The Mech Touch

Due to the mental changes induced by the Deep Research State, Ves had become

Hyperfocused on completing the Amaranto Mark III Project.

While he kept himself informed of other developments, his emotional attachment and interest in them had dropped to a precipitously low level.

When phase whales and phase lords became engrossed in their own research and practice, they needed to be able to tune out every external distraction for extremely long periods of time.

They also needed to be able to endure the passing of entire ages. Few mortal organisms were able to withstand the mental impact of seeing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years pass before their eyes without growing mentally unstable or unhinged.

Phase leaders therefore gained the capacity to deal with their changed relationship of time in different ways.

From being able to hibernate for eons without causing their mental and physical state to deteriorate all that much, to the ability to dedicate entire centuries worth of time to excessively engage in a single grand research project, these body cultivators proved to be anything but mindless brutes.

True phase leaders spent far more time developing their true bodies and knowledge base behind closed doors than on waging active campaigns against their enemies!

The Phase Lord Department actually gained a huge amount of insights into the true nature of the phase whale race by studying how Ves largely became disconnected to society.

A lot of phase whales must still be caught up in their own research or hibernation. Not even the Red War that would decide the fate of their own dwarf galaxy had succeeded in pulling them away from their own timeless perception of reality!

The analysts feared that the speculation that a majority of powerful phase leaders were actually still isolated and in hiding may be a lot more probable than before.

Red humanity was lucky that the current iteration of the Red Cabal only represented a fraction of all of the powerful phase whales that were still alive in the new frontier today!

If the phase whales were truly able to wake up all of the 'native gods' in isolation, then they would have probably been able to crush red humanity at the start!

That was not the case, fortunately.

The ability to perceive the passage of time like a distant god rather than a vulnerable mortal defined the phase whale race.

It turned the phase whales into excellent researchers as well as long-lived organisms. It was the secret to their success. The phase whale race was able to establish a solid foothold in the Red Ocean despite their relatively small population base because this crucial advantage enabled almost every individual to become a genius through hard work and lengthy accumulation.

No phase whale could remain ignorant and stupid after spending a million years on study and research!

Phase lords were probably less able to treat time in this manner because their cultivation was not a perfect fit to their racial circumstances.

Unlike phase whales who never really found any value in demanding worship from their fellow phase whales, the other major races

However, for all of the advantages brought by their ability to treat the passage of thousands of years as an afternoon nap, the disadvantage of becoming detached from current events was too big of a flaw. ṚἈ𝐍оＢĚṤ

It may even be the key to winning the Red War and vanquishing the phase whales.

Whatever the case, by entering into a Deep Research State, Ves became so fixated on completing the Amaranto Mark III Project that he accidentally missed several major developments!

One of them was the reappearance of the Heavensword!

The other was the completion of the promising upgrade cycle of the Mech Designer System!

The third was the gradual collapse of the 4th defensive band!

Each of these were massive developments that had great implications for Ves, but because his mentality had become a lot more inhuman, he uncharacteristically ignored these major events as if they were inconsequential to his life!

Still, just because Ves was unable to bring himself to care about the events unfolding in the Red Ocean did not mean that other humans felt the same.

Ketis Larkinson had been waiting for the arrival of arguably the most powerful sword artifact crafted and wielded by humans that had survived up to the present time.

Perhaps other powerful swords had managed to survive the crisis that engulfed the Milky Way a long time ago, but none of them made an appearance in public, so Ketis did not know of anything else that could surpass the splendor of the Heavensword.

The female swordmaster had mixed feelings about the arrival of the Heavensword. She did not have a good understanding of its motivations and intentions, but she could make a number of guesses.

She doubted that its goals aligned with her own. There was bound to be a contradiction between their respective motivations.

How would the Heavensword respond if Ketis showed resistance to one of its goals?

Would the sentient relic show understanding and accept a compromise, or would it leverage its enormous power to force Ketis to conform to its directives?

She did not know!

In order to guard against the worst case scenarios that might unfold during the less-than-desirable reunion, Ketis began to make numerous preparations.

First, she informed the expeditionary fleet and asked for the aid of its most powerful champions.

While Ketis already secured the help of her fellow Swordmaiden Dise and her husband Joshua, she doubted that a pair of high-tier expert mechs could suppress the

Heavensword.

If the Heavensword ever turned hostile, then she would definitely need the help of not one, but multiple ace mechs!

She therefore organized a short virtual meeting with all of the ace pilots in the

Expeditionary fleet.

This not only included Saint Commander Casella Ingvar, but also the ace pilots of the other members of the Golden Skull Alliance.

The swordmaster also invited Patriarch Reginald Cross of the Cross Clan, Saint Kalasandra Boojay of the Boojay Family, Saint Marissa Lewandowski of the Adelaide Mercenary Company as well as the guest ace pilot that accompanied the Glory Seekers for the time being.

The Glory Seekers had yet to produce an ace pilot from their own ranks, but they were able to make use of their good ties with the Hex Federation to borrow its own saints

On rotation.

The current guest was a controversial figure to say the least. Saint Davara Chisholm was a junior ace pilot who fought with the Hessex Impaler, a multi-armed ace mech that wielded up to a dozen different spears at a time!

What caused a lot of unrest within the expeditionary fleet as well as the other defenders of the Viola Magnifica System was that she had gained a lot of notoriety during the Komodo War!

During the war that engulfed the Komodo Star Sector in the Milky Way, the Hexers became infamous for providing mixed treatment to the captive soldiers of the Friday

Coalition.

The Hexers had no qualms about treating female Fridayman soldiers with the dignity and respect they deserved.

Males received very different treatment. How badly they were mistreated largely depended on which matriarchal dynasty gained custody of a batch of prisoners of

War.

The Amorte Matriarchal Dynasty was among the worst in this aspect. Saint Davara Chisholm actually insisted on meting out 'punishment' to the POWs regardless of whether the male Fridaymen were at fault!

The aggressive junior ace pilot therefore became known as the Blood-Soaked

Castrator.

Even though it was originally meant as a crude insult, Saint Chilholm actually embraced the title, reveling in how it was able to enhance her intimidation factor! Nowadays, no male was able to feel comfortable in the presence of her piercing Saint

Kingdom.

The Blood-Soaked Castrator had turned her domain field into a weapon against all men regardless of race!

The predominantly male soldiers of the native aliens arrayed against the Blood-Soaked Castrator had very little means to defend against her overbearingly hostile willpower.

It was not a strange sight to see the Hessex Impaler fly in the middle of a formation of enemy small craft, only for hundreds of alien phasefighters to spin out of control! Their alien pilots had become frozen in fear or got overtaken by the pain originating

From their lower bodies!

Due to Saint Chisholm's inhumane Saint Kingdom, the Hessex Impaler actually became one of the best ace mechs to assist with capturing enemy warships intact.

So long as the accompanying boarding troops consisted entirely of Hexer or female soldiers, it became trivially easy to neutralize the disabled alien crew members and

Take control over the alien hulls!

While the Blood-Soaked Castrator along with the other ace pilots accepted the invitation from Ketis, most of them offered bad news.

"We will not be available to help you defend against this ancient sword." Saint Kalasandra Boojay spoke. "We have received a directive from the Red Association that compels us to upgrade the Royal Jeem to a first-class ace mech before deploying to a more strategic location. The Red Three has begun to make more extensive use of the expanded rights afforded to them after instituting martial law. The strategists above our heads are of the opinion that the most decisive battles will be waged in the upper zones. There is a deficit of first-class ace mechs, and we have been called to fill this

Gap."

Saint Marissa Lewandowski also spoke of the same. "The Adelaide Mercenary Company has received an identical request. My Jedda Sandivar is long overdue for an

Undrade animau. All of the fighting in the Torald Middle Zone has allowed us to acome

A huge amount of MTA credits and war merits. I have been saving up for an even more

Dramatic upgrade in the future, but it is not bad to transform my Jedda Sandivar into a first-class ace light skirmisher now rather than later. I want my mech to be able to fight at its very best in time for the rumored final push to arrive."

Not everyone believed in the rumors of a possible final push by the native aliens, but it did not hurt to take precautions in advance.

Perhaps the Red Three got spooked by news of this possible alien attack as well, which

Was why they insisted on turning so many second-class ace mechs into first-class ace

Mechs!

"Saint Chisholm?" Ketis inquired.

The Blood-Soaked Castrator eagerly nodded. "I am also being reassigned. The Red Association has promised additional material and technical support to upgrade my Hessex Impaler. The mechers even promised that all of the helpers they send my way

Will be women. They have high hopes that my ace mech can significantly weaken and disrupt the concentration of male phase lords."

Most of the native alien civilizations in the Red Ocean tended to be patriarchal. It was

Not necessarily the case that female aliens were being oppressed, but they had less opportunities to transcend their mortality and take an active role in the Red War.

Most of the female phase whales and phase lords remained in the rear of alien space for the time being.

This was good news for Saint Chisholm. The fewer female phase lords on the battlefield, the more she was able to gain a massive advantage when fighting against the male native gods!

Ketis briefly wondered whether the Heavensword regarded itself as a 'male' artifact.

During the times she was able to wield it, she gained the distinct impression that its original owner and user had definitely been a man!

Sadly, it appeared that Ketis would not be able to learn the answer, because the Blood-Soaked Castrator would soon depart from the expeditionary fleet! She turned to the champion of her own clan.

"Casella?"

"I will be available, at least for the next couple of months." The ace command pilot

Responded with a reassuring smile. "The only issue is that my Minerva is still an expert mech, so it is constraining my performance. My approach to combat is also not as suited to suppress a sword that is at least as powerful as an ace mech by itself." "Thank you regardless, Casella. Any help is appreciated."

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