As far as expert mech battles went, the fight between the Shield of Samar and the Skorpion Kommando was not that exciting.
The only notable fact was that the Skorpion Kommando had advanced closer to the invading fleet than other mechs!
However, despite the fact that it had put itself into an extremely vulnerable position by extending so far away from friendly lines, Venerable Oskar Virathon did not take the threats around him seriously!
The reasons why he possessed such confidence was because of his unflinching confidence in his strength and the strength of his expert mech!
The Skorpion Kommando was arguably the most powerful melee expert mech on the battlefield.
In contrast to the Star of Liberation that reigned over longer distances or the Shockshell that possessed a broad array of armaments that made it viable at multiple ranges, the Skorpion Kommando was designed to function as a pure independent close-ranged assault machine.
It possessed an impressive degree of mobility for a space knight, but still retained much of the high defensive characteristics of defensive mechs.
What was even more unreasonable was that the Skorpion Kommando also possessed plenty of offensive power in the form of its thick and heavy sword along with its characteristic Skorpion Tail!
Venerable Jannzi deeply understood that an expert pilot that demanded to pilot a mech with such an aggressive configuration had no intention to protect other friendlies or cooperate with other comrades.
Just as its name suggested, the Skorpion Kommando was meant to function like a venomous predator that could single-handedly approach an enemy position and cause a lot of disruption.
Many nearby ranged mechs including the Transcendent Punishers Mark II’s fielded by the Eye of Ylvaine found themselves unable to threaten the Skorpion Kommando!
“It’s too tough and too fast!”
More ordinary ranged mechs such as the Rifle Warriors were completely unable to track the dizzyingly fast movements of the Skorpion Kommando. Though the enemy machine was classified as a space knight, much of its mobility characteristics matched a light skirmisher!
Even if the mechs managed to get lucky enough to get in a solid strike, the powerful defenses of the Skorpion Kommando effectively rendered the attack useless!
The Transcendent Punisher Mark II’s attained better results, but it cost a lot for them to constantly try to foresee the Skorpion Kommando’s incredibly agile movements.
General Verle eventually called the ranged mechs off. “Your firepower is needed to suppress the Blackened Reapers and the Witch Shatterers as well as provide fire support to our most hard-hit melee mech units. Leave the Skorpion Kommando be. The Shield of Samar is already locking it down and more appropriate help is already on the way.”
The Skorpion Kommando posed a considerable headache for General Verle. Who knew what this enemy expert mech might do if it was able to approach a key capital ship such as the Spirit of Bentheim.
It would have been better to eliminate it right away, but the amount of assets needed to do so was so disproportionately high that other friendly units would lack the support they needed.
Therefore, a strange situation took place where the Skorpion Kommando no longer attracted as much firepower as before.
The pressure on Venerable Jannzi increased a lot as a consequence because her expert mech needed to prevent the Skorpion Kommando from getting any closer to the main fleet. The Shield of Samar also had to endure the powerful attacks of the enemy powerhouse as best as possible!
Two different resonance shields flared as the mechs exchanged powerful blows with each other.
The powerful blue glow around the Shield of Samar flared each time the Skorpion Kommando hacked at its target with its heavy sword.
The weapon seemed to have been designed to attack heavy targets as its unusually high density allowed it to hit as hard as an axe.
This was not a weapon designed for finesse!
The Unending alloy sword in the hands of the Shield of Samar was almost just as heavy and possessed unnatural sharpness courtesy of Ketis.
However, both mechs struck against each other with the flat of their blades because this was a better way to wear down the resonance shields of their opponents.
It took a long time for the two mechs to exhaust each other’s initial defenses. The Skorpion Kommando was backed up by the willpower of a powerful high-tier expert pilot while the Shield of Samar was so large that it was able to provide plenty of support for its resonance shield.
The only strange part about this mutual exchange was that the Skorpion Kommando had yet to employ its infamous Skorpion Tail, but Jannzi knew it was only a matter of time before it would strike.
As the Skorpion Kommando kept bashing its sword against the Shield of Samar, Venerable Oskar Virathon continually built up his rage against his opponent.
“You are so weak, but your expert mech is too damn tough. Only a coward would fight inside a tortoise shell!”
The Shield of Samar’s flared with anger as the living mech took offensive to the Fridayman expert pilot’s words.
Jannzi felt the need to shoot back. “Your attitude and your words betray your lack of honor. A true hero and defender would never forsake his allies and fly solo.”
“YOU KNOW NOTHING, YOU LITTLE KID!”
Venerable Oskar became so stimulated by Jannzi’s words that his expert mech exploded with power!
The sickly green glow surrounding the Skorpion Kommando grew brighter. The expert mech charged forward and used its round shield to collide against the Shield of Samar!
Not only that, the Skorpion Kommando increased the speed and power of its sword strikes, causing the Larkinson expert mech’s resonance shield to weaken at a rapid rate!
“Is this the best you’ve got? Your attacks are only tickling my expert mech.” Jannzi taunted as she deliberately sought to attract her opponent’s hatred. “Your decision to challenge a defensive mech like mine is foolish. Your space knight doesn’t have the power to threaten my battle partner.”
To be honest, Venerable Oskar was genuinely surprised at how much damage the Shield of Samar was able to resist. He could clearly feel that Venerable Jannzi was still a fairly young and weak expert pilot. Her resonance strength may be fairly good among other Larkinson expert pilots, but she was completely unable to match his own power!
It was the expert mech itself that posed a huge amount of hindrance. As a heavy mech, many of its technical performance parameters were much higher than usual. The higher amounts of resonating exotics responsible for generating a resonance shield meant that it was much harder to exhaust this defensive layer than with lighter expert mechs.
On top of that, the Shield of Samar was also one of the most powerful living mechs of the Larkinson Clan.
It was old and had grown so much alongside Venerable Jannzi that it was finally starting to display the true potential of living mechs!
For example, one of the ways the Shield of Samar helped was to make it easier for Jannzi to resonate with it. Though the two weren’t able to achieve Unity of Man and Machine under the current circumstances, they had come a lot closer to it than any other pairing on the battlefield!
The Shield of Samar in cooperation with Venerable Jannzi moved a bit faster, dealt a bit more damage with its sword strikes and most importantly enhanced its defenses to a greater degree than normal!
Normally, the power of the true resonance generated between an expert mech and an expert pilot was largely dependant on the latter’s willpower alone, but this time it was different!
The formidable spiritual foundation of the Shield of Samar acted as an amplifier of Jannzi’s resonance, allowing her to enhance her mech’s performance by 20, 30 or even 40 percent depending on the exact function!
Much of the synergy generated by the two went on to enhance the defensive parameters of the Shield of Samar!
That wasn’t all.
Unlike Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise who tried not to rely too much on Qilanxo, Venerable Jannzi had no qualms about working together with the big lizard.
As Jannzi slowly deepened her cooperation with Qilanxo, the design spirit became more and more able to channel her power through the Shield of Samar.
Not only did Qilanxo help to weaken the resonance-empowered sword and shield strikes of the Skorpion Kommando, but she also began to project a thin spatial barrier that substantially bled away a considerable amount of incoming damage!