The Mech Touch

Ves felt as if he was reenacting a conflict akin to the Komodo War on a spiritual level.

On one side was Zeigra. As a former Crown Cat of Felixia, this genetically-engineered beast had long ruled over his stretch of Felixia I as the king of the jungle! A large number of mechs grouped up into hunting teams attempted to challenge his might, but failed to fell their target as the supposed predators turned into Zeigra's prey!

On the other side was Nyxie. A long-dead alien tyrant who possessed an exceptionally powerful spirit, Nyxie was a future concern to Ves as his prodigious strength only grew stronger over time! Though Ves was confident he could keep the ancient alien spiritual entity contained within the Ancient Sarcophagus for the time being, what happened when that wasn't enough anymore?

On the surface, a matchup between the two entities was highly lopsided.

There was no way that Zeigra should be able to come out on top. In life, he was just an exobeast. A sentient exobeast, but one that mostly relied on his artificial genetics to dominate his jungle.

How could a mere beast, one that hadn't lived very long no less, compete against a spiritual tyrant who managed to cling to life for at least several millennia!?

A crude analogy would be to field a third-class mech against a first-class mech!

There was no way a Blackbeak or a Desolate Soldier could harm an ultra-modern, supremely powerful multipurpose mech!

Yet Ves still went through with putting Zeigra and Nyxie in the same imaginary space as if it was a dueling arena.

How could he prevent Zeigra from collapsing after experiencing Nyxie's might?

The answer was simple.

Cheating!

An unfair fight could be made fair by sabotaging the stronger side and assisting the weaker side!

Ves had already laid most of the groundwork by neutering Nyxie's strength. He had already weakened his spiritual fragment by cutting away most attributes. He further pared down the fragment's effective power by downsizing it even further.

The result was a purified spiritual fragment that was only a shadow of its progenitor.

Even so, when Ves finally performed his spiritual counterbalancing, he discovered that he hadn't been thorough enough.

"Zeigra is losing!"

The ferocious Crown Cat was taken aback by the ominous Nyxie! What Ves hadn't anticipated was that Zeigra became affected by Nyxie's ability to induce fear!

A sense of terror and panic exuded from Zeigra! For a moment, his confidence faltered, causing him to withdraw his predatory instincts!

"Damnit!" Ves cursed as he observed the impending debacle. "You stupid scaredy cat! How can you wear a crown if you can't even muster up some resistance? Nyxie isn't as scary as you think! His purified fragment is weak enough for you to contend against it! Man up and fight back like your pride is at stake!"

Ves had many methods at his disposal to equalize the power disparity.

He employed various images to boost Zeigra and make him more resistant to the fear-induing effects of his opponent.

He chopped off extra portions from Nyxie's purified fragment.

He asked the Golden Cat to lend a hand.

Through these simple means, he quickly managed to take the wind out of Nyxie's sails. The alien tyrant's momentum stalled and Zeigra gained a bit more confidence in his strength!

Slowly but surely, the ripples emanating from their clashes subsided. Eventually, their strength came close enough that they began to achieve a stable equilibrium!

Still, just like with Silent William, the equilibrium wasn't completely equal. So far, Nyxie occupied 75 percent of the Doom Guard's space while Zeigra managed to cling onto just 25 percent.

While Ves was reasonably confident that this divide could persist, it was not ideal.

This was because the Doom Guard's glow currently retained far too much of Nyxie's unpleasant qualities!

As Ves closed his eyes in order to judge the properties of his mech design's current glow, he immediately frowned.

"It's too creepy!"

This was partially what he wanted out of his Doom Guard, but not to this extent!

The interaction between a design spirit and a mech was multifaceted and complex. The design spirit not only affected the people around the mech, but also the person piloting the machine!

What Ves sought was to retain the deterrence power of the Doom Guard while scaring away as little customers as possible!

"This is truly a double-edged sword!"

To put it in other terms, this was a self-harming mech. It inflicted much of the harm it tried to impose to others on its own mech pilot!

Certainly, Ves tried his best to mitigate the latter interaction.

He introduced several images that would hopefully make the design spirits exhibit less hostility to the mech pilot.

He also made sure to add a standard neural interface model in the Doom Guard design as opposed to the newly-licensed high-capacity model!

The latter was just a disaster in the making for a mech like this! Ves did not wish to wake up to an article from a sensational mech publication that screamed that his new Doom Guard model caused a dozen mech pilots to die from fright!

As someone who personally experienced Nyxie's deeply unsettling aura, Ves immediately knew he had to cripple the purified fragment even more.

"He's far too strong! Even after all of the previous cuts, he is still able to overpower Zeigra!"

Ves ruthlessly cut at the fragment and implemented some other measures to tilt the balance further in the favor of the beleaguered Crown Cat.

He paused his efforts when the equilibrium shifted at the midpoint. Both Zeigra and Nyxie occupied an equal amount of space in the Doom Guard.

Was this the balance that he should settle upon?

Ves still maintained his frown. "I don't know."

The constant cutting gradually reduced the intensity of Nyxie's fear-inducing glow to a more reasonable level. The problem was that it was still strong enough to frighten the mech pilots of the Doom Guard.

While he could just proceed with crippling the purified fragment even further, at this point the Doom Guard would begin to lose its intrinsic advantage.

If its glow grew weak to the point that enemies were able to shrug it off, what was the point of introducing Nyxie into the Doom Guard in the first place?

Ves felt incredibly conflicted. He had to make a very difficult choice.

If he retained Nyxie's current strength, then he predicted that his customer base would probably narrow by a very significant margin. While he would be able to retain the value of the mech, its hostility towards its own mech pilots would limit its sales potential!

"In this case, the only customers who can make good use of the Doom Guard are the mech pilots who possess the most fearless hearts! Anyone whose will is weak will doubtlessly be scared to the point of freezing in place!"

On the other hand, if he weakened Nyxie even further, then he would directly expand the pool of customers who were able to field the Doom Guard. If the design spirits imposed less pressure onto the mech pilots, the Doom Guards turned into a more controllable and reliable mech.

The major downside to this measure was the reduction in fear factor. If Ves weakened the Doom Guard's glow in order to expand its accessibility, he would directly reduce the mech's ability to deter enemies as well!

As a result, his Doom Guard came one step closer to becoming a generic striker mech model.

Without a technical edge and only a modest benefit derived from its glow, why would anyone buy a Doom Guard? The reduced effectiveness of its glow directly impacted its value proposition, which eventually depressed its sales!

"No matter which solution I choose, the money I stand to gain from selling this mech will drop regardless!" Ves cursed.

This was not good news for Ves, who sought to relieve the financial pressure of his clan by developing another cash cow.

After contemplating the pros and cons of each choice, he slowly drew out a breath.

In the end, he chose to maintain the strength of Nyxie's purified fragment.

There were several reasons that caused him to settle on this impactful choice.

First, a perfect balance where the power disparity had been equalized was the most stable outcome. Ves didn't have to worry too much about the stronger side overrunning the weaker side.

Just because it never happened in Silent William's mind didn't mean it could happen in the future!

Second, Ves wanted his Doom Guard to live up to his name and reputation. Many of the mech designs he published so far exhibited pronounced strengths at the cost of applicability. Extreme mechs like the Aurora Titan and the Deliverer were very strong when used as intended, but they were also liabilities in situations outside of their mission profile!

Since his existing customers already knew what to expect of him, he believed the backlash to Doom Guard would not be as bad as he feared. As long as the LMC carefully informed the public of the risks of piloting the mech, the customers who valued the notable strengths of his mech would still buy his product en masse!

With a glow this useful, his customers would be fools to pass it off! Anyone who needed to buy a striker mech to round out their mech rosters would definitely take a good look at the LMC's latest offering!

A third reason why he opted to take a risk by maintaining Nyxie's potency was his belief that his customers would rise up to the occasion.

Unlike his Holy Soldier and Deliverer mechs, the design spirits of the Doom Guard weren't strong enough to outright reject a mech pilot.

Sure, they could make things uncomfortable, but as long as the mech pilot learned to endure the unpleasantness, the Doom Guard would still be able to unleash its might onto the battlefield!

Ves wouldn't make this decision if it wasn't so easy and simple to pilot.

Rifleman mechs and melee mechs usually demanded a lot of attention from their mech pilots. A single discordant element could ruin their concentration and mess up their moves! This was because these fast-moving mechs possessed a high amount of skill expression.

A striker mech was the polar opposite. It was even simpler to pilot than a knight mech.

Its ponderous mass slowed down its movements, which meant the mech pilot didn't have to plan out every move in advance.

Its armor provided it with a generous buffer for mistakes. Even if the mech pilot got distracted by Nyxie, the Doom Guard would still be able to bull through an unfavorable situation!

Its flamethrower in a wide-area configuration was one of the easiest weapon to aim. While the mech pilot still had to input the right settings for the situation, its use was extremely simple. The pilot didn't even have to be skilled in marksmanship!

All of these factors meant that it was fine if the mech pilot of a Doom Guard got a little scared. As long as the mech commander saw the value in this mech, there would always be place for it on the battlefield!

Ves tried his best to put a positive spin on his decision.

"Only the bravest and most fearless individuals will be able to pilot the Doom Guard! The weak and cowardly need not apply!"

Once he slowly wrapped up this process, the bestowal process came at an end. The Doom Guard design, long empty, now gained its final component, thereby completing the design in full!

As Ves projected the mech design once again, it gained an entirely connotation.

"Is this.. what you meant by inducing fear?" Gloriana quivered a bit before she stiffened up. She was a Wodin and a proud Hexer! She was better than this! "The proto-gods you put into the design are quite.. effective."

Ves grinned and snapped his fingers, causing the projection to switch off. "This is just a depiction of its schematics. Let's wait until we fabricate an actual mech!"