The Mech Touch

Before Ves exited the System Space, he made sure to transform back into his actual size and put his jury-rigged raiment back onto his body.

He even made sure to adopt the exact same posture before he finally returned to realspace.

Perhaps a careful observer might still be able to spot a few incongruities between his former and current state, but people had better things to do than to investigate such an important incident.

Despite his attempts to make it seem as if nothing had changed, Ves could not hide his sharper and more condensed edge.

He had spent a lot of time with mech pilots, so he was quite familiar with how extensive mastery in any combat arts could harden one's posture and demeanor.

The entire way in which he viewed reality had shifted.

For example, he no longer gazed at a first-class multipurpose mech with the attitude of trying to understand what made it tick.

He actually began to estimate whether he could beat it up in a duel!

His newfound sense of confidence and courage even gave him the illusion that he could win this bout, thereby validating his strength and making him feel more secure in his own martial might!

Ves tried to temper these strange and foreign impulses. He was not a warrior and did not intend to become one.

He tried his best to stick to his original goal of becoming proficient in self defense. He only needed to fight well enough to preserve his life.

There was no need for him to degenerate into a muscle-brained idiot who wanted to seek insane challenges in an attempt to overcome his limitations and a fighter.

Even so, when Ves tracked the progress of the Dark Zephyr and his pursuers, his oversized Jutland organ couldn't help but beat harder in anticipation of participating in his first proper battle as a phase lord.

The previous times did not count!

He may have relied upon the power of a phase lord to fend off different threats in the past, but he definitely did so as an amateur as opposed to a competent fighter.

Now that he knew his way around a staff, Ves should be able to contend against enemy lesser phase lords on a much more even playing field!

"I really need to control myself better." He reminded himself.

He learned the importance of discipline today. It was far too tempting to make use of his greater might even when it was not justified. Having lots of power but refusing to make use of it was extremely frustrating to Ves. He could not even bring himself to decide to sit out this battle.

He had grown too powerful too quickly. Ves couldn't help himself. He often looked down on mech pilots as brutes who were driven by their baser urges, but now he was beginning to resemble them an awful lot!

Time passed by. The Dark Zephyr continued to flee back to Fort Rock while the mixed enemy force continued to pursue and pelt the ace light skirmisher with attacks.

Both Saint Tusa and his chasing enemies were expending resources against each other, making it so that they would no longer be fresh by the time they reached Fort Rock and the Bluejay Fleet.

This was bad because the Dark Zephyr would not be performing at its best.

However, most people believed it was worth it because the pursuing lesser and greater phase lords would no longer remain in peak condition either!

The analysts serving in the Bluejay Fleet continued to analyze a lot of data. They made a lot of estimates and learned a lot more about the capabilities that the pursuing alien enemies exposed.

Saint Tusa was doing his job as a scout. Perhaps his Dark Zephyr already had the speed to outpace his pursuers and return to the Bluejay Fleet sooner, but he may have deliberately chosen to control his speed in order to expose more of the enemy's strength!

"Great! With all of this additional information, we can fine tune our battle plans and reduce the occurrence of accidents!"

Ves also studied the data and live feed. The Dark Zephyr constantly looked as if he was tethering on the edge of the abyss.

The enemy warships and phase lords chasing from behind used a mix of different attacks to pressure the ace light skirmisher.

Many attacks missed, but the density of firepower was so great that the Dark Zephyr could not avoid getting hit at times.

Perhaps the ace mech could have evaded the attack if he chose to exert himself a lot more, but the added stress and drain to his systems was not worth getting struck.

The Saint Kingdom and the space suppressor weakened most incoming transphasic attacks until they collided against the Dark Zephyr's archemetal exterior plating.

The damage usually ended up being superficial, which was a testament to how much tougher the living mech had become compared to his Mark II iteration.

However, much of this would only last as long as the Saint Kingdom remained active. If Tusa had to resist too many attacks with his domain field, it would eventually become exhausted.

That would be bad as any subsequent attacks would be able to hit the frame of the ace mech at full strength!

Therefore, Saint Tusa was definitely playing a dangerous game at the moment. He was helping the Bluejay Fleet learn a lot more about their enemies at the cost of wearing down his own Saint Kingdom.

Fortunately, the chase did not last too long. The Dark Zephyr eventually managed to close in on Fort Rock without suffering any major mishaps.

"Get ready to meet our guests!" Saint Tusa transmitted to the Bluejay Fleet. "Hand me the tier 3 Destroyer spear! I will do my best to keep the greater phase lords occupied, but I can't make any guarantees!"

The Terrans had already brought out the powerful spear into space. A pair of first-class multipurpose mechs hailing from the Devos and Streon Ancient Clan carried the container of Destroyer-resistant materials in their hands.

Once the container slid open, a gentle gravitic field flung the dangerous spear into space.

This time, the Dark Zephyr gripped the shaft of the formidable weapon without any hesitation.

"Blackwing!"

"Chip chip!"

Blackwing did not dare to occupy the potent weapon itself. He only occupied one of the Dark Zephyr's hands and tried his best to pretend to be the wielder.

Even though it sounded silly, it truly made a difference. The Dark Zephyr began to exude more shadow power, causing the living mech to appear a little less substantial.

At the same time, the powerful Destroyer spear also remained fairly tame and dormant. The weapon still exerted a lot of pressure towards Tusa and the Dark Zephyr, but it was a lot calmer than the first attempt to wield this polearm.

Though Saint Tusa had grown a little winded during the chase, the adrenaline circulating through his body and the pressure exerted by the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa kept him on such an edge that he no longer feared this formidable anymore!

For these reasons and more, the Dark Zephyr actually looked as if he was able to maintain adequate enough control over the tier 3 Destroyer spear!

Ves smiled at the sight, but paid more attention to the enemy force that had since paused their pursuit and slowed down outside of normal striking range.

The cosmopolitans and native aliens could not possibly miss the implications of assaulting an ace mech and a fleet backed up by a spontaneously constructed space fortress.

Just the strong active sensors and spatial suppression fields produced by this fort was enough to inform the enemies that their most useful solutions would probably lose a lot of effectiveness if they tried to get any closer!

Ves expected for the Arena Lord to posture and hold a self-centered speech, but the alien leader was quite rational and decisive when it counted.

The powerful nunser phase lord pointed the tip of his Saint Piercer towards Fort Rock and issued a single directive.

"#$%&$#&#!"

"CHARGE! SPLIT OPEN THEIR FEEBLE CASTLE AND GRIND THEIR MINISCULE PINK BODIES TO DUST!"

"So that is how they want to play it." Admiral Tensen noted on the command channel. "Be prepared to go all-out. Be on the lookout for weapons of mass destruction. They may decide to launch them to finish us off in one fell swoop."

A direct assault was extremely risky.

The enemy force could have chosen to linger at a distance and besiege Fort Rock. The space fortress did not possess any mobility and could easily be ground down by bombarding it from afar.

However, this exchange was likely to disadvantage the attacking side a lot more. They had less warships and their phase lords would all have to expend significant energies to produce underwhelming results due to the prevalence of strong space suppression fields.

It actually made a lot more sense for the enemies to take advantage of their superiority in phase lords and use their immense physical bulk to crush Fort Rock by relying on pure mass and momentum!

Fort Rock did not have the energy of physical defenses to withstand multiple collisions from large and heavy phase lords.

The defending side needed to repel the phase lords and keep them at bay somehow!

"Warships, open fire on your designated targets!"

Their formidable primary transphasic gun batteries unleashed volleys of warship-grade positron beams, kinetic rounds and plasma bolts at the approaching phase lords!

The enemy champions did not bother to evade the attacks. They all resisted the potent attacks with their spatial barriers. While their defenses incurred a bit of losses, the attacks were not strong and plentiful enough to break them down anytime soon!

The Tarrasque and the Babylon Excavator opened fire first!

Their formidable primary transphasic gun batteries unleashed volleys of warship-grade positron beams, kinetic rounds and plasma bolts at the approaching phase lords!

The enemy champions did not bother to evade the attacks. They all resisted the potent attacks with their spatial barriers. While their defenses incurred a bit of losses, the attacks were not strong and plentiful enough to break them down anytime soon!

That changed a little when the Rosfield Cannons opened fire!

The triple-barreled cannon unleashed a trio of enhanced hyper gauss rounds that crossed the distance in an instant and slammed against the spatial barriers of the Distance Shaper with great force!

The resulting impact and explosions of energy were so violent that the orven greater phase lord couldn't help but become a little frightened!

The second alien leader couldn't help but slow down as he was not the sort of phase lord that liked being in the thick of action.

"Great job! The Rosfield Cannons should focus on suppressing the Distance Shaper. If that is not possible, try and pressure the Arena Lord."

"What about the lesser phase lords, admiral?"

"Let our first-class multipurpose mechs take care of them. We cannot afford to divert other assets to slow them down."

The fight began to commence in earnest as more warships began to open fire on the cosmopolitan warships and alien archeships. The vessels of both sides engaged in destructive exchanges of firepower that initially collided against transphasic or azure energy shields, but only for a certain duration.

The first ships that lost their energy defenses were liable to get bombarded into pieces!

The Dark Zephyr, now armed with a Destroyer spear that was not much less threatening than a Saint Piercer spear, confronted the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa with confidence. The ace light skirmisher did not try to do anything fancy and initially circled around and tested the enemy's spatial barrier with brief contacts with the destructive spear. In the meantime, alien phasefighters swooped closer, only to get intercepted by first-class multipurpose mechs.

The contest between the two was uneven as the humans dared to send only a fraction as many first-class multipurpose mechs against a swarm of hundreds of phasefighters.

The fight was not even fair! The first-class multipurpose mechs were not only stronger in almost every parameter aside from straight-line acceleration, their pilots were also much more professionally trained and experienced!

The powerful phasefighters still put up a decent fight as far as strike craft were concerned, but it was clear that they were outclassed by a race that had perfected the use of mechs over multiple centuries!

Ves remained on standby inside Fort Rock. He was itching to confront the five arche phase lords that were only somewhat hindered by the swarms of first-class multipurpose mechs buzzing over their gigantic archeshells.

It was not time for him to make an appearance.

He waited until a sudden incident occurred that briefly caused a lot of soldiers to pause.

An alarm rang through Fort Rock and every mech and ship!

"DETECTING THE LAUNCH OF AN INCOMING ANTIMATTER WARHEAD FROM AN UNSEEN ENEMY CRAFT! IT IS CLOSE! INTERCEPT!"

Automated point defense turrets as well as intercepting missiles instantly came to life!

They had already been primed for an event like this, so they worked especially quickly to wear down the transphasic energy shield that covered the antimatter warhead and forcibly shattered the containment that kept the relatively small quantity of antimatter in a stable condition.

Many sensors temporarily became overloaded as the explosive release of a huge amount of heat and other energies swept across every asset on the battlefield!

The first-class multipurpose mechs and alien phasefighters that happened to fight in the vicinity of the blast immediately incurred severe damage that forced them to disengage and retreat to their respective motherships!

For a moment, the Arena Lord and many others could not believe what had happened. Even phase lords had to be wary about the use of weapons of this magnitude.

Admiral Tensen broadcast his announcement in the open. "The cosmopolitans and the native aliens have broken the accord first. Since that is the case, we shall pay them back a hundredfold for their violation! Commence the launch of our WMDs!"

One of the cosmopolitan starships urgently transmitted a reply!

"We are not responsible, and neither are our alien compatriots! You are slandering us, you hypocrites!"

Too late!

"Launch the first spread of antimatter missiles at the lesser phase lords!"

"Launch the torpedoes currently loaded in the Doomspreader Torpedo System at the same targets!"

Fort Rock and multiple human warships began to launch so many threatening munitions that the cosmopolitans and aliens were scrambling to activate their countermeasures!

Unfortunately, the surprisingly fast development along with all of the space suppression fields exerted by all of the nearby first-class multipurpose mechs directly weakened the defensive measures employed by the arche phase lords!

They could only fall back to their most primitive defensive method, which was to retract their heads and limbs inside their large and extraordinarily sturdy archeshells!

Multiple titanic explosions soon engulfed the lesser alien champions!

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