While Ves worked together with the Golden Cat to boost her signal propagation, the Larkinson ch pilots trapped inside the artificial anomaly were still fighting for their lives!
Strange echoes rang in their minds even though their ears heard nothing. Strange flickers winked in their views. Whenever the ch pilots tried to look at them, they failed to notice any additional presences aside from the grey, transparent chs that ford out of the dark fog on a constant basis.
The grey chs were growing stronger. In the beginning, their attacks only dented the armor of the weakest chs. This gave every ch pilot who had beco confused and distressed at the sudden turn of events so ti to beco accustod to their new situation.
Yet as ti went on, the pressure increased, much to the detrint of weaker and less resilient chs and ch pilots.
Those who piloted the stronger chs were usually clansn who had earned the right to pilot them. Joshua and many other Avatars did not experience as much pressure as many of the other trapped comrades because their Bright Warriors were incredibly resilient to damage. Their combat instincts and piloting skill also allowed them to remain on top of the situation!
The Penitent Sisters fared even better. Not just the armor but also the offensive capabilities of their chs were vastly superior to third-class chs.
Since the ghost chs were derived from the pirate chs that had fallen in the battle, their power level was very low. Even so, the way these grey chs constantly returned stronger than before already started to worry many Penitent Sister ch pilots.
Each of them began to employ asures to reduce the power consumption of their chs. No longer did their second-class chs inflict overpowering attacks that caused them to waste huge amounts of energy. Instead, they dialed down their power settings in order to stretch out their operating tis.
Other Larkinsons lacked these advantages. Their premium comrcial chs accumulated more and more damage as every mistake caused the grey chs to land increasingly painful blows.
The small number of Swordmaiden chs fought just as cunningly and ferociously as Commander Dise!
Though the regular ch pilots of the Swordmaidens weren't expert candidates, their veterancy, elite training, ntal resilience and mastery of swordsmanship caused each and everyone of them to show strength in this ti of adversity!
"Cut!"
A swordsman ch swept its Breyer alloy greatsword through the torsos of three approaching ghost chs. The ch subsequently boosted upwards in order to dodge a lancer ch charging from behind.
Just as the grey lancer ch missed its mark and flew onwards, the Swordmaiden ch quickly struck it from underneath!
The broken ghost chs tumbled back into the darkness, providing the Swordmaiden ch pilot with a tiny retrieve before the next attackers arrived.
"No matter how many tis you co back, I'll cut you down like the vermin you are!"
The Flagrant Vandals experienced greater difficulties. A significant proportion of their chs fell into the light weight class, which ant that their chs possessed very little margin for error. Their energy reserves were also limited which ant that their ch pilots were very constrained in what they could do. Several Vandal ch pilots had already fallen as their chs suffered crippling damage too quickly!
"I have faced worse in the Sand War!"
The Battle Criers fared decently well in comparison. While they piloted generic dium chs, the ch force led by Commander Cinnabar largely consisted of steady, experienced Kinners who had lived through various crises in their forr rcenary careers.
"My life belongs to the clan patriarch!"
The ch force that fared worse was unquestionably the Living Sentinels.
Many of their ch pilots didn't possess a lot of battle experience. While the Sentinel ch pilots managed to make up for this shortcoming during the excursion into the Nyxian Gap, they still had a long way to go before they truly beca steady ch pilots!
The Sentinel ch pilots who lacked confidence in themselves or piloted vulnerable chs died on a regular basis. The grey chs that continually assaulted them did not stop until they harvested human lives!
In one mont, a vulnerable rifleman ch tried and failed to fend off the ghostly light skirmishers attacking it from multiple directions.
The Larkinson ch dropped its rifle and pulled out a knife in desperation. With a hasty slash, the ranged ch managed to take out one of its assailants, only for another grey light skirmisher to stab its half-solid weapon deep into the rear armor of the vulnerable ranged ch!
Due to the lack of protection afforded to its rear, the Larkinson ranged ch sustained serious damage to its power managent system. Its flight system already started to sputter!
"My ch! Ahhh!"
Without sufficient mobility, the ch could no longer distance itself from the next wave of fake chs. Less than a minute later, three grey chs fired their ethereal rifles at their heavily-damaged target, blasting the cockpit and the clansman inside into pieces!
Tragedy continued to unfold throughout the artificial anomaly. The isolation imposed by the boiling darkness forced each ch pilot to rely on themselves and their chs to survive.
This resulted in a brutal cleansing where the weak and inept among the ch forces were cleaned up first!
What added to everyone's difficulties was that the darkness not only cut the chs off from each other, but also diminished the glows of every ch designed by Ves!
Fortunately, the Larkinson Clan already learned the perils of developing a dependence on glows. Plenty of Larkinson ch pilots had received training in fighting their battles without the assistance of glows.
For the first ti since he piloted the Quint, Joshua no longer experienced the familiar Larkinson warmth from his own ch. Its vitality had dimd, causing him to feel considerably worried.
"Shine for , Quint!" He uttered as his ch accelerated and impaled a duo of ghostly ranged chs with its lance! "Hahaha! I knew it! There is still life left within you! You are more than your glow! Let us pierce this darkness and seek our way back to the source of your life!"
Joshua honed his willpower and began to imrse himself deeper into his masterwork ch. He wasn't satisfied with remaining trapped in this shadowy cage!
His Bright Warrior soared ahead and attempted to pierce through the fog. Its charge seed to have collided with sothing a bit more tangible, causing a small hole to form in space.
Even though it closed imdiately afterwards, Joshua's eyes lit up. He had stumbled upon the sa phenona as Commander Dise!
Throughout the dark sphere, the other expert candidates found out that they were able to attack the dark fog in their own ways.
Commander Orfan of the Flagrant Vandals scowled as she found that her strange ntal connections to Commander Dise and so others were cut off! The absence disturbed her a bit, but not to the point of disturbing her combat rhythm!
Her spearman ch impaled an attacking swordsman ch and slamd into a light skirmisher that approached a second later.
"Vandals! Momma is coming to get you all! Hang on as long as possible!"
Just like Commander Dise, Rosa Orfan did not worry about her own safety. Instead, she wanted to break the isolation imposed onto her ch in order to relieve her fellow comrades.
Empowered by her desire to rescue the other Vandals, her spear stabbed with greater force and montum! Slowly but surely, her attacks against the void began to tear greater and greater holes in the mist!
"It's working!"
The greater the holes, the more encouraged she beca, thereby causing her to inflict even larger holes in the isolating darkness! Her battle intent rose and beca more and more honed as she single-mindedly struck down every grey ch that approached her ch as it slowly overca the intangible barrier that separated it from the nearest friendly ch!
Of all of the expert candidates engulfed in the artificial anomaly, Jannzi Larkinson was the only one who resisted the darkness in a different manner.
Her large and sluggish Shield of Samar steadily cut down each and every approaching grey ch with precise, strong blows.
The ghostly ranged chs posed the greatest to her ch. If not for the fact that the enemy chs floated in the sa place, the super-dium space knight would have been flooded by a sea of attacks at this ti!
Jannzi's mind wasn't on the grey chs that continually pressured her chs. Her urge to reach out to her fellow Larkinsons was stronger than every other ch!
As a space knight specialist, she trained to embody the role as a protector and guardian of her fellow ch pilots.
A space knight that was taken away from the chs it was supposed to protect was a great indignity! There was no aning to its existence if it solely fought in isolation!
None of the previous battles caused her to feel as distressed as now. Her face continually frowned as her willpower increasingly urged her to unravel her forced isolation.
WIthout the reassuring presence of Qilanxo, Jannzi was left on her own. Her Shield of Samar felt considerably dimr than normal, yet the heart that beat inside of it grew stronger as her need to link up with her fellow Larkinsons pushed her to an unprecedentedly desperate state!
"BREAK FOR !" She roared.
Though no visible phenona emanated from the Shield of Samar, a whole portion of darkness disappeared!
An Aurora Titan from her Shieldbearer squad bore increasingly more scars as its sluggish attacks failed to take out the grey chs in a tily manner. Unlike the Shield of Samar, the regular Aurora Titan's armor wasn't made of Breyer alloy, thereby making it considerably more vulnerable against the ghostly attackers!
"Ma'am! You're here!"
As soon as the Shield of Samar arrived by the ch piloted by the Shieldbearer, the pressure imposed on the latter decreased!
Even though the ghost chs that haunted Jannzi's ch had followed their original target, Jannzi and her squadmate were able to coordinate their defenses and fend off the flood of grey ch with greater efficiency!
"We can't stay here. We need to link up with more of our clansn." She stated.
"Lead the way, ma'am! I will cover your back even if it costs my life!"
With so of the Larkinson chs beginning to break free from the shadowy cages that kept them separated, Ves finally achieved a breakthrough of his own back on the Scarlet Rose.
He worked together with the Golden Cat to reconfigure the Larkinson Network. The spiritual network she supported through her own existence was not comparable to a normal network. Much of its workings were shrouded in mystery as Ves hadn't really thought of the details when he initially created the ancestral spirit.
Though it took a lot of fumbling, Ves managed to 'teach' Goldie how to accomplish more with the Larkinson Network. One of the capabilities she gained was the ability to allow him to gain a direct ans of ntal communication towards any other mber of the Larkinson Network!
He tested it out imdiately with Jas.
"Can you hear ?" He ntally communicated through the Larkinson Network.
The Ylvainan nodded. "You are heading into the right direction."
Such a novel accomplishnt should have been a cause for celebration to Ves. He invented a completely new ans of communication with his fellow Larkinsons that couldn't be blocked or intercepted with conventional technology!
Sadly, this was not the ti to bask in his latest invention.
Ves knew that the range of this spiritual communication thod wasn't unlimited. For example, he tried to pass on a ssage to Gloriana, but evidently his signal decayed before it could travel very far through the network.
However, Ketis and the Larkinsons trapped inside the Citadel were much closer!
"Let's see if we can boost our signal to overco the anomaly's dampening effect. We can do it, Goldie!"
Nyaaa!
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