The Mech Touch

It was as if the recently appeared earth swordsman turned the surrounding area into an earth arena.

There was no room for maneuver in front of the four-armed alien that wielded a gigantic greatsword.

The alien qi cultivator obviously knew that speed was not its forte, so it had worked hard to refine his control over the earth element to the point where he could generate a powerful force field that constrained the mobility of all of its adversaries!

Although this dense and heavy force field was not invincible, Major Jankowski and the Elemental Lord did not possess a strong enough grasp of their powers to break this constriction!

"It's coming!"

As the distance between the two steadily began to shrink, the constriction generated by the earth element became stronger and stronger.

The Elemental Lord was previously able to move slowly in different directions, but as the earth swordsman continued to crash towards its target, the mech had lost the ability to move!

A combination of panic and unwillingness welled up in Ves' mind. This was the 31th wave. He had hoped that his latest creation would be able to continue its growth and quickly master the ability to combine four as well as five elements at once!

All of that started to look increasingly less likely as the heartless and unfeeling earth warrior descended upon the Elemental Lord with a greatsword that was likely to sunder the mech in a single blow!

Ves closed his eyes as he tried to figure out how his mech could overcome this latest predicament.

Was there no other way to progress any further?

A lot of thoughts swirled in his mind.

Meanwhile, Major Jankowski and the five brothers did not think about defeat at all. Even when their situation had grown bleak, they still attempted to fight with the determination to see this through the end!

Yet as the unstoppable earth juggernaut loomed ever closer to the Elemental Lord, Major Jankowksi could not help but sense an acute sense of death.

This sword was unstoppable!

The Elemental Lord could not evade this strike!

If he did not summon any further bursts of strength, he would likely go down with his mech!

The unprecedented pressure exerted by the attacking earth warrior caused Major Jankowski and the five brothers to exceed their previous highs.

They had begun to tap into their greater potential, causing each of them to increase their control over their elements!

The earth fey even started to show signs of retaking control over the surrounding earth E energies that had been denied by the tribulation manifestation.

Yet as the earth swordsman loomed closer and closer, the Elemental Lord was still unable to break loose from the force field.

Major Jankowski gritted his teeth as he tried to squeeze his newly grown willpower beyond its limit. He wanted to strengthen and prolong the state of forced resonance that was empowering the Elemental Lord, yet no matter how much he wanted to produce another miracle, the painful truth was that he had already exploded his potential once.

It was impossible for a mech pilot to attain a double breakthrough!

It had never been done throughout the history of mechs, and for good reason. It took a lot of accumulation for a mech pilot to become qualified to advance to the rank of expert candidate and expert pilot.

Masterwork mech or not, the Elemental Lord was only able to play a facilitating role to the progression of a mech pilot.

Just as the earth warrior was about to crush the trapped mech in half with its gigantic greatsword, Ves could no longer deny the reality around him anymore.

Dismay welled up in his mind. He had so many expectations for his altered Fey Project. He at least hoped that it would have been able to fight its way through the latter half of this exaggeratingly powerful lightning tribulation.

However, the lack of preparation was too fatal for his chances for his latest work to ascend to an entirely new height.

Ves felt incredibly sorry about the Elemental Lord for his inability to strengthen his creation any further.

For the first time in his career, Ves strongly felt that he had failed as a mech designer.

Due to his many mistakes and shortcomings, he was unable to provide his latest and possibly his greatest work with a viable path to survival.

Before Ves allowed this painful admission to defeat to depress his mood any further, he first needed to address a more acute issue.

"We lost. We need to go right now!"

His voice seemed to shake Major Jankowski out of his trance.

The new expert candidate had been trying to squeeze his potential even if there was nothing left anymore.

Though an RA mech officer like Simon should know better than to deny this reality, his recent breakthrough had given him an inflated sense of confidence.

He still believed that he and the five brothers could turn this situation around!

Seeing that Major Jankowski was still too deeply immersed in this impossible challenge, Ves decided to take matters into his own hands.

"We need to go right now, so forgive me for doing this!"

Ves transmitted a series of emergency commands that produced several reactions in quick succession.

"UHH!"

First, the neural interface physically disengaged from the rest of the mech, causing the man-machine connection to collapse in the most abrupt fashion possible!

Major Jankowski immediately suffered trauma from the forced disconnection. He had lost all of his wits due to this damaged approach!

Next, the rear of the Elemental Lord blasted open, leaving an open avenue for the cockpit to eject from the mech frame.

However, the cockpit jerked and screamed without managing to make any progress.

The cockpit was stuck in place!

It appeared that the force field generated by the looming earth swordsman had grown so strong that not even the ejection process could escape the strengthening net.

Ves already expected this to happen. Fortunately, much of the focus of the earth swordsman was locked onto the main body and its fey.

"Lucky, you can make your own escape!"

"Meow?!"

Just as Lucky hurriedly phased through the cockpit of the Elemental Lord, Ves' armored form bent down and pulled Major Jankowski out of the cockpit seat.

Although it was a little awkward, Ves managed to embrace the taller and more muscular mech officer in a bearhug.

He then proceeded to focus all of his concentration onto the expanded phasewater in his blood.

The recent lightning tribulation had not only caused his phasewater concentration to soar by an unknown extent, but also inflated his true body to many times his former size!

That ultimately meant that the quantity of phasewater running through his veins and organs had abruptly increased by several kilograms!

Ves tried to activate all of the phasewater that had spontaneously formed inside his body.

Though the resistance generated by the earth swordsman's force field was still significant, Ves ultimately managed to overcome it with the help of his newfound strength!

"1... WILL... PUSH... THROUGH!"

Crack!

A sharp sound erupted from the location of Ves and the mech officer.

Both of them had disappeared from the cockpit!

Immediately afterwards, a pair of armored figures dropped onto a grassy hill and rolled a bit before they lost their momentum.

Ves groaned as he suffered a strong ache throughout his body. Trying to displace himself several hundred meters away with an additional passenger had stretched his new capabilities to the limit.

The problem was that he had originally aimed to move at least a kilometer away from his former location.

The fact that his journey got cut short due to the strong resistance produced by the earth swordsman's force field was bad news!

"Brace yourself!"

Ves possessed enough awareness to manually activate his personal shield generator, causing it to produce a small but strong barrier that was enough to resist most attacks launched by mechs for a short amount of time.

Just a split-second later, the earth swordsman chopped its enormous greatsword from top to bottom, completely bisecting the immobilized and forcibly deactivated Elemental Lord into two messy lightning-scarred pieces!

CRACKLE!

Boom boom boom!

Secondary explosions quickly engulfed the mech frame before the ruined power reactor failed to contain all of its power and produced a violent explosion that hardly managed to faze the solid earth swordsman!

After enduring 30 continuous challenges, the Elemental Lord ultimately failed to overcome the might of the 31st wave.

As if the lightning tribulation wanted to rub this failure into Ves' face, the earth swordsman lost cohesion and exploded in place, releasing all of the tribulation lightning that made up for its body at once!

CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!

A concentrated storm of lightning exploded in every direction, instantly engulfing the remains of the bisected mech frame as well as the damaged but relatively intact living fey!

The remnants of the Elemental Lord did not stand a chance against this punishment.

The five elements mech had failed to pass the test issued by the lightning tribulation, so it had lost its right to exist.

The five brothers that developed a lot of hopes and dreams about their future as an amazing living mech all became ruthlessly crushed by the lightning tribulation that originated from another galaxy!

As the explosion of golden currents mercilessly disintegrated each and every aspect that Ves had painstakingly put into the Elemental Lord, the surrounding terrain got blasted by all of the collateral damage!

CRACKLE!

The energy shield surrounding Ves' form got struck by one of the escaping lightning bolts.

The protective barrier had reached its limit and exploded in a violent fashion!

"Ahh!"

Fortunately for Ves and Major Jankowski, the self-destructive explosion was violent but short. It ended as soon as it came, thereby saving them both from getting harmed by the final blow of the lightning tribulation.

The dark clouds that cast a strong shadow over the landscape had already begun to fade.

The tribulation had done its job, so there was no more reason to waste any time on this trivial planet.

The oppressive air quickly made way for a desolate wind that did not bring any relief.

Instead, a rain of black ash dropped from the skies and blanketed the surrounding terrain with an awful burning scent.

As Ves dazedly shook his head and recovered his wits, he looked blankly at the falling pieces of ash.

These were the remains of the Elemental Lord.

After being subjected to the ultimate power of destruction, not a single piece of the Elemental Lord could resist the punishment from the heavens.

Neither the physical nor spiritual aspects had managed to escape this fate.

Ves felt depressed in a way he had never felt before. The pain in his heart was strong.

The Elemental Lord was practically his baby from his perspective.

Ves had worked harder than ever to bring a beautiful and promising child to life, only to attract an unreasonably heavy punishment due to the fact that he had violated a taboo.

His living mech had died too soon!

The five brothers had not even lived for a single day. They had spent much of the short time of their lives fighting for their own right to exist. Struggle characterized the entire extent of their brief existence in this reality.

"It's not fair..."

Ves felt a lot of regrets about his lost mech.

Not only did he lose the most brilliant masterwork mech that he had created up to this date, but he had also suffered a personal defeat that completely sapped his confidence in his own work!

"Meow..."

A damaged-looking gem cat slowly descended onto Ves and Jankowski's position.

Lucky looked a bit burned and frazzled, but his strengthened archemetal body somehow managed to withstand the lightning explosion.

Ves felt so discouraged about his failure to save his own work that he did not even pay attention to Lucky's appearance.

All he had on his mind was thinking about all of the decisions he could have made that could have given his Elemental Lord a better chance to live past this lightning tribulation.

"I'm so bad at my job... I still have a long way to go before my work is good enough..."