The harassment operation had entered its most crucial phase at this time! The entire point of sending out the Spirit of Bentheim to the enemy fleet in advance and at great risk was to tempt the puelmers into separating their homeships from each other! Stingray 1 was in a vulnerable position, but so long as Stingray 2 kept hovering around, the two vessels would still be able to support each other during a full assault. The fact that the Spirit of Bentheim was able to weather the attacks of many alien warships including Stingray 1 and Stingray 2 did not mean that the firepower of the opposing side was weak. The factory ship's abnormally high defenses combined with the additional protection granted by the Macharia Excelsia's Saint Kingdom were the only reasons why the ship and all of her crew hadn't been blown into pieces! No other ship in the entire expeditionary fleet was capable of enduring hundreds of full-powered energy beams fired by vast arrays of warship-grade cannons. The transphasic energy shields of the Spirit of Bentheim had actually taken a serious beating during this time. If not for the fact that the first-class shield generators as well as the all-important first-class power generator were brand-new and in peak condition, the energy shields might have slipped, causing the hull to suffer actual damage! The Spirit of Bentheim would have retreated sooner or later if the aliens failed to take the bait. It was quite fortunate that the combined actions of the Promethea, the Everchanger and all of the other mechs finally frustrated and enraged the aliens to such a degree that they no longer stuck to the most rational course of action! As the Spirit of Bentheim rapidly sped away from Stingray 1 and her remaining escorts, the ship received a much-needed breather. The distance between the Spirit of Bentheim and the alien pursuit force did not increase all that much. The main reason why the Spirit of Bentheim no longer faced as much danger as before was because most of the incoming damage was now directed towards the stern area of the factory ship. The crew deliberately tried to preserve the transphasic energy shields that covered the rear part of the capital ship as much as possible for this precise scenario. Not only that, but a lot of threatening warships had been left behind in order to maintain a protective envelope around Stingray 1. Due to the damage inflicted by the Everchanger, it had become even more certain that the partially crippled puelmer heavy cruiser would not be able to regain her full mobility anytime soon! Nonetheless, the consequences of enraging the puelmers were quite serious. As the two sides tried to speed away as fast as possible, it quickly became evident that the second-class superdrive of the Spirit of Bentheim was not quite up to the task! Ves looked at the map that displayed the relative positions as well as the movement data of the ships involved in the case. His lips curled downwards as he noticed that the picture was not looking too optimistic. "We are being dragged down by our superdrive." General Verle shared his opinion with Ves. "There is nothing wrong with it, but the fact that it is a second-class product that is trying to be both an FTL drive and a hyperdrive at the same time is not doing it any favors. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that it incorporates 3 kilograms of phasewater, which is more than enough to cover the entire hull and increase the upper warp factor limit. However, it takes too much time to build up the warp factor. The more efficient warp drives utilized by our enemies are much better in this regard." Ves understood these faults quite clearly. The Spirit of Bentheim was not a sleek corvette or a slender warship designed to intercept enemy ships in warp travel. Her hull was relatively large and heavy to accommodate a lot of production lines and various different goods. A lot of her capacity was not dedicated to more combat-relevant functions at all. This meant that her defenses and mobility were nowhere near as good as a dedicated combat vessel with a comparable amount of volume! As Ves studied the data on the pursuing ships, he understood that the upcoming hour or two would likely turn into a serious ordeal to the crew and mech pilots. "Stingray 2 is able to accelerate so fast on account of her smaller hull and relatively powerful warp drive. She should be able to overtake and flank us soon." He guessed. "The yurzens have made a careful selection and sent out a large chunk of their fastest destroyers and light cruisers. Their firepower and defenses might not be as good as that of their larger ships, but they are so fast that we can't shake them off our tail." Mobility was incredibly important in space combat, particularly when both sides engaged in lots of maneuvers! Both Ves and General Verle understood how much of a disadvantage the Spirit of Bentheim was in now that it became clear that the aliens gained a crucial advantage. As the alien warships tried to spread out and surround the Spirit of Bentheim from multiple different angles, the mechs did not remain idle at this time. The Amaranto, the Everchanger and the Promethea had all left their previous bunkers in the cat head prow and instead emerged outside and anchored themselves onto the hull. They exposed themselves in order to attain better firing angles. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎 The Transcendent Punishers on the hand remained in the same bunkers as before. Their spread positions meant that there were always a bunch of heavy artillery mechs that were unable to bring their guns to bear against the enemy warships, but enough of the mechs were able to fire at the pursuing enemy warships that it didn't matter too much! The two sides exchanged a lot of firepower while they were on the move. The warp bubbles surrounding all of the ships along with the fact that they were maneuvering a lot more actively than before caused both sides to drastically miss a lot more shots! A lot of firepower went to waste as the mechs and ships had to struggle a lot more to land a hit on their adversaries. While the human mechs did better in this regard due to extraordinary skill or guidance, even they could not keep their hit rates as high as before due to all of the movement and vibrations. As the mechs tried to repeat their earlier success as much as possible, the aliens showed that they had adapted to the human tactics. The mechs tried to focus their fire onto the transphasic energy shields of one of the pursuing light cruisers. Meanwhile, the Promethea heated up the vessel in advance by surrounding it with living purple flames. Once a segmented energy shield had reached a limit, Kiroshi was able to slip through the momentary gap in defenses and begin to take root onto the hull like before! This should normally result in yet another alien warship slowly going up in flames! The difference was that this did not happen this time. Just as Kiroshi buried herself onto the exterior hull of a vulnerable yurzen light cruiser, the alien helmsman jerked the ship out of formation and made her move away from the ongoing chase, thereby rapidly building up distance between herself and the Spirit of Bentheim! Once the distance between the two starships surpassed a single light-second, Venerable Isobel grunted and started to experience an escalating degree of strain in her mind! Eventually, the expert pilot reached a limit where she was no longer able to extend her companion spirit so far away from herself! "Yaaaa!" Like a band that had been stretched to its limit, it instantly snapped back to its original state! Kiroshi had disappeared from the hull of the starship that was just starting to get cooked and reappeared inside the cockpit of the Promethea! "Yaaaa..." The burning cat shook her head in order to regain her bearings. "Ngh... It looks like there is a limit after all..." Isobel said as she tried to shrug off her headache. Once Kiroshi left the hull of the affected yurzen light cruiser, the crew quickly noticed that the purple flames not only lost their conscious direction, but also started to lose their original ferocity. Though the flames still retained a bit of extraordinary qualities that enabled them to sustain the original process of reinforcing their potency by absorbing ambient spiritual energies, it no longer worked as efficiently as before. The fire-suppression systems of the alien ship finally worked. Since the flames were no longer able to burn the metal hull nearly as well as before, they would have probably sputtered out by themselves after a few more minutes. Once the flames had been completely put out, the alien light cruiser altered course and began to catch up with the other chasing vessels in order to return to formation and continue with her current mission! When Ves saw this happen, he knew that the aliens had successfully solved the threat of the Promethea. "I am sorry, sir. My companion spirit cannot stay so far away from me." Venerable Isobel apologized. "There is a limit of sorts that prevents us from remaining too far apart. I think I might be able to increase it as my resonance strength grows, but that will take years." Ves dismissively waved his hand. "You have nothing to apologize for. Your performance has already been above expectations. There is no need for you to shoulder the burden of eliminating the enemy vessels all by yourself. You can still play a useful role by straining their defenses and pushing away any enemy vessel that gets too close or poses too much of a threat. Your deterrence value is still great." Venerable Isobel regained a bit of optimism. "Ah, you are correct. I will go back and make our enemies as uncomfortable as possible." Isobel and the Promethea's shortcomings in this scenario showed that there was still a lot of room for improvement. Ves already started to think on how he could use his own expertise in mech design and cultivation science to upgrade the Promethea to better support combat at extended ranges. He did not believe that this limit was set in stone. There had to be an artificial method that could help Kiroshi travel further away from her principal. Ves just had to gain the right inspiration or master the right theories. The Promethea also needed to enhance her direct damage potential. Relying too much on flames to do all of the work was too slow. She was already relying far too much on other powerful mechs to do the heavy lifting in opening a hole in the energy defenses of the enemy vessels. Ves began to imagine an upgraded quasi-first-class version of the Ignitron Luminar Crystal Assault Rifle that could inflict a hefty amount of direct damage, whether it was through its now-iconic fire beams or with any other energy beam type. "Aside from that, I should also drastically increase the proportion of fire sympathetic materials in the mech frame. The amount of fire energies that the Promethea is able to leverage is not enough. Without Kiroshi, the flames she can generate are not sufficient enough." Perhaps the other Larkinsons thought that the Promethea had suddenly become a lot more powerful, but Ves only spotted a lot of flaws and shortcomings that had become incredibly obvious in the fight so far. The expert rifleman mech could have easily taken down an additional ship or two if Ves had made the machine stronger! "I'm really itching to start her upgrade project right away. She can become a lot more useful in our future battles if I can bring her up to my latest standards again." Ves had to resist the urge to do so as he still needed to complete his existing projects. He was just a Senior Mech Designer at the moment. He still had a long way to go before he attained the legendary Mech Touch and produced a completely new design and mech with a single sweep of his arm!