Chapter 7377  Disparity in Willpower

The battle against Saint Conrad Morgenstern started off badly for the escort fleet.

The senior ace mech moved too fast.

Its flight system was quite powerful. Although it was based on an older design, its specifications were extremely high, both from a design and material standpoint.

Even if the Resonance Smith did not pull out all of the stops when he designed and updated the Sound of Revolution, the Star Designer still managed to squeeze out the potential of every single component and material.

Almost nothing went to waste!

Combined with an average level of resonance strength that easily surpassed 1500 laveres, the guitar-axe-wielding ace mech could already be described as a half-divine work.

Everyone struggled to keep up with its amazingly fast movements and incredibly small reaction windows.

Tertiary and secondary warship gun batteries tried their best to bombard the Sound of Revolution or at least increase the consumption of its Saint Kingdom.

However, their efficiency was abysmal. Over 98 percent of their energy beams and kinetic projectiles missed their targets due to the fast and tricky evasion patterns of the hostile ace mech.

Most of the warships in the escort fleet did not even bother to fire their biggest primary gun batteries. These weapons possessed much slower tracking speeds and possessed significantly greater delays. That made it virtually impossible for them to hit a small and exceedingly fast-moving target.

In fact, even if they managed to strike their targets, much of their potency would get sapped by the target's Saint Kingdom!

The reality distortion of an ace pilot as powerful as the Voice of Liberty was able to weaken incoming attacks to a much more impressive degree than any of the Larkinson ace pilots!

The opposing ace pilot was able to snuff out most weak attacks while reducing the intensity of stronger attacks by over 80 percent!

If any of these weakened attacks struck the exterior of the ace mech, the Sound of Revolution's sophisticated armor system easily bounced them away!

As the Dark Apostle backed away from the fighting, Ves tried his best to observe the performance of the opposing ace mech while recalling the details from the design schematics.

The Resonance Smith incorporated many of his ingenious design solutions to the armor system of the Sound of Revolution.

Their effects and benefits were too much to mention, but one of their standout features was that an ace pilot was able to empower them with true resonance a lot more effectively than normal!

While the Sound of Revolution was not clad with superdimensional alloy, the ridiculously high degree of resonance empowerment enabled the machine to come a lot closer to matching the performance of this scarce alloy!

Due to these reasons and more, the entire escort fleet failed to leave a single scratch behind thus far!

"We are wasting our ammunition! We are missing nearly all of our strikes, and the ones that do manage to hit fail to inflict effective damage. We are useless!"

"You are wrong. We are providing assistance, if only slightly. The Voice of Liberty has to expend more energy and focus to evade most of our attacks. Every hit or near-hit drains his willpower a little more. The greater the intensity of our attacks, the more pressure he is under. As long as we keep this up, we can drive him to exhaustion. His ace mech much easier to fend off once Saint Morgenstern has depleted his willpower."

The various mechs and warships still made a difference.

Even if they could not open fire whenever the Riot Mark III clashed against the Sound of Revolution, Saint Orfan made sure to back off frequently in order to give the other assets a chance to unload their guns.

"Good work, Rosa!" Ves conveyed to the Larkinson ace pilot. "You have little chance of beating the Voice of Liberty by yourself, so working together with the rest of the escort fleet is your best way to fulfill your mission objectives. Remember that defeating your foe is not a necessary win condition. The overarching goal of our task force is to bring our priority cargo to Yernstall. You just have to tire the enemy out and leave him behind."

The Riot Mark III continued to maneuver around the battlefield while trying its best to successfully strike at the opposing machine with its tier 3 Destroyer spear.

Unfortunately, a high-tier Destroyer weapon made no difference on how effectively the wielder would be able to land a hit!

"A destroyer weapon. How quaint. What did you do to the Terrans to convince them to pass one to your clan? Regardless, the use of this weapon will make no difference. You are too slow. Your weapon handling skills are decent, but they are lacking a personal touch. You are truly an immature saint. If not for the impressively hard shell of your ace mech, I would have run you through already."

Saint Orfan did not get discouraged by his enemy's critique. She continued to drive her Riot Mark III to intercept and land a hit on the Sound of Revolution!

"I have already thought about everything you said. There is no need for you to remind me of my shortcomings. It is a good thing that this is not a duel. I might not be a match for you at this time, but I am fighting alongside many allies this time. Together, we will grind you into dust!"

She sounded incredibly arrogant to the senior ace pilot. The Voice of Liberty had experienced many more battles and did not think that he would get tripped up by his current adversaries.

Even as his Sound of Revolution continued to evade incoming attack salvos while simultaneously staying one step ahead of the Riot mark III, it was undeniable that the enemy machine was moving closer to the research vessel!

Saint Orfan did her best to block the Sound of Revolution's meandering advance, but the disparity in mobility was great enough to render most of her efforts useless!

There was effectively nothing she could do to inhibit the mobility of the senior ace mech!

For this reason, the gap between the enemy ace mech and the research vessel that contained the extremely valuable research specimen was steadily closing.

Many people were starting to feel the pinch.

"Ves, it may be time for you to deploy your Ascended Giants." Jovy Armalon suggested to Ves over a special communication channel. "If the risk of losing their superdimensional arms is too high, then we can arm them with more conventional weapons in a hurry. They can do much more to hinder the enemy's movements by using their superdimensional-covered bodies to get in the way of the enemy ace mech."

The idea sounded plausible, but Jovy was missing a very important flaw!

"The Voice of Liberty is brainwashing anyone that can hear his music." The Dark Apostle retorted. "I will not subject my giants to this music if they will only get brainwashed within a minute."

Ves concurred with this statement. "The closer you get, the stronger the effect. It is not impossible for our giants to go out and contribute to the battle, but they will have to maintain their distance while firing any ranged armaments they have on hand. I do not think their efforts will amount to much, though. Their firepower will almost certainly be inferior to that of any warship."

"..." Jovy remained silent for a moment before he passed on his next instruction. "Perhaps you are correct, but the Sound of Revolution has already closed the gap by 33 percent since the start of this engagement. We need to devise effective solutions quickly before it is too late."

He was not exaggerating. The Sound of Revolution flew through entire corridors of lethal attacks. The machine easily danced around the slower and clumsier Riot Mark III and continued to fly closer to its primary target!

Throwing in more than two-dozen Ascended Giants clad in basic superdimensional raiments would definitely make it easier to hinder its movements, but only if they coordinated their movements perfectly and possessed the courage to withstand multiple attacks from the enemy machine.

Ves personally did not feel confident that the giants possessed the discipline and esprit the corps to sacrifice their lives if necessary.

Nothing was working.

While the Voice of Liberty was indeed expending willpower at a much higher rate than normal, the senior ace pilot possessed such vast reserves that he would be able to keep this up for an extended amount of time!

His ace mech forcibly suppressed the Riot Mark III's destructive domain field, which not only minimized its interference traits, but also weakened its ability to amplify all of its actions with true resonance.

The two Saint Kingdoms did not exist on the same level!

Whereas the Riot Mark III's Saint Kingdom was still relatively empty, shallow and superficial, the Saint Kingdom of the opposing mech was practically a paradise!

The depth and development of the Voice of Liberty's domain field reflected his growth and lengthy years of existence.

He had stumbled and fallen multiple times, only to pick himself back up and resume his fight. His willpower was not clean and spotless. It possessed invisible scars, each of which possessed their own stories.

Regardless of how much the Voice of Liberty had lost, he never gave up on himself.

The fact that he was able to win the Resonance Smith's appreciation was a powerful testament of his persistence.

Now, the fact he had cast aside his future and much of his relations only invigorated him further!

There was no retreat from his current position!

"Too weak!" He roared as he easily evaded the Riot Mark III's spear charge. "I do not know how you managed to become a saint, but you are clearly not as worthy as the others that I have met. Your self-control is abysmal. Your attacks lack conviction. Your willpower is far too brittle even when compared to other recently ascended ace pilots. You are the most embarrassing ace pilot that I have met on the battlefield. I would be ashamed to call myself a saint if I was in your shoes!"

He punctuated his judgmental words with a guitar shred that conveyed his growing contempt towards Saint Rosa Orfan!

The Larkinson ace pilot would have gritted her teeth if she was still in control over her original human body.

As it was, she chose to remain silent and concentrate fully on driving her attacks home!

Saint Conrad Morgenstern only expressed further contempt towards his main adversary. "You are too young. If you settled down for a decade or two, you would have been able to polish your skills and hone your intuition to a more acceptable standard. As it is, the only reason why you are not positioned at the bottom is due to your admittedly impressive ace mech. Its superdimensional tech and Destroyer tech are the main reasons why I haven't eliminated you yet. It is not worth it for me to waste my precious time on crushing your superdimensional can. It is a good thing that you are slow enough to be bypassed."

As much as Saint Orfan tried to disregard her opponent's words, they still had an effect, especially because they rang with the truth of a more powerful high-ranking mech pilot.

As her emotions became a little unbalanced, her control over the Riot Mark III started to slip in subtle ways.

The superdimensional ace mech missed its attacks by a wider margin. Its reaction speed slowed by a few milliseconds. Its Saint Kingdom deflated by a small margin.

All of these subtle signs showed that the Voice of Liberty's acidic words succeeded in disturbing his opponent's confidence and composure.

This had serious consequences.

As Saint Orfan's control started to slip, her demonic side began to act up in small ways!

The Riot Mark III began to gain a more menacing edge. Its exterior form started to mutate in a manner unlike anything the Voice of Liberty had seen!

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