The Mech Touch

The Mars looked like it had managed to survive a suicide attack. Its once-glorious patterned red armor was cracked and broken in many places, particularly at the lower half of its body.

Neither of its two semi-modular shoulder-mounted gauss cannons were intact. Only cut and broken pieces of barely-recognizable parts were left from the devices that could have once turned combat carriers into derelicts in a couple of salvos.

It had already gotten rid of its transphasic axe and transphasic shotgun after they were damaged in order to lessen its encumbrance.

The ARCEUS System that largely defined the offensive output of the Mars had lost almost half of its output, though at least its intact weapon modules were still in decent condition.

It had also temporarily let go of its sole remaining handheld weapon after using it to intercept the exploding transphasic sword thrown by the Neo Amadeus.

Though the Mars could theoretically finish the fight by relying on its damaged ARCEUS System alone, the ace hybrid mech would have no good way of fending off its adversary's powerful plasma sword without a solid weapon in its grasp!

This was why Patriarch Reginald Cross did not hesitate to drive his Mars to retrieve the damaged but still serviceable Whale-Cutting Saber at all cost!

The transphasic flight system of the Mars did not operate as effectively as before. The spatial shockwaves generated by the exploding transphasic sword had rippled through the frame of the powerful mech and disrupted a lot of phasewater-based functions.

For example, the Abasis Armor no longer offered any transphasic reinforcement that made the Mars so hardly against powerful attacks.

Though the Mars and its ragged Saint Kingdom were still strong enough to ignore the attacks from expert mechs and other lesser machines, the Neo Amadeus still posed a huge threat!

At this time, Saint Jeremiah Gauge was pulling out all of the power he and his ace mech had left.

The earlier fighting heavily consumed the resources he had at its disposal. Not only had he depleted his willpower faster than his opponent, but his ace mech was rapidly consuming whatever energy reserves it had left just by activating its plasma sword!

Fortunately, his ace mech was still in a relatively good condition aside from losing functionality in one of its arms. This gave Jeremiah the confidence that he possessed enough of a buffer to withstand any final outbursts from the Mars while he ended the duel in his victory!

The weight of history drove his willpower to greater heights!

As a scion of the most powerful coalition partner of his state, Saint Jeremiah clearly understood that his actions determined the future of the Friday Colonies and the Gauge Dynasty's ambitions in the Red Ocean.

The lives and livelihoods of millions of colonists huddling on the surface of Pima Prime V were literally praying for his victory.

As a powerful Saint who had already evolved far beyond his mortal roots, Jeremiah was vaguely able to sense the fears, hopes and dreams of these innocent people.

The ace pilot was not able to absorb their desperate energy and use it to power himself up or anything.

However, the awareness that so many of the people under his wing were at risk of facing death or ruination strengthened his conviction!

His willpower burned even brighter and his Saint Kingdom became even hotter!

As soon as the Neo Amadeus came close enough to the Mars, the latter was already starting to strain from the heat projected by Jeremiah's domain field.

The Mars had already accumulated a lot of heat that its dimensional heatsinks were struggling to drain away!

If not for the excellent reinforcement of its internal components and subcomponents, Patriarch Reginald would have felt a lot more concerned about the state of his mech for the moment.

Fortunately, he understood the state of his ace much better than before. Master Benedict Cortez had paid a lot of attention to the heat tolerance of the Mars as it was a machine that was bound to generate a lot of heat over the course of a battle.

The Mars could withstand its adversary's hot domain field for the time being!

Just as the ace hybrid mech clutched the spinning heavy saber by the hilt, the Neo Amadeus finally arrived and slashed its hot plasma sword onto the vulnerable rear of the Mars!

It was as if a miniature sun in the shape of a rod was about to smash onto a target!

Saint Jeremiah invested the majority of his remaining willpower and other resources into this strike!

Driven by desperation and the need to save his fellow Gaugers, he did not hesitate to muster up as much strength as possible so that he could finish off the Mars in a single blow!

The power of this strike was so great that it was bound to damage the flight system of Reginald's ace mech!

On top of that, with the damaged state of the Cross Clan's ace mech and the malfunctioning of its Abasis Armor, a strike of this magnitude would most definitely be able to deal severe and possibly fatal damage to numerous critical internal parts and systems!

Even if this powerful sword strike did not disable the Mars outright, its condition would definitely deteriorate to the point where the Sundered Phalanx's ranged mech units could finish the job that Jeremiah started.

"YOUR END IS AT HAND!" Jeremiah roared as his opponent was completely at his mercy! "YOUR MECH SHALL BE THE URN TO YOUR ASHES!"

As the plasma sword swung close enough for its amplified heat to begin to scorch the rear of the Mars, a bright blue energy shield suddenly came online.

This energy shield only partially covered the Mars, but this barrier was enough to block the swing of the plasma sword and prevent it from striking the ace hybrid mech!

The Neo Amadeus had put as much thermal and kinetic energy behind this strike as possible, but somehow the often-neglected compact but ultra-powerful energy shield generator managed to hold on long enough to save the Mars!

A fiery explosion engulfed the impact site as the plasma sword and some of its energies rebounded from the energy shield!

The energy shield eventually succumbed from the power of the Neo Amadeus' committed attack, but other than exposing the rear of the Mars to a brief heat wave, the ace hybrid mech managed to escape the worst outcome!

Patriarch Reginald never expected that his duel against Saint Jeremiah would come down to the use of the compact but ultra-powerful shield generator.

He had always considered it to be a redundant safety blanket as the Mars already enjoyed the protection of his Saint Kingdom and the Abasis Armor.

Yet now that both of these resonance-based defensive measures had lost their strength, Reginald found that the energy shield generator that was purely driven by electrical energy had become his life saver!

The superior energy generation and energy management capabilities of the Mars played a key role in giving the Cross Patriarch this lifeline.

He had directed his ace mech to overload the shield generator but stuffing it with as much juice as possible.

Though the shield generator almost immediately malfunctioned due to the excessive power it channeled for a fraction of a second, Reginald already got his use out of this crucial component!

At this time, the two ace mechs were still hovering fairly close to each other.

While they were both traversing forward at this time, the failed attack of the Neo Amadeus was not only recoiling, but also put it into an awkward and exposed position behind its target.

The Mars on the other hand had not only retrieved its damaged weapon, but was also in a position to counterattack!

"I WILL DESTROY YOU!" Patriarch Reginald exclaimed as his willpower and ace mech exerted themselves to the fullest extent possible!

The flight systems and intact boosters of the Mars rapidly caused the ace mech to turn around and build up its angular momentum.

The Mars held its Whale-Cutting Saber in a two-handed grip and was poised to slash at the ace swordsman mech behind its back with a devastating disemboweling sweep!

As the sharp edge of the heavy saber glowed with true resonance, Saint Jeremiah Gauge acutely sensed the crisis to his mech, his life and his cause.

He had never felt so close to death as now! Though his condition and the condition of his ace mech was extremely bad at this moment, at this moment of life and death a hidden source of strength erupted from deep within his mind.

This desperate burst of energy not only reinvigorated his fading force of will, but also allowed him to impart a bit of extra strength into his ace mech!

If he had a choice, then Jeremiah would have triggered his plasma sword to explode, which would most definitely doom the Mars at the cost of crippling of the Neo Amadeus!

However, it not only took a lot of willpower and true resonance to overload the plasma sword, but also several crucial seconds of time which he didn't have!

As such, Jeremiah's only goal at the moment was to block the incoming saber sweep by any means possible.

The Neo Amadeus' sole remaining functional physical arm seemed to gain enough strength to rapidly swing the plasma sword in a position to block the incoming attack!

Not only that, but Jeremiah also overloaded his willpower and activated at least six phantom arms that rapidly unsheathed his ace mech's daggers and crossed them in front to add extra insurance.

Just as the Mars was about to collide its Whale-Cutting Saber against the plasma sword as well as the additional daggers, its integrated energy weapon modules opened fire first!

The torso of the Mars had swung around just enough for at least some of the intact weapons of the ARCEUS System to strike the Neo Amadeus!

Reginald had prepared for this occasion. He had charged up the weapon modules moments earlier in anticipation for just this moment!

"THE GAME IS OVER, JERRY!"

At this extremely close distance, there was no way for the Neo Amadeus to respond or activate any emergency defensive measures to defend against this incoming salvo.

Not only that, but Reginald had precisely aimed all of the powerful beams including the one generated by his ace mech's largest and most powerful chest-mounted integrated weapon module.

The Mars did not strike the only remaining intact shoulder of the Neo Amadeus.

The Mars did not strike the chest of the Neo Amadeus which was still relatively undamaged.

Instead, the Mars had opted to concentrate all of its beams onto the fingers of the Neo Amadeus that happened to hold its plasma sword!

If Jeremiah and the Neo Amadeus had not exhausted themselves so much, they would have been able to withstand this blow .

Unfortunately, their current state left them with no measures to defend against the concentrated energy attacks!

The fingers did not disappear outright from the strike, but the damaged fingers lost enough strength and functionality that the Neo Amadeus no longer maintained a strong grip onto its plasma sword!

The blade of the Whale-Cutting Saber struck the blade of the plasma sword immediately afterwards.

The force of the former was so great that the latter sprung out the hand of the Neo Amadeus without offering too much resistance!

After that, the powerful Whale-Cutting Saber continued to swing further until it met a succession of six daggers.

Unfortunately, the feeble strength of the phantom daggers were unable to stop the Whale-Cutting Saber at all. No matter how many arms the Neo Amadeus had conjured up, it was useless as long as Saint Jeremiah had bottomed out his willpower!

The high-quality daggers all flung into space as if they got struck by a giant baseball bat.

"CUT!"

With no more obstacles left to block the passage of the heavy saber, the Mars decisively cut the lower torso of the Neo Amadeus with a horizontal slash!

"NO!" Jeremiah uttered as he tried to squeeze whatever strength that he and his ace mech had left.

Unfortunately for the celebrated Gauger ace pilot, he truly had nothing left!

A blinding light seemed to run across the Neo Amadeus as the Mars completed its final strike!

For a moment, time seemed to stagnate as both ace mechs momentarily faced each other during their last exchange of blows.

Then, small explosions erupted from the abdomen area of the Neo Amadeus as the Whale-Cutting Saber succeeded in dealing severe and almost crippling damage onto its frame!

"THE CROSS CLAN SHALL PREVAIL!"