The Mech Touch

Chapter 6313  The Sharpest Knife

Saint Tusa did not receive much instruction from the Messenger of Silence on the first day of their meeting.

The latter was understandably a man of few words. Very few words. Hardly any words.

Though the Messenger of Silence did not prohibit himself from communicating in a non-verbal manner, he was not the sort of saint that preferred to chat for hours on end. His vow of silence had caused him to become a lot more economical about how much time he spent on socializing.

Tusa sort of understood why Saint Dostoevsky no longer talked as much. He could feel it through the contact between their respective domain fields.

The man was haunted.

The Messenger of Silence never enjoyed any peace. Since the fateful battle where he and his fellow Terran mech pilots suffered a grave defeat against the Rubarthans, his dead comrades continually haunted psyche with each waking hour.

Not even breaking through and becoming more powerful helped to relieve him from the ghosts that tortured him on an unending basis. The apparitions were already dead, yet were filled with so much resentment that they never knew how to tire.

How could any man remain sane after receiving pleas, insults and blame from all of these ghosts?

A normal human would have already committed suicide from all of this mental baggage!

Yet the Messenger of Silence persevered.

For decades, he carried a mountain of burdens on his shoulders. He remained silent in the hopes that his lack of engagement would not rile up the ghosts as much.

However, the ultimate reason why he managed to maintain a semblance of his sanity and retain his lust for life was because he constantly polished his willpower against his ghosts.

It was brilliant, really.

Just like how Ves deliberately infected Tusa with his phasewater-infused blood, the Messenger of Silence constantly tested his mental endurance against the deceased comrades who constantly blamed him for living while they suffered the ultimate punishment.

In other words, the Messenger of Silence actually turned his own psychological debilitation from a crippling affliction into a permanent growth boost!

He turned his own haunting into an advantage!

Almost no one in his position would have been able to do this. Only a man of extraordinary willpower as well as the absolute determination to make it right again could endure this ceaseless torment.

This was why the Messenger of Silence was able to progress so quickly after his complete turnaround. He was only 109 years old at this time, which made him a lot younger than the typical peak ace pilot.

Even the famous General Axelar Streon was a few decades older.

However, there was a price for everything.

The Messenger of Silence benefited enormously from his haunting. He was constantly under an invisible siege, so his willpower never enjoyed any rest and constantly grew stronger at an accelerated rate.

Yet now that Saint Dostoevsky had reached the limit of what his resonance strength could reach at this stage, the good times had passed.

There was no direct benefit to any further haunting anymore. His resonance strength had reached a bottleneck and could not grow a single lavere further.

His haunting had turned into a pure disadvantage again. As strong as his willpower had become, the lack of progress for a long time gradually made him feel discouraged.

How long could the Messenger of Silence endure his haunting and the prolonged stagnation of his growth?

Tusa feared that this period may be a lot shorter for his new mentor than for other peak ace pilots!

The Larkinson ace pilot felt quite concerned about this situation. He found it distressing that an ace pilot who was much more powerful than him suffered so much agony that he may actually not be able to hold out as long anymore.

The Messenger of Silence was living on borrowed time.

Sooner or later, he would be forced to step on the road to no return… or get drowned by the ghosts that would finally be able to drag him into their abyss.

As Saint Tusa exited the enormous graveyard compartment, he nodded to Lieutenant Daria Dostoevskaya, who gestured for him to follow.

The two quietly made their way out of the center of the Third Rome. They did not speak because they were still in the zone where creating any noise was apparently a taboo.

Once they reached a more normal section of the fleet carrier, Lieutenant Daria finally dared to speak again.

"You know."

"I do. I guess."

"We would appreciate it if you keep your thoughts about our great champion to yourself. It is not a secret of what our saint is enduring, but we prefer for our people to have an impression of him at his best, not the opposite."

"That is understandable. Don't worry. My lips are sealed. I am not a tattletale."

"Good. Let me lead you to your stateroom where you will be staying for the foreseeable time. I will also lead you to the hangar bay where your ace mech is being serviced by your accompanying mech technicians. I will then proceed to teach you a number of laws, protocols and cultural customs that apply to our Brusilov Fleet. We tend to do things differently from many other mech forces. You do not have to abide by all of them, but you must be aware of what we do in order to prevent any misunderstandings when you fight alongside our mech units later. Only then will you be permitted to sortie into battle."

"Understood. I am eager to take the field as soon as possible. Please instruct me and teach me more about how to get along with the Messenger of Silence while you are at it. I could use all of the help that I can get."

The young lieutenant smiled at Tusa. "That is good to hear."

A few days went by as Tusa acclimated to the Brusilov Fleet. It took a bit of time for the guest pilot to learn all of the rules. The Terrans were highly traditional, and the Dostoevsky's took that to a greater extreme.

He became familiar with their communication protocols as well as their general tactics and strategies. He memorized their table of organization and learned about many of their cultural customs.

While it was nice for Tusa to become enlightened to a different culture, not much of it was useful to him. He was an ace pilot. His place in the battle order was already higher than that of the grunts. Many of the rules no longer applied to him because he fought a lot better if he was able to act freely.

The real point of all of this instruction was to gain enough familiarity with how the Brusilov Fleet operated so that he would not get in its way during combat.

"To be honest, our Dostoevsky Ancient Clan does not prefer to wage war all of the time." Lieutenant Daria remarked to Tusa at one time. "Many of us actually prefer to engage in more… productive pursuits. Did you know that our ancient clan is famed for our arts and sciences? One of the reasons why our heritage has persisted for so long is because we are much better creators and destroyers. The latter can help us survive in periods where only violence holds sway, but it is the former that has allowed us to continually build on the foundation erected by our ancestors."

Tusa swept his gaze across the compartment and admired the artistic carvings and paintings. The Third Rome truly exemplified the Dostoevsky's pursuit of the arts.

"I kind of understand what you mean. It is… nice. Your ancient clan is not bad at all. I would have loved to grow up in it, but I already have it pretty good in the Larkinson Clan."

Every family had its strong points. Tusa hadn't stayed here for long, but he already noticed a few less pleasant aspects about the Dostoevsky's.

He refrained from mentioning any of them to his hosts. He did not come here to critique and deconstruct their way of life.

"So when will I be able to receive real instruction from the Messenger of Silence?"

"Patience, Saint Tusa. Our great champion prefers to demonstrate in the field. The juregs may have temporarily pulled back their forces from the New Cartagena System, but they will be back soon. They always will, for they cannot afford to give up on New Cartagena VII-F. In the meantime, you can deploy your Dark Zephyr into space and further familiarize yourself with the power of a first-class ace mech. It is best if you have a good grasp of your machine's new level of performance when you sortie with the Messenger of Silence."

So that was what Tusa did. He brought out the Banisher Edition of the Dark Zephyr for testing and practice and quickly grew familiar with his living mech's upgraded features.

He also experimented with the Banish resonating ability he gained after resonating with Erlemin. There was always an asteroid belt around that offered an endless amount of disposable practice targets.

The mech designers were right about its usage. Tusa found it easy to Banish relatively small objects.

At his current resonance strength and proficiency level, he was not able to do anything too impressive.

It was easy enough for him to banish an unresisting asteroid that was roughly the size of his ace mech.

He had to put in a lot more effort to do the same to an asteroid that was several times larger.

He was unable to Banish an asteroid that was ten times larger than his own machine.

Tusa tried to employ his Banish resonating ability in a different way by only disappearing a portion of that asteroid.

His initial attempts failed numerous times. He tried to make it work, but always encountered resistance that was hard to overcome. He executed the resonating ability in different ways until he finally lucked out and managed to take a large 'bite' out of the asteroid!

"It works!"

The temporarily displaced chunk of space rock only disappeared for half a second before coming back again, but the damage was already done! The Dark Zephyr effectively split the larger asteroid without employing any of his knives!

Tusa did not really care that the Banishment duration was a lot shorter than normal since he invested a lot of energy into severing a portion of the asteroid away.

The fact was that Tusa and his battle partner confirmed for themselves that Erlemin had become a much larger and sharper 'knife' for them than their handheld weapons!

"OH YES. I AM SO GOING TO ENJOY THIS NEW RESONATING ABILITY." The upbeat Dark Zephyr crowed. "NOBODY WILL EVER ACCUSE ME FOR POSSESSING THE WORST ARSENAL ANYMORE."

The living mech always appreciated a stronger weapon!

The Dark Wind Module had solved the Dark Zephyr's most acute offensive shortcoming, but it was not exactly a weapon that he could employ willy-nilly.

The consumption of the Banish resonating ability was a lot more flexible. It could be extremely costly if Tusa tried to push it to the limit, but he could make repeated use of it as long as he paced himself.

Saint Tusa and the Dark Zephyr only scratched the surface of what they were capable of. The ace pilot clearly felt that he was being limited by his resonance strength and lack of control.

There was not much he could do about the former, but he could actively work on the latter through continuous practice and experimentation.

"Let's see how much we can improve the way we Banish different things." Tusa said in an upbeat tone. "We need to be faster, more precise and use up less willpower in the process. I feel as if I'm a mech cadet interfacing with a training mech for the first time again."

The mech designers hadn't been lying when they warned him that Erlemin came with an insanely high learning curve!

Tusa was only able to scratch the surface of the immense potential of this newly-developed resonating material!

After another day of basic practice and familiarization, the guest pilot finally learned of an important development.

The juregs were back.

And they were on their way to mount an offensive on New Cartagena II.

"Finally."