Chapter 7475  An Optimistic Beginning

The fight came to a decisive end.

Unlike the previous duel, the next bout of fighting began and ended almost in the same instant.

The power disparity was too great.

Though the archeshell mech admittedly possessed its own points of brilliance, it was far too lacking in the ways that mattered.

In addition, the alien 'pilot' lacked too much practice and familiarity with his new strength. He was not a soldier who excelled in personal combat, but a commander who issued orders to those who fought in his stead.

This meant that there was a mismatch between skills and responsibilities, as was the case for many other phase lords.

High-ranking mech pilots usually did not suffer from these problems because each and everyone of them earned their strength.

Through blood, sweat and tiers, expert pilots and ace pilots had to crawl through hell and push themselves further than 99.99 percent of other mech pilots!

Saint Dise particularly excelled among her colleagues as a duelist and a swordswoman. She was quite possibly the worst matchup for the newly ascended native 'god'.

The First Sword Mark III did not even bother to perform any extraordinary techniques. The ace swordsman mech rushed forward with blazing speed and surgically chopped off the archeshell mech's limbs without any noticeable effort!

Unlike the tiny mid-grade superdimensional hammers wielded by the Apocalypse Wardens, the Decapitator was a true high-grade superdimensional weapon.

The difference in scale, mass, density and spatial supremacy was so much greater that the archeshell mech could never offer any meaningful resistance in the first place.

The archecruiser captain's moment of glory had come to an abrupt end for that reason.

Though Saint Dise wished to complete her task by decapitating this disturbing alien construct, Gloriana insisted otherwise!

"Do not cut off the head, Dise!" She shouted over the communication channel. "The archeshell mech is not a mech. It is a phase lord that possesses a body that partially resembles an archemech. If you kill a phase lord, his entire true body will cease to function properly. I presume the same rule applies to this research specimen. If it is possible, I want our forces to secure it without inflicting any unnecessary damage."

Her request sounded reasonable if somewhat cumbersome.

"The Red Association harbors a great amount of interest in studying this so-called archeshell mech." Jovy Armalon entered the command channel and voiced his offer. "We have the necessary capabilities to put the damaged but living subject under stasis long enough to ship it back to the Yernstall Central Star Node where our research institutions can dissect its workings."

"Not so fast, Mr. Armalon." Formation Master Andrea Vos interjected. "Multiple mech designers have confirmed that the archeshell mech is not a mech. It is just called this way because of its superficial resemblance to one. Properly speaking, the subject is actually a mutated phase lord. According to the relevant agreements, phase lords of any kind or species fall under the jurisdiction of the Red Collective."

"This offensive operation is taking place under the auspices of the Terran Alliance. Do not deny us the right to study this capture." Caracalla Shuku said. "Our territories are also just over the border. Instead of sending it on a long and dangerous journey back to Yernstall, it is better to send it to the heart of our colonial alliance to minimize the risk of interception from both human and alien parties."

More voices joined the conversation. Each of them wanted to stake a claim on this priceless alien treasure. That included the Larkinson Clan!

Ves already expected this to happen. The Nemesis Campaign was bound to yield a large variety of unprecedented gains.

He just felt surprised that the representatives did not even bother to wait until the combined fleet had fully tallied all of the loot.

"Everyone who has contributed to this battle gets to have a share." Ves decisively declared. "In my opinion, leaving this research specimen to the Red Collective is the best overall option as far as I am concerned."

The others could not easily refute this argument. The Red Collective was indeed the most open superorganization around. Everyone participated in it, which meant that everyone would ultimately be able to access any benefits from studying the research specimen.

Though the Terrans still insisted on shipping it back to their own turf, the mechers strongly objected to the notion.

The rivalry between the two parties still remained as acrimonious as ever. The mechers probably feared that the Terrans would play dirty and deny them proper access.

In any case, the conclusion of this event marked the formal end of the battle.

Though the fighting had not totally ceased at this point, most forces became more preoccupied with search, rescue and salvage operations.

Many mechs and warships still remained on guard in case the large numbers of intact enemy forces decided to initiate a rematch, but that was more of a precaution.

Only skirmishes broke out on occasion. The combined fleet not only busied itself with salvaging the most valuable spoils from the debris field, but also moving further in-system in order to raid and raze the orbital and planetary outposts, supply depots, fueling stations and other military infrastructure.

Of course, the native aliens did not intend to let the humans wreck their stuff so easily.

While their assets cautiously kept their distance from the main human force, they sent out squadrons of mechs and warships to cover the peripheral facilities that they wanted to preserve.

This resulted in the outbreak of numerous smaller skirmishes that took place without the intervention of high-level units.

Dozens and in a few cases over a hundred strike craft danced with each other while warships cautiously exchanged fire over longer distances.

Despite all of these clashes, the intensity of the battles never rose to a heated level.

As soon as one side gained an advantage, the other side usually disengaged and fled in a hurry.

None of these skirmishes occupied the attention of Ves and other leading figures. They had become more invested in the post-battle settlement.

Multiple briefings took place at varying levels. The initial battle of the Nemesis Campaign had been very revealing to red humanity. It exposed the many strengths but also numerous shortcomings of the combined fleet.

Ves already looked forward to studying the battle records and data logs of the Woodsap mechs. He had not forgotten about them or their importance to the progression of his design philosophy.

Though the main battle lasted too short for the prototype advanced Carmine mechs to engage in a proper fight, the unit under the command of the Second Elf did not shy away from conducting smaller tasks.

The 120 Woodsap mechs had split up and engaged in numerous skirmishes against numerous different phasefighter squadrons.

Though risky, these controlled and carefully chosen encounters should provide a wealth of valuable empirical data about the actual performance of the Woodsap mechs.

Their performance during these skirmishes should also be much cleaner due to the absence of other interfering variables.

There was no value in studying their performance when lots of friendly Commandeered units carried their side to victory.

Yet before he was willing to dedicate his time to studying the first proper battle of his prototype Woodsap mech, he first wanted to inspect the combined fleet's first high-value spoils.

The acquisition of a damaged but somewhat functional archecruiser and 'archeshell mech' signalled a fantastic start to the Nemesis Campaign.

Everyone's morale rose when they heard that they managed to get their hands on such valuable and unique gains. Even if they did not know exactly what made them so coveted, they still figured out that red humanity was bound to advance their technological superiority as a result.

The soldiers began to look forward to making more unique contributions to the war effort. Alien-occupied space must be filled with other rare and precious treasures that were not easily obtainable from the human side of the border.

However, the archecruiser and the more exceptional bounty found inside became the immediate priority.

Once the boarding troops managed to sweep through the entire hull and destroyed all obvious points of resistance, multiple teams of specialists arrived in order to control the vessel and her strange technologies as best as possible.

Unfortunately, most of them had little to no idea what they were dealing with. A brief crash course into the fundamentals of archetech did not even scratch the surface when it came to understanding how to control the alien vessel's arcane systems.

Let alone understanding the technological principles of archetech, they did not even possess the right means to interface with the controls!

There were only two individuals on the entire combined fleet that possessed a real chance of properly controlling and subduing the archecruiser.

That was Gloriana and her pet arche engineer.

After the Larkinsons and other parties tentatively became certain that the archecruiser was unlikely to blow up the next second, the two finally boarded a shuttle that brought them to the captured hangar bay of the ship in question.

Ves hitched a ride as well.

He was not only there to follow his wife and protect her in case anything happened.

He also wanted to take a look at the exotic spoils up close.

Before they could go deeper into the hull, they first stopped before the group of surviving Apocalypse Wardens.

Each of them looked down at the row of deceased comrades. Recovery teams had already taken them out of the central hall and brought them back to the hangar bay in preparation of taking them back in proper fashion.

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