Chapter 1414. Spiritual Posturing (1/2)

Within the span of a minute, the mech pilots of the Catstrikers were being pushed to the brink!

Zeigra's aggressive attacks and maneuvering made it very difficult for Lady Miralix's Kinslayer to approach from behind and savage the Crown Cat's vulnerable rear with its claws.

The huge cat was on guard after suffering from the initial surprise attack!

”This darned cat is too smart! He's ignoring us!”

The humanoid mechs of the Catstrikers did their best to hinder Zeigra from turning his ire towards the Kinslayer. The tiger mech was their only hope of tearing the crown from the powerful cat!

Despite the possibility that the cat might sabotage their mechs at any moment, the mech pilots stuck to their parts of the plan and boldly kept the raging, bleeding and berserking cat occupied!

Nonetheless, an accident still took place as soon as their only remaining knight mech braced for another attack.

Instead of fending off another claw strike, Zeigra dove straight forward and bit the side of the knight mech's shield! With a powerful heave with his neck, the Crown Cat wrenched the shield away from its former owner's grasp!

”Pull back!”

Too late! As soon as Zeigra succeeded in robbing the shield from the knight mech's possession, he quickly pounced forward and pounced the mech to the ground!

”NO!” Lady Miralix shouted! ”ATTACK! PUSH HIM OFF OUR COMRADE!”

Zeigra ignored the spear jabs, axe chops and claw attacks savaging his flanks and hind in favor of demolishing the mech it pressed down on the ground. A savage roar escaped from his throat as his claws cut its way through the thick but already-damaged chest plating of the offending mech!

The mech pilot of the trapped mech desperately wanted to eject, but he couldn't! Since the mech had fallen flat on his back, there was no way for the cockpit to eject and bring its occupant to safety!

Awful screams soon flooded the comms as Zeigra vented his frustrations at his trapped and succeeded in piercing his claws through the cockpit! The Crown Cat uttered a triumphant roar before chomping straight through the damaged chest portion of the mech!

Shortly afterwards, Zeigra lifted up his head while chewing a bite of mech sprinkled with the crushed and mangled body of a mech pilot!

Both fear and rage suffused the other mech pilots. The fate suffered by their comrade intimidated the other mech pilots, amplifying their doubts which caused them to unconsciously relent on their assault.

While Lady Miralix was under an incredible amount of strain as she tried to inflict serious damage to Zeigra, she still recognized the danger the fatality presented!

”Fight! Zeigra is right in front of us! This is no time to mourn our fallen comrade! Avenge his death by killing the perpetrator! Only then will we be able to honor his sacrifice!”

In this tense and perilous moment, Lady Miralix pushed herself and her mech to a degree that smashed her previous records!

She had planned for this fight for years! Every mech pilot who emerged from House Laterna knew they were destined to test their mettle against a Crown Cat! Her will and determination never wavered even once even when she knew that Zeigra wanted nothing more than to kill her and her hunting team and ruin all of her efforts!

Her bond with her Kinslayer deepened. If Ves still paid attention to the telemetry transmitted back to the legged transports, then he would have picked up that her connection to her mech deepened until it had reached the upper limit that her neural interface would allow!

Going any further wasn't possible as the Kinslayer's neural interface model attempted to shield her brains and psyche from the negative side effects of such a dangerous connection.

Even so, her mech moved and fought more fluidly than ever before! Zeigra continually attempted to catch the Kinslayer out, but Lady Miralix succeeded time and time again in slipping through the Crown Cat's grasp.

The Kinslayer moved in unison to her thoughts! The mech's responsiveness towards her commands had become so remarkable that she felt as if she truly embodied the machine!

This wondrous and immersive state saved the Kinslayer time and time again as Lady Miralix possessed an uncanny sense when Zeigra attempted to whirl around and launch a sudden strike!

As long as she could keep this up, she could slowly wear Zeigra down!

”Hang on, men! Keep up the fight! Don't let up the pressure!”

While the Kinslayer and the humanoid mechs barely managed to keep Zeigra contained, the removal of their only knight mech meant that the cat became a lot more unbridled!

The spearman mechs were doing their best to pierce and bleed Zeigra's flanks, but the cat's increasingly aggressive counterattacks were taking a toll onto their already degraded mech frames!

As the Felixia Catstrikers barely kept up with the raging Crown Cat in the material realm, a separate battle took place in the imaginary realm.

Different from what Ves expected when his spiritual projection neared the coordinates of Zeigra's spirituality, he encountered two spiritual entities instead of one!

One cloud of spiritual energy dwarfed over the other. A combination of instinct, cunning and brutality suffused this roiling concentration. Ves tentatively identified it as Zeigra's spirituality!

Surprisingly, hovering close to this larger concentration was a smaller and antagonistic collection of spiritual energy.

Ves immediately recognized its flavor! In fact, as its creator, Ves was more than familiar with its identity!

”Vescas! Why are you here!”

Now that he thought about it, why wouldn't Vescas be here? His first true spiritual product was a spirituality strong entity. This meant that its presence amounted to more than a miniscule hole in the imaginary realm!

Nonetheless, when Ves evaluated the spiritual presences of Zeigra and Vescas in the imaginary realm, he quickly realized that their strengths diverged significantly.

Whereas Zeigra's spirituality resembled a storm, Vescas' spirituality only measured up to a tornado.