The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6159

The situation on the ravaged battlefield completely turned around when the Elegant Rage suddenly transformed into a tree!

Many observers grew perplexed as the Woodsap mech completely let go of her original form and mutated into a giant ebony tree that radiated both vitality and power.

"This is impossible! Biomechs can never grow so quickly!"

"Has the mech lost control?!"

"The mech has turned into a mutated plant!"

As many observers reacted with shock, the growth of the latest form of the Elegant Rage began to abate.

As Ves observed what was happening in total shock inside the cockpit of the mech, he noticed that the mech still wanted to grow larger, but had reached the limit of what she was able to control.

Her spiritual foundation was nowhere near as strong as the Emperor Tree when it was at its height!

Since she was unable to control a 'body' that was taller than the current ebony tree, she had no way of making herself larger.

That did not mean that her new form was short by any means!

The tree that comprised her enhanced tree form was much thicker and taller than her original self. Her new body had already reached an overall height and mass that was equivalent to that of a small juggernaut.

That was already a completely different kind of combat unit!

Now that her mass and volume became equivalent to that of a small warship, the Elegant Rage was no longer as weak and fragile as before.

Even if nothing else about the Elegant Rage had changed, the simple increase in size made it a lot harder for the krelion judge to inflict meaningful damage!

The tribulation manifestation did not give up, though. He wielded his staff like an artillery cannon and began to shoot out a sustained light beam that carved into the bark of the ebony tree like a mining laser!

The Elegant Rage suffered a lot of pain as the sustained beam continually tried to pierce a hole through the ebony wooden trunk.

The sins accrued by the living mechs caused the ebony wood to receive greater damage from the persistent light element attack, and the lack of movement made it trivially easy for the alien enemy to stay on target.

Yet despite all of these adverse conditions, the Elegant Rage was no longer afraid of the light attacks of her opponent!

Even as the krelion judge's powerful artistic conception attempted to suppress the 'demonic' living mech, the Elegant Rage's tree form had become so large and massive that she was finally able to properly utilize all of her excess wood energy!

In addition, the growth of an enormous hidden root network had caused her regeneration capabilities to grow even more exaggerated than before.

A huge amount of minerals buried far beneath the surface were getting drained at a rapid rate.

The additional metals and other materials helped to strengthen the trunk and enable it to grow a large amount of thorns!

The ebony tree in its current form resembled the Emperor Tree even less after her trunk became covered by so many sharp and ominous growths.

As the thorns began to absorb a lot of wood energy as well as the Woodsap mech's anger and indignation for getting attacked so many times, the ones facing the floating enemy finally launched in the target's direction!

The krelion judge reacted quickly. He no longer tried to attack, but quickly used his staff to conjure a wall of light that formed an additional layer of defense.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Dozens of thorns struck this light wall and exhausted its defensive capacity!

The krelion judge quickly spun his staff and blocked numerous more thorns from getting through, but he was still unable to prevent a lot of thorns from crashing against his light energy shield!

Unlike the previous attacks of the Elegant Rage, this time the thorn projectiles struck so many times that the alien's primary defensive measure finally collapsed!

"Yes! We did it, Elegant Rage!"

Not that many thorns were left to puncture the alien's body, but each time they struck, the mech and her pilot gained a little more satisfaction.

Over a dozen different thorns ended up piercing through the alien's exoskeleton!

Even though the krelion's hard outer shells successfully drained the momentum of the projectiles and prevented them from digging any digger, the thorns still inflicted a lot of harm!

Not only did the krelion judge suffer a lot of shallow flesh wounds, but the extraordinary thorns also induced a large amount of pain, causing the tribulation manifestation to falter and lose his rhythm!

While the powerful alien tried his best to recover from this grievous blow, the Elegant Rage was already starting to grow a second set of thorns on her trunk!

Ves became more and more gobsmacked as he witnessed the performance of the transformed Elegant Rage from the cockpit.

"KILL! PUNISH! LET HIM EXPERIENCE MY PAIN TENFOLD!"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down, partner!"

The Elegant Rage had undoubtedly contaminated herself as she activated the hidden power of her ebony wood, but it didn't matter so long as she became strong enough to turn this battle around!

Major Jankowski desperately tried to rein in the out-of-control mech, but his mind and will were far too weak to rein in the much more powerful machine!

Since the Elegant Rage's current tree form had completely subsumed her original mech form, the role of a mech pilot had pretty much grown redundant.

Simon Jankowski had practically no control over the actions of the Elegant Rage anymore. The Woodsap mech had taken full control over herself and began to fight against the tribulation manifestation on a completely autonomous basis.

This was a nightmare scenario to everyone that was paranoid about machines taking over!

Though Ves held a lot of concerns about how easily the Elegant Rage made her own mech pilot irrelevant, he became incredibly impressed by how much stronger she became.

Her increased size and her ability to control her much more massive form to a reasonable degree had practically turned her into a juggernaut in truth!

Other than the loss of her legs, she truly performed no different from a hyper juggernaut!

"Amazing!"

If every mech made out of Emperor Wood possessed this trump card, then that would completely transform their value!

His Woodsap mechs were finally able to justify their own existence!

In fact, this was only the beginning. Ves had never thought about this possibility when he converted the Elegant Rage into a Woodsap mech.

Now that he knew, he could design his subsequent Woodsap mechs to deliberately take advantage of this capability!

What excited Ves even more was that the lack of control might not be that big of an issue.

The greatest flaw of the Elegant Rage was that she was currently being piloted by a conventional neural interface.

Once the Elegant Rage formed a Woodsap Pact with Venerable Lanie or any mech pilot for that matter, the strong connection should give the living mech a much stronger anchor to another mind. It should become much easier for her partner to keep the mechs in tree form under effective control.

At this time, the battle had taken another turn as the krelion judge no longer thought about keeping his distance.

"He's advancing! The enemy wants to burn the Elegant Rage's enlarged form with his light!"

The krelion judge's manifestation of his artistic conception became much more oppressive and scorching up close!

So much light shone onto the darkened tree that the bark and leaves were already starting to dry up and burn!

However, the enormous size of the Elegant Rage's tree form meant that it was much more able to withstand this damage!

A large amount of wood energy and minerals transported by tree sap moved to restore the damaged exterior and prevent the tree form from losing any further integrity.

In the meantime, the Elegant Rage never let up on her attacks!

When the krelion finally came too close to launch a lot of thorns at the tribulation manifestation, the Elegant Rage began to imitate the Emperor Tree in a different way by whipping her many branches at the enemy!

Whip!

Whip!

Whip!

Many branches missed the fairly nimble and mobile opponent.

Other branches ended up getting parried by the alien's light staff.

However, it was still difficult for the krelion judge to avoid damage as there were too many branches attacking on a repeated basis!

Each strike inflicted considerable damage to the alien's exoskeleton. Smaller thorns had grown onto the exterior of every branch, thereby making sure that the krelion judge could not shake off the attacks so easily!

The alien did not turn himself into a whipping boy for no reason. Once he got close, his radiant light began to scorch the Elegant Rage's enlarged form a lot more effectively than before!

So much of the Woodsap mech was vulnerable to the punishing light of the krelion judge that the living mech was eating her way through a huge amount of energy and minerals with every passing second!

Furthermore, the krelion judge also attempted to cripple or at least cut the Elegant Rage down to size by striking at the trunk with his staff.

A sharp and long light blade extended from the tips of the tribulation manifestation's staff. Each time these blades cut into the trunk of the Elegant Rage, the living mech suffered a lot of pain!

Yet despite all of the light energy and tribulation lightning ravaging the trunk, the scale of the damage was trivial compared to the total size of the current Elegant Rage!

It was like a mouse trying to kill a human.

Despite the former's best efforts, the massive difference in scale brutally reduced the threat posed by the krelion judge to a barely lethal level!

The only way for the tribulation manifestation to defeat the ebony tree was to exhaust the transformed Woodsap mech's entire supply of wood energy and minerals!

This was why the krelion judge had come close and tried to attack the Elegant Rage as much as possible. The more damage he inflicted, the greater the resource drain!

To be fair, this was not an unrealistic plan. The Elegant Rage's loss of mobility prevented her from moving to other forests that she could tap.

Her enormous roots had grown very large, but their volume was ultimately limited by the Elegant Rage's limited spiritual foundation. There were only so many minerals that they could extract from the underlying soil.

The fight had reached an intense state as both sides engaged in a sped-up contest of attrition.

The Elegant Rage tried her best to break the krelion judge's shell-covered body as quickly as possible.

The tribulation manifestation attempted to exhaust the ebony tree's energy and mineral reserves without any other consideration!

It was impossible for this intensive exchange to last for long.

As the krelion judge continued to strike his light blades deeper into the damaged trunk, the Elegant Rage's gigantic form suddenly began to spawn a multitude of dark and thorny vines!

Even though the enemy's scorching light already started to burn these vines, there were so many of them that they successfully wrapped around the body of their target until not a single gap remained!

"Gotcha!"

The alien had become completely trapped!

Although the trapped enemy began to radiate an increasing amount of light in order to break free from this trap, the ebony tree continued to launch more and more vines to strengthen the hold onto the powerful opponent.

Then, the vines started to squeeze in an attempt to constrict their unruly prey!

The forces acting upon the poor tribulation manifestation became so great that the exoskeleton finally couldn't take it anymore.

The krelion judge's manifested body completely collapsed!

From the moment this occurred, the tribulation energies that previously made up his body completely lost control and began to explode outwards and engulfed the Elegant Tree's exaggeratingly large form!

The final wave of the lightning manifestation had finally come to an end in the most dramatic fashion imaginable!