The Mech Touch

The entire battlefield seemed to have turned into an audience for a ludicrous show. The giant projection of Ves made so many outrageous claims that not even the Larkinsons themselves knew what to believe!

Many Vulcanites did not listen to a word he said. However, there were many more impressionable dwarves that were not as firm in their denial. THey either clung to the original Vulcan Faith or had become so unbalanced by the huge disasters that took place that they couldn't help but become enchanted by this narrative!

"It is not a lie." He said. "If you need any proof of my divinity, then look no further to the work created by my anointed agent in this realm. Look at the masterworks he made. He is barely over thirty years old and he has already created far more masterworks than any dwarven mech designer in his lifetime!"

Ves waved his hand, causing the Larkinson fleet to project additional images. The Quint, the Little Angel, the Amaranto as well as the First Sword showed up even though the last one wasn't strictly his work.

Regardless, the successive displays of masterworks impressed anyone with enough vision to recognize good craftsmanship. Since this was an extremely important preoccupation in the Vulcan Empire, this included a lot of members of the dwarven fleet!

Though Ves did not expect this argument to sway the Vulcanites, the more confusing nonsense he said, the greater the chance of affecting the battle performance of the Vulcanites.

He even hoped that a couple of dwarves would become so overcome with meeting their real 'god' that they would even be willing to turn against their own comrades!

When Ves thought about all of the discord he was sowing with his performance, he became more enthused about what he was doing. He increased his effort and began to pump himself up to such an extent that he increasingly started to regard himself as Vulcan!

"My children." He imperiously said. "It is not too late. Turn back against the falsehoods spun by fallen, corrupted dwarves and return to the light. Your current course will lead to nothing else but the destruction of your dwarven state and the regression of everything your forebears have fought for. Do not let their sacrifices be in vain."

The most fanatical members of the Dwarven God Cult refused to listen to him from the start, but that was okay. From his prior investigations on the Vulcan Empire, he knew that the upstart cult had only risen meteorically in the last decade. Many Vulcanites grew up inheriting the traditional faith of their parents who mostly accepted that Vulcan was a human deity rather than a dwarven one.

If he could convince these recent converts into embracing their old beliefs again, then he could definitely sabotage their willingness to fight!

Already he could sense that he was achieving increasingly more results. More and more mechs pulled back and stopped fighting as their pilots became more preoccupied with thinking about his identity and what he said than trying to win a battle for a version of Vulcan that might not even exist!

Ves raised his hammer over his head as if he wanted to make it abundantly clear that he was truly the real deal!

"REPENT! Lay down your arms and return to your ships so that you can go back to home! This is not a fight that will benefit dwarvenkind! Do not let yourself become the sinners who are responsible for triggering a war that will lead to the collapse of your great state and the deaths of many dwarves! I shall not warn you again. If you choose to persecute this human fleet, then be prepared to suffer damnation for all eternity! The punishment that my subjects have just inflicted upon you will be repeated a thousandfold!"

Just as Ves began to swing down his hammer in emphasis, a targeted artillery volley accurately struck several projection devices on the hull of the Spirit of Bentheim!

The giant projection of Ves in his guise as Vulcan grew fuzzy and incomplete. Though the other projections quickly restored the image, the interruption was noticeable enough to break the concentration of many watching and listening dwarves!

"Do not listen to this human!" Venerable Leiva roared as her voice overrid the communication channel of the Ferril mech pilots. The tall folk are our enemies and this bastard is trying to deceive you. He is our enemy, not our god!"

Her Gauss Baron continued to fire powerful volleys of gauss rounds at every projector in the expeditionary fleet that she could target. Though there were far too many of them for her to remove the human fleet's ability to maintain Ves' giant image, her powerful defiance along with her open refusal to acknowledge the claims made by the human set a powerful example to the dwarven mech pilots!

"Leiva is right! Don't fall for this human's elaborate tricks. It's all smoke and mirrors! There are dwarves by your side that need your help. Remember your oaths and fulfill your duty. Never forget that you take your orders from the dwarves who are on your side, not the humans who are just responsible for slaughtering thousands of your brethren's lives!"

Another expert mech surged forward. Though the Gatecrasher's violent red corona looked more ragged and unstable than ever, Venerable Orthox had not been this angry since the war that founded the Vulcan Empire.

Back in those days, the dirty, lying and cheating humans did everything they could to stop the dwarves from gaining their hard-earned homeland. Venerable Orthox had seen so many of his fellow dwarves fall because of false promises that the humans regularly regurgitated.

To him, no one blessed by Vulcan would ever employ a weapon that had killed thousands of dwarven lives at a time! Such a horror was the work of evil humans, not a god who ostensibly stood up for the Vulcanites. If that human brat was Vulcan or possessed by the god, then Orthox was a god pilot!

With the defiance shown by two of the strongest dwarven expert pilots in the Ferril punitive fleet, the spell had been broken. More and more dwarves managed to wake themselves from their crisis of faith.

"Well said, Orthox!" A younger dwarven voice spoke up. "No stinking human will tell us dwarves what to do. Those times are over now and we must fight to keep it that way!"

A third powerful expert mech bloomed onto the battlefield. A bright, glowing avian expert mech swept closer to the cut and battered Hivar Roarer mechs that had barely survived a bladestorm.

The avian expert mech carried many different weapon hardpoints. From its thick and sharp claws to its formidable positron beam weapons mounted underneath its wings, the stellar Paravad had finally come forth in order to support his peers in helping his fellow Vulcanites distinguish right from wrong!

More expert mechs emerged from the rear. Many powerful expert pilots that had previously remained unnoticeable in the rear had advanced forth and stimulated their mech's respective resonance shields in order to serve as bright and powerful beacons on the battlefield.

Many Vulcanites slowly sobered up and rallied to the wakeup call of their heroes and role models.

Though the identity of the man who claimed to be Vulcan was very much in doubt, there was no mistake at all about the authenticity of the dwarven expert pilots. Their expert mechs all exuded familiar vibes that many dwarven soldiers spent months or years working alongside with. The appearance of so many Vulcanite expert mechs at once successfully diminished the domineering presence of the giant projection!

When Ves counted the number of enemy expert mechs on the battlefield, he inwardly felt depressed.

The three Ferril mech divisions brought thirteen expert mechs in total. That was two less than the worst-case scenario, but still enough to outnumber the expeditionary fleet's expert pilots by a fearsome margin!

Ves saw that the time for talking had passed. Ves had definitely managed to messed up the thoughts of at least a portion of the dwarven mech pilots. Even those who were skeptical of his godhood ought to be more reserved about fighting his forces by now. Doubt was a subtle tool that could have very profound effects if employed correctly.

The last thing that Ves wanted to do was get into an argument against Venerable Orthox and the other dwarven expert pilots. Quibbling and arguing with dwarves only pulled him down to their level. His sacred image and his sense of inviolability would slowly become tarnished as a result.

In order to preserve as much awe as possible, he decided to cut his performance short.

He held his hammer in a fighting grip but tried his best to look disappointed at his dwarven flock.

"It is not too late." He spoke in a sympathetic voice. It was as if he truly cared about dwarven lives! "If you are truly my servant, then stop fighting and leave these humans in peace."

The projection disappeared as Ves cut the feed. He instantly removed his spiritual mask and stopped channeling spiritual energy.

"Damn, that's exhausting."

In order to make his performance as impactful as possible, he did not skimp on the amount of spiritual energy he expended. This caused him to feel very empty and lifeless right now. He quickly picked up a P-stone and drained much of the surplus energy that he had inserted into it beforehand with the help of Blinky's abilities.

"Ah, that's better."

He carefully placed the depleted P-stone back and turned his attention to the latest developments on the battlefield.

The battle was slowly getting back to full speed. The expeditionary forces had taken advantage of the holes that the battle formations had blown open. Not only were they taking advantage of the holes in the dwarven battle lines, they also took advantage of all of the shock and confusion of the dwarven mech pilots to pressure them throughout the entire front!

Ves soon noticed a clear pattern. The dwarven mech pilots who had been close to the battle formation attacks and had barely escaped the brush of death had incurred much more trauma than others. It was obvious in the way that many of their mechs sat still or fought back in a hesitant and rusty manner.

A lot of Molten Hammer mech pilots who had gotten close enough to the death energy attack that their souls almost turned to dust were experiencing a lot of difficulty in getting their head back into the fight.

The survivors of the Swordmaiden battle formation were barely any better off. The Hivar Roarer mech pilots who had lived through the bladestorm and experienced a nightmarish cocktail of mental pressure that they had never been trained to resist. Even though many of their cut and damaged mechs still retained some battle effectiveness, the poor pilots fought as if their mechs incurred at least twice as much damage!

The Larkinson, Glory Seeker Crosser mech pilots were not as impacted. They fought as hard and furiously as before and did not show any mercy to their muddled foes. They had become buoyed by the success of their big moves and gained a lot of confidence now that the dwarven mechs no longer outnumbered the mechs of the expeditionary fleet that much. The difference had shrunk to just a couple of thousands of mechs, and this disparity was growing smaller with each second that passed as the human forces had gained a huge boost in morale!

"Brothers and sisters! Do not despair! Victory is still within reach! Let us lead the way!"

As one, the expert mechs of the Ferril Provincial Province had all entered the fray at once!

The Gauss Baron bombarded a mech company of Crosser mechs as they sought to exploit the holes in the Molten Hammer defenses. Every single resonance-empowered gauss round launched with such great power that not a single Crosser mech remained operational after getting struck.

The Gatecrasher charged shield-first into a squad of Bright Warriors in lancer configuration. The powerful dwarven expert mech blunted the spears and shattered the frames of the mechs that had attempted to charge the surviving but disarrayed Molten Hammer mechs!

The Paravad swooped in on the Swordmaiden mechs as they sought to massacre the damaged and crippled Hivar Roarer mechs at the right flank. The elite Swordmaidens led by Venerable Dise sought to take advantage of the broad opening that they created, but the expert avian mech of the dwarves single-handedly blocked the partially-exhausted Swordmaidens.

A new and more intense phase of the battle had begun!