The Mech Touch

Saint Tusa understood his role well. It was not his job to land the killing blow this time. He was not expected to do any damage in the first place. His only job was to keep his ace mech alive as best as possible while attracting the attention of the Diffraction Lord and the Biopod Mother.

This was not a debut where he needed to play the main protagonist of the show. He was supposed to fulfill his role as a side character and create opportunities for the real hero to save the day.

Saint Tusa completely accepted his role.

There was a time and place where he could play the hero of his own story, but that day was not today. He had fully accepted that he was the student while Saint Dostoevsky was the master.

Soon enough, the Master was about to showcase what he was truly capable of. The Mirage ability was just the tip of the iceberg. Tusa grew more and more excited at the prospect of witnessing the power of a peak ace pilot up close.

He needed to do this right.

He had become more and more careful about controlling the movements of his Dark Zephyr.

He was banking hard on the Solus Gas treatment to dampen his machine's emissions as much as possible.

The properties of Solus Gas were so comprehensive that they were even able to fool the intuition of expert pilots.

Together with the Mirage effect, the ace pilot dared to get closer to the unsuspecting alien leaders!

The Dark Zephyr lazily followed a trajectory that just so happened to bring the machine close enough to get a closer look at all of the mirror images of the two greater phase lords.

Tusa paid close attention to the sensor systems of his machine. He was pretty sure that the Mirage ability could also help to discern true from false now that the Dark Zephyr had come so close to the main targets, but he would rather confirm the results himself.

That became more problematic than he expected when he noted that the sensor systems produced the exact same readings of two adjacent mirror images.

One of them could be real, or both of them could be false. Whatever the case, the modern and up-to-date passive sensor systems couldn't determine whether there was any difference!

The only way to obtain more definite results was to get a lot closer or to turn on the active sensor systems.

Neither of these two options were ideal. Getting too close was too egregious a disruption. Turning on active sensor systems would light up his machine and amplify outgoing emissions.

Tusa suddenly paused. He had other ways to discern true from false.

He silently communicated with his battle partner. He did not dare to whisper his request, as any noise might break the Mirage.

The Dark Zephyr understood his request and began to act accordingly.

A living mech, especially a third order one, was partially a spiritual life form. The Dark Zephyr possessed extraordinary senses of his own and could detect other spirits. He was also able to detect other life forms, though his life detection ability was nowhere near as strong as that of the Everchanger.

Even so, the Dark Zephyr was no slouch, having absorbed the willpower baptism of a genuine ace pilot! That provided the living mech with a qualitative boost that sharpened his senses just enough to make this plan viable!

Through the man-machine connection, Tusa patiently borrowed his battle partner's senses and tried to perceive the presence of life.

It should be quite easy to detect the lives of two greater phase lords. Their bodies were enormous, which meant they were filled with so much vitality that it was impossible to miss them at this distance!

The problem was that every mirror image conveyed life. The mirror image was the product of warped perception, which meant that what people could observe was not necessarily false.

It was not until the Dark Zephyr swung by the eight mirror images in a row that Tusa just knew he managed to find the real deal!

His eyebrows rose with excitement as he detected a subtle difference that could not be perceived up close!

From the senses of his Dark Zephyr, there was a minute change in alignment in how he perceived the strong life energies of the two greater phase lords. It was like how a straight rod suddenly became crooked if the bottom half was submerged underwater, but the effect was a bit subtler than that. Tusa and his battle partner could have easily missed it if they were not paying so much attention to any fluctuations in the perception of life energies.

Tusa did not need to spend any further time on confirmation. Now that his Dark Zephyr had gathered a strong clue, his intuition filled in the rest. This was the right set. His ace mech did not drift close to another mirror image. The machine had come close to their actual bodies!

At this time, the pair of greater phase lords had yet to unfold their true bodies to their greatest sizes. This spoke of a lack of alertness that seemed encouraging. The aliens should not have noticed that one of the human ace mechs had quietly entered into their midst!

Tusa's job was not yet done. One of the other reasons why the jureg phase lords managed to stay unharmed so long despite confronting the Messenger of Silence was because the Diffraction Lord still had a trick up his sleeve!

As soon as the greater phase lord recognized that his real body's position had become exposed, he would definitely displace himself to the coordinates of one of his mirror images! He would do the same for the Biopod Mother as well!

The Larkinson ace pilot took a deep but silent breath. He needed to bring his Dark Zephyr close and activate his space suppressor at full strength to inhibit the Diffraction Lord's evacuation.

There was no way for him and his ace mech to hide anymore. They would have to expose themselves fully to the strongest phase lords in this star system, ones that clashed against the Messenger of Silence multiple times and came away with light damage.

Tusa would be lying if he claimed he was fearless.

Yet… his heart sang louder and his mood became more pumped.

This was what he wanted to do the most!

He wanted to approach a pair of formidable enemies and prove their complete inability to capture or harm him in any way!

Tusa felt as if this would test his courage as well as his ideals. He wanted to prove that he could remain free even when his adversaries in the field tried their best to inhibit his movements!

"Hahahaha!" Tusa laughed as he broke the spell of silence around him with his willpower. "Freedom is most precious when it is hard-fought!"

The Mirage ability whisked away as if it never existed. The illusions of graveyards and paying respects to the gravestones faded away, causing the Dark Zephyr to become a bit more noticeable than before!

"Chip Chip!"

Solus Gas impregnation or not, the Diffraction Lord and the Biopod Monsters could not possibly miss the fact that one of the powerful human ace mechs had come terrifyingly close to their current positions, all without tripping any alarms!

Before the Diffraction Lord could even think of performing his handy mirror image swap technique, the blazingly fast Dark Zephyr had already reached their midst and activated his space suppressor at full power!

"Blackwing, pump as much true resonance into it as you can!"

"Chip Chip!"

Tusa had already sent his companion spirit to the relatively small space suppression module. This helped to channel more willpower into the recently developed part, thereby further amplifying its performance beyond its ordinary limits!

The effect was pretty good. Fresh ace pilot or not, Tusa and his Dark Zephyr was just powerful enough to stall the Diffraction Lord's effort to teleport away!

It had been close. If the Dark Zephyr was not so damn fast, the greater phase lord would have already disappeared!

"$#&$!"

"YOU DRY MAMMAL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Tusa did not listen to the translated speech of the angry jureg phase lord at all. He was doing his best to keep his Dark Zephyr close while also evading the quick retaliation of both phase lords!

The Diffraction Lord swung out dozens of concentrated spatial blades that were reinforced enough to endure the space suppression field.

The Biopod Mother extended hundreds of needle-like nozzles from her body and fired small plasma bolts that saturated the immediate space around the greater phase lord.

Tusa had to work extremely hard and push the Dark Zephyr's speed and maneuverability to their limits in order to evade every single attack!

The spatial blades were relatively easy to evade, but the small plasma bolts were much harder to dodge since so many of them had fired in the ace mech's direction.

The Dark Zephyr only managed to gain a small reprieve by putting the Diffraction Lord's bulky body in the way.

This was not ideal as the Biopod Mother was no longer as affected by the space suppression field anymore.

The alien took advantage of that by distancing herself from the Dark Zephyr while at the same time unfolding her true body!

The Diffraction Lord was able to overcome the space suppression field to unfold his true body as well, but the rate of progress was slower!

This left the latter in an awkward situation, as he needed to unfold his true body in order to unleash his full might!

Just as the Diffraction Lord attempted to pull the Dark Zephyr into an illusionary cage that should keep the ace mech busy, the greater phase lord suddenly felt as if his body had become frozen!

There was no sound in space, but at this point, the jureg phase lord felt as if sound had become completely forbidden inside and outside his body!

A sense of deep paralysis began to affect the exterior of his half-unfolded body. The effect had trouble reaching into the vast center of the phase lord's form, but the current effect was already alarming enough!

The greater phase lord's thinking slowed. His body became less responsive. A sudden burst of pain originated from the front of his shell, but why did he feel this way?

The Diffraction Lord belatedly realized that the Whispering Willow had already taken advantage of an opening and fired a shot from his Stella!

Silence.

The passage of the custom-developed gauss round was completely silent and virtually undetectable.

It projected a very strong resonance-empowered energy field that spread a sense of silence and paralysis that strangely brought peace… yet that was exactly the opposite of what the Diffraction Lord needed!

Under the Messenger of Silence's domineering influence, the Diffraction Lord suffered error after error.

The passage of the enemy projectile was undetectable.

The pain generated by the penetrating round did not register until it was too late.

The enforced calmness and paralysis was making him far too complacent despite getting struck by a life-threatening attack.

For whatever reason, the Diffraction Lord suddenly had an illusion that he was back in his infant days where he was at the mercy of any larger predator!

He should have felt much more alarmed about this, but the aforementioned effects kept him pinned and complacent even as the round punched through the phase lord's hard shell and proceeded to penetrate through multiple precious phasewater organs!

The greater phase lord wanted to scream his rage and suffering, but the unnatural silence enforced onto the alien leader prevented him from making himself heard!

"...!"

Eventually, the powerful round fired by the Whispering Willow managed to penetrate through an unknown number of vital phasewater organs before colliding against the shell at the opposite side before halting.

The damage was bad. The Diffraction Lord already looked as if he had become partially crippled.

Even if the greater phase lord still retained access to his abilities, they were not as strong as before!

This was excellent news to the Messenger of Silence as a weakened prey presented much more openings to his hungry Stella!

The Whispering Willow minutely adjusted the aim of its formidable marksman rifle and proceeded to fire another scary projectile.

Suffer.

By the time the Diffraction Lord got struck by the second round, he suddenly went from paralysis and muted sensations to an overload of suffering!

"#$#&$#!"

"THE SCREAMS ARE TOO MUCH!"

Ghosts haunted the greater phase lord's unprepared psyche!

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