Chapter 6020 Melkor’s Resolve 6020 Melkor’s Resolve Although the alien small craft were still inferior to human mechs in most aspects, the fact that each of them were protected by their own small transphasic energy shields still made it troublesome to eliminate them at a fast pace. "Melee mechs, intercept the alien phasefighters!" It was not efficient to eliminate the phasefighters by relying on ranged mech units. Melee mechs equipped with space suppressors did a much better job at wiping them out so long as they could get within striking distance. Commander Melkor gritted his teeth and quickly issued orders to redirect his faster and more mobile melee mech units to entangle the alien phasefighters. "These phasefighters are getting faster, tougher and deadlier with each generation. We can't let them fly around with impunity!" The Flagrant Vandals moved in to assist. Their light mechs were not that suitable to fight against alien warships, but they were much more effective when fighting against alien small craft! The Ferocious Piranhas and the Stingrippers of the Flagrant Vandals moved to flank and contain the alien phasefighters. Their superior mobility and their glows enabled them to fare pretty well against the alien craft. Although the Avatars of Myth and the Flagrant Vandals lacked the numbers to contain the alien phasefighters by themselves, they soon received help from the mech forces hailing from the other partners of the Golden Skull Alliance. "Commander Melkor!" Among the numerous quasi-first-class Fey Fiannas accompanying the Avatars of Myth, one of them looked more conspicuous than others. The customized version of the Larkinson Edition of the Fey Fianna was paired with 6 living fey. Two of them were fairly powerful communication fey. They amplified the mech's signals transmissions and made it easier for Melkor to remain connected with his troops across a busy and chaotic battlefield where lots of explosions and radiation spikes interfered with communications. Another pair consisted of upgraded luminous fire fey, which was originally designed by Tristan Wesseling. The fey model was already powerful from the beginning, but had been upgraded even further by the mech designers serving on the expeditionary fleet. Equipped with both positive fire hyper gems and negative water hyper gems and enhanced by phasewater, the expensive fey fired dazzlingly hot and powerful transphasic hyper laser beams that successfully punched through the transphasic energy shields of the alien small craft in just one or two blows! A second pair of fey consisted of transphasic versions of the infinite coil fey originally designed by Karl Steinbock-Bakhali. Even though there only two of them that combined together to form a slightly longer barrel, the kinetic projectiles launched by the two fey never failed to punch through the transphasic energy shields of enemy phasefighters by relying on a combination of strong kinetic power and transphasic penetration! Commander Melkor still had to maintain enough situational awareness to command the Avatars of Myth, but that did not mean he had given up on developing his piloting skills entirely! He was growing older and more tired with each passing year, but there was a part of him that still yearned for the romance of becoming a high-ranking mech pilot. He could never suppress his envy when he saw the Larkinsons of his generation such as Saint Tusa and Venerable Jannzi ascend towards godhood while he still remained a lowly mortal. There had been times when his willpower wavered. Those were the times where he decided to leave the cockpit and command his Avatars of Myth behind a desk. However, when Ves founded the Premier Branch and pretty much made it clear that it would become the central focus of the Larkinson Clan, Melkor began to realize that he only had a limited window of opportunity to rise alongside his cousins and other familiar Larkinsons. The expeditionary fleet would probably continue to operate as a second-class fleet in the times to come, but it would no longer hold as much importance as before. Melkor did not have the confidence that he could enter the Premier Branch by relying on his mediocre capabilities. Perhaps he could apply to make use of an EdNet quota, but virtual reality training alone could never turn him into a first- class mech pilot. "My genetic aptitude isn't good enough anyway." He was too proud and honorable to ask Ves to make an exception and pull him into the Premier Branch. Neither his piloting skills nor his command capabilities could justify a transfer to a first-class mech force. If Melkor did not want to live the remainder of his life as an average second-class legion commander, then the only way for him to change his future was by breaking through! With that thought, Commander Melkor resolutely piloted a demanding Fey Fianna and utilized 6 fey at once to push his limits and excel in both personal combat and battlefield command! Ever since Melkor embraced the Fey Fianna, he became more and more proficient at multitasking and coordinating his own fey. The fact that the mech more actively assisted in controlling the fey after evolving into a third order living mech also helped! Yet it was exactly because of Melkor's notably strong performance that he attracted the attention of the orven phasefighter commanders. "Careful, commander!" Numerous defensive mechs attempted to cover Melkor's Fey Fianna as it became the target of over 60 phasefighters! Even as the Avatars of Myths moved to block, divert and eliminate the aggressors, a squadron of elite phasefighters in red broke out and smashed aside the mechs in their way with absurdly powerful transphasic hyper weapons! "Watch out for the elite phasefighters! They are much newer and more advanced!" The stolen human technologies used to upgrade the elite phasefighters had not only made their weapons powerful enough to pierce the defenses of most Avatar mechs, but they were also a lot faster and more maneuverable even if they were unable to produce any warp bubbles! The space suppressors attached onto every melee mech may have caused all of the nearby elite phasefighters lose the power of their phasewater technology, but their brand-new hyper technology still retained their full strength! Though Melkor should have commanded his Fey Fianna to turn around and retreat to safety, he refused to show cowardice in the face of danger. Retreating was a prudent choice to make for any mech officer that was in the crosshairs of the enemy. It was not a choice that any aspiring expert pilot would make! The squadron of elite phasefighters may be strong, but they were still within the range of tolerance of the Avatars of Myth! How could Melkor possibly dream of becoming an expert pilot one day if his first response was to turn tail and run? A fire lit in his heart as Melkor roared and focused the fire of all of his offensive fey on the incoming elite phasefighters! "Avatars never back down! Let us teach these aliens that their phasefighters can never stand a chance against our living mechs! WE ARE LARGER THAN LIFE!" "WE ARE LARGER THAN LIFE!" The remaining Avatars echoed the motto of their mech legion! Several elite phasefighters quickly crumbled as their weakened azure energy shields got stripped by repeated attacks before their relatively thick fuselages only bought them a little more time. The elite alien pilots quickly adapted, though. They dispersed their powerful phasefighters and began to overload their engines and thrusters, causing them to accelerate much faster than normal! The alien phasefighters easily managed to outpace the Avatar mechs that attempted to intercept them. They also made it much harder for Melkor's Fey Fianna and other ranged mechs to land successive hits! As the alien phasefighters came close enough, Melkor's living mech suddenly beeped in alarm. "DETECTING MULTIPLE MISSILE LOCKS!" The legion commander's eyes widened just as dozens of transphasic hyper missiles launched from the surviving elite phasefighters! As the Red War dragged on, the native aliens discovered that their small craft were not yet able to defeat human mechs on even ground. Since the latter was always much better controlled, plenty of alien starfighters and phasefighters got eliminated with so much ease that they failed to justify the resources invested into their development and production! In order to give them a quick if somewhat costly short-term boost, the native aliens recently discovered the advantages of explosive munitions. Equipping alien phasefighters with combat but powerful short-range missiles had proven to be a surprisingly effective countermeasure against human mechs! Melkor had only heard brief mentions of their appearance in the battles involving first-raters. He never expected to encounter them himself on this battlefield! Even as his Fey Fianna began to engage in evasive maneuvers, the accompanying offensive fey tried to pick off the incoming missiles as much as possible. Other nearby ranged mechs managed to fell one or more transphasic hyper missiles with each passing second, but the distance was so short that over half-a-dozen managed to cross the distance and close in on Melkor's vulnerable machine! "Camouflage!" Before the missiles struck, all 6 living fey began to shimmer before creating lifelike physical projections that imitated the appearance of the original base mech! The fey also overheated and began to output emissions that made it a lot harder to distinguish real from false! BOOOM! 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺 BOOOM! BOOOM! A damaged and partially ravaged Fey Fianna flew from the periphery from all of the powerful explosions. The drone mech had lost all 6 living fey, but at least Melkor managed to preserve his machine and his life! "Those missiles are too strong against mechs!" Although the modern alien missiles clearly relied on sophisticated human tech to run their guidance systems, they weren't clever enough to break the living fey's camouflage. The Avatar Commander did not have any time to celebrate. The missiles arrived so fast that his mech had been unable to put up enough distance from the short-lived decoys. The Fey Fianna had lost every fey! Even though there was a reserve of spare fey located further in the rear, it would take time for Melkor's barren mech to link up with another set. In the meantime, the threat of the elite phasefighters still remained! Three of them had succumbed from massed attacks, but three more alien craft decisively accelerated towards the damaged Fey Fiannas! Melkor quickly experienced another sense of crisis! "More transphasic hyper missiles? No. They cannot carry any more of them. Wait, their heat emissions are spiking! They are about to explode!" He quickly figured out that the orven pilots of the remaining elite phasefighters had already made the determination to die! "They are launching suicide charges!" If any of those alien phasefighters crashed against his damaged and vulnerable Fey Fianna head-on, there was no way for him to survive! Multiple Avatar mechs surrounded his damaged living mech in order to block the incoming elite phasefighters, but the enemy craft had already split up in an attempt to approach their target from three different angles! It was relatively easy to defend against threats from one direction, but it became a lot harder when they came from multiple directions! Combined with the attacks launched by other alien phasefighters, the Avatars of Myth struggled to defend their commander. If the Avatars had more time, they could have intercepted the remaining elite phasefighters, but because the distance was so short, only one of the powerful craft got intercepted before it reached its target! The remaining two elite phasefighters were just about to ram through whatever barriers were in the way and unleash explosions that could finish off the Fey Fianna when two fiery red resonance-empowered fire beams punched through the remaining defenses of the two craft and caused them to explode in advance! Commander Melkor relaxed a bit as he realized that reinforcements had arrived. The Star Dancer Mark II had approached from the ranks of the Glory Seekers and rapidly started to eliminate one alien phasefighter after another with single attacks from the expert rifleman mech's luminar crystal rifle. "Commander Casella Ingvar guessed that you were about to engage in reckless stupidity during this battle." Venerable Brutus Wodin transmitted to Melkor in his insufferable clipped accent. "There is a time and place for bravery, but do not overestimate your abilities. The Torment Fleet is much stronger than the alien raiding fleets that we have vanquished in the past. Do us a favor and stay further in the rear. My brother-in-law would become terribly upset if he hears that we have managed to win a great battle, only for it to come at the cost of your needless death." "..."