Chapter 2661: Pinning Enemies
The Charlemagne and his Scarra posed a very great threat on the battlefield, yet they were not without their flaws.
One of the greatest shortcomings of the quasi-expert mechs controlled by Venerable Ghanso was that they were very fragile against other expert mechs.
Right now, the threatening Leskin had just drawn away the Jeanne D'Arc, thereby depriving the Scarra of their bodyguard.
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This allowed the Star Dancer to pick off the Scarra with powerful shots.
Of course, Venerable Ghanso should have been able to shoot down the opposing rifleman mech a while ago. Yet he had been unable to get rid of this annoyance because there were too many flies getting in the way of his attacks!
The Glory Seekers mech pilots did not hesitate to put their lives on the line by using their mechs as shields! Even though the mechs blew up right after, they succeeded in blocking or mitigating the incoming resonance-empowered beams!
More Glory Seeker mechs began to divert their attention to Unit L. Every Hexer loathed Venerable Ghanso Larkinson. Even though he was kin to the famed Ves Larkinson, Ghanso had too much Hexer blood on his hands!
"Die, Hexer slayer!"
"We will never let you kill more Hexers after today!"
Even though the Glory Seeker preoccupation reduced the pressure on the other expert mechs, their combined efforts made life very difficult for Venerable Ghanso!
"Fine!" He shouted. "If you want to fight me so bad, then so be it! I'll kill all of you before I come for Ves!"
The Charlemagne and its entourage stopped focusing on the elusive Star Dancer and instead shot at every enemy standard mech in Ghanso's sights!
His killing efficiency increased due to two reasons. As the Scarra slowly reduced in numbers, Venerable Ghanso experienced less of a burden in controlling the remaining quasi-expert mechs. He also didn't have to employ full-power attacks to take down most standard mechs, thereby enabling him to adopt a higher rate of fire!
Venerable Brutus tried his best to wipe out the Scarra as fast as possible in order to render Unit L toothless, but Venerable Ghanso purposefully moved his mech over to the other beleaguered Fridayman expert mechs.
With more and more of the enemy expert mechs joining forces, it became a lot more difficult to take them all down! Mechs blew apart at a faster rate than before.
Even though the resonance shields of some of the expert mechs had already popped, their super-hard armor still granted them plenty of damage resistance against most attacks, especially lighter ones.
Colonel Ariadne Wodin began to grow increasingly more concerned. The enemy expert mechs weren't weakening fast enough. The Glory Seekers and the Crossers were losing their mechs at a prodigious rate, causing the enemy to experience less pressure over time.
While the fight against the enemy expert mechs was very tragic for the Golden Skull Alliance, the confrontation against the elite mech units wasn't going well either!
While the Transcendent Punishers succeeded in crippling the Holvein Grenadiers, they hadn't been able to direct their firepower elsewhere.
The Corundian Giants, the Bloody Herons, the Silent Swords and other less-famed units successfully advanced while only suffering light to moderate attacks.
At this time, the Bloody Herons took the lead. As soon as they were about to clash against their opposition, the Fridayman mech pilots all melded their minds together into a neural network!
"Fight for the Coalition!"
The Bloody Heron mechs soon changed in character. Their formations became a lot tighter and their coordination abruptly increased.
"Damn! The Herons are getting serious now!"
The moment the Bloody Heron mechs collided against the Avatars of Myth, the latter failed to withstand the pressure!
The Tamris Stellars that the Avatars relied upon to greet the initial push completely failed to delay the Bloody Heron mechs! The enemy machines either combined their attacks to circumvent or break the shields of the commercial space knights without too much effort!
The Princess Jeckas that swept forward in order to threaten the enemy melee mechs were unable to hold them back either! Their relatively weak strength made it very difficult for their swords to penetrate the armor of the Bloody Heron mechs.
Instead, their cheap frames quickly succumbed as the Bloody Herons worked in unison, always opting to launch simultaneous attacks from multiple directions with impeccable timing!
Commander Melkor was on the verge of panicking. Even if he managed to land a lot of hits onto the Bloody Herons, the rifle of his Vima Sun was simply too weak to achieve instant results.
"Pull back and Condense your lines! Help is coming!"
The Avatars were never meant to defeat the Bloody Herons. The Larkinsons were merely supposed to keep the Fridaymen occupied, but Melkor had miscalculated how well their current foes were able to defeat his men with so much ease.
Fortunately, reinforcements arrived quickly.
"Death from above!"
250 Valkyrie Interceptors and 250 Valkyrie Hurricanes swooped down from above!
The third eyes on their foreheads shone before shining hundreds of beams onto the mechs of the Bloody Herons.
The Fridaymen mech pilots couldn't help but pause. While their strange mind state left them much less susceptible to the glow of the Valkyrie mechs, just the physical charge alone posed a significant threat to them because they were outnumbered by more than 2-to-1!
It was at this time that the Silent Swords shot forward! The elite swordsman mech unit weren't supposed to be deployed so early, but the threat posed by the Valkyrie mechs were far too potent.
The Silent Swords were unquestionably superior in melee combat. The Konsu mech pilots possessed minds of steel and a mastery in swordsmanship that most Hexers could only dream of. This combination made them exceptionally suited to confront the Valkyrie mechs!
The Glory Seekers made the difficult decision to abort their charge. Instead, their Valkyrie mechs arced away while strafing the Bloody Herons and Silent Swords with their pulse submachine guns. Their guns inflicted light damage onto the enemy mechs, but the advantage of the weapons was that the Valkyrie mechs could keep firing without worrying about any limitations for quite some time!
The Glory Seekers opted to pressure the Silent Swords with their strafing runs in order to keep them occupied.
Additional mechs surged forth in order to pin down the Fridayman elites. The Cross Clan's mainstay mechs took over the position of the Avatars of Myth and adequately kept the Bloody Herons and the Silent Swords contained, if only for some time.
There were still too many threats! The Friday Coalition had brought thousands of more mechs, each of which needed to be contained. The Glory Seekers and the Crossers were spreading themselves thin in order to block the elite Fridayman mechs from advancing forward, but they were already reaching their limits!
The Avatars, Battle Criers and Vandals had been relegated to helping from the side. This was the only way to prevent them from losing their budget mechs too quickly, but they were only able to play a marginal role in this clash.
"Damn! Our allies won't be able to hold on!" Melkor cursed.
While the disparity in quality between the two sides wasn't as great now that the Larkinson mechs had made way, the numbers weren't in their favor.
If the Larkinson mechs weren't able to make the difference, then the Fridaymen mechs would eventually be able to gain an unstoppable advantage!
"We need more help!"
The Larkinson Clan still had several cards left to play.
"Larkinsons! Hold steady!"
The first prime mech had entered the fray!
"Vandals!" Venerable Orfan called as her Bright Spear Prime shone like a flame as she advanced! "Advance with my spear!"
The Flagrant Vandal mech pilots swelled with battle intent as the glow of the Bright Spear Prime enveloped them. Both Qilanxo and the Golden Cat lent their presence to the mech, causing it to turn into a beacon of hope that infused some much-needed courage in their hearts!
"Fight like a Vandal! Don't clash head-on against these Fridayman mechs. Harass them from their flanks and annoy them as much as possible. Take what is ours!"
"Take what is ours!" The invigorated Vandal mech pilots proudly echoed!
Under Venerable Orfan's lead, the Flagrant Vandals turned into a bunch of scumbags who never gave the Fridaymen an opportunity to confront them in a fair fight.
The Vandals circled around and raked the flanks of the Bloody Herons. Even though the latter was always able to respond perfectly to the attack runs due to their extensive coordination, not a single Bloody Heron mech was able to match the Bright Spear Prime in battle!
Even though the spearman mech fell far short of an actual expert mech, the huge amount of pressure it exerted made it very difficult for any human to stay close in its presence.
The heavy glow of the Bright Spear Prime pressured the Fridayman mech pilots to such an extent in close range that they were practically forced out of the neural network!
Once the individual Bloody Heron mechs in front of the Bright Spear Prime became isolated, their mech pilots couldn't adjust to the changes fast enough to make the right responses.
With Venerable Orfan's superior skill along with the strength of a prime mech derived from the unfinished Bright Warrior Version B design, she quickly felled half-a-dozen enemy mechs in quick succession!
The Bloody Herons instantly recognized the threat she posed. What one mech pilot knew, all of the mech pilots knew.
Their ranged mechs no longer exchanged fire with other ranged mechs and instead concentrated their fire on the Bright Spear Prime.
The Fridaymen judged that the strange mech that exhibited a different form of false resonance was a high priority target. Taking it down not only deprived the Larkinson Clan of a champion, but also damaged their morale!
The weak resonance shield around the Bright Spear Prime quickly popped as a torrent of energy beams and gauss rounds flooded in its direction!
"Hahaha!"
While Venerable Orfan employed evasive maneuvers, she did not pull her mech back. Instead, she allowed her mech to continually get hit by her opponents.
To the surprise of both sides, the Bright Spear Prime largely remained intact!
While some vulnerable surface components and other parts were compromised, much of the armor plating did no suffer a single scratch!
The Unending alloy cladding much of the mech had successfully fended off the incoming attacks!
"Hahaha! Is that all you got? Shoot at me some more!"
The Bloody Herons collectively analyzed the result of their attacks and soon made some adjustments.
The Fridayman rifleman mechs no longer wasted time on the odd prime mech. Instead, they went back to pressuring other mechs.
It only took a few seconds before attacks fired from the rear of the Fridayman forces impacted the Bright Spear Prime instead!
No energy weapons struck the prime mech. Instead, gauss rounds of a heavier caliber than before slammed into the spearman mech and rammed it backwards.
"Hey! Who the hell shot me this time?!"
The cannoneer mechs of the Corundian Giants had taken over the task of suppressing the Bright Spear Prime!
After proving the viability of this tactic, the cannoneer mechs mounted on the backs of space knights fired their primary armaments at an alternating pattern.
Every half-second, at least one kinetic round slammed into the indestructible chest of Venerable Orfan's mech. While the mech still remained as whole as ever, the mech was constantly being pushed back meter by meter!
"What gives! Let me fight already!"
Venerable Orfan became more and more frustrated as all of the power she had at her disposal wasn't able to prevent her prime mech from getting pushed back again and again.
The Fridaymen did not let up. The Corundian Giants allocated a considerable amount of firepower to suppress this potentially destabilizing factor.
Unfortunately for them, the Bright Spear Prime wasn't the only prime mech on the battlefield.
The Corundian Giants detected an approaching energy signature. Their mech pilots initially dismissed the incoming mech because it was only a light mech that was probably scouting forward. The light mech even circled around and kept a respectable distance from every Fridayman mech.
That was until it turned around and advanced rapidly towards the Corundian Giants. It accelerated thirty percent faster, causing it to build up its speed faster!
Some of the combination mechs of the Corundian Giants turned around and fired at the approaching light mech.
Predictably, the light mech easily evaded the attacks.
The Corundian Giants weren't worried. When the light mech came close, the cannoneer mechs suddenly shot out simultaneous blasts of fracturing projectiles!
Like shotguns, the cannons turned the entire area around their target into a lethal zone against any lightly-armored mech!
Unfortunately, the Fridaymen miscalculated again! The light mech possessed a resonance shield as well! Even though it only blocks a portion of the attacks, the remainder bounced harmlessly off its thin Unending armor plates without severely slowing the machine down.
The lone Piranha Prime rapidly entered the middle of the enemy formation! The surrounding combination mechs instantly froze or slowed down for a moment as their mech pilots came under the effect of a crippling glow!
"You're too slow!" Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson crowed as the daggers of his Piranha Prime stabbed into the vulnerable back of a cannoneer mech!