The Mech Touch

How powerful was the Phase King?

No human had a clear idea how much damage this powerful and ancient creature could inflict. Its attack methods were much more abstruse than those of the Cerebral King.

As a king fish that had long worked with phasewater, its ability to utilize this powerful resource in lots of destructive means was unparalleled!

Now, the Bolvos Rage had successfully angered the Phase King to the point where it had directed its hatred against the expert mech instead of its old foe!

The spatial storm that engulfed the space around the Bolvos Rage was far more powerful and violent than the ones unleashed by its subordinates!

Against the power of a king fish, hardly any enemy below its level could contend against this might!

As the localized spatial storm faded away, many people who were paying attention to the Cross Patriarch's effort tried to see what had happened.

"The Bolvos Rage… is damaged!"

The expert mech's resonance shield had collapsed!

Not only that, but much of its frame exhibited signs of heavy wear and tear. It was as if the expert mech had spent a few seconds in a giant blender!

However, despite its shabby appearance, the mech was still operational!

"I'm… not… that… easy to kill!"

Patriarch Reginald's burst of power was accompanied by the activation of a regular energy shield. Although its protective properties were not as unnaturally strong as that of a resonance shield, it was better than nothing.

If the Phase King took the initiative to launch another serious attack on the Bolvos Rage, then it would definitely be able to cripple if not outright destroy the damaged machine!

Yet before it could finish the job, the Cerebral King took full advantage of the Phase King's temporary diversion.

Only a short amount of time had passed since the Phase King directed its firepower elsewhere, but this was enough for the Cerebral King to regain the initiative!

Knowing that it was at a disadvantage if it kept contesting against the Phase King in terms of spatial manipulation, the Cerebral King made a ruthless decision.

Its massive body shot forward as it activated numerous organs that accelerated its massive bulk forward!

As the Cerebral King surged forward, it opened its maw and struck the Phase King's spatial barrier with a lengthy burst of heat and radiation!

The power of this massive was so great that the Phase King hastily had to shift its attention towards its original opponent. If it did not adapt and reinforce its spatial barrier further, the massive energy beam was liable to collapse the already-destabilized defensive measure!

Now that the Phase King was put on its backfoot, it was unable to muster up enough power to stop the Cerebral King and the Bolvos Rage.

FOUL OUTSIDER. WEAKLING. BEGONE!

"Hahaha! I still don't know what the hell you're saying, but the more you yell at me, the more I can tell I'm doing a good job! Taste my blade, you fish!"

The hot and glowing Whale-Cutting Saber followed a blazing trajectory before striking the Phase King's tail!

However, just before its flaming blade was able to pierce through the Phase King's hide, it halted just a few centimeters above the surface.

It turned out that the Phase King covered its body with another spatial barrier!

The Bolvos Rage kept hacking at it with abandon, but it was just as difficult to shake as the previous barrier!

Compared to the minor threat of the expert mech, the Phase King was paying much more attention towards its main adversity.

The Cerebral King may have exhausted its latest beam attack, but it had built up more than enough momentum to smash the Phase King's body!

TREACHERY MUST BE PUNISHED!

In order to enhance the damage of its charge, the Cerebral King adjusted its body, causing its head to be covered by bone!

Not only that, but a horn that looked similar to the one of the bladed fish-whale poked out of its head!

As the Cerebral King sped up even more, the Phase King threw a contemptuous glance at its old enemy.

The Phase King's massive body instantly teleported half a kilometer away seconds before the Cerebral King could drive its horn through its target!

MISSED.

The Whale-Cutting Saber of the Bolvos Rage cleaved nothing but empty vacuum as its massive target had been displaced.

The Cerebral King's devastating charge also came to nothing as the king fish was unable to correct its course at such an extreme angle.

The king of the Evolvers slowed down and turned around in order to prepare for another charge!

The repeat move attracted even more contempt from the Phase King.

FUTILE ATTACK. WILL NEVER STRIKE. CAN MOVE ANYWHERE.

ATTACKS NEVER FUTILE. TRAITORS SHALL ALWAYS FALL.

The Cerebral King and the Bolvos Rage both moved forward in order to make another attempt to bleed to the Phase King, only for the latter to teleport away long before a horn was able to impale its body!

In the meantime, the Phase King did not forget about the need to take down its foes. It summoned one spatial storm after another, but neither of its targets were easy to damage anymore!

The Cerebral King had learned how to harness its phasewater abilities even more. It became easier for it to dampen the storms and solidify the surrounding space to a stronger degree.

As for the Bolvos Rage, now that Patriarch Reginald personally experienced the fury of the Phase King, he had become a lot more respectful towards its power!

From the moment the Phase King intended to engulf the space around the Bolvos Rage with its power, the expert mech jerked aside and avoided the latest spatial attack!

"Your tricks have grown old, fish! I can spot your attacks before they even take shape!"

This was not an exaggeration. While his strengthened senses allowed him to detect specific areas that the Phase King was beginning to manipulate, his highly-developed battle instincts never failed to issue him a warning an instant before the Phase King was able to manifest its power once again!

The Phase King finally understood that this fight was not as easy to win as it thought.

While this high-level confrontation continued to deplete the strength of the two kings, the other combatants weren't taking it easy either.

A large amount of melee mechs as well as Evolver fish-whales had taken the fight to the enemy!

With Commander Casella focusing most of her efforts on commanding the rear elements of Task Force Fisherman, it was up to other leaders such as Commander Melkor to lead the remaining elements!

The Gold Beacon kept firing beam after beam towards one of the bigger elite Phaser fish-whales. Though the attacks kept hitting against spatial barriers, Melkor never thought that the attacks were futile.

"These Phasers may look strong, but time is on our side." He reminded his fellow Avatars. "Take the fight to the enemy but don't take excessive risks. The Phaser fish-whales have already expended a lot of effort into killing the Swarmers. The enemy fish are easy pickings as long as we push them to exhaustion. Let the Evolver fish-whales take the lead!"

Compared to the smaller and more fragile mechs, the Evolver fish-whales were considerably larger and more robust.

Led by the bladed fish-whale, the wave of advancing Evolvers eagerly collided their bodies against the multitude of overlapping spatial barriers!

Although the defensive measures succeeded in stopping the momentum of plenty of Evolvers, more fish-whales continued to slam against the barriers, overloading them all in rapid succession!

"We're through!"

This wasn't the first time the Evolvers fought against the Phasers, so the former already knew the best way to overcome the annoying spatial barriers.

The damage of a charging fish-whale was not comparable to many other attack methods!

As the wave of Evolvers were able to meet their opponents, the Phasers reacted against this threat in different ways.

Some erected a second energy barrier that stopped or at least stalled the incoming Evolvers.

Others generated spatial blades that caused the charging fish-whales to cut themselves.

A particularly powerful Phaser fish-whale even warped the space in front of two of its opponents, causing the Evolver fish-whales to inadvertently collide against each other!

Most of the elite Phaser fish-whales preferred to pool their powers together in order to generate unstoppable spatial storms in the path of the incoming enemies.

"This again!"

"They're not as strong as we fear! Just do your best to go around them. These fish-whales are having a much harder time manipulating space in their favor. Take advantage of that and keep getting closer!"

The elite Phaser fish-whales were finding it difficult to channel their abilities. Even though many of them had moved away from the Cerebral King, the powerful Evolver leader still exerted a residual stabilizing effect at this distance!

This caused the Phasers to take much more time to pull off their phasewater abilities. They had to overcome greater resistance to manifest their powers, which caused crucial delays that granted more breathing room to their opponents!

After getting past these hurdles, the first wave of Evolvers and mechs succeeded in reaching the leading elements of the Phaser fish-whales!

Numerous Phasers blinked away while others decided to fight back more directly.

Fish-whales traded blows against other fish-whales!

While the Evolvers displayed a variety of strange and uncommon attacks, the Phaser fish-whales all fought in similar ways.

They stimulated their phasewater organs, allowing the Phasers to constantly turn the immediate space around them into a danger zone that constantly attempted to tear at the bodies of its closest enemies.

In addition to that, whenever they concentrated at a point before their heads, they were able to generate miniature holes in space that were able to inflict a lot of crippling damage, especially if they manifested inside the bodies of hostile fish-whales!

As the battle between the two sides kept unfolding, Commander Melkor and the others soon noticed that the elite Phaser fish-whales were being led by the largest of their subspecies!

The bigger fish-whales possessed a sense of age and authority that was not as obvious in the other Phaser fish-whales.

Task Force Fisherman eventually decided to dispatch specific units to take down these apparent 'princes' of the Phase Kingdom.

One of them was a nasty-looking fish-whale that exhibited a lot of old scars on its hide. It was probably one of the oldest surviving subordinates of the Phase King and possessed a lot more phasewater in its body than its fellow Phasers!

At this time, Vincent Ricklin saw his opportunity to shine.

He had paid a lot of attention to his idol from the Cross Clan. Patriarch Reginald wasn't a match against the Phase King, but that did not stop the expert pilot from fearlessly harassing this ancient beast!

Though Vincent couldn't bring himself to join this epic struggle, he figured that it was enough for him to challenge other Phaser fish-whale on the battlefield.

"Your opponent is me!" He declared as his B-Man pointed its blunt mace in the direction of a particularly fat Phaser fish-whale.

In order to add more force to his statement, the brave expert candidate fired the integrated gauss weapon modules of his custom mech, bombarding the spatial barrier in front of the Phaser fish-whale with powerful projectiles!

The B-Man shook as it repeatedly discharged projectile after projectile.

Combined with the attacks of other mechs and Evolvers, the Phaser fish-whales huddling behind the barriers readied themselves for a tough fight!

Other notable mechs and mech pilots also picked their targets!

The Quint piloted by Isobel Kotin provided fire support from a distance while the various Enlightened Warriors piloted by the guests of the Larkinson Clan boldly took part in the leading wave.

Meanwhile, the Everchanger took up a central position, using its inspiring presence and its versatile glows to inspire friendly mech pilots and fish-whales.

The Dark Zephyr was nowhere to be seen, but no one thought that Venerable Tusa was shirking this battle.

The battle between the two sides soon reached its most intensive phase!