The Mech Touch

As someone who developed an appreciation for theatrics, Ves did not sense anything good from the symbolism of the changing portal. Only cult leaders and religious nuts would employ such a depraved portrayal of themselves.

Was this what the Five Scrolls Compact aimed to achieve? Were the cultists plotting to enslave the entire galaxy so that they could be worshipped as gods?

This was complete lunacy! Why hadn't the Big Two managed to wipe them out to last man? These scroll worshippers were nutcases who adhered to grossly outdated notions of how reality worked. The Big Two should never be able to coexist with Compact!

Yet not only did the Compact survive the end of its secret reign, one of its highest leaders had successfully passed through one of the Big Two's beyonder gates as if he was an ordinary traveller.

This was a complete travesty!

Resentment boiled within Ves. As much as he wanted to file a complaint to the MTA, it was useless to grumble about matters that had already happened. He needed to figure out some way of stopping or destroying this portal.

Just in the last minutes, the power radiated by it had already tripled! Even then, that was evidently not enough to allow the passage of their greatest enemy!

While Ves hadn't tried it yet, he knew that firing any weapons at it wouldn't work. While he felt tempted to take over the Scarlet Rose's helm so that he could crash his ship into the portal, the power emanated by it was simply too great for it to be shaken by such a simple attack.

None of the assets at his disposal was comparable in power to this increasingly more ominous-looking window in space. The markings and symbols became more vivid while the depictions of enslaved worshippers became more defined!

Not even running away would help! Unless he found a way to leave the Nyxian Gap in an instant, there was no way he could run away far enough to evade such a great existence!

Ves kept thinking. From the performance of the dark gods, he knew that technological solutions could only do so much against enemies of their nature. Perhaps the story might be different if he had access to a CFA battleship, but he had exhausted his entire fleet. He could only do so much by himself!

As for trying to stop the portal by trying to destabilize it with spiritual attacks, that obviously didn't have a chance of working. His mother already tried several more times, but every method she employed merely bounced off the elaborate portal as if to mock her weakness.

Ves had even left the bridge to head for the vault in order to see how the mutated spiritual construct was faring.

What he encountered was outside of his expectation. The construct had dissipated! It seemed that as soon as the Temple Protector hijacked the portal, he took over responsibility of maintaining it as well. This closed off any chance for Ves to sabotage it by destroying it from the source!

"Damnit! Isn't there anything we can do to stop the portal?"

He looked around his vault. He stored all kinds of valuable exotics, relics and artifacts in here. Yet their usefulness in this situation was minimal. Their value lay elsewhere.

"Tch! What I wouldn't give for an antimatter bomb or two. Hell, I could use a hundred of them right now!"

Such weapons were too far out of his reach. Even the superweapons he prepared for his fight against the pirate armada had all been spent. Perhaps some errant enriched nuclear missiles were floating around in some wrecks, but it would take way too long for Ves to retrieve them and fire them towards the portal.

Not that it would do any good. If the missiles were incapable of splitting apart the Gravada Knarlax, then they were even less effective against a portal that appeared to be at least ten times more durable!

Ves looked listlessly at the ceiling. Was he wasting his time? Was he delaying the inevitable?

"There has to be a way!"

He began to think through all of his options again. No matter how ridiculous they sounded, Ves didn't have the luxury to be picky.

"Wait a minute. There might be someone in the clan that can provide some answers!"

Ves raised his comm and tried to contact someone who he believed should have definitely remained awake.

The projection of a tired, white-robed figure greeted Ves. James Ylvaine looked as if he already knew this conversation would happen.

"I knew you would come to me in the end." James spread his arms as if to welcome someone in need. "My arms are open to anyone who needs succor."

Ves scowled. "Do you have the answers I seek?"

"I am a prophet, Bright Martyr. It is my job to guide you. Mind you, I am not all-knowing. I cannot promise you that I have the answers you desire."

He didn't have time for this nonsense. "Just tell me what I can do to stop the arrival of You-Know-Who."

"Who?"

"You know. Who." Ves shook his head. "Just tell me how to destroy the portal!"

James smiled. "The portal is indeed very difficult to deal with. Even I am fearful of the great existence that has displayed so much power. While I genuinely do not know how to destroy the portal, I believe you can do it so long as you have faith."

"...That's it? Faith?"

This was utter nonsense! In a crisis of such great proportions, how could faith ever possibly help?

"Do you have any real answers, or are you just full of crap?"

"I'm being serious, Bright Martyr. While there may be other solutions to your problem, I truly believe that faith can resolve your problem. Believe in yourself, Ves. Do not dismiss the power of faith. Power is power no matter the source."

The call ended shortly after that. James didn't have much more to say except to resort to faith.

He frowned. What was he supposed to do now?

Ves activated a projection that displayed the situation outside. Both his mother and the Devil Tiger floated in front of the portal without doing anything. They had already tried what they could to stop it, only to waste their energy in vain.

As Ves stared at his parents while thinking back on his previous conversation, he suddenly froze when his eyes rested on his mother's form.

"The power of faith… faith!"

Didn't he recently turn an aspect of his mother into a new Hexer deity? Hadn't he set up the Superior Mother as an ancestral spirit that was harvesting the worship of billions or trillions of Hexers?

He directed his vision towards the dormant entity. She was still asleep, which was strange because his real mother was close by and fully conscious, but whatever.

The only problem was that the Superior Mother was actually weaker than his mother's main form. He doubted that merging the two somehow would give his mother enough strength to challenge the Temple Protector.

"Power! I need power! Where can I find enough power to destroy power and screw the approaching enemy?"

He kept looking around at random as if he was looking for inspiration. His head suddenly froze as he looked at something he had unconsciously dismissed.

The huge, transparent vortex that was spinning throughout the entire Nyxian Gap was one of the most powerful spiritual manifestations that Ves had ever witnessed!

Its power and reach was so ridiculously high that it had far exceeded the strength of any single god. Even the power reinforcing the portal paled in comparison to the power of an enormous spatial phenomenon!

Ves immediately shared his idea with his parents. While his mother momentarily looked startled, she soon began to frown.

"I know what you are thinking about. It sounds good in theory, but how can it be easy to channel the forces of the vortex against the portal? Mind you, if we can make it work, we can not only survive this calamity, but also doom our enemy! One of the reasons why the Temple Protector is expending so much power to expand and reinforce the portal is because he risks a great disaster if the space tunnel is cut off mid-way. At best, he will get lost in some random dimensions. At worst, he could very well die instantly when he ends up somewhere that cannot sustain his life!"

That sounded great to Ves! Ending the portal was not enough to stave off the crisis. Only by killing or at least banishing the powerful Temple Protector would Ves and his parents feel more at ease.

Even if the Ruined Temple dispatched more powerful dignitaries to retrieve the Metal Scroll, it would take a lot of time for the follow-up party to arrive, gate network or not! At that time, Ves would have long left the Komodo Star Sector while his parents were safely hiding deep inside the murky core regions of the Nyxian Gap.

With such a promising outcome dangling before his eyes, Ves became even more motivated to solve this crisis!

"What do you need to direct the vortex's power against the portal?" He eagerly asked.

"You're not listening to me, Ves! The power required to channel or even approach the vortex is too much. Besides, do you think the vortex is so easy to manipulate? Its true nature is far more complicated than you think!"

Ves dismissively waved his arm. "I'm a mech designer, mom! I learned a lot of engineering to be able to get to where I am. One of the basic principles that every engineer learns is that you don't need a lot of power to accomplish something. As long as you come up with something clever that is efficient and make use of leverage, you can do it even if you aren't strong!"

This caused his mother to take his suggestion more seriously this time.

"How?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure we can figure something out. Tell me what must be done in order to subject the portal against the forces of the vortex, and I'll figure out a way to make it happen."

His mother did what he asked without exhibiting any doubt this time. She wanted Ves to live!

"Hmm." Ves nodded as he already designed an elaborate spiritual construct in his mind. "I see what needs to be done. To get the portal to clash against the vortex, we need to move them into the same plane. The problem is that the portal is based in what I call the material realm while the vortex is a fixture of the imaginary realm. The two have already moved closer, but this isn't enough. We need to bring them close enough in the area encompassing the portal so that there is total overlap!"

This was a very difficult feat! Getting the realm to overlap at a coordinate was just the first step. They had to sustain it and make sure that enough of the power of vortex crashed against the resilient portal.

He and his mother worked intensely to cobble up a solution that blended both engineering and spiritual sorcery. Though both of them possessed very different opinions on many matters, the acute danger forced them to set aside their philosophical differences.

Soon enough, his mother skillfully employed her power to form a spiritual product that Ves had largely designed. His mother didn't appear to possess much talent for spiritual engineering. Her only contribution to the project was offering some high-level solutions that Ves could have never accomplished with his current understanding of spiritual engineering.

Ves felt very fulfilled as his mother rapidly created their combined work. Visually, the finished product resembled an engine.

As soon as she completed it, she approached the portal despite all of the danger it emanated. When she reached a suitable distance, she began to pour her power into the spiritual engine.

Space around his mother began to stir. The two realms slowly started to move closer to each other!

"It's working!"

The blue portal glowed brighter, but it didn't do anything else. Ves kept a vigilant eye on it though his mother had already explained that the Temple Protector couldn't do much when he was still on the other end of the passage.

Ves began to feel a strange pressure. His intuition sensed danger. It was as if there was something within him that told him that the two realms were never supposed to overlap to this extent!