The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5685 Thicc Mech

As a secret cosmopolitan, Cory Grimly liked to think he developed an open mind.

He studied the histories, technologies and cultures of many different alien races.

He developed an admiration of how they evolved under vastly different circumstances before finally making their way into space.

He developed a yearning when he heard how so many alien races managed to reach a tenable state of coexistence with each other.

Sure, not all intelligent races managed to gain a foothold in a galactic community, but the fact that it was possible should have been a signal for humanity to follow the prevailing trend and blend in with the harmonious multi-racial society that the aliens had built!

Cory Grimly hated the fact that he was born in the wrong timeline. Instead of living in a reality where humans such as himself could interact freely with aliens without suffering any condemnation, he lived in another version where such actions were considered taboo!

To a genuine cosmopolitan like Cory, this was as absurd as forbidding people to breathe!

Cooperation and coexistence were universal ideals. In both the Milky Way and the Red Ocean, the aliens of those respective galaxies had managed to reach a state of partial integration with each other.

Their borders still existed, and so did their territorial rivalries, but they no longer bothered to wage all-out war against each other anymore.

The intelligent and enlightened aliens all came to the conclusion that cooperating with each other was less costly than trying to wage endless war against their rival species.

There were enough wise and far-sighted alien leaders among them who successfully managed to find common ground despite their many racial differences.

By emphasizing what they had in common while compensating for each other's weaknesses, the aliens of the Milky Way and the Red Ocean had been well on their way of building true galactic communities where many different races worked towards common purpose.

If humanity could become a part of those communities, then Cory would have been able to explore the cultures of other alien races by visiting their planets in person!

He would be able to make friends of individuals of vastly different species. No matter whether they looked like three-fingered frogs or amorphous balls of slime, as long as they were civilized members of the same galactic community, he had no doubt he would have been able to become best friends with any intelligent alien!

It had always been a dream for Cory and his brother to explore the wonders of every alien race and make use of their new technologies. Human mechs could have become a lot stronger and more diverse if his own race became open-minded enough to allow aliens to assist in their development.

Alas, such a reality was too far away for the cosmopolitans living in this reality. Cory Grimly had little choice but to keep this dream to himself and his fellow cosmopolitans.

At this moment, Cory wondered whether one of his dreams had come true.

Instead of expecting an experimental version of the Ultimatum where the designers had gone crazy in trying to boost its power, he became confronted with a mess of a machine.

The Ultimatum was still vaguely recognizable as one, yet it looked completely wrong on every level.

It had grown thicker and fatter. It lost a leg but the remaining ones all grew in different shapes and lengths. Its heavy artillery cannons had been replaced by a random collection of weapons, one of which happened to be a completely useless hair follicle that his mech had already cut in half!

The creepiest part about the machine was the human-like head that appeared to be locked in an eternal scream.

Even though the head was mounted towards the front, it was somehow able to rotate and turn so that it directly faced the intruder that had jumped on top of its back.

The second-creepiest part about this abomination of a mech was that parts of it had been replaced by organic matter!

There was no rhyme and reason for this substitution as many parts had been replaced with disgusting biomatter for no clear reason.

It made Cory feel as if his space knight was standing on top of an alien that had undergone a failed cybernetic transformation.

Whatever the case, the situation at the moment did not give him the luxury to get to the bottom of this mystery.

All that mattered at the moment was to put an end to this monster mech's existence!

Since the bunker was exposed to vacuum, no noise propagated throughout the surroundings.

Each time the transphasic axe hacked against the thick back armor of Ultimatum One, it left another thick cut through the hyper alloy plating.

Though the axe inflicted serious damage with each strike, heavy artillery mech was designed to resist a lot of damage, so it was not easy to break past all of the armor layers!

It did not help that the mech's unknown transformation had caused its exterior to gain additional mass, some of which happened to be organic!

After breaching through another layer, the axe started to cut through flesh. A copious amount of red blood spurted from the cut that the space knight had made.

From the moment the axe cut through this layer of flesh, the monster mech started to thrash a lot more violently!

It was as if the mech was in pain!

The machine redoubled its efforts to repel or destroy the intruding machine, but its options were too limited.

Its Onyx Cannon was only able to aim forward. It was impossible for it to angle its massive barrel backwards. Even if it did, Cory Grimly had many different ways to counteract this move.

The triple-barreled laser cannon battery may have been able to strike at the space knight if not for the fact that the latter had simply placed one of its feet on top of the weapon mount!

The strange mortar was even less of a threat because the space knight had already chopped the weapon apart.

The only weapon system that could do something about the enemy mech was the black tentacle.

It had entered into a wrestling match with the arm of the space knight. Both sides tried to overwhelm each other, but found it difficult to gain the upper hand.

Frustrated by the interference produced by this alien-like limb, Cory commanded his mech to chop at the trunk of this limb, only for the transphasic axe to barely produce a cut.

For whatever reason, the durability of this tentacle exceeded that of the rest of the mech frame!

While that made it difficult for the space knight to get rid of it, there was no problem in holding it in place for the time being.

Its physical power was inferior to its resilience!

Cory went back to attacking the back surface of Ultimatum One. As long as he managed to get deep enough, he would definitely be able to crush the power reactor and other essential internal systems!

He just had to be a little patient.

"This is taking too much time!"

He was pretty sure that the Ultimatum model wasn't supposed to be this tough. The abnormal machine was twice or maybe even thrice as damage resistant as the thick layers forced the space knight to do a lot of work to get past all of the armor layers.

After hacking its way through multiple layers of alloy and flesh, the intruder mech finally managed to breach its way into the internals!

However, much to Cory's surprise, a lot of internal components that should have been vulnerable to his mech were all covered by thick organic growths.

While it was unclear what purpose they served, they most definitely added more obstacles to his goal.

"No matter! Extra flesh won't prevent your fall!"

The partially organic mech shook and thrashed even more when the axe fell onto the flesh surrounding the vital internal parts.

Though each of them had gone through a lot of weird changes, they still played an essential role in the functioning of the mech.

Blood and sparks erupted from the exposed machine. Its power dropped as Cory's space knight mercilessly tried to butcher the oversized mech with one chop at a time.

The cosmopolitan's eyes finally lit up when he detected the cockpit of the mech. It was covered with thick strands of flesh, but they were not that difficult for his transphasic axe to hack through.

After spilling a lot of blood, the space knight raised its axe one more time before letting its blood-soaked edge fall straight through the metallic shell that encompassed the cockpit!

"Die, human supremacist!"

More blood spilled out of the cockpit than any other organic injury that Cory Grimly's mech inflicted before.

Though it was normal to produce a few splotches of human blood that subsequently flash-froze into red crystals due to exposure to vacuum, the red liquid that spilled out from the cockpit far exceeded the blood volume of a small human body!

Cory Grimly grew confused. Was there even a human body inside? What was up with all of this blood and flesh? What sort of illogical machine had he decided to attack, and who was crazy enough to design this monstrosity?

"I need to finish this." He reminded himself.

The mutated mech still remained operational despite the extensive damage to its externals. Since destroying the cockpit was not enough to take it down, Cory would just have to wreck even more parts!

He felt as if he was attacking an alien battleship rather than a heavy artillery mech. There were so many strange parts that his space knight needed to destroy that this was taking far longer than it should!

Just as his machine raised its blood-soaked axe for yet another strike, Cory suddenly sensed a huge threat directed towards his machine!

Right now, his instincts were warning of threats coming from multiple directions! He did not have the time to determine whether it came from the machine he was attacking. He just knew that he needed to move his space knight out of the way before it got struck!

Just as he directed his machine to move away, the annoying black tentacle suddenly seemed to gain a burst of strength.

It had not only wrapped itself along one of the arms of the space knight, but also tried to pull the mech backwards as if it was an overly clingy girlfriend!

"Let go!" Cory barked as the free arm of his mech attempted to chop apart the tentacle with the transphasic axe, only to produce a moderate cut that was far from sufficient to get rid of this entanglement!

The space knight did not have the time to swing the axe another time.

Two super-heavy gauss rounds punched through the bulkheads positioned at the sides of the bunker and struck the upper body of the space knight at the same time!

One of the rounds severed the entangled arm, which inadvertently freed the space knight from the grip of the black tentacle!

However, the space knight had no time to take advantage of its freed state as the second super-heavy gauss round successfully managed to punch through the center of the torso!

Its damaged armor plating was unable to resist the force of the attack.

Instead, its brief resistance enabled the round to transfer even more kinetic energy upon impact, causing the entire mech frame to shake and ultimately tear itself apart as it failed to absorb the excessive forces!

The deformed round ultimately managed to push its way through the deformed armor plating and disintegrating components before rushing right through the external hull plating of the combat carrier and off into space!

"It's gone!"

"Cory Grimly's transphasic space knight has been demolished! There is nothing left intact aside from a pair of legs!"

The greatest threat to the monster mech had unexpectedly met its end due to a surprise attack from two other Ultimatums that had attacked from other locations inside the ship!

The two heavy artillery mechs had to utilize its slow legs to leave their bunkers and navigate as closely to the bunker that held Ultimatum One as possible, all the while making sure to remain discreet enough to keep Cory Grimly in the dark!

The two Ultimatums finally stopped a fair distance away from the bunker. They had managed to get a lot closer, but they did not dare to go too close.

They ultimately put their trust in the power of their Onyx Cannons and bet on their ability to punch through multiple bulkheads before striking their targets!

The Pellicky Praetorians had become extremely thankful for the fact that the main weapons of these newfangled mechs had proven themselves to be strong enough to complete this crucial task!

"We're saved!"