The Mech Touch

However, when that earth-shattering axe finally swung down, it passed by without its formidable blade ever striking the thin Unending alloy shell that covered Joshua's cockpit.

Though the thick and heavy axe blade missed the cockpit by just a couple of meters, the resonance energy that exuded from the weapon still washed over the side of the vehicle, causing it to tumble and roll aside as if struck by a strong crosswind even though there was no air in space.

Still, much to Ves' relief, the cockpit and the precious expert pilot inside still remained intact!

Its tiny thrusters continued to sputter as much as they could to propel the cockpit further and further away.

"What happened?! Why did the Burza Fens miss?!"

When Ves directed his attention away from the cockpit and its key occupant that had just escaped a brush of death, the Burza Fens oddly did not pursue its chosen prey.

Instead, the mech frame looked as if it had been frozen in time. The axeman mech, which was previously on the move all the time, was drifting on a ballistic trajectory as all of its maneuvering had ceased.

As for the dwarven expert mech's dreaded axe, the weapon along with the arm that gripped it were floating away into deep space.

Ves blinked and suddenly noticed that an entirely new presence had crept up to the rear of the Burza Fens without his notice. He had been so taken by the Valkyrie Prime and Venerable Joshua's predicament that he lost sight of what was happening elsewhere!

The Dark Zephyr, which looked a lot more scuffed and worn than from the start of the battle, had managed to sneak up to the enemy machine while its obsessed expert pilot was completely tunnel visioned on exacting revenge on Venerable Joshua.

The expert light skirmisher utilized its sharp blades along with whatever resonance that Venerable Tusa could muster to perform two key actions.

First, the Dark Zephyr exploited an opening created by prior Battle Crier attacks and cut off the damaged and weakened arm section that held its axe.

Second, the Larkinson expert mech stabbed its other knife right in the back of the Burza Fens, which not only destroyed the key nodes of the flight system, but also paralyzed many other essential systems.

The tip of the knife had stopped just before it reached the rear of the dwarven expert mech's cockpit.

"Did people ever tell you that you should live and let live? I guess not." Tusa lightly said. "You should have taken a chill pill. Let me give you a lesson why getting consumed in your own your hatred is not a good idea!"

He did not delay any further and commanded his expert mech to thrust its second knife deeper!

What activity the Burza Fens still exhibited shut down a moment after the Dark Zephyr completed the assassination of an enemy expert pilot.

When the expert light skirmisher retreated its knife from the dormant dwarven expert mech's back, the tip of the dark blade was smeared in red.

"Even dwarves bleed in red." Tusa silently muttered as he completed this solemn little ritual.

At this point in the battle, Venerable Tusa was the only expert pilot who had killed his peers amongst the enemy ranks! He not only had the blood of just one dwarven demigod on his hands, but two now after he had ruthlessly shoved his knife through the cockpit of the Burza Fens!

"Tusa… thanks." Venerable Joshua softly expressed his gratitude from his retreating cockpit. "I'll… pay you back someday."

Tusa's lips curled into a brief grin, distracting him from the magnitude of his actions. "You don't need to make such a promise, Joshua. We're Larkinsons. We always have each other's backs."

A sense of brotherly camaraderie passed between the two expert pilots. This was what the Larkinson Clan was all about. This was what the clansmen were fighting to preserve. They were not about to let the dwarves take this paradise away from their hands!

In the next few minutes, the Dark Zephyr escorted Venerable Joshua's lone cockpit back to the Spirit of Bentheim. Once a squad of Living Sentinel mechs had come forth to take over this duty, the expert light skirmisher was left without direction for a time.

After Venerable Tusa successfully took the Gauss Baron out of the picture, he had taken his expert mech all the way back to the Larkinson fleet and parked it inside the Spirit of Bentheim's hangar bay in order to receive a quick resupply.

There was no time to perform any checkups or thorough repairs. He knew that the battle was not going well for the Larkinson Clan after the dwarves had shoved out all of its expert mechs into the battle at once.

However, just because his Dark Zephyr replenished its energy cells and dumped a lot of accumulated heat didn't mean it had regained its peak battle effectiveness.

Venerable Tusa had already expended the majority of his will and mental energy to defeat the Gauss Baron.

What happened at the end was especially draining for him. In the midst of desperation, he deepened his connection to his expert mech and resonated with the second design spirit of his expert mech.

With the help of the new design spirit that aligned so well with Tusa, the Dark Zephyr managed to borrow some of her powers and become untouchable the moment the Gauss Baron's self-destructed in the most violent way possible!

"I still can't believe that actually worked." Tusa stated.

He had been gambling when he tried to call upon Trisk. The little bird-like entity had only been born a handful of months ago and did not accumulate a lot of power in its short time of existence.

Yet in the face of Tusa's urgency, Trisk couldn't sit still. The ever-changing bird spirit expended all of the strength it could call upon and momentarily caused the Dark Zephyr to… become untouchable.

This state only lasted for a brief amount of time. The expert mech returned to its normal state a second or two later, but that was just enough for the machine to escape the initial destructive blast!

Whatever else followed after the Gauss Baron's ruinous explosion was not as severe. The Dark Zephyr's excellent armor easily handled the aftermath, just as designed.

Still, its previous exploits not only left its two design spirits in an exhausted and expended state, but also drained almost all of the spiritual energy that had been infused in its Unending alloy. Furthermore, Venerable Tusa himself was coping with a headache that continued to impose a greater burden on him as he had already overstrained himself.

It was a miracle that he still managed to circle around and sneak up behind the Burza Fens without its dwarven expert pilot becoming aware of the danger.

The Dark Zephyr could be quite subtle in Tusa's hand. This was especially the case now that he managed to deepen his connection with his partner machine after going through a moment of life and death with it. His control over the expert mech had never been greater!

"Battle is truly the best crucible for mechs and their pilots."

After Venerable Tusa finished catching his breath, he reluctantly swept his gaze to the strategic overview of the battlefield. There were many more hotspots where his help was needed.

However, he did not blindly command his Dark Zephyr to blast off to the nearest unit that needed backup. He only had a limited amount of resources left to fight so he needed to pick his battles carefully.

Just looking at the other expert mechs clashing head-on against each other made his headache worsen. He wouldn't be able to keep up in a high-intensity body. His expert mech still had enough fight left in it, but the pilot as well as the design spirits had already bottomed out. All three of them needed a lot of rest to recover their combat effectiveness.

"I guess I'll keep playing the knife in the dark, then. It doesn't really make a difference whether I stab my knife from the front or the back of an enemy mech."

After Venerable Tusa picked out his next target, he turned around his expert mech and gradually flew away. He wasn't in a hurry to intervene. He knew he had to time his attack attempts carefully so that he could strike when his chosen victims were at their most inattentive towards other attackers.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the battle still raged on. The clashes between the expert mechs still dominated the progression of the battle despite their lack of quantity compared to tens of thousands of mechs occupying most of the battlefield.

The high-level duel between Patriarch Reginald Cross and Venerable Orthox De Massie continued to heat up even as their expert mechs were still chipping away at each other's defenses!

Neither the Bolvar Rage nor the Gatecrasher looked anywhere close to nearing the end of their flight.

The Bolvar Rage's shoulder-mounted positron cannons were the first weapon modules to go. They were fairly exposed and vulnerable so it was not a surprise that Venerable Orthox managed to eliminate them by launching many targeted attacks at them whenever his expert mech came close.

The one-handed hammer wielded by the Gatecrasher did not look as large and imposing as that of the Bashravar, but its mass and various technological and material advantages strengthened its parameters to an unreasonable level!

"The weight of the Vulcan Empire rests on my hammer! The future of my people strengthens my shield! I am never alone! I fight with the hopes and dreams of dwarvenkind on my side, and I have become stronger for it! A selfish, power-hungry mech pilot like you will never comprehend what it means to fight for a cause!"

With this handy hammer, the Gatecrasher was able to dent the exterior of the Bolvar Rage with every solid hit. Its threat was so great that Patriarch Reginald did not dare to endure another direct hit from this weapon.

When cornered, Reginald would rather allow his expert mech get bashed by the Gatecrasher's shield than to endure another blow from the dwarven expert mech's hammer!

He wasn't letting his expert hybrid mech get beat up for free, though.

Initially, he concentrated on wearing down the Gatecrasher's powerful resonance shield. Reginald relied on all of the weapon systems of his Bolvar Rage but primarily leveraged the shotgun.

They were loaded with shells that contained an updated formula of pellets that worked especially well at draining resonance shields. Patriarch Reginald did not hesitate to expend all of the shells the Bolvar Rage carried in order to wear down the Gatecrasher's first layer of defense.

Once the Gatecrasher's resonance shield and energy shield both collapsed after enduring a lot of attacks, Reginald was still a long way from defeating the enemy expert mech.

Though the two mechs had already battled each out for a time, the Gatecrasher's extremely resilient physical shield was still going strong.

Sure, all of the ranged firepower the Bolvar Rage poured against its surface had caused it to become increasingly scarred and pitted. However, the scanners told Reginald that most of the damage was confined to the upper layers of the shield. He was nowhere close to punching through its depth!

This was bad news to the Cross Patriarch because Venerable Orthox was extremely skillful at making sure that its shield was always oriented towards the Bolvar Rage. Only a fraction of the latter's ranged attacks managed to strike the Gatecrasher's mech frame, but these incidental successes were so infrequent that the Gatecrasher almost looked as good as new!

"What a tough dwarf!"

After exchanging many blows, Patriarch Reginald gained an increased amount of respect for his opponent. Both the Gatecrasher and its skilled but calm expert pilot handedly resisted every attack in an efficient and effective manner.

In fact, the dwarven expert space knight mitigated so much damage that the Bolvar Rage could have easily slaughtered three low-tier expert mech with all of the attacks it launched up to this point!

It almost drove Patriarch Reginald mad from frustration!

"How much more damage do I need to deal before I can break open this dwarven mech!?"