<h4>Chapter 2393: Mortis Greyson</h4>
The Gravada Knax. The proud ship bore her unusual-sounding name with pride.
No one knew why the Allidus Alliance bestowed this name to her. It sounded as if she was named after someone, but Gravada Knax could also be named after a or star system.
Whatever the case, the Gravada Knax had acquired an infamous reputation in the Nyxian Gap. Even in the core regions where the spatial warping and other anomalies caused manyplicated systems to fail, the Gravada Knax had managed to remain intact for decades.
This was an incredible feat considering that any MTA or CFA warfleet that ventured in the core regions always suffered unavoidable losses sooner orter.
Few people were aware why the Gravada Knax remained safe and sound. This was despite the fact the Allidus Alliance continually upgraded her with energetic exotics! These materials were more prone to exciting the dangerous forces of the Nyxian Gap.
Any Nyxian pirate that had lived in the region for a few years knew that gathering too many potent but unstable exotics was a recipe for disaster. The higher the concentration, the greater the chance of something going wrong!
This was why few pirate factions followed in the footsteps of the Allidus Alliance and built their own warships. They could not guarantee that their new gships would be safe from the disasters that had spelled doom for many grand works in the Nyxian Gap!
Only a small number of high-ranked pirate leaders knew of a way to stave off disaster. Certain groups and natives from the Nyxian Gap imed to possess the power to prevent or suppress the onset of anomalies.
The Hallowed Abyss Temple was one of the most prominent organizations to make this im!
While it sounded ridiculous that a group of weird cultists were able to affect the fabric of reality inside the Nyxian Gap, they had proved ability plenty of times for the people in the know to take them seriously.
Therefore, at the small cost of letting the Temple erect shrines in their territories, the pirate lords all gained a measure of security.
What even fewer people knew was that the Hallowed Abyss Temple forged even deeper ties with certain pirate factions. Lord Hivex of the Allidus Alliance possessed a deeper rtionship with the Watchers of the Temple. More figures in ck and grey robes roamed the ships and bases of the Allidus Alliance than anywhere else. Some of the Allidus pirates had even converted to the cult!
Right now, the intermingling between Allidus and the Hallowed Abyss had led both of them to push for a confrontation against the Larkinson n.
Standing in the middle of the huge and expansive bridge of the mighty Gravada Knax, two powerful figures observed the battle through therge central projections.
One of the figures was arge, imperious-looking man. Wearing a resplendent suit of chrome-like armor that was bedecked with trophies and marks, Lord Hivex truly exuded the aura of one of the most pirate lords of the Nyxian Gap.
Despite his sess and rise to power, nobody knew where Lord Hivex came from. His origins were a mystery, and so were his aims. So far, he single-handedly raised the Allidus Alliance to a formidable power in the core regions through abination of shrewd decisions and ruthless determination.
He was the first in the Nyxian Gap to order the construction of an armed warship! Though he took a lot of risks for doing so, his gambit paid off. With the help of a strong and overpowering warship, hardly any other pirate faction wanted to challenge Allidus Alliance!
Such a figure should have been at the height of his power at this time. Yet oddly enough, the imposing pirate leader had adopted a restrained posture. It was as if he was not the ultimate authority in the formidable pirate fleet.
This was all due to the other figure that stood besides the legendary pirate lord.
Few Nyxian pirates were able to recognize his ck-beared appearance underneath his ragged but thick ck robe. Since the battle hadmenced, the dark figure had done nothing but observe the projections of the ongoing battle.
At some point, the robed figure stirred. Lord Hivex noticed the movements.
"ck Watcher Ortis, is there something amiss?"
"Something is stirring. The Larkinson n.. is more powerful than I expected. The Dark Gods are right to be concerned." A gravelly voice responded.
Lord Hivex slightly shook his head. "If this is the extent of the Larkinsons, then I do not see the need for your Temple to intervene. This vessel is already pounding their assets into scrap. I admit that those approaching suicide ships are of some concern, but our enemies think too lightly of our firepower.
The Gravada Knax had already destroyed or knocked out a number of unusualbat carriers.
From the modifications made to them, it did not take long for the Allidus pirates to conclude the second-ssbat carriers had all been converted into suicide ships.
Ever since Lord Hivex discovered this fact, he ordered the Gravad Knax to prioritize taking them out. As long as all nine of her main cannons concentrated their fire on a given ship, not even the ships built by Hexers were able to withstand the damage!
The broken fragments of many of these ships littered the surrounding battlespace. Their potent, explosively payloads drifted off into space without the chance of detonating against their intended targets.
If this pace of destruction continued, none of the Hexer suicide ships should be able toe anywhere close to the Gravada Knax!
Yet as time went by, the ck Watcher continued to sense something dangerous. He tried tomune with his dark god.
As a ck-robed member of the Hallowed Abyss Temple, he outranked the Grey Watchers. Usually, important figures like him were stationed at the physical location of the temple or particrly important outposts.
The Gravada Knax happened to be his current station. His presence alone bestowed powerful, mysterious capabilities to the heavy cruiser!
In fact, Lord Hivex and a handful of other Allidus leaders believed that ck Watcher Ortis alone contributed as much to the ship as one or two of her mighty turrets!
This meant that anything that made the ck Watcher uneasy was enough reason for Lord Hivex to put his guard up. He knew that the Larkinson n was still holding some of its strength back, but what could they possibly do against the pride and joy of his fleet?
"Not good!" The ck Watcher uttered and pointed at the map! Over there!"
"What is it, Your Excellency?!"
"A storm is brewing! It''s toote!"
As the battle between the two forces became more intense, a sudden change swept over the pirate fleet.
Some time earlier, the Penitent Sister mech that received a special from Ves had snuck forward amidst the chaos. The Hexer mech pilot deliberately chose to swing around in order to avoid the brunt of fire pouring down the middle.
Even though her mech stood out a bit, no one paid attention to a single odd mech amidst an ocean of mechs. Most pirates dismissed her machine as a scout, which suited her just fine.
It wasn''t until she crossed a certain line that a number of pirate mechs received orders to block her from approaching further. Scout or not, letting any sneaky enemy get too close was not a good idea!
Once she recognized that she could go no further, the Penitent Sister decisivelyunched the torpedo.
The specially-constructed torpedounched forward. Its powerful thrusters immediately elerated forward at a rate of eleration that could make Tusa jealous!
The odd torpedo immediately attracted the attention of the pirates that were tasked with intercepting the lone mech. It took some time for them to report their findings to their superior, who in turn had to report to an Allidus officer.
By the time the pirates directed some of their fire against the odd torpedo, the mysterious projectile had already crossed a fair distance. In the meantime, its thrusters kept increasing its forward speed. This not only made it more challenging tond a hit, but also decreased the time it reached its target!
"Damn, what is up with this missile?! Why haven''t you shot it down already? It''s practically racing forward in a straight line!"
"But boss, we did hit a bunch of times. It didn''t go down!"
"What?! Are you serious?!"
This was not any torpedo. Ves had not only used up plenty of Breyer alloy and some other precious materials, but he also reinforced its nose and forward sections with ayer made out of scraps of extremely valuable Unending alloy!
"The big missile, no, torpedo, is heading straight at the Mortis Greyson!"
"I have a bad feeling about this. Tell those ship boys to shoot it down!"
The Mortis Greyson was the second-most powerful warship of the pirate fleet. While her dimensions and tonnage paled inparison to the Gravada Knax, the destroyer and her formidableser cannon turrets formed a powerful deterrent against both Penitent Sister mechs and lightly-armored Larkinson ships alike!
Just like the Gravada Knax, the Mortis Greyson possessed its own suite of secondary gun batteries. While they were primarily designed to fight against hostile mechs, they also functioned as point defense.
Since the Mortis Greyson was already directing a prodigious amount of power reactor output to her primaryser cannons, the destroyer opened fire with a formidable array of ballistic cannons.
Though fairly inurate by nature, theirrge quantities along with the support of advanced ship systems caused them tond a lot of hits against the iing torpedo.
To the ship crew''s surprise, none of the impacts managed to take out the odd torpedo! In fact, other than slowing it down a bit, the enemy projectile began to unleash an even greater burst of eleration, giving very little time for the pirates to direct more fire in its direction!
"It''sing close!"
"Careful!"
Before everyone knew it, the torpedo reached the Mortis Greyson!
The torpedo thudded against her hull with so much force that its Unending alloy nose pierced straight through the thick but softer hull ting!
Many of the pirates aboard the pirate destroyer had braced themselves and unfolded the helmets of their vacsuits or hazard suits over their heads. Each of them expected some kind of explosion to detonate inside the ship.
Yet as half a minute passed, the pirates slowly rxed. They looked confused at each other.
Was the torpedo a dud? Had the Larkinsons screwed up somehow? What was the point ofunching this powerful and expensive torpedo at their ship?
"Send a security party to thepartment where the torpedo hasnded!" The captain ordered. "I need visuals on it immediately!"
One of the officers located thepartment the torpedo had finally breached before it bled out all of its momentum. The disturbingly-intact cylinder rested quietly as it had pushed halfway through the bulkhead leading into a storagepartment.
As the captain observed the strange torpedo through the projection, a part of him began to feel uneasy. It would have been better on his nerves if the torpedo detonated already.
A few secondster, he received a priority transmission from the Gravada Knax. Before the captain had time to y the message, the projection of the breachedpartment suddenly lost signal.
Secondster, a huge unstable wave of pressure engulfed the entire Mortis Greyson! The captain and everyone else aboard the ship screamed as they felt as if something was trying to crush their minds!
"Ahhhhh!"
Just thirteen seconds, the heads of the captain and every other crew member aboard the pirate destroyer exploded!
As blood, bone and brain tissue rained all across the interior of the destroyer, the broken spirits of the recently-deceased didn''t even have time to dissipate.
An enormous suction force dragged the spiritual remains to the location of the torpedo. As soon as every scrap of remnant spiritual energy disappeared, a silent roar erupted from the Mortis Greyson.
The surrounding ships and mechs all paused for a moment as the roar affected both man and machine!
An instantter, an unimaginably powerful force cracked the Mortis Greyson! The pirate destroyer deformed as if a huge monster was trying to escape from within!