The Mech Touch

Chapter 7593 Taking Stock

After the Dark Apostle settled his affairs at the Armitage, he finally made his exit, allowing Ves to finally regain control over his true body.

"Damn that hurts!"

Of course, that also meant that Ves had to deal with the consequences of getting splashed with blackwater!

The doctors on site immediately began to treat his half-molten shoulder and upper arm. The amount of body mass lost or damaged from blackwater exposure was quite severe. Wounds of this proportion should have been outright crippling to ordinary humans.

Fortunately, Ves was made out of sterner stuff. His abnormal phase lord physique allowed him to endure much greater wounds and keep going as if he merely suffered an ordinary cut. He could not do much about losing control over his left arm, but the doctors who had decided to specialize in studying and treating human phase lords comfortably told him that he should be able to regenerate his flesh over time.

"It will take approximately three to six months for you to regain normal functionality over your shoulder and arm according to the results given by our predictive model." One of the senior doctors stationed aboard the Armitage explained. "Do remember that your true body cannot generate mass and phasewater out of thin air. If you do not massively increase your nutrition, your physique will cannibalize itself in order to make your limbs whole again. This will result in an overall weakening of your muscles and a reduction in your phasewater concentration. If you want to prevent this occurrence, then you will have to ingest tons of organic matter as well as phasewater in order to maintain your current level."

Though Ves did not necessarily mind a modest regression, he knew his other self definitely objected to this outcome!

"I shall keep your advice in mind." He compliantly responded. "Please coordinate with my staff about meal plans and subsequent treatment steps. Do you have any painkillers that are effective for people like myself?"

The doctor gently shook his head. "Our science has yet to advance to this extent. Phase lords, even the lesser variants, are highly resistant to all manner of drugs and stimulants. Simply multiplying the dose does not work either. I have heard that the native aliens have painstakingly developed entirely different formulas that are customized for each species. If we are able to acquire documentation and samples that apply to at least several different alien species, our research institutions may be able to formulate a human-specific version within half a decade."

In other words, the doctors couldn't give Ves anything to dull the persistent pain generated by his left shoulder.

Even now that it had been cleaned up and wrapped by soft composite bandaging, the limb still made him feel as if a dozen razors constantly dug into his flesh.

Could Ves bear the pain?

Yes.

His pain tolerance was not low. He had suffered worse in the past.

That did not mean he liked it. Chronic pain was a very serious condition that had driven plenty of people mad. Even Ves was not arrogant enough to assume he could remain unaffected by this debilitating condition.

It would definitely affect his work efficiency going forward. Even without the pain, the loss of control over his left arm meant that he would have a significantly harder time with manual work and precision work.

"I advise you to lighten your workload in the next two months." The doctor said as he correctly read what Ves was thinking about. "No matter whether you are a baseline human or a powerful phase lord, biology and common sense still applies equally to all. Stress and heavy strain will compromise your recovery process. At best, you are looking at several more months of restoration. At worst, your injuries will exacerbate, which may in extreme cases necessitate amputation. I highly recommend that you do not engage in active combat again for the remainder of the period."

"Believe me. I have no intention of doing so. I am not stupid."

That did not mean he would hide like a coward if the combined fleet ever got cornered by a vastly superior force of aliens. If that ever happened, he would have far greater concerns than the possibility of losing his arm!

Ves departed from the Armitage shortly after that. Now that he wrapped up his business with the Ascended Giants, it was finally time for him to address the more critical and exciting issues.

He activated a projection that gave him a good view of the environment.

The dark miasma had made a comeback at this time, which significantly increased the difficulty of conducting operations.

Casella was forced to remain inside her cockpit and continually project her Command Field through the Minerva Mark II and the Victrix.

The ace command mech naturally remained in the center of the fleet.

At times, small groups of salvage shuttles escorted by mechs occasionally ventured outside the protective range of Casella's Saint Kingdom.

The personnel had to endure constant mind-altering hallucinations and other adverse effects, but they had little choice. Too much valuable debris and wounded soldiers had already fallen well beyond the range of protection.

The good news was that the mass withdrawal of all of the native aliens and deathborn had made the dark miasma a lot safer than before. The soldiers no longer had many concerns about suffering direct ambushes and attacks for the time being. As long as their mental resilience was up to standard, they could endure the dark miasma so long as they returned quickly enough.

Meanwhile, the Victrix construct strategically hovered right above the ruined temple complex. Despite the sheer amount of devastation wrought during the closing moments of the battle, the collies and other interest groups had already managed to dig out plenty of unique and novel specimens!

From rune-covered bricks to finger-sized fragments of depleted green crystals, the deathborn stronghold had turned into one of the most valuable archeological dig sites in the entire dwarf galaxy!

None of the search parties had to stumble upon anything truly precious, and few people believed that they could find anything truly game changing in the few days they had left.

If they wanted to thoroughly sift through everything of value across the entire breadth and depth of this ruined temple complex, then they either needed to spend multiple years or bring in a hundred times more manpower to finish this enormous job!

Suffice to say, that was totally unrealistic. The volunteers had no choice but to limit the scope of their treasure hunting operation and put much of their focus in the core district.

The salvage operations in space proceeded a bit better in comparison. The fleet had managed to keep track of every significant piece of superdimensional debris and other valuables. Even if they had drifted outside the range of Casella's Command Field, their predictable trajectories made it easy to bring them back.

The only letdown was that there was no way to obtain anything valuable from the deathborn lords.

The key to defeating the latest threat to red humanity was figuring out their strengths and weaknesses.

Studying the battle footage alone was not enough. Researchers would have a much easier time if they could capture a real deathborn lord or at least get their hands on a formerly possessed carcass.

Unfortunately, the high-ranked deathborn possessed intelligence that they understood the importance of denying information to the enemy.

"What do you mean there is nothing left?"

"There is nothing to retrieve, sir. When the deathborn lords decided to flee by abandoning their possessed phase lord vessels, the latter immediately became subjected to a state of accelerated decomposition. It is as if they had become so exposed to the power of death that they crumbled into bones and dust in a matter of minutes. There was nothing we could do to stop this unnatural process."

"..."

It was not enough for these deathborn bastards to run away. They also had to destroy their vessels along the way, leaving nothing useful to the victors of this battle!

Even the body struck by the Riot Mark III had been wiped out in totality.

Sure, the phase lord carcass would have been completely ruined from the inside due to extended exposure to a tier 3 Destroyer weapon, but researchers could still figure out a lot of details from studying the partially atrophied extremities.

Ves eventually shrugged. "Fine. The deathborn race can keep its mysteries. We won't be tangling with them again in the short term. The Terran Alliance and the Red Three should be much more concerned about the early invasion from M87 than us. I am sure they will investigate this matter to the end."

Although the Larkinson Clan could not remain unaffected by the rise of a powerful new enemy, it was not large enough to take on too many major threats at the same time.

At this time, Ves did not want the armed forces of his clan to overextend and fight against the native aliens, the mutated voribugs and the deathborn all at once!

The clan should focus on defeating one major enemy civilization at the time. For now, the native aliens were the most ubiquitous as well as the more acute threat at the moment.

Wiping them out entirely was unrealistic, but red humanity could still beat them so badly that they reluctantly gave up on their all-out offensive.

Once the conflict between red humanity and the native aliens cooled down, the Larkinson Clan might finally be able to spare more attention to the newer threats.

As Ves' shuttle finally entered the hangar bay of the Tarrasque, he stepped out and briefly took in the atmosphere.

The heavy cruiser had come away from the battle while suffering only minor damage due to her importance.

Even so, the native alien defenders made sure to leave their mark on the warship. Parts of her hull had been scorched, and numerous surface modules had been wiped out. The damage was anything but serious in the greater scheme of things, but that did not take away from the fact that the Tarrasque's energy defenses had failed to endure the onslaught for a time!

Ves would have real complaints if the vessel where his wife and children resided during the battle got struck by a ship-killing superdimensional projectile!

He was not ignorant of the fact that the Saint Commander and other soldiers had done their best to prevent this possible tragedy from occurring. They had worked hard and sacrificed the defense of other starships in order to keep the Tarrasque alive.

From the words and expressions of the mech technicians and other busy personnel, Ves got the impression that the crew had absolutely no concerns.

The ship remained whole and none of her vital parts and systems had suffered any spec of damage.

Their only concerns were the mechs. Many Woodsap mechs and other machines assigned to the ship had fallen in battle.

Due to the loss of numerous combat carriers, the Tarrasque was forced to take in mechs originally assigned to other berths.

Many of the returning mechs boasted varying degrees of battle damage. Some machines got struck so badly that they couldn't even return without getting towed by another mech or shuttle!

The maintenance crews had a lot of work ahead of them. The battle damage was extensive and complex. Speed was of the issue because the entire fleet still resided behind enemy lines. The sooner the damaged machines got repaired, the sooner they could contribute their strength to everyone's defense!

Perhaps the only good news related to this matter is that the surviving Woodsap mechs rarely demanded any attention from their caretakers.

As long as the innovative organic machines did not outright get blasted into pieces, they could always regenerate their wooden frames back to normal condition!

They just needed access to enough biomatter, phasewater and energy in order to return to peak condition.

Although the process was not efficient from a macro perspective, nobody cared about this detail. The ability for biomechs to return to fighting condition by themselves was an invaluable advantage in this kind of situation!