303 Blitz offensive 3

"Terra! Neutralize that fucking collector!"

Among the ongoing pandemonium, Dax attempted to create order in that chaos, the top of that priority was taking out the Emergence collectors who were currently in the process of securing any civilians they could get their claws in.

"Already on it!"

Having also spotted the Emergence drone attempting to drag off a store clerk by his clearly shattered leg, Terra immediately sprang into action after getting permission to do so from Dax. Weaving together a quick spell, Terra blasted off the ground floor reception area of the mall, landing at the 10th floor where she quickly dispatched the nearby Emergence drones before settling her aim on the Emergence collector which was currently on the 8th floor opposed to her. Taking aim she quickly destroyed the Emergence collector with a centre mass burst from her rifle, then she jumped from the 10th floor balcony over a gigantic chandelier before landing on the 8th floor where she quickly secured the area before turning her attention to the civilian.

"Hold on for a second, I'll stop the bleeding."

"... T-thank.. Y-you."

Setting her rifle aside as she reached into her equipment pouch at her hip, pulling out a syringe with blackmatter she quickly bit into its protective cap and pulled it off as she armed the syringe before injecting its contents into the store clerk's leg to stop the bleeding. Having stabilized the poor clerk, Terra picked up the grown man in his mid thirties in a princess carry and leap off balcony near them, landing gently using flight magic to spare the civ.

"Civilian secured!"

"Good, get him on the evac with the rest, then join up with Mare!"

Oh, and a seemingly endless amount of Emergence forces were constantly pouring out of it, which is what Ifrit and Solaris were currently focused on.

"Lighting!"

Releasing the stored up mana in her formation to produce a bright bolt of magnetic plasma Solaris briefly washed out everything around, if only for just a second, following a series of bright explosions as the lighting which leapt from ship to ship and melted everything it touched.

"Decay."

Using a relatively simple spell, Ifrit spread corruption and decay throughout the Emergence forces, cutting down their forces at an impressive speed with time for the Emergence seemingly running a million times faster than normal. Even as the two excellent spellcasters continued cutting down, the Emergence continued to pour out almost endlessly from the singularity. The current problem wasn't necessarily the Emergence forces, but whatever technology allowed it to instantly cross spacetime to invade somewhere so deep inside friendly lines as Cyprex prime and without any sort of warning too.

[Solaris, Ifrit, status?]

"We can't shut it down or destroy it!"

Answering as Ifrit was busy weaving together a complicated spell, Solaris flapped her wings and amplified and focused the created soundwave into a blade which cut down an approaching transport.

[Elaborate.]

"This thing has no surface, there's nothing to target! How long until Lazarus gives us a solution!?"

[No idea, the communication link is at maximum capacity so they're working on it. Take out as many of them as you two can, if you're starting to be overwhelmed then pull back.]

While Ifrit and Mare couldn't do anything about the gate, they were still succeeding in heavily crippling or outright destroying a large part of the invading Emergence forces, something which proved instrumental in minimizing collateral damage.

-

(Nothing here either…)

While the other parts of Dax's unit were all engaged on the front line, Phillipa was playing a hunch, she was currently in the middle of the massive drydock district where the 3rd navy strike group were currently undergoing a major retrofit. What Phillipa was worried about was the Emergence gaining access to manatech, and as time passed and she continued examining the details of this ongoing blitz offensive, she was pretty sure this was one of its main objectives. Flying over the massive drydock complex in the process of stripping the countless smaller and supporting warships of their modular outer armour, Phillipa didn't find any signs of Emergence drones or anything out of the ordinary happening. While the human dockworkers had long since evacuated, what work could be done solely by the automated cranes and drone workforce was being done in what capacity which was possible. 

(Then there's only the flagships left to check out… Hopefully, this hunch proves to be nothing in the end.)

Nearing the significantly larger docks for the battleships and battlecruisers which were all in final preparations and tuning of their gravitational drives were no work could be done without specialists, it was an extremely delicate process were the smallest mistake could either cripple the ludicrously expensive drive or even create extreme structural damage to the craft it was installed inside, this was one of the few processes in spaceship construction which required human specialists and couldn't be completed to the required level of precision with just drones.

Flying over the massive ships which were also stripped of their outer armour plating to ease access to the complex systems underneath, Phillipa was about to report back to Dax when she noticed something was out of order. It really was the tiniest detail, out of context it would be nothing of significance, but a tertiary access port to the battleship Ingenuity not properly secured was a serious issue.

"Incursion confirmed."

Not bothering to wait for an answer from Dax, Phillipa deactivated her flight magic and quickly dropped out of the sky, reaching the access port in a matter of seconds, Phillipa entered as she readied her rifle.

(Once more, into the breach.)

Not even needing to take more than 10 steps, Phillipa quickly found something odd, just not what she had been expecting. The corridor ahead of her was covered in large, strange looking cobwebs which emitted traces of mana along with some kind of cold gas which had long since created thick layers of ice on any available surface.

(What the fuc-)

Not given the chance to examine her surroundings any further, something mostly invisible lunged at her from above and struck her shoulder, freezing it mostly solid in an instant.

Acting entirely on instinct, Phillipa discarded her rifle as she was no longer able to use it before she drew a knife and struck at the still hidden figure above her. Enhancing the strike from her blade with strengthening mana, Phillipa clearly felt it pierce deeply into something which felt vaguely like flesh. After striking true with her blade, Phillipa pressed her blade deeper into whatever had attacked her before twisting it with all her strength, she only stopped driving her knife further into the creature after it had stopped twitching and whatever spell had kept it hidden dissipated.

(... So some kind of spell? What the hell is going on? The Emergence is not supposed to have access to mana?)

Examining the creature closer, Phillipa found it to be some kind of large spider about a metre in diameter, covered in bright blue scales. With no traces of cybernetic implants on or inside the spider, Phillipa could rule out that it was controlled by the Emergence, but that only served to provide Phillipa with even more confusion.

"What the hell is going on here?"