The Mech Touch

5860 Retaliating Storm

The Dominion of Man was under attack!

The dreadnought entered into a confrontation against a foe unlike anything the fleeters had ever fought against!

Aside from a tiny proportion of cultivation experts who mostly hung around next to the Spark Reactor, the rest of the spacers had no idea what they were up against.

Ves did.

At the very least, he lived through a similar situation in the past.

If there was any gain he made from his failed attempt to transform the Elemental Lord into a five-elemental hyper mech, it was that he had gained a decent understanding of the mechanics of tribulation storms.

As Ves continued to look at the projected feed of a hidden sensor drone stationed a dozen or so kilometers away, he could see the Dominion of Man struggling to withstand the onslaught of lightning monsters.

Sickly green lightning bolts coalesced and formed bodies that vaguely resembled bipedal reptiles with oversized mouths.

The creatures already looked voracious enough to be able to devour anything, but they did not appear to be particularly smart. There was little chance such creatures developed any sophisticated intelligence, which meant that they shouldn't be so difficult to handle.

Unfortunately, whatever control the Subjugation King had over these lightning creatures made them a lot more coordinated!

They did not attack the Dominion of Man in swarms, nor tried to follow the most direct and predictable route to their targets.

Instead, the lightning monsters began to behave as if they were part of an organized force.

They formed into arrow-shaped formations. They circled around to overload the same segmented azure energy shields. They timed their attacks to deliver the maximum amount of impact in the least amount of time.

This was the way an intelligent operator fought a battle. An army led by a God King of all possibilities was an extremely intimidating prospect. The lightning creatures already displayed far more unity and coordination than the creatures that the Elemental Lord faced in the past.

Wait a minute.

Ves recalled that the Elemental Lord actively fought back against those annoying lightning monsters. Whatever they became after the tribulation lightning condensed into semi- physical existences also made them vulnerable to conventional attacks.

He took a closer look at the multitude of gun batteries and other offensive systems buried into the hull of the dreadnought.

The Dominion of Man was a metropolis-sized starship. While the Guns of Armageddon and the Doom of Xenos definitely exceeded their sister ship in terms of firepower, that did not mean that the current hull was lacking in firepower!

Even if much of the capacity of the Dominion of Man was taken up by defensive systems, support systems and troop carrying modules, there was still a huge amount of space left over for dreadnought-grade main cannons and other awesome weapon modules!

The fact that none of these weapons had yet to open fire was a huge mistake!

"Sigrund! Open a communication line to the dread captain! I need to pass on a critical piece of information!"

"Opening a priority channel now!"

"Say your piece." Dread Captain Volkert Argile spoke in a voice that contained a lot of fire.

"First, I want to tell you that I understood what that big alien face said to us. I have a talent for interpreting alien speech. I am willing to pass on what he said after this crisis has passed."

"That is… helpful to know. Our superiors will definitely want to hear your testimony."

"Second, you should know that we do not necessarily have to remain passive when attacked by these tribulation storms. It is… permissible to strike back. You should make use of the Dominion of Man's impressive weapon arsenal. So long as the tribulation storm doesn't send out lightning bolts that strike in an instant, there is always an opportunity to eliminate these lightning apparitions before they have an opportunity to wear down our defenses."

Ves could practically taste the realization on the other side of the communication channel.

"...You have taught us an essential lesson. We should have thought about it. I should have thought about it. We will correct our strategy as soon as possible. Do you have any other advice you wish to share with us, professor?"

"Yeah. You need to contact headquarters for advice and instructions. You can't do this alone. The tribulation storm is continuing to grow in power. If we do not outsmart its attacks, it will eventually overpower the Dominion of Man's defenses. Don't limit yourself to asking for help from other fleeters. No offense, but you guys have the worst understanding of cultivation than any other major organization. Don't you think that you need to be asking for help from actual experts after that giant alien face showed up? The Red Fleet may not like it, but we can definitely use the help of any god pilot or Star Designer!"

"We cannot do that, professor! We are operating on an active battlefield! We have locked down most of our external communication methods in accordance with our most up to date information security protocols. Any communication channel, no matter how much we encrypt it, is a potential opening for third parties to intrude into our dreadnought."

"THIS IS BIGGER THAN PRESERVING THE SECRETS OF YOUR PRECIOUS FLAGSHIP!" Ves exploded in frustration! "With everything that has already happened, maintaining information security should be one of your least concerns! If you cannot make this decision by yourself, then pass on my warning to your father. He should definitely have the authority to do what is necessary."

"...Very well." The dread captain responded after a brief pause. "It is already a break from protocol to reach out to Fleet Admiral Argile, but I will allow it due to unprecedented circumstances."

Volkert Argile at least did not need to call his father to instruct his subordinates to bring the immensely powerful armaments of the Dominion of Man to bear against the lightning monster armies.

The biggest guns that could fit whole mechs inside their barrels took an awful long time to orient in the right direction.

Fortunately, the immensely long hull of the Dominion of Man offered plenty of space for smaller and nimber gun batteries.

Thousands of tertiary gun batteries that were primarily designed to intercept mechs, starfighters missile ordnance tracked the closest lightning monster formations and let loose a barrage of fire!

It was as if a dozen first-class fortifications worth of interceptor fire erupted from the Dominion of Man.

Every rapid-fire gun that was able to orient towards the lightning monsters precisely tracked their designated targets and shot with nearly perfect aim!

Controlled by the recently upgraded Brain Trust, every single turret tracked a single specific lightning monster.

A torrent of thin but incredibly concentrated transphasic hyper laser beams blasted the lightning monsters with utmost precision!

It happened in a blink of an eye. The laser beam cannons only went active for an instant, but channeled ample amounts of electromagnetic radiation as well as small doses of raw and potent fire-attributed E energy.

The transphasic effect enabled the laser beam to attack targets that occupied other dimensions, which happened to work particularly well on these strange tribulation manifestations.

The combination of multiple factors amplified the damage potential of the transphasic hyper laser beams to such an extent that the lightning monsters did not stand a chance!

What was impressive was that the tertiary laser cannon batteries did not need a lot of time to recharge their next shots. They opened fire barely a second later, though the dreadnought could clearly cycle their fire at a faster rate at the risk of overheating the weapon systems.

Every battery mounted at least 3 barrels, with some boasting 6 or 9 barrels on a single hardpoint!

By alternating their fire, the Dominion of Man maintained a continuous barrage of laser beams that never seemed to end!

Hundreds of lightning monsters got struck and released their destructive potential in empty space, thereby preventing them from inflicting any damage to their target's defenses.

The energy shield generators took full advantage of this reprieve by restoring the integrity of their strained azure energy shields. The time bought by the voluminous point defenses of the Dominion of Man was incredibly precious as the more fragile defensive components did not need to resort to emergency measures to keep the hull protected.

"It's working!"

"Our ship doesn't even need to employ any of her primary and secondary gun batteries. Our tertiary guns are eliminating the lighting monsters faster than they can emerge from the storm!"

Ves practically looked gobsmacked at how easily the dreadnought took care of this threat.

The lightning monster waves had turned from a threat that was powerful enough to whittle down the defenses of human warships to literal cannon fodder!

There was nothing the tribulation apparitions could do to circumvent the relentlessly accurate fire from the Dominion of Man!

The monsters split up from each other and tried to envelop the Dominion of Man from as many directions as possible.

That simply allowed the dreadnought to open fire with the tertiary gun batteries that had yet to open fire due to being placed on the other side of the hull.

The monsters began to display more individual initiative by engaging in individual evasion patterns. They varied their speed, they changed directions at random times and cross-

crossed their routes in an attempt to confuse the tracking systems of their massive opponent.

It didn't work.

The behavior of the lightning monsters had become more inventive, but so long as their mobility was not as outrageously high as instant lightning bolts, they were no faster than any random first-class multipurpose mech!

If there was one enemy type that the warships of the CFA and RA were designed to fight, it was mechs!

The fleeters had invested centuries worth of time, resources and effort into improving and perfecting their anti-mech combat solutions.

There were good reasons why the exterior of every dreadnought was covered with tertiary gun batteries. They were the most effective way to shoot down lots of mechs!

Right now, the Dominion of Man demonstrated with her actions why it was a bad idea to dispatch any mech force against the dreadnought on an open battlefield.

The merciless hyper laser cannon batteries were shredding the lightning monsters with perfect tracking!

The Brain Trust did not even appear to be particularly strained by the effort of tracking and predicting the trajectories of thousands of lightning monsters at a time.

Not a single move or intention avoided the accurate modeling and predictive solutions of the Super Brain and its assisting brain units.

Ves understood a bit better why the fleeters went through all of this trouble of adopting the Brain Trust as the primary control system of the Dominion of Man.

It was rather ironic that the brains taken from fleeters who could have been the best mech pilots offered the most effective tracking performance against nimble small craft!

Though the Dominion of Man had most definitely regained the upper hand for the time being, Ves did not dare to relax at this time.

The reprieve was only temporary.

Even if it took a lot of time for the tribulation attacks to ramp up to the point where they couldn't easily be shot down anymore, the Subjugation King was observing the performance of the dreadnought all of this time.

Ves widened his eyes as he made a scary realization.

"Uh oh."

Just as Ves managed to learn crucial details about the God King who was on his way to subjugate the Red Ocean, the very same alien powerhouse was doing the same to his would-be slaves!

The Subjugation King might come across as arrogant, but anyone who was powerful and cunning enough to reach the fourth major cultivation rank in a cutthroat environment should definitely not be stupid!

Even if Messier 87 was not conducive to the emergence of technological civilizations, Ves doubted that the God King would remain ignorant of the technological solutions that the Dominion of Man proudly displayed in the open.

The enemy was gathering crucial intelligence!

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