The Mech Touch - Chapter 7264: Sudhar Strain

The fight between the Divine Arsonist and the Ekstrom Goliath was emblematic of the Voribug War. Red humanity possessed great strength, but none of it was optimized against this new kind of opponent. The Goliaths of the enemy did not possess any miraculous energy shields, nor possessed the capability to generate an energy field that bent and broke the laws of physics. What they did have was the power of pure biology. Their regeneration rates were astonishing, with the Ekstrom strain featuring the most formidable recovery capabilities. In hindsight, the matchup between the Divine Arsonist and the Ekstrom Goliath was quite poor. The former simply did not carry the right weapons to damage and kill the latter in a fast and effective manner. So long as the Ekstrom Goliath was alive, it could always regenerate its body, including organs that were deemed vital! The other Goliath strains did not regenerate as fast as the Ekstrom, but they were not too far behind either. “Are all Goliaths as difficult to kill2” Ves asked. Lord Richard Brownstone looked severe as he offered his response. “The Ekstrom strain trades mobility for defense and regeneration, but that does not mean the other strains are that much weaker in this regard. What you should also keep in mind is that the higher the Level of the megavoribug, the faster it is able to regenerate. In fact, the recovery rate is one of the principal variables that determines its threat level. Weaker Goliaths do not possess exaggerated regeneration capabilities, so they can be defeated by weaker mechs. As for the stronger ones, if our combined firepower or champions are not strong enough to exceed their high-speed regeneration, then we will fall into the enemy’s rhythm.” The Goliath Hive may have tried to imitate its enemies by developing its own champions, but the Goliaths still favored attritional warfare when confronting opposition. “It is strange that they have yet to develop a means to generate their own spatial barriers.” Gloriana voiced her own observation as she stood behind her own work station. “Phase lords are biological, and so are the voribugs. The latter have already demonstrated strong biotech R&D capabilities. As inhuman as they behave and appear, their race or ‘civilization’ is clearly led by an intelligence that has transcended the savagery of beasts. Its demonstrated biotech applications makes it clear that the mutated voribugs can produce remarkable results. Why haven’t they formed their own form of energy shielding?” That was an important question. Ves began to wonder about this himself. “We believe… that the mutated voribugs simply decided not to bother with it” The Rubarthan Senior Mech Designer replied. “Organic means of replicating energy shields can only reach the performance of relatively standard units. The cost of inserting them into ordinary voribugs is uneconomical. They are all cannon fodder. The resources it takes to produce them are small, but once they are equipped with organic energy shields, they become too pricey to sacrifice on a whim. As for larger and more precious units such as the Goliaths, the scalability and upper ceiling of organic energy shields are poor to mediocre. At best, the Goliath Hive would be able to reproduce the energy shielding systems of alien warships, but that is not enough protection when confronting champions.” The mutated voribugs were not stupid. They lived and breathed attrition warfare, so all of their bug subspecies were designed with cost effectiveness as their primary goal. Even the Goliaths had to be worth the huge price it took to harvest high-grade resources and grow them over a longer period of time. “It is not that simple to replicate the defenses of a phase lord or a phase whale, honey.” Ves told his wife. “What makes phase lords different from other organisms is not that our bodies are filled with varying concentrations of phasewater, but that we have become superdimensional life forms, if only barely. Our bodies, our minds and our souls have more deeply crossed the barriers between dimensions, allowing us to tap into higher- dimensional energies and wield strange new powers in a somewhat uniform fashion. You cannot replicate this effect through pure biotechnological tinkering.” Gloriana did not quite agree with that argument. “Not every answer has to be related to systematic cultivation. Haven’t we stumbled upon the fish-whale race during our early pioneering days? The phase whale who conducted those experiments made a good attempt at merging the special properties of his own race into a more reproducible hybrid race.” “I am not entirely convinced that the fish-whales, at least the more powerful ones, have come close enough to match genuine phase leaders.” Ves voiced. “I do admit that the existence of the fish-whales may be the future of the mutated voribugs, but I think it will require a lot more R&D in order to produce such a remarkable result. For now, I do not think the Goliath Hive or any of the other hives have a compelling reason to direct a huge amount of resources in this research. They are better off relying on their existing advantages.” Phase leaders were special no matter the variety. Ves refused to believe that the fruits of body cultivation could be replicated without excessive effort by the mutated voribugs. According to Rubarthan observations, the bodies of transphasic voribugs and megavoribugs resemble exobeasts that have grown up in phasewater-rich ecosystems. While that certainly made them stronger while giving them a touch of superdimensionality, they were still far from leveraging the amazing potential of phasewater like genuine phase whales and phase lords. In any case, Ves believed it was safe to assume that the mutated voribugs did not possess the ability to replicate the more profound capabilities of phase lords. That did not make them any less scarier, unfortunately. Ves shifted his gaze over to the other “duels’. The high-ranking mechs dispatched by the Rubarthans struggled a lot less, and that was not only because their opposing Goliaths were much weaker. The expert mechs hailing from the Brownstone Principality were better equipped and adapted to fight against an adversary that liked to use swarms of cannon fodder and relied on fast-regenerating Goliaths to make themselves a strong enough nuisance. Besides the largest and most outrageous Ekstroms, the other Goliath strains each possessed their own notable strengths. Ves found himself particularly attracted to a megavoribug that was much slimmer and more agile in build. its body was sleek and predatory. The hexapod alien dueled against an opposing expert light skirmisher. It tried its best to rake its claws across the resonance shield and armor of the opposing machine. While the bug was so slim that it did not possess any obvious ranged attack capabilities, it was able to spit out a deadly spray of acid that the expert mech took pains to avoid. It was also capable of generating a surprisingly good imitation of the space suppressor field. All of these advantages and more allowed the agile Level 6 Goliath to keep up with the mobility of a powerful high-tier expert light skirmisher! The fight between these powerful champions appeared like a dance between two deadly but graceful opponents. So far, it did not seem as if it would end anytime soon. The expert light skirmisher still managed to maintain its resonance shield. It was clear that its pilot tried to conserve its defensive resources as much as possible. Once its resonance shield broke, the Rubarthan machine would be in for a much tougher time. The slim Goliath on the other hand had suffered repeated strikes onto its body. The plasma daggers wielded by the opposing high-tier expert mech significantly hindered the giant insect’s regeneration, but by staying mobile, the Goliath was able to give the damaged sections of its body enough rest time to recover. Both of them moved so quickly that the cannon fodder bugs simply had no way of catching up to their targets! Lord Richard noticed what Ves was paying attention to. He smiled. “The Quickdraw is piloted by Venerable Urdred Texis, one of the retainers of our Brownstone Principality. His expert light skirmisher is least prone to getting swarmed by the mutated voribugs, but that only applies so long as it is able to retain its mobility. So long as it remains in its current state, the Quickdraw can evade many traps. Its greatest weakness is its lack of offensive capabilities. Since Venerable Texis is not yet an ace pilot, he lacks a Saint Kingdom that can amplify and extend the range of his attacks. The plasma daggers alone are at least moderately effective against the smaller Sudfar strain. The Quickdraw is a much worse match against a meatshield such as the Ekstrom strain.” “So this high-speed megavoribug is called the Sudfar strain, eh?” “Yes. The Sudfar strain is the Goliath Hive’s counterpart to light skirmishers. It is a highly specialized and optimized organic subspecies that is constantly becoming a little faster and more agile while not trading in as much defensive power. Its acid-spitting capabilities are fairly recent, and we expect the Goliath Princess to arm the Sudfar strain with more advantages down the line.” That was bad news. The Sudfar strain’s excellent speed and maneuverability could turn it into a potential nightmare to regular forces. It could charge straight towards a human fleet and evade many attacks while wearing down the azure energy shields of battleships and fleet carriers. Once the Sudfar Goliath broke upon the energy shields of those large and expensive vessels, the giant insect could quickly wreak havoc at close range! “Is there anything else that we need to know about the Sudfar Goliath?” Ves asked. “They are almost unkillable if we do not field our own corresponding expert light skirmisher or ace light skirmisher.” Lord Richard Brownstone said with a frown. “High- ranking mechs with formidable ranged attack capabilities can certainly track and hit the fast-moving Sudfars, but their regeneration speeds are relatively fast and their performance does not diminish too much even if they have lost over 30 percent of their biomass. As long as they can still move at high speeds, they can always abandon their offensive plans and retreat to safety at a rapid pace. Remember. The mutated voribugs have no honor. The decision to attack or retreat is purely based on rational decision- making.” In other words, the Goliath Hive did not care about the lives and deaths of individual voribugs or megavoribugs. The Goliaths could be brave to the point of suicidal in one instant, and switch to being shameless cowards that ran away like scurrying rats in the next instant! Their lack of pride or genuine fighter spirit disturbed red humanity. People like Ves and the other members of the mech community were simply not used to fighting against a formidable adversary that purely treated its armed forces like expendable commodities. Even though the Goliaths had been proven to be sapient and capable of recognizing their own individuality, they were still treated as cogs in a very large organic machine. “Have you managed to capture a living Sudfar Goliath or at least an intact corpse? I would like to study it and understand why it can be so fast but still possess such good regeneration capabilities.” Gloriana asked. She was not well-versed in exobiology, but she could still glean a lot of clues by applying her existing understanding in mech design. “I am afraid I must disappoint you, Madame.” Lord Richard shook his head. “I have mentioned before that each Goliath is protected against hostile examinations. As soon as they are dead or defeated, their molecules begin to separate from each other. Their disintegration works too quickly. We have employed various means to preserve them, but even our best attempts have led to the capture of molten biomass that only vaguely resembles a Goliath. The best way to study their properties is to observe them on the battlefield such as today. This is one of the reasons why we are playing along with the Goliath Hive.”

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