Chapter 5490 In Memoriam Now that the Giant Stone Eater had completely gotten rid of its heavy protective stone armor, the mutated beast exposed its naked body for the first time in a long time. Surprisingly enough, the Giant Stone Eater did not appear to be as bulky and massive as it did before. The stone armor added so much bulk that it gave off the suggestion that the real creature was built like a tank, but that was not quite the case. The mechs of the Larkinson hunting team learned this lesson first-hand as they played a dangerous game with the enraged beast. Watch out! It can sprint and leap short distances a lot better than our mechs! It was like fighting against a giant, fat crocodile. The mutated beast was unable to beat any of the mechs in a race, but its relatively flexible body was able to produce short but powerful bursts that left very little time for its opponents to react! No one had any doubts about the bite force of this vaguely reptilian creature that resembled a komodo dragon with too many legs. Whenever the beast was not attempting to crunch through the metal alloys of the Larkinson mechs, it scooped up the rock and dirt below its feet to fuel its organic rock shark rifles that remained in working condition even to this point! If the Monster Slayers and their mech pilots confronted the current beast in its current condition, then Captain Gheri and the rest of her team would have been able to evade the attacks and dismantle its attack methods with relative ease. However, all of the rock shrapnel and rock shards battering against their mech frames for several long minutes inflicted so much accumulated damage that none of the machines were in good condition anymore! When Ves observed the exterior of the mechs and studied their transmitted telemetry, he understood that their overall condition had dropped by at least 20 percent. The battered Monster Slayers moved slower and attacked with less force and momentum. Their mech pilots no longer possessed the confidence to perform advanced and risky maneuvers, causing them to pose less of a threat to the Giant Stone Eater. However, the Swordmaidens all experienced a lot of pressure to finish off their prey quickly. The more they procrastinated, the more their battered mech frames accumulated even more damage! "We need to eliminate those organic rifles first!" "Don't forget about the surviving catapult arm. We can gain a lot more maneuvering space if we can stop the monster from launching explosive rocks." Instances like these truly tested the skill and teamwork of a hunting team. With the melee mechs continuing to lose their armor integrity at a worrisome rate, the mech pilots all had to possess strong belief in themselves as well as their comrades to vanquish over their powerful prey. The tension rose considerably as the damaged mechs did their best to coordinate their maneuvers and strike at the beast's head and limbs from multiple angles at the same time! Though the Giant Stone Eater looked as if it had lost all of its protection now that it had shed its cumbersome stone armor, the reality was that its flesh and bones had become even tougher and sturdier than before! Much of the earth energy that the Giant Stone Eater previously used to maintain and reinforce its thick exterior protection had now been redirected towards its actual body! Its muscles grew stronger. Its flesh became thicker and harder to penetrate. Its bones became insanely tough. Even the creature's internal organs became less susceptible to damage! This dampened the enthusiasm of the Living Sentinel pilots who commanded the Crystal Lords. Though their attacks still managed to cut through the resilient flesh with greater ease than the previous stone armor, they were making much less progress than they wished. Ves frowned as he analyzed the state of the current fight. Both sides still retained a considerable degree of combat power. A few of the mechs were close to getting crippled while the Giant Stone Eater still had enough flesh to withstand a lot more attacks. The Huntmaster and the Crystal Lords were doing their best to concentrate their damage and penetrate the limbs of the monster, but their attack power simply wasn't good enough against a beast that excelled at defense. The only mechs that could deal significant damage against the mutated beast were the Monster Slayers! Just as their names suggested, their performance stood out as they constantly threatened the monster with their powerful greatswords. Though their attack frequency was not high, each heavy chop or thrust always managed to part a lot more flesh than any other attack! "Keep the beast's attention off our Monster Slayers." Captain Gheri urged. "lam trying, ma'am, but the beast no longer thinks my Huntmaster is worthwhile for it to attack." "Then poke your spear at something important!" The Huntmaster was unable to replicate the lethality of the Monster Slayer due to the inability to produce a form of false resonance. The beast only paid attention to swordsman mechs that fought on the same level of a quasi-expert mech! BOOOM! A powerful explosive rock shattered close to another Monster Slayer, causing it to endure numerous damaging rock shrapnel that caused it to falter for an instant. "My mech's movements are starting to glitch out. It can't take much longer!" "Retreat, sister." Captain Gheri instantly commanded. "We can finish off this earth beast ourselves." "Understood. I am on my way out. Good luck, sister." The Swordmaidens would have fought a lot less freely if they had to worry about one of their own getting downed. It was better for the more seriously damaged mech to walk away in good order while it was still an option. Nonetheless, the absence of an important offensive machine increased the pressure to the remaining mechs even more. The only good news was that the Monster Slayers and the Crystal Lords successfully managed to trash most of the rock shard rifles by this time! It took a decent amount of time and more than a few close shaves, but the creature was able to exert a lot of ranged pressure than before. However, that also freed up enough earth energy for the Giant Stone Eater to channel its power in different ways. "Watch out! It is channeling its energy through its legs. Be careful for ground attacks!" The warning came just in time. The remaining Monster Slayers in the field backed off as a part of the soil collapsed and turned jagged. This was bad! The ground had already become filled with impact craters and a lot of stone debris. That made the footing of the mechs a lot more precarious as they needed to pay closer attention to their steps. Now that the terrain had become a lot more uneven, it became a lot more difficult for the mechs to traverse these areas. "The monster is in the process of gathering more earth energy to pull off this move again." "We cannot let this beast limit our movement space even more. We need to cripple it now!" "How, captain?! We've almost managed to slice off two of its legs as well as its catapult arm, but it still has five more legs as well as its forearms at its disposal. It has way too many limbs, and they are all strong enough to support much of its weight!" Captain Gheri snarled as she studied her opponent. "It's back is exposed. Cover me. I am not going to hold back any longer. We either finish this now, or we pull back and declare this hunt a failure." Retreating at this junction was the more prudent decision, but she was not willing to admit defeat at this point. The Giant Stone Eater was the most powerful mutated beast she had challenged to date. She wanted to turn its head into a hunting trophy so bad. She also did not want to shame herself in front of her patriarch. Her eyes grew hotter as she stared at the back of the lizard monster. After she made sure that her remaining teammates would provide support, her damaged Monster Slayer proceeded forward at a brisk but cautious pace. Her Monster Slayer deliberately navigated through the patch of ground that had been turned into a jagged warscape. The Giant Stone Eater did not consider Captain Gheri's mech to be a significant threat. Not only was it moving a lot slower than the other mechs, but it was also approaching at an angle that it had already taken care of, or so it thought. The savage beast only had eyes for the faster-moving swordsman mechs. Only these machines posed the greatest threat as their momentous greatsword attacks repeatedly sliced through its limbs, causing them to get chopped off at a distressing rate. Despite the fact that it had already lost numerous limbs, it moved almost just as fast and nimble as before, enabling it to turn and leap at one of the mechs with the speed of an ambush predator. If not for the fact that the Monster Slayers and their mech pilots had become so damn good at reading their prey, they would have gotten caught in its jaws a lot sooner. However, the constant stress exerted onto their damaged frames quickly caused their conditions to deteriorate even further. The Swordmaiden mech pilots continually tried to skirt the limits of what they could do with their machines. They trusted their Monster Slayers well enough to endure the strain, but there were limits to what they could squeeze out of their increasingly more worn out machines. Ves estimated that the Monster Slayers could only maintain their current intensity for a minute before their more fragile systems started to break down. The Swordmaidens instinctively knew this as well. They pushed even harder just so that they could occupy the attention of the dangerous beast even further. "Come on, you bastard! Chomp me if you can!" The angry beast fixated on the Monster Slayer that was running in front of its snout and prepared to leap forward yet again. However, just as the Giant Stone Eater was about to catch the tempting swordsman mech in its jaws, the machine piloted by Captain Gheri had leapt first! Its greatsword glowed brighter than ever as it accumulated even more power into the tip of its blade! As one of the few old school Swordmaiden veterans that had survived all the way up to the present day, Captain Gheri was one of the few people who lived and fought alongside Commander Lydia. Unlike the many newer generation Swordmaidens, Captain Gheri did not look up to Commander Lydia as a mythical leader. How could she treat her old commander like a god when she used to be her close friend and sister? Yet that did not mean that the name of Commander Lydia held no power in her mind. As her damaged but compelling Monster Slayer leapt higher in the air than before, Captain Gheri thought about all of the times when she and her fellow Swordmaidens hoped to attain a better future. Now, many years had passed, and the present Swordmaidens had become incomparably stronger than before. Though Captain Gheri felt a little sorry for herself for failing to live up to Commander Lydia's expectations, Ketis and Venerable Dise had done more than enough to lead their surviving sisters into power and prosperity. Though the Swordmaidens of today had shed many of the vestiges of their past, their core remained as recognizable as ever. It was the continued preservation of the old traditions of the Swordmaidens that bestowed power to the original commander's name! Once Captain Gheri's Monster Slayer started to get pulled down by the relatively lighter gravity of Ocanon VI, she invoked the memory of Commander Lydia as her mech gripped its greatsword in a plunging stance! "THIS SWORD IS FOR LYDIA!" From the moment the Monster Slayer landed on the surprised beast's back, its weapon released an energy blade that was actually narrower than the blade of the actual greatsword! That actually boosted the penetration power of this extraordinary stab, as all of its powerful energies had become much more focused than before. Under the strong guidance of Captain Gheri's willpower, the empowered greatsword cut through the upper layers and bundles of strong back muscles with disturbing ease. No amount of earth energy reinforcement could retain any effect in the face of all of this cutting power! The greatsword continued to sink lower until it severed right through the monster's spine, though with much greater effort than before. By the time the long and thick blade could cut no further, the spine of the Giant Stone Eater had just been severed in half! "You did it, captain. The beast is collapsing. It has lost control over much of its body!"