The Mech Touch

The juregs had only temporarily vacated their greater phase lords and other strategic assets from the New Cartagena System.

They stayed away just long enough to confirm that the Light of Sol was no longer heading in their direction anymore. The god pilot tried to be as unpredictable as possible in where he showed up, but he could not afford to spend so much time on traveling when he could be demolishing alien armadas left and right.

It was a constant game of cat-and-mouse.

There were times where the Light of Sol managed to beat the predictions of his opponents and manage to slay greater phase lords that were originally used to hold back human senior ace pilots.

There were other times where the Light of Sol arrived in a star system where the aliens only left a token force behind. The Red Cabal managed to fool the god pilot by projection convincing illusions, causing the local humans to feed false intelligence to the god pilot.

The aliens were getting better at exploiting the limitations of god pilots. As invincible as they were in direct combat, they were very poor at long distance power projection!

God pilots and god mechs were so specialized in dominating the battlefield at the tactical level that they were not as helpful at the strategic level.

At least the Rubarthans had it better. Two roaming god pilots made it a lot harder for the native aliens to form their plan around.

The Terrans unfortunately only had a single god pilot to rely upon, but they were not able to provide the best help because their intelligence apparatus delivered less-than-perfect results.

However, none of that was relevant in the New Cartagena System. The juregs absolutely were not attempting to pull off a bluff. Their motivations to recapture the star system was a matter of faith. They wanted their precious ocean moon back so badly that they immediately moved to attack as soon as they returned!

The mood in the Brusilov Fleet changed. The professional soldiers suspended their R&R and switched to a more serious and focused mindset.

None of the first-class multipurpose mech pilots were afraid. The endured huge amounts of pressure during their mech cadet days, so they could easily endure the pressure of preparing for a battle against a powerful alien armada.

The quantity of small craft and warships on both sides was not as much as Tusa expected.

In a battle of this magnitude and importance, the Brusilov Fleet only fielded 10,000 first-class multipurpose mechs, with other mech forces fielding an additional 20,000 first-class multipurpose mechs.

They were all high-quality mechs, at least.

Aside from that, the various mech forces also deployed a temporary defensive ring around New Cartagena II as well as tens of thousands of weaker and more specialized first-class mechs that provided assistance in various ways.

The fleeters also maintained a relatively small squadron of warships, but they were mostly assigned to defend critically important strategic assets and would not engage the aliens proactively. They had declined to employ their Starfighter Corps in this star system.

The message was very clear. The Terrans needed to solve their own problems. If they were unable or unwilling to do so, then they had no right to rule over the Terran Alliance.

The Dostoevsky Ancient Clan may be renowned for producing many brilliant artists and scientists every generation, but it had not neglected the need to form a strong military core.

While the Dostoevsky's did not field a mech army as large and expansive as the much more militant Streon Ancient Clan, but keeping their main military force relatively small enabled them to invest a lot more in raising the quality of their troops!

"What are the specialties of your Dostoevsky mechs?" Saint Tusa asked as he entered the cockpit of his ace mech and corresponded with his liaison. "Your ancient clan is big on high technology, so your machines must be equipped with exotic tech than what I have read in the basic information packages."

"Well, you should already know that the mech units of our Brusilov Fleet excel at melee combat." Lieutenant Daria Dostoevskaya said over a private communication channel. "Our most premier unit is the Cossack Lancer Battalion. The first-class multipurpose mechs are adequate at attacking from range, but they are most noted for their ability to charge at their targets with their precious tier 6 Destroyer lances. Serving in this elite battalion is a highly coveted dream to many Terrans."

Tusa slightly widened his eyes. Tier 6 Destroyer weapons were nothing to scoff at! While it was not as extravagant as the tier 3 Destroyer spear that Ves had reserved for Rosa Orfan, the advantage of the Cossack Lancers was that they had so many of them! He could not think of many mech units that could resist the charge of 500 Destroyer lances at the same time.

"We have many other notable elite mech units, but they do not require any hand-holding from you." Lieutenant Daria continued. "We only wish for you to keep an eye on our Cossack Lancers and save them from an ambush if possible. The Destroyer lances are priceless and irreplaceable. We are fortunate that we have managed to salvage every lance lost by fallen mechs so far, but we cannot retrieve them if the juregs have struck them too hard. Our great champion excels at ranged takedowns, but we fear the aliens may be luring him to a trap if they use the Cossack Lancers as bait."

"I understand. I am much more suited to venture into perilous areas and deal with problems on site. At worst, I can slip away just as easily." Tusa readily said.

This was the difference in specializations. As powerful as Saint Isaiah Dostoevsky may be, he much preferred to solve his problems from a comfortable distance. He was much like Venerable Davia Stark in this regard.

Tusa on the other hand liked to be in the thick of action. He hardly experienced any fear or hesitation when he sent his mech right at the enemy.

Of course, the new ace pilot realized that he needed to restrain himself this time. He was still new to first-class combat and was not entirely familiar with all of the crazy stuff that the enemy threw at the human defenders.

As his Dark Zephyr launched from the Third Rome and floated above most of the first-class mech units that dispersed in different directions, Saint Tusa and the others were waiting for the arrival of the native aliens as well as the entry of the strongest combatant in the field.

"He is coming!"

Though Saint Tusa was also an ace pilot, his entry into the field hardly elicited any attention from the surrounding Terrans.

His Dark Zephyr may be an impressive piece of hardware, but it was small and not designed to grab people's attention. In fact, impregnating the mech frame with Solus Gas dampened much of his emissions and made the machine less noticeable than before.

Tusa did not radiate his Saint Kingdom at full strength, but even if he did, it wouldn't have amounted to much compared to what the defenders of New Cartagena witnessed in every major battle.

A part of Tusa still felt insulted and belittled for being dismissed as if he was just a faceless grunt.

Those hard feelings instantly disappeared from the moment the Whispering Willow entered into space.

It was as if everything around the famous ace mech went still.

The ace mech that had been upgraded to the point where it had become eligible to transform into a god mech was coated in pale white and nothing else.

The legendary machine did not need any further markings or embellishments to signify its extreme lethality.

Its mere presence was like the onset of a cold winter onto a helpless and unprepared army of belligerents.

Soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets could defeat mortal enemy troops The sight of the white ace mech became a lot more intimidating when it was accompanied by the strongest Saint Kingdom that Tusa had ever witnessed.

Tusa had fought alongside Saint Kalasandra Boojay many times as an expert pilot and more recently an ace pilot in the expeditionary fleet. The hero of the exiled Boojay Family was much older and had much more time to polish her willpower to the point where she grew into a senior ace pilot.

However, the difference between a senior ace pilot and a true peak ace pilot was still vast!

The former could already be regarded as a mainstay among ace pilots, but the latter had already started to diverge from the trappings of this rank!

Tusa had heard that every peak ace pilot could already be treated as a preparatory god pilot.

In this moment, he realized that those descriptions were not exaggerations.

Peak ace pilots may be bottlenecked by the hard ceiling of their resonance strength, but there were still other ways they could develop their powers!

In the case of the famous Messenger of Silence, the ace pilot clearly put much of his energy into refining and improving his Saint Kingdom. Its range, energy density and the strength of conviction behind it was so much better than anything Tusa had witnessed!

All of these quantitative improvements led to a qualitative transformation.

Although it was still far short from reaching the standards of a genuine God Kingdom, Tusa could clearly feel as if the Messenger of Silence had near-absolute control of whatever took place inside his powerful domain.

The Saint Kingdom complemented and amplified the performance of the Whispering Willow in a way that almost turned the ace mech into a divine creation.

The Messenger of Silence's willpower had become so strong that he was already replacing numerous physical laws with his own ones! Physics simply worked differently around machine because the ace pilot did not permit another outcome!

The sheer amount of confidence and self-assurance required to manipulate reality to such an extensive degree impressed Tusa a lot!

His own attempts to impose his own willpower onto reality was like a pale imitation in comparison!

"He is indeed a man of few words."

Saint Tusa understood his mentor's preferred teaching method.

Just by showing himself off, the Messenger of Silence already taught Tusa numerous lessons about willpower expression, practice targets, end goals and more.

The Whispering Willow lifted its famous primary weapon. Simply named Stella, the intimidating high-tech gauss rifle possessed a muzzle velocity that was so damn high that the Messenger of Silence was actually able to reliably hit his targets millions of kilometers away!

It was not too unusual for ace mechs armed with laser rifles or other energy weapons to accomplish this feat, but it was a different story for kinetic weapons!

The Dostoevsky's must have invested a huge amount of research and materials into developing this unique weapon.

The greatest advantage to sniping with a kinetic weapon was that it enabled the wielder to make use of specially developed projectiles. The Dostoevsky's best scientists had developed numerous high-end gauss rounds that perfectly synergized with the Messenger of Silence's skills and abilities!

This turned the peak ace pilot into one of the deadliest long-ranged combatants of the Terran Alliance!

However, the native aliens were no slouches either. In order to constrain the firepower of the Messenger of Silence and prevent him from wreaking havoc, the juregs deployed their own formidable champions!

"We have detected the approach of two greater phase lords and 15 lesser phase lords!"

"Identifying… confirmed. The jureg armada is led by the Diffraction Lord and the Biopod Mother!"

These were the two juregs that had been confronting the Messenger of Silence for a while now. Either of them were difficult to deal with, but when the two worked together, they not only managed to contain the Whispering Willow, but also caused the mech troops to bleed!

The peak ace pilot and the two greater phase lords confronted each other enough times to grow familiar with what they could do. None of them had managed to kill each other so far, but they did manage to kill or inflict heavy injuries on lesser champions!

Saint Tusa gulped. A battle involving the two powerful jureg phase lords would definitely serve as a trial by fire to the new ace pilot!

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