The Mech Touch

The Ouroboros was an old mech.

Hardly any of its original parts and materials remained intact and attached to the constantly evolving mech frame of this famous Terran ace mech.

As Axelar Streon steadily grew up and matured into an increasingly more formidable mech pilot, his chosen machine could not be allowed to remain stagnant.

This was why the Streon Ancient Clan assigned numerous highly reputable and competent mech designers to repair, modify and most importantly upgrade the Ouroboros over the years.

It had been difficult for Axelar to insist on piloting the same mech on a continuous basis over the span of an entire century!

Since the first time he piloted it in a mech arena and won a glorious victory against a much more conventional first-class multipurpose mech, Axelar had fallen in love with the Ouroboros.

Though the talented Terran pilot had most certainly piloted other well-designed and well-constructed mechs after his initial ride with the Ouroboros, he never felt satisfied with the machines designed by other mech designers.

No matter how good they were, they could never replicate the feel and responsiveness of the original Ouroboros.

In the first decades of his career as a proper soldier, his odd preference for sticking to the same first-class hero mech that he debuted in the arena attracted a lot of ridicule.

His fellow Terrans didn't understand why he wanted to go back in time and stick to a mech concept that had become outdated a long time ago.

Extreme miniaturization technology enabled every first-class mech to stuff itself full with a dozen different weapon systems, each of which were not weak!

Nonetheless, after Axelar Streon defeated numerous challengers and proved his strength in many different occasions, those words of criticisms increasingly grew quiet.

It didn't matter if Axelar covered his mech in a pink coating or applied a curse word onto its chest.

As long as it remained strong enough to defeat other first-class multipurpose mechs, nearly anything was permissible!

As Axelar Streon continued to demonstrate his brilliance and broke through his bottlenecks, his seemingly archaic hero mech gradually turned from an object of contempt into an iconic symbol of power!

Nowadays, no Terran dared to mock the hero mech type anymore. The Renewer of Terra had single-handedly raised the respect of this archetype in Terran space!

He even set an example for many other Terran mech pilots, particularly those with inferior genetic aptitudes.

Compared to the overly complicated first-class multipurpose mech, the much more 'simpler' loadout of hero mechs allowed inferior mech pilots to still exercise a lot of control over their machines.

Unfortunately, none of the Terran-designed hero mechs that emerged after the rise of the Ourobros had managed to attain the same level of success.

On one hand, these imitators were not as talented or well-trained as General Axelar Streon.

As a scion of an ancient clan, Axelar's education and training were both excellent.

His genetic aptitude barely made it into the A-grade, but that was also enough to separate himself from the much more numerous Terran pilots with B-grade aptitudes.

On the other hand, the Ouroboros was an exceptional machine from the beginning.

Even though the Streon Ancient Clan increasingly invested more in its upgrades, there were many other Terran groups that could adopt the same approach.

Nonetheless, the Ouroboros had always stood head over shoulders over these would-be challengers because it possessed unique properties that could never be replicated by other mech designers.

It was alive!

Although this trait only made Axelar feel good and more attuned to his machine in the early years, the advantages of piloting a living machine became increasingly more significant over time.

After being upgraded many times and being subjected to decades worth of willpower baptism by one of the powerful and renowned ace pilots of the Terran people, the Ouroboros had transcended the boundaries of a machine that could be made in an instant in a mech workshop.

This was why no one who was present in front of the opulent dining hall of the Eden Institute suspected that the Ouroboros was unmanned at this time.

Even if the powerful ace mech did not radiate a characteristic domain field at this time, most Devosans and mechers assumed that it was because General Axelar Streon wanted to avoid any unnecessary aggression.

The Ouroboros still exuded a strong and intimidating presence even if it was active on its own. Its aura possessed a mixed quality of concepts that harkened towards both creation and destruction.

Much of it happened to echo the presence of General Axelar Streon himself!

This was not a surprise to Ves. The living mech that had steadily grown and fed off the feedback from its powerful ace pilot. It had worked and fought together with its pilot for so long that the machine had taken after his image!

At this time, everyone still remained nervous. The knowledge that the Ouroboros was active but unmanned did not relieve the concerns of those who had been informed.

While the Ouroboros should theoretically be a lot weaker as a result, the machine was packed with so much power that it could still do a lot of damage!

There was a clear and present difference in quality and power between the Ouroboros and the ace mech dispatched by the Devosans.

Even though both machines were exquisite masterwork mechs, their power and sophistication were too far apart!

General Axelar Streon was the standard bearer of the Streon Ancient Clan. As its strongest pilot and military officer, he was able to receive much more investment than normal.

His strength as a peak ace pilot that could initiate the Mech Body Merger Process at any time also enabled him to wield and exert control over much more powerful mech systems than usual.

As such, the Ouroboros had not only received a few powerful upgrades that were usually applied to god mechs, but also received the utmost care and attention of a Star Designer!

Numerous different mech designers had been put in charge of the Ouroboros over the years, but the latest and most powerful one was undoubtedly Sintha Elkron, otherwise known as the Grand Mender!

The famed Terran Star Designer was a pioneer in the field of regenerating metal and repair systems.

She invented many different specialized solutions meant to make first-class mechs last longer in the field by allowing them to repair their own damage with remarkable effectiveness!

Any mech design that she designed in person became nearly as indefatigable as zombies.

Attacks that only partially penetrated the defenses of her mechs only temporarily inconvenienced them as they regenerated back to peak condition in a short amount of time!

The Ouroboros was no exception in this regard. Its defining feature aside from its living qualities was its World Serpent System.

This high-minded name stood for an extremely rapid regenerating armor system that could practically produce new armor plating even when a powerful attack had not yet ceased!

Its synergy with the creation domain of General Axelar Streon and the Ouroboros was fantastic, allowing the Grand Mender to maximize the speed and efficiency of her signature technology!

There were very practical reasons why the Ouroboros put so much emphasis on the World Serpent System.

The first was because the Ouroboros needed to compensate for its lack of armament diversity.

The fact that it was a hero mech that only had access to two external weapon systems was a serious constraint. Axelar encountered too many situations where opposing mechs exploited this vulnerability and entered into many destructive exchanges of attacks with the hero mech.

However, the lack of weapon systems also conveyed the Ouroboros with a powerful advantage. Its mech frame featured a lot more capacity for other purposes, allowing for the Grand Mender to design a significantly more powerful and advanced defensive layout!

The World Serpent System combined with its recently upgraded transphasic multi-layered segmented energy shield generator enabled the Ouroboros to become known as one of the harder and more damage resistant mechs of its caliber!

This granted the Ouroboros a much more substantial damage buffer, enabling it to weather any kind of storm and more importantly keep its valuable pilot alive!

Perhaps other rising champions in Terran space were able to attain more success over their careers, but their chances of meeting a fatal end were much higher due to the inferior defenses of their first-class multipurpose mechs.

There was always a price to integrating too many weapon systems in a mech frame!

In any case, the other functions of the Ouroboros were significantly better on average as well.

The hero mech was able to dedicate more space, energy and other resources to its flight system, its minidrive, its communication systems, its ECM systems and more.

Even if few of them sounded exciting, the clear and noticeable performance gap had granted the Ouroboros quite a few advantages in different situations!

As Ves continued to observe the mech frame of the massively evolved and upgraded Ouroboros, he understood why General Axelar Streon and his ancient clan turned to the Grand Mender.

The Renewer of Terra had always insisted that the Ouroboros stick to the purest interpretation of the hero mech archetype, which meant that it only ever wielded two weapons, no more, no less.

Naturally, this meant that its weapon systems had to be the best that the Terrans could make for an ace mech that was already powerful by itself!

"The Ouroboros exchanged or upgraded its older weapon systems for newer ones numerous times as my grandfather grew stronger." Miss Alexa noted as she gazed at the familiar machine with great affection. "The current loadout consists of the Apocalypse Sword, a tier 2 Destroyer sword, and the Genesis Rifle, a Gosar antimatter rifle. In the hands of my grandfather and his machine, this is enough to defeat almost any opposition."

The Genesis Rifle was arguably the simpler of the two weapons. It wielded the 'power of creation' by firing beams of shielded antimatter particles.

Anything it impacted got annihilated, thereby generating enormous amounts of energy that usually produced extremely powerful explosions!

In fact, it was overkill for the Ouroboros to fire antimatter beams all of the time. They were only really reserved for the strongest adversaries.

Against weaker and less resilient targets, the Genesis Rifle could switch to a secondary fire mode that enabled it to fire weaker but much more versatile laser beams in many different ways.

The Apocalypse Sword turned the Ouroboros into a close-ranged nightmare.

The tier 2 Destroyer weapon was a big deal in human space. Destroyer technology had sounded fascinating but inscrutable to Ves in the past. It wasn't until his status improved so much and gained access to much more exclusive repositories of information that he learned what this tech was all about.

Destroyer technology had long been regarded as exclusively Terran due to the inability for the Rubarthans or anyone else to replicate, imitate or substitute its characteristic weapons.

This was an amazing feat considering how many Star Designers and other powerful researchers had tried to crack this puzzle!

The reason why the Terrans had always been able to maintain perfect control over their tech was because of its principal working mechanism.

Destroyer weapons weren't actually all that special aside from one core feature.

The materials used to construct the weapons were infused with so-called Destroyer particles.

These particles directly enhanced the powered weapons and granted them unparalleled destructive power!

Best of all, these particles were somehow able to discern whether the Destroyer weapons were used by Terrans or those who earned their approval.

This meant that if a Rubarthan or any other mech pilot tried to wield a stolen Destroyer weapon, the expensive object would not display its destructive potential at all! The Destroyer particles would remain absolutely inert unless the weapon had fallen back into the hands of an approved user!

This was an amazing capability and a strong reason why the Terrans continued to make widespread use of Destroyer weapons.

The main reason why these Destroyer particles possessed these reality-defying properties was because they weren't natural or ordinary.

They represented the culmination of extreme high technology that exceeded mortal production capabilities.

A Destroyer particle was a synthetic product that was originally developed by a Terran Star Designer!

The only known method of producing these highly valued particles was by relying on the material production capabilities of god pilots.

Yes, god pilots!

Every Terran god pilot who had learned this highly coveted formula was practically able to produce Destroyer particles out of thin air!

The Terrans subsequently collected these precious particles and infused them into weapons at different concentrations.

The greater the concentration, the more destructive the weapon!