Chapter 4503 The Gulf in Technological Maturity

The difference was noticeable almost immediately. The onslaught of sieges that the first ten armadas had bombarded the War of Webs with became visibly less effective. Light beams that previously managed to breach energy shields and dent starboards and ports now simply disappeared—

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

They disappeared into a layer of darkness that seemed like it wasn't even technological in nature. Under the direction of Divine Mother —o-o—o, each ship that was able to had activated singularity lattice shield technology, a rather high-level form of technology that was so antithetical to laser beams that laser beams had been phased out among the most advanced civilizations of the Orion Star Strand.

A devastating siege of light beams that would have blasted the interdiction force simply got absorbed in the blink of an eye. But that wasn't the only shift that occurred in the siege dynamics between the two fleets.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!

The antimatter beams that forcibly converted hull matter into a devastating explosion were now smoothly redirected with electromagnetic fields. After all, antimatter beams were generally composed of charged antimatter, whether antiproton or positron matter, and were accelerated forth with electromagnetic fields.

Although it was very difficult due to the fact that they moved at near the speed of light, it was possible to use similar electromagnetic fields to redirect those very beams, causing them to harmless divert away from the War of Web.

Both light beams and antimatter beams had been thoroughly negated with a simple shift. But that wasn't all, the human war fleets quickly discovered that it was merely the light and antimatter that failed to deliver.

BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOM!!!

The powerful dwarven-constructed heavy-ordnance invintium-alloy shells slammed into prothanite hulls with enough power to punch holes in sunder moons. And yet, the shells vaporized on contact with the prothanite.

Prothanite wasn't just indestructible. It was also antithetical to matter. After all, prothanite was a heavily charged substance, generating extraordinary electromagnetic fields. While the invintium-tempered steel alloy was a deeply stable substance, the powerful electromagnetic fields of the prothanite stripped electrons away from nuclei, melting the incoming shells into plasma.

On top of that, even without this effect, the heavy ordnance shells never stood a chance. After all, even if the shells were launched with enough power, they were still weaker than the prothanite, causing them to take most of the damage rather than the hulls.

It was hopeless.

The ballistic missiles that could adjust their trajectory with real-time targeting systems could avoid the prothanite and strike a component that wasn't covered in it, but alas, they were the slowest out of all of the four primary long-range siege weapon systems. The arakai war fleets effortlessly dismantled them with gravitational pulses that caused them to detonate before they could even reach the War of Web.

"This is bad."

Grand Admiral Bornine Mattel stood at the edge of his command platform, overseeing the command room aboard the Jupiter III command ship. The old man watched with clenched fists as the heavy sieges that his First Armada launched against the arakai war fleet began failing at alarming rates.

Light beams simply melted into darkness. Antimatter beams were redirected away at alarming rates. Ballistics detonated before they could even reach the Web of War. And their kinetic shells simply melted upon contact with prothanite hulls.

The grand general had been ecstatic when the initial onslaught of sieges successfully inflicted damage on the already battered interdiction force.

Humanity had caught the arakai off-guard twice. First with Operation Lightfury and then with a world bridge deployment that perched nearly a thousand fleets just ten thousand kilometers away from the Web of War, bombarding them before they could react.

But the moment the arakai regained their bearings, the disparity between them became evidently clear. It wasn't just a quantitative disparity, which became painfully clear with just how many webships the War of Web had brought with it to the Arima III System.

It was also a qualitative difference.

The Arakai Web Civilization was a civilization that had a deeply mature astronaval doctrine. This was a civilization that had waged interstellar war many, many times. According to the Emperor of Water, this was a civilization that had millennia of experience with interstellar war.

In comparison, human civilization was deeply infantile in that regard. It had experienced explosive growth from a type-two civilization to a civilization that had conquered ten thousand stars in thirteen years, but had very little foundation in war in that regard.

With that in mind, the fact that human civilization even managed to catch the arakai off-guard twice in a row itself was a miracle. And it was largely thanks to the divergences caused by humanity's abnormally strong infantry and Transcendence that allowed Operation Lightfury to be a whopping success.

But once the arakai recovered from that, the qualitative differences between the foundations of the two civilizations became inescapably evident.

And this was before the arakai had even properly retaliated.

"Sir, the enemy webnoughts and war webfleets are moving! We are detecting a surge of power in their weapons systems!"

"Heavy build-up of gravitational energy detected!"

"We're sensing a prothanite build-up in the heavy-ordnance gun barrels!"

"Sage Feynote Silas has reported foreseeing great damage to our fleet!"

Grand Admiral's aged face tightened. "Activate energy shields to their maximum! Strengthen hull integrity with electromagnetic binding systems!"

The War Fleets of the First Armada managed to bolster their defense to the absolute maximum before the incoming siege of the Web of War.

And yet, it was not enough.

The arakai unleashed their offensive, and it exceeded anything that the armada could have ever hoped to achieve.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

RUMBLE!!!

"Rgh!" Grand Amiral Bornine gritted his teeth, holding on to the railing at the edge of his command platform. The floor beneath his feet shook violently as a heavy impact ravaged the ship he was aboard.

"Energy shield down by 12%! It won't last long!"

"Sensors detected an extremely intense gravity-well pulse! Enemy warships are launching sieges of gravity!"

"Hull integrity has been reduced by 8%!"