Ranger casually explained to Yamato, "A gun with anti-air capability suits her better. Besides, for the Abyssals, good equipment is rare."
Unlike shipgirls, who could trade equipment under their commanders' arrangements, Abyssal shipgirls regarded their equipment as life itself—they would sooner die than hand it over.
So even ultra-high-level Abyssal flagships didn't necessarily carry better equipment than some lower-level Abyssals. Equipment was born with them, and chance played a huge part in what they received.
"We can't win in a duel unless we use that—but that's our last insurance." Bismarck hesitated a moment, then turned to Lexington. "Do you have any way to sink her?"
Musashi Abyssal's weakness was glaring. With only sixty points in anti-air, she was practically wide open against Lexington and the others, who fielded swarms of six-star bombers.
But Lexington only shook her head.
"Too few of us. Even if the three of us broke through the enemy's carrier-plane cordon to strike Musashi, we could never sink her. Even getting her moderately damaged would be difficult."
That answer gave Bismarck a headache.
It was true—carrier shipgirls were best when they already held the advantage, adding weight to a winning fight. In other words, they were ideal for embellishing victory, not forcing it.
And right now, the base had only three carriers. Even with six-star planes, there was no way to secure air superiority against hundreds of thousands of Abyssal carrier planes. Hoping to sink Musashi in one decisive strike was nothing but a fantasy.
If they had double the carriers, maybe. Then it could be a fight.
But a one-on-one hero duel? The base only had ten elite repair fairies in total—was that really enough?
A war of attrition wasn't likely either; they only had three instant repairs. A long battle was impossible.
Bismarck fell into frustration.
Then Saratoga reported bad news.
"Changchun, stop. We have to pull back. Of the hundred planes that launched, we've already lost more than seventy. If we keep going, it's too dangerous."
Bismarck was stunned. "You coordinated with Changchun for barely any time at all—how could the planes have fallen so quickly?"
Saratoga looked like she was about to throw up. "The enemy's insane. The Abyssal carriers don't retreat at all—they just stand in the shockwaves of our bombs and counterattack, piling on their planes by the thousands. They trade thousands for one. Straight-up attrition."
Six-star hero planes were incredibly powerful, but they still needed space to dodge. And when carrying out bombing runs, they didn't have the luxury to evade.
That gave the Abyssal swarms a chance to simply eat the attacks. Their planes pressed down like a black tide, blanketing everything in area-of-effect damage—indiscriminate and suicidal.
They shot down far more of their own than Lexington's group could, but hero planes couldn't dodge such all-consuming barrages either.
The forward bomber group took catastrophic losses.
"They don't have the strength left to launch a major air raid either," Lexington observed after a moment. "Eighty percent of their carrier planes are gone. They'll need to draw power from the Black Sea to replenish. Meanwhile, two or three thousand of their carriers, light carriers, and armored carriers are sunk. Their formations are in total chaos. Until morning, they won't be able to reach for us again."
Ranger then reported that the Abyssal army had pulled back across the board, retreating to more than three hundred nautical miles away.
But Bismarck took no joy in that—because there was no sign of a real victory.
Carrier shipgirls made up less than one percent of the Abyssal forces. Out of one and a half million enemies, the overwhelming majority were destroyers, light cruisers, heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships—the hard-hitting "close-combat arms."
If those million-plus Abyssals pressed forward, then in the end, they would be forced to risk everything on "One Warrior, One Thousand Foes."
From where she bobbed near the pierside, U-47 raised her hand.
"Kitty-sister, let me sortie! Tonight I can sneak into the Abyssal core and torpedo one of their flagships!"
Bismarck glared at her. "Don't you dare! Don't even think about it! If you act without orders, I'll strip you and tan your backside raw!"
"Hmph, just scaring kids again!"
U-47 pulled a face and slipped beneath the waves.
If they had a full squadron of 110-level submarines, Bismarck might have risked it—handing each one an elite repair fairy and sending them under cover of night to strike the Abyssal center.
But U-47 alone? The only flagship she could possibly sink with a single torpedo was the thin-skinned Abyssal Zumwalt. More likely, she'd be detected, overwhelmed, and never return.
Unless there was truly no other choice, Bismarck would never let U-47 take that risk.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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