Chapter 3469: Second Dance Two different mechs flew apart from each other! The Pontifical Lance had just launched its primary weapon and continued to thunder forward with great speed! Due to the fact that the mech hadn't actually hit any target, its monstrous momentum had not abated. This was quite dangerous as the lancer mech could easily collide against the energy shield up ahead! Both Gregory and the mech tried their best to prevent this from happening. They both tried their best to turn the Pontifical Lance around and bleed as much speed as possible. In the end, the lancer mech managed to skirt the energy shield without hitting it. The machine continued to divert its momentum so that it was able to gain more control over flight. As soon as Gregory confirmed that his mech successfully survived its own messy attack run, he finally took a glimpse at his opponent. "It's still functional!" Gregory gasped! The Phazeon clearly wasn't in good shape. The lance thrown at its chest had sunk almost straight through its thin chest area. Since the lance had been thrown, its strike hadn't been driven by the weight of a charging lancer mech. That had severely lessened the damage potential of the throw attack and gave the Phazeon a chance to survive the blow. Even so, the lance was still a hefty weapon in itself. After the Pontifical Lance had haphazardly thrown it forward, the weapon soared towards the Phazeon with all of the added speed of the lancer mech's charge. The distance between the two mechs back then was so close that air resistance barely slowed the lance down at the time! In the end, the lance retained enough kinetic energy to pierce through the Phazeon's unusual semi-fluid armor system. Although the unorthodox tech made the Phazeon considerably more resistant against damage than normal, its properties were considerably less effective against a powerful piercing attack such as a lance driving directly through its surface! Still, the armor at least did its job by bleeding away a lot of the energy from the initial blow. This meant that the lance only transferred a moderate amount of destructive power to the internal systems in its vicinity. Most light mechs would have still become crippled after suffering such a serious attack, but the Phazeon was different! As a defensive specialist, Katien Tievos designed a surprisingly robust internal architecture for the Phazeon. Despite the serious damage to its internals, the lance failed to disable the power reactor or breach the cockpit, both of which could have spelled the end of this match. Instead, aside from damaging the structural integrity and weakening the energy transmission system, the Phazeon's essential functions were still in working condition! [What an amazing mech! The Phazeon proves that it is more than a light mech by surviving a piercing blow with most of its functionality intact!] [It is easy to design a tough mech when it is big and has a lot of room inside its frame. It is ten times harder to increase the structural integrity of a mech when there is much less space to work around with. Miss Tievos has not only managed to implement various damage mitigation elements inside her light mech, but she did so with less than half a day's worth of design time!] Although the Pontifical Lance's triumphant blow was worthy of celebration, to the commentators it was merely an incredibly lucky occurrence. After all, anyone familiar with mechs could tell that the lancer mech had never been designed to throw its weapons. At the moment when the Pontifical Lance launched its weapon, it had to throw it forward in an awkward way because it lacked the speed and range of motion to release its lance in a more proper fashion. The unstable flight path of the lance only reinforced the impression that it had gone out of control. If Ilos Naduxe didn't try to be clever and inadvertently jerk the Phazeon in the path of the lance, the light mech would have been able to evade the thrown weapon entirely! Therefore, even if the Pontifical Lance won the first exchange of blows, all of the spotlight had gathered on the loser instead of the winner. The audience all knew that the light marauder mech could easily gain the upper hand in this match as long as it retained enough mobility. After temporarily losing control over its own flight, the Phazeon finally reasserted itself. The light marauder mech not only stabilized its trajectory, but also managed to pull out the large lance that had thrust into its frame. The lance fell and clattered onto the arena floor. Without this heavy and ungainly weapon sticking out of its chest, the Phazeon had regained much of its maneuverability. It accelerated forward and experimentally moved from side to side. [The damage to the Phazeon's energy transmission systems has reduced the light mech's ability to move in the air by around 20 percent, but that is not enough to cripple it entirely. As long as the damage to its systems do not deteriorate any further, the Phazeon can regain the upper hand!] The supporters of the Pontifical Lance groaned as they saw that the Phazeon was still able to put up a fight. However, Gregory and his mech weren't willing to give up at this point! "The Phazeon is damaged! With that hole through the chest, our target is liable to suffer more damage as long as the mech endures further stress. Rapid maneuvers will continue to exacerbate its internal damage and finally cause the mech to collapse on its own. We just need to survive long enough for that to happen!" Of course, if Gregory had a choice, he would rather finish what he started! To that end, the Pontifical Lance drew out its short spear and initiated a second charge. However, in the time that the sluggish lancer mech had finally turned around, the Phazeon had already circled around its back. The worst-case scenario had occurred! Lancer mechs were extreme threats to any opponent as long as the latter was in front. Once the opposing mechs reached the rear, the story became completely different! Even though the Pontifical Lance tried to turn around on its axis, its powerful Virtus Forza flight system was only really good at accelerating straight ahead. When it came to turning around the mech it was mounted upon, it performed much more terribly than other flight system models! Although the Phazeon obviously exhibited a bit of strain in trying to keep out of the charging angle of the Pontifical Lance, Ilos Naduxe made the most of the light mech's current capabilities and successfully used the least amount of effort to make sure his light mech stuck to the back of the lancer mech! The Phazeon even threw away its sword and its backup shield in order to lessen its weight and increase its maneuverability by another notch. Naduxe judged that the Phazeon could still win by solely relying on its carbine. Energy beam after energy beam struck the Pontifical Lance's vulnerable flight system. Even though it was resistant against heat and energy, the flight system wouldn't be able to last forever when hit by repeated concentrated attacks! "We need to do something!" Gregory told his mech. Though he understood that the Phazeon couldn't keep up the pressure for long, the damage it dealt to the Pontifical Lance's exposed rear was not light! It was too risky to bet that the lancer mech would be able to last longer than its opponent. The only way for Gregory to finish off his opponent once and for all was to launch a second attack! Unfortunately, the Pontifical Lance simply couldn't gain a good enough angle to throw its spear. Even as it continued to spin around, the Phazeon was just a touch faster and managed to circle around faster despite needing to traverse a lot more distance! When the lancer mech attempted to spoil the Phazeon's game by flying right up to the side of the energy barrier, the light mech simply opened up a bit of distance and incessantly fired its gun. Even though the Pontifical Lance had gained the right angle to perform another charge, the Phazeon was just close enough to evade and circle behind the lancer mech that still had to build up enough speed! What was even more frustrating was that the Phazeon always remained far enough to prevent itself from getting hit by a thrown spear Without building up enough momentum, any thrown weapon would quickly lose strength and drop onto the arena floor without achieving anything meaningful. "Arrgh!" Gregory became frustrated as every little trick failed to give the Pontifical Lance an opportunity to launch a second attack. Regular means weren't enough to defeat the Phazeon and he didn't think that outlasting it would work. There had to be a better way to defeat the light mech. The constant certainty conveyed by his mech made him feel that hope was not lost. However, despite its predictive powers, the Pontifical Lance didn't see any opportunity to finish off its opponent at the moment. "We need to wait." Gregory concluded as he put his trust in his mech once again. The duel between the two mechs turned into a drawn-out affair. Though the Phazeon definitely held the upper hand, its light carbine lacked the punching power to destroy the Pontifical Lance right away. Meanwhile, the Pontifical Lance's constant circling and maneuvering made it hard for the light mech to stick to the rear. This pattern dragged on for several minutes. The Pontifical Lance incurred more and more damage to its rear armor and flight system. It even lost a bit of flight maneuverability after the Phazeon's energy attacks finally disabled an important subcomponent! Yet throughout this dance, Gregory and his mech continued to bide their tide. When the Phazeon attempted to make a sharper turn that put added stress on its frame, something inside of it broke. Half of the energy channeling into the light mech's flight system abruptly disappeared. Though Ilos Naduxe hastily moved to fix the problem, the Pontifical Lance had already launched its long-awaited counterattack a second before the Phazeon exhibited problems! Since the Pontifical Lance acted in advance, it had already begun to charge towards the Phazeon! Though Ilos Naduxe became a lot more concerned, he quickly managed to reroute additional power through other channels and managed to restore much of the Phazeon's mobility. The light mech was already moving to evade the charge attack! At the same time, the mech pilot also remained on guard against another throw attack! "I'm not going to get hit by another javelin this time!" Naduxe vowed. Due to the Phazeon's quick recovery, the Pontifical Lance was no longer in a position to nail the Phazeon with a single charge. The only other way to strike the distancing light mech was to throw the spear, but the problem was that Ilos Naduxe knew what to expect and raised his guard to the greatest possible extent! Gregory and his mech were both unwilling to let this precious opportunity slip! "We can still win!" At this desperate moment that would decide whether he would win or lose, Gregory completely threw himself onto his mech! He not only surrendered to the influences of machine, but also embraced the beliefs that it had conveyed to him before! A single name escaped his lips. "Ylvaine." The Pontifical Lance glowed brightly as a holy presence descended upon it! The entire mech seemed to have transformed into a conduit of a powerful, transcendent presence! Even though the phenomenon only lasted a second, the sudden descent not only guided Gregory and the mech into throwing the spear, but also concentrated its glow into a second spear that jabbed straight into the cockpit of the Phazeon! "Ahh! What is this?!" Ilos Naduxe cried out as he momentarily became disoriented by the powerful glow. Even though the effect wasn't all that strong, he still lost awareness for a single instant. Aware that the Pontifical Lance would definitely capitalize on his distraction, Ilos blindly decided to juke the Phazeon down and to the right! Unfortunately, the light mech's course change just so happened to put it right on the trajectory of the thrown spear! Though the soaring weapon didn't contain much force, it coincidentally slipped right into the existing hole in its chest! "What?!" "This has to be a coincidence!" "Lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice!" The spear, which hadn't lost any energy by boring through the Phazeon's armor layer, pierced through the crucial systems in its path and finally managed to sever the light mech's energy transmission systems entirely! To the shock of the entire audience, the Phazeon finally lost power and began to fall for real!