The Mech Touch

"$#&$#&@!"

"FILTHY FALSE GOD! STAY STILL SO THAT I MAY BLEED YOUR WORTHLESS BLOOD FROM YOUR PITIFUL PINK BODY!"

Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson did not know how the enemies lurking in the Mazepan System managed to do it, but they managed to emerge from a hidden pocket space and surround his ace mech with a large amount of mechs, phasefighters and warships!

Not only that, but the mechs and the ships hailing from the Cosmopolitan Movement also activated multiple means of trapping his Dark Zephyr into place!

A large amount of space suppression fields and interdiction fields affected the space around the Dark Zephyr.

Multiple remote azure energy shields encapsulated the ace mech in an octahedron cage. The 8-sided diamond-like contraption was not exaggeratingly strong on every side, but it still would have taken the Dark Zephyr a considerable amount of attacks from his knives to create a breach.

In addition to all of that, the cosmopolitan and alien vessels also employed a series of other measures designed to entrap the Dark Zephyr and turn the powerful ace mech into a sitting duck!

The Dark Zephyr was not alone in this cage. Sharing this confining space that was already being flooded with lots of chaotic and interfering energies was a potent greater phase lord.

Saint Tusa did not recognize the alien, but then again he did not bother to memorize the record of all known greater phase lords that participated in the Red War up to this point.

Fortunately, his ace mech contained an extensive database that frequently received updates in order to ensure the ace pilot would not be caught by surprise.

The living mech immediately retrieved the relevant information and fed it to Tusa through the man-machine connection.

This was how Tusa immediately managed to identify the greater phase lord and learn to fear this formidable opponent.

According to his living mech, the nunser greater phase lord that sought to land a killing blow on his Dark Zephyr bore a title that loosely translated as The Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa.

As his name suggested, the Arena Lord was the leader of a famed planet that hosted a lot of bloodsport in the native alien community.

He used to be a former champion himself, and used the prizes he won in many tournaments and competitions to transcend his own mortality and grow step by step as a native god worshiped by many.

The greater phase lord even managed to win his current title by defeating the previous Arena Lord in single combat!

Such a formidable nunser phase lord was definitely an all-around duelist and fighter. He may not have chosen to develop his remote spatial abilities all that much, but he made up for it by persistently training and augmenting his physical fighting capabilities with supporting phasewater organs!

This was the least desirable opponent that Saint Tusa and his battle partner wanted to face.

Their offensive power was not that great, so they faced an uphill battle if they wanted to defeat a greater phase lord that not only possessed a thick and heavily resistant body, but also a huge amount of actual combat experience.

If that was not bad enough for Tusa, the weapon held in the quadruped phase lord's upper limbs increased the Arena Lord's threat level even further!

This was because Tusa also managed to identify the spear that oddly did not register as anything unusual.

If not for the fact that Tusa had studied the archival footage of Venerable Imon Ingvar's tragic death dozens of times, he might have dismissed the formidable Saint Piercer weapon as a piece of junk!

The Larkinson ace pilot already figured out that the native aliens went through a lot of trouble to smuggle this experimental but highly effective weapon behind enemy lines not to claim his life.

The opposing force instead sought to make absolutely certain that they would be able to kill Ves!

The infamous mech designer of the Larkinson Clan had already accrued a notable reputation for being a troublemaker, an innovator and also a consistent winner. His ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat was almost legendary at this point. He had faced many life-threatening crises, and managed to unravel all of them through one miraculous solution or another.

In order to prevent this from happening, the ambush force lurking in the Mazepan System brought enough capital to kill even the most stubborn of human cockroaches.

The Distance Shaper was an old orven phase lord that heavily preferred to develop his remote spatial abilities over his brawling capabilities. He was known to stay in the rear and manipulate the battlefield from afar.

And this was just one of the lesser forces that the cosmopolitans and native aliens had smuggled into human-occupied space!

Although the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa occupied most of Saint Tusa's attention, his Dark Zephyr also managed to identify the other phase lords that appeared into sight.

The second greater phase lord was also a known entity, but did not register as an absurdly strong threat.

The Distance Shaper was an old orven phase lord that heavily preferred to develop his remote spatial abilities over his brawling capabilities. He was known to stay in the rear and manipulate the battlefield from afar.

His main threat came in the form of compressing and decompressing the fabric of space over wide stretches. He was able to effectively shrink distances so that it would take a lot less time and effort for friendly units to reach their destination.

He was also able to do the opposite. He could expand space to a notable degree so that it would take longer for enemy units to cross the same distance!

While these abilities turned the Distance Shaper into a nightmare in every large-scale battle, his remote spatial abilities were also easily countered.

The recently developed space suppressors were able to partially counteract the distance manipulation effects.

High-ranking expert mechs were also able to resist the detrimental spatial effects depending on the resonance strengths of their powerful pilots.

Right now, the Dark Zephyr happened to enjoy both advantages, so the Distance Shaper's attempts to stretch the space around the ace mech so that he would effectively become 'slower' largely failed!

That did not discount the threat posed by the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa. The powerful nunser greater phase lord only spent a brief amount of time on posturing before he proceeded to initiate a charge that was meant to drive the lethal tip of the Saint Piercer straight through the cockpit of the Dark Zephyr!

Despite the lack of warning from his intuition, Saint Tusa knew very well that his ace mech had little defense against this strike. His machine never excelled at defense in the first place, and all of the resonance empowerment meant nothing in the face of a weapon specifically developed to pierce through Saint Kingdoms!

At the same time the Arena Lord initiated his charge inside the cage of azure energy shields, the five lesser phase lords initiated their own attacks.

Tusa hardly paid attention to them, but that did not mean he dismissed their threat.

The five lesser phase lords all hailed from the arche race, which was quite unusual.

The arche generally found it difficult to evolve into phase lords. Even if members of this race managed to luck out, they faced much greater challenges trying to grow stronger because their archeshells had to increase in size and quality for them to grow larger.

Compared to ordinary phase lords who just needed to strengthen and enlarge their bones, the arche had to do all of that as well as upgrade their huge archeshells!

That took a huge amount of phasewaters and other precious materials, making it so that most arche phase lords tended to remain stuck at the lesser stage for a disproportionately long time!

However, arche phase lords also enjoyed a few advantages over their peers. They were much tougher and more massive than phase lords at similar stages of development. Their defenses were usually top notch, enabling them to survive strong beatings that would have felled any other 'native god'!

Though the arche lesser phase lords were beginning to weave their spatial abilities, Tusa could not afford to get distracted by them. They simply did not matter compared to the more imminent threat posed by the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa!

Despite having fallen into a trap that could have spelled the imminent demise of many ace mechs and their pilots, Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson showed no fear at all. Even as his focus rose to a peak, he still felt confident enough to smirk.

"Nice try, buddy, but no one can deprive me of my will! Leap of True Freedom!"

His Saint Kingdom flared as it began to exude a sense that it could not be shackled.

Almost all of the hindering and inhibiting effects slid away from the Dark Zephyr as if they could not stick onto the machine.

The Dark Zephyr's powerful Transphasic Hyper Combat Warp System burst into action, providing such a powerful boost of instant acceleration that the ace light skirmisher reached the edge of the energy cage in the blink of an eye!

Yet instead of colliding against an energy barrier that was rated to be strong enough to withstand the attacks of an ace mech for a short amount of time, the Dark Zephyr simply passed through the seemingly impenetrable obstacle as if it was nothing but an illusionary projection!

Even as the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa missed his charge attack by a huge margin and still found himself stuck inside the energy cage, the Dark Zephyr already began to boost far away from the enemy formation!

"So long, suckers!"

Naturally, the native aliens did not appreciate this humiliating failure.

"$%&#$#!"

"PURSUE THIS TINY FALSE GOD!"

The alien phase lords as well as their mixed collection of phasefighters and warships acted on the Arena Lord's orders right away. The most senior and powerful native god's orders were absolute.

The human-built mechs and starships that obviously belonged to numerous hostile cosmopolitan cells responded a lot slower.

Their leaders were evidently a lot less reluctant to engage in a spontaneous pursuit, but they had no choice but play along if they wanted to stay in the good graces of their alien allies.

Thus, the chase kicked off. The Dark Zephyr readily took advantage of his superior mobility to stay in the lead, but his enemies were able to keep up surprisingly well!

The Distance Shaper was not known to excel in direct combat, but his ability to manipulate the fabric space over a large area was quite impressive!

By constantly compressing the space in front and around all of the friendly starships, the orven greater phase lord was effectively able to speed up the forward progress of the combined cosmopolitan and alien fleet.

It was as if the Distance Shaper had generated a huge warp bubble!

This granted a surprising degree of mobility to this force. It may have been one of the reasons why the native aliens managed to pass through humanity's defensive lines and reach the Mazepan System unnoticed.

Whatever the case, the native aliens weren't able to overtake the Dark Zephyr, but they were moving fast enough to take potshots at the ace mech!

Many warships began to open fire on the ace mech. Energy cannons and kinetic cannons attempted to strike the elusive machine in great numbers.

Even though most if not all of the attacks ended up missing the evading Dark Zephyr, they nonetheless succeeded in sapping Tusa and the Dark Zephyr's energies!

The Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa had fought against human ace pilots before. The nunser greater phase lord knew just enough about these confounding opponents to understand that their energies were not unlimited!

"$#$&&@#!"

"IS FLEEING ALL YOU CAN DO? NO WONDER YOUR METAL SUIT IS SO FAST. ALL YOU CAN DO IS RUN FROM YOUR BETTERS. YOU ARE THE MOST COWARDLY FALSE GOD THAT I HAVE FOUGHT AGAINST IN MY LONG YEARS OF LIFE. I AM ASHAMED TO FIGHT AGAINST AN ENEMY THAT IS ONLY GOOD AT FLEEING RATHER THAN FIGHTING!"

Saint Tusa grimaced as he continued to hear the Arena Lord's translated taunts. The ace pilot knew that it made no sense to turn around and fight, but he still felt bad about the fact that he did not dare to fight the greater phase lord head-on.

He simply did not have the confidence to confront the powerhouse that not wielded a Saint Piercer weapon, but was also surrounded by plenty of supporters!

The only way that Tusa could regain his courage was if he evened the odds.

He needed to return the Bluejay Fleet and retrieve the tier 3 Destroyer spear right away!

Only with a powerful weapon and a group of supporters of his own would Tusa be able to equalize this duel!

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