The Mech Touch

Chapter 3882: The Second King

”The Phasers are getting serious!” Ves uttered.

Previously, the Phaser fish-whales did an excellent job at repelling the attackers, but it didnʼt look as if they were strong enough to contend against the might of the Swarm Kingdom.

That impression completely changed once the upper echelon of the Phase Kingdom entered the fray!

The power of the Phase King was on an entirely different plane as far as Ves was concerned!

Just as how the Evolution King was able to wipe out half of an entire horde of Swarmers with a single energy spray attack, the Phase King unleashed just as much destruction upon the stronger and much sturdier elites!

The fabric of spacetime seemingly turned into the Phase Kingʼs toy as the massive leader exerted its prodigious strength against the surrounding enemy elites!

The bodies of the sergeant fishes and so on might be more resilient than normal, but their defenses paled in comparison to the might of the Phase King!

No Swarmer fish-whale could endure the devastating area attacks of this large and ancient powerhouse!

Although the Phase Kingʼs body was not as large and dense as that of the Evolution King, it was still an existence that the Swarmers werenʼt able to fight against.

None of the elites stood a chance against fighting this titanic monster!

Seeing it fight against the Swarmer fish-whales was like seeing a modern warship tear an entire force of mechs into pieces!

The sergeant fishes attempted to charge straight towards the Phase King, but their hard bodies and even harder heads inevitably broke in various ways as they collided against space walls, cut themselves in half by driving themselves through space blades or completely lost their lives as an invisible spatial disturbance completely warped their internal organs into mush!

The assassin fishes suffered even more miserable ends. Over half of their attempts to blink to the side of the Phase King completely failed, causing their bodies to fall to pieces as they encountered a mysterious countermeasure.

The other half of the red fish-whales that managed to survive the jump werenʼt feeling any better. Before they could do anything to harm the midnight blue body of the Phase King, their bodies already bent before warping out of shape entirely.

It turned out that the immediate space around the Phase King had already turned into a disaster zone!

The assassin fishes that jumped head-long into danger accomplished nothing except tiring out the Phase King a little.

The spitter fishes managed to survive the longest by virtue of maintaining their distance, but their attacks were incredibly useless. The corrosive spit that was formulated to deal a lot of damage to organic tissue simply failed to make it through the maze of contorted space!

When the Phase King directed its large and bright eyes at the distant annoyances, it briefly concentrated, allowing it to generate a distant space storm that swept a large portion of spitter fishes asunder!

While the Phase King rampaged in the middle of the enemy elites, its prized subordinates did not remain idle either.

The elite Phaser fish-whales soared upwards and threaded through the swarms of rabid grunt fishes like a hot knife through butter!

Although it wasnʼt easy for them to fight their way through thousands of enemy cannon fodder, they were much more skilled and efficient about their usage of powers. After reaching the enemy elites, they relieved the Phase King of much of the burden of slaughtering the Swarmers and began to attack in a coordinated fashion that maximized their results while wasting as little effort as possible.

Even though the Swarmers still had a lot of bodies left to throw at the enemy Phasers, it was clear to see that the latter decisively gained the upper hand.

This shouldnʼt have been a surprise as this was the heart of the Phase Kingdom. The defenders were able to muster most of their combat assets while the Swarm Kingdom only dispatched a fraction of its total troops!

If not for the fact that reinforcements from the rest of the Spiral Continent kept pouring in from a distance, it was conceivable that the Phase King and its powerful wizard army would easily be able to sweep the peasant horde aside!

As the Phasers continued to shred the Swarmers by the thousands, Ves turned away from the bloody sight and surveyed the state of the battlefield.

As Ves began to weigh his choices, Commander Casella Ingvar opened a communication channel.

”Sir! We need to launch our offensive right away!”

”What?! Now? The Phasers and Swarmers are still in the process of fighting against each other! Their battle has only reached the middle phase.”

”Thatʼs exactly why we need to take action, sir.” Casella stated. ”Think about it. If we wait for the fish-whales to finish their fight, the Swarmers will have probably disappeared while the Phasers remain alive but battered.”

Ves slowly nodded. ”That is what I think will happen as well. Isnʼt this the time where we swoop in and topple or at least repel the weakened survivors?”

”According to my judgment, the Phasers will still retain a lot of strength even after they have cleaned a lot more Swarmers. There are too many Phaser fish-whales for us to fight against. It is completely unrealistic for us to defeat the defenders with our level of strength. Attempting to do so will be a costly endeavor that will ultimately result in the sacrifice of hundreds of lives, not to mention the mechs they pilot. Even then, we will have only defeated a portion of the Phase Kingdom. There is still their king and many other Phasers that are still pouring in from different places. We should not fight against them all when they are free to concentrate their attacks on us. For better or worse, we need the Swarmers to stay strong in order to occupy our more immediate enemy.”

Her arguments made a lot of sense. Ves too feared that the Phaser fish-whales were far from being played out despite repelling a formidable horde of Swarmer fish-whales.

However, there was one great risk to launching an attack at this instance.

”Wonʼt the Swarmers and the Phasers figure out that we have masterminded their collision if we take the initiative to reveal ourselves? From what I have observed so far, neither the Hive King nor the Phase King are simple characters. They are just as old as the Evolution King and they can deal an enormous amount of damage to our machines.”

Commander paused for a few seconds before she made her reply.

”We canʼt know for certain what will happen. All we can do is take a risk and proceed with raiding the Lake Continent. Now that the Phase King has brought itself and its most powerful troops in the midst of the enemy formation, the rear of the Phase Kingdom is much less guarded than usual. This is a prime opportunity for us to extract large amounts of phasewater from those water pools that the Phaser elites have previously guarded with their bodies.”

Ves became swayed. The reasoning was sound and it took the current situation into account.

The Sentinel Commander was right in at least one area. The Lake Continent itself was only occupied by second-line troops at the moment!

Better yet, all of the ordinary Phaser fish-whales had already expended much of their firepower on the Swarmer hordes. Even though many of them were starting to rest and replenish their energy by gorging upon the shredded pieces of fish-whale meat that constantly rained down from above.

The recovery speed of the Phaser fish-whales werenʼt particularly good, so it would probably take a bit of time for them to return to an optimal fighting condition.

What Commander Casella wanted to do was to launch an immediate strike when the back-line Phaser fish-whales were still in their weakest state!

Ves no longer hesitated. He saw now as well that this was indeed the correct timing. So what if it deviatred from the plan? Battles were inherently fraught with uncertainty! What mattered the most was whether Task Force Fisherman and their Evolver allies were able to adjust to the changes.

”Okay, Casella. You can launch our attack early. Make sure our fish-whale allies follow suit. I know you probably canʼt talk to the Cerebral King, but the fellow should be intelligent enough to understand basic gestures.”

”We donʼt have to worry about the Phasers becoming too reluctant to attack. You can see the fury from the Cerebral Kingʼs expression. As long as we move forward, so will the Evolvers.”

”Okay, then. Proceed as you think is best. Just remember that our main goal is to leave with as much phasewater that we can carry.”

Just behind the curve of the asteroid, a large group of mechs and fish-whales had been waiting in place for a while.

They had carefully kept themselves out of sight from both the Swarmers and Phasers as they did not wish to expose any unwelcome clues.

Now, the time had finally come. The Minerva flew forward while glowing brighter. Commander Casella put more effort into resonating with her living mech. Her presence spread to the surrounding mechs and mech pilots, prompting them to become fully alert.

”Can we finally go forward now?” Patriarch Reginald impatiently asked.

”Yes. We have a good window of opportunity at the moment. We need to strike while the main forces of the Phasers and Swarmers are still fighting against each other.”

”Good!” The powerful expert pilot boomed! ”I have been waiting for this! Let us raze their kingdom and make off with their precious phasewater!”

The Bolvos Rage rapidly became active and caused a lot of nearby mech pilots to become pumped up. Soon, the high-tier expert mech led the way forward!

As Task Force Fisherman finally entered the fray, the Evolvers werenʼt sitting around either. They automatically moved forward as well as the Cerebral King quickly figured out the situation!

A few minutes passed as the Swarmers and the Phasers kept consuming each otherʼs strength. Even though the losses suffered by the former were intense, the attackers werenʼt completely useless.

The Phase King had made a strong start but had slowed down its ridiculous mass attacks in an effort to conserve its energy.

This gave the attackers an opportunity to deal real damage, not by focusing their attacks on the powerful king fish, but by directing their actions against the elite Phaser fish-whales instead!

These powerful but precious Phasers had been nurtured by investing a lot of resources into them. The death of even a single one of them was a painful loss, but now a dozen of them had already fallen due to the unrelenting attacks of the sergeant fishes and the assassin fishes.

While all of this was happening, the party responsible for initiating had finally appeared!

The combined force of mechs and Evolvers did not settle attacking the periphery but instead headed towards the core region where most of the phasewater reserves were located!

Their entry alarmed the nearby Phaser fish-whales that were still in the process of recovering from their exertion.

A volley of energy beams quickly made short work of dozens of them while other attacks demolished even more exhausted defenders.

More and more Phaser fish-whales had fallen into confusion. They reacted far too slowly against the intrusion, allowing the combined force to cut through the befuddled defenders with extreme purpose and precision!

With the Bolvos Rage and the Cerebral King leading the charge, not a single Phaser fish-whale stood a chance of halting this assault!

Their combined strength smashed through any space warp or spatial barrier!

A lot of tired Phasers suffered headaches as their efforts to halt these powerful arrivals completely backfired!

The combined force did not even bother to hide their target. They were heading straight towards the largest lake on the continent, which also happened to be the place where the Phase King initially emerged.

”Get to that big lake and clear the surroundings of hostile fish-whales.” Ves urged his troops. ”It is vital for us to maintain at least temporary control over the site. According to our long-ranged scans, thereʼs more than a thousand kilograms of phasewater stashed underneath this lake!”

A thousand kilograms of phasewater!

The battle against the Titania only yielded the Golden Skull Alliance a little over 4 kilograms of phasewater.

This was 250 times greater! Better yet, this wasnʼt the only lake with phasewater reserves.

There were many other pools of water as well that contained additional quantities of phasewater!

As long as the task force managed to plunder just a dozen of them, the Golden Skull Alliance would become rich beyond everyoneʼs wildest dreams!