The Mech Touch

Frustration and unwillingness mounted in the hearts and minds of all three high-ranking mech pilots.

Each of them were struggling to defeat their opponents.

This was not necessarily because the humanoid energy manifestations were directly more powerful than the mechs they faced.

Instead, it looked as if their overall energy output was not that much different from the respective mechs.

The Elegant Swordsman fought with power that was equivalent to that of an ace mech such as the Amphis Extremis.

The Teenage Swordswoman and the Muscular Swordsman both fought at the same power level as the two Larkinson expert mechs.

Since Ketis possessed a clear overview of all of the duels, she knew in her heart that the First Sword and the Everchanger hadn't fallen into a disadvantage because they were underpowered.

The two expert mechs were losing because they failed to utilize their power as well as their adversaries.

For example, if the three energy projections were making optimal use of at least 90 percent of their comprehensive resources, then the utilization of resources of the high-ranking mechs was substantially less, ranging from around 80 percent in the case of the Amphis Extremis to as low as 40 percent for the Everchanger!

The expert hero mech was especially badly affected. Venerable Joshua failed to find a way to make good use of the ranged capabilities of his machine.

That massively wasted the Everchanger's combat power and caused the living mech to fight as if he was already partially crippled!

It didn't help that the opponents selected by the Heavensword seemed tailor-made to exploit their weaknesses and evade their strengths. This exacerbated the difference in energy utilization. The mechs that were at a slight disadvantage began to suffer a lot harder than they should.

Still, Ketis believed that this was not an excuse for Venerable Dise and Venerable Joshua to fall so badly behind.

The battlefield was never fair.

Venerable Dise and Venerable Joshua were both mature expert pilots that had fought plenty of battles in the past where they had fallen behind.

The quality that separated expert pilots from standard mech pilots was that the former did not back down, and always tried to find a way to surpass their own limitations as well as their opponents in order to secure victory!

So far, Ketis saw no sign of a turnaround, but she remained hopeful that one may be on the way.

What also caught her attention was that neither side had resorted to their greater capabilities.

The energy projections were most definitely capable of pulling off extraordinary sword techniques with the Heavensword, yet religiously stuck to only the most basic and foundational sword techniques.

The pilots were smart enough to withhold their own special attack abilities for the time being. Once they began to escalate, their opponents would undoubtedly follow suit!

If there was no other choice, then Venerable Dise and Venerable Joshua could always choose to make the first move, but doing so would probably cause them to fail their apparent tests.

They held themselves back not just because they wanted to play by the rules of the Heavensword, but because their pride and their hunger for a challenge did not permit them to cheat their way out of their problems!

As frustrated as the two Larkinson expert pilots felt, they were both aware that they usually entered in these kinds of moods prior to a possible breakthrough attempt. Having tried and failed to grasp the moment to smash through their bottlenecks and advance to the rank of ace pilot like Isobel Kotin, Dise and Joshua felt as if they had both been left behind by a pilot who originally became a demigod later than themselves.

Even if the experience of every high-ranking mech pilot should be unique, the Swordmaiden and the Golden Boy still felt inferior due to this difference.

When the critical time had come, Isobel Kotin did not back off, but decisively chose to burn herself and her living mech and got rewarded for her courage!

If Venerable Dise and Venerable Joshua wanted to rise to a greater height, then they must at least demonstrate as much courage and fearlessness as Isobel Kotin!

Taking the easy way out and forfeiting a challenge contradicted this ideal,

If they wanted to take a step forward, then they could not afford to falter!

However, if there was no way for them to raise their energy utilization, then they might not have another choice.

"Come on, Dise. Come on Joshua. Please figure it out. The two of you can do it. I know it. You just need to connect the dots."

Ketis did not pick it up at first, but she eventually managed to figure out a way for both Larkinson expert pilots to permanently increase their energy utilization and beat their adversaries fair and square.

The question now was whether Dise and Joshua would be able to make this realization in time.

Even Saint Linda Cross had much to learn about how to better make use of her abilities as an ace pilot.

The spectating swordmaster felt tempted to just give the answers to the two Larkinson expert pilots, but she had a strong feeling that this was a challenge that they needed to overcome through their own efforts in order to make it truly count.

Spoiling the secret to them was like giving students the answers sheet corresponding to an exam that they were supposed to take tomorrow.

There was no real accomplishment in both cases!

Of the two pilots she paid close attention to, Ketis felt that Venerable Dise had the highest expectations for Venerable Dise.

Her options were much more limited than that of Venerable Joshua.

The First Sword was a simple expert mech armed with only one primary weapon. Venerable Dise brought nothing to the table aside from her extraordinary willpower, her piloting and swordsmanship skills and her companion spirit.

There was not much she could do with this toolkit. If Venerable Dise wanted to vanquish the Muscular Swordsman that was beating up the relatively fragile First Sword as if her attacks didn't matter, then the expert pilot needed to think out of the box as soon as

Possible!

"Tch! My mech can't take these hits for much longer!"

Shortly after Venerable Dise discovered that the opposing mad dog's attacks could not be easily blocked or evaded, she tried her best to spread out the places where the earth-empowered blade eventually struck.

This allowed Dise to prolong the First Sword's time in the field and delayed the onset of critical damage to the internals.

Even so, she could not prevent her expert mech from suffering minor internal damage due to all of the physical impacts and shocks.

This slightly decreased her expert mech's performance, causing her mech frame to incur

Even greater damage!

This was the scariest aspect of this bout. The First Sword was already struggling to stay afloat when she was still in peak condition.

How much faster would the living expert mech get defeated once she started to suffer an increasing amount of malfunctions and system failures?

Venerable Dise felt more and more urgent to figure out a countermeasure against the winning formula of the Muscular Swordsman.

She felt incredibly indignant at the thought of losing against this apparent brute! Even if the masculine sword wielder was actually a lot wiser and more knowledgeable for making such deep attainments in the earth element, Dise could not accept the idea of suffering defeat at the hands of such a stupid-looking energy manifestation! Her unwillingness fueled her resistance. She kept fighting not because she saw a pathway towards victory, but because she wanted to avoid an embarrassing defeat! The Muscular Swordsman did not make this easy for her. He charged forward yet again while simultaneously preventing the First Sword from evading or slipping away by strengthening his earth aura!

The persistent energy field somehow caused the surrounding fabric space to distort, as if the Muscular Swordsman had become a planet that exerted enough gravitational pull to force a 'moon' like the First Sword into orbit!

There was a strong sense of inevitability and righteousness to an obvious distortion of

The natural laws!

The Muscular Swordsman was nowhere near as massive as a planet, and the First Sword did not even come close to matching the mass of an actual moon!

Yet because of the strange and weaker variation of domain field actively levered E energy radiation so well, the actual results were multiple times stronger than what the Muscular Swordsman could manage by relying on his own energy reserves! This was also why the Muscular Swordsman was able to manipulate so much earth energy. He borrowed it from the environment rather than waste much more precious heavenly energy to produce his results.

Venerable Dise suddenly shuddered as she managed to make a profound realization! Even as her momentary distraction almost caused the Muscular Swordsman to cut off one of the First Sword's arms, the expert swordsman mech pilot still couldn't shake off

Her inspired idea!

"DISE..." The First Sword communicated with her battle partner. "THIS... MAY BE THE ANSWER THAT YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SINCE YOUR FAILURE AGAINST THE

EMPEROR TREE."

"Do you think so as well?" Dise smiled even though the First Sword was still stuck in a terrible position.

"BACK THEN, YOU WERE SO DESPERATE TO CHASE AFTER POWER THAT YOU ALMOST THOUGHT ABOUT TURNING YOURSELF INTO A BEAST. IF YOU GAVE IN TO YOUR TEMPTATION, YOU WOULD HAVE THROWN AWAY EVERYTHING THAT MADE YOU A SWORDSWOMAN AND REPLACE IT WITH MINDLESS SAVAGERY, SUCH A PILOT BEARS LITTLE RESEMBLANCE TO YOUR TRUE SELF. NOW THAT YOU HAVE FOUND A WAY TO BECOME STRONGER WHILE RETAINING YOUR SWORDSMANSHIP, YOU SHOULD GRASP IT WITH BOTH OF YOUR HANDS."

Venerable Dise had already made her decision.

She came up with her latest idea by comparing herself to her current adversary.

As far as swordsmanship was concerned, she still believed that hers was better.

What caused her to lose despite this obvious advantage was the Muscular Swordsman's heavy usage of his earth element mastery.

He not only made deep attainments with it, but also integrated it into his swordsmanship, allowing him to form a combat system that was simple, brutal and

Direct!

If Dise wanted to put up a proper resistance against this combination, then she needed

To form her own combination!

Dise became convinced that swordsmanship alone was not enough for her to gain the upper hand in this fight!

If she couldn't break the earth aura that constrained her expert mech and overcome the

Rock armor that protected the Muscular Swordsman from any serious harm, there was

No way for her to win this bout!

"I need to fight fire with fire!"

She meant that in a metaphorical sense, of course.

Dise quickly ruled out the use of the earth element. She had no special affinity or

Relationship with it, and she did not have a single clue on how to grasp and harness earth-attributed E energy.

She needed to find a different attribute. She learned about the importance of the

So-called 'five elements' recently, and one of them immediately caught her attention.

"Metal."

It had to be the metal element.

Her will was as hard as steel. Her mech was made out of unbreakable alloys. Her

All-metal sword was forged to cut through anything.

Though Venerable Dise initially had little idea on how to call upon the metal element in

The same way the Muscular Swordsman wielded the earth element, that soon changed. It was as if a switch had turned inside her heart.

Dise suddenly felt as if she had been fighting in an incomplete state all this time.

She never noticed it, just like how person who was born blind never understood what

Sight truly brought.

Yet now that she had synced up to the metal element, she belatedly discovered that she

Possessed a strong connection to the power of metal!

It was in her sword.

It was in her mech.

It was in the very core of her swordsmanship!

The metal element sang to her immediately after she recognized how deeply she

Embodied it already.

Venerable Dise effortlessly resonated with the power of metal. An energy vortex formed

Around the First Sword that caused the living mech to absorb a growing amount of

Ambient metal E energy.

Even though Dise and her battle partner did not know any sophisticated ways to leverage the metal element, their true resonance instinctively guided the metal energy to the exterior of the mech frame and the edge of the Decapitator sword.

It made an immediate difference in the First Sword's combat performance! When the Muscular Swordsman managed to launch another power attack that struck the battered and damaged expert swordsman mech, the earth-empowered blade failed

To inflict as much damage as before!

The metal element reinforcement had done its job and blunted the damaging strike! The

Mech frame did not even experience a single tremor from the heavy kinetic impact!

"I... am... UNSHAKEABLE!"

When Venerable Dise finally saw her chance to mount an effective counterattack, she soon controlled her expert mech to retaliate and circle around her adversary!

The earth aura tried to drag the First Sword into an invisible field of mud, but the metal

Reinforcement partially managed to resist this effect!

"I AM UNSTOPPABLE!"

The expert swordsman mech flew only a little bit slower as she successfully managed to

Flank her slower opponent before launching a retaliatory power attack! The Decapitator swung directly at the Muscular Swordsman's neck, aiming to decapitate

Or at least heavily injure the earth sword cultivator!

The Muscular Swordsman may be the slowest of the three energy manifestations, but he

Still managed to shift his stance at the last instance and move his shoulder in the way.

An entire arm got chopped off, causing the Muscular Swordsman to hastily switch the

Copy of the Heavensword to a one-handed grip!

After a long string of frustrations and setbacks, Venerable Dise derived so much satisfaction at this accomplishment that a dam had broken inside her being!

The First Sword victoriously raised her Decapitator upwards with both of her arms!

The sharp gleam of metal glinted across the entire ensemble!

"I AM UNBREAKABLE!"

The power of metal served as the last piece of puzzle that had brought Venerable Dise to

Completion!

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