The Mech Touch

Over 16,000 mechs entered the battlefield.

Now, many of them were lost!

Many blew up into fragments that flung in every direction. Others suffered fatal hits to their chests that caused them to lose power. A few of the luckier ones managed to retreat and return to their motherships before they completely collapsed.

No matter what, the survival rate of mechs constantly plummeted as if it was the Starlight Megalodon about to crash on the surface of Aeon Corona VII!

As Ves briefly took a pause from trying to analyze the flaws of individual enemy mechs, he became captivated by the immense amount of violence taking place.

He had seen larger and grander battles, of course.

He could always access the battle footage sent by the Hexers if he ever wanted to forget about everything and just surround himself with as much mechs as possible.

The scale of the Komodo War was immense. The amount of mechs that clashed against each other in a given star system numbered in the hundreds of thousands as entire mech army groups struggled for supremacy.

Yet Ves had little part in it other than designing some of the mechs involved. These battles took place many light-years away from his current location. He did not personally feel awed when the Hexers moved entire mech divisions forward and he did not feel frightened down to his bones when the Fridaymen launched an ambush involving more than 100,000 mechs.

While he always felt gratified to see his products serve their use to his clients, he did not feel as excited as he was at this moment.

Yes, he felt excited.

Despite the threat of facing 11—, no 9 expert mechs now, Ves felt alive in a way he never did when he was living a placid life on Cinach.

The greater the danger, the greater the risks, the more his life became meaningful to him. As a Larkinson, he lived for battle, so moments like these captivated him in a way that stimulated his design seed beyond reason!

As Ves observed his prime mechs and Valkyrie mechs in action, he gained many small but novel insights about his mechs. He recognized what worked, what didn't work as well and what needed to be corrected right away.

The performance of his prototype mechs were especially illuminating. One mech that stood out in particular was the prototype of the Ferocious Piranha Version B.

The incomplete second-class version of the best-selling Ferocious Piranha showcased why the light mech had become such a popular seller on the market!

In the hands of Raella Larkinson, the Ferocious Piranha clearly showcased that she hadn't slacked off too much in her mech training despite her responsibilities.

The light skirmisher moved swiftly. Other friendly light mechs surrounded the mech like a protective guard. The moment the Ferocious Piranha approached the edge of an enemy formation, the opponents tried to make as much distance as possible. They were deeply apprehensive towards the light mechs.

There was a good reason for this. As soon as the Ferocious Piranha drew close, many of the enemy mechs moved stiffer than usual. Their reaction speeds slowed and they made plenty more errors.

The light mechs along with other nearby friendly Larkinson mechs pounced on the weakened Fridayman mechs and always managed to gain the upper hand in the ensuing clash!

The Ferocious Piranha achieved fantastic results the first couple of times it employed its glow, but once the enemy recognized its threat, Raella was forced to become a lot more constrained. She fought closer to existing friendlies and did not dare to make any attacks in person. Her mech received the same treatment as the Blessed Squire, being valued for nothing more than its glow.

"Ah, glows." He sighed.

This was a period of time when the Larkinson Clan happened to employ a huge amount of third-party products. A lot of Larkinsons fought without experiencing the myriad of benefits of melding their minds with an LMC mech.

Fortunately, the nature of glows meant that Ves didn't need to employ too many LMC mechs to spread his glows.

His mech forces cleverly employed the original Bright Warriors like Blessed Squires, bringing the warmth and light of the Golden Cat to the vast majority of Larkinsons who fought on behalf of the clan. Their morale remained strong and their willingness to fight with all never shook as they carried the hopes and dreams of every Larkinson!

Ves only dared to bring the obsolete Bright Warriors due to being clad in plenty of Breyer alloy. The Fridaymen weren't blind or stupid. Glows were force multipliers that amplified the performance of entire formations and units. They were as threatening as artillery mechs if not more, and that turned them into high-priority targets!

Even with space knights and other mechs keeping them safe, the Fridaymen mechs did not hesitate to employ suicidal charges in order to destroy the seemingly-crucial Bright Warriors!

Yet once their weapons struck their targets, the Bright Warriors didn't crumble. At most, they received a few dents and bounced away due to the force behind the blows.

While Breyer alloy wasn't indestructible to the Fridaymen, it was still challenging to pierce through their shells, as evidenced by the near-pristine prow of the Spirit of Bentheim!

As a symbol of the majesty of the Larkinson Clan, the majestic and overdramatized depiction of

The Golden Cat attracted plenty of attacks at first, especially when enemies attempted to take out the Bentheim's bunker mechs.

Not even a hundred attacks managed to do more than lightly scar the huge and solid prow!

In fact, Ves felt as if the battle scars added character to his flagship. It showed that the Larkinson Clan was not afraid to confront powerful enemies.

The continued existence of the golden prow seemed to instill the Larkinsons with even more confidence. Even though it didn't really possess a significant glow or anything due to his minimal involvement, Ves had an illusion that the totem was propping up the fighting spirit of the Larkinson Clan.

As long as it remained whole, the Larkinsons would never break in battle!

"The work that your mech designers are doing are all taking effect." Major Verle briefly pulled his attention away from his own responsibilities. "Look. Ever since your Valkyrie Prime started to relay a lot of data to us, the Fridaymen are almost losing as much mechs as ours. This is a significantly better ratio than before."

"It's not enough." Ves grimaced inside his helmet. "We have already lost a lot more mechs at the start on this side of the battlefield, so we are still fighting at a disadvantage."

Despite all of the setbacks they suffered, the elite Fridayman mech units still put up a lot of fight. The Holvein Grenadiers, the Bloody Herons and the Silent Swords each showcased why they were considered to be the best of what the Friday Coalition had to offer!

The Transcendent Punishers heavily suppressed the Holvein Grenadiers in the earlier stages of the battle. Plenty of grenade-carrying mechs succumbed before they could even show their might. No matter how well they performed at close range, they were still as helpless as other mechs when faced with relentless bombardment!

Unfortunately, now that the Transcendent Punishers redirected their fire to suppress the Charlemagne, the Scarra and the other surviving Fridayman expert mechs, the Holvein Grenadiers fought back with a vengeance!

A string of powerful high explosive grenades enriched with volatile exotics blew up near a cluster of Crosser mechs, heavily damaging their sides and disrupting their rhythm enough for the Grenadier mechs to make a quick breakthrough.

It took twice as much mechs to stop the Grenadier mechs in their tracks and prevent the lines from becoming more disordered.

A handful of rifleman mechs safely floating at the rear of the formation fired a volley of grenades with their under-barrel grenade launchers. Once the grenades detonated, they spread out of a huge amount of dark foam that didn't do anything but dirty the mechs in the vicinity.

However, when this foam touched the flight systems of mechs, they suddenly fizzled out, causing the mechs to lose a lot of maneuverability for a time.

Without their flight systems, mechs weren't able to fight anymore! They had lost too much mobility and not even the secondary boosters and thrusters built inside the other parts of their frame was enough to compensate for the loss.

They turned into sitting ducks against the prepared Holvein Grenadier mechs at the front!

"These damn grenade-slinging mechs are too outrageous!" A Larkinson mech pilot complained. "I bet that some of these grenades cost as much as one of our mechs!"

The Holvein Grenadiers basically gained their advantages in battle by spending lots of money! The grenades they flung would never have as much potency against mechs as now if they didn't incorporate a lot of expensive exotics with a myriad of powerful and unusual effects. This was the only way to make a deadly package that was also compact and able to be carried by mechs.

Even though the Grenadiers had already expended most of their grenades by now, they still clung to at least one of them until the moment their mechs succumbed.

Explosions rippled through the frontline as Grenadier mech after Grenadier mech did not hesitate to take down their opponents with them. Often times, the diehard mech pilots actively overloaded the power reactors of their mechs in order to give their enemies an even bigger surprise!

The Silent Swords of the Konsu Clan fought in a completely different approach. Every mech pilot was a swordmaster and their mechs were completely tailored to the swordsmanship style that has been bestowed upon them. They all fought in the same way, but because of the exquisiteness of their technique, hardly any other melee mech was able to get the better of them in a one-on-one duel!

In some cases, the mech officers and mech champions of the Silent Swords were even able to fight two opposing melee mechs to a standstill!

As long as the circumstances were equal, the Silent Sword mechs were always able to carve their way through the ranks of their opponents and lay waste to any mech that entered their reach.

If not for the fact that they had no effective solutions against ranged attacks, the Silent Swords would have been enough to fight at least four times as many opponents!

The expeditionary forces had to reserve most of their rifleman mechs to put pressure on the Silent Swords. If their tricky wandering squads weren't put under fire as soon as they approached a contentious area, the elite Konsu mech pilots would have easily been able to harvest the enemies locked in battle against other Fridaymen mechs!

Yet what gave Ves the most dread was the Bloody Herons.

Even though the Herons lost a lot of mechs over the course of the engagement, the powerful mechs still punched above their weight due the impeccable teamwork they showed.

Only the prime mechs and the Valkyrie mechs piloted by the Glory Seekers and the Penitent Sisters were able to constrain them to an extent.

While Ves was previously fine with letting the battle play out against the Bloody Herons, he began to feel more concerned about what happened on the other parts of the battlefield.

The enemies here needed to be cleaned up as quickly as possible in order to free up a lot of friendly mechs that could be deployed to reinforce others.

Ves struggled a bit before he made a decision. He opened a private communication channel.

"Venerable Joshua."

"Yes, sir?" The expert pilot hurriedly spoke.

His Valkyrie Prime was currently in the heat of battle!

"Do it. Show them what the Superior Mother can truly do. Wipe out as many Fridayman mechs as possible."

"Isn't it too soon?! If we do this, our mech pilots will be…"

"I'm aware, but there is little point in delaying." Ves replied. "The elite Fridaymen mechs are no longer as numerous and oppressive as before, and their mech pilots have exerted heavily to the point where they are far from their peak. The timing is right. Delaying any further will just result in needless casualties. Just do it before anything changes."

"..Very well, sir."