With her power regained, the formerly injured Greater Energy Being regained the ability to recall the fragments that had been split off in the attack, pulling the lesser energy beings from the battlefield, and leaving only the Golden Legion and their enemies.
That was both good and bad for the defenders of this place. They had their energy being guardian back again, but they also lost the distraction that had been keeping many of the enemy forces away from their cities.
Without those lesser energy beings to slow down the attacks by the wild monsters, aliens and the brutal warriors of the Cathedral Ships, things were about to turn very bad for the Golden Legion.
The Greater Energy Being was more focused on rebuilding the barrier around this place so that nothing else was thrown in than on what was happening on the ground, so Max knew there wouldn't be any help coming from that direction.
But on the other hand, if these portals kept opening as the attempts to enter the Anomaly Region failed, then it wouldn't matter how many of the previous invaders were removed.
From their vantage high above the battlefield, Max and Nico could see the strategy that the invaders were going with. They had subtly shifted their lines to isolate the cities from each other, without making it look like the roads between them were a major battlefield.
All the Golden Legion enclaves in the region were destroyed by the explosions, and fighting was everywhere, but the warriors of the Cathedral Ships were beginning to mount an offensive to take one of the cities to the west.
They had brought in heavy armoured vehicles, advanced hover tanks with the firepower to challenge heavy Mecha, as well as wheeled vehicles of all varieties. That would spell the end for the Golden Legion defenders within minutes of the force's arrival, and with their sensors down, there was no way for them to know that the attack was coming.
The Golden Legion used to have an air force, but as they hadn't been attacked in so long, they hadn't moved them into bunkers, they simply parked them on the tarmac when they were finished with a flight. That had left the entire force exposed to the blast, and none of it had yet been made mobile.
[Nico, get us some bomber drones in the air for support at this location, but keep the rest of the force on patrol around the ship in an expanding pattern. I want everything hostile between us and the city dead.] Max ordered.
[I will be sure that the team informs our guests so that they can watch along. They need to report back anyhow, so it's better if we get all the shock out of the way right at the start.] Nico agreed.
They hadn't had a feed live to the ship when the Greater Energy Being was killed, so the Golden Legion would only have their own limited sensors and rumours to work with, but from here on, they would be giving the guests an interactive battle map, the same sort that their own teams used to create a three-dimensional view out of compiled Mecha and drone camera feeds.
[a Flight of fifty bomber drones are on their way.] The team on the ship reported as Max plotted targets on the map for them.
He started off the engagement with a burst of Thunder Gun High Explosive shells into the lead hover tank, flipping it and shattering its shield, but remarkably, the vehicle was not disabled. It slowly righted itself, and paused, as if the crew inside was stunned.
A burst from the Light Mass Drivers, using armour penetrating rounds, tore the hull apart with a spectacular explosion, and Max moved to evasive mode as the advancing army turned their guns on him.
[Well, they might not be as fun to fight as Mecha, but they definitely do pack a punch.] Nico noted as a shell detonated near Max's shielding, levelling the trees beneath him with the shockwave.
Max adjusted the shell type to punch through the shields and fired his Thunder Guns again, detonating another tank, which freed the light Mass Drivers to attack the smaller vehicles in the convoy.
Anti Aircraft fire exploded all around him as Max did his best to evade the bombardment with a fifty-metre tall Mecha. It wasn't actually possible to avoid it all, even the worst of gunners would be able to get a few rounds on a target that large, but his shields were holding strong, even as the air filled with acrid smoke, and the sound of war deafened the infantry from the alien regiments in the distance.
[We're sitting ducks up here. I'm going down to say hello.] Nico informed him only a few seconds later as the bombardment intensified.
It wouldn't be easy to evade fire on the ground, either, but at least they would be able to put enemy vehicles in the line of fire.
Max stayed up in the air to give himself the ability to target the longer range targets, while Nico dove into the hover tanks.
As she landed, her battle style changed into a crouched position, cutting her height in half while still allowing her full use of her widespread arms and twin swords. The Disintegrator was put away, but the Thunder Guns were firing at point-blank range, and her light Mass Drivers hummed a brutal welcome to the vehicles around her.
Max circled behind the lines and dropped his altitude, forcing the enemy to target through the trees, which detonated most of their ordinance early, and allowed Max a few seconds to unleash a nuclear chain reaction attack on an alien convoy thirty kilometres away and set new bombing targets for the drones.
There were so many explosions and lingering fires now that optical scans would be useless through the miasma of black smoke and flickering flames, but that wasn't hindering the Cathedral Fleet in the least. They were still making good time toward the city, and even with the losses, they had more than enough forces to take it if the Mecha backed off now.
The best that Max could do was have the drones target the closest and weakest targets first, to thin the crowd and slow the advance, but the durability of the hover tanks was giving the enemy a fighting chance.
Nico had taken dozens of direct hits already, and her shields were getting low on power, but in such close quarters, the damage would only get worse if she retreated. Instead, she increased the pace of her attacks, and kicked the hover tanks at each other to block firing lines, while Max finished his bombardment and moved to the back of the group to draw their attention away and cripple them while they were distracted.
A single chain reaction shot from the Disintegrator turned nearly every turret his way even before the mushroom cloud had fully filled out or the tanks had managed to stop their backward momentum after they had been thrown back by the blast.
Shields were flickering, and Nico hacked wildly at the hulls, aiming for the drive units, while Max fired high explosives into the ground to throw up a wall of dirt that would block most forms of sensors for a few seconds while he rolled to the side to evade the retaliation.
