The Mech Touch

As soon as the Winter round arrived and exploded in the midst of lots of biopods, the fragments spreading out from every direction seemed to bring the onset of winter on this part of the battlefield!

It made no sense for space to experience winter as it was purely a terrestrial phenomenon. The biopods also shouldn't be so susceptible to freezing considering that their organic constructions were highly resistant towards extreme temperature fluctuations.

Yet when coming into contact with the cold and merciless arrival of Saint Dostoevsky's winter, the biopods could not resist the freezing effect that sapped all temperature from their organic masses!

Every single biopod affected by the Winter fragmentation round had frozen solid. There was no way they could shake off the chill as they had already died from the lack of warmth!

This was one of the weaknesses of the biopods. They may have come from fairly powerful greater phase lords, but the mental strength of these individual lifeforms were far too weak to put up a meaningful resistance!

The relatively weak physiques of all of these biopods also made them a lot more vulnerable to the physical freezing effect than the nearby greater phase lords!

Their relatively resilient phasewater-infused bodies allowed them to resist the effect a little better, but the difference in power was so great that the biopods could not escape the fate of getting frozen as long as they were within range.

Saint Tusa started to feel a little chillier himself as he was able to perceive the artistic conception that backed up this particular ability.

The Messenger of Silence formed this ability from the old and storied heritage of his ancient clan.

The Dostoevsky name went back far in human history. In a time where humans were still locked on a single planet, they waged war in all kinds of climates.

The distant ancestors of Saint Dostoevsky came from a cold and bitter country that had endured many wars.

In a number of those wars, the outcome was decided not through strength of arms or clever strategies.

As a descendant of the line of citizens that lived through those harrowing wars, the ace pilot worked hard to turn the power of winter into a part of his arsenal.

Instead, the deciding factors that allowed the country to survive and win was subjecting its enemies to the relentless force of winter. Entire armies froze to death! The relentless freeze that chilled the lands and sapped all warmth from the environment was an enemy that could never be defeated, only endured.

This was the winter envisioned and empowered by the Messenger of Silence.

As a descendant of the line of citizens that lived through those harrowing wars, the ace pilot worked hard to turn the power of winter into a part of his arsenal.

He went on a tour that allowed him to visit many different planets with prominent arctic environments.

The powerful ace pilot willingly left his warm and cozy cockpit behind and ventured forth into the snow-covered landscape with nothing but warm clothing and essential survival gear.

All of those months of trekking through tundras, climbing mountains taller than capital ships with ancient tools devoid of higher technologies and filling up his stomach by relying on nothing but the exobeasts hunted through his own efforts, Saint Dostoevsky managed to experience the raw force of winter on over a dozen different planets!

The saint did not endure all of these different winters because he was a glutton for punishment.

He merely believed it was the only way he could get close to replicating the processes of developing his other signature abilities.

He was right.

Reading about winter and studying it from the comfort of his climate-controlled cockpit was not comparable to experiencing the freezing chill, the raging blizzards and the moments of utter stillness during a windless day in person!

The fruits of his labor became evident when he fired multiple Winter fragmentation rounds that proved to be remarkably effective at clearing out swathes of biopods!

"@#&@#@!"

"MY CHILDREN!"

The Biopod Mother responded with fury to see so many of her biopods getting frozen to death without being able to complete their mission.

Personally, Saint Tusa found it strange that the Biopod Mother cared so much about the lives of her 'children' when she herself sent them all on a suicide mission.

Whatever the case, the deaths of so many biopods provided much-needed breathing space for the Dark Zephyr. The ace light skirmisher managed to slip out of the immediate envelopment of all of the organic threats and gave his defenses a much-needed break.

However, the Messenger of Silence had also directed attention away from the Diffraction Lord, giving the greater phase lord just enough time to recover more of his strength!

As his enormous physique worked overtime to regenerate his battle damage and knit back his disabled phasewater organs, the angry jureg phase lord forcibly activated his strongest and most developed spatial ability and began to bend the fabric of space in such a confusing wrinkle that it was no longer easy to travel in a straight line anymore!

"DISAPPEAR IN A MAZE OF TWISTED SPACE!"

Even vision became distorted as nothing was straight anymore!

The Dark Zephyr immediately found himself losing control over his own trajectory as his Saint Kingdom was not powerful enough to unravel all of the bending and warping of the surrounding space.

The Diffraction Lord acted a lot more clever than before. Instead of trying and failing to attack or debilitate the Dark Zephyr directly, the jureg phase lord instead opted to manipulate the surrounding space.

While the section of space closest to the Dark Zephyr managed to resist this effect with the help of the Saint Kingdom, Much of the immediate space beyond this protective sphere had become inevitably tangled!

Prevention was much easier than reversing. Saint Tusa found that his willpower was simply not up to the level where he could unravel one of the trump cards of the Diffraction Lord.

The Larkinson ace pilot quickly grew frustrated when his ace mech constantly went off-course and looped back to the place where he began.

His Saint Kingdom was steadily unraveling the folds and bends in space, but the pace was too slow!

By the time his ace mech got free, the Diffraction Lord would be long gone!

Fortunately, his backup and mentor in the rear solved his problem once again.

Silence.

A single resonance-empowered gauss round cut straight through the invisible space maze and tore a straight line that led straight out of this trap!

The Messenger of Silence even repositioned his Whispering Willow in such a way that his shot went on to hit the Diffraction Lord just as he was on the verge of teleporting away!

"#$&#$!"

"NO! YOU FILTHY SHELL-LESS HERETIC!"

The Dark Zephyr quickly flew out of the safe route created by the Messenger of Silence and quickly closed in on the Diffraction Lord before he could make a getaway.

Now that he was being subjected to the full brunt of the Dark Zephyr's space suppressor, the Diffraction Lord became dismayed again.

Although his enormous bulk ensured that he was not at risk of dying soon, the constant disruptions and debilitations were taking a toll on the old greater phase lord.

"SAINT TUSA!" A boosted transmission cut through the powerful noise and interference.

"Lieutenant?"

"The battle has shifted! The greater phase lords have called for backup. 5 lesser phase lords had managed to disengage from the front and are making their way back to eliminate you. Each phase lord is either a brawler or possesses powers that can limit your maneuverability. You cannot afford to fight against both the greater phase lords as well as a kill team that is especially composed to eliminate the threat posed by your Dark Zephyr. You need to withdraw right away!"

"What? Now? The Diffraction Lord is injured and has eaten through much of his reserves! We can finish him off as long as the Messenger of Silence and I continue to harry him for 10 more minutes."

"You have already done enough! Look beyond and observe the state of the battlefield. Our great champion has managed to inflict repeated blows against the Diffraction Lord while the two greater phase lords hardly managed to make you sweat. Do you understand how that affects morale on both sides?"

Saint Tusa had a tendency to lose a lot of situational awareness when he was in the moment. Now that he began to study the local plot, he noticed that the alien transphasic gunships were perishing at a higher rate than before!

The jureg pilots all saw their senior gods getting beat up by the foul human mechs. Even if the damage of every hit was not too strong, the superstitious crustacean aliens all believed that their gods were getting pummeled and humiliated by their human counterparts!

How could the jureg soldiers possibly maintain the same degree of confidence than before?

The Diffraction Lord was not just their chief god. He was also their best supporter and leader!

If such a powerful figure repeatedly got struck without having the ability to retaliate, then that had an enormous negative effect on the morale of any allies and subordinates!

The humans noticed this shift as well, and instantly pounced on this opportunity to push back the native aliens and completely break their will to take over New Cartagena II!

The native alien fleet began to buckle under the pressure exerted by the Messenger of Silence.

To their credit, the elite jureg soldiers did not break and flee as if their lives depended on it. Instead, the aquatic alien soldiers made their way out in an orderly and well-planned fashion.

The juregs were not just pulling back their lesser phase lords.

The aliens knew that once they took away more phase lords, the remaining ones would have a much harder time defeating the remainder!

Since the juregs in charge did not wish to see their compatriots get outnumbered and defeated in detail, they already demonstrated the intention to abort their all-out assault and withdraw in an orderly manner.

It was an expensive and unwieldy method of withdrawal, but it was actually the right choice to make if the juregs wanted to limit the damage as much as possible.

"The battle is already over." Tusa realized.

The greater phase lords lost their nerves first, which showed that they could still experience fear.

"Coward." Tusa accused.

The greater phase lord did not concentrate on those words at all. He did not have any obligation to be brave and fearless like the mech pilots. He felt no shame for ordering an orderly but total withdrawal before his life hung by a thread!

The Messenger of Silence kept pumping more Silence and Suffer Rounds into the body of the Diffraction Lord, but the greater phase whale simply hunkered down and waited for reinforcements to arrive.

The greater phase lord suffered greater and greater damage as a consequence, but none of the rounds managed to inflict more damage than that. The chances that the peak ace pilot could kill the Diffraction Lord with a single shot had dropped to almost zero.

Saint Tusa knew what this meant. There was little point for him to stick around for much longer when there were a bunch of enemies heading in his ace mech's direction.

He and the Dark Zephyr took one last look at the distressed greater phase lords and silently chose to disengage and pull back to friendly lines.

The timely retreat of the ace light skirmisher finally freed the Diffraction Lord from the annoying space suppressor.

The enemy lines were pulling back in every place. The greater phase lords had lost their nerves, but not their sanity. They continued to micromanage and tweak the games so that they could become more attractive.

With that thought in mind, the vengeful Terran defenders did not go too far in blasting apart their retreating jureg foes.

The umpteenth Battle of New Cartagena II came to an end. Though Tusa felt upset about not being able to do more to kill off the Diffraction Lord entirely, Lieutenant Daria disagreed.

"This is a marathon, not a sprint. We have waged many battles in this star system where both sides restrain themselves enough to pull back the testers. Killing the Diffraction Lord outright is a fantasy with your skills. It is already a win in my opinion if we can drive away the jureg armada and force them to spend more years repairing their assets. We have bought at least a week of time, allowing us to secure all of the resources on new Cartagena II and call in further reinforcements to prepare for the resumption of attacks."

Delaying the juregs had been the main goal all along. Saint Tusa felt gratified for contributing to an outcome that benefited so many different people.

It could not surpass the rush he felt whenever he won a duel against a formidable enemy, but beggars shouldn't complain!

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