The Mech Touch

The latest attempt to lure the Swarmer fish-whales into chasing after the Everchanger succeeded!

It yielded so much success that the fish-whales did not hesitate to cross the border that they were ordinarily not allowed to cross!

The reason why the Swarmers behaved so differently was because the Everchanger's latest violation crossed the line as far as the Hive King was concerned.

This distant and unfathomable brother and rival to the Cerebral King was probably the most successful fish-whale in the phase whale enclave.

The disparity in territory was the most obvious indicator. While the Swarm Kingdom did not manage to capture key landmasses such as the Lake Continent and the Blue Light Continent, the fact the Swarmers managed to overtake the other three kingdoms and swallow up almost half of the available territory was an undeniable sign that they were on the winning side!

At this point in time, the threat posed by the remaining three kingdoms was not as great as before.

Though it would still cost the Swarmers a lot if they tried to attack the heavily defended strongholds of the other kingdoms, the Hive King's advantage only grew over time.

If the status quo continued, the Hive King would definitely be able to overtake the others as the others failed to keep up. Purgatory's game had lasted for so many years that waiting a bit more to guarantee the demise of the other fish-whale kings made a lot of sense.

Just when the Hive King thought that it could sit back and relax while its chances of beating its remaining rivals rose by the day, the Everchanger's latest provocation risked upending the game!

Ves found it rather amazing that the Hive King cast aside all of its caution. Instead of remaining rational and sticking to its well-reasoned formula of slowly grinding the other three fish-whale kingdoms to death, it completely switched to an all-out strategy of attack!

The Everchanger was no longer just a weird metal enemy to the Swarmers anymore.

It had turned into an existential threat that could one day rob the Hive King of its foundation!

"What a weak-willed loser!" Ves insulted the sensitive enemy. "Can't even take this challenge like a real leader. This is the downside of ensuring obedience through direct control."

The Swarm Kingdom was set up in a completely different fashion from both the Evolution Kingdom and human organizations.

It was strong due to its vast quantities of fish-whales, but managing all of those creatures was difficult if they all did what they wanted.

By designing them so that they received all of their higher-level instructions from a wiser and more intelligent leader, they could put their collective strength to much better uses.

Yet this model of governance also had its downsides. There were many famous stories in human history where power-hungry leaders refused to rely on a workforce consisting of chaotic and selfish humans.

Instead, these control freaks relied entirely on automation in one form or another to take complete control over their own empires.

Being able to run a company, a city, a planet or a state by issuing orders to unflinchingly obedient bots and AIs sounded like a great way to avoid failures and undesirable variance.

The more perverse leaders even resorted to taking more heavy-handed control over their human workforce!

Whatever minions they chose to do all of the dirty work, the arrangements they set up worked great until they didn't.

Nothing ever lasted forever. No system could remain perfect. Even the best laid plans had a way of tripping over after a time.

By centralizing governance to the point where a single connection could completely change everything, enemies and malcontents could easily target this vulnerability and wrest control from the leader!

Once this happened, all manner of disasters could unfold! From the downfall of entire states to the downfall of trans-galactic corporations, there were no limits to how extensively someone's empire could collapse like a house of cards!

Eventually, humanity learned the hard way that the most solid foundation was to spread out power and incorporate many redundancies in human societies.

The Evolver Kingdom was the closest to following this relatively egalitarian model. The Evolver fish-whales gained the most autonomy and self-awareness out of all of the fish-whale species and could take care of themselves if the Cerebral King died one day.

Of course, the situation over there wasn't ideal as the Cerebral King was clearly the only fish-whale smart enough to operate the remnant lab equipment left behind by the creator of the race.

However, Ves would still pick the Evolvers over the Swarmers any day. The latter was so dependent on a single alien individual that tweaking the Hive King's emotions completely caused the rest of the kingdom to go mad!

The fear and fury the Hive King held towards the Everchanger with its current glow was so out of proportion right now that it looked as if it had completely lost its mind!

These heightened emotions also bled through the Swarmer fish-whales that this unseen king controlled through unknown means.

That meant that while Ves couldn't look at the Hive King in the face, but he didn't need to. He just had to look at the expressions of its minions to make a rough approximation of what the leader of the strongest kingdom was feeling at the moment.

"This guy looks angry enough that he is probably summoning the minions of his other continents as well!"

If that happened, then the raid on the Phase Kingdom would take on an entirely new dimension!

The ideal situation was that the Everchanger lured a fixed group of Swarmer fish-whales over to the Phase Kingdom so that both groups wasted all of their combat power on each other.

Once the Swarmers did their job of exhausting the defenders, the allied force of mechs and Evolver fish-whales would swoop in and take control of the Lake Continent.

As long as they were able to stay on this crucial, resource-rich continent for a day, the multi-racial force would be able to harvest so much phasewater that Ves couldn't even imagine the reaction from the MTA when Task Force Fisherman returned to normal space!

"That's probably not in the cards anymore." Ves frowned.

One of the reasons why he had been so reluctant to resort to the latest solution was because he didn't know how hard the Hive King wanted to destroy the new and unexpected threat to its authority.

Given that there were plenty of signs that the remaining fish-whales on the Spiral Continent were madly dashing over to the fleeing mech, Ves feared that he had truly painted a bullseye on the Everchanger's back!

"You're doing a good job leading the Swarmers over to the Lake Continent, but the Hive King is completely obsessed with us instead of the Phaserse. We need to adjust our plans." Ves told Joshua.

"What do you want to do?" The pilot asked as he remained tense in his seat.

"Meow…" Lucky attempted to reassure the pilot but could not do much to alleviate the stress of being in this position.

Just like Ves, Venerable Joshua was also sensitive enough to notice all of the hostility directed towards his expert mech!

The smoldering stares of hundreds of thousands of fish-whales were pinned right onto the Everchanger!

"We need a way to transfer the heat from your expert mech to the Phase Kingdom. If we can't do that, then the Swarmers won't attack the Lake Continent seriously enough to exhaust its defenses."

"Uhhh…"

"The way we can do that is to give the impression that the Everchanger is an ally or even a direct member of the Phase Kingdom." Ves patiently explained.

"Aren't we allies of the Evolution Kingdom? It will be difficult for us to fake a friendly relationship with the Phaser fish-whales. Don't they try to scramble anyone and anything that gets close to their territory?"

"I am aware of that." Ves sighed. "You either need to brave those initial attacks or we need to figure out another solution. It is important that we make a decent effort at convincing the Hive King that we are truly aligned with the Phase Kingdom."

The cockpit fell silent as both humans fell into thought.

In the meantime, the journey to the Lake Continent continued. While the Everchanger may have gotten spat upon a few hundred times, much of the corrosive fluids sticking to its rear surface had long flung away or lost effect, so the damage to its frame was minimal.

Venerable Joshua could even activate a resonance ability to restore the damage to the armor, but that would induce a substantial drain to his reserves, so he let it be for the time being.

The Swarmer fish-whales never let up on their haphazard chase. So many fish-whales were following after the expert mech that it looked as if a river of white was cutting through the void between asteroids!

So far, the Swarmer fish-whales did not show any signs of cooling their fury. The fishes and more specifically the Hive King looked as if they were determined to strangle the threat while they had the chance!

"Sir, the Lake Continent is within sight! We are getting closer and closer to it. What should we do once we enter the range of those Phaser fish-whales? Should we ask for help from the Cerebral King or the rest of the task force?"

"No! That will risk exposing the truth to the Hive King. As angry as this touchy fish appears to be, there is always the chance that it will regain its sobriety if there are too many suspicious elements. Our forces need to remain out of sight for this phase of the plan. Let me think this through."

Ves made a lot of mental calculations. He thought about the powers exhibited by the Phaser fish-whales and tried to figure out whether the Everchanger could survive a pass at close range.

He felt that this was a dead end. While the population of Phasers was not that great, each of them were powerful with few exceptions. They had so much phasewater at their disposal that even their clumsiest attacks could induce an enormous stress on the Everchanger's frame!

Venerable Joshua made a suggestion. "We need to fool the Phaser fish-whales into treating us as friends."

"How do we do that?!" Ves complained. "Most fish-whales might be dimwitted, but they are still designed to identify and fight hostiles. An unknown mech soaring right into their territory will definitely be repelled with extreme prejudice!"

"Can't we make use of a glow that can do the opposite to what we have done to the Swarmers? If we can employ a glow that can rile the fish-whales up, there has to be a glow that can encourage the fishes to hold their fire."

"Let me think!" Ves said as he quickly went through his collection of design spirits. "Lufa! Use Lufa! I'm not sure if his glow has the same effect on the Phaser fish-whales as humans, but we don't have time to experiment. Just switch to this design spirit and blast its glow at maximum range, understood!?"

"On it, sir!"

The distance to the Lake Continent was shrinking by the second. The Phaser fish-whales had already noticed the mech and the massive horde of Swarmers approaching the key territory of the Phase Kingdom!

The Everchanger's cockpit beeped an alarm as the mech detected the Phasers beginning to prepare their devastating attacks!

Ves tried his best to keep his mind cool as he was more than aware of how badly this could end for him. He no longer felt so good about his decision to take part in this operation in person!

However, as soon as the Everchanger switched its design spirit and amplified the range of the new glow, the expert mech acquired yet another demeanor!

The machine exuded a sense of calm as it seemed to look a lot more solemn and quiet than before. The entire space around the Everchanger seemed to have turned into an invisible sanctuary as the new design spirit quietly imposed its own presence.

The Angel of Tranquility had descended into Purgatory.