Chapter 5684 The Final Sprint 5684 The Final Sprint Though Cory Grimly had never broken through to the rank of expert candidate or expert pilot, he was still an exemplary mech pilot in other aspects. Even when a lot of ranged mechs brought their weapons to bear against offensive space knight, he relied on his powerful intuition and his impeccable skills to deftly maneuver his machine in unpredictable loops and diversions. He did so while making sure that he did not prolong the time of arrival too much. He knew as well as everyone else that as long as his powerful mech reached the Hooligan Barke, the combat carrier as well as the Ultimatums stationed inside her bunkers were likely doomed! This acute threat forced all of the remaining Ultimatums to bring their weapons to bear against Cory Grimy's mech. The traitor leader suddenly encountered much stiffer resistance during his final sprint as multiple hyper heavy artillery mechs showered his machine with hyper spaceburst shells! The faint power of destruction attached to every warhead added a little extra power to the explosions, causing the offensive space knight to endure continuous damage to its defenses. The mech's energy shield briefly came online and managed to serve as a brief buffer that saved the mech from suffering a lot of physical damage. Unfortunately, the sheer quantity of attacks quickly overwhelmed it. The space knight tried its best to block as many attacks as possible with its transphasic kite shield. As tough and resilient as it may be, transphasic alloys were not invincible. Even if the power of a single spacebust explosion was not enough to break the armor of the transphasic mech, what about a dozen of them? What about two dozen explosions! Though the Ultimatums temporarily gave the other enemy units a reprieve, Cory Grimly endured a lot more pressure than before! Not only were the continuous explosions overwhelming the structure of his alloy shield, but the interference also made it a lot more difficult for him to maintain his awareness of his surroundings. As the mech's metallic structure groaned as it started to receive increasingly more direct impacts, Cory felt as if he was being subjected to the force of a supernova. The heavy artillery cannons of the Ultimatums were too overbearing when employed en masse! If this continued, then Cory would find it much more difficult to anticipate Ultimatum One's supercharged attack and evade it in time! "Help Cory!" "Let my mech serve as your shield!" Other melee mechs had sped up and deliberately positioned themselves in front and around Cory's mech! The mech pilots had all chosen to step up during this critical time. They voluntarily placed their machines in harm's way, knowing that the continuous shelling would rupture their mechs and break apart their cockpits with ease. Nonetheless, they fearlessly proceeded anyway because Cory Grimly shouldered the hope of advancing their Great Cause! The cost was great. Mechs fell like flies as they literally treated themselves as human shields for the battered but not broken transphasic space knight. They only bought a short amount of time, but that was more than enough to give the enemy elite mech crucial breathing room! Cory not only managed to restore his composure, but was also able to direct his full concentration towards the attack he knew was coming! "Hah!" His mech launched upwards at just the right time for his machine to evade the powerful projectile that punched straight through two of the mechs like they were toys! The space knight almost lost its legs from the attacks. The armor plating that covered the lower limbs still became exposed to destructive energies that had a corroding effect on the surface. "Miss! One shot left!" Even if Cory's mechs had endured a lot of damage, space knights were built to take hits and keep going. The mech might look significantly damaged on the outside, but it protected its internals so well that the machine still retained most of its combat effectiveness. There was no doubt in everyone's mind that the transphasic mech could demolish any other mech in a face-to-face confrontation! This was the worst nightmare for the Ultimatums stationed in the bunkers of the Hooligan Barke! Their heavy artillery cannons launched spaceburst shells as fast as they could with no regard to how quickly they were using them up. Unfortunately, the literal cannon fodder that constantly got in the way prevented them from damaging or disorienting Cory Grimly's mech. As the distance between the traitor mechs and the mercenary fleet continued to shrink, the monster mech that had dominated much of the battle prepared to fire its mutated Onyx Cannon for what may be the final time. Whatever consciousness was in control of this warped accident still understood that Cory Grimly posed the greatest danger. It did not let its previous failures deter its attempt to nail the elusive space knight with its most powerful attack. However, as admirable as its determination may be, the consciousness obviously lost much of the spontaneity and creativity of the original mech pilot, because the machine simply waited for the Onyx Cannon to reach its full charge before pulling the trigger right away! This predictable firing pattern gave Cory Grimly a lot of help because he knew almost exactly when he should move! The only question was in which direction his mech should evade. Whoever was in control of the supermech had come close to predicting his evasion pattern. This was a deadly game that many mech pilots needed to be proficient in order to survive and thrive on the battlefield. Cory had always prided himself on his evasion ability. He probably would have performed just as good if not better if he chose to specialize in piloting light skirmisher, but he wanted to excel in a mech archetype that best complemented his late brother. "Up!" As the damaged space knight moved in Cory's chosen direction, the super-heavy gauss round missed its target to such an extent that its destruction E energy wake barely affected the machine! Though the powerful shot caused a rain of debris to spread in front as it had drilled through one of the mechs acting as a shield, that was the extent of damage inflicted by the monster mech! "No!" Commander Pellicky looked dismayed when Yuri's mech had missed the final crucial shot. There was no time for the powerful machine to launch a third attack! "Prepare to receive the incoming enemy mechs! Grab whatever weapons or tools you can find. Get ready to arm the improvised boobytraps and detonate as many explosive shells in the faces of the enemy mechs as possible. Don't worry about the Hooligan Barke. We can always replace a flagship, but we can never replace our lives!" Much of the crew had already spent a bit of time on preparing for this scenario. There was not much they could do against mechs when they no longer had any melee mechs left to block the enemies. A number of non-essential crew members had already begun to evacuate at this time. Escape pods launched from various points of the hull and flew in the direction of other friendly mechs, heedless of the energy beams and projectiles that regularly crossed the surrounding space. Commander Pellicky did not make any effort to run. She bore too much responsibility, and she did not think the Praetorians could make it out alive once they lost their greatest weapon. "Yuri." She transmitted over multiple channels. "I hope you're still alive in there. A powerful enemy is coming. The transphasic space knight has already circled around and is currently hacking its way through the hull. It won't take long before it breaches the interior of your bunker and assail your mech from the rear. Either evacuate or do whatever you can to defend yourself against Cory Grimly." The mercenary commander had no idea whether her subordinate got the message. The bloated machine acted like it was under the control of a stupid automated program again. Instead of trying to turn around and maybe bring its Onyx Cannon to bear against the enemy coming from the rear, the mutated heavy artillery mech went back to shooting the enemies in front! The half-biological abomination launched another attack that managed to pulverize three enemy mechs that just happened to cross the same line! This was an amazing feat, and helped to relieve pressure for the mercenary fleet. However, this attack did nothing to stop Cory Grimly's rampage! His space knight had already gotten rid of its alloy shield, but that enabled it to hold its transphasic axe with two scarred but fully functional arms and carve through the compartments with steady determination. Any infantry, defensive installation and other measures failed to slow down the intruding machine. The mech was too tough! Small arms fire almost universally bounced off its mech frame. Its sensors detected a lot of obvious traps in advance, allowing it to neutralize them or simply go around. The only discomfort the space knight experienced was the strange energy field that caused Cory Grimly to feel as if he was moving in a zone of death. However, it was clearly weakening, as if the source had already deflated like a balloon. There was nothing else inside the flagship that could stop his mech's advance. The Hooligan Barke was hardly the strongest or the most robust second-class combat carrier. She was a typical product designed for private use. There was no budget for any serious anti-mech countermeasures. The general recommendation to this kind of scenario was that the crew of the vessel should simply give up and evacuate as soon as possible! That was not really a solution at all to the Pellicky Praetorians, so the mercenary commander continued to urge Yuri to get ready to confront the incoming threat! "He's come!" The thick and sturdy gate that shut the rear of the bunker compartment abruptly started to tear and deform! The transphasic axe was able to cut through the ordinary alloys with ease, but the space knight still had to hack its weapon many times in order to carve out an opening through all of the mass in the way. The monster mech finally exhibited a reaction when it suspended its latest attempt to charge up its Onyx Cannon. Though the monster machine had yet to turn around with its five uneven legs, it had finally registered the threat from the rear! Pellicky widened her eyes when she saw that the machine's secondary armaments mounted on the back started to swing or swivel backwards. "They are still in working condition?!" She thought that Ultimatum One's original heavy artillery cannons had mutated so far beyond recognition that it was impossible for them to function anymore! Clearly, she had underestimated the strange phenomena that caused Yuri's machine to turn into a monstrosity. Just as the space knight carved out a rectangular-shaped hole through the reinforced gate and knocked it open, the monster mech's short and stubby mortar launched a goopy projectile directly through the newly created breach! Unfortunately, the velocity of this giant green snot ball was so dreadfully low that the vigilant and alert enemy had plenty of time to press his mech to the side and evade much of the attack! A small portion of the snot ball nonetheless managed to clip one of the space knight's arm, but other than corroding a bit of armor plating, the attack failed to produce any other results! The next instant, three powerful rays of light lanced from the miniature triple-barreled laser cannon battery! The power of these laser beams was exceptional relative to the size of the mech and weapon system! 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞 However, Cory Grimly easily anticipated this attack in advance due to detecting the massive buildup of heat. Even as he grew confused about the fact that the Ultimatum mech looked far different from what he expected, he still commanded his mech to utilize its transphasic axe to breach the nearby bulkhead and create enough space for his machine to sidestep the barrage of energy weapons fire! Once the miniature triple-barreled laser cannon battery had expended its attack, the space knight hopped back with a vengeance and sprinted forward before the odd machine could launch any further attacks! "What?!" Cory Grimly did not expect for his space knight to get smacked by what appeared to be a giant hair follicle! The 'weapon' was so absurd that his space knight almost failed to lift up its axe in time! On instinct, Cory chose to meet the incoming hair with the sharp side of his transphasic weapon as opposed to its flat side. This turned out to make quite a difference as the hair literally snapped as if it had been shaved by giant razor! "..." Though the crazy cosmopolitan leader struggled to understand what was going on, this did not stop him from pressing forward! The final obsidian black tentacle whipped forward in an attempt to land a final blow onto the space knight. There was not enough space inside the bunker for the latter to evade, but it did not matter because the enemy lifted up one of its arms and allowed the tentacle to smack and fracture the remaining armor plating on this limb! The force of the tentacle may be strong enough to inflict damage, but it was not strong enough to repel the space knight! "This ends now!" With a final heave, the space knight jumped onto the back of the heavy artillery mech, thereby preventing most of Ultimatum One's weapon systems from threatening the intruding machine. Cory Grimly's mech then proceeded to lift its transphasic axe before chopping it down onto the rear of the beetle-shaped mech! The outer layers of the hyper alloy plating parted easily enough as they failed to produce sufficient resistance against the exceptional penetration properties of the weapon!