The Mech Touch

by welldarn

Just posting this here so I can listen to it while I'm at work. I obviously don't own this work. If you are looking for the previous 175 chapters look up the User: Srtyi.

42. Chapters 2251-2300

Chapter 2251 - Upgrading Ketis

Upgrading the gear of his student gave Ves a lot more reassurance about her survival in the upcoming exploration mission.

Ketis continually insisted on taking part, saying that she was completely unlike the lab nerds who were content to fiddle with designs all day.

As Ves deeply understood her need, he allowed her to take part in the risky mission despite his many misgivings.

Inwardly, he asked himself whether he would stay still if anything ever went amiss. If the Dry Snakes ever captured the Swordmaiden mech designer, Ves would certainly commit his entire task force to rescuing her no matter the cost.

If they managed to kill Ketis, then Ves did not even dare to think how he would react in such a situation!

Ketis noticed his inner struggle and placed her strong hand over his own. "You Larkinsons always say that we need to be courageous in seeking greater opportunities. What I'm doing is no different. I've also learned from you that we need to pay the price for our decisions. If anything happens to me… just take care of the Swordmaidens for me, will you? I love my sisters, and they deserve to pilot the mechs of their dreams. If I can't give them that, then I hope that you will do so in my stead."

She sounded as if she just heralded her own demise!

How could Ves possibly stay calm at this moment? Right now, his imagination ran wild with tragic images of her death or capture. As long as the Larkinsons made just a single mistake at Ulimo Citadel, there was nowhere for them to go! The tight security and nearly impenetrable wall of mech patrols meant that there was almost no chance of escape!

In an instant, Ves began to develop various different plans.

"I don't feel assured of your safety." He stated. "I'll tell Lucky to be on standby close to Ulimo. He'll give you a hand if you ever end up in trouble."

"Meow?" His cat looked puzzled at him from a nearby desk.

Ves pointed at his cat. "You're going, and that's that! If anything happens to the entire group Larkinsons entering Ulimo Citadel, don't bother with protecting them all. Just cover Ketis and make sure she survives long enough to escape. I'll tell Calabast to prepare her stealth shuttle and try and sneak it close to the base."

This was very risky as the Xona Stalkers might possess the ability to detect the stealthed vehicle. The entire point about dispatching Larkinsons in disguise was that it wouldn't trigger any suspicion from the Dry Snakes.

In order to keep the chances of detection at a minimum, the stealth shuttle had to be parked some distance away from Ulimo. This would delay Lucky's entry into Ulimo if an emergency ever took place.

Ves rubbed his chin and studied all of her gear. After integrating a bit of B-stone in her helmet, not even Ves could spiritually penetrate her head when he faced her head on. It was a different story if she stood on the deck above. The helmet didn't offer any protection against spiritual probes sent from below.

This was why he prioritized the acquisition of a lot more B-stones. In order to provide him with omni-directional protection, he needed to acquire enough materials to cover his entire body. Only by closing each and every possible port would he feel assured of his protection.

The scattered whispers about B-stone being sold on Ulimo was one of the reasons why he couldn't let it go. Though it wasn't relevant at the moment, Ves was pretty certain that he would need a lot of B-stone in the future. Against huge threats such as the Five Scrolls Compact, he did not feel confident that his own feeble Spirituality was enough to resist their sophisticated and bewildering spiritual tricks!

Speaking of spiritual tricks, Ves began to rub his smooth-shaven chin while he stared at Ketis with a thoughtful expression.

"What are you thinking about?" Ketis asked.

"I think I have a way of making you stronger. It's just that my measure is a bit experimental. I'm not sure if it's safe or helpful enough to make a difference in your upcoming mission."

His student grew curious. She sat down next to him at the workshop table that held all of her gear.

"You never think of something trivial, Ves. Tell me what you have in mind. I won't oppose any measure that can make me stronger."

He hesitated a bit. "Let's head somewhere more private. This workshop isn't secure enough."

They first moved to a nearby office before Ves changed his mind. He instead directed his group to Compartment G-13, which was the safest, most secure and most isolated section of the Scarlet Rose.

Along the way, he also paid a quick visit to the vault in order to retrieve a special P-stone.

Only Ves, Ketis, Lucky and Nitaa were present at the moment. After activating a jammer, not that it was needed, Ves felt fully assured that he could speak what he wanted.

"This is new." Ketis idly commented as she looked around.

The surprisingly-packed compartment was filled with automated industrial equipment and stacks of Breyer alloy bars. The forging machine rumbled as its insides burned with incredible heat as it burned Cassandra Breyer's corpse for the umteenth time in order to melt down another advanced escape pod.

Since he hadn't entered for some time, Ves took the time to perform a thorough spiritual check. He did not detect anything amiss. No matter the weirdness surrounding this old and undead spiritual sorceress, Ves did not believe she had the energy to spare to mess around with him once again!

He turned back to Ketis. "Before I introduce my idea, I'd like you to repeat your little trick with the butter knife. I need to study you closely when you perform this technique before I am sure about my suggestion."

"Okay..? I'll get tired if I do it too much, though."

"Just a few seconds is enough."

She had plenty of knives on her person. She pulled out one of her smaller ones from a hidden compartment in her boots and began to concentrate her mind.

The air around her seemed to grow sharper and more charged. Anyone who was spiritually sensitive would know that Ketis was trying to accomplish something exceptional!

Slowly but surely, a shimmering glow appeared over the sharp edge of her blade. While Ketis didn't cut anything, the threat that Ves was able to sense was no joke!

This time, Ves did not study the spiritual patterns that overlaid the knife. Instead, he directed his senses towards Ketis' mind.

Though she lacked a design seed, her active spiritual potential boiled with excitement. Several specific spiritual attributes related to sharpness, swords and other related aspects had become unusually active, though by and large her actions lacked form.

Ves developed some more theories as he observed her in action. He soon waved his hand, signalling her to drop her strenuous exertion.

She quickly loosened her concentration and pulled herself back in. Her little knife no longer held any special cutting power.

"Did you get what you want, Ves?"

"I did. Let me think for a moment."

He did not really possess a good understanding of the 'superpowers' that extraordinary individuals could perform. High-ranking mech designers and expert pilots were able to influence reality and the people around them in various ways.

Nonetheless, the way that Ketis excited her own potential seemed simple and straightforward. Ves grew a bit confident in his plan to strengthen her ability to call upon her cutting ability.

Still, he wasn't completely sure, and he hadn't performed enough experiments to say for sure.

"I've performed a lot of experiments recently." He started. "Many of them have to do with the mind. While I'm not incredibly familiar with this field, I think I know enough to improve your trick."

"Oh? Do tell, please!"

Ves grimaced. "It doesn't come without a cost, and I'm not sure whether it will work out the way I planned. If it works, you'll grow stronger. If it doesn't, you might sustain permanent brain damage. Are you sure you want me to proceed?"

"I trust you, Ves."

Those words made him feel warm. "Okay. It's like this. It's a bit complicated to explain and entails many different factors that you aren't supposed to know. I'll explain it as simply as possible. I think I can shape a part of your mind into a sword. This sword will capture some of the essence of your beliefs and principles, and you'll be able to use it to strengthen yourself, though how exactly that will play out, I have no idea."

She quickly grew interested. "That sounds really interesting!"

"Aren't you afraid?"

"You wouldn't bring something up if it isn't useful. From what I understand, you're basically telling me you can help me condense my sword intent!"

"Uhh… I don't know if it's accurate for you to view it that way."

"Let's find out, then!"

With her willingness to try out his suggestion, Ves hesitated no further.

Just before he concentrated, he halted for a moment.

"The mind sword I want to make needs to take on a specific shape. What kind of sword do you want to host in your mind?"

"Do you even need to ask? Take my greatsword as a model!"

She turned around and unsheathed her CFA greatsword from its scabbard. She laid it down on a pallet of Breyer alloy bars for him to examine.

Ves touched the hard and smooth surface of the blade. The alloys incorporated in the weapon were even harder to damage than Breyer alloy!

Though the weapon was just a lifeless sword, Ketis already treated it as her most cherished possession and her lifelong companion. Though Ves did not sense anything spiritual about the weapon, he believed the bond she shared with it was real.

"Hold out your hand."

In order to make his work easier, he placed one hand on the flat of the blade and gripped Ketis' fingers with his other hand.

He then proceeded to go to work. He concentrated his mind, causing him to acquire an intensity that Ketis had often seen from him when he worked at his hardest.

"Open your mind to me." He whispered. "It will hurt if you don't. Just think of welcoming me in the depths of your mind. The more you trust me, the less your mind will rebel from my presence."

One of his spiritual projections cautiously entered her mind. He hardly felt any rejection along the way. It seemed Ketis indeed trusted him a lot. Only Gloriana welcomed his presence with greater enthusiasm.

This made his subsequent steps so much easier. He cautiously began to approach her spiritual potential before deriving a minute portion of it to mold into a mind sword.

As he began to shape a literal part of her spirit, Ketis frowned and felt ill at ease.

"Don't resist! Try and endure it as much as possible."

"I'm trying."

It was deeply uncomfortable for anyone whose spirits underwent substantial changes. After half an hour's work, Ves completely reproduced a small portion of her spiritual potential into a facsimile of her favorite weapon.

In its current form, her prototype mind sword looked rather weak and feeble. In order to prevent it from collapsing, Ves quickly isolated a small portion of the spiritual attributes that Ketis drew upon when she performed her superpower and stuffed it into her mind sword.

The new spiritual augment gradually turned solid and cohesive. Already, Ketis widened her eyes as she sensed something remarkable forming in her mind!

Due to the relative weakness of her spiritual potential and the tiny size of her mind sword, the spiritual augment did not seem very potent.

It was difficult for Ves to draw upon more without seriously impairing his student's ability to design mechs or work with swords. He only drew just enough of her spiritual energy to create a stable construct. Potency and effectiveness did not come to mind at this moment.

He had a different solution in mind. He had arrived at the riskiest step of his plan. He directed his attention to the life stone that he placed by the side.

The life stone was nothing more than a P-stone that held a trace amount of life-attributed energy that he had derived from the high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum. It constantly swelled with vitality to the extremely high quality of the energy locked within.

The sheer potency of this life energy was enough to blow up someone's head! Ves still remembered what had happened when he recklessly inserted some of this incredibly powerful energy into Peter Seterin's mind.

The last thing Ves wanted to do was to repeat the outcome on Ketis!

Chapter 2252 - Mind Sword

Failure was the mother of success. Just because Ves accidentally exploded Peter Seterin's mind did not mean he intended to fail again this time!

The stakes were higher this time. Ves did not care a thing about the life of a former slave turned bad.

Ketis was different! Ves genuinely cared about her life and wellbeing.

So far, Ves learned many lessons from his human experimentations. Many of his captives suffered horribly from his callous spiritual manipulation.

Due to his penchant for limit testing, Ves often tended to pursue extremes, much to the detriment of his unfortunate test subjects.

He did not feel guilty for harming them, distorting them or killing them. To Ves, they were irredeemable pirates who deserved to die. At least this way they at least contributed back to society before they inevitably succ. .

His test subjects did not suffer in vain.

Ves gathered a huge amount of research data and discovered many new rules. He possessed a deeper understanding of various spiritual mechanisms.

Most importantly, by constantly exploring and breaking different boundaries, he became much better at judging how much he could get away with. As long as he did not go overboard, the risk of inflicting permanent damage was much less.

All of this research progress made him feel confident enough to proceed with his latest experiment.

Ketis was no test subject though. He treated her as his patient and client. This meant that he did not dare to act recklessly. Rather than exploring new horizons, Ves tried his best to stick to familiar ground.

This was not the time for him to engage in limit testing!

Though Ves had not executed this exact series of steps on someone else, Ves had already performed them in isolation plenty of times for him to feel somewhat confident about the outcome.

The only real uncertainty was that he never performed any spiritual manipulation to this degree on a mech designer. None of the test subjects that fell into his hands were mech designers, let alone Apprentices with notable spiritual potential and nascent design philosophies.

Nonetheless, at this stage, Ketis was not much different from an ordinary person with spiritual potential. Hers was just a bit more developed towards her interests and her design philosophy.

Perhaps the strongest measure of the confidence was the careful experimentations he made in his own mind. After forming various different spiritual augments in order to store as templates in his implant, he was certain that the mind sword would not inflict any harm.

That said, too much power was not necessarily a good thing. Right now, the mind sword was pathetically small and weak, so much so that Ketis barely noticed the difference.

This was why Ves wanted to feed and grow the mind sword. He wanted to accomplish this without harming her existing potential as a mech designer, so he could not draw out more of her spiritual energy than he had already done.

For that reason, he drew out a portion of the life-attributed energy stored in the P-stone placed at the side.

If he was experimenting on a pirate, then Ves wouldn't care too much about controlling the dose of energy. Any outcome was acceptable as long as he didn't squander it recklessly. Causing a few heads to explode was no big deal as long as he learned something different.

This time, Ves did not set out to learn anything new, so he carefully sliced away just a modest portion of high-quality life-attributed energy.

Even though the potency and activity of this diminished portion had dropped significantly, Ves learned enough not to underestimate its threat to people.

While Ves was able to handle it with care, too much energy was basically poison to someone much more spiritually weaker!

This was why Ves estimated a dose that was safe enough for Ketis to contain, and then cut it even further just to be safe.

When he checked to make sure the life-attributed energy he withdrew did not contain any surprises, he turned his attention to his patient.

"If you concentrate deeply, you should be able to sense the presence of a sword in your mind. Can you feel its sharpness?"

"I.. think so?" Ketis scrunched her face. "I sort of felt you rummaging in my mind. If I think hard enough, I think I can grasp an invisible sword."

"Keep sensing it, but don't try to activate it. Just get to know it better."

"This sword.. how is it supposed to help me, exactly?"

"It's mainly a tool to allow you to perform your superpower with greater ease, but aside from that I'm not too sure." Ves shook his head. "Before we begin, I think it is best for you to center your mind and think of your core ideals. Why do you pursue extreme sharpness? Why do you prefer to wield large swords?"

"Because they're the best at cutting powerful enemies. In mech combat, cutting an enemy mech apart with a single successful attack is much more worthwhile than slashing several times with a feebler sword. Bigger swords are not as quick and agile, but as long as you are skilled enough, you can overwhelm any opponent!"

"Not everyone agrees with that premise. In the mech community, there are many mech pilots and mech designers who believe that finesse is more important than power."

Ketis snorted with contempt. "They are mostly used to dueling against humans. None of them have faced off against an exobeast that weighs at least twenty times than their own bodies! If they have went through the Swordmaiden graduation ceremony like I have, they would have been gobbled up at an instant as their toothpicks is barely able to make a feral exobeast bleed!"

That was a very brutal image. The Swordmaiden's preference for bigger swords stemmed from their desire to challenge themselves against inhuman opponents. There were plenty of wild and untamed planets in the frontier that boasted many dangerous predators and beasts.

To challenge them in single combat and chop them apart was one of the greatest glories a Swordmaiden could earn!

Talking about her ideals and her ambition caused her mind to become more intimate with her mind sword. The spiritual augment seemed to resonate with her a bit. This was an important process, because the more she communicated with the mind sword, the closer the imaginary weapon conformed to her nature!

Unlike many of his other constructs, Ves tried something slightly novel and designed the spiritual construct in a way that offered plenty of room for growth. He wanted the mind sword to be able to grow alongside Ketis as she advanced and reached greater heights.

RIght now, Ves planned to kickstart the mind sword's growth by injecting the life-attributed energy into it. This was something very risky and could blow up the spiritual construct if it wasn't capable of absorbing so much juice.

In order to regulate the feeding process and to give him time to stop, he carefully fed just a trickle of life-attributed energy.

Just as he predicted, the mind sword did not reject the energy derived from the serum. It immediately grew in size and strength as it rapidly digested the universally-compatible energy.

"Ah! I feel as if you dumped something hot in my mind!" Ketis suddenly grabbed the side of her head.

"Hold on! Don't lose focus! Endure! I know you can do it, Ketis!"

Her willpower was not that much lower than those of expert candidates! Her capacity to live through pain and hardship was incredibly high due to her Swordmaiden heritage. She resolutely bore the drastic changes in her mind.

Ves couldn't do much to make it easier for her. The mind sword, which was previously just a small and weak construct, rapidly grew in strength! All of its sharpness and sword-related attributes began to proliferate as the energies inside the mind sword rapidly grew in quantity.

If not for the fact that he designed the mind sword to be able to grow, it would have exploded by now! As it was, the stretchiness factor of the mind sword could barely keep up with the rapid absorption of high-quality energy!

Though Ves had not expended all of the life-attributed energy he drew out, he instinctively felt as if he was nearing a safe limit. If he grew the mind sword any further, then its spiritual strength would surpass that of his student's original spiritual potential.

He had no idea what would happen in her mind if that became the case! She might lose control of the mind sword. It might even supplant her original spiritual potential as her main 'spirit', which would likely strip her of much of her humanity!

Since the risks vastly outweighed the benefits, Ves cut off the supply of life-attributed energy and put the remainder back into the life stone.

What he had managed to foster in her mind was already strong enough for his liking! In his spiritual vision, he observed a vibrant, imaginary sword that exuded a lot of sharpness!

The presence of such a powerful mind sword was already starting to affect Ketis. Her spiritual potential seemed to resonate and grow closer to it. A wondrous expression appeared on her face, which signalled that she was already starting to embrace the changes.

The expansion of the mind sword had slowed dramatically when he no longer fed it with nurturing energy. Soon enough, its growth would settle, allowing the spiritual augment to solidity a bit and gain stability.

"It's almost over." He whispered to her. "Your mind sword is settling down. Keep feeling it out. Don't reject it. No matter where you might find yourself in the future, you will never be without a sword. You will always have one in your mind!"

His words inspired her. Her eyes gained an even greater intensity as her spiritual potential roiled with excitement! Her bond with the mind sword that Ves created had become stronger. There was no way she would lose control of it with such an intimate connection!

Seeing the way that Ketis embraced her mind sword with such love and dedication inspired him as well. He developed a small but radical idea on how he could empower the mind sword even further.

At this moment, the mind sword was nothing more than a spiritual construct made from Ketis' own spiritual energy and attributes. Ves managed to create a very sharp spiritual sword from these ingredients that fully conformed to Ketis.

Though Ves already believed that this outcome was a success, he became more and more tempted to add an additional ingredient to the mix.

A normal mind sword was already pretty impressive. What if Ves made it alive?

He immediately recognized the dangers of attempting to make it alive. He had not performed enough experiments in this direction to be able to tell for sure whether his wild idea would succeed.

However, he was too excited to dismiss this idea out of hand!

Intuitively, he felt that this might just work, though that did not mean that everything would go smoothly.

He decided to try it! At this critical moment, once the mind sword fully ceased its growth, it would be too late for him to pull off this measure.

Similar to the formation of new design spirits, Ves began to impart some of his own spiritual energy into the mind sword. He did not dare to inject too much for fear of exceeding what Ketis could bear.

The small seed of life that he injected in the mind sword significantly increased Ketis' discomfort!

"What are you doing?! I feel as if the sword in my mind is going crazy!"

"Focus! Don't lose control! Bear with it. What I just did was to make your mind sword alive."

"What?!"

"Think of what I have been doing to mechs. It's the same for what is happening at this moment! You don't need to think so much. Just keep your mind open and embrace the birth of your mind sword!"

Under his constant guidance, Ketis no longer put up her guard against her mind sword no matter how much it convulsed. Her acceptance and closeness towards it helped the mind sword absorb and integrate the foreign spiritual energy.

If not for her trust and friendship to Ves, she would have never been able to integrate his spiritual energy!

Even so, the process went anything but smoothly. Ves partially regretted moving so quickly ahead of his experiments. Everything that took place now was completely new to him. It was useless to perform this experiment on pirates because they hated him so much that their minds and spirits always rejected his spiritual energy.

Fortunately, his assumptions and theories did not lead him astray. Spiritual energy was intimately intertwined with thoughts and emotions.

With a silent cry, the mind sword had completely integrated the energy that Ves had donated. An exultant wave of emotion spread from Ketis' mind as her mind sword had succeeded in coming to life!

"I can feel her!" Ketis status with wonder! "My sword! She's perfect!"

Ves managed to create his first living spiritual construct!

Chapter 2253 - The Grand Cutter

Minutes passed as Ketis quietly basked in the birth of her living mind sword. Ves carefully observed her integration with the new living entity.

Ves had not injected it with too much of his spiritual energy, so its sentience and intelligence was incomparable to his design spirits.

It acted more like a puppy in the form of a sword more than anything else. It held no complex thoughts and was still very dependent on Ketis. The two were one in the same, mostly.

He was glad that the living spiritual construct embraced Ketis wholeheartedly. What little foreignness he injected into the mind sword did not cause it to forget where it originally came from. Ves had no doubt that something bad would happen if the living spiritual weapon was taken out of her mind!

The formation of this wondrous living spiritual construct had been an eye-opening experience to Ves. His understanding of life had progressed and he figured out a number of new promising applications.

As soon as he began another design session, Ves intended to see whether he could augment the triggered abilities of the Valkyrie Redeemer by making them alive!

It sounded ridiculous, and Ves had no idea whether it would work at all, but he really wanted to see what resulted from basing triggered abilities on actual living spiritual constructs!

While Ves began to fantasize about implanting abilities into his mech designs that could grow and adapt over the course of their existence, Ketis began to get a better grip on her young but eager mind sword.

She smiled brilliantly at Ves. "My sword intent has become alive! This is amazing, Ves! While I feel a bit disappointed at myself that I haven't been able to form her on my own, I would have never been able to form something so vivid and sharp on my own!"

Hardly any of her earlier discomfort remained. At this stage, she fully accepted the new addition to her mind. Likewise, the living mind sword fully embraced Ketis as her sole partner.

The only thing strange was that Ves didn't see anything about the mind sword that suggested that she was female.

Ves didn't bother too much with it. As long as this little quirk helped increase her compatibility with her mind sword, it should be fine.

An odd thought came to his mind. He chuckled a bit at its absurdity. "I guess I have finally fulfilled my promise of gifting you with a new pet! Congratulations!"

The mind sword was not quite a pet. She was actually a piece of Ketis that gained some independent life with his help. Ves actually didn't really know how to regard her existence. Living spiritual constructs differed from the design spirits he was familiar with, so he did not have a good grasp of what they were capable of at the moment.

Nonetheless, Ves did not believe that the mind sword would become a burden to Ketis. Already, he could see that her spiritual potential was slowly growing more vigorous. Her path to advancing to Journeyman just became a little smoother.

In fact, Ves had a suspicion that the formation of the mind sword might even trigger the process of forming a design seed right away!

That was actually an undesirable outcome to Ves. While Ketis was a fine Apprentice Mech Designer and knew a lot about mechs and swords, he did not believe she designed enough mechs to reach a sufficient degree of maturity with regards to her work.

Letting her advance to Journeyman while she was still in a relatively immature state would only doom her career later on! Only by climbing up through her own power would she be worthy to a higher rank.

As Ketis acclimatized to her new 'pet', she suddenly stood up and grabbed her sword from the stack of Breyer alloy bars. She lifted her greatsword over her head before concentrating her mind!

"What are you doing, Ketis?!"

"Look at this! My sword can cut all matter!"

A strong glow appeared along the entire length of the sword! Though it looked a bit wobbly and unstable, this was the first time she was able to apply her superpower onto such a huge weapon!

His vision seemed to freeze as Ketis unhesitantly swung down her sword! The glow around her CFA greatsword left a bright moon-shaped imprint as the sword parted straight through every single bar of Breyer alloy in the way without encountering any hindrance!

If not for her conscious control, her sword would have cut straight through the reinforced deck that isolated Compartment G-13 from the rest of the ship!

Ves looked wide-eyed at the result. While the CFA greatsword was already strong and sharp enough to cut through armor plating, in practice it was not that easy for her to cut through so many bars of second-grade alloy.

Yet with the help of her superpower that had been augmented by her living mind sword, she was able to cut straight through by relying on a phenomena that defied the natural laws!

If his suspicions were right, Ketis could even cut through the chest armor of a Bright Warrior with a single swing!

Ketis released a victorious war cry after cutting through so many bars! The strength she exuded was magnificent, and both her spiritual potential and her mind sword seemed to change and adjust after she had tested her own prowess!

Unfortunately, she couldn't repeat her trick again. Her mind sword looked exhausted after this exertion. It would be better for her if she stuck to her new cutlass for now.

Once her excitement finally faded a bit, she turned to Ves with a smile. "This is a fantastic gift, Ves! My sword intent is so sharp that I can study it for hours. I have formed so many new ideas."

"Well, before you get lost in them, aren't you forgetting something?"

"Uh, what?"

Ves smiled. "Since your new sword is now alive, she deserves a new name!"

"I forgot about that! Let me think.."

It took around thirty seconds for her to come up with a name.

"From now on, my sword intent is called Sharpie, the Grand Cutter!"

Ves felt like puking blood when he heard that name. He expected Ketis to call her living sword something grand and ostentatious like Excalibur or Durandal. If not, she at least should have been capable of giving her sword a dignified name.

He overlooked the fact that she grew up as an uncultured daughter of the frontier!

Though Ves wanted to suggest an alternative, he stopped when he saw that Ketis had become inordinately pleased at the name she bestowed on the new sword. Likewise, the newly-named Sharpie did not know any better and enthusiastically embraced his new designation!

"Forget it.." Ves sighed.

Names had power. For Ketis, it might not be bad for her to give her new sword a pet-like name. Her love, appreciation and intimacy towards Sharpie constantly grew. This was something that would only help Ketis bond even further with her living mind sword.

In order to make sure that Ketis did not suffer any wounds during the experiment, Ves brought her away from Compartment G-13 and handed her over to Dr. Ranya in order to perform a complete medical inspection.

"What's up with her?" The former Hexer frowned. She disliked getting pulled away from her research into the life-prolonging treatment serum. "She looks much.. happier than before."

"I can't really explain, doctor. Just make sure there isn't anything wrong in her body. Pay close attention to the state of her brain and head. If there are any anomalies, inform me right away."

"Okay, sir." Ranya skeptically replied. "So far, the preliminary scans haven't uncovered anything that deviates from her usual state. This is a good sign."

Ves nodded in satisfaction. "Since I'm here, I might as well check up on you. How are you these days?"

"I'm okay. While I'm not happy to be in the Nyxian Gap, some of the biological materials your fleet has plundered has given me a lot of interesting options."

"Oh?"

"Every different environment breeds a different form of life. While the Nyxian Gap is most famed for its endless, barren asteroids, even life can bloom in this strange region."

She directed him towards a lab machine that seemed to incubate some unusual-looking exoplants. The chamber was almost completely dark and cold. Ves couldn't immediately find out what provided the plant with the energy to grow.

"Strange, isn't it?" Dr. Ranya grinned. "These nameless plants are considered weeds by the Nyxian pirates. They are treasures to me, though. They are actually feeding on Kavenit to grow."

"Really?!"

Ves studied the soil and found out that it largely consisted of finely-ground Kavenit ore. The unknown plants seemed to derive almost all of their energy and all of their nutrients from this sole material.

This must be why the plants looked very stiff and rigid.

"So what is the use of this plant?"

"On its own, it's not that useful. It's when they are combined or altered that they become of use to us. It will take a lot of research, though. I don't have enough samples to start a big research project."

"Don't forget your primary responsibilities."

"I know. This is just a side activity."

He quizzed Ranya a bit further. While she hadn't made any major breakthroughs in her current research projects, she still figured a bit more useful insights about the high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum.

None of them immediately helped him, though. After he finished his questioning, he left Ranya to conduct her examination on Ketis and returned to his stateroom.

He sent a quick message through his comm before sitting down to wait. He played around with Lucky for a time.

"Meow."

Ves tossed his cat into the air in a spin. Lucky didn't look dizzy at all. Instead, his metallic frame seemed to drift up and down as if he was as light as a feather.

"You haven't produced a gem in months, Lucky. When are you going to pay your rent?"

"Meow!"

"C'mon! You ate so many valuable exotics from the pirate bases we've raided! Where is all of that going?!"

The argument lasted until his latest guest arrived. Ves stopped arguing with his cat and instead stood up to welcome the new arrival.

"Dietrich! It's good to see you again!"

"Hello, Ves."

Though the two hadn't been in touch very often, they were still friends.

Both of them soon sat down.

"So, I believe you'll be a part of the group that will pay a visit to Ulimo Citadel in disguise, right?"

Dietrich nodded. "Yup. I've already become familiar with the fake pirate outfit we've invented. I know many of the fellows who will be a part of this charade. We have had a lot of fun trying to plan out our disguise."

"That's good to hear." Ves was already aware of some of the details. "Let's get to the reasons why I called you here. First, I told you to bring your gear along so that I can upgrade them in person. How are you faring with my old stuff?"

"The Peaceful Repose is very powerful, though it doesn't quite fit me. The Sparous Vize possesses many functions that are too complicated for me. It's frankly a waste for me to wear such an advanced suit."

"I don't think so. Our Larkinson Clan already has better. Since you have some misgivings about your gear, I'll go ahead and make some additional modifications while I upgrade them. I'll automate some of the hacking and scanner functions."

"That will be very helpful. Thank you, Ves. I don't really deserve all of this attention from someone important like you. There must be better ways for you to spend your time."

Ves smiled and faintly shook his head. "I don't think so. While I am showing some favoritism, I don't give a damn. You're one of the few Larkinsons in the clan that doesn't look at me like I'm some sort of great figure or a superstar."

He shrugged in a nonchalant manner. "It helps that I've been in your chair, if only for a brief amount of time. Becoming the leader of an organization is a huge burden. The moment you became the clan patriarch is the moment you put yourself on top of other people. I figure you don't want to lose the few close relationsh.i.p.s you have."

He was right. Ves found it hard to make any new friends among the Larkinsons. He mostly clung to his existing circle. This was a bit shortsighted as the clan had absorbed many new talents and notable people.

"I'll pay more attention to this issue." Ves pledged.

Chapter 2254 - Slow to Change

After almost a week of frantic preparation, the task force finally prepared their fake pirate outfit.

Ketis, Dietrich and several hundred other Larkinsons each donned their pirate disguises and boarded one of the two sh.i.p.s.

Each vessel had been overhauled in a deliberately sloppy manner that made them appear more shabby and derelict than before. The Avatars even fired their weapons onto their hull plating in order to make their disguise more convincing!

In fact, the damage to one of the light carriers was so severe that it desperately required repairs. If the damaged vessel couldn't be patched, then she would certainly shut down in a matter of weeks!

With such a disaster hanging over their heads, the so-called 'Mirror Raiders' possessed ample reason to approach and dock at an unfamiliar pirate base!

As the sh.i.p.s and mechs of the Mirror Raiders carefully left the bosom of Task Force Predator, Ves watched them go on the bridge of the Scarlet Rose.

Though he felt great concern for the Larkinsons who left, he had no way to influence their situation anymore. Due to several reasons, smaller pirate outfits generally didn't possess any quantum entanglement nodes.

Even if the sh.i.p.s of the Mirror Raiders did possess one, there wasn't much of a point. Ulimo Citadel locked them all down as a rule. The Dry Snakes who reigned over the base did not want any visitor to coordinate their actions with people outside.

Information was power. Communication was power. Now that the Mirror Raiders were suddenly deprived of their quantum entanglement nodes, they could only rely on themselves to solve their problems.

"The people we've sent can take care of themselves." Major Verle spoke at his side. "I understand what you are feeling, but this is part of being a leader."

Ves wrung his hands. "I kind of regret allowing Ketis to participate in this mission. I also feel as if I should have been a part of this mission as well."

"Stay calm, sir. While only a few years have passed since you served alongside us in the Bright-Vesia War, you are no longer the inconsequential Apprentice Mech Designer that we knew. You are a clan patriarch, a Journeyman and a galactic citizen with wealth and power. Fighting on the trenches is no longer an option for you when the future of the entire clan rests on your shoulders."

"I know that, Verle. It's just that my Larkinson blood is still restless."

Ves had gone through way too many scraps and crises to feel at ease with staying away from the excitement. Otherwise, he wouldn't have entered the Nyxian Gap in the first place.

He reflected on his own behavior and knew that his life experiences prior to advancing to Journeyman played a large role in solidifying his own inclinations.

All of the thoughts and emotions that he had in his mind during the formation of his design seed became a permanent part of his personality. He knew that it would take a very long time to mill down those traits so that he could feel more comfortable with the fact that he should stay in the rear.

It would take at least a week or two before he heard back from the Mirror Raiders. The time the task force invested into attacking Ulimo Citadel was already considerable. Ves only agreed to do this in the first place because he expected the payout to be huge.

Aside from all of the plunder he hoped to gain, Ves also salivated over the merits he might earn. A big and established pirate fortification such as Ulimo must be hosting a lot of weapons prohibited by the Big Two!

The Dry Snakes possessed their own trump cards, and so should their subordinate outfits. The Xona Stalkers, the Farmund's Own and the Hapid Qlinters were all capable of fielding hundreds of mechs, so they should definitely be able to afford their own secret weapons!

Aside from them, some of the clientele that frequented Ulimo Citadel ought to carry nasty surprises on their sh.i.p.s as well.

This was one of the biggest reasons that visitors weren't able to land their sh.i.p.s or any other vehicle in the vicinity of Ulimo Citadel. Instead, they had to land hundreds of kilometers away at various barren landing zones across the moon-sized asteroid.

Special transports operated by the Dry Snakes were the only vehicles allowed to convey passengers and cargo to Ulimo Citadel. The base operators inspected every single person and piece of cargo at multiple points.

The Dry Snakes took their inspection duty seriously and couldn't be bribed. Otherwise, someone could just smuggle in a superbomb that could destroy Ulimo from within or import some virulent agent that killed off every human infected by it within minutes!

Such events had taken place enough times in the Nyxian Gap for organizations like the Dry Snakes to wizen up. At the very least, the halls open to the public were placed some distance away from their core base complex, and this made it a bit difficult to scope out the most important sections of Ulimo Citadel.

Infiltrating these parts of the pirate base was the biggest challenge of the Mirror Raiders.

"Well, there's no use procrastinating any further." He muttered. "I might as well do something more productive."

He reluctantly left the bridge and returned to the design lab. After handling some miscellaneous tasks, he called out all of the Braves who were preoccupied with working on their respective projects. He also allowed Zanthar and Maikel to sit next to him in order to observe the meeting.

Ves clapped his hands. "Alright, almost two months have passed since we entered the Nyxian Gap. All of us have spent plenty of time on designing the mechs in the pipeline. Let's pause for a moment in order to see how much we have accomplished."

The LMC's Design Department worked on four minor design projects. Ves and Gloriana assigned three design teams to every minor project, of which at least one consisted of Braves and one consisted of Erudites.

In the first couple of weeks, a lot of friction occurred between the Braves and the Erudites. The former preferred to work briskly while the latter wanted to be thorough. It took a lot of coddling from Ketis and Miles for the two groups of assistants to settle some of their differences.

By now, the Braves should have gotten into their groove. As long as none of the projects fell behind schedule, Ves didn't really care how the assistants organized themselves.

He gestured towards the Ninth Design Team. "Miss Rina Orion, please report the current status of the Crystal Lord Mark II Project."

The heavily mechanical augmentations on her body were partially visible to the n.a.k.e.d eye. This made her look like a cyborg. She looked just like any other citizen of the Coman Federation.

It was too bad the Coman Federation existed no longer. The sandmen engulfed the state before crashing headlong into the defensive lines of the Bright Republic and other prepared states.

The woman stood up. "The Crystal Lord Mark II Project is proceeding according to schedule, though our progress is uneven due to the addition of luminar technology."

Ever since Ves struck a deal with Master Willix, he gained access to exclusive MTA research on luminar or crystal builder race technology. Aside from improving his understanding of laser weapons, he also gained the capability to integrate better alien crystals in the design of the Crystal Lord.

Due to the sensitive nature of the classified MTA research data, only Ves and Gloriana worked with this new tech. Their busy schedules and lack of time meant that they couldn't contribute as much as they wanted to this project.

On the other hand, this freed up Rina and her fellow assistants from some of their duties, allowing them to invest more work in other aspects.

Since Ves had not upgraded its design spirit yet, he refrained from engaging in any spiritual engineering. He still needed to see how the upgraded Crystal Leader turned out before he knew what kind of glow and triggered ability he wanted to impart in the mech.

Even without them, Ves still believed the Crystal Lord Mark II could make a substantial impact on the battlefield.

"What are the most serious challenges facing this project?"

"There are several problems slowing down our work. The lack of coordination between the work on the luminar crystals and the rest of the mech design makes it difficult for us to expect what is necessary. Another problem is the lack of testing facilities. Even if we are far from fabricating a prototype, it is still useful to produce some incomplete models and test their performance under specific circ. . The last significant issue we are dealing with is trying to elevate its performance as much as possible in order to justify its high sales price."

"I'm already aware of those issues." Ves replied and waved his hand. "The Crystal Lord Mark II won't be easy to sell, but as long as we enhance its value through combining superior performance and a unique glow, it will have a place in the market."

They discussed some more issues, allowing the rest of the Braves to gain a better understanding of the state of the Crystal Lord Mark II Project. Occasionally, they even provided some feedback!

Ves turned to Moltar Ringer, the team leader of the Fifth Design Team. "Report on the Sanctuary Project."

"It's proceeding slightly ahead of schedule." The former Reinaldan spoke. "As a third-class space knight, it is not that complex compared to other spaceborn mech types. Since the Sanctuary's main selling is its glow, we focused on designing a durable support mech mech that is mobile enough to move around but also defensible enough to withstand significant attacks."

The projection of the incomplete Sanctuary design showed a mech that shared some resemblance to the Blessed Squire.

THe latter may be a second-class landbound knight mech, but they both centered around the utility they could provide.

For this reason, the Sanctuary followed many of the same design choices that Ves and Gloriana applied on the Blessed Squire. This meant that the sanctuary was decent in mobility and defense.

Just like the Blessed Squire, the Sanctuary possessed a good amount of endurance. A lot of energy cells filled up its capacity, allowing the space knight to maneuver and provide its glow to friendlies and enemies alike for the duration of an entire space engagement.

"The biggest downside of this mech is its very low offensive threat." Moltar stated. "The Sanctuary is paired with a very large and heavy tower shield. This not only slows down the mech, but also makes melee combat unwieldy. The sword that it holds in its other hand serves more as a measure of last resort than a primary weapon. In fact, we believe it is better for the Sanctuary to hold its heavy shield with both arms."

Ves nodded in understanding. "This can't be helped. Mechs can only be good in so many areas, and prioritizing defense while ensuring decent mobility means the acceleration, range of motion, agility and reaction speed of the Sanctuary has sunk to the bottom. This is a price that I can accept as long as the mech is already useful without ever needing to attack."

They could have paired the Sanctuary with a rifle instead of a sword, but the accuracy and overall offensive performance of the mech wouldn't be great. Providing it with a laser pistol was already sufficient.

So far, the Sanctuary did not stand out as a mech design at all. Its current strengths and weaknesses did not result in a product that the market would embrace.

Ves still needed to create a new spiritual product that possessed the ability to stifle other glows. Once he formed the design spirit for the Sanctuary, he could quickly round out this minor project.

He was a bit unsure whether he should publish this mech right away, though. Right now was a sensitive period for him as numerous Masters sought to develop solutions that countered his glows.

It would be pretty stupid to publish a mech onto the market that just happened to point out a possible solution!

Chapter 2255 - Dukan French

Both the Crystal Lord Mark II Project and the Sanctuary Project risked losing direction because Ves had not begun to work on their spiritual properties.

While his assistants would still be able to complete the technical designs of the two mechs, the lack of glows and design spirits meant that none of his people were completely aligned to their projects.

Ves already noticed this because he often had to clean up after the messes the assistants left behind in the spiritual foundations of his mech designs.

Even if he taught them how to focus their minds and free their minds from distracting thoughts, their insufficient concentration and lack of awareness meant that they deposited plenty of pollution.

This was a persistent problem that Ves always had to address in person. No other mech designer was able to design as focused as him, because he could immediately perceive the consequences of his own sloppiness.

Not even Gloriana, who prided herself on her precision and thoroughness, could keep a spiritual foundation pure!

Ves knew that he couldn't address his problem in person in the long run. He was a busy mech designer and would only become more preoccupied once he advanced to Senior or Master.

He felt as if he was a cleaning bot assigned to a decrepit bathroom in some pirate base. Even if the toilets were perfectly functional, the careless pirates and the hopeless slaves didn't always follow instructions.

When pirates spilled some of their messes onto the floor, which they always did, Ves the cleaning bot had to hover out in order to remove them! Failing to do so would ruin the bathroom!

Thinking about this analogy sparked an interesting idea in his mind.

What if he could automate this process? What if he created some spiritual construct or something that would automatically wipe away the incongruities?

Ves noted down this idea in his implant. This wasn't the time to go into it and he hadn't reached the point where he was unable to pay attention to every minor project.

He turned his attention back to Moltar. "The Sanctuary is not as challenging to design as the other mechs in the pipeline, so I expect more from you and your team. Don't think that the way forward is smooth sailing. I will provide some specific feedback to you later on how to improve some of the areas that look a bit iffy."

"Yes, sir." Moltar obediently bowed his head.

Over the course of the Sanctuary Project, Ves hoped that Moltar would suggest something new or interesting. His chosen specialization was signal disruption, which meant that he should have a good affinity with a mech that sought to still every glow.

It turned out that Ves expected too much from him. His progress in his chosen field still hadn't left the starting line, which meant it would take a good amount of years before Moltar even came close to advancing to Journeyman.

At the very least he hadn't wasted his time up until now. Moltar possessed quite a broad range of knowledge due to all of the books he studied. He just needed to transition from learning to innovation. No matter how pathetic the results, every Apprentice had to start somewhere with their original research.

Ves quickly moved on to Catherine Evenson, who led one of the design teams assigned to the Ferocious Piranha Project.

"Our work is proceeding exactly on schedule." She began. "As a spaceborn light skirmisher, we have tried our best to turn it into a peak performance machine that can disrupt and assassinate enemy elements. While we don't have its adapted fear glow to work with, we believe that the mech should be more than capable of disrupting the rhythm of enemy mech pilots."

"How is the endurance of the design?"

"Pretty bad, even if we account for its generous budget. It's not suitable for extended deployments and can't perform too many attack runs." Catherine looked a bit helpless at this admission.

"This is a deliberate design choice on our part, Miss Evenson. You don't have to feel too ashamed at this shortcoming. We just have to make sure that the mech provides sufficient value in the short time that it is active."

In this regard, the Ferocious Piranha possessed the opposite performance profile to the Sanctuary.

Part of this contrast emerged due to their diverging roles.

The Ferocious Piranha had to leverage its terror glow to disrupt and break enemy formations in the shortest amount of time.

The Sanctuary did not engage in any risky maneuvers. Instead, it was merely expected to keep up with friendly formation while staying alive as long as possible.

Another reason to design these two mechs in opposite directions was the capacity they boasted. A light skirmisher did not possess a lot of internal space for energy cells and other components that increased their run time.

Space knights were much less limited in this aspect. Even if much of their volume consisted of armor plating, they were still big enough to fit plenty of energy cells inside.

Knowing that a light skirmisher like the Ferocious Piranha would never be able to last hours on the battlefield, Ves and Gloriana did not even attempt to do so. It was already good enough for the mech to be able to maneuver around and engage in medium-intensity combat for thirty minutes straight.

Perhaps the only saving grace for light skirmishers such as the Ferocious Piranha was that they expended much less energy. Their lighter mass allowed them to accelerate with ease, which meant that their flight systems didn't have to be as powerful and wasteful as those of bigger mechs.

Another mitigating factor was its budget. While the Ferocious Piranha cost 50 percent more than the Doom Guard, its size and dimensions were considerably smaller!

This allowed the design teams to implement a much better armor system to the light skirmisher. Even if it looked thin and fragile, its compressed armor meant that it shouldn't go down after suffering a couple of direct hits!

The situation of the Ferocious Piranha was relatively close to the Valkyrie Redeemer in that regard. The latter might be a medium mech, but both of them emphasized mobility.

The Valkyrie Redeemer actually boasted much better armor that could withstand much more damage. The only problem was that it was a second-class mech designed to fight against the best the Friday Coalition could muster. The firepower it faced was either very powerful or very varied, which made it difficult for the Hexer marauder mech to remain intact.

Third-class mech combat was much less intense. The Ferocious Piranha should enjoy plenty of freedom on how to act. Its thin but resilient armor plating provided the mech with enough survivability to escape intact after performing a risky attack run.

Overall, the Ferocious Piranha was supposed to be the offensive counterpart to the Doom Guard. It allowed its owners to project the Doom Guard's characteristic terror aura directly to the enemy. The main charm of it was its ability to induce fear without hitting any friendlies.

Ves had actually done some work in this area. The theoretical premise for the spaceborn light skirmisher's glow wasn't all that complicated. He did not need to birth an entirely new design spirit such as in the Sanctuary Project nor upgrade an existing one such as in the Crystal Lord Mark II Project.

He just had to combine Zeigra, Nyxie and Qilanxo in a threesome.

"Wait, that sounds wrong." He quietly muttered.

He already experimented with combining them. The results weren't pretty.

Trying to balance two antagonistic design spirits wasn't all that difficult. Adding another one in the mix immediately complicated matters!

The main problem was that their strengths were not even.

Zeigra was by far the weakest of the three.

Qilanxo was very strong since she used to be a sacred god that lived for multiple centuries.

As for Nyxie, his strength already exceeded that of the former despite being constrained by the Ancient Sarcophagus!

What Ves sought to accomplish was to protect the mech pilot of the Ferocious Piranha and any friendlies from becoming affected by the terror glow.

THis meant that Qilanxo had to resist both Zeigra and Nyxie.

When Ves made her presence strong, Zeigra's presence became completely suppressed despite his heavy footprint in the design while Nyxie merely drew even!

When he weakened her presence, her influence dropped so that Zeigra could breath. Unfortunately, Nyxie easily pierced passed her barriers at that point!

As a result, Ves had to solve a very complex puzzle by manipulating and balancing out the strengths of three different design spirits. Their changing reactions and their own peculiarities made it difficult for Ves to find a sweet spot where the Ferocious Piranha exhibited the glow that he specified.

It was only a matter of time before he solved this puzzle. Ves did not feel the need to be concerned.

He turned his attention back to Catherine. "Are there any issues that are troubling you and your design team?"

The former Sentinel noblewoman took her time to answer.

"The Ferocious Piranha's projected performance is very impressive. It is just…"

"Expensive?" Ves smiled in a teasing way. "It's deliberately made that way in order to increase the value of its glow. Making the mech tougher and integrating higher-quality components in its design is an added bonus. No matter what, the value of this mech already exceeds several ordinary light skirmishers put together."

Of course, whether the market would see it that way was not entirely clear. One of the potential problems that might occur was that the release of the Sanctuary or some other mech that could restrain glows countered the Ferocious Piranha too well.

If the light skirmisher's glow no longer became a factor, then it devolved into a very expensive light mech. While its technical performance parameters were mostly good, it wouldn't achieve as much once its greatest advantage had been stripped.

Ves inwardly shrugged. He needed to become accustomed to the idea that his mechs might lose their glows. His machines could no longer reign over the battlefield with impunity very soon.

He directed his attention to the team leader that worked on the final minor project.

"How is the Chiron faring?"

"The Chiron Project is doing well. The two Erudite design teams deserve much of the credit. The technical complexity of designing an adjustable, morphing teaching mech is very daunting. All of us are forced to spend a lot of time on designing the different mechanisms."

Ves nodded. "Designing a mech that does not stay in a single form is always difficult to design. What do you think about the budget?"

"It's a lifesaver to us." Dukan French replied. "With 6 million hex credits, we can outfit the Chiron with excellent, sturdy materials that possess a high tolerance for abuse. The current iteration of the Chiron would have never been as feasible if it was made out of cheaper materials."

"That's not a good way to approach the Chiron's design, Mr. French. We need to get away from our dependence on using the Chiron's superior fault tolerance as a buffer for our failures. The mech needs to work even if its frame was made of materials that are just a third as strong."

The team leader reluctantly nodded. "We are trying, but it will take time."

Dukan French happened to be one of the mech designers that Ves recruited right away without undergoing any of the bravery tests. He who possessed amazing spiritual potential and used to be a bright talent as well.

The reason why he ended up joining the Larkinson Clan was that he used to be a citizen of the Chuko Republic!

Ves remembered visiting the state on his previous tour. He had already sensed plenty of decline back then. Dukan French was one of the local Chukans who managed to get out quickly enough to escape the butchering of the state by its three greedy neighbors.

Though Dukan possessed plenty of talent, Ves found that the former Chukan lacked a bit of passion and resolve. Hopefully, spending more time in the Nyxian Gap would remedy this problem.

Chapter 2256 - Mirror Raiders

Two light carriers slowly flew past the asteroids as they made their way to a famous pirate stronghold.

The Bloody Fang and the Cruel Intention were light carriers that served as the main possessions of the Mirror Raiders, a small and forgettable pirate outfit. There were so many different pirate gangs operating in the Nyxian Gap that it didn't matter if the Mirror Raiders possessed no prior history.

Due to the inherent instability of pirate society and the devastating consequences of losing battles, a lot of pirates were used to forming and disbanding outfits within the span of a few years.

The larger pirate organizations that managed to build and protect a stronghold possessed much more permanency. Once they began to become productive members of the rudimentary pirate economy of the Nyxian Gap, they were no longer under the threat of falling apart due to suffering a single, devastating mishap.

Not everyone could be like the Dry Snakes. Bottom feeder outfits that barely managed to eke out a living were much more common.

In that regard, the Mirror Raiders were slightly better off despite their damaged state. They had two sh.i.p.s instead of one, and both of them were light carriers. Even though they suffered moderate 'battle losses' that dwindled their protection to just 57 mechs, that still provided them with enough strength to fend off many opportunistic enemies!

Even so, the carriers were not in good shape. The Cruel Intention still looked rather decent, as most of the damage only marred her hull plating. The Bloody Fang was worse off as one of her thrusters suffered some direct hits that impaired her mobility.

What was worse was that the rest of the Bloody Fang's propulsion system had begun to deteriorate!

Any naval engineer who looked at the Bloody Fang would immediately know that the ship would soon become dead in the water if she did not receive timely repairs.

The damaged pirate sh.i.p.s along with the decent but shabby-looking pirate mechs that escorted them looked no different from any other pirate outfit that was down on its luck.

That did not mean the Mirror Raiders was on the verge of falling apart. Their battle scars told of a hard fought battle which they eventually won. A considerable amount of containers rested in the cargo holds of the Bloody Fang and the Cruel Intention. Each of them was filled with either Kavenit or a random assortment of other valuable minerals.

This was the capital the Mirror Raiders relied upon to replenish their strength and rise up from their setback.

Before their arrival at Ulimo Base, the five most important members of this fake pirate outfit gathered in a meeting room aboard the Bloody Fang.

Ketis wore her upgraded Rising Red Dragon that had been decorated with numerous pirate trophies. She looked completely unlike a mech designer with her large laser pistol and her broad cutlass.

She now went by Avery, and her official function was infantry captain. Absolutely no one should ever be able to know that she was technically adept and a very capable mech designer!

Dietrich wore the lighter Sparous Vize which had been modified to look deliberately more gauche. It looked like a poor pirate's attempt at adding some class onto a serviceable suit of combat armor.

He played the role of Bo, the heir to the Mirror Raiders and a slightly foolhardy and inexperienced pirate.

Sitting quietly next to him was Lieutenant Sodo Rodan, a Black Cat intelligence officer trained by Calabast. While he didn't excel in fighting, he was very good in hacking and communications. He played a key role in trying to scope out Ulimo Citadel's defenses.

Leaning against the side of the bulkhead was Lieutenant Sendra, a rough-looking woman who clearly hailed from the Swordmaidens. She only looked kindly at Ketis and her fellow Swordmaidens. She put up a gruff face to everybody else, which didn't make her very popular.

Sendra took on the guise of Captain Itris, the strongest mech pilot and the second-in-command of the Mirror Raiders.

The final person to enter the compartment was Lieutenant-Commander Abis Firelight, a mech officer of the Flagrant Vandals.

Major Verle chose the commanding officer of the Mirror Raiders carefully. After contemplating several options from several mech forces, he settled on Abis. Not only did Verle know him well, but he was also known as a calm, thoughtful leader who rarely made any mistakes.

Though it sounded rather strange to put someone timid in charge of the Mirror Raiders, Major Verle and several other people believed that acting too boldly in Ulimo Citadel was just a recipe for disaster!

Abis adopted the role of Commander Domis, the founder and leader of the Mirror Raiders. His history was a bit murky, but he possessed obvious military traits which suggested that he was a military veteran or deserter.

All of them were Larkinsons. All of them were in disguise.

"From the moment we split up from the task force, our mission has begun." Abis began. "Please embody your role as best as possible and do not let down our guard. Call each other by the new names that we have received, but do your best to avoid them as much as possible. The only way to minimize mistakes is deprive them of opportunities."

The other four nodded in acknowledgement.

"Let us begin by reviewing our initial steps. Our first hurdle is to pass the initial inspections and land at our designated zone. Then we need to pay our fees and arrange transportation to the marketplace. Once there, we need to establish a foothold in the local community while ostensibly seeking repairs for our damaged sh.i.p.s and mechs."

This was a simple plan, but a lot could go wrong at every step of the way. With their 57 refurbished pirate mechs, here was no way they could last more than a minute against 3,000 enemy mechs!

Lieutenant Rodan spoke first. "Passing through the initial checkpoints should not pose a problem. Our sh.i.p.s contain few traces that allude to the Crona Lords or the Larkinson Clan. The only uncertainty is that Ulimo Citadel is on high alert at the moment. It is very likely that the pirate patrols will perform much harsher inspections. We might also be limited by the amount of mechs, sh.i.p.s and personnel we are allowed to bring to the surface."

"We will adapt according to the situation. We can do no better than that. If the Dry Snakes impose too many demands, then I have the discretion to abort the mission and turn us back."

The meeting proceeded as the five Mirror Raiders discussed various problems. Many of them were already aware of what they faced. They merely brought the issues up again in order to refresh their memories and make sure that everyone was on the same page.

The discussion soon turned to another important step, which was to establish some sort of footing in Ulimo Citadel.

"While the Dry Snakes don't like it when stronger pirate groups knock on Ulimo's doors, they are actually quite tolerant towards smaller groups. The public areas of Ulimo is home to tens of thousands of people. Most of them consist of unwanted pirates, escaped slaves, lost refugees or descendants of the above. This has led to the emergence of a chaotic city that is ruled by several gangs."

"That sounds messy." Dietrich remarked. "How does this benefit the Dry Snakes?"

Lieutenant Sendra snorted. "The livelier a pirate base, the more secure it is to visit. If the Dry Snakes and their lackeys are the only one who occupy Ulimo, then that alone would scare away any visitors. There is no protection against an unscrupulous base owner! It's much easier to get rid of their victims as well."

A bigger base that was home to a thriving community of outsiders provided a lot of reassurance to pirates. This meant that the pirate authorities protected the property rights and other rights of outsiders. Another benefit was that it was much harder to cover up a misdeed on their part with so many people around!

This was good to the Mirror Raiders in several ways. They could not only blend in with the local pirate community, but also seek to infiltrate it. The best option would be to investigate one of the strongest factions and attack the weakest ones so that the Mirror Raiders could take over their position!

Ketis, Sendra and Rodan knew that this presented them with the best follow-up opportunities to investigate the restricted sections of Ulimo Citadel. The Mirror Raiders needed to join the hierarchy of Ulimo before they could even begin to do anything else!

"I say we should just march up to the weakest-looking local gang and just beat them up straight away!" Sendra shouted. "We don't have much time and we don't need to delay that much. All of us are strong. All of us are prepared. There is no way that the weakest faction in Ulimo can resist our attacks!"

Abis held up his hand. "This option is too risky!"

"How so?" The Swordmaiden questioned back. "Pirates don't care too much about laws and rules. The Dry Snakes won't stop us if we launch an unprovoked attack. In fact, they might even cheer us on! Strife among the lowlives who rule the public marketplace keeps them in check. If the local factions are constantly eying each other, then that means they spend less time questioning the authorities from above!

"That does not mean we should initiate a surprise attack just after entering Ulimo!" Commander Abis exasperatingly replied. "There are better ways to usurp a local gang's place."

As a Black Cat, Rodan agreed with this assertion. "We can employ trickery and subterfuge to undermine one of the local gangs. From assassinating an important cadre to inciting competitors to gang up on our target, there are many ways to effect change without directly shooting at them. We might even avoid most of the blame."

"Too slow!"

Though Commander Abis wanted to adopt a low-key posture upon arrival, not everyone agreed. While he was nominally in charge of the Mirror Raiders, his authority was actually rather weak.

This was one of the adverse consequences of mashing different people from different forces together. No one knew each other well aside from the folks who already worked and fought alongside each other.

Dietrich slowly began to frown as he witnessed the growing contradiction between Commander Abis and Lieutenant Sendra. The Flagrant Vandals and the Swordmaidens may have a history with each other, but their mindsets differed a lot.

The Vandals still possessed a core of military discipline and expectations, while the Swordmaidens had always clung onto their savage pirate heritage.

Still, despite their quarrels, Dietrich believed that they knew better than to mess around. Once they arrived at Ulimo, they all needed to cover each other's backs.

"Ketis." Commander Abis changed the topic. "Aside from Lieutenant Rodan and his Black Cats, we will be leaning on you to keep your eye out for any details the task force needs to know."

"I know what to do." She replied. "I will do my best to stay in the background and pretend to be a dumb guard."

"I'll assign you to act as Dietrich's bodyguard. He will be heading out with a small group in order to make new 'friends' among the locals. It would be best if we can befriend a direct member of the Dry Snakes, but that will be challenging. Whatever you do, don't stray in the more dangerous parts of Ulimo. From what we know, the security and monitoring system of the marketplace is quite good, but the more remote portions can be jammed long enough to launch an ambush and leave before the base patrols arrive to enforce order."

The monitoring system mainly existed to prevent pirates from unleashing mass destruction. As long as the visitors and locals refrained from making excessive moves, the Dry Snakes didn't care whether someone shot another person on the street.

The law and order on Ulimo was very mixed!

Chapter 2257 - Thorough Inspection

The Mirror Raiders slowly limped towards the vicinity of Ulimo Citadel.

The Bloody Fang battle damage was not cosmetic at all. The inherent instability of her propulsion system caused the ship to vibrate, shudder and sometimes even skip. It was as if she was a wounded pig limping back to safety while leaving a bloody trail on the ground!

Due to their damaged state, the Mirror Raiders adopted a defensive posture. Their mechs might not be in the best of shape, but with danger potentially lurking around every corner, the 'pirates' did not dare to drop their vigilance!

Their course led them closer and closer to Ulimo, but not in a direction that suggested they were familiar with the route. They acted as if they stole the route from hacking an enemy ship's navigational database or beating it out of a captured ship captain.

This disguise appeared to work. The Dry Snakes soon noticed the arrival of a small outfit and diverted a patrol. A small frigate and a squad of mechs slowly came into view. Their green and yellow coating along with the symbol of a snake immediately caused the Mirror Raiders to slow their approach.

The pirate frigate transmitted a message to the newcomers.

[HALT! YOU ARE ON APPROACH TO ULIMO CITADEL. CEASE TRANSLATING FORWARD AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED FOR INSPECTION. RETRACT YOUR MECHS AND SHUT THEM DOWN. TRANSMIT YOUR CARGO MANIFESTS, YOUR MECH ROSTER AND YOUR PERSONNEL ROSTER WITHIN 120 SECONDS. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL LEAD TO BLOCKING YOUR ENTRY.]

As if expecting these demands, the Mirror Raiders quickly complied. All of their mechs that currently guarded the two sh.i.p.s meekly withdrew into the hangar bays. This was a fairly time-consuming process as only so many mechs were able to land at a time.

During this time, the two carriers also accelerated backwards in order to stall their forward momentum. This was no joke. If the vessels strayed too close to Ulimo without undergoing any inspections, the Dry Snakes would definitely shoot them to pieces!

After some time, the Dry Snake frigate coasted forward. The pirates affixed a large, modified sensor array on her bow. The vessel soon began to pump a prodigious amount of power to the sensor array, causing it to perform powerful active scans that penetrated straight through the hulls of the two carriers!

Such a brute force scanning method was very invasive and discomforting. Though there were ways to block or frustrate the scanning, the Mirror Raiders did not dare to voice a protest.

Along with scanning the newcomers, the Dry Snake frigate also dispatched a shuttle. After landing inside the cramped hangar bay of the Bloody Fang, a pair of inspectors in uniformed vacsuits emerged from the vehicle.

Lieutenant-Commander Abis Firelight of the Flagrant Vandals along with some of his officers greeted them immediately.

Unlike the clean and utilitarian uniforms they wore when they were part of Task Force Predator, they had all changed into flamboyant, trophy-laden dress uniforms.

Their simple black and white uniforms were barely visible under all of the bones, banners, pelts, emblems and other trophies they adorned on their bodies!

In most cases, it was easy to judge the status of a pirate. The Dry Snake inspectors quickly glanced at the quality and quantity of the trophies adorning the officers of the Mirror Raiders and made a silent impression.

In their experienced judgement, the Mirror Raiders were experienced but not that successful. None of the trophies on their officers were exceptionally valuable or came from strong opponents. The fact that they dared to wear so much was a signal that they had been in the pirate business for some time.

"Welcome aboard the Bloody Fang." Abis welcomed. "I am Commander Domis, the boss of the Mirror Raiders. We are seeking a harbor where we can repair our ship, buy some mechs and recruit new crew. We are not short on Kavenit."

The lead inspector smiled. The open tone of 'Commander Domis' meant that the Mirror Raiders weren't trying to hide their condition. This underscored their submission towards a stronger and more superior pirate organization.

Only the most deranged among their 'noble' profession ranted and raved against stronger pirates. Those idiots that dragged down the reputation of pirates never lasted long, though there always seemed to be more taking their place.

"We have detected plenty of Kavenit in your holds. I am sure that you will be able to obtain what you desire." The inspector spoke in a firm but slightly amiable tone. "We are slightly concerned about some of your cargo and the areas that appear fuzzy on our scans. Please allow us to inspect your two carriers. We cannot allow any threats to approach Ulimo."

"Please feel free to observe our ship. Mind you, some of those areas contain.. sensitive goods."

"We understand. We care not for your business. Our job is only to ascertain your threat to our base."

The inspectors took their time to do their jobs. If not for their piratized uniforms, this process looked no different from the inspections carried out in civilized space!

Along the way, the pair of inspectors behaved very professionally and did not ask any questions that did not relate to their duties. When Abis attempted to slip a K-bar into their hands, the lead inspector silently accepted it but did not alter his standard.

This was an unspoken custom among savvy pirates. 'Commander Domis' did not bribe the inspectors in order to gain an exception or be allowed to bring something dangerous into Ulimo. He merely wanted to grease the wheels and avoid any preventable delays.

Whether the inspectors intended to stir up some trouble in the first place was not important. All that mattered was that the Dry Snakes were so overwhelmingly powerful that they could do anything they wanted to Mirror Raiders. The only reason why the Dry Snakes refrained from doing so was to keep Ulimo attractive, but that did not mean that they could put up a fuss!

Fortunately, the lead inspector appreciated the K-bar enough to provide some helpful tips.

When they entered one of the hidden compartments, they faced a trio of very special bombs that were secured in their own separate protective and shock-absorbing harnesses!

The faces of the inspectors grew slightly grave.

"You are not allowed to land on Ulimo with these nuclear bombs in your cargo holds."

Abis looked reluctant. "These are our trump cards. I heard that the landing zones are placed far apart from the main base. Surely these bombs can't threaten you at all, right?"

"I don't know who made these bombs or where you have obtained them, but their yields are powerful enough to inflict serious damage to the asteroid where Ulimo rests upon!"

"Really?!"

Ves secretly cobbled these nuclear bombs together from the warheads taken out of the disarmed Alpha Bombs of the Crona Lords. Though Ves did not specialize in nuclear bombs, he knew enough about explosives to be able to build fairly simple bombs himself.

He deliberately added in some other energetic exotics into the mix in order to alter the distinctive composition of his new bombs. He had no idea if the exact formula of the Alpha Bomb was unique to the Crona Lords.

After a quick discussion, the lead inspector issued a demand. "You have three options. You can leave this perimeter entirely. You can allow one of your sh.i.p.s to stay outside our security perimeter. You can land both sh.i.p.s on Ulimo, but you will have to temporarily surrender these nuclear bombs into our care."

No pirate liked to be robbed of their trump cards. That was their strongest deterrent and guarantee of safety against stronger opponents!

Abis acted as if he found it difficult to accept the three options that he had been presented with. However, he also appeared to be in control of himself. It was as if he already expected to hear such demands.

"I choose the last." He squeezed out of his lips. His face looked pained. "Where will you take my bombs?"

"Do not be concerned, Commander Domis. Your bombs will not be confiscated. We are merely holding them for you until you are done with your business on Ulimo. We shall store them carefully in one of our outer vaults dug into one of the many asteroids in this asteroid field."

This was critical news! Abis only stirred a tiny bit. The existence of these vaults and the practiced way in which the Dry Snakes demanded to take over custody of dangerous superweapons meant that their vaults must contain quite a number of taboo weapons!

"What are the fees." Abis asked.

The inspector grinned. A lot of visitors overlooked this seemingly trivial issue. "A single K-bar is enough to guarantee the safety of your bombs for a couple of months."

"We will not be staying at Ulimo for long. I will prepare several hundred K-coins instead."

"Good. You may deliver the coins to us when we complete this inspection."

They exited the hidden compartment and headed down to the brig. Along the way, the lead inspector gave out another tip.

"Oh, by the way, our vaults contain a sizable number of 'unowned' trump cards. If you are interested in bolstering your arsenal, please let us know."

"What happened to their previous owners?" Abis asked.

"They fell apart and lost their claim. They broke one of our rules and suffered our punishment. They traded their secret weapons to another pirate group who left before receiving their purchases. They no longer possessed any sh.i.p.s to take their goods away. They made a foolish gamble and lost their bets. They fought in our arena and lost their lives."

There were many different reasons why so many pirate outfits left lost their ownership of these valuable trump cards. The causes mentioned by the lead inspector proved that Ulimo Citadel was not safe! Every visitor needed to pay close attention to their lives and possessions.

"How can we acquire these powerful weapons?"

"We conduct a periodic auction where a selection of these goods are put on the block." The inspector proudly explained. "We also import these types of weapons from our other partners, so there is always something that fits your budget and your needs. I heard that we have recently received a batch of ship-grade lasers that can be mounted on light carriers such as yours. For a reasonable commission, we can install these weapons onto your sh.i.p.s. The Gap has grown more dangerous as of late. Your bombs may be powerful, but they are also consumables. You would do well to add a more sustainable trump card to your arsenal."

Bribing the inspector sure paid off! This was critical news that the Larkinson Clan needed to know as soon as possible!

Abis did not hide his excitement too much. The inspectors probably thought the Mirror Raiders were desperate to acquire the powerful laser weapons.

"When is the next auction? How can we take part? With all of the unrest stirring in the Gap and crazies such as the Larkinson Clan rampaging in Maynard Fields, there is no use keeping all of our Kavenit in our cargo holds. The sooner we obtain those lasers, the greater our chances of survival!"

The inspectors stirred a bit as soon as Abis deliberately mentioned the Larkinson Clan.

By now, practically every pirate had heard how the Larkinson Clan completely broke the status quo in Maynard Fields. Their strength and ruthlessness turned them into even greater demons, on par with the bigger pirate alliances that truly ruled the Nyxian Gap!

Even the inspectors expressed a bit of fear.

"Don't talk about the Larkinson Clan when you arrive at Ulimo. Mentioning it will only spread more panic. There is no reason for you to fear these ignorant brutes. Ulimo Citadel is fully prepared to repel the Larkinsons. If they think that Ulimo is just as exploitable as Xiphard, then they are sorely mistaken. Even their pet Hexers shall fall if they dare to enter our security perimeter!"

Though the inspector might be exaggerating, Abis did not think so. The Dry Snakes seem fully confident that they were able to defeat the full might of Task Force Predator!

Chapter 2258 - Don't Eat The Food

The inspectors examined a lot of suspicious compartments that were difficult to scan. Some of them contained sensitive or valuable goods.

This was normal pirate behavior. It would have been odd if the Mirror Raiders didn't squirrel their most valuable trade goods in these hidden nooks and crannies.

The only concern for the inspectors was to see if they posed a threat to their base. The value and providence of these valuables were not their concern, and the Dry Snakes weren't stupid enough to rob them from their visitors.

The Dry Snakes already earned plenty of Kavenit coins from collecting fees and taxes! This was the kingly way of doing business, no matter if it took place in a lawless region like the Nyxian Gap or in a bastion of civilization at Centerpoint.

The pirates, at least the clever ones, had more in common with the MTA than most people thought!

They inspectors paused a bit once they reached the brig. Locked inside the cells were dozens of prisoners who appeared to be in awful shape.

They were obviously pirates or slaves that the Mirror Raiders had captured. What was odd about them was that they weren't physically injured.

Instead, they looked broken or listless. Some of their eyes looked dull and their bodies rarely moved. Others twitched and shook at irregular intervals.

Some of them even spoke gibberish.

"Gghwehwll."

"Aughweofwe."

The inspectors frowned at the prisoners as he passed by the cells. "What is wrong with these prisoners?"

"We were a little too rough with them." Abis casually dismissed the issue as if it was just a trivial issue. "We considered voiding them into space, but they should be worth at least something, so we're keeping them here until we can sell them at Ulimo."

The lead inspector shook his head. "Your merchandise is spoiled. While their physical states look decent, they are no better than clones. Slaves are valued by their capabilities. What can they do if their minds are broken? Hardly anyone is interested in low-quality goods like these! If you can sell them to anyone at Ulimo, I suggest you bring your slaves to our nutrient processing plant and sell them for a modest price. We can at least recycle their biological matter to produce a couple of batches of nutrient packs."

Abis silently reminded himself to tell his crew not to eat any of the food sold at Ulimo.

"I'll look around." He replied non-committedly. "It took too much effort to capture and subdue these slaves. I don't want to end up with a loss."

"Suit yourself."

The inspection proceeded on to the bays and stables that held the mechs of the Mirror Raiders.

None of the machines looked impressive. The pirate mechs that the Larkinson Clan had refurbished to look even rougher and trashier all appeared as if they had been serviced by three-year old monkeys.

The mech technicians that were supposed to repair all of the battle damage were instead spending their time on drinking beer, playing Pirate Empires or injecting their bodies with recreational stimulants!

The deplorable sight immediately caused Abis to grow angry! He stormed over and kicked a stoned chief technician!

"You lazy gits! What the hell are you doing at this time?! Do you think that you can put down your work just because we've reached safety?!"

"B-B-But boss, can't we just hand over our mechs to the fixers at Ulimo and let them do all of the work?"

"We'll only get ripped off if we do that, and who knows what they will slip into our machines when we aren't looking! Now stand up and get your butts back into gear! We aren't stopping until we have finally landed on Ulimo!"

"Yes, commander!"

The mech technicians all grumbled and grudgingly went back to work. Their sloppy, lazy demeanor hardly grew weaker. As for those who were too out of their minds like the chief technician, it was impossible for them to perform their duties at this time!

The shameful sight embarrassed 'Commander Domis' quite a bit. Even so, the inspectors didn't say a word. They were mainly tasked with inspecting the mechs. They had already witnessed many sights like these in their positions.

Abis coughed. "As you can see, these are our mechs. They're not pretty, but they have not failed me so far. Once we patch them up, we'll be ready to fight anything."

The quality of the pirate mechs were actually quite decent. They were not as cheap or awful as the economy mechs used by bottom feeder pirate outfits.

In general, most of the mechs of the Mirror Raiders consisted of decent budget mechs on par with the likes of the Desolate Soldier. It was just that they suffered from varying degrees of corrosion, acc. battle damage and fairly poor maintenance.

Against a brand new budget mech, these pirates mechs likely performed thirty percent worse!

While some of that was due to the recent 'battle' that the Mirror Raiders had fought, some of the problems stemming from lack of care truly dragged down the performance of the mechs by as much as ten to twenty percent.

This was one of the many reasons why pirates never fared too well against Peacekeeper outfits! The latter were better funded, possessed access to legal channels and could easily recruit some competent technical personnel.

"Mhmm." The lead inspector made a conclusion. "You are allowed to keep these mechs inside your sh.i.p.s, but must allow us to lock them once you land. You will not be allowed to activate your mechs or take them away without our express permission. Is that clear?"

Though Abis looked uncomfortable at the thought of being unable to defend himself with his mechs, he knew that this was a mandatory rule.

"You are free to do so. How much does that cost?"

"Right now, we charge two Kavenit coins per locked mech per day. We suggest you pay in advance. If you do not pay this fee in time, then do not blame us if we confiscate your mech!"

Abis winced at the thought. "We understand. I'll hand over a K-bar when we land."

The Mirror Raiders hadn't even landed on Ulimo yet, but already they were being swept by several fees!

Running out of money or valuables while remaining in the clutches of the Dry Snakes was a very bad idea. As long as the Mirror Raiders failed any payment, endless troubles might ensue!

Was the founder of Ulimo Citadel a Reinaldan or something?

The round of inspections soon ended without any remarkable events. The Bloody Fang and the Cruel Intention proceeded onwards at a controlled pace under heavy escort.

Along the way, a small pirate transport flew close in order to carry the three potent nuclear bombs of the Mirror Raiders to a remote vault built into one of the surrounding asteroids.

Soon enough, the two carriers traveled close enough to approach the moon-sized asteroid that hosted Ulimo up close!

A formidable amount of mechs, sh.i.p.s and fixed defenses patrolled the entire space. The sh.i.p.s that belonged to visiting pirate outfits meekly obeyed the instructions issued by the Dry Snakes and did not dare to stir any trouble.

With all of their fighting assets locked or taken away, there was no way for them to win even if they all simultaneously rebelled!

Moons came in various sizes and dimensions. Some were as big as terrestrial planets while others were about as big as a large island. The rocky asteroid that the pirates simply called Ulimo looked rather underwhelming.

It was big enough to exert a bit of gravity, but small enough for any ship to land on its surface without sustaining damage.

Under the guidance of what passed for traffic control in these parts, the Mirror Raider sh.i.p.s slowly descended and entered a large hall built into a high mountain range.

A dozen other vessels had already parked in this specific landing zone. Their markings and colors signified that they all belonged to separate pirate outfits.

Once a couple of clamps moved to anchor the two sh.i.p.s in place, the Mirror Raiders started to reach out to the Dry Snakes. Their sh.i.p.s were in bad shape and urgently needed repairs.

Large groups of Mirror Raiders began to exit their vessels. Each of them smelled the rusty air that was filled with various smells.

When Ketis and Dietrich stepped out in their exaggerated trophy-laden suits of combat armor, they both experienced different emotions when they breathed the air.

To Ketis, it smelled just like home.

Meanwhile, Dietrich shook with nervous tension. Now that they managed to land on Ulimo, their real mission had started. If any of the Mirror Raiders slipped up even once, their identities as Larkinsons might become exposed!

A squad of armored guards stepped behind him. As the supposed son and heir of Commander Domis, it was only fitting for him to be surrounded by formidable guards. Each of them exuded a ferocious or bloodthirsty vibe, causing them to resemble some of the crueler pirates in the Nyxian Gap!

The group waited for a moment until Abis, Lieutenant Sendra and Lieutenant Rodan both arrived with their own entourage of officers and guards.

"Let us enter the citadel. We have a lot of business to conduct." Abis remarked.

The large group of Mirror Raiders stuck together as they stepped aboard a transit vehicle. The bus proceeded to zip through a tunnel that led straight to the citadel at rapid speed.

Once the transit vehicle arrived at its destination, the Mirror Raiders stepped off and became astounded by the sight that greeted them at an instant.

A modest underground city unfolded before their eyes! Even though the ceiling was made out of nothing but carved rock, the lights affixed to them cast a rather pleasant shade onto the surface.

Tens of thousands of pirates resided in the city. Most of them weren't actually 'pirates' in the truest sense of the word. Most of them had been born in the Nyxian Gap and lived their entire lives in lawless space.

Despite the presence of violent criminals and cruel robbers in the boisterous underground city, the Mirror Raiders hardly noticed any signs of fighting or robbing.

Of course, that did not mean that the public area of Ulimo was safe. The large amount of Dry Snake patrols at the entrance of the city exerted a strong deterrence at any pirate who wanted to stir up trouble.

A few minutes passed as the Mirror Raiders slowly passed through the checkpoints and entered the city proper.

Street urchins ran through the alleys. P.r.o.s.t.i.t.u. plied their services. A lonesome old man set up a market stall on the side of the street in order to sell a fresh batch of locally-produced nutrient packs which were renowned for their unique texture and complex taste. Dozens of pirates quickly swarmed the stall and eagerly paid for their purchases in K-bits.

The value of a solid K-coin was quite high. Using them in mundane transactions was as ridiculous as paying an MTA credit for a simple shuttle transit!

Ketis grew a bit curious at the nutrient packs on sale. She knew that Ves was actually a big lover and a casual collector of them. Cheap and long-lasting, they fed the stomachs of a significant proportion of humanity every day!

Just as she was about to approach the stall, Abis reached out and halted her. "Don't buy any of the food on sale here."

"Yes, sir." Ketis obediently nodded.

If she was in her normal guise, she wouldn't pay attention to Flagrant Vandal officer. Sadly, she was just a simple guard right now. There was no excuse for her to disobey.

"Bo, explore the city and make some friends if you can. Make sure not to stray anywhere that looks sketchy."

Dietrich lazily saluted Abis. "Yes, dad."

"Be serious! Don't piss anyone off and don't throw your weight around. While you're making friends, we will be spending some of our spoils on buying some much-needed mechs and supplies. This is just the first day of our stay here. There is no need to do too much. Scout out the city first. We need to know the lay of the land before we do anything else."

The disguised Larkinsons eagerly explored the pirate city!

Chapter 2259 - Not Enough Room

While the Mirror Raiders scoped out Ulimo Citadel, the remainder of Task Force Predator had backed off in order to reduce the chances of discovery.

Though Ves constantly worried about Ketis, he really couldn't do much this far away. The only consolation he had was that Calabast dispatched a stealth shuttle bearing Lucky to the vicinity of Ulimo Citadel as backup.

He missed his cat a bit, but he didn't let the absence distract him from his many duties.

Aside from progressing his mech designs, he also paid a bit more attention to his subordinates.

Many of the Braves he recruited merely possessed a lot of potential at the start. Whether they would bloom or not in the LMC remained to be seen.

Luckily, every new hire in the LMC's Design Department adjusted well to their new life and job. None of them were unmotivated or neglected their work.

The enterprising Larkinson energy along with the subtle influence of the Larkinson Network made sure that each of them fostered genuine belonging to the Larkinson Clan.

Whether they l.u. after the rewards offered by the Larkinson Merit Exchange or wanted to offer their support to the clan, the assistants under his care all worked dutifully to keep their projects on schedule.

Enough time had passed for the differences to become clear.

For example, Catherine Evenson performed well enough to keep up with most of the Erudites when it came to solving complicated technical problems. Her noble temperament attracted the friendship of mech designers with better backgrounds.

Moltar Ringer exuberant unleashed his passion during every design session. His solutions were slightly more original and innovative as a result, though they weren't always executed well. He was still struggling to make something special out of his chosen specialty of signal disruption.

Rina Orion made few friends due to her cybernetic implants. Her design philosophy was very interesting, though. She specialized in targeting systems, which was something that was useful to all ranged mechs.

She had already accomplished a decent amount of progress in her nascent design philosophy before she joined the Larkinson Clan. After spending her merits on a select number of Clarion University textbooks, her understanding in her chosen field grew by leaps and bounds.

Aside from her competence, leadership ability and interesting specialty, Ves had another reason to pay attention to the former citizen of the Coman Federation.

She possessed spiritual potential. That was always remarkable, but hers was a little special.

It looked dim. For some reason, Ves felt as if he was looking at a starved puppy that had been leashed onto a pipe and left in the yard for hours or days.

Ves scratched his head at the perplexing sight.

Why did Rina possess such a defective spirituality?

From what he observed of her work, she was truly passionate and engaged in her craft and specialty. While Rina might be overly bossy towards the members of her design team, she didn't behave too excessively.

A mech designer like her should possess a more vigorous spiritual potential. While she may not be as talented as Dukan French, at the very least she should be slowly getting closer to advancing to Journeyman!

She presented an odd puzzle, and Ves felt the urge to take her aside and see what was wrong with her. He refrained from doing so after he figured that it might be weird to talk to her about a strange problem out of the blue.

For now, he intended to keep her in observation and monitor the changes to her spiritual potential. If it remained stagnant or began to deteriorate, then Ves would step in no matter whether it was appropriate or not. He did not wish to see a potential Journeyman get ruined by some weird spiritual affliction!

Aside from that, he also made sure to spend more time on guiding his two Larkinson seeds. Maikel and Zanthar were still too young to his liking, but they behaved like sponges as they observed the design teams at work.

Ves was also pleased with their studies. He had fed enough Attribute Candies to them to give them a leg up, but not so much as to distort or unbalance their personalities too much.

Their high Concentration allowed them to absorb knowledge from basic science textbooks for hours on end without getting distracted by their comms. Unlike many other boys their age, they did not play any virtual reality games or shared silly memes with their friends on Commbook during their study time.

Before Ves knew it, Maikel and Zanthar had already absorbed some fundamental knowledge that every mech design student learned in their first year at university.

He decided to call both of them into his office to discuss their future study trajectory.

"Maikel. Zanthar." Ves folded his hands over the desk. "The two of you have begun to dip your toes into mech design. While you have only studied the foundational sciences so far and have not yet performed any practical design exercises, I believe that both of you have already developed an impression at what is possible."

Maikel nodded. "It's really fascinating to learn how mechs are put together. Every day I see a mech, I think I understand a little more how and why it is designed that way."

"What about you, Zanthar?"

"There is something about building machines that can fight that is awesome. I can't wait to design my first real mech."

Both of them expressed genuine enthusiasm in mech design. It was difficult not to. Spending so much time in the design lab while occasionally mingling with Ves or the assistant mech designers increased their intimacy towards mech design.

Even if they didn't really understand what any of the mech designers were working on, simply witnessing the diligence they performed their craft was inspiring.

This was actually something that Ves deliberately set out to do. He did not want to waste his investment into the two adolescents.

By making them spend so much time in the design lab, Ves hoped that some of the passion and dedication of the assistants would rub off on them. It was like taking advantage of institutional isomorphism on a smaller scale!

However, at this stage in their learning, Ves did not want them to follow an ordinary study trajectory.

As his next batch of students, Ves wanted to turn them into innovative mech designers who weren't afraid of blazing their own trail!

From his observations of many low-ranking mech designers, Ves knew that they had to meet two requirements.

First, they needed to develop spiritual potential. So far, Ves didn't know how they emerged, but Maikel and Zanthar had plenty of time to foster their own potential. He could do nothing but facilitate their passion in mech design with the hope that this was one of the methods to develop spiritual potential.

Second, competent mech designers had to develop a mindset towards innovation. Even if human science was incredibly advanced, even if many innovations had already been done before, a mech designer needed to develop an unflinching conviction in their own inventions!

This was why Ves pushed Moltar towards researching and developing his own homegrown solutions in signal disruption.

Ves knew very well that if he wanted to buy a good jammer or interference device, he could just license a highly-optimized module from the MTA's internal catalog.

Yet that did not mean that the innovations of an Apprentice or Journeyman were obsolete. As long as their specialties developed to the point where they were able to augment their inventions with their own spirituality, the performance of their mechs reached a higher level!

In any case, it was far too easy for beginner mech designers to get caught up in the cycle of learning. Ves did not wish for Maikel and Zanthar to become accustomed to spending all of their time absorbing knowledge.

At some point, every capable mech designer had to generate new knowledge. This was the only way for them to become something more than an imitator whose future was limited.

Ves theorized that mech designers should start innovating in their first year at university. This was very early, but it was much harder to instill the correct mindset into his students when they grew older!

"Both of you must have developed a decent overview on the specialties that people of our profession can devote towards. Choosing a specialty is one of the most important choices in your lives. While I don't expect you to have made any solid choices, it is helpful to explore what inclinations you developed during your studies. Could you please tell me which fields interest you the most? Maikel, you go first."

"Oh." He grew more nervous. "Uhm, to be honest, I'm more interested in the glows of your mechs. It's so fascinating to see how they are alive despite their nature of machines. I.. I would like to learn how to design a mech as remarkable as yours."

Ves blinked. He should have expected such an answer.

He didn't know yet whether he was willing to pass on his core trade secrets. His design philosophy was very unique and he didn't even know if Maikel was capable to adopting the extreme mindset that Ves adopted whenever he thought about mech design.

He coughed. "You have a bright future ahead of you. Don't let success fool you into believing that you will become just as renowned as I. Try and find something that interests you that doesn't directly depend on another mech designer's work."

"What do you mean?" Maikel looked confused.

"I'll give you a quick example. If you are still interested in my design philosophy and what I can do, then don't try and develop the same design philosophy as mine. Only the direct disciples of very renowned Masters can do so boldly. You are better off finding a path that is more suitable to your interests."

"What if I don't want to do something different?" Maikel stubbornly asked.

Ves developed a bit of a headache after hearing that. Obviously, spending so much time around LMC mechs had turned Maikel into a devotee of his own work! This was not necessarily good!

"Every mech designer is different." Ves stated. "This means that some mech designers are better suited to some specialty than others. Right now, I don't believe that my specific field fits you best."

"If that's the case, why can't I change myself so that I do fit well with your field? Anyone can change as long as you work hard enough!"

That.. was true. Ves believed in this statement, which made it difficult to reject Maikel's suggestion.

He bowed his head. "Let's return to this topic when you progress your studies some more. Both of you have only scratched the surface of mech design so far. There are many more possibilities out there for the two of you to explore once you graduate into fully-fledged mech designers."

Both Larkinson seeds nodded.

"Zanthar, let's start with you. What interests you the most right now?"

"I.. uhm.." Zanthar grew a little nervous. "During this expedition, I got to take a look at big and powerful weapons. I am no stranger to mechs. Even though your LMC mechs are great, I'm rather bored of seeing them all day. It's only when we started attacking pirate bases that broke up the monotony. Seeing the Alpha Mines, the Omega Lasers and those other huge and powerful weapons up close is very exciting! The sheer might they contain is impressive! I… well.. I know it's wrong, but... I want to build something like that too one day. In a mech! Legally, of course!"

Ves glowered at Zanthar when he heard those words. The young man grew nervous.

"At least you are honest." Ves eventually said. "Not every interest is healthy, Zanthar. Let me note down your initial fascination as an admiration of extreme firepower. Taboo weapons aren't the only impressive weapons that mechs can wield. I highly suggest you expand your horizons. First and second-class mechs are very diverse when it comes to their armament!"

Though Ves believed that every mech designer should follow their passion, that did not mean he was okay with letting Zanthar go down a crooked path! The Larkinson Clan only possessed room for one war criminal!

Chapter 2260 - Ruination Witch

The Marrakath System slowly succ. to the Hexers!

With the introduction of the amazing Blessed Squire model, the Wrathful Doves Mech Army Group embraced the new addition with remarkable speed.

Initially, DIVA pushed the Blessed Squire onto the Wrathful Doves through backroom deals and secret agreements with the upper ranks. Later on, the positive reactions of the rank-and-file mech pilots who drew strength from the new model ensured that no one would be able to reverse the tide.

No one within the Wrathful Doves wanted to deprive their fighting boys and women the incredible utility offered by this odd new supportive knight mech.

Even if its design was not as optimized as regular Hex Army models, the Blessed Squire somehow possessed its own slightly foreign charm. Even when word started to spread that a boy of all people played an integral role in its design, the Wrathful Doves simply accepted the news without any controversy.

This was because anyone who experienced the Blessed Squire's simply couldn't imagine getting rid of it! Many Hexers believed that the mech was literally blessed by the Superior Mother.

With such a mythical Supreme revealing her presence through a mech model of all choices, how could the Wrathful Doves reject this sacred mech?

No amount of external pressure would convince them to give up a mech that had helped them achieve victory after victory!

Weeks after the Blessed Squire energized the ground forces of the Hex Army, the territories of Marrakath III quickly fell to their offensives in quick succession. Like falling domino stones, the rapid conquests rapidly caused the defenders to lose an enormous amount of supplies and war materiel.

In too many cases, the Hexers advanced so rapidly that the Fridaymen were only just beginning to evacuate their exposed fortifications!

The Fortune Legion and more specifically the Opal Trident Mech Army Group suffered calamity after calamity. The constant defeats and retreating actions depressed the morale of every Fridayman mech pilot.

The dark cloud looming over them not only caused the Opal Tridents to lose their edge, but also made them more susceptible to the Blessed Squire's glow!

Only a fourth of the available land surface of Marrakath III remained in Fridayman hands.

Ordinarily, any invasion would slow down at this point. If the Opal Tridents kept pulling off orderly retreats, then they would have been able to concentrate their remaining strengths across a much tighter defense line.

This was not the case this time! Too many times, the Fridayman failed to retreat in order. They either sacrificed too many valuable supplies or failed to make it back to friendly lines.

Without enough mechs, supplies and other equipment, the Fortune Legion simply couldn't resist the Hex Army on even ground!

With the rear of the Fridayman-occupied territory in disorder, the Hexers pushed themselves to the limit. They had to advance as fast as possible! The sooner Marrakath III fell, the sooner they breached the gates to the interior of Carnegie Group space!

The momentum of the Wrathful Doves couldn't be stopped at this point. High command decided that the cost of slowing down the enflamed Hexers was too much for them to bear, and began to issue orders to evacuate from the fortress planet!

"Marrakath III will fall!"

"We've given up on this planet!"

"Those damn Hexers!"

The Fortune Legion elements attempted to retreat as orderly as possible. Crucial production equipment and other heavy machines were shipped away first. After that, various mechs and high-value supplies were taken away next.

The war-stricken orbit of Marrakath III became even more hazardous due to the non-stop struggle for orbital supremacy.

The battle in orbit and in space unfolded more evenly as the spaceborn elements of the Hex Army lacked the support of the Blessed Squire. Yet even that started to change as the Wrathful Doves started experimenting on putting Blessed Squire in space!

From attaching external flight system harnesses to its frame to simply placing it onto an armored flight platform, the Hexers tried many ways to deploy this remarkable mech in space.

Some of these inelegant solutions actually worked!

While it was very wasteful to employ Blessed Squires in this fashion, the amplification effect provided by their glows made the calculus worthwhile to the Wrathful Doves. The performance of every spaceborn mech increased remarkably!

Under these circ. , the Fridaymen became more desperate than ever to evacuate their ground troops and as much equipment as possible.

Near a large, military spaceport, an entire city had almost become flattened and cratered due to the sheer amount of fighting that unfolded recently.

Much of the structures had been built with large amounts of bulk exotics, making them as thick and tough as starship hull plating. Some key structures even boasted better protection than capital sh.i.p.s!

Now, many of these structures had either collapsed or exhibited a lot of holes. Just a day of fighting had turned a key defensive bulwark into a broken mess. Mechs from both sides trampled over fallen debris, broken mech parts and other junk.

The air constantly cracked and thundered with exchanges of energy beams, projectiles and missiles. Entire mech regiments advanced and retreated along a slowly-receding line.

The Fortune Legion put up a stiff but increasingly hopeless resistance as the hotblooded Hexers relentlessly assaulted their lines without stop!

Flying very low over the ruined streets was one of the few morale boosters left among the Fridaymen that had gained more prominence during the current campaign.

The Charlemagne and the Scara had become famed in a matter of weeks! After its foreign expert slayed seven Hexer expert pilots in total, the Fridaymen no longer turned up their noses in front of Venerable Ghanso Larkinson.

His heroism and valiant performance paved the way for the introduction of other foreign expert pilots. The Coalition Reserve Corps would have encountered a lot more resistance if Ghanso and his Charlemagne hadn't killed so many enemy expert pilots.

Unfortunately, the blood on his hands enraged the Hexers!

After losing a string of valued expert pilots to the Charlemagne and his fifty quasi-expert mechs, the Wrathful Doves finally put down their arrogance and treated Unit L as a serious opponent.

The Hex Army analyzed Venerable Ghanso and his assets and tried to figure out a way to counter him. With all of the protection that the Opal Tridents bestowed on him, it wasn't easy to take out the Charlemagne.

However, the Fortune Legion couldn't protect all of the Scara!

Above a ruined supply depot, the Charlemagne hastily flew back while firing a resonance-empowered positron beam!

The quasi-expert mechs that accompanied the expert rifleman mech fired their rifles as well. Unlike before, their volley of beams looked ragged and not as nearly overwhelming as before.

The Scara incurred many losses!

With the Hexers focusing their fire on the cheaper and less well-protected rifleman mechs, Unit L gradually lost more and more of its teeth.

By now, only twenty-three intact quasi-expert mechs accompanied Charlemagne in battle! Their beams, though still fairly potent, barely even scratched the armor of Venerable Ghanso's current opponent!

"Marrakath III shall fall, and so shall the Crestfallen Stars! The Carnegie Group will be the first to fall to ruin, and the rest of the Friday Coalition shall follow next!"

Ghanso did not even bother to reply to his current adversary's taunts. He was too busy with trying to keep the remainder of his Scara alive!

The loss of a couple of dozen quasi-expert mechs was not regrettable. They were just mechs that could be produced at any time, though they weren't cheap by any means.

What truly pained Unit L and Master Huron was the loss of their 'mech pilots'! Not even a powerful Master was able to replace the dimwitted clones so easily. Something about them made it very difficult to cultivate them in greater numbers. The losses suffered by Unit L might take quite some time to replenish!

Venerable Ghanso instinctively felt acute danger. He immediately responded by commanding his Charlemagne to dodge to the side as fast as possible no matter how disgraceful it seemed!

His urgency also passed on through the neural network, causing the surviving Scara to split up as fast as possible.

"Too late!"

A glowing shell rapidly reached the position that the Charlemagne occupied just half a second ago and exploded, unleashing a fiery blast that was large enough to engulf several quasi-expert mechs that hadn't moved away fast enough!

Venerable Ghanso felt a spike of pain and strange emotions. Three of the nodes within the neural network had disappeared, which meant that a single explosive shell had taken out three of his Scara at once!

"Damnit, you witch!"

He hastily reorganized his scattered Scara and began to unleash another empowered volley against his current attacker.

Twenty-one positron beams empowered by rage struck one of the largest mechs on the battlefield.

Though the concentrated attacks managed to pierce the resonance shield, the attacks had lost so much potency that they only managed to burn away some coating. The upper-most armor layer suffered negligible damage!

Surrounding by numerous mech companies, a Doom Crawler that was half as taller and much more wider than the Charlemagne steadily advanced with the help of its six, spider-like legs.

The armored limbs were thick and plated with broad slabs of armor. When linked together, they could even form an impromptu shield that could withstand nearly every form of attack!

This huge expert mech was the infamous Death Blossom, an extremely powerful doom crawler that outputted a mindblowing amount of damage at various distances.

It was one of the most renowned expert mechs of the Wrathful Doves! Piloted by Ginevra Costa, a high-tier expert pilot, the appearance of this infamous doom crawler spelled the end of the Fortune Legion's stand in this city.

This was because the so-called Ruination Witch was one of the most powerful artillery specialists in the Hex Army!

Six different weapon mounts fired in an alternating pattern at various targets on the battlefield. Even as the Death Blossom put the Charlemagne under pressure, entire Fridayman mech companies and defensive fortifications succ. under its prodigious firepower!

Each and every attack unleashed by the huge doom crawler was powered by as much resonance as the Charlemagne's fully-charged attacks. Whereas Ghanso had to exert himself in order to magnify his expert mech's attacks, the Ruination Witch could easily empower all six weapons of her Death Blossom in quick succession!

A ruinous positron beam bore straight through a thick and powerful bunker, penetrating through meters of armor plating and inflicting untold damage from within.

Another weapon mount fired a split laser beam that lanced in over a hundred different directions, intercepting missiles, blasting through aerial mechs, taking out sensor arrays and more.

A thick and heavy gauss cannon fired a powerful projectile that slammed straight through the shield of a heavy knight mech. Immediately afterwards, the round pierced straight through the mech itself before punching through eight more mechs further backwards until it finally slammed into an evacuated headquarters, causing the entire structure to be blasted into pieces!

As the Charlemagne and the Scara continued to give ground, the Death Blossom's gravitic cannon fired a strange orb that rapidly landed in the midst of some of the quasi-expert mechs.

Soon, the orb expanded, causing four more rifleman mechs to be caught in a powerful localized gravity well!

"No! Not again!"

The plasma cannon mount of the Death Blossom ruthlessly fired, causing all of the trapped mechs to melt into pieces due to the incredible energy and heat impacting their frames!

Throughout this entire rampage, the largest weapon mount of all thundered once again. The howitzer placed on top of the expert doom crawler had fired an empowered explosive shell that arced over everyone's heads.

Despite the various mechs and turrets that attempted to intercept the incredibly powerful shell, the glow surrounding the shell easily resisted the hasty attacks!

Soon enough, the shell landed within the perimeter of the military spaceport many kilometers away.

BOOM!

A huge explosion engulfed several transports, hundreds of Fridaymen, and a large amount of critical equipment and strategic supplies!

An exultant war cry erupted from the ranks of the Hexers!

"Women shall reign supreme!"

Chapter 2261 - Trouble in Ulimo

While the Hex Army was on the verge of kicking out the Fortune Legion in the Marrakath System, the Nyxian Gap experienced more tension than ever.

The Peacekeepers and the Nyxian pirates confronted each other much more often.

Driven by greed and other reasons, more and more pirate gangs intruded into civilized space in order to raid the border region of the Sentinel Kingdom and other nearby third-rate states.

In response, the Peacekeeper Association heavily encouraged its affiliate outfits to invade the periphery of the Nyxian Gap!

While the Peacekeeper outfits managed to defeat many pirates, most of the sc.u.m they eliminated were decrepit, bottom feeder pirate gangs that rarely possessed any trump cards.

No matter how many incentives they received, the Peacekeepers were very reluctant to move past the outer periphery!

Once they entered a territory like Maynard Fields, the mercenaries in the service of the Sentinel Kingdom risked getting overtaken by the powerful, entrenched pirate factions that long held sway in their respective territories.

Therefore, the heated conflict didn't actually generate much concern among the higher ups of both sides. Yet everyone knew that this was just the calm before the storm. Much greater movements took place in the dark.

Right now, the Mirror Raiders that had been sent to scout out Ulimo Citadel learned a lot of new information.

The Black Cats underestimated the activity at Ulimo. In the past few months, its importance has risen as it stood out as one of the few accessible marketplaces where pirate outfits could acquire reliable superweapons!

The intelligence that Calabast and her analysts compiled from interrogating pirates and decrypting captured data banks weren't wrong. Their conclusions were just outdated.

With so many more pirates desiring to increase their deterrence power and self-protection ability, the demand of taboo weapons had skyrocketed!

Though owning them would make any pirate damned in the eyes of the Big Two, most pirates didn't care at this point. The MTA and CFA never entered the Nyxian Gap these days and whatever helpers they hired barely made an impact.

Sure, the Larkinson Clan razed several pirate bases, but no one on Ulimo believed that they were in danger.

Ulimo was too strong! The Dry Snakes enjoyed such a great reputation that even the latest scourge to have entered Maynard Fields hardly shook the confidence of the locals inside the public area of the pirate stronghold.

After a couple of days, the Mirror Raiders spent a hefty amount of Kavenit. Through a series of deals, Abis managed to arrange repairs for the Bloody Fang, the Cruel Intention and most of their mechs. He had also paid the equivalent of 25 million hex credits in Kavenit to acquire 23 second-hand pirate mechs that looked to be in decent shape.

While Abis could have spent more, such a choice did not make sense for someone in his position.

Ulimo Citadel's mech market was quite small and inadequate. Most of the mechs on sale were targeted towards the smaller pirate gangs that frequented this pirate base. This meant that most local vendors only sold the most affordable mechs!

To put it simply, Abis could choose between buying third-hand mechs, second-hand mechs, or some rare factory new budget mechs that were sold at twice or thrice their actual value!

The Mirror Raiders could only bow their heads and acquire some stopgap machines while they recruited more mech pilots.

So far, the recruitment drive did not proceed very smoothly. While the Mirror Raiders managed to rent a respectable hall, the pirates that strolled in were less than ideal.

A slightly overweight pirate burped and he took a swig of his beer. "Whadda ya mean you can't give me a midrange mech? I'm The Three-Shot Prince, you stinking turd! I shot more mechs than you have ever seen with your beady eyes. I refuse to pilot your trash!"

"A twenty times share is not enough. I deserve to earn a hundred times the share of the plunder! If you don't pay me a K-bar right away, I'll step out and tell my buddies that you are complete cheapskates!"

The ordinary pirates were already bad enough. The mech pilots among the pirates especially tended to push their weight around!

This couldn't be helped. The quality of mech pilots who turned pirates were wildly inconsistent. Just like in civilized space, the better mech pilots were largely monopolized by the big pirate alliances and more established groups such as the Dry Snakes.

A small, independent outfit with no reputation to speak of like the Mirror Raiders only attracted the dregs of the Nyxian Gap. Even then, there weren't that many of them around, as many awful pirate mech pilots tended to enjoy a very short lifespan.

This was why the Mirror Raiders only recruited a handful of pirates so far, and most of them were support personnel.

The new recruits all thought they had a chance to go back to doing some actual pirating. Sadly, the Mirror Raiders only took in these dummies in order to act according to their masks.

Once the Mirror Raiders dropped their disguises, the new 'buddies' they recruited weren't necessary anymore!

After observing the recruitment drive for a time, Lieutenant Sodo Rodan of the Black Cats quietly approached the Flagrant Vandal officer.

"We have a problem."

"How serious."

"It can ruin everything."

"What?! Let's head somewhere private."

They quickly entered an office where Rodan proceeded to sweep the area of bugs before activating a jammer. The intelligence officer faced Abis with a grave expression.

"'Captain Itris and her group of women have bumped into a local gang called the Roid Rats and come to blows. Seven local thugs are dead and more of them are wounded. As far as we know, the gang is calling upon its friends to take revenge!"

The Swordmaidens among the Mirror Raiders were supposed to stay put! Lieutenant Sendra, who played the role of Captain Itris, was supposed to buy a batch of energy cells at this time.

"What is the case of this fight?!" Abis grew angry.

The captain and her posse of women barged into a gambling den and stirred up some trouble. It's safe to say that the conflict hadn't ended well for the locals.

"I told that woman not to wander off and pick a fight!"

According to their current plan, they should still be scouting out the local situation. What they had seen and learned only scratched the surface of the sheer amount of activity taking place in Ulimo's public marketplace.

During this time, the last thing that Abis wanted to see was to make enemies out of the locals!

Even if the local gangs didn't possess any mechs or sh.i.p.s, within the confines of Ulimo, heavy weapons were forbidden. As long as the gangs united together, not even the Mirror Raiders might survive!

The troublesome aspect about this was that Abis knew that Lieutenant Sendra strongly disagreed with his cautious and patient approach.

In her opinion, the Mirror Raiders didn't need to be so circ. ! The Dry Snakes didn't really care what took place within the marketplace area as long as nobody damaged the infrastructure.

In that case, why not attack the local pirates? As long as the Mirror Raiders took over their footholds, they would definitely become more integrated in Ulimo Citadel! Once that happened, the disguised Larkinsons would gain deeper access to the pirate base they intended to destroy.

Though Abis did not disagree with this plan, he wanted to take it step by step. They had barely finished the first couple of steps before the Swordmaidens recklessly sprinted a dozen steps forward!

"That woman is too reckless!"

"Blood has been spilled." Rodan grimly spoke. "Now that it has come to this, we can only take up arms and take the Roid Rats by storm."

The two swapped some quick ideas and formed a hasty plan. When Rodan finally shut down his jammer, their comms suddenly chimed.

Their worries increased further. "Bo and Avery are in trouble!"

At a lobby in one of the many small arenas that provided the most visceral form of entertainment to the locals, 'Bo', 'Avery' and a squadron of armed guards all held out their weapons as they faced ten times their numbers in gang members!

"Big Rat!" Dietrich shouted as he wore his excessively-decorated Sparous Vize Mark II. "Don't go too far! I don't fear your sc. gang at all. Compared to true pirates like our Mirror Raiders, you are nothing but jumped-up gutter trash. Just look at your troops! Hardly any of your men wear fully-covered suits of combat armor. And those weapons! The Peacekeepers would laugh if they saw those toy guns of yours!"

"Stop! Don't shoot up the front entrance of my arena!" The arena manager stepped in. "I swear, if you attack someone, don't blame me for activating my turrets!"

Dozens of turrets slid out of the ceiling. Their menacing laser barrels pointed straight at the two opposing groups.

"You're not getting away from me, Bo!" Big Rat shouted. "You Mirror Raiders messed with the wrong gang. Once we call up all of our friends, we'll crush you all to pieces before taking your sh.i.p.s and mechs as our own! The Dry Snakes won't protect you if most of you are dead!"

"Heh. You should finish the job first before you lay claim to our stuff."

The arena manager pulled out a pistol and shot into the ceiling! The weapon discharge instantly stifled the argument.

"Boys! Stop it! If you have any differences, fight it over in the arena if you dare. If not, then get the hell out of my lobby!"

Both Dietrich and the so-called Big Rat eyed each other menacingly. After several seconds of staring, they nodded.

"See you in the arena."

"Say goodby to your men!"

Under the arrangements of the arena operators, Dietrich's escort and mob of Roid Rats both signed a contract to hold a grudge match in the arena grounds.

Soon, word began to spread that a mob of more than a hundred local gang members intended to battle a small number of real pirates to the death!

Though the former brought vastly more people, their gear didn't look as good as that of the latter. No one really had a clue which side would win in an uneven group match, and that made the arena manager excited!

Locals and visitors began to flock to the arena and purchased tickets with their K-bits or K-coins. Even though the price of attending this impromptu arena match was low, the bets these people made quickly filled up the arena's coffers!

In one of the backstage areas, Dietrich faced his chief guard with concern. "Are you sure that we can take all of those enemies, Avery? Quantity has a quality all of its own. I'm not certain whether we underestimated that mob."

"Relax." Ketis replied behind her helmet. "I understand their gear the best. Nothing they have is better than the gear wielded by a typical pirate. While the armor of your guards might not hold if the Roid Rats are smart enough to concentrate their fire, their protection is patchy. Just slaughter them quickly and we won't have a problem anymore."

Soon enough, the arena stands had filled up sufficiently to begin the match. Both sides began to enter the arena grounds. Dietrich held his modified Peaceful Repose tightly in his armored grip.

As for Ketis, she eschewed her Udor in favor of unsheathing her new broad cutlass!

A bloodthirsty glint shone on her medium combat armor. Its size and bulk along with its apparent quality had attracted a lot of wary glances from the gang members.

A few minutes passed as the arena manager hyped up the crowd. With the emergence of a rare grudge match, the battle in the arena wouldn't end until one side was completely wiped out! The amount of bloodshed the spectators would get to see would be enough to keep their tongues wagging for weeks!

Dietrich shook a bit as he attempted to pick out Big Rat from the crowd. He was a mech pilot, not an infantry soldier. Fighting people without a mech was a novelty to him. He felt both weak and excited at the prospect.

"Commence the match!"

The two sides began firing at each other right away!

Chapter 2262 - Drowning in Blood

The arena match between the visiting Mirror Raiders and local Roid Rats attracted the interest of a lot of people!

Both locals and visitors filled up the small arena until there was no room left. Even then, the late arrivals merely decided to stand wherever there was space.

Something as exciting as a grudge match between two organizations didn't happen every day!

The Roid Rats may have provoked this fight, but they weren't completely brainless. As unkempt and dirty as they looked, they actually made some preparations and brought in a lot of extra equipment.

The moment the match commenced, only half of the Roid Rats fired at the Mirror Raiders!

The other half kept their weapons on their bodies. Instead, they slammed down various large plates onto the arena floor. Most of the plates consisted of corroded or damaged armor plating. All of them had been machined to the point where an average human could carry them around. A T-shaped base had been welded onto one of their ends in order to keep them upright.

"Cheaters!"

"You damn Roid Rats! It's not enough for you to outnumber those pirates by ten-to-one. Now you're building up your own fortress!"

Even though it wasn't quite proper to bring all of the extra gear, the critics were only making noise. The arena had witnessed many displays like this. As far as the arena operators were concerned, the Roid Rats were only leveraging their resources to give them a leg up in the match!

After layering the armor plates, most of the shots fired by the Mirror Raiders failed to overcome the defenses. This was because the materials were all built to resist mech attacks.

Even if the handheld plates weren't as thick as genuine mech armor plating, they offered a lot of resistance against small arms fire!

Dietrich immediately looked troubled. Out of his small group, only his Peaceful Repose managed to punch through the successive thin plates. Each time his pistol fired, A Roid Rat taking cover from behind dropped onto the arena floor in a bloody mess.

The power of the Peaceful Repose was not trivial at all! As one of the weapons previously chosen by Ves, the masterwork ballistic cannon possessed the power to end someone's life with every shot!

Unfortunately for Dietrich, he didn't carry enough ammunition to finish all of his opposition. The Peaceful Repose only fired specialized Exil rounds, which nobody in the Larkinson Clan could reproduce.

Perhaps Ves might be able to, but he had better things to do than waste his time on fabricating bullets.

As for his guards, their laser rifles only scored shallow grooves in the solid armor plating. The pirates weren't stupid enough to take cover behind the holes the Peaceful Repose had created.

While Dietrich and his guards were actually able to do more, they were reluctant to pull out any high-tech equipment. Exposing the altered Peaceful Repose was bad enough, but it at least made some sense for 'Bo' to own such an extravagant weapon. As the heir of the Mirror Raiders, it would be odd if he didn't own a powerful toy.

"Damn, how tough are these pirates? Did they steal them from the Sentinel military or something?!"

The combat armor of the Mirror Raiders all held. There were no objects in the arena that offered shelter against the rain of firepower, so Dietrich and his guards could only withstand the blows in the open!

The spectators sitting in the stands behind protective energy screens didn't think so much. They all cheered and screamed at all of the action! The volleys of lasers, the shocking boom of the Peaceful Repose and the constant impacts on armor plating caused everyone to become ecstatic.

Most arena matches mostly consisted of feeble brawls between debt-laden pirates. A large-scale battle involving so many fighters was a rare and splendid sight in these parts!

"You idiots! Those walls aren't going down by themselves! Why are you standing there?!"

"Are pirates always this stupid? Do they think that their combat armor can last forever?"

The trophies adorning the armor of Dietrich and the guards succ. immediately. A lot of locals found it a shame to lose so many marks of honor, though most pirates tended to own copies in case situations like these took place.

Nonetheless, the crowd became increasingly more confused as the Mirror Raiders did attempt to close in. Every arena regular could tell that the improvised wall the Roid Rats had set up was too resilient to overcome with regular small arms fire.

If the Mirror Raiders kept shooting their rifles at these defenses, they would eventually use up their batteries!

Something needed to change, and the boisterous crowd eagerly offered suggestions.

"Charge forward! If you can't shoot past those walls, then just hop over them! I hope you brought some sharp knives!"

"Flank them already! Why are you clumping up together? Just split up in two parts and attack them from opposite directions!"

"That's stupid. The Roid Rats will just reform their walls to cover every direction."

The arguing went on and on until someone spotted a flicker in the edge of their vision. "Wait, what's that? Someone is sneaking up on the Roid Rats!"

Though most of the crowd hadn't noticed anything and kept shouting nonsense, a handful of perceptive spectators noticed that one of the guards had left the group of Mirror Raiders and circled around the arena grounds!

The Roid Rats didn't notice anything amiss. Neither Big Rat or his haphazard mob of gang members bothered to count the number of opponents. Whether they faced thirteen pirates or fourteen pirates was no different in their eyes!

The huge weight of fire unleashed by the Roid Roids drowned out every other consideration. Though the Roid Rats looked rather undisciplined, they still developed their own homegrown tactics that they could employ with very little conscious direction. Big Rat was not concerned that his men would go out of control!

Unfortunately, their lack of attention caused them to overlook an approaching form! By the time the Roid Rats in the rear felt the increasing vibrations from the arena ground, it was too late for them to turn around!

Crash!

Ketis made use of her upgraded Rising Red Dragon Mark II to charge right through the rear of the ranks of the Roid Rats!

Bodies after bodies flung away as the momentum of the powered armor smashed every Roid Rat away. Disarray instantly formed within the ranks as the other Roid Rats fearfully turned around and shot their weapons at the intruder.

Unfortunately, Ketis just happened to have reached the center of the Roid Rat formation. The panicked pirates hasty shots only occasionally hit her combat armor. The rest of the shots missed and instead hit the other Roid Rats!

Though most shots merely dented or melted the improvised armor plating on their bodies, some of the shots hit n.a.k.e.d flesh, causing numerous bodies to drop.

Big Rat immediately became alarmed! "YOU IDIOTS! STOP SHOOTING! YOU'RE KILLING YOUR OWN BROTHERS!"

Before the Roid Rats had time to reorganize themselves, Ketis did not stand still. She lifted her new cutlass and eagerly wished to baptize it in blood.

Inside her mind, Sharpie vibrated with excitement. The newly-birthed living spiritual construct shared a close bond with Ketis.

What Ketis liked, Sharpie liked. Simple as that!

With their intentions completely aligned together, Ketis turned into a human disaster! Her armored body outright ignored every weapon impact!

Even though the laser beams and ballistic rounds scarred her armor, the damage was contained at the upper layer. The top layer merely consisted of generic alloys in order to camouflage the fact that the lower layers actually consisted of Breyer alloy!

"My blade seeks your blood!"

For a long time, Ketis felt repressed. Spending time in the Larkinson Clan was alright, but she felt as if she was slowly starting to lose her edge.

In the frontier, every day was dangerous. In civilized space, she could go years without facing a single threat to her life!

It made her feel uncomfortable. She did not dedicate her life to become a Swordmaiden just to let her blade rust. She believed every warrior needed to fulfill her purpose in battle. What was the point of learning how to kill only to let these skills remain dormant all the time?

Even though she was a mech designer, she believed that exercising her skills in battle would help her design better mechs! How could she ever know what the Swordmaiden mech pilots truly wanted if she never wielded a sword and spilled blood herself?

Times like these allowed her to truly deepen her understanding of sharpness and swordsmanship!

New design concepts already started to fill her imagination!

With Sharpie supporting her all the way, she unleashed her repressed urges regardless of how many gang members attempted to take her down!

She swung her cutlass with a single powered arm. Though she did not employ much technique, the raw power and the sharp blade of her weapon cut straight through the exposed limb of the pirate shooting a pistol right into her helmet without much result.

"WEAK!"

Another pirate screamed and charged at her flank while swinging a hammer. The attack completely failed as the weapon bounced off while leaving a shallow dent.

Before the attacker could try again, Ketis reached out with her other arm and crushed the neck of the Roid Rat.

"More! I need more!"

She increased her pace and began to swing her cutlass in broad sweeps. No matter what flesh, bone or armor was in the way, her cutlass continued to reap lives as if they were worth less than nutrient packs.

The shocking sight astounded the entire crowd!

Rather feeling disgusted or horrified at the one-sided slaughter, the spectators went wild as they cheered on the red armored warrior!

"GOOO! BUTCHER THOSE ROID RATS!"

"More blood! More blood!"

"Cut them all from limb to limb! Don't leave any of their bodies in one piece!"

During this sensation massacre, Dietrich and the rest of his guards slowed their fire. Other than pinning the Roid Rats in place, it didn't seem as if they could contribute any further.

Dietrich almost couldn't believe that Ketis, who was supposed to be a mech designer, could be this strong!

It wasn't simple for her to keep killing right in the midst of the enemy. Even with her excellent equipment, she still risked getting mobbed if the Roid Rats all tried to pile on her armored form until she dropped onto the arena ground.

To prevent such an outcome, Ketis had to keep moving and pushing through the crowd of panicked Roid Rats. She had to anticipate any tricks the enemy might pull off and stay one step ahead.

Nonetheless, as soon as around twenty Roid Rats fell to her blade, the fear she exuded had left a permanent impression in the hearts of the gang members.

"Split up!" Big Rat shouted. "Split up and stay away from this demon! Kill those other bastards first!"

The Roid Rats finally left their walls and desperately tried to run as far away from the murderous butcher as possible. They focused their firepower on Dietrich and his guards, but their firepower hardly inflicted any serious damage onto their protection.

Instead, the Roid Rats fell rapidly as the Mirror Raider guards calmly picked the panicked and scattered gang members one by one. Though the infantry guards surrounding Dietrich were all good in marksmanship, they deliberately missed most their shots in order to hide their true skill.

Ketis had already revealed more than Dietrich wanted to show off in public!

"This woman." He inwardly cursed. "I thought she was a mech designer. Why is she so brainless?!"

Her little solo action was completely unplanned! She wasn't supposed to go out and flank the Roid Rats before cutting their bodies apart in the most bloody instances of butchery he had ever witnessed.

This madwoman spilled so much blood that the arena floor began to drown in blood!

Chapter 2263 - Inspiration From Carnage

Inspiration.

Mech designers craved it. They yearned after it like pirates l.u. after plunder.

Without inspiration, how could they fuel their imagination?

Without inspiration, how could they design works that stood out from the competition?

Without inspiration, how would they be able to stand out from AI mech designers?

It took skill, effort, talent and serendipity to gain inspiration.

Not everyone was cut out to be an artist. Those who failed to get inspired when needed would not be able to create works that dazzled their target audience and put them ahead of their peers.

To some people, inspiration came as easy as breathing air. These blessed individuals possessed both a rich imagination and a mindset that was receptive to new ideas.

Most people lacked this blessing. There was nothing wrong with that. To those whose views were less than vivid, they could often compensate for their lack of vision by acting more proactively.

To mech designers such as Ves, it was enough for them to travel around and experience different cultures and customs. Every adventure, every war and every tour provided a wealth of inspiration to Ves. The majority of his mech designs directly originated from sparks of inspiration that he gained over the course of his travels.

As his student, Ketis developed a similar inclination to gaining inspiration from new experiences.

However, she was different from Ves.

Her mentor grew up as a relatively average third-rate citizen in a fairly normal third-rate state. His sudden improvement shortly after his graduation launched an eventful career that constantly propelled him towards new horizons.

He was living the dream he developed over the course of his fairly mundane life. Every average person yearned to become exceptional, and Ves was no different.

As for Ketis, she lived and breathed through danger ever since she became self-aware. She grew up in a typical rural pirate settlement in the frontier. Her life wasn't all that good in that lawless backwater.

If not for the Swordmaidens touching down and picking up some stray girls, Ketis would have lived a much worse life!

Since then, she drilled and trained under the harsh but ultimately beneficial regime of her sisters and succeeded in slaying an exobeast with her own sword.

The constant cycle of training, killing, studying as well as developing deeper bonds with her fellow sisters had shaped her entire mentality. She had become so indoctrinated in the creed and customs of the Swordmaidens that hardly anyone recognized her as a talented mech designer!

In fact, she knew that her ability in mech design wasn't all that great in the beginning. Despite Mayra's diligent tutelage, she had become too enamoured with practicing her swordsmanship to completely dedicate herself to mech design.

She was a bit better now. Under Ves, she discovered her love for mech design, found her design philosophy and learned how to marry her passion for swordsmanship with her primary profession.

Marrying swordsmanship with mech design was not something commonly seen in mech design.

Although it made absolute sense to Ketis, most mech designers were nerds who rarely entered gyms, let alone practice with any weapons!

Even Ves, who couldn't beat even the youngest Swordmaiden trainee in swordsmanship, dared to design sword-wielding mechs with great confidence!

This was the norm. Mech designers only possessed a limited amount of time and needed to devote most of it on absorbing new knowledge or designing more mechs. How could they ever waste their time on training their bodies and learning how to defend themselves?

If they needed protection, they could just invest in more bodyguards!

With Nitaa constantly by his side, Ves decided to completely let go of any opportunity to train his martial prowess. While he was eager to craft or acquire better gear, that was because it didn't take that much time to increase his ability to defend himself.

Otherwise, Ves would have relied exclusively on gear produced by other manufacturers to save himself the trouble!

As for Ketis, she was different. Lately, she vastly increased her knowledge base. Whatever Ves had fed to her had vastly expanded her cognitive abilities. Even without an implant, she wasn't that worse off from the assistant mech designers with average cranial implants!

Yet all the book learning in the galaxy did not help her make any progress in her heart for swordsmanship.

Some lessons couldn't be learned from passive study. Only active effort enabled her to advance.

Sparring with her fellow Swordmaidens and the other fighters in the clan helped a bit. Yet those restrained, rule-bound practice sessions failed to get her blood pumping.

How could she ever understand what it meant to wield a sword if she never fought to kill?

Even when she chopped up the prospective new hires for the Design Department, she hardly achieved any progress.

None of those weaklings wanted to beat her. Chopping off their limbs without encountering any meaningful resistance was fun, but pointless.

It was different now.

Standing in an expanding pool of blood, the corpses of dozens of chopped-up Roid Rats laid before her feet. With her strong and undaunted sword strikes, she leveraged the power of her combat armor and the strength and sharpness of her cutlass to the fullest.

The result became clear to every spectator who roared their jubilance at the impressive carnage that had unfolded earlier.

They had rarely seen a single pirate slam into such a sizable mob of enemies! The moment when she harvested lives left and right with her deceptively easy sword swings turned into an unforgettable moment to the people who paid to watch the grudge match.

The K-bits they paid had absolutely been worth it! Those who bet on the victory of the small group of Mirror Raiders were even more excited!

In fact, few locals and visitors who bet their K-bits and K-coins on the Roid Rats had any regrets. Some lopsided battles were boring to watch, but this was not one of them! The actions of a single cutlass-wielding warrior had made a remarkable impression on everyone!

Hardly anyone paid attention to the young heir of the Mirror Guards and his band of rifle-wielding bodyguards. Even though Dietrich and his companions killed the majority of Roid Rats when they broke, they were just doing some cleanup work.

The true champion of this match was Ketis.

Amidst the elation of the audience of thousands, an expression of extreme ecstasy appeared on her face.

With her thick helmet completely covering her head, Ketis did not restrain her emotions. She completely allowed her body and mind to become engulfed by the brilliant emotions that burst out from the depths of her being.

The sensation was indescribable.

"This is what I sought."

"This is what I want."

"This is what I need!"

Like a gladiator who gloriously vanquished his foes, Ketis spread her arms and raised the tip of the cutlass into the ceiling.

The cries of joy from the crowd instantly doubled!

"Blood! Blood! Blood!"

"Kill more people!"

"Where are the rest of the Roid Rats? Bring them here right now so we can dye the entire arena with red!"

The degenerate locals weren't squeamish at all. Every single individual who chose to attend this arena match lived for spectacles like these!

Dietrich and some of his disguised companions all frowned at the unrestrained bloodl.u.s.t from the audience.

The star of the show paid no mind to how barbaric she seemed. In her exceptional state of mind, her bond with Sharpie had reached an even greater degree of intimacy.

During the grudge match, she not only baptized her physical sword in blood, but also her spiritual one!

A subtle flicker appeared on the edge of her cutlass. In her mind, Ketis imagined herself gripping the hilt of her mind sword!

A subtle aura surrounded her. If anyone stepped close enough, they would have noticed a strange intensity emanating from her body!

To Ketis, this was her sword intent manifesting!

The other Swordmaidens often spoke in airy terms about sword intent. A lot of sisters chased after it, but no one had ever developed it aside from Commander Dise.

Now, Ketis believed that she had taken an important step forward in nurturing her sword intent. The sharpness radiating from her would have stung anyone who approached her at the moment!

Since she fused her swordsmanship with mech design, something else took place as well.

Her mind and imagination churned and began to produce numerous mech concepts and mech ideas. Vague design schematics blended with her sharp sword intent, causing a portion of her mind to produce vivid mental simulations where mechs that resembled her current self unceasingly rampaged through formation of hostile mechs!

The moment passed too soon, much to her regret. Her aura disappeared as Dietrich guided her away.

After the handful of Mirror Raiders achieved an explosive and dramatic victory against the Roid Rats, the situation in Ulimo's public area completely changed!

The strength shown by the Mirror Raiders signified that their actual strength was far beyond a typical undisciplined bottom feeder pirate gang. There were signs of military training, and the rumors that their leader was a former military officer appeared to be true!

Word of mouth spread quickly. Even if those who passed the stories about the grudge match exaggerated a lot of elements, it became clear that the newly-arrived pirates belonged to a different class from the gutter trash of Ulimo!

"These outsiders are demons. Don't provoke them! Who knows what they will do?"

"Stop sending reinforcements to the Roid Rats. Those guys are out of luck for pissing off the Mirror Raiders!"

"Friends? What friends? Get out and don't come back! We don't want your trouble!"

Every local gang and faction in Ulimo turned around and refused to help the Roid Rats. All talks of solidarity against pushy outsiders and unfamiliar pirates turned into nothing.

Though the gangs were all confident that they possessed enough strength to demolish the Mirror Raiders, the losses would certainly be serious. If every Mirror Raiders possessed gear as good as the guards on the arena, then the poorly-equipped locals would likely die by the hundreds before they achieved victory.

Hardly anyone wanted to pay such a big blood price! This was especially so when helping the Roid Rats only benefited one of their rivals at the expense of their own strength. Why should those other gangs engage in meaningless charity?

As long as the Mirror Raiders did not attack anyone else, it was far more ideal to let them have what they wanted. If they wanted to destroy the Roid Rats and take over their territory, then that was fine!

Deprived of their allies, the Roid Rats found themselves alone.

Shortly after Abis and the rest of the Mirror Raiders received word about the victory that Dietrich and Ketis accomplished, they knew they had to move quickly.

"The Roid Rats should be discouraged and isolated after they suffered this loss." Lieutenant Rodan quickly advised his superior. "This is a golden opportunity to sweet the territory of the Roid Rats. In fact, I believe that 'Captain Itris' should be on her way already. Don't let her and her confidants attack the main base of the Roid Rats by themselves!"

Though Abis never intended to set out on this path, now that they had been forced into it, he had no choice but to go all the way!

"Move out and don't stop until we roll over every Roid Rat!"

The Mirror Raiders hastily mobilized their combat troops and swept through the streets and buildings owned by the Roid Rats. Their thugs and cadre instantly folded and died under the ruthless aggression of the supposed pirates.

As for their main stronghold, the disguised Swordmaidens had already begun their assault on it! By the time Abis and Rodan along with the bulk of his fighting troops arrived at a dilapidated-looking building, they had just witnessed Lieutenant Sendra and her fellow Swordmaidens breaching through the gates.

In order to disassociate them from the obscure but not completely unknown Swordmaidens of the Larkinson Clan, the aggressive women in armor did not wield any swords.

Instead, they held submachine guns in one hand and combat knives in the other hand.

With their powerful suits of combat armor, most of the weapons of the Roid Rats failed to inflict any damage!

Only the few heavy infantry weapons such as the machine gun emplacements and a couple of thrown grenades managed to slow the Swordmaidens down.

Even then, the marksmanship of some of the Swordmaidens were not that bad! After concentrating their fire on some key targets, they managed to overrun the first line of defense and make their way inside after blasting through the gate with some directional explosives!

By the time that Abis and the main force of Mirror Raiders entered the Roid Rat stronghold, the enemy had already broken!

Chapter 2264 - The Pirate Way

It only took less than a day for the Mirror Raiders to annihilate the Roid Rats as a local gang.

Though plenty of sc.u.m had shook off their Roid Rat armbands or uniforms, no one cared about these smaller figures. The locals never believed in permanent loyalty, just like real pirates. They soon knocked on the doors of other gangs and managed to join them with ease, though their new employers placed them in the bottom of their hierarchies.

The quick and ruthless strikes initiated by Lieutenant Sendra had swept over the Roid Rats with undaunted aggression. The actions of the Swordmaidens completely forced the rest of the Mirror Raiders to play along in order to prevent any defeat due to splitting their strength.

In the aftermath of the sudden attack, the Mirror Raiders tentatively conquered much of the turf and some of the material possessions of their opponents.

A fair amount of Roid Rats had raided the armories and storehouses of the gang before they fled. The value of these goods were not that much, so no one bothered to follow up on these thefts.

What truly bothered Abis was the reaction from the true masters of Ulimo Citadel. Provoking the Roid Rats before annihilating them sparked a significant disturbance in the public area of Ulimo Citadel!

He decided to convene his command group.

Ketis, Dietrich, Rodan and Sendra gathered in one of the private rooms of the Roid Rat stronghold.

The corpses that used to dr.a.p.e over the table had already been removed, but the cleaning bots hadn't managed to wipe away the drying smears of blood.

Everyone except for Ketis glowered at Sendra. The Swordmaiden mech officer had completely defied Abis by acting out her own plans. Just because she succeeded did not mean that her actions were right!

The situation of the Mirror Raiders was precarious to begin with. Each and every one of them were Larkinsons. After attacking so many established pirate groups, the Larkinson Clan had turned into one of the most hated presences in the Nyxian Gap! Hardly any pirate would tolerate Larkinsons in their midst!

This meant that maintaining their cover was vital to the Mirror Raiders. Abis wanted to take it slow and steady, but Sendra disagreed from the start.

The Flagrant Vandal officer thought that the Swordmaiden lieutenant would abide his command. Why not? The chain of command was clear and Major Verle had unequivocally put him in charge.

Unfortunately, the Swordmaidens simply did what they wanted with little regard for his own priorities!

Back in the Mech Corps, such behavior was tantamount to insubordination!

Rodan looked at everyone with a tinge of guilt. As a Black Cat, he should have anticipated the willfulness of the Swordmaidens. His failure to anticipate Sendra's determination to executive her own plan was a massive oversight.

Even though they were all Larkinsons, that only meant they had something in common. There was still a lot of diversity in the clan and everyone developed different ideas on how to embody its values and principles.

He began the meeting.

"According to our investigations, the disturbances that emerged as a result of our war against the Roid Rats have not reached the upper levels of Ulimo. Their sights are set on far greater concerns than what is happening in their backyard. Aside from the concern shown by the middle and lower officers of the Dry Snakes, the pirate authorities largely don't pay much mind to turf wars at this level."

The Roid Rats were fairly weak and forgettable to begin with. They only occupied a tiny slice of the poorest sections of the marketplace. Capturing some gambling dens and killing a few hundred sc.u.m did not affect Ulimo's operation in the slightest!

The news caused Abis to sigh in relief. "That is good news. The last thing we can afford is to attract scrutiny from the Dry Snakes."

Lieutenant Sendra smirked. "I told you that the bosses wouldn't pay attention. Taking baby steps is completely necessary. If you want something, take it! That's the pirate way!"

"What if we lost?!"

"Then we only have ourselves to blame for lacking judgement and being too weak."

The Swordmaiden officer was completely unrepentant! Abis already began to feel a headache from this. Including the Swordmaidens into the ranks of the Mirror Raiders sounded great in theory. The words spoken by Sendra made it clear that she possessed a true pirate mindset.

Yet Abis would have rather kept her and her fellow Swordmaidens out of this mission! They were too high-profile and way too daring for his liking.

Just one mistake could spell their doom. In such a situation, it made sense to minimize their risks. Each step they took could end up triggering a landmine. This was why Abis deliberately wanted to move slowly.

As for Sendra? She just pointed her finger at a direction that she felt right before sprinting straight through a minefield!

To Abis and most of the Mirror Raiders, the Swordmaidens only managed to avoid stepping onto the many mines due to luck!

Abis argued with Sendra for a few minutes. The atmosphere in the room grew hotter as their opposing mindsets clashed.

Rodan stretched his hand in order to interrupt their shouting. "Stop! We have already fought the Roid Rats. Our enemies are no more and we have managed to avoid attention from the bigshots. What we should do now is to continue playing with the hand that we have been dealt."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Maybe we can make use of the territory we have conquered to set up a foundation in Ulimo. Once we take over the properties of the Roid Rats and operate them ourselves, we can become a permanent fixture in Ulimo Base."

"What does that matter?" Abis looked confused.

"We'll be on the same side as the Dry Snakes!" Sendra shouted with a grin. "Don't you realize what I have been trying to do? The first way to get closer to the pirates in charge of Ulimo is to become a part of Ulimo! Now that we are able to do this, we might have a chance to receive invitations from the Dry Snakes. They might recruit us or ask us to become their subordinates. If we're lucky, some of us may even be assigned in the core sections of Ulimo!"

Ulimo Citadel was not a single underground stronghold. Instead, the pirates dug up multiple caverns in the moon-sized asteroid that they called home. There was a fair distance between the public marketplace and the restricted core sections of Ulimo.

Sneaking into the latter was incredibly difficult for that reason! Not even the Black Cats dared to use their infiltrator suits and stealth gadgets to cross over. Rodan and his fellow intelligence operatives had already scouted out some of the security checkpoints and discovered that they were partially manned by security experts of the Xona Stalkers.

The Black Cats weren't confident enough that their own stealth suits would be able to circ. the anti-stealth measures employed by the subordinate pirate outfit!

Therefore, in order to complete their mission, the Mirror Raiders had to find a different way to get into the restricted sections.

Everyone in the room realized that they could only proceed onto the path opened up by Lieutenant Sendra.

"Fine. We will do what you say." Abis gritted his teeth. "I want you to be upfront and forthright about your intentions from now on. I will not tolerate any further independent actions. Have I made myself clear, Itris?!"

The disguised Swordmaiden officer continued to look smug. "Don't worry. I know my loyalties. I will do anything that allows us to complete the mission. Just keep in mind that I have been in the pirate business longer than all of you. All of you have been acting as if we are in the shadier parts of civilized space, but that is completely wrong. The rules are different in the Nyxian Gap. Since we pirates dare to employ taboo weapons, what else won't we do?!"

She made a very clear point. Abis felt as if it might not have been a good idea to put him in charge of this mission. Major Verle had good reasons to appoint him as the leader of the Mirror Raiders, but his understanding only stretched up to a point.

Standing at the side, Ketis and Dietrich didn't bother with joining this discussion. They were younger than the rest and didn't possess enough of a voice in command decisions.

They opened a direct channel with each other in order to chat in private.

"Your fellow sister's actions have really caused us all a lot of trouble." Dietrich said.

"She makes complete sense, you know." Ketis calmly replied. "The Nyxian pirates are the same as pirates in other places. Don't let Ulimo Citadel lack of anarchy fool you. Any law and order you see on the surface is just a shallow means of staying in power. The Dry Snakes possess cold hearts and really won't be bothered if we wipe out a single gang. They will only step in when the operation of the marketplace is under threat. As long as we don't affect their bottom line, we can do anything!"

That was something that Dietrich felt was a step too far. "You women are playing a dangerous game. I did not sign up for this. Will your sister keep stirring up trouble?"

Ketis chuckled. "I know her well. She has already plotted out her next three steps. As soon as she leaves this room, she'll immediately engage her follow-up plan."

The Swordmaidens disliked waiting around. They were women of action!

Her words only made Dietrich more worried. Before he signed up to the Larkinson Clan, he was just the son of the leader of Walter's Whalers. Back in Cloudy Curtain, his old gang didn't really amount to much. This modest background had quickly caused him to feel out of depth.

This mission was far more dangerous than he thought. With teammates such as Sendra who just did what she wanted with little regard for Abis' authority, who knew what enemies they attracted next!

Abis eventually put an end to the discussion. "Alright, that's enough. Let us proceed with taking over the former assets of the Roid Rats. We will have our hands full in the next couple of days. If we want to prove we are in it for the long run, then we will need to recruit a lot of locals to run the facilities that we have taken over. Let's do this quickly so we can proceed to the next step of our plan."

The meeting ended shortly after that. Everyone split up, though Ketis quietly met with Sendra somewhere quiet.

"I'm proud of you, sister." Sendra placed her gauntlet onto the mech designer's armored shoulder. "I missed seeing you in action, but when I saw the footage, I could feel you are truly in tune with your new sword."

"Adapting to a one-handed sword was easier than I thought."

The older Swordmaiden smiled at that. "It's a shame you aren't a mech pilot. You would have become a great swordsman mech pilot if you possessed the right genetic aptitude."

"It's okay, sister. I can do so much more for us after studying under my new boss. Just wait. After a year or two, I will completely transform the way we fight!"

The Swordmaidens all had high expectations of Ketis. With someone as good in mech design as Ves guiding her, there was no way she would become a mediocre mech designer in the future!

"Let's head out before the rest gets suspicious."

In the following days, the Mirror Raiders quickly made their apparent intentions known. The locals, visitors and rival gangs all heard how the newly-arrived pirate outfit intended to establish a foundation in Ulimo!

When it became clear that the Mirror Raiders truly wanted to join Ulimo's power base, the Dry Snakes finally sent an envoy to discuss important matters.

Chapter 2265 - Lovers of Mech Designs

The physical projection of Master Willix calmly inspected the design schematics of the Cat's Paw.

Ves casually stood in the isolated chamber while the Darkbreak module remained active.

Perhaps in the past, he would have never dared to call an esteemed MTA Master Mech Designer, especially for something as trivial as seeking consultation.

Yet after frequent contacts and talks with the Master, Ves slowly lost his apprehension towards Moira Willix.

Certainly, he did not dare to act too presumptuously in front of other MTA Masters. They enjoyed a very high status in one of the most powerful organizations of human civilization. Each Master from the Association could easily affect the lives of entire star sectors with their words and deeds!

The fact that they remained distant and aloof from the local space peasants made them even more unfathomable. Many ordinary mech designers who never interacted with the core people of the MTA developed all sorts of wild fantasies about the great organization that represented their profession.

Ves was no different, once. Yet now that he had come into contact with both the Rim Guardians and Master Willix, he realized that the elite humans who were part of the Association were not as obtuse as he thought.

Familiarity slowly tore away the veil of mystery in front of Master Willix.

The more he talked to her, the more he realized that she was a very pure mech designer.

Her heart for mech design was not bothered by temporal desires such as greed or power.

Ves recognized that she simply wanted to design better mechs. Nothing else.

Her status within the MTA merely served as a means to an end to her. That said, it would be a mistake to think of her as someone who stood apart from the Association. She lived and breathed its rules down to her very bones.

That was both good and bad.

The advantage to Ves was that she possessed a very generous mindset towards young talents like him. Every mech designer bore the responsibility of bringing up the younger generation. Even though Ves was barely older than thirty years old, he already started to take on this role by teaching Ketis, the Larkinson seeds and the rest of his assistants.

The bad news was that she was quite strict with the rules. There was no way he could gain an exception from her. The most she was willing to do was to bend the rules, but if something was absolutely forbidden, she would never acquiesce!

Ves admired her for that. She held onto her principles like a solid rock. Her steadfastness presented an extreme contrast to his.. flexible conduct in matters of principle.

Regardless, her nature as a teacher and her open favor towards him had made Ves a little bold.

Since Master Willix was willing to guide him, why not take advantage of it? As long as he no longer paid so much stock to her identity as a powerful and inscrutable MTA Master Designer, she was just a very enthusiastic lover of mechs.

Ves happened to love mechs as well!

Over the course of his interactions with many people, he gradually learned an important lesson.

No matter how different he was from others, he could still get along with them as long as he focused on what they held in common.

No one was the same, and there were many people who possessed completely different backgrounds, ideologies and principles than him. Yet by finding some common ground such as originating from the same state, fighting the same enemy or participating in the same mission, Ves got along with folks ranging from Ylvainans, Swordmaidens and other weirdos.

If he could befriend religious nuts and former pirates, why shouldn't he be able to have a normal conversation with one of the most influential people in the Komodo Star Sector?

Master Willix finally gathered her thoughts. To be honest, Ves didn't believe this was the first time she studied the incomplete Cat's Paw design. Ves had collaborated with Gloriana many times through the Darkbreak module, so Master Willix should have easily been able to peep at them while they slowly pieced the heavy artillery mech together!

"I didn't have to study your record to know that the Cat's Paw Project is your first heavy mech design." She began. "It is very arrogant for you to design a heavy mech of this caliber for the very first time. You also have no experience in designing artillery mechs. The rifleman mechs you have designed in the past are completely different from what you are trying to tackle."

Ves grew a little hot. "My partner has helped shore up my shortcomings."

"Miss Wodin is not a heavy mech designer. Just because she has been involved in some heavy mech design projects as an assistant in the past does not mean she understands the essence of heavy mechs. The two of you lack too much comprehension to design a competent heavy mech."

It hurt a bit when she told him that his work was inadequate, but Master Willix's judgement was probably correct. As a maturing mech designer, Ves understood the earnestness of her admonishment. She did not criticize him in order to step on his face. She pointed out his mistakes in order to set him onto a correct path.

"Please guide me, ma'am." Ves slightly bowed. "I have tried my best to apply what I have learned, and so did my partner. In our eyes, our Cat's Paw Project should have conformed to what we have learned."

Ves had studied several Clarion University textbooks that related heavy mechs. Gloriana possessed her own Hexer learning resources.

While the Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony possessed slightly different interpretations of heavy mechs, there were a lot of universal principles.

"There is not much wrong with the design principles that you have learned. The issue is that you may know how to implement a solution, but do not entirely understand why you should choose a specific solution. The small errors that you and your partner are making is a problem of vision, not science."

Well that sounded clarifying. Not. Ves tried his best to keep his frown off his face.

"Uhm… could you elaborate?"

"Let me ask you this. Your experience with heavy mechs is limited, correct?"

He reluctantly nodded. "That is correct. Heavy mechs are not ubiquitous in my daily life. My design activities mostly intersect with the private sector. On some rare occasions, I accept commissions from government entities, but even then I rarely get in touch with heavy mechs."

There were very few heavy mechs in the Larkinson Clan. The Flagrant Vandals had brought over their Akkara heavy artillery mechs, but there weren't many of them. Ves never visited the Princely Jackal or other Vandal sh.i.p.s, so he had never studied those impressive mechs up close.

"You need to develop a better feel towards heavy mechs, Mr. Larkinson. Therefore, the first step you need to make is to see and study them up close. You need to understand the raw power they possess, the enormous amount of mass that make them solid and the many limitations they possess that make them vulnerable to certain attacks. While I am certain that you already possess a good amount of understanding of the theory, this is slightly different."

He understood what she was trying to convey. His perspective towards heavy mechs was too distant and too heavily based on theory. This caused him to develop a skewed and shallow understanding towards these majestic machines that was very flawed in the eyes of a high authority in mech design!

Normally, Ves would have sought to undergo a Mastery in heavy mechs, but this was not the time for him to mentally wander off for a week.

As long as Task Force Predator remained in the Nyxian Gap, Ves had to assume that a crisis could burst out at any moment!

"I will take the time to get up close to heavy mechs. Thank you for the advice. Do you have any other advice, ma'am?"

The physical projection of Master Willix began pacing around the isolated chamber. She wasn't in a hurry to open her mouth.

For a moment, Ves developed a strange thought. Since she projected herself in this chamber in this fashion, wouldn't it be possible for him to..

What was he thinking?! Ves immediately scrubbed his mind of irrelevant thought. This was not the time for him to think about the activities he performed with Gloriana's physical projection in this chamber!

Fortunately, Master Willix didn't seem to notice his impure thoughts.

"The basic rationale for heavy mechs are simple. They are large, heavy machines that possess so much mass that they are incapable of relying on their mobility to dodge or evade attacks. They are also slow to move, which is a disadvantage in many battles. Retreating becomes impossible, and so does advancing quickly. This is also why they are mostly fielded by state mech militaries. Heavy mechs are very potent in both large-scale battles and battles of attrition."

Ves nodded. "Another reason why heavy mechs are used by states is because they provide much more value relative to how much capacity they occupy on a carrier vessel."

"That is an important reason for their use, yes. With the various advantages and disadvantages of heavy mechs, it is rare for smaller private organizations to make use of them. Naturally, this rule applies less to larger organisations such as your Larkinson Clan. Tell me, what is the reason for you to design the Cat's Paw?"

"Our Larkinson Clan will soon acquire a factory ship and a fleet of combat carriers. Each of them are very valuable and require a lot of protection. Since they come with bunkers, we can make use of them by slotting in the Cat's Paw."

"Why design the Cat's Paw as a landbound heavy artillery mech?" She asked. "Why did you not design a spaceborn heavy artillery mech instead?"

"The mobility of the latter will never be good. Adding a functioning flight system onto a heavy mech is an enormous building and will take up way too much capacity. A lot of the energy that the mech can draw upon will have to be diverted to the flight system as well, thereby reducing the firepower of such a mech even further. I would rather design a flightless heavy artillery mech that I can fully devote towards maximizing firepower."

She nodded. "This is a logical reason. Spaceborn mechs have to devote a considerable amount of capacity to accommodate flight systems. This is a major burden that you must have already experienced in your previous mech designs. However, you are missing the point. There are many differences between spaceborn and landbound heavy artillery mechs, but why do they truly exist? Why has the mech community settled on defining heavy mechs within specific boundaries?"

Ves paused a moment. He dug up a lesson he learned long ago. "Heavy mechs should be big enough to fulfill their roles in a cost, resource and time-efficient manner. They should not exceed a certain mass or volume because doing so makes them less efficient in the areas that I have mentioned."

"That is a good answer, Mr. Larkinson, but it does not address the point I am trying to make. Mech designers develop heavy mechs along a substantially different paradigm from light and medium mechs. There are good reasons why most mech designers who choose to specialize in heavy mechs belong to a different category. It is not easy to span all three standard weight classes."

She provided another vague answer. Ves felt increasingly more irritated at her lack of clarity. Master Willix probably didn't want him to obtain answers from others. She believed it was best if he came up with the answer on his own!"

"Every mech designer develops a slightly different perspective towards heavy mechs." Master Willix noted. "Depending on how you view them, your heavy mech designs will take on different characters. This is something you must explore on your own. This is a deeply personal process."

"Understood. Thank you again for your guidance." Ves respectfully bowed yet again.

The guidance of a genuine Master Mech Designer neatly made up some of his weaknesses that he had developed as he rose up into prominence.

Despite his various thoughts towards Master Willix and the MTA, he earnestly appreciated her teachings.

As a mech designer, he could set aside everything else in order to learn some valuable lessons!

Chapter 2266 Kellandra Wodin

"Kellandra! You're finally here!"

Two Hexer women both approached each other before hugging each other with great affection.

A large number of Wodin Warriors and Glory Warriors stood guard around the landing zone of the Larkinson Clan's temporary base on Cinach VI. Both mechs and foot soldiers diligently scanned the perimeter for any threats.

The reason for their caution was because two of the Wodin Dynasty's descendants had both gathered on a foreign planet!

The identity of Gloriana Wodin had always been special. As the sixth child of Constance Wodin, she had always been the baby of the family. She enjoyed the love of five older siblings as well as her parents and many other relatives.

Yet it was only in the last few years that she made her mark in Hexer society. Ironically, she only managed to break into prominence by leaving the Hexadric Hegemony and entering into a relationship with a foreign boy of all people!

Many of the Hexers back home who knew Gloriana silently or overtly disapproved of her shameful actions. Why in the galaxy did she decline to choose from the billions of eligible and well-bred pretty boys of her home state in favor of pursuing a rustic space peasant?

Gloriana paid no mind to the jeers. She had already made a determination to stay with Ves forever and even her own relatives couldn't stop her from making her dreams come true!

Fortunately, the bet she made on Ves had paid off. With the help of his unique design philosophy, the so-called Miracle Couple shot up into prominence. With their reach expanding into other star sectors, there were hardly any Journeymen in the Yeina Star Cluster who had achieved more impact in the mech community!

The Wodin Dynasty eventually changed their mind around Ves. While there were still many conservative old women in the expansive dynasty who still opposed the relationship, Constance Wodin and many other forward-looking Hexers saw the potential to rise up and benefit from the Miracle Couple's rise.

The latter faction soon received vindication in the form of the successful reception of the Blessed Squire. The supportive knight mech designed by Gloriana and Ves not only caused the Marrakath System to fall ahead of time, but also inspired great fervor among the Hexers who fought under its glow.

Even though the Blessed Squire was very problematic in terms of quality and attribution, many Hexers believed it was only a matter of time before the council of matriarchs reluctantly approved the use of the unique new mech model.

In fact, Gloriana had even heard rumors that other units of the Hex Army had secretly begun to mass produce the Blessed Squire. As soon as the stubborn matriarchs ceased their resistance, a flood of mechs that was partially designed by a boy would quickly flood the battlefields across every frontline!

Under this enormous momentum, more and more people in the Hegemony paid attention to those who were pivotal in designing and realizing this huge contribution to the war effort.

Though it was hard to believe, in the perspective of the Hegemony as a whole, Gloriana Wodin had quietly become the most famous and prominent member of the Wodin Dynasty!

Not even Matriarch Xiaphna Wodin, the two-hundred year old leader of the dynasty, could match one of her descendant's fame!

This was one of the most universal quirks in human society. No matter how much the Hegemony differed from other states, most of its citizens never paid much attention to the leaders and politicians who governed the way they lived their lives.

Instead, celebrities such as famed expert pilots and prominent mech designers were much more dazzling from their perspectives!

The work they performed and the achievements they made resonated much more to the masses. The marketability of their efforts made it easy for the media to hype and promote their greatness.

In contrast, Matriarch Xiaphna and Minister Constance largely escaped the public eye despite their high positions and advanced ages. Fortunately, there was hardly any conflict within the Wodin Dynasty on this matter.

After Kellandra and Gloriana finished hugging each other, they separated and took a good look at each other.

Gloriana wore the typical red-and-white uniform of the Larkinson Clan. Even though she hadn't asked for permission, she added some extra emblems and markings to it to allow her to stand out of the other clansmen.

She also wore some tasteful Hexer jewelry this time in order to make a better impression on her older sister. In addition, she wore her opulent engagement ring with pride.

As for Kellandra Wodin, she wore the blue-and-grey officer uniform of the Wodin Warrior as if she was born into it. After letting herself go for a moment, she regained her impeccable, disciplined demeanor, causing her to exude the unmistakable aura of a senior military officer.

The various gold-rimmed markings and epaulettes on her shoulder signified that she bore the rank of mech colonel!

Within the Wodin Warriors, she commanded an entire mech regiment. With 2,000 mechs and mech pilots at her beck and call, she expected to be deployed to the frontlines of the Komodo War this year.

She never thought that the Wodin Dynasty delayed her deployment and instead directed her mech regiment to leave the Hexadric Hegemony and travel all the way to the Sentinel Kingdom!

And that wasn't all. She arrived alongside several other mech regiments and reinforcements to the Glory Battalion.

Right now, the Wodins appeared to have taken over the entire Cinach System. While regular traffic and commerce still kept the star system busy, the presence of hundreds of Hexer carriers and thousands of Hexer mechs loomed heavily on the local sentinels!

House Evenson and the other noble houses in the star system did not dare to make any peep. The Wodin Dynasty might not be a great power in the Hegemony, but they were more than strong enough to sweep their forces in a matter of days!

The increasing amount of Hexer combat assets reflected the growing value of Gloriana. The wedding scheduled to begin a couple of months had become an increasingly more notable event.

Some of the Hexers who had rejected Gloriana's invitation regretted their decision!

"I have waited so long for your arrival." Gloriana giddily said. "Let me show you around the Larkinson Clan! While they are rather.. rustic and misguided, they mean well. Don't let their shabbiness fool you. Once we get our hands on our new ships, our strength will soon transform."

Kellandra raised her eyebrows at her younger sister's choice of wording. She already showed an obvious belonging to the Larkinson Clan. This was not entirely proper, as boys usually married into the families of women instead of the other way around!

Still, Ves was such an exceptional boy to the Wodins and the Hexers that Kellandra opted to let this matter slide. The matriarch herself had issued some decisive commands.

"Miaow."

"Oh, let me show you my new cat that I've picked up from Centerpoint!"

Gloriana eagerly held out her hands, causing Clixie to jump into her grasp in a practiced motion. The Rubarthan Sentinel Cat looked similar to a calico cat, but her glossy fur exuded a sense of class and elegance that was far superior to her more mundane cousins!

"Miaow~"

Even though Kellandra was an accomplished mech colonel, she couldn't help but drop her stern mask once again as she petted the cat's head.

"What a lovely feline. You have acquired two great companions instead of one. You have grown up so fast."

"I told you that I would be able to find my success once I left home!"

The pair of prominent Wodins continued to chat while they toured the base where the Larkinsons had made their home for many months. The clansmen who lived and worked at the expansive complex all distanced themselves from the large groups of Hexer soldiers and guards.

While Kellandra caught up with Gloriana, her eyes kept darting around. She paid especially great attention to the various LMC mechs that Gloriana expressly showed off. Their unique glows each left a profound impression on the older Wodin.

Before she left for the Sentinel Kingdom, Kellandra had already experienced the glows of the Blessed Squire. She had witnessed the performance of the prototypes during the testing phase and had become mildly impressed at the time.

Yet the mech model's actual performance in the Marrakath System completely exceeded her expectations! When the Blessed Squire's glow had reached its full form, its utility astounded every Hexer who experienced it in person.

This happened to be related to one of Kellandra's goals for visiting the Larkinson Clan today.

As they continued to tour the base as if it was their own possession, Kellandra and Gloriana soon discussed some of the new arrangements.

"The batch of Wodin Warriors that have just arrived with me won't be the last. There are more mech regiments on the way. During the wedding, we hope to have a full mech division in place."

"A full mech division?! That's much more than I expected!" Gloriana looked surprised.

"It's barely adequate. Mind you, your Glory Battalion will also play a greater role. We have decided to elevate its strength to a full mech regiment and implement some changes. From now on your personal protection detail will be called the Glory Seekers."

From Glory Battalion to Glory Seekers, the mech pilots and guards trained by the Wodin Dynasty still fulfilled the same mission. They were all expected to dedicate their lives to protecting Gloriana!

Though she was happy with the obvious sign of favor from the dynasty, Gloriana looked a bit concerned.

"Bringing twelve-thousand Hexers mechs to the Cinach System is a huge undertaking. Will our dynasty be able to bear it? Why bring so many mechs?"

"Your value to the war effort is immeasurable, sister. We don't want to take your protection for granted, especially since we have become aware that the Fridaymen are plotting to take your life and the life of your boy. Our Wodin Warriors are only needed in order to protect all of the guests who will arrive from the Hegemony in the coming months. Your mother and all of your brothers and sisters will attend, and so will our matriarch!"

Gloriana widened her eyes. The exaggerated troop movements all made sense once she knew that Matriarch Xiaphna planned to attend her wedding. The aged woman's presence was incredibly important, and showed that the matriarch was willing to commit her political capital to bless the coming union!

Even if Matriarch Xiaphna was her grandmother, Gloriana still doubted whether the leader of the Wodin Dynasty was willing to stand up to her relationship with Ves. Now, all of the uncertainty disappeared.

Thanks to the Blessed Squire, Gloriana had gained a great amount of credibility, enough to excuse all of her radical actions in the past few years!

The tour soon ended once they entered an underground warehouse guarded by the soon-to-be-dubbed Glory Seekers.

The tight security was warranted due to the extremely valuable treasure that resided within.

After passing through the security checks, the two Wodins and cat slowly approached the marble-like statue of the Superior Mother.

Ves had left it behind to keep Gloriana and her fellow Hexers happy. Each day, she and her Hexer bodyguards worshipped in front of the tall and imposing artwork.

Its face imperiously stared forward as it exuded both love and consequence.

"As expected of the Superior Mother!" Kellandra gasped. Her emotions grew turbulent as she experienced the raw glow emanated by the statue. "It's 'glow' so much more purer than the glow of the Blessed Squire!"

Gloriana smiled piously at the work of art. "This is my fiancé's mother. What you are feeling now is just an inkling of her power. During the ceremony that baptized this statue, I had the honor of experiencing the Supreme's full might!"

Kellandra slowly adopted a similar pious expression. "I hardly believed when you initially told me about it, but now.. I believe you. I believe in the Superior Mother. No wonder your fiancé managed to make a mech as remarkable as the Blessed Squire. He is truly the son of the Superior Mother!"

"That makes him a Hexer." Gloriana grinned. "Isn't that right?"

"Your logic is impeccable. It's a travesty to call him a Brighter! We should correct his citizenship right away!"

Chapter 2267 Ornamental Gem

"Meow."

Something small but hard smacked his cheek. Ves yawned and stretched as he sat up from the bed. He rubbed the faint stubble that grew over his face while he wearily looked around for whatever hit his face.

He became a bit more awake when a mysterious-looking gem rested on the side of his pillow!

The gem attracted his attention due to the pulsing glow emanating from its center. Though faint, its irregular rhythm reminded him of the heartbeat of a dying person. Ves felt a very faint sense of instability and danger from the purple gem.

He carefully pinched it with his fingers and brought it in front of his face. Soon, his System vision provided him with a description.

[Unstable Chaos Essence]

A terrible essence of chaos is locked within this gem. The essence is stolen from a great and ancient horror that would dearly wish to regain it. Carry this gem at your own risk.

"...That's it?"

Ves wondered if he was still dreaming. What kind of stupid description was this? The System's description completely failed to tell him what it could be used for! Could this mech even be used on mechs at all, or was it merely another baubling that was only useful as an ornament?

"At least it looks good." Ves muttered as he rubbed his eyes in the hopes that the description changed. No luck. "Maybe I can integrate it into one of my wedding bands."

He still hadn't worked on the bare but extremely high-quality wedding rings given by his mother. Even though they consisted of some unknown but exceptional high-grade exotics, their lack of color or decoration made them a little boring for the moment.

Someone as exacting as Gloriana would never accept such plain rings!

While Ves managed to keep her happy with the engagement ring he presented to her some months ago, he knew that he needed to come up with something better in less than four months or Gloriana would definitely become angry.

He frowned. So far, raiding pirates yielded a lot of Kavenit and random exotics. Yet none of the spoils aside from B-stone fit his marriage rings.

While some high-quality mechs and equipment contained trace amounts of high-grade exotics, they weren't stable or safe for humans. Ves needed to get his hands on materials that met all of his requirements.

Hopefully, he might be able to obtain what he sought from Ulimo Citadel. Since the field of asteroids around it was known to contain deposits of higher grades of exotics, Ves believed the Dry Snakes squirrelled away a decent amount of high-grade exotics.

He turned his body until he faced his cat, who floated curiously next to his bed. He lifted up the gem. "Is this what months worth of eating exotics has produced?"

"Meow!"

"You have literally eaten tons of metals! Why couldn't you have produced something of practical value?!"

"Meow meow!"

"What? The Nyxian Gap is upsetting your digestion system? Pff! What a useless gem. I can't use it at all on mechs. I'll only forgive you if you produce an identical one before the wedding, got it? Otherwise, you can forget about eating my Breyer alloy!"

"Meow?"

"You heard that right. I'm relying on you to decorate my wedding rings. I need an identical pair! At the very least, they need to look similar. Try and produce an orange or red gem, that would go nicely with this purple one."

"Meowwww!"

Lucky hissed and quickly dove through the deck. Ves merely shrugged at his cat's antics.

He climbed out of his bed and went through his morning routine. After undergoing a quick cleaning cycle, he dressed himself in his ordinary clan uniform while a grooming bot lightly styled his messy dark hair.

When it was time for him to shave, he held out his face, allowing the bot to shave off his stubble in a matter of seconds.

The bathroom's original grooming bot unfortunately perished when Ves used it as a decoy during his successful hijack of the Scarlet Rose. Gloriana generously gifted him with a high-quality Hexer grooming bot that was originally part of the inventory of the Stellar Chaser.

The Hexer model featured exceptionally effective shaving mechanisms. Ves was highly-impressed with the speed and thoroughness it displayed when it got rid of his stubble. The fact that it made his skin feel exceptionally smooth and supple throughout the day was a great testament of its quality.

"Female Hexers want their boys to look as young as possible, after all. It's difficult to infantilize the male half of their society if they are all wearing beards that make them look like actual adults."

Once he finished shaving, he ate his breakfast quickly before visiting the isolated communication chamber. After placing a call, Gavin's projection soon appeared to provide a daily briefing.

"A lot has happened, boss."

The assistant succinctly described the thousands of Hexer mechs that had entered the Cinach System as well as the revised plans for the wedding.

Though Ves had expected the upcoming wedding to change according to the circumstances, hearing that the Wodin Dynasty planned to station an entire mech division of the Wodin Warriors was out of his expectations!

"I thought the Wodins would only dispatch a mech regiment or something! And the Glory Battalion wouldn't have more than a thousand mechs!"

"The Blessed Squire finally caused the Wodins to acknowledge your great value to them, boss. It shouldn't be a surprise that they want to express their sincerity in this fashion. The matriarch of the dynasty and around fifty other Wodins will be attending the upcoming wedding!"

Ves did not look happy at all. To the Hexers, having a matriarch personally attend their wedding was a grand honor. To him, the presence of an old lady who was used to getting her way only represented trouble!

The Hexers took their matriarchs very seriously. Each of them were stately leaders or grand experts in their respective fields. Not any old Hexer could call herself a matriarch. Though Ves wasn't quite clear on how a female Hexer could obtain the title, those who obtained them had undoubtedly become part of the ruling class of the Hegemony!

"I'm more concerned about the transformation of the Glory Battalion into the Glory Seekers." Gavin spoke. "The Wodins are truly serious about giving Gloriana a private mech regiment for her to command. I don't know how they have done it, but every Glory Seeker is willing to leave the Hegemony and follow Gloriana for the rest of their lives! They have even adopted rules about recruiting foreigners to replenish or expand their ranks."

"And they will all fall under the nominal command of Gloriana? Not the Larkinson Clan?"

His assistant's projection nodded.

"Goddammit!"

Ves did not welcome this sudden development! Even though it sounded very nice to be accompanied by a strong, fully-equipped second-class mech regiment, they probably wouldn't listen to his orders!

He knew what was going on. His future in-laws wanted to make sure to maintain a strong Hexer influence around Gloriana. Now that she was about to marry into the Larkinson Clan, it would become increasingly more difficult for her to maintain her pure Hexer roots.

With thousands of loyal Hexer soldiers at her beck and call, it became a lot more difficult to shift Gloriana's mindset.

He sighed and rubbed his face. Though the Wodins valued him very much, that did not necessarily mean they listened to him. The Wodins were very justified in providing Gloriana with the best protection possible. Currently, the Larkinson Clan wasn't able to match the strength of the Glory Seekers when they completed their transformation.

"Do the Glory Seekers come with any fleet carriers or other capital ships at least?"

"No." Gavin shook his head. "They only brought the usual combat carriers and logistical vessels. They're not the Penitent Sisters, though. Their mechs and ships aren't second-hand castoffs."

The rapid growth in strength ensured that the Glory Seekers would easily be able to overtake the Penitent Sisters in strength! At the very least, the protection they offered gave Ves a lot more assurances in his upcoming journeys.

Gavin spent some time to detail the exact strength of the Glory Seekers. More projections came into view that displayed their formidable new ships and mechs.

Ves paid special attention to the mechs fielded by the Glory Seekers. He noted to his pleasure that the worst of them consisted of premium mechs while the best of them consisted of very expensive premier mechs.

What stood out to him was that the mech roster consisted of 1,000 spaceborn mechs and 1,000 landbound mechs.

The spaceborn mechs were able to fly under atmospheric conditions or fight on land, though they weren't optimized to fight under these conditions.

The landbound mechs on the other hand possessed limited boosting capabilities and could maneuver in space, though their acceleration was abysmal. This was because they lacked a proper flight system. Instead, they made use of several small-sized booster modules installed throughout their frames.

It seemed the Wodins weren't big believers in multi-environment mechs. They only compromised a bit, but not enough in his opinion.

"Did they dispatch any expert pilots?"

"No. According to Gloriana, Hexer expert pilots are very principled and it's difficult to convince them to leave the Hegemony and serve a foreign clan. The good news is that Venerable Brutus isn't one of them. The Wodins have decided to make his current assignment permanent. He no longer has to fight the Fridaymen in the frontlines in the Komodo War."

This was not a big surprise to Ves. The contribution he could make to the Hexer war effort was much greater than the presence of a single expert pilot. The Hexadric Hegemony benefited much more if Venerable Brutus kept guarding the Miracle Couple and prevent any potential assassination attempts.

The presence of an expert pilot, which the MTA regarded as a protected class, was more than enough to stop most opportunistic attacks!

All in all, the Wodin Dynasty completely showed their sincerity towards Ves this time, though they couldn't resist putting a Hexer spin on it. Their apparent gifts came with some very dangerous thorns.

The recent changes cleared up a lot of ambiguity about his relationship with his future in-laws. Ves felt grateful that the Wodins did not intend to force him to travel to the Hegemony.

There was one piece of news that irked him greatly.

"By the way, Gloriana and one of her older sisters attempted to change your citizenship status. They applied to 'correct' your current status from Brighter to Hexer. The reason they gave is.. your mother is a Hexer."

"What?! That's not true! My mother is a Brighter! I told her not to spread that nonsense around!"

"We all know it's fake, and the MTA agrees as well. The attempt failed."

At least the MTA was still sane!

Ves glowered a bit. It sounded as if Gloriana was not the only Hexer who thought that he was literally the son of the Superior Mother. Even if it was technically true, it was still wrong in his eyes!

"Is there anything else that needs to come to my attention?"

"We've begun to receive a deluge of requests to attend your wedding, boss. All sorts of prominent mech designers and other powerful individuals want to be there. Some of them have even come from other star sectors!"

"Why the hell do these foreigners want to attend?"

It was a lot of trouble to travel to other star sectors. Ves didn't believe that people did so casually.

"Some want to get closer to the Miracle Couple. Others want to brag about being a part of the most important social event of the decade. A few want to challenge you, while others want to partner up with the Larkinson Clan. A portion of these people aren't easy to deal with, so don't reject them too hastily."

Ves sighed. This smelled like more politics. He knew that he needed to take this warning seriously.

Chapter 2268 Comprehending Heavy Mechs

Once he got his morning routines out of the way, he decided to follow up Master Willix's advice and view some heavy mechs up close.

His first choice was to observe one of the few heavy mechs he was familiar with. He boarded a shuttle that brought him to the Princely Jackal. Aside from bringing Lucky, he also invited Zanthar Larkinson to look at some big mechs.

The adolescent student eagerly accepted the offer, not that he had any choice. Ves would have dragged him in the shuttle by the collar if he refused. Developing unhealthy fascination for illegal superweapons was a very quick way to get on the bad side of the Big Two!

Once the shuttle arrived at the Princely Jackal's hangar bay, Commander Rosa Orfan-Larkinson greeted him with a lazy wave.

"Hey kid. So what brings you here today?"

"I'm not here for an inspection or anything. Nor am I here to discuss official business. I just want to take a good look at the Akkara heavy mechs assigned to this ship. I always respected Professor Velten as a Senior Mech Designer. She gave me some very valuable advice and taught me how to manage design projects. It is only proper for me to study a portion of her legacy. Right now, I'm designing my own heavy artillery mech, so I'm hoping to acquire some useful insights."

"Huh." Commander Orfan's face lost some of its joviality. "The old professor was one of the bedrocks of our mech regiment back in the old days. She deserved more."

"She deserved more." Ves echoed. "At least she lived a long and peaceful life."

Professor Velten was already more than 150 years old, but her lifespan had already reached its limit when Ves had been drafted by the Mech Corps. A botched life-prolonging treatment operation supposedly led to her deteriorating health and mental state.

Though she lived longer and made far more accomplishments than ordinary Brighters, Ves found her fate to be very tragic. She even lost one of her Journeymen who was supposed to continue her research after her passing.

Ves learned a lot of lessons from her. He not only learned to value his time, but also cherish his opportunities. When he grew older, he did not want to regret the mistakes he made when he was young!

The small group crossed the hangar bay headed to the adjacent mech stables where dozens of mechs were safely secured. They stopped in front of the machines that Ves wanted to visit in person.

Technically, the Akkara was a heavy cannoneer mech. This became evident due to the myriad of rapid-fire laser and heavier ballistic cannons mounted to its quadruped frame.

The formidable mech featured no flight system to speak of, but its appearance lent itself well for both landbound operations and use in space as a bunker mech.

Not everyone understood the difference between an artillery mech and a cannoneer mech. To be honest, the differences were rather nuanced, mostly because the pioneers of mech design applied their own labels to similar concepts.

In short, a typical artillery mech excelled at outputting damage at medium but especially long range. Their armament could range from anything, but their firepower was always very strong.

Landbound artillery mechs were typically capable of attacking targets outside of line of sight, mostly by lobbing shells over tall structures and other obstacles.

They were very vulnerable at closer ranges and possessed virtually no defense against melee mechs. They possessed slow to average mobility but their inadequate armor despite their heavy frames were not designed to resist sustained attacks.

A cannoneer mech played a different role on the battlefield. They were capable machines in both long and medium ranges and mostly wielded large-caliber weapons that were attacked by line-of-sight.

This mech type was more suited to heated battles as they possessed slightly more armor and mobility, allowing them to perform at least some viable maneuvers on the battlefield.

That did not mean it was a good idea to allow them to soak up enemy fire. Cannoneer mechs were also poor in melee combat as their strong but unwieldy limbs simply couldn't move fast enough.

In any case, whether the Akkara model of the Flagrant Vandals fell under the definition of artillery mech or cannoneer mech was not important to Ves. What truly mattered was that the Cat's Paw fulfilled the same role as the Akkara. Mostly.

"What a big mech." Zanthar exclaimed as he looked straight up at the large and imposing mech.

"That's the point."

The mass of the Akkara was around four times greater than a typical medium mech. Its expanded height and girth significantly expanded the big mech's capacity, allowing it to mount over dozen different weapons.

Ves briefly immersed himself in his memories. He had seen Akkaras mechs in action during plenty of battles between the Flagrant Vandals and whatever enemy stood in their way. Vesians and pirates all suffered dearly against these heavy cannoneer mechs.

Thick plates of armor protected the mech against retaliation. Since the budget of the Akkara was very generous, Professor Velten was able to make her Akkaras withstand quite a lot of damage against its typical foes. This was no glass cannon that fell apart after suffering a few hits!

When Ves looked at the dormant Akkara, he tried his best not to focus too much on the details. Instead, he viewed the impressive machine from a holistic perspective and tried to see if he could perceive what Master Willix hinted at during their previous consultation session.

He developed various thoughts, some of which he felt were useless. Only a few stray thoughts merited more attention from him, but the problem was that these idle ideas usually led to dead ends.

Even though Ves was in the process of designing his first heavy mech in the form of the Cat's Paw, he felt as if he came no closer to understanding the essence of heavy mechs.

Maybe other people could point him in the right direction.

"What do you think about this Akkara, Zanthar?"

"It's big."

"You already told me that. This is the most obvious aspect about this mech. Now what else is there?"

"It has four legs."

"Yes, it's a quadruped mech. Thank you for that, Captain Obvious."

Commander Orfan stifled a laugh. She wasn't very good at it. "Hahahaha! He's just a squirt, kid. What does he know about heavy mechs?"

"Hey! I'm a future mech designer, lady!"

Ves swatted Zanthar's face. "Watch your tone! She might not sound very formal, but she is the respected commander of the Flagrant Vandals."

"I don't care." Orfan.

"I'm trying to raise him into a proper and respectable mech designer, commander. I don't expect you to help, but at least don't make it worse."

"What's so bad about this squirt? He looks kind of cute!"

Ves loudly coughed. "Let's get back to the Akkara mech, please. Zanthar, your thoughts?"

"Well.." The adolescent trailed for a moment. "I've seen a lot of medium mechs and plenty of light mechs. All of those mechs are at least somewhat maneuverable. I think one of the reasons why mercenary corps like to use mobile mechs a lot is because they never want to fight to the death. Once a battle goes against their way, they want to run away as quickly as possible, and lugging around a heavy mech is just a big mistake in those situations! Oh, smaller mechs are cheaper as well, so that's also a big advantage!"

Ves and Commander Orfan shared a bemused glance with each other.

They found the remark amusing not because it sounded ridiculous, but because Zanthar's argument was both right and ridiculous!

The Vandal Commander actually looked thoughtful this time. "I think the greater point of this fellow is right. I fought in many battles where moving quickly and being in the right place at the right time was crucial. Battles between mechs is one big maneuvering game where you try to position your mechs to the greatest advantage while the enemy is doing the same. It's a mistake to think you can simply win every battle by investing loads of money into fielding a force that consists entirely of heavy mechs."

Heavy mechs possessed their own distinctive weaknesses. At the very least, their slow mobility made them vulnerable to either massed bombardment or committed melee assaults.

"How did you and your fellow Vandal officers work with the limitations of the Akkaras?" Ves asked.

"The Akkaras are strong, but they aren't the right solution in every situation. We try to use them as the core of our defensive posture. When an enemy attacks us, we try to lure their mechs into the killzone of our prepared Akkaras. When we do the attacking, we don't overtake our Akkaras but instead match their pace when there is no need for haste."

"Time." Ves suddenly felt he grasped something. "The situations you mentioned are times where the Vandals didn't need to hurry. They traded time for greater opportunities, and they did so in order to leverage the strengths of the Akkara mechs!"

Heavy mechs were so slow and cumbersome that they rarely took part in any offensive maneuvers. That limited their usefulness as the enemy wasn't obliged to run in front of their guns to get blasted!

What the Flagrant Vandals attempted was to invest time and effort into putting the Akkaras into situations when they were useful.

From luring enemies into the range of the Akkara mechs to slowly pushing them forward so they could bombard enemy formations and defenses, all of these scenarios demanded patience and planning.

Heavy mechs possessed awesome power, but their critical flaw limited their applicability. Those who owned them and fielded them in battle had to learn how to work around their known weaknesses in order to fully express their great advantages.

He formed his first important insight. "Heavy mechs are sort of extreme versions to their medium counterparts. They are specialized to a much greater degree than regular mechs, which means that they impose much higher requirements on the command ability of the people in charge. This is also why they are largely limited to the military or large-scale organizations, as only they are able to hire or nurture competent commanding officers."

"It's kind of like they are fixed in place somewhat. You can't easily move them around." Zanthar remarked.

"The squirt is right. That's how we Vandals usually treat our Akkara mechs. We don't try to move them if it's not urgently required. We treat them similar to stationary defenses that are just easier to install and remove than actual turrets and defense platforms. You could say that they are a hybrid between medium mechs and stationary defenses."

Ves widened his eyes when he heard that. Commander Orfan's words caused him to view heavy mechs from yet another perspective!

Viewing them as fixed defenses that just happened to move a bit from time to time caused him to develop a different standard towards them. The mobility of most heavy mechs were weak because they truly didn't need more. Heavy mech designers consciously sacrificed mobility in order to reach greater extremes in offense or defense!

When mech designers pursued this principle far enough, the products they make eventually acquire many of the traits that define fixed defenses.

Was this a good or bad development? No one could say for sure, but so far, heavy mechs designed according to this principle were viable, otherwise so many mech militaries wouldn't have fielded them in battle!

When Ves looked up again at the Akkara with this new lens, his impression of it had changed. He no longer focused purely on its firepower or its individual might. Instead, he saw the mech as a single piece of a greater puzzle.

This was a result of his third insight!

Heavy mechs normally weren't suited to be deployed by themselves. They needed to work together with medium mechs and light mechs in order to leverage their strengths!

Chapter 2269 Unified Doctrine

Ves gained much from his short visit to the Princely Jackal. Observing the Akkara heavy cannoneer mechs of the Flagrant Vandals not only granted him a better feel for huge machines, but also sparked a fruitful discussion with two different people.

He found it rather surprising that both Zanthar and Commander Orfan helped expand his views on heavy mechs. The two weren't known for their wisdom and wealth of knowledge. Yet their different perspectives and life experiences caused them to illuminate new angles that Ves previously overlooked.

On the shuttle ride back to the Scarlet Rose, Ves briefly activated his comm in order to call for a meeting with Major Verle. He had a lot to talk about and wanted to get started right away once he returned.

"Meow."

Meanwhile, Lucky squinted his glowing green eyes as Zanthar eagerly tickled his pale bronze exterior. Even if the surface felt like a mix of solid bone and metal, the mechanical cat appeared to be quite sensitive!

"Can I have a cat like Lucky too?" Zanthar smiled as he enjoyed this moment.

"Lucky is unique. You can't afford a cat like him. Perhaps it will be different when our Larkinson Clan becomes a first-class power, but don't get your hopes up. If you want a pet, then you are better off looking for something organic."

Ves had received this question many times ever since he obtained the gem cat. There was no way that he would tell anyone the truth. He would simply tell people that Lucky was a Rubarthan product or something. That quickly ended the questioning.

"Awww…"

The teenager looked disappointed, but many people simply couldn't have nice stuff. The galaxy was filled with space peasants who looked at Terrans, Rubarthans, other first-raters, the true spaceborn, mecheers and fleeters with envy.

Ves knew it was pointless to feel jealous at those who were born at a much higher station than himself. Rather than engage in unproductive behavior, he might as well invest in himself in order to improve his ability and qualifications. Slowly but steadily, he would catch up and even surpass those privileged people.

Once the shuttle arrived at his personal ship, Ves exited the vehicle and quickly returned to his stateroom. With Lucky wandering off and Nitaa taking up an unobtrusive guard position, Ves readied his thoughts until Major Verle arrived.

"Please take a seat, major."

The middle-aged man in uniform did so. "What's this about, sir? You sounded quite eager over the comms."

"I developed some doubts in the process of designing our upcoming heavy artillery mech. I decided to seek some consultation and received some advice…"

Ves quickly explained what he had been up to. He also enumerated the most important insights he gleaned from studying the Akkara mechs.

"Several aspects of heavy mechs stand out to me. First, heavy mechs are incredibly specialized. By sacrificing mobility, they also sacrifice flexibility. Using them effectively in battle becomes more challenging, and many options simply aren't available due to their limitations."

Major Verle nodded as if he had long understood this point. "It is very easy to squander heavy mechs. Commanders need to pass special courses in order to gain the qualification to command them. They are so valuable that their loss can easily cripple a unit."

"This leads me to the second point. To make effective use of their pronounced strengths, we need to put more effort into manipulating the circumstances of the battle in our favor. Heavy mechs are assets that require time and patience to employ. Once we have set up the perfect circumstances, their extreme firepower or other strengths can be played to the fullest!"

"That's why heavy mechs exist, sir. A smaller formation consisting of heavy mechs can actually achieve far greater results than a larger formation of medium mechs. This is because you can concentrate much more firepower or defenses in a much smaller area."

"Thirdly, heavy mechs aren't very good by themselves." Ves pressed on. "They lack mobility and flexibility, hence they can't take the initiative. Heavy mechs perform at their best when they are part of a larger unit that boasts faster mechs. Combining different mech types and different mech classes is the key to achieving victory against many different opponents. In order to do that, our clan needs to develop a coherent strategy and configuration to make sure all of the pieces of the puzzle fits together."

Major Verle looked quite pleased when he heard that. "This is something that I have been working on in the past few months. Ever since you gave me permission to establish the Military Bureau, I haven't spent all of my time on unifying our personnel management and establishing rudimentary cooperation and coordination between our mech forces. With the help of some of the commanders and senior officers in the clan, I have been drafting a unified mech combat doctrine for the Larkinson Clan. The battles we have fought recently have allowed me to test, verify and refine its principles."

A unified mech combat doctrine!

Ves sat up a little straighter from his chair when he heard that. So far, the mech forces of the Larkinson Clan each fought in their own distinctive way. While the various battles against the Nyxian pirates allowed the Avatars of Myth, Living Sentinels and the others to become accustomed to working together, there was still a lot to go before they reached the same standard as the military.

"Tell me what you have come up with, major."

The major breathed deeply. "This is a very big proposal, sir. In our opinion, the Larkinson Clan's mech combat doctrine rests on three legs. They are as follows: psychological warfare, elite development and maneuver warfare."

Even before the major explained the three legs, Ves already understood the gist of them. He had personally witnessed each and every battle against the pirates and could recognize elements from all of the three strategies.

Major Verle raised a finger. "Let's begin with the first one. Psychological warfare is something that I happen to specialize in. To put it simply, it is an attempt to defeat the opponent by forming a disparity between the morale of our own side and the morale of our enemies. It doesn't matter if our enemies outnumber us, fields better mechs or employs better trained mech pilots. As long as our fighting forces are more confident than the enemy, we can still win!"

This was something that Ves had always been impressed with and one of the reasons why he was so eager to hire the former mech officer and Flashlight operative. Major Verle possessed an excellent grasp in manipulating the morale of his subordinates.

Ves smiled. "I take it that the existence of glows makes it much easier to wage psychological warfare."

"Exactly so!" Verle grinned back. "While it is dangerous to become too dependent on glows, that is no reason to discount their use. Right now, our use of glows is more a result of using what is available. We still lack a more unified and strategic approach towards leveraging glows. It's not enough to come up and implement some plans. This cooperation needs to start from the beginning of the design process of your mechs."

"Ah! I see! I shouldn't have designed a new mech without obtaining sufficient input from my target audience."

This was something he overlooked. As the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan, Ves was accustomed to getting his way. Whenever he wanted to design a mech for the Larkinson Clan, he just developed an idea and designed it right away without sufficiently paying attention to the demands of the Larkinsons or whether it fit their needs.

Whenever he designed a mech for the market or a specific client, Ves paid much more attention to the needs of his customers. Skipping this essential step when he designed a mech for his own clan was an unforgivable mistake.

Fortunately, Ves only designed a single mech for the Larkinson Clan so far. As a modular mech platform, the Bright Warrior possessed a lot of versatility, which meant it was always useful in a battle.

The same could not be said for heavy mechs. Their extreme specialization meant that Ves had to pay much more attention to how they would be used in the battles waged by the Larkinson Clan.

The major explained the need to focus on psychological warfare.

"Compared to many other powers, our Larkinson Clan possess a great advantage in this aspect. Since you are the originator of glows, you can design any mech that manipulates the morale of both friendlies and enemies to our liking. Don't take the fact that we can affect the morale of multiple sides lightly. For example, if we say that a benign glow provides us with a 10 percent boost in performance, our battle results won't differ that much. However, if we pair that with a malignant glow that suppresses the enemy's performance by 10 percent, then the difference widens to 20 percent."

The ultimate impact of such a wide disparity was not that simple! If the disparity became too wide, then that meant that the superior side would easily be able to snowball their advantages throughout the battle. A close battle with even losses on both sides could easily turn into a lopsided massacre with such a difference in morale!

The Battle of Marrakath System also highlighted the drastic difference that glows could make through this effect!

While it sounded great to achieve an easy victory through waging psychological warfare, Ves did not immediately embrace the notion.

"What if the enemy fields some sort of counter to our glows? The Friday Coalition's Masters and many other mech designers are already starting to research methods on how to counter my specialty."

"That's okay. I don't believe your glows can be negated so easily. At the very least, it is likely that those counters require very special solutions that only work against LMC mechs. The enemy will have to invest considerably in those counters in order to fight us on even ground. That is time and resources that they could have spent on something deadlier. Besides, I doubt most of our opponents will have sufficient counters ready. From our understanding of glow interactions, quantity is also a factor. Proportionally, no one fields more LMC mechs than our clan!"

That was true. Even if Master Olson and her fellow colleagues developed an effective counter to glows in the form of a mech, then one copy likely wouldn't be enough. An enemy would have to field hundreds, if not thousands of copies in order to effectively mitigate the Larkinson Clan's most notable advantage!

Against ordinary opponents such as pirate outfits, Ves doubted that any of them bothered to field any counter mechs. The only reason why they would do so was when LMC mechs became very popular in their region. Even if that was the case, that just meant the Larkinson Clan had become even wealthier, allowing it to field even stronger mechs!

Major Verle raised an important caveat. "We should be careful not to over rely on the advantages given by your mechs. Do you remember our first battle in the Nyxian Gap? We dispatched some Sentinel rookie mech pilots against some pirates in the company of some Bright Warriors from the Avatars. In the final moment, we ordered the Bright Warriors to withdraw, causing the rookies to become unbalanced by the sudden absence of glows."

"I remember." Ves grimaced a bit.

"As a result of that, Commander Magdalena and every other commander has made sure to prevent our mech pilots from getting too complacent. They need to fight well regardless of the presence of glows. This does not mean that our emphasis on psychological warfare has reached a dead end. Humans and aliens have waged psychological warfare before the emergence of your glows. There are many other levers that we can manipulate in order to obtain advantages on this front."

Propaganda, training and many other measures could all achieve some of the effects of glows. The main difference was that glows were much more directly applicable during battle while those other options had to take place beforehand.

On top of that, the Larkinson Clan also possessed another advantage that Major Verle wasn't entirely aware of. The Larkinson Network that bonded every clansman to the Golden Cat and with each other could also play an important role!

All of these measures had the potential to overlap, resulting in a qualitative disparity that was difficult to surmount. Ves readily agreed with Major Verle that the Larkinson Clan should pursue this advantage to the fullest!

Chapter 2270 Hand Motions

Up until now, the Larkinson Clan's approach to glows was just to make use of them whenever convenient. There was hardly any greater thought behind their use because they were just there already.

The Avatars of Myth, which was arguably the greatest user of glows in the Larkinson Clan, just took whatever mech that Ves shoved at them. It was up to them to figure out how to make effective use of the new glows.

This was a rather faulty approach. What actually needed to happen was for Commander Melkor to approach Ves and request the addition of a mech that fulfilled a certain role or requirements. The needs of the Avatars had to fit its chosen doctrines and approaches.

"This is something that we can work out in the future." Major Verle remarked. "Right now, it's more important to formulate and verify each mech force's respective development trajectories. Once we exit the Nyxian Gap, we can review all of the battles we have waged and use the conclusions to confirm our plans."

"You're the expert in this matter. I will defer to your judgement." Ves waved his hand.

He needed to remind himself that he was primarily a mech designer, not a military strategist. There was no need for him to provide his input on every single issue.

That said, his work as a mech designer was influenced heavily by what kind of mechs the Larkinson Clan needed to win its battles.

Verle brought up the next leg that propped up his unified doctrine.

"Let's move on to elite development. As you can probably surmise, elite development is all about training and developing our various elite mech troops. In our case, that is every mech pilot aside from the ones belonging to the Living Sentinels. Our clan is quite unusual compared to other nomadic, spacefaring powers. Usually, a nomadic clan of our scale only employs a single mech force that is exclusively used to defend its fleet. Nothing more, mostly because there is no need."

Originally, Ves only started off with the Avatars of Myth. He later decided to narrow their scope as elites and founded the Living Sentinels to fill up the void. After that, various other forces such as the Battle Criers, Swordmaidens and Flagrant Vandals merged with the Larkinson Clan while still retaining their unique identities.

A mech force with a strong, decades-long martial tradition was more than the sum of their mechs, mech pilots and other assets. They formed a cohesive, synergistic whole that employed time-tested strategies, distinctive training and strong specialization to achieve far greater results than a band of random mechs and mech pilots could ever accomplish!

Ves disliked waste and did not wish to throw all of those advantages away. While that had led to the fracturing of the Larkinson Clan's fighting forces, the growing diversity was not universally bad.

"As long as the Larkinson Clan can manage and combine the specialized mech troops effectively, then the disadvantages of fracturing our fighting forces and splitting up our attention are tolerable. We just need to invest sufficiently in not only their individual development, but also how to combine them together. That is the third leg of our doctrine which we will discuss later."

"Hmm." Ves tapped his fingers against his desk. "So you are saying that our clan should decisively focus on quality rather than quantity."

"Correct, sir. This fits best with our circumstances. Compared to other organizations, our Larkinson Clan has an abundance of capital. This affords us the luxury to spend enormous sums of money on better mechs and mech pilots."

"We could spend that money on expanding the Living Sentinels as well. Right now, the LMC is doing fantastic in terms of selling mechs and collecting a lot of licensing fees. There is no reason why we can't invest all of that money into acquiring more mechs, ships and manpower."

Major Verle grinned and crossed his arms. "We have already undergone a major expansion. One of the reasons why we are picking fights with Nyxian pirates is to merge the old and new clansmen together. I doubt you want to repeat this cycle too much. Also, a large fleet protected by average-quality mechs and mech pilots is much harder to manage and defend than a smaller fleet which is protected by a smaller core of elites."

That was true.

"Are you happy with our current lineup of mech troops?"

"Not entirely, sir. If we want to invest fully in elite development, then we need to expand our roster with at least two other units. One needs to specialize in long-ranged artillery and wide-area bombardment. The other one should focus on special operations and stealth operations."

"Neither of the two sounds easy to set up." Ves looked a little pained.

"It's possible but very difficult to set them up from scratch." Verle admitted. "The best option is to acquire existing mech troops that already specialize in these areas."

"Is that difficult?"

"Perhaps. I'm not sure. Usually, artillery mech troops are mainly in the hands of states and ruling powers. Stealth mech troops are largely exclusive to state intelligence agencies. Do you think you can just knock on the doors of a state and offer to buyout either of them? I think not. Our best bet is to travel to a collapsing state and be on the lookout for rats that are trying to flee a sinking ship."

The Flagrant Vandals used to be one of those fleeing rats. Unlike their fellow critters, the Vandals just happened to flee in a specific direction.

"If I had known that, then I would have directed my clan to consider the option of poaching other Brighter units." Ves grimaced.

In hindsight, that was a missed opportunity!

"You don't need to fret over these matters. Wars always take place in the galaxy. While certain conflicts such as the Komodo War are too dangerous for us to approach, there are always smaller conflicts where our clan can safely swoop in and recruit some of the elites nurtured by the losing side of a war. Otherwise, we need to nurture these elite mech units from scratch, and that is a long process as it takes decades to formulate and mature their martial traditions."

"I'll keep that in mind once we cross into other star sectors. It would be best to acquire these new additions before we enter the Red Ocean. What about the Living Sentinels, by the way?"

"As our only non-elite mech force, the Sentinels serve as a counterweight of our elites. We can't defend the Larkinson Clan by relying entirely on the latter, after all. They Sentinels will primarily orient their development towards static or defensive warfare. This poses significantly less requirements in terms of capital and manpower, but the Sentinels will have to rely more on quantity to compensate."

"That is acceptable." Ves mused. "Our clan isn't backed by a state. Our clan's population will never surpass that of a settled planet. Limited manpower will always be one of our biggest bottlenecks. That said, with a successful mech designer like me in the clan, money won't be a major issue. Even if the mech pilots of the Sentinels are of a lower standard, we can still make up for that by issuing higher-quality mechs to them. Of course, our elite mech forces will also enjoy this benefit."

"That's also the largest vulnerability of developing our elites. They never come cheap, sir. Much of what our clan is trying to do rests on the premise that there is an abundant supply of money. From my understanding, business is booming at the LMC. How long will that last? What if our mech company enters into a slump again? The upkeep of elite mech troop is multiple times higher than a regular mech troop, and that is assuming that waste and embezzlement is minimal."

"While you have raised a good point, I think we can manage the risks. If our clan's income ever dries up, we don't immediately have to sell off our most valuable mechs and ships. Running them is expensive, but as long as we accumulate enough savings, we can still hang on for a couple of years while we attempt to restore our income. If that doesn't work, we'll just downsize."

Even though Ves spoke lightly about this problem, he still understood that this might become a very real threat some day, especially when the scale of the Larkinson Clan had ballooned.

Major Verle moved on to his last point. "The two strategies I've mentioned previously complement our third strategy. Maneuver warfare fits well with our strengths and weaknesses. Take for example the opposite, which is attrition warfare."

He stretched out his palms and pressed them together.

"The most basic mech battles is quite simply a brawl that directly pits one group of mechs against another group of mechs."

The major began to rub his palms back and forward. The resulting friction generated some rubbing noises.

"Such a battle is waged by grinding each other mechs against each other until one side gets tired, loses confidence or runs out of mechs."

Ves looked at Verle rubbing his palms as if his fingers were cold and needed to warm up. "The way you put it sounds as if anyone who fights their battles in this manner is stupid."

"It's not stupid. It's just not suitable to everyone, especially smaller powers such as our clan. Our pool of mech pilots is only in the thousands. How can we compare against the likes of states that can call up millions of mech pilots? Much of the Komodo War has descended into attrition warfare because both sides are simply too strong, numerous and prepared. Neither the Friday Coalition or Hexadric Hegemony exhibit any holes in their defenses which can easily be exploited. The only way for either state to win the war is by pitting their strengths against the other state's own respective strengths."

"This is something that we should avoid as much as possible." Ves remarked. "The modest losses we have sustained so far has hurt our clan quite badly. We'll be set back a lot if we lose just a thousand mech pilots."

"I agree, sir. This is why our Larkinson Clan should try its best by leveraging our high-quality mechs, our ability to generate disparities in morale and our investment in elite mech forces. There is no better way to do that by specializing in maneuver warfare."

"What does that actually mean?"

"Well, that's a bit of a lengthy story, sir. You should have already seen it in action plenty of times in our previous battles against the Nyxian pirates. In short, it's attempting to win a battle by employing our strengths against the enemy's weaknesses."

The senior mech officer stopped rubbing his hands. Instead, he kept one palm stretched while extending just a single finger with his other hand.

Instead of pressing the finger into the palm, Verle exagerattingly circled the finger around until it poked sharply into the back of his stationary palm!

"We aren't cavemen anymore, Ves. We humans have developed many more refined tactics and strategies. A battle doesn't have to be won simply by destroying more mechs than the enemy. We can instead make clever use of our strong elite mechs to attack critical enemy assets. Think of targeting their officers, commanders, carriers, ranged mechs and so on. If nothing else, we can always employ our elites as cavalry and attack the flanks of an enemy formation. The Swordmaidens happen to excel in this tactic."

Ves nodded. He could still remember how the Swordmaidens easily caused the strong and troublesome Allidus Archons to collapse by nipping at their flanks.

The Avatars of Myths on the other hand were locked in a frontal engagement against the pirate elites, which was the more stupid way to fight.

Even so, the Swordmaidens could have never pulled off their brilliant feat without the Avatars pinning the enemy mechs down.

"We still need at least some of our mechs to fight the enemy head-on, right?"

"That is so. The typical hammer and anvil tactic can't work without them. This is why combining different mechs and different mech troops is so important. We cannot neglect the role of slower and defense-oriented mechs even as we rely mainly on maneuverable mechs to achieve our victories."

Chapter 2271 Fitting the Cat"s Paw

Now that Major Verle explained the three legs that supported his proposed mech combat doctrine, it was time to tie them all together.

Ves looked thoughtful as he processed what he learned.

"The three strategies each support and complement each other." Major Verle repeated. "On their own, they are fairly strong, but if we employ all three of them at the same time, we can achieve greater results. This is not a guess. This is an outcome that we have already proven in our previous battles. Combining glows, elite mechs and clever maneuvering can allow us to achieve quick, decisive victories while suffering minimal losses. Of course, this doesn't apply to enemies that are too strong or numerous. Quantity alone can overcome everything as long as the differences are large enough."

"As long as we don't pick fights against states or powerful organizations, we should be fine. Our Larkinson Clan isn't weak in the slightest. At the very least, most private sector outfits should steer clear of us. I doubt anyone wants to tussle against thousands of second-class mechs."

With an abundance of money and more and more mech pilots reaching second-class standards, Ves just had to design all of the second-class mechs needed to elevate the Avatars, Sentinels and other units to a new height.

The Penitent Sisters, while rather annoying and restrictive, were still very strong.

As for the newly-named Glory Seekers, the Wodin Dynasty invested heavily in bringing them up to full strength, which meant the Larkinson Clan would soon be traveling in the company of a complete second-class mech regiment!

Such strength already far surpassed most second-class outfits! Only larger organizations based in states such as the Garlen Empire or the Heavensword Association could rival such a formidable lineup!

"We still have the Friday Coalition on our backs, sir."

"...You have a point."

They talked some more about Major Verle's thoughts on his mech doctrine. This discussion directly affected the future of the Larkinson Clan's military development, so Ves tried his best to weigh the matter seriously.

He was just a mech designer, though. The logic that Major Verle employed to support his arguments all sounded impeccable, but who knew whether he was really right.

"How much have you discussed these ideas with other military specialists in our clan?"

"Extensively, sir. Many of the Larkinson military veterans who I've spoken with agree with my ideas. The trueblood Larkinsons are very familiar with some of my concepts as they are also widely-used in the Mech Corps back when we served. The input of those who come from other states and possess different backgrounds such as Calabast and Commander Chancy has allowed us to refine our plans and close some of the loopholes. This is a project that has involved many brilliant minds."

"I see."

The mech doctrine already looked mature enough to be implemented right away. In fact, the different mech forces of the Larkinson Clan already followed many aspects of it to a large extent. What the Larkinsons mainly needed to do was to unify their individual and disparate efforts in order to follow a single, cohesive development trajectory. The clansmen also needed to start additional initiatives in order to bolster the three legs.

To Ves, the most pertinent issue right now was to establish a more systematic cooperation between his Design Department and the clan's respective mech troops.

Verle gestured at Ves. "Right now, the model with regards to mech acquisition is partially a simple top-down process. You, the clan patriarch, simply chooses what mechs the Larkinson Clan needs based on your own personal judgement, mood, feelings and other random factors. Right now, that happens to be a heavy artillery mech. While I do not disagree with this addition, it's better if the selection process involves more sources of input."

In other words, Ves should stop deciding what mechs to design for the clan by himself. That was something that he was already willing to adopt.

"I will take that into account next time, major. For now, the Cat's Paw Project is already at an advanced stage. It's too much of a waste to halt the project and throw all of that design work away."

Ves briefly brought Major Verle up to speed on the Cat's Paw. The heavy artillery mech design that partially adhered to Hexer design principles possessed many of the same traits as other designs in the same price category.

It's remarkable glow was the primary reason for its existence.

"Remember my Deliverer design? I want to design a much more formidable second-class mech that possesses much more firepower with similar predictive targeting abilities. There are a number of limitations, though. The most critical one is that only devout Ylvainan mech pilots are comparative with such glows."

"So your Cat's Paw is essentially an Ylvainan mech design."

Ves reluctantly nodded.

"That.. is an issue, but not a big one." Major Verle responded after a brief pause. "There are hundreds of Ylvainan mech pilots in our clan. As far as I'm aware of, their numbers are slowly expanding as they have begun to convert some receptive clansmen to their.. faith."

Both of them grimaced at that. As Brighters, they possessed a dim view on religion. Even so, both of them knew that the Ylvainans and their faith were here to stay.

"Whatever they believe in makes them useful. The Deliverer's extraordinary targeting assistance is not something that I can replicate without involving the Ylvainan Faith. I believe strongly that the Cat's Paw will be able to save much more lives and defeat enemies considerably faster if it possesses the same capability."

"On the surface, I can see the logic."

Major Verle thought back on his memories of seeing the Deliverer in action. The Vandals fought alongside them several times during the Sand War. Each time, the Ylvainan marksman mechs managed to snipe the sandman admirals hidden in the middle of a swarm with unerring judgement!

While a heavy artillery mech on land or locked inside a bunker wouldn't be asked to find a needle in a haystack, the predictive targeting assistance could still play a huge role in a battle.

The main problem with long-ranged combat was that the hit rates were abysmal, especially in space.

With hundreds or thousands of kilometers separating both sides, even a 0.01 degree deviation in aim resulted in solid misses. If this pattern was repeated on a larger scale, then that effectively meant that most of the ranged mechs of the Larkinsons quite frankly wasted at least 90 percent of their energy and ammunition!

Lightspeed weapons such as laser rifles boasted the best accuracy at longer ranges, while physical weapons such as ballistic rifles fared much worse.

Even so, factors such as imperfect sensors, enemy ECM, environmental interference, mech-based limitations all reduced the hit rate of laser weapons as well.

This was where Ylvaine's spiritual fragment could play a great role. As long as this precognitive bastard fed its predictions on the enemy's evasion patterns to the mech pilots of the Cat's Paws, the latter could easily nail their hard-to-hit targets before they came close enough to pose a threat!

While Major Verle easily understood Ves' intentions for this mech design, from his perspective the design came with a few problems.

"I don't know enough about tech to comment about the way you put the mech together." Verle said. "What I can do is provide you with my feedback on how this mech is supposed to integrate in the clan's mech roster. First, you have already established that the Cat's Paw is piloted exclusively by Ylvainans. Now, which of our mech troops do they fit in? The Avatars? The Sentinels?"

Ves blinked. "Uhmm.. I guess I haven't thought about that. Since heavy artillery mechs are static or slow-moving machines, the Cat's Paw should fit well with the Living Sentinels."

"That's a decent option, but not a flawless one. The Living Sentinels have adopted rules and regulations that makes their mech pilots significantly less diligent and trained than their counterparts in the Avatars and other mech forces. That is not entirely bad because there is a larger number of eligible mech pilots who meet the standard of the Sentinels. What I am asking is whether you want the mech pilots of these important mechs to treat their responsibilities as a job."

"If you put it that way, then the Living Sentinels is not a good choice. Their culture is not as strict or demanding towards their mech pilots. Considering the key role that the Cat's Paw can play in many battles, I want their mech pilots to hold themselves to a much higher standard. Perhaps they fit better with the Avatars of Myth."

Verle shook his head. "The Avatars of Myth are slowly developing in the direction of an assault force. While such a specialization doesn't preclude them from adopting a heavy artillery mech, it is not needed. If we want to pursue our new doctrine to the fullest, then it is best to set up many specialized elite mech troops instead of a handful of broader ones."

"If the Cat's Paw doesn't fit with the Avatars of Myth, then where else can they go? Certainly not the Flagrant Vandals."

"We performed a difference back when we were still a part of the Mech Corps, sir. The Larkinson Clan has very different needs and traits, hence our decision to specialize in reconnaissance and mobility. The Akkara mechs that we currently possess are largely holdovers from our prior service. Their importance has been reduced to using them as bunker mechs. Since it's a lastgen mech, the Vandals would really like to replace it with something better and more modern."

Ves thought about what the major said. The Larkinson Clan was set to acquire a lot of ships with bunkers placed on their hulls. All of those bunkers needed to be filled with heavy mechs.

No matter if the ship belonged to the Avatars, Sentinels, Swordmaidens or whatnot, it was best if each of their bunkers were put to good use! Otherwise, wouldn't they be throwing away this powerful defensive tool?

Yet assigning them to a specific force was not the ideal solution. He suddenly recalled one of Major Verle's recommendations.

"In order to ensure that the Cat's Paw model is used to its fullest, you need to put them in a unit that specializes in such." Ves concluded. "The best solution therefore is to put them in a dedicated artillery-focused mech force!"

He was not entirely unfamiliar with them. He recalled that Jannzi Larkinson used to serve in the Apocalypse Heralds of the Mech Corps. The mech regiment was famed for their love of heavy mechs and artillery warfare.

Sadly, the Larkinson Clan wasn't close to any collapsing state that lost their grip on artillery mech regiments. There was no feasible way for him to acquire them in the short term.

A sudden idea came to mind. "What if we start our own artillery-focused mech force regardless of the cost?"

"We will have to invest years in building up its mech roster, pilot roster, culture, customs, tactics and martial traditions." Major Verle immediately replied. "This is not that easy. How long has it been since you founded the Avatars of Myth and Living Sentinels? While their current performance is rather satisfactory, they are still developing their fighting styles to this day. Their foundations are still too shallow, and now you want to add a third mech force to the mix."

Though Ves agreed with his points, he didn't think it was as cumbersome as the major thought.

"Our Larkinson Clan is large enough to accommodate an extra developing elite mech force. I'm thinking.. whether it's a good idea to set up a dedicated Ylvainan mech force that is solely designed to maximize their unique targeting advantage. Not just artillery mechs, but other powerful long-ranged mechs can be included in its mech roster!"

Though Ves ordinarily loathed anything related to Ylvaine, he found it quite intriguing. How strong would this new mech force be if it completely dedicated itself towards a single design spirit?

Chapter 2272 Ulimo Special

The mood at Ulimo Citadel had changed. The expansive marketplace that normally offered its local residents a semblance of normal life grew calmer.

Not as many Nyxian locals and visitors strolled through the streets. Several shops had shuttered their doors and hardly any vendor set up a stall on the streets.

Those who walked through the streets were either locals with a purpose in mind or armed thugs that kept the peace.

A small group of armored Mirror Raiders steadily strode through what used to be one of the widest avenues in Ulimo's public area.

The exoplants the Dry Snakes had planted along the avenue still looked vibrant, as half-corroded bots dutifully followed their programming and trimmed their strange black leaves.

A portion of the plants looked shriveled. Evidently, the supply of water or other sustenance in that area had broken down. None of the managers had sent anyone to fix this obvious error.

Nobody in Ulimo cared about making the pirate stronghold prettier. Many technicians and engineers that usually maintained the pirate base had all been reassigned.

The group of Mirror Raiders that passed through the avenue did not spare a glance towards the decaying plants. As they strode forward, the few locals and smaller thugs nervously made way.

They did not do so out of the well-made armor or the menacing-looking rifles of the Mirror Raiders. The long-time residens of Ulimo did not spare a glance towards the reapplied black-and-white coating or the random collection of trophies hanging from the powered armor suits.

The sole reason why they made way was due to the green armbands attached to the Mirror Raiders. The logo of the Dry Snakes served as a powerful deterrent to anyone, because those who wore it had the right to kill anyone not directly connected to the local pirate authorities!

Of course, the wearers of the armbands couldn't really kill people at will. Those who wore the armbands answered to the supervisors who passed them on. The Dry Snakes quickly squashed those who abused their newfound authorities.

The group of Mirror Raiders eventually reached one of the few stalls that was still in business. An old, ragged man looked at the approaching group with anticipation rather than fear.

Once the Mirror Raiders reached the stall, the helmets of two of them retracted.

"Give us the usual." Dietrich requested.

"Right away, Mr. Bo!"

The old man eagerly withdrew a dozen nutrient packs from a heated oven and began to tear them open. He withdrew some deformed and stained alloy bowls from the storage compartment of his stall and began to fill them all with the contents of the opened packs.

The stall vendor then proceeded to pick up a warm water pitcher and mixed the dry nutrient matter with some much-needed moisture. After hydrating the food, the old man picked up some dried herbs and some other unknown ingredient and carelessly tossed them into the bowls. He completed his food preparations by seasoning the food with a pinch of salt.

"Here you go, the Ulimo Special, specially prepared for you and your boys. Please enjoy your meals!"

"Thanks." Dietrich said as his armored gauntlet dropped a handful of K-bits onto the stall before grabbing onto an alloy bowl.

Though each of the bowls looked dented and deformed, they were still tough enough to withstand the abuse of armored pirates who didn't bother to control their strength.

Before they began to dig in, Ketis held out a small multiscanner and quickly verified that the food didn't contain any poison or other harmful ingredients.

The precaution was not for nothing, as other pirates had fallen victim to tampered food before!

While the reputation of the old food vendor was pretty good, who knew what might happen during these tense days.

Once she declared the food to be safe, everyone grabbed the thick spoons and began to dig in. The warm taste of spiced and seasoned nutrients seemingly melted into their mouths. The normally dry and crumbly nutrient matter turned into a smooth mash-like mixture that was just hot enough to remind the Mirror Raiders of real food.

As Dietrich and Ketis sat together on a bench and emptied their bowls, they casually chatted with each other.

"I really don't know whether we should stay here." Dietrich said, choosing his words carefully since he knew that he was in the scope of the base's monitoring system. "Our plan was to stick around for a couple of weeks and leave as soon as our ships and mechs are repaired."

Ketis swallowed her mouthful of warm nutrients before speaking. "It's dangerous to go out alone at this time. The Larkinson Clan has been going after pirates like us without mercy. Any pirate who stumbles upon them is never heard from again."

Naturally, she felt quite glad about that, but in order to maintain her cover story, she had no choice but to treat the clan as an enemy.

Every Mirror Raider carefully controlled their words and actions since they had entered Ulimo Citadel a week ago. No one who took part in this mission was careless. Whatever sloppiness they exhibited was almost certainly a facade meant to fool the current overlords of Ulimo Citadel.

While Dietrich shoveled another spoonful of food into his mouth, his eyes wandered over to the green metal armbands attached to his arm and the arms of his subordinates.

He really didn't like this part of the new plan. Originally, the Mirror Raiders had been tasked with gathering intelligence on the defenses of Ulimo Citadel. By entering its public marketplace and mixing in with the locals, the disguised Larkinsons could unobtrusively gather a wealth of information from the locals.

All of that changed shortly after the Mirror Raiders defeated the Roid Rats!

A few days after that abrupt event, the Dry Snakes announced that they would be recruiting any local pirate outfit who possessed at least some mechs!

Any viable group of pirates would earn an elevated status in Ulimo. In exchange for their services, the newly-hired pirates had to defend Ulimo Citadel against any potential attackers!

The reason for this drastic measure was no secret. The Dry Snakes openly announced that they had received word that the fleet of the Larkinson Clan was lurking in the vicinity of Ulimo Citadel!

Though the pirates failed to pin the fleet of pirate hunters down, everyone in Ulimo feared that they would become the Larkinson Clan's next victims!

Ever since the announcement and the rumors that accompanied them became public, the pirates and residents each reacted in different ways.

Many visiting pirate gangs hopped back into their shabby ships and departed from Ulimo as fast as possible. There was no way they wanted to be in the middle of a massive battle between two giants!

The Dry Snakes, who normally valued the commerce that visitors brought, was happy to see them go. This was not the time to focus on earning K-coins. With the potential survival of their powerbase at stake, the Dry Snakes couldn't afford to watch over so many unknown elements.

As for the small number of pirate outfits who decided to stay, they each accepted the offer to become a part of the alliance centered around the Dry Snakes. Though the strength of many of these little pirate gangs were limited, the newly-formed Ulimo Militia quickly swelled to the point of numbering almost 800 mechs!

The Mirror Raiders contributed significantly to the Ulimo Militia by offering 80 mechs to defend the pirate stronghold, so the Dry Snakes treated them quite generously. While the members of the Militia didn't receive access to any of the restricted areas, their new bosses entrusted them with at least some responsibilities.

The entire situation seemed absurd to Dietrich. The Mirror Raiders, who were pretty much Larkinsons in disguise, now formed a part of Ulimo Citadel's defense force!

From what he heard, Lieutenant Sendra of the Swordmaidens played a very big role in making the pirate overseers accept the Mirror Raiders. The Dry Snakes weren't stupid and they did not accept the loyalty of any random band of pirates.

For some reason, the fact that the Mirror Raiders destroyed the Roid Rats and took over the former gang's territory was a very big mark in their favor! It showed that the Mirror Raiders were serious about settling down in Ulimo.

Dietrich really didn't know what else Lieutenant-Commander Abis and Lieutenant Sendra pulled off to gain the trust of the Dry Snakes. It seemed that there were very good reasons for putting them in charge of the mission.

All he and Ketis had to do now was to wait and stick to his cover. Other Mirror Raiders were stationed elsewhere, and Dietrich even heard that a couple of his comrades had managed to enter one of the core sections of the stronghold!

That was a massive breakthrough in their mission! The public area of Ulimo was nothing more than a cash cow to the Dry Snakes. Most of their people and important defenses were located in the restricted sections which ordinary repelled every outsider.

Though Dietrich was glad for the sudden progress, he was worried as well.

The Mirror Raiders were unable to leave! Once Task Force Predator attacked Ulimo Citadel, Dietrich and his fellow Mirror Raiders had to fight on behalf of the pirates!

The messy situation constantly burdened him. His stomach roiled uncomfortably as he was no longer in the mood to enjoy the local cuisine.

Once the Mirror Raiders finished their lunch, they left their bowls and spoons on the bench and slowly walked away.

The old food vendor stepped away from his stall to pick up the bowls and poor with his shaky hands.

"Thank you for your patronage. Please come again! Remember, there is no better meal than the Ulimo Special. Our ingredients are 100 percent organic and locally sourced!"

The group of Mirror Raiders eventually ended their patrol and returned to their new base, which previously belonged to the Roid Rats.

A thorough cleaning and new furniture made the interior of the base look at least somewhat respectable.

While the rest of the Mirror Raiders went off to relax, Dietrich and Ketis marched to a secure room that was already under a jamming field.

"Ah, I see the two of you have arrived. Good." Lieutenant Rodan greeted.

The Black Cat officer had turned into a strong supporter of Lieutenant Sendra's initiative. The Swordmaidens may have acted recklessly, but they succeeded in earning some trust from their targets!

The rewards for all of the risks they took became evident from the printed sheets lying on the table.

At this point, it was extremely dangerous to store any incriminating material in a digital storage medium. The Mirror Raiders didn't carry suspicious data chips or stored anything dangerous in their low-quality comms.

Instead, Lieutenant Rodan and the few Mirror Raiders who had entered the restricted section of Ulimo Citadel relied on their memories to note down anything important.

Once they returned from their shifts, they used primitive means such as using pen and paper to record their observations.

Ketis walked up to the tables and carefully studied the handwritten documents and sketches.

The autopen insured that every Mirror Raider wrote in neat and legible handwriting. However, it couldn't do much to make their sketches clearer.

Only the precisely-drawn sketches of Lieutenant Rodan conveyed the best impression of Ulimo Citadel's restricted sections.

"What have you learned?" Lieutenant Rodan asked after a while.

"There are a lot of powerful energy channels in the base. I can vaguely estimate how many energy weapons they are and how much power they use. If I have more sketches from different angles, I can even point out some critical components that you can tamper with in order to cut the power flows."

"Good. I will prepare the additional sketches as fast as possible. Have you detected any more concerning elements?"

Ketis frowned. "No. So far, I believe we have only scratched the surface of Ulimo's defenses."

"We know. Our investigation takes time. By the time we are ready to report back, I hope to provide the clan with something material."

Just as Ketis was about to reply, a hidden entrance suddenly opened. A pair of Swordmaidens dragged an injured man into the room!

"What is the meaning of this?!" Rodan exclaimed as he backed off a bit.

Lieutenant Sendra passed through the hidden entrance a second later. She grinned at everyone and gestured at the capture.

"This is a Xona Stalker!"

Everyone looked astonished. The Xona Stalkers were one of their greatest threats in Ulimo Citadel. Now that the Mirror Raiders captured one of their men, they could finally learn something material about the stealth and anti-stealth measures of this mysterious pirate group!

Chapter 2273 Turbulence

The intelligence gathered by the Mirror Raiders eventually made their way to Task Force Predator through some obscure means.

Even if the Mirror Raiders were no longer allowed to leave Ulimo Citadel, they still possessed several sophisticated ways to transmit data.

Before, Abis and Rodan were very reluctant about using any of those means. Once exposed, they would fail their mission and doom the lives of every Mirror Raider!

They only took the risk after capturing and interrogating several important pirates, most notably the technicians and officers of the Dry Snakes and Xona Stalkers.

It was very difficult to capture them without leaving behind a trail. In order to frustrate any investigations, some of the Mirror Raiders deliberately stirred up trouble.

From sabotaging important systems to inducing hostility between different pirate gangs, Ulimo Citadel became a little bit more chaotic. The Mirror Raiders even managed to lay some fails trails that hinted that the Hapid Qlinters were the ones responsible for kidnapping some of the pirates!

Sendra and Rodan had noticed that the Hapid Qlinters regularly quarreled with the other pirate groups. Most of the Hapid Qlinters consisted of unruly, bloodthirsty raiders who felt repressed after not being allowed to leave in order to plunder some new victims.

None of the Mirror Raiders knew why the Dry Snakes put the Hapid Qlinters under their heel. That didn't stop the disguised Larkinsons from taking advantage of the rabid and undisciplined pirates!

With parts of Ulimo Citadel becoming increasingly more chaotic, it was no surprise that the Mirror Raiders managed to transmit some vital intelligence.

Once this crucial information fell into the hands of Task Force Predator, the Black Cats in conjunction with the Military Bureau went to work in order to increase their understanding of Ulimo Citadel.

Calabast eventually visited Ves while he was working in the design lab in order to report her findings.

"Let's speak somewhere private. You need to know this." She said.

When they entered an office which Calabast proceeded to secure, Ves sat down at a desk while holding Lucky.

"Meow."

"I know you can't wait, but be patient. You'll get your banquet of exotics soon enough."

Once Calabast approached the desk and parked her rear end against the edge, she explained what she learned.

"Ulimo Citadel is a bigger target than we thought." She began and handed over a data pad containing a summary of the intelligence. "The formation of Ulimo Citadel shows that the Dry Snakes are very serious about resisting any potential attacks from our direction. They are more prepared than ever against our moves, and that is rather disconcerting."

"Have we infiltrated their defenses? Do we know what hardware they use to depend on their stronghold?" Ves asked as he rapidly skimmed through the documents and sketches in the data pad.

"The Dry Snakes has long maintained some good relations with some of the bigger pirate alliances. Lately, they have partnered exclusively with the Allidus Alliance. As a result, they have been supplied with additional superweapons, some of which they have installed throughout their fortification. The rest usually go on auction, thereby supplying many other pirate outfits with illegal, destructive weapons."

Usually, someone from civilized space would react with horror to such news. Incidents such as the infamous Friedmont Massacre reminded everyone living close to the Nyxian Gap of the devastation that weapons of mass destruction could unleash!

Yet the pirates at Ulimo Citadel paid even less attention to the Big Two's taboos than before. They cared nothing about the lessons of the Age of Conquest or maintaining the stability of human civilization.

They just wanted to survive!

Therefore, even if the Friedmont Massacre made it even more dangerous to own taboo weapons, most pirates feared closer threats such as the Larkinson Clan more than distant ones such as the MTA and CFA!

Even if the latter organizations were much more powerful, the threat from rival pirate organizations, Peacekeeper outfits and the Larkinson Clan was much more acute!

"In effect, our aggressive moves have only encouraged the Nyxian pirates to increase their arsenal of prohibited superweapons." Calabast looked amused. "The Allidus Alliance is profiting a lot from this trade and Ulimo Citadel is one of the few places where independent pirate outfits can procure the dangerous products."

"How much?" Ves asked.

"According to our current estimates.. compared to Xiphard Base, there are at least ten to twenty times more superweapons at Ulimo Citadel!"

Ves almost shot up from his chair. "That much?! How the hell hasn't Ulimo blown up from all of that powerful hardware?!"

"Most of these weapons are stored in remote vaults hidden and secured at a healthy distance from the main fortification. Even if some of the bombs inside the vaults were improperly secured and blew up for some reason, Ulimo would only lose a couple of dozen superweapons at most."

The data pad held by Ves contained some estimates and inferences of what kind of weapons were stored in the vault.

The list included goods such as nuclear bombs, exotic bombs, warship-grade laser cannons, warship-grade torpedoes and even biological weapons!

Any of the vaults contained enough weapons to scour at least ten percent of the people living on a major planet such as Cinach VI!

The superweapons were more than enough to destroy Task Force Predator if they were activated all at once!

The worst aspect of all of this news was that this list only contained the superweapons that were locked in storage. Either they were owned by visitors such as the Mirror Raiders, reserved for sale in future auctions, or were left behind when their original owners could no longer take them back.

Regardless, compared to these castoffs, the pirates in control of Ulimo Citadel most definitely made use of considerably more powerful superweapons!

Even though Ves felt incredibly threatened by the sheer amount of firepower, he was also very pleased.

All of this evidence indicated that Ulimo Citadel was a hotbed of illegal superweapons. This meant that Ves stood to earn a lot of merits once he destroyed the entire arsenal and submitted proof to the MTA!

He could already see the merits falling into his hands even now. While he wasn't sure how the MTA calculated the merit rewards for disposing taboo weapons, Ves believed the MTA wouldn't be stingy. With the Association doubling every reward related to this contribution, it might be possible for him to earn up to 10 million MTA merits at once!

"Ten million merits!" Ves drooled as he became lost in his fantasies.

Calabast frowned as she observed her partner. She quickly snapped her fingers.

"Hey! Don't take Ulimo for granted! The defenses of Ulimo are several times stronger than Xiphard, and worst of all the pirates are paying close attention to their critical infrastructure."

Ves snapped out of his fascination. She was right. A pirate base that was collectively worth up to 10 million MTA merits would never succumb easily to an attack. Compared the Crona Lords, the Dry Snakes seemed to have learned something from the chain of attacks that recently took place in Maynard Fields.

Prepared enemies were so much harder to attack than those who were oblivious to danger!

"These long-lived pirates are too cautious for their own good." He cursed. "Can Lucky infiltrate the base and sabotage their defenses?"

"We're working on that, kid. Right now, my agents are trying to learn more about the tech mastered by the Xona Stalkers. We have managed to obtain some of the technical specifications of their gear, but it's not enough to ensure complete dominance. There are also other plans in the works that might allow us to gain some advantages."

She cast a mysterious smile at that, causing Ves to believe that she was up to something again.

He paid more attention to the incomplete technical specifications stored in the data pad. Every stealth tech possessed vulnerabilities and loopholes. Once the Black Cats obtained enough information, they could modify their stealth shuttle and tweak its settings to minimize the chance of tripping any sensors that were on the lookout for invisible intruders.

"Well, tell me when we have made some substantial progress." Ves said as he handed back the data pad. "What is your overall impression on the Dry Snakes. Why is this pirate organization engaging in trading superweapons at such a large scale? Surely they can't believe the Big Two will ignore their rampant behavior forever."

"That is what is puzzling my analysts as well. The flagrant conduct of the Dry Snakes does not conform with the relatively cautious and forward-thinking that is prevalent among the larger pirate groups. Each of them have survived for many decades or even centuries while the majority of their other rivals have long ceased to exist. Much of that is because the more conservative pirates actually know how to restrain themselves. While they still have the heart of a pirate, their actual conduct is more in line with respectable rulers."

That was what Ves had observed for some time as well. This far into the Nyxian Gap, only the smaller pirate outfits earned their living by plundering others. Many of them didn't own any FTL-capable ships, so they could only attack their fellow pirates.

The pirates who did own ships that could travel faster than light lived even shorter lives because of the danger of raiding trade convoys and settlements in civilized space.

In contrast, the larger pirate groups such as the Crona Lords and the Dry Snakes had it easier. They only needed to claim and defend a patch of asteroids in order to mine the mineral wealth locked within.

Before Ves said something, the air in the office suddenly changed. A strange chill settled on their bodies as strange grey shadows flickered across his vision.

"ENEMY ATTACK!" Nitaa, who had spent most of her time around Ves in complete silence, had suddenly moved into action! "GET DOWN, SIR!"

Though she transmitted her words through the speakers of her combat armor, Ves didn't hear her words.

Time seemed to freeze as people moved, yet remained in place.

People spoke, but no one heard any voices.

Frost started to crust over various objects in the office, but Ves still only felt a subtle chill through his bones.

"MEOW!"

Lucky jumped up into the air and tried to fly close to Ves for safety! Yet his body seemingly remained still on the desk.

Ves blinked, trying to make the grey smudges in his vision clearer. He failed. A strange echo rang throughout his ears, but his actual ears did not hear any sound.

"What is going on?"

He felt utterly confused, but his instincts were warning him of an imminent threat.

A pressure built up in his mind. The strange sensation seemingly reminded him of something.

He tried his best to ignore the strange impulses and concentrated his mind. He first engaged his spiritual senses, only to find nothing out of place. Lucky and Nitaa both registered normally to him, and Calabast was nearly invisible as usual due to her lack of spiritual potential.

He decided to look deeper.

Ves breathed deeply as he increased his concentration. Meanwhile, the Scarlet Rose rang a ship-wide alarm. Many other alarms began to ring throughout the ships of the task force.

No one in the office heard the alarms. It was completely silent inside, which helped Ves enter the correct state.

He proceeded to extend some of senses into the imaginary realm.

A raging storm greeted his spiritual projection! The huge vortex that caused the imaginary realm inside the Nyxian Gap to become so unsettling had generated some sort of turbulence in this area.

The faint grey shadows that Ves faintly saw in the office had become much more clearer in the imaginary realm!

It turned out that the imaginary realm was inhabited by monsters!

Strange alien phantasms attempted to climb out of the clumps of corrosive energy, yet failed to drag their intangible bodies out of their cells. As the vortex blew them onwards, many of the phantasms noticed Ves' spiritual projection. Each of them clawed forward, only to come up short!

"AH!"

Ves became frightened and immediately pulled his presence back from the imaginary realm!

Chapter 2274 Casting A Ne

Several minutes passed as the Scarlet Rose fell under the grip of a strange condition.

In fact, no time had passed at all. When Ves glanced at the clock displayed by the desk projector, not a single millisecond had passed.

"This is getting rather weird."

Ves felt as if he was perceiving two realities at once. One of them was completely frozen in time, while the other seemed to pass normally.

The only problem was that the latter reality was also filled with strange phenomena, ranging from the random buildup of frost to the appearance of vague grey shadows that actually corresponded to captured spirits in the imaginary realm!

It didn't take much time for Ves to ascertain what had happened.

"We have become engulfed by an anomaly!"

He instantly recalled that the inner periphery of the Nyxian Gap occasionally produced anomalous hazards in random pockets of space. Their effects and appearances were random and unpredictable.

The closer to the center of the Nyxian Gap, the greater the chance of stumbling upon anomalous hazards. This was what made the core regions very dangerous!

The moment Ves figured out that an anomalous hazard had engulfed his ship and possibly the rest of his fleet, his blood froze even further.

Many times, those who entered anomalous pockets of space never appeared again! Such hazards were so dangerous and mysterious that the Big Two even ended up losing entire fleets in some cases!

Reminded of these deadly risks, Ves immediately tried to figure out whether he was in a deadly hazard. He observed his surroundings, took note of the strange phenomena and even peeked into the imaginary realm yet again.

He did not dare to stay too long. He only spent enough time to ascertain the scope of the turbulence.

Ves and his fleet only occupied a tiny position in the huge vortex that spun throughout the imaginary realm like a miniature galaxy. He didn't believe that the disturbances in the imaginary realm affected the entire Nyxian Gap.

As Ves looked into the imaginary realm several times, he calmed his heart a bit when he noticed that the corrosive winds calmed down a bit further away.

This meant that this strange anomaly would likely pass after half an hour or so. As for whether those trapped inside would sustain any damage, Ves felt that this outcome was unlikely.

Despite sensing danger through his intuition, Ves guessed that most of it came from the strange grey phantoms. Their hazy shapes constantly reached out to him whenever they came close to his spiritual projection in the imaginary realm.

However, in the material realm, Ves noticed that nothing happened even if those phantoms passed through his body. They seemingly existed out of phase, which meant that Ves shouldn't have to worry too much about their threat.

He slowly calmed himself down and adopted an inquisitive, scientific mindset.

He hadn't let down his guard, nor did he assume that the strange phenomena were completely harmless. He just felt that this anomaly was impossible to get rid of. It encompassed a huge amount of space. If it was a product of nature, Ves doubted that he could match up against the huge forces that produced this anomaly.

Ves attempted to cross to the other side of the office.

On the one hand, he felt as if he was stepping away from his original position.

On the other hand, his body remained completely stationary.

"Damnit. How am I supposed to get anywhere with this weird perception thing?

Even though a portion of his senses told him that he had moved away, he actually didn't move at all! The logic behind this was strange and twisted.

He could still breathe air, yet it seemed to be completely stationary.

When Ves walked over to the exit and attempted to leave, the hatch failed to respond to his instructions.

The environment was frozen in time, but not really.

"I'm trapped." Ves glowered.

He turned back and observed the other occupants of the office. Lucky kept attempting to fly to him, but his body never moved from the desk.

Calabast pushed herself off the desk and attempted to pull out a weapon, but remained in place.

Nitaa wanted to step forward in order to cover him, but her combat suit stood completely still.

"What is this nonsense?!"

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to go out anytime soon, Ves began to perform some tests.

He grabbed the data pad that Calabast had put away and let go of it. The pad seemingly floated motionlessly in the air, but at the same time it was still in its original place.

He then approached Calabast and poked her in the stomach with his finger.

The woman grew angry and yelled at him, but she had actually noticed nothing amiss in her frozen state.

He grabbed Lucky and tossed the gem cat into the air. The same story happened.

"Is there a way to negate this weird effect?" He asked himself.

This anomalous hazard appeared to be a temporal phenomena on the surface, but Ves vaguely suspected that it was actually spiritual in nature.

This would have been a great time to have a B-stone in his hands!

Sadly, they were all stored in the Scarlet Rose's vault, which also held Lucky's Misfortune Harness.

"I need to build a suit of armor integrated with B-stone as soon as possible!"

This incident taught him that there were much more potent spiritual threats in the Nyxian Gap than he expected. Forget about strange sorcerers and cultists. The huge disturbance in the imaginary realm was the biggest threat of this nature in this region!

Ves decided that it was better for him to spend his time on developing a solution.

He began to concentrate his mind and tinker with spiritual energy in order to escape this time-freezing effect. Even if he couldn't pull others out, at least he might be able to pull himself out of this unknown anomalous field.

He began to express his Spirituality in several ways, only to fail. No matter what kind of spiritual projection he formed, they weren't very different. None of them escaped the ubiquitous time-freezing effect.

He attempted to reach out to other spiritual entities such as Qilanxo or Ylvaine, only to bump into the spiritual equivalent of signal noise.

Since that didn't work, Ves proceeded to do something he had sworn off since he accidentally warped his mind.

He began to create spiritual constructs in his own mind. Knowing that he was altering his personality as he was doing so, he did not dare to create anything big.

He formed various spiritual constructs.

One of them was supposed to form a spiritual shield around his body. When he activated it, the shield was incredibly weak and didn't do a thing to stop his weird state.

Another spiritual construct was meant to track the passage of time. The spiritual clock failed to register the passing of a single second.

Since his modest creations failed to accomplish anything, Ves cautiously took more risks. His subsequent spiritual constructs became larger as he attempted to find anything that could change his abnormal state.

He continued to create various spiritual constructs and empowered them with specific spiritual attributes. In the span of fifteen minutes, he created what he thought to be a rudimentary spiritual jammer, a different spiritual shield and a spiritual helmet.

Nothing worked. None of his constructs helped him defend against this unknown field.

As he became increasingly more hopeless, his mind wandered off a bit. He felt increasingly annoyed at the grey shadows that passed through the bulkheads. The way they obscured his vision and caused him to feel disturbed throughout the duration of this anomalous hazard caused him to develop a strange impulse.

He began to build a spiritual net of some sorts. He invested a bit more of his spiritual energy into its formation because he wanted to make sure it wouldn't break apart.

Once he formed the net, he concentrated his mind to the utmost and cast his senses back to the turbulent imaginary realm.

Ves did his best to ignore the fluctuating corrosive winds while at the same time preventing any of the desperate phantoms to collide against his presence.

"I have to be quick!"

Knowing that it was difficult to avoid every grey phantom, Ves hastily targeted one of the passing grey shadows that was locked in a clump of spiritual energy and cast his net!

His throw hit the mark!

Once the net fell upon the grey ghost in question, the being convulsed and released a tortured pulse!

Ves immediately felt a pressure on his mind as his spiritual net seemed to sustain some damage. He tried his best to ignore the pain and attempted to close the net and secure his target.

"Come on! You're mine now!"

Even though the pressure on his mind increased, Ves did not give up on tightening the bonds around the phantom!

Since the grey ghost was partially fused with a clump of strange spiritual energy that was different from the corrosive winds, the net also encompassed it as well.

Though the phantom constantly tried to break the net, Ves was glad that it didn't possess the strength to do so. If the grey ghosts were any stronger, he wouldn't have dared to cast his senses back into the imaginary realm for the duration of this anomalous hazard!

"Now, let's see if I can get you back."

After taking a deep mental breather, Ves attempted to drag his presence and his mysterious catch back into the material realm!

The process was a lot more difficult than before! Ves felt as if he was squeezing his body and his captive through an opening that was too small to accommodate his entire body.

He had to push himself back by expending more of this spiritual energy!

Fortunately, his strength was barely sufficient for him and his catch to return.

The moment Ves successfully brought the grey ghost back, one of the vague grey smudges had grown clearer. It no longer looked vague and out of phase, but appeared close to what his spiritual senses had observed from the phantom!

The ghostly entity, upon reaching the material realm, began to convulse and panic. It was as if it had entered a completely unknown environment and didn't know what kind of threats it faced!

Ves found to his dismay that he needed to expend even more effort to keep his captive under control.

"You're in my grasp, now! Don't think of getting away!"

He continued to wrangle his ghostly captive, ignoring the reactions or non-reactions of the others in the room. Ves didn't really care whether Calabast saw him struggling to keep some kind of weird opaque ghost under control.

As time began to pass yet continue to freeze, Ves kept a constant eye towards what was taking place in the imaginary realm.

Roughly half a minute after it started, the turbulence finally faded! The imaginary realm returned to calm and the material realm in this specific area no longer came under the influence of any weird phenomena.

The grey smudges disappeared. The occasional frost went away as if they never froze anything.

Unfortunately, even though nothing seemed to have happened, everyone who was locked in the same strange state for roughly half an hour were still somewhat aware of the horror that they had just experienced.

"MEOW!"

Lucky finally succeeded in jumping to the air! He immediately flew to Ves and readied his claws for anything that needed to be mauled!

Nitaa thundered forward in her heavy combat armor and armed her rifle, causing it to whine dangerously as it began to accumulate a large amount of energy.

Once she reached Ves, she bodily pushed him back into the corner, ignoring the fact that he was still busy with trying to keep his captive in check!

"Hey, stop! Ahh! Damnit!"

Calabast immediately pushed herself off the desk and sprinted behind the desk while pulling out a slim but sophisticated pistol.

Both Lucky, Nitaa and Calabast each bore their respective weapons towards the strange grey phantom that hovered in the middle of the office. Even though it was caught in a net, the strange spiritual pulses caused all three of them to feel incredibly threatened by the mysterious entity!

"Don't shoot!"

Chapter 2275 Nova Krakow

It took a bit of persuading to convince Lucky, Nitaa and Calabast that the grey phantom that he caught was not a threat.

"I have it under control! Don't do anything stupid! You probably won't be able to harm it anyway!"

"What the hell is it and how in the galaxy did you manage to corral it?" Calabast asked as she kept her back pressed against the corner.

"Meow meow meow!"

"I know the thing looks dangerous, but it's perfectly under control!" Ves approached Lucky and held his aggressive cat back. "Calm down already and put your weapons down!"

Seeing that the grey phantom that reminded them so much of the inexplicable event that ended just a moment ago, Nitaa and Calabast reluctantly lowered their weapons.

They still remained vigilant, though. Neither of the two trusted his claims completely. What had just taken place had shook their minds so much that they began to question everything.

"Are you truly Ves?" Calabast asked with evident suspicion in your eyes. "Please verify your identity immediately."

Ves looked unamused. "Really? Do you actually think I've been replaced by a doppelganger or something?"

"...VERIFY YOUR IDENTITY!"

"Alright alright! Sheesh!" Ves turned to his cat. "You know me the best, Lucky. Am I my mother's son?"

"Meow!"

That was not enough for Calabast. "What if Lucky is compromised as well?"

Ves laughed. "Then I guess you're screwed! That's unlikely, though. Lucky is a completely different life form. Besides, I can verify my identity more thoroughly. Nitaa, hand over the Larkinson Mandate."

As soon as Ves received the heavy tome, a sense of intimacy and completion emanated around Ves. Even a spiritually-barren individual such as Calabast could sense the strong aura from him with the help of the Larkinson Network!

"Okay. It's you, alright." Calabast eventually conceded.

As for Nitaa, she required much less proof to determine his identity. She only remained on guard against the strange grey phantom.

"Now that we have left this nonsense behind us, let's step out and check on the state of our fleet. I am certain that this strange anomaly affected at least several ships! If they experienced the same weirdness than us, then they're probably in disarray!"

He temporarily left the grey phantom in the office and headed to the exit. As soon as they stepped out into the design lab, they immediately stumbled upon a shameful sight.

The Braves who had been quietly working on the design projects a half hour ago now turned into shaken and confused people.

"Ahhhh! I don't want to stay in the Nyxian Gap anymore!" Maikel cried as he huddled underneath a desk with his hands over his head.

"Me too!" Zanthar shivered as he huddled next to his cousin. "I hate it here! It's too dangerous!"

Only a handful of assistant mech designers managed to retain their wits.

"Calm down, you pansies!" Rina Orion shouted. Her vocal implants allowed her to shout loud enough to ring the ears of everyone in the design lab. "Are you Braves or are you cowards?! Panicking and losing your minds will do nothing to help our situation!"

Moltar Ringer kicked a Brave from his design team who had collapsed on the ground. "Get up! I can't believe that Mr. Larkinson recruited you. This is the Nyxian Gap! You should have been prepared to face situations like this. If you can't handle it, then quit right away before you lose your wits again!"

With the help of several exemplary Braves, the assistant mech designers soon calmed down. Ves personally stormed over to his two students and pulled them from their hiding spot.

"Ouch! Ouch!"

"You are trueblood Larkinsons!" Ves pressed his face close. "Get yourselves together! When have Larkinsons like us ever cowered against potential threats? Rendering yourself useless by huddling underneath a desk is the last thing you should do! What if attackers barge into this compartment? What if the Scarlet Rose has incurred catastrophic damage and is close to blowing up? Giving in to your fears like this is the least productive choice you make!"

"I-I-I'm sorry!" Zanthar blubbered.

"W-W-We will do better!" Maikel echoed.

Ves slapped the two in the face to shock them a bit. "Get yourselves together and don't become a hindrance! The two of you need to learn to keep your wits instead of losing them in times of danger. As long as you keep doing the latter, you won't live long during times of trouble. I know it is difficult to go against your instincts, but they are tuned to times where we still lived in caves and hunted mammoths for a living. Use your logic instead!"

The threats that humans faced in the Age of Mechs fell far beyond the scope of humanity's current degree of evolution. Baseline humans were actually woefully incapable of adapting to the demands of modern society.

For example, eating excessively during humanity's early days used to be a way to build up the body's energy reserves. When food came in short supply, those reserves of fat could easily turn into lifesavers.

Unfortunately, in the current age, starvation was a concept of the past to most people in the galaxy. Even if fresh food couldn't be cultivated, industrial food such as nutrient packs were so cheap and abundant that no one truly needed to build up their fat reserves anymore!

This was why becoming fat was a detriment rather than an advantage. It was too bad that the evolution of the baseline human genome had practically stalled due to the ubiquity of humans in the galaxy and the extensive use of modern technology to compensate for genetic faults.

If not for the development of fat-restraining drugs and easy fat-removing treatments, there would have been a lot more overweight humans in the galaxy!

Though Ves adopted a harsh tone against his students, his words managed to stiffened them up and consider what was best for them. While they were still in the grip of their fear, his two students at least managed to muster up some courage.

"What do we need to do, teacher?"

"You don't have a position in the Larkinson Clan right now, so the only way you can help is to get out of everyone's way and listen to instructions. I need to check up on the rest of the fleet, so I have no time to babysit you two. Return to your cabins and remain there until the crisis has passed."

Before Ves headed anywhere else, he first needed to secure the grey phantom. Since he was unwilling to show it around to everyone in the Scarlet Rose, he remained in the design lab while dispatching Lucky and Nitaa to retrieve some objects from the vault.

The cat and bodyguard raced off and returned a few minutes later with a P-stone and the B-stone lockbox.

"Good!"

Ves grabbed the P-stone and shoved the grey phantom inside while ignoring its tortured cries. He then threw the P-stone into the B-stone lockbox and closed it. He waited for a moment in order to confirm the phantom remained inside.

"Good. Nitaa, hold this lockbox and keep it safe."

"Yes, sir."

With that taken care of, Ves quickly brought Lucky and Nitaa out of the design lab and headed all the way to the bridge.

Upon arrival, he saw that the bridge officers had their hands full in trying to manage the confusion and panic that had ensued once the anomaly had passed.

The communication officer tried to pass on Major Verle's orders to the different commanders of the fleet.

The sensor officer urgently tapped into the sensor arrays of multiple ships in order to scan for any anomalies or threats in the vicinity.

Other officers commanded the carriers to deploy their mechs or form elaborate patrol routes in order to make sure that nothing threatening had snuck up on the fleet.

"Sir!" Major Verle noticed Ves entering the bridge. "A third of the fleet has been affected by the unknown temporal anomaly! We are still in the process of verifying the condition of every ship and crew affected by the incident. The clansmen on the ships unaffected by the anomaly have become incredibly confused by our behavior. In their perspective, no time has passed and no anomaly has taken place."

That sounded strange!

Ves asked a few more questions, though Major Verle didn't have all the answers. All of the communication channels were filled with confusions and requests for instructions.

It took a fair amount of time to impose order onto the ships affected by the anomaly. Fortunately, none of the crew had gone crazy. The clansmen who took part in this excursion had all received extensive training. Their discipline was fairly good and the officers who exercised leadership knew better than to run around like headless chickens.

As the task force, which still remained on high alert, gradually regained its composure, some horrifying news passed on to the Scarlet Rose.

"Sir! One of our carriers is missing!" The communications officer immediately reported to Major Verle. "The Nova Krakow is nowhere to be found! None of our sensors nor our communication requests has reached the Avatar light carrier. Even her quantum communication node has lost connection to the galactic net!"

"WHAT?!" Ves shouted.

While Major Verle did not blow up, his tense posture signified that he felt just as alarmed!

"Dispatch our search parties! Search the surrounding asteroids for any sign of the Nova Krakow! Deploy more mech patrols to guard our perimeter. Disperse our fleet formation. We can't afford another anomaly engulfing so many of our ships at once."

"Aye, sir!"

As the entire task force went on high alert, the Larkinsons quickly confirmed that the Nova Krakow was truly gone from the fleet lineup!

Word of the inexplicable disappearance of an entire light carrier, causing every Larkinson to feel much more insecure about their continued stay in the Nyxian Gap.

The clansmen had finally learned why the MTA and CFA avoided this cursed region like the plague! Against anomalous hazards that could come and go without warning and devour entire ships without any resistance, no amount of firepower or tech could defend against the danger they brought.

This was because the anomalies were the equivalent of natural disasters! The huge vortex in the imaginary realm was so stupendously powerful that ordinary black holes paled in comparison against the might that Ves had witnessed!

In a way, Task Force Predator actually suffered a minimal loss. If the anomaly that engulfed a third of the fleet had taken away all of the ships affected by the temporal anomaly, then the Larkinson Clan would have suffered a fatal blow!

Ves quickly inspected the details on the Nova Krakow and winced. The Avatars of Myth had lost forty mechs, forty mech pilots, hundreds of highly-trained crew members as well as valuable supplies and cargo.

Why couldn't it have been a Living Sentinel ship?

The value of an Avatar mech company was incomparable to a Sentinel mech company! Ves would rather lose three or four Sentinel mech companies than a single Avatar mech company. Due to the lower recruitment and training standards of the Sentinels, he could replenish their losses a lot easier!

As for the Avatars, training forty new elites was not as easy as posting a recruitment notice. The Avatars had to hold a cumbersome selection process, filter out the ones who were somewhat suitable and invest a lot of time and resources in training them up to standard.

The only consolation that the unlucky occurrence spared the more important Avatar ships such as the Redfeather and the Greenfeather.

This meant that the Melkor, Joshua, Jannzi, Tusa and the Ingvar siblings were all safe and sound.

Nothing happened to the Shield of Samar and the Quint.

Of course, the rest of the Larkinson Clan thought differently.

It was one thing to lose a light carrier and a full mech company in a valiant battle against evil pirates.

It was another thing to lose so many assets and lives against a terrifying anomalous hazard that came and went warning and couldn't be defended against in the slightest!

While the panic in the fleet may have subsided, the fear that welled in everyone's hearts had only grown stronger. Many clansmen began to develop the desire to drop everything they were doing and leave the Nyxian Gap as soon as possible.

Who knew whether they would disappear from reality in an instant the next time they got caught in an anomaly?!

Chapter 2276 Low-Probability Even

There were two reasons why the Nyxian Gap developed a fearsome reputation.

The ferocious pirates that called the Nyxian Gap home deterred many adventurers and treasure seekers from entering this mysterious region. If not for their great threat, many outfits would have entered the Gap in order to hunt for alien ruins, traces of rare exotics that normally didn't show up in the galactic rim and other treasures.

The second reason why the Nyxian Gap posed such a great threat was the occurrence of anomalies. The closer to the center of the region, the greater the chance of falling victim to a random anomalous hazard.

Yet that did not mean that the periphery of the Nyxian Gap was safe! The chances that an anomaly might form in the edge of the region was small, but not zero.

Any fleet that entered the region only had to suffer one moment of bad luck to fall victim to a deadly anomaly.

The longer the fleet remained in the Gap, the greater the likelihood of encountering a natural disaster!

Up until this incident, Task Force Predator had not bumped into a single anomaly. More than two months had passed since the Larkinsons entered the Nyxian Gap, and the only threat that occupied their minds were pirates.

Unconsciously, Ves and many other clansmen began to drop their vigilance against anomalous hazards. Most of them assumed that Maynard Fields and the periphery of the Nyxian Gap was mostly spared from these dangers.

They were right. It was just that matters of random chance sometimes sneaked up on people anyway! Low probability events might still occur no matter how small the odds appeared!

Hours went by as the fleet maintained a guarded posture while trying its best to investigate the whereabouts of the Nova Krakow.

Ves occupied himself by pulling up the logs, sensor data, scientific reports and other data. While he wasn't an astrophysicist who specialized in studying temporal anomalies, he was the only Larkinson who possessed a clear understanding of the spiritual side of reality.

He tried his best to interpret the mountains of raw and barely-relevant data and tried to combine them with his own theories on the turbulence that took place in the vortex raging in the imaginary realm.

Sadly, he obtained few results. None of the ship and mech sensors that watched out for any unusual signs had managed to capture any indication that an anomaly was about to form.

Ves only realized later on that he was just wasting his time. He knew little better than the various science officers and engineers who attempted to explain the mystery of what had occurred.

The temporal anomaly couldn't be solved at their current level of understanding. Their knowledge base simply didn't encompass anything that could put the dangerous incident in context.

What all of this meant that Task Force Predator remained vulnerable to the same kind of disaster at any time. Anomalies came and left without warning and their properties meant that there was no way for the Larkinsons to defend against them. How could anyone in the fleet feel at ease with remaining in the Nyxian Gap?

At the end of the day, Major Verle and a projection of Commander Melkor met with Ves at his stateroom.

Clearly, everyone still held some lingering fears about the disaster that had struck their fleet. Lucky had turned into a scaredy cat all of a sudden and didn't want to leave Ves' embrace.

"Meow. Meow!"

Ves petted his tense cat. "Why do you think I can keep you safe? If a similar anomaly gulps our entire ship from reality, there is nothing I can do! You're no safer whether you're with me or not. Besides, there is a significant possibility that the Nova Krakow and her crew haven't been erased from existence. One of the theories that have been circulating states that the missing ship is simply displaced in time. She might appear again after a couple of thousand years."

"Meow!"

"Regardless of the ultimate fate of the Nova Krakow, it is likely that we will need to write her off." Major Verle stated with a heavy expression. "It gives me no pleasure to give up on our missing clansmen, but every record about anomalies produced by the Nyxian Gap has made it very clear that anything swallowed by them never appeared again."

Commander Melkor looked pained. Even though his modern visor blocked most of his expressions, his clenched hands clearly betrayed the frustration he experienced.

"The morale of our Avatars has sunk. Each of us feels miserable at the loss of hundreds of brothers. The fact that we couldn't have done anything to save them from this disaster is weighing on us as well. Right now, my Avatars are not in a prime shape for battle. Not only have we lost around seven percent of our battle effectiveness, our confidence has also taken a strong blow."

"What about the rest of the task force, major?"

"I have received reports that the other Larkinsons are also concerned." Verle answered. "While the drop in morale in our other mech forces isn't as dramatic, the Living Sentinels and so on have all become less enthusiastic about our current purpose. Our clansmen don't want to stay here anymore because they can't fight against these kinds of disasters."

Ves frowned at that news. "We can't leave right now. Ketis and a number of other disguised Larkinsons are still stuck in Ulimo Citadel. From what we have gathered, the Mirror Raiders are doing a good job at deciphering its defense measures."

Both Major Verle and Commander Melkor looked troubled at that reminder. The Larkinsons valued fellowship. They considered every clansman to be their brother or sister. There was no way the task force would just turn around and leave!

"From what we know, the chances of suffering a similar accident are still small." Major Verle sighed. "We went two months without encountering an anomaly. Unless our luck is considerably bad, we will hopefully be spared from similar incidents for at least the same amount of time."

"In fact, our chances of encountering another anomaly is slightly higher." Ves corrected him. "The emergence of anomalies in the Nyxian Gap is influenced by at least two factors. The most important one is the distance from the center of the region. We are quite far from that location, so the odds are fairly low. However, don't forget that the asteroids around Ulimo Citadel contain small amounts of higher grades of exotics. From what we know, a higher presence of energetic exotics means that the chances of suffering a disaster is higher!"

That caused everyone to feel concerned. Staying in this section of Maynard Fields was quite risky! At least Xiphard Base was mostly surrounded by asteroids that mostly contained Kavenit, which was much less energetic and prone to feeding disasters.

"How do the Dry Snakes and the other pirates at Ulimo bear with such a capricious and overwhelming danger?" Commander Melkor asked. "In fact, how are the large pirate alliances in the core regions able to resist suffering the same fate as the Big Two's warfleets?"

Ves shrugged. "We don't entirely know. Calabast came up with two guesses. First, the local pirates understand the outbreak of anomalies much better than others. They might even be able to avoid or defend against the hazards. Second, the emergence of anomalies appear to have a strong relation with the presence of energetic exotics. The highly advanced battleships of the CFA and MTA that are filled with high-grade exotics and high technology. What do you think the Nyxian Gap will respond to such high concentrations of energy?"

Those huge and powerful warships might as well be magnets for anomalies! The more powerful the ship, the greater the likelihood that some weird phenomena might devour them whole!

In contrast, the low quality ships and mechs of the local pirate organizations possessed a greater chance of survival. Hardly any of their hardware attracted any danger.

"Are the pirates immune? Have they figured out a way to defend themselves entirely against anomalies?"

"Again, I don't know, Melkor. The intelligence I've read states that pirates such as the ones who linger at Ulimo Citadel have sporadically suffered from disasters in these parts. The Dry Snakes, the mining vessels and random visitors have all fallen victim to anomalies over the years. Perhaps one day, an anomaly might even vanish Ulimo Citadel from existence."

Both Verle and Melkor shuddered.

This was the reality of the Nyxian Gap! No pirate or scum was truly safe from these great threats!

Ves momentarily thought about his own parents. They had spent years in the Nyxian Gap. Not only were they being pursued, they also had to fend off many pirates.

Perhaps not even his mother possessed the capability of defending or avoiding against these fearsome hazards!

He couldn't do anything for his parents at his current state. He still had a lot more to grow before he could help his parents escape their predicament.

The three Larkinsons continued their discussion. They talked about how to limit the damage, how to prevent the fleet from becoming affected by awful news and how to deal with the aftermath of the disappearance of the Nova Krakow.

Once everyone knew what they had to do, they left in order to enact their plans.

Ves relaxed a bit after the discussion.

"Meow."

Lucky still clung to his body.

"It's not as bad as I thought. The task force hasn't reached its breaking point yet. Our clansmen won't back down so easily. With Major Verle in charge, I have no worries about the morale of my soldiers."

A confident grin appeared on his face. He had experienced first-hand how Major Verle was able to use the power of speech to manipulate his listeners. Restoring calm and raising morale happened to be one of his strengths!

Since Ves didn't have to make any moves, he turned his attention back to his unexpected gain. "Let's visit the vault after I perform a quick inspection."

He left his stateroom and toured the entire ship. While he trusted the crew of the Scarlet Rose to inspect every component and device, he didn't think they would be able to detect anything on a spiritual level.

Ves patiently inspected every single compartment in person. Fortunately, nothing looked out of place. The only sign that something had changed was the strange fluctuations in Compartment G-13.

Obviously, the hidden chamber where Cassandra Breyer's escape pod constantly duplicated itself had also been affected by the disaster!

"Damnit, has something gone wrong?!"

Alarms should have gone off if any serious changes took place in Compartment G-13. As the main source of Breyer alloy in the Larkinson Clan, Ves really did not want to lose this free source of armor plating!

He felt massively relieved when he observed that the Breyer alloy production loop was still intact. The escape pod failed to resist the great heat of the forging machine and melted down without any issue. The corpse of Cassandra Breyer remained as dead and silent as ever.

As Ves observed his surroundings with his spiritual senses, he only perceived some faint spiritual ripples that were already fading away.

Something had happened, but Ves failed to spot anything amiss. He paid very close attention to Cassandra Breyer's corpse, but it looked the same as ever.

Was Cassandra Breyer faking it? Did she harvest something as well from the incident?

He frowned. Despite exploiting her powers, Ves lacked the confidence to confront Cassandra Breyer in spiritual matters. She was far more powerful than him in that regard.

Ves closed his eyes. His intuition didn't sense any significant danger. The situation here was still under control. For now.

There was nothing he could do here. Ves reluctantly put down his worries and left the secret chamber. He reminded himself that the Scarlet Rose carried another strong spiritual prisoner.

"I need to check the Ancient Sarcophagus!"

Chapter 2277 Grey Phantom

Ves finally reached the vault. After passing through several mandatory security checks, Ves, Lucky and Nitaa finally entered the space which held some of his more valuable objects and treasures.

Curiously, his spiritual senses did not perceive anything inherently threatening.

Back at Compartment G-13, Ves felt vaguely ill at ease. He couldn't really explain why he felt unsettled. It was as if Cassandra Breyer had become a bit more dangerous, but everytime he studied her and her escape pod, he perceived no changes from his previous observations.

Here in the vault, Ves felt as if everything was still fine. He turned towards a certain section of the vault which held the Ancient Sarcophagus.

As he approached it, Ves did not feel any of the signs of creeping fear that usually settled over him as he came close to the red coffin.

Before he entered the Nyxian Gap, Ves always had to guard his mind carefully, lest he succumb to the terror that made the Doom Guard so effective at scaring away people.

Yet after he raided a number of pirate groups, he managed to get his hands on a number of B-stones. While their exact sizes varied, Ves obtained six times the amount of his original B-stone.

This was an incredible gain! After living through the incredibly threatening anomalous hazard, Ves became more determined than ever to collect more B-stones. He believed that if he wore a suit of combat armor that was made out of this remarkably exotic, he might have been able to resist the strange temporal effect!

This was why he did not want to give up on raiding Ulimo Citadel. He was very confident that he might be able to expand his collection with at least a couple more rocks.

While Ves didn't have enough B-stones to build a solid suit of combat armor, he had enough to form a vague net around the Ancient Sarcophagus.

Ves cautiously exposed the Ancient Sarcophagus and drew back some the B-stones. Once he was able to perceive the red coffin with his spiritual senses, he performed his inspections carefully without getting too close.

"Phew. Nothing has changed."

Nyxie, the ancient alien spiritual entity that was trapped in the crystalline coffin, was as trapped as ever. The ancient barriers that contained the alien spirit still looked serviceable, though Ves didn't understand anything about how they worked and why they held for so long.

Though Nyxie posed a great threat to him, Ves did not believe the danger was imminent. As far as he was concerned, the anomaly didn't affect the hostile alien spirit.

Was this strange or something to be expected? He wasn't sure.

He knew that some treasure hunters originally excavated the Ancient Sarcophagus from some alien ruins in the Nyxian Gap. The discoverers eventually brought the coffin back to civilized space and put it up for auction, where ultimately obtained this valuable relic.

Now that Ves brought the Ancient Sarcophagus back to its natural habitat, he had always been a bit suspicious whether something might happen to it. He wondered whether Nyxie was connected to the Nyxian Gap's strange state or the huge vortex that spun in the imaginary realm.

Sadly, after several months, Ves was no closer to learning more about Nyxie and his prison than before. The Ancient Sarcophagus and its prisoner did not react any differently to the change in environment.

"You're still a mystery to me." Ves sighed and gave up his investigations.

He put the red coffin back into its place. With several B-stones placed around it, Ves no longer felt any creeping fear overtaking his mind.

"B-stones are so handy." Ves grinned.

If he truly wanted to protect himself against the likes of Nyxie and Cassandra Breyer, then obtaining enough B-stone to build a suit of armor was not enough. He needed to plunder several tons of the material in order to isolate the two powerful spiritual entities completely!

Until that happened, Ves always had to remain on guard against any spiritual attacks from their direction.

Hopefully, the rumor that the Dry Snakes had access to an entire B-stone mine was true. It would be great for him to obtain enough B-stone to build an entire ship with the material, though Ves knew better than to entertain this delusion.

After inspecting all of the other goods in the vault, he finally arrived at his only gain from the incident.

Back when he was trapped in the temporal effect, he managed to nab a grey phantom for lack of a better word.

Once he carefully opened the B-stone lockbox and retrieved the P-stone that kept the spiritual entity in place, he took the time to inspect the state of the unknown spiritual entity.

The entity appeared like a vague, grey and misty humanoid in his vision. The entity constantly moaned in agony while trying its best to pull itself away from some kind of restraint.

The restraint appeared to be an unknown collection of spiritual energy with very incomprehensible properties. Both the trapped entity and its restraint possessed a large amount of alien spiritual attributes that Ves failed to interpret.

As for the attributes he did manage to recognize, many of them were negative. Ves detected attributes that reminded him of torture, fear, death erosion and more unpleasantries.

He frowned. The abundance of these spiritual attributes in his latest spiritual catch meant that there might not be a way for him to communicate with the grey phantom.

He tried anyway.

"Hello. I am Ves Larkinson, a human and a mech designer. Who might you be, Mr. ghost?"

Of course, Ves did not say that out loud, but conveyed it to the grey phantom through a spiritual communication method.

Nothing happened.

The grey phantom continued to behave as if it was in pain.

"Hello? Can you understand me? I'm talking to you, you know!"

No matter what he said, the grey phantom continued to ignore his attempts at talking to it! The more he observed the spiritual entity, the more Ves realized that it was old. Very old. Unimaginably old.

"You're not human, that's for sure."

Aside from the agelessness that emanated from the grey phantom, Ves also had a feeling that it may have existed in this tortured state for eons!

Spending tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of years in this undead, painful state while floating in the middle of a spiritual vortex in the imaginary realm did not sound fun!

Ves found it difficult to imagine what caused this grey phantom to endure such endless torment. How did the spiritual vortex come into existence? Who was the grey phantom and who condemned it to eternal torture?

He shuddered a bit. After studying the grey phantom's restraint, he suspected that it wasn't natural. Someone put those restraints on the grey phantom!

The restraints had at least three effects as far as Ves was aware of. First, it induced constant pain. Second, it kept the grey phantom alive. Third, it trapped the grey phantom and stripped it of all of its strength.

These were some very scary shackles!

Ves warily eyed the restraints. He didn't know whether he was capable of freeing himself from them if they happened to snap onto his Spirituality. There was no way he would test its power in person! In fact, he didn't even know whether he could remove the restraint!

"Maybe I can alleviate your suffering."

He concentrated his mind and carefully tried to probe the restraint. Even when Ves applied some force, the restraints still held together.

"Damn. You're quite strong!"

None of his rough handling affected the integrity of the restraint, but the phantom was another story. Each time Ves touched it, the phantom seemed to bear an unimaginable amount of pain!

Afraid of damaging or killing the grey phantom, Ves stopped probing it. He didn't want to break something of value, especially when he gained some interesting ideas.

Even though he felt disappointed that he wasn't able to get anything useful from the grey phantom in its current state, there might be other ways for him to extract value from its existence.

"This ghost is truly a shell of its former self."

The state of the grey phantom reminded him of the spiritual fragment that his mother had gifted him. Back then, the spiritual shard that she managed to dig up from somewhere had undergone an incredible amount of erosion.

Though Ves found it astounding that the spiritual remnant of the luminar race leader managed to remain in existence for so long, the constant environmental attacks caused it to lose a lot of weaker elements.

Only portions of its strongest obsessions and spiritual attributes remained!

When Ves studied the grey phantom, he gained a similar impression. Though the phantom bore much more weaknesses, it also showed some signs of erosion.

However, due to the protection offered by the restraint, the grey phantom hadn't been purified as much.

Since it didn't appear that he would get much out of the grey phantom out of studying it, Ves wanted to make it useful in other ways.

He first thought of using it as a design spirit, only to scrap the idea immediately afterwards.

This was no Qilanxo who possessed a calm, sentient mind. This was no Zeigra who hated his guts but was at least normal enough to predict its behavior.

The grey phantom was one of the most damaged spiritual entities that Ves had ever seen! He doubted that it could still be reasoned with. Ves would never turn it into a design spirit for a mech design in its current state because the chance of harming the mech pilot was too high.

"Besides, its current spiritual attributes are very detrimental!"

This was why Ves favored the second option. If using it in its raw form was unwise, then Ves just had to process it into something different!

By using the grey phantom as an ingredient, Ves would be able to combine it with other ingredients to form a completely new spiritual product that inherited some of its traits!

Ves lit up his eyes. "I just happen to miss a design spirit for one of my upcoming mechs!"

Of the six projects he was working on, the Sanctuary was the only mech design that wouldn't be hosting one of his existing design spirits.

He decided early on that he would be providing his Sanctuary with a new design spirit.

However, creating a suitable design spirit to a mech that was supposed to block and restrain glows wasn't easy!

At the very least, he needed to find the right spiritual attributes, and this was very difficult.

This time was different!

Though the grey phantom was polluted with an abundance of negative and incomprehensibly alien spiritual attributes, it contained a modest amount of attributes that Ves found helpful.

A portion of the grey phantom yearned for safety, liberty, relief, forgiveness, mercy and so on. Surprisingly, despite spending eternity in agony, the grey phantom clung very strongly to these attributes as if nothing else mattered!

If Ves could isolate the best traits of the grey phantom and use what he had gathered as a spiritual ingredient, then he might be able to birth a fitting design spirit for the Sanctuary mech!

Of course, this was not the time to do so. Ves still wanted to perform a lot of studies on the grey phantom in order to make sure he hadn't missed anything vital.

"Well, stay safe. I'll visit you again." He put the P-stone back into the B-stone lockbox before putting it all away.

As long as the grey phantom didn't pose a threat, Ves wasn't in a hurry to study it or use it as an ingredient for the creation of a new spiritual product.

Right now, the anomalous incident reminded him of the great danger of remaining in the Nyxian Gap. His main priority was to attack Ulimo Citadel and earn 10 million MTA merits in one fell swoop! As long as he accomplished this feat, he would order his task force to leave right away!

Chapter 2278 - Necessary Sacrifice

The temporal anomaly that gulped the Nova Krakow and froze a third of the fleet served as a big wakeup call to the Larkinson Clan.

The Nyxian Gap was too dangerous and unfathomable to everyone. Since anomalies had a higher tendency to emerge at places with a high concentration of energetic exotics, powerful sh.i.p.s such as the Scarlet Rose and the combat carriers of the Scarlet Rose were at greater risk than others!

This meant that if the chance of a random vessel disappearing was one percent, then the chances of the Scarlet Rose suffering the same fate was at least three percent!

Despite the risks, Ves did not opt to leave his personal ship. The weaker vessels in the task force might offer him a greater chance of survival against inexplicable anomalies, but they were much more vulnerable against pirates!

What if a group of pirates fired a warship-grade laser cannon at the ship he was on? A third-class light carrier that boasted relatively frail armor such as the Redfeather would instantly crumble!

In contrast, the much smaller Scarlet Rose might get heavily damaged depending on the power of the attack, but would more than not survive a direct blow.

Since the Nyxian Gap was infested with pirates, Ves figured that protecting himself against material threats was a lot more important than mitigating his exposure to the unexplainable!

The strange incident left a scar in the hearts of the Larkinsons. In order to restore everyone's morale and make them willing to attack Ulimo Citadel, Major Verle visited each and every ship and held a speech to the crew in person.

Though this was a very time-consuming endeavor, his speeches nonetheless managed to get the members of the task force to focus on what was important.

"Will you let the missing clansmen down by running away like a coward? The Nyxian Gap will not break us! If you want to become a true Larkinson, then summon your courage and prove you have the guts to laugh in the face of danger!"

Even though a number of scientists still worked on the futile task of deciphering the anomalous effects that had engulfed the fleet, fewer and fewer people paid attention to the disappearance of the Nova Krakow.

Through Major Verle's deliberate manipulations, even the Avatars of Myth began to direct their attention to the future rather than the past.

This was exactly what Ves wanted. There was no benefit to worrying over the Nova Krakow and her crew.

While many of his clansmen believed that there might be a way for them to pull the Nova Krakow from whatever temporal hole they dropped in, Ves knew that the Avatar light carrier had long moved out of reach.

The strongest indication for that came from the Larkinson Network. When Ves held the Larkinson Mandate and attempted to find the clansmen who crewed the Nova Krakow, the bonds that connected them to the Golden Cat had snapped.

Nyaaa.

Goldie looked truly upset at the disappearance of hundreds of Larkinsons. She knew each of them for months or years, but now the anomaly had moved them out of reach, if not wiping them out entirely!

"I know, Goldie." Ves sighed as he caressed the embossed surface of the book. "Chasing after riches is always accompanied by danger. No one, not even us, can avoid these threats."

Nyaa nyaa?

"In an ideal reality, we wouldn't need to take so many risks. Sadly, we don't live in that reality. There are great threats in this galaxy. If our Larkinson Clan wants to thrive, we will inevitably come into conflict with others. We need strength in order to survive these clashes. What we are doing here in the Nyxian Gap is vital to our future success."

He had already harvested plenty of gains from this excursion. The loss of a couple of hundred loyal and committed Larkinson mech pilots and other personnel was regrettable, but within his range of tolerance.

As the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan, Ves actually had a duty to safeguard the lives of his fellow clansmen. However, he had made it clear from the start that those who became a part of the Larkinson Clan would not be enjoying comfortable lives.

Ves promised plenty of rewards to those who actively took part in this dangerous excursion. This was the compensation that he was willing to pay in order to obtain the fighting strength needed to accomplish his goals.

Therefore, he felt no guilt for leading hundreds if not thousands of clansmen to their deaths. The loss in talent and manpower pained him quite a bit, but as long as his gains exceeded his losses, everything was worth it in the end!

Of course, Ves knew that voicing his true thoughts would not go well with his clan, so he kept them firmly to himself. Only Goldie understood his rationale, and though she was a lot more sentimental than him, he had raised her with the belief that sacrifices were always necessary to achieve ambitious goals.

Per angusta ad augusta!

As the living embodiment of the Larkinson Clan, the Golden Cat ultimately abided by its motto.

Personally, Ves felt that her reaction to the disappearance of the Nova Krakow was too sentimental. While he wanted the ancestral spirit of the clan to be compassionate, that did not mean he wanted her to grow soft and weak!

"We live in a violent, wartorn reality." Ves taught her. "Human space alone is filled with conflicts between humans. The Komodo War that is causing millions of citizens to die each day is just one of many instances of instability. Anyone caught in the vortex of one of these confrontations must have the strength to defend themselves. We are no different. If we do nothing, we will remain weak, allowing anyone strong enough to wipe us out to the last man. This is why I'm working so hard to progress my career and strengthen my clan. As long as we join the ranks of the powerful, we will have a lot more capital to survive!"

From the Age of Stars to the Age of Mechs, a lot of spacefaring powers emerged in human civilization. Many of them shot up like rockets, but few of them avoided crashing after the passing of a couple of generations.

While Ves did not spend too much time on performing his duties as a clan patriarch, he still took the time to study the rise and fall of various organizations.

What he admired the most were states and organizations that managed to withstand the test of time. They managed to achieve continuity through good times and bad times by displaying exceptional patience and planning.

For example, the Greater Terran United Confederation used to reign over the entirety of human civilization, but had now devolved into a diminished state that had to abide by the strictures of the MTA and CFA.

It was no secret that the Big Two wanted to get rid of the first-rate superstates. Yet even after suffering great damage from the Rubarthan Rebellion and the defection of a lot of warfleets to the CFA, the Terrans still survived to this day!

Many people eagerly learned from the examples set by these ancient and enduring powers, but few managed to succeed.

This was because everyone's circ. were different. What worked for the Terrans and Rubarthans might not necessarily work for others.

What Ves merely did was to study some of the successes and derive some good practices that he could easily apply to the Larkinson Clan.

One of the most important lessons he derived was that suffering setbacks was inevitable. The Terrans failed to overcome the Rubarthans and the Big Two surpassed them both.

Perhaps in the future, the great Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance might succ. as well. Their continued survival depended upon whether they could adapt with the changing times.

If even the most powerful organizations of human civilization couldn't guarantee their continuity, how could Ves remain complacent about the continued survival of the Larkinson Clan?

For this reason, he consciously wanted to push his recently-founded clan to its limits. Heading into the Nyxian Gap was just one of the ways he came up with to stimulate his clansmen. He wanted to prevent them from growing stagnant in a phase which was very conducive to rapid growth.

As he explained all of these theories to Goldie, the young ancestral spirit reluctantly accepted his rationale.

Nyaaaa.

"I don't want to destroy our clan, Goldie." He whispered to the intangible spirit as he stroked her back with a spiritual projection. "However, you should know that creation is often accompanied by destruction. Without tackling any challenges, how will our clansmen be able to exceed their limits? The upcoming battle will be our final and most dangerous test."

All he cared about right now was cracking open Ulimo Citadel in order to harvest a huge amount of loot and merits. Once he accomplished this feat, Ves immediately intended to leave the Nyxian Gap as fast as possible.

As for the various goals he set such as searching for his parents, rescuing Sokok Reyva, learning the mystery behind the spiritual vortex raging in the imaginary realm, Ves had long thrown such considerations away.

The Nyxian Gap was filled with unknowns, many of which bore a lot of relations to spiritual phenomena. If Ves had the time and leisure to stay, he didn't mind going deeper in order to study some of these secrets.

His time happened to be in short supply, though. He not only had to make it back in time for his wedding, but also had to acc. tens of millions of merits.

While Ves recognized that defeating pirates who employed taboo weapons was a great way to earn a lot of merits, he knew very well that the Larkinson Clan had attracted too much notoriety in the region.

The Nyxian pirates who dared to defy the Big Two weren't afraid of Task Force Predator! As long as the locals banded together, even the Penitent Sisters might not win!

Aside from that, the inability to defend against the onset of anomalous hazards had also frightened him a lot. Even a habitual risk taker like him did not wish to linger any longer in the Nyxian Gap than necessary!

Since Ves firmly pushed the task force to attack Ulimo Citadel, every clansman in the fleet worked hard to prepare for the tough battle ahead.

With thousands of mechs, elaborate defense matrices and a huge arsenal of taboo weapons, there was no way that Task Force Predator would win while suffering negligible casualties this time!

Therefore, Major Verle and every mech commander frequently met together in order to plan their upcoming assault. Even Commander Chancy of the Penitent Sisters dropped some of her airs in order to voice her own concerns during these meetings.

As for Ves, he temporarily dropped his design duties in order to help with the preparations. He claimed the mech workshop of the Scarlet Rose to himself and fabricated a number of products.

A lot of valuable exotics and materials kept pouring into the Scarlet Rose. In return, the ship disgorged some containers that held something of greater value.

While all of these preparations took place, the mech pilots of the various mech forces each took part in many simulated drills.

Ever since the Mirror Raiders transmitted a lot of data on Ulimo Citadel and the pirates that defended it, the Larkinsons finally understood a bit of what they were up against.

Many of these simulated battles did not go well. As long as the Nyxian pirates made use of just a portion of their superweapons, the Larkinsons easily suffered catastrophic losses!

The initial results proved that if the Larkinsons wanted to defeat their foes, they had to take these superweapons off the board right away.

"It's difficult, but not impossible!"

Ves often glanced in the direction of Ulimo Citadel during this time. No matter what, in order to advance his ambitions, the base must fall!

Chapter 2279 - Spiritual Restraint

During the time he assisted with the preparations for the upcoming attack on Ulimo Citadel, Ves also directed some of his attention to studying the grey phantom.

The more he examined the tortured alien spirit, the less interested he became.

There was not much value in the existence of this eroded entity. It was old, undying and completely incapable of forming any coherent thought.

Ves attempted to communicate with it many times. He achieved no results. The only instance where he managed to elicit a reaction was when he did something that hurt the grey phantom.

The entity released even greater wordless cries when Ves stabbed it with a spiritual projection.

Strangely enough, the torture that Ves had inflicted on the phantom never persisted. For some reason, the ancient alien entity immediately returned to its previous form immediately afterwards.

This was very strange to Ves. Normally, spiritual entities were very fragile when they existed by themselves. In fact, such spirits usually succ. to the corrosive winds in the imaginary realm after a period of time.

Whether that meant that the actual 'souls' of the deceased had returned to nihility or passed on to a completely different realm, Ves didn't know. He had not performed any studies on life after death. His mother probably knew a lot more, but she was never in the mood to share.

Though Ves found the grey phantom's condition to be intriguing, he soon found out that this remarkable property did not originate from the entity itself. The more he knew the alien spirit, the less exceptional it appeared.

It lost too much. There was no sentient thought left in the phantom. Long years of torture had rendered the grey phantom into an instinctive beast that solely existed to endure the endless soul-searing pain inflicted on its being.

This was why the phantom managed to cling on to a few helpful notions such as relief, forgiveness and mercy. Without at least some pillars of strength, the grey phantom would have certainly devolved into an even more pathetic existence!

As Ves spent hours in the vault to study the grey phantom, he no longer paid attention to the upper half of the spiritual entity. Instead, he cast his eyes downwards.

The interesting part about the grey phantom was that it was visible to the n.a.k.e.d eye ever since Ves pulled it out of the spiritual vortex.

This was why even Calabast and Nitaa could perceive the spiritual entity with the n.a.k.e.d eye.

The cause of this effect and many other abnormalities was the spiritual restraint that had fused with the grey phantom!

Visually, the grey phantom looked like a humanoid whose feet and lower legs were engulfed by a swirling cloud of energy.

It was this cloud of energy that was truly responsible for turning the grey phantom into an undying, tortured soul!

Even Ves exhibited a little fear at the spiritual restraint. While the grey phantom was fairly weak, Ves could not say for sure whether he would be able to defend himself against the powers of this fearsome spiritual tool!

Yes, spiritual tool!

Ves recognized the spiritual shackles to be a very sophisticated application of spiritual engineering.

While Ves could study the Grand Dynamo in his mind at any time, it was just a single example to him. Its extreme complexity and profound, high-level principles meant that he couldn't really derive anything valuable from the spiritual energy generator.

When he cautiously studied the spiritual restraint from a distance, he vaguely felt a similar degree of incomprehension.

It was too advanced! Ves felt as if he was a first-year mech design student staring at a mech designed by a Master. The gap was so wide that it would take hundreds, if not thousands of years of dedicated study in order to decipher all of its principles!

Obviously, Ves couldn't spare the time on such a marginal endeavor. As powerful and versatile as the spiritual restraint appeared, its design principles were completely alien and did not conform to his own methods.

As an innovator, the work of other spiritual engineers merely served as references to him. Ves never wanted to follow the footsteps of others. He preferred to innovate his solutions that fit his needs and capabilities the best!

Therefore, Ves also planned to shatter the grey phantom and its shackles and reform the broken shards into a completely new spiritual product!

This way, not only would he be able to obtain a design spirit for the Sanctuary mech, but also convert something incomprehensible into a form that he was more familiar with. Turning something that had completely lost every coherent thought into a design spirit that he could communicate with was a solution that suited him best!

Of course, Ves was aware he needed to pay a price for this radical act.

At least some form of destruction preceded each act of creation. Destroying the precise, exquisite spiritual engineered mechanisms that empowered the spiritual shackles meant losing a lot of strange but powerful restraining capabilities. Ves would lose access to much of the unknown, alien spiritual engineering principles.

"It's a worthy price to pay." He muttered as he continued to stare at the dangerous cloud of energy engulfing the lower half of the grey phantom. "It's not as if I'm interested in learning these alien methods in the first place."

He didn't mind learning some alien engineering principles if it was worthwhile for him to do so. The reason why he eagerly studied luminar crystal technology was because it was accessible and didn't impose too much demand.

This was different. He didn't have access to textbooks or research papers that could help pave the way for him. Ves would have to start from scratch, and that was unacceptable.

He constantly reminded himself that he was a mech designer rather than a spiritual engineer.

He only dabbled in spiritual engineering because it improved his mech designs.

When his studies in spiritual engineering began to form a detriment to his primary profession, then Ves resolutely stopped his current pursuit no matter how interesting it seemed.

"I'm only one person. I can only do so much."

Therefore, Ves did not exhibit excessive interest in the grey phantom's shackles. He only studied and recorded as much as he could observe on the surface. He had no intentions of probing deeper, knowing that he wouldn't be able to make any short-term gains.

When Ves reached the limit of what he could learn from the grey phantom on the surface, he resolutely halted his examinations.

Instead, he began to plan the formation of his latest design spirit.

The Sanctuary mech was supposed to dampen and weaken any glow that entered its range.

Before, Ves did not have any solid ideas on how to accomplish this feat.

Yet now that he obtained the grey phantom and figured out some of the properties of the spiritual restraint, Ves believed he held the key to achieving the effect he desired.

"This restraint has an interesting interaction with B-stones."

In order to indulge in his curiosity, Ves had commanded a bot to pick up a B-stone and bring it close to the grey phantom.

When the B-stone touched the grey phantom's body, the entity suffered a great amount of discomfort!

Sadly, the experiment failed to prove that B-stone could be used to make weapons that were easily capable of harming spiritual entities. The material merely blocked spiritual energy, which vastly limited its offensive properties.

What surprised Ves a bit was that B-stone interacted much differently when it came into contact with the spiritual restraint.

As far as he knew, As long as a B-stone was big enough, it could block any spiritual energy!

Yet as soon as the bot caused the B-stone to overlap with the spiritual restraint, the two showed no signs of repulsion!

"This is amazing!"

Exceptions were very rare, and now he happened to observe one of them in action. Ves immediately revised his theories on spiritual energy and B-stone upon observing this seemingly impossible phenomenon.

B-stones weren't supposed to get along with spirituality! Yet now it did, and that interested him a lot!

"What are B-stones, and how are they connected to spiritual restraints?"

No one could answer this question for him. Ves was completely in the dark as far as he was concerned.

All he could tell was that the two were likely related to each other. He came up with numerous new ideas from this experiment.

"Can I use a B-stone in the creation process?" Ves asked himself one day.

The idea sounded ridiculous. How could he form a new spiritual life in the presence of something that naturally constrained anything spiritual?

Yet the idea simply did not disappear once he came up with it. He believed that as long as he involved a B-stone, he might be able to form a design spirit that completely conformed to his demands!

Every other design spirit he created or employed up until now were at least somewhat constrained by B-stones. Adding a new design spirit in his collection that was immune to their blocking effects sounded very interesting!

Ves had to plan the creation process carefully, though. He did not intend to waste this opportunity.

He took the time to form a number of spiritual images that defined the personality, role and capabilities of his upcoming spiritual product.

He knew quite well that there was not much point to adding lots of detail. Life was inherently chaotic and rarely emerged as planned. What Ves merely did was to add some guidelines to the formation process of the spiritual product so that it did not go out of bounds and evolve in an planned direction.

"Your only role is to constrain glows. Nothing more."

The images were relatively pure and one-dimensional by design. He did not tack on anything else because splitting up the purpose of his new design spirit would only weaken its primary function.

Ves believed it was better to create something that was strong to begin with and modulate its power expression afterwards depending on the application.

If he created something weaker because he added too much complexity, then the resulting design spirit would lack a lot of strength just when he needed it most!

The more he planned the creation of his upcoming design spirit, the more he feared its potential.

What would happen if the resulting design spirit turned against him? What if it defected to his enemies and used its spiritual restraining powers to neuter his strong Spirituality?

This was an unacceptable outcome!

As someone who believed in good preparation, Ves implemented some additional solutions that would hopefully minimize these frightening possibilities.

"It would be stupid of me to create my own doom!"

After a couple of days, Ves was ready to form his latest spiritual product.

With his fleet slowly calming down and the preparations for the upcoming base assault nearing completion, Ves calmly prepared the ingredients for his latest act of creation.

This might be one of his riskier acts of creation. Yet it would also be one of the more exciting ones due to the innovations he came up with. He couldn't wait to implement his ideas!

"Hehehe." He grinned. "If one of these innovations succeeds, then all of my future spiritual products will possess greater potential as well!"

Ves moved ahead with this creation process because he believed the resulting spiritual product might be useful in the coming days. Even if he did not instill the newborn entity in any mech, its intrinsic properties and powers might be able to protect him against unconventional threats!

"Meow.."

Lucky huddled on the far side of the vault. As a cat who accompanied Ves for years, he keenly recognized that his owner was up to something again!

"Relax." Ves dismissively replied. "This won't be like last time. The main reason the birth of the Superior Mother went out of control was because I involved my mother. She's not here right now, so there is no way that the situation will spin out of control!"

"Meow!"

Chapter 2280 - Repulsion

Ves did not intend to use a lot of spiritual ingredients this time.

The Sanctuary was unlike the Superior Mother. The latter not only served as the ancestral spirit of the Hexer people, but also embodied the six phases of existence.

With potentially the entire Hexadric Hegemony worshipping her in the future, the Superior Mother would not only be flooded with spiritual feedback, but also come in constant contact with Hexers whose beliefs and ideals largely conformed with her own nature!

Ves guessed that these interactions would make sure that none of the abilities of the Superior Mother would be weak!

The design spirit of the Sanctuary design didn't need to do so much. Ves could already resort to other design spirits if he wanted to fulfill a different purpose or needed some additional versatility.

He aimed to instill the strongest spiritual restraining abilities to his next spiritual product. He gave up everything in order to achieve this extreme.

This was why he only made use of four main ingredients.

He did not include the minor ingredients in this consideration. The spiritual images that served as the initial programming of his upcoming creation only guided the birth process.

Only the main ingredients were capable of defining the resulting spiritual entity!

Ves carefully inspected each main ingredient.

The grey phantom that was caught in its spiritual restraint looked as tortured as ever. Nothing had changed despite pulling it out of the imaginary realm for a number of days.

As the key ingredient of his new design spirit, Ves knew he had only one shot at making the most appropriate design spirit for the Sanctuary. He doubted whether he could stumble upon another turbulent wave in the imaginary realm where he could grab another imprisoned ghost.

He was a little bit worried whether he could succeed in killing and shattering the grey phantom. So far, it appeared to be completely vulnerable to normal attacks.

If necessary, Ves was willing to draw upon the precious charge of his F-stone to empower his attacks. He did not want to fail in the very first step of his plan!

The second ingredient that Ves intended to add was a spiritual fragment that Ves had taken from Goldie.

It hurt the ancestral spirit quite a bit to lose a fraction of her strength. Ves had to do a lot of persuasion in order to borrow another spiritual fragment from her being.

It was for a good cause, though. While he wanted to keep his upcoming creation pure, he was too worried about the possibility of betrayal. In order to instill a strong sense of loyalty towards him and his clan, he wanted the newborn spirit to appreciate him and his clan down to its very soul!

Since Ves only wanted to borrow Goldie's essence in order to guarantee the loyalty of his resulting creation, he did not take too much. Her spiritual fragment likely wasn't big enough to grant any other powers to his upcoming creation.

The third ingredient was a dose of universal life-attributed energy derived from another drop of life-prolonging treatment serum.

Though he only had so many drops in his possession, Ves did not intend to save it up. It was worth it for him to invest this rare resource in the upcoming process.

In the short term, Ves wanted to gain some protection against mysterious spiritual phenomena. While he wasn't naive enough to believe that a single spiritual entity could fend off an entire anomalous hazard, as long as he received a bit more protection, he might be able to fight for his life!

Nothing was more terrifying to him than becoming engulfed by a lethal anomaly! He did not want to become the next victim who lost his bond with the Larkinson Network!

In the long term, Ves wanted to continue to enjoy the protection of such a useful spiritual entity. He couldn't wait for it to grow into power gradually. Making it as strong as possible right from the beginning was much more desirable to him. Expending some universal life energy was not a big deal, especially since it might empower his spiritual product in other ways.

In fact, Ves already prepared a very specific plan for that. Some of his previous experiments granted him the confidence that this little addition might turn out well.

The last major ingredient was his own spiritual energy. Different from the universal life energy derived from the serum, his own life-related attributes weren't good at nurturing. What they were actually good at was breathing life where none existed!

This was something that even the serum couldn't do! This was a product of his personal domain which he formed after developing his personal ideals and convictions as a mech designer.

Considering the ambitious nature of this creation attempt, Ves prepared a P-stone filled with excess spiritual energy.

He had constantly pumped at least some of his spiritual energy into P-stones every day. Since his Grand Dynamo churned out lots of spiritual energy, why should he waste it by leaving his mind a full capacity all the time?

He was glad that he did so, because he intended to invest a lot of his own spiritual energy this time. He had a feeling that trying to combine the spiritual shards that originated from the spiritual restraint was going to be very difficult.

Its properties were opposite to more conventional varieties of spiritual energies. The fact that it was able to get along well with B-stones was reason enough to believe that the spiritual restraint was difficult to process!

After he finished his inspections and ran through his plan one last time, he decided to pull the trigger.

"Well, this is as good a time as any to start." He muttered.

Ves concentrated his mind and began to form a spiritual hammer in order to shatter the grey phantom.

Of course, he did not waste his time on attacking the main body of the tortured ghost. The key in breaking the grey phantom lay in destroying the spiritual restraint.

As soon as his hammer slammed against the cloud of spiritual energy, it met a surprising amount of resistance!

"Ahh! I knew it wouldn't be easy!"

The toughness of the spiritual restraint exceeded his imagination!

However, Ves had plenty of energy left to spare. He paid no mind to his previous failure and struck his spiritual hammer again.

"Damn! Why is it so hard?!"

He repeated his actions again and again. He kept slamming the spiritual restraint, guessing that its ability to withstand attacks was finite.

Ves suspected that the vortex and the spiritual energy contained within may have fed the spiritual restraint.

Right now, the grey phantom and its shackles no longer floated in the spiritual vortex.

Like a fish out of water, Ves hypothesized that the spiritual restraint could only last so long out of its natural habitat!

After dozens of repeated impacts, Ves finally saw some signs that his guess was right!

"It's breaking down!"

The resistance had lessened after each hit. The strange cloud with unusual properties visibly weakened, and after his thirtieth strike, the spiritual restraint eventually broke!

As soon as the grey phantom lost its shackles, it experienced an unprecedented feeling of relief, hope, bliss and other positive emotions.

It had awaited this moment too long! While Ves quickly collected the shards of the spiritual restraint, the grey phantom strangely began to turn white as its repressed positive emotions swelled as its earnest desire had finally come true!

Though Ves honestly did not expect the grey phantom to turn into this form, he recognized the value of this unanticipated consequence.

"Haha, this is a good opportunity to reduce my loss!"

Because the grey phantom was filled with alien attributes and attributes related to negative states such as pain, hate, despair, hopeless and so on, Ves initially thought that he needed to cut them all out. After all, for a design spirit that was meant to provide Sanctuary, he couldn't allow it to induce any negativity!

Yet now, the grey phantom had turned white, which was an indication that its positive attributes had spiked while its negative attributes lost a lot of steam!

Before this spiritual torture victim could ascend to the afterlife or enter the cycle of reincarnation or something, Ves quickly slammed his spiritual hammer against its spiritual body.

The weak ghost shattered after just a couple of hits!

"I need to work quickly now!"

He collected the shards of the phantom into a separate pile and quickly began to sort through them. He pulled out any shard contaminated by a large amount of alien, irrelevant or negative spiritual attributes and tossed them away, causing them to slowly fade back into the spiritual realm.

Ves adopted a fairly strict standard in order to ensure the greatest amount of purity. Only a select few attributes that would be helpful to a mech design like the Sanctuary remained in his grasp.

Though his filtering process weakened the quantity of usable spiritual shards by at least seventy percent, Ves didn't care!

After processing the first main ingredient, he quickly dealt with the second main ingredient.

He shattered Goldie's spiritual fragment and began to blend the resulting shards with the shards of the phantom.

As for the shards of the spiritual restraint, he did not toss them all into the mix. Instead, he partitioned them into half.

One half of the spiritual shards entered the main pool of shards. As soon as this happened, a strong rejection reaction took place.

The spiritual shards that originated from the phantom and Goldie repelled the spiritual shards that originated from the spiritual restraint!

Ves already theorized this outcome, and did not panic. Instead, he began to inject a copious amount of spiritual energy that originated from himself and began to cautiously fuse some of the shards together.

"Hahaha! It actually works!"

Ever since his mother noted how 'impossible' it was for him to be able to form life by stitching different kinds of spiritual ingredients together, he suspected that this was one of his greatest strengths.

For some reason, he possessed the power to merge incompatible attributes into a unified whole in the process of creating a new life form!

Now, he understood a bit more how exceptional this was because the incompatible shards actually fused together with his own spiritual energy as a medium!

Of course, the fusion process wasn't easy. Ves felt as if he was forcefully trying to glue the ends of two magnets with the same poles together. While it was possible to overcome the repulsion force, Ves needed to expend an even greater amount of spiritual energy in order to force this result!

"No matter! I have plenty of energy left to spare!"

Ves only fused a number of incompatible shards together in order to make sure that this process was sound. Before he continued it, he stopped his current actions and instead directed his attention to the remaining half of the shards that originated from the spiritual restraint.

He had something special in mind for these weird shards!

"Let's see if I can't make something else out of these exceptional remains."

He began to fuse the shards together. Since they originally consisted of a single whole, there was no rejection at all. However, it was not his intention to revive the spiritual restraint.

Instead, he began to blend in some prepared spiritual images into the mix.

While continuing to fuse the shards, he also began to mold and shape the unfinished amalgamation while applying many other spiritual techniques.

After several minutes of complex manipulation, during which he also infused a small portion of universal life energy in order to add more strength, Ves finally completed his sub-creation!

What he created out of some of the remains of the spiritual restraint was something similar to a spiritual construct!

"And not just any construct!"

This one happened to share some similarities to Ketis' mind sword. It was a living, evolving spiritual construct that was capable of activating a unique ability!

Since his time was limited, Ves only briefly inspected the finished construct before shoving it inside the unborn spiritual product!

It was as if he was adding an implant to his upcoming design spirit. If this experiment worked as expected, then his design spirit would likely be born with the ability to activate a specific effect!

"My new design spirits will finally come with their own innate abilities!"

Innate abilities!

None of his artificially-created design spirits possessed this powerful feature. Qilanxo was able to form space barriers. Zeigra was able to induce corrosion. Ylvaine could cast his sight into the future.

As for his design spirits? They couldn't do any of that! Most of their abilities mainly pertained to manipulating the moods of people. Not even the Golden Cat and the Superior Mother were capable of affecting reality so directly.

This was different! If this experiment truly worked, then he was one step closer to creating actual gods!

"Ahem, not gods!" He quickly corrected himself. "I mean extraordinarily empowered artificial spiritual entities!"

Chapter 2281 - Restraint Hoop

After some time, his latest spiritual product took shape. Through his deliberate manipulations, Ves formed it into a more definable shape compared to his previous creations.

Artificial design spirits such as the Solemn Guardian, Bravo and so on evolved their forms according to their evolution. What they looked like and how they presented themselves wasn't as important as their inner self.

The Golden Cat and the Superior Mother were different. Ves birthed them with a solid appearance in mind. The Golden Cat would always be a cat while the Superior Mother would always appear in the guise of his mother!

Now that he had come up with another innovation in the form of implanting innate abilities into his artificial creations, Ves felt that he should take another step forward and purposefully define the shapes of his spiritual products.

As a spiritual entity meant to suppress glows and offer relief, Ves decided to mold it into a benevolent shape.

When he came up with the idea, he chose to adopt a marketing mindset. What shape would people be comfortable with? What form allowed his new design spirit to gain an instant measure of trust and appreciation from other people?

He decided upon the shape of an angel.

"Even to secularists like me, angels always evoke a good impression."

Angels were ubiquitous in modern culture and often used in various fictional settings. Ves had watched plenty of fantasy dramas in his youth which prominently featured these holy, white-winged people.

Of course, in some of the old religions of humanity, the true nature of angels was a bit more complicated than that. They were beings of energy and adopted various shapes depending on their role and purpose. The depictions that Ves had seen on the galactic net ranged from psychedelic to horrifying!

There was no way Ves would make his latest spiritual product look like a holy monster in order to be accurate. Even he wouldn't be able to trust a monstrous collection of wings covered by hundreds of eyes!

"It doesn't matter. I'm just borrowing from the predominant cultural perception of angels. It's not like I'm really creating my own heavenly court or anything!"

As he molded his angelic spirit, Ves briefly paused when the question of gender came up. As someone who was able to exert an increasing amount of control over the birth of spiritual entities, he could pick any gender he wanted for his design spirits.

He briefly considered choosing a female in order to please his fiancé, but he quickly shook his head.

"This is not a Hexer spirit! I don't have to cater to her whims all the time!"

He decided to settle for turning his new creation male. The grey phantom which he used as an ingredient possessed a masculine flavor, so he encountered less resistance in the process.

His sixth spiritual product took shape.

The life that welled within the fused collection of shards continued to exert their wondrous effects.

The universal life energy that Ves had derived from the serum had almost disappeared. It was not for nothing though, as the developing spiritual life form rapidly gained strength while achieving a greater degree of wholeness.

What interested him a lot was how the spiritual construct he formed out of the shards of the spiritual restraint had fused seamlessly into his developing creation.

With an abundant amount of life energy from Ves as a medium, the spiritual object retained its distinctive form while simultaneously integrating with the greater whole as if they belonged together.

Ves was afraid that his 'spiritual implant' might dissolve or lose its shape, but fortunately that didn't happen.

Time continued to pass. Ves kept observing the creation process carefully. He no longer had to inject his spiritual energy, but still did so at various points in order to influence the direction of the unborn spirit's growth.

Eventually, the angel spread its sacred white wings and opened its glowing golden eyes!

A pulse emitted from the newborn spiritual product that ran swept throughout the entire vault and continued to expand throughout the entire ship!

Wherever the pulse passed, anything spiritual in nature briefly dimmed!

"Wait, what?! This is dangerous!"

Ves instantly realized that this uncontrolled pulse that heralded the birth of another spiritual entity might mess up some of his stuff!

He turned around and focused his spiritual senses on the Ancient Sarcophagus.

Fortunately, its restrictions were as strong as ever. That made Ves a little suspicious about the red coffin. Perhaps the crystalline creation possessed some of the properties of a B-stone. If not for the fact that the coffin was necessary to keep Nyxie imprisoned, he would have tried to cut off some samples in order to perform some material research!

He turned to his cat. "Are you okay, Lucky?"

"Meow."

His cat felt nothing. The clansmen aboard his ship should feel nothing. Even he wasn't affected by the uncontrolled pulse.

This was by design. As a creation meant to restrain glows and spiritual phenomena, Ves really wasn't assured the angel might be used against him some day.

Even if he managed to instill a considerable amount of loyalty to him and the Larkinson Clan in the spiritual product, life had a way of running out of control.

Living entities weren't always defined by the circ. of their birth. No matter how many restrictions that Ves programmed into them, the kind of life that Ves created never possessed the rigidity of AIs.

Life was all about growth and evolution! If something about them became a hindrance to their survival or ambitions, then they always had the opportunity to change themselves!

For this reason, Ves never put too much stock in behavioral programming. This was why he broke one of his principles for once and carved out a backdoor in his new design spirit's very makeup!

No matter what, the angel's special abilities should never be used against him or any members of the Larkinson Clan!

Ves spent a lot of effort and ingenuity to turn this backdoor into a core aspect of his spiritual product. While it probably wasn't foolproof by any means, it was incredibly hard to subvert this backdoor.

"Hahaha!" He erupted after he noticed that at least one of the features of his new spiritual product worked as he intended. "No matter who you are and who you will turn into, never forget your allegiance!"

The newborn angel might not have much of a personality as of yet, but the copious amount of universal life energy infused in its spiritual existence had likely accelerated its mental development.

The angel was already smart enough to understand Ves. The spiritual entity recognized his own creator and knelt down to show his thanks for coming into existence.

The gesture of obedience pleased Ves immensely! His spiritual senses continued to rake over the winged spirit. A quiet field surrounded the entity, causing the area around him to gain a measure of unnatural calm.

Ves nodded with satisfaction. Even though he could feel the new entity's glow, his spiritual energy received no disturbance. For now, the angel was literally incapable of impeding his creator.

Even if he did, Ves was not weak by any means! He always held a few tricks back against his own creations.

After observing his prostrating angel for some time, Ves pulled out a palm-sized hoop from his pocket.

"I name you Lufa, the Angel of Tranquility! Now, enter this totem that I have fashioned for you. Don't worry. You will be paired with a mech design soon enough."

Lufa's glowing golden eyes pulsed as he received his name. The newborn spiritual entity quickly obeyed his first instructions and entered the hoop that Ves had made.

Ves grinned even wider. The hoop he created was not made out of regular material. Underneath its Breyer alloy exterior was a ring of B-stone!

As expected, Lufa's nature allowed him to ignore the blocking and dampening effect of B-stones!

Seeing that Lufa was safely stowed inside the medium he prepared, Ves approached Nitaa and held out his hand.

"Give me the Larkinson Mandate."

Once he obtained the book, he carefully bound the hoop around the thick medallion that depicted the head of the Golden Cat. The new addition hardly changed the look of the front cover.

The purpose of the hoop was simple. Ves hoped to keep the Angel of Tranquility close to the Golden Cat.

By ensuring constant close contact with the embodiment of the Larkinson Clan, Ves hoped that Lufa would never become estranged to the Larkinsons.

Keeping them in close proximity also served another purpose as well. Goldie's value to the clan was essential, but Ves wasn't sure whether she was capable of defending herself against every possible threat.

More importantly, the Larkinson Mandate was her physical anchor. If anything happened to it, Goldie would surely suffer!

Therefore, adding the Restraint Hoop to the Larkinson Mandate would hopefully protect the book and the ancestral spirit from extraordinary threats.

Was Ves being excessively cautious and paranoid? Probably.

Did he regret going through so many extremes? Not at all!

He might not need this much protection today, but who knew what threats he faced in a couple of decades for now. Ves would rather have too much protection at hand than come up short when he faced an insurmountable enemy!

"Meow."

Lucky floated towards the Larkinson Mandate and sniffed at the Restraint Hoop.

"This is not for you to eat." Ves tapped his gem cat's head.

"Meow meow."

Nyaaaa.

The Golden Cat looked curious as well at the new addition to her 'home'. The B-stone core of the hoop partially reduced her sensitivity, but other than that she didn't suffer any detrimental consequences.

"What do you think about your little brother?"

Nyaa. Nyaa?

"Hmm. That sounds weird. Even though Lufa was made with pieces of you, he's not actually your child. Anyway, can you mentor him for a time? He's completely new and needs to be integrated in his new life. You can pass him over to other friendly design spirits if you like."

Nyaaa!

While Goldie still looked young, she was already eager to exercise some responsibility. She immediately turned to Lufa and began to communicate with the spiritual angel.

Seeing that Lufa was receptive to Goldie, Ves put down his final concerns and returned the book to Nitaa for safekeeping.

After tidying up the vault, Ves returned to his stateroom and began to reflect on the creation process.

Even though he hadn't tested the innate ability that he added to Lufa, he wasn't in a hurry to test it out. There was plenty of time to test Lufa's various properties and abilities when he stabilized his existence and gained a finer grip on how copious amount of power.

Ves ran back the creation process in his mind with the help of his implant. While he hadn't recorded any footage because much of the process happened out of sight, he made sure to record all of his thoughts, emotions and other mental fluctuations in digital form.

Being able to live through them from a detached perspective was a very effective way to reflect on his decisions. He could also spend as much time as he wanted on analyzing every change and reaction that he perceived.

He developed a lot of questions about the nature of B-sontes.

The existence of the spiritual restraint made by some ancient alien jailer proved that it possible to replicate the effect of B-stone.

Ves wondered whether the alien spiritual engineer derived the unique restraint-attributed spiritual energy from a B-stone.

He also wondered whether the reverse was the case. Was it possible to synthesize more B-stones by transforming restraint energy? Would he be able to create other spiritually-reactive exotics with a certain method?

He had no idea!

The onset of all of these questions made him realize how little he truly understood his own specialty. His lack of answers indicated that despite his innovations, his theories were still too shallow!

Ves did not mind coming up with questions that he couldn't answer with his current level of understanding.

As an innovative researcher and mech designer, he never feared the unknown!

In fact, in his perspective, running out of questions was a much more frightening prospect!

If Ves was no longer able to come up with interesting questions, then he was no longer a qualified innovator. Clinging too strongly to what he knew was a sign of complacency and lack of ambition.

How could he ever surpass his current self if he no longer possessed the curiosity to explore new phenomena?

This was why he went through with his plan to create a spiritual product that could potentially pose a great threat to him. Compared to the risks he incurred, the potential gains he could make was much greater!

The birth of Lufa already provided him with a wealth of observations that he could study for weeks!

Studying the Angel of Tranquility directly also yielded several new insights to Ves. The young but powerful spiritual product slowly mastered his powers. Much of it was centered on blocking, dampening and suppressing all sorts of spiritual phenomena.

Thanks to the universal life energy that Ves had painfully contributed to his birth, Lufa was already strong enough to replicate the effects of a typical B-stone.

This was a remarkable result!

"If you think about it, there are many similarities between the two! They share the same roots!"

To Ves, Lufa's abilities essentially turned him into a sentient B-stone! Unlike an ordinary B-stone which was completely passive, Ves was able to manipulate Lufa in various ways, causing his latest spiritual product to selectively express his powers.

This was exactly what he needed for the Sanctuary!

Better yet, Ves could even borrow Lufa's powers in a more personal capacity! It was as if he created his own pet B-stone!

"If only I grabbed more phantoms during the temporal anomaly incident!" Ves lamented while smacking the side of his head. "If I didn't waste so much time, I could have grabbed at least three more phantoms with my current level of strength!"

The restraint-attributed energy that Lufa wielded with increasing proficiency came from the spiritual restraints that kept the grey phantoms alive, trapped and in pain.

Without obtaining more of these spiritual engineered products, it was unlikely that Ves would be able to create more helpful life forms like Lufa.

If he was able to breathe half-dozen more Lufas to life, then Ves might not need to build an armored suit made out of B-stone anymore. He could just surround himself with his 'angels' and rely on them to withstand any hostile spiritual attacks!

"Well, there's no use getting hung up over lost opportunities." He sighed.

Rather than getting upset over an outcome that was already fixed, Ves preferred to look forward and consider matters that he could still affect.

When Ves briefly peeked into the imaginary realm, he only observed a calm flow of corrosive energy that was devoid of anything remarkable.

It was too much to hope to encounter any trapped grey phantoms. Perhaps the only way to get into contact with them was to enter into another anomalous hazard.

"There's no way I'll expose myself to such a dangerous experience again!"

In order to avoid getting caught in any further anomalies, Ves wanted to leave the Nyxian Gap as soon as possible. Before he did so, his task force had to finish off one more target.

The attack on Ulimo Citadel was scheduled to start within a week. The reason why it took a lot of time was because the Black Cats were already beginning to sneak up and tamper with the outlying vaults that held a lot of weapons of mass destruction.

Before attacking Ulimo Citadel, the Larkinson Clan had to neutralize as many superweapons as possible!

Despite their relatively crude tech, nuclear bombs and upscaled weapon mounts possessed enough power to overwhelm the defenses of second-class mechs!

Not all of the sabotage could be done by human infiltrators. Shortly after the birth of Lufa, Ves entrusted Lucky to Calabast. As soon as the gem cat wore the Misfortune Harness, he began to turn into one of the most effective saboteurs in Maynard Fields and possibly the rest of the Nyxian Gap!

Even so, the Black Cats did not dare to take too many risks in dispatching Lucky to sabotage various critical systems. The Dry Snakes remained on high alert and its various subordinate forces performed frequent ranging patrols, especially around the asteroids that hosted the dangerous vaults.

"Are you sure your stealth shuttle will remain undetected?" Ves asked with worry.

"We already managed to keep it hidden when we initially placed it in the periphery of Ulimo Citadel. We kept it within the range of enemy long-ranged sensors for days as we kept it on standby in case the Mirror Raiders ever became exposed."

"We pulled it back, though."

"That's because the pirates can't be fooled forever. It takes only one mistake to expose our most important infiltration tool."

This was understandable, though it was different now. For some reason, the Black Cats were much more active in their attempts at infiltrating and tampering with some of the perimeter defenses of Ulimo Citadel!

"What has changed?"

Calabast smirked. "With the help of the Mirror Raiders, we have gained a better understanding of our adversary's scanning and sensor technology. A Dry Snake mech won't notice anything if our shuttle flies in front of it! As for the Xona Stalker mechs, they're a bit trickier to fool, but the risks are manageable."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm the expert in these matters. If I am sure about something, I won't act modestly."

Ves peered at her suspiciously. "You've been acting a bit circ. recently. I know you're up to something. Ever since you presented Ulimo Citadel to us, you have been behaving as if you can't wait to bring it to heel. What is it that you are after, exactly?"

"A girl's got to have some secrets, you know."

"You are hardly a girl."

"Oh, Ves! How cruel! I am still in the prime of my life, you know."

"Old hag."

"Naughty boy."

"Hey! Don't call me that!"

She pressed her finger forward and poked his nose. "You are the definition of a naughty boy. Your unscrupulous experiments on pirates are the embodiment of a Hexer's greatest nightmare!"

"Don't change the topic to something irrelevant." Ves angrily pushed away her finger. "Just tell me directly. What are you chasing after? Why is it so important to proceed with this attack?"

His pleas fell on deaf ears. Calabast chuckled and stretched out to ruffle his hair. "That's not for you to know. Not now. Not when everything is still uncertain. The situation can change at any moment. Just trust me. With my help, breaching Ulimo Citadel's defenses is not impossible."

Ves hated spies and their penchant for keeping secrets. If the power dynamic between him and his strategic partner wasn't so weird, he would have used his authority to coerce her into opening her mouth.

As it was, Ves eventually gave up and allowed Calabast to play her games. He left to inspect the other preparations.

He visited the Redfeather in order to check up on the Avatars of Myth. As soon as he stepped aboard the ship, he noticed that the loss of the Nova Krakow and her entire crew still affected the Avatars to some extent.

Despite Major Verle's efforts, it was not so easy for Avatars to forget about the lives of hundreds of brothers and sisters.

When Ves talked to Jannzi and Joshua, they both expressed their feelings.

"I could have done something to prevent the Nova Krakow from disappearing." Jannzi lamented. Her calm facade broke as soon as she talked about the tragedy. "My body was stuck in time, but my mind was still working. If I exerted some more, I might have been able to break the freezing effect on my body."

Ves looked skeptical. "Anomalous hazards are far more powerful than you think. Let alone an expert candidate, even an expert pilot can't withstand the cosmic forces that are responsible for causing these reality-warping eruptions. There is no need to feel guilty, Jannzi."

"Even the Big Two can't do anything about these anomalies." Joshua concurred and placed his hand across her shoulder.

"Let's focus on the Larkinsons we can save in the attack that we'll launch on Ulimo Citadel." Ves urged. "If you keep moping like this, you won't be fighting at your best. I'm not telling you to let it go, Jannzi, but there are plenty of Larkinsons who escaped this calamity. Will you let them down because of a past regret?"

"...No." Jannzi said. She slowly began to regain her fighting spirit. "You're right, Ves. Mourning the lost should never get in the way of protecting the living. I know what to do now. Thank you for your concern."

"No problem. You are one of our most important champions. Fight well. If I have some time in the future, I'll upgrade the Aurora Titan to a full second-class mech design based on the upgrades that I have applied to the Shield of Samar. Your mech won't be fitted with a dinky polarizing module anymore. I'll try my best to fit it with a fully-fledged shield generator."

Her Shield of Samar was still a very strong defensive mech. However, as the Larkinson Clan gained more second-class mechs, the Aurora Titan-derived mech became increasingly less relevant.

Many Bright Warrior mechs were able to fend off almost just as much attacks as Jannzi's custom mech!

Both of them were clad with copious amounts of Breyer alloy. The Shield of Samar possessed a greater advantage due to its larger frame and its thicker shield, but it was woefully inadequate as a whole.

"I am still pleased with my mech. You don't need to go out of your way to upgrade the Shield of Samar immediately."

Ves smiled. "Strengthening your mech will strengthen you. Strengthening you will strengthen our clan. Don't neglect your value."

"Will you upgrade the Bright Warrior design as well? A lot of Avatars have already reached the standard of a second-class mech pilot. The Bright Warriors are constraining us at this point."

"Oh? Your Avatars are that eager to pilot better machines?"

"Despite the comfortable glows of our machine, some of our mech pilots would rather pilot a more powerful virtual mech. We can barely satisfy our craving for powerful mechs in simulations. They're not realistic enough."

That was an interesting development. While it was still impractical to supply his upgraded mech pilots with ready-made second-class mechs, they seem to be doing okay by resorting to virtual solutions.

"Be patient, Joshua. The Bright Warrior is still a young design. I need to gather more data and observe the long-term use of this mech by its pilots before I'm confident in tackling the Mark II version. I want to do the Larkinsons justice with this product line. The Bright Warrior mech is the future backbone of the Larkinson Clan!"

As a modular mech platform that came in four configurations, the Bright Warrior served as the base of Major Verle's mech doctrine. The mech was both powerful and versatile enough to meet most of what the senior mech officer sought!

"We can also use more variety." Joshua requested. "Our Larkinson Clan still needs a light skirmisher. Tusa has been complaining to me almost every day. He's pretty jealous at us because we both pilot your mechs on a daily basis."

He almost forgot about that. Ves had exchanged his precious DP to learn more about light skirmishers, but so far he hadn't done anything with what he gained.

"I'll speak to Tusa later." He promised. "It will probably take a year, if not two for him to obtain his own mech. We'll make it worth it, though."

The Larkinson Clan urgently needed to add more light mechs in its mech lineup!

Chapter 2283 - Repressed Voice

An empty star system welcomed a rare visitor. The Serendipity flew silently through dust-laden space. After reaching a desolate coordinate, two mechs launched from the frigate.

The Star Dancer flew splendidly through the particles of sand and dust that filled the local space.

A more mundane rifleman mech followed the expert mech. They flew several hundred kilometers forward until they suddenly came to halt.

The two Hexer mechs floated in silence while their sensors observed the site with exacting detail.

"I thought there would be more." Davia Stark eventually spoke through their private communication channel. "There is not a single trace of the sandman emperor."

Brutus grunted. "There is no debris. The CFA warfleet must have swept the battlefield for every piece of ship components that the sandmen have managed to knock loose."

The CFA broadcasted their attack on the capital of the sandman empire on the galactic net, allowing many people to witness the near-debacle.

No one thought the sandmen race had transformed an entire planet into one of the biggest sandman amalgamation ever known!

Not even the arrogant Fridaymen and Hexers could remain calm against such a horrifying threat!

The CFA's punitive attack almost ended in failure. If the CFA warsh.i.p.s weren't so powerful, they would have been crushed by the living planet!

Fortunately, the might of one of humanity's apex organizations was much more formidable than the sandman emperor could cope with. The CFA warsh.i.p.s survived the sneak attack and the alien planet suffered their wrath!

Now, only a huge cloud of inert sand remained of this huge amalgamation.

The sight of the sandman race's biggest loss did not provide Davia with the satisfaction she desired.

A profound sense of emptiness and disappointment ran through her body. She had dreamt so long about visiting the grave of the sandman empire. Unfortunately, the CFA left nothing behind! Their vengeful warship shattered every piece of rock that was larger than a fist!

Even so, the two mechs lingered in the orbit of the former planet. Half an hour passed as Davia and remained introspective.

Brutus eventually broke the silence.

"Are you satisfied?"

"No. Not at all."

"This is the fate that aliens deserve after attacking humanity." Brutus spoke. "From the moment that the sandmen crossed our border, they were doomed to die."

"They died too late. The MTA and CFA ignored our pleas for help."

"That's true."

"The Friday Coalition and the Hexadric Hegemony ignored our plight as well." Davia accused in a more acid tone.

"That is true as well." Brutus readily admitted. "I do not deny the callousness displayed by my state. I have already explained our considerations to you. My fellow Hexers never took the sandmen seriously. They care even less about the lives of the third-raters."

They held this argument many times. While Davia was willing to travel along with Brutus, that did not mean she was ready to join the Hegemony.

In fact, she felt even more repelled at the thought of joining the Hegemony! From the beginning to the end, the Hegemony never lifted its finger to assist the border states in fending off the sandmen!

She saw the Hexers in the same light as the other arrogant people who possessed the power to help, but didn't! The Fridaymen, Hexers, mechers and fleeters all earned her ire for abdicating their responsibility to defend humanity against alien threats!

"At least Ves Larkinson has done his best to resist the sandmen!" Davia suddenly cursed. "A lone third-rate mech designer has done more to save the citizens of our neglected states than any of you 'superior' folk!"

"Calm down, Davia. Your emotions are boiling over! Your mech is transmitting worrying telemetry about your mental state!"

"How can I calm down after traveling through so many star systems scoured by the sandmen? How can I keep my composure when I realize how much forewarning that humanity has received about the invading sandmen. Even when this race uprooted its entire empire to descend upon the Vindmar Republic, none of you have dispatched anything more than scouts and disaster tourists! Are we not human? Do our lives not matter?"

"I am disappointed in my state as well. I'm sure that many of my Hexers wanted to help. It's just that we don't have a voice either."

"That's a lie!" Davia angrily barked. "Every human has a voice! No matter if you're a first-rater or a third-rater, every human is supposed to be treated with dignity. Yet none of that is true? To many of you, the cries of a single first-rater is louder than the screams of trillions of third-raters! None of you bother to open your ears to the latter because you don't care about us! All you Hexers think about is winning your stupid rivalry against the Fridaymen. All the MTA cares about is winning their pissing match against the CFA. Does no one care about protecting our race against external threats?!"

"I do care, Davia! Please don't mistake us as unfeeling. The Hegemony is filled with loving mothers, caring sons and helpful daughters! From the outside, we are known for our strength, but within our borders, we love each other and constantly work to achieve our ideal society."

"Hah! You haven't refuted my point at all! You Hexers only care for yourselves." She hissed. "You have so much wealth and power. For over four centuries, you sat in the most prosperous territories of our star sector, and yet what did you do? You Hexers hoarded all of your riches, letting none of it flow out to the underdeveloped third-rate states that could have used some help! How much wealthier would we be if you second-raters shared just a fraction of your wealth?"

"We do contribute to the development of lesser states, Davia! Our government invests 0.0006 percent of its annual budget to charitable causes. We have educated millions of repressed women in the less prosperous parts of the star sector. While I admit that we could have done more to help your compatriots out, we are not as heartless as you think."

"DO NOT DECEIVE ME, BRUTUS! I know what your people are like! I have spent months on the same ship as you. Do you know how your crew are looking at me? Not with respect, that's for sure! Even the 'boys' on your ship view me as an insect rather than a human."

Her mental activity became more and more unstable. Alarms began to ring in the c.o. of her mech, but Davia didn't care about her own health. She had witnessed too much ruin during the journey to this star system!

"How many years have passed since our race has reached the stars? How many alien empires have we toppled in order to stop the threats against our own people? How could we have failed to learn the lessons of the Age of Conquest? Four hundred years after the end of human genocide, we are still consumed by the same obsessions that have haunted us in the past! All you care about is fighting against our fellow humans. Do you know how sad that looks to me? We have not progressed a single step as a race!"

Even though Brutus tried to tamper her down, Davia no longer registered his words! The mech she piloted began to swing its rifle around as if it was ready to shoot!

"Why did our race develop in this way? When did we stop caring about the threat of aliens? When did we begin to see each other as archenemies? Doesn't anyone in charge care about the weakest of our civilization? I hate what people like you have turned into. I hate how little regard the Big Two possesses towards the plight of those they call 'space peasants'. I hate how mechs are used to fight against fellow humans ever since they were first invented!"

Brutus reacted with shock at her statement! While he had guessed that Davia acc. some grievances, he had underestimated the depths of her fury.

This was not a normal outburst! Her damaged mind amplified her pain and magnified her rage!

"Is this what mech pilots like us are for, Brutus? Are we solely trained to fight against other humans? We are better than this! Our power can be used for so much more! The Sand War may have been terrible, but many humans who are weak and inconsequential in your eyes have summoned the courage to stand up against the sandmen! That is true courage! That is true honor! That is true glory! In this measure, Ves Larkinson is a thousand times more noble than a pampered boy on a leash like you! The only Hexer who deserves my respect is your sister! At least she contributed, unlike the trillions of other Hexers in your powerful state!"

"Davia.. I know you're angry, but please calm down. Your mind will collapse if you keep this up! The doctors on my ship are very alarmed!"

"SHUT UP! You Hexers don't care about any third-raters! Our society is flawed. From what I see, greed is rampant and selfishness is the norm. I don't blame you Hexers for clinging onto your wealth and power. I have been disappointed too much by people like you to expect any true compassion. In the end, despite the belated intervention of the Big Two, it was third-raters like us who held the line! We don't need your help! Those of us who were born in poorer states can take care of OURSELVES!"

The moment she spoke those words, her emotional activity had reached a limit!

The Star Dancer visibly jerked back from Davia's mech as it began to erupt!

A vague red glow began to surround the rifleman mech. Brutus watched with astonishment as the outcome he had been hoping for finally became a reality.

Davia had regained her power as an expert pilot!

Not only that, but Brutus could visibly feel that her resonance strength was growing rapidly!

Yet this was not how he wanted to see her restored!

Throughout all of the days they spent on the same ship, Brutus had always sensed a kindred spirit in Davia Stark. Even as broken as she appeared, the Hexer expert pilot sensed her inherent compassion and urge to protect her fellow people.

He thought that as long as he healed her back together, humanity would regain another noble expert pilot!

Yet now, it looked as if Davia Stark had undergone a drastic transformation!

This was something that he had never heard of. Expert pilots weren't supposed to change their nature! Yet somehow, the resentment and fury that Davia had acc. completely engulfed her original conviction!

The resonating glow around the standard Hexer mech solidified, signifying that Davia Stark had successfully regained her strength as a demi-god.

Yet this was not what he sought!

Brutus quickly glanced at the resonance sensor. Davia Stark's resonance strength had peaked at 18.74 laveres, which was much stronger than he expected!

That was more than Brutus had ever achieved! He remembered that his own peak strength reached just 15.35 laveres, and that was when he was in his best state!

Of course, he was a lot younger than the middle-aged woman he tried to help, and he doubtlessly possessed a lot more untapped potential.

Yet from Davia's sudden growth, Brutus momentarily feared what she might become. How would she use her strength? Who did she want to fight against?

The grudges she held against the powerful had become the source of her strength. Brutus was afraid that the only way for her to develop as an expert pilot was to deepen her ire against immensely powerful states and organizations!

The forced resonance surrounding Davia's mech quickly faded. The mech quickly turned dormant, signifying that Davia had suddenly lost consciousness.

It seemed that her breakthrough was a lot more volatile than she could handle!

The Star Dancer hovered silently next to the frozen mech. Eventually, the expert mech carefully grasped Davia's machine and brought it back to the Serendipity.

Chapter 2284 - Stopgap Solutions

The Marrakath System had fallen!

Ever since the Komodo War began, several star systems had already begun to change hands.

None of them were very important. Even if the enemy took them over, they could always be taken back.

There were too many planets and star systems in space. Even powerful states such as the Friday Coalition and Hexadric Hegemony knew that it was futile to turn every one of them into impenetrable fortresses.

Also, due to the properties of FTL drives and the extreme distances they were capable of traversing, no wall was impenetrable.

What truly mattered in the long run was holding key star systems. These star systems possessed several strategically important endowments, ranging from rich exotic deposits, a large existing infrastructure, a large productive workforce or close proximity to a lot of other valuable star systems.

The Carnegie Group happened to turn the Crestfallen Stars into their first line of defense!

Though the Fridaymen never bet all of their ch.i.p.s on holding these fortified star systems, they at least wanted to bleed the Hex Army of hundreds of thousands or even millions of mech pilots!

In this final struggle for supremacy in this remote star sector, both sides knew they needed to deplete each other's war-making potential!

Considering the abundant material resources that both states stockpiled during centuries of peace, it would take far too long to deplete each other's resources.

Conquering territory and taking over the enemy's resources, industrial capacity, trade and population was possible, but only up to an extent. While the Hexers believed they possessed the might to overrun their archenemy, the Fridaymen were at lot more realistic about their chances!

In a war like this, the critical resource that both sides needed to preserve the most was their mech pilots.

It couldn't be helped. Unlike resources such as Kavenit, mech pilots couldn't be stockpiled over a long period of time. Neither state was capable of increasing the amount of mech pilots in a short amount of time after the outbreak of the Komodo War.

While the Fridaymen and Hexers hastily put their negleced low aptitude potentates through a crash course training in piloting mechs, it still took at least a couple of years to yield some results.

Until then, the war revolved around diminishing each other's pool of mech pilots as much as possible!

From the perspective of the Fridaymen, this plan was bound to work as long as they lured their hated enemies in unfavorable battles.

Aware of the arrogance and conceit of the Hexers, the Carnegie Group and the Vermeer Group had long given up on launching any offenses.

Launching an attack was always costlier than defending a stronghold.

Therefore, the two coalition partners expressly invested in fortifying a lot of star systems, each of which they considered expendable despite the ludricrous sums of cols pumped into their defenses!

Up until a point, the plan appeared to work.

The entry of the infamous Blessed Squire changed everything!

The Hex Army's Wrathful Doves may have lost a lot of mechs and mech pilots, but the Fortune Legion's Opal Tridents failed to meet their quota! The bedraggled survivors evacuated Marrakath III and the rest of the star system in haste, prioritizing the retrieval of people over war materiel.

The Opal Tridents suffered a shameful defeat! Though they preserved enough manpower to fight again another day, the sudden abandonment of so much mechs, production equipment, supplies and lots of other gear would set them back for months, preventing them from playing any role in the next couple of months.

It was different for the Wrathful Doves! Though the Hexers bled heavily in order to topple the Marrakath System, their morale was skyhigh and their eagerness to battle again had reached a peak!

"We will go down in history as the first Hexers to conquer a Fridayman fortress system! Let us thank the Superior Mother for giving us strength!"

"For the Hegemony! For the Superior Mother!"

The fall of the Marrakath System triggered a chain reaction.

First, the Wrathful Doves earned an immense amount of glory and honor for their great service. Conquering Marrakath ahead of schedule in such an overwhelming fashion while preserving most of their mech pilots made the next steps of the Hex Army so much easier!

While the Wrathful Doves needed to secure their new prize and weren't quite ready to transfer to another battlefield, most of the reinforcements no longer headed to Marrakath.

Aside from sending second line garrison troops to take over Marrakath's defense, the other reinforcements changed their route to the other remaining Crestfallen Stars!

The pressure against the Fortune Legion units stationed there intensified as the Hexers built up a greater and greater numerical advantage.

On top of that, after weeks of deliberation, procrastination, arguing, dealmaking and persuasion, the council of matriarchs in charge of approving mech designs finally made the decision that more and more combat troops were waiting for. The Hexer leaders finally permitted the Hex Army to deploy the Blessed Squire model in every battlefield!

"We can finally use our new mechs!"

"We could have used them weeks ago! While I respect the matriarchs, they have no idea how many sisters we've lost since then! Why couldn't they approve the Blessed Squire faster?"

"Don't complain. At least we can see what the fuss is about!"

Hours after the Blessed Squire received official sanction, many frontline mech army groups and mech divisions began to deploy the supportive knight mech in great quantities!

Each of these Hexers units had already diverted their production capacity to build up a stockpile of Blessed Squires.

The fact that a significant portion of the Hex Army already built hundreds of thousands of Blessed Squires had already forced the hand of the council of matriarchs.

Rather than permitting that something could be done, the matriarchs essentially acknowledged reality.

The rest of the Hex Army had learned from the example set by DIVA and the Wrathful Doves. Instead of introducing the Blessed Squire mechs onto the battlefield one by one, the individual Hex Army units smashed thousands of them across the frontlines all at once!

"Don't let the Fridaymen get used to the Blessed Squire's glow or whatever it's called. We need to ride our momentum all the way to victory!"

The idea was sound, and the plan largely worked.

The Fridaymen mech units put up considerably more resistance this time. Now that they became aware of the horrifying influence this foreign mech design could make, the Fortune Legion and other mech militaries had already drawn up some responses!

While the Coalition's Master Mech Designers were rapidly trying to develop effective counters against this heinous mech design, the Fridaymen settled for several stopgap solutions.

"Bombard the enemy positions! Snipe those Blessed Squires! Don't let the Hexers get close!"

Hundreds of Hexer mechs attempted to assault a Fridayman stronghold in a burning city. The Hexer assault unit adopted an unusual formation where a large number of male and female Hexer mechs protected the latest addition to their mech roster!

In ordinary circ. , the female supremacists never showed this much care for expendable male mechs!

Yet before the Hexer mechs could make much progress, explosions began to rain down from the sky! Massed artillery peppered their ranks with shells and other ordnance without any regard for cost.

Crack!

Sharp laser beams, powerful positron beams and thunderous gauss rounds flooded the escorts of the Blessed Squires. The knight mechs and other defensive mechs strained to withstand the focused firepower, and the less well-protected mechs did not last long if they didn't move out of the way!

"The blasted Fridaymen want to take out our Blessed Squires from a distance!"

"Don't let them! We need to protect our sons at all costs!"

"We can't! Their firepower is too much."

"Despicable cowards! Fight us up close if you dare!"

Even without a specific counter against the Blessed Squire, the mech designers and analysts of the Friday Coalition had aready developed an effective tactic against this devilish Hexer mech.

Just take them out from range!

There were three properties of the Blessed Squire that made them so powerful.

First, their energy siphoning and energy transferring capabilities significantly extended the deployment time of other Hexer mechs.

Second, their glows invigorated every Hexer mech pilots in a radius that was able to encompass an entire mech company under ideal conditions.

Third, the same glows also damaged the morale and concentration of enemy mech pilots in the same radius!

All of these points shared a common element. They were only effective in close range!

"The Blessed Squires are one of the most effective force multipliers the Hex Army has fielded to date, but they are not omnipotent!" A Fridayman staff officer briefed hundreds of attentive mech commanders by remote. "Of the three points that I have just listed, only the second one is valid as long as the Hexer units haven't collided against our own units. Keeping this new Hexer mech model at bay will minimize its advantages."

The logic sounded simple, but it was undeniably true. In the other six Crestfallen Stars, the initial introduction of the Blessed Squire immediately encountered the response that the Fridaymen had long prepared.

"Don't let it get close!"

"Shoot it from a distance!"

"Empty our entire ammunition reserves if necessary!"

In order to slow down the collapse of the Crestfallen Stars and buy time for critical star systems to evacuate their critical infrastructure and personnel, the Fortune Legion invested heavily in their response.

Just like how the Sand War drove many states to revive the use of Starfighters, the Fortune Legion units all began to employ old-fashioned artillery pieces!

These hastily-fabricated and disposable cannons were installed in almost every major fortification. The Fridaymen readily emptied their huge stockpiles of explosive shells and allocated a lot more industrial capacity into fabricating more.

"Turn the battlefield in a sea of flame and explosions!"

"Bomb them until they can't take a step forward!"

"No knight mech can withstand our firepower!"

For a time, these tactics worked. The Hexers possessed a bias for melee combat, and much of the Hex Army's mech doctrine revolved around relying on the might of melee mechs to achieve quick, decisive victories.

Even so, the Hexers weren't weak at range! While the Hex Army honestly did not expect the Fridaymen to rely so heavily on bombardment, the response came quick.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A rain of shells attempted to destroy a stationary artillery battery deployed by the Fortune Legion. The norms crewing the artillery cannons cowered and flinched from the shells exploding against the energy shield that had been erected over their position.

"The firepower is too much! Our shield is rapidly losing its charge! At this rate, it will break in forty seconds!"

In another artillery position, a squad of Hexer aerial mechs fired their plasma rifles at their targets. Unfortunately, due to scarcity, no shield generator protected this site, thereby causing the auxiliaries and their artillery cannons to succ. in a sea of immense heat and plasma!

At a different location, A Hexer mech company supported by a Blessed Squire had attacked an artillery battery from the flank! The defending Fridaymen mechs put up a good fight, but their defense lines started to buckle as its mech pilots weren't accustomed to the Blessed Squire's disturbing glow.

A trio of light skirmishers evaded the defenders and stormed over to the artillery pieces.

Crack!

A shield blocked their path!

However, the female Hexer mech pilots only grinned at the sight.

"Let's exhaust this shield!"

The mechs did not employ their daggers. Instead, they simply bashed their frames against the energy-based hindrance. The immense kinetic energy transferred by the Hexer mechs rapidly consumed the shield until it finally popped out of existence!

"Kill!"

Though the slaughter was immense, the deployment of so many artillery batteries helped mitigate the impact of the Blessed Squire's entry into the frontlines, at least for a time.

In addition, the Friday Coalition's existing ranged mechs all prioritized the Blessed Squires above any other strategically important target. To the Hexers who often relied on riling themselves up to fight without fear, the Blessed Squire had become one of their best tools to generate momentum!

Naturally, the ranged mechs of the Hex Army did not allow their foes to do as they wished!

With the Hexer mech units concentrating their knight mechs and other defensive mechs around their Blessed Squires, it took an immense amount of firepower to chew through all of that resistance.

The same could not be said for the Fridayman's ranged mechs! Even though they often took advantage of walls and fixed defenses, the fact that they numbered so much meant that they were vulnerable to being defeated in detail, especially when the Fridaymen ranged mechs did not suppress their Hexer counterparts!

Under these evolving dynamics, the frontlines of the Komodo War became more turbulent.

Chapter 2285 - Glow Limitations

"Some of the shortcomings of your specialty have come to light." Gloriana pointed out. "By resorting heavily on ranged attacks, our Blessed Squires are being shot left and right before they can even make it to the enemy lines."

Her physical projection leaned against Ves. The realism of the Darkbreak module's projection technology was so great that it was as if her body was actually aboard the Scarlet Rose!

This time they did not employ this fantastic tech for its original purpose. They had too much work to do to waste their time on expressing their love.

Both of them paid closer attention to the progress of the Komodo War since one of their products finally entered the field.

Ves enjoyed Gloriana's projected warmth as he studied the limited amount of footage and reports he received from DIVA.

Tracking the performance of the Blessed Squire was crucial to the development of their subsequent Hexer mechs!

From what he had seen so far, every Hexer mech regiment that received the Blessed Squire had already embraced the new product wholeheartedly.

Neither their males or females neglected this useful mech model and made sure to treat it with reverence.

To many Hexers, it was unthinkable to employ the Blessed Squire as cannon fodder!

Part of it was due to its desirable glow. The Superior Mother seemed to resonate with Hexers of every gender and every background. From the lowest classes of commoners to the noble and arrogant highborn females descended from the matriarchal dynasties, everyone who grew up as a Hexer inexplicably valued the Blessed Squires once they experienced its glow!

Certainly, there were plenty of conservative Hexers who feared this drastic change and suspected that some form of brainwashing was at work, but the victories this mech enabled slowly wormed away their stubbornness!

While it was too early to tell whether the Blessed Squire changed the views of the Hexers to a more boy-friendly ideology, the signs so far were modestly optimistic.

"What are you grinning about?! This is a serious problem, and this is just the prelude. The Friday Coalition will unveil other responses soon enough!"

"It's fine, Gloriana. The Blessed Squire is still fulfilling its purpose, if not as one-sided. First, the Blessed Squire will always be able to support other Hexers. If it can't effectively boost friendly melee mechs, then it can still boost friendly ranged mechs!"

"The differences aren't as big. Emotions play a much bigger factor at close range. In a long-ranged firefight, the material performance of mechs play a much greater role."

She was right. Melee combat was quick, fast, brutal and visceral. Mech pilots needed to have the grit and confidence to confront an enemy mech that swung a heavy implement that could easily inflict heavy damage at an instant!

The Blessed Squire always provided the Hexer mech pilots with great advantages in these situations. Unfortunately, some of the utility it provided became invalid when the Hexers failed to close the distance.

Though Gloriana looked quite upset at this development, Ves was a bit more nonchalant about it. As the principal designer of this mech, he had already anticipated this kind of response.

It made too much sense to do so. A mech whose greatest strength only took effect at a limited range around its frame would always become a priority target at range!

"I'm afraid our Blessed Squire won't be as valued by the Hex Army anymore after this." Gloriana quivered.

"It's okay." Ves whispered. "The Blessed Squire is not a fragile mech. It's a knight mech with a shield, so the Fridaymen always have to invest a lot of firepower into taking it out. In the meantime, Hexer ranged mechs aren't as constrained and can focus their firepower on more vulnerable targets. Therefore, even if the Blessed Squire can't play a role, its presence on the battlefield still imposes some constraints on the Fridaymen!"

This was how real battles were fought between states. From some of his previous Mastery experiences, he knew that the development and use of different mech models constantly evolved.

Even when suppressed, the Blessed Squire still added value to the Hex Army, so Ves did not share Gloriana's pessimism.

Besides, the Fridaymen hadn't unveiled their killer weapons yet. The Miracle Couple's true crisis began the moment the Fridaymen Masters rolled out their counters against his specialty!

Considering the formidable design capabilities of Masters, they probably already developed numerous candidates. They were probably being tested in secret labs at this time.

Gloriana raised another topic of concern. "I'm worried about our Valkyrie Redeemer. As an aerial mech that primarily relies on spear charges to take out its foes, its very vulnerable to ranged attacks."

"The same applies to every aerial mech, Gloriana. This is hardly unique to our Valkyrie Redeemer. Different from the Blessed Squire, our second Hexer mech can selectively project its death-based glow to any distant target. That alleviates the range limitation a bit. Also, our marauder mech is also designed to fight away from the frontlines, so it won't encounter as much ranged firepower."

"My fellow Hexers won't value our mechs that much if they keep encountering so much focused resistance. In the long term, we'll become less valued if this keeps up. I think we need to develop some effective ranged mechs as soon as possible!"

The worry and urgency in her tone betrayed her need for validation. Ever since the Blessed Squire accelerated the takeover of Marrakath, her fame and reputation in the Hegemony had grown dramatically!

The thought of losing all of these gains made her desperate!

Ves kissed her projected cheek and tried to comfort her. "There is no point in rushing ourselves. Let's finish our current projects first before embarking on other ones. In the meantime, we can observe all of the counters the Fridaymen will eventually bring to bear against our initial products. Once we know what they are capable of, we can implement specific countermeasures in our subsequent Hexer mechs."

"You're.. right." She sighed. "I'm being too hasty. I'm just infuriated at the rampant bullying of our babies. They can hardly poke out their heads these days without getting shot!"

Though the Blessed Squires still provided the Hex Army with some advantages, Ves agreed with his partner that it was better to introduce some ranged mechs in the near future.

Ves felt the need to prove that his mechs also provided a competitive advantage at range!

It was not as if Ves already designed successful ranged mechs. The Desolate Soldier and Deliverer mechs both achieved great results in the Sand War.

The challenge was that it wasn't enough to boost their morale anymore. The Blessed Squire already fulfilled that role to some extent. Designing a ranged mech with a similar glow as their first Hexer mech introduced too little variety.

Perhaps the Hexers might even regard him as a one-trick pony!

The pair began to swap some ideas on what their next Hexer mechs should offer.

"It has to differentiate itself from both existing Hexer military mechs and our Blessed Squires." She told him. "Maybe we can apply the ranged glow mechanic of the Valkyrie Redeemer to our third Hexer design project, but that is not enough I think."

Ves pursed his lips. "The impact of exposing an enemy mech pilot to a ranged glow is not as drastic when it comes from a ranged mech. The reason why I believe the Valkyrie Redeemer pairs well with this mechanic is because it complements its charge attack. Everyone fears a mech barreling down on your position! What my glow does is to amplify this fear in order to hamper the response of the victim. This dynamic is largely absent in a ranged firefight."

"Then what can we do to give our ranged Hexer mech an advantage in this situation? We can't afford to shame the majesty of a Supreme! The Fridaymen must fear her and submit to her in order to do right by your mother!"

He jerked when she said that. Ves felt like vomiting. His mother might be a soul-sucking ghost, but she was no tyrant! At least that he knew of. Who knew what her past was like.

"Ahem." He coughed. "I've learned some new tricks recently. I've already told you about the breakthrough that I've made in our Sanctuary Project. I'll see if I can apply them to our other projects. However, I do admit it is rather tricky to make a ranged mech stand out. Even though my glows sound great, they mainly affect mech pilots. At its core, my design philosophy has always centered on increasing the integration between mechs and mech pilots. My solution will have to come from this direction."

This was his greatest strength but also his greatest constraint. While he entertained some radical ideas, he did not forget that his primary focus was never about enhancing the technical performance of his mechs.

That was Gloriana's responsibility.

Instead, he should find his own way to Increase the applicability of his specialty in ranged combat.

Several ideas passed through his mind. Many of them weren't viable.

"You know, one of your cousins has started to make a name for himself in the Friday Coalition. He's famed for bringing around a bunch of quasi-expert mechs and using them to overwhelm opposing expert mechs with a flood of ranged attacks."

Ah yes, Venerable Ghanso. Ves harbored a lot of loathing for this obstinate Larkinson.

"What are you trying to say?'

"While Ghanso deserves death for killing so many Hexer war heroes, I have to admit that Master Huron has developed a novel way of increasing the effective power of expert pilots. From what our spies have managed to uncover, Ghanso's mind is neurally linked with all of those quasi-expert mechs."

"I know. Aisling explained some of Master Huron's work to me during the brief time I was her captive. I didn't know that this Master's specialty could be applied in this way."

Gloriana grinned at him. "Why not steal his idea? Can you apply your glow in a way that allows Hexers to connect each other with the help of the Superior Mother? She's so powerful! There has to be a way, right?!"

"Woah, there! Do you even know what you are talking about?! This sounds crazy! It's already dangerous enough to mess with neural connections. Forming these connections through glows sounds absolutely crazy!"

In fact, Ves did not believe it was as impossible as he made it out to be. The Superior Mother already acted as the hub of an immense spiritual network. Though the strength of this network paled in comparison to the Larkinson Network, he believed it might be possible to link the participants together in some way.

That didn't mean he was eager to do so, however! Such a radical innovation would definitely reveal too much about his specialty! He didn't even need to guess that Master Willix would immediately pay him a friendly visit and 'invite' him to stay with her at Halcyon Citadel for an indeterminate period of time.

Some lines simply couldn't be crossed!

He argued a bit with Gloriana until she finally dropped her dangerous proposal.

"Spoilsport." She grumbled. "What are we supposed to do, then? Can't you persuade the Ylvainan proto-god to lend his powers to the Hexer cause?'

"That's impossible. Ylvaine only blesses his own devoted. That has always been the rule. Providing Hexer ranged mechs with predictive targeting is off the table."

They didn't have a lot of good ideas after ruling out this option.

Eventually, they called it a day.

"We still have months to flesh out our design concept. There's no hurry."

"I'm aware, Ves. It's just that I'm afraid we won't have anything good by the time we are supposed to embark on our next projects."

"Just because I don't have any good ideas at the moment doesn't mean this will stay this way in the future. I'm constantly progressing my design philosophy. I'll try my best to expand in this direction in order to make our ranged mechs just as useful as our melee mechs."

"You better!"

Chapter 2286 - The Creativity of the Young

After his discussion with Gloriana, Ves continued to think about the problem that she presented.

Finding a new way to make his glows useful in ranged combat was not easy. Aside from the effects he already achieved, he really wanted to expand his arsenal without resorting to borrowing the powers of other design spirits.

He wanted to keep every Hexer mech as pure as possible. Lately, Ves felt that he was relying way too much on the unique properties of different design spirits to bail him out whenever he needed to achieve something difficult.

The development of spiritual constructs and triggered abilities was supposed to pull him back from developing an overdependence on external design spirits.

As powerful as they were, Ves was unable to exert a lot of control over them. As a mech designer, he much preferred to maintain some precise control over the advantages that he was able to bestow onto his products.

His recent preoccupation with spiritual engineering allowed him to rediscover the charm of creating precise solutions. So far, he believed he had barely scratched the surface of spiritual constructs.

As Ves supervised the design teams working diligently on their respective assignments, he continued to mull over the possibilities.

His methods of strengthening his products should always center around the mech pilot.

So far, his main solutions fell into two broad categories. He either enhanced or suppressed the morale of mech pilots. He did so by manipulating specific emotions such as appealing to their sense of duty or triggering their primal fears.

While many of his mech designs had achieved considerable success by accomplishing these methods, Ves no longer became satisfied with these options.

"They're too rudimentary for me to feel proud of." He muttered to himself. "My entire design philosophy should not amount to this. Making mechs alive should bring more to the table!"

Intuitively, Ves sensed that he had come to an important stage in his development as a mech designer.

Journeymen like him progressed to Senior by expanding their options, deepening their applications and exploring the greater possibilities of their design philosophies.

What Ves was able to accomplish at this moment was very helpful in waging psychological warfare, but he didn't want to limit himself in this corner for the rest of his life!

This was especially so because he knew his current solutions did not make much of a difference as the quality of mech pilots rose.

Ves had already noticed from the footage of the Blessed Squire in action that elite mech pilots from both sides experienced much less changes when affected by glows.

To the superbly-trained Hexer elites, their minds were as strong as steel and their confidence in their own strength was already through the roof. A bit of additional courage and mental support hardly boosted their performance!

As for the elite Fridaymen mech pilots who braved the Blessed Squire's glow, they quickly got used to the discomfort pressing on their minds.

In their training, they endured much greater hardsh.i.p.s! Their tolerance for pain and other forms of harm were already high in order to ensure they remained high-spirited in the toughest of situations!

The Fridaymen and Hexers weren't unique in this sense. Ves recalled that Master Willix and a significant portion of her entourage easily endured the terrifying glow of the Doom Guard up close!

"The power of the human mind is not weak!" He concluded. "Glows might be effective against regular mech pilots, but the strong are different. I need to develop a different set of solutions to affect their performance!"

This was very relevant when he considered his aim of traveling to the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy.

In the early years, only the most ambitious and most successful galactic pioneers were capable of reaching this new frontier!

Ves easily imagined that many of the enemies he might stumble upon would be fielding lots of well-trained mech pilots. If he solely relied on his old tricks to win his battles, then he wouldn't achieve as much success as he did against Nyxian pirates.

Additionally, Ves noticed that his glows didn't even exert any discernible effects on expert pilots. They were so strong-willed that no amount of external influencing was able to shake their beliefs!

He needed to ensure that his specialty remained relevant in expert mechs and other high-performing machines!

Limiting himself to enhancing the value to cannon fodder mechs sounded incredibly depressing to Ves. How would he be able to justify designing his own expert mechs if his contributions in those projects were marginal?

"Arghh!"

After fruitlessly trying to figure out his own solutions on his, he decided that maybe it was better to hear out other people.

Just recently, Ves had managed to gain several important insights on heavy mechs by hearing out the opinions of Commander Orfan and Zanthar.

"If it worked once, maybe it can work again."

For this reason, Ves decided to pull Maikel Larkinson out of his homework assignment and bring him to an office.

"Please sit down."

"Uhm, okay."

"I'm sure you must be wondering why I called you here. As far as I know, you have developed a fascination for my design philosophy, is that correct?"

The young Larkinson nodded. "I really admire you for inventing something that is different and unique. It's so different from what everyone expects from mechs. I want to be able to do what you can do one day."

"A good mech designer is someone who is able to innovate, Maikel. It's not a good idea for you to set your goal on my applications. If you haven't done the hard work of inventing them from scratch, I very much doubt you will be able to achieve a worthwhile career."

The earnest warning did not affect Maikel's determination. "I don't want to do anything else. Designing living mechs is your greatest ability. It should become the Larkinson Clan's ability as well!"

That was a surprisingly high-minded idea coming out of someone as young as Maikel!

"You may have a point, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. You are currently just a first year mech design student in my eyes. You still have several years of study ahead of yourselves. The more you become exposed to the possibilities of mech design, the more options you'll contemplate."

"I already know what I want. Didn't you teach me to be decisive? I want to design my own living mechs!"

"If you are so determined to follow my direction, then at least find your own way to differentiate yourself!"

"I'll try, teacher." Maikel promised.

That was the best that Ves could hope for at the moment. Personally, he doubted whether his student was able to develop the same traits that enabled him to adopt his unconventional design philosophy.

That said, as long as Maikel branched out and followed a path that was suitable for him, it wasn't impossible for him to design something related to Ves' work!

Ves attempted to direct the conversation towards his current goals.

"Since you are eager to build on my work, maybe it will help if we talk about what I do. Now, let me warn you that you are in a very impressionable period in your development. When an older and more established mech designer expounds upon his design philosophy, a young and inexperienced individual such as you might easily be contaminated by my views! In the mech industry, this is frowned upon because it is too easy to set you up for a research direction that originally isn't compatible with your inclinations."

Maikel remained brave. "I don't see that as a bad thing. Aren't my inclinations already the same as yours?"

Ugh. Ves wanted to palm his face. "Fine then. Since you're my student, you have already been exposed to my influence."

He pushed aside his concerns and began to speak.

"My design philosophy isn't capable of strengthening mechs directly. It's not supposed to, strictly. This is something that you should already be aware of. What I can do instead is to deepen the integration between mech and mech pilot…"

Maikel already knew some of what Ves was saying, but this was the first time he learned about his teacher's specialty in such a clear and coherent fashion.

The student eagerly lapped it all up. It was as if he was relieving a hunger that had plagued him for months!

"...and this is why my design philosophy is called Metaphysical Man-Machine Symbiosis. Each of those words are important. Now, do you have and questions or remarks?"

It took some time for Maikel to organize his thoughts.

"How exactly are your mechs able to fight better?"

"As I've told you, it's all about designing my mechs around the mech pilot first. Currently, I'm able to deepen their integration so that the mech pilot can pilot his machine more optimally. I'm also able to bestow glows to my mechs to affect the morale of nearby friendlies and enemies. I'm mostly known for the latter these days."

"Does that mean you neglected the former?" Maikel innocently asked.

"Uhm.. my research time is limited." Ves answered. "In the past few years, I have been expanding what I can do with glows because I found them to be very effective in increasing the value of my mechs. However, I'm starting to reach a plateau of what I can do with them. Glows are only a single addition to a mech. There are many other ways to make your product stronger."

"It doesn't really sound like that your glows are related to integrating mechs and mech pilots, teacher. I mean, if your design philosophy is Metaphysical Man-Machine Symbiosis, shouldn't you be trying to figure out ways to make mechs more like humans and humans more like mechs?"

Ves reacted with surprise at Maikel's suggestion. It sounded quite compelling!

"Elaborate, please."

"Well, maybe it's because I don't know exactly what you're capable of, but when I hear what you want to accomplish, I think that your design philosophy is mainly about making mech pilots better. In one of your earlier lessons, you told us that mechs are already strong, but their performance is constrained by the limitations of the mech pilots. The latter are only human, after all. Why not focus on shoring up their weaknesses?"

"...Let me think for a bit."

What Maikel put forward didn't sound complicated, but it was a direction that Ves had never really considered!

The more he thought about it, the more he thought it was feasible!

Instead of enhancing the mech pilots of his mechs by manipulating their emotions, what if he could enhance them in a more direct fashion?

"Maybe you can figure out a way to increase a mech pilot's marksmanship if you're designing a rifleman mech." Maikel suggested. "Maybe find a way to increase the reaction time of the mech pilot of a light skirmisher. Can you do this? Maybe it's too much to hope for, but I think that plenty of mech pilots would be glad to pilot a machine that can increase their skill!"

"I think you are onto something." Ves began to smile. "It's interesting, but it's not quite what I'm looking for. It's doubtful that I can accomplish the effects that you have described."

Instantly turning a bad mech pilot into a good one by causing the mech to dump a lot of skills in them was impossible with his current capabilities.

It also possessed the same limitations as glows. This solution was mostly useful to lower grades of mech pilots. Elites and expert pilots didn't need this kind of help!

Even so, this fresh direction expanded his horizons. What could he do to empower the mech pilot? What kind of solution would help the Hexer mech pilots gain an advantage in the Komodo War?

"Interesting." He whispered.

A forgotten idea rose up in his mind. While it may not entirely be possible to strengthen a mech if he relied on deepening the integration between mech and mech pilot alone, what if he added the design spirit to the equation?

What if he could turn his mechs into actual avatars?

Chapter 2287 - Doubting Himself

Sometimes, talking and teaching about something that he knew intimately still generated some new insights.

Talking about his design philosophy with Maikel provided Ves with a fair amount of food for thought.

Before this discussion, whenever Ves always directed his attention towards the more advanced applications of his specialty. He tinkered with design spirits, glows, spiritual constructs, spiritual augments, triggered abilities, innate abilities and so on on a daily basis.

He had good reason to do so. He needed to obtain a lot of power to achieve his purposes, and he couldn't do so without resorting to the formidable arsenal of spiritual techniques he developed over the years.

Ves had come a long way since he first became an Apprentice who couldn't accomplish anything more than bestow a little X-Factor to his mech designs!

With the help of his innovations, the Living Mech Company grew to a behemoth that sold hundreds of thousands of mechs on a monthly basis.

Due to the threat of his glow-oriented mech designs, hundreds if not more high-ranking mech designers had spent more than a trillion hex credits to study them in order to form counters.

The potential of his design philosophy earned him the appreciation of the likes of Master Moira Willix and plenty of other authoritative figures in the mech industry.

Oh, he also became engaged with Gloriana as well. Despite her many.. eccentricities, she was one of the few people who trusted him and he could trust in turn. That was extremely valuable in a galaxy where trust was hard to find.

Certainly, the benefits he obtained from the System enabled many of his accomplishments. Yet Ves did not let himself be limited by his greatest secret, but sought to surpass it. Although the System initially pushed him on this path, he formed and developed his design philosophy up to this point through his own efforts.

His constant urge to innovate and seek greater gains had yielded many successes.

"However… am I losing sight of my initial goals?"

Since when did his design philosophy center around glows?

Why should he constantly seek to create more powerful design spirits?

Long after Maikel left to do his homework, Ves remained silent in his office.

Great doubt stirred in his mind.

He started to question his own purpose.

"Do I regret the path I've taken and the decisions I've made?"

Nope. Not at all. Though he had made plenty of mistakes and dubious decisions up to this point, he rarely felt regret. The decisions he made and the outcomes he obtained shaped him as a person and a mech designer.

He always looked forward. He spent most of his time planning and working towards a better future. No matter his inadequacies today, he would be able to meet all of his goals once he advanced far enough to have a real say on the galactic stage.

His drive advance reinforced his tendency to look forward. He spent so much time chasing after greater gains that he never really looked back all that often.

"Is this a mistake?"

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Ves always feared he would stagnate if he became too preoccupied with the past. Slowing down in any way had become one a taboo of sorts to him. The example of Professor Velten who engaged in too many distractions over the course of her career provided him with a very clear image of what he might end up if he slowed down.

It was only recently that he recognized how far he had gone astray. Obsessing over glows and turning them into the primary feature of his mechs caused him to overlook that his design philosophy never centered around them. The auras that his mechs and most notably his design spirits produced were supposed to be welcome additions at best.

Now that he was starting to bump into the limitations of glows, Ves recognized that it might be better for him to return to his original approach. He had already done so recently with the exploration of spiritual constructs, but so far he had mainly used them to enhance the operation of his glows rather than his mechs.

"My perspective is wrong."

Glows and design spirits were merely tools. Both existed to enhance the performance of the mech and mech pilot in some way.

What Ves realized today was that he used to focus on other ways to improve the performance of this pairing.

In the beginning, Ves attempted to accomplish the more modest goal of integrating mechs and mech pilots. He sought to increase their synergy by increasing the X-Factor of his designs.

What was his definition of X-Factor?

To him, the X-Factor represented the alignment between mech, mech pilot and mech designer.

During his rise to prominence, Ves no longer relied entirely on his own strength as a mech designer and instead resorted to external help in the form of design spirits.

In essence, the X-Factor of all of his recent mechs actually reflected the alignment between mech, mech pilot and design spirit!

Was this bad? Not necessarily. Undoubtedly, this paradigm yielded a lot of success.

The latent problem was that success in the short term did not guarantee success in the long term.

To become a Senior who possessed great control over many applications, Ves needed to explore different options while remaining true to his heart.

To become a Master and realize profound and unique design philosophy, Ves had to find a way to transcend his limitations and achieve the impossible.

"My design philosophy has never been about creating gods. Why am I trying so hard to do so lately?"

Perhaps spending a lot of time with Gloriana warped his views. Even though he always rejected her ambition to create gods in the form of mechs, she may have succeeded in contaminating him through constant repetition.

Ves reflected back on his latest three spiritual products.

The Golden Cat and the Superior Mother both surpassed the definition of design spirit. By tying them to the Larkinson Clan and the Hexer people respectively, they had already taken on at least some of the properties traditionally associated with the divine.

As for Lufa, Ves literally dubbed it the Angel of Tranquility!

Did he regret creating these three pseudo-divine entities? No. Each of them were very useful in their own way.

"Not regretting doesn't mean that what I'm doing is right."

The development of design spirits and glows was always supposed to be a side path. They complemented his design philosophy. They were never supposed to take it over.

No matter how much it pleased his fiancé to continue down the path of creating gods, to Ves this was only supposed to be a means to an end.

What was the end he sought?

"Making mechs alive."

The nuance here was that the definitions of those words were subject to interpretation. There were different ways he could think of to bestow life to mechs.

Instilling them with a design spirit and integrating the two together was one way to do it. The Devil Tiger was perhaps the best embodiment of this approach.

Pursuing glows to an extreme in order to make everyone acknowledge his mechs was another way. Mechs such as the Doom Guard and the Blessed Squire closely aligned with this approach.

When had he last designed a mech that just sought to integrate the mech and mech pilot in a plain manner?

Ves found to his disappointment that none of his original mechs matched this criteria. He felt as if he was inputting a search term, only to obtain no valid results.

"Have I gone that far off-track?"

Strictly speaking, Ves didn't entirely believe that he had gone astray since his Apprentice days. He just went overboard with playing with a new toy that his mother introduced a couple of years ago. If she hadn't gifted him with a novelty in the form of the spiritual fragment of a long-dead alien leader, he would have continued to make use of spiritual images and other modest techniques to add value to his mech designs.

If he had to make a choice of which mech designs best represented his aspiration to make mechs alive by integrating them with their mech pilots, then he would go as far back as picking the Young Blood and Old Soul virtual designs!

His goal in designing these two mechs was to augment the learning of mech cadets. By allowing them to gain closer bonds with mechs that were set up to mentor future mech pilots, Ves believed he succeeded in helping a lot of potentates achieve greater success in the future!

"Isn't Joshua one of them?" Ves recalled.

He decided to perform a little investigation. He activated the desk terminal and began to look up what people thought about his old Young Blood and Old Soul virtual designs.

[Thank you for selling this great mech! The Young Blood helped me so much when I was struggling with piloting melee mechs. With the help of this knight mech, I can finally pass my melee mech courses!]

[It's been four years since I first piloted the Old Soul. I initially thought this mech was a joke due to its slow-firing rifle and ambush orientation. I was wrong! This mech not only helped me graduate at the top of my class in marksmanship, but also taught me the value of patience and good planning. I wouldn't have been able to enter the mech officer track of my advanced academy without pouring thousands of hours in mastering this mech!]

Despite their rough and rudimentary design properties, both training mechs earned a lot of praise.

Ten minutes passed as Ves smiled in contentment. Even though the two virtual designs were filled with flaws to his current self, they nonetheless managed to earn the gratitude of hundreds of thousands of Iron Spirit players!

While that didn't sound like much compared to the sheer number of professional mech pilots who piloted his real mechs, Ves felt that the praise of these mech cadets was much more authentic.

The mech cadets who piloted his Young Blood and Old Soul praised his actual work.

The professional mech pilots who piloted his Desolate Soldier and Blessed Squire fawned over their glows and design spirits.

While Ves could argue that the latter was also a reflection of his strength and ability as a mech designer, he couldn't quite agree with this sentiment.

He decided to take a look at his current design projects.

He manipulated the desk terminal to project all six design projects side by side.

The Valkyrie Redeemer.

The Cat's Paw.

The Chiron.

The Ferocious Piranha.

The Sanctuary.

The Crystal Lord Mark II.

Each of these designs incorporated some of his latest applications.

Before, he felt very proud of them. Now, he no longer felt pleased.

Almost all of his designs had become overly dependent on their glows. This was a design choice that Ves was so accustomed to making that he had stopped questioning it. By making the same choice on autopilot everytime he embarked on a new design project, he slowly began to lose touch with the essence of his design philosophy!

Ves took a deep breath. "It's not too late. I can still reorient myself."

Did that mean that he intended to abandon the use of glows and design spirits? No. He just wanted to lower their emphasis in favor of empowering his mech designs according to his original intentions.

He still wanted to design mechs which allowed his mech pilots to embody their design spirits.

He also wished to design mechs that blurred the difference between man and machine.

As Maikel put it, making the human closer to a machine and making the mech closer to human should be his ultimate goal!

"It's a bit funny how a teenager has taught me the meaning of my own design philosophy." He smirked.

It proved that even the best and most successful mech designers were still fallible!

Chapter 2288 - Growing Trees

While Ves processed his doubts, Task Force Predator continued to gear up for their biggest battle to date.

The Black Cats under the lead of Calabast had become extraordinarily active. Each and every black-uniformed Larkinson became preoccupied with figuring out Ulimo Citadel's in order to undermine its defenses.

From both without and within, the spies of the Larkinson Clan gradually gained a better understanding of the pirate base.

Much of what they learned only added to the pressure subjected to the task force!

The 4200 pirate mechs that defended the pirate stronghold was the least of the clan's worries.

The hundreds of superweapons that were stored in the vaults or installed in various hidden sites were easily capable of destroying the task force at least twenty times over if the pirates unleashed all of them at once!

Therefore, the key to conquering Ulimo Citadel always centered around neutralizing as many secret weapons as possible. There was no way that the task force was able to avoid suffering massive casualties if the pirates were still able to access just a dozen of their secret weapons!

As could be imagined, sabotaging so many destructive weapon systems at once was an immense endeavor! The difficulty rose even further due to the need to keep every act of sabotage secret while the pirates were on high alert!

Even with the various advantages of the Larkinson Clan, Ves seriously doubted whether the Black Cats had what it took to dismantle Ulimo Citadel to such an extent.

Yet the results surprised him. Reports continued to arrive that spoke of rigging warship-grade cannons to blow and other forms of sabotage.

Lucky had become incredibly busy this past week. With the Misfortune Harness, he slowly penetrated deeper and deeper into Ulimo's security perimeter.

At the same time, the Black Cats intensified their coordination with the men inside Ulimo Base. The Mirror Raiders, who managed to earn a measure of trust and responsibility from the pirates, kept stirring the pot while doing their best to appear completely committed to defending the pirate stronghold.

The massive operation to attack Ulimo Citadel seemed to stimulate the potential of tens of thousands of Larkinsons. Almost each and every clansman in the fleet invested their full effort in improving their chances of winning the upcoming battle!

With just a day to go until Major Verle wanted to commence the grand assault, Ves shook the hands of Master Willix's projection. His face looked pained as he just concluded another deal.

"I hope the MTA will abide by the promises you've made." He said.

"There won't be a problem, Mr. Larkinson." The projection let go of his hand. "While we are fairly rigid when it comes to rules, we are willing to grant exceptions when the need is great. Naturally, we don't do this for free."

"I understand."

"For what it's worth, I will cheer you on. You and your Larkinsons are doing a great service by removing one of the tumors of the Nyxian Gap. Without Ulimo Citadel, many smaller pirate outfits will lose the channel where they can obtain more prohibited weapons."

Ves couldn't help but voice one of his doubts. "The amount of superweapons at Ulimo is very exaggerated, and I doubt it's the only pirate stronghold that boasts so much destructive power. The rest of the Nyxian Gap is probably just as bad. Will the MTA really stand back and let the pirates acc. enough forbidden hardware to threaten an entire state?"

"This is not an easy subject matter, Mr. Larkinson. While I cannot reveal our internal deliberations about this subject to you, know that the MTA has not gained its position of strength in the galaxy by remaining passive. Our incursion into the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy is only one of our more public endeavors."

Obviously, she wasn't going to say anything more than this. Ves half suspected that she was utterly serious about handling the Nyxian Gap. Whatever the MTA had in store, Ves wouldn't be a part of it. He just wanted to smash one more pirate base before getting out as fast as possible.

Before Ves ended the call, he decided to take advantage of Master Willix's good mood. After all, Ves paid a very great price to obtain some concessions from the MTA. This was the best opportunity to gain some answers to some of his mech design-related questions!

"If you don't mind, can you explain what a Journeyman needs to do to advance to Senior? What exactly is the latter and why are they better?"

Master Willix looked intrigued. "Those are some very big questions, Mr. Larkinson. You are still a very young Journeyman. The process to advance to Senior is difficult and lengthy. While it is technically easier to advance to Senior because any Journeyman has the potential to do so, in practice you need to work hard and remain persistent in exploring what you are capable of. To become a Journeyman means you are qualified to explore the breadth and depth of your design philosophy."

"So what does that actually mean?" Ves looked confused. "Other mech designers often tell me that I need to explore and expand the applications of my specialty. What I am struggling with is that I don't know how much I need to branch out and how much depth I should aim for. Why should Journeymen be doing all of this? How will this enable me to become a Senior?"

"You are too impatient, Mr. Larkinson. The road to becoming a Senior is long and time-consuming. I highly recommend you not to become fixated with advancing to the next rank. No matter how much of a genius you are, it will typically take at least a couple of decades for even the most prodigious Journeymen to make this jump. As for how they know they are ready, the sublimation process will happen naturally after making sufficient gains."

That only sounded vaguely helpful to Ves. Master Willix noticed his confusion.

"There is a very helpful analogy in the mech industry that might help you visualize the advancement process from Journeyman. First, imagine that you are trying to grow a tree."

"A tree?"

"Yes. This tree of yours represents your design philosophy. At your current stage, it should just be a sapling, though I suspect you have outgrown many of your peers due to all of your notable accomplishments. Regardless, your little tree still has much more room for growth. What is important is that you and every other Journeyman can direct the growth of your trees."

Was this how the MTA and other high-ranking mech designers viewed the design seeds of Journeymen? Ves found it surprisingly apt.

"Some of you want to widen the applications of your design philosophies." Willix continued. "This means that they aim to grow more branches on the trees in order to make them wider and broader. Others wish to strengthen their limited number of applications to an extreme. Their trees will grow taller but remain narrow. There are other Journeymen who wish to obtain the best of both worlds and seek to develop many applications while attempting to explore each and every one of them to their limits."

This was a very simple and understandable way to visualize the development of Journeymen! Ves easily understood what Master Willix was trying to convey. With just a simple explanation, she had managed to clear many of his doubts and uncertainties about the way forward!

"I take it that the Journeyman in question can choose for himself what kind of tree he wants to grow, correct?"

Master Willix nodded. "That is true, but some design philosophies are more conducive to specific tree shapes. There is no right answer."

"Oh? Isn't it best to go for the third option and try to grow a tall and wide tree?"

"Not necessarily. This is just an analogy. It doesn't completely reflect your actual development process. Nonetheless, it still ill.u. some of the approaches available for you. Do you want to fulfill a single goal as best as possible? Do you want to develop hundreds of different applications? Or do you wish to engage in both, knowing that you won't be able to achieve as much success in either?"

Ves couldn't answer this question right now

He wanted to reach and surpass the limits of his design philosophy.

He also wanted to develop a diverse set of solutions.

"Are the three approaches you mentioned the only ones that are valid?" He asked.

"No. Far from it. They encompass the majority of the approaches eventually adopted by Journeymen, but there are stranger mech designers in the galaxy who grew their trees in an abnormal fashion."

"Uhm, okay?"

"Don't force yourself to follow a specific approach." Master Willix warned. "Just follow your whims and do what you think can help you progress a step further. If you decide to grow a tall and narrow tree, don't think that it is less valuable. Mech designers who dedicated themselves to achieving a single goal have made incredible accomplishments. As for those who grew short and wide trees, their design philosophies have gone on to introduce entire paradigms in the field of mech design."

"What about the last kind of tree?"

"The mech designers who possess endless ambition and try to grow the widest and tallest of trees rarely make it to Master. They can become some of the most powerful Seniors in the mech industry, but they mostly run out of years before they can make the final step."

"Those who managed to advance to Master despite these challenges must be extremely powerful, right?"

Master Willix smiled. "No. Not necessarily. In this case, the work you put into your progression is not proportional to the results. No matter the profoundness of your design philosophy, every mech designer who advances to Master only gains a fixed amount of strength. Those who focused on a narrow pursuit can invest all of that strength on one application, thereby reaching even greater extremes. Those who have branched out wide must invest all of that added strength equally."

"That sounds rather bad."

"I disagree. If mech designers developed a design philosophy that is set up to enable a lot of possibilities with only a modest amount of effort, then they aren't necessarily weaker."

Ves thought for a bit. "I see now why growing tall and wide trees might not be a good idea. If you only gain a fixed amount of strength, then it's like attempting to water a huge tree with a single bucket. There is not enough water to keep the tree alive."

"You can say that. Mind you, there are mech designers who have accomplished this anyway, but their circ. are unique and shouldn't be used as role models. What I would like to emphasize is that it is best to let your tree grow in a manner that fits your inclinations best. You can consider the implications of your tree once it matures at the Senior stage."

They talked a bit more before Master Willix finally ended the call.

As the Darkbreak module returned to standby, Ves stayed in place as he went over the implications of what Master Willix had revealed.

How did his young tree look like?

"It should look pretty wide, seeing how I've branched out so much. I'm worried that it's too short, though."

Of the two conventional options, Ves wasn't sure whether he should aim for growing a tall or narrow tree or a short and wide tree.

"It depends on the goals I'm trying to achieve."

So far, he was still inclined towards the latter. He liked to develop a lot of tricks and have multiple options at his disposal. As long as he achieved his ambition of making mechs alive, there was not that much point in making them more alive. He would rather develop multiple viable applications because he was very big on combining them in order to achieve synergy.

In contrast, someone like Ketis readily set aside everything in order to achieve the best possible sharpness. Ves didn't doubt that she would definitely grow a tall and narrow tree once she advanced to Journeyman.

"Hm. Interesting."

Chapter 2289 - Magnanimous Promise

Ves dreamt of different trees in the night before his fleet was ready to launch its attack.

His active imagination produced many different varieties of trees. Tall trees, short trees, wide trees, narrow trees, burnt trees, purple trees and more whipped past his vision.

What kind of tree did he want to grow?

How should he develop his design philosophy?

He truly wasn't sure.

It was easy for him to visualize the trees of other mech designers such as Ketis, Master Olson and Professor Ventag. Each of their design philosophies already put them on the path to growing a specific tree.

Yet Ves was still confused about the growth of his own one. It was not as if he lacked some solid goals. He just felt that multiple approaches were viable. Either of the two most common trees could become a good fit depending on how he wanted to develop his specialty.

When he woke up in the bed of his stateroom, he came no closer to resolving his doubts. This annoyed him quite a bit, even though Master Willix told him not to overthink this matter.

So far, he believed his development trajectory equated best to a short but wide tree. Though Ves felt a bit doubtful about growing a height-challenged tree, if this was how his specialty in the future, then it was best not to resist this trend.

"Who cares if my tree is short." He muttered under his breath. "The total volume of my tree is not any worse than a tall and narrow tree!"

He rose from his bed and followed his usual morning routine. His grooming bot took exceeding care in shaving off his stubble. Since today was the day that Task Force Predator launched its attack on Ulimo Citadel, Ves wanted to make sure he presented himself at his best!

After enjoying a brief breakfast, he strode to the bridge where Major Verle was already in the process of putting all of the pieces in place.

"Good morning, sir." Verle greeted him. "The Avatars, Sentinels, Battle Criers, Vandals and Swordmaidens are in the process of prepping and launching their mechs for battle. The Penitent Sisters are taking a little longer. The women have wasted too much time on their prayers this morning."

"Huh?"

"Apparently, they wish to gain the Superior Mother's blessing."

Ves chuckled at that. "The Superior Mother is asleep right now. They should try again later."

He sat down at the central seat that Major Verle vacated and watched the bridge officers make their final preparations.

The bridge of the Scarlet Rose was not exactly set up to direct a major battle involving thousands of mechs on both sides. Therefore, after a brief chat with Ves, Major Verle departed to the hangar bay in order to transfer to the much larger Redfeather.

Ves patiently tapped the armrest of his seat. Hundreds of mechs launched into space. More were on their way, though the 'bandwidth' of the carrier sh.i.p.s constrained their launch speed.

As far as the Black Cats were aware of, the Dry Snakes and their underlings were capable of fielding up to 4300 mechs, though their variability was great. The greatest source of uncertainty came from the newly-erected Ulimo Militia which gathered a number of previously-independent pirate outfits.

The Mirror Raiders had become a part of the Ulimo Militia as well. It was one of the major reasons why the Larkinson Clan gained greater access to the pirate stronghold's defenses.

As for the Task Force Predator, the Avatars, Sentinels, Battle Criers, Vandals and Swordmaidens were only able to muster around 1300 mechs.

Of course, this did not take into account the Penitent Sisters. They had suffered the fewest losses of any mech force so far. Their amazingly resilient mechs bullied every pirate mech they encountered due to their impenetrable defenses.

The only way for pirates to defeat their second-class mechs was to employ their superweapons!

This was why the Black Cats invested several weeks in undermining Ulimo Citadel's defenses.

A few minutes later, Calabast stopped by the bridge. Her black uniform caused a few people to turn their heads, though they quickly went back to their duties.

"Ves. The big day has come. Are you sure you want to proceed with this attack? Once you let your boys loose, you won't be able to go back."

"They aren't my boys. They are the soldiers of our clan. They fight on behalf of every Larkinson."

"Sure. Whatever you say, kid." Calabast crossed her arms. "Though we have managed to infiltrate many sections of Ulimo Citadel, not all of it is completely within our grasp. We cannot rule out the possibility that the pirates are still able to deploy weapons that are powerful enough to wipe out several of our mech companies at once."

Ves let out a deep breath. "I'm aware of the risks. I take responsibility for whatever consequence we suffer. I'm happy as long as we win this battle without losing the majority of our mech pilots."

In fact, even Task Force Predator lost 90 percent of its mech pilots, Ves could still live with the results!

He mainly wanted to preserve the expert candidates of his clan as well as some other key figures such as the Ingvar siblings and Dietrich.

As for everyone else, they were largely expendable in his eyes. Their lives and deaths only saddened him on a general basis. He doubted whether he would shed an actual tear.

The bigger reason why he wanted to avoid losing most of the lives of his clansmen was because he wanted to retain his standing in the clan.

It would become very hard to retain his position as clan patriarch if his decisions directly led to the deaths of more than a thousand Larkinsons!

Ves could easily imagine that more than 80 percent of the Larkinson Assembly would vote to strip him from his title!

Therefore, Ves was making a huge gamble right now.

Succeed, and his Larkinson Clan would be able to grow leaps and bounds after getting bloodied in a major battle.

Fail, and he would become subject to an incredible amount of condemnation. Regardless of how much money his design work generated for the clan, no amount of money was worth suffering such an immense amount of losses!

"This might be a good time to hold a speech." Calabast suggested. "While our mech pilots are already prepared to fight a tough and dangerous opponent, it helps to remind them what they are fighting for. We aren't an army defending our homes and family, you know. We are about to launch an unprovoked attack against strong and vicious pirates. While they doubtlessly deserve to get beaten, it's not our business to do the Big Two's dirty work."

She had a point. A speech might not make a big difference, but any improvement was welcome. If his Larkinsons fought a little bit harder, the pirates might collapse a bit earlier!

"Comms, please open a channel to every ship. I want to speak to every single Larkinson in the fleet."

It didn't take much time to set up the address. Thousands of projections of Ves appeared in front of the faces of every single Larkinson.

The clan patriarch, wearing his red-and-white patriarch uniform, had stood up from his seat and faced every Larkinson that was about to take part in the upcoming battle, whether directly or indirectly.

"Larkinsons." He began. "Today is the day we fight our most challenging battle to date. Think of who we fought to get here. Davy's Ghosts. The Rust Grinders. The Mountain Kings. The Crona Lords. All of these pirate groups and more have put up a fight against our clan, to no avail. Not even the powerful Allidus Alliance with their elite Allidus Archons managed to stop our rampage!"

Every Larkinson who listened to Ves felt proud at the mention of the defeated pirate groups. Task Force Predator did not disappoint its name! The Larkinsons eagerly hunted every pirate in their way.

Ves continued to speak.

"We have grown far beyond our initial battle against Davy's Ghosts. Do any of you still recall the disappointing performance of the rookies of the Living Sentinels? The leaderless mob of pirates almost managed to swarm our rookies to death!"

A lot of Larkinsons chuckled at the mention of this embarrassing event. If Ves spoke these words a month ago, he would have probably attracted a lot of animosity.

Not anymore. Even the rookie Sentinels joined in the laughter.

Each of them had grown immensely after learning that harsh lesson. They rookies quickly gained experience over the course of successive battles against pirates. Every other Larkinsons aside from the elite and battle-hardened veterans grew immensely over the course of just a couple of months.

If the Larkinson Clan went on this excursion, it would have taken years to come even close to reaching its current level of battle readiness!

In a way, Ves had already reached his goal of turning every Larkinson mech pilot into a bloodied soldier.

"Each of you has grown stronger. Our mechs may have remained the same, but our combat strength has soared! What makes us different from any other comparable organization is our willingness to fight!"

He raised his fist to emphasize his point!

"We are not cowards who shy away from battle as much as possible. Each of you have come with me to the Nyxian Gap, braving pirates and anomalies alike. Now, I ask you to prove your valor once more! Are you willing?!"

"YES!"

Thousands of Larkinsons roared their response! Voices echoed in the compartments and halls of every single Larkinson ship!

Ves grinned. "Good! I am proud to hear your eagerness to demolish the Nyxian pirates once again! Not only will we remove cancer from society, we will also be able to obtain an immense amount of plunder if we win! I promise you now that every single participant of this battle will be rewarded for their contributions. No matter the outcome of this battle, as long as we make it back, I promise to waive the cost of acquiring your first second-class gene mod template and implant! While it might take a lot of time to ensure that each of you will receive your augmentations, none of you will have to pay any hex credits or Larkinson merits to improve yourselves!"

If the earlier roar had shaken the sh.i.p.s, the ecstatic cries that erupted after he made his promise had metaphorically shaken the vessels to pieces!

No one despised this gift!

None of the Larkinsons wanted to refuse this golden offer!

To many of them, second-class implants were still out of their reach. It cost hundreds of Larkinson merits to obtain a decent set, and most clansmen needed at least a decade or two to acc. the required merits!

To obtain them for free was an immensely generous gift that instantly supercharged the fighting spirit of every single Larkinson!

Ves unabashedly grinned. Forget about using empty words and platitudes to motivate his clansmen.

In his opinion, the best way to ensure they would do their best was to dangle an immensely juicy carrot in front of their faces!

Though he would certainly regret making this promise afterwards, he believed this investment was ultimately worth it. By empowering the participants of this excursion, the clan directly strengthened the capabilities of its most courageous and battle eager Larkinsons!

In the medium and long term, the braver Larkinsons would gain more prominence over the more cautious and risk-averse clansmen. This ensured that the people who were more aligned to his ideology eventually dominated the middle and upper levels of the Larkinson Clan in the future!

His expensive promise also sent out a signal to the entire clan that taking risks and enduring hardsh.i.p.s would always be rewarded. A proper Larkinson should be proactive rather than reactive.

"Now prepare to fight, my Larkinsons! Fight for your clan! Fight for your fellow Larkinsons! Fight for yourself, because each and every one of you will achieve greatness! This is my promise!"

Chapter 2290 - The Battle of Ulimo Citadel

Almost two-thousand mechs advanced towards the outer perimeter of Ulimo Citadel.

The Larkinson Clan did not hide their approach. The energy signatures of so many spaceborn mechs advancing at once could not be hidden. Though the asteroids and complicated environment of Maynard Fields helped cover up their emissions, it wouldn't be long before the Dry Snakes and its subordinate groups discovered that something was amiss!

Still, no alarms began to ring as the Larkinson mechs flew closer and closer.

In order to mitigate the potential losses stemming from getting attacked by a nuclear mine or other destructive area weapon, the Larkinson Clan opted to utilize dispersed formations this time.

While that made it difficult for the mechs to support each other, there was no serious downside as long as the pirate mechs did not come close.

The last thing Ves and the Larkinsons wanted to see was a powerful detonation annihilating several mech companies at once!

Therefore, the various mech forces approaching the outer defenses of Ulimo Citadel resembled a swarm.

Initially, the swarm moved forth in unison, but at a certain point, it began to split up. Several splinters diverged from each other and headed towards specific coordinates.

What was even stranger was that a small transport and a number of shuttles tagged along these splinters as well. The units that had received special orders did not entirely consist of mechs!

Commander Orfan piloted a spearman mech and led one of these units. Hundreds of mechs of the Flagrant Vandals and other forces obeyed her orders, though so far she merely followed a prescribed plan.

None of her usual levity could be seen from her today. Attacking Ulimo Citadel was a difficult endeavor that relied on many events to go right. The clan drafted an elaborate, multi-step plan to dismantle the threats of Ulimo Citadel and the pirates who reigned over it. If even a single step didn't go as planned, hundreds of Larkinsons might die!

Such responsibility weighed heavily on her. In fact, she harbored quite a lot of misgivings about this operation.

It was one thing to smash some regular pirates.

It was another thing to attack pirates who possessed enough superweapons to wipe out entire cities at once!

None of the mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan felt safe in their fragile machines. As the clan continued to prosper, more and more mech pilots felt as if their cheap, low-specced machines were no longer suitable to them. They deserved to pilot better, especially when they heard that the LMC earned more than a trillion hex credits in the past couple of months!

Sadly, the timing wasn't right and many mech pilots still needed time to obtain the right qualifications.

Only the expert candidates and the Avatars assigned to the Bright Warriors possessed a little bit more confidence.

The iconic mech of the Larkinson Clan may just be a bridge mech, but its defense was superb! It might just be possible for the mechs to survive getting hit by a weaker superweapon!

That said, the clan only outfitted a couple of Avatar mech companies with Bright Warriors. The Commander Orfan and her Flagrant Vandals only had to make do with their old lastgen military mech models.

"I have to get ahold of Ves or Major Verle and tell them to replace our old mechs as soon as possible!"

With the growing wealth of the Larkinson Clan, even Orfan could see that fielding third-class mechs became less relevant over time.

Attracted by the power and majesty of second-class mechs, every mech pilot who joined the clan urgently trained to obtain the qualifications to pilot these powerful machines!

Their need became even greater once they entered the Nyxian Gap. The casualties they suffered could have been reduced if they piloted better mechs!

Therefore, almost every Larkinson mech pilot trained or studied earnestly whenever they were awake. They craved fighting actual battles and pirates because they improved by leaps and bounds. Each time they fought a serious battle, they discovered their shortcomings. They were also able to validate their newly-acquired skills and polish them even further in the furnace of battle.

Commander Orfan was fairly proud of her Vandals. Even though they consisted of average Brighter military mech pilots, their discipline and training was superior to most of the mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan.

Hopefully, her new bosses would recognize their strength and provide them with new machines once they returned to civilized space. If not, she was more than willing to raise hell to stand up for the interests of her fellow Vandals!

"Commander, we're approaching our target." A Vandal mech captain spoke. "The vault we are heading towards is currently guarded by around three mech companies, of which two are on standby. We expect their long-ranged sensors to detect us within five minutes. As for the vault defenses… hehe, if the Black Cats have done their job, we can easily take their vault!"

"What forces are we up against?"

"So far, two of the mech companies are from the Dry Snakes. The third one appears to be from Farmund's Own."

"Understood."

Commander Orfan did not ask about the fixed defenses of the vault. Even though the pirates built enough turrets and other protective measures to resist or stall the advance of hundreds of mechs, none of the pirates knew that those base defenses were completely compromised!

While it was challenging for the Black Cats to sabotage the core defensive systems of Ulimo Citadel, the vaults that held a lot of destructive weapons were different.

Grand Protector Roshaw, the pirate lord that reigned over Ulimo, personally ordered the construction of these outlying vaults to remove the risk of Ulimo getting blown up by nefarious actors.

The upside was this measure did as advertised. Even if a couple of nuclear bombs exploded, the only loss the pirates suffered was a lot of superweapons. The Dry Snakes were more than willing to compensate for any losses suffered by their customers.

The downside was that it was a c. chore to protect these outer positions!

The necessity to place them far away from the Citadel meant that it was difficult to guard them around the clock!

In ordinary times, only a single mech company guarded every vault. With the formidable array of base defenses, any enemy that wanted to mess with a vault would face stiff resistance, thereby buying time for the main garrison to dispatch a relief force from the main pirate stronghold.

Ever since the Dry Snakes smelled trouble, they tripled the garrisons of the vaults. This provided the pirates with even greater guarantees. They also dispatched numerous more technicians and specialists to keep an extra close eye on their defense systems.

Yet no matter how much the pirates wanted to cover all of their vaults, they couldn't afford to spread their forces so thin!

In addition, the pirates themselves may be frightened by the threat of the Larkinson Clan, but they were not very disciplined and difficult to control!

Hardly any pirate could maintain their focus and remain alert for several weeks. Many of the pirates began to grow lazy and sloppy, and they no longer strictly adhered to protocol.

For these reasons, the mech companies garrisoned at the vaults adopted a simple three-shift rotation. Every eight standard hours, a different mech company deployed into space.

As for the rest? They either slept or had some fun!

This was why by the time the defenders of one of the vaults noticed the approach of Commander Orfan's detachment, no other mechs deployed from the hangar built next to the vault!

"Storm the vault! Don't let the pirates mess with the goods!"

More than a hundred charged forward while some other mechs followed at a slower pace.

The mechs that moved on ahead consisted entirely of melee mechs. The sight of so many eager mechs charging forward caused the currently-deployed pirates to quiver.

Their forty pirate mechs would never be able to block so many enemies!

"Wake up the other boys!" A pirate officer cried, panic suffusing his stimulant-addled body! "What the heck are our turrets doing? Shoot them already! Why aren't our missile banks firing any volleys? What has happened to our Judgement Lasers?"

In recent months, the Allidus Alliance supplied Ulimo Citadel with a batch of powerful warship-grade laser cannons. The Dry Snakes opted to mount the Judgement Lasers on a couple of sh.i.p.s while installing the rest at their various vaults.

The firepower of these Judgement Lasers should have been enough to blunt the enemy advance!

It wasn't the fault of the operators. Instructed by their superiors, they frequently inspected their weapon systems. They performed diagnostics at least several times a day and even test-fired their weapons if it wasn't too costly.

So far, every single weapon and superweapon worked as advertised.

Yet as soon as the operators wanted to bring their weapon systems to bear against the approaching Larkinsons, their systems suddenly shut down entirely!

"We've been hacked!"

"Switch to backup systems!"

"It's not working! Our backups have been hacked as well!"

"Damnit! Why didn't we find out sooner?!"

The pirates discovered to their horror that the tampering was more devious than they thought!

It wasn't actually difficult to disable the key systems of a weapon system. What was truly challenging was to tamper with them in a way to keep them functional until the key moment arrived. All the while, the tampering had to remain hidden, lest the pirates find out and fix the issue!

"Switch to emergency manual operation! I don't care if we have to eyeball our aim, just get our weapons firing as soon as possible!"

As more and more operators began to bypass the compromised electronic systems of their weapon platforms, a hidden command suddenly activated.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Various defensive systems blew up and became engulfed by explosions as systems overloaded, explosive ordnance detonated in their racks and smaller precision explosives wrecked a lot of key systems!

Hundreds of average pirate operators were swept away by the destructive fury. The few who survived were stunned by what had happened and completely lost their nerves!

Over eighty percent of the vault defenses succ. to sabotage! The few laser turrets that began to attack the incoming Larkinson mechs soon attracted a heavy response from the attackers!

Upon Commander Orfan's command, her ranged mechs fired all of their guns at the surviving base defenses.

Though they were protected by a large amount of Kavenit-based armor, the fact that they were completely stationary made it easy for the Larkinsons to concentrate their fire!

The ranged mechs of the Larkinson Clan all linked their firing systems together. Through automating their aim, the ranged mechs all fired their weapons at very specific targets with pinpoint accuracy.

Such an extreme degree of concentration of fire meant that much of the armor protecting the defensive systems hardly played a role. With hundreds of laser beams and physical projectiles brought to bear at the same target, a lot of holes were rapidly being drilled in quick succession!

At this time, the melee mechs also ran over the active pirate mechs. Dry Snakes or not, their admittedly decent mechs simply couldn't withstand more than a hundred well-trained Larkinson mech pilots paired with higher-quality mechs.

"Additional enemy mechs are sorting from the hangar bay!"

"You know what to do. Stop them before they all manage to deploy!" Commander Orfan barked.

A few squads of Vandal mechs intercepted the new arrivals while some cannoneer mechs brought their ballistic cannons to bear at the hangar bay.

The cannoneer mechs fired their large guns, propelling specially-prepared explosive shells at their targets!

The weak energy screen that protected the opening succ. after a single impact. Subsequent shells flew straight through and exploded in the large interior!

Numerous mech technicians and mech pilots in the open died with each explosion! The cannoneer mechs did not relent and continued to fire into the hangar, spreading death and destruction to such a powerful extent that no more pirate mechs launched into space!

With the mechs and base defenses of the vault taken out, Commander Orfan sighed in relief. Fortunately, none of the big weapons ever had a chance to fire.

"Commander, our sensors are detecting massed pirate mechs approaching our position! ETA four minutes!"

"Reform our mechs and stall them as best as possible. Tell me if additional pirates are on the way."

Now that the Larkinsons neutralized most of the pirate defenders, the shuttles and transports began to approach the vault. Armored infantry exited the shuttles and began to sweep up the panicked and demoralized pirates inside the vault complex!

Meanwhile, a well-protected team of engineers and weapon operators emerged from the transports. A number of bots also began to unload some heavy hardware such as power generators.

Their goal was clear. The Larkinsons wanted to breach the vault and take over as many superweapons as possible in order to use them against their former owners!

"What a crazy plan!" Orfan uttered.

Chapter 2291 - Superweapon Bonanza

Even though the Larkinsons had good cause, it was still illegal for them to break the taboo on weapons of mass destruction.

This was an absolute rule, and one the Big Two had never compromised on. Even when Ves pleaded to Master Willix to give him permission to employ these destructive weapons, it turned out that she lacked the authority to consent to such a controversial request!

Still, many of those superweapons were very potent. Turning some of them against Ulimo Citadel would definitely make it easier to breach the main stronghold's defense network.

Ves pushed on regardless. Eventually, Master Willix promised to advocate on his behalf to an upper administrator at Centerpoint.

Whoever she talked to, Master Willix eventually returned to Ves with an offer.

"The MTA is ready to grant this exception to you on a temporary basis, but only at a heavy price."

"How much?" Ves asked.

"2,000,000 MTA merits."

"That much?!"

"This is a reasonable price considering the consequences of this decision. This price is non-negotiable, Mr. Larkinson!"

Surrendering 2 million MTA merits just to be able to make use of every superweapon they captured from the pirates was almost unbearable to Ves! The only reason why he didn't reject this insane demand was because he knew that it was an investment.

Of all of the taboo weapons at Ulimo Citadel that the Black Cats had tallied so far, the estimated merit bounty of them far surpassed this sum of merits!

Ves briefly entertained the notion of turning down the MTA's offer. Without permission, the Larkinson Clan risked annihilation if they still decided to make use of the pirate-owned superweapons. He could never take such a reckless decision.

As for setting the powerful superweapons aside, that was not in his consideration!

The pirates played dirty and possessed too many advantages.

"I… agree." Ves eventually decided. "Can I make another request as well?"

Ves and Master Willix eventually forged a deal that greatly increased Task Force Predator's chances of victory.

Though Ves instantly lost more than half of the merits he acc. up to this point, he believed it was worth it. The potential gains of conquering Ulimo Citadel would allow him to recoup his investment several times over while suffering much less losses.

Still, obtaining a temporary pass from the MTA was not enough. Ves had to put a lot of effort into convincing his fellow clansmen to hijack and make use of prohibited weapons!

Breaking taboos was as easy as shaving his stubble to Ves. In contrast, many other clansmen had grown up with the taboos ingrained in their very souls. It was very difficult for them to accept the notion of making use of prohibited weapons, even if they only intended to use them against the sc.u.m of the galaxy.

Fortunately, Ves possessed a lot of clout and authority within the clan. As long as he pressed hard enough, enough clansmen volunteered to taint their hands. Of course, they received plenty of bonuses such as Larkinson merits for their trouble.

The vault, though well-protected, opened up without a fuss. The Black Cats had already thoroughly hacked the security systems as well as the fail safes with the help of Lucky.

Once they gained access to the contents of the vault, these weapon techs directed various heavy-duty lifter bots or other transportation vehicles to take out a select number of superweapons.

Most of them consisted of bombs and missiles. The Larkinsons retrieved only a couple of warship-grade laser cannons because there weren't that many stored in the vault. Instead, the Dry Snakes usually made other arrangements for them since most of these heavy weapons were mounted on starsh.i.p.s.

At this time, the main stronghold went on full alert! The Dry Snakes and their allies finally faced the threat they had been preparing for all of these weeks.

Even though Grand Protector Roshaw had heard about the formidable sabotage abilities of the Larkinson Clan, he never expected the vault defenses to fail so extensively.

His grand coat decked with expensive exotic-laden trophies shook as he realized that his pirate stronghold might actually fall today!

"This is impossible!" One of his pirate officers responsible for setting up the defenses stated. "Our men have checked those systems over and over! It shouldn't have been possible to tamper with them to such an extent that they failed right when those bastards decided to launch their attack!"

"They managed to succeed regardless." Roshaw angrily grumbled. His men were already in disarray due to the huge failure in preventing the Larkinsons from taking over their outer vaults! "You promised that our defenses would hold. You failed."

Before the pirate officer could offer any further excuses, the leader of the Dry Snakes pulled out a resplendent-looking hand cannon and shot the man in the head!

Bang!

Grand Protector Roshaw may have become old, but he was still a pirate! His furious eyes raked over his other subordinates, but none of them wanted to attract his ire.

"Inspect every single defensive system and other critical systems." The Grand Protector commanded. "Preemptively load every hardware and software backup that can be applied in thirty minutes. If any of you fail me to this extent, your fate will be the same!"

The pirates inside the main base entered into an even greater frenzy! At the restricted sections that the Mirror Raiders failed to penetrate, the highly loyal Dry Snakes weapon operators each checked and reconfigured their respective defensive systems.

Others began to gear up and ready themselves for a difficult fight.

The Mirror Raiders were no exception! The Dry Snakes ordered them to deploy their two mech companies and join the rest of the loosely-organized Ulimo Militia.

Of course, the Dry Snakes did not trust the members of the hastily-formed militia force entirely. The Mirror Raiders were stationed far away from any core Ulimo positions.

None of the disguised Larkinsons minded this assignment. Lieutenant-Commander Abis, Lieutenant Sendra and Dietrich all entered their pirate mechs and obediently followed the arrangements of their supposed pirate overlords.

In order to discourage any trouble, the various mech outfits that had chosen to join the Ulimo Militia had to split up their mechs by squads. This caused the Mirror Raiders to be unable to keep all of their mechs together.

As for the non-mech pilots of the Mirror Raiders, the pirate authorities made different arrangements for them. This was why Ketis, who was ostensibly just a powerful bodyguard, was put on pacification duty. Her job was to keep the civilians in the public marketplace contained and in control.

She was hoping to do more. The time wasn't right, but she already looked forward to unsheathing her cutlass and cutting her way through every opposition!

Time passed as the Larkinsons and the pirates both prepared for the second round of fighting.

So far, the pirates completely failed to prevent the attackers from overwhelming the vaults!

Their unexpectedly rapid collapse not only led to the death or capture of many weapon operators and technical personnel, but also caused the pirates to lose around 360 mechs at once!

The latter was a painful loss, as that meant the pirate defenders were only left with around 3900 mechs!

The huge setback caused Grand Protector Roshaw to recall the relief forces that were making their way to the vaults. It had already become clear that it was a mistake to split his forces up, because he recognized that the Larkinson mechs were superior on an individual basis!

It was at this time that the Larkinsons unscrupulously began to make use of the superweapons they retrieved from the vaults!

In contrast, the pirates were only able to bring a portion of their base defenses online. Several defensive networks and enormous base cannons failed to initiate as the software of these weapons rebelled!

Due to various limitations, only a small proportion of base defenses experienced hardware failures.

Of course, several critical defensive systems remained untouched. After performing some extensive checks, their operators immediately attempted to bring their weapons to bear against the enemies within reach!

At this time, it was extremely dangerous for any mech to be out in the open.

The mechs of both sides therefore withdrew from the line of sight of any destructive superweapon and huddled behind some of the larger asteroids floating around in the region.

The vulnerable machines moved just in time to escape the first exchange of blows!

More than a dozen warship-grade laser beams instantly impacted the conquered vaults! The Dry Snakes were very proud of their Judgement Lasers. Each of them possessed the power to take out a second-class mech with a single full-powered blow.

"Taste our Ghostring missiles!"

Hundreds of missiles launched into space. Some of them bore conventional warheads, but at least a handful of them hosted nuclear warheads!

Due to some clever means, it was difficult to identify which missile contained an enhanced payload.

Even so, the Larkinsons were already prepared. Their ranged mechs peeked out from behind their asteroids to intercept as many missiles as possible.

The Penitent Sister ranged mechs performed the best! Their superior targeting systems and splitting laser beams caused them to take out at least seven missiles per shot!

"Hahahaha! Is that your best?!"

Asteroids continued to bear more and more marks of catastrophic laser impacts. It did not matter. There were so many asteroids floating around in Maynard Fields that the Larkinson mechs simply flew behind another one if their current rock was starting to look shaky.

The Larkinson weapon techs quickly brought more and more weapon systems online. While they were very cautious about employing the warship laser cannons they retrieved from the vault, they were much more haphazard when it came to launching other weapons!

Since much of the weapons in the vault were made by various pirate groups, their diversity was great.

Missiles with varying nuclear and other dangerous payloads launched towards the defenses of Ulimo Base.

Various turrets and thousands of pirate mechs urgently intercepted the incoming ordnance! Though their accuracy was not as good as that of the Larkinsons, their superior numbers along with the reduced amount of missiles from the vaults caused Ulimo Citadel to remain unaffected.

Dozens of radial explosions soon filled up the surrounding space. Though many of the nuclear missiles had been shot to pieces without triggering their dangerous payloads, other ones still managed to explode midway, throwing up lots of energy and interference in the areas between the vaults and the main stronghold!

"Ahh! Our sensors are frizzing up! We're firing blind!"

As more and more nuclear and exotic ordnance silently turned a patch of space into hell, the pirate sensor systems became less and less able to distinguish what went on. They could only fire their weapons at fixed locations.

The Larkinsons suffered from this problem as well, but only up to an extent. They already accounted for this outcome and made preparations accordinarily. They deployed purpose-built sensor arrays, spread out a huge network of electronic eyes in every direction and borrowed the powerful sensor systems of the Penitent Sisters to pierce past the expanding interference field!

More missiles and powerful lasers continued to fire from both sides. What was different was that the pirates failed to hit anything important while the Larkinsons accurately brought their hijacked superweapons to bear against the fixed weapon emplacements!

Numerous Judgement Lasers collapsed as deadly laser beams and tactical nuclear missiles succeeded in taking them out!

The threat of the pirates rapidly diminished as their functional superweapons became less and less. Grand Protector Roshaw looked distressed as Ulimo Citadel rapidly lost their most powerful form of protection!

Unfortunately, the party for the Larkinsons did not last long. The vaults did not carry that many superweapons. They quickly exhausted the stolen missiles. The huge laser cannons also succ. as they couldn't avoid exposing their locations after firing huge, linear laser beams.

Though many of the weapon operators anticipated this outcome and did their best to control the weapon systems by remote, more than a hundred of them still lost their lives!

The second round had passed. The Larkinsons exhausted all of their stolen superweapons, but the price had been worth it. Ulimo Citadel only retained a fraction of their most threatening arsenal!

Grand Protector Roshaw looked grave as Ulimo Citadel began to get stripped apart piece by piece.

Even so, the pirates still managed to retain all of their mechs and enough defenses to keep putting up a fight.

The pirates also retained another trump card. Roshaw began to clench his fist. "If I resort to this option… I'll have to give up everything."

If possible, he didn't want to resort to his final option until there was no other choice!

Chapter 2292 - Lopsided Firefight

In the first and second round of fighting, thousands of people had already died!

The pirates suffered the brunt of the casualties. Almost their entire garrisons at the outer vaults had died. The Larkinson infantrymen didn't have the time or leisure to take too many captives.

More pirates died at the main stronghold. Many of the destructive weapon systems that the Dry Snakes brought to bear against the Larkinsons were crewed by specially-trained pirates.

When the weapons they operated got struck by massive overpowering lasers or a tactical nuclear missile, the people around them usually died as well!

Screams echoed throughout several locations on the moon-sized asteroid as they became awash with destructive heat and energy.

Fortunately for the pirates, they built their critical base areas deeper underground. Most of the superweapons failed to threaten Ulimo Citadel proper.

In the lull that ensued, the Larkinson Clan already moved on to the next step. They spread their mechs around. Their ranged mechs continued to use the surrounding asteroids as cover as they fired their weapons at the known pirate superweapon positions that survived the previous exchange of fire.

Though their weapons weren't so exaggeratingly powerful, the Larkinson mechs slowly whittled away at the remaining intact superweapons.

From the start, the Larkinsons always focused on taking out the most destructive options available to the pirates!

There was no way they could accomplish anything else unless almost every single superweapon was taken off the board!

It took a lot of effort to remove the remainder of the superweapons. Even if the pirates held a couple of Judgement Lasers and Ghostring missile launchers back, the Larkinsons possessed detailed intelligence of the precise locations of every weapon emplacement, exposed or not. Any plot to keep them hidden until the Larkinson mechs came closer were dashed!

Thousands of ranged pirate mechs did not remain idle. As soon as the Larkinsons hijacked the vaults, they received orders to fire at any exposed enemy mechs.

It was difficult to pick off the Larkinson mechs. There was so much distance between the main base and the outlying vaults that roaming asteroids frequently blocked their line of sight.

The same could not be said for the Larkinson mechs. Ulimo presented a wealth of targets.

In contrast, the pirate mechs huddling behind their starsh.i.p.s, fortifications or asteroids were having a very hard time hitting anything but empty space or solid cover!

"You blasted sc.u.m! Hit something already!" A pirate liaison screamed in the command channel of the Ulimo Militia.

A squad of Mirror Raider mechs huddled behind a fortified trench the pirates had dug into a stationary asteroid.

Dietrich's generic pirate mech attempted to hit the distant mechs of the Avatars of Myth.

Even though he and his fellow Mirror Raiders purposefully reduced their accuracy to a level typically expected of pirates, they did not dare to miss too often.

Even so, the few laser beams and projectiles that happened to hit a Larkinson mech effectively achieved no result!

He grinned. He attacked the Bright Warrior and Aurora Titan mechs without any guilt. Their defenses were so high that it was extremely unlikely that the Mirror Raiders would be able to kill a single Larkinson!

The Larkinson Clan purposefully exposed their most defensible mechs a bit more. The clansmen trusted in their defenses, and they served as excellent distractions as the few pirate mechs that managed to hit their targets only wasted their energy or ammunition in vain!

Though some of the pirate officers were aware that their ranged mechs were not achieving anything significant, doing something was better than doing nothing!

Grand Protector Roshaw unflinchingly shot any pirate commander who made any decisions that hinted at weakness.

Blam!

Another high-ranked pirate officer lost his head!

"Conserve resources? NONSENSE!" The pirate lord boomed as he brandished his smoking gun at the remaining pirate officers. "We are facing the biggest threat of our lives! Our fellow Nyxian pirates may have scruples, but these outsiders are killers true and true! None of the civilized folk treat us with dignity! The only way to resist their aggression is to show as much fighting spirit as possible! We must demonstrate our conviction to fight to the death!"

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Even though the situation looked dire, the pirates weren't willing to give up! Ulimo Citadel was their home and their stronghold. GIving it up would make everyone homeless!

Surrendering was not an option. Running away wasn't an option either, as the Dry Snakes had already turned on any mech or ship that attempted to flee without authorization!

At a distant asteroid close to one of the conquered and bombed-out aults, the Second Mech Company periodically poked out their Bright Warriors.

The mechs with rifles continued to fire at the targets designated by the command net. Even if they didn't know what they were firing at, the mech pilots pulled the trigger regardless, trusting that the orders and targeting data conveyed by other Larkinsons were sound.

The Bright warriors armed with swords and spears exposed their frames as well. The space knight configuration acted the most conspicuously. Even when the pirates utilized more powerful or unusual weapons such as graser rifles, the thick tower shields resisted most of the damage.

That said, not every pirate mech fired at these conspicuous targets. Occasionally, an unlucky Larkinson mech suffered major damage, which impaired their performance or rendered them battle ineffective right away!

Few Larkinson mech pilots died in this exchange of fire, but losing their mechs signified the end of their participation. Task Force Predator possessed too few backup mechs to give the surviving pilots another opportunity to reenter the battle.

"The battle has slowed down." Imon Ingvar impatiently remarked. "When are we going in? I haven't stabbed a single pirate mech with my sword!"

Out of the four different Bright Warrior configurations, he fell in love with the swordsman mech loadout. Though it lacked the defenses of the space knight configuration or the immense impact of the lancer mech configuration, the swordsman mech offered the greatest play to his abilities in combat.

As for his sister, Captain Casella Ingvar preferred to pilot a rifleman mech configuration. Getting too close to the battle often caused her to lose sight of the bigger picture.

"The plan isn't to advance."

"Huh?! What are you talking about, sis?!"

"Who knows what traps or other tricks the pirates have in reserve. Look at the base. We may have destroyed all of their superweapons, but the pirates still retain plenty of heavily protected turrets and weapon emplacements."

After removing or circ. the faulty software that plagued their conventional defensive systems, the pirates slowly brought their fixed defenses to bear against the attackers.

It took way too much time for the Larkinsons to destroy every single fixed defense system. While none of these weapon emplacements possessed the destructive power of the superweapons that the Larkinsons prioritized right away, their huge volume of fire still deserved a lot of respect!

For this reason, the Larkinsons wanted to entice the pirate mechs to advance from their positions and leave the defensive envelope of Ulimo Citadel.

The pirates weren't fools, though. As much as Grand Protector Roshaw wanted to smash his mechs against the mechs of the Larkinson Clan, he knew that he must resist the temptation and continue to rely on his remaining fixed defenses.

In order to encourage the pirates to abandon their passive posture, the Penitent Sisters finally made a move.

At this point, much of the interference from all of the superweapons had faded. The Larkinson Clan obtained a very detailed understanding of the current positions of enemy mechs.

While most of the Larkinson ranged mechs still directed their firepower towards the stationary turrets and defenses of Ulimo Citadel, the exiled Hexers quickly began to utilize their superior skills and mechs to attack the pirate mechs!

Instantly, the pressure on the pirates increased as hundreds of Penitent Sister mechs fired their second-class rifles and cannons at the pirate mechs regardless of how much cover was in the way!

Whether there were meters of asteroid rock or bulk exotic alloys in the way, the positron beams and gauss rounds made quick work of the obstacles!

Squads of Penitent Sister mechs coordinated their firepower in order to quickly strip a pirate mech of all of their protection. The most devious aspect about their firing patterns was that they did not grant any pirate mech the time to retreat or duck into another cover!

With dozens of high-powered attacks barraging these hapless pirate mechs at once, the pirates quickly lost more than a hundred mechs in a matter of minutes!

The disparity in firepower was incredibly galling to the pirates. If they only had a few superweapons left intact, they could have put up a good fight!

"Sir, we need to go in!" A pirate advisor urged.

"That's exactly what those blasted Larkinsons want us to do! We can't fall into their trap!"

"Diving into their trap is preferable to suffering a slow death!"

Grand Protector Roshaw grew graver and graver. The projections continued to display the drop in numbers. More and more of his mechs were being picked apart by the second-class mechs of the enemy.

"Pull our pirate mechs back."

"What? Are you sure, my lord?"

Up until now, Roshaw ruthlessly squashed anyone who suggested any of the sort. The headless bodies of several unfortunate pirate officers strewn on the deck served as a reminder to everyone that the Grand Protector did not tolerate any cowardice!

Yet strangely enough, the pirate leader changed his mind. Everyone felt mixed at the sudden change.

"Don't question my orders! Pull back our mechs and make sure they are placed behind enough cover to prevent those blasted Hexers mechs from picking off our machines."

While Grand Protector Roshaw still decided to keep his last resort in reserve, he possessed several other options that could potentially turn this situation around.

No matter what, the Dry Snakes reigned over one of the more mineral-rich areas of Maynard Fields! Much like any other local overlord in the Nyxian Gap, the Dry Snakes built a lot of defensive measures. Much of it was in the open, but Roshaw made sure that his pirate group invested at least some resources into other solutions.

"Tell me as soon as our mechs have reached safety. Take this opportunity to replenish their energy and ammunition reserves."

"Yes, my lord!"

The sudden withdrawal of the pirate mechs confused the Larkinsons a bit. Most of them thought that the pirates would either break and run or charge forward out of desperations.

"Are they trying to outlast us? It won't work! Our guns are constantly breaking down their defense networks!"

Several asteroids bore the marks of many weapon impacts. Each of them previously boasted a lot of fixed defenses. Now, most of their guns and weapon batteries only consisted of ruined craters and molten slag.

As long as the Larkinson Clan destroyed every turret and weapon emplacement, the defensive advantage of the pirates would no longer play a meaningful role!

As long as the Larkinsons reduced this battle to a contest between mechs, the pirates would certainly lose!

Back at the Scarlet Rose, Ves began to frown as an unsettling feeling settled over his mind. He became puzzled at this response as well.

"What are the pirates doing? Have we detected any unusual activity?"

"No sir." A bridge officer replied. "We have detected elevated energy signatures or traces of unstable exotics that are typically added to nuclear warheads."

Before Ves could issue another request, the battlefield centered around Ulimo Citadel suddenly changed.

A huge black sphere spread out from the moon-sized asteroid and expanded across many kilometers! The surrounding asteroids were each engulfed by the wave of blackness until they swept over every Larkinson and Penitent Sister mech!

"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!" Ves stood up from his chair. "REPORT!"

"Sir, according to our sensors, an atypical anomaly has swept over the battlefield! Both the pirates and our combat forces are isolated from our fleet!"

Ves couldn't believe what had happened! This was definitely not a coincidence! The pirates had somehow managed to summon an artificial anomaly!

Chapter 2293 - Unnatural Darkness

The Battle of Ulimo Citadel took an unexpected turn!

Somehow, the Nyxian pirates caused the besieged stronghold and a wide area around it to become engulfed in an anomalous hazard!

While Ves, the Black Cats and the other analysts of the Larkinson Clan guessed that the pirates might resort to drastic measures, this was something else. Who knew that the Dry Snakes were crazy enough to call upon the most fearsome phenomenon of the Nyxian Gap.

Ves and the Larkinson Clan had never encountered such a drastic means of flipping the board!

For a few seconds on the bridge of the Scarlet Rose, everyone looked shocked as the main visuals depicted an ominous, shadowy sphere enveloping the entire battlefield.

It was as if some incomprehensible monster took a bite out of space!

Horror and confusion began to spread throughout the sh.i.p.s and the few hundred mechs that the Larkinson Clan kept in reserve.

"What is going on?!"

"Are.. are they gone? Just like this?"

"We have lost all communications with the units engulfed in the unknown anomaly!"

"We need to rescue our brothers right away!"

"Don't panic! Everything can be explained!"

Throughout the fleet, the hundreds of scientists and engineers attempted to interpret the confusing sensor data. The sensor readings made little sense, as most of the sensors had never been designed to observed such an abnormal phenomenon to begin with! What had happened exceeded the Larkinson Clan's comprehension by a huge margin!

Ves joined the frenzy as well. Even though he did not specialize in astrophysics or any other field related to spatial phenomena, he tried his best to decipher what was going on. It was too bad that he failed to spot a discernable pattern that he could use to figure out this anomaly!

For several minutes, Task Force Predator attempted various moves. Several sh.i.p.s dispatched small, disposable drones and sent them through the sphere.

They were never heard from again. The connection to the drones cut off. Even when these devices received instructions to leave the sphere immediately afterwards, somehow each of them failed to emerge from the anomaly.

"What about sending a ship? Maybe we can still maintain contact through the quantum entanglement node."

"Are you stupid?!" A chief engineer spat. "Many anomalies in the Nyxian Gap completely garble the connection between quantum entangled particles!"

Though more clansmen began to suggest they should enter the anomalous region in order to rescue their trapped compatriots, the risks were far too great to make such a reckless move. Sending in the entire fleet might potentially doom Task Force Predator entirely!

What puzzled Ves was how the pirates could possibly have such a trump card in reserve. After several weeks of probing and infiltration, the Black Cats should have figured most if not all of the strengths of Ulimo Citadel.

How could they have missed something as dramatic as this move!?

He decided to call the leader of the Black Cats.

Her projection depicted a spymaster who was out of her comfort zone. She looked devoid of her usual poise, and her customary smirk was nowhere to be seen.

"Calabast! What is going on!?"

"We are investigating the circ. . Prior to our attack, we truly haven't found any indications that the Dry Snakes or their subordinate forces are capable of evoking an anomalous hazard on command. We have even researched every independent pirate outfit for abnormal capabilities, but as far as we know, they are all ordinary."

"Have you investigated any other unusual people or organizations at Ulimo?" Ves pressed.

"We have, but none of them appear capable of evoking such a huge movement."

Her answer didn't satisfy him at all. Frustration welled in him as he was lacking a huge amount of answers. The longer this anomaly stayed active, the greater the chance that he would lose most if not every mech deployed into battle.

If it came down to it, losing thousands of mechs was an acceptable price. Though Ves valued mechs a lot as a principle, they were built for a purpose. He could always build new machines as long as he gained access to some production facilities in the Nyxian Gap.

What truly pained him was the prospect losing the lives of the mech pilots who were trapped inside the anomaly!

Such a huge loss not only meant that Task Force Predator would permanently lose a lot of battle strength. This would make it very difficult for the fleet to defend itself against vengeful pirates.

In addition, Ves would have huge pressure in the clan if he returned to civilized space with just a fraction of his fighting forces. His young and fragile clan would not be able to stomach such a heavy blow!

As he kept staring at the boiling sphere of darkness and shadows, Ves suddenly made a small realization.

How did the pirates manage to evoke such a big anomaly in the first place?

Through technology? Unlikely!

Not even the Big Two could make heads or tails of them. Otherwise, they would have swept the entire Nyxian Gap clean of pirates by now! Their warfleets wouldn't have chosen to avoid this dangerous region like the plague!

Ever since the previous incident, Ves hypothesized that anomalies in the material realm might be tied to activity in the imaginary realm.

This meant that this anomaly might have been evoked through spiritual means!

Ves briefly ignored Calabast and everything else and concentrated his mind. He projected a part of his consciousness in the imaginary realm.

"Ah!"

As expected, something new had appeared in the imaginary realm! An identical dark sphere had appeared. The corrosive winds that spun in the motion of the huge vortex seemed to crash against the sphere before parting aside. The nature of this anomaly was different than the one that appeared in the previous incident!

Unfortunately, this didn't really help him that much. He cautiously attempted to probe the sphere in the imaginary realm, only to feel that he had completely lost contact with the tiny spiritual projection he sent inside.

The phenomenon in the imaginary realm seemed to behave identical to the phenomenon in the material realm!

The two were unquestionably tied together!

Ves began to grow suspicious as he retracted his concentration.

"Calabast.. have you performed any investigations on the cults and religions in Ulimo Citadel?"

Her projection blinked. "We have, but their footprint isn't big. The typical church or cult has only attracted a few dozen to a hundred worshippers in the public marketplace section. The Dry Snakes and its subordinate pirate groups aren't religious in nature."

"The quantity or presence of the religious organization isn't important. Which one has the biggest or most mysterious background?"

Calabast briefly ran through the gathered intelligence. "Of all of the known cults in Ulimo, the Hallowed Abyss Temple is the most mysterious and influential. They occupy a small shrine in the most coveted area of Ulimo's public section. From what we have gathered, the local branch of the Hallowed Abyss Temple is highly insular and doesn't amount to more than nine members."

"Tell me more about the Hallowed Abyss Temple."

"While their presence here is small, the cult is known to have a wide reach. Their priests and shrines can be found in many pirate bases. Some of them even set up shop aboard large pirate sh.i.p.s!"

This sounded more and more suspicious to Ves. Even Calabast began to realize that there might be more to the Hallowed Abyss Temple.

"Where do they come from? Where is the Hallowed Abyss Temple based?"

"It's said that their physical temple is actually located deep in the core regions. This is in line with their religious beliefs The so-called Abyssal Servants do not fear the Nyxian Gap and all of its unknown phenomena. Instead, the cultists worship it. They believe the Nyxian Gap is not a cancerous tumor, but instead a sacred blessing bestowed by their mysterious 'Dark Gods'."

That didn't sound good!

The more he heard about this cult, the more Ves grew certain about this guess!

Ves not only suspected that the Hallowed Abyss Temple may be responsible for calling down the anomaly, but also guessed that it might be another splinter organization of the Five Scrolls Compact!

If the Hallowed Abyss Temple was truly based in the depths of the core regions, then it shouldn't be too far away from the mysterious regional headquarters of the Compact.

From his prior experiences, Ves already knew that the powerful Compact possessed a penchant of starting up numerous seemingly-unconnected daughter organizations. This was one of the methods they used to coverly expand their influence and reach without triggering the Big Two's vigilance.

Back in the Faris Star Region, Ves once experienced the weirdness surrounding the Church of Haatumak.

Now that he thought about it, the Hallowed Abyss Temple bore some resemblance to the Church of Haatumak! It was as if some leader in the Compact reused the same model but adapted it to a different environment!

"Goddamn cultists!" Ves cursed.

Even though he made some very important realizations, that didn't mean he found a solution to the calamity that had descended on his mech troops.

Not everyone possessed his understanding of the spiritual nature of this anomaly.

The more the Larkinsons figured out, the more helpless they felt. Despair began to spread throughout the fleet as they began to fear the worst!

Within the anomalous region, each person trapped inside began to feel an unnerving pressure on their minds.

Strangely enough, those within the main base experienced something different than those trapped outside in space.

Those who resided on the moon-sized asteroid were spared from any danger. Mostly. What discomfited the pirates, guests and residents inside the stronghold was the sudden descent of darkness and shadows.

No matter how much light fixtures illuminated the interior of Ulimo Citadel, everyone's vision seemed to have dropped to just a stone's throw away!

What was even scarier was that the darkness intensified over time! Several worrying fluctuations occurred deeper within, causing frightened Nyxian pirates to imagine all sorts of inexplicable horrors lurking within!

No one knew what was going on. Ketis and her squad of Mirror Raiders had huddled together inside a random shop. Each of them warmed up their rifles and looked ready to shoot whatever threat that emerged.

Everyone kept their combat armor sealed and breathed air from their internal oxygen tanks. No one wanted to take the risk of breathing any toxins brought by this strange phenomena.

Ketis gripped her cutlass with one hand and her compact laser pistol with the other hand. She felt increasingly discomfited by what had descended upon Ulimo Citadel.

"Have we reached the others?" She asked.

"No, ma'am. Our long-ranged communications aren't working anymore. No signal is able to make it past twenty meters." One of her squadmates replied.

This meant that the darkness surrounding them was cutting them off from the rest of their compatriots! This meant that every group of Mirror Raiders had to fend for themselves!

"What do we do?!" A Flagrant Vandal asked.

"This phenomenon is definitely related to the attack on our base. The pirates must have suffered a lot of blows before being desperate."

"Are they trying to kill us all?! This is clearly an anomaly!"

"It's not the same." Ketis remarked. "We aren't locked in time, and I don't see any other unusual effects. Perhaps the pirates have found some way to shield their base from the brunt of the anomaly!"

The disguised Larkinsons made some guesses, but that didn't help them from this predicament. They were completely blind and deaf of everything that happened beyond twenty meters.

"What is going on outside?" Ketis frowned. Her worry kept growing as her discomfort grew with each passing second.

Though the situation within the pirate stronghold only appeared unsettling, the same could not be said for the Larkinson mechs trapped outside!

Each and every mech in space had become engulfed by impenetrable darkness. No matter how close the mechs stuck together, they had become completely isolated from their fellow comrades after the descent of the dark sphere!

No matter in which direction they flew, they failed to stumble upon any friendly mechs.

What was worse was this was just the start!

Chapter 2294 - Grey Apparitions

"Avatars! Is anyone out there? Come on! Please respond!"

Imon Ingvar's Bright Warrior flew aimlessly in circles. Despite previously huddling behind an asteroid the rest of the Second Mech Company of the Avatars of Myth, everything disappeared once the wave of darkness swept past their position.

His mech lost contact with the Bright Warrior mechs that were huddling just tens of meters away from his machine.

It was as if the wave of darkness had all taken them away.

What was even odder was that the asteroid that Imon's mech previously used as cover disappeared as well!

"Is this an illusion?"

When Imon experimentally directed his Bright Warrior to fly downwards, he found to his horror that the obscuring darkness wasn't just muffling his mech's sensor.

It had actually displaced him in a completely different space!

Questions continued to well up in his mind as Imon tried and failed to make sense of this abnormal change. His shallow understanding of science didn't help matters either. All he knew was that he had lost contact with every comrade, including his sister!

"Casella! Where are you?!"

In his haste to reconnect to his fellow Avatars, Imon failed to notice that the darkness around his mech slowly began to seethe. It was only when a strange chill ran straight through his body that he suddenly paused.

In the periphery of his vision, Imon suddenly noticed movement!

He withdrew some of his senses from his mech and looked around in the darkened c.o. . Even though Imon dialed up the lights to their highest setting, he could barely spot the c.o. consoles in front of his piloting chair.

"Did I imagine it?" He questioned himself.

A second chill struck his body!

"What is going on?!"

A strange soundless roar suddenly rang through his ears! Imon grabbed his helmeted head. A strange pressure kept mounting on his mind as if some enormous weight was pressing down on him. The most infuriating aspect of all of these weird events was that Imon was completely unable to block them. He felt as if some unfathomable existences were attacking at this very moment!

"I have to fight back!"

Imon ignored every uncomfortable situation and immersed himself into his mech. As soon as his man-machine connection with his mech intensified, Imon found to his relief that his body was no longer subject to as many abnormal phenomena.

He didn't know why that was so, but Imon was not in the mood to look at a gift horse in the mouth.

Sadly, soon after he took shelter in his own mech, the boiling darkness beyond his mech convulsed.

Suddenly, a strange apparition banged against the armor of his mech!

"What?!"

Though Imon was completely caught off-guard, his instincts were still pretty good. His mech immediately retaliated with a sword, only to cut off some kind of strange grey transparent mech.

"The hell?!"

Another ghostly mech attacked his mech from behind. Fortunately, Imon had become fully alert. Before the strange ghostly mech could thrust its half-transparent spear into the rear armor of the Bright Warrior, the latter turned around and cut through the apparition!

More transparent mechs appeared with regular frequency. Some of them even fired rifles that only dealt a fraction of the damage they were supposed to have if fired by physical mechs.

Imon was forced to fly his Bright Warrior through the darkness in order to take out these strange mechs.

All the while, Imon continued to guess at their origin. What was the deal with them? Were they real, or were they merely figments of his imagination that had come to life?

"Wait a minute.. some of these mechs look familiar."

Though the greyish mechs had been stripped of all color, as a mech pilot Imon was trained to study the physical properties of the mechs he fought.

He gradually recognized that the designs of the ghost mechs matched the mechs fielded by the pirates he had just fought!

He even guessed that these ghost mechs all consisted of machines that the Larkinson Clan and Penitent Sisters had previously taken out in the previous rounds of battle.

This was because the grey mechs each exhibited at least some battle damage!

This damage caused the ghost mechs to function less optimally.

Slowly but surely, Imon managed to keep a grip on the situation. No matter the odd appearance of these hostile apparitions, they were considerably weaker than their actual physical counterparts.

First, their transparent nature caused them to inflict less damage than they should be capable of doing.

Second, that same nature caused every attack made by his mech to deal amplified damage to the enemy mechs.

In fact, much of the grey mechs that weren't immediately cut in half stopped functioning after suffering catastrophic internal damage!

Third, the enemy mechs fought as stupid as bots. Even pirate mech pilots knew better than to launch plain and straightforward attacks. There didn't appear to be any human intelligences controlling these ghost mechs!

Even so, Imon's optimism slowly began to make way for creeping worry, which soon became supplanted by dawning horror.

"These ghost mechs don't stop coming!"

It started out slow, but escalated over the course of the battle. The boiling darkness kept spitting out the same grey mechs that his Bright Warrior had cut to pieces before.

In addition, the longer this ordeal took place, the greater the darkness became active!

Each grey mech that reformed out of the darkness became just a little bit stronger than before. Soon enough, Imon's Bright Warrior could no longer cut down these ghostly apparitions as effectively as before.

Though their driving intelligences hadn't increased a single bit, their solidity and force grew with every single reformation!

Imon tried to be clever and stopped trying to take out the ghost mechs. Unfortunately, this caused their numbers to build up. If this kept on, his Bright Warrior would quickly be mobbed by more than a hundred ghost mechs attacking from each direction!

Even if his Bright Warrior was clad with incredibly resilient Breyer alloy, that many attacks would definitely exceed its defensive capabilities!

"Ahhh! What will it take for you to stay down!" Imon yelled in frustration as his Bright Warrior's sword cut through one ghostly swordsman mech while stabbing through the chest of a ghostly space knight. "Casella?! Where are you?!"

His sister wasn't faring well. Captain Casella Ingvar deployed into battle with a Bright Warrior in its rifleman mech configuration. This meant that the all-obscuring darkness around her impeded her fighting ability even more!

Her mech's laser rifle kept shooting at the ghost mechs, mostly managing to take them out in a single hit as long as she aimed at some critical component.

In order to prevent her mech from getting hit, she kept her mech mobile. During her initial confrontations against the greyish mechs, she also noticed that they didn't appear to be piloted by trained mech pilots.

It was as if a layman was puppeting them all by remote!

The attack and movement patterns of these mechs were very simple and did not leverage their individual strengths.

They also did not employ any tactics other than attacking her mech in the most direct manner possible. This meant that even if she was being swarmed by multiple ghostly attackers, they did not employ any boxing formations.

Due to all of these factors, Casella managed to overcome her disadvantageous situation by flying away and kiting her ghostly pursuers.

Since these stupid grey mechs only thought of reaching her mech as fast as possible, they solely flew in straight lines, making them easy targets!

Despite this favorable condition, Casella kept growing more and more worried. The darkness surrounding her in each direction kept becoming more active. The ghost mechs that chased after her fleeing machine were also growing stronger.

Who knew whether the darkness would introduce another danger?

Even if the situation remained the same, Casella still worried about her continued survival. This was because even if the mechs she fought were fake, her own machine was still very real!

"My energy reserves are dropping." She noted with evident concern.

Every mech only carried only so much fuel or energy. Spaceborn mechs were especially notorious for their elevated consumption of energy.

Some mechs designed for efficiency could last for hours even if their flight systems were being stressed.

Other mechs designed for peak performance were not as frugal! They were mostly meant to control their energy consumption until a critical moment had arrived.

The Bright Warrior's rifleman mech configuration consumed more energy than the other configurations. Its laser rifle drained energy with every shot, and its constant maneuvering didn't help matters either.

Even though Casella dialed down the power of the laser rifle to a point where it was just enough to kill a ghost mech, how long would her mech's energy reserves last? If her weapon gradually demanded more power, she feared that her mech might not be able to last more than thirty minutes!

In this all-consuming darkness, there were no friendly mechs to cover her back. There were no sh.i.p.s to get back to in order to replenish her machine.

She was completely on her own, and the continuously-intensifying darkness began to take a toll on her sanity.

"I'm a Larkinson now!" She reminded herself. "I can't give in to my fears!"

Though Casella managed to hold on, many other Larkinson mech pilots fared worse!

The Avatars, Sentinels, Battle Criers, Vandals and Swordmaidens engulfed by the anomaly all experienced the same difficulties.

The skill of the mech pilot and the quality of their machines generally determined how well they coped with the neverending attacks.

Those who piloted regular premium mechs managed to hold out for a time, but as the power of the grey mechs escalated, the damage kept acc. .

Each premium mech suffered more and more scars. Some mechs, especially lightly-armored ones, exhibited serious damage that caused their performance to drop!

Once their firepower or mobility took a hit, the distressed machines became less capable of fending off the next wave of hostile ghost mechs.

Some of the mechs failed to kill off enough ghost mechs or lost ability to outrun them. Once that happened, the ghost mechs surrounding their victims kept growing in number until they finally tore apart their prey!

Already, an unknown but considerable number of Larkinson mechs had succ. in this fashion!

Perhaps the only good news was that some other mechs were faring better!

The expert candidates stood out as the best performers. In another pocket of darkness, Commander Dise of the Swordmaidens maintained her iron will as the greatsword of her swordsman mech cut through three greyish apparitions at once!

"Begone, you fake mechs! You are not a worthy challenge!"

Her battle intent rose even as a part of her worried about the condition of her fellow Swordmaidens.

Too many of her fellow sisters had died in the past few years! The small amount of Swordmaidens who survived all of the ordeals that preceded them were incredibly precious to Dise.

Though she was confident that her fellow Swordmaiden mech pilots would be able to deal with these endless ghostly mechs with similar ease, she wasn't sure whether this would remain true for long.

"I have to get back to them!" She urged herself. Her growing desperation boosted her fighting spirit.

It was not in the nature of the Swordmaidens to shy away from a threat! No matter what kind of oddities took place, Commander Dise was determined to overcome every obstacle!

"If this fog keeps hindering me, I will cut it apart!"

Instead of cutting the constantly-reappearing grey mechs, she collected herself and concentrated her mentality until her swordman mech unleashed a cut with its Breyer alloy greatsword!

A momentary tear into the darkness had formed. The sensors of Dise's mech briefly glimpsed another Larkinson mech!

Even though the tear quickly healed in a matter of seconds, Commander Dise finally obtained some hope!

"If a single cut isn't enough, then I'll unleash more!"

Chapter 2295 - Grey Watcher

Several minutes passed.

The crisis situation prompted Ves to change into a suit of combat armor. Since he did not want to get caught flat-footed a second time, he also retrieved his B-stone lockbox from his vault.

Absent a suit of armor lined with a layer of B-stone, wearing the lockbox over his head was better than nothing!

During this time, the dark sphere surrounding the battlefield wasn't weakening.

In fact, the opposite happened. The abnormal sensor readings may largely be incomprehensible, but their fluctuations and energy levels kept rising on a steady basis.

If this trend remained constant, then the anomaly would grow four times stronger after an hour!

This was very alarming news. Even though some of the Larkinsons guessed that this constant strengthening was not good news to the pirates, since this move was targeted against their own mechs, letting this anomaly persist was one of the worst outcomes possible!

Back on the Scarlet Rose, Ves no longer obtained any useful information from Calabast.

Her intelligence gathering wasn't entirely at fault. Even though she discovered his biggest secret, she didn't know anything about spirituality. She was only capable of investigating what was in the realm of her understanding.

Against unusual organizations with very odd capabilities such as the Hallowed Abyss Temple, Calabast and the rest of the Black Cats were unable to recognize the secrets hidden underneath the surface.

Only Ves recognized that the Hallowed Abyss Temple was the likely cause for the appearance of this dark anomaly.

He glanced towards a projection that contained a brief profile of the so-called leader of the shrine based in Ulimo Citadel.

In one of the few archival images that the Black Cats retrieved from a database, an aged priest stared mysteriously into the distance. To Ves, Grey Watcher Xarnus looked very suspicious.

The priests of the Hallowed Abyss Temple were separated into four ranks.

The White Watchers were the most junior priests ordained by the temple. Their status was fairly low and they mostly assisted more senior Watchers.

The Grey Watchers possessed real authority. Not only did they prove their dedication to the temple over a long time, they had also achieved success in managing shrines and temples throughout the Nyxian Gap.

The Black Watchers served as the senior leaders of the temple. The intelligence was rather vague about their role, but there weren't many of them and almost always resided at the main temple.

The leader of the entire cult was known as the Hallowed Watcher. Most Nyxian pirates weren't even aware of this high priest's existence, and even the Dry Snakes barely knew anything more than this powerful figure's title.

If the Grey Watcher stationed at Ulimo Citadel was already this formidable, Ves really didn't want to meet this so-called Hallowed Watcher!

Ves studied the image of the head cultist in the hopes of gleaning some clues.

The grey-bearded cultist's eyes looked a bit intense. This was the sign of intense fanaticism that Ves had seen in many people, ranging from Ylvainans to his very own lover!

In addition, the man's grey robe bulged at some very abnormal points. The Grey Watcher wasn't fat. Instead, the likeliest explanation was that Xarnus underwent a lot of genetic modification, causing his human body to form strange growths!

While there were many pirates in lawless space who indulged in reckless genetic modification, there was just something about this Grey Watcher that caused Ves to sense a significant threat!

This man along with eight other cultists were likely the key individuals responsible for plunging his mech forces into darkness!

The Larkinsons left behind in the fleet were continually grasping at straws. To Ves, they were running around like headless chickens, mostly due to how little they understood what was actually taking place.

To Ves, the situation was a bit more clear. Somehow, the cultists of the Hallowed Abyss Temple evoked something in the imaginary realm and managed to cause it to overlap with the material realm!

Sadly, he didn't know much else. He had no idea how a single priest was able to form something so massive. Was this Grey Watcher relying on his own power? That would make his spirituality as strong as an ace pilot, if not more!

"That is impossible!" Ves remarked.

How else did the cultists manage to call down this disaster? Were they relying on some sort of forgotten alien relic? Had the Five Scrolls Compact cultivated some sort of powerful exobeast like Qilanxo used to be when she was alive?

There were too many possibilities to count. Even if he knew the answers, Ves wasn't sure whether he could do anything about it. The sphere of darkness looked completely impenetrable to his eyes!

"Wait a second. What about the network?"

Ves turned around and called for the Larkinson Mandate. Once Nitaa handed it over, Ves communed with the ancestral spirit looking worried within.

He mentally issued a request to the Golden Cat.

"Can you sense if the mech pilots trapped inside this anomaly?"

Nyaaaaa…

"You really can't? Can you tell them if they are alive?"

Nyaaa! Nyaa.

The anomaly largely dampened Goldie's perception of the people and mechs inside the anomaly.

Not even the Bright Warriors were able to maintain their ties with their design spirit!

Ordinarily, Ves would have grown curious about this intriguing method to interfere with the bond between his mechs and design spirits.

As it was, he had more important matters to be concerned about. The inability for Goldie or any of his other design spirits to reach the mechs and mech pilots trapped inside were very concerning!

The only good news that Goldie conveyed was that she was still capable of sensing whether the Larkinsons trapped inside were alive or dead.

Most notably, Goldie's bond with Ketis and the other members of the Mirror Raiders remained fairly strong!

At the very least, this signified that the anomaly likely didn't affect the pirate stronghold itself.

Ves stroked the surface of the Larkinson Mandate. His hands also brushed against the Restraint Hoop.

Would Lufa be able to help? Ves wasn't sure. This anomaly was so powerful that Ves doubted that the Angel of Tranquility was able to dispel it. The strength disparity was too big!

Nyaa! Nyaa!

His face grew graver at the news that Goldie conveyed. Several more Larkinson mech pilots died. Worst of all was that they died completely unnoticed. If not for Goldie's spiritual bonds, Ves would have remained in the dark about the urgency of this crisis!

As it was, the longer this situation persisted, the greater the chance that more of his mech pilots would die!

"Sir! A shuttle is approaching our ship without authorization!" A bridge officer spoke. "Its passenger requests to visit and talk to you in person."

"Who?" Ves frowned.

"It's… the Living Prophet. James Ylvaine."

"What?!"

Ves didn't recall bringing Ylvaine's clone along. Why did he travel with the task force? Why did he wish to meet him in person rather than call him comm?

A thought came to mind. Since the current crisis was spiritual in nature, ordinary solutions wouldn't cut it. All of the scientists and engineers in the clan weren't capable of wrapping their heads around this phenomenon.

Only someone who possessed at least some familiarity with the spiritual side of reality might be able to solve this crisis.

Even though Ves hated James and regarded him as a delusional cult leader, there were very few people in the clan who were capable of offering any hope.

"Let the shuttle through." Ves reluctantly waved his hand. "Escort him to an office close to the bridge. I'll hear him out as soon as he arrives."

Considering the sensitive topics that James might raise, Ves believed it was best to talk to the so-called Living Prophet behind closed doors.

Once James arrived at a small office compartment, Ves and Nitaa entered through the hatch.

The man who claimed to be Ylvaine reborn nodded respectfully at Nitaa before facing Ves with a serious expression.

"I am sure you are aware that the abyss is alive."

"Uh, no?"

"The dark sphere is a malignant existence." James continued as if he didn't notice Ves' confusion. "It is an abnormality that shouldn't exist."

"I don't see how your statement helps. Why are you telling me this?"

James began to smile. "It is very strenuous to maintain such a disturbance. The culprit responsible for maintaining this dark domain is likely relying on sacrifices to sustain it. Once the sacrifices stop flowing, this dark fog will naturally fade."

"I don't hear anything helpful! Start telling me something useful right away!" Ves erupted.

He really didn't like being led around circles! This was why talking to someone as smug as James always ruined his mood!

"Please calm down. Nothing of what I said is redundant. The truth that I am trying to convey to you is that it takes less effort to correct this abnormality. Different from the incident that our task force has encountered before, this dark fog is not comparable in strength."

A bit of hope welled inside Ves. "It's solvable?"

"Not alone." James answered. "The entire clan must work together to dispel this darkness before it has achieved its purpose. The caller of this disaster will not persist until he has run out of sacrifices or if every single hostile mech pilot is dead!"

"Then give me the solution already! The longer we delay, the more mech pilots we lose!"

"The solution is simple, though the execution is not. While I cannot give you any assurances that my suggestion will work, it is the likeliest to succeed according to my judgement."

"Is that what you have foreseen in the future?"

"No." James shook his head. "I have been blinded ever since I have entered the Nyxian Gap. This is a forsaken kingdom, one that is filled with monsters beyond your comprehension. I cannot provide you with any prophecies. I can only offer you my judgement."

"No more stalling then. Tell me how to break this dark sphere."

"We must attack it from within and without." James spoke. "Every single Larkinson that possesses the trace of transcendence can damage the dark sphere. Think of the expert candidates , for example. As we speak, they have likely found ways to attack the darkness that surround their mechs. It is not enough, though."

"What else must we do?"

"We must rescue the mechs trapped in darkness." James spoke. "The dark fog is currently attacking our mechs without abandon. As more of our mechs fall, the energy spent on taking them down is released. The darkness can take that energy and use it to intensify the attacks on the remaining mechs."

This basically meant that the dark sphere was spreading out its power across a lot of mechs, thereby diluting the strength it could bear against any single mech. However, the fog would only grow deadlier and deadlier as more Larkinson mechs succ. . If the lethality of the fog surpassed a certain point, then not even the Penitent Sister mechs might last!

"How do we rescue our mechs?"

"We must venture into the darkness." James proposed. "I can guide our ship, but I cannot forge a path in the darkness. I require a lot of assistance. In addition to calling upon the help of my fellow believers, I need your help the most."

"Pardon?"

"You must illuminate our path! Of everyone in our clan, you are the only individual who is capable of dispelling some of the darkness that obscures our sight! You are the Bright Martyr. Only with you can we avoid suffering the same fate as those who are trapped in the fog!"

All of this sounded like nonsense to Ves, but the ongoing crisis left him with no choice but to take the Living Prophet's suggestion seriously!

"The sphere is big. I'm not sure whether we can rescue all of our Larkinson mechs in time."

"That's why we need additional assistance." The clone replied. "My earlier proposal will only delay our downfall. In order to truly survive this calamity, we must end it at the source!"

Ves widened his eyes. "You mean taking out the Grey Watcher?!"

"The ritual must be stopped."

This meant that the Larkinsons who had infiltrated Ulimo Citadel needed to confront the Grey Watcher!

However, how was he supposed to tell Ketis and the Mirror Raiders to attack the cultists? With the anomaly blocking every form of communication, there was no way for Ves to convey instructions to the Larkinsons trapped inside the pirate stronghold!

James waved at the Larkinson Mandate. "You are not without means, Bright Martyr. Take advantage of the bonds that you have formed."

"I can't!" Ves replied, not even bothering to remark how James knew about the Larkinson Network. "The anomaly is dampening every bond."

"You are an engineer, are you not?" James tilted his head. "As far as I know, signals can be amplified."

Ves palmed his face. "Of course!"

Chapter 2296 - Spiritual Technology

For a long time, Ves gained awareness that human civilization actually encompassed two societies.

By far, the majority of humans living in this age ignorantly believed that their civilization was based on conventional technology.

That did not mean that humanity eschewed alien or unusual tech, but by and large people always desired to master and advance their own advancements.

This was human civilization in the bright. Most humans believed the most powerful expressions of their civilizations came in the form of starsh.i.p.s, mechs, space stations, massive cities and other monuments of technological advancements.

Few people were aware that another society existed in the shadows. Hidden beneath the surface, a few humans possessed awareness that human potential did not solely lie in developing better machines.

Instead, they sought to exploit and strengthen the extraordinary potential within themselves.

Only a tiny proportion of humans acquired this remarkable potential, and even fewer ever gained the opportunity to develop it. Since humanity ascended to the stars, the general public never found out about this hidden facet of themselves.

That said, the existence of the Five Scrolls Compact, which ostensibly guided the rise of humanity in the dark, suggested that the power of spirituality already played a major role.

Somehow, everything changed at the end of the Age of Conquest. All Ves knew was that the Five Scrolls Compact lost many of its Sacred Scrolls and was driven even further in the shadows.

In their place, the MTA and CFA rose up and took charge of humanity. They did so in the open, thereby gaining an immense amount of wealth, power and legitimacy.

The Big Two obviously possessed a different governing philosophy from their suspected parent organization. Not only that, they also emphasized the development of conventional technology rather than weird and unnatural spiritual sorcery.

As far as Ves was concerned, the Common Fleet Alliance pursued the path of pure technology. The fleeters worshipped the power of destruction and expressed their devotion by building formidable warsh.i.p.s that carried a formidable arsenal of massively scaled-up weapon systems.

The MTA followed a different trajectory. It focused on promoting the development of more modest-sized war machines that were much more constrained in their destructive potential.

In addition, the MTA had not entirely abandoned the development of spiritual power. The advent of mechs provided a clear route for spiritually-active individuals to develop into mech pilots and mech designers.

Ves was one of the people who had stepped onto one of the paths proscribed by the MTA. Within the clan, several expert candidates had also developed their spiritual potential by merging their willpower with their ability to pilot mechs.

Even though both mech designers and mech pilots had the potential to become spiritually formidable, their applications were almost exclusively tied towards mechs.

On the surface, mechs were purely mechanical expressions of technology. The public was hardly aware that the mechs developed by more formidable mech designers partially depended on the manifestation of spiritual phenomena to augment their performance.

Strangely enough, pretty much every human who didn't live under a rock openly worshipped the supernatural power of high-ranking expert pilots.

It was a strangely effective form of misdirection in the open. Even though there was clearly something abnormal about how certain mech pilots were capable of warping reality through their willpower alone, the public just regarded them in the same manner as superheroes!

Hardly anyone looked deeper into the source of their power. Spirituality or psionics never came up in any conversations.

Ves tipped his hat towards the MTA. They truly knew how to keep secrets while paradoxically keeping some of them in the open. It was a very contradictory but effective means of keeping most humans in the dark.

For some reason, everyone who interacted with spirituality in some way all abided by a covenant. Neither the MTA, CFA or the Compact publicised or spread the secret of spirituality to the common people.

Why?

Why must something so powerful and with limitless applications be withheld from the rest of humanity?

Was it because the few powers who exploited it wanted to keep it for themselves?

Another mystery that confounded Ves was why the Five Scrolls Compact bothered to play by the Big Two's rules. Since the cultists who ostensibly controlled humanity in the past had lost a huge power struggle, what was the use of protecting this secret?

Regardless, the Compact which he only knew from second-hand information still retained an enormous heritage of spiritual development.

Even though it resembled magic on the surface, so far Ves was more inclined to treat it as another branch of science. Though the members of the Compact tended to come across as crazy, Ves thought that they were truly some of the most passionate researchers in the galaxy!

As a more obscure expression of 'human technology', spirituality was not as illogical and arbitrary as he thought.

Though Ves discovered many fuzzy mechanics about spirituality that reminded him of magic, he discovered it operated according to its own rules. The existence of spiritual engineering proved that this extraordinary force could be manipulated like conventional forces such as gravity or electromagnetism.

In fact, he also discovered that it was possible to adapt a lot of existing engineering principles based on other forces to spirituality.

Power was power. Energy was energy. Matter was matter. Even though spirituality abided by some very funky rules, the basics still remained the same. Ves successfully applied many common rules of nature such as the inverse-square law, the second law of thermodynamics, Newton's third law of motion and so on in his spiritual creations.

Right now, as the dark sphere enveloped Ulimo Citadel and a wide perimeter around it, Ves had fallen victim to his old mentality.

He mistakenly viewed the artificial anomaly as an inexplicable manifestation of transcendent power. He let his unpleasant experiences with the Church of Haatumak color his judgement and reinforce his fears towards the unknown.

It was only now that he recognized that he was too weak and ignorant back then. He failed to see that the worshippers of Haatumak likely engaged in their own form of spiritual engineering that was taught to them by the Five Scrolls Compact.

The same should apply to the Hallowed Abyss Temple as well. Despite the immense reach of this dark sphere, the guidance provided by James woke him up to the fact that it wasn't comparable to a true anomaly.

The strange temporal incident that had swallowed the Nova Krakow came and went like an unstoppable force of nature. Back then, Ves felt that there was no chance at all to resist such might.

This time was different. Once Ves studied the anomalous hazard in a different light, he discovered that the power exuded by it was not as overwhelming as he thought.

"You're right." He said to James as he ignored all physical boundaries and observed the huge spiritual manifestation with his spiritual senses. "An immense amount of power is sustaining this anomaly. Because the area of effect covers such a huge volume, the concentration of energy is actually not that big. We might be able to pierce or overpower a portion of the sphere!"

It was difficult for a mosquito to fight a human in open combat. The power disparity between the two life forms was too immense!

However, if the mosquito wanted to achieve something more modest such as sucking the human's blood, it could sneakily employ its proboscis to drill through its unsuspecting victim skin.

There were many ways for the weak to surpass the strong. In fact, humanity's rise was almost entirely dependent on leveraging technology to overcome the limitations of its race.

What Ves needed to do now was to develop a couple of new applications of spirituality to accomplish two different objectives.

FIrst, he needed to overcome the dampening effect of the dark sphere in order to communicate with Ketis and the Mirror Raiders trapped inside the pirate strong.

Second, he had to develop some sort of means to push away the dark fog and rescue some of his trapped mech troops.

James smiled as if he possessed absolute confidence that Ves was able to solve these problems.

"You are capable of accomplishing more than you think, Ves. Power can be expressed in many ways. The possibilities are endless, but too many people are constrained by their limited imagination and the dogmas that their teachers have imparted to them. You are different from the rest. You possess the heart and mind of a creator."

Though Ves still felt that James was annoying as hell, he had to admit that he wouldn't have known what to do without the clone's advice.

His opinion of James had changed. Perhaps it wasn't so bad to keep this religious nut and his flock of fanatics in the Larkinson Clan. While Ves would have liked to employ more rational spiritual engineers, he wasn't sure whether these types of people existed in the first place.

It seemed that Ves had no choice but to settle upon the obnoxious git as his only available advisor in spiritual matters.

"Let's start with trying to communicate with Ketis." He said as he reminded himself of the urgency of the current situation. "From what I have observed, the dampening effect generated by artificial anomaly is probably analogous to the interference fields generated by signal jamming devices."

Ever since Calabast first introduced their existence to him, Ves frequently made use of signal jammers to hold private conversations or do something that he didn't want to expose to others.

He possessed a great familiarity with the principles and mechanisms surrounding ECM and jamming technology.

Unfortunately, he possessed little understanding of the spiritual mechanisms that sustained the dark sphere.

This meant that it wasn't possible for him to figure out and exploit the dark sphere's dampening effect in a short amount of time.

How could he possibly take the time to observe and study the phenomena that was destroying his mechs and killing his mech pilots with every passing second?

Ves needed to resort to more expedient solutions. Overcoming the spiritual jamming through brute force appeared to be only viable means for him to quickly reach out of Ketis.

As his spiritual senses looked at the immensity of the dark sphere, he felt a bit inadequate, but just for a moment.

He didn't need to overcome the entire dampening effect. He just needed to push through to a tiny portion of it. To achieve his goal while expending the least amount of energy, he needed to form some sort of direct connection to Ketis.

He turned to the Larkinson Mandate. "Goldie. Let's try something new. Can you strengthen the bond you share with Ketis?"

Nyaaaa. Nyaa?

"If you can't leverage enough power, what if I can help? I have plenty of spare energy to go around."

He opened his B-stone lockbox and pulled out a P-stone that stored a decent amount of excess spiritual energy.

"This rock contains my energy." He placed it on top of the Larkinson Mandate. "While it carries my imprint, I believe you can draw upon it. I used a part of this very energy to bring you to life. Try and see if you can draw upon as much energy as you need to strengthen your spiritual bond."

The Golden Cat tentatively tried to draw upon his spiritual energy. Just as Ves suspected, Goldie was tentatively able to make use of his spiritual energy, though she exhibited some difficulty in harnessing it. She ultimately failed to make adequate use of his energy to overcome the dampening effect.

Nyaaa.

"It's okay." He reassured the downcast ancestral spirit. "Maybe you need my help. It's my energy, after all. There are many efficient ways to propagate signals. Let me try something to boost the signal."

It was too much to hope that Goldie was able to adapt seamlessly to his spiritual energy. The spiritual entity was unlike his mother in this regard.

Perhaps his mother had to exert effort or employ some technique to absorb his spiritual energy.

In any case, this just meant that Ves had to employ some of his expertise to upgrade the Larkinson Network!

Chapter 2297 - Struggle in the Dark

While Ves worked together with the Golden Cat to boost her signal propagation, the Larkinson mech pilots trapped inside the artificial anomaly were still fighting for their lives!

Strange echoes rang in their minds even though their ears heard nothing. Strange flickers winked in their views. Whenever the mech pilots tried to look at them, they failed to notice any additional presences aside from the grey, transparent mechs that formed out of the dark fog on a constant basis.

The grey mechs were growing stronger. In the beginning, their attacks only dented the armor of the weakest mechs. This gave every mech pilot who had become confused and distressed at the sudden turn of events some time to become accustomed to their new situation.

Yet as time went on, the pressure increased, much to the detriment of weaker and less resilient mechs and mech pilots.

Those who piloted the stronger mechs were usually clansmen who had earned the right to pilot them. Joshua and many other Avatars did not experience as much pressure as many of the other trapped comrades because their Bright Warriors were incredibly resilient to damage. Their combat instincts and piloting skill also allowed them to remain on top of the situation!

The Penitent Sisters fared even better. Not just the armor but also the offensive capabilities of their mechs were vastly superior to third-class mechs.

Since the ghost mechs were derived from the pirate mechs that had fallen in the battle, their power level was very low. Even so, the way these grey mechs constantly returned stronger than before already started to worry many Penitent Sister mech pilots.

Each of them began to employ measures to reduce the power consumption of their mechs. No longer did their second-class mechs inflict overpowering attacks that caused them to waste huge amounts of energy. Instead, they dialed down their power settings in order to stretch out their operating times.

Other Larkinsons lacked these advantages. Their premium commercial mechs acc. more and more damage as every mistake caused the grey mechs to land increasingly painful blows.

The small number of Swordmaiden mechs fought just as cunningly and ferociously as Commander Dise!

Though the regular mech pilots of the Swordmaidens weren't expert candidates, their veterancy, elite training, mental resilience and mastery of swordsmanship caused each and everyone of them to show strength in this time of adversity!

"Cut!"

A swordsman mech swept its Breyer alloy greatsword through the torsos of three approaching ghost mechs. The mech subsequently boosted upwards in order to dodge a lancer mech charging from behind.

Just as the grey lancer mech missed its mark and flew onwards, the Swordmaiden mech quickly struck it from underneath!

The broken ghost mechs tumbled back into the darkness, providing the Swordmaiden mech pilot with a tiny retrieve before the next attackers arrived.

"No matter how many times you come back, I'll cut you down like the vermin you are!"

The Flagrant Vandals experienced greater difficulties. A significant proportion of their mechs fell into the light weight class, which meant that their mechs possessed very little margin for error. Their energy reserves were also limited which meant that their mech pilots were very constrained in what they could do. Several Vandal mech pilots had already fallen as their mechs suffered crippling damage too quickly!

"I have faced worse in the Sand War!"

The Battle Criers fared decently well in comparison. While they piloted generic medium mechs, the mech force led by Commander Cinnabar largely consisted of steady, experienced Kinners who had lived through various crises in their former mercenary careers.

"My life belongs to the clan patriarch!"

The mech force that fared worse was unquestionably the Living Sentinels.

Many of their mech pilots didn't possess a lot of battle experience. While the Sentinel mech pilots managed to make up for this shortcoming during the excursion into the Nyxian Gap, they still had a long way to go before they truly became steady mech pilots!

The Sentinel mech pilots who lacked confidence in themselves or piloted vulnerable mechs died on a regular basis. The grey mechs that continually assaulted them did not stop until they harvested human lives!

In one moment, a vulnerable rifleman mech tried and failed to fend off the ghostly light skirmishers attacking it from multiple directions.

The Larkinson mech dropped its rifle and pulled out a knife in desperation. With a hasty slash, the ranged mech managed to take out one of its assailants, only for another grey light skirmisher to stab its half-solid weapon deep into the rear armor of the vulnerable ranged mech!

Due to the lack of protection afforded to its rear, the Larkinson ranged mech sustained serious damage to its power management system. Its flight system already started to sputter!

"My mech! Ahhh!"

Without sufficient mobility, the mech could no longer distance itself from the next wave of fake mechs. Less than a minute later, three grey mechs fired their ethereal rifles at their heavily-damaged target, blasting the c.o. and the clansman inside into pieces!

Tragedy continued to unfold throughout the artificial anomaly. The isolation imposed by the boiling darkness forced each mech pilot to rely on themselves and their mechs to survive.

This resulted in a brutal cleansing where the weak and inept among the mech forces were cleaned up first!

What added to everyone's difficulties was that the darkness not only cut the mechs off from each other, but also diminished the glows of every mech designed by Ves!

Fortunately, the Larkinson Clan already learned the perils of developing a dependence on glows. Plenty of Larkinson mech pilots had received training in fighting their battles without the assistance of glows.

For the first time since he piloted the Quint, Joshua no longer experienced the familiar Larkinson warmth from his own mech. Its vitality had dimmed, causing him to feel considerably worried.

"Shine for me, Quint!" He uttered as his mech accelerated and impaled a duo of ghostly ranged mechs with its lance! "Hahaha! I knew it! There is still life left within you! You are more than your glow! Let us pierce this darkness and seek our way back to the source of your life!"

Joshua honed his willpower and began to immerse himself deeper into his masterwork mech. He wasn't satisfied with remaining trapped in this shadowy cage!

His Bright Warrior soared ahead and attempted to pierce through the fog. Its charge seemed to have collided with something a bit more tangible, causing a small hole to form in space.

Even though it closed immediately afterwards, Joshua's eyes lit up. He had stumbled upon the same phenomena as Commander Dise!

Throughout the dark sphere, the other expert candidates found out that they were able to attack the dark fog in their own ways.

Commander Orfan of the Flagrant Vandals scowled as she found that her strange mental connections to Commander Dise and some others were cut off! The absence disturbed her a bit, but not to the point of disturbing her combat rhythm!

Her spearman mech impaled an attacking swordsman mech and slammed into a light skirmisher that approached a second later.

"Vandals! Momma is coming to get you all! Hang on as long as possible!"

Just like Commander Dise, Rosa Orfan did not worry about her own safety. Instead, she wanted to break the isolation imposed onto her mech in order to relieve her fellow comrades.

Empowered by her desire to rescue the other Vandals, her spear stabbed with greater force and momentum! Slowly but surely, her attacks against the void began to tear greater and greater holes in the mist!

"It's working!"

The greater the holes, the more encouraged she became, thereby causing her to inflict even larger holes in the isolating darkness! Her battle intent rose and became more and more honed as she single-mindedly struck down every grey mech that approached her mech as it slowly overcame the intangible barrier that separated it from the nearest friendly mech!

Of all of the expert candidates engulfed in the artificial anomaly, Jannzi Larkinson was the only one who resisted the darkness in a different manner.

Her large and sluggish Shield of Samar steadily cut down each and every approaching grey mech with precise, strong blows.

The ghostly ranged mechs posed the greatest to her mech. If not for the fact that the enemy mechs floated in the same place, the super-medium space knight would have been flooded by a sea of attacks at this time!

Jannzi's mind wasn't on the grey mechs that continually pressured her mechs. Her urge to reach out to her fellow Larkinsons was stronger than every other mech!

As a space knight specialist, she trained to embody the role as a protector and guardian of her fellow mech pilots.

A space knight that was taken away from the mechs it was supposed to protect was a great indignity! There was no meaning to its existence if it solely fought in isolation!

None of the previous battles caused her to feel as distressed as now. Her face continually frowned as her willpower increasingly urged her to unravel her forced isolation.

WIthout the reassuring presence of Qilanxo, Jannzi was left on her own. Her Shield of Samar felt considerably dimmer than normal, yet the heart that beat inside of it grew stronger as her need to link up with her fellow Larkinsons pushed her to an unprecedentedly desperate state!

"BREAK FOR ME!" She roared.

Though no visible phenomena emanated from the Shield of Samar, a whole portion of darkness disappeared!

An Aurora Titan from her Shieldbearer squad bore increasingly more scars as its sluggish attacks failed to take out the grey mechs in a timely manner. Unlike the Shield of Samar, the regular Aurora Titan's armor wasn't made of Breyer alloy, thereby making it considerably more vulnerable against the ghostly attackers!

"Ma'am! You're here!"

As soon as the Shield of Samar arrived by the mech piloted by the Shieldbearer, the pressure imposed on the latter decreased!

Even though the ghost mechs that haunted Jannzi's mech had followed their original target, Jannzi and her squadmate were able to coordinate their defenses and fend off the flood of grey mech with greater efficiency!

"We can't stay here. We need to link up with more of our clansmen." She stated.

"Lead the way, ma'am! I will cover your back even if it costs my life!"

With some of the Larkinson mechs beginning to break free from the shadowy cages that kept them separated, Ves finally achieved a breakthrough of his own back on the Scarlet Rose.

He worked together with the Golden Cat to reconfigure the Larkinson Network. The spiritual network she supported through her own existence was not comparable to a normal network. Much of its workings were shrouded in mystery as Ves hadn't really thought of the details when he initially created the ancestral spirit.

Though it took a lot of fumbling, Ves managed to 'teach' Goldie how to accomplish more with the Larkinson Network. One of the capabilities she gained was the ability to allow him to gain a direct means of mental communication towards any other member of the Larkinson Network!

He tested it out immediately with James.

"Can you hear me?" He mentally communicated through the Larkinson Network.

The Ylvainan nodded. "You are heading into the right direction."

Such a novel accomplishment should have been a cause for celebration to Ves. He invented a completely new means of communication with his fellow Larkinsons that couldn't be blocked or intercepted with conventional technology!

Sadly, this was not the time to bask in his latest invention.

Ves knew that the range of this spiritual communication method wasn't unlimited. For example, he tried to pass on a message to Gloriana, but evidently his signal decayed before it could travel very far through the network.

However, Ketis and the Larkinsons trapped inside the Citadel were much closer!

"Let's see if we can boost our signal to overcome the anomaly's dampening effect. We can do it, Goldie!"

Nyaaa!

Chapter 2298 - Meow

Inside the center of the anomaly, the pirates and residents of Ulimo Citadel were largely spared from the threats that appeared in space.

At least at first.

As time went by, Ketis and her squad of Mirror Raider infantry began to sense more and more unusual phenomena from the darkness that surrounded them in every direction.

Faint screams echoed in the distance, though the sound sensors of their combat armor failed to register any unusual voices.

The temperature around them began to fluctuate. At certain points, a chill swept through their bones, causing the disguised Larkinsons to become even more worried. Their pirate supervisors stopped issuing orders to them as the local communication network no longer worked.

One of the Mirror Raiders snapped his rifles in a specific direction. "Did you see that?!"

"What did you see?" Ketis asked as her heavily armored form faced the direction.

"I-I don't know! It looked like one of the Roid Rats, but grey!"

"Grey?"

"I swear it's someone I killed when we raided the Roid Rat base."

More grey flickers flickered in and out of the dark void. The Larkinsons gripped their weapons carefully as they looked out of the shop they had huddled in. As the darkness slowly pressed forward, the grey shapes became more and more visible.

One of them suddenly shot out from the darkness and charged at the shop while firing a badly-constructed laser pistol!

To everyone's surprise, the laser beam was grey instead of the typical red or other bright colors used to light it up. The grey beam impacted straight into the chest of one of the armored soldiers.

Before the grey Roid Rat could fire again, several Mirror Raiders already fired back. The attacker instantly broke up into a grey mist that rapidly swirled back to the darkness that spawned it. Confusion spread among the Larkinsons.

"Alert! There's more!"

A short time later, several more grey ghosts emerged from the darkness. They looked different from the Roid Rats and came armed and armored with better gear.

Now that the Mirror Raider squad was fully alert, these strange ghosts barely lasted a second before they broke up into mist!

Yet this was not the end. A few minutes passed as more ghosts appeared in the form of pirates. Despite their strange nature and weak attacks, their threat was very real!

"What the hell?! Are the pirates turning against us or something!"

"I don't think the Dry Snakes are responsible for this." Ketis spoke as her laser pistol fired a low-powered shot through the chest of one of the ghosts. "We aren't the only ones under attack! Look at the shop to our left!"

The Mirror Raiders weren't the only ones under attack. More pirate ghosts appeared. They attacked the door that blocked their way until it succ. under the attacks. Soon enough, the ghosts stormed inside and began to kill the local Nyxians!

"Ahhh! Help! Guards, save me, please!"

The Mirror Raiders did not move to help. None of them cared about the lives of the local residents. They were also afraid that the ghosts were trying to lure them into a trap.

"Deploy a drone to scout the interior of the neighboring shop."

One of the Mirror Raiders that carried various gadgets deployed a small flying drone that quickly peeked into the shop. While many forms of wired and wireless communication methods no longer worked across the pirate base, the problem wasn't serious at very short ranges.

Ketis accessed its feed with her helmet view.

"Damn! Look at those bodies! They're all dried out!"

Every Mirror Raider who accessed the same view all saw the same macabre spectacle. The grey ghosts seemed to draw something out of the base residents they killed. With each passing second, the dead bodies lost both volume and volume. The ghosts were sapping some sort of energy essentially from the fresh corpses, causing all of them to transform into mummified remains!

The inexplicable sight frightened the Mirror Raiders and caused them to develop an even greater fear towards the darkness that limited their sight!

"What are the pirates doing?! Why are they killing their own people? Have they gone crazy!?"

No one had any answers. Not even Ketis. With no clarification and no orders, the squad of Mirror Raiders decided to remain in the shop.

Every few minutes, new ghosts began to emerge from the darkness. While their attacks posed a threat against the unarmed residents of Ulimo Base, the Mirror Raiders easily cleaned them up within seconds.

However, all of them worried whether this was the extent of the strange phenomena. As time continued to pass, Ketis began to feel a strange pressure in her mind.

"Ketis?" A familiar voice vaguely rang in her mind.

"Ves?! How are you talking to me? Our communications are blocked!"

"That's not important! I'm wasting a lot of energy to boost this 'signal' at the moment. I need you and as many people that you can bring to move to a shrine within Ulimo. Right now, the entire space around Ulimo Citadel is engulfed by a dangerous anomaly that is slowly killing our mech pilots as we speak."

"Huh?!"

"It's a long story! Anyway, do you have a map of the base or something? Look for a shrine that is placed in the center of the public section. It's occupied by a cult called the Hallowed Abyss Temple. While I'm not sure, I think you'll be able to find the source of this anomaly inside. Kill whoever is inside and destroy anything that looks important. Each of us is depending on you, Ketis!"

"Understood." She replied while her battle intent rose. "I'll try my best to smash this shrine. There are strange ghosts inside the base who are attacking and draining anyone they can defeat."

Ves reacted with shock on the other side of this strange communication channel. "What?! Those ghosts must be fueling the ritual through sacrificing the people who live inside the base. In fact, this might be the reason why the Dry Snakes welcomed many residents to live in a section of their pirate stronghold! They need lots of lives to sustain this powerful anomaly!"

"We'll make sure to end it, Ves. Wait for all of this weirdness to drop!"

"I'm counting on you. Lucky has snuck inside the base as well. I'll tell him to rendez-vous with you. You can also find other help in the base. The shrine will definitely be heavily defended by the Dry Snakes, so don't attack it head-on! The lives of our mech pilots is important, but your life is important as well!"

"Don't worry, Ves. I'll interrupt this ritual or die trying! I'm a true Swordmaiden! I never shy away from what is necessary!"

The connection dropped as Ketis felt ready to move out!

She didn't question why Ves could speak to her through her mind. Her frustration at the strange darkness that spat out hostile grey ghosts had grown to the point where she wanted to get rid of them as fast as possible!

"We're moving out, boys!" She instructed her squad. "I just received an order telling us to go to a shrine of the Hallowed Abyss Temple and stop whatever ritual is taking place inside. As long as we ruin this ritual, our mech pilots inside won't be trapped by this anomaly anymore!"

It didn't take much convincing to get her men to follow along with her plan. Each Mirror Raider believed it was better to be proactive than staying in place. Once they obtained a clear goal, they were more than willing to venture out, especially when they learned that their mech pilots were counting on them to break this trap!

Ketis referenced the map she obtained from the pirates and quickly located the shrine. It was located close to the center, which meant that she and her men had to pass through some heavily-defended gates meant to keep out the riff raff.

With the gear they possessed, the Mirror Raiders weren't capable of sneaking past these obstacles. They had no choice but to attack these checkpoints head-on. The only consolation was that the communications blackout imposed by the anomaly likely prevented the local pirate garrisons to call for backup. Reinforcements likely wouldn't be coming unless the pirate made more elaborate arrangements.

"Let's head out!"

The squad of pirates exited the shop and strode towards the center of the public marketplace.

As they moved, roughly twenty meters of space around them remained clear. Occasionally, they encountered grey ghosts. If the apparitions weren't attacking other pirates or residents, they mindlessly attacked Ketis and her men.

"Stay down, you annoying ghosts!"

The ghosts weren't strong, but the darkness constantly bred more of them. In addition, Ketis and her men were being constantly plagued by different phenomena. Distant screams, sudden chills, a moment of light-headedness and more began to beset the Mirror Raiders.

If this went on, Ketis wasn't sure whether they would make it all the way through the shrine!

As they neared one of the gates, Ketis suddenly paused as the living mind sword in her mind grew active.

It pulsed and moved on its own. An unknown impulse prompted her to concentrate and channel her superpower onto her cutlass. She cut her weapon in a specific empty space, only to see a grey ghost that had somehow remained invisible to everyone being cut apart!

"Ahhh!"

"Damnit, check around us if there are more stealthed ghosts!"

Ketis looked a bit confused. "Sharpie?"

Her sword intent vibrated concern.

A warm sensation swept through Ketis. She smiled underneath her helmet.

"Thank you, Sharpie."

Feeling a bit more confident now that she could count on the perception of her sword intent, she continued to lead her men forward.

Eventually, they reached the first gate. Thick alloy gates and turrets barred their way. Tall walls that stretched straight to the ceiling ruled out any possible way to sneak through unnoticed.

"How are we getting through that?" One of the Mirror Raiders asked.

"I don't know yet." Ketis frowned.

As a mech designer, she understood the lethality of defenses much more than the rest of her men. Let alone a squad of infantry, not even a mech could overcome some of the heavy weapons defending this passage!

"Meow!"

"Lucky!"

Ketis and the other disguised Larkinsons welcomed the appearance of the clan patriarch's famous cat. Until recently, none of them knew that this mechanical cat was such a deadly commando.

Currently, Lucky looked straight out of a spy drama. The Misfortune Harness affixed to his body caused him to look like an ominous black cat that was ready to spread bad luck to anyone in his sights!

The cat floated over to Ketis' heavily armored form and brushed his flank against her helmet.

"Hehe. This will be so much easier now that you're here! Can you sabotage all of those heavy turrets and help us kill off all of those pirate guards?"

"Meow."

Though Ketis didn't possess the ability to understand Lucky's meows, the cat was still capable of conveying his thoughts through nodding or shaking his head.

"Is that a yes or no?"

"Meow." Lucky offered her a very hesitant nod.

"You.. you're not sure? Do we need to gather more men? That will be difficult. The Dry Snakes split all of our fellow Mirror Raiders up and spread them out. It will take too long to gather them all. Is there any other way you can get us through?"

"Meow." A nod.

How?

"Meow." Lucky pointed his paw at the gates several times.

"Uh, what?"

"Meow meow!"

"I don't speak cat! I don't know what you're trying to say!"

"Meeeeeeooooow!"

"Can't you just.. Write something with your paw?"

"Meow meow meow!"

"You're a mechanical cat, right?! There is no reason for you to talk in meows. Can't you speak in standard language like some of the other mechanical pets on sale?"

"MEOW!"

"What are you talking about, Lucky?!"

Chapter 2299 - Effective Persuasion

The dark sphere surrounding Ulimo Citadel boiled ominously. Engulfing every Larkinson mech that advanced towards the pirate stronghold, the fate of these machines and their pilots became bleaker and bleaker over time.

The strength of the Larkinson Clan never revolved around its wealth. Though the continued rise of the LMC showered the clan with an abundant amount of money, the key to this success was the people who made it possible for the mech company to sell so many mechs.

Ves always valued people over assets. Ever since he abandoned the Mech Nursery at Cloudy Curtain along with many other assets on Bentheim, he experienced the pain of being forced to abandon some heavy investments.

Being driven from the Bright Republic and subsequently the Ylvaine Protectorate caused him to develop a reduced appreciation for assets that anchored him in place in a single location.

He instead developed a much greater appreciation for assets that were portable and more enduring. This was why he greatly valued the sh.i.p.s that he and his clan were about to acquire from the Hegemony at great cost.

As the future homes, workplaces, fortresses and method of transportation of the Larkinson Clan, sh.i.p.s were vital in keeping the clan free and unfettered.

Yet not even the factory ship that Ves ordered from the Hegemony was irreplaceable. If it ever came down to it, he would rather sacrifice his capital sh.i.p.s than to lose most of the members of his clan.

People were always more important than objects.

As long as the clan continued to be filled with capable talents that could help Ves in many matters, he could always make a comeback after suffering a setback.

Having the right people around could make or break an organization. The LMC was but an empty shell if not for the presence of Ves, Gloriana, their assistant mech designers and their capable workforce.

Even if the LMC ended on the spot right now, Ves and all of those people could simply start a new mech company and continue onwards on a clean slate.

As the leader of the Larkinson Clan, Ves mainly two groups of people.

The core business and competitive earning potential of the Larkinson Clan revolved around its mech designers. Though only Ves and Gloriana were the only ones who possessed the strength to fund the entire clan, in the future some of their assistants might join the ranks of Journeyman and expand the LMC's profit-generating ability.

Yet the more wealth the clan acc. , the more they attracted hungry predators. Competition was intense, and all sorts of malcontents existed in space who would like nothing more than to plunder the Larkinson Clan or wipe it out entirely.

The galaxy was filled with war. In a huge region of space encompassing hundreds of billions of stars stretching across hundreds of thousands of light-years, it was hard for any single authority to maintain order.

Ves already learned the hard way that relying on governments and other external help never guaranteed his safety and the safety of his clan.

If they wanted to do something right, they needed to do it themselves. This was why Ves always invested so much in nurturing mech pilots.

Mech designers enabled the clan to grow. Mech pilots guaranteed their survival!

For this reason, Ves became very distressed when the artificial anomaly trapped most of his mech pilots!

Though the fleet and a couple of hundred of mechs in reserve remained safe, Ves knew that the foundation of the clan and his own success would collapse if he didn't make a move.

The Dry Snakes were more devious than Ves expected. After mentally communicating with Ketis, he discovered that the pirates probably never considered Ulimo Citadel's public marketplace to be a source of wealth.

The pirates had a more dastardly reason for opening up the base to traffic and allowing tens of thousands of mixed Nyxian residents to settle inside.

It turned out that the pirates welcomed all of those ignorant visitors in order to treat them as sacrificials to fuel an enormously powerful ritual!

Once Ves discovered the existence of the Hallowed Abyss Temple, he dug a little deeper into the background of this mysterious cult.

He became more and more convinced this influential cult possessed ties with the Five Scrolls Compact. Not only was it based deep in the center of the Nyxian Gap, pretty much every major pirate group or alliance hosted its Watchers!

For some reason, these cultists who worshipped the Nyxian Gap had extended its tentacles to every major pirate organization past a certain scale.

The diplomatic effort required to insert its Watchers into every pirate organization regardless of their hostility towards each other was massive.

There was definitely something suspicious about this cult! The ability to call down a dark calamity and use it to eliminate mechs with enough strength to raze a planet frightened Ves considerably!

Ves did not necessarily fear the likes of the Friday Coalition or any other conventional enemy. Each of them fought with familiar means such as mechs, guns and spycraft. The Larkinson Clan wasn't weak in any of these areas.

What they did have trouble with were enemies who were capable of wielding incomprehensible powers. Against opponents like the Grey Watcher who was likely responsible for summoning this disaster, none of the mechs, guns and spycraft of the Larkinson Clan could do a thing to stop it from running its course!

Fortunately, all hope was not lost. Perhaps this devastating trump card might have worked against the likes of more powerful mech troops. Ves even suspected that the pirates especially prepared this powerful measure to defeat an MTA or CFA warfleet!

The Larkinson Clan wasn't nearly as powerful as the Big Two. If this anomaly was powerful enough to devour the most powerful mechs and warsh.i.p.s that humanity was able to field, then how could the Larkinsons ever measure up with its paltry third-class mechs?

"There is still a chance!" Ves boldly announced after he left the private office with James in tow. "This darkness will not devour us! Form up some mechs companies around the Scarlet Rose. Let us propel our ship forward and open up a path!"

"Sir, every probe that we have sent isn't heard from again. The anomalous region is incredibly dangerous!" A bridge officer called.

Ves responded with a stern look. "This is an ongoing battle. While I welcome your advice and appreciate your sincere concerns, trust in my judgement. Move our ship up to the edge of the dark sphere's border. Let us see whether we can enter this bubble."

The bridge officers of the Scarlet Rose looked shocked! The anomalies of the Nyxian Gap had already traumatized the clansman before. Nobody thought that flying anywhere closer to this ominous mass of darkness was a good idea.

Just looking at it caused any human to feel as if they were staring at something profoundly wrong! The mental oppression radiated by the anomaly caused every Larkinson to rightfully fear it. Ves did not blame the bridge officer from voicing some doubts.

The problem was that nobody moved to execute his orders!

The helmsman froze, and so did the other crew. Ves' face grew ugly.

"What are you waiting for? Move!"

Despite his supreme status in the clan, none of his subordinates responded to his orders. The fear that his clansmen held towards the anomaly exceeded their willingness to obey his instructions.

It was as if the anomaly exuded a similar kind of oppression as the Doom Guard's glow.

Ves knew he shouldn't really blame his underlings for failing to move. The Larkinson Clan possessed a rather flat hierarchical structure. This was something that Ves and the trueblood Larkinsons originally valued and wished to retain in their growing clan.

Nobody ought to be powerful enough in the clan to dictate everything. Not even Ves. Everyone who held rank was not above the regular clansmen. No one was more noble or entitled than others. Every Larkinson, when it came down to it, was kin to other Larkinsons.

As a consequence, the power distance between Ves and other clansmen wasn't actually big. The Larkinsons also emphasized the independence and self-thinking ability of the lower ranks.

In combat, this gave smaller mech units the room to exercise their own judgement according to the situation. While this required a lot of trust, this was something that the clan as a whole was willing to extend to everyone.

Now, the downsides of letting the lower ranks think for themselves became evident. None of the bridge officers thought it was a good idea to venture forth into the abyss!

The issue was even more egregious when Ves recalled that most of the crew of the Scarlet Rose consisted of Kinners. These former mercenaries for sale were famed for their reliability and loyalty.

Yet even if the Kinner-born clansmen were willing to execute a wide range of orders, that didn't mean they were willing to drive their ship straight into a star or other destination that guaranteed certain death!

At this time, James stepped forward. "Larkinsons, listen to our Bright Martyr. I know you have doubts, but know that he is far more capable than you think. He is the star of the Larkinson Clan. The glows he makes are rooted in the divine. The brilliance of his mind shines brightest in the darkest of times. Trust in him and obey his will. His light shall illuminate our path and drive back the shadows!"

Though Ves felt like vomiting, the bridge officers reluctantly changed their minds!

The Scarlet Rose started to advance towards the anomaly. After transmitting some orders, a couple of mech companies of Avatars and Sentinels began to surround the mobile supply frigate.

Ves became speechless.

Why did a direct order from him fail to find purchase, but some religious-themed nonsense spoken by a crackpot succeed in persuading his men?

There was something very wrong with this situation!

The ongoing crisis did not leave him with any time to dig into this problem. Right now, Ves urgently needed to see if he could dispel some of the shadows like James suggested.

Through his spiritual senses, he could sense the awesome might of the artificial anomaly better than others.

Defeating it outright wasn't possible. Ves had to take many steps back and settle for trying to erect a safe zone around the Scarlet Rose's perimeter.

As long as his ship could venture inside the dark sphere safely, he had hopes of rescuing some of his distressed mech pilots!

Even if he would only be buying time according to James, Ves was willing to take this risk to rescue his stranded mech troops.

A big reason why he felt confident was because he believed he possessed the means to repel the darkness.

Once the Scarlet Rose's bow halted just a hundred meters away from the edge of the dark sphere, Ves began to perform an experiment.

He looked down at the book in his hand and brushed his fingers against the Restraint Hoop enveloping the medallion on the front cover.

"Lufa, demonstrate your might." He spiritually communicated to his latest spiritual product. "Enter my mind and let me channel your powers!"

Though the newborn design spirit wasn't all that intelligent, it trusted Ves unquestionably and did as instructed.

With Ves actively opening up his mind, a portion of Lufa moved inside.

Ves then began to meld with Lufa. Despite their incompatible spiritual attributes, they possessed an intimate relationship with each other. Ves was literally Lufa's creator, so he encountered no hindrances when he donned the design spirit over his mind like a mask!

Ves abruptly began to radiate a glow of his own. An unprecedented feeling of calm and peace radiated from his body. James, Nitaa and every other clansmen in the bridge felt some of their fear towards the dark sphere washing away.

"Bright Prophet.." A bridge officer whispered in admiration.

"The Ylvainan is right. Ves is the light that can drive back the darkness!"

Exaggerated claims aside, Ves wasn't entirely satisfied with the effect. Being able exude the Angel of Tranquility's glow was progress, but its range left much to be desired!

He needed to amplify Lufa's glow so that it encompassed a wide area around the Scarlet Rose.

He looked towards Nitaa, who held the B-stone lockbox that contained a partially-charged P-stone.

"Will this work?" He wondered.

Chapter 2300 - Hopebringers

The dark sphere that enveloped the space around Ulimo Citadel tried its best to snuff out all of the light inside its turbulent depths.

Though the energy needed to sustain it was incredible, half an hour had passed without any signs the anomaly was receding!

Through harvesting the lives of tens of thousands of Nyxian residents and pirates, the dark ritual that sustained this deadly phenomenon would continue to kill off the trapped Larkinsons until there was no one left!

With the Golden Cat constantly sensing the fall of another Larkinson mech pilot, her brightness dimmed. The Larkinson Clan continually weakened with the ongoing loss of its valiant and courageous warriors.

How could Ves ever let Goldie feel sad?

It was easier than he thought to channel Lufa's glow. Though he found it rather absurd that the Sanctuary Project hadn't even reached completion, that did not stop him from taking advantage of his latest spiritual product.

Though their compatibility was high, the glow of exuding from his body only stretched so far. Instructing Lufa to pump more power in its outward expression only modesty extended the range.

How could he magnify the range?

What could he do to make Lufa's glow expansive enough to generate an actual safe zone around the Scarlet Rose?

"Perhaps supplying more energy will work."

Normally, feeding an excess amount of his spiritual energy to his design spirits was problematic. The incompatibility between their respective spiritual attributes produced varying amounts of rejection.

Earlier, Ves already experienced some difficulties in his attempt to amplify Goldie's spiritual transmissions.

The circ. were different this time. Ves brought Lufa into his mind. By donning the design spirit as a mask, if only a little bit, the two had partially melded together.

This modest integration caused Ves to develop a bold theory.

Would it be possible to feed his spiritual energy to Lufa in this state?

He decided to try it out. He placed his hand on the P-stone held by Nitaa and began to draw upon the energy reserves stored inside.

Ves channeled the energy through his mind and into the spirit that had temporarily become a part of him. Though a bit of loss and inefficiency still remained, the problem was much less impactful than before!

"It's working!" His eyes lit up!

The potential of this technique extended far beyond this crisis! Though Ves already channeled his design spirits in previous occasions, most notably with Ylvaine's spiritual fragment and the Golden Cat, this was the first time he employed it for a greater purpose than hoodwinking his audience.

Perhaps it might be possible for Ves to perform every ability of his design spirits!

If not for the fact that Qilanxo wasn't one of his creations, he might have tried to see if he could channel her powerful space barrier.

Just the thought of accomplishing this feat significantly increased his sense of security! It would be as if he carried a shield generator that could never be removed from his person!

He shook his head. "This is not the time to get caught up in wild ideas."

With his conscious effort and Lufa's invaluable assistance, the glow surrounding not only grew stronger, but extended far beyond the ship!

Amazingly enough, the glow even managed to form a concave cavity from the edge of the dark sphere!

Though Ves mentally winced at the rate of energy he was extending, this wasn't the time to hoard his reserves.

"Proceed forward! My glow will protect us! I can't keep this up forever, so don't take it slow!"

While a number of clansmen were reluctant to obey, they nevertheless executed his command.

Soon enough, the ship flew forward together with its escort. The vessel continually accelerated, cautiously at first, but more confidently once everyone discovered that the darkness failed to approach further than a couple of hundreds of meters away!

Strange grey flickers collided against the edge of the void, only to disappear right away.

"Where to, patriarch?"

"Fly to the last-known coordinates of the Living Sentinels. Their distress is probably the most acute." Ves answered with a strained expression.

Goldie already conveyed to him that the bulk of the deaths came from the Sentinels. Though some Avatars and other elite mech pilots began to fall as well, their casualty rates remained relatively low, which signified that they were able to hang on for the moment.

Time passed until they stumbled upon the first sign of wreckage.

Ves recognized the remains of a commercial cannoneer mech. Only parts of it remained as weak but numerous weapon impacts shattered the mech to pieces.

The c.o. had been breached as well.

"Dead. Let us move on. We will bring the remains home after this crisis has passed."

The rescuers encountered several other clouds of wreckage before they finally encountered their first intact mech!

"Patriarch! You're here!" A relieved mech pilot called as his banged-up light skirmisher was just reaching the limits of its energy reserve. "What is this glow? Those grey ghosts aren't haunting me anymore! It's a miracle!"

Ves ignored the mech pilot's gratitude. "Take the mech pilot from his mech and bring him back to the ship. His machine isn't important right now, so just leave it. We'll retrieve it later."

It was too much of a burden to bring back the mechs trapped in the anomaly. As long as Ves rescued the mech pilots themselves, he could always provide them with other mechs.

The Scarlet Rose flew on, encountering much more wreckage than Ves expected. It became clear that the Living Sentinels suffered heavily as they encountered more broken than functional mechs!

While Ves and his ship steadily drove back some of the darkness and offered sanctuary to those who needed it most, other parts of the dark sphere began to make room for hope as well!

Each of the expert candidates found their own way to overcome the darkness around them. Filled with the need to overcome their isolation and come to the aid of their comrades, their willpower shone brighter than ever!

The most dramatic result came from Jannzi Larkinson! With her Shield of Samar as the center, she infused her willpower in the mech that she had developed a partnership with. Though it took some time, her mech ultimately worked together with her to manifest some of her will in a radius around her mech!

Certain limits within her mind had loosened as she tried her best to maintain this invisible, intangible protective field by herself. She clenched her teeth and propelled her slow mech forward.

The isolating darkness that prevented her mech from approaching other mechs parted silently at the passing of her mech. Before she knew it, she succeeded in crossing over to the shadowy cell of one of her subordinate Shieldbearers!

"Thank you!"

"This isn't the time to talk. Fly close to me and help me drive back the ghost mechs!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Though the grey mechs weren't able to fly past the barrier that Jannzi erected, they were still able to damage it with their attacks!

Fortunately, as Jannzi began to pick up more Shieldbearers and Avatars, the mechs she offered protection paid back her efforts by killing the grey mechs on her behalf!

As her 'army' of rescued mechs grew, she failed to notice that she had entered an elevated state of mind.

Her attention wasn't entirely focused on the present anymore. She piloted her mech forward on instinct and on autopilot as she began to contemplate the growing responsibility she held towards the mechs and mech pilots that sheltered in her field.

She didn't notice how much energy she expended to keep up her barrier. Her willpower could only sustain such a large protective field for so long. It was impossible for her to last this long on her own merits!

Not just the duration of her protective umbrella appeared suspect, but the scope of her field was also astounding.

Her protective field slowly covered more space. As the mechs she rescued rose in number, her field never ran out of space.

Before she knew it, over a hundred functional mechs crammed in her field!

The rescued mech pilots all regarded Jannzi and her Shield of Samar with amazement. Their best efforts only allowed them to fend off the grey mechs. None of them were able to project a field that could forcefully push back the darkness that threatened to lock them up until the grey mechs tired out their machines!

The other expert candidates weren't able to match Jannzi's efficiency. However, they found their own ways to offer relief to their fellow comrades.

"CUT!"

Commander Dise's swordsman mech chopped its weapon against the darkness, opening up a wide scar that failed to heal right away!

"Go through!" She commanded.

Her mech alongside twenty other Swordmaiden mechs quickly drilled through the hole. Once the last mech passed through, whatever force prevented the cut from healing dropped, causing the darkness to repair its wound.

"CUT!"

It didn't matter as Dise cut another hole that led to another trapped mech! Through cutting any barrier in her way, she soon managed to rescue every Swordmaiden mech in the field, though it wasn't as if they needed it in the first place.

The grey ghosts failed to break one of their ranks!

Commander Dise observed her reformed Swordmaidens mechs with pride. However, she knew that her job wasn't done. She wasn't solely a Swordmaiden anymore. She was also a Larkinson!

"Let's cut through this void and rescue the other Larkinsons!"

"Yes, commander!"

In another part of the sphere, Commander Orfan pierced through the darkness in a similar manner. Though the holes she generated closed much faster than usual, she simply attacked repeatedly, sustaining the vulnerability long enough to let every rescued Vandal mech through!

"Come on, hurry up! Our light mechs are expending too much energy now!"

Elsewhere, Joshua's Quint charged forward with great momentum. With his lance pointed forward, the masterwork mech punched through shadow after shadow, blasting open wide holes that reformed slowly enough for the trapped Bright Companion and Avatar mechs to fly towards their nearest comrades.

Though Joshua wasn't able to gather a huge army with his rapid passing, the sheer amount of breaches he made provided many isolated mechs the opportunity to reach out to their closest neighbors.

The space knights who were incapable of wiping out every ranged ghost mech and the rifleman mechs who incurred too much damage from melee ghost mechs eagerly gathered together. By combining their strengths and covering their weaknesses, the groupings achieved enough synergy to defeat a lot more grey mechs!

Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson achieved even better results. His light skirmisher wasn't suited to fight in these conditions and his mech still possessed limited energy reserves.

The light mech specialist found his own way of breaching through the barriers that kept the Larkinson mechs apart.

His light skirmisher boldly flew ahead with even greater speed than the Quint's momentous charge!

The expert candidate concentrated his will to achieve the greatest speed possible. Nothing was allowed to stand in his way! No barrier or limit was allowed to hold his mech back as he accelerated his mech to greater velocities!

"My freedom is sacred! No cage shall ever lock me in place!"

Many trapped mechs only noticed a rapid mech passing through their cage before breaking through the shadows with its own frame!

Dozens of holes opened in an instance, and Tusa's mech was already in the process of opening up additional cavities!

No matter how these expert candidates worked to save their comrades, each of them succeeded in surpassing their previous limits.

Though none managed to achieve apotheosis at this desperate hour, their wills became more honed than ever. Their lights expanded throughout the dark sphere, thereby illuminating some of the trapped mechs and slowing down their fall.

Yet hindering the anomaly was not enough to stem this crisis! As time went on, the dark sphere grew stronger. Each expert candidate encountered increasingly stiffer resistance.

"This can't go on!"