<h4>Chapter 3240: The Original Mankind</h4>


    Hell was raining down on both the expeditionary fleet and dwarven attack fleet.


    Though the two were slowlying closer, at this time the artillery mechs of both sides were putting their all in this fight.


    In their perception, their only opponents were their counterparts on the opposing side. The mech pilots of the artillery mechs in the expeditionary fleet gradually became familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the Steel Rain.


    At the same time, the elite dwarven mech pilots of the Steel Rain also gained the measure of their opponents. Due to their specialization, they quickly found out that their opponents were inferior in every possible way.


    The Steel Rain benefited from better mechs, stronger cannons, tougher armor, more thorough training and most importantly a heart for artillerybat!


    "Amateurs." A Steel Rain dwarf contemptuously snickered.


    The man in question was one of the Slug Rangers who had proven his skills and valor many times back when he served on a different mech regiment. His efforts to stand out from his colleagues paid off when his superiors approved of his transfer to the most prestigious brotherhood in the Slug Rangers.


    Now, the prospect of unleashing holy punishment against the arrogant humans who had the temerity to treat the sovereign Vulcan Empire as their backyard had raised hisbat state to a whole new peak!


    "Hahahaha! Break for me, tall folk!" Furga Holbarn exulted. "I will not stop until my cannons have shattered each and every one of your mutated bodies!"


    The hatred of the Vulcanites against normal humans had reached such an extreme that many of them had even begun to develop warped theories to justify their own supremacy.


    ording to one fringe theory that had gained poprity among the Dwarven God cultists as ofte, heavy gravity variant humans weren''t gically modified people at all. They were the original and most perfect version of humans!


    The reason why humanity gained the upper hand and managed to oppress and enve the once-dominant race of dwarves was because their gods had betrayed the original race of mankind!


    Dwarves were too powerful for the gods to control. Aside from the great andpassionate Vulcan that remained true to dwarvenkind, the other evil human gods had conspired against dwarves like Furga.


    Ever greedy for power and control, the treacherous gods betrayed the proper order and create a new ve race made out of mutated dwarves!


    By distorting the perfect dwarven form and turning them into spindly, tall shapes, the evil gods created a new race that was physically weaker, less intelligent and at least three times uglier. The humans that resulted from this unholy transformation became the best helpers, as they not only obeyed the traitor gods without a fault, but were also too weak and ipetent to ever rebel against their own creators!


    Furga Holbarn momentarily felt pity for his distant human opponents. How could they not realize their own captivity? Wasn''t it obvious that the gods were controlling their potential through the deceptive organizations known as the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance?


    The Big Two were evil. They were ostensibly trying to protect humanity, but the reality was that they were exploiting the ignorant humans instead. From taking away the right to wield the strongest weapons and warships to preventing people from founding proper star nations, it couldn''t be more clear to the dwarves that the evil human gods had done everything they could to keep their chattel in their cages!


    "It is the duty of every dwarf to break this falsehood!"


    The MTA and CFA were all fronts for the gods that had caused the fall of the dwarven race. If the descendants of the original race of mankind wanted to reverse this injustice, then they had to defeat the ve race and break apart the hypocritical Big Two in order to expose the evil gods that had been conspiring to limit the potential of both dwarves and humans.


    What was worse was that many dwarves had been deceived as well!


    Too many race traitors in the Vulcan Empire had chosen to take shelter under the MTA, preferring to rely on the very gods that had inflicted a great injustice on the dwarves to preserve their meager existences.


    The first step to tear down the evil gods was to free the dwarves from the Big Two''s oppression was to tear the mask of the MTA! The anointed soldiers of the Ferril Provincial Army had to show that this evil Association was not their protector but their jailor!


    "Kill! Kill! Kill!"


    The tall folk from the opposing fleet were assuredly the aplices of the evil gods. The organization set up by the betrayers of Vulcan and dwarvenkind wouldn''t have given these ''Larkinsons'' and other rabble permission to travel freely in the Smiling Samuel Star Sector otherwise.


    It was clear that these tall folk had nothing but bad intentions in mind when they sought to travel straight into the heart of the Vulcan Empire! Who knew whether these brainwashed ves sought to gather crucial intelligence or nt some kind of secret superweapon in the dwarven empire.


    The enemy had to be stopped before it could do any damage to one of the few states in the gxy that still preserved the truth about dwarvenkind!


    Furga''s lips curled into a savage grin. "I couldn''t have asked for a better mech!"


    He was one of the few members of the Steel Rain who piloted the coveted Land Cracker heavy artillery mech.


    As the biggest and most expensive variant of the Cracker line, the Land Cracker resembled a giant, overweight dwarf that had donned an extremely thick suit of armor.


    Instead of possessing regr arms, it mounted two ultra-heavy gauss cannons in their stead, which technically made them frontline mechs. It didn''t make much sense to grant these mechs articting arms as they were highly specialized and could only perform a single job.


    The advantage to this was that it was able to perform this job extremely well. Furga''s artillery mech boasted thick, broad legs with even wider feet. This not only granted the mech excellent stability, but also provided a lot of surface area to transfer heat to the ship it was serving on. The Land Cracker had already ced its legs into two huge grooves to maximize this effect while at the same time providing excellent stability.


    Its two huge arm cannons minutely moved in order to track a distant ship. A considerable shockwave exploded from the cannons and the rest of the mech as it had fired another salvo!


    "Haha, take that!"


    One of the ultra-heavy rounds mmed into the hull of abat carrier. Though thetter''s armor integrity took a severe hit, the ship quickly rolled around so that other dwarven artillery mechs couldn''tpound the existing damage.


    What Furga was actually happy about was that his other precisely-aimed shot had managed to hit the mark! The high-resolution sensor footage provided by the Lemogo Distat and other capable dwarven vessels showed that his mech''s ultra-heavy round had impacted the side of a damaged bunker.


    The protective cover on the human ship wasn''t able to cope with the immense kic energy transferred by the ultra-heavy round and shattered straight away, causing the solid round to continue forwards and dump all of its residual power into the side of the enemy''s artillery mech.


    The only thing left of this six-legged artillery mech was millions of pieces of debris that were already floating out into space.


    Just as Furga switched the aim of his powerful Land Cracker to another designated target, his bunker rumbled as the enemy finally focused their firepower on his bunker!


    "Stupid humans!"


    Not all bunkers were the same. The Land Crackers were the most prestigious and valuable artillery mechs in the Steel Rain mech regiment. It took a lot of training and effort for Furga to earn the right to pilot his current machine. His Land Cracker was therefore assigned to one of the most resilient bunkers on his current vessel.


    Several armored panels slid across the openings, preventing Furga''s Land Cracker from continuing to fire. Big, soundless impacts struck and dented the heavily-armored cover. Despite resisting dozen of attacks, the heavy cover continued to endure the damage without showing any breakage!


    Furga grinned as he saw the results of this futile bombardment.


    "More. More. More. Go on, humans! Keep attacking my little fort! It will all be in vain, hahaha!"


    The dwarven artillery specialist was not concerned as all. He was more than willing to die for his righteous cause if it came down to it, but this was not possible. He knew that as long as the bunker cover came close to breaking that the tform that his mech had mounted would automatically slide inwards and away from the exterior.


    Though it usually took crucial seconds for the tform to be deep enough to bring a heavy artillery mech to safety, this was still enough to guarantee the survival of nearly all of them along with their precious dwarven mech pilots!


    These guarantees allowed dwarves like Furga Holbarn to fight against the misguidedckeys of the evil gods without any reservations. Since the risk of dying was minimal, he would be able to ensure that he would be able to fight the deformed mutated humans another time!


    His bloodthirst grew stronger as he and his brothers managed to cripple more ships and crack more bunkers. The marksmanship, firepower and numbers of their opposition was simply too inferiorpared to the Steel Rain. There was no contest who would be able toe out on top of this artillery duel!


    Just as the bombardment against his bunker had softened, Furga grinned and waited for the gun slots to slide open again. The two massive cannons of his Land Cracker were already done with loading new rounds and charging its capacitors. It was able to fire another salvo at any time, and Furga had even adjusted his aim with the help of the sensor data fed to his mech.


    As soon as the Lemogo Distat confirmed that the enemy artillery mechs had shifted over to attacking other targets, the gun slots finally opened up again.


    Yet just before Furga was about to pull the trigger, an intense feeling of crisis overtook his consciousness. Somewhere, a powerful will was targeting his mech. The dwarf mech pilot felt his own will shake for the first time in this battle as he had the illusion that he was being targeted by a yer who was much more powerful than he could ever hope to be!


    Though his mech did not sense any locks or other signs of being targeted, Furga trusted his instincts without any doubt and mmed his fist against the emergency evacuation button.


    The gun slots were already closing up and additional protective sheets had rapidly slid above his Land Cracker, providing additional cover to absorb and weaken iing attacks.


    At the same time, the tform his artillery mech was slotted in was already retracting inwards. Arge hatch at the end of the tunnel was already sliding open to allow the Land Cracker to take cover deeper inside the Lemogo Distat.


    Yet before the tform even moved a single meter, a powerful resonance-empowered positron beam prated straight through the bunker cover and all of the interveningyers and burned right through the center of the powerful Land Cracker, bypassing a strong but ultimately ineffective energy shield in the process!


    Furga''s mech was tough enough to withstand a moderate bombardment, yet the singrly powerful beam had not only defeated all of its defenses with ease, but also transferred so much destructive energies to the internals of the heavy artillery mech that almost half of its inside had either melted, vaporized or been annihted!


    On the other side of the battlefield, the Amaranto''s brilliant luminar crystal rifle was still shining like a rainbow. Venerable Stark remained calm and smoothly adjusted the aim of her expert rifle''s to another bunker that housed a Land Cracker mech.


    She snorted… "Too easy."