The Mech Touch

Since the outbreak of the Crown Uprising, every part of human space became affected in one way or another.

Some star sectors suffered outbreaks of wars. Other star sectors only became a little more turbulent.

Then there were places that had descended into so much chaos that madness reigned in every corner!

The Nyxian Gap had always been a weird and special place in the Yeina Star Cluster. Situated mostly within the borders of the Komodo Star Sector, the anomalous region had been so difficult to navigate and control that it existed as a stateless territory.

The only permanent residents of the Nyxian Gap were pirates, refugees and captives, because only the most desperate and helpless people were willing to take shelter in this seemingly endless field of asteroids.

For a long time, the nearby star sectors frequently withstood the raids launched by pirate groups emerging from the Gap.

All of that had changed.

The pirates and other scum in the Nyxian Gap no longer held sway in this anomalous region.

Instead, the existing pirate alliances and other messy groups had either gone extinct or chosen to pledge their loyalties to the newly-emerged superpowers of the region!

The Oblivion Empire had grown extremely quickly in a matter of years. It originated from a dark mercenary corps called the Oblivion Hand, which had not made a lot of waves for most of its existence.

The Oblivion Hand had slowly stood out and attracted more attention due to two major reasons.

First, it managed to achieve a string of improbable victories against larger and more powerful Nyxian groups.

Second, it was remarkably effective in converting captive pirates into its loyal soldiers!

Even then, the powerful pirate alliances that traditionally held sway in the Nyxian Gap never paid too much attention to this emerging power.

It wasn't until the Crown Uprising had started that the Oblivion Hand quickly expanded its reach across the inner periphery and the core regions of the gap!

A rapid process of conquest and conversion took place in many directions as the Oblivion Hand's troops expanded in numbers after every victory.

No one knew exactly how the Oblivion Hand was able to turn every sullen captive into loyal and eager soldiers.

However, a rumor had slowly spread throughout the Nyxian Gap and beyond.

As the Oblivion Hand continued to show its strength, it began to unveil more expert pilots than before!

Prominent pirate mech pilots who used to be known as mortals suddenly showed the strength of expert candidates and expert pilots in their next battles!

The rumor stated that the mysterious leader of the Oblivion Hand mastered a dark form of sorcery that was capable of granting forbidden power to mech pilots!

Those that had never proven themselves worthy of greater strength received the opportunity to ascend to godhood after being rewarded by the woman that took an increasingly more direct role in leading the rapidly-growing organization.

By the time the Oblivion Hand toppled one of the last resisting pirate alliances, the mysterious woman boldly stepped forward and announced the founding of the Oblivion Empire!

Although many outsiders found the entire notion to be extremely silly, the fact of the matter was that the Oblivion Empire had become a force to be reckoned with in the Nyxian Gap!

It not only conquered many territories in the massive field of asteroids, but also grasped many rare and precious resource sites, which it could trade with many nearby states in exchange for precious mechs and starships.

If that wasn't impressive enough, the rumored ability of the Oblivion Empress, also known as Lady Nyx, attracted many mech pilots near and far. These former soldiers were all mortals who were unhappy with their inability to break through to the next rank.

Instead of surrendering to reality, the desperate mech pilots decisively abandoned the comfort of their current lives and traveled to the infamous Nyxian Gap in the faint hope of seeing whether the rumors were true.

Even if everyone around them thought they were fools to believe in this fairy tale, there were still plenty of mech pilots who were willing to do anything to become an expert pilot!

They were already desperate enough to dive into a literal black hole in order to get their chance. Entering a figurative black hole like the Nyxian Gap was not a big deal in comparison!

Fueled by the influx of foreign mech pilots and everything else they brought into the Nyxian Gap, the Oblivion Empire was rapidly able to develop its territories while strengthening its forces with mixed mech units.

While the anomalies that plagued the Nyxian Gap should have inhibited the rise of an actual state, Lady Nyx appeared to have gained the ability to tame the dangerous anomalies that could shred or disappear entire MTA or CFA warfleets from existence!

With the protection offered by the so-called Lady of the Night, her Oblivion Empire seemed poised to turn the entire Nyxian Gap into her sole dominion!

This would be an incredibly remarkable result! If the Oblivion Empire completed its conquest, the Nyxian Gap would turn into the only sovereign territory of humanity that did not answer to the MTA and CFA!

Yet before the Oblivion Empire could complete its conquest, a powerful and even more mysterious opponent had emerged from the depths of the Nyxian Gap!

Waves and waves of powerful mechs and actual warships erupted from the most central region of the massive field of asteroids and began to assail the Oblivion Empire from within!

"Who are these guys?!"

"I don't know, but their mechs and warships are too strong!"

It did not take long before the opponents of the Oblivion Empire made itself known!

"WE ARE THE SUCCESSORS OF THE HALLOWED ABYSS TEMPLE!"

"WE ARE THE HERALDS OF THE DARK GODS!"

"THE ABYSS EMPIRE SHALL SPREAD TRUE DARKNESS THROUGH THE NYXIAN GAP!"

Although the number of advanced mechs and warships bursting from the center of the Nyxian Gap was limited, the 'Abyss Empire' showed that its background was even larger than the Oblivion Empire!

Hundreds of random organizations originating from all over the Yeina Star Cluster randomly decided to pack their bags and travel to the Nyxian Gap!

Different from the fleets led by mech pilots eager to receive the blessing of the Oblivion Empress, the other groups decisively sided with the Abyss Empire!

No one knew why the Abyssal Servants as they became known all threw their lot with a random super cult from one of the most forbidden locations of human space, but it did not change the fact that the Oblivion Empire was being attacked from within and without!

While the Oblivion Servants had shown great strength against the original pirate forces that previously held sway over large parts of the Nyxian Gap, the successor of the Hallowed Abyss Temple was a completely different beast!

The core forces of the inexorable Abyss Army were almost undefeatable by regular troops. Part of it was because their black ships and black mechs were actually built to first-class standards!

"What!? Where the hell are the Abyss Servants getting the materials and tech to build all of these first-class war machines? Don't tell me that they are the secret sons of the Terrans or Rubarthans!"

"Feh! Who cares if they are first-raters who have come to take over our turf. Let us remind these arrogant pricks that not even the Big Two dare to send their warfleets in our Gap!"

The core forces of the Abyss Army soon met a huge amount of opposition as the Oblivion Army finally repositioned its own troops to answer the threat from the central region.

While the Oblivion Army did not possess any first-class war assets, they compensated for this shortcoming with other advantages.

Chief among them was the dark sorcery of the Lady of the Night!

Through a mixture of unknown technology and other mysterious methods, the space around the invading Abyssal troops turned into nightmares!

The black fleets disintegrated at a remarkable pace when the shadow of the Oblivion Empress herself descended upon the battlefield!

With one massive wave of her hand, the Lady of the Night called out the souls of the damned from an unknown dimension. The chained and shackled ghosts cycled through the hulls of every starship and warship only to harvest the souls of their crew!

With another wave of her hand, the Oblivion Empress summoned massive spatial anomalies in the midst of several mech formations.

The powerful first-class mechs that were strong enough to crush the Oblivion Army's shabby mech forces easily crumpled inwards or tore apart when the fabric of space itself turned into a weapon!

However, the Abyss Empire did not allow the Lady of the Night to perform her dark sorcery with impunity for long!

"One of our Dark Gods has come!"

"We are saved!"

The Abyssal Servants fighting against one of the fleets of the Oblivion Army all perked up when reinforced finally arrived.

Within the expanding conflict that became known as the Nyxian War, everyone learned that the only way to defeat a god was to bring another god!

As an empire that was originally based on one of the most powerful and secretive cults of the Nyxian Gap, how could the Abyss Empire not have the protection of its own deities?

Even though the former cult had lost contact with the Unending One, the Blinding One and the Inexorable One, a new generation of dark gods had risen from the abyss in order to fight for dominion over the Nyxian Gap!

Each of them appeared as massive humanoid energy apparitions that were able to phase through solid matter but also unleash devastating attacks whenever they wished!

Soon enough, Abyssal Servants began to whisper the names of the dark gods that watched over them and assisted them in battle.

"The Cold One!"

The dark god known by this moniker seemed to suck the warmth out of everything that came too close. Both allies and enemies had fallen victim to her frost as the calamitous entity resisted and counterattacked the Lady of the Night!

"The Massive One!"

This was one of the largest dark gods, and it was not without a reason. The Massive One was able to manipulate gravity, and used it to terrifying effect by generating devastating gravity wells in the middle of enemy fleets. His high density also made it difficult for his opponents to inflict harm on his massive bulk.

"The Patient One!"

This was perhaps the most terrifying enemy of the Oblivion Empire. The Patient One appeared as a giant human sage. His long beard along with his traditional robe made it seem as if this powerful entity belonged in heaven, but he wasn't called a dark god for nothing.

Lady Nyx herself struggled to resist his attacks the most! This was because the power mastered by the Patient One was time!

Every gesture made by the Patient One was able to achieve amazing effects!

From creating pockets of space that were frozen in time to accelerating the approach of entire warships, the Patient One had displayed an astounding mastery of the power of time!

If not for the fact that the Oblivion Empress had gained at least partial control of the Nyxian Gap itself, she would never have been able to fend off all of the dark gods that had crawled out of the woodwork!

The attrition suffered by the two sides was horrendous. Not a day went by when mechs and warships worth an astounding amount of money went asunder!

In numerous battles, the outcome of a fight wasn't even based on the efforts of human soldiers.

Instead, the duels between the gods determined who got to live or die!

"What are these things? Are they really gods…?"

"I think so. This is not a power that humans like us can harness anymore. If my guess is right, then Lady Nyx and the dark gods should be god pilots!"

"What?! God pilots?! Are you kidding?!"

"I'm not kidding. Their powers are just as powerful as that of other god pilots and god mechs! It turns out that we have been fighting in the presence of the most powerful mech pilots all along!"

"Damn! I need to fight even harder, then! If the Lady of the Nyx is truly a god pilot, then she can help all of us advance to her exalted rank!"

The spread of this new rumor practically invigorated those that were thinking about joining the Nyxian War.

Many mech pilots who previously started to get second thoughts after learning about the bloodbaths that took place in the Nyxian Gap all firmed up their resolve!

"Only gods and heroes will survive this war!"