Wrecking the Ending Is What Makes a Masterpiece...! (3)

—KRAKOOOM! CRUNCH! BOOOOM!

It was an utterly ridiculous turn of events, but while the heavy battleship had just barely managed to dodge the missile, its bridge was crushed flat beneath the massive body of a cruiser-sized strategic missile and destroyed outright.

Of course, this wasn't an anime. The bridge exploding didn't mean the rest of the hull went up with it. And for the strategic missile, colliding with the bridge was nothing more than a "fender-bender." The contact between the two simply wiped out the unfortunate bridge crew of that poorly designed ship and left the heavy battleship temporarily unable to steer.

The problem was that while the heavy battleship's CIC-slash-secondary bridge — which existed in the lore for exactly this kind of situation — scrambled to seize control, the "missed" strategic missile continued serenely on its way and slammed straight into Laura's standard-grade battlecruiser right behind it.

The battlecruiser, its firing arcs already restricted by the heavy battleship in front of it, couldn't put up any resistance. Its hull was punched clean through, and it went up in a massive explosion just like the Odin-class had. The butterfly effect didn't stop there — the shockwave and debris from that detonation scored a direct hit on the propulsion systems of the Gryphon-class heavy battleship ahead of it.

Already drifting forward out of control, the Gryphon-class remained unsteerable even after the secondary bridge took over. And so—

—THUD! KRRRRUNCH… BOOOOM!

Having smash-and-run obliterated Menaldo's Guardian-class — which had been holding the forward anti-air screen against enemy fighters and missiles — the Gryphon-class itself drifted out half-wrecked, only to get focused down by Icarus's team's fighters, missiles, and gunfire until it was reduced to a shredded scrap of foil in moments.

Even amid ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that chaos, every player except the nameless nobody with a single battleship who was being treated like a benchwarmer, and Raksha who wasn't even present, kept a constant, vigilant watch for the Kraken's ever-possible teleport assault.

Sure, the strategic missiles — those death sticks — had almost certainly been expended in the previous attack. But regular missiles and torpedoes still hurt plenty. Whether a missile barrage might slam into the flight decks of Monalisa's Anomalocaris-class combat carrier and the rest of the carrier group in the rear, or whether bombers and fighters might dive on the fleets currently locked in combat up front — they had no choice but to maintain their guard, like it or not.

The one silver lining was that not long after Antares's heavy battleship had hit-and-run Menaldo's cruiser…

A flurry of panicked, glorious typos lit up the team chat as Laura's warning came through — and right on cue, the signature material-transfer teleport signature of the Kraken flared into existence directly behind Monalisa's Anomalocaris-class.

The problem was that what came through the teleport wasn't a swarm of fighters or missiles.

As the terrified chat reactions made abundantly clear — what had come through the Kraken's once-per-day teleport was a massive wave of boarding pods, accompanied by only a handful of missiles.

Boarding pods, by design, existed to ram into ships with troops already loaded inside. Their durability made ordinary fighters and missiles look like paper airplanes. Teleporting in at point-blank range left zero time for interception.

In an instant, the carriers that had been sitting in the rear doing nothing but launching fighters, Monalisa — whose Anomalocaris-class was so exceptional that the rest of the fleet had essentially been reduced to accessories — and Koenig's fleet, which as always held the rearmost position covering the flanks and defending the carrier group, all found themselves getting hammered by thousands of missiles and boarding pods apiece.

Up to this point, though, it was still a scenario the rankers had at least considered as a low-probability possibility.

Monalisa and Koenig, who had kept superhumans on standby in their fleets from the start, along with Betelgeuse, Laura, and Menaldo — who had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each stationed one superhuman on their rear carriers — all nodded along, thinking they were up against Icarus's six or seven SSS-grade superhumans. Between Monalisa and Koenig alone they had twenty superhumans total. That should be more than enough. They allowed themselves a moment of relief.

But that relief was short-lived.

In the rear, there was also that nameless player with only a single battleship. Still sitting quietly in the back with zero presence, he immediately dispatched his three superhumans to deal with the Icarus superhuman that had just boarded his ship.

And right after that — the moment he realized it wasn't one superhuman, but three, just like him, and that they each belonged to different enemy players — he broke his silence, flung open the chat window, and urgently relayed the news to his teammates.

But by the time the other teammates checked the frantic chat from the nameless player — no, from Melon, the sacrificial lamb ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of Icarus's first PvP, the guy who'd had the Overseer stolen from him, gotten kicked around everywhere, and somehow turned over a new leaf…

Roughly ninety superhumans pouring out of the boarding pods were already sweeping through the entire fleet, speedrunning a full reconquista.

While the all-star team was getting its rear line gutted by a horde of superhumans—

…about one hour earlier.

Our team was fired up and ready to fight, but opinions were split all over the place on how exactly to deal with the enemy.

That confusion didn't last long, though.

Everyone reacted to what I'd laid out with the same question: Okay, so then what do we do?

Seeing that, I calmly laid out what I figured was the best plan available to us.