In their earlier massed strike, Lexington's side had used a "poison-needle"–style pinpoint raid, so the noise hadn't seemed that great.
The Abyssal host, though, was in uproar. In peacetime they were like savage, ignorant beasts; under their flagships they were silent, unflinching soldiers. Now they scattered like barnyard fowl and village dogs before an earthquake, blindly bolting in every direction.
Beasts or not, the Abyssals still feared annihilation.
Wrecking others made them howl with laughter; when ruin loomed over their own heads, fear and confusion inevitably followed.
The ring formation they'd been assembling collapsed completely. Three million Abyssal shipgirls churned into a boiling stew, and all those neat columns and lines across the sea dissolved into chaos.
"We've already lost nine flagships. That leaves just a bit more than twenty nameless flagships in the center. We can't lose any more," Musashi said, voice like ice. "If they go down, the only order I'll be able to give is a general charge."
Her control over the three-million strong center hinged on her sub-flagships. The air raid had been like chopping off an arm and a leg—brutal and precise.
The Fortress Princess accepted Musashi's assessment with a frustrated scowl she couldn't turn into action.
"Hand the carrier groups to me," the Airfield Princess pressed. "Their bomber wave won't stop now. We can't turtle up—we have to fan out and fight."
Musashi pointed toward the sector where the nameless carrier flagship was stationed. "Take over there. They've picked up a few tricks for dealing with hero-grade planes. Listen to their input."
The Fortress Princess shot her a look. "Tricks? And you're only mentioning that now?"
"Before… 'before,' we threw hundreds of times their numbers straight at them and traded nose-to-nose," Musashi said, glancing back. "But they didn't have this kind of speed then. What we learned amounts to 'how to take a beating.'"
The Fortress Princess fell silent.
Every Abyssal flagship stood taut with nerves—except the two N-class. They still lounged belly-down on their dragon-back hulls, lazy, half-asleep, letting wind and rain wash over them like it was a spa day.
It wasn't hidden confidence or some secret ace; that was just… how they were.
Musashi spared them a glance. She'd hoped they might volunteer to replace Hindenburg and M's roles, helping her run the center.
But really, this army had been organized under those two. The N-class pair were newcomers, unfamiliar with the structure, with no trusted aides of their own. Even if they did take the reins, they wouldn't weld the center back together in a couple of days—by then the chance would be gone.
Maybe that was exactly why they hadn't volunteered.
She shook the thought away, raised an arm, and barked, "All anti-air batteries—ignore salvos and wavelengths. Pour everything into the northern sky! Keep advancing south as you fire!"
That was Musashi's plan: press south to keep the pressure on, assemble the wheel formation on the move, and in the meantime drown the north with flak.
No matter how fast or how fine the enemy bombers were, if the sky was dense enough with steel, they'd still get hit. Planes would still go down.
Barrage air defense.
At her command, the center—just over three million Abyssals—tilted up their AA guns and opened fire into the northern heavens.
The most common weapons were the pathetic twin mount pop-guns you found on light cruisers: +2 AA light mounts, +3 AA medium mounts—the kind of kit that would make you cry. Useless in quality, overwhelming in quantity. And it wasn't only dedicated AA; anything with anti-air on its stats doubled as flak—high-angle dual-purpose guns included.
A moment later, more than a million barrels were hurling blossoms of fragmentation shells into the sky. The firmament itself seemed to tear under the barrage.
[End of Chapter]