Comprehensive Anime: I and the World's Top Daughters Have Our Five Senses Linked

The kill zone held steady for eleven seconds—on the twelfth, the Swarm adjusted the direction of its assault, squeezing in simultaneously from the upper and lower quadrants.

The frigates' shields allocated more energy upward, and the strength of the lower shields weakened accordingly.

In that instant, a precise piercing attack punched straight through the entire hull from the weakest seam in the defensive shields beneath the ship.

The feed switched—another frigate was being torn apart at once by the limbs of more than three hundred insects. Its shields had already shattered, its armor plates were being peeled away layer by layer, and its internal structure lay exposed before the Swarm's mouthparts.

The Ship AI controlled the last of the weapon systems and kept firing, while the engine compartment began autonomously overloading in preparation for self-destruction.

Then the feed cut out.

"The Unmanned Fleet has lost seventeen percent of its units." Belfast's voice rang out on the bridge, steady and utterly devoid of emotion. "The unmanned vanguard fleet has initiated cluster-coordinated combat protocols. A secure airspace is expected to be established within fifteen seconds of arrival."

Jiang Lianqiu said nothing.

Twenty seconds on the countdown.

In the returning feed, the Unmanned Fleet began to regroup.

After losing nearly twenty percent of its frigates, the remaining ships spread out into a looser diamond formation, their fields of fire overlapping one another to form a fire net without a single blind spot.

The first wave of the Swarm that charged into the fleet was torn apart by that net, and the follow-up swarm began circling around toward the left and right flanks.

At the edge of the feed, a larger command ship appeared—it was the core node of the Unmanned Fleet, carrying the strongest fire-control AI and battlefield analysis system.

The command ship's