The Mech Touch

Chapter 7576 Deathborn Lords

The Battle of Hypeh-Tekas II had entered a new stage.

The brawl between the two groups of phase leaders had ended on an inconclusive note.

Both sides suffered severe damage. The Ascended Giants had entered the battlefield with more men, but suffered greater losses as a result.

It couldn't be helped. As strong as the Dark Apostle and the Fiery Axe had become, neither of them were a match against properly equipped and prepared greater phase whales.

The Blackwater Summoner had especially demonstrated the strength and dignity of a core member of the Red Cabal!

Given how much damage blackwater could have wrought on the Ascended Giants or other human forces, Ves already considered this outcome to be a slight victory.

They had prevented the powerful representatives of the Red Cabal from making a greater impact on the battlefield!

Unfortunately, the Ascended Giants paid a steep price for this thin victory.

The Dark Apostle frowned as he beheld the surrounding space. Splotches of blackwater, phasewater-infused blood and debris floated in every direction.

Chunks of torn superdimensional armor plating and starship debris made flight through this region a bit more hazardous than before.

The surviving giants sifted through the moderately-sized debris field.

Each of them showed various signs of fatigue.

The fighting had not lasted long, but the pressure of survival had been so great that they had expended huge amounts of energy over a span of just 20 or so minutes!

After so much exertion, the Ascended Giants had already become a half-spent force.

Perhaps the ones that had suffered fewer injuries could still contribute to the ongoing battle in other ways, but they were no longer in a shape to confront enemies at the same level.

The enemy phase leaders made great use of their Saint Piercers and superior phasewater organs to exact their pound of flesh from their human counterparts!

This clash had most certainly opened Ves and the Dark Apostle's eyes on the potential of phase leaders.

The Phase Lord Department had made great strides by investing in superior technology and equipment.

However, the native aliens and more specifically the Red Cabal were not savages who could always be trusted to neglect technological development.

Arrogant as they may be, forward-thinking phase whales such as the Blackwater Summoner fully recognized the value and necessity of superior technology.

The sophistication of his customized Saint Armor did not fall too far behind in comparison to his own Superdimensional Giant Regalia!

While there were many differences, Ves still grew distressed by the fact that the overall performance gap was not as great as he desired.

If the Red Cabal had access to superior grades of superdimensional matter, then the outcome of this bout would have been a lot less favorable!

"This is a disappointment." The Dark Apostle commented as he continued to supervise the cleanup of the battlefield.

He winced in pain as the rapid-sealing solution had formed a temporary cast on his heavily injured left shoulder.

He still hadn't regained movement in his arm, though he supposed he should feel grateful that the blackwater hadn't managed to sever the limb entirely.

While he could endure the pain, he felt more upset about his failure to defeat the Blackwater Summoner.

If he had put up a better fight, then he could have secured a more decisive victory!

At the very least, he could have taken revenge for all of the casualties suffered by his men.

"We acquitted ourselves well as far as I am concerned." Ves soothed his other self even as he examined the small samples of blackwater that they managed to secure in a gravitic trap. "Sure, we may have outnumbered our opponents, but those 2 greater phase whales are no joke. Neutralizing this threat early without committing greater assets is a good exchange. I am sure that the Saint Commander can rest a little easier now that we have taken these powerful pieces off the board."

The mention of the Saint Commander caused the Dark Apostle to throw a glance at the damaged Victrix.

The metallic owl had clearly seen better days. It no longer exuded as much light and presence as before.

Ves had already withdrawn his Chosen Envoy. There was no reason to let Imon Ingvar linger in realspace for any longer than necessary. His ego and personality were still deficient. Letting him remain in contact with his sister would probably do more harm than good.

Casella did not object to this decision.

As much as she missed her brother, she knew more than anyone else that the current iteration of Imon was still very much… incomplete, not to mention his other flaws.

"Sir." The Fiery Axe flew up to the Dark Apostle while holding half the corpse of a nunser phase lord. "We've grabbed what we can. There are still pieces of superdimensional gear that have flown too far for us to retrieve, but we should leave that to the other retrieval parties. I suggest we retreat."

The Dark Apostle nodded. "Very well. Lead the way."

As the Ascended Giants made their way back to the combined fleet, the Victrix no longer stuck around anymore.

There were other locations that still needed her assistance!

Though the metallic owl had sustained severe damage in the fight against the Blackwater Summoner, the Saint Commander evidently judged that she could still play a useful role.

As Ves and the Dark Apostle both directed their attention across the broad expanse of space around them, they certainly understood why Casella made this risky choice.

The eruption of so many deathborn and the release of so much life energy had temporarily changed the rules of the battlefield.

The hostile environment had disappeared, at least for as long as this pocket of positive energies lasted.

That did not necessarily mean that Alexa's gambit had banished the dark miasma forever.

The source of this malevolent influence still existed elsewhere in the Hypeh-Tekas System.

Enough time had passed for the high concentration of life energy to deplete. Too much of it had dispersed into the surroundings. Like a drop of wine falling into a lake, the spark of life had no chance of surviving in a chamber of darkness.

The dark miasma was making a comeback. Already, the zone of positive energies had not only grown several times weaker, but also shrunk in radius.

Ves estimated that the pocket of safety would disappear entirely within a quarter of an hour.

"Too short!"

All of this meant that the combined fleet had to wrap up this battle and do its best to complete the most crucial objectives before it was too late!

Ves glanced at the massive dark stone temple complex built on the surface of the graveyard planet.

The explosion of life energy and the spread of poisonous seeds had temporarily suppressed its activity, but how long would that last?

Once the dark miasma returned, the operators of this temple would be free to resume the production of newborn deathborn!

Why had the temple not yet come under assault?

Ves swept his gaze across the battlefield and obtained the answer.

Every other asset had become occupied.

The Dark Zephyr Mark III, the Amaranto Mark III and the First Sword Mark III all became locked into combat by a handful of very troublesome high-ranking deathborn.

Each of them happened to possess the body of a phase lord or phase whale. That alone did not necessarily make them dangerous. The rotting carcasses should have been easy prey to superdimensional ace mechs, especially since they lacked any corresponding equipment.

However, their mysterious abilities and other bizarre traits somehow allowed them to fight some of the most powerful units of red humanity to a standstill!

Ves only had time to catch glimpses of these deathborn champions in combat, but he immediately grew impressed by the sophistication of their combat methods.

The deathborn leaders fought as real qi cultivators!

Even when they were forced to fight in an adverse environment, these deathborn relied on the residual abilities of their stolen true bodies to stay on the move while casting all sorts of strange spells to frustrate their opponents.

The apparent leader of the deathborn in this star system fought the most impressively. As a suspected True God projection, the deathborn leader actually figured out a way to neutralize the poisonous seeds embedded in the life energy!

This allowed him to absorb the positive energies at a slow but concerning rate and generate a cloud of dark miasma around himself!

This localized reversal immediately granted this formidable alien entity an advantage. Combined with the strength of his phase whale vessel, the deathborn leader had firmly gained the upper hand!

The Dark Zephyr Mark III no longer had any space or opportunity to launch any attacks. The living ace light skirmisher was forced to invest all of his attention on evasion and occasionally defense.

Waves of spiralling darkness engulfed half of the archemech frame!

The Dark Zephyr had tried his best to evade this thrust, but moving in any other direction would only lead him to fall into a more dangerous trap!

Though the ace mech quickly managed to pull himself out of the wave of darkness less than a second later, a part of his torso and limb armor had already been subjected to a weakening effect!

This was not the first time the Dark Zephyr Mark III suffered unavoidable damage. Multiple essential and nonessential sections already bore the marks of damage.

Much of it looked as if they had been aged for several hundred years. Other pieces of plating looked as if they had been punched with a sledgehammer or cut by a surgical scalp.

In contrast, the much larger and more ominous-looking possessed whale did not look as if he had endured any wounds past his existing ones!

Ves understood that this disparity in results was already the best possible outcome for their side.

Out of all of the ace mechs in the combined fleet, few could limit their damage as well as the fastest and most elusive among the living machines!

Saint Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson had already made an excellent contribution by tying down this formidable adversary.

Unfortunately, the situation with the other ace mechs was not much better.

The deathborn leaders confronting them were not as strong, but they had numbers on their side!

The First Sword Mark III had to fend off three possessed phase lords at the same time!

While each of them were quite manageable if they fought by themselves, their teamwork and synergy were surprisingly good!

Not only did they fight as if they had known each other for decades if not centuries, they also knew how to combine their spells to produce much more powerful effects!

While the First Sword Mark III was still able to brush aside most adverse effects, the first true superdimensional ace mech in existence had still been caught by surprise as a few effects managed to overcome the resistance of her Saint Kingdom and superdimensional shell and inflict direct damage to her internals!

"These deathborn clearly possessed an extremely vast pedigree for combat." Ves critically remarked. "They have fought against enemies with incredibly powerful energy fields and stupendously strong physical defenses in their lengthy past. Their civilization has already invested a lot of time and effort into developing specialized solutions that can counter those defenses."

Although the effects did not appear to be too strong, the First Sword Mark III had no easy way to defend against these strange methods!

Saint Dise found herself forced to avoid close contact, because each time her ace mech came close, her machine became a lot more prone to these bizarre attacks!

The ace pilot was therefore forced to fight outside of her comfort zone. She constantly had to pilot her First Sword away from her enemies while performing high-consumption power moves with her Decapitator.

Fortunately, her sword formation provided her with another means of attack. They were much less prone to the strange attacks. Even if they ended up disabled, it was no big deal as they were built to be semi-disposable from the start.

The sword fey managed to make plenty of cuts to the undead true bodies possessed by the high-ranking deathborn!

This turned what should have been a one-sided hunt into a more indecisive contest of attrition.

Without reinforcements, nobody could say which side would succumb first!

Ves shifted his gaze towards the ace mech that should have provided fire support to the First Sword Mark III.

Saint Davia Stark most definitely would have wanted to intervene, but she happened to be in need of assistance herself!

The Amaranto Mark III could no longer snipe her opponents from a distance at her leisure. This was because she was forced to flee from a pair of stubborn and relentless deathborn lords!

These ones looked to be in worse condition than their colleagues. Their phase lord carcasses were smaller and less complete. Their abilities also seem weaker and less advanced.

That did not matter to them, though. The pair of deathborn lords clearly understood their mission well. They only had to keep the Amaranto Mark III busy enough to prevent her from launching any high-powered shots!

"What about my precious Riot, then?"