Chapter 6189 A More Effective Counterattack
Not every god pilot was available to defend the border regions.
Crucial star systems such as Bridgehead One also needed strong protectors to guard against sneak attacks and prevent any human rebels from plunging the rear of human space into chaos.
The intervention of dreadnoughts such as the Reign of Frost urgently relieved the pressure and allowed the defending star systems to hold out a little longer.
Even if an even larger second wave of alien assault fleets were on the way to overrun the human fortifications that managed to defend their positions for the time being, any progress was better than nothing!
As millions of humans and aliens perished across the border zones of human space, more dreadnoughts intervened in their own ways.
In one star system, another multi-racial fleet of advanced puelmer and orven warships abruptly began to malfunction on a large scale!
Their sensor systems became blinded while the targeting systems of the gun batteries aimed the weapons at their own warships!
The multitude of phasefighters that briefly gave the opposing human mechs a lot of grief all began to glitch out or lose power for whatever reason!
The mechs that opposed the phasefighters instantly recognized the opportunity and began to focus all of their attacks against the defenseless alien craft and wipe them all out with much greater ease than before!
Although only a part of the enemy forces suffered a severe degradation in functionality, this was already enough to turn the tide!
If not for the fact that the puelmers reacted quickly and utilized their formidable intellect to hastily patch the most obvious vulnerabilities to their hardware, more of the alien vessels would have succumbed to this mass cyberattack!
"How come the alien ships and phasefighters malfunctioned all of a sudden?"
"Isn't the answer obvious? Only one ship can do all of this. The Throne of Lies has arrived!"
The dreadnought never bothered to make an appearance, but her presence was most certainly felt.
Without firing any of her armaments, the Throne of Lies utilized her exceptionally powerful ECM and hacking systems to continually pummel the virtual security defenses of the enemy vessels.
Although the puelmers strangely managed to shield their technologically advanced heavy cruisers against most subsequent cyberattacks, the orvens were not as fortunate!
There were much less orvens serving aboard the vessels that possessed expertise in this field. Their proficiencies also weren't as exceptional as that of the puelmers, so their fleet and phasefighters were steadily beginning to suffer one mishap after another.
Hundreds of phasefighters spontaneously exploded after their transphasic missiles detonated while remaining attached to their frames!
Several orven warships began to lose control over their propulsion systems, causing them to fly away from the rest of their fleets and subsequently getting targeted by the vengeful human mechs.
Other orven warships began to spin around their axis while shutting down a part of their inertial dampeners.
This caused every orven crew member regardless of their caste to get flung into the bulkheads as if they were laundry in a rapidly rotating tumbler!
Due to the excessive rotational speeds, most orvens only had a short moment to scream before their bodies collided against solid metal surfaces!
The blood and chunks of furred flesh stained the interior of many compartments!
Eventually, the unceasing cyberattacks ceased. The stealthed dreadnought responsible for terrorizing the invading alien fleet had already slipped away without any announcement.
Although a lot of partially functional enemy phasefighters and warships remained in the field, the puelmers and the orvens had become utterly broken.
"Kill them before they regain their balance!"
"Destroy as many of them as possible! The more we kill today, the less we have to fight against the next day!"
"Kill the aliens!"
The power of dreadnoughts clearly exceeded the level that more ordinary alien fleets could cope with. This was a surprise as the massive capital ships did not display as much combat power during Operation Jazz!
Of course, anyone who took a closer look at the dreadnoughts would notice that their hulls had changed considerably.
The Red Fleet continually invested in new technological and material upgrades. The fleeters spared no resources in order to apply the latest advances in both phasewater technology and hyper technology to their precious flagships.
Even if they lacked the heaven-defying upgrade that the Dominion of Man had received in the recent past, dreadnoughts such as the Throne of Lies had become much more confident in dealing with the enemy armadas than before!
Elsewhere, the antithesis of the Throne of Lies was leading the defending warships and mechs in a massive counterattack against the invading alien forces.
The Grail of Eternity utilized her extremely powerful support link technology to form brilliant golden energy links with dozens of warships and tens of thousands of mechs.
Despite providing additional boosts of power to a humongous amount of human assets, the Grail of Eternity exhibited no strain at all as she led the charge and utilized her powerful defenses to weather the initial enemy strikes.
"Charge forward! Let us kick the aliens out of this star system!"
As the aliens tried to destroy the smaller human warships, the enemies found to their dismay that the Grail of Eternity was so good at providing remote support that it was practically impossible to harm any linked vessel!
The aliens needed to bring in an ancient phase whale or a lot more warships in order to break apart the defensive network of the human dreadnought!
Elsewhere, the Guns of Armageddon dealt with the enemy more directly. She did not bother to coordinate with the local human defense forces, but boldly approached the hostile alien fleets and shattered them to pieces with an unrelenting barrage of fiery hyper energy beams!
All in all, the dreadnoughts of the Red Fleet performed so well during the start of the alien offensive that many people began to regard them in a much better light.
"I always heard that dreadnoughts suck in comparison to god mechs. I don't see that much of a difference. The RF's dreadnoughts might not be able to kill the invading aliens as fast, but they are just as invincible in doing so. It's clear that the fleeters have done their best to close the power gap by installing a lot of new technologies. If the god pilots aren't careful enough, maybe the dreadnoughts will overtake them one day!"
If the goal of the fleeters was to gain more prestige and have their dreadnoughts get taken seriously again, then they certainly succeeded!
The RA and RF working in tandem to slow down the overwhelming alien offensive certainly played a crucial role in propping up the 5 defensive bands, but it was ultimately not enough!
To the top human leaders who had access to the complete intelligence collected by many human scouts and spies, they all knew that the initial wave of attacks was just the setup.
It was the second and third wave of alien assault fleets that threatened to collapse the border regions and completely break open the interior of human-occupied space!
This was why it became more and more important to stall the initial advance by any means necessary.
Red humanity desperately needed to reduce the enormous gap in numbers!
Fortunately, there were certain individuals that had thought hard on how they could make this happen.
The Evolution Witch had a plan.
She had many plans, but one of them was especially relevant to the situation!
The leader of the Transhumanist Faction and the chief councilor of the Interim Leadership Council did not appear on the battlefield as a leader of institutions.
She showed up in her guise as one of the strongest mech pilots in the Red Ocean!
Even though she was younger than the other god pilots, she believed she could do better in reversing the tide than her other god-like peers!
She had been working on this plan months before the start of this alien offensive. Though she was burdened by many commitments, she made sure to prepare a special solution for these exact problems!
A grinning organic god mech brazenly approached a fleet of joint zzamayal and arche warships.
The biomechanical warships as well as the stealthed archeships instantly ceased their assault and tried their best to disengage as fast as possible.
The native aliens all recognized the powerful human god mechs!
Unlike the other god mechs that had utilized their powerful God Kingdoms to mask their arrival, the Geneforger made no effort to hide its very strong and obvious emissions!
While the native aliens had most definitely made the correct response when faced with such a ridiculously powerful human adversary, the entire reason why the Evolution Witch did not bother to hide her traces was because running was futile!
The Geneforger might not be able to match the Radiant in pure speed, but the former's continual evolutions and assimilations had made her a lot faster than many other god mechs!
Once the god mech arrived in the middle of the fleeing and scattering alien fleets, the god-like biomech instantly took action and began to spread a huge amount of bacteria across her huge God Kingdom!
These bacteria appeared directly inside the hulls of every enemy warship within range. As for the vessels that were located further away, the Evolution Witch did not intend to let any of them escape her reach.
The Geneforger grew out numerous different organic cannons and began to fire flesh balls that delivered concentrated doses of resonance-empowered bacteria at the fleeting ships!
Soon enough, every alien vessel became infected by bacteria personally concocted by the god pilot!
"CEASE FIRE. DO NOT ATTACK THE ZZAMAYEL AND ARCHE WARSHIPS. THEY ARE MINE NOW."
Many people initially became confused when they heard the Evolution Witch's instruction, but they soon understood what she meant as the phasefighters and warships changed before their eyes!
Organic growths erupted from the hulls of the alien vessels. The zzamayal biomechanical warships mutated to the point where they became wrapped by eerie looking veins.
The arche warships all dropped out of stealth as their metallic exteriors became covered by a lesser degree of veins and tumors!
As for the phasefighters that were originally deployed to fight against human mechs, the Evolution Witch clearly did not see any value in preserving them, as they all shut down and became inert without exception!
"What… what happened?"
"The alien fighter craft have not suffered much damage on the surface. One of our teams is breaking open their cockpits. Their pilots… their pilots are gone! No, the pilots have melted into liquid organic puddles!"
Eventually, the alien vessels of both races had completed their dark transformations.
A lot of people felt chilled when they saw the enemy warships regain their activity.
They moved in coordination with each other and formed up into geometrically perfect formations!
What was important was that the warships no longer faced their bows towards the planet that they originally sought to attack.
Instead, they pointed in another direction!
Many people guessed that the Evolution Witch managed to subvert the zzamayal and arche crew members by rewiring their genes and brain chemistry somehow!
Many people couldn't help but shudder. They were lucky that the Evolution Witch was on red humanity's side!
The Geneforger glowed as its God Kingdom issued a directive to its subverted minions.
"CONVERGE WITH THE FLEETS OF OTHER RACES ASIDE FROM HUMANITY AND YOUR OWN TWO RACES. AMBUSH AND ATTACK THE ALIEN FLEETS WITHOUT RESTRAINT. DESTROY AS MANY OF THEIR WARSHIPS BEFORE YOU PERISH! SHOW THEM THE FATE OF THOSE WHO DARE TO CHALLENGE THE HUMAN RACE."
The brainwashed alien officers and crew members exhibited no resistance at all as they completely ignored their former enemies and steered their mutated alien warships to another star system that was under siege!
No one dared to say anything. No one had the guts to question whether the Evolution Witch's subversion would hold. A surprisingly small amount of people were brave enough to cheer.
This was because the Evolution Witch was too scary!
It was not for nothing that the Human Biodisaster was her alternate title!