The Mech Touch

Chapter 7250: The Importance of Resistance

"You do not need to help with developing the spear and javelins. Ves will approach Dulo Voiken and other relevant specialists to make them better. We just need enough mid and high-grade superdimensional matter to get started. It would be great if we can fully meet our needs at 3x."

Swordmaster Ketis might not be the matriarch, but she was an incredibly important voice in the clan. She was the patron of the expeditionary fleet, the Swordmaidens, the Heavensworders and plenty of other worshipful clansmen.

She might not have a chance of becoming the matriarch of the Larkinson Clan in the current period, but as long as she continued to grow along her current trajectory, she had an excellent chance of taking over once Saint Commander Casella Ingvar stepped down.

Of course, this was still a distant scenario. Casella had just gotten started. It was unimaginable that she would relinquish her role without effecting large-scale changes to the clan. She needed to make her mark before she could even think about moving on to greater affairs.

It was therefore quite important for the Dark Apostle to earn her favor.

He was not Ves, so he could not automatically leech off his weaker self. He needed to go out of his way to cultivate a cordial relationship.

However, it was not easy to earn her trust. Ketis had not met Ves' alter ego in person, but she had heard plenty of stories from other clansmen, including his wife!

"A spear scaled for a phase lord that is 3 times the size of a mech can be a costly weapon to make." She said. "Your draft design indicates that you want to stick to a relatively standard length of 1.5 times your length, or 4.5 times the length of a typical mech. If the shaft is made out of armor-grade superdimensional alloy, then it should be thin. We should keep the waste to a minimum. I suggest you either make the shaft hollow, hollow with a core of a different material or shape it into a spiral that is intertwined with other alloys."

The Dark Apostle frowned. He did not quite understand the differences between the three choices.

"I originally wanted a solid armor-grade superdimensional alloy shaft that is thick enough to withstand repeated attacks from other superdimensional weapons. I do not want to wield a staff that feels too thin and fragile in my grasp. It is especially difficult to grip a thinner spear with gauntlets. I will leave it to Ves to choose which solution is the best for us. We just want enough armor-grade superdimensional matter to form a decent base."

Ketis smiled. "He should be able to understand the priorities of our clan and keep his request economical enough. The same consideration applies to the tip of the spear. We cannot afford to make it too big. Try to rein in your expectations. It only needs to be long and thick enough to punch through superdimensional armor."

"Understood. I would appreciate all the help that you can give me. The sooner we receive the necessary superdimensional matter, the sooner Ves can complete my combat gear. Once my body has returned to peak condition, I can finally do more than sit around and engage in light spars and repetitive weapon drills."

"Eager for action, are you? I can understand." The projection of the female swordmaster smiled. "I am sure that Ves will create the best and most eccentric gear for you. Knowing what kind of shenanigans he is up to, he will definitely not restrain himself when it comes to his own protection. By the way, will he continue to make use of his superdimensional spear and knife once he has completed his ambitious Polymath mech, or will he reinvent them in order to adapt to his latest regalia?"

The Dark Apostle was able to answer this question easily enough.

"Unless radical new tech has come out that has completely changed the game, I do not think he intends to reinvent them anytime soon once they are done. We will continue to add them to our loadout whenever we intend to deploy on the battlefield at 3x. We will probably retire our stopgap raiment and keep it as a backup option. Our plan is to create various different weapons at different sizes and keep them in reserve. As an Ascended Giant, I can never know for certain whether I want to fight at 1x, 3x or 10x."

That caused Ketis to furrow her brows. "This is a complicated matter. I never put much thought on how to arm 'Ascended Giants' such as yourself. The fact that you can change your sizes is a great advantage, but it is not that helpful if your gear cannot automatically match your size. It makes much more sense why Ves is eager to develop a Polymetal mech for himself. It would be great if he can develop a weapon that can also change its scale. In fact, if he can create a Polymetal mech, then he can extend its smart metal to form a blade or a spear with ease. It is not strictly necessary to create a separate arsenal."

The Dark Apostle shook his head in rejection. "Ves has thought of that, but he does not like it. That is basically treating the Polymetal mech as his weapon, which is not the main point. Weapons like the Heavensword, the Bitter Scimitar, the Decapitator, the Murder Knife and etc. are powerful because they are self-contained and singularly designed to serve an offensive purpose. They possess their own artifact spirits that empower them even further. I want that for myself. I do not mind it if I have to juggle multiple different weapons for myself. None of them will become my 'life weapon'. The only pact that I am willing to make is with my future Polymetal mech."

"Understandable." Ketis nodded.

She wondered whether it was possible for her to form a Blood Pact with a Carmine mech when she already formed a Life Sword Pact with her Bloodsinger.

It may just be possible considering that they belonged to two entirely separate categories.

Ketis was not in a hurry to pilot a Carmine mech anytime soon, so this point was moot.

Perhaps she should revisit this topic when Ves completed his vaunted Polymetal mech. He had described it as the perfect solution for mech designers.

The malleability and reprogrammability of smart metal mechs allowed mech designers to add their own solutions to their personal machines.

After the Dark Apostle had issued his demands and became satisfied with the feedback he received from Ketis, the two began to talk about other subjects.

Ketis felt a bit strange as she continued to converse with the Ascended Giant.

He possessed Ves' face and shared numerous of the traits of her former mentor, but the Dark Apostle was very much a different person entirely.

She felt as if she was talking to Ves' black sheep brother or cousin. It was certainly a novel experience for her. The Ascended Giant apparently knew everything Ves knew, but possessed a very different perspective on different matters.

Although he called himself the Dark Apostle, he did not really come across as a dark and evil cultist.

Yet the fact that he still embraced this name was a cause for concern. It certainly conveyed his intentions to wield dark and dangerous powers.

Sooner or later, he would be in over his head.

Ketis needed to be ready to respond with force if the Dark Apostle lost perspective and turned into a threat to the Larkinson Clan.

"Have you been following the developments of the voribug invasion? Have you heard about all of the hives that have emerged in the last week?"

"I have." She said. "My fellow Larkinsons and I have recently noticed that the native aliens are losing momentum at the frontlines. Their reinforcements are being diverted to slow down the voribug advance in their own territories. The loss of many productive sun systems has introduced greater delays in their logistical network. While the native aliens are still determined to collide with the mutated voribugs to finish off red humanity together, the insects are so feral and hostile to everyone that they cannot be reasoned or bargained with. I think they are in for a hard time, especially when there is much more alien territory to grab than human territory."

Her words made a lot of sense. While red humanity was weak in the new frontier, it put up a great amount of resistance. Several years of war where humans had always been on the defensive had hardened them against invasions.

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In other words, red humanity was already fully prepared to fight a defensive war on the onset.

The same could not be said for the native aliens. Their absolute numbers advantage along with the protection of their phase lords had always allowed them to go on the offensive.

Even if scattered human forces raided their staging points and supply dumps, the damage to the alien war effort was always negligible.

When it came to infrastructure, humans were nothing less than ants compared to the aliens.

The native aliens did not even bother to fortify many star systems, especially the ones located further away from human-occupied space.

Red humanity simply did not possess the capacity to raid so deep into alien space, at least for the time being.

This was why the mutated voribugs practically enjoyed a feast.

While red humanity at the Rubarthan border regions fought tooth and nail for every sun system, the alien territories fell like dominoes.

Due to the Red Cabal's deliberate strategic choice to inflict a fatal or crippling blow to red humanity first before addressing the voribug menace, the latter was able to expand much faster into large swathes of poorly defended alien territories!

The 3 hives assigned to fight against the native aliens were expanding much faster than the 3 hives struggling to capture human territories!

"I kind of feel disappointed at the native aliens." The Dark Apostle admitted. "Their lack of resistance against the Chorus Hive, the Chalice Hive and the Simex Hive is letting them balloon in numbers. If the native aliens completely drop the ball, they will devour the entire Red Ocean before finally turning all of their might against human-occupied space. By then, we will be flooded by so many voribugs that even god pilots will get exhausted to death. No one can withstand this galactic plague when it has accumulated to this point."

Ketis grimaced. "This is why your work is important. You and Ves need to go out there and figure out a way to block the invading voribugs more effectively. In this threeway struggle, we are the weakest party. We don't have as much territory as the native aliens, and we do not reproduce as quickly as the voribugs. What we do have is the best technology, the most effective troops and the strongest champions. That is not enough in my opinion."

"What do you think red humanity needs in order to gain the upper hand against these two enemies?"

"I have numerous ideas, but many of them are unrealistic." She sighed. "It would be great if we can somehow turn the two against each other to the point they completely neglect us. We can still do this if we can shore up our defenses and develop effective countermeasures against both. We do not necessarily have to go on the offensive. We simply have to hold onto our existing territories and not lose any further. The stiffer our resistance, the more we can redirect our enemies against each other."

That actually sounded like a viable strategy, but it hinged on whether the native aliens and mutated voribugs were willing to overlook the stubborn but relatively 'small' red humans.

The Dark Apostle thought that was too good to be true. If the Red Cabal and the Devourer Queen had any intelligence, they would know that red humanity posed a huge hidden threat due to its amazing potential.

This was why red humans could not afford to take it easy.