The Mech Touch

The air in the private workshop inside the Spirit of Bentheim grew heavier and more charged as Ves' tale approached the death of Casella's brother.

The two ace pilots might not be too old or experienced, but their transcendent power granted them an excellent understanding of the ebb and flow of battle.

This was especially the case for a command specialist such as Saint Casella!

The crude map generated by Ves was lacking in a lot of detail, but Casella skillfully made a lot of inferences that allowed her to more accurately reproduce the progression of the running battle in her mind.

Many risk factors clearly stood out to her. If General Ark weighed the risks like a reasonable commander, then he would have already aborted this operation from the moment the RA stealth carrier got discovered.

Sure, it had been necessary for the Mars and the expert mechs to deploy into space in order to destroy the hidden archeship and prevent the Ghirard Fleet from hunting down the stealth vessel, but this was still a lot safer than to proceed headlong into enemy territory!

What Casella found especially painful was that by the time the mechs detected the approach of a second enemy phase lord, it was already too late for the Larkinson expert mechs to make an easy retreat.

Ves slowly retold the sequence of combat, making sure to be careful and precise with his words. The surviving mechs from this operation-turned-debacle retained detailed logs and recordings of the running battle, but it was irresponsible to transmit them over the galactic net or any remote communication method for that matter.

When he finally came to the key juncture where the younger phase lord purged his armor, took advantage of his reduced burden and turn around at a much faster rate than he had shown before, both Tusa and Casella could predict what happened next.

"These raiments do indeed weigh down their wearers." Tusa spoke. "When you fight against them for a time, it is difficult to keep in mind that they can actually move faster if they do not have to drag along thousands of tons of alloys. This L'Koi is quite sharp by giving up his armor during this critical instance. The timing couldn't have been better. Ark had failed to take out the phase lord with his overcommitted attack, and all of the other expert mechs were still very close as they sought to take advantage of the distraction. Perhaps the greatest fault that Rosa Orfan and the others have made during this instance was to put too much trust in their leader. They failed to hedge against Ark's failure."

Casella looked pained. Her brother didn't have to die despite this setback.

Venerable Imon Ingvar could have saved his life if he held back a bit and assumed a more cautious posture. He didn't have to charge straight towards the rear of the Faceless Warrior's head and gamble on whether he could land a killer blow on the phase lord.

As his sister, Casella understood Imon well enough to deduce that he wanted to get lucky.

He was waiting for Ark to land a crippling blow that stripped L'Koi's defenses but did not kill him outright.

It was unreasonable for a single attack, even one as powerful as the Cleansing Light in Giantslayer Mode, to cut down a phase lord right away.

That was why the Riot, the Blade Chaser Mark II, the C-Man and the Greenaxe positioned themselves around L'Koi. They were ready to deliver the follow-up attacks once General Ark had exhausted the awesome power of his magnificent attack.

It was too bad that Ark fell short at the end. He had succeeded in that he had blown apart the energy defenses of the enemy phase lord. He had also failed as his plasma sword failed to burn through the enemy's raiment and inflict a painful blow on the phase lord's true body.

Due to this specific outcome, L'Koi lost much of his defensive buffer, but still maintained his full offensive potential!

From the moment he grasped the Saint Piercer, the expert pilots should have withdrawn and sought to evade confrontation at all cost. It had been far too reckless for them to think about taking away the phase lord's life when he wielded a weapon that had already proven deadly enough to pierce through Saint Kingdoms as if they were nothing!

"The Blade Chaser Mark II had no chance." Ves unequivocally said. "As a mech designer, I have witnessed its performance against the Mars. It doesn't really matter who wields this weapon. As long as the wielder is large enough and possesses enough skill in spearmanship, he or she can easily tear through anything. The Mars is a much tougher machine to crack, and it has incurred many nasty tears to its armor system. The Blade Chaser Mark II's armor system is not nearly as good, and L'Koi is just good enough with polearms to be able to deliver a strong and accurate thrust through the back of the expert mech and into the cockpit."

L'Koi knew enough about human mechs to understand the most effective way to take them down. He did not foolishly target the head of the Blade Chaser Mark II, nor try to stab in the very center of the torso. Eliminating the cockpit was the most certain way to defeat not just the machine, but also the human that controlled its movements!

Casella had fallen silent as she processed the reasons why her brother died at this junction.

There were so many things that he and the others could have done to prevent this fatal outcome.

If she was there, she would have never let this farce drag to this point!

There was no way her brother would have died if she was in charge!

Seeing that Casella was not in the mood to talk, Tusa opened up his mouth in an attempt to keep a conversation going.

"I can see why L'Koi chose to target the Blade Chaser most of all." Tusa said. "If I was in the phase lord's place, I would have tried to attack the Lionheart first, especially after it had clearly lost a lot of power. However, since it is necessary to close the distance in order to target the Lionheart, it is better to turn around and target the other expert mechs. Targeting the Blade Chaser makes the most sense. It is closest as it sought to target the nunser phase lord's head as opposed to his massive rear body. The Blade Chaser was also in the worst position to escape the reach of L'Koi's new weapon. As long as the phase lord spun around fast enough, Imon's mech should still be well within reach. The Blade Chaser was just begging to get impaled from the back at that point. Maybe it would have made a greater difference if Imon did not turn around in an attempt to flee."

Casella grimaced deeper. There were so many possible decisions that her brother and the other expert pilots could have made that could stave off this specific outcome.

If her brother hadn't been so greedy to target the phase lord's head, thereby earning a lot more ire from 'L'Koi than the others, the phase lord might have chosen to impale another expert mech instead!

If the other expert mechs such as the Riot and the C-Man hadn't placed themselves so much further away they had already escaped the reach of the Saint Piercer by the time the phase lord around, the Blade Chaser wouldn't have stood out so much!

Casella's powerful mind couldn't help but fixate on the huge number of what-ifs that were beginning to overload her expanded cognition!

"Calm down, Casella!" Tusa barked and flared his Saint Kingdom a bit, allowing him to shock the distressed Saint Commander from her unhealthy preoccupation. "Your brother doesn't want you to burn up your brain by obsessing over his demise. He wants you to live. Do not dishonor his sacrifice by defying his earnest wish."

Those were the right words to say to the Saint Commander. As smart and thoughtful as she was most of the time, there was still a human inside the powerful ace pilot. That lingering human vulnerability could have caused the Larkinson Clan's latest saint to self-destruct before she could be put to good use!

Though Casella found it impossible to completely stop thinking about her brother's death, the forceful push from Tusa at least brought her back to relative sanity.

"Thank you, Tusa. I… needed that intervention." She softly said before turning to Ves. "Please tell me what happened next. What happened to the killer of my brother? Did the Larkinsons manage to retrieve the wreck of his expert mech? Did the Warborn at least manage to pry the Saint Piercer from the nunsers?"

Ves remained for a few seconds before he began to clarify what happened next.

"All of the expert pilots had fallen in shock at that time. They could not accept that one of their own had gotten killed in such a quick and brutal fashion. The Blade Chaser's resonance shield may have been on the verge of collapse at that point, but its shield generator and armor system is still decent, if a bit outdated. In most situations, an expert mech should still be able to remain functional after suffering a heavy blow from a relatively weak lesser phase lord. Not this time. The Saint Piercer is such an effective weapon that it has invalidated all of the defenses of the expert mech. The expert pilots hadn't fully understood the implications of this, so they froze while L'Koi proudly lifted up his weapon and showed off the expert mech that he literally speared through the back."

"What… happened next?"

"Well, before L'Koi could shake the Blade Chaser from his fancy new weapon and turn it against the other Larkinson expert mechs, Patriarch Reginald Cross forcibly intervened. The Mars had deliberately pushed away from the Tireless Engine and approached L'Koi so quickly that his Mars ended up colliding against the younger phase lord's exposed body. The son of Ghirard not only received a heavy bruise against his flank, but also got pushed away, preventing him from claiming a second expert pilot."

The Mars was able to disengage from the Tireless Engine because the older phase lord no longer held the Saint Piercer anymore.

Just as the Mars lacked a powerful killing weapon against its adversary, Ghirard also lacked the power to inflict a decisive killing blow onto the ace hybrid mech.

Of course, the Tireless Engine grew very angry about the fact that he had been dismissed, and already started to close in on the Mars.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" Patriarch Reginald Cross roared over the communication channel. "This battle is over! Run and don't turn back! I will hold these enemies as much as possible. Don't wait for me! I can make my own way back to Duqaste VII!"

It seemed very uncharacteristic for Patriarch Reginald to show so much care and consideration for others, but even he could not remain unmoved by the death of a high-tier expert pilot from the Larkinson Clan.

"Hell no!" Venerable Vincent defiantly shot back. "We can't let L'Koi get away with killing one of our own! I don't want to let these filthy aliens bask in their victory over us! We need to avenge my friend's death!"

Venerable Rosa Orfan also had misgivings about an immediate withdrawal.

"We need to take back the Blade Chaser. Imon is dead, but his living mech still lives on. We can't allow his battle partner to fall in the hands of the native aliens. We should take away the Saint Piercer as well! If we bring it back and hand it over to the mechers, they can research this experimental weapon and develop counters that can prevent others from suffering the same fate."

"No." General Ark struggled to speak through his complex mood. He could procrastinate later. "We cannot take any further risks. Letting the aliens keep Imon's mech and the Saint Piercer is bad for many reasons, but we do not have the luxury to fulfill these objectives. We are at a heavy disadvantage. We cannot resist two phase lords as well as the entirety of the Ghirard Fleet at once! Listen to our only ace pilot and flee!"

Though the pilots were split on their goals, they were professional enough to understand that the worst possible outcome was to remain divided on the battlefield.

In situations like these, it became imperative to obey the orders of the highest-ranking officer unless it was clearly idiotic or illegal.

The risks of persisting in the battle were far too great at this point. The safest option that best preserved the lives of the remaining mechs and mech pilots was to give up and run away.

"That was what they did in the end." Ves softly said. "It is clear that Venerable Vincent and Venerable Orfan really wanted to stick around and take back the Blade Chaser at the very least, but they cannot justify this decision when there is a high likelihood that another expert pilot will end up getting cleaved into oblivion by the Saint Piercer. Patriarch Reginald also did not try to retrieve the expert mech either. He was badly outnumbered and had his hands full with trying to hold back all of the aliens by himself."

Casella did not know what to think at this time.

On the one hand, she agreed with the logic that the risks were far too high.

On the other hand, she resented the Warborn even more for not even attempting to bring back her brother's expert mech!

The aliens who captured this precious machine would most certainly despoil it somehow, thereby denying Casella from gaining possession of the strongest legacy of her brother!

The aliens who captured this precious machine would most certainly despoil it somehow, thereby denying Casella from gaining possession of the strongest legacy of her brother!

She hated General Ark for setting up the circumstances of Imon's death, and she hated Patriarch Reginald for not using his power to push aside L'Koi until it was too late!

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