The Mech Touch

Blinky was not a regular cat. He was the Star Cat, a spiritual entity split from Ves' own essence and given a life of his own. He was simultaneously an autonomous existence as well as an extension of his source.

All of this meant that Ves could choose to keep himself separated from his companion spirit or to embody Blinky so that the lines between them blurred.

Right now, Ves was only partially embodying his cat. Blinky was able to wield the powers of his own body the best.

If Ves took direct control, he wasn't sure if he was able to channel his companion spirit's various strengths effectively. There were still substantial differences between a spiritually-sensitive human and a spiritual existence that was literally designed to manipulate and digest energy!

He first instructed Blinky to leverage his abundant spiritual energy reserves to empower the Amaranto in some way.

Just as expected, this didn't work. If it did, Ves could have rode in the cockpit of any expert mech and just supplied it with a huge amount of spiritual energy to amplify its performance.

"Spiritual energy is not a good medium to empower an attack anyway."

The reason why high-ranking mech pilots were able to pair so well with powerful mechs was because of will and resonance. They leveraged a different power system that was much more suited for combat applications.

In contrast, the spiritual abilities that Ves and by extension Blinky were able to utilize were much more helpful in the design lab or mech workshop.

"It's a good thing that creation isn't Blinky's only strength." Ves smirked.

Since the companion spirit's birth, Ves only paid attention to Blinky's productive capabilities. Being able to supply a huge amount of spiritual energy that was compatible with him on demand along with being able to form a design network that connected different mech designers together provided a huge amount of utility to his mech design activities.

This was obviously not going to be relevant on this occasion. Ves wasn't directly capable of boosting the performance of an existing mech with his spiritual abilities.

So he turned to Blinky's other strength. Upon his silent urging, his companion spirit began to draw power to another facet of his abilities.

The shrunken Worclaw crystal embedded onto Blinky's forehead began to glow as he activated it. As best as Ves had learned and figured out, this mysterious alien crystal served as a resource and a focus for a different type of energy that was very rare in human civilization.

The Alshyr race took advantage of the energy their tyrannical bodies were able to channel and subsequently dominated a significant portion of the galaxy!

Now, Ves wanted to do something similar, though he and Blinky were obviously much clumsier when it came to harnessing Worclaw energy.

First, Blinky needed to draw the energy from an existing source. Though the Worclaw crystal possessed a reserve of it, Ves did not believe it was enough.

The most abundant source of Worclaw energy happened to be his own body! The volatile energy cycle generated and sustained by his Jutland organ had long been useless to Ves. In fact, it even posed a hazard to his health as excess Worclaw energy could lead to a dangerous buildup that might one day explode his own body!

Yet now that he was about to make an attempt to channel it into an expert mech, he was worried he didn't have enough to achieve a sufficient result!

"Well, it's not as if I can do anything about it. I am only able to make do with what I have." Ves shrugged.

Getting Blinky to siphon the Worclaw energy stored in his body when the cat was in a different location was difficult.

However, owing to the companion spirit's inseparable bond with Ves, the additional Worclaw energy eventually ended up in Blinky's crystal organ through an unexplainable method.

The huge injection of Worclaw energy caused Blinky to take on a different vibe. His purple starry body began to glow brighter and also gained a more mighty aura!

"Blinky! Don't keep all of that energy for yourself! You need to channel it into the Amaranto somehow!"

Mrow mrow!

How the hell was Blinky supposed to do that? He was an energy converter, not a magical cat that came straight out of a cartoon!

Ves knew this and tried to work together with his companion spirit to channel all of that Worclaw energy in the Amaranto without blowing it up. He had a hunch that the expert mech's rifle was the key.

Several different entities connected together and tried to work out a solution to channel Blinky's powerful energy into the crystalline rifle of the expert mech.

An unheard event took place where a mech designer, his companion spirit, a living expert mech and its expert pilot simultaneously bonded together to achieve a single goal!

Unfortunately, none of them knew how to channel Worclaw energy into an effective application! They lacked the expertise to know what to do with it. Even Blinky, who developed several crude applications on how to use it, was not able to direct it towards the Amaranto's weapon.

Ves realized he needed additional help.

"Illustrious One! Give us a hand!"

He drew over the luminar design spirit. The Amaranto bloomed in several different lights as the Illustrious One's presence grew more active and extended his influence to Blinky!

Under the Illustrious One's direction, Blinky was able to find the correct method to channel the Worclaw energy he accumulated to the luminar crystal rifle.

The weapon, which had always been glowing in different lights, suddenly grew brighter as a powerful sense of might emanated from its crystal construction!

The distraction was so great that the two dwarven expert mechs assaulting the Amaranto sensed the threat.

The naked threat exuded by Worclaw energy could not be hidden! Launching a surprise attack was out of the question for Venerable Stark.

Several seconds passed as she attempted to find a window of opportunity to shoot at the Amaranto's attackers, but the Slug Ranger expert pilots had become a lot more vigilant in response to the obvious power-up that the Amaranto was experiencing.

The dwarves expended a lot more effort into making sure that the Amaranto would not have any opportunity to fire its gun at them. As long as Venerable Stark attempted to snap a shot at one of her two attackers, the enemy would also have a clear shot at the fragile masterwork mech!

"I can't get a clear shot!"

The Amaranto's rifle was brimming with a different kind of power, but Stark did not experience any benefits from it. In fact, if the rifle kept bottling up all of the Worclaw energy, it might reach its limit soon!

Ves began to think quickly.

The best solution was to leverage other assets such as the Shield of Samar to act as a barrier, but the dwarven expert pilots already countered those attempts.

The fact that General Verle did not dispatch any further assets to free the Amaranto signified that the Larkinson Army really couldn't spare any further help.

The Amaranto had to save its own skin.

In desperation, Ves came up with a stupid idea.

He considered it stupid because it was not an efficient application of Worclaw energy.

He didn't want to resort to it, but he saw no other choice. As long as it was effective, he was willing to pay a price.

"Just like Ketis." He whispered.

Ves quickly communicated his plan to all of the other entities. Blinky, Venerable Stark, the Amaranto and the Illustrious One all became aligned with him and readied themselves for something completely unprecedented.

"Here goes nothing!"

Ves closed his eyes and drew out more Worclaw energy from his body. Blinky's Worclaw crystal thrummed with power, so much so that the cat desperately tried to offload as much of it to the Amaranto as possible.

With the Illustrious One there to help and regulate this volatile and potent energy, the Worclaw energy did not go out of control. Instead, it began to surround the Amaranto into a strong shield for a small instant!

The entire expert mech exuded so much light that it was as if a new star was born on the battlefield!

However, only Ves knew that this state could not be maintained for a long time. Shielding a small cat-sized entity like Blinky was incomparable with trying to shield a full-sized mech! The enormous difference in scale demanded such a huge expenditure of energy that the supply would probably run out in a couple of seconds!

"Stark!" Ves shouted as he felt as if his vitality was literally being drained away! His internal energy cycle was growing so weak that it even showed signs of collapsing!

Venerable Stark did not waste any time. She put her complete trust in the remarkable energy shield that had formed around her expert mech and abandoned all attempts at trying to evade attacks.

Two resonance-empowered gauss rounds almost instantly slammed into the Amaranto's new shield!

Though the shield immediately lost a lot of power to the point where it was about to collapse, it had done its job!

By abandoning all pretense of evasion, Venerable Stark was able to spend enough time to bring the Amaranto's glowing crystal rifle to bear on the slightly slower of the two dwarven expert mechs.

She resonated with both her expert mech and its rifle, causing her to develop a strong feel for the properties of Worclaw energy!

After she locked her target with her sights, the dwarven expert pilot felt an immediate threat!

Yet no matter how much effort the Slug Ranger expert mech tried to dodge or block the incoming threat, there was no way that Venerable Stark was going to let her opponent off after bullying her for so long!

"DIE DWARF!"

A huge explosion of light engulfed a quarter of the battlefield as an enormous burst of energy and light exploded from the giant beam that fired from the Amaranto's rifle!

When the beam disappeared as soon as it became visible, a large portion of the battlefield fell silent.

"This…"

The Slug Ranger expert mech that got struck by the Amaranto was completely dead.

Venerable Stark's aim struck true. Though the dwarven expert mech managed to move slightly to the right from where she aimed, this was not enough to avoid the blow!

The Worclaw-enhanced kinetic beam not only punched through the dwarven expert mech's resonance shield, but also slammed through the frontal armor of the right torso. The attack did not stop there and continued to drill straight through the internals of the expert mech before exiting from the back!

This wasn't all. The enormous kinetic force that burrowed straight through the dwarven expert mech's frame also spread out to other parts of the inner torso. It was as if a violent tornado had ravaged the entire insides of the enemy expert rifleman mech!

The cockpit, the power reactor and almost every other component was completely crushed or shredded apart. The poor dwarven expert pilot didn't even have any time to eject from his doomed machine!

Many friendlies and enemies fell silent as they witnessed this awesome display of might. Though the Amaranto had already showed an impressive level of performance before, it took too much time and other resources for the Amaranto to fire a full-powered beam.

Now, it only took a short instance for it to fire a kinetic energy beam that exceeded that power level!

Of course, what all of these gaping observers didn't know was that all of that power didn't emerge from nowhere.

"Urgh! What a huge drain!"

Ves felt as if his mother had sucked his body dry of energy! The only reason he didn't collapse to the deck was because his armored body was already sitting on a chair. However, the Amaranto expended such a great proportion of available Worclaw energy that he felt utterly drained!

He immediately pulled Blinky back into his mind and commanded his companion spirit to do his best to generate as much Worclaw energy as possible in order to fill up his shortfall.

When Ves managed to regain a bit of strength, he observed what was happening now that Venerable Stark had one less enemy to worry about.

It was as if she had gotten rid of her shackles. Though the Amaranto had lost its extraordinary power boost, the remaining dwarven expert pilot was no longer able to suppress the Amaranto!

"I know your weakness!" Venerable Stark hissed as she was fully invested in paying back for all of the grief she suffered! "You couldn't beat me when you had a buddy. You're even less of a challenge now that you're by yourself!"

Now that she didn't have to worry about getting flanked, she was fully able to use a nearby sub-capital ship as her fortress. No matter how many shots the enemy expert mech fired, all of its powerful attacks sunk into the structure of the Larkinson vessel without posing any threat to the Amaranto!

She didn't even bother to switch firing modes. She resonated with her crystal rifle and fired a weaker but still impressive kinetic beam that slammed straight into the enemy expert mech!

Metal debris exploded from the dwarven machine as its entire chest armor had been caved in! Though the expert mech was still operational, the powerful impact locked up some of its systems long enough for the Amaranto to fire a follow-up shot that landed straight into its damaged chest!

This time, a larger shower of debris exploded into space as the entire upper torso of the remaining Slug Ranger expert mech disintegrated into pieces!

Despite expending so much energy, Venerable Stark only became more encouraged by the quick kills. The Amaranto gained more momentum and gained a much more aggressive aura!

"The Amaranto… is truly unleashed!"

Ves, General Verle and many other people knew that the Ferril expeditionary fleet had no more assets left to keep the Amaranto in check.

The elimination of two of their expert mechs happened so quickly that General Kebrinore hadn't even been able to issue emergency orders to adjust to this adverse turn of events!

Before this battle, Davia Stark never held any animosity towards the dwarves. She even sympathized with them due to their tragic history.

Now, all of her sympathy towards them was gone. At the very least, she developed an undying hatred to the Vulcanites who thought they had a right to kill humans without a cause!

"You dwarves are no different from the sandmen!" She issued her verdict.

The moment she made this comparison, she already sentenced the dwarves before her to death!

Now that it was truly unburdened from enemy attacks, the Amaranto instantly began to intervene in the battles between other expert mechs.

Her next targets? The dwarven expert mechs that had almost pushed the heavily-damaged Riot to the brink!