NOVPUBThe First Sword Mark III struggled against the two greater phase lords.
The Fifth Lord of Bis'qet had no idea who he had been messing with and suffered for his habit of looking down on the human false gods.
While his loss represented a heavy blow to the nunsers in the star system, there were many other alien species that still possessed the determination to resist the evil human devil that had slain one of their deities.
To them, this battle was no different from a struggle between good and evil. Only by uniting their strength and listening to the guidance of their surviving gods would they be able to vanquish the fearsome extragalactic invaders!
Not that it mattered to Saint Dise.
Despite fighting well within range of countless enemy guns, her ace mech continued to fly and parade in front of the native aliens with impunity.
So long as her Saint Kingdom and her armor-grade superdimensional armor system remained fully functional and intact, she had little fear that the overwhelming amount of enemy guns could pose a realistic threat against her battle partner.
For one, any warship that dared to open fire against the First Sword Mark III was liable to hit one of the nearby greater phase lords as well.
There was no way that the rank-and-file aliens possessed the guts to harm their native gods, even if they only did so on an accidental basis.
Much of their firepower would probably go to waste as well. The First Sword Mark III constantly remained on the move.
Although she was pushing her Electro-Reactant Flight System way past her tolerances, Dise still remained confident that it would keep her machine moving for the time being.
With the help of her intuition, she had already managed to evade most of the massed attack salvos from the nearest enemy warships and orbital defense platforms.
As a melee mech specialist who had spent many years piloting a mech that was many times more fragile, Saint Dise had honed her intuition to detect any imminent attacks.
Even if she was not as good as Saint Tusa in this aspect, Dise prided herself on being the second-best in terms of evasion.
She seriously doubted whether the other ace pilots of the Larkinson Clan could get close to matching the pair.
Saint Davia Stark, Saint Isobel Kotin and Saint Commander Casella Ingvar usually fought outside of harm's way most of the time.
Saint General Ark Larkinson may be proficient in melee combat, but he either went on an all-out offensive or bided his time.
If he ever chose to challenge formidable opponents, he preferred to enter into quick and brutal brawls where he was more than willing to let his Lionheart take beatings if that helped to eliminate his foes as quickly as possible.
Naturally, that sort of fighting style was not too conducive to training and honing his evasion skills.
The First Sword Mark III currently proved that she was able to dance and glide across the battlefield without relying on overloading her flight system all of the time.
Saint Dise constantly improved and optimized her handling of her ace mech. The pressure of the battlefield served as an excellent engine to squeeze out more performance from her machine.
Even as she continued to fend off the Protector of Karnak and the Endless Stomach, it became clear to her that she could not gain an advantage over her opponents.
If she was facing just one of them at a time, then she was confident that she could outplay her opponent somehow.
Yet because the two had teamed up against her, she had no opportunity to launch a serious counterattack!
The two greater phase lords knew what they were doing. They not only sought to constrain her movement, but also positioned themselves so that they could punish her any time she chose to commit an attack.
It did not help that Saint Dise clearly preferred to go on the offensive against the Protector of Karnak. The jureg phase lord was just a lot easier to deal with as his body and superdimensional armor at least presented her with a solid target.
The same could not be said for the Endless Stomach, whose giant slime-like body was not only difficult to damage with a blade, but also started to engage in disgusting means of attack.
Not only had he begun to launch slime balls that threatened to stick to the First Sword Mark III and gum up her joints, he also began to spread a toxic cloud of gas around his body.
Although the Saint Kingdom was able to repel and weaken the effect of this toxic cloud, she could still feel it trying to corrode the exterior of her mech.
Her superdimensional armor was able to resist it with ease, but not every surface component was made of solid metal!
The more delicate and exposed parts of her sensor systems and more importantly her flight system began to suffer more serious damage after prolonged exposure.
Dise had become especially sensitive towards the latter as she could not afford to let the Electro-Reactant Flight System incur further abuse!
As her First Sword Mark III whipped out a quick spray of sword energy attacks in order to intercept the latest salvo of transphasic missiles, Dise quickly checked the state of the battlefield.
The forces of the Premier Fleet and the Bluejay Fleet had just begun to open fire at the enemy.
While their initial attacks did not inflict much damage due to hitting fully powered azure energy shields, Dise knew that this was just the beginning.
Once the mechs came close enough, the Saint Commander would fully make use of her Command Field to empower the attacks of all of the mechs under her sway with a touch of true resonance.
The attacks of all of those first-class multipurpose mechs would definitely inflict much greater damage at that point!
During the strategy sessions, Dise already knew that the Saint Commander grew concerned whether this highly effective display of firepower would incur the wrath of multiple lesser phase lords and maybe even greater phase lords.
Dise could already see the lesser phase lords poised to launch an offensive against the two human fleets.
After all, they were too weak and vulnerable to assist the greater phase lords in suppressing the First Sword Mark III. It made much more sense for them to leverage their superior strength against the mortal humans.
This was especially the case when the two fleets was only protected by a single ace pilot at most, and she happened to be an ace commander who lacked the characteristic Saint Kingdom!
"NOT ON MY WATCH."
After clashing against the Protector of Karnak for the umpteenth time, Saint Dise no longer tried to go for the big prize anymore.
Her ace mech abruptly turned around and flew straight towards the nearest raiding fleet!
Although the two greater phase lords reacted with surprise at this abrupt switch in strategy, they quickly pursued their adversary.
It did not take much thinking to figure out her intentions.
"#$@&#@!"
"COWARD! YOUR OPPONENTS ARE US! YOU SHALL EARN OUR ETERNAL RETRIBUTION IF YOU SEEK TO SLAUGHTER OUR YOUNGER GODS! YOUR HONOR IS WORTH NOTHING IF YOU ATTACK THE WEAK."
Saint Dise sneered when she interpreted the angry alien phase lord's speech.
"DO NOT LECTURE ME ON HONOR. THIS IS WAR, NOT A DUEL. BESIDES, I DO NOT SEE YOU AND YOUR ZZAMAYEL BUDDY HAVE BEEN GANGING UP AGAINST ME. FORGIVE ME FOR NOT ENTERTAINING THE TWO YOU AT ONCE."
The Endless Stomach was not fast enough to keep up with the First Sword Mark III.
The same applied to the Protector of Karnak, but he repeatedly blinked forward in space, enabling him to catch up to the superdimensional ace mech while also launching a surprise attack at the same time.
Saint Dise and her battle partner still could not measure any emissions that could tell them when the jureg phase lord was about to perform his blink ability.
Yet that did not stop the ace pilot from anticipating this move in advance.
In fact, witnessing the Protector of Karnak pull off the same old technique on a repeated basis had improved the ace pilot's ability to predict this very move!
She could not entirely explain it other than the fact that she had grown more familiar with the Protector of Karnak's attitude, ideas and methods.
In the next few blink interception attempts, the greater phase lord found himself too far away from her target to launch an attack with his armored claws.
This was because the First Sword Mark III had already begun to evade to the side before the sudden teleportation event happened.
The jureg greater phase lord felt chilled when he realized how much easier his opponent had read his move and intentions.
These repeated failures eventually prevented the Protector of Karnak from fulfilling his most immediate priority, which was to shield the lesser phase lord from the lethality of a superdimensional ace mech!
The lesser phase lords had clearly gotten the message and had already begun to split up and distance themselves from their previous positions.
Still, as fast as they managed to flee, their warp travel capabilities were considerably weaker due to their lower phasewater concentration.
The First Sword Mark III easily caught up with the first fleeing phase lord, who also happened to hail from the nunser race, and sent out her sword fey first.
Only 15 sword fey remained intact and fully functional at this time, but this was enough. The resonance-empowered superdimensional blades pierced through the lesser phase lord's spatial barrier with much greater ease and plunged straight through his raiment and into his flesh!
Lesser phase lords did not possess the power and influence to obtain proper superdimensional armor.
Their raiments — if they even had any — were merely made out of a combination of transphasic materials and hyper materials. It was clear that they were stuck with more affordable tech and materials that would have been perfectly fine in an earlier time.
However, this was a time where superdimensional technology was on the ascendancy. Against a weaker opponent that only enjoyed the protection of 'lastgen' equipment, the mid-grade superdimensional sword fey easily cut through the armor, flesh and bones like tofu.
By the time the First Sword Mark III approached the neck of the pained and crippled phase lord, her glowing Decapitator severed the large head from the rest of the quadruped body without encountering any significant resistance!
A lesser phase lord died by Dise's hand.
For a moment, she felt rather befuddled by how easy it was. She would have struggled a lot more not too long ago.
Her recent fighting against the two hardy greater phase lords had put her expectations out of whack and caused her to forget how much of a game changer her ace mech had become.
A sense of greed and desire overtook her mind. A grin appeared on her face.
Since it was that easy to eliminate lesser phase lords, then she became determined to mop the rest of them up! The greater phase lords could wait until later!
The First Sword Mark III collected her sword fey and changed course in order to pursue another fleeing target.
Even though the ace mech had yet to claim her second lesser phase lord head, her deterrance alone had been enough to break the spirits of most of the enemy champions!
No matter how much the two greater phase lords cajoled and admonished their lesser brethren, the lesser phase lords simply refused to stay too close to the demon of an ace mech.
If one of their own could be felled with so much ease, then they could potentially become vulnerable as well!
The lesser phase lords would rather abandon their fleets and let this battle end in a devastating loss than risk their own lives!
In any case, their lifespans had expanded so much that they had so many more experiences on his agenda.
They did not want to cut their lives short before they could properly enjoy centuries if not millennia of being treated and worshiped like gods!
