Chapter 2392: Expending Assets A section of Maynard Fields became host to an incredible destructive spectacle! Two powerful forces confronted each other in a clash that had reached the intensity of a full-blown war! The Allidus Alliance wanted nothing less than to crush the civilized interlopers who thought they could run roughshod over the pirates of the Nyxian Gap! Scum they may be, but the natives of the Nyxian Gap possessed their own pride! Of course, that was not enough for the pirates to commit to a battle that was already wiping out the equivalent of billions of hex credits in value. Many pirate commanders already started to bleed in their hearts as they saw their accumulation crumbling apart before their eyes. Hundreds of valuable pirate mech pilots had already lost their lives as the incredibly lethal weapons wielded by the Penitent Sister mechs pierced their cockpits with relative ease. Though the Allidus Alliance offered plenty of compensation for the pirate outfits that 'volunteered' to fight on its behalf, some advantages simply couldn't be bought with money. Even pirates had friends and comrades! With each death, a pirate gang lost another brother or sister that brought life and even joy to the band. The Larkinsons and Penitent Sister mech pilots who harvested their lives didn't care. They were suffering even worse! Though it sounded incredibly intimidating to square off against 8,000 — now 7,000 —- mechs, at this distance quality mattered more than quantity. It was the Gravada Knarlax that made all the difference! Her formidable rows of laser gun batteries constantly peppered the Larkinson mechs with accurate, sustained attacks! The heavy cruiser provided numerous advantages over mechs when it came to operating a large number of weapon hardpoints. First, a large ship always possessed a huge amount of processors. The space its data processing systems occupied already exceeded the size of a mech! While the Gravad Knarlax had to split up her processing power to run many different systems and advanced components, there was plenty left to spare to calculate highly accurate targeting instructions! Second, the vast number of sensor arrays on the pirate flagship was capable of observing enemy elements with much greater fidelity and detail. Even the second-class ECM and jamming systems of the Penitent Sister mechs failed to obfuscate the eyes of the Gravada Knarlax. The gap in power was simply too big! Therefore, the crews assigned to each laser mount didn't have to lift a single finger. The ship's formidable automation capabilities already took care of everything! Only when the AIs and algorithms glitched for some reason or another would the operators have a reason to take over manual control. With all of these advantages, the Larkinson mechs initially lost quite a bit of their numbers! The lightly-armored mechs of the Sentinels, Battle Criers and Vandals suffered considerably more than the other mechs as their light and agile mechs were unable to rely on their superior mobility to dodge every accurate shot! "Aggh! How the hell can we even get close to that monster?!" "We can't do anything but hide behind the asteroids and ships!" After being caught off-guard, the suppressed Larkinson mechs were forced to huddle behind nearby asteroids or moving ships. With fewer mechs to target, the pirate mechs and ships simply directed their aim to the ships of the Larkinson Clan instead! This was bad, as at this range it became easier to target the more fragile vessels of the Larkinson fleet. Even the Redfeather began to incur some deep scars after getting hit by dozens of errant pirate mech attacks! "Damnit, our light carriers aren't built to take part in this kind of battle! Our ships are only suited for small-scale mercenary skirmishes. The rain of lasers pouring from the stupendously large and massive ship was dealing more damage to the Larkinson Clan's morale than getting attacked by thousands of pirates mechs! Ves gritted his teeth as he quickly left the bridge and moved to the vault. Though his departure caused the bridge crew to feel some doubt, his next move was simply too crucial for him to stay away. With Nitaa's armored bulk following his smaller armored form, they quickly reached the entrance vault. Lucky, who Ves had draped on his shoulder, suddenly grew nervous. "Meow?" "I know it feels bad, but we have to go inside." After going through an expedited security check, they entered the vault compartment. Prior to the battle, Ves had already removed the Ancient Sarcophagus from one of the locked compartments. The ancient alien coffin was currently shaking and vibrating as if something inside was trying to escape. When Ves observed the coffin in his spiritual vision, he could see how the bonds of the sarcophagus strained to contain the raging entity that was feeling some of his strength leaving him! A special spiritual bond was actively siphoning away his strength! Ves could see that the situation was growing more precarious. Though the half-grown spiritual construct that corresponded to his mother's design had absorbed a huge amount of spiritual energy, he could see that Nyxie was already making good progress in seizing control of it. He could not imagine what would happen if the ancient alien managed to subvert such a complicated and powerful spiritual product! "This is why I'm here." He quickly retrieved his F-stone which he had tried to avoid using for a very long time. Out of all of his spiritually-reactive materials, he had never found a second F-stone. This literally made it irreplaceable. Normally, he would avoid using it at all costs, or at least expend as little charge as possible. This wasn't the time to hoard his assets. He quickly formed a spiritual blade and began to draw upon a huge portion of the offensive charge locked in the F-stone. It immediately dropped from 67 percent charge to just a 37 percent charge! Just a 5 percent charge was already enough to inflict a telling blow to Nyxie. Now that Ves absorbed 30 percent, he felt his entire Spirituality becoming unprecedentedly excited and sharp! He knew that the charge bestowed temporary offensive attributes to his spiritual energy, thereby causing him to gain untold destructive power! His sharp and sparking eyes turned to the red coffin. For a long time, he had continually taken advantage of Nyxie. He harvested numerous spiritual fragments from the hostile entity. He even used it as a co-design spirit for his Doom Guard design. Though there were many latent dangers involved with exploiting an immensely powerful alien who was likely a contemporary of the Unending One, Ves had always dismissed the threat as a long-term concern. "It seems I can't keep taking advantage of you anymore. Sorry, buddy, but I need your energy!" He attacked Nyxie with a succession of piercing blows! Due to the spiritual restraints of the Ancient Sarcophagus restricting the alien tyrant, Ves was easily able to attack and inflict severe harm onto the entity! A considerable outburst of rage and pain emanated from the red crystalline coffin, but Ves persisted in his attacks! With each blow, Nyxie lost cohesion and bled more spiritual energy. The attacks also caused him to lose his influence on his mother's growing spiritual construct. With all of the 'blood' that Ves was spilling, the growing construct absorbed ample amounts of nutrients. Nyxie's spiritual energy not only matched some of the demands of its design, but was also sufficiently high in quality to serve as great nutrients! All of these actions had consequences, though. Ves could feel Nyxie both weakening and strengthening inside his cage. The attacks that Ves inflicted also damaged the restraints that kept the entity trapped. This was something unavoidable, but also necessary as he needed to increase the flow of energy to accelerate the growth process! This gave Nyxie the opportunity to break out of the prison that had kept him captive for eons! Despite the risks, Ves still felt it was acceptable to proceed in this way. After all, if his mother's spiritual construct still hadn't come into existence by the time the pirates crushed the last Larkinsons, then all of this was moot! The process continued on for a couple minutes. By the time Ves had expended his powerful charge, the Ancient Sarcophagus was leaking like a sieve. Though Nyxie had lost a huge amount of energy, he was constantly mustering up strength from somewhere else. If this went on, Nyxie would definitely break free sooner or later! When Ves estimated that Nyxie had sufficiently fed enough energy to his mother's construct, he commanded a nearby floater platform to pick up the red coffin. "Let's move!" He told Nitaa. "We need to move this alien relic to the hangar bay as soon as possible!" They proceeded to do so, leaving the P-stone that held the rapidly-growing spiritual construct behind. Though Ves wanted to supervise its maturation, getting rid of the increasingly more unstable Ancient Sarcophagus took priority! The floater platform made it easy to move the red coffin all the way down to the hangar bay. There, a Penitent Sister mech was already standing by. It held an unusual tube-shape launcher weapon that Ves had built beforehand. Before the mech's feet laid a torpedo. It did not contain any explosive payloads. Instead, it featured an open cavity where Ves promptly loaded in the Ancient Sarcophagus. Before Ves closed the port, he withdrew a gem from one of his Unending Regalia's storage pockets and threw it inside. "Alright, you know what to do! Try and sneak as close as you can and fire it at a priority target! The sooner, the better!" "I will deliver this torpedo to the enemy or die trying!" The fanatic voice of a Penitent Sister boomed from the mech! "You have about 8 minutes! Any longer and the payload is liable to explode prematurely, so don't hang on to it for too long!" In truth, Ves had no idea how long the Ancient Sarcophagus would hold its prisoner back, but Ves did not want it to be anywhere near himself or his assets when Nyxie finally regained freedom! As the Penitent Sister mech carefully loaded the torpedo in its purpose-built launcher and deployed into space, Ves briefly grinned. "Heh. You cultists aren't the only ones who can unleash a so-called dark god!" This was a desperate plan, but one that Ves was willing to gamble upon. As long as he succeeded, he not only got rid of a latent danger, but also forced the pirates to incur the consequences of enraging Nyxie! "Hahahahaha!" Ves loved letting other people pay the price of his actions! As he quickly strode back to the bridge, he concentrated a bit and looked out into space. He looked past the increasingly unstable spiritual fluctuations of the Ancient Sarcophagus and moved his vision far ahead. In the far distance, he observed a hint of malice, darkness and power. Ves had always known that he and his clan pissed off multiple Nyxian factions. He found it extremely unlikely that the Allidus Alliance were the only ones who wanted to destroy his fleet. "It seems you are very eager to take revenge, Unending One." He did not dare to peek inside the imaginary realm. He didn't want to open himself up for attacks and he didn't want to tip off whatever was there. He briefly glanced at the clock projected from his armored wrist. "It won't be long before you see the surprises I have in store! Hahahaha!" Ves already expected his mechs and ships to be heavily disadvantaged in this clash. While the Larkinsons hadn't enacted some of the key components of their battle plan, Ves knew he had to alter the circumstances. He felt as if he was in the position of Grand Protector Roshaw in the previous battle. When faced against a superior enemy that was on their way to winning, Ves figured it was best to flip the board! Even if the cultists in the pirate fleet had prepared their own surprises, Ves was certain that his measures were more extreme! This was because unlike his opponents, Ves had no intentions of controlling the powers he was about to unleash! "I can't wait! Hahahaha!"