The Voice of Liberty approach to combat was unconventional compared to his peers.
Instead of relying solely on devastating attacks with the weapons of his mech, he also chose to lean in on his machine's insane potential for psychological warfare.
With the help of his mood-altering guitar music, the Voice of Liberty often relied on his rhetoric and conviction to force his enemies into submission or surrender!
In his opinion, a proper victory did not consist of beating down his enemies with the crudest and most destructive weapons.
Saint Morgenstern only believed in a victory where he managed to convince his enemies into accepting his ideals and principles!
This kind of victory not only removed precious assets from the enemy side, but also added them to his own side!
This effectively doubled the gains compared to a normal battlefield victory!
Therefore, the Voice of Liberty constantly trained and exercised his guitar skills and rhetoric, knowing that they constituted his best 'weapons' as a high-ranking mech pilot!
Today, he employed these armaments against Saint Rosa Orfan and the crews of all of the surrounding starships.
Their effectiveness against ordinary personnel was so great that many of the elements of the escort fleet could only attack from far away, causing their hit rates to diminish even further.
As for Saint Orfan, her mood continued to worsen even as she continued to believe in her own strength.
Her willpower continued to provide her with a bulwark against criticism, but it was not a perfect form of defense.
Ace pilots were still human in many ways.
Increment by increment, Rosa Orfan's anger and frustration accumulated.
How dare the rebel ace pilot belittle her when they belonged to completely different generations?
Back when Conrad Morgenstern was at her current age, he could only dream of becoming a saint!
The only reason why the Voice of Liberty gained the upper hand was due to his much longer development time.
This fight was as fair as an adult beating up a teenager!
Instead of trying to voice her complaints, Saint Orfan chose to remain silent.
She knew that she would only fall even deeper into his adversary's rhythm if she played along with his game.
That became evident when the Sound of Revolution's intense and discordant guitar music grated in her ears.
The grinding of distorted notes fueled her negative emotions despite her best efforts to ignore the sounds.
Her control over herself started to slip, causing the Middle Demon that had almost taken over her soul to gain an opening to assert its own existence.
This became evident from the outside as her Riot's exterior began to show signs of morphing.
Though it had yet to reach the phase where it grew sharp and wicked spikes, it became clear that the ongoing circumstances did not do Saint Orfan's mentality any good!
Ves grew concerned about her deterioration.
She had already lived through a bad case not too long ago. The Larkinson ace pilot had less than a month to get past her moment of weakness and shore up her defenses. That was way too little time for her to regain her swagger and strengthen her mental defenses.
This was why he felt tempted to call her back.
Putting so much weight on her shoulders was not fair. This fight was not winnable from the moment a saint as powerful as the Voice of Liberty appeared.
Although Ves could tell that the Voice of Liberty tried his best to hold back and avoid any regrettable casualties, he clearly stated that he ultimately placed his ideals over any other rules.
Was it worth it to risk Saint Orfan's life for a cause that was already lost?
No.
Ves believed that the Larkinson ace pilot had already demonstrated sufficient resolve in this engagement.
Since the disparity in strength was so obvious, few people would blame him for pulling back this asset.
The escort fleet may be big, but the lack of high-level assets capable of contending or even hindering Saint Morgenstern rendered it almost useless.
The powerful but unwieldy gun batteries of the various warships mostly unloaded their ordnance in empty space.
The same went for the mechs deployed in space.
The only way their firepower could achieve any meaningful hits was to coordinate their firing angles and saturate the entire region surrounding the coordinates of their target.
Not that the few actual hits managed to affect the Sound of Revolution in any visible manner.
Most attacks had become so weakened that the armor system easily bounced them off without incurring any damage.
Only the more powerful warship-grade attacks achieved slight results, but all they did was leave minute scratches behind!
"Useless." Blinky shook his feline head in disappointment.
What about reinforcements?
None were on their way as far as Ves knew of. He had already checked beforehand. His contacts all reported that the nearest troop detachments take at least a day to arrive!
That was long enough for the Voice of Liberty to destroy the research specimen a thousand times in a row!
Since the escort fleet had no realistic prospect of achieving victory, Ves would rather focus on loss mitigation.
The captured Ixith Goliath would soon be destroyed, but no one else had to suffer along the way.
Giving up the fight may be a shameful decision, but as the leader who bore overall responsibility, Ves had an obligation to make the hard but necessary choices.
Although Ves would get blamed in the process, he knew his many merits would easily compensate for this blemish.
He would probably be able to redeem himself in the public once he completed the development of the Arboreal Project.