Chapter 7378: Chaos Trigger The Voice of Liberty approach to combat was unconventional compared to his peers. Instead of relying solely on devastating attacks with the weapons of his mech, he also chose to lean in on his machine’s insane potential for psychological warfare. With the help of his mood-altering guitar music, the Voice of Liberty often relied on his rhetoric and conviction to force his enemies into submission or surrender! In his opinion, a proper victory did not consist of beating down his enemies with the crudest and most destructive weapons. Saint Morgenstern only believed in a victory where he managed to convince his enemies into accepting his ideals and principles! This kind of victory not only removed precious assets from the enemy side, but also added them to his own side! This effectively doubled the gains compared to a normal battlefield victory! Therefore, the Voice of Liberty constantly trained and exercised his guitar skills and rhetoric, knowing that they constituted his best ’weapons’ as a high-ranking mech pilot! Today, he employed these armaments against Saint Rosa Orfan and the crews of all of the surrounding starships. Their effectiveness against ordinary personnel was so great that many of the elements of the escort fleet could only attack from far away, causing their hit rates to diminish even further. As for Saint Orfan, her mood continued to worsen even as she continued to believe in her own strength. Her willpower continued to provide her with a bulwark against criticism, but it was not a perfect form of defense. Ace pilots were still human in many ways. Increment by increment, Rosa Orfan’s anger and frustration accumulated. How dare the rebel ace pilot belittle her when they belonged to completely different generations? 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂 Back when Conrad Morgenstern was at her current age, he could only dream of becoming a saint! The only reason why the Voice of Liberty gained the upper hand was due to his much longer development time. This fight was as fair as an adult beating up a teenager! Instead of trying to voice her complaints, Saint Orfan chose to remain silent. She knew that she would only fall even deeper into his adversary’s rhythm if she played along with his game. That became evident when the Sound of Revolution’s intense and discordant guitar music grated in her ears. The grinding of distorted notes fueled her negative emotions despite her best efforts to ignore the sounds. Her control over herself started to slip, causing the Middle Demon that had almost taken over her soul to gain an opening to assert its own existence. This became evident from the outside as her Riot’s exterior began to show signs of morphing. Though it had yet to reach the phase where it grew sharp and wicked spikes, it became clear that the ongoing circumstances did not do Saint Orfan’s mentality any good! Ves grew concerned about her deterioration. She had already lived through a bad case not too long ago. The Larkinson ace pilot had less than a month to get past her moment of weakness and shore up her defenses. That was way too little time for her to regain her swagger and strengthen her mental defenses. This was why he felt tempted to call her back. Putting so much weight on her shoulders was not fair. This fight was not winnable from the moment a saint as powerful as the Voice of Liberty appeared. Although Ves could tell that the Voice of Liberty tried his best to hold back and avoid any regrettable casualties, he clearly stated that he ultimately placed his ideals over any other rules. Was it worth it to risk Saint Orfan’s life for a cause that was already lost? No. Ves believed that the Larkinson ace pilot had already demonstrated sufficient resolve in this engagement. Since the disparity in strength was so obvious, few people would blame him for pulling back this asset. The escort fleet may be big, but the lack of high-level assets capable of contending or even hindering Saint Morgenstern rendered it almost useless. The powerful but unwieldy gun batteries of the various warships mostly unloaded their ordnance in empty space. The same went for the mechs deployed in space. The only way their firepower could achieve any meaningful hits was to coordinate their firing angles and saturate the entire region surrounding the coordinates of their target. Not that the few actual hits managed to affect the Sound of Revolution in any visible manner. Most attacks had become so weakened that the armor system easily bounced them off without incurring any damage. Only the more powerful warship-grade attacks achieved slight results, but all they did was leave minute scratches behind! "Useless." Blinky shook his feline head in disappointment. What about reinforcements? None were on their way as far as Ves knew of. He had already checked beforehand. His contacts all reported that the nearest troop detachments take at least a day to arrive! That was long enough for the Voice of Liberty to destroy the research specimen a thousand times in a row! Since the escort fleet had no realistic prospect of achieving victory, Ves would rather focus on loss mitigation. The captured Ixith Goliath would soon be destroyed, but no one else had to suffer along the way. Giving up the fight may be a shameful decision, but as the leader who bore overall responsibility, Ves had an obligation to make the hard but necessary choices. Although Ves would get blamed in the process, he knew his many merits would easily compensate for this blemish. He would probably be able to redeem himself in the public once he completed the development of the Arboreal Project. Since that was the case, he issued the decisive command before Saint Orfan lost control over herself. "Pull back, Rosa." He transmitted. "You have done enough, but it is clear that you are outmatched. The gap in strength is too great, and the support from the rest of our assets cannot make up for the difference." "What?!" Venerable Orfan transmitted back with clear agitation in her synthesized voice. "You are telling me to give up so soon? I still have plenty of fight left in me! I am not letting this bastard fly away without doing my best!" "I know you still have a lot of fight left in you, but the same goes for the Voice of Liberty. He has not struck against any of our mechs and warships and he has not specifically concentrated his attacks against your Riot Mark III. If you become an actual nuisance to him, that will change very quickly. Do not force him to go lethal, either against you or the rest of our fleet. There is still room for deescalation as long as he hasn’t killed anyone. If anything happens to you... the Larkinson Clan will never be able to let this go, and so will others. Sometimes... giving up is the most optimal choice you can make." The opposing side of this political affair had the potential to transform into the second coming of the Cosmopolitan Movement if pushed to the extreme! This outcome had to be avoided at all costs! Unfortunately, Saint Orfan did not think this way. She had no perspective for the grand scheme of things. She had become completely caught up in her tunnel vision. Her only goal at the moment was to defeat her extremely annoying and infuriating opponent! "I have a better idea." She responded even as her ace mech tried and failed to thrust its Destroyer spear into the opposing ace mech. "Activate the Chaos Trigger." Blinky’s tail immediately straightened in alarm! "Do you know what you are talking about, Rosa?!" "I know." "I don’t believe you do! The Chaos Trigger is the special Ultimate Module of the Riot Mark III, and should be considerably more powerful than the other Ultimate Modules that I designed for past projects. What is important to note is that I designed it based on the assumption that you not only broke through without complications, but that you can easily keep your D-mech under control. As it is, you satisfy neither of these two criteria, which means that the risks of activating this trump card is much greater than my initial projections. This is why I made the decision to lock it down to prevent you — or more specifically the Prophet’s Bane — from recklessly activating it. This caution is very much warranted considering my original design for the Chaos Trigger." Not every design choice suited the actual situation at hand. The gap between conception and realization was substantial enough for any variable to create a mismatch between the two. This was exactly what happened with regard to the Riot Mark III’s Ultimate Module. This was why Ves resolutely applied a quick fix to disable any unilateral activations of this function. The only way to pull the Chaos Trigger was for Ves and Saint Orfan to simultaneously input a code! In other words, the only way for the Riot Mark III to initiate its extremely powerful Ultimate Module was for Ves to explicitly give his permission. The Riot Mark III could not pull the trigger on its own accord! Of course, Ves speculated that if the Riot’s physical mutations went deep enough, it may be able to override the multi-layered hardware and software restrictions. That was unlikely to happen at the moment. It would require very targeted mutations to occur, which was hard to accomplish when the mech was more focused on creating jagged angles and pointy spikes. In any case, instead of reflexively shutting down this dangerous idea, Ves seriously considered the Larkinson ace pilot’s request. If anything could give the Riot Mark III the ability to launch a slightly more serious counterattack against the Sound of Revolution, it was a metaphorical button that would remove a lot of limiters. Yet Ves could not ignore the obvious dangers associated with the Chaos Trigger. What he said earlier could not be discounted. He designed this Ultimate Module as a calculated risk. The problem was that the assumptions that he initially used in his calculations diverged too much from the actual situation! Given Saint Orfan’s highly concerning spiritual contamination, the Chaos Trigger may very well push her over the edge as soon as they pulled the trigger! "Decide quickly." She urged. "We are running out of time." She was right. This was not the time for Ves to explore his doubts and calculate every variable. The situation was too urgent for that. He needed to make up his mind quickly. "Tell me one good reason why we should activate this high-risk solution in a battle that you can afford to lose." "Giving up is unacceptable to any pilot that wants to ascend to godhood. The odds aren’t fair, but that is not a reason for me to do less than my best. I will not let my... affliction be used as an excuse to withdraw from this battle. I will not be haunted by my own demon, which is exactly what will happen if I avoid it all the time! If I want to maintain the upper hand against this parasite, I must build up the courage to confront it directly. As far as I know, pulling the Chaos Trigger is the most direct way for me to confront my own demon." "...If you are doing this, you are betting your entire life and freedom on your ability to confront the Prophet’s Bane. There is no way to walk back this decision. As long as we pull the Chaos Trigger, there will only be a single winner and a single loser. There is a significant chance that the latter will be you. Are you sure you want to proceed?" "Do it." She responded with a decisive tone. "If not now, then never. I may as well give up the path of godhood if I am this timid." Though Ves had obvious misgivings about this decision, this was not the time for him to procrastinate. He resolutely shoved aside his doubts and decided to put his full trust into his ace pilot. If Saint Rosa Orfan believed she was up to the task of confronting her demon, then she deserved his support!