The Mech Touch

The entire battlefield had grown more and more chaotic as time went on. Debris flung in every direction. A trail of broken starships littered from one end to the other end as the Larkinsons and Penitent Sisters both lost a substantial amount of ships!

The losses ran in the thousands. Even if the crews of every ship frequently performed evacuation drills, anytime the Gravada Knarlax breached a vessel with her powerful main cannons, the resulting damage often killed at least a quarter of the people aboard!

The tyranny of warships had managed to accomplish the one feat that every other threat in the Nyxian Gap failed to accomplish. The pirate warships managed to fell at least a third of the starships of the Larkinson Clan!

If the Gravada Knarlax kept focusing her powerful primary gun batteries on the remaining Larkinson ships, then Task Force Predator would certainly become history!

Both sides knew this. The Allidus Alliance had taken advantage of the incredibly punishing firepower unleashed by the Gravada Knarlax several times. Enemies who were stupid enough to underestimate the power of a heavy cruiser had all paid the price of their ignorance!

Though Ves had never witnessed a ship comparable to the Gravada Knarlax in action, his extensive foundation in mech design and engineering granted him a great amount of respect for her weapons and armor.

It didn't matter if the underlying tech was rather rough and crude. Scale alone compensated for most of the weaknesses!

Therefore, from the very start, Ves always prioritized taking out the Gravada Knarlax. There were still ways to overcome the thousands of pirate mechs and the handful of smaller pirate warships, but taking down a heavy cruiser was too difficult with just the mechs at his disposal.

"There's also the cultists to consider."

He already knew for certain the Hallowed Abyss Temple wanted to take revenge. The Larkinsons pissed off the Unending One quite a bit during the last battle. Ves could easily predict that a 'dark god' as vengeful and furious as the tentacled whale would push its worshippers to go for a second round!

Facing one of these two threats was already bad enough. Facing both of them at once spelled

certain death as far as he was concerned!

If he played by the rules, his lack of assets meant that he would surely lose the game.

This was why he had to mess it up! He resolutely plotted to flip the board, and the only way he felt he could accomplish was by taking a page out of the book of Grey Watcher Xarnus.

"Transform the stage!"

As long as he called down an anomaly onto the battlefield, then the pirates with their formidable warships and ocean of mechs would have to fight against the environment as well as the Larkinsons!

Of course, his clansmen weren't having it easy either! As the strange anomaly that Ves had cooked up with the help of detonating three Highly Unstable Chaos Essence gems at once, the strange phenomenon that followed suit had caused everyone to freeze for a time.

This was not because they were paralyzed, but because none of them could move!

Both Larkinsons and pirates found out to their horror that every move they made, they automatically snapped back to their previous positions.

One of the bridge officers experimentally lifted his hand, only for that same hand to return to resting on his desk.

A formation of mechs attempted to fly forward, only for their mechs to stay in mid-flight several hundred meters back.

One of the pirate destroyers called the Ailing Frey attempted to fire her potent primary laser cannons at a Larkinson light carrier, only for her turret to rotate back to its original orientation!

Though every human remained aware of the passage of time, their bodies and their machines remained frozen for some odd reason!

If this wasn't enough, the opaque shadow of a huge vortex overlapped the surrounding space. Almost everyone taking part in the battle was horribly confused at this vague but frightening illusion!

There were only a couple of exceptions to the rule. The two titanic spiritual entities continued battling each other without any sign that they were affected by the anomaly!

Both the Unending One and Nyxie exchanged powerful blows in the middle of the pirate fleet. The collateral damage of their enormous attacks sometimes felled a dozen or so pirate mechs that found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ves also found himself to remain in control. With the help of the B-stone layer of his Unending Regalia, he had gained a moderate amount of resistance from the anomaly's effects.

This was exactly what he wanted! After getting caught flat-footed in the temporal anomaly a few months ago, Ves had always yearned to build this suit of combat armor in order to protect him against spiritual shenanigans.

"Hahahaha!" Ves couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably! "Looks like my little surprise worked!"

The anomaly that he called into being was nothing more than an attempt to bring the imaginary realm closer to the material realm. He basically copied some of the principles of the temporal anomaly and tried to trigger it artificially through some means, though it had been difficult for him to develop confidence in his solution until recently.

The Highly Unstable Chaos Essence gems were packed with energy! With their help, Ves gained an ample source of energy to enable this momentous feat.

However, chaos energy was highly volatile to begin with, and soon their effects began to shape the temporal anomaly that had dawned on the battlefield.

Certain pockets of space became engulfed by strange rainbow warping. Time suddenly resumed in other pockets of space. Some mechs even sped up an instant, causing them to crash against friendly mechs! Projectiles in mid-flight were frozen in time and space in one moment, only to fling forward at ten times their original velocity, causing them to devastate a formation of hapless Avatars mechs!

The chaos was spreading before everyone's eyes! Some effects happened to be beneficial to the mech or ship in question, but more often than not the unstable hazards were wreaking havoc.

"What is going on?! Why can't I see straight?!"

"My mech is cleaved in half!"

"Ahh! I'm freezing!"

The suffering spread to both sides, but it was especially bad for the pirates due to their larger numbers. With more mechs and ships, the environmental changes affected them to a significantly greater degree! The unprepared pirate mechs had become especially panicked about the fact that they were caught up in an anomaly!

The onset of random hazards slowly offset the time freezing effect. Mechs and ships slowly started moving again, but that did not make life easier for everyone. They would rather be frozen in time than be assaulted by violent environmental changes!

Ves couldn't let this situation go to waste. He studied the projection of the Gravada Knarlax. The earlier attacks had caused her starboard side to lose a considerable amount of structure. It was as if a giant monster had taken a jagged bite out of the heavy cruiser!

RIght now, she barely looked functional. The destructive attacks disabled her center gun turret, knocked out at least a third of her secondary laser cannon batteries and shut down numerous other systems.

Despite this, the warship slowly regained her functionality! Her toughness and degree of compartmentalization was on a whole other level than a mech. Even if three-fourths of her compartments were destroyed or voided into space, the ship would still be capable of putting up a fight!

What was worse was something more concerning stirred within her bowels. Grey fog and white fog began to leak out of the damaged heavy cruiser. Slowly but surely, they began to solidify in massive apparitions similar to the one that was dueling against the maddened Nyxie!

Not only that, but some of the black, grey and white fog began to spread to the Gravada Knarlax and other nearby pirate assets. Once they became enveloped by the fog, the mechs and ships partially gained protection against the random hazards that struck them from time to time.

The affected pirates managed to regain some battle effectiveness!

Ves widened his eyes as he saw what was taking place. The spiritual signatures from those growing apparitions were different from that of the Unending One.

The cultists were bringing in at least two more dark gods!

He couldn't wait any longer! He had to deploy all of his trump cards before those new terrible beings tilted the battle in the favor of the pirates again!

He activated the command channel. "Swordmaidens, Battle Criers, Penitent Sisters, engage your battle formations! They will shield your mechs against the anomalous hazards!"

"Yes, patriarch!"

"Venerable Jannzi, Joshua, Orfan and Dise, your time has come. Deploy your mechs and show these pirates the might of the Larkinson Clan!"

"Yessss! Finally!" Joshua exultingly cried.

"It's about time." Commander Orfan grinned.

"I cannot do much, but I will shield our fleet as best I can." Venerable Jannzi modestly stated.

"What about me?" Tusa indignantly asked.

"Oh yeah, you too. Go out and make everyone acknowledge your existence!"

Venerable Jannzi and the expert candidates finally launched from the carriers that had deliberately hung back in the rear of the fleet.

Ves had intended for each of them to play a key role in the battle, but he knew that their spiritually-enhanced mechs would certainly cause them to undergo apotheosis right away. This made it important for him to choose the right timing for their introduction.

"Well, the formation of two more entities like the Unending One certainly qualifies!"

Throughout all of the chaos, a hint of order reasserted itself.

The first change came from the mechs that were slowly adopting some unusual formations.

The Penitent Sisters moved first! They had been waiting for the fateful order since the beginning of the battle. As soon as Ves said the right words, the exiled Hexers each opened themselves up to the Superior Mother.

"Bless us, Supreme!"

"Give us the strength to wipe out these degenerate boys!"

Only half of the Penitent Sister mechs entered into a formation. It consisted entirely of melee mechs. So far, they only contributed to the battle by taking potshots with pistols or other light ranged weapons. Now that the distance between the two sides had shrunk considerably, Commander Chancy finally let them loose!

The melee mechs each formed into a wedge formation that corresponded to the death phase of existence. Like an arrow released from a bow, this narrow wedge formation flew towards the swarm of enemy pirate mechs with rising momentum!

Soon enough, the vague silhouette of the Superior Mother with her arm stretched forward appeared above the formation! The projectors embedded in the mechs of the Penitent Sisters automatically activated according to their new programming and began to fill the silhouette with lifelike details!

Every Penitent Sister taking part in the battle immediately felt buoyed at the appearance of the great Hexer Supreme! Her presence was proof that she was blessing their cause!

"For the Superior Mother!"

The Penitent Sister arrow crashed into the swarm of pirate mechs just as they were in the process of reorganizing their ranks!

Due to the incredible quality disparity between second-class and third-class mechs, the charging Hexer mechs did not even bother to take defensive measures as they collided against the weaker pirate mechs!

Over a hundred collisions took place as the pirates instantly lost a chunk of their mechs! Panic spread anew as the Superior Mother clawed her fingers through the mechs of several dozen pirate mechs.

Though her insubstantial limbs inflicted little material damage to the mechs, her attacks still caused their mech pilots to feel sapped of energy!

With the imaginary realm overlapping with the material realm, the Penitent Sister battle formation somehow gained more strength!

However, it wasn't just the battle formations that benefited from their proximity to the imaginary realm.

The growing and solidifying pools of white and grey fog finally finished taking shape! Two different inaudible roars rang throughout the battlefield as two more dark gods had entered the fray!

The grey god vaguely resembled an avian exobeast. The bird flapped its great, ragged wings, causing it to traverse a lot of distance at once! It flapped again, causing a wide and destructive grey wave to rapidly soar to a mech company of Sentinels. The grey wave immediately collided against them, causing the mechs to temporarily glitch!

As for the white god, the giant shape that came into being suddenly caused Ves to sit upright in his chair. With wide, disbelieving eyes, the glowing white humanoid form raised a single hand and unleashed a powerful light beam that instantly struck a combat carrier of the Flagrant Vandals! If not for her reinforced armor, the carrier would have probably foundered right then and there!

Ves recognized the humanoid alien.

"Crystal Builder! Luminar race!"

To his utter surprise, the tiny extinct alien race had somehow produced a giant dark god that lived until today!