As soon as the Fridaymen properly recognized the threat posed by the Promethea, numerous expert ranged mechs began to fire at its position along the hull of the Wild Torch!
The fleet carrier that the Wild Fighter Association had once awarded to the Larkinson Clan began to suffer a lot of strain and damage as a torrent of powerful attacks bombarded her directional shields and damaged her exterior fixtures!
The Promethea even suffered a close shave as the Star of Liberation briefly turned its attention away from suppressing the Amaranto and fired a casual but destructive shot in the other Larkinson expert mech’s direction!
The experienced Venerable Rezkin quickly saw through Venerable Isobel’s power. “Your fire trick is surprisingly useful, but how much concentration does it take to burn what isn’t supposed to be burned?”
The more suppression directed towards the Promethea, the harder it became for Venerable Isobel to maintain the fires she had sparked on all of the defensive platforms struck by the Ignitron!
The purple flames that seemed to be unstoppable earlier had become a lot feebler now that Venerable Isobel needed to direct a lot more attention towards evasion.
While the Star of Liberation couldn’t direct much attention away from the Amaranto, other Sundered Phalanx expert mechs took over the duty of suppressing the Promethea whenever possible.
The biggest threats that Venerable Isobel faced after the Star of Liberation were the Tensars!
As one of the recent mid-tier expert mechs designed by Master Toqueman Huron and Master Johnny Bates, the twin expert rifleman mechs synchronized their actions to a flawless degree and always struck at their targets from different angles at the exact same time!
With the help of their Slipdream rifles, the Arma Tensar and Fila Tensar easily inflicted a lot of energy damage with every discharge!
If only one of the mechs attacked at a time, then Venerable Isobel was still confident she could block the attacks with the resonance shields of her Promethea.
However, she had seen how the simultaneous strikes of the Tensar frequently inflicted damage that equaled or in some cases surpassed the normal attacks of the Star of Liberation!
“Those identical expert rifleman mechs truly have the capital to challenge high-tier expert mechs!”
Considering that the Promethea was just a mid-tier expert mech and one that did not even excel at defense, there was no way that Venerable Isobel dared to make any aggressive moves when she was locked down by both Venerable Anastasia Choi and Venerable Geraldino Fameuse.
“We’re keeping our eyes on you, Promothea! We’re not going to allow you to burn down the Kosic Ring any further!”
The Promethea was a poor matchup against the Tensars. One of the biggest weaknesses of luminar crystal weapons was that Ves had yet to figure out how to integrate phasewater into them without causing catastrophic disasters.
Due to this, the Promethea could only overcome defenses such as titan shields and resonance shields the hard way.
There was no way the expert mech could overcome either of them in its current state!
The Carnare was at least able to partially bypass titan shields with its transphasic dual-type rifle.
As for trying to take down the Tensars once they became exposed, Venerable Isobel did not even attempt to accomplish this on her own.
Not only did they perfectly cover for each other’s weaknesses, their resonance strengths were significantly more powerful than her own, allowing them to easily snuff out the flames she set before they even had a chance to burn!
Despite all of the suppression directed towards the Promethea, Venerable Isobel did not feel too bad about her current state.
“Being able to hold down both Tensars is a huge profit!”
If the Tensars tried their best to hinder the Promethea from setting more fires, then these potent expert mechs weren’t directing much of their firepower towards other targets!
The only downside was that the Wild Torch came under increasing fire from not only the Tensars but many other Fridayman mechs as well.
“Our ship is taking way too much damage! We can’t endure so much firepower!”
Before the Larkinson Clan moved any other ships in the way, the Hexers already moved their combat carriers in the way.
“Keep attracting the attention of the enemy’s champions.” General Alisky Victrix communicated to the Larkinson Clan’s expert pilots. “The more they are threatened by you, the more they will leave our regular mech forces alone. We shall assist you in any way possible.”
The Hexers did not expose their own combat carriers to danger merely because they valued the Larkinson Clan and felt the need to be charitable all of a sudden.
This was all part of a greater strategy that aimed to direct as much attention of the enemy elites to the Golden Skull Alliance as possible.
The Hexers hadn’t brought that much mid and high-tier expert mechs to the fight, so they couldn’t fight against the most powerful enemy champions on an equal basis.
Therefore, the amount of heat that the Amaranto and the Promethea generated through their actions was highly beneficial to the overall attack plan!
The trajectory of the battle played out exactly how the planners envisioned.
Even though the Gaugers figured out the enemy’s strategy, they had no choice but to direct their more powerful ranged expert mechs to suppress the Amaranto and the Promethea.
The Sundered Phalanx had already tried and failed to achieve effective suppression.
Weaker expert mechs did not pose a sufficient threat to the two thorny Larkinson expert mechs. Their power levels were not sufficient and their firepower couldn’t threaten the defenses of their targets.
As important mechs, the Larkinson Clan invested a lot in bolstering their defenses!
Ves had especially directed a lot of attention towards this issue when he upgraded the design of the Amaranto.
Previously, the Amaranto functioned as a glass cannon. Its firepower was fearsome but its defenses were abysmal.
Though Ves did not wish to make his first proper expert rifleman mech stray from its original design concept of pursuing extreme firepower, he still found plenty of ways to strengthen the armor and the resonating shield of the Amaranto.
Money solved many problems, and investing a huge amount of money in a high-quality lightweight armor system massively increased the survivability of the Amaranto.
The instance in the past where the Amaranto was unable to snipe enemy expert mechs because of its fragile shell was in the past!
The Amaranto Version 2.0 was not afraid of accruing a couple of dents!
As more and more space stations started to lose their titan shields due to getting focused upon by tens of thousands of Hexer ranged mechs, the Sundered Phalanx mech units started to suffer real damage.
Bunker mechs, cannoneer mechs, rifleman mechs and other mechs fell by the hundreds, and the rate was only increasing over time as the distance between the two sides continued to shrink.
Though the expert mechs from both sides performed the flashiest, the role of ordinary expert mechs was not negligible.
Many famed Sundered Phalanx mech divisions showed their excellence during this phase of the battle.
For example, the 5642nd Blackened Reapers where Venerable Kasia Rezkin hailed from was a renowned long-range mech division that excelled in long-ranged precision warfare.
The mech division fielded powerful cannoneer mechs that launched relatively slow but ultra-heavy gauss rounds that were best at breaking open starships!
The Blackened Reapers also employed numerous rifleman mechs that were so precise that they could even knock out individual exterior parts from the hull of a moving starship as long as they became exposed!