The Mech Touch

The Glory of Urthina Battalion finally displayed a trick that they hadn't shown in the previous matches!

The strange green energy shield that the Urthinan knight mechs managed to erect by unleashing strange green flames completely shocked the crowd!

"That's no average energy shield! It's too strong!"

"Where did these guys get this tech?"

"Where can I buy this system?"

The audience had forgotten almost entirely about the earlier manifestation of the Superior Mother. The Penitent Sister battle formation attack launched with great fanfare, only to be used as a foil for one of the Glory Urthina Battalion's own trump cards!

[What is your technical analysis, sir?]

[The shielding tech utilized is clearly not conventional. The energy readings as well as the visual appearance of the green energy barrier are too far removed from the energy shields that we are all accustomed to. Ah, if you peer closer into the Urthinan landbound defensive knight mech designs, you will see that there are several unidentified components in their frames. They take up a significant amount of volume but aren't connected to the other systems of the mech in a usual fashion. They are… isolated and self-contained. If I'm not mistaken… we're looking at salvaged alien tech.]

A lot of spectators gasped in surprise.

"Alien tech? How exciting!"

"What are you talking about? Human tech is superior!"

The overwhelming majority of humans in the Milky Way lived in states that were far removed from any alien civilizations. The odds that any of them would be able to bump into raw alien technology outside museums was practically zero.

While there were still plenty of advanced alien races in the Milky Way Galaxy, they had largely kept their distance from the powerful humans. The Big Two strictly guarded against these serious threats and did not allow any private individuals to interact or exchange with the menacing aliens.

The mistakes of the past should never be repeated!

It wasn't until the Red Ocean opened up to the public that humans got in touch with sentient aliens from a fresh perspective.

Strangely enough, most people didn't harbor that much hatred, fear and disgusts towards the native alien races just as the nunsers or the puelmers. They were more novelties than anything else because they were exotic and because they were too weak to pose a threat against human civilization.

With the Red Ocean exposing so many people to the wonders of alien civilizations, humanity slowly began to shift its mentality.

After decades of turning their backs on anything related to aliens, now they have begun to grow curious about them again.

[Is the alien shielding tech familiar to any of you? Could the Church of Urthina have managed to stumble upon a wrecked puelmer starship?]

[The energy shields utilized by the cybernetic puelmer race is more familiar to us than this unknown shielding technology. The alien components used by the Urthinans do not ring a bell to me. It is highly likely that these alien components originated from a relatively minor alien civilization in the Red Ocean.]

[This is a good example of the ingenuity of alien science. Since our race's entry into this dwarf galaxy, we have already identified over 10,000 alien races. Even if many of them are relatively small with empires spanning over just a dozen star systems or maybe just their home planet, they have spent eons refining their applications of all of the resources in their reach. They might not have access to as many different types of exotics as humanity, but by pouring much of their research on a handful of powerful materials, they can accomplish feats that even our most brilliant scientists have never thought about in their advanced labs.]

A female commentator chuckled. [And all of these alien fruits are ripe for the plucking.]

A round of laughter erupted from the commentator room.

[Correct. In the Age of Conquest, humanity managed to grow explosively in strength after our scientists have obtained samples and data on a vast amount of alien tech. By studying and reverse-engineering the technological culminations of other alien civilizations, we turn their best accomplishments into our own gains! I have little doubt that if the unidentified alien shielding tech employed by the Urthinans has any advantages over conventional technology, we will soon see the benefits in the next generation of technological advancements.]

This was how humanity always worked. It stole the best works of alien civilizations and turned it into its own accumulation after a few years or decades.

There was no shame or guilt in doing so. Though many humans preferred to rely on their own ingenuity to invent better technology, it was much more convenient to just steal someone else's wheel rather than invent it yourself!

The commentators ignited this desire with their excited discussion, the Larkinsons on the other hand were appalled!

Sure, the Larkinson Battalion anticipated that the Urthinans might unveil a special capability, but they never imagined that they would whip out alien technology themselves!

The shock and surprise of seeing the best effort of the Penitent Sisters being negated like that interrupted the momentum of the Larkinson Battalion.

Commander Casella realized the danger and barked out her words!

"Penitent Sisters, pull back and regroup! We'll think about eliminating the enemy ground contingent later!"

The Valkyrie Redeemers had stalled a bit after seeing the Superior Mother fail in breaking through the enemy defensive measures.

Even though a battle formation consisting of just two mech companies wasn't able to unleash the strongest energy attack, the Penitent Sisters had still been sure that they would have demolished the Urthinan mechs on the ground.

If the enemy consisted of an ace mech, then the Penitent Sisters wouldn't have been surprised that their attempt had failed. Yet their current foes were just a bunch of normal mechs. How could they have resisted the Superior Mother's might?

It took a while for them to wake up and readjust their mentalities. This was a shortcoming and revealed that they were still not up to par with true professional soldiers, but that was a discussion for later.

Right now, the Larkinson Battalion needed to recover from this setback and find another path towards victory.

Although the energy dome slowly began to lose strength, it looked as if it was still staying up for at least another minute.

The knight mechs that had originally erected this powerful shield were largely spent at this time. The strange flames that had run through their frames had heavily damaged their armor and systems. Though they still remained operational somehow, it probably wouldn't take too much to take them out of action.

Unfortunately for the Larkinsons, the Penitent Sisters were no longer in their prime!

Every activation of a battle formation imposed a mental burden on the mech pilots involved. Though the Penitent Sister mech pilots had performed this special move several times before, they hardly got better in their ability to stave off the strain and exhaustion that had settled into their minds.

"Stay strong, Sisters! We must fight! Don't stop until your mech can't fight any further!"

The Penitent Sisters were all gritting their teeth and forcing themselves to stay sharp.

However, this was easier said than done when all of them felt that they had been awake for at least 2 days straight!

The only way they could retain a portion of their battle effectiveness was to rely on their willpower, their motivation, their sense of duty and above all else their fear of disappointing the Superior Mother!

Every Penitent Sister had briefly come in touch with their Supreme during the time they engaged their battle network. That gave them a more personal connection to the great woman.

This connection played a pivotal role in helping the Penitent Sister mech pilots recover. Though they weren't doing anything aside from dodging enemy lancer mechs and evading enemy cannon fire, it was sufficient for the moment.

The outlook of the Larkinson Battalion still hadn't improved, though. The Avatars of Myth piloting the Bright Warriors in rifleman mech configuration came under greater and greater pressure.

Despite their best efforts, a half-squad of Bright Warriors failed to evade the Urthinan lancer mechs.

The enemy mech pilots had long grown frustrated about the difficulty in getting close to their targets.

Now that they successfully leveraged their teamwork to corner a bunch of Larkinson mechs, the Urthinan lancer mech pilots gleefully planted their long and sharp lances through the frames of the enemy rifleman mechs!

Incidents like these happened on a frequent basis across the arena battlefield. Just because the Larkinson Bright Warriors were good at evading the enemy didn't mean that the Urthinans were chasing after them blindly.

By working together and boxing in the free-flying Larkinson mechs, the Urthinan melee mechs methodically defeated them in batches!

Of course, the Larkinson mechs armed with luminar crystal rifles hit back as hard as possible. They became more efficient about it as they focused on drilling holes in the armor coverage of their opposition.

As long as any mech gained a large enough hole, the powerful sandstorm would do the rest of the work!

If the Urthinans only deployed melee mechs, then this tactic would have been enough to give the Larkinson Battalion the upper hand.

Unfortunately, the Urthinan ground contingent existed as well, and after fending off the battle formation attack, it retaliated against the Larkinsons mechs with a vengeance!

For now, the Urthinan cannoneer mechs couldn't resist the easy targets. The Penitent Sister mech pilots were no longer in their prime, and it showed. The way they defended and reacted against the incoming fire was much less sharp than unusual. This meant that they soon started to drop like flies!

"We can't go on like this!" An exhausted Penitent Sister captain said. "We need to charge at the cannoneer mechs before all of our mechs drop dead!"

The Penitent Sisters waited for the strange alien green energy shield finally faded away.

No matter what tricks the Urthinans had come up with, they still had to abide by the limits set by the tournament. The tech they were allowed to bring to the arena should never be too overwhelming.

This gave the Penitent Sisters a chance to redeem themselves. They steered their Valkyrie Redeemers back on a diving approach and made no secret about their current motive!

"Hold fast, Sisters! Let these Urthinans attack us as much as they want!"

The Urthinan cannoneer mechs had never let up on their attacks against the Valkyrie Redeemers.

What was different was that the Valkyrie mechs no longer tried to dodge the incoming fire. They instead dove almost straight towards their location. Even their attempts to juke around a bit failed to spare them much because they were only really heading in one direction, which was straight towards the Urthinan ground contingent!

Dozens more mechs sustained serious damage and some of them even fell out of formation!

Lancer mechs swept across the diving marauder mechs and selectively impaled them from the side with lances.

Only half of the Valkyrie Redeemers managed to survive the constant attacks, but that was just enough as far as the Penitent Sisters were concerned!

"DEATH!"

At the final moment, the Valkyrie Redeemers finally activated their death-oriented glows.

Though the Urthinan mech pilots had done their research and mentally prepared themselves to face this famed mental attack, these worshippers had never experienced Superior Mother's ability to induce dread!

Perhaps the Fridaymen mech pilots were already accustomed to this effect, but the Urthinans were completely fresh!

With the Valkyrie Redeemers all blasting this glow in a cone in front of them, practically the entire Urthinan ground contingent had frozen at the moment!

On top of that, the Valkyrie mechs also launched all of their Starburst grenades all at once!

The huge amount of physical and mental disruption completely scrambled the Urthinan landbound mechs.

The knight mechs had it especially bad because their frames were already in poor shape. Some of their damaged sensors completely malfunctioned when the Starburst grenades overloaded their systems!

At this time, the Valkyrie Redeemers crashed onto the Urthinan landbound mechs without any attempt to preserve themselves!