The Mech Touch

By the time the fiery purple corona of forced resonance faded from the Quint, the Battle of Purgatory entered its final phase.

The Everchanger had already spread its gifts to pretty much every mech pilot that was still active in the field.

Those that were able to break through today had all been able to grasp their respective chances today.

A lot of newly-advanced expert candidates and expert pilots became incredibly satisfied with their successful breakthroughs.

However, many more mech pilots became disappointed when they failed to make any progress today.

Despite the favorable circumstances, there were far too many mech pilots that weren't ready or simply didn't have the talent to progress any further.

To them, the explosion of breakthroughs had little to do with them aside from upending the course of the battle!

Commander Melkor looked on with bitterness as he tried to recollect the hot feelings and emotions that he briefly experienced when the Everchanger flew past his command mech.

Just like the lucky dog Vincent, Melkor also piloted a custom mech that Gloriana Wodin had thoughtfully designed according to his preferences and piloting style.

This should have set him up for success, but aside from feeling more excited and pumped up than usual, the Everchanger's latest glow failed to induce any hidden potential!

The Avatar Commander lowered his head. He had a suspicion of what this meant.

As a legion commander, Melkor had access to far more information about mech pilots than the average soldier in the Larkinson Clan. He even listened to a couple of theories that Ves had come up during their occasional meetings.

Given what he learned and what he knew about himself, he feared that it was futile for him to experience the previous glow a second time.

"Maybe… I'm not cut out to be a hero."

Melkor was already used to disappointment, so this realization did not affect him too much. He shook his head and cleared his mind of negative thoughts so that he could return to directing his Avatars.

Just because the Phasers had suddenly suffered numerous heavy blows didn't mean that they had been rendered harmless.

Many Phasers that evaded the previous outbursts were still putting up their own fights! The Avatars of Myth still had a mission to complete!

Another prominent personality in the Golden Skull Alliance also lamented his failure to take advantage of the situation.

"These lucky bastards."

Patriarch Reginald had fought the hardest of all of the mech pilots in this battle. He boldly and fearlessly challenged the Phase King and risked total destruction each time he made an attack run on the powerful alien creature.

The distraction he generated from his actions played a crucial role in allowing the Cerebral King to hang on long enough for it to gradually gain the upper hand!

Despite fighting against one of the singular most powerful opponents that Reginald had ever met in combat, he failed to make any further progress in breaking past his impossible bottleneck!

Though he kept trying, the constant breakthroughs of so many other mech pilots completely interrupted his previous rhythm.

His desire to challenge his limits largely faded after Vincent Ricklin's giant energy manifestation landed a powerful punch onto the Phase King's body.

It doused even further after Isobel Kotin's burning strikes drained the powerful foe of most of its fighting capabilities.

The current Phase King… no longer aroused any major threat to Patriarch Reginald.

Without a strong enemy to test himself against, how could the Cross Patriarch possibly get excited in this battle?

His hot and active body slumped in the piloting seat as the high-tier expert pilot let out a tired sigh.

"The future belongs to the younger generation."

With his willpower and experience, he was not a person who was easily crushed by defeat and disappointment.

If he failed to advance to ace pilot today, then there were always other opportunities in the future.

Instead of reflecting on his own lack of progress, he spread his attention and studied the other mech pilots that had managed to get one step closer to his level.

He smiled when he saw that a Crosser mech pilot had managed to break through earlier, but his expression quickly twitched when he noticed his clan was the worst performer in this regard.

"Damn. The Larkinsons and the Glory Seekers both gained two expert pilots each! Why haven't we been able to match their success?"

Reginald didn't think his mech pilots were any worse than the other troops.

In fact, out of all of the alliance partners, the armed forces of the Cross Clan were the most professional due to various reasons.

From their long heritage to the large number of veteran soldiers that had fought in actual wars, the Crosser mech pilots were all tempered and shaped by conflict.

Despite these advantages, the proportion of Crossers that broke through to expert candidate and expert pilot had fallen behind compared to their allies!

"Is it… because of the mechs?" Reginald tentatively guessed.

The Cross Clan utilized its own combination of mechs. Its current mech roster consisted of a mix of older but still reliable models dating from the time the clan was still a part of the Garlen Empire as well as newer models developed by Professor Benedict Cortez.

As an avid leader and expert pilot, Reginald held high expectations for any of the mechs that the Cross Clan had entered into service. He made sure that none of the mechs piloted by his subordinates were weak or flawed.

Yet despite all of their virtues, they lacked one special quality that had become increasingly more common in the expeditionary fleet.

"They're not living mechs."

Was the Cross Clan falling behind because it had yet to adopt any living mechs themselves?

As the Cross Patriarch pondered this question, the battle was slowly winding down.

The Phase King received crippling injuries while many of its elite followers had suffered heavily at the hands of the mechs that they had previously despised.

Among the Glory Seekers, a pair of female expert candidates who were on retainer to the Wodin Dynasty had both broken through at nearly the same time!

Olivia Remis and Eona Ballentine were both relatively young and in their prime. What they lacked in experience, they made up for it with enthusiasm and diligence, especially once they first came in touch with the Valkyrie line.

To the Hexers, the Valkyrie Redeemers and its numerous variants was the strongest and most valued extension of the Superior Mother on the battlefield.

Both Olivia and Eona had embraced the Valkyrie Interceptor, the spaceborn variant of the Valkyrie Redeemer, when the Glory Seekers first received this model.

After they advanced to expert candidate, they obtained the right to pilot their own copies of the Valkyrie Brunhild, which was basically the super-deluxe version of the Valkyrie line.

Powerful and much sturdier than normal in order to increase the survival rate of their mech pilots, the Valkyrie Brunhilds were the favored mechs of many Hexer expert candidates.

For a long time, Olivia Remis and Eona Ballentine deeply immersed themselves in their new mechs.

They spent much of their time awake training with their mechs or training in the simulators.

Outside of that, they spent little time on leisure and relaxation.

They instead entered one of the chapels inside the Indigo Tremor that was dedicated towards the worship of the Superior Mother.

To the two devoted expert candidates, praying to the Superior Mother and spending time with the glow exuded by a totem made in her likeness was their own version of leisure and relaxation!

Day in and day out, the pair of expert candidates unflinchingly spent their time on training and praying with the hopes that the Supreme would reward their earnest and diligent efforts.

It wasn't easy for them to work so hard without interruption. There were good reasons for them to work so hard and squeeze their potential to this extent.

Marshal Ariadne Wodin had already made it clear to the pair of women that the Glory Seekers were underrepresented at the top. With only Venerable Brutus Wodin able to duel against powerful threats, the other mech pilots had little recourse if another powerful expert mech assaulted their forces!

Now, those fears had abated. The emergence of two young expert pilots stabilized the Glory Seekers!

The Valkyrie Brunhilds piloted by Olivia and Eona not only exploded with the same magnitude of power, but also demonstrated highly similar power manifestations!

The two high-quality mechs already exuded the promise of death in their base forms.

The breakthroughs of their respective pilots did not dampen their original glows.

Instead, the women who had studied and explored the death phase aspect of the Superior Mother every single day amplified this defining trait!

The forced resonance wrapping around and amplifying the mechs produced an ominous-looking dark corona that was practically the opposite to Venerable Joshua's lively presence!

It was as if the Valkyrie Brunhilds had become the personification of the natural phenomenon known as death.

The impact of these power manifestations were great. The Valkyrie Brunhilds were already comparable to the likes of the Blade Chaser and the B-Man in performance, and now that Olivia and Eona amplified their best traits, they had turned into a terror towards their fish-whale foes!

"THE SUPERIOR MOTHER HAS CONDEMNED YOU TO DEATH!"

"OUR SPEARS SHALL DELIVER THE PUNISHMENT THAT YOU DESERVE!"

The two expert candidates had trained and fought together so many times that they still acted in unison!

The Valkyrie Brunhilds soared towards the nearest cluster of enemy Phasers and charged towards them with the intent of harpooning the fish-whales to death!

Although the Phasers that were being targeted hastily tried to engulf the ominous machines with spatial attacks, the gray corona blocked them all without any exception!

The Phasers directly targeted by these charging mechs were unable to activate any phasewater abilities nor take any other actions to save their lives.

The reason for that was because the two mech pilots pinned their two targets with their overwhelming intent to reap their lives!

The elite Phasers who had never shown any fear towards their previous opponents suddenly shook and froze.

In their perception, a powerful cloud of doom and ending hung over their alien bodies. Each of them felt as if they were being stared at by an unfathomable predator that already chose them to become its latest prey!

This left the Phasers so vulnerable that the impossibly fast Valkyrie Brunhilds charged straight into their bodies without stopping!

Twin explosions of flesh and other disgusting alien matter burst from their frozen bodies as the two glowing marauder mechs had thundered straight from one end to the other end of their bodies!

The holes in their bodies were so large that the fish-whales had practically split in half!

There was no chance that any of them would have been able to survive these injuries, but even if they did, the residual death energies infecting the remaining tissue quickly turned them necrotic.

This was an amazing effect that went unnoticed by most people since the targets were already dead.

The newly-advanced expert pilots responsible for spreading death no longer paid any attention to their slain opponents. Their mechs had not lost any momentum and were already charging towards the next elite Phasers!

"WE ARE THE HANDMAIDENS OF DEATH!"

"WE ARE THE EXECUTIONERS OF THE SUPERIOR MOTHER!"

"TOGETHER, WE BRING HER FATAL BLESSING UPON HER ENEMIES!"

"DESPAIR, FOR YOUR TIME HAS COME TO AN END!"

The aura of death that surrounded the two Valkyrie Brunhilds became even stronger after their declaration!

The powerful mechs continued to charge through the bodies of one Phaser after another. Nothing the fish-whales did to survive this calamity achieved any results!

By the time the twin Glory Seeker expert pilots exhausted their vigorous willpower, over forty ruined fish-whale bodies showed signs of total death and decay!

The other mech pilots of the Glory Seekers became incredibly jubilant at this awesome display of power.

Their mechs even took the initiative to raise their arms!

"Handmaidens of Death!"