Ves always wondered how a pri ch would fare against a genuine expert ch.
The answer was that the contest would turn extrely lop-sided right away.
The 'duel' between the Valkyrie Pri and the Burza Fens just proved it. Although the Valkyrie Pri was not in its ho elent at the mont, its performance against the dwarven low-tier expert ch was downright shambolic!
Once again, Unending alloy ca to the rescue.
The Valkyrie Pri was essentially a pri ch upgrade to a regular Valkyrie Redeer design. Its performance was better but the improved paraters were still in the general range of a standard ch. The only abnormal factor was its absurdly tough armor system.
Even that had weaknesses. The joints, transition areas and flight system were vulnerable hotspots that Venerable Joshua was doing his best not to expose them to the Burza Fens!
Though the expert ch was no longer in its best shape, its expert pilot appeared to be fueling it by continually generating an endless amount of hate towards the evil tall folk!
As an expert pilot himself, Venerable Joshua was aware how unreasonable his kind could be and how dangerous it was to fight against a riled-up demigod.
He had no choice, though. The Golden Skull Alliance was spread too thin and the other friendly expert pilots already had their hands full keeping multiple dwarven counterparts busy.
Therefore, as much as it was unfair to challenge a real expert ch with just a pri ch, Venerable Joshua had to step up. Right now, he could do nothing except get passively beat up, but as long as his Valkyrie Pri lasted for a long-enough ti, then that was already enough!
"Why. Won't. You. Break!" The angry dwarf shouted as his Burza Fens chopped with great force, only for the ch to almost lose its grip on its weapon due to the deterioration of its damaged arm and finger chanism. "ARRGGH!"
"Battle Criers, keep resu fire on the Burza Fens!"
With Joshua acting as a great decoy, the surviving Battle Crier chs had rallied together again at a further distance. They began to employ their still-powerful luminar crystal rifles to fire continuous slicer beams in the direction of the Burza Fens.
The dwarven expert ch that was fueled by anger wasn't making it easy on the ranged chs. The expert axeman ch was not only moving around a lot, it did not forget about using its laser carbine to pick off the Battle Crier chs one by one.
The earlier slaughter had resud, if at a slower rate. The Valkyrie Pri attempted to poke its spear against the laser carbine several tis, but the Burza Fens never let the pri ch pull off its move.
The basic paraters of the two chs were too far apart! The Valkyrie Pri may hold a defensive advantage, but the Burza Fens possessed an undeniable edge in power and speed! This ant that the expert ch permanently held the initiative. It could retreat whenever it wanted to and force its opponents to fight on its terms.
This was exactly what the angry dwarven expert pilot was doing at the mont. His expert axeman ch may be failing in trying to chop the Valkyrie Pri to pieces, but its attacks were still achieving at least so results. The joints were starting to show signs of wear and the constant heavy kinetic impacts on the exterior continually inflicted concussive blows to the internals.
As long as the Burza Fens kept wailing at the Valkyrie Pri for a minute or two, the latter would naturally stop working as its internal architecture turned to mush.
"One way or another, I'm going to crack open this shell of yours and peel you out like an unborn chick!"
It was all that Joshua could do to keep his ch as intact as possible. He stopped utilizing his pri ch's spear entirely and just focused on blocking the powerful attacks with its Unending alloy shield.
The greatest threat he needed to pay attention to was whenever the Burza Fens attempted to circle around the Valkyrie Pri in order to attack the latter's rear. The flight system was almost every flight-capable ch's greatest weak point and it was no different in this case.
"This… might not be going as planned." Joshua gritted his teeth as he tried to resonate as much as possible with his pri ch.
It didn't help much. A resonance shield supported by pri resonance was so weak that a single hefty axe strike was enough to shatter it to pieces!
Though Joshua tried to deepen his bond with the Valkyrie Pri and commune with the Superior Mother, there was only so much these tricks could do for him. The basic power gap was too big and he and his fellow Penitent Sisters had already exhausted themselves to pull their battle formation.
"I need backup here!" He requested over the communication channel. "This pissy dwarf here is really determined to take revenge for all of the buddies that I've killed!"
"Please stand by, Venerable Joshua. All of our expert chs are preoccupied but help is on the way."
"That's not going to be enough! Unless you can direct a huge amount of Transcendent Punishers or Eternal Redemptions to pound this hostile expert axeman ch to pieces, my pri ch isn't going to last much longer!"
"We are trying our best to find options for you. Please hold on for a minute if possible."
"I'm not sure if I'll last a minute!"
The Burza Fens whacked at the shield of the Valkyrie Pri so many tis with resonance-enhanced blows that the protective equipnt actually began to warp and deform from the continuous blows!
Eventually, the shield actually snapped out of the Valkyrie Pri as the grip that held it together onto its arm had actually snapped from the excessive forces acting on its much-abused surface.
"Oh hell."
In the next dozen exchanges, Venerable Joshua and the rest of the Larkinson Clan finally learned that even Unending alloy had its limits.
The Burza Fens and its expert pilot perford true to their Avido Berserker heritage and began to gain more power and montum with each strike it landed.
Every heavy axe attack it made caused the Valkyrie Pri to bounce away. Joshua did nothing to stop this because it not only bought his poor ch so ti, but also bled away so of the force.
Nevertheless, this was just a desperation asure as the Burza Fens was too fast and could easily catch up to the pri ch's paltry retreat.
The constant beating caused Venerable Joshua's heart to boil. He yearned for the power of an expert ch even more! Why did others like Venerable Orfan and Venerable Dise get their turn first while he was stuck piloting a fine but ultimately inadequate machine?
Gear mattered and this was a lesson that Joshua was learning in the hardest way!
With the slow but continuous advantages gained by the Burza Fens, its expert pilot gained more and more encouragent, which further fueled his damage output. The axe glowed stronger and stronger as the dwarf who channeled it pumped more will and emotion into his attacks.
"NO SHIELD IS UNBREAKABLE! NO CH IS INVINCIBLE! WORLD SHATTERER!" The dwarven expert pilot roared as he pumped nearly all of his remaining power and reserves into his next strike!
When the axe ca down like a teor, Venerable Joshua shivered as he felt a strong threat of death engulfing his body. With his sensitivity towards life, the realization that he might very well die if he continued onwards was incredibly clear!
He did sothing that every expert pilot was ashad to do. So were so extre that they never even allowed themselves to disgrace themselves by taking the coward's way out!
Fortunately, Venerable Joshua was not an honor-bound fool or soone who held himself to ridiculous standards.
"I'm sorry, guys, but I held this fellow off as long as possible."
Since ti was of the essence, he did not delay any further and pulled the ejection lever.
The escape chanism of the Valkyrie Pri was much better than that of a regular Valkyrie Redeer. When Ves initially designed this pri ch, he invested a lot of effort into maximizing the survival of its pilots.
All of that paid off as the cockpit of the pri ch instantly shot away from the rear of the exhausted pri ch just as a glowing axe thundered through the already-battered chest plating of the feminine ch!
Though the Valkyrie Pri did not split in half from this mountainous blow, the wound it suffered from the front cut deep to the point that it had crushed the power reactor and many other vital components!
"Noo! My Valkyrie Pri!" Ves almost shot up from his observer's seat from the bridge of the Spirit of Bentheim. "Soone, track the wreck of the Valkyrie Pri as well as any loose equipnt and debris that ca loose. I don't want to miss a single gram of Unending alloy, you hear ?! This material is priceless and crucial to building Venerable Joshua's next expert ch!"
Ves and Joshua silently mourned for the fall of the Valkyrie Pri. Though the pri ch was destined to be recycled anyway, it was still a great loss to the Larkinson Clan to lose it when it could still have contributed to the battle if it remained intact.
Without the Valkyrie Pri, the Larkinson Clan lost a machine that could hold off the Burza Fens. With its dwarven expert pilot flying so high at the mont, many people could already imagine how it could butcher entire ch companies on its own. The damage it incurred so far was slightly serious but did not debilitate its performance as much as everyone hoped.
Ves snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed the Burza Fens doing sothing different. For the first ti since the start of the battle, it had begun to attack an ejected cockpit!
The Burza Fens raised its laser carbine and snapped a few laser beams at the cockpit that Venerable Joshua was riding on. The lasers struck but they did not deal any apparent damage aside from raising the cockpit's exterior temperature.
"Tch. This material again!" The dwarven expert pilot spat. "Since that's the case, I'll just chop you to pieces then!"
"No!"
This ti, Ves really went mad! The Burza Fens did not waste any ti with shooting its carbine at the cockpit and instead blasted forward while raising its powerful axe to launch a heavy blow.
If this expert ch struck the escaping cockpit with a serious blow, then even if the thin layer of Unending alloy managed to hold, the huge kinetic impact might overwhelm the inertial dampeners inside the cockpit and channel an imnse amount of force to Joshua's body.
Such forces were far beyond what human bodies were capable of withstanding!
It was no different from falling out of the window of an office building!
"Stop the Burza Fens at all costs! Venerable Stark, I could really use your help at this mont!"
"I can't." The older female expert pilot spoke with great strain in her voice. "The enemy expert chs are hunting my Amaranto down. My machine isn't resilient enough to expose itself and resist incoming attacks at a priority target."
This was one of the design weaknesses of the Amaranto. Ves never regretted the fact that he had too little Unending alloy on hand.
When it was applied to an expert ch, it practically made it unkillable among its peers.
When Unending alloy was absent, Ves discovered that his work didn't perform so much better than other chs in the sa class and price level.
He beca more cognizant than ever that he had been relying too much on Unending alloy to turn losing situations into more favorable situations. This was good news, but it was not a systematic advantage that the Larkinsons could continue to rely upon going forward.
The dwarven military ch divisions had shown him how the Larkinson Army really should be put together. With enough strength and numbers, the regular ch troops under his command must beco strong enough to defeat the dwarven opposition without relying on any trump cards!
"I need to rectify all of this after this battle finally ends…"
Of course, the Larkinsons still needed to survive and win this battle, and that was becoming a lot less likely as the Burza Fens had almost reached Joshua's cockpit!
"VENGEANCE FOR THE MOLTEN HAMRS!"
With a single montous swing, the Burza Fens chopped down its axe onto the small and vulnerable cockpit!
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