Chapter 6105 Greater Variations Ketis struggled to make the right decision. It became apparent that many of the precautions that the Larkinsons prepared in advance failed to stymy the Emperor Tree. Its ability to affect the minds of humans was much stronger and more frightening than it had shown in the past! It was doubtful that the Emperor Tree always possessed this capability. The much more likely possibility was that it had spent a lot of effort into improving it after seeing how well it sowed chaos among the human mechs last time. Ketis frowned deeper. The Emperor Tree's threat level had grown too fast. It became a lot more adept at fighting against the human invaders from beyond the stars. If the Larkinsons postponed their attack on the Emperor Tree for a few months, how much stronger and more effective would its measures have become? "We cannot delay this priority anymore. The tree needs to die today. We will resort to orbital bombardment if we have to. Any solution is better than leaving it alive to develop more effective weapons against our race." Orbital bombardment would lead to a lot of repercussions. If the rampant bombing truly managed to alert several other calamity beasts, then the Larkinsons would quickly evacuate from Chimera Base and return to orbit at worst. Ketis was fairly confident that the other beasts had yet to evolve any specific adaptations against humans. They were much further behind in this regard. That reduced their threat level as far as she was concerned. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚 "We are approaching the checkpoint." The mechs flew forward at an altitude that was neither too high nor too low. The concentration of Solus Gas should be high enough to block all sorts of strange influences, which unfortunately affected the connections between living mechs and their design spirits. However, the top of the Emperor Tree was no longer able to shine on the machines like a lighthouse. That should keep their minds a lot safer if they were correct about its mechanisms. The biggest downside was that the mechs all became a lot more vulnerable to impalement. Ketis guessed that the Emperor Tree had secretly spread its roots far and wide. Even so, the concentration and power of those roots likely grew the closer they moved towards the main trunk! Ketis could not imagine how many root spikes were ready to break out of the ground and take the mechs by surprise! Every mech pilot grew more stressed as they not only had to pay more attention to keeping a clear mind, but also be ready to move in an instant in case a lot of root spikes emerged from below. It was quite doubtful that many of the mech pilots taking part in the assault retained their full combat effectiveness. They had yet to launch any strikes at the Emperor Tree, and already their adversary managed to shake their confidence! Ketis considered whether she should hold another speech, but eventually decided against it. This was not the time for her men to get distracted. If they needed a second speech in order to regain their focus, then it may be better to send them back right away. For now, she was willing to trust in their resolve and hope that their mental states recovered in the next few minutes. "We have reached the checkpoint." The terrain at this location was much rougher than elsewhere. Low hills and other terrain features provided enough cover for most of the mechs that took part in the assault. The original plan was for the Larkinson mechs to hover near it with the expectation of taking shelter behind natural cover. Nobody believed it was a good idea to follow the original plan anymore. Ketis and many others believed that the Emperor Tree had hidden a lot of root spikes underneath the surface. It was better for the mechs to hover above ground even if they became more vulnerable as a consequence. Their greatest priorities were to open fire at the Emperor Tree in the distance while simultaneously remaining on guard against any incoming attacks. The melee mechs all spread out around the squads of ranged mechs. Meanwhile, the ranged mechs all waited for more accurate targeting data to be transmitted back by the scout mechs that flew ahead. The three expert mechs that had been leading the strike force patiently waited for the scout mechs to confirm that the Emperor Tree did not present any shocking surprises. "The ground ahead is clear." "The concentration of Solus Gas around the main trunk has remained consistent with past readings." "The root structure at the bottom has become much denser than before!" "Several thousand wooden mechs are hovering protectively around the trunk. Their appearances have not changed as far as our sensors can observe." "We have detected over 70 purple wooden mechs hiding in the branches. There is a high probability that there are more hiding out of sight." "Have the designs of the purple mechs changed?" Ketis demanded. "Yes. Our sensors detect that the copies of the First Sword and the Everchanger have become larger and more refined. The composition of their purple wooden exteriors have also changed. They have likely grown tougher and more resistant to damage!" That was bad news. The purple mechs had proven to be one of the few assets at the Emperor Tree's disposal that could put up greater resistance against two powerful expert mechs. "The Emperor Tree just attempted to shine its light at my mech! I am falling back!" The scout mechs could not observe the Emperor Tree long enough to provide more high-quality footage and sensor readings. Despite the high concentration of Solus Gas, if the mechs were able to observe the details of the Emperor Tree, then it was only natural for their target to observe them as well! The calamity plant threatened to mentally hijack all of the mech pilots and living mechs that lingered a bit too close. The Flagrant Vandal mech pilots all erred on the side of caution and did not try to push their luck. They had already witnessed earlier what had happened when they thought that the Emperor Tree could not possibly subvert their minds at a further distance. The premature withdrawal of the scout mechs prevented the three expert pilots from making too many last-minute preparations. All they knew was that there were a lot of wooden mechs and much more powerful roots awaiting their arrival. "Those roots almost managed to trap my expert mech." Venerable Dise spoke. "They aren't invincible, but there are so many of them that my Decapitator can't cut through all of them at once." "The Emperor Tree managed to produce more purple wooden mechs than before." Joshua said with concern. "If they have grown tougher as the sensor data suggests, then they can pose a much greater hindrance than before." "Do not overlook the possibility of other improvements. We have yet to spot the larger and much more powerful seed cannons." Ketis warned. The expert pilots would have preferred to go in with a lot more up-to-date information at their disposal, but that was not possible. "We should commence our assault." Venerable Isobel spoke. Ketis immediately responded. "I agree. Do not give the Emperor Tree more time to make last-minute adaptations. Let us follow the second variation of our action plan. Maintain your distance from the tree and more specifically the large roots around the base of the trunk. Stay out of the range of the tree branches and focus on whittling down the wooden mechs first. If our suspicions are correct, it takes a great amount of energy, resources and time to produce a single purple wooden mech. The sooner we get rid of them, the easier it will be to attack the main trunk." It was a good plan, but it relied on the assumption that the Emperor Tree was unable to launch effective attacks against the expert mechs at those distances. That was anything but certain. After a quick discussion, the three expert pilots quickly agreed on a strategy before they moved their powerful mechs forward. The Everchanger and the First Sword both took the lead while the Promethea followed right behind. The three expert pilots and their battle partners were on their own from this point onwards. Communications with the mechs stationed further in the rear could only be established with unreliable light mechs acting as mobile relays. The expert mechs had already moved deep enough to lose contact with their design spirits. While the contingent of ranged mech stationed in the rear was still able to provide long-ranged fire support, they could only reliably open fire at the massive tree trunk. There was not much point in relying on the targeting data provided by the scout mechs to land shots onto the wooden mechs. The lag times and other sources of interference would drastically lower the hit rate. As such, the three expert mechs needed to carry most of the burden of this fight. "Incoming wooden mechs! They are all standard ones! They are spreading out and making sure we cannot easily wipe them out with explosive munitions." The three expert mechs automatically flew in another direction, thereby attempting to stay a few steps ahead of the intercepting wooden mechs. The differences in speed were too great. Now that the expert mechs were not forced to stay in the same place in order to retrieve a bunch of samples or protect a lumber heavy artillery mech, the high-quality machines were able to take full advantage of their superior mobility. The Everchanger and the Promethea had already begun to fire while they continued to kite around the pursuing wooden mechs. Fiery energy beams struck the wooden mechs one by one. No matter whether it was the Vitalus or Ignitron rifles, both of them possessed more than enough firepower to vaporize much of the torsos of the wooden constructs at once. Even if that did not happen, the flames spread by the hyper laser beams soon made quick work of these machines! The power of two luminar crystal rifles might not be that great in comparison to more modern high-end energy weapons, but the expert pilots were not dissatisfied with their killing speeds. Dozens of wooden mechs burst apart or turned into burning wrecks. In the meantime, the wooden constructs accomplished virtually nothing aside from soaking up firepower. Their melee mechs including the ones modeled after the Flagrant Vandal mechs were simply too slow to catch up to any of the expert mechs. The ranged mechs were all armed with relatively basic seed rifles. While the quantity of shots was impressive, it didn't really matter. So what if the wooden mechs launched thousands of seeds at once? Their trajectories diverged too wildly. Only a few seeds ended up hitting the expert mechs per salvo, and the damage was so negligible that the resonance shields did not even shake from the impacts. Perhaps understanding that it was futile for the wooden mechs to hound the Larkinson expert mechs, the Emperor Tree wised up and changed their instructions. "The wooden mechs have given up on attacking our expert mechs!" "They are changing course. The wooden mechs are on their way to attack our rear elements!" "Focus on repelling them first." The enemy's decision temporarily reduced the fire support from the rear, but it had freed up the expert mechs from the annoying chore of mopping up all of the cannon fodder. "The purple wooden mechs are on the move!" The Emperor Tree finally decided to dispatch its elite minions! Unlike the previous wave of enemies, the three expert pilots took the latest batch a lot more seriously. Not only did they look tougher and much higher in quality, but the Emperor Tree had also experimented with their loadouts and other parameters. The purple mechs no longer looked like strange imitations of the Everchanger and the First Sword anymore. There were many among them that carried much more formidable ranged armaments. There were even purple mechs that looked like they struggled to hold an oversized cannon modeled after the Devora Cannon of the Transcendent Punisher Mark III! Yet regardless of how much more of a challenge they posed, the response from the Larkinsons was the same. "Burn them all down!"