Ch.390″Insane difficulty, fu*ck!”

Of course, Jessica tilted her head at my choice, giving me a look full of doubt.

Or more precisely, her reaction was closer to “Are you chickening out?”

“Commander, even at this point, couldn’t we just let Ouroboros rampage in round 6?”

“…Well, I can see why you’d think that.”

Unfortunately, this time the situation was far too dire to respond to accusations of cowardice.

“But we don’t have any ships that can tank the damage.”

“Hmm…”

“This is an event where enemies get stronger each round, but they’re already terrifyingly powerful in just round 5? I don’t have the courage to charge in relying only on my ships.”

“That’s true.”

Despite my ranking, which puts me in the top 3 among all players with one of the strongest fleets around.

Even with my fleet’s power, out of the 22 ships I deployed in this round 5 battle, I lost 1 battleship, 2 battle cruisers, and 3 patrol ships.

One battleship barely survived in a critically damaged state, and one battle cruiser essentially just “survived” after being salvaged from a planetary crash landing.

“Plus, the defense facilities were practically useless.”

“They certainly were.”

Not only that, but the enemy fleet’s performance was too enhanced.

The additional defensive facilities I invested in heavily proved meaningless in most cases.

The “Camouflaged Fortress Network” consumed 2 points but exploded immediately under enemy fleet bombardment.

The “Large-Scale Mine Field” was essentially a region of space filled with floating “naval mines.”

One shot from an annihilation ship, and they all went boom.

The “Super Alloy Defense Barrier” seemed to be worth its cost at first, but when the annihilation ships, dreadnoughts, and battleships started hammering away at it…

It collapsed in just a few minutes, leaving me extremely frustrated.

Even the shield satellites that used to withstand at least one cruiser-class bombardment were now practically useless.

To avoid losing precious assets like the Kraken while trying to overcome this unreasonable round, I had no choice but to abandon round 5, like it or not.

—

Of course, players who even “cleared” round 5 like me were quite rare.

—————————————–

Title: Round 5 Cleeeeeeared!!!

Author: Beniparalar

Content: [Image of a Dreadnought being shattered], [Round 5 Clear Proof.jpg]

With dreadnoughts and annihilation ships attacking together, I literally fought while shitting bricks

Comments:

-[Attempting to retreat at round 5 is a sign of intelligence]

-˪[But honestly it’s pretty BS]

-˪[When suddenly powered-up enemies with dreadnoughts and annihilation ships appear in round 5, honestly quitting is the right move lol]

-[How much damage did you take?]

-˪[3 battleships, 2 battle cruisers, patrol ships went boom boom](Author)

-˪[Why are patrol ships not even counted but just “boom boom” lol]

-˪[Well, with that much damage, I’ll give you that]

—————————————–

Meanwhile, I saw a post from a player with a fleet composition similar to mine who was quitting after getting destroyed by the same enemy configuration.

—————————————–

Title: Round 6 is f***ing insane

Author: Ferma

Content: [Image of 10 annihilation ships firing simultaneously.jpg]

I hit surrender and retreated immediately after seeing that

Apparently if you surrender right at the start, it’s treated as if you didn’t attempt the round

More important than that is preserving my ships, seriously

Comments:

-[WTF is that]

-[Retreating is indeed the intelligent choice^^]

-[With 10 annihilation ships, you’d just melt away regardless of evasion lol]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: Don’t go to Round 6, seriously

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image of a heavy battleship melted like peeled onion.jpg]

There was a ship that seemed to be a special class, and after getting hit by it, my Bayern-class turned into that mess

By the way, it somehow survived and is currently being repaired at the shipyard

Comments:

-[How the hell did it survive?]

-[It actually survived that?]

-[Seriously, how did it survive? The ship doesn’t even look like a ship anymore]

-˪[Even in that state, the power core and bridge survived](Author)

-˪[What the?]

-[We’ve decided to call that not a survivor but a walking corpse]

-˪[But it survived nonetheless, right?]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: While others whine about capital ships in round 6

Author: Savior

Content: [Image of a swarm of about 5,000 “assault ships”.jpg]

I almost had my ships wiped out by swarms of assault ships that don’t even get destroyed by cruiser or destroyer beam cannons

[Image of a “Pegasus”-class bombardment medium cruiser breaking in half and sinking, with another ship’s side exploding from a quantum bomb.jpg]

Some ships actually exploded

I decided to self-destruct any ships about to be captured and surrender to preserve the rest of my fleet

[Battle result proof.jpg]

Anyway, summary: just don’t do it

Losing my Pegasus-class really killed my motivation

Comments:

-[That’s rough]

-[It’s fine, you can just buy another Pegasus-class from the market]

-˪[Do you have no sense of attachment, you b*stard](Author)

-˪[My Pegasus-class has saved me countless times when other ships or superhumans were in crisis, you f*cking b*stard](Author)

-˪[Apologize, you a**hole](Author)

-˪[Apologize to my Pegasus-class, not to me, you b*stard](Author)

-˪[Okay okay, I’m sorry]

-˪[Lolololololol]

—————————————–

As players started reporting their gacha ships getting destroyed left and right, proving how brutal round 6 was…

Before long, users started pushing the strange meme that people who stopped after round 5 were the truly intelligent ones.

—————————————–

Title: What is escaping at round 5? It’s intelligence, that’s what

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image of canceling the progression to round 6.jpg]

For real lol

Escaping is intelligence, say it with me lol

Comments:

-[True lol]

-[Agreed]

-[Wow, you still haven’t escaped? You’re tough]

-[Lololol]

—————————————–

—————————————–

Title: But honestly, if you want, you could do round 6 or even round 7 lol

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image of a toad shouting “As long as it’s not me”]

It’s not my fleet anyway lololol

If you want to crash and burn and become sacrifices for other players lololol

Why should I care lol

Whoooooosh

Comments:

-[That’s exactly it]

-[Oh]

-[Hey, don’t use that meme]

-[But honestly, if you crash and burn here, you don’t have the heart of a beast, right?]

-˪[Absolutely]

-˪[Going beyond round 6 is just a feat of strength, yep]

—————————————–

Of course, among these players, there were those blessed with “luck, skill, and preparation.”

Some managed to break through round 6 and advance to round 7, but…

—————————————–

Title: Retreated from Round 7

Author: Anonymous

Content: [Image of a round 7 “patrol ship’s” beam cannon penetrating a battle cruiser’s armor.jpg]

This is just wrong

Comments:

-[Short and sweet content that gets the point across]

-[Balance has gone to hell]

-[Are the devs even doing their job?]

-[Our game is a one-hit wonder]

—————————————–

The shocking content of these players’ proof shots convinced even more users to avoid needlessly sacrificing their ships.