correct its course, though it seemed to be a strenuous process.

Without being able to evade the mysterious attack, the crew was doomed. No shield generator and no hull plating was ever designed to block such an inexplicable attack method.

Only high-ranking expert pilots with expert mechs were supposed to be able to accomplish these kinds of feats!

Perhaps the only consolation for Task Force Umbra was that the absurd energy was not endless.

The death energy had already expended a lot of effort. It weakened faster passing through the massive fleet carrier of the Gauge Dynasty. This proved that the attack definitely had other limitations.

The green resonance corona vanished shortly afterwards, and with its passing the wave of energy dissipated in short order.

The incredibly magical and confounding effect shocked the entire battlefield for a time.

But only for a time.

”Finish off your opponent first! Leave the rest to the eggheads! Let the nerds puzzle it all out!”

The fight soon resumed as if nothing had happened. No matter how much everyone wanted to learn about how less than two-hundred mechs led by a fake expert mech managed to accomplish such a feat and whether it was repeatable, they still had a battle to fight!

The only people paying attention to the Valkyrie Prime and its accompanying Valkyrie Redeemers were those who feared a repeat.

They didn't know whether the Valkyrie mechs could launch a second wave.

In truth, the Penitent Sister mech pilots were already nearing their mental limits. Connecting to the battle network and channeling more energy than ever before had taken a very great toll on their minds.

To be honest, the power and reach of the energy surpassed their expectations! Even Ves was surprised that the attack actually managed to succeed in sweeping through the Auralis.

While he was very pleased with the unsurpassed power and scale of the earlier attack, the price was also considerable. When Ves accessed the pilot telemetry of the Penitent Sisters, he immediately noticed signs that they were completely spent.

It was hard for them to concentrate on piloting mechs after such a heavy exertion!

”This is strange..” Ves briefly frowned. ”It wasn't like this before.”

In previous tests, every activation of the battle formation took a lot of the Penitent Sisters, but they still retained at least some strength to fight for a time.