As Ves worked on his radical ventures during the journey back to the Cinach System, the center of the star sector underwent another huge upheaval.

After toppling the Crestfallen Stars ahead of time, the Hex Army rampaged through the space of the Carnegie Group!

Hundreds of star systems fell in the grasp of the Hexers as the Fortune Legion struggled to put up a defense against the motivated Hexers!

After losing a large chunk of territory, the eager Hexer mech army groups finally reached the limits of what they could bear. It was untenable for them to push further when they had essentially exhausted much of their pushing capabilities.

The downside of capturing so much territory in one fell swoop was that much of it still hadn't been pacified!

Though the cities and settlements fell into the grasp of the Hexers, some local Fridaymen weren't resigned to living under a matriarchal society!

The well-prepared resistance movements that rose up gave the occupation forces a lot of headaches! Unaccustomed to forcibly taking over any star systems, the Hexer garrison troops had to resort to increasingly more brutal methods to repress the rebels.

This only inflamed the Fridaymen partisans even further!

Having long anticipated a possible invasion and occupation from their hated rivals, the Carnegie Group and the Vermeer Group had long set up and buried a large number of well-hidden weapon depots.

This ensured that each organized group of rebels gained access to a plentiful supply of firearms, combat armor, infiltration equipment, explosives and even mechs!

Even if the equipment mostly consisted of outdated military surplus goods, in the right hands they could still frustrate occupiers.

Across hundreds of planets, city halls burned, ammunition stores blew up, manufacturing complexes collapsed and middle rank officers were being assassinated!

"The Coalition shall prevail!"

"Down with the matriarchy!"

"We will die like men, not boys!"

Though the Fridaymen normally weren't as patriotic to their own state as the Hexers, the Komodo War had enflamed everyone's passions!

The strict and heavy-handed rules set by Hexers immediately rubbed the Fridaymen in the wrong way. Everywhere, men were stripped of much of their rights, causing them to feel especially threatened!

Though the growing resistance effort didn't threaten the Hegemony's hold on the occupied systems, it generated enough trouble to burden the Hexers. Troops and supplies allocated the frontlines had to be diverted to many different planets in order to suppress the recalcitrant Fridaymen.

Combined with the increasingly more stretched lines, the forward positions of the Hex Army became increasingly more tenuous!

It was at this moment the Friday Coalition finally launched its counterattack!

With the Carnegie Group and the Vermeer Group under existential threat, the other Coalition partners couldn't hold back any longer. If they still insisted on holding back and keeping most of their troops in the rear, then the trust that held all of the partners together would no longer have much meaning!

Large quantities of ships and mechs crashed against the overextended Hexer frontline units and beat the women back with overwhelming might!

Though many Hexer spies had noticed the massive troop movements of the Friday Coalition in advance, the Hex Army had been too reluctant to pull back its forces.

The decision makers were too confident in their inherent superiority! After collapsing the defenses of their foes and continually pushing them back, the Hexers increasingly looked down even further on the Fridaymen.

This was why the initial counterattack achieved so much success. The Hexers weren't fighting against the Carnegie Group's Fortune Legion or the Vermeer Group's Blue Cavalry anymore.

The two strongest Coalition partners, the Gauge Dynasty and the Konsu Clan, finally committed many of their premier frontline units to this counteroffensive!

Across many different occupied star systems, Hexer mechs were falling left and right while Hexer vessels tried to beat a hasty retreat. Showers of positron beams, stupendous volleys of missiles and entire mech regiments worth of melee mechs soared forward against their Hexer counterparts.

Entire star systems became filled with debris. Each battle generated large amounts of broken mechs and ships from both sides.

With all of these recyclable materials floating in space, controlling the star systems became more important than ever. The side that won the most battles were always able to stave off their resource shortages a little longer. This would become very relevant in the later stages of the war.

In the Leemar System, the resplendent universities existed no more. The vindictive Hexers razed every single education institution to the ground. Even if the value of the structures and monuments weren't high, the Leemar Institute of Technology and other renowned schools had lost all of their pride!

Yet not long after Leemar fell into the hands of the Wrathful Doves, the Fridaymen hit back with unprecedented ferocity!

"Kill these witches!"

"Take back our land!"

"Our heroes are with us today! Don't flinch!"

Two distinct mech militaries acted in unison. The orange-and-black mechs of the Sundered Phalanx of the Gauge Dynasty spearheaded the assault. 

In space, the Phalanx's famed lancer mechs charged forth with blazing force. They closed in on the Hexers with so much momentum that the glows of the Blessed Squire didn't even have a chance to disrupt the Fridayman mech pilots!

Subsequently, large formations of spearman mechs soared forward in unison. They moved as one whenever needed and split up into smaller squads whenever the Hexer mechs dispersed. 

The Sunderers displayed such impeccable teamwork and discipline that the Hexers were no longer able to rely on their fervor and aggression to overcome their foes.

The elite troops of the Gauge Dynasty were so firm in mind that the glows of the space-adapted Blessed Squires simply couldn't shake their resolve!

Though not every unit of the Sundered Phalanx consisted of highly-trained elites, they comprised much of the vanguard in the Leemar System.

By opening their counterattack with some of their best mech pilots, the Sundered Phalanx successfully managed to breach the Hexer lines in a single thrust!

The rapid collapse of the initial Hexer defenders initiated a chain reaction. This time, it was their turn to try and organize their defenses as their enemies continually thrust forward!

When the Sundered Phalanx succeeded in pushing the Hexer spaceborn forces back, the Oni Guard of the Konsu Clan showed off their prowess as well!

Heavily-armored combat carriers landed on Leemar II and the other occupied planets of the Leemar System by the thousands.

Even when the Hexers did their best to shoot them down, the well-prepared Oni Guardsmen managed to intercept or block most of the incoming fire.

Once the battered but functional vessels made landfall, a large amount of landbound, aerial and aquatic mechs contested for supremacy against the occupiers!

Though the Hexers had set up a considerable amount of defenses, not enough time had passed for them to strengthen their fortifications!

The partially-exhausted and recovering troops of the Wrathful Doves tried their best to fend off the liberators, but the purple-and-blue mechs of the Oni Guard exhibited much greater resilience than the Fortune Legion!

"Damn, why aren't the glows of our Blessed Squires doing anything? These boys should have been pissing in their piloting suits by now!"

Of all of the mech militaries of the Friday Coalition, many people considered the Sundered Phalanx to be the strongest.

The Gauge Dynasty was the wealthiest and largest Coalition partner. This allowed it to invest considerably more funds in its military assets. The Sunderer mechs were higher in quality and therefore tougher to defeat.

Although the Konsu Clan was not as wealthy, its mech military of the Konsu Clan still earned a lot of respect.

While the mechs of the Oni Guard weren't actually higher in quality than that of the Fortune Legion or Blue Cavalry, the Konsu mech pilots were consummate warriors!

The soldiers of the Konsu Clan enjoyed noble positions in their society. Many mech pilots and soldiers were descended from the same class. The training intensity of the Oni Guard was the highest among all of the Fridayman mech militaries. The Konsu Clan instilled so much discipline to the troops that they unflinchingly obeyed any orders even if it led to their deaths!

The Hexer defenders on land discovered to their consternation that the Blessed Squires were even less effective against the Oni Guard.

Even if the Konsu mech pilots respected their mothers, their dedication towards the Konsu Clan trumped everything!

What made the Oni Guard harder to deal with was that unlike the Sundered Phalanx, even the most ordinary Konsu mech pilot possessed a disciplined mind and will!

The elites of the Oni Guards were completely unassailable while the regular troops hardly showed any indication of slowing down.

If not for the fact that the Blessed Squires were very useful in helping the Hexers maintain their morale under pressure, the glow-oriented mechs would have lost their value on this battlefield!

Of course, this was not enough for the Fridaymen to win the day. In order to reverse the trend of the entire war theater, the Sundered Phalanx and the Oni Guard launched many different offensives at once!

This caused Fridaymen to spread their troops rather thin just like their archenemies.

If the Hexers finally managed to overcome their shock and rally their troops, they might be able to force their enemies into a stalemate!

However, the Friday Coalition had another card to play.

"Our entire star sector is on our side!"

Across many different battlefields, the Sunderer and the Oni Guard mechs fought alongside dazzling, radiant machines! These powerful machines performed far in excess of any other regular mech!

The Fridaymen attached a considerable number of expert mechs to the assault units. With the protection and cover of these powerful machines, many ordinary Hexer formations collapsed ahead of time.

Though the Wrathful Doves dispatched their own expert mechs to stem the tide, the Hexers found to their horror that the Fridaymen sent out a second wave of expert mechs!

"Are these Fridaymen crazy?!"

"This is impossible!"

The Hexers were shocked by the number of expert mechs their Fridayman counterparts committed to the battlefield.

They briefly wondered whether the units invading the Leemar System borrowed a lot of expert mechs from other units.

Yet soon enough, the truth came out.

The Sundered Phalanx and the Konsu Clan were able to field up to 20 percent more expert mechs because they were piloted by foreigners!

The Friday Coalition quietly pressured the surrounding third-rate states to loan their expert pilots some time ago. After many months of preparation, the Fridaymen were finally capable of fielding their hired help on a wider scale!

While the expert mechs assigned to the foreigners were not as powerful or rigorously-designed as proper Fridayman expert mechs, they still exerted enough raw power to make a difference!

The Wrathful Doves found itself hard pressed to hold the line in space and on the surface. The disparity in numbers was considerable, especially when the Sundered Phalanx and the Oni Guard concentrated the foreign expert mechs.

When Hexer expert mechs were forced to fight three times as many enemy expert mechs, the results could easily be imagined!

"Damn, we can't hold anymore!"

"Don't give up! Expert mechs aren't invincible, and these new expert mechs aren't as tough as the older ones!"

The Hexers barely managed to counteract the additional enemy expert mechs by resorting to costly tactics.

Even so, the Fridaymen attackers continued to maintain the upper hand! Not only the Leemar System, but many other occupied star systems threatened to fall back into the hands of their original owners.

Once the direction of the Komodo War turned around, it would be hard for the Hex Army to retain its momentum!

Uncomfortable and unaccustomed to being on the defensive, the Hexers might not be able to hold their ground as well as the Fridaymen.

"We can't let the Sundered Phalanx and the Oni Guard rescue the Carnegie Group!"

It was under these rapidly-changing circumstances that a peculiar new mech model emerged onto the battlefield.