A countdown took place.

After recruiting tens of thousands of adventurous people who yearned to explore the greater cosmos, after acquiring thousands of commercial mechs, after rebuilding an entire fleet, the Larkinson Clan was finally preparing to depart.

This was a massive operation.

A lot of new spacers only had weeks to get accustomed to controlling their powerful new second-class vessels.

The LMC had to implement a lot of measures in order to make sure its business operations remained operational with the departure of the core of the mech company.

The newly-adopted Larkinsons only had a short time left in their native star star sector before they left forever.

Not a single part of the clan remained idle. Shuttles flew back and forth while transports loaded an abundant amount of mechs, materials and supplies to the new fleet.

No ship drew more traffic than the Spirit of Bentheim. The brand-new factory ship had become the focal point of the Larkinson Clan.

Even though the ship had only entered operation for less than a week, a prodigious amount of raw and semi-processed materials entered her cargo holds.

Occasionally, mechs came out. The Valkyrie Redeemer which had captured the hearts of many Hexer military mech pilots became more and more common in the Cinach System.

The Penitent Sisters eagerly accepted the Valkyrie Redeemers produced by the Bentheim. Their belief in the Superior Mother caused them to embrace the Hexer mechs at an astoundingly rapid pace!

The Glory Seekers obtained their Valkyrie mechs from another source. Hexer trade ships regularly arrived at Cinach in order to supply the Glory Seekers with everything they needed to survive and thrive in the Red Ocean.

Unlike the Penitent Sisters, the former household troops of the Wodin Dynasty greatly preferred the variants of the Valkyrie Redeemers. Hundreds of Valkyrie Interceptors sortied in space around their powerful fleet and drilled alongside their other Hexer spaceborn mechs.

However, out of the two new second-class LMC mech models, it was not the Valkyrie mechs that drew everyone's attention.

Instead, it was the new artillery mech that became the talk of the town.

The Larkinson Clan did not publicize its exclusive new mech model. That did not stop every clansman from gossiping. Strictly speaking, the existence of the Transcendent Punisher was not a secret. It was impossible to hide such a huge and imposing heavy artillery mech. There simply wasn't any reason to make a big fuss about out of a mech model that would never be sold to the public.

Outside observers tried their best to catch a glimpse of this supposedly impressive mech. Yet despite all of the sensors they pointed at the Spirit of Bentheim, they only observed some vague shifts in the strange-shaped bunkers dotted on her surface.

They found enough clues that there were mechs moving in and out of the bunkers, but none of the fortified structures ever opened their gun ports in order to allow the artillery mechs to poke out their cannons.

Just the Spirit of Bentheim, an eclectic group of Avatar and Sentinel mech pilots emerged from the first batch of Transcendent Punishers produced by the Bentheim. The mech pilots had just moved their heavy mechs from a group of bunkers to the nearby mech stables.

The Kronon mech pilots that had followed the Living Prophet into the Larkinson Clan all lined up and saluted the two figures standing in front. Taon Melin, the Chosen of Zeal, looked particularly intense as two of his faith's most important figures had attended the demonstration!

One of them was the current incarnation of Prophet Ylvaine, the founder of the faith and the prophet that foretold their ascension!

The other was the Bright Martyr, the current object of their worship and the mech designer who illuminated the path to salvation!

Every Ylvainan in the Larkinson Clan considered it a supreme honor to live alongside two of their most holiest figures. Taon felt he was living a dream. For centuries, the Ylvainan Faith had come under the grip of three successor dynasties. With every year that passed, the Ylvainan followers had grown more and more distant from the true faith.

Even now, Taon and his fellow Ylvainans prayed for the souls of the citizens of the Protectorate. While he felt ashamed at the treacherous conduct of the rulers of his former state, he lamented the suffering subjected to the innocent civilians.

The Living Prophet had withdrawn his blessings from the Ylvaine Protectorate. The consequences were massive and life had changed forever over there. Many Ylvainans were living in a damned state while being governed by the very people that had betrayed their faith!

Nothing had changed ever since the True Believers fled the state. The Friday Coalition's brutal repression overcame any attempts to topple the damned regime.

The leaders of the Kronon, Poxco and Curin Dynasties shamelessly rewrote history. The heretical regime slandered the Living Prophet, calling him a defective clone and accusing him of being a puppet of a nefarious organization!

As for the Bright Martyr, the Protectorate's government painted him as a charlatan and a greedy profiteer. According to the government's official stance, Ves Larkinson was nothing more than a faithless mech designer who exploited the gullible Ylvainans for his own ends.

This was absurd!

As Taon and his fellow mech pilots faced the two important figures of his faith, he sensed nothing but sacredness from their bodies.

The Living Prophet was like a beacon of purity. Having just concluded a session with the Transcendent Punisher, Taon was still attuned to the unique signature of Prophet Ylvaine. The man whose current incarnation went by the name of James exuded the exact same presence.

As for the Bright Martyr, the holiness he exuded was not as obvious. In fact, the clan patriarch didn't appear to be Ylvainan at all. It was only in his heart that Taon recognized Ves for who he really was. He could never forget the instance when the Bright Martyr tore down the falsehoods of the three dynasties and attempted to bring the Ylvainans back to the light!

While Taon Melin and his fellow Ylvainans got caught up in their devotion, Ves felt more and more uncomfortable at being in their presence.

He regretted once again that he had taken in the refugees from the Protectorate. At the time, he had little choice but to rely on their help to flee from Fridaymen pursuit.

Nowadays, the huge influx of other foreigners vastly diminished the influence of the Ylvainans within his clan. The True Believers along with other defectors from the Protectorate no longer dominated the internal makeup of the clan as their growth simply couldn't keep pace.

The citizens of the Protectorate were trapped in their own state. The three dynasties had closed the borders yet again. Not a single citizen was able to travel all the way to the Sentinel Kingdom and seek asylum within the Larkinson Clan.

That made Ves happy. The less Ylvainans, the better. It was too bad that James was very skilled at converting other people. A steady amount of clansmen embraced the faith every month.

Ves knew it was only going to get worse now that he had made a powerful Ylvainan mech in the form of the Transcendent Punisher.

Still, considering the benefits he derived from Ylvaine's spirit, he considered the faith to be a necessary evil. As long as they remained useful, Ves was reluctantly willing to tolerate their shenanigans.

"So, what do you think of your new mechs?"

"Amazing! Its blessing is stronger than I have ever felt from your mechs!"

"It's a beacon of faith!"

"This mech has brought me closer to the Prophet. As expected of the Bright Martyr!"

Ves grimaced even more. He just wanted to know what they thought about the Transcendent Punisher's handling, performance characteristics and other mech-related characteristics.

Unfortunately, the only area the mech pilots cared about was the Transcendent Punisher's ostensibly sacred glow!

Compared to the Transcendent Messenger, Holy Soldier and Deliverer models, the fourth Ylvainan mech he designed was even more attuned to its design spirit!

It shouldn't have been a surprise that the Ylvainan mech pilots paid much less attention to the technical performance of the Transcendent Punisher. All they cared about was that they could get closer to the source of their faith!

Ves coughed. "Don't get distracted by your new mechs. I don't want your minds to wander when we are in the middle of battle. I'm relying on you to make good use out of all of the firepower out of your disposal. If you can't repel the enemy with your new Transcendent Punishers, then I might have to replace it with another artillery mech!"

That certainly introduced a lot of distress! Once Ves made his stance clear, the mech pilots began to offer more relevant feedback.

"The Transcendent Punisher is a fine artillery mech." Taon carefully voiced his opinion. "Still, from our simulated practice sessions, it's very hard for us to land a hit on distant opponents. I'm afraid that I and my fellow mech pilots are not yet worthy to pilot our new mechs by ourselves. The heavy gauss cannons excel at medium range, which is fairly short in spaceborn battles. The only way we can achieve consistent hits at distant and agile targets is if we can obtain the Prophet's blessing. So far, we have not yet tried this out as we are prohibited from conducting live sessions."

"Don't worry about it." Ves casually waved his hand. "The Transcendent Punisher is similar to the Deliverer. As long as you get along well with the Deliverer, you shouldn't have any problems with hitting targets with our new artillery mech. As for trying to raise your accuracy against distant targets, try changing your fire settings. Your heavy gauss cannons fire powerful and heavy slugs by default, but you can load Xcordon cannons with lighter rounds as well. If you do the latter, your firing rate is higher, so you have greater opportunities to achieve a hit, if not with as much force."

"Ah, I see!"

They discussed some other parameters. The mech pilots found the positron cannons to be much easier to work with. The beams they unleashed impacted their targets with relativistic speeds, which was basically instant under most battlefield circumstances.

While their accuracy was higher, their power consumption and heat generation was enormous. The latter turned out to be a very considerable problem during longer engagements.

"In the simulations, our Transcendent Punishers continue to build up heat as we fire our positron cannons." Taon explained. "The cannons themselves and some other related components can turn red hot. Unless we stop firing entirely, it's not that easy to cool them down. No matter how much heat my mech is able to transfer to the deck and bracing that holds it in place, there are still limits to how much flows through."

Ves nodded again. "This is a known problem. The heat transfer from your mech to the rest of the ship is not without its limits. The longer a battle goes on, the more difficult it becomes to siphon away excess heat. However, don't worry too much about this problem. In a real battle, I've implemented an additional measure that should mitigate this problem. Is there anything else?"

"The light pulse cannons are fast and efficient, but it's difficult to make effective use of them. At longer ranges, their power diminishes too much to threaten any serious enemies. At shorter ranges, their high-firing rate makes them good for intercepting missiles but they lack too much punch to threaten enemy mechs up close."

If enemy mechs ever got close to the Spirit of Bentheim, the role the Transcendent Punishers could play was very limited!

Their heavier weapons were large and powerful, but that also made them unwieldy at closer ranges. The secondary pulse cannons were their best option to repel enemies less than a kilometer away, but their lackluster firepower meant that they needed to achieve way too many hits to destroy a well-armored target!

"If enemies manage to get this close, we can only rely on our spaceborn mechs to fend them off." Ves stated with a shrug.

In fact, if any enemy managed to survive everything the Transcendent Punishers could throw at them, the Spirit of Bentheim was probably doomed!