The Mech Touch

"I can't believe your stupid idea is actually working, sir."

Ves comfortably leaned back on his chair as he observed the projection over his desk. Lucky, who laid close by, curiously looked up in order to see how many rats the pied piper had caught.

The counter displayed a figure of over 700 biomechs.

It appeared that the ultralifers had deployed all of their functional biomechs, including the ones that bore obvious signs of damage!

For over two hours, the four organic bots made by Ves marched forward at a steady pace. Their angelic wings flapped in the wind but did not help with speeding up their movements.

Ves wasn't in a hurry. He didn't want to startle the ultralifers or cause them to entertain doubts. The best way to do that was to avoid making too many abnormal changes.

He was essentially boiling them like frogs.

In order to reduce their vigilance even further, Ves controlled the four statues to take a circuitous route to their intended destination. The statues took random turns and even circled back the way they came before correcting their path and heading into the distance.

The ultralifers didn't want the statues of Lufa to go. They attempted to block or pull them back several times. Each time they did so, Ves cut off the glow of the statue in question. He only returned them to their old condition when the object in question was able to move forward without obstruction!

Through these simple, wordless reactions, Ves trained the ultralifers to let the statues move where they wished.

Of course, they couldn't possibly let these impressive treasures walk out of their reach!

If they couldn't stop the statues from leaving, then the next best decision they could make was to accompany it and see where it led!

Slowly but surely, the four statues moved towards a location that was very familiar to the ultralifers.

Plenty of them began to figure out where the fascinating organic statues were taking them, and that caused them to become increasingly concerned.

While Ves wasn't able to monitor their communications, he could see that the ultralifers had finally decided to pull the trigger and forcibly take one of his statues back to their underground base.

He immediately cut off the glow to all four statues in response.

This was out of the expectation of the ultralifers! If the statues exhibited the same pattern as before, then only the organic statue that was being affected by their actions should have cut off its effect.

The leaders among them evidently concluded that this was an acceptable price to pay. If they had need of it again, they could always bring it out and let it restore its special function.

Yet Ves didn't intend to let them exploit him like that. He shut down the entire game and only resumed when the ultralifers recognized their fault.

As a consequence, Ves effectively managed to subvert this dangerous and powerful extremist organization!

While he couldn't show up in the flesh and issue orders to his supposed enemies, he could continually make use of the control he had over his work to manipulate the ultralifers in doing his bidding!

It was quite amazing to see how much they submitted to a couple of random organic statues that showed outside their doorstep out of the blue.

Even if they possessed a mechanical core, even if they possessed glows that were similar to that of Ves' mechs, even if the statues were leading them straight towards one of their enemies, the ultralifers did not show any sign of quitting!

When Ves invited his mech commanders over, they both needed a lot of time to accept the fact that the ultralifers were this gullible.

"To be fair, they are not as stupid as they look right now." Ves defended the behavior of the ultralifers. "It's just that I have employed a very manipulative strategy to lower their vigilance and increase their propensity to obey. I trained them for several days before I even thought about luring them away from their underground base."

"Even so, the fact that none of them are trying to stop what is happening is a feat in itself!" Commander Casella exclaimed. "I feel like you can lead them right into a black hole without making any of them suspect that you are deliberately driving them to their deaths?"

"What can I say?" Ves smirked. "This is what the Bright Republic has warned us all the time. Superstition and fanaticism directly reduces someone's judgement to the point where they become susceptible to orders that go against their own interests. They developed this fatal character flaw of theirs in order to increase their control over the beliefs and actions of their own people. They shouldn't blame me for taking advantage of an exploit they already created themselves."

It was like taking advantage of a backdoor that the developer of a product secretly inserted in their own work.

While they may have implemented a backdoor with good intentions in mind, as long as one of their enemies gained access to it, the damage could potentially be massive!

"I feel ashamed of my birth state." Commander Rivington palmed his face. "Many Lifers aren't like this. They are decent, normal people who just happen to grow up with biotechnology. I don't know any friends or acquaintances that feel so strongly about our state that they are so gullible to being led around."

Ves smiled back. "You don't have to feel bad about this situation. The ultralifers aren't representative of the rest of the citizens of the LRA. They are just outliers. I'm sure that the rest of the locals are smarter and possess better judgement."

Okay, he lied at the end, but that wasn't important. He just felt that the Lifers were deeply flawed as a people. This was why he hated them and why he felt eager to leave this planet.

Yet before he left, he wanted to make sure he could gain the most out of this situation!

"You're bringing the organic statues to the warehouse complex of the paramilitaries, right?" Commander Casella asked.

Ves nodded. "Yup."

"That.. isn't entirely proper." She cautiously said. "We have real grievances against the ulralifers. They attacked us again and again and tried to kill you. What did these paramilitaries do to you? Their only 'crime' is to stand in the way of your attempt to access a suspected pinnacle lab. It's wrong to launch an attack on them. We are Larkinsons. We must abide by our honor."

"We're not attacking them, Casella. They are." Ves adopted an innocent expression while emphatically pointing at the projected army of biomechs that were obediently following the statues towards one of their old enemies. "All I am doing is moving some of my properties around. It's not my fault these stupid ultralifers are following them from point A to point B. I don't intend to do anything once my statues have reached their destination. If a fight inadvertently breaks out between the ultralifers and the paramilitaries, then that is their business, not ours!"

Neither of the commanders were fools. Even if Ves was technically right, the diabolical way he manipulated the circumstances clearly made him responsible for whatever was about to ensue!

"Venerable Jannzi won't be happy, patriarch."

"I am resolving one of our enemies while putting the interests of our Larkinson Clan ahead."

This was a poor attempt at spinning the situation. The fact of the matter was that his actions might actually lead to the deaths of a lot of people who didn't deserve to be used.

Yet to Ves, there was nothing with this situation. The paramilitaries already committed an unforgivable crime in his eyes for occupying a site that he was already eying! Who knew how much progress they made in breaching through the defenses of a nearby pinnacle lab.

If they had already succeeded in taking out the treasures of one of the Supreme Sage's pinnacle labs, then they absolutely deserved to get smashed!

Time continued to pass by as Ves slowly drew the ultralifers towards the occupied warehouse complex.

He had already ordered his mech pilots to go on standby in case he wanted them to intervene, but for now he was not in a hurry to put them into the field.

Clearly, a force of 700 biomechs moving in unison was very hard to hide. The sheer amount of mechs marching on the ground and flying in the air looked incredibly intimidating.

The people who lived in the vicinity all fled or hid in their tree houses. Every smaller organization with mechs quickly brought their mechs away.

When they came closer and closer to the warehouse complex, their old enemies could not possibly miss the threat. In fact, it was highly likely that the paramilitaries thought that the ultralifers were on their way to launch an all-out invasion!

Even if it was rather strange for the ultralifer biomechs to adopt such a glacial pace, there was no way for outsiders to construe their movements as anything but a battle march.

Instead of letting the ultralifers walk up to the warehouse complex in peace, the base occupants decided to take matters into their own hands.

They fired their guns first!

As a consequence, the ultralifer mech formations came under immediate fire! After suffering some prior attacks, the paramilitaries had beefed up their counterbattery fire capabilities. A lot more shells and kinetic projectiles slammed into the biomechs and inflicted heavy damage onto their flesh or bone surface!

Coincidentally, one explosive shell landed right in between two of the organic statues. Once the shell detonated, the two statues that had been built with low-quality materials and organic tissue became ruined!

The ultralifer biomechs simultaneously froze for a moment. It was as if their mech pilots couldn't process that someone actually dared to destroy their treasures.

The extremists went mad!

A large portion of their defensive mechs instantly enveloped the surviving two organic statues. Their preciousness had grown even greater now that their rarity had doubled!

The rest of the ultralifers immediately went on the attack!

Over 600 mechs surged forward and stormed over towards the distance warehouse complex with nothing vengeance and retribution in mind!

At this time, none of the ultralifers were interested in slowing down! The incredible blasphemy committed by the paramilitaries was so unforgivable that they deserved to be killed!

The frenzied ultralifer mech pilots were so maddened with grief and failure that they directed all of their heated emotions towards the enemy! They didn't even bother to maintain formation or obey any instructions.

They just wanted to kill the blasphemers who dared to destroy the precious angel statues!

Soon enough, the two sides opened fire on each other. Due to the lower range and closing distance, both sides quickly incurred serious damage.

The ultralifer melee mechs continued to advance forward and gain momentum. The ground shook and the skies turned stormy as the furious ultralifers wanted to sink their blades in the biomechs of their vile adversaries!

As Ves witnessed the ultralifers initiating a highly destructive battle without exhibit any restraint, he couldn't hold it in any longer.

He laughed!

"Hahahaha! Hahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Meow!..."

Lucky shivered a bit as he witnessed Ves becoming unhinged again. The cat had to admit that out of all of his schemes, Ves had truly outdone himself now! To be able to manipulate two of his obstacles into fighting each other without giving himself away was a masterstroke!

Compared to ordering the Larkinson airfleet to assault the ultralifer base, this was a much more elegant way of getting rid of a problem! In fact, Ves was able to hit two birds with a single stone, which made this successful ploy even more insane!

At this point, the existence of the remaining two statues weren't as important anymore. Even if Ves abandoned them, the ultralifers had become committed to the battle to retreat at this point.

"These ultralifers are ultramorons! Messing with me is the worst mistake that they could have ever made!"

Ves felt more and more vindictive as he observed the death and destruction he unleashed. "More! Kill some more! Don't show any mercy!"