The Mech Touch

Chapter 6106  Attribute Advantage

It was rather obvious now that Joshua observed them for a second time. The Emperor Tree not only produced a lot of new purple mechs, but also went back and upgraded the older ones somehow.

"The purple mechs are no longer tethered to the main trunk. They have gained much more freedom of movement!"

The older purple wooden mechs used to function as direct extensions of the Emperor Tree. The flexible branches attached to their backs constantly channeled a lot of tree sap and wood energy into the elite constructs.

The existence of the tethers used to serve as a major boost but also a strong constraint to the purple mechs. Now that the powerful constructs gained the ability to move on an unrestricted basis, the three expert pilots wondered whether they still remained as strong as before.

"It's impossible for the purple wooden mechs to remain as tough as before." Joshua claimed. "They just can't. All of that power has to come from somewhere. I don't believe the Emperor Tree managed to develop a superpowerful organic power cell that can allow these wooden bastards to regenerate their entire bodies in an instant." Nôv(el)B\\jnn

In order to put that to the test, the Everchanger raised his Vitalus rifle and fired a resonance-empowered fire beam at the leading purple wooden mech.

The wooden construct that should have suffered a nasty hit before catching fire actually managed to resist the attack!

"What?! That… that's an energy shield! It's an energy shield composed of wood energy!"

Joshua could feel the wood energy condensing into a strangely functional energy shield just before his expert mech opened fire.

Despite the obvious attribute relationship, the wood energy shield actually managed to do a good job at blocking the attack!

However, the wood energy shield subsequently winked out, indicating that its capacity was not a big deal.

The Everchanger fired another shot with his rifle. The subsequent fire beam finally burned a hole in the purple wooden mech.

The elite wooden construct quickly concentrated a lot of wood energy. The flames quickly died down while the wood already started to regenerate.

"It's regenerating faster than before." Venerable Joshua observed. "However, its energy reserves have dropped by a quarter. It won't be able to keep this up forever."

It would be much easier to take all of these powerful enemies down if that was the case!

The reason why Venerable Joshua and the Everchanger got stalled last time was because the purple wooden mechs regenerated far too quickly. It was impossible to accumulate damage back then as the direct tethers to the powerful Emperor Tree constantly fed them with sap and wood energy!

Now that those conditions did not exist anymore, Venerable Joshua grinned as he looked forward to taking revenge on these resilient but ultimately fallible wooden constructs.

"Let's kick their wooden butts!"

Venerable Joshua eagerly wanted to take revenge on these annoyingly resilient enemies. If they hadn't entangled his expert mech during the last fight, Taon or Lanie might not have been able to survive long enough to get exiled!

"You are the first of many!"

Yet before the Everchanger could finish off his first opponent, a surprising development occurred.

The Emperor Tree began to shine the same bright light onto the purple wooden mechs!

The expert pilots became surprised when they saw that the damaged purple construct recovered at a much faster rate than before!

What was even more remarkable was that it expended way more wood energy than it held in reserve.

"Where is the purple bastard getting its energy from?!" Venerable Joshua demanded. "Wait, is it because of the light?!"

"I think you are correct, Joshua." Dise spoke with a serious expression on her face. "The Emperor Tree has unveiled another trick. I think I know why the purple wooden mechs no longer carry tethers around their backs."

The Emperor Tree managed to climb up the tech tree and discovered a way to perform wireless energy transmissions!

Although the calamity plant's attempts to flood the purple wooden mech with more focused streams of wood energy was incredibly wasteful and inefficient, the Emperor Tree could easily afford the consumption!

As the Everchanger continued to launch fire beam after fire beam, the fire energy attached to the resonance-empowered laser beams only made limited progress in burning down the purple wooden mech.

The target was pretty resilient on its own, but now that it was bathed in the light of the Emperor Tree, its regeneration properties had skyrocketed!

The Everchanger's outdated high-end luminar crystal rifle did not have the power to inflict more damage than the purple wooden mech was able to regenerate.

In other words, attacking the purple wooden mech was like trying to attack the Emperor Tree directly. Any damage to the target instantly disappeared just seconds later!

"Isobel, help!"

"On it, Joshua."

The Promethea's Ignitron rifle was not that much newer than the Vitalus rifle, but the differences were still considerable.

The latter was smaller and more compact in order to make it easier to wield with a single arm. Its size limited its power. This was fairly common to the hero mech archetype.

The former was the primary and pretty much the only armament of the Promethea, so it had to be strong enough to carry an entire battle if necessary. It was larger, more powerful and more feature-rich than ordinary energy rifles.

When utilized by an expert mech specialized for ranged combat, the Ignitron rifle was able to output a lot more firepower by herself.

However, what truly made the Ignitron shine was when it was used by its intended pilot!

As a high-tier expert pilot, Venerable Isobel was able to generate strong enough true resonance to massively empower the purple fire beams!

While the energy beams fired by the Everchanger resembled thick needles that were controlled and contained, the energy beams fired by the Promethea appeared like thick fiery purple glowing rods!

The rods only existed for an instant, but as soon as they struck their targets, mayhem ensued!

The low-capacity but high-recovery wood energy shield collapsed in an instant.

No, collapse was not the right word to describe what had happened.

The energy shield actually burst into flames!

The wood energy that protected the target couldn't withstand the powerful heat and caught fire as if it was nothing but tinder!

Upon striking the exterior of the mech itself, the purple wooden mech demonstrated the resilience of its reinforced wooden frame by not instantly getting cored or vaporized.

However, the Promethea's single shot was so powerful that half of the torso was already destroyed!

This was not the extent of the Promethea's lethality. As every Larkinson knew, Venerable Isobel inflicted the most damage after she had fired her shot.

The flames transferred by the energy beam did not get doused by the abundance of wood energy that tried to stifle the danger.

Instead of making the situation better for the purple wooden mech, the huge infusion of wood energy instead made everything worse!

Under normal circumstances, it should have taken a bit more time for the purple flames to take root and spread throughout the entire wooden construct.

Yet now that the Emperor Tree had been generous enough to donate a lot of intangible 'tinder'. The resonance-empowered flames eagerly devoured all of the extraordinary propellant and surrounded the purple wooden mech in a blazing bonfire!

The wooden construct released a strange noise that must have been its death cry before collapsing into ash.

"..."

"..."

The entire demonstration of might rendered Venerable Dise and Venerable Joshua speechless.

Neither the First Sword nor the Everchanger could deal with these infinitely regenerating wooden constructs with the same degree of ease.

Whereas either expert mech needed to launch repeated attacks in the hopes of reluctantly overcoming their target's insanely strong regeneration properties, the Promethea only needed to fire a single shot to produce the same outcome!

Life wasn't fair!

"This is fun…" Venerable Isobel gradually began to grin as she saw her opponents in a new light.

The descriptions she heard about the purple wooden mechs had caused her to vastly overestimate the threat they posed against her expert mech.

Perhaps they were indeed difficult to deal with for other Larkinson mechs, but it was different for the Promethea!

In Venerable Isobel's eyes, the purple wooden mechs had turned from organic bulwarks into moving forms of tinder.

It only took a single spark to light them all ablaze!

The Promethea's resonance shield began to glow brighter as Isobel grew more and more excited.

She had come to the right place.

This mission was different from all of the other ones.

The Larkinsons no longer wanted her to hold back her destructive flames anymore.

Instead, they wanted her to go all-out and burn as much wood as possible.

If possible, the Larkinsons wanted her to set the entire Emperor Tree ablaze!

Though Venerable Isobel was not certain whether she possessed the raw power necessary to light up the entire calamity plant, she definitely possessed the firepower to deal with these smaller but still formidable purple wooden mechs!

"Joshua."

"Yes, Isobel?"

"Don't bother with shooting. Let me take care of that. If you want to help, then make sure that nothing gets close to my Promethea."

"Will do…"

With that out of the way, Venerable Isobel took a deep breath before she began to grin.

"Let's start a wildfire!"

The Promethea exploded into action!

It continued to fly away from the pursuing purple wooden mechs while tilting its frame sideways so that it could point its Ignitron rifle at a backwards angle.

The weapon did not pause to take aim, but began to fire a barrage of medium-powered purple fire beams at half a dozen targets.

Every single purple fire beam struck a wooden construct each!

The elite purple wooden mechs failed to withstand these single blows. The abundance of wood energy could not overcome the attribute restraint and the empowerment of Venerable Isobel's true resonance.

As long as the disparity in power was not too lopsided in favor of the Emperor Tree, none of the purple wooden mechs could resist the Promethea's firepower!

Just as Isobel expected, 6 purple wooden mechs went down with ease. The flames proved too much for the Emperor Tree's creations!

Even the wood energy transmission from the calamity plant was unable to reverse this outcome.

The purple wooden mechs actually burned down faster due to the injection of flammable energy!

Venerable Joshua had read theories about how specific E energy attributes were able to restrain each other, but he had never witnessed such an exaggerated effect.

The power of the Emperor Tree was obvious to everyone!

It was only after confronting Venerable Isobel and the Promethea that the murderous tree finally met its match.

The Promethea did not pause for long. She charged her rifle before outputting a sustained staccato of purple fire beams that struck one elite wooden construct after another.

Venerable Isobel already determined that her Ignitron rifle expended too much power in the previous barrage of shots.

She consciously dialed down the power setting so that the primary armament of the Promethea was able to fire a continuous stream of low-powered energy beams.

Although the intensity of every single shot had dropped, the firepower was still enough to burn through the defenses of the target and leave purple flames behind.

This was enough!

As long as the Promethea was able to transfer a large and strong enough flame onto the wooden exterior of the enemy constructs, they would all get burned down after a short delay!

There were no exceptions!

Venerable Isobel's grin grew increasingly wider as she started to have fun on the battlefield!

"Yes! This is what I sought! Burn! Burn it all down!"

Only a single minute passed, but the Promethea already managed to turn a hundred purple wooden mechs into short-lived torches!