Manus Seeks Follow-ups and Favorites

"Mako Mori, find a way to get at least one drone released by Kulturo onto Scunner's body, or inside it. Then get away with Gipsy Danger." Luke Field's hands flew across the keyboard so fast they nearly left afterimages as he spoke to Mako Mori and Gipsy Danger through the PPDC combat communications platform.

"Understood."

Though she did not know what Luke Field intended to do, Mako Mori had been trained to obey orders. At a time like this, she would not ask why. She carried them out without hesitation.

"How are we supposed to get close?"

Raleigh Becket felt his scalp prickle over the comms. Even after the upgrades from Mako Mori, Cai Tiantong, and the others, Gipsy Danger had very limited options against an opponent as formidable as Scunner. In fact, if Mako Mori had not repeatedly held Scunner back at critical moments, the Gipsy Danger he piloted would have long since been brutally torn apart by the three blade-tails behind Scunner and forced out of the battle.

Under the threat of Scunner's three nimble, unpredictable, and devastating tails, Raleigh Becket wanted to stay as far away from it as possible. Even without those menacing blade-tails, Scunner's enormous body and frustratingly resilient hide were enough to drive anyone to despair.

Gipsy Danger had already tried every kind of attack, yet not only had it failed to find Scunner's weakness, neither physical strikes nor specialized warhead weapons designed specifically for Kaiju had caused it any real harm. Those specialized warheads were lethal weapons made to drill through a Kaiju's skin and explode inside its body for maximum damage, yet they could not even penetrate Scunner's outer hide.

Scunner's hide was thick and highly elastic. Ordinary physical attacks landed on it like blows against cotton, and it was incredibly tough. Specialized weapons with immense penetrating power could only dent its skin, never break through it.

So far, the only weapon Gipsy Danger had that could hurt Scunner and make it wary was the Thermal Chain Sword assembled by Mako Mori and upgraded by Luke Field. Yet against Scunner's nearly two-hundred-meter-tall body and astonishing defenses, even the damage dealt by the Thermal Chain Sword could hardly be called fatal.

Most of Scunner's scattered injuries had been inflicted by Kulturo piloted by Mako Mori, aside from the small portion caused by him.

That thing was practically an Energy Turret!

Thinking of Kulturo's complex array of energy attacks, Raleigh Becket finally understood what Mako Mori had meant when she said Kulturo had six Energy Cores.

"Leave it to me." Mako Mori gritted her teeth.

PPDC Headquarters.

Every word spoken over the communications channel reached the ears of everyone present. Stacker Pentecost turned his gaze toward Luke Field, who stood waiting beside him.

"Dr. Luke, does Kulturo have any other secret weapons?" Stacker Pentecost could not help asking. He had already seen it in the earlier battle: Scunner, the first Category Five Kaiju to ever appear, was the most powerful enemy humanity had faced in the history of Kaiju attacks. It had almost no weaknesses. Even its massive size did not hinder its agility in battle.

During the previous twenty-odd minutes of fighting, Scunner had demonstrated astonishing speed and reflexes. Though Kulturo, the only Sixth-Generation Jaeger, had already displayed its power in battle against Scunner, the speed it had shown was not enough to break through Scunner's three blade-tails and engage it in close combat with speed and reactions alone. That would truly be dancing on Bleach's blade. Any delayed reaction or mistake could directly lead to Kulturo's destruction, perhaps even force it from the battlefield.

If Kulturo, the main force holding off Scunner, was forced out, Stacker Pentecost did not dare imagine how the battlefield they were barely maintaining would collapse before the freed Scunner. And if the five main Jaegers outside the base were damaged beyond use, then the best possible outcome for the Final Plan he had been obsessing over would be an indefinite delay.

But would the Precursor Civilization truly give them time to prepare again?

Stacker Pentecost did not dare think about it.

"Do you know what its full name is?" Luke Field did not answer Stacker Pentecost's question. Instead, he pointed at Kulturo in the Virtual Projection and asked him in return.

Stacker Pentecost was momentarily stunned by the question.

Isn't it called Kulturo?

Stacker Pentecost, Cai Tiantong, and the others listening to their conversation all thought the same thing.

"Its full name is Kulturo Manus," Luke Field said.

"So?" Stacker Pentecost frowned, unable to understand Luke Field's cryptic behavior.

"So, it has two forms. Kulturo, the heavy-armored turret form, and Manus, the nimble assassin form."

As Luke Field's words fell, Kulturo on the Virtual Projection screen suddenly had its armor explode apart before the astonished eyes of everyone in the base. When its body appeared again, its previously bulky frame had become much slimmer and sleeker. Two high-energy Plasma Beam Swords appeared as Kulturo Manus swung its arms, gripped tightly in the hands of its two Mechanical Arms.

The machinery that had fallen away from Kulturo assembled in midair into two Cross Towers resembling Stark Veronica, their four tails blazing as they hovered in the air.

"You can transform too?" Raleigh Becket was stunned by the sight. He had seen his share of Jaegers, but this was the first time he had ever encountered one capable of changing forms like Kulturo.

"Don't be surprised. It's just modular assembly." Luke Field spread his hands as everyone stared at him.

Though Luke Field made it sound easy, whether it was Stacker Pentecost and the others who did not know much about technology, or people like Cai Tiantong who did, they all understood that achieving the kind of modular assembly Luke Field had created for Kulturo was no simple matter. It was practically a new line of thinking and a new path for Jaeger manufacturing, pioneered by one man.

The Assassin Manus form granted a level of speed that even Mako Mori found shocking. Closely linked to the Jaeger, she could clearly feel that it was like the entire machine had cast off a burden it had carried for years—light, agile, fast! Like wind set free. The explosive burst of speed when Assassin Manus activated in an instant startled even its pilot.

Mako Mori did not even dare push Manus in this form at full power, because she felt that at top speed, Manus might exceed the limits of her neural control. Put simply, her eyes could barely keep up, but her body could not.

But it was enough.

Mako Mori's sudden burst caught even Scunner off guard, and the price of that surprise was two of its tails. Manus darted in close, circled behind it, and severed them with its twin Plasma Beam Swords.

Its defenses had been breached!

It was injured!

This was the greatest wound Scunner had suffered since the battle began.

It let out a furious, alarmed roar, its only intact blade-tail stabbing toward Manus like a venomous snake. But while its attack was fast, Manus retreated even faster.

After its strike missed, Scunner turned around. Before everyone's stunned and disbelieving eyes, its enormous blue-glowing maw spat out a blazing azure beam. The beam struck the retreating Manus directly.

Seeing this, Raleigh Becket furiously drove Gipsy Danger into a sprint, intending to rescue Manus from Scunner's attack—or rather, rescue Mako Mori, who was piloting it. But Luke Field's somewhat cold voice rang out over the comms. "Fall back, soldier!"

"Mako Mori is fine. Her life signs are still stable," Luke Field added.

Only then did Gipsy Danger stop its charge, driving the chain sword in its hand into the seafloor to steady itself.

At that moment, the dark, rain-lashed sky suddenly lit up. A massive pillar of light descended from above and slammed straight into Scunner, crushing its enormous body to the ground. The beam in its mouth tilted upward along with its head as it was forced back, drawing a straight line across the horizon before vanishing.

Scunner's unprecedented scream echoed across the battlefield. Its powerful limbs struggled desperately to prop up its huge body, but the massive pillar of light falling vertically from the sky pinned it down without mercy. The next second, the gigantic beam split into five, tightly clustered together as they rotated and swallowed Scunner within their radiance.

This brilliant, white pillar of light reaching into the heavens made nearly everyone watching the battlefield stare wide-eyed. On the island, some people who had been rushing over and had not made it into nearby shelters in time, as well as those kneeling outside temples made from Kaiju skulls for various reasons, saw this miraculous sight and immediately pressed their palms together before dropping to their knees.

The five rotating pillars of light swallowed both Scunner's form and its screams. On the other side of the battlefield, Leatherback and Otachi saw their leader's miserable state and heard its cries for help. They hurriedly abandoned their opponents, turned around, whipped their tails, and raced madly toward it.

Leatherback in particular ran while the carapace atop its head opened, exposing the glowing organ protected beneath it. Layers of blue energy surged through the vessels across its body toward the luminous organ in its head. A massive ball of energy was forming, but just as it was about to erupt, a flying Thermal Battle Axe accurately buried itself directly in Leatherback's cranial organ.

The immense energy gathering inside the glowing organ had not even fully erupted before it detonated within Leatherback's body.

From a distance, it looked like a giant beast charging like a gorilla had suddenly exploded with blue light from its head. Its huge body could not stop its momentum and tumbled forward, smashing up wave after wave.

Having thrown the deadly axe, Cherno Alpha waded through the seawater and approached Leatherback, whose body was convulsing as it neared death. It bent down, pulled the Thermal Battle Axe from Leatherback's head, then casually gave it another chop, watching Leatherback finally breathe its last.

Their leader's rapidly weakening life signs, along with the death of Leatherback, its reliable shield-like partner, filled Otachi with extreme danger. After glancing around, it found two Jaegers blocking its path to rescue its leader, while behind it stood an axe-wielding Jaeger brute who had just slaughtered Leatherback and now had his eyes on it. Its entire body went numb.

The awe-inspiring pillar of light lasted around ten seconds before finally disappearing from the sky.

The battlefield became dark again, lit only by the searchlights activated by the Jaegers and the light sources Kulturo had released before the battle.

Yet the heavenly pillar that had existed for only ten seconds had already been deeply etched into the hearts of everyone who saw it, never to be forgotten. Even the authorities, who had been monitoring the battlefield and satellite movements since granting authorization, fell silent. But the soldiers observing from the side had eyes that shone frighteningly bright.

After enduring the Satellite Ray's brutal bombardment for a full ten seconds, Scunner no longer possessed its earlier dominance or arrogance. It was not dead yet, but its whole body looked as though it had been crushed by boulders. It could no longer even stand with difficulty. Its massive body glowed faintly red, and the smell of cooked meat drifted through the surroundings.

Surviving a devastating weapon like the Satellite Ray, comparable to humanity's ultimate weapon, was already worthy of its maxed-out armor and astonishing vitality.

"Too bad it wasn't an Ion Cannon." Luke Field looked at his masterpiece with some regret.

"Was that a Laser Weapon?" Stacker Pentecost stared somewhat blankly at the vanished pillar of light. He, too, had been captivated by the tyrannical yet magnificent attack.

"That was a Particle Beam Weapon, Boss. Laser Weapons don't have that kind of destructive power. Besides, too many factors can affect their effectiveness," Cai Tiantong murmured from the side.

"Then what about an Ion Cannon?" Stacker Pentecost clenched his fists. He even felt the urge to fire such a devastating weapon at the Precursors' world.

"An Ion Cannon is a type of particle weapon, but it's more destructive than other Particle Beam Weapons. If that had really been an Ion Cannon just now, I don't know whether this planet would be finished, but we might have died alongside those Kaiju," Cai Tiantong said with lingering fear.

On the battlefield.

The two Cross Towers that had split off from Kulturo transformed into Locks, binding the dying Scunner to the seafloor. Mako Mori piloted Manus over to it and used the Plasma Beam Sword to end its life for good.

On the other side, Otachi, surrounded by three hulking Jaegers, also failed to defy fate. Along with its partner Leatherback, it died beneath Cherno Alpha's axe.

Double kill!

The crisis was completely resolved.

"I thought you were dead." Raleigh Becket looked at Manus and spoke to Mako Mori over the communications channel.

"The Manus form has an Energy Shield Module," Mako Mori explained simply over the comms. Though this form looked fragile, its defenses were still very strong. It just consumed a lot of energy and was not suited for prolonged combat.

Inside PPDC Headquarters.

Stacker Pentecost let out a breath. "Bring them back and begin maintenance and repairs as soon as possible! Dr. Luke, how long will your work take?" Stacker looked toward Luke Field, who was seated beside him.

"One day. I've already produced the Coating, and the spraying work can be finished quickly. If you're still worried, you can make use of the corpses of these three Kaiju as well." As Luke Field answered, the Dimensional Energy allowing him to remain here was nearing its limit. Unless something unexpected happened, he would be returning soon.

"Two days. At the latest, two days! Execute the Final Plan." Stacker Pentecost issued the order.