The Mech Touch

The jump in skill between the first lightning manifestation and the second one was too big!

The first lightning manifestation was pretty much the alien equivalent of a rookie. Even if it possessed a huge charge of tribulation lightning, its overall lack of skill and strength made it easy for Major Jankowski to dismantle his opponent up close.

The new thunderfire manifestation was a different story altogether. The swordsmanship and more importantly the elemental fighting techniques were on a much higher level, making it so that Major Jankowski and his living mech had to fight much more seriously from the onset!

The fact that the Elemental Lord was unable to finish off the thunderfire warrior right away did not make Ves more optimistic about the future waves!

Fortunately, there was still hope of beating this opponent.

The Elemental Lord was not a swordsman mech. Much of its combat power rested in its living fey, which were contributing to the fight in many ways.

The fire fey and the earth fey were constantly hammering the thunderfire manifestation with ranged attacks.

Different from before, their output no longer aimed at the center mass but focused on targeting the limbs of the tribulation manifestation instead!

The fast and skilled movements of the thunderfire swordsman caused a lot of these attempts to miss, but the few hits were able to produce greater results than before.

In addition to that, the five brothers were considerably faster and more proficient in harnessing and combining their energies to produce different effects.

Ever since Ves had merged one of Lucky's gems with the mech, the five brothers were not only able to merge three elements in more varied ways, but also became more skilled at multitasking.

For example, the fire fey not only worked toward reinforcing the defenses of the main body by taking part in a fire-earth-metal chain, but also enhanced the firepower of the luminar crystal cannon by forming a water-wood-fire chain!

The burden on the fourth brother had increased dramatically as a result, but the living fey had grown so much during this fight that he was truly beginning to live up to his potential! "No tribulation will cut off my path to life. I will burn everything that attempts to do so, even if I have to ignite those storm clouds myself!"

The fighting intent of the five brothers grew with each passing second as they constantly improved their ability to wield the elemental E energies that they were meant to control. However, Ves was not as optimistic as his living mech.

His mind was not focused on the present, but rather on the future.

If the threat level of the tribulation warriors continued to grow at this pace, then the next ones were bound to inflict serious damage onto the Elemental Lord!

This was no time for the living mech to feel comfortable. The five brothers needed to make the next step and begin to combine four elements at the same time!

However, that was not the only way to increase their power.

Ves had always kept an eye on the thunderfire warrior. Compared to its more proficient swordplay, he was much more interested in how this four-armed alien manifestation used the elements to its advantage.

For whatever reason, the thunderfire swordsman was able to draw in lightning and fire energy and mix them up in a highly combustible combination that produced much more damaging explosions than if these two elements operated separately.

One of the keys of this combination was that the two elements had been merged in such a profound way that they maximized the power that could be generated from the absorbed E energies!

This was one of the reasons why the thunderfire warrior was not losing its charge that quickly despite launching all manner of thunderfire-augmented attacks.

The earth fey suffered another fiery shock as its sword failed to block a quick jab after it had made a mistake and overextended itself.

Before the sword strike could strike the main body of the Elemental Lord, the earth fey quickly moved in the way and resisted the strike with its thick and sturdy construction! CRACKLE-BOOM!

The earth fey launched away with cracked armor plating and a few damaged components, but it had bought enough time for the main body to recover and launch a quick counterattack that severed the sword arm of the thunderfire warrior!

"Good job!"

Of course, the thunderfire swordsman instantly compensated by transferring its sword to its other greater arm.

Unlike the first tribulation warrior, the second one possessed a much stronger mentality. Not only was the latter able to cope with its crippling wound a lot better, but it was almost just as skilled with fighting with its off-hand!

Fortunately for Major Jankowski, his opponent lost just enough combat effectiveness for him to gradually gain the upper hand in this duel.

Hostile lightning and fire energies regularly entered the main body and the fey as they intermittently got struck one way or another.

Each strike produced a fair amount of explosive damage to their chassis and internals, but much of the damage partially restored for mystical reasons.

The same went for Ves and Lucky. They experienced a fraction of the tribulation forces that sought to crush the Elemental Lord entirely, and grew in ways that could not be fully described.

As Ves experienced the power of thunderfire first-hand, he developed a much more comprehensive understanding of this compound element.

According to a few sources of cultivation science that he had read in the past, lightning was sometimes treated as a separate element, and other times treated as a derivative of the air element.

Different ages and different schools of thought all came up with different interpretations of the lightning element, which caused them to work with it in vastly different ways.

What mattered was that it was a lot harder to work with than one of the classical elements. The chance of suffering self-harm was much greater, so Ves could not imagine how much pain these four-armed alien swordsmen went through in order to master the power of lightning.

However, the reward was great as the lightning element was regarded as one of the most powerful offensive elements.

Combining this volatile element with another offensive element such as fire was incredibly hard as their interaction never led to any stable combination!

They only ever produced one form of explosive discharge or another. It took a lot of skill, effort, talent and most importantly persistence for a cultivator to master effective ways to combine these two elements!

What impressed Ves quite a bit was that the four-armed alien swordsmen did not fight like high-ranking mech pilots or traditional swordsmen.

Unlike willpower cultivators whose very intentions could forcibly rewrite the laws of reality within their domains, the two lightning manifestations fought as if they were in harmony with the environment!

This method of energy utilization reminded Ves a lot of his mother as well as his design spirits.

Though Ves found that to be rather odd as he had always associated swordsmen with willpower cultivation, it appeared that this four-armed alien race preferred to combine their swordsmanship with qi cultivation!

"It makes sense."

These presumed natives of Messier 87 operated in a high energy environment. The concentration of E energy radiation was so stupendously high that it would be stupid not to take advantage of all of the free and readily available resources!

Since the power of heaven was so ridiculously abundant in the supermassive galaxy, then the most dominant forms of combat likely revolved around who could leverage this power better than their adversaries.

Ves boldly speculated that willpower cultivation likely failed to gain any traction because it was too damn slow and difficult to progress. The demands were harsh and many of the advantages that made it so effective in the Milky Way weren't as relevant in a radically different environment.

If this lightning tribulation continued to generate different manifestations based on the native aliens or beasts of Messier 87, then they were bound to utilize different elements in profound and impressive ways!

CRACKLE-BOOM!

The Elemental Lord quickly retreated after it had finally managed to land a fatal blow on the thunderfire warrior.

The second manifestation promptly blew up now that it had been deemed too 'injured' to put up an effective fight.

Neither Ves nor Major Jankowski were particularly pleased by this outcome.

"Have the five brothers managed to learn how to combine four elements?" Ves asked in a tone that conveyed a lot of doubt.

The mech officer shook his head. "They have already tried to do this numerous times. No matter how carefully they work, they always lose control right away. The brothers have given up on this for the time being. They think that they can do a better job if they improve their control in other ways."

Ves did not know whether that was the right course of action to take.

Deepening their mastery of combining three elements was only effective in the short term.

Sooner or later, the tribulation would introduce a new challenge that could not be dealt with unless the Elemental Lord employed four elements at once!

"The 30th wave is coming."

The aura of oppression from the storm clouds had become a lot stronger. Both Ves and Major Jankowski changed their expressions as they became affected by the oppression radiated by the third manifestation.

Just like before, the giant warrior made out of tribulation lightning belonged to the same species as its predecessors.

Different from last time, the latest swordsman wielded a pair of shorter blades that did not look any less deadly.

Ves focused his senses on the new warrior.

"I can sense lightning and... wind! Not only that, but this third warrior has much stronger control over these elements. Its power application is on another level!"

"It is also fast!" Major Jankowski noted with alarm.

The Elemental Lord barely managed to raise its sword to block the wind swordsman's astonishingly fast attack run!

The cockpit violently jerked as the kinetic force of the collision forced the Elemental Lord back.

At the same time, the mech frame also became subjected to a considerably more powerful shock attack than before.

Major Jankowski was barely able to cope with this surprise attack before the wind warrior rapidly circled around and sought to stab its twin lightning blades at an undefended angle! Neither the main body nor any of the four fey could respond quickly enough to block this subsequent attack.

CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!

The Elemental Lord had no choice but to force its damaged azure energy shield generator to activate again.

The water-reinforced energy shield barely managed to come online before the powerful twin stabs and lightning discharges sundered it apart yet again!

This time, the azure shield generator suffered more severe damage, making it highly unlikely that the Elemental Lord could depend upon it for a third time.

Fortunately, azure energy shield delayed the wind warrior just enough for the Elemental Lord to turn around and block the next flurry of sword strikes.

Major Jankowski happened to possess a bit of proficiency in duel wielding. Under his direction, the main body pulled out a backup knife and used it to block the wind warrior's second sword.

Ves could clearly tell that the first-class mech pilot did not possess a lot of depth in this combat approach.

The wind warrior was so much faster and more skilled that Major Jankowski had no room to breathe!

He could do little aside from focusing on defense.

Not even the fey could offer any support this time. The attacks launched by the fire fey and the earth fey largely missed their mark.

The wind warrior also happened to excel at evasion!

The ridiculously fast and skilled wind-and-lightning manifestation briefly pressured the Elemental Lord with a continuous sword flurry, but suddenly pulled back before adopting a weird attack stance!

The power of wind surged behind the tribulation warrior. The energy levels were spiking at a rapid rate!

"EVADE!"

"MEOW!"

The cockpit violently jerked as the Elemental Lord uncontrollably spun to the side!

A significant chunk of armor plating as well as other components sprayed into the air as the explosively fast attack run of the wind warrior had torn out a part of the Elemental Lord's side!

Lightning coursed through the frame and compounded the physical damage. The mech had sustained heavy damage that undeniably compromised its performance!

The 30th wave was too strong!

Major Jankowski and the Elemental Lord were already starting to falter against this monstrously fast and powerful tribulation manifestation!