Chapter 6371 The Devil Cat Ves tried not to get too distracted by the potential of his newly devised Polymetal mechs. He couldn't help it, though. He was a mech designer, so it went against his entire being to stop thinking about mechs. Shortly after he came up with the idea, he realized that it was tailor-made for almost all mech designers. No matter whether they possessed extensive understanding and expertise in nanomachines, as long as they comprehended the basics, they should easily be able to mold smart metal into a variety of shapes and configurations! Applying the configurations of other people's designs was just the start. The true potential of Polymetal mechs lay in their ability to quickly assume the designs and configurations of their own Carmine pilots! The more knowledgeable and adaptable the pilot, the more they could stretch the versatility of Polymetal mechs. Mech designers not only possessed a much greater technical understanding of other people's designs, they could even apply their own works on their Polymetal mechs! What was even better was that mech designers could make changes and adaptations in real-time. Ves was doing that right now with the nanomachine plagues by constantly monitoring their conditions and transmitting technical corrections in order to optimize their performance. As far as Ves was concerned, Polymetal mechs were wasted on dummies who did not possess the technical knowledge required to utilize smart metal to the fullest extent. This was why Ves envisioned that Polymetal mechs would definitely become the most favored version of elemental Carmine mech if they ever got released! Every mech designer started with a strong affinity for mechs and by extension metal. This should ensure that there would always be a match in terms of hyper technology and E-technology. Ves could already envision a future where at least 80 percent of mech designers adopted a Polymetal mech of their own. They were just too convenient for them to skip. Not only did Polymetal mechs grant them a lot of protection and combat power, but the elemental Carmine mechs could also be used as tools to explore plenty of design applications in advance! Instead of spending lots of time and resources to fabricate purpose-built prototypes, mech designers could just pilot their Polymetal mechs and test out their ideas on the fly! This the dual-purpose nature of his Polymetal mechs alone was enough to justify their considerable expense! It was unfortunate that the nanomachine plagues that Ves currently had under his command did not meet his expectations for his own Polymetal mech. As a phase lord, his demands were very different from other mech designers. That already became clear as he tried to work with the hyper nanomachine plagues. While they relied on powerful materials and exquisite high technologies to become so virulent, they also followed the wrong technological track. The fleeters failed to integrate phasewater technology in this variation of smart metal, and that was a huge letdown to Ves. He had worked with transphasic nanomachines before. The Transphasic Energized Smart Metal Armor System or TESMAS that he used to construct the C-Man was much stronger than ordinary nanomachines due to the slight amount of phasewater slipped into the systems. TESMAS was limited, though. It was based on cruder technologies and inferior materials. The most important flaw was that t was a low-transphasic product. Trying to integrate more phasewater into the nanomachines would cause them to tear themselves apart. However, the advantage of TESMAS was that it at least followed the right technological track. As long as mech designers figured out how to increase the phasewater content of transphasic nanomachines or raise their tolerance towards spatial effects, Ves could safely combine their use with his phase lord physique. No matter whether he improved his phasewater concentration in the future or not, he could not afford to commit his only chance to form a Blood Pact on a smart metal mech that could not keep up with his growth in the future. Just as Ves thought about what sort of materials he had to procure and deals he had to make at Yernstall in order to develop his first. Polymetal mech, his smart metal tiger form suddenly got struck by a barrage of transphasic beams! He had committed a terrible taboo and spaced out on the battlefield yet again! "Professor Larkinson!" Major Simon Jankowski contacted him over a short-ranged communication channel. "We have done enough to draw the arche phase lords away from Fort Rock. It is not necessary for us to defeat or kill our adversaries. As long as we can hold them in place and deny them the ability to assist the greater phase lords, we have a much better chance of solving the threat they pose." The situation on the battlefield had changed. The cosmopolitan and alien forces that originally sought to ambush the Bluejay Fleet had fallen into an enormous disadvantage. The arche lesser phase lords had sustained a lot of damage and were completely out of position. The Arena Lord roared his indignity in his alien language as his raiment and flesh began to get pummeled by attacks from different sources. The Distance Shaper tried to help wherever he could, but the circumstances were far too disadvantageous for him to exert his abilities at full strength. So long as the enemies did not receive any reinforcements, the most likely outcome to this battle was that the phase lords would lose their courage and limp away with serious injuries! As far as the Bluejay Fleet was concerned, this already constituted a victory, as there was no chance for the enemies to end the threat posed by Ves' continued existence. Ves already harvested a lot of gains from this battle. He not only affirmed his own strength, but also accrued valuable experience and figured out his own combat system. He also gained the inspiration to come up with the idea of Polymetal mechs, thereby bringing his ambitious framework for elemental Carmine mechs closer to completion! Yet for all of these gains, Ves still felt hollow about them. He did not feel satisfied, and he knew exactly why. He hungered for a true victory over his opponents. A technical win was not real enough to him. The ongoing battle had woken up his more savage desires and instincts. They completely diminished the role of his logic and rationality and caused him to become driven by his irrational impulses. Was this why mech pilots were so impulsive? Perhaps Ves had always been this way. It was just that there was not much room for irrational aggression in the mech designer profession. Only once he was fighting for real did he give full play to this aggressive side! "Maybe it is in my blood." He sort of felt that he was becoming a lot like his uncle Ark at the moment. The worst part about this was that he did not even feel bad about it! Instead, he felt better than ever! As the Devil Cat raiment continued to wrap around his body, Ves felt a growing urge to give in to his more savage and unleash the beast that was welling in his mind and body! A part of him felt ashamed that he was exhibiting the same sort of uncontrollable thoughts and behavior as undisciplined mech pilots, but another part of him reveled in the power at his fingertips! The Devil Cat began to assume a more threatening posture as it hovered in front of the vigilant arche phase lords. The alien leaders clearly knew that all they had to do was to kill Ves their mission. 1 order to complete Yet when they squared off against the ominous Devil Cat, they increasingly lost their courage to confront this terrible opponent! Ves grinned wider when he sensed the effect he had on his opponents. "I can feel your fear." He transmitted it to the arche phase lord. Whether they were able to receive and interpret his data transmission or not, the arche phase lords obviously looked even less willing to continue this fight. The momentum had swung in Ves' favor! Ves knew enough about combat that he should take advantage of the moment. "If are willing to come to me, then I shall come to you instead! Let test the might of my Devil Cat against your damaged archeshells!" The Devil Cat flew forward in an aggressive charged that forced the first-class multipurpose mechs to follow after their charge! Their momentum grew even more as the firepower of the mechs struck the large and unwieldy bodies of the arche phase lords at multiple angles. Some went on to do almost nothing when they struck the pieces of archeshell that were still intact, but other attacks inflicted more substantial damage as they struck the limbs, head or less armored portions of their alien bodies! The first-class multipurpose mechs began to inflict more damage as the machines got close. Their space suppressors were only partially effective against the lesser phase lords, but they succeeded in softening up the alien defenses to make their less solid body parts a bit more fragile. The Devil Cat eagerly took advantage of that by diving at the legs of one of the arche phase lords before raking it with its energy claws! The arche phase lord in question shook in pain as the claws not only cut through the hide and sunk into flesh, but also injected a lot of energy into the wounds. This weakened the limb even further and made it more vulnerable to follow-up attacks! Ves began to feel more and more invested in the Devil Cat form that he had assumed. He visualized himself as a feral feline, allowing him to increase his control over the nanomachine plagues! The Devil Cat raiment became more responsive and often prepared to move before Ves issued the relevant commands. The 5 arche phase lords came under more and more pressure as the Devil Cat continued to strike them with its claws and bites! The large alien gods began to incur more and more wounds because of that. Even if most of it was surface-level damage, the successive weakening due to exposure to darkness energy was steadily beginning to sap their energies and motivation to fight! Of course, the arche phase lords were not that easy to break. They were old and stubborn enough to counterattack whenever possible. They used their weakened spatial abilities to fend off the first-class multipurpose mechs. They also began to use various means of attack to weaken the Devil Cat and gain a chance to kill the human phase lord inside! However, the arche phase lords never excelled at offense, and the nanomachine plagues proved incredibly frustrating to damage. Much of the physical damage inflicted on the Devil Cat merely deformed its smart metal construction. Any deforments soon got fixed as the surviving nanomachines restored the original shape! One of the arche phase lesser phase lords opened his maw and released a glob of transphasic corrosive acid at the Devil Cat! The smart metal construct did nothing to avoid this attack and allowed its surface nanomachines to get dissolved by the acid. Even though much of the head portion of the Devil Cat melted in a fraction of a second, there were more nanomachines that quickly reconstructed the entire feline head shape! The acid-spitting phase lord hastily tried to back off and turn his archeshell toward his incoming opponent, but the Devil Cat moved too quickly and managed to bite the arche leader's head! The alien in question panicked and began to release unstable spatial shockwaves that damaged a lot of nanomachines, but not enough to shake off the Devil Cat! The smart metal raiment even sought to increase its grip on its enemy and used its limbs and claws to strengthen its hold on its prey! "Hahahaha! You are mine now!" Although the Devil Cat was not strong or solid enough to bite any deeper into the resilient phase lord's flesh, it was not necessary for what Ves had in mind! As long as the fangs and claws of the Devil Cat managed to pierce through the phase lord's hide, they automatically began to inject more smart metal inside the enemy's blood circulation system! Two arche phase lords had become infected by nanomachine plagues!