The Mech Touch

As headquarters notified Venerable Joshua of two incoming threats that he should take note of, he did not exhibit any fear.

Two mid-tier expert mechs could definitely give him and the Everchanger a lot of difficulties. It might not be viable for him to defeat either of them, but he was confident in his ability to survive their assaults and distract them as long as possible if he focused on defense and evasion rather than attacking.

However, there was no need for him to play chicken this time.

The powerful presences that he had bonded himself to at this moment did not allow him to shirk this engagement!

“We’re about to have a tough time, Everchanger.” Venerable Joshua said with obvious strain in his voice as he tried to balance all of the voices in his head.

The Everchanger exuded a ripple that could be taken as a sign of apprehension, excitement or maybe both.

“THIS IS WHAT I WAS MADE FOR, PARTNER.” The living mech audibly responded to Joshua. “THIS IS WHY WE WERE PUT TOGETHER. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS, WE ARE ABOUT TO DO BATTLE IN THE WAY THAT MY MAKER INTENDED US TO FIGHT.”

“What about the battles we fought before?”

“BEFORE WE WERE NOT… COMPLETE.” The living mech stated.

This was true. A large part of what defined the Everchanger in the first place was because it was always meant to equip different mounted wargear loadouts.

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It might look like a hero mech on the surface, but in reality Ves envisioned it as a semi-modular mech platform just like the Bright Warrior but to a more extreme degree!

The only complications that bothered Venerable Joshua were that piloting a mech within another ‘mech’ was much more difficult and complicated than piloting the Everchanger in its base form.

“The amount of data I need to process is so much greater that it is no wonder that mounted wargear isn’t all that common.” Joshua whispered.

When it came to normal mechs, if any of them equipped mounted wargear of a comparable size and complexity as the Titan-5 Project, their mech pilots would have to possess at least A-grade genetic aptitude to maintain control over all of the important processes!

The Everchanger and the meat suit combined actually produced an even greater load, but fortunately Joshua was an expert pilot whose data processing capacity exceeded that of mortals.

Even so, this was the first time that Joshua truly felt that he had approached his elevated limits.

Compared to a relatively simple and one-dimensional mounted wargear loadout like the City Breaker, the Titan-5 Project was like a whole ecosystem in itself!

After several years of researching different alien tissue samples and coming up with increasingly more abstruse methods to combine them into an unholy amalgamation, the Titan-5 Project could very well be described as a chimera!

Though it looked like a thick and square-bodied humanoid, its gray flesh and other inhuman touches betrayed its patchwork nature.

Venerable Joshua didn’t feel like he was piloting another mech at the moment.

Instead, he felt as if he had reluctantly borrowed the body of Frankenstein’s monster!

“I guess Ves plays the role of Dr. Frankenstein in this story.” Venerable Joshua joked.

Seriously speaking, the analogy was not entirely groundless. This was because Joshua did not have the impression that he assumed complete control over the meat suit.

Instead, it felt as if he was given ‘permission’ to drive the Titan-5 Project!

The bestial and aggressive personality of the meat suit was not as easy to befriend as the other entities that Joshua had met over the course of his career.

It didn’t matter that the Titan-5 Project was not as aware or sentient as the Everchanger. The strength and spiritual magnitude of the meat suit was considerably stronger for some reason and made it a lot harder for other influences to restrain it and keep it under control.

In the past, when Joshua described how difficult it was for him to harness the meat suit during live practice sessions, the patriarch mentioned a brief story about one of his past experiences.

“Do you remember the time Tusa and I got trapped on the surface of Prosperous Hill VI during our visit to the Life Research Association?”

Joshua nodded. “That was a wild time, especially at the end.”

Ves’ eyes glazed over as if he was recalling a powerful memory. “It was at that time that I came face-to-face with arguably the most powerful biomech or biological construct that I have ever encountered. Not even the fish-whale kings have made me feel smaller and more insignificant than the Uranus.”

The expert pilot looked surprised. “Are you saying that the Titan-5 Project can go out of control like the Uranus?”

“I don’t know.” Ves honestly replied. “The similarities are there, at least. I don’t know enough about biotechnology and biomechs to speak with authority on this topic, but I possess enough of an understanding of the mysteries and wonders of life to judge that I may have inadvertently birthed a horrible form of life when we originally developed the meat suit. It is one thing to pilot a machine that happens to be made out of flesh. Controlling it is not that different from controlling the other mounted wargear loadouts such as the City Breaker. However, as soon as I imparted it with the spark of life, I have found that it has evolved into something greater and perhaps more terrible.”

This was disturbing news to Joshua. He was familiar with many living mechs, but to hear that the Titan-5 Project was not as friendly as them was quite a difficult truth to accept.

“Is it wise to make use of the Titan-5 Project when it is so difficult to control?” The expert pilot cautiously asked.

Though he was not a coward, he did not dare to gamble on this matter. Just thinking about how the Uranus completely devastated entire city districts and destroyed a handful of expert mechs in an instant during its infamous rampage already made him concerned that the meat suit might follow suit one day!

Just the image of the meat suit going berserk in the middle of the expeditionary fleet and killing thousands of Larkinsons made Joshua a lot more conflicted about piloting such a biological monstrosity!

Ves did not provide his answer immediately. Instead, he lowered his head and rubbed his smooth-shaven chin for a time.

“If I want to develop my living mechs to the best of my ability, I can’t be too timid or conservative.” He eventually said. “Combining biotechnology with my unique specialty produces so many new and interesting results that I cannot afford to ignore the benefits. You should already know how powerful the Titan-5 Project is compared to more conventional mounted wargear loadouts. The research results I’ve gained from its development are highly rewarding and may help me in creating the next evolution to living mechs. The biggest problem is that living bioconstructs such as the meat suits may be a lot more violent and disobedient than the norm, but that is the price that we must bear in order to obtain great power.”

After numerous practice sessions, Venerable Joshua had always kept those last words in mind.

The meat suit was more powerful than anything he had come in touch with before, but the burden was much greater as a response.

For example, now that he was able to sense two powerful threats charging straight at the enhanced Everchanger, the primal consciousness of the meat suit wanted to go forward and attack right away!

“Calm down, Titan!” Joshua pleaded as he leveraged his willpower to keep the meat suit’s aggressive impulses from taking over control. “We’ll fight those enemies, but we will do so on my terms, not yours, do you understand?”

The meat suit only became more impatient and rebellious as a response!

The pushback from the Titan-5 Project’s primal consciousness was much greater than before! Joshua had never encountered so many difficulties during his practice sessions!

He already figured out why that was the case. He and his meat suit never encountered that much hostility when sparring against other Larkinson mech pilots. No matter how hard they fought, they never took the bouts too seriously.

It was different this time. Venerable Joshua could already sense the naked hostility and hatred of the Fridayman expert pilots.

The enemies had come to destroy the meat suit, break apart the Everchanger and kill the expert pilot if possible!

It would be a surprise if the meat suit remained tolerant towards the incoming enemies!

Joshua began to sweat as his willpower was barely able to keep the meat suit contained. “Everchanger! Goldie! Titania! Phase King! Help me out, please.”

It took the combined efforts of his expert mech as well as moderate contributions from the design spirits associated with the Everchanger and the Titan-5 Project to keep the damned beast in its cage!

The Everchanger had entered into state as a consequence. There had never been a case where so many living entities became involved in just a single combat platform at the same time!

If not for the special properties of Venerable Joshua and the Everchanger, such a combination would never be stable!

“Phase King.” Joshua said. “You take the lead this time. Didn’t you always want to roam outside Purgatory and make your mark in the endless cosmos? This is your opportunity.”

Venerable Joshua found that in order to be able to cope with situations like these, it was not enough for him to take unilateral control anymore.

There were too many entities and Joshua needed to borrow the strength of at least some of them to make the best use of the meat suit. This forced him to sit down and negotiate deals with different stakeholders.

Right now, he and the Phase King had agreed to become the dominant parties for the current battle.

Joshua had made this choice because none of the other entities were as proficient and familiar with making use of the phasewater abilities of the meat suit.

The expert pilot formed a deeper and more special bond with the eager and willing design spirit.

A sense of age, power, understanding and pride overcome Joshua as he did everything in his power to grant more control to the Phase King.

Though this was a rather dangerous move as Joshua could not entirely control what the Phase King intended to do, it was better to hand over authority to an ancient and more rational design spirit than to trust the beast-like consciousness of the meat suit!

The spatial barrier surrounding the Titan-5 Project became brighter and stronger as the Phase King made the process more efficient.

As the enemy mid-tier expert mechs finally came close enough, Venerable Joshua confirmed that he was being confronted by an expert space knight and an expert lancer mech.

The former was not that big of a threat by itself, but the latter was a definite threat!

The two Fridayman expert mechs had already formed a tacit cooperation. The expert space knight fearlessly charged towards the oversized meat suit in order to lock it down while the expert lancer mech would circle around and impale the odd Larkinson biomachine from a difficult angle!

While it sounded simple, it was highly effective as long as the expert space knight could do its job.

Venerable Joshua narrowed his eyes. “Do you think I will let you have your way?”

Before the opposing expert space knight was able to come close, the meat suit accelerated in a different direction and easily outpaced the expert space knight!

All three expert mechs involved possessed warp travel capabilities, but it just so happened that the meat suit was able to amplify its speed to a greater degree than the Fridayman expert mechs with the help of the Phase King’s incredible mastery over spatial manipulation!

In fact, Joshua already knew the Phase King could do more than speed up the meat suit.

The biomonstrosity raised its arm and pointed at the enemy expert mechs. More and more energy channeled through its integrated fish-whale matter, which allowed it to exert more control over space than before.

Soon enough, both enemy expert mechs abruptly slowed down as the Titan-5 Project forcefully popped their warp bubbles!

“What?! How can it do this?!”

“Damn! We’re in trouble. We just lost our mobility advantage!”

Frankenstein’s Monster might be dangerous in the stories, but no one could deny it was powerful!

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