The Mech Touch

The next few minutes proceeded in an unfavorable manner for Patriarch Reginald Cross.

Ever since Saint Jeremiah Gauge whipped out his 'thousand blade domain' or whatever, the Neo Amadeus gained the striking power needed to overcome the incredible defensive power of the Abasis Armor.

Saint Jeremiah did not randomly attack the Mars with its Thousand-Armed Strikes either.

He specifically set out to destroy or at least knock out the integrated energy weapons that made up the ARCEUS System!

As the primary and most powerful weapon system of the Mars, the ARCEUS System pressed heavily on Jeremiah's mind.

The Mars was able to fire all nine of its energy weapons so frequently and with so much power that they definitely had the potential to wear down the Neo Amadeus over time!

It was even worse when the ARCEUS System concentrated all of its firepower and unleashed focused attacks that could overwhelm the transphasic defenses of the Neo Amadeus.

One of the best ways to handle an enemy hybrid mech was to knock out its individual weapon hardpoints one after another.

As long as the Neo Amadeus used its enormous quantity of blades to pull out every individual tooth of the Mars, the ace hybrid mech would eventually be left with no means to inflict damage.

A mech without a weapon could not be considered a mech anymore. Saint Jeremiah could easily clean up what was left with no chance of getting defeated.

"Your Mars is an excellent mech, but it is a shame its pilot is so weak! You can't even stop my Saint Kingdom from invading yours!"

As the Neo Amadeus struck the Mars with multiple real weapons as well as a flood of phantom daggers, the overstrained Abasis Armor quickly exposed another gap that the Neo Amadeus instantly exploited!

A small explosion erupted from the surface of the Mars as one of its powerful and expensive integrated weapon modules failed to resist the phantom daggers!

Fortunately, the one that got destroyed happened to be one of the smaller and more vulnerable energy weapon modules of the ARCEUS System. Its overall firepower was not that great, but its loss still weakened the alpha strike capability of the Mars.

"You dog!" Patriarch Reginald raged with fury! "The Mars is too good to be damaged by your awful mech! You will pay for what you have done!"

"I do not listen to incompetents."

The Neo Amadeus did not stop with its powerful massed attacks. The ace swordsman mech struck again with a thousand blades as Jeremiah tried his best to exploit the destabilized state of the Abasis Armor.

Soon enough, the Mars lost its other small energy weapon module mounted on the other side of its chest!

Patriarch Reginald grew even more incensed at this loss, but he also gained more urgency in resolving his current crisis.

After trying out several ineffectual solutions, he eventually settled on intercepting as many phantom daggers as possible.

As always, his Mars never failed to block the incoming sword attacks with its transphasic axe, thereby preventing the Neo Amadeus from exerting the full strength of its extraordinary main weapons.

Even so, the real and false daggers that targeted the other integrated energy weapon modules possessed more than enough power to overwhelm the Abasis Armor and succeed in their goal!

Patriarch Reginald's mind and will went into overdrive as he relied on the damaged ARCEUS System, the shoulder-mounted transphasic gauss cannons and the transphasic shotgun to eliminate hundreds of phantom daggers before they struck the Mars.

Yet no matter how many phantom daggers disappeared, new ones emerged seconds later as Saint Jeremiah's powerful Saint Kingdom seemed to have an endless supply of replacements!

Reginald recognized that his current method wasn't the correct way to mitigate the offensive threat of Jeremiah's transformed domain field.

The patriarch of the Cross Clan accumulated more grievances as his Mars continued to suffer real damage.

As his fury built up, he recognized that the best way to block or mitigate the damage of his opponent's Saint Kingdom was to adopt the same approach!

Reginald needed to find a way to make better use of his strength and transform his Saint Kingdom into a form that could counter Jeremiah's willpower manifestations!

His mind briefly thought back on the words spoken by Ves.

Did he really need to beg for a bailout by requesting the help of his living mech and those so-called design spirits?

He could feel their willingness to aid him in resisting Saint Jeremiah and the Neo Amadeus.

The Mars, which Reginald always pressed down and stuffed in a dark corner, eagerly offered to lend its strength in order to prove that it could be of immense use in battle.

It was as if the Mars had turned into a filthy beggar that eagerly wanted to get hired by a noble master!

Reginald scowled in response to the simpering pleas of his living mech. He liked the Mars better when it still had a lot of fight in its spirit.

The two design spirits of the Mars also wanted to offer their services.

The Phase King possessed a great affinity with the Mars. The designers of the ace hybrid mech had pumped so much phasewater into its frame that it offered a huge amount of room for the alien design spirit to exert his incredibly diverse spatial abilities.

Though the Mars was not organic like the Titan-5 Project, the ace mech could turn into another incarnation of the Phase King as long as Patriarch Reginald sincerely respected and requested the cooperation of the design spirit.

It was a pity that Reginald strongly rejected this form of cooperation!

"A victory with you at the helm is not a victory that I can be proud of!" The ace pilot stubbornly shook his head.

If Reginald wanted to win this battle, he had to obtain full credit for it. This was his bottom line!

As for the other design spirit…

The ace pilot briefly moved his arm and grasped the heirloom that was hanging on his neck.

The Cross of Rebirth that Ves had made for the Cross Clan pulsed with eagerness and bloodlust as it conveyed the earnest wishes of the members of the Cross Clan.

The soldiers of the Cross Clan never lost their faith in Patriarch Reginald. Amplified by the thoughts and emotions of the Cross Warlord, Reginald had the illusion that he could briefly summon his father from the death.

Reginald could already imagine it. How fantastic would it be for father and son to reunite with each other and combine their strengths to pilot the Mars to a greater degree than before?

The temptation was great. Patriarch Reginald always regretted the fact that Lord Hemmington Cross died too quickly after getting ambushed by the former allies of the Cross Clan.

There had been no time for Reginald to exchange any words with the father that he had looked up to for most of his life.

The hand that gripped the Cross of Rebirth shook more and more even as the Mars continued to resist the powerful offensive of the Neo Amadeus.

Even though the Mars never ceased its attempts to clear away as many phantoms daggers as possible, it became harder and harder to do so with each weapon system that got knocked out by the massed blade attacks.

The Neo Amadeus had launched a concentrated attack on the head of the Mars that not only damaged its vertical crest and interrupted its projected plume, but also knocked out one of the two tiny energy weapon modules mounted on the sides!

Shortly after that, the Neo Amadeus scrapped one of the shoulder-mounted gauss cannons.

Half a minute later, the thousand blades almost succeeded in disabling the transphasic shotgun. As it was, it had received so much external damage that Reginald wasn't sure if it would hold together much longer.

If the Mars was equipped with a physical shield, then it would have been able to preserve its vulnerable weapon systems longer.

Unfortunately, its absence not only meant that the Mars was losing its teeth at a worrisome rate, but also reduced the ace hybrid mech's ability to intercept more blades!

The speed in which the Neo Amadeus was knocking out important weapons and other functional modules had increased.

Though Jeremiah's Saint Kingdom started to become a little shakier due to how much the Fridayman ace pilot had exerted his strength in quick succession, the man fought with the fate of Pima Prime and millions of colonists on his back.

There was no way that Jeremiah wanted to weaken his offensive and give his opponent any room to breathe!

"Damn." Reginald cursed and gritted his teeth. "Am I truly too weak to win my first true challenge as an ace pilot?"

He came closer than ever to asking for help from anyone that possessed the power to intercede on his behalf. No matter whether the help came from a mech, a ghost or a demon, Reginald could not allow himself to get defeated and subject his clan to a second ruination!

Yet whenever he was on the verge of opening himself up to possible allies, his pride and conviction refused to bend in the face of reality!

After several crucial seconds of procrastination, Reginald finally made an important choice.

"If I don't want to bend in the face of reality, then I will force it to knees myself!"

He let go of the Cross of Rebirth and decisively put a line between any further thoughts of asking for help.

Instead, he called upon all of his willpower and resonated with his Mars in a different way than before!

His ace mech was special. It was not only a masterwork, but also alive. These qualities imparted the Mars with special properties and hidden secrets that significantly boosted its potential.

Now, Patriarch Reginald bonded with his Mars in a way that was unprecedented.

He did not choose to pull the original personality of the Mars out of its dark corner. He had no wish to cooperate with a weak partner that couldn't even stand up to his own will.

What Reginald did instead was to press his will to dominate and own the Mars onto its spiritual foundation!

The Mars seemed to utter a silent scream as Reginald wiped out the personality of his ace mech by force!

What was left after this extreme procedure was a blank slate that Reginald quickly infused with his own willpower.

A strange process took place that no one could explain. Though Reginald had no idea whether this could work at all, desperation urged him to make a gamble and proceed with this improvised plan in hopes of yielding a useful result.

Outside of the cockpit, the Mars underwent significant changes. Its entire aura and character changed in an almost visible manner. It lost a lot of indescribable traits, but gained a lot of new ones as well.

The transformation happened faster than anyone could make sense of it. Soon enough, the Mars had gained a more aggressive and domineering that truly fit its namesake!

Saint Jeremiah wasn't impressed by what his opponent was doing, though. He had already achieved good progress in defanging the Mars and was just about to strike at the enemy machine's most powerful and important energy weapon module mounted on its chest!

Yet just as the Neo Amadeus was about to stab the ace hybrid mech with a thousand blades, the Saint Kingdom surrounding the latter abruptly expanded and erupted like a volcano!

The force of this inexplicable explosion of power was so great that the Neo Amadeus and its domain field actually got pushed away!

As Saint Jeremiah quickly stabilized his ace swordsman mech, he became surprised at how his opponent had changed.

Previously, the Saint Kingdom surrounding the Mars simply resembled a formless red energy field.

Now, the domain field had completely changed. Just like Jeremiah, Reginald learned how to transform his powerful Saint Kingdom into a more useful form.

The shape that Reginald's Saint Kingdom had assumed was drastically different from that of his opponent.

It had turned into a giant silhouette of a larger mech that wrapped around the Mars as if the ace mech had summoned its namesake!

Though the details of this giant red silhouette was a little vague, those who knew Patriarch Reginald well could see his image in this extraordinary energy manifestation!