Chương 1300: 1330 - Task Force Alexander II

The deck rumbled beneath his boots, the magic racing through the walls flaring as the protective enchantments protected the ark from damage. The shields of light were failing, but the armor was holding, thanks in no small part to those heavy enchantments. Unfortunately, their opponents were hardly the weak, almost defenseless arks that they had faced throughout most of the campaign.

Marcus gritted his teeth as Star of Aventino's sensor enchantments picked up a bloom of fire, the sharp brightness in the black Void almost painful through the cloud glass interface. That bloom of fire was a heavy cruiser, Thunderous Will, an ark with a crew of more than a thousand loyal warriors. The ark was broken by the weapons fire of the cloud of enemy arks that had surrounded her, and like a pack of wolves, torn her apart. The Monarchos was a crafty opponent.

Marcus' fleet was larger and stronger—the latter of which he'd proven over the Amethyst, Topaz, and Sapphire of Rhea. Those three planes had fallen quickly, the local magistrates surrendering the moment his arks broke through the enemy defenses and breached the planes' terminus lines. The Ruby of Rhea, however, was proving to be a harder nut to crack.

It sat in a strange magical cloud that appeared denser within than it did without, leading to a peculiar phenomenon: he'd clearly seen the plane from far away, but the cloud seemed to grow denser the further he advanced, until the plane disappeared entirely, and the arks in his fleet struggled to see more than a few dozen miles ahead of them.

Making matters worse were dense clouds of broken fortresses and demiplanes that choked the skies above the Ruby—all evidence of some great Kingdom that had risen here in the aftermath of the Thunderbird Clan's fall, only to, themselves, fall in the eighty-thousand years since. Fortunately, the cloud of asteroids and debris wasn't so dense that getting through it was impossible, but it made for significant obstacles, nonetheless.

For the Monarchos, there was almost no ground more favorable to him, and he exploited it well. Arks hidden in the rocks and clouds, appearing as if from nowhere as Marcus' fleets had to press in, limiting their ability to maneuver, tearing into exposed flanks and splitting up his formations, leaving his arks vulnerable. His fleet was larger and stronger, but in this confined space, that didn't mean nearly as much as he wished.

With no more than a thought, he used the cloud glass his head was pressed against to order another detachment forward, seeking to make the enemy pay. There was a strong possibility that this was a trap, though, so he also ordered flanking maneuvers from smaller, more maneuverable arks to head around some of the broken demiplanes, not only watching for signs of enemy movements but also to strike at the enemy from behind once they were pinned by his reinforcements.

Two dozen sleek slivers of silver in the dark, radiant both to the eye and magic senses, accelerated, their cries of war almost audible to Marcus' ears. Eighteen ugly, pyramidical, charcoal-gray arks melted away, seeking to vanish amidst the cloud and debris. But a single shot from the main cannon of Roar of Raimondas obliterated one of the smaller arks, and the shockwave broke a nearby chunk of demiplane, showering the red Monarchos arks in stones and boulders, and keeping most of them from fleeing.

Marcus' eyes slid from that skirmish to the Ruby itself, the plane almost glowing within the pale white cloud. He could barely make out the plane's silhouette, and shadows moved about in front of it like bees around their hive. Seeing that, something pricked his mind, telling him that he missed something. He scanned again, wondering what it was that was giving him that feeling. The shadows moving across the glowing, barely-discernable silhouette of the Ruby were numerous, and some were fairly large.

That didn't mean much by itself, however, as they could simply be closer to a light source, but… A quick estimate put the Monarchos' forces at nearly three hundred arks. A powerful force, to be sure, but one that he outnumbered considerably, even with losses accumulated over the past few weeks of campaigning. To put such a large, but still inadequate, force above one of his planes, the Monarchos had to be planning something.

The attack that destroyed Thunderous Will, with a potential trap in mind, changed in Marcus' mind from an attack of perceived opportunity to one of projected confidence. It was a strike intended to draw him in, force him to commit. He gave a few more orders, and as much as they could, his rear wings fanned out, some of the arks vanishing into the cloud and rocks. Then, he ordered the main force to push forward while spreading out as much as they could.

A few arks scraped against rocks, especially once the arks that destroyed Thunderous Will's detachment were again engaged. They were pinned by a frontal assault, while fighters, Ulta suits, and frigates came sweeping around from the side minutes later and struck them in their exposed flanks. Fire again bloomed in the dark, but this time, it was mostly not from his arks. A small victory, one that sang upon his tongue, made him want more.

But he tempered that reaction; though he'd come out ahead, he'd still lost a dozen arks in that skirmish. When his fleet pushed out through the dense debris field, they found themselves above the Ruby. There, the cloud suddenly and dramatically vanished, as if it were a hollow sphere that served a similar purpose to the storm wall that protected both Kataigida and Artorion. There, Marcus saw the Monarchos' arks in their element. They were more spread out than his, giving them a greater advantage in positioning.

They strangely didn't seem to care that their backs were to the plane, which meant that any shots Marcus' missed would strike the plane, but given the debris field, there weren't many other places they could be. The only real way for his largest arks to approach was to come in perpendicular to the surface of the Ruby, so that's how his enemy deployed to counter. The arks themselves were larger on average than any other fleet Marcus had seen Leon's forces contend with since reaching the Nexus.

Several arks were of dreadnought tonnage, and he even saw a few carriers in the mix, deploying small clouds of fighters of their own. All were painted in dark colors and were designed almost to be flying pyramids. Built around a central spire, they flared out closer to the base with several additional spires rising out from the corners and edges. The larger arks had terraces that bristled with additional weapon platforms.

The Monarchos' personal ark bucked that trend only in color, having been built seemingly entirely of some golden color. Marcus doubted it was Aurichalcum, or even 'plain' gold, but either way, the Monarchos' ark shone in the light of the Ruby's sun like it was the sun's younger sibling. Alerts flashed through Marcus' mind, parsed by the others who joined him in the ark's 'mental landscape' via their cloud glass, as well as the ark's suite of wisps and giants.

His captains were expecting more resistance, but as they emerged from the debris field, the Monarchos' arks remained curiously quiet. Marcus ordered his people to increase their spacing, and as more and more of his arks poured into this pocket of Voidspace above the Ruby, it became more and more suspicious that the Monarchos was doing nothing. One of his Vice-Admirals openly speculated that they might surrender, but Marcus didn't think that was the case.

Instead, glaring at the Monarchos' gleaming ark, he thought that it looked like the shiniest piece of bait he'd ever seen. He ordered his people to concentrate on the wings of the Monarchos' formation first. He had his contingency in place, but that didn't mean he had to act aggressively. Lancefire glimmered in the Voidspace above the Ruby of Rhea, and the Monarchos' arks reacted.

Light flashed beneath them, covered by their flared bases, and more arks appeared, having been obscured by both the larger arks and by large-scale invisibility enchantments. In one moment, the number of arks the Monarchos had at his disposal tripled, and with Marcus' fleet still pushing in from the debris field, that put him at a numerical disadvantage. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Most of the new arks were of the same pyramidical design as the rest of the Monarchos' arks, but about fifty or so weren't, resembling clusters of feathers, or perhaps metal shaped like licks of flame, with scintillating ripples covering their exterior. When the light hit this flared metal, the edges almost seemed to burn as they glowed in warm reds, oranges, and yellows.

From the Monarchos' arks came the same razor wind almost invisibly slicing through the Void and nearly cleaving into Marcus' arks, while from these several dozen others came concentrated blasts of bright fire. Light and lightning were Marcus' answers, and in mere seconds, the Voidspace above the Ruby became the most chaotic place Marcus had ever experienced. He could barely keep track of everything, and when he concentrated on one part of the battlefield, his attention was demanded elsewhere.

But he made do, barking orders through his cloud glass as fast as he was able. Most of his detachments accelerated forward, seeking to close the distance with the enemy arks and get into their blind spots 'behind' them. The cutting wind was coming from the spires on the pyramidical arks, and there were no spires past the flared base… Marcus' arks and those around his dreadnought's escort group, however, fell back, their weapons firing all the while.

The Monarchos' arks, including the fifty 'mercenaries', for lack of a better term, didn't take a static defensive position and charged to meet his fleets. The edges of their respective formations met first, since the Monarchos' fleet was like an advancing wall while Marcus' was stretching out into something of a cone as his wings charged and his center pulled back.

A hundred flowers seemed to bloom in the dark as arks started to burn, and Marcus' heart seized for a moment as voices reaching him through cloud glass suddenly ceased. With no small amount of effort, he forced himself to concentrate. Showing little self-awareness, the Monarchos' flag ark pressed onward, its escorts swarming around it like schools of fish around a whale. The fleet as a whole pressed against Marcus' arks, threatening to break them through sheer overwhelming numbers.

But the rest of Marcus' fleet kept peeling out of the cloud, reinforcing their position. Marcus directed them almost down to the individual ark, sending each one where it was needed most for his tactic to work.

'Almost…' he thought, his body almost spasming with anticipation. The Monarchos' flag ark bore down on Star of Aventino, its weapons firing its razor wind nonstop. Star of Aventino's shields of light strained, but held, even as she turned to face the enemy ark head-on, presenting the smallest possible profile. Her cannons roared in the dark, enormous bolts of lightning slamming into the flying pyramid so rapidly that Marcus was somewhat concerned that they were going to destroy their own cannon.

But the firepower was needed. The cannon ran along the superstructure, running almost the entire length of the ark. The hull bristled with smaller Lances, all of which were firing their own deadly payloads into the Monarchos' escorts. A frigate-class detonated as the Lances peppered it with a hundred enormous bolts. A light cruiser joined it, swarmed by Ulta suits and fighters that picked it apart like piranha stripping a horse carcass.

All the while, Star of Aventino kept backing up, extending the cone-shape of Marcus' formation, and further drawing out the Monarchos' line.

'We're not going to reach the debris field,' Marcus thought as he quickly measured the space he had left. While that didn't amount to much, the Monarchos' ark was pressing hard, and the damage it was taking wasn't dissuading him from his almost suicidal assault. Most of the rest of the arks had already left the cloud and asteroid field, leaving those wings that he'd detached further back as his only reserve.

They'd shadowed the rest of the fleet, ready to strike if he'd managed to lure any of the Monarchos' arks into the cloud, but if he wasn't going to make it… His orders had them accelerating along certain routes, their engines blazing in the cloud. With all of the Monarchos' forces committed, Marcus wasn't too worried about being stealthy. Instead, he concentrated only on keeping his formation solid. His numbers were more comparable with all but his reserve out of the cloud, but the battle wasn't decisive yet.

The Monarchos' pyramid ark only slowed once it had drawn to within ten miles of Marcus' enormous dreadnought. Its weapons hammered his shields hard, and Marcus could feel the ark straining more under the pressure with every passing second. Power fluttered a moment, sending a spike of pain through his skull as he was almost violently torn from the ark's cloud glass.

The entire ark paused a moment as all of its crew that had been using the cloud glass, as well as the wisps and giants helping its systems to run, all recovered. When Marcus pushed his head back into the cloud glass and felt its darkness magic envelop his mind, connecting him to the ark like it was an extension of himself, he found the situation mercifully unchanged. The lines had become rigid, setting the stage perfectly for the next part of his plan.

He registered every ark that was lost, every voice silenced in the Void as he waited. The weapons of his arks, turned inward, began to subtly push the enemy arks backward. Given the conical shape of the battle lines, this was pushing them slowly closer together, reducing their ability to maneuver to avoid hits and even forcing the enemy to pause as one of their own arks drifts into its firing arc.

After what seemed like an eternity, Marcus' reserve began pouring out of the cloud like water springing through cracks in a dam. Their positioning allowed them to directly reinforce the lines about halfway between Marcus at the tip of the cone and the cone's base. With this sudden addition of firepower, Marcus' fleet bit hard into the Monarchos' fleet, squeezing in the middle. Arks began to retreat or be destroyed, and Marcus' arks pursued hard.

They pushed through the debris of friend and foe alike, the wrath of the former only making Marcus' people angrier and less merciful. The Monarchos' fleet began to grow pinched in the center, threatening the Monarchos' golden ark as it exchanged blows with Star of Aventino. Marcus grinned.

'Retreat,' he thought, the word sounding more like a challenge as he glared at the gleaming pyramid raining deadly, almost space-warping wind on his dreadnought.

'If you're at all competent, you'd have realized your position is about to be surrounded. Retreat, shitheel, and let me shoot you in the back like the coward you are…' The Monarchos—if he was even on his ark—did not retreat. Instead, the gilded monstrosity kept up the pressure on Star of Aventino, but as the pinch continued contracting, the arks around it did the smart thing and began to retreat.

They didn't move fast enough, however, as many of Marcus' arks pulled out of the pinch to strike at the Monarchos' arks from behind. Marcus could almost hear the metal screech and the men scream as their hulls were torn open and the Void sucked out all the air within. Almost more men spilled out into the Void as their arks were savaged than the fire that sprang from broken enchantments and ruptured power crystals.

Finally, with the writing on the wall, the Monarchos' ark began to retreat, its escorts rushing to cover the retreat. Marcus imagined the arrogant eleventh-tier mage raging at his adjutants for this failure, especially since he hadn't done more than scratch Star of Aventino or cause that flutter in its magic power systems, but his feeling of smug superiority died as he sensed the magic gathering around the pyramid.

He ordered immediate targeting of the ark's thrusters, and many of his arks made daring strikes deep into the Monarchos' crumbling, but still fairly strong, lines to try and halt what the Monarchos was doing. The pyramid ark's shielding and armor saved it, however, and soon, the Void bent around it, the spatial portal whisking the ark away. Other arks in the area did the same, while others began hastily signaling their surrender.

As the battle wound down and Marcus was able to breathe a sigh of relief, he totaled the damage his fleet had taken. This had been the largest fleet action he'd ever taken part in—perhaps even the largest that any force in Leon's Kingdom had ever fought—and since so much of it had turned into a straight-up brawl, casualties had been high. Of the fleet he'd left Artorion with, half of his arks had been seriously damaged, and twenty percent or so had been completely destroyed.

Nearly all of the arks in his fleet had suffered some amount of damage, and many carriers lost larger percentages of their fighter and Ulta suit complements. He realized that there would be no pursuit of the fleeing Monarchos, as much as he might have wanted to. Regrouping after this battle was likely going to take several weeks, if not longer. Repairs and recovery were his priority, with securing the Ruby of Rhea coming in just behind that.

Only once his fleet had recovered as much as it could would he pursue the Monarchos.

'When I catch up to you, you are not going to survive the encounter,' he vowed darkly, before his attention momentarily locked onto one of the flame-shaped foreign-seeming arks that was surrendering. Most of that contingent had met a suitably fiery end, but some escaped, and only a handful remained, either too damaged to continue fighting or outright surrendering.

'Who are you?' he wondered.

'Why fight for this man? Just money… or something else? Why would someone with fifty arks fight as a mercenary?' Scowling at his lack of information, he calmed himself with the knowledge that he was about to get his answers.