Patriarch Reginald Cross murdered his own ace mech! Few people realized what had happened. The masses all became impressed by the visual spectacle generated by the Cross Patriarch. Though it was true that Reginald attained a breakthrough of a sort by finding out a better way to harness his Saint Kingdom, only a handful of individuals understood how much had been sacrificed to enable the ace pilot to improve his ability to channel his strength through his ace mech! "No!" Ves screamed, causing Lucky and many other officers on the bridge of his flagship to become confused. ,m "He killed it. He actually killed it. How could he do that?! The Mars is innocent!" It was one thing to kill a living mech when it was as murderous and uncontrollable as the Titan-5 Project. No one wanted to see another Uranus unleash devastation on everyone and everything. This was different, though! Patriarch Reginald undoubtedly possessed the strength to keep his Mars under complete control. There was no way for his ace mech to rebel against its own master. Though Ves did not like the fact that Reginald demeaned the personality of his own living mech and treated it like a slave, this was a better alternative than killing it outright! This was the first time that Ves witnessed a deliberate act of murder against a living mech. He was no stranger to seeing living mechs dying and losing their spiritual foundations. Mechs were war weapons that were designed to be used under dangerous circumstances. Casualties were inevitable. When mechs fell apart in reality, they often died in spirit as well. This was the nature of life and reality so Ves did not feel bothered by this process. However, what Patriarch Reginald had just done crossed a line that Ves could have never imagined that one of his customers or clients would ever do. The reason why he never accounted for this possibility was because it contradicted the core principles and ideals of his design philosophy. In his heart, he always assumed that making mechs alive and imparting them with distinct personalities enriched the user experience. His products always became better for it because they gained brand-new possibilities that enhanced their combat effectiveness. Sure, the pilots had to build up a deep and intimate bond with their living mechs in order to realize most of those benefits, but that was always better than nothing! It was this assumption and more that always made Ves blind to the idea that there were mech pilots that actually preferred if their mechs weren't alive. In contrast to Ves' utter shock and dismay, his wife exhibited the opposite reaction. Her eyes glowed brighter as her grin betrayed her total delight and jubilation. Gloriana had become ecstatic when she saw that Patriarch Reginald had taken a different turn with his Mars! Her projection directed a smug look towards him. "I told you, Ves. Not every mech pilot wants to buy into your dream of how they should treat their own mechs. There are many different personalities out there, and a large proportion of them simply aren't interested in sharing power. They have no desire for their mechs to turn into their family, their spouse, their pet or their bosom buddy. All they ask from the mech industry is a machine that obeys their exact instructions and nothing more. If you had put more effort into understanding Patriarch Reginald's personality and asking him what he truly sought in his combat machine, then you wouldn't be looking like a fish out of water at this time." At this time, the transformed Mars finally showed what it was capable of now that it had adopted its latest form! The Mars seemed to echo and resonate with Patriarch Reginald in a radically different manner than before. Previously, Reginald piloted the Mars as if he was a tiny human who was trying his best to operate a massive construct that was many times larger, heavier and more complex than his own body. With the transformation of his Saint Kingdom and the takeover of his ace mech's spiritual foundation, Reginald essentially assumed direct control over its duties and powers! In other words, Reginald was like a boss of a company who fired an incomponent employee so that he could do the job himself! Though the man was forced to handle a lot more responsibilities as a result, as an ace pilot his data processing and decision-making capabilities had reached an incredibly amazing height! Perhaps an expert pilot might have struggled under all of the load, but someone as superhuman as Patriarch Reginald easily adapted to all of the functions and options that a third order living mech used to be able to perform. Now that Reginald had achieved an unprecedented degree of control over both the tangible and intangible properties of his Mars, he felt more powerful than ever! There was no need for him to bargain with other personalities. There was no need for him to borrow power from other alien entities. There was no need for him to abide by the rules imposed by others. Patriarch Reginald sought absolute sovereignty over his mech. Now that he got what he wanted, it was time for him to vindicate his choices and show off what he could do with a Mars that completely conformed to his will! "I AM A GOD OF WAR!" Reginald boomed as his glowing red Mars unleashed a burning salvo of positron beams with its surviving energy weapon modules! Even though his opponent had trashed almost half of the ARCEUS System, what was left was more than enough to inflict a heavy blow upon the Neo Amadeus! The reason for that was because Reginald not only made his true resonance stronger after his latest epiphany, but also learned how to shape and harness it to a finer and more purposeful degree! The energy beams all glowed in red as if Reginald's fury and confidence actually caused them to burn! When these super-charged beams entered Saint Jeremiah's domain field, they largely held up and remained strong as the Fridayman ace pilot was no longer able to overpower his adversary as easily as before! When the positron beams finally struck the Neo Amadeus without error, a powerful mini-volcano of different energies erupted on the torso of the ace mech. The powerful salvo succeeded in overcoming the ace swordsman mech's spatial defenses and burned through the uppermost armor layer! "You!" Jeremiah grew alarmed as he noticed that his opponent had somehow grown considerably stronger than before. "This shouldn't be possible! Your resonance strength hasn't caught up to mine." The Gauger ace pilot couldn't explain why his willpower was unable to suppress his opponent as effectively as before, but weirder things had happened in high-level combat. Jeremiah quickly shoved aside all of the questions in his mind and focused on what he could do in response to the latest changes. "Since you still have a lot of bite left in you, I will finish the job that I have started!" No matter what indescribable breakthrough or transformation that Patriarch Reginald had undergone, it was useless as long as the Mars lost all of its weapons! A hybrid mech without any intact weapon systems was as harmless as an industrial mech as far as Saint Jeremiah was concerned! With that thought in mind, the Neo Amadeus began to leverage its domain yet again and stabbed forward with its anti-resonance sword and a thousand daggers formed out of will and resonance. "Thousand-Armed Strikes!" An attack of this magnitude could tear open a huge hole in the hull of a capital ship, but when the weapons drew close to the glowing red Mars, most of them faltered! 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎 The phantom daggers all burned and fell apart into harmless motes of energy as soon as they came into contact with humanoid-shaped Saint Kingdom surrounding the Mars. The reason why this happened was because the Mars had compacted and compressed its domain field, making it much harder for Saint Jeremiah's willpower to trespass on his opponent's territory. If Jeremiah wasn't able to press his willpower deeper into Reginald's Saint Kingdom, then the phantom daggers immediately lost the support of their creator. Reginald could easily crush them with his domineering domain! In the end, the only attacks that Jeremiah was able to push through enemy territory were the physical ones. The anti-resonance sword fared the best. It was held by one of the physical arms of the Neo Amadeus and did not weaken at all due to the weapon's unique ability to ignore and negate any form of resonance and willpower expression! Even so, the Mars easily utilized its transphasic axe to block this dangerous weapon. As for the remaining 5 physical daggers held by the energy arms of the Neo Amadeus, the power behind the attacks had weakened as the translucent limbs visibly weakened as they pushed into Reginald's Saint Kingdom. In the end, the Mars didn't even suffer a single scratch! "Weak." Reginald smirked as he became completely unimpressed by his opponent's efforts. "If this is all you can do, then you should skip all of this effort and offer your surrender." It was surprising how quickly the dynamic between the two ace mech changed after Reginald changed the way he fought! Jeremiah did not let the words of his opponent affect his rhythm. After striking with one set of arms, his Neo Amadeus struck with its other arms. Sadly, the outcome of this second massed strike was just as ineffective as before. The phantom daggers failed to penetrate Reginald's compressed domain field while the physical blades either got blocked or simply failed to penetrate the Abasis Armor. Though the armor system of the Mars had incurred a bit of damage at this point, it was built with a high amount of redundancy in mind, so its ability to restore its spatial reinforcement was almost just as strong as before! Now that it no longer received as much abuse as before, the automatic repair and restoration systems of the Abasis Armor had run their course and stabilized its condition. Average attacks launched by the Neo Amadeus were no longer capable of breaching the reinforced armor plating anymore! Saint Jeremiah quickly realized this as well and no longer tried to overpower his opponent's defenses by relying on massed blade attacks. The ace pilot dismissed the thousand phantom daggers from his Saint Kingdom. The Neo Amadeus also sheathed all of its physical daggers and dispelled its translucent arms. The ace swordsman mech was no longer a dodeca-armed mech. Jeremiah had turned it back into a regular bi-armed mech! After a second, the Neo Amadeus slowly pressed its transphasic sword back into a shield. The ace mech then began to grip its anti-resonance sword with two of its arms in a sideways grip. The aura and the demeanor of the Neo Amadeus changed as a result. It had retracted its hasty and aggressive qualities and became a lot more restrained and focused as a result. Patriarch Reginald grew more serious as he sensed a greater threat from the Neo Amadeus. Most mechs lost strength when they no longer harnessed as many weapons as before. This was always the case for hybrid mechs. Swordsman mechs were different. They only needed one good sword in order to overcome strong opponents. Right now, Reginald gained the impression that Jeremiah abandoned all of his fancy tricks and returned to his original form. The best confirmation of that was when Jeremiah's Saint Kingdom transformed to match his new mood! The domain field around the Neo Amadeus not only became sharper, but harmonized with the anti-resonance sword in a way that matched the weapon's properties! The Neo Amadeus lifted its weapon as Jeremiah became a lot more serious about this duel. "I should have shown you more respect, Reginald. I apologize for my earlier incompetence. My earlier attack method was too new and rough to defeat you and your Mars. I will be fighting with all of my might from now on. Let my sword cut a path through your domain!" The ace swordsman mech abruptly dashed forward and leveraged its attributed domain field to cut through Reginald's humanoid-shaped domain field as if it was made out of butter!