The situation had changed.

The elimination of one of the formation anchors caused the three remaining vortices to reposition themselves to achieve a new equilibrium.

The churning energy field had weakened as a response. The death energy formation was already performing below normal levels due to various restrictions. The elimination of a key pillar reduced its strength and potency even further.

This difference manifested in the weakening of the dark miasma.

The Saint Commander sighed in relief when the hostile environment no longer tried to press against her Command Field as hard as before.

The dark miasma had also lost a part of its erosive effect. Though it was still harmful for any unprotected people or hardware to get exposed to the negative energies, they were not as dangerous as before.

Yet that did not mean that the main threat had passed.

Casella Ingvar never treated the dark miasma as the greatest source of danger.

What she remained vigilant about instead was the real enemies lurking in the darkness.

Now that the enemy's spell array had weakened, her intuition managed to pick up a few more clues that strengthened her suspicions.

It felt tempting to dispatch the Dark Zephyr or a squad of Woodsap mechs to take a look outside of the protective range of her Command Field, but the costs of doing so were substantial.

Yet if this was the only way for them to gather enough data to reconstruct an up-to-date mathematical model of the local space, then she had no other choice but to take the risk.

However, Saint Stark evidently did not want to go through all of that trouble. She intended to take action right away!

"Wait!" Ves shouted over the command channel. "Davia, the data support we can provide to you and your battle partner is inadequate. The smart AIs only possess a limited amount of ability to adjust the variables of their current model based on tracking the changes from afar. There are bound to be a lot of inaccuracies and deviations that successively skews the numbers. The probability of achieving a successful hit by relying on all of this questionable data is likely just a tenth as much as the initial shot."

"I KNOW." The female ace pilot straightforwardly declared. "BUT I AM NOT THE ROOKIE SAINT THAT YOU USED TO KNOW. I HAVE TAKEN PART IN MANY BATTLES SINCE THE GREAT SEVERING. I HAVE LEARNED WHAT IT MEANS TO BE SAINT, AND HOW TO WIELD MY OWN WILLPOWER IN MORE EFFECTIVE WAYS THAN BEFORE. I AM NOT YET A GOD, BUT I HAVE ALREADY GAINED THE FRACTION OF THE POWER OF ONE. LET ME PROVE TO YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE WHAT IT TRULY MEANS TO BE ONE OF THE BEST MECH PILOTS AND MARKSMEN OF THIS DWARF GALAXY."

"..."

Though Ves and other people doubted whether she had what it took to resolve this situation by herself, the Saint Commander chose to believe in the Larkinson Clan's guest pilot.

"You have my permission to demonstrate your capabilities." Casella straightforwardly declared. "In the meantime, several departments are tasked with preparing alternate solutions."

Saint Stark did not mind Casella's hedging behavior. The latter could not be blamed for making the most sensible decision.

Nonetheless, Davia wanted to prove with her strength and actions that the combined fleet did not have to resort to those backup plans in order to escape the enemy trap!

She took a deep breath and began to enter a slightly different mindset.

As the Amaranto Mark III continued to tke her time to charge up her Instrument of Vengeance yet again, the ace pilot thought back on all of her achievements up to this point.

She had come a long way since she had broken warrior all the way back in the Komodo Star Sector.

By accompanying the then-small and scrappy Larkinson Clan through all kinds of wild adventures and expeditions, she had fought against many impressive human and alien opponents.

From eliminating high-ranking mechs and mech pilots to killing large and formidable alien phase lords, she and her Amaranto had continuously changed the outcome of many battles through her impressive feats of killing!

Saint Stark did not deny that she could attribute much of her success to the impressive design of the successive versions of the Amaranto. Her living mech was a dream partner that facilitated her rise to glory without fail.

Yet she also acknowledged her strength and qualities.

She rarely missed her shots, if ever.

Many Larkinsons and other humans had come to expect and rely on her to land her attacks at impossible distances.

They based their entire battle plans around her strength.

They no longer questioned her as much when she claimed to be able to eliminate a strong or difficult opponent at a distance so far that everyone else could not even think of achieving the same result!

Saint Davia Stark had long become a household name among much of the soldier class throughout the new frontier.

Though she could not match the fame of long-established senior ace pilots and so on, the fact that her fame and glory already approached those well-known heroes indicated that she was performing a lot better than her peers!

Davia took pride in that. She took a lot of pride in her strength.

Though she did not consider herself to be overly vain or conscious of her reputation like Saint General Ark Larkinson or Saint Vincent Ricklin, no high-ranking mech pilot was devoid of this quality.

Pride provided a foundation for their willpower. The two were intricately tied together.

A champion without pride did not have the basis to maintain their extraordinary willpower.

Saint Stark knew this truth a lot better than anyone else.

She had personally experienced a time where she had sunk into total despair.

Those days when she drifted without an inkling of pride in her bone had scarred her forever.

She never wanted to experience this fall again.

Pride was one of the main weapons she chose to resist this possibility.

As long as she performed well enough to maintain her pride, she did not fear that her willpower would break anytime soon!

Yet that was not enough in this instance.

As her Amaranto Mark III was about to charge her Instrument of Vengeance to a high enough level, Saint Stark consciously tried to magnify her own sense of pride!

This was not easy, but it was not particularly difficult either.

Her willpower was strong.

If she wanted to delude herself into holding more pride than she actually earned, then she intended to make that happen regardless of whether there was any basis in reality!

"I AM THE BEST MARKSMAN IN THE NEW FRONTIER."

"THE AMARANTO MARK III IS UNEQUALED AMONG OTHER MARKSMANSHIP MECHS."

"NO SAINT HAS SNIPED MORE LESSER AS WELL AS GREATER PHASE LORDS THAN ME DURING THE RED WAR."

"THE LARKINSONS SHOULD ALL FEEL LUCKY TO HAVE ME FIGHT BY THEIR SIDE. THEY WOULD HAVE DIED WITHOUT MY PROTECTION."

"I HAVE NEVER ACCEPTED THE INVITATION TO JOIN THE LARKINSON CLAN. MY MISSION AND PURPOSE TRANSCEND THE BASE DESIRES OF A SINGLE ORGANIZATION. NO ONE DESERVES TO HOLD ME IN THEIR THRALL."

"I AM THE INCARNATION OF THE RESENTMENT OF THE MASSES. I AM THE AVENGER OF THE BEREAVED. I AM THE SLAYER OF THE UNJUST. NO ONE CAN STOP ME FROM WHAT I MUST DO IN THE FUTURE!"

"I SHALL BECOME GOD, IF NOT TOMORROW, THEN AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE. IF ANY HUMAN OR ALIEN STANDS IN MY WAY, THEN I SHALL SEAR THEM INTO PIECES WITH MY LIGHT!"

As Davia Stark continued to pump herself up by issuing those increasingly more outrageous boasts, her changing mindset started to have an increasingly more noticeable effect on her Instrument of Vengeance!

The overflowing pride that she managed to generate out of nothing started to alter the properties of her upcoming attack!

An increasingly stronger purple glow had overtaken the luminar crystal rifle!

Ves' eyes lit up when he realized what Davia intended to do this time!

"Of course! Harry Kaikkonen's U-ERC luminar crystal technology! I overlooked this piece of tech. How could I have forgotten about its existence?"

U-ERC luminar crystal technology was a fairly rudimentary but original application of hyper technology.

Since luminar crystals reacted strongly to emotional stimuli, Harry Kaikkonen managed to figure out a few ways to empower them by channeling strong emotions.

Right now, Saint Stark deliberately chose to exploit this supplementary technology in order to solve a very specific problem!

Through past trials, Davia had learned that the emotion of pride altered the characteristics of energy weapon attacks in a very distinct fashion.

Normally, this change did not provide her with any meaningful advantages in ordinary battles, so she had quickly ceased to make use of her own pride and relied on other emotions instead.

Yet this happened to be a situation where pride was undoubtedly the most suitable option!

When her Instrument of Vengeance proudly radiated a strong and stable purple light, the ace marksman mech finally chose to pull the trigger!

A bright purple beam seared into the distance almost instant later!

The energy weapon discharge created another fairly wide cylindrical cavity that burrowed deep into the dark miasma!

This cavity was large and uniform enough for many sensor systems to determine the initial results of this second strike.

"Missed!"

"We are unable to detect the presence of the nearest enemy formation anchor. Its true coordinates must be considerably further away."

"Wait! The energy beam… is lingering!"

"That is not all! The resonance empowerment attached to this persistent energy beam is also lingering, though it is still weakening over time."

This was a game changer!

Unlike before, the cylindrical gap that provided the red humans with a clear view of the other end did not close in a matter of a couple of seconds like before.

Instead, the dark miasma around this clear tunnel failed to press inwards for a lot more seconds than everyone thought!

This was because of the continued existence of a purple energy beam that stayed in place in complete violation of conventional physics!

The combination of strong saint-level willpower along with the exotic effects of U-ERC luminar crystal technology managed to produce this reality-defying result!

Unfortunately, despite all of the power and energy that Saint Stark had invested in this confounding attack, the purple energy beam still deteriorated over time.

Its fading may have been dragged out by a huge margin, but its radiance as well as its resonance empowerment continued to dwindle at a steady rate.

Saint Stark already expected this to happen. Nothing lasted forever.

What mattered was that she made use of the temporary clear gap that the persistent energy beam maintained during this fairly lengthy interval.

The Amaranto Mark III's sensor along with the larger and more elaborate sensor systems of the combined fleet all began to record a lot of data from this narrow cavity.

Before the smart AIs could complete their first round of processing the new data, Saint Stark's eyes narrowed as she instinctively caught a trace.

"FOUND YOU."

The Amaranto Mark III had already been charging up for her third strike.

This time, the ace marksman mech did not painstakingly wait until her Instrument of Vengeance was close to reaching her maximum capacity!

Speed was of the essence. Saint Stark took a gamble and decided to pull the trigger when her oversized luminar crystal rifle had only reached a 30 percent charge!

A much dimmer but golden energy beam shot out from the muzzle of the Instrument of Vengeance.

She no longer saw the need to leverage her pride this time.

Instead, she chose to channel her joy at successfully keeping a gap open for so long that she gained the confidence to complete her goal!

Her joy was not small.

When she poured it all into her third attack, the resulting energy beam not only exuded a brilliant golden glow, but also amplified its damage potential, thereby partially compensating for the lack of charge!

This time, the dap in the dark miasma lasted just as short as the initial attack, but this granted the combined fleet enough time to determine the results.

"The Amaranto Mark III… managed to strike a second formation anchor at one of its corners!"

"The death energy formation is weakening! The rotation of one of the 3 remaining energy vortices has slowed down!"

Although Saint Stark only managed to land a glancing blow, this turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back!

The fault tolerance of the enemy's spell array had already been squeezed to the limit. Introducing yet another fault finally toppled over the alien working's remaining stability!

This became evident when the other two energy vortices grew unstable as a response to the most recent changes.

A cascade of faults ensued. One change triggered another shift, which subsequently caused the deterioration of more factors!

Though Ves did not possess an in-depth understanding of formation arts, he was very familiar with equivalent phenomena in mechanical engineering.

His grin grew wider when he could clearly sense the dark miasma losing a lot of strength.

"Our visibility is expanding! Our control over the local space has strengthened. Our energy fields are beginning to assert their influence over a wider radius than before. The deathborn masses… are receding!"

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