The Mech Touch

The Riot clearly fell into a disadvantage during its first clash against the Shockshell.

Fortunately, the Larkinson expert spearman mech wasn't fighting against this Fridayman expert hybrid mech alone!

"Rosa!"

While the Shockshell had been preoccupied with bullying the Riot, the First Sword had already circled around and snuck up to the enemy expert mech's rear!

Yet just as the First Sword was about to launch its attack, the Shockshell abruptly turned in a 90 degree angle and pushed out with its rectangular concussion shield.

"Repulsion Wave!"

Venerable Rebecca resonated with the solid object to such an extent that it had actually released an enlarged, rectangular-shaped shockwave that completely engulfed and shoved the First Sword away!

Both the Riot and the First Sword quickly opened up a bit of distance from the Shockshell.

Though her expert mech was not too far off from what they imagined, Venerable Rebecca's power, strength, mastery and willpower vastly exceeded their expectations!

"The intelligence briefings didn't say that she was strong to this extent!" Venerable Orfan complained.

"Look at the resonance meter, Rosa. She's not at 57.3 laveres. I'm afraid that she has already reached 61.1 laveres!"

Even though the difference sounded minimal, in reality there was a large gap in power due to how much closer Venerable Rebecca had approached the threshold to ace pilot.

"How could she have changed so much?!"

Venerable Rebecca clearly sensed the alarm and confusion from her foes.

"Saint Jeremiah Gauge personally guided me in the past several months. My way forward has never been clearer to me. The great Saint's teachings have given me the insights that I need to forge my own path to ascension!"

From what it sounded like, Venerable Rebecca truly embodied the meaning of an ace pilot candidate!

Fighting her was at least several times more dangerous than the Larkinsons predicted!

Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise both felt more pressured than ever. They hadn't accounted for the possibility that Saint Jeremiah Gauge would spend his valuable time on guiding Venerable Rebecca's growth.

This was a horrible advantage and one that granted a second-rate state a decisive advantage against weaker groups!

As long as a state managed to nurture its first ace pilot with great difficulty and investment, it was not unusual for more ace pilots to emerge in small batches.

This was why the Gauge Dynasty found it essential to transfer at least one of their precious ace pilots to the Red Ocean.

Perhaps Venerable Rebecca Andus had been specifically transferred to the new frontier in order to increase her chances of breaking through to ace pilot!

"Calm down, Rosa." Venerable Dise urged her friend and peer. "Venerable Rebecca is too strong for us to defeat in a short amount of time. We should return to our original plan and focus on containment as opposed to winning. Let's wear down our opponent's defenses while waiting for further opportunities."

"Got it." Venerable Orfan growled as she forcefully adjusted her mentality.

The Larkinson expert pilot might be eager to gain another victory, but she wasn't stupid. The difference in power was too great for her to gain an advantage. This wasn't a weak expert pilot and expert mech that she could just bull through by relying on brute force. She needed to adopt a more realistic strategy in order to gain more opportunities.

Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise did not communicate any further with each other because they knew exactly what they needed to do. Both of them controlled their expert mechs so that they constantly surrounded the Shockshell from opposing sides.

Occasionally, laser beams or gauss rounds struck the resonance shields of all three expert mechs, but their expert pilots completely disregarded the attacks.

All three of them knew that unless an entire mech regiment's worth of ranged mechs opened fire upon them, it was difficult to pose a serious threat to the powerful machines!

Other attackers at least had to wait until the resonance shields of their targets had worn down before it became more viable to defeat an expert mech through sustained bombardment.

This meant that the three expert mechs were effectively on their own unless another expert mech intervened.

The two Larkinson expert mechs began their steady assault on the Shockshell.

Both Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise displayed excellent coordination when their machines dove in to attack the Shockshell at the same time.

No matter the strength of an expert pilot or expert mech, it was always a bit difficult to fend off attacks coming from two different directions.

However, the Shockshell under the control of its extremely skilled and strong-willed pilot was different!

The shoulder-mounted gauss cannons actually flipped over so that they could fire at targets approaching from the rear.

At the same time the Shockshell fired streams of destructive streams of lightning at the Riot that was approaching from the front, the gauss cannons unleashed a powerful salvo of heavy kinetic rounds that accurately slammed against the First Sword's resonance shield despite Venerable Dise's best attempts to evade the attacks!

"The Shockshell is able to defend itself against two expert mechs at once!"

"Venerable Rebecca is too unreasonable!"

As the two Larkinson expert mechs enduring the punishing attacks and got close enough to swing their weapons, the Shockshell easily fended off the incoming attacks by turning its frame sideways in order to block the incoming strikes with its shock hammer and concussion shield!

Powerful sparks of energy burst from the contact points as all of the expert pilots involved had invested a lot of true resonance in their moves!

The thunderstorm surrounding the Shockshell lost cohesion for a moment, but quickly regained its vigor, allowing Venerable Rebecca's willpower to constantly shock and paralyze her opponents on a mental level!

The Larkinson expert pilots tried their best to endure the zaps to their minds and will and forcefully attacked the Shockshell as many times as possible!

Though Venerable Rebecca was able to block most of the incoming blows by utilizing both of her expert mech's handheld equipment, she could not block every incoming strike, particularly those launched by the First Sword.

The difference in skill and technique became clear. Venerable Orfan clearly wasn't as refined in her weapon handling, but each of her spear strikes landed with such great force that they could still accelerate the breakdown of the Shockshell's resonance shield.

Venerable Dise was much more successful in her attempts to outplay her opponent and land effective attacks.

This didn't matter too much for the moment because the Shockshell's resonance shield covered all of its weak points.

Once the Larkinson expert pilots wore through this barrier, Venerable Dise would definitely be able to pose a greater threat to the expert hybrid mech!

However, after repeated attacks, both Larkinson expert pilots realized that it would take a lot of effort to exhaust the Shockshell's resonance shield!

This was also just its first line of defense. The Fridayman expert mech also boasted a transphasic armor system!

"Goddamnit! This Shockshell is constantly trying to fry me and paralyze me when I've entered its rage." Venerable Orfan grumbled as her latest flurry of spear strikes got blocked by her opponent. "This damn concussion shield constantly bounces back against my spear. It's disrupting my rhythm!"

Amazingly, Venerable Rebecca did not show any obvious sign that she was exceeding her mental capacity.

She always kept her expert mech at an angle where it was able to block the attacks from the enemy expert mechs no matter their positioning.

Venerable Rebecca even had enough multitasking capacity left to independently control her Shockshell's gauss cannons to slam rounds into both of her opponents at the same time!

With the help of dimensional magazines, the Shockshell was not short on gauss rounds. The expert hybrid mech did not hold back at all in its attempts to bombard its two targets.

Though the gauss rounds were not powerful enough to pose a serious threat against the Riot and the First Sword, each successful strike came paired with an electrifying explosion, which disrupted the operation of the two Larkinson expert mechs!

"This Shockshell is constantly disrupting our rhythm." Venerable Dise said. "We cannot go through with our current approach. Even though Venerable Rebecca is targeting both of us at the same time, our expert mechs will lose their resonance shields first. We can't let that happen!"

Venerable Orfan did not enjoy the suppression that she was under. The fact that Venerable Rebecca did not even concentrate fully on her Riot was an insult to her pride as a expert pilot and warrior!

"Face me, Shockshell!"

She did not hesitate any longer and resonated with Qilanxo in a special and specific way.

Slowly but surely, the darker blue corona surrounding the Riot grew wilder and less restrained.

The Riot gripped its spear further up its shaft, which effectively shortened its attack reach.

This allowed the Riot to press up closer to the Shockshell!

As soon as the Riot got close enough, the resonance shields of the two opposing mechs began to touch and interact with each other.

Though the resonance shield surrounding the Shockshell was much stronger than that of the Riot, the strangest part was that the Shockshell actually started showing signs of destabilizing at a greater rate!

"Your expert mech is weird." Venerable Rebecca immediately noticed.

This confrontation was the first time that Venerable Orfan applied her Disharmony Barrier prime ability against an opposing expert mech on an actual battlefield!

"Hahahaha! You're not the only one who can mess with opponents this way!" Venerable Orfan gloated as she saw that her powerful trick had taken effect!

The Riot's inherently chaotic nature seemed to contaminate the Shockshell's purer and more orderly resonance shield.

It was as if the Riot had thrown a dead insect into the Shockshell's soup. It only took a small disruption to ruin the entire dish!

However, Venerable Rebecca was far from helpless under this situation. She quickly recognized the risks of allowing the Riot to proceed in this manner and turned her Shockshell so that its concussion shield faced the expert spearman mech.

Venerable Orfan already had a hunch of what was coming.

"Not this move again!"

"REPULSION WAVE!"

Another wall of solidified force slammed against the Riot and pushed it over a hundred meters away!

The Shockshell wasn't done, however. As soon as the Riot no longer interfered with its actions, the Fridayman expert mech immediately turned to the First Sword and struck with great violence!

The shoulder-mounted gauss cannons fired a powerful salvo of rounds that impacted the First Sword!

The chest-mounted electrorods engulfed the First Sword in an electrical storm!

The wrist-mounted positron beam cannons seared the First Sword's weakening resonance shield even further!

Finally, the Shockshell did not utilize its melee armaments but instead kicked against the First Sword's resonance shield with an electrified leg!

Getting hit by all of these resonance-empowered blows in quick succession put a serious strain on the First Sword's resonance shield!

This was bad as defense was not the First Sword's strongest quality.

As the Shockshell continued to blast the expert swordsman mech with as many attacks as it could feasibly unleash, the Riot charged over once again in order to relieve its sister mech.

"Leave my buddy alone!"

"REPULSION WAVE!"

The Riot was not an agile mech so there was no way for it to evade the expanding shockwave that was empowered by Venerable Rebecca's strong desire to get rid of Venerable Orfan's expert mech!

"Ahhhh!"

The Larkinsons didn't expect that the Shockshell could pull off such a powerful move on a repeated basis. It took a lot of effort to push away an expert mech by relying on the power of true resonance alone!

"This conceited woman needs to die!" Venerable Orfan roared in frustration as her frustration fueled her hatred against her current opponent. "You can't stop me forever, Rebecca!"

The Fridayman expert pilot smirked as she continued to direct her Shockshell to wear down the defenses of the First Sword.

"You might be right, but I will be able to clean up this expert swordsman mech first."

It was too difficult for the First Sword to fend off a high-tier expert mech by itself!