The Mech Touch

Ves always wondered how a prime mech would fare against a genuine expert mech.

The answer was that the contest would turn extremely lop-sided right away.

The 'duel' between the Valkyrie Prime and the Burza Fens just proved it. Although the Valkyrie Prime was not in its home element at the moment, its performance against the dwarven low-tier expert mech was downright shambolic!

Once again, Unending alloy came to the rescue.

The Valkyrie Prime was essentially a prime mech upgrade to a regular Valkyrie Redeemer design. Its performance was better but the improved parameters were still in the general range of a standard mech. The only abnormal factor was its absurdly tough armor system.

Even that had weaknesses. The joints, transition areas and flight system were vulnerable hotspots that Venerable Joshua was doing his best not to expose them to the Burza Fens!

Though the expert mech was no longer in its best shape, its expert pilot appeared to be fueling it by continually generating an endless amount of hate towards the evil tall folk!

As an expert pilot himself, Venerable Joshua was aware how unreasonable his kind could be and how dangerous it was to fight against a riled-up demigod.

He had no choice, though. The Golden Skull Alliance was spread too thin and the other friendly expert pilots already had their hands full keeping multiple dwarven counterparts busy.

Therefore, as much as it was unfair to challenge a real expert mech with just a prime mech, Venerable Joshua had to step up. Right now, he could do nothing except get passively beat up, but as long as his Valkyrie Prime lasted for a long-enough time, then that was already enough!

"Why. Won't. You. Break!" The angry dwarf shouted as his Burza Fens chopped with great force, only for the mech to almost lose its grip on its weapon due to the deterioration of its damaged arm and finger mechanism. "ARRGGH!"

"Battle Criers, keep resume fire on the Burza Fens!"

With Joshua acting as a great decoy, the surviving Battle Crier mechs had rallied together again at a further distance. They began to employ their still-powerful luminar crystal rifles to fire continuous slicer beams in the direction of the Burza Fens.

The dwarven expert mech that was fueled by anger wasn't making it easy on the ranged mechs. The expert axeman mech was not only moving around a lot, it did not forget about using its laser carbine to pick off the Battle Crier mechs one by one.

The earlier slaughter had resumed, if at a slower rate. The Valkyrie Prime attempted to poke its spear against the laser carbine several times, but the Burza Fens never let the prime mech pull off its move.

The basic parameters of the two mechs were too far apart! The Valkyrie Prime may hold a defensive advantage, but the Burza Fens possessed an undeniable edge in power and speed! This meant that the expert mech permanently held the initiative. It could retreat whenever it wanted to and force its opponents to fight on its terms.

This was exactly what the angry dwarven expert pilot was doing at the moment. His expert axeman mech may be failing in trying to chop the Valkyrie Prime to pieces, but its attacks were still achieving at least some results. The joints were starting to show signs of wear and the constant heavy kinetic impacts on the exterior continually inflicted concussive blows to the internals.

As long as the Burza Fens kept wailing at the Valkyrie Prime for a minute or two, the latter would naturally stop working as its internal architecture turned to mush.

"One way or another, I'm going to crack open this shell of yours and peel you out like an unborn chick!"

It was all that Joshua could do to keep his mech as intact as possible. He stopped utilizing his prime mech's spear entirely and just focused on blocking the powerful attacks with its Unending alloy shield.

The greatest threat he needed to pay attention to was whenever the Burza Fens attempted to circle around the Valkyrie Prime in order to attack the latter's rear. The flight system was almost every flight-capable mech's greatest weak point and it was no different in this case.

"This.. might not be going as planned." Joshua gritted his teeth as he tried to resonate as much as possible with his prime mech.

It didn't help much. A resonance shield supported by prime resonance was so weak that a single hefty axe strike was enough to shatter it to pieces!

Though Joshua tried to deepen his bond with the Valkyrie Prime and commune with the Superior Mother, there was only so much these tricks could do for him. The basic power gap was too big and he and his fellow Penitent Sisters had already exhausted themselves to pull their battle formation.

"I need backup here!" He requested over the communication channel. "This pissy dwarf here is really determined to take revenge for all of the buddies that I've killed!"

"Please stand by, Venerable Joshua. All of our expert mechs are preoccupied but help is on the way."

"That's not going to be enough! Unless you can direct a huge amount of Transcendent Punishers or Eternal Redemptions to pound this hostile expert axeman mech to pieces, my prime mech isn't going to last much longer!"

"We are trying our best to find options for you. Please hold on for a minute if possible."

"I'm not sure if I'll last a minute!"

The Burza Fens whacked at the shield of the Valkyrie Prime so many times with resonance-enhanced blows that the protective equipment actually began to warp and deform from the continuous blows!

Eventually, the shield actually snapped out of the Valkyrie Prime as the grip that held it together onto its arm had actually snapped from the excessive forces acting on its much-abused surface.

"Oh hell."

In the next dozen exchanges, Venerable Joshua and the rest of the Larkinson Clan finally learned that even Unending alloy had its limits.

The Burza Fens and its expert pilot performed true to their Avido Berserker heritage and began to gain more power and momentum with each strike it landed.

Every heavy axe attack it made caused the Valkyrie Prime to bounce away. Joshua did nothing to stop this because it not only bought his poor mech some time, but also bled away some of the force.

Nevertheless, this was just a desperation measure as the Burza Fens was too fast and could easily catch up to the prime mech's paltry retreat.

The constant beating caused Venerable Joshua's heart to boil. He yearned for the power of an expert mech even more! Why did others like Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise get their turn first while he was stuck piloting a fine but ultimately inadequate machine?

Gear mattered and this was a lesson that Joshua was learning in the hardest way!

With the slow but continuous advantages gained by the Burza Fens, its expert pilot gained more and more encouragement, which further fueled his damage output. The axe glowed stronger and stronger as the dwarf who channeled it pumped more will and emotion into his attacks.

"NO SHIELD IS UNBREAKABLE! NO MECH IS INVINCIBLE! WORLD SHATTERER!" The dwarven expert pilot roared as he pumped nearly all of his remaining power and reserves into his next strike!

When the axe came down like a meteor, Venerable Joshua shivered as he felt a strong threat of death engulfing his body. With his sensitivity towards life, the realization that he might very well die if he continued onwards was incredibly clear!

He did something that every expert pilot was ashamed to do. Some were so extreme that they never even allowed themselves to disgrace themselves by taking the coward's way out!

Fortunately, Venerable Joshua was not an honor-bound fool or someone who held himself to ridiculous standards.

"I'm sorry, guys, but I held this fellow off as long as possible."

Since time was of the essence, he did not delay any further and pulled the ejection lever.

The escape mechanism of the Valkyrie Prime was much better than that of a regular Valkyrie Redeemer. When Ves initially designed this prime mech, he invested a lot of effort into maximizing the survival of its pilots.

All of that paid off as the cockpit of the prime mech instantly shot away from the rear of the exhausted prime mech just as a glowing axe thundered through the already-battered chest plating of the feminine mech!

Though the Valkyrie Prime did not split in half from this mountainous blow, the wound it suffered from the front cut deep to the point that it had crushed the power reactor and many other vital components!

"Noo! My Valkyrie Prime!" Ves almost shot up from his observer's seat from the bridge of the Spirit of Bentheim. "Someone, track the wreck of the Valkyrie Prime as well as any loose equipment and debris that came loose. I don't want to miss a single gram of Unending alloy, you hear me?! This material is priceless and crucial to building Venerable Joshua's next expert mech!"

Ves and Joshua silently mourned for the fall of the Valkyrie Prime. Though the prime mech was destined to be recycled anyway, it was still a great loss to the Larkinson Clan to lose it when it could still have contributed to the battle if it remained intact.

Without the Valkyrie Prime, the Larkinson Clan lost a machine that could hold off the Burza Fens. With its dwarven expert pilot flying so high at the moment, many people could already imagine how it could butcher entire mech companies on its own. The damage it incurred so far was slightly serious but did not debilitate its performance as much as everyone hoped.

Ves snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed the Burza Fens doing something different. For the first time since the start of the battle, it had begun to attack an ejected cockpit!

The Burza Fens raised its laser carbine and snapped a few laser beams at the cockpit that Venerable Joshua was riding on. The lasers struck but they did not deal any apparent damage aside from raising the cockpit's exterior temperature.

"Tch. This material again!" The dwarven expert pilot spat. "Since that's the case, I'll just chop you to pieces then!"

"No!"

This time, Ves really went mad! The Burza Fens did not waste any time with shooting its carbine at the cockpit and instead blasted forward while raising its powerful axe to launch a heavy blow.

If this expert mech struck the escaping cockpit with a serious blow, then even if the thin layer of Unending alloy managed to hold, the huge kinetic impact might overwhelm the inertial dampeners inside the cockpit and channel an immense amount of force to Joshua's body.

Such forces were far beyond what human bodies were capable of withstanding!

It was no different from falling out of the window of an office building!

"Stop the Burza Fens at all costs! Venerable Stark, I could really use your help at this moment!"

"I can't." The older female expert pilot spoke with great strain in her voice. "The enemy expert mechs are hunting my Amaranto down. My machine isn't resilient enough to expose itself and resist incoming attacks at a priority target."

This was one of the design weaknesses of the Amaranto. Ves never regretted the fact that he had too little Unending alloy on hand.

When it was applied to an expert mech, it practically made it unkillable among its peers.

When Unending alloy was absent, Ves discovered that his work didn't perform so much better than other mechs in the same class and price level.

He became more cognizant than ever that he had been relying too much on Unending alloy to turn losing situations into more favorable situations. This was good news, but it was not a systematic advantage that the Larkinsons could continue to rely upon going forward.

The dwarven military mech divisions had shown him how the Larkinson Army really should be put together. With enough strength and numbers, the regular mech troops under his command must become strong enough to defeat the dwarven opposition without relying on any trump cards!

"I need to rectify all of this after this battle finally ends…"

Of course, the Larkinsons still needed to survive and win this battle, and that was becoming a lot less likely as the Burza Fens had almost reached Joshua's cockpit!

"VENGEANCE FOR THE MOLTEN HAMMERS!"

With a single momentous swing, the Burza Fens chopped down its axe onto the small and vulnerable cockpit!