The Mech Touch

During the initial test of the Instrument of Doom, its full-powered blast managed to pierce through sixteen or so asteroids before it could penetrate no further.

Though the test was anything but rigorous due to the considerable variations between asteroids, it was still a clear sign that the penetration power of this weapon was unreal!

However, nothing came for free.

The Phase King had to cooperate with Venerable Stark and the Amaranto to channel a considerable part of his energy to the attack.

Doing it once or twice was not a big deal, but the more the design spirit had to exert his power, the more strain everyone incurred.

Design spirits existed in a different realm and were not meant to affect the material realm to such an exaggerated degree.

Though the Instrument of Doom had become an interface that allowed the Phase King to exert his powers in different ways, it did not change the fact that he was operating out of the confines of his own reality.

The Amaranto meanwhile had to struggle to control and withstand the additional power provided by the Phase King. The expert mech had not been designed to wield the enormous power of the Instrument of Doom and already incurred a small amount of internal damage as a consequence.

As for Venerable Stark, she constantly had to exercise her mind and will to control and direct all of the forces at her disposal. Each time she called upon the Phase King, she had to leverage her force of will and true resonance to give the design spirit greater room to operate in the material realm.

When Ves studied the operation of blessed weapons such as the Instrument of Doom and the Gray Lotus, he concluded that they weren't actually that powerful when utilized by mundane mech pilots.

The two guns were first-generation products that possessed significant flaws and shortcomings.

The greatest deficiency was that they lacked a fully functional channel that bridged the gap between the imaginary realm and the material realm. The design spirits that resided in the former could not channel their energies freely to the latter.

For now, true resonance generated between expert pilots and expert mechs provided a barely functional bridge between the two realms, but this was not an optimal solution.

Ves needed to invent a more permanent channel in a similar vein to Master Benedict's signature Endex System. This was the only way to allow his blessed weapons to operate without requiring the cheating power of a high-ranking mech pilot!

This was an avenue of future research that Ves was more than willing to embark upon if time permitted.

However, that was a matter for the future.

At this time, Venerable Stark had no choice but to help the Phase King bridge the gap between the imaginary realm and the material realm by leveraging her formidable willpower.

She did so with considerable effectiveness. When Ves glanced at the resonance meter for the Amaranto, he could see that the expert rifleman mech's true resonance peaked at 39.1 laveres!

That was deep in the territory of a mid-tier expert pilot. Venerable Stark's growth had always been stellar due to her strong conviction and her incredible fortune for being paired with a masterwork expert mech.

As long as Davia Stark's resonance strength reached 40 laveres, then the Larkinson Clan would gain its first official high-tier expert pilot!

However, this was an artificial distinction. The lavere scale was mostly arbitrary and the thresholds that defined low-tier, medium-tier and high-tier expert pilots were also arbitrary for the most part.

For all intents and purposes, Venerable Stark damage output had already reached the standard of a high-tier expert pilot, especially when her expert mech had access to powerful firearms such as the Instrument of Vengeance and the Instrument of Doom.

This was why Ves had high expectations for the powerful shot that the Amaranto just unleashed against the phase lord.

Yet as the explosion of energies settled down so that many different sensors could observe the aftermath of the blessed attack, Ves and many others grew disappointed at the result.

"Is… that it? That… is not what I expected."

The good news was that the Instrument of Doom was capable of punching through the phase lord's unreasonably strong spatial barrier.

Unlike the battleship he launched from, the alien powerhouse was only capable of maintaining a single layer at a time.

As long as any attack managed to get through, it was free to inflict damage onto a more solid target!

That was what the Amaranto's latest attack had managed to do. The assistance of the Phase King played a crucial role in helping the powerful energy beam attack drill through the powerful spatial barrier through a combination of skill and power.

Yet despite all of this effort, the exceptional suit of armor worn by the phase lord managed to fend off what little managed to squeeze through!

Although the armor incurred enough damage to weaken its ability to fend off another attack, it was not quite the result that Ves desired.

"Even if this attack managed to punch through the armor, the nunser's physical body is comparable to a biomech in terms of size and resilience."

The phase lord reacted as if he was taken aback by the effectiveness of the attack.

The powerful alien had previously sparred against the Unrelenting for a brief amount of time.

Venerable Neville Magrin had just come off his best state at that time, but even he failed to overcome the phase lord's armor.

Patriarch Reginald and the Mars probably wouldn't have been able to do any better.

The reason why a weaker mech managed to outperform the two ace mechs in this aspect was due to the interference of the Phase King!

Different from every other variable, the Phase King was technically a native.

Not only was he derived from an artificial species that had lived with phasewater for over a million years, but the formidable design spirit recently absorbed the vast majority of the unclean whale's remnant spirituality!

The Phase King couldn't be more familiar with native phasewater manipulation methods. Even if his formidable knowledge and instinctual understanding weren't entirely systematic, the design spirit's phasewater affinity was so great that he was by far the best at overcoming powerful spatial defenses!

Venerable Stark clearly recognized this advantage and already readied her Amaranto for another shot!

The expert mech along with its oversized energy cannon began to glow again. The manifestation of the Phase King seemed to dance around the formidable weapon as if he was caressing it like a lover.

However, the hostile alien god was anything but pleased with the sight. After getting struck by an astonishingly penetrating attack, the enemy made his displeasure known in a much clearer manner than before!

"Sir! We're picking up another transmission from the enemy phase lord! This time, the alien has translated his words in human standard language!"

That certainly caught the attention of Ves and Master Benedict.

The two mech designers curiously listened to what the alien wanted to say.

[I AM THE TRAMPLER OF STARS, THE HOUSEMASTER OF THE FRACTURED HOUSE OF THE COLLAPSING STAR, THE VANQUISHER-COMMANDER OF THE RED CABAL. WHO IS THE HUMAN THAT HAS SUBVERTED THE POWER OF ONE OF OUR GODS?]

Master Benedict along with several other people immediately turned to Ves.

"Ehhh… should I respond?"

"Well, you do have a way with words, especially when it comes to toying with people's beliefs." Benedict quickly responded. "You may as well give it a try, Ves. It would be best if you can negotiate a deal with the enemy, but that is unlikely to succeed. Therefore, try to unbalance the phase lord as much as possible. The more irrational he becomes, the more he is prone to making a mistake."

"Okay."

Ves transmitted his response on the same open channels utilized by his adversary.

"This is Patriarch Ves Larkinson, Journeyman Mech Designer and leader of the Larkinson Clan." Ves spoke in his official tone though he doubted that the powerful nunser could appreciate this nuance. "I am the human you are referring to. The 'phase whale' that you are witnessing is our friend and ally. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Trampler?"

The phase lord had resumed his struggle by now as he wasn't stupid enough to suspend hostilities while he was in the middle of the battlefield.

The powerful alien no longer bothered to chase after the fleeing Minerva. Compared to taking down the command mech, the nunser much preferred to confront the Amaranto, as it was the only expert mech that had managed to breach his defenses!

That wasn't the only reason why the phase lord wanted to chase after the Amaranto.

The angry alien strongly expressed his dissatisfaction with another translated message!

[BLASPHEMER! YOU INVADERS HAVE GONE TOO FAR NOW. IT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU TO TAKE OUR STARS. CAPTURING A GOD AND ENSLAVING HIM FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSES IS ONE OF THE MOST UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES YOU CAN COMMIT! I SHALL NOT PERMIT THIS GRIEVOUS ERROR AND CORRECT THIS TRAGEDY. GODS MUST NEVER SUBMIT TO HUMANS! THIS GALAXY IS NOT YOUR HOME!]

Ves blinked when he heard the reason why the phase lord became so aggressive all of a sudden.

"Did you enslave a phase whale, Ves?"

"No! This is a misunderstanding!" Ves defended himself. "The Phase King is not an enslaved phase whale! He's not really a member of this species to begin with. I have formed a mutually beneficial agreement with the design spirit. If he wasn't willing to cooperate with us, then he would have never empowered the Instrument of Doom."

Sure, the Larkinsons originally killed him to begin with, but the Phase King eventually got over it. The design spirit enjoyed his new life a lot better now that he became exposed to the wider cosmos. He also occupied himself by building his own private kingdom in his own corner in the imaginary realm.

In short, Ves did not coerce the Phase King into using his powers to the benefit of the Larkinson Clan.

Such deals tended to be rather suboptimal to Ves as the collaborator rarely did his best under these circumstances.

It was too bad that the phase lord didn't see it that way. In the powerful nunser's mindset, no phase whale willingly lent his power to the destructive human invaders that were in the process of devouring their home galaxy. This was such an inconceivable idea that the only viable explanation was that the evil humans were exploiting an unwilling phase whale!

[FREE OUR GOD!]

The Amaranto fired another fully-charged shot as a response!

This time, the phase lord made sure to turn his body around so that the incoming shot did not target the same damaged section of his suit of armor.

It was a pity that the Instrument of Doom did not contain any Opticonium. This was the resonating exotic that was responsible for allowing the Instrument of Vengeance to bend its energy beams.

Even so, the second ultra-penetrating shot managed to punch through the phase lord's spatial barrier a bit better. The phase lord's armor incurred significantly greater damage this time. Parts of the alien powerhouse's body had become exposed!

"Damn it, he's rearing up again!"

The phase lord performed this classic movement again, but nobody blindly assumed that he was about to unleash an omnidirectional spatial shockwave.

Ves closely observed the sensor readings and saw that the phase lord did not repeat his previous techniques.

"Careful! The phase lord is attempting to pull off another technique this time."

"What is he doing, sir?!"

"I don't know, but we'll find out in the coming seconds!"

Once the phase lord accumulated enough energy, the nunser's armored forehoofs struck the space in front, producing a terrifying spatial fissure that rapidly cracked forward as if it was creating a tear in the fabric of space!

It turned out that the phase lord did possessed a means to attack at range because the spatial fissure followed an irregular path that led straight towards the Amaranto!

Venerable Stark aborted her next attack attempt and tried to push the Amaranto away from the path of the growing fissure, but the unusual attack method continued to track towards the retreating expert mech!