The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5782 Breaking Point

It was as if all of red humanity collectively froze for a moment.

Then, every single person in the grand hall descended onto their knees as they greeted the arrival of the god pilots with utmost respect.

Many people who viewed the broadcast from afar did likewise even if they were many light-years away from the actual venue.

They rose up a short moment later, but meticulously remained silent in order to avoid disturbing the powerful new arrivals.

No one knew what else they were supposed to do at this time.

An unthinkable event took place!

The magnitude of what Ves had spontaneously unleashed onto human society was so disruptive that no one could dismiss his words anymore!

He had done the unthinkable. He did what many people always wanted to do but never had the power or the courage to voice their forbidden intentions in public.

He challenged the hegemons of the human race.

For the entire duration of the Age of Mechs, the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance reigned supreme over humanity.

Though they refrained from outright taking over every territory of every single star nation that existed all of the time, their overwhelming military might easily enabled them to take charge of many of the institutions that actually mattered.

As much as they couched their mission and their public image in a benevolent slant, at the end of the day they had become the latest tyrants to rule over human civilization.

The Red Two at the start of the Age of Dawn sought to extend this pattern.

They were doing a decent job at that so far. The arrival of exotic radiation had forced them to adapt to the changing circumstances, but their existing foundations were so strong that their grip on red humanity remained strong.

Careful adaptations such as the Deep Strike Plan, the New Elites Program and the Auxiliary Fleet Program enabled the mechers and the fleeters to retain much of their existing power base while placating the most immediate needs of space peasants.

Ves was sure that the Red Association and the Red Fleet already had plans in store for the latest phenomenon that was gradually permeating through people's lives.

Cultivation was too universal, too accessible and too dangerous to be left unchecked.

Given the secretive behavior of the mechers and the fleeters, they likely drafted different plans on how to gradually manage the introduction and the takeover of cultivation in the following years.

Different factions had different goals and priorities, which complicated this entire process.

The Fifth Enforcement Fleet obviously wanted to ban it in its entirety, or at least lay the groundwork of imposing heavy regulations.

Their gambits during the public inquiry could be regarded as one of the centerpieces of their strategy.

Ves recognized now that Admiral Amelie Jameson and her ilk never targeted his living mechs specifically, but wanted to use him as a vehicle to advance their actual goal, which was the suppression of cultivation as a whole.

All of this was fine except for one fact.

Ves never asked to be used in this way.

To run roughshod of his rights and completely disregard his interests in order to achieve a greater goal rankled him to no end!

Ves truly hated the Fifth Enforcement Fleet.

He hated the Jamesons for being able to bend the rules whenever they wished.

He despised the old-fashioned fleeters who were so paranoid of an old threat that they resorted to dirty measures in order to cripple its resurgence.

Though Ves was not willing to kill them if he met them on the street one day, these obstinate fleeters had pushed him so much that he wanted to ruin their day in any way he could!

It was through that explosion of rage and fury that he suddenly came up with the most crazy but brilliant plan he conceived during a crisis.

Why not add a competitor to the Red Two?

The Red Association and the Red Fleet may behave like enemies to each other, but when it came to their power duopoly, they were united on this issue.

The mechers and fleeters hated it when they had to share power with others!

Ves knew for certain that he could royally piss off Admiral Amelie Jameson and her Fifth Enforcement Fleet if he proposed to add a major competitor to the Red Fleet. He would permanently burn his bridges with a powerful fleet that hated weirdos with a passion and had plenty of practice squashing them down.

He would make enemies with a lot of other people as well. Ves had no idea whether the more moderate and open-minded fleeters who were previously supportive of living mechs would still have his back after he threatened their fundamental power base.

The Red Association was another big concern. The mechers stood to lose just as much as the fleeters if they had to share power with a third human super-organization!

If he did not handle this situation well enough, he would paint such a giant target on his back that he wouldn't be surprised if an RF dreadnought appeared in orbit of Ector V and launched a weapon of mass destruction on Charvey in the hopes of killing Ves on the spot!

Ves would have never dared to take this risk if he was in a calmer and more rational mood.

The clever way to go about it was to float this proposal through proxies or anonymously. There were plenty of ways for Ves to circulate the idea of founding a new cultivation association.

Announcing it directly was a lot more dangerous, but also had a much greater chance of eliciting support from the major leaders and factions of red humanity!

His famous identity and the huge amount of attention drawn by the public inquiry made it impossible for his proposal to get dismissed out of hand!

Still, it was one thing to listen to his proposal.

It was another thing to actually respond to it! Anyone who backed Ves up would directly challenge the legitimacy and the interests of the Red Two!

However, he did not choose to flip the board to such an astonishing degree because he wanted to screw the Fifth Enforcement Fleet over before committing suicide.

He recognized a fleeting opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Ves keenly recognized numerous vulnerabilities that he could exploit as long as everything went in his way.

The first vulnerability was that the Red Two were not universally popular.

They had made plenty of enemies, and there were bound to be a lot of people who were more than willing to take them down a notch.

They just did not dare to do so by themselves because they would turn themselves into targets to the most powerful humans in the Red Ocean.

The second vulnerability was that the mechers and the fleeters were not that homogenous and united.

Both the Red Association and the Red Fleet were divided into different factions. The Fifth Enforcement Fleet sat on one end while the Transhumanist Faction sat on the opposite end of the spectrum.

The former hated his guts, but the latter was a lot more sympathetic to his ideas!

The third vulnerability was that god pilots were not logical beings.

They were willpower made manifest. They used to be humans who pushed their willpower to an insane height by being more stubborn, mule-headed and committed to their personal convictions and ideologies than anyone else!

While they were old, wise and intelligent enough to understand the greater picture, they were more than willing to throw aside carefully laid plans as long as their ambitions and principles were at stake!

Even though Ves had made an exceedingly dangerous gamble by proposing the formation of a third major organization, he knew that he would have a slim but realistic chance of getting away with it as long as he managed to elicit the support of a single god pilot!

Even though they were intimidating as hell, god pilots were not all that different from other high-ranking mech pilots.

If there was one group of people that Ves knew how to appeal towards, it was mech pilots.

He knew how they thought.

He knew what made them tick.

He knew how to earn their respect.

He knew how much value they placed in their conviction.

This was why he specifically targeted two god pilots with his seemingly suicidal speech!

The Destroyer of Worlds was the most likely god pilot to come to his aid. She genuinely recognized that she had only managed to become as powerful as she was today with his help. As far as she was concerned, he made her. The gratitude she owed him was immense.

Given this enormous personal debt, a god pilot would be more than willing to violate any prohibition, order or political consideration to help a genuine friend and benefactor in need!

Ves would have already been able to save his hide with Emma's highly welcome appearance, but that did not necessarily mean his proposal could get off the ground.

If he truly wanted his proposal to get taken seriously, then he needed the support of more than just a Rubarthan god pilot.

He needed the backing of at least one powerful leader from the Red Association.

This was why he had set his sights on the Evolution Witch.

Though he had never met her in person, he had collected plenty of information about her. He watched her battle footage and he listened to the personal insights shared by Vector Loban.

From what Ves could surmise, the Evolution Witch was not so much a mech pilot, but more of a woman who was addicted to self-improvement.

In other words, she was a consummate cultivator!

Though she had ostensibly reached the height of her power by taking charge of one of the most important factions of the Red Association, her goals weren't necessarily aligned with the Red Association as a whole.

Ves even knew that as long as he said the right words, he could effectively persuade her into betraying her own organization!

He couldn't help but smirk when her physical projection intruded into the grand hall.

The moment the Evolution Witch took the bait that he had especially laid out for her, Ves knew that he had truly turned the tide!

Planetary Governor Rod Mergan-Castelaus had been rendered completely irrelevant at this time.

No one paid the disgraced moderator any further notice. Not only had he been discredited, there was no way he could bring the proceedings back to order because there was no way a mortal like him dared to instruct an actual god in human form!

The dual appearances of the Destroyer of Worlds and the Evolution Witch had radically shifted the scope of the evolving debate!

The only individuals that could make a decision on this highly consequential were tier 1 galactic citizens.

Everyone else had been relegated to the background.

In order to emphasize this shift, Ves deliberately chose to fold his true body again.

His gigantic form slowly began to return to normal proportions.

Fortunately for his dignity, his nanosuit ensured that he maintained his dignity throughout this transformation.

"<nullb>Miew~"

The remote manifestation of Emma casually approached and dropped into his arms.

The Destroyer of Worlds clearly did not intend to be an active participant of this historic debate.

She deliberately manifested her companion spirit who could only communicate with miews in order to offer her passive support for Ves. Her actions clearly showed that she would take it as a personal affront if anyone sought to threaten his life!

That was enough. Ves did not ask for anything more. He fully understood that Irene did not want to overstep her boundaries and make an impulsive and emotional decision that would have enormous repercussions for the Rubarthan Pact.

Ves' giant head slowly shifted towards the small human projection that nonetheless radiated entire orders of magnitude more power than himself!

"Your Holiness, I am honored to be graced by your exalted presence. I have heard much about you, and I genuinely admire your journey, your accomplishments and your vision for red humanity. I am pleased that you find common ground with my proposal."

Divine Lucie Miyazaki was an incredibly intimidating god pilot. She was among the younger ones to reach her exalted rank, but she was famed for her aggression and her willingness to resort to drastic measures.

She also did not appear to be that personable up close, unlike Divine Irene Mox.

Even if her power was largely restrained by the huge distance between her actual location and Ector V, being stared at by her physical projection actually exerted a lot of pressure onto Ves!

This was a woman who did not tolerate nonsense!

"<nullb>ELABORATE." The Evolution Witch imperiously commanded to Ves. "<nullb>TELL US YOUR VISION FOR THIS PROPOSED NEW REGULATORY ORGANIZATION."

"I would be happy to do so, Your Holiness."