The Mech Touch

Underneath the hot and burning star that brought heat and light to the Garimel System, a major turn of events had occurred!

After an unknown amount of years, the star system finally became host to a battle!

The eruption of conflict happened unexpectedly. When the Golden Skull Alliance meticulously prepared to open the space portal a second time, none of its members expected to be met by a horde of strange fish creatures!

The small whales or large space fish were terrible creatures that exhibited no intelligence but plenty of aggression!

When encountering the mechs and vehicles of the Golden Skull Alliance, they did not attempt to communicate or understand the unprecedented situation.

Instead, they gave in to their feral nature and used their own meaty bodies to surge forward and bull through the first wall of mechs!

Fortunately for the surprised and bewildered humans, the Larkinson Clan had never loosened its precautions.

Even though there was little evidence that opening the portals would unleash so many bloodthirsty monsters, the Larkinsons mustered up many mechs and put the ones stationed close to the portal site in a battle-ready state.

The formidable shield wall composed of both the new and old mech models of the Living Sentinels finally faced its first real test!

"Hold your ground!"

"Steady your position!"

"The fish monsters keep colliding against our shields!"

The majority of the fish monsters that emerged from the portal appeared to be simple creatures. They did not bother to take a look at the situation. They just mindlessly followed the lead of their charging brethren and went on the attack as if they were facing their archnemesis!

"Damn, these monsters are crazy!"

"These white beasts aren't as scary as you think they are! One good attack is enough to debilitate them. Focus on wounding as many of them as possible!"

Over a hundred partial whale creatures had already emerged out of the stable portal. These large and aggressive beasts could have generated a fair amount of confusion and deaths if they managed to spread out and surround individual mechs.

However, their inability to break through the shield wall of the Living Sentinels caused many of them to be unable to bring their swarming threat to bear!

Ranged mechs arrived from the rear. The Bright Warriors armed with luminar crystal rifles helped suppress the influx of fish-whales with their laser beams and positron beams, but the effect of their firepower was less than expected.

"The fish monsters have too much meat and blubber on their bodies! Our energy attacks are being diffused by their body mass!"

The fish-whales turned out to be a lot more resistant to energy damage than physical damage!

"Stick to melee mechs and mechs armed with ranged kinetic weapons! Do we have any mechs armed with gauss weapons on hand?!"

"We only have a handful of Eternal Redemptions on standby!"

"The Cross Clan are dispatching mechs armed with gauss rifles!"

"Good!"

As soon as the situation stabilized a bit, the Living Sentinels realized that the monsters weren't that strong at all. Many mech pilots and many analysts stationed in the fleet frantically studied the behavior and parameters of the white miniature whale beasts.

Soon, they figured out the threat posed by the mindless creatures and how to cope with their seemingly endless numbers.

"Report! What do we know about these giant fish?!" Ves demanded as he pointed his finger at the projected footage of the ongoing battle.

"Sir, the unknown bestial species designated as 'fish-whales' are artificial hybridized life forms that contain phase whale DNA and genes taken from other species. They have not evolved naturally but show numerous signs of degeneration and mutation."

"What do you mean by that?"

"We do not have evidence yet, but we believe these species were originally more docile. Over a long period of unknown development, their physiologies and mental activity have become more aggressive and war-like. It is as if they were being bred into becoming cannon fodder!"

When Ves glanced at the continuous outpouring of white fish-whales or whatever they were called, he could easily agree with this tentative conclusion.

Whoever or whatever was in charge on the other side did not mind sending all of these mindless fish-whales to their deaths!

Of course, it could also be that no intelligence was in charge of the other side of the portals. These fish-whales could have evolved into their current form by adapting to the needs of a cruel and deadly environment.

Either way, none of this bode well for the Golden Skull Alliance.

Ves was sure that the second portal opened up a space channel to an entirely different destination than the first portal!

Let alone being able to harvest a portion of the extremely valuable and unique giant phase whale skeleton, Ves didn't know if the threat from the other could be contained!

"Let us leave their DNA and origin aside for a moment. Tell me more about their offensive and defensive capabilities."

"According to our observations, an individual fish-whale does not pose a great threat to our mechs. Their bite force is rather powerful but the physical shields of our Bright Warriors and Rigid Walls can withstand the attacks for the moment. They pose a considerable threat if they are able to bite through our lighter mechs or the weak points of our heavier machines."

In other words, keeping them contained was a high priority! As long as they unleashed their offensive against the strongest defenses of the battle line, the fish-whales wouldn't be able to deal any significant damage.

"As for their defenses, most of the fish-whales appear to be juvenile and underdeveloped. Though they have a shadow of phase whale physique in their bodies, their growth environment appears to be too limited to provide adequate nutrition and growth for them. The vast majority of the white beasts are soft targets. Their skin and exterior can easily be cut and punctured and their flesh isn't dense enough to absorb incoming blows. The only notable advantage that individual fish-whales possess is that they are rather meaty. Their brains are protected by a thick skull and their internal organs are buried deep within layers of flesh. Injuring them is easy but killing them will take more work!"

That was evidenced by the large amount of pained and bleeding fish-whales that had been pushed to the side of the expanding battlefield.

Whether they were cut by the swords of the Rigid Walls or punctured by the spears of the Rigid Spine, the heavily-injured beasts silently cried and convulsed as they tried to cope with their pain.

More and more injured fish-whales were pushed to the side. The reddish blood escaping from their wounds started to soak the rock and soil underneath while the occasional fish-whale carcass fell onto the diagonal mining tunnel and slid down into the depths below.

In the meantime, more brethren joined the ranks of the wounded as the arriving fish-whales mindlessly charged towards the shield wall only to be cut down or pierced through their bodies with ruthless efficiency!

"Watch the sides! The fish-whales are beginning to spill beyond the shield wall!"

More fish-whales arrived through the portal at a time than before. So many of them charged forward that more and more of them were forced to move around the side.

This was bad because the amount of Sentinel mechs weren't enough to block the flow of fish-whales!

Fortunately, the Living Sentinel mechs weren't the only ones that were present!

The several squads of Valkyrie mechs of the Glory Seekers swept in and impaled the fish monsters with their spears!

The Crossers dispatched numerous mech companies that consisted entirely of tough and sturdy mechs.

The Avatars of Myth that had remained on standby entered the mining tunnel as well to hunt down the ones that threatened to outflank the defending mechs.

For a moment, the situation stabilized a bit. More mechs were gathering at the entrance as well, but each of them received orders to hold position because the mining site could not accommodate anymore machines for the moment!

As the various mech commanders and other officers steadily gained control of the situation, Ves and many others began to relax a bit. Though the threat of the endless tide of fish-whales was still considerable, they were manageable as long as they did not do anything else aside from charging forward with their bodies.

The shield wall held even if the tower shields of the Rigid Walls and the Bright Warriors started to dent from withstanding all of the collisions.

"These fish-whales are crazy! They don't hesitate to smash their brains silly in order to collide against our shields!"

"Our energy shields can't hold long against these continuous physical impacts! The incoming kinetic energy is too big!"

"Just rely on your physical shields for now! The Cross Clan has already sent additional space knights. They can take our place once our tower shields are on the verge of falling apart."

No one was able to guess how long this would last. How many fish-whales were pressing forward on the other side of the space portal? A thousand? A hundred-thousand? A million?

No one knew! Even if the Larkinsons managed to capture a fish-whale alive, there was no point in interrogating them. These cannon fodder fish were too stupid to communicate with! They were completely unlike the sagely and intelligent phase whales that had likely created their race!

While General Verle and many other commanding officers were initially happy that they managed to hold the line, they grew increasingly more concerned as the flow of fish-whales continued to rise.

This was a sign that the amount of fish-whales on the other side might be far more terrible than they hoped!

"Sir! The injured fish-whales are cannibalizing each other!"

"What?!"

Over a hundred fish-whales had perished from their wounds, but hundreds more only came away with severe injuries.

These fish-whales grew weak and unsteady, but their ferocious eyes and their snarling maws made it clear that they had not retracted their aggression at all! Each of them glared hatefully at the metal machines that were responsible for making them bleed.

The humans initially expected these injured beasts to pick themselves up and charge forward again.

They instead turned against each other and proceeded to bite and chew at their fellow fish-whale brethren!

Many people grew sick as they watched the giant fat fish tear each other's flesh and crush each other's bones!

Unlike the smaller and cleaner wounds inflicted by human weapons, the damage that the fish-whales dealt to each other was much more savage.

Blood of their kin soaked the sharp teeth of the fish-whales as they gorged upon their defeated brethren with insatiable hunger.

"The injured fish-whales are rapidly regenerating as they eat!"

Many people became shocked when they saw how fish-whales were healing their grievous injuries in less than a minute. As soon as they devoured the biomass of their own species, their wounds and missing biomass rapidly squirmed and expanded until the fish-whale became whole again.

"This isn't natural! This is definitely a product of sophisticated genetic engineering!"

"Damn, those fish whales are charging forward again! Our shield walls are getting pushed back!"

The constant collisions were hard to counteract, especially when multiple fish-whales in a row were trying to press forward.

None of the mechs in the mining tunnel were standing on solid ground. They had to rely on the forward thrust of their flight systems in order to avoid ceding ground to these mindless beasts.

More fish-whales emerged than what the mechs in the tunnel could kill. Now that the injured ones cannibalized their weaker siblings, the influx of fish-whales had become even greater!

"We need backup!"

It was then that a detachment from the Flagrant Vandals had from the rear!

The Ferocious Piranhas and other light mechs flew forward and stopped behind the shield wall.

While their daggers and other light weapons were not suited to slaughter the thick and meaty fish-whales, their presence nonetheless brought a substantial advantage to the defenders.

Their infamous glows were beginning to act on the approaching fish-whales!