Commander Melkor Larkinson's Gold Beacon hung back as the Avatars of Myth moved out in force. As the original elites of the Larkinson Clan, the Avatars of Myth took on the heavy responsibility of meeting the most powerful enemy mech units at the center of the battlefield! Fortunately, the Design Department had not neglected the needs of the Avatars. Over the past five years, Melkor slowly felt more at ease as his mech legion gradually obtained a small collection of powerful exclusive mech models that strengthened the identity of the Avatars. The Bright Warrior mech line had always formed an integral part of the Avatars of Myth and Melkor did not have the heart to diminish its importance to his mech legion. "How are our Bright Warrior mech units doing so far, Colonel?" The projection of Colonel Cardano Belsir-Larkinson displayed a brief smile. "They are fighting against the Fridaymen in high spirits. Our Bright Warrior units turn out to perform particularly well against our chosen targets. Many of our mechs are most at home when they take the initiative, and it just so happens that the mech units of the 5688th Pima Defenders serve as convenient punching bags." Commander Melkor directed his attention towards the mech division that his mech legion had targeted. As the name suggested, the Pima Defenders comprised of a new mech division that was explicitly founded to defend Pima Prime. The new unit was supposed to serve as the first of several home guard divisions that was permanently headquartered at the Kosic Ring. There were several points that made it notable. First, the Pima Defenders primarily fielded well-armored medium and heavy mech models. None of their machines stood out in terms of mobility and maneuverability. Many of them focused on melee combat in order to maximize the specialization of this mech division. Second, the Pima Defenders received the highest budget among all of the mech divisions that were permanently stationed in Pima Prime. The Gauge Dynasty allocated at least four times as much money to the Pima Defenders than the Nidin Vergers! Part of that could be explained by the vast disparity of weight classes of their mechs, but the difference was so big that it was obvious that the higher-ups favored the Pima Defenders more. The third point explained everything. A lot of highborn scions of the Gauge Dynasty just happened to comprise the majority of the officers of the Pima Defenders. There were a lot of upper-class families in the large and powerful territory of the Gauge Dynasty back in the old galaxy that wanted to obtain a piece of the pie of the Friday Colonies. It wasn't enough for them to occupy and develop new settlements. They were far-sighted enough to know that they needed representation in the military in order to make certain that their expensive colonial investments received the protection that they deserved! This was how the Pima Defenders came into existence. It was set up to become a nice, safe home guard mech division that guarded the richest, most powerful and most well-defended star system in the Friday Colonies. Theoretically, the chance of enemies coming to attack Pima Prime should be the lowest! If this was the case, then the soldiers assigned to the home guard mech divisions would be able to enjoy most of the prestige of being a part of the Sundered Phalanx while minimizing their exposure to actual combat as much as possible! It was too bad these highborn sons and daughters never imagined that the Hex Army and the Golden Skull Alliance would be crazy enough to launch a direct assault on their port system! As soldiers who had pledged an oath to their service and the Gauge Dynasty, there was no way they could shirk the responsibility of leading the Pima Defenders in battle against the invaders. This meant that all of these pretend soldiers who thought they would only fight against simulated enemies and the occasional lost alien starship for the rest of their careers suddenly had to act like real soldiers! Fortunately for the Pima Defenders, their highborn officers weren't incompetent. Each of them were designer babies who possessed superior learning ability and combat acumen from birth. The results they achieved in the mech academies or military academies were substantially better than those who originated from the lower echelons of the Friday Coalition. No matter what, the Sundered Phalanx was still a highly professional organization that had always enforced its own rules. The situation of the Pima Defenders mech division might be a bit special, but its hierarchy and structure were all sound. Its staff was considerably larger than usual to ensure that everything was managed properly. The Pima Defenders also enjoyed other compensating factors. It fielded sturdy, expensive military mechs that weren't easy to destroy. Many of them just happened to be piloted by veteran elites that earned plenty of merits during the Komodo War. As such, the Pima Defenders should still pose a formidable threat towards its opponents! Despite all of these factors, Melkor wasn't afraid of the Pima Defenders at all. One of the lessons he learned from General Verle was how important it was for people's hearts to be united. The analysts of the Larkinson Army had predicted that despite commanding the most powerful melee mech division of the local garrison, the officers were not that eager to stand out and take risks. The subsequent actions and deployment of the Pima Defenders aligned with the predictions. Though the center battle line of the Sundered Phalanx did not advance that quickly because of being restrained by their slowest elements, the Pima Defenders truly hadn't shown any initiative to break the mech formations of their opponents. The contrast between the Pima Defenders and the other elite Sundered Phalanx mech units became quite clear! The latter were quite familiar with the Hex Army. They knew that passive defense when the Hexers possessed an advantage would only lead to an inevitable defeat. The best way to reverse a losing trend was to break the game, and that was exactly what the more daring and courageous Fridayman mech officers attempted to accomplish! "These Pima Defenders truly aren't in a hurry to move." Commander Melkor cynically remarked as his Gold Beacon fired its custom luminar crystal rifle at an enemy heavy space knight. Even though his mech rifle possessed a lot more power than the weapons equipped by ordinary Larkinson mechs, the Gold Beacon's shot did not even impact the heavy shield of the enemy mech. Instead, a powerful energy shield fully resisted the energy beam! Melkor almost grew sick at the sight. The defensive power of the enemy mech was a bit high! As the legion commander swept his gaze across the lines of the Pima Defenders, he noticed that many other enemy mechs exhibited the same phenomenon. No matter whether they were space knights, spearman mechs, swordsman mechs or striker mechs, their energy shields never failed to resist incoming attacks! Though Commander Melkor had already grown familiar with these mechs due to practicing against them in the MSTS, to see the Pima Defenders exploit their disgusting defenses in reality made him feel sick! Aside from a few early successes when the Pima Defenders hadn't gotten their act together yet, hardly any of their mechs got destroyed during this time! The reason for that was because the vast majority of mech models fielded by the Pima Defenders were equipped with HiCap shields! The chief mech designer responsible for providing the Pima Defenders with so many resilient mechs was Master Zenie Bonakane, otherwise known as 'the Bubble Man'. His amusing moniker referred to his main specialization, which was developing his own brand of high-capacity energy shields. By raising and maximizing the damage-absorbing capacities of energy shields to an incredible height, Master Bonakane opened up new possibilities for defensive mech warfare. One of the most basic ways to take advantage of mechs equipped with the Bubble Man's HiCap shield was to send out a wall of heavy space knights out front and allow them to resist incoming damage with their HiCap shields. Once their HiCap shields started to become unstable, the initial group of defensive mechs would rotate out while another group of fresh defensive machines would take their place! This way, the winded mechs that retreated to the rear could calmly wait to restore the condition of their HiCap shields back to full capacity before rotating back to the front again! It sounded simple, but it could truly work as long as their opponents weren't able to overload their HiCap shields at once! Neither Commander Melkor who piloted the Gold Beacon nor Colonel Cardano who presided over the command center back on the Gorgoneion found it easy to break this scheme. "It is not a coincidence that the Gauger military leadership has chosen to deploy the Pima Defenders in the exact center of their lines, sir." Colonel Cardano noted. "While the Pima Defender mechs might not be doing much to defeat their opponents, they can still play an essential role as an anchor and an immovable obstacle to other friendly mech units. They serve as the closest thing to a defensive fortification on the frontlines." Melkor wearily nodded. "As long as they keep rotating their shielded mechs back and forth, they can last as long as their energy reserves last, which inevitably takes a long time since they are all big boys with lots of room for energy cells." The most egregious mech of this kind was the Modal Firmament. Chiefly developed by the Master Bonakane, the Modal Firmament was a pretty straightforward heavy space knight. Compared to other heavy space knight models, the Modal Firmament was actually lighter and less massive. This was because the Modal Firmament sacrificed armor and internal structural strength to make room for a more powerful HiCap shield generator as well as a larger array of energy cells to support its functioning. To put it in a different way, the Modal Firmament put much more emphasis on its HiCap shield and significantly less priority on its armor system for its defensive needs! As the mech model that adopted this strategy to the extreme, the Modal Firmament was tailor made for the defensive rotation strategy! "The Modal Firmament is a big problem, commander." Colonel Cardano noted. "As long as their energy shields last, there is no easy way to overcome their defenses. Perhaps the only way to disrupt their rhythm and rotation arrangements is to outflank them, but there isn't much room for that since they are surrounded by other friendly mech units in every direction. We can only attack them frontally." Commander Melkor already anticipated this. "Are we able to obtain artillery support?" "No, sir. The Eye of Ylvaine already has its own mission. It is rather wasteful to expend their firepower on the Pima Defenders because the Modal Firmaments will just tank the damage and rotate out when they are nearing their limits." "What about battle formations? The Swordmaidens and the Penitent Sisters still have them in reserve." ,m "General Verle is saving them up for later. It is not wise to employ them at the start because all of the mechs involved in them will lose their battle effectiveness after they are done. Besides, the Gauge Dynasty isn't stupid. They have personally suffered from our battle formations in the past. You can already see that their mech units are further spaced apart than normal." "So it is up to us, then, right?" "It is not impossible for us to obtain support from other units, but that will take away help that is sorely needed elsewhere. It is best if we are able to handle the Pima Defenders ourselves." "Understood." The Larkinson Army drafted many different battle plans, of which many of them were variations of the same approach. It would have been at least two times easier to break the Pima Defenders if they obtained ranged support! However, the offensive power of the Pima Defenders was so unimpressive that the higher ups deemed it fine if the Avatars of Myth achieved little results for a time. This did not fall in line with Melkor's intentions. The Avatars of Myth needed to show its strength as the premier assault legion of the Larkinson Army. "If we can't overcome a relatively tame opponent like the Pima Defenders, how can we possibly keep our heads high?" The Pima Defenders must fall in order to meet expectations that everyone placed on the Avatars! The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!