The Mech Touch

Chapter 2952: Special Project ʼUʼ

Ves remembered the time when he encountered his first juggernaut.

At the beginning of his career, he left the Bright Republic for the first time and traveled to the Friday Coalition in order to take part in a contest.

When Ves first toured the campus of the Leemar Institute of Technology, he beheld the partially-restored remains of a mechanical war machine that dwarfed every mech he had seen by a huge margin!

The size, mass and other properties of the defunct juggernaut were so exaggeratingly big that not a single visitor remained unimpressed. It didnʼt matter if the model was horribly outdated or if it was ruined beyond any chance of restoration. The juggernaut represented the pinnacle of size in mech engineering and had altered the course of the mech industry forever.

Eventually, juggernauts fell out of use, but that was not because they were too weak. Just like how humans were woefully outmatched by mechs due to scale, anything that qualified as a juggernaut enjoyed the same advantage against regular warmachines!

Yet the costs were far too exaggerated to make them viable on an economic and industrial level. They not only demanded much more resources to build, but also demanded tougher and more expensive materials in order to ensure their enormous structures didnʼt collapse under their own prodigious weight!

The infrastructure required to support them was too onerous. An entire chain of specialized juggernaut pilots, juggernaut designers, juggernaut mech technicians and so on had to be especially trained to service this extravagant industry. Not only that, but juggernauts were so huge that only dedicated fleet carriers with huge internal volumes were able to transport them from star system to star system.

Eventually, enthusiasm for these giant machines faded, especially when people realized that their immense height made it too easy for the enemy to attack them from a distance. It was a lot more efficient to spend the money it took to field a juggernaut on deploying a couple of hundred of thousand regular mechs instead.

This was why no mech designer expected to deal with juggernauts in their career! The concept had been tried numerous times in several different forms, yet their size always made them impractical to be used on a larger scale.

”Who says that juggernauts are dead, though?!” Ves complained as he and his exploration team hastily ran to the exit of the secret lab. ”As long as someone is willing splurge enough money, they can build any juggernaut they want!”

The immense organic titan that Ves had inadvertently woke up was considerably larger and more massive than the juggernaut he initially encountered on the campus of the LIT.

What was even worse was the biojuggernaut was a fully functioning war machine that had just gained a conscious mind!

A crazy amount of spiritual activity emanated from the immense abomination. Ves could sense so much vitality from this artificially-cultivated body that he was certain that it must have been infused with a liberal amount of serum!

All of this vitality had remained for a long time, but now that it had gained a human spirit, the biojuggernaut no longer lacked conscious direction!

As the lab continued to shake as if an entire continent was drifting, the monstrous giant had finally completed its awakening!

Several hundred meters high, the giantʼs enormous head shuddered before its eyelids slid open. Two enormous pupils gained focus as they glowed in ominous red.

Its jaw hinged open and the air in the lab visibly vibrated as this terrifying biomonstrosity uttered its first word in a guttural deep pitch!

”UUUUUURRRRRAAAAAAANNNNNUUUUUUSSSSSS!”

The roar released by the biojuggernaut may have originated several hundred meters above, but the entire lab floor shook at the vibrations elicited by the sound waves!

Ves and the rest of his team practically collapsed and fell onto the shaking flesh carpet as their armored bodies were buffeted by the raw power behind this gutturally loud roar!

If their combat armor werenʼt so good, their ears and the rest of their bodies would have shaken apart from being so close to the biojuggernaut as it unleashed its sonic attack!

In fact, its roar was so powerful that the octopus pet had practically exploded into pieces after getting buffeted by the powerful pressure waves. Many of the lab equipment also exhibited signs of damage!

Ves groggily tried to regain his senses. ”I guess now I know what the letter in Special Project ʼUʼ stands for. The Supreme Sage didnʼt have to announce it across the entire star system, though!”

The Larkinsons were so suppressed by the exaggerated presence of the humongous juggernaut that they were barely able to pick themselves up and resume their desperate flight.

Fortunately, the huge biotitan did not pay any notice to some trivial humans. In fact, it didnʼt possess much of a conscience at all. The spiritual remnant that was locked in the Supreme Comprehension gem had been freed, but there was too little of it left to control a humongous bio machine.

The mismatch was too great!

For this reason, what little rationality it retained quickly began to degrade as the monstrously inhuman instincts of the giant biological body subverted the conscious spirit.

An indeterminate transformation ensued that Ves was only barely able to perceive from below. As he continued to stare upwards, he felt as if the biojuggernautʼs remaining consciousness was quickly being subsumed by a more primal aspect that drew its strength from its prodigious body!

”Oh, hell. I donʼt think anything good will come from this!”

The different elements merged, resulting in a consciousness that retained aspects from multiple sources.

Yet as the presence of the biojuggernaut grew wilder and less constrained, Ves could already tell that there was precious little of the Supreme Sageʼs original consciousness left. The biojuggernaut absorbed everything in order to birth a stronger, vaster and much more primal consciousness!

The giant biojuggernautʼs eyes shifted downwards as its cruel mouth started to open. The enormous humanoid monstrosity began to bend its knees and lower its upper body. The wind in the huge lab chamber swept up from all of the air being displaced!

The biojuggernaut, no, Uranus stared hungrily at the cyclopes that were still unmoving.

Uranus slowly reached out with its enormous hand and grasped onto a cyclops. It lifted the small monster up and slowly deposited into a mouth that was large enough to fit a mech.

The biojuggernaut chewed a couple before swallowing.

The meal seemed to invigorate the monstrosity so much that it began to gorge upon the rest of the cyclopes!

Its hand kept swooping down and lifting the maneating giants up before tossing them into its cavernous mouth. Blood poured from its gigantic lips, but Uranus didnʼt care about the mess it made!

Throughout consuming its first meal, the cyclopes did not move away despite the evident fear in their single eyes! Their instincts compelled them to run, but their bioprogramming was so ironclad this time that their bodies had forcibly locked up. This was their destiny!

A shudder ran through Uranusʼ body as it finished its bloody meal. Its fleshy, meaty surface rippled a bit until a lot of tissue emerged across its body.

”Itʼs growing skin!” Dr. Perris shakily gasped. ”Look at the speed of its growth. Itʼs amazing how quickly it is able to convert its ingested biomass into resilient skin!”

”Stop admiring this tall bastard and keep fleeing!”

Though the mech designer side of Ves wanted to stay and see what Uranus was capable of, his survivor side firmly took charge this time and urged him to escape this doomed facility as fast as possible!

He didnʼt need to urge his fellow companions. His honor guard only had safety in mind right now and did not allow Ves and Dr. Perris to slow down in any way!

Uranus no longer fell within their sights as they exited the core lab. They continued to fly down the central corridor until they passed by the open gates that led back to the peripheral area.

Their sights continued to blur a bit as they navigated through several corridors. Once they reached the teleportal portal, they quickly activated it before passing through. Fortunately, the changes that took place did not invalidate their access passes, so they were still able to enter the fourth floor unimpeded.

The haggard exploration team continued to make their way to the portal that led to the fifth floor. Once there, they urgently fled to the original escape tunnel and passed through the final portal.

In the meantime, Uranus had finished growing its new skin. Its tall body now looked a lot more human, though whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.

Short black hair even emerged from the top of its head. The strands were thicker than several human bodies pressed together and oily in a way that made them look like fuel pipes.

If not for its humongously exaggerated scale, Uranus wouldnʼt have looked that much different from an uncovered biomech or even an athletic human body.

The only shortcoming was that it lacked a reason to wear a codpiece.

Uranus was completely unique. Initially conceived as a way for the aging and decrepit researcher to develop a superior replacement of his failing body, the special project morphed into something more over the decades.

The Supreme Sage poured so much time and resources on this monster project that he considered it perfect in many ways. He wanted to design and create the ultimate biomech in order to gain power beyond imagination and attain true immortality!

Whether the former leader of the LRA accomplished his goals or not, this great and terrible biojuggernaut was the culmination of his entire career. It contained the best aspects of all of his best research without any compromises!

The biojuggernautʼs eyes glowed brighter as the titanic monsterʼs energy levels continued to rise. Its body released so much heat that the entire core lab became stuffed with cloying mist!

Uranus slowly looked upwards and lifted its entire arm in the air. The enormous limb grew hotter as its hand spontaneously transformed into an open cavity.

The unprecedented huge monstrosity roared yet again as an immense amount of energy accumulated within its shoulder.

”WHUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”

An exaggeratingly wide and powerful teal energy beam soared from its arm cannon and collided against the tall ceiling of the core lab!

The energy beam not only melted through the solid bone metal ceiling as if it was nothing, it also continued to melt through the dense material in between until it burned its way through the deck of the second floor.

The powerful energy beam continued to bore a wide hole through barrier after barrier until a giant pillar of energy shot straight from the bottom of Ruuzon Arena and soared straight into orbit!

The entire planet seemed to have fallen silent at the appearance of the giant energy beam.

Though it faded quickly after breaching through the ground, the nearby biomechs that were fighting on behalf of the conservatives and the opposition factions immediately ceased to fight.

The mech pilots directed their biomechs to back off in order to figure out what had just happened.

Several minutes passed by as the ground started to shake. The earthquake grew bigger and bigger until whatever remained of the ruined arena floor buckled inwards and collapsed into the depths.

An enormous biomachine soon floated up the tunnel. Despite its unimaginably high mass, Uranus was nonetheless capable of lifting its prodigious body into the air!

Of course, the amount of energy it took to carry its immense bulk upwards was not low.

Once Uranus fully emerged from the pinnacle lab buried far underneath Ruuzon Arena, it rose to its full height.

”How… how tall is that juggernaut?”

”A-A-Aproximately five-hundred meters, sir. Itʼs half a kilometer long.”

The biojuggernaut seemed to survey the territory before its eyes. Then, it opened its bloody maw to let out another roar!

”UUUUUUUURRRRAAAAAAAAANNNNNUUUUUUUSSSS!”

As the nearby biomechs were all buffeted by the sound and pressure released by this ridiculously large monster, an enormous hand grabbed hold of a nearby biomech and lifted it up to a hungry mouth.

Though its latest bite was a bit larger and tougher to chew through than a cyclops, the biojuggernaut visibly looked pleased.

Its eyes shone more ominously at the remaining biomechs. Soon it began to surge forward and began to gorge on the helpless organic machines!

The Supreme Sageʼs magnum opus had made its terrible debut!