Chapter 3291: Open Targets
In the later stage of the battle, the balance had shifted decisively in the favor of the Golden Skull Alliance.
After losing numerous comrades, the dwarven expert pilots endured one setback after another. During the time when the warnet was taken down, the enemy expert mechs received no backup and little support from other friendly dwarves.
Certainly, several nearby dwarven mechs attempted to come to the rescue of their heroes and use their own frames as a barrier against the deadly firepower of the Amaranto, but it was all in vain.
Even though these hindrances gave Venerable Stark a bit of trouble, it was nothing that she could handle. She just slowed down her firing rate and took more time to resonante and charge her powerful weapon. The bright and powerful beam it fired when the crystal gun had accumulated a significant amount of energy was so unreasonably powerful that it was easily capable of punching through most mechs while still retaining enough power to damage another machine!
Throughout her one-sided firing spree, Venerable Stark kept the Amaranto's weapon in its kinetic beam setting.
She found it to work most effectively in dealing significant structural damage to the more vulnerable components of the dwarven expert mechs.
The laser and positron beam mode were not good at inflicting a large amount of immediate damage. The slicer beam mode excelled in penetration, but much of its energy was concentrated far too narrowly for Stark's liking.
The kinetic beam was different. It was a beam that hit like a solid slug. Its penetration characteristics were rather moderate but as long as it struck anything vulnerable like the components of a flight system, a lot of kinetic energy transferred over and shattered many other components besides the elements that had been directly struck by the beam.
It was the perfect beam type to cripple the flight systems of enemy expert mechs!
While other ranged expert mechs such as the ones deployed by the Slug Rangers were only able to fire their projectiles straight forward, the beauty of the Amaranto was that it was not confined to a single firing angle.
The Opticonium that Master Willix had integrated into the luminar crystal rifle was finally showing its value as Venerable Stark actively resonated with it for the first time.
Although it cost Venerable Stark a fair amount of energy and time to activate the Beam Bending resonance ability, it was worth it every time.
Soon enough, the Amaranto had single-handedly changed the outcome of the fight between the Riot and its three attackers.
Venerable Orfan grinned and laughed at the pathetic state of her opponents!
"Hahahaha! Look at you now! Your stumpy wings have all been clipped! How does it feel to pilot a crippled mech? Oh, are you angry, shorty? Then come at me if you can! Just don't take too long. I don't have all day to exchange blows with your slow-as-snails mech!"
In a battle environment with no solid land or surface anywhere in the immediate surroundings, any reduction in flight capabilities was highly impactful.
Spaceborn expert mechs usually boasted superior mobility for that reason. Aside from heavy mechs such as the Bashravar, every other expert mech was capable of keeping up with other fast mechs or moving quickly from one side of the battlefield to another side.
Yet now that Venerable Stark dealt with the three Molten Hammer mechs, the frustrated dwarven mech pilots could do nothing as their heavily damaged prey steadily flew back to the Larkinson fleet without fearing any further reprisal.
An escort of friendly space knights even covered its back so that enemy artillery mechs wouldn't be able to exacerbate the wounds of the Riots!
The Trementine, Bashravar and Firemason fell into a similar predicament to the one that Lucky was suffering from. Though the expert mechs still retained limited flight capabilities, what little they had left was not adequate enough to pose a threat to the human expert mechs!
The sight of these three impotent expert mechs looking ready to attack an opponent but unable to move fast enough to get close to any of them was downright surreal!
The Larkinsons and their allies laughed at the sight. Their confidence boosted even further when they saw that the Amaranto had effectively neutralized three powerful expert mechs including the fearsome Bashravar!
The latter's reinforced flight system withstood a lot more damage than the other targets, but the Amaranto's firepower was simply too much.
It performed exactly as Ves envisioned. Though his body felt weak and Blinky had practically turned comatose due to channeling so much Worclaw energy, he was incredibly pleased to see that his work was finally performing well in the circumstances where its value was the greatest.
He had long imagined how much impact an expert rifleman mech could have when it was designed with extreme firepower in mind. The earlier situation where Venerable Stark had to keep her expert mech alive while being hounded by two dwarven expert mechs showcased the downsides of his design choices.
Now that the Amaranto was no longer suppressed, it finally had the opportunity to display its strengths, and it immediately made a difference!
The only other intact dwarven element that could stop the Amaranto from supporting other friendly expert mechs at a distance was the Gatecrasher.
The offensive space knight was one of the most effective counters of the Amaranto. The Gatecrasher's all-rounded defenses were still formidable even after getting battered by the Bolvos Rage, so whether it was attacked from the front or rear, a ranged expert mech would never be able to cripple it fast enough before the Gatecrasher had charged over!
However, when Venerable Orthox De Massie tried to disentangle his Gatecrasher from its current duel and charge over towards the enemy fleet, Patriarch Reginald Cross refused to let the old dwarf leave!
"You're mine!" He cried as his Bolvos Rage surged forward and swung its axe in a threatening motion that forced the Gatecrasher to cease its advance.
The Cross Patriarch was completely obsessed with beating the Gatecrasher! He did not allow other friendly units to interfere with his 'duel' and made sure that his opponent had no choice but to meet his challenge!
How could Venerable Orthox care about this stupid duel, though? Unlike Reginald who had completely lost sight of everything else, the old dwarf had constantly been paying attention to the progression of the battle. When he saw that it had taken a turn for the worse for the dwarves, the war hero realized that he needed to do something quickly or risk allowing the continuous setbacks to trigger an adverse chain reaction!
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" He roared as his Gatecrasher exploded with power!
The powerful expert space knight seemed to have found new strength and channeled most of it to its flight system! The Gatecrasher gained an instant boost of acceleration and was just about to fly out of the reach of the Bolvos Rage, only for the expert hybrid mech to get in the way while firing all of its weapons!
Patriarch Reginald was even willing to risk a collision in order to keep the Gatecrasher in place!
With the constant interference from the Bolvos Rage, Venerable Orthox was rendered with no other choice but to continue its duel.
His heart wasn't in it, though. His duty as a protector compelled him to do more for his comrades, and getting pinned down by this persistent but extremely difficult human expert mech was not doing his fellow Vulcanites any favors!
While this went on, the Amaranto proceeded to snipe the mechs attacking the First Sword.
The expert swordsman mech was in a better condition than the Riot. After Ketis and Sharpie had assisted it at a crucial time, the First Sword entered into the same stalemate against its opponents as before.
Venerable Dise wanted to do nothing more than to defeat the Paravad, Morko Mark II and the Domingo Daren, but her condition and the condition of her expert mech wasn't the best anymore.
The same applied to her opponents. All three dwarven bestial mechs incurred significant damage and their expert pilots had also strained their wills and energy to get to this point.
To Venerable Stark, the exhausted Hivar Roarer expert mechs had turned into sitting ducks!
Even before the Amaranto aimed its rifle at the right flank, the Paravad and Morko Mark II had already pulled back from the First Sword in order to beat a steady retreat.
The damaged Domingo Daren also attempted to pull back. However, it was in a sorrier state than the other expert mechs as its shell was incomplete!
Compared to the tough and hardy Molten Hammer expert mechs, the defensive capabilities of their Hivar Roarer counterparts did not impress Venerable Stark. She didn't even bother to employ the Beam Bending resonance ability this time.
"You're first."
The Amaranto fired a powerful kinetic beam that struck the Domingo Daren!
Though the expert turtle mech had cleverly oriented its relatively undamaged underside towards the Amaranto at an angle, the kinetic beam was not a solid projectile that could be bounced off with ease!
The bottom of the Domingo Daren was not as resilient as its top, so the kinetic beam managed to deliver a powerful impact that destroyed most of the layers that protected the expert mech's internals from damage.
To its credit, the Domingo Daren reacted quickly and changed its orientation to the side.
However, this did not deter Venerable Stark from attacking. The Amaranto fired a couple more shots, each of which smashed through different parts of the mech. Its gun ports, its underside and other vulnerable openings incurred serious damage to the point where the Domingo Daren eventually lost power and shut down!
Seeing that there was no hope left, the dwarven expert pilot ejected from the doomed expert mech. Venerable Stark let it go as she had already moved her sight to another target.
It took eight rapid shots and one powerful shot to cripple the Morko Mark II. The avian light skirmisher did not boast much armor to begin with and it was already damaged in previous bouts.
The reason why Venerable Stark had to fire that much was because the Morko Mark II was still fast and agile enough to evade most of her shots!
It was unfortunate that the avian expert mech's evasive parameters were not comparable to the Dark Zephyr. To someone that focused most of her efforts on increasing her accuracy and her ability to read her opponent's movements, the Morko Mark II might as well be a medium mech in her eyes!
The Paravad was a lot tricker for Venerable Stark to immobilize or disable.
Venerable Merek Bulfuron was the most skilled expert pilot among the Hivar Roarers and was able to confound Venerable Stark's aim by making unpredictable movements that were much more mature than what Venerable Tus was able to perform!
This was the benefit of greater skill and experience.
Still, no matter how much Venerable Merek pushed his evasion capabilities, it only took one failure to collapse his scheme!
After firing a steady cadence of shots, the Amaranto finally managed to nail the Paravad's flight system with another bent kinetic beam!
Though the Paravad had cleverly angled its bird frame so that its underside was facing the deadly ranged expert mech, Venerable Merek learned just like his other dwarven colleagues that his measure ultimately failed to stop the inevitable!
"No!"
The Paravad's loss of mobility made it a lot more vulnerable to follow-up shots, which was a fatal outcome to any mech that relied on evasion to stay alive!
As the proud expert mech of the Hivar Roarers was enduring continuous hits, Venerable Merek did not wait until the Paravad was close to falling apart. With a regretful sigh, he pulled the ejection lever as well.
Another dwarven expert pilot had been taken off the board!
"How many dwarven expert mechs are left?" Someone wondered.
In just a brief amount of time, the overbearing Amaranto had taken six more enemy expert mechs out of play!
This was such a shocking result that even the Larkinsons themselves were rendered speechless. The Amaranto seemed to be inexhaustibly lethal. Both its firepower and endurance had made a profound impression on both sides!
"So this is the might of a masterwork expert mech…"
General Kebrinore, who had largely been reduced to a spectator aboard his sabotaged flagship, could only shake his head as he learned of this result.
"Maybe… Vulcan is on their side after all." He whispered.
None of the dwarven officers around him possessed enough confidence to refute their superior's argument.