The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1165

Throughout his stay in the Terran Confederation, Ves experienced some of the breadth and depth of Terran mech design.

It was as if scarcity didn’t exist here. Mech designers faced much fewer limits with regards to cost, resource scarcity and manpower constraints.

This meant that mech designers could easily dump a lot of expensive parts into their mechs, jacking up their prices to insane levels and elevating the difficulty of piloting to inhuman levels.

Yet such insanely overperforming mechs still sold in droves!

Mech buyers in the Terran Confederation were some of the most affluent people and organizations in the galaxy. The mech pilots they hired exhibited capabilities that far exceeded their lesser peers in the galactic heartland and the galactic center!

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that mech designers in the Terran Confederation engaged in the very forefront of mech design!

The innovations they developed in the pursuit of greater performance slowly trickled down to the less-advanced regions of human space. Ves already foresaw that many trends in the Terran Confederation would spread to the galactic rim in time.

The current mech duel between Axelar Streon and Waltz Nexbern was a case in point! In this battle between an old-style hero mech and an ultramodern multipurpose mech, the latter showcased exactly why they became the dominant mech type in the most advanced states!

The War General piloted by the Haspel mech athlete shed its exterior armor plating and parts like taking off a coat! A much slimmer light mech emerged from underneath which flourished its Destroyer Halberd in an energetic manner.

A multipurpose mech possessed endless depth!

It took a lot of effort to exhaust their entire bag of tricks!

When the War General turned from a heavy mech to a light mech, Ves felt like puking. Terran mech designers were very creative with their mechs!

The technical challenges to design a mech within a mech were exceedingly difficult to resolve. To make both forms perform optimally in combat without negatively impacting each other required a lot of creative solutions!

"Whoever designed the War General is a great mech designer!"

Observing the War General in battle was like seeing a masterpiece of mech design up close. Ves wasn’t sure whether the War General was designed by a Senior or a Master.

With the population base of the Terran Confederation, the latter possibility could not be ruled out!

Yet despite knowing that Ves faced a mech designed by a Master, he did not believe that defeat was inevitable!

Despite being designed with the aid of an auto designer, the Ouroboros consisted of very high-end parts and exotics. Axelar’s status as a Streon clansman was not for show! The mechs he routinely designed and materialized may be crappy, but their sheer performance still elevated them into the upper ranks of mechs!

Therefore, from a material and technological standpoint, the Ouroboros and the War General stood roughly equal. Neither side used more superior materials and technology. The War General may have started off bigger and employed more sophisticated modules, but none of them gave the mech a decisive edge against its current opponent.

Only two factors really mattered in deciding the outcome of this mech duel.

First, the mech pilots.

Having fought so long, Ves gained a good measure of Axelar Streon and Waltz Nexbern’s piloting skills.

Each of them stood head and shoulders above any non-expert pilot from the galactic rim. The genetic and biological augmentations they received accelerated their minds and strengthened their bodies firmly into transhuman territory, allowing them to mentally and physically keep up with extremely high-performing mechs!

Due to his high birth, Axelar attended the best mech academies in the Terran Confederation.

Although he hated every second of it, the mech instructors made sure that Axelar squeezed the most out of his A-grade genetic aptitude. He possessed very solid fundamentals and his operation of his mech was clean and efficient!

Waltz Nexbern did not possess the raw talent or privileged upbringing of someone like Axelar. Instead, he grew up from humble roots and managed to make a decent start in the mech games.

After decades of fighting and dueling, he grew up to become a considerably wily and tricky mech athlete! Age, experience and constant training allowed Waltz to hold a considerable edge over Axelar!

Although the mech athlete’s piloting style incorporated a small amount of unnecessary flashy moves, Waltz was still superior to Axelar in every aspect aside from reaction speed!

If Axelar wanted to achieve victory, he needed to put his faith in the design concept of his mech!

Although the Terrans considered hero mechs to be overly simplistic, Axelar already witnessed first-hand that the Ouroboros took full advantage of this aspect!

The Ouroboros not only managed to withstand the overwhelming attacks of the War General, but also retain much of its battle effectiveness in the process!

Certainly, the War General’s close-ranged plasma discharge inflicted serious damage to Axelar’s mech. Most of the detailed reliefs of creation and destruction lost definition due to being subjected to a destructive shower of plasma.

In fact, the entire front of the mech lost its original two-toned color scheme and took on a scorched and bedraggled appearance!

"It’s mostly surface damage, though. The internals of the Ouroboros is still in good condition!" Ves avidly noted.

The thick and resilient armor plating of the mech might look awful, but it did its job in protecting the more vulnerable parts of the mech from damage!

From resisting neutron beams to bouncing off gauss rifle projectiles, the considerable investment that Ves had put into the armor system of the Ouroboros paid off in spades! A regular multipurpose mech of its weight class would never be able to remain standing after suffering through so much hell!

While the Ouroboros didn’t appear very fancy anymore, the audience nonetheless stopped regarding it with contempt. As Terrans, they weren’t stupid, and they could recognize the inherent advantages of the mech type.

"Believe in yourself and believe in the Ouroboros your other self designed." Ves mentally spoke to Axelar. "You aren’t piloting a mech, you are embodying a god of creation and destruction! One hand creates, the other hand destroys! No other power is required to defeat your opponent!"

"Then pin it down or shoot it down with the positron rifle!"

"I can’t! It’s too big and unwieldy! The War General’s halberd will cut it in half as I take aim!"

"The War General isn’t the only object in this arena that can transform! The positron rifle that I’ve added to the Ouroboros possesses a second form as well!"

As Ves transferred some details on the weapon to his host, Axelar immediately acted on the information!

The Ouroboros drew out the partially-damaged positron rifle from the small of its back and activated a single command that caused it to shed its front half and some other components.

The positron rifle turned into a small and compact positron pistol!

Although its power, accuracy and energy capacity took a substantial hit, the pistol was small enough for the Ouroboros to make use of it in a close-ranged cash!

The Ouroboros began to fire back at the War General whenever it blocked another halberd strike!

Axelar realized that each time the War General attacked and got repulsed, the light mech momentarily paused in place. This presented him with a critical window of opportunity for him to nail a shot on the War General!

After five exchanges, Axelar managed to land three solid hits on the War General, burning three serious-looking holes in the latter mech’s exterior!

"This is it, Axelar! This is how a hero mech should be employed!"

The Ouroboros looked unprecedentedly daunting as it slowly started to gain the upper hand against the War General!

"Do you think you can beat my War General with a mere pistol?! Think again!"

Waltz quickly abandoned his current strategy when he saw that the tide was turning against him. He piloted his War General away from the Ouroboros and rapidly built up a lot of distance!

Once he gained several kilometers of distance, Waltz activated a command that caused the Destroyer Halberd to shed its powered blade and spike!

The War General then inserted the hollow shaft of the weapon perpendicularly into a small hollow that opened up from its chest plating.

The tip of the long and narrow muzzle began to take on an ominous glow.

"If I can’t take out your mech up close, then I’ll just have to finish the job from afar!"

The War General unleashed a radiant beam!