Chapter 3242: Peekaboo The Amaranto and the Gauss Baron were both powerful expert mechs in their own right. It was not easy to determine which one was superior. Any direct comparison became a lot more complicated because comparing the two was similar to comparing apples and oranges. The Amaranto only possessed a single gun while the Gauss Baron boasted eight powerful cannons. The former was able to maneuver somewhat comfortably in space while the Gauss Baron was locked in a large and incredibly resilient bunker. The Amaranto's lack of bulk meant that it did not possess enough armor to endure too many powerful attacks. The Gauss Baron was so thick and heavy that it could easily withstand a sustained bombardment even if its resonance shield had been exhausted! The differences in firepower and defensive capabilities immediately determined which of the two expert mechs gained the upper hand. "I won't let you harm my brothers!" Venerable Leiva Hinder shouted as the female dwarf focused all of her concentration on anticipating her opponents moves. From the moment the Amaranto popped out from behind the Graveyard, her cannons had already barked out a full salvo at least a second ago! The dwarven expert pilot's ability to read and anticipate her opponent's movements was excellent. The profligate way in which the Gauss Baron unloaded its firepower onto the Amaranto made Venerable Stark's life extremely uncomfortable for a moment. Although she was able to snap off a shot at her targets at least half of the time, there were too many instances where she had to abort her attack. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖 If she didn't pull her Amaranto back in time, the fragile expert mech would either suffer a direct hit or get affected by the catastrophic damage dealt to the Graveyard's exterior. Either way, Venerable Stark knew that she couldn't afford to get hit! Further back in the fleet, Venerable Jannzi saw all of this taking place with obvious frustration on her face. If her Shield of Samar had been upgraded to an expert mech, then she would not have hesitated to serve as the Amaranto's shield. "If only my mech was strong enough…" She was not a reckless expert pilot and knew her machine's capabilities well enough to know that it would be outmatched in this fight. The Shield of Samar may incorporate a lot of Unending alloy in its tower shield and frontal structure, but the lack of reinforcement granted by true resonance was a fatal weakness! The powerful gauss projectiles unleashed by the Gauss Baron might not be able to penetrate Shield of Samar's defenses, but every powerful impact would transfer a lot of kinetic energy that Unending alloy was unable to dampen completely. The more fragile and breakable internal parts of her space knight would definitely shake until they fell apart. This problem was especially concerning if the Shield of Samar had to resist continuous resonance-empowered attacks. Previous testing had showed that attacks that expert pilots had enhanced with their own will possessed damaging properties that weren't simple to explain. Any projectile that was empowered in this manner had a much greater chance of dealing internal damage even if they failed to penetrate strong armor. This was one of the reasons why expert mechs were sometimes able to leapfrog classes and defeat superior mechs that boasted much more resilient armor systems! Venerable Jannzi sighed. "I shouldn't think about ideas beyond my reach. I can still do plenty for my clan!" She briefly directed her attention to the ranks of Living Sentinel mechs that had yet to enter battle. The Bright Warrior mechs all exuded the same glow that caused every Larkinson mech pilot to feel the need to defend their clansmen against the murderous dwarves. Though Jannzi felt rather sad that the Larkinson Clan was once more embroiled into a needless, avoidable battle that was bound to harvest the lives of lots of clansmen, this was not the time for her to entertain thoughts about recriminating Ves. "Look alive, Sentinels!" Her Shield of Samar raised its sword. "In about ten minutes, the approaching dwarven fleet will come close enough for the rest of us to do our part. No matter what happens, do not falter! Hold the line as much as possible and do not let a single capital ship fall!" The Sentinels all became encouraged by her presence and words! Even if she wasn't piloting a genuine expert mech, her identity as a powerful expert pilot still did wonders in strengthening the spines of her fellow mech pilots. The Quint floated right next to the Shield of Samar. Legion Commander Casella Ingvar appreciated Jannzi's help. "Thank you for that, Venerable. My men will soon be hard hit by the enemy troops. It will become a lot harder to keep their confidence levels high once the true battle commences." "No problem, commander. Your Living Sentinels have always suffered the brunt of the casualties in these major battles. I won't let your men suffer like that again." She considered the disproportionate losses suffered by the Sentinels as one of her many failings. Although she wasn't able to do much in a battle of this scale, she was determined to do everything in her power to prevent these brave and decent soldiers from bearing the brunt of the damage once again. While the other mech legions were preparing for the next phase of the battle, the fight between the Amaranto and the Gauss Baron continued to intensify. The Graveyard, which was supposed to be able to withstand a lot of damage, was starting to look increasingly more ragged as the Gauss Baron continued to fire its cannons without any regard of its consumption. Whether it was ammunition, energy or heat, none of these limitations concerned Venerable Leiva a lot. Only her willpower and mental state were serious constraints to her. She had stopped empowering her attacks with resonance in order to be more economical, but even without this the attacks unleashed by her expert mech's cannons were still considerably more powerful than anything launched by a Land Cracker! "If I can't hit your mech directly, then I'll just tear apart your ships!" The dwarven expert pilot kept suppressing the Amaranto but at the same time diverted more firepower on the damaged sections of the Graveyard. Even if the defensive capital ship constantly turned in order to prevent the Gauss Baron and other artillery mechs from concentrating their damage, her overall hull had already incurred considerable damage. As long as this continued for a time, a hull breach would eventually take place! Still, the Larkinsons weren't entirely displeased with the situation. Through Venerable Stark's unremitting efforts, her mech had consistently managed to snap out a shot in time that unerringly burned through reinforced bunkers and destroyed the Land Crackers inside. The Eye of Ylvaine had also become more proficient at their attempts to suppress or destroy the remaining Land Crackers. The bunkers that covered these threatening dwarven heavy artillery mechs were well-engineered and could withstand a lot of punishment, but they were not without their weak points. After Gloriana analyzed their structure to an extensive degree, she highlighted over a dozen different weak points. If some of them were hit by energy weapons and other points were struck by powerful kinetic forces, the Larkinsons were able to permanently shut the gun slots that always slid shut whenever the bunker in question endured focused damage. Although forcibly closing the bunkers was not the same as destroying the artillery mechs inside, this measure at least reduced the weight of fire from the Steel Rain mech regiment if only on a temporary basis. The dwarves had to dispatch repair bots and work crews in order to fix the damage, and that all took time. The only other way for the Land Crackers to regain their ability to fire at their targets was to blast the blockage from the inside! Suffice to say, this extreme measure was not only risky and destructive, but also negated much of the defensive advantage enjoyed by the heavy artillery mechs! Each time an impatient dwarven mech pilot turned its cannons on the bunkers and blasted it open by force, a torrent of projectiles and positron beams fired by the Eye of Ylvaine quickly overwhelmed the defenses of the Cracker mechs! Through these measures, the artillery duel slowly evened up, but not by much. Despite their exploitable bunkers, the Steel Rain artillery mechs still managed to destroy a growing amount of opposing threatening mechs and deepened the scars of the Graveyard. "Cover the Graveyard! She has done her job for now. Don't let her hull get breached in too many places. We cannot afford to turn her into a liability." General Verle instructed. The Larkinson Clan's disposable sub-capital ships shifted their positions and began to cover for the Graveyard. Though the Gauss Baron's salvos dealt an unimaginable damage to these smaller and weaker ships, it became a lot harder for Venerable Leiva to suppress the Amaranto. "I don't have the time and energy to waste on you." Venerable Stark huffed and continued to peek out to eliminate the remaining Land Cracker mechs. Though the Steel Rain fielded at least 200 of their most powerful and heaviest artillery mechs, their numbers quickly diminished over the course of the artillery duel. Eventually, General Kebrinore saw that their situation wasn't good and ordered the remaining Land Crackers to retract into their respective ships if possible. As a result, no more ultra-heavy gauss rounds slammed into the starships of the expeditionary anymore. The remaining projectiles fired by the Ship Crackers and the Mech Crackers were still concerning, but much less threatening towards capital ships. The Larkinsons were disappointed by the withdrawal of the remaining Land Crackers. They could show up again at any time and deal a heavy blow to any damaged starship. "Switch over to targeting the Ship Crackers! We can't let them fire at our fleet with impunity!" As the distance between the two fleets continued to narrow, the time almost came for the other mechs to be put into play. The overall results of the initial artillery duel were mixed for both sides. The Steel Rain had inflicted a lot of material damage to the starships of the expeditionary fleets. Their destructive firepower was not all that precise but the sheer power and volume of their bombardment had turned many ships into scarred or broken wrecks! However, the Eye of Ylvaine along with Venerable Stark made the most out of their precision advantage. Their absolute firepower might not match up against the Steel Rain but their accuracy had actually overtaken that of the dwarves! Part of that was due to their mechs possessing energy weapons. Positron beams were a lot easier to aim because they struck their targets at insanely high speeds. The Transcendent Punishers relied increasingly more on their positron cannons to do the bulk of their work. Even Venerable Leiva slowly began to recognize the threat. "There's something suspicious about these artillery mechs!" Her instincts as an expert pilot were sharp. Though she initially dismissed the artillery mechs of the Larkinson Clan as mediocre machines, the more she saw them in action, the more she sensed that there was more to them than met the eye. She reluctantly began to redirect more of her fire towards the bunkers that held these odd mechs. Two of the cannons at her disposal kept tracking the Amaranto's position as best as possible in order to ensure that the expert rifleman mech had to remain on its toes. The other six guns of the Gauss Baron began to bombard the different bunkers across the hull of the Spirit of Bentheim with great enthusiasm, overwhelming the factory ship's energy shields with only a bit of extra effort! Suddenly, a volley of ultra-heavy rounds impacted the energy shield covering the Gauss Baron's reinforced bunkers! Though the shield had not yet broken, Leiva looked surprised that it was already closed to breaking. A second volley of hard and heavy projectiles destroyed the shield and slammed into the first layer of the bunker cover! Though it would take a lot more damage to penetrate the high-quality metals that shielded the Gauss Baron from incoming damage, the dwarven expert pilot already began to pay more attention when she saw that the surface of her bunker had been chipped! "These aren't regular attacks!" She tracked where the shells had been fired upon and detected a couple of mech companies of cannoneer mechs that had just begun to open fire behind the combat carriers they were using as cover! The actions of the cannoneer mechs seemed to have triggered the next phase in the battle. "Rifleman mechs, open fire!" "Melee mechs, storm out!" "It's showtime!" Tens of thousands of mechs finally began to take part in the massive battle! A huge amount of beams and projectiles began to flood the space between the two fleets as they just started to get more serious!