6890 Saint Kingdom Suppression As powerful as the First Sword Mark III had become, she was not a perfect ace mech. Endurance was one of her greatest weaknesses. When she fought at full power, her energy reserves would not be able to sustain her output for a long time. If Ketis had chosen to design the First Sword according to the Pure Version, then the ace mech would have benefited from Master Hijalt Mossclover's exclusive High-Density Energy Cells. That would have significantly expanded the First Sword's energy reserves and enabled her to sustain herself for a much longer period of time. Alas, Ketis opted to go for the Sword Fey Version instead, which meant that the First Sword had to forgo individual power in order to support the operation 33 sword fey. Saint Dise was suffering from the consequences of this important choice. If she continued to pilot a simple ace swordsman mech, then she would have remained confident in keeping the electro-reactant flight system active at full power. However, the current configuration of the First Sword did not possess the energy buffer that she needed for her to sustain the current slugging match. The Black Lord was much better positioned to fight at this range. The Sirocco may have proven itself to be heavily disadvantaged when colliding directly against the Decapitator, but it turned out that it was a weapon that specialized in releasing destructive energy winds! Combined with the firepower of the integrated ranged weapons, the First Sword Mark III's armor system continually sustained hits with very little chance of evasion. Even if the individual attacks did not appear to be inflicting any noticeable damage onto the First Sword Mark III, that was only because the armor system was being energized as well as affected by true resonance. Neither of these effects were permanent. The armor-grade superdimensional alloy plating no longer functioned at their best if the ace mech exhausted her power reserves and the ace pilot wore out her willpower. After that, the superdimensional armor system would definitely become a lot more vulnerable to sustained attacks. The ace mech could not afford to sustain too much damage because superdimensional matter was far too precious to squander in a fight with low stakes. The Wind of Destruction clearly managed to deduce all of this. He quickly managed to deduce his win condition in a bout against a superdimensional ace mech that initially appeared to be impervious against all of his attacks! Saint Dise gained a lot of respect for the elder ace pilot during this fight. The Wind of Destruction had been mentoring and guiding her from the beginning of this sparring session. Although the Larkinsons and the Devosans had already formulated a detailed plan on how the fight should unfold, there were still a lot of gaps that the Terran ace pilot thoughtfully filled with helpful lessons. Of course, the Wind of Destruction did not verbalize any of his lessons. Instead, he taught Dise through the attacks and the maneuvers of his ace multipurpose mech. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖 He may have come from a different swordsmanship tradition than Dise, but the two shared enough in common to be able to communicate with their respective swords. The Wind of Destruction was not a gentle teacher. As much as he wanted to teach the younger and less experienced ace pilot how to fight as a saint, he still held the obligation to uphold the reputation of the Devos Ancient Clan and the Terran Alliance. This was why his Black Lord always exerted a high degree of pressure. The First Sword Mark III did not receive any reprieve and constantly had to endure one attack after another without interruption. The iconic destructive winds unleashed by the swings of the Sirocco were much more horrendous than they looked. Most people who viewed footage of these iconic sweeping attacks might assume that they were too wide and dispersed to inflict much if any damage against strong defenses. This was not necessarily true. The Black Lord's offensive posture was multifaceted. The Terran ace mech's Saint Kingdom was strong and all-encompassing enough that the destructive wind energy attacks received more amplification the longer they remained in flight. Dise suffered a heavy disadvantage in this regard as her willpower was so much weaker that her Saint Kingdom was unable to assert any control past the exterior of her ace mech. The Wind of Destruction was therefore not only able to increase the threat of his destructive wind energy attacks, but he was also able to use his willpower to warp the surrounding space and make it less friendly for his adversary! The First Sword Mark III's superdimensional armor may be tough enough to protect against many direct attacks, but it was not as infallible when confronting more esoteric effects. For example, the Black Lord's Saint Kingdom somehow distorted the surrounding space, making it more dangerous and less predictable. It was hard for Dise to describe the hindrances that her willpower tried and failed to overcome. She struggled to raise her control over the First Sword Mark III, but failed to surpass a certain limit because the laws of physics themselves appeared to be breaking down within her adversary's Saint Kingdom! Up did not always mean up. A heavy object could suddenly turn as light as a feather. Momentum might not be conserved anymore. Although the First Sword was able to resist the worst of it, her lack of control over the immediate environment still caused the ace mech to suffer small but frequent glitches. More importantly than that, her inability to spread her Saint Kingdom also weakened her sword fey. This was one of the reasons why they performed so lackluster so far. Even though they all maintained enough connections to Dise and the First Sword to retain at least a modicum of resonance empowerment, they clearly needed more support when deployed against an opposing ace mech. Ever since the First Sword Mark III turned into a drone mech, her sword fey became an important component of her combat power. The problem was that Dise was still new to them. The sword fey were numerous and difficult to leverage beyond a basic level. She understood the theory behind them. She had studied old legacy texts that the Red Collective managed to recover. Many of them described the use of sword formations that mysteriously tied floating swords together and enabled them to strike with far more power than they should. Like many Larkinsons, Dise was already familiar with battle formations, but trying to translate that into her sword formation was easier said than done. The sword fey were different from mechs. Dise found it necessary to multitask way beyond what she was accustomed to. If she was a drone mech specialist, then this would have been familiar ground. Unfortunately, she was still too new at this. She had spent a bit of time on learning how to operate multiple spurs at once, but while she managed to learn the basics, she was still lacking in experience. This prevented her from pulling off the few sword formations that she had managed to puzzle out ever since she received the First Sword Mark III. She felt as if she was wasting the potential of her sword fey. None of the formations she employed so far were sophisticated and powerful enough to give her an advantage in this bout. The Black Lord proved to be too fast and solid. The sword fey lacked the speed and power to seriously threaten the Terran ace mech at their current usage level. Dise clearly needed to spend a lot more time on individual practice in order to learn and master more powerful sword formations. It was far too unrealistic for her to spontaneously become a lot more effective at employing the sword fey! It took time and effort to figure out effective sword formations and train in them until he was able to seamlessly command her sword fey to pull them off with minimal delay. When it became abundantly clear that Dise was unable to increase the threat level of the sword fey in the short term, the fight eventually took another turn. Neither Saint Dise nor the Wind of Destruction saw any further point in prolonging this phase. The two powerful ace mechs briefly interrupted their attacks and went still for a short period of time. At this point, the two ace mechs remained effectively undamaged, but had expended a considerable amount of energy. The First Sword Mark III was clearly worse off in this regard as the ace mech was lacking in energy reserves. The Black Lord on the other hand still remained solid and filled with energy. The next phase of the practice fight was supposed to remove all but the most essential restrictions. If the previous rounds of fighting partially served to examine how well the First Sword Mark III performed in specific situations, the next one should serve as a much more accurate indicator of the superdimensional ace mech's effective performance on the battlefield. 13:02 If the previous rounds of fighting partially served to examine how well the First Sword Mark III performed in specific situations, the next one should serve as a much more accurate indicator of the superdimensional ace mech's effective performance on the battlefield. The First Sword no longer sent her sword fey forward anymore. Saint Dise instead recalled them back to her ace mech and summoned the Prime Sword Fey forward until she slotted it onto the Decapitator's tip. This effectively increased the Decapitator's reach, though it also made the weapon a little more unwieldy. The First Sword Mark III did not show any discomfort, however. The superdimensional sword fey attached to the ace mech floated behind the back of the machine. Dise clearly did not intend to rely on them. She clearly did not think she was proficient enough to make effective use of them at this point. Instead, Dise decided to fall back on familiar territory. Already, her extended Decapitator glowed brighter as she resonated more deeply with her most familiar weapon. On the other side, the Wind of Destruction was ready to get more serious as well. The signs of it were not obvious, but Dise could clearly feel the shift in mentality. After a brief pause, both sides finally went into action! The First Sword Mark III's electro-reactant wings immediately glowed brighter and more vigorous as she charged straight towards the Black Lord! Dise had chosen to place Respa into the flight system of her battle partner, allowing her to resonate with it stronger and amplify its performance considerably more than usual! This unexpected advantage provided the First Sword with a crucial mobility boost, thereby making it harder for the Black Lord to maintain its distance! The Wind of Destruction wisely chose to maintain as much distance as possible. His Black Lord had already begun to pelt the First Sword with unerringly accurate ranged attacks. However, it was the Black Lord's Saint Kingdom along with the constant destructive wind energy attacks that successfully impaired the First Sword's advance. The brand new superdimensional ace mech did not appear to be immune to these effects. Although the First Sword Mark III was still too strong to get stopped in space, her forward momentum still grew a little weaker due to the constant interference from the Black Lord. For a time, both ace mechs maintained a constant from each other. The Black Lord's inherently high mobility combined with its constant debilitating resonance-empowered attacks proved effective at keeping the First Sword Mark III at bay! Dise did not like this at all. She grew so frustrated with the constant attacks and being surrounded by her opponent's Saint Kingdom that she eventually decided to breach the obstructions! Her Decapitator glowed brighter as the ace mech suddenly thrust it forward! "One Sword Breaks Ten-Thousand Laws!" Much to the surprise of many observers, the First Sword Mark III moved faster as her extended Decapitator literally pierced through the destructive wind energy waves as well as her adversary's Saint Kingdom! None of them could hold fast against the conceptual breaking power of the resonance-empowered and metal-enhanced mech greatsword! The First Sword Mark III's inexorable advance gained so much momentum that the Wind of Destruction saw fit to activate one of his trump cards. A small section slid open before launching a salvo of small but extremely potent resonance-empowered missiles! Although the First Sword Mark III quickly recovered and flew forward again, it would take another costly effort to get her to break past the obstacles in front.