The Mech Touch novel Chapter 3860

Chapter 3860 True Man

The bladed fish-whale stopped roughly halfway between the task force and the Lab Continent. It continued to hover in place while directing an ambiguous look towards the human visitors.

The other fish-whales that had come closer as a group slowed down as well. It didn't look as if they were ready to launch an all-out offensive at the moment.

While this reassured the mech pilots to an extent, neither side were comfortable with the

"What… is it doing?"

"I don't know. None of us can talk in fish-whale language."

A lot of tension and confusion emerged as the members of the Task Force wondered what the bladed fish-whale was doing.

This precarious situation continued until the Bolvos Rage suddenly flew forward.

"What are you doing, patriarch?" Commander Casella frowned.

"I know what it wants. It wants to test our strength. Let's oblige the fish-whale."

"Are you crazy, sir?! We are in a high-stakes situation right now. Patriarch Ves has the situation under control, but that might change if your actions cause our relations with the Evolvers to deteriorate!"

Patriarch Reginald made a dismissive snort. "I will take responsibility for whatever happens, but I will not let this challenge go unanswered. This fish has the eyes of a warrior. It wishes to test its strength against us while also observing our combat prowess in return. The relationship between our two groups will become a lot clearer once this fight is over. Trust me on this. I have experienced similar scenarios back in the Garlen Empire."

"This isn't Vicious Mountain, patriarch! This is Purgatory, an alien phase whale enclave that is occupied by a completely alien race! How can you be certain that the bladed fish-whale is challenging us to a duel?!"

"I just know. Call it a warrior's intuition. This bladed fish-whale is an all-out fighting enthusiast. It won't stop bothering us until we oblige it with a fight."

There were so many things wrong with this situation that Commander Casella was tempted to call the Everchanger back so that the task force could retreat from the Lab Continent!

The main concern she held was that a possible duel could easily cause the situation to spiral out of control.

There were many written and unwritten rules surrounding duels in human society. Since humanity is so diverse, the way that duels between mechs were fought also differed from place to place.

This problem was even worse for cross-species duels!

A fight between two combatants from dramatically different species and cultures could easily lead to dangerous misunderstandings. Who knew if the fish-whales would take offense to an attack that humans considered acceptable.

In addition, when was the duel supposed to end? The fish-whales might find it common to fight to the death.

No matter whether the Bolvos Rage gained the upper hand or the bladed fish-whale pressed its opponent to its limits, Commander Casella did not want the Bolvos Rage lose its battle effectiveness before it participated in any proper fights!

At the very least, they needed Patriarch Ves to come forward and negotiate the rules with the king fish.

Without defining and agreeing to a common set of rules surrounding the duel, the upcoming confrontation between the two champions could easily lead to one of them going too far and dealing permanent damage to their dueling opponent.

As Commander Casella frantically waited for Patriarch Ves to mediate the duel on behalf of the task force, she was shocked when the bladed fish-whale and the Bolvos Rage charged at each other without consulting anyone else. They just went at each other as if they were bulls who saw red!

"PATRIARCH REGINALD CROSS! Disengage from the bladed fish-whale and abort the duel. You are initiating an unsanctioned duel against an alien group that we are contacting for the first time."

"I know! That is what makes this so exciting, haha!" Patriarch Reginald laughed as his expert mech's resonance shield reflected his battle lust! "You don't need to be afraid of this bladed fish-whale. It's not overly hostile towards us. It is just unconvinced of our strength. Once I beat some sense in this bony tuna, it will behave a lot more respectfully."

"You don't know that, patriarch! You are ascribing human emotions and behavior patterns onto an alien!"

Patriarch Reginald closed all of his communication channels, making it abundantly clear that he was not interested in continuing with this argument. Besides, now that the duel had commenced, he had to direct all of his attention on defeating the bladed fish-whale. In his opinion, there was no point in talking to Casella anymore!

Patriarch Reginald completely disregarded the carefully crafted diplomatic plan and strategies that the experts had formulated after spending many hours of their time.

Although the plan wasn't fast or exciting, it accounted for many different scenarios which helped minimize the risks.

She couldn't understand why Ves was so willing to derail this safe and steady plan after he had only spent a short time talking to the king fish. Whatever he learned from the alien leader during this interval was no guarantee that the expeditionary forces had already figured out the Evolvers!

While she lamented the change of course, most of her subordinates didn't worry as much as she did. They had become completely engrossed in the first real duel against a mech and a fish-whale!

Of course, the Evolver fish-whales were incomparable to the Swarmer fish-whales. The strongest among the former were elites that could readily compete against expert pilots while the latter only consisted of different degrees of cannon fodder!

Still, no one knew for certain which combatant would be able to win this bout. Neither side looked weak. Each of them clearly possessed their own strong points, but since the human forces had never directly fought against the Evolver fish-whales, it was difficult to make accurate comparisons.

Imon held a lot of confidence towards the only high-tier expert pilot of the Golden Fleet Alliance.

"I bet that the Cross Patriarch will win with ease in fifteen minutes. The Bolvos Rage is armed with ranged weapons while that big fish-whale doesn't have any ranged attacks to speak of. Even if the Bolvos Rage is a medium mech, it is the best expert mech in our fleet, so its speed is not low! The fish-whales have never excelled at speed and it's clear to see that this big fat fish is not the sort that is good at racing."

Even if he wasn't as smart and studious as her sister, the recently-advanced expert pilot was not stupid!

"Are you kidding?" Vincent Ricklin vehemently disagreed. "This fight is already a win for the bladed fish-whale. While I think you are right that the Bolvos Rage can endlessly kite the slower and bigger bladed fish-whale around, who says that Patriarch Reginald Cross will fight in such a dishonorable manner? This is a man's fight! The only way we can truly convince the fish-whales is to beat them at what they are best at! If we take the initiative to avoid the bladed fish-whale's strongest means of attack, doesn't that send a message that we are afraid of the Evolvers and can only rely on despicable means to cheat our way to victory?"

"Who says the fish-whales think that taking advantage of an opponent's openings is a sign of weakness? The Evolvers do this all the time towards the Swarmers! In my opinion, fighting in a clever manner and using your strength to target the enemy's weak points is true virtue!"

Vincent contemptuously shook his head. "That sounds nice, but I have spent enough time to know that Patriarch Reginald is too prideful to resort to such a cheap strategy. Maybe you need to resort to every trick in the book to win an actual battle, but this is different! This is a sacred duel! Just look at his Bolvos Rage? Does it look like it is slowing down or turning away? No! He's diving directly towards the bladed fish-whale like a real man should! He even holstered his shotgun so that he could take out his new mech saber!"

This move was enough to show Patriarch Reginald's determination to win this duel according to his ideas!

"He's a true man!"