The Mech Touch

A lot of observers became shocked and surprised when they witnessed how the lightning tribulation had progressed.

A few of the more knowledgeable figures became impressed by how long the newly fabricated mech had managed to hold out against the forces that sought to erase its existence.

Among their exceedingly small circle, it was common wisdom that anything that could trigger a response from above was bound to possess special properties. They were never truly weak, or else they would have never ended up in this predicament in the first place.

However, against a storm of this magnitude and severity, it was hard to imagine that a second-class mech of this configuration could last more than several lightning strikes.

The fact that it had managed to overcome 27 continuous 'strikes' with very little interruption in between caused a lot of people to pay much greater attention to the mech and its original designer!

It had not been particularly difficult to obtain the design files or even the entire development logs of the so-called Fey Project.

Obtaining recordings of the spontaneous but remarkable redesign was harder, but not impossible.

Every mech designer who had access to all of this information formed their own conclusions about the odd drone mech.

It was clear that its maker had reached an exceptional state of mind in order for him to develop such an impressive mech in a short amount of time.

It generated a lot of questions on how much ancient knowledge Professor Ves Larkinson secretly mastered.

No matter what, a mech like this could never be developed from thin air!

The esoteric knowledge that formed the foundation of the multi-elemental mech was controversial, to say the least.

The five elements left a bad taste in the mouth of many leading human figures.

Only those who had lived during those times or became initiated in the secrets of the past would know how much of a taboo it was to toy with the five elements!

This was what made Ves Larkinson's disposition so perplexing. More than a few people speculated whether he was a modern representative of the Five Scrolls Compact.

Though those suspicions never led to anything further, it was clear that this young mech designer was one of the few humans who successfully straddled the line between old traditions and modern technology.

No matter how much controversy he generated, so long as his contributions to the mech community and human society were valuable enough, there was no need to pay any further attention to his eccentricities!

Even if those outlandish accusations that he was secretly advancing the interests of that forbidden cult, so what?

The Great Severing had put a clean break between the ghosts of the past and the problems of the present!

Red humanity needed to confront much more acute threats that posed an existential danger to everyone, not just the supporters and detractors of different human factions!

Messier 87 had always been the central focus of the leaders who got transported along with the rest of the human population of the Red Ocean.

As the unexpected lightning tribulation actually managed to progress far enough to manifest a member of one of the powerful alien races that was definitely native to that supermassive galaxy, interest in this remarkable event had spiked!

The ability for red humanity to glean information from a galaxy that was located hundreds of thousands of light-years away was exceedingly limited!

Any early intelligence that could provide concrete details on the powerful native aliens could save billions if not trillions of precious human lives in the decades to come.

These hidden observers all shared the same hope at the moment.

"Do not fail too soon."

Meanwhile, right underneath the surging storm clouds, the Elemental Lord became confronted by an entirely new threat.

The nature of the 28th wave was completely different from the 27th one!

Ves was still reeling from all of the changes and rapidly tried to figure out what was happening based on his observations and the data at his disposal.

After Jovy told him that this lightning tribulation was of a multi-modal variety, Ves quickly started to understand what sort of gauntlet his mech had got caught up in after its completion.

Every change in operation signified a brand new challenge. The previous 9 waves all tested the Elemental Lord's ability to defeat large quantities of small threats.

Now that the lightning tribulation had produced a single big threat, it was not difficult to guess that the 4th round was supposed to test the Elemental Lord's ability to resist strong individual champions!

Right now, Ves and Blinky keenly noticed that this four-armed alien 'swordsman' was somehow drawing in a lot of E energy as it lifted up its sword.

The lightning manifestation had done this before, and the resulting lightning bolt utterly managed to crush the powerful fire phoenix!

Ves already calculated that the Elemental Lord would sustain permanent damage if it got struck directly by a bolt of that magnitude.

Against a threat that roughly resembled a swordsman mech with limited ranged attack capabilities, Major Simon Jankowski fell back on his extensive training and experience.

He chose to pull back his Elemental Lord. It was highly likely that this alien swordsman was even deadlier at close range, and Jankowski did not want to risk getting zapped by the lightning manifestation's entire charge if his living mech made direct contact.

Jankowski made the most logical choice. Not only was his drone mech increasing its distance from the giant alien swordsman, but it had never let up its ranged attacks!

Powerful hyper laser beams, purple fire beams and earth gauss rounds continually struck the lightning manifestation that oddly matched the height of the Elemental Lord, but these powerful attacks only inflicted fleeting damage to the concentrated mass of tribulation lightning.

"Our ranged attacks are not effective!" Ves warned. "We need to inflict more area damage against a target that does not appear to have a solid physical body. The five brothers need to work together and combine several elements in order to produce more effective attacks."

"We know." Jankowski replied. "We are still working on it, professor. It takes time to figure this out from scratch."

"I do not think we have enough time. INCOMING!"

The mech officer and the Elemental Lord had been paying close attention to the lightning construct.

Though it did not appear to be truly alive, its slightly mechanical movements nonetheless betrayed that this lightning manifestation was based on a real alien!

After gathering a sufficient quantity of E energy around its lightning sword, the giant alien figure performed a fast overhead sword strike that launched a powerful bolt of lightning that rapidly reached out towards its target!

Major Jankowski precisely forced his mech to boost to the side in an attempt to throw off his opponent's aim and evade the powerful strike.

However, the arcing lightning bolt unerringly homed in on the Elemental Lord, thereby negating the attempt to evade its fury!

BOOOMl

The entire cockpit rattled as the Elemental Lord's azure energy shield absorbed the brunt of this powerful lightning strike!

Despite getting boosted by the water E energy supplied by the second brother, the azure energy shield immediately overloaded, causing its generator to spark and fail in an instant!

"Our azure energy shield is down!"

All five brothers had become distressed at how close the drone mech had been to incurring significant electrical damage.

Ves and Jankowski had also grown shocked at what had happened.

The Elemental Lord was not able to cope with this kind of attack!

Given that the lightning tribulation had already advanced to the 28th wave, it was already a given that its power was bound to be much greater than the 18th lightning strike.

However, Ves did not expect that a casual attack from a giant lightning manifestation would be able to launch repeated lightning bolts of this magnitude.

"We cannot go on like this!" Ves quickly concluded. "The base capabilities of the Elemental Lord are completely inadequate in the face of this power. The mech does not have the mobility or the defenses to withstand these attacks. You need to finish off this lightning manifestation quickly or find a way to stop it from swinging its lightning sword like that again."

The second, fourth and fifth brothers were already trying to form an effective response.

They had been trying to gather enough fire, wood and water E energies to launch a powerful long-ranged fire attack that could engulf the lightning manifestation.

However, the last attack not only broke their concentration, but also destroyed much of the multi-elemental E energy construct that they had been attempting to form!

The giant lightning swordsman only paid a relatively minor cost to launch this attack, which meant that it could still launch a lot more lightning bolts before it expended its own charge.

As the alien swordsman slowly began to lift up its lightning sword in order to accumulate more E energies, Major Jankowski eventually decided to switch up his strategy.

The Elemental Lord no longer tried to maintain its distance, but instead did the opposite and charge straight towards the giant lightning manifestation!

"What are you doing?!"

"I feel it is a mistake to fight this lightning alien from afar." Major Jankowski rapidly explained. "The earlier lightning ball took on the form of a swordsman. I think that it has taken this shape because it is designed to test our ability to fight up close. I can sense the challenge in its eyes."

"Those are alien compound eyes! Who knows what sort of meaning they convey!"

"I am a soldier. Alien or not, this swordsman made out of lightning clearly wants us to test our blade!"

"We'll just get shocked from the moment your weapon makes contact with this concentrated collection of lighting energy!"

Major Jankowski was making a huge gamble here. Ves understood the mech officer's logic, but he still thought that it was best to counter this lightning manifestation by launching overwhelmingly powerful ranged attacks.

The pilot was in charge, though. He acted on his new plan and immediately put away the Elemental Lord's luminar crystal rifle so that it could draw a transphasic hyper sword that had already been infused with concentrated metal energies!

The fey had become an afterthought at this time. The situation in the field changed so quickly that they were unable to keep up with all of the developments.

Fortunately, the earth fey and the fire fey kept up their ranged attacks, though they only inflicted light damage onto the lightning manifestation.

As soon as the Elemental Lord closed the distance, Ves braced himself in case a direct contact caused the entire mech frame to be shocked!

Clang!

"What?!"

Much to Ves' surprise, the lightning sword did not behave according to his expectations!

When the lightning alien aborted its previous move so that it could use its crackling weapon to block the Elemental Lord's attack, its sword actually functioned like a physical weapon!

Though the drone mech incurred light shocks at the moment the two swords collided against each other, they were still a lot weaker than Ves initially anticipated!

He realized that Major Jankowski may be right. Perhaps it was still possible for the Elemental Lord to defeat the lightning manifestation at range, but it was apparently not the most optimal way to resolve this kind of tribulation.

Major Jankowski grinned. His opponent became a lot more familiar all of a sudden.

The alien swordsman no longer attempted to launch any powerful ranged attacks, but started to fight in a manner that was highly reminiscent of mechs armed with swords!

As a seasoned mech officer of the Red Association, Major Jankowski's swordsmanship was excellent even if he did not specialize in melee combat.

He did not go on the offensive right away, but instead sought to fight in a conservative manner so that he could gain a better measure of his current adversary.

The swordsmanship demonstrated by the four-armed alien was both familiar and different.

Many of the basic movements and techniques were universal among all bipedal species.

However, it was the way in which the alien swordsman actively stirred up the E energies around him that gave its attacks a greater edge.

Ves immediately formed a conclusion after he had observed this simulated alien warrior for a time.

"I think we are fighting against a qi cultivator!"

"A what?"