The Mech Touch

The humans and alien craft that got caught in the spell array found themselves in a very different space than before.

Somehow, the E energy radiation around them exhibited completely different behavior. Instead of flowing passively from Messier 87 to outward directions, it had instead begun to form into complicated loops that caused them to change the surrounding space and produce all kinds of unclear effects.

While the humans had been warned in advance of what they should expect, the aliens enjoyed no such luxury.

The pilots initially became confused by how they ended up in a space filled with mist. While the density of this strange and insubstantial fog was not as severe inside the spell array, it reduced the range and effectiveness of all of their sensors.

Of more concern was the total cutoff of communications with the alien units located outside of this strange area.

When the phasefighters attempted to fly away in order to escape the confusing mist, they found that they weren't actually getting away!

Their sensors and positioning systems started to make all kinds of illogical observations. Despite traveling in somewhat straight trajectories, the craft somehow ended up looping around so that they passed by the same asteroids as before!

This was impossible!

Had a phase lord arrived and contorted this area of space into a closed loop? That shouldn't be possible given that no obvious spatial activity had occurred. The aliens were highly familiar with this series of phenomena and would have known if they were being affected by the power of a native god.

The humans must have employed a powerful trick. That quickly became the consensus among the alien fighter pilots.

The puelmer fighter pilots of the sole combination gunship that got pulled into the strange space gathered the most data and conducted a rapid analysis.

They were the first aliens to conclude that if they wanted to break out of this human trap, they should open fire at their surroundings and attempt to overwhelm the effect that trapped them in the same volume of space!

It was best if they concentrated their attacks in a single direction of coordinate so that they could quickly overwhelm whatever invisible barrier kept them contained!

Although the theories formed by the puelmer fighter pilots were not completely correct, their solution happened to be the second-best choice they could make!

If they had a cultivator at their disposal that was good in observing and identifying the key nodes or weak points of the active spell array, then they should be able to cause enough disruptions at critical junctions to produce a cascade of failures, thereby unraveling the entire spell array with minimal effort!

However, the native aliens shouldn't have brought such an expert along. The best they could do was to rely on brute force and fire lots of hyper weapons to disturb the flow of E energy radiation.

This process took a lot longer and wasted a lot more resources, but it would still be effective in this case due to the rudimentary quality and properties of the spell array!

It couldn't be helped. The Red Collective had only begun to develop spell arrays relatively recently. None of its formation masters were any better than apprentices in their new and unfathomable craft.

In fact, it was not as if Melkor could make use of stronger spell arrays anyway. The entire point of deploying the confinement spell array was to conduct a ritual that would allow him to become a proper combat spell array master.

With that in mind, Melkor had to do two things at the same time.

He had to devote a significant portion of his concentration to verbally repeating a mantra while constructing a specific artistic conception in his mind.

The legion commander also had to actively control the active spell array.

The experience was rather weird and disorientating, but not as much as he expected.

If he had to describe it, his control over the spell array was probably similar to that of piloting a Carmine mech, though he had never done that in person.

The descriptions vaguely matched. With that in mind, Melkor quickly tried to leverage his decades long experience as a mech pilot to get past the novelty and try to operate the spell array as quickly as possible.

He was beginning to make progress. He found that he could obtain a vague panoramic view of the three-dimension space that encompassed the confinement array.

He then found out that he could perform basic operations, such as reinforcing the containment barrier in a specific direction so that it could resist more violent and disruptive attacks.

What he found more useful was the ability to increase the density of the disorienting fog. This decreased the detection range of the enemy phasefighters even further, causing them to miss the mechs that were not all that far away from their positions.

"This confinement array is a lot more useful than I thought."

The ability to blind the perception of the enemy to this extent was quite powerful, though he knew it wouldn't work against more powerful entities that possessed proper defenses against these kinds of effects.

The native aliens did not fall into that category. The advanced tech installed on the puelmer phasefighters might be great at detecting enemies in conventional space, but they were not equipped to counter an effect that the ball-shaped aliens had never encountered in the past!

Melkor found that he could do more with the array, but he lacked the proficiency, knowledge and cultivation to be able to make use of them at this time.

For example, if he was better able to master the operation of the array, he could selectively kick a friendly or hostile unit out of the spell array.
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He could also allow for friendlies to pass by unobstructed while leaving any designated enemies trapped in the same space!

However, Melkor was still far from reaching that point. He also needed to get his hands on a more powerful and advanced spell array to be able to do a lot of nifty stuff such as isolating every enemy phasefighter in their own isolated cages so that they could be defeated in sequence.

All in all, the world of qi formations had a lot of potential. While Melkor believed that the native aliens would eventually wise up and develop their own countermeasures against them, red humanity should always remain several steps ahead!

Instead of fantasizing about how he would be able to manipulate the battlefield once he became a stronger combat spell array master, Melkor needed to focus on his current priorities.

He largely disregarded what was taking place outside of the spell array and focused on continuing the ritual while directing the mechs inside to attack the confused phasefighters.

While he was straining to exert more control over the spell array, he suddenly thought about using his companion spirit to enhance his connection.

The Jonas exited his head and entered the formation control artifact.

The idea actually worked!

As an energy-based lifeform, the feline companion spirit was able to interface with the active spell array much easier!

Melkor found that Jonas was able to exert a bit more control over the spell array due to his inherent advantages.

It was like Melkor was struggling to see in the dark, only for a cat to be able to look at his surroundings as if he was in daylight!

The legion commander took advantage of this convenience and began to direct the trapped Avatar and Swordmaiden mechs to attack the phasefighters.

At this time, the spell array was already beginning to expose a few faults. The sustained attacks from all of the trapped phasefighters as well as the combination gunship was already enough to strain the defenses of a warship!

A spell array wouldn't be able to fare much better. It was only due to its unconventional nature and properties that its containment was not fully susceptible to material attacks.

This was why the mechs couldn't arrive too soon. When the powerful melee mechs came close enough for the aliens to detect their approach, it was already too late for the targeted craft to evade!

The mechs did not attempt to attack all of the enemy phasefighters at once.

Instead, they grouped up and charged at only a fraction of the enemy craft at a time. By ganging up on their chosen targets, the defenses of the latter quickly succumbed due to a combination of powerful transphasic attacks as well as the effect of multiple overlapping space suppression fields.

The cannon fodder phasefighters did not last more than a few seconds. Once their azure energy shields popped, their metallic frames quickly got torn to pieces!

"Get out!"

The mechs did not turn their weapons against the other phasefighters, but instead turned around and disengaged!

The alien fighter pilots instinctively attempted to pursue, but the disorienting environment of the confinement array made it difficult to keep track of the fleeing mechs!

Melkor tried his best to intervene. He and Jonas tried to manipulate the internal space so that not all of the phasefighters would be able to maintain pursuit.

As a few seconds passed, a few phasefighters found themselves flying off-course. They suddenly became separated from the main elements and lost sight of the fleeing mechs as well!

As the phasefighters attempted to turn around and fly back in order to seek refuge in numbers, a contingent of Avatar mechs suddenly charged in from the flanks and overwhelmed the phasefighters!

Though the phasefighters tried to put up a good fight, the mechs held the initiative and their pilots were more than experienced enough to capitalize on this advantage!

Melkor repeated this trick multiple times. This wouldn't have worked if the veteran Avatar and Swordmaiden mech pilots hadn't been instructed on what to do in advance.

All of the prior planning and preparations paid off big time. The trapped phasefighters were beginning to lose more and more of their numbers while the Larkinson mechs managed to minimize their own losses!

This was all because of the fact that the spell array had trapped the phasefighters in an environment that was under his effective control!

"This is rather fun!"

Melkor fell in love with qi formations. If he could repeat these kinds of feats on a larger scale in the future, then he would dedicate his remaining life towards his chosen qi cultivation method and become a master at deploying and controlling these wonderful spell arrays!

"Damn, the aliens aren't taking the bait anymore!"

After repeated cycles of hit and run attacks, the Larkinson mech units found that their enemies no longer dared to pursue the annoying machines.

It was clear that doing so would only cause them to get split up and defeated in detail!

The puelmer fighter pilots most likely deduced that rather than play into the hands of their human enemies, it was better to turn their remaining guns against the spell array and break it as quickly as possible!

Melkor could not allow this to come to pass!

The ritual had made a lot of progress. He could feel that he had repeatedly jumped closer to getting started in his new qi cultivation method every time a bunch of aliens died.

"Change of plans!"

The Avatar and Swordmaiden mechs no longer tried to defeat the trapped enemy strike craft by chipping away at their numbers.

They understood the urgency of the situation and boldly committed to a full assault, causing them to charge at the phasefighters with the intent to draw their weapons away from their breaching attempt and direct their firepower elsewhere!

"It's working!"

"We're getting hammered, though! We've managed to kill plenty of phasefighters, but they still outnumber us. They also have the support of their powerful combination gunship!"

Both sides began to suffer a lot of casualties. Melkor winced whenever he sensed the death of a Larkinson mech pilot, but he persevered, knowing that this was an unavoidable aspect of warfare.

Though Melkor did not intend for this to happen, the demise of those clansmen boosted the progress of his ritual even further.

It was working its way towards completion at a much faster rate than he expected!

Before he knew it, the ritual had finally reached its apex!

"It's coming!"

The entire spell array shuddered as Melkor suddenly felt as if he was able to harmonize with it! His entire spirit sang in unison with the active qi formation!