The Mech Touch

Ves already missed Helena's presence.

It was quite a surprise to learn that the Superior Mother took the initiative to birth a new daughter, thereby expanding his close family in the most abrupt fashion possible.

Though Helena was never fundamentally a human, Ves didn't really care about the species of his family. His birth mother had turned herself into undead apparition while his second mother was one of his own spiritual products!

After spending time and working with a lot of different design spirits, he became accustomed to their presence.

He pretty much regarded them all as energy-based life forms and a different category of species altogether.

Some of them were pretty awful and dangerous. Entities such as the Unending One, Nyxie and the Compact sorcerers were not only powerful, but extremely dangerous and hostile. It took a lot of effort and extraordinary measures to put down any of these monsters.

However, there were good individuals among different species as well. Entities such as Qilanxo and Zeigra were originally exobeasts who had come to accept the win-win arrangement they had made with the Larkinsons.

Ves appreciated his artificial spiritual products even more because he understood their nature to a greater degree. He also made sure that they were loyal and positively predisposed towards the Larkinsons, so the chance that they would ever turn on him was extremely low.

He did not bother to determine whether he should regard them as gods, demons, parasites, undead souls or any other weird definition. These words were ultimately labels that made it easier to fit spiritual entities into a neat box. 

As someone who relied on discoveries and innovations to achieve breakthroughs in his work, Ves resisted the convenience of using these labels himself. Calling them gods or dark gods would only lead him to close his mind to many possibilities and ignore a lot of truths that did not fit the classic definition of gods.

Though it was unavoidable for humans to develop heuristic biases, a real scientist must do his best to maintain an open mind and question every assumption!

This was why Ves never took his sister seriously when she claimed she was a god. This was merely a delusion on her part and one that he hoped to correct in their future interactions.

As her big brother, he had a duty to lead Helena back onto the right path!

"Wait a second." Ves blinked. "Since when did I become an overprotective brother?"

Venerable Brutus Wodin and Venerable Imon Ingvar both came to mind. He always felt irked whenever those two dummies acted disproportionately whenever there was any question about the safety of their respective sisters.

Ves never understood why they went overboard so many times. Gloriana and Casella were both smart and could already take care of themselves without needing any unsolicited help from their brothers.

In hindsight, the reason why he thought that Brutus and Imon were so silly was because he never grew up alongside siblings himself.

Now that he gained a little sister all of a sudden, he spontaneously discovered that he had gained an entirely new set of instincts.

As he compared his current self to his past self, he realized that he had developed a lot more rational impulses. He wanted to spend more time on helping and teaching his sister despite the fact that she was born strong and could already take care of herself for the most part.

"Is this what every brother goes through? It doesn't feel that bad, to be honest."

This was the most insidious part about his new instincts and impulses. He felt incredibly rewarded whenever he could make Helena smile or laugh. He felt just as delighted as his new sister when he gifted her his Death Lotus. It was as if he had developed an entirely new addiction, one that centered around pleasing his new relative!

"This is the power of love, I guess."

He felt it was quite fascinating how his love for his sister substantially changed his mindset and rearranged his priorities.

Not only did he develop a lot of affection for his sister, he also felt more of a connection to his parents.

Before meeting Helena, his connection to his birth parents had already been fading over time. They were separated from each other by an enormous distance, so much so that Ves didn't even know if it was ever possible to meet his father in person ever again!

The emergence of Helena reversed this growing estrangement. He became more connected to the events in the Nyxian Gap. The fact that Helena could act as a direct messenger between him and his parents gave him a far better channel to speak to them than the finicky and limited Xona Communication Crystals.

That didn't mean the alien crystals had suddenly turned redundant. It was better to keep them around in case Helena found it difficult to manifest herself in the Red Ocean.

"Let's handle the rest of the mess created by Helena's birth."

The appearance of the Daughter of Death and the wholesale changes that took place on every single Valkyrie mech in existence produced a lot of questions and confusion to their Hexer owners and users!

Even though many Hexers welcomed the birth of a new Hexer goddess with delight, that did not mean that they were able to adjust to the changes without any incidents.

The fundamental properties of the Valkyrie Redeemer and its variants had changed. Many of its features became stronger, but their mech pilots also had to change the way they approached their battles in order to make the best use of the enhanced features.

Ves had to spend an entire day examining the changed Valkyrie mechs, test them in live practice scenarios and exchange results with his fellow Journeymen before he finally drafted a new statement for the public.

He and his mech company needed to offer clarification on the unannounced changes that affected every Valkyrie mech. No matter whether the changes were positive or negative, it was never good business to drastically alter the products that his customers grew familiar with, especially without any warning or choice.

Although the LMC's lawyers and bureaucrats added a lot of official language to his statement, the message he crafted essentially held different meanings depending on his audience.

To the general public, the changes that affected the Valkyrie mech line was just business as usual.

"The Living Mech Corporations offers active support to its current and certain retired models. We already release regular software updates as part of our ongoing service to our customers. Our Valkyrie Redeemer model and its many variants has received a more drastic update than can better be described as a free upgrade because of the scale and scope of the changes. We apologize for startling our customers with improvements that have been universally met with approval from its existing user base. Our company has learned from this incident and we will endeavor to provide more stable roadmaps of the future development of our ongoing product offerings."

This was basically a story to give most people the explanation they needed so they could turn their attention away from what had happened and poke their noses in someone else's business.

The Hexers needed a more specific explanation, though. Conveniently, each of them were genuine believers in the Superior Mother and had already been introduced to the Daughter of Death through their mechs.

Nonetheless, Ves felt it was necessary to address their situation more clearly so that there would be no confusion about how to handle their new Valkyrie mechs.

"As you have no doubt learned, the Valkyrie Redeemer and its variants are no longer watched over by the Superior Mother anymore. Instead, she had deferred this responsibility to her new offspring, the Daughter of Death. Compared to her progenitor, the Daughter of Death or Helena is much more in tune with death. Her glow is a much closer match to the Valkyrie mech line and will make your mechs considerably more lethal and effective than before. We will publish additional documents that detail all of the improvements to our products and provide you with an introduction to your new goddess."

After doing his due diligence, Ves finally put this incident behind him. He knew quite well that despite the formidable boost in performance of every Valkyrie mech, there was no chance that the Hexers had any chance of overturning the Komodo War. Not when they lost over half of their territories and most of their standing mech armies.

At best, the Hexer diaspora would have an easier time fighting against their new opponents as they tried to settle elsewhere. The poorer refugees who fled to other star sectors and the more elite refugees who settled in the Red Ocean both benefited substantially from piloting a mech that not only produced a more effective deterrent against enemy mech pilots, but also grew with each slain life!

That last part was a new growth mechanism that fascinated Ves for a time.

He had never explicitly designed a mech that grew stronger by killing the lives that stood in its way.

"The older and more often-used Valkyrie mechs will definitely become a big killer if they manage to remain operational!"

Ves could not imagine how strong they became if they reached an advanced stage of growth. He did not dare to make any assumptions about the limits it could reach.

"Whatever the case, it won't be easy to accumulate enough death energy."

Typical mech battles did not result in that many casualties. Mechs were all big and relatively tough and difficult to defeat. They were also lifeless for the most part so the Valkyrie mechs didn't gain anything from destroying the opposing machines.

What truly mattered was killing the opposing mech pilots, but they were usually well-protected and could always choose to eject their cockpits in order to escape the reach of their enemies.

Ves frowned deeper. "There's a potential problem here. Since the Valkyrie mechs can clearly become stronger and more effective in battle, then their owners and pilots have a clear motivation to kill as many people as possible!"

This was a perverse incentive and one that could spell a lot of trouble for Ves and the LMC!

Mech designers were already known as the merchants of death in certain circles and the changes to the Valkyrie mech line would only add to the criticism!

However, the new changes did not necessarily have to be a negative influence on human society.

He knew that Helena was able to derive death energy from slaying any life form, especially when they were sentient.

"The Valkyrie mechs can become insanely strong as long as they harvest a lot of alien lives!"

This was a great use for the mechs once they arrived in the Red Ocean!

Although the weapon loadouts of marauder mechs weren't as efficient as striker mechs and artillery mechs when it came to the mass slaughter of indigenous alien populations, the Valkyrie mech line could still do a mean amount of damage with its submachine gun and spear!

Ves decided to write another short statement directed to the Hexers in order to remind them where they could best utilize their newly-upgraded mechs.

"This is a win-win relationship!"

As long as he encouraged the Hexers to go out and cleanse more planets of alien life, Helena would be able to receive more death energy and accelerate her growth!

"In the future, I should design an even more efficient mech for this purpose! How about a doom crawler?"

He already had vague plans to design a doom crawler, but it wasn't until now that he had stumbled upon the perfect design spirit for the job!

Not only would humanity be able to prep the conquered planets for human habitation faster, but Helena would also be able to harvest the energies released by the deaths of billions if not trillions of alien lives, thereby maximizing the yield of committing genocide!

"This is perfect!"

If he didn't already have a lot of mech design projects on his plate, he would have started work on his next birthday present for his new sister!