The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5898 Trust in Faith

The decoys generated by the mirror beast had lost their ability to mingle with the actual humans serving on the Dominion of Man.

The absence of a white corona implied two different possibilities.

The most obvious reason why the individual in question failed to earn Caramond's recognition was because he or she was never truly human in the first place.

The less obvious reason was because the suspicious subject was truly human, yet did not believe in the cause that practically everyone living in human society learned in their first days at school.

That last part held troubling implications.

It was incredibly difficult for people to grow up in any part of human civilization without developing a massive sense of pride and confidence in their own species.

From the lowliest of third-rate states to the most powerful first-rate superstates, each of them had fallen into the grip of a culture centered around the inherent superiority of the human race.

The people who grew up in the spaceborn clan had especially been indoctrinated in these beliefs. It should have been impossible for any fleeter to develop a lack of faith in the human race.

This meant that there was something very wrong with the few real humans on the Dominion of Man who failed to connect with Caramond.

They may have given up on red humanity already. Perhaps all of the odds stacked against them had caused these fleeters to develop a fatalistic mindset.

There were also those who augmented their bodies so much that they lost too much of their humanity. The Red Fleet had always favored cybernetic implants over other forms of augmentation, and there were those who took it far enough to lose much of their emotion and their irrational human tendencies.

The most depressing possibility of all was that the fleeters who failed Caramond's test actively opposed the very concept of human superiority. They developed a much more sympathetic outlook towards alien races and did not believe their current enemies deserved to get killed just because they were different.

In other words, there was a realistic possibility that the Dominion of Man had been infiltrated by cosmopolitans!

There was no time to get to the bottom of it all. Dread Captain Argile was well aware that not everyone who lacked a white corona was hostile or disloyal.

Unfortunately, the continued threat posed by the mirror beast forced the captain to make a harsh but necessary judgment call.

"Eliminate every human on our ship who lacks Caramond's blessing."

The deaths happened quickly and brutally.

While a lot of decoys suddenly gained a huge amount of strength to the point where they were able to crack the azure energy shields that limited their movement space, the dreadnought was simply too strong for them to sow any further chaos and destruction.

As the ship-wide purge continued, Dread Captain Argile forced himself to monitor the changing statistics.

For every 10 decoys that got exposed and eliminated through ruthless means, there was 1 actual human who fell victim to the purge.

The captain silently mourned each of these regrettable 'accidents', yet he could not allow his doubts and guilt to stand in the way of his duty.

The decisive removal of all of the suspicious humans on the ship had restored a lot of morale. People no longer jumped at shadows or fell into a pit of indecision when they received any order.

The ship was already starting to regain her effectiveness. The chain of command became trustworthy yet again and few people harbored any doubts to their fellow fleeters.

Of course, not all of them were able to stomach the deaths of thousands if not tens of thousands actual humans.

Whether they deserved it or not, it was undeniable that many specialists, engineers, officers and even a number of senior command personnel had lost their lives during the purge!

Whether these fleeters became collateral damage because of disloyalty or factors outside of their control remained unclear. Dread Captain Argile already intended to set up an investigative committee to get to the bottom of it all after his ship managed to survive this long and exhausting ordeal.

"We need to find and finish the mirror beast." The only Ves left standing spoke up. "If my guess is right, then our mass elimination of his clones may have inflicted damage on his main self. We successfully repelled his domain. This is important because I think this god beast relies on fear and other negative emotions to bypass Furia and Caramond's domains and directly affect our perception of reality. It explains why the misdirection became increasingly harder to deal with. As long as we maintain our confident mindsets, we won't give that creature any fertile ground to mess with us again."

The bodies of the false Vesses had already disappeared.

The real Ves had gotten his wish and personally eliminated the fakes that dared to steal his identity!

It had actually been quite satisfying to kill the copycats. Ves had never realized how annoying he could be until the false versions of himself started to argue with himself.

"Mrow." Blinky arrogantly raised his head and tail.

The companion spirit had dealt with the fake Star Cats in a crueler manner. The catfights ended with Blinky devouring his counterparts almost whole!

"I am inclined to believe in your judgment, professor. It doesn't help us penetrate through the haze that surrounds our dreadnought. The only instances where we can attack the mirror beast is when it voluntarily approaches the edge of our sensor range. Yet every time we target it, our attacks get reflected back at us with tenfold force."

"What about missiles and other explosive weapons?"

"A probing missile strike does not do enough damage to inflict real harm. In the few instances where we committed to launching a large salvo of missiles, our warheads ended up striking an illusion that quickly fell apart after getting struck by several attacks. The ultimate result is that we spent our missiles in vain."

Ves frowned at that. The 7th wave of the 8th round proved to be far more trickier and difficult to deal with than any of the subsequent ones!

Many fleeters already considered the mirror beast to be the deadliest and most damaging opponent they came across. If not for their constant prayers towards Caramond, they would have fallen back to their fearful and paranoid mindset.

The crew of the Dominion of Man would rather have a rematch against the clone of the Subjugation King than tussle with the mirror beast any further!

The Subjugation King might be a cheating bastard who inflicted more damage to the ship than anyone else, but at least he fought like a true warrior!

The mirror beast on the other hand completely eschewed honor and fought in the most despicable manner possible. The creature's uncanny ability to violate the sanctity of people's minds was so terrifying that the fleeters desperately worked together to eliminate this enemy as soon as possible!

The fleeters channeled their righteous fury and indignation towards trying to detect the elusive monster.

More probes launched out of the Dominion of Man than ever. The ship's powerful materializers were working at full capacity to churn out probe after probe just so that they could form an increasingly more elaborate sensor envelope.

Several times, the six-armed beast came into view and taunted the crew.

The Dominion of Man refused to take the bait anymore. Her weapon systems remained dormant. The fleeters had already figured out that the mirror beast's offensive capabilities were actually not that great.

The creature was able to reflect attacks while imbuing them with much greater power, but could not launch such attacks on its own initiative.

It was rather strange that the mirror beast only reflected relatively weak attack salvos.

Ves noticed this as well. He finally managed to piece the clues together.

"I don't think the beast is able to reflect the ship's probing attacks with a false image of itself. Some of them are quite strong, such as the gamma lasers generated by that experimental torpedo of yours. What is also important to note is that I think there is an upper limit to the god beast's reflection ability. Whenever the ship strikes with much greater force than the god beast is capable of reflecting, it will simply pull off its disappearance trick and let its illusionary clone take all of the damage. The problem is that we don't know where its actual body is located when this happens."

"I see what you mean, professor." Dread Captain Argile looked contemplative. "You are theorizing that the only instances where we know with a high degree of confidence that we are looking at the actual mirror beast is when we are in a position to launch a probing attack at the monster."

"Yes. Now, the problem is that the probing attacks are unable to exceed that annoying reflection ability, but that just means that we must rely on additional measures to take it out. Is the Rubicon capable of teleporting antimatter bombs and so on to the mirror beast?"

"It is possible, but difficult. The haze is making it harder to deliver objects at precise coordinates. Before you get your hopes up, I must warn you that we have already tried this tactic with more conventional explosives. The mirror beast's body always turned out to be a barely substantial illusion. Even if we have timed our teleportation attacks so that the warheads explode 50 to 200 milliseconds after reaching their destinations, our enemy has already managed to move far away. We do not expect to attain better results with more destructive superweapons."

Not even the Rubicon could deal with the mirror beast!

Either the god beast's predicted the teleportation attacks in advance, or its reaction speed was so damn fast that it was able to move out of the explosion radius before the warheads actually detonated.

Everyone's frustrations grew as they understood that they were still unable to track down their hated foe!

"I really wish the Huntsman was here." Ves muttered. "He should be able to track down and impale this demonic tribulation manifestation in a matter of seconds."

"Forget about god pilots, professor. The Dominion of Man is a warship. We must overcome this challenge by relying on our own means. I believe that is why tribulations exist. It filters the worthy from the unworthy."

"Ah, you're right, captain. Let's brainstorm a bit further."

Many officers tried their best to come up with an inventive and effective solution to their problem.

There were so many smart people among the fleeters that one of them ultimately managed to come up with a surprisingly creative suggestion!

"Opposites!" A senior naval engineer suggested. "If this mirror beast is a savage god that thrives off lies and falsehoods, then we must embrace the opposite! If Caramond and Furia are able to weaponize truth and honesty, then they may be able to detect the source of all of the deception that afflicts our ship!"

It was a rather fanciful suggestion, but it was enough to earn Ves' approval!

"I think we should go for it." Ves said. "I am not too knowledgeable about True Gods, but I think that fights involving cultivators of this rank involve more than physical combat. I am becoming increasingly more convinced that our only means of counterattacking more effectively is if we challenge the god beast's domain."

While Ves and the fleeters were able to contribute to this fight in a small way, they ultimately had to rely on the two True Gods to do the heavy lifting.

Only Caramond and Furia possessed domains that were barely powerful enough to challenge the elusive god beast's domain.

Several minutes went by as Ves and the others waited for further developments.

Ves was able to sense that Caramond and Furia chose to work together, but he wasn't able to figure out what exactly they were doing.

Eventually, Caramond released a powerful pulse that launched out of the hull and swept aside much of the surrounding haze!

"It's working!"

"We have regained full visibility in our immediate space!"

"Contact! We have detected a signature that matches the mirror beast at a range of 106 kilometers!"

"Open fire at the identified target!"

"With pleasure!"