Chapter 52

Lily had discovered that the weapon that the Cherry Blossom, the name she had given her mech, came with a blast cannon on the left arm, a weapon that uses Kinetic energy to destroy large mechs, with an effective range of about 100 meters.

*TN: I know that I had given it a different name, but I lost my notes on her mech's name and don't remember what chapter it was that she named it. Also, I'm too lazy to try to find it.*

It was partly due to this cannon that Ajax was able to escape his predicament. Ajax looked up and saw that the two mechs had stood up again as the other 6 mechs of the guard were making their way over from a couple of streets away. He then hurried Lily to follow him as they made their way into the depths of the residential area.

Lily had lived here more of her life and was familiar with the terrain and the layout of the city.

***

They met up with the operators who had almost completed their rescue operations after a few seconds of running. Ajax casually flipped onto the roof of a semi-truck and lay on his stomach as Lily flipped onto the roof of the garbage truck Monkey was driving.

Rick had taken the rest of the mechs and was still blocking the enemy's advance. After nearly ten minutes of fending off the enemy attacks, two friendly mechs were hit and destroyed. The other 2 accompanying Rick were in a bad state as well, with little ammo left.

Bach, witnessing that the convoy that had left earlier had returned with more people, guessed the intentions of the Lazoole Society and believed that they wanted to break through their formation. He immediately ordered his men to reload all of their weapons and get ready for the upcoming onslaught.

As long as the defense lines could be held, the Hell's League could keep the Lazoole Society trapped as they waited for more reinforcements. Plus, the mech team of the guard was also rushing over from the residential area. It would only take about three minutes for them to get here, allowing them to achieve a pincer attack.

Rick, being the knowledgeable leader and fighter she was, knew what Bach was trying to achieve and didn't give him the breathing room to slowly set up the defense line. As soon as she saw the people of the Hell's League start to retreat, she activated the beam tail and rushed over alone, lightsaber in hand.

She looked like a demon as she piloted her mech and killed her enemies. A blur of red with a red lightsaber kept on moving through the ranks of the Hell's League, leaving a trail of death in her wake. When the enemy mechs would move to defend their men, she would retreat. Bach wanted to delay time while she wanted to buy some time for Ajax and the others to fall back.

Her continuous attacks were able to buy a precious minute and did not allow the people of the Hell's League to complete the defense line in time.

"No one is allowed to stop! No rescue is allowed! Everyone will gather in the mining area!" Ajax on the roof of the semi-truck gave the convoy an order to break through the enemy's defenses and make way to the mining area.

At the same time, his left arm transformed into the 35mm Vulcan cannon and started to pepper the enemies, not minding its energy drain. The particle gun in Lily's hand and the Vulcan cannon on her head never stopped firing either, and from time to time she even shot her blast cannon.

The two of them cooperate with the vehicles, acting like defensive turrets. Their accuracy was subpar at best, but the high fire rate allowed for a quick sweep to kill many people form the Hell's League will die.

"Stop them! We can't let them break through!" Bach had become anxious. He couldn't allow them to retreat, so he asked his subordinates to stop the trucks. But they couldn't do anything to them, so they focused on shooting at the driver's side of the lead truck.

The driver of the lead truck was shot multiple times but he pushed on, knowing that they would die. They aimed their truck at the area with the most enemies, making sure they would not block the other trucks behind them.

However, by now the mech team of the guard that had been sent here by the Ashlin Group had arrived and blocked the road. They then opened fire on the approaching vehicles forcing them to either be blown up or stop.

The vehicles following behind had to slow down as well, otherwise, they would cause a pile-up and then their escape would become almost impossible. There were only about 30 operational vehicles left from the original 50 or so, with this number decreasing by the minute.

Even Ajax on the roof of the semi-truck had been hit several times, parts of his mech had been damaged enough for the internal wiring to be visible to the naked eye. Who knows if the next shot would force him to draw his last breath?

They couldn't do anything but stop the convoy. This escape was nothing short of threading the needle to begin with. The convoy was only two or three hundred meters away from the gate of the camp, but the enemies on this section of the road were a ravine that had given the Hell's League the positional advantage.

"Hahaha, look at you pitiful cunts! You're all going to die here, YOU'RE ALL GOING TO BURN!" Bach couldn't help laughing as he witnessed the scene. The mech team of the guard had rotated and was now 200 meters behind the convoy, forming an encirclement.

Bach was feeling great now, and the frustration he had suffered these days melted away with the explosion of the car in front of him.

However, a sound of "boom!" rang out as a Parallax-Level mech jumped down from the second floor of the defense building with no weapons in its hands. Its pilot was Bomen...

He had thought he would die as he fainted, but he was wrong. He was awakened when an explosion shook the defense building. Surprised that he had yet to meet his end, Bomen pushed through the pain and managed to half-assedly patch himself up.

He endured all kinds of pain and spent more than ten minutes making his way down 2 floors and climbing into the spare mech. He was barely able to get here in time.

"Kill him!" Bach was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the mech but was relieved when he saw that there were no weapons. In an instant, forty or fifty guns were aimed at Bomen and opened fire. Sparks splashed off Bomen's mech in the darkness.

But Bomen didn't care about that and walked straight toward the row of mechs blocking the way. His mech staggered every few steps as if he might be disconnected from the mech at any time.

At this time, the mechs blocking the way also opened fire on Bomen, they were confused as to why a mech would suddenly jump down into a fight with no weapons just to die. Bomen's mech was badly damaged in less than a minute, the armor on his arms and chest was all dented in and riddled with holes, and the mech's head began to smoke. It was clear that this mech was barely hanging on.

Bomen had made it to within 5 meters of the mechs and defense line, his life hanging by a thread. He had reached his limit, his body and brain had been overloaded and he could no longer take another step. But inside the mech, Bomen bore a pained smile as he activated the self-destruct option he had installed on the core of his mech.

Everyone had stopped shooting at this point, baffled by the actions of this mech who had brazenly walked to the defense line as it took shots from all sides. Bomen managed to turn around and took one last look at the convoy where the operators were forced to stop, he connected to the comms and said to his men "fo...llow...A...jax....I..tr...ust...h-" His words were cut short as a mech took a shot that went through his cockpit, creating a 12-inch hole through his abdomen.

A slight whimper escaped his mouth, but he didn't have the strength to shout, this was the last thing he could do for the camp. Then Bomen's last words came through the comms, words that sent shivers down the backs of all his men: "Lord...I'm...scared..."

"SHHEWWW-KABOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!" In the next second, Bomen's mech exploded, sweeping all the surrounding mechs that blocked the road. The intense flames illuminated the surroundings into daylight, and a shockwave formed that could be felt 70 meters away. The sand within 10 meters was immediately turned to glass as the blue flame engulfed everything within 35 meters of it.

When the flames dissipated, the vicinity of the explosion area was destroyed, a crater had been created on the road and the defense line lay in disarray. Several of the mechs had been destroyed, others were engulfed in flames as their pilots screamed, and very few still stood, badly damaged by the explosion.

People within 10 meters were turned to ash, and within 20 meters they had really bad burns and missing limbs, bout 75% of the people that stood within 35 meters had light to moderate burns and many had been knocked out.

The terrifying power had put the fear of God into Bach. The shockwave had slammed him into the car behind, knocking him out for a few seconds and giving him a concussion. When he came to, he lay on the ground for a while without moving.

The operators were in a trance as they had witnessed their leader be turned to ashes for their sake. "Go!!" Ajax was the first to react and showed his orders. He had thought that Bomen was already dead, he didn't Bomen to have held on long enough to give them a shot at escape. At the cost of turning himself into ashes, he opened the passage of life for them.

The operators who heard the order reacted one, their eyes were red, but they had heard their leader's orders and how he had handed over the reigns to Ajax, so they restarted their vehicles and made a break for the gate of the camp.

Rick, who had resisted alone for a long time, also quickly turned and made a break for it, she was almost out of energy for her lightsaber.

By the time Bach realized that they were making another attempt to escape, it was too late to intercept. The first vehicle had rushed out of the camp, followed by the convoy behind.

"Open fire! Quickly, open fire!" Bach picked up a rifle that lay by him on the ground and fired wildly in the direction the convoy was leaving. He was at a loss, Ajax had just escaped because of this random mech that had appeared out of nowhere and blown itself up.

*A moment of silence for the valiant sacrifice of Bomen who was man enough to recognize the fear that grips you when you realize your life has truly come to an end*