Though Captain Gheri and her best mech pilots all completed a lot of challenging hunts, they had no experience with fighting this particular opponent.

"It is highly unlikely that our approach has gone unnoticed." Ves told the hunters. "The Giant Stone Eater not only has a powerful command over earth-attributed E energy, but has also utilized its power to claim this entire crater as its territory. While I cannot tell you what that entails, I am So percent sure the beast knows we have arrived."

"I see." Captain Gheri responded over the communication channel. "It is of little consequence. I never counted on taking the Giant Stone Eater by surprise. The mutated beast's shell is too damn hard for us to penetrate in any opening strike. We will have to wear down its defenses step by step."

As the captain proceeded to instruct her troops to conduct their last checks, Ves extended his senses in order to gather more information about their prey.

With the help of Blinky, he was vaguely able to sense the powerful monster's mood.

"The Giant Stone Eater is rousing himself from slumber." Ves speculated. "1 can't tell for certain, but it does not feel like he is planning to lob explosive rocks at us right away. Be on the lookout for new abilities. Do not underestimate this beast. Ever since the Arrow Gods failed in their hunt, this mutated beast most certainly developed countermeasures to increase its ability against similar threats."

"It is a good thing that we did not intend to poke it with spears and arrows. We shall let out greatswords do the work!"

The hunters did not want to give the Giant Stone Eater any additional time to prepare.

They advanced up the hill with a few additional pieces of equipment in hand.

What stood out the most was the mining picks by all of the Monster Slayers!

Even though the Swordmaiden mech pilots fully intended to make use of their greatswords from beginning to end, they were still prudent enough to carry backup weapons.

Sometimes, their love and dedication towards swords had to make way for practicality.

Not even Swordmaidens could deny the fact that mining picks were the best tool for the job when it came to breaking through rocks.

The offensive mechs all stepped forward while the two auxiliary mechs followed at a more respectable distance.

Just like the support mechs of the Arrow Gods, the two Hymenopteras had been equipped with chain hooks that could quickly pull away a downed mech.

The only issue was that the lack of a third support mech made the retrieval process a lot slower.

The hunting team could not afford to make as many mistakes.

Inside the cramped cockpit of one of the Hymenopteras, Ves had already summoned an expansive control panel.

Though the conditions were anything but ideal, Ves was able to monitor the conditions of the mechs just fine.

The tension in the air rose as a sense of mutual hostility started to settle over the crater environment.

Both sides had become aware of each other. A confrontation was inevitable, and neither side wanted to back down.

After the mechs approached the raised edge of the crater, the Monster Slayers stopped.

The first objective of any difficult hunt was to test the capabilities of a mutated beast and attempt to draw out any new abilities if possible.

The intelligence that Ves had gathered yesterday had already become obsolete due to the rapid mutation speed of powerful beasts in the wild.

"Go!"

The lone Huntmaster jumped over the edge and started to sprint down and rapidly closed the distance to the Giant Stone Eater.

Compared to the last fight, the mutated beast had clearly grown in size again, making it clear that it had definitely grown stronger than before!

"Watch out. Its mass and volume has increased by at least 10 percent, but its movements haven't slowed down to the same extent."

The Huntmaster courageously sprinted forward but did not appear to be in a hurry to get into attack range. It shifted its path and circled around the massive beast as if he was looking for an opening.

The Giant Stone Eater did not look easy to mess with. It had kept its body low to the ground, using its giant exterior to shield its legs.

At a certain point, the Huntmaster tried to provoke the beast by throwing a grenade at the creature.

The toss accurately caused the grenade to land on top of the monster, right at the junction of its catapult arms.

Splash!

Instead of producing an explosion, the grenade released a lot of acid that instantly started to burn at the monster's rocky top layer as well as its thick and resilient catapult arms!

Though the acid was unable to inflict much damage to the parts reinforced with an abundant amount of earth energy, the pain enraged the mutated beast!

Ves could clearly sense that the Giant Stone Eater had lost its cool. The fires of fury stimulated its savage instincts and prompted him to go on the attack!

Powerful earth energies started to converge on the powerful beast as its catapult arms prepared to throw explosive rocks.

At the same time, the Giant Stone Eater also began to expand its control over the ground around its massive bulk.

"Watch out! The beast is likely to summon a forest of spikes!"

The warning gave the Huntmaster mech pilot enough time to jump back from the moment dozens of sharp black spikes extended from the ground!

"They're taller and thicker than last time!"

It appeared that the Giant Stone Eater discovered how useful it was to summon all of these spikes. They formed a powerful restraint against melee mechs.

While the Huntmaster continued to circle around the beast while occasionally throwing acid grenades, the Crystal Lords started to get into action as well.

Their tuned second generation luminar crystal rifles might not be anything impressive compared to the latest fourth generation equivalents, but they had proven their power and reliability in many hunts.

The Crystal Lords did not remain stationary as they fired their luminar crystal rifles. Remaining still usually turned mechs into easy targets in a hunt.

Fortunately, every ranged mech specialist was proficient in firing on the move. The former Living Sentinels were especially skilled at this. They piloted their Crystal Lords with great familiarity and always managed to maintain a high hit rate against the slow and heavy Giant Stone Eater.

The ranged mechs launched kinetic beam after kinetic beam at the catapult arms. This was the most vulnerable exterior limb of the Giant Stone Eater that was exposed to ranged attacks.

The strange kinetic beams looked like laser beams but not as hot and bright. Despite looking like they merely consisted of pure energy, the beams strangely transferred a lot of physical force, creating wounds that looked as if the Giant Stone Eater was getting hammered from a distance!

"It's about to throw!"

The two catapult arms were so large and dense that they were largely able to shrug off the persistent ranged attacks.

The Crystal Lords made sure to concentrate all of their attacks on a single catapult arm whenever possible.

Though their focus indeed caused the limb to look increasingly less pristine, the arm did not grow any weaker!

BOOOM! BOOOM!

The Crystal Lords had already suspended their attacks and scattered from each other!

The landbound rifleman mech model excelled at fighting against other ranged mechs equipped with energy weapons. Its defenses, meager as they may be on the relatively slim machine, could cope a lot better against laser beams and to a lesser extent positron beams.

Unfortunately, the Crystal Lords possessed no inherent defensive advantage against purely physical damage, so their mech pilots did not want to tempt fate and get struck by the exploding rocks!

Despite the fact that the Crystal Lords did not appear to be making quick progress with their attacks, they continued to fire their rifles at the catapult arms with great persistence.

Perhaps the Giant Stone Eater may be able resist the attacks for the time being, but there had to be a breaking point.

At the very least, the Crystal Lords successfully distracted the powerful beast and forced it to split its attention.

As the probing attacks continued, the Giant Stone Eater did not fall behind at all. Instead, its momentum steadily grew stronger as its sturdy defenses and powerful attacks restrained any mech in the fight!

When the Huntmaster attempted to throw another acid grenade, the mutated beast began to expose not one, but sixteen different organic muzzles!

They posed at the lower end of the Giant Stone Eater's massive torso. Though they were not as protected as before, they were still covered by enough scales to make it harder to penetrate them and damage the creature's internals.

The organic muzzles were spread around every side of the mutated beast, making it so that the Giant Stone Eater had no blind spots in this regard.

The monster put its recently grown 'rock shard rifles' to good use by bombarding the circling Huntmaster with a torrent of rock shards!

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Though the accuracy of the 'rock shard rifles' left much to be desired, their high firing rates ensured that the Huntmaster could not avoid getting hit!

Fortunately, the armor of the Huntmaster was designed with strong physical piercing attacks in mind, so the machine did not suffer any crippling damage.

Its armor held up quite well for the time being, but as long as the rapid-fire attacks struck the Huntmaster often enough, the machine would definitely reach a limit!

Right now, the Larkinson hunting team managed to explore a lot of new and familiar properties of the Giant Stone Eater.

The new discoveries were useful, but Ves did not entirely feel comfortable with the situation.

"Do you have any important observations to make, patriarch? If not, we will execute a full assault."

"I do not have any hard proof, but I have a hunch that the Giant Stone Eater is still holding back. The beast is probably capable of doing more, but it is surprisingly willing to rely on its defenses and staying power to win a fight."

"I see."

Though the hunting team failed to draw out all of the beast's solutions, the time for waiting was over.

"Advance, Swordmaidens! For Ketis and the clan!"

"For Ketis and the clan!" The other Swordmaidens roared!

When the Monster Slayers jumped over the edge of the crater and sprinted towards the Giant Stone Eater, the unified will and beliefs of the mech pilots and their mechs granted them a lot of momentum!

Blinky was able to sense how the Swordmaidens were able to form a subconscious battle network with each other. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝘸𝑒𝑏𝓃𝑜𝑣𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝑜𝓂

Even though it was not that strong or noticeable, the six Monster Slayers succeeded in driving away the oppressive aura of the Giant Stone Eater, making it harder for the mutated beast to extend its power to the approaching machines.

"The monster is accumulating a lot of earth energy. It is about to summon a more powerful forest of spikes!"

The sensitive Monster Slayers participated in many hunts. The living mechs confronted so many different powerful beasts that they had all become sensitive towards the extraordinary abilities of their prey.

Ves' warning proved to be redundant as Captain Gheri and her Swordmaidens completely trusted in the warning issued by their own living mechs.

Soon enough, hundreds of sharp and black spikes poked out of the ground!

An entire third of the surface area of the crater had become filled with spikes strong enough to tear through alloy!

Seeing all of these spikes made it hard for Ves to believe that the melee mechs of the hunting team could get any close, yet the Monster Slayers fearlessly dashed forward again now that the Giant Stone Eater had exerted its power.

"The monster is recovering from its earlier move."

"Good. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. Sisters, chop these spikes!"

The Monster Slayers held their greatswords in a firm grip and began to swing them forward in a long and powerful horizontal sweep!

Strangely enough, the large blades glowed with extraordinary power.

As the Swordmaidens and their living mechs joined forces to execute an extraordinary sword technique, the power of metal and sharpness empowered their blows, causing the blades to slice through the stone spikes with surprising ease!