From the moment the native alien defenders learned that their native gods had been slaughtered and the arche failed in their ambush, they completely lost all hope of victory.
The flow of the battle experienced a massive shift as the native alien soldiers all experienced a massive decline in morale!
If their side could no longer deploy any phase lords or other trump cards, then a total defeat became inevitable.
The native aliens made the only decision that allowed them to mitigate their losses as much as possible.
They no longer stood their ground and commenced an all-out retreat!
"The aliens... they’re running away!"
"Too soon! They still have tens of thousands of phasefighters and hundreds of intact warships!"
"The native alien commanders aren’t stupid. They can see that our smaller fleet can nibble them all to pieces if they insist on fighting to the bitter end. That will not accomplish anything as there is almost no chance of killing any of us while we remain under the protection of the Minerva and the other ace mechs."
When one side possessed an absolute advantage in high-level combatants, then the other side had little chance of accomplishing any further objectives.
Perhaps the huge disparity in numbers could still fend off a handful of ace mechs by virtue of exhausting them, but the Saint Commander fared particularly well in these kinds of scenarios.
Even without an ace mech that specialized in mass destruction like the Promethea Mark II, Casella Ingvar possessed enough endurance to keep her Knights and Barons empowered until they managed to break the backs of the alien fleets!
Defeating these enemies was easy, but wiping them out demanded a lot more care and attention.
A force led by the Saint Commander could easily break a concentrated and numerically superior hostile group, but once the latter started to disintegrate and flee in all directions, it became increasingly harder to maintain resonance empowerment on all of her scattered troops!
Although the range of her Command Field was enormous compared to the Saint Kingdoms of ordinary ace pilots, it was only enough to exert her influence across a moderately sized space battlefield.
Once the different enemies truly chose to go their separate ways, the pursuing mechs and warships could not afford to distance themselves too much from the flagship of the combined fleet.
If they chose to exceed this invisible boundary, then all of the Knights would lose their precious resonance empowerment, causing them to become a lot weaker in every dimension!
The differences were so massive that the unenhanced mechs and warships would definitely become vulnerable to counterattacks.
"Damn, there are at least a few smart heads among the surviving alien commanders."
Though coordination and cohesion among numerous alien fleets had reached the bottom due to the strategic elimination of their native gods as well as their flagships, the remaining leaders still possessed enough awareness to know that their pursuers did not dare to split up too much.
They only needed to do a bit more thinking before they figured out one of the combined fleet’s major weaknesses.
The human forces did not dare to splinter too much!
As such, after a bit of fleeing, most of the surviving alien assets began to slow down and take the time to regroup.
Though the aliens still feared the human invaders, they could still afford to take a breath now that it appeared that pursuit became unlikely.
"Disgusting. These aliens do not intend to flee any further now that we have shown that we cannot possibly catch them all. They do not appear to organize any offensives either. These enemies know that they stand no chance if they get caught in a fight on our terms."
This was annoying because the native aliens still managed to preserve a huge amount of phasefighters and homeships. They continued to pose a credible threat and could inflict serious damage to the humans if the Saint Commander was no longer available.
The human forces therefore needed to stay on guard. The mech pilots had to rein in their aggression but remain alert for any unexpected developments of the battlefield.
Of course, the Larkinsons did not lack means to chase after the scattered alien fleet elements.
The Dark Zephyr Mark III excelled in these kinds of pre-and-post battle skirmishes.
So long as an enemy force lacked the protection of both phase lords and overwhelming numbers, the ace light skirmisher could easily launch continuous hit-and-run attacks without incurring too much risk!
The powerful living ace mech could easily keep this up until his energy reserves bottomed out or Saint Tusa’s willpower had reached its limit.
The Riot Mark III received permission to go solo as well.
The mech did not even get close enough to sating its bloodlust during this relatively short engagement. The D-mech yearned to spill the blood of tens of thousands of alien soldiers and Saint Rosa Orfan was happy to oblige her recalcitrant ’partner’ force once!
The ace spearman mech might not be able to match the acceleration of the Dark Zephyr Mark III, but the Riot Mark III could still fly fast enough to close the distance on individual alien fleets.
Saint Orfan did not fear their attacks. Her D-mech’s high-grade superdimensional construction alone was enough to neutralize the vast majority of conventional attacks!
"You can run, but you can never hide!"
"We shall remain in this area until we have collected our spoils." The Saint Commander decided. "We need to be quick about it. We should proceed to the planetary depot in the inner system and destroy as much orbital and planetary infrastructure as possible. The alien fleets may be able to stay out of our reach, but the same cannot be said for their fixed assets."

"I am aware of the possible risks, though I did not know that there are far more ways for the aliens to blow up their own ship." The Saint Commander replied. "I have already prepared a speedy countermeasure. Even if I cannot stop the arche from scuttling their own ship entirely, I should still be able to buy enough time for our boarding parties to usurp control over the hull. I need two answers from you. First, can every arche crew member trigger the self-destruct function? Second, will we be able to keep the archecruiser stable once our men have swept the interior?"

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