The Mech Touch

The breakthrough of 27 mech pilots in quick succession completely disrupted the previous pattern of the engagement.

Only a single breakthrough wouldn't have been enough to alter the balance of power. The elite Phaser fish-whales were all individually strong and could endure a lot of attacks before they succumbed.

However, the eruption of power of numerous mech pilots in quick succession forcefully broke the game and interrupted the momentum of the Phasers!

The most absurd instance was when Vincent Ricklin finally broke through.

A lot of Larkinsons already expected him to undergo his apotheosis in the near future. He was a bit of a celebrity in the clan and was one of the few mech pilots who received the privilege of piloting a custom mech that completely fit his piloting style.

No one expected him to take it up a notch and explode with power a second time!

The golden manifestation of the design spirit that was likely Bravo or a combination of him and other factors completely outshone every other breakthrough and turned Vincent into the defining character of this battle!

Thrust with the power of the rare but oft-admired Unity of Man and Machine, Vincent and his battle buddies briefly held enough power to compete against an ace mech!

This was an exceptional chance and one that Vincent did not waste!

By punching dozens of tired but still formidable enemy fish-whales, the Phasers could no longer count on their numerical advantage to grind their opponents to victory.

By charging over towards the center of the battlefield and landing a single overpowering punch on the Phase King's thick and meaty body, Vincent had dealt a serious blow to the enemy force!

It was a pity that Vincent couldn't follow up on his excellent attack. The charge and lunging punch exhausted all of the power that Vincent gained from his successful breakthrough.

The golden manifestation of the gigantic muscled human broke apart and faded away. The forced resonance that had been propping up the B-Man subsided, revealing a torn and half-ruined custom hybrid mech that looked as if it had fought its way through ten different battles!

Forced resonance always took a toll on a mech, and it was only because Gloriana, its original designer, already anticipated how easily mech pilots got carried away during their breakthroughs that the B-Man was still in one piece, if barely!

Vincent was also in a bad shape at the moment. The extreme power he showed this way impacted him more heavily than the other newly-ascended expert pilots. He didn't even have the opportunity to pilot his mech towards safety as he immediately fell into a coma as soon as he was no longer able to sustain his previous exertions.

For a moment, the B-Man looked exceptionally vulnerable now that the giant energy manifestation along with the vibrant golden corona of forced resonance had disappeared.

"Secure the B-Man and drag it back to the rear! Nothing should befall the mech and its occupant! Both are precious!"

The Larkinsons quickly moved into action!

The previous battles they fought in had taught them a lesson on the vulnerability of mech pilots that had just broken through to expert candidate or expert pilot.

Not every mech empowered by forced resonance was strong enough to defeat the opposition!

Even if it did, the mech would inevitably enter a period of weakness where the enemy could easily take revenge on the damage they suffered!

This was why numerous Larkinson mech units had quietly been standing by while the B-Man performed its impressive show.

Although the Larkinsons did not anticipate that Vincent would bring his overstrained custom mech all the way towards the center of the battlefield, a pair of Avatar mechs stationed in the vicinity quickly raced forward in order to retrieve the broken machine.

Before the friendly mechs could reach the hero that had decisively struck a blow against their enemies, the space around the B-Man suddenly warped in an ominous fashion!

If there was any air in the void inside Purgatory, the B-Man would have produced terrible cracking noises!

The masculine mech's exterior slowly tore into pieces while its internal components suffered more grievous damage.

"It's the Phase King! The damn beast is still alive!"

As one of the ancient monsters that had accumulated strength since before the human race began to make use of fire, the Phase King's terrible resilience was incredibly high!

Its body looked deformed as its extremely tough bones had broken and its flesh had caved inwards. The Phase King was no longer able to warp space as well as before as many of its organs were disarrayed.

Nonetheless, it was still possible for the Phase King to summon a quick warp storm in order to destroy a defenseless mech!

"Damnit, what is the Cerebral King doing?! Someone stop the Phase King!"

The frequent forced resonance manifestations surprised the Cerebral King and the other Evolvers. They never encountered anything like them before and were struggling to revise their earlier impressions of the outsiders that previously appeared to be a little weak due to their smaller metal mechs.

"You have to get through me before you harm my student!" Patriarch Reginald roared as he dragged his damaged Bolvos Rage over to the Phase King!

The expert hybrid mech was no longer in good shape either. The constant confrontations against the king fish had taken its toll.

It did not help that Reginald did not make any attempts to spare his old machine from the rigors of high-intensity battle this time!

Although the glowing Bolvos Rage still looked like it could put up a fight with its Whale-Cutting Saber, it was barely holding on. Prior damage to its flight system had already cut back its mobility.

Combined with the fact that the previous massive strike had punted the Phase King's body away from the center of the battlefield, Reginald feared he wouldn't be able to intervene in time!

Yet just before the B-Man's condition deteriorated too far, a powerful resonance-empowered positron beam struck the Phase King's vulnerable body!

This time, the powerful king fish was unable to block the attack. Its spatial barriers had already broken too many times and the organs that were responsible for producing them had all suffered heavy damage.

The attack inflicted more pain onto the beast than any other beam attack!

Different from other beams fired by mechs such as the Minerva and the Everchanger, this odd purple glowing beam produced a fiery explosion upon impact that burned and vaporized a large chunk of flesh!

The Phase King was unable to maintain its concentration and reared its wounded body in pain!

Its large mass and resilient organic tissue was able to resist a lot of damage under normal circumstances.

Even the potent energy attacks fired by the Bolvos Rage were unable to distress the Phase King that much.

This singular attack was different, though!

Although the strange purple positron beam was not as penetrative as the attacks from the high-tier expert mech, the latest attack imparted an extremely tenacious flame that kept burning the flesh surrounding the area on the body that had previously been struck!

Despite the lack of air, the purple flame kept burning up the Phase King's resilient tissue at a slow but worrying pace!

The Phase King panicked to the point where it completely forgot about taking revenge on the B-Man. It focused its remaining phasewater abilities on the damaged portion of its body and ruthlessly excised all of the tissue that was about to get burned!

The pain to the creature was indescribable, but the relief was palpable.

Just as the Phase King was about to resume its attacks, another purple resonance-empowered beam struck the creature!

Worse yet, it just happened to strike the vulnerable internal tissue that had just become exposed due to the Phase King's self-operation!

Another chunk of flesh got burned while the flames that haunted the Phase King had reappeared!

"Where did those beams come from?!"

"It's not the Everchanger nor the Minerva!"

"It's… the Quint!"

Of the five expert candidates that underwent apotheosis today, two of them hailed from the Larkinson Clan.

The most prominent breakthrough was that of Vincent, but few noticed that another prominent mech pilot had managed to become a demigod today!

Under the guidance of the ever-evolving Quint and the light of transcendence from the Everchanger, Isobel Kotin did not fail the expectations of the clan and successfully bridged the gap that many mech pilots yearned to overcome!

The Quint manifested its forced resonance in purple fire that made it look as if it was burning!

However, the heat and energy radiating from its form did not inflict substantial damage to its frame.

Instead, Isobel Kotin maintained tight control over her expanded power and concentrated much of the destructive energy at her disposal to the flaming luminar crystal rifle!

After the weapon accumulated another potent charge, the glowing weapon fired another high-powered positron beam that almost struck one of the Phase King's eyes!

If not for the wounded creature's fast and desperate response, the burning beam would have crippled one of its sensory organs!

As it was, the damage to the flesh that surrounded its skull was almost just as bad!

The Phase King was under so much pain that it was barely able to control its own phasewater powers to cut off the burning tissue. A section of its immense skull became exposed to the open due to the creature's emergency response!

More purple beams struck the Phase King's gigantic body. While the subsequent strikes weren't as powerful as the ones before, they kept inflicting disproportionate damage to the king fish's enormous bulk.

It was as if Isobel Kotin willed her opponents to burn to death!

As Patriarch Reginald tried his best to do his part by striking the distracted Phase King with the Whale-Cutting Saber, he became impressed by the effectiveness of the purple beam attacks.

"Isobel's will burns like fire. Is it because she has fought against too many beasts and aliens as of late?"

An expert pilot was the product of his or her environment. Ever since the Golden Skull Alliance entered the Red Ocean, it never really fought a proper battle against other mech forces outside of mech arenas.

Instead, the expeditionary fleet fought against one alien threat after another, most of which brought massive threats to bear!

Whether it was large alien warships or titanic astral beasts, none of these enemies were easy to defeat!

The relatively limited caliber of ranged weapons of the expeditionary forces heavily constrained the amount of damage they could inflict on massive targets.

Not even the heavy cannons of the Transcendent Punishers were powerful enough to slay such massive targets in a short amount of time!

Perhaps these difficulties and the need to come up with a proper response against large alien threats had pressured Isobel into embracing fire as her weapon of choice!

Whether she intended it or not, Isobel had become the incarnation of fire after her breakthrough!

Her will was like a roaring wildfire that eagerly sought to burn as much alien flesh as possible!

Against this hot and overpowering will, the Phase King's reinforced flesh and body didn't stand a chance. The poor king fish kept receiving more and more abuse to the point where its body began to resemble the mutilated victim of a serial killer!

"Keep burning, you alien monster! You and your Phasers have killed too many mech pilots for me to let you off so easily!"

To Isobel, only fire allowed her to overcome the massive disparity in size, mass and power!

Though the Quint struggled to channel her burning will, the persistent attacks damaged and exhausted the Phase King to the point where the remains of its fighting spirit had gone up in ashes!

Fear and despair finally overcame the king fish. It no longer had any ideas about retrieving back its stolen property.

It just wanted to run away from these scary metal outsiders and recuperate from its many wounds!