BXBX NOVEL Chapter 2674: Advancing Wedge
Chapter 2674: Advancing Wedge
The expert axeman mech hailed from the Auralis. Its expert pilot was besotten by grief at the realization that the entire crew of the ship he had been travelling abroad for months had perished at once!
"I will carve out a path with my own body if need be!" The raging expert pilot roared as he summoned up greater strength from his mind and will than ever before! "Let justice fall upon these forsaken Larkinson!"
The mech pilot of the Ulver Quinn should have been exhausted after fighting so much. The frame of the mech had incurred numerous scars and even holes due to all of the punishment it endured. Yet the valiant axeman mech exhibited none of the weaknesses of before!
An expert hybrid mech called the Prava Lonestar arrived just behind the Ulver Quinn and began to raise its wrists before firing an array of piercing laser beams that tore through some Crosser rifleman mechs that had been putting them under pressure.
"Let me advance with you as well, my friend! We shall sing our final song today before we accompany our comrades in the afterlife!"
"Your mech is already depleted of energy and ammunition!" The expert pilot of the Ulver Quinn protested. "You're little use to us anymore at this point."
"I can still fight with my limbs, my friend. While melee combat is not my forte, it is more than enough to help you carve a path forward!"
The expert hybrid mech pulled out a thick rod from the back of its frame. The rod telescoped in both directions to form a thick but hollow staff that glowed with the resonating will of the vengeful expert pilot.
The hybrid mech extended one of the ends of its new staff towards the surviving Glory Seeker and Crosser mechs that stood in its way. Its resonance shield continually blocked every attack that was fired in its direction!
"Murderers! You shall pay for slaughtering the crew of the Auralis! We shall not stop until your precious patriarch has met his end at our hands!"
The two expert pilots didn't actually know each other well before this battle. They were both third-raters who were originally 'persuaded' to fight on behalf of the Friday Coalition.
Yet as humans, they spent months befriending and getting familiar with the Fridaymen who served alongside them aboard the Auralis.
The realization that tens of thousands of earnest, loyal Fridaymen had been wiped out to the last man was too much for them to bear. Their despair darkened their emotions but also stimulated their wills!
Their inability to pass through the quagmire that the enemy had formed around them was the reason why the battle had remained static for so long.
They could have prevented the tragedy from happening if they fought harder and got rid of their opponents faster!
There was no medicine for regret. Only vengeance was able to soothe their guilt!
The axeman mech and the hybrid mech wielding a staff both stormed forward, using their ferocity to blow open a hole through the enemy ranks!
Even though they fought admirably, their valiant performance also attracted a lot of enemy fire.
The Transcendent Punishers trained their fire onto the two Fridayman expert mechs! The constant barrage of gauss rounds and positron beams took a great toll on the resonance shields. The confrontation directly pitted the willpower of the vengeful of the expert pilots against the indomitable firepower of the surviving artillery mechs of the Larkinson Clan!
More artillery fire rippled onto the other expert mechs as well. The Charlemagne, the Scarra and most notably the Jeanne D'Arc came under heavy fire.
The expeditionary forces wanted to stop the enemy expert mechs from advancing at all costs!
At this point in the battle, the efficiency of the Transcendent Punishers had declined. Their weapons had fired hundreds of times in a very short period of time. This generated a lot of heat that turned the entire bunker into an oven. The weapon systems had endured continuous stresses, causing them to reach their breakdown thresholds. Without immediate servicing and cooling, the Ylvainan mech pilots did not dare to fire their weapons too frequently.
Even so, well over 250 Transcendent Punishers still remained active. The other Larkinson heavy artillery mechs had either been smashed by counter battery fire, suffered retaliation from the surviving ranged mechs of Destiny Hammers and Witch Slayers or had become crippled as their weapon systems failed.
The continuous bombardment soon resulted in the demolition of another Scarra mech. Only 9 of them were left!
"I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU LONG ENOUGH!" Venerable Ghanso roared, his rage and will echoing throughout the battlefield!
Seeing that opposition closer to the expert mechs were being handled by his fellow battle partners, Ghanso directed the rifles of his Charlemagne and all of his surviving Scarra towards the red-coated starships in the distance.
Bright white positron beams surrounded by a pale yellow glow precisely struck 10 different bunkers at the same time!
The resonance-empowered attacks drilled straight through the tough roofs of the bunkers and retained enough power to inflict heavy blows on the heavy artillery mechs taking shelter inside!
Even if the attack hadn't destroyed the sturdy Transcendent Punishers, the attacks definitely took them out of the fight due to the excess heat and energy that overwhelmed their frames!
Venerable Ghanso did not waste his time and energy on finishing the job. The still-active Transcendent Punishers had become incredibly riled up! They struck the Scarra mechs with a vengeance, demolishing one after the other with concentrated fury!
The exchange of fire turned all of the space between the two sides into a no-go zone. The Ulver Quinn, the Prava Lonestar, the Jeanne D'Arc as well as the other two surviving expert mechs all formed a protective circle around Venerable Ghanso's mech.
The remaining Fridayman expert mechs forcefully drove their formation, letting no enemy bar their way forward!
The exhausted and diminished Glory Seeker and Crosser mechs no longer had the power or numbers to put up an adequate fight!
The entire will of the Friday Coalition and the states who opposed the hegemony of the Hexers had gathered around the expert mechs!
As this dangerous group advanced, the expeditionary forces incurred great casualties, yet managed to get their hits in as well.
The Ulver Quinn and the Prava Lonestar served as the vanguard and suffered the brunt of all of the frontal attacks.
The exchange of fire between the Transcendent Punishers and the Scarra mechs went unabated. Despite Venerable Ghanso's best efforts, his final Scarra mech eventually collapsed.
In contrast, over 180 Transcendent Punishers still remained battle effective, if only barely!
The aberrant Larkinson did not seem too saddened by the loss. The Scarra were expendable mechs from the start. It was not a waste to trade them away for an opportunity to advance forward.
Besides, the pseudo-expert mechs had almost run out of energy. Their energy reserves were considerably less extensive than the Charlemagne, which still had plenty of power left to support this final attack run.
Venerable Ghanso felt incredibly liberated at this moment. His connection with the Charlemagne soared as his mind no longer became burdened by any additional connections.
Unfortunately, the artillery attacks that slammed against his expert mech's resonance shield ruined this pleasurable moment!
Without any vulnerable targets left, the Transcendent Punishers directed their fire on the Charlemagne. With the other expert mechs including the powerful Jeanne D'Arc occupied with fending off the enemies that sought to stop them in their tracks, the Charlemagne would soon exhaust all of its defenses!
No matter how much firepower the Charlemagne possessed, it was impossible for it to eliminate all of the artillery mechs by itself. It had to expend too much energy to drill through all of the bunkers and inflict enough damage to take down an undamaged heavy mech.
"We need more mechs!"
The Fridayman expert mechs managed to advance both forward and downwards until they reached the edge of the battlefield where the remnants of the Holvein Grenadiers, the Bloody Herons, the Silent Swords and the Corundian Giants were putting up a valiant fight.
Despite their final outburst of power, there were too many Larkinson, Glory Seeker and Crosser mechs preventing them from linking up with their expert mechs.
The 180 Valkyrie Redeemers that previously unleashed the death attack that changed everything were also putting up a fight.
While the mentally-exhausted Penitent Sisters no longer had the strength to fight an intensive battle, they forced themselves to stay. With permission from Major Verle, their piloting suits injected a potent stimulant in their bloodstream that forcibly stimulated their brains and temporarily shook away some of their fatigue.
While this drug would definitely cause the female mech pilots to crash after a short time, this was but a small price to pay for continuing to contribute to the battlefield!
Their Valkyrie Redeemers fired their pulse submachine guns in the direction of any enemy within reach. This was the most they were able to accomplish. Even though their firepower was weak and scattered, every attack counted.
Not even the space knight empowered by forced resonance was able to change the result! The recently-advanced Bloody Heron expert candidate still possessed a lot of power, but three prime mechs had come together to stifle his options!
"Too much power, not enough skill!" Venerable Orfan taunted as her dimly-glowing Bright Spear Prime pressured the space knight from the front.
After several costly exchanges of blows, the former Vandal Commander finally figured out her opponent's fighting style. She no longer allowed her prime mech to get hit by the resonance blade.
Even though her cautious approach lessened the pressure onto the glowing space knight, the Valkyrie Prime had come to lend a hand!
Throughout the entire clash, the Valkyrie Prime's pupil precisely analysed the entire frame of the rampaging space knight.
Forced resonance was a violent process. The mech that became empowered by it always strained their physical components beyond their limits, thereby introducing hundreds of hidden dangers!
While it wasn't easy to identify the majority of them, the Odineye continually relayed a lot of information back to the analysts on the fleet.
A vengeful Gloriana personally analyzed the data and quickly marked out all of the weak points.
The Bloody Heron mech's resonance shield finally broke after blocking another attack from the Bright Spear Prime.
"A chance!"
Venerable Joshua moved into action as the space knight was just recovering from another attack.
The Valkyrie Prime soared forward and jabbed its spear through the shield arm of the space knight.
A second later, the Bright Spear Prime stabbed the partially-crippled space knight through a weak point on its abdomen, causing it to freeze!
"Tusa!"
"I'm already on my way!"
The Piranha Prime stabbed its daggers through the upper back of the space knight! According to the fleet network, Venerable Tusa had managed to pierce through a pair of crucial power lines that were each responsible for keeping the flight system fed with energy.
Now that those lines were cut, the backup lines no longer supplied enough juice for the mech to fly and maneuver at its fullest extent!
The touch and heavy space knight instantly slowed down. No amount of forced resonance amplification was enough to turn the thick and sluggish mech into a ballerina.
Subsequent attacks completely disabled the exposed flight system, causing the mech to lose almost all of its mobility in space. It had turned into a useless mech!
"No!"
Without the obstruction of this anomalous machine, the fate of the remaining elite Fridayman mechs was sealed!
However, the enemy expert mechs had something different in mind!
The Ulver Quinn raised its axe in a heroic fashion before chopping it down, unleashing a vertical resonance wave that slammed into the Bright Spear Prime and caused it to crumble away!
"Ahhh!" Venerable Orfan cried!
Even though its Unending alloy exterior remained intact, its prime resonance state had completely collapsed as all of the spare spiritual energy inside had been depleted.
The Piranha Prime and the Valkyrie Prime barely evaded the other attacks!