The Mech Touch

Positron beams seared across the loading hall. The energy splashed against the biomechs of the Roving Hunters, causing them to incur increasingly more damage.

In response, the Bluestar fired back with a kinetic carbine. While the weapon packed quite a punch despite its size, it was clear that it could not exert any pressure towards its targets!

The main element of the ultralifer squad formed a double column behind the shields of the two knight mechs in front. The oversized bone shields were so broad and thick that they practically served as impenetrable barriers!

Whether this tight formation was attacked from afar or up close, every frontal assault would undoubtedly fail!

This caused the defenders to fall into a difficult dilemma. Due to the positioning of both sides, it was impossible for the Roving Hunters and the Larkinsons to flank the hostile main element. Their only choice was to attack from the front or slightly to the sides, but that was useless as the knight mechs could simply reorient themselves.

With those sturdy knight mechs in the way, the only outcome of an attack would be to get bogged down. The knight mechs would find a way to entangle their opponents and the spearman mechs would either prevent a breakthrough or help with containment.

The swordsman mechs that were hovering at the sides would subsequently close the net and demolish the defenders from the rear!

This was why Captain Rivington and the rest did not dare to advance. Every path forward led to certain defeat.

Yet what else could they do?

Staying in place would cause their mechs to get whittled down from range. Retreating back to the underground mech hall where the biomechs were originally stashed would not only endanger Ves and the rest of the Roving Hunter crew, but also force them to fight a cramped frontal battle in which the enemies enjoyed a huge advantage!

It all came down to lack of numbers. With 4 mechs down, the defenders were at a huge disadvantage. Even if their competition mechs performed better, it was too difficult to overcome a balanced and all-encompassing squad composition!

Captain Rivington was so used to fighting fair matches that he became indecisive at this moment.

Unlike league matches where rules ensured that both sides started on a level playing field, there was no fairness on the actual battlefield!

Even though his side possessed a great advantage with an expert pilot by his side, he knew that there was only so much the young woman could accomplish with an ordinary mech, let alone a biomech!

This was also why he listened carefully to the analysis provided by Ves. He knew that the only way to overcome such a difficult challenge was to resort to other solutions.

"The enemy employs different models that look commercial in nature. These mechs tend to be eccentric. They have pronounced strengths and obvious shortcomings due to the limitations of their individual mech designers."

"We can handle the other mechs if it comes down to it, but tell us how to defeat the knight mechs." Captain Rivington urgently requested.

"...Knight mechs are tough to take down regardless of their quirks. It's practically their job to outlast their opponents." Ves responded over the comm channel. "The model employed by the ultralifers are actually much more optimized for aerial combat. They're slow and unwieldy when stuck to the ground. Their turning speed is abysmal, so as long as you can outflank them, you stand a good chance at striking a heavy blow to their flanks and rear."

"Their backs are covered by those spearman mechs! Besides, their formation is too difficult to deal with! The enemy biomechs are all covering for each other. I can tell that the mech pilots have trained and fought together for a long time. The teamwork they exhibit is too similar to long-lasting teams."

"I'm aware of that, but I may have a solution for that. Please get ready to move out regardless of what happens. I anticipate that the enemy will react very strongly to what is about to happen."

"What are you talking about, Mr. Larkinson!?"

"I'm transmitting my analysis of every enemy biomech's weak points to you and your comrades. While I can't guarantee the veracity of my analysis due to my unfamiliarity with biomechs, I think that you'll be able to achieve a good effect if you can strike these places. No matter what form a mech takes, much of their engineering principles remain the same!"

The five mechs of the Roving Hunters received a surprisingly large and detailed data burst. As a competitive mech pilot, Captain Rivington was very familiar with receiving weak point analyses from his staff.

In order to increase the odds of victory as much as possible, it was essential to study the enemy's mechs and identify how they could best be taken down!

Of course, the competitive teams all knew that their mechs would be scrutinized in this fashion. If they deployed the exact same mechs time after time, then they would definitely get destroyed in an instant as all of their properties were transparent to the enemy.

This was why it was essentially to modify competitive mechs a bit after every match. Changes to their armor scheme, modules, weapon loadout and more ensured that they would always keep their opponents guessing.

To facilitate this process, the more professional teams stored multiples of the same type of mechs. This allowed every mech athlete to be able to choose from several different configurations to bring into battle. It also gave time for their crews to make extensive modifications to a machine that had just been used.

Right now, Captain Rivington and his teammates all felt as if they were in the rare position of knowing every weakness of all nine enemy mechs!

Even though Ves only had a limited time to examine every mech with his Odineye Omni Sensor, the quality of sensor readings along with all of the lessons he learned from his wife allowed him to pick out every glaring weakness in a matter of seconds!

Anyone who received this analysis would have a lot more confidence in facing their opponents, but it was different for the Roving Hunter mech athletes.

They most of all had trained extensively in exploiting the weak points of their opponents! In a close match where every tiny advantage could mean the difference between victory or defeat, mech athletes were accustomed to making the most out of every scrap of relevant information!

Another mech pilot who could make excellent use of the analysis was Venerable Jannzi. Even though she was still acclimatizing to the Perringer, her control and battle prowess had already reached a level unreachable by ordinary humans.

As for Vincent, he was still too distracted by trying to get a grip on the Rotenring to care about the new overlay that pointed out the areas where he should focus his attacks!

Just as four of the five defending mech pilots formulated a strategy to attack and exploit the weak points of all of the enemy mechs, an abrupt change took place.

Underneath the feet of one of the knight mechs, an invisible form shot up and entered the frame of the mech.

Several seconds later, the knight mech forcibly shut down!

While it didn't slump or tip over, it was very obvious that the defensive mech suffered some kind of issue that caused it to shut down on its own accord.

"What's going on?!" Captain Rivington asked in shock!

Of the five mech pilots, only one of them was clear what had happened.

Only Lucky could have achieved this result!

The sudden turn of events completely interrupted the rhythm of the ultralifers. According to the telemetry transmitted by the downed knight mech, its pilot had abruptly died by getting cut!

The manner in which the pilot died was too mysterious. How could an enemy possibly sneak into the cockpit of a closed mech that was completely intact?

The lack of answers along with the possibility that it might happen to the other mech pilots as well caused the ultralifer mech pilots to falter for a few seconds.

It was one thing to be defeated by an enemy mech in frontal combat. Whether they won or lost, every mech pilot was trained to embrace honorable combat.

Death by assassination was another matter. Not only was it dirty as hell, it also prevented mech pilots from employing their strengths.

What the enemy mech pilots didn't know was that Lucky's invisible form sneakily flew away while looking awfully exhausted.

It was already bad enough for him to phase through an ordinary metallic mech, but a biomech was actually a bit worse! Lucky always had a harder time with dealing with organic materials, and phasing through the thick biomech took so much out of him that he almost failed to get back out!

Therefore, the remaining eight ultralifer mech pilots were worrying about their lives in vain. Lucky simply didn't have enough energy to perform his phasing ability again in this battle!

"The time to strike is now!"

Captain Rivington and Venerable Jannzi keenly grasped the disruption caused by Lucky's intervention. The Taragon and the Perrigner surged forward in unison, which quickly triggered the other three friendly mechs to follow suit!

Even though the Rotenring lagged behind due to its slower speed and Vincent's control problems, the other four mechs moved with inherent coordination.

Venerable Jannzi explicitly took the lead. The Perringer charged at the sole working knight mech and slammed its scorched and damaged medium shield against the enemy's tower shield!

Even though the Perringer was lighter than the enemy knight mech, its running start pushed the defending machine back so hard that it almost lost balance!

Just as the Perringer recovered from the heavy crash, its sword swung in a moon shape, causing it to divert the spear stab that threatened to poke a hole in Jannzi's borrowed biomech!

This granted the Roving Hunter mech athletes a great opening! The Bluestar surged forward first and began to assault the surviving knight mech's flank with its mace. Its blunt weapon bashed against the fingers of the enemy biomech, causing it to drop its sword!

At the same time, Cecil Rivington's Taragon dashed forward and stabbed the knight mech's side. The swordsman mech's sword penetrated deeply into the exposed enemy knight mech because it pierced straight through a small weak point that Ves had identified beforehand!

Even though the knight mech employed by the enemy possessed plenty of redundancies, the responsiveness and power of the defensive mech nonetheless took a substantial hit from this serious blow.

As this was happening, the Optimon piloted by the rookie performed a similar charge to that of the Perringer.

The only difference was that its shield collided against the knight mech that had just shut down!

Due to its inactive state, the knight mech failed to brace or perform any corrective measures, causing it to fall backwards and disrupt the tight column formation adopted by the enemy.

The enemy spearman mech that had previously huddled behind the dormant knight mech had to dash backwards in haste, causing its rear to collide and press against the rifleman mech that was positioned behind!

This was one of the biggest disadvantages of a packed formation!

Though it took the Optimon a bit of time to recover from its violent collision, the biomech piloted by the rookie valiantly attacked one of the spearman mech, forcing it to focus on parrying and blocking the incoming blows.

At this moment, the Rotenring hefted its heavy shotgun and fired a powerful blast of pellets that peppered the uncovered flesh of the spearman mech!

A large portion of the pellets bounced uselessly off the enemy mech's shield, but a significant portion still sank into any exposed flesh within reach, causing these areas to bleed!

The Rotenring was about to fire at its current target again, but Vincent suddenly noticed that the swordsman mechs that had previously positioned themselves at the flanks were rapidly closing in from the sides!

"Do you think you can ambush me? Think again!" Vincent spat back.

His Rotenring slowly turned around before firing its shotgun continuously at the charging swordsman mech at close range!