The enemy had made a getaway!
As soon as the suspected alien deathborn mastermind and powerhouse became exposed, it arguably made the most clever decision out of all of the available options.
It evacuated with all of the remaining troops and assets left on the battlefield!
Nothing of the enemy remained behind!
The search parties dispatched by the bined fleet couldn't even find the fragments of the destroyed formation anchor.
Many leaders grew concerned about the implications of this clean and very decisive withdrawal.
This was yet one more piece of evidence that they had been tangling against a highly rational and intelligent enemy mander.
This was an alien leader who understood and fully utilized many important concepts of warfare, from the element of surprise to avoid getting dragged into a losing battle.
Such a strategic thinker existed in plete contrast to the mindless, hate-filled deathborn fodder that made up the vast majority of their ranks!
This neatly made up for the greatest shortings of the deathborn race. The ordinary members of this esoteric race previously fought like mobs. They possessed none of the rationality and strategic vision of their living counterparts.
Yet once they fell under the mand of a high-ranking member of their race, they turned into the most obedient pawns, behaving little different from the mutated voribugs!
The failure to eliminate this frightening enemy mander meant that the invading humans inevitably had to get ready to fight round 2.
Nobody looked forward to this uping engagement, yet no soldier shied away from their responsibilities either. They all studied the battle footage and held briefings in order to put up a better fight next time.
Ves had a lot of responsibilities on his lap.
Unfortunately, his time was limited, so he could only address a handful of issues at a time.
His first priority was to pay a visit to the Amaranto Mark III.
During the recent engagement, multiple key figures had distinguished themselves on the battlefield.
Caracalla Shuku and Casella Ingvar had undoubtedly played indispensable roles, yet Davia Stark and her battle partner had undoubtedly stolen the show!
Ves had arrived at the hangar bay just after his wife.
Gloriana looked incredibly eager despite the fact that most of her body became obscured by her hazard suit.
It was not safe to get close to a mech right after returning from battle. The danger factor became especially acute when dealing with a high-powered machine that recently released a huge amount of emissions, much of which could cook any unprotected human alive!
The hangar bay already deployed robotic arms equipped with tools ready to cool, decontaminate and possibly isolate the ace marksman mech once she returned.
None of that proved necessary.
The Amaranto Mark III landed at her designated spot in the hangar bay without issue.
pared to her usual proud and shining posture, the ace mech looked almost unrecognizable this time!
Her crystalline exterior had grown larger and slightly more formidable, but the light and reflections had grown dull.
The living machine exuded a strong sense of exhaustion, so much so that it distorted the surrounding reality to emphasize this fact!
"Ugh." Gloriana uttered an unlady-like groan. "Has Saint Stark lost control?"
"She's just tired." Ves explained.
It was not until the ace pilot finally disengaged her neural interface and shut down her battle partner that the Amaranto Mark III no longer made everyone around her feel abnormally tired and sleepy.
Several more minutes passed before Davia Stark finally regained enough energy to exit her cockpit and lower herself until she stood before the two mech designers.
"Sir. Madame." Davia greeted even as she struggled to keep her back straight. "As you can see, my condition is… not good. Please keep this short. All I have in mind at the moment is a nice, warm bed."
That sounded less than ideal, but the Miracle Couple could work with this limitation.
Ves asked the most urgent question on his mind first. "How did you e up with the Death Seeker?"
"..."
"Well?"
"I… cannot really explain it." The tired ace pilot finally responded. "You can probably get more answers if you ask my battle partner on a better day. She did most of the heavy lifting. You should know that even if I am constantly interfacing with my mech, I still have no awareness of what she is doing most of the time. Even an ace pilot cannot direct constant attention on every single machine operation or puter instruction."
"Be that as it may, you must at least possess an understanding of all of the Ascension Runes that your battle partner has accumulated, or else you wouldn't have been able to effectively channel their power."
Saint Stark tentatively nodded. "I do understand a bit of every Ascension Rune. I find it difficult to put it into words, though. Much of my understanding is based on feelings and mood. There is no way I can write a manuel about it. As for my battle partner, she has developed her own interpretation of the same runes. The Amaranto is a mech, not a human, so the way she thinks about them and uses them is pletely different from my own. We were only really able to summon the Death Seeker by working together, and we only did so barely."
"Oh? The manifestation of this unprecedented ability seemed quite successful from our standpoint." Gloriana responded. "The two of you effectively developed a new ability without relying on greater resonance strength or the support of a key resonating exotic."
Saint Stark did not look particularly proud to acplish this feat. "It is not good enough according to our judgment. The Ascension Runes laid the groundwork. What truly mattered was how we used it. Sure, we managed to pull it off successfully, but I expended so much willpower that I could barely do anything after that. This was never supposed to happen. If I did not waste so much of my power, I would have been able to remain active on the battlefield and pin down the enemy alien mastermind before he managed to disappear entirely."
Ves shook his head. "You do not have to take responsibility for letting the enemy go. Without your initiative, the deathborn leader would have remained hidden, thereby putting us in a pletely passive position. It would be too greedy to ask for more."
Despite his consolation, Saint Stark still considered her lack of follow-up actions to be a failure.
This was how ace pilots were like. They were never pletely satisfied with their own performance. There was always stuff they could do better. The only consistent solution they could e up with was to bee stronger. This was part of their natural growth cycle.
"You did not provide a proper answer to my husband's question." Gloriana stated. "Where did the rune pattern e from? Did you and your battle partner randomly collect Ascension Runes until you suddenly came to the realization that you could bine them together? Or did you visualize the Death Seeker far in advance and work to form the appropriate Ascension Runes to turn it into reality?"
"A bit of both, actually." Davia Stark admitted. "It is not as clean and neat as you think. We are not mech designers. I admit that the initial idea came from the Illustrious One. The design spirit possesses a much deeper understanding of the Ascension Runes related to him. He has mastered powers and abilities that are connected to those runes. However, my battle partner and I never managed to make them work by ourselves. We are pletely different from him. Instead of trying to copy the Illustrious One, the Amaranto and I tried to put together abilities that belonged to us. We sort of brainstormed a few ideas, but we didn't really know what we were doing at the time. I never expected that we could pull it off when we managed to collect just 64 Ascension Runes. My battle partner managed to figure that out by herself."
This meant that it became essential for Ves to interview the Amaranto later on. For now, he still wanted to pump Davia for additional information.
"Now that you managed to pull off the Death Seeker ability for the first time, can you perform it again next time?"
She nodded. The ace pilot harbored no doubts about this. "Definitely. The runes haven't gone away."
"Will doing so exhaust you as much as the first time?"
"Probably… not." Saint Stark replied in a less certain voice. "Now that I have a bit of experience with it, I know some of the pitfalls. I am pretty confident that I can streamline my techniques and do a better job next time. Don't expect too much, Ves. The Death Seeker will never bee a cheap trick. Forming a creature of light that can seek out strong traces of life or death takes a lot of power for reasons I am not entirely clear about. I might be able to lower the cost if I manage to figure out what I am actually doing, but this is not easy."
Ves grew a little frustrated about the lack of clear data and explanations. High-ranking mech pilots rarely offered clear answers on how their powers and abilities worked. They all seemed to work by 'instinct' and 'feelings' that could never be broken down in clear terms or equations!
He inwardly shook his head. He knew it was a futile struggle to look into this matter further. He just had to take Saint Stark at her word and move forward.
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