6889 Endurance Contest Many people initially feared that Destroyer weapons would get sunsetted due to the Sirocco's obvious disadvantage against the Decapitator. However, rumors quickly spread about the Terran effort to develop Destroyer weapons based on superdimensional alloys. So long as the latter could be made resistant to the damaging effects of Destroyer particles, the newly developed blades could completely break the current limits of Destroyer technology! After the initial few exchanges between the two ace mechs, the powerful machines quickly entered into a stable rhythm. Neither side employed any other weapons than the blades that they currently held in their hands. They also did not try to perform any big moves that could break the balance. The electro-reactant wings of the First Sword gave the ace mech a powerful mobility boost. Saint Dise utilized its capabilities so extensively that she was unable to control the trajectory of her battle partner. However, the longer she fought like this, the more she improved her control over the movements of her machine. Ace pilots learned quickly, and Dise fully showcased her ability to rapidly become more proficient with the movement characteristics of her powerful ace mech. Of course, there was only so much she could accomplish in a short amount of time. Her improvement of her control over the First Sword's mobility quickly fell off and reached a plateau. From this point onwards, Dise could only refine her control over many repeated practice sessions and combat deployments. This meant that the maneuvers of the First Sword were just a tad bit slower and looser than the opposition. The Wind of Destruction was too good. He had been an ace pilot much longer than Dise's entire lifespan. There was no way to make up for this gap in skill and experience in a short amount of time. In fact, from the beginning of this dance, the Terran ace pilot purposefully suppressed the mobility of his Black Lord in order to give his opponent plenty of opportunities to showcase her combat prowess. It was only after Saint Dise rapidly improved her own control that the Wind of Destruction held back less and less. At this time, the Black Lord still maintained the upper hand. The suppression of its Saint Kingdom remained too great. It pressed back the First Sword's own domain field and limited the ace swordsman mech's options. Although the consequences of this Saint Kingdom suppression was not too obvious while the two machines continued to hack their blades into each other, they became a lot more obvious when the next phase of the sparring session commenced. "The First Sword and the Black Lord have backed away from each other!" "They are circling around and beginning to fight against each other from a small distance!" The First Sword released the sword fey from its hands and allowed it to rejoin its brethren. The living mech then proceeded to wield the Decapitator again. The ace mech immediately began to resonate with the masterwork mech greatsword. One of the many changes to the weapon was the integration of a newly developed ace mech-grade resonating material called SuperSunder Metal. It was actually based on Sunder Metal that was originally developed by the Resonance Smith. The Star Designer had revisited this product and successfully combined it with high-grade superdimensional matter in order to generate SuperSunder Metal. Sunder Metal was already noted for being able to loosen the molecules that held matter together. Combining it with superdimensional tech had massively strengthened this separation effect, but much of it only applied to the physical blade. This was why the Sirocco did not stand a chance when coming into contact with the sharp edge of the Decapitator! However, it was not a secret that sword energy attacks only inherited a fraction of Sunder Metal's properties. Ves and others assumed that the same rule would apply to SuperSunder Metal as well. Now, many observers wanted to know how extensively the First Sword Mark III was able to channel the offensive properties of superdimensional matter from a distance. The First Sword began by concentrating energy into her Decapitator before snapping off a quick swing. A glowing arc of silvery sword energy rapidly launched towards the Black Lord. The Wind of Destruction purposely did not try to inhibit the incoming attack, though it was hard for him to suppress his instincts. From the moment the sword energy attack entered his Saint Kingdom, it immediately weakened. By the time it finally struck the exterior of the Black Lord, the sword energy attack had already lost much of its resonance empowerment. The Black Lord had especially deactivated its azure energy shield in order to feel out the attack. In the end, the sword energy attack only left the most minute cut behind. "Damage is minimal but real!" This was a significant outcome. Even though the Black Lord did not incur any significant damage, the First Mark III had only launched a sloppy attack. This was far from her full strength! Of course, the Black Lord hardly did its best to defend against this attack. Its Saint Kingdom could have exerted much greater suppression and its azure energy shield may have been able to block it entirely. More importantly than that, the Black Lord could have evaded the attack with ease! Now that both sides gained a basic idea on how much the superdimensional ace mech could threaten the Black Lord at this distance, both combatants began to fight more seriously against each other. The Wind of Destruction finally commanded his Black Lord to unleash his iconic 'wind' attacks. Destruction energy coursed through the larger and more encompassing energy waves unleashed by the swings of his Sirocco. The First Sword tried her best to evade these sword energy attacks, but the Wind of Destruction did not earn this title for nothing. His destructive wind energy attacks were much more dispersed and covered much wider areas! Saint Allessandro Devos was also highly experienced when it came to fighting against other ace mechs. He was often able to read his opponent's evasion patterns. He used that to launch a sequence of destructive wind waves that boxed in the First Sword and prevented her from avoiding every attack! The First Sword had no choice but to get battered by the wind energy attacks at nearly full strength. Her Saint Kingdom was not only weaker, but also suppressed, which meant that the ace swordsman mech had very little opportunity to weaken the wind energy attacks before they struck the First Sword! Just like the Black Lord, the First Sword kept her azure energy shield generator in reserve. Her brand-new SEDA System or Superdimensional Energized Vibrometal Armor System easily resisted the destructive energies as if they were simple breezes. Yet the First Sword easily withstood the damage of the Wind of Destruction's most iconic attacks. Her armor-grade superdimensional alloy plating tanked every resonance-empowered attack with confidence, so much so that the energized vibrometal components designed by Master Lilian Recins appeared completely redundant in this case! This put the Black Lord in an awkward position. The ace multipurpose mech often relied on these mid-range destructive wind energy attacks to wipe out large swathes of cannon fodder or steadily wear down the defenses of tougher and more durable adversaries. The First Sword's SEDA System resisted these wind energy attacks so well that the Wind of Destruction would probably get exhausted long before the First Sword incurred any serious damage! The Wind of Destruction did not give up. It was at this point that he finally showed why his Black Lord was categorized as a multipurpose mechs. A whole host of integrated weapons came online. Their small but potent muzzles all aimed in the direction of the First Sword and began to open fire! A mix of laser beams, positron beams, plasma bolts, gauss rounds struck the First Sword with unerring accuracy! Amazingly enough, the resonance-empowered attacks all struck the First Sword without inflicting any obvious damage! The Wind of Destruction did not become deterred by the continued lack of progress and repeatedly bombarded the First Sword with attack after attack. Destructive winds interspersed with more conventional attacks continued to assault the First Sword. The superdimensional ace mech did not remain passive. The First Sword not only swung back with increasingly more powerful sword energy attacks, but also employed her sword fey for the first time! All 33 sword fey assumed a wedge formation before surging forward. Their formation appeared to possess mysterious properties that caused the sword fey to glow brighter and appear more cohesive and united. Chief among them was the Prime Sword Fey. As an Ultimate Module, this Prime Sword Fey was larger and boasted golden accents. The Prime Sword Fey acted as the tip of the sword formation and also contained Respa, Dise's companion spirit. This companion spirit connection caused the Prime Sword Fey to become subjected to significantly stronger true resonance than the other sword fey. This caused the entire sword formation to exude enough of threat to force the Black Lord into responding! The Wind of Destruction clearly did not want to collide head-on against this sword formation and moved his ace mech out of the way. The sword fey were quite flexible, so they easily changed their course and continued to pursue the Black Lord! However, the ace multipurpose mech proved to be significantly faster. Its Saint Kingdom not only exerted a suppressive effect on the sword fey, but also sped up its own maneuvers. Saint Dise could not properly counter this move because her resonance strength was too weak. The First Sword responded to this continued evasion by moving closer without ceasing to launch sword energy attacks with the Decapitator. The sword fey also began to split up. They no longer moved in one big formation, but instead moved in groups of 3, thereby enabling 11 small formations to surround the Black Lord! As much as the ace multipurpose mechs tried to evade them, the sword fey were still able to use their numbers advantage to strike the Black Lord from time to time. This time, the Wind of Destruction did not remain arrogant and utilized the full strength of his Saint Kingdom as well as an azure energy shield to repel the sword fey attacks. These measures proved less effective than the Terran ace pilot hoped! What caused the sword fey to inflict fairly minimal surface damage was their lack of strength and momentum. The Saint Kingdom suppression was a big deal and largely deprived the sword fey of their metaphysical punch. Their maneuverability came at the cost of hard power. If the sword fey did not take the time to build up speed and momentum, their sharp superdimensional blades were not able to punch too deep into the Black Lord's armor plating. However, the sword fey were still able to deepen the cuts so long as they struck the same places on a repeated basis. This pattern continued for several minutes. Sword energy attacks, sword fey attacks and conventional ranged attacks continued to miss or hit their respective targets. Both ace mechs expended large amounts of energies in order to maintain their high offensive rhythms. Although it did not appear that either side was making any progress, observers such as Ves soon picked up a number of important clues. "This is turning into an attrition battle." He deduced. "The Wind of Destruction has accurately deduced that the First Sword Mark III possesses limited energy reserves. Exhausting them will force the living ace mech to retreat despite the fact that her superdimensional armor system will likely remain nearly spotless at the end. Meanwhile, Saint Dise's operation of her sword fey is clumsy and unrefined, but she is steadily learning how to make better use of them. She is already giving some of her sword fey formations additional space to circle around and build up momentum to land stronger hits." So long as the battle between the two ace mechs remained constant, it would unfold like an endurance contest. Could Saint Dise improve her utilization of the First Sword's formidable capabilities fast enough to avoid running out of energy? Nobody could say for sure! Not even Ves felt confident enough to make a prediction!