The Mech Touch

As Joshua hastily adjusted the Purgatory Envoy's movements in response to its malfunctioning left flamethrower, he momentarily lost his composure.

While he wasn't a mech designer, he still knew a thing or two about the physical properties of mechs.

According to the internal diagnostics of his mech, its flamethrower had been quite far from reaching a critical damage state.

Mechs were complex machines. Millions of parts had to work in unison to keep it running.

Even for a brand-new mech that had recently rolled off the production line and passed MTA certification, there was still a chance for one of its parts to malfunction!

The best the mech company could do was to make as little mistakes as possible during the fabrication process. Yet even if the LMC invested ten times as much in quality control, the odds of delivering a bad mech could never be ruled out.

This was simply how machines worked. Total reliability was an unattainable goal!

However, these days, as long as the mech company did not cut any corners, the mechs it delivered rarely exhibited any defects out of the blue. It would take months for their owners to notice any signs, and by far the majority of the faults they encountered usually resulted from battle damage!

"Is this what the patriarch has warned me about?" Joshua guessed.

He didn't know what probability manipulation meant, but this inexplicable malfunction definitely had something to do with it! As he regained his composure and continued to immerse himself in his mech, he tried to explore what went wrong.

What had the Fortunate Devil done to his mech?

Why had one of the Purgatory Envoy critical components malfunctioned when it wasn't even close to sustain damage?

If his left flamethrower hadn't incorporated some redundancy, it would have been knocked out entirely, thereby reducing Joshua's offensive options even further!

"Fortunate Devil indeed. You're probably made to spread bad luck!" He cursed as he tried to dance his mech around the red-hot flames.

Before, he had been fairly confident in his chances of winning. As long as his mech retained enough functionality, he could steadily melt down the Fortunate Devil's legs.

However, now that the Purgatory Envoy's damage output dropped by 25 percent, Joshua needed to spend much more time to force his enemy into a critical state.

That extra time gave the enemy plenty of time to turn the tables!

On the balcony, Ves frowned deeper while he tried to figure out what exactly took place. How was it possible for the Fortunate Devil to induce an inexplicable malfunction on his mech?

"I'm a bit surprised, though." Jovy remarked.

"Why?"

"Your mech is actually holding out longer than I thought. According to my estimates, your Purgatory Envoy should have suffered numerous faults by now. How is your mech able to hold out so well? Is your glow that powerful?"

Before this match, Ves didn't know how Jovy's design philosophy actually worked, so he applied a bunch of possible countermeasures to his mech design.

One of them was adding a superiority-oriented glow to the mech.

Ves believed that this glow was partially responsible for weakening the Fortunate Devil's mysterious effects!

Even so, the mech designed by Jovy had plenty of time. With its thick armor and resilient legs, the Fortunate Devil kept getting hotter, but to little consequence!

Devils were made to bask in flames!

Another minute passed as both mechs tried their best to beat each other down. Ves noted that the Fortunate Devil specifically focused on applying its flames on the right flamethrower of the Purgatory Envoy.

Jovy's mech had partially crippled one weapon. As long as it could cripple the other one, then the outcome was pretty much set in stone!

"Another malfunction has occurred!" Gloriana shrieked!

One of the joints of the left leg of the Purgatory Devil slowed down. It wasn't facilitating movements as smoothly as before!

As a consequence, the striker mech designed by Ves abruptly exhibited an awkward gait. It was as if it had suddenly sprained one of its ankles.

Though Joshua was skilled enough to adjust to the sudden handicap, his confusion grew deeper.

Aside from getting hit by a few spluttering red flames, the legs of his mech had hardly sustained any damage.

He suddenly shook his head. "Damnit, this is bad! I'm letting the enemy dictate my rhythm!"

This was a rookie mistake that he hadn't made in a while. Various reasons caused his usual form to worsen.

Fighting an MTA mech pilot in a mech designed by an MTA mech designer was incredibly intimidating.

The Fortunate Devil's effects were too mysterious and confounding for him to understand.

Joshua feared another malfunction would take place at any moment. If the part that malfunctioned was critical enough and if the timing was very bad, the match could be decided right then and there!

"The patriarch is counting on me! I can't lose!" He reminded himself.

Though Ves did not tell Joshua what was at stake, his pride and reputation was still at stake!

The setbacks and confusion had slowly caused him to grow more out of sync with his mech.

The Superior Mother never faltered!

The Superior Mother never lost confidence!

The Superior Mother never let down her son!

This was his first time piloting a mech with a Hexer glow. Even though Joshua had displayed a remarkable capacity to adjust to any glow, he often had to figure out every new instance, especially if they weren't meant with someone like him in mind.

After all, he was not a Hexer himself, so he was still figuring out the glow as he battled his opponent.

Now that he recognized that he needed to adjust his state, he ignored the strange malfunctions as much as possible and continued to merge his mood with the superiority wafting from his mech.

Joshua recalled one of the instructions that Ves had passed on to him. There might be a way to turn the tables against the Fortunate Devil!

However, in order to do so, he needed to regain his cool and continue to grow closer to his mech. As his immersion grew deeper and deeper, the glow of the mech grew even stronger.

As Ves watched the changes from above, he knew that Joshua had finally deepend his bond with the Superior Mother.

The pair needed to reach a certain degree of intimacy in order to access one of the experimental new functions that Ves had added to the Purgatory Envoy!

He chuckled. "You're not the only mech designer to add a nasty trick to your mech design, Mr. Armalon. Do you know why I bestowed the name of Purgatory Envoy to my mech?"

Jovy tilted his head. "Is it because your mech comes armed with powerful flamethrowers?"

"Heh. It's more than that! See for yourself!"

As the battle continued to tilt against the Purgatory Envoy, Joshua had finally immersed himself deep enough to find the functions that Ves had hidden into the mech!

"There's two of them.. which one is the right one… ah, I'm pretty sure that this one is what I need!"

The two mechs continued to rain flames onto each other. The MTA mech pilot exhibited a great amount of patience. With its awful mobility, there was no point in moving around or performing any superfluous actions.

As long as he fought steadily, the mech itself would inflict all of the critical damage. He had been waiting for the Purgatory Envoy to exhibit a third malfunction. It was only a matter of time before it happened, and the Fortunate Devil had plenty of time at its disposal.

The Purgatory Envoy shrieked.

It had finally happened again! This time, the malfunction was a bit more serious than the previous ones. The striker mech's engines exhibited a tiny problem that nonetheless resulted in a rather noticeable drop in motion.

It was as if the mech designed by Ves had suddenly grown tired and old all of a sudden! The speed of the mech dropped again, causing the Fortunate Son to land a lot more flames onto its target.

This was bad!

Yet just as the Fortunate Son celebrated this stroke of luck, Joshua had finally figured out how to activate one of his mech's added features.

"PURGE!"

The Purgatory Envoy's frame suddenly released a powerful pulse that washed over Ves, Gloriana, Jovy, Master Willix and the rest!

"What is that?!"

"I feel as if an energy field had just passed through my body!"

A drastic change took place once the Purgatory Envoy had pulsed its glow.

The mech's left flamethrower suddenly increased its damage output.

The engine no longer exhibited any problems, causing the locomotion of the mech to grow steadier again.

The only malfunction that the Purgatory Envoy had failed to restore was the damage to one of the joints of the legs. The damage wasn't something that could be restored unless a mech technician performed repairs on the joint in question.

With the mech partially restored, Joshua became more energetic than ever! The restoration of the left flamethrower immediately boosted his confidence as he continued to apply more heat to the enemy mech's legs.

"Hah! I purged all of the filth clinging onto my mech. What will you be able to do now?!"

At this point in time, much of the leg armor of the Fortunate Devil had been melted to the point of losing its integrity. Already, some of its internal components began to reach critical heat levels.

Just one leg had to be damaged to the point of losing functionality. As long as that occurred, the Fortunate Devil could no longer keep up with the Purgatory Envoy's circling.

Let alone protecting its vulnerable rear, Jovy's mech wouldn't be able to point its flamethrower at its adversary!

"This isn't all. There's more!" Ves whispered with anticipation.

Half a minute later, Joshua finally gained a handle on the second function.

"PURIFY!"

This time, the Purgatory Envoy did not pulse its glow. Instead, the glow began to concentrate a bit inside the integrated flamethrowers.

Though the blue flames didn't change, once they landed on the Fortunate Devil, the mech suddenly attempted to step backwards before halting.

For a moment, the MTA mech pilot wanted to escape the flames!

A strange pressure acted on his head. It was as if someone set a part of his mind on fire. It took much of his will and concentration to suppress the pain and fortify his mind using some of the methods taught by the MTA.

It took a lot more pressure to unbalance an MTA-trained mech pilot!

The purifying flames seemed to have failed in achieving its primary objective, but Ves guessed that it wasn't so simple.

As the battle continued to drag on, the Fortunate Devil finally showed signs of locking in place. While Jovy had applied a lot of armor to the legs, perhaps anticipating this attack, there was only so much the legs could be protected.

What discomfited him even further was that the Purgatory Envoy not only shook off some of its bad luck, but also suffered no further performance drops.

"This is strange.. my Fortunate Devil shouldn't be so unreliable." Jovy muttered.

Only Ves could explain why Jovy's mech wasn't as effective as before. The purifying flames released by his Purgatory Envoy were doing their best to wash away the sins of the Fortunate Devil!

This was one of the latest innovations he came up with! Now that he was able to shape some of the spiritual foundation of his mech design into a spiritual construct, he developed several different spiritual objects on the fly.

The first construct channeled the superiority aspect of the Superior Mother. Ves wanted it to function as a passive shield that did its best to keep them in its best state possible.

The second construct integrated something else. After exerting a lot of creativity, Ves believed he figured out the mechanism behind adding an active ability to the mech design.

Unlike the special features or abilities that were essentially controlled by design spirits, this new mechanism was fully grasped by the mech pilot as long as his bond with his mech was deep enough!

This was what Ves called a triggered ability!

Joshua only needed to think or say the right trigger word in order to activate the ability that Ves had tied to one of the spiritual constructs!

Being able to invest and affix triggered abilities to his mech designs was a drastic change from before. For the first time, his mechs were able to express all kinds of specific effects without relying on any design spirit.

In fact, these triggered abilities would probably work in a mech devoid of a design spirit!

Just as Ves thought that his new innovations clinched this duel, the Purgatory Envoy unexpectedly slowed down.

"What the hell happened?!"

"It's losing its power!"

"Nooo!"

The mech designed by Ves had done an admirable job at defending against the unknown effects propagated by the Fortunate Devil.

However, just because the Purgatory Envoy managed to suppress these effects did not mean it had become impervious to them.

All this time, the Fortunate Devil continued its attempt to spread bad luck to its opponent.

Finally, a critical component of the power reactor had inexplicably malfunctioned.

This wasn't supposed to happen. This key component was extremely well-protected and thoroughly checked by Ves. Even if it failed, the power reactor still possessed some redundancy that would allow it to retain full or partial power.

For some reason or another, none of those reducances had kicked in! Due to the failing of several critical systems, the entire striker mech lost its steam!

"Victory has been decided. Mr. Jovy Armalon has won this design duel." Master Willix calmly announced.

Both Ves and Gloriana looked devastated at the frozen striker mech. Joshua lost!

"This is impossible!" Ves uttered in disbelief!