The Mech Touch

The Phase King and its subjects had gone completely mad!

Ves had accomplished an unprecedented feat.

He had utterly provoked and attracted the undying hatred of not just one, but two powerful king fishes in a single day!

It was as if Ves possessed a talent for infuriating aliens.

The reason why he managed to piss off both kings was because he touched both of their bottom lines.

The Hive King's greatest source of power was its ability to control millions of Swarmer fish-whales.

The Everchanger's earlier stunt with the Titania's glow had caused this unseen king fish to feel an unprecedented threat to the foundation of its rule, so it was not a surprise that it reacted so poorly!

As for the Phase King, its power was based on its near-monopoly on phasewater. The Phase King not only gorged upon it until its body was practically bursting with this substance, it also maintained a tight control on the majority of phasewater production in the pocket space.

It was because of its long-term stranglehold of this critical resource that the Phase King and its subjects had remained alive after all of this time!

Not only were the Phasers able to amplify their lethality due to their access to lots of phasewater, they were also able to deprive the other fish-whale subspecies of this critical resource.

All of that was about to change if the raiders were able to succeed in their brazen plunder!

The theft of the majority of the accumulated reserves of phasewater from the Lake Continent largely wiped out the immediate advantages of the Phase King!

Not only would the Phasers have much less phasewater in reserves to quickly power up any newborn Phaser fish-whales, the Evolvers could quickly empower themselves en masse and push the strength of their kingdom to an entirely new level!

Even if the Phase King was not as smart as the Cerebral King, the ancient ruler of the Lake Continent should likely be able to comprehend how much it would lose if it let the daring plunderers get away with their deeds!

"The Phase King looks angry! The big fish is coming right at us with half of its army!"

"Damnit! What are the Swarmers doing?! Why can't they hold back all of these Phasers!"

"The Swarmers have already lost too many of their soldiers. Their cannon fodder is nearly entirely gone. Without all of the grunt fishes trying to overwhelm the Phasers, it shouldn't be a surprise that the remaining Swarmers can't hold back the remaining defenders."

The Swarmers had not come with all of their armies. The Hive King had only sent over the fish-whales stationed at the Spiral Continent so far, and it was a question whether it would send anymore.

Even if there were more waves of Swarmers on the way, the distances were too great for them to arrive quickly enough.

This meant that the Swarmer hordes would cease to become a factor over time!

As Ves saw the Phase King heading right back to its home ground with hundreds of powerful Phaser fish-whales heading back as well, Ves' body shivered.

Commander Casella Ingvar didn't wait for Ves to issue any instructions. She made an immediate decision!

"Cease the harvesting operations and prepare to depart! Dump all of the unnecessary harvesting gear. They're not important and will only slow us down. Mechs, prepare to hold back and repel the incoming hostile fish-whales!"

Even though the combined force of humans and Evolvers had only managed to gain access to the water pools for a short amount of time, they had managed to empty out a lot of the Phase Kingdom's accumulated reserves!

This was because the Phasers had the habit of harvesting phasewater from numerous other wellsprings on the continent before bringing them back to this central site. This enabled the Phasers to better guard and protect their precious resources.

Unfortunately, who could have thought that a bunch of thieves took advantage of the preoccupation of the Phasers? Their laborious effort into collecting a lot of phasewater and storing them in a single location made it absurdly easy for the for the raiders to empty much of the Phase Kingdom's treasury!

"How much phasewater did we manage to grab?!" Ves eagerly asked.

"Excluding the phasewater absorbed by the bodies of the Evolver fish-whales, we have managed to gather around 2346 kilograms of phasewater!"

Ves' eyes almost rolled over!

Over 2 metric tons of phasewater!

The vast majority of organizations in the Red Ocean would never have the opportunity to measure their phasewater reserves with this unit of measurement.

In contrast, the Golden Skull Alliance only entered the new frontier less than a year ago and already plundered a king's ransom worth of phasewater!

This was definitely an adventure that could become a legendary tale if the Larkinsons and their allies took the initiative to publicize their deeds!

However, the risks to obtain all of this phasewater were extreme. All of this wealth already belonged to another party, and now the reckoning was about to come!

Alarms rang in the cockpit of the Everchanger as the space around the mechs began to wobble!

"Sir! Our sensors are detecting increasingly dangerous spatial fluctuations! The Phasers have begun their attacks!"

Even though the distance between the two sides was still considerable, this was not an insurmountable obstacle to a fish-whale as powerful as the Phase King.

The angry sovereign was so livid for being fooled that it did not hesitate to exert its strained body to unleash the mother of all spatial storms at the thieves!

"Spread out and keep pulling away!" Commander Casella roared over the communication channel! "Focus your fire on the Phase King! We need to stop it from unleashing its attack! Open yourselves up to me and I shall grant you my power!"

At this desperate time, the mech pilots did not show any doubt or hesitation and did what they were told.

The Minerva unscrupulously spread out its characteristic Command Field and enveloped every single mech with Commander Casella's influence!

Aside from a few exceptions, every mech pilot welcomed her power.

Whether they were Vandals, Swordmaidens, Glory Seekers or Crossers did not matter at this time. The crisis they were facing did not grant them the luxury to stick to their own tribes. After all, their pride and confidence were not enough to guard them against the might of a king fish!

A glorious sight occurred. Almost a thousand mechs glowed with the distinctive corona of true resonance!

Even though the radiance on all of these mechs was fairly faint, it was undeniable that each of them had temporarily gained a substantial boost in many areas!

Their mech frames were able to resist the spatial fluctuations a bit better now. Their weapons glowed with the blessing of a demigod. The mech pilots themselves also became more united in purpose!

Casella did not Commandeer them outright at this time as it was not necessary. It was enough for her to be able to connect with their willing minds and understand their situation while at the same time giving them direct instructions.

Under her direction, the mech pilots all executed her instructions with a lot more precision and speed.

The ranged mechs all pointed their weapons at the distant Phase King and began to fire their weapons!

Luminar crystal weapons, gauss weapons and other assorted firearms unleashed their destructive potential at the incoming king fish!

Immediately, the space between the two sides lit up as the various attacks broke through one spatial shield after another!

Normally, these attacks shouldn't have been enough to break through so many defensive layers, but as long as Commander Casella infused them with a small hint of true resonance, their characteristics had already acquired a hint of extraordinary flavor!

Perhaps a single attack enhanced with method might not make much of a difference, but when so many guns fired at once, even the Phase King had to take pause!

A lot of the elite Phaser fish-whales that accompanied their sovereign looked pained as the barriers they put up had broken.

There were still too many of them for their collective barriers to break entirely!

This was one of the more disgusting aspects about fighting against the Phasers. Their phasewater wizardry made it far too easy for them to overlap their efforts!

"Keep firing!"

A second volley of lightly-empowered attacks slammed into the remaining spatial barriers.

The consumption on the part of the Phasers was great because none of them were able to keep their space barriers intact when struck by so many powerful blasts!

Notable mechs such as the B-Man and the Gold Beacon blasted at the overlapping spatial shields with abandon!

However, with hundreds more spatial barriers to go, the time it took to wear them all down was too long!

It was a good thing that the mechs fighting under Commander Casella's direction were not alone!

"Tear these shields to shreds!" Patriarch Reginald boomed!

The Bolvos Rage opened fire with all of its integrated weapons that it could bear!

Aside from its shotgun, the high-tier expert mech opened fire with its energy weapons and its missile launcher that punched through spatial shield after spatial shield!

The strength of these alien barriers were not that great since the Phaser fish-whales attempted to spread out their coverage over a larger area. This made it easier for overwhelmingly strong attacks to tear through the weaker spatial shields!

The Minerva did not fall behind either. It raised its notable Irvan rifle and fired an empowered laser beam that punched through half-a-dozen barriers before getting blocked!

The Everchanger joined suit as well. Venerable Joshua had switched the expert mech's design spirit over to the Illustrious One, causing the mech and its pilot to form a much greater affinity of Vitalus rifle.

The weapon no longer bloomed to life, but also acquired a mysterious radiance as it shot out green rays of destruction that whittled down the collective defenses of the Phasers even further!

While all of these attacks were quite powerful, the Phaser fish-whales were still fine!

More and more of the enemy fishes were beginning to harness their phasewater-derived abilities to attack the thieves rather than defend their own bodies.

They supplemented the effort of the Phase King and tried their best to summon a storm around the mechs and Evolvers that risked shattering everyone and everything within range!

"I cannot defend against this effect for long!" Commander Casella gritted her teeth. "My control is slipping!"

This had become very evident once the mechs in the periphery of her Command Field lost their radiance.

As soon as they lost their thin layer of protection, their frames began to warp and buckle as if giant exobeasts were thrashing them in various ways!

While the armor systems of the affected were not that easy to bend or break, the story was different when it came to their internals!

"Ahh! My mech has lost power!"

"My body is being squeezed to death!"

"My power reactor has gone out of control!"

"Eject!"

The mechs turned deathtraps were already doomed from the moment they became exposed to the attack methods of the Phasers.

Dozens of mechs exploded, fell apart or crumpled inwards as the Phase King's prodigious power defeated them in a manner that was difficult to defend against!

The mech pilots of those machines weren't better off either. Their fragile human bodies were even less able to resist the dangerous spatial fluctuations.

Yet before the Phasers could crumple more mechs with their insidious methods, the Evolvers had finally made a move!

The Cerebral King was still in the process of integrating all of the phasewater that it had plundered, but it had already gained a measure of control over its reinvigorated organs.

Power exuded from its glowing body as the space around the combined force had become a lot more solidified!

The shaking, warping and tearing effects that previously plagued the mechs and fish-whales had become a lot weaker all of a sudden!