The Mech Touch

The struggle at the center of the battlefield was one of the more important contention points of this massive battle.

Winning the flanks didnʼt necessarily mean anything if the enemies at the center managed to break through in the middle!

While the Pima Defenders clearly did not possess any inclination to lead any charges, that did not mean its offensive power was lacking.

The formidable defenses of its heavy mechs granted them enormous pushing power. They could slowly lead a counterattack just by advancing the battle lines at a slow and steady pace.

This was why General Verle handed over the responsibility of breaking the backs of this amazingly resilient mech division to the Avatars of Myth.

So far, Ves was mildly satisfied with the performance of his mechs. It was beautiful to see that the ideas he realized with great effort finally bore fruit in their first real test on the battlefield.

”The modularization of the Bright Warrior Mark II is not a mistake.” Ves concluded. ”The mech pilots are clearly having a good time and their fighting spirit has reached a new peak.”

As a mech designer, it was important to pay attention to customer satisfaction. Ves kept track of various indicators to analyze whether the Bright Warrior Mark IIʼs allowed the mech pilots to maximize or inhibit their combat potential.

He had seen no cases of the latter so far. The Avatars were thorough in this regard and never assigned their mech pilots to the wrong mechs.

”Their mech pilots are also performing particularly well.”

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Whether they were veterans or recent recruits, every Avatar mech pilot not only possessed impeccable skill, but also exhibited a particularly deep mastery of their machines!

The MSTS developed by Ves and the deep exchange technology developed by Hempkamp certainly played a significant role, but it was the Avatars themselves that also put in extra effort.

Through the invocation technique originally developed by the Avatars themselves in a botched attempt to create their own battle formation, their mech pilots all ʼinvokedʼ different design spirits, thereby allowing them to get affected by different moods that could all play a useful role on the battlefield!

”For the clan!”

By default, the Avatars liked to invoke the Golden Cat. Not only did she have access to the collective piloting skills of the entire Larkinson Clan, her aura also united the clansmen.

Other design spirits were also helpful under different circumstances. For example, pilots of the Sword Warriors tended to invoke Zeigra for aggression while the pilots of the Knight Warriors mostly begged for support from Qilanxo.

”Itʼs a pity that all of the glows at their disposal canʼt change the fact that they canʼt make those HiCap energy shields deplete faster.” Ves sighed.

As Ves saw more and more Bright Warrior Mark IIʼs getting stalled by the intractable defenses of the Pima Defender mechs, it was clear that the new standard mech model of the Larkinson Army still showcased the same deficiencies as before.

Even with all of the modularization options, the fact of the matter was that it was almost impossible for the Bright Warrior Mark II to outperform other specialized mech models in their areas of specialties.

For example, all of the Sword Warriors that carried all kinds of heavy swords, heavy sabers and other weapons suitable for fighting against heavy mechs could not exceed the Redaxe when it came to armor-breaking capabilities!

The Avatars compensated for this as best as possible by employing creative loadouts that served to confuse, disorient and divide the Pima Defender mechs, but when it came to hard power, the Bright Warriors clearly showed deficiencies.

”Well, this is still within my expectation.”

The only real shortcoming of the Avatar of Myth in this battle was that it lacked a powerful way to break powerful energy shields up close.

Ranged support became more and more necessary to grind down the tough HiCap energy shields that protected the majority of the mech models employed by the Pima Defenders.

”It would have been great if I could come up with the melee equivalent of a luminar crystal rifle.” Ves idly thought.

The idea sounded silly. Luminar crystal weapons were meant to generate powerful energy beams that could be launched at distant targets.

They were never supposed to be swung around like clubs!

Still, after thinking about it further, it was not that unrealistic to create a luminar crystal that would withstand the rigors of melee combat.

Ves would probably have to invest a lot of expensive materials to make such a hard crystal, but he could easily envision a future where he might be able to design a melee mech that wielded a luminar crystal sword or a luminar crystal hammer one day!

He could already imagine it now. It would have been perfect if a melee mech came up and swung a luminar crystal weapon that was charged with disruptor energy against a hardy heavy space knight like the Modal Firmament!

”I should explore this idea further after I have time.”

Ves felt more and more vindicated for participating in this battle. He not only noticed many shortcomings of his existing work, but also gained a lot of inspiration for potential new mech design projects.

He missed this experience. It had been far too long since he had last sent his troops into battle against a formidable opponent. The paltry battle records brought back by Larkinsons who completed mercenary missions simply couldnʼt compare to the true challenges that their mech in a real battle!

After noting all of the possible areas of improvement of the Bright Warrior Mark II, Ves shifted his analytical gaze to the other mechs of the Avatars.

The Redaxe was one of the main players in the battle at the center. The powerful axeman mechs designed by Tifi, Sara and Ves a few years ago not only exhibited a lot of power, but also a lot of aggression!

Spurred on by Zeigraʼs aggressive aura, the Redaxes not only inflicted heavy damage to the HiCap energy shields of their opponents, but never failed to split apart the tough and resilient armor of the enemy heavy mechs once they lost their primary form of defense!

Ves was particularly satisfied with the Redaxeʼs ability to inflict heavy kinetic damage to armored targets.

While there were lancer mechs that could inflict even greater damage with a single attack run, all of those machines required a lot of room to work with. This became increasingly harder on a busy battlefield.

The advantage of the Redaxes was that they could hack with great force due to the prodigious arm strength they possessed. Tifi Coslone had done a good job with imbuing these medium mechs with such great strength that they could pose a serious threat against heavy mechs!

”We need to increase the proportion of Redaxes in our fleet.” Ves determined. ”They are just too useful in breaking through difficult obstacles.”

Their mild success in widening the gap in the center of the enemy formation was a testament to their offensive might!

It was a pity that it was not an optimal mech to fight against defensive mechs that relied heavily on energy shields.

”Fortunately, I still have another mech model that is a bit more effective at wearing down the shields of the Pima Defenders.”

Ves and the other designers of the Larkinson Clan came up with plenty of mech models over the years.

Some of them had gone on to become the staple mechs of different mech legions due to their obvious strength and utility.

Iconic mech lines such as the Bright Warrior, the Ferocious Piranha, the Valkyrie Redeemer and the Transcendent Punisher had become the defining classics of the Larkinson Army.

However, for every idea that had proven to be good, there were many other ones that had not been tested as much.

These mechs usually came into existence after Ves or another mech designer fell into an experimental mood.

Each of them were characterized with new technologies, creative implementations or unusual configurations.

As long as their value and effectiveness on the battlefield could not be determined, the Larkinsons did not dare to commit to them too much. It was not too late to produce additional copies and field them in large numbers once they proved their concepts.

The Lucid Rage was one such mech design.

Although the Avatars had only adopted them on a relatively small scale, their performance became just as noteworthy as that of the Redaxe.

”Interesting.” Ves remarked as he leaned closer.

The premise of the Lucid Rage was simple. It was a melee mech that sought to transform the well-known combination between Zeigra and Lufa into a positive influence.

”I donʼt know what I was thinking at the time.”

Originally, he came up with the design project as an attempt to develop a more focused dueling mech that could hone the skills and exercise the mental resilience of the mech pilot in combat.

Although Ves had made sure that none of the suppressive glows of his mechs should take effect on his own troops, he did not want his mech pilots to get caught off-guard if they ever came under the effect of the glow of a Valkyrie Redeemer or a Ferocious Piranha!

As such, he specifically wanted to develop a mech that could serve as both a training tool and a machine where skilled mech pilots could learn to fight more effectively when subjected to great mental pressure.

In order to form the suitable combination of glows, Ves had spent many days on experimenting with different ratios of design spirit occupation.

He constantly strengthened or weakened the influence of Zeigra and Lufa over the Lucid Rage in order to come up with the most optimal balance.

It was a bit of an accident that he had inadvertently hit a sweet spot where Zeigra and Lufaʼs glows just happened to preserve their advantages while covering for each otherʼs weaknesses!

Zeigraʼs influence usually encouraged aggression and ferocity among mech pilots, but the problem was that those affected by this fever usually became prone to tunnel visioning.

Lufaʼs glow and in particular its Aspect of Rationality variant was great at making people more sober and objective, allowing them to make much more optimal decisions. The problem with that was that their fighting spirit also became snuffed!

The brilliance of the Lucid Rage was that it was able to create a near-impossibility where its glow could make a mech pilot aggressive and ferocious in combat but also rational enough to make intelligent decisions!

This was a miracle according to many mech pilots. The Lucid Rage seemed to bring out the best of many of them no matter what kind of tendencies they possessed.

More emotional and aggressive mech pilots tended to become a lot more focused and less easy to fool after getting affected by the Lucid Rageʼs glow!

More cold-blooded and timid mech pilots gained a good dose of aggression, but not enough for them to lose their minds and go on attack without a plan.

In any case, the end result completely surpassed the original scope of trying to design an arena mech that could allow mech athletes to draw out their full potential in a mech duel!

”What is really surprising is how effectively they can drain the HiCap energy shields of the enemy with their plasma tonfas.”

Tonfas were complex weapons that possessed a lot of different ways to outfight an opposing enemy mech.

Initially, the tonfas that Ves designed for the Lucid Rage did not seem that impressive.

As an offensive mech, he truly could not imagine the Lucid Rage impressing anyone if it was limited to swinging around two weirdly-shaped batons.

In order to enhance their lethality in actual combat, Ves felt obliged to add a bit of extra oomph to them by turning their tips into plasma torches.

The tech was based on the same principles behind industrial plasma cutters. The only major difference was that the plasma torches implemented in the Lucid Rage were larger, more robust and much more damaging!

”They also happen to be more effective against energy shields.”