The Mech Touch

Though the unclean whale was far from his prime, his ability to resist the aggression of the nearby ace mechs was surprising for a beast that had remained in slumber and captivity for many years.

This was not a pariah that had been drained of strength and phasewater!

Ves would have expected such a dangerous and murderous alien to be stripped of his ability to threaten his captors.

In fact, his crimes should have merited the death penalty! Few species tolerated cannibals among their own kind. Their continued existence among their own kind was a sign that the society of a race had become depraved.

Though the phase whales had taken the trouble to isolate the unclean whale in an obscure asteroid prison that was situated far from the center of the dwarf galaxy, for the creature to retain so much health and combat strength was perplexing!

Many different minds worked to analyze the context of the unclean whale and the Palace of Shame in an attempt to figure out a way to fell this powerful foe.

Although the unclean whale had clearly suffered a setback after he failed to complete his mass displacement technique, he was already starting to show greater and greater strength.

This was despite the fact that a camouflaged cyborg cat was ravaging his insides while a bunch of ace mechs were attacking his exterior!

"The unclean whale is too massive of an opponent." Director Ranya Wodin's projection reported the most pertinent findings and conclusions of her research teams. "That is not bad in itself, but what makes this enemy different from that of the V'gahnt-Zezne is that the whale has high control over his own biological structure. The ability to rapidly redirect biomass effectively increases our opponent's ability to resist damage by over a hundred times."

General Verle's protection frowned. "The most direct method of defeating a regenerating defensive system is to launch an attack with single, overwhelming attacks such as… the strike that briefly broke open the whale's defenses."

Ves awkwardly coughed as he settled on his observer's seat. Now that his own clansmen no longer suspected his identity, he was able to resume his old job.

"Don't expect a repeat of that earlier show." He told his advisors. "That was a single-use trump card. I would have never resorted to this option if our situation wasn't dire. The only good news that I can tell you is that the… projectile that I have launched is still wreaking havoc inside the unclean whale's body."

Both Director Ranya and General Verle looked interested.

"How much damage are we talking about, sir?"

"I can tell you that my projectile is tearing through the unclean whale's internal organs. It has been doing so for a while."

Director Ranya's hopeful expression dropped. "Oh. We have not noticed a significant reduction in the phasewater abilities of our adversary. Whatever damage your surprise weapon is doing is not great enough to cripple his ability to project a powerful spatial barrier, at least for the time being."

The difference in scale was too great. No matter how well the cyborg cat was able to hide its presence and deal damage without interruption, there was no getting around the fact that he was like an ant to the unclean whale!

"My payload is attempting to get closer to the cranium of the unclean whale, but it is not moving as fast as I would have liked." Ves continued. "There is simply too much biomass in the way."

In order to ensure that the cyborg cat did not get singled out by the unclean whale that was still hellbent on destroying the intruder, the living divine artifact had to stop and allow itself to mimic any adjacent flesh or organs in order to expose its whereabouts.

The cyborg cat would be much less effective at its job if the unclear whale could precisely track the intruder rummaging through his body. It was much harder for the cat to phase or drill through meters of dense and solid phasewater-infused bone!

"Does this mean we are relegated to stalling for time in the hopes that this… intrusive element can reach the brain of the unclean whale?" General Verle frowned.

"It is an option." Ranya thoughtfully said. "I would not be surprised if the unclean whale has a secondary brain that is buried deep within the core of his belly. You may never know when it comes to members of this race. Their mastery of biotechnology is unparalleled in the Red Ocean, though this particular specimen is not the best example of their kind."

Ves and the others grew frustrated. Despite the progress they had made, they had fallen into another stalemate.

It was not the fault of the cyborg cat. The newly born living divine artifact had done what others couldn't and created enough of a breach for the ace mechs to be in a position to inflict real damage onto the unclean whale.

The problem was that the cyborg mech and the six ace mechs didn't have the firepower to finish the job!

They were simply too small and few in number to exceed the regeneration of their foe!

The only meaningful damage the ace mechs could inflict on the unclean whale was to concentrate their attacks on a tentacle in an attempt to sever the long and toothed limbs, but that only caused the limbs in question to split into sections and transform into mini-whales!

"These living tentacles are much faster!" Saint Robert Montagne observed as his Infinite Gear was doing its best to avoid getting swarmed by the voracious mini-whales. "Poking them to death is not enough. We need to burn or destroy their flesh before it can merge back into the unclean whale's body again!"

Every ace mech possessed the means to annihilate the flesh, but the amount of energy required to burn so much dense and tough biomatter was so excessive that even the Mars would run out of energy over time!

The unclean whale was not an enemy that the human forces could defeat through brute force.

"It would have been nice if we had a battleship or two at our disposal." Ves sighed. "The V'gahnt-Zezne's primary plasma cannon batteries would have been able to wear down or punch through the defenses of this unclean whale a lot more effectively."

This was a situation where Ves grew frustrated at the continued prohibition on the use of warships. The inability to employ warship-grade weapons was seriously hindering their efforts to defeat a foe that ate smaller scale attacks like breakfast!

"It is interesting that this deviant whale has retained so much combat effectiveness despite his long-term captivity." Calabast's projection noted with an intrigued expression. "It makes you wonder whether this unclean whale is an undesirable member of the phase whale community to begin with. It may be that we're not dealing with a prisoner at all. I cannot guess what his true status may be, but it is likely more important than we initially realized."

Ves nodded in agreement. "I suspect that might be the case as well, but we cannot abort our current fight against this unclean whale, not after we have antagonized him to this extent. We don't need to figure out his entire life story. We can spend time on that later after the dust is settled. Right now, we need to figure out how to defeat this powerful whale. Any ideas?"

A short pause ensued.

"We have a lot of firepower at our disposal." General Verle waved his arm as if to encompass the entire temporary coalition. "Our allies and us have brought over 60,000 mechs to bear in this fight. The aliens have managed to defeat thousands of them, but that still leaves us with enough machines. If we can bring their collective firepower to bear on the unclean whale's body, we can overwhelm our adversary's effort to regenerate all of his wounds."

Ves let out a frustrated noise. "We can figure that out as well, but that damn spatial barrier is still going strong. Even if we can generate another breach, the unclean whale will just mend it with the help of its many phasewater organs."

The cyborg cat had been rampaging through the body of the unclean whale long enough to find out that the beast possessed a ridiculous number of phasewater organs! There was so much redundancy that the total strength of the spatial barrier had only declined by roughly 6 percent after all of this time!

This was the first time that Ves truly gained respect towards the local equivalent of a god.

The large amount of phasewater organs as well as the small but respectable phasewater concentration allowed the unclean whale to succeed where the V'gahnt-Zezne failed.

The considerably larger and more massive orven battleship might be an absolute powerhouse in ranged firefights, but she had proven to be completely incompetent in trying to stop a bunch of ace mechs and dismantle her many powerful weapon batteries and other ship systems at close range.

The unclean whale on the other hand took advantage of his superior biological advantages to keep the ace mechs at bay.

It was so bad that the melee mechs such as the Jedda Sandivar and the Royal Jeem didn't even dare to drill into the body of the unclean whale so that they could deal crippling damage to the monster's internal organs.

Their ace pilots could clearly feel that this was a suicidal act!

"Calabast, have you discovered any advice or tips that can help us out?" Ves asked. "How the hell are other indigenous aliens able to defeat the phase whales in open combat?"

The spymaster pressed her lips. "We're not entirely clear about that. Violent incidents against the phase whales are few and far in between. Most of the battles where the aliens have managed to fend off a phase whale basically involve gathering enough powerful warships before unloading with as much firepower as possible. There are hardly any records that describe a battle where a phase whale is defeated through other means, and I do not think we can replicate those methods."

Ves refused to accept this situation. The unclean whale had been hanging over his head long enough. The longer it stayed alive and active, the greater the chance it would pull off a powerful move that either destroyed a lot of human forces or teleported them all elsewhere.

As he continued to observe the unclean whale resist the might of six human ace mechs that were attacking at close range, he noticed that the Thunderer Mark II remained conspicuously out of the fight.

The powerful ace heavy artillery mech had remained at a safe distance and had been unable to slip through the breach created by the cyborg cat.

This left Saint Jelmer Osenring with little choice but to direct the potent firepower of his Thunderer Mark II against the unclean whale's spatial barrier.

Ves bet that if the Thunderer Mark II could land its attacks against the unclean whale's naked flesh, Saint Osenring's powerful shockwaves would definitely shake a lot of flesh apart!

The problem was getting the Thunderer Mark II to break or bypass the all-powerful spatial barrier. Not even its best shield bypassing rounds were potent enough to slip through this defensive layer!

"What if I can do something about this?" Ves wondered.

Normally, it was impossible for him to upgrade an ace mech in active use, especially one designed by a completely different team of mech designers.

Though Ves was tempted to dismiss this idea, he suddenly recalled that he was not the same mech designer as before.

He had gained a lot of power and new abilities after he exited the System Space. Perhaps… there was a way for him to intervene.

It had to be quick, though. Ves did not have the time to run to the hangar bay in order to board a shuttle that flew all the way to the Thunderer Mark II so that he could modify it on the spot.

His eyes lit up when he came up with another solution.

"There is no need for me to get close anymore."