?Chapter 6376 Death Spiral When the Dark Zephyr activated his Ultimate Ability, the ace light skirmisher reached a state of excitement that he and his battle partner had never attained in the past. The initial discovery of the pocket space, the hours-long flight back to the Bluejay Fleet and the life-threatening exchanges against the Arena Lord all honed Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson and his living mech in a way that he had never experienced in the past few months. During his tour through the frontlines, Saint Tusa mostly accompanied stronger ace pilots who all fought as the head of large mech armies. No matter how many forces the native aliens dispatched in a star system, the human defenders could always count on a sufficient number of mechs, starfighters, defensive works, warships and champions. Just like how the Whispering Willow covered the Dark Zephyr from the rear and bailed out the junior ace mech when it got in trouble, Saint Tusa had become accustomed to fighting with a safety margin during his months-long tour. Did he grow from these experiences? He did, but much of his gains came in the form of knowledge and wisdom. He knew how first-raters fought against the native aliens. He learned how ace mechs should coordinate with mech forces. He also discovered his limits and shortcomings when fighting against alien powerhouses. His resonance strength grew as well, but much of it could be attributed to the aftermath of his fairly recent breakthrough and his genuine joy at being able to pilot a proper ace mech after many months of waiting. Aside from a few occasions, Saint Tusa did not actually harbor that much fear for his life. He enjoyed so much backup that it was hard to imagine that he would actually fall on the battlefield. Such confrontations could no longer be regarded as fruitful in terms of growing his resonance strength. He would not be able to evolve to a senior ace pilot anytime soon if he kept serving as a cog in a large machine. That was why the Battle of Mazepan benefited him in a different way. He was fighting with a much weaker and less adequate support structure this time. Although the Bluejay Fleet and Fort Rock provided indispensable aid to Tusa, the additional help only served to lessen the severe disadvantages that put the ace pilot in lethal peril! It was only now that he was the only high-ranking mech pilot in the Bluejay Fleet that he bore an immense amount of pressure. The life and death of everyone on his side depended on his performance! Though an ace pilot that pursued freedom disliked being shackled by such a heavy responsibility, he did not reject this role, nor try to shirk his duty. Instead, he accepted his responsibility and fought harder than ever before. He was not only fighting for himself, but also the people he cared about! He was participating in a greater struggle between red humanity and its enemies. Tusa could not see any upside to letting the treacherous cosmopolitans and the genocidal native aliens gain the upper hand. Therefore, helping other people was equivalent to helping himself! He would only be able to enjoy the greatest degree of freedom in the Red Ocean if human civilization still remained standing. Only in a society where humans like himself could roam around undisturbed would he be able to attain his greatest ideal. Tusa had no desire to live as an outcast in a galaxy that completely rejected him due to his race. As he fought against the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa and continually squeezed his potential to evade the deadly Saint Piercer strikes, he learned a valuable lesson today. Freedom needed to be fought for. Nobody had the luxury to take it for granted. It was the instinct of living beings to dominate other living beings. Only by becoming stronger would Tusa be able to defend his own right to be free and unrestrained! Spontaneous insights like these could only be spawned from lengthy accumulation or high-pressure situations like these! When the Dark Zephyr finally triggered his Ultimate Ability and blazed forth with the power of shadow and phasing, Saint Tusa somehow managed to break through an invisible barrier and unlocked another part of his hidden potential! The people surrounding the site felt it most clearly. The mech pilots of the first-class multipurpose mechs that bravely flew closer in an attempt to apply their space suppression fields onto the Arena Lord all felt the glory of fighting alongside the shadowy but valiant ace mech. Many of these highly trained and experienced first-class mech pilots showed genuine admiration for Saint Tusa and his equally fantastic ace mech! Despite the fact that the odds were stacked against him, Saint Tusa managed to free himself from the constraints placed on him and defied his own fate! The sheer explosion of willpower emanating from the thick shadowy streak became seared into the minds of the surrounding mech pilots for the rest of their lives. Each of them felt privileged to witness this exalted moment of glory!" "The Dark Zephyr has burst open the Arena Lord's chest!" "Open fire on the cavity! Inflict as much damage to the phase lord's internal organs as possible!" "Make sure to check your fire in case the Dark Zephyr reappears!" While the surrounding mechs and warships eagerly took advantage of the opening generated by the Dark Zephyr's Ultimate Ability, the Arena Lord himself began to roar in genuine pain! "#$E&@#!" "INSOLENT HUMAN! YOU DARE INVADE MY OWN BODY! HOW FOOLISH OF YOU! DO YOU NOT THINK I WOULD STRIKE BACK AT YOU BECAUSE OF THAT? MY DIVINE BODY SHALL BE YOUR GRAVE!" The Arena Lord was in more pain than he had ever been for many years! In all of the duels and matches he fought in the past, few opponents managed to overpower him to the point where he incurred significant damage to his internal organs. Each time it happened, the Arena Lord would preserve the memories of these abject failures and take measures to never let himself be put in such a vulnerable situation again! The fact that he managed to survive those past crises and grow stronger in the end fueled his confidence that he would be able to overcome this challenge as well! The Dark Zephyr may have breached inside a part of his true body where the machine could inflict massive damage to his phasewater organs, but it was not easy for the ace light skirmisher to finish off the Arena Lord from the inside! A light skirmisher was still a light skirmisher. If another ace mech such as the Mars took the place of the Dark Zephyr, then the ace hybrid mech would have easily been able to unleash several times more devastation to the surrounding phasewater-infused organs! At this time, the Dark Zephyr made quick work of the organs that were within striking range of his tier 3 Destroyer spear. The advantage of wielding this spear was that nothing inside the Arena Lord's body could resist the destructive potential of this powerful Destroyer weapon. No matter whether the highly volatile speartip brushed against a phasewater organ, a giant string of flesh or a piece of solid bone, the tier 3 Destroyer weapon empowered by Blackwing's shadow energy and Tusa's willpower hungrily disintegrated the organic matter! If there was one downside to using this weapon to fuel the ongoing rampage, it was that the destructive contact surface of the spear was too limited! Unlike a Destroyer sword, the Destroyer spear was clearly a more economical product as only the speartip produced enhanced results. The shaft was completely useless in this regard! Combined with the massive size of the Arena Lord's internal organs, it would take a long time to inflict enough damage to cripple the greater phase lord! At least the greater phase lord never prepared any defensive measures that could defend the interior of his body against an intruder as powerful as the Dark Zephyr. Not even transphasic enhancements could block the sheer lethality of the Destroyer weapon. All of the phasewater reinforcement practically failed as the Destroyer particles broke the multi-dimensional effects that caused materials to become a lot more damage-resistant than normal. Saint Tusa felt as if he had become completely aligned with the tier 3 Destroyer spear now. It no longer behaved like a rebellious horse that was constantly bucking to get rid of its master. At this time, Tusa, Blackwing, the Dark Zephyr and perhaps the Destroyer weapon itself all desired the same outcome. That was to destroy as much of the Arena Lord's body as possible! This unity of intent and desire caused the Destroyer spear to become a lot more cooperative than before! The speartip solely channeled all of its destructive potential outwards upon physical contact with a hostile target. The fact that it subsequently retracted its power and exhibited no sign of disobedience reassured Tusa a lot. He became more encouraged than ever to use the spear to hollow out the Arena Lord from within! Saint Tusa even began to plan for a talk with Ves about keeping hold of the spear. As much as he acknowledged that the Larkinson Clan saved up the weapon for Venerable Rosa Orfan, who knew how long it would take for her to break through. Wasn't it better if Tusa kept hold of this powerful weapon and used to enhance the Dark Zephyr's lackluster killing power? "CAREFUL TUSA!" Tusa already sensed the incoming threat and controlled his ace mech to squeeze through the limited maneuvering space inside the phase lord's body. His Dark Zephyr managed to push to the side just in time to evade the thin but incredibly sharp tip of the Saint Piercer. It turned out that the Arena Lord was ruthless enough to point the sharp end of the Saint Piercer towards his own body and attempt to impale the Dark Zephyr from the outside! "What a ruthless greater phase lord!" Seeing that the Saint Piercer had missed, the pained but furious Arena Lord pulled out the Saint Piercer and thrust the weapon into his body at a different angle! "Hah! You missed!" Despite the dark and confining environment, Saint Tusa had abundant confidence in his ability to evade the piercing weapon strikes. It was true that he was not able to detect the Saint Piercer directly. Its properties made it especially resistant towards his intuition as well as his domain field. However, the Arena Lord was immune to Tusa's senses. His Saint Kingdom which was still able to operate inside the greater phase lord's body at reduced efficiency was able to detect the alien flesh getting pierced by the potent spear. As long as he paid attention to any pieces of flesh getting parted, Tusa should have 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮 enough time to command his machine to evade, thereby preventing a devastating outcome! Of course, this was easier said than done, because the Arena Lord deliberately tried to flex his abdomen so that there was much less maneuvering space available! A larger mech would have easily gotten stuck at times, but the Dark Zephyr's slim mech frame and barren loadout resulted in an incredible advantage in this situation! Unlike multipurpose mechs whose mech frames bulged with dozens of integrated weapon systems and other versatile gadgets, the designers of the Dark Zephyr Mark III Revision 2 kept the archemech basic and simple, just like a traditional light skirmisher! This produced an amazing circumstance where the light and nimble ace mech was still able to exert his freedom of movement in one of the most confining and disgusting spaces imaginable! All the while, the Arena Lord kept sustaining graver injuries. Not only was the tier 3 Destroyer spear wreaking havoc on so many phasewater organs, but his attempts to nail the body intruder with the Saint Piercer only resulted in repeated self-injuries! At the same time, the surrounding mechs and warships eagerly took advantage of the Arena Lord's distraction and inflicted even greater damage on his exterior! The Arena Lord had fallen into a death spiral!