Chapter 3290: Terror at a Distance The Golden Skull Alliance had inflicted yet another blow to their dwarven foes! The timing of the massive information warfare attack of the Black Cats was just right. Under the steady leadership of leaders such as General Kebrinore, the dwarven mech forces could have mitigated the adverse consequences of losing two dwarven expert mechs in quick succession. For example, the dwarven general could have ordered hundreds of Slug Ranger artillery mechs to abandon all of their priorities and focus solely on suppressing the Amaranto. The dwarves could have dispatched a large suicide force of Hivar Roarers mechs to bypass enemy lines and attempt to eliminate the Amaranto up close at great cost! They could have even allocated other expert mechs to suspend their current mission and chase after the Amaranto despite letting off other human expert mechs. General Kebrinore belatedly realized that he had made a crucial error. "I should have ordered more of our expert mechs to eliminate the enemy masterwork mech. If one of our Molten Hammer expert mechs had joined forces with the Slug Ranger expert mechs, the three should have easily completed this task." In fact, this was his plan from the beginning. He first requested three expert mechs each to gang up on the Riot and the First Sword since they were closer and needed to be eliminated as well. In any normal circumstance, an offensive expert mech would never be able to survive longer than a couple of minutes when they were assaulted by three machines of similar strength. An expert mech's defenses simply couldn't withstand so many attacks, or so the dwarves thought. General Kebrinore and his entire staff never imagined that the two seemingly ordinary human expert mechs boasted armor plating that was much more formidable than the exterior of a heavy mech! A two-minute chore turned into a slow and grueling quagmire that lasted more than twenty minutes. The performance parameters of the two human melee expert mechs were so unreasonable that the Molten Hammers and Hivar Roarers couldn't even risk pulling away some of their units. With the ability to resist most blows with very little consequences, the Riot and the First Sword could easily switch to aggressive fighting styles that traded blow for blow. That would have led to a chain reaction of setbacks that was not worth the tradeoff. Even with this unexpected surprise, General Kebrinore still thought the situation was under control. As resilient and threatening the human expert mechs turned out to be, they were constantly being worn down by the steady and persistent dwarven expert mechs. At least, that was what he thought. It was not unusual to make miscalculations in battle. What was more important was to build up a tolerance for failure and have plenty of contingency plans ready should a situation go south. However, before General Kebrinore could issue a proper response to the unleashing of the Amaranto, the Great Ram, the Lemogo Distat and the Roost all turned into liabilities, causing them to get disconnected from the dwarven warnet. The remaining Vulcanite officers throughout their fleet were scrambling to pick up the slack but their plans, vision and competence were nowhere near as comparable as the highly-qualified command staff aboard the sabotaged flagships! This outcome was actually the true reason why General Verle wanted to make the Black Cats take action at this time. If they pulled off this move any further, then the momentary disruption in command and control wouldn't have led to any further consequences. Yet now that the Amaranto no longer had nearby threats to worry about, the momentary loss in coordination also affected the coordination of the dwarven expert mechs! She also didn't have to worry about any dwarven commanders ordering the enemy expert mechs to charge her position anytime soon! Though the affected dwarven expert mechs were still able to keep in touch with nearby friendlies, they could forget about cooperating with more distant units! The stage had been set for the Amaranto's proper introduction. Without the interference of the Gauss Baron and the other expert mechs of the Slug Rangers, Venerable Stark finally found an opportunity to vent all of the grievances that she had built up towards the dwarves! The impressive masterwork expert mech bloomed in rainbow colors as Venerable Stark drew on her fury in order to make up for her earlier expenditures. Though she had already exhausted much of her will and mental focus to endure up until now, her mind was unbreakable and her desire to achieve her goals drove her to never step back! Her eyes bloomed as her connection with her mech caused her to clearly spot the thousands of targets that were ripe for the taking from her perspective. Of course, she didn't need to waste her time on eliminating the enemy's rank-and-file. Her attention drew towards the Molten Hammer expert mechs that were assailing the Riot. At this time, Venerable Orfan had almost bottomed out her strength. Her expert mech endured several punishing attacks that were aimed precisely at its vulnerable joints. As a consequence, the Riot had lost both of its legs, its entire right arm and several components of its flight system, all in a span of a few minutes! Its mobility, force exertion and many other combat parameters had dropped to the point where its end was not long in coming. It was admirable how the Riot still managed to put up a fight despite its rapid deterioration. Venerable Orfan adjusted to the adverse circumstances as much as possible and was still able to pose a limited threat even if her expert mech only had a single arm left to wield its spear! Seeing that the Slug Ranger expert mechs had failed to take down the Amaranto, the attackers of the Riot became a lot more desperate to finish off their target! As long as the Molten Hammers were able to take down this incredibly annoying and resilient mech, they could advance towards the Amaranto and contain it again. Yet before the dwarven expert pilots could do so, the Amaranto finally made its move! Moments before, its crystal rifle muzzle briefly switched from expert mech to expert mech. It was as if Venerable Stark was shopping for groceries. Eventually, she set her sights on the mech that posed the greatest and most acute threat towards the Riot. It was not the Firemason, which had caused the Riot to heat up a lot and even burn some of its exposed components. It was not the Bashravar, whose massive hammer had forced the Riot to sacrifice its legs in order to prevent getting struck in a more crucial area. Instead, Venerable Stark locked her sights towards the Trementine, the dwarven axeman mech that had the potential to cave in the Riot's heavily-damaged exterior with one more blow! It only took a short amount of time for Venerable Stark to set her target, resonate with her luminar crystal rifle and fire a powerful kinetic beam towards the Trementine! "You're not hitting me!" The expert pilot of the axe-wielding machine shouted as his mech instantly jerked aside. He had already been paying attention to the Amaranto's movements. As soon as his instincts screamed a warning, he had immediately aborted his expert mech's attack run in order to perform a quick evasion maneuver. The Trementine even turned around in order to expose its strongest frontal side towards the Amaranto in the distance. Along with holding its axe flat so that its wide blade functioned as a makeshift shield over the chest, there was virtually no chance that a moderately powerful attack from a ranged expert mech would be able to overcome its defenses. "I'm a Molten Hammer! I'm not afraid of getting hit!" Yet much to the dwarven expert pilot's surprise, the Trementine hadn't been struck from the front. Instead, his cockpit began to blare an alarm as his expert mech told him that it had incurred serious damage. When the dwarf tried to find out where his mech got hit, he discovered that a third of the Trementine's flight system had shattered! The consequences were immediately obvious. The Tremetine lost a lot of flight power, causing its acceleration and other movement characteristics to fall to the point where it was barely able to move faster than the much more sluggish Bashravar! "What happened?!" It turned out that just before Venerable Stark pulled the trigger, the Amaranto's rifle seemingly shifted to another target that was in another direction. The faint beam that fired from the crystal rifle initially looked as if it was indeed striking at a distant target, but for some inexplicable reason its beam had curved and nearly-instantly struck the Trementine's exposed flight system from the sides! This was a major setback to the Trementine! If the enemy expert mech attempted to attack the dwarven expert axeman mech from the front, then only a portion of its frontal armor would have sustained damage. Yet because the kinetic beam bypassed the front and managed to strike its much more vulnerable flight system at a tricky angle, the Trementine experienced an immediate loss in initiative and battle effectiveness! "Thanks, Stark!" Venerable Orfan sincerely said as she tried her best to keep her shambling Riot alive. "Could you do me a favor and cripple the Firemason as well? This damned expert striker mech is cooking my internals to a crisp!" A flamethrower-wielding mech usually didn't pose much of a threat to well-armored machines. However, their ability to damage other mechs jumped by a huge margin as soon as the armor of their targets had been breached. Venerable Stark obliged by taking careful aim in order to fire a second shot. The Firestorm's expert pilot somehow figured out the Amaranto's intentions. A dark cloud hovered over the dwarven expert mech as it pulled back and tried to go on the defensive. This was much harder than it sounded due to its inability to shield against attacks from an angle! No matter how the Firestorm changed its orientation, against a beam that could literally bend by up to 45 degrees, it was impossible to keep its flight system out of the enemy's firing line! Several minutes passed. The Amaranto continued to glow brightly yet Venerable Stark exhibited an admirable degree of patience despite her desire to slay these murderous dwarves! After fourteen tense seconds had passed, Stark finally spotted an opportunity. The Amaranto's rifle quickly adjusted its aim before firing a light beam that struck the Firestorm's still-intact resonance shield dead ahead! The Riot hadn't managed to land any attacks on the Firestorm, so Venerable Stark was forced to strip away this layer first. Once the Firestorm became exposed, Venerable Stark fired her luminar crystal rifle yet again, this time damaging just 15 percent of her target's flight system! Even though the impact to its mobility was much less impactful this time, the Firestorm's mobility and evasion characteristics had dropped to the point where Stark found it to be an even easier target than before! "I'm not letting you go!" The Amaranto did not rush to fire its rifle at its maximum firing rate. Instead, Venerable Stark patiently resonated with the luminar crystal weapon in order to make sure she hit true and hard enough to achieve concrete results. After several more follow-up shots, the Firestorm's flight system was hit from so many different angles that it only retained forty percent of its original mobility! It became increasingly harder for the Amaranto to cripple the alert expert mech's flight capabilities entirely, but Venerable Stark never thought about finishing off an alert opponent. "The Molten Hammer expert mechs are different from those of the Slug Rangers." She reminded herself. The expert melee mechs were built slower and tougher. Venerable Stark and her expert mech would have to expend a lot of energy in order to penetrate their frontal armor. She didn't know how many more shots she could fire in her current condition, but she didn't think she could go on endlessly. In order to achieve the greatest impact on the battlefield while expending as little resources as possible, she decided to focus solely on crippling the enemy expert mech's mobility! As long as all of them became as slow as a snail, they effectively posed no threat anymore! The expert mechs would be floating uselessly in space, unable to catch up to any enemy units or move to a more favorable position! The Amaranto's ominous rifle swayed towards the Bashravar. "It's your turn now."