"Our transphasic shield generators are losing integrity at a more concerning rate. The accuracy of Stingray 1 is continuing to rise and the puelmers are becoming increasingly better at reading our maneuvers. Their laser cannons have lowered their damage output to a third of their maximum power, but their firing rates have doubled because of this shift!" Transphasic laser beams pelted the space around the Spirit of Bentheim like rain. Each time a laser beam threatened to strike the factory ship, it briefly lost intensity as it passed through the Saint Kingdom of the Macharia Excelsia before it slightly drained the integrity of the forward transphasic shield generator. The damage inflicted by each individual laser beam was not much, but the adaptations made by the puelmers increased their hit rates so much that they were putting the Spirit of Bentheim under greater pressure! The much more numerous yurzen warships had yet to properly open fire at this time! Reports kept pouring in as the Spirit of Bentheim gradually entered into greater danger. Ves could not stop himself from looking up the data that described the performance of the superdrive, the first-class power reactor and the first-class transphasic shield generators. Each of these high-end ship systems played a crucial role in enabling the Spirit of Bentheim to function as a 'battlefactoryship'! None of the production lines and other non-essential systems were operating at this time. The production workers had already shuttered many of those machines or temporarily shipped them to other friendly ships. This not only prevented a lot of expensive equipment from suffering needless damage, but also reduced the Spirit of Bentheim's total mass. The ship needed all of the maneuverability she could get, because by this time the larger and more threatening yurzen warships had begun to open fire with their laser weapons! The volume of fire directed towards the Spirit of Bentheim ballooned at once! "We are under heavy fire!" "Increase the warp factor of our superdrive!" "The accuracy of the long-ranged directed energy weapons of the yurzen warships are much worse than that of Stingray 1 and Stingray 2. Their armaments are also infused with considerably less phasewater, so their successful strikes also inflict less damage to our defenses." The situation appeared to be a lot more dangerous to the human capital ship, but the situation was still under control. Ves began to grin in the face of all of these overwhelming attacks. The differences in technological sophistication and power mattered a lot. The yurzens showed many inadequacies as their more primitive warships struggled to land their shots against the factory ship that was taunting the aliens from a distance. In truth, the yurzen vessels did not excel in long-range combat at all. They were all designed and built to fight at much closer distances where fancy tech and advanced production methods made much less of a difference. As long as they could get within knife-fighting range, the yurzen warships would be able to unleash their full arsenal and overwhelm any opponent by relying on quantity alone! The aliens could make this happen as long as they engaged the warp drives of their warships and took the initiative to get closer! However, the puelmers apparently forbid them from doing so because that would play into the hands of humans. The yurzen aliens had no choice but to restrain themselves and continue to play escort to the partially crippled Stingray 1. "We need to give the aliens more reasons to fear our might! Venerable Stark, are you able to add your firepower to the fight?" Situated in the maw of the gigantic cat head prow, the Amaranto laid prone as she carefully adjusted the aim of her Instrument of Vengeance. Despite the steadily shrinking distance, Venerable Davia Stark struggled to formulate her firing solutions when the Spirit of Bentheim was not only surrounded by a warp bubble, but also adjusted her course on a frequent basis. Nonetheless, she was not considered the most accurate marksman mech pilot within the fleet for nothing! "I am preparing to open fire." The guest pilot stoically announced. Davia Stark resonated increasingly more with her masterwork mech. The Amaranto responded a lot better than usual, not just because she had recently begun to cultivate on her own, but also because her battle partner had recently passed the threshold that classified her as a high-tier expert pilot! Any pilot whose resonance strength had begun to exceed 40 laveres truly started to set themselves apart from their low to mid-tier colleagues. A small but significant qualitative transition took place at that point that caused high-tier expert pilots to exert much greater power in all of their actions. The Amaranto was an expert mech that was solely dedicated to long-ranged combat, so Venerable Davia Stark was able to employ all of her true resonance and skill towards offense! She did not even bother to invest too much attention in keeping up an adequate resonance shield. The pilot put her full trust in the transphasic energy shields covering the Spirit of Bentheim and concentrated on landing an attack on the smaller and more elusive yurzen warships. As the Instrument of Vengeance started to glow, the manifestation of the Illustrious One appeared and seemed to grant the charged weapon an additional boost that caused it to glow in radiant rainbow colors! From an outside perspective, it was as if the giant cat head's mouth was about to launch a multicolored breath attack. It was a pity that the Instrument of Vengeance was a relatively outdated luminar crystal weapon. The long mech rifle did not possess any transphasic properties like the much more powerful Instrument of Doom. While the latter weapon was much more suitable to be employed against tough and damage-resistant warships, its accuracy and precision at extreme ranges were much worse. This was why the Amaranto had set the powerful transphasic luminar cannon aside for the time being. The expert mech could always switch weapons once her targets came a lot closer. Sweat poured from Davia's brow as she continued to work through all of the complicated variables that affected her firing solutions. This was a much more mathematical exercise than normal. With a warp bubble distorting her perspective to the outside cosmos, Davia could not even trust her expert mech's optical sensors to help keep her aim straight! It was not until she saw a fleeting window of opportunity that she mentally pulled the trigger. "Fire!" The old masterwork rifle barked out a resonance-empowered laser beam that initially appeared to be wildly off-target, but almost instantly corrected its trajectory by bending back in the right direction! A fraction of a second laser, the bent laser beam seemed to bypass the larger yurzen battleships and cruisers that utilized their bulk to shield the ships from damage. The Amaranto's crooked laser beam easily defeated this effort and precisely struck the yurzen destroyer that was still trying to recover from the initial attack dealt by the Macharia Excelsia earlier. A short burst of cheers rang throughout the bridge! The first Larkinson mech to open fire successfully managed to land a shot! "Hit! The Amaranto's attack has interrupted the restoration of the yurzen destroyer's transphasic energy shield and caused it to lose a minor degree of integrity!" The Amaranto's firepower may be fairly light, but her capacity to hit her targets at longer ranges was not in doubt! Venerable Davia Stark immediately started the cycle over again and began to calculate her next firing solution. The earlier success seemed to give her a little boost. She found it a little easier to resonate with her Instrument of Vengeance. With the addition of the Illustrious One's blessing, the luminar crystal weapon seemed to take on a life of its own. It not only became more receptive to the expert pilot and the design spirit, but also stirred the exotic radiation in the immediate area! This was an impressive sight. Although none of the parties involved had yet to learn any proper fighting techniques that could empower their attacks by leveraging the power of heaven, their intense will, emotions and familiarity enabled them to form a crude solution that represented a step in the right direction! Ves was able to observe some of this from his command throne. His eyes lit up when he saw that Venerable Stark and the Amaranto did not wait for his intervention to figure out a better way to empower their attacks! "I forgot that the Instrument of Vengeance is also a prime weapon." Although it was relatively weak in this aspect, after years of being used and getting subjected to the minor willpower baptism of the same expert pilot, the Instrument of Vengeance had undergone a subtle evolution that caused it to become an unparalleled masterwork weapon when used by Davia Stark! "The Amaranto's Ascension Paths are also helping a lot." As one of the oldest masterwork expert mechs developed by Ves, it boasted a whopping 12 Ascension Runes! This was a clear indication that the Amaranto had grown considerably faster than almost any other living mech in the Larkinson Clan over the years! The Amaranto solidified 8 Ascension Runes in the Path of the Illuminator. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞 Unlike the Promethea that only barely stepped into this path, the Amaranto shared a much closer relationship with the Illustrious One! This enabled the latter mech to acquire a much greater understanding and control of energy weapons, among other benefits. The Amaranto also invested 4 Ascension Runes in the Path of the Marksman. This facilitated her performance at longer ranges by increasing the precision of her weapon handling and by offering her expert pilot greater support in calculating her firing solutions. Though the expert rifleman mech had already developed much of these enhancements through organic growth, she had undergone a small rebirth from the moment the Ascension Paths properly sorted out her evolution. With the help of these mysterious Ascension Runes that not even Ves fully understood, the Amaranto's ability to resonate and draw power from E energy radiation had noticeably improved! "Fire!" After a delay of only half a minute, the Instrument of Vengeance barked out another bright and luminous beam from the 'mouth' of the Spirit of Bentheim! Just like before, the resonance-empowered beam's aim appeared to be wildly off, but quickly corrected its course and struck the same destroyer yet again! This time, the alien warship showed slightly more severe signs of faltering. The second strike had caused her stalled transphasic energy shield to lose more integrity. The yurzen destroyer's defenses were not that strong to begin with. The various factors that amplified and elevated the damage potential of the initially weak Instrument of Vengeance and caused it to pose a serious threat against their smaller ships! The aliens did not allow the Amaranto to fire at the threatened destroyer with impunity. The yurzens adjusted their formation and surrounded the vulnerable vessel from multiple angles. While this caused more yurzen cruisers and battleships to turn into easier targets to strike, their response prevented Venerable Davia Stark from inflicting any permanent damage onto the small destroyer. This was why she switched to another target. The yurzens brought a lot more destroyers along in order to make up the numbers. A short moment later, another alien destroyer that was actively maneuvering in space received a small shock as a bright resonance-empowered beam struck her transphasic energy shield! Now that she had entered her groove, Venerable Davia Stark needed less time to calculate her firing solutions. It only took 23 seconds later for her expert mech to launch a follow-up strike that caused the ship to experience even greater distress. None of the Amaranto's attacks had missed up to this point! The yurzens began to experience much greater pressure now that they realized that the humans had a mech that was not only unreasonably accurate, but could also strike their assets at unreasonable angles! As the Amaranto depleted the enemy transphasic energy shields with disturbing regularity, the other mechs stationed aboard the Spirit of Bentheim were also preparing to make their moves...