The Mech Touch

The Inexorable One's slaughter underscored the might of a dark god. Regular expert pilots were not strong enough to contend against an existence of her caliber!

Ves froze in his chair as he witnessed the fall of several expert candidates in quick succession. These lucky Larkinson mech pilots had received the opportunity of their lives in this battle, yet they barely had a taste of their power before the cruel grey bird snuffed out their lives as if they were nothing but insects!

Such an outcome was intolerable to him. How could he let this malicious Nyxian entity toy his ill-prepared expert candidates to death?

The problem was that he no longer had any moves to make. The Penitent Sisters that previously swept the pirate mechs had all exhausted themselves. Once their connections to the battle network faded, the energy projection of the Superior Mother had faded away.

The same went for the Swordmaidens. Just like the other recently-advanced expert pilots, Commander Dise was no longer able to sustain her elevated state. Respa, her mind sword, shut off its battle network, causing the Swordmaiden mechs to fall out of their battle formation.

Though the mech pilots still wanted to fight, the overwhelming pressure emanated by the dark gods suppressed them to the point where many of them lost consciousness!

Both pirate mechs and Larkinson mechs drifted aimlessly in space. It was no different for most of the starships. Even the powerful pirate destroyers had gone silent despite not suffering any powerful attacks!

All of these incidents reinforced the notion that only gods were qualified to take part in this battle.

Of all the Larkinsons currently trying to defeat the dark gods, the newly ascended expert candidates were by far the weakest participants!

Their breakthroughs temporarily gave them the power of an expert pilot, but this outburst was fleeting and temporary.

In some cases, their mechs couldn't handle the increased stress and cracked after their pilots pushed them too hard.

In other cases, the attacks of the Inexorable One caused the expert candidates to rapidly deplete their shallow reserve of energy. Their force of will may be strong, but without an abundant reservoir of energy, they weren't able to sustain their state of forced resonance.

If this battle went on for a few more minutes, his clan would lose all of the expert candidates!

Ves rapidly thought. What could he do? He suddenly turned his attention to the Battle Criers.

He had largely kept them in reserve up until now. While he intended to employ them against special opponents, the suppression emanated by the dark gods had knocked all of the Battle Crier pilots out before they could even show off their new capabilities.

"WAKE UP!" He shouted through the communication channel.

It didn't work. As long as the suppression was in effect, the ordinary Kinner mech pilots were unable to shake themselves loose!

Since their minds and spirits couldn't withstand the pressure, Ves figured he should do it in their stead!

He tried out something new. He connected to the Larkinson Network. Different from last time, the network was in a bad shape. The damage the Golden Cat sustained in her duel against one of the dark gods had damaged the true core of the Larkinson Clan as well.

Fortunately, the network was still intact enough for Ves to perform his next actions. He pressed himself into the network and tried to connect to the Battle Crier mech pilots.

It took a bit of time, but he finally managed to pinpoint their cluster.

He then attempted to shield them. This was very difficult, especially when he wanted to accomplish this from a distance. He consumed his spiritual energy at a rapid rate, so much so that he was forced to draw a spare P-stone to supplement his dwindling energy reserves.

Fortunatel,y his efforts yielded quick results!

The temporary shields he cast over their minds caused the Battle Crier mech pilots to feel unburdened. After they slowly woke and gathered their wits, Ves quickly issued his next command.

"Activate your battle formation and assist our new expert candidates in fighting against the giant grey bird!"

Dietrich and the Kinner mech pilots haltingly obeyed the instruction.

Though the circumstances weren't ideal, the great urgency of the situation caused every Battle Crier to devote their utmost into accomplishing their task. They calmed their minds and began to commune with an entity that they had only recently learned about.

Soon, a battle network came online. Connections engaged and the Battle Crier mechs slowly adopted a dish-shaped formation. As the recently-woken mechs approached the Inexorable One, a winged energy silhouette formed above the machines!

Projectors built into the Battle Crier mechs shortly filled up the silhouette, thereby introducing an angel to the battlefield!

"Exorcise the enemy!"

The dish-shaped formation did not approach the dark god. Instead, its mech pilots kept concentrating until the giant illusion of Lufa thrust out his palms.

An invisible beam struck the dark god just as she was about to swoop onto another failing expert candidate.

The Inexorable One shook in mid-flight and let out a pained and furious bird cry!

Ves contacted the expert candidates that remained battle effective. "She's weakened! Work together with the Battle Crier battle formation to kill or cripple that big bird!"

The battle network that Ves reserved for the Battle Criers was finally making its debut. When Ves quietly conceived of it before connecting the Battle Criers to the new network, he discovered that it came with two different formations.

The Discord Formation that the Battle Criers adopted at the moment was geared towards weakening any spiritual entity or phenomena!

Though it was clear that the Inexorable One was too strong to succumb from the effects of the battle formation, her spiritual body experienced a lot of difficulties all of a sudden.

Not only did she lose a lot of speed, she also found it harder to perform her moves!

The change did not give the Larkinsons an advantage. It merely equalized it so that the remaining expert candidates weren't as weak as prey anymore.

However, Ves knew that this was only temporary. The longer-lasting expert candidates were already reaching the limits of their endurance. The Battle Criers alone weren't sufficient to take down the Inexorable One.

They needed more power!

He shifted his attention to the other duels. The reinforcements that he inadvertently called were holding their own, but the dark gods they fought against weren't taken down so easily!

At the start, the Unending One and the Blinding One both experienced significant difficulties in fighting against their respective opponents.

Ves was very impressed by how his mother fought. She summoned a continuous army of plants and animals from somewhere while hacking the dark god's tentacles from a distance by releasing energy attacks with her words.

With all of the summons entangling the large but unwieldy dark god, the Unending One could only respond in kind by releasing dark energy beams which Cynthia's monstrous energy projection easily evaded!

As for Ryncol Larkinson, his Devil Tiger was steadily dismantling the Blinding One's defenses.

Unlike the other expert pilots of the Larkinson Clan, the Dark Cleaver piloted an real expert mech. Embedded with compatible resonating exotics, the extraordinarily powerful tiger mech possessed the capital to challenge the Blinding One!

While the luminar dark god actually possessed a lot more power than Ves' father, he happened to face the wrong opponent!

Like a rifleman mech being harried by a light skirmisher, the Blinding One's huge and tall form was highly unsuited to fight against a small and agile opponent up close. His robe began to look increasingly more ragged as the Devil Tiger broke much of its crystals!

If this went on, the Blinding One would lose all of his defenses against an opponent that he should by all rights crush by virtue of his overwhelming might alone!

Faced with this awful prospect, the besieged dark god made a decision that surprised everyone who was still conscious and paying attention.

The Blinding One forcefully endured the Devil Tiger's attacks while flying closer to the Unending One!

"No! Stop them from pooling together!"

Seeing what was happening, the uncomfortable Inexorable One decided to join the party as well. She fought against the weakening effect exerted by the Battle Criers and flapped her wings towards her fellow peers.

No matter how much their opponents tried to stop them in their tracks, their momentum couldn't be stopped, especially as they were finally beginning to feel desperate.

Ves watched with a sinking heart as the three dark gods finally gathered together. Soon, they began to coordinate their efforts!

The dragonwolves and vines entangling the Unending One were wiped out in an instant after the Blinding One pelted them with a succession of powerful light beams.

The Devil Tiger attempted to stop the Blinding One from doing so, but the expert mech almost got caught by the Unending One's tentacles!

The Inexorable One stared ominously at the mechs piloted by the expert candidates. She slowly healed her wounds and accumulated her power.

The Discord Formation kept up by the Battle Criers didn't have much effect at this point. The spiritual interference induced by the battle formation was being diluted across all three entities!

The monstrous, scaled form of Cynthia Larkinson paused and frowned at the sight.

This was a tricky situation.

Just as she was about to resume her attacks, something unexpected took place.

While the Blinding One and the Inexorable One put up their guards against the humans, two powerful tentacles pierced through the center of their bodies in an instant!

The white luminar alien and the grey bird widened their eyes! Power escaped from their spiritual bodies as they attempted to blast themselves out of their predicament, but more tentacles quickly swept up to entangle them, preventing them from getting free!

While the two betrayed entities doubtlessly possessed enough power to get rid of the tentacles if they gave in their all, the Unending One did not let them do so. The tentacled whale quickly popped his prey into his endless maw and ended their lives in an instant!

"WHAT?!" Ves couldn't believe what had happened!

Different from the time he ate Nyxie, the Unending One gained a massive and immediate boost of power. His huge spiritual body expanded while a number of white and grey stripes appeared on his body. The Unending One let out pained roars as his strength grew explosively!

Though Ves and many others hoped that the whale would explode from his gluttony, it was not to be as the whale eventually managed to stabilize himself. Incredibly, the dark god radiated at least twice as much power as before!

Cynthia's giant energy projection looked even more grave this time. She waved an arm at the mechs piloted by the Battle Criers and expert candidates. A gentle but irresistible push caused the mechs to tumble away!

She stared pointedly at the Devil Tiger. The ferocious-looking masterwork expert mech that had just put up a good fight against the Blinding One meekly tucked its tail while beating a retreat.

The Unending One was not an opponent they could fight against anymore.

Ves suddenly heard his mother's voice.

"I see you've picked up something nice while I was gone. I love it when you give me presents. It's your one redeeming factor as my son."

A bad feeling swept his mind. "Oh no. Not again."

His mother's giant energy projection suddenly stretched out her arm towards the Scarlet Rose in the distance. Somehow, her arm stretched forth unnaturally across many kilometers until her index finger poked straight into the cockpit!

The tip of the finger briefly brushed against his body. His Unending Regalia offered some resistance against the giant limb, but his mother merely applied a little more force before she managed to breach the B-Stone layer!

Surprisingly, his mother didn't suck him dry this time.

Instead, she took something else from him. As her finger left his body and her arm rapidly retracted back to her giant form, Ves was dazed for a moment before he made a very alarming realization.

He checked one of the hidden storage compartments of his combat armor and carefully withdrew a very precious vial.

Different from before, the liquid inside the vial looked dull. It no longer glowed as before and Ves couldn't feel any life from it anymore.

The high-grade life-prolonging treatment serum that he had carefully hoarded all this time had lost its value. That single poke stole all of the life-attributed energy that made it special!

"MOTHER!"

Though his loss was enormous, his mother benefited enormously. Pure pleasure and bliss engulfed her face as she integrated her bounty in rapid tempo! Her monstrous body glowed as new mutations grew out of her already alien body. Her hair turned into tendrils and her legs turned into hooves.

An aura of pure life burst out of her energy projection, causing it to swell in size! The copious amounts of high-quality energy she took from Ves was exactly the tonic she needed!