The Mech Touch

Chapter 7181: Enlightening Duel

“Chief Councilor Ves Larkinson of the Upper Council has won the first of four duels of his ongoing leadership challenge! After a long and punishing fight, he has vanquished over the Unshakeable King of the Ur-Titan Phalanx by relying on excellent utilization of his superior equipment!”

“The Unshakeable King has proved he possessed an edge in terms of fighting skills, combat experience and endurance, but his inability to inflict enough damage to his well-armored opponent has led to his demise! The pressure of the duel proved the better of him. The more setbacks he suffered, the more he lost his composure, which proved to be a detriment when fighting against a high IQ opponent such as the renowned Devil Tongue. Trying to use your own companion spirit to kill the companion spirit who invented them in the first place is pure folly! In the end, the former strategos of the Ur-Titan Phalanx did not necessarily lose because he was the inferior fighter, but because he was arrogant and failed to respect his opponent’s depth of solutions.”

“The chief councilor has already gone off to a good start! The fact that a ‘mech designer’ has won a fair duel against a professional soldier and a recognized champion such as the Unshakeable King while keeping most of his raiment intact is a clear indication of his strength. His approach to combat may be very different, but it only proves that the Ascended Giants still have a long way to go before they can become omnipotent on the battlefield. This singular duel has exposed that the combat doctrines of the Ascended Giants, more specifically the ur-Titan Phalanx, are still far from reaching maturity. Equipment matters!”

The shocking outcome continued to spread among a restricted circle of people.

Not all of them had the authorization to watch the live view of the secret duels, so they could only obtain hearsay from other people.

This was why many of them grew shocked and surprised when they learned that a mech designer who may have been involved in many battles but always let his mech pilots fight on his behalf had won a personal victory!

The duel was clean and the mech designer won without suffering crippling injuries!

He not only defeated his opponent, but completely demolished the Unshakeable King until his head flew from the rest of his body!

Many soldiers and warriors knew how difficult it was to win a fight in such a convincing fashion.

Whatever the case, Ves Larkinson had unambiguously proved with this victory that he was already one of the strongest human phase lords in the Red Ocean,

Unless other major powers secretly cultivated their own army of human phase lords, Ves could take pride in his ability to kill what many Ascended Giants considered to be their second-strongest fighter!

This feat alone was enough to win over many Ascended Giants, especially the ones who harbored reluctance towards the current direction of the Phase Lord Department.

As brainwashed as they may be, not all of them had lost all of their old wits and common sense. They still retained the awareness of their human identity, and also understood how idiotic it would be for them to defect to the native aliens.

Even if they no longer identified themselves as human, they still recognized their ancestry to their old race!

To them, their desire to go independent was more benign. They simply considered themselves to be children who had grown old and self-sufficient enough to leave the home of their parents. They wanted to set off into the wilderness and build their own town and society that existed as a distinct pocket adjacent to red humanity.

Ves sought to win over this group of optimists first. It was not enough for him to kill ardent traitors such as the Unshakeable King. He knew he needed to obtain solid backing from a large enough group of Ascended Giants to truly assume control over the entire Phase Lord Department, so he and the Dark Apostle had taken great care to abide by their honor and fight without relying on excessive technology.

Of course, they couldn’t help but take advantage of innovative and exotic solutions. It would be stupid of them if they threw away all of their advantages for the sake of vanity.

Their first victory vindicated their approach.

“Good work, chief councilor!” Eliza Mo Ragadan greeted the Dark Apostle as returned to the temporary base in order to rest and recuperate. “Our doctors are already waiting to receive you in the next hall. They have prepared stores of phasewater and special rations that should be able to promote cellular regrowth and fatigue recovery of a man of your exceptional physique.”

The Dark Apostle did not deign to talk to the mortal. Blinky flew out instead and faced his chief of staff.

“How are the initial reactions from the people in the know?”

Eliza smiled back in a particularly satisfied manner. “You exceeded their expectations. Most of them expected you to lose your first match. They thought you chose to challenge the Unshakeable King first so that you can face him at your best and minimize the chance of accidents. They did not truly think that a mech designer of all people could defeat one of the stronger champions among the Ascended Giants, though you managed to do so by taking the Unshakeable King by surprise with your special exploding spear. The manner in which you turned the battle around has drawn critique. This was not an honorable move.”

“Victory washes away all doubts.” Ves huffed through Blinky’s manifestation. “I stayed within the rules, and that is enough. If the Ascended Giants did not want my other self to toss out a weapon that just happens to be primed to explode, then they should have added in this clause. It is their negligence that they failed to account for all technological possibilities. Besides, this move came at a hefty cost. The Dark Apostle had to finish the rest of the fight without his main weapon.”

“I am told that the reactor that sustained the plasma spear was already beginning to run out of energy.”

“It was a considerable burden to carry it around during the duel. Unlike mechs, phase lords cannot implant a power reactor inside their body… not unless they still want to fold and unfold their bodies afterwards.”

Phasewater organs functioned as the equivalent of powerful implants to phase lords. The two were matched together because the former still retained much of their health and functionality no matter how much the latter folded up their true bodies.

The same could not be said for any tech or conventional implants. Unless they were completely biological and had sufficiently blended with their phase lord constitution, the tech would not be able to properly scale up and down.

Power reactors the size of mech cockpits would simply get crushed or burst apart a phase lord’s body if he attempted to shrink down to the size of a human!

This was the reason why Ves never thought about putting the reactor inside his body. Every phase lord had little choice but to mount their tech inside their raiments or turn them into external modules.

“You implanted the lesser Arcis organ inside your true body.” Eliza pointed out an important variable. “You could still supply limited energy to your plasma spear or your raiment even if you have depleted your reactor module.”

“That is technically true, but the output is… mediocre.” Ves responded. “I also intended to keep it in reserve as another backup option. At worst, I intended to shock the Unshakeable King to paralysis with this organ.”

“Regardless, you are correct for the most part. There are observers who grumble about the trickery that you have employed to secure your victory, but the important part is that you have remained standing while the Unshakeable King’s body and his head have been returned to the Ur-Titans. It would have been within your rights to claim the latter, though. The Secret Department is quite upset that you have not chosen to surrender it to the Secret Keepers so that they could extract as much intelligence from the giant-sized brain as possible.”

Blinky shook his head. “I truly considered this option, but I think we are putting the cart before the horse. Our overarching goal is to take control over the Phase Lord Department. We must do so as convincingly as possible so that no rogue Ascended Giant chooses to disregard his orders and run off into the embrace of the Red Cabal. Just one defector can do immense damage to us all. This is why I still need to increase my appeal towards my future subordinates.”

This was a logical answer, though it still left the Red Collective dissatisfied at throwing away such a golden intelligence gathering opportunity.

“My other self is about to undergo treatment and stuff. Is there anything else I should know before I join him and begin our preparations for the next duel?”

“There are… concerns from a growing number of people who have learned what you, or rather Blinky, has done to the Unshakeable King’s companion spirit.”

“What of it, Eliza?”

“They have multiple concerns. How strong is Blinky? How well is he able to fight against other companion spirits? What are the consequences to the humans who have lost their companion spirits in such a traumatic fashion? Are there any specific methods that can bolster their defenses?”

It sounded as if Blinky’s act of devouring the companion spirit of a powerful phase lord had truly spooked a lot of people!

Ves understood that he needed to offer reassurance if he wanted others to continue to make good use of his invention.

“Blinky is strong, but he is not the strongest companion spirit in existence. I know of dozens who can resist his methods and beat him up in a straight fight. He is not specialized in combat. He is an energy manipulator. The reason why he can bully weaker companion spirits around is because the latter has left the protection of their principals. If they just stayed inside the heads of their human counterparts, Blinky cannot easily intrude due to various reasons.”

“You claim that there are at least ‘dozens’ of companion spirits that can put up good resistance against Blinky. Who are they and what do they have in common?”

“Oh, they are almost always the companion spirits of our high-ranking mech pilots. The strength of a companion spirit is partially based on age, but also based on the strength of their principals. A strong swordmaster or high-ranking mech pilot has a powerful spirit as well as extraordinary willpower. These qualities can easily be shared with a companion spirit. A companion spirit with access to extraordinary willpower is an unbeatable existence to Blinky. My companion spirit cannot devour such an entity because the willpower of a swordmaster or expert pilot is simply too resistant against E energy manipulation.”

“I see. Thank you for your candor. The Red Collective shall work to verify your responses, but we already expect your descriptions to be accurate to the best of your abilities.”

This was a necessary interrogation. Nobody with a companion spirit would like to see it turned into another companion spirit’s meal!

“You can also tell the bigshots of the RC that Blinky is fairly unique in many ways.” Ves spoke. “It is not possible to nurture a companion spirit of his qualities with an ordinary companion spirit fruit. I meticulously created him by repurposing the remains of a powerful energy-based life form that has been likened to a ‘dark god’. This is why Blinky is able to punch above his weight. He is also practicing a cultivation method that has been meticulously improved and customized by my mother. Yeah, the centuries-old survivor of the fall of the Five Scrolls Compact. I enjoyed the 5 star treatment when it comes to companion spirits.”

“Is it possible for others… to receive the same treatment?”

Blinky decisively shook his head. “Nope. I am willing to accept commissions to create a custom companion spirit so long as the price is right, but you have to solve the other problem yourself. Just getting the cooperation of a cultivator who is as good as my mother is a tall task. I think that she will only offer her services to the members of her bloodline, and that is only if I can’t do a good enough job.”

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