In the end, the eastern side of the city of Samar prepared to go on the warpath! Pairixan became tired of trying to convince his older brother Pailanon to join him in his attack aimed at the strangers. The aggressive sacred god fully believed the Flagrant Swordmaidens sent down the bombardment from the skies, and most of his worshippers bought into his claims! The Western Samar Pantheon stubbornly refused to join Pairixan’s crusade. Pailanon remained so opposed of moving to attack that Pairixan decided to launch the attack with just himself and five of his subordinate sacred gods. That meant that six sacred gods in total planned to move out to attack the Flagrant Swordmaidens! "What are the odds that Pailanon will change his mind? That metal-controlling beast may be able to crumple our mechs or fling them around if it gets close." "The good news is that Pailanon is unlikely to join his younger brother if he gets into trouble, ma’am." A Vandal analyst reported in an emergency meeting. The Eastern Samar Pantheon planned to move out within hours, which left the Vandals and the Swordmaidens with little time to make their final preparations. "The older brother will effectively be able to take control over Samar if Pairixan fails in his attack." "What if Pairixan wins?" "We’ve heard that Pailanon doesn’t have a low opinion of us and our mechs. He likely believes that Pairixan will have a tough fight on his hands regardless if he wins or loses. If Pairixan loses too much strength, it’s not out of the question that Pailanon will immediately push for a final confrontation between the brothers." Ves had the misconception that the power struggle in Samar resembled the power struggles that always took place in monarchical states. Even the sacred gods had learned how to scheme against each other like humans. During the emergency meeting, every important person gave a final heads-up for everyone. Chief Dakkon in particular suspended his experiments on the god crystal and murky crystal in order to fabricate simple but powerful auxiliary weapons. Against the might of Pairixan and the Eastern Samar Pantheon, they could never be too underprepared! "Has the fleet in orbit sent any support?" A mech officer asked. "We’ve been shipping down additional Akkara heavy mechs as the opportunity arises. Now that the Starlight Megalodon wiped out those pirate and gang ships from the Caged and the Red Tongs, our fleet gained a lot more room to maneuver in orbit. We’ve also received shipments of modified shells for ballistic cannons." "Good!" The ground forces hadn’t brought much ammunition for the ballistic cannons of the Akkara mechs because the gravity heavily reduced their range. However, if the sacred beasts ever came close enough, the range reduction wouldn’t matter. The fleet also supplied them with a limited amount of long-ranged shells for the opening salvos. The only reason why the Akkara mechs hadn’t received any more of these special shells was because it cost at least five-hundred times more to fabricate these special shells! A full ammunition load for each Akkara mech would rapidly deplete the fleet of several critical exotics and rare materials. In fact, some of the logistics officers argued against the use of these special shells against an unsophisticated opponent like the sacred gods. It would have been much more efficient to save them for the confrontation against the other mech forces on the planet. Not only did the Flagrant Swordmaidens had to deal with the stranded ground forces of the Caged and the Red Tongs, the Vesians had also landed their own considerable landbound mechs! "What results are we aiming for? Are we shooting to kill or do we want to take prisoners?" Everyone look at each other in uncertainty before they turned their gazes at Captain Byrd. "We play it safe. While securing a sacred god or two alive is useful to us, we can’t afford to lose more mechs than we ought to. Do your best to kill them all, because their destructive prowess are unconstrained so long as they still draw breath." "Heh, once they’re all dead, we can plunder their god crystals." Chief Dakkon said. "I wonder if their god crystals are any different from the one we traded from Mulak." With that, everyone dispersed and took up their stations. According to the spy drones, Pairixan and his beast rider tried to rile up his subordinates. The ambitious younger brother intended to launch his attack with the rabid support of all the inhabitants of the entire eastern half of the city! Ves wondered what kind of point that served. Did the sacred gods really derive their power from worship? It sounded ridiculous, but the blessed people weren’t baseline humans. He started to think about the inexplicable ability of the blessed and cursed people that enabled them to interface with a god beast. Ves and Dr. Tillman had spent some time ago into investigating how they managed to do so. Further studies into the ability of the captive dwarf to barge into the man-machine connection of a mech showed that the different branches of humanity on this planet somehow depended on the unique circumstances of this planet to exert their remote connection powers! Up to now, Ves and the others only thought these mind powers only applied to riding beast. Yet what if that wasn’t the entire story? What if the mind powers of a large number of average natives somehow empowered these sacred gods? Was this the reason they insisted on being worshipped? No matter the truth, the duels against Naevudis and Hokaz already provided the Flagrant Swordmaidens with a baseline of what to expect. Even if the sacred gods of Samar appeared to be more formidable, at least they knew what to expect! The entire camp geared up for war. They stowed away or packed up most of what they could easily move and put them onto the heavy transports that beat a slow retreat. Mech technicians provided final tune-ups to the mechs while a couple of Vandals with gunnery training began to operate the battery of brand-new artillery cannons installed in the camp. Ves and Ketis stared at the large cannons. They were of a simple design and fired relatively slow shells over an unimaginable distance. In truth, the caliber of the artillery cannons exceeded the maximum limits allowed by the MTA and CFA as no mech could realistically wield them in battle, but no one cared about adhering to those rules out here in the Aeon Corona System. What mattered was that they had some big guns backing them up! "The range of those cannons are very considerable." Ves explained. "Under standard gravity, they can fire powerful shells that can comfortably arc over the horizon. Best of all, they’re mechanically simple and extremely generous in terms of material demands. Cannons like these used to be employed all the time during the Age of Conquest when warships in orbit didn’t bother to bombard the crap out of the surface. I don’t know why those forces bothered. Shelling an entire city for an hour with these cannons flattened it entirely." Now, the Vandals intended to brought their city-destroying potential to bear on the aggressive sacred gods. Ketis looked very impressed at the sheer size of the artillery cannons. "It makes you wonder what it would be like if we still used these weapons." "We’d be much worse off. Nowadays, a battle fought over a city will only wipe out half the city and inhabitants instead of all of them. The introduction of mechs have done much to limit the collateral damage that results from war." Not to say that mechs weren’t exempt from inflicting collateral damage, but it beat the old modes of war where shelling from both sides usually ruined a city entirely during the fighting. What was the point of conquering a city if the winner only took control of some flattened ruins at the end? This was also why Ketis and a lot of Vandals and Swordmaidens looked at the artillery cannons with awe. There was something humbling about witnessing a battery of cannons that exceeded the size and length of heavy mech. While they lacked in precision and versatility, they were very good at what they did. The artillery cannons could pump out much more damage at longer ranges than even the Akkara mechs. However, the material cost of an Akkara mech exceeded at least 300 million credits while the material cost of an artillery cannon shouldn’t be much more than 5 million credits! Heavy mechs faced many mobility concerns. They needed to be powerful enough to unleash a considerable amount of firepower but be light enough to move. The only way to square this circle was to employ expensive exotic alloys that were both strong and fairly light. The artillery cannons held no such concerns. They weren’t designed to move at all, so their design focused completely on launching as much firepower in the distance as possible. An alert sounded out in the camp. "It’s time." Ves said and guided Ketis towards the bunker. As mech designers, they played no role in the battle. They only became relevant before or after a battle. The only times when they remained relevant during a battle was if it stretched out in a multi-day campaign. No one expected this battle to drag on. According to the movement speeds of the average god species, the Flagrant Swordmaidens needed to solve the sacred gods within thirty to safeguard the camp! Ves and Ketis watched on as the officers and operators in the bunker’s command center coordinated their action. "The eastern gate is opening!" "Pairixan is leading out his pantheon of subordinate gods! He is bringing out only four sacred gods!" "Where is the missing sacred god?! Is it flanking us?" Captain Byrd asked. "Our overhead spy drones have spotted the sixth sacred god, ma’am! It’s standing guard beside Pairixan’s palace!" The mood among the Vandals lightened up a bit. Pairixan didn’t feel reassured with leaving the eastern half of the city unguarded. Perhaps Pailanon would have made a move to take control over Pairixan’s territory of all of its guardians left! Still, the sacred god left behind was the smallest, youngest and weakest of the Eastern Pantheon. The ones with the greatest battle efficiencies followed Pairixan out of the city gates. Both the sacred gods and their beast riders gazed in the direction of the Flagrant Swordmaidens with hungry expressions. Pairixan even released a majestic roar that fired up his subordinates. "Our cannons and artillery mechs have received their targeting coordinates! They can fire their cannons at any moment!" "Our laser rifleman mechs are standing by at their designated positions. All of them have clear firing lines of the enemy beasts and are maintaining a constant distance." Both the Vandals and the Swordmaidens lived and breathed war. They inherited a long line of military tradition and advancement that stretched for multiple Ages spanning tens of thousands of years! The human race had always engaged in war in one form or another! Compared to the natives who had forgotten pretty much every modern war tradition, their offensive fell short by so many points that even Ves felt embarrassed by their naivety. "Pairixan’s force hasn’t sent out any scouts." "The sacred beasts are grouped up tightly with Pairixan in the lead." "The enemy force has yet to show any awareness that they are being observed." However, even though the enemy consisted of just five god beasts, each of them possessed the potential destructiveness of an expert mech. As for Pairixan himself, his powers of the earth could instantly wipe out all of the ground forces if he fully let loose! The overarching priority of the Flagrant Vandals was to take out this living engine of destruction at the very start! The longer he lived, the higher the chance he’d call down an earthquake. No one wanted to find out how much power Pairixan really held! "Wait until the enemy gods are at least two kilometers from the city walls. We don’t want our explosive shells to land inside the city by mistake. That might provoke Pailanon and the Western Samar Pantheon into action." Though it rankled a bit for the Flagrant Swordmaidens to give the enemy time to trudge closer, they really couldn’t afford to drag the metal-controlling sacred god into the battle. Pairixan may have the edge in terms of widespread destruction, but Pailanon power of metal turned him into one of a nightmare for any mech force arrayed against him! No one truly knew how far the range of his powers extended! "The enemy force has reached two kilometers away from the city walls!" "Commence the plan. Artillery, open fire!"