Chapter 6057 Scouting Results The scout mechs had returned! Compared to their previous pristine states, the light mechs of the Flagrant Vandals all looked as if they had gone through a gauntlet of suffering. Many of their mech frames appeared as if they got struck by a rain of kinetic projectiles. The holes in their thin armor plating went so deep that they exposed broken and damaged internal components. What made the machines look even more bedraggled compared to just an hour prior was the fact that a couple of Ferocious Piranhas and Light Hunters had lost a couple of limbs. That was not supposed to happen! The Flagrant Vandal mechs might not be faring all that great when trying to fly in a 1.3 g environment, but they shouldn't have gotten caught by a stationary exoplant so easily! Even if the Emperor Tree could not be judged by common sense, the Flagrant Vandal pilots should have known better to get deep within striking range of that abominable alien tree! The machines reached the enclosure behind the hill before the more intact and operational ones spread out in order to serve as perimeter guards. The most heavily damaged machines touched down just before the Everchanger and other key mechs. What attracted a considerable amount of attention was the upper half of the torso of a Ferocious Piranha. The mech did not look as if it got brutalized by a bunch of deadly alien tree branches, but instead had been cut down to its diminished state by multiple mech knives! This was obvious enough to see to those who had fought many mech battles in the past. The damage suggested that a bunch of Ferocious Piranhas frantically dismembered one of their own in haste for unknown reasons! Venerable Joshua and Venerable Dise both went into full alert. Their expert mechs entered into higher power settings while their resonance shields began to glow increasingly brighter. "What happened?" Venerable Joshua asked in a more authoritative tone. "The Emperor Tree's detection and anti-mech fighting capabilities exceeded our worst estimates." The somewhat exhausted and high-strung words of Captain Wilton Larkinson spoke over the short-ranged communication channel. "That blasted plant fooled us and lulled us into a false sense of security. It is more intelligent and logical than we feared, and its malice towards our mechs is undisguised. We almost got trapped to the point where I seriously doubt that any of us would have gotten away." Joshua, Dise, Taon and Lanie all became ready to explode at a moment's notice. They did not think the veteran Vandals had made any mistakes on their end. This meant that the tree truly managed to lay a deliberate trap for the scout mechs. The implications of that were incredibly scary. "Continue." Venerable Dise commanded as her expert mech's Decapitator shone with a razor sharp edge. Captain Wilton quickly summarized the initial approach circumstances. "We approached at low power and low altitude. We opted not to land on the ground in order to prevent our steps from getting detected by the tree's roots. The concentration of Solus Gas is much thicker at the base of the Emperor Tree, so we assumed that the thick fog obscured our approach. There is still a possibility that the tree managed to sense us anyway, but we consciously maintained distance and refused to cross the red line that caused the target to go violent and destroy any intruders, whether they are bots or projectiles." According to past behavior, the Emperor Tree possessed a strong territorial consciousness. Its red line denoted the boundary of its inner domain where the tree possessed the strong compulsion to destroy or dominate everything. In comparison, the much larger outer domain only enabled the tree to dominate the minds of exobeasts in a relatively crude and superficial manner. "Our task was to scout and inspect whether the Emperor Tree had not changed in an unexpected fashion." Captain Wilton continued. "We knew where the red line started and made sure to keep our distance from it just in case the Emperor Tree managed to expand it. We assumed that our approach was safe up to this point. Louder and more obvious machines had already generated a violent response in the past. We deployed our latest and smallest miniaturized surveillance drones just before the red line. Their sensors are anything but great, but they may be able to make some useful observations when we aggregate their data." "None of the drones crossed the red line, correct… at least we thought that was the case." The Vandal Captain reluctantly reported. "In the meantime, our Ferocious Piranhas and Stingrippers patrolled the surroundings for potential threats while our Light Hunters carefully used their Samasel Orbs to take careful directional scans of the nearby terrain features. Their performance was not as great as usual. The Solus Gas is thick enough to interfere with their performance at shorter ranges, and their design spirit isn't on hand to enhance their signal perception. We had to circle around the danger zone at a slow pace in order to collect a broad amount of data." The Light Hunters had long served as the premier scout mechs of the Flagrant Vandals. They were so lightly armed that they could only pose a deadly threat against infantry. They were fast enough to outrun damn near any other light machine! Their signature feature was the powerful Samasel Orb Directional Scanning Module. It was designed to overcome jamming and interference and detect any enemies hiding in stealth. Unfortunately, the Samasel Orbs lost a bit of effectiveness as soon as the Light Hunters lost their connections to the Illustrious One. This forced the light scout mechs to hover even closer to the ground in order to collect useful scan data without channeling more power in their scanning modules. The amount and quality of the sensor data collected under these difficult circumstances was terrible to say the least. This was why the main element of the strike force had to wait so long for the scout mechs to return. Venerable Joshua frowned. "It sounds like you displayed the appropriate sense of caution towards the calamity plant. What exactly went wrong? Did the Emperor Tree grow a big root at your location somehow?" "Worse. We… got attacked out of the blue. We first got pelted by seed projectiles. The Emperor Tree launched so many of them that it was as if it had a hundred machine guns at its disposal. Root spikes shot off the ground, almost impaling our machines. If not for our combat instincts and the speed of our mechs, we would have gotten impaled." The expert pilots and expert candidates grew shocked and alarmed. They were not particularly surprised that the Emperor Tree managed to besiege the scout mechs by employing seed cannons and root spikes. The powerful calamity plant was immensely large, which meant it could devote a lot of room to self-defense measures. What the foursome were truly concerned about was whether the Emperor Tree had changed its behavioral pattern. "Did the calamity plant decide to expand its red line?" Venerable Joshua urgently asked. "If that is the case, then none of us are safe. We may have already entered the danger zone without noticing." "No. When the Emperor Tree launched its attack on us, we had already strayed across the red line." "That doesn't make any sense!" Lanie interjected. "You clearly made an effort to stay well outside the red line." "We did." Captain Wilton responded. "At least we thought we did. You see, as our mechs slowly circled around the Emperor Tree, we trusted in our perception of the environment. Both my pilots and their living mechs thought they operated in a reality where they remained perfectly equidistant from the red line. We were fooled. What actually happened was that our forward trajectory slightly curved inward. It was subtle, but as we patiently continued to scan the terrain as well as try to peer past all of the Solus Gas to catch faint glimpses of the tree, we gradually strayed into the red line and crossed it without turning back. If one of our Light Hunter pilots did not notice that what his mech was scanning with the Samasel Orb completely did not match the terrain, we would have continued to spiral closer to the Emperor Tree. I cannot imagine how any of us would get away if that was the case!" Every Larkinson mech pilot felt horrified at what had happened. The Flagrant Vandals still hadn't recovered from their dangerous ordeals. They moved closer and closer to their deaths without ever noticing anything amiss! "Did the Emperor Tree… did it affect your minds?" "There is no other explanation for it, Venerable Joshua." Captain Wilton sounded disappointed at himself. "Looking back at it, it sounds so stupid that the Emperor Tree managed to fool us into thinking that the data we received from our mechs was different from reality. What is especially concerning is that whatever mind tricks the calamity plant played on us also affected our living mechs as well. We have plenty of third order living mechs, but they had no resistance against this effect! As far as we have been able to find out for the time being, their sensor systems recorded the right data, but neither the pilots nor the living mechs registered them accurately. The closer we moved to the Emperor Tree, the greater the discrepancy between accurate data and our false perception of it. The target purely works through our thoughts!" That sounded both frightening and reassuring. It was frightening because the attack came without any notice. The Emperor Tree displayed a degree of subtlety and forethought that spoke of worryingly high sapience! Nobody knew whether the tree only recently evolved the ability to subtly alter the thoughts and perceptions of others. The fact that it worked on experienced, battle-hardened mech pilots as well as living mechs meant that it was a bad idea to send any ordinary mech units closer to the Emperor Tree! "Why did you cut off the limbs of your own mechs?" Venerable Dise asked. "When the seeds launched by the Emperor Tree manage to strike our mechs and remain embedded into the frame… they begin to germinate. The lack of wood doesn't disturb them. They just absorb any metal in their reach and start to grow metallic roots that spread inside our machines at a slow but unstoppable pace. Since our limbs are the least armored sections of our mechs, the seeds took root over there much sooner. By the time we recognized the threat, it was already too late for many of the limbs. At least we managed to dig out most of the seeds that struck the torsos of our mechs before it was too late. The seeds have a much harder time trying to absorb tougher armor plating." Captain Wilton Larkinson continued to relay a few more preliminary insights and warnings. Even though they fell into a near-fatal trap, the Flagrant Vandals ultimately did what they were supposed to do and collected valuable up-to-date information on the Emperor Tree! "Thank you, captain." Venerable Joshua said at the end. "You have given us excellent information that can help us avoid a potential tragedy. For safety's sake, please bring your mechs back to Chimera Base and report your findings to the task force commander. The other Larkinsons urgently need to know that the Emperor Tree has evolved and escalated." "That was not part of the plan, sir. We can still keep an eye on the periphery and warn you of any flanking attacks. Now that we have exposed the Emperor Tree's latest trap, we can take measures to prevent us from getting fooled without our notice." "No, captain. You know as well as I do that you and your men will continue to remain liabilities until we have developed a proper countermeasure against what just happened. We can take care of ourselves. Dise and I are too strong-willed to get hypnotized by the Emperor Tree. Lanie and Taon are not average pilots either. I have decided to proceed with the mission, but remove any unstable elements just in case. I am sorry, but I cannot afford to second-guess the mental defenses of your mech pilots. Your minds are nothing compared to that of the Emperor Tree." The scout mechs had little choice but to retreat. Their mechs were not in great shape anymore, so it was better for everyone if they returned to Chimera Base and received the repairs they desperately needed.