Chapter 7149: Lethal Plans When Ves entered his design lab in order to draft out and design the melee weapons that he intended to wield in the upcoming leadership challenge, he was joined by an unexpected guest. "You are not supposed to be here, young lady." "Don’t kick me out, papa! I can help! I know lots about fighting! I can give you advice and stuff!" Ves directed a dubious glance at his middle child. Andraste looked way too excited to drop this matter. Although a part of Ves wanted to punish his girl for sneaking away from her mother, another part of him felt it wouldn’t be bad if he had a father-daughter bonding session. "...Fine. If you want to help, then come over here and sit. I will only let you watch me at work when I draft the different armaments. As soon as I transition to the more technical aspects of my work, it is off to bed with you, young lady. This is the boring part of my work, so it is not as if you are missing anything." His daughter was fine with that. She ran up and seated herself on a floating chair that automatically adjusted in height. "So who are you fighting and what weapons are you thinking about making?" She eagerly asked. Ves briefed her on the four Ascended Giants as well as the rudimentary strategies that he and the others had devised. The red-headed girl quickly furrowed her brows. She recognized that none of the duels were easy matchups. "How strong is your dark self?" She asked. "No wait, the better question is how skilled he is at wielding weapons?" "He is not a dark reflection of myself." Ves objected. "He merely calls himself this way for... reasons. Anyway, from what I have been able to gather, he is actually pretty good, but only with the weapons that I am familiar with, which is polearms. He doesn’t have any notable proficiency with swords, axes and other weapons. That said, nothing is absolute. There are unconventional solutions that can quickly remedy this problem, though only after paying a hefty price." His daughter understood the difficulties that her father had to overcome. "Hm, that sounds bad. Unless you have mastered the spear, you will be at a disadvantage when you try to fight against brawlers like the Oscillating Fist. He can outmaneuver your attacks and get inside your reach with ease." "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves." Ves said. "According to the plan that we have formed, my first duel will be against the Unshakeable King." "Isn’t he the second-strongest phase lord?" "Yes, which is why it is important to fight him when my alter ego is in the best condition. The most ideal outcome is to win 3 out of 4 matches. Don’t worry too much. One of the reasons why we have decided it is best to start with the Unshakeable King first is because he excels at defense. That does not mean his offensive power is weak, but I am confident that the Dark Apostle will be able to withdraw and admit defeat before he suffers a crippling injury. Winning a match against this opponent is nice, but not strictly necessary." Andraste analyzed the images and archival footage of past versions of the leader of the Ur-Titan Phalanx. His raiment was thick and impressive, so much so that if he wanted to abide by the limitations of the duel, he could not bring his usual arsenal of weapons into the fight. "What weapons will he use?" The young girl asked. "That is a bit of a mystery." Ves responded. "His normal set of armaments consist of a pair of impact hammers, a kinetic cannon and amplifiers for his spatial abilities. I am pretty sure he will change to a lighter set of weapons in order to comply with the rules, but I do not have any clue what they may be. When it comes to his phasewater organs, we know that he excels at solidifying the surrounding space and increasing the strength and mass of his true body. He turns into a rock that slows enemies down and mitigates every incoming blow." Andraste frowned and scratched her head in a cute manner. "Can you bring a big cannon and bombard the Unshakeable King from a distance?" Ves became happy when she made this suggestion. This showed that she had not become as irrational as the Swordmaidens who believed that their blades could solve every problem. Instructing the Saint Commander to tutor Andraste in ranged combat paid off big time! "I can do so, but not only will I look like a coward in front of the Ascended Giants, but I don’t think the weapons that I can carry into the duel have the firepower to penetrate through the Unshakeable King’s defenses within an hour. This guy is highly experienced in taking hits and has many different solutions to spread out all of the incoming damage. I need to rely on a solution that works up close." "What about a plasma weapon or a Destroyer weapon?" "A Destroyer weapon is out of the question." Ves immediately replied. "The low-tier stuff isn’t strong enough to make a difference and the high-tier stuff is very rare and difficult to acquire. Besides, most of them are made for mechs, which makes them too small when wielded by phase lords at this scale. A plasma weapon is a decent suggestion, though. They can potentially burn through the Unspeakable King’s defenses, but their power consumption is so high that any power solution that I can integrate into my raiment will be hard-pressed to last that long given the obvious size limitations. I will have to carry a big and volatile backpack module on my raiment." Andraste did not see much of a problem with that. "A power reactor mounted on your back does not sound like a bad idea. If he is as slow as you say, he won’t be able to maneuver behind your back unless he can teleport or something." She raised a good point. If Ves was able to mount a bigger but more vulnerable reactor on his back and keep it safe, he could wield a weapon that could inflict a lot of damage to the Unshakeable King’s defenses. While Ves doubted whether this was enough to whittle down this opponent fast enough, it was better than most other options. He quietly transmitted his ideas about this raiment to his chief of staff. She would make sure to pass it on to the teams responsible for developing his dueling raiments. "Plasma swords are the simplest and generally the most effective variety of plasma-based melee weapons." He said. "Unfortunately, I am not skilled with the art of the blade." "You do not strictly need to be good at wielding swords if you rely on plasma to do all of the damage." His daughter pointed out. "It certainly helps if you can wield it with skill, though. It may be better for you to wield a plasma spear and preferably a lengthier one. That will make it harder for the Unshakeable King to get close enough to land his blows on you. If you have an advantage in mobility, then you can keep poking at him whenever you have the chance while darting back if he tries to launch a counterattack." That sounded like a viable game plan. Ves began to draft the suggestions in the design suite. He performed a few fast calculations and made a lot of guesses. It would be rather awkward to fight with a big reactor mounted on his back. A long spear was also clumsy to wield. There was a chance the Unshakeable King could still bypass it despite his disadvantage in mobility. "There should be just enough mass allowance left to add in a backup weapon." He said. "I am tempted to throw in a cold steel knife, but it may be better to turn it into a plasma knife instead. If my reactor breaks or malfunctions, I do not think I have any hope of penetrating this guy’s defenses." His daughter did not quite agree. "What if the Unshakeable King’s defenses are especially chosen to resist plasma and other thermal weapons? You should make a small cold steel knife that is able to penetrate through defenses with the help of special tech or materials. Hasn’t the Red Collective promised to give you access to their internal stuff? There has to be something exotic that can help you finish him off. You told me that he is one of the biggest traitors among the Ascended Giants and that he wants to claim the bounty on your head. You need to be ready for anything." "You’re right. I will look into building something special with the help of the RC." Ves said. "Let’s consider my next opponent. In the second duel, my phase lord self will fight against the Fiery Axe. This is a woman who has threatened to kill me if I don’t put up a good fight. Hopefully, the Dark Apostle’s performance against the Unshakeable King will be convincing enough, but in case that is not so, I need to be able to perform well right from the start. Given her hostility, I have tentatively decided to wield a spear with high penetration properties in order to help me land a fatal blow if possible." He drafted the solution in the design suite. The spear would be paired with a raiment that was lighter and more maneuverable than the one he intended to use in the previous duel. Andraste quickly figured out his overall strategy. "From what I can see, the Fiery Axe is fast and strong in offense. She is just like the mech pilots of the Red Axes or Venerable Kolak Glendale who pilots the Greenaxe. It is a pain to defend with their axes, so they try to go on the offensive as much as possible so that the fight will happen on their terms. If you want to counter this style, you either need to outfight them by relying on superior skill or move faster so that they cannot maneuver around you as easily." Ves drafted a larger and more powerful flight system on the back of the light raiment. "I agree with your analysis. I don’t have confidence in my weapon skills, so I think it is better to sacrifice hard defenses for superior mobility. This will be a highly dynamic duel. The winner will likely be the phase lord that is able to maneuver better than the opponent. I will tell the RC to develop a light raiment that is mounted with a disproportionately strong flight system." He would have preferred to design this raiment himself alongside collaborators that he trusted such as the recently returned Juliet Stameros. Unfortunately, there was not enough time, so all he could do was to transmit his specifications to the RC and wait for it to deliver the end products. He disliked the lack of control over equipment that he and his alter ego would rely upon to survive and win, but he had no other choice. Ves added a few backup knives to his configuration for the second duel, but they shouldn’t be needed. He placed a lot of hope into the shorter but hopefully more lethal spear. This will be his main weapon and maybe the weapon to end a woman who had no qualms about killing her ’progenitor’ due to her distorted pride. At least the Unshakeable King had a more pragmatic and rational motivation behind his desire to claim his head! "It will be difficult to predict who will gain the upper hand in this duel." Ves commented. "Neither the Dark Apostle nor the Fiery Axe will have much in the way of defenses this time. A single good hit can easily turn into a heavy or crippling injury. All of the maneuvering around will further mess up any predictions." Andraste looked critically at the projected footage of the Fiery Axe. "You could try outlasting her. She clearly fights like a hothead. Warriors like this have a habit of going all-out right from the beginning and don’t pay much attention to endurance. If you can withstand her offensive while holding back as much as possible, you can launch a furious offensive in the last 5 minutes against a tired opponent." Ves thought about it for a moment. "That definitely sounds like a viable strategy, but I am not too sure the Ascended Giants will be impressed with the Dark Apostle after dragging out a match for so long. If I had a choice, I would definitely follow your proposal."