The Mech Touch

The Riot Mark III made a powerful impression on the battlefield.

Saint Rosa Orfan's debut instantly rejuvenated the surrounding defenders.

Many mech pilots and other soldiers had long longed up to ace pilots, and this time was no exception.

Even if the sight of the Riot Mark III generated a moment of apprehension within their hearts, that did not stop them from admiring its unstoppable advance!

From the moment Saint Orfan chose to channel her new demonic side, the ace spearman mech became the star on the battlefield.

Its performance readily overshadowed that of rival ace mech fielded by the Rubarthans.

Although the ace mechs of a former first-rate superstate were not weak by any means, they lacked the superdimensional superiority that enabled the Riot Mark III to completely disregard pretty much any attack launched by the mutated voribugs.

Yet it was her offensive prowess that truly made a difference on the battlefield. Outlasting the voribug race was never a good idea.

As time went by, Saint Orfan clearly grew more proficient in channeling the power of the Middle Demon.

The Riot Mark III continually released more energy. Through the shaping of its Saint Kingdom, much of this power did not go to waste. Instead, the impassioned ace pilot made sure to draw out more strength upon the moments of contact with her enemy.

Multiple Level 7 Goliaths struggled to withstand her unexpectedly fierce aggression.

The entire quadrant turned into an arena where the Riot Mark III methodically hunted down the toughest and more formidable megavoribugs.

After finishing off the Korcho Goliath, the Riot Mark III proceeded to hunt down the high-level Sudhar Goliaths, Ekstrom Goliaths and even the rare and recently introduced Harcul Goliath!

The Sudhars and Ekstroms failed to last more than a couple of minutes against the Riot Mark III.

Their melee combat capabilities were not weak, and their defenses were usually good enough to last for at least 10 minutes against most junior ace mechs.

Yet in the face of a superior machine such as the Riot Mark III, none of them managed to put up any effective resistance.

Even the latest Harchul Goliath failed to leave a scratch on the Riot Mark III's impervious Chaos Armor!

This was remarkable as the Harchul Goliath was a scavenger strain. Its strength partially relied on the high-quality alloys salvaged from the battlefield.

Whether it was debris taken from damaged warships or mechs, the Harchul Goliath possessed the uncanny ability to process and fuse the materials into its highly malleable body structure.

This caused the Harchul Goliath to resemble human mechs more than most!

With their patchwork armor plating and stolen mech weapons, the Harchul Goliath's combat power was largely reliant on the quality of its stolen goods.

While most of its equipment was not great, the Goliath in question did not place too much value on its salvage.

Whenever the defenders managed to destroy or overcome the scavenged gear, the Harchul Goliath shamelessly disengaged from battle and sought to maneuver around the battlefield in order to scavenge more human-built debris!

Sometimes, the Harchul Goliath did not even have to make a move. Other voribugs took the initiative to deliver salvage directly to the megavoribug!

Suffice to say, the Harchul Goliath might not possess enough strength to crush its opposition like the other melee Goliaths, but its tenacity and ability to make a comeback was superior to that of other strains!

Unfortunately, the new Goliath had met its match this time.

When the Riot Mark III charged straight at the Goliath that loosely resembled a classical mech, Saint Orfan grew a lot angrier all of a sudden!

"INSECT! YOU DEFILE THE SACRED FORM OF MECHS! FOR THAT, YOU DESERVE DEATH!"

Mech pilots tended to be a proud sort. Any successful pilot developed a sense of ownership towards their profession.

They hated battle bots for trying to imitate what they considered to be their exclusive preserve.

To see an alien race attempting to mimic the power of mechs affronted far more people than Saint Orfan!

If not for the fact that the imitation was merely skin-deep, the Harchul Goliath would have attracted a much fiercer counterattack!

As it was, just the Riot Mark III alone was enough to teach it a lesson.

The ace mech's strengths just happened to counter the Harchul Goliath a lot better than other targets.

The resonance and hatred-empowered tier 3 Destroyer spear punched straight through multiple layers of salvaged armor plating.

The Harchul Goliath previously compensated for its lack of energy shields by stacking multiple sheets of salvaged armor plating on its body.

While this provided it with enhanced protection, none of the transphasic hyper armor plating lasted long enough to halt the incoming Destroyer weapon!

Even if the tier 3 Destroyer spear was not a superdimensional product, the myriad of energies empowering the already potent Terran polearm was still overkill when employed against regular modern armor plating!

Once the spear managed to punch deep into the relatively soft and less resilient internals of the Harchul Goliath, the weapon proceeded to spread a large amount of destructive energies.

Empowered by the true resonance as well as the burning hatred of a trapped demon, the power of chaos and destruction, the Harchul Goliath practically disintegrated from the inside!

"FILTH."

Saint Orfan subsequently dismissed her opponent. Even if it was still clinging to life, too much of its internal organs was doomed.

The Harchul Goliath's flexibility came at the cost of resilience. It possessed less redundant organs than the other strains. It remained invincible so long as it could keep absorbing attacks with its salvaged armor plating. Once an attack managed to overcome this troublesome routine, the megavoribug collapsed like a house of cards.

The Goliath Hive clearly needed to iterate the design of its latest Goliath strain a few more times before it was rounded enough to competently deal with adversity.

In any case, Saint Orfan already had her fill. Her mutating ace mech already surged away in order to hunt down her next prey.

As the Riot Mark III continued to rampage across the quadrant, the Goliath Hive clearly struggled to come up with a countermeasure.

At first, it began to gather all of the remaining Level 6 and 7 Goliaths in the quadrant. These dozen or so megavoribugs all possessed a formidable amount of combat power when cooperating closely with each other.

While they previously dispersed in order to pressure the Rubarthan defensive lines, now that the Goliath Hive dramatically raised the priority of the Riot Mark III, the alien insects clearly needed to employ a different strategy!

Multiple Sudhars, Korchos, Abedos and other strains ganged up on the Riot Mark III, hoping to rely on the time-tested method of superior numbers to stall the dreaded ace mech.

Perhaps the Goliath Hive already concluded that its current forces could not hope to defeat the powerful new D-mech, but so many Goliaths should at least tie down the Riot Mark III and exhaust the ace pilot's willpower.

Unfortunately, that was not quite how this development unfolded.

The Riot Mark III was too fast. The seven-generation living archemech was stuffed with cutting-edge systems.

Its flight system might not be too special compared to the Chaos Armor, but it was still designed to provide superior thrust power when it mattered!

The Riot Mark III's energy consumption spiked as Saint Orfan did not hold back on this front!

Even if the ace mech did not become as fast and agile as the Dark Zephyr Mark III, it did not matter so long as it managed to outaccelerate the Goliaths by a significant margin!

Soon enough, the Riot Mark III became surprisingly elusive. The relatively inferior tracking and targeting capabilities of the ranged Goliaths made it difficult if not impossible to land a single hit on the machine.

Few of their plasma bolts, kinetic projectiles, acid bombs or energy beams managed to scrape the ace spearman mech.

Even if an errant attack struck the machine, that was mostly because Saint Orfan felt too lazy to evade a relatively weak and harmless strike.

Attacks that could destroy or severely damage a typical first-class multipurpose mech presented no acute threat to a machine as good as the Riot Mark III!

Every incoming attack weakened as it passed through the Saint Kingdom. By the time it struck the surface of the Superdimensional Chaos Armor, the strike got neutralized or bounced away!

Nothing worked!

The Abedo Goaliths even tried to employ their imitations of phasewater organs to destabilize the surrounding space and create hindrances for the Riot Mark III, but their efforts were utterly futile when employed against a genuine ace mech.

Saint Orfan's willpower easily resisted every field effect!

The Riot rammed through unstable space and forged its own straight path, as was proper!

"Hmph."

Rosa Orfan did not even bother to pay attention to the Abedo Goliaths.

The mid-ranged megavoribugs may be a nightmare when employed against mundane mechs and small installations, but their battlefield manipulation capabilities seemed utterly weak and underpowered from the perspective of an ace pilot!

The only annoyance was that resisting the field effects depleted Saint Orfan's willpower a little faster.

Nothing was truly useless.

Even if the Abedo Goliaths failed to impede the Riot Mark III, the latter still needed to expend more resources to maintain its performance.

The domineering fight progressed.

While the ranged Goliaths proved themselves to be useless, the melee Goliaths served as the last hope of the invaders to hold the D-mech back.

They gathered together. Several swarms of cannon fodder bugs reinforced them shortly afterwards.

The substantial concentration of power immediately reshaped the enemy assault in this quadrant.

By pulling away so many Goliaths, the defending champions of this quadrant breathed a lot easier than before!

"What is happening?"

"It is the latest superdimensional ace mech from the Larkinson Clan. The Riot has literally started a one-mech riot. Just look at how the Goliaths are trying and failing to surround the orange machine."

The Riot Mark III made a mockery of the chasing melee Goliaths. For all of their formidable vitality and regeneration capabilities, mobility had never ranked at the top.

While the Sudhar Goliath was the fastest strain among its peers, voribug evolution consistently failed to match or exceed the high technologies of red humanity.

Considering that every Goliath consisted of a mix of original biocreations and plagiarized designs, it was clear that the enemy had limits when it came to pursuing the latter!

"After all, I do not think that there are any cosmopolitans who are crazy enough to pass on stolen technologies to the Devourer Queen… right?"

In any case, even if they were partially built for speed, the Riot Mark III completely outpaced it at this time.

This granted Saint Orfan all of the initiative she needed.

Her ace mech did not stupidly charge straight into the gathering of Goliaths.

Instead, Saint Orfan proved devious enough to rely on hit-and-run attacks.

For the purpose of lowering her energy consumption, the Riot Mark III evaded most attacks while demonstrating enough aggression to pierce the bodies of the Goliaths with her Destroyer weapon!

Many Goliaths started to suffer!

Due to all of the destructive energies transmitted from this moment of contact, every attack continued to linger and exacerbate the wounds.

So long as the Riot Mark III did not fly too far away, Saint Orfan found that it was relatively easy for her to maintain or even refresh the true resonance passed on to the Goliaths!

Since many of the Riot Mark III's attacks managed to pierce the exoskeleton of the formidable Level 6 and Level 7 Goliaths, each of them started to suffer from the inside!

The breached exoskeletons did not hurt them all that much, but the damage spreading to their internal organs was much more severe!

By the time 5 minutes passed by, few if any of the Goliaths managed to remain in good condition.

The destructive energies rioting across their bodies had weakened them by at least 50 percent!