Chapter 2396: Rise of Heroes

Through eavesdropping the frankly poorly-secured pirate communications, the Black Cats soon found out the names or at least the titles of the two powerful entities.

The grey avian exobeast was called the Inexorable One. Fast, cruel and devious, her reign of terror supposedly surpassed that of the Unending One!

In the short time the giant bird made of grey fog had come into existence, she already started to terrorize the Larkinsons! With her dizzyingly fast speed and strange and unfathomable attacks, the Inexorable One seemed unstoppable!

The giant white humanoid form preferred to remain in the back. Each time he raised his hands, the 'dark' god known as the Blinding One unleashed a terrifyingly powerful light beam that vastly exceeded the power of the laser beams unleashed by the pirate destroyers!

Ves recognized the distinctive shape of the alien race the Blinding One supposedly belonged to. The dark god possessed a strange oval head with no definable mouth, nose, ears or any other facial features.

Instead, numerous holes dotted his entire head. Strange twinkling lights glowed from deeper within, causing them to look both creepy and mysterious. The Blinding One wore a robe-like garment that was apparently bedecked with crystals.

If Ves put a Crystal Lord mech alongside the Blinding One, anyone would be able to recognize the similarities between the two. In fact, many Larkinsons were making this comparison right now since the Crystal Lord was a staple in their landbound mech contingents!

"The white energy apparition is about to launch another attack!"

To the surprise of Ves and many other Larkinsons, the Blinding One suddenly tilted his multi-eyed head towards the Scarlet Rose. The giant white deity pointed his finger at the flagship of the task force.

Instantly, Ves felt as if a searingly bright beam abruptly pinned him into place! His chair began to smoke as it had suddenly become subject to an unknown source of heat!

"What the hell?!"

If not for the spiritual protection offered by his Unending Regalia, he would have probably been cooked half to death!

From the Blinding One's body language, the dark god appeared to be mildly confused by his lack of success. He raised a palm instead and immediately unleashed a potent light beam!

Yet at the moment the Blinding One fired his instant beam, the Shield of Samar had flown right in front of the Scarlet Rose! A faint glow surrounded the mech as it raised its new Unending tower shield!

A bright flash spread from the impact site as the light beam tried but failed to pierce through the extraordinarily valuable shield!

"YOU SHALL NOT HARM MY FAMILY!"

Ves immediately noticed a strange shimmer covering the shield. Spiritual energy began to fill the shield as the Unending alloy it was made out of eagerly absorbed the input!

The more spiritual energy it absorbed, the more the shield started to resonate with Jannzi. Ves discovered to his amazement that the insertion of spiritual energy into a component enabled it resonate with an expert pilot!

This was a huge revelation to Ves! He wasn't sure if every resonating material was made this way, but at the very least he wasn't as dependent on the mech industry's existing paradigms on expert mechs anymore.

What was even more amazing was that the convergence of the imaginary realm and the material realm actually allowed one of his design spirits to converge directly onto the battlefield yet again!

With a triumphant roar, a vague insubstantial silhouette of a giant lizard appeared behind the Shield of Samar!

Whenever the Blinding One's light beam attempted to hit a vulnerable ship beyond the reach of the Shield of Samar, Qilanxo briefly conjured a space barrier that completely caused the attack to disappear!

"We're saved!"

"Jannzi!"

He did not have time to appreciate this insightful discovery. While Venerable Jannzi, the Shield of Samar and Qilanxo shielded a portion of the Larkinson fleet, a single mech could not cover everything!

The Blinding One appeared to be a bit more rational than his more beast-like peers. He raised his hand in the direction of a company of vulnerable Avatar mechs.

"No!"

Yet before the luminar dark god could proceed with his clever attack, a small form struck the Blinding One from the side! The dark god roared with indignation as he attempted to swat the small but surprisingly elusive form from his side!

"You big white bastard! Let off my men!"

Commander Orfan succeeded in breaking through to expert pilot! After witnessing her fellow Flagrant Vandals fighting and dying against the powerful pirate armada, her urge to protect her war buddies had reached a peak!

This was why she immediately experienced apotheosis before her new custom mech fully launched out of the Princely Jackal.

A large, radiant blue glow similar to the glow surrounding the Shield of Samar enveloped the Banthar! While Commander Orfan unsurprisingly hadn't managed to achieve true resonance, her violently-swelling force of will empowered the Banthar far beyond its original parameters!

The spearman mech evoked the air of a champion as it valiantly assaulted the humanoid dark god! Spiritual energy belonging to Qilanxo poured into the Unending spear, allowing Venerable Rosa Orfan to resonate with it and deal substantially more damage to the white entity!

"I FIGHT TO PROTECT MY CUBS!"

Whenever the Blinding One attempted to swat the Banthar, the mech avoided the clumsy blows. With Commander Orfan's vastly-improved battle sense, she easily read the giant figure's attacks. It didn't help that the Blinding One did not employ any sophistication in his attacks. Evidently, the luminar race wasn't very good at fighting up close!

After screeching an inaudible curse, the Blinding One changed tack. The crystals adorning his robe started to glow. Venerable Orfan reacted in an instant by commanding her mech to crouch and huddle behind its own Unending shield!

A sudden omni-directional white blast enveloped the entire area around the Blinding One!

"Hah! Was that supposed to take me down? I told you already, as long as you threaten my men, I will fight you until there is not a scrap of you left intact!"

Though the Banthar lacked the power to inflict a fatal blow on the Blinding One, Venerable Orfan nonetheless posed enough of a threat with it to occupy the luminar dark god as long as her outbreak lasted!

In another corner of the battlefield, another duel between expert pilot and dark god took place!

The Inexorable One did not move to assist her fellow dark gods. The cruel grey bird instead attempted to sneak behind the Larkinson fleet in order to devastate their most crucial ships such as the Scarlet Rose.

Yet before the dark god reached her destination, a speeding form instantly struck at one of her wings!

A spiritual roar of fury escaped from the Inexorable One as her flight deviated due to the sudden attack! The grey bird quickly tried to pin down the offending attacker.

"I'm here, you rotten bird!"

A sharp blue line struck the bird from behind! The attack inflicted serious pain and caught the Inexorable One off-guard!

In the distance, a glowing sky blue glow surrounded the Blueshift. After years of precipitation, Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson finally succeeded in breaking through to expert pilot as well!

Pure power and speed overflowed the Blueshift as Tusa's boiling force of will rapidly integrated with his mech.

His converted skirmisher mech zipped around the Inexorable One, dodging and weaving the Inexorable One's attacks while darting in to inflict periodic stabs with its Unending daggers.

When the Inexorable One seemingly had enough of the harassment, the giant grey bird swelled its chest as it seemed to breathe in. Seconds later, dark god exhaled, causing the space around her to destabilize as energy vortices appeared all around her, spelling danger to anyone caught within!

The density of energy vortices around the giant grey bird was so high that it was impossible for the Blueshift to avoid them. Yet amazingly, the Blueshift phased right through the energy hazards as if they were nothing but illusions!

This was because Tusa's force of will did not center around speed, but rather freedom!

"No obstacle shall bar my way! No wall can cage me in! Your tricks are useless, monster!"

No matter how much the Inexorable One tried to get rid of this annoying mech, her measures failed. No matter how much she tried to fly away, the Blueshift exceeded her speed!

With the help of Venerable Orfan and Venerable Tusa, the two additional dark gods had no time to wreck the Larkinsons!

However, Ves knew that this situation was very precarious. The temporary boost in power that accompanied every expert pilot's emergence only lasted for a limited amount of time.

Once the two expert pilots lost their steam, the dark gods could easily retaliate!

The Gravada Knarlax suddenly fired her main cannons. The volley she unleashed thudded against the Greenfeather, annihilating the fragile light carrier that was home to the Second Spaceborn Mech Company!

Though much of her crew had already preemptively evacuated the vulnerable ship, a handful of essential crew never had the chance to flee as their bodies instantly broke from the enormous impacts!

The other warships resumed firing as well. Their powerful laser beams surgically dismantled ship after ship.

"Damnit! Someone take care of the enemy ships!"

"Take our swords!" A group of women roared!

A battle formation consisting entirely of Swordmaiden mechs stabbed forward through space!

The energy silhouette and projection of a giant sword overlapped the formation. Each Swordmaiden had become of one mind as they maintained a connection to the active battle network that was exclusive to the women!

The sharp battle formation quickly closed in on the Ailing Frey, but the pirates did not let the strange formation approach without a response.

The pirate destroyer's secondary ballistic gun batteries began to fire a downpouring of shells at the incoming mechs. Yet as soon as these shells were about to impact the vanguard of the formation, a dark blue glow blocked most of them from inflicting any harm on the swordsman mechs!

The Swordmaiden mechs blocks the remainder of the attacks by using their swords as shields. None of them sustained any damage as their battle formation finally reached the pirate destroyer!

In the final stretch, the glowing mech at the tip of the formation pointed its Unending greatsword forward.

"Pierce!"

The Swordmaiden battle formation rapidly burst forward! Within the blink of an eye, the Swordmaiden mechs stabbed through the port side of the pirate destroyer and quickly emerged from the starboard side!

A cascade of secondary explosions erupted inside the Ailing Frey as the passage of the Swordmaiden battle formation inflicted substantial internal damage! Half of her guns stopped firing and her propulsion system sputtered.

The ship could not handle too many attacks of this magnitude!

The battle formation circled around and was about to commence another destructive attack run.

Yet before the Swordmaidens could finish off the heavily-damaged Ailing Frey, a large number of highly-organized pirate mechs attempted to intercept the Swordmaiden mechs.

"It's the Allidus Archons! They're the elites of the Allidus Alliance!"

Up until now, the Allidus Archons were held back as reserves. Now that the destroyers of the pirate armada were under threat, the Archons finally moved into action!

While the Archon mechs weren't able to match the Swordmaiden mechs on an individual basis, they consisted of over 500 mechs, thereby outnumbering the Swordmaidens by fourteen-to-one!

Yet despite the enormous disparity in numbers, the Swordmaiden mech pilots under the lead of Commander Dise did not shy away from the challenge.

"Sisters! Sweep these rabble away!"

"Yes, commander!"

The Swordmaiden battle formation shifted. Instead of pointing its tip straight forward, it began to orient so that its blade faced the enemy mechs. Once the formation closed in, the giant sword rapidly slashed across the formation of Allidus Archon mechs!

Just a moment later, over a hundred Allidus Archon mechs exploded or simply split apart as an enormous cut seemed to have cut most of them in half!

"CUT THEM APART! LEAVE NO PIRATE INTACT!"