4909 Distant Shelling



Divine Irene Mox was known to be an incarnation of death and destruction.

Countless lives perished whenever her Ragnarok sortied out to put the alien neighbors of human civilization in their place.

To humanity, the Destroyer of Worlds was one of humanity's most prominent protectors.

This was because any uppity alien empire or race instantly lost all bravado at the mere mention of a punitive expedition that included the Ragnarok!

During the four centuries of relative peace and quiet in the Milky Way Galaxy, the previously dominant aliens had often tried to test the human race to see whether the time to take back their ancestral star territories had come.

None of these incursions ever succeeded because the Big Two always deterred the greedy aliens!

There were many god mechs that undertook the vital duty of guarding humanity's sovereignty over half of the old galaxy.

Although the CFA assumed primary responsibility over patrolling the borders of human space and handling affairs relating to aliens, the MTA did not want to be left out of the party.

After all, even god pilots needed a bit of exercise every now and then. It was unconscionable for these powerful transcendents to direct their titanic might against other human groups.

Therefore, these god pilots not only undertook their protection duties with great enthusiasm, but also looked forward to any excuse that allowed them to make deep incursions into alien territory and put the inhuman populations in their place!

There were still so many alien races left in the galaxy that there were always delusional and irrational warlords among them that sought to undermine the human race in one way or another.

Ves had never traveled to the busiest and most contentious borders of the Milky Way, so he did not really have a clear impression of what went on in those regions.

He did hear stories of how certain god pilots such as the Destroyer of Worlds had become an absolute terror to many of the aliens.

She was the great human boogeyman whose attacks could never be stopped and had the capacity to destroy entire planets!

The only reason that gave the aliens a bit of comfort was that the Ragnarok was only a single god mech. It did not have the power to destroy the billions of star systems that were occupied by different alien populations in a short amount of time.

That didn't mean that the Destroyer of Worlds was harmless or useless in the greater scheme of things.

If the Big Two ever decided to put an end to the centuries-long cessation of large scale hostilities in the old galaxy, god mechs such as the Ragnarok would most definitely play a key role in quickly ending the sieges of the most strategic and fortified alien star systems.

The galactic net was filled with the expectations of many hopeful humans who literally prayed for the Destroyer of Worlds to finish the job that humanity started in the Age of Conquest.

By that time, the true twilight of the gods would commence. Powerful war machines such as the Ragnarok would sound the clarion call and lead the effort to annihilate the old alien overlords who previously reigned over the Milky Way Galaxy!

This was Ves' impression of god pilots such as Divine Irene Mox.

Although he learned later on that she not only became a guardian of the New Rubarth Empire, but also represented its interests in the Mech Trade Association by propping up its Rubarthan Faction, that did not change the public's tendency to look up to her as one of their greatest protectors!

As Ves spent a few days riding inside Venerable Irene Mox's mind, he felt as if he was witnessing the operations of a bad copy of the god pilot that he originally envisioned.

He found it hard to reconcile his image of the planet-destroying god pilot with the younger and much weaker expert pilot.

There were similarities between the two. Both pilots carried the same name. Both excelled in long-ranged bombardment. Both sought to destroy the opposition in order to protect their comrades.

However, there were also many differences that confused Ves to the point of wondering whether he was misremembering history.

Venerable Irene Mox was good at her job, but Ves had seen better expert pilots in his own clan. Her conviction was not strong enough and her primary motivation to fight at this time merely centered around taking revenge for the death of her favorite cousin.

Venerable Irene Mox was certainly talented and motivated. However, she did not show the brilliance or the special qualities that increased her likelihood of overcoming the nearly impossible bottleneck that blocked her path to becoming an ace pilot.

Venerable Irene Mox piloted a fairly good but otherwise boring expert mech. Even when Ves accounted for the differences in technological advancement, the Iron Hedgehog was nowhere near as good as the likes of the Everchanger or the Minerva. It could not even come close to reaching the level of the Ragnarok!

As Ves continued to observe Venerable Irene Mox perform her duties in conjunction with the mech battalion that she was attached to, he found that this future god pilot was… decidedly average at this point of her life.

Though Ves questioned many times whether the System stuffed him in the head of the wrong Irene Mox, far too many details matched up to allow for any other explanations.

He just had to accept that so much had changed over the following 200 years that this seemingly average expert pilot eventually won several jackpots in a row!

In a way, Ves partially felt grateful to the System for stuffing him in the mind of such a unique mech pilot at such an early stage of her life.

It told him that every expert pilot had the potential to become a god pilot in the future. Venerable Irene Mox did not possess any intrinsic qualities such as A-grade genetic aptitude or unique genetic treatments that instantly granted her unlimited potential.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

As the Iron Hedgehog sortied out yet again, all sixteen of its cannons continued to bombard a city that was so far away that it lay far beyond the horizon.

Ves learned a lot of lessons about war, about the operation of heavy artillery mechs and the operation of expert mechs.

After gathering a lot of different clues, he figured out that the Terrace War was a long-running conflict between two different puppets of the first-rate superstates.

The Bontue Republic and the Quillim Principality had already been fighting over the possession of many different star systems.

The two sides had fought for several years already and developed a lot of tacit rules in order to keep the conflict at a controllable level.

One of the more important ones was to avoid indiscriminate bombardment.

The current planet where the two sides were fighting over held a population of 14 billion citizens at its peak.

No matter how the battle for the planet played out, neither side wanted to be left with total ruins that would take many years and an excessive amount of funding and resources to rebuild.

They did not want to be left with the burden of keeping over a dozen billion people fed and docile!

Many of the citizens that lived and worked in the cities under contention had already been evacuated.

They were either brought to other population centers or were ushered into vast underground shelters that were filled with enough nutrient packs to form a mountain.

This turned much of the city into a playground for the mech forces that advanced and retreated depending on the situation.

Right now, the Quillim Mech Army held an undeniable advantage on Korinna V. It had landed many mechs on the Bontue-owned planet and maintained clear orbital superiority.

Even so, taking over fortified and actively defended cities turned out to be a slog.

Each major city on this industrial planet was like a castle that needed to be brought down one by one. They could not be skipped because the defending forces could always run out and wreak havoc in the rear of Quillim's conquered territories!

This had already been the fifth city that Venerable Irene Mox and her comrades sought to topple.

Destroying the peripheral defenses were easy. Many of the turrets, walls and bunkers should have slowed down the advance of Quillim invaders, but the Iron Hedgehog's awesome firepower quickly ruined this effort!

The Bontues weren't stupid. They already knew that if an invasion ever occurred, the outer defenses would get pounded by an excessive amount of artillery.

This was why the defenders built them extra large and extra thick. There were few space constraints at the edges of a city, so the Bontues could easily build entire networks of defensive works just outside of their most important population centers!

It would have taken a normal squad or company of heavy artillery mechs a lot more time and effort to neutralize all of these defenses.

Perhaps the Bontues already knew that these external defenses would fall, but as long as they made the invaders bleed and use up a lot of ammunition, it was already worth the effort!

The Bontues knew this. The Quillims knew this. Venerable Irene Mox knew this as well, so she put a lot of effort into breaking this game!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each heavy gauss cannon fired penetrating rounds that possessed the capacity of drilling through meters of reinforced alloys, especially when empowered by true resonance!

The high-explosive shells fired by the howitzers could inflict a lot of area destruction on softer targets!

The outer defenses did not stand a chance against Venerable Irene Mox's unreasonable firepower.

What made the Iron Hedgehog even more effective was that it was tended to by a dedicated support unit.

A pair of supply mechs along with several transport vehicles constantly replenished the expert heavy artillery mech's ammunition and topped up its energy reserves.

Once the distant city had lost its outer defenses, the real fight had begun as far as both sides were concerned.

The dense construction along with numerous tall structures made it a lot more difficult for the Iron Hedgehog to bombard fixed defenses and provide support to the advancing mech troops.

This forced the Iron Hedgehog along with much of the rearguard to advance and reposition themselves in order to gain better angles to fire at targets deeper inside the city.

The defenders also relied less on fixed defenses and more on mobile assets in order to slow down the Quillim invaders and bleed away their mechs.

In order to prevent the Quillims from leveraging their artillery to the fullest, the Bontue defenders regularly deployed their melee mechs in the streets and sent them forth to confront the intruders at close range!

"Ah! We need reinforcements at these coordinates! We are being swamped by twice as much enemy mechs!"

"Our nearest reinforcements are two minutes away from your location."

"We won't last two minutes! We need fire support at these coordinates!"

"Are you sure, captain?"

"I trust in Venerable Mox!"

When requests like these emerged, Ves mentally became more attentive as Venerable Irene Mox brought the Iron Hedgehog's firepower to bear against the distant enemy mechs fighting in the streets.

The expert pilot's mind practically turned into a supercomputer as she and her expert mech processed a lot of data sent through the command net.

Once Irene Mox locked in her target, she waited for the right moments before she pulled the trigger at specific timings!

Numerous high-explosive shells flew high into the skies and flew over many structures before descending at steep angles in the rear of the counter attacking Bontue mech units!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Though none of the shells struck the enemy machines directly, the explosions that thundered in their rear were so destructive that they inflicted moderate damage to many of the defending machines.

What was impressive about this round of bombardment was that not a single friendly mech was significantly affected by the explosions.

In fact, the Quillim mechs had been biding their time. They instantly surged with greater momentum and quickly overwhelmed the Bontue mechs that had lost their rhythm due to the earlier bombardment!

"Amazing." Ves mentally sighed in admiration.

It took a lot of trust and skill to pull off this operation!

This wasn't the only time that Venerable Mox supported her comrades in this fashion. Her Iron Hedgehog assisted the friendly mechs in taking over street after street by shelling the enemy mech troops no matter what they did to discourage long-ranged bombardment!