Chapter 6105 Greater Variations

Chapter 6105 Greater Variations

Ketis struggled to make the right decision.

It became apparent that many of the precautions that the Larkinsons prepared in advance failed to stymy the Emperor Tree.

Its ability to affect the minds of humans was much stronger and more frightening than it had shown in the past!

It was doubtful that the Emperor Tree always possessed this capability. The much more likely possibility was that it had spent a lot of effort into improving it after seeing how well it sowed chaos among the human mechs last time.

Ketis frowned deeper. The Emperor Tree's threat level had grown too fast. It became a lot more adept at fighting against the human invaders from beyond the stars.

If the Larkinsons postponed their attack on the Emperor Tree for a few months, how much stronger and more effective would its measures have become?

"We cannot delay this priority anymore. The tree needs to die today. We will resort to orbital bombardment if we have to. Any solution is better than leaving it alive to develop more effective weapons against our race."

Orbital bombardment would lead to a lot of repercussions. If the rampant bombing truly managed to alert several other calamity beasts, then the Larkinsons would quickly evacuate from Chimera Base and return to orbit at worst.

Ketis was fairly confident that the other beasts had yet to evolve any specific adaptations against humans. They were much further behind in this regard. That reduced their threat level as far as she was concerned.

"We are approaching the checkpoint."

The mechs flew forward at an altitude that was neither too high nor too low. The concentration of Solus Gas should be high enough to block all sorts of strange influences, which unfortunately affected the connections between living mechs and their design spirits.

However, the top of the Emperor Tree was no longer able to shine on the machines like a lighthouse. That should keep their minds a lot safer if they were correct about its mechanisms.

The biggest downside was that the mechs all became a lot more vulnerable to impalement.

Ketis guessed that the Emperor Tree had secretly spread its roots far and wide.

Even so, the concentration and power of those roots likely grew the closer they moved towards the main trunk!

Ketis could not imagine how many root spikes were ready to break out of the ground and take the mechs by surprise!

Every mech pilot grew more stressed as they not only had to pay more attention to keeping a clear mind, but also be ready to move in an instant in case a lot of root spikes emerged from below.

It was quite doubtful that many of the mech pilots taking part in the assault retained their full combat effectiveness. They had yet to launch any strikes at the Emperor Tree, and already their adversary managed to shake their confidence!

Ketis considered whether she should hold another speech, but eventually decided against it. This was not the time for her men to get distracted. If they needed a second speech in order to regain their focus, then it may be better to send them back right away.

For now, she was willing to trust in their resolve and hope that their mental states recovered in the next few minutes.

"We have reached the checkpoint."

The terrain at this location was much rougher than elsewhere. Low hills and other terrain features provided enough cover for most of the mechs that took part in the assault.

The original plan was for the Larkinson mechs to hover near it with the expectation of taking shelter behind natural cover.

Nobody believed it was a good idea to follow the original plan anymore. Ketis and many others believed that the Emperor Tree had hidden a lot of root spikes underneath the surface.

It was better for the mechs to hover above ground even if they became more vulnerable as a consequence.

Their greatest priorities were to open fire at the Emperor Tree in the distance while simultaneously remaining on guard against any incoming attacks.

The melee mechs all spread out around the squads of ranged mechs.

Meanwhile, the ranged mechs all waited for more accurate targeting data to be transmitted back by the scout mechs that flew ahead.

There was not much point in relying on the targeting data provided by the scout mechs to land shots onto the wooden mechs. The lag times and other sources of interference would drastically lower the hit rate.

As such, the three expert mechs needed to carry most of the burden of this fight.

"Incoming wooden mechs! They are all standard ones! They are spreading out and making sure we cannot easily wipe them out with explosive munitions."

The three expert mechs automatically flew in another direction, thereby attempting to stay a few steps ahead of the intercepting wooden mechs.

The differences in speed were too great.

Now that the expert mechs were not forced to stay in the same place in order to retrieve a bunch of samples or protect a lumber heavy artillery mech, the high-quality machines were able to take full advantage of their superior mobility.

The Everchanger and the Promethea had already begun to fire while they continued to kite around the pursuing wooden mechs.

Fiery energy beams struck the wooden mechs one by one. No matter whether it was the Vitalus or Ignitron rifles, both of them possessed more than enough firepower to vaporize much of the torsos of the wooden constructs at once.

Even if that did not happen, the flames spread by the hyper laser beams soon made quick work of these machines!

The power of two luminar crystal rifles might not be that great in comparison to more modern high-end energy weapons, but the expert pilots were not dissatisfied with their killing speeds.

Dozens of wooden mechs burst apart or turned into burning wrecks.

In the meantime, the wooden constructs accomplished virtually nothing aside from soaking up firepower.

Their melee mechs including the ones modeled after the Flagrant Vandal mechs were simply too slow to catch up to any of the expert mechs.

The ranged mechs were all armed with relatively basic seed rifles. While the quantity of shots was impressive, it didn't really matter.

So what if the wooden mechs launched thousands of seeds at once?

Their trajectories diverged too wildly. Only a few seeds ended up hitting the expert mechs per salvo, and the damage was so negligible that the resonance shields did not even shake from the impacts.

Perhaps understanding that it was futile for the wooden mechs to hound the Larkinson expert mechs, the Emperor Tree wised up and changed their instructions.

"The wooden mechs have given up on attacking our expert mechs!"

"They are changing course. The wooden mechs are on their way to attack our rear elements!"

"Focus on repelling them first."

The enemy's decision temporarily reduced the fire support from the rear, but it had freed up the expert mechs from the annoying chore of mopping up all of the cannon fodder.

"The purple wooden mechs are on the move!"

The Emperor Tree finally decided to dispatch its elite minions!

Unlike the previous wave of enemies, the three expert pilots took the latest batch a lot more seriously.

Not only did they look tougher and much higher in quality, but the Emperor Tree had also experimented with their loadouts and other parameters.

The purple mechs no longer looked like strange imitations of the Everchanger and the First Sword anymore.

There were many among them that carried much more formidable ranged armaments. There were even purple mechs that looked like they struggled to hold an oversized cannon modeled after the Devora Cannon of the Transcendent Punisher Mark III!

Yet regardless of how much more of a challenge they posed, the response from the Larkinsons was the same.

"Burn them all down!"