As a proud expert pilot, Venerable Vincent Ricklin did not want to get overshadowed by his fellow rivals and peers. He had great confidence in his C-Man and did not think it was any worse than the likes of the Amaranto and the Everchanger. Thinking about those two particular expert mechs made Vincent irked. "Why do they get all of the good stuff?" The Amaranto and the Everchanger both distinguished themselves in battle once they got going. Venerable Davia Stark did not wait too long to put her latest weapon to good use. Against the enemies that she was facing against, the Instrument of Vengeance simply didn't have the punch to overcome the defenses of the largest alien assets. The Instrument of Doom was tailor-made for these kinds of confrontations. The huge, heavy and unwieldy cannon was not a good weapon to use against fast and agile targets such as mechs and starfighters, but it was perfect against the enemy warships! Curious at how effectively her new expert mech weapon performed against the alien vessels, Venerable Stark did not begin with opening fire at full power. The Amaranto fired its new cannon at a frigate and a destroyer. The smaller of the two warships failed to cope against the resonance-empowered laser beam, but the destroyer's segmented energy shield still managed to hold on, if only barely! Still, even if the Amaranto managed to destroy one of the segmented energy shields, the warships always readjusted the distribution of its remaining energy shields so that it no longer presented an open gap towards the enemy. This defensive solution had frustrated many mech pilots who saw an opportunity to attack the hull of a vulnerable warship, and Venerable Stark was no exception to this rule! "The Instrument of Doom is definitely powerful, but its firing rate leaves a lot to be desired." She concluded. She never thought that the slow firing rate of her oversized mech cannon would hamper her efforts to cripple the alien warships by herself. After all, out of all of the Larkinson ranged mechs, her Amaranto was in the best position to snipe them by virtue of its unparalleled firepower! If she didn't want to waste a large amount of time and energy on whittling down the segmented energy shields one by one, she needed to leverage greater power. "I am done with my tests." Now that she gained a more accurate measure of the defenses of her adversaries, Venerable Stark was ready to try out the Larkinson Patriarch's latest technological innovation. As her Instrument of Doom charged for another high-powered shot, she consciously resonated with the weapon while at the same time trying to make contact with its design spirit. "Phase King." The design spirit had already been standing by. According to deal the former alien beast sovereign had struck with Ves, everytime he assisted the Larkinsons in battle, he would gain additional subjects to rule over in his private kingdom! The greater his contribution, the more spiritual fish-whales Ves would make! This crude and simple incentive structure successfully aroused the Phase King's desires and made him even more enthusiastic about the fight than Venerable Stark! The powerful luminar crystal cannon began to light up as more power channeled into its beautiful body than before. The Amaranto and its weapon glowed so much that it began to attract the attention of more and more aliens and humans. None of them had ever witnessed such an impressive sight! Even the ace pilots of the various pioneering groups grew alarmed for an instant. They thought that an actual phase whale had appeared on the battlefield! "What is this?!" "Is it an enemy or not?!" "It's not a threat!" Patriarch Reginald Cross hastily informed his fellow peers. "It's just another trick from the Larkinson Clan. Don't pay attention to it. Whatever is happening is only good for us. It's not even a real phase whale." An energy manifestation of the Phase King appeared over the Amaranto. Although the appearance of the design spirit definitely shared a great resemblance to his progenitor species, the Phase King fortunately looked distinctly different. The Phase King did not pay attention to all of the people he alarmed and focused solely on lending his power to the Instrument of Doom. As the weapon with a muzzle that was shaped in his own image began to accumulate a lot of his own spiritual energy, the Instrument of Doom was finally ready to fire! Venerable Stark briefly hesitated on whether she should fire at a frigate or a destroyer, but she eventually trusted in the power of her weapon and chose to target the latter. "Fire!" The fully-charged blessed weapon finally blasted a laser beam that was far more powerful and blinding than before! The alien crew of the targeted destroyer didn't even have any time to react as the blessed transphasic energy beam not only phased through the segmented energy shield as if it was nothing, but also tore straight from one end of the warship to the other end before continuing to pass through at diminished power! Venerable Stark along with many other people who had become attracted by the sight of the Amaranto's remarkable new luminar crystal cannon eagerly waited for the results. Soon enough, the destroyer that had been struck by the overwhelming attack began to sputter. Over half of the alien vessel's segmented energy shields had gone offline while many other systems started to malfunction as well. The damage wasn't as great as Venerable Stark had hoped, though. The beam hadn't produced a clean hole through the hull but instead burned and degraded much of the matter in its path. Many of the gun batteries of the damaged warships were still firing at distant mechs. As the alien crew frantically tried to prevent their damaged vessel from sliding any further, Venerable Stark frowned in dissatisfaction. "Our attack has overpenetrated. Too much of the firepower has passed through and hit empty space instead of dealing any actual damage." A sense of apology radiated from the Phase King. "It's okay. Please hold back for the next shot. The hull structure of the alien destroyer isn't as strong as I expected. I won't make the same mistake again." Though the Amaranto did not light up as much as before, it had definitely become more threatening than before! Each time the expert rifleman mech charged its cannon and opened fire, a bright and glowing beam phased through the energy shield of a destroyer before proceeding to unload all of its power into the hull of the powerful vessel! With the help of blueprints and targeting advice compiled by analysts from the rear, Venerable Stark became increasingly more aware of where the Amaranto needed to aim its massive weapon to down a warship in a single strike. Though the alien pirates attempted to retaliate against the Amaranto, the mech was not alone in the fight. The Shield of Samar ordinarily should have been situated in front of the powerful machine in order to block all of the incoming attacks from enemy starfighters and warships, but the Dullahan Project was nowhere close to completion. Since the Larkinson Clan was currently short of an expert space knight, General Verle had requested to borrow one from the Cross Clan. Venerable Linda Cross was happy to help out her fellow expert pilot, especially when she knew that the Amaranto had gained a powerful new ship-killing weapon. The Amphis Mark II might not be as orientated towards defense as the late Shield of Samar, but it was still a genuine expert space knight! Linda had especially chosen to deploy her expert mech with a larger, thicker and heavier tower shield as opposed to her preferred kite shield. Together with her true resonance, the Amphis Mark II held out fairly well even when it was targeted by over a dozen warships at the same time! "How long can you hold, Linda?" Venerable Stark asked. "I can't last forever, but at this rate I can hold out for five or so minutes depending on how urgently the alien pirates wish to take you down." Stark smirked. "My Amaranto is hardly the only threat they need to be worried about. The Mars is still rampaging through their light cruisers while the Everchanger has just come into range." The Everchanger had deployed into battle in a rather simple configuration. Though it could have entered into battle while equipped with a mounted wargear loadout, Venerable Joshua had eventually opted against it after listening to advice. The City Breaker added a lot of firepower to the Everchanger, but its lack of mobility and relatively flawed defenses meant that it would just get pounded into scrap after getting targeted by the powerful armaments of the opposing warships. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮 The Titan-5 Project worked well against mechs and warships that it could touch, but the biomechanical monstrosity was considerably less effective in breaking transphasic energy shields. Compared to these extreme options, the base form of the Everchanger was a much more reasonable option. Normally, its lack of pronounced offensive power would have relegated it to the same role as the Dark Zephyr, but Ketis just happened to equip the expert hero mech with an adapted weapon that was great against warships. "Be careful, Joshua." Ketis told her husband over the comm as the Everchanger was on its way. "Don't forget that the Scarlet Ember used to be a weapon used by one of our enemies. It is a temperamental sword and you may need to be more heavy-handed in your approach in order to get it to behave." "I will keep your words in mind, Ketis, but I haven't experienced any problems with my new weapon. I will pay close attention to it just to be sure, but I think it will be fine." The Everchanger quickly closed in on the enemy fleet with the help of its minidrive. It might not be as fast as the Dark Zephyr that had already arrived in advance, but the expert hero mech was hardly a slowpoke! Surprisingly enough, Venerable Joshua did not encounter as many attacks as he expected. The alien warships were already busy with trying to destroy the Mars and the other expert mechs that were already doing their fair share of damage. This left the Everchanger free to approach a starship. Considering that the frigates weren't that difficult to break open, Venerable Joshua made the same choice as Venerable Stark and targeted a larger and fiercer destroyer. "Alright, it's time to show your worth. Burn, Scarlet Ember!" The Everchanger activated the metal 'rod' in its hand, causing it to gain a hot and concentrated plasma blade! As the plasma sword generated a lot of heat, the Everchanger suddenly experienced a much greater power drain than before. Venerable Joshua knew that his expert mech wouldn't be able to last long without needing to replenish its energy cells, so he did not delay any further. He resonated with the plasma sword while his expert mech held it with both arms. "Break!" A river of fire seemed to collapse onto the segmented energy shield of the enemy destroyer. The resonance-empowered transphasic strike not only managed to break through the energy shield through brute force, but also damaged a couple of the surrounding shields! The Everchanger quickly moved into the gap before the enemy destroyer could plug the gap. Once it got inside, the Everchanger lifted up its active plasma sword yet again and struck straight at the starboard side of the alien destroyer! This time, the damage was much more dramatic! The full power of the Scarlet Ember unloaded into the hull of a massive starship. Not only did the plasma sword burn straight through the strong metal exterior, but it also transferred a huge amount of energy to the surrounding compartments! Alien crew members cried an instant before their bodies burned or vaporized from the heat. Countless different systems went offline or disappeared entirely as the weapon that was originally designed for an ace mech showcased its extreme power at the hands of an expert mech. By the time the Everchanger retracted the Scarlet Ember, Venerable Joshua could see that his weapon had burned a third of the way into the hull of the destroyer while melting a lot of adjacent compartments! "This... is unreal!" An ordinary strike from the Everchanger's old Heartsword would have left a moderate cut on the exterior of the hull. The plain old Unending alloy mech sword would have never been able to deal damage at this scale! Even if Joshua could slightly amplify his attack power by employing a prime ability, no amount of tricks could match the power of a reduced ace mech weapon!