The Grand Cross Is Crying (2)
Maybe it was because that lewd(?) form of theirs came bursting out with nothing held back at all.
In time, after the Stellar Engine was destroyed, the tentacles were sucked into the black hole at the heart of the Grand Cross and their mass was converted. The black hole, suddenly swollen with even greater mass, began swallowing the nearby triple stars as well — and right up until the moment the mobile fortress destroyed itself, the whole spectacle was mass-producing sexual deviants in every corner of the gallery.
Meanwhile, at the same hour that players spearheaded by the Justice Clan were toying with the internal defense fleets in mobile warfare, and that a colossal tentacle was being sucked in and driving the fortress toward self-destruction — while the Beast faction was smashing the Grand Cross to pieces — the Magellan Clan under Monalisa, acting as the main pillar of the front, and the Zenobia Empire were also putting up a hard fight against the Grand Cross.
But unlike the Pirate Coalition, who had reeled the thing all the way to their doorstep and could storm it through a gate, or the Beasts, who had thoroughly scavenged and refined teleportation to the point that they could — however limited the scale — teleport even planet-class weapons… the Zenobia Empire had the misfortune of the Grand Cross spawning so far from their capital that a bait operation to drag it home and hammer it with fortress main guns was simply impossible.
[Image: Zenobia Empire fleets engaged along the Grand Cross outer-zone defensive line.jpg]
Unlike everywhere else, it spawned way out on the frontier, ridiculously far from the capital, right?
They can't finish it fast and keep getting their bases terrorized nonstop.
In all sorts of ways, they were taking truly enormous damage and crying out in pain without pause.
Of course, that kind of reaction belonged only to ordinary players who didn't know any better. Separate from all that noise, Zenobia and the Magellan Clan were quietly and methodically beating the Grand Cross into paste in their own way.
[Image: Hundreds of Rafflesia II-class assault carriers teleporting in roughly several hundred thousand craft for a bombing run.jpg]
They're only committing fleets below a certain size so they don't get one-shot by the Grand Cross Cannon, then teleporting strike craft in to nibble at the internal fleets and defensive lines.
And the Magellan Clan plus the other clans, not wanting their own bases and fleets shredded, keep up sporadic offensives of their own and back up Zenobia's push.
It wasn't the blazing soul-to-soul brawl the playerbase wanted — just a mind-numbingly tedious chip-away that left everyone feeling drained — but that slow gnawing of combat power was still faster than the Grand Cross could replenish its forces and defensive installations.
After roughly two weeks, the mobile fortress was left with little more than its main gun, the Grand Cross Cannon. That was when the Zenobia Empire, the Magellan Clan, and every other player involved launched a simultaneous offensive.
Of course, the poor Grand Cross command AI tried to restore its internal forces while still finding a window to fire the main gun…
[Gif: The Grand Cross firing on the Obsidian Fleet as it charges head-on.gif]
What the hell
The faction's top-tier force goes out like that?
Copying the players' playbook right back at it, the Zenobia Empire fed the Grand Cross a nice fat middle finger and proceeded to beat it senseless.
And finally, as for Humanity…
[Image: A massive bombardment fleet including 80 Yormungand-class vessels.jpg]
Where the hell did a pile of these come from
[Image: A wizard toad with sparkly glittering fingers]
Coward trait = reel it to your home base or keep cooking it until it falls apart
Chad trait = the second your base takes a shot and the cooldown starts, you charge in head-on
[Image: An annihilation fleet with 80 Yormungand-class, 120 Ouroboros (+@), and assorted player fleets running a full raid.jpg]
Yeah
Now this is a raid
Compared to the other zones, their numbers were at least double — and with players themselves constituting the faction, the moment a base took a bombardment they slammed head-on into the Grand Cross with roughly a hundred and fifty thousand players' fleets and beat it senseless.
The Grand Cross put up what resistance it could, of course…
[Image: The Grand Cross under concentrated fire from a combined fleet of 7 million ships, most of them Large Ship class or higher.jpg]
The second it fired its main gun, 7 million player ships — including Yormungand-class — popped out and delivered a pure, unfiltered beatdown.
Sure, the Grand Cross tried to charge the main gun again and somehow claw its way back, but the Yormungands, the Ouroboros ships, the players' annihilation fleets, and the siege battleships all gathered up and started grinding planets into dust.
Over 80% of those 7 million ships were Battleship class or higher, so the internal defense fleets and fortifications just could not hold lmaooo