While Ves showed off his tricks to his girlfriend, something significant was about to happen elsewhere.
Within the Nyxian Gap, nuclear fury engulfed a massive fortification built into a cold and frozen mountain range!
A tide of doom crawlers advanced across the rogue planet's dark and desolate surface in an implacable tide. Hundreds of broken enemy pirate mechs lay fallen in their path. None of them had managed to dent the heavy armor of the Spyre Helix Annihilators!
The performance of the Annihilators exceeded the expectations of their owners! They managed to advance fast enough to catch the occupying pirate alliance off-guard while at the same time unleash a prodigious amount of ordnance towards the fortification!
With each volley of missiles or cannons, the fortifications cracked or vaporized. No matter how deep the fortification reached, the immense amount of firepower arrayed against it rendered nearly every barrier meaningless!
Plenty of pirates managed to escape the attacks by the skin of their teeth. Some of them had been tasked with defending the fortification against the advancing doom crawlers, but after seeing hundreds of their fellow pirates being struck down by immense volleys of high-energy gamma lasers, the subsequent waves all turned tail and left!
Elsewhere in the Nyxian Gap, Cynthia Larkinson sensed something amiss, but she couldn't quite tell what was wrong.
Her diminutive body rose as she interrupted her meditation. "We need to move. The Nyxian Gap is about to erupt."
Though her husband didn't know what was going on, he trusted her judgement. He sat up from his desk and affixed his crude helmet onto his head.
"Where to?" He asked.
"The border to the Sentinel Kingdom. Opportunities await us there, but we should be careful not to stick around for long."
Upon the Dark Cleaver's orders, the growing fleet of the Oblivion Hand moved out. As dark mercenaries, they earned their keep by offering their services to the highest bidder.
Though Cynthia and Ryncol Larkinson were both being pursued, they still needed to play by the rules of the Nyxian Gap. It was time for the Oblivion Hand to earn their keep!
As an enormous conflict sparked in the Nyxian Gap, elsewhere in the Komodo Star Sector another major event took place.
In the border between the Ylvaine Protectorate and the Star Faith Collective, six different strategic border systems suddenly became host to six massive fleets!
Alarms immediately rung at one of the listening posts installed by the Star Worshippers. Though nothing more than a tiny artificial satellite parked in an asteroid belt in the outer system, the handful of Star Soldiers manning the stations looked in shock as they took in the readings.
"It's the alien lovers! They've all gone mad!"
The sensor readings returned by the outlying sensors painted an increasingly more frightening picture.
Ten combat carriers, twenty combat carriers, thirty combat carriers, forty combat carriers! The sensors kept detecting more vessels, all of them packed to the brim with military mechs!
The Protectors of the Faith committed multiple mech divisions to a surprise attack on the Creinze System, a strategic star system of the Star Faith Collective!
The worst part about it was that none of the Star Worshippers had an inkling that the Ylvainans were mad enough to launch this attack!
"Warn headquarters! Transmit all of the data as we can!" The Star Worshipper in charge commanded.
The listening post scarcely managed to transmit the first batch of highly-detailed sensor data before a missile struck the well-hidden listening post!
Though situated a distance away from the translation point of the Ylvainan fleet, the Kronons already prepared this operation for at least a year. They knew the location of every listening post and already put assets into place to take them out and deny the enemy detailed readings!
Despite taking out the listening posts and other vulnerable sensor sites, headquarters still received enough information to know that something was amiss!
A fist banged against a planning table!
"How can those alien lovers sneak at least three mech divisions into our star system?!" A mech general raged!
An intelligence officer looked apologetic. "They misled our observers we've placed in their border systems. We all thought the recent movements signified that the Kronon Dynasty directed their mech divisions to the other side of their state to bolster their defenses against the sandmen."
"How can you miss something as obvious as their direction?!"
"We failed to track the progress of their fleet movements! Our current guess is that they traveled to a minor star system before turning around to cross into our border!"
The gravity of the situation became more evident as the Star Army's other bases along the border transmitted distress as well!
"Mad! The Ylvainans have all gone mad! They must have committed at least a fourth of their mech militaries to this mad venture!"
The mech general in charge of the Star Army of the Creinze System simply couldn't fathom why the Ylvainans launched an unprovoked attack on six heavily-fortified star systems at once!
Though the Kronon Dynasty committed a great number of mech divisions to their invasions, the Star Army fortified their positions at the border well. Their numbers roughly matched their opponents, but they possessed a vital defensive advantage.
As soon as the mech general thought about the defensive turrets and orbital platforms, his panic subsided.
"Why are they launching this attack?" Another mech officer asked. "They can't hope to dislodge us from our star systems as long as entrench ourselves!"
"This isn't an invasion." The general mulled. "It's a raid. The Ylvainans can't possibly mean to invade us while the sandmen are about to crash into their territory. I believe they intend to inflict as much damage as possible in order to shock us into paralysis. As long as they manage to destroy our infrastructure, we won't be able to pose a realistic threat to the Protectorate for at least a year! They can rest easy and devote most of their attention to repelling the sandmen!"
That was exactly what the Star Worshippers didn't want to see! The Star Army built up a significant presence in the Creinze System and the other star systems under assault as launching points for a future invasion into Protectorate space.
Destroying and crippling the infrastructure, supply depots and bases on Creinze IV and other occupied planets made a future invasion much more difficult, to the point where the Star Army would certainly choose to waste valuable time in rebuilding what they lost!
Three Kronon mech divisions numbering at least thirty-thousand mechs bore down on Creinze IV. Half of them consisted of spaceborn mechs, which took the lead in escorting the massive raiding fleet to the garden-like planet.
The Star Army responded in kind by deploying their spaceborn mech regiments in a defensive posture.
Yet even as they hugged their orbital defense platforms, the extra firepower and defensive cover barely made a difference!
Hundreds of huge, identical mechs deployed in front of the Kronon invasion fleet and put their huge tower shields in front of vulnerable ranged mechs.
As soon as a defensive platform fired a laser at one of the Ylvainan defensive mechs, a shimmering layer of energy appeared over the surface of the shield and withstood most of the energy!
"For the prophet!"
"For the Kronon Dynasty!"
"For the Bright Martyr!"
Though the new mechs withstood a bit less damage than the heavy space knights deployed by the Kronons, the appearance of these strange new mechs strangely invigorated all of the Ylvainan mech pilots!
Upon closer inspection, the Star Army managed to identify the new model as the Aurora Titan, a commercial mech model!
Despite its inadequacies compared to proper military mech models, its protective aura along with the significance of its designer firmed the hearts of every Ylvainan mech pilot on the battlefield!
"They just won't fall! No matter how much we fire at them, they aren't showing signs of faltering!"
The Ylvainans struck the first blow. Each and every Kronon taking part in this surprise attack had mentally prepared themselves to fight for the Protectorate and the Ylvainan Faith!
They knew that so long as they let the Star Faith Collective watch the Protectorate fend the sandmen off by themselves, the Star Army would inevitably take advantage and take the final prize!
Therefore, the brightest strategic minds of the Kronon Dynasty decided upon a very bold course of action.
Smash the noses of the Star Worshippers before the sandmen invasion arrived at their doorsteps!
With the Aurora Titans serving their vital function, the fanatical Ylvainan mech divisions managed to get close enough to destroy the defensive platforms and push back the spaceborn mech regiments of the Star Army.
"We shall grind the stars beneath our boots!"
The Star Worshippers had genuinely been caught by surprise. The short amount of time since the arrival of the Ylvainans into the Creinze System hadn't been enough to firm up their resolve. Every Star Worshipper thought that they would be the ones to invade their enemies, not the other way around!
These differences all proved pivotal as the spaceborn mechs of the defenders continued to give ground until they lost orbital supremacy over Creinze IV.
While the Star Army's spaceborn mech forces managed to retain most of their strength, they could barely keep their Ylvainan counterparts busy while they desperately tried to reconsolidate their disarrayed units.
The Kronon fleet inflicted such a shock that they easily managed to make enough room to land half of their combat carriers to the surface of Creinze IV.
All over the planet, several combat carriers landed at each local site. Nonetheless, most of the combat carriers landed near the capital city and the site of the main base and headquarters of the Star Army!
The combat carriers muscled their way through a torrent of anti-air fire. Some of the vessels opened their mech bays and released hundreds of aerial mechs, which quickly started to shoot fixed emplacements!
Most combat carriers managed to land on the ground intact. As soon as their hatches slid open, entire landbound mech companies and mech regiments started to form up into loose ranks.
Though the Kronons predominantly fielded their own mechs, some mech regiments were different.
They decided to form entire mech companies out of two distinct commercial mech models!
The Blackbeak and the Crystal Lord! When paired together, their effective performance did not fall short compared to regular military mech models, especially when piloted by highly-trained Kronon mech pilots!
What was more, the collective auras they exuded overlapped to such a great degree that they began to encompass every Ylvainan mech committed to the invasion!
"Bright Martyr! Bright Martyr! Bright Martyr!"
Before the landed mechs proceeded to assault the main base on Creinze IV, one last combat carrier landed amidst the throng of mechs and ships.
Different from the other combat carriers, the latest vessel exhibited a different coating from all of the mech regiments deployed for this assault. The vessel also lacked the standard Kronon heraldry affixed to every mech and ship.
"The Inquisition." The hushed whispers rang through the comm channels of the Kronon mech regiments.
Once the hatch slid open, a single, resplendent mech stepped forward.
One of the six Transcendent Messengers of the Ylvaine Protectorate made a personal appearance.
"Zeal."
Another series of whispers propagated through the channels. This time, they all sounded reverend, as if the Zeal deserved nothing less.
The three leading dynasties constantly argued over committing all six Transcendent Messengers to this risky operation. Yet the approaching sandmen threat convinced the radicals that the Protectorate had to succeed.
Not a single assault could fail! As long as the Star Army still retained one of their forward bases, they would always be able to press a knife into the back of the Protectorate!
Facing two existential crises at once, the leaders of the Protectorate decided that they needed to pull out all of the stops!
Taon Melin glanced at the thousands of Kronon mechs forming up on the local plot. His mech, the Zeal, raised its sword arm upwards and pointed the tip of the weapon in the air.
"The Great Prophet is watching over us. The Bright Martyr is watching over us! Will we allow these degenerate Star Worshippers to trample over the Protectorate our ancestors worked hard to build?"
"No!"
"Will we allow our faith to fall in front of the Great Prophet?"
"No!"
"Will we disgrace ourselves by allowing the great works of the Bright Martyr to come to harm?"
"No!"
"Then fight! You are the Protectors of the Faith, and it is time for you to embody your titles! Attack!"
The Zeal chopped its sword towards the Star Army's fortifications with force!
At the same time, Melin's conviction resonated with the intense faith and zeal of his hero mech, amplifying its aura! Its reach and intensity expanded considerably, causing every Kronon mech pilot within range to feel unprecedentedly sacred!
"YLVAINE SHALL PREVAIL!"