The Mech Touch

Chapter 7521 Red Humanity's Strength

Ves experienced a strong sense of satisfaction at seeing his assets cooperate with each other.

All of the effort he put into building up the Premier Fleet and investing into the smart AI processor cluster did not go to waste.

The point of trying to accumulate so many high-end assets was to expand the capabilities of his forces and increase their fault tolerance.

Almost any other fleet would have been rendered helpless and at the mercy of their opponents if they ended up in the same situation!

Yet the combined fleet or more precisely the Premier Fleet of the Larkinson Clan was different due to bringing together multiple high-end assets, each of which was already powerful enough to serve as trump cards for an individual force!

"This is the strength of red humanity." He whispered.

Saint Jannzi, who sat on an observer's seat next to him, took notice of his remark.

"Technology?"

"Not necessarily." He subtly shook his head. "Technology alone does not give us the edge we need. I have always believed that it is the utilization of the available solutions that gives our civilization an edge over the others. Many of the alien races have their own strengths and advantages, but their tech base and doctrines are usually a lot narrower. They are good at what they are already doing, but fare a lot worse when they have to adapt to new and unfamiliar situations. We don't suffer as much from this problem. We have a long track record of fighting all kinds of different enemies, including ourselves. Our toolbox is larger and more diverse, allowing us to pivot quickly and easier. I believe that ultimately, the strongest species is not the one that performs the best in a single environment, but one that does pretty well in multiple different environments."

That caused Jannzi to frown. "I don't agree with you, Ves. I feel as if you are oversimplifying entire races and civilizations. Absolute strength can overpower any adaptation no matter how clever it may be. Why do you think every mech pilot is still working hard to advance to godhood? Only by becoming a god pilot will you gain the power to smash through every obstacle! Our forces wouldn't be struggling so much right now if we had a single god mech at our disposal. Whatever tricks and schemes the deathborn have in store for us mean nothing when they crash against an inviolable God Kingdom."

"Even god pilots can be restrained, Jannzi. At the very least, they can still be hindered by each other. However, I agree with you that as long as you are powerful enough in your own right, things such as adaptation and versatility become meaningless. It is just incredibly difficult to achieve this power gap. I am sure that the deathborn civilization's top powerhouses can easily squash us into dust, but it is clear that their ability to project more than a tiny fraction of their power to this distant dwarf galaxy is limited. As long as that is the case, they will still have to abide by the rules of the game, just as our own forces. That is where our inherent versatility and rich toolset can give us an edge."

"Uh huh." Jannzi nodded in an unimpressed manner. "We still need time and other stuff to fully realize those advantages. I doubt our enemies feel generous enough to give us the space we need to complete our adaptations."

Ves wondered why she was feeling so pessimistic, but when he saw that the Amaranto Mark III was shining like a beacon on the hull of the Tortuous Scream, he fell silent and waited with anticipation.

The Amaranto Mark III certainly took her sweet time to charge up her Instrument of Vengeance.

Different from before, the oversized luminar crystal rifle did not glow as blindingly bright as before.

This was because the dark miasma dampened the ace mech's connection to the Illustrious One, thereby preventing Saint Stark from borrowing the power of the design spirit.

The hostile environment also lowered the concentration of light-attributed E energy, thereby significantly hindering the Amaranto Mark III's attempts to absorb it from the local environment.

That did not mean that the living mech had lost her lethality. The ace marksman mech was still powerful enough in her own right even if she could only gather a fraction of light-attributed E energy this time!

Saint Stark did not bother to wait until she could charge up her rifle to the limit.

The Instrument of Vengeance's maximum energy capacity was impressively high, but it was not necessary to make use of all of that potential in every situation.

She had already taken a good look at the formation anchors recorded by the Woodsap mechs and made her own judgment on how much firepower it took to destroy their structures.

What truly challenged her was landing a hit in the first place.

This was where the targeting data provided by the entire fleet came in handy.

In a situation where visibility was terrible and widespread spatial distortions introduced additional complications, it was virtually impossible for any ranged mech to achieve a successful hit on a distant target!

Yet Saint Stark and the Amaranto Mark III did not stand alone this time.

Under the supervision of Saint Commander Casella Ingvar, the smart AIs of the Tortuous Scream condensed all of their data calculations and modeling in a very minimal feed of essential graphs and numbers before transmitting it to the Amaranto Mark III.

This active data feed still strained Saint Stark's ability to process all of the numbers!

Even if the smart AIs had done their best to leave out all of the redundant data, that still left a lot of numbers and patterns that could easily make any mech pilot dizzy!

Fortunately, no one expected for Saint Stark to interpret the raw data as if she was a physicist or engineer.

The Amaranto Mark III's processing power was nothing impressive compared to a true naval AI core, but her compact high-end processors could still digest the continuous stream of numbers and adjust the aim of her luminar crystal rifle accordingly!

Of course, even with all of the data and dynamic adjustments, the Amaranto Mark III alone could not guarantee a 100 percent hit rate.

Not only was the data not completely reliable, but the relatively tiny delay between choosing to open fire and actually hitting the target could still result in a miss!

Saint Stark could not get rid of this lag time. Even if Ves had painstakingly designed and tuned the Instrument of Vengeance to cut down the lag time as much as possible, he could not overcome or bypass most of the hardware limitations.

This could absolutely make a difference!

The Amaranto alone did not possess the capabilities to adequately compensate for the lag time and other unavoidable factors.

This was where the human factor came in. Only an ace pilot such as Davia Stark could bridge the remaining gap and rely on her own skill, experience and intuition to transform a near miss into a direct hit!

The ace pilot took a deep breath as she sat in the cockpit of her ace mech.

Different from past attempts, she could not look at her current target directly.

The dark miasma completely blocked her ace mech's optical sensors, and she did not see the point in bringing up an outdated recording of the formation anchor.

Instead, she called up the visual representation of the mathematical model.

Purple lines continued to streak in different directions. The closest energy vortex imposed a bit of regularity in the patterns, but there was enough chaos to produce random eddies and other wrinkles.

What was especially remarkable about this ongoing simulation was that it did not just describe the present situation, but also attempted to predict the future!

Any ordinary mech pilot would still be unable to get anything useful out of this, but Saint Stark was different!

As an ace pilot who had transcended her human limitations years ago, she was able to read the patterns and internalize them in a way that could not be explained.

She did not even try to dive into the specifics. She instead allowed herself to enter a special mindstate where she absorbed a lot of data in a subconscious manner.

"I shall not miss." She told herself, and believed that she could make her words come true.

Her attention narrowed even as her willpower grew taut.

A sense of absolute calm spread from the glowing ace mech.

Just when people thought that this stagnant situation would drag on for a while, the Instrument of Vengeance finally discharged an almost blindingly bright energy beam!

The energy beam was so powerful and domineering that its linear passage blasted all of the dark miasma with unerring determination!

For a brief moment, a temporary tunnel emerged!

This cylindrical cavity provided the red humans with enough clarity to determine the results of the shot!