The Mech Touch novel Chapter 7538

Chapter 7538: Last Defiance Manual

The proposal centered around the Soulcutter Thesis sounded very compelling.

Ves had little doubt that it was the simplest and most direct plan that the four would come up with today.

Being simple and direct were not necessary problems, but Ketis’ proposal contained a number of very glaring vulnerabilities.

That made them hesitant to embrace it out of the blue. They still needed to weigh the other proposals before they could form a consensus.

"So who wants to go next?" Ves asked.

"I am ready to present my plan." Alexa Streon said as she stepped up and began to project a very familiar mech design.

The projection displayed a rather generic Woodsap mech.

The biomech did not show anything special at first, but when Alexa gestured with her hand, it suddenly gained a few additional branches.

These branches all happened to grow a couple of large and succulent fruits.

Ves and the other two mech designers grew befuddled.

Why did Alexa propose to turn a Woodsap mech into a literal fruit-bearing tree?"

"What... are we looking at, exactly?" Ves tentatively asked.

The youngest mech designer smiled back at him. "I can understand your confusion. To be honest, I only recently drafted this proposal right after we completed the edible mech design. I became inspired by the idea of designing a mech that is designed from the ground up to be eaten by humans. What if we weaponized this property? Food can serve as a weapon as well as sustenance. It all depends on its composition. I took inspiration from nature and devised a plan to develop a biomech or rather its edible components that especially attracts the deathborn. Hence the fruit. The goal is to lure these beings into eating the fruits, thereby absorbing the seeds hidden within."

Ves started to look thoughtful. He already had an idea where this plan was going.

"Go on, Alexa."

The projection began to display a very crude simulation of a deathborn approaching the odd Woodsap mech before taking a bite out of the fruit.

While the fruit was definitely a tangible object, it happened to possess a higher concentration of life energy.

This ensured that the deathborn would not be able to resist the temptation to take a bite!

The act of doing so would essentially seal its fate.

This was because absorbing the life energy from the fruit also meant absorbing whatever else that Alexa had hidden inside the same fruit!

The projection visualized this dangerous seed as a small red star. It did not glow brightly at first, but once it entered the ’body’ of a deathborn, it began to take root and germinate.

Somehow, the red seed transformed into a parasite that absorbed the energy that made up the deathborn!

Not only did it concentrate much of the life energy that the deathborn had originally absorbed, it also began to expand on it through a mysterious method!

By the time the dim red star turned into a small glowing sun, the deathborn had been practically drained dry.

This was not the end of the story.

Other nearby deathborn became attracted by the concentration of life energy and could not resist the urge to prey on their weakened kin!

They overcame their instinct to avoid attacking their own species and ruthlessly bit into the infected deathborn from all sides!

At the end of this little frenzy, 6 more deathborn managed to have their fill!

Yet even as they began to digest the life energies that they had just absorbed, they did not realize that their previous meal also caused them to swallow a portion of that red sun.

Even though they had only swallowed a fraction of this parasitical construct, that was enough for it to take root and begin the same process all over again!

As the projection continued to run the simulation, the sequence quickly unfolded into a chain reaction.

It began with a single deathborn.

Half a minute later, the infection spread to 6 deathborn.

Then 36.

Then 216.

Then 1.296.

Then 7.776.

Then 46.656.

Then 279.936.

Then 1.679.616.

Then 10.077.696.

Then 60.466.176.

"This is... an extreme choice." Gloriana slowly said as she finally recalled that she had once glimpsed this eye-catching fruit. "That must be why I dismissed it early on. I never imagined that you would find a means to exploit it in such a creative manner. Bravo, Alexa. Your proposal has a good chance of succeeding if we cleverly leverage the knowledge contained within this red fruit."

She genuinely sounded impressed!

Alexa Streon had outdone herself in this regard. Her proposal not only promised to eliminate all of the deathborn in an entire occupied star system with relatively limited effort, but it would do so with the help of an enlightenment fruit that contained a technique that was originally created to help its practitioners!

Ves and Ketis looked impressed as well. It might not match their own ideas on how to solve the current crisis, but it was definitely neat and elegant!

"I haven’t taken much interest in this enlightenment fruit for the same reason as my wife, but now that I look at it further, I think that I have overlooked how much value we can derive from its knowledge." He said as he began to look thoughtful. "One of the shortcomings of my Woodsap mechs is that their offensive power is relatively mediocre. That makes sense as I primarily designed them to endure heavy punishment and outlast the opposition. However, there are many cases where staying on the defensive is not a solution. Perhaps the mech unit is short on time, or perhaps they need to breach an enemy stronghold. In both cases, my Woodsap mechs have no good way to proceed, because they are both slow and weak in offense. However, as long as they can quickly convert their large reserves of life energy into more volatile forms of power..."

This would trigger a complete transformation in the role and positioning of his Woodsap mechs!

In exchange for voiding their ability to engage in long, drawn-out attrition battles, his supercharged Woodsap mechs temporarily gained so much strength that they could quickly smash apart opposition that was at least twice or thrice as strong!

Sure, performing the Last Defiance Technique would definitely drain much of the life energies and the ’essence’ of his precious Woodsap mechs, but Ves did not take these drawbacks so seriously.

He had deliberately designed the biomechs of the Arboreal Project to endure the most grievous injuries, yet quickly restore themselves back to optimal condition so long as they gained external replenishment.

He and his Terran collaborators had both utilized their best methods and design applications to make the Woodsap mechs as recoverable as possible.

In more concrete terms, this meant that no matter how much damage their biophysical construction and their spiritual foundations incurred, their natural strengths and inclinations ensured that both could make perfect recoveries under adequate conditions!

This happened to make his Woodsap mechs particularly ideal ’practioners’ for the so-called Last Defiance Technique!

Ves began to grin wider at the thought of adding this explosive function to his latest work.

Those 350 Ascension Points would pay off in a much bigger way than he had initially thought when he first read the description of this enlightenment fruit!

The fact that he could visualize such a powerful application meant that the Last Defiance Technique was arguably even more useful after they solved the immediate crisis!

He also did not overlook the fact that once Ves ingested this hot and spicy pepper fruit, he would gain an immediate mastery over this technique, allowing the Dark Apostle to utilize it himself during critical moments on the battlefield!

In fact, rather than using it himself, he felt it would be much more welcome among the other Ascended Giants!

Their huge and ridiculously strong true bodies granted them much stronger physical foundations than virtually all other typical qi cultivators and body cultivators.

Their incredibly deep reserves of flesh granted them a luxurious buffer, allowing them to overdraw their strength for a long time without suffering much if any permanent ailments!

The only point of concern was their relatively weak minds and spirits. If they could not maintain a grip on their mentalities, the rush of power might easily cause them to go berserk, thereby causing them to wring themselves dry, much like the deathborn in Alexa’s proposal!