The final battle of Viola Magnifica unfolded like a grand tapestry. As both sides confronted each other, countless instances of desperation and heroism unfolded. Alien phasefighters weaved and danced into each other in order to place the mechs chasing from behind into their crosshairs. Pairs and trios of melee mechs did their best to box in the fast and agile phasefighters on a busy battlefield where attacks could come from many directions. A large number of alien warships of many different shapes and sizes unloaded their firepower at the orbital defense network that protected the final human stronghold in the star system. In turn, the defensive platforms and orbital fortresses opened fire with their weapons with no abandon, not caring that their excessively high firing rate was rapidly wearing down their electrical components. "Shoot! Keep shooting! This fortress is going down anyway, so it doesn’t matter if we are cutting down the lifespan of our positron beam cannons by 99 percent! Just make sure you don’t exceed the limits too much or else the charging mechanism for our guns will blow up prematurely. The more alien ships we take down, the longer we hold our enemies back from storming our final line of defense!" Everyone knew what they were fighting for. The Viola Magnifica System was destined to fall to the native aliens, but that did not mean that their resistance was futile. Although the enemy benefited much more from attrition warfare than red humanity, the latter had no choice but to play this game if it wanted to prevent a rapid collapse. Mechs fell when strafed by phasefighters or got shot to pieces by the storm of firepower unleashed by nearby escort warships. Numerous warships succumbed under heavy fire as the orbital defense network constantly focused its collective firepower onto a small selection of warships for the purpose of eliminating them before they could retreat to safety. For now, the orbital defense network was making good progress in eliminating most warships. The larger vessels possessed a multitude of strong segmented as well as multi-layered energy shields, allowing them to withstand an amazing amount of punishment despite posing as lager targets. However, their lack of mobility made it so that they were much slower to retreat to safety than other vessels. The native alien commanders tried to adjust by sending other warships forward so that they could utilize their defenses to serve as temporary forms of cover, but it was difficult for them to cover every angle. The warships could go down much faster if they were being assaulted by mechs. The fast and agile small craft could not only weaken the vessel’s transphasic defenses with their space suppressors, but also attack the hulls through any open gaps in the energy shield layers. It was unfortunate that the enemy phasefighters did everything they could to prevent that from happening. The latest generation of phasefighters exhibited many improvements that enabled them to close the gap with human mechs. From the implementation of hyper technology to more generous use of expensive materials, the major alien races that deployed the strike craft showed little hesitation in squandering large amounts of high-quality resources to give them an edge on the battlefield! Many mech designers who observed the ongoing battle from the safety of their offices or design labs frequently had to suppress their pangs of jealousy when they saw how even the most trashy cannon fodder units benefited from phasewater technology. For red humanity, phasewater was a precious strategic resource that was increasingly becoming more and more difficult to obtain! Even the linefighters that had earned a lot of war merits over the past months could hardly afford to redeem enough phasewater to construct a serviceable transphasic mech. The demand had grown, but the supply had not kept up that much. Red humanity was only able to extract a fraction of the phasewater contained within alien salvage. All of this meant that human mechs had to make do with less. The Larkinson Clan may be one of the few private organizations that was able to field transphasic mechs on a large scale, but that did not mean that other outfits could afford this luxury! Right now, these mechs were struggling to survive when fighting against the enemy phasefighters. They could only rely on the superior skill and judgment of their professional mech pilots to stay alive on a dangerous battlefield. With so many mechs and other assets struggling to hold their ground against the alien forces, there were not enough assets that could hold the native alien phase lords back. There were plenty of low to mid-rank expert mechs among the mech forces. Plenty of soldiers had broken through since the start of the Red War. However, nobody dared to send them in the direction of the enemy phase lords as they were far too weak to survive an extended engagement against the alien powerhouses. Even high-tier expert mechs struggled to hold back the lesser phase lords. The expeditionary fleet of the Golden Skull Alliance contributed most of them to the fight. Famed living expert mechs such as the Riot, the Everchanger, the C-Man, the Greenaxe, the Bloodripper, the Blood Star Mark II, the Star Dancer, the Valkyrie Krista and the Valkyrie Ursa were doing their best to hold back the 3 remaining lesser phase lords. Despite the multitude of powerful machines, they were struggling to inflict meaningful damage while evading attacks that could heavily sap their resonance shields! The Fatedriver was a hardy jureg lesser phase lord who possessed an unusual sense of foresight. Whatever phasewater organs he was making use of allowed him to predict his opponent’s moves in advance and allow him to counterattack at accelerated speeds. Venerable Vincent had to rely far more on his intuition than in any of his prior fights just to prevent his C-Man from getting bludgeoned by the Fatedriver’s heavy metal rod! Zren-Divar was an orvan lesser phase lord that wielded a deadly plasma sword that was largely derived from human technology. Although it was not transphasic in nature, the phase lord-scaled energy weapon generated so much heat that brief contact with it was enough to overload an expert mech’s resonance shield within seconds! This was extremely troubling for the Riot. As one of the expert mechs that had undertaken the unenviable task of trying to stall the lesser phase lord up close, the outdated expert mech was showing his age in many ways. The most important shortcoming was that the mobility of the armored expert spearman mech was not as good as the other machines. The Riot was designed to take hits head-on and launch counterattacks that struck just as hard if not harder. That strategy did not work against a phase lord who wielded a weapon as powerful as a large plasma sword, so the Riot was forced to imitate more agile and mobile mechs such as the First Sword just to be able to fulfill his purpose! The Riot barely managed to hold on for the time being because other expert mechs such as the Valkyrie Krysta and the Valkyrie Ursa were doing their best to distract the phase lord with their attack runs and their glows. Of course, Zren-Divar hardly took notice of the famed glows of the Valkyrie mechs. This trick may be enough to scare inexperienced alien phasefighter pilots into paralysis, but the gap in strength between the orven phase lord and the Daughter of Death was not large enough! The Riot spun around in a messy manner as the living expert mech barely managed to evade a fast and tricky swipe of the phase lord’s plasma sword. The heat emanating from the powered weapon was so great that the Riot’s resonance shield had to expend a small portion of its power just to prevent the mech from suffering thermal damage! Before the orven phase lord could press his attack, the Valkyrie Krista and the Valkyrie Ursa coordinated their actions and simultaneously charged and thrust their own spears into the enemy’s spatial barrier from below and behind! Zren-Divar clearly wanted to keep chasing after the Riot, especially since the outdated expert mech was among the slowest in this fight. However, if he did so, the two Valkyrie expert mechs of the Glory Seekers would continually assault his spatial barrier with repeated spear attacks at close range. The updated transphasic hyper spears wielded by the two Valkyrie mechs might not hit too hard, but the relatively fast and nimble expert marauder mechs were able to launch repeated strikes without too many issues! If Zren-Divar underestimated the threat posed by these two annoying machines, then his spatial barrier would quickly collapse. He still enjoyed the protection of azure shield generators integrated in his newly developed raiment, but that would not last all that long against determined attackers! The orven phase lord would definitely be in big trouble once he lost his energy defenses. The armor plating that comprised his raiment would only delay the expert mechs for so long as they targeted his weak spots such as his head or back. The lesser phase lord was an experienced enough combatant to make the right for himself. Rather than put his life and health at risk just to chase after a stupid expert mech, Zren-Divar much preferred to preserve his defenses. He felt especially strong about this after witnessing the assassination of a fellow orven god! The frustrated orven phase lord uttered a silent but angry roar before halting his pursuit of the Riot. He subsequently spun around in order to sweep his plasma sword towards the two Valkyrie expert mechs, forcing both of them to abort their assault and evade before they got melted by the potent weapon! By this time, the Riot had already turned back and performed a short charge that allowed it to thrust its spear right into the back of the orven phase lord’s spatial barrier! The integrated cannons mounted on the raiment worn by the phase lord were prepared this time. They lanced out with potent transphasic hyper positron beams. The Riot was able to evade several of the charged beams, but his mediocre mobility ultimately prevented him from evading the final strike. His resonance shield became shakier after getting hit! Venerable Rosa Orfan growled as she found herself in a fight that was far from ideal for her. The Riot Mark II’s inability to resist a proper strike from her current opponent’s plasma sword locked out many of her tactics and abilities! The Riot was designed to embroil his enemies head-on in a brutal slugfest, not dance around the enemy’s attacks as if he was a light mech like the Dark Zephyr! "Orfan!" Saint Commander Casella Ingvar shouted over a communication channel. "Your Riot is not doing so well against this martial phase lord. You should have better luck if you entangle the Eight Lord of Takansha instead. Let others take over your position." "NO!" Venerable Rosa Orfan immediately shot down this suggestion. "I won’t back down from this fight! That Eight Lord fellow is an arche masquerading as an orven. All he does is cover himself with lots of spatial barriers while trying to outrun his pursuers. His attacks are too feeble to make me feel threatened. What I need is an enemy that poses a true threat against my expert mech and myself. If I am not good enough to survive a dogfight against this Zren-Divar guy, then I do not deserve to live any further!" Seeing old friends and comrades such as Dise and Davia Stark break through in recent times was spurring Venerable Orfan forward. She was no longer willing to wait any longer to attain her own breakthrough! While she would have liked to pilot the Riot Mark III, it shouldn’t be necessary for her to pilot an updated machine to trigger her second apotheosis. "If Dise can do it, so can I!" Venerable Orfan felt that none of the ace pilots of the Larkinson Clan were as good as Saint Dise. She was the only one who managed to break through while piloting an expert mech from the first half of the Phasewater Generation. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶 This proved that she was the best out of all of the Larkinson ace pilots as her willpower was much stronger for it to be able to overcome the handicap of her outdated expert mech! Enjoy exclusive content from empire Venerable Orfan wanted this as well. She knew that there was no shortcut to attaining success through this difficult approach. Saint Dise had worked much harder and overcome greater challenges in order to complete her current attainments. If Orfan did not want to be left behind by the woman she considered her peer and equal, then the former Flagrant Vandal officer needed to test her courage and fearlessness in a confrontation against the most powerful of the three lesser phase lords!