The Mech Touch

While most of red humanity had set their sights squarely on the most obvious threat posed by the 13 major alien races of the Red Ocean, the Hunting Association squarely focused on a completely different kind of enemy!

The gradual rise and emergence of calamity beasts threatened to upend the entire new frontier.

Any planet that bore a considerable amount of life turned into breeding grounds of all manner of strange and exotic calamity beasts.

Ordinary exobeasts and exoplants belonging to species that had settled in the same ecosystems for millions of years suddenly became subjected to intense mutations!

Though it was not unheard of for certain alien creatures to undergo rapid evolution to the point where they ascended the limitations of their own species, their growth usually tapered off due to many limitations.

The ubiquitous presence of E energy radiation unlocked many of those constraints.

Mutated beasts not only gained access to a lot of powerful energy and matter, but could also gain more control over their self-evolution!

Through the psychoactive and psychoreactive properties of E energy, these primitive alien creatures adapted much better to the environment than before.

In areas of drought, the mutated beasts developed ways to quench their thirst or reduce their dependence on water.

In areas of extreme weather events, the mutated beasts burrowed underground or simply grew tough enough to withstand all of the external disturbances.

In areas with a lot of powerful threats, the mutated beasts rapidly evolved their combat abilities. The greater the competitive pressure, the more lethal they became!

No matter what challenges these mutated beasts faced, as long as they overcame them all, they had most likely grown strong enough to break through a major threshold of their development!

Just like how expert pilots were incomparably stronger than their ordinary counterparts, the overall strength of calamity beasts already reached a point where they could destroy entire towns and cities by themselves.

President Oscar Tarich sounded extremely serious about this rising threat.

"Make no mistake, Professor Larkinson. Ever since the Age of Dawn unfolded upon us, we have become embroiled in two wars. The Red Two are leading the charge in the war against the civilized natives that are currently assailing our border systems. Our Hunting Association is invested with the responsibility of waging war against the uncivilized alien monsters that must be contained through different means."

"From what I have seen, your Association is doing a job at keeping these Calamity Beasts in line." Ves remarked.

The intimidating Evil Lake Tree might look as if it had the potential to flood the entire Chasseur Continent in water, but there was no way the hunters would let it grow to that point.

The branch president responded with a tired smile.

"Ocanon VI is not as controlled as it appears on the surface. There are massive amounts of aquatic life in its oceans. The quantity of mutated beasts that have propagated there are much more numerous, and most of them are capable of traversing much longer distances, making it even harder to track them and hunt them down."

"Your Association should still be able to cull them before they grow into calamity beasts, right?"

"Where do you think most of our reinforcements have been sent? Our forces are already being stretched to their limits. Controlling the underwater ecosystems is much more cumbersome to us due to the low visibility and inability to conduct sweeping terrain scans from orbit. What is even more problematic for us is that there is a galactic shortage of aquatic hunting teams. Aquatic mechs and mech pilots trained in their use are much less common to begin with. This has forced us to hunt down the most threatening mutated aquatic beasts by ourselves."

That was hardly ideal. The Hunting Association clearly wanted to position its forces as reserves that only took action when absolutely needed. Their mech pilots were being trained as elites that received the privilege of piloting much more powerful mechs than the norm.

Fielding them too often not only wore them out, but also diminished the Hunting Association's ability to respond to acute and unexpected crises!

"If the oceans throughout the Red Ocean are such a problem, then surely you can sponsor more mech academies to this end."

"We are already encouraging more mech cadets to specialize in piloting aquatic mechs, but it will take years for the manpower pool to reflect these efforts." Oscar Tarich replied. "Do not forget that only 1 year has passed, and already highly threatening mutated beasts such as this tree down below are starting to dominate their local ecosystems. We believe that it will take the most successful ones a few months before they complete their evolution to a calamity beast. That may not be a problem on a highly controlled planet such as this one, but what of other untamed planets?"

Ves understood the underlying issue. "Your Hunting Association is probably monitoring every life-bearing planet in human-occupied space. You can cull any would-be calamity beasts in time in those cases. At worst, you can unleash weapons of mass destruction on planets that have gone out of control, thereby purging them of all life. It would be a pity to get rid of all of that biodiversity, though. However, it will be a lot more difficult for your hunters to control the proliferation of calamity beasts outside the borders of our territories." "Exactly. We are trying to collect as much intelligence as possible on how the native aliens have attempted to control this looming threat, but the clues that we have gathered so far do not paint an optimistic image. The alien civilizations are too divided from each other. There are major alien races that are able to recognize the danger in time and enact their own policies to control the planets under their control. Then there are thousands more minor alien races that are not only weaker, but also adopt strange and inefficient approaches in governing their territories."

There were alien races where only their highest leaders had all of the initiative. Practically nothing happened without the supreme leader's instructions. This meant that problems taking place further away from the power center had a tendency to remain unaddressed for an agonizingly long time.

By the time the supreme leader finally became notified of a serious issue, the calamity beasts would have already grown past the point where they could be suppressed!

There were also other alien races that were bound by strong religious traditions. Most of these weird indigenous faiths never accounted for the rise of calamity beasts. If the rules and traditions of their religions prevented them from culling the rapidly growing number of mutated beasts, then they would soon pay the price for sticking to outdated superstition!

When Ves estimated how many life-bearing planets existed in the Red Ocean, he did not have any confidence in the ability for all of the different indigenous alien civilizations to control their own territories.

"We're screwed, aren't we?" Ves softly whispered.

"Maybe. Maybe not. In the medium term, inadequate control over the proliferation of these extraordinary beasts is beneficial to us. Their uncontrolled rise in every alien territory will force the natives to divert their powerful fleets and armies to combating the threat from within their borders. However, this is not good in the long term. Not only will these forces obtain greater combat experience against units with powerful E-energy abilities, their researchers and developers will also harvest a large amount of research samples that they can use to derive powerful new hyper tech and E-tech."

Ves widened his eyes. "Damn! The aliens will be able to gather a much greater quantity of calamity beast remains since they are in control over so much more territory than us! Not only that, but their populations are far greater than our own, which means that they have a lot more alien scientists to study all of those valuable research samples."

This was the absolute disparity between red humanity and the native aliens. It was hard to overcome it so long as the differences in manpower and territory remained so lopsided.

"The problem is worse than you think, professor. While our biotechnology R&D capabilities are strong, the native aliens are not weak on this front. Every major alien race with strong aspirations to evolve into native gods have conducted extensive research on remarkable biologies. While their understanding of hyper technology and E-technology are much weaker, they have so many researchers that it only takes a handful of lucky geniuses to attain major breakthroughs. Then there are the phase whales."

There was no need for President Tarich to elaborate much further. The phase whales were best known for their tyrannical bodies and their extreme compatibility with phasewater.

Yet they were anything but simple brutes. Each of them were highly intellectual and excelled in their own alien brand of biotechnology.

"If those phase whales get their hands on powerful calamity beasts, there is a greater possibility that they will assimilate the strongest and most useful abilities of these rapidly evolved creatures!"

Tarich nodded. "That will most certainly be the case. Our god mechs are undergoing rapid upgrades, but the phase whales are trying to catch up in their own way. The outcome of Operation Night Jazz has spurred them on even further. Now that our god pilots have humbled their entire race, they will not be arrogant enough to disregard the value of all of these emerging calamity beasts."

This was a huge issue and one that could not easily be solved. It pressured red humanity into action, because time was on the side of the native aliens.

Ves grew a little upset now that he had learned of these unsettling trends. It sure put a damper on his vacation.

"So what now?"

That caused the older man to shrug his shoulders. "We soldier onwards. We do what we can to increase our utilization of the mutated beasts that are growing in our territories. Our Hunting Association is even thinking about deliberately allowing them to grow into calamity beasts so long as they can be contained. The more powerful they become, the more research value they hold. Currently, any powerful beast that has repelled multiple hunting teams is deserving of greater attention. Every time such a creature is attacked by mechs, it will develop targeted countermeasures that increase their ability to handle similar threats."

"That sounds like a good way to direct their evolution in more useful directions to our R&D sector." Ves affirmed. "Still, won't that increase the risk of grooming them into our own worst enemies?"

"That is a risk that we have to take. The danger is not that great, professor. Mutated beasts and calamity beasts have transcended their race. They have changed so much that they are subject to reproductive isolation. They cannot birth an entire species of super aliens, which means that their threat will always remain localized. At worst, we will notify the Huntsman or one of the numerous ace pilots that have agreed to accept our commissions. There will never be a case that a calamity beast will reach the next major stage of their evolution."

Was it possible for these calamity beasts to evolve into existences comparable to True Gods by relying solely on natural cultivation?

Ves had a hunch that this might be the case. Once these powerful monsters attained this level of strength, their threat level to red humanity was bound to undergo a qualitative change!

"Wait, why do we assume that calamity beasts are universally hostile to us? They become smarter and more self-aware as they grow stronger, right? Isn't it possible for us to tame them and turn them into our guardian beasts?"

"Such ideas are brought up every day within our Hunting Association. Our preliminary studies suggest that calamity beasts are too wild and uncivilized to engage in any form of diplomacy or surrender. Everything about them has grown stronger, including their ego, savagery, predatory instincts and so on. The wilder they are when they are weak, the less compromising they will be when they become strong."

"Then just capture them when they are in the early stages of their growth cycle." Ves suggested.

"It is not that simple, professor. There is indeed a possibility for us to bring them to our heel if we capture them and tame them when they are still juveniles. However, our initial experiments in taming these creatures have produced a large amount of failures. There are a large amount of unknown variables that change from the moment we try to suppress their savagery."