The fight ca to a decisive end.
Unlike the previous duel, the next bout of fighting began and ended almost in the sa instant.
The power disparity was too great.
Though the archeshell ch 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 ant that there was a mismatch between skills and responsibilities, as was the case for many other phase lords.
High-ranking ch 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 ch 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 ch rushed forward with blazing speed and surgically chopped off the archeshell ch's limbs without any noticeable effort!
Unlike the tiny mid-grade superdinsional hamrs wielded by the Apocalypse Wardens, the Decapitator was a true high-grade superdinsional weapon.
The difference in scale, mass, density and spatial supremacy was so much greater that the archeshell ch could never offer any aningful resistance in the first place.
The archecruiser captain's mont of glory had co 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 ch is not a ch. It is a phase lord that possesses a body that partially resembles an archech. If you kill a phase lord, his entire true body will cease to function properly. I presu the sa rule applies to this research specin. If it is possible, I want our forces to secure it without inflicting any unnecessary damage."
Her request sounded reasonable if sowhat cumberso.
"The Red Association harbors a great amount of interest in studying this so-called archeshell ch." 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 ch designers have confird that the archeshell ch is not a ch. 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 agreents, 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 Nesis 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 specin to the Red Collective is the best overall option as far as I am concerned."
The others could not easily refute this argunt. The Red Collective was indeed the most open superorganization around. Everyone participated in it, which ant that everyone would ultimately be able to access any benefits from studying the research specin.
Though the Terrans still insisted on shipping it back to their own turf, the chers strongly objected to the notion.
The rivalry between the two parties still remained as acrimonious as ever. The chers 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 beca more preoccupied with search, rescue and salvage operations.
Many chs 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 chs and warships to cover the peripheral facilities that they wanted to preserve.
This resulted in the outbreak of nurous 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 beco more invested in the post-battle settlent.
Multiple briefings took place at varying levels. The initial battle of the Nesis Campaign had been very revealing to red humanity. It exposed the many strengths but also nurous shortcomings of the combined fleet.
Ves already looked forward to studying the battle records and data logs of the Woodsap chs. 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 chs 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 chs had split up and engaged in nurous skirmishes against nurous 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 chs.
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 ti to studying the first proper battle of his prototype Woodsap ch, he first wanted to inspect the combined fleet's first high-value spoils.
The acquisition of a damaged but sowhat functional archecruiser and 'archeshell ch' signalled a fantastic start to the Nesis 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 beca the imdiate 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 fundantals of archetech did not even scratch the surface when it ca 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 ans 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 beca 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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