The Mech Touch

Since the aggressive troop of ultralifers had already covered a lot of ground, Ves' honor guard didn't have much time to prepare for battle.

Nitaa immediately signalled them to exit the mech hall and meet the approaching hostiles in a more favorable location.

"Lucky, come with us as well. We need your claws."

"Meow!"

This time, Lucky was much less reluctant to obey orders. He happily jumped on top of Nitaa's thick helmet and perched on it as if he was sitting on a throne!

One honor guard remained behind as an insurance. As powerful as the Odineye turned out to be, Nitaa didn't trust it to detect every possible threat. If some stealthed infiltrator managed to avoid its gaze, Ves might easily get attacked when he thought he was safe!

For this reason, the remaining honor guard hovered very close to Ves. Even though he felt this was a bit excessive, the alternatives were worse.

It took less than a minute for the honor guard to pick their battlefield. They chose a relatively large space that was interspersed with various cargo containers. It was evidently used as a secondary loading hall, so it was both large and full of objects to hide behind.

However, the ceiling was fairly high so anyone who flew upwards would enjoy a commanding view of the loading hall.

As Ves tracked the positioning of his honor guard, he found it curious that they chose to spread out and take cover by themselves.

Barely twenty seconds passed before the soldiers entered the hall. They did so quickly and professionally. Not only did they avoid clumping up too much as they passed through the entrance, a couple of them also started to launch grenades that released a lot of sensor-blocking particles upon impact.

The hostiles detected the presence of the honor guard in advance!

"Damn. I guess they're not that easy to fool." Ves observed.

It wasn't difficult to detect the suit signatures of his honor guard. Their medium and heavy suits of combat armor were designed for frontline combat, not for preparing ambushes. Their energy signatures simply couldn't be hidden!

Despite detecting enemies up ahead, the ultralifers refrained from storming forward. Even if their sensors told them that there were only eleven armored enemies ahead, they did not assume their superior numbers would avail them in a fight.

At the very least, they had to be careful enough to prevent unnecessary casualties!

Different from the honor guard, the ultralifers still kept their fireteams together as they spread out. Four to six troopers stuck close to each other as they moved as a single unit.

That made them a lot harder to deal with. Each member of a small fireteam possessed a different specialty and responsibility. One carried a heavy weapon while another specialized in treating the wounded.

No one opened fire yet. No one stuck out their necks. While the sensor-blocking particles prevented the enemy from detecting their presence from a distance, the ultralifers suffered from the same problem, if to a lesser degree!

Their suit sensors were already configured to bypass the blockage to the best of their abilities. This allowed them to maintain a firm picture on the positions of the honor guard.

As the fireteams distanced themselves from each other, they seemed poised to close the net. Once they confirmed that there were no other enemies besides the eleven unknown soldiers, the ultralifers would definitely take action!

Yet before their commanding officer could issue any orders, Lucky took action first!

Without anyone noticing it, a black blur shot out from beneath the feet of one of the soldiers and directly clawed the man's brains!

This time, Lucky didn't hide his phasing powers. The sensor-blocking particles that inhibited sensors also inhibited communications, which meant that he was much more free to unleash his powers!

Before the remaining members of the fireteam could turn around and respond, Lucky dove into the crate that the fireteam had pressed up against and disappeared!

Seconds later, a black blur emerged from another cargo container. Two different armored troops lost their lives in an instant as the insides of their heads turned into sliced ham!

As more soldiers died in an inexplicable fashion, the ultralifers did not choose to retreat.

Instead, they threw all caution to the wind and stormed forward!

"KILL THE FOREIGNERS!"

"LRA FOREVER!"

"LIFE IS SUPREME!"

Heavily-armed soldiers covered with bone-like plating coated in green jumped out of cover and surged forward heedless of the tiny terror that was harvesting their lives at a steady rate!

Yet as deadly as lucky could be, he did not excel at group attacks!

It was at this moment where the difference in gear became evident.

The energy and physical attacks that struck the exposed armor sections of the honor guard either bounced away or only inflicted minor damage. While the Breyer alloy that covered their forms was not the most resilient second-class material, it was still a notch above what the locals utilized!

In contrast, the heavy assault rifles wielded by the Larkinson troops achieved good results against the bone armor worn by their opponents.

While the ultralifers possessed an abundant amount of passion, their funding was not as high! They were just a fringe group that attracted modest support from fellow sympathizers. While their elite units might be better equipped, an ordinary strike force like the current one was equipped with much more standard gear!

The disparity in quality quickly became evident as the well-trained honor guard managed to gun down numerous opponents despite their relatively tough shells.

"Employ kinetic attacks! Their bone armor is much less capable of withstanding physical damage!"

The bone armor was much more capable of dispersing the energy of incoming laser and positron beams. While they broke eventually, the time it took to do so was too long.

Loud impacts sounded from both sides as the soldiers pummeled each other with their heavy rifles. As they drew closer, they also started to employ other weapons.

Each honor guard was capable of launching grenades from the shoulder of their suits. At a certain point, they simultaneously launched their payloads in order to achieve as much surprise as possible.

The grenades issued to the honor guard were laced with higher-quality exotics. Their explosive fury was much greater than regular consumables!

While the ultralifers mostly managed to survive the blasts due to the protection of their combat armor, they did not come out of it unscatched.

Of course, the enemy utilized grenades as well. The honor guard frequently had to reposition as their cover and their surroundings got blasted by explosives with various effects!

The ultralifers appeared to be fond of acid grenades. Whenever they exploded, they spread highly corrosive substances onto every nearby surface.

Even Breyer alloy was unable to withstand the corrosion! The armor of the honor guard sizzled as the upper layers began to dissolve.

While the acid alone wasn't enough to penetrate their armor, the affected sections had been weakened to such a degree that a strong attack might be able to punch through!

This was exactly what happened as one Larkinson honor guard moved backwards in order to avoid getting surrounded. As he moved, a soldier happened to fire a powerful positron beam that bore straight through a weakened section located on the left leg.

"AHHHH!"

"No!"

While Lucky was steadily killing hostiles left and right, the ultralifers advanced so quickly that more honor guards sustained considerable damage.

This was especially when the ultralifers whipped out their more unconventional attacks!

One soldier that was weighed down by lots of gear began to open some containers. Strange lizards emerged from them and raced towards their targets remarkably quickly.

While many of the odd lizards got shot before they reached their destination, their hide was tough and covered with enough scales to withstand a couple of attacks. Once a surviving lizard managed to get close, the beast jumped and crushed the rifle held by an honor with its jaws!

The crushing force of the lizard was so high that the weapon was already beginning to crack!

Even though it was still able to fire, it was much harder to aim and turn with a hefty lizard hanging over the weapon.

The honor guard threw away the bitten gun and pulled out a pistol with one hand and unfolded an axe with the other hand!

Elsewhere, Nitaa achieved a much greater impact. Instead of hiding behind cover, she jumped out of it. Many attackers couldn't resist and fired their weapons at the enemy that was stupid enough to appear in the open!

However, none of their attacks had any effect as the Unending alloy that Ves had personally applied to the exterior remained unaffected!

Nitaa was aware of the advantages of her gear. Her tall form stormed forward as her heavy rifle blasted every enemy that attempted to shoot at her. Gauss round after gauss round flung out of the kinetic portion of her weapon and cracked through bone plating with considerably greater force than the shots fired by the rest of the honor guard!

Even though her rifle was achieving a good effect, Nitaa quickly holstered it once she drew closer to the enemy. Instead, she withdrew a foldable sword that was similar to the ones issued to the other Larkinson guards.

Yet as her armored bulk slammed into the form of one bone-suited ultralifer and cut the sword across the armor of another enemy, it became clear that this was no ordinary sword!

Although it took considerable force to cut the blade through solid bone plating, the fact that it was capable of doing so at all took many ultralifers by surprise!

"Avoid that sword!"

"Don't get close to this monster!"

Her close proximity along with her thundering approaches didn't produce too many kills, but that was because the ultralifers desperately wanted to avoid a close confrontation. Their fireteams quickly lost cohesion as they were forced to run away in order to stay out of the range of Nitaa's Unending alloy-reinforced sword!

Two ultralifers wielding hammers eventually approached. These melee champions wore a different model of bioarmor that provided much greater muscular enhancement. Not only did they run faster, but they also exerted more force as they swung their hammers at Nitaa from two different directions!

At the same time, the soldiers who were further away fired their weapons at Nitaa's helmet. They tried to do their best to distract the deadly honor guard and prevent her from concentrating on the attacks up close!

Their plan worked to an extent. The hammerheads glowed at the last second, causing their kinetic impact to become several times heavier.

BANG! BANG!

Even though Nitaa's combat armor miraculously remained untouched, her body nonetheless bent and flipped over because her suit wasn't able to mitigate the displacement force!

One of the hammer-wielding soldiers attempted to swing his weapon towards her helmet while the other attempted to pry the unnaturally powerful sword from Nitaa grip.

"MEOW!"

Fortunately, Lucky had come to her aid! A black blur managed to bypass all of the bone armor and instantly destroy the brain of the soldier who attempted to swing his hammer again.

This gave Nitaa enough of an opening to kick at the enemy attempting to steal her weapon before closing in to stab the would-be thief in the faceplate!

Soon enough, the battle ended. Despite their superior numbers and despite their weird methods, the ultralifers attempting to hunt down Ves had met their end.

Nitaa looked dissatisfied as she took stock of her injured men. This was the first test of the honor guard, and it became clear that their performance was anything but satisfactory!

"We only managed to get this far due to a cat." She sighed.

He was the most prolific killer of this battle. Over half of the enemy soldiers had died to his claws!

"Meow…"

Even though he looked a bit exhausted due to all of the phasing he performed, Nitaa felt ashamed that a cat managed to outclass her entire unit!

The honor guard had to obtain better gear!