The Mech Touch

Chapter 2677: Heating Up

While the enormous confrontation on the left side of the battlefield neared its conclusion, the high-stakes clash at the right side was also reaching a critical condition!

When the Jeanne DʼArc piloted by Venerable Relia Foster rammed her blade through the cockpit of the Leskin, the remaining three Crosser expert pilots had become maddened with rage!

The Bolvos Rage pilot turned into a veritable demon in battle! The advanced hybrid mech continually pressured its opponents by chopping them with its axe while at the same time peppering them with its other weapon hardpoints.

”WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOUR TREACHERY!” Patriarch Reginald Cross boomed as the blade of his glowing axe crashed into the side of the Imperial Verdict!

Normally, the melee mech should have been able to evade or block the attack with its trident, but Venerable Albert Praetor had fallen into a trap that caused one of the arms of his Imperial Verdict to be grappled by a chainsword!

The Amphis was an unusual expert mech. It was a fairly typical space knight with strong defense and low offensive compared to other expert mechs. The secondary laser shoulder mounts might threaten a standard mech, but their accurate firepower merely tickled the armor of its current opponents.

However, the expert space knight possessed one powerful feature that caused it to become a mech to be reckoned with. When paired with the unique strengths of Venerable Linda Cross, the mech gained an unnaturally heavy quality.

Her unique domain appeared to be related to gravity, mass or momentum. In other words, every resonance-empowered move made by her mech made it seem as if it had twice the mass!

Yet despite this added heaviness, the Amphis still retained the mobility characteristics of a medium mech!

In combination, this caused the unusual expert space knight to become a terror to fight against at close range. A normal attack that could easily be blocked could easily turn into an unstoppable blow that could breach the chest armor of an expert mech!

For this reason, none of the three opposing expert pilots wanted to enter into a contest of strength against the Amphis. It took several times more effort to block a casual blow from Venerable Linda Cross!

This was why the battle between the six powerful expert mechs was a constant moving affair.

The Amphis constantly chased after the Erin Tear, the Trost and the Imperial Verdict as if it was a machine that heralded their doom!

In the meantime, the Bolvos Rage and the Conavis Mer piloted by Venerable Imaris Cross did everything in their power to constrain the movements of the Imperial Verdict.

The two swifter Crosser expert mechs did not have to fight the Imperial Verdict to a standstill. It was already enough to slow down the trident mech so that the Amphis could catch up and attempt to use its strength to achieve greater advantages.

Yet even as the Praetor and Planat expert mechs kept their distance, they did not forget about punching back.

After they learned the hard way that the Amphis was much more difficult to deal with than anticipated, they abandoned their initial intentions and focused their efforts on the Conavis Mer instead.

The expert light skirmisher might be fast and incredibly difficult to attack, but it possessed the lowest defense out of all of the expert mechs. As long as the Praetors and Planats could land one solid attack, the Conavis Mer would definitely be impaired!

A light skirmisher must never get hit! If Venerable Imaris Cross had his way, then he would keep his mech in the periphery and exert pressure by his presence alone.

Every opponent feared getting stabbed in the back while they were preoccupied with another action! Just the existence of the threat alone was enough to constrain someoneʼs behavior.

Yet the situation right now did not allow for the Conavis Mer to remain passive. If the light skirmisher did not take risks and become proactive, then Venerable Damira Planat and her two Praetor peers would just ignore its existence and focus on the Bolvos Rage!

While Patriarch Reginald Cross was arguably the most powerful expert of the six, he was only able to draw even on the Erin Tear. If the other two enemy expert mechs ganged up on the Bolvos Rage as well, then the situation would quickly run out of control!

Fortunately, the Crossers managed to achieve a breakthrough in the tenuous stalemate!

After launching a trap on the Imperial Verdict, the Bolvos Rage managed to land a direct attack on the Imperial Verdictʼs chest!

The powerful axe blow dug a trench into the side of the trident mech. At the same time, the Bolvos Rageʼs chest projector unleashed a powerful beam that struck the head of the enemy expert mech, destroying numerous sensors and other secondary systems!

”YOUʼLL PAY FOR THAT REGINALD!”

With one arm trapped by the chainsword launched by the Amphis, the Imperial Verdict was still unable to retaliate properly. It was as if its opponents had tied it to an anchor that kept it just out of reach against the Bolvos Rage!

Venerable Albert Praetor knew the situation was critical. It was highly unlikely for his Imperial Verdict to wriggle away from its current bonds. The Erin Tear and the Trost were already coming to save him, but they were not in a position to do so at this time!

He decided to make an extreme decision. The expert pilot decisively activated an emergency command through the man-machine connection.

The instruction he issued was so drastic that a mental command was not enough for his expert mech to accept it. He had to reach out his physical hand and input a code on a console in front of his piloting seat.

Just to be certain that his mech would register his intentions, he also voiced his command!

”Detach and eject the right arm!”

The shoulder of the Imperial Verdict explosively cut off and pushed away its trapped limb! The decisive decision briefly caught Patriarch Reginald and the other two Crosser expert pilots off-guard.

This was because the ejected limb just happened to be the main arm that gripped the trident!

Venerable Albert was already making his next move. The Imperial Verdictʼs other arm did not draw a dagger from a hidden pocket or anything. His enemies would not allow such a sequence of moves to play out. The Bolvos Rage was already coming around to swing its axe a second time!

Since time was short, Albert pulled off a secret move without hesitation. The half-crippled mech burst closer to the Bolvos Rage while ramming its elbow against the hybrid mech!

Just before impact, a sharp blade extended out of the elbow, causing it to pierce through the Bolvos Rageʼs energy projector at the chest a bit faster than expected!

Patriarch Reginald had been too overconfident! He drove his Bolvos Rage to attack the Imperial Verdict at close range. That left it open to retaliation by a mech that was designed to excel at melee combat!

The two mechs quickly separated from each other.

The Imperial Verdict may have succeeded in landing a return blow, but its combat efficiency had dropped! The damage to its sides was considerable. Already, the mech was losing some power as well as a bit of other functionality.

Even though the mech had taken the time to withdraw a long dagger, the Crosser expert mechs were already focusing on their next target!

The Erin Tear came under heavy pressure. The weapon master mech constantly morphed its transformable weapon in order to cope with the combined attacks of the Bolvos Rage and the Conavis Mer.

The destruction of the chest projector severely curtailed the Bolvos Rageʼs threat level. While its other secondary weapon systems were able to damage and dent the Erin Tearʼs exterior, their penetration power was too low against a high-tier expert mech!

Venerable Damira Planat therefore opted to absorb the punishment and inflict as much damage as possible. The Erin Tear slammed its twin axes against the single axe wielded by the Bolvos Rage.

A small repeating plasma projector constantly sprayed the Erin Tear with hot matter, but its powerful armor did an admirable job of resisting the damage!

The Erin Tear quickly morphed its twin axes into a scythe that suddenly managed to hook onto the rear of the Bolvos Rage and carve out a chunk of its flight system!

The Bolvos Rage was not agile enough to keep up with the Erin Tearʼs movements! In his rage, Patriarch Reginald boldly instructed his expert mech to lean forward and hug the Erin Tear with its arms!

”Imaris! Do it now!”

The Conavis Mer had already recognized the opportunity beforehand and dove into the exposed rear of the Erin Tear without any hesitation!

However, before the light skirmisher could finish its attack run, the other two enemy expert mechs did not sit back!

The Imperial Verdict activated all of its boosters and overloaded its flight system at once, causing it to rocket forward under a very powerful impulse!

This forced the Conavis Mer to abort its attack run. If it did not alter its course, then it would collide head-on against an enemy mech at an unfavorable angle.

Yet this was what the Trost had been waiting for. The hybrid mech piloted by Kelvin Praetor had been biding its time. When the Conavis Mer was about to dodge exactly in the direction that Kelvin anticipated, his expert hybrid mech had come close enough to unleash a huge blast of flames from its wrists!

The Trost had been accumulating this attack for at least a dozen seconds! The flames it spurted out was not only hot enough to melt the weapon components just a few seconds later, but was also amplified with as much will and true resonance that Kelvin was able to muster for a single attack!

He invested a lot of resources in this attempt. The Trost had concentrated the flames so that they managed to reach much further than normal while still maintaining enough power to threaten any expert mech!

Kelvinʼs gamble paid off. The concentrated flame blast successfully hit the Conavis Mer, inflicting heavy damage onto the lightly-armored expert mech!

”What?!”

Venerable Imaris Cross was utterly surprised that the Praetors had managed to predict his moves.

Even more astonishing was that the angle of the Trost meant that any attack that hit the Conavis Mer would also hit the Imperial Verdict. This was why Imaris was certain that the Trost would not attack the Conavis Mer at this instant.

Indeed, just as the Conavis Mer lost its critical flight system due to the flames, the Imperial Verdict was not that much better off either. The mechʼs surface had already started to melt, thereby ruining its previous valiant appearance.

Both mechs ejected their cockpits. Venerable Imaris and Venerable Albert had no choice!

”ALBERT!”

The Amphis launched its chainsword at the Trost and succeeded in landing a glancing blow on the hybrid mech. However, Venerable Kelvin Praetor was not concerned about the damage.

What he was actually worried about was the retaliation from the Bolvos Rage!

The more powerful hybrid mech was hugging the Erin Tear with its heavy limbs, preventing the weapon master mech from getting free!

”I wonʼt let you win, Damira!” Reginald roared.

Even though the Bolvos Rage had lost its powerful chest projector, it still had other trump cards in store. An armor panel on the mechʼs crotch blasted away, exposing a hidden weapon port in a rather unconventional location!

A concentrated positron beam shot out from the underside of the Bolvos Rage and hit the lower waist of the Erin Tear!

Even though the attack was not that massive, the attack was continuous. The beam kept burning its way through the Erin Tearʼs exterior while also heating it up. Soon enough, the beam managed to reach into the internals and inflict major damage!

Venerable Damira Planat knew the situation was crucial. The Erin Tear lacked the leverage to free itself from the Bolvos Rageʼs embrace, so she didnʼt try to wrench her expert mech free.

Instead, it morphed itʼs adaptable weapon into a drill-like implement before pressing the tip of it into the Bolvos Rageʼs rear at a tricky angle!

The powerful drill came to life and steadily dug its way into the Bolvos Rage until it approached the mechʼs power reactor.

The two expert mechs employed other weapon systems and tricks, but they both lost functionality at the same time.

”DAMNIT!” Patriarch Reginald slammed his fists against the consoles of the cockpit in his rage!

Venerable Damira Planat was similarly upset!

It was incredibly frustrating for them to be unable to finish the job and kill their respective opponents!