The Mech Touch

The duel between Patriarch Reginald Cross and Ghirard entered into a completely different phase after the latter had voluntarily discarded the advantages afforded by his massive size and his Saint Crusher Raiment.

The phase lord had definitely struggled to make this decision. The native aliens had always revered larger gods over the smaller ones. There was literally no way that the nunsers or any other alien race would worship a phase lord the size of a small juggernaut over one that was just as large as one of their capital homeships!

Size mattered in alien society. Bigger was already better. This principle had become so ingrained in the minds of many aliens that it had remained constant throughout many different eras in the Red Ocean.

That was why the arrival of humans in their dwarf galaxy inflicted so much shock and trauma onto the local residents.

For the first time in recorded history, the native aliens all encountered an extragalactic 'alien' threat that completely broke the established principles and rules that the natives held dear for so long!

The emergence of 'expert mechs', 'ace mechs' and the especially logic-defying 'god mechs' completely threw the rule that bigger was better into the dirt and crushed it beneath the heel of their metal feet.

Due to how tightly the native aliens clung to the old rules and conventions that had always worked for the locals, they found it very difficult to adjust to a new reality where size didn't matter as much anymore.

At first, the native aliens resisted the challenge to their existing power structure. The phase whales were especially stubborn about refusing to acknowledge the new reality.

It was not until Operation Night Jazz had cruelly shown both humans and aliens that god mechs could slaughter the oldest and most powerful ancient phase whales with contemptuous ease that the native alien community was finally forced to accept the new reality!

However, it was one thing for phase lords and phase whales to admit that the humans had found a way to make their tiny combat machines a lot stronger than their size permitted.

It was another thing for the native aliens to follow the strategy of the humans and actively seek to shrink their sizes in an attempt to pursue a different means to grow stronger!

This was why the Tireless Engine's actions completely confounded his fellow nunser subordinates.

Practically all of the members of the Ghirard Fleet that had enough spare attention to track their god's performance all grew dismayed when the Tireless Engine actually shrank in size!

From a height of 1.2 kilometers to a height of just 170 meters was such a dramatic regression in size that it looked as if the powerful god had actually lost most of his strength all of a sudden!

The impact on the morale of the alien soldiers was so extensive that the warships and small craft visibly performed worse than before.

The ignorant nunsers all thought that the Mars had inflicted a grievous blow against the Tireless Engine!

Although the enemy phase lord was very much aware that his radical gambit would make his subjects lose faith in him, none of that mattered when he was locked in combat with one of the difficult ace mechs of the human invaders!

The Tireless Engine already had an expectation that it would be difficult for him to defeat one of these vaunted saints, but the reality was much worse than he expected!

This was why the alien had chosen practicality over dogma and decisively shed the advantages that did not give him any edge against this particular opponent.

Though Ghirard had definitely made a dangerous gamble, as soon as he started to duel against the Mars in his much more compact form, he finally managed to regain a bit of initiative!

"I MAY HAVE BECOME SMALLER, BUT MUCH OF MY POWER STILL REMAINS. I HAVE BECOME FASTER THAN EVER BEFORE!"

The Tireless Engine no longer fought like a lumbering giant anymore. Instead, he was able to match or even exceed the speed of the Mars this time!

The phase lord was able to form a powerful localized warp bubble around his compact body that massively increased his movement and maneuvering speeds.

It was only when the Tireless Engine flew closer to the Mars that the latter's enhanced space supresion field neutralized the warp bubble, but it didn't matter as the two combatants had already entered into striking range!

The integrated energy weapons of the ARCEUS System constantly pelted the phase lord with transphasic fire hyper positron beams, but they failed to inflict any effective damage due to colliding against the large enemy's spatial barrier.

Though the space suppression field also weakened the efficacy of the spatial barrier, the reduction in performance was not as exaggerated.

The spatial barrier of a phase lord was formed by his entire physique as well as any supporting phasewater organs!

That made it a lot harder to suppress as the source of the spatial barrier did not come from a seperate technological system, but rather from interconnected organs bound by phasewater.

Patriarch Reginald scowled at this result, but that only drove him to employ additional weapons to wear down his adversary's defenses!

"Taste my shotgun!"

One of the limbs of the Mars snapped in the direction of the approaching phase lord and opened fire!

Dozens of transphasic hyper flechettes cut through space and collided against the Tireless Engine's spatial barrier.

Strangely enough, the spatial barrier visibly destabilized as the flechettes dug into this energy defense and actually stuck around!

As the spatial barrier continued to suffer under this additional debilitating effect, the Mars relied on its Saint Kingdom to resist the incoming spear strike while channeling all of its momentum into delivering a heavy axe strike!

"HEAVY CHOP!"

The simple name for this move belied the incredible power behind this resonance-empowered axe blow!

The hypers responsible for increasing the mass and force of the transphasic axe caused the blade to strike the spatial barrier with such might that ripples of energy and spatial distortions spread from the impact site!

Due to all of the weakening effects, the singularly powerful blow inflicted way more damage than it should, causing the Tireless Engine to lose a lot of defensive buffer!

However, Patriarch Reginald did not manage to inflict this damaging blow without paying a price.

By putting all of his attention on defense, he was not able to block the incoming spear stab.

Although the weapon was a lot smaller and lighter than the massive pole that the Tireless Engine wielded just a moment ago, his more compact weapon still demonstrated excellent penetration properties!

Patriarch Reginald's Saint Kingdom did not help to debilitate the passage of the transphasic spear as much as the ace pilot expected.

This was not supposed to happen.

The Saint Kingdom of a ace mech was the direct evolution of the resonance shield of an expert mech.

The former was a lot more versatile, but it still posessed the protective functions of the former, but at a much greater power level.

Yet surprisingly enough, the transphasic spear continued to cut through the Saint Kingdom without experiencing any major hindrance!

Even as Patriarch Reginald focused most of his attention on his power attack, he still had enough focus left to command his Mars to hastily raise the arm holding its upgraded shotgun.

The ranged weapon received an awful cut to its barrel!

Though the powerful alloys that made up the weapon barrel finally managed to slow down the incoming spear just enough for the Mars to push away and prevent the spear from punching into the ace mech's armor, the shotgun was no longer safe to fire anymore!

Reginald became so befuddled by how the enemy's spear pierced through his Saint Kingdom as if it didn't exist that he decided to pull back his Mars a second time.

Another lull ensued in the duel as the two powerful champions took stock of what just happened.

The Tireless Engine felt the heavily damaged state of his spatial barrier. The transphasic axe had dealt a massive blow. The phase lord could not afford to get hit like this at close range when the space supression field and other effects were at their strongest.

The good news was that the phase lord managed to take the arrogant ace pilot by surprise and disabled his powerful shotgun.

The nunser warlord smirked. This time, the lack of raiment did not hide his alien expression.

Reginald in the meantime had grown a lot warier and more concerned about the weapon wielded by his adversary.

He still couldn't figure out why his Saint Kingdom failed so badly at this junction. He could only attribute this result to the special properties of the smaller spear!

"DO YOU KNOW WHY I HAVE REDUCED MYSELF TO THIS SMALL AND PATHETIC STATURE? IT IS SO THAT I CAN WIELD THIS GIFT. IT IS… A PROTOTYPE IN YOUR HUMAN PARLANCE. IT IS A FLAWED BUT WORKING VERSION OF A WEAPON DESIGNED TO DEAL THE DEATHBLOW AGAINST FALSE GODS SUCH AS YOURSELF."

"That weapon… what is it?" The ace pilot couldn't help but ask.

The phase lord, who had just regained a lot of confidence, saw no need to hide the details of this weapon.

"DO YOU KNOW WHY I HAVE REDUCED MYSELF TO THIS SMALL AND PATHETIC STATURE? IT IS SO THAT I CAN WIELD THIS GIFT. IT IS… A PROTOTYPE IN YOUR HUMAN PARLANCE. IT IS A FLAWED BUT WORKING VERSION OF A WEAPON DESIGNED TO DEAL THE DEATHBLOW AGAINST FALSE GODS SUCH AS YOURSELF."

"How does it work?"

"I DO NOT KNOW. I AM NOT STUPID ENOUGH SHARE THE SECRETS OF THIS WEAPON TO YOU EVEN IF I UNDERSTAND THE THEORY. I DO FIND IT IRONIC THAT THIS SPEAR HAS COME ABOUT THROUGH THE COMBINED EFFORTS OF THE CRAFTY PUELMERS AND THE 'TERMINAL CELL' OF YOUR COSMOPOLITANS. BOTH HUMAN AND ALIEN INGENUITY HAS BEEN PUT INTO THE DEVELOPMENT AND CREATION OF THIS ARMAMENT. IT IS ONLY FITTING THAT IT IS CALLED THE SAINT PIERCER."

Though the Tireless Engine refused to provide a proper explanation for his amazingly effective spear, Patriarch Reginald had already figured out a few clues by himself.

The mention of the puelmers and the cosmopollitans collaborating on the development of this revolutionary new weapon type suggested that it was a purely technological product rather than anything mystical.

The phasewater content of the Saint Piercer was not higher than that of the much more massive one that the phase lord wielded earlier.

The similarities between the name of the Saint Piercer and the Saint Crusher suggested that they originated from the same source. It even suggested that they were supposed to be a part of the same set of combat equipment.

If that was the case, why did their sizes diverge so enormously?

The obvious answer to this was that the puelmers and the cosmopolitans may have originally planned to produce a larger version of the Saint Piercer that a 1.2 kilometer high nunser phase lord was able to wield, but they suffered a shortage in the critical materials needed to make the Saint Piercer work!

The ultimate answer then was that the Saint Piercer was special due to the exceptional new blend of materials put into its construction. The enemy aliens and the treacherous humans had combined their expertises to develop a powerful new alloy formula that combined both exotics and hypers to produce the first true counter to an ace pilot's Saint Kingdom!

If not the fact that the native aliens likely hadn't gathered enough raw materials to create larger anti-Saint weapons that could easily be wielded by larger and more powerful phase lords, Patriarch Reginald may have gotten in trouble a lot earlier if his ace mech got pierced by the giant-sized version of the Saint Piercer!

At this time, Reginald actually started to think about maintaining his distance so that he could steadily grind down the Tireless Engine's spatial barrier with his ARCEUS System.

Unfortunately, that tactic didn't work anymore. The shrunken phase lord was able to generate more powerful warp bubbles that allowed him to move faster than the Mars. There was no way for the ace mech to maintain its distance if the Tireless Engine was determined to get close!

Reginald made a decision. His Mars slowly stowed its transphasic hyper axe onto its back and slowly began to unsheathe the exaggeratingly long Whale-Cutting Saber from its back.

"You do not deserve to wield that spear. You can either make this easy or difficult, but one way or another, I shall pry your precious Saint Piercer from your severed fingers!"

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