Ves became increasingly more impressed how a tiny kid like Marvaine was already able to comprehend basic scientific theories. If not for the fact that Marvaine was way too young and did not receive much lessons yet, he probably would have been able to start attending high school classes in advance! Though Ves looked forward to seeing his little genius son grow into an excellent mech designer, he also began to get a headache at the thought of whether there was any point in sending him to school in the first place. Marvaine learned so damn quickly that it was difficult to imagine that any of his classmates could catch up to his demonic pace! Ves supposed that he and his wife could teach their child everything that he needed to know to get started, but that would deprive Marvaine of a lot of valuable experiences that he could only gain from institutions. Perhaps he should look into sending him to an elite mech design university. Given humanity's proclivity in developing artificial geniuses, there should definitely be specialized institutions that were geared towards teaching these extremely scary children. Ves could think about that later, though. For now, he wanted to keep Marvaine by his side and indoctrinate his son with all of his original theories and ideals! "Aside from the two main guns, the Mark I and Mark II versions of the Transcendent Punisher differ in many other ways. Look at the armor system for example. It has received an all-round enhancement. We have especially reinforced its frontal and upper armor. Do you know why?" "Because most attacks come from the front." Marvaine answered. "That's correct, but that doesn't explain why we thickened its upper armor as well. Can you figure out the reason behind this design choice?" "Uhhmm…" Ves smiled. "The Transcendent Punisher is a landbound mech model, son. While it is primarily designed to function as a bunker mech, it is also capable of moving around and fighting on land. We even intend to land numerous mech companies of Transcendent Punisher Mark II's on the surface of Pima Prime V if we are able to win this battle. Do you understand now why it needs stronger upper armor?" Marvaine's eyes quickly shone in understanding. "It's so that they can shoot down starships from the skies!" Ves shook his head. "That's not exactly right. While it is technically possible for the Transcendent Punisher Mark II to strike at starships in orbit, in truth it is not practical enough. Many energy beams will lose a lot of energy when passing through many kilometers of air. Physical projectiles such as gauss rounds will not only have to fight against the local planet's gravity, but also endure a lot of air friction. By the time the gauss rounds get high enough, an alert starship would have long been able to move out of the way." "I don't understand, papa." "You don't need to understand right now. I will show you the modeling once you grow old enough to understand the math." As Ves continued to explain many other nuances about the Transcendent Punisher Mark II to a child that should have been more interested in playing with toy mechs like his sister Andraste, the battle continued to grow hotter and hotter. After the ranged mechs started to fire physical projectiles, the amount of damage that both sides endured became a lot greater! Many Hexers ships continued to fall out of the battleline after suffering critical or crippling damage. While the Sundered Phalanx would have preferred to reduce the amount of enemy mechs that were able to enter into battle, the Hexers guarded them too well. It was almost impossible to snipe them all down at such a long distance and when the majority were huddling carefully behind the massive hulls of their own motherships. Even so, the rate of combat carriers that the Hexers were losing was starting to become distressing! Perhaps it was still possible to perform emergency repairs on them to restore basic functionality, but each one that got knocked out meant that the Hexers wouldn't be able to return to friendly space with as many mechs as before! However, General Alisky Victrix did not pay attention to this cost. She had been charged by the council of matriarchs to achieve victory in the Pima Prime System at all costs. It was worth sacrificing so many ships if it meant that the Fridaymen lost a large chunk of their shipbuilding, mech production and other important industrial capabilities! In any case, as long as the Hex Federation retained all of its own shipyards, the Hexers would definitely be able to rebuild all of the sacrificed combat carriers over time! "It is not as if we need as much mech capacity once we are done in this star system." The harsh general sneered. Casualties were inevitable. In her opinion, any sacrifice was acceptable as long as her enemies suffered greater losses! Whatever people thought of her strategy, it was having the desired effect. The Hexers lost relatively few ranged mechs at this stage. Most of the Hexers mechs that got knocked out of the battle so far mostly consisted of bunker mechs. They either got demolished after a succession of enemy attacks drilled through their layers of protection, or simply couldn't aim their weapons in the right direction anymore as the ships they were stationed on went on a ballistic course after becoming inoperable. However, the Hexers managed to preserve most of their ranged combat power, much of which finally started to have an effect. "Yes! We finally cracked one of their big shells!" "Destroy the space station!" One of the military space stations finally lost its titan shield after enduring a torrent of long-ranged attacks. Though it took a lot more volleys to destroy the physical structure of the thick and sturdy space station, its fall represented the first gap in the Kosic Ring! As other space stations and smaller defensive platforms continued to endure greater pressure, the first expert mechs finally began to make an appearance. The most prominent expert mech that opened fire at this time was the Amaranto. Ves' eyes lit up as he could finally witness the results of his upgrade work on his proudest ranged expert mechs. Inside the cockpit of the Amaranto, Venerable Davia Stark grimaced a bit as she studied the long-ranged sensor readings supplied by the Blinding Banshee and other powerful starships. Though the Amaranto Version 2.0 featured a massive upgrade to her sensor and targeting systems, in situations like these there was no need to rely on the small and limited modules of a mech. The sensor and targeting data collected and processed by massive starships backed with extremely powerful processor banks were much more accurate and reliable than anything an individual mech could obtain! As the expert rifleman mech huddled behind a protected firing position on the hull of the Gorgoneion, Venerable Stark eventually locked on to a distant expert mech that was moving rather exuberantly. Unlike most of other Fridayman expert mechs that were laying low or hiding their presences entirely, one of them behaved differently than normal. It was a hero expert mech. Davia did not need to access the info supplied by the command net to figure out the identity of the mech and pilot. "Venerable Dirkson Tavoren of the 345th Curmerands, piloting a mid-tier expert hero mech called the Azure Vanquisher." There were plenty of public records about Venerable Tavoren and the Hexers collected even more information about his career trajectory. The Curmerands was an old mech division and one that enjoyed a proud and storied history. Venerable Dirksen Tavoren also performed well during the Komodo War, having fought toe-to-toe against his aggressive Hexer counterparts and rarely falling into a disadvantage! What was notable about Venerable Tavoren was that he stood out for his ability to rally and encourage his fellow mech pilots. He frequently led mechs into battle, bailed out friendlies that were about to get taken out by the enemy and shouted constant encouragements over the communication channels. What the Azure Vanquisher was doing at the moment was undoubtedly a part of Venerable Tavoren's effort to keep up morale. Venerable Stark did not underestimate this clownish act! Hardly any Fridayman mech pilot would feel good at confronting a massive invasion force. The undaunted advance of Task Force Fury already brought a lot of bad memories of the boody battles of the past. In order to ensure that the defending troops fought with confidence and not with fear, Venerable Tavoren did his best to do his part and inspire the mech pilots around him to resist the invaders! "We have beaten them once! We can beat them again! What are you afraid of?! As long as we hold the line, the Hexers will break in front of our defensive lines! These witches are all the same even after so many years have gone by. Their mechs look different, but as long as their heads are still filled with thoughts about mistreating boys, they won't know they have overreached until all of their mechs have broken apart!" The obnoxious azure expert mech kept flying across the length of the Kosic Ring in order to inspire the troops along the way, not bothering too much about keeping its frame behind hard cover. To be fair, there was almost no way an enemy could land a precise shot on such a small and relatively agile target at this range. Even if a mech just happened to strike the Azure Vanquisher with skill or luck, Venerable Tavoren wasn't completely complacent. He had made sure to surround his expert hero mech with a resonance shield, which could resist nearly any initial strike. If Ves asked Commander Casella Ingvar, Venerable Brutus Wodin or Venerable Isobel Kotin to assassinate this target under these circumstances, it was extremely unlikely for any of them to be able to complete their mission. They didn't excel at long-ranged precision! Their luminar crystal rifles also weren't powerful enough to overcome the Azure Vanquisher's defenses before the enemy expert mech was able to hide behind the nearest space station, starship hull or other solid object in the vicinity. Venerable Davia Stark did not have full confidence either, but out of every other expert pilot and expert mech, the guest pilot and the Amaranto had the highest chance of success! Her mind and will grew more active as she resonated with her Instrument of Vengeance. Ves had personally redesigned the initial rifle of the Amaranto from the ground up. Though he wasn't able to increase its precision that much, he was easily capable of replacing older parts with more advanced parts that incorporated superior tech and materials! The Amaranto's maximum damage output had increased by 40 percent as a result, which was extremely impressive given the enormous diminishing returns at this level! The Amaranto already integrated a gem that boosted its firepower by 20 percent under all circumstances, so the damage output of the Larkinson Clan's premiere long-ranged precision solution had undergone a qualitative evolution! Now, Venerable Stark was betting that a full-powered shot from her upgraded mech rifle was enough to destroy the Azure Vanquisher in a single hit. While her rifle steadily accumulated power, she remained still and focused on predicting Venerable Tavoren's erratic movement pattern. At a certain point, Venerable Stark instinctively pulled the trigger, causing her expert mech to unleash such a thick and powerful resonance-empowered light beam attack that the surrounding space seemed to darken at its passage! A lot of people from both sides quickly spotted the powerful attack and immediately sought to determine the results of this intimidating strike. "No! The Azure Vanquisher! It's… broken!" Though few people witnessed the strike when it happened, the extremely powerful light beam attack had soared incredibly quickly across space and managed to strike the Fridayman expert mech right in the center! The Azure Vanquisher's resonance shield resisted the initial blow, but because Venerable Tavoren did not maintain it at full power in order to preserve his willpower reserves, the surprise attack overwhelmed this defensive measure in an instant! Fortunately for the expert hero mech, the resonance shield still managed to negate a lot of power from the attack, causing the remaining incoming energy to strike the Azure Vanquisher's chest at reduced power. It just so happened that even the weakened attack was not easy to cope with for the expert hero mech! The extremely potent long-ranged strike not only burned through the frontal armor of the enemy machine, but also seared through multiple important components and also threatened to breach the cockpit! While all of this took place, Venerable Tavoren's instincts only gave him a brief warning before his expert mech already suffered damage! He barely had any time to make a response! A lesser mech pilot would have frozen. Venerable Tavoren made the right choice in an instant. He transmitted the ejection command as fast as his thoughts could form. The Azure Vanquisher had already shot out its cockpit from its rear with powerful force before the Amaranto's light beam attack could finish the job! Though the Curmerands had not lost its expert pilot this time, the defenders had lost a crucial mid-range expert mech before the champions from both sides had yet to start their struggle in earnest. It was a major setback for the Sundered Phalanx! "What is this?! How can a single attack be so powerful?! Did their ace mech break the rules?!" A lot more eyes focused on the Amaranto. Venerable Stark may have done her side a lot of good by removing an important enemy asset in advance, but she paid for it by attracting a lot of vigilance from the Fridaymen!