The Mech Touch (Web Novel)

5882 Now We're Talking

The clone of the Subjugation King had become more vulnerable now that he had lost his energy barrier.

However, the powerful tribulation manifestation still exuded an air of absolute dominance that offended Caramond.

It was as if the powerful God King still did not treat this historic event as seriously as Ves and others whose lives were at stake.

The outcome of this tribulation event would have far-reaching effects on human civilization in the Red Ocean!

This was why Ves, Caramond and everyone who served on the Dominion of Man committed so much to this fight. They willingly put their lives on the line and made the ultimate sacrifice just to secure a tiny advantage in this lopsided confrontation.

To learn that the Subjugation King only harbored contempt towards his opposition was a grave insult to the human spirit.

Ves knew better than to call the God King out, though. The weak had no right to complain in front of the strong.

Besides, it was better for red humanity if their future enemy continued to underestimate the opposition he might face once he arrived in the Red Ocean.

As Ves and his current partners tried to recover from their earlier exertions, they continued to pay close attention to the God King.

"It hurts."

A powerful infusion of creation energies had done much to restore the charred and blackened flesh on his back. His phase lord physique helped a lot to speed up his recovery, but even that was not enough to restore all of the damage.

His back remained injured. The only effective way to repair all of the damage during this fight was to allow another body part to get hit by tribulation lightning and hope that it would spread to the more heavily injured parts of his body.

Ves gritted his teeth. This was not going to be easy.

"<nullb>#@#&@&#."

"<nullb>YOU HAVE BARELY MET MY EXPECTATIONS. YOU ARE STILL BY FAR THE WEAKEST OF MY VALUED SLAVES. YOUR CAPACITY TO ADAPT AND LEARN IS SATISFACTORY, BUT YOU ARE STILL AN INCOMPETENT FIGHTER."

Damnit! Ves willingly subjected himself to a lot of pain in order to channel so much fire energy!

Compared to his normal self, his combat power had skyrocketed. Fighting against ace mechs was not a dream anymore. He had already endured several powerful blows that would have torn any other human apart a million times over!

"I am… not a fighter… but I can still learn." Ves responded to the arrogant alien tyrant.

"<nullb>#$&$@%$@."

"<nullb>I DESIRE NO LESS FROM YOU. BY THE TIME I FINALLY ARRIVE AT THIS MINISCULE SEA OF STARS, I EXPECT YOU TO CAST ASIDE YOUR WEAKNESS. NO VALUED SLAVE OF MINE IS ALLOWED TO BE AS WEAK AS YOUR CURRENT SELF. YOUR CRUDE TECHNIQUE OF BORROWING THE FIGHTING METHODS OF OTHER SOULS IS EFFECTIVE, BUT ULTIMATELY COMPRISES ANOTHER WEAKNESS."

Ves snarled but made sure to temper his pride. He did not want to provoke the Subjugation King into lashing out. It was better to keep the arrogant alien in a complacent mood.

"I am not your slave!"

"<nullb>#&&#@."

"<nullb>FALSE. I HAVE ALREADY LOCKED MY CHAIN ON YOUR SOUL."

In order to illustrate this point, the clone of the Subjugation King raised one of his limbs and made a familiar yanking motion.

An illusionary chain became visible and pulled onto the soul mark that was buried inside Ves!

Despite the lack of physical substance, the unnaturally strong and solid chain somehow managed to pull his entire physical mass forward!

Ves and his partners quickly tried to stop their forward progress and stabilize Ves' body in the air.

"Stop doing that! If you want me to fight, then I will do so. I am going to cut off this chain and remove this mark of yours as soon as I can!"

"<nullb>$#&$%#."

"<nullb>I ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO SO. IT WILL MAKE THE HUNT MUCH MORE INTERESTING. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE MY CHAINS, BUT I WILL ENJOY YOUR STRUGGLE TO ESCAPE YOUR INEVITABLE FATE."

The soul mark that had dug into his Spirituality began to burn and inflict a different kind of pain on Ves.

He badly wanted to get rid of it, but there was nothing in his arsenal that could remove the small but insanely strong mark!

What was worse was that heavy exposure to tribulation lightning had not resulted in its ejection.

Instead, the infusion of destruction and creation energies had caused the soul mark to settle in ever stronger than before!

It was as if the tribulation storm treated the soul mark as an implant that was supposed to be a helpful addition to Ves. Each exposure to tribulation lightning caused his Spirituality to adapt and fuse a little more to the soul mark.

This was completely detrimental to Ves!

There was no way that an old and powerful God King would make a trivial mistake by planting a soul mark that would get wiped away by tribulation lightning.

Ves suspected that because the soul mark was condensed out of a significant portion of energy that powered the tribulation storm, any subsequent exposure to tribulation lightning only facilitated its purpose even more.

It was also easy to surmise that the Subjugation King deliberately manipulated the tribulation strikes to facilitate his hold over his latest prized slave.

Ves inwardly shook his head. He could go over the implications of the soul mark at a later date. He still needed to fight in order to save the Dominion of Man.

Caramond took advantage of his recent growth to deepen his control over Ves' true body. The evolving ancestral spirit no longer stuck to the martial arts mastered by the elite Dread Marines, but had begun to draw upon the skills and experiences of elite soldiers throughout the new frontier.

Blinky also leveraged his greater strength. He had become considerably more adept at channeling and shaping fire energy.

So long as Caramond continued to keep the volatile energy in line, Blinky was able to channel greater quantities of fire energy while also making sure that they induced slightly less strain of Ves.

It was difficult to calculate how much stronger Ves had become since the start of this temporary partnership, but he loosely estimated that his combat power had multiplied by 2 to 3 times!

This was a dramatic boost of strength, yet Ves still did not feel he had a realistic chance of defeating the clone of the Subjugation King.

The gap in power was still too much, even after he had made so much progress.

Despite the long odds, Ves refused to give up. Anything could happen in a battle. So long as he was able to drag it out, he was sure he could absorb enough tribulation lightning to finally land the killing blow.

The only question was whether the Subjugation King would allow him to stall for so long.

The fight resumed in an instant.

The Subjugation King had already begun to show signs of impatience. Rather than allowing the alien tyrant to make the first move, the trio had decided to take the initiative!

A large fire energy jet engine propelled Ves' true body to an impressive degree!

This time, the trio did not settle for landing a simple punch and kick. It would require way more than that to inflict real harm on the clone.

Ves, Caramond and Blinky had reached such an excellent state of coordination that they all took the correct actions to prepare a more advanced form attack.

His posture shifted in a way that suggested that he was looking to collide head-on against his target.

A spatial barrier formed in front of Ves to protect him from attacks and collisions.

A torrent of fire energy extended from one of his arms and rapidly turned into a lance made out of concentrated fire energy!

What was interesting about this lance was that its tip was shaped like a large and oversized bulb.

This was because Blinky modeled it after the transphasic explosive blastlances equipped by the Redlance mech model!

Although Ves had been forced to heavily simplify the design on the fly in order to allow Blinky to reconstruct it with the help of fire energy, the hasty imitation successfully captured the essence of the original weapon!

Ves even performed the unprecedented act of forcing a drop of his lifeblood out of his fingertip so that it could empower his temporary blastlance!

This was the secret to simulating transphasic weapons outside his body!

When Ves tried to manipulate the drop that contained a small amount of phasewater, his Maracos organ was able to connect to it as if the separated blood was still an extension of his body!

"<nullb>Taste our Fireblood Lance!"

A powerful detonation triggered directly after the trio had driven the tip of the 'Fireblood Lance' against the glowing surface of the clone!

The explosion was a lot more powerful than any other attack that the trio had unleashed beforehand!

Since the original blastlances were designed to make their explosions as directional as possible, the simulated version made out of fire energy did a good job at directing much of the explosive force forward.

The result was that the floating Subjugation King finally moved from his spot!

He had already lost his footing due to his latest area attack, but whatever power he employed to anchor him above a hole on the surface of the dreadnought clearly failed to compensate for the latest attack!

Though the Subjugation King's face was too alien to read his expressions, the clone's body language and shift in aura indicated that he might not have expected such a blow. His three eyes pointedly looked down on the shallow hole on his lightning-forged body.

"<nullb>#$&."

"<nullb>AMUSING. YOU ARE ADAPTING FASTER TO THE BATTLEFIELD THAN I PREVIOUSLY ANTICIPATED."

"Thank you. As a creator, I thought why not bring some of my works to life in this battle?"

Since Ves had already started to fight like a mech or biomech of sorts, why not try to summon their weapons?

After all, very few mechs had a habit of fighting with their fists!

The vast majority of his works fought by relying on internal or external weapons. Ves had ample knowledge on how they were designed, so he could theoretically replicate their mechanisms and proportions with fire energy.

Of course, this was not a simple matter of copying a weapon design and filling it up with fire energy.

Ves had to heavily tax his mind to simplify and remove a lot of complications that simply did not apply when shaping them out of volatile fire energy.

He half-expected this experiment to fail, but since he was able to simulate a transphasic blastlance, there was nothing that could stop him from referencing his greatest hits and adapting other weapons!

The only limit was his imagination, understanding and improvisation ability. He had to assume the mindset of a mech designer in order to perform all of the analytical processes necessary to translate a mech weapon into a fire energy weapon!

"I will make you bleed!"

The fight had already resumed. The powerful alien already adjusted his body and responded to the trio's followup maneuvers by extending a sharp bone spike out of one of his limbs!

Though it was not a sword, the Subjugation King almost wielded it like one!

Caramond initially wanted to close in to stab the two transphasic fire energy daggers, but quickly shifted the limbs under his control to cross the fiery blades and block the initial thrust!

The brief contact did not just block the bone spike, but also caused it to release a jolt of tribulation lightning that briefly numbed the limbs holding the daggers.

The brief interruption lasted just enough for the Subjugation King to thrust his other limb forward!

A second bone surged straight at Ves' unprotected chest, only to get blocked by an illusionary transphasic armor plate formed out of fire energy!

That did not stop a second jolt of tribulation lightning from shocking Ves' true body, but it at least saved him from getting stabbed!

Ves grinned when he saw that his latest effort succeeded in blocking an attack that promised to inflict a lot of pain.

"Now we're talking."