The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5873 Redefining Combat Power

Caramond and his Bloodfire Legion wiped out the remaining lightning insect formation with ease.

Now that the first domino stone had fallen, the freed up troops quickly moved to reinforce another division of Dread Marines that was locked into a stalemate with a nearly identical formation of lightning insects.

Even without Caramond's involvement, the lightning insect formation would have fallen anyway.

With twice as many Dread Marines attacking the same metallic energy barrier, the tribulation manifestations sheltering underneath did not stand a chance!

"<nullb>Cleanse the aliens with flame!"

Caramond once again eliminated the insect champion that had managed to fell a few Dread Marines before a blast of flame wiped it out in an explosive fashion.

All of the lightning baptisms that took place strengthened a lot of new Dread Marines. Caramond did not hesitate to commandeer the ones that had just become empowered by fire and lightning and added them to his network.

Though Ves and Blinky had to do even more work than before, Caramond had become powerful enough that he could easily micromanage the new connections.

Soon, the remaining lightning insect formations got rolled with greater ease. Their dispersion made it easy for the human troops to defeat them in detail.

In the end, just a little under 100,000 Dread Marines had fallen under the banner of the Dreadfire Legion!

Each and every marine felt proud to be fighting under the 'revived' Supreme Marshal.

Even though nobody knew whether Caramond was a reincarnation of the real deal or just an elaborate imitation, it ultimately did not matter.

Caramond's network connected their hearts and minds together into a collective that was fully dedicated towards defending the human race.

They felt proud and fulfilled each time they advanced their common cause. Their differences did not matter anymore as the fire energy along with Caramond's growing domain made them feel as if they had become founding members of an elite order of human protectors!

Caramond himself felt fulfilled as well. He not only acted according to his own nature, but also got rewarded for each. Every victory against the lightning soldiers fed him with tribulation energies that constantly destroyed his weaknesses before reinforcing what was left.

Defeating the champion insects especially facilitated his evolution. The stronger cultivators possessed much more aliens that inflicted greater pain but also produced superior gains.

Blinky and Ves also gained a lot from these victories, even if Caramond claimed most of the bounty.

Regardless, they had become considerably more capable than before. The next wave of enemies was bound to challenge them even further, but they were confident that their growing strength would see them through.

Caramond already started to pump up his footsoldiers.

"<nullb>We have overcome a decent challenge today, but do not rest on your laurels. Every human who is dependent on our protection has invested their hopes and dreams onto us. Death or slavery awaits us all if we fail to step up to the occasion. We are the vanguard of humanity's second rise. From the moment you have been baptized by fire and lighting, each of you have become the physical embodiment of human superiority on the battlefield. Take pride in your gains, but do not forget what you are fighting for. So long as red humanity stands, the Dominion of Man shall conquer the stars!"

As the newborn ancestral spirit already started to put his inherent leadership skills to work, Ves took the time to reflect on what he learned.

Ves had grown thoroughly impressed by the teamwork that he had established with his ancestral spirit.

The notion of letting Caramond descend into Blinky was an inspired idea that had opened up a lot of new possibilities.

Ves was quite satisfied with the huge boost in direct combat power.

Right now, Blinky had turned into a threat that was powerful enough to defeat at least some first-class mechs in his current state!

The only issue was that the conditions needed to replicate Blinky's current state were too demanding.

Much of the power wielded by Blinky and Caramond came from the Spark Reactor. The two spirits hadn't really contributed any of their own energies. They predominantly relied on the raw power of fire energy to punch above their weight.

Even so, Ves actually had high hopes for this new method. If he ever got himself into another fight where his guards couldn't handle the problem, he could actively weaponize Blinky by borrowing the power of his more powerful design spirits.

While this technique was not capable of mustering the full power of strong entities such as Qilanxo, the Superior Mother, Helena, Gaia and now Caramond, it was better than anything he could do in the past.

Ves actually wanted to smack his head due to how he overlooked this possibility for so long. He had Blinky for many years, yet not once did he think about letting his companion spirit merge with his other entities.

He felt rather grateful that the current lightning tribulation had pushed him into developing another way to fight against his enemies.

In hindsight, it had been a good idea to restrict him from fighting like a phase lord. Ves may have grown a little too reliant on it. While it was not a bad idea to rely on his inhuman physique to resist his enemies, it had clear weaknesses and vulnerabilities that many enemies could exploit.

It had become well-known that he had managed to become a phase lord. He couldn't treat it as a trump card anymore as his enemies would definitely take his abnormal physique into account when they made another attempt at his life.

He needed to develop new trump cards, and what better way to do so than the better leverage the advantages bestowed by Blinky?

Ves rarely considered Blinky to be of much help in combat. While he was fairly strong against spiritual opponents, he was mainly brought to life to serve as a living alternative to the Grand Dynamo.

In other words, Ves mainly treated Blinky as a complement to his design work rather than a proper combat asset.

It was therefore strange for Ves to adjust to the reality where Blinky had suddenly become a powerful qi cultivator.

The companion spirit hadn't suddenly become strong in his own right, though. He still had a long way to go before his Imaginary Universe Method had reached an advanced stage of cultivation.

What Ves truly valued was Blinky's cheat-like ability to channel other entities a lot more effectively than any other alternative!

Ves' close relationships with his spirits along with Blinky's amazing affinity and compatibility with spiritual energy resulted in a game changer that had many implications.

It completely changed his perspective on Blinky's combat power.

Whenever he employed his companion spirit in battle, he shouldn't treat the Star Cat as a fairly weak qi cultivator.

As long as Blinky successfully summoned another powerful entity, his actual strength would fall somewhere in between.

Whatever the case, Blinky was undoubtedly able to defeat many more opponents that he would have struggled against if he was by himself!

It would have been ideal if Ves was able to replicate Blinky's current state.

The main reason why the combination of Blinky and Caramond was able to smash the powerful insect champions was because they relied on an external source of power to fuel their attacks.

This meant that once Ves departed from the Dominion of Man, there was no way for him to tap into a readily available source of fire energy again.

Ves grew disappointed at this realization. The potent energy generated by the living spark was amazingly powerful yet also highly responsive due to the Bloodfire Pact.

A part of him began to feel greedy towards the Dominion of Man. He wanted to claim the powerful dreadnought for himself and utilize her as his permanent flagship.

How glorious would it be for him to have one of the most powerful warship in the Red Ocean at his disposal!

Unfortunately, there was no way the Red Fleet would agree to surrender control of one of its most strategic assets.

Even if Ves managed to be promoted to a tier 1 galactic citizen one day, he seriously doubted that he could take over the Dominion of Man just by asking nicely. The powerful dreadnought would have grown even stronger if she managed to survive this lighting tribulation, so that was an even greater reason for the fleeters to cling to their evolving treasure.

"I need to build my own power source." He concluded.

It was not necessary for Ves to construct a massive and insanely expensive dreadnought like the Dominion of Man.

There was no need to limit himself to constructing any starship.

What truly mattered was that he needed to have a mobile power source on hand that he could tap into whenever he wanted to supply a huge amount of energy to Blinky.

The power source could be integrated into a mech, a shuttle, a mechanical pet or even a backpack module that could be slotted into his Unending Regalia!

Ves was spoiled for choice. He could realize all of the aforementioned options if he wanted to. The added redundancies would be helpful in case he found himself in situations where he wasn't able to bring his own mechs along.

The real issue was the properties of the power source.

The Spark Reactor was the most impressive power generator he had ever seen. Ves could scarcely imagine anything better.

Ves could make do with smaller and weaker power generators, but what he could not miss out on was a source of E energy.

There was no way Ves could get his hands on anything comparable to living spark.

This mysterious True God-like entity likely had close relations to the stolen Fire Scroll or the inscrutable Five Scrolls Compact.

Ves needed to find another alternative.

"How can I get my hands on an extraordinary power source?"

The Red Ocean was big and diverse, so Ves was pretty sure that he could find a viable solution if he looked hard enough.

He already came up with three promising possibilities.

The first one was to exploit powerful mutated beasts. So long as he captured one that possessed the right attributes, he could stuff them in a cage and prod the prisoner to output E energy on demand.

Suffice to say, Ves quickly deemed this option to be far too dangerous for him to try. Mutated beasts were difficult to subdue as they were constantly involved and grew stronger based on environmental pressures.

There was a high chance that the imprisoned beast would explode in strength and tear apart the 'E energy generator' at the worst possible time!

The second idea was to create a pale and weak imitation of the living spark. Ves could create a specialized spiritual product that deliberately lacked a personality so that it remained docile while stuffed inside an E energy generator.

The issue here was that such an entity would take a long time to grow into a more formidable source of E energy.

The third option required Ves to collaborate with another mech designer.

Now that he thought about it, Master Benedict Cortez's design applications appeared to be well-suited to supply Ves what he needed to make this work!

His Original Energy Bridge System and to a lesser degree the Endex System were capable of generating varying amounts of energy by themselves.

This included E energy!

Master Benedict Cortez had become obsessed with this as of late. He recognized the advantages of supplying his mechs with more E energy than what background radiation could provide, so he specifically experimented with new technologies and materials to transform his Endex System into a highly efficient E energy reactor!

"This sounds perfect!"

The only issue was that the Endex System was not powerful enough as of yet, but that was partially because it had only ever been utilized in second-class mechs.

Ves wondered how much stronger the Endex System would be if Master Benedict developed a first-class version of his signature technology?