There was only inadequacy and dissatisfaction in her mind.
No matter how well she performed her duties, there were always better and more optimal ways for her to solve her problems.
"I should have increased the power of the explosive shells…"
"Howitzer 3 was angled 0.25 degrees too high…"
"The mech of Lieutenant Orie Vellum was struck by shrapnel. That should have never happened…"
Ves had never seen any expert pilot who loathed her strength as much as Venerable Mox.
Was this one of the key qualities that a mech pilot needed to have in order to push themselves all the way to god pilot?
He already developed a theory that the growth of a mech pilot was heavily related to how much they yearned for greater strength in order to attain their goals.
Though Irene did not provide him with definite proof to back up this theory, she still provided a lot of helpful clues!
Of course, Ves did not think this was enough to allow her to overcome the barriers that blocked her way towards god pilot.
"There are still a couple of missing ingredients."
The time it took to fell the titan shields was fairly long. It was not enough to destroy a single one. The Quillims wanted to knock out all of them so that the defenders did not have an impenetrable fortress to fall back upon.
While the Bontues occasionally sent out mechs to launch sudden attacks at the Quillim mechs that were waiting for the titan shields to fall, Venerable Irene Mox patiently waited for the most crucial stage of this urban assault to commence.
As long as the Bontues were driven out of the most heavily defended downtown districts, the city would finally fall into Quillim hands!
The remaining defensive works in the city would no longer be able to block the subsequent assaults. It would be much better for the Bontues to evacuate all of the combat assets that they could transfer and resist the planetary invasion at another city!
"The shields are about to fall in 10 minutes! Get ready, Venerable Mox. You are authorized to destroy up to fifty percent of the infrastructure in the downtown districts. The command net has already marked the structures that should remain intact whenever possible."
"Received." Irene responded as she studied the new data made available on the command net.
Good data collection and planning was essential to optimizing the performance of heavy artillery mechs.
The more time that heavy artillery mech pilots were able to familiarize themselves with the circumstances, the more effective they became when the actual fighting started.
Venerable Irene Mox was incredibly obsessive in this regard. She had already spent much of her downtime on studying the blueprints of the central city district and even went as far as calling up the data on individual buildings!
Irene set a new goal for herself as the time to attack came closer.
"I must end the fight within 18 minutes."
That was a harsh goal! Ves did not think that it was possible for the Quillims to overrun several heavily-defended city districts in so little time.
Ves figured that it would take several hours to dislodge all of the defenders and drive their surviving assets away.
Yet as the titan shields finally fell in succession, Irene turned into a beast again!
"FIRE!"
Though Venerable Irene Mox did not make any unnecessary sounds or movements, her force of will surged with anger and purpose, helping her perform all of the complex calculations and judgment calls in record time.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
All sixteen cannons of her expert mechs fired in sequence as they were all aimed at different targets many kilometers away.
Bontue mechs that fought desperately to hold back the advancing Quillim machines either got knocked off their feet or suffered heavy damage.
Enemy ranged mechs that had just moved out became engulfed by explosions before they could fire more shots.
Strong fixed defenses were struck by multiple gauss rounds and received just enough damage to make them inoperable!
All of this happened in many different locations in the downtown areas.
No matter where the Bontues fought, the distant terror of the Iron Hedgehog suppressed all of them to such an extensive degree that their confidence had cooled.
The suppression exerted by a single expert mech was just too much!
As their comrades screamed and suffered defeat at an alarming pace, the surviving Bontue mech pilots became so affected by all of the chaos and destruction that their willingness to fight quickly evaporated!
Even though the Bontues still had enough mechs and other assets that could bleed the invading machines, Venerable Irene Mox beat them up so much that their commanding officers decided to call for retreat well in advance!
Less than 14 minutes passed since the main offensive began.
Ves was mentally gobsmacked by how much the Iron Hedgehog had accomplished during this engagement.
"This… is the true power of heavy artillery…"
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