Chapter 3229: Steel Rain

The smell of battle was in the air. No one in the expeditionary fleet was able to escape the likely possibility that they were about to get embroiled in combat!

It had been a long time since the Larkinson Clan as a whole actually encountered a significant threat. The majority of clansmen who had just joined up in the last year didn't know what to do for a while.

"What are we going to do?!"

"I didn't sign up for this!"

"Why aren't we evacuating civilians like us? We don't belong on the battlefield!"

"I told you guys that entering the Vulcan Empire was suicide!"

"Venerable Jannzi was right!"

An explosion of panic erupted among many Larkinsons, particularly the civilian members who were never trained for combat. Though they were warned many times that the Larkinson Clan tended to get into trouble now and then, they hadn't anticipated that this would come true this soon.

The expeditionary fleet hadn't even reached the Red Ocean? Since many people considered the Milky Way Galaxy to be relatively safe and orderly, a lot of clansmen simply couldn't accept that the clan came under threat despite not violating any laws or provoking any locals.

What did they do to deserve this treatment?

Fortunately, the panic and uncertainty among the Larkinsons did not last. The clan had already anticipated this reaction and deployed numerous soldiers and officials to reassure their fellow Larkinsons and maintain peace.

"Quiet down! You rookies haven't seen anything yet!" A veteran Living Sentinel mech pilot shouted at a crowd in Dawn City on the Vivacious Wal. "Back in my day, 50 percent casualties were the norm, but we're a lot stronger now. So what if the dwarves are barreling down on us with three mech divisions? They should have sent at least six if they want to have a chance of beating us! We've got the best mechs and the strongest weapons imaginable! Don't underestimate our patriarch. He's able to pull out one trick after another."

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"Believe in our expert pilots!" An Ylvainan preacher shouted on top of a crate in New Dorum on the Spirit of Bentheim. "The apostles who walk among us are blessed by the Great Prophet and the Bright Martyr! With Prophet Ylvaine's guidance and the Bright Martyr's blessed war machines, our clan shall vanquish any enemy that seeks to stop our ascensions. Have faith and pray to the dwarven souls that shall soon be redeemed at our hands!"

While the Larkinson Clan was being stabilized, its armed forces were all gearing up for battle. The Larkinson Army may have absorbed a lot of newcomers as well, but none of them displayed any of the panic of their civilian brethren.

The soldiers recruited into the mech legions had all been screened beforehand. None of them possessed feeble minds and shaky hearts. Even the youngest mech pilots who were still in their twenties were able to maintain their courage when a great threat loomed over their heads.

The presence of glows and the influence of the Larkinson Network helped a lot with firming up the confidence and sense of duty of the servicemen.

However, the greatest contributor was the presence of many seasoned veterans among the soldiers. As far as the participants of the Battle against the Abyss, the Battle of Reckoning and so on were concerned, this was just another tuesday. Their unflappable demeanors, their belief in the strength of their clan and their stability under pressure played a pivotal role in keeping morale among the soldiers high.

"The dwarves are tough, but we are tougher."

"The Superior Mother is on our side!"

"This is just a warm-up exercise. If we can't even beat the best of what the Vulcan Empire has to offer, how can we possibly think about finding our fortune in the Red Ocean?"

The veterans among the Avatars of Myth, Living Sentinels and so on constantly ensured that the many recruits that had joined the mech legions remained stable. The old timers all knew that these fresh mech pilots needed all of the support they could get because the pressure on their shoulders would grow unimaginably high during the heat of combat.

Despite all of their encouragement, the veteran Larkinsons were not so upbeat about the upcoming confrontation. The clan had not massaged any details about the foe they were about to face. The soldiers had extensive access to much of the verified information that Calabast had managed to collect about the incoming dwarven fleet.

The picture didn't look good. Fighting against 30,000 military-grade mechs was already a difficult prospect. The uncertainty surrounding the number of enemy expert mechs they might encounter was gnawing in the minds of every survivor of the Battle of Reckoning.

Back then, just a handful of expert mechs managed to unleash a massacre that ended the lives of far too many Larkinsons!

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There were so many different threats among the Fury Hammers, Slug Rangers and Hivar Roarers that the planners of the mech legions were pulling their hairs out. They had to come with a range of different solutions for every high-priority threat among the dwarves.

During a planning session organized by the Larkinson Clan's newest mech legion, Commander Taon Melin looked grimly at the gathered Ylvainans.

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"We have a tough battle ahead. As the artillery legion of the Larkinson Clan, it is our sacred duty to provide the firepower support that is crucial to stopping the dwarves. However, before we can stop the advance of dangerous dwarven mech such as the Molten Hammers, we must first defeat our counterparts among the dwarven force."

The conference table projected images and footage of the 34th Slug Rangers. From the dreaded Gauss Baron to its formidable array of artillery mechs, the dwarven mech division possessed a range of threatening ranged units.

One of the most acute threats was a mech regiment where Venerable Leiva Hinder came from. The Steel Rain mech regiment only consisted of 1000 artillery mechs, but that already represented a huge amount of firepower!

"According to our intelligence sources, the Steel Rain possesses the highest firepower out of all of the mech regiments of the Slug Ranger mech division." Taon continued as the projection showcased numerous variations of the same line of dwarven heavy artillery mechs. "Every Slug Ranger mech pilot has to serve in the other mech regiments first before they become eligible to join the Steel Rain. The elite mech regiment only selects the best and most resilient Slug Rangers to become a part of its ranks."

The projection then showed a preliminary analysis on the three known heavy artillery mech models utilized by the Steel Rain.

"As you can see, the Steel Rain employs three variations of the same dwarven heavy artillery mech design. They are largely identical to each other except for the caliber and amount of cannons."

Taon pointed at the model with the biggest guns.

"The Land Cracker is essentially a siege platform. It is primarily designed as a tool for orbital bombardment. It is armed with two ultra-heavy gauss cannons that can fire extremely large and dense projectiles that can literally crater entire city blocks from orbit. It is also meant to be employed as a siege machine against large and unmaneuverable threats in space such as space stations or asteroid bases."

"Is it a threat against our ships, commander?" An officer of the Eye of Ylvaine asked.

The Legion Commander nodded. "They certainly are. Even at longer ranges it can still reliably hit the hulls of most of our capital ships. Vessels such as the Vivacious Wal and the Dragon's Den won't fall apart if they are struck by a single round, but sustained bombardment by a multitude of Land Crackers will easily tear their outer hulls to pieces. Our responsibility is to stop or suppress them first. Our capital ships are the foundation of our fleet in the Red Ocean. We cannot afford to lose a single one of them. The sooner we deal with the Land Crackers, the less ships we will lose."

"Won't the Land Crackers try to do the same to us, sir? We pose a similar threat to their own fleet."

If the Larkinsons were able to understand the threat posed by the Steel Rain, the Ferrils were probably making plans to take out the artillery mechs of the Eye of Ylvaine as well!

Commander Taon acknowledged the danger they were in. "Neither of us can tolerate the existence of the other. In the early stages of the upcoming battle, it's impossible for our melee mechs to get close to the enemy fleet and vice versa. The only way to take out any artillery mech ensconced in bunkers is to blast them from a distance. With our clan, we shall bear the greatest burden. We'll certainly be outnumbered in terms of artillery mechs but we can depend on the assistance of our other ranged mechs. Nevertheless, none of them are as good at destroying bunkers as our Transcendent Punishers. We need to identify the positions of the Land Crackers as soon as possible and take them out before they can fire too many heavy caliber rounds."

The threat posed by the Steel Rain did not end at that. The Ship Cracker was a similar heavy artillery mech model that was armed with four heavy cannons. Unlike the guns of the prior variant, the Ship Cracker's armament featured a faster firing rate and a faster muzzle velocity. A large number of Ship Crackers was able to pour a consistent rain of metal that was able to chew apart unarmored vessels with ease and whittle down better-armored vessels on a continuing basis!

Unlike the Land Cracker, the Ship Cracker's faster muzzle velocity allowed it to pose a significantly greater threat to ships at longer ranges. They were able to land their projectiles with decent hit rates under those circumstances and they only grew more accurate as the distance narrowed!

They were even able to threaten slower and relatively immobile mechs at favorable ranges!

Then there was the Mech Cracker variant. Though it featured the smallest caliber out of the Cracker line, it still carried eight medium gauss cannons! The Mech Cracker's arsenal was characterized by a high rate of fire. It could unleash a torrent of projectiles that were very fast, reasonably accurate and was able to threaten entire mech companies in the open!

"I'm told the Mech Cracker doesn't usually fire solid slugs like the other two Cracker mechs." Taon warned his cadre. "Instead, it fired special fragmentation rounds that break up in flight and spread out over a small area akin to shotgun discharges. The rounds are smart so the dwarven mech pilots can program them to split at any distance. They're not just limited to close range. Now, even with eight cannons, a single Mech Cracker isn't necessarily a great threat to our mechs. However, if hundreds of them fire in a single portion of our formation at a time, our exposed mechs will either become so suppressed that they can't do anything or get killed by a thousand cuts. The tsunami of solid fragments that the Mech Crackers can unleash is also disproportionately effective at taking out exposed modules such as flight systems and booster systems. They can outright immobilize entire swarms of lighter-armored mechs!"

Though the members of the recently-established Eye of Ylvaine had boundless faith in the Great Prophet and the Bright Martyr, hearing about the formidable firepower of the Cracker line of mechs caused many to come close to questioning their beliefs.

Of course, this doubt only lasted a brief amount of time.

A white-robed woman rose from her seat and spread her arms.

"Do not despair." Priestess Samandra Avikon said. "Some of us may die, but we shall never fail in our mission. We fight alongside gods and Larkinsons. A stronger combination doesn't exist. It does not take any foresight to know that the Eye of Ylvaine will never fail! Do you know why?"

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The Ylvainans all stretched out their arms and pointed their fingers forwards!

"WE NEVER MISS!"

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