Ch.231The Final Blow Makes a Masterpiece…! (3)
by fnovelpia
At the exact moment the All-Star team was having their rear positions overrun by a mass of superhumans…
…about 1 hour earlier.
While our team was burning with fighting spirit, opinions were divided on how to respond to the enemy.
But that confusion didn’t last long.
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-[So what do we do now?]
-[Guys, let’s just accept reality](Icarus)
-[?]
-[Honestly, we probably can’t win in a fleet battle](Icarus)
-[???]
-[We can’t fight them head-on?]
-[But I doubt they’ll engage us in a direct battle just to make things easy for us]
-[That’s exactly right, well said](Icarus)
-[Don’t forget the enemy’s skills are vastly superior to ours](Icarus)
-[If we form up and charge in for a fleet battle, they’ll probably avoid direct confrontation and keep pulling back while gradually wearing down our forces](Icarus)
—————————————-
When I brought this up, everyone responded with “So what are we going to do then?”
Seeing their reactions, I calmly decided to present what I believed was our best option given the circumstances.
—————————————-
-[Nothing special](Icarus)
-[They’re currently bunched up in an anti-air formation, wary of my carrier aircraft teleportation](Icarus)
-[We’ll make it look like we’re desperately ramming our fleet into them, then teleport all our superhumans to launch a boarding assault on their ships](Icarus)
-[Oh]
-[Oh]
-[Interesting]
—————————————-
And so, following Icarus’s plan, the 100-member suicide squad…
Well, I only called it that for dramatic effect…
Due to losing superhumans during battle, and users like Icarus himself having fewer than 10 superhumans each.
The actual number deployed was around 80 superhumans, but…
“Taste the power of our 100-member suicide squad, you losers!”
“What? They deployed 100 superhumans?!”
This created a bluffing effect, making the opponents think “more superhumans were deployed than expected,” which worked out well.
Anyway, Icarus and the other 9 users deployed a total of 87 superhumans… no, the 100-member suicide squad.
Along with boarding troops in assault pods, they used Kraken’s teleportation.
They crashed directly into the rear ships—Monalisa’s and König’s ships led by Anomalocaris, Melon’s single battleship, Betelgeuse Laura, and Menaldo’s aircraft carrier.
Naturally, the All-Star team users were quite flustered by the news that a whopping 100 superhumans had been deployed.
“Oh shit.”
“Anka, take all the superhumans here and provide support immediately!”
“Yes, Commander!”
Laura and Indefatigable immediately gathered all their superhumans to provide support.
At the same time, Betelgeuse and Menaldo also frantically deployed their forces, including SSS-rank superhumans, to protect their carriers.
However, there was a limit to how much they could deploy.
—————————————-
-[They keep coming from the front](Arcadia)
-[Antares, help!](Laura)
-[I can only send melee heroes](Antares)
—————————————-
Despite lacking superhumans for proper command buffs, Antares and Arcadia were using tanking and evasive maneuvers for defense.
They were so busy holding back the aggressively advancing fleet that they couldn’t even spare melee superhumans.
Suddenly, Betelgeuse and Menaldo in the middle had to manage a two-front battle—sending superhumans to the rear while simultaneously sending their fleet to the front.
Ironically, since Betelgeuse had the largest fleet, while others were dealing with boarding actions on just 1-2 ships, she alone was facing boarding actions on more than 5 ships simultaneously.
“Commander, two cruisers and one destroyer are about to be captured!”
“Damn it, just sacrifice a few ships as bait and send the rest of the fleet to the front!”
Using her abundance of ships to her advantage.
She decided to sacrifice a few ships as bait to draw Icarus’s team’s superhumans away from the fleet.
Then she sent her remaining ships along with Menaldo’s fleet to the front to counter the approaching enemies.
If there had been no problems with this approach, with Antares taking command at the front.
And Betelgeuse providing support command from the rear, they would have calmed the chaos and completely blocked Icarus’s strategy.
But…
==========
-BOOM!
“C-Commander! Enemy superhumans have infiltrated the ship!”
“Damn it, just my luck.”
As mentioned before, Betelgeuse preferred to command from smaller, less conspicuous ships rather than prominent ones.
When she heard that enemies had infiltrated her “Dandelion-class light cruiser”—which she was using instead of the Odin-class battleship that had been sunk earlier.
She shook her head in frustration at the timing—right when she had sent all her superhumans to the rear…
“No choice then, let’s evacuate quickly and transfer to another ship.”
“Understood!”
Although it was regrettable to lose a gacha ship, getting captured herself would obviously cause more trouble.
Using her exceptional intelligence, Betelgeuse decided to evacuate the Dandelion-class ship as quickly as possible and designate a new flagship.
There were just two minor problems: first, the superhumans had crashed their boarding pod near the bridge.
And second…
-BANG!
“Finally found the bridge… Oh my! It’s been a while.”
“Hik!”
As if to make matters worse, the superhuman who appeared was none other than “Marian”—someone who triggered deeply ingrained trauma and conditioning in Betelgeuse’s instincts.
==========
While Betelgeuse, who had been infiltrated by Marian, went silent for a while citing “poor condition”…
—————————————-
-[Where did Betelgeuse go?](Menaldo)
-[Lost contact after she reported her flagship was ambushed](Laura)
-[Oh dear](Indefatigable)
-[Should we stick with the original plan? Fleet to the front, superhumans to the rear?](König)
-[Help me](Monalisa)
-<Monalisa’s Orchid-class light aircraft carrier has been captured by Icarus’s ‘Smeragi’, ‘Griyanar’, and Pampakafam’s ‘August’!>
-[These guys are throwing everything at us, even support superhumans]
-[No more teleports coming in, we need to deploy all superhumans to the rear to block them](König)
-[Help](Monalisa)
-[Hang in there](Melon)
-[OK](Indefatigable)
—————————————-
Although they had lost Betelgeuse who had been their brains, the other users thought her strategy itself was sound.
Following König’s additional chat message, they decided to split their strategy—sending the fleet to the front and superhumans to the rear.
But there was one thing they had forgotten that now came crashing down on them…
Just as they were about to split their fleet forces…
—————————————-
-[Fuck]
-[Fuck]
-[Front! Front front front FRONT!](Melon)
-[?](Laura)
-[Oh shit](Menaldo)
-[Holy shit](Indefatigable)
—————————————-
From a slightly offset angle to the front line—where 9 users were mindlessly charging in and the All-Star team’s mobile defense was becoming overwhelmed—
They could see Kraken, at least 6 times larger than any battleship or battle cruiser, practically satellite-sized now, charging toward them at full speed.
And it wasn’t just mindlessly rushing in…
—————————————-
-[Oh, full broadside](Indefatigable)
-[Those main guns hurt like hell, dodge them](König)
—————————————-
It was unleashing all its firepower in what could only be described as a “full barrage.”
Along with 4 cruisers acting as escorts, it was absorbing all incoming intercepting fire with its thick frontal armor.
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