The Mech Touch

Chapter 7553 The Antitote of Death

Renner Alvous may be the first, but he was no longer unique.

More Terran mech pilots suffered from the same afflictions.

The symptoms were almost identical. Each of them seemed to have aged at a hyper-accelerated rate. Each of them lost the spark of life that defined their lives prior to this instance. Each of them essentially became dead men walking.

Ves feared that he had already condemned them to an irreversible fate.

Yet his hands did not work any slower because of this. He remained committed to the plan, and he understood that the Terrans would never refuse to make this sacrifice.

Even as his heart became weighed down by the guilt of his actions, his modification actions became faster and smoother over time.

He learned. He gained proficiency. He increasingly comprehended the depth of what he was bringing into existence.

Ironically, witnessing the unnatural decay of the lives of all of those mech pilots helped to increase his understanding of the forces that he was manipulating.

He expanded his grasp on the concepts of life and death. He felt as if he had become a more qualified weaver of life and a spinner of death. He inadvertently discovered new directions of research that could enable him to develop his own alternatives to life-prolonging treatment serums.

All of this should have excited him under normal circumstances, but seeing more and more brave soldiers suffer the consequences of his brilliance sapped the joy out of his heart.

He increasingly felt that he was trodding on forbidden terrain.

Mech designers shouldn't be engaging in this kind of work.

It was fortunate that Ves was not only a mech designer.

As the days passed on, more and more Woodsap mechs lost vitality and turned into dry and eerie trees.

The only life they seemed to have left was all concentrated into their fruits. These bright and shiny pear-like objects looked extremely discordant amidst the thin branches and cracked bark.

Ves could feel the morale among the Terrans plunging in real-time. The more Poison Willows aboard a combat carrier, the greater the impact on the confidence of the crew.

This was why he was forced to rotate among the other Terran combat carriers in order to ensure that they retained a sufficient amount of healthy and normal Woodsap mechs.

By the time the combined fleet had come close to the estimated coordinates of Hypeh-Tekas II, Ves finally deigned to take a break.

"I can't do this any longer." Ves said with a heavy heart. "I changed my mind. 20 will have to do. I do not think it is necessary to convert so many Woodsap mechs anymore. I have gained a much greater understanding of what I am working with. I believe that the probability that our scheme will succeed is high enough that the current quantity is acceptable."

The Second Elf looked relieved. "That is… good news. Though my fellow men and women are not afraid of sacrifice, I have to admit that it is disturbing to witness the perversion of so many fonts of life. Your Woodsap mechs are among the greatest creations that you have brought to life. To deliberately strip them of the life that defines them is a form of desecration. We would never accept this solution if the situation did not demand extreme measures."

Ves sighed and turned around to leave this cursed place.

"Treat them well. Their conditions are not their fault. Try to preserve them after they have fulfilled their purpose. I still believe that the process that they have undergone can be reversed."

"Do you truly think so, sir? They have already given up so much of their lives to produce their rich and irresistible fruits. Once the deathborn have devoured them all, the Poison Willows have become hollowed out. There is hardly any life left in them to sustain them and their human pilots."

Ves briefly halted his steps. "I originally designed this variant with the intention of creating predators. I did not set out to turn them into sacrificial lambs. If my original vision for this variant still holds true, then the Poison Willows may be able to reverse their own adverse conditions by themselves."

"What if you are proven false."

"Then I will just have to engineer a different solution." Ves shrugged his shoulders. "To mech designers like myself, problems are not punishments that we must bear without complaint. Problems exist to be solved. The only points of uncertainty are whether I am competent enough to develop a solution and whether we can stomach the cost."

He proceeded to make his way out as both men pondered upon these words.

Soon after his shuttle departed from the hangar bay of the Terran combat carrier, Ves felt as if he had shed a heavy burden.

He shouldn't be feeling so depressed after working on so many Poison Willows. If he was being honest with himself, they were hardly comparable to the greater horrors that he had fashioned with his own hands. The Riot Mark III alone could crush all of the Poison Willows without breaking a sweat.

Yet somehow, Ves felt a lot more impacted by his recent work than he should. Why was this the case?

"Perhaps… it is because the Poison Willows are incongruent with my design philosophy."

On the surface, this argument made sense.

The Poison Willows had been brought to the brink of death at a very young phase that should have ordinarily signalled the beginning of their bright and vibrant lives!

How could these barely living mechs look forward to experiencing an entire saga of growth and evolution when their ostensive lifespans did not surpass a decade?

What was even more disturbing to Ves was that their awful physical conditions did not assist their mech pilots at all. In fact, the opposite occurred!

Healthy and vigorous pilots who could still look forward to enjoying a century of life if they did not perish on the battlefield had lost almost all of their lifespans in a matter of hours!

The overbearing nature of the Woodsap Pact had only shown its positive sides up until recently.

Now that Ves had created the Poison Willows, this very same extraordinary contract had revealed its ominous edge.

This incident had taught him a brutal lesson.

Not every pact was for either side!

Though a part of him felt grateful for learning this truth so early, he still felt sour that such a thing existed in the first place.

He had lost some of his love and fascination for his Carmine mechs.

They should have been the savior of the mech industry and the human race as a whole.

While Ves still believed in this premise, he could not deny that they had introduced the human race to a host of new and confounding problems.

In the Milky Way Galaxy, his infamous Auto Heretics had completely destroyed the peace and stability that had governed much of its stars for four centuries.

Too many repressed norms had impatiently acquired the boundary-breaking machines and did not even bother with learning how to pilot a mech properly in order to take advantage of their destructive power straight away!

So many local and regional wars had erupted among the destabilized star sectors of original humanity that Ves, the terrible mech designer who unilaterally introduced this abomination to society, had accumulated a humongous bounty!

If not for the protection of his mother and the growing number of hidden cabals that had chosen to collude with her, poor little Veronica would have long transformed into someone's hunting trophy!

Ves' eyes grew strained when he thought what his external incarnation was about to face.

It was almost about time for Veronica to step foot at the legendary Ruined Temple.

Or something like that.

He wasn't sure about the details. Cynthia kept her plans very close to her chest.

He understood the necessity of it all. He and his mother had made far too many enemies in the old galaxy. They would be happy to pounce on any leaks regarding the movements of the menaces that possessed an undeniable relationship with the forbidden Five Scrolls Compact.

Ves subtly shook his head.

This was no time for him to worry about Veronica's upcoming business. His female feline incarnation may be surrounded by enemies, but she could always lean on the shoulders of their True God mother.

One of the advantages of having such a scary and controlling mother was that her protection was a lot more comprehensive!

Even if Veronica learned that several god pilots personally sought to hunt her down, the Oblivion Empress had already won over several god pilots who had long grown disaffected by the tyranny of the Big Two!

Instead of worrying about this enormous galactic-scale chess game that was gradually unfolding millions of light-years away, Ves could make much better use of his time worrying about his more immediate problems.

Once his shuttle made its way back to the Tarrasque, he left the vehicle and made his way over to his wife's personal design lab.

"You have finally returned." His wife greeted him even as she fed a spoonful of artificially fortified fruit to her son.

"Papa!" Marvaine happily greeted him from Gloriana's lap!

"Meow." Lucky raised his paw in greeting even as he floated protectively beside the little guy.

The sight of his wife and child evaporated much of the dark air that had remained inside of Ves.

Life was the antidote of death.

As Ves approached, he picked Marvaine up and happily planted a few kisses on his son's cheeks.

"Who's my little mech designer?"

"Hihihihi!"

He continued to hug his son even as he turned towards his wife. "I missed you, honey."

"You truly mean that." Gloriana observantly responded. "I have heard about the… side effects of your latest work. I am glad to see that you are not torturing yourself to death. How are the Poison Willows?"

"They are… in optimal condition." Ves carefully responded. "I have my concerns, but they have not significantly deviated from my design. They will do their jobs. I am very confident in that. In fact, I do not think that we need more than 10 Poison Willows to fulfill their strategic objective. The additional ones should mainly serve as backup."

"Are you that confident that the poisoned fruits will wipe out all of the deathborn?"

"I am more confident in them than before, Gloriana. All of that hands-on work has really deepened my understanding of what I have been working with. I even incorporated small improvements in the later biomechs. To me, life and death are no longer as absolute and rigid as before. I have improved my ability to mold them into different shapes. I have even come up with a few ideas that could serve as the foundation of the second generation of my Woodsap mechs."