Chapter 921: Myceloid Melee

Max thrust forward with his blade, impaling two of the green-skinned Myceloids on the jagged steel, then swung the sword up and overhand, stopping the blade halfway through the forward strike to toss the bodies off and into the crowd.

That was what these creatures wanted to see. They wanted glory, the chance to slay a champion, and that's what they could get with the two Command Units and the three Hunter Suits in the group.

Max smashed a smaller Myceloid to the side with his shield, throwing it at an unoccupied Android, and then engaged with the largest opponent that he could find. To these creatures, size was equivalent to strength, and they had no concept of the advantage that advanced robotics could offer a smaller unit.

They did understand the tensile strength and yield points of metals, though, and they would target specific areas that they believed to be weaker based on their species' experiences fighting against similar targets.

The overgrown Myceloid parried the first two of Max's strikes but didn't expect the kick to the knee that took him down and left the back of his neck open for a decapitation. Max stepped smoothly over the body as he pushed forward, keeping the formation intact with himself as the spearpoint while the rear ranks closed to form a triangular defence with Max, Nico and Khan at the points.

That was the only spot where more than one enemy could attack at once, so having the strongest fighters at them made life a lot easier on the team. A circle was clearly the better choice in most cases, but the concept of a Champion was so ingrained into these creatures' minds that the triangle formation actually caused them to line up to fight the corners instead of trying to push through the middle.

[This is a wonderful hunting trip.] Khan laughed as she hacked apart another of her opponents.

[I'm glad you like it. We will have to make a point to schedule another outing.] Max replied with amusement in his tone.

Nico was uncharacteristically silent as she fought, but every now and then, she would sound the war horn signal to draw a larger opponent to herself.

Her mind was entirely on the battle, and Max realized that the formation was going to have to move soon. The bodies were beginning to pile up as the number of targets dwindled, and the remaining Myceloids were likely to retreat if they were that heavily outnumbered.

[Squad Two fall back into the second rank as reserves. Squad One, close ranks and shrink the formation.] Max ordered, allowing the remaining enemies to have a more even-looking fight with the front ranks.

It was quickly turning in Max's favour, though, as the Androids were becoming accustomed to this method of fighting, and the strongest of the Myceloids had long since fallen.

The battle quickly turned from a fight to a slaughter as Max ordered the Mecha to switch their Disruptors to wide pattern beams. The Disruptors tore apart the bodies of the weaker Myceloids, leaving nothing but ash, and the remainder of the force vanished in an instant.

"Good work, everyone. Purge the battlefield with the Fusion Flamers. We can't afford to be creating more spore fields today. Once that is done, we can head back to camp and pick another target for tomorrow." Max instructed.

The cleanup was brutally efficient, and they were on their way back to the base within half an hour. It made for a short outing, but they didn't want to get stuck outside the camp too long due to a miscalculation that led to them getting swarmed.

Instead, they would pick and challenge groups that they wanted to fight with the hope that it kept the enemy off balance so they wouldn't be able to focus on where the group was going to attack next.

Once the battlefield was clear, they made a quick retreat to the camp and parked their Mecha outside a Command tent where they could start making plans for the next wave of attacks.

"Should we call in more troops? If we want to purge the planet, a few hundred thousand more Mecha would do a fine job of it." Max suggested.

"They would all have to be redesigned for the strange conditions here. I think it would be a lot of trouble, but the Alliance is working on a way to close the Anomaly entirely. Once they have a strategy that they think will work, we will retreat and leave this place to the Myceloids." Huntress Khan explained.

Nico frowned. "They're thinking that something that absorbs energy might be enough to close the anomaly, the way that too much energy destabilizes it and causes it to grow? That's a possibility, but in the region near the other anomaly, Antimatter only made things worse because it destabilized the subspace layers.

Have you had a chance to try out our technology for opening a portal that leads to another layer? We have only managed to stabilize access to one layer, but we have evidence of at least one, and possibly two more, thanks to the way that the Darklings move about."

"Yes, they are thinking of something like a stabilized microscopic black hole, which would draw all the energy in the area away from the anomaly and possibly cause it to collapse.

The other one is far too large and stable for such a tactic, and the space around it would become dangerous before it collapsed, but here, the Anomaly is so small that they think it will work." Khan agreed.

"We should open a portal to the other layer and see what we can find. If it looks the same as it does near the Koleska, then we have an answer about the likely repercussions. If it doesn't, then we are free to try new things and see what the side effects are."

Khan tapped her fingers on the table as she considered the proposal.

"How long will it take to get a device here that is capable of the test?" She asked.

"We have one in the Cutter."