The Mech Touch

The match between the Fey Fianna and the Oclis Zemo could be seen as a struggle between two different weapon philosophies.

The Oclis Zemo clearly sought to lead a resurgence in the use of ballistic weapons in the Hyper Generation. The striker mech did so in the most visually stimulating fashion possible by continually firing twin streams of impactful earth bullets from its rotary cannons.

There was no way that the machine could sustain this excessive rate of fire, but it did not have to! So long as it was able to take down a single opponent, its mission would be complete!

This was why the striker mech did everything possible to demolish its opponent as quickly as possible. It did not hesitate to rotate its heavy guns faster in order to spit out its bullets at a faster rate.

The rotary cannons would almost certainly have to be scrapped or undergo a complete rebuild after this match, but who cared? The benefits from winning this match was far greater than destroying a few measly weapons!

Under the heavy firepower of the Oclis Zemo, the Fey Fianna did not fare well at all. The constant bombardment of earth bullets impacted dozens of armor plates so quickly that the adaptive modular armor plating system became overwhelmed by how many of them needed to be replaced.

The excessively high firing rate of the twin rotary cannons also caused numerous bullets to squeeze into the weak points that briefly became exposed when the replacement armor plating failed to arrive in time.

This caused the energy shield fey to malfunction!

Its flight began to falter while its energy shield generator completely lost the ability to restore its charge.

Numerous other systems began to falter in quick succession as the initial failures caused the mech to become much more vulnerable to follow-up attacks.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

Under the withering fire of two ruthless rotary cannons, the energy shield fey became so overwhelmed that it began to falter and drop from the air just a few seconds after it had suffered internal damage!

This was the most frightening aspect about rapid-fire weapons. Their lethality against softer and weaker internal components was unparalleled. So long as they could bypass all of the protective layers of a target, they could quickly wreak havoc inside!

The premature collapse of one of the energy shield fey caused the second one to withstand a huge amount of stress!

The only saving grace was that the remaining modular armor plating of the downed fey could still be leveraged to increase the damage buffer of the remaining elements, but only to a small extent.

As the distance between the two mechs continued to decrease, the accuracy and the hit rates of the rotary cannons improved by a significant extent.

This not only caused the fey that was trying to block as many bullets as possible to deplete its defenses faster, but also caused it to suffer more internal damage as the adaptive modular armor system simply couldn't keep up with the accelerated accumulation of damage!

Boom!

An internal explosion caused the energy shield fey to lose power and drop to the arena ground as well!

Many people's hearts became chilled. The energy shield fey might not be as tough as an actual mech, but their defenses were quite formidable for their size.

The use of a water energy shield and modular armor plating could keep them alive for a long time so long as the enemy did not employ any overwhelming attacks.

Unfortunately, it just so happened that the Fey Fianna matched up against one of its worst nightmares!

Kinetic weapons were fantastic at delivering burst damage, and it was clear that the extreme firepower of the Oclis Zemo most definitely had the capability to overwhelm the defenses of the Fey Fianna!

This reflected a crucial difference in fighting tempo.

The Fey Fianna's configuration was clearly suited to slower and more drawn-out battles. It might not be the best at battles of attrition, but it was no slouch in them either.

The Oclis Zemo on the other hand relied much more on performing extremely well in the brief moments that counted.

Since its initial purpose was to serve as a point defense unit for starships, it had to be able to spit out as many damaging rounds as possible in order to successfully intercept rapid missiles and shells in great numbers!

Such firepower happened to work just as well on all kinds of spurs, including the fey which were even larger and easier to hit due to their greater scale!

The downing of two energy shield fey was bad news to the Fey Fianna. It only had a pair of luminar crystal cannon fey left, and their internals were even more fragile as they were never designed to serve as damage sponges.

It would hurt the Fey Fianna a lot if it lost its two offensive fey, but it was still better to sacrifice them than to lose the main body!

More modular armor plating came loose from the latest wreck and desperately sought to block as many bullets as possible.

At this moment, the main purpose of the fey and all of the modular armor plates was to buy time for the main body to close the distance to the Eclis Zemo!

So long as the drone mech itself was able to get close enough to its adversary, the situation would completely change!

The opponent knew this as well, so the Eclis Zemo went all-out in order to shred the remaining fey and finally the drone mech itself before they could ever get close enough!

"This is getting exciting!"

"How many rounds has the Eclis Zemo fired at this time? 10,000? 100,000?"

"I bet it is over a million!"

"What?! How can anyone afford such a consumption? An entire mech company of these machines could bankrupt an entire mercenary outfit!"

"I don't think the rounds are as expensive as you think. They look powerful, but it is mainly because of the hyper tech stuff. Mechs that can do this kind of damage have become much cheaper in the latest mech generation."

The Fey Fianna entered into an exceptionally dangerous state. Once it had lost its remaining two fey, it would have no choice but to withstand the firepower of the Eclis Zemo by itself. Its lack of hard defenses meant that it would likely be unable to last much longer than its fey, especially now that the range had shrunk to such an extent!

Yet all of the attacks launched by the luminar crystal weapons were not in vain.

Even though the Eclis Zemo was so well-armored that it could resist a lot of energy attacks without suffering any critical damage, the Fey Fianna had purposefully concentrated all of its energy attacks onto one of the rotary cannons of its adversary.

The spinning barrels already started to glow red-hot after firing so many bullets, but the fire laser beams striking its tough and armored exterior caused the weapon chassis to heat up even further!

Even though Master Redmond had designed the rotary cannons to withstand a lot of stresses, they weren't being used in a proper manner this time.

The excessively high firing rate had already caused them to push their limits. Now that one of the cannons received a lot of excess thermal energy from an outside source, the weapon suddenly made an awful noise!

Kraaak!

The rotary cannon jammed!

This was not supposed to happen!

The abrupt loss of firepower disrupted the rhythm of the Eclis Zemo.

Even though the mech possessed the means to unjam and restore the operation of its weapons to an extent, all of that took precious time.

This was time that the Eclis Zemo lacked!

The pressure exerted by the striker mech was no longer as overwhelming as before.

The adaptive modular armor system of the Fey Fianna no longer became as harried as before as the modular armor plates of the remaining two fey did not collapse as quickly as before.

This made all of the difference as the entire armor system was much more able to rotate the armor plating without exposing any flaws or weak points!

Of course, that still did not remove the threat posed by the striker mech. Too many modular armor plates had already been pounded into scrap by all of the earlier barrages. The Fey Fianna needed to finish this match quickly before it lost all of its remaining usable protection!

Fortunately, the Fey Fianna had crossed the entire length of the arena. Now that it had come close enough, the harried drone mech intended to take revenge on the striker mech!

"Fix bayonet!"

The Fey Fianna no longer fired its luminar crystal rifle, but instead took the time to attach a bayonet to its barrel.

The two luminar crystal fey continued to concentrate their fire onto the remaining rotary cannon, though it looked like it might take a few moments to induce a malfunction on this weapon as well.

As the Fey Fianna began to initiate a controlled charge against the Eclis Zemo, everyone wondered whether the striker mech would have any means to fend off this close assault.

Striker mechs were generally at their most dangerous when they fought at close range!

The Eclis Zemo did not disappoint in this regard. While one of its arms continued to fire its remaining rotary cannon, the other arm had dropped the malfunctioned weapon and drew out a heavy mace that was saturated with earth energy!

Anyone who looked at it could easily imagine that the Fey Fianna would get crushed upon impact.

However, the Fey Fianna remained undeterred. It showed no intention to avoid contact and continued to charge forth while its two offensive fey continued to bombard the remaining rotary cannon with fire laser beam attacks.

Yet just as the Fey Fianna was about to drive its bayonet through the Eclis Zemo, it utilized its high maneuverability to change course at the last second and cause the striker mech's mace attack to miss!

As the Fey Fianna flew to the other side of the Eclis Zemo, it quickly spun around and began to fire its luminar crystal rifle at the rear of the striker mech!

Its luminar crystal cannon fey had broken off from the main body and began to fire at the striker mech while circling around it like annoying flies.

None of the energy beam attacks managed to break past the Eclis Zemo's formidable armor as of yet, but the striker mech was under a huge amount of pressure at the moment!

It was at this moment that the striker mech's lack of mobility became a fatal hindrance.

The Eclis Zemo was too slow and cumbersome to catch up to the swift and agile fey and drone mech. Its mace became completely useless if the enemy did not take the initiative to fight up close.

The remaining rotary cannon may pose a huge threat to the Fey Fianna, but the problem was that the Eclis Zemo was unable to track any of the three fast-moving threats with its muzzle!

This was especially the case when the Fey Fianna and its two fey were circling around the striker mech. The changes in firing angles were so great that the rotary cannon behaved in a similar fashion to the main gun battery of a battleship.

The weapon was so big and heavy that it was not able to track fast-moving targets around its position!

Of the thousands of bullets that the rotary cannon fired during this frustrating interval, only a few dozen managed to hit the fey.

This was far from enough to take them down!

In the end, the mech pilot of the Eclis Zemo helplessly admitted defeat when the constant energy beam attacks finally caused its remaining primary weapon to malfunction as well.

"The Fey Fianna has won the third challenge match!"

The LMC's latest product line had restored some of its reputation!