The Mech Touch

While Vincent fell into a rare introspective mood, the other mech pilots of the Larkinson Clan were not as consumed by their thoughts!

Plenty of mech pilots invested their full effort into defeating the opponents in front of them. Space storms and spatial warping frequently struck their mechs and by extension their bodies, but these Larkinsons did not back down from the fight!

The only concession they made was letting the Evolver fish-whales take the lead in confronting their Phaser counterparts.

The Evolvers did not seem to notice the actions of their allies. All they focused upon was their old foes and rivals.

The Cerebral King and its subjects had fought against the Phase King and the other Phasers many times!

Though it had been many years since they last had a proper fight, the current generation of Evolver fish-whales fully inherited the hatred of the Cerebral King towards the other fish-whale kingdoms!

Not only that, but the Cerebral King had instructed them to fight with all of their might against their pursuers.

The Cerebral King had succeeded in making up for all of its perceived shortcomings!

Now that it had integrated a starship-grade power reactor as well as lots of phasewater in its bulky body, the king fish only needed to go into a retreat before it could fully be reborn!

Yet would the Phase King allow the Cerebral King to digest all of the stolen phasewater in peace?

Definitely not! If the Evolvers weren't able to get rid of the Phasers, the Cerebral King predicted that it would never have the opportunity to complete its long-stalled evolution plan!

In order to realize the ambition that it had held for many years, the ancient king fish no longer prioritized the lives of its cherished subordinates.

It had spent so many years nurturing and experimenting on its army of Evolvers. The army was the foundation of its strength and the reason why the Lab Continent remained in its hands.

Yet compared to preserving its subordinates and holding onto the lab facilities that it had long depended upon to survive, the possibility to reach an entire new state was irresistible!

As a result, the Evolvers all fought as if their own lives depended on it! Each and every one of them did not fight as conservatively as their human allies. Their long experience in fighting against the Phasers had already taught them to do their best to close in and prevent their opponents from hiding behind their overlapping spatial barriers.

In one part of the battlefield, the bladed king fish used its superior bulk to break through barrier after barrier. No Phaser fish-whale was able to stop this formidable Evolver from crashing through and using its blades to cut and grind the bodies in its way!

However, the bladed fish-whale only managed to rampage for a short amount of time before a pair of formidable Phasers arrived to stop its rampage!

One of the so-called princes preferred to keep its distance. The Phaser fish-whale possessed a lot of talent in warping space.

This not only allowed it to move quickly, but also inhibited the movements of the bladed fish-whale, causing the powerful Evolver fish to become even more sluggish!

The other Phaser fish-whale excelled in brawling. It possessed a large and beefy body that was able to endure a lot of punishment!

What caused this fish to stand out was its oversized mouth and sharp rows of teeth. It had already slain another Evolver by biting its target and using this unshakable grip to kill its prey by releasing violent spatial tearing from its throat!

The bladed fish-whale seemed to recognize its predicament and did not blindly charge at the two enemy princes.

It did its best to ignore the Storm Prince's remote attacks while trying its best to take down the Biter Prince.

The bladed fish-whale wasn't having it easy! There weren't enough Evolvers to back it up.

Even if they attempted to reinforce the second-most powerful fish-whale of the Evolution Kingdom, the two enemy princes were too strong for them to provide any meaningful resistance!

When the bladed fish-whale attempted to dodge the Biter Prince's latest biting attempt, the Storm Prince's interference abruptly grew stronger!

Much to the bladed fish-whale's surprise, its attempt at evasion faltered as its trajectory suddenly went loopy.

It turned out that the Storm Prince had distorted space to such a degree that the massive Evolver fish went off-course!

This unexpected measure skewed the path of the bladed fish-whale to such a degree that the Biter Prince succeeded in sinking its teeth into the flank of the bladed fish-whale!

The predatory Phaser immediately clamped down with its teeth and tried its best to never let go of its opponent!

Blood gushed from their bodies as both of them sustained substantial injuries!

The Biter Prince's teeth were longer and sharper than usual, allowing it to sink deep into the meaty tissue of other fish-whales.

However, its successful biting attempt did not come without a cost. Numerous blades poking from the exterior of the bladed fish-whale managed to damage the interior of the Biter Prince's mouth!

Even so, the Biter Prince did not relent even when additional blades stuck out and struck its mouth!

Strong spatial tearing and warping phenomena began to brew from the back of its throat. Soon enough, they began to strike the blades and the flesh of the trapped Evolver, causing the outnumbered fish-whale to suffer a copious amount of damage!

The bladed fish-whale tried its best to shake off the Biter Prince's painful bite, but all of its thrashing only exacerbated its injuries!

If this continued, the second-strongest fish-whale of the Evolution Kingdom would definitely perish or become too injured to fight any further!

Just as the bladed fish-whale considered whether it should make the cruel decision to forcefully cut itself away from the trapped part of its body, a mutation occurred on the battlefield!

The Storm Prince went from damaging and harassing the enemy champion fish with its spatial storms to blinking several kilometers away!

It turned out that the Dark Zephyr had attempted to sneak up on the Storm Prince from behind in order to stab its rear body with its knives!

"Damnit! You're really sharp!" Venerable Tusa cursed.

Since the Storm Prince had taken notice of the Dark Zephyr, Tusa simply fought against the powerful Phaser fish-whale in an upright manner!

The expert mech glowed with power as Tusa did his best to anticipate and evade the Storm Prince's powerful spatial manifestations.

One storm after another attempted to engulf the relatively fragile expert light skirmisher.

At times, the Storm Prince managed to strike the annoying mech with its larger area attacks, but the Dark Zephyr's resonance shield easily resisted these attacks long enough for the elusive machine to move away!

Once the Dark Zephyr quickly closed the distance and attempted to sink its weapons into the Storm Prince's body once again, its blades stopped as a powerful directional spatial barrier formed a blockade!

"Damnit, not this again!"

Despite Tusa's complaints, his expert mech did not stop attacking. It unleashed a flurry of stabs in an attempt to overpower the spatial barrier, but before it could succeed, the Storm Prince blinked away a second time!

The struggle between the Dark Zephyr and the Storm Prince turned into a cat-and-mouse game. Though neither side succeeded in defeating each other, they prevented their adversaries from fighting against other opponents.

This was enough to provide the bladed fish-whale a lot of relief!

Now that the champion fish no longer had to put so much effort into defending against attacks from a distance, the bladed fish-whale tried its best to dislodge its body from its current predicament.

"Relieve Bladie and free him from the Biter Prince's teeth!"

A group of special mechs arrived to relieve the bladed fish-whale!

Jessica Quentin and her fellow MTA mech pilots brought their Enlightened Warriors into the fray for a special reason.

They did not come to the bladed fish-whale aid because they admired the champion fish.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. As mech pilots that had undergone many years of training and learning in one of the most powerful pro-human organizations, the MTA mech pilots deeply despised the fish-whales.

If they had entered this pocket space with their 'regular' first-class multipurpose mechs, they could easily wipe out all of the weak and backwards intelligent exobeasts!

The only concern was whether they had enough energy and supplies to kill so many fish-whales. While Jessica was confident that she could slaughter all of the king fishes that had survived up to this day, even a first-class mech might get exhausted after slaughtering over a million large fish-like creatures!

Unfortunately, she and her current comrades lacked their old mechs. They had all agreed to go off the beaten path in order to fulfill their dream of advancing to expert pilot, but they had never imagined that they would end up in an ancient phase whale playground where they picked a fight against phasewater-rich aliens for some reason!

Jessica didn't care what the Larkinsons were fighting for. She didn't care about their temporary alien allies either.

However, just because she didn't care didn't mean that her mech or more precisely its design spirit felt the same way!

EXTRAORDINARY MECH PILOTS REQUIRE EXTRAORDINARY COURAGE. DO NOT THINK THAT IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME FOR YOU TO ADVANCE TO EXPERT CANDIDATE DUE TO YOUR PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE. IN THE MONTHS THAT YOU HAVE TOUCHED THE THRESHOLD, YOU HAVE ONLY REGRESSED.

Jessica grew annoyed at the words of the Quint. Shouldn't the masterwork mech be busy with babysitting Isobel Kotin?

"I don't expect you to have a brain as good as humans, so I will forgive your ignorance. Our Enlightened Warriors are barely stronger than the Bright Warriors. We will get torn apart if we recklessly close in. We need to fight smart instead of stupid!"

THAT IS EXACTLY THE SORT OF ATTITUDE THAT WILL CAUSE YOU TO LIVE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE AS AN ORDINARY MORTAL. YOU ARE CONSTANTLY WEIGHING YOUR DECISIONS AND THINKING ABOUT HOW TO BEST APPROACH A FIGHT. IT IS NO WONDER THAT THE MECH PILOTS OF YOUR VAUNTED MTA BREAK THROUGH FAR LESS OFTEN THAN THE 'SPACE PEASANTS' THAT YOU LOOK DOWN UPON. FOR BEING THE SUPPOSED AUTHORITY ON MECHS, YOUR ORGANIZATION KNOWS PRECIOUS LITTLE ON WHAT IT TRULY TAKES TO RAISE STRONG MECH PILOTS.

"Is there something wrong with our approach?" Jessica frowned. "While I admit that our training regimes have limits, the MTA has a successful track record of producing skilled, intelligent and well-balanced high-ranking mech pilots. Expert pilots don't necessarily have to be stupid, you know. Commander Casella Ingvar is a fine example of a thoughtful expert pilot."

YOU ARE NO CASELLA, AND EVEN SHE NEEDED TO EMBRACE HER WILDER SIDE IN ORDER TO COMPLETE HER ADVANCEMENT.

"...What are you suggesting, then?"

YOU AND YOUR STUCK-UP COMRADES HAVE BEEN REPRESSING YOUR INSTINCTS AND YOUR PRIMAL SIDES FOR SO LONG THAT YOU NEED SHOCK THERAPY TO REGAIN WHAT YOU HAVE LOST. IF YOU WANT TO REIGNITE YOUR FIGHTING SPIRITS, YOU NEED TO THROW EVERY CALCULATION ASIDE AND STOP RELYING ON YOUR IMPLANTS TO MAKE THE MOST OPTIMAL DECISIONS IN BATTLE. EMBRACE YOUR HUMANITY.

"Humanity is flawed." Jessica grimaced.

IT IS EXACTLY BECAUSE OF YOUR FLAWS THAT YOU HAVE BECOME SO GREAT. LISTEN TO MY ADVICE. THROW YOURSELVES AGAINST THE MOST FORMIDABLE ENEMIES WITHIN RANGE. IT IS ONLY WHEN YOU ARE AT YOUR MOST DESPERATE THAT YOU WILL IGNITE YOUR POTENTIAL.

"That's too dangerous! Many of us will die if we confront the Phasers directly!"

YES. SOME OF YOU MAY DIE, BUT SOME OF YOU WILL BE REBORN. ASK YOURSELVES IF YOU ARE WILLING TO PUT YOUR LIVES ON THE LINE WITHOUT THE NANNIES OF THE MECH TRADE ASSOCIATION HOLDING YOUR HANDS. ARE YOU TRULY WILLING TO BECOME A PEERLESS WARRIOR OR ARE YOU CONTENT TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIVES AS ORDINARY SOLDIERS? CHOOSE WISELY, JESSICA.

"..."