The Mech Touch

Lord Pearian had a strong premonition that he was about to die.

He didn't know why he suddenly felt that way, but his fears prompted him to put more strength in his prayers to this mysterious Helena!

"Oh, Daughter of Death, if you truly exist, please shelter me in your generous bosom and protect me from the ravages of death. If this alien vessel is about to blow up, then I ask you to keep this cell block in one piece so that I will be able to survive in the end. If I do manage to make it out, I will make sure to pray to you each and every standard day so that I will always be reminded of the grace that you have bestowed to me in my hour of greatest need!"

As Pearian sped up his words as if that would increase his appeal to a greater deity, his cell suddenly became engulfed by an ominous, semi-transparent wave of energy that sparked so much alarm inside of him that he almost felt as if his soul was to separate from his body!

"Ahhh! What is happening?!"

The first-class scion barely had any time to process what had happened before his cell became engulfed by another energy wave!

"Not again!"

A third one followed in an instant that caused his deactivated implants to quiver!

"When will this stop!"

And a fourth one caused his body to feel a little bit more hungry and devoid of energy than before!

"Please kill me now… no wait! I didn't mean that! Save me… Helena…"

Thankfully for the poor human captive, no further death waves engulfed the alien battleship. Lord Pearian finally collapsed onto the deck as what had taken place finally appeared to be over!

"I'm… I'm alive… hahahaha! I am still alive!"

As the first-rater celebrated his survival from a force that was too powerful for him to comprehend, another human individual happened to survive this ordeal as well!

When the initial wave of death energy coursed through the bridge of the alien vessel, Jugal Meren personally saw how many of aliens crewing the various stations became profoundly affected by a phenomena that he had only faintly read about in one of his past daily status updates!

As a diplomat and a liaison who constantly had to work alongside aliens, information was extremely crucial to his job.

The cosmopolitan periodically received a condensed news digest that he was rapidly able to process to reduce the possibility of getting caught off-guard by a recent development.

He absorbed news related to many different subjects, and considering that the ship he was on currently resided in a turbulent border region, he requested a large amount of news about the happenings in the surrounding areas.

The battle that took place in the Boryan System was just one of many fights that took place in the border region. It only merited a few paragraphs at most and only made a single reference to a method of attack that ostensibly wiped out the crews of entire warships.

Jugal Meren recalled that he was only mildly surprised at this feat. He noted down the name of the pioneering organizations responsible for producing this feat but otherwise moved on to processing more important news.

His excellent augmented memory allowed him to identify the attacking force and recall what they had famed for doing just a month or so prior!

This was why he was the only person aboard the alien ship who had an inkling of what was coming!

It turned out that this force was more terrible than he initially imagined!

He truly understood now how this energy attack could snuff out all life inside a starship!

Jugal Meren knew that trying to resist it by force was pointless to him, so he did the only thing he was capable of and essentially begged the source of this power to spare his life!

As a part of himself felt as if he was brushing against an immensely lethal force, he pleaded so much that he could think of nothing else but make promises that he couldn't even recall!

Half of the bodies on the bridge collapsed. The rest jerked back as if they were struck on the head!

"Yuuahaahwaw!"

"Uuuwhaehw!"

"Kriiiwanewai!"

Various alien wails escaped the throats of the aliens who surprised the death energy wave! Each of them suffered so badly that they felt a pain in the innermost part of themselves that could not be remedied by any medicines or treatment!

Yet just as these hardier nunsers and puelmers managed to cling onto their lives, several more waves coursed through the bridge in quick succession!

With each subsequent pass, the amount of aliens who managed to stay alive decreased to an alarming degree.

By the time the final wave had passed through the hull of the alien vessel, no one on the bridge was alive except for a single human who had prostrated himself onto the deck in utter submission to the greater power that had reaped so many souls.

Jugal Meren's body shook in utter fear, but the cosmopolitan did not dare to raise his body and assume that the crisis had passed!

He and Lord Pearian Yorul-Tavik happened to be among the exceedingly small group of individuals who managed to survive the successive waves of death.

Yet they were not the only humans who endured this great test!

Unlike them, there was also a third human who became affected by some of the waves of death, and it just so happened to be the mech pilot of the first-class multipurpose mech that had been fighting against the Mars!

The mech pilot had to exert his full concentration on the fight in order to keep up with the powerful second-class ace mech, so he was unable to respond in time when one of the death energy waves was about to pass through his machine!

Unlike the Mars that could rely on its formidable Saint Kingdom to shield Patriarch Reginald from this threat, the mech pilot of a highly advanced first-class mech enjoyed no such protection!

In fact, Reginald even took the initiative to distance himself from his opponent and retract his Saint Kingdom as much as possible to ensure that he did not inadvertently save his opponent!

While he wanted to defeat the enemy mech through his own strength, he felt that the mech with a disgustingly strong transphasic energy shield might choose to run before it could be beaten.

Rather than let this powerful first-class mech escape his grasp, Reginald would rather allow his allies to claim the honor of defeating the first-class opponent of the Golden Skull Alliance.

A part of the ace pilot was also curious whether the trump card of the Penitent Sisters and the Glory Seekers would work against the pilots of first-class multipurpose mechs. He learned that their neural interfaces were much more special and provided a lot more protection against different effects.

Though the death energy wave unleashed by the Penitent Sister battle formation did not spill beyond the hull of the alien battleship, the other waves released by the Glory Seekers did manage to wash through the first-class mech!

Just as the Golden Skullers had anticipated, the transphasic energy shield and transphasic armor system failed to block this esoteric attack! Not even the first-raters had developed any tech that could specifically defend against this phenomenon.

As the first wave passed through the first-class mech, the machine did not actually glitch and stutter as was the case with the alien battleship.

The first-class mech was much more resilient, as it should be considering that it was built to endure the rigors of battle!

The second wave produced a stronger effect. Though it did not affect the frame of the expensive, it nonetheless targeted both weaknesses of the human mech pilot at once!

On one hand, the pilot's battered spirit received another serious blow.

On the other hand, his physical body grew weaker and less energetic!

Amazingly enough, this double whammy did not kill the first-class mech pilot outright, but the incredibly skilled and talented soldier had to rely on the utmost of his top-class augmentations and training to keep his body and soul together!

Not only that, but he had to draw on whatever support his first-class multipurpose mech could give him in order to give him the resilience to hang on to his life!

However, he managed to survive in the end.

Though the first-class pilot felt utterly drained in the end, he still managed to survive an attack that was lethal to the vast majority of humans!

"DON'T GET DISTRACTED!"

The first-class mech suffered an astonishingly heavy series of blows when the Mars charged up and attacked with all of its available weapons in quick succession!

The weakened first-class pilot came under greater suppression as soon as the Saint Kingdom of the Mars pressed on him again!

First, the ace mech struck the first-class mech with all of the integrated energy weapons of the ARCEUS System!

The transphasic energy shield which had resisted many attacks already began to show more serious flaws.

Second, the Mars fired its transphasic shotgun at the first-class mech.

Instead of firing out a spray of pellets, the weapon instead launched a solid, heavy slug that thundered against the unstable energy shield with the force of a hammer!

Third, the Mars swung its transphasic axe straight at the area of the energy shield that had already endured a lot of stress.

When the weapon finally struck the energy barrier, the latter exploded as it finally couldn't withstand the fury of an ace mech any longer!

"No!"

The exposed first-class multipurpose mech automatically initiated a series of defensive moves at this time.

The mech not only activated a powerful set of boosters that pushed the machine backwards, but also burst out a huge amount of smoke, heat, sensor-blocking particles and more junk in order to prevent any follow-up attacks from striking the machine.

On top of that, the sophisticated mech also began to activate its minidrive so that it could warp out of this extremely dangerous area as soon as possible!

"DID I SAY YOU COULD LEAVE, TRAITOR?!"

Yet before the first-class multipurpose mech could get much further, a large axe spun forward like a wheel and struck the machine in the back with unerring accuracy!

While the resonance-empowered axe did not manage to penetrate the tough rear armor of the powerful machine, it did manage to strike and inflict serious damage onto the flight system and minidrive mounted on the back!

The first-class multipurpose mech's mobility became impaired!

The Mars flew past the obscuring cloud and engaged its ARCEUS System once again, striking several weak points on the exposed and damaged rear.

This time, the resonance-empowered positron beams inflicted real damage onto the first-class mech!

Not only did the attacks damage or disable numerous rear weapon ports, but they also took out a few maneuvering thrusters, which further impaired the expensive machine's mobility!

The approaching ace hybrid mech had already put away its shotgun this time.

It now held its Whale-Cutting Saber, which Reginald considered to be the most fitting weapon to hack apart a first-class multipurpose mech!

"DIE, TRAITOR!"

At this time, there was little his opponent could do. The first-class mech could no longer run away while its mech pilot had become unprecedentedly weak!

"ONE!"

The glowing heavy saber chopped off a forearm at the relatively weak elbow joint!

"TWO!"

The Mars spun around and made an identical chop that cut off the other forearm!

"THREE!"

This time, the ace mech utilized its momentum to hack its sharp and heavy saber through a foreleg!

"FOUR!"

Another foreleg spun away into open space!

Though the first-class multipurpose mech still had more than enough intact modules to put up a bit of resistance, its mech pilot no longer had the confidence to persist in the fight!

The pilot gritted his teeth. If he was a lesser man with weaker convictions, then he would have offered his surrender to his adversary.

He was stronger than that, though. It only took a split-second for the weak and weary mech pilot to settle on his course of action.

"For a pluralistic society!" The man weakly roared while raising his fist!

The highly advanced power reactor of the first-class multipurpose mech self-destructed, engulfing the entire machine and the immediate surroundings with destructive energies that far exceeded any of its prior attacks!

The Mars barely avoided falling victim to this blast as Reginald sensed the threat in advance and managed to pull back in the nick of time!

The treacherous first-class mech had fallen!