Chapter 3486: Urthinan Surprise The Larkinsons knew in advance that the Urthinans not only deployed a lot of melee mechs, but also a considerable amount of cannoneer mechs. During the time the Urthinan lancer mechs and so on ineffectively tried to run down the Larkinson Battalion, the slower-moving ground contingent had steadily advanced towards the center of the arena battlefield. They advanced a lot easier due to the flat and solid terrain. Once they reached the center, the cannoneer mechs along with their accompanying escort of knight mechs settled into position. At this location, the powerful ranged mechs armed with large-caliber single cannons largely became unbothered by the sand storm. After all, the dimensions of the enormous arena was 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers by 1 kilometer. There was no place in the arena that was out of range to the Urthinan cannoneer mechs! While the raging sandstorm diminished the effectiveness of their sensors and targeting systems, other friendly mechs that were in the vicinity of the distant enemies transmitted accurate data back to their ranged contingent. With every other Urthinan element supporting their activities, the Urthinan cannoneer mechs practically had free reign at the moment! The result of all of this was that a considerable amount of cannons went to work. They flooded the elusive Larkinson ranged mechs with special rounds that were designed to fracture and spread out into small but deadly shards. Once these shards reached a group of Bright Warriors, they scarred and raked across the surfaces, leaving behind a lot of shallow grooves. It took multiple volleys of shrapnel fire to tear through the armor plating of the Larkinson rifleman mechs. "This isn't working. These rifleman mechs are tougher than usual." The Bright Warrior was a balanced modular mech platform. In order to fulfill several different roles, its base specs were relatively middling in every category. The rifleman mech configuration of this model did not add a lot of mass to the mech in order to preserve as much mobility as possible. However, just the base armor of Bright Warrior was already thicker and more capable of resisting damage than that of many other rifleman mechs! This meant that the Bright Warriors actually fared quite well against shrapnel fire. While it was practically impossible to evade the incoming attacks, the Bright Warriors merely did their best to resist the damage as much as possible. Knowing that they would go down eventually, the rifleman mechs under fire overloaded their luminar crystal rifles and fired extra powerful energy beams at their current targets! Seeing that relying on shrapnel fire was inefficient, the cannoneer mechs simultaneously switched magazines and began to fire solid gauss rounds. Although a lot of projectiles missed the Larkinsons rifleman mechs, enough of them managed to strike true with every volley! "Ah, damnit, my armor is fractured!" "Don't let them hit you from behind! Our rear armor is too vulnerable against these solid rounds!" The cannoneer mechs weren't particularly accurate under the current circumstances, but there were no doubts about their power. Each heavy caliber round that struck a Bright Warrior either fractured a lot of armor plating or drilled a hole through the weaker sections straight away! Once the Bright Warriors suffered major breaches in their armor coverage, the blowing sand soon began to wreak havoc on their internals! The mechs overheated faster. Several mechanical parts began to get blocked or jammed. Delicate components fell offline after they were sanded down. All of these effects and more quickly began to deteriorate the damage mechs over the span of several minutes! The Urthinans had brought just enough cannoneer mechs to put serious pressure on the dispersed Larkinson mechs. Commander Casella held her breath as she accurately fired a shot against a distant lancer mech that was chasing another Larkinson mech. The beam hit a portion of the powerful flight system that extended from the Urthinan mech's back. Though this didn't cause the lancer mech to lose a lot of thrust power, her attack slowed it down just enough to make it easier for other Larkinson mechs to finish off the target. Instead of joining the Larkinson mechs that were in the process of finishing off the lancer mech entirely, Casella switched her aim to other lancer mechs and focused specifically on weakening their flight systems. Slowing them down was of utmost importance! "If you can't catch up to us, you can't kill our mechs!" As an expert candidate, it was easy enough for her to land her hits consistently. The lancer mechs may be fast at moving forward, but their agility was terrible. The only challenge was to attack the lancer mechs at the right angle, which in most cases was any direction except straight ahead. If the Larkinson mechs remained in one single group, then that was difficult to accomplish. However, now that the Larkinson mechs had dispersed in every direction, the Urthinan mechs had split up as well, causing many of them to expose their sides and rears to Casella's sights! Though Casella was having a great time as a mech pilot, she grew increasingly concerned as a commander. The Larkinson Battalion slowly surrendered the initiative to the Glory of Urthina Battalion. The cannoneer mechs were making steady progress in downing the Larkinson mechs. The Avatar Bright Warriors did not fare too well once they were being bombarded by heavy caliber gauss rounds. Their performance specs just happened to work against them this time. The Bright Warrior mechs did not possess enough armor to effectively resist the cannon fire. However, as medium mechs, their evasion ability did not come close to that of the Ferocious Piranhas. They tried their best but could not prevent themselves from getting hit once they became the target of ten cannoneer mechs or more! The battle devolved into an attrition game. The Larkinsons were doing their best to whittle down the enemy lancer mechs while the Urthinans were trying hard to eliminate the Bright Warriors. While the cannoneer mechs also directed their firepower against the Valkyrie Redeemers, the marauder mechs fared a little better. They were lighter and a bit more agile in the air. They also carried round shields that provided enough defense to withstand an extra hit or two. The efficiency in killing them was lower so the Urthinans would rather bully the weaker and more vulnerable Larkinson mechs! That was a serious mistake. A Penitent Sister mech captain issued the command that many of her fellow sisters had been waiting for all this time. "Gather up! We're going to do something about those ground troops!" The Larkinsons went into this battle with the determination that they should no longer hold back. The Penitent Sisters had long held themselves back until they finally became jubilant as they gathered up and prayed to the Superior Mother. "Show these ignorant people that Urthina is no match to the Superior Mother!" The convergence of the Valkyrie Redeemers did not escape anyone's notice. The Urthinans, the live audience and the billions of spectators spread across two different galaxies all saw how the marauder mechs holstered their light rifles and whipped out their spears. [I believe we finally have the honor of witnessing one of the Larkinson Clan's greatest battle solutions. It is one that is highly controversial and often speculated about in certain circles on the galactic net. Several different enemies of the Larkinson Clan have borne the brunt of its unfathomable attack, and now we shall surely witness their might in person and in front of the best recording equipment in Chance Bay!] [Surely the Urthinans must be aware of what the Larkinson Battalion is attempting to do. The Valkyrie Redeemer mechs couldn't be any more obvious of what they are attempting to do. Why aren't the Urthinan mechs swarming or bombarding these marauder mechs?] That was a good question. Even the Larkinson mech pilots in the field began to grow uncomfortable at the lack of response. The Larkinson Clan's battle formations were not really a secret anymore. Anyone doing research on the Larkinsons would have been able to stumble upon them sooner or later. What the Urthinans might not know was that the movements of the Penitent Sisters was partially a bluff. Commander Casella was ready to whip out a response should the Urthinans focus their might on the Valkyrie Redeemers. Instead, the Penitent Sisters were left to converge and enter into a specific formation without any disturbance. "They can't be that stupid." "The Urthinans are unnerving me. Are they hiding something?" "What if they're hiding a surprise of their own?" The mech battalions that had made it to the semifinals of the G-Aena League should never be so complacent! Though Commander Casella smelled a trap, there was not enough grounds to pull back the Penitent Sisters. The current trend was not advantageous enough for the Larkinsons. While the Bright Warriors were doing good work, the Urthinan cannoneer mechs were doing even better despite their smaller numbers! The main reason for that was because the cannoneer mechs were landbound mechs. Unlike flight-capable mechs like the Bright Warriors, the Urthinan cannoneer mechs did not have to sacrifice performance in order to accommodate a hefty and demanding flight system in their designs. This not only allowed them to carry more powerful cannons, but also allowed them to carry thicker armor. Since they didn't have to be light enough to enable them to fly at standard gravities, they could easily pile up at least 50 percent more armor without slowing down their ground traversal speeds too much! The Penitent Sisters had already engaged their battle network at this time. The silhouette of the Superior Mother already came into being, though in a less grandiose size than before due to the smaller number of mech pilots involved. Special projections built into the frames of the Valkyrie Redeemer automatically filled in this dark silhouette so that the visage of the Superior Mother became a lot more lifelike! Even so, almost two mech companies worth of Penitent Sisters was just enough to launch a considerable attack! At this time, the cannoneer mechs had ceased their fire so that they could press against and huddle behind the defensive knight mechs of the Glory of Urthina Battalion. Unlike the aerial offensive knight mechs that accompanied the lancer mechs in the air, the Urthinan defensive knight mechs were fully landbound and therefore a lot thicker and more resistant to damage than usual. Each of them tilted their shields upwards in anticipation of meeting the combination attack of the Penitent Sisters. Although the Larkinson Battalion expected the Urthinans to make these moves, Casella still couldn't get rid of her unease. "It's too simple." Passive defense rarely worked well against the Superior Mother's might. Even if the Penitent Sisters weren't allowed to utilize their infamously lethal death formation attack, their other formation attacks were still formidable in their own way! Against tough, stationary targets like the Urthinan ground contingent, the Penitent Sisters opted to go for the woman formation attack! "The superiority of our Supreme shall be made manifest!" The Superior Mother's energy projection extended her giant finger and stabbed forth towards the Urthinan landbound contingent! A sharp spike of overpowering energy rapidly surged forward and almost instantly pierced through the center of the enemy formation! Yet just before this powerful energy spike could slam through the middle of the enemy ranks, the Urthinan landbound knight mechs erupted into fire as green flames burst out from their frames! "What are they doing?!" The strange energies they released rapidly formed an energy dome around the Urthinan landbound contingent just moments before the Penitent Sisters' battle formation attack had arrived. BOOM! Two different energies collided against each other! A lot of powerful energies dispersed in every direction, causing everyone to temporarily lose sight of what was taking place. Once the spreading energies had run their course, all the Larkinsons became dismayed when they saw that the Valkyrie Redeemer battle formation had failed to destroy a single enemy mech! Though the enemy landbound knight mechs weren't in good shape right now, the cannoneer mechs were still intact! Yet what drew the attention of most people wasn't the mechs. It was the green energy dome that was still erect somehow! Even though it had lost a lot of power in order to resist the Superior Mother's attack, it still looked as if it was capable of blocking other attacks! "What kind of tech is able to generate such a strong shield?!" "Is this even an energy shield?" "How could the Superior Mother fail?" The Urthinans had finally unveiled one of their own trump cards! The Larkinsons were under a lot more pressure now that the enemy had managed to foil the Penitent Sisters!