Chapter 1185. Culpable (1/2)
The Grand Church of the Grey Martyr was an immense structure built out of a combination of stone and more advanced materials. This protected the grand church against attacks from mechs, but could prove deadly once the walls and ceilings were no longer held in place.
The rain of rocks and heavier alloys dropping over the entire group proved devastating to both the Protectors of the Faith and the mob of fanatics that attacked them! The sheer weight of them was far more than any individual could withstand!
Even the combat armor worn by the Protectors of the Faith failed to withstand the sudden rain of heavy debris! Many of them were outright killed, while those who endured less debris sustained severe injuries which their failing suits of armor desperately tried to treat!
As battle continued to rage elsewhere in the grand church, the collapsed section fell into a momentary lull of silence.
Half a minute later, a scuffed but intact armored form carefully dug out the pile of debris that settled on the ground floor. The Rising Red Dragon carefully held on to Leon who was trying to hold in his cries of pain while he held his broken and half-crushed arm.
”It hurts!”
”Shut up!” Ketis retorted as she abruptly dropped him onto the pile of debris. ”How can you Ylvainans allow your grand church to be attacked so brazenly?”
”I don't know! I never thought that the New Ylvaine Dynasty maintained such a huge presence on Kesseling VIII. It doesn't make any sense!”
Ketis didn't concern herself about Leon's mistaken assumptions. What mattered right now was surviving this attack!
”Stay put! I'm going to dig out Ves!”
She holstered her Udor and began to bend down and move aside the chunks over the spot where Ves last threw himself down to cover Gavin's body.
She used the superior mechanical strength of her Rising Red Dragon to remove the smaller pieces. As for the larger pieces, she unsheathed her greatsword and carefully sliced them up into manageable portions.
Five minutes passed by until she managed to form a small hole over the dented back of Sparous Vize.
”Are you still alive down there?” Ketis asked.
”Yeah.” Ves replied as he awkwardly held his position. ”Lucky helped me survive the collapse.”
”Meow.”
The cat crawled out from underneath his armor looking a lot less energetic.
At the moment when Ves threw his armored form over Gavin, Lucky flew above and used his energy claws to slice the largest chunks of debris! While Lucky's efforts didn't make a lot of difference, his efforts nonetheless prevented the Sparous Vize from getting overwhelmed.
As soon as Ketis dug aside enough debris, Ves carefully stood up. The Sparous Vize fared a lot worse than the Rising Red Dragon, but its quality nonetheless helped him avoid the same outcome of that of his guard detail.
His shield generator also helped take off the load during the initial impacts.
”We sure got our money's worth.” Ves said as he helped Gavin stand up and climb out of the hole.
His assistant incurred a lot of trauma. His entire body shook and he had trouble maintaining his footing on the bed of debris.
”I thought we would die!”
As Leon and Gavin tried to come to terms to the ordeal they went through, Ves turned his attention to Lucky.
”Are there any other threats nearby, Lucky?”
”Meow.”
”The fighting is already starting to die down?”
”Meow.”
”No further threats are coming?”
”Meow.”
”Okay, got it. Activate and maintain an ECM field over us to be sure. Maybe the True Believers will direct another wave of attackers at us of they think we survived the collapse of the ceiling.
”Meow!”
”I know you expended a lot of energy, but I'll make it up to you later! I'll ask for compensation directly from Madame Cecily!”
Ves felt awfully pissed as Calabast for overlooking the acute threat posed by the True Believers. She was supposed to be a spy! It was her job to be on top of these kinds of threats! How could she be so incompetent that she overlooked all the hardware and people the True Believers moved into place?
Obviously, her intelligence network wasn't up to snuff yet. Whoever fed her the information that the True Believers posed a negligible threat did a good job fooling Calabast.
Ves and Ketis moved Leon and Gavin over to a defensible position away from the collapsed ceiling. They huddled there under Lucky's ECM as the cat continued to cast his sensors in every direction.
The fighting in the main hall and outside the church started to die down. No further attackers approached their position.
Just fifteen minutes after the start of the attack, the Protectors of the Faith finally arrived at the grand church in force!
By then, the traitors among the mechs stationed at the church had already been eliminated. As for the attacking mechs that stormed the church in every direction, most of them had already been wrecked.
The Avatars of Myth did an exemplary job in fending off the attackers, taking out twenty of them with just a couple of Crystal Lords!