The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1760

An empty field of stars suddenly became the backdrop to a massacre!

Hundreds of mechs, many of them bearing the colors and markings of several different mercenary outfits, swarmed towards a single point in space!

That point happened to be the position of the Scarlet Rose!

All manner of missiles, lasers and projectiles slammed against the surface of the mobile supply frigate like hail impacting the roof of a house!

Though the ship’s exterior armor withstood the rain of attacks well enough, the outer layers slowly deteriorated, signifying that the ship couldn’t remain impervious forever!

Opposing them were Kravon and the Selzer.

The artillery battle bot fired its gauss cannon at a far higher firing rate than before in order to damage as many opposing mechs as possible! Its missile launchers emptied its ammunition canisters without any notion of conserving them for later.

As for the Selzer, the rifleman mech desperately fired laser after laser at the vulnerable ranged mechs. With the power of its rifle, the mech only needed a couple of shots to down a mech! Some even succumbed after suffering just a single hit!

Neither of the two ranged mechs bothered to threaten the carriers that brought these mechs into battle.

The ambushers learned from the previous attempt! Knowing that the motherships were exceptionally vulnerable against their target, the mercenaries involved in this attack had deliberately kept their vessels at a distance, thereby keeping them well out of range of the Kravon and the Selzer’s formidable weapon systems!

With no other alternative, the two battle bots could only resist the aggression by whittling down the opposing ranged mechs!

Not every mech stayed back and unloaded their firepower onto the Scarlet Rose.

A handful of mech companies bravely flew forward and attempted to close in on the fugitive ship in order to cripple her propulsion system!

As long as they could get close enough, they could probably sabotage the thrusters and engine systems in short order!

Standing in their way, the Paravin and Fliskin hovered around the Scarlet Rose protectively, fending off any melee mechs that flew too close!

The knight mech shielded the relatively immobile Kravon. Without the space knight providing cover, the former artillery mech would have gotten overwhelmed!

As for the Fliskin, the swift and agile light skirmisher covered the rear, preventing any mechs from attacking the stern of the Scarlet Rose!

Both melee battle bots exhibited superior strength, speed and defense! Compared to their third-rate counterparts, the second-class machines soundly crushed their opposition without any contest!

Although the bots did not fight in an imaginative and crushing manner, the superiority of their specs was enough to compensate for their shortcomings!

The Paravin and Fliskin did not succumb at all even when they were surrounded by dozens of mechs!

A single crushing sword chop bisected an attacking mech in an instant, prompting it to let go of its spear even as some of its components exploded, engulfing the exposed cockpit portions to the deathly aftermath!

The pilot didn’t even have the opportunity to eject!

The Fliskin fought much more insidiously. Lacking the strength and reach to cut mechs in half with its superior specs, it instead took advantage of its superior mobility to dance around its opposition.

No matter how hard the mercenary mechs tried to surround the Fliskin with a sphere-like formation, the mech cleverly flew through the cracks before the net closed in on it! Not only that, but the mech swiftly turned around and attacked the clumsy formation from the rear by stabbing its sharp and nigh-unbreakable daggers straight through the thinly protected rear of the mechs!

Though it was a lot more efficient to attack the flight systems of the enemy mechs to end their participation in the battle, the Fliskin acted on much different instruction.

It unflinchingly stabbed its daggers in the positions that best ran the blade through the cockpit!

The Fliskin moved so fast and attacked so quickly that its targets hardly had the time to eject!

Even if they did so, the mech still reacted within milliseconds and made sure to stab the escaping cockpit cabins before they got away!

A shudder swept through the backs of the mech pilots assigned to attack the Scarlet Rose and her escorts.

The casualties suffered by the coalition of mercenaries exceeded everyone’s imagination!

In their prior battles, the mercenaries rarely lost too many mech pilots. Most mechs were resilient enough to grant their mech pilots enough time to eject!

Mercenary mech pilots tended to value their lives very highly, so many of them already had their fingers on the ejection buttons or levers!

Yet even then, the two melee battle bots showed no regard for their attempts to preserve their lives! Instead, they harvested them one by one as they rapidly overwhelmed every mech foolish enough to challenge their might!

With so much blood being shed, the Zonan mercenaries quickly lost heart. The ambush wasn’t supposed to proceed this way!

According to the plan their mercenary commanders had formed, they should have just swarmed and overwhelmed the four powerful machines by sheer weight of numbers.

Ideally, they would be able to defeat the four second-class mechs and gain possession of the Scarlet Rose.

If the mercenaries failed to do so, then they hadn’t necessarily lost.

The Friday Coalition already offered them a rich reward for consuming the strength and resources of the Scarlet Rose!

The powerful state offered enough money to compensate the mercenaries of the losses they suffered and added even more money as an appreciation for their efforts!

With such rich remuneration, no mercenary corps lost out even if they were defeated in the end!

It was too bad that Ves already saw through their plan.

"I won’t allow you to enjoy a lossless transaction!"

His instructions to his autonomous battle bots forced all of them to do their best in killing the mech pilots as opposed to their mechs!

Since material losses were meaningless in the eyes of the enemy mercenary corps, Ves instead targeted the one asset that money couldn’t easily replace.

Mech pilots! In particular, loyal and skilled mech pilots!

Many of the mercenary corps participating in this ambush consisted of outfits operating for several decades.

Each of them were led by seasoned mercenary commanders who completed all kinds of difficult and bloody missions.

They might have experienced much, but Ves doubted that they encountered an enemy with the might of second-class mechs and the ruthlessness of an unscrupulous mech designer!

To prevent the mercenaries that heavily outnumbered him from overwhelming his meager forces, he had to hit them where it hurt!