The Mech Touch

The only star system that boasted a comparable amount of traffic was Maryun Ultima.

Both transit systems were located hundreds of thousands of light-years away from each other.

Yet what the two had in common was that each of them hosted a greater beyonder gate!

Larger and far more powerful than the lesser beyonder gates that revolutionized space travel in established human space, the greater beyonder gates were the only known means of providing quick and easy transit from the Milky Way to the Red Ocean and vice versa.

Many conspiracy theorists opined that the Big Two must have a second or maybe even a third greater beyonder gate.

The MTA and CFA supposedly kept these gates in reserve in case the main ones malfunctioned.

They mechers and the fleeters may have also used these secret gates to transfer way more military assets to the Red Ocean than was apparent to the public.

In any case, that had no bearing to the grand occasion that was unfolding at this hour.

Events such as this only happened a handful of times after the opening of the Red Ocean.

Each time much of the star system froze while directing all of the traffic to the sides, an important figure and his fleet passed through the greater beyonder gate!

The Gate Consortium that managed the beyonder gates only extended this courtesy to a select group of exceedingly powerful figures.

In the past, these figures consisted of Terran ancient clan leaders, particularly old Rubarthan princes and CFA fleet admirals and Star Designers. Yet none of these honored travelers generated as much fanfare and respect as the god pilots of humanity!

Each of them enjoyed the highest amount of regard among the people spread across human space.

They were the rockstars and the heroes of their civilization. The Age of Mechs had elevated anything related to mechs, and none attracted as much respect, envy, hope and ambition as the hundred or so god pilots that were known to the public!

The Divine that had made an unscheduled request to pass through the greater beyonder gate had actually caused a lot of inconvenience.

Usually, these sorts of trips were announced months if not years in advance.

This gave the Gate Consortium enough time to arrange the busy transit schedules and prevent any ships and fleets from suffering any unplanned delays.

It was actually quite a surprise to anyone that the god pilot in question wanted to enter the Red Ocean all of a sudden.

The Rubarthan-aligned god pilot had long been assigned to protect one of the most important borders of human space.

Core Rubarthan territories were at risk if the former dominators of the Milky Way ever decided to regain their ancestral territories.

The god pilot had always taken this duty seriously. She never issued any word of complaint about the necessity of serving as a powerful deterrent that could divert a lot of hostile alien attention away from Rubarthan space.

For her to resign from this duty without any prior warning had briefly rocked the upper echelon of the New Rubarthan Empire!

When it became apparent that the god pilot left her previous posting because she sought to travel to the Red Ocean, the Rubarthans engaged in even more gossip!

From the princes down to the military officials, many of them wondered what had induced such a drastic change in a Divine that had never shown any interest in the Red Ocean in the past.

What was so important about the new frontier to compel her to break her pattern and defy everyone's expectations?

The few Rubarthan princes and other high officials who could boast the honor of being on speaking terms with the Divine failed to obtain any answers.

The god pilot refused to offer any explanations.

Who could possibly inquire any further?

As powerful as they might be within their principalities and the greater empire, not even the direct descendants of the Star Emperor himself dared to force an answer out of a living human god!

There were only three kinds of people that could make the god pilot explain herself.

First, another god pilot.

Second, a Star Designer.

Third, the ruler of the New Rubarth Empire.

lit was a pity that none of them showed enough interest to inquire about the willful god pilot's motives and travel plans.

As such, everyone in her path scrambled to adjust their own plans!

This was the norm when it came to any god pilot.

Everyone treated them as literal gods. Even the secularists who prayed to no higher being were willing to make an exception if they ever came across the apex of a human transcendent warrior!

Even if their appearances remained human, no one dared to make god pilots wait in line!

As soon as the entirety of Bridgehead One quickly prepared for the imminent arrival of one of human civilization's greatest protectors, the gigantic portal began to surge.

Power flowed through the kilometers-wide ring. Space between the portal structure began to warp and swirl until a wormhole briefly took shape! Ordinarily, it would not take long for a starship or a warship to pass through the gate.

This was different.

The greater beyonder gate began to channel even more power through its structure than normal!

This was an exceptional circumstance and one that troubled the Gate Consortium a lot.

The amount of effort the beyonder gates needed to exert in order to send a vessel from one destination to another varied depending on the mass-energy cost.

This was a unit of measurement that expressed the overall amount of mass or energy that was contained in a ship.

A third-class sub-capital ship for example did not contain a lot of powerful exotics and did not contain any powerful energy sources. Its mass-energy cost was so low that a beyonder gate could easily transfer them to another connected gate without any fuss.

A first-class capital ship was a different story. Not only was her hull built with lots of dense and highly energetic first-class exotics, but she was also constantly supported by dozens of city-scale power generators!

It was not for nothing that a first-class ticket to pass through the beyonder gates was exponentially more expensive than a second-class and third-class ticket.

What caused the gate to struggle so much this time was not as trivial as a first-class capital ship.

No, the entity that sought to leave the Milky Way behind and enter the Red Ocean was even greater than one of humanity's strongest star-faring vessels!

"She is coming!"

"The aliens in our dwarf galaxy are in trouble now. The stalemate at the frontlines will never be able to persist now that we have brought her over to our side!"

The greater beyonder gate seemed to groan even though space did not transmit any sound!

After another great exertion, the gate finally spat out the object that it had struggled to receive from the Milky Way!

Compared to a first-class CFA battleship, the new arrival was nowhere near as physically imposing.

In fact, it was the opposite. The construct that had arrived was so physically tiny that many sensor systems had to zoom in to gain a proper look!

It turned out that the greater beyonder gate put in so much effort just to complete the transit of a single god mech!

Only a small proportion of people understood why the mass-energy cost of a god mech was so exaggeratingly high.

It was not just because of the insanely powerful engineering of the god mech.

As luxurious as the materials and as powerful as its energy sources may be, it was still unrealistic for such a relatively tiny mechanical war asset to generate more power than an entire CFA battleship.

The real reason why this had turned into such a rare sight was because of the god pilot that was permanently fused with the god mech!

The struggling beyonder gates pretty much proved to every human that god pilots were mighty beyond comparison.

Not even the most honored Star Designers could make the beyonder gates exert their capabilities to such an exaggerated extent!

"A new god has arrived." An observer reverently spoke.

Many people in the star system spontaneously fell onto their knees.

They did so not just because they looked up the identity of the new arrival, but also because they could feel her power even if they were several light-minutes or light-hours away!

There was no one in the Bridgehead One System that could miss her arrival!

Nobody knew the precise ranges of the domains of a god pilot.

Yet even if they were fairly small, each god pilot was still able to make his or her presence felt in any given star system!

The ones who were positioned relatively closely to the new arrival experienced more from her than other people.

Visions of endless explosions dominated their imagination.

These visions became more pronounced as the affected individuals gazed at the god mech that had settled into the Red Ocean and began to fly forward under its own power.

"The Ragnarök!"

The god mech that was said to be capable of triggering the Twilight of the Gods had finally entered a dwarf galaxy that was populated by many alien 'gods'!

As the large rust-red mech with no obvious cannon barrels continued to zip forward through space at speeds that could not be matched by any mech equipped with a minidrive, the god mech abruptly stopped in front of a single fleet carrier.

This was the only ship that dared to park closer to the center space lane than the other vessels in the star system.

Her markings and colors immediately revealed her Rubarthan origins.

The fleet carrier was not just a Rubarthan military vessel, but also happened to be the flagship of Prince Antonius, otherwise known as the Inferno Spear Prince!

The 2016th prince of the New Rubarth Empire happened to be one of the few princes that was not only on speaking terms with the newly-arrived god pilot, but also happened to be her friend!

The reason why the Inferno Spear Prince could develop a closer relationship with a powerful Divine quickly became evident when he deployed into space in person!

A hot ace spearman mech launched from the hangar bay of the Rubarthan fleet carrier and quickly closed in on the silent god mech.

It was not until the ace mech approached the much more powerful machine that it began to reduce its speed.

The Inferno Spear Prince enjoyed extremely high regard and could command the respect of virtually everyone under ordinary circumstances.

This was not just because he was the prince to the most powerful empire in human space.

He also happened to be a senior ace pilot, one that was already qualified to commence the fraught and perilous Mech Body Merger Process!

Unlike Divine Irene Mox who boldly started this process as soon as she could do so, the Inferno Spear Prince was completely different!

When he was on the cusp of taking this important step, he hesitated.

He became haunted by his fears.

He feared meeting his own end when he had yet to complete most of his great ambitions.

He feared losing his own life when his lifespan could easily allow him to persist for several centuries more.

He feared the possibility of abandoning his principality and the enormous power base he had amassed over the course of his life.

In the end, his resolve to brave the many dangers of the Mech Body Merger Process had faltered in front of his many fears.

Though the Inferno Spear Prince could technically start the process at any other time, he knew for a fact that he would fail and die without any doubt.

So long as he became weighed down by his own fears, he would never possess the strength of will that was necessary to sustain his entire life going forward!

This failure not only served as the powerful Rubarthan prince's regret, but also caused him to look up to the god pilots who succeeded in conquering their own fears with genuine respect and admiration!

Prince Antonius adopted an uncharacteristically humble posture when his ace mech finally stopped in front of the Ragnarök.

The former even 'knelt' in front of the latter!

"Your... Your Holiness Irene Mox. On behalf of the Rubarthan Pact and the New Rubarthan Empire, I welcome you to the Red Ocean." The prince spoke up in his cockpit.

There was no need for his ace mech to open up a communication channel when it had already entered deep into a God Kingdom!

"SPEAK." A powerful female voice echoed between the prince's ears!

"I have been requested to ask about your intentions. Why have you decided to come to the new frontier? Will you participate in the upcoming joint offensive against the indigenous aliens of this dwarf galaxy?"

The Destroyer of Worlds took no notice of the second question. She only briefly spent her time answering the first one.

I CAME... BECAUSE THE CAT HAS MADE THE WRONG DECISION

That caused the Inferno Spear Prince to grow confused.

"My... pardon, Your Holiness?"

Divine Irene Mox had already decided to move on, though.

The Ragnarök began to light up as the god pilot exerted a fraction of her god-like might!

The space in front of the god mech began to shimmer and light up as a new star seemed to emerge!

This enormous star was so large and powerful that it effortlessly shoved the Inferno Spear's ace mech as well as his top-specced first-class fleet carrier aside!

The ace mech and the fleet carrier could not muster up any resistance to their forced displacement!

In fact, even if they had the power to do so, the Inferno Spear Prince and the crew of the Rubarthan vessel would never dare to resist the will of a god pilot!

The mere sight of the enormous explosive cat was enough to make all of the nearby humans aside from Prince Antonius lose their minds!

This energy cat of enormous proportions not only amplified the God Kingdom around the Ragnarök even further, but also gave everyone the illusion that she was about to destroy the fabric of space and time itself!

As Emma managed to enrapture the near-total population of humans in Bridgehead One, the god cat opened her gigantic maw and filled everyone's ears with a singularly mighty roar that radiated for many light-years!

MIIIIIIIEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!