The Mech Touch novel Chapter 819

Pairixan succumbed to the wounds inflicted by the shelling and lasers fired from an obnoxiously long distance away.

While Qilanxo’s supreme defensive ability surprised the Flagrant Swordmaidens enormously, it didn’t change the fact that the sacred gods remained vulnerable to attacks from a very long range.

Engaging an earth manipulator like Pairixan in close range where he could make the best use of his powers was pure stupidity. Though the Swordmaidens hunkered for a melee confrontation, the Vandals remained sober.

They really couldn’t afford to lose a lot of mechs at this stage!

Every mech was precious and couldn’t be replaced. While the same thing applied to the power generators as well, in the worst case the fleet would supply them with a substitute or two. While it wasn’t simple to fabricate a new power generator from scratch, it was still a lot easier than fabricating a new mech.

The fleet may have arrived in the Aeon Corona System with an ample amount of supplies and materials, but it couldn’t afford to waste them too much.

Once the Vandals confirmed Pairixan’s death, the artillery mechs and laser rifleman mechs already started to aim their weapons towards the heavily-injured form of Qilanxo.

"Wait! Hold your fire!" Captain Byrd ordered before turning to an exobiologist. "Is it possible to take Qilanxo captive?"

This surprised the Vandals. This beast hindered the Flagrant Swordmaidens enormously. However, Qilanxo’s power was extremely formidable. If they could turn Qilanxo into their pet, they might be able to benefit from her supreme defenses!

Once they got around to this idea, a couple of Vandals looked at the projection of Qilanxo’s heavily injured form with greedy eyes.

This was their chance to tame a sacred god!

The exobiologist in the command center didn’t immediately answer Captain Byrd’s question. He held out a palm and accessed a private comm channel. After a quick discussion with Dr. Tillman and some other exobiologist, he gave out his answer in an uncertain tone.

"Captain, according to what we know of the physique of the wild gods, Qilanxo may be far too injured to survive. It is a question whether she will be able to live for more than a few hours. If you wish for us to capture her, then we will first need to treat her wounds and insure she lives past this day."

"What are the drawbacks of doing so?"

"We will need to draw upon a large amount of medical supplies. Some are easily reproduced, but some of the medicines can only be sourced from the pharmaceutical companies. If we expend more medicine on making sure that Qilanxo can survive, we’ll have less to draw upon once our own men sustain injuries. In fact, it is not certain yet if our intervention will be sufficient enough to save Qilanxo’s life."

This decision required some consideration. After Captain Byrd received a document that contained an estimate on how many medical supplies would be expended in an attempt to save Qilanxo’s life, she fell into a brief dilemma.

"Ma’am, we just lost three power generators." An engineer spoke. "This will shorten our range and affect our future operations. Right now, our research into the god crystal and murky crystal haven’t been able to turn up any concrete results. If we have a living sacred god such as Qilanxo in our custody, we can study the exobeast’s method of activating her god crystals and find a way to replicate the process."

The exobiologist also displayed his eagerness. "Qilanxo is one of the Eastern Samar Pantheon’s most powerful sacred gods, and is on par with Hokaz from Mulak. As an old, powerful sacred god that has received a lot of nurturing, it is extremely useful for us if we can study her body while she still remains alive."

The exobiologists were already clamoring to dissect the burned and broken corpses of Pairixan and the other sacred gods, but no matter how well-preserved they may be, there was only so much to learn from the autopsies. A living subject would be able to reveal much more about the strange and abnormal god species, especially under long-term observation!

Of course, practical problems also emerged. The site around Qilanxo and the corpses of all the other sacred gods was surrounded with heat and radiation. How would the exobiologists get close enough to treat the beast? Would Qilanxo remain docile? How would they be able to move the giant beast?

"We will have to perform triage on-site and restrain her in place." The exobiologist said. "Unless the engineers can move something as heavy as an older sacred god, we will have to construct a treatment facility on-site."

There was no way to move something as big and heavy as Qilanxo. Her size surpassed a hundred-year old wild god, and was significantly heavier than a heavy mech. Unless the Vandals cobbled up a customized construction designed to move extremely heavy loads, the only other way to move the defeated sacred god was by getting her to move under her own power.

In the end, Captain Byrd decided that all of the trouble would be worth the payoff. It was important to note that Qilanxo’s god crystals still remained in place and even appeared to feed a small amount of energy into her body, helping it maintain her life.

After consulting with Commander Lydia, they both agreed to save Qilanxo’s life.

"Move out and secure the site!"

The exobiologists began packing up their supplies while the engineers readied a small prefab facility to form a temporary lab. Chief Dakkon already prepared to construct a bigger temporary facility to cover up Qilanxo’s form and to provide a more controlled environment to facilitate her recovery.

A large amount of melee mechs emerged to come into close proximity to the defeated attackers. One of the Swordmaiden Devil Razors even poked at Pairixan’s corpse, only to elicit no response.

"Hey, woman! Don’t poke a hole in that corpse! That’s valuable research material!"

"Don’t call me woman, you filthy Vandal!"

A lot of mech pilots couldn’t resist posing next to the fallen beasts and have their comrades record an image for posterity.

It was as if they had personally helped slay the sacred gods, which was very far from the actual truth!

Ves shook his head at their behavior. At the very least, their constant poking and prodding tentatively confirmed that Pairixan wouldn’t wake up and engulf the entire area with earthquakes.

"Please inspect Qilanxo if she’s conscious."

There was one other faction on the planet that the Flagrant Swordmaidens needed to take note of. "Has the Starlight Megalodon launched any weapons?"

"We’ve detected no abnormalities on our long-ranged sensors. The fleet hasn’t sent down a shuttle to inform us of any threats they detected from orbit either."

The Vandals still felt uneasy. The Starlight Megalodon continued to loom over their heads as a latent threat.

Fortunately, as several hours went by, their fears subsided as nothing happened. The explosion evidently fell within the battleship’s tolerance range.

It wasn’t wise to test the Starlight Megalodon on this matter. Hopefully, their next encounter with the natives wouldn’t be so fraught as what happened today.

With the alert level lowering down from red to yellow, the Vandals and Swordmaidens stopped holing up in their bunkers and shelters and began to pick up their duties again. Ves yearned to see Qilanxo up close but he had no reason to do so. Mech designers like Ves wouldn’t be able to help in any of the duties. He’d only be in other people’s way.

As some of the exobiologists already started treating some of the surface wounds of the unconscious sacred god, others started beginning their preliminary studies on the remains of the four dead sacred gods.

The engineers even approached one of the god crystals and began to take a large amount of scans.

A lot of work needed to be done to process their spoils of war. The researchers among the Vandals long dreamt of obtaining the corpses and the sole surviving sacred god. While the explosion caused a lot of damage, there was still more than enough left intact to perform extensive studies.

Everyone wanted to see what made the sacred gods tick! What distinguished them from the wild gods? How were they able to manipulate the god crystals while Chief Dakkon couldn’t even get his own specimen to glow?

All of these puzzles might soon be answered, especially with the help of Qilanxo, whose breath grew a little more even now that the exobiologists had begun to treat her wounds and sedate her with a potent substance.

As Ves returned to the mech workshop to prepare for the inevitable raft of repairs as some of the mechs had been affected by the shockwave, Ketis also entered and plopped her armored form onto an available seat.

"I wanted to go off and see the beasts up close, but they wouldn’t let me!"

Ves chuckled. "If they let every random Vandal or Swordmaiden up close, there would be no one left to man the camp. Besides, you’ll get your chance soon enough."

"How so?" She frowned. A mech designer had nothing to do with a living beast.

"If my guess is right, they’ll eventually want to put someone onto Qilanxo’s back, if she will let us. That will be my time to shine."