The arrows of the elf bugs possessed strong piercing capabilities, which naturally translated into extremely high speeds and a very long range.
Ultimately, this arrow actively maneuvered around a scourge and struck a magic fighter at its maximum range of five kilometers.
Boom!
A faint light flickered on the exterior of the fighter, but it failed to block the arrow's penetration, and the craft exploded instantly.
Trailing a long plume of fire, the fighter spiraled down toward the sea.
“I see.”
The combat power of the elf bugs really shouldn't be underestimated.
“I'll leave the task of preventing fighter breakthroughs to you; we still have to rely on the scourges for the heavy strikes.”
After a quick calculation, it seemed her side would likely face total annihilation by the end of this battle.
But it would definitely deal a heavy blow to the Dawn Empire.
Looking at the mechanical fighters crashing from the sky, there had to be hundreds of them by now. Seeing that she still had quite a few scourges left, Xia Jin was already very satisfied.
“Order all aerial combat units to take flight. All ships, retreat at full speed,” she commanded.
Whether they could escape was up to fate, but running early was definitely the right move.
Some hydralisks on the ships also began anti-aircraft fire, launching spines at the fighters zooming overhead.
At that moment, several bombs fell from above.
A Carrier Bug and several small boats were all subjected to high-powered bombing.
Amidst a shockwave powerful enough to make a multi-thousand-ton warship shudder violently, a large section of the Carrier Bug's upper structure was torn away. The terrifying force slammed into the upper part of the lower deck, only to be blocked by the sturdy bottom hull.
The few Zerg living inside the hull suffered devastating damage in this wave of explosions.
Dozens died in a single burst.
However, judging by the outcome, the Carrier Bug showed no signs of sinking; not even a single breach had been blown in its underside.
As more and more magic fighters broke through the scourge blockade, the surrounding Zerg intercepted them recklessly.
Meanwhile, waves of dispatched scourges broke through the Dawn Empire's anti-aircraft fire, delivering fierce bombardments upon the enemy.
But clearly, the mutalisks were doing even better.
Glaive wurms, powerful enough to harm Tier 9 experts, struck the ships from time to time, leaving several Dawn Empire vessels battered and scarred.
The soldiers on the ships scrambled to patch things up amidst heavy casualties.
One of the ten-thousand-ton ships was finally mostly swallowed by the surging seawater following a violent explosion, sinking before it could even be repaired.
This would be the first ship the Empire lost.
While the number of Zerg ships sunk was much higher than the Empire's, they were mostly small wooden boats built by the kingdom. These things, which could be sunk by a single rocket or shell, were actually consumables used to carry aerial creatures.
Calculated this way, the Swarm was actually coming out ahead in this battle.
...
By the time the fleet had escaped to a distance of twenty-six kilometers from the enemy, the battle had lasted for over forty minutes.
The intensity of the aerial combat had diminished significantly.
Ships on both sides had sustained heavy fire from their opponents.
Three Zerg Escort Carrier Bugs sank in succession, and the most heavily damaged Carrier Bug finally succumbed to its burdens, slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea.
It looked as though most of the ships were intact, but in reality, the situation was very unfavorable for the Zerg. This was because the scourges were almost entirely depleted, and the mutalisks had been wiped out.
Despite these heavy losses, they had managed to shoot down a total of 1,600 enemy fighter sorties.
The enemy still had over four hundred planes locked in combat with the Zerg.
“Here they come.”
Through her monocular, the elf bug controlled by Xia Jin saw over two hundred fighters rapidly approaching and knew that things were looking grim.
Sure enough, before long, those magic fighters began dropping their bombs.
One ship after another was instantly enveloped in a sea of fire.
Even the elf bug Xia Jin was currently inhabiting was suddenly blown back by an explosion, falling into the water.
She was covered in wounds.
Sensing the blood, members of the Sea Race closed in to feed.
After the spines shot down another sixty or seventy enemy planes, most of the ships finally reached their limit and sank one by one.
“A day's worth of naval production, gone.”
She did the math; it didn't seem like much of a loss.
She wondered how long it would take the Empire to build two thousand planes and several large ships.
In the end, the Zerg had sunk one ten-thousand-ton ship, three four-thousand-ton ships, and two six-thousand-ton ships. Looking only at the battle results, they had lost big time.
But from the perspective of production capacity, the time it would take the Empire to produce the same amount of naval force was definitely longer than hers. Furthermore, the enemy soldiers who died could not be replaced.
...
At nightfall, a single, battered Carrier Bug sailed alone across the ocean.
It was the only ship to escape the battlefield.
In fact, the Empire's naval planes had given chase for a while, but seemingly wary of a Zerg ambush, they eventually ceased their attack and let this last Carrier Bug go.
By now, Brain Bug No. 1 had already reported the battle results.
“Although the Dawn Empire's potential is far inferior to ours, their scale is immense. In particular, their magic industrial revolution is highly advanced, so their short-term production capacity is certainly much higher than ours.”
Rate on N.U.
