5372 The Phoenix
The Third Armada may have won a clean victory without suffering any significant losses, but the outcome was not entirely ideal.
Capturing the aliens yielded much greater rewards than killing them outright.
Any ancient phase whale possessed a mountain of knowledge and secrets.
Red humanity may have gathered a lot of intelligence on their alien adversaries, but the mechers and fleeters had only been able to penetrate the lower and middle layers of the galactic alien community.
It was far harder for them to infiltrate the upper layers of this society and gain access to the true secrets being discussed at the top level!
The mechers and the fleeters had already suffered the consequences of failing to gather critical high-level intelligence.
If they managed to discover the Red Cabal's ploy to activate its Great Refuge Plan so soon, humanity would have been able to take actions to prevent humanity from getting split into two branches!
Even if the Red Cabal couldn't be stopped in time, humanity would have at least been able to make more adequate preparations by transferring over a large amount of resources, personnel and assets in the final days.
Red humanity wouldn't have been stuck in such an awkward position where they suffered a huge shortage in god pilots and warship hulls!
Given how many opportunities they missed due to failing to anticipate the Great Severing in advance, the Red Two needed to capture as many high-value leaders and assets as possible!
Unfortunately for the Third Armada, the sister whales did not give their human adversaries a chance.
The alien commanders left behind in the Seventeenth Tide Station acted decisively as well.
They did not hesitate to self-destruct all of the power generators and blow the entire Tide Station into so many different pieces that hardly anything useful could be salvaged!
Still, the results were not that bad. The Third Armada had managed to remove several powerful threats to red humanity and managed to tilt the war ever so slightly in its favor.
The Second Armada on the other hand wished they had it so easy.
In the assault on the Twenty-Fourth Tide Station, the Fist of Defiance and the First Flame found themselves being pushed to their limits as they continued to be outnumbered by the three ancient phase whales.
Even if these massive aliens were too unprepared and lacking in coordination, their combined power still exerted a lot of pressure onto the two god pilots!
As the Phoenix dove in and attempted to ignite the flesh of the youngest and weakest of the three whales, the powerful flames spread by the god mech slowly got torn apart by the spatial storms that scrambled the surrounding space.
There was no effective way for the First Flame to turn the environment in his favor!
The only way for the Phoenix to inflict more effective damage was to get more personal and resort to stronger attacks!
Seeing that there was no more way for the god pilot to gain the upper hand by holding back, he had made the consequential decision to unveil a part of his true strength!
"IGNITION."
The temperature of his avian god mech increased at a terrifying rate. The flames that spread across its mech frame had already grown hot and powerful enough to burn any ace mech into a crisp, but the god mech easily endured the heat as if it was swimming in an ordinary hot pool!
The changes were not limited to a rise in temperature. The fire evoked by the god pilot contained a strong conceptual meaning as well.
The First Flame took his name from the myth of the first flame encountered by primitive humans.
When lightning struck a tree branch and set it on fire, the ignorant and savage humans grew awed and steadily began to learn its usefulness.
From this coincidental event, humanity began to make much greater strides as a tool-using race and learned how to harness the other forces of nature to grow ever stronger!
The First Flame had always wanted to embody this mythical flame.
As weak and ordinary as it may seem compared to many other types of flames in the cosmos, it had one special quality that caused the god pilot to appreciate it above anything else.
It was the flame that birthed the greatest civilization of the Milky Way!
Even as the Phoenix continued to immolate itself, its God Kingdom began to shrink and condense as if it had turned into a giant humanoid figure that was about to bestow the gift of fire to humanity.
Prometheus stole the fire and bestowed it to humanity!
For his magnificent gift, the mythical figure suffered eternal torment as a consequence!
Everyone who watched the live feed centered around the Second Armada couldn't help but feel drawn to the First Flame and his flaming Phoenix.
Even though the First Flame was fighting thousands of light-years away from most of red humanity, the observers somehow felt as if the god pilot was actually reaching out and resonating with their hearts.
So long as all of those people sincerely supported the First Flame and did not object to him in any way, they all felt as if they could fuel the fire and make him burn even hotter!
As an ever-growing proportion of human viewers wished the First Flame well, his god mech grew so hot that the space around him began to distort!
No spatial ability could affect the god mech at this point!
Every storm, every space tear and every gravity well simply burned apart as soon as they got close enough!
The three ancient phase whales started to get a headache about the god mech on fire.
The First Flame was clearly preparing a big move that would definitely make the lives of the alien leaders a lot more miserable!
However, when the god mech was burning so hot that his powerful flames faintly threatened to burn space itself, there was no way the whales could interrupt this mysterious process!
As for flying over and using their bodies to interrupt this process with physical force, none of the ancient phase whales wanted to get into close contact with the extraordinary flames!
As the primordial fire of human civilization continued to affect the Phoenix, the three alien leaders decided that it was better to turn towards the more vulnerable god mech instead.
The Fist of Defiance quietly cursed his peer even as he tried to evade the attacks launched by the three angry whales.
The First Flame could have given the Fist of Defiance a warning before he resorted to this course of action!
It wasn't even the best option as far as the Fist was concerned. He was more than capable of defeating the three ancient phases one by one so long as the First Flame continued to restrain their actions.
This was not a part of the original plan!
Fortunately, the Fist of Defiance was not entirely unaccustomed to this scenario.
The more he became oppressed, the more it ignited his fighting spirit!
This supreme fighting spirit manifested into a stronger God Kingdom and a greater amplification of the properties of the Invictus.
Even though the three ancient phase whales should have been able to gain a decisive advantage against a lone god pilot, the Fist of Defiance suddenly grew 30 to 50 percent stronger than before!
What was amazing was that this was far from his limit! If he did not hold the ancient phase whales in such contempt, they would have been able to ignite his fighting spirit even further!
All of this strength caused the originally confident ancient phase whales to question reality yet again during this battle.
"THREE-ON-ONE ODDS? NOT FAIR ENOUGH! COME ON, YOU WHALES! CALL OVER YOUR FRIENDS! I CAN FIGHT TEN OF YOU AT THE SAME TIME!"
The Invictus suddenly became the most handsome and magnificent god mech as it fearlessly approached the ancient phase whales and shrugged off all of their attacks!
The Fist of Defiance's God Kingdom turned into a giant energy manifestation of his god mech, allowing him to fight far above his weight class!
With seemingly endless fighting spirit fueling his exertions, the energy manifestation seemingly prepared to throw a punch at one of the whales, only to change his stance so that he could bodycheck his target!
The surprised ancient phase whale uncontrollably launched away from the heavy physical impact!
This not only enabled the Fist of Defiance to push one of his enemies away, but also allowed his Invictus to bounce off the massive whale's body and abruptly launch the god mech to an entirely different whale!
The younger and weaker whale clearly did not expect to become a target at this time. Though the alien leader hastily strengthened his spatial barrier and tried to warp out of the way, the energy manifestation of the Invictus had already closed the distance!
"EAT MY FIST!"
The giant energy manifestation landed a punch that easily broke through the spatial barrier and struck the head of its target!
Even though the massive skull and head bones of an ancient phase whale was among the hardest substances in the Red Ocean, the strong fighting spirit of the Fist of Defiance proved to be even stronger at this time!
Cracks occurred all across the affected bone structure as the powerful physical force delivered by the punch practically fractured half of the enormous skull!
The moon-sized alien experienced pain beyond any measure!
The normally dignified alien leader couldn't even form too many coherent thoughts as a portion of the incoming physical forces even affected his brain!
The Fist of Defiance did not let up after this. Even though the other ancient phase whales were already trying to converge upon him in an attempt to break his energy manifestation, the god pilot didn't care!
He smelled weakness and became determined to finish off his current opponent while the whale still remained vulnerable!
The energy manifestation began to launch punches in quick succession. The Invictus never seemed to tire as the god pilot was always able to summon more fighting spirit from the depths of his being.
Though the rapid flurry of punches did not deal any major damage, the repeated impacts compounded the fractured bones and prevented the injured whale from regenerating them in peace!
It was not until another ancient phase whale finally came close enough to bite the energy manifestation that the Invictus had been forced to move away.
While the Fist of Defiance was quite satisfied with the amount of damage he had inflicted, he knew that these giant whales could withstand far more damage.
How could he finish them off without giving any of these whales an opportunity to retreat and save their lives?
It was at this time that his fellow god pilot completed his transformation.
The First Flame had accumulated so much fire energy that all of the E energy around him had become dominated by this singular element!
As the Phoenix became engulfed in the fire that embodied the destiny of the human race, the god mech reached a tipping point that caused it to undergo a radical transformation!
Everything made of metal and solid matter seemed to disintegrate and convert into flames held together by sheer willpower!
In just the span of a few seconds, the god mech had actually elementalized, converting the entirety of its material frame into pure fire energy!
The legendary first-generation god pilot managed to turn into an actual mythical Phoenix, gaining untold power and mastery over the power of fire!
The Phoenix uttered a triumphant cry that resonated with the entirety of red humanity!
"KREEEEEEEEE!"
The mythical creature finally beheld the three ancient phase whales with burning eyes that expressed clear hatred and contempt at these alien leaders.
Before the whales could take any countermeasures against this transformed adversary, the Phoenix flew forward with fiery momentum, leaving an inextinguishable trail of fire!
Though the ancient phase whales tried to put several barriers in the way of this calamitous presence, the Phoenix burned through all of them without slowing down in the slightest!
Instead of targeting the skull-bashed whale that had just received a whalloping from the Fist of Defiance, the Phoenix instead targeted the old recluse that happened to be the strongest among the three!
The elementalized god mech easily burned through the final barriers in its way and crashed into the flank of the whale.
This time, the Phoenix's flames proved to be too powerful to extinguish!
Not only that, they burned so hot that the resilient flesh easily burned despite all of their reinforcement!
Even the phasewater that was locked inside the biomass began to evaporate at a rapid rate before they could produce any useful effects!
The old phase whale experienced pain beyond any measure as the Phoenix took maximum advantage of its incorporeal form and easily penetrated the deepest part of his body!
All of his crucial phasewater organs began to burn in rapid tempo, causing the moon-sized whale body to develop a lethally hot core for the first time!
There was nothing the ancient phase whales could do to stop all of this from happening!
By the time Phoenix finally emerged from the body of his victim, the old phase whale's body had become completely burned from the inside.
Even now, his exterior flesh had begun to carbonize as the flames continued to spread across the rest of his body.
The whale was dead!
The Phoenix only took a little over a minute to barbecue one of the most respected gods of the native aliens!
"KREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
