The next day, exactly as was promised, Arkhan and Asharia boarded the AGCS (Arcadian Galactic Commonwealth Ship) ‘Adeptus Deorum’ along with an entourage of ambassadors and holonews reporters from the United Galactic Nations. The colossal vessel dwarfed even the largest ship in the UGN military, let alone in any of their member nations. With the destruction of the Holy Union’s flagship at Asharia’s hands, there was no other ship in the galaxy that was its equal in size or firepower. While it still used technology that was, by even UGN standards, outdated, the sheer amount of its weapons, thrusters and layers of shielding more than made up for it.

With every victory over the hated foe there was more debris to scavenge and more insights into advanced technology to gain. What this meant was that, unfortunately for the MSGs and MAGs, the non-summoned warships and fighters/ bombers/ transports were getting more technologically advanced than those that were. There were concerns that they had ‘outlived their usefulness’, but Arkhan was not about to cast them aside. If anything, he figured that he could eventually find a way to improve them, just like when Asharia managed to edit his abilities and give his MAGs hyperdrives, albeit very slow ones.

The Angels no longer had as great of a tech advantage as they once did, and they now lacked any meaningful way to strike back against either Arcadia or the UGN. Their once sizable fleets had been reduced to only a hundred or so dedicated warships and their territory had been reduced to just a few core systems and the blockaded planets in the systems under Arcadia’s control. The Angelus Holy Union was being starved of valuable materials and food, and there was no way for their heavily populated core worlds to get enough food and supplies to keep themselves afloat for much longer. By all rights, Arkhan could have simply starved them into extinction.

But that was not nearly enough of a punishment, and not nearly enough of an act of vengeance and justice. The people of Arcadia demanded a final victory, and those who perished on the glassed worlds would have wanted some kind of revenge. There were just as many worlds that had been glassed as there were inhabited worlds in Holy Union space, and Arcadia was about to enforce a line from Hammurabi’s Code.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Angels wanted to wipe out all life on every other world in the galaxy and then take them for their own, so Arkhan and Arcadia were prepared to teach them that they should ‘do unto others only as you would have done to yourself’. Mind you, Arkhan was being very hypocritical, but that did not bother him or anyone else in his nation.

…

The largest fleet ever assembled by Arcadia in any of its multiple iterations massed at the boundary between the occupied and unoccupied territory of the Angelus Holy Union. The armada was split into five separate task forces which would each go after one of the last six core systems of the Holy Union. There were five fleets but six systems to take down, and there was a good reason for that. All of the surviving vessels after taking their designated target would deploy a large amount of Mobile Suit Golems and Mobile Armor Golems and have them hold down the fort. After that, the surviving ships would wait for the other systems to be taken and then all five fleets would converge on the homeworld of the Angels, the arrogantly named ‘Heaven’ system.

Arcadia’s flagship, the one that Arkhan, Asharia, the ambassadors and reporter were on, was going to lead the assault on the Mercurian System. It was accompanied by over a thousand other ships and exponentially more Mobile Suit Golems and Mobile Armor Golems. This was not meant to be a fair fight, but instead a curbstomp designed to show Arcadia’s overwhelming military might to the news crews and thus the people of the UGN.

Having pirated the various news outlets from all over the galaxy, Arkhan wanted to see just how the pundits and talking heads would react to this display of gratuitous overkill. He also wanted the whole galaxy to see just what would become of the evil Angels once Operation: Fallen Down went into effect. He could already picture the looks of shock and fear on their faces as the sky fell on the Holy Union, not to mention the looks of realization that by supporting the Omniconpro Corporate Sector they could very well have the same thing happen to them.

One by one the fleets jumped to FTL speed and vanished from sight. Soon after, the final fleet jumped into Hyperspace and made its way towards its target.

…

Exiting Hyperspace at the edge of the Mercurian System, Arkhan’s fleet formed up and began to slowly advance. What Arkhan expected to meet him and his forces was a stubborn resistance made of the best ships that the Angelus Holy Union had left. Instead his fleet was assaulted by civilian craft that had been hastily retrofitted with poor quality weapons and improvised hull reinforcement. This had to be a twisted joke. This was akin to sending a bunch of yachts armed with .50cal heavy machine guns and hastily bolted-on metal plating to try and take out the entirety of NATO’s collective navy!

Still, something about the way they moved was very off-putting. They moved slower than he would have expected for such vessels, and the added weight of the slapdash weapons and armor did not fully account for the….

“SHIT! Fire everything you can at those ships! Blow them to kingdom come! Don’t let them get anywhere near the fleet!”

Arkhan barked his orders both out loud and through his collective consciousness. Following his orders to the letter, thousands of Mobile Suit Golems and Mobile Armor Golems let fly every ranged attack they could. Kinetic rounds tore through the flimsy armor while missiles and rockets tore chucks out of their hulls. Particle Beams hit shortly thereafter, and just as Arkhan had feared…

KABOOM!

Every single one of the improvised warships was packed to the bursting not with ammunition, but with explosives.

“Damn it. That was too close.”

Arkhan gave a sigh of relief as the other fleets followed suit in their respective target systems and also narrowly avoided being hit by suicide boats. Arkhan’s gaze filled with a mix of anger and disgust as he watched another group of suicide boats try to rush his fleet.

“I get that they are fanatical zealots, but this is ridiculous. Don’t they have even the slightest bit of intellect? This did not work before, so why are you trying it again? If you knew anything of tactics you would have hidden these ‘bomb boats’ and had them launch surprise attacks, not send them all in a big line like they were actual warships…”

“You overestimate their ability to think tactically.” Asharia quipped. “They have spent centuries, possibly millennia, not having to worry about tactics or strategy. Even now they likely think that such things are unneeded, because ‘Lugus will save us all from destruction! We need only have faith, and all will turn out fine!’. I would not expect any meaningful resistance in these systems, but rather expect them to make one last ‘heroic’ stand in their ‘Heaven’.”

Arkhan rubbed his chin and took his wife’s words to heart. He did have something he wanted to try, and if his wife was correct then that meant he could put to use an ability that he had neglected for quite some time.

“Scour the system for any true hostile military vessels. If there aren’t any, then hear me now, my creations. I intend to have some fun of my own with you in this System, so if you find any true military vessels, deal with them and prepare for my first ever personal foray into space combat!”

Arkhan rose from his seat and began to make his way to one of the hangars as a suit of powered armor manifested around him. The suit looked like a masterfully made kitbash of various MSGs and was substantially bulkier than a normal Mobile Suit Golem. For the first time, Arkhan was going to use an ability that he had never needed or felt the need to use. It was time for him to taste battle, up close and personal.