The Mech Touch

Chapter 6768 The Lamia Kailamassu

Saint Stark felt humiliated.

Before they engaged in a proper spar, the Stewards Siamesia overpowered her in an instant and stuck her in an illusion that left her completely defenseless.

Yet was she really as vulnerable as she appeared?

"Do not feel too upset, Davia." Jeri tried to console the ace pilot and her bruised ego. "The gap in power between us is too great. My brother and I worked together to pull you into a condensed therapy session. Anyone as strong as you would have succumbed to our willpower. Now that you have experienced it the first time, you can guard yourself against the next attempt. It will take considerably greater effort for us to distract you when you are fully alert."

"One of the other reasons why you blanked out for more than half a minute is that you and your living mech never sensed any serious threats." Alo added. "The intuition of an ace pilot still remains sharp. If there were any enemy units nearby that sought to capitalize on your weakness, your intuition should have noticed the danger and triggered a defensive response. That would have pulled you out of your distracted state in a very short amount of time. At most, your time to react to an incoming attack is shorter than usual,"

"THEY RIGHT ABOUT THAT." The Amaranto took the initiative to speak to her battle partner. "WHATEVER THEY DID TO YOU DID NOT AFFECT ME, THOUGH MAYBE IT IS BECAUSE THEY DELIBERATELY LEFT ME OUT. I THINK THEY COULD HAVE

DISTRACTED ME IN A SIMILAR MANNER."

Saint Stark felt a lot more mixed about the Stewards Siamesia. They were serious about never killing anyone, but their powers and abilities were so disruptive and difficult to defend against that they could easily set up their enemies for elimination.

She faintly suspected that the two deliberately tried to be vague and confusing about their disposition.

Were they a threat, or were they harmless?

Was their treatment an attempt to cure people, or lead them to their deaths?

How many other 'non-lethal' tricks did their ace mech have up its sleeves?

All of these questions and more made the Lamia Kailamassu more and more unfathomable. Its strange and exotic name further added to its mystique. Saint Stark realized more and more that peak ace pilots were anything but simple!

While the enormous gap in strength and capabilities was enough to demoralize any mech pilot, ace pilots were made of sterner stuff.

Saint Stark eventually managed to bounce back.

Instead of blaming herself for succumbing to her weaknesses, she became determined

to plug them up and become just as strong as the Stewards Siamesia! Only by gaining just as much power would she be able to get rid of her feelings of inferiority and be able to win in a direct confrontation against the pair of saints!

Her shifting mood directly affected her willpower, which in turn affected her Saint Kingdom.

The dark red energy field surrounding the Amaranto roiled faster and glowed brighter. Saint Stark may be weak at the moment, but she believed she could eventually grow strong enough to defeat the opponents she struggled against in the past and present! "Good." Alo said in an appreciative tone. "You have passed your first test. We have witnessed other ace pilots requiring hours or days to pull themselves back together and adopt the proper mindset towards an obstacle they cannot surmount as of yet. They always get back on the right track eventually, but it is how fast they are able to bounce back that matters the most. Your speed shows that you are not a stranger to setbacks, and that you are already accustomed to vanquishing them by working hard."

"Flashy abilities and strong technology are important components of your ability to project power on the battlefield, but they do not comprise the core of your strength." Jeri lectured. "Your willpower determines the ceiling of your combat performance. A weak will cannot adequately draw out the strength of a technologically superior ace mech. For now, you and your machine are severely out of balance in this regard. Your Amaranto is considerably stronger than you. It appears that the Larkinson Clan truly attaches a great amount of importance to you. Your greatest priority at this time is to reduce the gap between yourself and your mech as quickly as possible. This is the best way to raise you up to a more adequate standard that you will need to combat the native aliens."

Though Jeri's words generated Davia Stark, the guest pilot was not a weak and fragile flower. She could take the criticism. She knew that as long as she worked hard to become stronger, many of her problems would go away.

Her fighting intent rose. Though she had no intention of killing or inflicting severe harm on the Lamia Kailamassu, she was eager to prove her strength and show that she was not a brittle champion!

"What do I need to do next?" She asked with an aggressive growl.

Alo responded with a surprising question. "How well can you defend against attackers who have managed to get close?"

"Pardon?"

"How often have you been forced to fend off attackers that have entered within melee striking distance of your Amaranto?"

"...Too long."

"As expected." Alo sighed. "We all understand that your ace mech is entirely designed towards sniping enemies at longer ranges. This may have worked out for you when you

were fighting alongside the Larkinsons, but that is mainly because your enemies permitted you to fight at your ideal ranges. Here in the Upper Zones, the threats we face are more serious and capable."

Saint Stark frowned. "The aliens do not field mechs of their own. Their phasefighters do not pose that much more of a threat whether they are close or far."

"That is where you are wrong" The male twin retorted. "The native aliens are equipped with much better and stronger tech. They infrequently make use of teleportation tech that can overpower warp interdiction fields and other anti-teleportation countermeasures. There are greater phase lords that have been able to use up a great amount of energy to forcibly open space rifts only a few kilometers away from your ace mech's position. They can also cooperate with the arche to smuggle themselves closer under stealth. If you cannot defend yourself against a phase lord emerging at close range by surprise, you are already as good as dead."

Saint Stark had read about such instances. She also watched battle footage where stuff like that occurred.

It didn't happen all that often, though. It was costly for them to overcome all of the countermeasures set up by the human defenders. The units that teleported forward by surprise also became exceptionally vulnerable to retaliation and always endured heavy attacks from multiple directions.

Still, Davia Stark acknowledged the point. The aliens would learn sooner or later that they needed to shut her Amaranto down fast!

"I can believe that the native aliens invading the Upper Zones may have a way to get close to my ace mech. Do I need to improve my ability to defend myself at close range?" "We highly advise you to do so." Alo said. "There are ace pilots who specialized in ranged combat in the past that underestimated the means employed by the native aliens. Our inherent belief in the superiority of the human race automatically makes us dismiss the possibility that our enemies can be just as cunning, clever and insidious. They will learn the power of your Amaranto and seek to defeat your machine by exploiting your obvious weaknesses. Anyone can clearly tell from observation alone that your ace mech is not supposed to fight at close range."

With that said, the two promptly started to spar up close.

Saint Stark did not have a good time. Her oversized Instrument of Vengeance was largely designed for ranged excellence. The masterwork luminar crystal rifle was not a good

weapon to use at closer ranges.

Sure, Ves had added a plasma bayonet at the front, but it was clearly just an

afterthought.

The practicality of using a long, thick and heavy as a makeshift polearm was quite poor!

This was especially the case when the arms of the Amaranto were not optimized for swinging large and heavy rods with great force.

Even if the Amaranto limited her attacks to repeatedly stabbing the plasma bayonet straight forward, the strain and exertion on the arms were considerable due to

imbalance.

What was worse was that none of her attacks had any discernible effects!

Stark wondered whether the Lamia Kailamassu could even fight in melee combat. The

fat oval support mech lacked any visible limbs to hold onto external weapons and swing

them around.

It turned out that the Lamia did not need any external weapons.

Its own bulk and mass already served as its own weapon!

The ace support mech engaged in melee combat by utilizing its superior bulk and

mobility to fly around like a wrecking ball!

The strong true resonance generated by not one, but two peak ace pilots allowed the dual-pilot ace mech to get away with tricks and maneuvers that could never be done

with just one ace pilot!

The Lamia Kailamassu zipped around with far greater speed than her transphasic flight system should be able to produce, and she made such impossibly tight turns that it looked as if the ace mech made a near-instant 90 degree turn!

Frankly speaking, the dual-pilot ace mech defied the laws of physics with every second

with how crazy it was able to move!

If the Lamia Kailamassu was a light skirmisher or another melee mech, then it should

readily be able to take advantage of its extreme maneuverability to win most duels against slower and less graceful mechs!

However, the fat oval-shaped ace support mech had no swords and spears. It didn't even

have a sharp edge on its surface.

The only means of attacking physically up close was to ram its bulk into its target!

Though the Lamia Kailamassu clearly held back to an extent, the ace support mech evaded the bayonet stab by relying on its excellent evasion ability before promptly crashing into the Amaranto Mark III!

The ace marksman mech did not suffer any serious damage, but she was uncontrollably flung backwards while struggling to maintain hold of her Instrument of Vengeance! This shame repeated several times before the Stewards Siamesia finally took mercy on

the poor guest pilot.

"Your performance is abysmal," Alo Chevor did not mince his words. "It is understandable

that you cannot match the performance of an ace melee mech at close range, but you are too unprepared against the worst outcome. At our level, we cannot afford to remain vulnerable to our glaring weaknesses. Ace pilots are prone to dying the most when their enemies successfully exploit a gap in their defenses. If you want to live long enough to step on the road to no return, then you must work on this shortcoming of yours."

"My Amaranto was never designed to fight by herself." Saint Stark attempted to excuse

her poor showing. "She was always meant to be accompanied by another Larkinson mech of the same caliber."

"We are not asking you to become a jack of all trades and dilute your greatest advantages. Jeri responded. "We only want you to put a greater effort into guarding against the worst outcome. You can still do this fairly quickly as long as you develop your

strength correctly."

"And what is the correct method?"

"Haven't you noticed it already? In our early exchange of blows, my brother and I did more than passively empowering our ace mech with our true resonance. We actively used our Saint Kingdom to distort reality in specific ways that enabled us to maneuver so fast and tight. As for you, your Saint Kingdom remained static all of the time. Not. once did you actively leverage its possibilities to enhance your ace mech in a specific manner."

Davia Stark widened her eyes.

She never thought about that! Now that she had been informed, she understood that she

hadn't been fighting back at her full strength! She had only ever actively employed her Saint Kingdom when shooting at targets from afar.

Now she became aware she could make good use of her Saint Kingdom to give her an

edge in melee combat. Davia Stark became determined to fix this shortcoming by the end of the day!