Chapter 44 Eighteen For Eighteen!

"Look! He has made his way up the tallest building! And his men are setting up formation in a wide semi-circle around his position.! Perfect!" I cried out. "They'll just stand their ground and let the Black Salamanders come to them while Da Jun snipes the living daylights out of them!"

"Stop looking at the Giant Pegasi and look at the Black Salamanders. You won't like what you see." Emma chuckled lightly.

I turned around to study the Black Salamanders. Their scouts have returned and they were…

"What on earth are they doing?" I asked incredulously.

"Weapon combination." Emma replied smugly. "It is a Whitefrost Clan special development. "We are able to combine weapons to increase their grade. As you can see, all the mechas in the Black Salamander company had sacrificed their armor modules to open up more weight allocation for their rifles. As such, they are all carrying their original light rifles as well as an additional medium rifle!"

"WHAT! I didn't know that's possible! You… You cheated!" I accused Emma.

"Haha! Of course I didn't cheat. YOU didn't do enough due diligence before placing your bet! You only have yourself to blame if you lose!" Emma cackled evilly with glee.

"Grrrr. Cheater." I grumbled. But despite my misgivings about not knowing that the light mechas were able to combine their weapons, my eyes were shining.

"This is incredible! We're going to have a mecha shootout!" I thought eagerly to myself.

The Black Salamander light mechas quickly set up their weapon combinations.

"Two light rifles can combine to become a medium rifle, two medium rifles can combine to become a heavy rifle, and two heavy rifles can combine to become an ultra heavy rifle." Emma explained generously.

I have noticed this about Emma. Although she is generally impatient and short tempered, she is surprisingly patient when teaching. I have benefited from that patience of hers while she was teaching many times.

"Combined weapons provide an unparalleled flexibility for lower grade mechas to fight above their classes. However, they are not without weaknesses. A combined weapon is much less durable compared to a normal weapon of that grade.

The logic behind it is actually very simple. A high grade weapon deals with a much higher amount of firepower and energy. As such, detachable parts from a lower grade weapon are unable to last very long.

This is especially true for light rifles combined to become an ultra heavy rifle. In the best case scenario, such a rifle could only fire six times before breaking down completely. In most cases, being able to fire four times would already be a cause of celebration."

"Are they making ultra heavy rifles?" I frowned deeply. If all the light mechas sacrificed their medium and light rifles, they could end up with eighteen ultra heavy rifles, one heavy rifle and one medium rifle. Although the remaining thirty would be unarmed, the eighteen ultra heavy rifles would be enough to destroy the entire Giant Pegasi company.

The Black Salamander Company was truly an impressive company.

"It appears so. An ultra heavy rifle will have no problems piercing the armor of the heavy mechas!" Emma said with barely suppressed excitement. Whether she was excited about the upcoming battle or the one thousand credits that she thought she was about to win, I had no idea.

"They have absolutely no armor though. Even simple machine gun fire can totally wreck them." I pointed out.

"They had no chance to survive the heavy mechas' heavy rifle fire in the first place. Might as well go all out on offence." Emma shrugged. "It's a shrewd strategy. I like it."

"They only have twenty armed mechas against Da Jun's fifty! That's insane! Plus they have very little margin for errors. If we go by your estimation of four shots per ultra heavy rifle, they only have 72 shots before their rifles break down." I noted. "They have less than one and a half shots per enemy mecha!"

"No problems." Emma grinned at me. She was probably already thinking what she could do with my thousand academy credits.

The Black Salamander light mechas quickly finished their work and true enough, twenty mechas wielding large ultra heavy rifles, a medium rifle and a heavy rifle appeared. Twenty of the remaining thirty partnered themselves with a rifle-bearing mecha each and they began to disperse. The remaining ten took to the skies once more to maintain a supply of up to date information regarding the enemy's positions and movements.

Half of the ten who took to the skies began to pepper the northern Giant Pegasi groups with their light grenades. Although they did next to no damage to the heavy mechas, they made a huge ruckus and drew the attention of the heavy mechas north.

PEW! PEW! PEW!

The heavy mechas opened fire at the light mechas.

However, the Black Salamander pilots showcased their impressive skills and completely dodged the sporadic heavy rifle fire by the seven mechas in the northern group.

"That's some impressive flying by the Black Salamanders." I commented to Emma.

"Indeed. The Black Salamanders are really famous for their ace pilots." Emma said. "But today, the stars of the show aren't the fliers. Look! The twenty light mechas wielding the ultra heavy rifles are almost in position!"

She was right.

The group of forty light mechas had managed to stealthily position themselves in several half-destroyed high rise towers in the south-eastern area of the training ground - placing the heavy mecha groups well within range of their ultra heavy rifles, but placing themselves just slightly beyond the range of the heavy mechas' heavy rifles.

It was the perfect sweet spot, the result of excellent scouting work.

After a few seconds of coordinating their targets, the Black Salamanders opened fire.

BO-BO-BO-BOOOOOMMM!!!

Several loud shots rang out almost simultaneously.

SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!!!

Red paint exploded on eighteen unlucky mechas of the southern groups and instantly, their heavy mechas powered down.

"EXCELLENT SHOTS!" Emma whooped for joy. "Eighteen for eighteen!!"