The Toranks leaders had made a fatal assumption. They believed the initial swarm of small ships originated from the Hescos’ scattered planetary pickets, a desperate, last-ditch effort by a dying empire. They adjusted their formations with arrogance, opening gaps in their outer defensive ring to funnel the small ships into kill boxes.
It was exactly what Hye had anticipated. The mont those gaps appeared, the big ships ignited their engines, moved fast, and fired hard. They didn’t mainly target the defensive ships; they aid their shots fiercely toward the glowing, vulnerable core of the formation: the God Weapon’s carrier ships and their unfolding mirrors.
Using the temporary breaches in the enemy lines, the heavy shells and focused beams slamd into the heart of the armada. Massive explosions blood in the space, turning escort frigates into expanding clouds of glittering wreckage. Most importantly, several of the grand mirrors shattered under the pressure of the focused fire.
The Toranks, reeling from the suddenness of the impact, scrambled to close the gaps. Their discipline was worthy of admiration. The defending ships hastily reorganised their layers, absorbing the next wave of fire and beginning to spit back a coordinated, thunderous response.
The war had begun with a devastating opening, but the enemy’s numbers were too vast for a single strike to force a retreat. As the grand fleet fird its resolve, the ships holding the remaining mirrors retreated deeper into the defensive sphere, continuing to unfold their deadly cargo even as they burned.
[Keep them busy for !] Hye’s command pulsed through to his friends and generals. [Draw their fire, lure them into the deep space! Lead them away from the core!]
Hye himself remained silent, keeping a fixed distance from the God Weapon’s entourage. He watched the feeds with a keen eye. The Toranks were recovering; they had dispatched the majority of their interceptors to engage his kingdom forces, yet they had been careful to leave a fleet behind to safeguard the mirrors against any secondary hidden threats.
"They are handling the situation with annoying perfection," Hye mused, a cold glint in his eyes. "But unfortunately for you, you aren’t fighting a standard army. You’re fighting . It’s ti to truly open the hell gates. Roll out in waves, attack from every direction! Wedge a fleet between their separated groups. Make them bleed just to look at each other. Make them fail!"
With that order, the true nature of the trap was revealed. From the empty space, the Toranks believed they had scanned and nothing was there, thousands of dormant ships from Hye’s scattered grand fleet suddenly ca to life. They didn’t co in a single line; they arrived in endless, overlapping waves that hamred the enemy from two sides simultaneously.
The Torank sensors had picked up nothing abnormal until the mont the scattered ships moved. The initial shock was so profound that it paralysed the inner guard’s defences for several critical seconds.
The volu of destruction that followed made even Hye raise his eyebrows in bewildernt; the success of the ambush had exceeded his most optimistic expectations.
"If you’re going to be this cooperative, it’s ti for a change in plans," he said with an evil smirk.
He issued a new order. Thousands of small ships streaked toward the burning wreckage and the still-standing Toranks ships. They didn’t fire cannons; they launched suited warriors. The mont they drew close enough to the hulls, they unloaded their cargoes: legions of Soulers and Reapers.
By the ti the Toranks leaders managed to reorganise their fire and target the surrounding enemies, it was already over. Hye’s elite warriors were already inside many ships, killing the crews of the big ships within the defensive circle. Within half an hour, the inner circle guarding the ships holding the God Weapon mirrors were being gutted from the inside.
As the enemy finally began to coordinate their counter-fire, Hye’s side began to suffer its first real losses. In such a chaotic fight, the defensive formations of the other-universe ships couldn’t be used like before. Hulls were breached, and ships were lost. But Hye didn’t flinch. In a battle of this magnitude, he didn’t care about the loss rate. He had one goal, and one goal only: the total destruction of the God Weapon.
By the end of the first hour, the grand advance of the Toranks’ armada had ground to a halt. Most of the unfolded mirrors were now either scorched husks or drifting fragnts of glass. The God Weapon was being dismantled in its cradle.
Whenever the enemy attempted to focus their fire on the attacking ships from the Hescos world direction, Hye’s kingdom generals intervened with ferocity, drawing the attention back to the outer side ship duels and allowing more Soulers and Reapers to continue their grim work.
Even with the impressive fleet Hye had at his disposal, the sheer nurical difference of the armada brought by his kingdom’s generals was staggering.
Yet, as the minutes bled into hours, it beca clear that while the outside force was the most visible, the deadliest strikes were the ones coming from within. The Soulers and Reapers were unstoppable, dismantling the enemy’s resolve one bridge at a ti.
The continuous destruction of the mirrors drove the Toranks leaders into a state of crazy desperation. They were paralysed, unable to retreat without admitting a historic failure, unable to advance into the teeth of the kingdom’s heavy trap, and unable to unfold the God Weapon for a full-scale planetary strike.
But a cornered beast eventually lashes out.
Suddenly, the dozen or so intact mirrors that had survived the attacks so far began to shine. They weren’t waiting for a full array anymore; they were going to fire what they had.
[Get ready! An attack is coming!] Hye’s warning spread to all his generals and friends. He knew this nightmare better than anyone. [The mirrors are preparing to shed. Once the attack path is identified, scatter! Do not maintain your current positions. You have roughly two minutes before the attack hits. Move!]
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