The Mech Touch novel Chapter 885

A mech lieutenant of the Hostland Warriors gritted his teeth while he piloted his spearman mech in support of his fellow Warriors. When he heard they were about to fight the infamous Vandals along with a bunch of melee-oriented pirates, he expected to fight a running engagement.

When he saw that the enemy formed battlelines and charged forward in a ragged mess, he thought the Warriors would easily be able to break the backs of these unruly dogs.

Reality proved much different from his expectations! The Warriors had always considered the Vandals and pirates as scum who only won through trickery and misdirection. The Vesians never imagined their foe to be so ferocious and undaunting in a pitched battle!

"And these Swordmaidens?! Who the hell are they? Some kind of force of exiled elites!"

Though the Swordmaiden mechs exhibited very poor coordination and teamwork, their hyper-aggressive approach forced the Hostland Warriors into a passive state. They constantly needed to hold the line against these madwomen who knew no fear! No matter how disadvantageous it might be for them to push forward, they threw themselves forward without any regard for logic or safety!

This normally wouldn’t fluster the Hostland Warriors so much were it not for the Vandals following after their aggressive allies. The Vandals knew exactly how the Swordmaidens fought and neatly covered their backs, preventing the Warriors from surrounding the Swordmaidens any further.

The battle in the center devolved into a contest of attrition! With the fighting constantly heating up, casualties mounted in quick succession. Dozens of mechs fell before fatal spear strikes or enormously powerful sword chops.

"Hold on! Keep fighting!"

"Don’t you dare die before you take a Warrior mech down with you! Our comrades are counting on us!"

It not only became a contest of arms, but also a contest of willpower! The Hostland Warriors arrived on the battlefield with confidence born of their inherent superiority over their foes. Their mech regiment was made to fight these kinds of battles!

The excellent performance of the Meandering Monkeys in the previous skirmishes also inflated their confidence in the previous days. The mech pilots of the Meandering Monkeys constantly bragged about how they ran rings around the enemy light mechs.

This gave the Warriors the mistaken impression that they could easily crush the pathetic enemy mechs in a straightforward battle.

Yet the truth proved to be different, and it mostly came down to willpower!

The Swordmaidens already possessed a lot of courage. Yet the grit and courage of the Flagrant Vandals not only surprised the Vesians, they even surprised themselves.

They hadn’t become affected by the dwindling morale or the despair that spread when word of Venerable Xie’s assassination spread throughout the camp.

Ves guessed that the mental resilience training sessions that he invented contributed significantly to the strength exhibited by the Vandal mech pilots. They learned how to cope with pressure and continue fighting even with the entire galaxy stacked against them! Even as their mechs got banged up or received near-fatal damage, they still fought as if they didn’t know how to retreat!

"Our mech pilots aren’t ejecting!" Someone in the headquarters yelled.

"The Swordmaiden mech pilots aren’t ejecting either!"

The Vandal and Swordmaiden mech pilots collectively came to an accord. They decided to fight to the death in the truest sense of the phrase. They cut off nearly every possibility of ejecting from their mech in favor inflicting maximum damage to their enemy!

Once the Hostland Warriors realized this, their courage flagged a bit. A mech pilot with nothing to lose became an atrocious opponent. They fought twice as hard as normal and traded wounds without any hesitation if the situation called for it! The only instances where they ejected was if their mechs had already become crippled.

"There are still some spare mechs back in camp! Let’s board them and go back into the battle!"

The mech pilots of the Hostland Warriors didn’t possess the same determination. Since they believed they held the upper hand against their enemy, they never even considered making a pact to fight to the death.

This behavior was far too crazy!

"Hahahaha! Die! Die! Die!"

"Kill them all! If I can take one more Warrior down with me, then I haven’t lived my life in vain!"

"Look at the Warrior mechs beginning to hesitate. Are these the Vesians we’ve been so afraid about? Their courage is not even a tenth of ours!"

"Hahaha! Look at these cowardly Warrior mech pilots pulling the ejection lever when their precious mechs suffer some scratches. Pansies!"

The deadly battle in the center slowly swung in favor of the Flagrant Swordmaidens despite their obvious weaknesses. If the mech pilots of the Hostland Warriors continued to keep their cool, then they might have noticed that their opponents left a lot of openings.

Yet the unmatched aggression of the Vandals and Swordmaidens was like a punch in the face! The disoriented Hostland Warriors were constantly being put on the backfoot. The only reasons why they hadn’t collapsed yet was because their discipline forced them to hold out while their resilient mechs bought them a lot of time.

Even though the Flagrant Swordmaidens made a lot of strides in the center, their mechs couldn’t entirely keep up.

The Devil Razors especially incurred an increasing amount of battle damage. While their mobility and offensive power more than matched the Hostland Warriors, Mayra hadn’t been able to invest in much of their defenses.

The workhorse mechs of the Swordmaidens started falter in their aggression. The accumulated battle damage along with the steady counterattacks of the Hostland Warriors continued to deplete the combat effectiveness of the Devil Razors.

The Silver Valencias were different, and held out longer than their cheaper cousin. Each Swordmaiden piloting a Silver Valencia were all veteran Swordmaidens who possessed a considerable amount of skill. All of them entangled the officers of the Hostland Warriors, preventing them from running wild in their superior mechs and skills.

To Ves, the battle in the center slowly reached a new equilibrium. While the Warriors didn’t have an answer against the courage shown by the Flagrant Swordmaidens, they nonetheless trusted their defenses to hold out long enough to wait for a change in conditions.

"They’re patient buggers."

"The Vesians are smarter than they look. They know we’re going to run out of steam faster when we fight this hard."

Energy expenditure became an increasingly more important factor the longer the battle stretched on. While the Flagrant Swordmaidens possessed more energy reserves, it still took time to withdraw their mechs and replenish their exhausted energy cells.

The problem right now was that the Vandals and Swordmaidens couldn’t afford to let up on their push! As long as they withdrew, the Hostland Warriors would lose their constraints and be able to employ advanced formations!

Someone in the command center observed something alarming. "Our ranged mechs are getting pushed back! They’re not as skilled as the Warriors!"