The Mech Touch

"Our enemies have raised the threat level of the torpedoes! Their phasefighters are dying in droves in an attempt to get past our blockade and physically ram the torpedoes in flight!"

The repeated use of weapons of mass destruction escalated this battle at a very rapid pace. The absurd effectiveness of some of the more special types of oversized torpedoes especially alarmed the leaders of the alien fleet.

The phasefighters deployed from the archeships were not high in number, but they were all top-notch elite craft that could put up a decent fight against a first-class multipurpose mech.

They had managed to perform fairly decently so far, but once they no longer prioritized the opposing first-class multipurpose mechs and instead tried to save their injured gods, they began to incur greater casualties!

"Don't let them intercept the torpedoes!" Ves urged the mech pilots. "Major Jankowski, stop them at all costs! If you cannot stop them from destroying a torpedo, then make sure they do not target the trailing ones!"

"On it, professor!"

All of the first-class multipurpose mechs performed well so far. The ones deployed by the mechers and fleeters especially stood out due to their use of a more limited form of support link technology to keep them alive and powered up to a much greater extent.

The first-class multipurpose mech piloted by Major Jankowski performed a bit better than the others. As an expert candidate, Simon Jankowski was able to draw out the greater potential of his fast and versatile machine and managed to take down more phasefighters than others!

Even so, the single-minded determination demonstrated by the arche phasefighter pilots made it a lot harder to take down all of their craft before they opened fire at the torpedoes!

The azure energy shields that protected the oversized munitions managed to resist the attacks for a while, but soon enough one of them started to falter and detonate prematurely!

Fortunately, the torpedo in question was pointed at the enemy phase lords, so more than a dozen highly concentrated beams of X-ray radiation struck the damaged archeshells and inflicted a variety of energy damage!

The effectiveness of this attack was relatively limited, unfortunately. Archeshells resisted energy attacks especially well. At most, the gaps and holes in the more damaged shells caused a bit of X-ray radiation to damage the tissue underneath, but even that was relatively shallow.

This was the only success the desperate alien phasefighters attained. The first-class multipurpose mechs finally managed to overtake the enemy craft. The more agile mechs then proceeded to use their space suppressors to drastically weaken their energy barriers before breaching them with overwhelming firepower, allowing them to carve up the surprisingly resilient but ultimately vulnerable alien craft!

The second Hyper X-Ray Torpedo blasted concentrated high-energy radiation at the beleaguered arche lesser phase lords.

Though they had already been struck by this type of attack just before, the lesser phase lords rapidly adapted to this damage by filling the gaps of their shells with thick fluid.

When the X-rays struck again, the fluids evaporated in an instant, but successfully managed to bleed away energy that would have otherwise inflicted more serious material damage!

Even so, this response left the overly passive arche phase lords ill-prepared to block the next two torpedoes!

When the Hyper Nanomachine Plague Torpedoes struck the arche phase lords, they exploded with surprisingly little fanfare.

Only a lot of 'dust' had sprung out of the impact sites.

It only took a few seconds for the arche phase lords to understand what was wrong.

Their archeshells started to 'itch' as they felt it was being eroded at a very slow but concerning rate!

The alien phase lords tried to use their limited spatial abilities to get rid of the creatures, but the space suppression and the damage they incurred beforehand limited their ability to cleanse their own shells!

The nanomachine plagues did not even bother to act subtle as they frantically dug into the hardy shells and tried to devour them one microscopic bit at a time.

Since the transphasic archeshells were still so damn hard despite having cracked in many places, the nanomachine plagues began to combine their forces and condense into larger smart metal constructs.

It just so happened that they took on the form of differently sized cats!

"Hehehehe…" Ves grinned.

He had personally overridden their programming to favor cat shapes. This little personal touch not only gave him a lot of satisfaction, but also enabled the hyper nanomachines to better channel the malevolent spirits that he had imbued in their collective mass!

The evil cat-like smart metal monsters continually tried to bite or grind away at the damaged portions of the archeshell that were a little more vulnerable than other pieces of shell.

Although their progress was still awfully slow, they caused a lot of distress to the arche phase lords in question.

Their archeshells were too important to them! They could not afford to let their precious shells degrade!

Although the powerful phase lord attempted to crush or dislodge the nanomachines through various means, they were too large for their own good!

They were unable to exercise their power on a fine level with great strength or precision.

Even if they managed to blast trillions of nanomachines, there were many more continuing to chew on their archeshells elsewhere!

Their numbers had not even decreased. With every piece of archeshell they devoured, they subsequently worked together with other nanomachines to produce more of their own kind!

The new nanomachines may lack some of the materials and miniscule components that turned them into abhorrent plagues, but they still posed an escalating threat so long as they continued to grow in number!

The arche phase lords experienced double torture from the infection of hyper nanomachine plagues. Not only were they overly sensitive to the growing deterioration of their archeshells, but the spiritualities of the nanomachine plagues were tormenting them on a mental level as well!

The pain was not too great for the resilient arche lesser phase lords, but they generated additional distractions that hindered them from leveraging their abilities with greater focus and cohesion.

Still, as much as the horrible nanomachine plagues tormented the 5 lesser phase lords, they were working too slow for Ves' liking!

It would probably take at least a day for the nanomachines to chew up the archeshells and produce enough copies for themselves to completely engulf the lesser phase lords, assuming that nobody helped them get rid of the infections.

Ves knew that the hyper nanomachine plagues were capable of inflicting much more damage. The RF mainly employed them to 'efficiently' destroy the surfaces of every planet by devouring every structure and organism in a rapidly growing tide of hungry nanomachines!

They were not designed to chew on so much overly hard materials. They would have better luck if they bit into the flesh of the arche phase lords, but not that many of them had managed to bypass the shells.

As long as this remained the case, the 5 lesser phase lords would remain debilitated, but they were far from taken out of action!

"The arche phase lords are beginning to move! They are no longer content with remaining passive anymore!"

That was bad news. All of the weapons of mass destruction flung into their archeshells had caused them a lot of pain, but ultimately failed to cripple them. This allowed them to move forward with greater confidence now that the Bluejay Fleet had exhausted its stock of antimatter missiles.

"The arche phase lords are on a collision course with Fort Rock! If they are able to ram into our half-depleted defenses with sufficient momentum, they can crash through our remaining Titan Shields and shatter at least a third of the base structure on the spot!"

"Don't let these alien phase lords get close!"

Several squads of first-class multipurpose mechs began to attack the arche phase lords. They tried their best to target the weak points in their archeshells or strike at their relatively vulnerable sides.

The arche phase lords had a simple response to that. They altered their formation so that they formed a crude ball with 5 sides. Together with merging the sides of their shells, they formed an almost seamless whole that made it a lot more difficult to target their weak points!

While the cracked and nanomachine-infected archeshells still possessed numerous vulnerabilities, the first-class multipurpose mechs lacked the power or extraordinary factors that could allow them to inflict serious internal damage to their targets.

"Where are the Rosfields! We need the big guns to help us crack open these archeshells further!"

"Our only battleship-grade gun battery is preoccupied with suppressing the Arena Lord and the Distance Shaper. We cannot divert their firepower, or else the greater phase lords will have more space to showcase their power." "We need to direct more firepower at the advancing arche phase lords, or else Fort Rock will turn into pieces!"

As the arche phase lords imposed an ultimatum on Fort Rock, Ves mentally sighed.

All of the potent but ultimately mundane solutions had run their course. There was only so much that he could do against not 1, but 5 lesser phase lords, each of which happened to excel at defense.

Ves saw no other way to turn this situation around unless he entered the battlefield in person. No more excuses stood in his way to expose himself to a collection of enemies who really wanted him dead.

"Load 2 Hyper X-Ray Torpedoes in tubes 1 and 2. Load the final Hyper Spatial Crusher Torpedo in tube 3 and place the Lucky Delivery System in tube 4."

"Meow meow meow!"

"I am not going to launch you towards the enemy phase lords. It's too dangerous for you to attempt to blend in with the nanomachine plagues and chew on the exquisite archeshells of the enemy phase lords. You must stick to your original mission and infiltrate one of the flagships of the combined enemy fleet."

"Meoww…"

Ves did not stick around for long. He waited until he saw the right torpedoes being loaded in the right tubes before he decided to set off with his shabby raiment and his flute that he intended to use as a blunt force instrument for this coming engagement!

He found it rather surprising that his appearance on the battlefield did not generate any reaction.

The Arena Lord, the other phase lords and the cosmopolitans were way too preoccupied with their own immediate fights to notice that their primary objective had come out in the open!

Perhaps the only enemies that truly registered Ves' arrival were the 5 arche phase lords!

They had merged into a ball that was able to spin remarkably easy, but also made it a little difficult for them to maintain situational awareness.

All they saw was that a human phase lord had emerged with the clear intent on stopping what they deemed inevitable!

Ves pointed the staff in the direction of the approaching enemy phase lords.

"You shall go no further, aliens!"

First-class multipurpose mechs continued to harass the collection of archeshells, but only inflicted moderate damage to the absurdly strong physical defenses.

Interest in archetech had most definitely skyrocketed now that people witnessed the greater splendor of this deep and alien technological branch.

Ves had worked enough on archetech to know how much of a nightmare it was to attempt to break past transphasic archeshells.

His staff lacked the penetration power to pierce through those shells, so Ves either had to rely on cracking pieces of the shell apart with repeated strikes or figure out a more convoluted way to inflict real damage onto the aliens.

His lips already curled into a smirk as he already thought of a potential solution.

"It seems these arche phase lords fare best in resisting head-on attacks, but perform significantly worse when trying to fend off vastly undersized threats."

This gave Ves inspiration on what he could do to crack open a shell and stop the 5 phase lords from completing their collision course.

His body and staff already started to darken as Ves deliberately channeled it in order to grant him the special strength needed to inflict telling blows on the hardy arche phase lords!

"It's my turn now! Let me validate my new fighting skills!"

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