The Mech Touch

The viewers tuning in to the semifinals of the G-Aena League became witnesses to a rare and much-celebrated spectacle!

When these spectators quickly spread the words to their friends and acquaintances, the viewership of the current match quickly jumped!

The tournament organizers were extremely happy to see this bump in viewership! Even if it was just a short-lived phenomenon, all of those customers buying tickets in order to access the remote broadcast poured more than enough money to afford an extra fleet carrier!

It took only a short moment for the number of viewers to double! Already the interest in this particular match exceeded the predicted numbers of the finals. All of the sponsors of the G-Aena League were bursting with happiness as the brand names projected on the sides of the arena entered the eyes of over a trillion viewers!

Many of the people tuning in were mech pilots. They held a special interest in witnessing this match in real-time.

To be honest, few of them were interested in the mech battalions. They had no stake in either the Larkinson Battalion or the Glory of Urthina Battalion. Neither names sounded familiar to the public as they never bothered to watch the preceding matches in the tournament.

The only reason why they tuned in was to watch one particular mech, or more precisely the mech pilot sitting within its cockpit.

Few people had heard of the Quint. Those who possessed the right technical acumen became pleasantly surprised by the existence of this masterwork mech.

"The mech design it is based upon is a bit clunky and rudimentary in a few areas, but this rendition is rather impressive in a rustic manner."

"A masterwork mech shouldn't have much of an effect at this level, though."

"They do help, if only marginally. I don't think what is happening in the arena is a coincidence."

The Glory of Urthina Battalion was quite aggrieved at the moment. The faithful mech pilots possessed great confidence in this fight. Not only did they whittle down their opponents faster, they successfully negated the Larkinson Battalion's big move with the help of a hidden alien device!

The only other variable that could have prevented the Urthinans from dedicating their victory to their goddess was the intervention of the Larkinson expert candidate.

Though Commander Casella had taken the Urthinans by surprise by forgoing the rifle and diving in to kill the precious Urthinan cannoneer mechs with a sword, her rampage didn't last long.

Their own champion mech completely managed to stop the Quint. Even if the Larkinson masterwork mech did not suffer a quick defeat, it was more than sufficient to pressure it to the point where it couldn't intervene in the battle any further!

The plan hatched by the Urthinans was sound, but they never accounted for a particular low-probability event.

Although similar occurrences took place in human space every day, it was still too rare to see it happening in any single battle.

It was even less probable for it to occur in an arena battle where the stakes were relatively low. In a safe and ultra-modern venue like the Fortas Major Arena, mech pilots simply weren't subjected to the kind of soul-stirring stimulation that actual battles produced.

Yet several different influences prompted Commander Casella Ingvar-Larkinson to boil over at this time.

First, she had already built up a decent accumulation as an expert candidate. She was one of the many mech pilots who broke through during the Battle against the Abyss. She not only trained considerably since then, but also fought in several major actions since that time.

Second, she underwent a mental evolution. The difference between the current Casella and the Casella that was still a member of House Ingvar was enormous.

She matured in every way. She became calmer, more thoughtful, more decisive and more competent.

She also completely developed her leadership ability. Her time as the leader of the Living Sentinels helped her shape her ability to command her troops in battle and organize her administration. She learned how to formulate long-term plans and solve problems concerning morale and logistics.

All of this enabled her to develop a better overview of the bigger picture. Her perspective was no longer as narrow as before, and she became fully qualified to take part in discussions that determined the future course of the entire Larkinson Clan!

None of this directly related to her personal ability to pilot a mech, though.

The Quint made that very clear. Joshua had left a strong impression on the masterwork Bright Warrior. The partnership between the two exerted a powerful influence on how the machine judged other mech pilots.

Commander Casella was a disappointment to the Quint. Venerable Joshua might not be as complicated, but his dedication to the piloting profession was sincere and he held an immense respect towards any living mech.

The living mech did not fully understand the importance of leadership. Joshua barely knew anything about it and never really considered it a priority. The Quint had inherited this perspective and kept focusing on personal piloting ability.

In the beginning of their partnership, the Quint saw promise in Casella. Just like Imon, the woman possessed a particular quality that could turn her into a remarkable warrior if molded correctly.

It was too bad that the Sentinel Commander sought to develop herself in a different direction.

The Quint couldn't understand the woman's stubborn decision. Couldn't she tell that she possessed a lot of potential as a champion like her brother?

The mech tried to act in the best interest of the Larkinsons and encourage Casella to put more focus on her personal fighting ability. Yet the more the Quint insisted she should change, the more she dug into her heels!

The mech might be alive, but it still had a long way to go before it comprehended human nature. Their ability to interface with humans didn't necessarily mean they were just as complex!

Whether Commander Casella would have been able to make her efforts bear fruit while piloting another mech was still a question, but the Quint had inadvertently helped her with its adversarial approach.

By challenging and exerting pressure under Casella, the expert candidate did not bend or break. She stuck to her chosen course and did not develop her latent talent further as the Quint had expected.

Instead, she listened to heart and pursued her original goals and ambitions.

Her persistence and her dogged pursuit to develop her own way towards greatness finally culminated in this special moment!

The sandstorm raging through the arena field became less of a hindrance now that a large number of mechs began to release a golden glow!

The Larkinson mech pilots that were still taking part in this battle began to feel as if their minds and will sublimated to a higher level.

Although it was largely an illusion, they truly felt as if everything on the battlefield was in their grasp and that they were all part of a single cohesive fighting collective!

"Together, we are strong!" The Larkinsons spontaneously repeated!

They put these words to practice as their Bright Warriors immediately fired at the surrounding Urthinan lancer mechs.

Different from before, their energy beams achieved much greater effect than before.

Their coordination had reached another level. No matter whether they were kilometers away from each other, the Avatar mech pilots that had fallen under the sway of their mech commander fought as if they were all beside each other!

Energy beams struck from different distances and directions. Each of them boxed in and dismantled the targeted Urthinan mechs with much greater speed and effectiveness than before!

No matter what evasive or defensive measures the Urthinan offensive mechs took, they were simply helpless to withstand the withering fire that even came beyond the detection range of the sandstorm!

To the Larkinson mech pilots, all of the interference and lag practically didn't exist to them anymore! Without relying on the sensor data transmitted by other mechs, they all seemed to gain an overview of what was taking place across the entire battlefield.

This granted the Avatar ranged specialists an unprecedented degree of clarity! They knew exactly what to do to achieve the greatest advantage for their side!

Not only that, but their accuracy and precision rose further. Each of them were already proficient in piloting ranged mechs, and invoking the Golden Cat with their half-baked imitation of a battle network improved their skills further.

Yet now, the source of that assistance had grown stronger, so much so that she was able to provide vastly greater support than before!

At this time, the effective combat performance of all of the Avatar mech pilots came close to Commander Casella's level as an expert candidate!

Even if the number of Bright Warriors armed with luminar crystals had diminished to less than 80 mechs, what was the concept of facing 80 expert candidates in battle?

The luminar crystal rifles wielded by the Bright Warriors became a lot more deadly than before!

The powerful positron beams, slicer beams, kinetic beams and so on hardly went wide anymore. In addition, the beams that managed to strike a mech tended to land more reliably on weak points and critical parts.

Lancer mechs kept raining down from the air as they were helpless to resist the absurdly precise and coordinated attacks.

Even the ground forces bore the brunt of the vastly increased effectiveness of the surviving Bright Warrior mechs!

The five remaining cannoneer mechs that had been so effective at shooting down the Bright Warriors from the air now became peppered by debilitating energy beams!

The efforts of the Urthinan offensive knight mechs that remained operational throughout all of these events mostly went in vain.

Soon enough, the enemy ground contingent existed no more!

Throughout all of this, the Quint continued to glow brighter as Commander Casella underwent a sublimation process that continued to transform her mind, her will and her very life essence!

Everything she experienced up until now had shaped her evolution!

By the end of her apotheosis, the excess willpower exploding from her very being was already beginning to taper.

It would be a long time before she was able to wield so much raw power.

Yet this was still enough time for her to take action herself.

The Bright Warriors left one opponent alive.

"Thank you." Casella broadcasted that enemy expert candidate. "You gave me the opportunity I needed to embrace who I truly am. To that, you have my gratitude."

That didn't mean she was willing to give the Urthinans a favor, though. She still remembered her duty! In her opinion, her breakthrough wasn't nearly as important as reaching the finals of the G-Aena League!

With just a few resonance-empowered shots, the Quint straightforwardly demolished the enemy champion mech.

While the powerful Urthinan mech possessed enough armor to resist a lot of firepower from the front, the temporarily-empowered Larkinson mech wielded power in far greater excess than normal!

The forced resonance generated by Casella allowed the Quint to channel the strength of an expert mech once again, and such an existence was practically unbeatable in this controlled arena setting!

Once the last Urthinan mech fell, the sandstorm raging through the arena had finally subsided.

The dust began to fall and the Larkinson mechs slowly stopped releasing a golden glow.

Everything fell to calm as both the mech pilots and the massive audience processed what had happened.

[The Larkinson Battalion… has won. The Glory of Urthina Battalion is no longer effective in battle, and is judged to have lost this match. All of our referees are in unanimous agreement with this judgment. The Larkinson Battalion will officially advance into the finals of the G-Aena League where it will have to face off against the winner of tomorrow's match.]

The Larkinsons sighed in relief.

Commander Casella continued to fall into her own thoughts as her surging willpower finally settled down. Exhaustion finally began to settle in on her as her explosive breakthrough almost emptied out her entire reserves!

Just a second later, the live spectators began to erupt in cheers!