6018 A Revealing Spar
Although Master Benedict Cortez did a good job at explaining the differences between expert mechs and ace mechs, Saint Tusa only truly understood how far his Dark Zephyr was behind when he engaged in his first sparring session against another peer!
In order to avoid overwhelming Saint Tusa right away, his only opponent for the time being was Saint Marissa Lewandowski of the Adelaide Mercenary Corps.
As the expeditionary fleet was scheduled to depart soon enough, the two ace pilots only had time for a short comparison between each other.
Yet that was enough to open the horizons of Saint Tusa along with everyone else that was gleefully observing his 'debut' as an ace pilot!
At first glance, their mechs did not look all that different.
The Dark Zephyr was a black-coated light skirmisher, and so was the Jedda Sandivar. Their sizes and proportions did not differ all that much as they both stuck closely to the template of their mech type.
The designers of both machines had the option of adding other weapon systems to the ace mechs, but neither ace pilots chose to add too much additional bulk to their machines.
Saint Marissa had only opted to add a pair of very compact but potent laser pistols to her ace mech. The two weapons made it a lot more convenient for the Jedda Sandivar to pick off weaker ranged targets without compromising her ace mech's original configuration too much.
Tusa insisted on the removal of the grenade bandolier. He detested his previous reliance on transphasic grenades and did not want to base his combat approach on lobbing lots of powerful explosives at his opponents.
The removal of the grenades fulfilled one of his wishes and returned the Dark Zephyr closer to his original roots.
Of course, the Dark Zephyr gained an arguably even better offensive option in the form of the Dark Wind Module!
Not only was the new Ultimate Module a lot more economical, but its power and utility increased as Saint Tusa grew stronger and increased his comprehension of the shadow element!
In contrast, the Jedda Sandivar had taken a slightly different direction. Its thin, dark frame did not look as if it hid anything as outrageous as an Ultimate Module.
Instead, the ace mech exuded a much greater sense of power and cohesion. It had received many years of willpower baptism, and its design had received many different incremental upgrades, especially in the last two years.
The Adelaide Mercenary Company earned a lot more profit by participating in the expeditionary fleet, and it had spent much of it on accelerating the development of the Jedda Sandivar.
General Herman Foraine knew that the original Third Fleet of the Adelaide Mercenary Company would instantly collapse as soon as Saint Marissa Lewandowski decided to quit and join the Red Association.
In order to prevent this outcome from happening, he did not hesitate to reinvest a lot of money and materials into improving the Jedda Sandivar at a much faster rate than before.
The ace light skirmisher could not be underestimated for that reason! It was not as weak and limited as before.
Even though it was not an archemech, the Jedda Sandivar's continuous improvements and upgrades gave Tusa the impression that he was facing a very compact but threatening metal demon!
Right now, the Saint Kingdom surrounding the Jedda Sandivar already started to surround it in a slightly hazy white fog.
The fog was not thick enough to conceal the Jedda Sandivar, but it already started to make it a little harder to observe the ace light skirmisher.
There was an obvious discrepancy between the two Saint Kingdoms. The one radiated by the Dark Zephyr was not only a lot smaller, but also gave up ground far too easily.
It was only when the Dark Zephyr's Saint Kingdom had been pushed back to his mech frame that it barely managed to stand its ground.
This indicated that Saint Tusa had very little chance of taking control over the surrounding space. He could only preserve the sanctity of his mech and his own body under the circumstances.
After Tusa thoroughly understood how much worse his Saint Kingdom fared compared to that of Marissa, the two ace pilots decided to move on to the next phase.
"Are you ready?"
Tusa took a deep breath. "Go."
The two ace mechs simultaneously moved into action!
Both machines moved so quickly that it became difficult for baseline humans to keep track of their movements!
The Dark Zephyr and the Jedda Sandivar were both fairly small machines that had predominantly coated in black, so it became a nightmare to follow their blazingly fast maneuvers with the naked eye!
Fortunately, their glowing Saint Kingdoms made it a lot easier to track their rapid movements.
To most observers, it looked as if two glowing energy bubbles continually bounced against each other before separating to circle around each other.
Each time the two converged together, the Dark Zephyr's Saint Kingdom clearly deformed by a huge extent, thereby weakening Tusa's ability to weaken his current opponent.
In contrast, the Jedda Sandivar's hazy Saint Kingdom remained remarkably solid and stable despite its insubstantial appearance.
Each time the Adelaide ace mech encroached upon the Dark Zephyr's space, the Jedda Sandivar exposed a ruthless edge that enabled it to land much heavier blows!
Fortunately, the Dark Zephyr was not a fragile machine that easily crumbled apart after getting struck by so much force.
The living mech's archemetal construction along with the use of excellent first-class materials finally began to demonstrate their usefulness.
When empowered by Tusa's true resonance, the Dark Zephyr's stormblade knives still remained strong and intact even when they blocked the more powerful strikes from the Jedda Sandivar's own pair of weapons!
Tusa felt anything but comfortable, though.
He recognized the weapons wielded by the Jedda Sandivar.
Ves and Ketis had worked together to develop a set of 'blessed weapons' for the ace mech of the Adelaide Mercenary Company.
The transphasic kamas may have been developed just before the start of the Age of Dawn, but they could already be treated as pseudo-hyper weapons from the fact that they were 'blessed' by the Phase King!
The penetration and cutting power of these kamas were high!
Fortunately, Saint Marissa held back her strength and did not borrow the Phase King's power.
That still did not make it easy for Tusa to prevent his upgraded mech from getting scratched!
The two powerful mechs began to confront each other more directly. The two machines continually maneuvered around each other while launching rapid strikes or moving to defend against incoming attacks.
"You are fast, but I am faster!" Saint Marissa exclaimed as she was clearly on the offensive most of the time.
The Dark Zephyr's excellent base performance allowed him to keep up with the rapid attacks launched by the Jedda Sandivar, but it was clear that the latter was just toying with its prey.
After launching a lot of rapid but relatively mundane strikes, Saint Marissa decided to kick it up a notch and demonstrate why having a Saint Kingdom mattered.