Chapter 6064 Killing Efficiency 6064 Killing Efficiency The tide of wooden mechs threatened to drown the two custom mechs. While the expert mechs of the Larkinson Clan could easily clear up a swarm of weak mech-like opponents, the story was different for more ordinary mech pilots and machines! Both Lanie and Taon had trained their skills to the point where they exceeded the limitations of ordinary humans in a few aspects. Yet to consider their piloting skills close to that of an expert pilot was a complete fantasy! To be honest, the capabilities of their mechs mattered a lot more. If they were armed with an abundance of weapons or possessed excellent swarm-clearing capabilities, they should be able to deal with this tide with considerably less difficulty. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞 Mobility was another advantage that mechs could use. As long as they were fast and agile when maneuvering under 1.3 g, they could still evade a lot of seed projectiles while deftly preventing the wooden mechs from forming a complete envelopment. Unfortunately for the two expert candidates, the strengths and weaknesses constrained their ability to cope in this situation! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Equipped with only 4 heavy artillery cannons, the semi- modular Zeal was fantastic at clearing weaker opponents from afar, but it was never designed to repel so many enemies up close! Taon and the Zeal had to manually override the safety protocols of the explosive shells and forcibly program to detonate almost the instant they exited the muzzles of the cannons. Although most of the power of the explosions ended up killing lots of wooden mechs at once, they also inflicted a certain amount of damage to the originator's own azure energy shield, thereby turning this into an unsustainable tactic. Still, it relieved the Zeal's immediate crisis. The adaption successfully cleared a lot of swarming wooden mechs that approached from above and several other directions, but the problem was that the weapon hardpoints of the custom Transcendent Punisher were all located on his 'back'! Similar to an oval turtle shell, any guns mounted on the upper surface had no way of aiming their guns downwards! The firing angle of the much more massive Devora Cannon was even worse. The oversized gauss cannon was mounted on a demiturret-like construction that had been affixed to 4 whole weapon hardpoints. The immense size and power of the super-heavy cannon made it so that it could only aim forward at very limited angles. Even then, it was not a suitable weapon for swarm clearing purposes as it had an enormous tendency to overpenetrate weaker targets, especially when all of its kinetic rounds were transphasic in nature!. The Devora Cannon was mainly designed to burst transphasic energy shields and pierce through the thickest armor plating. Even if a bunch of wooden mechs attacked from the front, the powerful kinetic weapon was only able to clear up a very narrow lane! "They are coming from below!" Taon yelled as he came under much greater pressure. "The Zeal's azure energy shield won't last long at this rate! You need to wipe them out faster!" The Zeal may be a masterwork mech, but it still could not escape the fundamental fact that it was a heavy artillery mech! As far as specialized mechs went, heavy artillery mechs were notoriously powerful when they were in their element, but also incredibly weak when enemies managed to exploit their weak points! If the Zeal was placed on the ground, then it wouldn't have to expose its bottom side to the enemy, but Taon did not dare to plant his living mech on the surface. The Emperor Tree had not yet employed its root spikes so far, but the Larkinsons had already learned of their existence. The damage they could inflict was bound to be greater! The expert candidate felt deeply uncomfortable about this situation. He and his battle partner had volunteered for a mission where they were placed as far away from their ideal circumstances as possible! Instead of being safely ensconced in a sturdy and solid bunker on a capital ship, the Zeal was completely exposed from every direction. Instead of being guarded by hundreds if not thousands of friendly mechs, the Zeal could only count on the inadequate protection of the Elegant Rage. Instead of being able to eliminate swarms of enemies from tens if not hundreds of kilometers away, the Zeal was forced to repel many of them at close to point-blank range! All of these conditions piled up a huge amount of stress on the Ylvainan expert candidate's shoulders. He felt like a fish out of water that was desperately trying to breathe in water, only to suck in pure air instead. If that was not bad enough, Taon wasn't even able to complete his original assignment, which was to sever a branch from the Emperor Tree! Even though one of the expert pilots should be able to complete this task with ease, Taon did not want to distract them and add an extra burden to their shoulders. "My energy shield has less than 50 percent integrity left!" Taon understood the appeal of first-class multipurpose mechs a lot better now that he had ended up in this dire predicament. They might not be particularly outstanding in any aspect, but their lack of obvious weaknesses made them a lot safer! Taon had not ended up in such a dire life-threatening situation for years. His breathing grew a lot heavier while sweat poured from his brows. Though his Zeal remained stable on top of the floater platform, this illusion of stability would not last forever. If the wooden mechs from below were not dealt with soon, the Zeal would definitely lose its ability to levitate in the air! "Lanie!" "I am doing my best, Taon, but my killing efficiency is too low!" Though Lanie's ability to keep her Elegant Rage intact was a lot better, the melee mech was also out of her element at the moment! During previous battles, the Elegant Rage always fought alongside thousands if not tens of thousands of mechs of the Golden Skull Alliance. There were so many swordsman mechs, space knights, lancer mechs, rifleman mechs, heavy artillery mechs and so on that they fulfilled every important role. Lanie Larkinson and the Elegant Rage served as an independent champion unit that was able to pick and choose their battles. This allowed the pair to always fight in the places where they could make the greatest contributions according to their capabilities. This was not possible anymore! There was no other melee mech that was free enough to cover the Zeal's enormous blind spots. The Emperor Tree which controlled or directed the wooden constructs from remote did not miss this glaring fact, and directed an increasing amount of wooden mechs to attack from below! Crack! Crack! Crack! The Elegant Rage efficiently employed single strikes to crack or burn the wooden mechs modeled after light mechs such as the Ferocious Piranha. However, the wooden mechs modeled after the Stormblade Samurai, the Storm Sword and the Bright Warrior took two or three hits to eliminate. All of this slowed down the Elegant Rage's killing speed and steadily caused the quantity of wooden mechs to pile up around the two Larkinson mechs. There was so much wood in the way that more constructs were unable to approach due to the growing amount of congestion! With so many enemies around the Elegant Rage, her energy shield which was much less powerful than that of the Zeal already began to flicker! Once the Elegant Rage lost her energy barrier, her relatively fragile mech frame would not be able to block or parry every strike with her pair of tonfas. She would most definitely get crippled within seconds! If Lanie abandoned her duty to protect the Zeal's blindspots, then the Elegant Rage might be able to last a dozen or so seconds longer, but maneuvering around was not a solution when there were still lots of ranged wooden mechs firing lots of seeds at the intruding mechs. Lanie couldn't take it any longer! "JOSHUA! I NEED HELP!" The response came in an instant. While the Everchanger was embroiled in his own difficulties, the expert hero mech explosively pushed back the branches and the much more powerful wooden mechs assailing him from multiple sides before bailing out the two expert candidates! The Everchanger raised the arm holding the Vitalus and began to unleash a staccato of more powerful resonance- empowered fire beams at the wooden constructs threatening to overwhelm the Zeal and the Elegant Rage. This time, the powerful energy beams punched through dozens of wooden mechs with every piercing shot! The wooden mechs that did not collapse right after they got struck burst into flames and fell to the ground like flaming sparks. The congestion of the wooden mechs worked against them for once as the hyper laser beams fired by the Vitalus easily saved the two customs from their immediate predicament and gave them a small reprieve! Everyone knew it was only temporary, though. The Emperor Tree had launched thousands of wooden mechs from its canopy and continued to release them as soon as they had been formed. "Lanie! Catch my blade!" "What?!" Joshua did not explain any further. He simply commanded his Everchanger to swing back his other arm before tossing his Heartsword towards the Elegant Rage in a parabolic trajectory! The control and aim of the weapon toss was excellent. The Everchanger did not throw the weapon out at full strength, but controlled it carefully so that it traversed in the air at a more manageable speed. Due to the Everchanger's ranged barrage, there were no wooden mechs in the vicinity that could intercept the tossed mech sword! It turned out that the main reason why the Everchanger cleared out all of the wooden mechs was for this purpose! The Elegant Rage quickly stowed away its mediocre tonfas and flew up to meet and catch the Heartsword by the grip! From the moment the melee mech clutched the sword that had accompanied a famous hero mech for many years, the Elegant Rage and her pilot immediately felt the power contained within! "It's so powerful!" Under normal circumstances, it was possible for standard mechs to wield weapons originally designed to be utilized by expert mechs. The Heartsword was not a high-tier Destroyer weapon, so it was not necessarily capable of producing a backlash that could destroy an unqualified wielder. However, it had not only been baptized by Venerable Joshua's willpower and domain for a long time, but still carried enough true resonance to maintain its unnaturally sharp edge! All of that energy and power caused Lanie to groan. She felt as if she was repeatedly slamming her head against the Everchanger's resonance shield Even if Joshua never meant to hurt Lanie, he and his living mech imprinted themselves onto the Heartsword so much that it naturally attempted to overpower Lanie's psyche. This was why standard mechs rarely if ever took the initiative to borrow the weapons of powerful expert mechs! The phenomena that exerted a lot of strain on Lanie's mind and will was called willpower contamination. If Lanie's willpower was unable to withstand the erosion from the Heartsword, then she will assimilate a part of Joshua's power. This might not sound like a bad deal, but it was awful to ordinary mech pilots! The basis of breaking through to expert pilot was to develop supreme confidence in themselves and their own ability. If pilots intentionally or unintentionally became contaminated by the willpower of another expert pilot, they would no longer retain their own identities anymore. They became so confused about their own selves that they were unable to transform their willpower anymore! Lanie understood the risks quite well, but her Elegant Rage did not let go of the Heartsword. "I shall not fail!" With such a powerful weapon in hand, the Elegant Rage seemed to gain a lot of renewed energy. The machine held the Heartsword with two hands and began to charge straight at the newer waves of wooden mechs approaching from below! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! A multitude of wooden mechs broke in half or shattered into multiple pieces as the Heartsword easily cut through them in a single swing! Millions of wooden splinters exploded in the air, slightly obscuring the Elegant Rage as she began to charge towards other wooden mechs before rampaging in their midst! "This… this is real power!" Lanie ecstatically yelled as her Elegant Rage's killing efficiency skyrocketed! She became so buoyed by the superior performance of the Heartsword that her good mood made the pressure of holding this expert mech sword more bearable. Now that the Zeal was no longer getting assailed from all sides, Taon was finally able to allocate greater focus towards severing one of the swaying tree branches!