The Mech Touch

Centuries of stability and gradual growth had made humanity complacent. Much of human society had grown stagnant to the point where wars had become extinct in many star sectors.

People's lives had become too orderly and upwards mobility was no longer possible due to the abundance of older and more established powers that monopolized most of the territory and resources available in a given region.

Several societal changes had completely changed the status quo!

The biggest of them was the opening of the Red Ocean!

With the opening of a brand new field of stars, the most ambitious people and groups who previously found it difficult to develop in their home regions suddenly found a lot of room for expansion!

The absence of entrenched human states and organizations meant that no one possessed an overwhelming advantage. Those that wished to found their own states or capture entire new markets finally received the opportunity of their lifetimes!

From young Rubarthan princes to 400-year old Master Mech Designers, a small but impressively high concentration of human talents had gotten loose in the Red Ocean!

The repressed ambitions and grand plans that they held in their hearts could finally be realized now that they no longer faced walls in every direction!

While the Red Ocean Dwarf Galaxy had definitely become the current focus of human civilization, that did not mean the Milky Way had become irrelevant!

Even if humankind only conquered roughly half of it, the galaxy which housed Old Earth was a behemoth that contained a vast amount of star systems. The amount of resources, living space and other necessities available to existing human powers was massive!

Old conflicts still raged on even as new ones occurred due to other changing circumstances.

Across human society, bonds of trust eroded while the order in many star sectors deteriorated.

For more than a year, the Crown Uprising had managed to upend every human state in the Milky Way!

Not even the most secure planets of the Terran Confederation or the Rubarth Empire had managed to escape the constant waves of suicide attacks!

The sheer amount of crazed fanatics emerging from the population while yelling about returning some sort of stolen crown was mind-boggling!

A lot of people's cognition of human civilization and the reach of large, trans-galactic organizations had irreversibly changed!

Previously, most people only thought their biggest threats were their neighboring and rival states. It was rare for them to think at all about whether they should fear threats originating from another star sector or star cluster.

Their views on society simply didn't extend that far! The galaxy was simply too big for them to comprehend and it was extremely unlikely for them to be able to move too far to get into contact with distant human groups.

The Crown Uprising along with the establishment of the Galactic Gate Network changed all of that in a single year!

The former caused many people to realize that they were directly affected by great events taking place in distant parts of human space. It was no longer enough for people to limit their awareness to their star sectors or even their own state anymore.

Many people began to speculate around the mysterious but terrifyingly huge force behind all of the activated sleeper agents. Though few knew the truth about the Five Scrolls Compact, some of their guesses became increasingly more accurate!

Already, many people became convinced that a secret faction operated in the shadows of human civilization. Its goals weren't quite clear, but what little they exposed showed that they definitely had the power and numbers to threaten the Big Two!

"Are the first-rate superstates about to overthrow the MTA and CFA? This is awful! Why can't we all get along and open up new territories like the Red Ocean in peace? There is plenty of space to go around."

"Doomsday is coming! No matter who wins or loses, our race will definitely grow weaker again! We have learned nothing from the Age of Conquest!"

"The hubris of humanity knows no bounds. The twilight of our race is at hand!"

What was worse was that the huge diaspora of humanity finally became a lot more connected due to gaining access to the beyonder gates.

The lesser beyonder gates that were able to bridge tens of thousands light-years revolutionized long-distance travel for everyone that could afford the high price of passage!

Journeys that previously took decades to complete now took days or weeks!

The various powers and groups that had long saturated their development in the galactic center suddenly found it a lot easier to expand their reach to the galactic heartland and the galactic rim.

The flow of funding, goods and people between every single star cluster had exploded!

This not only channeled a huge amount of development in regions that were previously considered remote, the changes also sparked a lot of new friction that frequently blew up into brand-new wars!

With the incitement of the Crown Uprising, even the most peaceful states and societies expanded their defense budgets.

Every layer of human society became affected in one way or another. More and more mech pilots were being called to arms while the production of mechs and war materiel reached record heights!

Security forces and mech armies quickly expanded their ranks and began to patrol their assigned territories more overtly.

Even when it appeared that the Crown Uprising was finally petering out due to the depletion of sleeper agents, the tensions that had been building up between different states and powers did not drop in the slightest.

Instead, they became even more intense than before! With less people worrying about guarding their homes against undetectable terrorists, they became less restrained about starting other fights!

The Yeina Star Cluster was no exception to this rule. Even though the build-up of aggression wasn't as high due to the remoteness of this region, already states such as the massive Garlen Empire were showing signs that they were no longer content with holding their existing territories.

The Friday Coalition became aware of the looming threats as well. The import of vital resources that were necessary to sustain a major war began to dwindle as they no longer became as readily available.

This along with many other signs caused the Fridaymen to have a bad feeling. Their urgency prompted their mech armies to accelerate their invasion plans and seek to topple the Hexadric Hegemony as fast as possible!

As long as the Friday Coalition was able to swallow up the territories of the crumbling Hexer state, its victorious people would be in a much better position to defend the Komodo Star Sector.

"The Komodo War must end. This war has already led to far too much destruction."

Tristan Wesseling, who was serving alongside the tired and battered elements of the Fortune Legion, became concerned about the future.

The Carnegie Group had suffered badly during the first half of the Komodo War. The initial invasion of the Hex Army had devastated many star systems.

Even though the Carnegies had already made a lot of progress in rebuilding places such as Leemar, it was undeniable that the balance of power within the Friday Coalition had changed.

If not for the fact that external powers were casting their gazes at the Komodo Star Sector, perhaps the stronger Coalition partners such as the Gauge Dynasty would have already made their moves towards their former allies!

Even if the Coalition partners reluctantly agreed to continue their cooperation in order to maintain a united front, Tristan was afraid that the cracks had already emerged.

"No one will be able to remain calm when there is so much conquered territory available!"

The fall of the Hexadric Hegemony was already set in stone. The Fridaymen just had to overcome the remaining opposition.

However, even as the Hex Army continually suffered losses across hundreds of battlefields, its surviving soldiers became increasingly more stubborn and deadly.

While the disparity in numbers may have grown too great to give the Hexers a chance of making a comeback, this did not weaken their willingness to fight at all! In fact, they became even more adamant about killing the Fridaymen!

"Kill the invaders!"

"The Hexer dream shall never die!"

"Death is not our end! All of us shall return to the Superior Mother's embrace in the end!"

The Fridaymen forces that were pushing deeper into Hexer territory started to notice that their opposition became increasingly more irrational on the battlefield.

Even as their highest leaders and most elite soldiers quietly pulled out in order to accompany the evacuation fleets as they fled to the Red Ocean, the remaining grunts and soldiers did not become demoralized.

Instead, they became more feverish in their opposition! Entire Hexer mech armies and mech divisions launched head-on attacks at the invading Fridayman forces.

The ferocity of the Hexers rose even as their access to supplies, mechs and mech pilots had dwindled!

No matter the state of their mech units, the Hexer soldiers did not entertain any notion of retreat or surrender.

The Fridaymen fighting against these rabid women and their simpering boys could not understand why the opposition did not lose heart after the departure of so many leaders.

By now, the six matriarchal dynasties had already abandoned the Hegemony entirely!

Even the smaller groups such as the Wodin Dynasty had left behind much of their territories and fixed assets in order to escape with whatever they could carry away on short notice.

"Why aren't you laying down your arms, already? Your state is already gone! Your leaders have already run away! There is nothing left for you to fight anymore!"

"We must defend our people!"

"You are not doing your fellow Hexers any favors by fighting! The more we have to fight, the more your civilians will suffer."

"They will gladly sacrifice their lives to preserve the righteousness of female superiority!"

"You stupid witches! You are all dying for a lost cause. The Hegemony is already over. Your boys will finally learn how to live like men. There is a brand new future for Hexers such as yourself. As long as you go through our reeducation programs, you will learn that there are much better causes for you to fight for. Don't you have enough of this war?"

"The Superior Mother demands our devotion! Blood must be spilled to satisfy our Supreme! If not yours, then mine shall be our sacrificial offering!"

"You're crazy! All of you deranged witches have gone utterly crazy!"

The remaining Hexer leaders who were left to fight the Fridaymen exhibited similar behavior. The Fridaymen simply couldn't understand why their opponents had lost their sense of self-preservation.

Over time, the Fridaymen didn't even bother to think about it anymore. All they knew was that every armed Hexer needed to be killed without exception.

No matter whether they were women or boys, every citizen of this collapsing state was more than willing to sacrifice their lives in order to take down at least one Fridayman!

What was even more ridiculous was that many surviving Hexer mech factories had stopped with fabricating other mech models. They exclusively focused on producing as many Valkyrie mechs as possible!

A lot of surviving Hexer mech armies ditched their previous combined arms doctrine. They threw away their balanced mix of mech models in favor of fielding overwhelming numbers of Valkyrie Redeemers and variants.

A lot of invading Fridaymen mech units started to encounter death on a frequent basis as they pushed into the interior of Hegemon space.

Thousands if not tens of thousands of Valkyrie mechs frequently emerged on the battlefield. Many of them barely bothered to organize themselves before launching all-out suicide charges at the Fridayman positions!

"Death comes to everyone!"

"Let us reap their souls!"

"The Superior Mother shall reign in the end!"

Many Hexer star systems turned into killing fields due to the radical behavior of the remnants of the Hex Army.

The Fridaymen suffered badly but the Hexers lost even more lives!

The number of battle-ready Hexer soldiers dwindled at an unprecedented rate. The cloud of death hanging over the Komodo Star Sector grew even heavier as the potential of many strong and healthy humans were cut short by the final resistance of the Hexer people.

"Is it worth it to die for an imaginary god?" Tristan once questioned a captive Hexer officer.

The spiteful woman in restraints responded with a smirk. "The Superior Mother is no figment of our imagination. She is very real. Soon I shall join her side in death and fight for her for eternity!"

"That's nonsense."

"The Superior Mother does not care for your opinion. All she wants from us is blood and death, hahahaha!"

"Hahahahaha!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"