Chapter 6065 Am I Not As Good As I Thought? 6065 Am I Not As Good As I Thought? The Elegant Rage gained new life after she had obtained a new weapon. The Heartsword may be the least fanciest weapon in the Everchanger's arsenal, but that did not change the fact that it was far tougher and sharper than practically any other blade wielded by a standard mech! It was a disproportionately powerful weapon when wielded by a standard mech. Lanie completely forgot about her custom mech's tonfas and eagerly began to revive all of the swordsmanship skills that she had accumulated and 'inherited' in the past! The Heartsword was explicitly designed as a handy alloy sword that was meant to be wielded by a single hand. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶 Unlike the long and massive greatswords wielded by many Swordmaiden mechs, the Heartsword's mass and length was not particularly high. The Elegant Rage possessed enough physical power to cut through one wooden mech with the Heartsword, but it was a lot more difficult to cleave through other enemies with the same blow. This was not a failure on the part of the Heartsword. It was already a sharp weapon on its own, and the true resonance imbued by Venerable Joshua directly enhanced this trait. However, now that the Heartsword had left the Everchanger's hand, the weapon was not able to maintain a solid connection to Joshua's willpower. The empowerment from true resonance had become feebler as it needed to last for the remainder of the engagement. This forced Lanie to make adaptations to her combat approach. Her Elegant Rage began to maneuver more violently in the air. Only by building up momentum was she able to generate the greater forces required to cut through multiple wooden mechs at once. Holding the weapon with two hands also allowed the melee mech to maintain a firmer grip on the Heartsword. Lanie did not dare to wield the Heartsword with a single arm. Her mech had become a weak point at this time. It was very much possible for the expert mech-grade weapon to slip out of Elegant Rage's grasp if it was only held with a single hand! Though Lanie did not have much practice with wielding such a powerful weapon with limited reach with two hands, she applied all of her relevant skills and adapted them according to the situation. Her melee mech's killing efficiency steadily rose while also getting hit much less in return. The living mech regained some of the elegance that characterized her performance in previous battles. "Ma-aow!" A spiritual Burmese cat helped Lanie improve her control over her mech and borrowed weapon by inhabiting the Elegant Rage. Kelly usually occupied one of the tonfas in order to give the expert candidate greater control over the weapon, but the companion spirit did not dare to get too close to the Heartsword. Venerable Joshua's lingering willpower was so strong that Kelly would most definitely suffer a heavy blow if she came too close! The cat only dared to inhabit one of the arms of the Elegant Rage, but that was already enough to subtly improve Lanie's killing efficiency. Broken wooden mechs continued to fall from the air as the enhanced melee mech went on a rampage. The sword-wielding machine even found opportunities to clear out the wooden mechs that swarmed the Zeal from above and the sides! The Zeal may have gained a reprieve, but the danger to the heavy artillery mech had not yet passed! A lot of wooden ranged mechs had deployed in the field. Now that their melee counterparts no longer blocked their firing lines, a multitude of seed volleys struck the Zeal's heavily strained azure energy shield. The wooden imitations of the Transcendent Punisher Mark III were particularly threatening! Each of them possessed many different cannon configurations, but the most outrageous variation was the one that looked like a close copy of the Zeal! Not only were they mounted with four relatively standard seed cannons, they also bore an oversized version that looked like a wooden imitation of the Devora Cannon! Fortunately, the Emperor Tree might be able to replicate the size and shape of the Devora Cannon, but it was completely unable to replicate the principles of electromagnetism and phasewater technology. Aside from launching oversized seeds that dealt a bit more kinetic damage than usual, the wooden imitations of the Transcendent Punisher Mark III was not even close as threatening as an actual quasi-first-class mech. Even so, the Emperor Tree had spawned over 60 of them, indicating that it had invested a lot of resources to create this batch! More wooden heavy artillery mechs continued to drop from the upper canopy and landed straight onto the ground where they took root and bombarded the Zeal from below. It took a lot of time and effort for the Zeal to clean up these annoying wooden copies of himself. This was especially the case when the Emperor Tree had dispersed their positions, preventing them from getting mowed down with ease. Taon quickly looked at the gauge that indicated the integrity of the azure energy shield and saw that it had already dipped below 20 percent. However, most of his concentration was put on aiming the massive Devora Cannon of his heavy artillery mech. He aimed the massive super-heavy gauss cannon with great care. Seconds passed by as Taon and the Zeal conducted different processes to adjust the angle of the kinetic cannon in the hopes that it would sever one of the Emperor Tree's many branches. It was anything but easy to complete this seemingly simple task. The Emperor Tree was so huge that it possessed a huge quantity of branches. Several of them were large and thick, but there were also many more that were relatively small and slender. However, the Emperor Tree made it very difficult to target these smaller branches. Not only was it somehow aware of what Taon was trying to accomplish, but it also swung all of its branches in an attempt to stir up the Solus Gas and swat the Everchanger from its trunk! Each time the Zeal fired the Devora Cannon, the super-heavy transphasic gauss round always missed the smaller branches and only struck the thicker ones instead, which promptly regenerated from the heavy impact. If the Zeal missed once or twice, then Taon would not take too much notice of these outcomes. After all, it was not that easy to land a hit on a moving target when the Zeal was assailed by lots of wooden mechs. When the Zeal missed 6 times in a row, that was when Taon started to feel that his situation was not right! He gritted his teeth when he guessed what was the case. "The Emperor Tree is disturbing our perception! We have been aiming the Devora Cannon wrong the whole time!" "I THINK SO AS WELL. THE EFFECT IS SUBTLE, BUT THAT IS ALREADY ENOUGH TO MESS UP OUR AIM." What an insidious calamity plant! It had already figured out how to achieve a powerful effect with very little effort! "Let us get it right this time!" Now that the mech pilot and living mech became aware of the Emperor Tree's sabotage, they both firmed up their minds and tried to resist foreign intrusion as much as possible. It became a lot easier for them to focus on the task of aiming as the Elegant Rage's efforts prevented a lot of wooden mechs from swarming the heavy artillery mech. Another source of help was Taon's owl-based companion spirit. "Hoot hoot!" Sirca had already inhabited the Devora Cannon and did his best to give Taon a more direct feel of the powerful weapon. Although Sirca was too young and weak to grant the Devora Cannon a direct power boost, the spiritual owl was still able to extend Taon's control over the massive weapon. Sirca also possessed a mind of his own. He was therefore able to help Taon split his focus and pay attention to multiple different actions at the same time. Now, Taon, Sirca and the Zeal all put most of their focus on accomplishing a single goal. Under normal circumstances, Ylvaine should have been a part of this effort as well, but the high concentration of Solus Gas continued to cut off the Zeal from this familiar presence. "Now!" Once Taon felt that the perfect moment had come, he decisively pulled the trigger. BOOOOM! "Miss! How could we miss again?!" Taon felt absolute despair when the super-heavy gauss round did nothing but shoot through a lot of leaves. The heavy projectile did not even smack into a larger branch this time. It threaded through all of the leaves before soaring far away from the Emperor Tree! It was as if the damn calamity plant was mocking Taon! The expert candidate was sure that his willpower was strong enough to resist the Emperor Tree's mental influence. However, because the effect was so subtle, he had no proof whether his judgment was correct. What if he was wrong? What if his perception was still being disturbed by the Emperor Tree? The implications of that possibility did not bode well for Taon! Even if the Emperor Tree did nothing else but slightly nudge his aim off, that was already enough to prevent the Devora Cannon from achieving anything meaningful. "I am not incompetent! I can do better than this! I have struck far more difficult targets in the past!" Was that truly the case? Taon may have been in control of the mech, but it had always been Ylvaine helping him finetune his aim. It was impossible for Taon to deny the indispensable aid provided by the design spirit. If he did so, he would not only be lying to himself, but also discounting the power of the Great Prophet! Neither of these two consequences were acceptable to Taon, so he had no other choice but to consider two possibilities. Either his mind was too weak to resist the Emperor Tree's manipulation, or his skills were not as good as he thought. Perhaps both might be true at the same time! As Taon was met with repeated failure, he began to suspect that he was failing all-around. So what if he was an expert candidate? Taon felt as if he was barely better than a typical mech pilot. He was still too far away from acquiring the qualities of a genuine expert pilot. Despair began to overtake his mind. He even began to regress by pleading for help from Ylvaine! "Where are you, my prophet? Please give a sign to this lost lamb." "TAON! GET YOUR MIND TOGETHER! FOCUS ON THE MISSION, NOT YOUR MISERY!" Though the Zeal tried his best to shake Taon from his growing depression, the expert candidate was deaf to these pleas! Just as Taon was able to sink into a pit of darkness, a light shone from above. A familiar presence appeared when Taon yearned for it the most. His mood rose as he began to sense a familiar source of guidance! Even though it was much weaker and less responsive than before, Taon had worked with Ylvaine often enough to recognize his glow! "Hahaha! You have not forsaken me! I knew it! You have never left me! You were always there, but I was never able to hear your guidance before! The only way for me to hear you across every barrier was to have more faith and zeal than anyone else!" Taon grasped at the fleeting connection to Ylvaine like a man possessed. He hungrily devoured the scattered guidance from the Great Prophet and quickly adjusted the parameters of the targeting system of the Devora Cannon. The heavy artillery mech's Devora Cannon aimed at the Emperor Tree with a much stronger intensity than before. Taon became so enraptured by his own piety that he had narrowed his focus to the point of drowning out nearly everything else aside from his controls and the mystical guidance from above. When the Great Prophet finally told him to pull the trigger, the expert candidate did so without hesitation! BOOOOM! The impact noise was much different than before! Just as Taon saw that his mech's attack had finally managed to sever one of the Emperor Tree's branches, a powerful shock went through his mind! His vision and perception of the environment shifted as he was met with a different reality from before! "This…" "TAAAAAOOON!" Venerable Joshua roared as his Everchanger literally glowed with rage! "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! HOW COULD YOU HAVE STRUCK THE ELEGANT RAGE IN THE BACK?!" "What?!" Taon couldn't believe what he just heard! "No! I didn't!" "YOU HAVE JUST SNEAK ATTACKED YOUR OWN CLANSMAN!"