The Mech Touch

6891  The End of the Chase

Of course the Black Lord was armed with missiles.

The ace mech was not armed with generic missiles either.

The ones that exploded against the First Sword Mark III happened to produce more forceful explosions, making them good at pushing enemies away.

The first-class ace multipurpose mech also appeared to possess a sizable reserve of missiles. It continued to fire a salvo of missiles at clever intervals, thereby repeatedly interrupting the First Sword's momentum and causing her attempt to fail.

Since the First Sword Mark III lacked any form of point defense, the missiles quickly converged on the Larkinson ace mech and exploded!

The concussive forces unleashed by these simultaneous blasts were already powerful to shatter regular first-class multipurpose mechs. Even expert mechs could not avoid damage due to the resonance empowerment.

However, the physical damage inflicted by the missiles was not too strong. The First Sword Mark III remained effectively undamaged by the missile salvo.

That was all the Wind of Destruction sought to accomplish. Since his ace mech lacked superdimensional armaments, he needed to fight with his brains and keep his adversary on her toes.

Not only had the explosions thrown the First Sword Mark III out of her focused state, but her attempts to build up momentum failed at the most inopportune moments!

Saint Dise wondered how many times the Black Lord could reload its missile launchers.

She soon deduced that the Black Lord would not run out of missiles anytime soon. It was likely equipped with dimensional magazines, thereby allowing it to carry at least 5 times as many missiles in his speciation!

Her mind churned as she rapidly sought to devise a solution.

While her First Sword kept throwing herself in the direction of the enemy, only to get stymied by the missiles and the fine manipulation of a tier 2 Destroyer sword, she suddenly recalled that she had another way of dealing with incoming missile attacks aside from chopping them up with her own blade.

She sword fey that she previously dismissed made a return!

They swept forward and turned into makeshift shields. When the next salvo of missiles sought to interrupt and displace the First Sword Mark III, the sword fey all homed in on the incoming warheads and eliminated them in advance!

"I am coming for you!" She roared over the communication channel.

The Black Lord continued to back off while opening fire with its integrated weapons. It also swung the Sirocco at a faster frequency, thereby unleashing more destructive wind energy waves at the cost of making them weaker.

The First Sword Mark III's flight faltered for a bit. It was as if the ace mech and its accompanying sword fey was flying straight into a hurricane.

Yet Dise already employed a familiar solution that allowed her ace mech to temporarily ignore the exotic effects that were pressing her ace mech back.

"One Sword Breaks Ten-Thousand Laws."

The First Sword Mark III glowed in metallic silver before thrusting her greatsword straight forward.

Once again, the Decapitator opened a sizable gap in front that created a temporary tunnel where normal space reigned once again.

The Black Lord fired repeated salvos of missiles, yet the sword fey accurately intercepted each of them. The fey all got blown backwards, but they incurred no damage despite getting struck by resonance-empowered blasts. The hull-grade superdimensional alloys used in their construction along with Dise's resonance empowerment proved sufficient in keeping the blades sharp and straight.

This response successfully enabled the electric winged ace swordsman mech to come close enough to launch a proper attack.

The First Sword Mark III swung back her extended greatsword and resonated with the blade.

While this had the unfortunate effect of weakening the resonance empowerment of her flight system, Saint Dise only gathered her power for a brief amount of time.

When she decided that she had accumulated enough energy, the Decapitator swung forward in a broad sweep that unleashed a wave of silvery metallic resonance-empowered blades!

"Bladestorm!"

The attack vaguely resembled the destructive wind waves unleashed by the Black Lord, but worked quite differently.

The Bladestorm sword technique unleashed thousands of small sword energy attacks that spread across the space in and around the Black Lord.

No matter where the ace mech sought to evade, it could never avoid getting struck by at least a dozen of the blades!

Moments before the Bladestorm swept across the Terran ace mech, the machine activated its azure energy shield and also unfolded a thin but broad layer of armor plating from its arms.

The azure energy shield immediately got pummeled by numerous sword energy attacks.

It should normally be a lot more resistant against these strikes, but the superdimensional properties of the Decapitator had imparted them with greater effectiveness against transphasic shielding.

In the end, the azure energy shield just managed to remain intact due to the dispersed nature of the Bladestorm technique.

The downside was that its integrity had dropped so much that the Black Lord was forced to switch its azure shield generator off in order to avoid any damage and allow its systems to recover.

The First Sword Mark III already prepared her second power move.

The superdimensional ace mech adopted a stance that was similar to one of her previous ones.

However, when she thrust her greatsword outward, her forward acceleration mysteriously amplified, causing the entire ace mech to charge forward at an unmatched speed!

"Sword of Lydia!"

The powerful charge caught the Wind of Destruction off-guard, but the veteran ace pilot still managed to perform the correct response.

The Black Lord activated hidden boosters that gave the machine a powerful push to the side.

This enabled the Terran ace mech to barely avoid getting impaled by the superdimensional greatsword!

Saint Dise took this failure in stride and responded to the successful evasion attempt. The First Sword Mark III's electro reactant wings flapped and gave the machine a powerful impulse that abruptly changed her course.

The First Sword resumed her pursuit of the Black Lord!

In response to the incoming threat, the Black Lord launched another salvo of missiles, but this time programmed them to detonate shortly after they had left the missile tubes.

This caused the missiles to explode right between the Black Lord and the incoming First Sword Mark III!

The concussive forces generated by these explosions caused both ace mechs to get blasted away from each other.

The Black Lord keenly took advantage of this push to distance itself from its deadly adversary.

The First Sword Mark III briefly got pushed back as well, but to a lesser degree. Its superdimensional mech frame made it a lot more resistant against kinetic displacement effects.

This dance continued on for several more minutes.

The Black Lord continued to assail the superdimensional ace mech with relatively mundane but frequent attacks.

The Wind of Destruction clearly sought to outlast his sparring partner.

The First Sword Mark III on the other hand repeatedly attempted to close in and launch a powerful attack that would have ended the sparring session in her favor.

"Sword of Lydia."

"Bladestorm."

"Phase Cutter."

"Unbreakable Body."

Saint Dise employed multiple different sword techniques and special moves that she had developed over the years. Each of them produced enhanced effects now that she became an ace pilot, yet the suppression of her Saint Kingdom significantly weakened her damage output.

The differences in resonance strength still remained instrumental. The senior ace pilot keenly took advantage of his stronger willpower to inhibit the First Sword Mark III's every move.

The lower the distance between the two ace mechs, the more the disparity in Saint Kingdoms mattered!

This was the source of many frustrations for Saint Dise. Try as she might, she continually failed to keep her ace mech close enough.

The electro-reactant flight system struggled hard to keep the First Sword Mark III fast and agile enough to keep up with the Black Lord, but the latter relied on a number of tricks to stay at least a few steps ahead.

In one instance, the Black Lord even used its legs to kick at the approaching ace swordsman mech!

13:22

Saint Dise did not expect this move and reacted too late. By the time the Decapitator swung in its direction, the Black Lord had already launched away!

As the minutes passed by, the constant damage inflicted by the Black Lord's suite of weapons ultimately bore fruit.

While the First Sword Mark IIII's superdimensional energized armor system only bore light surface scratches, the persistent attacks rapidly drained her energy reserves.

Keeping the electro-reactant flight system active at full power did not help either. They accelerated the depletion of the ace mechs cells.

When the First Sword Mark III finally sputtered and lost her electring wings, the sparring session immediately came to an end.

While the living ace mech's high-quality power reactor was still able to generate a low but stable level of output, the energy being generated was far from enough to sustain high-intensity combat.

Saint Dise scowled as she sat inside the cockpit of her tired machine.

She still felt unwilling to admit defeat.

The First Sword Mark III was stronger than this. Dise failed to tap her full potential.

The ace pilot recognized that her lack of experience in piloting a ace mech of this caliber had prevented her from taking full advantage of all of the available opportunities.

Most egregious was her failure to effectively leverage her sword fey against the Black Lord. Her control over them was still too lacking. She also hadn't mastered the myriad of specialized drone mech skills that made mechs like the Fey Fianna so powerful in the right hands.

In short, Dise had lost a winnable match.

"I… lost." She said with a disappointed breath.

"You fought well enough for an ace pilot who is still in her first year." The Wind of Destruction responded in a calm voice. "Do not take this outcome too seriously. It was just a test."

It was as if it was no big deal for him to gain the upper hand against one of the first full superdimensional ace mechs in existence.

"That doesn't change the fact that I lost despite piloting a much more superior ace mech." Dise grumbled.

"I thought that a saint such as you would have learned the lesson that our willpower is the root of our strength. Technology is important, but all of the superdimensional alloys in the Red Ocean will not save you from losing due to shortcomings in skill, combat experience, conviction and grit. This is why I am telling you to take this loss in stride. You still fought as if you were an expert pilot during this match. You will outgrow that sooner or later. Once you train the necessary skills that better utilizes the new and enhanced capabilities of your ace mech, your First Sword Mark III may be able to defeat a true leapfrog challenge."

The advice made sense. Despite how much pride was in the line for him, the Wind of Destruction earnestly assumed the role of a mentor and offered genuine guidance to Saint Dise.

It was rather hard for Dise to go from being the most skilled expert pilot in the Larkinson Clan to a raw ace pilot that still needed to reinvent her entire approach towards combat.

However… Dise was not a woman who shied away from criticism.

If she wanted to improve and defeat the Black Lord under similar circumstances, then she clearly had to do her homework and learn how to pilot her upgraded machine properly.

She spent years familiarizing and mastering every single facet of the First Sword Mark II.

This enabled her to bring out the utmost of the expert mech's potential.

Now she intended to do the same for the First Sword Mark III. Her sword fey added an entirely new dimension of complexity, but Dise did not fear the additional challenges.

She knew that once she truly mastered the art of sword formations, it should be well within her capabilities to completely demolish a senior ace mech like the Black Lord!