The Mech Touch

Chapter 6365  Extra Risky Smart Metal Raiment

Though Ves had fallen back into his bad habits and became completely fascinated by discovering his wonderful compatibility with the living nanomachine plagues, he did not lose the entirety of his mind.

The threat posed by the five arche phase lords were relatively low as they lacked a strong means of attack. The laser beams emitted by their archeshells were relatively potent, but not entirely unbeatable.

When Ves hijacked the living nanomachine plagues and used them to subsume his makeshift raiment, he effectively gained a suit of armor that looked as if it was darkness come to life!

He could completely pass off as a villain in a children's action drama at this time!

Not only did his true body exude a lot of darkness and malevolence, but he had clad himself in his own suit of morphing dark armor!

Ves was still experimenting with his newfound control over the nanomachine plagues. While their driving instinct was to consume and destroy everything they touched aside from each other, now that they had been given life, they willingly submitted themselves to their progenitor!

Despite how scary it was to remain in extended contact with these all-consuming nanomachines, Ves did not fear them at all. He was absolutely confident he could maintain control over these products.

He fully leveraged his abilities and his expertise as a mech designer and a spiritual engineer to maintain solid control over this weapon of mass destruction!

The original nanomachines sought to fulfill their programming without paying any attention to the context, but the living nanomachines were more sophisticated than that. They understood the principles of delayed gratification. Ves merely had to promise them that they could break down the enemy archeshells a lot more effectively so long as they accepted his leadership!

This meant that Ves remained confident that the nanomachines would do whatever he wanted as long as he continued to attack the arche phase lords!

The story might be different if he tried to retreat and avoid confrontation. The nanomachine plagues had their orders, and even if they possessed the power to resist the intentions of others, they were not willing to deviate from their purpose!

"Professor Larkinson!" Major Jankowski spoke with a bit of alarm in his voice. "You lost your awareness for a time. That is extremely dangerous and a good way to die in the field! You need to keep paying attention to what is going on around you. Also, you aren't supposed to take direct control over the nanomachine plagues. They are serious weapons meant to depopulate entire planets. If it wasn't clear that you seem to be able to keep their programmed attack routines at bay for the time being, the captain of the Babylon Excavator should have already activated their killswitch by now. His finger is still hovering above the button. Do you insist on carrying them around your person?"

"Yes." Ves replied as he and the surrounding mechs had already separated from the damaged archeshell ball and backed off to take stock of the situation. "Don't worry. I have taken control over them due to my previous work on them. I did not expect to be able to take control over the nanomachine plagues to this extent, but it is working fine for the time being. Just trust me. I think I can make good use of them to strengthen my attacks."

He was already working on it. By working together with the nanomachine plagues, he was able to attract a lot more darkness energy than before.

An astronomical amount of living nanomachines was cooperating with him in the effort to draw more darkness energy!

Even if the individual lives of all of those tiny machines were not that impressive, quantity became a quality of their own after surpassing a high threshold.

Not only that, but the nanomachines were accustomed to banding together and combining their forces. They were able to produce more dramatic effects as they united to achieve a common purpose!

The result of all of this was that the smart metal raiment began to produce an energy vortex that pulled in much more darkness energy from the surrounding environment than before!

The tiny hyper materials integrated in the original batch of nanomachines helped a lot. They happened to be neutral and compatible with every attribute in order to be able to adapt and reproduce in every situation.

Even though the efficiency of attracting darkness energy dropped when the nanomachines devoured other hyper materials, their excellent cooperation reduced the impact of this consequence.

Ves and the mechs around him briefly observed the state of the arche phase lords.

The first-class multipurpose mechs managed to inflict more serious damage to the archeshells after relying on him to get close for a time. The progress felt gratifying, but the problem was that it was not enough to halt their forward progress.

Most of the damage remained confined to the archeshells as opposed to the softer and more vulnerable flesh!

The mechs continued to bombard the archeshell ball in the distance. A number of warships that had already managed to defeat a few of their alien counterparts began to direct their firepower towards this impending threat as well.

The warship-grade gun batteries were able to inflict substantially more massive damage to the archeshells, but without enough space suppression fields acting on the arche phase lords, their results were ultimately limited.

"We have not done nearly enough to halt their progress." Major Jankowski urgently spoke. "We have managed to widen and deepen some of the cracks in the most heavily damaged archeshell. If we want to save Fort Rock, we must get close and dig all the way through. If we lose our mechs over this, it is worth it as we need to take down these arche phase lords sooner rather than later. Are you able to cooperate with us on this, professor?"

Ves nodded. "I am able. Be warned that I am still learning how to best harness these nanomachine plagues, but I already have a few good ideas that I want to try out. Just to be safe, don't get too close to my true body."

"Noted."

After circling around for a short time, Ves and the surrounding squads swooped in yet again. The arche phase lords resorted to their usual tricks, but they were no longer as scary as before now that they lost their surprise factor.

When the mechs utilized their combined ranged and melee weapons to tear into the gaps they previously made, Ves tried to join in the effort by leveraging his newfound control over the nanomachine plagues.

"Devour!"

Dozens of smart metal cats split off his form and began to chew at the cavity that Ves designated.

This was already more effective than letting them disperse all across the surface of the archeshell. The nanomachine plagues were designed to inflict widespread destruction, so they lacked the impulse to concentrate their strength when encountering a tough target.

Ves did not fear that this would happen as long as he maintained conscious direction over the living nanomachine plagues.

He was not only able to concentrate them onto the same targets, but also managed to squeeze them deeper inside the deepest cracks that had almost reached the flesh of the arche phase lord!

As the living nanomachine plagues eagerly sought to fulfill their new instructions, Ves lifted up his Oceancaller and watched as a layer of living nanomachines gradually started to cover its surface.

The flute felt anything but pleased by this. It was downright creepy to the weapon!

Ves was sure that he had diminished his relationship with the high-level relic even further, but he felt it was a worthwhile tradeoff as he gained a much more effective 'darkness staff' in return!

Compared to the previous impacts, Ves grew a lot more enthused when he saw that he was able to produce a much stronger effect this time!

With the Oceancaller acting as a virtually indestructible inner core, the outer layer of nanomachines enabled Ves to execute the extraordinary techniques of his recently acquired staff fighting style a lot more fluently than before!

Ves truly began to look the part of a Dark Apostle as his darkness-infused form smashed a staff made out of malevolent nanomachines against the archeshell!

The blunt force impact probably squished a lot of nanomachines, but they were quickly being cannibalized by the living ones in order to produce living replacements!

Compared to the previous impacts, Ves grew a lot more enthused when he saw that he was able to produce a much stronger effect this time!

The point of smacking the tip of his staff against a piece of archeshell was not to produce greater cracks. His real purpose was to infuse a concentrated jet of darkness energy into his target area.

As he did so, Ves directed his strong intent to weaken the structural integrity of his localized target.

The previous times he did so, the effect was minimal because the archeshell was just too damn tough!

This time, the resistance from the archeshell hadn't changed, but because the injection of darkness energy was so much greater this time, it truly began to weaken the piece of archeshell in real time!

In order to confirm the effect, Ves smacked his augmented staff at the same spot again.

It cracked!

Not only that, but the fresh injection of darkness energy seemed to combine with the previous injection that had not yet dispersed.

The weakening effect grew stronger!

Ves could feel the concentrated darkness energy express its corrosive and weakening aspect, causing the piece of archeshell to dull and lose its shine as if it became afflicted by a curse.

This was not too far from the truth, as Ves also applied his insights on the withering curse on this particular technique!

Although the withering curse was traditionally associated with the wood element, it also possessed a dark side that allowed Ves to transplant parts of it to his current techniques.

Ves was constantly thinking as he repeatedly bashed the archeshell underneath him. The rapid accumulation of darkness energy successfully weakened the entire section of archeshell and allowed him to dig deeper at a surprisingly fast pace!

His progress became so impressive that a pair of first-class multipurpose mechs joined him and used their own weapons to crumble the weakened portions of archeshell even faster.

"Whatever you are doing, keep it up, Professor Larkinson! We are making rapid progress!"

The mechers placed so much hope in Ves that they stuck around even as the laser beam emissions from the archeshell grew more desperate!

More and more first-class multipurpose mechs lost their azure energy shields and incurred severe damage. A few unlucky machines were even forced to eject their cockpits for fear of losing a precious human life!

The arche phase lords definitely took notice of Ves. They put more effort into trying to push him away from the expanding weak point, but the human phase lord refused to budge!

The ominous energies surrounding Ves grew more intense as he relied on both his spatial abilities and his cloak of darkness to keep him in place!

The effort exerted a lot of strain on his mind, body and Spirituality, but he felt more exhilerated than ever!

"Hahaha! With the protection of darkness, you can't do anything to me! You will have to resort to much stronger attacks if you want to push me away!"

That provoked the arche phase lord into shooting transphasic laser beams at his true body.

Ves no longer smacked his Oceancaller onto the weakening archeshell, but began to spin it around with his hands in a familiar fashion.

This time, he managed to produce a much larger and stronger darkness barrier!

Even if half-a-dozen laser beams struck Ves in quick succession, the barrier still held on, though it became a lot more exhausted.

Though Ves was no longer able to slam his staff at the archeshell surface, Ves simply raised one of his enlarged legs and slammed his nanomachine-covered heel right onto the same spot he had previously targeted!

Just as he expected, he was smoothly able to inject another dose of darkness energy within the compromised section. It crumbled apart even faster due to this move.

Ves grinned wider as he made a lot of interesting observations on what a difference the nanomachine plagues had made up to this point.

"This should only be the tip of the iceberg! I feel I can do more!"