The Mech Touch

The Burza Fens only got struck by a score of light beams for a brief instant, but the integrity of its resonance shield already dropped by 8 percent.

What did that mean? His expert mech only needed to get struck continuously for just a dozen seconds or so before he lost his greatest and most efficient barrier against regular attacks!

"This… I need to kill them right away!"

Yet when the axeman mech blasted off towards another Battle Crier mech before subsequently chopping it to pieces, the dwarven expert mech finally realized that he had fallen into a trap of the enemy's design.

The abnormally effective Bright Warrior mechs had come close enough to ensure a decent hit rate against a fast-moving axeman mech, but also made sure to spread out from each other so that they did not make it easy to get eliminated in quick succession.

Though the Burza Fens only needed a few seconds or longer to hop from Bright Warrior to Bright Warrior, the efficiency is too low! In the meantime, the Battle Criers persistently peppered the enemy expert mech's resonance shield with light beams.

Though many beams missed due to the clever maneuvering of the Burza Fens, its evasion characteristics weren't as exaggerated as that of the Dark Zephyr. The dwarven expert pilot also originated from the Molten Hammers who mostly preferred to fight head-on rather than dance around the battlefield.

Compared to Venerable Tusa, the pilot of the larger and stronger Burza Fens did not train his evasive skills. Sure, he was better at dodging attacks than an ordinary mech pilot due to his inherent strength, but he spent most of his training time honing and refining his offensive skills!

"Damnit! Do you think I can't hit you from afar?!"

Seeing that he needed to increase his killing efficiency, the expert pilot of the Burza Fens put all thoughts of slaying all of his opponents with his axe aside and commanded his mech to pull out a carbine resting on its back.

The small and compact laser carbine took up minimal space when it was dormant, but quickly unfolded so that it became thrice as long. Additional modules expanded to make room for additional expanded subcomponents.

Soon enough, the Burza Fens turned from a pure expert axeman mech into a reasonable approximation of an expert hero mech!

Although the dwarven expert pilot didn't excel in ranged combat, he was more than good enough to land consistent hits on average mechs!

"Your efforts are futile! Your mechs are too weak!"

The laser carbine was just a secondary weapon for the Burza Fens, but its design incorporated so many expensive exotics that its damage output actually exceeded that of the luminar crystal rifle utilized by the Battle Criers!

Of course, the cost of fabricating the weapons couldn't compare. The same amount of money needed to fund the production of this foldable carbine could easily be spent on fabricating hundreds of luminar crystal rifles!

Not only was the carbine significantly more powerful as a result, it also incorporated a small amount of resonating materials. This allowed the expert pilot to resonate just enough with the weapon to empower its laser discharges, thereby amplifying the weapon's damage output by a huge margin!

Though a single shot from the laser carbine was not powerful enough to disable a Bright Warrior mech in an instant, a couple of repeated hits quickly rendered the victim inoperative.

In fact, the dwarven expert pilot attempted to shoot the strange, glowing crystal rifles a few times. This was much harder to accomplish as he wasn't good enough as a marksman to land a hit on those slim weapons under real battle conditions.

Even if his laser carbine managed to strike one of those crystal rifles, the latter didn't blow up as anticipated. Instead, much to the dwarf's surprise, the crystal weapons soaked up the incoming laser beam as if they were sponges that had just encountered water. In the end, the rifles only exhibited a minute amount of damage to their exterior that did not fundamentally affect their performance.

"What is up with these ridiculous weapons?!"

"Venerable! The weapons carried by the human mechs are based on luminar crystal technology." A weapons engineer patched into the communication channel and provided the expert pilot with crucial information. "Although we haven't discovered why the luminar crystals of our opponents are so strong and resilient, attacking it with energy weapons is ineffective. We suggest you target the mechs instead."

"Fine." The dwarven expert pilot grunted.

That was bad news because the Bright Warriors he was fighting against were just sturdy enough that it took two to three hits in the same areas to penetrate their armor and inflict critical damage to their internals.

While this was still doable to an expert pilot, each and every extra shot needed to take down a Bright Warrior was seriously hampering his efficiency!

The fighting continued. The Burza Fens did not become deterred and fought to slay as many Battle Crier mechs as possible with the help of both its axe and laser carbine.

Though the Bright Warriors wielding their luminar crystal rifles did indeed fall at a faster rate than before, the Battle Criers remained undeterred!

They could clearly see that their new weapons were having a devastating effect on the enemy expert mech's resonance shield. Only a minute had passed and it was already starting to look as if it was on its last legs!

No matter how many mechs fell, the Battle Criers became more and more invested in this struggle. They even managed to grasp the timing of their enemy's attacks and ejected from their doomed Bright Warriors just before they succumbed.

Though it was painful to many to see the precious luminar crystal rifles floating away into space while they still had a lot of use left in them, neither the humans nor the dwarves could afford to pay attention to them. After a relentless and painful struggle, the Battle Criers finally pushed the resonance shield of the enemy expert mech to the brink!

"EVEN GODS AREN'T INVIOLABLE!" Dietrich roared as he aimed his favorite new mech rifle at a location that he anticipated the expert mech would move towards.

A shower of light beams joined the one discharged by his Bright Warrior. They all formed a cage of white beams around the visibly more discomfited Burza Fens.

When Dietrich's light beam happened to strike true, the wobbling corona around the Burza Fens fell apart, exposing the naked metal of the dwarven expert mech's exterior to the enemy!

"We did it, Battle Criers! Switch the firing mode of your rifle to slicer beams! Let's cut through its armor!"

All of the Battle Crier mechs armed with luminar crystal rifles switched the firing mode in an instant.

The light beam was still an effective means to deal damage, but according to previous weapon testing sessions it was mostly effective against resonance manifestations.

It was much more efficient to use the right tool for the right job, and at this moment that meant employing an energy attack measure that was much more effective against the high-quality armor systems that expert mechs typically boasted. Even a low-tier expert mech such as the Burza Fens was still clad in extremely resilient armor that allowed the machine to have enough confidence to trade blow for blow against other powerful expert mechs!

Without the firepower of a high-quality, high-budget expert mech with true resonance, it was still a great challenge for mundane mechs to penetrate their armor.

Faster expert mechs might not boast thick layers of armor, but their high mobility made it extremely difficult to concentrate attacks on the same sections. As long as the machine performed evasive maneuvers, it could evade or redirect attacks towards lesser-damaged portions of its frame.

This was undoubtedly the case again this time. The dwarven expert pilot still sensed a latent threat from the Bright Warrior mechs. His suspicions were confirmed when Captain Dietrich and his fellow Battle Criers all commanded their machines to fire a different beam type at the Burza Fens!

Though the expert axeman mech made a greater effort to evade the attacks of the mundane mechs that the dwarf had underestimated, the Battle Criers were trained enough to direct their fire in different zones.

Just like before, a large and expansive cage of slicer beams formed around the Burza Fens. Though the majority of the deceptively thin and weak beams missed their mark, there were still half-a-dozen or so attacks that the dwarven expert mech failed to evade!

At first glance, the damage appeared negligible. The surface armor of the Burza Fens still looked intact. However, the dwarven expert pilot quickly noticed his machine transmitting alarm signals at him. Upon closer look, the thin knife-like beams had managed to cut remarkably deep into the surface armor of his expert mech!

"What in Vulcan's name is going on?! Energy weapons aren't supposed to be so effective!"

The dwarven engineers and analysts responsible for advising their expert pilots were all clueless. Aside from gleaning the basic properties of this new form of attack, they couldn't supply any acceptable explanations! All they could figure out was that the new type of attack beam did not inflict much heat damage but was instead abnormally effective at cleaving through solid matter.

"Venerable, you can't allow the enemy ranged mechs to concentrate their fire on expert mech. Its armor system won't hold against this kind of massed firepower. We highly suggest you retreat to our rear."

"I can't! These humans are cutting off my retreat path!"

It was at this time that the dwarves knew that the Burza Fens was in deep trouble. The Larkinsons may not have been able to field enough expert mechs, but they compensated for it by equipping a portion of their mechs with innovative new weapons that were abnormally effective against the various proactive measures that made expert mechs so hard to destroy.

With the Battle Crier mechs spread out far apart from each other, they continually fired their weapons at the Burza Fens with no regard to controlling their firing rate or conserving their energy.

Holding back was always a bad idea when fighting an expert mech! Even if the continuous firing were starting to stress the crystals that made up their weapons, the Battle Criers still put their all in this fight because eliminating this enemy expert mech as soon as possible was their greatest and only mission!

"Keep up the pressure!" Captain Dietrich excitedly cried as he tried his best to keep up with the erratic movements of the Burza Fens. "Spread out more and move away from it. Its killing efficiency isn't actually that high!"

In truth, only a few minutes had passed since the start of this intensive clash and already the Burza Fens demolished two mech companies worth of Bright Warriors!

This was a painful loss because the removal of 80 Battle Crier mechs meant that there were eighty less luminar crystal rifles wearing down the defenses of the Burza Fens. This effectively prolonged the time it took to take down the expert mech.

If the Battle Criers took too long to finish the job, then there was a great possibility that the expert axeman mech would chop them all to pieces before it reached its limit!

Captain Dietrich was determined not to let that happen!

"Heh, so you are only just that." The dwarven expert pilot smirked as he realized that he had gained the upper hand. "You fellows are good, but you're no match to a Vulcan-blessed dwarf! Let's finish this farce!"

The dwarven expert pilot was sick and tired of getting led around the nose. He should have converged with his fellow peers and sought to use the advantage of numbers to bully the outnumbered enemy expert mechs.

He was planning to do just that, but first he needed to take out the trash!

"Vulcan's children are not to be trifled with!"