The two units exchanging fire with each other couldn't be any more different from each other. One one side, the Golden Skull Alliance deployed the Mars, its famed and battle-tested masterwork ace mech. What impressed the native aliens the most about ace mechs was that they packed a huge amount of power in a machine that hardly outmassed a starfighter! Though the aliens were not entirely unfamiliar with the concept of extraordinary warriors, their 'gods' mostly relied on their intrinsic phasewater-infused bodies to imitate the powers of the phase whale race. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚 While there were certainly phase lords who managed to grow incredibly strong through this route, the difficulty of reaching it was unimaginable! Ace pilots may be far weaker by themselves, but once they paired up with a compatible ace mech, the resulting combination produced an amazing degree of synergy! Right now, this became abundantly clear as the Mars amply proved that it could hold its own against the Tower of Babel! No matter how many of her intact and operational gun batteries the alien battleship brought to bear against the ace mech, none of them had yet to land a solid strike! The Mars wasn't making it easy for the alien AIs or gunners to land their shots. Patriarch Reginald possessed a keen intuition for danger and could often predict when his position was about to become extremely dangerous. By the time the large but ponderous warship cannons unleashed their firepower, the annoyingly small ace mech had already completed its evasive maneuvers! The command center of the Antonio Cross turned into a hive of activity and many different Crossers kept track of what was taking place. Some of the men kept a close watch on the Tower of Babel while others supported Patriarch Reginald by providing highly relevant data and suggestions. As the various elements of the rapid strike force continued to obey their maneuvering instructions, Ves started to worry about whether the aliens would continue to bother with attacking an elusive target. One of the key components of this daring plan was to force the enemy battleship to train most of her firepower onto the Mars. While Ves didn't want to see the most important mech of the Golden Skull Alliance get struck by heavy kinetic round that was powerful enough to annihilate a city district, he didn't want the aliens to get too discouraged either! He turned to Master Benedict. "Once our expert mechs enter into battle, the Mars needs to do more to retain the attention of the enemy battleship." The Master Mech Designer was no novice when it came to mech combat. He designed mechs for many more years. That automatically meant that he understood the flow of battle much deeper as well. "We are aware of this concern." The accomplished mech designer responded with a calm and collected voice. "Reginald will bring his Mars closer soon. The aliens will not be able to ignore the threat of our ace mech, especially when our best machine begins to concentrate its ranged output onto the segmented energy shields that have previously absorbed damage." That was a good way to make the aliens feel threatened. One of the reasons why the Tower of Babel could withstand the attacks of the Mars so easily was because it could dynamically move its segmented energy shields around. "Will the Mars get close enough to circle around to the damaged front half of the battleship?" "That is up to Reginald's discretion. It depends on whether the enemy 'phase lord' will pursue the Mars. We believe that the phase lord that has shown up in the previous battle cannot effectively attack and range. The only way for this alien powerhouse to fight against the Mars is to get closer, but if he moves too far away from the Tower of Babel, he will make his ship vulnerable against close assaults by other units." So far, the phase lord that presumably belonged to the nunser race had yet to make an appearance, but that would change sooner or later. The existence of this powerful combatant imposed a lot of restrictions on the Golden Skull Alliance. Perhaps the phase lord might not be able to beat ace mechs in direct combat, but the same could not be said for expert mechs! This was why Ves wasn't eager to send his melee expert mechs such as the Riot and the C-Man forward for the time being. "Sir, the Mars is moving closer!" Letting the Mars move closer changed the dynamic of the ongoing firefight. The Mars was better able to angle around the hull of the alien battleship. At the same time, the Tower of Babel's primary armaments needed to adjust their firing angles faster. While her secondary laser cannon batteries could still keep up, her much larger and slower primary kinetic cannon batteries struggled a lot more at this point. This problem would only become greater if the Mars got any closer, but that would likely draw out the enemy phase lord as well. "Hahaha! You still can't hit me!" Reginald exulted in the enemy's continued lack of ability to inflict effective damage against his ace mech. "Ah, are you trying to shut down my warp bubble? Fat chance!" Ves called up a new data screen that showed that the Tower of Babel had activated her warp interdiction field. A wide area of space around the battleship became more solid, making it harder for warp drives and similar equipment to form warp bubbles that were necessary to make objects move faster. "The strength of the warp interdiction field has weakened by about two-thirds, and its energy levels are constantly fluctuating." Master Benedict remarked as he studied the same data. "That is good news. We expected the enemy battleship to retain most of this capability, but the damage to the intact rear half of the hull is more extensive than we thought." The warp interdiction field was probably strong enough to block the warping capabilities of most mechs and starships, but ace mechs were different! Patriarch Reginald's sheer willpower was enough to smack this field and prevent it from affecting his machine! This was what made high-ranking mech pilots so special and valuable. No matter what kind of exotic or destructive measures an enemy could come up with, extraordinary mech pilots could always fend off the negative effects. The universal nature of their resistance against negative effects allowed them to fight against many many different alien civilizations without needing to make too many adjustments! The ARCEUS System continued to pound the segmented energy shields of the Tower of Babel without showing any significant signs of stress. Ves was surprised by how well the integrated energy weapons held up during intensive use. The amount of energy and heat running through their compact structures was astounding and could easily melt the metals used to build ordinary mechs. However, the Mars continued to exhibit robust performance, though he could clearly tell that the effective damage output from the energy weapons was not as great as before. Ves knew why that was the case. Patriarch Reginald's willpower baptism had fully overridden the effects bestowed by one of Lucky's precious gems. "What a waste." he whispered under his breath. He recalled that the Rage of Ayef gem amplified the damage of all energy weapons by 50 percent. This was one of the best offensive performance boosts that Ves had ever gotten his hands on up until this point. Not even the Amaranto obtained a benefit of this magnitude from its own gem! Bastet's Affection only amplified the damage of the expert rifleman mech by 20 percent. If Ves could do it all over again, he would refrain from integrating a powerful and nearly irreplaceable gem into the Mars. He should have resorted to a less useful one instead! "At least Reginald is partially able to reproduce its effects." The damage output of the Mars hadn't dropped to a massive extent. The ARCEUS System was just a bit weaker than normal because Reginald also invested a lot of effort into fortifying his expert mech's robustness and staying power. The battle continued to progress like this until the expert mechs deploying from the Antonio Cross were finally ready to take part in the fight! This was a dangerous moment for the rapid strike force. The Mars might be able to shrug off the battleship's attacks as if they were nothing, but the same couldn't be said for everything else! The expert mechs therefore lingered at an extreme distance from the enemy battleship. Ordinary ranged mechs wouldn't even be able to fight effectively at this range because their weapons would miss most of their shots. However, mechs such as the Amaranto and the Promethea were much more precise due to their higher quality designs. When paired with skilled expert pilots, they should reluctantly be able to land their shots on a large and relatively stationary battleship! The biggest risk was getting hit by the Tower of Babel's formidable armaments, but the expert mechs should be able to evade most attacks at this distance. Ves immediately shifted his attention to the most powerful ranged mech at his disposal. The Amarantho did not prepare to open fire by herself. Instead, the expert marksman mech approached the Amphis Mark II and took shelter behind its formidable bulk and tower shield. "I miss the Shield of Samar." Ves sighed. The former masterwork expert space knight was designed to seamlessly combine with the Amaranto to form a cohesive combination unit. That wasn't possible with the Amphis, so the Cross Clan's defensive expert mech could only provide partial cover to the Amaranto. It would have to do. The powerful Amaranto piloted by a mid-tier expert pilot started to glow. Her impressive Instrument of Doom began to accumulate more power even as the Phase King began to bless the oversized mech cannon. More and more power began to well around the Amaranto. A lot of nearby expert pilots detected a growing threat from the expert mech. Even when she wasn't aiming her weapon's massive muzzle at any friendlies, the Instrument of Doom still made for an intimidating sight! Despite the dramatic light show and spike in energy emissions, the distant Tower of Babel seemed to take no notice of what was taking place. This was not a surprise as a casual attack from the Mars far exceeded the power level of the Amaranto with her new weapon! "Fire!" A blindingly bright disruptor beam that was at least wide as half a mech rapidly soared from one end to the other end of the battlefield! The sensors of the Antonio Cross had preemptively hardened themselves in anticipation of this outburst of power. As the lengthy beam finally struck the Tower of Babel from the side, one of her segmented energy shields incurred a significant amount of damage! "The energy level of that specific segmented energy shield has dropped by around 22 percent!" That wasn't all. Much to the surprise of many people, the potent blessing of the Phase King actually enabled a part of disruptor beam to phase through the first layer of energy shields and strike the second layer! Even if the damage to the second layer was negligible, it showed that the penetration power of the Amaranto and the Instrument of Doom exceeded that of the Mars! "..." "We are detecting a response from the enemy battleship! Three of her secondary laser cannon batteries are aiming in the direction of our ship." "I think we have made the aliens angry!" "Commence evasive maneuvers! Don't hold anything back!" It didn't take long before a salvo of powerful laser beams filled up the space around the Antonio Cross! The fast and nimble fleet carrier had already changed her orientation so that she presented only a minimal silhouette to the Tower of Babel. That along with irregular movements helped the capital ship avoid incurring any damage. However, the warship's laser cannons did not need to wait too long until they were ready to fire again. The Antonio Cross was still in as much trouble as before!