Given the circumstances of the upcoming confrontation, lkor decided to lay an ambush.
After all, why try to set up a spell array in the middle of a battle while phasefighters were shooting the chs that carried the crucial formation anchors?
The chance that sothing would go wrong was too great!
One of the first lessons that a formation master needed to learn was that when one wanted to employ a spell array proactively against an enemy, it was best to employ them as traps.
By setting a trap in advance, the formation master would be able to take the ti to calculate the right placents without any urgent ti pressure.
Another factor that played in his favor was that the absence of fighting ant that the chosen battlefield remained relatively static.
If energies started to spew in every direction while asteroids were blowing up, lkor may be forced to redo his calculations as his previous ones were no longer accurate anymore.
While lkor learned that more advanced formation masters would be able to
compensate for these changes on the fly, right now he was still just an auxiliary qi cultivator. His prior practice up until now only made him a little smarter and allowed him to multitask better. These improvents were far from enough for him to perform dynamic calculations in the middle of a battle!
"I have just sent out the coordinates along with instructions on where you need to place the formation anchors. Do your best to get close to them as possible and place the objects as precisely as you can relative to my ch's position. Do you understand?"
"What if there is an asteroid in the way?"
"There won't be. If you look at the locations corresponding to the coordinates, the anchors should be buried just below the surface of different asteroids. Make sure to cover up the digging as best as possible. It is unlikely that the alien craft will be able to detect anything unusual when our chs will attract all of their attention, but let's not make this easy for our enemies."
The chs carrying the formation anchors proceeded to split up so that they could bury the tal pillars into each of the designated asteroids.
lkor had selected them carefully according to the calculations perford with the help of his ch's formidable processors.
Normally, it was beyond his ability to plant formation anchors in a three-dinsional space that was filled with asteroids.
lkor had to make use of the enhanced eyesight of his companion spirit Jonas to scout for asteroids that possessed the right traits to hold a formation anchor and subsequently narrow down the coordinates by performing follow-up calculations. "This is quite convenient."
A suitable companion spirit could easily lower the difficulty of becoming a formation master!
While lkor's decision to specialize in deploying and controlling spell arrays ant that he now beca a supportive qi cultivator twice over, he did not regret his decisions.
Support ch pilots were able to do just fine while they did everything they could to boost other chs. They perford a noble function that was just as honorable as fighting more directly.
Ti passed by as his subordinates obediently planted the formation anchors at the designated coordinates.
While it may seem as if these pillars that were predominantly made out of hyper materials could be knocked out of position at the slightest disturbance to the asteroid they were hiding on, lkor was not too worried.
Most spell arrays were able to tolerate minor deviations. The efficacy of the resulting qi formation might drop, but it shouldn't disappear so easily.
As long as lkor activated the spell array before the ensuing battle could ss up the environnt further, everything should be okay as the empowered qi formation should automatically lock itself into place.
It would beco far more difficult to ss up the spell array once it ca into power, especially from attacks from the inside!
lkor's only concern now was that it was theoretically possible to break apart any spell array by relying on brute force. Excessively powerful attacks could break any barrier.
If lkor could increase the flow of E-energy into an active spell array, it could withstand more attacks before reaching its breaking point, but he currently did not have many ways to make that happen.
This made him feel concerned about whether the ritual may fail because the enemy phasefighters were strong enough to break the effect by force.
If the enemy craft consisted entirely of cannon fodder small craft, then the chance that this would happen was small, but not zero.
Transphasic weapons hit harder and inflicted more effective damage than
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The puelr phasefighters were worse. Many of them mounted additional high-tech weapons that enabled them to inflict massive damage to their targets.
If the strike craft also happened to mount missiles with fairly potent payloads, then the spell array might shatter in an instant!
"Change of plans." He decided.
"Sir?"
"The capacity of my new trap isn't high," lkor determined. "We shouldn't entrap too many chs, or else they will try to blast out of the border and succeed this ti. Let's do this. Let us wait until half of the expected enemies will enter the qi formation before I activate it. The remaining ch units should focus on eliminating the enemy phasefighters that are trapped outside of the spell array."
"That.... is a big change of plans, sir. We can alter the assignnts quickly, but many of us will still get caught off-guard."
"This asure is too important for us. This ritual has to succeed. Dividing the enemy so that they are cut off from each other is a good way to sow more division and create coordination problems. That should hopefully distract them enough for them to avoid doing the obvious."
lkor along with a few ch officers began to formulate a revised plan for the
upcoming battle.
He actually liked his new plan better. It beca a little more complicated, but it was also better proofed against unexpected or undesired outcos.
"Oh, I also shouldn't forget about swapping my fey"
Doing this was fairly easy as there were nurous other Fey Fiannas among the gathering of Larkinson chs.
He soon contacted the ch pilots of two other quasi-first-class Fey Fiannas and called them over.
"I need to exchange my offensive fey with your azure energy shield feys." lkor said. "If you do not urgently need the additional defenses and could use the extra firepower, you can have my luminous fire fey and infinite coil fey. They are both transphasic, so
they pack a an punch."
"Sure"
"I can adapt."
lkor had grown more proficient in piloting a drone ch while at the sa ti controlling a multitude of fey at the sa ti.
He spent the last months participating in battles where he could deploy 6 fey at a ti, which was more than the starting point for the living ch.
It was not until very recently that he was able to expand his living fey entourage to 8
fey at a ti!
This was a pretty major boost in power and flexibility. A typical fey was considerably larger and more powerful than most spurs attached to the back of the ch.
It was thanks to the help of the Commanding Controller Auxiliary Qi Cultivation thod that he quickly beca a qualified drone ch pilot.
Much of the gains he made with this auxiliary qu cultivation thod would get subsud by a more superior qi cultivation thod as long as there was enough
overlap.
As ti passed by, the scouts of the Flagrant Vandals successfully encountered and had begun to lure them over to their chosen ambush site.
The Flagrant Vandals tried not to make it too obvious. While the native aliens had neglected the importance of scouting ahead for their main forces, lkor did not want to underestimate his opponents too much.
If one of the puelr phasefighters possessed an extrely powerful high-tech scanning system, then they could probably detect a large amount of chs hiding behind asteroids.
If these chs wanted to do a better job of hiding themselves, their pilots could shut down their power reactors and let the machines cool to nearly the sa temperature
as the space rocks.
lkor had declined to do so. He did not mind it if the aliens detected his chs in advance. It would make this even better as the native aliens were obviously tasked
with clearing the asteroid belt of human enemies.
"They are about to arrive!"
The waiting chs began to heat up a bit more in anticipation of moving into action.
The Fey Fianna piloted by lkor anwhile began to deploy all 8 azure energy shield
fey around the ch fra.
The legion commander would leave the responsibility of attacking the enemy to other chs. He needed to focus all of his concentration on conducting the initiation ritual while simultaneously controlling the spell array.
The Flagrant Vandal chs soon flew into sight. The light chs nimbly weaved
around the asteroids while presenting themselves as enticing targets to the vanguard
of the main enemy force.
As dozens more phasefighters ca close, hundreds of chs started to erge from behind their asteroids!
The lee chs began to charge forward in order to intercept the leading
The ranged chs began to attack the alien craft while using the asteroids as cover
whenever possible.
Energy beams, gauss rounds and missiles began to fill the kill box as the light phasefighters desperately tried to use their superior mobility to evade the attacks! Many of them suffered hits onto their azure energy shields. The defenses held up only for a mont before they began to collapse in quick succession.
The volu of fire proved too much for the phasefighters to evade or withstand all of
orce of enemy
the hits! Even as 16 or so phasefighters fell from the initial barrage, the main phasefighters had finally arrived to reinforce their heavily bruised vanguard! The fighting rapidly grew more and more intense.
The native aliens did not seem to pay too much attention to whether they were being
lured to an ambush.
Multiple phasefighters had tried to disengage from the thick of the fighting and began to scout the periphery in order to detect any nasty surprises. Whatever scanning thods these craft used, they apparently did not detect anything
suspicious about the buried formation anchors!
Since the Larkinson ch force truly did not install any bombs or other suspicious
devices into the surrounding asteroids, the alien fighter pilots beca more certain the enemy did not prepare anything special.
The mixed native alien force began to commit harder to the fight. They flew forward
to strafe the human chs and fired their missiles whenever they saw an opportunity to inflict serious damage to their targets.
lkor smirked at the sight. Despite the losses that had begun to occur, the native
aliens did not notice that their phasefighters were gradually getting pulled within the range of his soon-to-be-activated spell array.
He had a feeling that his plan was slowly coming together.
The only concern was that the puelr elite phasefighters had yet to commit to the
fight themselves.
They maintained their distance from the main fight and stayed in reserve for the ti being as their alien fighter pilots ruthlessly analyzed the unfolding battle. lkor felt uncomfortable about them, especially now that he was approaching a
critical mont.
"Swordmaidens, go send a unit of Storm Swords and Stormblade Samurais to circle around and engage the elite puelr phasefighters in battle. We need to know what they are capable of and how well they can fight. Vandals, send out your light chs to
"Roger."
"Acknowledged."
Dozens of chs that had yet to go deep began to disengage from the main fight and
flew their way past other phasefighters in order to confront the most powerful enemies on the battlefield!
The puclrs definitely noticed that their craft were being targeted. Now that the humans had sought to challenge their tech, they no longer remained
passive and began to unveil their technological gifts!
Right before their eyes, seven of the enemy phasefighters suddenly flew into each
other and linked up, causing them to form a combination 'gunship' that was much larger than a typical phasefighter!
A large muzzle extended from the center and suddenly began to generate a relatively
massive energy signature!
"Careful! Evade!"
The charging Swordmaiden chs hastily aborted their attack run and began to split
away from each other, but it was too late!
A massive transphasic positron beam erupted from the muzzle of the combination
craft and whipped it from left to right, causing a large handful of chs to sustain heavy damage or outright get cut in two pieces!
Even the defenses of quasi-first-class chs failed to withstand the might of this energy discharge!
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