The Mech Touch

The great battle had commenced!

In an empty patch of space that was not too far away from the Lake Continent, the confrontation quickly grew heated as thousands of combatants traded blows against each other.

Ranged mechs empowered by Commander Casella Ingvar's Command Field bombarded the spatial barriers that kept the army of elite Phasers safe.

The fish-whales under attack did not allow the strange metal enemies that reminded them a lot of their rivals from the Hot Kingdom to bombard them with impunity.

They activated their phasewater organs and channeled their efforts into focused abilities that were able to warp or tear regions of space.

In front of the power of space, hardly any barrier could stop these spatial attacks from tearing the softer and more delicate internals of tough and resilient mechs!

If not for the light degree of protection provided by Casella's Command Field, the fragile flesh-and-bodies of the mech pilots would have suffered grievous injuries from these atypical attack methods.

This bought the ranged mechs enough time to spread out and distance themselves from the Phaser fish-whales.

Although the Bright Warriors and other rifleman mechs were rather weak against the Phasers, they possessed one great advantage.

Their effective range was far greater than that of their opponents!

Commander Casella and many others keenly recognized that the Phaser fish-whales experienced increasingly greater difficulties in manifesting their powers beyond ten or twenty kilometers.

In comparison, mechs in space frequently fired their weapons at targets that were more than a hundred kilometers away!

Although the difficulty of hitting small and agile targets such as light mechs increased exponentially, none of the Phaser fish-whales were built like this. They were slow and fairly big as they were accustomed to fighting against completely different opponents.

However, were the Phasers truly helpless against distant opponents?

Several groups of elite Phasers splintered from the main group and flew towards the annoying ranged mechs that kept bombarding and breaking their spatial barriers.

Having fought against the Heaters many times over the course of Purgatory's history, the Phasers understood that the only way to make these energy attacks stop was to take the fight to the source!

This was exactly what the Phasers were doing. After they left the main group, they split up further into smaller groups so that they could chase after the individual squads of ranged mechs.

"Hah, what are these Phasers thinking? They're too slow! They'll never be able to catch up to our mechs!"

The fish-whale race may be strong in many aspects, but mobility was not one of them! Their traversal method could only be described as decent, but hardly sufficient against their current opponents.

However, the Phasers just happened to have a trick up their sleeves for occasions like these. Their bodies shimmered as they harnessed their spatial warping abilities in a different manner.

Instead of destabilizing distant patches of space, they concentrated on warping the space that just happened to encompass their bodies!

"Watch out! Their speed! They're moving faster!"

"What?! How is that possible!"

It only took a dozen seconds or so for the elite Phasers to accelerate to the point where their ability to speed forward exceeded that of light mechs!

"Damnit, they're moving as if they are organic starships equipped with warp drives! This phasewater ability is like a miniature version of warp travel!

Although the elite Phasers weren't able to speed up to the point where they traveled at a significant fraction of the speed of light, they had become so fast that they rapidly managed to catch up to the squads of ranged mechs.

Although the various mechs kept firing at the incoming fish-whales, their potent fire mostly struck the spatial barriers that the fish-whales kept erecting.

The only upside was that the fish-whales obviously weren't capable of performing any additional phasewater abilities. Speeding themselves up and putting up spatial barriers was the limit of what they could do under these circumstances.

It was enough!

As soon as these Phasers reached their targets, they did not bother to stop or return to activating their remote abilities.

Instead, they lowered their heads and charged straight into the nearest mech in their path!

"They're charging at us like the Swarmer sergeant fishes!"

"Evade!"

Although a few mechs managed to dash aside, others weren't able to get away fast enough. Their relatively fragile frames inevitably got crushed or split apart as the heavy bodies of the fast and heavy fish-whales crashed right through their positions!

"No!"

"We need reinforcements!"

"Where are our melee mechs?!"

As the ranged mech pilots lost their cool and their coordination, a volley of powerful laser beams struck an elite Phaser fish that had just demolished an Avatar mech.

Though the first powerful positron beam only struck a spatial barrier, the second one broke right through and scorched deep into the body of the distant fish-whale!

The stricken creature could no longer sustain its phasewater abilities and abruptly slowed down as it was unable to maintain its pseudo-warp travel mode.

A third positron beam quickly ended the grievously-wounded creature.;

The Minerva had intervened!

Following after the Minerva were several units of melee mechs that quickly moved to protect the ranged mech units.

Commander Casella's Command Field became more active and established deeper connections to the minds of every mech pilot in range.

"Calm down and keep dispersing! The Phasers attacking your units are fighting no differently from lancer mechs. Each of you should already know how to deal with charging opponents. Focus on moving laterally and take advantage of the fact that the charging fish-whales are forced to follow predictable trajectories!

Several mech officers had already figured this out as well and were already in the process of adapting their units to the latest threat.

Once the mech pilots all adjusted to the latest tactics of their immediate opponents, the elite Phaser fish-whales weren't able to destroy as many mechs per attack run as before.

Each time their fast bodies charged towards their targets, the mechs in question no longer bothered to fire their weapons but put all of their effort into dashing aside or jumping upwards!

They behaved similarly like matadors that confronted charging bulls head-on. The biggest difference was that they did not have a convenient red cloth to attract the hatred of their opponents.

Instead, the mechs had to rely on their own frames to move aside at the last possible moment!

The timing of their evasion action was quite tricky.

The ones that moved too soon would get hit anyway as the charging Phaser fish-whales had enough time to correct their course.

The ones that moved too late simply couldn't get out of the way fast enough, causing at least a part of their frames to get smashed.

If the mech pilots had to make these judgments by themselves, a proportion of them would inevitably make mistakes and suffer badly against their opponents!

What actually happened was quite different. While the Minerva kept sniping down one Phaser fish-whale after another with its powerful and precise Irvan luminar crystal rifle, she also extended her influence to the mech pilots of the machines targeted by the fish-whales.

With the assistance of an expert pilot, the affected mech pilots always succeeded in grasping the right timing!

Mech after mech dashed aside, causing the charging Phasers to waste their effort and turn themselves into easy targets by the vengeful mechs!

Although their spatial barriers were quite resistant to damage, once the elite fish-whale warriors had split up from each other, they could no longer overlap them as much as before.

Concentrated fire from the ranged mechs quickly tore apart the defensive layers before raking the exposed bodies of the fat Phaser fish-whales!

Even if these elites were tougher and more resilient than the average fish-whale, it was impossible for them to withstand the simultaneous attacks of an entire mech company!

"Yes! These fish-whales aren't so tough after all! As long as we can keep dodging their charges, we can whittle them all down!"

Their opponents weren't stupid, though. After seeing that the mechs had fully adapted to their charging runs, the Phasers adjusted their approach.

A portion of them continued to perform charging attacks, but the majority had already slowed down and grouped up together into small groups.

Once a bunch of them had clustered together, a few of them concentrated on putting up spatial barriers while the remaining ones focused completely on launching remote spatial attacks!

"Damnit, they're back to their old tricks again!"

"Keep moving away!"

Now that the mechs in question had moved too far away from the Cerebral King's stabilizing presence, it had become a lot easier for the Phaser fish-whales to exert pressure onto the mechs.

Not even the protection offered by Commander Casella's true resonance was able to save the mechs from getting warped or torn to pieces!

A dozen mechs fell as they were swept by the power of the Phaser fish-whales!

However, their party didn't last long as a bunch of new opponents had entered the fray!

One group of Phasers hastily interrupted their efforts as a fish-whale that was larger than themselves slammed through the spatial barriers that protected their group!

Although these barriers were not weak by any means, they were utterly inadequate at blocking the momentum of the charging Evolver fish-whale!

The aggressive creature recently gorged itself on a lot of phasewater, causing it to look a bit drunk and less poised than usual.

The powerful Evolver fish had yet to develop any phasewater abilities due to lacking the time to explore its unlocked potential, but the space around its body had become a lot harder to affect, causing much of the attacks of the Phaser fish-whales to weaken.

Soon enough, the Evolver fish-whale ended up in the midst of the Phasers, colliding against one of its opponents while biting another nearby prey!

The surviving opponents quickly wised up and madly split away from the Evolver fish-whale. The latter looked angry as its bulky body was unable to catch up to these fleeing Phasers, but the Evolver wasn't alone.

"Charge at these isolated fish-whales!"

The fleeing Phaser fish-whales abruptly jerked and stalled in their flight as their minds suddenly became affected by their instinctual fear towards death.

Moments later, squads of Valkyrie mechs charged at them and sank their spears into their meaty forms!

Blood gushed from their puncture wounds as their bodies turned into pincushions due to the spears that had remained embedded into their bodies!

Once the mechs of the Peninent Sisters and the Glory Seekers finished their attack runs, they followed up on their efforts by pulling out their sub-machine guns and peppering the wounded and bleeding fish-whales with barrages of voluminous energy attacks!

Despite their lackluster effectiveness against large and thick opponents, the mech pilots tried their best to focus their fire on key locations such as the eyes, the mouth, the belly and other vulnerable points.

Since these Phasers were too injured to activate any of their annoying phasewater abilities, the harassing Valkyrie Redeemers and Valkyrie Interceptors quickly crippled them to the point where they turned into easy prey for the more powerful ranged mechs!

Once their targets were shot to pieces, the Valkyrie mechs easily retrieved their spears before repeating the same tactics against the other alien targets!

"Work together with the Evolvers! Let them open up the Phasers first before following suit!"

As the frantic battle continued, the humans and the Evolvers kept refining their cooperation with each additional success.

The fact that they couldn't talk to each other did not hinder them from improving their teamwork. Both groups quickly learned what the other was capable of and figured better and better ways for them to combine their strengths!

While the fight at the rear had begun to stabilize, the true focus of the battle was at the front!

In the center of the battlefield, two titanic king fishes kept attacking each other with no abandon!

The spatial fluctuations from their collisions were so violent that no mech or fish-whale dared to get within 5 kilometers of their destructive grudge match!

There was one exception, though.

Just as the Phase King was about to unleash another spatial tear, a volley of empowered energy beams struck its powerful spatial barrier.

"Hahahaha! I swear that I will tear your belly open myself!" Patriarch Reginald boldly taunted!

The Bolvos Rage was the only mech that dared to intervene in a duel between the rulers of Purgatory!