The battle resumed the moment Captain Byrd’s rifleman mech shot out a laser beam at the Belisarius. Venerable Foster made no moves to dodge the attack and allowed it to splash harmlessly against the surface of her mech. Out of the varied armament of the Belisarius, Venerable Foster slowly drew out a shortsword in one hand and a compact laser carbine in the other hand. The heroic bearing of the Belisarius doubled just by wielding this set of weapons! "Is the Beliarius a hero mech?!" Strictly speaking, Venerable Foster specialized in piloting swordsman mechs, but a talented expert pilot never limited themselves if they so choose. This was why a considerable amount of expert mechs broke the strict conventions of their archetypes. As long as enough money supported their design and development, nothing was impossible. Both Commander Lydia and Captain Byrd began to engage the Belisarius without any hesitation. The custom Silver Valencia raced towards the Belisarius with the tip of its sword pointed straight at the cockpit! Mayra already told Commander Lydia that the only way to crack open the expert mech’s shell was to deliver a devastating piercing attack. However, the Belisarius made a single lazy swipe with its shortsword and neatly deflected the Silver Valencia’s greatsword in the most efficient manner possible. The Silver Valencia almost lost control, but Commander Lydia quickly recovered. In the meantime, Captain Byrd kept firing laser beam after laser beam at the Belisarius without result. "Akkara mechs, concentrate on the enemy expert mech!" The heavy cannoneers hesitated at the thought of attacking an expert mech, but they knew their duty. They unloaded on the Belisarius which showed no signs of trying to evade. Over forty beams of full-powered laser cannon beams struck the Belisarius head-on! Many of those lasers focused their fire straight at specific portions of the prone mech such as the joints. No result! "How can this be?!" The combined firepower of ten heavy cannoneers proved to be completely insufficient to leave a scratch on the expert mech! "The Belisarius has already activated its energy field!" Ves spoke. "It’s a completely internal energy field that enhances the resilience of its armor plating!" The armor plating of the Belisarius consisted largely Rorach’s Bone. This not only enabled it to regenerate, but also made it extremely easy to resonate with the mech pilot’s will. An energy field that empowered the armor of the expert mech "Captain Byrd, leave this battle to the Swordmaidens." Commander Lydia gritted her teeth over the channel. "We have never feared a greater foe and we will not falter now! Silver Valencias! To me!" All of the Silver Valencias in the frontline pulled back and rallied to Commander Lydia. The gathering of a dozen or so Silver Valencias made for a very awe-inspiring sight, yet Ves knew that the disparity in skill and mech quality was far too wide for them to pose a threat to the Belisarius. Yet the Swordmaiden champions still showed courage against these overwhelming odds! "Fight! Fight as if we’re facing the greatest exobeast in the galaxy!" The Valiant mech pilots of the Silver Valencias overcame their fear towards expert mechs and undoubtedly started to surround the Belisarius. They didn’t underestimate the expert mech and adopted tactics geared towards fighting exobeasts. The Silver Valencias put their mobility and offensive power to good use by darting forward and making a quick sword strike before falling back out of range. Due to the presence of the laser carbine, the Silver Valencias also tried to stay in the expert mech’s rear if possible. For some reason, the Belisarius hardly roused its might. It parried the simultaneous sword strikes with contemptuous ease. It was as if she was an adult slapping away some recalcitrant children. In the meantime, the other mechs resumed their battle as well. This time, the battle firmly tilted in the favor of the Vesians. It couldn’t be helped. The mere existence of Venerable Foster on the battlefield pressed down on the Flagrant Swordmaidens. Not only had they lost their only expert pilot recently, they also saw how easy the Belisarius withstood so much laser fire. There was no way they could crack this mech! While the Swordmaidens drew inspiration from the rabid but largely futile attacks of the Silver Valencias, the Vandals possessed frailer hearts and couldn’t help but be affected by the disparity in strength. As a military mech regiment, they knew better than anyone how the presence of an expert mech skewed the balance of powers. Sometimes, knowing more was not always an advantage! If only they were as ignorant as the Swordmaidens, who still harbored hopes of taking down the Belisarius! "Our center is being pushed back! There aren’t any Silver Valencias to hold back the Warrior mech officers!" The champions and mech officers of the Hostland Warriors lost the constraints of the Silver Valencias. While the mech officers of the Vandals tried to plug the gaps, the Vandals never possessed many talents in the first place so they simply couldn’t make up for the disparity in numbers or skill. Not only that, the loss of morale among the Vandals imperceptibly slowed their responsiveness. They fought like a deflated balloon, and the difference in battle intent became extremely stark when compared to their Swordmaiden allies. "You bunch of good-for-nothings!" A Vandal mech officer cursed his subordinates. "Where’s your earlier conviction?! Keep fighting! Don’t give up! Even if we’ll all die, we’ll drag down as many Vesians as we can!" Even if the Vandals gathered their courage and continued to fight, Venerable Foster’s presence in the middle of the battlefield served as a form of unbridled suppression that weighed down on all of their hearts. The fear and respect they held towards expert pilots was simply too huge! As a bystander who possessed a clear overview of the battle, Ves observed this tendency with clear detail. He discreetly shook his head. "The worship of expert pilots has always been a double-edged sword." The battle ramped up around the flanks as well. The rifleman mechs became less affected by the presence of the Belisarius. Right now, they only focused their attention on each other. The Meandering Monkeys stopped playing around and fought with much greater urgency. It was as if they all wanted to distinguish themselves in Venerable Foster’s presence! While they took much more risks, they also achieved greater results. The Vandal and Swordmaiden light mechs fell in much greater frequency than before, and it would only take about fifteen minutes before the were wiped out! The clash between light mechs favored the Meandering Monkeys so much that some of them already broke off and tried to harass the center force of the Flagrant Swordmaidens. Their threats towards the rear threw the ranks of the Vandals and Swordmaidens into slight disarray. It made an enormous difference if they were forced to watch their rear! All of this accelerated the slow collapse of the center. As Venerable Foster hailed from the Hostland Warriors and still enjoyed the position of mech captain in this mech regiment, their mech pilots fought with greater courage and inspiration. "Don’t shame yourselves in front of our little lassie!" "Let us prove we can reach Venerable Foster’s heights!" "Venerable Foster has promised an hour of private tutoring for each pirate mech you destroy!" That last offer practically supercharged the Warrior mech pilots. Nothing was more valuable than personal attention from an expert pilot! The Warriors responded with incredible fanaticism at the thought of their personal idol bestowing their attention on them. How could they not let this chance slip past their fingers?! "Fight fight fight!" "They’re just pirates!" "Look at them flustering under our might!" Even though the reallocation of the Silver Valencias shouldn’t have affected the battle in the center that much, the Flagrant Swordmaidens continued to be pushed back time and time again. The absence of the Swordmaiden champions, the Meandering Monkeys pressing at their rear, and above all else the huge disparity in morale decisively tipped the balance. The main force of the Flagrant Swordmaidens no longer possessed the power to vanquish the Hostland Warriors grinding against them. They lost too many mechs while the Hostland Warriors mostly managed to hold on by virtue of their coordination and defensive prowess. The difference in quantity continued to increase, putting more and more pressure on the surviving Vandals and Swordmaidens. Even if they resolved not to eject, they hardly held out longer than if they ejected earlier! The Belisarius on the other hand started to showcase more of its prowess over time. While Venerable Foster still behaved as if she was fighting against children, the Silver Valencias did not dare to slack off. They put their utmost effort into fighting the Belisarius and did not spare a thought for the consequences! At some point, the Silver Valencias changed their fighting pattern. Commander Lydia appeared to have issued a drastic order that caused the Silver Valencias to storm at the Belisarius all at once from each direction! This caused the Belisarius to sweep her shortsword around in a full circle to parry all of the attacks. Yet the moment it did so, the Silver Valencias all released their grips on their greatswords and instead dove in to hold the Belisarius with their limbs. The Swordmaiden mechs wanted to press down the expert mech! "Brilliant!" Ves exclaimed. "The strong points of the Belisarius are that it possesses a versatile loadout, its extremely tough and it’s capable of self-regeneration. However, a single mech has its limits, and it’s impossible for it to possess the power to lift a dozen mechs with its own strength!" It wasn’t easy to increase the mechanical power of a mech. The Belisarius was like a turtle with an unbreakable, self-regenerating shell. Yet even a turtle could be immobilized as long as someone piled enough rocks on top of its shell! Yet how could such an extravagantly expensive mech be vulnerable to pileup tactics? Ves already had a bad feeling about this as soon as the Silver Valencias all mobbed the seemingly unprepared Belisarius. The energy field encompassing its tough exterior caused the Silver Valencias to be corroded at the touch. It was extremely harmful to stay into physical contact with the energy field. The Swordmaidens only hoped that the Belisarius ran out of energy before the mechs pressing down the Belisarius whittled away. Some of the Silver Valencias attempted to damage the expert mech’s gravitic backpack. Even its gravitic backpack was a class of its own, being especially small and thin. Yet the energy field covering it allowed the Swordmaidens no purchase. The Belisarius started to glow. Ves saw its resonance spiking as Venerable Foster activated one of the special abilities of the mech. The amount of activity the sensors detected that the Belisarius started to activate a powerful ability! At this moment, Commander Lydia issued a fatal command. "Silver Valencias, self-destruct!" At this moment, some portion within the Silver Valencias bloomed and brightened. Just seconds later, they all blew up as their power reactors overloaded! Ves realized the Silver Valencias had already run their power reactors at the edge of running out of control. Not only that, the Silver Valencias carried many volatile materials that enhanced the explosions! "Mayra must have planned this from the start." He uttered in amazement. While it wasn’t so unusual to rig a mech to blow, for them to explode with such potency required a lot of specific measures. This couldn’t have been prepared on a whim! The Swordmaidens piloting the Silver Valencias planned to sacrifice their lives from the start! The huge overlapping blasts came so suddenly that the entire center started to stagnate in their fighting. They waited for the blast to die down and the smoke to drift away. Had the Swordmaiden champions managed to harm the Belisarius?! Once the smoke of the simultaneous explosions drifted away, the Belisarius came back into view. Its laser carbine turned into scrap. It hadn’t survived the explosions. Yet besides some scorch marks and some extremely tiny cracks, the Belisarius managed to survive the suicide attacks unscathed! "No! How can this be?!" Even the cracks started closing up at visible speed due to the remarkable properties of the Rorach’s Bone. The Belisarius calmly climbed up to its feet. It experimentally tested its range of motion and observed no damage to its limbs. It held out its shortsword and pointed it at the nearest mechs at the center. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢 "Playtime is over."