As the Golden Skull Alliance neared the border between Komodo and Vicious Mountain, the Larkinson Clan started to field some brand-new mechs.

Some of them were relatively mundane, though remarkable in their own way. The LMC had begun to test some of their spaceborn mechs whenever the allied fleet emerged out of FTL and rested at least six hours in realspace.

Out of the six ongoing mech design projects of the Design Department, half of them were exclusive to the Larkinson Clan.

The three upcoming Larkinson mech designs were all multi-environmental machines with flexible deployment characteristics. They fared best in space, which was ideal for a spaceborn fleet, but they could also operate in the air under standard gravity conditions.

The prototypes derived from the three designs each looked remarkable. The Glory Seekers and the Crossers observing from the side immediately recognized that two of them were derived from the LMC's existing mech designs.

The Bright Warrior IB and the Ferocious Piranha IB straightforwardly copied the mech concepts of their third-class counterparts. If the old and the newer versions flew side by side, then laymen would probably find more similarities than differences.

Of course, looks could be deceiving.

Despite their close resemblance, the Ferocious Piranha Version B was at least a hundred times more expensive than the Version C of the light skirmisher!

The comparison was a bit difficult to make for the two different Bright Warrior models. The new Bright Warrior Version B utilized regular second-class armor plating, which was actually worse than the Breyer alloy utilized in the original!

Regardless, the Larkinson Clan would definitely be able to exhibit greater strength once the Bright Warrior IB and the Ferocious Piranha IB entered service. This was especially because Ves and Gloriana decided to double their design budgets at some point!

By raising their respective budgets to 400 million hex credits, their quality became on par with the Valkyrie Redeemer, which had long conquered the hearts of many Hexer military mech pilots.

A single Bright Warrior IB was around 8 times more expensive than the commercial second-class mechs the Larkinson Clan were fielding at the moment!

Naturally, that didn't mean the new Bright Warriors and Ferocious Piranhas performed 8 times better than the Princess Jeckas and the Vima Suns. The actual performance improvement was 'only' 2 to 4 times better depending on the calculation method.

Despite making the new clan-exclusive mechs as expensive as a mainline military mech model, the Larkinson Clan could easily afford the expenditure.

With the explosive success of the new Ferocious Piranha Mark I Version C model, the LMC's earnings finally surpassed 1 trillion hex credits!

This was an astounding sum, and one the Larkinsons had long anticipated! Although the rapidly-growing Larkinson Clan immediately spent much of it on its growing expenses and a warchest reserved for the acquisition of capital ships, it shouldn't be a problem to splurge on a couple of thousand expensive mechs.

Ves knew that the Larkinson Clan would be relying heavily on the Bright Warrior IB and the Ferocious Piranha IB for the coming decade or so. It was better to invest more in the mech design upfront so that they wouldn't become obsolete by the time the clan reached the Red Ocean.

With the increase in budget, the two second-class mech designs incorporated better armor, higher capacity energy cells, higher-performing core components, hardened sensor and communication systems, more powerful flight systems and so on. They even incorporated much tougher cockpits so that the mech pilots had a higher chance of preserving their lives!

"Fielding thousands of these mechs will cost as much as a capital ship." Ves muttered as he observed the prototypes going through their paces in an observation room aboard the Spirit of Bentheim. "These mechs are great, no doubt about it, but our accounts will definitely cry when they see how much money they drain."

Expensive mechs not only cost more upfront, but also came with higher maintenance cost. The burden of maintaining thousands of second-class Bright Warriors and Ferocious Piranhas would bankrupt any normal organization!

This was why Ves and the LMC played such a crucial role in the Larkinson Clan. Greater strength did not come for free. Without earning more, Ves would have never dared to double the budgets of his mech design projects.

So far, the test sessions already proved the potency of the two upcoming mech designs.

The four different configurations of the Bright Warrior Version B were not eye-catching. Ves deliberately conceived of them as the new backbone fighting machines of the Larkinson Clan.

This meant that the rifleman mech, swordsman mech, lancer mech and space knight configurations fought like their normal equivalents. They did not possess any pronounced strengths and weaknesses and were quite boring aside from their Larkinson glows.

Though Ves normally thought ill of balanced mech designs, the Bright Warrior product line was not designed to be strongest. Instead, it had to be as universal and adaptable as possible in order to ensure that many different mech pilots would be able to harness at least one of its four configurations.

"Normally, I try to do the opposite in my mech designs." Gloriana noted as she stood by his side while she manipulated her workstation. "Working on the Bright Warrior has been an interesting exercise for me. I worked hard to figure out new ways to increase the compatibility of this mech platform. I dare say that at least 90 percent of our mech pilots will find what they like in our new Bright Warrior."

"That's a bold claim." Ves raised his eyebrow. "With the increase in performance, this mech has become more difficult to pilot. Don't forget that most of our mech pilots originally started off as third-raters. It will take more time before they are on par with genuine second-class mech pilots. Until then, they won't be able to draw out all of the potential of these mechs."

They essentially designed the Bright Warrior B and the Ferocious Piranha B with future proofing in mind. They aimed to achieve specifications with their mech designs than their pilots could currently handle. While that was bad and wasteful in the short term, it would definitely pay off in spades in the medium and long term.

This was especially important when Ves considered the higher strength levels of the new frontier. In a place where the best pioneers across the Milky Way concentrated in a smaller dwarf galaxy, a premium mech in the galactic rim would probably be considered a budget mech in the Red Ocean!

Therefore, even if both Ves and Gloriana were considerably impressed by the performance of the Bright Warrior B and the Ferocious Piranha B right now, they knew that their future rivals and competitors would likely look down on them a bit in a couple of years!

"Well, it's not important. Even if the Bright Warrior and the Ferocious Piranha are relegated to the background in the future, they will still remain useful." He muttered.

Ves especially appreciated the Ferocious Piranha B. Its Doom Guard-like glow already caused the prototype to be a terror in mock battles.

He directed his gaze towards a projection of one in action right now. The Ferocious Piranha did nothing except approach a squad of Living Sentinel mechs.

As soon as the Ferocious Piranha entered into close range, all of the surrounding Princess Jeckas, Vima Suns and Tamris Stellars pretty much went out of control!

Aside from a few exceptions, their mech pilots became so disoriented by the alternating glows of Zeigra and Lufa that they could no longer maintain enough concentration to pilot their mechs!

Ves sighed at the sight. "What a shameful showing."

"To be fair, we picked out the newest and freshest recruits to perform this test." Gloriana added. "In our earlier tests, the more experienced veteran mech pilots fared better. They maintain enough control to launch counter attacks against the Ferocious Piranha. Also, suppressive glows are less effective against other mechs with glows."

Even without the Sanctuary, mech pilots were still better off with piloting an LMC mech when they encountered a harmful glow.

The Larkinson Clan didn't have to worry about the threat of hostile glows, though. Every LMC mech came with a safeguard that rendered them ineffective against the Larkinsons by default. Ves just disabled the safety measure for the prototypes in order to test their performance under realistic conditions.

From what he could see so far, the Ferocious Piranha B would definitely be able to exert much greater strength against every kind of opponent. Even the Penitent Sisters and Swordmaidens felt disturbed when they confronted the mech, preventing them from exerting all of their skill.

The Ferocious Piranha B was already labeled the mech that the Larkinson mech pilots least wanted to fight against!

After verifying the effectiveness of the second-class Bright Warriors and Ferocious Piranhas, Ves directed his attention to the third Larkinson mech under development.

The mech codenamed Giant Killer was even more impressive than the other two. With a budget of 800 million credits, the Giant Killer was definitely a sight to behold!

As a cannoneer mech that wielded a rather large and formidable-looking gauss cannon, the mech initially appeared to be a lighter and more mobile adaptation of the Transcendent Punisher.

However, the Giant Killer was actually very different from the heavy artillery mech that had become more ubiquitous throughout the fleet.

While the Transcendent Punisher's total firepower surpassed that of the Giant Killer, the latter's formidable Samheim gauss cannon loaded with the proprietary Sarun rounds actually boasted higher single-shot damage!

Combined with satisfactory mobility, the cannoneer mech was able to maneuver to optimal firing positions in order to launch devastating armor-piercing attacks at the flanks of their targets.

Each time the Giant Killer fired its Samheim cannon, the mech visibly flew backwards due to the inability to fully compensate for the recoil.

As much as Ves admired the Giant Killer whenever it smashed a space rock or a bunch of scrap metal the Larkinsons launched into space to serve as practice targets, the prototypes did exhibit two major shortcomings.

"The accuracy exhibited by the Giant Killer isn't all that high." Gloriana seriously noted as she tapped a specific graph. "Look at these numbers. Starting from medium range, accuracy rapidly drops as the distance lengthens. At long range, the Giant Killer is no longer able to hit medium mechs on a reliable basis. Your Penitent Sister mech will only be effective in sieging roles."

"It can at least be used to siege heavy mechs, starships, space stations and other fortifications."

"That's true, but you better bring some kind of shuttle or auxiliary mech with the Giant Killers, because their ammo and energy reserves aren't all that high!"

That was the other shortcoming of the Giant Killer. In order to maintain a certain degree of compactness and mobility, the Giant Killer couldn't carry too much goodies. Its massive Samheim gauss cannon was already a hefty weapon, so it was a given that their Sarun rounds were large and heavy. The weapon also demanded a lot of energy to fire each round, so the mech also had to accommodate enough energy cells.

All told, the base loadout of the Giant Killer only allowed for 25 full-powered shots in total before the mech expended its ammunition!

This was actually relatively decent for cannoneer mechs, but Ves wasn't satisfied with this result. The Transcendent Punisher could fire much more rounds without requiring replenishment!

This was why Ves and Gloriana designed a modified rear ammo carrier that allowed the Giant Killer to carry additional rounds and energy cells. Although the extended loadout made the mch more sluggish, it enabled the cannoneer mech to fire 45 full-powered shots before running dry!

"That's better, I suppose."

While it was more convenient to attach a small supply train to a Giant Killer unit, that was not always ideal. It took time and effort for the Giant Killers to replenish their spent reserves in mid-battle, and a clever enemy always targeted the supply mechs or vehicles first if they had brain cells!

"It's okay." Ves reassured himself. "The Giant Killer is not a mech that is designed for attrition warfare. It's all about taking the most threatening enemy elements into battle as fast as possible. As long as the tough ones are taken off the board, our other mechs can clean up the remaining enemies."