The Mech Touch

The First Sword had no choice but to endure the attacks of three enemy expert mechs. After Venerable Dise and her elite comrades successfully launched a battle formation attack, the Hivar Roarer mechs at the right flank lost a lot of battle effectiveness!

The large amount of cutting attacks they received was not that hard on their Crumbleshell mechs, but a large portion of the bestial mech regiment consisted of lighter and more agile models.

All of these lightly-armored bestial mechs behaved as if their wings had been clipped! With thousands of mechs unable to navigate or fight properly due to their damaged conditions, the Swordmaidens, Heavensworders, Flagrant Vandals and Glory Seekers deployed at this flank were having a feast!

The damage inflicted by the bladestorm wasn't limited to just material damage to the Hivar Roarer mechs. The extraordinary energy storm also carried Venerable Dise's will as it propagated through the dwarven mech formations, which meant that every dwarven mech pilot experienced the hostility that the Swordmaiden expert pilot held towards the enemies of her sisters!

One of the consequences of this mental trauma was that the Hivar Roarer mech pilots were still haunted and completely lacked the guts to confront the human mechs with confidence.

As a result, the expeditionary forces quickly managed to finish off hundreds of vulnerable Hivar Roarer mechs and were on track to overrun the entire right flank if not for the sudden entry of the three expert mechs!

Right now, the Larkinson and Glory Seeker mechs were partially suppressed due to the occasional interference of the Mokra Mark II and the Domingo Daren. The former could easily tear apart normal mechs while the latter fired powerful rounds that heavily damaged or outright destroyed every human mech the expert turtle mech struck!

The only obstacle that stood in their way of wiping out the expeditionary mechs on this side of the battlefield was Venerable Dise and her expert mech!

In just a few minutes of combat, the First Sword had already been smacked around many times. It was incredibly challenging for Venerable Dise to keep her new expert mech intact. There were many cases where she was forced to absorb hits because she wasn't able to evade incoming attacks. The Unending alloy armor plating may not look any worse, but all of the physical impacts and shocks were subjecting the internals of the expert swordsman mech to considerable stresses!

Fortunately, backup was finally on the way.

"Dise!" Venerable Imaris Cross of the Cross Clan called. "My Conavis Mer is almost at your side. Let's work together to stall these Hivar Roarer expert mechs."

Surprisingly, Venerable Dise shook her head. "Don't come to me. I don't need reinforcements. I can take care of these enemies myself. Head over to the center or the left flank instead. There are additional enemy expert mechs there that can't easily be stopped."

Venerable Imaris Cross couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you crazy? You're outnumbered three to one!"

"Heh." The Swordmaiden expert pilot smirked even as her mech shook from getting bombarded by the Domingo Darkham. "There are expert pilots and there are swordswomen. I already have the measure of my opponents. These dwarves haven't tasted a lot of blood and don't have any refined fighting skills. The dwarves should be fearing me instead!"

Though Venerable Dise was not an overconfident woman, she recognized the necessity of transferring more expert mechs elsewhere.

From what she could tell, the dwarves deployed 13 expert mechs in total, of which one of them had already been taken out of action.

The Hivar Roarers fielded 4 expert mechs, of which Venerable Dise managed to entangle three of them. The remaining expert mech of this mech division was fighting on the left flank that was further away.

The Slug Rangers used to field 4 expert mechs as well, but the takedown of the Gauss Baron removed a huge threat in their lineup.

That still left three of their formidable expert mechs in the fight, though! Two of the Slug Ranger expert rifleman mechs were locked in a firefight against the Amaranto. Amazingly, it took two of them to suppress the masterwork mech made by the Larkinsons.

The main reason for that was because the Amaranto's firepower was too unreasonable!

The physical rounds fired by the dwarven expert mechs mostly damaged the Graveyard that Venerable Stark was still using as the Amaranto's all-purpose barrier.

In contrast, the Amaranto could snipe at either of the two enemy expert mechs with much greater ease because the latter were flying in the open!

Since the Ferrils were on the attack, a much greater proportion of their mechs were deployed far forward from their fleet. Their ships were built to be tough and sturdy but the need to pursue and intercept the expeditionary fleet left them bereft of many defensive options.

In fact, the two dwarven expert pilots that were exchanging fire with the Amaranto understood that hiding behind their friendly ships wouldn't have changed much.

"The firepower of this masterwork mech is too unreasonable!"

Though the two dwarves were too strong-willed to fall for the ridiculous claim that the human leader was Vulcan and that his works were proof of his divinity, the Amaranto and especially its glowing rifle were challenging the assumptions of many weaker-minded dwarven mech pilots.

For better or worse, the expert pilots battling against the Amaranto had to show their fellow Vulcanites that dwarven craftsmanship was not inferior!

While Venerable Stark was trying to cope with two of her attackers, another Larkinson expert pilot had an even harder time trying to stay in the fight!

Just like Venerable Dise, Venerable Orfan was currently being assaulted by three seperate expert mechs fielded by the Molten Hammers.

Of the three dwarven mech divisions, the Molten Hammers fielded 5 whole expert mechs. Each of them were piloted by dwarven talents who emerged from their respective mech regiments.

This also meant that their expert mechs were similar to the regular mech models that the Larkinsons had already met in battle.

For example, the Gatecrasher was a more powerful and more offensive spin on the Molten Furies of the Vulcan's Chosen mech regiment.

The Trementine was a fast and hard-hitting expert axeman mech from the Avido Berserkers that was good at breaking shields and chopping through armor.

The Bashravar was an expert heavy hammerman mech from the Forgehammers that only possessed decent speed but could break or shatter through every form of defense if it managed to land a hit!

The Firemason was an expert striker mech from the Volcano's Wrath that excelled at engulfing large areas of space with intense flames!

None of the latter three were pleasant to fight against, but when they pooled their strengths together, Venerable Orfan was having a much more awful time!

"Hot hot hot! That burns, you bastard!"

The Riot's unstable resonance shield grew even shakier as the expert spearman mech was engulfed in corrosive flames that were enhanced with a resonance ability!

Although the Firemason was primarily designed to burn large amounts of regular mechs, it also incorporated several features that allowed it to put up a good fight against enemy expert mechs.

The ability it employed at the moment not only caused its flammable spurt to heat up to a much higher temperature, but also add a corrosive quality to its flames that allowed it to chew through resonance shields with remarkable effectiveness!

However, for some strange reason, the latter quality didn't seem to have much of an effect! The Riot's unstable-looking blue corona had wobbled since the start of the battle, but had never actually broken even after suffering a surprising amount of attacks!

"Hahaha, that tickles! Is that the best you can do, dwarves?" Venerable Orfan taunted despite the fact that her words only riled up the dwarven expert pilots more. "You stupid dwarves are just as incompetent as the ones I've met before. Those stinking savages didn't even invent the toilet yet and couldn't count beyond ten because they didn't have enough fingers."

"DO NOT INSULT US, CUR!" The furious expert pilot of the Bashravar bellowed!

His heavy mech accelerated forward and attempted to slam its massive glowing hammer straight onto the Riot!

Yet just as the Bashravar almost arrived on top of the bright and orange expert mech, Venerable Orfan smirked as she jerked her Riot aside and also managed to thrust her spear out that just managed to inflict a telling blow against the dwarven expert mech's resonance shield.

"Too slow!" Orfan laughed. "Did you really think I would just sit around and let you hammer my mech like I'm as intelligent as you folk? My expert mech can dance circles around yours! Whoever thought it was a good idea to design such a fat and heavy expert melee mech anyway? Just look at what happened to your buddies. The Big Momma managed to wipe all of them out because they ate too much!"

If the expert pilot of the Bashravar was already consumed by anger and grief at the loss of virtually all of the mech pilots of the Forgehammers mech regiment, now he had become absolutely livid!

"SHUT UP! I will not allow you to tarnish the honor of my battlesworn brothers! I shall shatter your expert mech to pieces and personally ensure that your body is flattened to the point where not a single molecule remains intact!"

The Bashravar's resonance shield boiled with total fury! The expert pilot's eyes had already turned red with absolute indignation!

Yet so what?

Anger might cause the expert pilot to resonate even stronger with his Bashravar, but that did not change the fact that it was still a slow expert mech!

The Riot wasn't exactly fast either but it was still a medium mech. Under Venerable Orfan's deliberate control, she always kept her expert mech a step ahead of the expert heavy hammerman mech.

Certainly, the other two expert mechs did not make her life easier. The Firemason constantly tried to cut off her escape route by launching concentrated fire, but her Riot was more than capable of soaking up the damage from this relatively tame attack.

"What does it take to burn you down?!" The expert pilot of the Firemason complained.

Only the Trementine gave Venerable Orfan a lot of cause for concern. The expert axeman mech fought just as aggressively as the Bashravar, but the difference was that it had the acceleration and agility to keep up with the Riot!

Most of Venerable Orfan's efforts were spent on parrying and deflecting the Trementine's powerful axe blows. The glowing axe hacked against the Riot's unstable resonance shield several times and caused it to grow even more shaky.

Yet despite wobbling like a drunken sailor, the Riot's resonance shield still hadn't gone down!

Even Venerable Orfan discovered that something funny was going on. In the small amount of practice sessions she conducted with her new expert mech, she had a decent understanding on how much damage her expert mech's resonance shield could withstand.

One of the resonating materials the Riot incorporated was BSN-17A. This provided the expert mech with an additional strong resonance barrier that could withstand a lot of punishment.

However, the current level of performance was too exaggerated!

Though she was glad that she was able to rely on the Riot's abnormally strong resonance shield to stall and occupy three enemy expert mechs, by her reckoning her Riot should have begun to block attacks with its physical armor by now. There was no way that any expert mech of its size and class should have been able to endure so many resonance-empowered attacks without paying a price.

"Wait a minute…"

Now that she paid attention to it, she noticed that any resonance-empowered attack that landed on the Riot's resonance shield grew a little weaker and unstable a tiny moment before impact.

The various attacks that landed on the Riot's resonance shield seemed to deal damage closer to the attack of an ordinary mech rather than a powerful expert mech that was able to empower its blows!

She was pretty certain that this was not an original feature of her Riot. When her thoughts began to lean in this direction, she realized that her expert mech felt different than before. During this battle, she faintly thought that her machine had grown a little more… chaotic.

She looked puzzled even as she directed the Riot to dodge yet another powerful but slow hammer strike.

"What changed?"