4254 Dark Tusa Venerable Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson entered into battle with a vague expectation of what he might face in battle. It was true that he had simulated fights against the known Sundered Phalanx expert mechs such as the Quadknife piloted by Venerable Osaia Dukes and the Filamon piloted by Venerable Kismet Hawkes. The MSTS was quite good at simulating expert mechs. It could replicate the technical performance of these high-quality machines to a high degree as long as someone supplied it with enough information. The intelligence leaks provided enough crucial details to replicate the essence of their performance. Even if the minor details were incorrect, it was not a big deal as long as the overall fighting characteristics remained the same. The MSTS was also good at simulating how the Sundered Phalanx expert mechs might perform in battle. The mechs were all controlled by Vulcan or the piloting AI's developed by Vulcan in cooperation with the Quint. In rare cases, the Quint secretly assumed direct control over these simulated mechs. This not only allowed the third order living mech to stave off its boredom and indulge in the fantasy of being a much more powerful mech, but also allowed it to learn the traits of different mechs. This in turn allowed the Quint to generate and improve the piloting AI's responsible for giving the users of the MSTS a more realistic fighting experience. The key factor here was that the fighting styles of the simulated mechs was limited by the cognition of the Quint. No matter how much the living learned about piloting mechs by snooping in the minds of other mech pilots, the truth was that it was not a mech pilot itself! Perhaps the Quint may have studied the profession so much that it was able to imitate the performance of an ordinary mech pilot to an excellent degree, but expert pilots were entirely different beasts! Expert pilots derived their strength from many different traits. Their extraordinary willpower that drove them forward. Their superhuman skills and reaction time. Their supernatural intuition which seems to derive information from nowhere. All of these advantages as well as the rich and unique life experiences of the expert pilots defined their performance and approach towards battle. The result was that expert mechs controlled by simulated programs ultimately paled in comparison to those controlled by their intended users. Venerable Tusa already discovered this truth after the first time he fought against an expert mech inside the MSTS. There were many different advantages that were unique to expert pilots that simply couldn't be replicated by any AI or non-expert pilot. "These mechs are just dummies." He never took the simulated expert mechs seriously as a consequence. The most realistic ones that could give him a real challenge were simulated versions of other Larkinson expert mechs. This was because the MSTS not only possessed a complete understanding of their designs, but also collected a lot of data on the performance and the piloting habits of their mech pilots. Tusa even found it fun to fight against the mirror of the Dark Zephyr on occasion. Of course, he had to artificially boost the parameters of the mirror mech by 20 percent or more in order to give himself a real workout. "If there is no way to make my sparring partners smarter, then I'll just strengthen them the stupid way." He adopted the same approach in his practice sessions against the simulated versions of the expert mechs of the Sundered Phalanx, but never forgot that his opponents were piloted by castrated controllers! "If I have to fight against the simulated versions of the Quadknife and the Filamon, I could easily beat them within a single minute. If I have to fight against the real deal, I am liable to lose this duel!" The difference a good pilot could make was enormous, especially for mechs that already possessed inherently strong capabilities. It was already daunting for Venerable Tusa to fight against one mid-tier expert mech. Fighting against two of them at the same time was a bad idea, especially when their expert pilots were highly experienced and developed a lot of synergy over the years. If this battle took place a year ago, Tusa would have never confidently demanded that he challenge them by himself. This time was different, though. From the start of the engagement, he already formed a plan that would significantly raise the possibility of defeating both of his opponents. The biggest downside to this plan was that he would have to make a few sacrifices, but in order to remove crucial Fridayman expert mechs off the board as quickly as possible, Venerable Tusa thought it was worth the price! It was difficult for Tusa to hold back during the initial clashes. He had to fool his opponents into believing he was only so good, but at the same time show off enough of the strengths of himself and the Dark Zephyr to make his performance authentic! He knew first-hand how well expert pilots could smell a trap, but fortunately he knew a thing or two about deception. He remained patient for less than two minutes after the start of his fight. He tried to minimize the damage to the Dark Zephyr's resonance shield as much as possible, but the Quadknife simply landed too many hits for him to hold out for long. Not only that, but the slender spikes launched by the Filamon was also taking its toll on the Dark Zephyr's defenses! Venerable Tusa recalled that his Dark Zephyr currently came equipped with an extremely expensive minidrive. As long as the rear of his expert mech got exposed, this extremely costly piece of tech that the Larkinson Clan had especially commissioned from Morton Tech would get destroyed. Tusa couldn't imagine how furious Ves would become if he returned with a broken combat drive! "I need to finish this as soon as possible." In any case, he gained what he wanted from his acting. He had been studying and analyzing the piloting style and fighting skills of his two opponents. He rapidly built models of how Dukes and Hawkes fought and coordinated with each other in his mind and reconciled that with the technical capabilities of their respective expert mechs that he had already learned beforehand. All of this sounded extremely elaborate and complicated, but expert pilots like Tusa not only possessed capabilities that exceeded mortal capabilities, but could also make use of the Dark Zephyr's formidable processing power to enhance their own thinking capabilities as if he had a cranial implant. He did not hesitate to detonate a smoke grenade to obscure the surroundings in darkness. Naturally, the smoke grenade that the Larkinson Clan provided to the Dark Zephyr was anything but average. It was a specialty product that had been expressly designed to interfere with the high-quality sensor systems of expert mechs. Though the cost was high and the smoke didn't remain effective for long, it was exactly what Tusa needed at this junction! While the Quadknife got blinded by the smoke, the Dark Zephyr was almost no exception to this rule. Though the Design Department had specially attuned the upgraded sensor and scanning arrays of the Dark Zephyr to overcome the specific formula of the smoke grenade, it was still quite difficult to observe a lot of details through all of the interference in the surrounding space. In fact, Tusa didn't even need these hints in order to execute the next part of his plan. This was because after many weeks of practice, training and preparation, he could finally put his newest combat skills to good use! "The shadows are my home ground." Venerable Tusa deviously whispered as his expert mech suddenly adopted a different movement and evasion pattern. Previously, the Dark Zephyr moved like a flighty bird that made irregular skips and course changes. This was the style that best fit his personality and nature. Now, he drew on the small element of shadow that he had recently acquired and embodied it as best as possible. It was as if the Dark Zephyr suddenly switched pilots. Though there were still a few familiar traits, the mech no longer kept its back straight but bent it down as if it was trying to lower its profile. Even the colow of its resonance glow had darkened from sky blue to a darkish gray that blended well into the surrounding smoke. The mech also changed its dagger stance and gripped its weapons in a slightly different fashion. Instead of getting ready to stab, it instead adopted a stance that was more suitable for slashing. It only took an instant for the Dark Zephyr to circle around and approach the rear of the Quadknife. If Venerable Tusa was still an ordinary expert pilot, then even he would have trouble tracking his opponent so precisely through all of this interference. However, ever since he integrated the mysterious Shadow Dance Dagger Style Fruit, shadow and darkness were no longer foreign to him! It was as if he had gained at least a century worth of focused training and familiarization of a specific fighting style in his head. Though Tusa was not arrogant enough to claim that he was the best at fighting in the dark, he believed his blind fighting ability should definitely surpass all of the expert pilots of the Sundered Phalanx! "You're mine." He grinned as the Quadknife was just beginning to respond. Venerable Dukes strangely did not detect the approach of the Dark Zephyr until the Larkinson expert mech had almost sneaked onto the Quadknife's rear! This was an uncharacteristic failure because his intuition should have been strong enough to detect this approach in advance! "What is going on?! Why can't I sense this mech anymore?!" There was barely any time for him to think. Venerable Tusa was just about to launch his assault! "Let the dance begin!" The Dark Zephyr's flight system began to thrust in a radically different way, causing the expert mech to acquire a lot of rotational momentum. This caused the expert mech to spin around like a top! Since the Larkinson expert mech also stretched out its daggers, this caused Tusa's mech to turn into the equivalent of a giant resonance-empowered ring saw! A lot of silent impacts took place in a short interval of time as the spinning Dark Zephyr kept chipping away at the back of the Quadknife's resonance shield! Though the repetitive attacks didn't deal too much damage because Tusa had to make sure his Dark Zephyr could keep spinning, the frequency of blows was just as high if not more than the flurry of attacks that the Quadknife had unleashed just a moment earlier. It was as if the tables had turned! "Break for me!" Tusa roared as the Quadknife was almost able to repel the attack. The Nidin Verger expert mech was actually capable of bending its arms the other way around! After all, the Quadknife already diverged from the human physique by possessing an extra set of arms. It was not that difficult for the Multi-Armed Designer to configure the arms of the Quadknife in a way that allowed it to fight against opponents that were targeting its back! However, in order to make sure the Dark Zephyr achieved a solid result, Tusa now only spun his Dark Zephyr around as fast as it could manage, but also resonated with the Bissonat integrated in the Unending alloy daggers. The damage and penetration power of his blades had reached a higher level, but this still wasn't enough for the expert light skirmisher to overcome the Quadknife's formidable defenses. Even though it was a light mech, Venerable Dukes was a genuine mid-tier expert pilot who had polished his willpower over many battles! His extraordinary mental resilience carried through in his expert mech in the form of greater resonance strength and more substantial true resonance. Nothing was invincible, however! When it came to high-level mech duels, the key to enabling the weak to defeat the strong was to find the right element, attribute or conceptual restraint! The greatest value that the Shadow Dance Dagger Style brought to Venerable Tusa was imparting him with special theories and methods that were expressly designed to kill! Armed with these extraordinary assassination moves, Tusa employed one of them right now that seemed to blacken the daggers of the Dark Zephyr until they were as dark as night! Then they struck at one of the arms of the Quadknife, not heeding the fact that the target still maintained its resonance shield! The previous spinning attacks had destabilized the Quadknife's resonance shield considerably, but not to the point of overloading it entirely. However, this was enough for Venerable Tusa to work with for the time being! Now that this powerful defensive barrier had been weakened to a point, the strange properties that had overtaken the Dark Zephyr's weapons somehow caused them to slip through the Quadknife's intact resonance shield as if it was just an empty projection! "What?!" The daggers seemed to slide right through the upper arm of one of the limbs of the Quadknife. By the time the Dark Zephyr quickly pulled away before a multi-limbed mech could launch a possible counterattack, a severed mech limb was already floating away!