The Mech Touch (Web Novel)
chapter-6361

Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson was having a hard time.

As soon as his Dark Zephyr returned with pursuers in tow, the ace mech picked up the tier 3 Destroyer spear that possessed the raw destructive power needed to give him an edge against his most pressing opponents.

The Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa had been gunning for him and his ace mech ever since he managed to stay close to their private little pocket space!

The greater phase lord appeared to take personal affront at the Dark Zephyr's seemingly effortless attempt at jumping out of the trap earlier.

The prideful greater phase lords had been hurling conceited taunts and insults at Tusa for quite a while!

"#&$#&$@$@!"

"I DESPISE THE COWARDLY 'PILOTS' WHO PREFER TO CLAD THEMSELF IN THE SMALLEST AND FASTEST METAL SHELLS OF ALL. YOU GNATS ARE SO AFRAID OF TAKING A HIT THAT YOU PUT ALL OF YOUR POWER INTO YOUR SPEED. WITHOUT IT, YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU CAN NEITHER INFLICT A POWERFUL ATTACK OR RECEIVE ONE IN RETURN. THAT IS COWARDICE AMONG OUR RACE. IF YOUR PITIFUL PINK-SKINNED MINIONS CANNOT RECOGNIZE THAT, THEN THAT PROVES THAT COWARDICE IS INGRAINED IN YOUR SORRY LITTLE RACE."

Were all nunser phase lords supreme bastards? How come they all possessed the same level of arrogance and need to belittle the champions of the human race?

Having toured throughout human-occupied space after receiving his first proper ace mech, Saint Tusa was no stranger to chatty phase lords. He and the ace pilots he fought alongside usually made sure to make the arrogant alien leaders regret their words.

In fact, the resentment and impatience welling up inside his head had worked wonders in keeping the normally unruly tier 3 Destroyer spear under his control!

Instead of wasting his time on fueling his fear about suffering a backlash from the volatile weapon, Tusa instead channeled much of his fury and will towards trying to poke a hole into the huge and hard body of the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa!

Despite the fact that the greater phase lord's body proportions had not only matched the size of a battleship, but was also clad in a decorative raiment that made him look like a bulky alien gladiator, Tusa still had a lot of confidence in his ability to inflict a killer blow onto his chief adversary!

"Shut up, you dim-witted cow, or I will make you shut up by slitting your gigantic throat!"

The Dark Zephyr utilized his blazing speed and maneuverability to dodge the Saint Piercer thrust in his direction.

As the powerful ace mech fluidly managed to circle around the much larger but more sluggish body of the Arena Lord, all sorts of spatial fluctuations and interference attempted to impede his motion.

The Dark Zephyr easily bulled through most of the spatial interference with the help of his Saint Kingdom. Although the hours-long chase had depleted it to an extent, Tusa still forced himself to summon up the strength to impose his domain onto reality.

With the cooperation of Blackwing and his battle partner, The Dark Zephyr easily managed to Leap past the Arena Lord's spatial barrier, thereby placing his ace light skirmisher in the perfect position to thrust the tip of the Destroyer spear into the back of the Arena Lord.

This was usually the most difficult place for a nunser phase lord to defend against. Their centaur-like bodies meant that they could not easily extend limbs to fend off attackers approaching from the rear.

Even so, the Arena Lord reacted surprisingly quickly to the threat. The greater phase lord exhibited no fear at all despite the fact that his close-ranged spatial abilities failed to fend off the ace mech.

Despite his massive bulk, the nunser phase lord was able to change the grip of his Saint Piercer and thrust the lower end of the polearm backwards at a tricky angle!

Tusa did not sense the threat posed by this prototype weapon, but he just knew that it would pierce straight through his Saint Kingdom and inflict a powerful concussive blow onto his ace mech!

The Saint Piercer was actually a little too thin and short in the hands of the Arena Lord. It must have cost a lot of resources to gather the high-value materials to fabricate this weapon.

However, its lack of mass and bulk also made it much easier for the Arena Lord to whip it around and strike at the relatively small and elusive mech with unerring precision!

The Arena Lord did not have eyes on the back of his head, but he was still able to leverage his sprong spatial senses to track the Dark Zephyr's movements and predict where he would go next!

Saint Tusa so badly wanted to go through with his charge and poke a hole through the Arena Lord's raiment and hide, but he knew better than to allow his machine to get struck by a weapon that was especially designed to counter ace mechs.

Even the flat end might pose a greater threat to the Dark Zephyr than usual!

The ace light skirmisher quickly aborted his attack run and turned around at an extreme angle in order to evade the rear polearm strike.

As soon as the Dark Zephyr distanced himself from the Arena Lord, the greater phase lord sseemed to blur in place before abruptly turning around!

The nunser phase lord had excellent control over his body. He even implanted himself with a phasewater organ that was solely designed to change his orientation by 180 degrees in an instant!

Tusa realized that he had almost fallen into a trap. If the Arena Lord already possessed such a capabilty, then he could have employed it sooner to impale the Dark Zephyr with the tip of the Saint Piercer!

Perhaps the only reasons why the Arena Lord declined to employ this measure was because it became a lot harder and costlier to pull off this reversal ability after being subjected to the Dark Zephyr's space suppression field at closer range.

Even so, Tusa instinctively guessed that the Arena Lord was powerful enough to overcome the resistance by force if he was wiilling to make the effort!

"#&$#&$@#@#@!"

"YOU ACE PILOTS ARE ALL THE SAME. YOU ARE HARDLY THE FIRST FOOLS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN VANQUISH ME BY TARGETING MY REAR SIDE. I HAVE CRUSHED MANY CHALLENGERS WHO MISTAKENLY THINK THEIR ADVANTAGE IN SPEED ALLOWS THEM TO ATTACK MY WEAK POINTS WITH IMPUNITY. A REAL GOD ONLY RELIES ON STRENGTH AND BODY MASS. TO RELY ON A SMALLER BODY TO OUTMANEUVER ENEMIES IS A STRATEGY ONLY FIT FOR COWARDS AND PITIFUL BEINGS WHO ARE NOT WORTHY TO JOIN THE RANKS OF GODS!"

Although the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa was running his gigantic alien mouth again, Saint Tusa's previous bout of confidence had faded away.

Just because he successfully managed to wield the tier 3 Destroyer spear did not mean he had won an automatic victory!

Greater phase lords were far more competent than their lesser compatriots. The Arena Lord had much more phasewater at his disposal and was able to resist the space suppression field with greater ease.

Not only that, but the Arena Lord excelled at applying his spatial abilities on himself, which was impossible for the Dark Zephyr to block.

As the Dark Zephyr continually circled around the greater phase lord and occasionally attempted to swoop in to bypass his enemy's spatial barrier and land a destructive blow, the Arena Lord would never fail to repel the assault in the most efficient way possible!

Occasionally, the nunser phase lord's armor-clad body blurred as a spatial effect abruptly changed its orientation.

At other times, the Arena Lord spared his phasewater organs the strain and simply utilized his limbs or his excellent weapon skills to force the Dark Zephyr to change his course and evade the incoming threats.

Saint Tusa quickly grew frustrated at how difficult it was for him to make good use of his tier 3 Destroyer spear!

He had already commenced numerous attack runs, but never managed to complete any of them due to the Arena Lord's deliberate responses.

This was not a coincidence. Despite the Arena Lord's apparent love for comparisons of raw strength, the greater phase lord cunningly made sure that the Dark Zephyr was never able to land a solid hit with his potent Destroyer spear!

"#$&@#$@&."

"DO NOT THINK THAT YOUR TINY BUT INTERESTING LITTLE TOOTHSCRAPER CANNOT REVERSE YOUR INCOMPETENCE. IF YOU POSSESSED THE STRENGTH OF A REAL GOD, THEN YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER BECOME COWARDLY ENOUGH TO FLINCH AWAY FROM MY COUNTERATTACKS. YOU FALSE GODS ARE ALL THE SAME. EVEN YOUR OH-SO-PROUD TERRAN CHAMPIONS HAVE REPEATEDLY FLINCHED FROM MY RESPONSES DESPITE ARMING THEMSELVES WITH SIMILAR WEAPONS. THEY HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES UNFIT TO WIELD THOSE ARMS, AND YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT! SPEED WITHOUT STRENGTH ONLY EQUATES TO ANOTHER FORM OF COWARDICE."

As much as Saint Tusa understood that the Arena Lord of Ya'gwasa was just engaging in an acerbic brand of smack talk, the ace pilot couldn't stop himself from entertaining doubts.

What if… what if the Arena Lord's criticism was not entirely off the mark?

Though the ace pilot's willpower forcibly stopped Tusa from fueling this train of thought any further, it was difficult to shove this nonsense away when the Arena Lord constantly brought it back to the forefront of his mind!

Tusa threw away all of the contempt he still harbored against the Arena Lord. As primitive and vain as he appeared to be, the greater phase lord was able to draw upon many years of actual combat experience in duels and other complicated matches. He had fought against many varieties of opponents, and managed to learn a lot from fighting against human ace mechs during the Red War.

Destroyer weapons were incredibly powerful, but it was still possible for enemies to mitigate their threat.

From minimizing the opportunities for their wielders to land serious blows with these potent weapons to cladding themselves with destroyer-resistant armor, the signature tech of the Terran people was anything but unbeatable!

Tusa felt more and more frustrated. He was no longer in peak condition when he first started to fight properly against the Arena Lord, and the constant Leaps repeatedly sapped his willpower even further.

The Arena Lord probably exerted himself as well, but his consumption was probably a lot less!

This was clearly detrimental to the ace pilot as he would exhaust himself much sooner than his potent adversary. Tusa couldn't afford to let this confrontation turn into an endurance battle, chiefly because he was never built to last!

Phase lords all possessed massive bodies that stored huge amounts of energy. In fact, they were even more difficult to exhaust than other creatures of their size because they could even draw energies from other dimensions!

Although the Dark Zephyr also possessed special and transphasic qualities, the ace light skirmisher was designed to perform at his peak during short but critical intervals. His mech frame lacked the capacity to extend his endurance and staying power, and Tusa's willpower was also finite due to the lack of time to develop his resonance strength.

"Tch. We need to conserve our strength and keep him busy, partner." Tusa spoke to his ace mech.

The Dark Zephyr no longer tried to win the jackpot by attempting to land crippling blows.

Instead, the machine began to adopt a more patient and frugal approach. The Dark Zephyr evaded the Arena Lord's attacks as best as possible while using the enhanced lethality of his tier 3 Destroyer spear to damage and deplete the phase lord's spatial barrier.

This was not enough to contain the Arena Lord, so the Rosfield Cannons installed on Fort Rock regularly had to strike the greater phase lord with punishing kinetic impacts!

Other friendly warships occasionally struck with opportunistic attacks whenever they could, but they were far too preoccupied with other enemies to commit more to this effort.

No first-class multipurpose mechs dared to poke the Arena Lord. Their attacks were too small in caliber to make much of a difference, and they were much more suited to fight against other opponents.

Tusa was not resigned to this outcome. For now, he and his battle partner could do nothing more than to contain the Arena Lord and hinder the greater phase lord from directing his ire elsewhere, but this needed to change.

"What can I do to gain the upper hand?"