The Mech Touch

was rather bad for him.
He turned to the sides and looked at the projections with a magnified view of the mechs.
”There ’s a fifty percent chance that the power reactor or the cockpit has suffered a breach. ”

If the former had happened, then the New Sentinel was finished.
Luckily, it didn ’t appear his frankenstein mech had reached that point.
The axes stopped short of dealing direct damage to the power reactor!

”Since the mech is still moving, then the damage to the cockpit isn ’t fatal to Captain Orfan! ”

Good! This meant that even if the New Sentinel suffered severe damage, it still possessed enough energy to fight!

Though Ves had not paid too much attention to improving his mech ’s internals, he nonetheless carried over many improvements in this area.
He figured if the armor of the New Sentinel wasn ’t that good, he should at least strengthen the internals so that any breaches would not drag the entire mech down.

Considering that Ves faced a melee mech, he focused primarily on enhancing the New Sentinel ’s redundancy.
This basically meant that if the mech suffered a crippling blow, it would still be able to retain some of its functions through other means.

This was also why he felt confident that Captain Orfan could still win the match.
”With all the redundancies I ’ve introduced, the power reactor should still be able to function at a diminished capacity.

The only variable that concerned Ves was whether Avid Serpent possessed the same opportunity! Though the Rogue Breaker looked as if it had seen better days, Ves feared that the spear had not inflicted enough damage.
It depended a lot on what components the spear had actually damaged.
Did the weapon pierce something important, or did it strike something of less value such as heatsinks?

A strange minute passed as both mechs fumbled against each other.
Neither mech was able to exert a lot of power.
Both had suffered serious damage that affected their motor capacities.
The New Sentinel wasn ’t able to push off the frame of the opponent ’s mech, while the Rogue Breaker couldn ’t even lift up its axes.

”Punch! ”

The two mechs eventually resorted to wrestling with each other.
In this, both sides possessed distinctive advantages.
The Rogue Breaker still possessed two working arms, while the New Sentinel only had to make do with one.
The upside was that the latter mech ’s arm retained a lot more strength!

”Keep punching, captain! ”

With no weapon in hand, the New Sentinel had no choice but to bare its fists against its adversary.
The mech kept punching against the axeman mech ’s torso.
The continuous punches aggravated the condition of the mech as the energy transferred by the punches messed up its internals.
Though the damage done by each punch was slight, the longer it went on, the greater the chance of a critical fault!

The Rogue Breaker attempted to counterattack, but its limbs had turned especially feeble! Ves looked closely and determined that while its power reactor still functioned properly, its transfer of motive power had been cut by at least eighty to ninety percent!

This meant that the axeman mech could barely summon the power to lift its own arms!

The entire crowd displayed a mix of responses to this turn of events.
Many found it disappointing that such a heated match ended in such an exceptionally low note.
Others still held out hope that Avid Serpent could stage a comeback.

Alas, the spear impaled through the Rogue Breaker ’s frame happened to cut through a critical junction to its engine! While Crete had been prudent enough to implement redundancies, the spare junction happened to be situated in the same line!

One junction at the front and another one at the rear.
Ordinary battle damage would never penetrate from one end of the mech to the other end of the mech.

In truth, Gabriel Crete focused upon elevating the performance of the Rogue Breaker.
He spent insufficient attention on increasing its redundancies!

Both mech designers had chosen different paths, and Ves appeared to have chosen wisely!

After a few minutes of punching and fiddling, the New Sentinel finally managed to pry open a gap in the torso armor of the other mech.
Once it opened up this vulnerability, the spearman mech gleefully reached out with its fingers towards the axeman mech ’s cockpit!

It was too bad that both mechs seemed to have lost their speaker functionality.
Otherwise, they might have been able to hear Avid Serpent ’s last words.

”Kill her! ”

”Vesia will never forget this! ”

”Stop! You don ’t have to kill her! ”

The New Sentinel ’s finger finally breached the cover of the cockpit.
With as much power as Captain Orfan could direct, the New Sentinel firmly pressed within the cockpit like finger pressing down an insect hiding within a hole!

When the finger drew back, a smattering of blood marked its surface.

The announcer suddenly came to life again.
”Our sensors show no life signs within Avid Serpent ’s mech.
The outcome is clear! The winner of this honor duel is Captain Rosa Orfan of the 6th Flagrant Vandals! ”

The entire crowd went wild with glee or despair.
A lot of people had bet their money on Avid Serpent, but even more bet on Captain Orfan! After all, one mech pilot was in the dark while the other was a strong captain from a military mech regiment!

Still, a lot of people rooted for Avid Serpent, including almost every Vesian in the crowd.
Their faces appeared sullen as Avid Serpent ’s loss not only implicated her honor.
It would have been acceptable if she suffered from her own consequences.
The problem was that she dragged down the dignity of the Vesia Kingdom upon her fall!

After displaying so much strength near the end of the match, how could she lose so ignobly at the very end? Every Vesian felt angry and ashamed.
As much as they wanted to roar against the unfairness of it all, the fact of the matter was that they lost!