The Mech Touch

"You are crazy!" Patriarch Reginald Cross roared as he witnessed his adversary throwing away his strongest weapon. "Why would you do that?! You have thrown away every chance of winning this duel!"

As he spoke, his Mars fired a furious salvo of resonance-empowered energy beams from the ARCEUS System and swooped in to slash the Tireless Engine's body with the Whale-Cutting Saber.

The Tireless Engine may have lost his main weapon, but he quickly retrieved a spare spear from his pocket space that was proportional for his current size and barely managed to block the heavy saber swing.

The two powerhouses had been going at it for a while. The Mars had received more cuts and puncture marks on its armor. A few strikes from the Saint Piercers even managed to dig a little deeper into the torso armor, causing the Mars to suffer minor performance issues.

Entire sections of armor plating had become compromised due to this powerful experimental weapon. While the Mars managed to elude more serious damage, the degradation of armor left these sections particularly vulnerable to follow-up attacks.

The Tireless Engine was in a better condition. Though the upper-tier lesser phase lord endured so many hits from the ARCEUS System and the Whale-Cutting Saber that large parts of his fur had been removed, most of the injuries were proportionally only skin-deep.

The physical resilience of the phasewater-empowered flesh was not trivial!

The ARCEUS System needed to focus a lot of attacks on a single body part in order to inflict more serious damage onto a phase lord. Their outer skin and flesh practically functioned as an organic form of armor that was capable of withstanding a lot of attacks while preventing actual crippling damage.

Try as he might, Patriarch Reginald was unable to concentrate on all of his attacks. The Tireless Engine had become small and mobile enough to spread much of the incoming blows across the surface of his entire body.

Of course, much of the reason why the Tireless Engine was able to avoid receiving too much damage to his weak points was because he was constantly swinging the Saint Piercer around.

As long as the phase lord launched a strike that had a small chance of hitting the Mars, the latter had no choice but to err on the side of caution and pull back in order to avoid getting impaled or cut in half.

This was why Reginald didn't understand his adversary's latest move. Why would Ghirard throw away his only means of effectively damaging the Mars and keep his body in decent condition?

"YOU FOOLISH FALSE GOD. MY INCOMPETENT SON IS REQUIRES THE SAINT PIERCER MORE THAN I. MORE IMPORTANTLY, I DO NOT NEED TO KILL YOU TODAY. I ONLY NEED TO DELAY YOU, AND I CAN DO SO WITHOUT MY BEST WEAPON. I HAVE ALREADY BUILT UP MY REPUTATION, BUT MY OFFSPRING HAS YET TO DO SO. I SHALL NOT FORGIVE HIM IF HE DOES NOT ACQUIT HIMSELF WELL. WITH HIS NEW ARMS, HE HAS NO REASON TO FAIL."

The Tireless Engine actually cared more about his son than himself!

"I will kill you for this!" Reginald roared! "Without your superspear, you won't be able to hold me back! Whatever weapon you are wielding right now is not enough to deter my Mars!"

The Mars and the Tireless Engine clashed several times. The ace mech persistently circled around and swooped in for the attack.

The Tireless Engine was able to parry the Whale-Cutting Saber numerous times with his backup spear, but its lack of penetration power made it very difficult for the phase lord to launch any counterattacks.

This was especially the case when the ace mech's Saint Kingdom still remained intact!

Even so, Ghirard still acted as if he was amused! It was as if he had already dismissed Patriarch Reginald and the Mars as a threat!

"I DO NOT FEAR YOU ANYMORE, YOU FOOLISH TINY FALSE GOD IN A METAL MACHINE. BEFORE I ARRIVED AT THIS FRONT, I RECEIVED AN ABUNDANCE OF WARNINGS ABOUT THE THREAT POSED BY 'ACE PILOTS' AND 'ACE MECHS' LIKE YOURS. AFTER FIGHTING AGAINST YOU, I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT THE WARNINGS ARE ONLY PARTIALLY TRUE. NOT ALL 'SAINTS' ARE AS THREATENING."

Reginald felt indigent not just for himself, but for all ace pilots!

"Do not underestimate us! We possess the capacity to kill any phase lord, especially lesser ones like you! I will not allow you to belittle my ace mech!"

"YOU CANNOT STOP ME FROM DIMINISHING YOUR LETHALITY. YOUR HOT MACHINE MAY POSE A DANGER AGAINST MY INCOMPETENT SON, BUT IT CANNOT THREATEN ME. MY DIVINE PHYSIQUE IS TOO LARGE. YOUR MACHINE CARRIES SO MANY WEAPONS, BUT NONE OF THEM ARE POWERFUL ENOUGH. EVEN YOUR LARGE BLADE IS TOO SHORT TO INFLICT MORE THAN SHALLOW WOUNDS ON MY BODY."

In other words, the Tireless Engine felt secure in his bout against the Mars because he was convinced the Mars lacked a killer weapon that could inflict crippling damage onto his true body!

Though Reginald tried to deny this possibility, he was not delusional enough to deny this obvious truth.

As much as he wanted to refute the insult, the ace pilot couldn't do so, because he held these complaints as well.

There were times when piloting the Mars that he lamented the lack of strong killing of his ace mech.

This was especially when he fought alongside other ace mechs that performed much better in this regard.

Sure, they were mostly swordsman mechs or rifleman mechs that lacked the versatility of the Mars, but that allowed them to specialize their configurations until they became really good at making use of their primary weapons.

The Mars had a lot of different weapons that it was like a cruder version of a first-class multipurpose mech. As proud and happy as Reginald was with all of the options he had at his disposal, none of them possessed enough lethality!

He still had a few weapon systems left that he had been holding back at this time.

The shoulder-mounted missile launchers of the Mars were filled with a mix of utility missiles and transphasic hyper missiles that were quite destructive.

Unfortunately, the missiles weren't lethal enough against a phase lord like the Tireless Engine.

At most, they could blast away a lot of flesh and blood, but that was far from dealing a crippling blow against this phase lord!

The shotgun had already been taken out of action, but even if the Mars was still able to make use of it, none of the shells were capable of inflicting strong enough piercing damage.

Reginald had no choice but to conclude that the smug phase lord was right. His Mars lacked the raw killing power needed to land an immediate killing blow against the Tireless Engine!

The Mars needed to steadily grind the phase lord down, but all of that cost a lot of time and resources that the ace mech might not necessarily have.

In the meantime, the Tireless Engine could easily endure the assault due to his prodigious body and near-endless stamina. The phase lord was more than willing to throw away a part of his pride and dignity so long as he was able to hold back the Mars from doing anything to his son!

It was funny how the tables turned all of a sudden.

Previously, the Mars tried its best to prevent the Tireless Engine from interfering with the other fight.

Now, it was the nunser warlord who wanted to prevent the Mars from coming to the rescue!

This had major consequences as the Larkinson expert mechs were all forced to contend against a shamed but angry phase lord that was out to redeem his reputation!

"MY WEAPON SHALL IMPALE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! NO HUMAN IS ALLOWED TO ESCAPE MY REACH!"

The expert mechs were constantly trying to back off, but the reinvigorated Faceless Warrior utilized his mastery over space to warp forward and catch up to the fleeting machines.

The expert mechs had no choice but to defend against spear-wielding phase lord and prevent themselves from getting struck by the Saint Piercer as much as possible!

The intuition of all of the expert pilots constantly set off alarms in their heads whenever L'Koi swung or lunged with his powerful new weapon.

Though L'Koi was not as skilled as his father, he clearly received enough training in the spear to be able to utilize it effectively enough!

"Careful, general!"

Out of all the expert mechs that harassed and attacked him so far, L'Koi reserved the greatest ire towards the Lionheart and its pilot. It was no surprise that the phase lord wanted to take revenge on this expert mech first. This was especially the case when he discovered that the white machine no longer performed as well as before!

"YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT, LARKINSON!"

Just as the phase lord rushed down the evading Lionheart and attempted to impale its torso, the Riot charged forward and thrust his spear into the flank of the nunser phase lord!

There were not energy barriers in the way this time. The only defense in the way was the thick protection provided by the raiment, but the Riot's transphasic spear easily punched through the layers and ultimately pierced into the flesh!

The other expert mechs did not remain idle either.

The Blade Chaser boldly flew behind the head of L'Koi and utilized its twin blades to savage the relatively fragile rear side of the phase lord's helmet.

The C-Man and the Tiny C and teamed up to attack the rear side of the phase lord's armored body!

By punching away at a particularly sensitive place on the backside of the Faceless Warrior, Venerable Vincent sought to spook the phase lord and divert his attention.

The Greenaxe meanwhile approached one the rear limbs and began to hack away at the thigh armor with its massive transphasic axe.

The heavy blows cut deeply into the armor and had already begun to dig into the thick alien leg underneath!

These simultaneous assaults were not immediately crippling, but getting damaged in these places alarmed L'Koi so much that he had to pull out of his attempt to impale the Lionheart!

"CEASE!"

The phase lord released a powerful spatial blast that pushed all of the nearby machines away!

Most of them were already close to losing their resonance shields, so they were much less able to weather all of the spatial hazards generated by their adversary.

Though L'Koi wanted to resume his assault against the Lionheart, he already figured out that doing so was futile when there were 4 expert mechs that were metaphorically digging into his heels.

The new phase lord was clever enough that he could attain better results if he targeted another expert mech!

"Watch out for his spear! He is turning on us! He wants to finish us first!"

All of the expert pilots already had a good read on L'Koi's speed and maneuverability. They were already moving their expert mechs away in order to keep their distance against the so-called Saint Piercer.

However, their intuitions suddenly spiked in alarm as the phase lord made a surprising move.

"He's purging his raiment!"

With the exception of his helmet, L'Koi abruptly shed all of his armor!

It hadn't been doing anything too useful now that most of its azure shield generators had reached their limits. The layers of armor offered a bit of protection, but it was not enough against these expert mechs.

The phase lord made a spontaneous decision to rid himself of all of these burdens.

Now that his body had become free, the helmeted phase lord turned around with greater speed than before and thrust his Saint Piercer upwards towards the nearest expert mech!

"IMON!"

The Blade Chaser was not a slow machine, and it had already made good distance from its previous position.

Unfortunately, the Faceless Warrior spun around a bit faster.

Combined with the fact that the Saint Piercer actually had a lot of reach as it was meant to be wielded by a slightly larger phase lord, the threatening speartip made out of experimental alloys shot at the Blade Chaser Mark II with the speed of a projectile!

Though Imon tried to make his expert mech evade to the side at the last instant, it was too late!

The tip of the Saint Piercer punched through the very weak resonance shield that was already on the verge of failing and easily pierced through the rear armor.

The special spear turned out to be equally as effective in piercing through transphasic armor plating and continued to penetrate forward without encountering any meaningful resistance.

Just an instant later, the Saint Piercer breached the cockpit, completely obliterated the human body sitting within, and pierced straight through the frontal armor of the defenseless expert mech!

Every Larkinson pilot widened their eyes in horror as the sight of L'Koi impaling the Blade Chaser Mark II through the upper torso became forever seared in their minds!

"IMOOOOOOOON!"

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